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BIOLOQl LIBR.
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OP
CALIFORNIA
7
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
NINTH EDITION
THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA BEITANNICA
DICTIONARY
OF
ARTS, SCIENCES, AND GENERAL LITERATURE
NINTH EDITION
VOLUME XVIII
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER;S SONS
MDCCCLXXXV
[ All Eights reserved.
Add'l
Gin
BIOLOGY
LIBRARY
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BEITANNICA
ORNE
ORNE, a department of the north-west of France, about
half of which formerly belonged to the province of
Normandy and the rest to the duchy of Alen^on and to
Perche, lies between 48° 10' and 48° 58' N. lat., and
between 1° E. and 0° 50' W. long., and is bounded N.
by Calvados, N.E. by Eure, S.E. by Eure-et-Loir, S. by
Sarthe and Mayenne, and W. by Manche. The greatest
length from east to west is 87 miles, and the area 2635
square miles. The population in 1881 numbered 376,126.
Geologically there are two distinct regions : to the west of
the Orne and the railway from Argentan to Alen9on lie
primitive rocks connected with those of Brittany ; to the
east begin the Jurassic and Cretaceous formations of Nor
mandy. The latter district is agriculturally the richest
part of the department ; in the former the poverty of the
soil has led the inhabitants to seek their subsistence from
industrial pursuits. Between the northern portions, drain
ing to the Channel, and the southern portion, belonging to
the basin of the Loire, stretch the hills of Perche and
Normandy, which generally have a height of from 800 to
1000 feet. The highest point in the department, situated
in the forest of Ecouves north of Alengon, reaches 1378
feet. The department gives birth to three Seine tribu
taries — the Eure, its affluent the Iton, and the Ilille, which
passes by Laigie. The Touques, passing by Vimoutier,
the Dives, and the Orne fall into the English Channel, —
the last passing Sdies and Argentan, and receiving the
Noireau with its tributary the Vere, which runs past Flers.
Towards the Loire flow the Huisne, a feeder of the Sarthe
passing by Mortagne, the Sarthe, which passes by Alencon,
and the Mayenne, some of whose affluents rise to the
north of the dividing range and make their way through
it by the most picturesque defiles. Nearly the whole
department, indeed, with its beautiful forests containing
oaks several centuries old, its green meadows peopled with
herds, its limpid streams, its deep gorges, its stupendous
rocks, is one of the most picturesque of all France, though
neither bathed by the sea nor possessing a truly moun
tainous character. In the matter of climate Orne be
longs to the Seine region. The mean temperature is
50° Fahr. ; the summer heat is never extreme ; the west
winds are the most frequent ; the rainfall, distributed
over about a hundred days in the year, amounts to
106
nearly 3 feet, or half as much again as the average
for France.
Arable land occupies seven-twelfths of the surface,
woods one-eighth, and pasture land almost as much. The
live stock comprises 70,000 horses, 4000 asses, 122,000
sheep (35,500 high-bred), yielding in 1878 660,000 Bb of
wool of the value of nearly £25,000, 53,000 pigs, 2800
goats, 210,000 horned cattle, 30,000 dogs, 700,000 fowls,
53,000 geese, and 15,800 beehives, each producing on the
average 2 ft) of wax and 20 Ib of honey. Horse-breeding
is the most flourishing business in the rural districts ;
there are three breeds — those of Perche, Le Merlerault (a
cross between Norman and English horses), and Brittany.
The great Government stud of Le Pin is situated
between Le Merlerault and Argentan. Several horse-
training establishments exist in the department. A large
number of lean cattle are bought in the neighbouring
departments to be fattened ; the farms in the vicinity of
Vimoiitier, on the borders of Calvados, produce the famous
Camenbert cheese, and others excellent butter. In 1882
Orne produced 3,288,000 bushels of wheat, meslin 431,000,
rye 315,700, barley 1,510,000, oats 3,410,000, buckwheat
600,000, potatoes 654,000, beetroot 939,000 cwt., colza
seed 5000 cwt., hemp 8300 cwt., besides fodder in great
quantity and variety, pulse, flax, fruits, «kc. The variety
of production is due to the great natural diversity of the
soils. Small farms are the rule, and the fields in those
cases are surrounded by hedges relieved by pollard trees.
Along the roads or in the enclosures are planted numer
ous pear and apple trees (nearly 3,000,000), yielding
58,000,000 gallons of cider and perry, part of which is
manufactured into brandy. Beech, oak, birch, and pine
are the chief timber trees in the extensive forests of the
department, of which a third belongs to the state. Orne
contains iron ore of poor quality, granite quarries employ
ing from 400 to 500 workmen, and a kind of smoky quartz
known as Alengon diamond. Its most celebrated mineral
waters are those of the hot springs of Bagnoles, which
contain salt, sulphur, and arsenic, and are employed for
tonic and restorative purposes in cases of general debility.
In the forest of Belleme is the chalybeate spring of La
Hesse, which was used by the Romans. The other
mineral springs of the department are chalybeate or
XVIII. — i
0 R N — 0 R N
sulphurous. Cotton and linen weaving forms the staple
industry of Orne, 51 establishments (123,000 spindles
and 12, 170 looms) being devoted to cotton, 2 establish
ments (500 spindles) to wool, and 3 establishments (2400
spindles and 2800 looms) to linen. Flers manufactures
ticking, table-linen, furniture satin, cotton cloth, and
thread, employs 28,000 workmen, and produces to the
annual value of £1,520,000. La Ferte" Mace" employs
10,000 workmen in the hand-loom manufacture of cotton.
Alencon and Vimoutier are engaged in the production of
linen and canvas, and have also dye-works and bleacheries.
About 2000 workmen are employed at Alencon in the
making of the lace which takes its name from the town.
Foundries, wire-works, and one blast furnace also exist in
the department, and cutlery, boilers, and articles in copper,
zinc, and lead are manufactured. Tin wares, pins, and
needles are produced at Laigle. Glass-works give employ
ment to 600 workmen, and turn out glass to the value of
more than £100,000. There are nourishing paper-mills,
tanneries (the waters of the Orne giving a special quality
to the leather), and glove-works. There are in all 133
establishments making use of steam (2128 horse-power).
There are 848 miles of railway. The department consists
of four arrondissements (Alengon,' Argentan, Domfront,
and Mortagne), 36 cantons, and 511 communes, forms the
diocese of Sees, depends on the Caen court of appeal, and
is included in the corps d'amitSe of Le Mans. The com
munes with more than 5000 inhabitants are Ale^on
! (17,237), Flers (12,304), La Ferte Mace (9396), Argentan
(6300), and Laigle (5303).
/"XTCXITHOLOGY1 in its proper sense is the methodi-
\J cal study and consequent knowledge of Birds with all
that relates to them; but the difficulty of assigning a limit
to the commencement of such study and knowledge gives
the word a very vague meaning, and practically procures
its application to much that does not enter the domain of
Science. This elastic application renders it impossible in
the following sketch of the history of Ornithology to draw
any sharp distinction between works that are emphatically
ornithological and those to which that title can only be
attached by courtesy; for, since Birds have always attracted
far greater attention than any other group of animals with
which in number or in importance they can be compared,
there has grown up concerning them a literature of corre
sponding magnitude and of the widest range, extending
from the recondite and laborious investigations of the
morphologist and anatomist to the casual observations of
the sportsman or the schoolboy. The chief cause of the
disproportionate amount of attention which Birds have
received plainly arises from the way in which so many of
them familiarly present themselves to us, or even (it may
be said) force themselves upqn our notice. Trusting to
the freedom from danger conferred by the power of flight,
most Birds have no need to lurk hidden in dens, or to
slink from place to place under shelter of the inequalities
of the ground or of the vegetation which clothes it, as is
the case with so many other animals of similar size.
Besides this, a great number of the Birds which thus
display themselves freely to our gaze are conspicuous for
the beauty of their plumage ; and there are very few that
are not remarkable for the grace of their form. Some j
Birds again enchant us with their voice, and others i
administer to our luxuries and wants, while there is scarcely
a species which has not idiosyncrasies that are found to be
of engaging interest the more we know of them. Moreover,
it is clear that the art of the fowler is one that must have
been practised from the very earliest times, and to follow
that art with success no inconsiderable amount of acquaint
ance with the haunts and habits of Birds is a necessity.
Owing to one or another of these causes, or to the combina
tion of more than -.one, it is not surprising that the obser
vation of Birds has been from a very remote period a
favourite pursuit among nearly all nations, and this obser
vation has by degrees led to a study more or less framed
on methodical principles, finally reaching the dignity of a
science, and a study that has its votaries in almost all
classes of the population of every civilized country. In
the ages during which intelligence dawned on the world's
total ignorance, and even now in those districts that have
not yet emerged from the twilight of a knowledge still
more imperfect than is our own at present,2 an additional
and perhaps a stronger reason for paying attention to the
ways of Birds existed, or exists, in their association with
the cherished beliefs handed down from generation to
generation among many races of men, and not unf requently
interwoven in their mythology.3
Moreover, though Birds make a not unimportant appear
ance in the earliest written records of the human race, the
painter's brush has preserved their counterfeit presentment
for a still longer period. What is asserted — and that, so
far as the writer is aware, without contradiction — by
Egyptologists of the highest repute to be the oldest picture
in the world is a fragmentary fresco taken from a tomb at
Maydoom, and happily deposited, though in a decaying
condition, in the Museum at Boolak. This picture is said
to date from the time of the third or fourth dynasty, some
three thousand years before the Christian era. In it are
depicted with a marvellous fidelity, and thorough apprecia
tion of form and colouring (despite a certain conventional
treatment), the figures of six Geese. Four of these figures
can be unhesitatingly referred to two species (Anser
albifrons and A. ruftcollis) well known at the present day ;
and if the two remaining figures, belonging to a third
species, were re-examined by an expert they would very
possibly be capable of determination with no less certainty.4
In later ages the representations of Birds of one sort or
another in Egyptian paintings and sculptures become
countless, and the bassi-rilievi of Assyrian monuments,
though mostly belonging of course to a subsequent period,
are not without them. No figures of Birds, however, seem
yet to have been found on the incised stones, bones, or
ivories of the prehistoric races of Europe.
It is of course necessary to name ARISTOTLE (born B.C.
385, died B.C. 322) as the first serious author on Ornithology
with whose writings we are acquainted, but even he had,
1 Ornithologia, from the Greek opi/i&-, crude form of opvis, a bird,
and -\oyia, allied to Aoyor, commonly Englished a discourse. The
earliest known use of the word Ornithology seems to be in the third
edition of Blount's Olossographia (1670), where it is noted as being
' ' the title of a late Book." See Prof. Skcat's Etymnloyical Dictionary
of the English Language.
2 Of the imperfection of our present knowledge more must be said
presently.
3 For instances of this among Greeks and Romans almost any
dictionary or treatise of "Classical Antiquities" maybe consulted,
while as regards the superstitions of barbarous nations the authorities
are far too numerous to be here named.
4 The portion of the picture containing the figures of the Geese has
been figured by Mr LOFTIE (Ride in E'jypt, p. 209), and the present
writer owes to that gentleman's kindness the opportunity of examining
a copy made on the spot by an accomplished artist, as well as the
information that it is No. 988 of Mariette's Catalogue. See art. MUIIAL
DKCORATION, vol. xvii. p. 39, fig. 7.
ORNITHOLOGY
as he tells us, predecessors ; and, looking to that portion of
his works on animals which has come down to us, one finds
that, though more than 170 sorts of Birds are mentioned,1
yet what is said of them amounts on the whole to very
little, and this consists more of desultory observations in
illustration of his general remarks (which are to a con
siderable extent physiological or bearing on the subject of
reproduction) than of an attempt at a connected account
of Birds. Some of these observations are so meagre as to
have given plenty of occupation to his many commentators,
who with varying success have for more than three hundred
years been endeavouring to determine what were the Birds
of which he wrote ; and the admittedly corrupt state of the
text adds to their difficulties. One of the most recent
of these commentators, the late Prof. Sundevall — equally
proficient in classical as in ornithological knowledge — was,
in 1863, compelled to leave more than a score of the Birds
unrecognized. Yet it is not to be supposed that in what
survives of the great philosopher's writings we have more
than a fragment of the knowledge possessed by him, though
the hope of recovering his Zo>t/ca or his 'Avaro/xtKa, in which
he seems to have given fuller descriptions of the animals
he knew, can be hardly now entertained. A Latin transla
tion by Gaza of Aristotle's existing zoological work was
printed at Venice in 1503. Another version, by Scaliger,
was subsequently published. Two wretched English trans
lations have appeared.
Pliny. Next in order of date, though at a long interval, comes
CAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS, commonly known as PLINY the
Elder, who died A.D. 79, author of a general and very dis
cursive Historia Naturalis in thirty-seven books, of which
Book X. is devoted to Birds. A considerable portion of
Pliny's work may be traced to his great predecessor, of
whose information he freely and avowedly availed himself,
while the additions thereto made cannot be said to be,
on the whole, improvements. Neither of these authors
attempted to classify the Birds known to them beyond a
very rough and for the most part obvious grouping.
Aristotle seems to recognize eight principal groups : — (1)
Gampsonyches, approximately equivalent to the Accipitres
of Linnasus ; (2) Scolecophaga, containing most of what
would now be called Oscines, excepting indeed the (3)
Acanthophaga, composed of the Goldfinch, Siskin, and a
few others ; (4) Scnipophaga, the Woodpeckers ; (5)
Peristeroi.de, or Pigeons ; (6) Schizopoda, (7) Steganopocla,
and (8) Barea, nearly the same respectively as the Linna^an
Grallse, Ansercs, and Gallinse. Pliny, relying wholly on
characters taken from the feet, limits himself to three
groups — without assigning names to them — those which
have " hooked tallons, as Hawkes ; or round long clawes,
as Hennes ; or else they be broad, flat, and whole-footed, as
Geese and all the sort in manner of water-foule " — to use
the words of Philemon Holland, who, in 1601, published a
quaint and, though condensed, yet fairly faithful English
translation of Pliny's work.
^Elian. About a century later came ^ELIAN, who died about A.D.
140, and compiled in Greek (though he was an Italian
by birth) a number of miscellaneous observations on the
peculiarities of animals. His work is a kind of common
place book kept without scientific discrimination. A con
siderable number of Birds are mentioned, and something
said of almost each of them ; but that something is too
often nonsense — according to modern ideas — though
occasionally a fact of interest may therein be found. It
contains numerous references to former or contemporary
writers whose works have perished, but there is nothing
to shew that they were wiser than yElian himself.
1 Tliis is Sundevall's estimate ; Drs Aubert and Wimmer in their
excellent edition of the 'lo-ropiai irepl £ipcav (Leipzig : 1868) limit the
number to 126.
The twenty-six books De Animalibus of ALBERTUS Albe
MAGNUS (GKOOT), who died A.D. 1282, were printed in Mag:
1478 ; but were apparently already well known from manu
script copies. They are founded on the works of Aristotle,
many of whose statements are almost literally repeated, and
often without acknowledgment. Occasionally Avicenna,
or some other less-known author, is quoted ; but it is
hardly too much to say that the additional information is
almost worthless. The twenty-third of these books is De
'Avibus, and therein a great number of Birds' names make
their earliest appearance, few of which are without interest
from a philologist's if not an ornithologist's point of view,
but there is much difficulty in recognizing the species to
which many of them belong. In 1485 was printed the
first dated copy of the volume known as the Ortus
Sanitatis, to the popularity of which many editions testify.
Though said by its author, JOHANN WONNECKE VON CAUB Cube
(Latinized as JOHANNES DE CUBA),2 to have been composed
from a study of the collections formed by a certain noble
man who had travelled in Eastern Europe, Western Asia,
and Egypt — possibly Breidenbach, an account of whose
travels in the Levant was printed at Mentz in 1486 — it is
really a medical treatise, and its zoological portion is mainly
an abbreviation of the writings of Albertus Magnus, with
a few interpolations from Isidorus of Seville (who flour
ished in the beginning of the seventh century, and wras the
author of many works highly esteemed in the Middle Ages)
and a work known as PHYSIOLOGUS (q.v.). The third trac-
tatus of this volume deals with Birds — including among
them Bats, Bees, and other flying creatures; but as it is the
first printed book in which figures of Birds are introduced
it merits notice, though most of the illustrations, which are
rude woodcuts, fail, even in the coloured copies, to give
any precise indication of the species intended to be repre
sented. The scientific degeneracy of this work is mani
fested as much by its title (Ortus for Hortus) as by the
mode in which the several subjects are treated ;3 but the
revival of learning was at hand, and WILLIAM TURNER, a Turn
Northumbrian, while residing abroad to avoid persecution
at home, printed at Cologne in 1544 the first commentary
on the Birds mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny conceived
in anything like the spirit that moves modern naturalists.4
In the same year and from the same press was issued a
Dialogus de Avibus by GYBERTUS LONGOLIUS, and in 1570 Long
CAIUS brought out in London his treatise De rariorum nus-
animalium atque stirpium historia. In this last work, small '
though it be, ornithology has a good share ; and all three
may still be consulted with interest and advantage by its
votaries.5 Meanwhile the study received a great impulse
from the appearance, at Zurich in 1555, of the third book
of the illustrious CONRAD GESNER'S Historia Animalium Gesn
"qvi est de Auium natura," and at Paris in the same year
- On this point see G. A. Pritzel, Botan. Zeitung, 1846, pp. 785-790,
and Thes. Literal. Botanica (Lipsise : 1851), pp. 349-352.
3 Absurd as much that we find both in Albertus Magnus and the Ortus
seems to modern eyes, if we go a step lower in the scale and consult the
' 'Bestiaries" or treatises on animalswhich were common from the twelfth
to the fourteenth century we shall meet with many more absurdities.
See for instance that by PHILIPPE DE THAUN (PHILIPPUS TAOXENSIS),
dedicated to Adelaide or Alice, queen of Henry I. of England, and pro
bably written soon after 1121, as printed by the late Mr Thomas Wright,
in his Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages
(London: 1841).
4 This was reprinted at Cambridge in 1823 by the late Dr George
Thackeray.
5 The Seventh of WoTTON's De differentiis animalium Libri Decem,
published at Paris in 1552, treats of Birds; but his work is merely a
compilation from Aristotle and Pliny, with references to other classical
writers who have more or less incidentally mentioned Birds and other
animals. The author in his preface states— "Veterum scriptorum
sententias in unum quasi cumulum eoaceruaui, de meo nihil addidi."
Nevertheless he makes some attempt at a systematic arrangement of
Birds, which, according to his lights, is far from despicable.
OKNITHOLOGY
Belou. of Pierre BELON'S (BELLONius) Jlistoire de la nature des
Oyseaiuc. Gesner brought an amount of erudition, hitherto
unequalled, to bear upon his subject ; and, making due allow
ance for the times in which he wrote, his judgment must in
most respects be deemed excellent. In his work, however,
there is little that can be called systematic treatment.
Like nearly all his predecessors since ^Elian, he adopted an
alphabetical arrangement,1 though this was not too pedanti
cally preserved, and did not hinder him from placing
together the kinds of Birds which he supposed (and gene
rally supposed rightly) to have the most resemblance to that
one whose name, being best known, was chosen for the
headpiece (as it were) of his particular theme, thus recog
nizing to some extent the principle of classification.2 Belon,
with perhaps less book-learning than his contemporary,
was evidently no mean scholar, and undoubtedly had more
practical knowledge of Birds — their internal as well as
external structure. Hence his work, written in French,
contains a far greater amount of original matter ; and his
personal observations made in many countries, from
England to Egypt, enabled him to avoid most of the
puerilities which disfigure other works of his own or of a
preceding age. Besides this, Belon disposed the Birds
known to him according to a definite system, which (rude
as we now know it to be) formed a foundation on which
several of his successors were content to build, and even
to this day traces of its influence may still be discerned in
the arrangement followed by writers who have faintly
appreciated the principles on which modern taxonomers
rest the outline of their schemes. Both his work and that
of Gesner were illustrated with woodcuts, many of which
display much spirit and regard to accuracy.
Belon, as has just been said, had a knowledge of the
anatomy of Birds, and he seems to have been the first to
institute a direct comparison of their skeleton with that of
Man ; but in this respect he only anticipated by a few
Colter, years the more precise researches of VOLCHER GOITER, a
Frisian, who in 1573 and 1575 published at Nuremberg
two treatises, in one of which the internal structure of
Birds in general is very creditably described, while in the
other the osteology and myology of certain forms is given
in considerable detail, and illustrated by carefully-drawn
figures. The first is entitled Externarum et intemarum
principalium humani corporis Tabulae, &c., while the second,
which is the most valuable, is merely appended to the
Lectiones Gabrielis Fallopii de partibus similaribus humani
corporis, &c., and thus, the scope of each work being
regarded as medical, the author's labours were wholly over
looked by the mere natural-historians who followed, though
Goiter introduced a table, " De di/erentiis Auium" furnish
ing a key to a rough classification of such Birds as were
known to him, and this as nearly the first attempt of the
kind deserves notice here.
Aldro- Contemporary with these three men was ULYSSES ALDRO-
vandus. VANDUS, a Bolognese, who wrote an Historia Naturalium
in sixteen folio volumes, most of which were not printed
till after his death in 1605 ; but those on Birds appeared
between 1599 and 1603. The work is almost wholly a
compilation, and that not of the most discriminative kind,
while a peculiar jealousy of Gesner is continuously displayed,
though his statements are very constantly quoted — nearly
always as those of " Ornithologus," his name appearing but
few times in the text, and not at all in the list of authors
1 Even at the present day it may be shrewdly suspected that not
a few ornithologists would gladly follow Gesner's plan in their despair
of seeing, in their own time, a classification which would really deserve
the epithet scientific.
2 For instance, under the title of "Accipiter" we have to look, not
only for the Sparrow-Hawk and Gos-Hawk, but for many other Birds
of the Family (as we now call it) removed comparatively far from those
species by modern ornithologists.
cited. With certain modifications in principle not very
important, but characterized by much more elaborate detail,
Aldrovandus adopted Belon's method of arrangement, but
in a few respects there is a manifest retrogression. The work
of Aldrovandus was illustrated by copper-plates, but none
of his figures approach those of his immediate predecessors
in character or accuracy. Nevertheless the book was
eagerly sought, and several editions of it appeared.3
Mention must be made of a medical treatise by GASPAR Schwc
SCHWENCKFELD, published at Liegnitz in 1603, under the frU-
title of Theriotropheum Silesise, the fourth book of which
consists of an " Aviarium Silesia;," and is the earliest of
the works we now know by the name of Fauna. The
author was well acquainted with the labours of his predeces
sors, as his list of over one hundred of them testifies. Most
of the Birds he describes are characterized with accuracy
sufficient to enable them to be identified, and his obser
vations upon them have still some interest ; but he was
innocent of any methodical system, and was not exempt
from most of the professional fallacies of his time.4
Hitherto, from the nature of the case, the works aforesaid
treated of scarcely any but the Birds belonging to the orbis
veteribus notus ; but the geographical discoveries of the
sixteenth century began to bear fruit, and many animals of
kinds unsuspected were, about one hundred years later,
made known. Here there is only space to name BONTIUS,
CLUSIUS, HERNANDEZ (or FERNANDEZ), MARCGRAVE,
NIEREMBERG, and Piso,5 whose several works describing
the natural products of both the Indies — whether the
result of their own observation or compilation — together
with those of OLINA and WORM, produced a marked effect,
since they led up to what may be deemed the foundation of
scientific Ornithology.6
This foundation was laid by the joint labours of FRANCIS Wil-
WILLUGHBY (born 1635, died 1672) and JOHN KAY (born1".?111;
1628, died 1705), for it is impossible to separate their
share of work in Natural History more than to say that,
while the former more especially devoted himself to zoology,
botany was the favourite pursuit of the latter. Together
they studied, together they travelled, and together they
collected. Willughby, the younger of the two, and at first
the other's pupil, seems to have gradually become the
master ; but, he dying before the promise of his life was ful
filled, his writings were given to the world by his friend
Ray, who, adding to them from his own stores, published
the Ornithologia in Latin in 1676, and in English with
many emendations in 1678. In this work Birds generally
were grouped in two great divisions — " Land-Fowl " and
" Water-Fowl," — the former being subdivided into those
which have a crooked beak and talons and those which have
a straighter bill and claws, while the latter was separated
into those which frequent waters and watery places and
those that swim in the water — each subdivision being
further broken up into many sections, to the whole of which
a key was given. Thus it became possible for almost any
diligent reader without much chance of error to refer to its
3 The Historia Naturalis of JOHANNES JOHNSTONUS, said to be of
Scottish descent but by birth a Pole, ran through several editions
during the seventeenth century, but is little more than an epitome
of the work of Aldrovandus.
4 The Hicrozoicon of Bochart — a treatise on the animals named in
Holy Writ — was published in 1619.
5 For Lichtenstein's determination of the Birds described by
Marcgrave and Piso see the Abkantllunyeu of the Berlin Academy
for 1817 (pp. 155 sq.).
6 The earliest list of British Birds seems to be that in the Pinnje
Rerum Naturalium of CHRISTOPHER MEKRETT, published in 1667.
In the following year appeared the Onomasticon Xooicon of WALTER
CHARLETON, which contains some information on ornithology. An
enlarged edition of the latter, under the title of Excrcitalioncs &c., was
published in 1677; but neither of these writers is of much authority.
In 1684 SIBBALD in his Scotia illustratn published the earliest Fauna
of Scotland.
OKNITHOLOGY
proper place nearly every bird he was likely to meet with,
liay's interest in ornithology continued, and in 1694 he
completed a Synopsis Metkodica Avium, which, through
the fault of the booksellers to whom it was entrusted,
was not published till 1713, when Derham gave it to the
world.1
Linnaeus. Two years after Hay's death, LINN.^US, the great
reformer of Natural History, was born, and in 1735 ap
peared the first edition of the celebrated Systema Naturx.
Successive editions of this work were produced under its
author's supervision in 1740, 1748, 1758, and 17G6.
Impressed by the belief that verbosity was the bane of
science, he carried terseness to an extreme which frequently
created obscurity, and this in no branch of zoology more
than in that which relates to Birds. Still • the practice
introduced by him of assigning to each species a diagnosis
by which it ought in theory to be distinguishable from any
other known species, and of naming it by two words — the
first being the generic and the second the specific term,
was so manifest an improvement upon any thing which had
previously obtained that the Linnsean method of differ
entiation and nomenclature established itself before long
in spite of all opposition, and in principle became almost
universally adopted. The opposition came of course from
those who were habituated to the older state of things,
and saw no evil in the cumbrous, half-descriptive half-
designative titles which had to be employed whenever a
species was to be spoken of or written about. The
supporters of the new method were the rising generation
of naturalists, many of whose names have since become
famous, but among them were sonic whose admiration of
their chief carried them to a pitch of enthusiasm which
now seems absurd. Careful as Linnaeus was in drawing up
his definitions of groups, it was immediately seen that they
occasionally were made to comprehend creatures whose
characteristics contradicted the prescribed diagnosis. His
chief glory lies in his having reduced, at least for a time,
a chaos into order, and in his shewing both by precept and
practice that a name was not a definition. In his classifica
tion of Birds he for the most part followed Ray, and where
he departed from his model he seldom improved upon it.
Ban-ore. ]n 1745 BARRERE brought out at Perpignan a little
book called Ornithologist, Specimen nouum, and in 1752
Mb'hring. MoiiRiXG published at Aurich one still smaller, his Avium
Genera. Both these works (now rare) are manifestly
framed on the Linna3an method, so far as it had then
reached; but in their arrangement of the various forms of
Birds they differed greatly from that which they designed
to supplant, and they deservedly obtained little success.
Yet as systematists their authors were no worse than
Klein. KLEIN, whose Historic Avium Prodromus, appearing at
Liibeck in 1750, and Stemmata Avium at Leipzig in 1759,
met with considerable favour in some quarters. The chief
merit of the latter work lies in its forty plates, whereon
the heads and feet of many Birds are indifferently figured.2
But, while the successive editions of Linnaeus's great work
were revolutionizing Natural History, and his example of
precision in language producing excellent effect on scientific
writers, several other authors were advancing the study of
Ornithology in a very different way — a way that pleased
the eye even more than his labours were pleasing the mind.
Catesby. Between 1731 and 1743 MARK CATESBY brought out in
1 To this was added a supplement l>y PETIVER on the Bird of Madras,
taken from pictures and information sent him by one Edward Buckley
of Fort St George, being the first attempt to catalogue the Birds of
any part of the British possessions in India.
- After Klein's death his Prodromus, written in Latin, had the
unwonted fortune of two distinct translations into German, published
in the same year 1760, the one at Leipzig and Liibeck by BEHN,
the other at Danzig by REYG:;R— each of whom added more or less to
tho ori'inal.
London his Natural History of Carolina — two large folios
containing highly-coloured plates of the Birds of that
colony, Florida, and the Bahamas^ — the forerunners of
those numerous costly tomes which will have to be men
tioned presently at greater length.3 ELEAZAR ALBIX
between 1738 and 1740 produced a Natural History of
Eirds in three volumes of more modest dimensions, seeing
that it is in quarto ; but he seems to have been ignorant
of Ornithology, and his coloured plates are greatly inferior
to Catesby's. Far better both as draughtsman and as
authority was GEORGE EDWARDS, who in 1743 began, Edw
under the same title as Albin, a series of plates with letter
press, which was continued by the name of Gleanings in
Natural History, and finished in 1760, when it had reached
seven parts, forming four quarto volumes, the figures of
which are nearly always quoted with approval.4
The year which saw the works of Edwards completed
was still further distinguished by the appearance in France,
where little had been done since Belun's days,5 in six
quarto volumes, of the Ornitholoyie of MATHURIN JACQUES
BRISSON — a work of very great merit so far as it goes, for Bri.si
as a descriptive ornithologist the author stands even now
unsurpassed ; but it must be said that his knowledge,
according to internal evidence, was confined to books and
to the external parts of Birds' skins. It was enough for
him to give a scrupulously exact description of such
specimens as came under his eye, distinguishing these by
prefixing two asterisks to their name, using a single asterisk
where he had only seen a part of the Bird, and leaving
unmarked those that he described from other authors.
He also added information as to the Museum (generally
Reaumur's, of which he had been in charge) containing
the specimen he described, acting on a principle which
would have been advantageously adopted by many of his
contemporaries and successors. His attempt at classifica
tion was certainly better than that of Linnaeus ; and it is
rather curious that the researches of the latest ornitho
logists point to results in some degree comparable . with
Brisson's systematic arrangement, for they refuse to keep
the Birds-of-Prey at the head of the Class Aves, and they
require the establishment of a much larger number of
': Orders " than for a long while has been thought advisable.
Of such " Orders " Brisson had twenty-six, and he gave
Pigeons and Poultry precedence of the Birds which are
plunderers and scavengers. But greater value lies in his
generic or sub-generic divisions, which, taken as a whole, are
far more natural than those of Linnaeus, and consequently
capable of better diagnosis. More than this, he seems to be
the earliest ornithologist, perhaps the earliest zoologist, to
conceive the idea of each genus possessing what is now called
a " type "• — though such a term does not occur in his work ;
and, in like manner, without declaring it in so many words,
he indicated unmistakably the existence of subgenera —
all this being effected by the skilful use of names. Unfor
tunately he was too soon in the field to avail himself, even
had he been so minded, of the convenient mode of nomencla
ture brought into use by Linnaeus. Immediately on the
completion of his Rtyne Animale in 1756, Brisson set about
his Omithologie, and it is only in the last two volumes of
the latter that any reference is made to the tenth edition
of the Systema Naturae, in which the binomial method
3 Several Birds from Jamaica
(1705-1725), and a good many
of SEBA (1734-1765)" but from
little effect upon Ornithology.
4 The works of Catesby and
at Nuremberg and Amsterdam
Gorman, French, and Dutch.
5 Birds were treated of in a
Dictionnaire raisonne et univei
1759.
were figured in SLOANE'S Voyage, &c.
exotic species in the Thesaurus, &c.,
their faulty execution these plates had
Edwards were afterwards reproduced
by SKLIGMANN, with the letterpress in
worthless fashion by one D. B. in a
•sel des animaux, published at Paris in
6
ORNITHOLOGY
was introduced. It is certain that the first four volumes
were written if not printed before that method was
promulgated, and Avhen the fame of Linmeus as a
zoologist rested on little more than the very meagre sixth
edition of the Systema yaturw and the first edition of his
Fauna Suecica. Brisson has been charged with jealousy
of if not hostility to the great Swede, and it is true that in
the preface to his Omithologie he complains of the insuffici
ency of the Linn&an characters, but, when one considers
how much better acquainted with Birds the Frenchman
was, such criticism must be allowed to be pardonable if
not wholly just. Busson's work was in French, with a
parallel translation in Latin, which last was reprinted
separately at Leyden two years afterwards.
salerne. In 1767 there was issued at Paris a book entitled
L'kistoire naturelle edaircie dans une de ses pat-ties princi-
pales, I' Omithologie. This was the work of SALERNE,
published after his death, and is often spoken of as being
a mere translation of Ray's Synopsis, but is thereby very
inadequately described, for, though it is confessedly founded
on that little book, a vast amount of fresh matter, and
mostly of good quality, is added.
D'Auben- The success of Edwards's very respectable work seems
tou- to have provoked competition, and in 1765, at the instiga
tion of Buffon, the younger D'AUBENTON began the pub
lication known as the Planches Enlumincez dhistoire
naturelle, which appearing in forty-two parts was not com
pleted till 1780, when the plates1 it contained reached the
number of 1008 — all coloured, as its title intimates, and
nearly all representing Birds. This enormous work was
subsidized by the French Government ; and, though the
figures are utterly devoid of artistic merit, they display the
species they are intended to depict with sufficient approach
to fidelity to ensure recognition in most cases without fear of
error, which in the absence of any text is no small praise.2
But BCTFOX was not content with merely causing to be
published this unparalleled set of plates. He seems to
have regarded the word just named as a necessary precursor
to his own labours in Ornithology. His Histoire Naturelle,
generale et particuliere, was begun in 1749, and in 1770
he brought out, with the assistance of GUEXAU BE
MoxTBEiLLARD,3 the first volume of that grand undertaking
relating to Birds, which, for the first time since the days
of Aristotle, became the theme of one who possessed real
literary capacity. It is not too much to say that Buffon's
florid fancy revelled in such a subject as was now that on
which he exercised his brilliant pen ; but it would be unjust
to examine too closely what to many of his contemporaries
seemed sound philosophical reasoning under the light that
has since burst upon us. Strictly orthodox though he pro
fessed to be, there were those, both among his own country
men and foreigners, who could not read his speculative
indictments of the workings of Nature without a shudder;
and it is easy for any one in these days to frame a reply,
pointed Avith ridicule, to such a chapter as he wrote on the
wretched fate of the Woodpecker. In the nine volumes
devoted to the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux there are
passages which will for ever live in the memory of those
1 They were drawn and engraved by MARTINET, who himself began
in 1787 a Histoire des Oiseaux with .small coloured plates which, have
some m'erit, but the text is worthless. The work seems not to have
been finished and is rare. For the opportunity of seeing a copy the
writer is indebted to Mr Gurney.
2 Between 1767 and 1776 there appeared at Florence a Storia
Naturale deyli Uccelli, in five folio volumes, containing a number of
ill-drawn and ill-coloured figures from the collection of Giovanni
Gerini, an ardent collector who died in 1751, and therefore must be
acquitted of any share in the work, which, though sometimes attributed
to him, is that of certain learned men who did not happen to be ornitho
logists (<f. Savi, Ornitoloyia Toscana, i. Introduzione, p. v).
3 lie retired on the completion of the sixth volume, and thereupon
Buffon associated Bexoa with himself.
that carefully read them, however much occasional expres
sions, or even the general tone of the author, may grate
upon their feelings. He too was the first man who formed
any theory that may be called reasonable of the Geographical
Distribution of Animals, though this theory was scarcely
touched in the ornithological portion of his work, and has
since proved to be not in accordance with facts. He pro
claimed the variability of species in opposition to the views
of Linnams as to their fixity, and moreover supposed that
this variability arose in part by degradation.4 Taking his
labours as a whole, there cannot be a doubt that he enor
mously enlarged the purview of naturalists, and, even if
limited to Birtls, that, on the completion of his work upon
them in 1783, Ornithology stood in a very different position
from that which it had before occupied. Because he
opposed the system of Linmeus he has been said to be
opposed to systems in general ; but that is scarcely correct,
for he had a system of his own ; and, as we now see it, it
appears neither much better nor much worse than the
systems which had been hitherto invented, or perhaps than
any which was for many years to come propounded. It is
certain that he despised any kind of scientific phraseology
— a crime in the eyes of those who consider precise
nomenclature to be the end of science ; but those who deem
it merely a means whereby knowledge can be securely
stored will take a different view — and have done so.
Great as were the services of Buffon to Ornithology in Latham.
one direction, those of a wholly different kind rendered by
our countryman JOHN LATHAM must not be overlooked.
In 1781 he began a work the practical utility of which
was immediately recognized. This was his General
Synopsis of Birds, and, though formed generally on the
model of Linnaeus, greatly diverged in some respects there
from. The classification was modified, chiefly on the old
lines of Willughby and Ray, a'nd certainly for the better ;
but no scientific nomenclature was adopted, which, as the
author subsequently found, was a change for the worse.
His scope was co-extensive with that of Brisson, but Latham
did not possess the inborn faculty of picking out the
character wherein one species differs from another. His
opportunities of becoming acquainted with Birds were
hardly inferior to Brisson's, for during Latham's long life
time there poured in upon him countless new discoveries
from all parts of the world, but especially from the newly-
explored shores of Australia and the islands of the Pacific
Ocean. The British Museum had been formed, and he
had access to everything it contained in addition to the
abundant materials afforded him by the private Museum of
Sir Ashton Lever.5 Latham entered, so far as the limits
of his work would allow, into the history of the Birds he
described, and this with evident zest, whereby he differed
from his French predecessor; but the number of cases in
which he erred as to the determination of his species must
be very great, and not unfrequently the same species is
described more than once. His Synopsis was finished in
1785; two supplements were added in 1787 and 1802, 6
and in 1790 he produced an abstract of the work under
the title of Index Ornitkoloaicus, wherein he assigned names
on the Linnaian method to all the species described. Not
to recur again to his labours, it may be said here that
between 1821 and 1828 he published at Winchester, in
eleven volumes, an enlarged edition of his original work,
entitling it A General History of Birds ; but his defects as
4 See Prof. Mivart's address to the Section of Biology, Rep. Erit.
Association (Sheffield Meeting^, 1879, p. 356.
5 In 1792 SHAW began the Museum Lcvcri.anum in illustration of
this collection, which was finally dispersed by sale, and what is known
to remain of it found its way to Vienna. Of the specimens in the
British Museum described by Latham it is to be feared that ;;iarc(-ly
any exist. They were probably very imperfectly prepared.
* A German translation by Bechstein subsequently appeared.
ORNITHOLOGY
a compiler, which had been manifest before, rather increased
with age, and the consequences were not happy.1
About the time that Buffon was bringing to an end his
[amtuyt. studies of Birds, MAUDUYT undertook to write the Orni-
thologie of the Encyclopedic Methodique — a compara
tively easy task, considering the recent works of his fellow-
countrymen on that subject, and finished in 1784. Here
it requires no further comment, especially as a new edition
was called for in 1790, the ornithological portion of which
ionna- was begun by BoNNATERRE, who, however, had only
em'- finished three hundred and twenty pages of it when he lost
his life in the French Revolution ; and the work thus
.7ieillot. arrested was continued by VIEILLOT under the slightly
changed title of Tableau encyclopcdique et methodi^ue des
trois regnes de la Nature — the Ornithologie forming
volumes four to seven, and not completed till 1823. In
the former edition Mauduyt had taken the subjects alpha
betically ; but here they are disposed according to an
arrangement, with some few modifications, furnished by
D'Aubenton, which is extremely shallow and unworthy of
consideration.
Several other works bearing upon Ornithology in general,
but of less importance than most of those just named,
belong to this period. Among others may be mentioned
Pennant, the Genera of Birds by THOMAS PENNANT, first printed at
Edinburgh in 1773, but best known by the edition which
appeared in London in 1781 ; the Elementa Ornithologica
and Museum Ornithologicum of SCHAFFER, published at
Ratisbon in 1774 and 1784 respectively; PETER BROWN'S
Neiv Illustrations of Zoology in London in 1776 ;
HERMANN'S Tabidx Ajfinitatum Animalium at Strasburg
in 1783, followed posthumously in 1804 by his Observa-
tiones Zoologies ; JACQUTN'S Beytraege zur Geschichte der
Voegel at Vienna in 1784, and in 1790 at the same place
the larger work of SPALOWSKY with nearly the same title ;
SPARRMAN'S Museum Carlsonianum at Stockholm from
1786 to 1789; and in 1794 HAYES'S Portraits of rare
and curious Birds from the menagery of Child the banker
at Osterley near London. The same draughtsman (who
had in 1775 produced a History of British Birds) in
1822 began another series of Figures of rare and curious
Birds.'2'
The practice of Brisson, Buffon, Latham, and others of
neglecting to name after the Limuean fashion the species
they described gave great encouragement to compilation,
and led to what has proved to be of some inconvenience to
P. L. S. modern ornithologists. In 1773 P. L. S. MULLER brought
Miiller. out at Nuremberg a German translation of the Systema
Naturae,, completing it in 1776 by a Supplement containing
a list of animals thus described, which had hitherto been
technically anonymous, with diagnoses and names on the
kxklaert. Linnttan model. In 1783 BODDAERT printed at Utrecht a
Table des Planches Enlumineez^ in which he attempted to
refer every species of Bird figured in that extensive series
to its proper Linnsean genus, and to assign it a scientific
name if it did not already possess one. In like manner in
kopoli. 1786, SCOPOLI — already the author of a little book published
1 He also prepared for publication a second edition of his Index
Ornithologiciis, but this was never printed, and the manuscript is now
in the present writer's possession.
" The Naturalist's Miscellany or Vivarium Xaturale, in English
and Latin, of SHAW and NODDER, the former being the author, the
latter the draughtsman and engraver, was begun in 1789 mid carried
on till Shaw's death, forming twenty-four volumes. Jt contains
figures of more than 280 Birds, but very poorly executed. In 1814
a sequel, The Zoological Miscellany, was begun by LEACH, Nodder
continuing to do the plates. This was completed in 1817, and forms
three volumes with 149 plates, 27 of which represent Birds.
3 Of this work only iif'ty copies were printed, and it is one of the
rarest known to the ornithologist. Only two copies are believed to
exist in England, one in the British Museum, the other in private
hands. It was reprinted in 1874 by Mr Tegetmeier.
at Leipzig in 1769 under the title of Annus I. Historico-
naturalis, in which are described many Birds, mostly from his
own collection or the Imperial vivarium at Vienna — was at
the pains to print at Pavia in his miscellaneous Delicix
Florae et Faunae, Insubricse, a Specimen Zoologicum* contain
ing diagnoses, duly named, of the Birds discovered and
described by SONNERAT in his Voyage aux Indes orientales Sonnerat.
and Voyage a la Nouvelle G'uinee, severally published at
Paris in 1772 and 1776. But the most striking example
of compilation was that exhibited by J. F. GMELIN, who Ginelin.
in 1788 commenced what he called the Thirteenth Edition
of the celebrated Systema Naturae, which obtained so wide
a circulation that, in the comparative rarity of the original,
the additions of this editor have been very frequently
quoted, even by expert naturalists, as though they were
the work of the author himself. Gmelin availed himself
of every publication he could, but he perhaps found his
richest booty in the labours of Latham, neatly condensing
his English descriptions into Latin diagnoses, and bestow
ing on them binomial names. Hence it is that Gmelin
appears as the authority for so much of the nomenclature
now in use. He tock many liberties with the details of
Linnajus's work, buc left the classification, at least of the
Birds, as it was — a few new genera excepted.0
During all this time little had been done in studying the
internal structure of Birds since the works of Goiter already
mentioned 6 ; but the foundations of the science of Embry
ology had been laid by the investigations into the develop
ment of the chick by the great HARVEY. Between 1666
and 1669 PERRAULT edited at Paris eight accounts of the
dissection by Du VERNEY of as many species of Birds,
which, translated into English, were published by the
Royal Society in 1702, under the title of The Natural
History of Animals. After the death of the two anatomists
just named, another series of similar descriptions of eight
other species was found among their papers, and the whole
were published in the Memoires of the French Academy of
Sciences in 1733 and 1734. But in 1681 GERARD BLASIUS Gera.r*
had brought out at Amsterdam an Anatome Animalium, '
containing the results of all the dissections of animals that
he could find ; and the second part of this book, treating of
Volatilia, makes a respectable show of more than one
hundred and twenty closely-printed quarto pages, though
nearly two-thirds is devoted to a treatise De Ovo et Pidlo,
containing among other things a reprint of Harvey's
researches, and the scientific rank of the whole book may
be inferred from Bats being still classed with Birds. In
1720 VALENTINI published, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, his Valentini,
Amjjhitheatrum Zootomicum, in which again most of the
existing accounts of the anatomy of Birds were reprinted.
But these and many other contributions,7 made until nearly
the close of the eighteenth century, though highly meritori
ous, were unconnected as a whole, and it is plain that no
conception of what it was in the power of Comparative
Anatomy to set forth had occurred to the most diligent
dissectors. This privilege was reserved for GEORGES
CUVIER, who in 1798 published at Paris his Tableau Cuvier.
Elementaire de Vhistoire naturelle des Animaux, and thus
laid the foundation of a thoroughly and hitherto unknown
4 This was reprinted in 1882 by the Willughby Society.
5 DAUDIN'S unfinished Traite elementaire et complet d1 Ornithologie
appeared at Paris in 1800, and therefore is the last of these general
works published in the eighteenth century.
6 A succinct notice of the older works on Ornithotomy is given by
Prof. SELENKA in the introduction to that portion of Dr Eronn's
Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs relating to Birds (pp. 1-9)
published in 1869 ; and Prof. CARUS'S Geschichte der Zoologie, pub
lished in 1 872, may also be usefully consulted for further information
on this and other heads.
7 The treatises of the two BARTHOLINIS and BoRRiCHirs published
at Copenhagen deserve mention if only to record the activity of Danish
anatomists in those days.
8
O 11 N I T H 0 L O G Y
mode of appreciating the value of the various groups of the
Animal Kingdom. Yet his first attempt was a mere sketch. l
Though he made a perceptible advance on the classification
of Linna?us, at that time predominant, it is now easy to see
in how many ways — want of sufficient material being no
doubt one of the chief — Cuvier failed to produce a really
natural arrangement. His principles, however, are those
which must still guide taxonomers, notwithstanding that
they have in so great a degree overthrown the entire scheme
which he propounded. Confining our attention here, as
of course it ought to be confined, to Ornithology, Cuvier's
arrangement of the Class Aves is now seen to be not very
much better than any which it superseded. But this view
is gained by following the methods which Cuvier taught.
In the work just mentioned few details arc given ; but
even the more elaborate classification of Birds contained in
his Lecom d' Anatomic Comparee of 1805 is based wholly
on external characters, such as had been used by nearly all
his predecessors; and the Rcyne Animal of 1817, when he
was in his fullest vigour, afforded not the least evidence
that he had ever dissected a couple even of Birds 2 with the
object of determining their relative position in his system,
which then, as before, depended wholly on the configuration
of bills, wings, and feet. But, though apparently without
such a knowledge of the anatomy of Birds as would enable
him to apply it to the formation of that natural system
which he was fully aware had yet to be sought, he seems
to have been an excellent judge of the characters afforded
by the bill and limbs, and the use he made of them, coupled
with the extraordinary reputation he acquired on other
grounds, procured for his system the adhesion for many
years of the majority of ornithologists, and its influence
though waning is still strong. Regret must always be felt
by them that his great genius was never applied in earnest
to their branch of study, especially when we consider that
had it been so the perversion of energy in regard to the
classification . of Birds witnessed in England for nearly
twenty years, and presently to be mentioned, would most
likely have been prevented.3
Hitherto mention has chiefly been made of works on
General Ornithology, but it will be understood that these
were largely aided by the enterprise of travellers, and as
there were many of them who published their narratives in
separate forms their contributions have to be considered.
Of those travellers then the first to be here especially named
Marsigli. is MARSiGLi, the fifth volume of whose Damioius Pannonico-
Mysicm is devoted to the Birds he met with in the valley
of the Danube, and appeared at the Hague in 1725,
fallowed by a French translation in 1744.4 Most of the
many pupils whom Linnaeus sent to foreign countries sub
mitted their discoveries to him, but KALM, HASSELQVIST,
and OSBECK published separately their respective travels
1 It had no effect on LAC£PKDK, who in the following year added a
Tableau Mtthodique containing a classification of Birds to his
JHscours d'Ourerture(Mem. del'fnstitut, iii. pp. 454-468, 503-519).
2 So little regard did he pay to the Osteology of Birds that,
according to De Blainville (Jour, de Physique, xcii. p. 187, note),
the skeleton of a Fowl to which was attached the head of a Hornbill
was for a long time, exhibited in the Museum of Comparative
Anatomy at Paris ! ' Yet, in order to determine the difference of
structure in their organs of voice, Cuvier, as he says in his Lemons
(iv. p. 464), dissected more than one hundred and fifty species of
Birds. Unfortunately for him, as will appear in the .sequel, it seems
not to have occurred to him to use any of the results he obtained as
the basis of a classification.
3 It is unnecessary to enumerate the various editions of the Riyiie
Animal. Of the English translations, that edited by Griffiths and
Pidgeon is the most complete. The ornithological portion of it
contained in these volumes received many additions from JOHN" EDWARD
GRAY, and appeared in 1829.
4 Though much later in date, the Iter per Poser/anam Rclavoniae
of PILLER and MITTKRPACHER, published at Buda in 1783, may perhaps
be here most conveniently mentioned.
in North America, the Levant, and China.5 The incessant
journeys of PALLAS and his colleagues — FALK, GEOEGI,
S. G. GMELIN, GULDENSTADT, LEPECIIIX, and others — in the
exploration of the recently extended Russian empire sup
plied not only much material to the Commentarii and Actn of
the Academy of St Petersburg, but more that is to be found
in their narratives, — all of it being of the highest interest
to students of Palicarctic or Nearctic Ornithology. Nearly
the whole of their results, it may here be said, were
summed up in the important Zooyrapliia Roxso-Asiatica of
the first-named naturalist, which saw the light in 1811, —
the year of its author's death, — but, owing to circumstances
over which he had no control, was not generally accessible
till twenty years later. Of still wider interest are the
accounts of Cook's three famous voyages, though unhappily
much of the information gained by the naturalists who accom
panied him on one or more of them seems to be irretriev
ably lost: the original observations of the elder FORSTER
were not printed till 1844, and the valuable collection of
zoological drawings made by the younger FORSTER still
remains unpublished in the British Museum. The several
accounts by JOHN WHITE, COLLINS, PHILLIPS, HTJNTER, and
others of the colonization of New South Wales at the
end of the last century ought not to be overlooked by any
Australian ornithologist. The only information at this
period on the Ornithology of South America is contained in
the two works on Chili by MOLINA, published at Bologna in
1776 and 1782. The travels of LE VAILLANT in South Africa
having been completed in 1785, his great Oiseaux d'Afrique
began to appear in Paris in 1790 ; but it is hard to speak
properly of this work, for several of the species described in
it are certainly not, and never were in his time, inhabitants
of that country, though he sometimes gives a long account
of the circumstances under which he observed them.6
From travellers who employ themselves in collecting the
animals of any distant country the zoologists who stay at
home and study those of their own district, be it great or
small, are really not so much divided as at first might
appear. Both may well be named " Faunists," and of the
latter there were not a few who having turned their atten
tion more or less to Ornithology should here be mentioned,
and first among them RZACZYNSKI, who in!721 brought out
at Sandomirsk the Ifistoria naturaUs curiosa regni Polonix,
to which an Auctuarium was posthumously published at
Danzig in 1742. This also may be perhaps the most
proper place to notice the Ilistoria Avium Hungarise of
GROSSINGER, published at Posen in 1793. In 1734 J. L.
FRISCH began the long series of works on the Birds of
Germany with which the literature of Ornithology is
enriched, by his Vorstellung dcr Vogel Teutschlands, which
was only completed in 17G3, and, its coloured plates
proving very attractive, was again issued at Berlin in 1817.
The little fly-sheet of ZORN 7 — for it is scarcely more— on
the Birds of the Hercynian Forest made its appearance at
Pappenheim in 1745. In 1756 KRAMER published at
Vienna a modest Elenc/ms of the plants and animals of
Lower Austria, and J. D. PETERSEN produced at Altona
in 1766 a Verzeichniss lalthischer Vogel; while in 1791
J. B. FISCHER'S Versuck einer Naturgeschichte von Livland
appeared at Kimigsberg, next year BESEKE brought out at
Mitau his Beytray zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel Kurlands,
5 The results of FORSKAI/S travels in the Levant, published after his
death by Isiebuhr, require mention, but the ornithology they contain
is but scant.
6 It has been charitably suggested that, his collection and notes
having suffered shipwreck, he was induced to supply the latter from
his memory and the former by the nearest approach to his lost specimens
that he could obtain. This explanation, poor as it is, fails, however,
in regard to some species.
7 His earlier work under the title of Fetinothcoloyie can hardly be
deemed scientific.
Pallas
The
Forst<
Le
Vailhi
Gross;
ger.
Friscl:
Kram
Besek.
ORNITHOLOGY
and in 1794 SIEMSSEN'S Handbuch of the Birds of Mecklen
burg was published at Rostock. But thesa works, locally
useful as they may have been, did not occupy the whole
attention of German ornithologists, for in 1791 BECHSTEIN
reached the second volume of his Gemeinnutzige Naturge-
schichte Deutschlands, treating of the Birds of that country,
which ended with the fourth in 1795. Of this an abridged
edition by the name of Omithologisches Taschenbuch
appeared in 1802 and 1803, with a supplement in 1812;
while between 1805 and 1809 a fuller edition of the
original was issued. Moreover in 1795 J. A. NAUMANN
humbly began at Cothen a treatise on the Birds of
the principality of Anhalt, which on its completion in 1 804
was found to have swollen into an Ornithology of Northern
Germany and the neighbouring countries. Eight supple
ments were successively published between 1805 and 1817,
and in 1822 a new edition was required. This Naturge-
schichte der Vdgel Deutschlands, being almost wholly re
written by his son J. F. NAUMANN, is by far the best
thing of the kind as yet produced in any country. The
fulness and accuracy of the text, combined with the neat
beauty of its coloured plates, have gone far to promote the
study of Ornithology in Germany, and while essentially a
popular work, since it is suited to the comprehension of all
readers, it is throughout written with a simple dignity that
commends it to the serious and scientific. Its twelfth and
last volume was published in 1844 — by no means too long
a period for so arduous and honest a performance, and a
supplement was begun in 1847 ; but, the editor — or author
as he may be fairly called — dying in 1857, this continua
tion was finished in 1860 by the joint efforts of J. H.
BLASIUS and Dr BALDAMUS. In 1800 BORKHAUSEN with
others commenced at Darmstadt a Teutsche Ornithologie in
folio which appeared at intervals till 1812, and remains
unfinished, though a reissue of the portion published took
place between 1837 and 1841.
Other countries on the Continent, though not quite so
prolific as Germany, bore some ornithological fruit at
this period ; but in all Southern Europe only four faunistic
products can be named : — the Saggio di Storia Naturale
Bresciana of PILATI, published at Brescia in 1769; the
Ornitologia dell' Europa Meridionale of BERNINI, published
at Parma between 1772 and 1776 ; the Uccelli di Sardegna
of CETTI, published at Sassari in 1776 ; and the Romano,
Ornithologia of GILIUS, published at Rome in 1781 — the
]-ist being in great part devoted to Pigeons and Poultry.
More appeared in the North, for in 1770 Amsterdam sent
. forth the beginning of NOZEMAN'S Nederlandsche Vogelen.
a fairly illustrated work in folio, but only completed by
HOUTTTJYN in 1829, and in Scandinavia most of all was
done. In 1746 the great LIXX^EUS had produced a Fauna
Svecica, of which a second edition appeared in 1761, and a
. third revised by RETZIUS in 1 800. In 1764 BRUNNICH pub
lished at Copenhagen his Ornithologia Borealis, a com
pendious sketch of the Birds of all the countries then sub
ject to the Danish crown. At the same place appeared
in 1767 LEEM'S work De Lapponibus Finmarchix, to which
GUNNERUS contributed some good notes on the Ornitho
logy of Northern Norway, and at Copenhagen and Leipzig
was published in 1780 the Fauna Groenlandica of OTHO
. FABRICIUS.
Of strictly American origin can here be cited only
BARTRAM'S Travels through North and South Carolina and
BARTON'S Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsyl
vania,1 both printed at Philadelphia, one in 1791, the other
in 1799 ; but J. R. FORSTER published a Catalogue of the
Animals of North America in London in 1771, and the
1 This extremely rare book has been reprinted by the Willughby
Society.
following year described in the Philosophical Transactions
a few Birds from Hudson's Bay.2 A greater undertaking
was PENNANT'S Arctic Zoology, published in 1785, with a Pennant.
supplement in 1787. The scope of this work was originally
intended to be limited to North America, but circumstances
induced him to include all the species of Northern Europe
and Northern Asia, and though not free from errors it is a
praiseworthy performance. A second edition appeared in
1792. The Ornithology of Britain naturally demands
greater attention. The earliest list of British Birds we
possess is that given by MERRETT in his Pinax Rerum Merrett.
Naturalium Britannicarum, printed in London in 1667. 3
In 1677 PLOT published his Natural History of Oxfordshire, Plot.
which reached a second edition in 1705, and in 1686 that
of Staffordshire. A similar work on Lancashire, Cheshire,
and the Peak was sent out in 1700 by LEIGH, and one on Leigh.
Cormvall by BORLASE in 1758— all these four being printed Borla.se.
at Oxford. In 1766 appeared PENNANT'S British Zoology, Pennant,
a well-illustrated folio, of which a second edition in octavo
was published in 1768, and considerable additions (forming
the nominally third edition) in 1770, while in 1777 there
were two issues, one in octavo the other in quarto, each
called the fourth edition. In 1812, long after the author's
death, another edition was printed, of which his son-in-law
Hanmer was the reputed editor, but lie received much
assistance from Latham, and through carelessness many of
the additions herein made have often been ascribed to
Pennant. In 1769 BERKENHOUT gave to the world his Berken-
Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and ^out-
Ireland, which reappeared under the title of Synopsis of the
same in 1795. TUNSTALL'S Ornithologia Britannica, which Tunstall.
appeared in 1771, is little more than a list of names.4 In
1781 NASH'S Worcestershire included a few ornithological
notices; and WALCOTT in 1789 published an illustrated Wakot.
Synopsis of British Birds, coloured copies of which are rare.
In 1791 J. HEYSHAM added to Hutchins's Cumberland a
list of Birds of that county, and in 1794 DONOVAX began Donovan.
a History of British Birds which was only finished in 1819
— the earlier portion being reissued about the same time.
In 1800 LEWIN brought out a very worthless work with Lewin.
the same title.
All the foregoing publications yield in importance to
two that remain to be mentioned, a notice of which will
fitly conclude this part of our subject. In 1767 Pennant,
several of whose works have already been named, entered
into correspondence with GILBERT WHITE, receiving from Gilbart
him much information, almost wholly drawn from his own White,
observation, for the succeeding editions of the British
Zoology. In 1769 White began exchanging letters of a
similar character with Barrington. The epistolary inter
course with the former continued until 1780 and with
the latter until 1787. In 1789 White's share of the corre
spondence, together with some miscellaneous matter, was
published as The Natural History of Selborne — from the
name of the village in which he lived. Observations on
Birds form the principal though by no means the whole
theme of this book, which may be safely said to have done
more to promote a love of Ornithology in this country than
any other work that has been written, nay more than all
the other works (except one next to be mentioned) put
together. It has passed through a far greater number of
2 Both of these treatises have also been reprinted by the Willughby
Society.
3 In this year there were two issues of this book ; one, nominally a
second edition, only differs from the first in having a new title-page.
No real second edition ever appeared, but in anticipation of it Sir
THOMAS BROWNE prepared in or about 1671 (?) his "Account of Birds
found in Norfolk," of which the draught, now in the British Museum,
was printed in his collected works by Wilkin in 1835. If a fair copy
was ever made its resting-place is unknown.
4 It has been republished by the Willughby Society.
XVIII. — 2
ORNITHOLOGY
editions than any other work in Natural History in the !
whole world, and has become emphatically an English
classic — the graceful simplicity of its style, the elevating ,
tone of its spirit, and the sympathetic chords it strikes ;
recommending it to every lover of Nature, while the
severely scientific reader can scarcely find an error in any
statement it contains, whether of matter of fact or opinion.
It is almost certain that more than half the zoologists of the
British Islands for the past seventy years or more have been
infected with their love of the study by Gilbert White ;
and it can hardly be supposed that his influence will cease.1
The other work to the importance of which on Ornith-
Bewkk. ology in this country allusion has been made is BEWICK'S
History of British £inls. The first volume of this, contain
ing the Land-Birds, appeared in 1797'2 — the text being, it
is understood, by Beilby — the second, containing the
Water-Birds, in 1804. The woodcuts illustrating this
work are generally of surpassing excellence, and it takes
rank in the category of artistic publications. Fully ad
mitting the extraordinary execution of the engravings,
every ornithologist may perceive that as portraits of the
Birds they are of very unequal merit. Some of the figures
were drawn from stuffed specimens, and accordingly perpetu
ate ail the imperfections of the original; others represent
species with the appearance of which the artist was not
familiar, and these are either wanting in expression or are
caricatures ; 3 but those that were drawn from live Birds,
or represent species which he knew in life, are worthy of
all praise. It is well known that the earlier editions of this
work, especially if they be upon large paper, command
extravagant prices ; but in reality the copies on smaller
paper are now the rarer, for the stock of them has been
consumed in nurseries and schoolrooms, where they have
been torn up or worn out with incessant use. Moreover,
whatever the lovers of the fine arts may say, it is nearly
certain that the " Bewick Collector " is mistaken in attach
ing so high a value to these old editions, for owing to the
want of skill in printing — indifferent ink being especially
assigned as one cause — many of the earlier issues fail to
shew the most delicate touches ,of the engraver, which the
increased care bestowed upon the edition of 1847 (published
under the supervision of Mr John Hancock) has revealed,—
though it must be admitted that certain blocks have
suffered from wear of the press so as to be incapable of any
more producing the effect intended. Of the text it may
be said that it is respectable, but no more. It has given
satisfaction to thousands of readers in time past, and will,
it may be hoped, give satisfaction to thousands in time to
come.
The existence of these two works explains the widely-
spread taste for Ornithology in this country, which is to
foreigners so puzzling, and the zeal — not always according
to knowledge, but occasionally reaching to serious study —
with which that taste is pursued.
Having thus noticed, and it is to be hoped pretty
thoroughly, the chief ornithological works begun if not
completed prior to the commencement of the present cen-
1 Next to the original edition, that known as Bennett's, published
in 1837, which was reissued in 1875 by Mr Hailing, was long
deemed the best ; but it must give place to that of Bell, which appeared
in 1877, and contains much additional information of great interest.
But the editions of Markwick, Herbert, Blyth, and Jardine all possess
features of merit. An elaborately prepared edition, issued of late years
under the managementof one who gained great reputation as a naturalist,
only shews his ignorance and his vulgarity.
2 There were two issues — virtually two editions — of this with the
same date on the title-page, though one of them is said not to have
been published till the following ye;ir. Among several other indicia
this may be recognized by the woodcut of the " Sea Eagle " at page 1 1
bearing at its base the inscription " VVyclitfe, 1791," and by the addi
tional misprint on page 115 of Saheeniclus for Schsenicjus.
3 This is especially observable in the figures of the Birds-of-Prey.
tury, together with their immediate sequels, those which
follow will require a very different mode of treatment, for
their number is so great that it would be impossible for
want of space to deal with them in the same extended
fashion, though the attempt will finally be made to enter
into details in the case of works constituting the founda
tion upon which apparently the superstructure of the
future science has to be built. It ought not to need stat
ing that much of what was, comparatively speaking, only
a few years ago regarded as scientific labour is now no
longer to be so considered. The mere fact that the prin
ciple of Evolution, and all its admission carries with it,
has been accepted in some form or other by almost all
naturalists, has rendered obsolete nearly every theory
that had hitherto been broached, and in scarcely any
branch of zoological research was theory more rife than in
Ornithology. One of these theories must presently be
noticed at some length on account of the historical import
ance which attaches to its malefic effects in impeding the
progress of true Ornithology in Britain ; but charity
enjoins us to consign all the rest as much as possible to
oblivion.
On reviewing the progress of Ornithology since the end
of the last century, the first thing that will strike us is the
fact that general works, though still undertaken, have
become proportionally fewer, and such as exist are apt to
consist of mere explanations of systematic methods that
had already been more or less fully propounded, while
special works, whether relating to the ornithic portion of
the Fauna of any particular country, or limited to certain
groups of Birds — works to which of late years the name
of " Monograph " has become wholly restricted — have
become far more numerous. But this seems to be the
natural law in all sciences, and its cause is not far to
seek. As the knowledge of any branch of study extends,
it outgrows the opportunities and capabilities of most men
to follow it as a whole ; and, since the true naturalist, by
reason of the irresistible impulse which drives him to
work, cannot be idle, ho is compelled to confine his
energies to narrower fields of investigation. That in a
general way this is for some reason to be regretted is true ;
but, like all natural operations, it carries with it some
recompense, and the excellent work done by so-called
" specialists " has over and over again proved of the
greatest use to advancement in different departments of
science, and in none more than in Ornithology.4
Another change has come over the condition of Ornith
ology, as of kindred sciences, induced by the multiplica
tion of learned societies which issue publications as
well as of periodicals of greater or less scientific pretension
—the latter often enjoying a circulation far wider than
the former. Both kinds increase yearly, and the despond
ing mind may fear the possibility of its favourite study
expiring through being smothered by its own literature.
Without anticipating such a future disaster, and looking
merely to what has gone before, it is necessary here to
premise that, in the observations which immediately
follow, treatises which have appeared in the publications
of learned bodies or in other scientific periodicals must,
except they be of prime importance, be hereinafter passed
unnoticed ; but their omission will be the less felt because
the more recent of those of a " faunal " character have
generally been mentioned in a former dissertation (BiKDS,
vol. iii. pp. 737-764) under the different Regions or
4 The truth of the preceding remarks may be so obvious to nio.-t
men who have acquaintance with the subject that their introduction
here may seem unnecessary ; but it is certain that the facts they state
have been very little appreciated by many writers who profess to give
an account of the progress of Natural History during the present
century.
O K
NITHOLOGY
11
,e Vail-
!mt.
Vk-illut.
countries with which they deal, while reference to the older
of these treatises is usually given by the writers of the
newer. Still it seems advisable here to furnish some con
nected account of the progress made in the ornithological
knowledge of those countries in which the readers of the pre
sent volume may bo supposed to take the most lively interest
— for example, the British Islands and those parts of the
European continent which lie nearest to them or are most
commonly sought by travellers, the Dominion of Canada
and the United States of America, South Africa, India,
together with Australia and New Zealand. The more
important Monographs, again, will usually be found cited
in the series of special articles on Birds contained in this
work, though, as will be immediately perceived, there are
some so-styled Monographs, which by reason of the changed
views of classification that at present obtain have lost
their restricted character, and for all practical purposes
have now to be regarded as general works.
It will perhaps be most convenient to begin by mention
ing some of these last, and in particular a number of them
which appeared at Paris very early in this century. First
in order of them is the Histoire Naturelle d'une parlie
dOiseaux nouveaux et rares de I 'Amerique et des Indes, a
folio volume J published in 1 801 by LE VAILLANT. This is
devoted to the very distinct and not nearly-allied groups
of Hornbills and of birds which for want of a better name
we must call "Chatterers," and is illustrated, like those
works of which a notice immediately follows, by coloured
plates, done in what was then considered to be the highest
style of art and by the best draughtsmen procurable.
The first volume of a Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets, a
companion work by the same author, appeared in the
same year, and is truly a Monograph, since the Parrots
constitute a Family of birds so naturally severed from all
others that there has rarely been anything else confounded
with them. The second volume came out in 1805, and a
third was issued in 1837-38 long after the death of its pre
decessor's author, by BOTJRJOT ST-HILAIRE. Between 1803
and 1806 Le Vaillant also published in just the same style
two volumes with the title of Histoire Naturelle. des Oiseaux
de Paradis et des Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des
Barbus, an assemblage of forms, which, miscellaneous as it
is, was surpassed in incongruity by a fourth work on the
same scale, the Histoire Naturelle des Promerops et des
Guepiers, des Couroucous et des Touracos, for herein are
found Jays, Waxwings, the Cock-of-the-Rock (Rupicola),
and what not besides. The plates in this last are by
Barraband, for many years regarded as the perfection of
ornithological artists, and indeed the figures, when they
happen to have been drawn from the life, are not bad ;
but his skill was quite unable to vivify the preserved
specimens contained in Museums, and when he had only
these as subjects he simply copied the distortions of the
" bird-stuff er." The following year, 1808, being aided by
Temminck of Amsterdam, of whose son we shall presently
hear more, Le Vaillant brought out the sixth volume of
his Oiseaux d'Afrique, already mentioned. Four more
volufnes of this work were promised ; but the means of
executing them were denied to him, and, though he lived
until 1824, his publications ceased,
A similar series of works was projected and begun about
t the same time as that of Le ATaillant by AUDEBERT and
VIEILLOT, though the former, who was by profession a
painter and illustrated the work, was already dead more
than a year before the appearance of the two volumes,
bearing date 1802, and entitled Oiseaux d ores ou a rejlets
metalliques, the effect of the plates in which he sought to
heighten by the lavish use of gilding. The first volume
1 There is also an issue of this, as of the same author's other works,
on large quarto paper.
contains the " Colibris, Oiseaux-mouches, Jacamars et
Promerops," the second the "-Grimpereaux" and " Oiseaux
de Paradis" — associations which set all the laws of system
atic method at defiance. His colleague, Vieillot, brought
out in 1805 a Histoire Naturelle des plus leaux Chanteurs
de la Zone Torride with figures by Langlois of tropical
Finches, Grosbeaks, Buntings, and other hard-billed birds ;
and in 1807 two volumes of a Histoire Naturelle des
Oiseaux de I'Amerique Septentrionale, without, however,
paying much attention to the limits commonly assigned by
geographers to that part of the world. In 1805 ANSELME
DESMAREST published a Histoire naturelle des Tangaras, Desmarest
des Manakins et des Todiers, which, though belonging to
the same category as all the former, differs from them in
its more scientific treatment of the subjects to which it
refers; and, in 1808, TEMMINCK, whose father's aid to Le Temminck.
Vaillant has already been noticed, brought out at Paris a
Histoire Naturelle des Pigeons illustrated by Madame
Knip, who had drawn the plates for Desmarest's volume.2
Since we have begun by considering these large
illustrated works in which the text is made subservient to
the coloured plates, it may be convenient to continue our
notice of such others of similar character as it may be
expedient to mention here, though thereby we shall be led
somewhat far afield. Most of them are but luxuries, and
there is some degree of truth in the remark of Andreas
Wagner in his lleport on the Progress of Zoology for 1843,
drawn up for the Ptay Society (p. 60), that they " are not
adapted for the extension and promotion of science, but
must inevitably, on account of their unnecessary costliness,
constantly tend to reduce the number of naturalists who
are able to avail themselves of them, and they thus enrich
ornithology only to its ultimate injury." Earliest in date
as it is greatest in bulk stands AUDUBON'S egregious Birds Audubon.
of America in four volumes, containing four hundred and
thirty-five plates, of which the first part appeared in London
in 1827 and the last in 1838. It does not seem to have
been the author's original intention to publish any letter
press to this enormous work, but to let the plates tell their
own story, though finally, with the assistance, as is now
known, of WILLIAM MACGILLIVRAY, a text, on the whole Macgil-
more than respectable, was produced in five large octavos livray.
under the title of Ornithological Biography, of which more
will be said in the sequel. Audubon has been greatly ex
tolled as an ornithological artist ; but he was far too much
addicted to representing his subjects in violent action and
in postures that outrage nature, while his drawing is very
frequently defective.3 In 1866 Mr D. G. ELLIOT began, and Elliot.
in 1869 finished, a sequel to Audubon's great work in two
volumes, on the same scale — The New and Hitherto
unjigured Species of the Birds of North America, containing
life-size figures of all those which had been added to its
fauna since the completion of the former.
In 1830 JOHN EDWARD GRAY commenced the Illustra- Gray and
tions of Indian Zoology, a series of plates of vertebrated Hardwkke.
animals, but mostly of Birds, from drawings it is believed by
native artists in the collection of General HARDWICKE, whose
name is therefore associated with the work. Scientific
2 Temminck subsequently reproduced, with many additions, the text
of this volume in his Histoire naturelle des Pigeons et des Gallinacees,
published at Amsterdam in 1813-15, in 3 vols. 8vo. Between 18o8
and 1848 M. FLORENT-PROVOST brought out at Paris a further set of
illustrations of Pigeons by Mdme. Knip.
3 On the completion of these two works, for they must lie regarded
as distinct, an octavo edition in seven volumes under the title of The
Birds of America was published in 1840-44. In this the large plates
were reduced by means of the "camera lucida," the text was revised,
and the whole systematically arranged. Other reprints have since
been issued, but they are vastly inferior both in execution and value.
A sequel to the octavo Birds of America, corresponding with it in
form, was brought out in 1853-55 by CASSIS as Illustrations of the
Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Prussian America.
12
O It N I T H 0 L 0 G Y
names arc assigned to tlie species figured ; but no text was
Lear. ever supplied. In 1832 Mr LEAR, afterwards well known
as a painter, brought out his Illustrations of the Family of
Psittacidx, a volume which deserves especial notice from
the extreme fidelity to nature and the great artistic skill
with which the figures were executed.
This same year (1832) saw the beginning of the
marvellous series of illustrated ornithological works by
Gould, which the name of JOHN GOULD is likely to be always
remembered. A Century of Birds from the Himalaya
Mountains was followed by The Birds of Europe in five
volumes, published between 1832 and 1837, while in the
interim (1834) appeared A Monograph oftheRamphastidiv,
of which a second edition was some years later called for,
then the Icones Avium, of which only two parts were
published (1837-38), and A Monograph of the Trogonidx
(1838), which also reached a second edition. Sailing
in 1838 for New South Wales, on his return in 1840 he
at once commenced the greatest of all his works, The Birds
of Australia, which was finished in 1848 in seven volumes,
to which several supplementary parts, forming another
volume, were subsequently added. In 1849 he began A
Monograph of the Trochilidx or Humming-birds extending
to five volumes, the last of which appeared in 1861, and
has since been followed by a supplement now in course of
completion by Mr SALVIN. A Monograph of the Odonto-
phorinse. or Partridges of America (1850); The Birds of
Asia, in seven volumes, the last completed by Mr SHAHPE
(1850-83) ; The Birds of Great Britain, in five volumes
(1862-73) ; and The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875,
and, after the author's death in 1881, undertaken by Mr
Sharpe, make up the wonderful tale consisting of more
than forty folio volumes, and containing more than three
thousand coloured plates. The earlier of these works were
illustrated by Mrs Gould, and the figures in them are fairly
good; but those in the later, except when (as he occasionally
did) he secured the services of Mr WOLF, are not so much
to be commended. There is, it is true, a smoothness and
finish about them not often seen elsewhere ; but, as though
to avoid the exaggerations of Audubon, Gould usually
adopted the tamest of attitudes in which to represent his
subjects, whereby expression as well as vivacity is want
ing. Moreover, both in drawing and in colouring there is
frequently much that is untrue to nature, so that it. has
not uncommonly happened for them to fail in the chief
object of all zoological plates, that of affording sure means
of recognizing specimens on comparison. In estimating
the letterpress, which was avowedly held to be of secondary
importance to the plates, we must bear in mind that, to
ensure the success of his works, it had to be written to suit
a very peculiarly composed body of subscribers. Never
theless a scientific character was so adroitly assumed that
scientific men— some of them even ornithologists — -have
thence been led to believe the text had a scientific value, and
that of a high class. However it must also be remembered
that, throughout the whole of his career, Gould consulted
the convenience of working ornithologists by almost
invariably refraining from including in his folio works the
technical description of any new species without first pub
lishing it in some journal of comparatively easy access.
An ambitious attempt to produce in England a general
Frasrr. series of coloured plates on a large scale was Mr FRASKR'S
Zoologist Typica, the first part of which bears date 1841-
42. Others appeared at irregular intervals until 1849,
when the work, which seems never to have received the
.support it deserved, was discontinued. The seventy plates
(forty-six of which represent birds) composing, with some
explanatory letterpress, the volume are by C. Cousens and
H. N. Turner, — the latter (as his publications prove) a
zoologist of much promise Mio in 1851 died, a victim to
TVmmh
au<*
m<
his own zeal for investigation, of a wound received in
dissecting. The chief object of the author, who had been
naturalist to the Niger Expedition, and curator to the
Museum of the Zoological Society of London, was to figure
the animals contained in its gardens or described in its
Proceedings, which until the year 1848 were not illustrated.
The publication of the Zoological Si-etches of Mr WOLF, "Woli.
from animals in the gardens of the Zoological Society, was
begun about 1855, with a brief text by MITCHELL, at that
time the Society's secretary, in illustration of them. After
his death in ] 859, the explanatory letterpress was rewritten
by Mr SCLATER, his successor in that office, and a volume
was completed in 1861. Upon this a second series was
commenced, and brought to an end in 1868. Though a
comparatively small number of species of Birds are figured
in this magnificent work (seventeen only in the first series,
and twenty-two in the second), it must be mentioned here,
for their likenesses are so admirably executed as to place
it in regard to ornithological portraiture at the head of all
others. There is not a single plate that is unworthy of the
greatest of all animal painters.
Proceeding to illustrated works generally of less preten
tious size but of greater ornithological utility than the
books last mentioned, which are fitter for the drawing-room
than the study, we next have to consider some in which the
text is not wholly subordinated to the plates, though the
latter still form a conspicuous feature of the publication.
First of these in point of time as well as in importance is
the Nouveau Re.cue.il des Planches Coloriees d'Oiseaux of
TEMMINCK and LATTGIER, intended as a sequel to the
Planches Enluminees of D'Aubenton before noticed (page
6), and like that work issued both in folio and quarto
size. The first portion of this was published at Paris in
1820, and of its one hundred and two livraisons, which
appeared with great irregularity (Ibis, 1868, p. 500), the
last was issued in 1839, containing the titles of the five
volumes that the whole forms, together with a " Tableau
Methodique " which but indifferently serves the purpose
of an index. There are six hundred plates, but the exact
number of species figured (which has been computed at
six hundred and sixty-one) is not so easily ascertained.
Generally the subject of each plate has letterpress to cor
respond, but in some cases this is wanting, while on the
other hand descriptions of species not figured are occasion
ally introduced, and usually observations on the distribu
tion and construction of each genus or group are added.
The plates, which shew no improvement in execution on
those of Martinet, are after drawings by Huet and Pretre,
the former being perhaps the less bad draughtsman of the
twro, for he seems to have had an idea of what a bird when
alive looks like, though he was not able to give his figures
any vitality, while the latter simply delineated the stiff
and dishevelled specimens from museum shelves. Still
the colouring is pretty well done, and experience has proved
that generally speaking there is not much difficulty in
recognizing the species represented. The letterpress is
commonly limited to technical details, and is not always
accurate ; but it is of its kind useful, for in general know
ledge of the outside of Birds Temminck probably surpassed
any of his contemporaries. The " Tableau Methodique ''
offers a convenient concordance of the old J'/tuic///^
Enluminees and its successor, and is arranged after the
system set forth by Temminck in the first volume of the
second edition of his Manuel d'Omithologie, of which
something must presently be said.
The Galtrie des Oiseaux, a rival work, with plates by
OUDART, seems to have been begun immediately after the Oudart.
former. The original project was apparently to give a
figure and description of every species of Bird ; but that
was soon found to be impossible ; and, when six parts had
OKNITHOLOGY
13
been issued, with text by some unnamed author, the
scheme was brought within practicable limits, and the
writing of the letterpress was entrusted to VIETLLOT, who,
proceeding on a systematic plan, performed his task very
creditably, completing the Avork, which forms two quarto
volumes, in 1825, the original text and fifty-seven plates
being relegated to the end of the second volume as a supple
ment. His portion is illustrated by two hundred and
ninety-nine coloured plates that, wretched as they are, have
been continually reproduced in various text-books — a fact
possibly due to their subjects having been judiciously
selected. It is a tradition that, this work not being favour
ably regarded by the authorities of the Paris Museum, its
draughtsman and author were refused closer access to the
specimens required, and had to draw and describe them
through the glass as they stood on the shelves of the cases.
In 1825 JARDINE and SELBY began a scries of Illustra-
• tions of Ornithology, the several parts of which appeared
at long and irregular intervals, so that it was not until
1839 that three volumes containing one hundred and fifty
plates were completed. Then they set about a Second
Series, which, forming a single volume with fifty- three
plates, was finished in 1843. These authors, being zealous
amateur artists, were their own draughtsmen to the extent
even of lithographing the figures. In 1828 JAMES WILSON
(author of the article ORNITHOLOGY in the 7th and 8th
editions of the present work) began, under the title of Illus
trations of Zoology, the publication of a series of his own
drawings (which he did not, however, himself engrave)
with corresponding letterpress. Of the thirty- six plates
illustrating this volume, a small folio, twenty are devoted to
Ornithology, and contain figures, which, it must be allowed,
are not very successful, of several species rare at the time.
Though the three works last mentioned fairly come
under the same category as the Planches Enluminees and
the Planches Coloriees, no one of them can be properly
deemed their rightful heirs. The claim to that succession
was made in 1845 by DES MURS for his Iconographie
Ornithologique, which, containing seventy-two plates by
Pre'vot and Oudart a (the latter of whom had marvellously
improved in his drawings since he worked with Vieillot),
was completed in 1849. Simultaneously with this Du
Bus began a work on a plan precisely similar, the Esquisses
OrnitJioloyiques, illustrated by Severeyns, which, however,
stopped short in 1849 with its thirty-seventh plate, while
the letterpress unfortunately does not go beyond that
belonging to the twentieth. In 1866 the succession was
again taken up by the Exotic Ornithology of Messrs SCLATER
and SALVIN, containing one hundred plates, representing
one hundred and four species, all from Central or South
America, which are neatly executed by Mr Smit. The
accompanying letterpress is in some places copious, and
useful lists of the species of various genera are occasionally
subjoined, adding to the definite value of the work, which,
forming one volume, was completed in 1869.
Lastly here must be mentioned ROWLEY'S Ornithological
Miscellany in three quarto volumes, profusely illustrated,
which appeared between 1875 and 1878. The contents
are as varied as the authorship, and, most of the leading
English ornithologists having contributed to the work,
some of the papers are extremely good, while in the plates,
which are in Mr Keulemans's best manner, many rare
species of Birds are figured, some of them for the first
time.
All the works lately named have been purposely treated
at some length, since being very costly they are not easily
accessible. The few next to be mentioned, being of smaller
size (octavo), may be within reach of more persons, and
1 On the title page credit is given to the latter alone, but only t\\o-
thirds of the plates (from pi, 25 to the end) bear his name.
therefore can be passed over in a briefer fashion without
detriment. In many ways, however, they are nearly as
important. SWAINSON'S Zoological Illustrations in three Sw;dnson.
volumes, containing one hundred and eighty-two plates,
whereof seventy represent Birds, appeared between 1820
and 1821, and in 1829 a Second Series of the same was
begun by him, which, extending to another three volumes,
contained forty-eight more plates of Birds out of one
hundred and thirty six, and was completed in 1833. All
the figures were drawn by the author, who as an ornitho
logical artist had no rival in his time. Every plate is not
beyond criticism, but his worst drawings shew more know
ledge of bird-life than do the best of his English or French
contemporaries. A work of somewhat similar character,
but one in which the letterpress is of greater value, is the
Centime Zooloyi'jue of LESSON, a single volume that, Lesson,
though bearing the date 1830 on its title page, is believed
to have been begun in 1829,2 and was certainly not
finished until 1831. It received the benefit of Isidore
Geoffroy St-Hilaire's assistance. Notwithstanding its name
it only contains eighty plates, but of them forty-two, all
by Pretre and in his usual stiff style, represent Birds.
Concurrently with this volume appeared Lesson's Traite
d'Ornitholoyie, which is dated 1831, and may perhaps be
here most conveniently mentioned. Its professedly system
atic form strictly relegates it to another group of works, but
the presence of an " Atlas " (also in octavo) of one hundred
and nineteen plates to some extent justifies its notice in this
place. Between 1831 and 1834 the same author brought
out, in continuation of his Centime, his Illustrations de
Zooloyie with sixty plates, twenty of which represent Birds.
In 1832 KITTLITZ began to publish some Kupfertafeln zur Kittlitz.
Naturyeschichte der Voyel, in which many new species are
figured ; but the work carne to an end with its thirty-sixth
plate in the following year. In 1845 REICHENBACH com- Reichen-
menced with his Praktische Naturyeschichte der Vijyel the kach.
extraordinary series of illustrated publications which, under
titles far too numerous here to repeat, ended in or about
1855, and are commonly known collectively as his Voll-
stdndiyste Naturyeschichte der Vogel? Herein are contained
more than nine hundred coloured and more than one
hundred uncoloured plates, which are crowded with the
figures of Birds, a large proportion of them reduced copies
from other works, and especially those of Gould.
It now behoves us to turn to general and particularly
systematic works in which plates, if they exist at all,
form but an accessory to the text. These need not
detain us for long, since, however well some of them
may have been executed, regard being had to their epoch,
and whatever repute some of them may have achieved,
they are, so far as general information and especially
classification is concerned, wholly obsolete, and most of
them almost useless except as matters of antiquarian
interest. It will be enough merely to name DUMERIL'S
Zooloyie Analytique(l806) and GRAVENHORST'S Veryleich-
ende Uebersicht des linneischen und einiyer neuern zooloyischen
Systeme (1807); nor need we linger over SHAW'S General shaw and
Zoology, a pretentious compilation continued by STEPHENS. Stephens.
The last seven of its fourteen volumes include the Class
Aves, and the first part of them appeared in 1809, but,
the original author dying in 1815, when only two volumes
of Birds were published, the remainder was brought to an
end in 1826 by his successor, who afterwards became well
known as an entomologist. The engravings which these
volumes contain are mostly bad copies, often of bad figures,
In 1828 he had brought out, under the title of Manuel d'Orni-
thologie, two handy duodecimos which are very good of their kind.
3 Technically speaking they are in quarto, but their size is so
small that they may be well spoken of here. In 1870 Dr A. B.
Meyer brought out an Index to them.
u
ORNITHOLOGY
though many are piracies from Bewick, and the whole is
a most unsatisfactory performance. Of a very different
kind is the next we have to notice, the Prodromus
linger. Systematis Mdmmalium et Ainum of ILLIGER, published at
Berlin in 1811, which must in its day have been a valu
able little manual, and on many points it may now be
consulted to advantage — the characters of the Genera
being admirably given, and good explanatory lists of the
technical terms of Ornithology furnished. The classifica
tion was quite new, and made a step distinctly in advance
Vieillot. of anything that had before appeared.1 In 1816 VIEILLOT
published at Paris an Analyse d'une nouvelle Ornithologie
elementaire, containing a method of classification which he
had tried in vain to get printed before, both in Turin and in
London.2 Some of the ideas in this are said to have been
taken from Illiger ; but the two systems seem to be wholly
distinct. Yieillot's was afterwards more fully expounded
in the series of articles which he contributed between
1816 and 1819 to the Second Edition of the Nouveau
Dictionnaire d'Histoire NatureUe containing much valuable
information. The views of neither of these systema-
Tem- tizers pleased TEMMINCK, who in 1817 replied rather
mitick. sharply to Vieillot in some Observations sur la Classification
mfthodique des Oiseaux, a pamphlet published at Amster
dam, and prefixed to the second edition of his Manuel
d' Ornithologie, which appeared in 1820, an Analyse du
Systeme General d" Ornithologie. This proved a great suc
cess, and his arrangement, though by no means simple,3
was not only adopted by many ornithologists of almost
every country, but still has some adherents. The follow-
Ranzani. ing year RANZAXI of Bologna, in his Elementi di Zoologia —
a very respectable compilation — came to treat of Birds,
and then followed to some extent the plan of De Blain
ville and Merrem (concerning which much more has to
be said by and by) placing the Struthious Birds in an
"VVagler. Order by themselves. In 1827 WAGLER brought out the
first part of a Systema Avium, in this form never com
pleted, consisting of forty-nine detached monographs of
as many genera, the species of which are most elaborately
described. The arrangement he subsequently adopted for
them and for other groups is 'to be found in his Natiirliches
System der Amphibien (pp. 77-128), published in 1830,
and is too fanciful to require any further attention. The
Kaup. several attempts at system-making by KATTP, from his
Allgemeine Zoologie in 1829 to his Ueber Classification der
Vogel in 1849, were equally arbitrary and abortive; but
his Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte in 1829 must be
here named, as it is so often quoted on account of the
number of new genera which the peculiar views he had
embraced compelled him to invent. These views he
shared more or less with Vigors and Swainson, and to
them attention will be immediately especially invited,
while consideration of the scheme gradually developed
1 Illiger may be considered the founder of the school of nomencla-
tural purists He would not tolerate any of the " barbarous " generic
terms adopted by other writers, though some had been in use for many
years.
2 The method was communicated to the Turin Acndemy,10th January
1814, and was ordered to be printed (Mem. Ac. Sc. Turin, 1813-14,
p. xxviii); but, through the derangements of that stormy period, the
order was never carrie'd out (Mem. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. xcvii).
The minute-bonk of the Linnean Society of London shews that his Pro-
bisio was read at meetings of that Society between 15th November 1814
and 21st February 1815. Why it was not at once accepted is not
told, but the entry respecting it, which must be of much later date, in
the " Register of Papers " is " Published already. " It is due to Vieillot
to mention these facts, as he has been accused of publishing his method
in haste to anticipate some of Cuvier's views, but he might well
complain of the delay in London. Some reparation has been made
to his memory by the reprinting of his Analyse, by the Willughby
Society.
3 He recognized sixteen Orders of Birds, while Vieiilot had been
content with five, and Illiger with seven.
from 1831 onward by CHARLES LUCIEN BONAPARTE, and Bona-
still not without its influence, is deferred until we come parte.
to treat of the rise and progress of what we may term the
reformed school of Ornithology. Yet injustice would be
done to one of the ablest of those now to be called the
old masters of the science if mention were not here made
of the Conspectus Generum Avium, begun in 1850 by the
naturalist last named, with the help of SCHLEGEL, and Schlege
unfortunately interrupted by its author's death six years
later.4 The systematic publications of GEORGE ROBERT G. i;.
GRAY, so long in charge of the ornithological collection of Gray,
the British Museum, began with A List of the Genera of
Birds published in 1810. This, having been closely,
though by no means in a hostile spirit, criticized by
STRICKLAND (Ann. Nat. History, vi. p. 410; vii. pp. 26 Strick-
and 159), was followed by a Second Edition in 1841, in lan(J-
which nearly all the corrections of the reviewer were
adopted, and in 1844 began the publication of The Genera
of Birds, beautifully illustrated — first by MITCHELL and
afterwards by Mr WOLF— which will always keep Gray's
name in remembrance. The enormous labour required
for this work seems scarcely to have been appreciated,
though it remains to this day one of the most useful books
in an ornithologist's library. Yet it must be confessed
that its author was hardly an ornithologist but for the
accident of his calling. He was a thoroughly conscientious
clerk, devoted to his duty and unsparing of trouble.
However, to have conceived the idea of executing a work
on so grand a scale as this — it forms three folio volumes,
and contains one hundred and eighty-five coloured and one
hundred and fi>rty-eight uncoloured plates, with references
to upwards of two thousand four hundred generic names —
was in itself a mark of genius, and it was brought to a suc
cessful conclusion in 1849, Costly as it necessarily was,
it has been of great service to working ornithologists. In
1855 Gray brought out, as one of the Museum publica
tions, A Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds,
a handy little volume, naturally founded on the larger
works. Its chief drawback is that it does not give any
more reference to the authority for a generic term than
the name of its inventor and the year of its application,
though of course more precise information would have at
least doubled the size of the book. The same deficiency
became still more apparent when, between 1869 and 1871,
he published his Hand-List of Genera and Species of Birds
in three octavo volumes (or parts, as they are called).
Never was a book better named, for the working ornitho
logist must almost live with it in his hand, and though
he has constantly to deplore its shortcomings, one of
which especially is the wrong principle on which its index
is constructed, he should be thankful that- such a work
exists. Many of its defects are, or perhaps it were better
said ought to be, supplied by GIEBEL'S Thesaurus Ornitho- Gk-bt-1.
logix, also in three volumes, published between 1872 and
1877, a work admirably planned, but the execution of
which, whether through the author's carelessness or the
printer's fault, or a combination of both, is lamentably
disappointing. Again and again it will afford the
enquirer who consults it valuable hints, but he must be
mindful never to trust a single reference in it until it has
been verified. It remains to warn the reader also that,
useful as are both this work and those of Gray, their
utility is almost solely confined to experts.
With the exception to which reference has just been
made, scarcely any of the ornithologists hitherto named
indulged their imagination in theories or speculations.
Nearly all were content to prosecute their labours in a
plain fashion consistent with common sense, plodding
4 To this very indispensable work
1805 by Dr Finsch.
index was supplied in
ORNITHOLOGY
15
Quinary
svstem.
"
steadily onwards in their efforts to describe and group the
various species of Birds, as one after another they were
made known. But this was not always to be, and
now a few words must be said respecting a theory
which was promulgated with great zeal by its upholders
during the end of the first and early part of the second
quarter of the present century, and for some years seemed
likely to carry all before it. The success it gained was
doubtless due in some degree to the difficulty which most
men had in comprehending it, for it was enwrapped in
alluring mystery, but more to the confidence with which
it was announced as being the long looked-for key to the
wonders of creation, since its promoters did not hesitate to
term it the discovery of " the Natural System," though
they condescended, by way of explanation to less exalted
intellects than their own, to allow it the more moderate
appellation of the Circular or Quinary System.
A comparison of the relation of created beings to a number of
intersecting circles is as old as the days of NIKREMBERG, who in
1635 wrote (Historic Naturte,, lib. iii. cap. 3) — " Xullus hiatus est,
nulla fractio, nulla dispersio formarum, inviccm connexa snnt velut
annulus aimulo"; but it is almost clear that he was thinking only
of a chain. In 1806 FISCHER, DE WALDHEIM, in his Tableaux
Synoptiques de -oognosic (p. 181), quoting Nieremberg, extended
his figure of speech, and, while justly deprecating the notion that
the scries of forms belonging to any particular group of creatures —
the Mammalia was that whence he took his instance— could be
placed in a straight line, imagined the various genera to be arrayed
in a series of contiguous circles around Man as a centre. Though
there is nothing to shew that Fischer intended, by what is here
said, to do anything else than illustrate more fully the marvellous
interconnexion of different animals, or that he attached any realistic
meaning to his metaphor, his words were eagerly caught up by the
prophet of the new faith. This was WILLIAM SHAUPE MACLEAY,
a man of education and real genius, who in 1819 and 1821 brought
out a work under the title of HoriK Entomologies, which was soon
after hailed by VIGORS as containing a new revelation, and applied
by him to Ornithology in some " Observations on the Natural
Affinities that connect the Orders and Families of Birds," read
before the Linnean Society of London in 1823, and afterwards
published in its Transactions (xiv. pp. 395-517). In the following
year Vigors returned to the subject in some papers published in the
recently established Zoological Journal, and found an energetic
condisciple and coadjutor in SWAINSOX, who, for more than a
dozen years — to the end, in fact, of his career as an ornithological
writer— was instant in season and out of season in pressing on all
his readers the views he had, through Vigors, adopted from
Macleay, though not without some modification of detail if not of
principle. What these views were it would be manifestly improper
tor a sceptic to state except in the terms of a believer. Their
enunciation must therefore be given in Swainson's own words,
though it must be admitted that space cannot be found here for
the diagrams, which it was alleged were necessary for the right
understanding of the theory. This theory, as originally pro
pounded by Macleay, was said by Swainson in 1835 (Gcogr. and
Classific. of Animals, p. 202) to have consisted of the following
propositions i1 —
" 1. That the series of natural animals is continuous, forming,
as it were, a ci'/cle ; so that, upon commencing at any one given
poii v, and thence tracing all the modifications of structure, we
shall be imperceptibly led, after passing through numerous forms,
again to the point from which we started.
" 2. That no groups are natural which do not exhibit, or show
an evident tendency to exhibit, such a circular scries.
" 3. That the primary divisions of every large group are ten, five
of which are composed of comparatively large circles, and five of
smaller : these latter being termed osculant, and being intermediate
between the former, which they serve to connect.
" 4. That there is a tendency in such groups as are placed at the
opposite points of a circle of affinity 'to meet each other.'
" 5. That one of the five larger groups into which every natural
circle is divided ' bears a resemblance to all the rest, or, more strictly
speaking, consists of types which represent those of each of the four
other groups, together with a type peculiar to itself.' ''
As subsequently modified by Swainson (torn. tit. pp. 224, 225),
the foregoing propositions take the following form :—
" L That every natural series of beings, in its progress from
1 We prefer giving them here in Swainson's version, because he
seems to have set them forth more clearly and concisely than Macleay
ever did, and, moreover, Swainson's application of them to Ornithology
— a branch of science that lay outside of Macleay's proper studies —
appears to be more suitable to the present occasion.
a given point, cither actually returns, or evinces a tendency to
return, again to that point, thereby forming a circle.
"II. The primary circular divisions of every group are three
actually, or five apparently.
"III. The contents of such a circular group are symbolically (or
analogically) represented by the contents of all other circles in the
animal kingdom.
" IV. That these primary divisions of every group are character
ized by definite peculiarities of form, structure, and economy,
which, under diversified modifications, are uniform throughout the
animal kingdom, and are therefore to be regarded as the PRIMARY
TYPES OF N ATTIRE.
" V. That the different ranks or degrees of circular groups
exhibited in the animal kingdom are NINE in number, each being
involved within the other."
Though, as above stated, the theory here promulgated owed its
temporary success chiefly to the extraordinary assurance and perti
nacity with which it was urged upon a public generally incapable
of understanding what it meant, that it received some support from
men of science must be admitted. A " circular system " was
advocated by the eminent botanist FRIES, and the views of Macleay
met with the partial approbation of the celebrated entomologist
KIKKY, while at least as much may be said of the imaginative
OKEN, whose mysticism far surpassed that of the Quinarians. But
it is obvious to every one who nowadays indulges in the profitless
pastime of studying their writings that, as a whole, they failed in
grasping the essential difference between homology (or "affinity, "
as they generally termed it) and analogy (which is only a learned
name for an uncertain kind of resemblance)— though this difference
had been fully understood and set forth by Aristotle himself — and,
moreover, that in seeking for analogies on which to base their
foregone conclusions they were often put to hard shifts. Another
singular fact is that they often seemed to be totally unaware of the
tendency if not the meaning of some of their own expressions : thus
Macleay could write, and doubtless in perfect good faith (Trans.
Linn. Society, xvi. p. 9, note), "Naturalists have nothing to do
with mysticism, and but little with a priori reasoning." Yet his
followers, if not he himself, were ever making use of language in
the highest degree metaphorical, and were always explaining facts
in accordance with preconceived opinions. FLEMING, already the Fleming,
author of a harmless and extremely orthodox Philosophy of Zoology,
pointed out in 1829 in the Quarterly Review (-xli. pp. 302-327)
some of the fallacies of Macleay's method, and in return provoked
from him a reply, in the form of a letter addressed to Vigors On
the Dying Struggle of the Dichotomous System, couched in language
the force of which no one even at the present day can deny, though
to the modern naturalist its invective power contrasts ludicrously
with the strength of its ratiocination. But, confining ourselves to
what is here our special business, it is to be remarked that perhaps
the heaviest blow dealt at these strange doctrines was that delivered
by RENNIE, who, in an edition of Montagu's Ornithological
Dictionary (pp. xxxiii-lv), published in 1831 and again issued in
1833, attacked the Quinary System, and especially its application
to Ornithology by Vigors and Swainson, in a way that might,
perhaps have demolished it, had not the author mingled with his
undoubtedly sound reasoning much that is foreign to any question
with which a naturalist, -as such, ought to deal — though that
herein he was only following the example of one of his opponents,
who had constantly treated the subject in like manner, is to be
allowed. This did not hinder Swainson, who had succeeded in
getting the ornithological portion of the first zoological work ever
published at the expense of the British Government (namely, the
Fauna Borcali- Americana] executed in accordance with his own
opinions, from maintaining them more strongly than ever in
several of the volumes treating of Natural History which he con
tributed to the Cabinet Cydopxdia — among others that from which
we have just given some extracts — and in what may be deemed the
culmination in England of the Quinary System, the volume of the
" Naturalist's Library " on The Natural Arrangement and History
of Flycatchers, published in 1838, of which unhappy performance
mention has already been made in this present work (vol. ix. p.
350, note). This seems to have been his last attempt ; for, two
years later, his Bibliography of Zoology shows little trace of his
favourite theory, though nothing he had uttered in its support was
retracted. Appearing almost simultaneously with this work, an
article by STRICKLAND (Mag. Nat. History, ser. 2. iv. pp. 219-226) Strick-
entitled Observations upon the Affinities and Analogies of Organ- land.
ized Beings administered to the theory a shock from which it
never recovered, though attempts were now and then made by its
adherents to revive it ; and, even ten years or more later, KAUP,
one of the few foreign ornithologists who had embraced Quinary
principles, was by mistaken kindness allowed to publish Mono
graphs of the Birds-of-Prey (Jardine's Contributions to Ornithology.
1849, pp. 68-75, 96-121; 1850, pp. 51-80; 1851, pp. 119-130;
1852, pp. 103-122 ; and Trans. Zool. Society, iv. pp. 201-260), in
which its absurdity reached the climax.
The mischief caused bv this theorv of a Quinary System was
16
ORNITHOLOGY
very great, but was chiefly confined to Britain, for (as has boon
already stated) the extraordinary views of its adherents found little
favour on the continent of Europe. The purely artificial character
of the System of Linmeus and his successors had been perceived,
and men were at a loss to find a substitute for it. The new doctrine,
loudly proclaiming the discovery of a " Natural " System, led away
many from the steady practice which should have followed the
teaching of Cuvier (though he in Ornithology had not been able to
act up to the principles he had lain down) and from the extended
study of Comparative Anatomy. Moreover, it veiled the honest
attempts that were making both in France and Germany to find
real grounds for establishing an improved state of things, and con
sequently the labours of DK BLAIXVILLK, &HENNE, GEOFFIH»Y ST-
HILAIRE, and L'HEiiMiNiEu, of MKUUEM, JOHANNES MULLEK, i
and NrrzsfH — to say nothing of others— were almost wholly un
known on this side' of the Channel, and even the value of the
investigations of British ornithotomists of high merit, such as I
MACARTNEY and MACGILLIVKAY, was almost completely over
looked. True it is that there were not wanting other men in these
islands whose common sense refused to accept the metaphorical
doctrine and the mystical jargon of the Quinarians, but so strenu
ously and persistently had the latter asserted their infallibility, and
so vigorously had they assailed any who ventured to doubt it, that
most peaceable ornithologists found it be>t to bend to the furious
blast, and in some sort to acquiesce at least in the phraseology of
the self-styled interpreters of Creative Will. But, while thus
lamenting this unfortunate perversion into a mistaken channel of
ornithological energy, we must not over-blame those who caused it.
Macleay indued never pretended to a high position in this branch
of science, his tastes lying in the direction of Entomology; but few j
of their countrymen knew more of Birds than did Swainson in id
Vigors; and, while the latter, as editor for many years of the
Zoological Journal, and the first Secretary of the Zoological Society,
has especial claims to the regard of all zoologists, so the former's
indefatigable pursuit of Natural History, and conscientious labour
in its behalf — among other ways by means of his graceful pencil —
deserve to be remembered as a set-off against the injury he unwit
tingly caused.
Faunae. It is now incumbent upon us to take a rapid survey
of the ornithological works which come more or less under
the designation of " Faunae "; l but these are so numerous
that it will be necessary to limit this survey, as before
indicated, to those countries alone which form the homes
of English people, or are commonly visited by them in
ordinary travel.
Beginning with our Antipodes, it is hardly needful to go further
New back than Mr Buller's beautiful Birds of New Zcalaiul (4to,
Zealand. 1872-73), with coloured plates, by Mr Keulemans, since the publi
cation of which the same author has issued a Manual of the
Birds of New Zealand (8vo, 1882), founded on the former; but
justice requires that mention be made of the labours of G. R.
Gray, first in the Appendix to Dieffenbach's Travels in New
Zealand (1843) and then in the ornithological portion of the. Zoology
of the Voyaye of H.M.S. "Erebus " and " Terror," begun in 1864,
but left unfinished from the following year until completed by
Mr Sharpe in 1876. A considerable number of valuable papers
on the Ornithology of the country by Drs Hector and Von Haast,
Prof. Hutton, Mr Potts, and others are to be found in the Trans
actions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.
Australia. Passing to Australia, we have the first good description of some
of its Birds in the several old voyages and in Latham's works before
mentioned (pages 6 and 8). Shaw's Zoology <>f New Holland (4to,
1794) ad led those of a few more, as did J. W. Lewin's Natural
History of the Birds of New South Wales (4to, 1822), which reached
a third edition in 1838. Gould's great Birds of Australia has been
already named, and he subsequently reproduced with some additions
the text of that work under the title of Handbook to the Birds of
Australia (2 vols. 8vo, 1865). In 1866 Mr Diggles commenced a
similar publication, The Ornithology of Australia, but the coloured
plates, though fairly drawn, are not comparable to those of his pre
decessor. This is still incomplete, though the parts that have
appeared have been collected to form two volumes and issued with
title-pages. Some notices of Austialian Birds by Mr Ramsay and
otlurs arc to be found in the Proce&linf/s of the Limitean Sodcty ff
New Mouth Wales and of the Royal Society <>f Tasmania.
Ceylon. Coming to our Indian possessions, and beginning with Ceylon,
we have Kelaart's Prodronus Faunae, Zcyhmioe (8vo, 1852), and
the admirable Birds of Ceylon by Capt. Legge (4to, 1878-80), with
coloured plates by Mr Keulemans of all the peculiar species. It is
hardly possible to name any book that has been more conscien-
India. tiously executed than this. In regard to continental India many
1 A very useful list of more general scope is given as the Appendix
to an address by Mr Sclater to tiie British Association in 1875 (Report,
pt. ii. pp. 114-133).
of the more important publications have been named in a former
article (BiRDS, iii. pp. 762, 763), and since that was written the
chief work that lias appeared is Blyth's Mammals and Birds of
Burma (Svo, 1875).- Jerdon's Birds of India (Svo, 1862-64; re
printed 1877) still reigns supreme as the sole comprehensive work
on the Ornithology of the Peninsula. A very fairly executed
compilation on the subject by an anonymous writer is to be found
in a late edition of the Cyclopaedia of India published at Madras.
It is needless to observe that Stray Feathers, an ornithological
journal for India and its dependencies, and maintained with much
spirit by Mr A. O. Hume, contains many interesting and sonic
valuable papers.
In regard to South Africa, besides the well-known work of
Le Vaillant already mentioned, there is the second volume of Sir
Andrew Smith's Illustrations if the Zoology of .South Africa (4to,
1838-42), which is devoted to birds. This is an important but
cannot be called a satisfactory work. Its one hundred and four
teen plates by Ford truthfully represent one hundred and twenty-
two of the mounted specimens obtained by the author in his
explorations into the interior. Mr Layard's handy Birds of South
Africa (Svo, 1867), though by ho means free from faults, has
much to recommend it. A so-called new edition of it by Mr
Sharpe has since appeared (1875-84), but is executed on a plan
so wholly different that it must be regarded as a distinct work.
Andersson's Notes on the Birds of Damara Land (Svo, 1S72) has
been carefully edited by Mr Gurney, whose knowledge of South-
African ornithology is perhaps greater than that of any one else.
It is much to be regretted that of the numerous sporting books
that treat of this part of the world so few give any important
information respecting the Birds.
Of special works relating to the British \\rest Indies, Waterton's
well-known Wanderings has passed through several editions since
its first appearance in 1825, and must be mentioned here, though,
strictly speaking, much of the country he traversed was not British
territory. To Dr Cabanis we are indebted for the ornithological
results.of Richard Schomburgh's researches given in the third volume
(pp. 662-765) of the latter' a Ilciscn irn Britisch- Guiana (Svo, 1848).
and then in Leotaud's Oiscau.v de Tile de la Trinidad (Svo,
1S66). Of the Antilles there is only to be named Mr Gosse's
excellent Birds of Jamaica (12mo, 1847), together with its Illustra
tions (sm. fol. , 1849) beautifully executed by him. A nominal
list, with references, of the Birds of the island is contained in the
Handbook of Jamaica for 1S81 (pp. 103-117).
So admirable a " List of Faunal Publications relating to North
American Ornithology" up to the year 1878 has been given by Dr
Cones as an appendix to his Birds of the Colorado Valley (pp. 567-
784) that nothing more of the kind is wanted except to notice the
chief separate works which have since appeared. These may be
said to be Mr Stearns's New England Bird Life (2 vols. Svo,
1881-83), revised by Dr Coues, and the several editions of his own
Check List of North, American Birds (Svo, 1SS2), and Key to North
American Birds (1884) ; while it maybe added that the conclud
ing volumes of the North American Birds of Prof. Baird, the late
Dr Brewer, and Mr Ridgway (the first three of which were pub
lished in 1874) are expected to be issued about the time that these
lines will meet the reader's eye. Yet some of the older works are
still of sufficient importance to be especially mentioned here, and
especially that of Alexander Wilson, whose American Ornithology,
originally published between 1808 and 1814, has gone through more
editions than there is room to specify, though mention should bo
made of those issued in Great Britain, by Jameson (4 vols. 16mo,
1831), and Jardirie (3 vols. Svo, 1S32). The former of these has
the entire text, but no plates ; the latter reproduces the. plates, but
the text is in places much condensed, and excellent notes are added.
A continuation of Wilson's work, under the same title and on the
same plan, was issued by Bonaparte between 1825 and 1833, and
most of the later editions include the work of both authors. The
works of Audubon, Avith their continuations by Cassin and Mr
Elliot, and the Fauna Boreali- Americana of Richardson and
Swainson have already been noticed (pages 11 and 15); but they
need naming here, as also does Nuttall's Manual of the Ornithology
of the United States ami of Canada (2 vols., 1832-34 ; 2d ed., 1840) ;
the Birds of Long Island (Svo, 1S44) by Giraud, remarkable for
its excellent account of the habits of shore-birds ; and of course the
Birds of North America (4to, 1858) by Prof. Baird, with the co
operation of Cassin and Mr Lawrence, which originally formed a
volume (ix. ) of what are known as the "Pacific Railroad Reports.''
Apart from these special works the scientific journals of Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, and Washington contain innumerable
papers on the Ornithology of the country, while in 1876 the
Bulletin of t/ic Nuttall Ornithological Club began to appear and
continued until 1884, when it was superseded by The Auk, estab
lished solely for the promotion of Ornithology in America, and
- This is a posthumous publication, nominally forming an extra
number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society; but, since it was separ
ately issued, it is entitled to notice here.
South
Africa.
West
Indies
North
Ameri
17
numbering among its supporters almost every American ornitholo
gist of repute, its editors being Messrs Allen, Coues, Ridgway,
Brewster, and Chamberlain.
Returning to the Old World, among the countries whose Orni
thology will most interest British readers we have first Iceland,
the fullest — indeed the only full — account of the Birds of which is
Faber's Prodromus dcr isldndisdi.cn Ornithologic (8vo, 1822), though
the island has since been visited by several good ornithologists, —
Proctor, Kriipcr, and Wolley among them. A list of its Birds, with
some notes, bibliographical and biological, has been given as an
Appendix to Mr Baring-Gould's Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas (8vo,
1802); and Mr Shepherd's North-west Peninsula of Iceland (Svo,
1867) recounts a somewhat profitless expedition made thither
expressly for ornithological objects. For the Birds of the Freroes
there is'Herr II. C. Miiller's Fser'oerncs Fuglcfauna (Svo, 1862), of
which a German translation has appeared.1 The Ornithology of
Norway has been treated in a great many papers by II err Collett,
some of which may be said to have been separately published as
Norgcs Fuylc (Svo, 1868 ; with a supplement, 1871), and The
Ornithology of Northern Norway (Svo, 1872)— this last in English.
For Scandinavia generally the latest work is Herr Collin's
Skandinavicns Fugle (Svo, 1873), being a greatly bettered edition of j
the very moderate Danmarks Fugle of Kjan-bblling ; but the orni
thological portion of Nilsson's Skandinavisk Fauna, Foglarna
(3d ed., 2 vols. Svo, 1858) is of great merit; while the text of
Sundevall's Svcnska Foglarna (obi. fol., 1856-73), unfortunately
unfinished at his death, and Herr Holmgren's Skandinaviens Foglar
(2 vols. Svo, 1866-75) deserve naming.
Works on the Birds of Germany are far too numerous to be
recounted. That of the two Naumanns, already mentioned, and
yet again to be spoken of, stands at the head of all, and perhaps at
the head of the "Faunal" works of all countries. For want of
space it must here suffice simply to name some of the ornitholo
gists who in this century have elaborated, to an extent elsewhere
unknown, the science as regards their own country : — Alturn,
Baldamus, Bcchstein, Blasius (father and two sons), Bolle,
Borggreve, whose fogel-Fauna von Norddcutschland (Svo, 1869)
contains what is practically a bibliographical index to the subject,
Brehm (father and sons), Arou Droste, Gatke, Gloger, Hint/, Alex
ander and Eugen von Homeyer, Ja'ckel, Koch, Kb'nig-Wart-
hausen, Kriiper, Kutter, Landbeck, Landois, Leisler, Von Maltzan,
Bernard Meyer, Yon der Miihle, Neumann, Tobias, Joliann Wolf,
and Zander.'2 Were we to extend the list beyond the boundaries
of the German empire, and include the ornithologists of Austria,
Bohemia, and the other states subject to the same monarch, the
number would be nearly doubled ; but that would overpass our pro
posed limits, though Herr von Pelzeln must be named.3 Passing
onward to Switzerland, we must content ourselves by referring to
the list of works, forming a Bibliographia Ornithologica Helvetica,
drawn up by Dr Stolker for Dr Fatio's Bulletin de la Societe Ornitho-
logiquc HJuissc (ii. pp. 90-119). As to Italy, we can but name here
the Fauna d' Italia, of which the second part, Uccclli (Svo, 1872),
by Count Salvador!, contains an excellent bibliography of Italian
works on the subject, and the posthumously published Orni-
tologia Italiana of Savi (3 vols. Svo, 1873-77). 4 Coming to the
Iberian peninsula, we must in default of separate works depart
. from our rule of not mentioning contributions to journals, for of
the former there are only Col. Irby's Ornithology of the Straits of
Gibraltar (Svo, 1S75) and Mr A. C. Smith's Spring Tour in
Portugal5 to be named, and these only partially cover the ground.
However, Ur A. E. Brehm lias published a list of Spanish Birds
(Allgem. deutsche Naturhist. Zcitung, iii. p. 431), and 2 lie Ib iy con
tains several excellent papers by Lord Lilford and by Mr Sauuders,
the latter of whom there records (1871, p. 55) the few works on
Ornithology by Spanish authors, and in the Bulletin de la Societe
Zoologiquc dc France (i. p. 315; ii. pp. 11, 89, 185) has given a list
of the Spanish Birds known to him.
Returning northwards, we have of the Birds of the whole of
France nothing of real importance more recent than the volume
1 Journal fur Ornithologie, 1869, pp. 107, 341, 381. One may almost say an
English translation also, for Major Keilden's contribution to the Zoologist for
1872 on the same subject gives the most essential part of Herr Muller's infor
mation.
2 This is of course no complete list of German ornithologists. Some of the
most eminent of them have written scarcely a line on the Birds of their own
country, as Cabanis (editor since 1853 of the Journal fur Ornithologie), b'insch,
llartlaub, Prince Max of Wied, A. 15. Meyer, Nathusius, Nehrkorn, Keichcnbach,
Ileiclienow, nnd Sclialow among others.
3 A useful ornithological bibliography of the Austrian-Hungarian dominions W;is
printed in the Verliandhingen of the Zoological and Botanical Society of Vienna
for 1878. by Victor Hitter von Tschusi zu Schmidhofen. A similar bibliography
of Russian Ornithology by Alexander Brandt was printed at St Petersburg in
1877 or 1878.
4 A useful compendium of Greek and Turkish Ornithology by Drs Kriiper and
llartlaub is contained in Mommsen's Griechische Jahrzeiten for 1875 (Heft III.).
For other countries in the Levant there are Canon Tristram's Fauna and Flora
of Palestine (4ro, 1884) and Capt, Shellev's Handbook to the Birds of Egypt (Svo,
187.').
5 In the final chapter of this work the author gives a list of Portuguese Birds,
including besides those observed by him those recorded by Prof. Barboza du
liocago in the Gazeta ifeJica de Lisboa, 18(51, pp. 17-21
Oiscaux in Yieillot's Fauna, Franqaise (Svo, 1822-29) ; but there is
a great number of local publications of which Mr Saunders has
furnished (Zoologist, 1878, pp. 95-99) a catalogue. Some of these
seem only to have appeared in journals, but many have certainly
been issued separately. Those of most interest to English orni
thologists naturally refer to Britanny, Normandy, and Picanly, and
are by Baillon, Benoist, Blandin, Bureau, Canivet, Chesnon,
Degland, Demarle, De Norguet, Gentil, Hardy, Lemetteil, Lemon-
nicier, Lesauvage, Maignon, Marcotte, Nourry, and Tasle, while
perhaps the Ornithologic Parisicnne of M. Rene Paquet, under the
pseudonym of Neree Quepat, should also be named. Of the rest
the most important are the Ornithologie Prorencalc of Roux (2 vols.
4to, 1825-29) ; Risso's Histoire naturcllc .... dcs environs de
Nice (5 vols. Svo, 1826-27) ; the Ornithologie du Dauphine of
Bouteille and Labatie (2 vols. Svo, 1843-44) ; the Faune Mcri-
dionaleot Crespou (2 vols. Svo, 1844) ; the Ornithologic dc la Saroic
of Bailly (4 vols. Svo, 1853-54), and Lcs Richesscs ornithologiqucs
du midi dc la France (4to, 1859-61) of MM. Jaubert and
Barthulcmy-Lapommeraye. For Belgium i\icFaunc Beige of Baron Belgium.
De Selys-Longchamps (Svo, 1842), old as it is, remains the classical
work, though the Planches colorucs dcs Oiscaux de la Bclgique of
M. Dubois (Svo, 1851-60) is so much later in date. In regard to
Holland we have Schlegel's De Vogcls van Ncderland (3 vols. 8vo, Holland.
1854-58 ; 2d ed. , 2 vols., 187S), besides his Dc Dieren van Ncder
land : Vogcls (Svo, 1861).
Before considering the ornithological works relating solely to the Europe ii
British Islands, it may be well to cast a glance on a few of those general,
that refer to Europe in general, the more so since most of them
are of Continental origin. First we have the already-mentioned
Manuel d' Ornithologic of Temminck, which originally appeared as
a single volume in 1815 ;6 but that was speedily superseded by the
second edition of 1820, in two volumes. Two supplementary parts
were issued in 1835 and 1840 respectively, and the work for many
years deservedly maintained the highest position as the authority
on European Ornithology — indeed in England it may almost
without exaggeration be said to have been nearly the only foreign
ornithological work known ; but, as could only be expected, grave
defects are now to be discovered in it. Some of them were already
manifest when one of its author's colleagues, Schlegel (who had
beeii employed to write the text for Susemihl's plates, originally
intended to illustrate Temminck's work), brought out his bilingual
Revue critique dcs Oiscaux d' Europe (Svo, 1844), a very remarkable
volume, since it correlated and consolidated the labours of French
and German, to say nothing of Russian, ornithologists. Of Gould's
Birds of Europe (5 vols. fol., 1832-37) nothing need be added to
what has been already said. The year 1849 saw the publication
of Degland's Ornithologic Europccnne (2 vols. 8vo), a work fully
intended to take the place of Temminck's; but of which Bonaparte,
in a caustic but by no means ill-deserved Revue Critique (12mo,
1850), said that the author had performed a miracle since he had
worked without a collection of specimens and without a library.
A second edition, revised by M. Gerbe (2 vols. Svo, 1867), strove to
remedy, and to some extent did remedy, the grosser errors of the
first, but enough still remain to make few statements in the work
trustworthy unless corroborated by other evidence. Meanwhile in
England D"r Bree had in 1858 begun the publication of The £irdi
(5 vols.).
on the "Especes 11011 observers en Belgiqne, being supplemen
tary to that of his above named. In 1870 Dr Fritsuh completed
his Naturgcschichte dcr Vogcl Europas (8vo, with atlas in folio);
and in 1871 Messrs Sharpe and Dresser began the publication of
their Birds of Europe, which was completed by the latter in 1879
(8 vols. 4to), and is unquestionably the most complete work of its
kind, both for fulness of information and beauty of illustration—
the coloured plates being nearly all by Mr Keulemans, or when
not by him from the hardly inferior hand of Mr Neale. In so
huge an undertaking mistakes and omissions are of course to be
found if any one likes the invidious task of seeking for them;
but many of'the errors imputed to this work prove on investigation
to refer to matters of opinion and not to matters of fact, while
many more are explicable if we remember that while the work was
in progress Ornithology was being prosecuted with unprecedented
activity, and thus statements which were in accordance with the
best information at the beginning of the period were found to need
modification before it was ended. As a whole European ornitho
logists are all but unanimously grateful to Mr Dresser for the
way in which he performed the enormous labour lie had under
taken.
Coming now to works on British Birds only, the first of the British
present century that requires remark is Montagu's Ornithological Isles.
Dictionary (2 vols. Svo, 1802 ; supplement 1813), the merits of
which have been so long and so fully acknowledged both abroad
and at home that no further comment is here wanted. In 1831
c Copies are said to exist bearing the date 1S14.
XVIIT. - 3
18
Rennie brought out a modified edition of it (reissued in 1833), and
Newman another in 1866 (reissued in 1883); but those who wish
to know the author's views had better consult the original. Next
in order come the very inferior British Ornithology of Graves
(3 vols. 8vo, 1811-21), and a work with the same title by Hunt
(3 vols. 8vo, 1815-22), published at Norwich, but never finished.
Then we have Selby's Illustrations of- British Ornithology, two
folio volumes of coloured plates engraved by himself, between 1821
and 1833, with letterpress also in two volumes (Svo, 1825-33), a
second edition of the fir.*,t volume being also issued (1833), for the
author, having yielded to the pressure of the " Quinarian " doctrines
then in vogue, thought it necessary to adjust his classification
accordingly, and it must be admitted that for information the.
second edition is best. In 1828 Fleming brought out his History
of British Animals (Svo), in which the Birds are treated at con
siderable length (pp. 41-146), though not with great success. In
1835 Mr Jenyns (now Blometield) produced an excellent Manual
of British Vertebrate Animals, a volume (Svo) executed with great
scientific skill, the Birds again receiving due attention (pp. 49-286),
and the descriptions of the various species being as accurate as they
are terse. In the same year began the Coloured Illustrations of
British Birds and their Eggs of H. L. Meyer (4to), which was
completed in 1843, whereof a second edition (7 vols. Svo, 1842-50)
was brought out, and subsequently (1852-57) a reissue of the
latter. In 1836 appeared Ey ton's History of the rarer British
Birds, intended as a sequel to Bewick's well-known volumes, to
which no important additions had been made since the issue of
1821. The year 1837 saw the beginning of two remarkable works
by Macgiliivray and Yarrell respectively, and each entituled A
History of British Birds. Of the first, undoubtedly the more
original and in many respects the more minutely accurate, mention
will again have to be made (page 24), and, save to state that its five
volumes were not completed till 1852, nothing more needs now to
be added. The second has unquestionably become the standard
work on British Ornithology, a fact due in part to its numerous
illustrations, many of them indeed ill drawn, though all carefully
engraved, but much more to the breadth of the author's views and
the judgment with which they were set forth. In practical acquaint
ance with the internal structure of Birds, and in the perception of
its importance in classification, he was certainly not behind his
rival ; but he well knew that the British public in a Book of Birds
not only did not want a series of anatomical treatises, but would
even resent their intrO'luction. He had the art to conceal his art,
and his work was therefore a success, while the other was unhappily
a failure. Yet with all his knowledge he was deficient in some of
the qualities which a great naturalist ought to possess. His concep
tion of what his work should be seems to have been perfect, his
execution was not equal to the conception. However, he was not
the first nor will he be the last to fall short in this respect. For
him it. must be said that, whatever may have been done by the
generation of British ornithologists' now becoming advanced in life,
he educated them to do it ; nay, his influence even extends to a
younger generation still, though they may hardly be aware of it.
Of Yarrell's work in three volumes, a second edition was published
in 1845, a third in 1856, and a fourth, begun in 1871, and almost
wholly rewritten, is still unfinished. Of the compilations based
upon this work, without which they could not have been composed,
there is no need to speak. One of the few appearing since, with
the same scope, that arc not borrowed is Jardine's Birds of Great
Britain and Ireland (4 vols. Svo, 1838-43), forming part of his
Naturalist's Library ; and Gould's Birds of Great Britain has been
already mentioned.*
A considerable number .of local works deserving of notice have
also to be named. The first three volumes of Thompson's Natural
History of Ireland (Svo, 1849-51) contain an excellent account of
the Birds of that island, and Mr Watters's Birds of Ireland (Svo,
1853) has also to be mentioned. For North Britain there is Mi-
Robert Gray's Birds of the West of Scotland (Svo, 1871), which
virtually is an account of those of almost the whole of that part of
the kingdom. To these may be added Dunn's Ornithologist's Guide
to Orkney and Shetland (8vo, 1837), the unfinished Historia
Natural™ Orcat.lcnsisof Baikieand Heddle (Svo, 1S48), and Saxby's
Birds of Shetland (Svo, 1874), while the sporting works of Charles
St John contain much information on the Ornithology of the
Highlands.2 The loc"al works on English Birds arc still more
numerous, but among them may be especially named Dillwyn's
Fauna and Flora of Swansea (1848), Mr Knox's Ornithological
Rambles in Sussex (1849), Mr Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk
(1866-70), Mr Cecil Smith's Birds of Somerset (1869) and Birds of
1 Though contravening our plan, we must for its great merits notice
here Mr More's series of papers in The Ibis for 1865, " On the Distri
bution of Birds in Great Britain during the Nesting Season."
2 Did onr scheme permit us, we should be glad to mention in detail
the various important communications on Scottish Birds of Alston,
Messrs Bnrkley, Harvie-Brown, Lum.iden, and others.
Guernsey (1879), Mr Cordeanx's Birds of the Humbcr District
(1872), Mr John Hancock's Birds of Northumberland and Durham
(1874), Tlic Birds of Nottinghamshire by Messrs Sterland and
Whitaker (1879), Rodd's Bird's of Cornwall edited by Mr Harting
(1S80), and the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire (1881), of which the
" Birds" arc by Mr W. E. Clarke.
The good effects of " Faunal " works such as those
named in the foregoing rapid survey none can doubt.
" Every kingdom, every province, should have its own
monographer," wrote Gilbert White more than one hundred
years ago, and experience has proved the truth of his
assertion. In a former article (Bmr»s, iii. pp. 73G-7G4)
the attempt has been made to shew how the labours of
monographers of this kind, but on a more extended scale,
can be brought together, and the valuable results that
thence follow. Important as they are, they do not of
themselves constitute Ornithology as a science ; and an
enquiry, no less wide and far more recondite, still remains.
By whatever term we choose to call it — Classification,
Arrangement, Systematizing, or Taxonomy — that enquiry
which has for its object the discovery of the natural
groups into which Birds fall, and the mutual relations of
those groups, has always been one of the deepest interest,
and to it we must now recur.
But nearly all the authors above named, it will have
been seen, trod the same ancient paths, and in the works
of scarcely one of them had any new spark of intelligence
been struck out to enlighten the gloom which surrounded
the investigator. It is now for us to trace the rise of the
present more advanced school of ornithologists whose
'abours, preliminary as we must still regard them to be,
yet give signs of far greater promise. It would probably
be unsafe to place its origin further back than a few
scattered hints contained in the " Pterographische Frag-
mente " of CHRISTIAN LUDWIG NITZSCII, published in the Nitzsck
^fctf/azin fur den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde (edited
by Voigt) for May 1806 (xi. pp. 393-417), and even these
might be left to pass unnoticed, were it not that we recog
nize in them the germ of the great work which the same
admirable zoologist subsequently accomplished. In these
"Fragments," apparently his earliest productions, we find
him engaged on the subject with which his name will
always be especially identified, the structure and arrange
ment of the feathers that form the proverbial characteristic
of Birds. But, though the observations set forth in this
essay were sufficiently novel, there is not much in them
that at the time would have attracted attention, for
perhaps no one — not even the author himself — could have
then foreseen to what important end they would, in con
junction with other investigations, lead future naturalists ;
but they are marked by the same close and patient deter
mination that eminently distinguishes all the work of their
author ; and, since it will be necessary for us to return to
this part of the subject later, there is here no need to say
more of them. In the following year another set of hints —
of a kind so different that probably no one then living would
have thought it possible that they should ever be brought
in correlation with those of Nitzsch — are contained in
a memoir on Fishes contributed to the tenth volume of
the Annales du Museum d'/iistoire naturdle of Paris by
ETIENNE GEOFFROY ST-HILAIRE in 1807.3 Here we have ft G. St
it stated as a general truth (p. 100) that young birds have Hilaire.
the sternum formed of five separate pieces — one in the
middle, being its keel, and two " annexes " on each side to
which the ribs are articulated — all, however, finally uniting
to form the single "breast-bone." Further on (pp. 101,
102) we find observations as to the number of ribs which
are attached to each of the "annexes" — there being some-
3 In the Philosophic Anatomir/ue (i. pp. 69-101, and especially
pp. 135, 136), which appeared in 1818, Geoffroy St-Hilaire explained
the views he had adopted at greater length.
ORNITHOLOGY
19
times more of them articulated to the anterior than to the
posterior, and in certain forms no ribs belonging to one,
all being applied to the other. Moreover, the author
goes on to remark that in adult birds trace of the origin
of the sternum from five centres of ossification is always
more or less indicated by sutures, and that, though these
sutures had been generally regarded as ridges for the
attachment of the sternal muscles, they indeed . mark
the extreme points of the five primary bony pieces of the
sternum.
In 1810 appeared at Heidelberg the first volume of
l|.le- TIEDEMANN'S carefully- wrought Anatomic imd Natur-
4m. geschickte der Vogel — which shews a remarkable advance
upon the work which Cuvier did in 1805, and in some
respects is superior to his later production of 1817. It is,
however, only noticed here on account of the numerous
references made to it by succeeding writers, for neither in
this nor in the author's second volume (not published until
1814) did he propound any systematic arrangement of
the Class. More germane to our present subject are the
Osteographische Beitrdge zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel of
•zscli. Nitzsch, printed at Leipzig in 1811 — a miscellaneous set
of detached essays on some peculiarities of the skeleton or
portions of the skeleton of certain Birds — one of the most
remarkable of which is that on the component parts of the
foot (pp. 101-105) pointing out the aberration from the
ordinary structure exhibited by the Goatsucker (Capri-
mulgus] and the Swift (Cypsehis) — an aberration which, if
rightly understood, would have conveyed a warning to
those ornithological systematists who put their trust in
Birds' toes for characters on which to erect a classification,
that there was in them much more of importance, hidden
in the integument, than had hitherto been suspected; but
the warning was of little avail, if any, till many years had
elapsed. However, Nitzsch had not as yet seen his way
to proposing any methodical arrangement of the various
groups of Birds, and it was not until some eighteen months
later that a scheme of classification in the main anatomical
was attempted.
irrein. This scheme was the work of BLASIUS MERREM, who,
in a communication to the Academy of Sciences of Berlin
on the 10th December 1812, which was published in its
Abkandlunyen for the following year (pp. 237-259), set
forth a Tentamen Systematis natumlis Avium, no less
modestly entitled than modestly executed. The attempt
of Merrem must be regarded as the virtual starting-point
of the latest efforts in Systematic Ornithology, and in that
view its proposals deserve to be stated at length. Without
pledging ourselves to the acceptance of all its details — some
of which, as is only natural, cannot be sustained with our
present knowledge, resulting from the information accumu
lated by various investigators throughout more than
seventy years — it is certainly not too much to say that
Merrem's merits are almost incomparably superior to those
of any of his predecessors as well as to those of the majority
of his successors for a long time to come ; while the neglect
of his treatise by many (perhaps it would not be erroneous
to say by most) of those who have since written on the
subject seems inexcusable save on the score of inadvert
ence. Premising then that the chief characters assigned
by this ill-appreciated systematist to his several groups are
drawn from almost all parts of the structure of Birds, and
are supplemented by some others of their more prominent
peculiarities, we present the following abstract of his
scheme -,1 — -
1 The names of the genera are, he tells us, for the most part those
of Linnaus, as being the best-known, though not the best. To some
of the Linnsean genera lie dare not, however, assign a place, for instance,
Ruceros, Ileematopus, Merops, Glareola (Gmelin's genus, by the bye),
and Palamedea.
I. AVES CARINAT/E.
1. Aves aerese.
A. Rapaces. — a. Accipitres — Vultur, Falco, Sagittarius.
b. Strix.
B. Hymenopodes. — a. Chelidones: o. 0. nocturnae — Capri-
midyiis; /3. C. diurnse — Hirundo.
1. Oscines: a. O. comrostres — Loxia,Frin-
gilla, Einberiza, Tangara ; /3. 0. ten-
uirostres — Alanda, Motacilla, Musci-
capa, Todus, Lanius, Ampelis, Tur-
dus, Paradisea, Buphaga, Sturnus,
Oriolus, Gracula, Coracias, Corvus,
Pipra 1, Parus, Silta, Ccrildsz queedam.
C. Mellisugre. — Trochihis, Ccrthise, et Upuyee, plurimse.
D. Dendroeolaptre. — Picus, Yunx.
E. Brcvilingues. — a. Upupa ; b. Ispidse,.
F. Levirostres. — a. PMmpliastus, ticythrops ? ; 1. Psittacus.
G. Coccyges. — Cuculus, Trogom, Bucco, Crotophaga.
2. Aves terrestres.
A. Columba.
B. Gallinae.
3. Aves aquaticse.
A. Odontorhynchi : a. Boscades — Anas; b. Me/ryus; c. Phceni-
copterus.
B. Platyrhynclii. — Pelicanus, Phaeton, Plotus.
C. Aptenodytcs.
IX Urinatrices: a. Cepplii — Alca, Colymli pedibus palmatis;
b. Podiccps, Colymbi pedibus lobatis.
E. Stenorhynclii. — Proccllarin, Diomedea, Larus, Sterna,
fihynchops.
4. Aves palustres.
A. Rusticolai : a. Phalarides — Hall us, Fidica, Parra ; b.
Limosugffi — Numcnius, Scolopax, Tringa, CharadriitA,
Recurvirostra.
B. Grallse : a. Erodii — Ardcse, ungue intermedio serrato,
Cancroma; b. Pelargi — Ciconia, Mydcria, Tantali quidam,
Scojjiis, Platalea ; c. Gerani — Ardess cristatse. Grues,
Psophia.
C. Otis.
II. AVES KATITVE. — Strutldo.
The most novel feature, and one the importance of
which most ornithologists of the present day are fully pre
pared to admit, is of course the separation of the Class
Aves into two great Divisions, which from one of the most
obvious distinctions they present were called by its author
Carinatee2 and Ratitse* according as the sternum possesses
a keel (crista in the phraseology of many anatomists) or
not. But Merrem, who subsequently communicated to
the Academy of Berlin a more detailed memoir on the
" flat-breasted " Birds,4 was careful not here to rest his
Divisions on the presence or absence of their sternal
character alone. He concisely cites (p. 238) no fewer than
eight other characters of more or less value as peculiar to
the Carinate Division, the first of which is that the feathers
have their barbs furnished with hooks, in consequence of
which the barbs, including those of the wing-quills, cling
closely together ; while among the rest may be mentioned
the position of the furcula and coracoids,5 which keep the
wing-bones apart ; the limitation of the number of the
lumbar vertebra to fifteen, and of the carpals to two ; as
well as the divergent direction of the iliac bones, — the
corresponding characters peculiar to the Ratite Division
being (p. 259) the disconnected condition of the barbs of
the feathers, through the absence of any hooks whereby they
might cohere ; the non-existence of the furcula, and the
coalescence of the coracoids with the scapulae (or, as he
expressed it, the extension of the scapula? to supply the
place of the coracoids, which he thought were wanting) ;
the lumbar vertebrae being tiventy and the carpals thrft in
number; and the parallelism of the iliac bones.
" From carina, a keel.
3 From rates, a raft or flat-bottomed barge.
4 ' ' Beschreibung der Gerippes eines Casuars nebst einigen beilaufigen
Bemerkungen iiber die flachbriistigen Vogel" — Abhandl. der Berlin.
Akademie, Phys. Klasse, 1817, pp. 179-198, tabb. i.-iii.
5 Merrem, as did many others in his time, calls the coracoids '' clttvi-
cul&"; but it is now well understood that in Birds the real clacicxiic
form the furcula or " merry-thought."
20
ville.
As for Merrem's partitioning of the inferior groups there
is less to be said in its praise as a whole, though credit
must be given to his anatomical knowledge for leading
him to the perception of several affinities, as well as
differences, that had never before been suggested by
superficial systematists. But it must be confessed that
(chiefly, no doubt, from paucity of accessible material) he
overlooked many points, both of alliance and the opposite,
which since his time have gradually come to be admitted.
For instance, he seems not to have been aware of the dis
tinction, already shown by Nitzsch (as above mentioned)
to exist, between the Swallows and the Swifts ; and, by
putting the genus Coracias among his Oscines Tenuirostres1
without any remark, proved that he was not in all respects
greatly in advance of his age ; but on the other hand he
most righteously judged that some species hitherto referred
to the genera Certhia and Upiqm required removal to
other positions, and it is much to be regretted that the
very concise terms in which his decisions were given to the
world make it impossible to determine with any degree
of certainty the extent of the changes in this respect which
he would have introduced. Had Merrem published his
scheme on an enlarged scale, it seems likely that he would
have obtained for it far more attention, and possibly some
portion of acceptance. He had deservedly attained no
little reputation as a descriptive anatomist, and his claims
to be regarded as a systematic reformer would probably
have been admitted in his lifetime. As it was his scheme
apparently fell flat, and not until many years had elapsed
were its merits at all generally recognized.
Notice has next to be taken of a Memoir on the
Employment of Sternal Characters in establishing Natural
De Families among Birds, which was read by DB BLATNVILLE
BUiiu- before the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1815,2 but not
published in full for more than five years later (Journal
de Physique . . . . et des Arts, xcii. pp. 185-215), though an
abstract forming part of a Prodrome d'une nouvellc. distribu
tion du Regne Animal appeared earlier (op. cit., Ixxxiii. pp.
252, 253, 258, 259; and Bull. Sue. Philomath, de Paris,
1816, p. 110). This is a very disappointing performance,
since the author observes that, notwithstanding his new
classification of Birds is based on a study of the form of
the sternal apparatus, yet, because that lies wholly within
the body, he is compelled to have recourse to such outward
characters as are afforded by the proportion of the limbs
and the disposition of the toes — even as had been the
practice of most ornithologists before him ! It is evident
that the features of the sternum on which De Blainville
chiefly relied were those drawn from its posterior margin,
which no very extensive experience of specimens is needed
to show are of comparatively slight value; for the number
of " echancrures " — notches as they have sometimes been
called in English — w-hen they exist, goes but a very short
way as a guide, and is so variable in some very natural
groups as to be even in that short way occasionally mis
leading.3 There is no appearance of his having at all taken
into consideration the far more trustworthy characters
furnished by the anterior part of the sternum, as well as
by the coracoids and the furcula. Still De Blainville
made some advance in a right direction, as for instance by
elevating the Parrots'4 and the Pigeons as " Ordres," equal
in rank to that of the Birds-of-Prey and some others.
1 He also placed the genus Todm in the same group, but it must
be borne in mind that in his time a great many Birds were referred to
that genus which (according to modern ideas) certainly do not belong
to it, and it may well have been that he never had the opportunity of
examining a specimen of the genus as nowadays restricted.
" Not 1812, as has sometimes been stated.
3 Cf. Philos. Transactions, 1869, p. 337, note.
4 This view of them had been long before taken by Willughby,
but abandoned bv all later authors.
According to the testimony of L'Herminier (for whom see
later) he divided the " Passereaux " into two sections, the
"faux " and the " vrais "; but, while the latter were very
correctly defined, the former were most arbitrarily separated
from the " Grimpeurs." He also split his Grallatores and
Xatatores (practically identical with the Gndlse and
Anseres of Linnaeus) each into four sections ; but he failed
to see — as on his own principles he ought to have seen —
that each of these sections was at least equivalent to
almost any one of his other " Ordres." He had, however,
the courage to act up to his own professions in collocating
the Rollers (Coracias) with the Bee-eaters (Merojis), and
had the sagacity to surmise that Menura was not a
Gallinaceous Bird. The greatest benefit conferred by this
memoir is probably that it stimulated the efforts, presently
to be mentioned, of one of hie pupils, and that it brought
more distinctly into sight that other factor, originally dis
covered by Merrem, of which it now clearly became the
duty of systematizers to take cognizance.
Following the chronological order we are here adopting,
we next have to recur to the labours of NITZSCH, wrho, in
1820, in a treatise on the Nasal Glands of Birds — a
subject that had already attracted the attention of
JACOBSON (Nouv. Bull. /Soc. Philomath, de Paris, iii. pp. Jacob
267-269) — first put forth in Meckel's Deidsches Archiv son-
filr die Physiologic (vi. pp. 251-269) a statement of his
general views on ornithological classification which were Nil/so
based on a comparative examination of those bodies in
various forms. It seems unnecessary here to occupy space
by giving an abstract of his plan,5 which hardly includes
any but European species, because it was subsequently
elaborated with no inconsiderable modifications in a way
that must presently be mentioned at greater length. But
the scheme, crude as it wras, possesses some interest. It
is not only a key to much of his later work — to nearly all
indeed that was published in his lifetime — but in it are
founded several definite groups (for example, Passerinse,
and Picarise) that subsequent experience has shewn to be
more or less natural ; and it further serves as additional
evidence of the breadth of his views, and his trust in the
teachings of anatomy ; for it is clear that, if organs so
apparently insignificant as these nasal glands were found
worthy of being taken into account, and capable of form
ing a base of operations, in drawing up a system, it would
almost follow that there can be no part of a Bird's organiza
tion that by proper study would not help to supply some
means of solving the great question of its affinities. This
seems to the present writer to be one of the most certain
general truths in Zoology, and is probably admitted in
theory to be so by most zoologists, but their practice is
opposed to it ; for, whatever group of animals be studied,
it is found that one set or another of characters is the
chief favourite of the authors consulted — each generally
taking a separate set, and that to the exclusion of all
others, instead of effecting a combination of all the sets
and taking the aggregate.0
That Nitzsch took this extended view is abundantly
proved by the valuable series of ornithotomical observa
tions which he must have been for some time accumulating,
5 This plan, having been repeated by Schopss in 1829 (op. cit., xii.
p. 73), became known to Sir K. Owen in 1835, who then drew to it
the attention of Kirby (Seventh Bridgewaler Treatise, ii. pp. 444, 445),
and in the next year referred to it in his own article " Aves " in Todd's
Ci/clopfedia of Anatomy (i. p. 266), so that Englishmen need no
excuse for not being aware of one of Nitzsch's labours, though his
more advanced work of 1829, presently to be mentioned, was not
referred to by Sir R. Owen.
6 A very remarkable instance of this may be seen in the Si/stemo
Avium, promulgated in 1830 by Wagler (a man with great knowledge
of Birds) in his Natiirliches System der Amphibien (pp. 77-128). He
took the tongue as his chief guide, and found it indeed an unruly
member.
ORN'ITHOL 0 G Y
21
and almost immediately afterwards began to contribute
to the younger Naumann's excellent Naturyeschichte der
Voyel DeutsddandSy already noticed above (page 9).
Besides a concise general treatise on the Organization of
Birds to be found in the Introduction to this work (i. pp.
23-52), a brief description from Nitzsch's pen of the
peculiarities of the internal structure of nearly every genus
is incorporated with the author's prefatory remarks, as
each passed under consideration, and these descriptions
being almost without exception so drawn up as to be com
parative are accordingly of great utility to the student of
classification, though they have been so greatly neglected.
Upon these descriptions he was still engaged till death, in
1837, put an end to his labours, when his place as
Naumann's assistant for the remainder of the work was
taken by Rudolph "Wagner ; but, from time to time, a
few more, which he had already completed, made their
posthumous appearance in it, and, even in recent years,
some selections from his unpublished papers have through
the care of Giebel been presented to the public. Through
out the whole of this series the same marvellous industry
and scrupulous accuracy are manifested, and attentive study
of it will shew how many times Nitzscli anticipated the
conclusions at whi-ch it has taken some modern taxonomers
fifty years to arrive. Yet over and over again his de
termination of the affinities of several groups even of
European Birds was disregarded ; and his labours, being
contained in a bulky and costly work, were hardly known
at all outside of his own country, and within it by no
means appreciated so much as they deserved l — for even
Naumann himself, who gave them publication, and was
doubtless in some degree influenced by them, utterly failed
to perceive the importance of the characters offered by the
song-muscles of certain groups, though their peculiarities
were all duly described and recorded by his coadjutor,
as some indeed had been long before by Cuvier in his
famous dissertation 2 on the organs of voice in Birds
(Lecuns danatomie comparce, iv. pp. 450-491). Xitzsch's
name was subsequently dismissed by Cuvier without a
word of praise, and in terms which would have been
applicable to many another and inferior author, while
Temminck, terming Naumann's work an " ouvraye de luxe,"
it being in truth one of the cheapest for its contents
ever published, — effectually shut it out from the realms of
science. In Britain it seems to have been positively
unknown until quoted some years after its completion by
a catalogue-compiler on account of some peculiarities of
nomenclature which it presented.3
Now we must return to France, where, in 1827,
L'HERMINIEK, a crcole of Guadaloupe and a pupil of De
Blainville's, contributed to the Actes of the Linmean Society
of Paris for that year (vi. pp. 3-93) the " Recherches sur
1'appareil sternal des Oiseaux, " which the precept and
example of his master had prompted him to undertake,
and Cuvier had found for him the means of executing. A
second and considerably enlarged edition of this very
remarkable treatise was published as a separate work in
the following year. \Y"e have already seen that De
Blainville, though fully persuaded of the great value of
sternal features as a method of classification, had been
compelled to fall back upon the old pedal characters so
often employed before ; but now the scholar had learnt to
excel his teacher, and not only to form an at least provi-
1 Their value was, however, understood by Gloger, who in 1834, as
will presently be seen, expressed his regret at not being able to use
them.
2 Cuvier's first observations on the subject seem to have appeared
in the Magazin Encydopedique for 1795 (ii. pp. 330, 358).
3 However, to this catalogue- compiler the present writer's grati
tude is due, for thereby he became acquainted -\vith the work and its
merits.
sional arrangement of the various members of the Clats,
based on sternal characters, but to describe these characters
at some length, and so give a reason for the faith that was
in him. There is no evidence, so far as we can see, of
his having been aware of Merrem's views ; but like that
anatomist he without hesitation divided the Class into two
great "coupes" to which he gave, however, no other names
than "Oiseaux Normaux" and "Oiseaux Anomaux,"-
exactly corresponding with his predecessor's Carinatae and
Ratitge, — and, moreover, he had a great advantage in
founding these groups, since he had discovered, apparently
from his own investigations, that the mode of ossification
in each was distinct ; for hitherto the statement of there
being five centres of ossification in every Bird's sternum
seems to have been accepted as a general truth, without
contradiction, whereas in the Ostrich and the Rhea, at any
rate, L'Herminier found that there were but two such
primitive points,4 and from analogy he judged that the
same would be the case with the Cassowary and the Emeu,
which, with the two forms mentioned above, made up the
whole of the " Oiseaux . Anomatix " whose existence was
then generally acknowledged.5 These are the forms which
composed the Family previously termed Cursores by De
Blainville ; but L'Herminier was able to distinguish no
fewer than thirty-four Families of " Oiseaux Normaux,"
and the judgment with which their separation and defini
tion were effected must be deemed on the whole to be most
creditable to him. It is to be remarked, however, that
the wealth of the Paris Museum, which he enjoyed to the
full, placed him in a situation incomparably more favour
able for arriving at results than that which was occupied
by Merrem, to whom many of the most remarkable forms
were wholly unknown, while L'Herminier had at his dis
posal examples of nearly every type then known to exist.
But the latter used this privilege wisely and well — not,
after the manner of De Blainville and others subsequent
to him, relying solely or even chiefly on the character
afforded by the posterior portion of the sternum, but
taking also into consideration those of the anterior, as well
as of the in some cases still more important characters
presented by the pre-sternal bones, such as the furcula,
coracoids, and scapulas. L'Herminier thus separated the
Families of " Normal Birds": —
9.
10.
11.
14.
15.
' Accipitres " - Accipitrcs, 18,
Linn.
' Serpentaives " — Gypogera- 19.
nus, llliger. 20
'Chouettes" — Strix, Linn. 21
"Touracos" — Opaetus,~Yi&llot
' Perro([iiets " - Psittacus,
Linn.
' Colibris " — Trochihis, Linn. 23.
' Martinets " — Cypselus, Illi- 24,
ger.
'Engoule vents" — Caprimul-
gus, Linn.
' Coucous " — Cucuhis, Linn.
'Couroucous" — Trogon,IAim. 26,
' Kolliers " — Galgulus, Bris-
son. 27
' Guepiers "—Mcrops, Linn. 28.
' Martins-FGcheurs" — Akcdo, 29,
Linn. ' 30.
' Calaos "- -Buceros, Linn. j 31.
: Toucans " — Ranrphantos, 32.
Linn.
; Pies" — Pirns, Linn. | 33.
'Epopsides" - Epopsidex, ' 34.
Vieillot.
" Passereaux " - Passcrcs,
Linn.
" Pigeons " — Columba, Linn.
'' Gallinaces " — Gallinacea.
" Tinamous " - Tinamus,
Latham.
" Foulquea on Ponies d'ean"
— Fulicci, Linn.
" Grues " — Grits, Pallas.
" Herodions " — Herodii, Illi-
ger.
Xo name given, but said to
include " les ibis et les
spattiles."
"Gralles ou Echassiera "-
G rail IF.
" Mouettes " — Lams, Linn.
" Petrels" — ProcfUaria,\J\im.
"Pelicans" — Pclecanus,~L\\m.
" Canards " — Anas, Linn.
" Grebes"— 1 'odiccps,'Lat]iam,
" Plongeons" - Culymbus,
Latham.
" Pingoitins" — Alca, Latham.
" Manchots" — Aptenodytcs,
Forster.
4 This fact in the Ostrich appears to have been known already to
Geoffrey St-Hilaire from his own observation in Egypt, but does not
seem to have been published by him.
5 Considerable doubts were at that time, as said elsewhere (Kiwi,
vol. xiv. p. 104), entertained in Paris as to the existence of the
Apteryx,
22
ORNITHOLOGY
The preceding list is given to shew the very marked
agreement of L'Herminier's results compared with those
obtained fifty years later by another investigator, who
approached the subject from an entirely different, though
still osteological, basis. The sequence of the Families
adopted is of course open to much criticism ; but that
would be wasted upon it at the present day; and the
cautious naturalist will remember that it is generally
difficult and in most cases absolutely impossible to deploy
even a small section of the Animal Kingdom into line.
So far as a linear arrangement will permit, the above list
is very creditable, and will not only pass muster, but
cannot easily be surpassed for excellence even at this
moment. Experience has shewn that a few of the Families
are composite, and therefore require further splitting ; but
examples of actually false grouping cannot be said to
occur. The most serious fault perhaps to be found is the
intercalation of the Ducks (No. 30) between the Pelicans
and the Grebes — but every systematist must recognize
the difficulty there is in finding a place for the Ducks in
any arrangement we can at present contrive that shall be
regarded as satisfactory. Many of the excellencies of
L'Herminier's method could not be pointed out without
too great a sacrifice of space, because of the details into
which it would be necessary to enter ; but the trenchant
way in which he showed that the " Passereaux" — a group
of which Cuvier had said " Son caractere semble d'abord
purement ne'gatif," and had then failed to define the
limits — differed so completely from every other assem
blage, while maintaining among its own innumerable
members an almost perfect essential homogeneity, is very
striking, and shews how admirably he could grasp his sub
ject. Not less conspicuous are his merits in disposing of
the groups of what are ordinarily known as Water-birds, his
indicating the affinity of the Rails (No. 22) to the Cranes
(No. 23), and the severing of the latter from the Herons
(No. 24). • His union of the Snipes, Sandpipers, and
Plovers into one group (No. 26) and the alliance, especially
dwelt upon, of that group with the Gulls (No. 27) are
steps which, though indicated by Merrem, are here for the
first time clearly laid down ; and the separation of the
Gulls from the Petrels (No. 28) — a step in advance already
taken, it is true, by Illiger — is here placed on indefeasible
ground. With all this, perhaps on account of all- this,
L'Herminier's efforts did not find favour with his scientific
superiors, and for the time things remained as though his
investigations had never been carried on.1
Two years later Nitzsch, who was indefatigable in his
endeavour to discover the Natural Families of Birds, and
had been pursuing a series of researches into their vascular
system, published the result, at Halle in Saxony, in his
Observationes <h Avium arteria carotide communi, in which
is included a classification drawn up in accordance with the
variation of structure which that important vessel presented
in- the several groups that he had opportunities of examin
ing. By this time he had visited several of the principal
museums on the Continent, among others Leyden (where
Temminck resided) and Paris (where he had frequent
intercourse with -Cuvier), thus becoming acquainted with
a considerable number of exotic forms that had hitherto
been inaccessible to him. Consequently his labours had
attained to a certain degree of completeness in this direc
tion, and it may therefore te expedient here to name the
different groups which he thus thought himself entitled to
consider established. They are as follows: —
1 With the exception of a brief and wholly inadequate notice in the
Edinburgh Journal of Natural History (i. p. 90), the present writer
is not aware of attention having been directed to L'Herminier's labours
by British ornithologists for several years after ; but considering how
they were employing themselves at the time (as is shewn in another
place) this is not surprising.
T. AVES CAKINAT.E [L'H. Oiseaux Normaux "].
A. Avcs Carinatse aerere.
1. Accipitrinx [L'H. 1, 2 partim, 3] ; 2. Passerines, [L'H. 18] ; 3.
Macrochires [L'H. 6, 7]; 4. Cuculinx [L'YL. 8, 9, 10 (qu. 11,
12?)]; 5. Picinie [L'H. 15, 16]; 6. Psittacinse, [L'H. 5]; 7.
Lipoglossas [L'H. 13, 14, 17] ; 8. AmpUMae, [L'H. 4].
B. Avcs Carinate terrestres.
1. Columbinte [L'H. 19] ; 2. Gallinacese [L'H. 20].
C. Aves Carinatse aquaticse.
Grallre.
1. Ahdoridcs (=° Dicholophus + Otis) [L'H. 2 partim, 26 partim];
2. Gruinse [L'H. 23]; 3. Fulicarise [L'H. 22]; 4. Hcrodiss
[L'H. 24 partim]; 5. Pelargi [L'H. 24 partim, 25]; 6. Odonto-
glossi ( = Phasnico23terus) [L'H. 26 partim]; 7. Limicolse. [L'H.
26 panic onmes].
Palmatae.
8. Longipenncs [L'H. 27] ; 9. Nasutse [L'H. 28] ; 10. Unguirostres
[L'H. 30] ; 11. Steganopodes [L'H. 29] ; 12. Pygopodes [L'H.
31, 32, 33, 34].
II. AVES RATIT.E [L'H. " Oiseanx Anomaux "].
To enable the reader to compare the several groups of
Nitzsch with the Families of L'Herminier, the numbers
applied by the latter to his Families are suffixed in square
brackets to the names of the forme:: ; and, disregarding the
order of sequence, which is here immaterial, the essential
correspondence of the two systems is worthy of all atten
tion, for it obviously means that these two investigators,
starting from different points, must have been on the right
track, when they so often coincided as to the limits of
what they considered to be, and what we are now almost
justified in calling, Natural Groups.2 But it must be
observed that the classification of Nitzsch, just given, rests
much more on characters furnished by the general struc
ture than on those furnished by the carotid artery only.
Among all the species (188, he tells us, in number) of
which he examined specimens, he found only four varia
tions in the structure of that vessel, namely : —
1. That in which both a right carotid artery and a left
are present. This is the most usual fashion among the
various groups of Birds, including all the " aerial " forms
excepting Passerines, Macrochires, and Picinse.
2. That in which there is but a single carotid artery,
springing from both right and left trunk, but the branches
soon coalescing, to take a midway course, and again divid
ing near the head. This form Nitzsch was only able to
find in the Bittern (Ardea stellaris).
3. That in which the right carotid artery alone is
present, of which, according to our author's experience, the
Flamingo (Phoenicopterus) was the sole example.
4. That in which the left carotid artery alone exists, as
found in all other Birds examined by Nitzsch, and there
fore as regards species and individuals much the most
common — since into this category come the countless
thousands of the Passerine Birds— a group which out
numbers all the rest put together.
Considering the enormous stride in advance made by L'Herminier,
it is very disappointing for the historian to have to record that the
next inquirer into the osteology of Birds achieved a disastrous failure
in his attempt to throw light on their arrangement by means of a
comparison of their sternum. This was BEUTHOLD, who devoted Bertholi
a long chapter of his Bcitr&ge zur Anatomic, published at Gottingen
in 1831, to a consideration of the subject. So far as his introduc
tory chapter went— the development of the sternum— he was, for
- Whether Nitzsch was cognizant of L'Herniinier's views is in no
way apparent. The latter's name seems not to be even mentioned by
him, but Nitzsch was in Paris in the summer of 1827, and it is almost
impossible that he should not have heard of L'Herminier's labours,
unless the relations between the followers of Cuvier, to whom Nitzsch
attached himself, and those of De Blainville, whose pupil L'Hermi
nier was, were such as to forbid any communication between the rival
schools. Yet we have L'Herniinier's evidence that Cuvier gave him
every assistance. Nitzsch's silence, both on this occasion and after
wards, is very curious ; but ho cannot be accused of plagiarism, for
the scheme given above is only an amplification of that foreshadowed
by him (as already mentioned) in 1820— a scheme which seems to
have been equally unknown to L'Herminier, perhaps through linguistic
difficulty.
0 K
NITHOLOGY
23
his time, right enough and somewhat instructive. It was only
when, after a close examination of the sternal apparatus of one
hundred and thirty species, which he carefully described, that he
arrived (pp. 177-183) at the conclusion — astonishing to us who know
of L'Herminier's previous results — that the sternum of Birds cannot
be used as a help to their classification on account of the egregious
anomalies that would follow the proceeding — such anomalies, for
instance, as the separation of Cypsclus from Birundo and its alliance
with Trochilus, and the grouping of Hiruntlo and Fringilla
together. He seems to have been persuaded that the method of
Linnojus and his disciples was indisputably right, and that any
method which contradicted it must therefore be wrong. Moreover,
he appears to have regarded the sternal structure as a mere function
of the Bird's habit, especially in regard to its power of flight, and
to have wholly overlooked the converse position that this power of
flight must depend entirely on tho structure. Good descriptive
anatomist as he certainly was, he was false to the anatomist's creed;
but it is plain, from reading his careful descriptions of sternurns,
that he could not grasp the essential characters he had before him,
and, attracted only by the more salient and obvious features, had
not capacity to interpret the me ining of the whole. Yet he did not
amiss by giving many figures of stern urns hitherto unrepresented.
We pass from him to a more lively theme.
At the very beginning of the year 1832 Cuvier laid
before the Academy of Sciences of Paris a memoir on the
progress of ossification in the sternum of Birds, of which
memoir an abstract will be found in the Annrdes des
Sciences Naturelles (xxv. pp. 260-272). Herein he treated
of several subjects with which we are not particularly con
cerned at present, and his remarks throughout were chiefly
directed against certain theories which F^tienne Geoffroy
St-Hilaire had propounded in his Philosophic Anatomique,
published a good many years before, and need not trouble us
here ; but what does signify to us now is that Cuvier traced
in detail, illustrating his statements by the preparations
he exhibited, the progress of ossification in the sternum of
the Fowl and of the Duck, pointing out how it differed
in each, and giving his interpretation of the differ
ences. It had hitherto been generally believed that
the mode of ossification in the Fowl was that which
obtained in all Birds — the Ostrich and its allies (as
L'Herminier, we have seen, had already shewn) excepted.
But it was now made to appear that the Struthi-
ous Birds in this respect resembled, not only the Duck,
but a great many other groups — Waders, Birds-of-Prey,
Pigeons, Passerines, and perhaps all Birds not Galli
naceous, — so that, according to Cuvier's view, the five
points of ossification observed in the Gallinx, instead
of exhibiting the normal process, exhibited one quite
exceptional, and that in all other Birds, so far as he had
been enabled to investigate the matter, ossification of the
sternum began at two points only, situated near the
anterior upper margin of the side of the sternum, and
gradually crept towards the keel, into which it presently
extended ; and, though he allowed the appearance of
detached portions of calcareous matter at the base of the
still cartilaginous keel in Ducks at a certain age, he seemed
to consider this an individual peculiarity. This fact was
fastened upon by Geoffroy in his reply, which was a week
later presented to the Academy, but was not published
in full until the following year, when it appeared in the
Annales du Museum (ser. 3, ii. pp. 1-22). Geoffroy here
maintained that the five centres of ossification existed in
the Duck just as in the Fowl, and that the real difference
of the process lay in the period at which they made their
appearance, a circumstance, which, though virtually proved
by the preparations Cuvier had used, had been by him
overlooked or misinterpreted. The Fowl possesses all
five ossifications at birth, and for a long while the middle
piece forming the keel is by far the largest. They all
grow slowly, and it is not until the animal is about six
months old that they are united into one firm bone. The
Duck on the other hand, when newly hatched, and for
nearly a month after, has the sternum wholly cartilaginous.
Then, it is true, two lateral points of ossification appear
at the margin, but subsequently the remaining three are
developed, and when once formed they grow with much
greater rapidity than in the Fowl, so that by the time the
young Duck is quite independent of its parents, and can
shift for itself, the whole sternum is completely bony.
Nor, argued Geoffroy, was it true to say, as Cuvier had
said, that the like occurred in the Pigeons and true
Passerines. In their case the sternum begins to ossify
from three very distinct points — one of which is the centre
of ossification of the keel. As regards the Struthious Birds,
they could not be likened to the Duck, for in them at no
age was there any indication of a single median centre of
ossification, as Geoffroy had satisfied himself by his own
observations made in Egypt many years before. Cuvier
seems to have acquiesced in the corrections of his views
made by Geoffroy, and attempted no rejoinder ; but the
attentive and impartial student of the discussion will see
that a good deal was really wanting to make the latter's
reply effective, though, as events have shewn, the former
was hasty in the conclusions at which he arrived, having
trusted too much to the first appearance of centres of
ossification, for, had his observations in regard to other
Birds been carried on with the same attention to detail as
in regard to the Fowl, he would certainly have reached
some very different results.
In 1834 GLOGER brought out at Breslau the first (and unfortu- Gloger.
nately the only) part of a V 'ollstandiyes Handbuch dcr Natur-
//cschichte der Vogd Europas, treating of the Land-birds. In the
introduction to this book (p. xxxviii., note) he expressed his regret
at not being able to use as fully as he could wish the excellent
researches of Xitzsch which were then appearing (as has been above
said) in the successive parts of Naumann's great work. Notwith
standing this, to Gloger seems to belong the credit of being the first
author to avail himself in a book intended for practical ornitho
logists of the new light that had already been shed on Systematic
Ornithology ; and accordingly we have the second Order of his
arrangement, the Arcs Passerine, divided into two Suborders : —
Singing Passerines (meloditsze), and Passerines without an apparatus
of Song-muscles (anomalas) — the latter including what some later
writers called Picariss. For the rest his classification demands no
particular remark ; but that in a work of this kind he had the
courage to recognize, for instance, such a fact as the essential
difference between Swallows and Swifts lifts him considerably above
the crowd of other ornithological writers of his time.
An improvement on tiie old method of classification by purely
external characters was introduced to the Academy of Sciences of
Stockholm by SUNDKVALL in 1835, and was published the following Sunde-
year iu its Handlingnr (pp. 43-130). This was the foundation of vail,
a more extensive work of which, from the influence it still exerts,
it will be necessary to treat later at some length, and there will be
no need now to enter much into details respecting the earlier per
formance. It is sufficient here to remark that the author, even then
a man of great erudition, must have been aware of the turn which
taxonomy was taking ; but, not being able to divest himself of the
older notion that external characters were superior to those fur
nished by the study of internal structure, and that Comparative
Anatomy, instead of being a part of Zoology, was something dis
tinct from it, he seems to have endeavoured to form a scheme which,
while not running wholly counter to the teachings of Comparative
Anatomists, should yet rest ostensibly on external characters. With
this view he studied the latter most laboriously, and in some
measure certainly not without success, for he brought into promin
ence several points that had hitherto escaped the notice of his pre
decessors. He also admitted among his characteristics a physio
logical consideration (apparently derived from Oken1) dividing the
class Arcs into two sections Altriccs and Preecocas, according as the
young were fed by their parents or, from the first, fed themselves.
But at this time he was encumbered with the hazy doctrine of
analogies, which, if it did not act to his detriment, was assuredly
of no service to him. He prefixed an "Idea Systematis" to his
"Expositio"; and the former, which appears to represent his real
opinion, differs in arrangement very considerably from the latter.
Like Gloger, Sundevall in his ideal system separated the true
Passerines from all other Birds, calling them Volucrcs ; but he took
a step further, for he assigned to them the highest rank, wherein
1 He says from Oken's NnturrjcschicMe far Schulen, published in
1821, but the division is to be found in that author's earlier Lehrbuch
der Zoologie (ii. p. 371), which appeared in 1816.
ORNITHOLOGY
VHer-
ninier
ind
sidore
leoffroy
Jt-
ililaire.
nearly every recent authority agrees with him ; out of them, how
ever, he chose the Thrushes and Warblers to stand iirst as his ideal
" Centrum '' — a selection which, though in the opinion of the pre
sent writer erroneous, is still largely followed.
The points at issue between Cuvier and Etienne Geoffrey
St-Hilaire before mentioned naturally attracted the atten
tion of L'HERMINIER, who in 1836 presented to the French
Academy the results of his researches into the mode of
growth of that bone which in the adult Bird he had
already studied to such good purpose. Unfortunately the
full account of his diligent investigations was never
published. We can best judge of his labours from an
abstract printed in the Comptes JRendus (iii. pp. 12 -20)
and reprinted in the Annales des Sciences Naturdles (ser.
2, vi. pp. 107-115), and from the report upon them by
ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST-HILAIRE, to whom with others they
were referred. This report is contained in the Comptes
Rendus for the following year (iv. pp. 565-574), and is
very critical in its character. It were useless to conjecture
why the whole memoir never appeared, as the reporter
recommended that it should ; but, whether, as he suggested,
the author's observations failed to establish the theories
he advanced or not, the loss of his observations in an
extended form is greatly to be regretted, for no one seems
to have continued the investigations he began and to
some extent carried out ; while, from his residence in
Guadeloupe, he had peculiar advantages in studying
certain types of Birds not generally available, his remarks
on them could not fail to be valuable, quite irrespective
of the interpretation he was led to put upon them.
L'Herminier arrived at the conclusion that, so far from
there being only two or three different modes by which
the process of ossification in the sternum is carried out,
the number of different modes is very considerable —
almost each natural group of Birds having its own. The
principal theory which he hence conceived himself justified
in propounding was that instead oijive being (as had been
stated) the maximum number of centres of ossification in
the sternum, there are no fewer than nine entering into
the composition of the perfect sternum of Birds in general,
though in every species some of these nine are wanting,
whatever be the condition of development at the time of
examination. These nine theoretical centres or " pieces "
L'Herminier deemed to be disposed in three transverse
series (rangees), namely the anterior or " prosternal," the
middle or "mesosternal," and the posterior or "metasternal"
— each series consisting of three portions, one median piece
and two side-pieces. At the same time he seems, accord
ing to the abstract of his memoir, to have made the some
what contradictory assertion that sometimes there are
more than three pieces in each series, and in certain
groups of Birds as many as six.1 It would occupy more
space than can here be allowed to give even the briefest
abstract of the numerous observations which follow the
statement of his theory and on which it professedly rests.
They extend to more than a score of natural groups of
Birds, and nearly each of them presents some peculiar
characters. Thus of the first series of pieces he says that
when all exist they may be developed simultaneously, or
that the two side-pieces may precede the median, or again
that the median may precede the side-pieces — according
to the group of Birds, but that the second mode is much
the commonest. The same variations are observable in
the second or middle series, but its side-pieces are said to
exist in all groups of Birds without exception. As to the
third or posterior series, when it is complete the three
constituent pieces are developed almost simultaneously;
1 We shall perhaps he justified in assuming that this apparent incon
sistency, and others which present themselves, would be explicable if
the whole memoir with the necessary illustrations had been published.
but its median piece is said often to originate in two,
which soon unite, especially when the side-pieces are
wanting. By way of examples of L'Herminicr's observa
tions, what he says of the two groups that had been the
subject of Cuvier's and the elder Geoffrey's contest may
be mentioned. In the Galling? the five well-known pieces
or centres of ossification are said to consist of the two
side-pieces of the second or middle series, and the three of
the posterior. On two occasions, however, there was found
in addition, what may be taken for a representation of
the first series, a little " noyau " situated between the
coracoids — forming the only instance of all three seri.es.
being present in the same Bird. As regards the Ducks,
L'Herminier agreed with Cuvier that there are commonly
only two centres of ossification — the side-pieces of the
middle series ; but as these grow to meet one another a
distinct median " noy(m" also of the same series, some
times appears, which soon forms a connexion with each
of them. In the Ostrich and its allies no trace of this
median centre of ossification ever occurs ; but with these,
exceptions its existence is invariable in all other Birds.
Here the matter must be left ; but it is undoubtedly a
subject which demands further investigation, and naturally
any future investigator of it should consult the abstract of
L'Herminier's memoir and the criticisms upon it of the
younger Geoff roy.
Hitherto it will have been seen that our present busi
ness has lain wholly in Germany and France, for, as is
elsewhere explained, the chief ornithologists of Britain
were occupying themselves at this time in a very useless
way — not but that there were several distinguished men
in this country who were paying due heed at this time to
the internal structure of Birds, and some excellent descrip
tive memoirs on special forms had appeared from their
pens, to say nothing of more than one general treatise on
ornithic anatomy.2 Yet no one in Britain seems to have
attempted to found any scientific arrangement of Birds on
other than external characters until, in 1837, WILLIAM Mac -
MACGILLIVRAY issued the first volume of his History o/gillivra
British Birds, wherein, though professing (p. 19) "not to
add a new system to the many already in partial use, or
that have passed away like their authors," he propounded
(pp. 16-18) a scheme for classifying the Birds of Europe
at least founded on a " consideration of the digestive
organs, which merit special attention, on account, not so
much of their great importance in the economy of birds,
as the nervous, vascular, and other systems are not behind
them in this respect ; but because, exhibiting great diver
sity of form and structure, in accordance with the nature
of the food, they are more obviously qualified to afford a
basis for the classification of the numerous species of
birds " (p. 52). Experience has again and again exposed
the fallacy of this last conclusion, but it is no disparag-
ment of its author, writing nearly fifty years ago, to .say
that in this passage, as well as in others that might bo
quoted, he was greater as an anatomist than as a logician.
2 Sir Richard Owen's celebrated article "Avcs," in Todd's Cyclo-
ptedia nf Anatomy and Physiology (i. pp. 265-358), appeared in 1836,
and, as giving a general view of the structure of Birds, needs no praise
here ; but its object was not to establish a classification, or throw light
especially on systematic arrangement. So far from that being the case,
its distinguished author was content to adopt, as he tells us, the
arrangement proposed by Kirby in the Screnlh Bridrjeivater Treatise
(ii. pp. 445-474), being that, it is true, of an estimable zoologist, but
of one who had no special knowledge of Ornithology. Indeed it is,
as the latter says, that of Linnaeus, improved by Cuvier, with an
additional modification of Illiger's — all these three authors having
totally ignored any but external characters. Yet it was regarded "as
being the one which facilitates the expression of the leading anatomical
differences which obtain in the class of Birds, and which therefore may
'• be considered as the most natural."
He was indeed thoroughly grounded in anatomy,1 and I
though undoubtedly the digestive organs of Birds have a
claim to the fullest consideration, yet Macgillivray himself
subsequently became aware of the fact that there were
several other parts of their structure as important from
the point of view of classification. He it was, apparently,
who first detected the essential difference of the organs
of voice presented by some of the New-World Passerines
(subsequently known as Clamatores), and the earliest
intimation of this seems to be given in his anatomical
description of the Arkansas Flycatcher, Tyrannus verticalis,
which was published in 1838 (Ornithol. Biography, iv. p.
425), though it must be admitted that he did not — because
he then could not — perceive the bearing of their difference,
which was reserved to be shown by the investigation of a
still greater anatomist, and of one who had fuller facilities
for research, and thereby almost revolutionized, as will
presently be mentioned, the views of systematists as to
this Order of Birds. There is only space here to say that
the second volume of Macgillivray's work was published
in 1839, and the third in 1840 ; but it was not until 1852
that the author, in broken health, found an opportunity of
issuing the fourth and fifth. His scheme of classification,
being as before stated partial, need not be given in detail.
Its great merit is that it proved the necessity of combin
ing another and hitherto much-neglected factor in any
natural arrangement, though vitiated as so many other
schemes have been by being based wholly on one class of
characters.
But a bolder attempt at classification was that made in
1838 by BLYTH in the New Series (Mr CharlesworthV) of
the Magazine of Natural History (ii. pp. 256-268, 314-
319, 351-361/420-426, 589-601; iii. pp. 76-84). It
was limited, however, to what he called Insessores, being
the group upon which that name had been conferred by
Vigors (Trans. Linn. Society, xiv. p. 405) in 1823 (see
above, p. 15), with the addition, however, of his Raptores,
and it will be unnecessary to enter into particulars con
cerning it, though it is as equally remarkable for the insight
shewn by the author into the structure of Birds as for the
philosophical breadth of his view, which comprehends
almost every kind of character that had been at that time
brought forward. It is plain that Blyth saw, and perhaps
he was the first to see it, that Geographical Distribution
was not unimportant in suggesting the affinities and
differences of natural groups (pp. 258, 259) ; and, unde
terred by the precepts and practice of the hitherto
dominant English school of Ornithologists, he declared
that '' anatomy, when aided by every character which the
manner of propagation, the progressive changes, and other
physiological data supply, is the only sure basis of classi
fication." He was quite aware of the taxonomic value of
the vocal organs of some groups of Birds, presently to be
especially mentioned, and he had himself ascertained the
presence and absence of caeca in a not inconsiderable
number of groups, drawing thence very justifiable infer
ences. He knew at least the earlier investigations of
1 This is not the place to expatiate on Macgillivray's merits ; but the
writer may perhaps be excused for here uttering the opinion that, after
Willughby, Macgillivray was the greatest and most original ornitho
logical genius save one (who did not live long enough to make his
powers widely known) that this island has produced. The exact
amount of assistance he afforded to Audubon in his Ornithological
Biography will probably never be ascertained ; but, setting aside " all
the anatomical descriptions, as well as the sketches by which they are
sometimes illustrated," that on the latter's own statement (o^?. c/'t. , iv. ,
Introduction, p. xxiii) are the work of Macgillivray, no impartial
reader can compare the style in which the History of British Birds is
written with that of the Ornithological Biography without recogniz
ing the similarity of the two. On this subject some remarks of
Prof. Cones (Bull. Xutt. Ornithol. Club, 1880, p. 201) may well be
consulted.
25
L'Herminier, and, though the work of Nitzsch, even if he
had ever heard of it, must (through ignorance of the
language in which it was written) have been to him a
sealed book, he had followed out and extended the hints
already given by Temminck as to the differences which
various groups of Birds display in their moult. With all
this it is not surprising to find, though the fact has been
generally overlooked, that Blyth's proposed arrangement
in many points anticipated conclusions that were subse
quently reached, and were then regarded as fresh dis
coveries. It is proper to add that at this time the greater
part of his work was carried on in conjunction with Mr
BARTLETT, the present Superintendent of the Zoological Bartlett.
Society's Gardens, and that, without his assistance, Blyth's
opportunities, slender as they were compared with those
which others have enjoyed, must have been still smaller.
Considering the extent of their materials, which was limited
to the bodies of such animals as they could obtain from
dealers and the several menageries that then existed in or
near London, the progress made in what has since proved
to be the right direction is very wonderful. It is obvious
that both these investigators had the genius for recognizing
and interpreting the value of characters ; but their labours
do not seem to have met with much encouragement ; and
a general arrangement of the Class laid by Blyth before
the Zoological Society at this time 2 does not appear in its
publications, possibly through his neglect to reduce his
'scheme to writing and deliver it within the prescribed
period. But even if this were not the case, no one need
be surprised at the result. The scheme could hardly fail
to be a crude performance — a fact which nobody would
know better than its author ; but it must have presented
much that was objectionable to the opinions then generally
prevalent. Its line to some extent may be partly made
out — very clearly, for the matter of that, so far as its
details have been published in the series of papers to
which reference has been given — and some traces of its
features are probably preserved in his Catalogue of the
specimens of Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal, which, after several years of severe labour,
made its appearance at Calcutta in 1849 ; but, from the
time of his arrival in India, the onerous duties imposed
upon Blyth, together with the want of sufficient books of
reference, seem to have hindered him from seriously con
tinuing his former researches, which, interrupted as they
were, and born out of due time, had no appreciable effect
on the views of systematizers generally.
Next must bo noticed a series of short treatises communicated
by JOHAXX FRIEDRICH BRANDT, between the years 1836 and 1839, Brandt,
to the Academy of Sciences of St Petersburg, and published in its
Mewoircs. In the year last mentioned the greater part of these
Avas separately issued under the title of Bcitrage zur Kcnntniss
Her Naturgcschichte der Vogel. Herein the author first assigned
anatomical reasons for rearranging the Order Anscres of Linnaeus
and Natatorcs of Illiger, who, so long before as 1811, had proposed
a new distribution of it into six Families, the definitions of which,
as was his wont, he had drawn from external characters only.
Bnmdt now retained very nearly the same arrangement as his
predecessor ; but, notwithstanding that he could trust to the
firmer foundation of internal framework, he took at least two retro
grade steps. First he failed to see the great structural diffe:ence
between the Penguins (which Illiger had placed as a group,
Iwpcnncs, of equal rank to his other Families) and the Auks,
Divers, and Grebes, Pygopodes — combining all of them to form a
" Typus " (to use his term) Urino tores ; and secondly he admitted
among the Natatorcs, though as a distinct "Typus" Podoida\ the
genera Podoa and Fulica, which are now known to belong to the
Rallidie — the latter indeed (see COOT, vol. vi. p. 341) being but
very slightly removed from the MOOU-HEX (vol. xvi. p. 808). At
the same time he corrected the error made by ]lliger in associating
the PiiALARorr.s (q.r.) with these forms, rightly declaring their
2 An abstract is contained in the Minute-book of the Scientific
Meetings of the Zoological Society, 26th June and 10th July 1838.
The Class was to contain fifteen Orders, but only three were dealt
with in any detail.
XVIII. --4
26
OKNITHOLOGY
relationship to Trinya (see SANDPIPER), a point of order which
other systematists were long in admitting. On the whole Brandt's
labours were of no small service in asserting the principle that con
sideration must be paid to osteology ; for his position was such as
to gain more attention to his views than some of his less favourably
placed brethren had succeeded in doing.
leyser- In the same year (1839) another slight advance was made in the
ng and classification of the true Passerines. KEYSEULIXG and BLASIUS !
tlasius. briefly pointed out in the ArchivfurNaturgeschichU (v. pp. 332-334)
that, while all the other Birds provided with perfect song-muscles j
had the " planta " or hind part of the " tarsus " covered with two
long and undivided horn}7 plates, the LAUK.S (vol. xiv. p. 316) had
this part divided by many transverse sutures, so as to be scutellated |
behind as well as in front ; just as is the case in many of the j
Passerines which have not the singing-apparatus, and also in the ;
HOOPOK (vol. xii. p. 154). The importance of this singular but
superficial departure from the normal structure has been so need
lessly exaggerated as a character that at the present time its value
is apt to be unduly depreciated. In so large and so homogeneous ,
a group as that of the true Passerines, a constant character of this j
kind is not to be despised as a practical mode of separating the
Birds which possess it ; and, more than this, it would appear that
the discovery thus announced was the immediate means of leading
to a series of investigations of a much more important and lasting '
nature — those of Johannes Miiller to be presently mentioned.
Again we must recur to that indefatigable and most
ritzsch. original investigator NITZSCH, who, having never inter
mitted his study of the particular subject of his first con
tribution to science, long ago noticed, in 1833 brought
out at Halle, where he was Professor of Zoology, an essay
with the title Pterylographix Avium Pars prior. It seems
that this was issued as much with the object of inviting
assistance from others in view of future labours, since the
materials at his disposal were comparatively scanty, as
with that of making known the results to which his
researches had already led him. Indeed he only com
municated copies of this essay to a few friends, and
examples of it are comparatively scarce. Moreover, he
stated subsequently that he thereby hoped to excite other
naturalists to share with him the investigations he was
making on a subject which had hitherto escaped notice or
had been wholly neglected, since he considered that he
had proved the disposition of the feathered tracts in the
plumage of Birds to be the means of furnishing characters
for the discrimination of the various natural groups as
significant and important as they were new and un
expected.1 There was no need for us here to quote this
essay in its chronological place, since it dealt only with
the generalities of the subject, and did not enter upon any
systematic details. These the author reserved for a second
treatise which he was destined never to complete. He
kept on diligently collecting materials, and as he did so
1 It is still a prevalent belief among near'y all persons but well-
informed ornithologists, that feathers grow almost uniformly over the
wholj surface of a Bird's body ; some indeed are longer and some are
shorter, but that is about all the difference perceptible to most people.
It is the easiest thing for anybody to satisfy himself that this, except
in a few cases, is altogether an erroneous supposition. In all but a
small number of forms the feathers are produced in very definite clumps
or tracts, called by Nitzsch /><eryZ/E (irrtpAv, penna, V\TI, sylva], a rather
fanciful term it is true, but one to which no objection can be taken.
Between these pterylse, are spaces bare of feathers, which he named
apteria. Before Nitzsch's time the only men who seem to have noticed !
this fact were the great John Hunter and the accurate Macartney. But
the observations of the former on the subject were not given to the world |
until 1836, when Sir R. Owen introduced them into his Catalogue of
the Museum of the College of Surgeons in London (vol. iii. pt. ii. p.
311), and therein is no indication of the fact having a taxonomical
bearing. The same may be said of Macartney's remarks, which, though
subsequent in point of time, were published earlier, namely, in 1819
(Rees's Cyclopaedia, xiv., art. "Feathers"). Ignorance of this simple
fact has led astray many celebrated painters, among them Sir Edwin
L-mdseer, whose pictures of Birds nearly always shew an unnatural
representation of the plumage that at once betrays itself to the trained
eye, though of course it is not perceived by spectators generally, who
regard only the correctness of attitude and force of expression, which
in that artist's work commonly leave little to be desired. Every
draughtsman of Birds to be successful should study the plan on which
their feathers are disposed.
was constrained to modify some of the statements he had
published. He consequently fell into a state of doubt,
and before he could make up his mind on some questions
which he deemed important he was overtaken by death.2
Then his papers were handed over to his friend and suc
cessor Prof. BORMEISTER, now and for many years past of Bur-
Buenos Aires, who, with much skill elaborated from mdster.
them the excellent work known as Nitzsch's Pterylo-
cjraphie, which was published at Halle in 1840. There
can be no doubt that Prof. Burmeister (fortunately yet
spared to us) discharged his editorial duty with the
most conscientious scrupulosity ; but, from what has been
just said, it is certain that there were important points
on which Nitzsch was as yet undecided — some of
them perhaps of which no trace appeared in his manu
scripts, and therefore as in every case of works posthum
ously published, unless (as rarely happens) they have
received their author's "imprimatur," they cannot be
implicitly trusted as the expression of his final views. It
would consequently be unsafe to ascribe positively all that
appears in this volume to the result of Nitzsch's mature
consideration. Moreover, as Prof. Burmeister states in
his preface, Nitzsch by no means regarded the natural
sequence of groups as the highest problem of the system-
atist, but rather their correct limitation. Again the
arrangement followed in the Pterylographie was of course
based on pterylographical considerations, and we have its
author's own word for it that he was persuaded that the
limitation of natural groups could only be attained by the
most assiduous research into the species of which they are
composed from every point of view. The combination
of these three facts will of itself explain some defects, or
even retrogressions, observable in Nitzsch's later systematic
work when compared with that which he had formerly
done. On the other hand some manifest improvements
are introduced, and the abundance of details into which
he enters in his Pterylographie render it far more instruc
tive and valuable than the older performance. As an
abstract of that has already been given, it may be
sufficient here to point out the chief changes made in his
newer arrangement. To begin with, the three great
sections of Aerial, Terrestrial, and Aquatic Birds are
abolished. The ' Accipitres " are divided into two groups,
Diurnal and Nocturnal ; but the first of these divisions is
separated into three sections: — (1) the Vultures of the
New World, (2) those of the Old World, and (3) the
genus Falco of Linnaeus. The "Passerines," that is to
say, the true Passeres, are split into eight Families, not
wholly with judgment;3 but of their taxonomy more is
to be said presently. Then a new Order " Picarix " is
instituted for the reception of the Macrochires, Cuculinse,
Picinx, Psittadnsc, and Amphibolx of his old arrangement,
to which are added three4 others — Caprimnlyinx, Todidae,
and Lipoy/ossoe — the last consisting of the genera Buceros,
Upupa, and Alcedo. The association of Alcedo with the
2 Though not relating exactly to our present theme, it would be
improper to dismiss Nitzsch's name without reference to hi.s extra
ordinary labours in investigating the insect and other external parasites
of Birds, a subject which as regards British species was subsequently
elaborated by DENNY in his Monographia Anoplurorum Britannia?-
(1842) and in his list of the specimens of British Anoplura in the col
lection of the British Museum.
3 A short essay by Nitzsch on the general structure of the Passerines,
written, it is said, in 1836, was published in 1862 (Zeitschr. Oes.
Naturwisxenschaft, xix. pp. 389-408). It is probably to this essay
that Prof. Burmeister refers in the Pli'.rylo'jraphie, (p. 102, note ;
English translation, p. 7'2, note) as forming the basis of the article
" Passerinae " which he contributed to Er.sch and Gruber's Encyklo-
pridie (sect. iii. bd. xiii. pp. 139-144), and published before the
Pterylographie.
4 By the numbers prefixed it would look as if there should be four
new members of this Order ; but that seems to be due rather to a slip
of the pen or to a printer's error.
ORNITHOLOGY
27
other two is no doubt a misplacement, but the alliance of j
Buceros to Upupa, already suggested by Gould and Blyth ;
in 18381 (Mag. Nat. History, ser. 2, ii. pp. 422 and 589), |
though apparently unnatural, has been corroborated by ,
many later systematizers; and taken as a whole the estab
lishment of the PicariiR was certainly a commendable pro- !
ceeding. For the rest there is only one considerable
change, and that forms the greatest blot on the whole
scheme. Instead of recognizing, as before, a Subclass in ;
the Ratitx of Merrem, Nitzsch now reduced them to the
rank of an Order under the name " Platystemse," placing
them between the " Gallinacex " and " Grallx" though
admitting that in their pterylosis they differ from all other
Birds, in ways that he is at great pains to describe, in each
of the four genera examined by him — Stridhio, Rhea,
Drommis, and Casuarius.2 It is significant that notwith
standing this he did not figure the pterylosis of any one
of them, and the thought suggests itself that, though his
editor assures us he had convinced himself that the group
must be here shoved in (eingeschdben is the word used),
the intrusion is rather due to the necessity which Nitzsch,
in common with most men of his time (the Quinarians
excepted), felt for deploying the whole series of Birds into
line, in which case the proceeding may be defensible on
the score of convenience. The extraordinary merits of
this book, and the admirable fidelity to his principles
which Prof. Burmeister shewed in the difficult task of
editing it, were unfortunately overlooked for many years,
and perhaps are not sufficiently recognized now. Even in
Germany, the author's own country, there were few to
notice seriously what is certainly one of the most remark
able works ever published on the science, much less to
pursue the investigations that had been so laboriously
begun.3 Andreas Wagner, in his report on the progress
of Ornithology, as might be expected from such a man as
he was, placed the Pterylographie at the summit of those
publications the appearance of which he had to record for the
years 1839 and 1840, stating that for " Systematik " it was
of the greatest importance.4 On the other hand Oken (/«'.<,
1842, pp. 391-394), though giving a summary of Nitzsch's
results and classification, was more sparing of his praise, and
prefaced his remarks by asserting that he could not refrain
from laughter when he looked at the plates in Nitzsch's
work, since they reminded him of the plucked fowls
hanging in a poulterer's shop — it might as well be urged
as an objection to the plates in many an anatomical book
that they called to mind a butcher's — and goes on to say
that, as the author always had the luck to engage in
researches of which nobody thought, so had he the luck
to print them where nobody sought them. In Sweden
1 This association is one of the most remarkable in the whole series
of Blyth's remarkable papers on classification in the volume cited above.
He states that Gould suspected the alliance of these two forms "from
external structure and habits alone ;" otherwise one might suppose that
he had obtained an intimation to that effect on one of his Continental
journeys. Blyth " arrived at the same conclusion, however, by a different
train of investigation," and this is beyond doubt.
2 He does not mention Apteryx, at that time so little known on the
Continent.
3 Some excuse is to be made for this neglect. Nitzsch had of course '
exhausted all the forms of Birds commonly to be, obtained, and speci- |
lueus of the less common forms were too valuable from the curator's or
collector's point of view to be subjected to a treatment that might end
in their destruction. Yet it is said, on good authority, that Nitzsch
had the patience so to manipulate the skins of many rare species that
he was able to ascertain the characters of their pterylosis by the inspec
tion of their inside only, without in any way damaging them for the
ordinary purpose of a museum. Nor is this surprising when we con
sider the marvellous skill of Continental and especially German taxi
dermists, many of whom have elevated their profession to a height of
art inconceivable to most Englishmen, who are only acquainted with
the miserable mockery of Nature which is the most sublime result of all
but a few " bird-stufters. "
4 Archiv far Naturgeschickte, vii. 2, pp. 60, 61.
Sundevall, without accepting Nitzsch's views, accorded
them a far more appreciative greeting in his annual reports
for 1840-42 (i. pp. 152-160); but of course in England
and France5 nothing was known of them beyond the
scantiest notice, generally taken at second hand, in two or
three publications. Thanks to Mr Sclater, the Ray Society
was induced to publish, in 1867, an excellent translation
by Mr Dallas of Nitzsch's Pterylography, and thereby,
however tardily, justice was at length rendered by British
ornithologists to one of their greatest foreign brethren.6
The treatise of KESSLEK on the osteology of Birds' feet, published Kessler.
in tin; Built tin of the Moscow Society of Naturalists for 1841, next
claims a few words, though its scope is rather to shew differences
than affinities ; but treatment of that kind is undoubtedly useful
at times in indicating that alliances generally admitted are
unnatural ; and this is the case here, for, following Cuvier's
method, the author's researches prove the artificial character of
some of its associations. While furnishing— almost unconsciously,
however -additional evidence for overthrowing that classification,
there is, nevertheless, no attempt made to construct a better one ;
and the elaborate tables of dimensions, both absolute and pro
portional, suggestive as is the whole tendency of the author's
observations, seem not to lead to any very practical result, though
the systematist's need to look beneath the integument, even in
parts that are so comparatively little hidden as Birds' feet, is once
more made beyond all question apparent.
It has already been mentioned that MACGILLIVRAY con- Macgil-
tributed to Audubon's Ornithological Biography a series of hvray
descriptions of some parts of the anatomy of American ^ ,
Birds, from subjects supplied to him by that enthusiastic ijon
naturalist, whose zeal and prescience, it may be called, in
this respect merits all praise. Thus he (prompted very
likely by Macgillivray) wrote : — " I believe the time to be
approaching when much of the results obtained from the
inspection of the exterior alone will be laid aside ; when
museums filled with stuffed skins will be considered
insufficient to afford a knowledge of birds ; and when the
student will go forth, not only to observe the habits and
haunts of animals, but to preserve specimens of them to
be carefully dissected " (Ornith. Biography, iv., Introduc
tion, p. xxiv). As has been stated, the first of this series
of anatomical descriptions appeared in the fourth volume
of his work, published in 1838, but they were continued
until its completion with the fifth volume in the following
year, and the whole \vas incorporated into what may be
termed its second edition, The Birds of America, which
appeared between 1840 and 1844 (see p. 1 1). Among
the many species whose anatomy Macgillivray thus partly
described from autopsy were at least half a dozen 7 of those
now referred to the Family Tyrannidx (see KING-BIRD,
vol. xiv. p. 80), but then included, with many others, ac
cording to the irrational, vague, and rudimentary notions of
classification of the time, in what was termed the Family
" MuscicapiniR. " In all these species he found the vocal
organs to differ essentially in structure from those of other
Birds of the Old World, which we now call Passerine, or,
to be still more precise, Oscinian. But by him these last
were most arbitrarily severed, dissociated from their allies,
and wrongly combined with other forms by no means
nearly related to them (Brit. Birds, i. pp. IT, 18) which
5 In lS36J.\CQri-:Miy communicated to the French Academy (Comptes
Itendus, ii. pp. 374, 375, and 472") some observations on the order in
which feathers are disposed on the body of Birds ; but, however general
may have been the scope of his investigations, the portion of them
published refers only to the Crow, and there is no mention made of
Nitzsch's former work.
6 The Ray Society had the good fortune to obtain the ten original
copper-plates, all but one drawn by the author himself, wherewith the
work was illustrated. It is only to be regretted that the Society did
not also stick to the quarto size in which it appeared, for by issuing
their English version in folio they needlessly put an impediment in the
way of its common and convenient use.
7 These are, according to modern nomenclature, Tyranmis caroU-
nensis and (as before mentioned) T. vcrticalis, Mijiarchus crinilus,
Sciyornis fuscus, C onto pus virens, and Empidonax acadicus.
28
ORNITHOLOGY
he also examined ; and he practically, though not literally,1
asserted the truth, when he said that the general struc
ture, but especially the muscular appendages, of the lower
larynx was " similarly formed in all other birds of this
family " described in Audubon's work. Macgillivray did
not, however, assign to this essential difference any
systematic value. Indeed he was so much prepossessed
in favour of a classification based on the structure of the
digestive organs that he could not bring himself to con
sider vocal muscles to be of much taxonomic use, and it
was reserved to JOHANXES MULLER to point out that the
ller- contrary was the fact. This the great German compara
tive anatomist did in two communications to the Academy
of Sciences of Berlin, one on the 26th June 1845 and the
other on the 14th May 1846, which, having been first
briefly published in the Academy's Monats?>ericht, were
afterwards printed in full, and illustrated by numerous
figures, in its Abhand1un<jeny though in this latter and
complete form they did not appear in public until 1 847.
This very remarkable treatise forms the groundwork of
almost all later or recent researches in the comparative
anatomy and consequent arrangement of the Passeres, and,
though it is certainly not free from imperfections, many of
them, it must be said, arise from want of material, not
withstanding that its author had command of a much
more abundant supply than was at the disposal of Nitzsch.
Carrying on the work from the anatomical point at which
he had left it, correcting his errors, and utilizing to the
fullest extent the observations of Keyserling and Blasius,
to which reference has already been made, Miiller, though
hampered by mistaken notions of which he seems to have
been unable to rid himself, propounded a scheme for the
classification of this group, the general truth of which has
been admitted by all his successors, based, as the title of
his treatise expressed, on the hitherto unknown different
types of the vocal organs in the Passerines. He freely
recognized the prior discoveries of, as he thought,
Audubon, though really, as has since been ascertained, of
Macgillivray ; but Miiller was able to perceive their system
atic value, which Macgillivray did not, and taught others
to know it. At the same time Miiller shewed himself, his
power of discrimination notwithstanding, to fall behind
Nitzsch in one very crucial point, for he refused to the
latter's Picarix the rank that had been claimed for them,
and imagined that the groups associated under that name
formed but a third " Tribe " — Picarii — of a great Order
Insessores, the others being (1) the Oscines or Polymyodi
— the Singing Birds by emphasis, whose inferior larynx
was endowed with the full number of five pairs of song-
muscles, and (2) the Tracheophones, composed of some
South-American Families. Looking on Miiller's labours
as we now can, we see that such errors as he committed
are chiefly due to his want of special knowledge of
Ornithology, combined with the absence in several
instances of sufficient materials for investigation. Nothing
whatever is to be said against the composition of his first
and second " Tribes" ; but the third is an assemblage still
more heterogeneous than that which Nitzsch brought
together under a name so like that of Miiller — for the
fact must never be allowed to go out of sight that the
extent of the Picarii of the latter is not at all that of the
Picarix of the former.2 For instance, Miiller places in his
1 Not literally, because a few other forms such as the genera Polio-
ptikin.n<\ Plilogonys, now known to have no relation to the Tyrannidir,
were included, though these forms, it would seem, had never been dis
sected by him. On the other hand he declares that the American
Redstart, Muscicapa, or, as it now stands, Ketnphaga ruticilla, when
young, has its vocal organs like the rest — an extraordinary statement
which is worthy the attention of the many able American ornithologists.
2 It is not needless to point out this fine distinction, for more than
one modern author would seem to have overlooked it.
third " Tribe " the group which he called Ampelufa, mean
ing thereby the peculiar forms of South America that are
now considered to be more properly named Cotingidse, and
herein he was clearly right, while Nitzsch, who (misled by
their supposed affinity to the genus Am pelts — peculiar to
the Northern Hemisphere, and a purely Passerine form)
had kept them among his Passerinx, was as clearly wrong.
But again Miiller made his third "Tribe" Picarii also to
contain the Tyrannidx, of which mention has just been
made, though it is so obvious as now to be generally
admitted that they have no very intimate relationship to
the other Families with which they are there associated.
There is no need here to criticize more minutely his pro
jected arrangement, and it must be said that, notwithstand
ing his researches, he seems to have had some misgivings
that, after all, the separation of the Insessores into those
" Tribes " might not be justifiable. At any rate he wavered
in his estimate of their taxonomic value, for he gave an
alternative proposal, arranging all the genera in a single
series, a proceeding in those days thought not only defens
ible and possible, but desirable or even requisite, though
now utterly abandoned. Just as Nitzsch had laboured
xinder the disadvantage of never having any example of
the abnormal Passeres of the New World to dissect, and
therefore was wholly ignorant of their abnormality, so
Miiller never succeeded in getting hold of an example of
the genus Pitta for the same purpose, and yet, acting on
the clew furnished by Keyserling and Blasius, he did not
hesitate to predict that it would be found to fill one of
the gaps he had to leave, and this to some extent it has
been since proved to do.
The result of all this is that the Oscines or true Pnssors are
found to be a group in which the vocal organs not only attain the
greatest perfection, but are nearly if not quite as uniform in their
structure as is the sternal apparatus ; while at the same time each
set of characters is wholly unlike that which exists in any other
group of Birds. In nearly all Birds the inferior larynx, or syrinx,
which i.«, as proved long ago by the experiments of Cuvier, the scat
of their vocal powers, is at the bottom of the trachea or windpipe,
and is formed by the more or less firm union of several of the bony
rings of which that tube is composed. In the Ratitie, the genus
Jlhca excepted, and in one group of Carinatse, the American
Vultures Cathartidse, but therein it is believed only, there is no
special modification of the trachea into a syrinx ;3 but usually, at
a little distance from the lungs, the trachea is somewhat enlarged,
and here is found a thicker and stouter bony ring, which is bisected
axially by a septum or partition extending from behind forwards,
and thus dividing the pipe,4 each half of which swells out below the
ring and then rapidly contracts to enter the lung on its own side.
The halves of the pipe thus formed are the bronchi, tubes whose
inner side is flattened and composed of the mcmlrana fi/)i>piiiii-
formis, on the change of form and length of which some of the
varieties of intonation depend, while the outer and curved side is
supported by bony half-hooj s, connected by membrane just as arc
the entire hoops of the upper part of the trachen. The whole of
this apparatus is extremely flexible, and is controlled by muscles.
the real vocal muscles of which mention has previously been so
frequently made. These vary in number in different groups of
Birds, and reach their maximum in the Oscim:*, which have always
five pairs, or even more according to some authorities.5 But sup
posing five to be the number of pairs, as it is generally allowed to
be in this group of them, two pairs have a common origin about
the middle of the trachea, and, descending on its outside, divide at
a short distance above the lower end of the tube ; one of them, the
tensor posterior tom/ns, being directed downward and backward, is
inserted at the extreme posterior end of the first half-ring of the;
bronchus, while its counterpart, the tensor anterior loiiyits, passing
from the place of separation downward and forward, is inserted
below the extreme point of the lust ring of the trachea. "\Vithin
the angle formed by the divergence of each of these pairs of
muscles, a third slender muscle— the stcrno-lrac/tealis — is given oil'
3 See BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 726 ; but rf. Forbes, Prac. ZooL Society,
1881, pp. 778, 788.
4 In a few forms belonging to the Xpheniscidx. and ProcettariidK,
this septum is prolonged upwards, to what purpose is of course
unknown. On the other hand, the Parrots have no septum (see BIKDS,
ut supra).
5 See BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 726.
on each side and is attached to the sternum.1 The fourth pair, the
tcnsorcs jwsteriores breves, is the smallest of all, and, arising near
the middle of the lower end of the trachea, has its fibres inserted
on the extremity of tlic first of the incomplete rings of the bronchi.
The fifth pair, the tc/isorcs antcriorcs, originates like the last from
the middle of the trachea, but is somewhat larger and thicker,
appearing as though made up of several small muscles in close
contact, and by some ornithotomists is believed to be of a com
posite nature. Its direction is obliquely downward and forward,
and, attached by a broad base to the last ring of the trachea and
cartilage immediately below, reaches the first or second of the half-
rings of the bronchi — in the normal Oschws at their extremity;
but, in another section of that group, which it will be necessary to
mention later, it is found to be attached to their middle. There
is no question of its being by the action of the syringeal mnscles
just described that the expansion of the bronchi, both as to length
and diameter, is controlled, and, as thereby the sounds uttered by
the Bird are modified, they are properly called the Song-muscles.
It must not be supposed that the muscles just denned
were first discovered by Miiller; on the contrary they had
been described long before, and by many writers on the
anatomy of Birds. To say nothing of foreigners, or the
authors of general works on the subject, an excellent
account of them had been given to the Linnean Society
Yarrell. by YARRELL in 1829, and published with elaborate figures
in its Transactions (xvi. pp. 305-321, pis. 17, 18), an
abstract of which was subsequently given in the article
" Raven " in his History of British Birds, and Macgillivray
also described and figured them with the greatest accuracy
ten years later in his work with the same title (ii. pp. 21-37,
pis. x.-xii.), while Blyth and Nitzsch had (as already
mentioned) seen some of their value in classification. But
Miiller has the merit of clearly outstriding his predecessors,
and with his accustomed perspicuity made the way even
plainer for his successors to see than he himself was able
to see it. What remains to add is that the extraordinary
celebrity of its author actually procured for the first
portion of his researches notice in England (Ann. Nat.
History, xvii. p. 499), though it must be confessed not
then to any practical purpose ; but more than thirty years
after there appeared an English translation of his treatise
by Prof. Jeffrey Bell, with an appendix by Garrod con
taining a summary of the latter's own continuation of the
same line of research, and thus once more Mr Sclater, for
it was at his instigation that the work was undertaken,
had the satisfaction of rendering proper tribute to one
who by his investigations had so materially advanced the
.study of Ornithology.2
Cornay. It is now necessary to revert to the year 1842, in which Dr
COUXAY of Rochefort communicated to the French Academy of
Sciences a memoir on a new Classification of Birds, of which, how
ever, nothing hut a notice has been preserved (Compf.es Rendus,
xiv. p. 164). Two years later this was followed by a second contri
bution from him on the same subject, and of this only an extract
appeared in the official organ of the Academy (ut supra, xvi. pp.
94, 95), though an abstract was inserted in one scientific journal
(L'fnstitut, xii. p. 21), and its first portion in another (Journal ' dcs
iJ&ouvcrtcs, i. p. 250). The Revue Zoologiquc for 1847 (pp. 360-369)
contained the whole, and enabled naturalists to consider the merits
of the author's project, which was to found a new Classification of
Birds on the form of the anterior palatal bones, which he declared
to be subjected more evidently than any other to certain fixed laws.
These laws, as formulated by him, are that (1) there is a coincidence
of form of the anterior palatal and of the cranium in Birds of the
same Order ; (2) there is a likeness between the anterior palatal
bones in Birds of the same Order ; (3) there are relations of likeness
between the anterior palatal bones in groups of Birds which are
near to one another. These laws, he added, exist in regard to all
1 According to Blytli (May. Xat. History, ser. 2, ii. p. 264).
Varrell ascertained that this pair of muscles was wanting in "the
mina genus" (qu. Graculal], a statement that requires attention
cither for confirmation or contradiction.
2 The title of the English translation is Johannes Mailer on Certain
Variations in the Vocal Organs of the Fasseres that have hitherto
escaped notice. It was published at Oxford in 1878. By some
unaccountable accident, the date of the original communication to the
Academy of Berlin is wrongly printed. It has been rightly given
above
Eirts that offer characters fit for the methodical arrangement of
irds, but it is in regard to the anterior palatal bone that they
unquestionably offer the most evidence. In the evolution of these
laws Dr Cornay had most laudably studied, as his observations
prove, a vast number of different types, and the upshot of his whole
labours, though not very clearly stated, was such as to wholly sub
vert the classification at that time generally adopted by French
ornithologists. He of course knew the investigations of L'llermiuier
and De Blainville on sternal formation, and he also seems to have
been aware of some pterylological differences exhibited by Birds —
whether those of Nitzsch or those of Jacquemin is not stated. True
it is the latter were never published in full, but it is quite conceiv
able that Dr Cornay may have known their drift. Be that as it
may, he declares that characters drawn from the sternum or the
pelvis — hitherto deemed to be, next to the bones of the head, the
most important portions of the Bird's framework — are scarcely-
worth more, from a classificatory point of view, than characters
drawn from the bill or the legs ; while pterylological considerations,
together with many others to which some systematists had attached
more or less importance, can only assist, and apparently must never
be taken to control, the force of evidence furnished by this bone of
all bones — the anterior palatal.
That Dr Cornay was on the brink of making a discovery of con
siderable merit will by and by appear ; but, with every disposition
to regard his investigations favourably, it cannot be said that he
accomplished it. No account need be taken of the criticism which
denominated his attempt " unphilosophical and one-sided," nor does
it signify that his proposals either attracted no attention or were
generally received with indifference. Such is commonly the fate
of any deep-seated reform of classification proposed by a compara
tively unknown man, unless it happen to possess some extraordinarily
taking qualities, or be explained with an abundance of pictorial
illustration. This was not the case here. Whatever proofs Dr
Cornay may have had to satisfy himself of his being on the right
track, these proofs were not adduced in sufficient number nor
arranged with sufficient skill to persuade a somewhat stiff-necked
generation of the truth of his views— for it was a generation whose
| leaders, in France at any rate, looked with suspicion upon any
one who professed to go beyond the bounds which the genius of
| Cuvier had been unable to overpass, and regarded the notion of
i upsetting any of the positions maintained by him as verging
! almost upon profanity. Moreover. Dr Cornay 's scheme was not
! given to the world with any of those adjuncts that not merely
' please the eye but are in many cases necessary, for, though on
| a subject which required for its proper comprehension a series of
j plates, it made even its final appearance unadorned by a single ex
planatory figure, and in a journal, respectable and well-known in
deed, but one not of the highest scientific rank. Add to all this
| that its author, in his summary of the practical results of his in-
| vestigations, committed a grave sin in the eyes of rigid systematists
by ostentatiously arranging the names of the forty types which he
' selected to prove his case wholly without order, and without any
intimation of the greater or less affinity any one of them might bear
I to the rest. That success should attend a scheme so inconclusively
; elaborated could not be expected.
The same year which saw the promulgation of the crude scheme
! just described, as well as the publication of the final researches of
Miiller, witnessed also another attempt at the classification of Birds,
much more limited indeed in scope, but, so far as it went, regarded
by most ornithologists of the time as almost final in its operation.
Under the vague title of " Ornithologische Notizen" Prof. Cabanis C'abanis
of Berlin contributed to the Archiv filr Naturgeschichte (xiii. 1,
pp. 186-256, 308-352) an essay in two parts, wherein, following
the researches of Miiller 3 on the syrinx, in the course of which
a correlation had been shewn to exist between the whole or divided
condition of the planta or hind part of the " tarsus," first noticed,
as has been said, by Keyserling and Blasius, and the presence or
absence of the perfect song-apparatus, the younger author found an
agreement which seemed almost invariable in this respect, and he
also pointed out that the planta of the different groups of Birds in
which it is divided is divided in different modes, the mode of division
being gem-rally characteristic of the group. Such a coincidence of
the internal and external features of Birds was naturally deemed a
discovery of the greatest value by those ornithologists who thought
most highly of the latter, and it was unquestionably of no little
practical utility. Further examination also revealed the fact 4 that
3 On the other hand, Miiller makes several references to the labours
of Prof. Cabanis. The investigations of both authors must have
been proceeding simultaneously, and it matters little which actually
appeared first.
4 This seeni.s to have been made known by Prof. Cabanis the
preceding year to the Gesellschaft dcr Xaturforschender Freunde
(cf. Miiller, Stimmo-rgancn dcr Passerinen, p. 65). Of course the
variation to which the number of primaries was subject had not
escaped the observation of Nitzsch, but he had scarcely used it as a
classificatorv character.
30
in certain groups the number of " primaries," or quill-feathers grow
ing from the mantis or distal segment of the wing, formed another
characteristic easy of observation. In the Oscincs or Pohjmyodi of
Miiller the number was either nine or ten — and if the latter the
outermost of them was generally very small. In t\vo of the other
groups of which Prof. Cabanis especially treated — groups which hail
been hitherto more or less confounded with the Oscincs — the number
of primaries was invariably ten, and the outermost of them was
comparatively large. This observation was also hailed as the dis
covery of a fact of extraordinary importance ; ami, from the results
of these investigations, taken altogether, Ornithology was declared
by Sundevall, undoubtedly a man who had a right to speak with
authority, to have made greater progress than had been achieved
since the, days of Cuvier. The final disposition of the " Subclass
Inscssores" — all the perching Birds, that is to say, which are neither
Birds-of-Prey nor Pigeons — proposed by Prof. Cabanis, was into
four " Orders," as follows : —
1. Oscines, equal to Miiller's group of the same name ;
2. Clamatorcs, being a majority of that division of the Picariie
of Nitzsch, so called by Andreas Wagner, in 1841, 1 which have
their feet normally constructed ;
3. Strisorcs, a group now separated from the Clamatorcs of
Wagner, and containing those forms which have their feet abnor
mally constructed ; and
4. Scansorcs, being the Grimpeurs of Cuvier, the Zygodadyli of
several other systematists.
The first of these four " Orders " had been already indefensibly
established as one perfectly natural, but respecting its details more
must presently be said. The remaining three are now seen to be
obviously artificial associations, and the second of them, Clamatorcs,
in particular, containing a very heterogeneous assemblage of forms ;
but it must be borne in mind that the internal structure of some of
them was at that time still more imperfectly known than now.
Yet even then enough had been ascertained to have saved what are
now recognized as the Families Todidse, and Tyrannidse, from being
placed as " Subfamilies" in the same " Family Coloptcridse" ; and
several other instances of unharmonious combination in this "Order"
might be adduced were it worth while to particularize them. More
than that, it would not be difficult to shew, only the present is not
exactly the place for it, that some groups or Families which in
reality are not far distant from one another are distributed, owing
to the dissimilarity of their external characters, throughout these
three Orders. Thus the Podarginse are associated with the Coradidie
under the head Clnmatorcs, while the Caprimulyidae, to which they
are clearly most allied, if they do not form part of that Family
(GOATSUCKER, vol. x. p. 711), are placed with the Strisorcs ; and
again the Mu&ophogidse also stand as Strisorcs, while the Cucnlidse,
which modern systematists think to be their nearest relations, are
considered to be Scansores.
But to return to the Oscines, the arrangement of which
in the classification now under review has been deemed its
greatest merit, and consequently has been very generally
followed. That by virtue of the perfection of their vocal
organs, and certain other properties — though some of
these last have perhaps never yet been made clear enough
— they should stand at the head of the whole Class, may
here be freely admitted, but the respective rank assigned
to the various component Families of the group is certainly
open to question, and to the present writer seems, in the
methods of several systematists, to be based upon a fallacy.
This respective rank of the different Families appears to
have been assigned on the principle that, since by reason
of one character (namely, the more complicated structure
of their syrinx) the Oscines form a higher group than the
Clamatsires, therefore all the concomitant features which
the former possess and the latter do not must be equally
indicative of superiority. Now one of the features in
which most of the Oscines differ from the lower " Order "
is the having a more or less undivided planta, and accord
ingly it has been assumed that the Family of Oscines in
which this modification of the planta is carried to its
extreme point must be the highest of that "Order."
Since, therefore, this extreme modification of the planta is
1 Archiv fur Xaturgeschichte, vii. 2, pp. 93, 94. The division
seems to have been instituted by this author a couple of years earlier
in the second edition of his Handbuch der Naturyeschichte (a work
not seen by the present writer), but not then to have received a
scientific name. It included all Picariie which had not " xygodacty-
lous " feet, that is to say, toes placed in pairs, two before and two
behind.
exhibited by the Thrushes and their allies, it is alleged
that they must be placed first, and indeed at the head
of all Birds. The groundlessness of this reasoning ought
to be apparent to everybody. In the present state of
anatomy at any rate, it is impossible to prove that there
is more than a coincidence in the facts just stated, and in
the association of two characters — one deeply seated and
affecting the whole life of the Bird, the other superficially,
and so far as we can perceive without effect upon its
organism. Because the Clamutores^ having no song-
muscles, have a divided planta, it cannot be logical to
assume that among the Oscines, which possess song-muscles,
such of them as have an undivided planta must be higher
than those that have it divided. The argument, if it can
be called an argument, is hardly one of analogy; and yet
no stronger ground has been occupied by those who invest
the Thrushes, as do the majority of modern systematists,
with the most dignified position in the whole Class. But
passing from general to particular considerations, so soon
as a practical application of the principle is made its
inefficacy is manifest. The test of perfection of the vocal
organs must be the perfection of the notes they enable
their possessor to utter. There cannot be a question that,
sing admirably as do some of the Birds included among
the Thrushes,2 the Larks, as a Family, infinitely surpass
them. Yet the Larks form the very group which, as has
been already shewn (LAKK, vol. xiv. p. 314), have the
planta more divided than any other among the Oscines.
It seems hardly possible to adduce anything that would
more conclusively demonstrate the independent nature of
each of these characters — the complicated structure of the
syrinx and the asserted inferior formation of the planta —
which are in the Alaiididx associated.3 Moreover, this
same Family affords a very valid protest against the
extreme value attached to the presence or absence of the
outermost quill-feather of the wings, and in this work it
has been before shewn (vt svpra) that almost every stage
of magnitude in this feather is exhibited by the Larks from
its rudimentary or almost abortive condition in Alavda
arvensis to its very considerable development in Mefano-
corypha calandra. Indeed there are many genera of
Oscines in which the proportion that the outermost primary
bears to the rest is at best but a specific character, and
certain exceptions are allowed by Prof. Cabanis (p. 313)
to exist. Some of them it is now easy to explain, inas
much as in a few cases the apparently aberrant genera
have elsewhere found a more natural position, a contin
gency to which he himself was fully awake. But as a rule
the allocation and ranking of the different Families of
Oscines by this author must be deemed arbitrary.4 Yet
the value of his Ornithologische Notizen is great, not only
as evidence of his extraordinarily extensive acquaintance
with different forms, which is proclaimed in every page,
but in leading to a far fuller appreciation of characters
that certainly should on no account be neglected, though
- Prof. Cabanis would have strengthened his position had he included
in the same Family with the Thrushes, which lie called Rha-
cnemidse, the Birds commonly known as Warblers, Sylviidw, which the
more advanced of recent systematists are inclined with much reason
to unite with the Thrushes, Turdidse ; but instead of that he, trusting
to the plantar character, segregated the Warblers, including of course
the Nightingale, and did not even allow them the second place in his
method, putting them below the Family called by him Sylvicolidse,
consisting chiefly of the American forms now known as Mniotiltidie,,
none of which as songsters approach those of the Old World.
3 It must be observed that Prof. Cabanis does not place the Alaudidss
lowest of the seventeen Families of which he makes the Oscines to be
composed. They stand eleventh in order, while the Corvidas are last —
a matter on which something has to be said in the sequel.
4 By a curious error, probably of the press, the number of primaries
assigned to the Paradiseid.se and Con^idse. is wrong (pp. 334, 335). In
each case 10 should be substituted for 19 and 14.
ORNITHOLOGY
31
too much importance may easily be, and already has been,
assigned to them.1
This will perhaps be the most convenient place to mention
another kind of classification of Birds, which, based on a principle
wholly different from those that have just been explained, requires
a few words, though it has not been productive, nor is likely, from
all that appears, to be productive of any great effect. So long ago j
iona- as 1831, BONAPARTE, in his Saggio di una distributions metodica j
>arte. degli Animali Vertebrati, published at Rome, and in 1837 com- i
municated to the Linnoan Society of London, "A new Systematic !
Arrangement of Vertebrated Animals," which was subsequently J
printed in that Society's Transactions (xviii. pp. 247-304), though
before it appeared there was issued at Bologna, under the title of j
Synopsis Vcrtebratorum Sijstematis, a Latin translation of it. j
Herein he divided the Class Avcs into two Subclasses, to which he '•
applied the names of Insessores and Grallatorcs (hitherto used by
their inventors Vigors and Illiger in a different sense), in the latter
work relying chiefly for this division on characters which had not
before been used by any systematist, namely, that in the former
group Monogamy generally prevailed and the helpless nestlings
were fed by their parents, while the latter group were mostly
Polygamous, and the chicks at birth were active and capable of
feeding themselves. This method, which in process of time was
dignified by the title of a Physiological Arrangement, was insisted
upon with more or less pertinacity by the author throughout a long
series of publications, some of them separate books, some of them
contributed to the memoirs issued by many scientific bodies of
various European countries, ceasing only at his death, which in
July 1857 found him occupied upon a Conspectus Gencrum Arium,
that in consequence remains unfinished (see p. 14). In the course
of this series, however, he saw fit to alter the name of his two Sub
classes, since those which he at first adopted were open to a variety
of meanings, and in a communication to the French Academy
of Sciences in 1853 (Comptcs Jtcndus, xxxvii. pp. 641- 647) the
denomination Inscssorcs was changed to Altriccs, and Grallatorcs to
Prsscoces — the terms now preferred by him being taken from
Sundevall's treatise of 1835 already mentioned. The views of
Bonaparte were, it appears, also shared by an ornithological
rlogg. amateur of some distinction, HOGG, who propounded a scheme
which, as he subsequently stated (Zoologist, 1850, p. 2797), was
founded strictly in accordance with them ; but it would seem that,
allowing his convictions to be warped by other considerations, he
abandoned the original "physiological" basis of his system, so
that this, when published in 1846 (Edinb. N. Philosoph. Journal,
xli. pp. 50-71), was found to be established on a single character
of the feet only ; though he was careful to point out, immediately
after formulating the definition of his Subclasses Constridipedes
and IiKconstrictipcdes, that the former "make, in general, compact
and well-built nests, wherein they bring up their very weak, blind,
and mostly naked young, which they feed with care, by bringing
food to them for many days, until they are fledged and sufficiently
strong to leave their nest," observing also that they "are princi
pally monogamous " (pp. 55, 56) ; while of the latter he says that
they "make either a poor and rude nest, in which they lay their
eggs, or else none, depositing them on the bare ground. The young
are generally born with their full sight, covered with down, strong,
and capable of running or swimming immediately after they leave
the egg-shell." He adds that the parents, which "are mostly
polygamous," attend their young and direct them where to find
their food (p. 63). The numerous errors in these assertions hardly
need pointing out. The Herons, for instance, are much more
" Constrictipcdes" than are the Larks or the Kingfishers, and, so far
from the majority of " Inconstridipedes" being polygamous, there
is scarcely any evidence of polygamy obtaining as a habit among
Birds in a state of nature except in certain of the GaUinx and a
very few others. Furthermore, the young of the Goatsuckers are
at hatching far more developed than are those of the Herons or the
Cormorants ; and, in a general way, nearly every one of the as
serted peculiarities of the two Subclasses breaks down under careful
examination. Yet the idea of a "physiological" arrangement on
the same kind of principle found another follower, or, as he
Newman, thought, inventor, in NEWMAN, who in 1850 communicated to the
Zoological Society of London a plan published in its Proceedings
for that year (pp. 46-48), and reprinted also in his own journal
The Zoologist (pp. 2780-2782), based on exactly the same consider
ations, dividing Birds into two groups, " Hesthogenous " — a word so
vicious in formation as to be incapable of amendment, but intended
to signify those that were hatched with a clothing, of down— and
"Gymnogenous," or those that were hatched naked. These three
systems are essentially identical ; but, plausible as they may be at
1 A much more extensive and detailed application of his method
was begun by Prof. Cabauis in the Museum Heineanum, a very useful
catalogue of specimens in the collection of Herr Oberamtmann Heine, of
which the first part was published at Halberstadt in 1850, and the last
which has appeared, the work being still unfinished, in 1863.
the first aspect, they have been found to be practically useless,
though such of their characters as their upholders have advanced
with truth deserve attention. Physiology may one day very likely
assist the systematist; but it must be real physiology and not a sham.
In 1856 Prof. GERVAI.S, who had already contributed to the Gervais.
Zoologie of M. do Castelnau's Expedition dans les parties centrales
de VAmerique du Sud some important memoirs describing the
anatomy of the HOACTZTN (vol. xii. p. 28) and certain other Birds
of doubtful or anomalous position, published some remarks on the
characters which could be drawn from the sternum of Birds (Ann.
Sc. Nat. Zoologie, ser. 4, vi. pp. 5-15). The considerations are not
very striking from a general point of view ; but the author adds to
the weight of evidence which some of his predecessors had brought
to bear on certain matters, particularly in aiding to abolish the
artificial groups " Deodactyls," "Syndactyls, "and " Zygodactyls,"
on which so much reliance had been placed by many of his
countrymen ; and it is with him a great merit that he was the first
apparently to recognize publicly that characters drawn from
the posterior part of the sternum, and particularly from the
" echancrurcs,'' commonly called in English "notches" or "emar-
ginations," are of comparatively little importance, since their
number is apt to vary in forms that are most closely allied, and
the other hand foramina may exceptionally change to "notches,"
and not unfrequently disappear wholly. Among his chief system
atic determinations we may mention that he refers the Tinamous
to the Rails, because apparently of their deep "notches," but
otherwise takes a view of that group more correct according to
modern notions than did most of his contemporaries. The Bustards
he would place with the " Limicoles," as also Dromas and Chionis,
the SHEATH-BILL (q.v.}. Phaethon, the TROPIC-BIRD (q.v.), lie
would place with the "Larides" and not with the " Peleeanides,"
which it only resembles in its feet having all the toes connected
by a web. Finally Divers, Auks, and Penguins, according to him,
form the last term in the series, and it seems iit to him that they
should be regarded as forming a separate Order. It is a curious
fact that even at & date so late as this, and by an investigator so
well informed, doubt should still have existed whether Apleryx
(Kiwi, vol. xiv. p. 104) should be referred to the group containing
the Cassowary and the Ostrich. On the whole the remarks of this
esteemed author do not go much beyond such as might occur to any
one who had made a study of a good series of specimens ; but many
of them are published for the first time, and the author is careful
to insist on the necessity of not resting solely on sternal characters,
but associating with them those drawn from other parts of the body.
Three years later in the same journal (xi. pp. 11-145, pis. 2-4) Blan-
M. BLANC HARD published some Recherches sur les caracteres osteo- chard.
logiqiies des Oiseaux appliquics a la Classification naturelle de ces
animaux, strongly urging the superiority of such characters over
those drawn from the bill or feet, which, he n marks, though they
may have sometimes given correct notions, have mostly led to mis
takes, and, if observations of habits and food have sometimes
afforded happy results, they have often been deceptive ; so that,
should more be wanted than to draw up a mere inventory of creation
or trace the distinctive outline of each species, zoology without
anatomy would remain a barren study. At the same time he states
that authors who have occupied themselves with the sternum alone
have often produced uncertain results, especially when they have
neglected its anterior for its posterior part ; for in truth every bone
of the skeleton ought to be studied in all its details. Yet this dis
tinguished zoologist selects the sternum as furnishing the key to
his primary groups or "Orders" of the Class, adopting, as Merrem
had done long before, the same two divisions Carinatse, and Ratify,
naming, however, the former Tropidosternii and the lattt-r
Ifomaloslcrnii.3 Some unkind fate has hitherto hindered him from
making known to the world the rest of his researches in regard to
the other bones of the skeleton till he reached the head, and in the
memoir cited he treats of the sternum of only a portion of his first
"Order." This is the more to be regretted by all ornithologists,
' since he intended to conclude with what to them would have been
: a very great boon — the shewing in what way external characters
j coincided with those presented by Osteology. It was also within
- the scope of his plan to have continued on a more extended scale
the researches on ossification begun by L'Herminier, and thus M.
- Thus he cites the cases of Machetes pugnax and Scolopax riisti^-
cola among the " Limicoles," and Larus cataractes among the " Larides,
| as differing from their nearest allies by the possession of only one
i " notch " on either side of the keel. Several additional instances are
cited in Philos. Transactions, 1869, p. 337, note.
3 These terms were explained in his great work L' Organisation du
Regne Animal, Oiseaux (p. 16), begun in 1855, and still (1884) no
further advanced than its fourth part, comprehending in all but thirty-
two pages of letter-press, to mean exactly the same as those applied
by Merrem to his two primary divisions.
32
ORNITHOLOGY
Blanchard's investigations, if completed, would obviously have
taken extraordinarily high rank among the highest contributions
to ornithology. As it is, so much of them us we have are of con
siderable importance ; for, in this unfortunately unfinished memoir,
he describes in some detail the several differences which the sternum
in a great many different groups of his Tropidosternii presents, and
to some extent makes a methodical disposition of them accordingly.
Thus he separates the Birds -of -Prey into three great groups— (1)
the ordinary Diurnal forms, including the Fakonidse and Vulturidse
of the systematist of his time, but distinguishing the American
Vultures from those of the Old World; (2) Qypogeranus, the
SECRETARY-BIRD (q.v.) ; and (3) the Owls (infra, p. 88). Next
lie places the PAKHOTS (q.v. ), and then the vast assemblage of
" Passereaux " — which he declares to be all of one type, even
genera like Pipra (MAXAKIX, vol. xv. p. 455) and Pitta — and con
cludes with the somewhat heterogeneous conglomeration of forms,
beginning with Cypselus (SwiFT, q.v.), that so many systematists
have been accustomed to call Picariai, though to them as a group
lie assigns no name. A continuation of the treatise was promised
in a succeeding part of the Annalcs, but a quarter of a century has
passed without its appearance,1
Important as are the characters afforded by the sternum, that
bone even with the whole sternal apparatus should obviously not be
considered alone. To aid ornithologis's in their studies in this
Eyton. respect, EYTOX, who for many years had been forming a collection
of Birds' skeletons, began the publication of a scries of plates repre
senting them. The tirst part of this work, Ostcologia Avium,
appeared early in 1859, and a volume was completed in 18G7. A
Supplement was issued in 1869, and a Second Supplement, in three
parts, between 1873 and 1875. The whole work contains a great
number of figures of Birds' skeletons and detached bones ; but
they are not so drawn as to be of much practical use, and the
accompanying letter-press is too brief to be satisfactory.
That the eggs laid by Birds should offer to some extent characters
of utility to systeir.atists is only to be expected, when it is con
sidered that those from the same nest generally bear an extraordin
ary family-likeness to one another, and also that in certain groups
thg essential p 'culiarities of the egg-shell are constantly and dis
tinctively characteristic. Thus no one who has ever examined the
egg of a Duck or of a Tinamou would ever be in danger of not
referring another Tinamou's egg or another Duck's, that he might
see, to its proper Family, and so on with many others. Yet, as
has been stated on a former occasion (BiRDS, vol. iii. p. 772), the
expectation held out to oologists, and by them, of the benefits to
be conferred upon Systematic Ornithol )gy from the study of Birds'
eggs, so far from being fulfilled, has not unfrequently led to dis
appointment. But at the same time many of the shortcomings of
Oology in this respect must be set down to the defective informa
tion and observation of its votaries, among whom some have been
very lax, not to say incautious, in wot ascertaining on due evidence
the parentage of their specimens, and the author next to be named
is open to this charge. After several minor notices that appeared
Des in journals at various times, DES Muus in 1860 brought out at
Murs. Paris his ambitious Traite general d'Ooloyie Ornithologique au point
de vuc dc la Classification, which contains (pp. 529-538) a ': Systema
Oologicum" as the final result of his labours. In this scheme
Birds are arranged according to what the author considered to be
their natural method and sequence ; but the result exhibits some
unions as ill-assorted as can well be met with in the whole range
of tentative arrangements of the Class, together with some very
unjustifiable divorces. Its basis is the classification of Cuvier, the
modifications of which by Des Murs will seldom commend them
selves to systematists whose opinion is generally deemed worth
having. Few, if an}', of the faults of that classification are removed,
and the improvements suggested, if not established by his successors,
those especially of other countries than France, are ignored, or, as
is the case with some of those of L'Herminier, are only cited to
be set aside. Oologists have no reason to be thankful to Des Murs,
notwithstanding his zeal in behalf of their study. It is perfectly
true that in several or even in many instances he acknowledges and
deplores the poverty of his information, but this does not excuse
him for making assertions (and such assertions are not (infrequent)
based on evidence that is either wholly untrustworthy or needs
further enquiry before it can be accepted (Ibis, 1860, pp. 331-335).
This being the case, it would seem useless to take up further space
by analysing the several proposed modifications of Cuvier's arrange
ment. The great merit of the work is that the author shews the
necessity of taking Oology into account when investigating the
classification of Birds ; but it also proves that in so doing the
paramount consideration lies in the thorough sifting of evidence as
to the parentage of the eggs which are to serve as the building
stones of the fabric to be erected. The attempt of Des Murs was
1 M. Blanchard'a animadversions on tlie employment of external
characters, and on trusting to observations on the habits of Birds,
called forth a rejoinder from Mr Wallace (Ibis, 1864, pp. 36-41), who
successfully shewed that t'iey are not altogether to be despised.
praiseworthy ; but in effect it has utterly failed, notwithstanding
the encomiums passed upon it by friendly critics (Rev. dc Zoologic,
1860, pp. 176-183, 313-325, 370-373).'- '
Until about this time systematists, almost without
exception, may be said to have been wandering with no
definite purpose. At least their purpose was indefinite
compared with that which they now have before them.
No doubt they all agreed in saying that they were pro
secuting a search for what they called the True System of
Nature ; but that was nearly the end of their agreement,
for in what that True System consisted the opinions of
scarcely any two would coincide, unless to own that it was
some shadowy idea beyond the present power of mortals
to reach or even comprehend. The Quinarians, who boldly
asserted that they had fathomed the mystery of Creation,
had been shewn to be no wiser than other men, if indeed
they had not utterly befooled themselves ; for their theory
at best could give no other explanation of things than that
they were because they were. The conception of such a
process as has now come to be called by the name of
Evolution was certainly not novel ; but except to two men
the way in which that process was or could be possible had
not been revealed.3 Here there is no need to enter into
details of the history of Evolution ; but the annalist in
every branch of Biology must record the eventful 1st of
July 1858, when the no\v celebrated views of DARWIN and Darwin
Mr WALLACE were first laid before the scientific world,4 «"d
and must also notice the appearance towards the end of the "a"ace-
following year of the former's Origin of Species, which has
effected the greatest revolution of human thought in this
or perhaps in any century. The majority of biologists
who had schooled themselves on other principles were of
course slow to embrace the new doctrine ; but their hesita
tion was only the natural consequence of the caution which
their scientific training enjoined. A few there were who
felt as though scales had suddenly dropped from their
eyes, when greeted by the idea conveyed in the now
familiar phrase "Natural Selection"; but even those who
had hitherto believed, and still continued to believe, in the
sanctity of " Species " at once perceived that their life-long
study had undergone a change, that their old position was
seriously threatened by a perilous siege, and that to make
it good they must find new means of defence. Many
bravely maintained their posts, and for them not a word
of blame ought to be expressed. Some few pretended,
though the contrary was notorious, that they had always
been on the side of the new philosophy, so far as they
allowed it to be philosophy at all, and for them hardly a
word of blame is too severe. Others after due deliberation,
as became men who honestly desired the truth and nothing
but the truth, yielded wholly or almost wholly to argu
ments which they gradually found to be irresistible. But,
leaving generalities apart, and restricting ourselves to what
is here our proper business, there was possibly no branch
of Zoology in which so many of the best informed and con
sequently the most advanced of its workers sooner accepted
the principles of Evolution than Ornithology, and of course
the effect upon its study was very marked. New spirit was
given to it. Ornithologists now felt they had something
before them that was really worth investigating. Ques
tions of Affinity, and the details of Geographical Distribu
tion, were endowed with a real interest, in comparison with
2 In this historical sketch of the progress of Ornithology it has not
been thought necessary to mention other oological works, since they
have not a taxonomic bearing, and the chief of them have been already
named (BiUDS, vol. iii. p. 774, note 1).
3 Neither Lamarck nor Robert Chambers (the now acknowledged
author of Vestiges of Creation), though thorough evolutionists,
rationally indicated any means whereby, to use the old phrase, "the
transmutation of species " could be effected.
4 Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, vol. iii.,
Zoology, pp. 45-62.
ORNITHOLOGY
33
which any interest that had hitherto been taken was a
trifling pastime. Classification assumed a wholly different
aspect. It had up to this time been little more than the
shuffling of cards, the ingenious arrangement of counters in
a pretty pattern. Henceforward it was to be the serious
study of the workings of Nature in producing the beings we
see around us from beings more or less unlike them, that
had existed in bygone ages and had been the parents of a
varied and varying offspring — -our fellow- creatures of to
day. Classification for the first time was something more
than the expression of a fancy, not that it had not also its
imaginative side. Men's minds began to figure to them
selves the original type of some well-marked genus or
Family of Birds. They could even discern dimly some
generalized stock whence had descended whole groups that
now differed strangely in habits and appearance — their
discernment aided, may be, by some isolated form which
yet retained undeniable traces of a primitive structure.
More dimly still visions of what the first Bird may have
been like could be reasonably entertained ; and, passing
even to a higher antiquity, the Reptilian parent whence
all Birds have sprung was brought within reach of man's
consciousness. But, relieved as it may be by reflexions of
this kind — dreams some may perhaps still call them — the
study of Ornithology has unquestionably become harder
and more serious ; and a corresponding change in the style
of investigation, followed in the works that remain to be
considered, will be immediately perceptible.
That this was the case is undeniably shewn by some
stram. remarks of Canon TRISTRAM, who, in treating of the
Alaiididse and Saxicolinse, of Algeria (whence he had
recently brought a large collection of specimens of his own
making), stated (Ibis, 1859, pp. 429-433) that he could
" not help feeling convinced of the truth of the views set
forth by Messrs Darwin and Wallace," adding that it was
" hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate this theory
better than by the Larks and Chats of North Africa." It
is unnecessary to continue the quotation ; the few words
just cited are enough to assure to their author the credit
of being (so far as is known) the first ornithological
specialist who had the courage publicly to recognize and
receive the new and at that time unpopular philosophy.1
But greater work was at hand. In June 1860 Prof.
irker. PARKER broke, as most will allow, entirely fresh ground,
and ground that he has since continued to till more deeply
perhaps than any other zoologist, by communicating to
the Zoological Society a memoir " On the Osteology of
Bal&niceps, " subsequently published in that Society's Trans
actions (iv. pp. 269-351). Of this contribution to science,
as of all the rest which have since proceeded from him,
may be said in the words he himself has applied (ut
supra, p. 271) to the work of another labourer in a not
distant field : — " This is a model paper for unbiassed
observation, and freedom from that pleasant mode of
supposing instead of ascertaining what is the true nature
of an anatomical element." '' Indeed the study of this
memoir, limited though it be in scope, could not fail to
convince any one that it proceeded from the mind of one
who taught with the authority derived directly from
original knowledge, and not from association with the
scribes — a conviction that has become strengthened as, in
a series of successive memoirs, the stores of more than
twenty years' silent observation and unremitting research
1 Whether Canon Tristram was anticipated in any other, and if so
i:i what, branch of Zoology will be a pleasing inquiry for the historian
of the future.
2 It is fair to state that some of Prof. Parker's conclusions respect
ing T>aleeniceps were contested by the late Prof. J. T. Reinhardt
(Overs. K. D. Vid. Selsk. Forhandlinyer, 1861, pp. 135-154 ; Ibis,
1862, pp. 158-175), and as it seems to the present writer not ineffec
tually. Prof. Parker replied to his critic (Ibis, 1862, pp. 297-299).
were unfolded, and, more than that, the hidden forces of
the science of Morphology were gradually brought to bear
upon almost each subject that came under discussion.
These different memoirs, being technically monographs,
have strictly no right to be mentioned in this place ; but
there is scarcely one of them, if one indeed there be, that
does not deal with the generalities of the study; and the
influence they have had upon contemporary investigation
is so strong that it is impossible to refrain from noticing
them here, though want of space forbids us from enlarging
on their contents.3 Moreover, the doctrine of Descent
with variation is preached in all — seldom, if ever, conspicu
ously, but perhaps all the more effectively on that account.
There is no reflective thinker but must perceive that
Morphology is the lamp destined to throw more light than
that afforded by any other kind of study on the obscurity
that still shrouds the genealogy of Birds as of other
animals ; and, though as yet its illuminating power is
admittedly far from what is desired, it has perhaps never
shone more brightly than in Prof. Parker's hands.
The great fault of his series of memoirs, if it may be
allowed the present writer to criticize them, is the
indifference of their author to formulating his views, so as
to enable the ordinary taxonomer to perceive how far he
has got, if not to present him with a fair scheme. But
this fault is possibly one of those that are " to merit near
allied," since it would seem to spring from the author's
hesitation to pass from observation to theory, for to theory
at present belong, and must for some time belong, all
attempts at Classification. Still it is not the less annoying
and disappointing to the systematist to find that the man
whose life-long application would enable him, better than
any one else, to declare the effect of the alliances and differ
ences that have been shewn to exist among various mem
bers of the Class should yet be so reticent, or that when
he speaks he should rather use the language of Morphology,
which those who are not morphologists find difficult of
correct interpretation, and wholly inadequate to allow of
zoological deductions.4
3 It may be convenient to our readers that a list of Prof. Parker's
works which treat of ornithological subjects, in addition to the
two above mentioned, should here be given. They are as follows : —
In the Zoological Society's Transactions, 25th November 1862, "On
the Osteology of the Gallinaceous Birds and Tinamous," v. pp.
149-241; 12th December 1865, "On some fossil Birds from the
On the Skull of the /Egithognathous Birds," Pt, II. x. pp. 251-314.
In the Proceedings of the same Society, 8th December 1863, " On the
1 systematic position of the Crested Screamer," pp. 511-518 ; 28th
1 February 1865, "On the Osteology of Microglossa alecto," pp.
! 235-238. In the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,
9th March 1865, "On the Structure and Development of the Skull
I in the Ostrich Tribe," pp. 113-183; llth February 1869, "On the
j Structure and Development of the Skull of the Common Fowl," pp.
! 755-807. In the Linnean Society's Transactions, 2d April 1874,
! "On the Morphology of the Skull in the Woodpeckers and
j Wrynecks," ser. 2, Zoology, i. pp. 1-22 ; 16th December 1875, "On
the Structure and Development of the Bird's Skull," torn, cit., pp.
99-154. In the Monthly Microscopical Journal for 1872, "On the
Structure and Development of the Crow's Skull," pp. 217-253 ; for
1 1873, "On the Development of the Skull in the genus Turdus," pp.
102-107, and "On the Development of the Skull in the Tit and
Sparrow Hawk," parts i. and ii., pp. 6-11, 45-50. There is besides
| the great work published by the Ray Society in 1868, A Monograph
on the Structure and Development of the Shoulder-girdle and Sternum,
of which pp. 142-191 treat of these parts in the Class Aves ; and our
1 readers will hardly need to be reminded of the article BIRDS in the
present work (vol. iii. pp. 699-728). Nearly every one of this mar-
| vdlous series of contributions is copiously illustrated by plates from
j drawings made by the author himself.
4 As an instance, take the passages in which Turnix and Thinocorus
! are apparently referred to the JSgithognathse (Trans. Zool. Society, ix.
1 pp. 29lets>>qq. ; and supra, vol. iii. p. 700), a view which, as shewn by
! the author ( Transactions, x. p. 310), is not that really intended by him.
XVIII. -- 5
34
ORNITHOLOGY
For some time past rumours of a discovery of the
highest interest had been agitating the minds of zoologists,
Wagner, for in 1861 ANDREAS WAGNER had sent to the Academy
of Sciences of Munich (Sitzungsberichte, pp. 146-154;
Ann. Nat. History, ser. 3, ix. pp. 261-267) an account of
what he conceived to be a feathered Reptile (assigning to
it the name Gnphosaurus}, the remains of which had been
found in the lithographic beds of Solenhofen ; but he him
self, through failing health, had been unable to see the
fossil. In 1862 the slabs containing the remains were
acquired by the British Museum, and towards the end of
Owtu. that year Sir R. OWEN communicated a detailed descrip
tion of them to the Philosophical Transactions (1863, pp.
33-47), proving their Bird-like nature, and referring them
to the genus Archxopteryx of Hermann von Meyer,
hitherto known only by the impression of a single feather
from the same geological beds. Wagner foresaw the use
that would be made of this discovery by the adherents of
the new Philosophy, and, in the usual language of its
opponents at the time, strove to ward off the " misinter
pretations " that they would put upon it. His protest, it
is needless to say, was unavailing, and all who respect his
memory must regret that the sunset of life failed to give
him that insight into the future which is poetically ascribed
to it. To Darwin and those who believed with him
scarcely any discovery could have been more welcome ;
but that is beside our present business. It was quickly
seen — even by those who held Arclixopteryx to be a Reptile
— that it was a form intermediate between existing Birds
and existing Reptiles — while those who were convinced
by Sir R. Owen's researches of its ornithic affinity saw
that it must belong to a type of Birds wholly unknown
before, and one that in any future for the arrangement of
the Class must have a special rank reserved for it.1 It
has been already briefly described and figured in this work
(BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 728, 729).
It behoves us next to mention the " Outlines of a Systematic
Lillje- Review of the Class of Birds," communicated by Prof. LILLJEBOKG
borg. to the Zoological Society in 1866, and published in its Proceedings
for that year (pp. 5-20), since it was immediately after reprinted
by the Smithsonian Institution, and with that authorization has
exercised a great influence on the opinions of American ornitholo
gists. Otherwise the scheme would hardly need notice here. This
paper is indeed little more than an English translation of one
published by the author in the annual volume (Arsskrift) of the
Scientific Society of Upsala for 1860, and belonging to the pre-
Darwinian epoch should perhaps have been more properly treated
before, but that at the time of its original appearance it failed to
attract attention. The chief merit of the scheme perhaps is that,
contrary to nearly every precedent, it begins with the lower and
rises to the higher groups of Birds, which is of course the natural
mode of proceeding, and one therefore to be commended. Other
wise the " principles " on which it is founded are not clear to the
ordinary zoologist. One of them is said to be "irritability," and,
though this is explained to mean, not "muscular strength alone,
but vivacity and activity generally,"^ it does not seem to fi>rm a
character that can be easily appreciated either as to quantity or
quality ; in fact, most persons would deem it quite immeasurable,
and, as such, removed from practical consideration. Moreover,
Prof. Lilljeborg's scheme, being actually an adaptation of that of
Sundevall, of which we shall have to speak at some length almost
immediately, may possibly be left for the present with these
remarks.
Huxley. In the spring .of the year 1867 Prof. HUXLEY, to
the delight of an appreciative audience, delivered at the
Royal College of Surgeons of England a course of lectures
on Birds, and it is much to be regretted that his many
engagements hindered him from publishing in its entirety
his elucidation of the anatomy of the Class, and the results
1 This was done shortly afterwards by Prof. Hik'kel, who pro
posed the name Suururae for the group containing it.
2 On this ground it is stated that the Passeres should be placed
highest in the Class. But those who know the habits and demeanour
of many of the Limicolse would no doubt rightly claim for them much
more " vivacity and activity" than is possessed by most Passeres.
which he drew from his investigations of it ; for never
assuredly had the subject been attacked with greater skill
and power, or, since the days Buffon, had Ornithology
been set forth with greater eloquence. To remedy, in
some degree, this unavoidable loss, and to preserve at least
a portion of the fruits of his labours, Prof. Huxley, a
few weeks after, presented an abstract of his researches to
the Zoological Society, in whose Proceedings for the same
year it will be found printed (pp. 415-472) as a paper
" On the Classification of Birds, and on the taxonomic
value of the modifications of certain of the cranial bones
observable in that Class." Starting from the basis (which,
undeniably true as it is, not a little shocked many of his
ornithological hearers) " that the phrase ' Birds arc greatly
modified Reptiles ' would hardly be an exaggerated expres
sion of the closeness " of the resemblance between the two
Classes, which he had previously brigaded under the name
of Sauropsida (as he had brigaded the Pisces and Amjihihia
as Ichthyopsida), he drew in bold outline both their like
nesses and their differences, and then proceeded to inquire
how the Avcs could be most appropriately subdivided
into Orders, Suborders, and Families. In this course of
lectures he had already dwelt at sonic length on the
insufficiency of the characters on which such groups as
had hitherto been thought to be established \verc founded;
but for the consideration of this part of his subject there
was no room in the present paper, and the reasons why he
arrived at the conclusion that new means of philosophically
and successfully separating the Class must be sought are
herein left to be inferred. The upshot, however, admits
of no uncertainty : the Class Aves is held to be composed
of three " Orders " — (I.) SAURUR.E, Htickel; (II.) RATIT.E,
Merrem: and (III.) CARINAT/E, Merrem. The Saururse
have the metacarpals well developed and not ancylosed,
and the caudal vertebra} are numerous and large, so that
the caudal region of the spine is longer than the body.
The furcula is complete and strong, the feet very Passerine
in appearance. The skull and sternum were at the time
unknown, and indeed the whole Order, without doubt
entirely extinct, rested exclusively on the celebrated fossil,
then unique, Arch&opteryx (BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 728, 729).
The Ratitx comprehend the Struthious Birds, which differ
from all others now extant in the combination of several
peculiarities, some of which have been mentioned in the
preceding pages. The sternum has no keel, and ossifies
from lateral and paired centres only ; the axes of the
scapula and coracoid have the same general direction ;
certain of the cranial bones have characters very unlike
those possessed by the next Order — the vomer, for
example, being broad posteriorly and generally intervening
between the basisphenoidal rostrum and the palatals and
pterygoids ; the barbs of the feathers are disconnected ;
there is no syrinx or inferior larynx ; and the diaphragm
is better developed than in other Birds.3 The Ratitse are
divided into five groups, separated by very trenchant
characters, principally osteological, and many of them
afforded by the cranial bones. These groups consist of
(i.) Struthio (OSTRICH, infra, p. 62), (ii.) RHEA (Y.V.), (iii.)
Casuarius and Dromseus (EMEU, vol. viii. 171), (iv.)
Dinornis, and (v.) Apturyx (Kiwi, vol. xiv. p. 104) ; but
no names are here given to them. The Carinatse comprise
all other existing Birds. The sternum has more or less of
a keel, and is said to ossify, with the possible exception of
Strir/nps (KAKAPO, vol. xiii. p. 825), from a median centre
as well as from paired and lateral centres. The axes of
the scapula and coracoid meet at an acute, or, as in Didus
(DoDO, vol. vii. p. 321) and Ocydromw (OCYDROME, vol.
xvii. p. 222), at a slightly obtuse angle, while the vomer is
3 This peculiarity had led some zoologists to consider the Struthious
Birds more nearly allied to the Mammalia than any others.
ORNITHOLOGY
35
comparatively narrow and allows the pterygoids and
palatals to articulate directly with the basispnenoidal
rostrum. The Carinatx are divided, according to the
formation of the palate, into four " Suborders," and named
(i.) DromxognatJix, (ii.) Schizognathx, (iii.) Desmognathx,
and (iv.) JEgitftognathx.1 The Dromxognathx resemble
the Ratitie, and especially the genus Dromsaus, in their
palatal structure, and arc composed of the TINAMOUS
(</.>'.). The Schizoynathoe include a great many of the
forms belonging to the Linmean Orders Gallinx, Grallx,
and Anseres. In them the vomer, however variable,
always tapers to a point anteriorly, while behind it includes
the basisphenoidal rostrum between the palatals ; but
neither these nor the pterygoids are borne by its posterior
divergent ends. The maxillo-palatals are usually elongated
and lamellar, uniting with the palatals, and, bending
backward along their inner edge, leave a cleft (whence the
name given to the " Suborder ") between the vomer and
themselves. Six groups of Schizognathx are distinguished
with considerable minuteness : — (1) Charadriomorpfiee, con
taining Charadriidse, (PLOVER, q.i'.), Otidldx (BUSTARD,
vol. iv. p. 578), and Scolopacidse ] (2) Geranomorphss,
including Gruidse (CRANE, vol. vi. p. 546) and R<dlida>,
between which Psophiidie and Rhinochetidx are intermedi
ate, while the SEHIEMA (q.v.) would also seem to belong
here ; (3) Cccomorphae, comprising Laridx (GULL, vol. xi.
p. 274), Procellariidse (PETREL, q.v.), Colymlidx (DIVER,
vol. vii. p. 292), and Alcidx (GUILLEMOT, vol. xi. p. 262);
(4) SpheniscomorphsB, composed of the PENGUINS (q.v.) ;
(•")) Alectoromorphee (FOWL, vol. ix. p. 491), being all the
Gallinx except the Tinamous ; and finally (6) Peristero-
morphx, consisting of the DOVES (vol. vii. p. 379) and
PIGEONS (q.v.). In the third of these Suborders, the
Dcsmoynatkse, the vomer is either abortive or so small as
to disappear from the skeleton. When it exists it is
always slender, and tapers to a point anteriorly. The
maxillo-palatals are bound together (whence the name of
the " Suborder") across the middle line, either directly or
by the ossification of the nasal septum. The posterior ends
of the palatals and anterior of the pterygoids articulate
directly with the rostrum. The groups of Desmognatkx
are characterized as carefully as are those of the preceding
"Suborder," and are as follows: — (1) Ckenomorpkse, con
sisting of the Anatidse (DucK, vol. vii. p. 505 ; GOOSE,
vol. x. p. 777) with Palamedea, the SCREAMER (q.v.) ; (2)
Ampliimwphx, the FLAMINGOES (vol. ix. p. 286) ; (3)
Pdaryomorphx, containing the Ardcidx (HERON, vol. xi.
p. 760), Ciconiidx (STORK, q.v.), and Tantalidse ; (4)
Dyxporomorphos, the CORMORANTS (vol. vi. p. 407),
FRIGATE-BIRDS (vol. ix. p. 786), GANNETS (vol. x. p.
70), and PELICANS (q.v.) ; (5) Aetomorphx, comprising all
the Birds-of-Prey ; (6) Psittacomorphse, the PARROTS (q. v.) ;
and lastly (7) Coccyyomorphae, which are held to include
four groups, viz., (a) Coliidx (MOUSE-BIRD, vol. xvii.
p. 6) ; (h) Musopliwjidsz (PLANTAIN-EATERS and TOURA-
KOOS, q.v.} Cuculidx (CucKOW, vol. vi. p. 685), Bucconidse,
JRkampJuistidx (TOUCANS, q.v.), Capitonidiv, Gallulidx
(JACAMAR, vol. xiii. p. 531 ); (c) Alcedinidx (KING
FISHER, xiv. p. 81,) Bucerotidse (HORNBILL, xii. p. 169),
Vpupidae (HOOPOE, xii. p. 154), Meropidae, Momotidx
(MOTMOT, xvii. p. 3), Coraciidse (ROLLER, q.v.); and (d)
Trtjfjonidse, (TROGON, q.v.]. Next in order come the Celeo-
morphae or WOODPECKERS (q.v.), a group respecting the
exact position of which Prof. Huxley was uncertain,2
1 These names are compounded respectively of Dromssus, the generic
name applied to the Emeu, erx'Ca> a split or cleft, 5e'o>ta, a bond or
tying, ctfyidos, a Finch, and, in each case, yvddos, a jaw.
2 Prof. Parker subsequently advanced the Woodpeckers to a higher
rank under the name of Sauroynathw (Monthly Microscop. Journal,
1872, p. 219, and Tr. Linn. Sue., ser. 2, Zoology, i. p. 2).
though he inclined to think its relations were with the next
group, jEgitkognathse, the fourth and last of his " Sub
orders," characterized by a form of palate in some respects
intermediate between the two preceding. The vomer is
broad, abruptly truncated in front, and deeply cleft behind,
so as to embrace the rostrum of the sphenoid ; the palatals
have produced postero-external angles ; the maxillo-palata's
are slender at their origin, and extend obliquely inwards
and forwards over the palatals, ending beneath the vomer in
expanded extremities, not united either with one another
or with the vomer, nor does the latter unite with the
nasal septum, though that .is frequently ossified. Of
the ^Egithognathss, two divisions are made — (1) Cypsclo-
morphix, including Trockilidse (HUMMING-BIRD, vol. xii.
p. 357), Cypselidx (SwiFT, q.v.), and Caprimulyidx (GOAT
SUCKER, vol. x. p. 711) ; and (2) Cor/icomorphse, which last
are separable into two groups, one (<i) formed of the genus
Mtnura (LYRE-BIRD, vol. xv. p. 115), which then seemed
to stand alone, and the other (6) made up of Polymyodw,
Tracheopkonx, and Oligomyodie, sections founded on the
syringeal structure, but declared to be not natural.
The above abstract 3 shews the general drift of this very
remarkable contribution to Ornithology, and it has to be
added that for by far the greater number of hi.s minor
groups Prof. Huxley relies solely on the form of the
palatal structure, the importance of which Dr Cornay, as
already stated (p. 29), had before urged, though to so little
purpose. That the palatal structure must be taken into
consideration by taxonomers as affording hints of some
utility there can no longer be a doubt ; but the present
writer is inclined to think that the characters drawn thence
owe more of their worth to the extraordinary perspicuity
with which they have been presented by Prof. Huxley
than to their own intrinsic value, and that if the same
power had been employed to elucidate in the same way
other parts of the skeleton — say the bones of the sternal
apparatus or even of the pelvic girdle — either set could
have been made t j appear quite as instructive and perhaps
more so. Adventitious value would therefore seem to
have been acquired by the bones of the palate through the
fact that so great a master of the art of exposition selected
them as fitting examples upon which to exercise his skill.4
At the same time it must be stated this selection was not
premeditated by Prof. Huxley, but forced itself upon him
as his investigations proceeded.5 In reply to some critical
remarks (Ibis, 18C8, pp. 85-96), chiefly aimed at shewing
the inexpediency of relying solely on one set of characters,
especially when those afforded by the palatal bones were
not, even within the limits of Families, wholly diagnostic,
the author (Ibis, 1868, pp. 357-362) announced a slight
modification of his original scheme, by introducing three
more groups into it, and concluded by indicating how its
bearings upon the great question of " Genetic Classifica
tion " might be represented so far as the different groups
of Carinatae are concerned : —
3 This is adapted from that given in the Record of Zoological
Literature (iv. pp. 46-49), which is believed to have not inadequately
represented the author's views.
4 The notion of the superiority of the palatal bones to all others for
purposes of classification has pleased many persons, from the fact that
these bones are not unfrequently retained in the dried skins of Birds
sent home by collectors in foreign countries, and are therefore available
for study, while such bones as the sternum and pelvis are rarely pre
served. The common practice of ordinary collectors, until at least
very recently, has been tersely described to the present writer as being
to "shoot a bird, take off its skin, and throw away its characters."
5 Perhaps this may be partially explained by the fact that the
Museum of the College of Surgeons, in which these investigations were
chiefly carried on, like most other museums of the time, contained a
much larger series of the heads of Birds than of their entire skeletons,
or of any other portion of the skeleton. Consequently the materials
available for the comparison of different forms consisted in great part
of heads only.
36
ORNITHOLOGY
Tinamomorphsp.
Turniconiorplia-.
1
1
|
Charodriomorphe.
Alectoromorpliae.
1
CVcomorplue.
Geranomorphep.
1
PtlTOClO-
ralnmedca.
morplisB.
Sphenisco-
morpha?.
Actomorplur.
Periatero
niorplise.
Clienoinorplm'.
Hetero-
AmphimorpliiE.
morplia;.
I
:
PelargomorphsB.
Psittaco-
Corey RO-
JEgitho-
Dysporo-
morphce
....morphie.
gnathse.
morphse.
The above scheme, in Prof. Huxley's opinion, nearly re-
j tresents the affinities of the various Carinate groups, — the
great difficulty being to determine the relations to the rest
of the Coccygomorphy, Psittacomorphse, and jEgithognathx,
which he indicated " only in the most doubtful and
hypothetic fashion. " Almost simultaneously with this he
expounded more particularly before the Zoological Society,
in whose Proceedings (1868, pp. 294-319) his results
were soon after published, the groups of which he believed
the Alectoromorpkx to be composed and the relations to
them of some outlying forms usually regarded as Gallina
ceous, the Turnicidx and Pteroclidas, as well as the singular
HOACTZIX (vol. xii. p. 28), for all three of which he had to
institute new groups — the last forming the sole representa
tive of his Heteromorphte. More than this, he entered
upon their Geographical Distribution, the facts of which
important subject are here, almost for the first time, since
the attempt of Blyth already mentioned,1 brought to bear
practically on Classification, as has been previously hinted
(BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 736, 737) ; but, that subject having
been already treated at some length, there is no need to
enter upon it here.
Nevertheless it is necessary to mention here uhe intimate
connexion between Classification and Geographical Dis
tribution as revealed by the palseontological researches
A. Milne- of Prof. ALPHOXSE MILNE-EDWARDS, whose magnificent
Iwards. Qiseaux Fossiles de la France, began to appear in 1867,
and was completed in 1871 — the more so, since the
exigencies of his undertaking compelled him to use
materials that had been almost wholly neglected by other
investigators. A large proportion of the fossil remains
the determination and description of which was his object
were what are very commonly called the " long bones, " that
is to say, those of the limbs. The recognition of these,
minute and fragmentary as many were, and the referring
them to their proper place, rendered necessary an attentive
study of the comparative osteology and myology of Birds
in general, that of the "long bones," whose sole char
acters were often a few muscular ridges or depressions,
being especially obligatory. Hence it became manifest
that a very respectable Classification can be found in
which characters drawn from these bones play a rather
important part. Limited by circumstances as is that
followed by M. Milne-Edwards, the details of his arrange
ment do not require setting forth here. It is enough to
point out that we have in his work another proof of the
multiplicity of the factors which must be taken into
consideration by the systematist, and another proof of
the fallacy of trusting to one set of characters alone.
But this is not the only way in which the author has
rendered service to the advanced student of Orni-
1 It is true that from the time of Buffon, though lie scorned any
regular Classification, Geographical Distribution had been occasionally
he-Id to have something to do with systematic arrangement ; but the
way in which the two were related was never clearly put forth, though
people who could read between the lines might have guessed the secret
from Darwin's Journal of Researches, as well as from his introduction
to the Zfiolfir/y of the "7>f/<7/''" Vnyaije.
thology. The unlooked-for discovery in France of re
mains which he has referred to forms now existing it is
true, but existing only in countries far removed from
Europe, forms such as Collocalia, Leptosomus, Psittacus,
iSerpentariw, and Trogon, is perhaps even more suggestive
than the finding that France was once inhabited by forms
that are wholly extinct, of which, as has been already
mentioned (BIRDS, vol. iii. pp. 730, 731), in the older
formations there is abundance. Unfortunately none of
these, however, can be compared for singularity with
ArcJi&opteryx or with some American fossil forms next to
be noticed, for their particular bearing on our knowledge
of Ornithology will be most conveniently treated here.
In November 1870 Prof. MARSH, by finding the im- im
perfect fossilized tibia of a Bird in the Middle Cretaceous
shale of Kansas, began a series of wonderful discoveries
which will ever be associated with his name,2 and, making
us acquainted with a great number of forms long since
vanished from among the earth's inhabitants, has thrown
a comparatively broad beam of light upon the darkness
that, broken only by the solitary spark emitted on the
recognition of Archesopteryx, had hitherto brooded over our
knowledge of the genealogy of Birds, and is even now for
the most part palpable. Subsequent visits to the same
part of North America, often performed under circum
stances of discomfort and occasionally of danger, brought
to this intrepid and energetic explorer the reward he had
so fully earned. Brief notices of his spoils appeared from
time to time in various volumes of the American Journal
of Science and Arts (Silliman's), but it is unnecessary here
to refer to more than a few of them. In that Journal for
May 1872 (ser. 3, iii. p. 360) the remains of a large
swimming Bird (nearly 6 feet in length, as afterwards
appeared) having some affinity, it was thought, to the
Colymbidge, were described under the name of Hesperomis
regalis, and a few months later (iv. p. 344) a second fossil
Bird from the same locality was indicated as Ichthyornis
dispar — from the Fish-like, biconcave form of its vertebra^.
Further examination of the enormous collections gathered
by the author, and preserved in the Museum of Yale
College at New Haven in Connecticut, shewed him that this
last Bird, and another to which he gave the name of
Apatornis, had possessed well-developed teeth implanted
in sockets in both jaws, and induced him to establish (v.
pp. 161, 162) for their reception a "Subclass" Odontor-
nithes and an Order Ickthyarnithes, Two years more and
the originally found Ilesperornis was discovered also to
have teeth, but these were inserted in a groove. It was
accordingly regarded as the type of a distinct Order
Odontolcae (x. pp. 403-408), to which were assigned as
other characters vertebrae of a saddle-shape and not
biconcave, a keelless sternum, and wings consisting only
of the humerus. In 1 880 Prof. Marsh brought out a grand
volume, Odontornithes, being a monograph of the extinct
toothed Birds of North America. Herein remains, attri
buted to no fewer than a score of species, which were
referred to eight different genera, are fully described and
sufficiently illustrated, and, instead of the ordinal name
Ichthyornithcs previously used, that of Odontotormse was
proposed. In the author's concluding summary he remarks
on the fact that, while the Odontolcse, as exhibited in
ffespefornit, had teeth inserted in a continuous groove — a
low and generalized character as shewn by Reptiles, they
had, however, the strongly differentiated saddle-shaped
vertebrae such as all modern Birds possess. On the other
hand the Odontotormse, as exemplified in Ichthyornis, having
the primitive biconcave vertebrae, yet possessed the highly
2 It will of course be needless to remind the general zoologist of
Prof. Marsh's no less wonderful discoveries of wholly unlookud-for
types of Reptiles and Mammals.
specialized feature of teeth in distinct sockets. Hesperomis
too, with its keelless sternum, had aborted wings but strong
legs and feet adapted for swimming, while Ickthyomia had
a keeled sternum and powerful wings, but diminutive legs
and feet. These and other characters separate the two
forms so widely as quite to justify the establishment of as
many Orders for their reception, and the opposite nature
of the evidence they afford illustrates one fundamental
principle of evolution, namely, that an animal may attain
to great development of one set of characters and at the
same time retain other features of a low ancestral type.
Prof. Marsh states that he had fully satisfied himself that
Archseopteryx belonged to the Odontornithes, which he
thought it advisable for the present to regard as a Subclass,
separated into three Orders- — Odontolcse, Odontotormse, and
8<nirur% — all well marked, but evidently not of equal rank,
the last being clearly much more widely distinguished from
the first two than they are from one another. But that
these three oldest-known forms of Birds should differ so
greatly from each other unmistakably points to a great
antiquity for the Class. All are true Birds ; but the
Reptilian characters they possess converge towards a more
generalized type. He then proceeds to treat of the
characters which may be expected to have occurred in
their common ancestor, whose remains may yet be hoped
for from the Palaeozoic rocks if not from the Permian beds
that in North America are so rich in the fossils of a
terrestrial fauna. Birds, he believes, branched off by a
single stem, which gradually lost its Reptilian as it assumed
the Ornithic type ; and in the existing Ratitx we have
the survivors of this direct line. The lineal descendants
of this primal stock doubtless at an early time attained
feathers and warm blood, but, in his opinion, never
acquired the power of flight, which probably originated
among the small arboreal forms of Reptilian Birds. In
them even rudimentary feathers on the fore-limbs would
be an advantage, as they would tend to lengthen a leap
from branch to branch, or break the force of a fall in leap
ing to the ground. As the feathers increased, the body
would become warmer and the blood more active. With
still more feathers would come increased power of flight as
we see in the young Birds of to-day. A greater activity
would result in a more perfect circulation. A true Bird
would doubtless require warm blood, but would not
necessarily be hot-blooded, like the Birds now living.
Whether Archge.opte.ryx was on the true Carinate line can
not as yet be determined, and this is also true of Ichthy-
ornis ; but the biconcave vertebra; of the latter suggest its
being an early offshoot, while it is probable that
Hesperomis came off from the main " Struthious " stem
and has left no descendants.
Bold as are the speculations above summarized, there
seems no reason to doubt the probability of their turning
out to be, if not the exact truth, yet something very
like it.
From this bright vision of the poetic past — a glimpse,
some may call it, into the land of dreams — we must
relapse into a sober contemplation of the prosaic present —
a subject quite as difficult to understand. The former
lunde- efforts at classification made by Sundevall have already
all> several times been mentioned, and a return to their con
sideration was promised. In 1872 and 1873 he brought
out at Stockholm a Methodi Natumlis Avium Disponend-
arum Tentamen, two portions of which (those relating to
the Diurnal Birds-of-Prey and the " Cichlomorphx," or
forms related to the Thrushes) he found himself under the
necessity of revising and modifying in the course of 1874,
in as many communications to the Swedish Academy of
Sciences (K, V.-Ak. Forhandlingar, 1874, No. 2, pp.
21-30; No. 3, pp. 27-30). This Tentamen, containing the
latest complete method of classifying Birds in general, has
naturally received much attention, the more so perhaps,
since, with its appendices, it was nearly the last labour of its
respected author, whose industrious life came to an end in
the course of the following year. From what has before
been said of his works it may have been gathered that, while
professedly basing his systematic arrangement of the groups
of Birds on their external features, he had hitherto striven
to make his schemes harmonize if possible with the dictates
of internal structure as evinced by the science of anatomy,
though he uniformly and persistently protested against the
inside being better than the outside. In thus acting he
proved himself a true follower of his great countryman
| Linnaeus ; but, without disparagement of his efforts in
this respect, it must be said that when internal and exter
nal characters appeared to be in conflict he gave, perhaps
with unconscious bias, a preference to the latter, for he
belonged to a school of zoologists whose natural instinct
was to believe that such a conflict always existed. Hence
his efforts, praiseworthy as they were from several points
of view, and particularly so in regard to some details, failed
to satisfy the philosophic taxonomer when generalizations
and deeper principles were concerned, and in his practice
in respect of certain technicalities of classification he was,
in the eyes of the orthodox, a transgressor. Thus instead
of contenting himself with terms that had met with pretty
general approval, such as Class, Subclass, Order, Sub
order, Family, Subfamily, and so on, he introduced into
his final scheme other designations, "Agmen," " Cohors,"
" Phalanx," and the like, which to the ordinary student of
Ornithology convey an indefinite meaning, if any meaning
at all. He also carried to a very extreme limit his views
of nomenclature, which were certainly not in accordance
with those held by most zoologists, though this is a matter
so trifling as to need no details in illustration. It is by
no means easy to set forth briefly, and at the same time
intelligibly, to any but experts, the final scheme of Sunde
vall, owing to the number of new names introduced by him,
nevertheless the attempt must be made ; but it must be
understood that in the following paradigm, in which his
later modifications are incorporated, only the most remark
able or best-known forms are cited as examples of his
several groups, for to give the whole of them would, if any
explanations were added, occupy far more space than the
occasion seems to justify, and without such explanations
the list would be of use only to experts, who would rather
consult the original work.
First, Sundevall would still make two grand divisions
(" Agmina ") of Birds, even as had been done nearly forty
years before; but, having found that the names, Altricesand
Prsecoces, he had formerly used were not always applicable,
or the groups thereby indicated naturally disposed, he at
first distinguished them as Psilopsedes and Ptilopxdes.
Then, seeing that the great similarity of these two words
would produce confusion both in speaking and writing, he
changed them (p. 158) into the equivalent Gymnopsedcs
and Dasypszdes, according as the young were hatched
naked or clothed. The Gymnopsedes are divided into two
" Orders" — 0 seines and Volucres — the former intended to
be identical with the group of the same name established
by older authors, and, in accordance with the observations
of Keyserling and Blasius already mentioned, divided into
two " Series "—Laminiplantares, having the hinder part
of the "tarsus" covered with two horny plates, and Scuttlh-
plantares, in which the same part is scutellated. These
Laminiplantares are composed of six Cohorts as follows : —
Cohors 1. CiMomorphie.
Phalanx 1. Ocrcatse.— 7 Families: the Nightingales standing
first, and therefore at the head of all Birds, with the Redbreast,
Redstart, and the American Blue-bird ; after them the Chats,
38
ORNITHOLOGY
Tli rushes pro]x?r, Dippers, Water-Chats (ITcnicunis), Bush-Chats,
and (under the name of Euchlinte) the singular group commonly
known as Pittas or Water-Thrushes.
Phalanx 2. Xoi'cmpninatiK.—S Families: Pipits, Wagtail*,
American Fly-catching Warblers, and Australian Diamond-birds
(Pardalotus).
Phalanx 3. Syh-iiformes. — 17 Families: divided geographi
cally (?) into two groups— the Old- World forms, and those of the
New. The first is further broken up into three sections — (a) 4
Families with moderately long wings aud a slender bill, containing
what may be called perhaps the normal Warblers, as the Willow-
Wrens, Whitethroats, Sedge-birds, and others; (b) 5 Families, with
short wings and a slender bill, what are often called by Indi.-m
and African writers Bush-babblers (Brady ptenis, Crateropns, and
others) ; (<•) 3 Families, with a somewhat stout or blunt bill, the
Thick-heads of some writers (Pachycephalus) and Titmouse
Family. The second or American group comprehends 5 Families,
Viieos, Cat-birds, Wrens (not, by the way, peculiar to America),
and some other forms for which it is impossible to find names that
will pass as English.
Phalanx 4. Brachypterse. — 3 Families: the short-winged Wren-
Warblers, with long tails, of the Australian (Maliirus}, Indian,
and Ethiopian Regions.
Phalanx 5. Latirostres. — 7 Families: the true Flycatchers
(iluscicapa), and several others of fly-catching habits.
Phalanx 6. Erachypodes.—S Families : Waxwings, Orioles,
Swallow- Flycatchers (Artamus), Caterpillar-catchers (Camj^haga),
and Drongos (Dicrurus}.
Phalanx?. Dcntirostres or Lanii formes.— 2, Families : Shrikes,
Puff-backed Shrikes.
Phalanx 8. Subcorviformcs.—l Family : Bower-birds and some
others.
Cohors 2. Conirostrcs.
Phalanx 1. Decempcjina/as.—B Families : Weaver-birds(PZoccws),
Whydah-birds ( Vidua), and Hedge-Sparrows (Accentor).
Phalanx 2. Amplipalatalea.—2 Families : Grosbeaks, true
Finches.
Phalanx 3. Arctipalatales. — 6 Families: Crossbills, Buntings,
Rice-birds, and many hard-billed forms which are usually placed
among the Tanagers.
Phalanx 4. Simplicirostrcs. — 4 Families : Tanagers.
Cohors 3. Coliomorpha.
Phalanx 1. Novompennatss. — 3 Families : Crackles or American
Starlings.
Phalanx 2. Ifumilinarcs.—! Families: True Starlings, Ox-
peckers, Choughs.
Phalanx 3. AUinares.—% Families: Nutcrackers, Jays, Crows.
Phalanx 4. Idiodactylie.—5 Families : Crow-Shrikes, Birds-of-
Paradise.
Cohors 4. CferthiomorpTue. —3 Families : Tree-creepers, Nut
hatches.
Cohors 5. Cinnyrimorpha. — 5 Families: Sun-birds, Honey-
suckers.
Cohors 6. Chdidonomorpfus. — 1 Family: Swallows.
The Scutelliplantarea include a much smaller number of
forms, and, with the exception of the first " Cohort " and
a few groups of the fourth and fifth, all are peculiar to
America.
Cohors 1. IIolaspidcsR. — 2 Families: Larks, Hoopoes.
Cohors 2. Endfisiiidcse. — 3 Families— all Neotropical: Oven-birds
(Funtariui), Synallaxis, and the Piculules (Dendrocolaptes).
Cohors 3. Excupidex, — 4 Families: the first two separated as
e, including the King-birds or Tyrants, of which twelve
groups are made ; the remaining two as Syndoctylse, composed of
the Todies and ilanakins.
Cohors 4. Pycnnspiihie. — 3 Families: Cocks-cf-the-Rock (Rupi-
•cold), to which the Indian genus C/dyptomcna, Eurylaemiis, and
some others are supposed to be allied, the Chatterers and Fruit-
Crows (Chasmorhynchua, Ccphalopterus, and others), as well as
Tityra and Lijtaugiis.
Cohors 5. Taxaspidete. — 5 Families : the very singular Madagas
car form Philepitta; the Bush-Shrikes ( Thamnophilux}, Ant-Thrushes
(Formic/iritis), and Tapaculos (Ptcroptoclius) of the Neotropical
Region; and tlie Australian Lyre-bird.
"We then arrive at the Second Order Volucres, which is
divided into two " Series." Of these the first is made to
contain, under the name Zygodactyli,
Cohors 1. Psittaci. —6 Families : Parrots;
Cohors 2. Pici. — 6 Families: Woodpeckers, Piculets (Picumnux),
and Wrynecks;
Cohors 3. CCCCJKJCS. — 12 Families: divided into two groups—
(1) Altinarea, containing the Honey-Guides, Barbots, Toucans, Jaca-
mars, Puff-birds, and the Madagascar genus Leptosomus ; and (2)
HumUm/irex, comprising all the forms commonly known as Cucu-
lidx, broken np, however, into three sections •
while to the second " Series" are referred, as Anisodactyli,
Cohors 4. Ctenomorplise.— 4 Families : Plantain-eaters or Toura-
cous, Mouse-birds, Rollers, and tlio peculiar Madagascar forms
Atelornis and Brachypteracias ;
Cohors 5. Ampligulares.—l Families : Trogons, Goatsuckers, and
Swifts ;
Cohors 6. Longilingucs or Mcllisncjie.— 12 Families : Humming
birds, arranged in three "Series ;"
Cohors 7. Syndactylx. — 4 Families: Bee-eaters, Motmots, King
fishers, and Hornbills ;
Cohors 8. Pcristcroidcsc. — 3 Families : Didunculus, with the Dodo,
Pigeons, and the Crowned Pigeons (Goum] separated from the last.
The Dasypsedes of Sundevall are separated into six
" Orders " ; but these will occupy us but a short while.
The first of them, Accijritres, comprehending all the Birds-
! of-Prey, were separated into 4 " Cohorts " in his original
work, but these were reduced in his appendix to two —
Nyctiiarpages or Owls with 4 Families divided into 2 series,
! and Hemeroharpages containing all the rest, and compris
ing 10 Families (the last of which is the Seriema,
Dicholopkus) divided into 2 groups as Rrtpaces and
Saprophaffi—the latter including the Vultures. Next
stands the Order Gcdlinx with 4 "Cohorts" :—(!) Tetraono-
morp/tge, comprising 2 Families, the Sand-Grouse (Pteroclex)
and the Grouse proper, among which the Central- American
Oreophasis finds itself; (2) Phasianomorphx, with 4
Families, Pheasants, Peacocks, Turkeys, Guinea Fowls,
Partridges, Quails, and Hemipodes (Turnir) ; (3) Macro-
nyches, the Megapodes, with 2 Families ; (4) the Duodecim-
pennatx, the Curassows and Guans, also with 2 Families ;
(5) the Stntthioniformes, composed of the Tinamous ; and
(G) the Sitbgrallatores with 2 Families, one consisting of the
curious South-American genera T/iinoco?"iis and Attagis and
the other of the Sheathbill (Chionis). The Fifth Order
(the third of the Dasypxdes) is formed by the Grallatores,
divided into 2 "series" — (1) Altinares, consisting of 2
" Cohorts," Herodii with 1 Family, the Herons, and Pelanji
with 4 Families, Spoonbills, Ibises, Storks, and the
Umbre (Scopuft), with Balxniceps ; (2) Humilinares, also
consisting of 2 " Cohorts," Limicolae with 2 Families,
Sandpipers and Snipes, Stilts and Avocets, and Cursores
with 8 Families, including Plovers, Bustards, Cranes,
Rails, and all the other "Waders." The Sixth Order,
Natdtores, consists of all the Birds that habitually swim
and a few that do not, containing G Cohorts : —
Longipennes and Pygopodes with 3 Families each ; Toti-
palmatse, with 1 Family ; Tulnnnres with 3 Families ;
Impennes with 1 Family, Penguins ; and Lamellirostres
with 2 Families, Flamingoes and Ducks. The Seventh
Order, Process, is divided into 2 Cohorts — Veri with 2
Families, Ostriches and Emeus ; and Subnobiles, consisting
of the genus Aptcryx. The Eighth Order is formed by
the Snururce.
Such then is Sundevall's perfected system, which has in
various quarters been so much praised, and has been
partially recognized by so many succeeding writers, that
it would have been impossible to pass it over here, though
the present writer is confident that the best-informed
ornithologists will agree with him in thinking that the com
pilation of the above abstract has been but so much waste
of time, and its insertion here but so much waste of space.
Without, however, some such abstract its shortcomings
could not be made apparent, and it will be seen to
what little purpose so many able men have laboured if
arrangement and grouping so manifestly artificial — the
latter often of forms possessing no real affinity — can pass
as a natural method. We should be too sanguine to hope
that it may be the last of its kind, yet any one accustomed
to look deeper than the surface must see its numerous
defects, and almost every one, whether so accustomed or
not, ought by its means to be brought to the conclusion
that, when a man of Sundevall's knowledge and experience
ORNITHOLOGY
39
could not, by trusting only to external characters, do better
than this, the most convincing proof is afforded of the
inability of external characters alone to produce anything
save ataxy. The principal merits it possesses are con
fined to the minor arrangement of some of the Oscines ;
but even here many of the alliances, such, for instance,
as that of Pitta with the true Thrushes, are indefensible
on any rational grounds, and some, as that of Accentor
with the Weaver-birds and Whydah-birds, verge upon the
ridiculous, while on the other hand the interpolation of
the American Fly-catching Warblers, Mniotiltidx, between
the normal Warblers of the Old World and the Thrushes is
as bad — especially when the genus Mniotilta is placed, not
withstanding its different wing-formula, with the Tree-
creepers, Certhiidse. The whole work unfortunately betrays
throughout an utter want of the sense of proportion. In
many of the large groups the effect of very slight differ
ences is to keep the forms exhibiting them widely apart,
while in most of the smaller groups differences of far
greater kind are overlooked, so that the forms which
present them are linked together in more or less close
union. Thus, regarding only external characters, great
as is the structural distinction between the Gannets,
Cormorants, Frigate-birds, and Pelicans, it is not held to
remove them from the limits of a single Family; and yet
the Thrushes and the Chats, whose distinctions are barely
sensible, are placed in separate Families, as are also the
Chats and the Nightingales, wherein no structural distinc
tions at all can be traced. Again, even in one and the
same group the equalization of characters indicative of
Families is wholly neglected. Thus among the Pigeons
the genera Didus and Didunculus, which differ, so far as
we know it, in every external character of their structure,
are placed in one Family, and yet on the slightest pre
text the genus Goura, which in all respects so intimately
resembles ordinary Pigeons, is set apart as the represen
tative of a distinct Family. The only use of dwelling
upon these imperfections here is the hope that thereby
students of Ornithology may be induced to abandon the
belief in the efficacy of external characters as a sole means
of classification, and, by seeing how unmanageable they
become unless checked by internal characters, be per
suaded of the futility of any attempt to form an arrange
ment without that solid foundation which can only be
obtained by a knowledge of anatomy. Where Sundevall
failed no one else is likely to succeed; for he was a man
gifted with intelligence of a rare order, a man of cultiva
tion and learning, one who had devoted his whole life to
science, who had travelled much, studied much and
reflected much, a man whose acquaintance with the
literature of his subject probably exceeded that of any of
his contemporaries, and a man whose linguistic attainments
rendered him the envy of his many friends. Yet what
should have been the crowning work of his long life is one
that all who respected him, and that comprehends all who
knew him, must regret.
larrod Of the very opposite kind was the work of the two men
111(1 next to be mentioned — GARROD and FORBES — both cut
short in a career of promise * that among students of
Ornithology has rarely been equalled and perhaps never
surpassed. The present writer finds it difficult to treat of
the labours of two pupils and friends from whose assistance
he had originally hoped to profit in the preparation of this
very article, the more so that, while fully recognizing the
brilliant nature of some of their researches, he is compelled
very frequently to dissent from the conclusions at which
1 Alfred Henvy Garrod, Prosector to the Zoological Society of
London, died of consumption in 1879, aged thirty-three. His successor
in that office, William Alexander Forbes, fell a victim to the deadly
climate of the Niger in 1883, and in his twenty-eighth year.
they arrived, deeming them to have often been of a kind
that, had their authors survived to a maturer age, they
would have greatly modified. Still he well knows that
learners are mostly wiser than their teachers ; and, making
due allowance for the haste with which, from the exigencies
of the post they successively held, their investigations had
usually to be published, he believes that much of the
highest value underlies even the crudest conjectures con
tained in their several contributions to Ornithology.
Putting aside the monographical papers by which each of
them followed the excellent example set by their predecessor
in the office they filled — Dr MURIE 2 — and beginning with
Garrod's,3 those having a more general scope, all published
in the Zoological Society's Proceedings, may be briefly con
sidered. Starting from the level reached by Prof. Huxley,
the first attempt made by the younger investigator was in
1873, " On the value in Classification of a Peculiarity in
the anterior margin of the Nasal Bones in certain Birds."
Herein he strove to prove that Birds ought to be divided
into two Subclasses — one, called " Holorhinal," in which a
straight line drawn transversely across the hindmost points
of the external narial apertures passes in front of the
posterior ends of the nasal processes of the prsemaxillae,
and the other, called " Schizorhinal, " in which such a line
passes behind those processes. If this be used as a
criterion, the validity of Prof. Huxley's group Schizognathx
is shaken ; but there is no need to enlarge upon the pro
posal, for it was virtually abandoned by its author within
little more than a twelvemonth. The next subject in con
nexion with Systematic Ornithology to which Garrod
applied himself was an investigation of the Carotid
Arteries, and here, in the same year, he made a consider
able advance upon the labours of Nitzsch, as might well
be expected, for the opportunities of the latter were very
limited, and he was only able, as we have seen (page 22),
to adduce four types of structure in them, while Garrod,
with the superior advantages of his situation, raised the
number to six. Nevertheless he remarks that their " dis
position has not much significance among Birds, there
being many Families in which, whilst the majority of the
species have two, some have only one carotid." The
exceptional cases cited by him are quite sufficient to prove
that the condition of this artery has nearly no value from
the point of view of general classification. If relied upon
it would split up the Families Bucerotidse, and Cypselidx,
which no sane person would doubt to be homogeneous and
natural. The femoral vessels formed another subject of
investigation, and were found to exhibit as much
exceptional conformation as those of the neck — for instance
in Centropus phasianus, one of the Birds known as Coucals,
the femoral artery accompanies the femoral vein, though
it does not do so in another species of the genus, C.
rufipennis, nor in any other of the Cuculidx (to which
Family the genus Centropus has been always assigned)
examined by Garrod. Nor are the results of the very
great labour which he bestowed upon the muscular con
formation of the thigh in Birds any more conclusive when
they come to be impartially and carefully considered.
Myology was with him always a favourite study, and he
2 Dr Mnrie's chief papers having a direct hearing on Systematic Murie.
Ornithology are: — in the Zoological Society's Transactions (vii. p. 465),
" On the Dermal and Visceral Structures of the Kagn, Sun-Bittern, and
Boatbill"; in the same Society's Proceedings — (1871, p. 647) "Addi
tional Notice concerning the Powder-Downs of Rhinochetus jubatus,"
(1872, p. 664) "On the Skeleton of Todus with remarks as to its
Allies," (1879, p. 552) "On the Skeleton and Lineage of Frcgilupus
varius" ; in The Ibis— (1872, p.262) " On the genus Col his," (1872,
p. 383) " Motmots and their affinities," (1873, p. 181) "Relationships
of the Upupidce."
3 Garrod's Scientific Pa2)ers have been collected and published in a
memorial volume, edited by Forbes. There is therefore no need to dve
a list of them here. Fcrbes's papers are to be edited by Prof. F. J. iiull.
40
OKNITHOLOGY
may be not unreasonably supposed to have a strong feeling
as to its efficacy for systematic ends. It was in favour of
an arrangement based upon the muscles of the thigh, and
elaborated by him in 1874, that he gave up the arrange
ment he had published barely more than a year before
based upon the conformation of the nostrils. Neverthe
less it appears that even the later of the two methods did
not eventually content him, and this was only to be
expected, though he is said by Forbes (/6w, 1881, p. 28)
to have remained " satisfied to the last as to the natural
ness of the two main groups into which he there divided
birds" — Homalogonatx and Anomalogonatse. The key to
this arrangement lay in the presence or absence of the
ambiens muscle, " not because of its own intrinsic import
ance, but because its presence is always associated with
peculiarities in other parts never found in any Anomalo-
gonatous bird.'' Garrod thought that so great was the
improbability of the same combination of three or four
different characters (such as an accessory femoro-caudal
muscle, a tufted oil-gland, and ca^ca) arising independently
in different Birds that similar combinations of characters
could only be due to blood-relationship. The ingenuity
with which he found and expressed these combinations of
characters is worthy of all praise ; the regret is that time
was wanting for him to think out all their consequences,
and that he did not take also into account other and
especially osteological characters. Every osteologist must
recognize that the neglect of these makes Garrod's proposed
classification as unnatural as any that had been previously
drawn up, and more unnatural than many. So much is
this the case that, with the knowledge we have that ere
his death he had already seen the need of introducing
some modifications into it, its reproduction here, even
in the briefest abstract possible, would not be advisable.
Two instances, however, of its failure to shew natural
affinities or differences may be cited. The first Order
G'al/iformes ' of his Subclass Homalogonatx is made to
consist of three "Cohorts" — Strutkiones, Galliiiacese, and
Psittaci — a somewhat astonishing alliance ; but even if
that be allowed to pass, we 'find the second "Cohort"
composed of the Families Palamedeidx, Gallinse., Rallid.se,
Otididse, (containing two Subfamilies, the Bustards and the
Flamingoes), Musophagidsn, and Cuculidie. Again the
Subclass Anomalogonatx includes three Orders — Pici-
formes, Passeriformes, and Cypseliformes — a preliminary to
which at first sight no exception need be taken ; but
immediately we look into details we find the Alcedinidx
placed in the first Order and the Meropidx in the second,
together with the Passeres and a collection of Families
almost every feature in the skeleton of which points to a
separation. Common sense revolts at the acceptance of
any scheme which involves so many manifest incongruities.
With far greater pleasure we would leave these investiga
tions, and those on certain other muscles, as well as on the
Disposition of the deep plantar Tendons, and dwell upon
his researches into the anatomy of the Passerine Birds
with the view to their systematic arrangement. Here he
was on much safer ground, and it can hardly be doubted
that his labours will stand the test of future experience, for,
though it may be that all his views will not meet with
ultimate approval, he certainly made the greatest advance
since the days of Miiller, to the English translation of
whose classical work he added (as already mentioned) an
excellent appendix, besides having already contributed to
the Zoological Proceedings between 1876 and 1878 four
memoirs replete with observed facts which no one can
gainsay. As his labours were continued exactly on the
same lines by Forbes, who, between 1880 and 1882,
published in the same journal six more memoirs on the
subject, it will be convenient here to state generally, and
in a combined form, the results arrived at by these two
investigators.
Instead of the divisions of Passerine Birds instituted by
Miiller, Garrod and Forbes having a wider range of experi
ence consider that they have shewn that the Passeres con
sist of two primary sections, which the latter named
respectively Desmodactyli and Eleutkerodactyli, from the
facts discovered by the former that in the JSurylsemidse, or
Broadbills, a small Family peculiar to some parts of the
Indian Region, and consisting of some nine or ten species
only, there is a strong band joining the muscles of the
hind toe exactly in the same way as in many Families
that are not Passerine, and hence the name Desmodactyli,
while in all other Passerines the hind toe is free.
This point settled, the Eleutlierodadyli form two great
divisions, according to the structure of their vocal
organs ; one of them, roughly agreeing with the Cla-
matores of some writers, is called Mesomyodi, and the
other, corresponding in the main, if not absolutely, with
the Oscines, Polymyodi, or true Passeres of various authors,
is named Acromyodi — " an Acromyodian bird being one in
which the muscles of the syrinx are attached to the
extremities of the bronchial semi-rings, a Mesomyodian
bird being one in which the muscles of the syrinx join the
semi-rings in their middle." Furthermore, each of these
groups is subdivided into two : the Acromyodi into
"normal" and "abnormal," of which more presently; the
Mesomyodi into Homceomeri and Heteromeri, according as
the sciatic or the femoral artery of the thigh is developed
• — the former being the usual arrangement among Birds
and the latter the exceptional. Under the head Hetero
meri come only two Families the Cotingidse. (Chatterers)
and Pipridx (MANAKINS, vol. xv. p. 455) of most orni
thologists, but these Garrod was inclined to think should
not be considered distinct. The Homoeomeri form a larger
group, and are at once separable, on account of the struc
ture of their vocal organs, into Tracheophons& (practically
equivalent to the Tracheophones of Miiller) and Haploo-
pkonse (as Garrod named them) — the last being those
Passeres which were by Miiller erroneously included among
his Picarii, namely, the Tyrannidoe (see KING-BIRD, vol.
xiv. p. 80) with Bupicola, the Cocks-of-the-Rock. To these
are now added Families not examined by him, — but
subsequently ascertained by Forbes to belong to the same
group, — Pittidae, Philepiltidse, and Xenicidx (more pro
perly perhaps to be called Acanthisittidai), and it is
remarkable that these last three Families are the only
members of the Mesomyodi which are not peculiar to
the New World — nay more, if we except the Tyrannidx,
which in North America occur chiefly as migrants, —
not peculiar to the Neotropical Region. The Tracheo-
phonse are held to contain five Families — Furnariidss
Oven-birds), Pteroptochidss (TAPACULOS, q.v.), Dendro-
colaptidx (Piculules), Conopophagidse, and Formicariidx
(Ant-Thrushes). Returning now to the Acromyodi,
which include, it has just been said, a normal and an
abnormal section, the latter consists of birds agreeing
in the main, though not absolutely, as to the structure of
the syrinx with that of tike former, yet differing so con
siderably in their osteology as to be most justifiably
separated. At present only two types of these abnormal
Acromyodi are known — Menura (the LYRE-BIRD, vol. xv.
p. 115) and Atrichia (the SCRUB-BIRD, q.v.}, both from
Australia, while all the remaining Passeres, that is to say,
incomparably the greater number of Birds in general, belong
to the normal section. Thus the whole scheme of the
Passeres,1 as worked out by Garrod and Forbes, can be
1 It is right to observe that this scheme was not a little aided by a
consideration of palatal characters, as well as from the disposition of
some of the tendons of the wing-muscles.
0 RNITHOLOGY
41
briefly expressed as below; and this expression, so far as
it goes, is probably very near the truth, though for
simplicity's sake some of the intermediate group-names
might perhaps be omitted : —
PASSERES,
ELEUT HEROD A CT YLI,
ACROMYODI,
NOKMALES,
ABNOUMALES, Mcnura, Atricliia,
MESOMYODI,
HOMCEOMEIU,
Traclieophona?,
Furnariidne, Pteroptochidie, Dcndrocolaptidw, Conopo-
phagtdce, Formicariidx.
Haploophona?,
Tyrannidae, Rupicola, Pittidx, Philepittidee, Xcnicidiv.
HETEROMERI, Cotingidee, Pipridae.
DESMODACTYLI,
EurylasmidK.
It will be seen that no attempt is here made to separate
the Normal Acromyodians into Families. Already, in The
Wallace. Ibis for 1874 (pp. 406-416), Mr WALLACE had published a
plan, which, with two slight modifications that were mani
festly improvements, he employed two years later in his
great work on The Geographical Distribution of Animals,
and this included a method of arranging the Families of
this division. Being based, however, wholly on alar char
acters, it has of course a great similarity to the schemes of
Dr Cabanis and of Sundevall, and, though simpler than
either of those, there is no need here to enter much into
its details. The Birds which would fall under the category
of Garrod's Acromyodi normales are grouped in three
series : — A. " Typical or Turdoid Passeres" having a wing
with ten primaries, the first of which is always more or
less markedly reduced in size, and to this 21 Families are
allotted ; B. " Tanagroid Passeres" having a wing with
nine primaries, the first of which is fully developed and
usually very long, and containing 10 Families; and C.
" Sturnoid Passeres" having a wing with ten primaries, the
first of which is " rudimentary," with only 4 Families.
The remaining Families, 10 in number, Avhich are not nor
mally acromyodian are grouped as Series D. and called
" Formicaroid Passeres."
clater. In The Ibis for 1 880 (pp. 340-350, 399-411) Mr SCLATER
made a laudable attempt at a general arrangement of
Birds,1 trying to harmonize the views of ornithotomists
with those taken by the ornithologists who only study the
exterior ; but, as he explained, his scheme is really that of
Prof. Huxley reversed, with some slight modifications
mostly consequent on the recent researches of Prof. Parker
and of Garrod, and (he might have added) a few details
derived from his own extensive knowledge of the Class.
Adopting the two Subclasses Carinafss and Ratitx, he
recognized 3 " Orders " as forming the latter and 23 the
former — a number far exceeding any that had of late years
met with the approval of ornithologists. It is certainly
difficult in the present state of our knowledge to get on
with much fewer groups ; whether we call them " Orders "
or not is immaterial. First of them comes the Passeres,
of which Mr Sclater would make four Suborders:- — (1)
the Acromyodi normales of Garrod under the older name
of Oscines, to the further subdivision of which we must
immediately return ; (2) under Prof. Huxley's term
Oligomyodi, all the Haploophonx, Heteromeri, and Desmo-
dfictyli of Garrod, comprehending 8 Families — Oxyrhamph-
idse,2 Tyrannidx, Pipridy, Cotingidse, Phytotomidse,-
Pittidx, Philepittidx, and Eurylsemidx ; 3 (3) Tracheophonse,
1 An abstract of this was read to the British Association at Swansea
iu the same year, and may be found in its Report (pp. 606-609).
2 Not recognized by Garrod.
3 To these Mr Sclater would now doubtless add Forbes' s Xenlcidtr.
containing the same groups as in the older scheme, but here
combined into 3 Families only — Dendrocolaptidw, Formi-
cariidx, and Pteroptochidx ; and (4) the Acromyodi abnor-
males of Garrod, now elevated to the rank of a Suborder
and called Pseudoscines.^ With regard to the Acromyodi
normales or Oscines, Mr Sclater takes what seems to be
quite the most reasonable view, when he states that they
" are all very closely related to one another, and, in reality,
form little more than one group, equivalent to other so-
called families of birds," going on to remark that as there
are some 4700 known species of them "it is absolutely
necessary to subdivide them," and finally proceeding to do
this nearly on the method of Sundevall's Tentamen (see
above pp. 37, 38), merely changing the names and position
of the groups in accordance with a plan of his own set
forth in the Nomendator Avium Neotropicalium, which
he and Mr Salvin printed in 1873, making, as did
Sundevall, two divisions (according as the hind part of the
" tarsus " is plated or scaled), A. Lamini plantar es and B.
Scutiplantares — but confining the latter to the Alaudidx
alone, since the other Families forming Sundevall's
Scutelliplantares are not Oscinian, nor all even Passerine.
The following table shews the comparative result of the
two modes as regards the Laminiplantares, and, since the
composition of the Swedish author's groups was explained
at some length, may be found convenient by the reader : —
Mr Sclater, 1880. Sundevall, 1872-73.
1. DentirostiTS,5 — practically equal to 1. Cichlomorphffi.
2. Latirostres,5 6. Chelidonomorphffi.
4. Certhiomorphse."
5. Cinnyrimorphte.
2. Conirostres.
3. Coliomorplise.
3. Curvirostres,
4. Tenuirostres,
5. Oonirostres,
6. Cultriiostres,
These six groups Mr Sclater thinks may be separated
without much difficulty, though on that point the proceed
ings of some later writers (a notable instance of which he
himself cites) shew that doubt may still be entertained ;
but he rightly remarks that, " when we come to attempt
to subdivide them, there is room for endless varieties of
opinion as to the nearest allies of many of the forms," and
into further details he does not go. It will be perceived
that, like so many of his predecessors, he accords the
highest rank to the Dentirostres, which, as has before been
hinted, seems to be a mistaken view that must be con
sidered in the sequel.
Leaving the Passeres, the next " Order " is Picarise, of
which Mr Sclater proposes to make six Suborders :—(!)
Pici, the Woodpeckers, with 2 Families; (2) Cypseli, with
3 Families,7 practically equal to the Macrochires of Nitzsch ;
(3) Anisodactylx, with 12 Families — Collides (MOUSE-BIRD,
vol. xvii. p. 6), Alcedinidse (KINGFISHER, vol. xiv. p.
81), Bucerotidae, (HORNBILL, vol. xii. p. 169), Upupidx
(HOOPOE, vol. xii. p. 154), Irrisoridse, Meropidee, Momotidae
(MoTMOT, vol. xvii. p. 3), Todidse, (ToDY, q.v.), Coraciidae
(ROLLER, q.v.), Leptosomidx, Podargidse, and Steatornitkidse
(GUACHARO, vol. xi. p. 227) ; (4) Heterodactylx, consist
ing only of the TROGONS (q.v.) ; (5) Zygodactylx with 5
Families, Galbulidse, (JACAMAR, vol. xiii. p. 531), Bucconidse,
(PUFF-BIRD, q.v.), Rhamjihastidx (TOUCAN, q.v.), Capitonidx,
and Indicatoridx (HONEY-GUIDE, vol. xii. p. 139) ; and (6)
Coccyges, composed of the two Families Cuculidne and
Musophagidse,. That all these may be most conveniently
4 A term unhappily of hybrid origin, and therefore one to which
purists may take exception.
5 These are not equivalent to Sundevall's groups of the same names.
6 Mr Sclater (p. 348) inadvertently states that no species of
Sundevall's Certhiomorphte is found in the New World, having
omitted to notice that in the Tentamen (pp. 46, 47) the genera
Mniotilta (peculiar to America) as well as Certhia and Sitta are
therein placed.
7 Or 2 only, the position of the Caprimvlgidse being left un
decided, but in 1883 (see next note) put here.
XVIII. — 6
42
ORNITHOLOGY
associated under the name Picarix seems likely enough,
and the first two " Suborders" are probably natural groups,
though possibly groups of different value. In regard to
the rest comment is for the present deferred. The Psittaci,
Stnijfs, and Accipitres, containing respectively the PARROTS
(q.v), OWLS (?.?'.), and diurnal Birds-of Prey, form the next
three " Orders " — the last being held to include 3 Families.
Falconidx, Cuthurtidae, and SerpentariidsR, which is perhaps
the best that can be done with them — the difficult question
as to the position of Curiama (SERIEMA, q.v.) being
decided against the admission of that form to the last
Family, notwithstanding its remarkable resemblance to
Strpentarius (SECRETARY-BIRD, q.v.). We have then the
Ster/annpodes to make the Sixth " Order," consisting of the
5 Families usually grouped together as by Brandt (supra,
p. 25) and others, and these are followed naturally enough
by the HERONS (vol. xi. p. 760) under the name of
Heroiliones, to which the 3 Families Ardeidx, Ciconiidx
(STORK, q.v.), and Pldtaleidx (SPOONBILL, q.v.) are referred;
but the FLAMINGOES (vol. ix. p. 286), under Prof. Huxley's
title Odmitoylosstf, form a distinct " Order." The Ninth
" Order " is now erected for the Palamedeee (SCREAMER,
q.v.), which precede the Anseres — a group that, disen
cumbered from both the last two, is eminently natural, and
easily dealt with. A great break then occurs, and the
new series is opened by the Eleventh " Order," Cohimbee,
with 3 Families, Carpnphayidx, Columbidse, and Gourid&,
" or perhaps a fourth," Didunculidee,1 — the DODOS (vol. vii.
p. 321) being "held to belong to quite a separate section
of the order." The Twelfth " Order " is formed by the
Pterocletes, the Sand-Grouse ; and then we have the very
natural group Gcdlinx ranking as the Thirteenth. The
next two are the Opisthocomi and Ilemipodii for the
HOACTZIN (vol. xii. p. 28) and the Turnicidx (often
known as Button-Quails) respectively, to which follow as
Sixteenth and Seventeenth the Fulicarix and Aledorides —
the former consisting of the Families Rallidx (RAIL, q.v.)
and Heliornithidse., and the latter of what seems to be a
very heterogeneous compound of 6 Families — Aramidx,
Eurypygida (SriN BITTERN, q<v.), Gruidx (CRANE, vol. vi.
p. 546), Psop/mdx (TRUMPETER, 7. v.), Cariamidx (SERIEMA,
q.v.), and Otididx - (BUSTARD, vol. iv. p. 578). It is con
fessedly very puzzling to know how these varied types, or
some of them at least, should be classed ; but the need for the
establishment of this group, and especially the insertion in
it of certain forms, is not explained by the author. Then
we have " Orders " Eighteen and Nineteen, the Limwolx,
with 6 Families, and Gavise, consisting only of Laridie(GuL'L,
vol. xi. p. 274), which taken in their simplest condition do
not present much difficulty. The last are followed by
Tubinares, the PETRELS (q.v.), and these by Pygopodes, to
which only 2 Families Colyiitbidse, (DiVER, vol. vii. p. 292)
and Alcidx are allowed — the GREBES (vol. xi. p. 79) being
included in the former. The Impennes or PENGUINS (q.v.)
form the Twenty-second, and TINAMOUS (q.v.) as Crypturi
complete the Carinate Subclass. For the Ratitse only
three "Orders" are allotted — Apteryges, Casuarii, and
Struthionea,
As a whole it is impossible not to speak well of the
scheme thus sketched out ; nevertheless it does seem in
some parts to be open to amendment, though the task of
attempting to suggest any modifications of it by way of
improvement is one that the present writer approaches
with reluctance and the utmost diffidence. Yet the task,
it appears, must be undertaken. From the preceding
1 In the eighth edition of the List of Vertebratrd Animals in the
Zoological Gardens, which, being published in 1883, may be taken as
expressing Mr Sclater's latest views, the first two Families only are
recognized, the last two being placed under Colvmbidse.
2 Wrongly spelt Otidiv.
pages, recounting the efforts of many system-makers —
good, bad, and indifferent — it will have been seen what a
very great number and variety of characters need to be had
in remembrance while planning any scheme that will at
all adequately represent the results of the knowledge
hitherto attained, and the best lesson to be learnt from
them is that our present knowledge goes but a very little
way in comparison with what we, or our successors, may
hope to reach in years to come. Still we may feel pretty
confident that we are on the right track, and, moreover,
that here and there we can plant our feet on firm ground,
however uncertain, not to say treacherous, may be the
spaces that intervene. Now that geographical exploration
has left so small a portion of the earth's surface unvisited,
we cannot reasonably look for the encountering of new
forms of ornithic life that, by revealing hitherto unknown
stepping stones, will quicken our course or effectively point
out our path. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the two most
important and singular types of existing Birds — Balaeniceps
and Rhinochetns — that in later years have rewarded the
exertions of travelling naturalists, have proved rather
sources of perplexity than founts of inspiration. Should
fortune favour ornithologists in the discovery of fossil
remains, they will unquestionably form the surest guide to
our faltering steps ; but experience forbids us to expect
much aid from this quarter, however warmly we may wish
for it, and the pleasure of any discovery of the kind would
be enhanced equally by its rarity as by its intrinsic worth.
However, it is now a well accepted maxim in zoology that
the mature forms of the past are repeated in the immature
forms of the present, and that, where Palaeontology fails to
instruct us, Embryology may be trusted to no small extent
to supply the deficiency. Unhappily the embryology of
Birds has been as yet very insufficiently studied. We have
indeed embryological memoirs of a value that can scarcely
be rated too highly, but almost all are of a monographic
character. They are only oases in a desert of ignorance,
and a really connected and continuous series of investiga
tions, such as the many morphological laboratories, now
established in various countries, would easily render
possible, has yet to be instituted. No methodical attempt
at this kind of work seems to have been made for nearly
half a century, and, with the advantage of modern
appliances, no one can justifiably doubt the success of a
renewal of such an attempt any more than he can possibly
foresee the precise nature of the revelations that would
come of it.
The various schemes for classifying Birds set forth by the authors
of general text-books of Zoology do not call for any particular
review here, as almost without exception they are so drawn up as
to be rather of the nature of a compromise than of a harmony.
The best and most notable is perhaps that by Prof. CARVS in 18(!8
(Handluch dcr Zoologie, i. pp. 191-368) ; but it is of course now
antiquated. The worst scheme is one of the most recent, that by
Prof. CI.AUS in 1882 (Grundzilye dcr Zooloyic, ii. pp. 318-388). Of
most other similar text-books that have come under the writer's
notice, especially those issued in the United Kingdom, the less
said the better. It is unfortunate that neither Prof. Gegenbaur
nor the late Prof. F. M. Balfour should have turned their attention
to this matter ; but an improvement may be expected from Dr
Gadow, who is engaged in completing the ornithological portion
of Bronn's Thicrreieh, so long left unfinished.
Birds are animals so similar to Reptiles in all the most Relatio:
essential features of their organization that they may be of Rini!
said to be merely an extremely modified and aberrant t?jC*
Reptilian type. These are almost the very words of Prof.
Huxley twenty years ago,3 and there are now but few
zoologists to dissent from his statement, which by another
man of science has been expressed in a phrase even more
3 Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy, p. 69; see also
Carus, Handbuch der Zo<~>lo<jie.. i. p. 192.
ORNITHOLOGY
pithy — -"Birds are only glorified Reptiles." It is not
intended here to enter upon their points of resemblance
and differences. These may be found summarized with
more or less accuracy in any text-book of zoology. We
shall content ourselves by remarking that by the naturalist
just named Birds and Reptiles have been brigaded together
under the name of Sauropsida as forming one of the three
primary divisions of the Vertebrata — the other two being
Ichtkyopsida and Mammalia. Yet Birds have a right to
be considered a Class, and as a Class they have become so
wholly differentiated from every other group of the Animal
Kingdom that, among recent and even the few fossil forms
known to us, there is not one about the assignation of
which any doubt ought now to exist, though it is right to
state that some naturalists have even lately refused a place
among Aves to the singular Archxopteryx, of which the
remains of two individuals — most probably belonging to
as many distinct forms1 — have been discovered in the
quarries of Solenhofen in Bavaria. Yet one of them has
been referred, without much hesitation, by Prof. Vogt to
the Class Reptilia on grounds which seem to be mistaken,
since it was evidently in great part if not entirely clothed
with feathers.2 The peculiar structure of Archceopteryx
has already been briefly mentioned and partly figured in
this work (BiEDS, vol. iii. p. 728-9), and, while the present
writer cannot doubt that its Bird-like characters predomin
ate over those which are obviously Reptilian, he will not
venture to declare more concerning its relations to other
Birds, and accordingly thinks it advisable to leave the
genus as the sole representative as yet known of the Sub
class Saurursef established for its reception by Prof.
Hiickel, trusting that time may shew whether this pro
visional arrangement will be substantiated. The great use
of the discovery of Archxopteryx to naturalists in general
is well known to have been the convincing testimony it
afforded as to what is well called " the imperfection of the
Geological Record." To ornithologists in particular its
chief attraction is the evidence it furnishes in proof of the
evolution of Birds from Reptiles; though, as to the group
of the latter from which the former may have sprung, it
tells us little that is not negative. It throws, for instance,
the Pterodactyls — so often imagined to be nearly related to
Birds, if not to be their direct ancestors — completely out
of the line of descent. Next to this its principal advan
tage is to reveal the existence at so early an epoch of Birds
with some portions of their structure as highly organized
as the highest of the present day, a fact witnessed by its
foot, which, so far as can be judged by its petrified relics,
1 See Prof. Seeley's remarks on the differences between the two
specimens, in the Geological Magazine for October 1881.
2 Prof. Vogt lays much stress on the absence of feathers from certain
parts of the body of the second example of Archxopteryx now, thanks
to Dr Werner Siemens, in the museum of Berlin. But Prof. Vogt
himself shews that the parts of the body devoid of feathers are also
devoid of skin. Now it is well known that amongst most existing
Birds the ordinary "contour-feathers" have their origin no deeper
than the skin, and thus if that decayed and were washed away the
feathers growing upon it would equally be lost. This has evidently
happened (to judge from photographs) to the Berlin specimen just
as to that which is in London. In each case, as Sir R. Owen most
rightly suggested of the latter, the remains exactly call to mind the
very familiar relics of Birds found on a seashore, exposed perhaps for
weeks or even months to the wash of the tides so as to lose all but the
deeply-seated feathers, and finally to be embedded in the soft soil.
Prof. Vogt's paper is in the Revue Scienfifique, ser. 2. ix. p. 241, and
an English translation of it in The Ibis for 1880, p. 434.
3 Prof. Ha'ekel seems first to have spelt this word Sauriurie,, in
which form it appears in his Attgemeine Entwickelungeschichte der
•Organismen, forming the second volume of his Generelle Morpholoyie
{pp. xi. and cxxxix. ), published at Berlin in 1866, though on plate
vii. of the same volume it appears as Sauriuri. Whether the masculine
or feminine termination be preferred matters little, though the latter
is come into general use, but the interpolation of the i in the middle of
the word appears to be against all the laws of orthography.
might well be that of a modern Crow. The fossil remains
of many other Birds, for example Prof. SEELEY'S Enaliornis
(Quart, Journ. Geol. Society, 187G, pp. 496-512), Sir R.
OWEN'S Odontopteryx (BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 729), Gastorms,
Prof. COPE'S Diatryma (Proc. Acad. N. Sc. Philadelphia,
April 1876), and some more, are too fragmentary to serve
the purposes of the systematist ; but the grand discoveries
of Prof. Marsh, spoken of above, afford plentiful hints as
to the taxonomy of the Class, and their bearing deserves
the closest consideration. First of all we find that, while Antiquity
Birds still possess the teeth they had inherited from their of the
Reptilian ancestors, two remarkable and very distinct types *''
of the Class had already made their appearance, and we ^rimite
must note that these two types are those which persist at types.
the present day, and even now divide the Class into
Ratitse and Carinatse, the groups whose essentially distinct
characters were recognized by Merrem. Furthermore,
while the Ratite type (Hesperornis) presents the kind of
teeth, arrayed in grooves, which indicate (in Reptiles at
least) a low morphological rank, the Carinate type (Ich-
thyornis) is furnished with teeth set in sockets, and shew
ing a higher development. On the other hand this early
Carinate type has vertebrae whose comparatively simple,
biconcave form is equally evidence of a rank unquestion
ably low ; but the saddle-shaped vertebrae of the con
temporary Ratite type as surely testify to a more exalted
position. Reference has been already made to this com
plicated if not contradictory state of things, the true
explanation of which seems to be out of reach at present.
It has been for some time a question whether the Ratite
is a degraded type descended from the Carinate, or the
Carinate a superior development of the Ratite type.
Several eminent zoologists have declared themselves in
favour of the former probability, and at first sight most
people would be inclined to decide with them ; for, on this
hypothesis, the easiest answer to the question would be
found. But the easiest answer is not always the true one ;
and to the present writer it seems that before this question
be answered, a reply should be given to another — Was the
first animal which any one could properly call a " Bird," as
distinguished from a "Reptile," possessed of a keeled
sternum or not 1 Now Birds would seem to have been
differentiated from Reptiles while the latter had biconcave
vertebrae, and teeth whose mode of attachment to the jaw
was still variable. There is no reason to think that at
that period any Reptile (with the exception of Pterodactyls,
which, as has already been said, are certainly not in the
line of Birds' ancestors) had a keeled sternum. Hence it
seems almost impossible that the first Bird should have
possessed one ; that is to say, it must have been practically
of the Ratite type. Prof. Marsh has shewn that there is
good reason for believing that the power of flight was
gradually acquired by Birds, and with that power would
be associated the development of a keel to the sternum, on
which the volant faculty so much depends, and with
which it is so intimately correlated that in certain forms
which have to a greater or less extent given up the use of
their fore-limbs the keel though present has become pro
portionally aborted. Thus the Carinate type would, from
all we can see at present, appear to have been evolved
from the Ratite. This view receives further support from
a consideration of the results of such embryologies! research
as has already been made — the unquestionable ossification
of the Ratite sternum from a smaller number of paired
centres than the Carinate sternum, in which (with the
doubtful exception of the Anatvlse] an additional, unpaired
centre makes its appearance. Again the geographical dis
tribution of existing, or comparatively recent, Ratite forms
points to the same conclusion. That these forms — Moa,
Kiwi, Emeu and Cassowary, Rhea, and finally Ostrich—
44
O 11 N I T H O L O G Y
must have had a common ancestor nearer to them than is
the ancestor of any Carinate form seems to need no proof.
If we add to these the ^Epyornis of Madagascar, the fossil
Ratitx of the Siwalik rocks,1 and the as yet but partially
recognized Strutkiolithus of Southern Russia,2 to say no
thing of G'astornis, the evidence is stronger still. Scattered
as these Birds have been or are throughout the world, it
seems justifiable to consider them the survivals of a very
ancient type, which has hardly undergone any essential
modification since the appearance of Bird-life upon the
earth — even though one at least of them has become very
highly specialized.
No doubt the difficulty presented by the biconcave
vertebra of the earliest known representative of the
Carinate type is a considerable obstacle to the view just
taken. But in the American Journal of Science (April
1879), and again in his great work (pp. 180, 181), Prof.
MARSH has shewn that in the third cervical vertebra of
Ichthyornis " \ve catch nature in the act as it were " of
modifying one form of vertebra into another, for this single
vertebra in Ichthyornis is in vertical section " moderately
convex, while transversely it is strongly concave, thus
presenting a near approach to the saddle-like articulation ";
and he proceeds to point out that this specialized feature
occurs at the first bend of the neck, and, greatly facilitating
motion in a vertical plane, is " mainly due originally to
its predominance." The form of the vertebrae would
accordingly seem to be as much correlated with the
mobility of the neck as is the form of the sternum with
the faculty of flight. If therefore the development of the
saddle shape be an indication of development, as well may
be the outgrowth of a keel. However, the solution of this
perplexing problem, if a solution be ever found, must
remain for future palaoontological or embryological dis
coverers. The present writer is far from attempting to
decide a question so complicated, though he does not
hesitate to say, notwithstanding the weight of authority
on the other side, that according to present evidence the
probability is in favour of the Carinate having been
evolved from a more ancient Ratite type. One thing
only is certain, and that is the independent arid contempo
raneous existence of each of these great divisions at the
earliest period when Birds at all like recent forms are
known to have lived. The facts that each of these types
was provided with teeth, and that the teeth were of a dif
ferent pattern, are of comparatively secondary importance.
The three It seems therefore quite justifiable to continue, after the
Sub- fashion that has been set, to separate the Class Aves into
three primary groups : — I. Saururx, II. Ratitx, III.
Carinatx — the earliest members of the two last, as well as
possibly all of the first, being provided with teeth. These
three primary groups we may call " Subclasses." 3 Thus
we shall have : —
SAURUR/E, Hackel. Arckseopteryx the only known form.
RATIT^E, Merrem. a. with teeth ;
«'. with biconcave vertebra — as
yet unknown;
b'. with saddle-shaped vertebrae
— Hesperornis.
1>. without teeth — recent and existing
forms.
1 For notice of these see the papers by Mr Davies in the Geological
Magazine (new series, decade ii. , vol. vii. p. 18), and Mr Lydekker in
the Records of the Geological Survey of India (xii. p. 52).
* Bull. Acad, Sc. St Petersburg, xviii. p. 158; Ibis, 1874, p. 4.
3 Prof. Huxley has termed them " Orders " ; but it is more in
accordance with the practice of ornithological writers to raise them to
a higher rank, and to call the secondary groups " Orders." There is
a good deal to be said in behalf of either view ; but, as in most cases
of mere terminology, the matter is not worth wasting words over it,
so long as we bear in mind that what here is meant by an " Order " of
Aves is a very different thing from an " Order " of Reptilia.
classes.
CARINA1VE, Merrem. a. with teeth ;
a', with biconcave vertebra?
- — Ichthyornis ;
b'. with saddle-shaped verte
bra — as yet unknown.
b. without teeth — recent and
existing forms.
We have now to consider the recent and existing forms Orders o:
of toothless Ratitx. These were shewn beyond doubt by •&*#<*
Prof. Huxley to form five separate groups, which we shall
here dignify by the name of Orders,4 adding to them a
sixth, though little is as yet known of its characteristics.
Of this, which contains the great extinct Birds of Mada
gascar, he did not take cognizance, as it is here necessary
to do. In the absence of any certain means of arranging
all of these orders according to their affinities, it will be
best to place their names alphabetically, thus : —
^EPYORNITHES. Fain. jEpyornithidx.
APTERYGES. Fam. Apterygidx (Kiwi, vol. xiv. p. 104).
IMMANES. Fam. i. Dinornithidsz ; Fam. ii. Pala-
pteryyidx.5
MEGISTANES. Fam. i. Casuariidx ; Fain. ii. Dromgeidos
(EMEU, vol. viii. p. 171).
RHE/E. Fam. Rheidx (RHEA, q.v.}.
STRUTHIOXES. Fam. Struthionidx (OSTRICH, p. G2
infra).
Some systematists think there can be little question of
the Struthiones being the most specialized and therefore
probably the highest type of these Orders, and the present
writer is rather inclined to agree with them. Nevertheless
the formation of the bill in the Apteryyes is quite unique
in the whole Class, and indicates therefore an extraordinary
amount of specialization. Their functionless wings, how
ever, point to their being a degraded form, though in this
matter they are not much worse than the Megistanes, and
are far above the Immanes — some of which at least appear
to have been absolutely wingless, and were thus the only
members of the Class possessing but a single pair of limbs.
Turning then to the third Subclass, the Carinatx, their
subdivision into Orders is attended with a considerable
amount of difficulty ; and still greater difficulty is presented
if we make any attempt to arrange these Orders so as in
some way or "other to shew their respective relations — in
other words, their genealogy. In regard to the first of
these tasks, a few groups can no doubt be at once separated
without fear of going wrong. For instance, the Crypturi
or Tinamous, the Impennes or Penguins, the Strides or
Owls, the Psittaci or Parrots, and the Passeres, or at least
the Oscines, seem to stand as groups each quite by itself,
and, since none of them contains any hangers-on about the
character of which there can any longer be room to hesitate,
there can be little risk in setting them apart. Next comes
a category of groups in which differentiation appears not
to have been carried so far, and, though there may be as
little doubt as to the association in one Order of the
greater number of forms commonly assigned to each, yet
there are in every case more or fewer outliers that do not
well harmonize with the rest. Here we have such groups
as those called Pyyopodes, Gavise, Limicofx, G<dlin:e,
Columbx, Anseres, Herodiones, Steganopodes, and Accipitres.
Finally there are two groups of types presenting character
istics so diverse as to defy almost any definition, and, if it
were not almost nonsense to say so, agreeing in little more
than in the differences. These two groups are those
known as Picarix and Alectundes ; but, while the majority
Orders o
(.'a,-in»(i
4 See Ann. Wat. History, ser. 4, xx. pp. 499, 500.
5 On the supposition that the opinions of Dr Von Haast (Trans, ard
Proc. N. Zeal. Institute, vi. pp. 426, 427) can be substantiated; but
they have since been disputed by Prof. Hutton (op. cit., ix. pp. 363-
365), and for the present it is advisable to suspend our judgment.
ORNITHOLOGY
45
of Families or genera usually referred to the former plainly
have some features in common, the few Families or genera
that have been clubbed together in the latter make an
assemblage that is quite artificial, though it may be freely
owned that with our present knowledge it is impossible to
determine the natural alliances of all of them.1
That our knowledge is also too imperfect to enable
systematists to compose a phylogeny of Birds, even of the
Carinate Subclass, and draw out their pedigree, ought to
be sufficiently evident. The uncertainty which still pre
vails among the best-informed ornithologists as to the
respective origin of the Ratitx and Carinatse is in itself a
proof of that fact, and in regard to some groups much less
widely differentiated the same thing occurs. We can
point to some forms which seem to be collaterally ancestral
(if such a phrase may be allowed), and among them
perhaps some of those which have been referred to the
group " Alectorides" just mentioned, and from a considera
tion of their Geographical Distribution and especially
Isolation it will be obvious that they are the remnants of
a very ancient and more generalized stock which in various
parts of the world have become more or less specialized.
The very case of the New-Caledonian Kagu (Rhinochetus),
combining features which occasionally recall the Sun-
Bittern (Eurypyga), and again present an unmistakable
likeness to the Limicolse or the Rallidge, shews that it is
•without any very near relation on the earth, and, if con
venience permitted, would almost justify us in placing it in
a group apart from any other, though possessing some
characteristics in common with several.
It is anything but the desire of the present writer to
invent a new arrangement of Birds. Such acquaintance
as he possesses with the plans which have been already
propounded warns him that until a great deal more labour
has been expended, and its results made clearly known,
no general scheme of Classification will deserve to be
regarded as final. Nevertheless in the best of modern
systems there are some points which, as already hinted,
seem to be well established, while in them there are also
some dispositions and assignments which he is as yet
unable to accept, while he knows that he is not alone in
his mistrust of them, and lie thinks it his duty here to
mention them in the hope that thereby attention may be
further directed to them, and his doubts either dispelled or
established — it matters not which. The most convenient
way of bringing them to the notice of the reader will per
haps be by considering in succession the different groups
set forth by the latest systematist of any authority — Mr
Sclater — a sketch of whose method has been above given.
If we trust to the results at which Prof. Huxley arrived,
there can be little doubt as to the propriety of beginning
the Carinate Subclass with his Dromse-ognathae, the Crypturi
of Illiger and others, or Tinamous, for their resemblance
to the Ratitcv is not to be disputed ; but it must be borne
in mind that nothing whatever is known of their mode of
development, and that this may, when made out, seriously
modify their position relatively to another group, the
normal Anseres, in which the investigations of Cuvier and
L'Herminier have already shewn that there is some
resemblance to the Rat it x as regards the ossification of
the sternum. It will be for embryologists to determine
whether this asserted resemblance has any real meaning ;
but of the sufficient standing of the Cryptvri as an Order
there can hardly be a question.
1 Heterogeneous as is the group as left by the latest systematist, it
is nothing to its state when first founded by Illiger in 1811 ; for it
then contained in addition the genera Glareola and Cereopsis, but the
last was restored to its true place among the Anseres by Temminck.
The Alectn'cleft of Dumeril have nothing in common with the A lectorides
of Illiger, and the. latter is a name most unfortunately chosen, since
the group so called does not include any Cock-like Bird.
and
a
We have seen that Prof. Huxley would derive all other
existing Carinate Birds from the Dromseognatkse ; but of
course it must be understood in this, as in every other
similar case, that it is not thereby implied that the modern
representatives of the Dromseognathons type (namely, the
Tinamous) stand in the line of ancestry.
Under the name Impennes we have a group of Birds, the Impennes.
Penguins, smaller even than the last, and one over which
until lately systematists have been sadly at fault ; for,
though we as yet know little if anything definite as to
their embryology, no one, free from bias, can examine any
member of the group, either externally or internally,
without perceiving how completely different it is from an}
others of the Carinate division. There is perhaps scarcely
a feather or a bone which is not diagnostic, and nearly
every character hitherto observed points to a low morpho
logical rank. It may even be that the clothing of Ilesper-
ornis was not very dissimilar to the " plumage " which
now covers the Impennes, and the title of an Order can
hardly be refused to them.
The group known as Pygopodes has been often asserted
to be closely akin to the Impennes, and we have seen that
Brandt combined the two under the name of Urinatores,
while Mr Sclater thinks the Pygopodea " seem to form a
natural transition between " the Gulls and the Penguins.
The affinity of the Alcidse or Auks (and through them the
Divers or Colymbidie) to the Gulls may be a matter beyond
doubt, and there appears to be ground for considering
them to be the degraded offspring of the former ; but to
the present writer it appears questionable whether the
Grebes, Podicipedidx, have any real affinity to the two
Families with which they are usually associated, and this
is a point deserving of more attention on the part of
morphologists than it has hitherto received. Under the
name of Gavise, the Gulls and their close allies form a very
natural section, but it probably hardly merits the rank of
an Order more than the Pyyopodes, for its relations to the
large and somewhat multiform though very natural group
Limicolse have to be taken into consideration. Prof.
PARKER long ago observed (Trans. Zool. Society, \. p. 150)
that characters exhibited by Gulls when young, but lost
by them when adult, are found in certain Plovers at all
ages, and hence it would appear that the Gavise are but
more advanced Limicolx. The Limicoline genera Dramas
and Ckionis have many points of resemblance to the
Laridse ; and on the whole the proper inference would
seem to be that the Limicolse, or something very like
them, form the parent-stock whence have descended the
Gavige, from which or from their ancestral forms the Alcidse
have proceeded as a degenerate branch. If this hypothesis
be correct, the association of these three groups would
constitute an Order, of which the highest Family would
perhaps be Otididse, the Bustards ; but until further
research shews whether the view can be maintained it is
not worth while to encumber nomenclature by inventing a
new name for the combination. On the other hand the
Petrels, which form the group Tubinares, would seem for Tubinares.
several reasons to be perfectly distinct from the Gavige, and
their allies, and possibly will have to rank as an Order.
Considerable doubt has already been expressed as to the " A lee to-
existence of an Order Aledorides, which no one can regard
as a natural group, and it has just been proposed to
rctransfer to the Limicolte one of the Families, Otididse,
kept in it by Mr Sclater. Another Family included in it
by its founder is Cariamidee, the true |>lace of which has
long been a puzzle to systematizers. The present writer
is inclined to think that those who have urged its affinity
to the Acripitres, and among them taxonomers starting
from bases so opposite as Sundevall and Prof. Parker,
have more nearly hit the mark, and accordingly would
46
0 11 N 1 T H 0 L O G Y
now relegate it to that Order. It is doubtless an extremely
generalized form,1 the survival of a very ancient type,
•whence several groups may have sprung ; and, whenever
the secret it has to tell shall be revealed, a considerable
step in the phylogeny of Birds can scarcely fail to follow.'^
Gralte. Allusion has also been made to the peculiarities of two
other forms placed with the last among the Alectorides —
Eurypyga and Rhinoclietus— being each the sole type of a
separate Family. It seems that they might be brought
with the Gruidx, Ps^hiidn', and Aramidx into a group
or Suborder Grues, — which, with the Fulicarix 3 of Nitzsch
and Mr Sclater as another Suborder, would constitute an
Order that may continue to bear the old Linnajan name
G nil las. It must be borne in mind, however, that some
members of both these Suborders exhibit many points of
resemblance to certain other forms that it is at present
necessary to place in different groups — thus some Rallidx
to the Gallinx, Grus to Otis, and so forth ; and it is as
yet doubtful whether further investigation may not shew
the resemblance to be one of affinity, and therefore of
taxonomic value, instead of mere analogy, and therefore of
no worth in that respect.
We have next to deal with a group nearly as com-
GaUinse. plicated. The true Gallinx are indeed as well marked a
section as any to be found ; but round and near them cluster
some forms very troublesome to allocate. The strange
Hoactzin (Opisthocom/us) is one of these, and what seems to
be in some degree its arrested development makes its posi
tion almost unique,4 — but enough has already been said of
it before (see vol. xii. p. 28, and supra p. 36). It must for the
present at least stand alone, the sole occupant of a single
Order. Then there are the Hemipodes or Button-Quails,
which have been raised to equal rank by Prof. Huxley as
Turnicomorphx ; but, though no doubt the osteological
differences between them and the normal Gallinx, pointed
out by him as well as by Prof. Parker, are great, they do
not seem to be more essential than are found in different
members of some other Orders, nor to offer an insuperable
objection to their being classed under the designation
Gallinx. If this be so there, will be no necessity for
removing them from that Order, which may then be
portioned into three Suborders— 7/c mipodii standing some
what apart, and Alectoropodes and Feristeropodes, which
are more nearly allied— the latter comprehending the
Megapodiidx and Cracidx, and the former consisting of
the normal Gallinx, of which it is difficult to justify the
recognition of more than a single Family, though in that
two types of structure are discernible.
The Family of Sand-Grouse, Pteroclidx, is perhaps one
of the most instructive in the whole range of Ornithology.
In Prof. HUXLEY'S words (Proceedings, 18G8, p. 303), they
are "completely intermediate between the Alectoromorphx
[i.e., Gallinx] and the Peristeromorphx [the Pigeons].
They cannot be included within either of these groups
without destroying its definition, while they are perfectly
definable themselves." Hence he would make them an
independent group of equal value with the other two.
Almost the same result has been reached by Dr GADOW
1 Cariama is the oldest name for the genus, but being a word of
"barbarous " origin it was set aside by Illiger and the purists in favour
of Dicholophus, under which name it has been several times mentioned
in the foregoing pages.
2 A brief description of the egg and young of Cariama crtstata pro
duced in the Jurdin des Plantes at Paris is given in the Zoological
Society's Proceedings for 1881, p. 2.
3 This group would contain three families — RallidiE, Ileliornithidie
(the Finfoots of Africa and South America), and the Mesitidse of
Madagascar — whose at least approximate place has been at last found
f»r them by M. A. Milne-Edwards (Ann. Sc. Nuturclles, ser. 6. vii.
No. 6).
* Mesites, just mentioned, presents a case which may, however, be
very similar.
clidie.
(<>p. cit., 1882, pp. 331, 332). No doubt there are strong
and tempting reasons for taking this step ; but peradven-
ture the real lesson taught by this aggregation of common
characters is rather the retention of the union of the
Gallinx and Columbx into a single group, after the fashion
of by-gone years, under the name, however meaningless,
of Rasores. Failing that, the general resemblance of most
parts of the osteology of the Sand-Grouse to that of the
Pigeons, so well shewn by M. Milne-Edwards, combined
with their Pigeon-like pterylosis, inclines the present writer
to group them as a Suborder of Columbse, ; but the many Columke,
important points in which they differ from the more normal
Pigeons, especially in the matter of their young being
clothed with down, and their coloured and speckled eggs,5
must be freely admitted. Young Sand Grouse are described
as being not only "Dasypaides" but even " Pnecoces " at
birth, while of course every one knows the helpless condition
of "Pipers" — that is, Pigeons newly-hatched from their
white eggs. Thus the opposite condition of the young of
these two admittedly very near groups inflicts a severe
blow on the so-called " physiological ;' method of dividing
Birds before mentioned, and renders the Pterodidx so
instructive a form. The Columbx, considered in the wide
sense just suggested, would seem to have possessed another
and degenerate Suborder in the Dodo and its kindred,
though the extirpation of those strange and monstrous
forms will most likely leave their precise relations a matter
of some doubt ; while the third and last Suborder, the true
Columbx, is much more homogeneous, and can hardly be
said to contain more than two Families, Columbidx and
Didunculidx — the latter consisting of a single species
peculiar to the Samoa Islands, and having no direct con
nexion with the Dididx or Dodos,0 though possibly it may
bo found that the Papuan genus Otidiphups presents a form
linking it with the Columbidx.
The Gallinx would seem to hold a somewhat central Groups
position among existing members of the Carinate division,7 allied to
whence many groups diverge, and one of them, the Opis-
tkocomi or ffeteromorphx of Prof. Huxley, indicates, as he
has hinted, the existence of an old line of descent, now
almost obliterated, in the direction of the Musophagidx,
and thence, we may not unreasonably infer, to the
Coccygomorphx of the same authority. But these
" Coccygomorphs " would also appear to reach a higher
rank than some other groups that we have to notice, and
therefore, leaving the former, we must attempt to trace
the fortunes of a more remote and less exalted line. It
has already been stated that the Gavix are a group closely
allied to though somewhat higher than the Limicolx, and
that at least two forms of what have here been called
Grallx present an affinity to the latter. One of them,
Rhinochttus, has been several times thought to be con
nected through its presumed relative Eurypyga (from
which, however, it is a good way removed both as regards
distribution and structure) with the Heriodiones, Herons.
On the other hand the Gavix would seem to be in like
manner related through Phaethon (the TROPIC-BIRD, f/.v.}
with the Steganopodes or Dysporomorpksd of Prof. Huxley,
among which it is usually placed, though according to
Prof. MIVART (Trans. Zool. Society, x. pp. 364, 36"))
wrongly. These supposed affinities lead us to two other
groups of Birds that have, it has been proved, some com
mon characters ; and from one or the other (no one yet
can say which) the Accipitres would seem to branch off —
5 This fact tells in favour of the views of Dr Gadow and those who
hold the Sand-Grouse to be allied to the Plovers ; but then he places
the Pigeons between these groups, and their eggs tell as strongly the
other way.
6 Cf. Phil. Transactions, 1867, p. 349.
7 Cf. Prof. Parker's remarks in the Philosophical Transactions for
1809, p. 7S5.
ORNITHOLOGY
47
possibly from some ancestral type akin to and now most
directly represented by the enigmatical Cariama — possibly
in some other way which we can only dimly foreshadow.
The Herodiones are commonly partitioned into three groups
• — Ardex, Ciconise, and Platalex, the last including the
Ibises — which may certainly be considered to be as many
Suborders. The second of them, the Storks, may perhaps be
regarded as the point of departure for the Accipitres in the
manner indicated,1 as well as, according to Prof. Huxley,
for the Flamingoes, of which he would make a distinct
group, Ampkimorphoe, equivalent to the Odontoglossx of
Nitzsch, intermediate between the Pelarffomorphte and the
Chenomorphx, that is, between the Storks and the Geese.
When the embryology of the P/icenicopteridx is investi
gated their supposed relationship may perhaps be made
oat. At present it is, like so much that needs to be here
advanced, very hypothetical; but there is so much in the
osteology of the Flamingoes, besides other things, that
resembles the Aiiseres that it would seem better to regard
them as forming a Subclass of that group to rank equally
with the true Anseres and with the Pulamedeas (SCREAMER,
</.?'.), which last, notwithstanding the opinion of Garrod,
can hardly from their osteological similarity to the true
Anseres be removed from their neighbourhood.
Whatever be the alliances of the genealogy of the
Accipitres, the Diurnal Birds-of-Prey, their main body must
stand alone, hardly divisible into more than two principal
groups — (1) containing the Cathartidx or the Vultures of
the New World, and (2) all the rest, though no doubt the
latter may be easily subdivided into at least two Families,
Vulturidae. and Falconidse, and the last into many smaller
sections, as has commonly been done ; but then we have
the outliers left. The African Serpentariidx, though
represented only by a single species,2 are fully allowed to
form a type equivalent to the true Accipitres composing the
main body ; but whether to the Secretary-bird should be
added the often-named Cariama, with its two species, must
still remain an open question.
It has so long been the custom to place the Owls next
to the Diurnal Birds-of-Prey that any attempt to remove
them from that position cannot fail to incur criticism.
Yet when we disregard their carnivorous habits, and
certain modifications which may possibly be thereby
induced, we find almost nothing of value to indicate
relationship between them. That the Striges stand quite
independently of the Accipitres as above limited can hardly
be doubted, and, while the Psittaci or Parrots would on
some grounds appear to be the nearest allies of the
Accipitres, the nearest relations of the Owls must be looked
for in the multifarious group Picarise. Here we have the
singular Steatornis (GrjACHARO, vol. ix. p. 227), which,
long confounded with the Caprimulgidae (GOATSUCKER,
vol. ix. p. 711), has at last been recognized as an indepen
dent form, and one cannot but think that it has branched
off from a common ancestor with the Owls. The Goat
suckers may have done the like,3 for there is really not
much to ally them to the Swifts and Humming-birds, the
Macrochires proper, as has often been recommended.
However, the present writer would not have it supposed
that he would place the Striges under the Picarise, for the
1 Garrod and Forbes suggest a "Ciconiiform" origin for the
Tubinares (Zool. Voy. "Challenger," pt. xi. pp. 62, 63).
^It was long suspected that the genus Polyboroides of South
Africa and Madagascar, from its general resemblance in plumage and
outward form, might come into this group, but that idea has now
been fully dispelled by M. A. Milne-Edwards in his and M. Grandidier's
magnificent Oiseaux de Madagascar (vol. i. pp. 50-66).
3 The great resemblance in coloration between Goatsuckers and Owls
is of course obvious, so obvious indeed as to make one suspicious of
their being akin ; but in reality the existence of the likeness is no bar
to the affinity of the groups ; it merely has to be wholly disregarded.
last are already a sufficiently heterogeneous assemblage,
and one with which he would not meddle. Whether the
Woodpeckers should be separated from the rest is a matter
of deeper consideration after the deliberate opinion of
Prof. Parker, who would lift them as Saurognathee, to a
higher rank than that in which Prof. Huxley left them as
Celeomorphse, indeed to be the peers of Sckizognathx,
Desmognatkse, and so forth ; but this advancement is based
solely on the characters of their palatal structure, and is
unsupported by any others. That the Pici constitute a
very natural and easily defined group is indisputable;
more than that, they are perhaps the most differentiated
group of all those that are retained in the " Order "
Picarise ; but it does not seem advisable at present to
deliver them from that chaos when so many other groups
have to be left in it.
Lastly we arrive at the Passeres, and here, as already Passeres,
mentioned, the researches of Garrod and Forbes prove to
be of immense service. It is of course not to be supposed
that they have exhausted the subject even as regards their
J/esomyodi, while their Acromyodi were left almost
untouched so far as concerns details of arrangement ; but
the present writer has no wish to disturb by other than
very slight modifications the scheme they put forth. He
would agree with Mr Sclater in disregarding the distinc
tions of Desmodactyli and Eleutherodaetyli, grouping the
former (Euryleemidx) with the Heteromeri and Ilaploo-
phonse, which all together then might be termed the their Sub-
Suborder Oligomyodi. To this would follow as a second orders.
Suborder the Tracheophonee as left by Garrod, and then as
a third Suborder the abnormal Acromyodi, whether they
are to be called Pseudoscines or not, that small group con
taining, so far as is known at present, only the two
Families Atrichiidse and Menuridse. Finally we have the
normal Acromyodi or true 0 seines.
This last and highest group of Birds is one which, as Oscines,
before hinted, it is very hard to subdivide. Some two or their homo-
three natural, because well-differentiated, Families are to KC'BCOUS-
be found in it — such, for instance, as the Hirundinidse or n€
Swallows, which have no near relations ; the Alaudidce or
Larks, that can be unfailingly distinguished at a glance by
their scutellated planta, as has been before mentioned ; or
the Meliphagidse with their curiously constructed tongue.
But the great mass, comprehending incomparably the
greatest number of genera and species of Birds, defies any
sure means of separation. Here and there, of course, a
good many individual genera may be picked out capable of
the most accurate definition ; but genera like these are in
the minority, and most of the remainder present several
apparent alliances, from which we are at a loss to choose
that which is nearest. Four of the six groups of Mr
Sclater's " Laminiplantar " Oscines seem to pass almost
imperceptibly into one another. We may take examples
in which what we may call the Thrush-form, the Tree-
creeper-form, the Finch-form, or the Crow-form is pushed
to the most extreme point of differentiation, but we shall
find that between the outposts thus established there exists
a regular chain of intermediate stations so intimately con
nected that no precise lines of demarcation can be drawn
cutting off one from the other.
Still one thing is possible. Hard though it be to find Supposed
definitions for the several groups of Oscines, whether we high rank of
make them more or fewer, it is by no means so hard, if we
go the right way to work, to determine which of them
is the highest, and, possibly, which of them is the lowest.
It has already been shewn (page 30) how, by a woe
ful want of the logical apprehension of facts, the Turdidse
came to be accounted the highest, and the position ac
corded to them has been generally acquiesced in by those
who have followed in the footsteps of Keyserling and
48
0 K NITHOLOG Y
Blasius, of Prof. Cabanis and of Sundevall. To the
present writer the order thus prescribed seems to be almost
the very reverse of that which the doctrine of Evolution
requires, and, so far from the Turdidte being at the head of
the Oscines, they are among its lower members. There is
no doubt whatever as to the intimate relationship of the
Thrushes (Turdidx) to the Chats (Saxicolinie), for that is
not borne admitted by nearly every systematizes Now most author-
out by i^gg on classification are agreed in associating with the
ces> latter group the Birds of the Australian genus Pctrceca
and its allies — the so-called " Jlobins " of the English-
speaking part of the great southern communities. But it
so happens that, from the inferior type of the osteological
characters of this very group of Birds, Prof. PARKER has
called them (Trans. Zool. Society, v. p. 152) " Struthious
Warblers." Now if the Petrceca-group be, as most allow,
allied to the Saxicolinse, they must also be allied, only
rather more remotely, to the Turdidce, — for Thrushes and
Chats are inseparable, and therefore this connexion must
drag down the Thrushes in the scale. Let it be granted
that the more highly-developed Thrushes have got rid of
the low " Struthious " features which characterize their
Australian relatives, the unbroken series of connecting
forms chains them to the inferior position, and of itself
disqualifies them from the rank so fallaciously assigned to
them. Nor does this consideration stand alone. By
submitting the Thrushes and allied groups of Chats and
Warblers to other tests we may try still more completely
their claim to the position to which they have been
advanced.
Without attaching too much importance to the system
atic value which the characters of the nervous system
afford, there can be little doubt that, throughout the
Animal Kingdom, where the nervous system is sufficiently
developed to produce a brain, the creatures possessing one
are considerably superior to those which have none. Con
sequently we may reasonably infer that those which are
the best furnished with a brain are superior to those which
are less well endowed in that respect, and that this infer
ence is reasonable is in accordance with the experience of
every Physiologist, Comparative Anatomist, and Palaeon
tologist, who are agreed that, within limits, the proportion
which the brain bears to the spinal marrow in a .vertebrate
is a measure of that animal's morphological condition.
These preliminaries being beyond contradiction, it is clear
that, if we had a series of accurate weights and measure
ments of Birds' brains, it would go far to help us in
deciding many cases of disputed precedency, and especially
such a case as we now have under discussion. To the
nor by dispraise of Ornithotomists this subject has never been
size of properly investigated, and of late years seems to have been
wholly neglected. The present writer can only refer to the
meagre lists given by TIEDEMANX (Anaf. und Naturyesch.
der Voyel, i. pp. 18-22), based for the most part on very
ancient observations ; but, so far as those observations go,
their result is conclusive, for we find that in the Blackbird,
Turdm merula, the proportion which the brain bears to
the body is lower than in any of the eight species of Oscines
there named, being as 1 is to 67. In the Redbreast,
Erithacus rubecula, certainly an ally of the Turdidse, it is
as 1 to 32 ; while it is highest in two of the Finches — the
Goldfinch, Cardudis elegans, and the Canary -bird, Serimis
canarius, being in each as 1 to 14. The signification of
these numbers needs no comment to be understood.
Evidence of another kind may also be adduced in proof
that the high place hitherto commonly accorded to the
Turdidae, is undeserved. Throughout the Class Aves it is
observable that the young when first fledged generally
assume a spotted plumage of a peculiar character — nearly
each of the body-feathers having a light-coloured spot at
I train,
its tip — and this is particularly to be remarked in most
groups of Oscines, so much so indeed, that a bird thus
marked may, in the majority of cases, be set down with
out fear of mistake as being immature. All the teachings
of morphology go to establish the fact that any characters
which are peculiar to the immature condition of an animal,
and are lost in its progress to maturity, are those \vhich
its less advanced progenitors bore while adult, and that
in proportion as it gets rid of them it shews its superiority
over its ancestry. This being the case, it would follow that
an animal which at no time in its life exhibits such marks
of immaturity or inferiority must be of a rank, compared
with its allies, superior to those which do exhibit these
marks. The same may be said of external and secondary
sexual characters. Those of the female are almost invari
ably to be deemed the survival of ancestral characters,
while those peculiar to the male are in advance of the
older fashion, generally and perhaps always the result of
sexual selection.1 When both sexes agree in appearance
it may mean one of two things — either that the male has
not lifted himself much above the condition of his mate,
or that, he having raised himself, the female has success
fully followed his example. In the former alternative, as
regards Birds, we shall find that neither sex departs very
much from the coloration of its fellow-species ; in the latter
the departure may be very considerable. Xow, applying
these principles to the Thrushes, we shall find that without nor by
exception, so far as is known, the young have their first cnar-
plumage more or less spotted ; and, except in some three a(rtei
or four species at most,2 both sexes, if they agree in
plumage, do not differ greatly from their fellow-species.
Therefore as regards capacity of brain and coloration of
plumage priority ought not to be given to the Turdidx.
It remains for us to see if we can find the group which is
entitled to that eminence. Among Ornithologists of the
highest rank there have been few whose opinion is more
worthy of attention than Macgillivray, a trained anatomist
and a man of thoroughly independent mind. Through the
insufficiency of his opportunities, his views on general
classification were confessedly imperfect, but on certain
special points, where the materials were present for him to
form a judgment, one may generally depend upon it.
Such is the case here, for his work shews him to have
diligently exercised his genius in regard to the Birds which
we now call Oscines. He belonged to a period anterior to
that in which questions that have been brought uppermost
by the doctrine of Evolution existed, and yet he seems not
to have been without perception that such questions might
arise. In treating of what he termed the Order Vagatores,3 punk of
including among others the Family Corvidx — the Crows,
he tells us (Brit. Birds, i. pp. 485, 486) that they "are to
be accounted among the most perfectly organized birds,"
justifying the opinion by stating the reasons, which are of
a very varied kind, that led him to it. In one of the
earlier treatises of Prof. PARKER, he has expressed (Trans.
Zool. Society, v. p. 150) his approval of Macgillivray's
views, adding that, " as that speaking, singing, mocking
animal, Man, is the culmination of the Mammalian series,
so that bird in which the gifts of speech, song, and
mockery are combined must be considered as the top and
crown of the bird-class." Any doubt as to which Bird is
here intended is dispelled by another passage, written ten
1 See Darwin, Descent of Man, cliaps. xv., xvi.
2 According to Mr Seebohm (Cat. Birds Brit. Museum, v. p. 232)
these are in his nomenclature Merula nigrescens, M. fuscatra, M.
gigas, and M. gignntodes.
3 In this Order ho included several groups of Birds which we now
know to be but slightly if at all allied ; but his intimate acquaintance
was derived from the Corvidie' and the allied Family we now call
Sturnidfe.
ORNITHOLOGY
49
Ishecl
years later, wherein (Monthly Microsc. Journal, 1872, p.
217) he says, " The Crow is the great sub-rational chief of
the whole kingdom of the Birds ; he has the largest brain ;
the most wit and wisdom ; " and again, in the Zoological
Society's Transactions (ix. p. 300), " In all respects, physio
logical, morphological, and ornithological, the Crow may
be placed at the head, not only of its own great series
(birds of the Crow-form), but also as the unchallenged
chief of the whole of the ' Carinatse.' "
It is to be supposed that the opinion so strongly expressed
in the passage last cited has escaped the observation of
recent systematizers ; for he would be a bold man who
would venture to gainsay it. Still Prof. Parker has left
untouched or only obscurely alluded to one other considera
tion that has been here brought forward in opposing the
claim of the Turdidx, and therefore a few words may not
be out of place on that point — the evidence afforded by the
coloration of plumage in young and old. Now the Corvidse
fulfil as completely as is possible for any group of Birds
to do the obligations required by exalted rank. To the
magnitude of their brain beyond that of all other Birds
Prof. Parker has already testified, and it is the rule for
their young at once to be clothed in a plumage which is
essentially that of the adult. This plumage may lack the
lustrous reflexions that are only assumed when it is necessary
for the welfare of the race that the wearer should don the
best apparel, but then they are speedily acquired, and the
original difference between old and young is of the slightest.
Moreover, this obtains even in what we may fairly consider
to be the weaker forms of the Corvidse. — the Pies and Jays.
In one species of Corvus, and that (as might be expected)
the most abundant, namely, the Rook, C. frugileyus, very
interesting cases of what would seem to be explicable on
the theory of Reversion occasionally though rarely occur.
In them the young are more or less spotted with a lighter
shade, and these exceptional cases, if rightly understood,
do but confirm the rule.1 It may be conceded that even
among Oscines 2 there are some other groups or sections of
1 One of these specimens has been figured by Mr Hancock (iV. H.
Trans. Xorthumb. and Durham, vi. pi. 3); see also Yarrell's British
Birds, ed 4, ii. pp. 302, 303.
2 In other Orders there are many, for instance some Humming
birds and Kingfishers ; but this only seems to shew the exce
those Orders attained by the forms which enjoy the privilege.
groups in which the transformation in appearance from
youth to full age is as slight. This is so among the
Paridae ; and there are a few groups in which the youngr
prior to the first moult, may be more brightly tinted than
afterwards, as in the genera Phylloscopus and Antkus.
These anomalies cannot be explained as yet, but we see that
they do not extend to more than a portion, and generally a
small portion, of the groups in which they occur ; whereas
in the Crows the likeness between young and old is, so far
as is known, common to every member of the Family. It
is therefore confidently that the present writer asserts, as
Prof. Parker, with far more right to speak on the subject,
has already done, that at the head of the Class Aves must
stand the Family Corvidse, of which Family no one will
dispute the superiority of the genus Corvus, nor in that
genus the pre-eminence of Corvus corax — the widely-ranging
Raven of the Northern Hemisphere, the Bird perhaps best
known from the most ancient times, and, as it happens,
that to which belongs the earliest historical association
with man. There are of course innumerable points in
regard to the Classification of Birds which are, and for a
long time will continue to be, hypothetical as matters of
opinion, but this one seems to stand a fact on the firm
ground of proof.
During the compilation of much of the present article
the writer flattered himself with the hope that he might at
its conclusion have been able to give a graphic illustration
of the way in which the various groups of Birds may be
conceived to be related to one another in the form of a
map, such as has been so usefully furnished by several of
his more gifted brethren in regard to other Classes or
portions of Classes of the Animal Kingdom. This hope
he has been reluctantly constrained to abandon, — whether
from the inherent difficulty, perhaps impossibility, of at
present executing the task, or from his own want of charto-
graphical skill, it is not for him to say. He may, however,
be allowed to express the belief that there is no group in
Animated Nature that more assuredly deserves the further
attention of the highest zoological intellects than Birds ;
and, looking to the perplexities which on all sides beset
their scientific study, there is no department of Zoology
that will better repay the application of those intellects
than Ornithology. (A. N.)
INDEX.
.(Elian, 3, 4.
Bennett, 10.
Brandt, J. F., 25, 26«
Claus, 42.
Droste, 17.
Gatke, 17.
Hailing, 10, 18
Albertus Magnus, 3.
Benoist, 17.
42, 45.
Clusius, 4.
Dubois, 17.
Gaza, 3.
Hartlaub, 17.
Albin, 5.
Bcrkenhout, 9.
Bree, 17.
Coiter, 4, 7.
Du Bus, 13.
Gentil, 17.
Harvey, 7.
Aldrovandus, 4.
Bernini, 9.
Brehm, A. E., 17.
Collett, 17.
Dume'ril, 13, 45.
Georgi, 8.
Harvie-Brown, 18.
Allen, 17.
Berthold, 22.
Brehm, C. L., 17.
Collin, 17.
Dunn, 18.
Gerbe, 17.
Hasselqvist, 8.
Alston, 18.
Beseke, 8.
Brewer, 16.
Collins, 8.
Edwards, 5, 6.
Gervais, 31.
Hayes, 7.
Altum, 17.
Bewick, 10, 14, 18.
Brewster, 17.
Cope, 43.
Elliot, 11, 16.
Gesner, 3, 4.
Hector, 16.
Andersson, 16.
Bcxon, 6.
Brisson, 5, 6, 7.
Cordeaux, 18.
Eyton, 18, 32.
Giebel, 14, 21.
Heddle, 18.
Aristotle, 2, 3, 15.
Blainville, 8, 14, 20,
Bronn, 7, 42.
Con lay, 29, 35.
Faber, 17.
Gilins, 9.
Heine, 31.
Aubert, 3.
21, 32, 29.
Brown, P., 7.
Coues. 16, 17, 25.
Fabricius, 9.
Giraud, 16.
Herbert, 10.
Audebert, 11.
Blanchard, 31, 32.
Browne, Sir T., 9.
Cousens, 12.
Falk, 8.
Gloger, 17, 21, 23.
Hermann, 7.
Audubon, 11, 12, 1C,
Blandin, 17.
Briinnich, 9.
Crespon, 17.
Fatio, 17.
Gmelin, J. F , 7, 19.
Hernandez, 4.
25, 27, 28,
Blasius, G., 7.
Buckley, E. , 5.
Cuba, 3.
Feilden, 17.
Gmelin, S. G., 8.
Hey sham, 9.
Baikie, 18.
Blasius, J. IL, 9,
Buckley, T. E., 18.
Cuvier, 7, 8, 14, 16,
Fernandez, 4.
Gosse, 16.
Hintz, 17.
Baillon, 17.
17, 26, 28, 29, 37,
Buffon, 6, 7, 36.
19, 21, 22, 23, 24,
Finsch, 14, 17.
Gould, 12, 13, 16. 17,
Hogg, 31.
Bailly. 17.
48.
Buller, 16.
27, 29, 30, 32, 45.
Fischer, J. B., 8.
18, 27.
Holland, 3.
Baird, 16.
Blyth, 10, 16, 25, 27,
Bureau, 17.
Dallas, 27.
Fischer de Wald-
Grandidier, 47.
Holmgren, 17.
Baldamus, 9, 17.
29, 36.
Burmeister, 26, 27.
Darwin, 32, 33, 34, 36,
heim, 15.
Gravenhorst, 13.
Homeyer, A. von, 17.
Barraband, 11.
Bocage, Barboza du,
Cabanis, 16, 17, 29,
48.
Fleming, 15, 18.
Graves, 18.
Homeyer, E. von, 17.
Barrere, 5.
17
30, 31, 41, 48.
D'Aubenton, 6, 7, 12.
Florent-Provost, 11.
Gray, G. R., 14, 16.
Houttuyn, 9.
Barrington, 9.
Bochart, 4.
Caius, 3.
Daudin, 7.
Fraser, 12.
Gray, J. E., 8, 11.
Huet, 12.
Barthe'lemy - Lapom-
Boddaert, 7.
Canivet, 17.
Davies, 44.
Fries, 15.
Gray, R., 18.
Hume, 16.
meraie, 17
Bolle, 17.
Carus, 7, 42.
Degland, 17.
Friseh, 8.
Griffiths, 8.
Hunt, 18.
Bartholini, 7.
Bonaparte, 14, 16, 17,
Cassin, 11, 16.
Demarle, 17.
Fritsch, 17.
Groot, 3.
Hunter, 8, 26.
Bartlett, 25.
31.
Catesby, 5.
Denny, 26.
Forbes, 28, 39, 40,
Grossingw, 8.
Button, 16, 44.
Barton, 9.
Bonnaterre, 7.
Caub, 3.
Derham, 5.
41, 47.
Giildenstlidt, 8.
Huxley, 34, 35, 36,
Bartram, 9.
Bontius, 4.
Cetti, 9.
Desmarest, 11.
Ford, 16.
Gunnerus, 9.
39, 41, 42, 44, 45,
Bechstein, 6, 9, 17.
Borggreve, 17.
Chamberlain, 17.
Des Murs, 13, 32.
Forskal, 8.
Gurney, 6, 16.
46, 47.
Behn, 5.
Borkhausen, 9.
Chambers, 33.
Dieffenbach, 16.
Forster, G., 8.
Haast, 16, 44.
Illiger, 14, 22, 24, 25,
Beilby, 10.
Borlasc, 9.
Charles worth, 25.
Diggles, 16.
Forster, J. R., 8, 9.
Hiickel, 34, 43, 44.
31, 45.
Bell, F. J., 29, 39.
Borrichius, 7.
Charleton, 4.
Dillwyn, 18.
Gadow, 42, 46.
Hancock, 10, 18, 49.
Irby, 17.
Bell, T., 10.
Bouteille, 17.
Chesnon, 17.
Donovan, 9.
Garrod, 29, 39, 40,
Hardwicke, 11.
Jackel, 17.
Belon, 4.
Brandt, A., 17.
Clarke, 18.
Dresser, 17.
41, 47.
Hardy, 17.
Jacobson, 20.
XVIII. -- 7
50
0 R N — 0 R 0
Jacquemin, 27, 29.
Lear, 12.
Martinet, 6, 12.
Nitzsch, 16, 18, 19,
Kay, 4, 5, 6.
Seeley, 43.
Tiedemann, 19, 48.
Jacquin, 7.
Lepge, 1C.
Mauduyt, 7.
20, 21, 22, 23, 25,
Reaumur, 5.
Selby, 13, 18
Tobias, 17.
Jameson, 16.
Leigh, 9.
Max, 17.
26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
Heichenbach, 13, 17.
Selenka, 7.
Tristram, 17, 33.
Jardine, 10, 13, 16.
Leisler. 17.
Merrem, 14, 16, 19,
39, 46.
Reichenow, 17.
Seligmann, 5.
Tschusl-Schmidhofen
18.
Lemetteil, 17.
20, 21, 22, 27, 31,
Nodder, 7.
Reinhardt, 33
Selys - Longcliainps,
17.
Jaubert, 17.
Lemonnicier, 17.
34, 43, 44.
Norguet, 17.
Hennie, 15, 18.
17.
Tunstall, 9.
Jenyns, 18.
Le"otaud, 16.
Merrett, 4, 9.
Nourry, 17.
Retzius, 9.
Severeyns, 13.
Turner, II. N., 12
Jerdon, 16.
Lepechin, 8.
Meyer, A. B , 13, 17.
Nozeman, 9.
Reyger, 5.
Shai-pe, 12, 16, 17
Turner, W., 3.
Johnstonus, 4
Lesauvage, 17.
Meyer, B., 17.
Nuttall, 10.
Richardson, 1C.
Shaw, 6, 7, l;l.
Valentini, 7.
Kalm, 8.
Lesson, 13.
Meyer, II. L., 18.
Oken, 15, 23, 27
Ridgway, Ifi, 17.
Shelley, 17.
Verney, 7.
Kaup, 14, 15.
Le Vaillant, 8, 11, 16.
Meyer, II. von, 34.
Olina, 4.
Risso, 17.
Shepherd, 17.
Vieillot, 7,11, 13, 14,17.
Kelaart, 16.
Lever, 6.
Milne-Edwards, 36,
Osbeck, 8.
Rodd, 18.
Sibbald, 4.
Vigors, 14, 15, 16, 25,
Kessler, 27.
Lewin, 3. W., 1C.
46, 47.
Oudart, 12, 13.
Roux, 17.
Siemssen, 9
31.
Keulemans, 13,16, 17.
Lewiu, W., 9.
Mitchell, 12, 14.
Owen, 20, 24, 26, 34,
Rowlev, 13.
Sloane, 5.
Vogt, 43.
Keyserling, 26, 28,
L'Herminier, 16, 20,
Mitterpacher, 8.
43.
Rzaczynski, 8.
Smit, 13.
Wagler, 14, 20.
29, 37, 47.
21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
Mivart, 6, 46
Pallas, 8.
St-IIilaire, Bourjot,ll.
Smith, Alfred C., 17.
Wagner, A., 11, 27,
Kirby, 15, 20, 24.
29, 31, 32, 45.
Miihring, 5.
Paquet, 17.
St-Hilaire, £. Geof-
Smith, Andrew, 16.
30, 34.
Kittl'itz, 13.
Lichtenstein, 4.
Molina, 8.
Parker, 33, 35, 41, 45,
froy, 16, 18,21, 23,
Smith, Cecil, 18.
Wagner, R., 21
Kjasrbolling, 17.
Lilford, 17.
Montagu, 15, 17.
46, 47, 48, 49.
24.
Sonnerat, 7.
Walcott, 9.
Klein, 5.
Lilljeborg, 34.
Montbeillard, 6.
Pelzeln, 17.
St-IIilaire, I. Geof-
Spalowsky, 7.
Wallace, 32, 33, 41.
Knip, 11.
Linnreus, 5, 6, 7, 8,
More, 18.
Pennant, 7, 9.
froy, 13, 24.
Sparrman, 7.
Waterton, 16.
Knox, 18.
9, 16, 19, 20, 24, 25,
Miihle, 17.
Perrault, 7.
St John, 18.
Steams, 16.
Watters, 18.
Koch, 17.
26, 37.
Mfiller, H. C., 17.
Petersen, 8.
Salerne, 6.
Stephens, 13.
Whitaker, 18.
Konig - Warthausen,
Loftie, 2.
Mailer, Johannes, 16,
Petiver, 5.
Salvador!, 17.
Sterland, 18.
White, G , 9, 10, 18
17.
Longolius, 3.
28, 29, 30, 40.
Philippus Taonensis,
Salvin, 12, 13, 41.
Stevenson, 18.
White, J., 8.
Kramer, 8.
Lumsden, 18.
Miiller, P. L. S., 7.
3.
Saunders, 17.
Stolker, 17.
Willughby, 4, 6, 20,
Kriiper, 17.
Lydekker, 44.
Murie, 39.
Phillips, 8.
Savi, 6, 17.
Strickland, 14, 15.
25.
Kutter, 17.
Macartney, 16, 26.
Nash, 9.
Pilati, 9.
Saxby 18.
Sundevall, 3, 17, 23,
Wilson, Alexander, 16
Labatie, 17.
Macgillivray, 11, 16,
Nathusius, 17.
Piller, 8.
Schaffer, 7.
27, 30, 31, 34, 37,
Wilson, James, 13.
Lace'pede, 8.
18, 24, 25, 27, 28,
Naumann, J. A., 9,
Piso, 4.
Schalow, 17.
38, 39, 41, 45, 48.
Wimmer, 3.
Lamarck, 32.
29, 48.
17.
Pliny, 3.
Schlegel, 14, 17.
Susemihl, 17.
Wolf, Joliann, 17.
Landbeck, 17.
Macleay, 15, 1C.
Naumann, J. •¥., 9, 17,
Plot, 9.
Schomburgh, 16.
Swainson, 13, 14, 15,
Wolf, Joseph, 12, 14.
Landois, 17.
Maignon, 17.
21, 23.
Potts, 16.
Schopss, 20.
16.
Wolley, 17.
Landseer, 26.
Maltzan, 17.
Neale, 17.
Pretre, 12, 13.
Schwenckfeld, 4.
Tasle", 17.
Worm, 4.
Latham, 6, 7, 9, 16.
Marcgrave, 4.
Nehrkorn, 17.
PreVot, 13.
Sclater, 12, 13, 16, 27,
Tegetmeier, 7.
Wotton, 3.
Laugier, 12.
Marcotte, 17.
Neumann, 17.
Proctor, 17.
29, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47.
Temminck, 11, 12, 14,
Wright, T., 3.
Lawrence, 16.
Markwick, 10.
Newman, 18, 31.
Qudpat, 17.
Scopoli, 7.
17, 21, 22, 25, 4f>.
Van-ell, 18, 29, 49.
Layard, 16.
Marsh, 36, 37, 43, 44
Nieremberg, 4, 15,
Ramsay, 16.
Seba, 5.
Thaun, 3.
Zander, 17.
Leach, 7.
Marsigli, 8.
Nilsson, 17.
Ranzani. 14.
Seebohm, 48.
Thompson, IS.
Zorn, 8.
ORNITHORHYNCHUS. See PLATYPUS.
ORONTES. See SYRIA.
OROPUS, a Greek seaport, on the Euripus, in the district
;, opposite Eretria. It was a border city between
Boaotia and Attica, and its possession was a continual
source of dispute between the two countries ; but at last
it came into the final possession of Athens, and is always
alluded to under the Roman empire as an Attic town.
The actual harbour, which was called Delphinium, was at
the mouth of the Asopus, about a mile north of the city.
The famous oracle of Amphiaraus was situated in the ter
ritory of Oropus, 12 stadia from the city. A village still
called Oropo occupies the site of the ancient town.
OROSIUS, PATTLUS, author of the once widely read
Historiarum adversum Paganos Libri VII., was born in
Spain towards the close of the 4th century; that he was
a native of Tarragona is a somewhat precarious inference
from his manner of referring to " Tarraco nostra " in Hist.
vii. 22. Having entered the Christian priesthood, he
naturally took an interest in the Priscillianist controversy
then going on in his native country, and it was in connexion
with this that he went (or was sent) to consult Augustine
at Hippo in 413 or 414. After staying for some time in
Africa as the disciple of Augustine, he was sent by him
in 415 to Palestine with a letter of introduction to Jerome,
then at Bethlehem. The ostensible purpose of his mission
(apart, of course, from those of pilgrimage and perhaps
relic hunting) was that he might gain further instruction
from Jerome on the points raised by the Priscillianists
and Origenists ; but in reality, it would seem, his business
was to stir up and assist Jerome and others against
Pelagius, who, since the synod of Carthage in 411, had
been living in Palestine, and finding some acceptance there.
The result of his arrival was that John, bishop of
Jerusalem, was induced to summon at his capital in June
415 a synod at which Orosius communicated the decisions
of Carthage and read such of Augustine's writings against
Pelagius as had at that time appeared. Success, however,
was scarcely to be hoped for amongst Orientals who did
not understand Latin, and whose sense of reverence was
unshocked by the question of Pelagius " et quis est mihi
Augustinus 1 " All that Orosius succeeded in obtaining
was John's consent to send letters and deputies to Innocent
of Rome ; and, after having waited long enough to learn
the unfavourable decision of the synod of Diospolis or
Lydda in December of the same year, he returned to north
Africa, where he is believed to have died. According to
Gennadius he carried with him recently discovered relics
of the protomartyr Stephen from Palestine to the West.
The earliest work of Orosius, Consultatio sive Commonitorium ad
Augustinum de errore Priscillianistarum ct Origcnistarum, explains
its object by its title; it was written soon after liis arrival in
Africa, and is usually printed in the works of Augustine along with
the reply of the latter, Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas Liber ad
Orosium. His next treatise, Liber Apologcticus de arbitrii libcrtatc,
was written during his stay in Palestine, and in connexion with
the controversy which engaged him there. It occurs in the
Biblioth. Max. Pair., and also in Hardouin and Maiisi. The
Histories adversum Paganos was undertaken at the suggestion of
Augustine, to whom it is dedicated. When Augustine proposed
this task he had already planned and made some progress with his
own De Civitatc Dei ; it is the same argument that is elaborated
by his disciple, namely, the evidence from history that the circum
stances of the world had not really become worse since the intro
duction of Christianity. The work, which is thus a pragmatical
chronicle of the calamities that have happened to mankind from
the fall down to the Gothic period, has little accuracy or learning,
and even less of literary charm to commend it ; but its purpose
gave it value in the eyes of the orthodox, and the Hormcsta,
Ormesta, or Ormista (Oifosii] M[undi] Hist[oria]), as it was called,
speedily attained a wide popularity. A free abridged translation by
King Alfred is still extant (Old English text, with original in Latin,
edited by H. Sweet, 1883). The cditio princeps of the original
appeared at Vienna (1471); that of Havercamp (Leydcn, 1738 and
1767) has now been superseded by Zangemeister, who has edited the
Hist, and also the Lib. Apol. in vol. v. of the Corp. Scr. Eccl. Lat.
(Vienna, 1882). The "sources" made use of by Orosius have been
investigated by Miirner (De Orosii vita cjusque hist. libr. VII.
adversus Paganos, 1844); besides the Old and New Testaments, he
appears to have consulted Livy, Justin, Tacitus, Suetonius, Florus,
and a cosmography, attaching also great value to Jerome's transla
tion of the Chronicles of Eusebius.
0 R P_ O K P
51
ORPHEUS, a very important figure in Greek legend.
The name is an ancient Indo-European one ; the original
Arbhu can be traced in the Ribhu of the Rigveda and the
Alp or Elf of Teutonic folklore. It is, however, impossible
to establish any connexion between the Orpheus legend in
the highly developed form which alone has come down to
us and the beliefs entertained about Ribhu and Elf. In
Greece, Orpheus was always associated with the early
Thraciau race, which was supposed to have inhabited the
neighbourhood of Mount Helicon, the district of Pieria in
Macedonia, and the coasts and country generally on the
north of the ^Egean Sea. The religion of the Muses and
the religion of Dionysus, with both of which Orpheus
is connected, are intimately associated with this race (see
MUSES). Orpheus was son of the river god CEagrus and
the Muse Calliope. He played so divinely on the lyre
that all nature stopped to listen to his music. When his
wife Eurydice died, he went after her to Hades, and the
strains of his lyre softened even the stern gods of the dead.
Eurydice was released, and followed him to the upper
world, but he looked back towards her before she was clear
of the world of death and she vanished again from his
sight. The Thracian women, jealous of his unconquerable
love for his lost wife, tore him to pieces during the frenzy
of the Bacchic orgies ; his head and his lyre floated " down
the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore," where a shrine of
Orpheus was built near Antissa. The legend, with all its
melancholy, its love, and its sympathy with nature, has
obviously taken shape in the hands of an early school of
lyric poetry, associated with the worship of the Muses ;
the ancient Thracian aoidoi are recognized as the earliest
singers in Greece, but their art and their Muse-religion
have passed to Lesbos, which was the chief seat of Greek
lyric poetry in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The tragic
death of Orpheus is obviously connected with the Bacchic
ritual (see OEGIES). Orpheus is the representative of the
god torn to pieces every year by the envious powers of
nature, a ceremony that was duly enacted by the Bacchas,
in earlier times with a human victim, afterwards with a
bull to represent the bull-formed god.
The Orpheus legend is closely analogous with that of
Marsyas. Orpheus and Marsyas are embodiments of the
supposed origin of music in Thrace and in Phrygia,
countries inhabited by kindred races, viz., the influences of
nature (both being closely connected with river-worship)
and the teaching or gift of a goddess. The melancholy
history of both must have its origin in the character of
the Thrace-Phrygian people : the divine gift brings sorrow
as well as power. Each uses the musical instrument that
characterized his country.
The name of Orpheus is equally important in the
religious history of Greece ; and in this respect also it is
associated with Thrace. He was the mythic founder of a
religious school or sect, with a code of rules of life, a
mystic eclectic theology, a system of purificatory and
expiatory rites, and peculiar mysteries. This school is
first observable under the rule of Pisistratus at Athens in
the Gth century B.C. Its doctrines are founded on two
elements — (1) the Thraco-Phrygian religion of Bacchus
with its enthusiastic orgies, its mysteries, and its purifica
tions, and (2) the tendency to philosophic speculation on
the nature and mutual relations of the numerous gods,
developed at this time by intercourse with Egypt and the
East, and by the quickened intercourse between different
tribes and different religions in Greece itself. These
causes produced similar results in different parts of
Greece. The close analogy between Pythagoreanism and
Orphism has been recognized from Herodotus (ii. 81) to
the latest modern writers. Both inculcated a peculiar
kind of ascetic life ; both had a mystical speculative
theory of religion, with purificatory rites, abstinence from
beans, &c. ; but Orphism was more especially religious,
while Pythagoreanism, at least originally, inclined more to
be a political and philosophical creed.
The rules of the Orphic life (/Sib? 'Op<f>u<6<;) prescribed
abstinence from beans, flesh, certain kinds of fish, &c., the
wearing of a special kind of clothes, and numerous other
practices and abstinences, for all of which reasons were
given in religious myths (tepoi Aoyoi). The ritual of
worship was peculiar, not admitting bloody sacrifices.
The belief was taught in the homogeneity of all living
things, in the transmigration of souls, in the view that the
soul is imprisoned in the body, and that it may gradually
attain perfection during connexion with a series of bodies.
It is not possible here to treat of the Orphic mysteries (see
Lobeck, Aglaophamus). The influence of Orphism on the
Eleusinian mysteries has been described under MYSTERIES,
and points of similarity and diversity noted. Greek litera
ture was always hostile to the Orphic religion (cf. Eur.,
Hipp., 952 sq.; Plato, Rep., ii. 364; Theophr., Char., 25).
A large number of writings in the tone of the Orphic
religion existed and were ascribed to Orpheus, as the
poems of the Trojan and Theban cycles to Homer and
Hesiod. The real names of the authors of these works
were in many cases known to those who inquired into the
matter, though the common people believed that all were
written before the time of Homer by Orpheus (Herod., ii.
53). Aristotle declared that there had never been a poet
Orpheus. The names of poets of the Orphic cycle can be
traced as early as 550 B.C. Onomacritus is the most
famous of them all (see ONOMACRITUS). These poems
were recited at rhapsodic contests alongside of Homeric
and Hesiodic works (Plato, Ion, 536). Orphic hymns
were used in the mysteries at Phlya and Eleusis (Paus., ix.
27, 2; 30, 5; i. 14). The poems were a favourite sub
ject of study for the Alexandrian grammarians. Again in
the controversies between Christian and pagan writers in
the 3d and 4th centuries after Christ the Orphic religious
poems played a great part : pagan writers quoted them to
show the real meaning of the multitude of gods, while
Christians retorted by reference to the obscene and
disgraceful fictions by which they degraded the gods.
The Orphic literature was united in ^corpus, entitled TO 'Opened,
or Ta els 'Opcpfa a.va<pfp6^fva ; the different parts were connected,
and the whole prefaced by a dedication to Musseus as son and first
initiate of Orpheus. The chief poem was ^ TOV 'Optyf cos 6fo\oyia
or /j.v0oTroua, which existed in several versions, showing consider
able variations. There was also a collection of Orphic hymns, con
taining numerous liturgic songs used in the mysteries^ and in exo
teric ceremonial ; also practical treatises, "Ep-ya ital 'Hyuspcu, and
poems on stones, herbs, and plants, &c. These works have been
lost, except fragments collected by Lobeck. There exist several
poems called Orphic (Argonautica, Hymns, Lithica). These are
very late works, composed at the time when paganism was passing
away before Christianity.
The story of Orpheus, as was to be expected of a legend told
both by Ovid and Boetius (bk. iii. cap. xxxv.), retained its popu
larity throughout the Middle Ages and was transformed into the
likeness of a northern fairy tale. In English medieval literature
it appears in three somewhat different versions: — Sir Orphco, a "lay
of Brittany " printed from the Harleian MS. in Ritson's Ancient
English Metrical Romances, vol. ii ; Orphco and Hcurodis from the
Auchinleck MS. in David Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient
Popular Poetry of Scotland ; and Kyng Orfciv from the Ashmolean
MS. in Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mjiliology (Shakespeare
Soc., 1842). The poems bear trace of French influence.
ORPIMENT (auripiymentum), the trisulphide of arsenic,
As2S3, or yellow realgar, occurs in small quantities as a
native mineral of a brilliant golden -yellow colour in
Bohemia, Peru, &c. For industrial purposes an artificial
orpiment is manufactured by subliming one part of sulphur
with two of arsenious acid. The sublimate varies in colour
from yellow to red, according to the intimacy of the
combination of the ingredients ; and by varying the relative
52
0 R R - - O R T
quantities used many intermediate tones may be obtained.
These artificial preparations all contain free -arsenious acid,
and are therefore highly poisonous. Formerly, under the
name of king's yellow, a preparation of orpiment was in
considerable use as a pigment, but now it has been largely
superseded by chrome-yellow. It was also at one time
used in dyeing and calico-printing, and for the unhairing
of skins, &c.; but safer and equally efficient substitutes
have been found.
ORRERY, EARLS OF. See BOYLE.
ORRIS-ROOT consists of the rhizomes or underground
stems of three species of Iris, I. germcuiica, I. Jlorentina,
and /. pallida, closely allied plants growing in subtropical
and temperate latitudes, but principally identified with
North Italy. The three plants are indiscriminately culti
vated in the neighbourhood of Florence as an agricultural
product under the name of "ghiaggiuolo." The rhizomes
form joints of annual growth from 3 to 4 inches long ; they
branch and give off rootlets at the joints, and when these
attain five years of age they begin to decay. When taken
out of the ground the branches and rootlets are trimmed
off, the brown bark removed, and the separated joints are
put up to dry and mature. In its fresh condition orris-
root contains an acrid juice and has an earthy odour, but
it is quite destitute of the fragrance which ultimately
characterizes the substance, and which develops fully only
after a lapse of about two years, probably by fermenta
tion. As it comes into the market, orris-root is in the
form of contorted sticks and irregular knobby pieces up
to 4 inches in length, of a compact chalky appearance,
having a delicate but distinct odour of violets. By distil
lation with water a crystalline body known as orris-camphor
or oil of orris, possessing the fragrant properties of orris-
root, is obtained. It is present in exceedingly small
quantity, from (HO to 0'80 per cent., and Professor
Fliickiger has demonstrated that the crude distillate con
sists only of myristic acid impregnated with or scented by
the essential oil of orris, a body which may never be
isolated owing to the necessarily minute quantities in
which it could be produced. - Orris-root has been a well-
known and esteemed perfume from early Greek times. It
is principally powdered for use in dentifrices and other
scented dry preparations ; but to some extent the crude
oil is distilled for general perfumery purposes. It is also
used in small pellets as issue peas.
ORSIXI, FELICE (1819-1858), Italian patriot, was born
in December 1819 at a small town in the Roman states not
far from Forli. He was educated for the church, but soon
abandoned that career, and joined Mazzini's Young Italy
Society in 1838. For engaging in revolutionary projects
he was arrested 1st May 1844, and sentenced at Rome to
the galleys for life, but by the amnesty proclaimed on the
accession of Pius IX. he was restored to liberty. In 1848
he became leader of a band of youthful Romagnoli,
distinguishing himself greatly at Vicenza and Treviso ; and
in 1849 he was chosen a deputy to the Roman parliament.
After the suppression of the revolution he became one of
the most active agents of Mazzini, and while engaged in a
mission to Hungary he was in December 1854 arrested at
Hermannstadt and imprisoned at Mantua. A few months
afterwards he made his escape by sawing through the bars
of his cell, and in 1856 he published a narrative of his
prison experiences under the title Austrian Dungeons in
Italy. Some time after a rupture with Mazzini he went to
Paris with the determination to assassinate Napoleon III.,
whom he regarded as the chief stumbling-block in the
way of Italian independence, and the principal cause of the
anti-liberal reaction in Europe. While the emperor and
empress were returning from the opera on the evening of
January 14, 1858, bombs were exploded at their carriage,
but without inflicting any injury on either. In th«
attempt Orsini had three associates, Pieri, Rudio, and
Gomez. Gomez was pardoned, the sentence against Rudio
was commuted on the scaffold, but Orsini and Pieri were
executed 13th March 1858. Orsini, whose action had an
important influence in precipitating the campaign of 1859
(see vol. ix. p. 624), met his fate with great dignity and
stoicism.
See Memoirs and Adventures of Felice Orsini written lij himself,
translated by George Carboncl, Edinburgh, 1857 ; Lcttere Edite cd
Incdite di Felice Orsini, '2 vols. , Milan, 1861 ; / Contemporanei
Italiani— Felice Orsini, by Enrico Montazio, Turin, 1862; La Vcriti
sur Orsini, par un ancien Proscrit, 1879.
ORSK (Yaman-kala of the Kirghiz), a district town
of Orenburg, Russia, 155 miles to the east-south-east of
the capital of the government, on the right bank of the
Ural, was originally founded in 1735 as the principal
Russian fort against the attacks of the Kirghiz, Though
this was afterwards transferred to Orenburg, the town of
Orsk has increased rapidly within the last few years,
owing to the fertility of the surrounding country, to
immigration, and to the growth of trade with the
Kirghiz. The population, only 6000 some fifteen years
ago, reached 14,350 in 1880, and has since become larger.
ORTELIUS, ORTELL, or OERTEL, ABRAHAM, next to
Mercator the greatest geographer of his age, was born at
Antwerp in 1527, and died in the same city on June 28,
1598. He visited various parts of the Netherlands and
Germany (1575), England and Ireland (1577), and Italy
on several occasions. His Theatrum Orbis Tcrrintm
(published at Antwerp in 1570, and reissued in a revised
form five times during his lifetime) was the first modern
atlas, Mercator having, it is said, delayed the appearance of
his collection out of consideration for his friend. Most of
the maps were admittedly reproductions, and no attempt
was made to reconcile discrepancies of delineation or nomen
clature. To the modern eye even England and Scotland
appear with amusing distortions (the Mons Grampius, e.g.,
lies between the Forth and the Clyde); but, taken as a
whole, the noble folio, with its well-nigh one hundred maps,
and its careful accompaniment of text, was a monument of
rare erudition and industry ; and the author well deserved
the appointment to be cosmographer to Philip II. bestowed
upon him in 1575. A few years later he laid the basis of
a critical treatment of ancient geography by his Synonymia
geographica (Antwerp, 1578), reissued as Thesaurus geogra-
phicus in 1 596. Other works from his pen are Itimrarium
per nonnullas Gallise Belgicse, jmrtes, 1584 (reprinted in
Hegenitius, Itin. Frisio-Ifoll.); Deorum dearumque capita,
1573 (reprinted in Gronovius, Thes. Gr. Ant., vol. vii.).
See Mamlo in Annalcs des Voyages, ii., and Gerard in Lull, de
la soc. yeogr. d'Anvers, 1880.
ORTHONYX, the scientific name given in 1820, by
Temminck, to a little bird, which, from the straightness
of its claws, — a character somewhat exaggerated by him, —
its large feet and spiny tail, he judged to be generically
distinct from any other form. Concerning its affinities
much doubt has long prevailed, and this has been only
lately set at rest. The typical species, 0. spinicaiida, is
from south-eastern Australia, where it is said to be very
local in its distribution, and strictly terrestrial in its habits.
In the course of time two other small birds from New
Zealand, where they are known as the " Whitehead " and
" Yellowhead," were referred to the genus, under the
names of 0. albicilla1 and 0. ochrocephala, and then the
question of its affinity became more interesting. By some
systematists it was supposed to belong to the otherwise
purely Neotropical Dendrocolaptidx, and in that case
would have been the sole representative of the Tracheo-
1 It may be charitably conjectured that the nomenclator intended
to write albicapilla.
0 K T — 0 R V
53
phone Passeres in the Australian Region. Others con
sidered it one of the nearest relatives of Menura, and if
that view were correct it would add a third form to the
small section of Pseudoscines (see LYRE-BIRD, vol. xv. p.
115); while Sundevall, in 1872, placed it not far from
Timdia, among a group the proper sorting of which will
probably for years tax the ingenuity of ornithologists.
The late Mr W. A. Forbes shewed (Proc. Zool. ,$oc., 1882,
p. 544) that this last position was the most correct, as
Orthonyx spinicauda proved on dissection to be one of
the true Oscines, but yet to stand, so far as is known, alone
among birds of that group, or any other group of Passeres,
in consequence of the superficial course taken by the (left)
carotid artery, wkich is nowhere contained in the subver-
tebral canal. Whether this discovery will require the
segregation of the genus as the representative of a separate
Family Orlhonycidx — which has been proposed by Mr
Salvin (CataL Coll. Strickland, p. 294)— remains to be
seen. Forbes also demonstrated that one at least of the
two New-Zealand species above mentioned, 0. ochrocephala,
had been wrongly referred to this genus, and they there
fore at present stand as Clitonyx. This is a point of some
little importance in its bearing on the relationship of the
fauna of the two countries, for Orthonyx was supposed to
be one of the few genera of Land-birds common to both.
The typical species of Orthonyx — for the scientific
name has been adopted in English — is rather larger than
a Skylark, coloured above not unlike a Hedge-Sparrow.
The wings are, however, barred with white, and the chin,
throat, and breast are in the male pure white, but of a
bright reddish-orange in the female. The remiges are very
short, rounded, and much incurved, showing a bird of
weak flight. The rectrices are very broad, the shafts stiff,
and towards the tip divested of barbs. Two other species
that seem rightly to belong to the genus have been
described — 0. spaldingi from Queensland, of much greater
size than the type, and with a jet-black plumage, and 0.
noviv-guinete, from the great island of that name, which
seems closely to resemble 0. spinicauda. (A. N.)
ORTOLAN (French, Ortolan), the Emberiza hortulana
of Linnaeus, a bird so celebrated for the delicate flavour of
its flesh as to have become proverbial. A native of most
European countries — the British Islands (in which it
occurs but rarely) excepted — as well as of western Asia, it
emigrates in autumn presumably to the southward of the
Mediterranean, though its winter quarters cannot be said
to be accurately known, and return.s about the end of
April or beginning of May. Its distribution throughout
its breeding-range seems to be very local, and for this no
reason can be assigned. It was long ago said in France,
and apparently with truth, to prefer wine-growing districts ;
but it certainly does not feed upon grapes, and is found
equally in countries wrhere vineyards are unknown — reach
ing in Scandinavia even beyond the arctic circle — and then
generally frequents corn-fields and their neighbourhood.
In appearance and habits it much resembles its congener
the YELLOW-HAMMER (q.v.\ but wants the bright colouring
of that species, its head for instance being of a greenish-
grey instead of a lively yellow. The somewhat monotonous
song of tho cock is also much of the same kind ; and,
where the bird is a familiar object to the country people,
who usually, associate its arrival with the return of fair
weather, they commonly apply various syllabic interpreta
tions to its notes, just as our boys do to those of the
Yellow-hammer. The nest is placed on or near the ground,
but the eggs seldom shew the hair-like markings so
characteristic of those of most Buntings. Ortolans are
netted in great numbers, kept alive in an artificially
lighted or darkened room, and fed with oats and other
seeds. In a very short time they become enormously fat,
and are then killed for the table. If, as is supposed, the
Ortolan be the Miliaria of Varro, the practice of artifici
ally fattening birds of this species is very ancient. In
French the word Ortolan is used so as to be almost syn
onymous with the English " Bunting" — thus the Ortolan-
de-neige is the Snow-Bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis), the
Ortolan-de-riz is the Rice-bird or " Bobolink " of North
America (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), so justly celebrated for
its delicious flavour ; but the name is also applied to other
birds much more distantly related, for the Ortolan of some
of the Antilles, where French is spoken, is a little Ground-
Dove of the genus Chamxpelia.
In Europe the Eeccafico (Figeater) shares with the
Ortolan the highest honours of the dish, and this may be
a convenient place to point out that the former is a name
of equally elastic signification. The true Eeccafico is said
to be what is known in England as the Garden-Warbler
(the Motacilla salicaria of Linnaeus, the Sylvia hortensi*
of many writers); but in Italy any soft-billed small bird
that can be snared or netted in its autumnal emigration
passes under the name in the markets and cook-shops.
The "Beccafico," however, is not as a rule artificially
fattened, and on this account is preferred by some sensi
tive tastes to the Ortolan. (A. N.)
ORVIETO, a town in Umbria, Italy, on the main road
from Florence to Rome, situated on an almost isolated
volcanic rock, about 770 feet above the plain. It is now
the capital of a province, the seat of a bishop, and in 1881
had a population of 8626. The town is of Etruscan origin,
and is said to have joined the Volscians in their war
against Rome ; it is the Urbibentum of Procopius (with
which the Herbanum of Pliny has been conjecturally
identified), and the mediaeval Urbs Veins (whence the
modern name). Owing to the strong Guelphic sympathies
of the inhabitants, and the inaccessible nature of the site,
Orvieto has been constantly used as a place of refuge by
the popes, of whom no less than thirty-two have at
different times found shelter there. The town is very
picturesque, both from its magnificent position and also
from the unusually large number of fine 13th-century
houses and palaces which still exist in its streets. The
chief glory of the place is its splendid cathedral, dedicated
to the Virgin ; it was founded in 1290 by Nicholas IV. on
the site of an older church ; it was designed by Lorenzo
Maitani, a Sienese architect, and from the 13th till the 16th
century was enriched by the labours of a whole succession
of great Italian painters and sculptors (see ORCAGNA).
The exterior is covered with black and white marble ; the
interior is of grey limestone with bands of a dark basaltic
stone. The plan consists of large rectangular nave, with
semicircular recesses for altars, opening out of the aisles,
north and south. There are two transeptal chapels, and
a short choir. The most magnificent part of the exterior
is the west facade, built of richly-sculptured marble,
divided into three gables with intervening pinnacles, much
resembling the front of Siena cathedral, the work of the
same architect. The mosaics are modern, and the whole
church has suffered greatly from recent "restoration."
The four wall-surfaces that flank the three western door
ways are decorated with very beautiful sculpture in relief,
once ornamented with colour, the work mainly of pupils of
Niccolo Pisano, at the end of the 13th century. This at
least is Vasari's statement. Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo del
Cambio, and Fra Guglielmo da Pisa were the chief of
these. The subjects are scenes from the Old and New
Testaments, and the Final Doom, with Heaven and Hell.
In the interior on the north, the Cappella del Corporale
possesses a large silver shrine, enriched with countless
figures in relief and subjects in translucent coloured enamels
— one of the most important specimens of early silver-
54
0 K Y— 0 S C
smith's work that yet exists in Italy. It was begun by
Ugolino Veri'of Siena in 1338, and was made to contain
the Holy Corporal from Bolsena, which, according to the
legend, became miraculously stained with blood during the
celebration of mass to convince a sceptical priest of the
truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This is
supposed to have happened in the middle of the 13th
century, while Urban IV. was residing at Orvieto; and
it was to commemorate this miracle that the existing
cathedral was built. On the south side is the chapel of
S. Brizio, separated from the nave by a fine 14th-century
wrought-iron screen. The walls and vault of this chapel
are covered with some of the best-preserved and finest
frescos in Italy — among the noblest works of Fra
Angelico, his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli, and Luca Signorelli,
mainly painted between 1450 and 1501, — the latter being
of especial importance in the history of art owing to their
great influence on Michelangelo in his early days (see
Symonds, Renaissance in Italy — Fine Arts, pp. 278-291).
The choir stalls are fine and elaborate specimens of tarsia
and rich wood-carving — the work of various Sienese artists
in the 14th century. In 16th-century sculpture the
cathedral is especially rich, containing many statues, groups,
and altar-reliefs by Simone Mosca, Ippolito Scalza, and
Gian di Bologna, — some of them well designed and care
fully executed, but all showing strongly the rapid decay
into which the art of that time was falling. The well,
now disused, called II pozzo di S. Patrizio, is one of the
chief curiosities of Orvieto. It is 180 feet deep to the
water-level and 46 feet in diameter, cut in the rock, with
a double winding inclined plane, so that oxen could ascend
and descend to carry up the water from the bottom. It
was begun by the architect San Gallo in 1527 for Clement
VII., who fled to Orvieto after the sack of Rome, and was
finished by Simone Mosca under Paul III. It resembles
in many respects the " Well of Joseph " (Saladin) in the
citadel of Cairo. The Palazzo Faina has an interesting
collection of objects found in Etruscan tombs, of which a
large number exist in the neighbourhood of Orvieto. The
church of S. Domenico contains one of the finest works in
sculpture by Arnolfo del Cambio. This is the tomb with
recumbent effigy of the Cardinal Brago or De Braye
(1282), with much beautiful sculpture and mosaic. It is
signed HOC OPVS FECIT ARNVLFVS. It was imitated by
Giovanni Pisano in his monument to Pope Benedict XI.
at Perugia.
See Guglielmo della Valle, Storia del Duomo di Orvieto (1791),
and Stampe del Duomo di Orvieto (1791) ; Luzi, Descrizione del
Duomo di Orvieto, &c., 1836; Cicognara, Storia della Scultura,
2d eel, 1823-24; Perkins, Tuscan Scutytors, 1864; Yasari, File dci
jrittori, &c., Milanesi's ed., 1878-82; Gruner, Die Basreliefs des
Doms zu Orvieto, 1858 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in Italy,
vols. i. and iii., 1866; Benois, Cathedrale d'Orvieto, 1877. For
Etruscan remains see Dennis, Cities of Etruria, ii. p. 36, 1878.
ORYEKHOFF-ZUYEFF, or ORYEKHOVSKIY POGOST, a
village of European Russia, in the Pokroff district of the
Vladimir government, 12 miles west of Pokroff by rail, on
the Klyazrna, a subtributary of the Volga. A great cotton
factory in the vicinity has become the centre of a new
town, which is called after the village, but also frequently
Nikolskoye. About 12,600 hands are employed in the
cotton manufacture itself, and about 6000 in digging peats
and making bricks for the firm. There are forty-two steam
engines (978 horse-power), and goods were manufactured
to the value of 8,328,000 roubles in 1881 (2,590,000 in
1861). The cotton is procured from Asia and western
Europe, and the goods are sold throughout southern and
south-eastern Russia.
OSBORX, SHERARD (1822-1875), English admiral and
explorer, was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Osborn of the
Madras army, and was born 25th April 1822. Entering
the navy as a first-class volunteer in 1837, he was in the
following year entrusted, though only a midshipman, with
the command of a gunboat, the " Emerald, " at the attack
on Kedah. He was present at the reduction of Canton
in 1841, and at the capture of the batteries of Woo-
sung in the following year. Having passed lieutenant in
1844, he was in the same year appointed gunnery mate
of the " Collingwood," under Sir George Seymour in the
Pacific. On account of his interest in the fate of many
of his friends and messmates, he took a prominent part in
advocating a new search expedition for Sir John Franklin.
When it was agreed upon he was appointed to the com
mand of one of the ships, and performed a remarkable
sledge journey to the western extremity of Prince of Wales
Island, of which he published an account entitled Stray
Leaves from an Arctic Journal, 1852. In the new expedi
tion fitted out in the spring of that year he also took part as
commander of the " Pioneer," and, after spending two trying
winters up Wellington Channel, returned home in 1855.
In 1856 he published the journals of Robert M'Clure,
giving a narrative of the discovery of the North- West
Passage. Shortly after his return he was called to active
service in connexion with the Russian war ; and in com
mand of a light squadron of gunboats on the Sea of Azoff
he distinguished himself in the destruction of the stores
of the enemy at various points on the coast. Receiving
post rank, he was appointed to the " Medusa," in which
he continued to command the Sea of Azoff squadron until
the conclusion of peace. As commander of the " Furious "
he took a prominent part in the second Chinese war, during
which he performed the remarkable feat of proving the
navigability of the Yang-tsze, by taking the " Furious "
as far up the river as Hankow, 600 miles from the sea.
In 1859 he returned to England in broken health, and to
support his family engaged in literary pursuits, contribut
ing many important articles to Blackwood's Magazine, and
publishing in December of that year The Career, Last
Voyage, and Fate of Sir John Franklin. In 1864 he was
appointed to the command of the "Royal Sovereign," to
assist Captain Coles in his experiments regarding the
turret system of shipbuilding. Retiring soon afterwards
on half pay, he was in 1865 appointed agent to the Great
Indian Peninsula Railway Company, and in 1867 man
aging director of the Telegraph Construction and Main
tenance Company, for the construction of a submarine
system of telegraphy between Great Britain and her Eastern
and Australian dependencies. In 1873 he was promoted
rear-admiral. Continuing to interest himself in Arctic
exploration, he induced A. H. Markham to visit Baffin's
Bay in a whaler to report on the possibility of ice-naviga
tion with the aid of steam. A record of his observations
was published under the title of a Whaling Cruise to
Baffin's Bay in 1873, with the result that a new Arctic
expedition was fitted out in 1874. Osborn died 6th May
1875.
OSCANS, or OPICANS, was the name given both by
Greeks and Romans to one of the ancient nations of cen
tral Italy. There can be no doubt that the original form
of the name was Opscus, which, as we learn from Festus,
was still used by Ennius. This the Greeks softened into
Opicus, while the Latin writers always used Oscus as a
national appellation, though they occasionally employ the
term " opicus " in the sense of barbarous or ignorant. It
is singular that, though there can be no doubt the name
was a national one, it is not found in history as the
name of any particular nation. No mention occurs of the
Oscans among the populations of Italy that were succes
sively reduced by the Roman arms ; but we learn inciden
tally from a passage in Livy (x. 20) that the language of
the Samnites and Campanians was Oscan ; and it is cer-
O S H — O S N
55
tain that this continued to be the vernacular tongue of the
people of Italy until long after the Roman conquest. Of
the ethnical affinities or origin of the Oscans we know
nothing, except what may be gathered philologically from
the remains of their language ; and their relations with the
Sanmites and other Sabellian tribes, whom we find during
the historical period settled in this part of Italy, are
extremely obscure. Perhaps the most plausible theory is
that they were in very early times the inhabitants of the
regions subsequently occupied by a race of invaders from
the north, who were known as Sabines, Samnites, and
Sabellians, but who, being comparatively few in numbers,
and in an inferior stage of civilization, gradually adopted
the language of the conquered race (see ITALY, vol. xiii.
p. 445).
It is certain that the Oscan language continued in com
mon use as a vernacular dialect till the close of the Roman
republic. Ennius boasted that he was possessed of three
tongues because he could speak Latin, Greek, and Oscan
(Gell. xvii. 17); and at the time of the Social War (88
B.C.) the allies made an attempt to introduce it as the
official language, and struck coins with Oscan inscriptions
bearing the names of Viteliu (for Italia), Safinim, &c.
After the failure of that movement there can be no doubt
that the language was never again employed for official
purposes, though it would linger long in use among the
rustic populations of the mountains. Nor was it altogether
without a literature, for the FabulasAtellanse, a kind of rude
farces popular among the Romans, not only derived their
names and origin from the Oscan district of Campania,
but were undoubtedly in the first instance composed and
recited in the Oscan dialect. The monuments of the
language which have been preserved to us by inscriptions
are much more numerous than those of any other ancient
Italian dialect. The principal of them are enumerated in
the article above referred to, and they are all collected and
examined in detail by Professor Mommsen in his Unter-
Italischen Dialekte (Leipsic, 1850). The general result is
that the Oscan language must have resembled the Latin
much more closely than any other of the Italian dialects,
but wanted almost entirely the Greek or Pelasgic element
which is found so distinctly in the more cultivated
language, and which formed the basis of the Messapian and
other dialects of the southern part of the Italian penin
sula.
See Huschke, Die Oskischcn und Sabcllischcn Dcnkmdler, Elber-
fekl, 1856.
OSHKOSH, a city of the United States, capital of
Winnebago county, Wisconsin, stretches from the west
side of Lake Winnebago for about 3 miles up Fox River
to Lake Buttes des Morts, and covers an area of about
8 square miles. By rail the distance from Milwaukee is
84 miles. Oshkosh is the seat of the United States
district court for the eastern district of Wisconsin ; and,
besides the court-house, it contains the State normal
school, a fine high school, and two opera-houses. The
leading industry is the manufacture of sashes, doors, and
blinds. Lumber shingles, matches, trunks, and carriages
are also manufactured, and there are foundries, match-
factories, flour-mills, and breweries. The population was
G085 in 1860, 12,663 in 1870, and 15,748 in 1880.
Oshkosh may be said to date from 1836; it was in
corporated in 1853. In 1859, 1866, 1874, and 1875 it
suffered severely from conflagrations.
OSIANDER, ANDREAS (1498-1552), German Reformer,
was born at Gunzenhausen, near Nuremberg, on December
19, 1498. His German name was Heiligmann, or, ac
cording to others, Hosemann. After studying at Leipsic,
Altenburg, and Ingolstadt, he was ordained in 1520 to the
priesthood, when he became Hebrew tutor in the Augus-
tinian convent at Nuremberg. Two years afterwards ho
was appointed preacher in the St Lorenz Kirche, and
about the same time he publicly joined the Lutheran
party, taking a prominent part in the discussion which
ultimately led to the adoption of the Reformation by the
city. He married in 1525. As a theologian of recognized
ability and influence, he was present at the Marburg con
ference in 1529, at the Augsburg diet in 1530, and at the
signing of the Smalkald articles in 1537, and took part in
other public transactions of importance in the history of
the Reformation ; if he had an exceptionally large number
of personal enemies the circumstance can be readily
explained by his vehemence, coarseness, and arrogance as
a controversialist. The introduction of the Augsburg
Interim in 1548 necessitated his departure from Nurem
berg ; he went first to Breslau, and afterwards settled at
Konigsberg as professor in the new university there at the
call of Duke Albert of Prussia. Here in 1550 he published
two disputations, the one De Lcge et Evany elio and the other
De Justijicatione, which aroused a vehement controversy
that was not brought to a close by his death in 1552 (Octo
ber 17). The nature of the dispute has been indicated
elsewhere (see LUTHERANS, vol. xv. p. 85). The party
was afterwards led by Funk, Osiander's son-in-law, but
disappeared after his execution for high treason in 1566.
Osiander, besides a number of controversial writings, published
a corrected edition of the Vulgate, with notes, in 1522, and a
Harmony of the Gospels— the first work of its kind — in 1537. His
son Lukas Osiander (1534-1604), a prominent ecclesiastic in Wiir-
temberg, published a Biblia Latino, ad fontes Hcbr. text, emcndata
cum breri et perspicua expositione illustrata (1573-86) in seven
quarto volumes, which was highly appreciated in its day, an Insti-
tutio ChristiansB Religionis (1576), and, his best-known work, an
Epitome of the Magdeburg Centuries. Several other Osianders, also
descendants of Andreas, figure with more or less prominence in the
theological literature of Germany.
OSIRIS. See EGYPT, vol vii. p. 716.
OSKALOOSA, a city of the United States, capital of
Mahaska county, Iowa, about 55 miles south-east of Des
Moines. It lies on high ground between the Des Moines
and the South Skunk, in a fine agricultural district, with
coal and iron mines in the vicinity ; and it contains two
colleges — Oskaloosa College (1861), belonging to the
"Disciples," and Penn College (1873), a Quaker institu
tion — flour-mills, wool-factories, iron and brass foundries,
lumber yards, &c., and an artesian well 2900 feet deep.
The population, 3204 in 1870 and 4598 in 1880, is esti
mated at over 7000 in 1884.
OSMAN. This transcription of the Arabic name
'OthrnAn (which first appears in history as borne by the
famous companion of Mohammed, and third caliph, see
vol. xvi. pp. 548, 563) corresponds to the pronunciation
of the Persians and Turks, and is therefore commonly used
in speaking of Osman I. Ghazi, the founder of the dynasty
of Osmanli or Ottoman Turks. He took the title of sultan
in 699 A.H. (1299 A.D.), ruled in Asia Minor, and died in
726 A.H. Osman II., the sixteenth Ottoman sultan, came
to the throne in 1616 A.D., and was strangled in a sedition
of the Janissaries in 1621. See TURKEY.
OSMIUM.. See PLATINUM.
OSNABRUCK, a prosperous manufacturing town of
Prussia, the see of a Roman Catholic bishop, and the
capital of a district of its own name in the province of
Hanover, is pleasantly situated on the Hase, 70 miles to
the west of the town of Hanover. The older streets are
narrow and crooked, containing many interesting examples
of Gothic and Renaissance domestic architecture, while the
substantial houses of the modem quarters testify to the
present well-being of the town. The old fortifications have
been converted into promenades. The Roman Catholic
cathedra], with its three towers, is a spacious building of
the 12th century, partly in the Romanesque and partly in
0 S 0 — 0 S P
the Transitional style ; but it is inferior in architectural
interest to the Marienkirche, a fine Gothic structure of the
14th century. The town-house contains portraits of the
plenipotentiaries engaged in concluding the peace of West
phalia, the negotiations for which were partly carried on
here. Among the other principal buildings are the episco
pal residence, the law courts, the two gymnasia, the com
mercial school, and various other educational and charitable
institutions. The museum contains antiquities and objects
of natural history. The lunatic asylum on the Gertruden-
berg occupies the site of an ancient nunnery. Linen was
formerly the staple product of Osnabriick, but no longer
takes so prominent a position among its manufactures,
which now include paper, dyes, chemicals, machinery, nails,
pianos, tobacco, and cotton. There are also large iron and
steel works and a rolling mill. A brisk trade is carried on
in grain, drugs, linen, and "Westphalian hams, and import
ant cattle and horse fairs are held here at regular inter
vals. Osnabriick contains (1880) 32,812 inhabitants, one-
third of whom are Roman Catholics. The patriotic writer
and philanthropist Julius Moser (1720-94) was a native of
Osnabriick, and has a statue in the cathedral square.
Osnabriick is a place of very ancient origin, and in 888 received
the right to establish a mint, an annual fair, and a custom-house.
It was surrounded with walls towards the close of the llth century.
The bishopric to which it gave name was founded by Charlemagne
after the subjugation of the Saxon inhabitants of the district
(c. 790), and embraced what was afterwards the south-west part of
the kingdom of Hanover. The town maintained a very independent
attitude towards its nominal rulers, the bishops, and joined the
Hanseatic League. It reached the height of its prosperity in the
15th century, but the decay inaugurated by the dissensions of the
Reformation was accelerated by the trials of the Thirty Years' War.
The peace of A\festphalia decreed that the bishopric of Westphalia
should be held alternately by a Roman Catholic and a Protestant
bishop, and this curious state of affairs lasted down to its seculariza
tion in 1803. The last bishop was the late duke of York. Since
1859 Osnabriick has again been the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop,
who, of course, has no territorial jurisdiction. The revived pro
sperity of the town dates from the middle of last century.
OSORIO., GEROHYMO (1506-1580), "the Cicero of
Portugal," belonged to a noble family, and was born at
Lisbon in 1506. After studying languages at Salamanca,
philosophy at Paris, and theology at Bologna, he rose
through successive ecclesiastical dignities to the bishopric
of Sylves. He evaded the necessity of accompanying Dom
Sebastian on his first African expedition (which he did all
in his power to discourage) only by setting out for Rome,
where he was well received by Gregory XIII. The disaster
which overtook the Portuguese arms at Alcazarquivir in
1578 had a serious effect on Osorio's health and spirits ; he
withdrew into solitude, and died at Tavira on August 20,
1580.
His principal work, a history of the reign of King Emanuel I.
(De rebus Emmanuelis Lusitaniee rcyis invictissimi virtute et
auspicio domi forisque gestis libri XII., 1571), undertaken at the
request of Cardinal Henry, entitles him to considerable literary
lank, not only ay pure Latinity and artistic arrangement, but also
by historical accuracy and insight, as well as by impartiality and
elevation of tone. An English translation appeared in 1752; and
versions in French, German, and Dutch also exist. Osorio's DC
gloria libri V. (1552), and his double treatise De nobilitate civiliet
de nobilitate Christiana (1542) have been often reprinted; of the
former D'Alembert is reported to have declared that it was really
a production of Cicero's palmed off' by the modern as his own.
Osorio also publishc'l 'De rcgis iiistitutione et discipllna libri VIII.
(1574) and a large mass of theological matter, including commen
taries on the Epistle to the Romans, the Gospel according to John,
and some of the minor prophets. His Adnwnitio and Epistola to
Queen Elizabeth of England are polemical treatises. The Opera
Oinnia of Osorio were collected and published at Rome by his
nephew in 1592 (4 vols. folio).
OSPREY, or OSPRAY, a word said to be corrupted
from " Ossifrage, " in Latin OsKifraga or bone-breaker.
The Ossifraga of Pliny (//. N., x. 3) and some other classical
writers seems, as already said, to have been the LAMMER-
GEYER (vol. xiv. p. 244); but the name, not inapplicable
in that case, has been transferred — through a not
uncommon but inexplicable confusion — to another bird
which is no breaker of bones, save incidentally those of
the fishes it devours.1 The Osprey is a rapacious bird, of
middling size and of conspicuously-marked plumage, the
white of its lower parts, and often of its head, contrasting
sharply with the dark brown of the back and most of its
upper parts when the bird is seen on the wing. It is the
Falco haliaetus of Linnaeus, but unquestionably deserving
generic separation was, in 1810, established by Savigny
(Ois. de VEgypte, p. 35) as the type of a new genus which
he was pleased to term Pandion — a name since pretty
generally accepted. It has commonly been kept in the
Family Falconidx, but of late regarded as the representa
tive of a separate Family, Pandionidoc, for which view not
a little can be said.2 Pandion differs from the Falconidse
not only pterylologically, as long ago observed by Nitzsch,
but also osteologically, as pointed out by M. Alphonse
Milne-Edwards (Ois. Foss. France, ii. pp. 413, 419), and it
is a curious fact that in some of the characters in which it
differs structurally from the Falconidse, it agrees with
certain of the Owls ; but the most important parts of its
internal structure, as well as of its pterylosis, quite forbid
a belief that there is any near alliance of the two groups.
The Osprey is one of the most cosmopolitan Birds-of-
Prey. From Alaska to Brazil, from Lapland to Natal,
from Japan to Tasmania, and in some of the islands of the
Pacific, it occurs as a winter-visitant or as a resident. The
countries which it does not frequent would be more easily
named than those in which it is found — and among the
former are Iceland and New Zealand. Though migratory
in Europe at least, it is generally independent of climate.
It breeds equally on the half-thawed shores of Hudson's
Bay and on the cays of Honduras, in the dense forests of
Finland and on the barren rocks of the Red Sea, in
Kamchatka and in West Australia. Where, through
abundance of food, it is numerous — as in former days \vas
the case in the eastern part of the United States — the nests
of the Fish-Hawk (to use its American name) may be
placed on trees to the number of three hundred close
together. Where food is scarcer and the species accord
ingly less plentiful, a single pair will occupy an isolated
rock, and jealously expel all intruders of their kind, as
happens in Scotland.3 The lover of birds cannot see many
more enjoyable spectacles than an Osprey engaged in
fishing — poising itself aloft, with upright body, and wings
beating horizontally, ere it plunges like a plummet beneath
the water, and immediately after reappears shaking a
shower of drops from its plumage. The feat of carrying
off an Osprey's eggs is often difficult, and attended with
some risk, but has more than once tempted the most
daring of birds' nesters. Apart from the dangerous situa
tion not unfrequently chosen by the birds for their eyry, —
a steep rock in a lonely lake, only to be reached after a
1 Another supposed old form of the name is " Orfraie "; but that is
said by M. Holland (Faune popul. France, ii. p. 9, note), quoting M.
Suchier (Zeitschr. Rum. Philol., i. p. 432), to arise from a mingling of
two wholly different sources: — (1) Oripelargvs, Qriperayus, Orjmu'x,
and (2) Ossifrac/a. " Orfraie " again is occasionally interchanged with
Effraie (which, through such dialectical forms as Fresaie, Fressaia,
is said to corne from the Latin pr/vsaya), the ordinary French name
for the Barn-Owl, Aluco flammeus (see OWL, infra, p. 91) ; but the
subject is too complex for any but an expert philologist to treat.
According to Prof. Skeat's Dictionary (i. p. 408), "Asprey" is the
oldest English form ; but " Osprey" dates from Cotgrave at least.
2 Mr Sharpe goes further, and makes a " Suborder " Pandiones ;
but the characters on which he founds such an important division are
obviously inadequate. The other genus associated with Pandion by
him has been shown by Mr Gurney (Ibis, 1878, p. 455) to be nearly
allied to the ordinary Sea-Eagles (Haliaetus), and therefore one of the
true Falconidee.
3 Two good examples of the different localities chosen by this bird
for its nest are illustrated in Oothcca Wollcyana, pis. B. & H.
0 S R — O S T
57
long swim through chilly water, or the summit of a very
tall tree, — their fierceness in defence of their eggs and
young is not to be despised. Men and boys have had
their head gashed by the sharp claw of the angry parent,
and this happening when the robber is already in a pre
carious predicament, and unable to use any defensive
weapon, renders the enterprise formidable. But the prize is
worthy of the danger. Few birds lay eggs so beautiful or
so rich in colouring: their white or pale ground is spotted,
blotched, or marbled with almost every shade of purple,
orange, and red — passing from the most delicate lilac, buff,
and peach-blossom, through violet, chestnut, and crimson,
to a nearly absolute black. A few years ago some of the
best informed ornithologists were led to think that perse
cution had exterminated the Osprey from Great Britain,
except as a chance visitant. This opinion proved to be
incorrect, and at the present time the bird is believed still
to breed in at least two counties of Scotland, but the secret
of its resorts is carefully guarded by those who wish to
retain it as a member of the country's fauna, for publica
tion would doubtless speedily put an end to its occu
pancy. (A. N.)
OSRHOENE, or ORRHOENE, the district of western
Mesopotamia of which Edessa was the capital (see
MESOPOTAMIA, vol. xvi. p. 47). It may be here added
that the older form of the name appears to be Chosroene
(Chosdroene). Edessa or Orrhoi thus appears to have
been "the city of Chosrau," implying an early Parthian
influence. See G. Hoffmann in Z. D. M. G., xxxii. 743.
OSSETT-CUM-GAWTHORPE, a township and urban
sanitary district in the West Riding of Yorkshire, includ
ing the contiguous hamlets of Ossett, South Ossett, and
Gawthorpe, is situated about 3 miles west-north-west of
Wakefield, and 1| north-west from the Horbury station
on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The Great
Northern Railway has two stations in the township. The
church of the Holy Trinity, a fine cruciform structure in
the Early Decorated style, was erected in 1865 at a cost of
£20,000. There are woollen cloth and mungo mills, and
in the neighbourhood extensive collieries. The population
of the township (3105 acres) in 1871 was 9190, and in
1881 it was 10,957.
OSSIAN, or OISIN. See CELTIC LITERATURE, vol. v.
pp. 311, 313, and GAELIC LITERATURE, vol. x. p. 13.
OSSOLT, SARAH MARGARET FULLER, MARCHIONESS,
(1810-1850), an American authoress, was the eldest child
of Timothy Fuller, a lawyer and politician of some
eminence, and was born at Cambridge Port, Massachusetts,
23d May 1810. Her education was conducted by her
father, who, she states, made the mistake of thinking to
"gain time by bringing forward the intellect as early as
possible," the consequence being "a premature develop
ment of brain that made her a youthful prodigy by day,
and by night a victim of spectral illusions, nightmare, and
somnambulism." At six years she began to read Latin,
and at a very early age she had selected as her favourite
authors Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Moliere. Soon the
great amount of study exacted of her ceased to be a
burden, and reading became a habit and a passion.
Having made herself familiar with the masterpieces of
French, Italian, and Spanish literature, she in 1833 began
the study of German, and within the year had read some
of the masterpieces of Goethe, Korner, Novalis, and
Schiller. Her father dying in 1835, she went in 1836 to
Boston to teach languages, and in 1837 she was chosen
principal teacher in the Green Street school, Providence,
Rhode Island, where she remained till 1839. From this
year until 1844 she stayed at different places in the
immediate neighbourhood of Boston, forming an intimate
acquaintance with the colonists of Brook Farm, and number
ing among her closest friends R. W. Emerson, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, and W. E. Channing. In 1839 she pub
lished a translation of Eckermann's Conversations with
Goethe, which Avas followed in 1841 by a translation of
the Letters of G under ode and Bettina. Aided by R. W.
Emerson and George Ripley, she in 1840 started The Dial,
a poetical and philosophical magazine representing the
opinions and aims of the New England Transcendentalists.
This journal she continued to edit for two years, and while
in Boston she also conducted conversation classes for ladies
in which philosophical and social subjects were discussed
with a somewhat over- accentuated earnestness, and which
may be regarded as perhaps the beginning of the modern
movement in behalf of women's rights. R. W. Emerson,
who had met her as early as 1836, thus describes her
appearance: — " She was then twenty-six years old. She
had a face and frame that would indicate fulness and
tenacity of life. She was rather under the middle height ;
her complexion was fair, with strong fair hair. She was
then, as always, carefully and becomingly dressed, and of
ladylike self-possession. For the rest her appearance had
nothing prepossessing. Her extreme plainness, a trick of
incessantly opening and shutting her eyelids, the nasal
tone of her voice, all repelled ; and I said to myself we shall
never get far." On fuller acquaintance this unprepossess
ing exterior seemed, however, to melt away, and her
inordinate self-esteem to be lost in the depth and univer
sality of her sympathy. She possessed an almost irresist
ible power of winning the intellectual and moral confidence
of those with whom she came in contact, and " applied
herself to her companion as the sponge applied itself to
water." She obtained from each the best they had to
give. It was indeed more as a conversationalist than as
a writer that she earned the title of the Priestess of
Transcendentalism. It was her intimate friends who
admired her most. Smart and pungent though she is as a
writer, any originality that seems to characterize her views
partakes more of wayward eccentricity than either intel
lectual depth or imaginative vigour. In 1844 she removed
to New York to become contributor to The Tribune, and in
1846 she published a selection from her criticisms on con
temporary authors in Europe and America, under the title
Papers on Art and Literature. The same year she paid a
visit to Europe, passing some time in England and France,
and finally taking up her residence in Italy. There she
was married in December 1847 to the Marquis Giovanni
Angelo Ossoli, a friend of Mazzini. During 1848-49 she
was present with her husband in Rome, and when the city
was besieged she, at the request of Mazzini, took charge
of one of the two hospitals while her husband fought on
the walls. In May 1850, along with her husband and
infant son, she embarked at Leghorn for America, but
when they had all but reached their destination the vessel
was wrecked on Fire Island beach, and the Ossolis were
among the passengers who perished.
The Autobiography of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, with additional
Memoirs by J. F. Clarke, R. W. Emerson, and W. E. Channiug,
was published in 1852, the last edition being that of 1874. See
also Margaret Fuller (Marchcsa Ossoli}, by Julia Ward Howe, 1883,
in the Eminent Women Series. Her collected works were also
published in 1874.
OSTADE. The Ostades are Dutch painters of note,
whose ancestors were settled at Eyndhoven, near the small
village of Ostaden, from which they took their name.
Early in the 17th century Jan Hendricx, a weaver, moved
with his family from Eyndhoven to Haarlem, where he
married arid founded a large family. The eldest and
youngest of his sons became celebrated artists.
I. ADRIAN OSTADE (1610-1685), the first of Jan Hen-
dricx's boys, was born at Haarlem shortly before the
10th December 1610, when he was christened in presence
XVIII. — 8
58
of several witnesses. His death took place on the 27th
April, his burial on the 2d May 1685, at Haarlem.
According to Houbraken he was taught by Frans Hals, at
that time master of Adrian Brouwer. At twenty-six he
joined a company of the civic guard at Haarlem ; at twenty-
eight he married his first wife, who lived till 1642. He
speedily married again, but again became a widower in
1666. Persons curious of matters connected with the lives
of famous men may visit the house in the Konigsstraat at
Haarlem where Adrian Ostade lived in 1657, or that of
the Ridderstraat which he occupied in 1670. He took
the highest honours of his profession, the presidency
of the painters' guild at Haarlem, in 1662. Amongst the
treasures of the Louvre collection, a striking picture
represents the father of a large family sitting in state with
his wife at his side in a handsomely furnished room, sur
rounded by his son and five daughters, and a young
married couple. It is an old tradition that Ostade here
painted himself and his children in holiday attire ; yet the
style is much too refined for the painter of boors, and
pitiless records tell us that Ostade had but one daughter.
The number of Ostade's pictures is given by Smith at
three hundred and eighty-five. It is probable that he
painted many more. At his death the stock of his unsold
pieces was over two hundred. His engraved plates were
put up to auction, with the pictures, and fifty etched
plates — most of them dated 1647-48 — were disposed of
in 1686. At the present time it is easy to trace two
hundred and twenty pictures in public and private collec
tions, of which one hundred and four are signed and dated,
seventeen are signed with the name but not with the date,
and the rest are accepted as genuine by modern critics.
Adrian Ostade is the contemporary of David Teniers
and Adrian Brouwer. Like them he spent his life in the
delineation of the homeliest subjects — tavern scenes, village
fairs, and country quarters. Between Teniers and Ostade
the contrast lies in the different condition of the agri
cultural classes of Brabant and Holland, and the atmo
sphere and dwellings that were peculiar to each region.
Brabant has more sun, more comfort, and a higher type of
humanity; Teniers, in consequence, is silvery and sparkling;
the people he paints are fair specimens of a well-built
race. Holland, in the vicinity of Haarlem, seems to have
suffered much from war ; the air is moist and hazy,
and the people, as depicted by Ostade are short, ill-
favoured, and marked with the stamp of adversity on their
features and dress. Brouwer, who painted the Dutch
boor in his frolics and passion, imported more of the spirit
of Frans Hals into his delineations than his colleague ; but
the type is the same as Ostade's, only more animated and
vicious. How was it that the disciples of Hals should
have fallen into this course, whilst Hals himself drew
people of the gentle classes with such distinction 1 It was
probably because of his superiority and the monopoly
which he and a few colleagues at Haarlem enjoyed that
his pupils were forced into a humbler walk, and into this
walk Hals was able to lead them, because he was equally
able in depicting the strolling waif or fishwife, or the
more aristocratic patrician who strutted about in lace
collar, with his racier at his side. But the practice of
Hals in this form was confined to the city, or to those
wanderers from the country who visited towns. Brouwer
and Ostade went to the country itself and lived in the
taverns and cottages of peasants, where they got the
models for their pictures. Neither of them followed the
habits of the artists of the Hague, who took sitters into
their studios and made compositions from them. Their
sitters were people, unconscious that they sat, taken on
the spot and from life, and transferred with cunning art to
pictures.
There is less of the style of Hals in Adrian Ostade than
in Brouwer, but a great likeness to Brouwer in Ostade's
early works. During the first years of his career, Ostade
displayed the same tendency to exaggeration and frolic as
his comrade. He had humour and boisterous spirits, but
he is to be distinguished from his rival by a more general
use of the principles of light and shade, and especially by
a greater concentration of light on a small surface in con
trast with a broad expanse of 'gloom. The key of his
harmonies remains for a time in the scale of greys. But
his treatment is dry and careful, and in this style he shuns
no difficulties of detail, representing cottages inside and
out, with the vine leaves covering the poorness of the
outer side, and nothing inside to deck the patch-work of
rafters and thatch, or tumble-down chimneys and ladder
staircases, that make up the sordid interior of the Dutch
rustic of those days. His men and women, attuned to
these needy surroundings, are invariably dressed in the
poorest clothes. The hard life and privations of the race
are impressed on their shapes and faces, their shoes and
hats, worn at heel and battered to softness, as if they had
descended from generation to generation, so that the boy
of ten seems to wear the cast-off things of his sire and
grandsire. It was not easy to get poetry out of such
materials. But the greatness of Ostade lies in the fact
that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the
peasant class, in spite of its ugliness and stunted form and
misshapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar
sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoy
ment, the magic light of the sungleam, and by clothing
the wreck of cottages with gay vegetation.
It was natural that, with the tendency to effect which marked
Ostade from the first, he should have beee fired by emulation to
rival the masterpieces of Rembrandt. His early pictures are not so
rare but that we can trace how he glided out of one period into the
other. Before the dispersion of the Gsell collection at Vienna in
1872, it was easy to study the steel-grey harmonies and exaggerated
caricature of his early works in the period intervening between
1632 and 1638. There is a picture of Rustics, dated 1632, in the
Koslolt' collection at St Petersburg ; a Countryman having his
Tooth Drawn, in the Belvedere of Vienna, of a similar date though
unsigned ; a Bagpiper of 1635 in the Lichtenstein gallery at Vienna;
Cottage Scenes of 1635 and 1636, in the museums of Carlsruhe,
Darmstadt, and Dresden ; Smokers in the House of Count Berchem
at Munich ; and Card Players of 1637 in the Lichtenstein palace at
Vienna, which make up for the loss of the Gscll collection. The
same style marks most of those pieces. About 1638 or 1640 the in-
lluence of Rembrandt suddenly changed his style, and he painted the
Annunciation of the Brunswick museum, where the angels appearing
in the sky to Dutch boors half asleep amidst their cattle, sheep,
and dogs, in front of a cottage, at once recall the similar subject by
Rembrandt, and his effective mode of lighting the principal groups
by rays propelled to the earth out of a murky sky. But Ostade
was not successful in this effort to vulgarize Scripture. He might
have been pardoned had he given dramatic force and expression to
his picture ; but his shepherds were only boors without much
emotion, passion, or surprise. His picture was a mere effect of
light, as such masterly, in its sketchy rubbings, of dark brown
tone relieved by strongly impasted lights, but without the very
qualities which made his usual subjects at tractive. When, in 1642,
he painted the beautiful interior at the Louvre, in which a mother
tends her child in a cradle at the side of a great chimney near which
her husband is sitting, the darkness of a country loft is dimly
illumined by a beam from the sun that shines on the casement ;
and one might think the painter intended to depict the Nativity,
but that there is nothing holy in all the surroundings, nothing
attractive indeed except the wonderful Rembrandtesrjue trans
parency, the brown tone, and the admirable keeping of the minutest
parts. The sparkle of Brouwer is not there; nor as yet the concen
trated evenness of such pictures of Rembrandt as the Meditative
Philosopher at the Louvre. Yet there is perhaps more conscien
tiousness of detail. Ostade was more at home in a similar effect
applied to the commonplace incident of the Slaughtering of a Pig, one
of the masterpieces of 1643, once in the Gsell collection at Vienna.
In this and similar subjects of previous and succeeding years, he
returned to the homely subjects in which his power and wonderful
observation made him a master. He never seems to have gone
back to gospel illustrations till 1667, when he produced the admirable
Nativity of Mr Walter of Bearwood, which is only surpassed as regards
0 S T — O S T
59
arrangement and colour by Rembrandt's Carpenter's Family at the
Louvre, or the Woodcutter and Children in the gallery of Cassel.
Innumerable almost are the more familiar themes to which he
devoted his pencil during this interval, from small single figures,
representing smokers or drinkers, to vulgarized allegories of the five
senses (Hermitage and Brunswick galleries), half-lengths of fish
mongers and bakers, and cottage brawls, or scenes of gambling, or
itinerant players and quacks, and nine-pin players in the open air.
The humour in some of these pieces is contagious, as in the Tavern
Scene of the Lacaze collection (Louvre, 1653), where a boor squeezes
the empty beer-pot in his hands to show that the last drop has been
sucked out of it. It would be tedious to enumerate the masterpieces
of this kind. But those who have no other opportunities may study
with pleasure and advantage the large series of dated pieces which
adorn every European capital, from St Petersburg to London.
Buckingham Palace has a large store, and many and many a good
specimen lies hid in the private collections of England. But if we
should select a few as peculiarly worthy of attention, we might point
to the Rustics in a Tavern of 1662 at the Hague, the Village School
of the same year at the Louvre, the Tavern Court-yard of 1670 at
Cassel, the Sportsmen's Rest of 1671 at Amsterdam, and the Fiddler
and his Audience of 1673 at the Hague. At Amsterdam we have
the likeness of a painter, in a red bonnet and violet coat, sitting
with his back to the spectator, at his easel. The colour-grinder is
at work in a corner, a pupil prepares a palette, and a black dog sleeps
on the ground. The same picture, with the date of 1666, is in the
Dresden gallery. Both specimens are supposed to represent Ostade
himself. But unfortunately we see the artist's back and not his
face. Ostade painted with equal vigour at all times. Two of his
latest dated works, the Village Street and Skittle Players in the
Ash burton and Ellesmere collections, were executed in 1676 without
any sign of declining powers. The prices which he received are not
known, but those of the present day are telling when compared with
those of the close of last century. Early pictures, which may have
been sold by the painter for a few shillings, now fetch £200. Later
ones, which were worth £40 in 1750, are now worth £1000, and Earl
Dudley gave £4120 for a cottage interior in 1876. The signatures
of Ostade vary at different periods. But the first two letters are gene
rally interlaced. Up to 1635 Ostade writes himself Ostaden, — e.g.,
in the Bagpiper of 1635 in the Lichtenstein collection at Vienna.
Later on he uses the long s (f), and occasionally he signs in capital
letters (Strauss collection, Vienna, 1647 ; and Hague museum,
1673). His pupils are his own brother Isaac, Cornells Bega,
Cornells Dusart, and Richard Brakenburg.
II. ISAAC OSTADE (1621-1649) was christened on the
2dof June 1621, at Haarlem. He began his studies under
Adrian, with whom he remained till 1641, when he started
on his own account. At an early period he felt the influ
ence of Rembrandt, and this is apparent in a Slaughtered
Pig of 1639, in the gallery of Augsburg. But he soon
reverted to a style more suited to his pencil. He pro
duced pictures in 1641-42 on the lines of his brother, —
amongst these, the Five Senses, which Adrian after
wards represented by a Man Reading a Paper, a Peasant
Tasting Beer, a Rustic Smearing his Sores with Oint
ment, and a Countryman Sniffing at a Snuff-box. The
contract for these pieces was made before 1643, when
Leendert, a dealer, summoned him for a breach of his
agreement before the burgomaster of Haarlem. The
matter was referred to the guild, and evidence was adduced
to prove that Isaac had promised in 1641 to deliver six
pictures and seven rounds, including the Five Senses, for
27 florins. Isaac, in his defence, urged that he had
finished two of the pictures and two of the rounds,
which Leendert had seen, but neglected to fetch ; that he
had begun the remainder of the series, but that in the
meanwhile the value of his works had risen, so that he
thought that on that ground alone he was freed from the
obligations he had assumed. The guild decided that Isaac
was bound to furnish the pictures before Easter 1643.
But they reduced the number of the rounds to five, and
assessed the price of the whole at 50 florins. A specimen
of Isaac's work at this period may be seen in the Laughing
Boor with a Pot of Beer, in the museum of Amsterdam;
the cottage interior, with two peasants and three children
near a fire, in the Berlin museum; a Concert, with people
listening to singers accompanied by a piper and flute
player, and a Boor Stealing a Kiss from a Woman, in the
Lacaze collection at the Louvre. The interior at Berlin is
lighted from a casement in the same Rembrandtesque style
as Adrian's interior of 1643 at the Louvre. The value of
these panels, which we saw estimated in 1643 at two
florins apiece, was greatly enhanced in the following
century, when the Laughing Boor at Amsterdam was sold
for 56 florins. But the low price fixed by the guild
of Haarlem must have induced Isaac to give up the
practice, in which he could only hope to remain a satellite
in the orbit of Adrian, and accordingly we find him gradu
ally abandoning the cottage subjects of his brother for
landscapes in the fashion of Esaias Van de Velde and
Salomon Ruisdael. Once only, in 1645, he seems to have
fallen into the old groove, when he produced the Slaughtered
Pig, with the boy puffing out a bladder, in the museum of
Lille. But this was a mere accident. Isaac's progress in
the new path which he had cut out for himself was greatly
facilitated by his previous experience as a figure painter;
and, although he now selected his subjects either from
village high streets or frozen canals, he was enabled to
give fresh life and animation to the scenes he depicted by
groups of people full of movement and animation, which
he relieved in their coarse humours and sordid appearance
by a refined and searching study of picturesque contrasts.
Unfortunately he did not live long enough to bring his
art to the highest perfection. He died at twenty-eight,
on the 16th October 1649.
The first manifestation of Isaac's surrender of Adrian's style is
apparent in 1644 when the skating and sledging scenes were
executed which we see in the Lacaze collection and the galleries of
the Hermitage, Antwerp, and Lille. Three of these examples bear
the artist's name, spelt Isack van Ostade, and the dates of 1644
and 1645. The road-side inns, with halts of travellers, form a
compact series from 1646 to 1649. In this, the last form of his
art, Isaac has very distinct peculiarities. The air which pervades
his composition is warm and sunny, yet mellow and hazy, as if the
sky were veiled with a vapour coloured by moor smoke. The trees
are rubbings of umber, in which the prominent foliage is tipped
with touches hardened in a liquid state by amber varnish
mediums. The same principle applied to details such as glazed
bricks or rents in the mud lining of cottages gives an unreal and
conventional stamp to those particular parts. But these blemishes
are forgotten when one looks at the broad contrasts of light
and shade and the masterly figures of steeds and riders, and
travellers and rustics, or quarrelling children and dogs, poultry,
and cattle, amongst which a favourite place is always given to
the white horse, who seems as invariable an accompaniment as
the grey in the skirmishes and fairs of Wouvermans. But it is
in winter scenes that Isaac displays the best qualities. The
absence of foliage, the crisp atmosphere, the calm air of cold
January days, unsullied by smoke or vapour, preclude the use
of the brown tinge, and leave the painter no choice but to ring
the changes on opal tints of great variety, upon which the figures
come out with masterly effect on the light background upon which
they are thrown. Amongst the road-side inns which will best
repay attention we should notice those of Buckingham Palace,
the National Gallery, the Wallace, Ellesmere, Ashburton, Holford,
Robarts, and Bearwood collections in England, and those of the
Louvre, Berlin, Hermitage, and Rotterdam museums and? the
Rothschild collections at Vienna on the Continent. The finest of
the ice scenes is the famous one at the Louvre. (J. A. C. )
OSTASHKOFF, a town of Tver, Russia, 163 miles by
rail south-east from the capital of that government, on Lake
Seliger, has a population of 12,500. The fisheries, which
still employ a considerable number of the inhabitants,
attracted settlers at an early date, but it is not till 1500
that the Ostashkoff villages are mentioned in Russian
annals. The advantageous site, the proximity of the
Smolenskiy Jitnyi monastery, a pilgrim-resort on an island
of the lake, and the early development of certain petty
trades, combined to bring prosperity to Ostashkoff; and
its cathedral (1672-85) still contains rich offerings, as
also do two other churches of the same century. About
200,000 pairs of boots are now manufactured annually;
hatchets, scythes, shears, and similar implements are also-
made; and tanning is another important industry.
60
O S T — 0 S T
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OSTEND, a seaport of Belgium, in the province of
West Flanders, 70 miles west-north-west from Brussels, is
surrounded on the north and west by the sea ; its site is
an extensive plain, lying below high-water level, the town
and surrounding country being protected by a sea-wall
built of granite with a brick revetment, upon which the
waves generally exhaust their force even in the roughest
weather, though the town has occasionally been inundated
through a combination of westerly gales and unusually
high tides. The port is dangerous in unfavourable weather ;
the channel leading into the two interior basins (which are
calculated to hold more than a thousand vessels) is formed
by two long wooden piers, and at its mouth has a width of
only 165 yards. The rise of the tide in the harbour is
about 15 feet, and as the bed of the sluice lies 3 feet
under low-water mark, the depth at high water should
amount to 18 feet; but the entrance to the harbour is
obstructed by sandbanks, which frequently shift their posi
tion under the influence of wind and tide, and leave a
free depth of only about 9
feet. At the north-west
extremity of the sea-wall
(digue de mer) is a light
house erected in 1771, and
subsequently modernized,
with a light visible at a
distance of 45 miles. The
town has an active trade
in refined salt, ropes, sails,
soap, tobacco, lace, and
wool. The imports greatly
exceed the exports. In
1883 1345 vessels entered
with 175,987 tons cargo,
and 1342 cleared with
32,010.
The large fishing popu
lation is chiefly occupied
in the cod or herring
fisheries ; the trade in
oysters is important, these
being brought over in
large quantities from the
English coast, principally
about Harwich or Col
chester, and fattened in
the Ostend oyster-beds.
There are no manufacture
of any consequence ; and,
unlike other Flemish cities,
Ostend has no monument or building in any way worthy
of notice. The town owes its repute and prosperity chiefly
to its sea-beach, which is admirably adapted for bathing
purposes, being composed of perfectly smooth sands, firm,
level, and of great extent. Ostend is the yearly resort,
from August to October, of many thousand visitors, com
prising not only members of the fashionable society of
Brussels and the larger provincial towns of Belgium, but
also foreigners, principally Germans and Russians. During
the season the digue and piers are crowded ; entertain
ments and festivities are offered to guests at the Kursaal,
Casino, &c. ; a good deal of private and promiscuous
gambling is carried on. The influx of bathers and pleasure-
seekers has led to the development of some quieter resorts
in the immediate vicinity, such as Blankerbergh (lately a
mere fishing village), Heyst, Middelkerk, and others. In
1880 the population of the town was 16,823.
In the 10th century Ostend was but a cluster of fishermen's huts, j
In 1072 Robert I. of Flanders built a church there in honour of >
St Peter. The place thenceforth grew in importance, and the ]
harbour became noted. Margaret of Constantinople, countess of
Flanders, raised it to the rank of a city in 1267. In 1445 Philip
the Good caused it to be walled round, but the prince of Orange
was the first to fortify it in earnest (1583) ; and a short time after
wards it sustained a memorable siege, during the reign of Albert
and Isabella, being invested on the 5th of July 1601, and taken
by Spinola on the 14th of September 1604, after a resistance of
more than three years. It was then in a state of almost absolute
ruin, but was speedily rebuilt by the archduke, who granted the
citizens many privileges. The prosperity of Ostend, however, was
constantly impeded by rivalries and dissensions. In the beginning
of the 18th century it appeared in a fair way to attain commercial
eminence, the emperor Charles VI. having selected it as the seat
of the East Indian Company; but the interference of powerful
neighbours, and principally of England and Holland, caused a stop
to be put to this by the treaty of Vienna in 1732. Ostend was
taken by the French in 1794, and belonged to the republic until
1814, after which it formed part of the Netherlands, and subse
quently, since 1830, of the kingdom of Belgium.
OSTERVALD, JEAN FREDERIC (1663-1747), Swiss
Protestant theologian, was born at Neufchatel on November
25, 1663, was educated at Zurich and at Saumur (where
Plan of Ostend.
he graduated), studied theology at Orleans, Paris, and
Geneva, and was ordained to the ministry in his native
place in 1683. As preacher, pastor, lecturer, and author, he
attained a position of great influence in his day, he and his
friends J. A. Turretin of Geneva and S. Werenfels of Basel
forming what was once called the " Swiss triumvirate."
He died on April 14, 1747.
His principal works are Traite dcs sources dc la corruption qui
regne aujourd'huy parmi les Chretiens (1700), practically a pica for
a more ethical and less doctrinal type of Christianity; Catechisme
ou Instruction dans la Religion Chrcticnnc, 1702 ; Traite centre I'
Impurete, 1707 ; Sermons sur divers Textes, 1722-24 ; Thcolo/jias
Compendium, 1739 ; and Traduction de la Bible, 1724. All his
writings attained great popularity among French Protestants ;
many were translated into various languages; and "Ostervald's
Bible," in particular, was long well known and much valued in
Britain. A Life by Durand was published in London in 1778.
OSTIA, a city of ancient Latium, situated at the mouth
of the Tiber, from which circumstance it obviously derived
its name. Owing to this position it became from an early
period the port of Rome, but its foundation as a regular
colony of that city is ascribed by ancient authors to Ancus
O S T — 0 S T
Marcius, who is said to Lave at the same time established
there extensive salt-works, which long continued to supply
Rome and its neighbourhood with that necessary article.
As the wealth and importance of Rome itself increased, the
prosperity of Ostia naturally rose with it, and it continued
throughout the period of the Roman republic to be at
once the principal emporium of trade in this part of Italy
and the permanent station of the Roman fleet. It was,
however, at no period a really good port, and the natural
disadvantages of its position were not merely felt the more
keenly as its commercial importance increased, but they
were continually aggravated by natural causes, — the allu
vial matter continually brought down by the Tiber having
filled up the port, and at the same time in great measure
blocked the mouth of the river, so as to render it inacces
sible to the larger class of vessels. Strabo gives a lively
picture of the difficulties with which these had to contend
in his time, and which were only surmounted on account
of the great pecuniary advantages arising from its
proximity to the capital. The necessity of taking some
steps to obviate these evils had indeed already presented
itself to the dictator Caesar, who had proposed to construct
an artificial port at Ostia, with all the appurtenances
requisite for so extensive a trade, but no steps were taken
towards the execution of this project till the reign of the
emperor Claudius, who constructed an entirely new basin
or artificial port at a distance of about two miles north of
Ostia, and communicating by an artificial channel with the
Tiber on one side and the sea on the other. These works
were afterwards largely augmented by Trajan, so that the
port came to be known as the Portus Trajani, and the
channel from thence to the sea was called the Fossa Tra
jani. This was undoubtedly the same with what is now
become the right branch of the Tiber, entering the sea at
Fiumicino. From this time the great mass of the trade
was transferred to the new port, while that of Ostia con
tinually diminished, though the city itself continued to be
a populous and flourishing place throughout the period of
the Roman empire. It was not till the close of the
western empire that Ostia itself, which was unprotected
by walls, and consequently exposed to the attacks of the
barbarians, fell into decay ; and after it was plundered by
the Saracens in the 9th century the site became alto
gether abandoned, the modern village of Ostia (a very poor
place) being situated at a distance of about half a mile
from the ruins of the ancient city. The extent and variety
of these, as well as the beauty of the works of art dis
covered on the site, confirm the accounts given by ancient
writers of the opulence and prosperity of Ostia in the days
of the empire; while those of Porto, as the port of Trajan
is still called, are of great interest as exhibiting not only
the artificial basin of the port, with its quays and the
remains of the surrounding magazines, but a large part of
the circuit of walls and towers by which it was protected.
Such was the importance of Portus under the Roman
empire that it became an episcopal see, and still gives that
title to one of the cardinals of Rome.
The continual advance of the coast-line, owing to the
alluvial deposits brought down by the Tiber, has left the
ruins of Ostia more than two miles from the sea. Those
of Portus are separated from it by an equal interval, and
even the tower of Fiumicino, which was built in the last
century at the entrance of the right branch of the Tiber —
the only one now navigable — is already a considerable
distance inland.
For a detailed account of the history and topography of Ostia and
the neighbouring Portus, as well as of the changes in the coast-line
and channel of the Tiber, the reader may consult Nibby. Dintorni
diEoma, vol. ii. p. 426-474, 602-660; and an elaborate paper by
Pieller in the Berichtc dcr Sachsischcn GcscIlschaftfoT 1849.
OSTIAKS, or OSTYAKS, a tribe of Finnish origin, who
inhabit the basin of the Obi in western Siberia; a few
hundreds also are nomads in the basin of the lower Yenisei.
Piano Carpi ni and Marco Polo in the 13th century knew
them on the flat lands of the Obi, and the best investigators
(Castre"n, Lerberg, A. Schienck) consider the trans-Uralian
Ostiaks and Samoyedes as identical with the Yugra of
the Russian annals During the Russian conquest their
abodes extended much farther south than now, and they
had numerous settlements on the basin of the Obi, no
less than forty one of their fortified places having been
destroyed by the Cossacks in 1501, in the region of
Obdorsk alone. Remains of these " towns " are still to be
seen at the Kunovat river, on the Obi 20 miles below
Obdorsk, and elsewhere. The total number of the Ostiaks
may be estimated at a little over 27,000. Those on
the Irtish are mostly settled, and have adopted the
manner of life of Russians and Tartars. Those on the
Obi are mostly nomads; along with 8000 Samoyedes in
the districts of Beryozoff and Surgut, they own 93,600
reindeer. The Obi Ostiaks are Russified to a great
extent. They live almost exclusively by fishing, buying
from Russian merchants corn for bread, the use of which
has become widely diffused.
The Ostiaks call themselves Ass-yakh (people of the Obi), and
it is supposed that their present designation is a corruption of
this name. By language they belong (Gastren, Jlciseberichte,
Rtiselricfe ; Ahlqvist, Ofvers. af Finska F'et.-Soc. Fork., xxi.) to
the Ugriari branch of the eastern Finnish stem, — a classification
confirmed by a grammar of their language, compiled in 1875,
in Hungarian, by Hunfalvy. All the Ostiaks speak the same
language, mixed to some extent with foreign elements ; but three
or four leading dialects can be distinguished.
The Ostiaks are middle-sized, or of low stature, mostly meagre,
and not ill made, however clumsy their appearance in winter, in
their thick fur-clothes. The extremities are fine, and the feet are
usually small. The skull is brachycephalic, mostly of moderate
size and height. The hair is dark and soft for the most part, fair
and reddish individuals being rare ; the eyes are dark, generally
narrow ; the nose is flat and broad; the mouth is large and with
thick lips ; the beard is scanty. The younger men and women
are sometimes of an agreeable appearance. The Mongolian type
is more strongly pronounced in the women than in the men. On
the whole, the Ostiaks are not a pure race; the purest type is
found among the fishers on the Obi, the reindeer-breeders of the
tundra being largely intermixed with Samoyedes (see Castrt-n ; Fr
Finsch's Reisc nachWest-Sibirien, &c. ).
Investigators are unanimous in describing them as very kind,
gentle, and honest ; rioting is almost quite unknown among them,
as also theft, this In.st occurring only in the vicinity of Russian settle
ments, and the only penalty enforced being the restitution two
fold of the propei ty stolen. The farther they are removed from
contact witli Russian dealers and traders the higher do their moral
qualities become (Middendorff and Castren).
They are very skilful in the arts they practise, especially in carving
wood and bone, tanning (with egg-yolk and brains), preparation of
implements from birch bark, &c. Some of their carved or decorated
bark implements (like those figured in Middendorffs Sibirische
Reisc, iv. 2) show great artistic skill. Only a few have guns, the
great majority continuing to hunt with bow and arrows.
Their folk lore, like to that of other Finnish stems, is imbued
with a deep feeling of natural poetry, and reflects also the sadness,
or even the despair, which has been noticed among them. The
number of those who are considered Christians reaches 2000; but
their Shamanism is still retained, hardly anything being borrowed
from Christianity beyond the worship of St Nicholas, who is a
most popular saint among them.
OSTRACISM, a peculiar political institution in Athens,
designed by Clisthenes as a safeguard against any citizen
acquiring too great power and aspiring to make himself
tyrant of the state. Before it could be carried into effect,
a decree of the people had to be passed that an ostracism
was necessary. If this was done, the voting was fixed for
a special day in the agora. The votes were given accord
ing to tribes ; and each citizen wrote on an oyster shell
-rpaKov) the name of the person who he thought should
be ostracized. The person who obtained the majority was
exiled for ten years, provided the votes against him were
62
0 S T--0 S T
GOOO. If no person were designated on so many shells,
the proceedings were at an end. The ostracized person
might return at the end of his term of banishment, having
then the full rights of citizenship, or his term might be
shortened by a special vote of the people. The institution
was intended as a precaution in view of the weakness of
the central Government, which, having no standing army
at its disposal, was liable to be disturbed or overturned by
a sudden attack arranged by a powerful partisan. When
party strife ran high, ostracism was frequently resorted to
with the consent of the two parties, in order to test their
strength; but when an ostracism had been arranged in
416 B.C. the parties subsequently compromised their dis
pute and directed their votes against an insignificant person
named Hyperbolus. After this the institution fell into
disuse. According to Aristotle and Philochorus, the people
were required every year in the first assembly of the sixth
prytany to determine whether or not an ostracism should
take place. The same institution is said to have been in
use at Argos, Miletus, and Megara, and a similar one called
petalismus was employed at Syracuse for a short time
during the 5th century B.C. ; the latter was named from
the olive leaves (-n-eraXa) used instead of oyster-shells.
OSTRICH (Old English, Estridge; French, Autruche;
Spanish, Avestruz; Latin, Avis strutkio). Among exotic
birds there can be hardly one better known by report
than the strange, majestic, and fleet-footed creature that
"scorneth the horse and his rider," or one that from the
earliest times to the present has been oftener more or less
fully described; and there must be few persons in any
civilized country unacquainted with the appearance of
this, the largest of living birds, whose size is not insig
nificant in comparison even with the mightiest of the
plumed giants that of old existed upon the earth, since
an adult male will stand nearly 8 feet in height, and
weigh 300 ft.
As to the ways of the Ostrich in a state of nature, not
much has been added of late years to the knowledge
acquired and imparted by former travellers and natural
ists, many of whom enjoyed opportunities that will
never again occur of discovering its peculiarities, for even
the most favourably-placed of their successors in recent
years seem to content themselves with repeating the
older observations, and to want either leisure or patience
to make additions thereto, their personal acquaintance with
the bird not amounting to more than such casual meetings
with it as must inevitably fall to the lot of those who
traverse its haunts. Thus there are still several dubious
points in its natural history. On the other hand we
unquestionably know far more than our predecessors
respecting its geographical distribution, which has been
traced with great minuteness in the Vogel Ost-Afrikas of
Drs Finsch and Hartlaub, who have therein given
(pp. 597-G07) the most comprehensive account of the
bird that is to be found in the literature of ornithology.1
As with most birds, the Ostrich is disappearing before
the persecution of man, and this fact it is which gives
the advantage to older travellers, for there are many
districts, some of wide extent, known to have been
frequented by the Ostrich within the present century,
especially towards the extremities of its African range —
as on the borders of Egypt and the Cape Colony— in
which it no longer occurs, while in Asia there is evidence,
more or less trustworthy, of its former existence in most
parts of the south-western desert-tracts, in few of which it
1 A good summary of it is contained in the Ostriches and Ostrich
farminyof Messrs De Mosenthal and Harting, from which the accom
panying iigure is, with permission, taken. Von Heuglin, in his
Ornitholoyie Nvrdost-Afrikvi 's (pp. 925-93;)), lias given more parti
cular details of the Ostrich's distribution in Africa.
is now to be found. Xenophon's notice of its abundance
in Assyria (Anabasis, i. 5) is well known. It is probable
that it still lingers in the wastes of Kirwan in eastern
Persia, whence examples may occasionally stray northward
to those of Turkestan,2 even near the Lower Oxus; but
the assertion, often repeated, as to its former occurrence
in Baloochistan or Sinclh, though not incredible, seems to
rest on testimony as yet too slender for acceptance.
Apparently the most northerly limit of the Ostrich's
ordinary range at the present day cannot be further than
that portion of the Syrian Desert lying directly to the
eastward of Damascus; and, within the limits of what
may be. called Palestine, Canon Tristram (Fauna and Flora
of Palestine, p. 139) regards it as but a straggler from
central Arabia, though we have little information as to
its appearance and distribution in that country. Africa,
however, is still, as in ancient days, the continent in which
Ostrich.
the Ostrich most flourishes, and from the confines of
Barbary to those of the European settlements in the
south it appears to inhabit every waste sufficiently exten
sive to afford it the solitude it loves, and in many wide
districts, where the influence of the markets of civilization
is feebly felt, to be still almost as abundant as ever.
Yet even there it has to contend with deadly foes in the
many species of Carnivora which frequent the same tracts
and prey upon its eggs and young — the latter especially;
and Lichtenstein long ago remarked that if it were not
for its numerous enemies "the multiplication of Ostriches
would be quite unexampled." The account given of the
habits of the species by this naturalist, who had excellent
opportunities of observing it during his throe years'
2 Drs Finsch and Hartlaub quote a passage from Remusat's
Remarque.s sur Vcxtcnsion de I Empire Chinoise, stating that in
about the seventh century of our era a live " camel-bird " was sent
as a present with an embassy from Turkestan to China.
0 S T — O S W
63
travels in South Africa, is perhaps one of the best we
have, and since his narrative l has been neglected by most
of its more recent historians we may do well by calling
attention thereto. Though sometimes assembling in
troops of from thirty to fifty, and then generally associat
ing with zebras or with some of the larger antelopes,
Ostriches commonly, and especially in the breeding
season, live in companies of not more than four or
five, one of which is a cock and the rest are hens. All
the latter lay their eggs in one and the same nest, a
shallow pit scraped out by their feet, with the earth
heaped around to form a kind of wall against which the
outermost circle of eggs rest. As soon as ten or a dozen
eggs are laid, the cock begins to brood, always taking his
place on them at nightfall surrounded by his wives, while
by day they relieve one another, more it would seem to
guard their common treasure from jackals and small
beasts-of-prey than directly to forward the process of
hatching, for that is often left wholly to the sun.2 Some
thirty eggs are laid in the nest, and round it are scattered
perhaps as many more. These last are said to be broken
by the old birds to serve as nourishment for the newly-
hatched chicks, whose stomachs cannot bear the hard food
on which their parents thrive. The greatest care is taken
by them not only to place the nest where it may not be
discovered, but to avoid being seen when going to or from
it, and their solicitude for their tender young is no less.
Andersson in his Lake N'gami (pp. 253-269) has given a
lively account of the pursuit by himself and Mr Francis
Galton of a brood of Ostriches, in the course of which the
father of the family flung himself on the ground and
feigned being wounded to distract their attention from
his offspring. Though the Ostrich ordinarily inhabits the
most arid districts, it requires water to drink; more than
that, it will frequently bathe, and sometimes even, accord
ing to Von Heuglin, in the sea.
The question whether to recognize more than one
species of Ostrich, the Struthio cameliis of Linnaeus, has
been for some years agitated without leading to a satis
factory solution. It has long been known that, while eggs
from North Africa present a perfectly smooth surface,
those from South Africa are pitted (see BIRDS, vol. iii.
p. 775, note 1). It has also been observed that northern
birds have the skin of the parts not covered with feathers
flesh-coloured, while this skin is bluish in southern birds,
and hence the latter have been thought to need specific
designation as >S. aiistralis. Still more recently examples
from the Somali country have been described as forming
a distinct species under the name of 8. molybdophanes
from the leaden colour of their naked parts.
The genus Struthio forms the type of one group of the
Subclass Ratitx, which differs so widely from the rest, in
points that have been concisely set forth by Prof. Huxley
(Proc. Zool. Society, 1867, p. 419), as to justify us in
regarding it as an Order, to which the name Struthiones
may be applied (see ORNITHOLOGY, p. 44); but that term,
as well as Struthionidx, has been often used in a more
general sense by systematists, even to signify the whole of
the Ratitse, and hence for the present caution must be
1 M. H. K. Lichtenstein, Reise im siidlichen Africa, ii. pp. 42-45
(Berlin, 1812).
2 By those whose experience is derived from the observation of
captive Ostriches this fact has been often disputed. But, to say
nothing of the effects of the enforced monogamy in which such birds live,
the difference of circumstances under which they find themselves, and
in particular their removal from the heat-retaining sands of the desert
and its burning sunshine, is quite enough to account for the change
of habit. Von Heuglin also (p. 933) is explicit on this point. That
the female Ostriches while on duty crouch down to avoid detection is
only natural, and this habit seems to have led hasty observers to
suppose they were really brooding.
exercised as to whether certain fossil remains from the
Sivalik formation, referred to " Struthionidse, " be re
garded as true Ostriches or not. The most obvious
distinctive character presented by the Ostrich is the pre
sence of two toes only, the third and fourth, on each
foot, — a character absolutely peculiar to the genus Struthio.
The great mercantile value of Ostrich-feathers, and the
increasing difficulty, due to the causes already mentioned,
of procuring them from wild birds, has led to the forma
tion in the Cape Colony and elsewhere of numerous
"Ostrich-farms," on which these birds are kept in con
finement, and at regular intervals of time deprived of their
plumes. In favourable localities and with judicious man
agement these establishments are understood to yield very
considerable profit; while, as the ancient taste for wearing
Ostrich-feathers shews no sign of falling off, but seems
rather to be growing, it is probable that the practice will
yet be largely extended.
Among the more important treatises on this bird may be men
tioned :— E. D' Alton, Die Skclcte dcr Straussartigcn Vogel abgebildet
und beschrieben, folio, Bonn, 1827; P. L. Sclater, "On the Stru-
thious Birds living in the Zoological Society's Menagerie," Trans
actions, iv. p. 353, containing the finest representation (pi. 67), by
Mr Wolf, ever published of the male Struthio camelus ; Prof.
Mivart, "On the Axial Skeleton of the Ostrich," op. tit., viii. p.
385 ; Prof. Haughton, " On the Muscular Mechanism of the Leg of
the Ostrich," Ann. Nat. History, ser. 3, xv. pp. 262-272 ; and
Prof. Macalister, " On the Anatomy of the Ostrich, " Proc. R. Irish
Academy, ix. pp. 1-24. (A. N.)
OSTUNI, a city of Italy, in the province of Lecce, 23
miles by rail north-west of Brindisi. It is a bishop's see, has
a cathedral of the 15th century with a fine Romanesque
fagade, several other churches of some interest, a municipal
library with a collection of antiquities, and a technical
school. The population was 14,422 in 1871 and 15,199
in 1881, that of the commune being 16,295 and 18,226.
OSUNA, a town of Spain, in the province of Seville,
distant 48 miles by road and 57 by rail east-south-east from
that city, is built in a semicircular form on the slope of a
hill, at the edge of a fertile plain watered by the Salado, a
sub-tributary of the Guadalquivir. On the top of the hill,
which commands an extensive view, stands the collegiate
church, a mixed Gothic and cinquecento building, contain
ing several good specimens of Kibera, which, however, as
well as the sculptures over the portal, suffered considerably
during the occupation of the place by Soult. The vaults,
which are supported by Moorish arches, contain the tombs
of the Giron family, by one of whom, Don Juan Tellez, the
church was founded in 1534. The university of Osuna,
founded also by him in 1549, was suppressed in 1820 ; but
the large building is still used as a secondary school. A
great number of the inhabitants of Osuna are engaged
in agriculture, and the making of esparto mats employs
many of the poorer people. Earthenware, bricks, oil,
soap, linen, hats, are also manufactured; and barley,
oil, and wheat are sent in large quantities to Seville and
Malaga. The population of the ayuntamiento in 1877
was 17,211.
Osuna, the Urso of Hirtius, where the Pompeians made their
last stand, was afterwards called by the Romans Gemina Urbanorum,
from the fact, it is said, that two urban legions were simultaneously
quartered there. The place was taken from the Moors in 1239, and
Driven by Alphonso the Wise to the knights of Calatrava in 1264.
Don Pedro Giron appropriated it to himself in 1445. One of his
descendants founded the university, and another, Don Pedro Tellez,
was made duke of Osuna by Philip II. (1562).
OSWALD (c. 604-642), "most Christian king of the
Northumbrians," was the son of King Ethelfrith, and was
born about 604. On the death of his father on the battle
field in 617, he and his brothers were compelled to take
refuge among the northern Celts, Avhere they are said to
have received baptism. The fall of King Edwin in 633
permitted their return, and after the death of Eanfrid,
64
0 S AV — O T H
who had received Deira, and of Osric, who had been !
chosen to Bcrnicia, Oswald was called to the throne of the
united kingdoms, and established his claim to it by his
great victory over Ceadwalla at Heavenfield near Hexham
in 635. His beneficent reign, which was chiefly devoted
to the establishment of Christianity throughout his
dominions, was brought to an end by his defeat and death
on August 5, 642 (see NORTHUMBERLAND). The cross
erected by Oswald on the scene of his victory in 635 was
afterwards the scene or the instrument of many miracles,
and gradually his name found a place in the calendar,
August 5th being the day sacred to his memory. A
German " Spielmannsgedicht " of the 12th or 13th century
takes its name from St Oswald, but the narrative has no
relation to anything recorded about the hero in authentic
history (see monographs by Zingerle, 1856 ; Strobl, 1870;
and Edzardi, 1876). Oswald, bishop of Winchester, who
died February 29, 992, is also commemorated as a saint
(October 15).
OSWALDTWISTLE, a township of Lancashire, Eng
land, is situated on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the
East Lancashire Railway, 3|- miles east-south-east of Black
burn and 2-4 north of Manchester. It possesses cotton-
mills, printworks, bleachworks, and chemical works, and in
the neighbourhood there are collieries, stone quarries, and
potteries. The population of the township and urban
sanitary district (area 4883 acres) in 1871 was 10,283,
and in 1881 it was 12,206.
OSWEGO, a city and port of entry of the United
States, capital of Oswego county, New York, stretches
between 2 and 3 miles along the south-east shore of Lake
Ontario, on the low bluffs and hilly ground near the mouth '•
of the Oswego river, which divides it into two nearly equal
portions, and is spanned by three iron drawbridges. By \
the Delaware, Lacka wanna, and Western Railroad it is 305
miles from New York, and by the New York, Ontario, and \
Western Railway 326 miles. The Oswego Canal connects
at Syracuse with the Erie Canal. The situation of the j
city is a beautiful and healthful one : most of the streets j
are 100 feet wide, and there are two finely-shaded public
parks, one on each side of the river. Among the more
conspicuous buildings are the conjunct custom-house, post-
office, and United States court-house, erected in 1858 at
a cost of $120,000, the city-hall, the county court-house, !
the State armoury, the church of the Evangelists, the •
large Roman Catholic church in Mohawk Street, the public
library (10,000 volumes), the normal and training schools, i
the city almshouse (2 miles outside the city limits), and '}
the orphan asylum. Falling 34 feet in its passage through
the city, Oswego river furnishes a good supply of water- !
power, rendered available by a canal on each side. Besides
the Oswego starch factory (founded in 1848, and now
probably the largest in the world, occupying 10 acres of ,
ground, partly with fireproof buildings seven stories high, '
and producing 35 tons of starch daily), the manufactories (
of Oswego comprise flour-mills, large iron-works (making
steam-engines, steam-shovels, dredges, itc.), knitting works, i
.--hade-cloth factories, railway carriage works and repair
shops, box factories, planing-mills, and a large number of :
subsidiary establishments. In the extent of its trade l
Oswego is the principal United States port on Lake
Ontario, importing vast quantities of grain and timber,
and exporting coal, flour, and salt. The annual duties on |
imports average over -SI, 000,000. The inner harbour, \
formed by the river mouth being enclosed by jettie: has j
about 3 miles of wharfage, and a depth at low water of |
from 9 to 1 3 feet ; and the outer harbour, formed by the
construction since 1871 of a breakwater 5700 feet long,
has about 4 miles of wharfage, and a depth of 20 feet. '
Fort Ontario, rebuilt by the United States Government in ;
1839, guards the entrance to the harbour ; it is a place of
some strength. The population of Oswego was 12,205 in
1850, 20,910 in 1870, and 21,112 in 1880.
Oswego was visited by Champlain in 1615, by the Jesuits Le
Mayne in 1654, and by other early explorers. In 1722 the
English established a trading post here, and in 1727 Governor
William Burnet (son of Bishop Unmet) erected Fort Oswego. A
body of about 700 men, left here by Governor Shirley, constructed
in 1755-56 two other forts — Fort Ontario on the east and Oswego
New Fort on the west side of the river. In 1756 the place
was bombarded and captured by Montcalm ; but between 1757
and 1759 new works were constructed by the English, who kept
possession till Oswego was transferred to the United States by the
Jay treaty in 1796. In 1814 Sir James Yeo took the fortress after
a bombardment of three hours. The little hamlet of Oswego,
commenced by Xeil M 'Mullen, rapidly increased after the intro
duction of steam navigation cm the lake (1816) and the construction
of the Welland and the Oswego Canal (1828). In 1828 it was
incorporated as a village, in 1848 as a city.
OSWESTRY, a market-town and municipal borough in
Shropshire, England, on the borders of Wales, on two
railway lines and near the Shropshire Canal, 18 miles north
west of Shrewsbury and 16 north from Welshpool. It is a
well-built town with wide and regular streets, although
some of the old wooden houses still remain. There are still
some traces of the ancient castle erected in the reign of
Stephen. The church of St Oswald, originally conventual,
has been very much altered, the original structure having
been more than once damaged, and the tower taken down
by the Royalists in 1644. It was restored in 1872 at a
cost of ,£10,000. For the free grammar school, founded
in the reign of Henry IV., a new building was erected in
1810, which was enlarged in 1863 and 1878. Among the
other public buildings are the public hall, the Victoria
Rooms, the guildhall, the general market-hall, the literary
institute, the union workhouse, and the cottage hospital.
The town possesses locomotive repairing works, steam-
engine, threshing machine, and agricultural implement
works, steam printing works, corn mills, malting works,
breweries, and a leather factory. In the vicinity are coal
mines and limestone quarries. The population of the
municipal borough (area 1888 acres) in 1871 was 7306,
and in 1881 it was 7847.
Oswestry was called by the Britons Tre'r Cadeiriau, the town of
chairs or seats commanding an extensive view, in reference to the
eminences in the neighbourhood. It existed in the 4th century,
and, having been given in the 5th century by Cunedda "VVledig,
prince of North Wales, to his son Oswael, it received the name of
Osweiling and subsequently Maserfield. After a battle in 642
between Oswald the Christian king of Northumbria, and Penda the
pagan king of Mercia, in which the former was slain, the name was
changed to Oswaldstre (Welsh, Crocs Oswallt), which was gradually
corrupted into Oswestry. On the spot where Oswald was slain a
monastery was afterwards erected, and near its site there is a spring
still called Oswald's well. In 777 Oswestry was disjoined from
Powis and added to Mercia. It stands between Ofl'a's and Wat's
dykes. About a mile from the town is an old British earthwork,
known as Old Port, a corruption of Old Fort (Welsh, H(n Dinas\
and sometimes called Old Oswestry, from a tradition that Oswestry
originally occupied its site. Oswestry is not mentioned in Domesday.
The castle is said to have been built about 1149 by Madoc, the ruler
of Powis Yadog. It was burned in 1216 and in 1233. Edward I.
began in 1277 to surround the town with walls, which were about
one mile in circumference and had four gates. During invasions of
the Welsh the town was burned in 1400 and 1403 ; it also suffered
severely from a similar cause in 1542, 1544, and 1567, and in 1559
it was devastated by the plague. Oswestry was garrisoned for the
Royali>ts, but surrendered 22.1 June 1644, and a few years afterwards
the castle was demolished. The town obtained the grant of a fair
from Henry III. It received its first charter from William Fitz-
Alan in the reign of Henry II., and a royal charter from Kichard
II. Its present charter was granted by Charles II.
Sen Price, History of Oiwettry, 1815; enthrall, Hittory of Otwettry and TOJIO
graphy of the lioroiiijh, 185-5; Pennant, Tour ; Ej ton, Antiquities of Shropshire.
OTAGO. See NEW ZEALAND.
OTAHEITE, or TAHITI. See SOCIETY ISLANDS.
OTHO, MARCUS SALVIUS, Roman emperor from
January 15 to April 15, 69 A.D., was born April 28, 32
A.D. He belonged to an ancient and noble Etruscan
O T H 0
65
family, settled at Ferentinum in Etruria. His grandfather
had been a senator and held the prsetorship ; his father
had added to the family honours the dignity of a consul
ship. Otho himself first appears in history as one of the
most reckless and extravagant of the young nobles who
surrounded Nero and shared his revels. But his friend
ship with that emperor was brought to an abrupt close in
58 A.D., when Otho was only twenty-six years old, by his
refusal to divorce his beautiful wife Poppasa Sabina at the
bidding of Nero, who was enslaved by her charms. The
emperor, impatient as usual of anything that hindered the
gratification of his passions, at once removed Otho from
the scene by appointing him governor of the remote pro
vince of Lusitania. In this honourable exile Otho
remained for ten years, and, contrary to all expectation, his
administration was marked by a moderation unusual at the
time. When in 68 his neighbour Galba, the governor of
Hispania Tarraconensis, rose in revolt against Nero, Otho
at once joined him and accompanied him to Rome.
Resentment at the treatment he had received from Nero
may very well have impelled him to this course, but to
this motive was added before long that of personal ambi
tion. Galba was far advanced in years, and Otho,
encouraged by the predictions of astrologers, aspired to
succeed him, and, as a preliminary step, to be adopted as
his heir by the emperor himself. With this object in view
he set himself to win the affections of the soldiery and the
populace in Rome, who, disgusted by Galba's old-fashioned
parsimony and severity, were easily brought to look
favourably upon a claimant for the imperial purple whose
open-handed generosity and easy manners promised a return
of the golden years of Nero. But in January 69 his
hopes in this direction were dissipated by Galba's formal
adoption of L. Calpurnius Piso as the fittest man to
succeed him. Nothing now remained for Otho but to
strike a bold blow for the prize which seemed to be slipping
from his grasp. Desperate as was the state of his finances,
thanks to his previous extravagance, he found money
enough to purchase the services of some three-and-twenty
soldiers of the praetorian guard, with whom he arranged
his plan of operations. On the morning of January 15,
five days only after the adoption of Piso, Otho attended as
usual to pay his respects to the emperor, and then hastily
excusing himself on the score of private business hurried
from the Palatine to meet his slender band of accomplices
in the forum. By them he was escorted to the praetorian
camp, where, after a few moments of surprise and indeci
sion, he was saluted imperator by the assembled troops.
At the head of an imposing force he returned to the
forum, and at the foot of the Capitol encountered Galba
himself, who, alarmed by vague rumours of treachery, was
making his way through a dense crowd of wondering citizens
towards the barracks of the guard. The cohort on duty
at the Palatine, which had accompanied the emperor,
instantly deserted him ; Galba himself was brutally
murdered by the fierce praetorians, and his fate was shared
by his adopted heir Piso, and by his chief confidants and
advisers. The brief struggle over, Otho returned in
triumph to the camp. Towards sunset on the same day
he proceeded to the senate-house, and there was duly
invested by the senato:-s with the name of Augustus, the
tribunician power, and the other dignities belonging to the
principate. Otho had owed his success largely, not only
to the resentment felt by the praetorian guards at Galba's
well-meant attempts to curtail their privileges in the
interests of discipline, but also to the attachment felt in
Rome for the memory of Nero ; and his first acts as
emperor showed that he was not unmindful of the fact.
He accepted, or appeared to accept, the cognomen of Nero
conferred upon him by the shouts of the populace, whom
his comparative youth and the effeminacy of his appear
ance reminded of their lost favourite. Nero's statues were
again set up, his f reedmen and household officers reinstalled
in their places, and the intended completion of the Golden
House announced. At the same time the fears of the
more sober and respectable citizens were allayed by Otho's
liberal professions of his intention to govern equitably, and
by his judicious clemency towards Marius Celsus, consul-
designate, a devoted adherent of Galba. These favourable
symptoms were eagerly seized upon as promising better
things than could have been hoped for from one who was
only known as yet in Rome as a passionate and reckless
profligate and spendthrift.
But any further development of Otho's policy was speedily
checked by the news which reached Rome shortly after his accession,
that the army in Germany had declared for Vitellius, the com
mander of the legions on the lower Rhine, and were already
advancing upon Italy under the conmand of Vitellius's two
lieutenants, Fabius Valens and Alienus Czecina. After in vain
attempting to conciliate Vitellius by the offer of a share in the
empire, Otho, with unexpected vigour, prepared for war. His
resources were not contemptible. From the remoter provinces,
indeed, which had acquiesced in his accession little help was to be
expected ; but the legions of Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia were
eager in his cause, the prsetorian cohorts were in themselves a
formidable force, and an efficient fleet gave him the master}' of the
Italian seas. Nor was he himself wanting in promptitude. The
fleet was at once despatched to secure Liguria, and on March 14
Otho, undismayed by omens and prodigies, started northwards at
the head of his troops, in the hopes of preventing the entry of the
Vitellian troops into Italy. But for this he was too late. Both
Valens and Csecina- had already crossed the Alps, — the former by
the Cottian, the latter by the Pennine passes, — and all that could
be done was to throw troops into Placentia and hold the line of
the Po. The campaign opened favourably for Otho. His advanced
guard successfully defended Placentia against Ciecina, and com
pelled that general to fall back on Cremona. But the arrival of
Valens altered the aspect of affairs. The Vitellian commanders
now resolved to bring on a decisive battle, and their designs were
assisted by the divided and irresolute counsels which prevailed in
Otho's camp. The more experienced officers urged the importance
of avoiding a battle, until at least the legions from Dalmatia had
arrived. But the inconsiderate rashness of the emperor's brother
Titianus and of Proculus, prefect of the praetorian guards, added to
Otho's feverish impatience of prolonged suspense, overruled all
opposition, and an immediate advance was decided upon, Otho
himself remaining behind with a considerable reserve force at
Brixellum, on the southern bank of the Po. At the time when
this decision was taken the Othonian forces had already crossed the
Po and were encamped at Bedriacum, a small village on the Via
Postumia, and on the route by which the legions from Dalmatia
would naturally arrive. Leaving a strong detachment to hold the
camp at Bedriacum, the Othonian forces advanced along the Via
Postumia in the direction of Cremona. At a short distance from
that city they unexpectedly encountered the Vitellian troops, and a
battle at once ensued. The Othonians, though taken at a dis
advantage, fought desperately, but were finally defeated at all
points and forced to fall back in disorder upon their camp at
Bedriacum. Thither on the next day the victorious Vitellians
followed them, but only to come to terms at once with their
disheartened enemy, and to be welcomed into the camp as friends.
More unexpected still was the effect produced by the news of the
battle at Brixellum. Otho was still in command of a formidable
force — the Dalmatian legions had already reached Aquileia ; and
the spirit of his soldiers and their officers was still unbroken. But
he was resolved to accept the verdict of the battle which his own
impatience had hastened. He had made a bold throw for success
and had failed. He was weary of the suspense and anxieties of a
protracted struggle, and he may even have been sincere in his pro
fessed unwillingness to cause further bloodshed. In a dignified
speech he bade farewell to those about him, and then retiring to
rest slept soundly for some hours. Early in the morning he
stabbed himself to the heart with a dagger which he had concealed
under his pillow, and died as his attendants entered the tent. His
funeral was celebrated at once, as he had wished, and not a few of
his soldiers followed their master's example by killing themselves
at his pyre. A plain tomb was erected in his honour at Brixellum,
with the simple inscription " Diis Manibus Marci Othonis. " At
the time of his death (April 15, 69) he was only in, his thirty-eighth
year, and had reigned just three months. In all his life nothing
became him so well as his manner of leaving it ; but the fortitude
he then showed, even if it was not merely the courage of despair,
cannot blind us to the fact that he was little better than a reckless
XVIII. --9
0 T H 0
aud vicious spendthrift, who was not the less dangerous because his
fiercer passions were concealed beneath an affectation of effeminate
dandyism. (H. F. P.)
OTH.O I. (912-973), called The Great, Holy Roman
emperor, was born in 912. After the death of his father,
Henry, king of Germany, he was elected and crowned king
in 936 at Aix-la-Chapelle; and he occupied the throne
upwards of thirty-six years. His reign was one of the most
momentous in mediaeval history, its chief incident being his
assumption of the imperial crown, whereby he rendered
impossible the growth of a compact German monarchy.
Otho was a man of great ambition, stern and resolute ;
and soon after his coronation as king of Germany his
leading vassals saw that he intended to claim from them
something more than nominal allegiance. First he had
to suppress a rebellion headed by Eberhard, duke of
Franconla, in association with Thankmar, a son of King
Henry by a marriage which had been declared invalid.
When this insurrection was put down, Thankmar having
died, there was a more formidable rising, in which
Eberhard secured the alliance of Otho's younger brother
Henry, of Giselbcrt, duke of Lorraine, of Frederick,
archbishop of Mainz, and of other powerful prelates.
The king was again triumphant, and on this occasion he
strengthened his position by retaining Franconia in his
own hands, and by granting Lorraine to his supporter
Conrad, who married Otho's daughter Liudgard. To his
brother Henry, whom he pardoned, he gave Bavaria ; and
over S \vabia, after the death of its duke, he placed his
own son Ludolf. His native duchy, Saxony, was
entrusted to Count Hermann, called Billung, a brave
njble who had distinguished himself in wars on the
eastern borders of Germany. Thus all the great offices of
the state were held by Otho's kinsmen and friends ; and
he exercised more direct control over his subjects than
any sovereign, except Charlemagne, had done before him.
In wars with the Bohemians, the Wends, and the Danes
Otho was not less successful. In 951 he crossed the Alps
to help Queen Adelaide, and, having conquered Berengar
II., he married her and became king of Lombardy. On
his return to Germany his s'on Ludolf rebelled against
him, and was aided by Duke Conrad, by Archbishop
Frederick of Mainz, and by many discontented magnates.
In the midst of the struggle Germany was attacked by
the Magyars, whom Duke Conrad had summoned to his
aid. This common danger led to the establishment of
internal peace, and Otho succeeded in defeating the
Magyars. When in 955 they returned in greater
numbers than ever, he inflicted on them so decisive a
defeat that they did not again invade Germany. In 961,
in response to the appeal of Pope John XII., Otho
returned to Italy to punish his rebellious vassal Berengar ;
and on the 2d February 962 he was crowned emperor
by the pope, for the deposition of whom he soon after
wards summoned a council. At this time Otho remained
two years in Italy, and a later visit extended over six years,
during which he not only maintained his authority in Lom
bardy, but sought to assert it in southern Italy. In Germany
his policy was directed chiefly to the strengthening of the
church, which wa& to act as a counterpoise to the influence
of the secular nobles. He died on the 7th May 973, at
Memleben, and was buried in Magdeburg, which he had
made the seat of an archbishopric.
See Kopke and Dummler, Kaiser Otto der Grosse, 1876.
OTHO II. (955-983), Holy Roman emperor, son of
Otho I. and Adelaide, was born in 955. In the lifetime
of his father he was twice crowned, in 961 as king of
Germany, and in 967 (at Rome) as emperor. He became
sole ruler after the death of Otho I. in 973. Early in his
reign he had to suppress a great conspiracy organized by
his cousin, Duke Henry of Bavaria ; and at the same time
he was repeatedly attacked by Harold, king of the Danes.
In 978, when his authority had been in some measure
re-established, he was confronted by a new danger, for
Lothair, king of France, suddenly invaded Lorraine.
Otho hastily assembled an army, drove Lothair from
Lorraine, and pushed on to Paris, which he unsuccessfully
besieged. In the treaty by which peace was concluded,
France formally recognized the right of Germany to
Lorraine. Otho next went to restore order in Rome,
from which Pope Benedict VII. had been expelled by
Crescentius. In southern Italy Otho (who, in virtue of
his wife, Theophano, claimed Apulia and Calabria)
waged war with the Saracens, and defeated them in a
great battle. On the 13th July 982, however, he himself
was defeated, and was very nearly taken prisoner. At a
diet in Verona, attended by German and Italian princes,
his son Otho, three years of age, was chosen to be his suc
cessor, and arrangements were made for a new campaign
in the south. On the 7th December 983 Otho II. died,
leaving the empire in a state of confusion, the Danes and
the Wends, encouraged by his defeat, having risen against
German supremacy. Although warlike and impetuous,
Otho II. was a man of refined and scholarly tastes, which
had been carefully cultivated by his mother.
See Giesebrecht, Gcschichtc dcr dcutschcn Kaiscrzcit.
OTHO III. (980-1002), Holy Roman emperor, son of
Otho II. and Theophano, was born in 980, and crowned
king of Germany at Aix-la-Chapelle in 983. After his
coronation his kinsman, Duke Henry of Bavaria, who had
been imprisoned by Otho II. in Utrecht, made his escape
and seized the young king, in whose name he proposed
to govern the empire. His pretensions were resisted,
however, and he agreed to submit on condition of being
reinstated in his dukedom. During Otho's minority
public affairs were administered, with the aid of Willegis,
archbishop of Mainz, by his mother Theophano, his
grandmother Adelaide, and his aunt Matilda, sister of
Otho II. and abbess of Quedlinburg. Otho was a
dreamy and imaginative youth of brilliant talents, which
were carefully developed by Gerbert, the greatest scholar
of the age. In 996, when Otho was declared to have
reached his majority, he went to Rome, where Crescentius
had made himself supreme. After the death of Pope
John XV. Otho caused Bruno, who was related to the
Saxon dynasty, to be elected to the holy see ; and by him
(Gregory V.) Otho was crowned emperor on the 21st May
996. After Otho's departure Crescentius again rose,
drove Gregory V. from Rome, and set up an anti-pope.
Otho immediately returned, and Crescentius, with twelve
of his supporters, was executed. On the death of Gregory
V., Otho's tutor, Gerbert, archbishop of Ravenna, was
appointed pope ; and, in part through his influence, the
emperor began to form great plans, deciding to make
Rome the centre of the secular as well as of the spiritual
world. At the approach of the year 1000, when it was
commonly supposed that the earth was about to be
destroyed, Otho returned to Germany and made a
pilgrimage to the tomb of St Adalbert at Gncsen.
Afterwards, in Aix-la-Chapelle, he entered the vault in
which the body of Charlemagne sat upon a throne, and
took away the golden cross which hung on the mighty
emperor's breast. In 1001 Otho went back to Italy for
the purpose of carrying out his far-reaching schemes ; but
popular disturbances in Rome compelled him to quit the
city ; and on the way to Ravenna, where he proposed to
wait for a German army, he died at Paterno, near Viterbo,
on the 21st January 1002.
See Wilmans, Jahrbiichcr des dcutschcn Rcichs untcr Kaiser Otto
III. ; Giesebrecht, Gcschichte dcr deutschcn Kalserzeit.
0 T H — 0 T I
67
OTHO IV. (c. 1174-1218), Holy Roman emperor, the ;
second son of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, j
of the house of Guelph, was born about 1174. After the
banishment of his father to England in 1180, Otho was
educated at the court of Richard L, whose sister Matilda was
Otho's mother. Otho distinguished himself in the war
between England and France, and in 1196 llichard I. made
him duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitou. In 1197,
when the majority of the German princes, disregarding the
previous election of Frederick II., offered the crown to
Philip of Swabia, a party in the Rhine country, headed
by the archbishop of Cologne, set up Otho as anti-king,
and he was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. The result was a
civil war which lasted about ten years, Philip being
supported by most of the German princes and by the king
of France, Otho by the kings of England and Denmark.
For some time Pope Innocent hesitated to take part with
either side, but at last he declared for Otho, who promised
to make over certain fiefs claimed by the holy see.
Notwithstanding the pope's aid, Otho's cause did not
prosper; but in 1208 Philip was murdered by Otho of
Wittelsbach, and then Otho IV. was universally acknow
ledged as king. On the 27th September 1209, at Rome,
he was crowned emperor by the pope, to whom he had
made new and more important concessions. Otho gave
deadly offence to Innocent by seizing Ancona and Spoleto,
which had been united to the papal territories ; and, when
the emperor, having conquered Apulia, was about to cross
to Sicily, the pope excommunicated him, released the
German princes from their oath of allegiance, and
recognized the right of Frederick II. to the throne. In
1212 Otho returned to Germany, where he acted with so
much vigour that he seemed to be capable of defying the
papacy ; but he immediately lost ground when Frederick
II., a youth of brilliant genius, appeared as his rival.
After the battle of Bouvines (July 27, 1214), in which
Otho, with King John of England, was defeated by the
French, the discredited emperor had no chance of recover
ing his position. He made some ineffectual attempts to
assert his claims, but ultimately he contented himself with
the principality of Brunswick, which he had inherited
when the Guelphic territories were divided in 1202. On
the 19th of May 1218 he died at the Harzburg.
Sec Laugcrfeldt, Kaiser Otto IV~., 1872; Winkelmami, Philipp
ron Schwaben und Otto IV., 1873.
OTHO OF FREISING, German historian, was the son of
Leopold IV., margrave of Austria, and of Agnes, the
daughter of the emperor Henry IV. He became a priest,
and was made provost of the monastery of Neuburg, which
had been founded by his father. Soon afterwards he
went to Paris to prosecute his studies ; and on his way
back he joined the Cistercian order in the monastery of
Morimont, in Burgundy, of which he became abbot. In
1137 he was elected bishop of Freising, and this position
he held until his death on September 22, 1158.
He was the author of two important works, a universal history,
in which lie brought the record down to 1146, and a history of the
reign of the emperor Frederick I. The first of these works was
continued (to 1209) by Otho of St Blasien, the second by Ragewin.
Otho was not a very accurate historian, but he was much more than a
mere chronicler, his materials being clearly and effectively arranged,
and his narrative giving evidence of a penetrating and philosophical
judgment. A critical edition of his writings was presented for the
iirst time in the Monumcnta Germanic, and this was afterwards
separately published with the title, Ottonis Episcopi Frisingcnsis
Opera, 1867.
OTIS, JAMES (1724-1783), was born at Barnstable,
Massachusetts, U.S., on February 5, 1724 (o.s.). He
graduated with honours at Harvard in 1743, and for a year
or two afterwards devoted himself to the study of literature
before reading law. He had been a dozen years at the bar,
and had risen to professional distinction, when in 1760 he
published a Rudiments of Latin Prosody, a book long ago
out of print as well as out of date, but of authority in its
time. He wrote also a similar treatise upon Greek prosody;
but that was never published, because, as he said, there was
not a fount of Greek letters in the country, nor, if there
were, a printer who could have set it up. These, however,
were his first and last works upon any other subject than
politics. As the long war between Great Britain and
France drew towards its close in 1762, measures were taken
to enforce anew, in the British colonies in America, the
commercial laws which had been in a measure lost sight
of. The relaxation had taught the colonists that the
burden was heavier than they thought when they bent
beneath it; now the war had given them confidence in their
own power, and the time had come, therefore, when
resistance was inevitable. A trade with the West Indies
in colonial vessels had been specially developed. This was
in violation of the navigation laws, and to break it up an
order in council was sent from England in 1760 directing
the issue of writs of assistance, which would authorize the
custom-officers to enter any man's house on suspicion of
concealment of smuggled goods. The legality of a measure
which would put so dangerous a power into the hands of
irresponsible men was questioned, and the superior court
consented to hear argument. Otis was a law-officer under
the crown, and it was his duty to appear on behalf of the
Government. He refused, resigned his office, and appeared
for the people against the issue of the writs. His plea
was profound for its legal lore, fearless in its assertion of
the rights of colonial Englishmen, and so fervid in its
eloquence that it was said he " was a flame of fire."
Though it failed to convince a court where the lieutenant-
governor, Hutchinson, sat as chief justice, Otis was from
that moment a man of mark. John Adams, who heard him,
said, " American independence was then and there born. "
The young orator was soon afterwards unanimously elected
a representative from Boston to the Colonial Assembly.
To that position he was re-elected nearly every year of the
remaining active years of his life, serving there with his
father, who was usually a member, and often speaker, of
that body. Of most of the important state papers addressed
to the colonies to enlist them in the common cause, or sent
to the Government in England to uphold the rights or set
forth the grievances of the colonists, the younger Otis was
the author. His influence at home in controlling and
directing the movement of events which led to the revolution
was universally felt and acknowledged ; and abroad no
American was so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded
in parliament and the English press, as the recognized head
and chief of the rebellious spirit of the colonies.1 In 1765
Massachusetts sent him as one of her representatives to the
first Continental Congress, where he was a conspicuous
figure. Four years later his brilliant public career was
brought to a close. In consequence of a newspaper con
troversy with some Tory office-holders in Boston, he was
attacked in a darkened room in a public coffee-house by a
dozen men, and wounded by a blow upon the head from
which he never recovered. His health gave way, and he
was subject to frequent attacks of insanity. He«was killed
by lightning on the 23d May 1783.
A biography of Otis by William Tudor appeared in 1823 ; and a
much briefer one, by Francis Bowen, in 1844.
1 The political writings of Otis were chiefly controversial, and were
published in the Boston newspapers. His more important pamphlets
were A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, published in 1763 ; The lliyhts
of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764; A Vindication of
the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax Gentleman,
in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend, — a letter known at the time as
the " Halifax Libel," 1765; Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists
in a Letter to a Noble Lord, published in England the same year.
68
O T L — O T T
OTLEY, a market-town in the West Riding of York
shire, is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the
Wharf e, at the foot of the precipitous Chevin Hill, 10 miles
north of Bradford and 9 south-west of Harrogate. The
river is crossed by a stone bridge of seven arches. The
church of All Saints contains what is said to be a Saxon
doorway belonging to the original building, and several in
teresting monuments. A free grammar school took its
origin from a bequest by Thomas Cave in 1602, and was
named in honour of Henry, prince of Wales, son of James I.
A mechanics' institute was erected in 1869 in the Italian
style, and a court-house in 1875. Worsted spinning and
weaving, machine making, tanning and leather dressing,
organ-building, and paper-making are the principal indus
tries. Otley is a very old town. It is mentioned in
Domesday, the name being possibly derived from Othelai
— the field of Otho. The population of the town and
urban sanitary district (area 2370 acres) was 5855 in 1871
and 6806 in 1881.
OTRANTO, a city of Italy in the province of Lecce
(Terra d'Otranto), 53 £ miles by rail south of Brindisi on
the coast of the Adriatic, within sight on a clear day of
the mountains of Albania. Though at present a small
place with a communal population of only 2333 (1881), it
was formerly one of the most celebrated cities of southern
Italy, and the seat of an archbishop who bore the title of
primate of the Salentines.
Probably of Greek origin, Hydruntum or Hydrus, as it was
called, seems for a time to have suffered from the prosperity of
Brundusium, but by the 4th century it had become the regular
?ort for travellers bound for the East by Apollonia and Dyrraehiivm.
t remained in the hands of the Greek emperors till its second
capture by Robert Guiscard in 1068. In 1480 the Turkish fleet
under Achmet, grand-vizier of Mohammed II., destroyed the city
and massacred or enslaved the inhabitants ; and, though Otranto
was recovered for Ferdinand by Alphonso, duke of Calabria, and
fortified by King Alphonso and Charles V., it never rose to its
former importance. During the war of the League of Cambrai,
Ferdinand of Aragon expelled the Venetians, who had been for
some time in possession of the city. In 1810 Napoleon made
Fouche duke of Otranto. The cathedral (S. Annunziata), a three-
aisled basilica ending in three apses, contains a mosaic floor
dating from 1163, greatly injured by tl^e Turkish horses; and the
castle still stands which gave its title to "VValpole's well-known
novel, The Castle of Otranto.
OTTAWA, the capital of the Dominion of Canada, the
seat of the supreme court, and the residence of. the
governor-general, of the Church of England bishop of
Ontario, and of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ottawa, is
situated in 45° 25' 59" N. lat. and 75° 42' 4" W. long., in
the province of Ontario, on the south bank of the Ottawa
(which forms the boundary between Ontario and Quebec),
about 90 miles above its junction with the St Lawrence.
By the Canadian Pacific Railway, which here crosses from
the north to the south side of the Ottawa valley, the city
is 120 miles west of Montreal (by the Canada Atlantic
Railway the distance is 116 miles), and from Prescott on
the Grand Trunk Railway and opposite Ogdensburg in
New York it is distant 54 miles. The site of Ottawa is
sufficiently remarkable, extending as it does for about 2
miles along the Ottawa from the Chaudiere Falls (where
the river, narrowed to 200 feet, rushes down about 40
feet over a broken ledge of rock) to the falls at the mouth
of the Rideau (a right-hand tributary), and rising about
midway into a cluster of hills — Parliament or Barrack
Hill (160 feet), Major's Hill, &c. — which front the river
with bold bluffs. The Rideau Canal, which skirts the
east side of Parliament Hill, separates what is known as
the higher from the lower town. To the south of
Parliament Hill is the more commercial part of the city,
stretching westward to the suburb of Rochesterville and
the lumber district round the Chaudiere Falls. Major's
Hill, east of the canal, is laid out as a public park ; and
Sandy Hill, to the south of the lower town, forms a resi
dential quarter. Beyond the Rideau river lies the sub
urban village of New Edinburgh, with the official residence
of the governor-general, Rideau Hall. The city of Hull
too, on the opposite side of the Ottawa, in the province of
Quebec, may be regarded as a suburb of the capital, with
which it is connected by a suspension bridge. The Govern
ment buildings, which give the name to Parliament Hill,
rank among the finest specimens of architecture in North
America. The central pile, or Parliament House, is in
Italian Gothic, of the 13th century, — the material mainly
Potsdarn sandstone from Nepean. The main (south) front
is 470 feet long and 40 feet high, and in the middle over
the principal entrance stands Victoria Tower, 180 feet high,
and surmounted by a great iron crown. In the centre of
the north front is a semi-detached polygonal (almost cir
cular) hall, 90 feet in diameter, appropriated to the library.
The corner stone of the building was laid by the Prince
of Wales in 1860. The total cost was about £1,000,000.
Plan of Ottawa.
(For ground plan and elevation see The Builder, 1859 and
1860.) Two extensive blocks of departmental buildings
are placed like detached wings forming the sides of the
quadrangle in front. Ottawa also contains a Roman
Catholic cathedral (Notre Dame) with twin spires 200 feet
high, the Gray Nunnery (the mother-house of the province
of Ontario), the Black Nunnery, two convents, a Roman
Catholic college (Ottawa University), a Roman Catholic
hospital, a Protestant hospital, a Protestant ladies' college,
a city-hall, a custom-house, the Government normal school
for central Canada, the museum of the geological survey,
tfcc. Besides being a great seat of the lumber trade,
with saw-mills and match-works, it manufactures flour,
cast-iron wares, leather, and bricks. The exports were
valued at $1,683,148 in the fiscal year ending June 1874,
and at $2,444,723 in the fiscal year 1883, — the im
ports at the same dates amounting to $1,495,169 and
$1,562,344. The revenue arising from customs duties
amounts to about £260,000 annually. The population of
the city (about half being Roman Catholics and half Pro
testants) was 14,669 in 1861, 21,545 in 1871, and 27,412
in 1881. A mayor and board of aldermen constitute the
: municipal government, and the city is divided into five-
wards — Wellington, Victoria, St George's, By, and Ottawa.
0 T T — 0 T T
69
Steamers ply in summer down to Montreal, and for about
200 miles up the river above the falls, as well as through
the Rideau Canal to Kingston.
Philemon Wright of Woburn, in Massachusetts, settled in 1800
at the foot of the portage round the Chaudiere Falls on the site of
Hull, and some twenty years later he transferred his claim to the
hills on the other side of the river to a teamster named Sparks, who
would have preferred the $200 due to him. Sparks Street is now
the fashionable commercial street of Ottawa. In 1827 the Ridi-au
Canal was constructed at a cost of $2,500,000 to connect lower
Canada with Kingston on Lake Ontario, and in that way prevent the
necessity of gun-boats, &c., passing up the St Lawrence exposed to the
enemy's fire ; and soon afterwards a town sprang up at the Ottawa
end, called Bytown after Colonel By, R. E. , who had surveyed the
canal. At its incorporation as a city in 1854 Bytown received the
name of Ottawa. In 1858 the queen, to whom the matter was
referred, selected Ottawa as the capital of the Dominion of Canada,
partly because of the advantages of its site, and partly to avoid
invidious preference among the rival claims of Quebec, Montreal,
Kingston, and Toronto. The first session of parliament in Ottawa
was opened in 1865.
OTTAWA, a city of the United States, capital of La
Salle county, Illinois, on both sides of the Illinois above and
below the mouth of the Fox river (which furnishes abund
ant water-power by a fall of 29 feet), on the Illinois and
Michigan Canal, and at the junction of the Fox river branch
of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railway with the
Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railway, 84 miles south
west of Chicago. Ottawa ships large quantities of produce
and live stock, and has manufactories of agricultural imple
ments, carriages, glass, and clothing. The more conspicuous
buildings are those occupied by the county courts and jail,
and the supreme court for the northern division of the State.
Near the south bank of the Illinois there are mineral
springs possessing important medicinal properties. In
1880 the population was 7834 (811 in South Ottawa).
OTTENSEN, a town of Prussia, in the province of
Schleswig-Holstein, lies on the right bank of the Elbe,
immediately below Altona, of which it practically forms a
part. It contains numerous villas of Hamburg merchants,
and carries on manufactures of machinery, tobacco, soap,
gilt frames and cornices, glass, iron, and other articles.
Ottensen, which received its municipal charter in 1871,
contained 15,375 inhabitants at the census of 1880. The
three "Graves of Ottensen," besung by the poet Riickert,
are those of 1138 citizens, who were expelled from Ham
burg by Marshal Davoust in 1813-14, and perished here,
of Charles, duke of Brunswick, who died at Ottensen of
wounds received at the battle of Jena, and of Klopstock
and his wife Meta. The last alone now remains.
OTTER, a group of animals belonging to the family
Mustelidve, of the order Carnivora (see MAMMALIA, vol.
xv. p. 439), distinguished from their allies by their aquatic
habits. The true otters constitute the genus Lutra of
zoologists, of which the common species of the British
Isles, L. vulgaris, may be taken as the type. It has an
elongated, low body, short limbs, short broad feet, with
five toes on each, connected together by webs, and all
with short, moderately strong, compressed, curved, pointed
claws. Head rather small, broad, and flat ; muzzle very
broad ; whiskers thick and strong ; eyes small and black ;
ears short and rounded. Tail a little more than half the
length of the body and head together, very broad and
strong at the base, and gradually tapering to the end, some
what flattened horizontally. The fur is of very fine quality,
consisting of a short soft under fur of a whitish grey colour,
brown at the tips, interspersed with longer, stiffer, and
thicker hairs, very shining, greyish at the base, bright
rich brown at the points, especially on the upper parts
and outer surface of the legs ; the throat, cheeks, under
parts and inner surface of the legs brownish grey through
out. Individual otters vary much in size. The total
length from the nose to the end of the tail averages about
3 1 feet, of which the tail occupies 1 foot 3 or 4 inches.
The weight of a full size male is from 18 to 24 ft, that of
a female about 4 flb less.
As the otter lives almost exclusively on fish, it is rarely
met with far from water, and usually frequents the shores
of brooks, rivers, lakes, and, in some localities, the sea
itself. It is a most expert swimmer and diver, easily over
taking and seizing fish in the water, but when it has cap
tured its prey it brings it to shore to devour it. When
lying upon the bank it holds the fish between its fore-paws,
commences at the head and then eats gradually towards
the tail, which it is said always to leave. The female
produces three to five young ones at a time, in the month
of March or April, and brings them up in a nest formed of
grass or other herbage, usually placed in a hollow place in
the bank of a river, or under the shelter of the roots of
some overhanging tree. The Common Otter is found in
localities suitable to its habits throughout Great Britain
and Ireland, though far less abundantly than formerly, for,
being very destructive to fish, and thus coming into keen
competition with those who pursue the occupation of fish
ing either for sport or for gain, it is rarely allowed to live
in peace when once its haunts are discovered. Otter
hunting with packs of hounds of a special breed, and trained
for the purpose, was formerly a common pastime in the
country. When hunted down and brought to bay by the
dogs, the otter is finally despatched by long spears carried
for the purpose by the huntsmen.
The Common Otter ranges throughout the greater part of Europe
and Asia. A closely allied but larger species, L. canadensis, is
extensively distributed throughout North America, where it is
systematically pursued by professional trappers for the value of its
fur. An Indian species, L. nair, is regularly trained by the natives
of some parts of Bengal to assist them in fishing, by driving the fish
into the nets. In China also otters are taught to catch fish, being
let into the water for the purpose attached to a long cord.
Otters are widely distributed over the earth, and, as they are much
alike in size and coloration, their specific distinctions are by no
means well defined. Besides those mentioned above, the following
have been described, L. californica, North America ; L. felina,
Central America, Peru, and Chili ; L. brasiliensis, Brazil ; L.
maculicollis, South Africa ; L. whiteleyi, Japan ; L. chinensis, China
and Formosa, and other doubtful species. A very large species from
Demerara and Surinam, with a prominent flange-like ridge along
each lateral margin of the tail, L. sandbachii, constitutes the genus
Pteronura of Gray. Others, with the feet only slightly webbed, and
the claws exceedinglysmall or altogether wanting on someof the toes,
and also with some difference in dental characters, are with better
reason separated into a distinct genus called A onyx. These are A.
inunguis from South Africa and A. leptonyx from Java and Sumatra.
More distinct still is the Sea-Otter (Enhydra lutris). It
differs from all other known Carnivora in having but two
incisors on each side of the lower jaw, the one correspond
ing to the first (very small in the true otters) being con
stantly absent. Though the molar teeth resemble those
of Lutra in their proportions, they differ very much in the
exceeding roundness and massiveness of their crowns and
bluntness of their cusps. The fore feet are very small,
with five short webbed toes, and naked palms ; the hind
feet are altogether iinlike those of the true otters, but
approaching those of the seals, being large, flat, palmated,
and furry on both sides. The outer toe is the largest and
stoutest, the rest gradually diminishing in size to the first.
The tail is about one-fourth of the length of the head and
body, cylindrical and obtuse. The entire length of the
| animal from nose to end of tail is about 4 feet, so that the
body is considerably larger and more massive than that
of the English otter. The skin is peculiarly loose, and
stretches when removed from the animal so as to give the
idea of a still larger creature than it really is. The fur is
remarkable for the preponderance of the beautifully soft
woolly under fur, the longer stiffer hairs being very scanty.
The general colour is a deep liver-brown, everywhere
silvered or frosted with the hoary tips of the longer stiff
70
0 T T — 0 T W
hairs. These are. however, removed when the skin is
dressed for commercial purposes.
Sea-otters are only found upon the rocky shores of certain
parts of the North Pacific Ocean, especially the Aleutian
Island.* and Alaska, extending as far south on the American
The Sea-Otter (Enhydra hitris). From Wolf in the Proceedings of
the Zoological Society of London, 1865, pi. vii.
coast as Oregon ; but, owing to the unremitting persecution
to which they are subjected for the sake of their skins, which
rank among the most valuable known to the furrier, their
numbers are greatly diminishing, and, unless some restric
tion can be placed upon their destruction, such as that
which protects the fur seals of the Pribyloff Islands, the
species is threatened with extermination, or, at all events,
excessive scarcity. When this occurs, the occupation of five
thousand of the half-civilized natives of Alaska, who are
dependent upon sea-otter hunting as a means for obtaining
their living, will be gone. The principal hunting grounds
at present are the little rocky islets and reefs around the
island of Saanach and the Chernobours, where they are
captured by spearing, clubbing, or nets, and recently by
the more destructive rifle bullet. They do not feed on
fish, like the true otters, but on clams, mussels, sea-urchins,
and crabs, and the female brings forth but a single young
one at a time, apparently at no particular season of the
year. They are excessively shy and wary, and all attempts
to rear the young ones in captivity have hitherto failed.
See Elliott Coues, Monograph of North American Fur-bearing
Animals, 1877. (W. H. F.)
OTTOMAN EMPIRE. See TURKEY.
OTTUMWA, a city of the United States, capital of
Wapello county, Iowa, lies on the Des Moines river (here
spanned by a bridge), 75 miles north-west of Burlington by
the main line of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Rail
road. An important railway junction, in the heart of the
coal-region of Iowa, and in possession of good water-power,
Ottumwa, whose existence as a city dates from 1856, is
growing in commercial and industrial activity. There is
a large pork-packing establishment, killing 100,000 hogs
annually. Among the manufactures are waggons and
carriages, ploughs, sewing machine attachments, table-
cutlery, corn-starch, linseed oil, harness, and furniture.
The population was 1632 in 1860, 5214 in 1870, and
9004 in 1880.
OTWAY, THOMAS (1651-1685), the best English tragic
poet of the classical school, was the son of the Rev.
Humphrey Otway, rector of Woolbeding, near Midhurst
in Sussex, and was born at the adjoining village of
Trotton, March 3, 1651. He acknowledges his obligations
to the care and education of his parents. He went to
school at Wickham, near Winchester, and in 1669 pro
ceeded to Christ Church, Oxford. In 1671 he appeared at
the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the Forced
Marriage, a new play by Aphra Behn, but failed ignomini-
ously. Declining to take orders, he quitted the university
in 1674, and obtained a cornetcy in a troop of horse.
Within a twelvemonth he sold his commission, and came to
London as a literary adventurer. In 1675 his Alcibiades,
a poor play, was performed with indifferent success at the
Duke's Theatre. In the following year Don Carlos, a
vigorous rhymed tragedy, puerile in conception and show
ing little knowledge of human nature, but full of declama
tory energy, took the town fairly by storm. He followed
it up with translations of Racine's Berenice and Moliere's
Fourberies de Scapin, and with a very dull and indecent
comedy of his own, Friendship in Fashion. He next went
as a volunteer to the wars in Flanders, an unfortunate
expedition which pointed the merciless lampoons of
Rochester, to whom Berenice had been dedicated, but with
whom he had now quarrelled. It also prompted his
mediocre but not uninteresting play, The Soldier's Fortune
(1679), in which he has turned his military experience to
account. Next year he produced The Orphan, founded upon
a novel called English Adventures, one of the two plays
which have placed him in the first rank of English tragic
poets; and Caitts Marius, a wholesale but acknowledged
plagiarism from Romeo and Juliet. In i682 appeared his
masterpiece, Venice Preserved, the plot of which is taken
from Saint Real's Histoire de la Conjuration du Marquis <h
Bedemar. Its success was decisive, but it brought little
pecuniary advantage to the author, who was already sink
ing into abject poverty, and, as appears by some letters
attributed by Mr Gosse to this date, was further tormented
by a hopeless passion for the beautiful Mrs Barry, the
principal female performer in his plays. Some of his
letters to her were first published with Rochester's works,
and subsequently included in his own. Desponding arid
broken-hearted, he seems to have given himself up to dissi
pation, and produced but one more insignificant play, The
Atheist, a second part of the Soldier's Fortune (1684). On
April 14, 1685, he died on Tower Hill, under most melan
choly circumstances if the tradition can be believed that
he was choked by a piece of bread begged from a passer
by. There is no absolute confirmation of this sad story,
or of a later account which attributes his death to a fever
caught by over-exertion in pursuing a robber. Whatever
the exact manner of his decease, he certainly expired in
obscurity and want. A tragedy called Heroic Friendship
was published under his name in 1719. It has generally
been regarded as wholly spurious ; but Mr Gosse, his most
sympathetic critic, recognizes some traces of his hand.
Otway's strong point is pathos. In this respect, though
in no other, he is the Euripides of the English stage.
When he would excite compassion he is irresistible.
Unlike Shakespeare's, however, his pathos springs entirely
out of the situation. His characters in themselves are not
interesting, but the circumstances in which they are placed
afford scope for the most moving appeals, and merit and
demerit are altogether lost sight of in the contemplation
of human suffering. The love scenes between Jaffier and
Belvidera cannot be surpassed; and no plot more skilfully
calculated to move the emotions than that of Venice Pre
served was ever contrived by dramatist. It is to be
regretted that modern fastidiousness has banished from
the stage The Orphan, in which Johnson saw no harm.
In everything but pathos Otway is mediocre : he has no
deep insight into the human heart ; his ideas are circum
scribed and commonplace ; and his attempted eloquence is
frequently mere rant. Even the affecting madness of
Belvidera verges dangerously on burlesque, and is no
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71
•doubt parodied in Sheridan's Critic. His boyish Alcibiades
is positively absurd, and even Don Carlos produces much
the same effect in the closet, though its rattling vigour
carried it off well in the theatre at a time when nature
was little regarded. It was probably not unknown to
Schiller. The comedies and melodramas are simply tire
some, although a certain interest attaches to the military
scenes in the Soldier's Fortune. There has hardly been
another instance of a poet whose best and whose worst are
at such an immeasurable distance from each other as
Otway's ; but his supreme excellence in one of the most
difficult branches of the dramatic art must always be held
to entitle him to an exalted place as a tragic poet. It has
been remarked that Dryden, with all his splendour, has
but one truly pathetic passage in the whole range of his
dramas. Otway, writing simply from the heart, reached
at a bound an eminence inaccessible to the laborious
efforts of the greater poet. His miscellaneous poems are
only interesting in so far as they illustrate his life and
character. Of the latter little is known. He was a man
about town in a dissipated age ; but his references to his
parents and friends, and his letters to the object of his
unfortunate passion, show that he possessed deep and
refined feeling.
See Baker, Biographia Dramatica ; Johnson, Lives of the Poets ;
Gosse, Seventeenth Century Studies ; and Ward, History of English
Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. (R. G.)
OUDENARDE, or OUDENAERDE, a small town of
Belgium, in the province of East Flanders, on the Scheldt,
17 miles south-south-west from Ghent, with a population
(1880) of 5880. It has manufactures of cotton and
woollen fabrics, lace, tobacco, and starch, dyeing and
bleaching establishments, salt refineries, distilleries, and
so on. The town-hall, built in 1530 by Van Pede, is
remarkable for the elegance of its architecture and the
profusion of its ornament ; the portal of the council
chamber is a masterpiece of wood-carving, executed in
1534 by Paul van der Schelden. Among other buildings
of interest are the old church of St Walburga, of the 10th
century, partly rebuilt in the 14th, and that of Our Lady
of Pamele, an example, rare in Belgium, of the transition
Gothic style. A monument was erected at Oudenarde in
1867 to the memory of the Belgians who fell in Mexico, at
the battle of Zacamburo.
The origin of Oudenarde is unknown ; it appears to have been a
stronghold of some importance under the Romans. A fortress was
erected there by Count Baldwin of Flanders in 1053. It was
besieged in 1452 by the citizens of Ghent, who were repulsed by
Simon de Lalaing after a memorable siege. Alexander Farnese took
the town in 1581. Close to its walls was fought, on July 11, 1708,
the battle of Oudenarde,- in which the French were defeated by the
allied army under the command of Marlborough and Prince Eugene.
It was retaken by the French in 1745.
OUDH, a province of British India, now under the
political administration of the lieutenant-governorship of
the North-Western Provinces, but in respect of its land
and courts still a distinct chief-commissionership. Lying
between 25° 34' and 28° 42' N. lat. and between 79° 44'
and 83° 9' E. long., it is bounded on the N.E. by Nepal, on
the N.W. by the Rohilkhand division, on the S.W. by the
Ganges river, on the E. and S.E. by the Benares division.
The administrative headquarters of the province are at
Lucknow.
Physical Aspects. — Oudh forms the central portion of
the great Gangetic plain, sloping downwards from the
Nepal Himalayas in the north-east to the Ganges on the
south-west. For 60 miles along the northern border of
Gonda and Bahraich districts the boundary extends close
up to the lower slopes of the Himalayas, embracing the
damp and unhealthy sub-montane region known as the
tardi. To the westward of this, the northern boundary
recedes a little from the mountain tract, and the tardi in
this portion of the range has been for the most part ceded
to Nepal. With the exception of a belt of Government
forest along the northern frontier, the rest of the province
consists of a fertile and densely peopled monotonous plain.
The greatest elevation (600 feet) is attained in the jungle-
clad plateau of Khairigarh in Kheri district, while the
extreme south-east frontier is only 230 feet above sea-
level. Four great rivers traverse or skirt the plain of
Oudh in converging courses — the Ganges, the Gumti, the
Gogra, and the Rapti. Numerous smaller channels seam
the whole face of the country, carrying off the surplus
drainage in the rains, but drying up in the hot season. All
the larger rivers, except the Gumti, as well as most of the
smaller streams, have beds hardly sunk below the general
level ; and in time of floods they burst through their con
fining banks and carve out new channels for themselves.
Numerous shallow ponds or jkils mark the former beds of
the shifting rivers. These jkils have great value, not only
as preservatives against inundation, but also as reservoirs
for irrigation. The soil of Oudh consists of a rich alluvial
deposit, the detritus of the Himalayan system, washed
down into the Ganges valley by ages of fluvial action.
Usually a light loam, it passes here and there into pure
clay, or degenerates occasionally into barren sand. The
uncultivable land consists chiefly of extensive usor plains,
found in the southern and western districts, and covered
by the deleterious saline efflorescence known as re h. Oudh
possesses no valuable minerals. Salt was extensively
manufactured during native rule, but the British Govern
ment has prohibited this industry for fiscal reasons.
Nodular limestone (kankar) occurs in considerable deposits,
and is used as road metal.
The general aspect of the province is that of a rich
expanse of waving and very varied crops, interspersed by
numerous ponds or lakes. The villages lie thickly scattered,
consisting of low thatched cottages, and surrounded by
patches of garden land, or groves of banyan, pipal, and
pdkar trees. The dense foliage of the mango marks the site
of almost every little homestead, — no less an area than 1000
square miles being covered by these valuable fruit-trees.
Tamarinds overhang the huts of the poorer classes, while
the neighbourhood of a wealthy family may be recognized
by the graceful clumps of bamboo. Plantains, guavas,
jack-fruit, limes, and oranges add further beauty to the
village plots. The flora of the Government reserved
forests is rich and varied. The sal tree yields the most
important timber ; the finest logs are cut in the Khairigarh
jungles and floated down the Gogra to Bahramghat, where
they are sawn. The hard wood of the shisham is also
valuable ; and several other timber-trees afford materials
for furniture or roofing shingle. Among the scattered
jungles in various parts of the province, the mahud tree is
prized alike for its edible flowers, its fruits, and its timber.
ThQj'hils supply the villages with wild rice, the roots and
seeds of the lotus, and the sinyhdra water-nut. The fauna
comprises most of the animals and birds common to the
Gangetic plain ; but many species, formerly common, have
now almost, if 'not entirely, disappeared. The wild elephant
is now practically unknown, except when a stray specimen
loses its way at the foot of the hills. Tigers are now
only found in any numbers in the wilds of Khairigarh.
Leopards still haunt the cane-brakes and thickets along
the banks of the rivers ; and nilgai and antelopes abound.
Game birds consist of teal and wild duck, snipe, jungle
fowl, and peacock.
Climate. — The climate of Oudh is less damp than that
of Lower Bengal, and has greater varieties of temperature.
The year falls naturally into three seasons — the rainy, from
the middle of June to the beginning of October ; the cold
weather, from October to February or March ; and the
72
0 U D H
hot season, from March to June. The mean temperature
at Lucknow for the thirteen years ending 1880 was 78°;
in 1881 it was the same, the maximum temperature on
any one day during the year being 111°, and the minimum
35°. The heat proves most oppressive in the rainy season.
The heaviest downpours occur in July and September, but
are extremely capricious. The average annual rainfall at
Lucknow for the fourteen years ending 1881 amounted to
3 7 '5 7 inches.
Population. — Oudh is probably more densely peopled than any
other equal rural area in the world. The census of 1881 returned the
population at 11,387,741 (5,851,655 males and 5,536,086 females),
distributed over an area of 24,245 square miles. The following
table exhibits the areas and populations of the districts separately.
Divisions.
Districts.
Area in
Square Miles.
Population
(1881).
Lucknow.
Lucknow
989
1,747
1,768
2,251
2,312
2,992
1,689
2,741
2,875 .
1,738
1,707
1,436
696,824
899,069
1,026,788
958,251
987,630
831,922
1,081,419
878,048
1,270,926
951,905
957,912
847,047
Unao
Sitapur —
Faizabad
(Fyzabad).
Rai Bareli \
Tota
Bara Banki
Sitapur
Hardoi
Kheri
Faizabad ... .
Bahrdich (Bharaich)
Gonda
Rai Bareli
Sultanpur
Partabgarh (Pratapgarh)
1
24,245
11,387,741
Divided according to religion, the population consisted of 9,942,4 1 1
Hindus, 1,433,443 Mohammedans, 1154 Sikhs, 9060 Christians,
and 1673 others. The Mohammedans are subdivided into the four
classes of Sayyids, Shaikhs, Pathans, and Mughals, but they have
lost greatly in social prestige since the downfall of the royal line.
In the higher rank they still number seventy-eight tdlukddrs.
Some of these, as the rajas of Utraula and Nanpara, trace their
descent from local Mohammedan chieftains. Others belong to
ancient Hindu families. The Mohammedans still furnish the ablest
public servants in the province, and supply almost entirely the
native bar. The lower orders make industrious cultivators and
weavers. Among the Hindu population, the Brahmans preponder
ate, numbering 1,364,783, about one-eighth of the entire population.
They include, however, only six tdlukddrs in the whole province,
and two of these acquired their wealth during the later days of
Mohammedan rule. Large numbers of them follow agriculture,
but they make undesirable tenants, — most of them refusing to hold
the plough, and cultivating their fields by hired labour. They
supply good soldiers, however, and many are employed in trade.
The Kshattriyas, or Rajputs, form the great landholding class, but
the majority are now in decayed circumstances. The Mohammedans,
Brahmans, and Kshattriyas compose the higher social stratum of
society, and number altogether about a fourth of the entire popu
lation. Amongst the lower Hindus, the Kayasths, or clerk and
scrivener class, number 147,432. The Sudras or lowest class of
Hindus include 1,185,512 Ahirs, cattle graziers and cultivators.
The best tenantry and most industrious cultivators are to be found
amongst the Kurmis, who number nearly 800, 000. Of the aboriginal
or semi-Hinduized tribes some, such as the Pasis, who number
718,906, make good soldiers, and furnish the greater part of the
rural police. Others, like the Bhars and Tharus, live in small
isolated groups on the outskirts of the jungle or the hill country,
and hold no communication with the outer world. The Nats and
Kanjars wander like gipsies over the country, with their small
movable villages or wigwams of matting and leaf-screens. The
Koris and Chamars, weavers and leather-cutters, reach the lowest
depth of all. In the northern districts many still practically occupy
the position of serfs, bound to the soil, having seldom spirit enough
to avail themselves of the remedy afforded by the courts of law.
They hold the plough for the Brahman or Kshattriya master, and
dwell with the pigs in a separate quarter of the village, apart from
their purer neighbours.
Fifteen towns in the province have a population exceeding 10,000
persons, according to the census of 1 881 , namely — Lucknow, 239, 773 ;
Faizabad, 38,828 ; Lucknow Cantonment, 21,530 ; Bahraich,
19,439; Shahabad, 18,510; Tanda, 16,594; Sandila, 14,865;
Khairabad, 14,217; Nawabganj, 13,933; Ajudhia, 11,643; Rudauli,
11,394 ; Bilgram, 11,067 ; Mallawan, 10,970 ; Laharpur, 10,437 ;
Hardoi, 10,026. Thirty-six other towns have a population exceed
ing 5000. The general population is essentially rural, spread over
the surface of the country in small cultivating communities. Over
90 per cent, of the population belong to the rural class.
Agriculture. — There are three harvests, reaped respectively in
September, December, and March, while sugar-cane comes to
maturity in February, cotton in May, and sdmcun in almost any
month of the year. The principal September crops are rice, Indian
corn, and millets. Fine rice, transplanted in August from nurseries
near the village sites, forms the most valuable item of the December
harvest, the other staples being mustard-seed and pulses. Wheat
forms the main spring crop. Sugar-cane occupies the land for an
entire year ; it requires much labour and several waterings, but
the result in ordinary years amply repays the outlay.
At the date of the annexation of Oudh in 1856, 23,500 villages,
or about two-thirds of the entire area of the province, were in the
possession of the great tdlukddrs, heads of powerful clans and
representatives of ancient families, a feudal aristocracy, based upon
rights in the soil, which went back to traditional times, and which
were heartily acknowledged by the subordinate holders. The new
settlement paid no regard to their claims, and many landholders
were stripped of almost their entire possessions. The mutiny of
1857 suddenly put a stop to this work of disinheritance, and it
is hardly to be wondered at that throughout Oudh, the whole
tdlukddri, with a very few isolated exceptions, joined the sepoys.
On the restoration of order the principle adopted was to restore to
the tdlukddrs all that they had formerly possessed, but in such a
manner that their rights should depend upon the immediate grant
of the British Government. About two-thirds of the number
accepted an invitation to come to Lucknow, and there concluded
political arrangements with the Government. On the 'one hand,
the tdlukddrs bound themselves to level all foils, give up arms, and
act loyally, to pay punctually the revenue assessed upon them and
the wages of the village officials, and to assist the police in keeping
order. On the other hand, the British Government conferred a
right of property unknown alike to flindu and to Mohammedan
law, comprising full power of alienation by will, and succession
according to primogeniture in case of intestacy. The land revenue
demand was fixed at one-half the gross rental ; subordinate tenure-
holders were confirmed in their ancient privileges ; and a clause was
introduced to protect the actual cultivators from extortion. Snch
were the main features of the sanads issued by Sir C. Wingfield in
October 1859, which constitute the land system of Oudh to the
present day, subject to a few minor modifications. The detailed
operations for giving effect to this settlement were carried out by
a revenue survey, conducted both by fields and villages, begun in
1860, and finished in 1871. The total assessed area in 1881-82
was 14,877,020 acres, the total assessmi-nt as land revenue being
£1,449,147, or an average of Is. ll^d. per acre. The total culti
vated area is 8,274,560 acres ; cultivable and grazing lands are
set down at 4,035,351 acres ; and uncultivable waste at 2,567,109
acres.
The estates on the revenue roll are divided into three classes : —
(1) those held under the tdlukddri rules described above ; (2) those
held by ordinary zaminddri tenure ; and (3) those held in fee-simple.
There are altogether about 400 tdlukddrs in the province, of whom
about two-thirds, with an area of about 2^ million acres, hold their
estates under the rule of primogeniture. The zaminddri estates,
locally known by the name of mufrdd, may be the undivided pro
perty of a single owner ; but far more commonly they are owned
by a coparcenary community who regard themselves as descendants
of a common ancestor. The fee-simple estates, which are very few
in number, consist of land sold under the Waste Land Rules. The
sub-tenures under the above estates are — (1) sub-settled villages
comprised within tdlukddri estates; (2) lands known as sir, daswant,
ndnkdn, and dihddri, held by proprietors who have been unable to
prove their right to the sub-settlement of a whole village ; (3) groves
held by cultivators, who, according to immemorial custom, give
the landlord a certain share of the produce ; (4) lands granted,
either by sale or as gifts, for religious endowments ; and (5) lands
held rent-free by village servants and officials.
Commerce and Manufactures. — Under native rule the only
exports were salt and saltpetre, while the imports were confined to-
articles of luxury required for the Lucknow court. Since the
introduction of British authority, although Lucknow has declined,
countless small centres of traffic have sprung up throughout
the country. The staple exports consist of wheat and other
food grains, and oil-seeds ; the main imports are cotton piece
goods, cotton twist, and salt. Cawiipur, though lying on the
southern bank of the Ganges within the North-Western Provinces,
is, in fact, the emporium for the whole trade of Oudh, by rail, road,
and river. The enormous exports of wheat and oil-seeds from
Cawnpur represent to a great extent the surplus harvest of the
Oudh cultivator. A brisk trade is also carried on with Nepal,
along the three frontier districts of Kheri, Bahraich, and Gonda.
The policy of the Nepal court is to compel this traffic to be trans
acted at marts within its own dominions. At all of these a con
siderable number of Oudh merchants are permanently settled,
whereas Nepalis rarely cross the frontier to trade except for tha
purchase of petty necessaries. The principal exports from Oudh
into Nepal are Indian and European piece goods, salt, sugar,
0 U D — 0 U D
73
tobacco, spices, and chemicals. The imports from Nepal, which
considerably exceed the exports in value, consist chiefly of rice,
oil-seeds, ghi or clarified butter, metal-wares, timber, spices, drugs,
and cattle.
No province of India is more destitute of wholesale manufac
tures than Oudh. Almost all manufactured articles of any nicety
require to be imported. The only specialties are gold and silver
lace-work, silver chasing, and rich embroidery, all confined to
Lucknow, and the weaving of a peculiar class of cotton goods,
which still flourishes at Tanda.
Communication. — The Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway forms the
great trunk of communications. A branch runs from Lucknow
through Unao to Cawnpur ; and another diverges at Bara Baiiki
for Bahramghat on the Gogra. The whole railway forms a loop-
line between the East Indian and the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi
systems. Good roads connect all the principal towns, and much
traffic passes along the rivers.
Administration. — The administration belongs to the non-regu
lation system, under which a single officer discharges both fiscal
and judicial functions. The province contains twelve districts,
each under a deputy-commissioner. The chief-commissionership
is now amalgamated with the governorship of the North- Western
Provinces. The high court, presided over by the judicial com
missioner, forms the ultimate court of appeal. The principal items
of revenue consist of the land revenue, which stands at about
£1,400,000 ; stamps, £116,770 ; excise, £100,411 ; forests, £31,114 ;
and cesses over £101,000. In 1881 the total police force numbered
7634 officers and men, maintained at a cost of £95,815.
History. — At the dawn of history Oudh appears as a nourishing
kingdom, ruled over from Sravasti by a powerful sovereign. In
its capital Sakya Muni (Buddha) began his labours, and the city long
remained a seat of learning for Buddhist disciples. For six centuries
Sravasti maintained a high position among the states of northern
India, but in the 1st century of our era the Buddhist monarch of
Kashmir was defeated by the Brahmanical king of Ujjain, who
restored the fanes and holy places of Ajodhya, the Hindu sacred
city, which had fallen into decay. A long struggle between
Buddhism and Brahmanism followed, and when the Chinese
pilgrim Fa Hian (c. 400 A.D.) visited Sravasti, as one of the most
famous historical places of his religion, he found the once populous
city still marked by lofty walls, enclosing the ruins of numerous
temples and palaces, but inhabited only by a few destitute monks
and devotees. In the 7th century the desolation was complete.
According to local tradition, about the 8th or 9th century the
Tharus, an aboriginal tribe, descended from the hills and began
to clear the jungle which had overgrown the deserted kingdom,
as far as the sacred city of Ajodhya. To the present day these
aborigines are the only people who can withstand the influence
of malaria, and so become the pioneers of civilization in the
jungle tracts. About a century later, a family of Sombansi
lineage, from the north-west, subjected the wild settlers to their
sway. The new dynasty belonged to the Jain faith, and still
ruled at or near the ruins of Sravasti at the time of the invasion
of Mahmud's famous general, Sayyid Salar. Towards the close
of the llth century Oudh was added to the kingdom of
Kanauj by conquest. After its downfall Shahab-ud-din Ghori,
or his lieutenant, overran Oudh in 1194. Mohammed Bakhtiyar
Khilji was the first Mohammedan to organize the administration,
and establish in Oudh a base for his military operations, which
extended to the banks of the Brahmaputra. On the death of
Kutb-ud-dln he refused allegiance to Altamsh as a slave, and his
son Ghiyas-ud-din established an hereditary governorship of Bengal.
Oudh, however, was wrested from the Bengal dynasty, and remained
an outlying province of Delhi. Although nominally ruled in the
name of the Delhi empire by great Mohammedan vassals from
Bahraich or Manikpur, Oudh continued to be a congeries of Rajput
principalities and baronies, which made war, collected revenues, and
administered justice within their territories at their own pleasure.
During the early days of Mohammedan supremacy the Hindu
chiefs of southern Oadh were engaged in a desultory warfare with
the receding Bhars, an aboriginal tribe who had obtained a tem
porary ascendency after the first Moslem invasions. Upon their
subjection the Mohammedan kingdom of Jaunpur arose in the
valley of the Ganges. Ibrahim Shah Sharki, the ablest of the
Jaunpur rulers, turned his attention to the fruitful province which
lay in the direct path between his capital and Delhi. He attempted
thoroughly to reduce Oudh to the condition of a Moslem country,
and, as long as he lived, the people sullenly acquiesced. But on
his death the national spirit successfully reasserted itself under the
leadership of Raja Tilok Chand, probably a descendant of the
Kanauj sovereigns ; and for a hundred years the land had peace.
During the troubled times which followed the death of Babar,
the first Mughal emperor of Delhi, Oudh became a focus of dis
affection against the reigning house. After the final defeat of the
Afghan dynasty at Panipat, and the firm establishment of Akbar's
rule, the province settled down into one of the most important
among the imperial viceroyalties. Under the Mughal dynasty in
its flourishing days, the Hindu chieftains accepted their position
without difficulty. But when the rise of the Mahratta power broke
down the decaying empire of Aurangzeb, the chieftains of Oudh
again acquired an almost complete independence. About 1732
Saadat All Khan, a Persian merchant, received the appointment of
governor of Oudh, and founded the Mohammedan dynasty which
ruled over Oudh down to our own days. Before his death, in 1743,
Oudh had become practically an independent kingdom, the rulers
retaining the title of nawab wazir, or chief minister of the empire.
Saadat Khan was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Safdar Jang,
under whose wise rule the country enjoyed internal prosperity,
although exposed to constant attacks from the Rohillas on one side
and the Mahrattas on the other. The next nawab, Shuja-ud-daula,
who succeeded his father Safdar Jang in 1753, attempted to take
advantage of the war in Bengal between the British and Mir
Kasim to acquire for himself the rich province of Behar. He
therefore advanced upon Patna, taking with him the fugitive
emperor Shah Alain and the exiled nawab of Bengal. The enter
prise proved a failure, and Shuja-ud-daula retired to Baxar, where,
in October 1764, Major Munro won a decisive victory, which laid
the whole of upper India at the feet of the Company. The nawab
fled to Bareli (Bareilly), while the unfortunate emperor joined the
British camp.
By the treaty of 1765 Korah and Allahabad, which had hitherto
formed part of the Oudh viceroyalty, were made over to the
emperor for the support of his dignity and expenses, all the remain
ing territories being restored to Shuja-ud-daula, who had thrown
himself upon the generosity of the British. A few years later, in
1771, the titular Mughal emperor, Shah Alam, was a virtual
prisoner in the hands of the Mahrattas, who extorted from him the
cession of Korah and Allahabad. This was considered to be
contrary to the terms of the treaty of 1765, and, as the emperor
had abandoned possession of them, the British sold them to the
Oudh nawab. Saadat Ali Khan, threatened by Sindhia on the
advance of Zaman Shah to the Indus, concluded a new treaty with
the British in 1801, by which he gave up half his territories in
return for increased means of protection. Rohilkhand thus passed
tmder British rule, and the nawab became still more absolute
within his restricted dominions. Saadat's son, Ghazi-ud-diu
Haidar (1814), was the first to obtain the title of king. In 1847
Wajid Ali Shah, the last king, ascended the throne. The condi
tion of the province had long attracted the attention of the British
Government. The king's army, receiving insufficient pay, recouped
itself by constant depredations upon the people. The Hindu
chiefs, each isolated in his petty fort, had turned the surrounding
country into a jungle as a means of resisting the demands of the
court and its soldiery. Before 1855 the chronic anarchy and
oppression had reduced the people of Oudh to extreme misery.
A treaty was proposed to the king in 1856, which provided that
the sole civil and military government of Oudh should be vested in
the British Government for ever, and that the title of king of Oudh
should be continued to him and his heirs male, with certain privi
leges and allowances. He refused to sign the treaty, and on the
18th February 1856 the British Government assumed the admin
istration of the province, Oudh thus becoming an integral part of
the British empire. A provision of 12 lakhs a year was made to
the king, who resides in a palace at Garden Reach, a few miles
south of Calcutta. Wajid Ali Shah has been allowed to retain the
title of king of Oudh, but on his death the title will cease
absolutely, and the allowance will not be continued on its present
scale.
Immediately after annexation in 1856, Oudh was constituted into
a chief-commissionership, and organized on the ordinary British
model. In March 1857 Sir Henry Lawrence assumed the admin
istration at Lucknow ; and on the 30th of May five of the native
regiments broke into mutiny. The remainder of the events con
nected with the siege and recovery of the capital have been narrated
in the article on LUCKNOW. Since 1858 the province has been
administered without further vicissitudes. On the 17th of
January 1877 Oudh was partially amalgamated with the North-
Western Provinces by the unification of the two offices of chief-
commissioner and lieutenant-governor.
OUDINOT, CHARLES NICOLAS (1767-1847), duke of
Reggio, one of the most distinguished of Napoleon's
marshals, came of a good bourgeois family in Lorraine,
and was born at Bar-le-duc on April 25, 1767. From his
youth he had a passion for a military career, and served
in the regiment of Medoc from 1784 to 1787, when he
retired with the rank of sergeant, and the knowledge that
as a bourgeois he could never obtain a commission. The
Revolution changed his fortunes, and in 1792, on the out
break of war, he was elected lieutenant-colonel of the 3d
battalion of the volunteers of the Meuse. His gallant
defence of the little fort of Bitche in the Vosges in 1792
xvn r. — 10
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drew attention to him ; be was transferred to the regular
army in November 1793, and after serving in all the '
numerous actions on the Belgian frontier he was promoted :
general of brigade in June 1794 for his conduct at the
battle of Kaiserslautern. He continued to serve with the ,
greatest distinction on the German frontier under Hoche, j
Pichegru, and Moreau, and was repeatedly wounded and J
once (in 1795) made prisoner. He was Masse'na's right
hand all through the great Swiss campaign of 1799 — first
as a general of division, to which grade he was promoted
in April, and then as chief of the staff — and was instru
mental in winning the battle of Zurich. He was present
under Massena at the defence of Genoa, and so distinguished
himself at the combat of Monzambano that Napoleon pre
sented him with a sword of honour. On the declaration
of the empire he was given the Grand Cross of the Legion
of Honour, but was not included in the first creation of
marshals. In the same year he received the command of
ten battalions of the army of the reserve, which he formed
into the famous division of the "grenadiers Oudinot," and
with which he won the battle of Ostrolenka and decided
the fate of at least three great battles — Austerlitz, Fried-
land, and Wagram. A week after the last-named battle
he was promoted to the rank of marshal, and he was
made Due de Reggio in the following month. He admin
istered the government of Holland from 1810 to 1812,
and commanded the 2d corps of the grand army in the
Russian campaign. He was present at Liitzen and
Bautzen, and when holding the independent command of
the corps directed to take Berlin was defeated at Gross
Beeren. He was then superseded by Ney, but the
mischief was too great to be repaired, and Napoleon was
utterly defeated at Leipsic. Though superseded, Oudinot
was not disgraced, and held an important command
throughout the campaign of 1814. On the abdication of
Napoleon he rallied to the new Government, and was
made a peer by Louis XVIII., and, unlike many of his old
comrades, he remained faithful to his new sovereign, and
did not desert to his old master in 1815. He died on
September 13, 1847.
Oudinot's son, Charles Nicolas Victor, second duke of Reggio
(1791-1S63), served through the later campaigns of Napoleon from
1809 to 1814, but is chiefly known by his capture of Rome from
Garibaldi in 1849.
OUGHTRED, WILLIAM (1574-1660), an eminent
mathematician, was born at Eton in 1574, and educated j
there and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became
fellow. Being admitted to holy orders, he left the uni
versity about 1603, and was presented to the rectory of j
Aldbury, near Guildford in Surrey ; and about 1628 he i
was appointed by the earl of Arundel to instruct his son
in mathematics. He corresponded with some of the most
eminent scholars of his time on mathematical subjects ; and
his house was generally full of pupils from all quarters.
It is said that he expired in a sudden transport of joy upon
hearing the news of the vote at Westminster for the restora
tion of Charles II.
He published, among other mathematical works, Claris Mathe-
matica, in 1631; A Description of the Double Horizontal Dial, in
1636; and OjnisculaMathematica, in 1676.
OUNCE. See MAMMALIA, vol. xv. p. 435.
OURO PRETO, a city of Brazil, the chief town of
the extensive province of Minas Geraes, lies 170 miles
north by west of Rio de Janeiro, in the upper part of the
Rio Sao Francisco basin, at a height of 3757 feet above
the sea. A steep hill to the north of the peak of Ita-
colurni (5740) is broken up by ravines into a number of
distinct plateaus ; and it is round these plateaus, generally
crowned by a church, that most of the houses of Ouro
Preto cluster in irregular and almost independent groups.
The streets run up and down hill in such a way as to
make riding on horseback hazardous and the use ot
carriages impossible. The stream which passes through
the town and was formerly the scene of the most exten
sive gold washing operations, the Ribeirao de Ouro Preto
or Do Carmo, is a subtributary of the Sao Francisco.
Besides the churches, the prominent buildings are the pre
sident's palace, the town-house, and the prison, all fronting
the principal square, the treasury, the theatre (the oldest
in Brazil, and restored in 1861-62), and the hospital. The
botanical garden, dating from 1825, used to distribute speci
mens of different kinds of tea, but is now practically defunct.
A public library has been in existence since before 1865.
At present the importance of Ouro Preto is almost entirely
administrative ; formerly it was one of the great mining
centres of Brazil. Its population is about 8000.
The first " prospectors," finding the hills full of a gold ore which,
from the presence of silver alloy, turned black on exposure to the
air, called them Serra do Ouro Preto, and the village, built in 1701
by Antonio Dias of Taubate, bore at first the same name (meaning
Black Gold). In 1711 the settlement was formally constituted as
the city of Villa Rica, and for sixty or seventy years it continued
to deserve its new title, — the population amounting to 25,000 or
30,000, and 12,000 slaves being employed in its gold mines. When
in 1720 Minas Geraes was separateofrom the captaincy of S. Paulo,
Villa Rica was made the capital of the new province. In 1788 it
was the centre of the disastrous attempt made by Tiradentes, the
poet Gonzaga, &c., to found an independent republic in Brazil with
Sao Joao d el Rei as its capital and Villa Rica as its university
town (see GONZAGA) ; and in 1821 it took a vigorous part in the
successful revolution. A comarca of Ouro Preto was created in.
1823, and Villa Rica received back its original name.
OUSEL, or OUZEL, Anglo-Saxon Osle, equivalent of the
German Amsel (a form of the word found in several old
English books, and perhaps yet surviving in some parts of
the country), apparently the ancient name for what is
now more commonly known as the Blackbird, the Turdus
merula of ornithologists, but at the present day not often
applied to that species, though, as will immediately be
seen, used in a compound form for two others. In many
parts of Britain the Blackbird is still called the Merle, a
name had directly from the French, and abbreviated from
the Latin Merula, which has the same meaning. The adult
male of this beautiful and well-known species scarcely needs
any other description than that of the poet : —
" The Ouzel-cock, so black of hue
With orange-tawny bill."
— Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 1.
But the female is of an uniform umber-'brown above,
has the chin, throat, and upper part of the breast orange-
brown, with a few dark streaks, and the rest of the
plumage beneath of a hair-brown. The young of both
sexes resemble the mother. The Blackbird is found in
every country of Europe, even breeding — though rarely —
beyond the arctic circle, and in eastern Asia, as well as in
Barbary and the Atlantic islands. Resident in Britain
as a species, its numbers yet receive considerable accession
of passing visitors in autumn, and in most parts of its
range it is very migratory. The song of the cock has a
peculiarly liquid tone, which makes it much admired, but
it is rather too discontinuous to rank the bird very high as a
musician. The species is very prolific, having sometimes as
many as four broods in the course of the spring and summer.
The nest, generally placed in a thick bush, is made of
coarse roots or grass, strongly put together with earth,
and is lined with fine grass. Herein are laid from four
to six eggs of a light greenish-blue closely mottled with
reddish-brown. Generally vermivorous, the Blackbird
will, when pressed for food, eat grains and seeds, while
berries and fruits in their season are eagerly sought by it,
thus earning the enmity of gardeners. More or less allied
to and resembling the Blackbird are many other species
which inhabit most parts of the world, excepting the
Ethiopian Region, New Zealand and Australia proper, and
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75
North America. Some of them have the legs as well as
the bill yellow or orange ; and, in a few of them, both sexes
alike display a uniformly glossy black. The only other
species that need here be mentioned is the Ring-Ousel,
Tunlus torquatus, which differs from the Blackbird in the
dark colour of its bill, and in possessing a conspicuous
white gorget — whence its name. It has also very different
habits, frequenting wild and open tracts of country, shun
ning woods, groves, and plantations, and preferring the
shelter of rocks to that of trees. Its distribution is
accordingly much more local, and in most parts of England
it is only known as a transitory migrant in spring and
autumn — from and to its hardly as yet ascertained winter
quarters. It does not seem to have an extensive range to
the eastward, though it has been recorded from Persia.
The Water-Ousel, or Water-Crow, now commonly named
the " Dipper," — a term apparently invented and bestowed
in the first edition of Bewick's British Birds (ii. pp. 16,
17), — not, as is commonly supposed, from the bird's habit
of entering the water in pursuit of its prey, but because
" it may be seen perched on the top of a stone in the midst
of the torrent, in a continual dipping motion, or short
courtesy often repeated." This, the Cindus aquaticus of
most ornithologists, is the type of a small but remarkable
group of birds, the position of which many taxonomers
have been at their wits' end to determine. It would be
useless here to recount the various suppositions that have
been expressed ; suffice it to say that almost all ornitho
logists are now agreed in regarding the genus Cindus x as
Cindus mexicanus.
differing so much from other birds that, though essentially
one of the true Passeres (i.e., Oscines), it forms a distinct
Family, Cindidx, which has no very near allies. That
some of its peculiarities (for instance, the sternum in adult
examples having the posterior margin generally entire, and
the close covering of down that clothes the whole body — a
character fully recognized by Nitzsch) are correlated with
its aquatic habit is probably not to be questioned; but
this fact furnishes no argument for associating it, as has
often been done, with the Thrushes (Turdidas), the Wrens
(Troglodytidsi), or much less with other groups to which it
has undoubtedly no affinity. The Dipper haunts rocky
streams, into which it boldly enters, generally by deliber
ately wading, and then by the strenuous combined action of
its wings and feet makes its way along the bottom in quest
of its living prey — freshwater mollusks, and aquatic insects
in their larval or mature condition. By the careless and
ignorant it is accused of feeding on the spawn of fishes,
and it has been on that account subjected to much perse
cution. Innumerable examinations of the contents of its
stomach have not only proved that the charge is baseless,
but that the bird clears off many of the worst enemies of the
precious product. Short and squat of stature, active and
1 Some writers have used for this genus the name Ilydrobata.
restless in its movements, silky black above, with a pure
white throat and upper part of the breast, to which
succeeds a broad band of dark bay, it is a familiar figure
to most fishermen on the streams it frequents, while the
heerful song of the cock, often heard in the hardest frost,
helps to make it a favourite with them in spite of the
obloquy under which it labours. The Water-Ousel's nest
is a very curious structure, — outwardly resembling a
Wren's, but built on a wholly different principle, — an
ordinary cup-shaped nest of grass lined with dead leaves,
placed in some convenient niche, but encased with moss
so as to form a large mass that covers it completely except
only a small hole for the bird's passage. The eggs laid
within are from four to six in number, and are of a pure
white. These remarks refer to the Water-Ousel of central
and western Europe, including the British Islands ; but,
except as regards plumage, it is believed that they will
apply to all the other species, about a dozen in number,
which have been described. These inhabit suitable places
throughout the whole Palaearctic Region as well as the
southern slopes of the Himalaya and the hill-country of
Formosa, besides the Rocky Mountains and a great part
of the Ancles. Mr Salvin, in a very philosophical paper on
the genus (Ibis, 1867, pp. 109-122), refers these species —
some of which are wholly black and one slate-coloured — to
five well-marked forms, of which the other members are
either " representative species " or merely " local races " ;
but all seem to occupy distinct geographical areas, — that
which is represented in the accompanying woodcut having
a wide range along the mountainous parts of North
America to Mexico ; and it is quite possible that their
number may yet be increased, for the general habits of the
birds preclude any invasion of territory, and thus produce
practical isolation. (A. N.)
OUSELEY, SIR WILLIAM (1769-1842), Orientalist,
was the eldest son of Captain Ralph Ouseley, of an old
Irish family, and was born in Monmouthshire in 1769.
After a private education he went to Paris, in 1787, to
perfect himself in French, and in the following year
became cornet in the 8th regiment of dragoons. After
obtaining the grade of lieutenant he, on the conclusion of
the campaign of 1794, sold his commission in order to
devote his attention to the study of Oriental literature,
especially Persian. In 1795 he published Persian Mis
cellanies; in 1797, Oriental Collections; in 1799, Epitome
of the Ancient History of Persia; in 1801, Tales of
Bakthyar and Observations on Some Medals and Gems ;
and in 1804, The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal.
He received the degree of LL.D. from the university of
Dublin in 1797, and in 1800 he was knighted by the
Marquis Cornwallis. On his brother, Sir Gore Ouseley,
being appointed ambassador to Persia in 1810, Sir William
accompanied him as secretary. He returned to England
in 1813, and in 1819-23 published, in three volumes,
Travels in Various Countries of the East, especially Persia,
in 1810, 1811, and 1812. He also published editions of
the Travels and Arabian Proverbs of Burckhardt. He was
a member of various learned societies, and contributed
a number of important papers to the Transactions of the
Royal Society of Literature. He died at Boulogne in
September 1842.
OUTLAW, in English law, is a person put out of the
protection of the law by process of outlawry. A woman
is properly said to be waived rather than outlawed. Out
lawry was usually the result of non-appearance of the de
fendant or accused at the trial, and involved deprivation
of all civil rights. It was finally abolished in civil pro
ceedings in 1879 by 42 & 43 Viet. c. 59, § 3. In criminal
proceedings it has become practically obsolete, and the
Criminal Code, § 458, proposes to formally abolish it.
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In Scotland outlawry or fugitation may be pronounced by the
supreme criminal court in the absence of the panel on the day of
trial. In the United States outlawry never existed in civil cases,
and in the few cases where it existed in criminal proceedings it has
become obsolete.
OUTRAM, SIK JAMES (1803-1863), English general,
was the son of Benjamin Outram of Butterley Hall,
Derbyshire, civil engineer, and was born 29th January
1803. His father died in 1805, and his mother, a
daughter of Dr James Anderson, the Scottish writer on
agriculture, removed in 1810 to Aberdeenshire. From
Udny school the boy went in 1818 to Marischal College,
Aberdeen; and in 1819 an Indian cadetship was given him.
Soon after his arrival in India his remarkable energy
attracted notice, and in July 1820 he became acting
adjutant to the first battalion of the 12th regiment on its
embodiment at Poona, an experience which he found to be
of immense advantage to him in his after career. In 1825
he was sent to Khandesh, where he succeeded in training
a light infantry corps, formed of the wild robber Bhils,
gaining over them a marvellous personal influence, and
employing them with great success in checking outrages
and plunder. Their loyalty to him had its principal
source in their boundless admiration of his hunting
achievements, which in their cool daring and hairbreadth
escapes have perhaps never been equalled. Originally a
" puny lad," and for many years after his arrival in India
subject to constant attacks of sickness, Outram seemed to
win strength by every new illness, acquiring a constitution
of iron, " nerves of steel, shoulders and muscles worthy
of a six-foot Highlander." In 1835 he was sent to
Gujerat to make a report on the Mahi Kantha district,
and for some time he remained there as political agent.
On the outbreak of the Afghan war in 1838 he was
appointed extra aide-de-camp on the staff of Sir John
Keane, and besides many other brilliant deeds performed
an extraordinary exploit in capturing a banner of the
enemy before Ghazni. After conducting various raids
against different Afghan tribes, he was in 1839 promoted
major, and appointed political agent in Lower Sind, and
later in Upper Sind. On his return from a short visit
to England in 1843, he was, with the rank of brevet lieu
tenant-colonel, appointed to a command in the Mahratta
country, and in 1847 he was transferred from Satara to
Baroda. In 1854 he became chief-commissioner of Oudh,
and in 1856 he received the honour of knighthood
Appointed in 1857, with the rank of lieutenant-general, to
command an expedition against Persia, he defeated the
enemy with great slaughter at Khushab, and otherwise
conducted the campaign with such rapid decision that
peace was shortly afterwards concluded, his brilliant
services being rewarded by the Grand Cross of the Bath.
From Persia he was summoned in June to India, with the
brief explanation, — " We want all our best men here."
Immediately on- his arrival in Calcutta he was appointed
to command the two divisions of the Bengal army,
occupying the country from Calcutta to Cawnpur ; and
to the military control was also joined the commissioner-
ship of Oudh. Already the rebellion had assumed such
proportions as to compel Havelock to fall back on
Cawnpur, which he only held with difficulty, although a
speedy advance was necessary to save the garrison at
Lucknow. On arriving at Cawnpur with reinforcements,
Outram, " in admiration of the brilliant deeds of General
Havelock," conceded to him the glory of relieving Luck-
now, and, waiving his rank, tendered his services to him as
a volunteer. During the advance he commanded a troop
of volunteer cavalry, and performed exploits of great
brilliancy at Mangalwar, and in the attack at the Alam-
bagh ; and in the final conflict he led the way, charging
through a very tempest of fire. Resuming supreme eom-
j mand, he then held the town till the arrival of Sir Colin
Campbell, after which he conducted the evacuation of the
residency so as completely to deceive the enemy. In the
second capture of Lucknow, on the commander-in-chief's
return, Outram was entrusted with the attack on the side
of the Gumti, and afterwards, having recrossed the river,
i he advanced "through the Chattar Manzil to take the
residency," thus, in the words of Sir Colin Campbell,
"putting the finishing stroke on the enemy." After the
capture of Lucknow he was gazetted lieutenant-general.
In February 1858 he received the special thanks of both
Houses of Parliament, and in the same year the dignity
I of baronet with an annuity of £1000. When, on account
of shattered health, he returned finally to England in 1860,
a movement was set on foot to mark the sense entertained,
not only of his military achievements, but of his constant
exertions in behalf of the natives of India, whose " weal,"
in his own words, "he matje his first object." The move
ment resulted in the presentation of a public testimonial
and the erection of statues in London and Calcutta. He
died llth March 1863, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey, where the marble slab on his grave bears the
pregnant epitaph " The Bayard of India."
See James Outram, a Biography, by Major-General Sir F. J.
Goldsmid, C.B., K. C.S.I., 2 vols., 1880, 2ded., 1881.
OVAR, a town of Portugal, in the district of Aveiro
(Beira), with a station on the railway 20 miles south of
Oporto, lies at the northern end of the Aveiro lagoon,
— an extremely unhealthy position. It contains 10,022
inhabitants (1878), and carries on a brisk trade with the
colonies and northern Africa.
OVATION, an honour awarded in Rome to victorious
generals. It was less distinguished than the triumph (see
TRIUMPH), and was awarded either when the campaign,
though victorious, had not been important enough for the
higher honour, or when the general was not of rank
sufficient to give him the right to a triumph. The
ceremonial was on the whole similar in the two cases, but
in an ovation the general walked or more commonly rode
on horseback.
OVEN, a close chamber or compartment in which a
considerable degree of heat may be generated either from
internal or from external sources. In English the term is
generally restricted to a chamber for baking bread and
other food substances, being equivalent to the French
four or the German Backofen ; but the chambers in which
coal is coked are termed coke ovens. See BAKING, vol iii.
257, and COKE, vol. vi. 118.
OVERBECK, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1789-1869), the
reviver and leader of "Christian art" in the 19th
century, was born in Liibeck 4th July 1789. His
ancestors for three generations had been Protestant pastors ;
his father was doctor of laws, poet, mystic pietist, and
burgomaster of Liibeck. Within stone's throw of the
family mansion in the Konigstrasse stood the gymnasium,
where the uncle, doctor of theology and a voluminous
writer, was the master; there the nephew became a classic
scholar and received instruction in art.
The young artist left Liibeck in March 1806, and
entered as student the academy of Vienna, then under the
direction of F. H. Fiiger, a painter of some renown, but of
the pseudo-classic school of the French David. Here was
gained thorough knowledge, but the teachings and associa
tions proved unendurable to the sensitive, spiritual-minded
youth. Overbeck wrote to a friend that he had fallen
among a vulgar set, that every noble thought was suppressed
within the academy, and that losing all faith in humanity
he turned inwardly on himself. These words are a key to
his future position and art. It seemed to him that in
Vienna, and indeed throughout Europe, the pure springs of
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77
Christian art had been for centuries diverted and corrupted,
and so he sought out afresh the living source, and, casting
on one side his contemporaries, took for his guides the early
and pre-Raphaelite painters of Italy. At the end of four
years, differences had grown so irreconcilable that Overbeck
and his band of followers were expelled from the academy.
True art, he writes, he had sought in Vienna in vain —
" Oh ! I was full of it ; my whole fancy was possessed by
Madonnas and Christs, but nowhere could I find response."
Accordingly he left for Rome, carrying his half-finished
canvas Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, as the charter of his
creecl — " I will abide by the Bible ; I elect it as my stand
ing-point."
Overbeck in 1810 entered Rome, which became for
fifty-nine years the centre of his unremitting labour. He
was joined by a goodly company, including Cornelius,
Wilhelm Schadow, and Philip Veit, who took up their
abode in the old Franciscan convent of San Isidoro on the
Pincian Hill, and were known among friends and enemies
by the descriptive epithets — " the Nazarites," " the pre-
Raphaelites," " the new-old school," " the German-Roman
artists," "the church-romantic painters," "the German
patriotic and religious painters." Their precept was hard
and honest work and holy living; they eschewed the
antique as pagan, the Renaissance as false, and built up
a severe revival on simple nature and on the serious art of
Perugino, Pinturicchio, Francia, and the young Raphael.
The characteristics of the style thus educed were nobility
of idea, precision and even hardness of outline, scholastic
composition, with the addition of light, shade, and colour,
not for allurement, but chiefly for perspicuity and com
pletion of motive. Overbeck was mentor in the movement ;
a fellow-labourer writes: — "No one who saw him or heard
him speak could question his purity of motive, his deep
insight and abounding knowledge ; he is a treasury of art
and poetry, and a saintly man." But the struggle was hard
and poverty its reward. Helpful friends, however, came
in Niebuhr, Bunsen, and Frederick Schlegel. Overbeck
in 1813 joined the Roman Catholic Church, and thereby
he believed that his art received Christian baptism.
Faith in a mission begat enthusiasm among kindred
minds, and timely commissions followed. The Prussian
consul, Bartholdi, had a house on the brow of the Pincian,
and he engaged Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit, and Schadow
to decorate a room 24 feet square with frescos from the
Story of Joseph and his Brethren. The subjects which fell
to the lot of Overbeck were the Seven Years of Famine
and Joseph Sold by his Brethren. These tentative wall-
pictures, finished in 1818, produced so favourable an im
pression among the Italians that in the same year Prince
Massimo commissioned Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit, and
Schnorr to cover the walls and ceilings of his garden
pavilion, near St John Lateran, with frescos illustrative of
Tasso, Dante, and Ariosto. To Overbeck was assigned,
in a room 15 feet square, the illustration of Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered; and of eleven compositions the largest
and most noteworthy, occupying one entire wall, is the
Meeting of Godfrey de Bouillon and Peter the Hermit.
The completion of the frescos — very unequal in merit —
after ten years' delay, the overtaxed and enfeebled painter
delegated to his friend Joseph Fiihrich The leisure thus
gained was devoted to a thoroughly congenial theme, the
Vision of St Francis, a wall-painting 20 feet long, figures
life size, finished in 1830, for the church of Sta Maria degli
Angeli near Assisi. Overbeck and the brethren set them
selves the task of recovering the neglected art of fresco and
of monumental painting ; they adopted the old methods,
and their success led to memorable revivals throughout
Europe.
Fifty years of the artist's laborious life were given to
oil and easel paintings, of which the chief, for size and
import, are the following : — Christ's Entry into Jerusalem
(1824), in the Marien Kirche, Liibeck ; Christ's Agony in
the Garden (1835), in the great hospital, Hamburg ; Lo
Sposalizio (1836), Raczynski gallery, Berlin; the Triumph
of Religion in the Arts (1840), in the Stadel Institut,
Frankfort; Pieta (1846), in the Marien Kirche, Liibeck;
the Incredulity of St Thomas (1851), in the possession of
Mr Beresford Hope, London ; the Assumption of the
Madonna (1855), in Cologne Cathedral; Christ Delivered
from the Jews (1858), tempera, on a ceiling in the Quirinal
Palace, — a commission from Pius IX., and a direct attack
on the Italian temporal government, therefore now covered
by a canvas adorned with Cupids. All the artist's works
are marked by religious fervour, careful and protracted
study, with a dry, severe handling, and an abstemious
colour.
Overbeck belongs to eclectic schools, and yet was
creative ; he ranks among thinkers, and his pen was
hardly less busy than his pencil. He was a minor poet,
an essayist, and a voluminous letter-writer. His style is
wordy and tedious ; like his art it is borne down with
emotion and possessed by a somewhat morbid " subjec
tivity." His pictures were didactic, and used as propa
gandas of his artistic and religious faith, and the teachings
of such compositions as the Triumph of Religion and
the Sacraments he enforced by rapturous literary effusions.
His art was the issue of his life : his constant thoughts,
cherished in solitude and chastened by prayer, he trans
posed into pictorial forms, and thus were evolved countless
and much-prized drawings and cartoons, of which the most
considerable are the Gospels, forty cartoons (1852) ; Via
Crucis, fourteen water-colour drawings (1857); the Seven
Sacraments, seven cartoons (1861). Overbecks composi
tions, with few exceptions, are engraved. His life-work he
sums up in the words — " Art to me is as the harp of
David, whereupon I would desire that psalms should at
all times be sounded to the praise of the Lord." He died
in Rome in 1869, aged eighty, and lies buried in San
Bernardo, the church wherein he worshipped, (j. B. A.)
OVER DARWEN, a municipal borough of Lancashire,
is situated in the vale of the Darwen river, shut in by
heath-covered hills, and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway, 3 miles south from Blackburn and 9 north from
Bolton. There are four ecclesiastical parishes, each of
which has a handsome church ; and among the other
public buildings are the market-house, the Liberal and
Conservative club-houses, a free public library with 10,000
volumes, and the Peel baths, erected in memory of Sir
Robert Peel. The town possesses cotton factories, iron and
brass foundries, machine works, paper mills, paper-staining
works— the first and probably the largest of their kind.
In the neighbourhood there are collieries and stone
quarries. The population of the municipal borough (area
5918 acres) in 1881 was 29,744. It includes part of
Lower Darwen and Eccleshill, with 2118 inhabitants. The
postal designation is Darwen.
Over Darwen was at one time included in "Walton-le-dale, which
was granted by Henry de Lacy to Robert Banastre in the reign of
Henry II. In the 4th of Edward II. (1310) it is mentioned along
with Livesey and Tockholes, the three containing a carucate of
land in fee of the castle of Clitheroe. In 38 Edward III. (1364) a
moiety of the manor of Over Darwen was held by Thomas
Molyneux, the other moiety being held by the Osbaldeston family.
Subsequently the whole manor became the property of the Traffords,
of whom it was purchased in 1810 by the present owners the
Duckworths. Over Darwen was incorporated as a municipal
borough in 1878, and a commission of the peace was granted in
1881.
OVERTURE. See Music, vol. xvii. p. 95 sq.
OVERYSSEL, or OVERIJSSEL, a province of Holland,
bounded N.W. by the Zuyder Zee, N. by Friesland and
0 v I — 0 V 1
Drenthe, N.E. by Hanover (Prussia), S.E. by Westphalia
(Prussia), and S. and S.W. by Guelderland, with an area
of 1291 square miles. The southern district belongs to
the basin of the Yssel ; the northern is watered by the
Vecht and various small streams falling into the Zwarte-
water, the river which was for so many generations the
object of dispute between Zwolle and Hasselt. A large
proportion of the surface is a sandy flat relieved by hillocks,
rising at times to a height of 230 feet above the sea.
Husbandry, stock-raising, and dairy-farming are the prin
cipal means of subsistence in the province, though the
fisheries, turf-cutting, the shipping trade, and a number of
manufacturing industries are also of importance. In the
district of Tweuthe (towards the east) more especially there
are a great many cotton-mills and bleaching-works ; brick
and tile making is prosecuted in the neighbourhood of the
Yssel; and along the coast a good many people are engaged
in making mats and besoms. During the present century
the province has been opened up by the construction of
several large canals — the Dedemsvaart, the Noord-Willems-
vaart (between the Yssel and the Zwartewater), the
"Overyssel canals" (running near the eastern frontier),
&e.; and a fairly complete railway system has come into
existence. The province is divided into the three adminis
trative districts of Zwolle, Deventer, and Almelo. Its popu
lation, 234,376 in 1859 and 263,008 in 1875 (134,201
males, 128,807 females), was 247,136 in 1879. Of the
total for 1875, 181,863 were Protestants, 76,891 Roman
Catholics, and 4018 Jews. The chief town, Zwolle, had
in 1879 a communal population of 22,759, and there were
fourteen other communes with more than 2000 inhabitants,
including Deventer, 19,162; Kampen, 17,444; Almelo,
7758; Hengelo, 6502.
Both the present name Overyssel and the older designation
Oversticht are explained by the fact that the province lies mainly
oil the other side of the Yssel from Utrecht, with which it long
constituted an episcopal principality. Vollenhove was bestowed
on the bishops in 943, Oldenzaal in 970, the land north-east of
Vollenhove in 1042, Deventer in 1046, a part of Salland in 1226,
the countship of Goor in 1248, the lordship of Diepenheim in 1331,
anl that of Almelo in 1406. In 1527 Bishop Henry of Bavaria
alvised the recognition of Charles V. as protector and ruler of
the district, and Oversticht became Overyssel. It was the sixth
province to join the Union in 1579. During the French occupa
tion it bore the name of the department of Bouches de 1'Issel.
OVID (P. OVIDIUS NASO) was the last in order. of
time of the poets of the Augustan age, whose works have
given to it the distinction of ranking among the great eras
in the history of human culture. As is the case with
most other Roman writers, his personal history has to be
gathered almost entirely from his own writings. The
materials for his life are partly the record of the immediate
impressions of the time in which they were written con
tained in the Amores, partly the reminiscences of his
happier days, to which his mind constantly recurred in the
writings from his place of exile.
His life is almost coincident in extent with that of the
Augustan age. The year of his birth, 43 B.C., — the year
of the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa, which inter
vened between the death of Julius Caesar and the partition
of the Roman world among the Triumvirs, — may be
regarded as the last year of the republic. It was the year
of the death of Cicero, which marks the close of the re
publican literature. Thus the only form of political life
known to Ovid was that of the ascendency and absolute
rule of Augustus and his successor. His character was
neither strengthened nor sobered, like that of his older con
temporaries, by personal recollection of the crisis through
which the republic passed into the empire. There is no
sense of political freedom in any of his writings. The
spirit inherited from his ancestors was that of the Italian
country districts and municipia, not that of Rome. He
was sprung from the Peligni, one of the four small
mountain peoples whose proudest memories were of the
part they had played in the Social War. They had no
old race-hostility with Rome, such as that which made
the most powerful representative of the Sabellian stock
remain till the last her implacable enemy ; and their
opposition to the senatorian aristocracy in the Social War
would predispose them to accept the empire. Ovid
belonged by birth to the same social class as Tibullus and
Propertius, that of old hereditary landowners ; but he
was more fortunate than they in the immunity which his
native district enjoyed from the confiscations made by the
triumvirs. His native town and district, Sulmo, lay high
among the Apennines, and is described by Mr Hare as
"grandly situated on an isolated platform, backed by
snowy mountains." The poet himself describes this
district as remarkable for the abundance of its streams
and for its salubrity —
" Parva, sed irriguis ora salubris aquis ;"
and he recalls the fresh charm of its scenery from the
desolate waste of his Scythian exile. To his early life in
such a district he may have owed his eye for natural
beauty, and that interest in the common sights of the
country which relieves the monotony of his life of pleasure
in Rome and the dreary record of the life spent within the
walls of Tomi, and enables him to add the charm of
natural scenery to the romantic creations of his fancy.
The pure air of this mountain home may have contributed
to the vigorous vitality which prevented the life of plea
sure from palling on him, and which beats strongly even
through all the misery of his exile. But if this vitality
— with its natural accompaniment, a keen capacity for
enjoyment — was a gift due to his birthplace, it was
apparently a gift transmitted to him by inheritance : for
he tells us that his father lived till the age of ninety, and
that he performed the funeral rites to his mother after his
father's death. While he mentions both with the piety
characteristic of the old Italian, he tells us little more
about them than that " their thrift curtailed his youthful
expenses,"1 and that his father did what he could to dissuade
him from poetry, and to force him into the more profitable
career of the law courts. He had one brother, exactly a
year older than himself, who, after showing promise as a
speaker, died at the age of twenty. The tone in which
Ovid speaks of him is indicative of sincere affection, but
not of such depth of feeling as was called forth in Catullus
by a similar loss. The two brothers had been brought
early to Rome for their education, where they attended the
lectures of the most eminent rhetoricians of their time.
Education had become more purely rhetorical and literary,
less philosophical and political, than it had been in a pre
vious generation. Ovid is said to have attended these
lectures eagerly, and to have shown in his exercises that his
gift was poetical rather than oratorical, and that he had a
distaste for the severer processes of thought. Like Pope,
"he lisped in numbers," and he wrote and destroyed many
verses before he published anything. The earliest edition
of the Amores, which first appeared in five books, and the
Heroides were given by him to the world at an early age.
He courted the society of the older and younger poets of
his time, and formed one among those friendly coteries who
read or recited their works to one another before they gave
them to the world. " He had only seen Virgil " ; but
Virgil's friend and contemporary yEmilius Macer used in
his advanced years to read his didactic epic to him ; and,
although there is no indication in the works of either the
reigning or the rising poet of any intimacy between them,
even the fastidious Horace sometimes delighted his ears
1 Ex Ponto, i. 8, 42.
OVID
79
with the music of his verse. He had a closer bond of
intimacy with the younger poets of the older generation,
Tibullus, whose death he laments in one of the few
pathetic pieces among his earlier writings, and Propertius,
to whom he describes himself as united in the close ties
of comradeship. The name of Maecenas occurs nowhere
in his poems. The time of his paramount influence both
on public affairs and on literature was past before Ovid
entered on his poetical career, but Messala and Fabius
Maximus, whose name is mentioned by Juvenal along
with that of Maecenas as the type of a munificent patron
of letters in the Augustan age, encouraged his earliest
efforts. With their sons he lived in intimacy in after
years, and, as he speaks of having known the younger
Fabius in his cradle, his friendship with his family must
have begun early in his career. He enjoyed also the
intimacy of poets and men of literary accomplishment
belonging to a younger generation ; and with one of
them, Macer, he travelled for more than a year. It is not
mentioned whether he travelled immediately after the
completion of his education, or in the interval between
the publication of his earlier poems and that of the
Medea and Ars Amatoria ; but it is in his later works,
the Fasti and Metamorphoses, that we seem chiefly to
recognize the impressions of the scenes he visited. In one
of the epistles written from Pontus to his fellow-traveller
there is a vivid record of the pleasant time they had
passed together. Athens was to a Roman of that time
what Rome is to an educated Englishman of the present
day. Ovid speaks of having gone there under the
influence of literary enthusiasm ("studiosus ") ; but the
impression of his visit which remains on his writings is
not of the wisdom taught "among the woods of
Academus," but of the flowers that grow on the neighbour
ing Hymettus. A similar impulse induced him to visit the
supposed site of Troy. The two friends saw together the
splendid cities of Asia, which had inspired the enthusiasm
of travel in Catullus, and had become familiar to Cicero
and Horace during the years they passed abroad. They
spent nearly a year in Sicily, which attracted him, as it had
attracted Lucretius1 and Virgil,2 by its manifold charm of
climate, of sea-shore and inland scenery, and of legendary
and poetical association, — a charm which has found its most
enduring expression in some of his most delightful tales.
He recalls with a fresh sense of pleasure the incidents of
their tour (which they made sometimes in a pinnace or
yacht, sometimes in a light carriage), and the endless
delight which they had in each other's conversation. We
would gladly exchange the record of his life of pleasure
in Rome for more of these recollections. The highest
type of classic culture realized in ancient Rome — the type
realized in such men as Cicero and Catullus, Virgil and
Horace, Ovid and Germanicus — shows its affinity to a type
which is the result of essentially similar studies in modern
times by nothing more clearly than the enthusiasm for
travel among lands famous for their natural beauty, their
monuments of art, and their historical associations.
When settled at Rome, although a public career, leading
to senatorian position, was open to him, and, although he
filled various judicial offices, and claims to have filled them
well, he had no ambition for such distinction, and looked
upon pleasure and poetry as the occupations of his life.
He tells us that he was married, when little more than a
boy, to a wife for whom he did not care, who, he implies,
was not worthy of him, and from whom he was soon
' * Cf. Lucret., i. 726—
" Quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur
Gentibus humanis regio visendaque fertur. "
2 " Quanquam secessu Campanise Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur."
— Donat.
separated, and afterwards to a second wife, with whom
his union, although through no fault of hers, did not last
long. But he had other objects of his volatile affections, and
one of them, Corinna, after the example of his predecessors
Gallus, Propertius, and Tibullus, and their Alexandrian
prototypes Callimachus, Philetas, &c., he makes the
heroine of his love elegies. It is doubtful whether, like
Lesbia, Delia, and Cynthia, she belonged to the class of
Roman ladies of recognized position, or to that to which
the Chloes and Lalages of Horace's artistic fancy evidently
belong. If trust can be placed in the later apologies for
his life, in which he states that he had never given occasion
for any serious scandal, it is probable that she belonged
to the class of " libertinse." Ovid is not only a less constant
but he is a much less serious lover than Catullus, Tibullus, or
Propertius. His tone is that either of mere sensual self-
regarding feeling or of persiflage. That tone is in many ways
offensive to modern taste, but in nothing is it more charac
teristic of his age than in his light-hearted justification of his
choice both of a theme and of a career. In his complete
emancipation from all sense of restraint or wish for better
things, Ovid goes beyond all his predecessors, although
Tibullus and Propertius, and even Horace in the ironical dis
claimers of his earlier Odes, give indication of the same state
of feeling. In this Ovid reflects the tastes and tone of
fashionable, well-born, and wealthy Roman society between
the years 20 B.C. and the beginning of our era. The memory
of the civil wars no longer weighed on the world. The
career of ambition was so far from attracting men that
they had to be urged and coerced into filling official places
and carrying on the routine duties of the senate. Society
was bent simply on amusement. There was less of coarse
ness in the pursuit of pleasure than had prevailed among
the contemporaries of Catullus. We find little trace in
Ovid of the convivial pleasures which Horace celebrates in
his lighter odes, or of the excesses of which Propertius
makes confession. Ovid says of himself that he drank
scarcely anything but water, and from what he tells us of
his appearance and constitution he was evidently not of
the temperament to which convivial excesses bring any
temptation.3 But probably it was not the fashion of the
time to live intemperately. As a result of the loss of
political interests, women came to play a more important
and brilliant part in society, and the tone of fashionable
conversation and literature was adapted to them. Julia,
daughter of the emperor, was by her position, her brilliant
gifts, and her reckless laxity of character the natural
leader of such a society. The awakening of the Roman
world out of this fool's paradise of pleasure was due to
the discovery of her intrigue with lulus Antonius, son of
Mark Antony, and to the open and violent display of anger
with which Augustus resented what was at once a shock
to his affections and a blow to his policy. Nearly coinci-
dently with the publicity given to this scandal appeared the
famous Ars Amatoria of Ovid, perhaps the most immoral
and demoralizing work ever written, at least in ancient
times, by a man of genius. Ovid was the favourite poet
of the fashionable world ; he lived on terms of intimacy
with its leading members, the younger representatives of
the old nobility, who had survived the proscriptions and
the fatal day of Philippi. His poetical accomplishment
would naturally recommend him to lulus Antonius, of
whose gifts Horace has spoken so eulogistically. His
marriage with his third wife, a lady of the great Fabian
house, and a friend of the empress Livia, had probably
taken place before this time. It thus seems likely that
he may have been admitted into the intimacy of the
3 Compare Am. , ii. 23 —
" Graciles, non sunt sine viribus artus ;
Pondere, non nervis, corpora nostra careiit."
80
OVID
younger society of the Palatine, although in the midst of
his most fulsome flattery he does not claim ever to have
enjoyed the favour of Augustus. Whether he was in any
way mixed up with this intrigue is not known. But that
the work which appeared coincidently with it excited deep
resentment in the mind of the emperor, as the pander to
the passions by which the dignity of his family had been
outraged and his state policy thwarted, is shown by his
edict, issued ten years later, against the book and its author.
Augustus had the art of dissembling his anger ; and Ovid
appears to have had no idea of the storm that was gather
ing over him. He still continued to enjoy the society of
the court and of the fashionable world ; he passed before
the emperor in the annual procession among the ranks of
the equites ; he filled a more important judicial place;
and he had developed a richer vein of genius than he had
shown in his youthful prime. But he was aware that
public opinion had been shocked, or professed to be shocked,
by his last work ; and after writing a kind of apology for
it, called the Remedia Amoris, he directed his genius into
other channels, and wrote during the next ten years the
Metamorphoses and the Fasti. He had already written
one work, the Heroides, in which he had imparted a modern
and romantic interest to the heroines of the old mythology,1
and a tragedy, the Medea, which must have afforded greater
scope for the dramatic and psychological treatment of the
passion with which he was most familiar. In the Fasti
Ovid assumes the position of a national poet 2 by
imparting poetical life and interest to the ceremonial
observances of Roman religion ; but it is as the brilliant
narrator of the romantic tales that have got so strangely
blended with the realistic annals of Rome that he succeeds
in the part assumed by him. The Metamorphoses professed
to trace the relations of the gods with human affairs from
the reign of Chaos to the deification of Augustus ; and
in the later books that work also may claim something of
a national character. But it consists for the most part of
a series of tales of the love adventures of the gods with
nymphs and heroines, told in a tone of mixed irony and
romance. This work, which he regards as his most
serious claim to immortality, had not been finally revised
at the time of his disgrace, and he committed it to
the flames ; but other copies were in existence, and the
book was given to the world in his absence. He often
regrets that it had not obtained his final revisal. The
Fasti also was broken off by his exile, after the comple
tion and publication of the first six books, treating of the
first six months of the year.
The actual offence which gave occasion for his banish
ment is not exactly known. In his frequent references to
it he wavers between assertions of his innocence of anything
beyond simplicity and error and the admission that, though
he had done nothing, he yet deserved his punishment. He
had witnessed something which was a cause of pain and
offence to the emperor. In a letter to one of his intimate
friends, to whom he had been in the habit of confiding all
his secrets, he says that had he confided this one he would
have escaped condemnation. In writing to another friend
in reference to his disgrace, he warns him against the
danger of courting too high society — " praelustria vita."
The cause which excited or renewed the anger of Augustus
was connected with the old offence of writing and publish
ing the Ars Amatoria. All this points to his having
been in some way mixed up with some scandal affecting
the imperial family. He distinctly disclaims the idea that
he had anything to do with any treasonable plot ; and he
1 The essentially modern character of the work appears in his
making a heroine of the time of the Trojan war speak of visiting
"barned" Athens (lleroid., ii. 83).
8 " Animos ad publica cariuina flexi " (Trist., v. 23).
certainly appears to have been the last man who ever could
have been made the confederate of a serious conspiracy.
All this seems to connect him with one event, coincident
in time with his disgrace, — the intrigue of the younger
Julia, granddaughter of the emperor, with Silanus, —
mentioned by Tacitus in the third book of the Annals.
Tacitus tells us how deeply Augustus felt these family
scandals, looking upon them as acts of treason and sacrilege.
It seems, at first sight, strange that the chief punishment
fell, not on the real offenders, but on Ovid, who at the
worst could only have been the confidant of their intrigue,
perhaps may have lent his house as a place of rendezvous
for the lovers. To Julia herself was assigned the lighter
penalty of seclusion in one of the towns of Italy, and
Silanus had no other punishment than that of exclusion
from the court. Augustus must have regarded Ovid and
his works as, if not the corrupter of the age, yet the
most typical representative of that corruption which in
its effects on his own family might be regarded as the
nemesis attending on, as it was the direct consequence of,
the outward success of his policy. The date of this scandal
must have been 7 or early in 8 A.D., as Tacitus, under
the date 28 A.D., mentions the death of Julia after twenty
years of seclusion.
A delay of nearly two years seems to have taken
place between the disgrace and the sentence passed on
Ovid, and it must have been during this interval that
he visited his friend Fabius at Elba,3 probably with the
view of inducing him to intercede for him. At last the
edict, dictated by relentless policy rather than personal
vindictiveness, was published. He was left in the enjoy
ment of the rights of citizenship and in the possession of
his property (perhaps through the exercise of the influence
of Li via in favour of his wife), but was ordered to leave
Rome on a particular clay, and to settle at the very out
skirts of civilization, — in the semi-Greek semi-barbaric town
of Tomi, near the mouth of the Danube. He tells vividly
the story of the agony of his last night at Rome, of the
dangers and hardships of his winter voyage down the
Adriatic, and of his desolate feelings on his first arrival at
his new abode. But this was merely the beginning of his
miseries. For eight years he bore up in his solitude, in
the dreariest circumstances, suffering from the unhealthi-
ness of the climate and exposed to constant alarm from the
incursions of the neighbouring barbarians. He continued
to be buoyed up by hopes first of a remission of his
sentence, afterwards of at least a change to another place
of exile. He wrote his complaints first in a series of books
sent successively to Rome, afterwards in a number of
poetical epistles, also collected into books, addressed to all
his friends who were likely to have influence at court.
He believed that Augustus had softened towards him
before his death, but his successor was inexorable to his
complaints. Perhaps the person who most deeply resented
the offence was the one who exercised the greatest influence
over both, the empress Livia, whose life and example were
a protest against the laxity of the age, and who was an
unsympathetic stepmother to the members of the imperial
family. His chief consolation was the exercise of his art,
and the only expression of a worthy feeling of resistance
to his misery is in a letter to his daughter Perilla, in which
he asserts that over his genius Augustus had no control : —
" Ingenio tamen ipsc ineo comitorque fruorquc :
Csesar in hoc potuit juris liabcre iiihil."
— Tristia, iii. 7, 47.
Yet as time goes on he is painfully conscious of failure
in power, and of the absence of all motive to perfect his
work. He had access to no books except such as he may
have brought with him, and the zest for reading, as for all
3 Ex Ponto, ii. 3, 83.
OVID
81
other pleasure, was gone. He recalls the memories of the
happy days he had spent at Rome ; and the chief relief to
the misery of his exile was the receipt of letters from his
friends. M. Gaston Boissier says that he left his genius
behind him at Rome ; and it is true that the works written
in exile have not the brilliant versatility, the buoyant spirit,
or the finished art of his earlier writings. They harp
eternally on the same theme. All his faults of diffuseness
and self-repetition appear in an exaggerated form. But
there is the same power of vivid realization and expression,
the same power of making his thought, feeling, and situ
ation immediately present to the reader. What they lose
in art they gain in personal interest. They have, like the
letters of Cicero to Atticus, the fascination exercised by
those works which have been given to the world under the
title of Confessions ; and they are the sincerest expression
in literature of the state of mind produced by a unique
experience, — that of a man, when well advanced in years,
but still retaining extraordinary sensibility to pleasure
and pain, withdrawn from a most brilliant position in the
centre of social and intellectual life and material civiliza
tion, and cast upon his own resources in a place and among
people affording the dreariest contrast to all that had
gratified his eye, heart, and mind through the whole of his
previous life. How far these letters and confidences are to
be regarded as equally sincere expressions of his affection
or admiration for his correspondents is another question,
which need not be pressed. Even in those addressed to his
wife, in which he might be supposed to pour out his heart
naturally, there may perhaps be detected a certain ring of
insincerity. He pays her compliments, addresses her in the
studied language of gallantry, and compares her to Penelope
and Laodamia and the other famous heroines of ancient
legend. Had she been a Penelope or a Laodamia she would
have accompanied him in his exile, as we learn from Tacitus
was done by other wives l in the more evil days of which he
wrote the record. There is a note of truer affection in the
one letter to his daughter Perilla, of whose genius and
beauty he was proud, and who in her tastes and character
was more in sympathy with him. This is one of several
points of resemblance in the position, feelings, and fortunes
of Ovid with one whose career and character were so essen
tially different — Cicero. He shows a regard for many of his
friends, and dependence on their sympathy and apprecia
tion, and he recalls with some bitterness the coldness with
which some of those in whom he had trusted treated him
when his disgrace first overtook him. He was moved by the
persistent hostility of one whom he had regarded as a friend
to an act of retaliation for which neither his temper nor his
genius was adapted, — the composition of a lampoon, the
Ibis, in imitation of a poem of Callimachus, called by the
same name. His affections, like his genius, were diffused
widely rather than strongly concentrated, and he seems to
have had rather a large circle of intimate acquaintances
than any close friends to whom he was attached as
Cicero was to Atticus, Horace to Maecenas, Catullus to
Calvus and Verannius. He was evidently a man of gentle
and genial manners ; and, as his active mind induced him
to learn the language of the new people among whom he
was thrown, his active interest in life enabled him to gain
their regard and various marks of honour. One of the last
acts of his literary career was to revise the Fasti and re-edit
it with a dedication to Germanicus. The last lines of the
Ex Ponto sound like the despairing sigh of a drowning
man who had long struggled alone with the waves : —
' ' Omnia perdidimus, tan turn modo vita rclicta cst
Praebeat ut scnsum materiamque mails. "
(Shortly after these words were written the poet died, at the
1 " Comitatfc profugos liberos matres, secutre maritos in exilia
conjuges" (Tac. , Hist., i. 3).
age of sixty-one, in the year 17 A.D., the third year of the
reign of Tiberius.
The natural temperament of Ovid, as indicated in his
writings, has more in common with the suppleness and
finesse of the modern Italian than with the strength and
direct force of the ancient Roman. That stamp of her own
character and understanding which Rome impressed on the
genius of those other races, Italian, Celtic, or Iberian,
which she incorporated with herself, is fainter in Ovid
than in any other great writer. He ostentatiously dis
claims the manliness which in the republican times was
regarded as the birthright not of Romans only but of the
Sabellian races from which he sprung. He is as devoid
of dignity in his abandonment to pleasure as in the weak
ness with which he meets calamity. He has no depth of
serious conviction, no vein of sober reflexion, and is sus
tained by no great or elevating purpose. Although the
beings of a supernatural world fill a large place in his
writings, they appear stripped of all sanctity and mystery.
It is difficult to say whether the tone in which the adven
tures of the gods and goddesses of mythology are told, or
his prayer offered to the gods of heaven and of the sea,
when in danger of shipwreck,
" Pro superi viridesque dei, quibus aequora curse,"
implies a kind of half-believing return to the most childish
elements of paganism, or is simply one of mocking unbelief.
He has absolutely no reverence, and consequently almost
alone among the greater poets of Greece or Rome (the
" sancti " of Lucretius, the " pii vates " of Virgil) he inspires
no reverence in his reader. With all a poet's feeling fcr
the life, variety, and subtlety of nature, he has no sense of
her mystery and majesty. Though he can give dramatic
expression to pathetic emotion, the profound melancholy
of Lucretius, the spiritual sadness, half-relieved by dim
spiritual hopes, of Virgil, the thoughtful renunciation with
which Horace fronts " the cloud of mortal destiny," are
states of mind which were seemingly inconceivable by him.
Nor is he more capable of sounding the deeper sources of
joy than of sorrow. The love which he celebrates is
sensual and superficial — a matter of vanity as much as of
passion. He prefers the piquant attraction of falsehood
and fickleness to the charm of truth and constancy. Even
where he follows Roman tendencies in his art he per
verts them. Didactic poetry has set before itself many
false ends in ancient Roman as in modern English litera
ture ; but the pedantry of systematic teaching has never
been so strangely misapplied, as it never has been so
strangely combined with brilliant power of execution, as
in the methodical teaching of the art — " corrumpere et
corrumpi." The Fasti is a work conceived in the prosaic
spirit of Roman antiquarianism. But this conception
might have been made poetical had it been penetrated by
the religious and patriotic spirit in which Virgil treats the
origin of ancient ceremonies, or the serious, half mystic
spirit in which he accepts the revelations of science. The
contrast between the actual trivialities of ancient science
and ancient ceremonial, on the one hand, and the new
meaning which both were capable of receiving from a
reverential treatment, could not be more effectually enforced
than by a comparison of passages in the Georgics and
^'Eneid treating the astronomical fancies and religious
ceremonies of early ages with the literal definiteness or the
light persiflage of the Fasti.
These grave defects in strength and gravity of character
had an important effect on the artistic result of Ovid's
writings. Though he wanted neither diligence, persever
ance, nor literary ambition, he seems incapable of conceiv
ing a great and serious whole. Though his mind works
very actively in the way of observing and reflecting on
XV'TTT. — TT
OVID
the superficial aspects of life, yet he has added no great
thoughts or maxims to the moral or intellectual heritage
of the world. With a more versatile dramatic faculty than
any of his countrymen, he has created no great character,
comparable either with the grand impersonations of Greek
tragedy, or with the Dido and Turnus of Virgil. He has
both the psychological power of reading and the rhetorical
power of expressing passion and emotion of different
kinds ; but he has not a genuine and consistent sense of
human greatness or heroism. He represents with impartial
sympathy the noble heart of Laodamia and the unhallowed
lust of Myrrha. His spirit seems thoroughly ironical or
indifferent in regard to the higher ideals or graver convic
tions of men.
But with all the laxity and levity of his character he
must have had qualities which made him, if not much
esteemed, yet much liked in his own day, and which have
perpetuated themselves in the genial amiability of his
writings. He claims for himself two social virtues, highly
prized by the Romans, " fides " and " candor," — the quali
ties of social honour and kindly sincerity, the qualities
which made a man a pleasant member of society and a
friend who might be relied on in the ordinary relations of
life. There is no indication of anything base, anything
ungenerous, or anything morose in his relations to others.
The literary quality of " candor," the generous appreciation
of all sorts of excellence, he possesses in a remarkable
degree. He heartily admires everything in the literature
of the past, Greek or Roman, that had any merit. In him
more than in a..y of the other Augustan poets we find
words of admiration more than once applied to the rude
genius of Ennius and the high spirit of Accius. It is by
him, not by Virgil or Horace, that Lucretius is first named
and the sublimity of his genius is first acknowledged. The
image of Catullus that most haunts the imagination is that
of the poet who died so early —
.... " hedera juvenalia cinctus
Tempora,"
as he is represented by Ovid coming to meet the shade of
the young Tibullus in Elysium. To his own contempor
aries, known and unknown to fame, he is as liberal in
his words of recognition. He enjoyed society too in a
thoroughly amiable and unenvious spirit. He lived on a
friendly footing with a large circle of men of letters, poets,
critics, grammarians, £c., but he showed none of that sense
of superiority which is manifest in Horace's estimate of the
" tribes of grammarians " and the poetasters of his day.
Like Horace, too, he courted the society of the great, and
probably he did not maintain an equally independent
attitude towards it ; but unlike Horace he expresses no
contempt for the profane world outside. With his gifts of
irony and knowledge of the world one might have expected
him to be the social satirist of the later phase of the
Augustan age. But he wanted the censorious and critical
temper necessary for a social, and the admixture of gall in
his disposition necessary for a successful personal satirist.
" Candidas a salibus suflusis felle rcfugi"
is a claim on our regard which he is fully justified in making.
In his exile, and in imitation of his model Callimachus, he
did retaliate on one enemy and persistent detractor; but
the Ibis is a satire more remarkable for irrelevant learning
than for epigrammatic sting.
But his chief personal endowment was his vivacity, and
his keen interest in and enjoyment of life. He had no
grain of discontent in his composition. He had no regrets
for an ideal past nor longings for an imaginary future.
The age in which his lot was cast was, as he tells us, that
in which more than any other he would have wished to live.1
1 Ars Amatoria, iii. 121, &c.
He is its most gifted representative, but he does not rise
above it. The great object of his art was to amuse and
delight it by the vivid picture he presented of its actual
fashions and pleasures, and by creating a literature of
romance which reflected these fashions and pleasures, and
which could stimulate the curiosity arid fascinate the fancy
of a society too idle and luxurious for serious intellectual
effort. The sympathy which he felt with the love adven
tures and intrigues of his contemporaries, to which he
probably owed his fall, quickened his creative power to the
composition of the Heroides and the romantic tales of the
Metamorphoses. Catullus, by his force of concentration,
makes the actual life of his age more immediately present;
but none of the Roman poets can people a purely imaginary
world with such spontaneous fertility of fancy as Ovid.
In heart and mind he is inferior to Lucretius and Catullus,
to Virgil and Horace, perhaps to Tibullus and Propertius ;
but in the power and range of imaginative vision he is
surpassed by no ancient and by few modern poets. This
power of vision is the counterpart of his lively sensuous
nature. He has a keener eye for the apprehension of out
ward beauty, for the life and colour and forms of nature,
than any Roman or perhaps than any Greek poet. This
power, acting upon the wealth of his varied reading,
gathered with eager curiosity and received into a singu
larly retentive mind, has enabled him to body forth scenes
of the most varied and picturesque beauty in all the lands
of Europe and Asia famous in ancient song and story. If
his tragedy the Medea, highly praised by ancient critics,
had been preserved, we should have been able to judge
whether Roman art was capable of producing a great
drama. In many of the Heroides, and in several speeches
attributed to his imaginary personages, he gives evidence
of true dramatic creativeness. Catullus, in his Ariadne and
his Attis, has given a voice to deeper and more powerful
feeling, and he presents an idyllic picture of the heroic
age with a purer charm. But the range and variety of
his art were limited by the shortness as well as the turmoil
of his life. Catullus is unsurpassed as the author of an
epic idyll. Ovid is not idyllic in his art, or whatever
there is of idyllic in it is lost in the rapid movement of
his narrative. But he is one, among the poets of all times,
who can imagine a story with most vivid inventiveness and
tell it with most unflagging animation. An ideal world,
poetical and supernatural, but never fantastic or grotesque,
of beings rich with the beauty and fulness of youth, play
ing their part in scenes of picturesque beauty, is brought
before us in verse and diction of apparently inexhaustible
resource and unimpeded flow, partly created or rising
up spontaneously for the occasion, partly borrowed boldly
and freely from all his predecessors in Latin poetry, but
always full of genuine life and movement. The faults of
his verse and diction are those which arise from the vitality
of his temperament, — too facile a flow, too great exuber
ance of illustration. He has as little sense of the need of
severe restraint in his art as in his life. He is not without
mannerism, but he is quite unaffected, and, however far
short he might fall of the highest excellence of verse or
style, it was not possible for him to be rough or harsh, dull
or obscure.
As regards the school of art to which he belongs, he may
be described as the most brilliant representative of Roman
Alexandrinism. The latter half of the Augustan age was,
in its social and intellectual aspects, more like the
Alexandrian age than any other era of antiquity. The
Alexandrian age was like the Augustan, one of refine
ment and luxury, of outward magnificence and literary
dilettanteism flourishing under the fostering influence of
an absolute monarchy. Poetry was the only important
branch of literature cultivated, and the chief subjects of
OVID
83
poetry were mythological tales, various phases of the
passion of love, the popular aspects of science, and some
aspects of the beauty of nature. These, too, were the chief
subjects of the later Augustan poetry. The higher feelings
and ideas which found expression in the poetry of Virgil,
Horace, Varius, and the writers of an older generation no
longer acted on the Roman world. It was to the private
tastes and pleasures of individuals and society that Roman
Alexandrinism had appealed both in the poetry of
Catullus, Cinna, Calvus, &c., and in that of Gallus,
Tibullus, and Propertius. Ovid was the last of this
school of writers ; he profited at the very entrance on his
poetical career by the artistic accomplishment in form,
metre, and diction which had been gained by the slow
labours of his predecessors ; his fancy was much more
active and brilliant than that of any of them ; and
his spirit was more unreservedly satisfied with the condi
tions imposed both by the art to which he devoted him
self and the political and social circumstances by which
he was surrounded. Like all his countrymen, he wanted
power to create a new form of art and a new vehicle of
expression. But if he could have foreseen his future fame
his literary ambition would have been completely satisfied
by the consciousness that he had not only immeasurably
surpassed, but had, for all after time, practically superseded
his Greek models. He has confined himself to two vehicles
of expression — the elegiac metre and the hexameter. In
the first the great mass of his poetry is written, — the
Heroides, the Amores, the Ars Amatoria, the Remedia
Amoris, the Fasti, the Tristia, the Ex Ponto, the Ibis, the
Medicamina Faciei ; in the hexameter we have the work
which he regarded as that on which his hope of immor
tality was based, the Metamorphoses, and a fragment of a
didactic poem written in the style of the Alexandrians,
probably with the mere desire to kill time in the place of
his exile, called the Halieutica. Of the first metre he is
the acknowledged master. He brought it to its highest
perfection, and all the immense mass of elegiac verse
published and written in modern times has merely
endeavoured to reproduce the echo of his rhythm and
manner. In the direct expression and illustration of feel
ing, his elegiac metre has much more ease, vivacity, and
sparkle than that of any of his predecessors, while he
alone has communicated to it, without altering its essential
characteristic of recurrent and regular pauses, a fluidity
and rapidity of movement which makes it an admirable
vehicle for tales of pathetic and picturesque interest. It
was impossible for him to give to the hexameter a greater
perfection than it had already attained, but he imparted
to it also a new character, wanting indeed the weight, and
majesty, and intricate harmonies of Virgil, but rapid,
varied, animated, and in complete accord with the swift,
versatile, and fervid movement of his imagination. One
other proof he gave of his irrepressible energy and vitality
by composing, during his exile, a poem in the Gothic
language, in praise of Augustus, — the loss of which, what
ever it may have been to literature, is one much to be
regretted in the interests of philological science.
Ovid would, in any previous century since the revival of classical
studies, have been regarded as a more important representative of
ancient life and feeling, and as a greater poet, than he is in the
present day. During the earlier period of this revival, the beauty
and refinement of ancient literature, and of the life to which that
literature is the key, were better appreciated than their moral and
intellectual greatness. As the representative writer of an age of
great material civilization and luxury, he gained the attention of
a time and a class struggling towards a similar civilization and
animated by the same love of pleasure. It was in his writings
that the world of romance and wonder, created by the early Greek
imagination, was first revealed to the modern world. The vivid,
sensuous fancy through which he reproduced the tales and beings
of mythology, as well as the transparent lucidity, the unfailing
liveliness, the ease and directness of the medium through which
this is done, made his works the most accessible and among the
most attractive of the recovered treasures of antiquity. His in
fluence was first felt in the literature of the Italian Renaissance.
But in the most creative periods of English literature he seems to
have been more read than any other ancient poet, not even except
ing Virgil ; and it was on the most creative minds, such as those
of Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare,1 Milton, and Dryden, that he
acted most powerfully. The continuance of his influence is equally
unmistakable during the classical era of Addison and Pope. The
most successful Latin poetry of modern times has been written in
imitation of him ; and the accomplishment by which the faculty of
literary composition and the feeling for ancient Roman culture
were most developed in the great schools of England and France
was the writing of Ovidian elegiacs. His works gave also a
powerful stimulus and supplied abundant materials to the great
painters who flourished during and immediately subsequent to
the Renaissance. The mythological figures and landscapes which
crowd the great galleries of Europe reproduce on canvas the forms,
life, colour, and spirit which first were clothed in words and metre
in his Elegies and Metamorphoses.
But, whatever charm individual readers of ancient literature may
still find in him, no one would claim for him anything like the
same influence on literature, art, and education in the present day
as he formerly enjoyed. Judged by the attention given to their
works by professional scholars and also in current criticism, not
only Virgil and Horace, but Lucretius and Catullus, appear to be
more in esteem than Ovid. This may perhaps be due as much to
a loss in imagination as to a gain in critical power. Although the
spirit of antiquity is better understood now than it was in the 16th
and 17th centuries, yet in the capacity of appreciating works of
brilliant fancy we can claim no superiority over the centuries
which produced Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, nor over those
which produced the great Italian, French, and Flemish painters.
Still, whatever be the cause of the change in taste, Ovid is not one
of those poets who seem to have much to teach us, or much power
to move and interest us now. Perhaps the very liveliness and
clearness of his style and manner, which made him the most
accessible of ancient authors in times of less exact learning, have
tended to deaden curiosity about him in the present day. There
is no deep or recondite meaning to be extracted from him. The
sensuous and more superficial aspects of the later phase of ancient
civilization, of which he is the most brilliant exponent, have much
less interest for us than the heroic aspects of its earlier phase, and
the spiritual, ethical, and political significance of its maturity.
The art which chiefly ministers to pleasure, though it had its
place in the great ages of antiquity, had then only a subordinate
one ; and it is to that place that it has been relegated by the
permanent judgment of the world. It is of that art that Ovid is
the chief master, and it is that with which he is identified. There
miglit almost seem to be some danger of his falling into the neglect
which has deservedly overtaken the authors of the epics of the
Flavian era. It is therefore perhaps worth while to indicate some
of the grounds on which his works must continue to hold an
important place in any comprehensive study of Roman literature
or human culture.
His first claim on the attention of modern readers is that already
indicated — the influence which he exercised on the earlier develop
ment of modern art and literature. Just as certain Greek poets
and literary periods (the Alexandrian for instance) claim attention
as much on account of their influence on the development of
Roman literature as on their own account, so, if for no other reason,
the works of Ovid must always retain an importance, second only
to those of Virgil and Horace, as one of the chief media through
which the stream of ancient feeling and fancy mingled with the
great river of modern literature.
He is interesting further as the sole contemporary exponent of
the last half of the Augustan age. The whole of that age is a time
of which the outward show and the inner spirit are known from the
works, not of contemporary historians or prose-writers, but of its
poets. The successive phases of feeling and experience through
which the world passed during the whole of this critical period of
human affairs are revealed in the poetry of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid.
Virgil throws an idealizing and religious halo around the hopes and
aspirations of the first rise of the empire. His aim seems to be to
bring the new regime into living connexion with the past, not of
Rome only but of the civilized world. Horace presents the most
complete image of his age in its most various aspects, realistic and
ideal. Ovid, in all his earlier writings, reflects the life of the world
of wealth and fashion under the influence of the new court. It is a
life of material prosperity, splendour, refinement, of frivolity and
intrigue, of dilettanteism in literature, of decay in all the nobler
energies, of servility and adulation. He is the most characteristic
painter such a time could have found. For the continuous study
1 The influence of Ovid on Shakespeare is shown conclusively in
the interesting papers on "What Shakespeare learned at School,"
contributed to Fraser's Magazine (1879, 1880) by Prof. Baynes.
0 V I — O V I
of the Roman world in its moral and social relations, his place is
important as marking a stage of transition between the representa
tion of Horace, in which the life of pleasure and amusement has
its place, but one subordinate to the life of reflexion and of serious
affairs, and the life which reveals itself in the cynicism of Martial
and the morose disgust of Juvenal.
From the times of Ennius and Lucilius, Roman poetry occupied
itself much with the lives, pursuits, and personal feelings of its
authors, and this is one element of interest which it has in common
with such works as the Letters of Cicero and of Plin)'. Few poets
of any age or country bring themselves into such close relation
with their readei-s as Catullus, Horace, Ovid, and Martial. Ovid
is in mind and character perhaps the least interesting of the four.
But an exceptional interest attaches to his history. He attracts
curiosity by having a secret, which, though it may be guessed with
an approach to certainty, is not fully revealed. He excites also
personal sympathy by the contrast presented in his writings
between the unclouded gaiety of his youth and prime and the long
heart-break of his exile. If we knew him only from the personal
impression which he makes in the Amores and the Ars Ama-
tvria, it would be allowed that few men of equal genius had
so little claim on the esteem of the world. In the ten books of
complaint which he pours out from his place of exile, though he
shows no sign of a manlier temper than when he wrote his
"imbelles elegi," yet by the vividness with which he realizes the
contrast between his past and present, by his keen capacity for
pleasure and pain, by the unreserve with which he exposes all his
feelings, he forces himself on our intimacy, and awakens those sym
pathies which all sincere and passionate confessions create, where
there is nothing base or malignant in the temper of their author to
alienate them. Though his fate does not rouse the powerful interest
inspired by the "h'ery courage" and "Titanic might" with which
Byron struggled during his self-imposed exile, yet to it, too, apply
the sympathetic words of Virgil — "Mentem mortalia tangunt."
But it was not owing to the historical and personal interest
of his works that he gained his great name among his countrymen
and the readers of a former generation, nor is it on that ground
solely that he claims attention now. He is the last true poet of the
great age of Roman literature,— which begins with Lucretius and
closes with him, — of the age which drew the most powerful stimulus
from the genius and art of Greece, from the sentiment inspired
by Rome, and from the Italian love of nature. Among the live or
six great poets of that time Ovid is distinguished both as a
brilliant artist who brought one branch of poetry to the highest
perfection and also as a poet in whom one rich vein of the genius
of Italy most conspicuously manifested itself. It is mainly through
his reproduction of the forms, metres, and materials of the chief
Alexandrian poets that these have maintained an enduring place
in literature. But, great as he was, in art and imitative faculty,
his spontaneous gifts of genius were still more remarkable. If his
works had perished we should have had a most inadequate idea of
what the fervid Italian genius could accomplish in ancient times.
Xo other Roman poet can invent and tell a story and make an
outward scene and dramatic situation present to the eye and mind
with such vivid power. If he does not greatly move the deeper
.sources of emotion, he has the power of lightly stirring many of
them. No Roman poet writes with such ease, life, and rapidity of
movement. None is endowed with such fertility of fancy, such
quickness of apprehension. In respect of his vivacity and fertility
we recognize in him the countryman of Cicero and Livy. But the
type of genius of which he affords the best example is more familiar
in modern Italian than in ancient Roman literature. While the
.serious spirit of Lucretius and Virgil reappeared in Dante, the
qualities attributed by his latest and most accomplished critic to
Ariosto may be said to reproduce the light-hearted gaiety and the
brilliant fancy of Ovid.
There were several editions of Ovi i's collected works in the 16th and 17th
centuries, the time in which he enjoyed his greatest popularity. Recent editions
of the text have been published by R. Merkel and A. Riese. The most important
aids to the study of Ovid recently made in England are the editions of the Jlti.i
by Mr Robinson Ellis, and those of the //eroides by .Mr A. Palmer. Much
light is thrown on the diction of Ovid by lingerie in his Ovidius und sein Verhdlt-
niss zu den Vorgiingern. The most interesting discussion on the cause of his
exile is that of M. Gaston Boissier, which originally appeared in the Revue
des iJtux Mondes, and novv forms part of his volume entitled L' Opposition sous
let Ce'iart. (W. y. S.)
OVIEDO, a city in the north of Spain, capital of a
province of the same name,1 stands on a gentle northern
slope, about 72 miles by rail and diligence to the north
1 The province of Oviedo, corresponding to the ancient province and
principality of ASTURJAS (<?.».), has an area of 4091 square miles and
a population (1877) of 576,352. At that census the ayuntamientos
12,614 ; Pilona, 18,648 ; Salas, 16,394 ; Siero, 21,494 ; Tiueo! 21,41 4;
Valdes, 22,014; and Villaviciosa, 20,179.
of Leon, and 14 miles to the south of the Bay of
Biscay. About a mile to the north-west is the Sierra
de Naranco, a Red Sandstone hill 1070 feet above the
sea and about 470 above the town, which is thus shel
tered from the north wind, but subject in consequence
to a large rainfall. Most of the town was burnt in 1521,
and the reconstruction, till recently, has been irregular.
The four main streets are formed by the roads connecting
Gijon and Leon (north and south) and Grado and
Santander (east and west), which cross each other in a
central square, the Plaza Mayor. The streets are clean
and well lighted ; the projecting roofs of the houses give
a characteristic effect, and some portions of the old Calle de
la Plateria are highly picturesque. In the Plaza Mayor
are the handsome Casas Consistoriales, dating from the
17th century ; one or two deserted mansions of the nobility
are architecturally interesting. The university, founded
by Philip III. in 1604, is lodged in a plain building, 180
feet square ; connected with it are a small library and
physical and chemical museums. The cathedral, an
elegant Perpendicular building of the 14th century,
occupies the site of an earlier edifice, founded in the 8th
century, of which only the Camara Santa remains. The
west front has a fine portico of ornamented arches between
the two towers. Of these one, very richly adorned, has
been completed, and is 284 feet high ; the other, which is
larger, does not as yet rise above the nave. The interior
has some fine stained glass, but has been much disfigured
with modern rococo additions. The Capilla del lley Santo
(Alphonso II., who died in Oviedo in 843) contains the
remains of many successive princes of the house of Pelayo ;
and the Camara Santa (dating from 802) preserves in an
area the crucifix, sudarium, and other relics saved by Don
Pelayo in his flight. The cathedral library has some
curious old MSS., mostly from Toledo. On the Sierra de
Naranco is the ancient Santa Maria de Naranco, originally
built by liamiro in 850 as a palace, and afterwards turned
into a church. Higher up the hill is San Miguel de Lino,
also of the 9th century ; and on the road to Gijon, about
a mile outside the town, is the Santullano or church of St
Julian, also of very early date. The modern town has the
usual equipments in the way of hospitals, schools, theatre,
casino, and the like ; and in the neighbourhood are some
pleasant paseos or promenades (San Francisco, Bombe,
Jardin Botanico). The industries of the town include hat-
making and tanning, and there is also a manufactory of arms.
The population of the ayuntamiento in 1877 was 34,460.
Oviedo, founded in the reign of Fruela (762), became the fixed
residence of the kings of the Asturias in the time of Alphonso the
Chaste, and continued to be so until about 924, when the advancing
rcconquest led them to remove their capital to Leon. From that
date the history of the city was comparatively uneventful. It was
twice plundered during the war of independence — by Ney in 180i>
and by Bonnet in the following year.
OYIEDO Y VALDEZ, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DK
(1478-1557), an early historian of Spanish America, was
born at Madrid, of noble Asturian descent, in 1478. He
was brought up at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella as
one of the pages of Prince John ; in this capacity he was
present at the surrender of Granada in 1492, and saw
Columbus at Barcelona on his first return from America
in 1493. In 1514 he was sent out to San Domingo as
supervisor of the gold-smeltings. He only occasionally
afterwards visited his native country and the American
mainland. Among other offices subsequently added to his
original appointment was that of historiographer of the
Indies, in the discharge of which he produced, besides
some unimportant chronicles, two large works of abiding
interest and value — La general y natural Historia de lax
Indias and Quimuayenas de lus Notables de Espawt. He
died at Valladolid in 1557.
O W E — O W E
85
The History of the Indies first appeared at Madrid in the form of a
Sumario in 1526. Of the full work, consisting of fifty books, the
first twenty-one were published at Seville in 1535 (Eng. transl. by
Eden, 1555 ; Fr. transl. by Poleur, 1556). The whole has recently
been published for the first time by the Madrid Royal Academy
of History (4 vols. fol., 1851-55). It contains a large mass of
valuable information, but written in a loose rambling moralizing
style which makes it somewhat difficult to use. According to Las
Casas, it is " as full of lies almost as pages," but the judgment of
the humane ecclesiastic was, necessarily perhaps, somewhat preju
diced. The Qtiincnagcnas, devoted to reminiscences of the princi
pal characters who had figured in Spain during his lifetime, consists
of a series of imaginary conversations full of gossip and curious
anecdote of great interest to the student of history. Several MSS.
are extant, but the work has never been printed.
OWEGO, a post village and township of the United
States, capital of Tioga county, New York, lies at the
mouth of Owego Creek, on the north side of the Susque-
lianna (here crossed by a bridge), 237 miles north
west of New York by the New York, Erie, and Western
Railroad, which here connects with the Delaware,
Lackawanna, and Western and the Southern Central Rail
roads. The village, built at the foot of a considerable hill
in the heart of a fine agricultural district, is a pleasant
place with broad maple-shaded side- walks along its principal
streets. Grist-mills, soap-works, marble-works, a piano
factory, and carriage-works are among the industrial
establishments. The population of the village was 4756
in 1870 and 5525 in 1880; that of the whole township
9442 and 9984 respectively.
OWEN, JOHN (Ovenus or Audoenus) (1560-1622), a
writer of Latin epigrams, once very popular all over
Europe, was of Welsh extraction, and was born at Armon,
Caernarvonshire, in 1560. He was educated under Dr
Bilson at Wykeham's School, Winchester, and afterwards
studied at New College, Oxford, where he received a
fellowship in 1584, and took the degree of bachelor of laws
in 1590. Throwing up his fellowship during the follow
ing year, he turned schoolmaster, and taught successively
at Trylegh, near Monmouth, and at Warwick, where he
was master of the free school founded by Henry VIII.
He soon became distinguished for his perfect mastery of
the Latin language, and for the humour, felicity, and
point of his epigrams. As a writer of Latin verse he
takes rank with Buchanan and Cowley. Those who, with
Dryden, place the epigram "at the bottom of all poetry"
will not estimate Owen's poetical genius very high ; yet
the Continental scholars and wits of the day used to call
him "the British Martial." "In one respect he was a
true poet," says a biographer ; " namely, he was always
poor." He was a staunch Protestant besides, and could
not resist the temptation of turning his wit against Popery
occasionally. This practice caused his book to be placed
on the Ind?x Prohibitorius of the Roman Church in 1654,
find, what was yet more serious, led a rich old uncle of the
Roman Catholic communion, from whom he had "great
expectations," to cut the epigrammatist out of his will.
When the poet died in 1622, his countryman and relative,
Bishop Williams of Lincoln, had him buried at St Paul's
Cathedral, London, where he erected a monument to his
memory bearing an elegant epitaph in Latin.
Owen's Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which
the first four were published in 1606, and the rest at four different
times. Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own purpose the
lines of his predecessors in Latin verse, and one such borrowing
lias become celebrated as a quotation, though few know where it is
to be found. It is the first line of this epigram :—
"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis:
Quo modo? fit semper tempore pejor homo."
(Lib I. ad Edoardum Noel, epig. 58.)
This first line is altered from an epigram by Matthew Borbonius,
one of a series of mottoes for various emperors, this one beino- for
Lothaire I.
" Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis:
Ilia vices quasdam res liabet, il'a vices."
There are editions of the Emgrammita by Elzevir and by Didot ;
the be.st is that edited by Renouard (2 vols., Paris, 1795). Transla
tions into English, either in whole or in part, have been made by
Vicars, 1619; by Pecke. in his Parnassi I'ucrpcrium, 1659; and
by Harvey in 1677, which is the most complete. La Torre, the
Spanish epigrammatist, owed much to Owen, and translated his
works into Spanish in 1674. French translations of the best of
Owen's epigrams have been published by A. L. Lebrun, 1709, ami
by Kerivalant, 1819.
OWEN, JOHN (1616-1683), theologian, was born of
Puritan parents at Stadham in Oxfordshire in 1616. At
twelve years of age he was admitted at Queen's College,
Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree in 1632 and M.A. in
1635. During these years he worked with such diligence
that he allowed himself but four hours sleep a night,
and damaged his health by this excessive labour. In 1637
lie was driven from Oxford by his refusal to comply with
the requirements of Laud's new statutes. Having taken
orders shortly before, he became chaplain and tutor in the
family of Sir Robert Dormer of Ascot in Oxfordshire. At
the outbreak of the civil troubles he adopted Parliamentary
principles, and thus lost both his place and the prospects
of succeeding to his uncle's fortune. For a while he lived
in Charterhouse Yard, in great unsettlement of mind on
religious questions, which was removed at length by a
sermon which he accidently heard at St Michael's in Wood
Street.
His first publication, in 1642, The Display of Arminian-
ism, dedicated to the committee of religion, gained him the
living of Fordham in Essex, from which a "scandalous
minister" had been ejected. Here he was married, and
by his marriage he had eleven children.
Although he was thus formally united to Presbyterianism,
Owen's views were originally inclined to those of the Inde
pendents, and, as he acquainted himself more fully with
the controversy, he became more resolved in that direction.
He represented, in fact, that large class of persons who,
falling away from Episcopacy, attached themselves to the
very moderate form of Presbyterianism which obtained in
England as being that which came first in their way. His
views at this time are shown by his Duty of Pastors
and People Distinguished. At Fordham he remained until
1646, when, the old incumbent dying, the presentation
lapsed to the patron, who gave it to some one else. He
was now, however, coming into notice, for on April 29
he preached before the Parliament. In this sermon, and
still more in his Thoughts on Church Government, which
he appended to it, his tendency to Ireak away from
Presbyterianism is displayed.
The people of Coggeshall in Essex now invited him to
become their pastor. Here he declared his change by
founding a church on Congregational principles, and, in
1647, by publishing Uthcol, as well as various works
against Arminianism. He made the friendship of Fairfax
while the latter was besieging Colchester, and urgently
addressed the army there against religious persecution.
He was chosen to preach to Parliament on the day after
the execution of Charles, and succeeded in fulfilling his
task without mentioning that event, and again on April 19,
when he spake thus : — " The time shall come when the
earth shall disclose her slain, and not the simplest heretic
shall have his blood unrevenged ; neither shall any atone
ment or expiation be allowed for this blood, while a toe
of the image, or a bone of the beast, is left unbroken.''
He now became acquainted with Cromwell, who carried
him off to Ireland in 1649 as his chaplain, that he might
regulate the affairs of Trinity College; while there he began
the first of his frequent controversies with Baxter by
writing against the lattcr's Aphorisms of Justification. In
1650 he accompanied Cromwell to Scotland, and returned
to Coggeshall in 1651. In March Cromwell, as chancellor,
gave him the deanery of Christ Church, and made him
86
OWEN
vice-chancellor in September 1652. In 1651, October 24,
after Worcester, he preached the thanksgiving sermon
before Parliament. In October 1653 he was one of
several ministers whom Cromwell, probably to sound their
views, summoned to a consultation as to church union.
In December in the same year he had the honour of D.D.
conferred upon him by his university. In the Parliament
of 1654 he sat, but only for a short time, as member for
Oxford university, and, with Baxter, was placed on the
committee for settling the " fundamentals " necessary for
the toleration promised in the Instrument of Government.
He was, too, one of the Triers, and appears to have
behaved with kindness and moderation in that capacity.
As vice-chancellor he acted with readiness and spirit when
a general rising in the west seemed imminent in 1655;
his adherence to Cromwell, however, was by no means
slavish, for he drew up, at the request of Desborough
and Pride, a petition against his receiving the kingship
(see Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 224). During the
years 1654-58 his chief controversial works were Divina
Justitia, The Perseverance of Saints (against Goodwin), and
Vindidse. Evangelicx (against the Socinians). In 1658 he
took a leading part in the conference which drew up the
Savoy Declaration.
Baxter declares that at the death of Cromwell Owen
joined the Wallingford House party. This, though
supported by the fact that under the Restoration he had
among his congregation a large number of these officers,
Owen himself utterly denied. He appears, however, to
have assisted in the restoration of the Rump Parliament,
and, when Monk began his march into England, Owen, in
the name of the Independent churches, to whom Monk
was supposed to belong, and who were keenly anxious as
to his intentions, wrote to dissuade him from the enter
prise.
In March 1660, the Presbyterian party being upper
most, Owen was deprived of his deanery, which was given
back to Reynolds. He retired to Stadham, where he
wrote various controversial and theological works, in
especial the laborious Theologoumena Pantodapa, a history
of the rise and progress of theology. In 1661 was
published the celebrated Fiat Lux, a work in which the
oneness and beauty of Roman Catholicism are contrasted
with the confusion and multiplicity of Protestant sects.
At Clarendon's request Owen answered this in 1662 in his
Animadversions ; and this led of course to a prolonged
controversy. Clarendon now offered Owen perferment if
he would conform. Owen's condition for making terms
was liberty to all who agree in doctrine with the Church
of England ; nothing therefore came of the negotiation.
In 1663 he was invited by the Congregational churches
in Boston, New England, to become their minister, but
declined. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts soon
drove him to London; and in 1666, after the Fire, he, as
did other leading Nonconformist ministers, fitted up a room
for public service and gathered a congregation, composed
chiefly of the old Commonwealth officers. Meanwhile he
was incessantly writing; and in 1667 he published his
Catechism, which led to a proposal from Baxter for union.
Various papers passed, and after a year the attempt was
closed by the following laconical note from Owen : " I am
still a well-wisher to these mathematics." It was now,
too, that he published the first part of his vast work upon
the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In 1669 Owen wrote a spirited remonstrance to the
Congregationalists in New England, who, under the influ
ence of Presbyterianism, had shown themselves perse
cutors. At home, too, he was busy in the same cause.
In 1670 Parker attacked the Nonconformists in his own
style of clumsy intolerance. Owen answered him ; Parker
repeated his attack ; Marvell wrote The Rehearsal Trans-
prosed; and Parker is remembered by this alone.
At the revival of the Conventicle Acts in 1670, Owen
was appointed to draw up a paper of reasons which was
submitted to the House of Lords in protest. In this or the
following year Harvard university invited him to become
their president ; he received similar invitations from some
of the Dutch universities.
When Charles issued his Declaration of Indulgence in
1672, Owen drew up an address of thanks. This indulg
ence gave the dissenters an opportunity for increasing their
churches and services, and Owen was one of the first
preachers at the weekly lectures which the Independents
and Presbyterians jointly held in Plummer's Hall. He
was held in high respect by a large number of the nobility
(one of the many things which point to the fact that
Congregationalism was by no means the creed of the poor
and insignificant), and during 1674 both Charles and James
held prolonged conversations with him in which they assured
him of their good wishes to the dissenters. Charles gave
him 1000 guineas to relieve those upon whom the severe
laws had chiefly pressed. In 1674 Owen was attacked by
one Dr Sherlock, whom he easily vanquished, and from this
time until 1680 he was engaged upon his ministry and the
writing of religious works. In 1680, however, Stillingfleet
having on May 11 preached his sermon on "The Mischief
of Separation," Owen defended the Nonconformists from
the charge of schism in his Brief Vindication. Baxter
and Howe also answered Stillingfleet, who replied in The
Unreasonableness of Separation. Owen again answered
this, and then left the controversy to a swarm of eager
combatants. From this time to his death he was occupied
with continual writing, disturbed only by an absurd charge
of being concerned in the Rye House Plot. His most
important work was his Treatise on Evangelical Churches,
in which were contained his latest views regarding church
government. During his life he issued more than eighty
separate publications, many of them of great size. Of
these a list may be found in Orme's Memoirs of Owen.
For somo years before his death Owen had suffered greatly
from stone and asthma. He died quietly, though after
great pain, at Ealing, on August 24, 1683, and was buried
on September 4th in Bunhill Fields, being followed to the
grave by a large procession of persons of distinction. " In
younger age a most comely and majestic form ; but in the
latter stages of life, depressed by constant infirmities,
emaciated with frequent diseases, and above all crushed
under the weight of intense and unremitting studies, it
became an incommodious mansion for the vigorous exer
tions of the spirit in the service of its God."
For engraved portraits of Owen see first edition of Palmer's Non
conformists' Memorial and Vertue's Sermons and Tracts, 1721.
The chief authorities for the life are Owen's Works ; Orme's Memoirs
of Owen ; Wood's Athcnae Oxonicnses ; Baxter's Life ; Real's History
of the Puritans ; Edwards's Gangrsena ; and the various histories
of the Independents. (0. A.)
OWEN, ROBERT (1771-1858), philanthropist, and
founder of English socialism, was born at the village of
Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in North Wales. His father
had a small business in Newtown as saddler and ironmonger,
and there young Owen received all his school education,
which terminated at the age of nine. At ten he went to
Stamford, where he served in a draper's shop for three or
four years, and, after a short experience of work in a
London shop, removed to Manchester. His success at
Manchester was very rapid. When only nineteen years of
age he became manager of a cotton mill, in which five
hundred people were employed, and by his administrative
intelligence, energy, industry, and steadiness soon made it
one of the very best establishments of the kind in Great
Britain. In this factory Owen used the first bags of
87
American sea-island cotton ever imported into the country;
it was the first cotton obtained from the Southern States
of America. Owen also made remarkable improvement in
the quality of the cotton spun ; and indeed there is no
reason to doubt that at this early age he was the first
cotton-spinner in England, a position entirely due to his
own capacity and knowledge of the trade, as he had found
the mill in no well-ordered condition, and was left to
organize it entirely on his own responsibility. Owen had
become manager and one of the partners of the Chorlton
Twist Company at Manchester, when he made his first
acquaintance with the scene of his future philanthropic
efforts at New Lanark. During a visit to Glasgow he had
fallen in love with the daughter of the proprietor of the
New Lanark mills, Mr Dale. Owen induced his partners
to purchase New Lanark; and after his marriage with
Miss Dale he settled there, as manager and part owner
of the mills (1800). Encouraged by his great success in
the management of cotton factories in Manchester, he had
already formed the intention of conducting New Lanark
on higher principles than the current commercial ones.
The factory of New Lanark had been started in 1784
by Dale and Arkwright, the water-power afforded by the
falls of the Clyde being the great attraction. Connected
with the mills were about two thousand people, five
hundred of whom were children, brought, most of them, at
the age of five or six from the poorhouses and charities
of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The children especially had
been well treated by Dale, but the general condition of the
people was very unsatisfactory. Many of them were the
lowest of the population, the respectable country people
refusing to submit to the long hours and demoralizing
drudgery of the factories ; theft, drunkenness, and other
vices were common ; education and sanitation were alike
neglected ; most families lived only in one room. It was
this population, thus committed to his care, which Owen
now set himself to elevate and ameliorate. He greatly
improved their houses, and by the unsparing and bene
volent exertion of his personal influence trained them to
habits of order, cleanliness, and thrift. . He opened a store,
where the people could buy goods of the soundest quality
at little more than cost price ; and the sale of drink was
placed under the strictest supervision. His greatest
success, however, was in the education of the young, to
which he devoted special attention. He was the founder
of infant schools in Great Britain ; and, though he was
anticipated by Continental reformers, he seems to have
been led to institute them by his own views of what
education ought to be, and without hint from abroad. In
all these plans Owen obtained the most gratifying success.
Though at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger, he
soon won the confidence of his people. The mills con
tinued to be a great commercial success, but it is needless
to say that some of Owen's schemes involved considerable
expense, which was displeasing to his partners. Tired at
last of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished
to conduct the business on the ordinary principles, Owen
formed a new firm, who, content with 5 per cent, of
return for their capital, were ready to give freer scope to
his philanthropy (1813). In this firm Jeremy Bentham
and the well-known Quaker, William Allen, were partners.
In the same year Owen first appeared as an author of
essays, in which he expounded the principles on which his
system of educational philanthropy was based. From an
early age he had lost all belief in the prevailing forms of
religion, and had thought out a creed for himself, which
he considered an entirely new and original discovery. The
chief points in this philosophy were that man's character
is made not by him but for him ; that it has been formed
by circumstances over which he had no control ; that he
is not a proper subject either of praise or blame, — these
principles leading up to the practical conclusion that the
great secret in the right formation of man's character is to
place him under the proper influences — physical, moral, and
social — from his earliest years. These principles — of the
irresponsibility of man and of the effect of early influences —
are the keynote of Owen's whole system of education and
social amelioration. As we have said, they are embodied
in his first work, A New View of Society, or Essays on
the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character,
the first of these essays (there are four in all) being
published in 1813. It is needless to say that Owen's new
views theoretically belong to a very old system of
philosophy, and that his originality is to be found only
in his benevolent application of them. For the next few
years Owen's work at New Lanark continued to have a
national and even a European significance. His schemes
for the education of his workpeople attained to something
like completion on the opening of the institution at New
Lanark in 1816. He was a zealous supporter of the
factory legislation resulting in the Act of 1819, which,
however, greatly disappointed him. He had interviews
and communications with the leading members of Govern
ment, including the premier, Lord Liverpool, and with
many of the rulers and leading statesmen of the Continent.
New Lanark itself became a much-frequented place of
pilgrimage for social reformers, statesmen, and royal
personages, including Nicholas, afterwards emperor of
Kussia. According to the unanimous testimony of all who
visited it, the results achieved by Owen were singularly
good. The manners of the children, brought up under
his system, were beautifully graceful, genial, and uncon
strained ; health, plenty, and contentment prevailed ;
drunkenness was almost unknown, and illegitimacy was
extremely rare. The most perfect good feeling subsisted
between Owen and his workpeople, and all the operations
of the mill proceeded with the utmost smoothness and regu
larity; and the business was a great commercial success.
Hitherto Owen's work had been that of a philanthropist,
whose great distinction was the originality and unwearying
unselfishness of his methods. His first departure in
socialism took place in 1817, and was embodied in a report
communicated to the Committee of the House of Commons
on the Poor Law. The general misery and stagnation of
• trade consequent on the termination of the great war was
! engrossing the attention of the country. After clearly
tracing the special causes connected with the war which
had led to such a deplorable state of things, Owen pointed
out that the permanent cause of distress was to be found
in the competition of human labour with machinery, and
that the only effective remedy was the united action of
men, and the subordination of machinery. His proposals
for the treatment of pauperism were based on these
principles. He recommended that communities of about
twelve hundred persons each should be settled on quanti
ties of land of from 1000 to 1500 acres, all living in one
large building in the form of a square, with public kitchen
and mess-rooms. Each family should have its own private
apartments, and the entire care of the children till the
' age of three, after which they should be brought up by the
\ community, their parents having access to them at meaJs
' and all other proper times. These communities might be
! established by individuals, by parishes, by counties, or by
I the state; in every case there should be effective supervision
j by duly qualified persons. Work, and the enjoyment of its
results, should be in common. The size of his community
was no doubt partly suggested by his village of New
Lanark; and he soon proceeded to advocate such a scheme
| as the best form for the reorganization of society in general.
In its fully developed form — and it cannot be said to have
() \V E — O W I
changed much during Owen's lifetime — it was as follows.
He considered an association of from 500 to 3000 as the
fit number for a good working community. While mainly
agricultural, it should possess all the best machinery,
should offer every variety of employment, and should, as
far as possible, be self-contained. " As these townships,''
as he also called them, "should increase in number, unions
of them federatively united shall be formed in circles of
tens, hundreds, and thousands," till they should embrace
the whole world in a common interest.
His plans for the cure of pauperism were received
with great favour. The Times and The Morning Post
and many of the leading men of the country countenanced
them ; one of his most steadfast friends was the duke of
Kent, father of Queen Victoria. He had indeed gained
the ear of the country, and had the prospect before him
of a great career as a social reformer, when he went out
of his way at a large meeting in London to declare his
hostility to all the received forms of religion. After this
defiance to the religious sentiment of the country, Owen's
theories were in the popular mind associated with infi
delity, and were henceforward suspected and discredited.
Owen's own confidence, however, remained unshaken ;
and he was anxious that his scheme for establishing a
community should be tested. At last, in 1825, such an
experiment was attempted under the direction of his
disciple, Abram Combe, at Orbiston near Glasgow; and in
the same year Owen himself commenced another at New
Harmony in Indiana, America. After a trial of about
two years both failed completely. Neither of them was a
pauper experiment ; but it must be said that the members
were of the most motley description, many worthy people
of the highest aims being mixed with vagrants, adventurers,
and crotchety, wrong-headed enthusiasts. After a long
period of friction with William Allen and some of his other
partners, Owen resigned all connexion with New Lanark
in 1828. On his return from America he made London
the centre of his activity. Most of his means having been
sunk in the New Harmony experiment, he was no longer
a- flourishing capitalist, but the, head of a vigorous pro
paganda, in which socialism and secularism were combined.
One of the most interesting features of the movement at
this period was the establishment in 1832 of an equitable
labour exchange system, in which exchange was effected
by means of labour notes, the usual means of exchange
and the usual middlemen being alike superseded. The
word " socialism " first became current in the discussions
of the Association of all Classes of all Nations, formed by
Owen in 1835. During these years also his secularistic
teaching gained such influence among the working classes
us to give occasion for the statement in the Westminster
Review (1839) that his principles were the actual creed
of a great portion of them. His views on marriage, which
were certainly lax, gave just ground for offence. At this
period some more communistic experiments were made,
of which the most important were that at Ralahine, in
the county of Clare, Ireland, and that at Tytherly in
Hampshire. It is admitted that the former (1831) was
a remarkable success for three and a half years, till the
proprietor, having ruined himself by gambling, was obliged
to sell out. Tytherly, begun in 1839, was an absolute
failure. By 1846 the only permanent result of Owen's
agitation, so zealously carried on by public meetings,
pamphlets, periodicals, and occasional treatises, was the
co-operative movement, and for the time even that seemed
to have utterly collapsed. In his later years Owen
became a firm believer in spiritualism. He died at his
native town at the age of eighty-seven.
The exposition and criticism of Owen's socialism and of his
socialistic experiments belong to the general subject (see SOCIAL
ISM). Robert Owen was essentially a pioneer, whose work and
influence it would be unjust to measure by their tangible results.
Apart from his socialistic theories, it should, nevertheless, be
remembered that he was one of the foremost and most energetic
promoters of many movements of acknowledged and enduring
usefulness, lie was the founder of infant schools in England; he
was the first to introduce reasonably short hours into factory
labour, and zealously promoted factory legislation — one of the
most needed and most beneficial reforms of the century ; and he
was the real founder of the co-operative movement. In general
education, in sanitary reform, and in his sound and humanitarian
views of common life, he was far in advance of his time. Still
he had many serious faults; all that was quixotic, crude, and
superficial in his views became more prominent in his later years ;
and by the extravagance of his advocacy of them he did vital
injury to the cause he had at heart. In his personal character
he was without reproach — frank, benevolent, and straightforward
to a fault ; and he pursued the altruistic schemes in which In-
spent all his means with more earnestness than most men devote
to the accumulation of a fortune.
Of R. Owen's numerous works in exposition of liis system, the most importmit
are the New View of Society, already mentioned; the Report communicated to
the Committee on the Poor Law; the Boot of the Xew iforal World', and
Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race. See Life of Robert
Oicen written by himself, London, 1857, and Threading my Way, Twenty-seven Years
of Autobiography by hobeit Dale Owen, his son, London, 1874. There are nlso
Lieu of Owen by A. J. Booth (London, 18C9) and by W. L. Sargant (London,
1860). For woiks of a more general character see G. J. Holyoake, History of
Co-operation in England, London, 1875; Keybaud, Etudes sur les reformatetirs
modernes, Paris, 1856; Adolf Held, Zicei Bucher zur socialen Geschichte England*,
Leipsic, 1881. (T. K.)
OWENSBOROUGH, a city of the United States,
capital of Daviess county, Kentucky, on the Ohio, 1GO
miles below Louisville. It engages extensively in the
manufacture of whisky and the curing of tobacco, and has
waggon factories, flour mills, and foundries. The popula
tion, 6231 in 1880, exceeded 11,000 in 1883.
OWL, the Anglo Saxon Vie, Swedish Uggla, and German
Eule — all allied to the Latin Ululay and evidently of imita
tive origin — the general English name for every nocturnal
Bird-of-prey,1 of which group nearly two hundred species
have been recognized. The Owls form a very natural assem
blage, and one about the limits of which no doubt has for a
long while existed. Placed by nearly all systematists for
many years as a Family of the Order Acdpitres (or what
ever may have been the equivalent term used by the
particular taxonomers), there has been of late a disposition
to regard them as forming a group of higher rank. On
many accounts it is plain that they differ from the ordinary
diurnal Birds-of-prey, more than the latter do among
themselves ; and, though in some respects Owls have a
superficial likeness to the GOATSUCKERS (vol. x. p. 711),
and a resemblance more deeply seated to the GUACHARO
(vol. xi. p. 227), even the last has not been made out to
have any strong affinity to them. A good deal is therefore
to be said for the opinion which would regard the Owls as
forming an independent Order, or at any rate Sub-order,
Striyes. Whatever be the position assigned to the group,
its subdivision has always been a fruitful matter of discus
sion, owing to the great resemblance obtaining among all
its members, and the existence of safe characters for its
division has only lately been at all generally recognized.
By the older naturalists, it is true, Owls were divided, as
was first done by Willughby, into two sections— one in
which all the species exhibit tufts of feathers on the head,
the so-called " ears " or "horns," and the second in which
the head is not tufted. The artificial and therefore
untrustworthy nature of this distinction was shewn by
Isidore Geoffroy St-Hilaire (Ann. Sc. Naturdles, xxi. pp.
194-203) in 1830; but he did not do much good in the
1 The poverty of the English language — generally so rich in
.synonyms— is here very remarkable. Though four well-known if not
common species of Owls are native to Britain, to say nothing of half
a dozen others which occur with greater or less frequency, none of
them has ever acquired an absolutely individual name, and various
prefixes have to be used to distinguish them. In Greece and Italy,
Germany and France, almost each indigenous species has had its own
particular designation in the vulgar tongue. The English Owlet or
Howlet is of course a simple diminutive only.
O W L
arrangement of the Owls which he then proposed ; and it
was hardly until the publication ten years later of Nitzsch's
Pterylographie that rational grounds on which to base a
division of the Owls were adduced. It then became
manifest that two very distinct types of pterylosis existed
in the group, and further it appeared that certain differ
ences, already partly shewn by Berthold (lieitr. zur
Anatomie, pp. 166, 167), of sternal structure coincided
with the pterylological distinctions. By degrees other
significant differences were pointed out, till, as summed
up by Prof. Alphonse Milne-Edwards (Ois. foss. de la
France, ii. pp. 474-492), there could no longer be any
doubt that the bird known in England as the Screech-Owl
or Barn-Owl, with its allies, formed a section which should
be most justifiably separated from all the others of the
group then known. Space is here wanting to state
particularly the pterylological distinctions which will be
found described at length in Nitzsch's classical work
(English translation, pp. 70, 71), and even the chief osteo-
logical distinctions must be only briefly mentioned. These
consist in the Screech-Owl section wanting any manubrial
process in front of the sternum, which has its broad keel
joined to the clavicles united as a furcula, while posteriorly
it presents an unbroken outline. In the other section,
of which the bird known in England as the Tawny or
Brown Owl is the type, there is a manubrial process; the
furcula, far from being joined to the keel of the sternum,
often consists but of two stylets which do not even meet
one another; and the posterior margin of the sternum pre
sents two pairs of projections, one pair on each side, with
corresponding fissures between them. Furthermore the
Owls of the same section shew another peculiarity in
the bone usually called the tarsus. This is a bony ring
or loop bridging the channel in which lies the common
extensor tendon of the toes — which does not appear in the
Screech-Owl section any more than in the majority of
birds. The subsequent examination by M. Milne-Edwards
(Souv. Arch, du Museum, ser. 2, i. pp. 185-200) of the
skeleton of an Owl known as Fhodilus (more correctly
Photodilus) badius, hitherto attached to the Screech-Owl
section, shews that, though in most of its osteological
characters it must be referred to the Tawny Owl section,
in several of the particulars mentioned above it resembles
the Screech-Owls, and therefore we are bound to deem
it a connecting link between them. The pterylological
characters of Photodilus seem not to have been investigated,
but it is found to want the singular bony tarsal loop, as
well as the manubrial process, while its clavicles are not
united into a furcula and do not meet the keel, and the
posterior margin of the sternum has processes and fissures
like those of the Tawny Owl section. Photodilus having
thus to be removed from the Screech-Owl section, Prof.
Milne-Edwards has been able to replace it by a new form
JIdiod'dus from Madagascar, described at length by him
in M. Grandidier's great work on the natural history of
that island (Oiseaux, i. pp. 113-118). The unexpected
results thus obtained preach caution in regard to the
classification of other Owls, and add to the misgivings
that every honest ornithologist must feel as to former
attempts to methodize the whole group — misgivings that
had already arisen from the great diversity of opinion
displayed by previous classifiers, no two of whom seem
able to agree. Moreover, the difficulties which beset the
study of the Owls are not limited to their respective
relations, but extend to their scientific terminology, which
lias long been in a state so bewildering that nothing but
the strictest adherence to the very letter of the laws of
nomenclature, which are approved in principle by all but
an insignificant number of naturalists, can clear up the
confusion into which the matter has been thrown by heed
less or ignorant writers — some of those who are in general
most careful to avoid error being not wholly free from
blame in this respect.
A few words are therefore here needed on this most
unprofitable subject.1 Under the generic term Strix
Linnaeus placed all the Owls known to him ; but Brisson
most justifiably divided that genus, and in so doing fixed
upon the S. stridula — the aforesaid Tawny Owl— as its
type, while under the name of Asia he established a second
genus, of which his contemporary's S. otus, afterwards to
be mentioned, is the type. Some years later Savigny,
who had very peculiar notions on nomenclature, disregard
ing the act of Brisson, chose to regard the Linnsean 8.
flammea — the Screech-Owl before spoken of — as the type
of the genus Strix, which genus he further dissevered, and
his example was largely followed until Fleming gave to
the Screech-Owl the generic name of Aluco,2 by which it
had been known for more than three hundred years, and
reserved Strix for the Tawny Owl. He thus anticipated
Nitzsch, whose editor was probably unacquainted with
this fact when he allowed the name Hyhris to be conferred
on the Screech-Owl. No doubt inconvenience is caused
by changing any general practice ; but, as will have been
seen, the practice was not universal, and such inconveni
ence as may arise is not chargeable on those who abide by
the law, as it is intended in this article to do. The reader
is therefore warned that the word Strix will be here used
in what is believed to be the legitimate way, for the genus
containing the Strix stridula of Linnaeus, while Aluco is
retained for that including the S. flammea of the same
naturalist.
Except the two main divisions already mentioned, any
further arrangement of the Owls must at present be
deemed tentative, for the ordinary external characters, to
which most systematists trust, are useless if not mislead
ing.3 Several systematizers have tried to draw characters
from the orifice of the ear, and the parts about it ; but
| hitherto these have not been sufficiently studied to make the
attempts very successful. If it be true that the predomin
ant organ in any group of animals furnishes for that group
the best distinctive characters, we may have some hope of
future attempts in this direction,4 for we know that few
birds have the sense of hearing so highly developed as the
Owls, and also that the external ear varies considerably in
form in several of the genera which have been examined.
Thus in Surnia, the Hawk-Owl, and in Nyctea, the Snowy
Owl, the external ear is simple in form, and, though pro
portionally larger than in most birds, it possesses no very
remarkable peculiarities, — a fact which may be correlated
with the diurnal habits of these Owls — natives of the far
north, where the summer is a season of constant daylight,
and to effect the capture of prey the eyes are perhaps more
employed than the ears.5 In Bubo, the Eagle-Owl, though
1 It has been dealt with at greater length in The Ibis for 1876
(pp. 94-105).
2 The word seems to have been the invention of Gaza, the trans
lator of Aristotle, in 1503, and is the Latinized form of the Italian
A llocco.
3 It is very much to be regretted that a very interesting form of
Owl, Sceloglaux albifacies, peculiar to New Zealand, should be rapidly
becoming extinct, without any effort, so far as is known, being made
to ascertain its affinities. It would seem to belong to the Strigine
section, and is remarkable for its very massive clavicles, that unite by
a kind of false joint, which in some examples may possibly be wholly
ancylosed, in the median line.
4 This hope is strengthened by the very praiseworthy essay on the
Owls of Norway by Herr Collett in the Forhandlinger of Ohristiania
for 1881.
5 But this hypothesis must not be too strongly urged; for in
Carine, a more southern form of nocturnal (or at least crepuscular)
habits, the external ear is perhaps even more normal. Of course by
the ear the real organ of hearing is here meant, not the tuft ol
feathers often so called in speaking of Owls.
XVIIT. — 12
0 W L
certainly more nocturnal in habit, the external ear, how
ever, has no very remarkable development of conch, which
may perhaps be accounted for by the ordinary prey of the
bird being the larger rodents, that from their size are more
readily seen, and hence the growth of the bird's auditory
organs has not been much stimulated. In Strix (as the
name is here used), a form depending greatly on its sense
of hearing for the capture of its prey, the ear-conch is
much enlarged, and it has, moreover, an elevated flap or
operculum. In Asia, containing the Long-eared and
Short-eared Owls of Europe, Asia, and America, the conch
is enormously exaggerated, extending in a semicircular
direction from the base of the lower mandible to above
the middle of the eye, and is furnished in its whole length
with an operculum.1 But what is more extraordinary in
this genus is that the entrance to the ear is asymmetrical —
the orifice on one side opening downwards and on the
other upwards. This curious adaptation is carried still
further in the genus Nyctala, containing two or three
small species of the Northern hemisphere, in which the
asymmetry that in Asia is only skin-deep extends, in a
manner very surprising, to several of the bones of the
head, as may be seen in the Zoological Society's Proceed
ings (1871, pp. 739-743), and in the large series of figures
given by Messrs Baird, Brewer and Kidgway (N. Am.
Birds, iii. pp. 97-102).
Among Owls are found birds which vary in length
from 5 inches — as Glaucidium cobanense, which is therefore
much smaller than a Skylark — to more than 2 feet, a size
that is attained by many species. Their plumage, none of
the feathers of which possesses an aftershaft, is of the
softest kind, rendering their flight almost noiseless. But
one of the most characteristic features of this whole group
is the ruff, consisting of several rows of small and much-
curved feathers with stiff shafts — originating from a fold
of the skin, which begins on each side of the base of the
beak, runs above the eyes, and passing downwards round
and behind the ears turns forward, and ends at the chin —
and serving to support the longer feathers of the " disk "
or space immediately around the eyes, which extend over
it. A considerable number of species of Owls, belonging
to various genera, and natives of countries most widely
separated, are remarkable for exhibiting two phases of
coloration — one in which the prevalent browns have a more
or less rusty-red tinge, and the other in which they incline
to grey. Another characteristic of nearly all Owls is the
reversible property of their outer toes, which are not
unfrequently turned at the bird's pleasure quite back
wards. Many forms have the legs and toes thickly clothed
to the very claws ; others have the toes, and even the
tarsi, bare, or only sparsely beset by bristles. Among
the bare-legged Owls those of the Indian Ketupa are con
spicuous, and this feature is usually correlated with their
fish-catching habits ; but certainly other Owls that are not
known to catch fish present much the same character.
Among the multitude of Owls there is only room here to make
further mention of a few of the more interesting. First must be
noticed the Tawny Owl — the Strix stridula of Linnseus, the type, as
has been above said, of the whole group, and especially of the Strigine
section as here understood. This is the Syrnium aluco of some
authors, the Chat-hudht of the French, the species whose tremulous
hooting "tu-whit, to- who," has been celebrated by Shakespear,
and, as well as the plaintive call, "keewick," of the young after
leaving the nest, will be familiar sounds to many readers, for the
bird is very generally distributed throughout most parts of Europe,
extending its range through Asia Minor to Palestine, and also to
Barb:;ry — but not belonging to the Ethiopian Region or to the
eastern half of the Pala'arctic. It is the largest of the species
indigenous to Britain, and is strictly a woodland bird, only occa
sionally choosing any other place for its nest than a hollow tree.
Its food consists almost entirely of small mammals, chieliy rodents ;
1 Figures of these different forms are given by Macgillivray (Brit.
Uirdf, iii. pp. 396, 403, and 427).
but, though on this account most deserving of protection from all
classes, it is subject to the stupid persecution of the ignorant, and
is rapidly declining in numbers.2 Its nearest allies in North
America are the S. nebulosa, with some kindred forms, one of which,
the S. occidentalis of California and Arizona, is figured below ; but
none of them seem to have the " merry note " that is uttered by the
FIG. 1. — Strix occidentalis.
European species. Common to the most northerly forest-tracts of
both continents (for, though a slight difference of coloration is
observable between American examples and those from the Old
World, it is impossible to consider it specific) is the much larger
S. cinerea or S. lapponica, whose iron-grey plumage, delicately
mottled with dark brown, and the concentric circles of its facial
disks make it one of the most remarkable of the group. Then
may be noticed the genus Bubo — containing several species which
from their size arc usually known as Eagle-Owls. Here the
Nearetic and Palrearctic forms are sufficiently distinct — the latter,
B. ignavus,3 the Due or Grand Due of the French, ranging over
the whole of Europe and Asia north of the Himalayas, while the
former, B. virginianus, extends over the whole of North America.
A contrast to the generally sombre colour of these birds is shown
bv the Snowy Owl, Nyctca scandiaca, a circumpolar species, and
the only one of its genus, which disdains the shelter of forests and
braves the most rigorous arctic climate, though compelled to
migrate southward in winter when no sustenance is left for it.
Its large size and white plumage, more or less mottled with black,
distinguish this from every other Owl. Then may be mentioned
the birds commonly known in English as "Horned" 0\\ls — the
Hibous of the French, belonging to the genus Asia. One, A. otus
(the Otus Tulgaris of some authors), inhabits woods, and, distin
guished by its long tufts, usually borne erected, would seem to be
common to both America and Europe — though experts profess
their ability to distinguish between examples from each country.
Another speciee, A. accipitrinus (the Otus brachyotus of many
authors), has much shorter tufts on its head, and they are frequently
carried depressed so as to escape observation. This is the ' Wood
cock-Owl of English sportsmen, for, though a good many are bred
in Great Britain, the majority arrive in autumn from Scandinavia,
just about the time that the immigration of Woodcocks occurs.
This species frequents heaths, moors, and the open country gene
rally, to the exclusion of woods, and has an enormous geographical
range, including not only all Europe, North Africa, and northern
Asia, but the whole of America, — reaching also to the Falklands,
the Galapagos, and the Sandwich Islands,— -for the attempt to
2 All Owls have the habit of casting up the indigestible parts of
the food swallowed in the form of pellets, which may often be found
in abundance under the Owl-roost, and reveal without any manner of
doubt what the prey of the birds has been. The result in nearly
every case shows the enormous service they render to man iu destroy
ing rats and mice. Details of many observations to this effect aie
recorded in the Bericht ilber die XIV. Versammlung der Deutschen
Ornitholoyen-Gesdlschaft (pp. 30-34).
3 This species bears confinement very well, ai d propagates freely
therein. To it belong the historic Owls of Aruudel Castle.
O X — O X A
91
separate specifically examples from those localities only shews that
they possess more or less well-defined local races. Commonly
placed near Asia, but whether really akin to it cannot be stated, is
the genus Scops, of which nearly forty species, coming from
different parts of the world, have been described ; but this number
should probably be reduced by one half. The type of the genus,
S. giu, the Petit Due of the French, is a well-known bird in the
south of Europe, about as big as a Thrush, with very delicately
pencilled plumage, occasionally visiting Britain, emigrating in
autumn across the Mediterranean, and ranging very far to the
eastward. Further southward, both in Asia and Africa, it is
represented by other species of very similar size, and in the eastern
part of North America by S. asio, of which there is a tolerably
distinct western form, S. kennicotti, besides several local races. /&'.
asio is one of the Owls that especially exhibits the dimorphism of
coloration above mentioned, and it was long before the true state
of the case was understood. At first the two forms were thought
to be distinct, and then for some time the belief obtained that the
ruddy birds were the young of the greyer form which was called
S. n&via ; but now the " Red Owl " and the "Mottled Owl " of the
older American ornithologists are known to be one species.1 One
of the most remarkable of American Owls is Speotyto cunicularia,
the bird that in the northern part of the continent inhabits the
burrows of the prairie dog, and in the southern those of the
biscacha, where the latter occurs — making holes for itself, says
Darwin, where that is not the case, — rattlesnakes being often also
joint tenants of the same abodes. The odd association of these
animals, interesting as it is, cannot here be more than noticed, for
a few words must be said, ere we leave the Owls of this section, on
the species which has associations of a very different kind — the
bird of Pallas Athene, the emblem of the city to which science and
art were so welcome. There can be no doubt, from the many
representations on coins and sculptures, as to their subject being
the C'arine noctua of modern ornithologists, but those who know
the grotesque actions and ludicrous expression of this veritable
buffoon of birds can never cease to wonder at its having been
seriously selected as the symbol of learning, and can hardly divest
themselves of a suspicion that the choice must have been made in
the spirit of sarcasm. This Little Owl (for that is its only name
— though it is not even the smallest that appears in England), the
Chevcche of the French, is spread throughout the greater part of
Europe, but it is not a native of Britain. It has a congener in
C. brama, a bird well known to all residents in India.
Finally, we have Owls of the second section, those allied to the
Screech-Owl, Aluco flammcus, the Effraie* of the French. This,
FIG. 2. — Aluco fo.immeus.
with its discordant scream, its snoring, and its hissing, is far too
well known to need desciiption, for it is one of the most widely-
spread of birds, and is the Owl that has the greatest geographical
range, inhabitirg almost every country in the world, — Sweden and
Norway, America north of lat. 45°, and New Zealand being the
principal exceptions. It varies, however, not inconsiderably, both
in size and intensity of colour, and several ornithologists have tried
1 See the remarks of Mr Ridgway in the work before quoted
(B. N. America, iii. pp. 9, 10), where also response is made to the
observations of Mr Allen in the Harvard Bulletin (ii. pp. 338, 339).
2 Through the dialectic forms Fresaie and Presaie, the origin of the
word is easily traced to the Latin prassaya—a. bird of bad omen ; but
it has also been confounded with Orfraie, a name of the OSPREY (vide
supra, p. 56).
to found on these variations more than half a dozen distinct species.
Some, if not most of them, seem, however, hardly worthy to bo
considered geographical races, for their differences do not always
depend on locality. Mr Sbarpe, with much labour and in great
detail, has given his reasons (Cat. B. Brit. Museum, ii. pp.
291-309; and Ornith. Miscellany, i. pp. 269-298; ii. pp. 1-21)
for acknowledging four "subspecies" of A. flammeus, as well as
five other species. Of these last, A. tcncbricosus is peculiar to
Australia, while A. novse-hollandias inhabits also New Guinea, and
has a "subspecies," A. castatKqjs, found only in Tasmania; a third,
A. candidus, has a wide range from Fiji and northern Australia
through the Philippines and Formosa to China, Burmah, and
India ; a fourth, A. ca2)ensis, is peculiar to South Africa ; while
A. thomensis is said to be confined to the African island of St
Thomas. To these may perhaps have to be added a species from
New Britain, described by Count Salvadori as Strix aurantia, but
it may possibly prove on further investigation not to be an Alucine
Owl at all. (A. N. )
OX. See CATTLE.
OXALIC ACID, an organic acid of the formula
(COOH)2, which, in a general scientific sense, excites our
interest chiefly by its almost universal diffusion throughout
the vegetable kingdom. Traces of oxalates are contained
in the juices of, probably, all plants at certain stages of
their growth ; but so are lime-salts, which, in solutions,
can coexist with the former only in the presence of free
acid. Hence the frequent occurrence in plant-cells of
those crystals of oxalates of lime with which all micro-
scopists are familiar. In certain algas, if they grow on cal
careous soils, this salt, according to Bracannot, may form
as much as one-half of the total dry solids. Of phanero
gamic tissues, the roots of the officinal kinds of rhubarb
may be named as being peculiarly rich in oxalate of lime-
crystals. It is perhaps as well to add that the juicy
stems of the garden rhubarb, although not free of oxalic,
owe their sourness chiefly to malic acid. The strongly
sour juices of certain species of Rumexondi. Acetosella, on the
other hand, are exceptionally rich in acid oxalates. The
juice of Oxalis Acetosella, when concentrated by evapora
tion, deposits on cooling a large crop of crystals of bin-
oxalate of potash. This salt, as an educt from the plant
juice named, has been known for some three centuries as
" sal acetosellae " or " salt of sorrel." Oxalic acid and all
soluble oxalates are dangerous poisons, which almost
implies that they cannot occur, under normal conditions,
in the juices of the higher animals. Yet human urine
always contains traces of oxalate of lime, which, when the
urine is or becomes alkaline, forms on standing a micro-
crystalline deposit. In certain diseased conditions of the
system the oxalate is formed more largely, and may be
deposited within the bladder in crystals or even develop
into calculi.
The discovery of oxalic acid must be credited to Scheele,
who obtained it in 1776 by the oxidation of sugar with
nitric acid, and called it saccharic acid. In 1784 he
proved its identity with the acid of sal acetosellae. Our
knowledge of the elementary composition of oxalic acid is
the result of the independent labours of Berzelius, Dobe-
reiner, and Dulong (1814-21).
Its artificial synthesis can be effected in various ways.
Thus, for instance, (1) cyanogen, when dissolved in
aqueous hydrochloric acid, gradually assimilates 4H90 per
N.,C0 and becomes oxalate of ammonia, C204(NH4)2
(Liebig). Or (2) moist carbonic acid is reduced by potassium
to formic acid, CO., + H.,O - 0 = CH.,O<>, which, of course,
assumes the form of potash salt (Kolbe). This latter, when
heated beyond its fusing point, breaks up into oxalate and
hydrogen, 2CHKO2 = H2 + C,O4K2 (Erlenmeyer). At 350°
dry CO2 and sodium unite into oxalate C2O4Na.> (Drechsel).
Sugar, starch, and many other organic bodies of the
" fatty " series, when boiled with nitric acid, yield oxalic
acid as a penultimate product of oxidation In this
manner oxalic acid used to be produced, industrially, from
O X E — O X E
starch or molasses ; but this method, though not by any
means obsolete, is almost superseded by a new process
which we owe to Mr Dale of Manchester.
Mr Dale's process is founded upon the old observation
of Gay-Lussac's that cellulose, by fusion with caustic
potash, is oxidized into oxalate with evolution of (impure)
hydrogen. In Mr Dale's works (at Warrington) sawdust
and wood-shavings do service as cellulose, while a mixed
caustic alkali lye of 1'3-i to 1*35 specific gravity, containing
IK HO for every SNaHO, serves as a reagent. Unmixed
caustic soda gives no or little oxalate. The wood -shavings
are soaked in a quantity of lye equal to 30 to 40 per cent,
of their weight of dry alkali, and the mixture is evaporated
down on iron plates at about 200° C. with constant agita
tion, until it is converted into a homogeneous brown mass
completely soluble in water. This mass (which is as yet
very poor in oxalate) is then dried up fully at a somewhat
lower temperature, and thus converted into a crude oxalate
equivalent to 28 to 30 per cent, of its weight of oxalic-
acid crystals. Messrs Roberts, Dale, & Co. have come,
latterly, to substitute for the iron plates an iron pipe
passing slantingly through a heated chamber and provided
inside with a revolving screw, which draws in the mixture
of wood and alkali below, and conveys it along at such a
rate that it comes out above as finished product. The
crude oxalate is lixiviated with cold water, when the bulk
of the oxalic acid remains as soda salt, while the rest of
the alkali passes into solution as, substantially, carbonate.
The oxalate, after having been washed with the least suffi
cient quantity of water, is boiled with a dilute milk of
lime and thus converted into a precipitate of oxalate of
lime, while caustic soda passes in to solution, which is added
to the liquors produced in the separation of the oxalate of ]
soda from the surplus alkali. The oxalate of lime is j
washed and then decomposed by boiling it with three times i
the calculated amount of dilute sulphuric acid, the sulphate I
of lime filtered off, and the solution evaporated to crystal
lization. The yield as oxalic acid crystals amounts to 50
to 60 per cent, of the weight of the wood-shavings. The
united alkali-liquors are causticized with lime, and thus
(apart from the unavoidable losses) the originally employed
caustic alkali is recovered in its entirety.
Commercial (oxalic) acid is contaminated chiefly with
sulphuric acid and alkali, of which the latter cannot be
removed by recrystallization from water, but, according to
•Stolba, easily and exhaustively by recrystallization from
10 to 15 per cent, hydrochloric acid.
Crystallized oxalic acid forms colourless needles of tlie composi
tion C204H2 + 2HZ0. It melts at 98° C., and when kept at about this
temperature readily loses its crystal -water, but at 110° the dry
acid C204H2 already begins to volatilize. The latter sublimes
most readily at 165° C. , without previous fusion, in needles. At
higher temperatures it breaks up, more or less completely, into C02 +
formic acid, CH202(or CO-f II20). The crystallized acid dissolves
in 10 '5 parts of water of 14° '5, also in alcohol. The solution
readily neutralizes basic hydrates and carbonates ; in the case of
the alkalies and alkaline earths, the point of neutrality to litmus
corresponds to the normal salt, i.e., to the ratio CO21I : HHO,
where R=K, Na, (NH4), ^Ba, &c. The normal salt C02R com
bines with 1C02H into" binoxalate, " and, in the case of 11 = K or
NH4, also witli 3C02H into " quadroxalate." Alkaline oxalates
are soluble in water— the soda aiid ammonia salts rather sparingly;
of the rest of oxalates, as far as they are normal salts, the majority
are insoluble or difficultly soluble in water, and therefore most con
veniently produced, by double decomposition, as precipitates.
Potash Salts. — The normal salt, C204K2 -f H20, is soluble in 3 parts
of water of 16° C. The binoxalate (salt of sorrel) is generally an
hydrous, but occasionally Ca04KH + ,jH,,0, the latter soluble in
26 '2 parts of water of 8° C. The elsewhere extinct industry of
manufacturing this salt from sorrel-juice survives in the Black
Forest. It is used habitually for removing ink and rust-stains from
linen, though oxalic ;ieid is better and cheaper. The quadroxalate,
C404KH + C,04II2 + 2HL,0, soluble in 20 parts of water at 20° C., is
often sold as salt of sorrel.
Soda Salts. — The normal salt, C.,O4Xa.,, gene: ally forms small
imperfect crystals, soluble in 31 -6 parts of water of 13° C. Tim
acid salt, C204NaII + H.,O, is soluble in 67 '6 parts of water at
10° C.
Ammonium Salts. — The normal salt, C204(NH4). + H20, found
native in guano, crystallizes in needles, and is soluble in 237 parts
of water of 15" C. It is much used in the laboratory as a most delicate
precipitant for lime suits. The binoxalate, C.,04(NH4)H + H20,
dissolves in 16 parts of water of ll°'o. There is a quadroxalate,
Other Salts. — The normal lime salt, as obtained by precipitation
of lime salts with alkaline oxalates or oxalic acid, and found in
plant cells, is C,04C'a + 3ILO ; but 2H20 are easily lost below
110° ; the remaining 1ILO is expelled only above 200° C. Ferrous
oxalate, C«O4Fe + 2H20, obtainable by precipitation of ferrous
sulphate with oxalic acid, is a yellow crystalline powder. "When
heated it breaks up into C02 and finely divided metallic iron,
which latter at once burns into red ferric oxide of a state ol
aggregation which fits it pre-eminently for the polishing of optical
glasses. Ferric oxalate dissolves in oxalic acid, the solution, when
exposed to the light, giving off CO., with precipitation of ferrous
oxalate. Draper recommends it for measuring the chemical in
tensity of light.
Industrially oxalic acid chiefly serves the calico printers as a
discharge for certain colours, which, unlike the otherwise equivalent
mineral acids, does not attack the tissue. Minor quantities are
used, as solution, for cleaning metallic surfaces. It has been
recommended for the metallurgic precipitation of NICKEL (q. v.).
Analysis. — Solid metallic oxalates, when heated, are decomposed
without noteworthy elimination of carbon. When heated with
oil of vitriol they give olf the components of the anhydride C203
as carbonic oxide and carbonic acid gases, without blackening.
Oxalate solutions are precipitated by chloride of calcium ; the
precipitate (C204Ca . rH20) is insoluble in water, ammonia,
ammonia salts, and acetic (though soluble in hydrochloric) acid.
Even a mixture of free oxalic acid and gypsum solution deposits
oxalate of lime. Oxalic acid is readily oxidized into carbonic acid
by the conjoint action of dilute sulphuric acid and binoxide of
manganese or permanganate of potash. In the latter case this re
action, even with small quantities, becomes visible by the discharge
of the intensely violet colour of the reagent ; the change, however,
is slow at first; it becomes more and more rapid as the MnSO4
formed increases, and consequently goes on promptly from the
first, if ready made MnS04 be added along with the reagent. The
permanganate test is readily translatable into a titrimetric method
for the determination of oxalic acid in solutions. (\V. I). )
OXENSTIERNA, AXEL, COUNT OF (1583-1654),
Swedish statesman, was born at FaniJ in Upland on the
16th of June 1583. He studied theology at Rostock,
Wittenberg, and Jena; and in 1602, having spent some
time in visiting German courts, he returned to Sweden to
take the oath of allegiance to Charles IX., whose service-
he entered. In 1606 he was sent as ambassador to the
court of Mecklenburg, and in 1609 he became a member
of the Swedish senate. When Gustavus Adolphus
succeeded to the throne, in 1611, Oxenstierna was
appointed chancellor, and in 1613 he was plenipotentiary
in the negotiations for the conclusion of peace between
Sweden and Denmark. In 1614 he went with the king
to Livonia, and helped to bring about the cessation of
hostilities between Sweden and Russia. After the inter
vention of Gustavus in the Thirty Years' War, Oxenstierna
was made governor-general of all the districts in Prussia
which had been overrun by the Swedes ; and, when the
Imperialists were preparing to besiege Stralsund, lie-
negotiated with the duke of Pomerania for the substitution
of Swedish for Danish troops in the town, going subse
quently to Denmark to obtain the sanction of the Danish
king. While Gustavus pushed on to Franconia and
Bavaria, Oxenstierna was entrusted with the supreme
direction of affairs, both political and military, in the
Rhine country, and he took up his headquarters at
Mainz. In 1632, when Gustavus fell at the battle of
Lu'tzen, the responsibility for the maintenance of the
Protestant cause fell chiefly upon Oxenstierna ; and in one
of the greatest crises in the history of the world he
displayed splendid courage, discretion, and resource. At
a congress held in Heilbronn he was appointed director of
the evangelical confederation, and in this capacity he went
VOL. xvm. OXFORD, BUCKINGHAM, & BERKS.
PLATE f.
ENCYCLOPEDIA 8RITANNICA. NINTH COITION
O X F — 0 X F
93
to France and Holland to secure the aid of these countries
against the emperor. On his return he found the Pro
testants in a very desponding mood. The battle of
Nb'rdlingen had been lost ; the allies distrusted one
another ; the troops were dissatisfied and resented any
attempt to subject them to strict discipline. Oxenstierna
laboured indefatigably to restore the confidence of his party,
and to a large extent he succeeded. He then returned, in
1636, to Sweden, where he resigned his exceptional
powers and resumed his place in the senate as chancellor
of the kingdom. He acted also as one of five guardians
of Queen Christina, whom he carefully instructed in
what seemed to him the true methods of administra
tion. Oxenstierna had the reputation of being one of
the wisest statesmen of his age, and during his absence
from his country lie had drawn up the scheme of a system
of government which had been accepted in 1634 by the
Swedish estates. Abroad he upheld vigorously the honour
of Sweden, and at home lie maintained strict economy in
public expenditure, while encouraging, according to the
ideas of his time, the development of industry and the
arts. In 1645, when he went back to Sweden after
taking part in the negotiations with Denmark at
Bro'msebro, he was raised to the rank of count by the
queen. He died on the 28th of August 1654.
See Lundblad, Srensk Plutarch, 1824.
OXFORD, or OXON, an inland county of England,
is bounded N.E. by Northamptonshire, N.W. by Warwick
shire, W. by Gloucestershire, S.S.W. and S.E. by Berks,
and E. by Bucks. In shape it is very irregular, its breadth
varying from about 7 to '27 i- miles, and its greatest length
being about 52 miles. The total area is 483,621 acres, or
about 756 square miles. The character of the scenery
varies greatly in different districts. The Chiltern Hills
cross the south-western extremity of the county from north
east to south-west. On the west side of the ridge Nettle-
bed Hill expands into Nettlebed Common, an extensive
table-land, reaching at some points nearly 700 feet above
sea-level. The Chiltern district is supposed to have been
at one time covered by forest, and there are still many
fine beeches, as well as oak and ash trees, although for
the most part the district is now utilized as a sheep-
walk or as arable land. Camden mentions the woods of
Oxfordshire as a special feature of the county. The forest
of Wychwood extended to 3735 acres of forest proper.
In the district of Staunton St John there are considerable
traces of natural woodland. The most extensive of the
recent plantations is the great belt at Blenheim. Imme
diately to the east of the city of Oxford a range of hills
.stretches between the valleys of the Thames and Cherwell,
the highest point being Shotover Hill, 560 feet. In the
central district the surface is less varied, and along the
rivers there are extensive tracts of flat land, but the finely
cultivated fields and the abundance of wood lend an aspect
of richness to the landscape. The northern part of the
county is flat and bare, its bleakness and monotony being
increased in some districts by the stone fences. Wych
wood has been recently disafforested by statute.
Oxfordshire abounds in streams and watercourses, the
majority of which belong to the basin of the Thames,
which skirts the whole southern border of the county,
forming for the most part of its course the boundary with
Berks. In the earlier part of its course it is called the
Isis. Before reaching the city of Oxford it receives the
Windrush, and the united waters of the Evenlode and
Glyme. It then divides into various channels, but these
soon unite, and the river flowing round the city receives
the united streams of the Cherwell and the Kay, and
passes south-east to Dorchester, where it is joined by the
Thame. From this point it is called the Thames. The
Windrush and Evenlode both flow south-east from
Gloucestershire ; the Cherwell traverses the whole length
of the county south from Northamptonshire ; and the
Thame crosses its south-east corner from Bucks. The
Thames is navigable for small craft to Gloucestershire, and
for vessels of considerable burden to Oxford. The Oxford
Canal, 91 miles long, begun in 1769 and finished in
1790, enters the north-eastern extremity of the county
near Claydon, and following the course of the Cherwell
passes south to the city of Oxford.
Geology. — The low ground in the north-west, along the
vale of Moreton, on the banks of the Cherwell as far as
Steeple Aston, and along the banks of the Evenlode, is
occupied by the blue clays of the Lower Lias, the higher
regions being occupied by the Middle Lias. The Lower Lias
contains beds of hard shelly limestone called Banbury
marble, which is worked into chimneypieces ; and associ
ated with the blue limestone of the Middle Lias there is a
valuable deposit of brown haematite iron which is largely
worked at Adderbury near Banbury, the total quantity
obtained in 1882 being 8614 tons, valued at £1507. At one
time the marlstone was covered by the U/pper Lias clays,
but these are now found only in isolated strips and patches.
Beds of Oolite, called Northampton Sands, rest on the
higher ridges above the Upper Lias, and the Great Oolite
is exposed on both sides of the Evenlode and extensively
quarried for building purposes, the upper beds forming
also a white limestone containing numerous fossils. Forest
marble occupies the greater part of Wychwood Forest,
Blenheim Park, and adjoining regions. A wide extent of
flat uninteresting country in the south-west, stretching as
far east as the city of Oxford, belongs to the Oxford clay.
Coral rag, Kimmeridge clay, and white limestone occur
at different places in the neighbourhood of the Thames.
There are also various outliers of Upper and Lower Green-
sand. At the junction of the Chalk with the Greensand
there is a line of springs which have determined the sites
of numerous villages. Chalk forms the ridges of the Chil
tern Hills, and Upper Chalk with flint extends eastward
a considerable distance beyond them. In the northern
and eastern districts there are large accumulations of drift
along all the old river valleys ; and a considerable breadth
of flat country on the banks of the Thames and Cherwell
is occupied by alluvial deposits. Ochre of remarkably fine
quality is obtained from Shotover Hill.
Climate, Soil, and Agriculture. — The climate is salubrious and
dry, but generally colder than the other southern districts of Eng
land, especially in the bleak and exposed regions of the Chilterns.
Crops are later in the uplands than in more northerly situations at
a lower elevation. Agriculture is in a fairly advanced condition,
but the possibilities of improvement are not by any means ex
hausted, as the soil is on the whole above the average in fertility.
In the northern districts there is a strong yet friable loam, well
adapted for all kinds of crops. The centre of the county is
occupied for the most part by a good friable but not so rich soil,
formed of decomposed sandstone, chalk, and limestone. A large
district in the south-east is occupied by the chalk of the Chiltern
Hills, at one time covered by a forest of beech, but now partly
arable and partly used as sheep-walks. The remainder of the
county is occupied by a variety of miscellaneous soils ranging
from coarse sand to heavy tenacious clay, and occasionally very
fertile.
According to the agricultural returns of 1883, as many as 417,509
acres, or about eight-ninths of the total of the county, were under
cultivation, corn crops occupying 152,437 acres, green crops 52,451,
rotation grasses 44,472, and permanent pasture 153,898. AVheat and
barley, with 51,796 acres and 47,611 acres respectively, occupy the
largest areas among corn crops, and oats and beans come next with
31,771 and 14,389. Potatoes are not much grown, but turnips occupy
as many as 34,618 acres. The most common course of crops on
lighter soils is a four years' rotation, sometimes lengthened to six
years with pease, oats, or similar crops. On heavier soils the course
is first turnips or other roots, second barley or oats, third three or
more years of clover and grass seed, fourth wheat, and finally beans.
Along the smaller streams there are very rich meadows for grazing,
but those on the Thames and Cherwell are subject to floods. On tho
OXFORD
lulls there are extensive sheep pastures. Horses in 1SS3 numbered
1 7,454, of which 13,716 were used solely for purposes of agriculture.
The number of cattle was 50,209, of which 16,914 were cows and
heifers in milk or in calf. The dairy system prevails in many
places, but the milk is manufactured into butter, little cheese being
made. The improved shorthorn is the most common breed, but
Alderney and Devonshire cows are largely kept. Sheep numbered
as many as 270,288, of which 157,243 were one year old and upwards.
Southdowns are kept on the lower grounds, and Leicesters and
Cots wolds on the hills. Pigs in 1883 numbered 44,682, the county
being famous for its "brawn."
According to the latest return, the land was divided among
10,177 proprietors, possessing 452,232 acres, at an annual value of
£1,073,246, an average per acre of about £2, 7s. Of the owners,
6833 possessed less than one acre, and the following 10 upwards of
5000 acres, viz., the duke of Marlborough, 21,945 ; earl of Uucie,
8799; earl ofAbingdon, 8174; M. P. W. Boulton, 7946; Sir H.
W. Dash wood, 7515 ; earl of Jersey, 7043 ; Edward W. Harcourt,
5721 ; earl of Maoclesrield, 5491 ; Viscount Dillon, 5444 ; and Lord
F. G. Churchhill, 5352. Upwards of 30,000 acres were held by
various colleges of Oxford, the largest owner being Christ Church,
4837 acres.
Manufactures. — Blankets are manufactured at "Witney, and
tweeds, girths, and horsecloths at Chipping Norton. There are
paper mills at Hampton-Gay, Shiplake, Sandford-on-Thames, \Vool-
vercot,and Eynsham. Agricultural implements and portable engines
are made at Banbury, and gloves at Woodstock, where the polished
steel work has long ago ceased. A large number of women and
girls are employed in several of the towns and villages in the lace
manufacture.
Railways. — The county is traversed by several branches of the
Great Western, which skirts its borders, and by the East Gloucester
shire and the London and North -Western Railways.
Administration and Population. — Oxfordshire comprises fourteen
hundreds, the municipal boroughs of Banbury (3600) and Chipping
Norton (4167), the greater part of the city of Oxford, of which the
remainder is in Berkshire, and a small portion of the municipal
borough of Abingdon, of which the remainder is also in Berkshire.
It has one court of quarter sessions, and is divided into ten petty
and special sessional divisions. The boroughs of Abingdon and
Banbury and the city of Oxford have commissions of the peace and
separate courts of quarter sessions. For parliamentary purposes the
county is not divided; it returns three members, having previous
to the Reform Act of 1832 returned only two. The borough of
Woodstock returns one member ; and there are parts of four other
boroughs within the county, Oxford city returning two members,
and Abingdon, Banbury, and Wallingford one each. The uni
versity of Oxford also returns two members. The county contains
292 civil parishes, with parts of seven others. It is almost entirely
in the diocese of Oxford. The population in 1801 was 111,977,
which by 1841 had increased to 163,143, by 1851 to 170,439, by
1871 to 177,975, and by 1881 to 179,559. of whom 88,025 were
males and 91,534 females. The average number of persons to an
acre was 0'37, and of acres to a person 2 '69.
History and Antiquities. — At the Roman invasion the district
was inhabited by the Dobuni. To this early British period probably
belong the circle of stones and cromlech near Chipping Norton, the
cromlech called the "Hoarstone" at Enstone, and the scattered
stones called the Devil's Quoits at Stanton-Harcourt. Icknield
Street crossed the centre of the county from Goring in the south
west to Chinnor in the north-east, and joined Watling Street in
Northamptonshire. Akeman Street crossed the county from east to
west, entering it from Bucks at Ambrosden, and passing through
Chesterton, Kirtlington, Blenheim Park, Stonesfield, and Asthall
to Gloucestershire. Between Mongewell and Nuffield there is a
vallum with embankment 2| miles in length called Grimes Dyke
or Devil's Ditch ; and there are remains of another with the same
name between the Glyme and the Evenlode near Ditchley. Traces
still exist of Roman and British camps, and on the east side of the
Cotswolds the square and the round camps lie together in pairs.
Numerous Roman coins have been found at Dorchester, and tes-
selated pavements at Great Tew and Stonesfield. For a long time
Oxford was the resilience of the monarchs of Mercia. Cuthred of
Wessex in 752 disowned the overlordship of Ethelbald of Mercia,
whom he defeated at Burford. From this time a portion of Oxford
shire seems to have been subject to Wessex, but OfFu of Mercia
inflicted in 779 a severe defeat on the West Saxons under Cyne-
wulf, after which Oxfordshire probably became Mercian. The
district of Oxford was frequently the scene of conflict during the
long contests between the Saxons and the Danes, the latter of whom
reduced the city of Oxford four times to ashes, and in the llth
century occupied nearly the whole region. In 1387 the insurgent
nobles defeated the earl of Oxford at Radcot Bridge near Bampton.
In 1469 the farmers and peasa:its of Yorkshire, to the number of
15,000, under the leadership of Robin of Kedesdale, marched to
Banbury, and defeated and captured the earl of Pembroke at Danes
Moor on the borders of Oxford. During the civil wars the county
was frequently entered by the armies both of the Parliament and
the king, the more important incidents being the seizing of Oxford,
Banbury, and Broughton by the Royalists ; the assembling of the
adherents of the king at the city of Oxford in 1644; the capture
of the city by Fairfax in 1646; the surprise of the Parliamentarians
by Rupert at Caversham; their repulse at Chalgrove Field, where
Hampden received his death-wound ; and the defeat of the Royalist
forces by Cromwell at Islip Bridge.
Some portions still remain of the old Norman castle at Oxford ;
there are traces of a moat at Banbury ; of the castle at Bampton,
the seat of Aylmcr de Valence in 1313, there are a chamber and
other fragments ; and Broughton Castle is a good moated house
of various periods. Among old mansions, mention may be made
of Shirburn Castle, Mapledurham House, Chastleton House,
Rousham Park, Crowsley Park, Hardwick House, Shipton Court,
Stonor Park, Stanton-Harcourt Manor House, and Wroxton Abbey.
In regard to Burford Priory, the High Lodge at Blenheim Park, and
the old manor houses of Hoi ton and Minster Lovell, the interest
is chiefly historical. The most interesting churches, in addition to
those in the city of Oxford, are Iffley, Norman, one of the finest
specimens of early ecclesiastical architecture in England ; Thame,
with tombs and brasses ; Bampton, mostly transitional from Early
English and Decorated; Kidlington, Decorated, with a chancel and
tower of earlier date ; Ewelme, Perpendicular ; Adderbury, with a
chancel built by AVilliam of Wykeham ; Bloxham, with spire
said to have been erected by Wolsey ; Burford, Norman and later ;
Chipping Norton, with brasses of the 14th century ; Dor
chester, once an abbey church; Stanton-Ilarcourt, with Early
English chancel ; Witney, Early English and Decorated, with
Norman doorway. Among the religious foundations in addition to
those in the city were a college and hospital at Banbury ; an abbey
of Austin canons at Bicester ; a Cistercian abbey at Bruern ; a
hospital at Burford; an Austin cell at Caversham; an alien priory
at Charlton-on-Otmoor ; a Gilbertine priory at Clattercote ; an
alien priory of Black monks at Coggs ; an Austin priory at Cold
Norton ; a hospital at Crowmarsh ; a priory of Austin canons at
Dorchester; a hospital at Ewelme; a Benedictine abbey at Ey us-
ham ; a priory of Austin nuns at Goring ; a preceptory at Gosford ;
a Benedictine house at Milton ; an alien priory at Minster Lovell ;
an abbey of Austin canons at Osney; a preceptory at Sandford-on-
Thames ; a Cistercian abbey at Thame ; an establishment of the
Mathurins at Tuflield ; a hospital at Woodstock ; and a house of
Austin canons at Wroxton. There was a bishopric at Dorchester
as a West Saxon see from 634 to 705, which was restored towards
the close of the 9th century as a Mercian see. The bishopric was
transferred to Lincoln in 1067, from which Oxfordshire was
separated and erected into a see in 1545. The diocese was enlarged
by the addition of Berks in 1836 and of Bucks in 1846.
See Plot, Natural History of Oxfordshire, 1(577; Walker, Flora of Oxfordshire,
1S33 ; Skelton, Antiquities of Olfordthire, 1823 ; Domesday Hook Facsimile, 18(52 ;
Davenport, Lords Lieutenant and High Sheriffs of Oxford, 18C8; Id., Oxford
shire Annals, 1SC9; Phillips, Geology of Oxford and the Thames Valley, 1871.
OXFORD, the county town of Oxfordshire, a cathedral
city, a municipal and parliamentary borough, and the seat
of a famous university, is situated at a distance of 45 miles
west-north-west from London, in the centre of the south
midland district. It lies for the most part on a low ridge
between the rivers Thames (locally called the Isis) and
Cherwell, immediately above their junction. The soil is
gravel lying over extensive beds of Oxford clay. From
some points of view the city seems to be surrounded with
hills, a line of which runs from Wytham Hill (539 feet)
to Cumnor Hurst (515 feet) and Stonesheath (535 feet)
on the west of the Thames valley, while on the east
Headington Hill approaches still closer, with Shotover
(5GO feet) behind it. The river bed is about 180 feet
above sea-level. Both the Thames and Cherwell valleys
are liable to floods, especially in winter and spring.
University and City Buildings. — The view of the city,
whether from the Abingdon road and Hinksey Hills, or
from the old approach from London by Headington, or
from the top of the Kadcliffe, is a sight not to be for
gotten. The towers and spires, numerous and yet varied
in character, the quadrangles old and new with their
profusion of carved stonework, the absence of large
factories and tall chimneys, the groves and avenues of
trees, the quiet college gardens, the well-watered valleys
and encircling hills — all these combine to make Oxford
the fairest city in England. The first place in importance
as well as grandeur is taken by the buildings of the
university, which will be briefly described in order.
clan. First among the institutions ranks the Bodleian Library
(see LIBRARIES, vol. xiv. p. 519). This noble home of
study consists in the first place of the quadrangle once
known as the " Schools " — containing a Jacobean gateway
tower, erected 1613-18, which exemplifies the so-called five
orders of architecture — and the upper part of an H -shaped
building immediately adjoining. In this older part the
manuscripts and most of the printed books are preserved ;
the fabric of the central part of the H dates from the 15th
century, when it housed the library given by Humphrey,
duke of Gloucester ; while the contents and fittings, even
to the readers' seats, have been hardly altered since the
days of Charles I. The present library, founded by Sir
Thomas Bodley in 1602, has since 1610 had the right to
receive a copy of every book published in the United
Kingdom, and its growth has been accelerated by dona
tions from Selden, Rawlinsan, Malone, Gough, Douce, and
others. The modern books
are contained in the ad
jacent circular building
known as the " Camera
Bodleiana" or "Radcliffe,"
built 1737-49 by James
Gibbs with money left by
Dr Radcliffe to erect and
endow a scientific library.
The Radcliffe Library pro
per was removed in 1861
to the New Museum. The
height of the dome is 140
feet. The Bodleian at pre
sent gives a home to the
Pomfret and Arundel mar
bles, including the famous
Parian Chronicle, to a num
ber of models and pictures,
to the Hope collection of
200,000 engraved por
traits, and in the tower
to the archives of the uni-
iinity versity. The Divinity
3ol. School, immediately be
low the older reading- l
room of the Bodleian, ''|
with its beautiful roof and
pendants of carved Caen
stone, was finished in
1480, and is still the finest
room in Oxford. The
Proscholium, a rare ex
ample of an original am
bulatory, adjoins it on the
east, and the Convocation House on the west. To the
1- north of these is the Sheldonian Theatre, built at the
ian. expense of Archbishop Sheldon from the designs of Sir
Christopher Wren, and opened in 1669. The annual Act
or "Encaenia," a commemoration of benefactors, accom
panied by the recitation of prize compositions and the
conferment of honorary degrees, has almost invariably been
held in this building. It contained also the University
Press from 1669 until, in 1713, the Clarendon Building, a
conspicuous object in Broad Street, was erected to contain
the growing establishment, which was finally moved in 1830
to the present Clarendon Press; the Building is now used
imo- for university offices. The Ashmolean Museum, which also
n- faces Broad Street, is an unpretentious edifice, the first
public museum of curiosities in the kingdom, — founded by
EliasAshmole, and opened in 1683. The nucleus was formed
by the collections of John Tradescant, and not till lately
has the museum been made to serve a scientific purpose.
It contains models, ethnographical collections, English and
Egyptian antiquities, and miscellaneous curiosities. The
last and not the least of this central group of university
buildings is the church of St Mary the Virgin in the High St Mary's,
Street, which derives peculiar interest from its long
connexion with academic history. Here were held the
disputations preparatory to a degree ; here, time out of
mind, the university sermons have been preached ; and the
north-east corner is the ancient seat of the Houses of
Convocation and Congregation. Round it were the earliest
lecture-rooms, and its bell was the signal for the gathering
of the students, as St Martin's for the townsmen. It has
memories too of Wickliffe, of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley,
of Laud, of Newman, and of Pusey. The tower and spire,
of which the height is about 190 feet, date from 1400,
the chancel and nave from the succeeding century. The
design of the porch was the ground of one of the articles
Plan of Oxford
in the impeachment of Laud. Farther down on the south New-
side of the High Street (the curve of which, lined with Schools,
colleges and churches in its course from the centre of
the city at Carfax, leads with beautiful effect to Magdalen
tower and bridge) is an extensive building completed in
1882, known as the New Examination Schools, on the site
of the old Angel Hotel. The architect was Mr T. G.
Jackson, the style Jacobean Gothic. The size and
elaborate decoration of the rooms, which form three sides
of an oblong quadrangle with an entrance hall opening on
the street, well adapt them for the lighter as well as the
graver uses of the xiniversity. Farther on, and close to
the Cherwell, is the Botanic Garden, the first of its kind in Botanic
England, opened in 1683, the design having been supplied Garden,
by Inigo Jones. The study of plants is unfortunately
carried on at a great distance from the home of the other
branches of natural history and science, the New Museum, New
which was built between 1855 and 1860 in the south-west Museum.
0 X F O R I )
All Souls,
Balliol.
corner of the Park. The architects were Deane and
Woodward, and the cost about £150,000. In it are
gathered the numerous scientific collections of the uni
versity, from the time of Tradescant and Ashmole to that
of the munificent donations of Mr Hope. The general
plan is a central hall covered by a glass roof resting on
iron columns. The lecture-rooms and Radcliffe Library
surround this on both floors. The chief adjuncts to this
building are to the south-west a laboratory, an imitation
of the shape of the Glastonbury Kitchen, to the south a
chemical laboratory, and to the north-west the Clarendon
laboratory of physical science. At a short distance to the
east in the Park is the University Observatory (1873),
consisting of two dome-shaped buildings connected by
lecture-rooms (see OBSERVATORY). The Clarendon Press in
Walton Street is probably the best appointed of provincial
establishments. Founded partly with the profits arising
from the copyright of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,
the Press was for long, as we have seen, established in the
Clarendon Building. Of the present classical building,
completed from Robertson's designs in 1830, the chief
part forms a large quadrangle. The south side is entirely
devoted to the printing of Bibles and prayer-books. All
the subsidiary processes of type-founding, stereotyping,
electrotyping, and the like are done at the Press, and the
paper is supplied from the University Mills at Wolvercote.
Printing in Oxford dates from "1468" (1478?), but
ceased after 1486 until 1585, except in 1517, 1518, and
1519. The first university printer was Joseph Barnes, in
1 585. The Press is to a large extent a commercial firm,
in which the university has a preponderating influence, as
well as prior claims in the case of its own works. It is
managed by the partners, and governed by eleven dele
gates. Returning towards the centre of the city by St
Giles's, we pass on the right the Taylor Building, partly
devoted to the university gallery of pictures, Avhich con
tains more than two hundred and seventy sketches and
drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael, besides a Turner col
lection and individual paintings of interest. The rest of the
building is divided between the- Ruskin School of Drawing
and the Taylor Library, which consists chiefly of books in
modern European languages. The plan and architecture
is Grecian, designed by Cockerell, and completed in 1849.
Close by is the Martyrs' Memorial (1841), commemor
ating the burning of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. It
resembles in shape the Eleanor crosses, and is 73 feet in
height ; it was the first work which brought Sir George
Gilbert Scott into notice.
The colleges may now be described, and for convenience
of reference in alphabetical order (see also UNIVERSITIES).
All Souls College (Collegium Omnium Animarum) occupies
a central position, with fronts to Radcliffe Square and the
High Street. The chief points of interest are the magnifi
cent reredos in the chapel, coeval with the college, but
lost sight of since the Reformation until discovered and
restored in 1872-76 ; the Codrington Library, chiefly of
works on jurisprudence; and the turrets (1720) designed by
Flawksmoor. The west front is due to Sir Christopher
Wren. Founded in 1437 by Archbishop Chichele, with
sixteen law fellows'out of a foundation of forty, the college
has always had a legal character which, combined with
an almost entire absence of undergraduates, sufficiently
marks it off from all the others. The name records the
ancient duty of praying for all who fell in the French wars
of the early 15th century. Balliol College, at present the
largest in numbers, is also among the oldest. In 1282
the Lady Dervorgilla, widow of John de Balliol, gave
effect to his wishes by issuing statutes to a body of
students in Oxford who two years later settled on the
present site of the college. The buildings are diverse in I
style and date, the two most striking being the newest,
the chapel built in 1856-57, in modern Gothic, by
Butterfield, and the handsome hall erected by Waterhouse
in 1876. The King's Hall and College of Brasenose erase-
(Collegium Aenei Nasi) is the combined work of William nose.
Smith, bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard Sutton. The
front quadrangle is among the most regular and, taken in
connexion with the Radclitfe and St Mary's church, among
the most picturesque in Oxford, remaining exactly as it
was built at the foundation of the college in 1509, except
that the third story was added, as in several other colleges,
in the time of James I. The library and chapel date
from the Restoration ; the roof of the latter shows some
rich wooden fan-tracery. The name is that of one of the
old halls absorbed into the new foundation, and probably
signifies brew-house (from bracinum, malt, and -house), but
is popularly connected with a brazen knocker above the
gate, said to have been brought from Stamford after
the migration of the university thither in 1334 ; it is,
however, first found in the 13th century. Christ Church Christ
(jEdes Christi), the greatest and most imposing college, Church,
and projected on a still larger scale as Cardinal College by
its first founder, Wolsey, was established by Henry VIII.
in 1525. It is of a peculiar dual character, the cathedral
being wholly within its precincts, and partly used as the
chapel of the house, while the cathedral chapter shares in
the government of the whole society. The dean presides
over both institutions. The lower part of the great gate
way known as Tom Tower is Wolsey's design, the upper
and incongruous part is by Wren ; the large bell,
weighing 7 tons 12 cwts., daily gives the signal for closing
all the college gates by one hundred and one strokes at
9.5 P.M. The chief quadrangle, measuring 264 feet by
261 feet, was designed to have cloisters. The present
classical buildings of Peckwater quadrangle are not of
earlier date than 1705 ; the library on the south side was
built in 1716-61. The latter contains valuable pictures
and engravings not yet sufficiently known, as well as
extensive collections of books. The hall (built in 1529),
from its size (115 feet by 40 feet), the carving of the oak
roof, the long lines of portraits, and the beauty of the
entrance staircase, is one of the sights of Oxford. The
meadow buildings were erected in 1862-66. It is
commonly said that the three great English religious
revivals sprang from Christ Church, Wickliffe having been
warden of Canterbury Hall, now part of the house, John
Wesley a member of the college, and Pusey a canon.
Corpus Christi College was founded in 1516 by Bishop Corpus
Richard Fox, who expressly provided for the study of Christi.
Greek and Latin ; nor have classical traditions ever left
the "garden of bees," as the first statutes term it. The
chief ornament of the college is the library, which is rich
in illuminated and early English MSS., and in early printed
books. Exeter College may be said to have been founded Exeter,
(as Stapeldon Hall) in 1314, by Walter de Stapeldon,
bishop of Exeter; but Sir William Petre in 1566 largely
added to the original endowment. Most of the buildings
date from the present century ; the chapel, the propor
tions of which resemble those of the Sainte Chapelle at
Paris, was built in 1856-59 by Sir G. Gilbert Scott, the
hall in 1818, the Broad Street front in 1855-58. The
secluded gardens are beautifully situated beneath the
shadow of the Divinity School and Bodleian. Hertford Hertford
College, founded in 1874, is on a site of old and varied
history. From the 13th century until 1740 it was
occupied by Hart or Hertford Hall ; at the latter date Dr
Richard Newton refounded the hall with special statutes
of his own framing as Hertford College. In 1822 the
society of Magdalen Hall, after the fire at their buildings
near Magdalen College, migrated thither, and finally the
OXFORD
97
hall was merged in the new college which owes its
existence to the munificence of Mr T. C. Baring. The
Welsh College, Jesus, dates from 1571, having been
founded by Dr Hugh Price. Sir Leoline Jenkins,
principal at the Kestoration, was a conspicuous benefactor.
The present buildings are of various dates. The direct
connexion with the Principality extends to a moiety of
the fellows and a majority of the scholars. Keble College
is a testimony to the wide-felt reverence for the character
and principles of the Rev. John Keble, who died in 1866.
In his memory the college was founded with a special
view to economical life and Christian training, based on
the principles of the Church of England. Since its
opening in 1870 its growth has been continuous. The
buildings are the design of Keble's friend Butterfield ; the
richly ornamented chapel, the gift of Mr William Gibbs,
was completed in 1876, and the library and hall in 1878.
The style is Italian Gothic, the material to a large extent
red brick relieved by white stone, and in the chapel by
marble and mosaics. Bishop Richard Flemmyng founded
Lincoln College in 1427, with the object, it is believed, of
opposing the doctrines of Wickliffe. Like Exeter and Jesus
it boasts a second founder in Thomas de Rotherham, also
bishop of Lincoln, in 1478. The library is of consider
able value, both for MSS. and books. The painted
windows in the chapel were procured from Italy in the
15th century. Magdalen College is the most beautiful
and the most complete in plan of all the colleges. The
extensive water-walks in the Cherwell meadows, the
deer park, the cloisters with their ivy-grown walls and
quaint emblematic sculptures, the rich new buildings of
pure Gothic, and, above all, the tower, combine in this
conspicuous result. William Patten, better known as
William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, established
the college in 1456 for a president, forty fellows, and thirty
scholars with chaplains and a full choir. The cloister
quadrangle was first built in 1473, and the chapel in
1474-80; the latter has a decorated interior, an altarpiece
of Christ bearing the Cross similar to that in Bolton Abbey,
and painted windows. The tower, of exquisite proportions
and harmony of detail, was commenced in 1492, and
reached its full height of 145 feet in 1505 ; it stood for a
few years isolated as a campanile. The custom of singing
a hymn on the top at 5 A.M. on May-day has been kept up
by the choir since the time of Henry VII. The meadow
buildings date from 1733. The muniments and library
are valuable, the former containing some 14,000 deeds,
chiefly of religious houses suppressed at the Reformation.
The high-handed attempt of James II. to force a president
on the college in 1688 is matter of history. Merton
College is in a very definite sense the oldest ; the earliest
extant statutes were given in 1264 by Walter de Merton,
and before 1274 it was settled in Oxford. The statutes
were a model for all the more ancient colleges both in
Oxford and Cambridge. The founder's special intention
was to benefit the order of secular priests, and the
first century of his society was more prolific of great
names than any similar period in any college. The fine
chapel, which is also the parish church of St John the
Baptist, rose gradually between 1330 and 1450, the tower
belonging to the later part. The hall, of the 14th
century, was thoroughly restored in 1872. The library,
built about 1349, is the oldest existing library in England.
To the east lie the quiet well-wooded gardens, still bounded
on two sides by the city wall. New College, or more pro
perly the college of St Mary Winton, is the magnificent
foundation of William of Wykeham, who closely connected
it with his other great work Winchester School. Its name
is still significant, for the first statutes marked a new
departure, in the adaptation of monastic buildings and
rules to the requirements of a less fettered body of
students ; and they, like those of Merton, were imitated
by succeeding societies. The foundation-stone was laid
in 1380, and the hall, chapel, and front quadrangle are of
that period, except that the third story of the latter was
added in 1674. The chapel is noteworthy for the west
window, designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the
Flemish windows on the south side ; the roof was renewed
in 1880. The tower is built on one of the bastions of the
city wall, and faces the new buildings in Holywell Street,
erected in 1872-75. The gardens and cloisters are among
the most picturesque sights of Oxford, the former encom
passed on the north and east by the city wall, still almost
perfect. Oriel College was founded by Adam de Brome Oriel,
in 1324, and reconstituted by Edward II. in 1326. The
present buildings chiefly date from the first half of the
17th century. The Tractarian movement is closely
connected with the college of Newman and Keble.
Pembroke College (1624) derives its name from the Pem-
chancellor of the university at the time when it was broke,
established by Richard Wightwick, partly by means of a
legacy from Thomas Tesdale. The library contains many
memorials of Dr Johnson, who was a member of the
college. Queen's College, so called from its first patroness, Queen's.
Queen Philippa, was founded in 1340 by Robert de
Eglesfield, whose name is commemorated yearly in the
custom of presenting a needle and thread ("aiguille et fil,"
a rebus) to each fellow on New-Year's Day. The present
buildings are not older than the Restoration, while the
front dates from the middle of the last century, and the
west part of the front quadrangle was rebuilt after a
disastrous fire in 1778. The interior of the chapel, which
is classical in style, with an apse, exhibits some fine wood-
carving and windows. Queen's possesses the largest and
most valuable collegiate library of printed books, chiefly
owing to the munificence of Bishop Barlow in 1691 and
of Dr Robert Mason in 1841. On Christinas Day a boar's
head is brought into the hall to the accompaniment of
an ancient carol. St John the Baptist's College was the St John's.
work of Sir Thomas White, a London merchant, in June
1555. Archbishop Laud was closely connected with it,
and built, almost entirely at his own expense, the second
quadrangle, including the library ; his body rests within
the college. The chapel and other parts of the buildings
belonged to the earlier foundation of St Bernard's College.
The large gardens are skilfully laid out in alternate lawns
and groves. Trinity College, founded in February 1555 Trinity.
by Sir Thomas Pope, was the first post-Reformation
college and the first established by a layman. The library
is the original one of Durham College, in which Richard
de Bury's books were deposited in the 14th century. The
gardens are extensive, including a fine lime-tree avenue.
University College, the proper title of which is the Great Uni-
Hall of the University (Collegium Magnse, Aulx Universi- versity-
tatis}, is generally accounted the oldest college, although
its connexion with Alfred is wholly legendary. It received
the first endowment given to students at Oxford in 1249
from William of Durham, but its first statutes date from
1280, and its tenure of the present site from about 1340.
None of the present buildings are older than the 17th
century. The detached library was built in 1860.
Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Watlham.
Wadham, in pursuance of the designs of her husband
Nicholas, who died in 1609. The college buildings, made
of exceptionally firm stone, have been less altered than
those of any other college. The chapel exhibits a surpris
ingly pure Gothic style considering its known date, the
early part of the 17th century. The meetings held in this
college after the Restoration by Dr Wilkins, Bishop Sprat,
Sir Christopher Wren, and others directly led to the institu-
XVIII. — 13
98
OXFORD
tion of the Royal Society. The gardens lie to the north
Wor- and east. Worcester College, which has recently cele-
cester. brated the sexcentenary of its first building in 1283 as
Gloucester Hall, was at first a place of study for
Benedictines from all parts of the country, until it was
dissolved at the Reformation, when the buildings passed
to the see of Oxford. In 1560 the founder of St John's
College reopened it as St John the Baptist's Hall, but after
changing fortunes, and an attempt in 1689 to form it into a
college for students of the Greek Church, it came in 1714
into the hands of the trustees of Sir Thomas Cookes, who
founded the present college. The garden front still retains
the antique style of Gloucester Hall, looking over the
extensive gardens and pond. The other buildings rose at
various periods in the 18th century, while the splendid
interior decoration of the chapel, with its profusion of
marble, inlaid wood, and painted panel-work, designed by
Burgess, was completed in 1870.
Halls. Until Laud's time the number of private halls was con
siderable; by him five only were allowed to survive: —
Magdalen Hall, now merged in Hertford College; St
Mary Hall, founded in 1333, now destined to be absorbed
into Oriel, as New Inn Hall into Balliol,. and St Alban
Hall into Merton ; and St Edmund Hall, which, though
closely connected with Queen's College, is likely to maintain
a separate existence.
City The public buildings of the city, as distinct from the
build- university, do not require a detailed notice. The town-
hall dates from 1752, the corn exchange and post-office
from 1863 and 1882 respectively. The chief hospital is
the Radcliffe Infirmary, opened in 1770, and due to the
same liberal benefactor who has been mentioned in con
nexion with the Radcliffe Library, and who left funds for
the erection of the large and important Radcliffe Obser
vatory, completed in 1795. There are two ladies' halls,
Lady Margaret's and Somerville, and High Schools for
boys and -girls. Port Meadow is a large pasture to the
north-west of the city, which has belonged from time
immemorial to the freemen of the city. An extensive
system of drainage has been recently carried out, involving
the formation of a sewage farm at Littlemore. Water is
supplied from large covered tanks on Headington Hill,
into which the water is forced from reservoirs at New
Hinksey. The University Park, comprising 80 acres, is
beautifully situated on the banks of the Cherwell.
The diocese of Oxford now includes the three "home
counties" of Berkshire (originally in the diocese of Wessex,
then till 1836 in that of Sherborne or Salisbury),
Buckinghamshire (until 1845 under the see of Lincoln),
and Oxfordshire (formerly in the dioceses of Dorchester,
Winchester, or Lincoln). The patents for the formation
of the bishopric bear dates of 1542 and 1546. The
Cathe- cathedral, already mentioned as part of Christ Church,
was at first the church of St Frideswide, begun so far as
the present buildings are concerned in about 1160, and
forming " a fine example of Late Norman and Transitional
work of early character." The nave is pure Norman ; the
choir, with its richer ornament and delicate pendants, is the
Transitional part; the present remarkable east end, having
a circular window over two smaller round-headed ones, is
believed to be a restoration of the original design. Part
of the western end of the nave was destroyed by Wolsey
to allow the large quadrangle to be formed. Within the
cathedral the most noteworthy objects are the 15th
century "shrine of St Frideswide," the modern reredos,
and the bishop's throne, a memorial of Bishop Wilberforce.
The stained glass is of different styles. The octagonal
spire, 144 feet high, is of a peculiar pitch. The chapter
house on the south side of the nave, and the fine doorway
leading from it to the cloisters, are early 13th-century
dral.
work. Of the numerous parish churches some have
already been noticed. All Saints' was built early in the
18th century, from designs by Dean Aldrich, in a classical
style, but with much originality of detail ; St Philip and
St James's and St Barnabas's are among the most recent,
the latter being in imitation of Italian style with separate
campanile. The Roman Catholic church of St Aloysius in
St Giles's was opened in 1875.
History. — The legends connecting the city with Brute the Trojan,
Mempric, and the Druids are not found before the 14th century,
and are absolutely without foundation. The name, which is found
in the 10th century as Oxenaford, and in the llth as Oxenford,
the Welsh (more modern) Rhydychain, points to a ford for oxen
across the shallow channels of the divided river near Folly ] 'ridge,
though many on theoretical grounds connect the first part of the
word with a Celtic root signifying water, comparing it with Ouse,
Oseney, Exford. and even Isis. The nucleus of the town was
probably a nunnery, afterwards a house of secular canons, founded
in honour of St Frideswide in or before the 9th century, on the
site of the present cathedral. After the peace of Wedmore (886)
Oxford became a border town between Mercia and "Wessex,
and coins of Alfred with the legend OKSNAFORDA (on some types
ORSNAFORDA) seem to prove that a mint was established there
before the close of that century. The earliest undoubted mention
of the city is in the English Chronicle under the year 912, when
Edward the Elder made London and Oxford a part of his own
kingdom of Wessex. To this period probably belongs the castle
mound, still a conspicuous object on the New Road between the
railway stations and the city, and similar to those found at
Warwick and Marlborough. The subsequent notices of Oxford in
the Chronicle before the Conquest prove the rapidly increasing
importance of the place, both strategically as the chief stronghold
of the valley of the upper Thames — as when the Danes attacked
and burned it in 1009 and Sweyn took hostages from it and
Winchester in 1013 — and politically as a meeting-place for gemots
in which the interests of north and south England were alike
affected. Witenagemots were held there in 1015, when two
Danish thegns were treacherously murdered ; in 1036, when
Harold was chosen king ; and in 1065. In 1018, when Cnut first
became king of all England, he selected the same spot for the
confirmation by Danes and English of "Edgar's law." But
the murder of King Edmund in 1016 and the death of Harold in
1039 seem to have given rise to the saying that it was ill-omened
for the kings of England to enter or reside at Oxford. The
Domesday survey of Oxford (c. 1086) is more than usually complete,
and from it we gather that about six-sevenths of the town was
held in equal proportions by ecclesiastical owners, by Norman
followers of the king, and by citizens, one-seventh being in the
king's hands. The priory church of St Frideswide, and the
churches of St Mary the Virgin, St Michael, St Peter in the East,
and St Ebbe are mentioned ; from other sources it is known that
St Martin's at Carfax was in existence, and not less than seven
more before the close of the century. It is a curious fact that,
while two hundred and forty-three houses (domi) paid tax, no less
than four hundred and seventy-eight were waste (i-astae), and even
of the mansiones one hundred and ninety-one were habitable and
not fewer than one hundred and six waste. Oxford grew steadily
when governed by the strong hand of Robert d'Oili (1070?-! 119 ?).
The existing remains which may be attributed to his building are
the castle tower containing the church of St George and a crypt,
the crypt and part of the church of St Peter's in the East, and the
tower of St Michael's ; but it is known that he repaired other
churches and built bridges. His nephew founded the abbey of
Oseney, for Augustinian canons, in 1129. During the 12th century
Beaumont Palace, built by Henry I. outside the north wall of the
city, was a favourite royal residence, and the birthplace both of
Richard I. and of John. In the charter granted by Henry I. the
privileges of the town rank with those of London, and a large Jewry
was formed near the site of the present town-hall. The flight of
the empress Matilda from the castle over the ice-bound river to
Abingdon in 1142, when besieged by Stephen, is a well-known
incident. If we may trust the Oseney Chronicle "it is in 1133 that
wo find the first traces of organized teaching in Oxford, the germ
of the great university which was destined to far outstrip the city
in privileges, wealth, and fame (see UNIVERSITIES). During the
13th century parliaments were often held in the town, notably the
Mad Parliament in 1258, which led to the enactment of the "Provi
sions of Oxford." But this time also witnessed the beginning ot'
the long struggle between the town and university, which produced
serious riots, culminating on St Scholastica's day in 1354, and
finally subjected the former to serious curtailment of its powers
and jurisdiction. History has preserved the names of several heroes
in the struggle for civic independence, but the issue was never
doubtful, and the annals of the city in succeeding centuries admit
of briefer narration. The religious orders found their way early
0 X F O K D
99
into Oxford :— in 1221 the Dominicans (whose settlement near the
site of the present gas-works is still attested by Blackfriars Street,
Preacher's Bridge, and Friar's Wharf) ; in 1224 the Franciscans (who
built their house near Paradise Square) ; soon after 1240 the Car
melites (near Worcester College, to which Friar's Entry led); and
in 1252 the Austin Friars, who settled near what is now Wadham
College. The greater orders were not less firmly established, — the
Cistercians at Rewley Abbey (do Regali loco, founded about 1280),
the Benedictines scarcely later at Gloucester Hall and Durham
College, now Worcester and Trinity Colleges respectively. In the
13th and 14th centuries, as the university grew, an increasing
number of students gathered in Oxford, filling the numerous halls
and swelling the size, if not the wealth, of the place. The total of
students in Henry III.'s time was placed at thirty thousand in con
temporary records seen by Thomas Gascoigne, but this can only be
an exaggeration or a mistake. The town was frequently ravaged by
plagues, and generally shared in the exhaustion and inactivity
which marked the 15th century. The Reformation was unaccom
panied by important incidents other than those which affected the
university and the see ; but after the troubles of Mary's reign
Oxford again began to revive under the personal favour of
Elizabeth, which was continued by the Stuart kings. In the
civil war Oxford becomes suddenly prominent as the headquarters
of the Royalist party and the meeting-place of the king's parlia
ment. It was hither that the king retired after Edgehill, the two
battles of Newbury, and Naseby ; from here Prince Rupert made
his dashing raids in 1643. In May 1644 the earl of Essex and
Waller first approached the city, from the east and south, but
failed to enclose the king, who escaped to Worcester, returning once
more after the engagement at Cropredy Bridge. The final invest
ment of the city, when the king had lost every other stronghold of
importance, and had himself escaped in disguise, was in May 1646 ;
and on June 20 it surrendered to Fairfax. Throughout the war
the secret sympathies of the citizens were Parliamentarian, but
there was no conflict within the walls. In October 1644 a
destructive fire burnt down almost every house between George
Street and St Aldate's church. Charles II. held the last Oxford
parliament in 1681, the House of Lords sitting in Christ Church
Hall, the Commons in the Schools. In the first year of George I.'s
reign there were serious Jacobite riots, but from that time the city
becomes Hanoverian in opposition to the university, the feeling
coming to a head in 1754 during a county election, which was
ultimately the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. The public
works which distinguish the last century have been already men
tioned ; the general history of the city proper presents few features
of interest. Since the first railway (from Didcot) in 1844 its rate
of progress has been accelerated, and it has at length vindicated for
itself a vigorous and independent municipal life.
Oxford grew up, as has been seen, on the slope leading from the
ford near Folly Bridge to Carfax. Its earliest trade must have
been twofold, partly with London by way of the Thames, and
partly with the west by the ford. No Roman road of importance
passed within three miles of the future town, and the Chiltern
Hills prevented a direct road to the metropolis. The first mention
of townsmen is " seo buruhwaru " in the English Chronicle sub
anno 1013, and of its trade in the toll paid to the abbot of Abingdon
by passing barges from the llth century (Abingdon Chron., vol. ii.
p. 119). When the Domesday survey was made all the churches
except St Mary Magdalen were within the line of walls. Mr James
Parker estimates the population at that time to have been " not
more than 1700," occupying one hundred and ninety-one mansions
and two hundred and forty-three houses. By the close of the llth
century the castle had been partly bnilt, and the walls enclosed
a space roughly of the shape of a parallelogram, its greater length
lying nearly east and west, dominated by the castle at its western
extremity. In Elizabeth's time, as Ralph Agas's view shows, nine-
tenths of the city was still intra-mural. In 1789 the population
was about 8300, but more than half lived outside the walls ; in
1831, 20,650 ; in 1881 the municipal borough comprised 35,264,
the local board district 38,289, exclusive of about 3000 members of
the university. The chief extensions have been towards the north,
including both the fashionable quarter beyond the parks and the
poorer suburb of Jericho, and on the south-east, where St
Clement's and CowleySt John have greatly increased. The newly
built low-lying districts of Oseney town with Botley to the west,
and Grandpoiit with New Hinksey to the south, are comparatively
unhealthy, contrasting in that respect with the houses rising on
Headington Hill. The trade of the city has always been varied
rather than extensive ; there has never been a staple produce, and
the few manufactories are of recent introduction. Oxford being an
agricultural centre has an important market, but the alternations
of university terms and vacations affect the steadiness of general
business. The first charter known is one of Henry I., not now
extant, mentioning a merchants' guild (gilda mcrcatoria). That
of Henry II. specially connects the citizens with London, quia ipsi
et cives Londinenscs sunt de una et cadem consuetudine et lege ct
libertate. They were to be butlers with the latter at the king's
coronation— a privilege still retained by their representative. The
earliest governing body was the mayor and burgesses ; aldermen
were added in 1255, and the full institution from 1605 'until
1835 consisted of a mayor, two bailiffs, fbur aldermen, eight
assistants, and twenty-four common council men, together with
a high steward, recorder, town-clerk, and inferior officers. At
present the government is in the hands of a high steward, recorder,
sheriff, and corporation, the latter consisting of a mayor, ten
aldermen, and thirty councillors. For the election of the last two
classes the city is divided into five wards. There is a local board
of forty-seven members and a school board of seven. From the
earliest times the city has been represented by two burgesses in
parliament.
The chief authorities for the general history of Oxford are the works of
Antony Wood, viz., the ffist. and Antiqu. of the University, 1792-96 (in Latin,
1674), Hist, and Antiqu. of the Colleges and Halls, 1786-90, and the Ancient and
Present State of the City, 1773 ; and'Ingram, Memorials of Oxford, 1837 and 1847.
VERSITIES.
(F.
OXFORD, ROBERT HARLEY, FIRST EARL OF (1661-
1724), the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, a prominent
landowner in Herefordshire, was born in Bow Street,
Covent Garden, London, 5th December 1661. His school
days were passed near Burford, in Oxfordshire, in a small
school which produced at the same time a lord high
treasurer, a lord high chancellor, and a lord chief justice
of the common pleas. The principles of Whiggism and
Nonconformity were instilled into his mind at an early age,
and if he changed the politics of his ancestors he never
formally abandoned their religious opinions. At the
Revolution of 1688 Sir Edward and his son raised a troop
of horse in support of the cause of William III., and took
possession of the city of Worcester in his interest. The
family zeal for the Revolution recommended Robert Harley
to the notice of the Boscawen family, and led to his
election, in April 1689, as the parliamentary representative
of Tregony, a borough under their control. He remained
its member for one parliament, when he was elected by
the constituency of New Radnor, and he continued to
represent it until his elevation to the peerage in 1711.
From the first he gave great attention to the conduct
of public business, bestowing especial care upon the
study of the forms and ceremonies of the House, and
acquiring from his labours that distinction which a
knowledge of parliamentary precedents always bestows.
This reputation marked him out as a fitting person to pre
side over the debates of the House, and from the general
election of February 1701 until the dissolution of 1705 he
held with general approbation the office of speaker. For
a part of this period, from 18th May 1704, he combined
with the speakership the duties of a principal secretary of
state, displacing in that office the Tory earl of Nottingham,
a circumstance which may have impelled that haughty
peer to join the Whigs, some years later, in opposition to
the treaty of Utrecht. At the time of his appointment as
secretary of state Harley had given no outward sign of
dissatisfaction with the Whigs, and it was mainly through
Marlborough's good opinion of his abilities that he was
admitted to the ministry. For some time, so long indeed
as the victories of the great English general cast a glamour
over the policy of his friends, and the constituencies were
enthusiastic in support of a war policy, Harley continued
to act loyally with his colleagues. But in the summer of
1707 it became evident to Godolphin that some secret
influence behind the throne was opposing his wishes and
shaking the confidence of the queen in her ministers.
The sovereign had resented the intrusion into the adminis
tration of the impetuous earl of Sunderland, and had
persuaded herself that the safety of the church depended
on the fortunes of the Tories. These convictions were
strengthened in her mind by the new favourite Abigail
100
OXFORD
Hill (a relative of the duchess of Marlborough through her
mother, and of Harley on her father's side), whose soft and
silky ways contrasted only too favourably in the eyes of
the queen with the haughty manners of her old friend, the
duchess of Marlborough. Both the duchess and Godolphin
communicated to Marlborough their belief that this change
in the disposition of the queen was due to the sinister
conduct of Harley and his relatives, and the persistent
protestations of the accused persons to the contrary were
accepted with an ill grace. Although Harley was for the
present permitted to remain in his office, subsequent
experience convinced the chiefs of the Government of the
necessity for his dismissal, and an occurrence which showed
the remissness of his official conduct, if it did not prove
his treachery to the nation, furnished them with an
opportunity for carrying out their wishes. An ill-paid
and poverty-stricken clerk in Harley's office was detected
in furnishing the enemy with copies of many documents
which should have been kept from the knowledge of all
but the most trusted advisers of the court, and it was
found that through the carelessness of the head of the
department the contents of such papers became the
common property of all in his service. The queen wr.s
thereupon informed that Godolphin and Marlborough
could no longer serve in concert with a minister whom
they distrusted, and of whose incapacity there were such
proofs. They did not attend her next council, and when
Harley proposed to proceed with the business of the day
one of their friends drew attention to their absence, when
the queen found herself forced (llth February 1708) to
accept the resignation of her secret adviser. At that time
it seemed as if Harley's fortunes had sunk for ever.
Harley went out of office, but his cousin, who had now
become Mrs Masham, remained by the side of the queen,
and contrived to convey to her mistress the views of
the ejected minister. Every device which the defeated
ambition of a man whose strength lay in his aptitude for
intrigue could suggest for hastening the downfall of his
adversaries was employed without scruple, and not
employed in vain. The cost "of the protracted war with
France, the danger to the national church, the chief proof
of which lay in the prosecution of Sacheverell, were the
weapons which he used to influence the masses of the
people. Marlborough himself could not be dispensed
with, but his proud spirit was insulted in a thousand
ways, and his relations were dismissed from their posts in
turn. When the greatest of these, Lord Godolphin, was
sent into private life, five commissioners to the treasury
were appointed (10th August 1710), and among them
figured Harley as chancellor of the exchequer. It was the
aim of the new chancellor to frame an administration from
the moderate members of both parties, and to adopt with
but slight changes the policy of his predecessors ; but his
efforts were doomed to disappointment. The Whigs
refused to join in an alliance with the man whose rule
began with the retirement from the treasury of the finance
minister idolized by the city merchants, and the Tories,
who were successful beyond their wildest hopes at the
polling booths, could not understand why their leaders
should pursue a system of government which copied the
faults of their political opponents. The clamours of the
wilder spirits of the party, the country members who met
at the " October Club," began to be re-echoed even by
those who were attached to the person of Harley, when,
through an unexpected event, his popularity was restored
at a bound. A French refugee, the ex-abbe' de la Bourlie
(better known by the name of the marquis de Guiscard),
was being examined before the privy council on a charge
of treachery to the nation which had befriended him, when
he stabbed Harley in the breast with a penknife (March
1711). To a man in good health the wounds would not
have been serious, but the minister had been for some
time indisposed — a few days before the occurrence Swift
had penned the prayer "Pray God preserve his health,
everything depends upon it" — and the joy of the nation
on his recovery knew no bounds. Both Houses presented
an address to the crown, suitable response came from the
queen, and on Harley's reappearance in the Lower House
the speaker made an oration which was spread broadcast
through the country. On the 24th May 1711 the minister
became Baron Harley of Wigmore and earl of Oxford and
Mortimer ; before the month was ended he was created
lord treasurer, and in the following year he became a
knight of the Garter. Well might his friends exclaim
that he had " grown by persecutions, turnings out, and
stabbings."
With the sympathy which this attempted assassination
had evoked, and with the skill which the lord treasurer
possessed for conciliating the calmer members of either
political party, he passed through several months of office
without any loss of reputation. He rearranged the
nation's finances, and continued to support her generals-
in the field with ample resources for carrying on the
campaign, though his emissaries were in communication
with the French king, and were settling the terms of a
peace independently of England's allies. After many
weeks of vacillation and intrigue, when the negotiations
were frequently on the point of being interrupted, the pre
liminary peace was signed, and in spite of the opposition
of the Whig majority in the Upper House, which was met
by the creation of twelve new peers, the much-vexed treaty
of Utrecht was at last brought to a conclusion. While
these negotiations were under discussion the friendship
between Oxford and St John was fast changing into hatred.
The latter had resented the rise in fortune which the stabs
of Guiscard had secured for his colleague, and when he
was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron St John
and Viscount Bolingbroke, instead of with an earldom,
his resentment knew no bounds. The royal favourite,
whose husband had been called to the Upper House as
Baron Masham, deserted her old friend and relation for his
more vivacious rival. The Jacobites found that, although
the lord treasurer was profuse in his expressions of good
will for their cause, no steps were taken to ensure its.
triumph, and they no longer placed reliance in promises
which were repeatedly made and repeatedly broken. Even
Oxford's friends began to complain of his habitual clilatori-
ness, and to find some excuse for his apathy in ill health,
aggravated by excess in the pleasures of the table and by the
loss of his favourite child. By slow degrees the confidence
of Queen Anne was transferred from Oxford to Bolingbroke ;
on the 27th July 1714 the former surrendered his staff as
lord treasurer, and on the 1st August the queen died.
On the accession of George I. the defeated minister
retired to Herefordshire, but a few months later his
impeachment was decided upon and he was committed to
the Tower. After an imprisonment of nearly two years
the prison doors were opened, and he was allowed to
resume his place among the peers, but he took little part
in public affairs, and died almost unnoticed 21st May
1724. Harley's political fame may now be dimmed
by time, his statesmanship may seem but intrigue and
finesse, but his character is set forth in the brightest
colours in the poems of Pope and the prose of Swift. The
Irish dean was his discriminating friend in the hours of
prosperity, his unswerving advocate in adversity. The
books and manuscripts which the first earl of Oxford and
his son collected were among the glories of their age. The
manuscripts became the property of the nation ; the books
were sold to a bookseller called Osbornc. and described in
0 x U — 0 X U
101
a printed catalogue of four volumes, part of which was the
work of Dr Johnson. In the recollection of the Harleian
manuscripts, the Harleian library, and the Harleian
Miscellany, the family name will never die. (w. p. c.)
OXUS. This river rises in the lofty table-lands which
are intercepted between the two great mountain ranges
of central Asia, the Thian Shan and the Hindu Kush, in
the region where they approach each other most closely.
It flows westwards through a broad valley, receiving
numerous affluents from the mountain ranges on either
side ; then bending to the north-west it traverses the arid
deserts of western Turkestan on the borders of Bokhara,
descends into and fertilizes the rich oasis of Khiva, and
finally disembogues at the southern extremity of the Sea
of Aral. Its course is roughly parallel to that of its sister
river the Jaxartes, which rises to the north of the Thian
Shan water-parting, and disembogues at the northern
extremity of the Sea of Aral.
The name Oxus is that by which the river is mentioned
in the writings of the ancient Greek historians. In the
older traditions of the Parsi books it is named the Veh-
riid, in some form of which originates the classical name
which we find it most convenient to use, and also it may be
presumed the names of various territories on the banks of
its upper waters, such as Wakhan, Wakhsh, and Washgird,
which are no doubt identical in formation, if not in
application, with the classical Oxiani, Oxii, and Oxi-Petra.
The classical names have long ceased to be known to the
inhabitants of the country. In early Mohammedan history
the river was usually styled Al-Nahr, whence the title
Ma ward '1 Nahr, or " beyond the river," which came to be
bestowed on a province of Persia lying to the north of
tlis Oxus, and which in modern use has been rendered
Transoxiana. In subsequent Mohammedan writings Al-
Nahr gives place to Jaihun, corresponding to the Gihon
of the Mosaic garden of Eden. And now the river is
known by Asiatics as the Amii Daria, a name of which
the origin is uncertain.1
In the most remote ages to which written history carries us, the
regions on both sides of the Oxus were subject to the Persian
monarchy. Of their populations Herodotus mentions the Bactrians,
Chorasmians, Sogdians, and Saere as contributing their contingents
to the armies of the great King Darius. The Oxus figures iu
Persian romantic history as the limit between Iran and Turan, but
the substratum of settled population to the north as well as the
south was probably of Iranian lineage. The valley is connected
with many early Magian traditions, according to
1 which Zoroaster dwelt at Balkh, where, in the 7th
Sketch Map of the Oxus.
century B.C., his proselytizing efforts first came into operation.
Buddhism eventually spread widely over the Oxus countries, and
almost entirely displaced the religion of Zoroaster in its very
cradle. The Chinese traveller Hwen Tsang, who passed through
the country in 630-644 A.D., fo\md Termedh, Khulm, Balkh, and
above all Bamian, amply provided with monasteries, stirpas, and
1 Natives of western India hold that it implies " mother" of rivers,
in correlation with Abi-san or "father of rivers," a title which is
frequently given to its great southern neighbour, the river Indus.
colossal images, which are the striking characteristics of prevalent
Buddhism ; even the Pamir highlands had their monasteries.
Christianity penetrated to Khorasan and Bactria at an early
date ; episcopal sees are said to have existed at Merv and Samarkand
in the 4th and 5th centuries, and Cosmas (c. 545) testifies to the
spread of Christianity among the Bactrians and Huns.
Bactria was long a province of the empire which Alexander the
Great left to his successors, but the Greek historians give very
little information of the Oxus basin and its inhabitants. About
250 B.C. Tiieodotus, the " governor of the thousand cities of Bactria,"
declared himself king, simultaneously with the revolt of Arsaces
which laid the foundation of the Parthian monarchy. The Grseco-
Bactrian dominion was overwhelmed entirely about 126 B.C. by the
Yuechi, a numerous people of Tibet who had been driven westwards
from their settlements on the borders of China by the Hiongnu,
the Huns of Deguignes. From the Yuechi arose, about the
Christian era, the great Indo-Scythian dominion' which extended
across the Hindu Kush southwards, over Afghanistan and Sind.
The history of the next five centuries is a blank. In 571 the
Haiathalah of the Oxus, who are supposed to be descendants of the
Yuechi, were shattered by an invasion of the Turkish khakan ; and
in the following century the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Tsang found
the former empire of the Haiathalah broken up into a great
number of small states, all acknowledging the supremacy of the
Turkish khakan, and several having names identical with those
which still exist. The whole group of states he calls Tukhara, by
which name in the form Tokharistan, or by that of Haiathalah, the
country continued for centuries to be known to the Mohammedans.
At the time of his pilgrimage Chinese influence had passed into
Tokharistan and Transoxiana. Yezdegird, the last of the Sasanian
kings of Bokhara, who died in 651, when defeated and hard pressed
by the Saracens, invoked the aid of China ; the Chinese emperor,
Taitsung, issued an edict organizing the whole country from
Ferghana to the borders of Persia into three Chinese administra
tive districts, with 126 military cantonments, an organization which,
however, probably only existed on paper.
In 711-12 Mohammedan troops were conducted by Kotaiba, the
governor of Khorasan, into the province of Khwarizm (Khiva), after
subjugating which they advanced on Bokhara and Samarkand, the
ancient Sogdiana, and are said to have even reached Ferghana and
Kashgar, but no occuption then ensued. In 1016-25 the govern
ment of Khwarizm was bestowed by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni upon
Altuntash, one of his most distinguished generals.
Tokharistan in general formed a part successively of the empires
of the Sasanian dynasty of Bokhara (terminated 999 A.D. ), of the
Ghaznavi dynasty, of the Seljukian princes of Persia and of Khorasan,
of the Ghori or Shansabanya kings, and of the sultans of Khwarizm.
The last dynasty ended with Sultan Jalal-ud-din, during whose
reign (1221-31) a division of the Moghul army of Jenghiz Khan
first invaded Khwarizm, while the khan himself was besieging
Bamian ; Jalal-ud-din, deserted by most of his troops, retired to
Ghazni, where he was pursued by Jenghiz Khan, and again retreating
towards Hindustan was overtaken and driven across the Indus.
The commencement of the 16th century was marked by the rise
of the Uzbek rule in Turkestan. The Uzbeks were no one race, but
an aggregation of fragments from Turks, Mongols, and all the
great tribes constituting the hosts of Jenghiz and Batu. They
held Kimduz, Balkh, Khwarizm, and Khorasan, and for a time
Badakhshan also ; but Badakhshan was soon won by the emperor
Baber, and in 1529 was bestowed on his cousin Suliman, who by
1555 had established his rule over much of the region between
the Oxus and the Hindu Kush. The Moghul emperors of India
occasionally interfered in these provinces, notably Shah Jehan in
1646 ; but, finding the difficulty of maintaining so distant a frontier,
they abandoned it to the Uzbek princes. About 1765 the wazir
of Ahmed Shah Abdali of Cabul invaded Badakhshan, and from
that time until now the domination of the countries on the south
bank of the Oxus from Wakhan to Balkh has been a matter of
frequent struggles between Afghans and Uzbeks.
The Uzbek rule in Turkestan has during the last twenty years
been rapidly dwindling before the growth of Russian power. In
1863 Russia invaded the Khokand territory, taking in rapid succes
sion the cities of Turkestan, Chemkend and Tashkend. In 1866
Khojend was taken, the power of Khokand was completely crushed,
a portion was incorporated in the new Russian province of
Turkestan, while the remainder was left to be administered by a
native chief almost as a Russian feudatory ; the same year the
Bokharians were defeated at Irdjar. In 1867 an army assembled
by the amir of Bokhara was attacked and dispersed by the Russians,
who in 1868 entered Samarkand, and became virtually rulers of
Bokhara. In 1873 Khiva was invaded, and as much of the khanate
as lay on the right bank of the Oxus was incorporated into the
Russian empire, a portion being afterwards made over to Bokhara.
Russia acquired the right of the free navigation of the Oxus
throughout its entire course, on the borders of both Khiva and
Bokhara. The administration of the whole of the states on the
right bank of the Oxus, down to the Russian boundary line at Ichka
102
OXUS
Yar, is now in the hands of Bokhara, including Karategin— which tlic
Russians have transferred to it from Khokand — and Danvaz at the
entrance to the Pamir highlands. At the present time the states
on the left bank of the Oxus, from its sources in the Panjah river
down to the town and ferry of Klnvaja Saleh, are mainly subject
to Afghanistan ; from Khwaja Saleh to the frontiers of Khiva and
Russia at Ichka Yar the left bank of the Oxus is subject to Bokhara ;
from the same point the Afghan boundary is supposed to stretch
across the Dasht-i-chul plains of the Turkomans, above Maimana, to
Sarakhs, where it meets the Persian frontier.
The regions in which the Oxus takes its birth, and
through which it passes until it becomes lost in the Sea of
Aral, may be divided into upper, middle, and lower : the
upper is constituted by the highlands between the Thian
Shan and the Hindu Kiish ranges, and the middle by the
plains and uplands which are situated in the broad valley
between the western prolongations of the same ranges ; the
lower lies in the plains of western Turkestan. Descrip
tions of the chief provinces and states in the middle and
lower regions will be found under AFGHAN TURKESTAN
(vol. i. p. 241), including the eastern khanates of Kunduz,
Khulm, Balkh, and Akcha, and the Chahdr Wilayat, or
Four Domains, viz., the western khanates of Sir-i-pul,
Shibrghan, Andkhui, and Maimana ; also under BADAKH-
SHAN, KARATEGIN, HISSAR, BOKHARA, and KHIVA; accounts
have also been already given of BACTRIA, BALKH, and
BAMIAN. Here we shall only treat of the highland regions
of the Oxus, and the river itself in its downward course
to the Sea of Aral, postponing all other matter to the
article TURKESTAN (see also the map of Turkestan).
For a right understanding of the highland region, notice
must be taken of its position relatively to the two great
longitudinal systems of mountains, the Thian Shan and the
Indian Caucasus, and their respective prolongations east
and west, which form such a prominent feature in the
physical geography of the continent of Asia. These
mountain systems include between them a belt of table
lands of varying breadth, and generally of considerable
altitude. The forces of nature by which both the
mountains and the intermediate table-lands were primarily
evolved from the earth's crust .appear to have acted con
currently over the entire region, but with greatest elevat
ing effect along the northern edge of the Caucasus • for,
though the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush and the
Himalayan ranges are more frequently met with on spurs
some distance to the south than on the northern water-
parting, the elevated masses are here of greatest magni
tude ; here there are mountains whose peaks rise to great
altitudes above the sea-level, but which' are comparatively
insignificant differentially, the visible height above the
surrounding table-lands being rarely more than a third, and
often less than a tenth, of the height above the sea ; and
here there are passes across great ranges of which the level
is barely distinguishable from that of the surrounding
table-lands, so that the traveller may cross a great water-
parting without being aware of it, a tussock of grass decid
ing the course of the waters, whether towards the frontiers
of China or of Europe or towards the Indian Ocean.
The elevated mass which forms a bridge between the
Thian Shan and the Hindu Caucasus, in the quarter where
they approach each other most closely, constitutes the
governing geographical and political feature of these
regions, and gives birth to all the principal sources of the
Oxus. A happy instinct has led the inhabitants to call it
the Bam-i-dunia, or Roof of the World ; modern European
geographers have called it the " heart of Asia," the
''central boss of Asia." It is the Tsungling of Chinese
writers, the northern Imaus of Ptolemy, the Mountain
Parnassus of Aristotle, " the greatest of all that exist
toward the winter sunrise." The geographical indications
of the Puranas, considered in any but a fabulous light,
point to it as M<h-u, the scene of the primeval Aryan
paradise. Old Parsi traditions point to it as the origin
and nucleus of the Aryan migrations. And it is here
that the Mohammedan invaders are shown, by their iden
tification of the great rivers with the Gihon and Pison
of the Mosaic narrative, to have believed that the terres
trial paradise, the cradle of the human race, was situated.
Few regions can present claims to interest and just
curiosity so strong and various as this one. Its past
history is interwoven with that of all the great Asiatic
conquerors, and its position on the rapidly narrowing
borderland between the British and the Russian dominions
gives it additional interest at the present time. But its
geography is most intricate and complicated, and has long
been a fruitful subject of controversy. The region is
intersected with mountain ridges and depressed river beds
which are alike difficult to cross ; its altitude is unfavour
able for the growth of cereals, and it mostly lies buried in
snow for half the year ; it is, moreover, sparsely inhabited,
and does not produce sufficient food for the requirements of
the inhabitants. It interposes a formidable barrier between
eastern and western Turkestan across the ancient highway
from Europe to China ; and, though this barrier has been
repeatedly crossed, the extant narratives of the journeys
and descriptions of the routes present only occasional
glimmerings of truth amidst a mass of error and confusion,
and are at times barely available for sober inquiry ;
genuine facts of observation have been so mixed up with
erroneous information that it has become impossible to
reconcile conflicting statements or separate the true from
the false. Thus within the last quarter of a century maps
have been published by eminent geographers in England
and Germany in which the great cities of eastern Turkestan
are placed 3° to 4°, or over 200 miles, too far to the west,
and the limits of the " heart of Asia " are materially
narrowed.
The interest attaching to the region has even led to the
fabrication of spurious documents which have darkened
the mist already enveloping it, and have betrayed eminent
geographers into error and confusion.1
While geography remained under the spell of these mis
chievous fictions, research was impeded, and an insurmount
able obstacle placed in the way of the true delineation of
the region ; doubt was even thrown on the accuracy of the
work of genuine explorers. But within the last decade the
mist in which the " Roof of the World " had so long been
enveloped has been largely dispelled by the labours of
Russian and British officers, and also by natives of India
trained to geographical exploration and employed in con
nexion with the operations of the Great Trigonometrical
Survey of India. In some parts there is still much doubt
and uncertainty, but enough is now known to furnish the
geographical student with a fairly accurate idea of the
general course of the rivers and configuration of the table
lands and mountains.
Two systems of rivers give birth to the sources of the
1 Thus early in the present century certain papers were lodged in
the secret archives of the Russian Foreign Office which purported to
give an account of two unpublished records of exploration in this
obscure region, one by a German traveller, Georg Ludwig von ,
said to have been an employe of the Anglo-Indian Government, the
other by a Chinese traveller. They were brought to light in 1861, and
excited the curiosity of all who were interested in the geography of
this region. A few years afterwards it was discovered that a parallel
mass of papers, embodying much of the same peculiar geography and
nomenclature, but purporting to be the report of a Russian expedition
sent through Central Asia to the frontiers of India, existed in the
London Foreign Office. All three documents bear indubitable traces
of having been fabricated for sale to the British and the Russian
Governments by an acute geographer who, while availing himself of
such genuine data as were actually within his reach, did not scruple
to draw on his own imagination for the filling up of all blanks.
0 X U S
103
Oxus, one to the north rising in and around the Alai
plateau, the other to the south rising in the Pamir pla
teaus, of which there are several. The two systems are
divided by a great chain of mountains known locally as
the Kizil-yart range, but called by Fedchenko (looking
from the north) the Trans-Alai range, and by recent
Russian surveyors the Peter the Great range; it lies
from east to west on the southern border of the Alai
plateau, and throws out spurs westwards to Darwaz ; its
medium height above the sea-level is 18,000 or 19,000 feet,
with occasional peaks rising to 25,000 feet. Of the
Oxianian affluents to its north and west the principal are
the Wakhsh or Surkh-ab ( = the Kizil-su = the Red River),
rising in the Alai, and the Muksu and Khing-ab rivers,
which join the Wakhsh in the district of Karategin.
The system of southern affluents is, however, the most
important of the two politically as well as geographically,
comprising as it does the water-partings which define the
boundaries between China, Afghanistan, and Bokhara, and
all the rivers of what is generally known as the Pamir
region. The name Pamir is suggested by Bournouf to have
been derived from Upa-Meru, meaning the lands " beyond
the mountain of Meru" ; a later and more probable sugges
tion, by Major Trotter, is that it is the Khirgiz equivalent
of Bdm-i-dunia. It means simply an elevated steppe or
plateau. By the people of the country it is not applied, as
European geographers apply it, to the entire region, which
is one of mountains as well as table-lands, but to each of
the plateaus with the addition of a distinctive designation.
Thus there is the Pamir-Kalan (great), the Pamir-Khurd
(little), the Pamir-Alichur, the Pamir-Khargoshi (of the
hare), the Pamir-Sarez (of the water-parting), and the Pamir-
Rangkul, on which the Rangkul lake is situated. There
is also another, the Pamir-i-Shiva, which, though only
recently brought prominently to the notice of European
geographers, is of considerable magnitude, elevation, and
importance; it lies in that part of Badakhshan which is
enclosed to the north and east by the Panjah river, and
to the south and west by a spur from the Hindu Kush
range. This spur is an offshoot from the vicinity of the
Tirich Mir peak (25,400 feet) north of Chitral ; it lies
between Faizabad and Ishkdshim, sinks to 10,900 feet at
the Zebak pass, and then again, ascending to higher
altitudes, trends to the north-west, and strikes the western
spurs of the Kizil-yart range in the Darwaz district ; it
forms the water-parting between the Kokcha river of
southern Badakhshan and the Panjah river. Though a spur
from the main range, it is of itself an important range, and
has some claim to be regarded as the western boundary
of the Pamir table-lands, as it lies immediately over the
Shiva Pamir ; if the claim be admitted, the breadth of the
elevated barrier between the plains of eastern and western
Turkestan will be found to be about 250 miles, whereas
geographers have hitherto accorded to the Pamir plateau
a breadth of only 100 miles. The Panjah river flows
downwards through the region where the spurs of this
western bounding range meet those of the Kizil-yart range,
passing between narrow and precipitous gorges which form
a natural gateway to the highlands, though one which in
many parts is barely accessible, or has to be quitted
altogether for the easier mountain passes on either hand.
The most elevated portion of the highlands occurs on
the north-east border, above the plains of Kashgar and
Yarkand. Here a chain of mountains, interwoven with
the Thidn Shdn and the Kizil-yart ranges, trends to the
east and south-east, and throws up peaks of great height,
culminating in Tagharma (25,500 feet) ; viewed from the
plains to the east, it seems to form part of a great chain —
the Belut Tagh of Humboldt — which connects the Thian
Shan range with the Hindu Kush ; but it is broken
through by rivers, and terminates over the plains of the
Sarikol district. The line of water-parting which con
stitutes the real connexion between the Thian Shan and
the Hindu Kush lies more to the west, in hills which,
emanating from the Kizil-yart range, pass between the
Rangkul Pamir and the Kizil-yart plain, and then bending
southwards strike an angle of the Hindu Kush range on
the borders of the Sarikol and Kanjut districts ; they are
probably nowhere of any great altitude above the general
level of the table-lands; but they are of importance in
that they may be regarded as the natural boundary
between the states of eastern Turkestan now subject to
China, and those of western Turkestan subject to Afghan
istan and Bokhara.
The best known river of the Pamir plateaus is the
Panjah,1 which receives all the other rivers of this region
before it enters the plains ; above Kila Panjah it has two
important affluents, one from the east rising in Kanjut,
and probably about 120 miles long, the other from the
north-east rising in the lake- of the Great Pamir (Wood's
Lake Victoria), and about 80 miles long. From the point
of junction to Kila-Bar- Panjah is 140 miles; here the
united waters of the Sochan and Shakhdara rivers from
the east are received ; 33 miles lower down, near Kila
Wamar, the Bartang river, also from the east, is received.
The upper source of the Bartang is the Ak-su (white water)
river, which rises in the Oikiil or Gazkul lake of Little
Pamir, and, winding round the highlands, passes through
the Sarez Pamir, where its name changes to the Murghabi
(water fowl), which lower down becomes Bartang (narrow
passage). The Aksii-Bdrtang is probably the longest of
the Pamir rivers ; its length exceeds 330 miles, while that
of the Panjah from the source of its longest affluent down
to the Bartang junction is probably under 300 miles ; thus
it has been claimed as constituting, rather than the
Panjah, the proper boundary line between Afghanistan
and Bokhara. About 120 miles below Kila Wamar the
Panjah debouches into the plains after receiving the
Wanjab river of Darwaz on its right bank, and the Kof
(Kufau) river coming from the Shiva Pamir on its left
bank. Fifty miles farther on it receives on its right bank
the Yakhsii river conveying the waters of a system of
valleys lying between the Panjah and the Wakhsh rivers,
the courses of which are here nearly parallel; 18 miles
onwards it receives (left bank) the Kokcha river of
southern Badakhshan, and at this point it loses its
individuality and becomes the Amii river ; 80 miles to the
west the Amu receives the Wakhsh or Siirkh-ab river,
when the whole of the waters of the Oxianian highlands
are brought together into one channel.
Returning to the highlands, we briefly notice the princi
pal lakes. Chief of all is the Great Karakul — the Dragon
Lake of Chinese writers ; it stands in the Khargoshi
Pamir, has an area of about 120 square miles, and an
altitude of 12,800 feet ; it was long regarded as the source
of the Oxus, but has recently been found to have no out
let. The Little Karakul and the Biilankul lakes, areas
15 and 8 square miles, on the Kizil-yart plateau, are
probably over 13,000 feet. The Rangkul lake, area 15
square miles, is 12,800 feet. Wood's Victoria, the lake
of the Great Pamir, height 13,900 feet, has an area of 25
1 The name Panjah is conjectured to be derived from a confluence
of five rivers ; but more probably it is taken from the well-known
fort of the same name, which is situated a little below the junction of
the two upper affluents of the river. The fort derives its name either
from the circumstance of its being built on five mounds, or from a
sacred edifice in the vicinity erected over a stone bearing the supposed
impress of the palm and fingers (panjah) of Hazrat AH, the son-in-law
of Mohammed ; lower down the river, in Shiglman, there is a fort built
over a similar mark, and called the Kila-Bar- Panjah ("the fort over the
panjah ").
104
OXUS
square miles. The Yashil-Kul, area 16 square miles,
height 12,550 feet, is in the Alichur Pamir, where in
1759 the Chinese troops surprised and defeated the
Khwajas of Badakshdn. The great Shiva-Kul, lately
visited by Dr Regel, has, according to him, an area ex
ceeding 100 square miles, and an altitude of 11,800
feet, and Wood alludes to it as of considerable magnitude.
There are numerous small lakes, of which the most im
portant is the Oikul (13,100 feet), the source of the Ak-su
river, in the Little Pamir.
Hill ranges crop up out of the table-lands in various
quarters ; their general direction is from north-east to
south-west ; they form the boundaries between the several
Pamirs and the principal water-partings between the
valleys. The portion of the Hindii Rush range which lies
immediately to the south of this region is of very varying
altitude, sinking at the Baroghil pass to 12,000 feet, or
only 1000 feet above the adjoining table-lands, but rising
to heights of 22,600 to 25,400 in peaks to the west of
that pass.
In 1872 the Panjah river was adopted by the British
and the Russian Governments as the line of boundary
between Bokhara and Afghanistan. But rivers which are
readily crossed, and pass through valleys both sides of
which have much of life in common, rarely serve as bound
aries between the people residing on the opposite banks.
The Panjah river has been found to divide no less than
four states, Wdkhdn, Shighnan, Roshdn, and Darwdz, into
two parts each ; the first three of these are claimed by
Afghanistan and the fourth by Bokhara, by whom they
are administered — or at least are attempted to be admin
istered — without regard to the conventional boundary line
of the Panjah ; presumably, therefore, this line will have
to be abandoned for the lines of water-parting along the
hill ranges which form the natural boundaries of the
several states.
The Pamir plateaus are generally covered with a rich
soil which affords very sweet and nourishing grasses,
though at too great an altitude for husbandry ; there is
an unlimited extent of summer pasture lands for the
Khirgiz and other nomad tribes and the herdsmen of the
surrounding districts. But for the plentiful supply of
food for cattle which these regions afford during several
months of the year, they could never have been crossed
by the great armies and hordes which are said to have
passed over them. The culturable areas are small, and are
usually restricted to narrow ledges on the margins of the
rivers, which, however, when well cultivated and manured
yield rich returns ; food stuffs have to be largely obtained
from the plains below ; mulberry trees thrive well and are
much prized, because their unripened berries are ground
to flour and form a serviceable article of food.
Wakhan contains some twenty-five scattered villages
with about as many houses in each, and a population
estimated at 3000 souls. Shighnan and Roshan may at
present be regarded as one state, as they are governed by
one ruler ; the valleys of Sochdn-o-Giind and Shakhdara
belong to the former, and that of Bdrtang to the latter
(villages, 234 ; houses, 4477 ; souls, 22,000). Darwdz is
famous for its difficult roads, called "averings," which are
carried along the faces of perpendicular precipices, on
planks resting on iron bolts driven into the rock ; the roads
are, however, said to be much improved since the state
came under Bokhara. Darwdz extends over the valley of
the Khing;ib river to the north as well as over the valley
of the lower Panjah. It has three amlakdarates on the
Khingab— Upper Wakhia, Lower Wakhia, and Khulds —
and one, Sagridasht, on an affluent of the Khingdb,
containing 84 villages with 2458 habitations ; it has
also three subdivisions on the Panjah — south-eastern or
upper Darwdz terminating at Kila Khiim, south-western
Darwdz terminating at Zigor, and lower Darwdz — which
contain 31 villages with 896 habitations on the right bank,
including those of the Wanjab affluent, and 45 villages
with 1379 habitations on the left bank, including those
of the Kufau river, which comes from the Shiva Pamir.
Russian officers have found that at the point where the
Panjah enters the plains the level is about 1800 feet above
the mean sea, or 12,100 feet below the sources of the river
in Lake Victoria ; 50 miles lower down, at the junction
with the Kokcha, where the Panjah merges into the Amu
Daria, the height is given as 1000 feet; at Kilif (214
miles) it is 730 feet; and at Chahdrjui (203 miles), 510
feet, — thence the length of the course of the river to the
Sea of Aral is somewhat over 500 miles. The Aral is 158
feet above the mean sea-level. Thus the average slope of
the Amu is about 1 4 inches in the mile above and 8 inches
below Chahdrjui. The river has been reported to be
navigable for steamers up to the junction with the Wdkhsh
or Surkhdb; and in 1878 a Russian steamer ascended it
up to Khwdja Sdleh, at the junction of the boundaries of
Bokhara and Afghanistan.
The testimony of antiquity is almost unanimous in
representing the Oxus as having once flowed into the
Caspian Sea. Herodotus asserts that in his day the
Jaxartes also entered the Caspian, but this statement is
so highly improbable that it throws much doubt on his
geographical accuracy as regards these regions. Greek
historians also mention a river Ochus to the south of
the Oxus, flowing towards the Caspian, into which it is
supposed to have fallen either directly or after joining a
branch of the Oxus ; Strabo says that both this river and
the Oxus were crossed by Alexander in marching from
Samarkand to Merv. Maps recently published by both
English and Russian geographers show the supposed
ancient beds of the two rivers in the Turkomani deserts,
the Oxus flowing southwards from the province of Khiva
and joining the Caspian below the Balkhan Bay, the
Ochus flowing from east to west in a lower latitude, and
possibly striking the Oxus before it turns towards the
Caspian. The first is called the old Oxus in English and the
Uzboi in Russian maps ; the second is called the Ongiiz in
Russian and the Chahdrjui in English maps, and is some
times drawn as if it had been a bifurcation from the Oxus
at some point near Chahdrjui. But the recent explorations
of the Russian engineer Lessar have shown that what
hitherto has been taken for the dry bed of the Ochus is
not the bed of a river, but merely a natural furrow between
sand-hills, that it cannot be the continuation either of a
river from the east bifurcating from the upper Oxus or of
the Tejend river from the south as has been supposed,
and also that it does not join the Uzboi, but ceases at a
distance of fully 60 miles from the ancient bed of that
river. Thus the bed of the Ochus has still to be discovered.
As regards the Oxus, some eminent geographers are of
opinion that it has disembogued into the Aral Sea from
time immemorial as at this day ; other geographers of
equal weight have asserted that the Aral has fluctuated at
different periods of history between the condition of a
great inland sea and that of a reedy marsh, according to
the varying course of its two feeders the Jaxartes and the
Oxus. Now the position and height of the head of the
delta of the Oxus relatively to the Aral and the Caspian
Seas are such that comparatively slight changes in the
relations of the river to its banks and bed would readily
divert its course from one sea to the other. Khwdja-ili, at
the head of the delta, is 217 feet above the mean sea ; the
Aral is 158 feet above and the Caspian 85 feet below the
mean sea. The length of channel from Khwdja-ili to the
Aral is 110 miles, with a fall of 59 feet, or about 6 inches
0 X Y — 0 X Y
105
in the mile ; the length of channel from the town of
Urganj near Khwaja-ili to the Caspian is about 600 miles,
with a fall of (say) 300 feet, or also about 6 inches to the
mile. Thus the degree of slope is much the same in both
directions, and consequently the blocking of the channel
towards one sea — either naturally as by an accidental
deposit of silt, or artificially by the construction of dams
for the diversion of the river — would most probably be
soon followed by a flow of water towards the other sea.
The writings of Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy indicate that
from 500 B.C. to 600 A.D. the Oxus flowed into the Caspian.
About 605 a great change is said to have taken place,
which turned the full stream of the Oxus into the Aral.
In subsequent years dams were constructed for irrigation
purposes which prevented the stream from reverting to
the Caspian. In 1221, during the siege of Urganj by the
Turks, the dams were purposely broken down, and the
stream was allowed to find its way back to the Uzboi,
which had been deserted for several centuries. But by
1643 the Oxus is said to have been again debouching into
the Aral, as at the present time.
Authorities. — Colonel Yule's " Essay " in Wood's Oxus, 2d ed. ; Id. ,
" Papers connected with the Upper Oxus Regions," in Jour. Roy.
Geog. Soc., xlii. ; Sir Henry Rawlinson, England and Russia in the
East ; Id., Review of Yule's " Marco Polo," in Edin. Rev., January
1872; Id., "Monograph on the Oxus," in Jour. Roy. Gcog. Soc.,
xlii.; Id., "Notes on the Oehus," in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., xx. ;
Id., "Road to Merv," in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., March 1879;
Price, Mahomedan History ; Lonz, Ancient Course of the Amu-
Daria, translated from German by C. G. ; Arendarenko, Darwdz
and Karateghin, translated from Russian Military Journal by
R. M. ; General Walker, Map of Turkestan, 6th ed., 1883; "The
Russian Pamir Expedition," in Proc. Roy. Gcog. Soc., March
1884. (J. T. W.)
OXYGEN". See CHEMISTRY, vol. v. p. 479 sq.
OXYHYDROGEN FLAME. Hydrogen gas readily
burns in ox-ygen or air with formation of vapour of water.
The quantity of heat evolved, according to Thomson,
amounts to 34116 units for every unit of weight of
hydrogen burned, which means that, supposing the two
gases were originally at the temperature of, say, 0° C., to
bring the hot steam produced into the condition of liquid
water of 0° C., we must withdraw from it a quantity of
heat equal to that necessary to raise 34116 units of weight
of liquid water from 0° to 1° C. This heat-disturbance
is quite independent of the particular mode in which the
process is conducted ; it is the same, for instance, whether
pure oxygen or air be used as a reagent, being neither
more or less than the balance of energy between 1 part of
hydrogen plus 8 parts of oxygen on the one hand and 9
parts of liquid water on the other. The temperature
of the flame, on the other hand, does depend on the
circumstances under which the process takes place. It
obviously attains its maximum in the case of the firing
of pure " oxyhydrogen " gas (we mean a mixture of
hydrogen with exactly half its volume of oxygen, the
quantity it combines with in becoming water). It becomes
less when the " oxyhydrogen " is mixed with excess of one
or the other of the two co-reagents or an inert gas such
as nitrogen, because in any such case the same amount
of heat spreads over a larger quantity of matter. To
calculate the "calorific effect," we may assume that, in any
case, for every 1 grain of hydrogen burned 9x637 = 5733
units of heat are spent in the conversion of the 9 grains
of liquid water (theoretically imagined to be) produced
into steam of 100° C., and that only the rest of
341 16 - 5733 = 28383 units is available for heating up the
products of combustion. Now the specific heat of steam
(from 120 to 220° C.) has been found to be equal to
0'4805 units ; hence, on the basis of certain obvious (but
bold) assumptions, in the firing of 9 grains of oxyhydrogen
gas, as every 9 x 0'4805 units of heat correspond to an
increase of 1° C. in temperature, the temperature of the
flame should be by 28383 + 9 times 0'4805 (or 6564° C.)
higher than 100°, or equal to 6664° C.
Let us now consider the case of 1 grain of hydrogen
mixed with the quantity of air containing 8 grains of
oxygen, i.e., the case of 1 grain hydrogen mixed with 8
grains of oxygen and 26'7S grains of nitrogen. Here the
temperature t of the flame will be governed by the equa
tion, 28383 = (t - 100) x 9 x 0-4805 + 1 x 26'78 x 0-2438,
— the last coefficient being the specific heat of nitrogen.
Thus £ = 2655° C., as against the 6664° obtained with
pure oxygen. But one of our tacit assumptions is
obviously untenable ; ready-made vapour of water, if
subjected to even the less of the two temperatures,
would suffer far-going dissociation involving an absorption
of heat and consequently a depression of tempera
ture. Hence supposing a mass of oxyhydrogen gas to
have been kindled, as soon as the temperature has passed
a certain point the progress of the process of combina
tion will be checked by that of the corresponding dis
sociation, which latter, as the combustion progresses, will
go on at a greater and greater rate, or until it just com
pensates the effect of the process of combination. That
is to say, as soon as through the combustion of a certain
fraction of the oxyhydrogen a certain temperature (far less
than 66643 C.) has been produced, there is no further
increase of temperature, and the uncombined gas-residue
would remain unchanged, if it were not for the practically
unavoidable loss of heat by radiation and conduction,
which enables it to become water.
This interesting matter was inquired into experimentally
by Bunsen. He exploded fulminating gas mixtures in
a close vessel constructed so that the maximum tension
attained by the gas-contents during the combustion could
be observed and measured, and from this value and the
analytical data he calculated the maximum temperature and
the proportion of gas-mixture which had assumed the form
of a chemical compound at the moment when the maximum
temperature prevailed. He found («) for the case of
pure oxyhydrogen gas— maximum temperature = 2844° C.,
fraction of burned gas at the respective moment 0'337 ;
(b) for the case of a mixture of 1 volume of oxygen, 2
volumes of hydrogen, and 3'78 of nitrogen (very nearly
the same as one volume of oxygen in the shape of air) —
maximum temperature = 2024° C., burned gas correspond
ing =0 '547 of the potential water. Hence we see that
the temperature of a pure oxyhydrogen flame is not so
much above that produced in the combustion of hydrogen
by air as we should have concluded from our calculations.
But, whatever the exact numerical value may be, it has
long been known that the calorific effect of an oxyhydrogen
flame exceeds that of any furnace, and the effect has long
been put to practical use in the oxyhydrogen lamp.
The most efficient form of this instrument is that which was
given to it long ago by Newman, who pumps pure oxyhydrogen
into a strong copper reservoir under 2 to 3 atmospheres' pressure, lets
the gas stream out of a narrow nozzle, and kindles it. The nozzle
in the original apparatus consisted of a glass tube about 4 inches
long and of ^-iiich bore. Newman worked long with this ap
paratus without any accident occurring; but when he once came
to substitute a tube of ^-inch bore the flame travelled back and
the apparatus burst like a bomb-shell. Of the many safety
arrangements suggested we will mention only that of Hare, who
inserts a plug of (microscopically) porous copper between reservoir
and nozzle, and forces the gas through this plug by applying a
sufficient pressure. The plug of course acts on the principle of the
Davy lamp, and offers protection as long as it has not got heated.
But it may get hot without the operator noticing it, and probably
has done so occasionally. At any rate, the use of ready mixed
oxyhydrogen has long been given up in favour of the very oldest
form of lamp, which was invented, before Newman's, by Hare.
Hare's lamp, in all essential points, is our present gas-blowpipe as
used for glass-blowing. The fuel (hydrogen, or coal-gas, which
works as well) streams out of the annular space between two co-
XVIII. --14
106
0 X Y — O Y S
axial tubes, while oxygen is being blown into the hydrogen ilaine
through the central tube. The calorific effect of a Hare's lamji
is of course less than that of Newman's, but still exceeds that of
any ordinary fire ; it is inferior only to that of the electric arc.
Platinum fuses in the ilaine with facility, and silica and alumina
(though absolutely infusible in the metallurgist's sense) run into
viscid glasses. Notwithstanding its enormous temperature, an oxy-
hydrogen flame emits only a feeble light; but this arises only from
the absence in it of good radiators. We need only communicate its-
high temperature to some non-volatile and infusible solid, and a
considerable portion of the heat is converted into radiant energy
which streams forth as a dazzling white light. In the oxyhydro-
gen lamp as used in connexion with the magic lantern or the
"solar" microscope, a bit of lime fixed to an upright wire serves
as a radiator. Magnesia is said to be better, and it has been said
that zircouia excels both. Now that the electric light is com
ing into general use, the oxyhydrogen lamp as a source of light
will soon be a thing of the past. It is sure, however, to survive as
a powerful producer of intense heat, and not for scientific purposes
only. Thanks to the pioneering activity of Deville and Debray,
it has found its way into the platinum works, and will hold its
ground there until it may be superseded by the electric arc. The
soldering together of the several parts of a platinum apparatus is
now done " autogynically " (i.e., without the interposition of any
foreign " solder ) by means of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, — a great
improvement over the old process of soldering with gold, which
stripped the platinum-work of its most valuable character, namely,
its relative infusibility. (W. D. )
OXYNOTUS, the name of a genus of birds now ascer
tained to be peculiar to two of the Mascarene Islands —
Mauritius and Reunion (Bourbon) — where the name of
Cuisinier is applied to them, and remarkable for the fact,
almost if not quite unique in Ornithology,1 that, while the
males of both species are almost identical in appearance, the
females are wholly unlike each other. Though the habits
of the Mauritian species, 0. rufiventer, have been very
fairly observed, there seems to be nothing in them that
might account for the peculiarity. The genus Oxynotus is
generally placed in the group known as Campophagidx,
most or all of which are distinguished from the Laniidx
(to which they seem nearly allied) by the feathers on the
lower part of the back and on the rump having the basal
portion of the shaft very stiff and the distal portion soft —
a structure which makes that part of the body, on being
touched by the finger, feel as though it were beset with
blunt prickles. Hence the name of the genus conferred by
Swainson, and intended to signify " prickly back." The
males, which look rather like miniature Grey Shrikes
(Lanius excubitor and others), are — except on close exami
nation, when some slight differences of build and shade
become discernible— quite indistinguishable ; but the
female of the one species has a reddish-brown back, and is
bright ferruginous beneath, while the female of the other
species is dull white beneath, transversely barred, as are the
females of some Shrikes, with brown. Both sexes of each
species, and the young of one of them, are described and
figured in TJie Ibis for 1866 (pp. 275-280, pis. vii. and
viii.). (A. N.)
OYER AND TERMENER, in English law, is one of
the commissions by which a judge of assize sits (see
ASSIZE). By the commission of oyer and terminer the
commissioners (in practice the judges of assize, though
other persons are named with them in the commission)
are commanded to make diligent inquiry into all treasons,
felonies, and misdemeanours whatever committed in the
counties specified in the commission, and to hear and
determine the same according to law. The inquiry is by
means of the grand jury ; after the grand jury has found
the bills submitted to it, the commissioners proceed to
hear and determine (oyer and terminer) by means of the
petty jury. The words oyer and terminer are also used to
1 The only other instance cited by Darwin (Descent of Man, ii. pp.
192, 193) is that of two species of Paradisea; but therein the males
differ from one another to a far greater degree than do those of
Oxynotus.
denote the court which has jurisdiction to try offences
within the limits to which the commission of oyer and
terminer extends.
By 7 Anne c. 21 the crown has power to issue commissions of
oyer and terminer in Scotland for the trial of treason and mis-
prision of treason. Three of the lords of justiciary must be in any
such commission. An indictment for either of the offences
mentioned may be removed by certiorari from the court of oyer and
terminer into the court of justiciary.
In the United States oyer and terminer is the name given to
courts of criminal jurisdiction in some States, e.g. , New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
OYSTER. The use of this name in the vernacular is
equivalent to that of Ostrea in zoological nomenclature ;
there are no genera so similar to Ostrea as to be confounded
with it in ordinary language. Ostrea is a genus of Lamel-
libranch Molluscs, belonging to the third order Monomya,
the valves of its shell being closed by a single large
adductor muscle. The degeneration produced by sedentary
habits in all lamellibranchs has in the oyster reached its
most advanced stage. The muscular projection of the
ventral surface called the foot, whose various modifications
characterize the different classes of Mollusca, is almost
entirely aborted. The two valves of the shell are unequal
in size, and of different shape ; the left valve is larger,
thicker, and more convex, and on it the animal rests in its
natural state. This valve, in the young oyster, is attached
to some object on the sea-bottom ; in the adult it is some
times attached, sometimes free. The right valve is flat,
and smaller and thinner than the left. In a corresponding
manner the right side of the animal's body is somewhat
less developed than the left, and to this exterlt there is a
departure from the bilateral symmetry characteristic of
lamellibranchs.
The organization of the oyster, as compared with that
of a typical lamellibranch such as Anodon (see MOLLUSCA),
is brought about by the reduction of the anterior part of
the body accompanying the loss of the anterior adductor,
and the enlargement of the posterior region. The pedal
ganglia and auditory organs have disappeared with the
foot, at all events have never been detected ; the labial
ganglia are very minute, while the parieto-splanchnic are
well developed, and constitute the principal part of the
nervous system.
According to Spengel the pair of ganglia near the
mouth, variously called labial or cerebral, represent the
cerebral pair and pleural pair of a gastropod combined,
and the parieto-splanchnic pair correspond to the visceral
ganglia, the commissure which connects them with the
cerebro-pleural representing the visceral commissure.
Each of the visceral ganglia is connected or combined
with an olfactory ganglion underlying an area of special
ized epithelium, which constitutes the olfactory organ,
the osphradium. This view (which, it may be pointed
out, differs from that given under MOLLUSCA) alone admits
of a satisfactory comparison between the lamellibranch
and the gastropod ; if the parieto-splanchnic were merely
an olfactory ganglion its connexion by a commissure with
its fellow would be an abnormality, and the olfactory
ganglion in the lamellibranch would innervate the gills,
adductor muscle, mantle, and rectum, parts which in
gastropods are innervated from the visceral ganglia. The
heart and pericardial chamber in the oyster lie along the
anterior face of the adductor muscle, almost perpendicular
to the direction of the gills, with which in Anodon they
are parallel. In Anodon and the majority of lamelli-
braiuhs the ventricle surrounds the intestine ; in the
oyster the two are quite independent, the intestine pass
ing above the pericardium. The renal organs of the
oyster were discovered by Hoek to agree in their mor
phological relations with those of other lamellibranchs.
OYSTER
107
The generative organs of the oyster consist of a system
of branching cavities on each side of the body lying
immediately beneath the surface. All the cavities of a
side are ultimately in communication with an efferent duct
opening on the surface of the body a little above the line
of attachment of the gills. The genital opening on each
side is situated in a depression of the surface into which
the renal organ also opens. The genital products are
derived from the cells which line the cavities of the genital
organs. The researches of Hoek have shown that in the
same oyster the genital organs at one time produce ova, at
another spermatozoa, and that consequently the oyster
does not fertilize itself. Ho\v many times the alternation
of sex may take place in a season is not known. It must
be borne in mind that in what follows the species of the
European coasts, Ostrea edulis, is under consideration.
The ova are fertilized in the genital duct, and before their
escape have undergone the earliest stages of segmentation.
After escaping from the genital aperture they find their
way into the infra-branchial part of the mantle cavity of
the parent, probably by passing through the supra-branchial
chamber to the posterior extremity of the gills, and then
being conducted by the inhalent current caused by the
cilia of the gills into the infra-branchial chamber. In the
latter they accumulate, being held together and fastened
to the gills by a white viscid secretion. The mass of ova
thus contained in the oyster is spoken of by oyster fishers
as " white spat," and an oyster containing them is said to
be " sick." While in this position the ova go through the
series of changes figured in vol. xvi. p. 638 (fig. 6). At
the end of a fortnight the white spat has become dark-
coloured from the appearance of coloured patches in the
developing embryos. The embryos having then reached
the condition of " trochospheres " escape from the mantle
cavity and swim about freely near the surface of the water
among the multitude of other creatures, larval and adult,
which swarm there. The larva? are extremely minute,
about -j-i^ inch long and of glassy transparency, except in
one or two spots which are dark brown. From the
trochosphere stage the free larvse pass into that of
" veligers." How long they remain free is not known ;
Prof. Huxley kept them in a glass vessel in this condition
for a week. Ultimately they sink to the bottom and fix
themselves to shells, stones, or other objects, and rapidly
take on the appearance of minute oysters, forming white
disks 2^5- inch in diameter. The appearance of these minute
oysters constitutes what the fishermen call a " fall of spat."
The experiment by which Hoek conclusively proved the
change of sex in the oyster was as follows. In an oyster
containing white spat microscopic examination of the
genital organs shows nothing but a few unexpelled ova.
An oyster in this condition was kept in an aquarium by
itself for a fortnight, and after that period its genital
organs were found to contain multitudes of spermatozoa in
all stages of development.
The breeding season of the European oyster lasts from
May to September. The rate of growth of the young
oyster is, roughly speaking, an inch of diameter in a year,
but after it has attained a breadth of 3 inches its growth
is much slower. Prof. Mobius is of opinion that oysters
over twenty years of age are rare, and that most of the
adult Schleswig oysters are seven to ten years old.
The development of the American oyster, 0. virginiana, and of
the Portuguese oyster, 0. angulata, is very similar to that of
0. cdulis, except that there is no period of incubation within the
mantle cavity of the parent in the case of these two species. Hence
it is that so-called artificial fertilization is possible ; that is to say,
the fertilization may be allowed to take place in a tank or aqua
rium in which the conditions are under control. But if it is
possible to procure a supply of spat from the American oyster by
keeping the swarms of larvae in confinement, it ought to be pos
sible in the case of the European oyster. All that would be
necessary would be to take a number of mature oysters containing
white spat and lay them down in tanks till the larva? escape. This
would be merely carrying oyster culture a step further back, and
instead of collecting the newly fixed oysters, to obtain the free
larvae in numbers and so insure a fall of spat independently of the
uncertainty of natural conditions.
Natural beds of oyster occur on stony and shelly bottoms at
depths varying from 3 to 20 fathoms. In nature the beds are liable
to variations, and, although Prof. Huxley is somewhat sceptical on
this point, it seems that they are easily brought into an unproduc
tive condition by over-dredging. Oysters do not flourish in water
containing less than 3 per cent, salt ; and hence they are absent
from the Baltic. The chief enemies of oysters are the dog-whelk,
Purpura lapillus, and the whelk-tingle, Murex erinaceus,vf}rich bore
through the shells. Starfishes swallow oysters whole. Cliona, the
boring sponge, destroys the shells and so injures the oyster; the
boring annelid Lcucodorc also excavates the shell.
The wandering life of the larvae makes it uncertain whether any
of the progeny of a given oyster-bed will settle within its area
and so keep up its numbers. It is known from the history of the
Liimfjord beds that the larvae may settle 5 miles from their place
of birth.
The genus Ostrea has a world-wide distribution, in tropical
and temperate seas ; seventy species have been distinguished. Its
nearest allies are Anomia among living forms, Gfryphgga among
fossils. For the so-called Pearl-Oyster see PEARL. (J. T. C.).
Oyster Indust ;•//.
The oyster industry of the world is seated chiefly in
the United States and France. Great Britain has still
a few natural beds remaining, and a number of well-con
ducted establishments for oyster culture. Canada, Holland,
Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark,
Norway, and Russia have also oyster industries, which are
comparatively insignificant, and in the case of the two
countries last named, hardly worthy of consideration in
a statistical statement. Recent and accurate statistics are
lacking except in two or three instances. A brief review
by countries in the order of their importance is here pre
sented.
United States. — This is by far the most extensive of the fishery
industries of the country, yielding products three times as valuable
as those of the cod fishery and six times those of the whale fishery.
In 1880 it employed 52,805 persons, and yielded 22,195,370
bushels, worth to the fishermen $9,034,861. On 13,047,922
bushels there is a rise of value in passing from producers to
market, which amounts to $4,368,991, and results either from
replanting or from packing in tin cans. The value of the capital
invested in the industry is returned as §10,583,295. There are
employed 4155 vessels, valued at $3,528,700, and 11,930 boats.
The actual fishermen number 38,249, the shoresmen 14,556. Fully
80 per cent, of the total yield is obtained from the waters of
Chesapeake Bay.1
France. — The oyster industry of France employed in 1881
29.4312 men, women, and children in the parks, beds, and preserves.
The number of such establishments upon the public domain was
32,364, with an area of 19,891 acres, and 970 establishments upon
private property, with an area of 926 acres. From these
374,985,770 oysters were dredged during the season of 1880-81, from
September 1 to June 15, worth 2,061,753 francs, while the total
number of oysters disposed of during this period amounted to
680,372,750, worth 17,951,114 francs. This total includes the
oysters dredged in the sea as well as those gathered from the arti
ficial breeding-grounds or parks.
Great Britain. — A brief discussion of the British oyster fisheries
may be found under FISHERIES, vol. ix. p. 265. A recent estimate3
gives the total value of the oysters obtained from British seas at
£2,000,000, worth 2d. each, or, perhaps, 240,000,000 in all. An
extensive import trade is carried on with the United States,
which has grown up within the past decade, as is shown by
the following statement4 of import values: — 1874, $41,419;
1 The statistical summary prepared for the Fisheries Division of
the Tenth Census by Mr Ernest Ingersoll shows the details, by States,
of the oyster industry of the whole country.
2 Bouchon-Braudely stated in 1877 that the industry of oyster culture
in France supported a maritime population of 200,000. It is difficult
to reconcile this statement with the official statistics.
3 That of Mr James G. Bertram in Brit. Quart. Rev. for January
1883.
4 Derived from the records of the United States Treasury.
108
O Y 8 T E R
1875, $38,733 ; 1876, $99,012 ; 1877, §121,301 ; 1878, §254,815 ;
1879, $306,941 ; 1880, §366,403 ; 1881, §414,584 ; 1882, §372,111 ;
1883, §371,497.
Holland. — Since 1870 the beds in the province of Zealand have
been greatly enriched by careful methods of culture and protection;
and in 1881 the product amounted to 21,800,000 oysters, worth
about 1,350,000 guilders.1 About half the product of the Dutch
oyster fishery is sent to England, and large quantities of the young
oysters are laid down to fatten in the English oyster-beds.
Germany. — Germany has a small oyster industry on the west
coast of Schleswig-Holstein.2 According to Lindeman, the largest
annual product of these beds has rarely exceeded 4,000,000 oysters.
From 1859 to 1879 they were rented to a company in Flensburg for
an annual payment of 80,000 marks. In 1879 the lease was trans
ferred to a Hamburg firm, who paid for that year 163,000 marks.
Italy. — Oyster culture in Italy, according to Bouchon-Brandely,3
is carried on in only one locality, Taranto, though small quan
tities of natives are obtained from the Gulfs of Genoa and Naples,
from the coasts of the Adriatic, and from the ponds of Corsica.
The sea of Taranto is leased by the city to a company that pays an
annual rent of 38,000 francs. The product of this body of water
is estimated variously at from 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 oysters
vearly. The entire annual product of Italy does not probably ex
ceed 20,000,000 oysters, valued at about £40,000.
Belgium. — Oyster culture is carried on upon a small scale at
Ostend. There being no native beds, the seed oysters are brought
from England, a practice which, according to Lindeman, originated
as early as 1765. The product probably does not exceed 10,000
bushels a year, and is consumed chiefly in Germany and Holland,
though there is a small exportation.
Spain. — According to a recent report by Don Francisco Sola,
there are forty-three establishments in Spain for the cultivation of
oysters and other shell-fisheries. The amount of oysters annually
produced is estimated at 167,673 kilogrammes (368,880 Ib), valued
at 50,296 pesetas (about £2000). These are exported to Algiers,
France, Portugal, and South America.
Portugal. — There appear to be no statistics for Portugal. Con
siderable quantities of seed oysters are planted at present in the
Day of Arcachon and elsewhere in France, and in England the
Anglo-Portuguese oyster is apparently growing in favour.4
Denmark. — The very insignificant oyster fishery of Denmark has
its seat chiefly in the Liimfjord and at Frederikshaven. All the
oyster-beds, being Government property, are carefully protected by
law. Statistics for late years are not accessible. In 1847 the product
of the Frederikshaven beds was about 200,000 oysters ; but the yield
of late years has been much smaller. The Liimfjord beds were dis
covered about 1851. From 1876 to 1881 the Danish oyster fisheries
were leased to a firm in Hamburg, which paid 240,000 kroner
(£13,000) as yearly rental.
Russia. — Grimm states that a specie's of oyster, Ostrea adriatica,
is found in considerable numbers along the coast of the Crimea,
and is the object of a considerable trade. Oysters brought from
Theodosia cost in St Petersburg about 3s. sterling the score.
Norway. — The average value of the yield for the five years ending
1881 was 7600 kroner (£420). The quantity produced in 18'81
was 267 hectolitres (735 bushels), valued at 7000 kroner (£390).
The industry is seated for the most part in the districts of southern
Trondhjem and Jarlsberg, the product of the latter province being
nearly half that of all Norway.
Subjoined is a rough estimate of the total number of oysters
obtained annually from the sea (North America, 5,572,000,000;
Europe, 2,331,200,000):—
United States5. ...5,550,000,000
Canada 22,000,000
France 680,400,000
Great Britain 1,600,000,000
Holland 21,800,000
Italy 20,000,000
Germany 4,000,000
Belgium 2,500,000
Spain 1,000,000
Portugal 800, 000
Denmark 200,000
Russia 250,000
Norway 250,000
1 Hubrecht, "Oyster Culture and Oyster Fisheries of the Netherlands"
(conference paper, International Fisheries Exhibition) ; Hoek, " Ueber
Austernzucht in den Niederlanden " (circular 2, Deutsche Fiseherei-
Verein, 1879 ; translated in Report of the United States Fish Commis
sion, part viii. pp. 1029-35).
2 Mobius, Die Auster und die Austernimrthschnft (1877, pp. 126 ;
translated in Report of the United States Fish Commission, part viii.
pp. 683-751).
3 Rapport au Ministre de V Instruction sur la pisciculture en France
ft L' Ostreiculture dans la Mediterranee (Paris, 1878) ; the portion
relating to oyster culture in the Mediterranean is translated in the
Report of the United States Fish Commission, part viii. pp. 907-28.
4 See Renaud, Notice sur V Huitre Porturjaise et Francaise cultivee
dans la ttaie d' Arcachon ; translated in the Report of the United States
Fish Commission, part viii. pp. 931-41.
* On basis of 250 oysters to the bushel. The number varies from
150 to 400.
The oyster industry is rapidly passing from the hands
of the fisherman into those of the oyster culturist. The
oyster being sedentary, except for a few days in the earliest
stages of its existence, is easily exterminated in any given
locality ; since, although it may not be possible for the
fishermen to rake up from the bottom every individual,
wholesale methods of capture soon result in covering up
or otherwise destroying the oyster banks or reefs, as the
communities of oysters are technically termed. The main
difference between the oyster industry of America and that
of Europe lies in the fact that in Europe the native beds
have long since been practically destroyed, perhaps not
more than 6 or 7 per cent, of the oysters of Europe
passing from the native beds directly into the hands
of the consumer. It is probable that 60 to 75 per
cent, are reared from the spat in artificial parks, the
remainder having been laid down for a time to increase in
size and flavour in shoal waters along the coasts. In the
United States, on the other hand, from 30 to 40 per
cent, are carried from the native beds directly to market.
The oyster fishery is everywhere, except in localities
where the natural beds are nearly exhausted, carried on in
the most reckless manner, and in all directions oyster
grounds are becoming deteriorated, and in some cases have
been entirely destroyed. It remains to be seen whether
the Government of the States will regulate the oyster
fishery before it is too late, or will permit the destruction
of these most important reservoirs of food. At present
the oyster is one of the cheapest articles of diet in the
United States ; and, though it can hardly be expected
that the price of American oysters will always remain so
low, still, taking into consideration the great wealth of
the natural beds along the entire Atlantic coast, it seems
certain that a moderate amount of protection will keep
the price of seed oysters far below European rates, and
that the immense stretches of submerged land especially
suited for oyster planting may be utilized and made to
produce an abundant harvest at much less cost than that
which accompanies the complicated system of culture in
vogue in France and Holland.
The most elaborate system of oyster culture is that
practised at Arcachon and elsewhere in France, and, to a
limited extent since 1865, on the island of Hay ling, near
Portsmouth, in England. The young oysters, having been
collected in the breeding season upon tiles or hurdles, are
laid down in artificial ponds, or in troughs, where the
water is supplied to them at the discretion of their pro
prietors. The oysters are thus kept under control like
garden plants from the time they are laid down to that of
delivery to commercial control. The numerous modifica
tions of this system are discussed in various recent
reports.6
The simplest form of oyster culture is the preservation
of the natural oyster-beds. Upon this, in fact, depends
the whole future of the industry, since it is not probable
that any system of artificial breeding can be devised which
will render it possible to keep up a supply without at least
occasional recourse to seed oysters produced under natural
conditions. It is the opinion of almost all who have
studied the subject that any natural bed may in time be
destroyed by overfishing (perhaps not by removing all the
oysters, but by breaking up the colonies, and delivering
over the territory which they once occupied to other kinds
of animals), by burying the breeding oysters, by covering
6 See especially the following English parliamentary papers : — Report
of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Present State of the
Oyster Fisheries of France, England, and Ireland, 1870 ; Report of the
Select Committee appointed to inquire what are the Reasons for the
Present Scarcity of Oysters, &c., 1876 ; Report on the Principal Oyster
Fisheries of France, with a short description of the System of Oyster
Culture pursued at some of the most important places, &c., 1878.
109
up the projections suitable for the reception of spat, and
by breaking down, through the action of heavy dredges,
the ridges which are especially fitted to be seats of the
colonies.1 The immense oyster-beds in Pocomoke Sound,
Maryland, have practically been destroyed by over-dredg
ing, and many of the other beds of the United States are
seriously damaged. The same is doubtless true of all the
beds of Europe. It has also been demonstrated that
under proper restriction great quantities of mature oysters,
and seed oysters as well, may be taken from any region
of natural oyster-beds without injurious effects. Parallel
cases in agriculture and forestry will occur to every one.
Mobius, in his most admirable essay Die Aiister und Die
Austernitnrt/isckaff, has pointed out the proper means of
preserving natural beds, declaring that, if the average profit
from a bed of oysters is to remain permanently the same,
a sufficient number of mother oysters must be left in it,
so as not to diminish the capacity of maturing. He
further shows that the productive capacity of a bed can
only be maintained in one of two ways : — (1) by diminish
ing the causes which destroy the young oysters, in which
case the number of breeding oysters may safely be
decreased ; this, however, is practicable only under such
favourable conditions as occur at Arcachon, where the beds
may be kept under the constant control of the oyster-
culturist ; (2) by regulating the fishing on the natural
beds in such a manner as to make them produce perma
nently the highest possible average quantity of oysters.
Since the annual increase of half-grown oysters is estimated
by him to be four hundred and twenty-one to every
thousand full-grown oysters, he claims that not more than
42 per cent, of these latter ought to be taken from a bed
during a year.
The Schleswig-Holstein oyster-beds are the property of
the state, and are leased to a company whose interest it is
to preserve their productiveness. The French beds are
also kept under Government control. Not so the beds
of Great Britain and America, which are as a general
rule open to all comers,2 except when some close-time
regulation is in force. Prof. Huxley has illustrated the
futility of " close-time " in his remark that the prohibition
of taking oysters from an oyster-bed during four months
of the year is not the slightest security against its being
.stripped clean during the other eight months. " Suppose,"
he continues, " that in a country infested by wolves, you
have a flock of sheep, keeping the wolves off during the
lambing season will not afford much protection if you
withdraw shepherd and dogs during the rest of the year."
The old close-time laws were abolished in England in
1866, and returned to in 1876, but no results can be traced
to the action of parliament in either case. Prof. Huxley's
conclusions as regards the future of the oyster industry
in Great Britain are doubtless just as applicable to other
countries, — that the only hope for the oyster consumer
lies in the encouragement of oyster-culture, and in the
development of some means of breeding oysters under
such conditions that the spat shall be safely deposited.
Oyster culture can evidently be carried on only by private
enterprise, and the problem for legislation to solve is how
1 Even Prof. Huxley, the most ardent of all opponents of fishery
legislation, while denying that oyster-beds have been permanently
annihilated by dredging, practically admits that a bed may be reduced
to such a condition that the oyster will only be able to recover its
former state by a long struggle with its enemies and competition. — in
fact that it must re-establish itself much in the same way as they have
acquired possession of new grounds in Jutland, a process which,
according to his own statement, occupied thirty years (Lecture at the
Royal Institution, May 11, 1883, printed with additions in the English
Illustrated Ma/jazine, i. pp. 47-55, 112-21).
2 Connecticut has within a few years greatly benefited its oyster
industry by giving to oyster-culturists a fee simple title to the lands
under control by them.
to give such rights of property upon those shores which
are favourable to oyster culture as may encourage com
petent persons to invest their money in that undertaking.
Such property right should undoubtedly be extended to
natural beds, or else an area of natural spawning territory
should be kept under constant control and surveillance by
Government, for the purpose of maintaining an adequate
supply of seed oysters.
The existing legislation in the United States is thus admirably
summarized by Lieutenant Francis Winslow:3 —
"The fishery is regulated by the laws of the various States, the Federal
Government exercising no control, and consequently the conditions under which
the pursuit is followed are many and various. At the present time the laws
relating to the oyster fishery may be said to be based upon one of two general
principles. The first, the basis for the regulations of most of the States, con
siders the oyster-beds to be inalienable common property. Laws based upon
this principle are generally of a protective nature, and are in reality regulations
of the State, made by it in its capacity of guardian of the common property. The
second principle assumes the right of the State to dispose of the area at the'bottom
of its rivers, harbours, and estuaries, and, having disposed of it, to consider the
lessee or owner as alone responsible for the success or failure of his enterprises,
and the State in no way called upon to afford him of her assistance than protect ion
in legitimate rights, in general terms, under the first principle the beds arc held
in common ; under the second, in severally. But one State permits the pre
emption of an unlimited tract of bottom, and the holding of it in fee — the State
of Connecticut. Rhode Island leases her ground for a term of years, at 810 per
acre ; but the person holding an area linsno legal power of disposing of it beyond
the limits of the lease. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and
Virginia all permit pre-emption of small tracts by individuals for indefinite
periods, and on the coast of Long Island the various towns along the shore lease
tracts of considerable extent to private cultivators.
" Various restrictions are also placed upon the time and manner of conducting
the fisheries. Some of the States, noticeably Virginia, prohibit entirely the use
of the dredge or scrape ; others, noticeably New Jersey, prohibit such use in some
localities, and permit it in others. All the States, with one exception, prohibit
the use of steam vessels or machinery, or fishing by other than their own inhabit
ants. Connecticut again forms the exception, and quite a large fleet of steam
dredging vessels are employed on her beds.
"The laws of the various States have several common features. All general
fishing is suspended during the summer months. No night fishing is permitted.
No steamers are allowed to be used. No proprietary rights to particular areas arc-
given beyond the right to 'plant1 a limited number of oysters on bottoms adjoin
ing land owned by the planter, and peace officers and local authorities are charged
with execution of laws relating to the fishery. In a few States or localities
licences are required to be obtained for each fishing vessel; and in one State.
Maryland, a regular police force and fleet of vessels are maintained to support the
law. These regulations are easily evaded, except those relating to the steamer*
a::d pre-emption of ground. Naturally, no one will put down oysters without
being able to protect them ; and steamers are too readily detected to make their
illegal employment possible. In Connecticut and Hhode Island, the beds being
virtually private property, there is no restriction of the fishery, except that it shall
not be conducted at night."
The method of gathering oysters is simple, and much the same in
all parts of the world, the implements in use being nippers or
tongs with long handles, rakes, which are simply many-pronged
nippers, and dredges. The subjoined account of the American
method is abridged from that of Lieutenant Winslow: —
The character of the vessel or boat used depends in a measure upon the means
of the fisherman and the constancy of his employment, and is also influenced by
the character of the oyster ground, its location, and the laws governing the fish
ing. The last-named condition also decides the implement to be used ; when
permitted, it is the dredge — either the enormous one employed by the steamers,
the smaller toothed rake-dredge, or smooth-scrape. When dredging is prohibited,
the tongs, or nippers, with two handles, sometimes 30 feet long, are used. The
dredges are usually worked by an apparatus termed a "winder,'1 many forms
of which are employed, the best and most recent form being so designed that if,
while reeling in, the dredge should "hang," that is, become immovably fixed by
some obstruction r-n the bottom, the drum is at once automatically thrown out of
gearing, and the dredge-rope allowed to run out. Small craft use a more simple
and less expensive description of winch, and frequently haul in by hand, while
the steam dredgers have powerful machinery adapted for this special purpose.
The number of men employed varies with the size of the craft ; two, three, and
four men are sufficient on board the smaller dredgers, while the larger carry ten
and twelve.
While a great many oysters arc transported in the shell to markets distant from
the seaboard, the largest part of the inland consumption is of "opened" or
"shucked" oysters, and nearly every oyster dealer along the coast employs a
larger or smaller number of persons to open the oysters and pack and ship the
meats. Some of these establishments arc small, having as few as half a dozen
people engaged ; others are large buildings or sheds, and employ hundreds of
" shuckers." After having been removed from their shells and thoroughly
washed, the oysters thus dealt with are transferred either to small cans, holding
a quart of oysters, or to barrels, kegs, or tubs ; when packed in tubs, kegs, or
barrels, they go in bulk, with a large piece of ice; when packed in the tin cans,
the cans are arranged in two rows inside of a long box, a vacant space being left
in the centre, between the rows, in which is placed ft large block of ice. The cans
are carefully soldered up before packing, and together with the ice are laid in saw
dust. Oysters packed in this way ciin, in cool weather, be kept a week or more,
and sent across the continent, or to the remote western towns.
The steaming process is that by which the " cove" oysters are prepared. The
term "cove" is applied to oysters put up in cans, hermetically sealed, and
intended to be prose i ved an indefinite time. The trade in coves is confined
principally to the Chesapeake region, and the process of prepaiing them is as
follows. The oysters, usually the smaller sizes, are taken from the vessels and
placed in cars of iron frame-work, 6 or 8 feet long. These cars run on a light
iron track, which is laid from the wharf through the " steam-chest " or " steam-
box" to the shucking shed. As soon as a car is filled with oysters (in the shell)
it is run into the steam-chest, a rectangular oak box, 15 to 20 feet long, lined with
sheet iron and fitted with appliances for turning in steam ; the doors, which wo k
vertically and shut closely, are then let down, the steam admitted, and the oysters
3 Catalogue of the Economic Mollusca exhibited by the United
States National Museum at the International Fisheries Exhibition,
London, 1883.
110
OYSTER
left for ten or fifteen minutes. The chest is then opened and the cars run into the
shucking shed, their places in the chest being immediately occupied by othercars.
In tlie shed the cars are surrounded by the shuckers, each provided with a knife
and a can arranged so as to hook to the upper bar of the iron frame-work of the cur.
The steaming having caused the oyster shells to open more or less widely, there is
no difficulty in getting out the meats, and the cais are very rapidly emptied. The
oysters are then washed in iced water and transferred to the " fillers' " table. The
cans, having been filled, are removed to another part of the room and packed in
a cylindrical, iron crate or basket, and lowered into a large cylindrical kettle,
called the "process kettle" or "tub," where they are again steamed. After this
they are placed, crate and all, in the "cooling tub;" and when sufficiently cool to
be handled, the cans are taken to the soldering table, and there " capped" — that is,
are hermetically closed. From the "cappers" they are transported to another
department, labelled, and packed in boxes for shipment. The whole steaming pro
cess will not occupy an hour from the time the oysters leave the vessel until they
aie ready for shipment.
The extension of the area of the natural beds is the
second step in oyster culture. As is well known to zoolo
gists, and as has been very lucidly set forth by Prof.
Mdbius in the essay already referred to, the location of
oyster banks is sharply denned by absolute physical con
ditions. Within certain definite limits of depth, tempera
ture, and salinity, the only requirement is a suitable place
for attachment. Oysters cannot thrive where the ground
is composed of moving sand or where mud is deposited ;
consequently, since the size and number of these places are
very limited, only a very small percentage of the young
oysters can find a resting-place, and the remainder perish.
Mb'bius estimates that for every oyster brought to market
from the Holstein banks, 1,045,000 are destroyed or die.
By putting down suitable " cultch " or "stools" immense
quantities of the wandering fry may be induced to settle,
and are thus saved. As a fule the natural beds occupy
most of the suitable space in their own vicinity. Unoccu
pied territory may, however, be prepared for the reception
of new beds, by spreading sand, gravel, and shells over
muddy bottoms, or, indeed, beds may be kept up in loca
tions for permanent natural beds, by putting down mature
oysters and cultch just before the time of breeding, thus
giving the young a chance to fix themselves before the
currents and enemies have had time to accomplish much
in the way of destruction.
The collection of oyster spat upon artificial stools has
been practised from time immemorial. As early as the
7th century, and probably before, the Romans practised a
kind of oyster culture in Lake Avernus, which still sur
vives to the present day in Lake Fusaro. Piles of rocks
are made on the muddy bottoms of these salt-water lakes,
and around these are arranged circles of stakes, to which
are often attached bundles of twigs. Breeding oysters are
piled upon the rookeries, and their young become attached
to the stakes and twigs provided for their reception, where
they are allowed to remain until ready for use, when they
are plucked off and sent to the market. A similar though
ruder device is used in the Poquonnock river in Connecti
cut. Birch trees are thrown into the water near a natural
bed of oysters, and the trunks and twigs become covered
with spat ; the trees are then dragged out upon the shore
by oxen, and the young fry are broken off and laid down
in the shallows to increase in size. In 1858 the method
of the Italian lakes were repeated at St Brieuc under the
direction of Prof. P. Coste, and from these experiments
the art of artificial breeding as practised in France has
been developed. There is, however, a marked distinc
tion between oyster culture and oyster breeding, as will be
shown below. The natural beds of France in the Bay of
Arcachon, near Auray in Brittany, near Cancale and Gran-
ville in Xormandy, and elsewhere, are, however, carefully
cultivated,, as it is necessary that they should be, for the
support of the breeding establishments.1
More or less handling or " working" of the oysters is necessary
both for natural and transplanted beds. The most elaborate is
that which has been styled the " English system," which is carried
on chiefly near the mouth of the Thames, by the Whitstable and
Colchester corporations of fishermen and others. This consists in
1 See Report of the United States Fish Commission, part viii. pp.
739-41, 753-59, 885-903, 901-41.
laying down beds in water a fathom or more in depth at low water
and constantly dredging over the grounds, even during the close
time, except during the period when the spat is actually settling.
By this means the oysters are frequently taken out of the water and
put back again, and it is claimed that in this way their enemies are
battled and the ground put in better condition to receive the spat.
As a matter of fact, however, the oysters have not for many years
multiplied under this treatment, and the system is practically one
of oyster-parking rather than one of oyster-culture. One of the
advantages of the frequent handling is that the fishermen, in
putting the oysters back, can assort them by sizes, and arrange them
conveniently for the final gathering for market purposes.
American oyster culture, as practised in the "East River" (the
western end of Long Island Sound), in eastern Connecticut, and to
some extent in Long Island and New Jersey, is eminently success
ful and profitable, and there seems to be no reason to doubt its
permanence,, conducted as it is in close proximity to the natural
beds, and with due regard for preservation. In the Long Island
Sound alone, in 1879, the labours of 1714 men produced 997,000
bushels, or perhaps 250,000,000 of native oysters, valued at
$847,925, while all France produced in the following season 375,000,
worth about $412,000. There was also a side product of 450,000
bushels (122,000,000) of transplanted oysters, worth $350,000,
handled by the same men in the American beds, while France
employed an additional force of 28,000 people to produce 305,000,000
artificially bred oysters, worth $3,179,000. The Long Island
Sound system consists simply in distributing over the grounds, just
before the spawning season, quantities of old oyster shells to which
the young oysters become attached, and left undisturbed for from
three to five years, when, having reached maturity, they are
dredged for use. Spawning oysters are frequently put down in the
spring, two months before the ground is shelled ; this is done even
when the natural beds are near, but is not so essential as when a
rather remote piece of bottom is to be colonized.2
An excellent summary of the methods of planting in different parts
of the United States may be found in "Winslow's paper alreadyquoted.
The laying down or temporary deposit of dredged oysters in
estuaries on floats or in tanks, to fatten, increase in size, or improve
in flavour, is a concomitant of oyster culture, and may be used in
connexion with any of the systems above referred to. It is in no
sense oyster culture, since it has no relation to the maintenance of
the supply. A system of this kind has been practised since the 16th
century at Marcnncs and La Tremblade on the west coast of
France, where oysters from natural beds are placed in shallow
basins communicating with the sea during the spring tides, and
where they obtain food which gives them a green colour and a
peculiar flavour much esteemed by Parisian epicures.3 Similar
methods of parking are practised at Cancale and Granville.
In England, brood oysters are laid down in fattening beds on the
coast of Essex and in the Thames estuary, where they acquire deli
cacy of flavour, and to some extent, especially in the Thames, the
green colour already referred to. Belgium has also, near Ostend,
fattening beds supplied with foreign spat, chiefly from England.
In the United States an extensive business is carried on in laying
down seed oysters from the Chesapeake Bay in the estuaries of
southern New England and the Middle States.
Oyster-culturists practise in many places what is called " plump
ing," or puffing up oysters for market by exposing them for a short
time to the effects of water fresher than that in which they grew.
By this process the animal does not acquire any additional matter
except the water, which is taken up in great amount, but it loses a
part of its saltness, and, in flavour, becomes more like an oyster
from brackish waters.
There are large oyster reservoirs at Husuni in Schlcswig-IIolstein,
and at Ostend, whi>-h serve the double purpose of fattening the
oysters and of keeping a uniform supply for the markets at times
unsuited to the prosecution of the fishery.
The artificial impregnation of oyster eggs has been successfully
accomplished by many experimenters, and in 1883 Mr John A.
Ryder of the United States Fish Commission succeeded in confining
the swimming embryos in collectors until they had formed their
shells and become fixed. The utility of this experiment seems to
consist in the greater facility which it gives to oyster-cnlturists in
securing a sure supply of spat, independent of the vicissitudes
which currents and changes of weather entail upon those who rely
upon its deposit under natural conditions. The spat thus secured
can be reared either by the American, English, or French systems.
It is not probable that the common European species, Ostrca cdulis,
can be so readily handled by this method as the Portuguese
species, Ostrea angulata, or the American, Ostrea virginica, though
this can only be determined by trial. For the details of Mr Ryder's
experiment, see the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commis
sion, vol. ii. pp. 281-94. (G. B. G.)
2 The Oyster Industry, by Ernest Ingersoll (Washington, 1881).
3 Mb'bius, Die Auster und Die Austemwirthschaft ; and De Bon,
Ostrieculture en 1875.
0 Y S — 0 Z A
111
OYSTER-CATCHER, a bird's name which does not
seem to occur in books until 1731, when Catesby (Nat.
Hist. Carolina, i. p. 85) used it for a species which he
observed to be abundant on the oyster-banks left bare at
low water in the rivers of Carolina, and believed to feed
principally upon those molluscs. In 1776 Pennant applied
the name to the allied British species, which he and for
nearly two hundred years many other English writers had
called the "Sea-Pie." The change, in spite of the mis
nomer — for, whatever may be the case elsewhere, in
England the bird does not feed upon oysters — met with
general approval, and the new name has, at least in books,
almost wholly replaced what seems to have been the older
one.1 The Oyster-catcher of Europe is the Ifxmatopus12
ostralegus of Linnaeus, belonging to the group now called
Limicolx, and is generally included in the Family
Charadriidx ; though some writers have placed it in one
of its own, Hxmatopodidx, chiefly on account of its peculiar
bill — a long thin wedge, ending in a vertical edge. Its
feet also are much more fleshy than are generally seen in
the Plover Family. In its strongly-contrasted plumage of
black and white, with a coral-coloured bill, the Oyster-
catcher is one of the most conspicuous birds of the
European coasts, and in many parts is still very common.
It is nearly always seen paired, though the pairs collect in
prodigious flocks ; and, when these are broken up, its shrill
but musical cry of " tu-lup," " tu-lup," somewhat pettishly
repeated, helps to draw attention to it. ' Its wariness, how
ever, is very marvellous, and even at the breeding-season,
when most birds throw off their shyness, it is not easily
approached within ordinary gunshot distance. The hen-
bird commonly lays three clay-coloured eggs, blotched with
black, in a very slight hollow on the ground, not far from
the sea. As incubation goes on the hollow is somewhat
deepened, and perhaps some haulm is added to its edge, so
that at last a very fair nest is the result. The young, as
in all Limicolaz, are at first clothed in down, so mottled in
colour as closely to resemble the shingle to which, if they
be not hatched upon it, they are almost immediately taken
by their parents, and there, on the slightest alarm, they
squat close to elude observation. This species occurs
on the British coasts (very seldom straying inland) all
the year round ; but there is some reason to think that
those we have in winter are natives of more northern
latitudes, while our home-bred birds leave us. It ranges
from Iceland to the shores of the Red Sea, and lives chiefly
on marine worms, Crustacea, and such molluscs as it is
able to obtain. It is commonly supposed to be capable
of prizing limpets from their rock, and of opening the
shells of mussels ; but, though undoubtedly it feeds on
both, further evidence as to the way in which it procures
them is desirable. Mr Harting informs the writer that
the bird seems to lay its head sideways on the ground,
and then, grasping the limpet's shell close to the rock
between the mandibles, use them as scissor-blades to cut
off the mollusc from its sticking-place. The Oyster-catcher
is not highly esteemed as a bird for the table.
Differing from this species in the possession of a longer
1 It seems however very possible, judging from its equivalents in
other European languages, such as the Frisian 0 ester visscher, the
German Augsterman, Austernfischer, and the like, that the name
" Oyster-catcher " may have been not a colonial invention but
indigenous to the mother-country, though it had not found its way
into print before. The French Huitrier, however, appears to be a
word coined by Brisson. " Sea- Pie" has its analogues in the French
Pie-de-Mer. the German Meerelster, Seeelster, and so forth.
2 Whether it be the Hasmatopus whose name is found in some
editions of Pliny (lib. x. cap. 47) is at best doubtful. Other editions
have Himantopus; but Hardouin prefers the former reading. Both
words have passed into modern ornithology, the latter as the generic
name of the STILT (q.v. ); and some writers have blended the' two in
the strange and impossible compound Ilasmantopus.
bill, in having much less white on its back, in the paler colour
of its mantle, and in a few other points, is the ordinary
American species, already mentioned, Haimatopus palliatus.
Except that its call-note, judging from description, is unlike
that of the European bird, the habits of the two seem to be
perfectly similar ; and the same may be said indeed of all
the other species. The Falkland Islands are frequented by
a third, //. leucopus, very similar to the first, but with
a black wing-lining and paler legs, while the Australian
Region possesses a fourth, //. longirostris, with a very long
bill as its name intimates, and no white on its primaries.
China, Japan, and possibly eastern Asia in general have
an Oyster-catcher which seems to be intermediate between
the last and the first. This has received the name of
H. osculans ; but doubts have been expressed as to its
deserving specific recognition. Then we have a group of
species in which the plumage is wholly or almost wholly
black, and among them only do we find birds that fulfil
the implication of the scientific name of the genus by having
feet that may be called blood-red. //. niger, which fre
quents both coasts of the northern Pacific, has, it is true,
yellow legs, but towards the extremity of South America
its place is taken by //. ater, in which they are bright red,
and this bird is further remarkable for its laterally com
pressed and much upturned bill. The South African H.
capensis has also scarlet legs; but in the otherwise very
similar bird of Australia and New Zealand, H. unicolor,
these members are of a pale brick-colour. (A. N.)
OZAKA, or OSAKA, one of the three imperial cities of
Japan (Kioto and Tokio or Yedo being the other two), is
situated in a plain in the province of Setsu or Sesshiu,
measuring about 20 miles from north to south and from
15 to 20 miles east and west, and bounded, except
towards the west, where it opens on Idzuminada Bay, by
hills of considerable height. It lies on both sides of the
Yodogawa, or rather of its headwater the Aji (the outlet
of Lake Biwa), and is so intersected by river-branches and
canals as to suggest a comparison with Venice or Stockholm.
River steamers ply between Ozaka and its port Hiogo or
Kobe, and a railway between the two places, opened in
1873, has since been extended to Kioto and farther. The
streets are not very broad, but for the most part they are
regular and well kept ; the houses, about 20 or 25 feet in
height, are all built of wood. Shin-sal Bashi Suji, the
principal thoroughfare, leads from Kitahama, the district
lying on the south side of the Tosabori, to the iron suspen
sion bridge (Shin-sai Bashi) over the Dotom-bori. The
foreign settlement is at Kawaguchi at the junction of the
Shirinashi-gawa and the Aji-Kawa, It is almost deserted
by the foreign merchants, who prefer to have their
establishments at Kobe, but it is the seat of a number of
European mission stations. Though the Buddhist temples
of Ozaka number 1380 and the Shinto temples 538, few
of them are of much note. The Buddhistic Tennoji,
founded by Shotoku Tai-shi, and restored in 1664, covers
an immense area at the south-east corner of the city, and
has a fine pagoda from which an admirable view of the
country is obtained. Two other Buddhist temples, which
form a conspicuous object in the heart of the city, are
occupied, one as a Government hospital and the other as a
Government school. The principal secular buildings are the
castle, the mint, and the arsenal. The castle was founded
in 1584 by Hideyoshi; the enclosed palace, "probably the
finest building Japan ever saw," survived the capture of
the castle by lyeyasu, and in 1867 and 1878 witnessed
the reception of the foreign legations by the Tokugawa
shoguns ; but in the latter year it was fired by the
Tokugawa party. Externally the whole castle is protected
by a double enceinte of high and massive walls and broad
moats — the outer moat from 80 to 120 yards across and
112
0 Z A — 0 Z 0
from 12 to 24 feet deep. Huge blocks of granite_40 feet
by 10 or 20 feet occur in the masonry. The mint, erected
by T. J. Waters, and organized by Major T. W. Kinder
and twelve European officials, covers an area of 40 acres,
and employs about 600 persons. It was opened in 1871.
Both cannon and guns are manufactured in the arsenal.
Apart from these Government establishments Ozaka is the
seat of great industrial activity, possessing iron foundries,
copper foundries, and rolling mills, antimony works, large
glass works, paper mills, a sugar refinery, a cotton spin
ning mill, rice mills, an oil factory, sulphuric acid works,
match factories, soap works, sak6 distilleries, a brewery
(after the German pattern), shipyards, &c. Bronzes,
sulphuric acid, and matches are among its chief exports.
In the surrounding district large quantities of rape-seed
are grown. The population in 1872 was 271,992 ; in
1877, 284,105.
Ozaka owes its origin to Ren-nio Sho-nin, the 8th head of the
Shin-Shin sect, who in 1495-6 built, on the site now occupied by
the castle, a temple which afterwards became the principal residence
of his successors. In 1580, after ten years' successful defence of
his position, Ken-nio, the llth "abbot," was obliged to surrender ;
and in 1583 the victorious Hideyoshi made Ozaka his capital. The
town was opened to foreign trade in 1868.
OZAXAM, ANTOIXE FREDERIC (1813-1853), the
greatest name, as far as literary and historical criticism is
concerned, of the Neo-Catholic movement in France during
the first half of the 19th century, was born at Milan on
April 13, 1813. His family is said (as the name suggests)
to have been of Jewish extraction, and has a circumstantial
though possibly fabulous genealogy of extraordinary length.
At any rate it had been settled in the Lyonnais for many
centuries. In the third generation before Frederic it had
reached distinction through Jacques Ozanam, a mathema
tician of eminence. The critic's father, Antoine Ozanam,
served in the armies of the republic, but could not stomach
the empire, and betook himself to commerce, teaching, and
finally medicine. The boy was brought up at Lyons, and
was strongly influenced by one of his masters, the Abb6
Xoirot. His conservative and religious instincts showed
themselves early, and he published a pamphlet against
Saint-Simonianism in 1831, which attracted the attention
of Lamartine. He was then sent to study law in Paris,
where he fell in with the Ampere family, and through
them with excellent literary society. He also came under
the influence of the Abbe Gerbet, the soberest and most
learned member of the religious school of Lamennais and
Lacordaire. Ozanam, however, though he joined with all
the fervour of youth in the Xeo-Catholic polemic, never
underwent the uncomfortable experiences of the direct
followers of Lamennais. His journal (for in those years
every one was a journalist) was not the Avenir, but the
more orthodox Tribune Catholique of Bailly, and he with
some other young men founded the famous society of St
Vincent de Paul, which was occupied in practical good
works. Meanwhile he did not neglect his studies. He was
called to the bar, and_in 1838 won his doctor's degree in
letters with a thesis on Dante, which was the beginning of
his best-known book. A year later he was appointed to a
professorship of commercial law at Lyons, and in another
year assistant professor to Fauriel at the Sorbonne. On
this latter precarious endowment he married, and visited
Italy on his wedding tour. At Fauriel's death in 1844 he
succeeded to the full professorship of foreign literature,
and his future was thereby tolerably assured. He had,
however, by no means a strong constitution, and he tried
it severely by combining with his professorial work a good
deal of literary occupation, while he still continued his
custom of district-visiting as a member of the society of
St Vincent de Paul. The short remainder of his life was
extremely busy, though it was relieved at intervals by
visits to Italy, Brittany, England, and other places. He
produced numerous books, and during the revolution of
1848 (of which, like not a few of his school, he took an
unduly sanguine view) he once more became a journalist
in the Ere Nouvelle and other papers for a short time.
He was in London at the time of the Exhibition of 1851.
In little more than two years from that date he died of
consumption (which he had vainly hoped to cure by visit
ing Italy) on September 8, 1853, at the age of forty.
Ozanam deserves the phrase which has been attached to his nama
at the beginning of this article. He was more sincere, more learned,
and more logical than Chateaubriand, less of a political partisan
and less of a literary sentimentalist than Montalembert. "Whether
his conception of a democratic Catholicism was a possible one is of
course a matter of opinion, and it may be frankly admitted that,
well as he knew the Middle Ages, he looked at them too exclusively
through the spectacles of a defender of the papacy. He confessed
that his object was to "prove the contrary thesis to Gibbon's."
And no doubt any historian, literary or other, who begins with the
desire to prove a thesis is sure to go more or less wrong. But his
pictures were not so much coloured \>y his prepossessions as some
contemporary pictures on the other side, and he had not only a
great knowledge of mediaeval literature, but also a strong and
appreciative sympathy with mediaeval life.
His chief works (collected in 1855-58) were Bacon ct St Thomas de
Cantorbery, 1836; Dante ct la Philosophic Catholique, 1839 (2d ed.,
enlarged, 1845); Etudes Gcrmaniqucs, 1847-49 ; Documents inedits
pour scrvir a I'Histoire (^Italic, 1850; Lcs Poetcs Frandscains,
1852. There is an interesting life of him in English by K. O'Meara
(2d ed., London, 1878).
OZOCERITE, or OZOKERITE (o£wv, odour-emitting, and
K-qpos, wax; smelling wax, mineral wax), is a combustible
mineral which may be designated as crude native PARAFFIN
(q.v.), found in many localities in varying degrees of
purity. The only commercial sources of supply however
are in Galicia, principally at Boryslaff and Dzwieniasz.
Hofstadter in 1854 examined an ozocerite from " Boristoff
near Drohobiez," Galicia ; he found it to consist chiefly
of hydrocarbon which, after crystallization from alcohol,
exhibited the composition CH2 of the defines ; this,
however, is quite compatible with their being really
"paraffins," CuH2,,+2, which latter formula for a large n
coincides practically with C,,H2u. At and near Baku and
in other places about the Caspian Sea, soft oily native
paraffins, known as " nefto-gil" or " nefte-degil " and " kir,"
are found with other petroleum products. The theory of
the formation of ozocerite now generally accepted is that it
is a product of the decomposition of organic substances,
which was originally like petroleum, but has lost its more
volatile components by volatilization. All native petroleum
in fact, like crude paraffin oil, holds solid paraffin in
solution.
Galician ozocerite varies in consistence from that of a
rather firm and hard wax to that of a soft adherent plastic
mass, and in colour from yellow to a dark (almost black)
green. Its melting-point ranges from 58° to 98° C. (136^
to 208° Fahr.); the extra high melting point of the paraffin
extracted from it is one of its distinguishing features.
Besides the earthy impurities which are always associated
with the mineral as found in the " nests " containing it,
it is mixed with liquid hydrocarbons, resinous oxygenated
compounds, and water. In the following table columns
I. and II. show the yield in two distillations of a superior
quality of the ozocerite of Boryslaff, as given by Perutz.
I.
II.
Benzene
5-67
0-27
Naphtha.. . ...
3-67
11-00
Paraffin
82-33
78-32
Pyrene and chrysene.. . .
2-05
Coke and loss
5 -59
8-28
Water
0-33
2-13
The purified paraffin of ozocerite makes excellent candles,
which are said to give more light, weight for weight, than
0 Z 0 — 0 Z O
113
those made from ordinary paraffin, besides being less easily
fusible. Under the name of ceresin or ozocerotin a large
proportion of the high-melting paraffin extracted from the
mineral goes into commerce, to be used chiefly for the
adulteration of beeswax. The various methods of refining
used furnish certain proportions of soft paraffin, and of
heavy and light oils as bye-products, which take their place
in commerce beside the corresponding products from shale
and petroleum.
A kind of mineral wax known as idrialine accompanies the
mercury ore in Llria. According to Goldschmiedt it can be
extracted by means of xylol, amyl-alcohol, or turpentine, and
also, without decomposition, by distillation in a current of hydro
gen or carbonic acid. It is a white crystalline body, very difficultly
fusible, boiling above 440° C. (824° F.), of the composition C40H280.
Its solution in glacial acetic acid, by oxidation with chromic acid,
yielded to Goldschmiedt a red powdery solid and a fatty acid
fusing at 62° C. , and exhibiting all the characters of a mixture of
palmitic and stearic acids.
OZONE has been defined and to some extent discussed
under the heading CHEMISTRY, vol. v. p. 481.
From the time of Van Marum (1785) at least it was
known that the passage of electric sparks through air is
accompanied by the production of a peculiar smell ; but
the cause of this remained unknown until 1840, when
Schonbein observed that a similar smell is exhibited by
electrolytic oxygen (as obtained in the electrolysis of acidu
lated water), and also develops in the atmosphere of a vessel
in which phosphorus suffers spontaneous oxidation at
ordinary temperatures in the presence of water. The three
kinds of odoriferous gas, he found, had the power of decom
posing iodide of potassium with liberation of iodine, and
they agreed also in their behaviour to other reagents,
whence he concluded that in all the three cases the smell
was owing to the same peculiar substance which he called
ozone (from o£eu/, to emit an odour). Numerous experi
ments confirmed his first impression that ozone is chem
ically similar to, though distinctly different from, chlorine,
but he got no further towards establishing its nature.
Having found, however, that dry phosphorus produces no
ozone, and that ready-made ozone is destroyed by being
passed through a heated glass tube, he surmised that ozone
was a peroxide of hydrogen. This surmise was seemingly
raised to a certainty by an investigation of Baumert's,
who found that electrolytic (ozonized) oxygen, when de-
ozonized by heat, yields water, and ascertained that the
weight of water thus produced amounted to H.2O = 18
parts for every 41 = 4 x 127 parts of iodine which the same
quantity of gas would have liberated if it had been de-
ozonized by iodide of potassium. This, if true, would
prove that ozone is H203,— a conclusion which passed
current as an established fact, in reference to electrolytic
ozone at least, until Andrews showed that Baumert's result
was founded upon incorrect observations. The merit of
having discovered the true elementary composition of
ozone belongs to Marignac and De la Bive, who proved
that it can be produced, as easily and abundantly as in
any other way, by the electrification of absolutely pure
oxygen gas, whence it at once followed that — unless oxygen
be a compound of two or more unknown elements — ozone
cannot be anything else than an allotropic modification of
oxygen.
With regard to the relations of the two kinds of oxygen to one
another, our present knowledge is derived mainly from the work of
Andrews and Prof. Tait. The first important result which they
arrived at was that the ozonization of pure oxygen gas involves a
contraction, and that consequently ozone is denser than oxygen gas.
Presuming (with all their contemporaries) that in the de-ozoniza-
tion of oxygen by iodide of potassium all the substance of the ozone
is taken up by the reagent with elimination of its equivalent of
iodine, they sought to determine the density of ozone by comparing
the weight of oxygen-matter which goes into the iodide of potassium
with the contraction involved in the process. But they obtained
variable results. As their methods became more and more perfect,
the weight of unit volume of ozone grew greater and greater, and
at last stood at oo . In other words, what they found and estab
lished finally was that the removal of ozone from oxygen by means
of iodide of potassium involves no change of volume whatever,
although de-ozonization by heat always leads to a (permanent)
increase of volume. This result, to them and everybody else,
appeared very singular ; but Andrews, after a while, found the cor
rect explanation. Supposing at a certain temperature and pressure
one volume of ordinary oxygen contains a grains of matter, then one
volume of ozone, being denser, contains a greater quantity of matter,
say a + x grains ; Avhen the gas acts on iodide of potassium, the a
grains come out as one volume of oxygen, while the x grains of
surplus oxygen vanish in the iodide. In the decomposition by heat
the x grains of surplus oxygen of course assume the form of x/n
volumes of additional oxygen gas. It is no addition to Andrews's
explanation, but merely a close translation of it into the language
of Avogadros law, to say that, if oxygen (proper) consists of
molecules 0.,, ozone must consist of molecules 0.2+x (perhaps
(Xj-fi), and that in the iodide reaction this molecule breaks up
into one molecule of oxygen gas and x atoms of oxygen which
go to the reagent. What did constitute a new discovery w^s
Berthelot's important observation that the conversion of ozone into
ordinary oxygen involves an evolution of heat which amounts to
29,600 units for every 16 parts of oxygen matter available for the
liberation of iodine from iodide of potassium. What the real
density of ozone is was made out with a high degree of probability
by Soret. He took two equal volumes of the same supply of
ozonized oxygen, and in one determined the contraction produced
by shaking with oil of turpentine (which he assumes to take away
the ozone as a whole), while the other served for the (direct or
indirect) determination of the expansion involved in the destruction
of the ozone by heat. He found this increase to amount to half a
volume for every one volume of ozone present ; hence one volume
of ozone contains the matter of one and a half volumes of ordinary
oxygen, i.e., its density is 1'5 (if that of ordinary oxygen is taken
as unity), and its molecular weight is f x 02 = 03. To check this
result Soret determined the rate at which ozone diffuses into air,
and compared it with the rate, similarly determined, for carbonic
acid. From the two rates, on the basis of Graham's law, he
calculated the ratio of the density of ozone to that of carbonic
acid, and found it in satisfactory accordance with 03 : C02 = 48 : 44.
From the facts that ozone is destroyed (i. e. , converted into 02) at
270° (Andrews and Tait), and that this reaction is not reversible,
it at once follows that it is impossible to convert oxygen completely
into ozone by electric sparks. Supposing the ozonization to have
gone a certain way, each additional spark, besides producing ozone,
will destroy some of that previously produced.
From Clerk Maxwell's notion concerning the distribution of tem
peratures amongst the molecules of a gas, it would follow that
ozonized oxygen, even at ordinary temperatures, will gradually
relapse into the condition of plain oxygen, because, although the
temperature, as indicated by the thermometer may be only 20° C.
(say), there are plenty of molecules at temperatures above the tem
perature of incipient dissociation (which of course lies below 270°),
and any ozone once destroyed will never come back. But, be this
as it may, the lower the temperature of the oxygen treated with
sparks the greater the chance of the ozone formed to remain aliVe.
This idea forms the basis of an important research by Hautefeuillc
and Chappuis, who, by operating upon oxygen at very low tem
peratures, produced iinprecedentedly large percentages of ozone.
By operating at 0° C. they produced a gas containing 14 '9 per cent,
by weight of ozone (presumably reckoned as 03), while at - 23°
the percentage rose to 21 '4. They subsequently (1882; Compt.
Rend., xciv. p. 1249) succeeded in producing even liquid ozone,
by applying a pressure of 125 atmospheres to richly ozonized
oxygen at - 100° C. (the boiling point of liquefied ethylene). Liquid
ozone is of a dark indigo-blue colour, which, as they tell us, is dis
tinctly visible even in ordinary ozonized oxygen if it is viewed in
tubes about one metre long.
According to Carius the coefficient of absorption of ozone by
water of + 1° C. is about 0 '8 ; that is to say, one volume of water of
1°, if shaken with excess of pure ozone at 1° and a pressure of 760
mm., would absorb 0'8 volume of ozone measured dry at 0° and
760 mm. pressure. But it is not certain that Carius's determina
tions are correct.
Antozonc. — According to a now obsolete notion of Schb'nbein's,
ordinary oxygen gas is a compound of two kinds of oxygen of which
one is positively and the other negatively electrical. Ordinary
ozone would be a mixture of the two in equal parts ; but certain
peroxides, according to Schonbein, contain the one kind, others
the other. He supported his view by many ingenious experimental
arguments. Meissner and others, while adopting Schonbein's idea,
somehow drifted into the notion that Schonbein's two kinds of
oxygen correspond to two different substances, of which ordinary
ozone is one. They naturally searched for the other, and of course
did not fail to discover it ; but their "antozone," when critically
looked into, turned out to be peroxide of hydrogen. ' (W. P. )
XVTTT. — is
114
Pis the sixteenth letter of our alphabet. In the
original Phoenician form (see ALPHABET) it was not un
like a crook. In Greece it became angular (n), and later the
downward strokes were made equal in length (II), though
in the old Corinthian the rounded form still occurs, closely
resembling the Phoenician type. In old Latin the angular
form is found, as in Greece, but also the form with which
we are familiar, with the bottom of the curve joined to the
straight line. The old guess that P was at first a rude
sketch of a mouth must be abandoned unless we are pre
pared to credit the Phoenicians with having so far anticipated
Mr Melville Bell's "visible speech."
The sound it denotes is a closed labial, differing from
I as a surd from a sonant ; it is heard only when the lips
open; there is then a percussion as the breath escapes, which
constitutes the sound. The difference between breath and
voice can be easily seen in the production of the two sounds,
p and b. When the lips are closed — as they must be closed
(exactly in the same way) for each of the sounds — if we
then try to articulate p, no effort can produce any kind of
sound till the lips open ; the chordae vocales do not vibrate,
and there is therefore nothing in the mouth but mere
breath. But if we make as though we would sound 6,
"while still keeping the lips shut, a certain dull sound is
quite audible, produced by the vocalized breath (or voice)
within the mouth ; and the action of the top of the larynx
in producing this sound may be distinctly felt. Of course
this sound is not a b ; that does not come till the lips part.
It is noteworthy how very small is the number of pure
English words which begin with^>. Such words correspond
to words which began with b in Greek, Latin, and other
members of the parent Aryan speech ; and these are equally
few. Nearly all the wrords which we have in English
beginning writh p are therefore borrowed, such as " pain,"
"pair," "police," which came to us from France; others are
scientific terms, oftenest modelled upon the Greek. The
reason of this deficiency of words in the parent language
commencing with b is not easy to find.
The Latins denoted the sound of Greek <f> by the double
symbol ph ; this is a p followed by a slight breathing,
not so strong as an h ; thus " philosophia " was pro
nounced not as we now pronounce it, but rather like
"p'hilosop'hia." But this sound eventually passed into
the/-sound, and it is so written in Italian (e.g., " filosofia ") ;
French and English have kept the old spelling, but not
the sound. So here, as elsewhere, we have quite unneces
sarily two symbols, ph and/, expressing the same sound.
PACCHIA, GIROLAMO DEL, and PACCHIAROTTO (or
PACCHIAROTTI), JACOPO. These are two painters of
the Sienese school, whose career and art-work have been
much misstated till late years. One or other of them
produced some good pictures, which used to pass as the
performance of Perugino ; reclaimed from Perugino, they
were assigned to Pacchiarotto ; now it is sufficiently
settled that the good works are by G. del Pacchia, while
nothing of Pacchiarotto's own doing transcends mediocrity.
The mythical Pacchiarotto who worked actively at Fon-
tainebleau has no authenticity.
Girolamo del Pacchia, son of a Hungarian cannon-
founder, was born, probably in Siena, in 1477. Having
joined a turbulent club named the Bardotti, he disappeared
from Siena in 1535, when the club was dispersed, and
nothing of a later date is known about him. His most
celebrated work is a fresco of the Nativity of the Virgin,
in the chapel of S. Bernardino, Siena, graceful and tender,
with a certain artificiality. Another renowned fresco, in
the church of St Catherine, represents that saint on her
visit to St Agnes of Montepulciano, who, having just
expired, raises her foot by miracle. In the National
Gallery of London there is a Virgin and Child. The
forms of G. del Pacchia are fuller than those of Perugino
(his principal model of style appears to have been in
reality Franciabigio) ; the drawing is not always unexcep
tionable ; the female heads have sweetness and beauty of
feature ; and some of the colouring has noticeable force.
Pacchiarotto was born in Siena in 1474. In 1530 he
took part in the conspiracy of the Libertini and Popolani,
and in 1534 he joined the Bardotti. He had to hide for
his life in 1535, and was concealed by the Observantine
fathers in a tomb in the church of St John. He was
stuffed in close to a new-buried corpse, and got covered
with vermin and dreadfully exhausted by the close of the
second day. After a while he resumed wrork ; he was
exiled in 1539, but recalled in the following year, and
in that year or soon afterwards he died. Among the few
extant works with which he is still credited is an Assump
tion of the Virgin, in the Carmine of Siena.
PACHECO, FRANCISCO (1571-1654), Spanish painter
and art historian, born at Seville in 1571, was the pupil
of Luis Fernandez, and a diligent and prolific workman.
Favourable specimens of his style are to be seen in the
Madrid picture gallery, and also in two churches at Alcala
de Guadaira near Seville ; they are characterized by care
ful drawing and correct if somewhat feeble composition,
but prove that he was no colorist. He attained great
popularity, and about the beginning of the 17th century
opened an academy of painting which was largely attended.
Of his pupils by far the most distinguished was Velazquez,
who afterwards became his son-in-law. From about 1625
he gave up painting and betook himself to literary society
and pursuits ; the most important of his works in this
department is a treatise on the art of painting (Arte de
la Pintura: su anteyuedad y yrandezas, 1649), which,
although characterized by prolixity and pedantry of
style, and often nonsensical enough in its theories, is of
considerable value for the information it contains, especi
ally on matters relating to Spanish art. He died in!654.
PACHOMIUS, or PACHUMIUS. See MONACHISM, vol.
xvi. pp. 699, 700.
PACHYDERMATA. See MAMMALIA.
PACIFIC OCEAN
Plates II. -ITIHE ancient world was ignorant of the existence of
and III. I the vast expanse of water now known as the Pacific
Ocean. In Ptolemy's map of the world, constructed in
the 2d century of our era (see MAP, vol. xv. PI. VII.),
this fact is clearly brought out, for the only space which
might possibly represent the Pacific is the Magnus Sinus,
a sea so limited in extent, and represented in such a
position, that it probably stands for the Gulf of Siam in
the Indian Ocean.
Vague reports of a great ocean lying beyond China rrogre
were current in Europe as early as the period of Arabian °f ^s-
supremacy in learning. Indeed an Arab merchant named cc
51 <M79 jW> 4*jmn*du*x -
PACIFIC OCEAN
115
Sulaiman, who visited China in the 9th century, declared
that he had sailed upon it. But for several hundred years
the reports continued so uncertain, and were so loaded with
the wild extravagance of travellers' tales of the period, that
it is difficult to get at the facts from which they probably
took their origin. During the 13th and 14th centuries
Marco Polo arid his successors travelled far to the East
and came to an ocean of the extent of which they were
ignorant, but they partially explored its western coasts.
The East was the region towards which all the commerce
and enterprise of the Middle Ages tended, and it was the
hope of finding a safer and shorter sea route to India that
led the Spanish court in 1492 to furnish Columbus with
a fleet for the exploration of the Western Ocean. Although
convinced of the spherical form of the earth, he greatly
under-rated its size, and, accepting the popular estimate of
the great breadth of the Asiatic continent, he set out on
his voyage confident of soon reaching " the Indies." The
glowing descriptions of his discoveries in that strange new
world of the West that rose up before him to bar his
advance immediately attracted the attention of adventur
ous Spanish mariners. Headed by Columbus himself, they
cruised intrepidly amongst the Caribbean Islands, still lured
by the hope of discovering some western passage to the
coveted East. Columbus found that what he at first con
sidered a labyrinthine archipelago was a continent of vast
extent, but not Asia, and he died without knowing what
lay beyond. Spain and Portugal were the rival maritime
powers at that time, and both took up the search for
new countries with great ardour. Pope Alexander VI.,
in 1493, fearing that the two nations would quarrel over
their colonies, assigned all the new lands that might be
discovered west of the Azores to Spain, and all east of
those islands to Portugal. The Portuguese accepting the
gift followed Vasco da Gama in opening up the road to
India by the Cape of Good Hope, and pushed forward
their trading and piratical excursions into the west Pacific
far beyond the Spice Islands. The Spaniards confined
themselves to the New World, visiting, naming, and
plundering the West India Islands and the headlands of
Central America. On the 29th of September 1513 Vasco
Nunez de Balbao, the leader of a Spanish party exploring
the Isthmus of Panama, saw, from the summit of a
mountain, a vast ocean stretching to the west — the very
ocean of whose existence Columbus was certain, and which
he had so long tried vainly to discover. Because he first
saw it on Michaelmas day, Balbao named it the Golfo de
San Miguel. Magellan, following the east coast of
America farther to the south than any previous explorer,
sailed on, in spite of terrific storms, until he found the
strait which now bears his name, and, steering carefully
through it, on the 27th of November 1520 he swept into
the calm waters of that new sea on which he was the first
to sail, and which he named the Mar Pacifico.
The victories of Cortez in Mexico about the same date
opened the way for the exploration of the west coast of
America, where Pizarro's conquest of Peru in 1526 gave
the Spaniards a firm footing. From this time an inter
mittent trade sprang up between Europe and the Pacific
through Magellan Strait, and latterly round Cape Horn.
Before long English fleets, attracted more by the prospects
of plundering Spanish galleons than of discovering new
territories, found their way into the Pacific. Sir Francis
Drake, like Balbao, saw the ocean from the Isthmus of
Panama. He entered the Pacific in September 1577,
being the first Englishman to sail upon it ; some months
later he sailed across it to the Moluccas. Alvaro de
Mardana, who preceded him, had discovered the Solomon
Islands in 1567.
Tasman, Koggewcin, Dampier, and other explorers of the
17 th century discovered Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania,
and many smaller groups of islands. During the 18th
century the voyages of Anson, Bass, Behring, the two
Bougainvilles, Broughton, Byron, Cook, La Perouse, and
many more practically completed the geographical explora
tion of the Pacific Ocean. In the beginning of that
century the Pacific had a curious fascination for commercial
speculators, and the ill-fated Scottish colony founded at
Darien in 1698 seemed only to prepare the way for the
English South Sea bubble that burst in 1720. All the
navigators who explored these seas believed in the
existence of a north-west passage between the Atlantic and
Pacific, and made attempts to find it ; but its discovery
baffled all enterprise until 1 850, when Maclure proved that
there was such a channel, but that the ice prevented its
being of any commercial utility. In the present century
D'Entrecasteaux, Krusenstern, Beechy, Fitzroy, and Bennet
have taken the lead amongst geographical explorers in the
Pacific, although the ranks contain many names scarcely
less worthy of remembrance. Within recent years several
purely scientific exploring expeditions and British survey
ing vessels have examined the Pacific, investigating its
depth, the nature and form of the bottom, the tempera
ture of the water at various depths and its density, as well
as the marine fauna and flora. Of those expeditions the
voyages of the "Challenger," "Gazelle," and "Tuscarora"
are the most important.1
Extent. — The Pacific Ocean2 is bounded on the N. by Extent.
Behring Strait and the coasts of Kussia and Alaska, on
the E. by the west coasts of North and South America ;
on the S. the imaginary line of the Antarctic Circle
divides it from the Antarctic Ocean, while its western
boundary is the east coast of Australia, the Malay
Archipelago separating it from the Indian Ocean, and the
eastern coasts of the Chinese empire. Some modern
geographers place the southern limit of the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Indian Oceans at the 40th parallel, and name
the body of water which surrounds the earth between that
latitude and the Antarctic Circle the Southern Ocean.
Although differing from the Atlantic in its general form,
being more nearly land-locked to the north, the Pacific
resembles it in being open to the south, forming, in fact,
a great projection northwards of that vast southern ocean
of which the Atlantic is another arm.
The Pacific is the largest expanse of water in the world,
covering more than a quarter of its superficies, and com
prising fully one-half of its water surface. It extends
through 132 degrees of latitude, in other Avords, it
measures 9000 miles from north to south. From east to
west its breadth varies from about 40 miles at Behring
Strait, where Asia and America come within sight of each
other, to 8500 miles between California and China on the
Tropic of Cancer, and to more than 10,000 miles on the
Equator between Quito and the Moluccas, where the ocean
is widest. The area has been variously estimated at from
50,000,000 to 100,000,000 square miles; but, defining its
boundaries as above, Keith Johnston, from careful measure
ments, estimated it, with probably a near approach to the
truth, at 67,810,000 square miles.
1 The principal ocean tracks followed by trading vessels in the
Pacific are three : — (1) round Cape Horn and along the South Ameri
can coast — the . great rush to California on the discovery of gold
in 1847 led to the establishment of lines of fast clippers by this
route and of steamers from Panama to San Francisco ; (2) from San
Francisco to China a regular service was established in 1867 ; (3) the
mails began to be carried from Australia to San Francisco in 1873 and
to Panama in 1866. The trade with the Pacific will no doubt be
greatly increased when the Panama ship-canal is opened for traffic.
2 Formerly called the South Sea, and sometimes still so named by
the French and Germans (la Mer du Sud; Siidsee, Australocean), with
whom, however, La Mer (L'Octan) Pacifique, and Grosser Ocean or
Stilles Mcer are the more usual designations.
116
PACIFIC OCEAN
Coasts, Seas, dr. — The coast-line of the Pacific and
Indian Oceans, taken together, only amounts to 47,000
miles ; that of the Atlantic alone measures 55,000, the
smaller ocean more than making up for its less extent by
its numerous inland seas and inlets of smaller size.
Ameri- Speaking broadly, the eastern boundary of the Pacific is
i-an rugged, barren, mountainous, and singularly free from
indentations, while its western shores are low, fertile, and
deeply indented with gulfs and partially enclosed seas.
Behring Strait unites the Arctic Ocean with the Sea of
Kamchatka, or Behring Sea, which is bounded on the
east by the irregular, low, swampy shores of Alaska, and
on the south by the Alaskan peninsula and the Aleutian
Islands. Along British North America the coast is rugged,
rocky, considerably indented, and, between the parallels
of 50° and 60° N. lat., fringed with islands. The largest
of these are Vancouver Island in the Gulf of Georgia,
Queen Charlotte Island, Prince of Wales Island, and the
islands of King George III.'s Archipelago. The Gulf of
California runs northwards in the Mexican coast, reach
ing from 23° to 32° N. lat. It is the one important
inlet on the whole west coast of America, — the only
others which are worth naming being the Gulf of Panama
and the Gulf of Guayaquil. The Mexican shore is low,
and contrasts with the coasts to the north and to the
south, which are generally steep and rocky, though there
are occasional sandy beaches in Peru and Chili. The
breadth of the plain between the Rocky Mountains and
the sea gradually diminishes towards the south, and the
mountain chain of the Andes runs close along the west
coast of South America to the very extremity of the con
tinent.
A series of volcanoes, active and extinct, runs round
the Pacific, commencing at Cape Horn, passing along
the Andes and Rocky Mountains, crossing from the
American continent by the Aleutian Islands to Kamchatka,
and thence southwards by Japan and the East Indian
Archipelago to New Zealand. Earthquakes are frequent
all along this line.
There are few islands near the American coast north of
Patagonia, and these are small and unimportant; but south
of the 40th parallel there is a complete change. The end
of the continent seems as if it had been shattered ; there
are abrupt bays and jagged chasms ; archipelagos of small
islands rise up in splintered fragments along the shore.
The Strait of Magellan forms a tortuous channel between
the mainland and the rocky storm-beaten islands of Tierra
del Fuego.
Asiatic The coast-line on the Asiatic side is longer and greatly
diversified. In the north the Sea of Okhotsk is cut off
from Behring Sea by the peninsula of Kamchatka, from
the extremity of which a chain of islands extends to the
borders of the Antarctic Ocean. These islands are of all
sizes, ranging from small islets to the island continent of
Australia. The island chain hangs in loops along the
Asiatic coast, each loop including an almost land-locked
sea. These partially enclosed seas are more or less com
pletely cut off from the general oceanic circulation, and
they consequently differ considerably from the open ocean
as regards the temperature of the water, specific gravity,
fauna and flora, and nature of the deposits. The Kurile
Islands run from Kamchatka to Japan, cutting off the
Sea of Okhotsk. The great Japanese Islands, with
Saghalien to the north and the Chinese coast on the
west, enclose the Sea of Japan, leaving it in communica
tion with the Sea of Okhotsk by the Channel of Tartary
to the north, with the ocean on the west by the Straits
of La Perouse and Sangar, and on the south by the Straits
of Corea. The Yellow Sea runs into the Chinese coast,
and is divided from the Sea of Japan by the peninsula of
coast.
Corea. The China Sea, with the two great gulfs of
Tonquin and Siam, is marked off from the Indian Ocean
by the peninsula of Malacca — remarkable because it runs
in the same direction as the other two peninsulas of the
Pacific, Kamchatka and Corea — and the islands of
Sumatra and Java, while Borneo and the Philippine Islands
separate it from the Pacific. Between the south coast of
China and the north of Australia the East Indian Archi
pelago cuts up the ocean into a network of small seas and
narrow channels. The seas are named the Celebes, the
Banda, the Sulu, the Java, the Flores, and the Arafura.
The more important of the sea passages between the islands
are the Straits and Channel of Formosa, which lead north
ward from the Pacific to the China Sea ; the Strait of
Macassar between Borneo and Celebes ; Molucca Passage
between Celebes, the Moluccas, and Jilolo; and Torres
Strait between New Guinea and Australia. The east
coast of Australia is, as a rule, steep and rocky ; there are
few inlets, and none of them compare in size with the Gulf
of Carpentaria on the north coast. Moreton Bay and Port
Jackson are two of the best harbours, and as a haven the
latter has few equals in the world. The Great Barrier
Reef lies off this coast for a length of more than a thousand
miles, the distance between it and the shore varying from
60 to 100 miles. Bass Strait separates Australia from
Tasmania on the south ; and the two main islands of
New Zealand, separated by Cook Strait, lie to the south
east of the continent. The Gulf of Hauraki, the Bay of
Plenty, and Pegasus Bay are the chief inlets in these
islands.
River-System. — The drainage area of the Pacific Ocean
is estimated at 8,660,000 square miles, while that of the
Atlantic amounts to more than 19,000,000; the chief
reason for this disparity is that only half a million square
miles of the American continent are drained into the
Pacific, the remaining six and a half millions being con
nected with the Atlantic river-system, and it is estimated
that only one-seventh of the area of the Asiatic continent
drains into the Pacific Ocean. The huge wall of the Ancles Amen-
practically reduces the Pacific rivers of South America to the can
rank of mountain streams; the Biobio and the Maypu in l^.^'m
Chili are the only ones exceeding 100 miles in length, —
the former having a course of 180, the latter of 160 miles.
The Rocky Mountain chain, which forms the watershed of
North America, runs parallel to the Pacific coast at a
distance of about 1000 miles, and the Cascade and minor
ranges which skirt the shore are broken through in several
places to give passage to rivers that are, in some cases, of
considerable size. The Colorado rises in the State of that
name, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, flows south
west through Utah and Arizona, and falls into the head
of the Gulf of California. Its course measures about
1100 miles, and it drains a rugged and barren area of
170,000 square miles. California has only one river, the
Sacramento, 420 miles long. The Oregon (or Columbia)
is formed by the union of two streams rising in the Rocky
Mountains, one in British Columbia, the other in Idaho.
It is a swift-flowing river, full of rapids and cataracts, and,
though it is only 750 miles long, the area which it drains
is greater by one-seventh than that drained by the Colorado.
The ebb and flow of the tide are perceptible for a hundred
miles from the mouth of the Oregon, and the river is-
navigable for that distance. The Frazer, which has a
length of 600 miles, flows southward through British
Columbia from the Rocky Mountains, and enters the sea
in the Gulf of Georgia opposite Vancouver Island, carrying
off the rainfall of 98,000 square miles. The northern
limit of the American mountain chains is marked by the
rise of the great river Yukon, which traverses Alaska ;
and, after a run of more than 2000 miles, it enters
PACIFIC OCEAN
117
Behring Sea opposite the island of St Lawrence. Its
tributaries have not been fully explored, so the area which
they intersect is unknown, but probably it is very large.
The Asiatic division of the Pacific river-system is very
much more extensive than the American, and includes
many streams of great size and of considerable commercial
importance. In the north the Amur is more than 2000
miles long, and it receives many tributaries, which rise
on the north in the Stanovoi mountains, and on the west
and south on the borders of the great table-land of the
Gobi, the central Asiatic desert ; altogether its basin
measures nearly 900,000 square miles. The Hoang-ho
(Hwang-ho or Whang-ho) and the Yangtze-keang both
rise near the Kuen-lun mountains of Tibet amongst the
extensive terraces which form the eastern slope of the
great table-land of Central Asia. The Hoangho has a
length of 2(500 miles, and in its course it sweeps in a
northerly curve close to the In-Shan mountains ; then, after
being crossed repeatedly by the Great Wall of China, it
turns sharply to the south, and finally runs due east into
the Yellow Sea. The Yangtze-keang follows a southward
direction from its source, but ultimately turns to the
north-east and enters the Yellow Sea not far from the
mouth of the Hoang-ho. It is one of the longest rivers
in the world, for, including its windings, it measures 3200
miles from its source to the sea. These two rivers drain
more than a million and a quarter square miles ; and it is
principally owing to the large amount of suspended matter
which they carry down that the sea into which they fall
is called the Yellow Sea. The other rivers of importance
are the Choo-keang, the Mekong, and the Menam. The
last two run into the Gulf of Siam, after watering the
peninsula of Siam and Cochin China, Few rivers enter
the Pacific on the east coast of Australia, and in conse
quence of the proximity of the mountains to the shore they
are short and unimportant.
Atmospheric Pressure and Prevailing Winds. — When the
mean atmospheric pressure for the year over the entire
. surface Of the world is considered, it is found that there
are two broad belts of high pressure which encircle the
globe, one on each side of the equator. There is a wide
area of slowly diminishing pressure between them, includ
ing a narrow central band along which the barometric
readings attain a minimum. Two other regions of low
pressure surround the poles, and extend to a considerable
distance. That around the North Pole is connected with
an area of still lower pressure over the North Pacific, and
there is another permanent depression, which is even
deeper, in the vicinity of Iceland. Atmospheric pressure
is the fundamental meteorological phenomenon, and the
mean pressure for the year affords a clue to the cause of
all such regular and continuous phenomena as trade winds
and ocean currents, and to the distribution of temperature.
Similarly a study of the isobars at different seasons throws
light upon all periodical occurrences in the way of winds
and currents.
A low barometer is always accompanied by a high per
centage of atmospheric aqueous vapour; consequently the
equatorial belt of continuous low pressure is a region of
almost continuous rain, excessive cloud, and constant calm
or light variable winds. The effect of a difference in
atmospheric pressure being established between two places
is to produce a flow of air from the region of high towards
that of low pressure, and the winds in their turn largely
determine the surface movements or drift currents of the
ocean. The region of calms between the north and south
trades in the Pacific is both narrower, more irregular, and
less clearly marked than the corresponding belt in the
Atlantic. In the East Pacific it lies, at all seasons, con
siderably north of the equator ; but during the southern
summer it is found south of the line in the western parts
of the ocean, and disappears entirely in the northern
summer, as the calms of the Indian Ocean do also. The
reason of the southern position of the west end of the calm
belt seems to be the simultaneous occurrence of low atmo
spheric pressure in the interior of Australia and an ex
ceptionally high barometer in Asia. In the southern
winter the depression over Asia and the increase of
pressure over Australia form an unbroken barometric
gradient, and the result io that the calms are replaced by
a southerly breeze of great regularity. The region of
calms included between the zones of the two trade winds,
and towards which they blow, is not the only one with
which they are associated ; for the opposite meteorological
conditions that characterize the northern border of the
north-east trades and the southern margin of the south
east winds produce two fringing bands of calms. These
regions are characterized by a high barometer, a sunny
sky, and occasionally sudden squalls, — contrasting with
the depressed barometer and dull, wet weather of the
equatorial region. In January the low atmospheric pres
sure over the North Pacific produces winds which affect
the climatological conditions of the shores in very different
ways. At Vancouver Island the prevailing wind is south
west, and consequently the winter on the shores of British
Columbia is mild and moist. The opposite coast of Asia
is visited during the same season by northerly winds, —
north-east in Alaska, north-north-east in Kamchatka, and
north-west in Japan ; and, as a result, the weather in these
regions in winter is dry and bitterly cold. The West Pacific
and the Indian Ocean are the regions of monsoons, —
winds that blow as steadily as the trades, but which change
their direction with the season. During the periods of
transition the steady breeze gives place to variable winds,
occasional calms, and sometimes terrific hurricanes. The
general direction of the monsoons in the Pacific between
April and October is southerly and south-easterly, and
from November to April they blow from the north-east,
and on nearing the continent of Asia from the north-west.
Monsoonal winds are found connected with all continents ;
they are produced by the great differences in the tempera
ture and pressure which prevail over the land at different
seasons as compared with the adjacent ocean. The mon
soons give rise to oceanic currents which flow in the same
direction as the wind, and like it run opposite ways during
alternate half years. Although the velocity of the wind
over the open sea is always greater than that near shore
or on land, it was shown by the observations of the " Chal
lenger," in the Pacific and other oceans, that there is no
distinct diurnal variation in the wind's force at sea, though
very decided periods of maxima and minima were noticed
in the vicinity of land (see METEOROLOGY, vol. xvi.
p. 125).
Currents. — The system of surface circulation in the Currents.
Pacific is much more complicated and less clearly defined
than that in the Atlantic, as might be expected from the
less constant character of the winds. The latter ocean has
two wide channels of communication with the Arctic Sea,
while, so far as currents are concerned, the Pacific is land
locked to the north — Behring Strait being narrow and
shallow ; consequently water enters the Pacific almost
entirely from the south, where there is uninterrupted
communication with the Antarctic Ocean. There is no
direct information as to the movements of ocean water at
depths greater than 200 or 300 fathoms ; it is known,
however, from indirect evidence, that movements do occur.
Although the subject of under-currents at depths less than
those just mentioned has been extensively studied, it is
only with respect to surface currents that anything very
definite is as yet known.
PACIFIC OCEAN
The vast extent of the Pacific Ocean gives full scope for
the current-producing action of tides and winds, while the
smooth continental boundary on its eastern side, the
numerous groups of islands which break its surface, and
its indented western coast, combine to modify the direction
of the main streams and to produce innumerable minor
currents, some permanent, and others varying from time to
time in velocity and direction. The chief cause of these
currents is believed to be traceable to the direct or indirect
action of wind ; but here it is proposed to refer merely to
their general geography and physical effects, without dis
cussing the theory of their formation.
A general surface drift of the cold waters of the
Antarctic Ocean, having a temperature lower than 40°
Fahr. at all seasons, bears north-east towards Cape Horn,
where it divides into two branches ; one, the Cape Horn
current, passes on into the Atlantic, and the other sweeps
northward along the west coast of South America until it
strikes the Peruvian shore, which deflects it westward.
The cooling effect of this current on the water all along
the coast is illustrated very clearly by the abrupt north
ward turn of the isothermals (see METEOROLOGY, figs.
8 and 9), which is more conspicuous in the chart for the
southern winter than in that for the summer. In summer,
however, there is a more striking evidence of this current's
cooling power to be seen in the arrangement of the
isothermals. The northern line of 70° Fahr. reaches as
far south as 18° N. lat., and that of 80° makes a short
loop from 1 8° N. to the equator ; but the southern
isothermal of 80° does not touch the American coast at
all, and that of 70° lies farther from the equator than 30°
S. lat., so that the increase of temperature from the south
is very gradual ; so much so that at the Galapagos Islands,
under the equator, the temperature of the surface water is
only 70°, while a few hundred miles to the west it is over
80°. Penguins — essentially Antarctic birds — are found
living on the shores of these islands. In consequence of
this current, the highest surface temperature at all seasons
of the year is found distinctly ,to the north of the equator
in the eastern Pacific.
The Peruvian current forms the southern fork of the
great equatorial current, which runs due west. This
current is very broad, and divided by a narrow counter-
current flowing in an opposite direction through its centre.
The two branches of the equatorial current occupy very
approximately the two areas of falling barometer between
the north and south belts of high pressure and the central
trough of minimum barometric readings. This difference
of atmospheric pressure on each side produces the north
east and south-east trade winds, and to these the current
probably owes its regularity and constant direction. The
counter-current lies in the narrow belt of low barometric
pressure to which the trades blow, and probably originates
from the banking up of the waters to the westward. Its
rate and position consequently vary greatly at different
times of the year. The " Challenger," on her cruise
between the Sandwich and Society Islands, found these
currents to run with considerable force. In the " Narra
tive" of the cruise (chap.xviii.) the fact is alluded to thus: —
" From Hawaii Island to the 10th parallel the direction of the
current was westerly, and its average velocity 18 miles per day,
ranging from 10 to 23 miles. From the 10th to the 6th parallel
the direction was easterly, and its average velocity 31 miles per
day, ranging from 7 to 54 miles per day. From the 6th parallel
of north latitude to the 10th parallel of south latitude the direction
was again westerly, and the average velocity 35 miles per day,
ranging from 17 to 70 miles per day. From thence to Tahiti the
general tendency of the current was westerly, but its velocity was
variable. The axis of greatest velocity of the counter-equatorial
current was between the 7th and 8th parallels of north latitude.
The axis of greatest velocity of the equatorial current was on the
parallel of 2° north, where its speed amounted to 3 miles per hour."
The equatorial current strikes on the East Indian
Archipelago, where it is split up by the narrow channels
and shallow waters, and diverted into numberless minor
currents. The two main divisions, which have acquired a
high temperature from prolonged exposure to the tropical
sun, ultimately leave the archipelago ; the southern arm
curves southwards, carrying its warm water to the east
coast of Australia and to New Zealand, whence it is
diverted towards the east, and becomes merged again in
the general north-easterly antarctic drift. The north
equatorial current, which varies in volume and velocity
with the monsoons, strikes the coast of Asia between the
Philippines and Japan, and is deflected in a north-easterly
direction as the Kuro-Siwo or Japan current — wholly a
warm oceanic river during the S.E. monsoon similar to the
Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. The Japan current sends
many branches into the inland seas and channels of the
north-eastern coast of Asia, but the main body of water
flows northward until it bifurcates in 40° N. lat., send
ing one fork among the Kurile Islands and along the
Kamchatka peninsula into Behring Sea, whence it escapes-
by Behring Strait into the Arctic Ocean. A small
counter-current of arctic water flows southward through
Behring Sea, but it is not of sufficient volume to make
its influence felt very decidedly on the general temperature
of the surface water in the vicinity. The second and larger
branch of the Japan current crosses the North Pacific, and,
curving southward by Alaska and British Columbia, part
of it returns as the north equatorial current, while the rest
forms the variable Mexican current that runs along the
coasts of California and Mexico.
The general direction of surface circulation in the
Pacific may be remembered by supposing the ocean divided
into a northern and southern half by the equatorial
counter- current. In the northern half the water circulates
in the direction of the hands of a watch, i.e., it passes up
the west coast and down the east, while in the southern
half the rotation is in the opposite direction — down the
west coast and up the east; but the latter half does not
exhibit the complete cycle so distinctly as the former.
The centre of each area of circulation is occupied by a
small Sargasso Sea, the northern being the more clearly
defined, but neither approaches the well-known Sargasso
Sea of the North Atlantic either in definiteness, extent, or
amount of weed.
Temperature of Surface Wafer. — The distribution of Surface
temperature in the surface water of the Pacific varies con- tcrnPeri
siderably during the year. The equatorial region is of
course comparatively little affected by the change of season,
but there is a general rise of temperature in the northern
parts of the ocean, and a fall in the southern, during the
northern summer, and a similar rise in the south and fall
in the north during winter. The charts exhibit a general
northward move in the isothermals during the former
season, and a southward tendency in the latter. The
change in the position of the lines is greatest in the
temperate zones. The charts of ocean surface tempera
ture (see METEOROLOGY, figs. 8, 9) for February and
August show the direction of the isothermals at two
opposite seasons ; and reference to them will make it plain
that in temperate regions the lines of equal temperature
follow the parallels of latitude much more closely in the
Pacific than in the Atlantic, while their displacement with
the change of season takes place in a direction nearly north
and south. There are notable instances of divergence from
these rules, such as the peculiarity of the isothermal of 80°
already alluded to. Another circumstance is the fact that
the temperature of the surface water on the western side
of a great continent is much lower than that on the eastern
side in the same latitude ; it seems as if the west side of
PACIFIC OCEAN
119
a continent attracted the isothermals, making them con
verge towards the equator. It has already been pointed
out that these effects are due to the winds and the cold
currents which strike the western continental shores and
run along the coasts. The surface temperature of the
Pacific, between the latitudes of 45° N. and 45° S., no
where at any season falls below 50°. In August the
southern isotherm of 50° remains close to the 50th parallel,
not diverging more than a degree or two on either side.
Between the 45th parallels and the northern and southern
limits of the ocean the temperature is almost always below
50°. The southern isotherm of 40° is remarkable for its
constant position all the year round, between latitudes 55°
and 58°, — a result brought about by the gigantic antarctic
icebergs which prevent the surface temperature of the
water from rising during the southern summer.
The northern and southern " isocryrnes " of 68°, that is
the lines which pass over water which has a mean
temperature of 68° during the coldest months of the year,
lie, according to Dana (Corals and Coral Islands, 1872),
between the latitudes of 20° and 30° on each side of the
equator, except in the neighbourhood of the South-
American coast, where the isocryme runs north in a loop
beyond the equator, — a consequence of the cooling effect of
the Peruvian current. These isocrymes mark out an area
of great importance ; for the reef-building corals are con
fined within it.
The highest temperature which sea water has been
observed to attain is 90° F., and water of this temperature
is only met with in the Red Sea. The maximum in the
Pacific in the month of August is reached in the boundary
between it and the Indian Ocean (in the Malay Archi
pelago) and in a narrow strip along the Mexican coast ;
in both these regions the thermometer immersed in the
surface water registers 85° as a mean. There is a con
siderable area which in August stretches between New
Guinea and Japan, from 10° S. to nearly 30° N., where
the surface temperature reaches 84°, but these are excep
tional temperatures.
When the "Challenger" was cruising in the South
Pacific — in 1874 and 1875 — the water was found to be
uniformly warmer than the air, the difference in tem
perature between the two averaging 10<5 to 2° Fahr. In
the North Pacific, between the latitudes of 30° and 40°, on
the other hand, the atmospheric temperature is about half
a degree higher than that of the surface water. Such
differences may be explained by considering the effect of
warm and cold currents, which alter the temperature of the
water much more rapidly than that of the air, and of
warm and cold winds, which affect the atmosphere more
quickly than the ocean.
eep-sea Deep-Sea Temperature. — The serial temperature sound-
mpera- ings of the "Challenger" in the Pacific give a very good
ire- idea of the distribution of temperature in the deeper
waters. There seems to be a slow massive movement of
water from the Antarctic Ocean into the Pacific, which is
not confined to the surface currents, but affects the whole
mass of water down to the bottom. The rate of this
motion is quite unknown. In the open sea, far from
coasts and barriers, the temperature of the water con
tinually decreases as the depth increases. This is only true
for the open ocean, fully exposed to the effects of the mass
movement of the water ; there is a very different distri
bution of temperature in enclosed seas such as those of the
Western Pacific, or even in the ocean when a barrier pre
sents itself to the moving water. The difference, which is
late II. brought out by the diagram (Plate II. fig. 1), is due to the
=• !• fact that when a barrier exists it retards the motion of the
lower portion of the water, which has the lowest tempera
ture, while the higher passes on over it, and fills up the
area beyond with water ait the uniform temperature of the
great ocean at the point to which the top of the ridge or
obstruction reaches. In the Sulu Sea, for instance, the
diagram shows1 that the temperature falls steadily and
rapidly from 80° at the surface to 50°*5 at 400 fathoms,
and then continues at 50° '5 right down to the bottom in
2500 fathoms, instead of sinking to somewhere about 35°,
as it is observed to do in the open ocean at that depth.
The inference is that the Sulu Sea is surrounded by a
ridge rising to at least about 400 fathoms from the surface,
which prevents the great ocean circulation from having its,
cooling effect, and soundings indicate that this is really
the case. A study of the temperature phenomena, such
as those just referred to, points out with considerable
certainty the existence and height of barriers and ridges in
many parts of the ocean, where their presence has not been
detected by actual soundings.2
During the cruise of the "Challenger" the bottom
temperature over the North Pacific was found to be 35°'l;
south of the Sandwich Islands it fell to 35°; in the Low
Archipelago it again rose to 35°'l ; on the 40th parallel it
fell to 34° "7 in the deep water, but rose to 35° -4 and
35°'5 in the shallow water of the Patagonian elevation.
The thermometer registered 34° '5 at the bottom between
Australia and New Zealand ; while in that part of the
ocean to the north-east of Australia known as the Coral
Sea, although the depth was the same (about 2500
fathoms), the bottom temperature was as high as 35° '9.
The variations of temperature in the enclosed seas of the
Eastern Archipelago were found to be considerable, and
nearly all those seas show the phenomenon of constant
temperature from an intermediate point to the bottom,
consequent on the existence of barriers. The chief details
of the thermal conditions of these seas are represented
graphically in the diagram (Plate II. fig. 1). Between
the Caroline Islands and Japan the bottom temperature
was 35° "3. The bottom temperature in the Pacific is on
the average about 1° F. lower than that in the Atlantic.
The temperature of the water at the depth of 300
fathoms is nearly the same (40° to 45°) over the whole of
the North Pacific, but above 300 fathoms the water is
warmer in the western than in the central portion, while
below that depth it is colder in the former than in the latter.
The same phenomenon is noticed between the latitudes of
34° S. and 40° S., but here 700 fathoms marks the plane
of constant temperature. Between 33° N. and 40° S. the
temperature of the water above 200 fathoms is higher in
the North than in the South Pacific, whilst from 200 to
1500 fathoms it is lower in the North, and below the latter
depth the condition reverts to what it was above 200
fathoms.
The diagram (Plate II. fig. 2) exhibits the bathy metrical Plate II.
distribution of temperature in a section of the Pacific from a fig. 2.
position in 38° 9' N. lat. and 156° 25' W. long, to one in 40° 3'
S. lat. and 132° 58' W. long, as determined by H.M.S. "Chal
lenger" in 1875, and may be compared with similar diagrams
of the ATLANTIC (see vol. iii. p. 23). In order to separate the iso
thermals in the first 200 fathoms sufficiently the scale of depths
required to be made large, while in order that the length of
the diagram might be kept within reasonable bounds the scale of
latitude was made very much smaller. The result of this is to
exaggerate the inequalities of the sea bottom, making the slopes
very much steeper than they are ; this effect is best seen in the
way in which islands are represented. The rapid falling off of
temperature in the first few hundred fathoms, and then its very
slow but steady decrease to the bottom are to be observed, and the
fact that latitude has a great effect on the surface temperature, but
1 The encircled numbers in the diagrams (Plate II. figs. 1 and 2)
indicate the "Challenger" stations.
- An excellent example of the existence of a submarine barrier being
pointed out by a wide divergence in the temperature in contiguous
areas of the ocean is met with in the Faroe Channel (see NORWEGIAN
SEA, vol. xvii. p. 594, and NORTH SEA, p. 564, fig. 1).
120
PACIFIC OCEAN
none at considerable depths, for the isotherm of 40° is constantly
between 300 and 400 fathoms, and also that depth alone deter
mines the bottom temperature in the open ocean, the coldest water
occurring as a matter of fact under the equator in the deepest
troughs open to the south.
Density Density of the Water. — The specific gravity of ocean
of the water is an index of its salinity, since the researches of
water, various chemists, foremost amongst whom are Forchham-
mer and Dittmar, have shown conclusively that the per
centage composition of the salts in sea water is the same
in all parts of the ocean, so far at least as regards the
principal constituents. Mr J. Y. Buchanan made continu
ous observations on the specific gravity of sea water during
the whole voyage of the "Challenger," and has published a
very valuable paper on the distribution of salt in the ocean
in the "Challenger" Reports (Phys. Chem. Chall. Exp.,
Plate II. vol. i. part ii.). The chart in Plate II. showing the geogra-
chart. phical distribution of surface density is copied from that
paper. The percentage of total salts in sea water, as
deduced from the specific gravity, is, according to
Buchanan and Dittmar —
Density 1'025 1 026 1 '027 1 '028
Percentage 3 '3765 3 '5049 3 '6343 37637
The density of the water in different parts of the ocean
must obviously change to a certain extent with the season;
and it is not only the surface density that is affected in
this way ; any cause which promotes evaporation tends
to increase the salinity of surface water, while any con
ditions that effect condensation of aqueous vapour produce
dilution. For instance, in the China Sea during the month
of November, at the end of the south-west monsoon, which
is a moist wind accompanied by much rain, the specific
gravity observed was 1 '0251 8, and two months later, after
the dry north-east monsoon had been blowing for some
time, evaporation had proceeded so far that the specific
gravity had risen to 1 '02534. The climate is the principal
factor in determining surface salinity, and the causes
which produce well-marked climatic conditions have an
equally apparent effect on the density of the water. Thus
there are two zones of comparatively high density encircl
ing the globe in the region of the north east and south-east
trade winds, which are dry and promote rapid evaporation ;
and similarly the region of calms and rain between the
trades is distinguished by the low specific gravity of the
water. North and south of these areas there are two zones
where the salinity maintains a mean value, in consequence
of there being a balance between evaporation and con
densation ; and round the poles there are areas of
concentration brought about by the freezing of the sea
water and the separation of salt, which of course increases
the salinity of the water remaining unfrozen.
The distribution of density differs considerably in the
two great oceans. In the Atlantic there are two
areas of high specific gravity, one in the north, the
other in the south ; while in the Pacific there is only one,
situated in the southern division of the ocean in the
neighbourhood of the Society Islands. It is neither so
large as those of the Atlantic, nor has it so high a specific
gravity. The density of the concentration areas in the
Atlantic, taking pure water at 4° C. as unity, is 1 '02750;
that in the saltest portion of the Pacific is only 1 '02700.
In the North Pacific the salinity i.s less than in the South,
and it» distribution is much more uniform. The density
in this region never exceeds 1-02650, and the minimum,
in the rainy region of the equatorial counter current,
i.s as low as 1 02485. The South Pacific has water of
a relatively high density, its maximum being 1-02750.
The water of the seas of the Eastern Archipelago, in the
western basin of the Pacific, although exposed to the full
force of an equatorial sun, and possessed of a very high
surface temperature, is yet surprisingly fresh. The specific
gravity varies considerably with the season, but the aver
age for the year over the greater part of these seas is
under 1 '02550 ; and there is a large area surrounding the
islands of Java and Sumatra where the dilution is greater,
the hydrometer only indicating 1 '02500. The weak
salinity of these waters is largely to be attributed to the
extreme humidity of the atmosphere, the frequent and
heavy rains, and the fact that so many lofty and exten
sive islands, where the annual rainfall rises above 200
inches, drain into the seas. Water of such a degree of
dilution is not met with anywhere else, except near the
mouths of rivers and in the vicinity of melting ice, and,
as a temporary phenomenon, after prolonged rain in the
tropics.
In regions where there is decided and continuous con
centration in progress, the specific gravity of the water is
greatest at the surface and decreases as the depth increases,
down to about 800 or 1000 fathoms, after which the
density increases slowly with the depth until the bottom
is reached. The density of the bottom water of the
Pacific is almost the same everywhere ; it only varies from
1 '02570 to 1 02590; and the same value holds for the
South Atlantic. The North Atlantic has denser water at
the bottom, varying from 1'02G16 to 1-02632. In those
regions where the surface water is being constantly diluted,
as is the case in the equatorial belt of calms, the density
increases with the depth down to between 50 and 100
fathoms, where there is a maximum, from which the
density diminishes, as in the other case, to about 1000
fathoms, and afterwards increases slowly down to the
bottom. There is a striking resemblance between the
direction of the isohalsines, or lines of equal salinity, and
of the isothermals ; but the parallelism breaks down, of
course, in the case of a subsurface maximum.
Depth.- — For a long time the opinion that the Pacific Depth,
was a comparatively shallow ocean was entertained by Plate III.
geographers, and it is only the recent soundings of the
"Challenger," " Tuscarora," "Gazelle," and other survey
ing ships that have succeeded in dispelling the illusion.
It is now known that the average depth of the Pacific is
greater than that of the Atlantic, and that areas of deeper
water occur in it than in any other part of the globe. A
line running along the western shores of the two Americas
and along the eastern shores of the Asiatic continent more
or less closely follows a great circle of the globe. On the
one side of this line there are the continental masses of
the Americas and of Europe and Asia, with an average
height of about 800 feet above the level of the sea ; and
on the other side the vast oceanic depression of the Pacific,
with an average depth of about 2500 fathoms. The
average level of the continental area may thus be regarded
as about three miles above the Pacific depression.
The attempt to divide the ocean into sharply defined
basins is more or less unsatisfactory; and for the considera
tion of the depth it is better to view the Pacific as marked
off into two portions by an imaginary line passing through
Honolulu and Tahiti, on the meridian of 150° W.
The eastern half is remarkable for the comparative
absence of islands and the uniform nature of its depth.
With the exception of the narrow strip of shallow water
surrounding the Aleutian Islands and running along the
American coast, the sounding line shows an average depth
of from 2000 to 3000 fathoms undiversified by remarkable
elevations or depressions, between the northern limit of
the ocean and 30° S. lat. There is a great submarine
plateau extending from the Patagonian coast (in 76° W.
long.) in a westerly direction to 120° W. long., which
rises to between 2000 and 1000 fathoms of the surface.
This elevated area diminishes in breadth as it proceeds
westward, but it is supposed by some authorities to be
PACIFIC OCEAN
121
connected with the shallow water surrounding the Low
Archipelago and the Marquesas Islands (groups which are
bisected by the 140th meridian of west longitude) and the
Society Islands. If this be the case there is an almost
continuous area of elevation stretching between Patagonia
and Japan. It has been remarked that many of the sub
merged plateaus of the Pacific have a south-east to north
west trend. The " Challenger " examined the depth of
the eastern half of the Pacific in 1875, along a line which
extended fro n 33° 1ST. lat. on the 160th meridian south-east
to the Sandwich Islands, and then as nearly as possible
along the 150th meridian to the Society Islands in 23° S.
lat. From this point the course was again south-east
to the 40th parallel of south latitude, which was followed
eastward to the Patagonian coast, a visit to Juan Fernan
dez forming a northward digression. The depth was
ascertained at fifty points along this route, and it was
found to vary on the whole from 2000 to 3000 fathoms.
There were two soundings of over 3000 fathoms between
latitudes 38° and 36° N., and one a little to the south
of the Sandwich Islands. Between the meridian of
120° W. and the coast of America the soundings showed
the depth to vary considerably as the ship was in deep
water or over the submerged Patagonian plateau. The
actual numbers observed proceeding eastward from 120°
W. long, were in fathoms :— 2250, 1600, 2025, 2270, 1500,
1825, 1775, 1375, 2160, 2225, 1450, 1325. The soundings
made by the United States ship " Tuscarora " during 1874
were much more numerous, closer together, and extended
along several lines, but the general result was similar to
that of the " Challenger " observations. The results of all
recent observations are shown on Plate III.
The western half of the Pacific Ocean is a complete con
trast to the eastern. Archipelagos and scattered islands
are exceedingly numerous ; the depth of the ocean is by
no means uniform, for shallows and areas of unusual depth
occur scattered over it at irregular intervals. Along the
Asiatic coast and between the island groups there are a
number of partially enclosed seas, and these are separated
from the great ocean by submarine plateaus of sufficient
extent and height to warrant the supposition that a
moderate upheaval would extend the Asiatic continent as
far south as Australia, transforming the seas into inland
salt lakes. Considerations of the peculiar animal and
vegetable life of New Zealand and Australia lend some
degree of probability to the speculation that these islands
were joined to the main continent of Asia at some very
remote period ; and it is even possible to trace the sub
merged coast-line of the great continent which then existed.
This line separates the very deep water of the West Pacific
from the shallower water of the inland seas and archipel
agos ; it runs from Kamchatka, over Japan, Formosa, the
Philippines, New Guinea, to Australia and New Zealand.
The most conspicuous peculiarity of the West Pacific
is the very deep water lying in a crescent shape to the east
of the Kurile Islands and Japan. It extends from 50° N.
lat. to nearly 20' N. lat., although it is of no great breadth.
The average depth of this area is nearly 4000 fathoms,
and a narrow strip of still more abysmal depths runs along
its western margin, like a ditch across the entrance to the
Sea of Okhotsk : here the United States ship " Tuscarora "
found depths of over 4600 fathoms. The course of the
" Challenger " led her to explore the seas of the Eastern
Archipelago pretty thoroughly, and she carried a line of
soundings from the archipelago to Japan, and thence east
ward across the Pacific, crossing the area of great depth
about the centre, off Nippon, where two soundings of 3950
and 3*325 fathom? respectively were obtained. Like the
East Pacific, the western division of the ocean has an
average depth of from 2000 to 3000 fathoms, although a
great number of small depressions exist where the depth
is greater, and detached areas of shallower water occur
still more frequently. Many of the islands rise from
depths of about 3000 fathoms, forming isolated mountains
springing from the bed of the ocean, and several peaks
which do not rise to the surface have been detected.
More usually a number of islands are bound together by
submarine elevations, frequently within a few hundred
fathoms of the surface, over wide areas. Although the
greater part of the sea surrounding New Zealand, the north
of Australia, and the adjacent islands is under 1000
fathoms in depth, there are areas of great depression
amongst the islands, and some very deep channels. In
1875 when sounding in the channel between the Carolines
and Ladrones, the "Challenger" met with the deepest
water of the cruise, 4475 fathoms, or about five miles and
a quarter ; and this is the greatest depth from which a
specimen of the bottom has hitherto been obtained. This
abysmal depth only extends over a relatively small area,
for the two nearest " Challenger " stations, one to the
north and one to the south, had depths of 2300 and
1850 fathoms respectively.
The seas branching off from the Pacific are usually
relatively shallow. Behring Sea on the north has ex
tremely Shallow water in its north-eastern half, where there
is a depth of under 100 fathoms ; in the south-western por
tion the depth increases rapidly to between 1000 and 2000
fathoms, except round the coasts and the Aleutian Archi
pelago. The Sea of Okhotsk is still shallower : much of it is
within the 100 fathom line ; and in its deepest part it does
not attain 1000 fathoms. The Yellow Sea is entirely within
the hundred fathom line ; while the Sea of Japan, only
separated from it by the Corean Peninsula, is not inferior
in depth to the open ocean, its average depth being
from 2000 to 3000 fathoms. The western portion of the
Pacific, which lies between the Philippines and the
Carolines and Ladrones, is also very deep, its mean depth
approaching 3000 fathoms. This sea is of importance,
since it is to the Pacific what the Gulf of Mexico is to
the Atlantic — the source of its great northern thermal
current. The fact that the temperature at 1500 fathoms
over the whole of the North Pacific does not differ by
more than 0°'5 F. from that at the bottom appears to
indicate that this portion is cut off from the southern
division by a ridge rising to within 1500 fathoms of
the surface. The existence of such a barrier cannot
be said to be proved, but the indications lead to the
supposition that it may extend from Japan to the
equator, through the Bonin, the Ladrone, and the Caroline
Islands.
Taken altogether, so far as present knowledge goes, the
bed of the Pacific is more uniform than that of the
Atlantic, and its changes of level are less abrupt. Its
depth is, on an average, greater, and appears to be more
evenly distributed than in the Atlantic, but this appar
ent greater uniformity may be partly due to the fact that
the latter ocean, both on account of its smaller size and its
greater commercial importance, has been much more care
fully surveyed, and its bathymetrical conditions more
exactly ascertained.
DEPOSITS.
The explorations of the "Challenger," "Tuscarora," and other Deposit*
surveying ships have in recent years given a great amount of
information respecting the nature of the deposits now forming
over the floor of the ocean, and the specimens collected by these
expeditions have been made the subject of a careful investigation
by Messrs Murray and Renard. The great extent and depth of the
Pacific Ocean make it the most suitable field for the study of the
varieties of deep-sea deposits and the conditions under which they
are found. The various kinds of deposits, all of which are found
in the Pacific Ocean, are classed as follows : —
XVIII. — 1 6
122
PACIFIC OCEAN
Terrigenous
deposits.
Shore formations.
Blue mud.
Cireen mud and sand.
Hed mud.
Coral mud and sand.
)
f
)
Found in inland seas
and ailing the shores
of continents.
Found around oceanic
Coralline mud and siiml.
I
islands and along the
Volcanic mud and sand.
j
shores of continents.
Red clay.
1
Pelagic
Globigfrina ooze1.
Pteropod ooze.
1
Found in the
abysmal regions of
deposits.
Diatom ooze.
the oceanic basins.
^ Kadiolitiian ooze.
J
Terri- The terrigenous deposits are found in more or less close proximity
genous to the land, and are chiefly made up of the triturated fragments
deposits, carried down into the ocean by rivers, or worn away from the
coasts by waves or currents. Those found in the deeper water
surrounding the land dill'er from the sands, gravels, and shingles
of the shore and shallow water chiefly in the smaller size of the
grains and the greater abundance of clayey matter and remains of
oceanic organisms. As, however, the water becomes still deeper and
the distance from land greater, the deposits assume, more and more,
a deep-sea character until they pass into a true pelagic deposit.
The principal minerulogical constituents of the terrigenous
deposits near continental land are isolated fragments of rocks and
minerals coming from the crystalline and schisto-crystalline series,
and from the clastic and sedimentary formations ; according to the
character of the nearest coasts they belong to granite, diorite, diabase,
porphyry, &c. , crystalline schists, ancient limestones, and the
sedimentary rocks of all geological ages, with the minerals which
come from their disintegration, such as quartz, monoclinic and tri-
clinic felspars, hornblende, augite, rhombic pyroxene, olivine,
muscovite, biotite, titanic and magnetic iron, tourmaline, garnet,
epidote, and other secondary minerals. The tiituration and
decomposition of these rocks and minerals give rise to materials
more or less amorphous and without distinctive characters, but the
origin of which is indicated by association with the rocks and
minerals just mentioned.
Mixed with these are found in many places phosphatic nodules,
large quantities of glauconitc, and minerals arising from chemical
action probably in presence of organic matter.
Blue Blue mud is the most extensive deposit now forming around the
mud. great continents and continental islands, and in all enclosed or
partially enclosed seas. It is characterized by a slaty colour, which
passes in most cases into a thin layer of a reddish colour at the
upper surface. These deposits are coloured blue by organic matter
in a state of decomposition, and frequently give off an odour of
sulphuretted hydrogen. When dried, a blue mud is greyish in
colour, and rarely or never has the plasticity and compactness of a
true clay. It is finely granular, and occasionally contains fragments
of rocks 2 cm. in diameter ; generally, however, the minerals which
are derived from the continents, and are found mixed up with the
muddy matter in these deposits, have a mean diameterof 0'5 mm. and
less. Quartz particles, often rounded, play the principal part ; next
come mica, felspar, augite, hornblende, and all the mineral species
which come from the disintegration of the neighbouring lands, or
the lands traversed by rivers which enter the sea near the .place
where the specimens have been collected. These minerals make up
the principal and characteristic portion of blue muds, sometimes
forming 80 per cent, of the whole deposit. Glauconite, though
generally present, is never abundant. The remains of calcareous
organisms are at times quite absent, but occasionally they form
over 50 per cent. The latter is the case when the specimen is
taken at a considerable distance from the coast and at a moderate
depth. These calcareous fragments consist of bottom-living and
pelagic Forarninifera, Molluscs, Polyzoa, Serjmlas, Echinoderms,
Alcyonarian spicules, Corals, &c. The remains of Diatoms and
Radiolarians a'-e usually present. Generally speaking, as the shores
are approached the pelagic organisms disappear ; and, on the con
trary, as we proceed seawards the size of the mineral grains
diminishes, and the remains of shore and coast organisms give
place to pelagic ones, till finally a blue mud passes into a true deep-
sea deposit. In those regions of the ocean affected with floating
ice, the colour of these deposits becomes grey rather than blue at
great distances from land, and is further modified by the presence
of a greater or less -abundance of glaciated blocks and fragments
of quartz. These deposits are found along the coasts of North and
South America, and in all the enclosed and partially enclosed seas,
such as the Japan Sea, China Sea, Arafura Sea, Sulu Sea, Banda
Sea, Celebes Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, &c.
Green At some points in the same regions are found green muds and
muds sands, which, as regards their origin, composition, and distribution
r.nd near the shores of continental land, resemble the blue muds. They
sands. are largely composed of argillaceous matter and mineral particles of
the same size and kind as the blue muds. Their chief character
istic is the presence of a considerable quantity of glauconitic grains,
either isolated or united into concretions by a brown argillaceous
matter. The Foraminifcra and fragments of Echinoderms and
other organisms in these muds are frequently filled with glauconitic
substance, and beautiful casts of these organisms remain after
treatment with weak acid. At times there are few calcareous
organisms in these deposits, and at other times the remains of
Diatoms and Radiolarians are abundant. When these muds
are dried they become earthy and of a grey-green colour. They
frequently give out a sulphuretted hydrogen odour. The green
colour appears sometimes to be due to the presence of organic
matter, probably of vegetable origin, and to the reduction of
peroxide of iron to protoxide under its influence. The green
sands dill'er from the muds only in the comparative absence of
the argillaceous and other amorphous matter, and by the more
important part played by the grains of glauconite, to which the
green colour is chiefly due. Red mud is found where quantities Red
of ochreous matter are brought down by rivers and deposited along mud.
the coast, as in the Yellow Sea, but it is most characteristic
in the Atlantic off the Brazil coast of America.
In addition to the terrigenous deposits above referred to, volcanic Volcani
muds and sands and coral muds and sands are found around the muds a
shores of oceanic islands either of volcanic or coral origin. The sands.
volcanic muds and sands are black or grey, and when dried are
rarely coherent. The mineral particles are generally fragmentary,
and consist of lapilli of the basic and acid series of modern
volcanic rocks, which are scoriaceous or compact, vitreous or
crystalline, and usually present traces of alteration. The minerals
are sometimes isolated, sometimes surrounded by their matrix,
and consist principally of plagioclases, sanidine, amphibole,
pyroxene, biotite, olivine, and magnetic iron ; the size of the
particles diminishes with distance from the shore, but the mean
diameter is generally 0'5 mm. Glauconite does not appear to be
present in these deposits, and qiiartz is also very rare or absent.
The fragments of shells and rocks are frequently covered with a
coating of peroxide of manganese. Shells of calcareous organisms
are often present in great abundance, and render the deposit of a
lighter colour. The remains of Diatoms and Radiolarians are
usually present.
Coral muds frequently contain as much as 95 per cent, of Coral
carbonate of lime, consisting of fragments of Corals, calcareous muds
alga3, Foraminifera, Serpulee, Molluscs, and remains of other lime- and
secreting organisms. There is a large amount of amorphous sands,
calcareous matter, which gives the deposit a sticky and chalky
character. The particles may be of all sizes according to the
distance from the reefs, the mean diameter being 1 to 2 mm., but
occasionally there are large blocks of coral and large calcareous
concretions ; the particles are white and red. Remains of siliceous
organisms seldom make up over 2 or 3 per cent, of a typical coral
mud. The residue consists usually of a small amount of argillaceous
matter, with a few fragments of felspar and other volcanic minerals ;
but oft' barrier and fringing reefs facing continents there may be
a great variety of rocks and minerals. Beyond a depth of 1000
fathoms off coral islands the debris of the reefs begins to diminish,
and the remains of pelagic organisms to increase ; the deposit
becomes more argillaceous, of a reddish or rose colour, and gradually
passes into a Globigerina ooze or a red clay. Coral sands con*
tain much less amorphous matter than coral muds, but in other
respects they are similar, the sands being usually found nearer the
reefs and in shallower water than the muds, except inside lagoons.
In some regions the remains of calcareous algje predominate, and
In these cases the name coralline mud or sand is employed to point
out the distinction.
The extent and peculiarities of the region in which these terri
genous deposits are laid down are interesting. It extends from
high-water mark down, it may be, to a depth of over 4 miles,
and in a horizontal direction from 60 to perhaps 300 miles sea
wards, and includes all inland seas, such as the North Sea,
Norwegian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, China Sea, Japan
Sea, Caribbean Sea, and many others. It is the region of change
and of variety with respect to light, temperature, motion, and
biological conditions. In the surface waters the temperature
ranges from 80° F. in the tropics to 28° F. in the polar regions.
From the surface down to the nearly ice-cold water found at the
lower limits of the region in the deep sea there is in the tropics
an equally great range of temperature. Plants and animals are
abundant near the shore, and animals extend in relatively great
abundance down to the lower limits of the region, now marked
out by these terrigenous deposits. The specific gravity of the
water varies much, and this variation in its turn affVcts the fauna
and flora. In the terrigenous region tides and currents produce
their maximum effect, and these influences can in some instances
be traced to a depth of 300 fathoms, or nearly 2000 feet. Tho
upper or continental margin of the region is clearly defined by tho
high-water mark of the coast-line, which is constantly changing
through breaker action, elevation, and subsidence. The lower or
abysmal margin passes in most cases insensibly into the abyemal
region, but may be regarded as ending where the mineral particles
from the neighbouring continents begin to disappear from the
deposits, which then pass into an organic ooze or a red clay.
The area covered by terrigenous deposits has been called the
estimated at about
transitional " or
by
' critical
deposits
and is
PACIFIC OCEAN
123
two-eighths of the earth's surface, while the continents cover three-
eighths, and the deep-sea deposits of the abysmal regions, which
will now be considered, cover the remaining three- eighths.
The true deep-sea deposits may be divided into two classes, viz. ,
those in which the organic elements predominate, and those in
which the mineral constituents play the chief part. Belonging to
the former class there are Globigerina, Pteropod, Diatom, and
Radiolarian Odzes, and to the latter Red Clay.
Globigerina oo~e is the name given to all those truly pelagic
deposits containing over 40 per cent, of carbonate of lime which con
sist principally of the dead shells of pelagic Foraminifcra (Globige-
rina, Orbulina, Pulvinulina, Pullenia, Sphasroidina] and coccoliths
and rhabdoliths. In some localities this deposit contains 95 per cent.
of carbonate of lime. The colour is milky white, yellow, brown,
or rose, the varieties of colour depending principally on the relative
abundance in the deposit of the oxides of iron and manganese.
This ooze is fine grained ; in the tropics some of the Foraminifcra
shells are macroscopic. AVhen dried it is pulverulent. Analyses
show that the sediment contains, in addition to carbonate of lime,
phosphate and sulphate
of lime, carbonate
magnesia, oxides
)f
of
iron and manganese,
and argillaceous mat
ters. The residue is of
a reddish-brown tinge.
Lapilli, pumice, and
glassy fragments, often
altered into palagonite,
seem always to be pre
sent, and are frequent
ly very abundant. The
mineral particles are
generally angular, and
rarely exceed 0'08 mm.
in diameter ; mono-
clinic and triclinic fel
spars, augite, olivine, FIG. 1.— The finer particles of a GloUgerina O.-zo,
hornblende, and mag- showing Coccolitlis, Coecospheres, and Hhab-
netite are the most fre- dohths.
quent. When quartz is present, it is in the form of minute,
rounded, probably wind-borne grains, often partially covered with
KIG. 2. — Glolngrrina Ooze from 1000 fathoms.
oxide of iron. More rarely there are white and black particles of
mica, bronzite, actinolite, chromite, glauconite, and cosmic dust.
Siliceous organisms arc probably never absent, sometimes forming
20 per cent, of the deposit, while at other times they are only
recognizable after careful microscopic examination. In some regions
the frustules of Diatoms predominate, in other the skeletons of
Radiolarians.
Pteropod ooze differs in no way from a Globigcrina ooze except in
the presence of a greater number and variety of pelagic organisms,
and especially in the presence of Pteropod and Heteropod shells,
such as Diacria, Atlanta, Stijliola, Carinaria, &c. The shells of
the more delicate species of pelagic Foraminifcra and young shells
are also more abundant in these deposits than in a Globigcrina ooze.
It must be remembered that the name "Pteropod ooze" is not
intended to indicate that the deposit is chiefly composed of the
shells of these Molluscs, but, as their presence in a deposit is char
acteristic and has an important bearing on geographical and bathy-
mctrical distribution, it is desirable to emphasize the presence of
these shells in any great abundance. It may be pointed out
that there is a very considerable difference between a Globigerina
ooze or a Pteropod ooze situated near continental shores and
deposits bearing the same names .situated towards the centres of
oceanic areas, with respect both to mineral particles and to re
mains of organisms.
Diatom oo~e is of a pale straw colour, and is composed princi- Diatom
pally of the frustules of Diatoms. When dry it is a dirty white ooze,
siliceous flour, soft to the touch, taking the impression of the
fingers, and contains gritty particles which can be recognized by
the touch. It contains on an average about 25 per cent, of carbo
nate of lime, which exists in the deposit in the form of small Glo
bigerina shells, frag
ments of Echinoderms
ami other organisms.
The residue is pale
white and slightly
plastic ; minerals and
fragments of rocks are
in some cases abun
dant ; these are vol
canic, or, more fre
quently, fragments
and minerals coming
from continental rocks
and transported by
glaciers. The fine
washings consist essen
tially of particles of
Diatoms along with
argillaceous and other *IG- 3- — Diatom Ooze from 19.00 fathoms in the
T , Antarctic Ocean.
amorphous matter. It
is estimated that the frustules of Diatoms and skeletons of siliceous
organisms make up more than 50 per cent, of this deposit.
It has been already mentioned that Radiolarians are seldom, if
ever, completely absent from marine deposits. In some regions
they make up a considerable portion of a Globigcrina ooze, and are
also found in Diatom ooze
and in the terrigenous de
posits of the deeper water
surrounding the land. In
some regions of the Pa
cific, however, the skele
tons of these organisms
make up the principal
part of the deposit, to
which the name Radio
larian conchas been given.
The colour is reddish or
deep brown, due to the
presence of the oxides of
iron and manganese. The
mineral particles consist
of fragments of pumice,
lapilli, and volcanic mine
rals, rarely exceeding 0'07
mm. in diameter. There
is not a trace of carbonate
of lime in the form of
•Fie. 4.— Uud;olari;in Ooze from 4475 fathoms
in Central Pacific.
shells in some samples of Radiolarian ooze, but other specimens
contain 20 per cent, of carbonate of lime derived from the
shells of pelagic Foraminifcra. The clayey matter and mineral
particles are the same as those found in the red clays, which will
now be described.
Of all the deep-sea deposits red day is the one which is distri- Reel
buted over the largest areas in the modern oceans. It might be clay
said that it exists everywhere in the abysmal regions of the ocean
basins, for the residue in the organic deposits which have been
described under the names Globigerina,, Pteropod, Diatom, and
Radiolarian oozes is nothing else than the red clay. However,
this deposit only appears in its characteristic form in those areas
where the terrigenous minerals and calcareous and siliceous
organisms disappear to a greater or less extent from the bottom.
It is in the central regions of the Pacific that the typical
examples are met with. Like other marine deposits, this one passes
laterally, according to position and depth, into the adjacent kind
of deep-sea ooze, clay, or mud.
The argillaceous matters are of a more or less deep brown tint
from the presence of the oxides of iron and manganese. In the-
typical examples no mineralogical species can be distinguished by
the naked eye, for the grains are exceedingly fine and of nearly
uniform dimensions, rarely exceeding O'Oo mm. in diameter. It
is plastic and greasy to the touch ; when dried it forms lumps so
coherent that considerable force must be employed to break them.
It gives the brilliant streak of clay, and breaks down in water. The
pyrognostic properties show that it is not a pure clay, for it fuses
easily before the blowpipe into a magnetic bead.
Under the term red clay are comprised those deposits in which
the characters of clay are not well pronounced, but which are mainly
composed of minute particles of pumice and other volcanic material
124
PACIFIC OCEAN
which, owing to their relatively recent deposition, have not under
gone great alteration. It' the analyses of red clay are calculated,
it will be seen, moreover, that the silicate of alumina present as
clay (2SiOj, AljOs + 2HjO) comprises only a relatively small portion
of the sediment ; the calculation shows always an excess of free
silica, which is attributed chiefly to the presence of siliceous
organisms.
Microscopic examination shows that a red clay consists of
argillaceous matter, minute mineral particles, and fragments of
siliceous organisms. The mineral particles are for the greater part
of volcanic origin, except in those cases where continental matters
are transported by floating ice, or where the sand of deserts has
been carried to great distances by winds. These volcanic minerals
are the same constituent minerals of modern eruptive rocks enum
erated in the description of volcanic muds and sands ; in the great
majority of cases they are accompanied by fragments of lapilli and
of pumice more or less altered. Vitreous volcanic matters belonging
to the acid and basic series of rocks predominate in the regions
where the red clay has its greatest development ; and it will be seen
presently that the most characteristic decompositions which there
take place are associated with pyroxenic lavas.
Associated with the red clay are almost always found concretions
and microscopic particles of the oxides of iron and manganese, to
which the deposit owes its colour. -Again, in the typical examples
of the deposit, zeolites in the form of crystals and crystalline
spherules are present, along with metallic globules and silicates
which are regarded as of cosmic origin. Calcareous organisms are
so generally absent that they cannot be regarded as characteristic.
On the other hand, the remains of Diatoms, Eadiolarians, and
Sponge spicules are generally present, and are sometimes very
abundant. The ear-bones of various Cetaceans, as well as the
remnants of other Cetacean bones and the teeth of sharks, are, in
some of the typical samples far removed from the continents,
exceedingly abundant, and are often deeply impregnated with,
or embedded in thick coatings of, the oxides of iron and man
ganese. Over six hundred sharks' teeth, belonging to the genera
Carcharodon, Oxyrhina, and Lamna, and one hundred ear-bones of
whales, belonging to Ziphius, Bal&noptera, Kal&na, Orca, and
Delphiniis, along with fifty fragments of other bones, have been
obtained in one haul of the dredge in the Central Pacific. The
remains of these vertebrates have seldom been dredged in the
organic oozes, and still more rarely in the terrigenous deposits.
The abysmal region, in which the true pelagic deposits above
described are laid down, shows a marked contrast with the " tran
sitional" or "critical area" where the terrigenous deposits are
found. The former area comprises vast undulating plains from 2 to
5 miles beneath the surface of the sea, the average being about 3
miles, here and there interrupted by huge volcanic cones (the oceanic
islands). No sunlight ever reaches these deep cold tracts. The
range of temperature over them is not more than 7°, viz., from 31°
to 38° F., and is apparently constant throughout the whole year in
each locality. Plant life is absent, and, although animals belonging
to all the great types are present, there is no great variety of form
nor abundance of individuals. Change of any kind is exceedingly
slow.
Distri- Leaving out of view the coral and volcanic muds and sands which
bution are found principally around oceanic islands, the blue muds, green
of dc- muds and sands, red muds, together with all the coast and shore
posits, formations, are situated along the margins of the continents and in
enclosed and partially enclosed seas. The chief characteristic of
these deposits is the presence in them of continental debris. The
blue muds are found in all the deeper parts of the regions just in
dicated, and especially near the embouchures of rivers. Red muds
do not differ much from blue muds except in colour, due to the
presence of ferruginous matter in greater abundance, and they are
found under the same conditions as the blue muds. The green muds
and sands occupy, as a rule, portions of the coast where detrital
matter from rivers is not apparently accumulating at a rapid rate,
viz., on such places as the Agulhas I'ank, off the east coast of
Australia, off the coast of Spain, and at various points along the coast
of America. In the tropical and temperate zones of the great oceans,
which occupy about 110° of latitude between the two polar zones,
at depths where the action of the waves is not felt, and at points to
which the terrigenous materials do not extend, there arc now forming
vast accumulations of Globigcrinn and other pelagic Foraininifcm,
coccoliths, rhabdoliths, shells of pelagic Molluscs, and remains of
other organisms. These deposits may perhaps be called the sediments
of median depths and of warmer zones, because they diminish in
great depths and tend to disappear towards the poles. This fact is
evidently in relation with the surface temperature of the ocean, and
shows that pelagic Fur ami infer a and Molluscs live in the superficial
waters of the sea, whence their dead shells fall to the bottom.
Globigerina ooze is not found in enclosed seas nor in polar latitudes.
In the southern hemisphere it has not been met with south of the
50th parallel. In the Atlantic it is deposited upon the bottom at
a very high latitude below the warm waters of the Gulf Stream,
and is not observed under the cold descending polar current which
runs south in the same latitude. These facts are readily explained
if it be admitted that this ooze is formed chiefly by the shells of
surface organisms, which require an elevated temperature and a
wide expanse of sea for their existence.
The distribution of oceanic deposits may be summarized thus.
(1) The terrigenous deposits— blue muds, green muds and sands,
red muds, volcanic muds and sands, coral muds and sands — are
met with in those regions of the ocean nearest to land. With the
exception of the volcanic muds and sands and coral muds and
sands around oceanic islands, these deposits are found only lying
along the borders of continents and continental islands, and in
enclosed and partially enclosed seas. (2) The organic oozes and
red clay are confined to the abysmal regions of the ocean basins ;
a Pteropod ooze is met with in tropical and subtropical regions in
depths less than 1500 fathoms, a Glubiyc.rina ooze in the same
regions between the depths of 500 and 2800 fathoms, a Kadiolarian
ooze in the central portions of the Pacific at depths greater than
2500 fathoms, a Diatom ooze in the Southern Ocean south of the
latitude of 45° south, a red clay anywhere within the latitudes of
45° north and south at depths greater than 2200 fathoms.
As long as the conditions of the surface are the same, it might
be expected that the deposits at the bottom would also remain the
same. In showing that such is not the case, an agent must be
taken into account which is in direct correlation with the depth.
It may be regarded as established that the majority of the cal
careous organisms which make up the Globigerina and Pteropod
oozes live in the surface waters, and it may also be taken for
granted that there is always a specific identity between the cal
careous organisms which live at the surface and the shells of these
pelagic creatures found at the bottom. Globigerina ooze is found
in the tropical zone at depths which do not exceed 2400 fathoms,
but when depths of 3000 fathoms are explored in this zone of the
Atlantic and Pacific there is found an argillaceous deposit without,
in many instances, any trace of calcareous organisms. Descending
from the "submarine plateaus" to depths which exceed 2250
fathoms, the Globigerina ooze gradually disappears, passing into a
greyish marl, and finally is wholly replaced by an argillaceous
material which covers the bottom at all depths greater than 2900
fathoms.
The transition between the calcareous formations and the argil
laceous ones takes place by almost insensible degrees. The thinner
and more delicate shells disappear first. The thicker and larger
shells lose little by little the sharpness of their contour and appear
to undergo a profound alteration. They assume a brownish colour,
and break up in proportion as the calcareous constituent disappears.
The red clay predominates more and more as the calcareous element
diminishes in the deposit. Recollecting that the most important
elements of the organic deposits have descended from the suj er-
iicial waters, and that the variations in contour of the bed of the
sea cannot of themselves prevent the debris of animals and plants
from accumulating upon the bottom, their absence in the red
clay areas can only be explained by the hypothesis of decom
position.
Pteropod ooze, it will be remembered, is a calcareous organic
deposit, in which the remains of Pteropods and other pelagic
Mollusca are present, though they do not always form a preponderat
ing constituent, and it has been found that their presence is in cor
relation with the bathymetrical distribution.
In studying the nature of the calcareous elements which are
deposited in the abysmal areas, it has been noticed that, like the
shells of the Foraminifera, those of the Thecosomatous Ptcropoda,
which live everywhere in the superficial waters, especially in the
tropics, become fewer in number in the deposit as the depth
increases. It has just been observed that the shells of Fora
minifera disappear gradually along a series of soundings from a
point where the Globigerina ooze has abundance of carbonate of
lime, towards deeper regions ; but it is also noticed that, when
the sounding-rod brings up a graduated series of sediments from
a declivity descending into deep water, among the calcareous shells
those of the Pteropods and Hetcropods disappear first in pro
portion as the depth increases. At depths less than 1400 fathoms
in the tropics a Pteropod ooze is found with abundant remains of
Heteropods and Pteropods ; deeper soundings then give a (Uobi-
ijcrina ooze without these Molluscan remains ; and in still greater
depths, as has been said above, there is a red clay in which cal
careous organisms arc nearly, if not quite, absent.
In this manner, then, it is shown that the remains of calcareous
organisms arc completely eliminated in the greatest depths of the
ocean. For if such be not the case, why are all these shells found
at the bottom in the shallower depths, and not at all in the greater
depths, although they are equally abundant on the surface at both
places? There is reason to think that this solution of calcareous
shells is due to the presence of carbonic acid throughout all depths
of ocean water. It is well known that this substance, dissolved in
water, is an energetic solvent of calcareous matter. The investiga
tions of Buchanan and Dittmar have shown that carbonic acid
exists in a free state in sea water, and Dittrnar 's analyses also show
PACIFIC OCEAN
125
that deep-sea water contains more lime than surface water. This
is a confirmation of the theory which regards carbonic acid as the
agent concerned in the total or partial solution of the surface shells
before or immediately after they reach the bottom of the ocean, and
is likewise in relation with the fact that in high latitudes, where
fewer calcareous organisms are found at the surface, their remains
are removed at lesser depths than where these organisms are in
greater abundance. It has been shown that sea water itself has
some effect in the solution of carbonate of lime, and further it is
probable that the immense pressure to which water is subjected
in great depths may have an influence on its chemical activity.
Objections have been raised to the explanation here advanced, on
account of the alkalinity of sea water, but it may be remarked that
alkalinity presents no difficulty which need be here considered
(Dittmar, Plnjs. L'hem. Chall. Exp., parti., 1884).
This interpretation also explains how the remains of Diatoms and
Radiolarians (surface organisms like the Furaminifcra] are found in
greater abundance in the red clay than in a Gloltiyerina ooze. The
action which suffices to dissolve the calcareous matter has no effect
upon the silica, and so the siliceous shells accumulate. Nor is this
view of the case opposed to the distribution of the Fteropod ooze.
At first it would be expected that the Foraminifira shells, being
smaller, would disappear from a deposit before the Pteropod shells;
but if it be remembered that the latter are very thin and delicate,
and, for the quantity of carbonate of lime present, offer a larger
surface to the action of the solvent than the thicker, though smaller,
Globigerina shells, this apparent anomaly will be explained.
The origin of these vast deposits of clay is a problem of the highest
interest. It was at first supposed that these sediments were com
posed of microscopic particles arising from the disintegration of the
rocks by rivers and by the waves on the coasts. It was believed
that the matters held in suspension were carried far and wide by
currents, and gradually fell to the bottom of the sea. But the uni
formity of composition presented by these deposits was a great
objection to this view. It can be shown that mineral particles,
even of the smallest dimensions, continually set adrift upon dis
turbed waters must, owing to a property of sea water, eventually
be precipitated at no great distance from land. It has also been
supposed that these argillaceous deposits owe their origin to the
inorganic residue of the calcareous shells which are dissolved
away in deep water, but this view has no foundation in fact.
Everything seems to show that the formation of the clay is due to
the decomposition of fragmentary volcanic products, whose presence
can be detected over the whole floor of the ocean.
These volcanic materials are derived from floating pumice, and
from volcanic ashes ejected to great distances by terrestrial volcanoes,
and carried far by the winds. It is also known that beds of lava and
of tufa are laid down upon the bottom of the sea. This assemblage
of pyrogenic rocks, rich in silicates of alumina, decomposes under the
chemical action of the water, and gives rise, in the same way as do
terrestrial volcanic rocks, to argillaceous matters, according to re
actions which can always be observed on the surface of the globe,
and which are too well known to need special mention here.
The universal distribution of pumice over the floor of the ocean
is very remarkable, and would at first appear unaccountable ; but
when the fact that pieces of pumice have been known to float in
sea water for a period of over three years before becoming suffici
ently waterlogged to sink is taken into consideration, it will be
readily understood how fragments of this material may be trans
ported by winds and currents to an enormous distance from their
point of origin before being deposited upon the bottom. Frag
ments of pumice are dredged in the greatest profusion in the red
clay of the Central Pacific, and much less abundantly in the or
ganic oozes and terrigenous deposits. This is owing to the rate
of deposition being much slower in the former than in the latter,
where the rapid accumulation of calcareous and siliceous organisms
and continental debris masks their presence.
The detailed microscopic examination of hundreds of soundings
has shown that the presence of pumice, of lapilli, of silicates, and
of other volcanic minerals in various stages of decomposition can
always be demonstrated in the argillaceous matter.
In the places where the red clay attains its most typical develop
ment, the transformation of the volcanic fragments into argillaceous
matter may be followed step by step. It may be said to be the
direct product of the decomposition of the basic rocks, represented
by volcanic glasses, such as hyalomelan and tachylite. This decom
position, in spite of the temperature approximating to zero (32° F.),
gives rise, as an ultimate product, to clearly crystallized minerals,
which may be considered the most remarkable products of the
chemical action of the sea upon the volcanic matters undergoing
decomposition. These microscopic crystals are zeolites lying free
in the deposit, and are met with in greatest abundance in the typical
red-clay areas of the Central Pacific. They are simple, twinned, or
spheroidal groups, which scarcely exceed half a millimetre in
diameter. The crystallographic and chemical study of them shows
that they must be referred to christianite. It is known how easily
the zeolites crystallize in the pores of eruptive rocks in process of
decomposition ; and the crystals of christianite, which are observed
in considerable quantities in the clay of the centre of the Pacific
FIG. 5.— Crystals of Christianite from the deep water of the Pacific.
(fig. 5), have been formed at the expense of the decomposing volcanic
matters spread out upon the bed of that ocean.
In connexion with this formation of zeolites, reference may be
made to a chemical process which gives rise to the formation of
nodules of manganiferous iron. These nodules are almost uni
versally distributed in oceanic sediments, but are met with in the
greatest abundance in the red clay. This association tends to show
a common origin. It is exactly in those regions where there is an
accumulation of pyroxenic lavas in decomposition, containing sili
cates with a base of manganese and iron, such for example as
augite, hornblende, olivine, magnetite, and basic glasses, that
manganese nodules occur in greatest numbers. In the regions
where the sedimentary action, mechanical and organic, is, as it
were, suspended, and where everything shows an extreme slowness
of deposition, — in these calm waters favourable to chemical reac
tions, ferro - manganiferous substances form concretions around
organic and inorganic centres.
These concentrations of ferric and manganic oxides, mixed with
argillaceous materials whose form and dimensions are extremely
variable, belong generally to the earthy variety or wad, but pass
sometimes, though rarely, into varieties of hydrated oxide of
manganese with distinct indications of radially fibrous crystalliza
tion.1 The interpretation necessary, in order to explain this
formation of manganese nodules, is the same as that admitted in
explanation of the formation of coatings of this material on the
surface of terrestrial rocks. These salts of manganese and iron,
dissolved in water by carbonic acid, then precipitated in the form
of car! onate of protoxide of iron and manganese, become oxidized,
and give rise in the calm and deep oceanic regions to more or
less pure ferro -manganiferous
concretions. At the same
time it must be admitted
that rivers may bring to the
ocean a contribution of the.
same substances.
Among the bodies which.
in certain regions where red
clay predominates, serve as
centres for these mangani
ferous nodules are the re
mains of vertebrates. These
remains are the hardest parts
of the skeleton — tympanic
bones of whales, beaks of
Ziyhius, teeth of sharks ;
and, just as the calcareous FIC.R.— SectionofaManganeseXodule.enclos-
shells are eliminated in ing tympanic bone of a whale, from 2300
great depths, so all the re- fathoms, South Pacific,
mains of the larger vertebrates are absent, except the most resistant
portions. These bones often serve as a centre for the manganese
iron concretions, being frequently surrounded by layers several
1 For the composition of these manganese nodules, see MANGANESB, vol. xv. p.
479.
126
PACIFIC OCEAN
centimetres in thickness (fig. 6). In the same dredgings in the
red-clay areas some sharks' teeth and Cetacean ear-bones, some of
which belong to extinct species, are surrounded with thick layers
of the manganese, and others with merely a slight coating.
Cosmic The cosmic spherules incidentally referred to under the dcscrip-
sphe- tioii of red clay may be here described in greater detail. If a
roles, magnet be plunged into an oceanic deposit, especially a red clay
from the central parts of the Pacific, particles are extracted, some
of which are magnetite from volcanic rocks, to which vitreous
matters are often attached ; others again are quite isolated, and
differ in most of their properties from the former. The latter are
generally round, measuring hardly 0'2 mm., usually smaller; their
surface is quite covered with a brilliant black coating having all
the properties of magnetic oxide of iron ; often there may be noticed
clearly marked upon them cup-like depressions (figs. 7 and 8). If
these spherules be broken down in an agate mortar, the brilliant
black coating easily falls away and reveals white or grey metallic
malleable nuclei, which may be beaten out by the pestle into thin
lamellae. This metallic centre, when treated with an acid solu
tion of sulphate of copper, immediately assumes a coppery coat,
thus showing that it is native iron. But there are some mal
leable metallic nuclei extracted from the spherules which do
not give this reaction ; they do not take the copper coating.
i. Fig. 8.
FIG. 7.— Black Spherule with Metallic Nucleus (x60). This spherule covered
with a coating of black shinii]g~magnetite represents the most frequent shape.
The depression here shown is often found at the surface of these spherule*.
From 2375 fathoms, South Pacific.
Fio. 8.— Black Spherule with Metallic Nucleus (x60). The black external coat
ing of magnetic oxide has been broken away to show the metallic nucleus re
presented by the clear part at the centre. From 3150 fathoms.
Chemical reactions show that they contain cobalt and nickel ; very
probably they constitute an alloy of iron and these two metals,
such as is often found in meteorites, and whose presence in large
quantities hinders the production of the coppery coating on the
iron. G. Rose has shown that this coating of black oxide of iron is
found on the periphery of meteorites of native iron, and its presence
is readily understood when their cosmic origin is admitted. Indeed,
these meteoric particles of native iron in their transit through the
air must undergo combustion, and, like small portions of iron from
a smith's anvil, be transformed either entirely or at the surface
only into magnetic oxide, and in the latter case the nucleus is
protected from further oxidation by the coating which thus covers
it.
One may suppose that meteorites in their passage through the
atmosphere break into numerous fragments, that incandescent
particles of iron are thrown off all round them, and that these
eventually fall to the surface of the globe as almost impalpable
dust, in the form of magnetic oxide of iron more or less completely
fused. The luminous train of falling stars is probably due to the
combustion of these innumerable particles resembling the sparks
which fly from a ribbon of iron burnt in oxygen, or the particles
of the same metal thrown off when striking a flint. It is easy to
show that these particles in burning take a spherical form, and arc
surrounded by a layer of black magnetic oxide.
Among the magnetic grains found under the same conditions as
those just described are other spherules, which are referred to the
chondres, so that, if the interpretation of a cosmic origin for the
magnetic spherules with a metallic centre were not established in
a manner absolutely beyond question, it almost becomes so when
their association with the silicate spherules, which will now be
described, is taken into account. It will be seen by the microscopic
details that these spherules have quite the constitution and
structure of chondres so frequent in meteorites of the most ordinary
type, and on the other hand they have never been found, as far as
is known, in rocks of a terrestrial origin ; in short, the presence of
these spherules in the deep-sea deposits, and their association with
the metallic spherules, are matters of prime importance.
Among the fragments attracted by the magnet in deep-sea
deposits are distinguished granules slightly larger than the
spherules with the shining black coating above described. These
are yellowish-brown, with a bronze-like lustre, and under the
microscope it is noticed that the surface, instead of being quite
smooth, is grooved by thin lamellae. Their dimensions never attain
a millimetre, generally they are about 0-5 mm. in diameter ; they
are never perfect spheres, as in the case of the black spherules with
a metallic centre ; and sometimes a depression more or less marked
is to be observed in the periphery. "V\ hen examined by the micro
scope it is observed that the lamella; which compose them arc
applied the one against the other, and have a radial eccentric dis
position. It is the leafy radial structure (radialblattrig), like that
of the chondres of bronzite, which predominates in these spherules.
The serial structure of the chondres with olivine is observed much
less rarely, and indeed there is some doubt about the indications of
this last type of structure. Fig. 9 shows the characters and texture
of one of these spherules magnified 25 diameters. On account of
their small dimensions, as well as of their friability due to their
lamellar structure, it is difficult to polish one of these spherules,
and it has been necessary to study them with reflected light, or to
limit the observations to the study of the broken fragments.
These spherules break up following the lamella?, which latter are
seen to be extremely fine and perfectly transparent. In rotating
between crossed nicols they
have the extinctions of the
rhombic system, and in
making use of the condenser
it is seen that they have one
optic axis. It is observed
also that when several of
these lamella; are attached
they extinguish exactly at
the same time, so that
everything tends to show
that they form a single
individual.
In studying these trans
parent and very thin frag
ments with the aid of a high
magnifying power, it is ob
served that they are dotted
with brown-black inclu- FlG. 9.— Spherule, of Bronzite (x 25), from 3500
sions, disposed with a ccr- fathoms in the Central South Pacific, show-
tain symmetry, and showing inS many of the peculiarities belonging to
i . i ° chondres of bronzite or enstntitc.
somewhat regular contours ;
these inclusions are referred to magnetic iron, and their presence
explains why these spherules of bronzite are extracted by the
magnet. It should be observed, however, that they are not so
strongly magnetic as those with a metallic nucleus.
They are designated bronzite rather than cnstatite, because of
the somewhat deep tint which they present ; they are insoluble in
hydrochloric acid. Owing to the small quantity of substance, only
a qualitative analysis could be made, which showed the presence in
them of silica, magnesia, and iron.
The study of deep-sea deposits suggests some interesting conclu- Great
sions. It has been said that the debris carried away from the land anti-
accumulates at the bottom of the sea before reaching the abysmal quity of
regions of the ocean. It is only in exceptional cases that the finest oceanic
terrigenous materials are transported several hundred miles from areas,
the shores. In place of layers formed of pebbles and clastic
elements with grains of considerable dimensions, which play so
large a part in the composition of emerged lands, the great areas of
the ocean basins are covered by the microscopic remains of pelagic
organisms, or by the deposits coming from the alteration of volcanic
products. The distinctive elements that appear in the river and
coast sediments are, properly speaking, wanting in the great depths
far distant from the coasts. To such a degree is this the case that
in a great number of soundings, from the centre of the Pacific for
example, no mineral particles on which the mechanical action of
water had left its imprint have been distinguished, and quartz is so
rare that it may be said to be absent. It is sufficient to indicate
these facts in order to make apparent the profound differences
which separate the deposits of the abysmal areas of the ocean
basins from the series of rocks in the geological formations. As
regards the vast deposits of red clay, with its manganese concretions,
its zeolites, cosmic dust, and remains of vertebrates, and the organic
oozes which are spread out over the bed of the Central Pacific,
Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, have they their analogues in the
geological series of rocks? If it be proved that in the sedimentary
strata the true pelagic sediments are not represented, it follows that
deep and extended oceans like those of the present day cannot
formerly have occupied the areas of the present continents, and as
a corollary the great lines of the oceanic basins and continents must
have been marked out from the earliest geological ages.
Without asserting that the terrestrial areas and the areas covered
by the waters of the great ocean basins have had their main lines
marked out since the coimnencement of geological history, it is a
fact proved by the evidence of the pelagic sediments that these areas
have a great antiquity. The accumulation of sharks' teeth, of the ear-
bones of Cetaceans, of manganese concretions, of zeolites, of volcanic
material in an advanced state of decomposition, and of cosmic dust,
at points far removed from the continents, tends to prove this.
There is no reason for supposing that the parts of the ocean where
PACIFIC OCEAN
127
these vertebrate remains are found are more frequented by sharks
or Cetaceans than other regions where they are never, or only rarely,
dredged from the deposits at the bottom. When it is remembered
also that these ear-bones, teeth of sharks, and volcanic fragments
are sometimes incrusted with two centimetres of manganese oxide,
while others have a mere coating, and that some of the bones and
teeth belong to extinct species, it may be concluded with great
certainty that the clays of these oceanic basins have accumulated
with extreme slowness. It is indeed almost beyond question that
the red-clay regions of the Central Pacific contain accumulations
belonging to geological ages different from our own. The great
antiquity of these formations is likewise confirmed in a striking
manner by the presence of cosmic fragments, the nature of which
has been described. In order to account for the accumulation of
all these substances in such relatively great abundance in the areas
where they were dredged, it is necessary to suppose the oceanic
basins to have remained the same for a vast period of time.
The sharks' teeth, ear-bones, manganese nodules, altered volcanic
fragments, zeolites, and cosmic dust are met with in greatest
abundance in the red clays of the Central Pacific, at that point on
the earth's surface farthest removed from continental land. They
are less abundant in the Radiolarian ooze, are rare in the Globi-
gerina, Diatom, and Pteropod oozes, and have been dredged only
in a few instances in the terrigenous deposits close to the shore.
These substances are present in all the deposits, but owing to the
abundance of other matters in the more rapidly forming deposits
their presence is masked, and the chance of dredging them is
reduced. The greater or less abundance of these materials, which
are so characteristic of a true red clay, may be regarded as a
measure of the relative rate of accumulation of the marine sediments
hi which they lie. The terrigenous deposits accumulate most
rapidly ; then follow in order Pteropod ooze, Gloligcrina ooze,
Diatom ooze, Radiolarian ooze, and, slowest of all, red clay.
From the data now advanced it appears possible to deduce other
conclusions important from a geological point of view. In the
deposits due essentially to the action of the ocean, the great variety
of sediments which may accumulate in regions where the external
conditions are almost identical is very striking. Again, marine
faunas and floras, at least those of the surface, differ greatly, both
with respect to species and the relative abundance of individuals, in
different regions of the ocean ; and, as their remains determine the
character of the deposit in many instances, it is legitimate to
conclude that the occurrence of organisms of a different nature in
several beds is not an argument against the synchronism of the
layers which contain them. In this connexion may be noted the
fact that in certain regions of the deep sea no appreciable forma
tion is now taking place. Hence the absence, in the sedimentary
series, of a layer representing a definite horizon must not always be
interpreted as proof either of the emergence of the bottom of the
sea during the corresponding period, or of an ulterior erosion.
The small extent occupied by littoral formations, especially those
of an arenaceous nature, and the relatively slow rate at which such
deposits are formed along a stable coast, are matters of importance.
In the present state of things there does not appear to be any
thing to account for the enormous thickness of the clastic sediments
making up certain geological formations, unless the exceptional
cases of erosion which are brought into play when a coast is under
going constant elevation or subsidence are considered. Great move
ments of the land are doubtless necessary for the formation of thick
beds of transported matter like sandstones and conglomerates.
Arenaceous formations of great thickness require seas of no great
extent and coasts subject to frequent oscillations, which permit
the shores to advance and retire. Along these, through all periods
of the earth's history, the great marine sedimentary phenomena
have taken place.
The continental geological formations, when compared with
marine deposits of modern seas and oceans, present no analogues to
the red clays, Radiolarian, GloMgcrina, Pteropod, and Diatom oozes.
On the other hand, the terrigenous deposits of lakes, shallow seas,
enclosed seas, and the shores of the continents reveal the equivalents
of the chalks, greensands, sandstones, conglomerates, shales, marls,
and other sedimentary formations. Such formations as certain
Tertiary deposits of Italy and the Radiolarian earth from Barbados,
where pelagic conditions are indicated, must be regarded as having
been laid down rather along the border of a continent than in a true
oceanic area. The white chalk is evidently not a deep-sea deposit,
for the Foraminifera and fragments of other organisms of which
it is largely composed are similar to those found in comparatively
shallow water not far from land. The argillaceous and calcareous
rocks recently discovered by Dr Guppy in the upraised coral islands
in the Solomon group are identical with the deposits now forming
around oceanic islands. Regions situated similarly to enclosed
and shallow seas and the borders of the present continents appear to
have been, throughout all geological ages, the theatre of the greatest
and most remarkable changes ; in short, all, or nearly all, the sedi
mentary rocks of the continents would seem to have been built up
in areas like those now occupied by the terrigenous deposits.
During each era of the earth's history the borders of some lands
have sunk beneath the sea and been covered by marine sediments,
while in other parts the terrigenous deposits have been elevated into
dry land, and have carried with them a record of the organisms
which flourished in the sea of the time. In this transitional area
there has been throughout a continuity of geological and biological
phenomena.
From these considerations it will be evident that the character of
a deposit is determined much more by distance from the shore of a
continent than by actual depth ; and the same would appear to be
the case with respect to the fauna spread over the floor of the present
oceans. Dredgings near the shores of continents, in depths of 1000,
2000, or 3000 fathoms, are more productive both in species and in
dividuals than dredgings at similar depths several hundred miles
seawards. Again, among the few species dredged in the abysmal
areas farthest removed from land, the majority show archaic
characters, or belong to groups which have a wide distribution in
time as well as over the floor of the present oceans. Such are the
Hcxactincllida, BracMopoda, Stalked Crinoids and other Echino-
derms, &c.
As already mentioned, the "transitional area" is that which now
shows the greatest variety in respect to biological and physical
conditions, and in past time it has been subject to the most frequent
and the greatest amount of change. The animals now living in this
area may be regarded as the greatly modified descendants of those
which have lived in similar regions in past geological ages, and
some of whose ancestors have been preserved in the sedimentary
rocks as fossils. On the other hand, many of the animals dredged
in the abysmal regions are most probably also the descendants of
animals which lived in the shallower waters of former geological
periods, but migrated into deep water to escape the severe struggle
for existence which must always have obtained in shallower waters
influenced by light, heat, motion, and other favourable conditions.
Having found existence possible in the less favourable and deeper
water, they may be regarded as having slowly spread themselves over
the floor of the ocean, but without undergoing great modifications,
owing to the extreme uniformity of the conditions and the absence
of competition. Or it may be supposed that, in the depressions
which have taken place near coasts, some species have been gradually
carried down to deep water, have accommodated themselves to the
new conditions, and have gradually migrated to the regions far from
land. A few species may thus have migrated to the deep sea during
each geological period. In this way the origin and distribution of
the deep-sea fauna in the present oceans may in some measure be
explained. In like manner, the pelagic fauna and flora of the ocean
is most probably derived originally from the shore and shallow
water. During each period of the earth's history a few animals and
plants have been carried to sea, and have ultimately adopted a
pelagic mode of life.
ISLANDS.
The Pacific Ocean is distinguished from the Atlantic by
the greater number of small island groups that diversify
its surface. The continental islands, lying along the coasts
of America and Asia, have been referred to in speaking of
the coasts; the islands of the Malay Archipelago, Australia,
New Zealand, and probably New Caledonia belong to the
same class. The true oceanic islands on the other hand
have no direct geological connexion with the continents;
the older sedimentary and metamorphic rocks appear to be
quite absent, the islands being either of eruptive or coral
formation. The fauna and flora of the oceanic islands
present a considerable amount of uniformity, though each
island or important group of islands has its peculiar species.
There is an entire absence of terrestrial Mammalia. The
genera and species are few in number when compared with
those of the continents and continental islands from which
they would appear to have been originally derived by
immigration, and subsequently to have undergone modifica
tion. Recent researches appear also to show that the
dredgings around oceanic islands yield fewer genera and
species than dredgings at similar depths along the shores
of continents, although the numbers of individuals of a
few species may be extraordinarily abundant.
The most • northern oceanic group is the Hawaiian
Archipelago or Sandwich Islands (see vol. xi. p. 528),
stretching for about 340 miles between the latitudes of
18° 52' and 22° 15' N., and the meridians of 154° 42' and
160° 33' W. ; it consists of eight large islands — Hawaii
(Owhyhee), Maui (Mowee), Kahulaui (Tahooroway), Lanai
128
PACIFIC OCEAN
(Ranai), Molokai (Morotoi), Oahu (Woahoo), Kauai
(Atooi), and Niihau (Oneehoow), and four small barren
islets, the entire area being 6100 square miles. The
islands of this group are mountainous, and abound in
active volcanoes; the great lake of fire, Kilauea, on the
east side of the Mountain of Mauna Loa (13,760 feet) in
Hawaii is probably the largest active crater in the world,
while one of the largest known extinct craters is that of
Mauna Haleakala (" The House of the Sun") in Maui, at
a height of 10,200 feet above the sea; it is 12 miles in
circumference. The Hawaiian Islands being within the
zone of coral formation are surrounded by fringing reefs,
and there is abundant evidence that gradual upheaval has
taken place over the whole area which they occupy. There
are beds of coral limestone in Molokai at a height of 400
feet, and in Kauai coral sand is found at an elevation of
4000 feet above the sea; in many other islands coral and
lava are found interstratified.
The three groups of the Bonin Islands known as the
Parry, Beechy, and Coffin groups are composed of high
rocky islets of a bold and fantastic outline, and are
situated between 26° and 27° N. lat.
The Ladrones or Mariana Islands (see vol. xiv. p. 199)
have a total area of 395 square miles; they stretch for
nearly 450 miles between 13° and 20° N. lat. and 144°
37' and 145° 55' E. long. These islands are all of volcanic
origin, and their mountains contain several active volcanoes.
The Caroline Archipelago (see vol. v. p. 1 25) lies about
170 miles to the south of the Ladrones, and, together with
the Pelew Islands, has an area of 877 square miles. The
Carolines embrace forty distinct island groups, five of
which are basaltic and mountainous, though surrounded
by coral reefs ; the remaining thirty-five groups are entirely
of coral formation, and do not rise much above the sea-level.
The Pelew Islands resemble the Carolines in their physical
characters ; they present peculiarities in the arrangement
of atolls which will be alluded to below.
The Marshall Islands (see MICRONESIA, vol. xvi. p. 256)
consist of two chains running parallel to each other, and
composed of fourteen and seventeen small groups respec
tively. They lie to the eastward of the Carolines, and are
entirely of organic formation.
The Gilbert Archipelago (see vol. xvi. p. 256) is cut by
the equator. It contains sixteen groups of small coral
islands, low and barren, but densely populated.
In the South Pacific oceanic islands are scattered with
the greatest profusion over a region between 5° and 25°
S. lat. and 180° to 120° W. long. The northern part of
the shallow water surrounding Australia, New Zealand,
and the Malay Archipelago is occupied by the Solomon
Islands, the New Hebrides, the bold rocky and mountain
ous islands of Fiji with fine barrier reefs, the Friendly
Islands, and Samoa or the Navigators' Islands. Farther
to the south there are the Society Islands, including Tahiti;
they are lofty, of volcanic origin, and surrounded by very
perfect barrier reefs. The Marquesas or Mendana Archi
pelago, farther to the north, also consists of volcanic
islands, but they are not fringed by reefs.
The volcanic group of the Galapagos Archipelago is
situated under the equator at a distance of 500 or 600
miles from the went coast of South America; it has been
minutely described by Darwin.
The extensive Low or Paumotu Archipelago lies to the
south-east of the Society Islands, and runs parallel to
them. It consists of about eighty atolls, some of them of
large size, and all typical examples of this form of coral
island.
The total area of the islands of the Pacific is exceedingly
small, especially when the vast number of groups that
stud the ocean is taken into consideration.
THEORY OF CORAL ISLANDS.
The origin of coral islands was specially studied by Darwin
during the voyage of the "Beagle" in 1831-36, and he shortly
afterwards published a theory on the subject which has been full}'
detailed in the article CORAL "(vol. vi. p. 377). This theory was so
simple, and it appeared so complete, that it acquired universal
acceptance ; and the continuous action of subsidence in promoting
the development of fringing reefs into barriers, and of barriers into
atolls, was long unquestioned. In 1851 L. Agassi/:1 expressed the
opinion that the theory of subsidence was insufficient to explain
the formation of the coral reefs and keys of Florida. In 1863 Carl
Semper stated that an attentive study of the Pelew Islands showed
the complete inadequacy of this theory, and in 1868 he reiterated
his convictions.2
In 1880 Mr John Murray published an abstract of his "Chal
lenger" observations,3 and gave a theory of coral island formation
which claims to account for all the phenomena without calling in
the aid of subsidence. It is pointed out that, with hardly an
exception, the oceanic islands are of volcanic origin, and it is
assumed that the various peaks which deep-sea soundings have
shown to be scattered over the bed of the ocean, and rising to
within various distances of the surface, are also, primarily, of
volcanic origin. There is no evidence of any extensive submerged
continent or mass of land such as Darwin's theory requires.
Whether built up sufficiently high to rise above the surface of the
sea and thus form islands, or brought up only to varying heights
below the sea-level, these volcanic eminences tend to become
platforms on which coral reefs may be formed. The erosive action
of waves and tides tends to reduce all volcanic summits down to
the lower limit of breaker action, thus producing platforms on
which barrier reefs and atolls may spring up. Again, submarine
eminences may be brought up to the zone of the reef builders by
the deposit of volcanic and organic detritus falling from the surface,
as well as through the agency of organisms secreting lime and silica,
which live in profusion at great depths, especially on the tops of
submarine peaks and banks. The great profusion of life in the
tropical surface waters is insisted upon, and it is pointed out that
this pelagic life supplies the reef-building corals with food, and
that, when these surface creatures die and their shells fall to the
bottom, they carry down with them sufficient organic matter to
furnish food to the animals living on the floor of the ocean. As
the result of tow-net experiments in the tropics Mr Murray
estimated that, in the surface waters of the ocean, there were in a
mass 1 mile square by 100 fathoms, 16 tons of carbonate of lime
existing in the form of shells of pelagic Foraminifera and Molluscs.
In this way it is urged that submarine banks are continually
being brought within the zone of reef-building corals. Darwin
admitted that reefs not to be distinguished from atolls might be
formed on such submarine banks, but the improbability of so many
submerged banks existing caused him to dismiss this explanation
without further consideration. He was not, however, aware of
the great number of submerged cones which recent soundings have
made known, nor of the enormous abundance of minute calcareous
organisms — such as calcareous alg?e, Foraminifera, and Molluscs
in the surface waters — and of the comparatively rapid rate at which
their remains might accumulate on the sea bottom. Xor had lit
any idea of the comparatively great abundance of animals living
at considerable depths.
Coral-reef builders starting on a bank, whether formed by
elevation or subsidence, by erosion or the upward growth of deep-
sea deposits composed largely of organic remains, tend ultimately
to assume the atoll or barrier form. When the coral reef or colony
approaches the surface, the central portions are gradually placed at
a disadvantage as compared with the peripheral parts of the mass,
in being farther removed from the food supply which is brought by
the oceanic currents, and consequently dwindle and die. In pro
portion as the reef approaches the surface, the centre becomes cut
off from the food supply and the conditions become increasingly
uncongenial. At last an outer ring of vigorously growing reef
corals encloses a central lagoon. The windward side of the reef
grows most vigorously, not because of a larger supply of oxygen
and greater aeration of the water, but because that is the direction
in which the oceanic currents bring the food to the reef. As the
atoll extends seawards from vigorous growth the lagoon becomes
larger, chiefly from the removal of lime in solution by the action
of the carbonic acid in sea water which flows in and out at e'aeh
tide. This solvent actio:i of sea water on dead calcareous organ
isms was shown by the "Challenger's" observations to be uni
versal.
Mr Murray reverses the order of growth as given by Darwin for
the groups in the Indian Ocean. He regards the Laccadive, Caro
line, and Chagos archipelagos as various stages in the growth of
coral reefs towards the surface, and he explains the various appear -
1 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. i.
2 Verhandl. Physik. Med. Gesellsc/t. Wiirxburg, Feb. 1, 1868.
3 Proc. Roy, Soc. Edin., vol. x. p. 505.
P A C — P A C
129
ances in the Maldive group of atolls without any necessity for
disseverment by oceanic currents as argued by Darwin. Precisely
the same explanation is applied to the case of a barrier reef. It
commences in the shallow water near the shore, and afterwards
extends seawards on a talus built up of lumps of coral broken off
by the surf. A very careful examination of the barrier reef at
Tahiti was made by Lieutenant Swire of H.M.S. "Challenger"
and Mr Murray, and they found that such an explanation was
completely justified by the form and nature of the reef. There was
much dead coral on the inner side of the barrier, which in many
places was perpendicular or even overhanging; while, on the
contrary, the outer surface was all alive, and sloped gradually sea
wards. * A section of it, drawn to a true scale, is given in fig. 10.
FIG. 10.- — Section across the Barrier Reef, Tahiti.
This section shows that a ledge, over which there is a depth of
from 30 to 40 fathoms of water, runs out for 250 yards from the
edge of the reef. This ledge is covered with luxuriant heads and
bosses of coral. Beyond it there is a steep irregular slope at an
angle of about 45°, the talus being formed apparently of coral
masses broken off from the ledge, and piled up ; this slope is
covered with living Sponges, Alcyonarians, Hydroids, Polyzoa,
Foraminifcra, and other forms of life. The angle of inclination
then decreases to 30°, and the ground is covered with coral sand ;
while beyond 500 yards from the edge of the reef the declivity is
insignificant, only 6°, and there is a bed of mud containing volcanic
and coral sand mixed with Pteropod and other shells, in 590
fathoms of water. The vast perpendicular wall of coral limestone
descending into unfathomable depths, which has been supposed
usually to mark the outside of a coral reef, has always been looked
upon as a conclusive proof of great subsidence having taken place ;
but the depth and the slope of such limestone walls have been
greatly exaggerated, and no means have been taken to ascertain
beyond doubt that the rock is formed of coral throughout. The
probability is that only the upper portion of such a wall is true
coral limestone; and Dr Guppy has recently shown that this is
actually the case in some upraised coral islands of the Solomon
group. Upheaval has taken place to a considerable extent in the
oceanic islands, and more extended examination of the limestone
cliffs of other coral islands will probably lead to the discovery of
many such cases. Mr Murray holds that the characteristic form of
barrier reefs and atolls is in no way dependent on subsidence, that
subsidence is not the cause of their peculiar features, that these
reefs may be met with indifferently in stationary areas, in areas of
subsidence, and in areas of elevation, and that elevation and sub
sidence only modify in a minor way the appearance of the islands.
The chief phenomena are accounted for — (1) by a physiological
fact, — the very vigorous growth of the reef-forming species on the
outer or seaward face of the reef where there is abundance of food,
and the much less vigorous growth, and even death, of these species
on the inner parts of the reefs and in the lagoons, where there is
much less food, and where there are other conditions inimical to
growth; and (2) by a physical and chemical fact, — the removal of
lime in suspension and in solution from the inner portions of the reefs
and from the lagoons, where much dead coral is exposed to the action
of sea \5iater containing carbonic acid, the result being the formation,
the deepening, and the widening of lagoons and lagoon channels.
For further information on subjects referred to in this article see John Murray,
" On the Structure and Origin of Coral Reefs and Islands," Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin.,
vol. x. p, 505; Alex. Agassiz, "On the Tortugas and Florida Reefs," Tranf.
Amer. Acad., vol. xi. (1883); Archd. Geilue, '-The Origin of Coral Reefs,"
Nature, vol. xxix. pp. 107 and 124; John Murray and A. Renard, "On the
Nomenclature, Origin, and Distribution of Deep-Sea Deposits," Proc. Roy. Soc.
Edin,, vol. xii. p. 495 (1884); John Murray and A. Renard, "On the Microscopic
Characters of Volcanic Ashes and Cosmic Dust, and their Distribution in the
Deep-Sea Deposits," Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xii. p. 474, 1884. (J. MU.)
PACUVIUS, MARCUS (219-129 B.C.), was the second
in order of time of the three tragic poets who wrote for
the Roman stage in the 2d century B.C. His life was so
long that he might be described as a contemporary of all
the writers who flourished during the first period of Roman
literature. He was born in 219 B.C., when Livius
Andronicus and Naavius were introducing their imitations
of the Greek tragic and comic drama to Roman audiences ;
he was recognized as the chief tragic poet about the time
when Caecilius, and after him Terence, were the nourishing
authors of Latin comedy ; he continued to produce his
tragedies till the advent of the younger poet Accius, who
lived on till the youth of Cicero ; and he died in the year
(129 B.C.) when Lucilius first appeared as an author. He
stood in the relation of nephew as well as pupil to Ennius,
by whom Roman tragedy was first raised to a position of
influence and dignity. In the interval between the death
of Ennius (169) and the advent of Accius, the youngest
and most productive of the tragic poets, he alone maintained
the continuity of the serious drama, and perpetuated the
character first imparted to it by Ennius. Like Ennius he
probably belonged to the Oscan stock, and was born at
Brundisium, which had become a Roman colony in 244 B.C.
To this origin may be attributed the fact that he never
attained to that perfect idiomatic purity of style which was
the special glory of the early writers of comedy, Najvius
and Plautus.1 The fame of his uncle Ennius may probably
have drawn him to Rome, and may have induced him to
devote himself to the composition of tragedy. But he
obtained distinction also as a painter ; and the elder Pliny
mentions a work of his which in his time was still to be
1 ^Etatis illius ista fuit laus tanquam innocentiae sic Latine loquendi ;
nee omnium tamen ; nani illorum aequales Csecilium et Pacuvium
male locutos videmus ; sed omnes turn fere, qui nee extra urbem hanc
vixerant nee eos aliqua barbaries domestica infuscaverat, recte loque-
bantur (Cicero, Brutus, 74).
seen in the temple of Hercules in the forum boarium.
His relationship to the friend of the great Scipio would
naturally recommend him to the consideration of the
eminent men of the next generation, who fostered the new
literature in his spirit ; and thus Cicero, in the De
Amicitia, represents C. Lselius as speaking of him as
"hospitis et amici mei." He was less productive as a
poet than either Ennius or Accius • and we hear of only
about twelve of his plays, founded on Greek subjects
(among them the Antiope, Teticer, Armorum Judicium,
Dulorestes, Chryses, Niptra, &c., most of them on subjects
connected with the Trojan cycle), and one " Praetexta,"
Paulus, written in connexion with the triumph of L.
jEmilius Paulus, for his victory at Pydna, celebrated in
the year 167 B.C., as the Clastldium of Nsevius and the
Ambrada of Ennius were written in commemoration of
great military successes in their time. He continued to
write tragedies till the age of eighty, when he exhibited a
play in the same year as Accius, who was then thirty years
of age. He retired to Tarentum for the last years of his
life, and a story is told by Gellius of his being visited
there by Accius on his way to Asia, who read to him one
of his plays, which was famous in after times, the Atreiis.
The story is probably, like that of the visit of the young
Terence to the veteran Caecilius, due to the invention
of later grammarians ; but it is invented in accordance
with the traditionary criticism of the distinction between
the two poets, the older being characterized rather by
cultivated accomplishment, the younger by vigour and
animation.
" Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior, aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Accius alti. " 2
He died at the age of ninety, having lived through the
long period from the beginning of the Second Punic War
* Horace, E., ii. 1, 54, 55.
xvin. — 17
130
P A D — P A D
till after the first outbreak of the revolutionary forces, in
the tribunate of Tib. Gracchus, which led ultimately to
the overthrow of the republic. His epitaph, said to -have
been composed by himself, is quoted by Aulus Gellius,
with a tribute of admiration to its " modesty, simplicity,
and line serious spirit."
" Adulescens, tarn etsi properas, te hoc saxum rogat
Uti se aspicias, delude quod scriptum 'st legas.
I lie sunt poetie Pacuvi Marci sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius lie esses. Vale."1
Cicero, who frequently quotes passages from him, with great
admiration, appears to rank him first among the Roman tragic poets,
as Eunius among the epic, and C.tcilius among the comic poets (Cic.,
De Opt. Gen. Or., 1). If a rough parallel might be drawn between
the three great original Greek tragic poets and their three Roman
imitators, we might perhaps recognize in the imaginative mysticism
and soldierly spirit of Ennius an affinity to ^Eschylus, in the
mellow wisdom of Pacuvius to Sophocles, and in the oratorical
talent and power of moving the passions attributed to Accius a
nearer approach to the genius of Euripides. The office performed
by the Roman tragic poets to Roman culture M'as not only to
familiarize their countrymen with the creations of Greek genius,
and the heroes and heroines of Greek legend, but to be the moral
teachers and moral philosophers of a time before the introduction
of definite ethical speculation. The fragments of Pacuvius quoted
by Cicero in illustration or enforcement of his own ethical teaching
appeal, by the fortitude, dignity, and magnanimity of the sentiment
expressed in them, to what was noblest in the Roman temperament.
They are inspired also by that fervid and steadfast glow
of spirit which underlay the strong self-control of the Roman
character, and which was the most powerful element in Roman
oratory. They reveal also a gentleness and humanity of sentiment
which it was the highest office of the new drama to blend with the
severe gravity of the original Roman character. So far too as the
Romans were capable of taking interest in speculative questions,
the tragic poets contributed to stimulate curiosity on such subjects,
and they anticipated Lucretius in using the conclusions of specula
tive philosophy as well as of common sense to assail some of the
prevailing forms of superstition. Among the passages quoted from
Pacuvius are several which indicate a taste both for physical and
ethical speculation, and others which expose the pretensions of
religious imposture, e.g. —
" Xam Isti qui linguam avium intelligunt,
Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt quam ex suo,
Magis audiendum quam auscultanduiK censeo."2
These poets -aided also in developing that capacity which the
Roman language subsequently displayed of being an organ of
oratory, history, and moral disquisition. The literary language of
Rome was in process of formation during the 2d century B.C., and
it was in the latter part of this century that the series of great
Roman orators, with whose spirit Roman tragedy has a strong
affinity, begins. But the new creative effort in language was
accompanied by considerable crudeness of execution, and the novel
word-formations and varieties of inflexion introduced by Pacuvius
exposed him to the ridicule of the satirist Lucilius, and, long after
wards, to that of his imitator Persius. But, notwithstanding the
attempt to introduce an alien element into the Roman language,
which proved incompatible with its natural genius, and his own
failure to attain the idiomatic purity of Nsevius, Plautus, or
Terence, the fragments of his dramas are sufficient to prove the
service which he rendered to the formation of the literary language
of Rome, as well as to the culture and character of his contem
poraries.
The best account of Pacuvius is to be found in the Romische Tragodie of 0.
Ribbeck, and the best collection of his •' Fragments " in the Tragicorum Latin-
orum RtUquix of the same author. (W. Y. S.)
PADANG. See SUMATRA.
PADERBORN, an ancient town of Prussia, the seat
of a Roman Catholic bishop, is situated in the province of
Westphalia and district of Minden, 60 miles to the south
west of Hanover. It derives its name (Latin, Paderx
Fontes) from the springs of the Pader, a small affluent of
the Lippe, which rise in or close to the town under the
cathedral to the number of nearly two hundred, and with
such force as to drive several mills within a few yards of
their source. The most prominent building is the cathedral,
1 " Young man, though thou art in haste, this stone entreats thee
to look at it, and then to read what is written. Here are laid the
bones of the po«t M. Pacuvius. This I desired to be not unknown to
thee. Farewell. "
3 ' ' For they who understand the notes of birds, and derive their
wisdom more from examining the livers of other beings than from their
own (wit), I think should be rather heard than listened to."
the western part of which dates from the llth, the
central part from the 12th, and the eastern part from the
13th century. The exterior is imposing, but heavy, and
marred by a want of harmony arising from the successive
stages of its construction. Among other treasures of art
it contains the silver coffin of St Liborius, a substitute
for one which was coined into dollars in 1622 by Duke
Christian of Brunswick. The externally insignificant
chapel of St Bartholomew ranks among the most interest
ing buildings in Westphalia, dating as it does from 1017,
and possessing the characteristic features of the architec
ture of that early period. The old Jesuit church and the
chapel of the convent of Abdinghof are also interesting.
The town-hall is a picturesque edifice of the Renaissance.
Paderborn formerly possessed a university, with the two
faculties of theology and philosophy, but it was closed in
1819. The Roman Catholic gymnasium, however, enjoys
a considerable reputation, and there are several other
schools, hospitals, and religious endowments, as well as
an historical and antiquarian society. The manufactures
of Paderborn are unimportant, but the trade in grain,
cattle, fruit, and wool has attained considerable dimensions
since the opening of the Westphalian railway. The popu
lation in 1880 was 14,689 (12,602 Roman Catholics).
Paderborn is indebted for its development to Charlemagne, who
discerned the favourable situation of the village of Patrisbrunnen,
and made it the capital of a bishopric. He frequently visited it,
receiving the conquered Saxons heTe at a diet in 777 and at a
later period the Saracen ambassadors from Saragossa and the
suppliant Pope Leo III. Several diets were also held here by the
Saxon emperors. About the year 1000 the town was enlarged by
Bishop Meinwerk and surrounded with walls. It afterwards joined
the Hanseatic League, received many of the privileges of a free
imperial town, and endeavoured to assert its independence of the
bishops. The citizens gladly embraced the doctrines of the Refor
mation, but the older faith was re-established by Bishop Theodore,
who took the town by force in 1604. The ecclesiastical princi
pality of Paderborn, which had an area of close on 1000 square
miles, was secularized in 1803 and handed over to Prussia. The
bishop, however, was allowed to retain his spiritual jurisdiction.
From 1807 to 1814 the territory was included in the kingdom of
Westphalia.
PADIHAM, a township of Lancashire, is situated in a
wild and dreary district on the precipitous banks of the
Calder, and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, 5
miles south-east from Whalley and 4 north-east from
Accrington. It possesses large cotton mills, and both
stone and coal are wrought in the immediate neighbour
hood. The church of St Leonard, founded before 1451,
was frequently altered before it was rebuilt in 1866-68,
in the Perpendicular style, at a cost of ,£11,000. There is
a national school connected with a very old endowment.
Padiham in 1251 was a manor in the possession of
Edmund de Laci. The population of the urban sanitary
district of Padiham and Hapton (area 950 acres) in 1871
was estimated at 7361, and in 1881 it was 8974.
PADILLA, JUAN LOPEZ DE, insurrectionary leader in
the " guerra de las comunidades " in which the commons
of Castile made a futile stand against the arbitrary policy
of Charles V. and his Flemish ministers, was the eldest
son of the commendator of Castile, and was born in
Toledo towards the close of the 15th century. After the
cities, by their deputies assembled at Avila, had vainly
demanded the king's return, due regard for the rights of
the cortes, and economical administration, to be entrusted
to the hands of Spaniards, it was resolved to resort to
force, and the " holy junta" was formed, with Padilla at
its head. An attempt was first made to establish a national
government in the name of the imbecile Joanna, who was
then residing at Tordesillas ; with this view they took
possession of her person, seized upon the treasury books,
archives, and seals of the kingdom, and stripped Adrian
of his regency. But the junta soon alienated the nobility
P A D — P A D
131
by the boldness with, which it asserted democracy and
total abolition of privilege, while it courted defeat in the
field by appointing to the supreme command of its forces
not Padilla but Don Pedro de Giron, who had no recom
mendation but his high birth. After the army of the
nobility had recaptured Tordesillas, Padilla did something
to retrieve the loss by taking Torrelobaton and some other
towns. But the junta, which was not fully in accord
with its ablest leader, neutralized this advantage by grant
ing an armistice ; when hostilities were resumed the
commons were completely defeated near Villalar (April 23,
1521), and Padilla, who had been taken prisoner, was
publicly executed on the following day. His wife, Dona
Maria Pacheco de Padilla, bravely defended Toledo against
the royal troops for six months afterwards, but ultimately
was compelled to take refuge in Portugal.
PADUA (Lat., Patavium ; Ital., Padova), a city of north
Italy, in 45° 24' N. lat. and 11° 50' E. long., on
the river Bacchiglione, 25 miles W. of Venice and 18 miles
S.E. of Vicenza, with a population in 1881 of 70,753. The
city is a picturesque one, with arcaded streets and many
Plan of Padua.
bridges crossing the various branches of the Bacchiglione,
which once surrounded the ancient walls. The Pal
azzo della Ragione, with its great hall on the upper
floor, is reputed to have the largest roof unsupported by
columns in Europe ; the hall is nearly rectangular, its
length 267 £ feet, its breadth 89 feet, and its height 78
feet ; the walls are covered with symbolical paintings in
fresco ; the building stands upon arches, and the upper
story is surrounded by an open loggia, not unlike that
which surrounds the basilica of Vicenza ; the Palazzo was
begun in 1172, and finished in 1219; in 1306 Fra
Giovanni, an Augustinian friar, covered the whole with
one roof ; originally there were three roofs, spanning the
three chambers into which the hall was at first divided ;
the internal partition walls remained till the fire of 1420,
when the Venetian architects who undertook the restora
tion removed them, throwing all three compartments into
one, and forming the present great hall. In the Piazza
dei Signori is the beautiful loggia called the Gran Guardia,
begun in 1493 and finished in 1526, and close by is the
Palazzo del Capitanio, the residence of the Venetian
governors, with its great door, the work of Falconetto of
Verona, 1532. The most famous of the Paduan churches
is the basilica dedicated to Saint Anthony, commonly
called II Santo ; the bones of the saint rest in a chapel
richly ornamented with carved marbles, the work of various
artists, among them of Sansovino and Falconetto ; the
basilica was begun about the year 1230, and completed in
the following century • tradition says that the building
was designed by Niccola Pisano ; it is covered by seven
cupolas, two of them pyramidal. On the piazza in front
of the church is Donatello's magnificent equestrian statue
of Erasmo da Narni, the Venetian general (1438-41).
The Eremitani is an Augustinian church of the 13th
century, distinguished as containing the tombs of Jacopo
(1324) and Ubertino (1345) da Carrara, lords of Padua,
and for the chapel of Sts James and Christopher, illustrated
by Mantegna's frescos. Close by the Eremitani is the
small church of the Annunziata, known as the Madonna
delP Arena, whose inner walls are entirely covered with
paintings by Giotto. Padua has long been famous for its
university, founded by Frederick II. in 1238. Under the
rule of Venice the university was governed by a board of
three-* patricians called the Riformatori dello Studio di
Padova. The list of professors and alumni is long and
illustrious, containing, among others, the names of Bembo,
Sperone Speroni, Veselius, Acquapendente, Galileo, Pompo-
nazzi, Pole, Scaliger, Tasso, and Sobieski. The place of
Padua in the history of art is nearly as important as her
place in the history of learning. The presence of the
university attracted many distinguished artists, as Giotto,
Lippo Lippi, and Donatello ; and for native art there was
the school of Squarcione (1394-1474), whence issued the
great Mantegna (1431-1506).
Padua claims to be the oldest city in north Italy ; the inhabi
tants pretend to a fabulous descent from the Trojan Antenor, whose
relics they recognized in a large stone sarcophagus exhumed in the
year 1274. Their real origin is involved in that obscurity which
conceals the ethnography of the earliest settlers in the Venetian
plain ; but it is supposed that they were either Paphlagonians or
Etruscans. Padua early became a populous and thriving city,
thanks to its excellent breed of horses and the wool of its sheep.
Its men fought for the Romans at Cannae, and the city became so
powerful that it was reported able to raise two hundred thousand
fighting men. Abano in the neighbourhood was made illustrious by
the birth of Livy, and Padua was the native place of Valerius Flaccus,
Asconius Pedianus, and Thrasea Psetus. Padua, in common with
north-eastern Italy, suffered severely from the invasion of the
Huns under Attila (452). It then passed under the Gothic kings
Odoacer and Theodoric, but made submission to the Greeks in
540. The city was seized again by the Goths under Totila, and
again restored to the eastern empire by Narses in 568. Following
the course of events common to most cities of north-eastern Italy,
the history of Padua falls under eight heads: — (1) the Lombard
rule, (2) the Frankish rule, (3) the period of the bishops, (4) the
emergence of the commune, (5) the period of the despots, (6) the
period of Venetian supremacy, (7) the period of Austrian supremacy,
and finally (8) the period of united Italy. (1) Under the Lom
bards the city of Padua rose in revolt (601) against Agilulph, the
Lombard king, and, after suffering a long and bloody siege, was
stormed and burned by him. The city did not easily recover from
this blow, and Padua was still weak when the Franks succeeded
the Lombards as masters of north Italy. (2) At the diet of Aix-
la-Chapelle (828) the duchy and inarch of Friuli, in which Padua
lay, was divided into four counties, one of which took its title from
that city. (3) During the period of episcopal supremacy Padua does
not appear to have been either very important or very active. The
general tendency of its policy, throughout the war of investitures,
was imperial and not Roman ; and its bishops were, for the most
part, Germans. (4) But under the surface two important move
ments were taking place. At the beginning of the llth century the
citizens established a constitution composed of a general council or
legislative assembly and a credenza or executive ; and during the
next century they were engaged in wars with Venice and Vicenza
for the right of water-way on the Bacchiglione and the Brenta, — so
that, on the one hand, the city grew in power and self-reliance,
while, on the other, the great families of Camposampiero, D'Este,
132
p A D — P M S
:ind Da Romano began to emerge and to divide the Paduan district
between them. The citizens, in order to protect their liberties,
were obliged to elect a podesta, and their choice fell first on one of
the D'Este family (c. 1175). The temporary success of the Lombard
league helped to strengthen the towns ; but their ineradicable
jealous}' of one another soon reduced them to weakness again, so
that hi 123'J Frederick II. found little difficulty in establishing his
vicar Ezzelino da Romano in Padua and the neighbouring cities,
where he practised frightful cruelties on the inhabitants. When
Ezzelino met his death, in 1259, Padua enjoyed a brief period of
rest and prosperity : the university flourished ; the basilica of the
saint was begun ; the Paduaus became masters of Vicenza. But this
advance brought them into dangerous proximity to Can Grande
della Scala, lord of Verona, to whom they had to yield in 1311.
(5) As a reward for freeing the city from the Scalas, Jacopo da
Carrara was elected lord of Padua in 1318. From that date till
1405, with the exception of two years (1388-90) when Gian
Galeazzo Yisconti held the town, nine members of the Carrara
family succeeded one another as lords of the city. It was a long
period of restlessness, for the Carraresi were constantly at war ;
they were finally extinguished between the growing power of the
Visconti and of Venice. (6) Padua passed under Venetian rule in
1405, and so remained, with a brief interval during the wars of
the league of Cambray, till the fall of the republic in 1797. The
city was governed by two Venetian nobles, a podesta for civil and
a captain for military affairs ; each of these was elected for sixteen
months. Under these governors the great and small councils con
tinued to discharge municipal business and to administer the
Paduan law, contained in the statutes of 1276 and 1362. The
treasury was managed by two chamberlains ; and every five years the
Paduans sent one of their nobles to reside as nuncio in Venice,
and to watch the interests of his native town. (7 and 8) After
the fall of the Venetian republic the history of Padua follows the
history of Venice during the periods of French and Austrian
supremacy, and must be sought for in the article ITALY. In 1866
the battle of Koniggratz gave Italy the opportunity to shake off
the last of the Austrian yoke, when Venetia, and with Venetia
Padua, became part of the united Italian kingdom.
See Chronicon Patavinwn (in Muratori's Ann. Med. ^£v., vol. iv.); Rolandino
and Monaco Padovano (Muratori's Rer. Ital. Scrip., vol. viii.) ; Cortusiorwn His-
toria (ibid., vol. xii.) ; Gattari, Istoria Padoi-ana (ibid., vol. xvii.) ; Vergerius,
Vitx Carrariensium Principum (ibid., vol. xvi.); Verci, Storia della Marca
Trevigiana; Gennari, Annali di Padova; Cittadclla, Storia della domina-
zione Carrarese; Litta, Famiglie Celebri, s.v., "Carraresi"; Cantu, Jllustra-
zione Grande del Lombardo- Veneto ; Gonzati, La Basilica di Sanf Antonio di
Padova. (H. F. B.)
PADUCAH, a city of the United States, the capital of
M'Cracken -county, Kentucky, on the south bank of the
Ohio, at the mouth of the Tennessee river, is, next to
Louisville, the most important commercial point in
Kentucky. It is on the Chesapeake, Ohio, and South
western railroads, and is the terminus for five lines of
steamboats plying respectively* to Evansville (Ind.), Cairo
(111.), St Louis (Mo.), Nashville (Tenn.) and Florence
(Ala.), and a regular stopping point for other lines
plying on the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers. It
.ships tobacco, whisky, pork, lumber, flour, and grain, and
contains a number of tobacco factories and warehouses,
marine-ways for the building and repair of steamboats, and
manufactories of furniture, hubs and spokes, harness,
leather, soap, and brooms. Laid out in 1827, Paducah
was incorporated as a town in 1830, and. as a city in
1856. The population was 2428 in 1830, 4590 in 1860,
6866 in 1870, and 8036 in 1880.
P^EOXY (Paeonia), a genus of Ranunculaceae, remark
able for their gorgeous flowers, constructed almost exactly
on the same lines as those of the common buttercup except
as regards the pistil, which in the pieonies consists of two or
more separate carpels each containing several seeds, and
surrounded at the base by a fleshy cup or disk, which
grows up around the carpels. The receptacle of the flower,
moreover, instead of being flattish or somewhat convex, is
in paeonies a little depressed in the centre, so that the
stamens become somewhat perigynous as in water-lilies
(Nymphtea) or roses (Ro$<.i). The carpels when ripe form
dry follicles, splitting along one edge so as to expose the
numerous shining black seeds, provided with a .small fleshy
aril. There are but few species, natives of the northern
hemisphere of the Old World, and divisible into two main
groups — those with herbaceous stems dying down in winter,
and those with shrubby stems (Moutan or Tree Paeonies).
The herbaceous paeonies have tuberous roots like those of
a dahlia, and bold, much-divided leaves. Their magni
ficent cup-like flowers are, in different varieties, of all
shades of colour from white to clear yellow (P. Wittman-
niana), rose-coloured, and richest crimson. A blue paiony
has yet to be introduced. There is little reason to doubt
that this desideratum will be fulfilled, for in larkspurs and
aconites and columbines, closely related genera, we have a
similar range in colour to that of the pseony, together with
intense blue. The writer has also seen a Chinese drawing
representing a blue paeony, and, although too much stress
must not be laid on that circumstance, yet it must be
remembered that the correctness of some representations
of Chinese plants formerly considered fanciful has been
proved by the subsequent introduction of the plant, e.g.,
Didytra spectabilis. The Moutan or tree paaonies have an
erect bushy stem, from which the bark peels off in flakes ;
the foliage is divided as in the commoner kinds, and more or
less glaucous. The flowers are remarkable for the extreme
delicacy of tint, and botanically by the large development
of the disk above mentioned. Moutan paeonies are natives
of China. In gardens a large variety of paeonies are
cultivated, chiefly of hybrid origin ; and one of the
European species, P. corallina, has been found naturalized
on an island in the mouth of the Severn, to which it is
supposed to have been introduced.
P^ESTUM (Floo-eiSoWa, Poaidonia, mod. Peato), a Greek
city in Lucania, Magna Graecia, near the sea, and about
5 miles south of the river Silarus (Salso). It is said
by Strabo (v. p. 251) to have been founded by Troozenian
and Achaean colonists from the still older colony of
Sybaris, on the Gulf of Tarentum ; this probably happened
not later than about 600 B.C. Herodotus (i. 167) speaks
of it as being already a flourishing city in about 540 B.C.,
when the neighbouring city of Velia was founded. The
name Posidonia was derived from Poseidon, the deity
principally worshipped by the Troezenians. For many
years the city maintained its independence, though sur
rounded by the hostile native . inhabitants of Lucania.
Autonomous coins were struck, of -which many specimens
now exist.
Fig. 1 shows a didrachm of the 6th century B.C., an interesting
example of archaic Greek art. It is struck on a broad thin flai',
with guilloche pattern
round the border. The
obverse has a figure of
Poseidon wielding his
trident, with the chla-
rnys hung across his
shoulders. The reverse
has the same figure in
cuse. Both sides have
the legend (retrograde)
in relief, MOP (I1O2).
Archaic forms of S and Flo_ 1-_Two tvl,cs of silvcv coins of i>0si,i,miu. The
II are used. Later sil- larger one, the earlier type, is thin, and is incuse
ver coins (see fig 1) on the reverse. The smaller one is much thicker,
have the same figure ^tt±. " ^ ^ Thdr Welght "
of Poseidon on the ob
verse, and a bull on the reverse, both in relief, with the legend
FOME $AAN*ATAM (HO2EIAANIATA2), in which the archaic M
for 2 and 3. for I occur. Bronze coins of the Roman period have
the legend IIAI2 (iralcrrov).
After long struggles for independence the city fell into
the hands of the native Lucanians (who nevertheless did
not expel the Greek colonists), and in 273 B.C. it became a
municipal town under the Jiotnan rule, the name being
! changed to the Latin form Paestum. The neighbourhood
' was then healthy, highly cultivated, and celebrated for
its flowers ; the ." twice blooming roses of Paestum " are
' mentioned by Virgil (Geor., iv. 118), Ovid (Met., xv. 708),
• Martial (iv. 41, 10; vi. 80, 6), and other Latin poets.
j Its present deserted and malarious state is probably owing
P A E — P A E
133
to the silting up of the mouth of the Silarus, which has
overflowed its bed, and converted the plain into unproduc
tive marshy ground. Herds of buffaloes, and the few
peasants who watch them, are now the only occupants of
this once thickly populated and garden-like region. In
the 9th century Paestum was sacked and partly destroyed
by Arab invaders; in the llth century it was further dis
mantled by Robert Guiscard, and in the 16th century was
finally deserted. The ruins of Posidonia are, however,
among the most interesting of the Hellenic world. Remains
of the city wall, sufficient to indicate the whole circuit (an
irregular polygon about 3 miles round), still exist. The
lower part of one of the gates, a fine specimen of Greek
masonry, is still fairly perfect. This is a large square
tower with inner and outer doorways, and on each side
a projecting bastion, semicircular in plan ; the whole is
.skilfully arranged so as to thoroughly command the door
ways. A ditch, about 40 feet outside the wall, gave
additional security. The main wall is 16 feet 6 inches
thick. The general design of this fortification much
resembles the very perfectly preserved walls and towers of
Messene in the Peloponnesus. For plan and description of
this gate see a paper by T. L. Donaldson, Museum of
Clascal Antiquities, vol. i. p. 35, 1851. Outside the
north gate there is a long street of tombs, some of which
have been excavated, and have yielded a number of
interesting arms, vases, and mural paintings, mostly now.
in the museum at Naples. The chief glory of Posidonia is
its wonderful group of three well-preserved Doric temples.
The largest of tliesc,conjecturally called the "Temple of Poseidon,"
is on the whole the most complete Greek temple now existing, and,
judging from other specimens of the Doric style, can hardly be
later than 500 B. c. The characteristics which point to its remote
age are the shortness (comparatively speaking) of the columns, their
rapid diminution, the complete absence of entasis, the great projec
tion of the capitals, and the massiveness of the entablature. Another
peculiarity is that the columns have twenty-four flutes, while other
Doric examples rarely exceed twenty. The columns on the flanks
are fourteen in all, about an average number for a Doric hexastyle
temple. Fig. 2 gives the plan, in which there is nothing con-
4-r"
*—£—-*£-£ *
• • • • • • • • 0
FIG. 3. Plan of the (so-called)
FIG. 2. Plan of the Gre.it Temple. Basilica.
The s'.aded part does not now exist.
jectural ; the only serious loss is the absence of the greater part of
the cella wall, and some of the upper range of interior columns ; the
seven columns of this upper order which still remain in situ are
specially valuable, as no other temple still possesses any of them.
The peristyle columns are 6 feet 10 inches in diameter at the base,
except those at the angles, which measure 7 feet. The inter-
columniation at the angles is closer than elsewhere, after the usual
Doric rule. The height of the columns, including capitals, is 29
feet. The stylobate consists of three steps, and the cella floor is
four steps above the peristyle pavement, i.e., nearly 5 fret, an un
usual height. Indications still exist of the stairs leading to the
roof or to the upper floor, which probably formed the internal ceil
ing over the aisles. The main dimensions of the building are, on
the top step of the stylobate, nearly 196 feet in length by 79 feet
wide, more than double the length of the celebrated temple of
Mgina,, though not quite double the width.
The material of which this and the other temples are built is a
coarse calcareous stone from the neighbouring hills, formed by
water deposit. None of this stone was, however, left exposed.
The whole building, inside and out, like that at Mgma. and other^
places, was carefully covered with a fine hard stucco formed of*
lime and pounded white marble, which took a high polish, and
could hardly have been distinguished from real marble. On this
was painted the usual coloured ornaments with which all important
Greek buildings appear to have been decorated.
Archaisms of style, like those in this temple, are also to be
found in the scanty remains still existing of the temples at Corinth
and Ortygia (Syracuse), the latter probably an even earlier example
of the Doric style. The other temples, though fine and well-pre
served, are inferior both in size and interest. Though Greek
in their general outline, and of the Doric order, yet the details,
such as cornices, shafts, and capitals, are debased in style, and
can hardly belong to the autonomous period of Posidonia ; more
probably they were built under the native Lucanian or Roman
domination, while Hellenic traditions still lingered among the
peorje. The larger of these, popularly called the Basilica," is
quite unique in plan (see fig. 3). It has nine columns (an unequal
number) on its front, and a range of columns down the centre of
the cella. It is pseudo-dipteral, and has eighteen columns on
the flanks ; all that is black in the plan still remains. The
columns are very ungraceful in shape, with an extravagant amomit
of entasis, and a curious circlet of leaves immediately under the
echinus. The most probable explanation of the strange arrange
ment of the cella is that the temple was dedicated to two deities —
each half containing one statue.
The third temple, popularly called that of Ceres, is hexastyle
peripteral, about 108 feet by 48 on the top of the stylobate, with
thirteen columns on the flanks. In plan it is abnormal in having
an open vestibule within the peristyle. There is an opisthodomos
behind the cella. Its details throughout are very debased and un-
Hellenic.
Both these latter buildings offer a striking contrast to the pure
and severe Doric of the great temple. Ruins and traces of several
other buildings within the city wall still exist, all apparently of
the Roman period. Part of an amphitheatre, and of what may
have been a circus, can be distinguished, as well as ruins of an
aqueduct outside the city. Various mounds and other inequalities
in the ground suggest that much still remains hidden, and that
Piestum would probably afford a rich harvest to the careful explorer,
while a very simple system of drainage might again restore to this
once fertile plain its long-lost wholesomeness of air and richness of
soil.
See Strabo, v. and vi.; Wilkins, Magna Grxcia, 1807; Piranesi, ViUe <Ie
Pestitm, Rome, 1778; Major, Ruins of Pxstum, 17(58; La Gardette, Ruines tin
Piestum, 1779; Botticher, Die Tektoiiik der Hellrnen, 1844-52, vol. ii. p. 32;"),
and plates; Fergusson, The Parthenon, 1883, p. 82; Labrouste, L?s Temples <ti-
PxKtum, 1877. This las_t work has the best and most accurate draw ings, specially
executed for the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts. (J. H. M.)
PAEZ, JOSE ANTONIO, one of the leaders of the struggle
for South-American independence, and the first president
(1830-38) of the republic of Venezuela, was born of
Indian parents in the neighbourhood of Acarigua in the
province of Barinas, and died in exile at New York, May
6, 1873. His military career, which began about 1810,
was distinguished by the defeat of the Spanish forces at
Mata de la Miel (1815), at Montecal and throughout the
province of Apure (1816), and at Puerto Cabello (1823).
At first he acted in concert with BOLIVAR (<?.«>.), but in
1829 he procured the secession of Venezuela from the
republic of Colombia. For his later life see VENEZUELA.
His autobiography was published at New York in 1867-
69, and his son Ramon Paez (otherwise known as an
author) wrote Public Life of J. A. Paez (1864).
PAEZ, PEDRO (1564-1622), Jesuit missionary to
Abyssinia, was born at Olmedo in Old Castile in 1564.
Having entered the Society of Jesus, he was set apart for
foreign mission service, and sent to Goa in 1588. Within
a year he was despatched from that place along with a
134
P A G — P A H
fellow missionary to Abyssinia, but having fallen into the
hands of pirates at Ormuz he was detained in that
neighbourhood for seven years as a galley slave. Having
been redeemed by his order in 1596, he next spent some
years in mission work at Diu and Camboya and other
places on the west coast of India, and it was not until
1603 that he reached his original destination, landing at
the port of Massowah. At the headquarters of his order
in Fremona, he soon acquired the two chief dialects of the
country, translated a catechism, and set about the educa
tion of some Abyssinian children. He also established a
reputation as a preacher, and, having been summoned to
court, succeeded in vanquishing the native priests and in
converting Za-Denghel, the king, who wrote to the pope
and the king of Spain for more missionaries, an act of zeal
which involved him in civil war, and ultimately cost him
his life (October 1604). Under the succeeding sovereign
the influence of Paez became still greater, not only the
king but the nobility having abjured Paganism and
accepted Christianity. Paez, who is said to have been the
first European to visit the Abyssinian Nile, died of fever
in 1622. See ABYSSINIA, vol. i. p. 65.
PAGANINI, NICOLO (1784-1840), the most extra
ordinary of executants on the violin, past or present, was
born at Genoa, February 18, 1784. His father, a clever
amateur, imbued him with a taste for music at a very early
age. He first appeared in public at Genoa, in 1793, with
triumphant success. In 1795 he visited Parma for the
purpose of taking lessons from A. Eolla, who, however,
said that he had nothing to teach him. On returning
home, he studied more diligently than ever, practising
single passages for ten hours at a time, and publishing
compositions so difficult that he alone could play them.
After spending some years in close retirement, he started,
in 1805, on a tour through Europe, astonishing the world
with his matchless performances on the fourth string alone.
In 1827 the pope honoured him with the Order of the
Golden Spur.; and, in the following year, he extended his
travels to Germany, beginning with Vienna, where he
created a profound sensation. He first appeared in Paris
in 1831 ; and on June 3 in that year he played in London,
at the King's Theatre. His visit to England was preluded
by the most absurd and romantic stories. He was described
as a political victim who had been immured for twenty
years in a dungeon, where he played all day long upon- an
old broken violin with one string, and thus gained his
wonderful mechanical dexterity. The result of this and
other foolish reports was that he could not walk the
streets without being mobbed. Here, as in other countries,
he amassed a princely fortune, notwithstanding enormous
losses caused by his unhappy propensity for speculation.
In 1834 Berlioz composed for him his beautiful symphony,
Harold en Italie. He was then at the zenith of his fame ;
but his health, long since ruined by excessive study,
declined rapidly. In 1838 he suffered serious losses in
Paris, yet generously presented Berlioz with 20,000 francs
in return for his symphony. The disasters of this year
increased his malady — laryngeal phthisis — and, after much
suffering, he died at Nice, May 27, 1840. Paganini's style
was impressive and passionate to the last degree. His
cantabile passages moved his audience to tears, while his
tours de force were so astonishing that a Viennese amateur
publicly declared that he had seen the devil assisting him.
No later violinist has as yet eclipsed his fame as an exe
cutant, though he was far from realizing the artistic
perfection so nobly maintained by Spohr and Joachim.
The best of his imitators was his pupil Sivori.
PAHLAVl, or PEHLEVI, the name given by the fol
lowers of Zoroaster to the character in which are written
the ancient translations of their sacred books and some other
works which they preserve. The name can be traced back
for many centuries ; the great epic poet Firdausi (second
half of the 10th Christian century) repeatedly speaks of
Pahlavf books as the sources of his narratives, and he tells
us among other things that in the time of the first Khosrau
(Chosroes I., 531-579 A.D.) the Pahlavf character alone was
used in Persia.1 The learned Ibn MokanV (8th century)
calls Pahlavf one of the languages of Persia, and seems to
imply that it was an official language.2 We cannot deter
mine what characters, perhaps also dialects, were called
Pahlavi before the Arab period. It is most suitable to
confine the word, as is now generally done, to designate a
kind of writing — not only that of the Pahlavi books, but
of all inscriptions on stone and metal which use similar
characters and are written on essentially the same principles
as these books.
At first sight the Pahlavf books present the strangest
spectacle of mixture of speech. Purely Semitic (Aramaic)
words — and these not only nouns and verbs, but numerals,
particles, demonstrative and even personal pronouns — stand
side by side with Persian vocables. Often, however, the
Semitic words are compounded in a way quite unsemitic,
or have Persian terminations. As read by the modern
Zoroastrians, there are also many words which are neither
Semitic nor Persian ; but it is soon seen that this tradi
tional pronunciation is untrustworthy. The character is
cursive and very ambiguous, so that, for example, there is
but one sign for n, u, and r, and one for ?/, <7, and // ; this
has led to mistakes in the received pronunciation, which
for many words can be shewn to have been at one time
more correct than it is now. But apart from such blunders
there remain phenomena which could never have appeared
in a real language ; and the hot strife which raged till
recently as to whether Pahlavi is Semitic or Persian has been
closed by the discovery that it is merely a way of writing
Persian in which the Persian words are partly represented
— to the eye, not to the ear — by their Semitic equivalents.
This view, the development of which began with AVester-
gaard (Zendavesta, p. 20, note), is in full accordance with
the true and ancient tradition. Thus Ibn Mokaffa', who
translated many Pahlavi books into Arabic, tells us that
the Persians had about one thousand words which they
wrote otherwise than they were pronounced in Persian.3
For bread he says they wrote LHMA, i.e., the Aramaic lahmd,
but they pronounced nan, which is the common Persian
word for bread. Similarly BSRA, the Aramaic besrd, fle.sh,
was pronounced as the Persian cjosht. We still possess
a glossary which actually gives the Pahlavi writing with
its Persian pronunciation. This glossary, which besides
Aramaic words contains also a variety of Persian words
disguised in antique forms, or by errors due to the con
tracted style of writing, exists in various shapes, all of
which, in spite of their corruptions, go back to the work
which the statement of Ibn MokanV had in view.4 Thus
the Persians did the same thing on a much larger scale, as
when in English we write £ (libra) and pronounce " pound "
or write 6° or & (et) and pronounce "and." No system
was followed in the choice of Semitic forms. Sometimes
1 We cannot assume, however, that the poet had a clear idea of what
Pahlavi was.
2 The passage, in which useful facts are mixed up with strange
notions, is given abridged in Fihrist, p. 13, more fully by Yakut, iii.
925, but most fully and accurately in the imprinted Mafdt'Ji al-'olum.
3 Fihrist, p. 14, 1. 13 sq. , comp. 1. 4 sq. The former passage was
first cited by Quatremere, Jour. As. (1835), i. 256, and discussed by
Clermont-Ganneau, Ibid. (1866), i. 430. The expressions it uses are
not always clear ; perhaps the author of the Fihrist has condensed
somewhat.
4 Editions by Hoshangji and Haug (Bombay, 1870), and by Sale-
mann (Leyden, 1878). See also J. Olshausen, " Zur Wtirdigung der
Pahlavi-glossare " in Kuhn's Zcit. f. veryl. Sprforsch., N. F. , vi.
521 sq.
P A H L A Y I
135
a noun was written in its status absolutus, sometimes the
emphatic a was added, and this was sometimes written as
X sometimes as n. One verb was written in the perfect,
another in the imperfect. Even various dialects were laid
under contribution. The Semitic signs by which Persian
synonyms were distinguished are sometimes quite arbitrary.
Thus in Persian khwesh and khwat both mean "self";
the former is written NFshn (nafshd or nafshefi), the latter
BNFslm with the preposition be prefixed. Personal pro
nouns are. expressed in the dative (i.e., with prepositional
I prefixed), thus LK (lakh) for tu, " thou," LNH (land) for
amd, "we." Sometimes the same Semitic sign stands for
two distinct Persian words that happen to agree in sound;
thus because hand is Aramaic for " this," HNA represents
not only Persian e, " this," but also the interjection e, i.e.,
" 0" as prefixed to a vocative. Sometimes for clearness a
Persian termination is added to a Semitic word ; thus, to
distinguish between the two words for father, pit and
pitar, the former is written AB and the latter ABITR. The
Persian form is, however, not seldom used, even where there
is a quite well-known Semitic ideogram.1
These difficulties of reading mostly disappear when the
ideographic nature of the writing is recognized. We do
not always know what Semitic word supplied some
ambiguous group of letters (e.g., PUN f or pa, "to," or HT
for agar, " if ") ; but we always can tell the Persian word —
which is the one important thing — though not always the
exact pronunciation of it in that older stage of the language
which the extant Pahlavi works belong to. In Pahlavi, for
example, the word for "female" is written mdtak, an
ancient form which afterwards passed through mddhak
into mddha. But it was a mistake of later ages to fancy
that because this was so the sign T also meant D, and so
to write T for D in many cases, especially in foreign proper
names. That a word is written in an older form than that
which is pronounced is a phenomenon common to many
languages whose literature covers a long period. So in
English we still write though we do not pronounce the
gutteral in through, and write laugh when we pronounce
laf.
Much graver difficulties arise from the cursive nature of
the characters already alluded to. There are some groups
which may theoretically be read in hundreds of ways ; the
same little sign may be w, 50, iT1, in, m, 5O, HJ, and the
n too may be either h or kh.
In older times there was still some little distinction
between letters that are now quite identical in form, but
even the fragments of Pahlavi writing of the 7th century
recently found in Egypt show on the whole the same type
as our MSS. The practical inconveniences to those who
knew the language were not so great as they may seem ;
the Arabs also long used an equally ambiguous character
without availing themselves of the diacritical points which
had been devised long before.
Modern MSS., following Arabic models, introduce dia
critical points from time to time, and often incorrectly.
These give little help, however, in comparison with the
so-called Pazand or transcription of Pahlavi texts, as they
are to be spoken, in the character in which the Avestd
itself is written, and which is quite clear and has all
vowels as well as consonants. The transcription is not
philologically accurate ; the language is often modernized,
but not uniformly so. Pazand MSS. present dialectical
variations according to the taste or intelligence of authors
and copyists, and all have many false readings. For us,
however, they are of the greatest use. To get a concep
tion of Pahlavi one cannot do better than read the Minoi-
Khiradh in the Pahlavi with constant reference to the
1 For examples of various peculiarities see the notes to Noldeke's
translation of the story of Artachshir i Papakdn, Gottingen, 1879.
Pazand.2 Critical labour is still required to give an
approximate reproduction of the author's own pronuncia
tion of what he wrote.
The coins of the later Sasanian kings, of the princes of
Tabaristan, and of some governors in the earlier Arab
period exhibit an alphabet very similar to Pahlavi MSS.
On the older coins the several letters are more clearly
distinguished, and in good specimens of well-struck coins
of the oldest Sasanians almost every letter can be re
cognized with certainty. The same holds good for the
inscriptions on gems and other small monuments of the
early Sasanian period ; but the clearest of all are the
rock inscriptions of the Sasanians in the 3d and 4th
centuries, though in the 4th century a tendency to cursive
forms begins to appear. Only r and v are always quite
alike. The character of the language and the system
of writing is essentially the same on coins, gems, and
rocks as in MSS. — pure Persian, in part strangely dis
guised in a Semitic garb. In details there are many
differences between the Pahlavi of inscriptions and the
books. Persian endings added to words written in Semitic
form are much less common in the former, so that the
person and number of a verb are often not to be made
out. There are also orthographic variations ; e.g., long a
in Persian forms is always expressed in book-Pahlavi, but
not always in inscriptions. The unfamiliar contents of
some of these inscriptions, their limited number, their bad
preservation, and the imperfect way in which some of the
most important of them have been published 3 leave many
things still obscure in these monuments of Persian kings ;
but they have done much to clear up both great and small
points in the history of Pahlavi.4
Some of the oldest Sasanian inscriptions are accompanied
by a text belonging to the same system of writing, but
with many variations in detail,5 and an alphabet which,
though derived from the same source with the other
Pahlavi alphabets (the old Aramaic), has quite different
forms. This character is also found on some gems and seals.
It has been called Chaldaso-Pahlavi, &c. Olshausen tries
to make it probable that this was the writing of Media and
the other that of Persia. The Persian dialect in both sets
of inscriptions is identical or nearly so.6
The name Pahlavi means Parthian, Pahlav being the
regular Persian transformation of the older Parthava.7
This fact points to the conclusion that the system of
writing was developed in Parthian times, when the great
nobles, the Pahlavans, ruled, and Media was their main
seat, "the Pahlav country." Other linguistic, graphical,
and historical indications point the same way ; but it is
still far from clear how the system was developed. We
know indeed that even under the Acha3menians Aramaic
writing and speech were employed far beyond the Aramaic
lands even in official documents and on coins. The
Eranians had no convenient character, and might borrow
2 The bonk of the Mainyo-i-Khard in the original Pahlavi, ed. by
Fr. Ch. Andreas, Kiel, 1882 ; Id., The Pazand and Sanskrit Texts,
by E. W. West, Stuttgart and London, 1871. West is the greatest
living authority on Pahlavi.
3 See especially the great work of F. Stolze, Persepolis, 2 vols.,
Berlin, 1882. It was De Sacy who began the decipherment of the
inscriptions.
4 Thus we now know that the ligature in book-Pahlavi which means
" in," the original letters of which could not be made out, is for J*3,
" between." It is to be read andar.
s Thus/ws, " son," is written "HQ instead of il"l3 ; pesh, "before,"
is written iinOlp, but in the usual Pahlavi it is ^l?^^?.
6 What the Fihrist (p. ~[3 sq.} has about various forms of Persian
writing certainly refers in part at least to the species of Pahlavi. But
the statements are hardly all reliable, and in the lack of trustworthy
specimens little can be made of them.
7 This was finally proved by Olshausen, following earlier scholars ;
see J. Olshausen, Parthava und Pahlav, Mdda und Mah, Berlin,
1877 (and in the Monatsb. of the Academy).
136
P A I — P A I
the Aramaic letters as naturally as they subsequently
borrowed those of the Arabs. But this does not explain
the strange practice of writing Semitic words in place of
so many Persian words which were to be read as Persian.
It cannot be the invention of an individual, for in that
case the system would have been more consistently worked
out, and the appearance of two or more kinds of Pahlavi
side by side at the beginning of the Sasanian period would
be inexplicable. But we may remember that the Aramaic
character first came to the Eranians from the region of the
lower Euphrates and Tigris, where the complicated cunei
form character arose, and where it held its ground long
after better ways of writing were known. In later
antiquity probably very few Persians could read and write.
All kinds of strange things are conceivable in an Eastern
character confined to a narrow circle. Of the facts at least
there is no doubt.
The Pahlavi literature embraces the translations of the holy
books of the Zoroastrians, dating probably from the 6th century,
and certain other religious books, especially the Min6i- Khiradh
(see above) and the Bundchish.1 The Bundchixh dates from
the Arab period. Zoroastrian priests continued to write the
old language as a dead tongue and to use the old character long
after the victory of a new empire, a new religion, a new form of
the language (New Persian), and a new character. There was
once a not quite inconsiderable profane literature of which a good
deal is preserved in Arabic or New Persian versions or reproductions,
particularly in historical books about the time before Islam.- Very
little profane literature still exists in Pahlavi; the romance of
Ardashir has been mentioned above (p. 135, note 1). The difficult
study of Pahlavi is made more difficult by the corrupt state of our
copies, due to ignorant and careless scribes. A Pahlavi grammar is of
course an impossibility. The necessary preparation for the study
is a sound knowledge of New Persian, with which one easily finds
the clue to the inconsiderable grammatical variations of the older
language. The lexical peculiarities of the texts are more consider
able, and partly due to the peculiarities of priestly thought and
speech. Of glossaries, that of West (Bombay and London, 1874) is
to be recommended; the large Pahlavi, Gujarati, and English lexicon
of Jamaspji Dastur Minocheherji (incomplete, 3 vols., Bombay
and London, 1877-82) is very full, but has numerous false or uncer
tain forms, and must be used with much caution. (TH. N.)
PAINE, THOMAS (1736-1809), the author of The
Rights of Man and The, Age of Reason, would have had a
very different kind of reputation if he had never written
these works. Most of those who know him by name as a
ribald scoffer against revealed religion are not aware that
he has any other title to fame or infamy. But if he had
never meddled with religious controversy, his name would
have been remembered in the United States at least as one
of the founders of their independence. He had a pro
minent reputation when he crossed the Atlantic to stir up
the people of the Old World against monarchy and aristo
cracy, taking as his motto " Where liberty is not, there is
my country." Even after he wrote The Rights of Man, if
he had been guillotined by Robespierre, which he very
narrowly escaped being, he might have been remembered
in Britain as a clever but crazy and dangerous political
enthusiast. The final verdict of history upon his useful
ness would have turned on the question whether the
United States did well to declare and fight for independ
ence. But The Age of Reason brought his name into
disrepute almost as much in the United States as in
England. The career of Paine was a very extraordinary
one. The son of a Quaker staymaker, of Thetford in
Xorfolk, he had emigrated to the American colonies some
what late in life, after erratically trying various ways
of making a living as a marine, an exciseman, a teacher
of English, and acquiring a reputation in local political
1 The translations edited by Spiegel, the Bundehish by Wester-
gaard and Justi, other Pahlavi books by Spiegel and Haug, by
Hoshangji, and other Indian Parsees.
2 We have also one book, the stories of Kalilag and Damnag, in a
Syriac version from the Pahlavi, the latter in this case being itself
taken from the Sanskrit.
clubs by extreme views and vigour in debate. Born in
1736, he was thirty-eight when he arrived in America,
and he apparently went with a purpose, his combative
temper attracted by the quarrel then reaching an acute
stage, for he carried introductions with him from Franklin
to the leaders of the resistance to the mother-country.
His opportunity came when these leaders were dispirited
and disposed to compromise. He then set the colonists in
a flame with a pamphlet entitled Common Sense, a most
telling array of arguments for separation and for the
establishment of a republic, conveyed in strong direct
unqualified language. There is a complete concurrence of
testimony that Paine's pamphlet, issued on the 1st January
1776, was a turning-point in the struggle, that it roused
and consolidated public feeling, and swept waverers along
with the tide. The New York assembly appointed a com
mittee to answer it, but the committee separated with the
conclusion that it was unanswerable. When war was
declared, and fortune at first went against the colonists,
Paine, serving with Washington as a private soldier, com
posed by the light of camp fires a short hortative tract,
The Crisis, which was read to the army, and seems to have
had a wonderful effect in restoring a courage that was
considerably impaired by defeat. Its opening words,
"These are the times that try men's souls," became a
battle-cry. This and other literary services were recognized
by Paine's appointment in the first Congress to be secretary
of the -committee on foreign affairs. The republic finally
established, another phase of his turbulent career was
entered on. He determined to return to England, and
" open the eyes of the people to the madness and stupidity
of the Government." His chief effort in this propagandism
was The Rights of Man, written as an answer to Burke's
Reflexions on the Revolutions in France. The first part
appeared in 1791, and had an enormous circulation before
the Government took the alarm and endeavoured to
suppress it, thereby exciting the most intense curiosity to
see it even at the risk of heavy penalties. Those who
know the book only by hearsay as the work of a furious
incendiary would be surprised at the dignity, force, and
temperance of the, style; it was the circumstances that
made it inflammatory. Pitt " used to say," according to
Lady Hester Stanhope, " that Tom Paine was quite in the
right, but then he would add, ' What am I to do ? As
things are, if I were to encourage Tom Paine's opinions,
we should have a bloody revolution.' " Paine accordingly
was indicted for treason, but before the trial came off he
was elected by the department of Calais to the French
Convention, and was allowed to pass into France followed
by a sentence of outlawry. The first years that he spent
in France form a curious episode in his life. As he knew
little of the language, he could have had but little influence
on affairs, but he was treated with great respect, and did
what he could in the interests of moderation till he
incurred the suspicion of Robespierre and was thrown into
prison, escaping the guillotine by an accident. He com
pleted the first part of the Age of Reason in the exciting
interval between his accusation and his arrest, and put it
into the hands of a friend on his way to prison. The
publication of the work made an instant change in his
position on both sides of the Atlantic, the indignation in
the United States being as strong as in England.
Washington, to whom he had dedicated his Rights of
Man, declined to take any steps for his release from the
prison of the Luxembourg, and he lay there for several
months after the fall of Robespierre. The Age of Reason
can now be estimated calmly. It was written from the
point of view of a Quaker who did not believe in revealed
religion, but who held that " all religions are in their
nature mild and benign " when not associated with political
P A I — P A I
137
systems. Intermixed with the coarse unceremonious
ridicule of what he considered superstition and bad faith
are many passages of earnest and even lofty eloquence in
favour of a pure morality founded on natural religion,
fully justifying the bishop of Llandaff's saying : — " There
is a philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas when
speaking of the Creator of the universe." The work in
short — a second part was published after his release —
represents the deism of the 18th century, in the hands of
a rough, ready, passionate controversialist. Paine remained
in France till 1802, and then returned to America, occupy
ing the rest of his turbulent active life with financial
questions and mechanical inventions. He died in 1809.
PAINT. See PIGMENT.
PAINTING. A general examination of the place of
painting among the FINE ARTS will be found under that
heading. The main SCHOOLS OF PAINTING (q.v.) will
form the subject of a separate article. For the history
of the art, see also ARCHEOLOGY (CLASSICAL) and the
notices of individual painters. The present article is
limited to a few practical notes on the methods of
painting in oil and water colour, other methods being dealt
with under the headings ENAMEL, ENCAUSTIC PAINTING,
FRESCO, and TEMPERA.
Painting- Room. — The painting-room or atelier should be
of sufficient dimensions to allow the artist space to retire
from his work, if it is on a scale large enough to require
viewing from a distance. For large decorative paintings
the room must be spacious. The size and altitude of the
window is of great importance. If the opening is con
tracted, the light and shade on the model will be broad
and intense, and the colouring sombre, especially in the
shadows. If abundance of light is admitted, the tendency
will be more towards brightness and purity. Painters
generally prefer a window with a northern or eastern
aspect.
The painting-room has a great influence in determining
not only the effects in the works of individual artists, but
the characteristics of whole schools. Leonardo da Vinci
was among the first to show partiality to indoor effects and
deep shadows. Correggio, the artists of the Bolognese
school, Caravaggio, Spagnoletto, and other Neapolitan and
Spanish painters followed: the Dutch painter Rembrandt
perhaps carried these extreme contrasts of light and shade
to the greatest length. The effects thus obtained are,
however, more or less artificial, and very unlike the
ordinary aspect of the open daylight face of nature.
Painters, unless there happens to be some special reason
to the contrary, usually work with the light to the left to
prevent the shadow cast from the brush falling inwards.
Some artists who seek to represent open air effects paint
from their models in glass-houses, specially constructed
for the purpose. The practice has much to recommend it,
the diffused light enabling them to approximate more
nearly to the truth of nature.
Implement* used in Painting. — The easel is a frame, or
rest, which supports the picture during its progress.
Easels are of various kinds: — the triangular, supplied
with pegs for the adjustment of the height of the work ;
the square, or rack easel, which is much more convenient ;
and the French studio easel, having a screw at the back
and worked by a handle in the front, by which arrange
ment pictures of considerable size and weight can be
raised or lowered or inclined forward with great ease.
There is also a variety of light portable easels used for
out-door sketching. — The/w&tfte is the board on which the
colours are arranged to paint from • it is usually either of
. an oval or oblong square form, of light-coloured wood,
and, to avoid inconvenience being felt from its weight, it
should be thin and well balanced on the thumb. It ousjht
to be kept clean and the colour never allowed to dry on
it. — The palette-knife has a pliable blade, and is used for
arranging the colours on the palette, mixing tints, &c.
With some painters it not unfrequently takes the place of
the brush in the application of colour. — The larger kinds
of brushes are made of hog-hair. They are either round
or flat, but the latter are generally preferred, though for
some purposes round ones are found to be useful. Brushes
are also made of sable ; these should have the property
of coming to a fine point when required. Brushes of
badger's hair are used for "softening " or "sweetening,"
— that is, blending the colours by sweeping lightly to and
fro over them while freshly laid (a practice to be 'avoided
as much as possible). Brushes should be carefully washed
after use, either in spirits of turpentine or with soap and
tepid water, dried, and the hairs laid smooth with the
finger and thumb. A brush in which the colour has been
allowed to dry is difficult to clean, and is much injured, if
not rendered entirely useless, by such negligence. Not a
little depends on the good condition in which the brushes
are kept. — The mahl-stick is used to steady the hand while
painting details. It is held in the left hand, and the
end of the stick, properly wadded, rests on the canvas. It
should be light and firm. The old painters never used the
mahl-stick when working on large pictures, and many
artfets dispense with it altogether. Rubens mentions
being obliged to have recourse to one in his old age. — The
dais or throne is a platform varying from a foot to 18
inches in height. Portrait painters, and artists who
generally stand while at work, find it desirable to have
the sitter or model nearly on a level with the eye. — A
mirror hung in a convenient place in the painting-room
will be found of great use. It enables the artist to detect
faults in drawing to which he might otherwise be blinded
from too long gazing at his work. The picture is seen in
the mirror reflected in reverse, and errors consequently
appear greater than they really are. — The lay-fiyure, a
wooden or stuffed doll, usually life-size, is very service
able in painting elaborate dresses and draperies. The best
kinds are so constructed that they can be made to assume
and retain any posture. Fra Bartolommeo first brought
the lay-figure into use.
Materials used in Painting. — These consist of canvases,
prepared panels and mill-boards, oils, varnishes, and colours.
1. Canvas is the material now generally used. It is kept
in rolls of various width and of three qualities — plain
cloth, Roman, and ticken. It is prepared with two kinds of
grounds — the hard or oil ground, and the absorbent ground.
The ground is generally of a light colour ; many artists
prefer pure white. The grounds employed by the first oil
painters were identical with those of tempera ; the surface
of the panel was prepared with two or three coats of size,
a layer of coarse gesso was then applied, and on this at
least eight layers of a finer description were spread, and the
surface carefully scraped till it became smooth and white.
In the Italian school of a later period, the grounds were
generally composed of pipe-clay mixed with chalk. It is
generally acknowledged that white grounds are in every
way preferable, although it matters little whether the
brightness reside in the ground or is reproduced at a
subsequent stage by painting with a solid body of opaque
colour over a dark ground. Velazquez and other Spanish
painters used canvases prepared with a red earthy ground.
The intention of priming the ground is to prevent the very
rapid absorption of colours. Canvas prepared with the
object of partially abstracting the oil from the first layers
of colour is called " absorbent." For small cabinet pictures
panels of well-seasoned mahogany are used ; mill-boards,
academy boards, and oil paper are serviceable for sketching
from nature.
XVIII. — 1 8
138
2. Oils and Varnishes. — The introduction of oil paint
ing on the modern methods dates from the time of John
Van Eyck. This artist introduced a varnish, probably
composed of linseed or nut oil mixed with some resinous
substance, which was more siccative than the oil vehicles
previously in use, and possessed the property of drying
without exposure to the sun or to artificial heat. The oil
painting of the early Flemish masters was, strictly speaking,
(oil) varnish painting : an oleo-resinous substance, such as
amber varnish, was mixed with the colours, and rendered
final varnishing unnecessary. The Venetian painters also
adopted this vehicle. The term " vehicle " is borrowed
from pharmacy. In art it is applied to the fluid used for
bringing the pigments into a proper working state.
Painters differ greatly as to the vehicles they employ : some
use oil only ; others peculiar compounds of their own, made
of linseed, poppy, or walnut oils, copal or amber varnishes,
drying oil and mastic, &c. Siccatif, a medium specially
prepared for oil painting, is now largely used ; mixed with
spirits of wine, it forms a beautiful transparent varnish.
3. Colours. — The permanent colours are the earths and
ochres and those mineral colours which bear the test of fire
and lime. Colours prepared from lead and animal and
vegetable substances are more or less fugitive. Artist's
colours were originally kept in a dry state, and afterwards
in small bladders ; they are now enclosed in very con
venient collapsable metal tubes.
The discoveries of modern chemistry have added largely
to the simple list of colours known to the old masters, but
perhaps with little advantage to their successors, for their
is much truth in the maxim that " the shortest way to good
colouring is through a simple palette. " Pliny asserts that
the ancient Greek painters employed but four colours in
their works.
A large proportion of colours, such as the ochres, ver
milion, ultramarine, <fcc., is derived from minerals; indigo,
madder, gamboge, &c., from vegetable, and carmine,
Indian yellow, sepia, &c., from animal substances. The j
artificial or chemical preparations include Prussian blue, j
Naples yellow, zinc white, French blue, cobalt, the lakes,
&c.
The natural or true pigments are prepared for use by
calcining and washing, and for oil painting are ground up
in poppy or linseed oils. With two or three exceptions
the pigments derived from the mineral kingdom are .the
most permanent, especially those containing iron or copper.
Those derived'from animal and vegetable substances have
less permanence, but they form an important acquisition to
the palette, as they not unfrequently possess a purity and
brilliancy of colour which makes it almost impossible to
dispense with them.
Colours are opaque or transparent. The former, on
account of their solidity and opacity, are employed to
represent light. For shadows and glazing transparent
pigments are used. Yellow, red, and blue cannot be com
posed, and are called primary colours. The union of
two of these in the three combinations of which alone
they admit produces secondary colours. White represents
light, and in oil painting the only white pigment used is
white lead, prepared with great care. The ochres are the
most permanent yellows. Their composition is very vari
able, but they may be considered true chemical combinations
of clay and oxide of iron. The native ochres are yellow and
red. By calcination the yellow ochres become red. Other
yellows are prepared from arsenic, lead, and vegetable
substances. Iron is the great colouring principle of red in
nature. All the three kingdoms — mineral, animal, and
vegetable — contribute to the red pigments. The first
supplies vermilion and the red ochres ; the second
carmine, obtained from the cochineal insect ; the third
the madder pigments. The principal blue pigments are
ultramarine (native and artificial), cobalt, smalt, Prussian
blue, and indigo. Ultramarine is the only pure primary
colour ; the finer specimens have neither a tinge of green
on the one hand nor of purple on the other. It is
obtained from the mineral lazulite or lapis-lazuli, and is
probably a volcanic product, as it resists the action of fire.
Its scarcity, and consequent high price, have produced
many artificial imitations. These are of many qualities.
The inferior are used in paper staining, the finer alone
being reserved for artists' use. Cobalt is now prepared in a
state of great purity, but it has the objection of appearing
violet in artificial light.
In " guides to oil painting " long lists of pigments are
generally given ; but these serve only to perplex and
embarrass. About a dozen colours, judiciously chosen,
will be quite sufficient to supply the palette.
Processes and Manipulations. — There are various tech
nical distinctions in the modes of applying the colours to a
picture in its successive stages. Glazing is the laying of
thinly transparent colours, diluted with a considerable
quantity of vehicle, which allows the work beneath to
appear distinctly through, but tinged with the colour of
the glaze. The Venetian painters, Titian especially,
largely employed this process, advancing their pictures
as far as possible with solid, opaque colour, and upon this
ground glazing repeatedly the richest and purest colours.
The process of glazing is generally effected by the applica
tion of diluted transparent colour, but semi-transparent
colours are also used when rendered sufficiently trans
parent by the admixture of a large proportion of vehicle.
When carried to excess, the result is a " horny " impure
dulness of surface and a heavy and dirty tone of colour.
Much practice and experience are required for its proper
performance. Scumbling resembles glazing in that a very
thin coat is spread lightly over portions of the work, but
the colour used is opaque instead of transparent. A hog-
hair brush sparingly charged with the tint is employed.
Carried to excess, scumbling produces a " smoky " appear
ance. Impasting is the term applied to laying colours in
thick masses on the lights. The shadows or dark portions
of a picture are painted thinly and transparently, the
lights solidly, with opaque colours. Impasting gives
" texture " and " surface " to the latter, and helps to
produce the appearance of roundness and relief. When
carried too far it produces an appearance of coarseness
and affords a lodgment for dirt and varnish in what should
be the brightest and purest passages in the colouring.
Irregularities of surface in such passages of a picture as
it may be desirable to repaint are removed by using an
instrument especially made for the purpose ; but an old
razor, an ordinary pocket-knife, or a piece of window glass,
properly broken, will, in skilful hands, answer the purpose
equally well. This process should not be attempted till the
colour to be removed has hardened, otherwise the pigment
will tear off and leave the surface in a condition which it
will be found difficult to remedy.
It is the practice of some artists to lay the colours at
first cold and pale, gradually strengthening the light and
shade, and enforcing the colour in subsequent paintings.
When this practice is adopted, the colours used should be
as few and as simple as possible. It sometimes happens
that considerable portions of the first painting are apparent
through all the subsequent processes, and this early part of
the work should be done with great care and judgment.
The first principle in the application of paint is to avoid
unnecessary mixing, or, as it is called, " troubling " or
saddening the tints, the result of which is a waxy surface
and muddiness of colour. When this is avoided the touches
are clear and distinct, but when the principle is carried to
PAINTING
139
excess it degenerates into manner ; or it may serve as a
convenient screen for the want of accurate observation and
thorough execution.
Among the masters most remarkable for precision and
rapidity of handling are Velazquez, Tintoretto, Veronese,
and Rubens. The execution of Leonardo da Vinci is
laboured. Vanderwerf, Mengs, and Denner are also
instances of laboured smoothness. The three last-named
belong to a class designated "the polishers," — "little men,
who did not see the whole at a time, but only parts of
a whole, and thus vainly essayed to make up the whole
by a smooth union of parts."
No two artists employ the same method in painting.
Some attain the result aimed at by involved and compli
cated, others by direct and simple methods. The difference
in technique between the work of an English artist and
artists trained in French or German ateliers may be seen
at a glance, and it is of little use attempting to lay down
hard and fast rules on the subject. Even among the great
Italian painters a wide variety of practice existed. It has
been pretty well ascertained, partly from unfinished works,
that Titian's method was to work out the effect of his
pictures, as far as possible, with pure white, red, and black,
the shadows being left cold. To prevent the yellowing of
the oil, and to harden the colour, the picture was exposed
to the sun, months were sometimes allowed to elapse, and
then the surface of this dead or first colouring was rubbed
down with pumice stone and fresh colours and the glazings
applied, a considerable period— during which the picture
was exposed to the sun — elapsing between successive appli
cations of colour. Titian is said to have been very partial
to the use of his fingers when laying on paint, particularly
on flesh and glazings.
The practice of Paul Veronese was quite opposed to that
of Titian. He sought almost the full effect at once by
direct means and simple mixture of tints, seldom repeating
his colours, and using few glazings. When the work was
well advanced in this way he covered the whole with a
thin coat of varnish to bring up the colours, and then re
touched the lights and enforced the shadows with dexterous
touches.
It is said of Reynolds, who spent half his life in ex
periments, that in order to discover their technical secrets
he deliberately scraped away and destroyed Venetian
pictures of value. The decay of so many of his works
shows with how little success these experiments were
rewarded.
Numerous " guides to oil painting " exist, but little real
instruction or benefit is to be gained from their perusal.
They abound in minute directions how to paint " trunks of
trees, heaths, fields, roads, skies (grey, blue, and stormy),
sunsets, sunrises, running streams and waterfalls, moun
tains, the smoke or steam of steamers, and chimneys of
cottages," as well as "heads, flesh, backgrounds, draperies
(blue, red, and black)," with lists of the proper colours to be
employed for each. All this, it is hardly needful to say,
is worse than useless. The surest and safest way for any
one who intends to study painting seriously, or to make
it his profession, is to place himself under the instruction
of an artist of repute, either in his own country or in
some foreign atelier ; but, even after acquiring a sound
technical knowledge of the processes employed in paint
ing, it will be found that much remains to learn which no
master can teach. It is said of Velazquez that " he dis
covered that nature herself is the artist's best teacher,
and industry his surest guide to perfection, and he very
early resolved neither to sketch nor to colour any object
without having the thing itself before him."
Water-Colour Painting. — The use, in painting, of earths
and minerals of different colours, diluted with water, is
of great antiquity. Painting with oils or oleo-resinous
vehicles is a comparatively modern invention. Tempera,
encaustic, and fresco were ancient modes of water paint
ing. Several of the early Dutch and Flemish oil painters
attained to considerable technical excellence in the sepa
rate practice of water-colour painting ; little more than
simple washings of water colour were employed by them,
the processes which have in modern times so greatly raised
and extended its scope being then unknown.
Painting in water colour owes much of its development
to English artists, and may be regarded as a peculiarly
national school of art. The first English water-colour
painter of note, Paul Sandby, used Indian ink in the earlier
stages of his drawings, finishing them with a few tints of
thin colour. At this period paintings in water colour were
little more than flat washes, and in the early catalogues of
the Royal Academy Exhibition were designated " water-
tinted" or "water-washed drawings." Improvements were
gradually effected, first by varying the ground- work tint
with blue and sepia, over which washes of colour, com
mencing with a warm generalizing tint, were struck. John
Cozens was the first to substitute a mixture of indigo and
Indian red in place of Indian ink as a neutral tint in the
early stages of his work, a practice which was long retained.
The/>ld water-colour painters used the lead pencil or the
reed pen in finishing their drawings. The first to break
away from this conventional method was Girtin, who
painted objects at once with the tints they appeared to
possess in nature. Turner, perhaps the greatest master of
the art, was closely associated with Girtin in early life, and
in the course of his long career he carried water-colour
painting to a degree of perfection which can scarcely be
surpassed. Nearly all the great improvements which have
taken place of late years in water-colour painting are due
more or less to him. John Lewis, De Wint, Prout, Hunt,
Cox, Harding, and Copley Fielding have all contributed to
the development of the art.
Materials used in Water-Colour Painting.— -1. Paper. — A
great variety of papers is used, varying in texture from the
extreme of roughness to hot-pressed smoothness. In many
of Turner's drawings the paper is tinted. Nothing, how
ever, seemed to come amiss to him ; papers of almost any
surface or texture were used. David Cox, in many of his
later works, employed a rough paper made from old sail
cloth. The paper most generally used is known as
" Imperial, " and is made of various degrees of texture and
thickness. Whatman's papers are also much esteemed.
The proper sizing of the paper is of great importance ;
if it is too strongly done the colours will not float or work
freely, if too little they are absorbed into the fabric and
appear poor and dead. In this last case, gum-arabic dis
solved in warm water will improve the effect by bringing
up the colour and giving greater depth and richness of
tone. The paper is prepared to receive the drawing by
being well sponged and stretched upon a drawing-board.
2. Pigments. — The permanent earthy minerals were
chiefly used in ancient works, and these, with the addition
of a few transparent colours, such as sepia, indigo, and
Indian ink, satisfied the early water-colour painters of
England. Richer and more delicate colours were gradually
added, and of late years chemistry has supplied many
entirely new ones. No method of giving permanency to
some of the transparent yellows, carmine, and other colours
obtained from the cochineal insect has yet been discovered,
but the improved methods of preparing pigments from the
root of the madder plant have rendered the use of carmine
not so necessary. The earths and minerals are the most
permanent pigments, but when employed with water they
are more unmanageable, and flow less freely than the
fugitive vegetable colours. Among the earlier water-colour
140
P A I — P A I
painters the use of opaque or "body" colour was generally
considered illegitimate. Turner was the first to break
through this restraint, and since his time the use of opaque
colour has been carried perhaps to excess, many modern
artists wilfully resigning much of the peculiar freshness
and brilliancy of pure water colour for the sake of rivalling
the richness and depth of oil painting.
3. Brushes. — Brown sable is the hair generally used ;
but brushes are also made of red sable and squirrel or
" camel " hair. The brushes are made by the insertion of
the hair into quills, the various sizes of brush being
recognized by the names of the birds which supply them
— eagle, swan, goose, crow, (fee. Flat brushes in German-
silver ferules are also used.
Perhaps as great a variety of practice exists among
water-colour painters as among those working in oils ;
each arrives at his own peculiar method by the teach
ing of experience. As in the case of oil painting, it
would serve little purpose if the attempt Avas made to
lay down rules and methods. All men cannot be painters,
and a knowledge of the nature of the materials and of
the processes employed does not necessarily carry with it
ability to paint. Such essentials as a knowledge of com
position, drawing, light and shade, and colour are all re
quisite, and these can only be obtained after years of study.
If possible the guidance of some good master should be
sought for at first ; this will shorten the way and prevent
the making of some awkward mistakes. (G. RE.)
PAINTING, HOUSE. See BUILDING, vol. iv. p. 510 :
and MURAL DECORATION.
PAISIELLO, or PAESIELLO, GIOVANNI (1741-1815),
one of the most talented precursors of Rossini in the
Italian school of musical composition, was born at Tarento,
May 9, 1741. The beauty of his voice attracted so much
attention that, in 1754, he was removed from the Jesuit
college at Tarento to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at
Naples, where he studied under Durante, and in process
of time rose to the position of assistant master. For the
theatre of the Conservatorio he wrote some intermezzi, one
of which attracted so much notice that he was invited to
write two operas, La Pupilla and // Mondo al Rovescio, for
Bologna, and a third, II Marchese di Tulipano, for Rome.
His reputation being now firmly established, he settled
for some years at Naples, where, notwithstanding the
popularity of Piccini, Cimarosa, and Guglielmi, of whose
triumphs he was bitterly jealous, he produced a series of
highly successful operas, one of which, L'Idolo Cinese,
made a deep impression upon the Neapolitan public. In
1776 Paisiello was invited by the empress Catherine II.
to St Petersburg, where he remained for eight years, pro
ducing, among other charming works, his masterpiece, //
Burbiere di Siviglia, which soon attained a European
reputation. The fate of this delightful opera marks an
epoch in the history of Italian art ; for with it the gentle
suavity cultivated by the masters of the 1 8th century died
out to make room for the dazzling brilliancy of a later
period. When, in 1816, Rossini set the same libretto to
music, under the title of Almaviva, it was hissed from the
stage ; but it made its way, nevertheless, and under its
true title, II Burbiere, is now acknowledged as Rossini's
greatest work, while Paisiello's opera is consigned to ob
livion, — a strange instance of poetical vengeance, since
Paisiello himself had many years previously endeavoured
to eclipse the fame of Pergolesi by resetting the libretto
of his famous intermezzo, La serva padrona.
Paisiello quitted Russia in 1784, and, after producing II
Re Tcodoro at Vienna, entered the service of Ferdinand IV.
at Naples, where he composed many of his best operas,
including Nina, and La Molinam. After many vicissi
tudes, resulting from political and dynastic changes, he
was invited to Paris (1802) by Napoleon, whose favour
he had won five years previously by a march composed for
the funeral of General Hoche. Napoleon treated him.
munificently, while cruelly neglecting two far greater com
posers, Cherubini and Mehul, to whom the new'favourite
transferred the hatred he had formerly borne to Cimarosa,
Guglielmi, and Piccini. But he entirely failed to con
ciliate the Parisian public, who received his opera
Proserpine so coldly that, in 1803, he requested and with
some difficulty obtained permission to return to Italy, upon
the plea of his wife's ill health.
On his arrival at Naples Paisiello was reinstated in his
former appointments by Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, but
he no longer enjoyed the brilliant reputation for the attain
ment of which he had so industriously laboured. He had
taxed his genius beyond its strength, and was unable to meet
the demands nowmade upon it for new ideas. His prospects,
too, were precarious. The power of the Bonaparte family
was tottering to its fall ; and Paisiello's fortunes fell with
it. The death of his wife, in 1815, tried him severely.
His health failed rapidly. His constitutional jealousy of
the popularity of others was a continual source of Avorry
and vexation. And on June 5, 1815, he died, a dis
appointed man, notAvithstanding his extraordinary successes
and Avell-earned fame.
It is impossible to believe that even the best of Paisiello's
operas Avould be listened to at the present moment Avith
patience, yet they abound with melodies the graceful
beauty of which is still Avarmly appreciated. Perhaps the
best knoAvn of these charming airs is the famous Nel cor pm
from La Molinara, immortalized by Beethoven's delightful
variations. The greatest singers of the time spread the
fame of this and other similar effusions throughout the
length and breadth of Europe. The part of Nina conduced
to one of Pasta's most splendid triumphs ; and of the
ninety-four operas which Paisiello is knoAvn to have com
posed not one can be said to have been unsuccessful. His
church music was very voluminous, comprising one
hundred and three masses, besides many smaller Avorks ; he
also produced fifty-one instrumental compositions of more
or less importance, and many detached pieces. MS. scores
of many of his operas were presented to the library of the
British Museum by the late Signer Dragonetti.
PAISLEY, a municipal and parliamentary burgh of Ren
frewshire, Scotland, is situated on both sides of the White
Cart, 3 miles from its junction Avith the Clyde, and on the
Caledonian and the Glasgow and South- Western Railways,
7 miles Avest-south-Avest of Glasgow and 17 east-south-east
of Greenock. In 1791 the river Avas at great expense
made navigable to the town for sloops of about 50 tons
burden. The old tOAvn, situated on rising ground on the
west bank of the river, consists chiefly of long regular
streets, and contains the principal warehouses and factories.
The new town was begun towards the close of last century,
and is built on level ground to the east, at one time form
ing the domains of the abbey. Surrounding the town
there are extensive suburbs, occupied chiefly by villa resi
dences. The river is crossed by a railway viaduct, and
three bridges for carriage traffic, two of these being of
iron and an old one of stone. The abbey of Paisley Avas
founded in 1164, originally as a priory, by Walter, great
steward of Scotland. Its lands Avere erected by James II.
into a regality of which the abbot was lord, and the abbey
formed the mausoleum of the Stuarts until their accession
to the throne. The abbey Avas burned in 1307 by the
English, and in 1561 by Lord Glencairn. In 1484 the
grounds were surrounded by a lofty wall of hewn stone
about one mile in circumference. In 1553 Claude Hamil
ton, a boy of ten, fourth son of the duke of Chatellerault,
was made abbot in commendam, and in 1587 the lands
PA J — P A K
141
and abbey were made a temporal barony in his favour.
His son was created earl of Abercorn. The abbey lands,
after passing from the earl of Abercorn to the earl of
Angus and thence to Lord Dundonald, were purchased in
1764 by the earl of Abercorn, with the view of making
the abbey his residence, but changing his intention he let
the grounds for building sites. The buildings inhabited
by the monks have been totally demolished, but the nave
of the abbey church is entire, and has been fitted up as a
place of worship. It is one of the finest extant specimens
of old ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland, and also con
tains several fine sculptures and monuments. The unroofed
transept and the foundations of the choir enclose a burying
ground. The chapel of St Mirin, forming part of the
transept, and now used as the place of sepulture of the
Abercorn family, contains a monument to Mary Bruce,
mother of Robert II., which has been recently recon
structed. The principal secular buildings of the town are
the county buildings and prison, erected in 1818 at a cost
of £-10,000, and afterwards extended ; the John Neilson
institution, opened in 1852, a handsome structure occupy
ing a commanding position on the site of the old Roman
camp; the George A. Clark town-hall, in the Gothic style,
erected in 1882 at a cost of ,£50,000, and presented to
Plan of Paisley.
the town ; the news-room, 1808 ; the grammar school, in
the Gothic style, 1864; the Government school of art, 1847;
and the theatre. The benevolent institutions include the
infirmary, the town hospital or poorhouse, the philosophi
cal institution and humane society, the workhouse, the
lunatic asylum, and Hutcheson's charity school. The
Duncan Wright educational endowment provides for
natives of the town several school bursaries of the value
of from £5 to £10, and several college bursaries of the
value of £25. The town possesses three public recreation
grounds : — the Fountain Gardens of 6 acres, presented by
Mr Thomas Coats in 1868, and containing an elegant
structure for a museum and library erected by Sir Peter
Coats in 1870 ; the Brodie Park, 26 acres, laid out in
1877, and presented by the late Robert Brodie of Craigie-
hall ; and St James's Park, formed out of the race
course, which has lately been acquired by the corporation.
There are statues of Wilson the ornithologist and Tannahill
the poet.
Linen was manufactured at Paisley before the Union,
shortly after which coarse linen cloths were succeeded by
plain and figured lawns. About the beginning of the 18th
century an important manufacturing industry is said to
have been originated by Christian Shaw, daughter of the
laird of Bargarren. She acquired great skill in the
spinning of yarn, and, with the co-operation of a friend in
Holland, originated the manufacture of fine linen thread.
From 1760 till 1785 silk gauze was the principal manu
facture. Muslin, cambric, and cotton thread next came
into prominence. The shawl manufacture, introduced
about the beginning of the present century, the specialty
of which was imitation cashmere shawls — "Paisley filled
plaids* — is now of minor importance. A wide range of
worsted goods, mixed figured fabrics, and light figured
muslins at present employ the looms. The spinning of
thread and cotton is perhaps the industry for which the
town is best known, although it is almost equally celebrated
for its patent manufactures, including soap, starch, corn
flour, and preparations of coffee. There are also exten
sive bleachfields, large dye and print works, engineering
works, and some shipbuilding. Since the beginning of the
present century the population of the burgh (area 3520
acres) has more than trebled. In 1781 it Avas 11,000,
which in 1791 had increased to 13,800, in 1801 to
17,026, in 1821 to 26,428, in 1831 to 31,460, in 1851 to
48,026, in 1871 to 48,257, and in 1881 to 55,642, of whom
25,832 were males and 29,810 females.
There is no doubt that on the ridge of high ground above the
Cart there was a Roman fort and camp, and the supposition that
Paisley was the Vanduara of the Romans is supported by the
derivation of that name, which means white water. The modern
visage grew up round the abbey, but the origin of the name Paisley,
which was first written Paslet, has been disputed. About the end
of the 15th century its growth had excited the jealousy of the
neighbouring burgh of Renfrew, to protect it from the molestations
of which Abbot Schaw in 1488 obtained its erection into a free
burgh of barony. According to this charter, granted by James
IV., it obtained the privilege of returning a member to the Scottish
parliament. By the Reform Act of 1833 it was created a parlia
mentary burgh with one representative. The burgh is governed by
a provost, four bailies, a treasurer, and ten councillors. Among the
eminent persons connected with Paisley are Patrick Adamson, arch
bishop of St Andrews ; Tannahill the poet ; Alexander Wilson the
ornithologist ; Watt, author of Bibliotheca Britannica ; Motherwell
the poet ; and Professor John Wilson, "Christopher North."
PAJOU, AUGUSTIN (1730-1809), born at Paris on
19th September 1730, was a member of the Academy and
a leading sculptor of the French school during the reigns
of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. His portrait busts of
Buffon and of Madame Du Barry, and his statuette of
Bossuet (all in the Louvre), are amongst his best works.
He died at Paris May 8, 1809.
Picnon, Melanges de la Societe des bibliophiles, 1856; Madame Du
Barry, Memoire des ceuvrcs de Pajou; Barbet de Jouy, Sculptures
mod. au Louvre.
PAKHOI, or PEIHAI, a city and port of China, in the
west of the province of Kwang-tung, situated on a bay of
the Gulf of Tong-king, formed by a peninsula running
south-west from the fu city of Lien-chow, in 21° 30' N.
lat. and 109° 10' E. long. Dating only from about
1820-30, and at first little better than a nest of pirates,
Pakhoi rapidly grew into commercial importance, owing
partly to the complete freedom which it enjoyed from
taxation, and partly to the diversion of trade produced by
the Tai-ping rebellion. The establishment of a Chinese
custom-house, and the opening of the ports of Hankow and
Haiphong, for a time threatened to injure its prospects;
but, foreign trade being permitted in 1876-77, it began
in 1879 to be regularly visited by foreign steamers. The
average value of the open trade between 1880 and 1882
was £475,000 per annum, and a great deal of smuggling
still takes place. Liquid irfdigo, sugar, aniseed and
aniseed oil, cassia-lignea and cassia oil, cuttle-fish, and
hides are the chief exports. With Macao especially an
extensive junk trade is carried on, £77,000 worth of
p A L — P A L
gooJs being despatched for Paklioi in the course of a year.
A large number of the inhabitants (who exceed 10,000 in
all) are engaged in fishing and fish-curing.
PALACKY, FRAXTI§EK (FRANCIS) (1798-1876), the
Bohemian historian, was born in the year 1798 in the vil
lage of Hodslavice, in the north-eastern corner of Moravia,
where his father was a schoolmaster. His ancestors had
secretly remained Protestants through all the persecutions
of the 17th century, and only declared themselves as such
on the publication of the edict of toleration by the
emperor Joseph II. His mother's name was Anna Krizan; i
she died in the year 1822, before her son had gained his
great reputation. His father, Jiri (George), died in 1836 ;
besides Francis they had three other sons and three
daughters. Concerning the early years of the future his
torian we are told that he was an indefatigable reader,
eagerly devouring all books which came in his way. In
1812 Palacky entered the gymnasium of Pressburg ; his
original intention was to become a Protestant clergyman.
The national movement then going on in the country
aroused the enthusiasm of the youthful student, who was
induced to apply himself to the study of his native tongue
by the Essay on the Bohemian Language of Jungmann.
"\Vhile in Pressburg, Palacky assisted the publicist Palko-
vich in his journal, Tydennik, and first made his appear
ance as an author with a translation of some of the poems
of Ossian (1817), then so popular throughout Europe.
After this he was for some time private tutor in various
families. In 1823 Palacky removed to Prague, and formed
friendships with the leading Czech literati — Jungmann,
Presl, Dobrovsky, Hanka, and others. Dobrovsky intro
duced him to Count Sternberg, and he was appointed editor
of the new Casopis Ceskeho Jfusea, which is still published.
In this occupation he continued till 1838. Count Caspar
Sternberg and his brother were munificent patrons of the
new Bohemian Museum, which had finally been founded
after many efforts. The conduct of these men was the
more remarkable that the Bohemian aristocracy had then
become almost entirely Germanized.
In 1829 Palacky was appointed public historiographer
by the Bohemian states, and made several lengthened tours
to consult documents in public libraries at Munich, Berlin,
Dresden, Rome, and elsewhere. He then commenced
his History of the Bohemian People, which has earned him
the undying gratitude of his countrymen. The first
volume appeared in German in 1836, but the work was
carried on in the Bohemian language from 1848, and was
concluded with the year 1526, the period when Ferdinand
I. ascended the throne and the political independence of
the Czechs ceased. Besides this Palacky obtained a prize
from the Bohemian Society of Arts for his work entitled
Wiirdigung der alten bohmischen Geschichtschreiber. In the
year 1840 he published, in conjunction with Schafarik,
Die dltesten Denkmdler der Bohmischen Spraclie. In this
he appears as the champion of the early Bohemian manu
scripts, the authenticity of which has been so much dis
puted, adopting among others the glosses in the Mater
Verborum in the library at Prague, which have been proved
to be forgeries. In the troubled year 1848 Palacky, a man
of the student type, was forced into political life, but
acquitted himself well. He refused to take a seat in the
German parliament at Frankfort when invited to do so, on
the ground that as a Czech he had nothing to do with Ger
man affairs. It was on this occasion that he uttered the
memorable sentiment that so essential was Austria to the
interests of Europe that, if such an empire had not existed,
it would have been necessary to create one — words which
were afterwards used by Jellachich as the device on his
flag. Before his death, however, Palacky had changed his
opinion, and despaired of any help coming from such a
source. Thus in a series of articles which he published
in his old age under the title Radhost, he tells us — "I
have thought all my life that the right would prevail,
and my mistake has been in believing in the good sense
and spirit of justice of the German people."
So great was the influence of Palacky at this period that
he was offered a portfolio in the ministry of Pillersdorf ;
but in a short time the confidence placed in him by the
Austrian Government was withdrawn, and he was regarded
with suspicion. He soon, however, quitted politics and
betook himself to his literary labours. His influence
among his countrymen was now at its height. In 1860 he
had the misfortune to lose his wife, whom he had
married in 1827. In 1861 he was made a life member of
the Austrian senate. He died in 1876, busy with litera
ture to the end.
The great work of Palacky, his History of the Bohemian
People, is indeed a monument of conscientious labour.
His love of truth and marvellous accuracy are conspicuous
on every page. To enable the Bohemians to resist the
insidious attempts at their denationalization which had
been steadily pursued by their enemies during the 17th
and 18th centuries, it was necessary to bring before them
the great past which they had been taught to forget.
This Palacky has done, and his work has become a
national monument. The occupation of the last years of
his life was the rewriting of some of the chapters, which
had seemed to him imperfectly executed, owing to the
want of original documents or the censorship of the
Austrian Government. In 1845 the first part of his third
volume appeared, dealing with the life and religious
opinions of Huss. As the work was published, it had
already undergone serious mutilation at the hands of the
appointed censors, but the Bohemians saw the history of
Huss presented to them in its true colours ; and so great
was the sensation created that a Roman Catholic publicist
named Helfert was commissioned to write an account of
Huss and Jerome, his disciple, with the view of counter
acting the effects of Palacky's work. This book duly
appeared at Prague in 1857. Palacky, however, must be
considered to have triumphed in the controversy. He
published two other polemical works on the same subject
in German: in 1868 appeared Die Geschichte des Hussiten-
thums und Prof. C. Ho/ler, and in 1871 another work
entitled Zur Bohmischen Geschichtschreibung. Besides the
interesting portion of his work dealing with Huss and the
subsequent Hussite wars, Palacky appears to great advan
tage when dwelling upon the most prosperous periods of
Bohemian nationality, as the reigns of Charles IV. and
George Podebrad. No pains were spared by him in his
researches. Dr Kalousek tells us in his interesting
memoir that, when he visited Rome in 1837 to consult
the library of the Vatican, he read through 45,000 docu
ments in ten weeks and copied 400 of them with his own
hand. The work is a monument of erudition ; but it may
! perhaps be said to be written in a somewhat dry and frigid
' style. It has become familiar to general readers in a
German translation. Palacky also founded an historical
school in Bohemia, foremost among his pupils being
Vaclav Tomek and Antonin Gindely.
PALADIN (Lat., palatinus) literally means a courtier,
a member of a royal household, one connected with a
palace. The palatium of the Roman emperors on the
Palatine Hill supplied a name for all the royal and
imperial residences in mediaeval Europe, and a correspond
ing adjective and noun for royal officials and dependants.
From being applied to the famous twelve peers of
Charlemagne, the word paladin became a general term in
romance for knights of great prowess.
PAL^EICHTHYES. See ICHTHYOLOGY, vol. xii. p. 685.
143
PALJEOGKAPHY
PALAEOGRAPHY is the study of ancient handwriting
from surviving examples. While epigraphy (see
INSCRIPTIONS) is the science which deals with inscriptions
engraved on stone or metal or other enduring material as
memorials for future ages, palaeography takes cognizance
of writings of a literary, economical, or legal nature,
written generally with stile, reed, or pen, on tablets, rolls,
or books. The boundary, however, between the two
sciences is not always to be exactly defined. The fact
that an inscription occurs upon a hard material in a
fixed position does not necessarily bring it under the head
of epigraphy. Such specimens of writing as the graffiti or
wall-scribblings of Pompeii and ancient Rome belong as
much to the one science as to the other ; for they neither
occupy the position of inscriptions set up with special
design as epigraphical monuments, nor are they the
movable written documents with which we connect the
idea of palaeography. But such exceptions only slightly
affect the broad distinction just specified.
The scope of this article is to trace the history of Greek
and Latin palaeography from the earliest written docu
ments in those languages which have survived. In Greek
palaeography we have a subject which is self-contained.
The Greek character, in its pure form, was used for one
language only ; but the universal study of that language
throughout Europe, and the wide diffusion of its litera
ture, have been the cause of the accumulation of Greek
MSS. in every centre of learning. The field of Latin
palaeography is much wider, for the Roman alphabet has
made its way into every country of western Europe, and
the study of its various developments and changes is
essential for a proper understanding of the character which
we wrrite.
Handwriting, like every other art, has its different
phases of growth, perfection, and decay. A particular
form of writing is gradually developed, then takes a
finished or calligraphic style and becomes the hand of its
period, then deteriorates, breaks up, and disappears, or
only drags on an artificial existence, being meanwhile
superseded by another style which, either developed from
the older hand or introduced independently, runs the same
course, and, in its turn, is displaced by a younger rival.
Thus in the history of Greek writing we see the uncial
hand passing from early forms into the calligraphic stage,
and then driven out by the minuscule, which again goes
through a series of important changes. In Latin, the
capital and uncial hands give place to the smaller
character ; and this, after running its course, deteriorates
and is superseded almost universally by the modern Italian
hand dating from the Renaissance.
Bearing in mind these natural changes, it is evident
that a style of writing, once developed, is best at the
period when it is in general use, and that the oldest
examples of that period are the simplest, in which vigour
and naturalness of handwriting are predominant. On
the other hand, the fine execution of a MS. after the best
period of the style has passed cannot conceal deteriora
tion. The imitative nature of the calligraphy is detected
both by the general impression on the eye and by
uncertainty and inconsistencies in the forms of letters.
It is from a failure to keep in mind the natural laws of
development and change that early dates, to which they
have no title, have been given to imitative MSS. ; and on
the other hand, even very ancient examples have been
post-dated in an incredible manner.
Down to the time of the introduction of printing,
writing ran in two lines — the set book-hand and the
cursive. MSS. written in the set book-hand filled the
place now occupied by printed books, the writing being
regular, the lines kept even by ruling, and the pages
provided with regular margins. Cursive writing, in
which the letters employed were fundamentally the same
as in the set hand, was necessary for the ordinary business
of life. The set book-hand disappeared before the print
ing press ; cursive writing necessarily remains.
Materials. — Before passing to the discussion of Greek
and Latin handwriting, the materials employed and the
forms which they took may be briefly noticed. The
various works on palaeography enumerate the different
substances which have been put in requisition to receive
writing. Metals, such as gold, bronze, lead, tin, have
been used ; leaden plates, for example, in addition to
those which have been found buried with the dead and
bearing inscriptions of various kinds, were also used
in the Venetian states down to the 14th or l?th century
as a material on which to inscribe historical and diplo
matic records. The ancient Assyrians recorded their
hfstory on sun-dried or fire-burnt bricks ; and inscribed
potsherds or ostraka have been gathered in hundreds in
the sands of Egypt. Such hard materials as these,
however, would have no extensive use where more pliant
and convenient substances, such as animal skin or vegetable
growths, could be had. We have therefore practically to
confine our attention to such materials as papyrus, vellum,
and paper, the use of which became so universally estab
lished. But midway between the hard and soft substances,
and partaking of the nature of both, stand the waxen
tablets made of wood coated with wax, on which the
writing was scratched with the point of the stilus or
graphium. These tablets were called by the Greeks Se'A/ros,
SeArtoj/ or SeATi'Stor, TTTVKTIOV or TTVKTIOV, Trt'vaf, 7riva/a?, (fee.,
and in Latin tabulae or tabellse, or cerse ; and two or more,
put together and connected with rings or other fastenings
which served as hinges, formed a caudex or codex. A
codex of two leaves was called SidvpoL or SiVy^a, diptycha ;
of three, rpiirrv^a, triptycha ; and so on. From the early
specimens which have survived, and which will be
examined below, the trijrfycka appear to have been most
commonly used. The tablets served for the ordinary
affairs of life, for accounts, letters, drafts, school exercises,
&c. The various references to them by classical writers
need not be here repeated ; but their survival to a late
time should be noted. St Augustine refers to his tablets,
and St Hilary of Aries also mentions their use for the
purpose of correspondence ; and there remains the record
of a letter written in tabella as late as 1148 A.D. (Watten-
bach, Schriftwesen, 2d ed., p. 46). They were very
commonly used through the Middle Ages in all the west of
Europe. Specimens inscribed with money accounts of the
13th and 14th centuries have survived in France; and
similar documents of the 14th and 15th centuries are to
to be found in several of the municipal archives of
Germany. Reference to their use in England occurs in
literature; and specimens of the 14th or 15th century
have been dug up in Ireland. Similarly in Italy their
use is both recorded and proved by actual examples of the
13th or 14th century. With the beginning of the 16th
century their general employment seems to have come to
an end ; but a few survivals of this custom of writing on
wax have lingered on to modern times. It is said that
sales in the fish-market of Rouen are still noted down on
this material.
144
Among the Romans ivory was sometimes substituted
for wood in the waxen tablets, as appears from passages
in classical authors. The large consular diptychs are
examples of the custom. The rich carvings with which
these were embellished have secured their preservation
in several instances ; and they were often kept in the
churches in the Middle Ages and inscribed with lists of
bishops or abbots and benefactors.
The employment of PAPYRUS (q.v.) as an ordinary writing
material in ancient Egypt, and, exported from thence, in
Greece and Italy, is well known. The most ancient
examples of Greek writing which will have to engage our
attention are those which are found in the papyrus rolls
of Egypt of the 2d century B.C. Though superseded in
course of time by vellum, this material continued to be
used by Greek scribes down to the 9th century. The
earliest Latin writing on papyrus is contained in some
fragments recovered at Herculaneum. Dating from the
5th to the 10th century are the papyrus deeds of Ravenna;
and papal documents on the same substance extend from
the 8th to the llth century. Papyrus was also used for
documents in France under the Merovingian kings. It
was also made up into books, for the reception of literary
works, in which form it was sometimes strengthened by
the addition of vellum leaves which encased the quires ;
and, as far as can be ascertained from extant remains, it
was used thus in Italy and France down to the 10th
century.
Skins of animals have doubtless served as a writing
material from the very earliest period of the use of letters.
Instances of the use of leather in western Asia are
recorded by ancient writers ; and from Herodotus we
learn that the lonians applied to the later-imported
papyrus the name Si^epcu, by which they already desig
nated their writing material of leather. The Jews also
have retained the ancient Eastern custom, and still in
scribe the law upon leathern rolls. The use of parch
ment (TrepyafjLrjv-ij, charta pergamena) may be considered a
revival of the ancient use of skins, now prepared by a new
method attributed to Eumenes II., king of Pergamum
(197-158 B.C.), who was opposed by the jealousy of the
Ptolemies in his endeavours to establish a library in his
capital. They forbade the export of papyrus, and so
compelled him to revert to the ancient custom. The
new material was prepared in such a way as to be fit to
receive writing on both sides, and could thus be conveni
ently made up into book-form, the O-W/ACXTIOV. The ancient
name St</>$epcu (Lat., membranae) was also transferred to
the new invention. By common consent the name of
parchment has in modern times given place to that of
vellum, a term properly applicable only to calf-skin, but
now generally used to describe a mediaeval skin-book of
any kind. Parchment is a title now usually reserved for
the hard sheep-skin or other skin material on which law-
deeds are engrossed.
Purple-stained vellum was used by the Romans for
wrappers for their papyrus rolls. In the 3d century it is
recorded that entire volumes were made of this ornamen
tal substance and written in gold or silver ; and it was
against luxury of this kind that St Jerome directed his
often-quoted words" in his preface to the book of Job.
Examples of such costly MSS. of the 6th century have
survived to the present day, as the Codex Argenteus of the
Gothic Gospels at Upsala, the fragments of the illustrated
Genesis at Vienna, the leaves of the purple Gospels in the
Cottonian Library and elsewhere, the Codex Rossanensis,
lately discovered, and some others. Some richly stained
leaves of the 8th century remain in the Canterbury
Gospels (Royal MS., 1 E. vi.) in the British Museum. On
the Continent the great impetus given to the production of
splendid MSS. under the rule of Charlemagne revived the
art of staining ; and several fine examples of it exist in
MSS. of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. At a later
period, when the art was forgotten, the surface only of the
vellum was painted in imitation of the older staining which
soaked into the substance of the skin. Other colours
besides purple were sometimes employed, particularly in
the period of the Renaissance, to paint or stain vellum; but
MSS. so treated are rather to be regarded as curiosities
produced by the caprice of the moment.
Cotton paper (charta bombycina) is said to have been
known to the Chinese at a remote period, and to have
passed into use among the Arabs early in the 8th century.
It was imported into Constantinople, and was used for
Greek MSS. in the 13th century. In Italy and the West
it never made much way. Rag paper came into general
use in Europe in the 14th century, and gradually displaced
vellum. In the 15th century MSS. of vellum and paper
mixed were common. See PAPER.
With regard to the forms in which writing material was
made up, the waxen tablets have already been referred to,
and will be more minutely described below. Ancient
papyri usually appear in the form of rolls ; vellum was
made up into books. The roll (KV\LV?>PO<;, volumtn ; later,
elXrjrdpLov, flXrjTov, e^e/A^/xa, rotidus) was the ordinary form
of written documents known to the ancients. When a
work was contained in several rolls, a single roll was
called /3i'/3Aos, /3i/3AtW, vohimen, charta ; later, TO/XOS. From
the circumstance of the Bible filling many rolls it acquired
such titles as pandectes and bibliotheca, the latter of which
remained in use down to the 14th century. The title of
the work was written at the end of the roll ; and at the
same place was recorded the number of columns and lines,
o-Tt^ot, which it contained — probably for the purpose of
estimating the price. To roll and unroll was fiAeu/ and
e£etAeiv, plicare and explicare ; the work unrolled and read
to the end was the liber explicitus. Hence comes the com
mon explicit written at the end of a work ; and, from the
analogy of incipit liber in titles, the word was afterwards
taken for a verb, and appears in such phrases as explicit
liber, explicit, expliceat, &c.
The book- form was adopted from the waxen tablets, and
the name caudex or codex was also taken over. It has
been inferred, from the terms in which Martial speaks of
vellum books, that they were articles of luxury at Rome;
and, although no examples have survived from classical
times, and none were found in the ruins of Herculaueum,
the sumptuousness of the earliest extant volumes supports
this view. The shape in which they are made up during
the early centuries of the Middle Ages is the broad quarto.
The quires or gatherings of which the book was formed
generally consisted, in the earliest examples, of four sheets
folded to make eight leaves (TET/DUS or TerpaSiov, quaternio),
although occasionally quinterns, or quires of five sheets
(ten leaves), were adopted. Sexterns, or quires of six
sheets (twelve leaves), came into use at a later period. The
quire-mark, or " signature," was usually written at the
foot of the last page, but in some early instances (e.g., the
Codex Alexandrinus) it appears at the head of the first
page. The numbering of the separate leaves in a quire, in
the fashion followed by early printers, came in in the 14th
century. Catch-words to connect the quires date back to
the 12th century.
No exact system was followed in ruling the lines and
in arranging the sheets when ruled. In the case of
papyri it was enough to mark with the pencil the vertical
marginal lines to bound the text ; the grain of the papyrus
was a sufficient guide for the lines of writing. With the
firmer material of vellum it became necessary to rule lines
to keep the writing even. These lines were at first drawn
PALAEOGRAPHY
145
with a liard point, almost invariably on the hair (or outer)
side of the skin, and strongly enough to be in relief on the
flesh (or inner) side. Marginal lines were drawn to bound
the text laterally ; but the ruled lines which guided the
writing were not infrequently drawn right across the
sheet. Each sheet should be ruled separately ; but two or
more sheets were often laid and ruled together, the lines
being drawn with so much force that the lower sheets also
received the impressions. In rare instances lines are found
ruled on both sides of the leaf, as in some parts of the
Codex Alexandrinus. In this same MS. and in other
early codices the ruling was not always drawn for every
line of writing, but was occasionally spaced so that the
writing ran between the ruled lines as well as on them.
In making up the quires, care was generally taken to lay
the sheets in such a way that hair-side faced hair-side, and
flesh-side faced flesh-side ; so that, when the book was
opened, the two pages before the reader had the same
appearance, either the yellow tinge of the hair-side, or the
fresh whiteness of the flesh-side. In Greek MSS. the
arrangement of the sheets was afterwards reduced to a
system : the first sheet was laid with the flesh-side down
wards, so that that side began the quire ; yet in so early
an example as the Codex Alexandrinus the first page of a
quire is the hair-side. In Latin MSS. also the hair-side
appears generally to have formed the first page. Ruling
with the plummet or lead-point came into ordinary use in
the 12th century; red and violet inks were used for orna
mental ruling in the 15th century. The lines were evenly
spaced by means of prickings in the margins ; in some
early MSS. these prickings run down the middle of the page.
Inks of various colours were employed from, early times.
Red is found in initial lines, titles, and colophons in the
earliest vellum MSS. For purposes of contrast it was
also used in glosses, as in the Lindisfarne Gospels and in
the Durham Ritual. In the Carlovingian period entire
volumes were occasionally written with this ink. Other
coloured inks — green, violet, and yellow — are also found at
an early date. Writing in gold and silver was inscribed on
purple vellum in ancient MSS., as has been noted above;
under Charlemagne it again came into fashion. Gold was
then applied to the writing of ordinary vellum MSS. It
was also introduced into English MSS. in the 10th
century.
With regard to writing implements, it will be here
enough to note that for writing on waxen tablets the pointed
stilus or grapkium was used ; that the reed (/caA.a//o?,
calamus or canna) was adapted for both papyrus and
vellum, and that in Italy at least it appears to have been
used as late as the 15th century; and that the quill pen
can be traced back to the 6th century of our era.
GREEK WRITING.
The period which has to be traversed in following the
history of Greek palaeography begins with the 2d century
B.C. and ends at the close of the 15th century. For all
this long period the subject is illustrated by a fair amount
of material, more or less connected in chronological
sequence. Greek writing in MSS., as far as we know it
from extant remains, passed through two courses, — that of
the uncial or large letter, and that of the minuscule or
small letter. The period of the uncial runs from the date
of the earliest specimens on papyrus to the 9th century,
that of the minuscule from the 9th century to the inven
tion of printing. An established form of writing, however,
cannot, any more than any other human habit, be suddenly
abandoned for a new one ; and we are therefore prepared
to find the uncial character continue to be used after the
first introduction of the smaller hand. It did in fact sur
vive for special purposes for some three centuries after it
had ceased to be the common form of book- writing.
Inversely, no fully developed handwriting suddenly
springs into existence ; and we therefore look for the first
beginnings of the minuscule hand in documents of far
higher antiquity than those of the 9th century.
Uncial. — The term uncial has been borrowed from the
nomenclature of Latin palaeography1 and applied to Greek
writing of the larger type to distinguish it from the minus
cule or smaller character. In Latin majuscule writing
there exist both capitals and uncials, each class distinct.
In Greek MSS. pure capital letter-writing was never
employed (except occasionally for ornamental titles at a
late time). As distinguished from the square capitals of
inscriptions, the uncial writing has certain rounded letters,
as 6, C, (x), modifications in others, and some extending
above or below the line.
Uncial Greek writing in early times is found in two
forms, — the set and the cursive. En examining the set or,
as it may be termed, the literary hand, we find that regard
must be had to the material on which it was written. For
the material has always had more or less influence on the
character of the writing. To the substitution of a soft
surface for a hard one, of the pen for the graving tool, we
undoubtedly owe the rounded forms of the uncial letters.
The square-formed capitals were more easily cut on stone
or metal ; the round letters more readily traced on skin
or wax or papyrus with stile, reed, or pen. Again, the
earliest specimens of Greek uncials are found on papyrus ;
and this delicate and brittle material naturally required a
light style of penmanship. When the firmer material of
vellum came into use, there followed a change in the style
of writing, which assumed the calligraphic form, which will
be considered in its place.
The earliest examples of Greek uncial writing are on
papyrus, and have been discovered in Egypt and in the
ruins of Herculaneum. When we turn to the literary
remains with the view of following the course of the set
hand, a difficulty arises at the outset ; for in some of the
most ancient specimens (and notably the EiSogov Texvrj
referred to below) there is a fluctuation between set and
cursive writing which makes it no easy matter to decide
how they should be classed. In the same way, when we
come to consider the first examples' of cursive hand, we
shall find much in them which might be termed a set cast
of writing. In fact, in the period when these ancient
examples were produced, the formal and cursive styles were
not so distinctive as they afterwards became. For our
present purpose we may class the literary works in this
doubtful style of writing under the book-hand, and place
the documents among the specimens of cursive.
With regard to the different dates to be assigned to
these early relics, those which have been recovered from
Herculaneum have a limit, after which they cannot have
been written, in the year of the destruction of the city,
79 A.D. But how far before that date they may be set
it is hazardous to conjecture, although the greater number
probably fall within the 1st century of our era. In the
case of most of the Egyptian papyri there is no such limit
either way. In some instances, however, literary remains
have been found in company with deeds bearing an actual
date, and in two of them the documents are written on
the backs of the literary papyri. The work on astronomy
entitled E^Sofou rexy^, among the papyri of the Louvre
(N. et Extr., pis. i.-x.),2 is endorsed with deeds of 165 and
1 St Jerome's often-quoted words, " uncialibus, ut vulgo aiunt,
litteris," in his preface to the book of Job, have never been explained.
Of the character referred to as " uncial " there is no doubt, but the
derivation of the term is unknown.
2 Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, vol. xviii., Paris, 1865.
XVIII. — 19
146
164 B.C., and may consequently be at least as old as the
first half of the 2d century B.C. The writing of the text
of this MS., as has been already noticed, is of a rather
cursive character. But the fragments of a work on
dialectics in the same collection (J\r. et Extr., pi. xi.), which
is endorsed with a deed of 160 B.C., is written in set
uncials of a perfectly simple style, formed with fine and
even strokes. The columns of writing lean out of the per
pendicular, to the right, a peculiarity which is seen again
in the orations of Hyperides (below). So far as one may
venture to take this specimen as a standard whereby to
judge of the age of others, ' a simple and fine and light
stroke, without exaggeration of forms in the letters, and
unrestraint in the flow of the writing seem to be the chief
characteristics of this class of hand in the centuries
immediately preceding the Christian era. And these
characteristics are generally to be observed in all docu
ments which there is reason to assign to this period.
Not inconsiderable fragments of the Iliad dating from
the pre-Christian period have also come down to us.
First in importance stands the fragmentary papyrus of bk.
xviii., found in a tomb near Monfalat in 1849-50. It may
be confidently dated as early as the 1st century B.C. The
text is written in slender uncials, formed with regularity
and generally upright, the inclination, if any, being to the
left. This tendency to incline the letters back is a mark
of age which repeats itself in the earliest forms of the set
minuscule hand. Breathings and accents and various cor
rections have been added by a later hand in this papyrus,
which is now in the British Museum (Cat. Am. MSS., i.
pi. I.).1 Another papyrus of a portion of the Iliad, on
the back of which is a work of Tryphon, the grammarian,
was found at the same time, but remains in private hands.
Among the papyri of the Louvre are also some fragments
of the Iliad, viz., of bk. xiii. (N. et Extr., pi. xii.) and of
bks. vi. and xviii. (pi. xlix.), all of a date previous to the
Christian era. The fragment of bk. vi. is of particular
interest as being written in a hand which is much more
set and formal than is generally found in papyri, in rather
narrowed letters, among which the normal form of capital
A appears. In the other fragments are seen here and
there accents and breathings which from all accounts are
ancient, although not to be taken as the work of the first
hand. Not being applied systematically, they are probably
added by some teacher for instruction on particular points.
But the Homeric papyrus which has hitherto had the
widest reputation is that which bears the name of its
former owner, Bankes, who bought it at Elephantine in
1821. It contains the greater part of the last book of the
Iliad. The writing, however, differs very essentially from
that of the other Homeric fragments just noticed. It is
less free, and wants the spirit and precision of the others,
and in the form of letters it approaches more nearly to the
cast of those in the early MSS. on vellum. For these
reasons it seems better to date this papyrus after the time
of our Lord, perhaps even in the 2d century.
A fragment of papyrus containing a copy in duplicate
of some lines supposed to be taken from the Temenid.es of
Euripides, together with a few lines from the Medea and
some extracts from other works, has been lately published
(H. Weil, Un Pajryrus inedit de la bibl. de M. A. Firmin-
Didot, Paris, 1879). The writing is in set uncials earlier
than the year 161 B.C., a document of that date having
been added.
But the most important discovery hitherto made among
the papyri from Egypt is that of four of the orations of
the Athenian orator Hyperides, all of which are now in
the British Museum. The papyrus containing the orations
1 Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum — Part I.,
Greek, 1881.
for Lycophron and Euxenippus is in unusually good pre
servation, being 11 feet in length and having forty-nine
columns of writing. Other portions of the same roll are
extant, containing fragments of a third oration against
Demosthenes. The writing is particularly elegant, and is
evidently by a skilled penman, considerable play being
exhibited in the formation of the letters, which, while
still set uncials, are often linked together without raising
the pen. The columns of writing incline to the right.
There can be no hesitation in placing this papyrus as far
back at least as the 1st century B.C. (see editions of
Professor Babington, 1853; Cat. Anc. MSS., pis. 2, 3;
Pal. Soc.? pi. 126). Of much later date, however, is the
papyrus containing the funeral oration on Leosthenes,
323 B.C. The writing differs entirely from that of the
other orations, being in coarsely-formed uncials, sometimes
wide apart and in other places cramped together ; and the
forms of the letters are irregular. This irregularity is not
the rough and hasty character of writing of an early age,
such as that of the EuSd£ou re^^, where, in spite of the
want of regularity, it is evident that the scribe is writing
a natural and practised hand. Here we have rather the
ill-formed character bred of want of skill and familiarity
with the style of writing. On the back is a horoscope,
which has been shown to be that of a person born in 95
A.D. It was at one time assumed that this was an addition
written after the oration had been inscribed on the other
face of the papyrus. But from the evidence of the
material itself the contrary appears to be the fact ; and
we may accordingly accept the theory that, as no work
intended for sale would have b'een so written, the text of the
oration probably represents a student's exercise, — a view
which is also supported by the numerous faults in ortho
graphy. This specimen of writing, then, may be assigned
to the 2d century of our era.
Lastly, among the discoveries in Egypt in Greek litera
ture is the fragment of writings of the poet Alcman, now
in the Louvre, which, however, appears to be not older
than the 1st century B.C., the hand being light and rather
sloping, and inclining in places to cursive forms. It is of
interest as having scholia in a smaller hand, and a few
accents and breathings added probably, as in the case of
the fragment of Homer quoted above, by a teacher for the
purpose of demonstration (N. et Extr., pi. 1.). It may be
also added that some early documents are extant written
in a set hand (e.g., N. et Extr., pi. xvii., Nos. 12, 13).
Turning to the remains discovered at Herculaneum, it
is to be regretted that there exist hardly any sufficiently
trustworthy facsimiles. The so-called facsimiles engraved
in the Herculanemia Volumina are of no palseographical
value. They are mere lifeless representations, and only
show us that the texts of the different papyri. are usually
written in neatly-formed and regularly-spaced uncials.
The character is better shown in two autotypes (Pal.
Soc., pis. 151, 152) from the works of Philodemus and
Metrodorus, although the blackening of the material by
the action of the heated ashes threw great difficulty in the
way of getting satisfactory reproductions by photography.
In the first of these specimens the writing is very beauti
fully formed and evenly spaced, in the second it is rougher.
But it is well to remember, when we have facsimiles from
the Herculaneum papyri before us, that in many cases the
material will have shrunk under the heat of the destroying
shower, and that the writing, as we see it, may be much
smaller than it was originally, and so have a more delicate
appearance than when first written.
Very few waxen tablets inscribed with Greek uncial
writing have survived. Two of them found at Memphis
are preserved in the British Museum, and on one of them
'-' Palajographical Society, Facsimiles, 1873-83.
PALEOGRAPHY
147
are traced some verses in large roughly-formed letters, the
date of which can only be conjectured to fall in the 1st
century ( Verhandl. d. Philologen- Versamml. zu Wurzburg,
1869, p. 244). Another set of five tablets is in the
Cabinet des Me'dailles at Paris, containing scribbled
alphabets, and a contractor's accounts in a later and more
current hand (Rev. ArcheoL, viji. p. 461). A tablet from
which the wax has worn, and which is inscribed with ink
upon the wood, in characters of the 4th century, as is
thought, is described in Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit., 2d ser.,
vol. x.
With the introduction of vellum as a writing material,
the uncial characters entered on a new phase. As already
observed, the firmer and smoother ground offered by the
surface of the vellum to the pen of the scribe would lead
to a more exact and firmer style in the writing. The light
touch and delicate forms so characteristic of calligraphy
on papyrus gave place to a rounder and stronger hand, in
which the contrast of fine hair-lines and thickened down-
strokes adds so conspicuously to the beauty of the writing
of early MSS. on vellum. Of such MSS., however, none
have survived which are attributed to a higher antiquity
than the 4th century. And here it may be remarked, with
respect to the attribution to particular periods of these
early examples, that we are not altogether on firm ground.
Internal evidence, such, for example, as the presence of the
Eusebian Canons in a MS. of the Gospel, assists us in fixing
a limit of age, but when there is no such support the
dating of these early MSS. must be more or less con
jectural. It is not till the beginning of the 6th century
that we meet with a MS. which can be approximately
dated ; and, taking this as a standard of comparison, we
are enabled to distinguish those which undoubtedly have
the appearance of greater age and to arrange them in some
sort of chronological order. But these codices are too few
in number to afford material in sufficient quantity for
training the eye by familiarity with a variety of hands of
any one period — the only method which can give entirely
trustworthy results.
The earliest examples of vellum uncial MSS. are the
three famous codices of the Bible. Of these, the most
ancient, the Codex Vaticanus, is probably of the 4th
century. The writing must, in its original condition, have
been very perfect as a specimen of penmanship ; but nearly
the whole of the text has been traced over by a later hand,
perhaps in the 10th or llth century, and only such words
or letters as were rejected as readings have been left
untouched. Written in triple columns, in letters of
uniform size, without enlarged initial letters to mark even
the beginnings of books, the MS. has all the simplicity
of extreme antiquity (Pal. Soc., pi. 104). The Codex
Sinaiticus (Pal. Soc., pi. 105) has also the same marks of
age, and is judged by its discoverer, Tischendorf, to be
even more ancient than the Vatican MS. In this, how
ever, a comparison of the writing of the two MSS. leads to
the conclusion that he was wrong. The writing of the
Codex Sinaiticus is not so pure as that of the other MS.,
and, if that is a criterion of age, the Vatican MS. holds
the first place. In one particular the 'Codex Sinaiticus
has been thought to approach in form to its possible
archetype on papyrus. It is written with four columns
to a page, the open book thus presenting eight columns
in sequence, and recalling the long line of columns on
an unfolded roll. The Codex Alexandrinus is placed
in the middle of the 5th century. Here we have an
advance on the style of the other two codices. The MS.
is written in double columns only, and enlarged letters
stand at the beginning of paragraphs. But yet the writing
is generally more elegant than that of the Codex
Sinaiticus. Examining these MSS. with a view to ascer
tain the rules which guided the scribes in their work, we
find simplicity and regularity the leading features ; the
round letters formed in symmetrical curves ; € and C, &c.,
finishing off in a hair-line sometimes thickened. at the end
into a dot; horizontal strokes fine, those of e, H, and O
being either in the middle or high in the letter ; the base
of A and the cross-stroke of II also fine, and, as a rule,
kept within the limits of the letters and not projecting
beyond. Here also may be noticed the occurrence in the
Codex Alexandrinus of Coptic forms of letters (e.g., A, JLL,
alpha and mu) in the titles of books, &c., confirmatory of
the tradition of the Egyptian origin of the MS.
nne i< KI <JU M C ovrre r TTTX.TO Y K*
Tv^ce i^ixxMoei
Greek Uncial (Cod. Alex. ), 5th century.
(rfKvtav <rov irepiirarovv
TOS sv a.\t)6fia. KaQias tvro
\-rjv t\afio/j.fv euro TOV ir[ar]p[o]s. — 2 John 4.)
In the 5th century also falls the illustrated Homer of
the Ambrosian Library, sadly -mutilated. Some fifty frag
ments remain, cut out for the sake of the pictures which
they contain ; and all the text that is preserved is that
which happened to be on the backs of these pictures.
Here the writing shows differences from that of the three
codices just noticed, being taller ; and, to instance particu
lar letters, the cross-stroke of € is abnormally low down, and
the shape of A and P (the latter not produced below the
line) and the large bows of B are also points of difference.
It has been suggested that the MS. was written in the
south of Italy by a Latin scribe (Pal. Soc., pis. 39, 40, 50,
51).
To the 5th century may also belong the palimpsest MS.
of the Bible, known from the upper text as the Codex
Ephraemi, at Paris (ed. Tischendorf, 1845), and the
Octateuch, whose extant leaves are divided between Paris,
Leyden, and St Petersburg — both of which MSS. are prob
ably of Egyptian origin. Of the end of the 5th or
beginning of the 6th century is the illustrated Genesis
of the Cottonian Library, now unfortunately reduced to
fragments by fire, but once the finest example of its kind
(Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 8). And to about the same time
belong the Dio Cassius of the Vatican (Silvestre, pi. 60)
and the Pentateuch of the Bibliotheque Nationale (Id.,
pi. 61).
In the writing of uncial MSS. of the 6th century there
is a marked degeneration. The letters, though still round,
are generally of a larger character, more heavily formed,
and not so compactly written as in the preceding century.
Horizontal strokes (e.g., in A, II, T) are lengthened and
finished off with heavy points or finials. The earliest ex
ample of this period which has to be noticed is the Dios-
corides of Vienna, which is of particular value for the study
of the palaeography of early vellum MSS. It is the earliest
example to which an approximate date can be given.
There is good evidence to show that it was written early
in the 6th century for Juliana Anicia, daughter of Flavins
Anicius Olybrius, emperor of the West in 472. Here we
already notice the characteristics of uncial writing of the
6th century, to which reference has been made. To this
century also belong the palimpsest Homer under a Syriac
text, in the British Museum (Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 9); its
companion volume, used by the same, Syrian scribe, in
which are fragments of St Luke's Gospel (Ibid., pi. 10);
the Dublin palimpsest fragments of St Matthew and Isaiah
(T. K. Abbot, Par Palimpsest. Dull.), written in Egypt;
the fragments of the Pauline epistles from Mount Athos,
some of which are at Paris and others at Moscow (Silvestre,
148
pis. 63, 64 ; Sabas, pi. A), of which, however, the writing
has been disfigured by retracing at a later period ; the
Gospels written in silver and gold on purple vellum, whose
leaves are scattered in London (Cott. MS., Titus C. xv.),
Rome, Vienna, and its native home, Patmos ; the frag
mentary Eusebian Canons written on gilt vellum and
highly ornamented, the sole remains of some sumptuous
volume (Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 11) ; the Coislin Octateuch
(Silvestre, pi. 65) ; the Genesis of Vienna, one of the very
few early illustrated MSS. which have survived (Pal. Soc.,
pi. 178). Tischendorf has given facsimiles of others, but
too insufficiently for the critical study of palaeography.
Reference may here be made to certain early bilingual
Gra?co-Latin uncial MSS., written in the 6th and 7th
centuries, which, however, have rather to be studied apart,
or in connexion with Latin palseography ; for the Greek
letters of these MSS. run more or less upon the lines of
the Latin forms. The best-known of these examples are
the Codex Bezas of the New Testament, at Cambridge (Pal.
Soc., pis. 14, 15), and the Codex Claromontanus of the
Pauline epistles, at Paris (Pal. Soc., pis. 63, 64), attributed
to the 6th century; and the Laudian MS. of the Acts of
the Apostles (Pal. Soc., pi. 80) of the 7th century. To
these may be added the Harleian glossary (Cat. Anc. MSS.,
i, pi. 13), also of the 7th century.
An offshoot of early Greek uncial writing on vellum is
seen in the Moeso-Gothic alphabet which Ulfilas constructed
for the use of his countrymen, in the 4th century, mainly
from the Greek letters. Of the few extant remains of
Gothic MSS. the oldest and most perfect is the Codex |
Argenteus of the Gospels, at Upsala, of the 6th century •
(Pal. Soc., pi. 118), written in characters which com
pare with purely written Greek MSS. of the same ,
period. Other Gothic fragments appear in the sloping
uncial hand seen in Greek MSS. of the 7th and following
centuries.
About the year 600 Greek Uncial writing passes into a
new stage. • We leave the period of the round and enter on j
that of the oval character. The letters €, 0, O, C, instead i
of being symmetrically formed on the lines of a circle, are
made oval ; and other letters aTe laterally compressed into
a narrow shape. In the 7th century also the writing
begins to slope to the right, and accents arc introduced
and afterwards systematically applied. This slanting style
of uncials continued in use through the 8th and 9th- cen
turies, becoming heavier as time goes on. In this class
of writing there is again the same dearth of dated MSS.
as in the round uncial, to serve as standards for the assign
ment of dates. We have to reach the 9th century before
finding a single dated MS. in this kind of writing. It is
true that sloping Greek uncial writing is found in a few
scattered notes and glosses in Syriac MSS. which bear
actual dates in the 7th century, and they are so far useful
as showing that this hand was firmly established at that
time ; but they do not afford sufficient material in quan
tity to be of really practical use for comparison (see the
tables of alphabets in Gardthausen's Griech. Paldog.}. Of
more value are a few palimpsest fragments of the Elements
of Euclid and of Gospel Lectionaries which occur also in
the Syriac collection in the British Museum, and are
written in the 7th and 8th centuries. There is also in the
Vatican a MS. (Reg. 886) of the Theodosian code, which
can be assigned with fair accuracy to the close of the 7th
century (Gardth., Gr. Pal., p. 158), which, however,
being calligraphic%lly written, retains some of the earlier
rounder forms. This MS. may be taken as an example of
transitional style. In the fragment of a mathematical
treatise from Bobio, forming part of a MS. rewritten in
the 8th century and assignable to the previous century,
the slanting writing is fully developed. The formation
of the letters is good, and conveys the impression that the
scribe was writing a hand quite natural to him.
P f
fTS t» f 0 Ay tf y,V*/> f C
Greek Uncial (Matliemat. Treatise), 7th century.
wpos TI /uereuipoj/
ffreptou
)
It should be also noticed that in this MS. — a secular one
— there are numerous abbreviations (AVattenbach, Script.
Gr. Specim.,1 tab. 8). An important document of this
time is also the fragment of papyrus in the Imperial
Library at Vienna, which bears the signatures of bishops
and others to the Acts of the council of Constantinople of
680. Some of the signatures are in slanting uncials (Wat-
tenb., Script. Gr. Specim., tabb. 12, 13 ; Gardth., Gr. Pal.,
tab. 1). Of the 8th century is the collection of hymns
(Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 26113) written without breathings
or accents (Cat. Anc. MSS , i pi. 14). To the same cen
tury belongs the Codex Marcianus, the Venetian MS. of
the Old Testament, which is marked with breathings and
accents. The plate reproduced from this MS. (Wattenb.,
Script. Gr. Specim., tab. 9) contains in the second column
a few lines written in round uncials, but in such a laboured
style that nothing could more clearly prove the discontinu
ance of that form of writing as an ordinary hand. In the
middle of the 9th century at length we find a MS. with a
date in the Psalter of Bishop Uspensky of the year 862
(Wattenb., Script. Gr. Specim., tab. 10). A little later in
date is the MS. of Gregory of Nazianzus, written between
867 and 886 (Silvestre, pi. 71) ; and at the end of the
9th or beginning of the 10th century stands a lectionary
in the Harleian collection (Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 17).
But by this time minuscule writing was well estab
lished, and the use of the more inconvenient uncial was
henceforth confined to church-service books. Owing to
this limitation uncial writing now underwent a further
calligraphic change. As the 10th century advances the
sloping characters by degrees become more upright, and
with this resumption of their old position they begin in the
next century to cast off the compressed formation and
again become rounder. All this is simply the result of
calligraphic imitation. Service-books have always been
the MSS. in particular on which finely-formed writing has
been lavished ; and it was but natural that, when a style
of writing fell into general disuse, its continuance, where
it did continue, should become more and more traditional,
and a work of copying rather than of writing. In the
10th century there are a few examples bearing dates.
Facsimiles from two of them, the Curzon Lectionary of
980 and the Harleian Lectionary of 995, have been printed
(Pal. Soc., pis. 154, 26, 27). The Bodleian commentary on
the Psalter (D. 4, 1) is likewise of great pakeographic
value, being written partly in uncials and partly in minus
cules of the middle of the 10th century (Gardth., Gr. Pal.,
p. 159, tab. 2, col. 4). This late form of uncial writing
appears to have lasted to about tlie middle of the 12th
century. From it was formed the Slavonic writing in
use at the present day.
Under the head of late uncial writing must be classed
a few bilingual Graeco-Latin MSS. which have survived,
written in a bastard kind of uncial in the west of Europe.
This writing follows, wherever the shapes of the letters
permit, the formation of corresponding Latin characters, —
the purely Greek forms being imitated in a clumsy
fashion. Such MSS. are the Codex Augiensis of Trinity
College, Cambridge, of the end of the 9th century (Pal.
1 Scriptural Grtecae Specimino., Berlin, 1883.
PALEOGRAPHY
149
Soc., pi. 127), and the Psalter of St Nicholas of Cusa (pi.
128) and the Codex Sangallensis and Boernerianus of the
10th century (pi. 179). The same imitative characters are
used in quotations of Greek words in Latin MSS. of the
same periods.
Cursive. — The materials for the study of early Greek
cursive writing are found in papyri discovered in Egypt
and now deposited in the British Museum, the Louvre, the
library of Leyden, and the Vatican. The earliest of these
to which an exact date can be assigned are contained in
the collection of documents of a certain Ptolemy, son of
Glaucias, a Macedonian Greek, who became a recluse of
the Serapseum at Memphis in 173-172 B.C., and collected
or wrote these documents relating to himself and others
connected with the service of the temple in the middle of
the 2d century B.C. A series of these and other documents
can be selected so as to give a fairly continuous course of
cursive handwriting from that period for several centuries.
The papyri are supplemented by the ostraka or potsherds
on which were written the receipts for payment of taxes,
itc., in Egypt under the Roman empire, and which have
been found in large quantities. Lastly there are still
extant a few specimens of Greek cursive writing on
waxen tablets ; and in documents of the 6th and 7th cen
turies from Naples and Ravenna there are found subscrip
tions in Latin written in Greek characters (Marini,
I papiri diplom., 90, 92, 121; Cod. Dipt. Cavensis, vol.
ii., No. 250).
Facsimiles of the cursively written papyri are found
scattered in different works, some dealing specially with
the subject. By far the most plentiful and best executed
are those which reproduce the specimens preserved at Paris
in the atlas accompanying Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits,
vol. xviii.
In the earliest examples of cursive writing we find the
uncial character in use, and, as has been already remarked,
many of the specimens fluctuate between the more formal
or set book-hand and the cursive. As time goes on the
two styles diverge more widely. The uncial book-hand had,
as we have seen, a disposition to become more formal ;
cursive writing naturally has the opposite tendency, to
become more flowing and disintegrated, the more exten
sively it is used. But the fact that there existed in Egypt
in the 2d century B.C. a cursive hand not differing very
material!}" from a more formal contemporary hand seems
to indicate that the two styles had diverged at no very
long time before. It cannot, however, be supposed that
a cursive form of Greek writing did not exist still earlier.
The highly developed calligraphy of the earliest examples
proves that Greek writing, as we there see it, was then no
newly-discovered art. Judging by the analogy of later
reforms, it is perhaps not going too far to conjecture that
in the papyri under consideration we see the results of a
calligraphic reform, in which a new model was perfected
from earlier styles.
The cursive hand in its best style (e.g., N. et Extr., pis.
xxviii., xxix.) is very graceful and exact. This elegance
is indeed characteristic of most of the writings of the 2d
century B.C., and if a criterion can be established for assist
ing in the difficult problem of dating the early papyri, this
simplicity and evenness of writing appears to be the best.
XTP )TnX»7~j
A^f^r^
Greek Cursive, 163-162 B.C.
In the course of successive centuries the cursive hand
becomes slacker and more sloping. There is more com
bination of letters, and a continual disintegration, so to
say, of the forms of the letters themselves. Naturally the
letters which undergo most change are those which lend
themselves most readily to combination with others.
Alplia, for example, a letter in constant use, and appearing
in frequently recurring words (as KCU), quickly altered its
shape. In the earliest papyri it is seen more cursively
written than most of its fellows. Epsilon, again, is a letter
which soon took a second form. It was found easier to
make the cross-bar in conjunction with the upper half of
the curve of the letter than by a separate stroke after the
formation of the full curve S. The upper half of the
letter naturally linked itself with the next following letter;
and the epsilon thus broken is found as early as a hundred
years B.C., and runs through succeeding centuries. The
tau was treated in the same way. In the specimen given
above it may be seen how the scribe first made half the
horizontal stroke and attached it to the main limb by one
action of the pen 1, and then added the other half
separately. By this device he avoided moving his hand
far back. Next, to write the letter in one stroke, some
thing like a y, was a natural development. The transforma
tion of pi follows on the same lines ; and the ?i-shaped
nu comes from the capital letter quickly written, just as
tfee same shape was derived in the Roman alphabet. Such
a form as the sickle-shaped rko j> is one that would be
expected ; but the system of breaking-up is in no form
better illustrated than in the case of delta. This letter, it
might be thought, would, from its original shape, resist
combination more than any other, yet even in the 2d
century B.C. this combination is accomplished, and delta
occasionally appears open on the right side and linked
with the following letter <£•
Minuscule. — The gradual disintegration of the pure
forms of the early uncials by this progressive development
of more cursive characters led eventually to the formation
of minuscule letters. By the beginning of the 6th cen
tury most of the letters which are afterwards recognized
as minuscules in form had become individually developed.
For example, the three letters B, H, and K, which in their
capital or uncial shapes are quite distinct, had, at this
period, acquired alternative shapes which are not very
dissimilar from one another, and which by a careless reader
may be confused. The letter B in cursive writing lost its
loops and was joined by a tag to the following letter — a
process by which it became very like the Latin u. So the
H readily passed through the form D to la ; and K became
U. The A developed at the apex an elongation of the
right side of the triangle, which, for junction with the next
letter, was bent over, and hence resulted the small 8. The
transformation of M through m to p., and of N through U
to fj, is obvious. This development, however, of minuscules
from the old uncials was a work of time. The incipient
changes in individual letters can be detected in papyri of
the 2d and 1st centuries B.C. ; but a fully developed
minuscule hand, used as an independent form of writing,
had no existence for some centuries to come. Arrived,
however, at the end of the 6th century, we find a document
of 600 A.D. given in facsimile in the Notices et Extraits
(pi. xxiii., No. 20), the writing of which is so full of the
.smaller letters that the hand is practically a minuscule one.
This document and six others which are extant formed
part of the business papers of one Aurelius Pachymius, a
dealer in purple dye, and, ranging in date from 592 to
616 A.D., are valuable material for elucidating the history of
the Greek minuscule character. After an interval of eighty
years another important document presents itself, in which
the two styles of writing, the old uncial and the new
minuscule, are seen on the same page. This is the frag-
ir>o
PALAEOGRAPHY
mcntary papyrus at Vienna, originally brought from
Ravenna, which contains the subscriptions of bishops and
others to the acts of the synod of Constantinople of 680
A.D. A facsimile was first printed by Lambecius (Comm.
d» Bibl. Cxsar., ed. Kollar, lib. viii. p. 863), and is repro
duced by Wattenbach (Script. Gr. Specim., tabb. 12, 13),
whose latest opinion, however, with regard to the document
is, that the writing is too uniform to be the actual subscrip
tions, but that it is the work of a scribe imitating to some
extent (and certainly so far that he has repeated the uncials
and minuscules as he found them) the peculiarities of the
original. This appears to be really the case, but the
document being a nearly contemporary copy continues to
have considerable paloeographical value. An analysis ol
the alphabets of this papyrus and of the one of 600
A.D. cited above is given by Gardthau&en (Gr. Pal, taf.
4). The facsimile of the will of Abram, bishop of
Harmonthis (Pal. Soc., pi. 107), may also be referred to as
showing the mixture of large and small letters in the 8th
century ; and in the single surviving specimen of Greek
writing of the Imperial Chancery, containing portions of a
letter addressed apparently to Pepin le Bref on the occasion
of one of his wars against the Lombards in 753 or 756,
appears a hand which approaches nearest to the set
minuscule book-hand of the next century (Wattenb.,
Script. Gr. Specim., tabb. 14, 15).
Arrived at this matured stage of development, the
minuscule character was in a condition to pass into the
regular calligraphic form of writing. In the documents
quoted above, it appears generally in a cursive form, and
in this form it was undoubtedly also used for literary
works. An example of such book- writing in the 8th
century has been given in facsimile by Gardthausen
(Beitr. zur griech. Pal., 1877, taf. 1). But in the 9th
century the minuscule hand assumed a set form from
which the writing of the succeeding centuries developed
as from a new basis.
The establishment of this set hand is to be ascribed to
the fact of the minuscule being now generally adopted as
the recognized literary hand, in place of the larger and
more inconvenient uncial, and its consequent introduction
into vellum books. As we have already seen, uncial
writing was influenced in the same way when applied to
vellum. The firmer surface of the skin offered to the
calligrapher a better working ground for the execution of
his handiwork ; and thus may be explained the almost
sudden appearance of the beautiful and regular writing
which presents itself in the minuscule MSS. of the 9th
century.
Greek MSS. written in minuscules have been classed as
follows: — (1) codices vetmtissimi, of the 9th century and
to the middle of the 10th century; (2) vetusti, from the
middle of the 10th to the middle of the 13th century ; (3)
recentiorea, from the middle of the 13th century to the fall
of Constantinople, 1453 ; (4) novelli, all after that date.
Of dated minuscule MSS. there is a not inconsiderable
number scattered among the different libraries of Europe.
Gardthausen (Gr. Pal., 344 sq.) gives a list of some
thousand, ending at 1500 A.D. But, as might be
expected, the majority belong to the later classes. Of
the 9th century there are not ten which actually bear
dates, and of these all but one belong to the latter half of
the century. In the 10th century, however, the number
rises to nearly fifty, in the llth to more than a hundred.
In the period of codices vetustissimi the minuscule hand
is distinguished by its simplicity and purity. The period
has been well described as the classic age of minuscules.
The letters are symmetrically formed ; the writing is com
pact and upright, or has even a slight tendency to slope to
the left. In a word, the beauty of this class of minuscule
j writing is unsurpassed. But in addition to these general
characteristics there are special distinctions which belong
to it. The minuscule character is maintained intact, with
out intrusion of larger or uncial-formed letters. With
its cessation as the ordinary literary hand the uncial
character had not died out. We have seen that it was
still used for liturgical books. It likewise continued to
survive in a modified or half-uncial form for scholia, rubrics,
titles, and special purposes — as, for example, in the Bodleian
Euclid (Pal. Soc., pi. 66) — in minuscule written MSS.
of the 9th and 10th centuries. These uses of the older
character sufficed to keep it in remembrance, and it is
therefore not a matter for surprise that some of its forms
should reappear and commingle with the simple minuscule.
This afterwards actually took place. But in the period
now under consideration, when the minuscule had been
cast into a new mould, and was, so to say, in the full
vigour of youth, extraneous forms were rigorously
excluded.
0 VV K 4ar\
Greek Minuscule (Euclid), 888 A.D.
(firi ro ABF (iriirtSov Sixa r/j.riOri(TfTat
OMN fTwrfdov' $10. TO. O.VTOL 8r] K[CU] T] airo)
The breathings also of this class are rectangular, in
unison with the careful and deliberate character of the
writing ; and there is but slight, if any, separation of the
words. In addition, as far as has hitherto been observed,
the letters run above, or stand upon, the ruled lines, and
do not depend from them as at a later period. The exact
time at which this latter mechanical change took place
cannot be named ; like other changes it would naturally
establish itself by usage. But at least in the middle of
the 10th century it seems to have been in use. In the
Bodleian MS. of Basil's homilies of 953 A.D. (Pal. Soc., pi.
82) the new method is followed ; and if we are to accept
the date of the 9th century ascribed to a MS. in the
Ambrosian Library at Milan (Wattenb., Script. Gr.
Specim., tab. 17), in which the ruled lines run above the
writing, the practice was yet earlier. Certain scribal
peculiarities, however, about the MS. make us hesitate to
place it so early. In the Laurentian Herodotus (W. and
V., Exempia,1 tab. 31), which belongs to the 10th century,
sometimes the one, sometimes the other system is followed
in different parts of the volume ; and the same peculiarity
happens in the MS. of Gregory of Nazianzus of 972 A.D.
in the British Museum (Pal. Soc., pi. 25 ; Exempia, tab.
7). The second half of the 10th century therefore
appears to be a period of transition in this respect. •
The earliest dated example of codices velustissimi is the
opy of the Gospels belonging to Bishop Uspensky, written
in the year 835. A facsimile is given by Gardthausen
(Beit rage) and repeated in the Exe mpla (tab. 1). Better
specimens have been photographed from the Oxford Euclid
of 888 A.D. (Pal. Soc., pis. 65, 66 ; Exempia, tab. 2) and
from the Oxford Plato of 895 A.D. (Pal. Soc., pi. 81;
Exempia, tab. 3). Sabas (Specim. Palxograph.} has also
^iven two facsimiles from MSS. of 880 and 899. To this
ist maybe added a facsimile of the Chronicles of Nicephorus
n the British Museum, which falls within the 9th century
Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 15), and also one of the Aristotle
>f Milan, which may be of the 9th or early 10th century (Pal.
Voc., pi. 129; Wattenb., Script. Gr. Specim., tab. 16). Of
the year 905 is the Catena on Job at Venice (Exempia, tab.
4) ; and other facsimiles of MSS. of this class are taken
1 Wattenbach and Von Velsen, Exempia Codicum Grsecorum, litt.
minusc. scriptorum, Heidelberg, 1878.
PALAEOGRAPHY
151
from a MS. of the Gospels in the British Museum (Cat.
Anc. MSS., i. pi. 16), the Ambrosian Plutarch (Wattenb.
Script. Gr. Specim., tab. 20), and the Ambrosian MS. of the
Prophets (tab. 17), the last having, among other peculiarities,
an unusual method of distinguishing the sigma at the end
of a word by an added dot. These few facsimiles are all
that are at present available for the purpose of studying
minuscule book-writing of the first class. They are, how
ever, all reproduced by photography, and serve sufficiently
to show the character of writing which we are to look for
in other, undated, examples of the same time.
After the middle of the 10th century we enter on the
period of the codices vetusti, in which it will be seen that
the writing becomes gradually less compact. The letters,
so to say, open their ranks ; and, from this circumstance
alone, MSS. of the second half of the century may generally
be distinguished from those fifty years earlier. But altera
tions also take place in the shapes of the letters. Side by
side with the purely minuscule forms those of the uncial
begin to reappear, the cause of which innovation has
already been explained. These uncial forms first show
themselves at the end of the line, the point at which
most changes first gained a footing, but by degrees they
work back into the text, and at length become recognized
members of the minuscule characters. In the llth and
12th centuries they are well established, and become more
and more prominent by the large or stilted forms which
they assume. The change, however, in the general
character of the writing of this class of codices vetusti is
very gradual, uniformity and evenness being well main
tained, especially in church books. Among the latter, a
trilingual Psalter of the year 1153, in the British Museum
(Pal. Soc., pi. 132), may be noted as an example of the
older style of writing being adhered to at a comparatively
late time. On the other hand, a lighter and more cursive
kind of minuscule is found contemporaneously in MSS. of
a secular nature. In this hand many of the classical MSS.
of the 10th or llth centuries are written, as the MS. of
/Eschylus and Sophocles, the Odyssey and the Apollonius
Rhodius of the Laurentian Library at Florence, the
Anthologia Palatina of Heidelberg and Paris, the Hippo
crates of Venice (Exempla, tabb. 32-36, 38, 40), and the
Aristophanes of Ravenna (Wattenb., Script. Gr. Specim.,
tab. 26). In a facsimile from a Plutarch at Venice (Ex-
tmpla, tab. 44), the scribe is seen to change from the formal
to the more cursive hand. This style of writing is distin
guishable by its light and graceful character from the current
writing into which the minuscule degenerated at a later
time. The gradual rounding of the rectangular breathings
takes place in this period. In the llth century the smooth
breathing, which would most readily lend itself to this
modification, first appears in the new form. In the course
of the 12th century both breathings have lost the old
square shape ; and about the same time contractions become
more numerous, having been at first confined to the end
of the line. Facsimiles from several MSS. of the codices
vctusii and the following class have been published by the
Palseographical Society and by Wattenbach and Von Velsen
in their Exempla.
When the period of codices recentiores commences, the
o
yo (JLOwrao-poo-youpdL-
Greek Minuscule (Odyssey), 13th century.
(T) a\veis on Ipov eVi'/crjcras T~bv a\riT-riv
&s &pa <pci}vf]ffas ff<fit\a,s f\\aj3fv avrap oSvffffevs
a.fj.<piv6/j.o'j irpbs yovva KaOt^eTO 5ot>Ai%iijos)
Greek minuscule hand undergoes extensive changes. The
contrast between MSS. of the 13th century and those of
a hundred years earlier is very marked. In the later
examples the hand is generally more straggling, there is a
greater number of exaggerated forms of letters, and marks
of contraction and accents are dashed on more freely.
There is altogether a sense of greater activity and haste.
The increasing demand for books created a larger supply.
Scholars now also copied MSS. for their own use, and
hence greater freedom and more variety appear in the
examples of this class, together with an increasing use of
ligatures and contractions. The introduction of the coarse
cotton paper into Constantinople in the middle of the 13th
century likewise assisted to break up the formal minuscule
hand. To this rough material a rougher style of writing
was suited. Through the 14th and 15th centuries the
decline of the set minuscule rapidly advances. In the
MSS. on cotton paper the writing becomes even more
involved and intricate, marks of contraction and accents
are combined with the letters in a single action of the pen,
and the general result is the production of a thoroughly
cursive hand. On vellum, however, the change was not so
rapid. Church books were still ordinarily written on that
material, which, as it became scarcer in the market (owing
to the injury done to the trade by the competition of
cotton paper), was supplied from ancient codices which lay
ready to hand on the shelves of libraries. The result was
an increasing number of palimpsests. In these vellum
liturgical MSS. the more formal style of the minuscule was
still maintained, and even on paper church services are
found to be in the same style. In the 14th century there
even appears a partial Renaissance in the writing of church
MSS., modelled to some extent on the lines of the writing
of the 12th century. The resemblance, however, is only
superficial ; for no writer can entirely disguise the character
of the writing of his own time. And lastly there was
yet another check upon the absolute disintegration of the
minuscule in the 15th century exercised by the professional
scribes who worked in Italy. Here the rag-paper, which
had never made its way in the East, was the only paper
in use. Its smoother surface approximated more nearly to
that of vellum; and the minuscule hand as written by the
Greek scribes in Italy, whether on paper or vellum, re
verted again to the older style. The influence of the Renais
sance is evident in many of the productions of the Italian
Greeks which were written as specimens of calligraphy
and served as models for the first Greek printing types.
The Greek minuscule hand had, then, by the end of the
loth century, become a cursive hand, from which the
modern current hand is directly derived. We last saw the
ancient cursive in use in the documents prior to the forma
tion of the set minuscule, and no doubt it continued in use
concurrently with the book- hand. But, as the latter passed
through the transformations which have been traced, and
gradually assumed a more current style, it may not
unreasonably be supposed that it absorbed the cursive hand
of the period, and with it whatever elements of the old
cursive hand may have survived.
LATIN WRITING.
In writing a history of Latin palaeography, it will be
first necessary, as with the Greek, to follow its development
in two main divisions — the set book-hand and the cursive.
Under the former head will be first ranged the capital,
uncial, and half-uncial hands found in early MSS.; on the
other side will be traced the course of Roman cursive
writing in the waxen tablets and papyri. Next will be
shown how this cursive hand was gradually reduced into
forms of writing peculiar to different countries on the
continent of Europe (reserving for separate examination
152
PALAEOGRAPHY
the development of the Irish and English schools), and
finally how, in the revival of learning under Charlemagne,
the reformed Caroline minuscule, became the standard on
which the writing of all the "Western nations was finally
modelled.
Capital. — The oldest form of book-writing which we
find employed in Latin MSS. is in capitals ; and of these
there are two kinds — the square and the rustic. Square
capitals may be defined as those which have their horizon
tal lines at right angles with the vertical strokes ; rustic
letters are not less accurately formed, nor, as their title
would seem to imply, are they rough in character, but,
being without the exact finish of the square letters, and
being more readily written, they have the appearance of
greater simplicity. In capital writing the letters are not
all of equal height ; F and L, and in the rustic sometimes
others, as B and R, overtop the rest. In the rustic the
forms are generally lighter and more slender, with short
horizontal strokes more or less oblique and wavy. Both
styles of capital writing were obviously borrowed from the
lapidary alphabets employed under the empire. But it ha.s
been observed that scribes with a natural conservatism would
perpetuate a style some time longer in books than it might
be used in inscriptions. We should therefore be prepared
to allow for this in ascribing a date to a capital written
MS., which might resemble an inscription older by a cen
tury or more. Rustic capitals, on account of their more
convenient shape, came into more general use ; and the
greater number of the early MSS. in capitals which have
survived are consequently found to be in this character.
In the Exempla Codicum Latinorum of Zangemeister
and Wattenbach are collected specimens of capital writing,
which are supplemented by other facsimiles issued by the
Pakeographical Society. The earliest application of the
rustic hand appears in the papyrus rolls recovered from the
ruins of Herculaneum (Exempla, tabb. 1-3), which must
necessarily be earlier than 79 A.D. In some of these speci
mens we see the letters written with a strong dashing
stroke ; in others they are mixed with cursive and uncial
forms. In the vellum MSS. the writing in the earliest
instances is of a perfectly exact -character. MSS. of this
class were no doubt always regarded as choice works. The
large scale of the writing and the quantity of material
required to produce a volume must have raised the cost to
a height which would be within reach of only the wealthy.
Such are the two famous copies of Virgil in the Vatican —
the Codex Romanus, adorned with paintings, and the
Codex Palatinus (Exempla, tabb. 11, 12; Pal. Soc., pis.
113-115), which may be even as early as the 3d or 4th
century, for in the regularity of their letters they resemble
very nearly the inscriptions of the 1st and 2d century.
There are no marks of punctuation by the first hand ; nor
are there enlarged initial letters.
HJUIVJUM MOilTIAVMJf ADiHOf UACOG1
Roman Rustic Capitals (Virgil), 3d or 4th century
(Testatui qtie deos iterum se ad proelia cogi
Bis iam Italos hostis haec altera foedera)
In a third and younger MS. of Virgil, the Scheduc
Vaticanae (Exempla, tab. 13; Pal. Soc., pis. 116, 117), the
imitation of the lettering of inscriptions is far less appar
ent, and the writing may be said to have here settled down
into a good working book hand ; but, like the MSS. just
noticed, this volume also was doubtless prepared for a
special purpose, being adorned with well-finished paintings
of classical style. In assigning dates to the earliest MSS.
of capital-writing, one feels the greatest hesitation, none
of them bearing any internal evidence to assist the process.
It is not indeed until the close of the 5th century that we
reach firm ground, — the Medicean Virgil of Florence having
in it sufficient proof of having been written before the year
494. The writing is in delicately-formed letters, rather
more spaced out than in the earlier examples (Exempla,
tab. 10 ; Pal. Soc., pi. 86). Another ancient MS. in rustic
capitals is the Codex Bembinus of Terence (Exempla, tabb.
8, 9; Pal. Soc., pi. 135), a volume which is also of parti
cular interest on account of its marginal annotations, written
in an early form of small hand. Among palimpsests the
most notable is that of the Cicero In Verrem of the Vati
can (Exempla, tab. 4).
Of MSS. in square capitals the examples are not so
early as those in the rustic character. Portions of a MS.
of Virgil in the square letter are preserved in the Vatican,
and other leaves of the same are at Berlin (Exempla, tab.
14). Each page, however, begins with a large coloured
initial, a style of ornamentation which is never found in
the very earliest MSS. The date assigned to this MS. is
therefore the end of the 4th century. In very similar writ
ing, but not quite so exact, are some fragments of another
MS. of Virgil in the library of St Gall, probably of a.
rather later time (Exempla, tab. 14 a; Pal. Soc., pi. 208).
In the 6th century capital-writing enters on its period
of decadence, and the examples of it become imitative. Of
this period is the Paris Prudentius (Exempla, tab. 15;
Pal. Soc., pis. 29, 30) in rustic letters modelled on the old
pattern of early inscriptions, but with a very different
result from that obtained by the early scribes. A compari
son of this volume with such MSS. as the Codex Romanus.
and the Codex Palatinus shows the later date of the
Prudentius in its widespread writing and in certain incon
sistencies in forms. Of the 7th century is the Turin
Sedulius (Exempla, tab. 16), a MS. in which uncial writing
also appears— the rough and misshapen letters being
evidences of the cessation of capital writing as a hand in
common use. The latest imitative example of an entire
MS. in rustic capitals is in the Utrecht Psalter, written in
triple columns and copied, to all appearance, from an ancient
example, and illustrated with pen drawings. This MS.
may be assigned to the beginning of the 9th century. If
there were no other internal evidence of late date in the
MS., the mixture of uncial letters with the capitals would
decide it. In the P.salter of St Augustine's, Canterbury,
in the Cottonian Library (Pal. Soc., pi. 19 ; Cat. Anc.
MSS., ii. pis. 12, 13), some leaves at the beginning are
written in this imitative style early in the 8th century; and
again it is found in the Benedictional of Bishop yEthelwold
(Pal. Soc., pi. 143) of the 10th century. In the sumptu
ous MSS. of the Carlovingian school it was continually
used ; and it survived for such purposes as titles and colo
phons, for some centuries, usually in a degenerate form of
the rustic letters.
Uncial. — Uncial writing differs from the capital in
adopting certain rounded forms, as A b 6 h fO, and in having
some of its letters rising above or falling below the line.
The origin of the round letters may be traced in some of
the Roman cursive characters as seen in the wall inscrip
tions of Pompeii and the waxen tablets. A calligraphic
development of these slighter forms resulted in the firmly-
drawn letters which are seen in the early vellum MSS.
The most ancient of these may Avithout much hesitation
be assigned to the 4th century, and in them the writing is
so well-established that one might well believe that it had
been already practised for some generations. On the other
hand, a calligraphic style may be stimulated into quick
development by various causes, — caprice, fashion, or even
the substitution of a different writing material, as vellum
for papyrus. Uncial writing lasted as an ordinary book-
PALAEOGRAPHY
153
hand into the 8th century, when it was supplanted by the
reformed small writing of the Carlovingian school ; but,
like the capitals, it survived for some time longer as an
ornamental hand for special purposes.
The Exempla of Zangemeister and Wattenbach, so often
quoted above, contains a series of facsimiles which illustrate
the progress of uncial writing throughout the period of its
career. The letter fO has been adopted by the editors as
a test letter, in the earlier forms of which the last limb is
not curved or turned in. The letter <= also in its
earlier and purer form has the cross stroke placed high.
But, as in every style of writing, when once developed, the
earliest examples are the best, being written with a free
hand and natural stroke.
The Gospels of Vercelli (Exempla, tab. 20), said to have
been written by the hand of Eusebius himself, and which
may indeed be of his time, is one of the most ancient
uncial MSS. Its narrow columns and pure forms of letters
have the stamp of antiquity. To the 4th century also is
assigned the palimpsest Cicero De RepuUica in the Vatican
(Exempla, tab. 17; Pal. Soc., pi. 160), a MS. written in
fine large characters of the best type * and a very ancient
fragment of a commentary on an ante-Hieronymian text,
in three columns, has also survived at Fulda (Exempla.
tab. 21). Among the uncial MSS. of the 5th century of
which good photographic facsimiles are available are the
two famous codices of Livy, at Vienna and Paris (Exempla,
tabs. 18, 19; Pal, Soc., pis. 31, 32, 183), and the Gains of
Verona (Exempla, tab. 24). The latter MS. is also of
special interest, as it contains abbreviations and has cer
tain secondary forms amongst its letters. To distinguish
between uncial MSS. of the 5th and 6th centuries is not
easy, for the character of the writing changes but little,
and there is no sign of weakness or wavering. It may,
however, be noticed that in MSS. which are assigned to
the latter century there is rather less compactness, and
occasionally, as the century advances, there is a slight
tendency to artificiality.
Latin Uncial, 5th or 6th century.
(lam tibi ilia quae igno
rantia saecularis lio
na opinatur ostendam)
When the 7th century is reached there is every evidence
that uncial writing has entered on a new stage. The
letters are more roughly and carelessly formed, and the
compactness of the earlier style is altogether wanting.
From this time down to the age of Charlemagne there is
a continual deterioration, the writing of the 8th century |
being altogether misshapen. A more exact but imitative j
hand was, however, at the same time employed, when
occasion required, for the production of calligraphic MSS.,
such as liturgical books. Under the encouragement given
by Charlemagne to such works, splendid uncial volumes
were written in ornamental style, often in gold, several
of which have survived to this day (Cat. Am. MSS., ii.
pis. 39-41).
Half -Uncial. — A very interesting style of writing, and
for the study of the development of the set minuscule hand
of later periods a most important one, is that to which the
name of half -uncial has been given. It lies between cursive
and uncial, and partakes of the character of both. As
early apparently as the 4th century, a set style of small
writing, partly following in formation the characters found
in the Roman cursive writing of the Ravenna and other
documents on papyrus, and in some of its letters betraying
an uncial origin, is found in glosses or marginal notes of
early MSS. The limited space into which the annotations
had to be compressed compelled the writer to abandon the
free style of the ordinary cursive hand, and at the same
time a mere reduction of capital or uncial letters would have
been too tedious a process to adopt. A middle course was
followed, and a neat minute hand, half-set half current,
was used, — just as in the present day it is no uncommon
practice to write a so-called printing hand for similar
purposes. The earliest example of this hand appears to
be in the marginal directions for the painter in the
Quedlinburg fragment of an illustrated early Italic version
of the Bible (see Schurn in Theolog. Studien u. Kritiken,
1876). In these notes appear b, d, m, n as fully developed
minuscules ; r is represented by [7 , half way between the
uncial and the minuscule, and s is T. Again in the notes
by the Arian bishop Maximin (Exempla, tab. 22), of the
5th century, the same style of writing appears, — with some
variations, however, in individual letters, as in cj and r, which
come near to minuscule shapes. In the Codex Bembinus
of Terence (Exempla, tab. 8) there are many glosses giving
ample opportunity for studying the hand, which is here in
a small and well-formed character. From this specimen,
and also from the notes in the Itala of Fulda (Exempla,
tab. 21), a complete alphabet of set minuscule letters may
be selected, as written probably early in the 6th century.
Rather later and more uncial in form are the glosses in
the Medicean Virgil (Exempla, tab. 10).
This set form of small writing, then, was, as it appears
from the examples quoted above and from many others
(see the enumeration in Wattenbach, Einleitung zur Lat.
Palseog., p. 12), in pretty general use for the purposes of
annotation ; and it was but natural that it should also come
to be adopted in MSS. for the text itself. The intro
duction into the text of uncial-written MSS., at an early
date, of forms of letters borrowed from cursive writing is
illustrated by the Verona Gaius (Exempla, tab. 24) of the
5th century, in which, besides the ordinary uncial shapes,
(/ is also found as a minuscule, r as the transitional [7 ,
and s as the tall letter T- Again, in the Florentine Pandects
of the 6th century, one of the scribes writes a hand which
contains a large admixture of minuscule forms (Exempla,
tab. 54). And some fragments of a Grseco-Latin glossary
on papyrus, of which facsimiles have been published (Com
ment. Soc. Guttinr/en., iv. , 1820, p. 156 ; Rhein. Museum, v.,
1837, p. 301), likewise contain, as secondary forms of
uncial m, r, and s : TT1, fl, r . From these few instances it is
seen that in uncial MSS. of a secular nature, as in works
relating to law and grammar, the scribe did not feel himself
restricted to a uniform use of the larger letters, as he would
be in producing a church book or calligraphic MS. The
adaptation then of a set small hand, very similar to, and
in some particulars identical with, the annotating hand
above referred to, is not surprising. The greater conveni
ence of the small hand in comparison with the larger uncial
is obvious, and the element of calligraphy which was
infused into it gave it a vitality and status as a recognized
book-hand. Thus we have a series of MSS., dating from
the end of the 5th century, which are classed as examples
of half uncial writing, and which appear to have been
written in Italy and France. The MS. of the Fasti Con-
sulares, at Verona, brought down to 494 A.D. (Exempla,
tab. 30), is in this hand, but the earliest MS. of this class
to which a more approximate date can be given is the
Hilary of St Peter's at Rome, which was written in or
before the year 509 or 510 (Exempla, tab. 52 ; Pal. Soc.,
pi. 136) ; the next is the Sulpicius Severus of Verona, of
517 A.D. (Exempla, tab. 32); and of the year 569 is a
beautifully-written MS. at Monte Cassino containing a
XVIII. — 20
154
PAL^OGKAPHY
Biblical commentary (Exempla, tab. 3). Other examples,
of which good facsimiles may be consulted are the Corbie
MS. of Canons, at Paris (Exempla, tabb. 41, 42), and the
St Severianusat Milan (Pal. Soc., pis. 161, 162), of the 6th
century ; and the Cologne MS. of Canons (Exempla, tab.
44), and the Josephus (Pal. Soc., pi. 138) and St Ambrose
(Pal. Soc , pi. 137) of Milan, of the 6th or 7th century.
cun NI oNcidfuulloof n m co£r
offers ors
Latiu Half-Uncial, 509-510 A. n.
(episcopi manum innocente[m] —
[lin]guam non ad falsiloquium coeg[isti] —
nation em anterioris sententi[ae] — )
The influence which this style of hand had upon the
minuscule book-writing of the 7th and 8th centuries may
be traced in greater or less degree in the Continental MSS.
of that period. It appears at a comparatively late time
with much of its old form in the Berlin MS. of Gregory's
Moralia (Arndt, Sckrifttaf., 5), attributed to the 8th
century. After the Caroline reform an ornamental kind
of half-uncial, evidently copied from this hand, was used for
particular purposes in minuscule MSS. (Pal. Soc., pi. 239).
Cursive. — For examples of Roman cursive writing we
are able to go as far back as the 1st century of the
Christian era. During the excavations at Pompeii in July
1875, there was discovered in the house of L. Csecilius
Jucundus a box containing as many as one hundred and
twenty-seven libelli or waxen tablets consisting of per-
scriptiones and other deeds connected with sales by auction
and receipts for payment of taxes (Atti della R. Accademia
del Lincei, ser. ii., vol. iii. pt. 3, 1875-76, pp. 150-230).
Other waxen tablets, twenty-five in number, some bearing
dates ranging from 131 to 167 A.T>., were found in the
ancient mining works in the neighbourhood of Alburnus
Major (the modern Verespatak) in Dacia, at different times
between 1786 and 1855. In 1840 Massmann published
such as had at that time been discovered (Libellus
aurarius) ; and the whole collection is given in the Corpus
Inscr. Lat. of the Berlin Academy, vol. iii. pt. 2 (1873).
Although the waxen tablets prepared for the reception
of legal instruments followed the system of the bronze
diptychs on which were inscribed the privileges granted
to veteran soldiers under the empire, in so far that they
contained the deed witnessed and sealed, and also its
duplicate copy open to inspection, yet they differed in
being generally triptychs. Wood was a cheaper material
than bronze, and the third tablet gave protection to the
seals. These triptychs then were libelli of three tablets
of wood, cleft from one piece and fastened together, like
the leaves of a book, by strings passed through two holes
pierced near the edge. In the case of the Pompeian libelli
one side of each tablet was sunk within a frame, and the
hollowed space was coated with wax, in such a way that,
of the six sides or pages, Nos. 2, 3, 5 were waxen, while
1, 4, 6 presented a wooden surface. The first and sixth
sides were not used, but served as the outside of the
libellus ; on 2 and 3 was inscribed the deed, and on 4 the
names of the witnesses were written in ink and their seals
were added in a groove cut down the centre, the deed
being closed against inspection by means of a string of
twisted threads which passed through two holes, one at
the head and the other at the foot of the groove, round the
two tablets and under the wax of the seals which thus
secured it. An abstract or copy of the deed was written
on the fifth page. The arrangement of the Dacian libelli
differed in this respect that page 4 was also waxen, and
that the copy of the deed was commenced on that page in
the space on the left of the groove, that on the right being
reserved for the names of the witnesses. In one instance
(Corp. Inscr. Lat., iii. 2, p. 938) the seals and fastening
threads still remain.
In these tablets some of the writing contains more
capital letters, and is not so cursive as the rest ; but here
it is the cursive hand which has to be considered. This
writing in both the Pompeian and Dacian tablets is very
similar, differing only slightly in some of the letters ; and
both resemble the more cursive graffiti found on the walls
of Pompeii.
Roman Cursive (Graffiti), 1st century,
(censio est nam noster
magna liabet pecuni[am]).
Roman Cursive (Dacian Tablet), 167 A. D.
(descriptum et recognitum factum ex Ubello —
erat Albfurno] maiori ad statione Resculi in quo scri —
id quod i[nfra] sfcriptum] est)
It is of particular importance to notice that, when
examining the alphabet of this early Roman cursive hand,
we find (as we found in the early Greek cursive) the first
beginnings of minuscule writing. The slurring of the
strokes, whereby the bows of the capital letters were lost
and their more exact forms modified, led the way to the
gradual development of the small letters, which, as will be
afterwards seen, must have formed a distinct alphabet at
an early time. With regard to the particular forms of
letters employed in the waxen tablets, compare the tables
in Corp. Inscr. Lat., vols. iii., iv. The letter A is formed
by a main stroke supporting an oblique cross-stroke above
it ; similarly P and li, having lost their bows, and F
throwing away its bar, are formed by two strokes placed
in relatively the same positions but varying in their
curves. The main stroke of B dwindles to a slight curve,
and the two bows are transformed into a long bent stroke
so that the letter takes the shape of a stilted a or of a d.
The D is chiefly like the uncial o ; the E is generally
represented by the old form j| found in inscriptions and
in the Faliscan alphabet. In the modified form of G the
first outline of the flat-headed g of later times appears;
H, by losing half its second upright limb in the haste of
writing, comes near to being the small h. In the Pompeian
tablets M has the four-stroke form ||||, as in the graffiti ; in
the Dacian tablets it is a rustic capital, sometimes almost
an uncial 00. The hastily written 0 is formed by two
strokes, almost like a. As to the general character of the
writing, it is close and compressed, and has an inclination
to the left. There is also much combination or linking
together of letters (Corp. Inscr. Lat., iii. tab. A). These
peculiarities may, in some measure, be ascribed to the
material and to the confined space at the command of the
writer. The same character of cursive writing has also
been found on a few tiles and potsherds inscribed with
PALAEOGRAPHY
155
alphabets or short sentences— the exercises of children at
school (Corp. Inscr. Lat., iii. p. 962).
But unfortunately material for the study of this hand
fails us for some time after the period of the Dacian
tablets, and whole centuries have to be passed before we
rind examples. At length some very interesting fragments
of papyri, assigned to the 5th century, disclose the official
cursive hand of the Roman chancery of that time, in which
are seen the same characters, with certain differences and
modifications, as are employed in the waxen tablets. They
contain portions of two rescripts addressed to Egyptian
officials, and are said to have been found at Phile and
Elephantine. Both documents are in the same hand; and
the fragments are divided between the libraries of Paris
and Leyden. For a long time the writing remained
undeciphered, and Champollion-Figeac, while publishing
a facsimile (Chartes et MSS. s^^r papyrus, 1840, pi. 14),
had to confess that he was unable to read it. Massmann,
however, with the experience gained in his work upon the
waxen tablets, succeeded without much difficulty in reading
the fragment at Leyden (Libellus aurarius, p. 147), and
was followed by M. de Wailly, who published the whole
of the fragments (Mem. de Vlnstitut, xv., 1842, p. 399).
Later, Mommsen and Jaff6 have dealt with the text of the
documents (Jahrbuch des. gem. deut. Rechts^vi., 1863, p.
398), and compared in a table the forms of the letters with
those of the Dacian tablets.
Roman Cursive (Imperial Chancery), 5th century.
(portionem ipsi debitam resarcire
nee ullum precatorem ex instrumento)
The characters are large, the line of writing being about
three-fourths of an inch deep, and the heads and tails of
the long letters are flourished ; but the even slope of the
strokes imparts to the writing a certain uniform and
graceful appearance. As to the actual shapes of the
letters, as will be seen from the reduced facsimile here
given, there may be recognized in many of them only a
more current form of those which have been described
above. The A and R may be distinguished by noticing
the different angle at which the top strokes are applied ;
the B, to suit the requirements of the more current style,
is no longer the closed rf-shaped letter of the tablets, but
is open at the bow and more nearly resembles a reversed
b ; the tall letters/, h, I, and long s have developed loops ;
O and v-shaped U r.re very small, and written high in the
line. The letters which seem to differ essentially from
those of the tablets are E, M, N. The first of these is
probably explained correctly by Jaffe as a development of
the earlier jj quickly written and looped. The M and N
have been compared with the minuscule forms of the
Greek tnu and nn, as though the latter had been adopted ;
but they may with better reason be explained as cursive
forms of the Latin capitals M and N.
That this hand should have retained so much of the
older formation of the Roman cursive is no doubt to be
attributed to the fact of its being an official style of writ
ing which would conform to tradition. To find a more
independent development we turn to the documents on
papyrus from Ravenna, Naples, and other places in Italy
which date from the 5th century and are written in a
looser and more straggling hand. Examples of this hand
will be found in largest numbers in Marini's work specially
treating of these documents (/ Papiri Diplomatici), and
also in the publications of Mabillon (De Re Diplomatica),
Champollion-Figeac (Chartes et MSS. sur papyrus), Mass
mann (Urkunden in Neapel und Arezzo), Gloria (Paleo-
(jrnfia), as well as in Fries, of Ancient Charters in the British
Museum, part iv., 1878, Nos. 45, 46, and in the Facsimiles
of the Pahcographical Society. The development that is
found in these papyri of minuscule forms almost complete
shows how great a change must have been at work during
the three centuries which intervene between the date of
the Dacian tablets and that of these documents; and the
variety of shape which certain of them assume in combina
tion with other letters proves that the scribes were well
practised in the hand.
wfiw
Roman Cursive (Ravenna), 572 A.D.
(huius splendedissimae urbis)
The letter a has now lost all trace of the capital ; it is
the open ^-shaped minuscule, developed from the looped
uncial (^X'A) ; the b, throwing off the loop or curve on the
left which gave it the appearance of d, has developed one
on the right, and appears in the form familiar in modern
writing ; minuscule m, n, and « are fully formed (the last
never joining a following letter, and thus always dis
tinguishable from «) ; p, q, and r approach to the long
minuscules, and s, having acquired an incipient tag, has
taken the form T which it keeps long after.
This form of writing was widely used, and was not con
fined to legal documents. It is found in grammatical
works, as in the second hand of the palimpsest MS. of
Licinianus (Cat. Anc. MSS., pt. ii., pis. 1, 2) of the 6th
century, and in such volumes as the Josephus of the
Ambrosian Library of the 7th century (Pal. Soc., pi. 59),
and in the St Avitus of the 6th century and other MSS.
written in France and referred to below under the head of
Merovingian writing. It is indeed only natural to suppose
that this, the most convenient, because cursive, hand, should
have been employed for ordinary books which were in
daily use. That so few of such books should have survived
is no doubt owing to the destruction of the greater number
by the wear and tear to which they were subjected.
NATIONAL WRITING.
Roman writing— capital, uncial, half-uncial, and cursive
— became known to the Western nations, and in different
ways played the principal part in the formation of the
national styles of writing. In Ireland and England it was
adopted under certain restrictions. On the Continent it
had a wider range ; and from it were constructed the three
kinds of writing which in many characteristics closely
resembled one another, and which, practised in Italy, Spain,
and Frankland, are known by the names of Lombardic,
Visigothic, and Merovingian. The basis of all three was
the Roman cursive, as is very evident in the national
charters which have survived; and by a certain admixture
of uncial and half-uncial forms with the cursive were pro
duced the set book-hands of those countries.
Lombardic. — In Italy the cursive hand of the Ravenna
documents, which have been already referred to, continued
in use and became more and more intricate and difficult
to read. Facsimiles have been reproduced from Milanese
documents of the 8th and 9th century (Sickel, Momnnenta
156
PALAEOGRAPHY
Graphics, fasc. 1), the earlier examples, down to the middle
of the 9th century, being in the large straggling character
of their prototypes (see also Cod. Dipl. Cavensis, vol. i.;
and Silvestre, i., pi. 137). The illegible scrawl into which
this hand finally degenerated in notarial instruments of
southern Italy was at length suppressed by order of
Frederick II. (1210-50 A.D.). But at La Cava and
Monte Cassino was especially cultivated the Lombardic
hand, properly so called. There is much resemblance
between this hand in its earlier stages and that which
appears in certain MSS. written in France at the same
period. Both starting from the same basis, it is not
surprising that a likeness should be maintained for some
time. Hence there is often no small difficulty in deciding
whether a particular MS. is to be classed as Lombardic or
Merovingian. If all MSS. written in the Merovingian
kingdom are to be styled Merovingian, there are different
styles which must be included under that title. A form
of Frankish writing which is marked by a certain solidity
and evenness, and thus more nearly resembles the
Lombardic writing of Italy, is often classed with the latter.
The Lombardic book-hand as written in Italy is seen in
facsimile in Exempla, Codd. Lot. (tabb. 29, 30), Silvestre
(pi. 136), Pal. Soc. (pi. 92). As developed in the southern
monasteries referred to above, it took, in the 9th century,
a very exact and uniform shape, as seen in the Bible of La
Cava (Silv., pi. 141). From this date the attention which
it received as a calligraphic form of writing, accompanied
with accessory ornamentation of initial letters, brought it
to a high state of perfection in the llth century, when by
the peculiar treatment of the letters, they assume that
strong contrast of light and heavy strokes which when
exaggerated, as it finally became, received the name of
broken Lombardic.
Broken Lombardic Writing, 12th century.
([H]ec nox est de qua scriptum est Et
nox ut dies illuminabitur)
This style of hand lasted to the 13th century. The fullest
collection of examples is to be found in facsimile in the
Biblioiheca Casinensis (1873, &c.). For other specimens
see Silvestre, pis. 142-146, 150; Arndt, Schrifttaf., 7,
32; Pal. Soc., pi. 146.
Papal Documents. — A form of writing practised in Italy,
but standing apart, is that found in papal documents. It
has been erroneously named littera Benevenlana. Speci
mens exist dating from the latter part of the 8th century.
In the earliest examples it appears on a large scale, and
has rounded forms and sweeping strokes of a very bold
character. Derived from the official Roman hand, it has
certain letters peculiar to itself, such as the letter a made
almost like a Greek w, t in the form of a loop, and e as
a circle with a knot at the top.
This hand may be followed in examples from 788 A.D.
through the 9th century (Facs. de Charles et Diplomes,
1866; Gloria, Palsebg., tab. 22; Ch. Figeac, Charles et
doc. sur Papyrus, i.— xii. ; Letronne, Diplom. Merov. jElal.,
pi. 48 ; Silvestre, pis. 138, 139). In a bull of Silvester
II., dated in 999 (Bill, de VEc. des Charles, vol. xxxvii.),
we find the hand becoming less round ; and at the end of
the next century, under Urban II., in 1097 (Mabillon, De
Re Dipl., suppl., p. 115) and 1098 (Sickel, Mon. Graph.,
v. 4), it is in a curious angular style, which, however, then
disappears. During the llth and 12th centuries the
imperial chancery hand was also used for papal documents,
and was in turn displaced by the exact and calligraphic
papal Italian hand of the later Middle Ages. The later
invention of the 16th century, the so-called liltera Sancti
Pelri, which seems to have been written to baffle the
uninitiated, need only be referred to.
Bull of Pope John VIII. (much reduced), 876 A.D.
(Dei genetricis mariae filib —
liaec igitur omnia quae huius praecepti)
Visigothic. — The Yisigothic writing of Spain ran a
course of development not unlike that of the other national
hands ; and a series of photographic facsimiles lately pub
lished (Exempla Scriptvrse Visigoticse, 1883) enables us to
mark the different periods of change. In the cursive hand
attributed to the 7th century (Ex., 2, 3), the Eoman cursive
has undergone little change in form ; but another century
developed a most distinctive character (Ex., 4, 5). In the
8th century appears the set book-hand in an even and not
difficult character, marked by breadth of style and a good
firm stroke. This style is maintained through the 9th
century with little change, except that there is a growing
tendency to calligraphy. In the 10th century the writing
deteriorates ; the letters are not so uniform, and, when
calligraphically written, are generally thinner in stroke.
The same changes which are discernible in all the hand
writings of western Europe in the llth century are also
to be traced in the Visigothic hand, — particularly as regards
the rather rigid character which it assumes. It continued
in use down to the beginning of the 1 2th century. Perhaps
the most characteristic letter of the book-hand is the
^-shaped g. The following specimens illustrate the
Visigothic as written in a large heavy hand of the 9th
century (Cat. Anc. MSS., ii., pi. 37), and in a calligraphic
example of 1109 (Pal. Soc., pi. 48).
pturfutn
Visigothic Minuscules, 9th century.
(tibi dulcedine proxi
inorum et dignita
te operum perfectonwn)
-4— '
quftnio f^ccm (
Visigothic Minuscules, 1109 A.D.
(patrum et profeterum et sanclonnn et apos<olon«?i
4113 gemitilms et tormenta desiderii sui
liabuit usquequo fructun ex plebe sun)
PALEOGRAPHY
157
Merovingian. — The writing of the Prankish empire, to
which the title of Merovingian has been applied, had a
wider range than the other national hands. It had a long
career both for diplomatic and literary purposes. In this
writing, as it appears in documents, we see that the Roman
cursive is subjected to a lateral pressure, so that the letters
received a curiously cramped appearance, while the heads
and tails are exaggerated to inordinate length.
Merovingian Cursive, 679-680 A.D.
(dedit in respunsis eo quod ipsa —
de annus triginta et uno inter ipso —
— ondaia semper tenuerant et possiderant si — )
Facsimiles of this hand, as used in the royal and
imperial chanceries, are to be found scattered in various
works ; but a complete course of Merovingian diplomatic
writing may be best studied in Letronne's Diplomata, and
in the Kaisemirkunden of Profs. Sybel and Sickel now
in course of publication. In the earliest documents, com
mencing in the 7th century and continuing to the middle
of the 8th century, the character is large and at first not
so intricate as it becomes later in this period. The writing
then grows into a more regular form, and in the 9th
century a small hand is established, which, however, still
retains the exaggerated heads and tails of letters. The
direct course of this chancery hand may then be followed
in the imperial documents, which from the second half of
the 9th century are written in a hand more set and
evidently influenced by the Caroline minuscule. This form
of writing, still accompanied by the lengthened strokes
already referred to, continued in force, subject, however,
to the varying changes which affected it in common with
other hands, into the 12th century. Its influence was felt
as well in France as in Germany and Italy ; and certain
of its characteristics also appear in the court-hand which
the Normans brought with them into England.
The book-hand immediately derived from the early
Merovingian diplomatic hand is seen in MSS. of the 7th
and 8th centuries in a very neatly written but not very
easy hand (Cat. Anc. MSS., ii., pis. 29, 30 ; Arndt,
Xchrifttaf., 28).
^^
<^^
Merovingian Writing, 7th century.
( — dam intra sinum sawciae eclesiae quasi uicinos ad —
positos iucrepant. Saepe uero arrogantes—
— dem quam tenent arrogantiam se fugire osten — )
But other varieties of the literary hand as written in
France are seen to be more closely allied to the Roman
cursive. The earliest example is found in the papyrus
fragments of writings of St Avitus and St Augustine, of
the 6th century (Etudes paleogr. sur des Papyrus du YIme
Siecle, Geneva, 1866); and other later MSS. by their
diversity of writing show a development independent of
the cursive hand of the Merovingian charters. It is
among these MSS. that those examples already referred to
occur which more nearly resemble the Lombardic type.
f^snfu tunic fabiKtiiJtc
hum fdlunum ftmclfln jiUum\Jmcuin dpi)
Franco-Lombardic Writing, 8th century.
(propter unitatem salua propriaetate na —
non sub una substantia conuenieutes, neque —
• — itam sed unum eundem filium. Unicum deum)
The uncial and half-uncial hands had also their influence
in the evolution of these Merovingian book-hands ; and
the mixture of so many different forms accounts for the
variety to be found in the examples of the 7th and 8th
centuries. In the Notice sur un MS. Merovingien
d'Eugyppus (1875) and the Notice sur un MS. Mero
vingien de la Bibl. d'JEpinal (1878), Delisle has given
many valuable facsimiles in illustration of the different
hands in these two MSS. of the early part of the 8th
century. See also Exempla Codd. Lot. (tab. 57), and
autotypes in Cat. Anc. MSS. ii. There was, however,
through all this period a general progress towards a settled
minuscule writing which only required a master-hand to
fix it in a calligraphic form.
Irish Writing. — The early history of the palaeography
of the British Isles stands apart from that of the Con
tinental schools. It is evident that the civilization and
learning which accompanied the establishment of an ancient
church in Ireland could not exist without a written litera
ture. The Roman missionaries would certainly in the first
place have imported copies of the Gospels and other
books, and it cannot be doubted that through intercourse
with England the Irish would obtain Continental MSS. in
sufficient numbers to serve as models for their scribes.
From geographical and political conditions, however, no
continuous intimacy with foreign countries was possible ;
and we are consequently prepared to find a form of writing
borrowed in the first instance from a foreign school, but
developed under an independent national system.
In Ireland we have an instance how conservative writing
may become, and how it will hand on old forms of letters
from one generation to another when there is no exterior
influence to act upon it. After once obtaining its models,
the Irish school of writing was left to work out its own
ideas, and continued to follow one direct line for centuries.
The English conquest had no effect upon the national hand
writing. Both peoples pursued their own course. In
MSS. in the Irish language the Irish character of writing
was naturally employed ; and the liturgical books produced
in Irish monasteries by Irish monks were written in the
same way. The grants and other deeds of the English
settlers were, on the other hand, drawn up by English
scribes in their national writing. The Irish handwriting,
then, went on in its even uninterrupted course ; and its
consequent unchanging form makes it so difficult a matter
to assign dates to Irish MSS. A stereotyped form of
letters is transmitted for so long that there is more risk of
giving an early date to a late Irish MS., when written with
care, than to one written, under similar conditions, in the
English or Continental schools. And nowhere is it more
necessary to look for the changes, slight though they be,
which may indicate an advance.
The early Irish handwriting is of two classes — the
round and the pointed. The round hand is found in the
earliest examples ; the pointed hand, which also was
158
PALAEOGRAPHY
developed at an early period, became the general band of
the country, and survives in the native writing of the
present day. Of the earliest surviving MSS. written in
Ireland none are found to be in pure uncial letters.
That uncial MSS. were introduced into the country by the
early missionaries can hardly be doubted, if we consider
that that character was so commonly employed as a book-
hand, and especially for sacred texts. Nor is it impossible
that Irish scribes may have practised this hand. The copy
of the Gospels in uncials, found in the tomb of St Kilian,
and preserved at Wiirzburg, has been quoted as an instance
of Irish uncial. The writing, however, is the ordinary
uncial, and bears no marks of Irish nationality (Exempla,
tab. 58). The most ancient examples are in half-
uncial letters, so similar in character to the half-uncial
MSS. of Italy and France, noticed above, that there can
be no hesitation in deriving the Irish from the Koman
writing. We have only to compare the Irish MSS. of the
round type with the Continental MSS. to be convinced of
the identity of their styles of writing. There are unfortu
nately no means of ascertaining the exact period when this
style of hand was first adopted in Ireland. Among the
very earliest surviving examples none bears a fixed date :
and it is impossible to accept the traditional ascription of
certain of them to particular saints of Ireland, as St Patrick
and St Columba. Such traditions are notoriously unstable
ground upon which to take up a position. But an
examination of certain examples will enable the palaeo-'
grapher to arrive at certain conclusions. In Trinity
College, Dublin, is preserved a fragmentary copy of the
Gospels (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i., pi. ii.) vaguely assigned
to a period from the 5th to the 7th century, and written
in a round half-uncial hand closely resembling the
Continental hand, but bearing the general impress of its
Irish origin. This MS. may perhaps be of the early part
of the 7th century.
Irish Half-uncial Writing, 7th century.
(ad ille deiutus respondens [dicit, Nojli mihi molestus esse, iam
osti[um clausum] est et pueri in cubiculo mecum [sunt])
Again, the Psalter (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i., pis. iii., iv.)
traditionally ascribed- to St Columba (ol. 597), and
perhaps of the 7th century, is a calligraphic specimen of
the same kind of writing. The earliest examples of the
Continental half-uncial date back, as has been seen above,
to the end of the 5th or beginning of the 6th century.
Now the likeness between the earliest foreign and Irish
MSS. forbids us to assume anything like collateral descent
from a common and remote stock. Two different national
hands, although derived from the same source, would not
independently develop in the same way, and it may
accordingly be granted that the point of contact, or the'
period at which the Irish scribes copied and adopted the
Roman half -uncial, was not very long, comparatively, before
the date of the now earliest surviving examples. This
would take us back at least to the 6th century, in which
period there is sufficient evidence of literary activity in
Ireland. The beautiful Irish calligraphy, ornamented with
designs of marvellous intricacy and brilliant colouring,
which is seen in full vigour at the end of the 7th century,
indicates no small amount of labour bestowed upon the
cultivation of writing as an ornamental art. It is indeed
surprising that such excellence was so quickly developed.
The Book of Kells has been justly acknowledged as the
culminating example of Irish calligraphy (Nat. MSS. Ire/.,
L, pis. vii.-xvii. ; Pal. Soc., pis. 55, 56). The text is written
in the large solid half-uncial hand which is again seen in
the Gospels of St Chad at Lichfield (Pal. Soc., pis. 20,
21, 35), and, in a smaller form, in the English-written
Lindisfarne Gospels (see below). Having arrived at the
calligraphic excellence just referred to, the round hand
appears to have been soon afterwards superseded, for gene
ral use, by the pointed ; for the character of the large half-
uncial writing of tlie Gospels of MacRegol, of about the
year 800 (Nat. MSS. Irel., i., pis. xxii. -xxiv. ; Pal. Soc.,
pis. 90, 91), shows a very great deterioration from the
vigorous writing of the Book of Kells, indicative of want
of practice.
Traces of the existence of the pointed hand are early.
It is found in a fully developed stage in the Book of Kells
itself (Pal. Soc., pi. 88). This form of writing, which
may be termed the cursive hand of Ireland, differs in its
origin from the national cursive hands of the Continent.
In the latter the old Roman cursive has been shown to be
the foundation. The Irish pointed hand, on the contrary,
had nothing to do with the Roman cursive, but was simply
a modification of the round hand, using the same forms of
letters, but subjecting them to a lateral compression and
drawing their limbs into points or hair-lines. As this
process is found developed in the Book of Kells, its
beginning may be fairly assigned to as early a time as'the
first half of the 7th century ; but for positive date there is
the same uncertainty as in regard to the first beginning of
the round hand. The Book of Dimma (Nat. MSS. Irel.,
i., pis. xviii., xix.) has been attributed to a scribe of about
650 A.D. ; but it appears rather to be of the 8th century,
if we may judge by the analogy of English MSS. written
in a similar hand. It is not in fact until we reach the
period of the Book of Armagh (Nat. MSS. Irel., pis.
xxv.-xxix.), a MS. containing books of the New Testament
and other matter, and written by Ferdomnach, a scribe
who died in the year 844, that we are on safe ground.
Here is clearly a pointed hand of the early part of the
9th century, very similar to the English pointed hand of
Mercian charters of the same time. The MS. of the
Gospels of MacDurnan, in the Lambeth Library (Nat.
MSS. Irel., i., pis. xxx., xxxi.) is an example of writing of
the end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century,
showing a tendency to become more narrow and cramped.
But coming down to the MS. of the llth -or 12th centuries
we find a change. The pointed hand by this time has
become moulded into the angular and stereotyped form
peculiar to Irish MSS. of the later Middle Ages. From the
12th to the 15th centuries there is a very gradual change.
Indeed, a carefully written MS. of late date may very well
pass for an example older by a century or more. Later
forms must be detected among the fairly written characters.
A book of hymns of the llth or 12th century (Nat. MSS.
Irel., i., pis. xxxii.-xxxvi.) may be referred to as a good
typical specimen of the Irish hand of that period ; and the
Gospels of Mselbrighte, of 1138 A.D. (Nat. MSS. Irel., i.,
pis. xl.-xlii. ; Pal. Soc., pi. 212), as a calligraphic one.
In Irish MSS. of the later period, the ink is black, and
the vellum, as a general rule, is coarse and discoloured, a
defect which may be attributed to inexperience in the art
of preparing the skins and to the effects of climate.
When a school of writing attained to the perfection
which marked that of Ireland at an early date, so far in
advance of other countries, it naturally followed that its
influence should be felt beyond its own borders. How the
influence of the Irish school asserted itself in England will
be presently discussed. But on the Continent also Irish
monks carried their civilizing power into different countries,
and continued their native style of writing in the monas
teries which they founded. At such centres as Luxeuil in
PALEOGRAPHY
159
France, Wiirzburg in Germany, St Gall in Switzerland,
and Bobbio in Italy, they were as busy in the production
of MSS. as they had been at home. At first such MSS.
were no doubt as distinctly Irish in their character as if
written in Ireland itself ; but, after a time, as the bonds
of connexion with that country were weakened, the form
of writing would become rather traditional, and lose the
elasticity of a native hand. As the national styles also
which were practised around them becarne more perfected,
the writing of the Irish houses would in tarn be reacted
on ; and it is thus that the later MSS. produced in those
houses can be distinguished. Archaic forms are tradition
ally retained, but the spirit of the hand dies and the
writing becomes merely imitative.
English Writing. — In England there were two sources
whence a national hand could be derived. From St
Columba's foundation in lona the Irish monks established
monasteries in the northern parts of Britain ; and in the
year 635 the Irish missionary Aidan founded the see
of Lindisfarne or Holy Isle, where there was established
a school of writing destined to become famous. In the
south of England the .Roman missionaries had also brought
into the country their own style of writing direct from
Rome, and taught it in the newly founded monasteries.
But the'r writing never became a national hand. Such a
MS. as the Canterbury Psalter in the Cottoriian Library
(Pal. Soc., pi. 18) shows what could be done by English
scribes in imitation of Roman uncials ; and the existence
of so few early charters in the same letters (Facs. of Anc.
Charters, pt. L, Nos. 1, 2, 7), among the large number
which have survived, goes to prove how limited was the
influence of that form of writing. On the other hand, the
Irish style made progress throughout England, and was
adopted as the national hand, developing in course of time
certain local peculiarities, and lasting as a distinct form of
writing down to the time of the Norman Conquest. But,
while English scribes at first copied their Irish models with
faithful exactness, they soon learned to give to their writing
the stamp of a national character, and imparted to it the
elegance and strength which individualized the English
hand for many centuries to come.
As in Ireland so here we have to follow the course of
the round hand as distinct from the pointed character.
The earliest and most beautiful MS. of the former class
is the Lindisfarne Gospels or " Durham Book " in the
Cottonian Library (Pal. Soc., pis. 3-6, 22 ; Cat. Anc.
MSS., pt. ii., pis. 8-11), said to have been written by
Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, about the year 700. The
text is in very exactly formed half-uncials, differing but
slightly from the same characters in Irish MSS., and is
glossed in the Northumbrian dialect by Aldred, a writer
of the 10th century.
epn mires quovnom
^^jA A^n&^A-fr
ipsi posiDefauutr-
Lindisfarne Gospels, circ. 700 A. D.
(regnum caelorura. Beati mites quoniam ipsi
posidebunt.
ric heofna eadge bidon da inilde fordon da
agnegad. )
MSS. in the same solid half-uncial hand are still to be
seen in the Chapter Library of Durham, this style of
writing having been practised more especially in the north
of England. But in addition to this calligraphic book-
writing, there was also a lighter form of the round letters
which was used for less sumptuous MSS. or for more
ordinary occasions. Specimens of this hand are found in
the Durham Cassiodorus (Pal. Soc., pi. 164), in the Canter
bury Gospels (Pal. Soc., pi. 7 ; Cat. Anc. MSS., pt. ii., pis.
17, 18), the Epinal Glossary (E. Eng. Text, Soc.}, and in a
few charters (Facs. Anc. Charters, pt. i., 15; ii., 2, 3; Pal.
Soc., 10), one of which, of 778 A.D., written in Wessex, is
interesting as showing the extension of the round hand
to the southern parts of England. The examples here
enumerated are of the 8th and 9th centuries, — the earlier
ones being written in a free natural hand, and those of
later date bearing evidence of decadence. Indeed the
round hand was being rapidly displaced by the more con
venient pointed hand, which was in full use in England
in the middle of the 8th century. How late, however, the
more calligraphic round hand could be continued under
favouring circumstances is seen in the Liber Vitse or list
of benefactors of Durham (Cat. Anc. MSS., pt. ii., pi. 25 ;
Pal. Soc., pi. 238), the writing of which would, from its
beautiful execution, be taken for that of the 8th century,
did not internal evidence prove it to be of about the year
840.
The pointed hand ran its course through the 8th, 9th,
and 10th centuries, until English writing came under the
influence of the foreign minuscule. The leading character
istics of this hand in the 8th century are regularity and
breadth in the formation of the letters and a calligraphic
contrast of heavy arid light strokes — the hand being then
at its best. In the 9th century there is greater lateral
compression, although regularity and correct formation are
maintained. But in the 10th century there are signs of
decadence. New forms are introduced, and there is a
disposition to be imitative. A test letter of this latter
century is found in the letter a with obliquely cut top, d-
The course of the progressive changes in the pointed
hand may be followed in the Facsimiles of Ancient Charters
in the British Museum and in the Facsimiles of Anglo-
Saxon MSS. of the Rolls Series. The charters reproduced
in these works have survived in sufficient numbers to
enable us not only to form a fairly accurate knowledge of
the criteria of their age, but also to recognize local
peculiarities of writing. The Mercian scribes appear to
have been very excellent penmen, writing a very graceful
hand with much delicate play in the strokes. On the
other hand the writing of Wessex was heavier and more
straggling, and is in such strong contrast to the Mercian
hand that its examples may be easily detected with a little
practice. Turning to books in which the pointed hand
was .employed, a very beautiful specimen, of the 8th
century, is a copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History in the
University Library at Cambridge (Pal. Soc., pis. 139,
140), which has in a marked degree that breadth of style
which has been referred to. Not much later is another
copy of the same work in the Cottonian Library (Pal. Soc.,
pi. 141 ; Cat. Anc. MSS., pt. ii., pi. 19), from which the
following facsimile is taken.
English Pointed Minuscules, 8th century.
(tus sui tempora gerebat.
Uir uenerabilis oidiluuald, qui multis
annis in monasterio q?«od dicitur Inhry )
For an example of the beginning of the 9th century, a
MS. of miscellanea, of 811-814 A.D., also in the Cottonian
Library, may be referred to (Pal. Soc., pi. 165; Cat. Anc.
160
PALAEOGRAPHY
., pt. ii., pi. 24) ; and a very interesting MS. written
in the Wessex style is the Digby MS. 03 of the middle of
the century (Pal. Soc., pi. 168). As seen in the charters,
the pointed writing of the 10th century assumes generally
a larger size, and is rather more artificial and calligraphic.
A very beautiful example of the book-hand of this period
is found in the volume known as the Durham llitual (Pal.
Soc., pi. 240), which, owing to the care bestowed on the
writing and the archaism of the style, might at first sight
pass for a MS. of higher antiquity, were not the character
istics of its period evident in the angularity of certain
letters.
In the latter part of the 10th century the foreign set
minuscule hand began to make its way into England,
consequent on increased intercourse with the Continent
and political changes which followed. In the charters we
find the foreign and native hands on the same page: — the
body of the document, in Latin, in Caroline minuscules ;
the boundaries of the land conveyed, in the English hand.
The same practice was followed in books. The charter (in
book form) of King Eadgar to New Minster, Winchester,
966 A.D. (Pal. 8oc., pis. 46, 47), the Benedictional of
Bishop /Ethel wold of Winchester (pis. 142, 144) before
984 A.D., and the MS. of the Office of the Cross, 1012-20
A.D. (pi. 60), also written in Winchester, are all examples
of the use of the foreign minuscule for Latin. The change
also which the national hand underwent at this period
may certainly be attributed to this foreign influence. The
pointed hand, strictly so-called, is replaced by a rounder
or rather square character, with lengthened strokes above
and below the line.
fiepcerm
- arr
pcelfcDt7e p
uTTDirm
• English Minuscules, llth century.
(manan he waes his msega. sceard freonda ge
fylled on folcstede beslfegen aet s^cge. and his sunu
forlaet. on wselstowe wnndum forgrunden. )
This style of writing becomes the ordinary English hand
down to the time of the Norman Conquest. That event
extinguished the national hand for official purposes— it
disappears from charters ; and the already established use
of the Caroline minuscule in Latin MSS. completed its
exclusion as the handwriting of the learned. It cannot,
however, be doubted that it still lingered in those parts of
the country where foreign influence did not at once pene
trate, and that Englishmen still continued to write their
own language in their own style of writing. But that the
earlier distinctive national hand was soon overpowered by-
foreign teaching is evident in English MSS. of the 12th
century, the writing of which is of the foreign type,
although the English letter thorn, b, survived and continued
in use down to the 15th century, when it was transformed
to y.
The Caroline Reform. — The revival of learning under
Charlemagne naturally led to a reform in handwriting.
An ordinance of the year 7£9 required the revision of
church books ; and a more correct orthography and style
of writing was the consequence. The abbey of St Martin
of Tours was the principal centre from whence the reforma
tion of the book-hand spread. Here, from the year 796 to
804, Alcuin of York presided as abbot ; and it was under
his direction that the Caroline minuscule writing took the
simple and graceful form which was gradually adopted to
the exclusion of all other hands. In carrying out this
reformation we may well assume that Alcuin brought to
bear the results of the training which he had received in
his youth in the English school of writing, which had
attained to such proficiency, and that he was also benefici
ally influenced by the fine examples of the Lombard school
which he had seen in Italy. In the new Caroline minus
cule all the uncouthness of the later Merovingian hand
disappears, and the simpler forms of many of the letters
found in the old Roman minuscule hand are adopted.
The character of Caroline writing through the 9th and
early part of the 10th century is one of general uniformity,
with a contrast of light and heavy strokes, the limbs of
tall letters being clubbed or thickened at the head by
pressure on the pen. As to characteristic letters — the a,
following the old type, is, in the 9th century, still fre
quently open, in the form of u ; the bows of g are open,
the letter somewhat resembling the numeral 3 ; and there
is no turning of the ends of letters, as m and n.
u.ocL
Caroline Minuscules, 9th century.
(accipere mariam coniu^em tuam quod
enini ex ea nascetur de spm'<u sancto est. Pariet
autem filium et uocabis uomen eius lesMin)
In the 10th century the clubbingof the tall letters becomes
less pronounced, and the writing generally assumes, so to
say, a thinner appearance. But a great change is notice
able in the writing of the llth century. By this time the
Caroline minuscule may be said to have put off its archaic
form and to develop into the more modern character of
small letter. It takes a more finished and accurate and
more upright form, the individual letters being drawn with
much exactness, and generally on a rather larger scale than
before. This style continues to improve, and is reduced
to a still more exact form of calligraphy in the 12th
century, which for absolute beauty of writing is unsur
passed. In England especially, the writing of this century
is particularly fine.
•fitm
English Minuscules, 12th century.
( — culos cim aruinulis suis adoleuit super
altare uitulu??i cum pelle et carnibus et
fimo cvemans extra castra sicut preceperat dominus)
As, however, the demand for written works increased,
the fine round hand of the 12th century could not be
maintained. Economy of material became necessary, and
a smaller hand with more frequent contractions was the
result. The larger and more distinct writing of the llth
and 12th centuries is now replaced by a more cramped
though still distinct hand, in which the letters are more
linked together by connecting strokes, and are more later
ally compressed. This style of writing is characteristic of
the 13th century. But, while the book-hand of this period
is a great advance upon that of a hundred years earlier,
there is no tendency to a cursive style. Every letter is
clearly formed, and generally on the old shapes. The
particular letters which show weakness are those made of
a succession of vertical strokes, as m, n, u. The new
method of connecting these strokes, by turning the ends
and running on, made the distinction of such letters
PALEOGRAPHY
161
difficult, as, for example, in the word minimi. The
ambiguity thus arising was partly obviated by the use of
a small oblique stroke over the letter i, which, to mark
the double letter, had been introduced as early as the 1 1 th
century. The dot on the letter came into fashion in the
14th century.
Duaus. C^ati ?tomttt&&tmf oaa
Minuscule Writing, 13th century.
(Eligite hodie c[uod placet cui seruire potissimuwi
debeatis. Utru?a diis quibws seruie™M< padres uesiri in
mesopotamia, an diis amoreora»i in quorum terra
haMtatis. Ego a.utem et domus mea seruiemws domino. Respow-
ditqwe popwhts et ait, Absit a nobw ut relinqwaniMs dominwm)
In MSS. of the 14th century minuscule writing becomes
slacker, and the consistency of formation of letters falters.
There is a tendency to write more cursively and without
raising the pen, as may be seen in the form of the letter
a, of which the characteristic shape at this time is a , with
both bows closed, in contrast with the earlier a. In this
century, however, the hand still remains fairly stiff and
upright. In the 15th century it becomes very angular
and more and more cursive, but is at first kept within
bounds. In the course of the century, however, it grows
more slack and deformed, and the letters become continu
ally more cursive and misshapen. An exception, however,
to this disintegration of minuscule writing in the later
centuries is to be observed in church books. In these the
old set hand of the 12th and 13th centuries was imitated
and continued to be the liturgical style of writing.
It is impossible to describe within limited space, and
without the aid of illustrations, all the varieties of hand
writing which were developed in the different countries of
western Europe, where the Caroline minuscule was finally
adopted to the exclusion of the earlier national hands. In
each country, however, it acquired, in a greater or less de
gree, an individual national stamp which can generally be
recognized and which serves to distinguish MSS. written
in different localities. A broad line of distinction may be
drawn between the writing of northern and southern
Europe from the 12th to the 15th century. In the earlier
part of this period the MSS. of England, northern France,
and the Netherlands are closely connected. Indeed, in
the 12th and 13th centuries it is not always easy to decide
as to which of the three countries a particular MS. may
belong. As a rule, perhaps, English MSS. are written
with more sense of gracefulness ; those of the Netherlands
in darker ink. From the latter part of the 13th century,
however, national character begins to assert itself more
distinctly. In southern Europe the influence of the Italian
school of writing is manifest in the MSS. of the south of
France in the 13th and 14th centuries, and also, though
later, in those of Spain. That elegant roundness of letter
which the Italian scribes seem to have inherited from the
bold characters of the early papal chancery, and more
recently from Lombardic models, was generally adopted in
the book-hand of those districts. It is especially notice
able in calligraphic specimens, as in church books, — the
writing of Spanish MSS. in this style being distinguishable
by _ the blackness of the ink. The mediaeval minuscule
writing of Germany stands apart. It never attained to
the beauty of the hands of either the north or the south
which have been just noticed ; and from its ruggedness
and slow development German MSS. have the appearance
of being older than they really are. The writing has also
very commonly a certain slope in the letters which com
pares unfavourably with the upright and elegant hands of
other countries. In western Europe generally the minus
cule hand thus nationalized ran its course down to the
time of the invention of printing, when the so-called black
letter, or set hand of the 15th century in Germany and
other countries, furnished models for the types. But in
Italy, with the revival of learning, a more refined taste set
in in the production of MSS., and scribes went back to an
earlier time in search of a better standard of writing.
Hence, in the first quarter of the 15th century, MSS.
written on the lines of the Italian hand of the early 12th
century begin to appear, and become continually more
numerous. This revived hand was brought to perfection
soon after the middle of the century, just at the right
moment to be adopted by the early Italian printers, and
to be perpetuated by them in their types.
It must also not be forgotten that by the side of the
book-hand of the later Middle Ages there was the cursive
hand of every day use. This is represented in abundance
in the large mass of charters and legal or domestic docu
ments which remains. Some notice has already been
taken of the development of the national -cursive hands in
the earliest times. From the 12th century downwards
these hands settled into well-defined and distinct styles
peculiar to different countries, and passed through syste
matic changes which can be recognized as characteristic of
particular periods. But, while the cursive hand thus
followed out its own course, it was still subject to the same
laws of change which governed the book-hand ; and the
letters of the two styles did not differ at any period in
their organic formation. Confining our attention to the
charter hand, or court hand, practised in England, a few
specimens may be taken to show the principal changes
which it developed. In the 12th century the official hand
which had been introduced after the Norman Conquest is
characterized by exaggeration in the strokes above and
below the line, a legacy of the old Roman cursive, as
already noted. There is also a tendency to form the
tops of tall vertical strokes, as in b, h, I, with a notch or
cleft. The letters are well made and vigorous, though
often rugged.
Charter of Stephen, 1136-39 A.D.
(et ministry et omnibMs fidelibws suis Frances et -
Regine uxoris mee et Eustachii filii -
mei dedi et concessi ecclesie Beate Marie)
As the century advances, the long limbs are brought into
better proportion ; and early in the 13th century a very
delicate fine-stroked hand comes into use, the cleaving of
the tops being now a regular system, and the branches
formed by the cleft falling in a curve on either side. This
style remains the writing of the reigns of John and Henry
III.
•mSwwwvn
Charter of Henry III., 1259 A.D.
(urtiuersis presentes litteras inspecturis s&lutem. Noueritis qwod —
— ford et EssexiV et Constabulariuw Anglz'e et Willelmum de Fortibws
— ad iurandum in animam nosiram in presencia nostra, de pace)
XVIII. — 21
162
Towards the latter part of the 13th century the letters
grow rounder ; there is generally more contrast of light
and heavy strokes ; and the cleft tops begin, as it were, to
shed the branch on the left.
nrm ptrn
ec m°lottgrcuS>mc
roocac
Tno&atn a?wc 3ku£ ftE fcno c&tnta
atiaTrSb Tcnuayrtv- ar a
Charter of Edward I., 1303 A.D.
(More cum periinentiis in mora que vocatwr Inkelesmore continentewi
— se in longitudine per medium more illius ab uno capite —
Abbas et Conuentus aliquando tenueriuit et quam prefatus Co — )
In the 14th century the changes thus introduced make
further progress, and the round letters and single-branched
vertical strokes become normal through the first half of
the century. Then, however, the regular formation begins
to give way and angularity sets in. Thus in the reign of
Richard II. we have a hand presenting a mixture of round
and angular elements — the letters retain their breadth but
lose their curves. Hence, by further decadence, results
the angular hand of the 15th century, at first compact,
but afterwards stralin and ill-formed.
M <330m*n<r
English Charter, 1457 A.D.
(and fully to be endid, payinge yerely the seid —
successours in hand halfe yere afore that is —
next suyinge xxiij. s. iiij. d. by evene poreiouws.)
Palimpsests. — A class of MSS. must be briefly noticed which, on
account of the valuable texts which many of them have yielded,
have a particular interest. These are the palimpsests. The custom
of removing writing from the surface of the material on which it
was inscribed, and thus preparing that surface for the reception of
another text, has been practised from early times. The term palim
psest is used by Catullus, apparently with reference to papyrus ; by
Cicero, in a passage wherein he is evidently speaking of waxen
tablets ; and by Plutarch, when he narrates that Plato compared
Dionysius to a fiifrxiov iraXi^ffrov, in that his tyrant nature, being
8v<TfKTr\vTos, showed itself like the imperfectly erased writing of
a palimpsest MS. In this passage, reference is clearly made t'o the
wasliing off of writing from papyrus. The word ira\i/j.tyi)<rTos can
only in its first use have been applied to MSS. which were actually
scraped or rubbed, and which were, therefore, composed of a material
of sufficient strength to bear the process. In the first instance,
then, it might be applied to waxen tablets ; secondly, to vellum
books. There are still to be seen, among the surviving waxen
tablets, some which contain traces of an earlier writing under a
fresh layer of wax. Papyrus could not be scraped or rubbed ; the
writing was washed from it with the sponge. This, however,
could not be so thoroughly done as to leave a perfectly clean sur
face, and the material was accordingly only used a second time for
documents of an ephemeral or common nature. To apply, therefore,
the title of palimpsest to a MS. of this substance was not strictly
correct ; the fact that it was so applied proves that the term was in
common use.
In the early period of palimpsests, vellum MSS. were also
washed. The ink of the earlier centuries was easily removed with
the sponge, and at-the moment when this was done it may be sup
posed that the pages presented a clean surface. In course of time,
however, by atmospheric action or other chemical causes, the ori
ginal writing would to some extent reappear ; and it is thus that so
many of the capital and uncial palimpsests have been successfully
deciphered. In the later Middle Ages the knife was used ; the
surface of the vellum was scraped away and the writing with it.
The reading of the later examples is therefore very difficult or alto
gether impossible. Besides actual rasure, various recipes for effac
ing the writing have been found, — such as, to soften the surface
with milk and meal, and then to rub with pumice. In the case of
such a process being used, total obliteration mu.st almost inevitably
have been the result. To intensify the traces of the original writ
ing, when such exist, various chemical reagents have been tried with
more or less success. The old method of smearing the vellum with
tincture of gall restored the writing, but did irreparable damage by
blackening the surface, and, as the stain grew darker in course of
time, by rendering the text altogether illegible. Of modern reagents
the most harmless appears to be hydrosulphurate of ammonia ; but
this also must be used with caution, and should be washed oft' when
it has done its work.
The primary cause of the destruction of MSS. by wilful obliter
ation was, it need hardly be said, the dearth of material. At certain
periods, from political or social changes, the market was interfered
with, and production or importation failed. In the case of Greek
MSS., so great was the consumption of old books, for the sake of
the material, that a synodal decree of the year 691 forbade the
destruction of MSS. of the Scriptures or the church fathers — imper
fect or injured volumes excepted. The decline of the vellum trade
also on the introduction of paper, as already noticed above, caused
a scarcity which was only to be made good by recourse to material
already once used. Vast destruction of the broad quartos of the
early centuries of our era took place in the period which followed
the fall of the Roman empire. The most valuable Latin palim
psests are accordingly found in the volumes which were remade from
the 7th to the 9th centuries, a period during which the large
volumes referred to must have been still fairly numerous. Late
Latin palimpsests rarely yield anything of value : often the first
writing precedes the later one by only a century or two; and some
times both hands are of the same age. In the earlier examples,
many of the original texts were sacrificed to make room for
patristic literature or grammatical works. In many instances MSS.
of the classical writers have been thus destroyed ; and the sacred
text itself has not always been spared. On the other hand, there
are instances of classical texts being written over Biblical MSS. ;
but these are of late date. It has been remarked that no entire
work has been found in any instance in the original text of a
palimpsest, but that portions of many works have been taken to
make up a single volume. These facts, however, go rather to prove,
not so much that only imperfect works were put under con
tribution, as that scribes' were indiscriminate in selection of
material.
An enumeration of the different palimpsests of value is not here
possible (see "Wattenbach, Schriftwesen, pp. 252-257) ; but a few
may be mentioned of which facsimiles are accessible. The MS.
known as the Codex Ephraemi, containing portions of the Old and
New Testaments in Greek, attributed to the 5th century, is covered
with works of Ephraem Syrus in a hand of the 12th century (ed.
Tischendorf, 1843, 1845). Among the Syriac MSS. obtained from
the Nitrian desert in Egypt, and now deposited in the British
Museum, some important Greek texts have been recovered. A
volume containing a work of Severus of Antioch of the beginning
of the 9th century is written on palimpsest leaves taken from MSS.
of t\i&- Iliad of Homer and the Gospel of St Luke, both of the 6th
century (Cat. Anc. MSS., i. , pis. 9, 10), and the Elements of Euclid
of the 7th or 8th century. To the same collection belongs the
double palimpsest, in which a text of St John Chrysostom, in
Syriac, of the 9th or 10th century, covers a Latin grammatical
treatise in a cursive hand of the 6th century, which in its turn has
displaced the Latin annals of the historian Granius Licinianus, of
the 5th century (Cat. Anc. MSS., ii. , pis. 1, 2). Among Latin
palimpsests also may be noticed those which have been reproduced
in the Exempla of Zangemeister and Wattenbach. These are — the
Ambrosian Plautus, in rustic capitals, of the 4th or 5th century,
re-written •\yith portions of the Bible in the 9th century (pi. 6) ;
the Cicero De Rcpublica of the Vatican, in uncials, of the 4th cen
tury, covered by St Augustine on the Psalms, of the 7th century
(pi. 17; Pal. Soc., pi. 160); the Codex Theodosianus of Turin, of
the 5th or 6th century (pi. 25) ; the Fasti Consulares of Verona,
of 486 A.D. (pi. 29) ; and the Arian fragment of the Vatican, of the
5th century (pi. 31). Most of these originally belonged to the
monastery of Bobbio, a fact which gives some indication of the great
literary wealth of that house. The new photographic processes are
particularly well adapted for the reproduction of palimpsests, for
the reason that, however faint the subject, it is nearly always
intensified in the negative. By using skill and judgment, with a
favouring light, photography may be often made a useful agent in
the decipherment of obscure palimpsest texts.
Mechanical Arrangement of Writing in MSS. — In the papyrus
rolls the text was written in columns, generally narrow, whose
length was limited by the width of the material, allowing a margin '
at top and bottom. In books, if the text did not extend across the
page, it was usually written in two columns. A few instances,
however, are known of MSS. which have more than two columns
of writing in a page. Among them, the Codex Sinaiticus of the
Bible lias four columns, and the Codex Vaticanus three columns.
In the Fulda fragment of an ancient Latin Bible (Excmpla, 21) the
arrangement is one of three columns ; and a late instance of the
same number occurs in a Latin Bible of the end of the 9th century
in the British Museum (Cat. Anc. MSS., ii. , pi. 45). Besides the
practice of continuous writing without distinction of words, which
PALAEOGRAPHY
163
will be referred to more fully below, the letters towards the end of
a line were, in the earliest MSS., reduced in size and cramped
together, and very frequently in Latin MSS. two or more letters
were linked or combined in a monograrnmatic form, as LR UT (ur,
unt). By these devices space was saved and words were less divided
between two lines. Combinations survived partially in minuscule
MSS. The opening lines of the main divisions of the text, as for
example the different books of the Bible, were frequently written
in red, for distinction. At first there was no enlargement whatever
of letters in any part of the text, but still at an early period the
first letter of each page was made larger than the rest. Rubrics
and titles and colophons were at first written in the same character
as the text; afterwards, when the admixture of different kinds of
writing was allowed, capitals and uncials were used at discretion.
In papyri it appears to have been the practice to write the name of
the work at the end only. Running titles or head-lines are found
in some of the earliest Latin MSS. in the same characters as the
text, but of a small size. Quotations were usually indicated by
ticks or arrow-heads in the margin, serving the purpose of the
modern inverted commas. Sometimes the quoted words were
arranged as a sub-paragraph or indented passage. In commentaries
of later date, the quotations from the work commented upon were
often written in a different style from the text of the commentary
itself.
In MSS., both Greek and Latin, of the earlier centuries the
writing runs on continuously without breaking up into distinct
words. To this system there are, however, a few partial exceptions,
in some of the very earliest examples. For instance, the Ei/8o|ot>
Tfxvfl, written on papyrus in the 2d century B.C. , has a certain
amount of separation of words, and in the fragments of the poem
on the battle of Actium which were recoverefl at Herculaneum
the words are marked off with points, monosyllabic or short pre
positions and conjunctions, however, being joined to the words
which immediately follow them— a system which we find in practice
at a later time. In the early vellum MSS. there is no such separa
tion ; and unless there is a pause in the sense, at which a small
space may be left, the line of letters has no break whatever. In
Greek MSS., indeed, a system of distinct separation of words was
never thoroughly worked out, even as late as the 15th century.
The continuous writing of the uncial MSS. was carried on in the
minuscules ; and, although, in the latter, a certain degree of separa
tion is noticeable as early as the 10th century, yet a large propor
tion of words remain linked together or wrongly divided.
In the case of Latin uncial MSS., when the latter part of the 7th
century is reached, there is more evidence of separation, although
no regular system is followed. Concurrently the same process is
observed in minuscule MSS., in which a partial separation goes on
in an uncertain and hesitating manner down to the time of the
Caroline reform. In early Irish and English MSS., however, it
may be observed that separation is more consistently followed. In
MSS. of the 9th and 10th centuries the long words are separated,
but short prepositions and conjunctions are joined to the next
following word. It was not until the llth century that these
smaller words were finally detached and stood apart.
Punctuation. — From the use of continuous writing naturally
arose in the first place the necessity for the breaking up of the text
into paragraphs and sentences, and afterwards the introduction of
marks of punctuation. In the Greek works on papyrus before the
Christian era certain marks of division are found.' In the Harris
Homer (Cut. Anc. MSS., i., pi. 1) a wedge-shaped sign > is in
serted between the beginnings of the lines to mark a new passage.
In the prose works of Hyperides a pause in the sense (unless it I
occurs at the end of a line) is indicated by a short blank space
being left in the line and by a horizontal stroke being drawn under j
the first letter of the line in which the pause occurs. In a few
instances, in the space left to mark the pause a full point or slight '
oblique stroke is added high in the line. As large letters were un- [
known, this system of dividing the paragraphs was calculated to
sacrifice the least amount of space, as the rest of the line, after the {
pause, was utilized for the beginning of the next paragraph. In
the early vellum MSS. the same plan is followed, with the more :
general use of the full point, which is placed on a level with either
the top or the middle of the letters ; and the marginal dividing !
signs are of different patterns. When large letters were introduced
to mark the paragraphs, had they been invariably placed at the
beginning of their respective paragraphs, the latter must of necessity
have each begun a new line, unless the lines had been wide enough
apart to leave room for the insertion of the large letters. This '
latter arrangement would, however, have entailed considerable loss
of space ; and the device was accordingly invented, in cases where
the paragraph began in the middle of a line, to place the large letter
as the first letter of the next line, even though it might there occur
in the middle of a word, and, as it was placed in the margin, it did
not affect the normal space between the lines. It need hardly be
said that, if the paragraph commenced at the beginning of a line, i
the large letter took its natural place as the initial. The use of j
these large or initial letters led to the abolition of the paragraph I
marks. As early as the 5th century there is evidence in the case
of the Codex Alexandrinus that the marks were losing their meaning
in the eyes of the scribes ; for in that MS. they are frequently placed
in anomalous positions, particularly over the initial letters of the
different books, having been evidently considered as mere ornaments.
The position of the initial as the leading letter of the second line of
a paragraph beginning in the middle of a line was maintained in the
Greek minuscule MSS. into the 15th century. The practice of con
tinuous writing also led to the arrangement of the text of the Bible
and some other works in short sentences, according to the sense,
which were called cnixot, as will be noticed presently ; but other
minor methods were followed to prevent the ambiguity which would
occasionally arise. In even the earliest Greek uncial MSS.. an
apostrophe was often inserted above the line between two words, as a
dividing mark, as, for instance, in the Codex Alexandrinus, OTN'OTK;
and it was specially used after words ending in x, x, !> p, and after
proper names which have not a Greek termination. It was even
placed, apparently from false analogy, between two consonants in
the middle of a word, as HNEF'KEN. Some of these uses of the
apostrophe survived in minuscule MSS. A mark also, resembling
an accent or short horizontal stroke, was employed to indicate
words consisting of a single letter, as H, which as a word has so
many different meanings.
In the earliest surviving Latin volumes there was no punctuation
by the first hand, but in the later uncial MSS. the full point, in
various positions, was introduced — being placed on a level with
either the bottom, middle, or top of the letters, the two latter
positions being the most common. In minuscule MSS. the full
point, on the line or high, was first used ; then the comma and
semicolon, and the inverted semicolon (S), whose power was rather
stronger than that of the comma. In Irish and early English MSS.
the common mark of punctuation was the full point. As a final
stop one or more points with a comma . ., were frequently used.
Stichometry. — While dealing with the subject of punctuation, the
system of Stichometry, or division of the texts into OT/XOJ, versus,
or lines of a certain length may be referred to.1 It was the custom
of the Greeks and Romans to estimate the length of their literary
works by lines. In poetical works the number of verses was com
puted ; in prose works a standard line had to be taken, for no two
scribes would naturally write lines of the same length. This
standard was a medium Homeric line, and it appears to have con
sisted, on an average, of 34 to 38 letters, or 15 to 16 syllables.
The lines of any work, so measured, were called a-ri-^oi or firrj. The
practice of thus computing the length of a work can be traced ba; k
to the 4th century B.C. in the boast of Theopompus that he .had
written more CTTTJ than any other writer. The number of such
ffrixoi or tin] contained in a papyrus roll was recorded at the end
with the title of the work ; and at the end of a large work extend
ing to several rolls the grand total was given. The use of such a
stichometrical arrangement was in the first place for literary refer
ence. The numeration of the CTT/XOI was no doubt at an early period
regularly noted in the margin, just as lines of poetical works or
verses in the Bible are numbered in our printed books. In a Greek
Biblical MS. at Milan they are numbered at the end of every
hundred, and the verses in the Bankes Homer are counted in the
same way. But the system was also of practical use in calculating
the pay of the scribes and in arranging the market value of a MS.
When once a standard copy of a work had been written in the
normal lines, the scribes of all subsequent copies had only to reeoid
the number of a-rixoi without keeping to the prototype. When v, e
find therefore at the end of the different books of a Bible that they
severally contain so many o-r/xot or versus, it is this stichometrkal
arrangement which is referred to. Callimachus, when he drew up
his catalogue of the Alexandrian libraries in the 3d century B.C.,
registered the total of the ffrixoi in each work. Although he is
generally lauded for thus carefully recording the numbers and setting
an example to all who should follow him, it has been suggested that
this very act was the cause of their general disappearance from MSS.
For, when his irivaitf s were published, scribes evidently thought it
was needless to repeat what could be found there ; and thus it is
that so few MSS. have descended to us which are marked in this
way.
There was also in use in Biblical MSS. another arrangement.
This was the division of the text into short sentences or lines,
according to the sense, chiefly with a view to a better understand
ing of the meaning and a better delivery in public reading. The
Psalms, Proverbs, and other poetical books were anciently thus
written, and hence received tha title of /8/^Aoj ffrix^p^is, or
ffnx-npai ; and it was on the same plan that St Jerome wrote, first
the books of the prophets, and subsequently all the Bible of his
version, per cola et commata "quod in Demosthene et Tullio solet
fieri." In the Greek Testament also Euthalius, in the 5th century,
introduced the method of writing (T-TLX^OV, as he termed it, into
the Pauline and Catholic Epistles, and the Acts. The surviving
MSS. which contain the text written in short sentences show by
1 See the article by C. Graux in Rerue de Philologie, 1878. vol. ii.
p. 97.
PALAEOGRAPHY
the diversity of the latter that the rhythmical sentences or lines
of sense were differently calculated by different writers ; but the
original arrangement of St Jerome is thought to be represented in
the Codex Amiatinus at Florence, and that of Euthalius in the Codex
Olaromontanus at Paris. With regard to St Jerome's reference
to the division per cola et commata of the rhetorical works of
Demosthenes and Cicero, it should be noticed that there are still
in existence MSS. of works of the latter in which the text is thus
written, one of them being a volume of the Tusculans and the
DC Scncdute in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. The same
arrangement of the text of the orations of Demosthenes is also men
tioned by the rhetoricians of the 5th and subsequent centuries. It
is a. curious circumstance also that the text of the only two surviv
ing documents of the Roman chancery addressed to Egyptian
officials in the 5th century (see above) is written in lines of various
lengths, apparently for rhetorical convenience.
Corrections. — For obliteration or removing pen strokes from the
surface of the material the sponge was used in ancient times.
While the writing was still fresh, the scribe could easily wash off
the ink by this means ; and for a fragile material, such as papyrus,
he could well use no other. On vellum he might use sponge or
knife. But after a MS. had left his hands it would undergo revision
at the hands of a corrector, who had to deal with the text in a
different manner. He could no longer conveniently apply the
sponge. On hard material he might still u-^e the knife to erase
letters or words or sentences. But he could also use his pen for
such purposes. Thus we find that a very early system of indicating
erasure was the placing of dots or minute strokes above the letters
to be thus "expunged." The same marks were also (and generally,
at later periods) placed under the letters ; in rare, instances they
stood inside them. It need scarcely be said that letters were also
struck out with strokes of the pen or altered into others, and that
letters and words were interlined. Along sentence, however, which
could not be admitted between the lines, was entered in the margin,
and its place in the text indicated by corresponding reference marks,
such as hd. hs. = hie dcest, hoc supra, &c.
Tachygraphy. — The systems of tachygraphy which were followed
by both Greeks and Romans had an effect upon the forms of contrac
tion found in mediaeval MSS. The subject of Greek tachygraphy
has lately received a good deal of attention on account of recent dis
coveries. How far back the practice of shorthand writing existed
among the Greeks there is nothing to show ; for, although certain
words of Diogenes Laertius have been taken to imply that Xenophon
wrote shorthand notes (viroffriiJ.ciw<rd[j.ivos) of the lectures of
Socrates, yet a similar expression in another passage, which will not
bear this meaning, renders it hardly possible that tachygraphy is
referred to. The first undoubted mention of a Greek shorthand
writer occurs in 195 A.D., in a letter of Flavins Philostratus. But
unfortunately there appear to be no very ancient specimens of Greek
tachygraphy in existence ; for it is denied that certain notes and
inscriptions in the papyri dating from the 2d century B.C., which
have been put forward as such, are in shorthand at all. The
extant examples date only from the 10th century. First stands the
Paris MS. of Hcrmogenes, with some tachygraphic writing of that
period, of which Montfaucon (Pal. Gr., p. 351) gives some account,
and accompanies his description with a table of forms which, as he
tolls us, he deciphered with incredible labour. Next, the Add.
MS. 18231 in the British Museum contains some marginal notes in
shorthand, of 972 A.D. (Wattenb., Script. Grxc. Spccim., tab. 19).
But the largest amount of material is found in the Vatican MS.
1809, a volume in which as many as forty-seven pages arc covered
with tachygraphic writing of the llth century. Mai first published
a specimen of it in his Scriptorum Vctcrum Nova, Collcctio, vol. vi.
(1832) ; and in his Novx Patrum Bibliothccx torn, sccundus (1844)
he gave a second, which, in the form of a marginal note, contained
a fragment of the book of Enoch. But he did not quote the num
ber of the MS., and it has only lately been found again. The
tacJiygraphic portion of it is now being made the subject of special
study by Dr Gitlbauer for the Vienna Academy. It contains frag
ments of the works of St Maximus the Confessor, the confession
of St Cyprian of Antioch, and works of the pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagita. The writing used in these examples is syllabic, and
appears to be a younger form of tachygraphy as distinguished from
an older system, the existence of which may be inferred from the
occurrence of certain signs or symbols of contraction used in the
minuscule MSS. For, while many of the signs thus used correspond
with the tachygraphic signs of the above examples, there are others
which differ and which have been derived from an earlier source.
For a system of tachygraphic contractions had been developing at
an earlier period ; and its elements have been traced in both cursive
and uncial MSS. as far back as the 5th or 6th century. If then we
may suppose that the new system of tachygraphy was an invention
of the 9th or 10th century, this will account for the occurrence
in MSS. of that period of two forms of abbreviation for certain
syllables-rthe one adopted from the old or ordinary system, and the
other being the neo-stenographic symbol. As to the first origin of
Greek tachygraphy, it has been supposed that it grew from a system
of secret writing which was developed from forms of abbreviation,
and which the early Christians adopted for their own use.
Evidence of the use of tachygraphy among the Romans is to be
found in the writings of authors under the empire. It appears to
have been taught in schools, and, among others, the emperor Titus
is said to have been skilful in this style of writing. Elmius has
been named as the inventor of a large collection of shorthand
symbols ; but more generally Cicero's freedman M. Tullius Tiro is
regarded as the author of these signs, which commonly bear the title
of " Notai Tironianffi." The shorthand writers or notaries were
well trained in the use of these notes, and in the early Christian
times were largely employed in taking down the words of the
bishops of the church which were preached in sermons or spoken in
councils, and in recording the acts and lives of martyrs. In the
Prankish empire the notes were used in signatures or subscriptions
of charters, and later, in the 9th and early 10th centuries, they
were adopted by the revisers and annotators of the texts of MSS.
Of this period also are several MSS. containing the Psalter in these
characters, which it has been suggested were written for practice at
a time when a fresh impulse had been given to the \ise of short
hand in the service of literature. The existence also of volumes
containing collections of the Tironian notes, and written at this
time, points to a temporary revival. The notes appear to have gone
out of general use, however, almost immediately after this, although
in isolated cases, such as in subscriptions to charters, they linger ns
late as the beginning of the llth century. A few of the forms of
the Tironian notes were adopted in mediaeval MSS. as symbols of
contraction for certain common words, as will be noticed presently.
Contractions.— The use of contractions or abbreviations in MSS.
would arise from two causes — first, the natural desire to write as
quickly and shortly as possible words of frequent occurrence which
could not be misread in a contracted form, and, secondly, tho
necessity of saving space. The contractions satisfying the first
requirement were necessarily limited in number and simple in char
acter, and are such as are found with more or less frequency in the
oldest MSS. But the regular system of contracted forms, with the
view of getting as much writing as possible into a limited space,
was only elaborated in course of time, and was in use in the later
centuries of the Middle Ages. Different kinds of literature also
were, according to their nature, more or less contracted. From
early times abbreviations were used more freely in secular books, and
particularly in works in which technical language was employed,
such as those on law or grammar or mathematics, than in Biblical
MSS. or liturgies. In the Greek fragment of a mathematical
treatise of the 7th century, at Milan, there are numerous contrac
tions ; and the same is found to be the case in a Latin MS. of
the 5th century, the Verona Gaius. With regard to the different
systems or styles of contraction, the oldest and simplest is that in
which a single letter, or at most two or three letters, represent a
whole word. Among Latin classical writers we know that these
contractions were common enough, and ancient inscriptions afford
plentiful examples. In the waxen tablets also they are found; and
they survive in the later papyri of Ravenna, &c., and in law deeds.
Next is the system of dropping the final syllable or syllables of a
word, or of omitting a letter or syllable or more in the middle, —
such omissions being easily supplied from the general sense of the
context — e.g., ffx"n^ = ffxn/J-aTos, }i&buef = Juilnteruvt, Tpfm=patrcm.
And lastly, there are the arbitrary signs and contractions formed
in a special manner or marked by certain figures whereby they
may be regularly interpreted.
Traces of a system of contraction are found in some of the early
Greek papyri. For example, in the papyrus of the oration ot
Hyperides for Lycophron, of at least the 1st century B.C., the nu
of the syllable a>v, when occurring at the end of a line, is omitted,
and its omission marked by a light horizontal stroke above the line
of writing ; and, as marks of reference to an accidentally omitted
line, abbreviated forms of &vw and KO.TW are used. In the Bankes
Homer also the sign ~j0i" for TTOIT/TTJS is placed in the margin to mark
the narrative portion of the text. In the ancient Greek Biblical
MSS. the contractions are usually confined to the sacred names and
titles, and a few words of common occurrence, as 0C = 6t6s, 1C =
XC =
I1NA =
CHP =
uiijT'?P> TC = ufos, ANOC =
&v0pwiros, OTNOC = ovpavos, K, = *««', T = TCK, $]=-/jiov, fjioi, &C.
Final N, especially at the end of a line, was dropped, and its place
occupied by the horizontal stroke, as TO~. This limited system of
contraction was observed generally in the uncial Biblical and
liturgical MSS. In the mathematical fragment at Milan abbrevia
tions by dropping final syllables, and contracted particles and pre
positions, arc numerous ; and in the palimpsest Homer of the 6th
century in the British Museum final syllables are occasionally
omitted. Such omissions were, however, indicated by strokes or
curves, or by some leading letter of the omitted portion being placed
above the line of writing. Certain signs also were borrowed from
tachygraphy, at first sparingly, but afterwards, in the later and
P A L — P A L
165
more elaborate system of contraction, in sufficient numbers to repre
sent certain common words and terminations.
In the early Greek minuscule MSS. contractions are not very fre
quent in the texts ; but in the marginal glosses, where it was an
object to save space, they are found in great numbers as early as the
10th century. The MS. of Nonnus, of 972 A.D., in the British
Museum (Wattenb. and Von Vels. , Exempla, 7) is an instance of a
text contracted to a degree that almost amounts to tachygraphy.
In secular MSS. contractions developed most quickly. In the
12th, 13th, and 14th centuries texts were fully contracted ; and as
the writing became more cursive contraction-marks were more care
lessly applied, until, in the 15th century, they degenerated into mere
flourishes.
In Latin Biblical uncial MSS. the same restrictions on abbrevia
tions were exercised as in the Greek. _The sacred names and
titles US — dcus, DMS, TyNS = dominus, SCS = sanctus, BPS = spiri-
tus, and others appear in the oldest codices. The contracted ter
minations Q' = quc, B' = 6i<s, and the omission of final m, or (more
rarely) final n, are common to all Latin MSS. of the earliest
period. There is a peculiarity about the contracted form of our
Saviour's name that it is always written by the Latin scribes in
letters imitating the Greek IHC, XPC, ihc, xpc. In secular works,
as already noticed, contractions were used in many forms at an early
period. In minuscule MSS. of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries
the system of dropping middle or final syllables was commonly
applied. In this stage the simpler marks of contraction, such as a
horizontal stroke or an apostrophe to mark the omitted termination,
were generally used. Certain ordinary words also, as prepositions
and conjunctions, and a few prefixes and terminations, had parti
cular forms of contraction from an early date. Such are e = es<,
\ => ml, fi = non, p' =prc, f>=pcr, ^» =pro, ' = termination us. The
letter q with distinctive strokes applied in different positions re
presented the often recurring relative and other short words, as
quod, quia. Conventional signs also derived from the Tironian
notes were employed, particularly in Irish and English MSS., as
ft=aute//i, -~=cst, 3 = ejus, tt = e«,i»i, ~] =ct. From the practice
of writing above the line a leading letter of an omitted syllable,
as int*'=intra, tr = tur, other conventional signs were also de
veloped. Such growths are well illustrated in the change under
gone by the semicolon, which was attached to the end of a word to
indicate the omission of the termination, as \>; = bus, <[; = quc,
del>; = dcbet, and which in course of time became converted into
a 2, a form which survives in our ordinary abbreviation viz. (i.e.,
\i; = videlicet). The different forms of contraction which have
been noticed were common to all the nations of western Europe.
The Spanish scribes, however, attached different values to certain
of them. For example, in Visigothic MSS., q~m, which elsewhere
represented quoniam, may be read as quum ; and ,}>, which else
where =|?ro, is here=_pe?\
By the llth century the system of Latin contractions had been
reduced to exact rules ; and from this time onwards it was univer
sally practised. It reached its culminating point in the 13th cen
tury, the period of increasing demand for MSS., when it became
more than ever necessary to economize space. After this date the
exact formation of the signs of contraction was less strictly observed,
and the system deteriorated together with the decline of hand
writing. In conclusion, it may be noticed that in MSS. written
in the vernacular tongues contractions are more rarely used than in
Latin texts. A system suited to the inflexions and terminations of
this language could not be readily adapted to other languages so
different in grammatical structure.
Breathings and Accents. — These were not systematically applied
to the texts of Greek MSS. before the 7th century. Such as are
found in isolated passages in the ancient papyri do not appear to
have been written by the first hand, and most of them are probably
of much later date. They have been freely added to the ancient
texts of Homer, as in the Harris and Bankes papyri, but palpably
long after the dates of the writing. Nor were they used in the
early uncial MSS. The ancient codices of the Bible are devoid of
them; and, although in the Ambrosian Homer of the 5th century
it is thought that some of the breathings may be by the original
hand, the other marks of breathing and the accents are of later
date. So likewise the few breathings and accents which are seen
in the palimpsest Homer of the 6th century in the British
Museum have been, to all appearance, added afterwards. In Latin
texts, and particularly in early Irish and English MSS., an accent
is occasionally found over a monosyllabic word or one consisting of
a single letter. But such accentuation, serving to distinguish such
small words in reading, rather corresponds to the similar marking
of short words in Greek MSS., as noticed above.
Numerals. — An examination of the different forms of numerals
to be found in Greek and Latin MSS. is beyond the province of
this article. It may, however, be pointed out that, while in Greek
MSS. one system was followed, in Latin MSS. both the Roman
and Arabic numerals were in use. The Roman numerals appear
in all kinds of documents at all times. When occurring in the text
of a MS. they were usually placed between full points, e.g., .cxiiii. .
to prevent confusion with the letters of the words. Arabic-
numerals were established in common use by the end of the 14th
century, but their occurrence in MSS. has been traced back to the
middle of the 12th century, from which date down to the time of
their general adoption they were principally confined to mathe
matical works.
Bibliography.— GREEK PALEOGRAPHY.— The first book which dealt with the
subject in a systematic manner was the Palxographia Gneca of the learned
Benedictine, Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, published in 1708. So thoroughly well
was the work done that down to our own time no other scholar attempted to
improve upon it, and Montfaucon remained the undisputed authority in this
branch of learning. At length, in 1879, Gardthausen published his Griechische
Palieographie, in which is embodied fuller information that was unavailable
in Montfaucon's day. In this work the development of Greek writing in its
various styles is carefully and lucidly worked out and illustrated with table?,
and a useful list of dated Greek MSS. is added. See also a review of Gardt-
hausen's work by Charles Graux in the Journal des Savants (1881). A most
useful and handy introduction is Wattenbach's Anleitung zur Griechiifheu
Palieographie (2d ed., 1877), in which will be found references to all the most
important MSS. With regard to facsimiles, those which are found in Montfaucon
and other books of the same time are practically useless for critical purposes.
The invention of photography has entirely driven into the background all hand
made facsimiles, and in the future none will be admissible which are not pro
duced by the action of light. Autotypes or pht to-lithographs .rvom MSS. ar*
given in the Facsimiles of the Palasographical Society (1873-8:3); in the Exempla
Codicum Grxcorum litteris minusculis fcriptorum(l878) of Wattenbach and Von
Velsen; in the Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum, part i. (1881):
in Wattenbach's Scripturx Grxcie Specimina (1883): and, in fewer numbers, in
Specimina Palxographica codd. Grxc. et Slav. bill. Mosguensis (1863-64) by
Bishop Sabas. Facsimiles made by hand, but excellently finished, are in
Silvestre's Paleographie Universelle (1850) and in Notices et Extraits dts
Manuscrits, torn, xviii., pt. 2 (1865), where the papyri of Paris are faithfully
represented.
LATIN PALAEOGRAPHY. — The bibliography of Latin palaeography in its different
branches is very extensive, but there are comparatively few books which dtal
with it as a whole. The most complete work is due to the Benedictines, who
in 1750-65 produced the Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, which examines the
remains of Latin wilting in a most exhaustive manner. The fault of the work
lies indeed in its diffuseness and in the superabundance of subdivisions which
tend to confuse the reader. The extensive use, however, which the authors
made of the French libraries renders their work most valuable for reference. As
their title shows, they diil not confine themselves to the study of MS. volumes,
but dealt also with that other branch of palaeography, the study of documents,
in which they had been preceded by Mabillon in his De Re Diplomatica (1709).
Wattenbach's Anleitung zur Latiinischen Palseographie, 3d ed., 1878, is a
thoroughly practical introduction, classifying the different kinds of writing, and
giving full biographical references, and tracing the forms of letters and the
history of contractions, &c. Works which give facsimiles in general are —
Silvestre, Paleographie Universelle; the Facsimiles of the Palseographical Society:
Arndt, Schrifttafeln, 1874, 1878; the Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British
Museum, part ii., 1884; and among those which deal with particular branches of
Latin palaeography the following may be enumerated — Exempla Codicum Lutin-
orumlitteris maiusculis scriptorum (1876, 1879) by Zangemeisterand Wattenbach :
on Roman cursive, and on Lombardic, Merovingian, and Visigothic writing, the
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vols. iii., iv.; Massmann, Libellus aurariuf.
1840; Marini, Papiri Diplomatici, 1805; the Chartes Latines sur Papyrus (1835-
40) of Champollion-Figeac; Gloria, Paleografia, 1870; Sickel, Monumenta Graphica.
1858-69; Letronne, Diplomata et Chartse Meronngica; ^£tatis, 1848; "Facsimile
de Chartes et Diplomes," in the Archives de I' Empire, 1866; Sybel and Sickel,
Kaiserurkunden, 1880-84; Bibliotheca Casinensis, 1873, &c.; Merino. Escutla
Pahographica, 1780; and the Exempla Scripturx Visigoliae (1883) of Ewald and
Loewe. On Irish and English writing— Astle, Origin and Progress of Writing,
1873; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, 1873-78 ; Facsimiltf
of Anglo -Saxon MSS., 1878, 1881, Kolls Series; Facsimiles of National MSS. of Eng
land, Scotland, and Ireland, in separate series. The various works on illumina
tion, such as those of Count Bastard, Westwood, Tymms and Wyatt, and others
may also be consulted. For the study of the Tironian Notes, see Carpentier.
Alphabelum Tironianum, 1747; Kopp, Palxographia Criiica, 1817; Jules
Tardif, " Me'moire sur les Notes Tironiennes," in the Memoires del'Acade'mie des
Inscriptions, se'r. 2, torn, iii., 1852; and the "Notfe Bemenses," &c., published
in the Panstenographikon periodical. A useful handbook of contractions is
Chassant's Dictionnaire des Abre'vititions, 1862. For particulars as to materials
employed and the mechanical arrangements followed in the production of MSS.,
see Birt's Anlike Buchictsen (1882) and Wattenbach's Schriftu-esen im MittelaUtr
(1875). (E. M. T.)
PAL/EOLOGUS, a Byzantine family name which first
appears in history about the middle of the llth century,
when George Palaeologus is mentioned among the
prominent supporters of Nicephorus Botaniates, and
afterwadrs as having helped to raise Alexius I. Comnenus
to the throne in 1081 ; he is also noted for his brave
defence of Durazzo against the Normans in that year.
Michael Palaeologus, probably his son, was sent by
Manuel II. Comnenus into Italy as ambassador to the
court of Frederick I. in 1154; in the following year he
took part in the campaign against William of Sicily, and
died at Bari in 1155. A son or brother of Michael,
named George, received from the emperor Manuel the
title of Sebastos, and was entrusted with several important
missions ; it is uncertain whether he ought to be
identified with the George Palaeologus who took part
166
P A L — P A L
in the conspiracy which dethroned Isaac Angclus in
favour of Alexius Angelas in 1195. Andronicus Paloeo-
logus Comnenus was Great Domestic under Theodore
Lascaris and John Vatatzes ; his eldest son by Irene
Pakuologina, MICHAEL (7.1'.), became the eighth emperor
of that name in 1260, and was in turn followed by his
son Androuicus II. (1282-1328). Michael, the son of
Andronicus, and associated with him in the empire, died
in 1320, but left a son, Andronicus III.,, who reigned
from 1328 to 1341 ; John VI. (1355-1391), Manuel II.
(1391-1425), and John VII. (1425-1448) then followed
in lineal succession ; Constantine XIII., the last emperor
of Constantinople (1448-1453), was the younger brother
of John VII. Other brothers were Demetrius, prince of
Morea until 1460, and Thomas, prince of Achaia, who
died at Rome in 1465. A daughter of Thomas, Zoe by
iiame, married Ivan III. of Russia, A younger branch of
the Pakeologi held the principality of Monferrat from
1305 to 1533, when it became extinct.
PALAEONTOLOGY. See GEOLOGY, vol. x. pp. 319 sq.
Further details will be found in DISTRIBUTION and in
the articles on the various zoological groups and forms
(see, e.g., BIRDS, ICHTHYOLOGY, ICHTHYOSAURUS, MAM
MALIA, MAMMOTH).
PAL.EOTHERIUM. See MAMMALIA, vol. xv. p. 429.
PAL^EPHATUS, the author of a treatise -n-f.pl dTno-rwi/,
"On Incredible (Narratives)," which has been preserved.
It consists of a series of explanations of Greek legends,
without any attempt at arrangement or plan. It is
obviously a mere epitome of some more complete work.
The great number of MSS., containing numerous varia
tions in text, and the frequent quotations made from the
treatise by late writers, show that it was a favourite work
in their time. It is probable that the original treatise,
from which it was abbreviated, was the Av'o-eis TWV /U.V$IKO>S
et/)T7/xeVwv of a late writer mentioned by Suidas as a
grammarian of Egypt or of Athens.
PALAFOX Y MELZI, JOSE DE (1780-1847), duke of
Saragossa, was the youngest son of an old Aragonese
family. Brought up at the Spanish court, he entered the
guards at an early age, and in 1808 he accompanied
Ferdinand to Bayonne, but made his escape after the
king's abdication. While he was living in retirement at
his family seat near Saragossa, the inhabitants proclaimed
him governor of that city and captain-general of the
kingdom of Aragon (May 25, 1808), an honour which he
owed to his rank, and, it is said, to his appearance, rather
than to talent or experience in military affairs. Despite
the want of money and of regular troops, he lost no time
in declaring war against the French, who had already
overrun the neighbouring provinces of Catalonia and
Navarre, and soon afterwards the attack he had provoked
began ; Saragossa was bombarded on July 22, and on
August 4 the French were masters of nearly the half of
the town. Summoned to surrender, Palafox sent the
famous reply of " War to the Knife," and on the following
day his brother succeeded in forcing a passage into the
city with 3000 troops. It was resolved, amid the en
thusiasm of the inhabitants (whose real leaders belonged
to the lower orders), to contest possession of the remaining
quarters of Saragossa inch by inch, and if necessary to
retire to the suburb across the Ebro, destroying the bridge.
The struggle, which was prolonged for nine days longer,
resulted in the withdrawal of the French (August 14)
after a siege which had lasted sixty-one days in all.
Operations, however, were resumed by Marshals Mortier
and Moncey in November, and after more than 50,000
(it is said) of the inhabitants had perished, partly through
the ravages of an epidemic by which Palafox himself was
attacked, a capitulation was signed on February 21.
After his recovery Palafox was sent into France and
closely confined at Vincennes, but was liberated on the
restoration of Ferdinand. In June 1814 he was confirmed
in the office of captain-general of Aragon, but soon
afterwards withdrew from it, and, having indeed no real
aptitude for them, ceased to take part in public affairs.
He received the title of duke of Saragossa in 1824, and
died at Madrid on February 15, 1847.
PALAMAS. See HESYCHASTS, vol. xi. p. 782.
PALANPUR, a native state in Guzerat, Bombay, India,
lying between 23° 57' and 24° 41' N. lat., and between
71° 51' and 72° 45' E. long., with an area of 3510
square miles, and a population of 234,402. The country
is mountainous, with much forest towards the north, but
undulating and open in the south and east. The principal
rivers are the Saraswati and Bands. The chief, an Afgha-n
of the Lohdni tribe, enjoys an estimated gross revenue of
£40,000, and pays a tribute to the gdekwdr of Baroda.
Pdlanpur town, the capital of the state, contained a popu
lation in 1881 of 17,547.
PALATINATE, THE (German, Pfafz), included for some
time (from the middle of the 17th to the latter part of the
18th century) two distinct German districts, the Upper
or Bavarian Palatinate, and the Lower Palatinate or the
Palatinate on the Rhine. The Upper Palatinate, a duchy,
belonged to the Nordgau and Bavarian circle, and was
bounded by Baireuth, Bohemia, Neuburg, Bavaria, and the
territory of Nuremberg. In 1807 (with Cham and Sulz-
bach) it had 283,800 inhabitants. The Lower Palatinate
belonged to the electoral Rhenish circle, and was bounded
by Mainz, Katzenellenbogen, Wiirtemberg, Baden, Alsace,
Lorraine, and Treves. It took in the Electoral Palatinate
(with a population, in 1786, of 305,000), the principality
of Simmern, the duchy of Zweibriicken, half of the county
of Sponheim, and the principalities of Veldenz and
Lautern.
The palsgraves of the Rhine originally had their seat in
Aix-la-Chapelle. In the llth century the country called
the Palatinate belonged to them as an hereditary fief, in
virtue of which they ranked among the foremost princes
of the empire. In 1156, after the death of Palsgrave
Hermann III. without heirs, the Palatinate was granted by
the emperor Frederick I. to his step-brother Duke Conrad
of Swabia. Conrad was succeeded by his son-in-law, Duke
Henry of Brunswick, the eldest son of Henry the Lion.
In the contest for the crown between Otho IV. and
Frederick II., Henry took part with Otho IV., his
brother; and in 1215 Frederick II. punished him by
putting him to the ban of the empire, and by granting
the Palatinate to Louis, duke of Bavaria. Louis was
never able to assert his claims with complete success ; but
his son Otho II. married Agnes, the daughter and heiress
of Henry, and thus the Palatinate passed into the hands of
the Bavarian family. In 1256 the whole territory of the
family was divided between Louis II. and Henry, Otho's
sons, — Louis II. obtaining the Palatinate and Upper
Bavaria, and Henry Lower Bavaria. The possessions of
Louis II. were inherited in 1294 by his two sons, Rudolph
I. and Louis, the Palatinate and the electoral dignity going
to the former, while the latter (who ultimately became
emperor) received Upper Bavaria, to which Lower Bavaria
was afterwards added. The claims of Louis to the
imperial crown were contested by Frederick the Fair, duke
of Austria ; and, as Rudolph I. supported Frederick, his
brother deprived him of his lands, which were then held
in succession by Rudolph's three sons, Adolph, who died in
1327, Rudolph II., who died in 1353, and Rupert L, who
died in 1390. Rudolph II. concluded a treaty with the
emperor Louis, whereby the electoral vote was to be
delivered alternately by Bavaria and by the Palatinate ;
P A L — P A L
1(17
but the emperor Charles IV., in return for a part of the
Upper Palatinate, conferred on Rupert I. and his. heirs the
exclusive right to the electoral dignity. Rupert L, in
1386, founded the university of Heidelberg. He was
succeeded by his nephew, Adolph's son, Rupert II., whose
son and successor, Rupert III., was elected emperor in
1400. After the death of Rupert III. in 1410, his here
ditary territories were divided among his four sons, Louis
III., John, Stephen (who became palsgrave of Simmern
and Zweibriicken), and Otho. The families of John and
Otho soon died out, and the last representative of the line
of Louis III.— Otho Henry— died in 1559. The lands of
Otho Henry and the electoral dignity then passed to
Frederick [II., of the Simmern line ; and Frederick
III. marked an important epoch in the history of the
electorate by definitely associating himself and his house
with the Reformed or Calvinistic Church. His immediate
successors were Louis VI., Frederick IV., and Frederick
V. The latter, in 1C 19, rashly accepted the crown of
Bohemia ; and the result was that, after his expulsion
from his new kingdom, the Palatinate was given by the
emperor Ferdinand II. to Maximilian, duke of Bavaria.
In virtue of the treaty of Westphalia, Charles Louis,
Frederick V.'s son, who died in 1680, received back the
Lower Palatinate, and in hi* favour an eighth electorate
was created, with which was associated the office of lord
high treasurer (Erzschatzmeisteramt). The house of
Bavaria retained the Upper Palatinate, with the office of
arch-sewer (Erztruchsessamt), and Avith the rank which
had formerly been held in the electoral college by the
counts palatine ; but it was arranged that, if the male line
of Bavaria died out, the lands and rights which had
belonged to the rulers of the whole Palatinate should be
restored to their descendants. Charles, Charles Louis's
son, who died in 1685, was the last representative of the
Simmern line. The electoral dignity and the lands con
nected with it then passed to Charles's kinsman, Philip
William, of the Neuburg line, which sprang from Louis
the Black, the second son of Stephen, son of Rupert III.
Of Louis the Black's two grandsons, Louis and Rupert,
the latter was the ancestor of the Veldenz line, which died
out in 1694, while from the former sprang all other pala
tine lines— the Neuburg line, the Neuzweibriicken line,
the Birkenfeld line, the Sulzbach line. Philip William, of
the Neuburg line, died in 1690, and was succeeded by his
son John William, who in 1694 inherited Veldenz, and
during the war of the Spanish succession received the
Upper Palatinate and all the ancient rights of his
house. At the conclusion of the war, however, both
rights and lands were restored to the elector of Bavaria.
In 1716 John William was succeeded by his brother
Charles Philip; and with Charles Philip, who died in
1642, the Neuburg line came to an end, and the Lower
Palatinate was inherited by Charles Theodore, of the
Sulzbach line. In 1777 the male line of Bavaria be
came extinct by the death of the elector Maximilian
Joseph; and then, in accordance with the treaty of West
phalia, the Upper Palatinate and the Lower Palatinate
were reunited, and the palsgrave resumed the office of
arch-sewer and the ancient place of his family in the
electoral college, while the office of lord high treasurer was
transferred to the elector of Brunswick. The successor of
Charles Theodore, who died childless in 1799, was Maxi
milian Joseph, duke of Zweibriicken. By the treaty of
Luneville in 1801 his territories were divided, the part
which lay on the left bank of the Rhine being taken by
France, while portions on the right bank were given to the
grand-duchy of Baden, to Hesse-Darmstadt, to the prince
of Leiningen-Dachsburg, and to Nassau. By the treaties
of Paris concluded in 1814 and in 1815, the palatine lands
on the left bank of the Rhine were restored to Germany,
the larger part of them being granted to Bavaria, and
the rest to Hesse-Darmstadt and Prussia. The Prussian
part of the Palatinate is in the Rhine province; the Hesse-
Darmstadt part is included in the province of Starkenburg
and Rhine Hesse ; the Bavarian part is known as Rhenish
Bavaria ; and the Baden part is in the Lower Rhine
district, which in 1865 was divided into the districts of
Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Mosbach.
See Huusser, Geschichtc der rheinischcn Ffrdz, 1845 ; Nebenius,
Gcschichte der Pfah, 1874.
PALAWAN. See PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
PALAZZOLO (often P.-Acreide to distinguish it from
several other places of the same name), a city of Italy, in
the province of Syracuse, Sicily, 28 miles west of Syracuse,
with a population of 11,069 according to the census of
1881. It is mainly of interest on account of the remains
it still preserves of the ancient city of Acrse, which was
founded by Syracuse in 663 B.C. These consist of a
temple, an aqueduct, a theatre with a fine view towards
Etna, a smaller theatre or odeum, a group of thirteen
cisterns, and, in the vicinity, various rows of rock-cut
tombs, from which a rich harvest of vases, &c., was
obtained by Baron Judica, the great explorer of the site.
See Judica, Antichita di Acre.
PALEARIO, AONIO (c. 1500-1570), Italian humanist
and Reformer, was born about 1500 at Veroli in the
Roman Campagna. Other forms of his name are Antonio
Delia Paglia, A. Degli Pagliaricci. In 1520 he went to
Rome, where, during the years immediately following, he
made lasting friendships among the scholars and men of
letters whom Leo X. had gathered to his brilliant court.
Driven from Rome by the troubles of 1527, he found a
home first at Perugia and afterwards, from 1530 onwards,
at Siena, where he married happily in 1534. In 1536 his
didactic poem in Latin hexameters, De Immortalitate
Animamm, was published at Lyons. It is divided into
three books, the first containing his proofs of the divine
existence, and the remaining two the theological and
philosophical arguments for immortality based on that
postulate. The whole concludes with a rhetorical descrip
tion of the occurrences of the second advent. Meanwhile
his religious views had been undergoing considerable
modification, and in 1542 an Italian tract written by him
and entitled Delia Pienezza, Sufticiema, et Satisfazione
ddla Passione di Ckristo, or Lihellus de Morte Christi, was
made by the Inquisition the basis of a charge of heresy,
from which, however, he successfully defended himself.
To the period of his stay in Siena belongs also his Actio
in Pontifices Romanes et eorum Asseclas, a vigorous indict
ment, in twenty " testimonia," against what he now be
lieved to be the fundamental error of the Roman Church
in subordinating Scripture to tradition, as well as against
various particular doctrines, such as that of purgatory; it
was not, however, printed until after his death (Leipsic,
1606). In 1546 he accepted a professorial chair at Lucca,
which he exchanged in 1555 for that of Greek and Latin
literature at Milan. Here about 1566 his enemies renewed
their activity, and in 1567 he was formally accused of
having taught the doctrine of justification by faith alone,
denied that of purgatory, spoken slightingly of monastic
institutions, and so on. Removed to Rome to answer
these charges, he was detained in prison until sentence of
death was carried out in July 1570.
An edition of his works (Ant. Palcarii Vcrulani Opera), includ
ing four books of Ejnstolse and twelve Orationes besides the De
Immortalitate, was published at Lyons in 1552 ; this was followed
by two others, at Basel, during his lifetime, and several after his
death, the fullest being that of Amsterdam, 1696. A work entitled
Bencfizio di Cristo (" The Benefit of Christ's Death "), frequently
translated, has often been attributed to Paleario, but on insuffi
cient grounds.
1(58
P A L — P A L
PALEMBAXG. See SUMATRA.
PALEXCIA, an inland province of Spain, one of the
eight into which Old Castile is divided, is bounded on the
X. by Santander, on the E. by Burgos, on the S. by
Valladolid, on the W. by Valladolid and Leon, and has an
area of 3127 square miles. In shape it is an irregular
parallelogram, measuring 83 miles from north to south with
a maximum breadth of 48 miles, sloping from the Canta-
brian chain to the Douro. The general direction of all its
larger streams is from north to south ; of these the principal
are the Pisuerga and the Carrion, which unite at Duefias
and flow into the Douro in Valladolid. The tributaries of
the former within the province are the Burejo, the Cieza,
and the united streams of the Buedo and Abanades ; the
latter is joined on the right by the Cueza. The northern
part of the province, including the whole partido of
Cervera, is mountainous, with some wood and with good
pasture in the valleys ; the remainder, the " Tierra de
Campos," belongs to the-great Castilian table-land, and is
in general level and almost wholly devoid of trees. In the
south occurs a considerable marsh or lake known as La
Laguna de la Xava, as yet only partially drained. The
mountainous district abounds in minerals, but only the
coal is worked, the principal mines being those of San
Feliceo de Castilleria, Orbo, and Villaverde de la
Pefia, The province is crossed in the south-east by the
trunk railway connecting Madrid with Irun, while the
line to Santander traverses it throughout from north to
south ; there is also railway connexion with Leon. The
highways following the same routes are maintained in
good order ; the state of the other roads is often bad.
The Canal de Castilla, begun by Ensenada in 1753,
and completed in 1832, connects Alar del Rey with
Valladolid. The province is essentially agricultural, wheat
and other cereals, legumes, hemp, and flax being every
where extensively grown, except in the mountainous dis
tricts. Other industries are of secondary importance, the
principal being flour-milling and the manufacture of linen
and woollen stuffs. The province is divided into seven
partidos — Astudillo, Baltanas, Carrion, Frechilla, Palencia,
Saldana, and Cervera; the total population in 1877 was
180,785. The only ayuntamiento with a population
exceeding 10,000 was that of Palencia.
PALEXCIA, capital of the above province, occupies a
level site on the left bank of the river Carrion, here
crossed by a good stone bridge and by another called Los
Puentecillos. Palencia is the junction of the lines from
Asturias and Galicia, and is 7 miles from Venta de Bafios
on the Madrid and Irun Railway. The distances north-
north-east from Valladolid and south-east from Leon are
23 and 82 miles respectively. The height above sea-level
is 2362 feet. The town is protected on the west by the
river ; on the other sides the old machicolated walls, 36
feet high by 9 in thickness, are in fairly good preservation,
and beautified by alamedas or promenades which were laid
out in 1778. The city is divided into two parts, the
ciudad and the puebla, by a winding arcaded street, the
Calle Mayor, which traverses it from north to south.
The cathedral, which overlooks the Carrion, was begun in
1321 and finished in 1504; it is a large building in the
later and somewhat poor Gothic style of Spain. The site
was previously occupied by a church erected by Sancho el
Mayor over the cave of St Antholin, which is still shown.
The church of San Miguel is a good and fairly well-
preserved example of 1 3th-century work ; that of San
Francisco, of the same date, is inferior, and has suffered
more from modernization. The hospital of San Lazaro
is said to date in part from the time of the Cid, who
was married to Ximena here. The leading industries of
Palencia are the woollen and linen manufactories, in which
a third of the inhabitants are engaged; flour-milling comes
next in importance. The population of the ayuntamiento
was 14,505 in 1877.
Palencia, the Pallantia of Strabo and Ptolemy, was the chief town
of the Vaccsei. Its history during the Gothic and Moorish periods
is obscure ; but it was a Castilian town of some importance in the
12th and 13th centuries. The university founded here in 1208 by
Alphonso IX. was removed in 1239 to Salamanca.
PALEXQUE, RUINS OF, in Chiapas, Mexico. See
ARCHITECTURE, vol. ii. pp. 450-51 ; and H. H. Bancroft,
Native Races of the Pacific Coast of North America, vol. iv.
PALERMO (Greek, Udvopfuys; Latin, Panhormus, Panor-
mus), the capital of the Sicilian kingdom as long as it kept
its separate being, now capital of a province of the same
name in the kingdom of Italy, and the see of an arch
bishop. The population numbered 205,7 12 in 1881. The
city stands in the north-west part of the island, on a
small bay looking eastwards, the coast forming the chord
of a semicircle of mountains which hem in the campayna
of Palermo, called the Golden Shell (Conca d'Oro). The
most striking point is the mountain of Heirkte, now called
Pellegrino (from the grotto of Santa Rosalia, a favourite
place of pilgrimage), which rises immediately al>ove both
the sea and the city. Palermo has been commonly thought
to be an original Phoenician settlement of unknown date,
Plan of Palermo.
1. Church of S. Giuseppe.
2. Palazzo del Municijiio.
3. Church of S. Salvatore.
4. Church of S. Giovanni clc^li Krcmiti.
but lately Prof. Holm, the historian of ancient Sicily,
has suggested that the settlement wras originally Greek.1
There is no record of any Greek colonies in that part
of Sicily, and Panhormus certainly was Phoenician as far
back as history can carry us. According to Thucydides
(vi. 2), as the Greeks colonized the eastern part of the
island, the Phoenicians withdrew to the north-west, and
concentrated themselves at Panhormus, Motye, and
Soloeis (Soluntum, Solunto). Like the other Phoenician
1 The coins bearing the name of JlJnO are no longer assigned to
Palermo ; but it is probable that certain coins with the name }"¥ (Ziz)
are of Panhormus.
PALERMO
169
colonies in the west, Panhormus came under the power
of Carthage, and became the head of the Carthaginian
dominion in Sicily. As such it became the centre of that
strife between Europe and Africa, between Aryan and
Semitic man, in its later stages between Christendom and
Islam, which forms the great interest of Sicilian history.
As the Semitic head of Sicily, it stands opposed to Syracuse
the Greek head. Under the Carthaginian it was the head
of the Semitic part of Sicily; when, under the Saracen, all
Sicily came under Semitic rule, it was the chief seat of
that rule. It has been thrice won for Europe by Greek,
Roman, and Norman conquerors — in 276 B.C. by the
Epirot king Pyrrhus, in 254 B.C. by the Roman consuls
Aulus Atilius and Gnseus Cornelius Scipio, and in 1071
A.D. by Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, the first
count of Sicily. After the conquest by Pyrrhus, the city
was soon recovered by Carthage, but this first Greek
occupation was the beginning of a connexion with western
Greece and its islands which was revived under various
forms in later times. After the Roman conquest an
attempt to recover the city for Carthage was made in
250 B.C., which led only to the great victory of Metellus
just under the southern wall of the city. Later in the
First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca was encamped for three
years on Heirkte or Pellegrino, but the Roman possession
of the city was not disturbed. Panhormus remained a
Roman possession, and one of the privileged cities of Sicily,
till it was taken by the Vandal Genseric in 440 A.D. It
afterwards became a part of the East-Gothic dominion, and
was recovered for the empire by Belisarius in 535. It again
remained a Roman possession for exactly three hundred
years, till it was taken by the Saracens in 835. As Syracuse
remained to the empire for a much longer time, Panhormus
now became the Mussulman capital. In 1063 the Pisan
fleet broke through the chain of the harbour and carried
off much spoil, which was spent on the building of the
great church of Pisa. After the Norman conquest the city
remained for a short time in the hands of the dukes of
Apulia. But in 1093 half the city was ceded to Count
Roger, and in 1122 the rest was ceded to the second Roger.
When he took the kingly title in 1130, it became and re
mained the capital and crowning-place of the kingdom,
" Prima sedes, corona regis, et regni caput." During the
Norman reigns Palermo was the main centre of Sicilian
history, especially during the disturbances in the reign of
William the Bad (1154-66). The emperor Henry VI.
entered Palermo in 1194, and it was the chief scene of his
cruelties. In 1198 his son Frederick, afterwards emperor,
was crowned there. His reign was the most brilliant time
in the history of the city. After his death Palermo was for
a moment a commonwealth. It passed under the dominion
of Charles of Anjou in 1266, but he was never crowned
there. In the next year, when the greater part of Sicily
revolted on behalf of Conradin, Palermo was one of the
few towns which was held for Charles ; but the famous
Vespers of 1282 put an end to the Angevin dominion.
From that time Palermo shared in the many changes of
the Sicilian kingdom. In 1535 Charles V. landed there
on his return from Tunis. The last kings crowned at
Palermo were Victor Amadeus of Savoy in 1713, and
Charles III. of Bourbon in 1735. The loss of Naples by
the Bourbons in 1798, and again in 1806, made Palermo
once more the seat of a separate Sicilian kingdom. The
city rose against Bourbon rule in 1820 and in 1848. In
18 60 came the final deliverance at the hands of Garibaldi,
but with it came also the yet fuller 'loss of the position
of Palermo as the capital of a kingdom of Sicily:
The original city was built on a tongue of land between
two inlets of the sea. There is some question as to their
extent inland, and as to the extent of salt and fresh
water. But there is no doubt that the present main
street, the Cassaro, Via Marmorea, or Via Toledo (in
official language Via Vittorio Emmanuele), represents the
line of the ancient town with water on each side of it.
Another peninsula with one side to the open sea, meeting
as it were the main city at right angles, formed in Polybius's
time the Neapolis or new town, in Saracen times Khalesa,
a name which still survives in that of Calsa. It was on
this side that both the Romans and the Norman conquerors
entered the city. But the old relations of land and water
have long been changed. The two ancient harbours have
been dried up ; the two peninsulas have met ; the long
street has been extended to the present coast-line ; a small
inlet called the Gala alone represents the old haven. The
city kept its ancient shape till after the time of the
Norman kings. It is still easy to mark the site of the
two inlets, which now form valleys on each side of the
long street. The old state of things fully explains the
name Ilaj/op/Aos.
There are not many early remains in Palermo. The
Phoenician and Greek antiquities in the museum do not
belong to the city itself. The earliest existing buildings
date from the time of tt.e Norman kings, whose palaces
and churches were built in the Saracenic and Byzantine
styles prevalent in the island (see NORMANS). Of Saracen
works actually belonging to the time of Saracen occupa
tion there are no whole buildings remaining, but many
inscriptions and a good many columns, often inscribed with
passages from the Koran, which have been used up again in
later buildings, specially in the porch of the metropolitan
church. This last was built by Archbishop Walter, a
native of England, and consecrated in 1185, on the site
of an ancient basilica, which on the Saracen conquest
became a mosque, and on the Norman conquest became a
church again, first of the Greek and then of the Latin
• rite. What remains of Walter's building is a rich example
of the Christian-Saracen style. This church contains the
tombs of the emperor Frederick the Second and his
parents, as also the royal throne, higher than that of the
archbishop ; for the king of Sicily, as hereditary legate of
the see of Rome, was the higher ecclesiastical officer of
the two. But the metropolitan church has been so greatly
altered in modern times that by far the best example of
the style in Palermo, or indeed anywhere, is the chapel
of the king's palace at the west end of the city. This is
earlier than Walter's church, being the work of Ring
Roger in 1143. Besides the wonderful display of mosaics,
it is, simply as an architectural whole, beyond all praise.
Of the palace itself the greater part has been rebuilt and
added in Spanish times, but there are some other parts
of Roger's work left, specially the hall called Sala
Normanna.
Alongside of the churches of this Christian-Saracen
type, there is another class which follow the Byzantine
type. Of these the most perfect is the very small church
of San Cataldo, embodied in public buildings. But the
best, though much altered, is the church commonly called
Martorana, the work of George of Antioch, King Roger's
admiral. This is rich with mosaics, among them the
portraits of the king and the founder. Both these and
the royal chapel have cupolas, and there is a still greater
display in that way in the church of San Giovanni degli
Eremiti, which it is hard to believe never was a mosque.
It is the only church in Palermo with a bell-tower, itself
crowned with a cupola.
Most of these buildings are witnesses in different ways to
the peculiar position of Palermo in the 12th century as the
" city of the threefold tongue," Greek, Arabic, and Latin.
Elements from all three sources may be seen, and inscrip
tions abound in all three languages. King Roger's sun-
XV1TT. — 22
170
P A L — P A L '
dial in the palace is commemorated in all three, and it is
to be noticed that the three inscriptions do not translate
one another. In private inscriptions a fourth tongue, the
Hebrew, is also often found. For in Palermo, under the
Norman kings, Christians of both ritesj Mussulmans, and
Jews were all allowed to flourish after their several fashions.
This distinguishes Palermo from some other Sicilian cities
which belonged wholly or mainly to one people — Greek,
Latin, or Saracen. In many of the early churches of
Palermo it is easy to see that they were first designed for
the Greek rite, which was gradually supplanted by the
Latin. The abiding connexion of Palermo with the races
of south-eastern Europe comes out in several other shapes.
In Saracen times there was a Slavonic quarter on the
southern side of the city, and there is still a colony of
United Greeks, or more strictly Albanians, who sought
shelter from the Turks, and who keep their national
religious usages.
The series of Christian-Saracen buildings is continued
in the country houses of the kings which surround the
city, La Favara and Mirnnerno, the works of Roger, and
the better known Ziza and Cuba, the works severally of
"William the Bad and William the Good. The Saracenic
architecture and Arabic inscriptions of these buildings
have often caused them to be taken for works of the
ancient emL's ; but the inscriptions of themselves prove
their date. Different as is their style, their mere shape is
not very unlike that of a contemporary keep in England
or Normandy.
All these buildings are the genuine work of Sicilian art,
the art which had grown up in the island through the
presence of the two most civilized races of the age, the
Greek and the Saracen. Later in the 12th century the
Cistercians brought in a type of church which, without
any great change, of mere style, has a very different effect,
a high choir taking in some sort the place of the cupola.
The greatest example of this is the neighbouring metro
politan church of Monreale ; more closely connected with
Palermo is the church of San Spirito, outside the city on
the south side, the scene of the Vespers. Palermo is full
of churches and monasteries of later date, as in Saracen
times it was crowded with mosques. But only a few are
of any architectural importance, and they often simply
range with the houses.
Domestic and civil buildings, from the 12th century to
the loth, abound in Palermo, and they present several types
of genuine national art, quite unlike anything in Italy.
The later houses employ a very flat arch, the use of which
goes on in some of the houses and smaller churches of the
Renaissance, some of which are very pleasing. But the
general aspect of the streets is later still, dating from mere
Spanish times. Still many of the houses are stately in
their way, with remarkable heavy balconies. The most
striking point in the city is the central space at the cross
ing of the main streets, called the Quattro Cantoni. Here
the eye catches the mountains at three ends and the sea
at the fourth. But none of the chief buildings come into
this view, and the intersecting streets suggest a likeness,
which is wholly deceptive, to the four limbs of a Roman
Chester. Two indeed of the four are formed by the ancient
Via Marmorea, but the Via Macqueda, which supplies the
other two, was cut through a mass of small streets in
Spanish times.
The city walls remain during the greater part of their
extent, but they are of no great interest. The gates also
are modern. The best is Porta Nuova, near the king's
palace, built in 1584 to commemorate the return of Charles
V. fifty years earlier. The design is far better than could
have been looked for at that time. Outside the walls, in
the immediate neighbourhood of the city, there are, besides
the royal country houses and the church of San Spirito,
several buildings of the Norman reigns. Among these are
the oldest church in or near Palermo, the Lepers' church,
founded by the first conqueror or deliverer, Count Roger,
and the bridge over the forsaken stream of the Oreto,
built in King Roger's day by the admiral George. There
are also some later mediaeval houses and towers of some
importance. These all lie on to the south of the city, to
wards the hill called Monte Griffone (Griffon = Greek), and
the Giant's Cave, which has furnished rich stores for the
palaeontologist. On the other side, towards Pellegrino, the
change in the ancient haven has caused a new one to grow
up, but there is little of artistic or historic interest on this
side.
Besides works dealing with Sicily generally, the established
local work on Palermo is Dcscrizionc di Palermo Antico, by Sulvatore
Morso, Palermo.. 1827. Modern research and criticism have been
applied in Die MiltclaUcrlichc Kunst in Palermo, by Anton
Springer, Bonn, 1869; Ifistorischc Topographic von Panormux, by
Julius Schubring, Liibeck, 1870; Studii di Storia Palcrmitana, by
Adolf Holm,, Palermo, 1880. See also " The Normans in Palermo,"
in the third series of Historical Essays, by E. A. Freeman, London,
1879. The description of Palermo in the second volume of Gsel-
fels's guide-book, Unter-Italien und Sicilicn, Leipsic, leaves nothing
to wish for. (E. A. F. )
PALES, an old Italian deity, worshipped in the festival
of the Palilia at Rome on the 21st April. Like most of
the ancient Italian deities, Pales is little more than a name
to us ; the authorities are at variance whether the name
belonged to a goddess or to a god. In this festival Pales
was invoked to grant protection and increase to flocks and
herds ; the worshippers entreated forgiveness for any
unintentional profanation of holy places of which they
might have been guilty, and sprang through fires of straw
as a purificatory rite. The German Maifeuer, which
remained in use till a very recent date, was a precisely
similar custom ; the intention was to propitiate the wrath
of the deity for any neglect of her service before the sum
mer began, and so ensure her favour to the flocks. The
foundation of Rome, dies natalis Romse, was commemorated
on this same day, — a custom still kept up. The name
Palilia is often written, by dissimilation, Parilia.
PALESTINE. As Palestine, geographically considered, Plate I
forms the southernmost third of SYRIA, its general geogra
phical relations, as well as its geological structure, its
botany, etc., will be treated under that heading. In the
matter of climate, on the other hand, it holds a more or
less independent position; and this is more strikingly the
case with its ethnographic characteristics, at least so far as
the pre-Christian period is concerned. Purely historical
questions have already been discussed in the article ISRAEL.
By Palestine is to be understood in general the country
seized and mainly occupied by the Hebrew people. That
portion of territory is consequently excluded which they
held only for a time, or according to an ideal demarcation
(cf. Numbers xxxiv., from the older source) by which the
land of the Israelites was made to extend from the " river
of Egypt " to Hamath ; but, on the other hand, that other
ancient tradition is accepted which fixes the extreme
borders at Dan (at the foot of Hermon) in the north and
at Beersheba in the south, thus excluding the Lebanon
district and a portion of the southern doeert. In like
manner, though with certain limitations to be afterwards
mentioned, the country east of Jordan stretched from the
foot of Hermon to the neighbourhood of the Arnon.
Towards the west the natural boundary — a purely ideal
one so far as occupation by the Israelites was concerned —
was the Mediterranean, but towards the east it is difficult
to fix on' any physical feature more definite than the
beginning of the true steppe region. That the territory of
Israel extended as far as Salcah (east of Bosra at the foot
of the Hauran Mountains) is the statement of an ideal rather
XV III
PALESTINE
PLATE IV
Stair ..1 En|hlllbMiles
i.. -ji • « ^v 3- — - •••- --- c. «ZK»J ; " — ^~ j
^* •'^™;!b^^^€^^'-£^^
^ » •' '
!• •*,!" ,«.:' f .jr ,--'T.nAi-ad
PALESTINE
171
than an historical frontier (Josh. xiii. 11). Palestine
thus lies between 31° and 33° 20' N. lat.; its south-west
point is situated about 34° 20' E. long., some distance south
of Gaza (Ghazza),its north-west point about 35° 15' E. long.,
at the mouth of the Litany (Kasimiye). As the country west
of the Jordan stretches east as far as 35° 35' it has a
breadth in the north of about 23 miles and in the south
of about 80 miles. Its length may be put down as 150
miles ; and, according to the English engineers, whose
survey included Beersheba, it has an area of 6040 square
miles. For the country east of the Jordan no such precise
figures are available. The direct distance from Hermon
to Arnon is about 120 miles, and the area at the most may
be estimated at 3800. square miles. The whole territory
of Palestine is thus of very small extent, equal, in fact, to
not more than a sixth of England. The classical writers
ridicule its insignificant size.
General Geography. — Palestine, as thus defined, consists
of very dissimilar districts, and borders on regions of the
most diverse character. To the south lies a mountainous
desert, to the east the elevated plateau of the Syrian
steppe, to the north Lebanon and Anti-Libanus, and to the
west the Mediterranean. In the general configuration of
the country the most striking feature is that it does not
rise uninterruptedly from tiie sea-coast to the eastern
plateau, but is divided into two unequal portions by the
deep Jordan valley, which ends in an inland lake (see
JORDAN). Nor does the Jordan, like the Nile in Egypt,
simply now through the heart of the country and form its
main artery ; it is the line of separation between regions
that may almost be considered as quite distinct, and that
too (as will afterwards appear) in their ethnographic and
political aspects. This is especially the case in the southern
sections of the country; for even at the Lake of Tiberias
the Jordan valley begins to cut so deep that crossing it
from either direction involves a considerable ascent.
The country west of Jordan is thus a hilly and moun
tainous region which, forming as it were a southward con
tinuation of Lebanon, slopes unsymmetrically east and west,
and stretches south, partly as a plateau, beyond the limits
of Palestine. The mountain range consists of a great
number of individual ridges and summits, from which
valleys, often rapidly growing deeper, run east and west.
Towards the Mediterranean the slope is very gradual, especi
ally in the more southern parts, where the plain along the
coast is also at its broadest. About three-fourths of the
cis-Jordan country lies to the west of the watershed.
Towards the Dead Sea, on the other hand, the mountains
end in steep cliffs ; and, as the Jordan valley deepens, the
country draining towards it sinks more abruptly, and
becomes more and more inhospitable. The plateaus back
from the coast-cliffs of the Dead Sea have been desert
from ancient times, and towards the east they form
gullies of appalling depth. On the other side of the
Jordan the mountains have quite a different character,
rising from the river gorge almost everywhere as a steep
wall (steepest towards the south) which forms the edge of
the great upland stretching east to the Euphrates.
Geology. — The mountains both east and west of the
Jordan consist in the main of Cretaceous limestone ; num-
mulitic limestone appears but rarely, as on Carmel, Ebal,
and Gerizim. Towards the Dead Sea the rock is traversed
by hornblende and flint. Formations of recent origin, such
as dunes of sea-sand and the alluvium of rivers and lakes,
cover the western margin of Palestine (i.e., the whole of
Philistia and the plain of Sharon) and the entire valley of
the Jordan. Plutonic or volcanic rocks occur occasionally
in the country east of Jordan ; less frequently in the
country to the west, as, for example, in the mountains
round the plain of Jezreel.
Physical Divisions. — The mountain system west of Jordan
must be broken up into a number of separate, groups, which,
it may be remarked, are of political as well as physical
significance. A first group, consisting of the country
north of the plain of Jezreel, may be subdivided into a
large northern portion with summits reaching a height of
4000 feet, and a smaller southern portion not exceeding
2000 feet. The former, the Upper Galilee of antiquity, is
a mountainous region with a somewhat intricate system of
valleys, stretching from the Kasimiye in the north to a
line drawn from Acre ('Akka) towards the Lake of Tiberias.
Of the valleys (more than thirty in number) which trend
westwards to the Mediterranean, the Wadi Hubeishiye,
Wadi 'Ezziye, and Wadi el-Kurn deserve to be mentioned.
Not far west of the watershed is a plateau-like upland
draining northwards to the Kasimiye. The slope to the
Jordan is steep. Jebel Jermak, a forest-clad eminence
3934 feet above the sea, is the highest massif. The whole
territory is fruitful, and forms decidedly one of the most
beautiful as well as b^st-wooded districts of Palestine.
The plain along the Mediterranean is on the average hardly
a mile broad ; between cliff and sea there is at times barely
room for a narrow road, and at some places indeed a
passage has had to be cut out in the rock. South of
Has en-Nakiira, on the other hand, this plain widens con
siderably ; as far as Acre the portion named after this town
is about 4 miles broad.
The mountain structure of the second subsection, or
Lower Galilee, is of a different character, — low chains run
ning east and west in well-marked lines, and enclosing a
number of elevated plains. Of these plains the most im
portant is that of Buttauf (plain of Zebulun or Asochis),
an extremely fertile (in its eastern parts marshy) depression
9 miles long and 2 broad, lying 400 to 500 feet above the
sea, between hills 1 700 feet high. To the south-west, about
700 feet above the sea, is the smaller but equally fertile
plain of Tor'an, 5 miles long and 1 mile broad. Among the
mountains the most conspicuous landmarks are Nebi Sa'in
(1602) near Nazareth, Jebel es-Sih (1838), and especially,
to the east of this last, Jebel et-Tur or Tabor (1843), an
isolated wooded cone which rises on all sides withi consider
able regularity, and commands the plain of Esdraelon.
Eastwards the country sinks by a succession of steps : of
these the lava-strewn plateau of Sahel el-Ahma, which lies
above the cliffs that look down on the Lake of Tiberias,
but is 300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean,
deserves mention. The principal valleys of the whole
region are (1), towards the west, the great basin of Nahr
Na'man (Belus of the ancients), whose main branch is
Wadi Khalzun, known in its upper course as Wadi Sha'ib
or Wadi Khashab, and, farther south, the basin of the Wadi
Melek (Wadi Rummani), which flows into the Nahr el-
Mukatta' (Kishon); and (2) towards the east the rapid-
flowing Wadi Rubudiye, Wadi el-Hamam, and Wadi
Fejjas.
A certain connexion exists between the plains already
mentioned (those of Buttauf, Acre, &c.) and the great
plain which, with an average height of 250 feet above
the sea, stretches south from the mountains of Galilee
and separates them from the spurs of the mountains of
Samaria (the central portion of the cis-Jordan country).
This great plain, which in ancient times was known as the
plain of Megiddo, and also as the valley of Jezreel or plain
of Esdraelon, and which now bears the name of Merj Ibn
'Amir (pasture land of the son of 'Amir), is one of the
main features of the whole cis-Jordan region (Josephus
called it the Great Plain par excellence), and presents the
only easy passage from the coast districts to the Jordan
valley and the country beyond. The larger portion lies
west of the watershed, which at El-'Afule is 260 feet above
172
PALESTINE
the Mediterranean. In the narrower application of the
name, the whole plain forms a large triangle with its
southern corner near Jennin and its western near the mouth
of the gorge of the Nahr el-Mukatta' (for here the hills of
Nazareth shoot out towards Carmel) ; and connected with
it are various small plains partly running up into the hills.
The plain to the south of Acre, in which marshes are
formed by the Kishori and Na'mdn, and various other
recesses towards north and east really belong to it. To
the north-east stretches a valley bounded in one direction
by Jebel Duhy (the Lesser Hermon, a range 15 miles long
and 1690 feet high) and in the other direction by the
hills of Nazareth and Mount Tabor (where lie Iksal and
Deburiye) ; then to the east of the watershed lies the
Eire valley, and the well-watered Wddi Jdliid from Zer'in
(Jezreel) falls away towards the Jordan between the slopes
of Jelel Duhy and the more southern range of Jebel
Fuku'a (Mountains of Gilboa). And finally towards Jennin
in the south lies the secondary plain of 'Arrdne. Quite
recently it has been proposed to construct in the Merj Ibn
'Amir the beginning of a railway system for Palestine,
and to turn to account the wonderful fertility of its rich
basaltic loam which now lies almost completely waste,
though in ancient times the whole country was densely
peopled and well-cultivated.
To the south of the plain of Jezreel, which belongs
to the northern system of Palestine, it is much more
difficult to discover natural divisions. In the neighbour
hood of the watershed, which here runs almost regularly
in great zigzags, lie a number of plains of very limited
extent: — the plain of 'Arrdbe (700 to 800 feet above the
sea) connected south east with the Merj el-Ghuruk, which
having no outlet becomes a lake in the rainy season ; the
plain of Fendekiimiye (1200 feet) ; and the plain of Riijib,
east of Shechem, connected with the plain of Mukhna (1600
to 1800 feet) to the south-west. The highest mountains
too are generally near the watershed. In the ea$t lies the
south-westward continuation of Gilboa. In the west
Mount Carmel (highest point 1810 feet, monastery 470)
meets the projection of the hills of Nazareth, and sends its
wooded ridge far to the north-west so as to form the
southern boundary of the Bay of Acre, and render the
harbour of Haifa, the little town at its foot, the best on
all the coast of Palestine. The belt of land along the
shore, barely 200 yards wide, is the northern end of the
lowland plain, which, gradually widening, stretches south
towards Egypt. At Athlit (9 miles south) it is already
2 miles broad, and it continues much the same for 21 miles
to the Nahr ez-Zerka (named by the ancients after the
crocodile which is still to be found in its marshes), where
a small ridge El Khashm projects from the highlands.
South of Nahr ez Zerka begins the marvellously fertile
plain of Sharon, which with a breadth of 8 miles near
Otsarea and 11 to 12 miles near Ydfd (Jaffa), stretches 44
miles farther to the Nahr Rubin, and slopes upwards
towards the mountains to a height of about 200 feet above
the sea. Its surface is broken by lesser eminences, and
traversed by a few coast streams, notably the Nahr el-
Falik.
Between the maritime plain and the mountains proper
lies a multiform system of terraces, with a great number
of small ridges and valleys. In this the only divisions are
those formed by the basins of the larger wadis, which,
though draining extensive districts, are here too for the
most part dry. They all have a general east and west
direction. First comes the basin of the Nahr Mefjir,
bounded south by the Bayazid range, and debouching a
little to the south of Caesarea ; and about 5 miles farther
south is the mouth of the Iskanderiine, which is distin
guished in its upper portion as the Wddi Sha'ir, running
east as far up as Ndbulus (Shechem), hardly a mile west of
the watershed. It is in this neighbourhood that we find
the highest portions of the mountains of Samaria — Jebel
EbhUip'ye or Ebal, 3077 feet high, to the north of Shechem,
and Jebel et-Tur or UERIZIM (q.v.), 2849 feet high. Both
are bare and rugged, and consist, like all the loftier
eminences in the district, of hard limestone capped with
chalk. It was generally possible, however, to carry
cultivation up to the top of all these mountains, and in
ancient times the highlands of Samaria are said to have
been clothed with abundant forest. From the watershed
eastward the important Wddi Far a (also known as Wiidi
Kerdwa in its lower course) descends to the Jordan.
Returning to the western slope, we find to the south of
Nahr el-Falik the basin of the'Aujd, which after it leaves
the hills is fed by perennial (partly palustrine) sources, and
falls into the sea 5 miles north of Jaffa. As at this place
the watershed bends eastward, this extensive basin
stretches proportionally far in that direction ; and, the
right side of the Jordan valley being also very broad, the
mountains of the eastern slope soon begin to sink rapidly.
On the watershed, not far from Jifna, lies Tell Asur (3378
feet), and with this summit of hard grey limestone begin
the hills of ancient Judah. South of the'Aujd comes the
Nahr Rubin (near Jabne), perennial up to the Wddi Sunir
(Sorek of Scripture ?), and reaching, as Wddi Bet Hanina,
as far as the country north of Jerusalem ; the Wddi el-
Werd is one of its tributaries. Farther south begins the
maritime plain of Philistia, which stretches 40 miles along
the coast, and, though now but partially under cultivation,
consists of a light brown loamy soil of extraordinary
fertility. It is crossed by numerous ridges of hills ; and
to the south of Ashdod (Ezdiid) the highlands advance
westwards, and form a hilly district composed of horizontal
strata of limestone, sometimes considered part of the
lowlands (Shephela), and separated from the more elevated
region in the interior by a ridge more or less parallel
with the line of the watershed. The basins to the south
of the Rubin are those of Wddi Sukereir, which runs up
towards Tell-es-Sdfi in one direction and to Bet Jibrm in
another, of Wddi el-Hesy, and finally of Wddi Ghazza, which
forms the proper boundary of Palestine towards the south,
runs past Beersheba as Wddi es-Seba, and receives the
Wddi el-Khalil (Hebron) from the north-east.
As regards the central parts of the country, the mountain
ous district north of Jerusalem is now known as Jebel el-
Kuds, of which the loftiest point is the summit of the
Nebi Samwil (2935), rising above the plateau of El-Jib.
Near Jerusalem the watershed lies at a height of about
2600 feet. Wild deep-sunk valleys descend eastwards to
the Jordan ; the Wddi Kelt, Wddi en-Ndr (Kedron valley),
Wddi ed Dereje, and southernmost Wddi Seydl deserve to
be mentioned. The country sloping to the Dead Sea falls
in a triple succession of terraces, — a waterless treeless
waste (in ancient times known as the desert of Judah),
which has never been brought under cultivation, but in
the first Christian centuries was the chosen abode of
monasticism. To the north of Hebron, in the neighbour
hood of Hulhiil, lie the highest elevations of this part of
the central highlands (up to 3500 feet), which may be
distinguished as the mountains of Hebron. Towards Yutta
(Juttah) in the south is a sudden step ; there begins a
plateau at a height of about 2600 feet, but 500 feet below
the Hebron watershed. It consists of open wolds and
arable land, the soil being a white soft chalk ; but there
are no wells. Southward another step leads to the white
marl desert of Beersheba, abounding in caves. In ancient
times this southern district was called the Negeb ; it
extends far to the south, but is properly a part of Palestine.
The country was in former times a steppe region without
PALESTINE
173
definite boundaries, and consequently the abode of nomadic
herdsmen.
The Jordan valley having already been described in a
separate article (vol. xiii. p. 746), we may pass at once
to a brief sketch of the physical character of the • country
east of Jordan (compare also the article GILEAD, vol. x.
p. 594). This is a more difficult task for several reasons :
first, no connected series of investigations and measure
ments has been made in this region; and, secondly, as the
ideal demarcation of the book of Joshua is a hardly
sufficient basis on which to build, and the information
about the actual state of matters supplied by other ancient
sources is insufficient, it is impossible to determine the
limits of the country as far as it was occupied by the
Israelites.
In the opinion of the present writer, the plain of
BASHAN (q.v.) can hardly be assigned to Palestine. To the
south of the Yarmuk (Hieromax of the Greeks and Romans,
Hebrew name unknown), which falls into the Jordan below
the Lake of Tiberias, begins the Cretaceous formation ;
only in the east of the country the basalt of the Hauran
territory stretches farther south. Ascending from the
Yarmuk, we first of all reach a mountainous district of
moderate elevation (about 2000 feet) rising towards the
south; this is Jebel'Ajhin; which abounds in caves, and,
according to recent explorers, is extremely well watered
and of great fertility — the whole surface being covered
with pasture such as not even Galilee can show. East
wards are massive ridges as much as 4000 feet in height
— -Jebel Kafkafa and especially Marad — separating this
territory from the waterless desert lying at no great depth
below. The plateau stretches away to the south of the
deep gorge of the perennial Zerka (Jabbok), and reaches a
considerable height in Jebel Jil'ad (Gilead in the stricter
sense). The landmark of the region is Jebel 'Osha, to the
north of Es-Salt, so-called from the traditional tomb of
Hosea. From the deep-sunk Jordan valley the mountains
rise grandly in terraces, partly abrupt and rocky ; and,
while fig trees and vines flourish down in the lower levels,
valonia oaks, Laurus Pinus, cedars, and arbutus grow on
the declivities. Owing to its perennial springs, the interior
terrace of the country, Mishor, is a splendid pasture land,
famous as such in ancient times ; and abundance of wood
and water renders this whole middle region of the trans-
Jordan country one of the most luxuriant and beautiful
in Palestine. Only a few individual summits, such as
Jebel Neba (Mount Nebo), are noticeable in the ridges
that descend to the Jordan valley. The country from the
Zerka southward to the Mojib (Arnon) is now known as
El Belka ; and beyond that begins the land of Moab
proper, which also consists of a steep mountain-wall
through which deep gorges cut their way to the plain, and
behind this of a plateau poorly watered but dotted over
with ancient ruins. In this district, too, there are a few
individual summits. And here also a mountain-wall
separates the plain from the eastern desert; and the
mountain district continues farther south along the Araba
(rf. IDUMEA, vol. xii. p. 699).
Water. — Palestine is not exceptionally deficient in water.
Perennial streams, indeed, are scarce, and were so in
antiquity ; but except in certain districts, as the desert of
Judah, the country is not badly supplied with springs.
In keeping with the structure of the rocks, these usually
break out at the junction of the hard and soft strata.
Thus abundant springs of good water occur on the very
summit of the cis-Jordan country, as, for example, near
Hebron, at Nabulus, and in Galilee ; and, though few are
found in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, more
than forty may be counted within a radius of 15 to 20
miles round the city. There is no water in the low hilly
country behind the coast region; and, though in its northern
portion some fairly large streams take their rise, the same
is true of the coast-region itself, Rising as they do at the
foot of a great mountain range, the most abundant springs
in Palestine are those of the Jordan, especially those near
Banias and Tell-el-Kadi. The mountains of Gilead are
rich in excellent water. A considerable number of hot
springs occur throughout the country, especially in and
near the Jordan valley; they were used in ancient times
for curative purposes, and might still be so used. The water
of the bath of El-Hammam, about 2 miles south of Tiberias,
has a temperature of 137° Fahr., and the spring near the
Zerka Ma' in, formerly known as Callirrhoe, as much as
142° Fahr. Hot sulphur springs also occur on the west
coast of the Dead Sea. Many of the springs in Palestine
are slightly brackish. From the earliest times cisterns
have naturally played a great part in the country ; they
are found everywhere in great numbers. Generally they
consist of reservoirs of masonry widening out downwards,
with a narrow opening above often covered with heavy
stones. Open reservoirs were also constructed to collect
rain and spring water. Such reservoirs (pools ; Arab.,
birka ; Hebrew, berekha) are especially numerous near
Jerusalem and Hebron ; the largest still extant are the
three so-called Pools of Solomon, in Wadi Urtas (Artas),
arranged in steps at a little distance from each other.
Besides the conduits connected with this gigantic work,
fine remains of aqueducts of Roman date are found near
Jericho, in the ruins of many towns in the trans-Jordan
country, at Sefuriye (Sepphoris) in Galilee, in ancient
Csesarea, &c. Many of these aqueducts, as well as many
now ruined cisterns, could be restored without much
trouble, and would give a great stimulus to the fertility
and cultivation of the country.
Climate and Vegetation. — Palestine may be considered
part of the subtropical zone. At the summer solstice the
sun stands 10 degrees south of the zenith ; the shortest
day is thus one of ten hours, the longest of only fourteen.
In a few points, as already remarked;, there is a difference
between Palestine and the rest of Syria. The extensive
maritime plain and the valley of the Jordan give rise to
important climatic contrasts. From its vicinity to the sea
the former region is naturally warmer than the highlands.
The mean annual temperature is 70° Fahr., the extremes
being 50° and 85°. The harvest ripens two weeks earlier
than among the mountains. Citrons and oranges flourish ;
the palm also grows, but without fruiting ; melons are
largely cultivated ; and pomegranate bushes are to be
seen. Less rain falls than in the mountains. Another
climatic zone consists of the highlands (from 500 to 3000
feet above the sea), which were the real home of the
Israelites. The average temperature of Jerusalem, which
may be taken as pretty much that of the upland as a
whole, is 62°, but the extremes are considerable, as the
thermometer may sink several degrees below the freezing
point, though frost and snow never last long. The rain
fall of 20 inches is distributed over about fifty days. In
this climate the vine, the fig, and the olive succeed admir
ably. Even in the southernmost districts (of the Negeb),
as well as throughout the whole country, there are traces
of- ancient wine-growing. A large share of the oil is
consumed at home, partly in the manufacture of soap.
The mountain ridges in this zone are for the most part
bare, but the slopes and the valleys are green, and beauty
and fertility increase as we advance northwards. In
regard to the climate of the third zone, see JORDAN (vol.
xiii. ut sup.). The barley harvest here ends with the
; middle of April. The thermometer rarely sinks below 77°,
I and goes as high as 130°. The fourth zone, the elevated
plateau of the trans-Jordan region, has an extreme climate.
174
PALESTINE
The thermometer may frequently fall during the night
below the freezing point, and rise next day to 80°. The
mountains are often covered with snow in winter. Whilst
the rainfall in the Jordan valley is very slight, the pre
cipitation in the eastern mountains is again considerable ;
as in western Palestine the dewfall is heavy. From this
short survey it appears that Palestine is a country of strong
contrasts. Of course it was the same in antiquity; climate,
rainfall, fertility, and productiveness cannot have seriously
altered. Even if we suppose that there was a somewhat
richer clothing of wood and trees in the central districts
of the country, yet on the whole the general appearance
must have been much the same as at present. To the
stranger from the steppes arriving at a favourable season
of the year Palestine may still give the impression of a
land tlowing with milk and honey. The number of cisterns
and reservoirs is proof enough that it was not better
supplied with water in ancient times ; but, on the other
hand, the numerous ruins of places which were still flour
ishing during the Roman period show that at one time
(more especially in the southern districts, which now
possess but few inhabited localities) cultivation must have
been carried on more extensively and thoroughly. In
general the country enjoyed the greatest security, and con
sequently the greatest prosperity, under Western rule,
which even protected the country east of Jordan (at
present partly beyond the control of the Government)
from the inroads of the Bedouins. The Romans also did
excellent service by the construction of roads, portions of
which (as well as Roman milestones and bridges) still
exist in good preservation in many places. Thus it
cannot be denied that the resources of the country were
formerly better developed than at present. Like all the
lands of the nearer East, Palestine suffers from the decay
of the branches of industry which still flourished there in
the Middle Ages. The harbours are not of sufficient size
for large vessels ; that of Haifa alone is capable of any
development. The road from Yafa to Jerusalem is the
only one in the country fit for carriages. The proposal to
construct a railway along this route (for which a firman
was granted in 1875) is renewed from time to time ;
but it will be hard to carry it out, as, in spite of the
pilgrims (who, besides, are restricted to one period of the
year), the passenger traffic is not large enough to be
remunerative, and commercial traffic there is almost none.
At the same time the formation of means of communica
tion would increase the productiveness of the country.
The culture of olives and export of oil are especially
capable of expansion. As regards the industrial arts,
souvenirs for the pilgrims, rosaries, carved work in olive
wood and mother-of-pearl, ifcc., are produced at Jerusalem
and Bethlehem, and to some extent are exported. Wheat
from the Hauran is also shipped at Acre and elsewhere,
but neither exports nor imports are commercially important.
The salt farming, which could easily be carried on at the
Dead Sea and the deposit of salt to the south of it, is
hampered by the difficulty of bringing the produce up the
steep paths to the top of the mountains. In the valley of
the Jordan all the products of the tropics could with little
trouble be cultivated. Bee-keeping still receives attention,
but might also be extended.
Political Geography. — Evidence of an early occupation
of Palestine is afforded by the stone monuments (cromlechs
and circles of stones), which are found more especially in
the country east of Jordan, but also in the country to the
west. To what period they belong in this part of the
world is as doubtful as it is elsewhere ; but it may be
remarked that stories of a gigantic primeval population
once prevailed in Palestine. To what race these people
may have belonged is, however, unknown. For thousands
of years Palestine was an object of conflict between the
vast monarchies of western Asia. As Egypt, whenever she
sought to extend her power, was from the very position of
the country naturally led to make herself mistress of the
east coast of the Mediterranean, so, on the other hand,
there were no physical boundaries to prevent the westward
advance into Palestine of the Asiatic empires. For both
Egypt and the East indeed the country formed a natural
thoroughfare, in time of war for the forces of the contend
ing powers, in time of peace for the trading caravans
which carried on the interchange of African and Asiatic
merchandise.
One of the oldest of the still extant historical documents
in regard to the geography of Palestine is the inscription
on the pylones of the temple of Karnak, on which Thothmcs
III. (in the beginning of the 16th century B.C.) has handed
down an account of his military expedition to western
Asia. Many of the topographical names of Palestine there
mentioned are certainly hard to identify ; a number, how
ever, such as Iphu for Yafa, Luden for Lydda, Magedi for
Megiddo, etc., are beyond dispute. The lists show that
these names are of extreme antiquity, dating from before
the Hebrew immigration. There is also a hieratic papyrus
of the 14th century B.C., which contains a description of
a carriage journey through Syria made by an Egyptian
officer, possibly for the collection of tribute. Bethshean
and the Jordan, among other localities, appear to be men
tioned in this narrative, but the identification of most of
the names is very dubious. Another foreign source of in
formation as to the geography of Palestine can only be
alluded to — the records contained in the cuneiform inscrip
tions, which mention a number of the most important
towns: — Akku (Akko, Acre), Du'ru (Dor), Magidu
(Megiddo), Yappu (Jaffa), Asdudu (Ashdod), Iskaluna
(Askalon), Hazzatu (Ghazza, Gaza), Altaku (Eltheke),
Ursalimmu (Jerusalem), and Samarina (Samaria), and —
of course only from the 8th century, when they came into
hostile contact with Assyria — the countries of Judah,
Moab, Ammon, and Edom.
The information supplied by the Old Testament enables
us to form only an extremely imperfect conception of
the earliest ethnographic condition of the country. The
population to the east of the Jordan was already, it is
clear, sharply marked off from that to the west. In the
latter region dwelt an agricultural people which had
already reached no inconsiderable degree of civilization.
Closely related to the Phoenicians, they were distinguished
as Canaanites from the name of their country, which
originally applied to the maritime belt and afterwards to
the whole cis- Jordan territory (vol. iv. p. 62). Though
for particular reasons they are placed among the Hamitic
races in Gen. x., many modern investigators are of opinion
that, according to our principles of ethnographic classifica
tion, they were Semitic ; their language, at any rate, was
very similar to Hebrew. The separation of Canaanites
from Semites may have been due, in part at least, to the
fact that a deep contrast made itself felt between them
and the Hebrews, though they were only, perhaps, an
older result of Arabic emigration. The enumeration of
the names of the various branches of the Canaanites
leaves it an extremely difficult task to form a clear idea of
their tribal distribution ; names of separate sections, too,
like that of the Amorites, are sometimes applied to the
Canaanites as a whole. The Amorites were at any rate
the most powerful tribe ; they dwelt in the southern
portion of Canaan, as well as more especially in the
northern parts of the country east of Jordan. About the
others nothing more can be said save that the Perizzites,
Hivites, and Girgashites dwelt in the heart of Canaan and
the Jebusites near Jerusalem. The Philistines occupied
PALESTINE
175
the south-west of the country; an Arabian population was
settled in the south and south-west. Amalekites and
Midianites, and the Kenites, a branch of the latter, early
entered into close relationship with the Israelites, and along
with them took possession of the extreme south, where,
however, they remained nomadic. Of peoples closely akin
to the Israelites may be mentioned the Moabites, the
Ammonites, and the Edomites. Before the arrival of the
Israelites the Moabites had developed a certain degree
of power. The district, bordering on Edom, which they
occupied in the south of the country east of Jordan, was
bounded on the south by Wadi el-Ahsa (called in Is. xv.
7 the brook of the willows), an affluent of the southern
part of the Dead Sea, and on the north stretched far
beyond the Arnon (originally, indeed, to the north end of
the sea, as in later times the country near Jericho was
known as the steppes of Moab). Its eastern frontier
must always have been matter of dispute, the relations
of the nomadic tribes of the Syrian desert being the
same as they are now, and contests with the Ammonites
taking place from time to time. The Ammonites, a closely
related people, lay to the north-east of Moab, east of the
later possessions of Israel; but, as they were in the main
nomadic, their frontiers were of a shifting character (see
vol. i. p. 742). TheEdomitfes (also nomadic) were situated
in the south of the country east of Jordan ; how far, at an
earlier period, they extended their encampments to the west
of Jordan and into the Negeb district cannot be with
certainty decided.
It depends on the conception we form as io the
general tribal relations of Israel how we represent to our
selves the method in which the settlement of the country
by the tribes was accomplished as they passed from the
nomadic to the fixed mode of life (cf. ISRAEL, JOSEPH,
JUDAH). To explain this tribal relationship is not the task
of a geographical sketch ; it is enough for the present pur
pose to call attention to the fact that the account of the
rise of the Israelitic tribes as it has come down to us is in
great measure mythical or the product of later reflexion ;
even the number twelve is made out only with difficulty.
Further, the settlements of the several tribes must be by
no means conceived as administrative districts after the
fashion of the modern canton ; and, thirdly, the view that
the several tribes had, after a general invasion of the
country, their tribal territories allotted by Joshua (as we
now read in the book of Joshua) is taken from the most
modern, post-exilic, source of the Hexateuch, and stands in
glaring opposition to the accounts in other books, according
to which the conquest was in the main a peaceful one, and
the assimilation with the native Canaanites gradually
effected. The tribes which settled to the north of the
great plain, especially those on the sea-coast, appear to
have been much less successful in keeping free from
Canaanitish influence ; gradually, however, as the state
and religion of Israel grew stronger, Israelitish influence
made its way more and more even there. The heart of
the country was the central portion later known as
Samaria. The opposition between this district and the
southern part of the country took shape at an early date.
In the extreme south the Simeonites retained their
nomadic way of life, and were by degrees mixed up with
other wandering tribes. Down into the time of the early
kings the dominion of the powerful Philistines stretched
far into the centre of the country, and gave the first
impulse to a firmer concentration of the energies of Israel.
But the Israelites did not succeed in forcing their way in
the southern regions down to the sea ; in culture and well-
established political institutions they were far surpassed
by the Philistines. As regards the geography of the
Philistine territory, the position of four of their chief
towns, Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, and Ekron, is known ; but
it has not been ascertained where the fifth, Gath, was
situated, though it must have lain not far from the present
B6t Jibrin. — No definite boundaries can be assigned to the
Israelitic country to north, south, or west.
Up to the conquest of Jebus the most important city of
the southern region was undoubtedly Hebron (see vol. xi.
p. 608). Clans belonging to Judah had there combined
with others of alien origin ; and the portions of this
tribe which dwelt in the farthest south had become
mingled with elements from the tribe of Simeon, while
on the other hand the Simeonites acquired certain places
in the territory of Judah. In regard to the south country
in general, we obtain in the Old Testament the most
detailed description of the frontiers, but the reason that
we are able to follow it with so much accuracy is that the
statements refer exclusively to post-exilic times, though it
must be assumed that a certain recollection was still
preserved of the original boundary between Judah and
Benjamin. The line of the marches of the northern tribes,
as indeed this whole system of demarcation, frequently
follows the configuration of the ground, but occasionally
becomes vague and doubtful. Especially striking is the
omission of the districts of Samaria ; it seems that at the
time of the codification of the system this district was little
known to the Judasans. A great deal of trouble has been
expended — more especially since the rise of a more scientific
exploration of the country — in verifying the old place-names
which are known from the Bible, the writings of Eusebius,
and the Talmud. The task is rendered much easier by
the fact that in Palestine, as in every country where the
ethnographic conditions have not been too violently
revolutionized, a large number of ancient names of places
have been preserved in use for thousands of years, often
with only insignificant changes of form — a state of matters
to which the continuous existence in the country of
Semitic-speaking people has powerfully contributed. The
identification of the ancient with the modern names
demands none the less thorough historical and philological
investigation. Through the labours of Robinson and
Guerin we now possess a list of the names in use at least
in the country west of Jordan. The list of six thousand
names collected during the English survey by Lieuts.
Conder and Kitchener is particularly rich, — though it must
be borne in mind that the orthography in many cases has
not been determined with sufficient accuracy, and that a
revision of the collection on the spot by a trained Arabic
scholar would be desirable. By the help of this abundant
material many of the ancient place-names can undoubtedly
be assigned to their localities, and in part at least the
direction of the tribal boundaries as they were conceived
by the author of the lists preserved in the book of Joshua
can be followed. In regard to a large number of places,
Joshua leaves us to mere conjecture ; and the investiga
tions and combinations hitherto effected are (in the opinion
of the present writer) far from sufficient for the construc
tion of such a map of ancient Palestine as the Palestine
Exploration Fund has published. The difficulties of the
case are further increased by the fact that the ancient
localities were at an early date fixed by tradition. An
undoubted example of this is furnished by the grave of
Rachel between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the localizing
of which goes back to an ancient gloss on Gen. xxxv. 19.
Even in the case of apparently well-established identi
fications such as Beitin = Bethel, the question may be
raised whether in reality artificial tradition may not
have been at work, and ancient Bethel have to be sought
elsewhere. Too much care, therefore, cannot be brought
to bear on the reconstruction of the ancient geography of
Palestine.
176
PALESTINE
It lies beyond the purpose of the present article to enter into the
details of the ancient tribal demarcation of Palestine, especially as
the tradition, as has been explained, is relatively late and artificial.
As an illustration of our view of the subject we may select the
boundaries of Judah itself (Josh. xv. ). Here the first thing that
strikes the reader is that the western frontier as there described for
the earliest times is purely ideal, inasmuch as it includes the land
of the Philistines. Inconsistencies of view are apparent in the
ascription of certain places in Judali to Simeon and of others to Dan.
A further difficulty arises from the discrepancies between the Masso-
retic text and that of the Scptuagint in regard to the number of
towns belonging to Judali. As regards the southern boundaries
described in Josh. xv. 2 sq., the course of the line, in our opinion,
cannot be determined with certainty even if it were generally
admitted that Kadesh-Barnea is to be fixed at 'Ain Kadi's. The
determination of the northern boundary is more explicit : it ran
from the mouth of the Jordan to Beth-hogla (which is found in
'Ain el-Hajla). The position of Beth-arabah (Beth ha-Araba)
is doubtful ; and at least it has not been absolutely settled
whether Eben Bohan ben Reuben really corresponds to Hajar
el-Asbah. The identification of Debir with Thughrat-ed-Debr may
be correct. Gilgal, which follows, is unknown. The ascent from
Adummim may correspond with Talat-ed-Dem, which preserves at
least an echo of the older name. It is a mere conjecture which
places the water of En (Ain) Shemesh in 'Ain Haudh. The Fuller's
Spring, En Eogel, has in recent times been sought in St Mary's
Well ; but, with others, we consider Bir Eiyiib a more probable
identification. The position of the valley of Hinnom and the plain
of Rephaim has been determined ; Nephtoah corresponds perhaps to
the modern Lifta. The places situated on Mount Ephron — Baalah
aud Kirjath-Jearim— cannot be made out any more than the
mountains Seir and Jearim. It may be admitted that Chesalon is
Kesla and Bethshemesh is 'Ain Shems, since the direction towards
Timnah (Tibna) is imperative. The position of Ekron is ascer
tained ; but it is hazardous to find Shicron in Khirbet Sukereir ;
and where Mount Baalah was situated we do not know. Finally,
Jabniel corresponds to Yebna. From this example it is clear how
difficult it is with the existing material to determine the ancient
tribal limits, anil how necessary it is in such an undertaking to
distinguish provisional conjectures from well-established identifica
tion. To carry out this task lies beyond the scope of this article ;
to prove individual points whole treatises require to be written.
Compare the articles on the several tribes and the maps.
It has already been remarked that the extension given to the
tribal territories in the book of Joshua is frequently the mere re
flexion of pious wishes. This holds true in general of th.e territories
of Zebulun, Naphtali, and especially Asher ; it is to be particularly
remembered that down to a very late date (the time of the Maccabees)
the Israelites were almost entirely shut out from the sea-coast. To
the north of the land of the Philistines the maritime plain was in
the hands of the Phoenicians ; the plain to the south of Dor (the
modern Tantura) was called Naphoth Dor (hill range of Dor).
Even in the New Testament mention is made of a district of Tyre
and Sidon to which we must not assign too narrow an extension
inland. How matters stood in the country east of Jordon it is hard
to decide. The stretch from the north of the Dead Sea to the
Yarmuk (practically to the south end of the Lake of Tiberias) was
the only portion securely held by the tribes of Israel ; here, on the
Jabbok, in the centre of the trans-Jordan region, the Gadites had
settled ; here there was an ancient Israelitic district in the neigh
bourhood of Mahanaim, Jabesh (on the present Wadi Yabis),
Succoth, Penuel — places whose position for the most part cannot
be determined. From some passages it is evident that the warlike
tribe of Gad found it difficult to protect itself against its enemies.
Numbers xxxii., a chapter belonging to the older class of sources,
throws much light on the conditions under which the country east
of Jordan was occupied, and it represents Reuben and Gad as having
seized the Moabite territory to the north of the Arnon. We have
in this a picture of a temporary extension of the territory of Israel,
probably from the time of Omri (compare MOAB).
According to the inscription of King Mesha, the Gadites were
still in Ataroth ; Dibon, on the contrary, was Moabitic ; other
towns, such as Kirjathairn, Nebo, Jahaz, had been conquered by
Mesha from the Israelites. It is remarkable that the Reubenites
are not once mentioned in the inscription. At the date, too, wrhen
Isaiah xv.-xvi. were written (before the time of Isaiah himself ?),
the Moabite dominion was widely extended. From all this it may
be concluded that the Reubenites had to carry on a protracted
struggle with Moab for the possession of the country, — the walled
towns being now subject to the one belligerent and now to the
other, and the Arnon consequently forming only an ideal boundary.
No accurate knowledge of the condition of the settlements of
Manasseh in the country east of Jordan has come down to us. The
clan Machir had its seat in Gilead ; and there, too, were the tent-
villages of Jair, a clan which also possessed the district of Argob
in Bashan, situated somewhere to the east of the Lake of Tiberias.
The Nobah clan was settled in Kenath (the modern Kanawat) on
the western slope of the Haiiran Mountains. From these facts it
is evident that in the trans-Jordan region north of the Yarmuk
and east of the Lake of Tiberias, there were at least a few Israelite
colonies ; but they occupied merely scattered points, and thus in
this district also the allotment of the country in the book of Joshua
must be regarded as a mere pious wish. Other peoples settled in
the Hauran, and the ever-advancing Aramaeans soon diminished
and absorbed these Israelitic possessions.
The tribes of Israel made a great step in the conquest of the
country when, under the early kings, they became subject to a
single central government. They were now strong enough to seize
many of the walled towns which the Canaanites had hitherto
occupied ; and their dominion, indeed, extended far beyond the
limits of Palestine. Our information in regard to the divisions of
the country during the regal period is very defective. The list of
Solomon's twelve 'officers" (1 Kings iv.) at least is derived from
ancient sources ; but it must be observed that, while the boundaries
of some of the districts appear to coincide with the tribal boundaries,
the political division was not based on the tribal. Nor at a later
date was the line of separation between the kingdoms determined
simply by the tribal division ; the most that is meant is that Judah
and Benjamin stood on the one side ; of Simeon there is no longer
any word. In the account given in 1 Kings x.i. mention is only
made of one tribe that remained true to David, by which must
naturally be understood that of Judah. The limits, in fact, so far
as they related to the tribal territory of Benjamin, seem to have
varied from time to time ; the northern portion as far as Ramah
(1 Kings xv.), or as far as the ravine of Michmash (Mukhmas),
usually belonged to the northern kingdom, and the same was the
case with Jericho. It was to this kingdom of Israel, also, with
its general superiority in strength and influence, that all the
Israelitic districts beyond Jordan were attached. That it con
sisted, however, of ten tribes (1 Kings xii.) is a highly artificial
computation. The small extent of the southern kingdom is evident
from a list (if indeed it be trustworthy) given in 2 Chron. xi. of the
towns fortified by Rehoboam. As regards the capitals of the northern
kingdom, the royal court was originally at Shechem (Nabulus), from
the time of Jeroboam I. at Tirzah (not yet identified), and from the
time of Omri at Samaria (Sebastiye) ; the house of Ahab had its
seat for a season at Jezreel (Zer'in) (see vol. xiii. p. 689).
It is rather an historical than a geographical task to describe in
detail the boundaries or divisions of Palestine in later times. From
the lists for the post-exilic period, found in the books of Ezra and
Nehemiah, and containing a series of new topographical names, it
is evident that a considerable portion of the old tribal territory of
Benjamin as well as of Judah was again peopled by Jews, — on the
one hand the places from Jericho to Lydda, on the other a strip to
the north of Bethel down to Beersheba in the south. Gradually,
however, Edomites (perhaps pressed upon by Nabateans) forced
their way into the southern portion of the country, with the capital
Hebron, so that it obtained the name of Idumea.
Before proceeding to the Grajco-Roman period it will be well to
consider the names by which the country in general was called at
different times. Gilead was the centre of the power of the Israelites
on the east side of Jordan, and the whole country which they pos
sessed there bore this name. Gilead consequently is opposed to
Canaan, the " Promised Land. " For the later Hebrews distinguished
this western territory as more especially the country which had been
promised them, and regarded it as the possession of their national
God, and therefore as a holy land. After the separation the more
important northern and eastern portion naturally became the land
of Israel par excellence, while the southern portion ultimately
received the name of the individual tribe of Judah (as indeed the
northern kingdom was frequently called after the most powerful
tribe of Ephraim). The name of the southern kingdom appears in
Cuneiform inscriptions as mat (ir) Ya-u-du (di); and it is said that
mat Sir'lai occurs once for the land of Israel, though more frequently
it is called mat Humri (Land of Omri). Though it has not been
absolutely proved that even the Assyrians occasionally included
Judah under the designation Palastav or Pilista (Philistia), still there
is nothing improbable about the supposition. But it cannot be
taken for granted that the cis-Jordan country bore the name of
land of the Philistines at a time when it was the scene of a great
development of the Philistian power ; the name was rather, as so
often happens, extended by their neighbours from Philistia proper
to the country beyond, and from the Egyptians it passed to the
Greeks. In the Old Testament Pelcshet is still always restricted to
the Philistine coast-plain ; the same is the case in Josephus ; and
in Herodotus, though the usage is not very explicit, Pala'stina
appears usually to have no wider application. Gradually, how
ever, the designation PaLestina Syria, or simply Pahcstina, got into
vogue, and was made to include even the country east of Jordan,
and consequently the whole territory between Lebanon and Sinai.
We now return to the divisions of Palestine. Already in the
book of Kings (that is, by the time of the exile) the name
Shomeron (Samaria) is applied to the territory of the northern
kingdom, for mention is made of the " towns of Samaria." In the
PALESTINE
apocryphal books of the Old Testament, Judrea and Samaria
(2a^.apeiT(s, Sa^apis, Sa^uapeia) are opposed to each other ; but the
limits of the two divisions at the time of Christ, and for centuries
previously, can hardly be laid down. Thus in Josephus the Mediter
ranean coast as far as Acre is assigned to Judiea ; towards the south
this country was bounded by Idumea ; in the north it extended to
about 8 miles to the south of Nabulus (Shechem). Whether Samaria
extended from the Jordan to the sea is uncertain ; in the north it
reached the southern edge of the plain of Esdraclon, the frontier
town being 'En Gannim (Jenniu). Galilee (in regard to which see
vol. x. p. 27) was originally the district in the neighbourhood of
Kedes, afterwards distinguished as Upper Galilee. The Jewish popu
lation was there largely mixed with Phoenicians, Syrians, Greeks,
and even Arabs. The whole maritime region to the north of Dor was
still called Phoenicia in the time of the Romans, and thus does not
strictly belong to Palestine in our sense of the word. Along the
coast, as well as more especially in the north, of the country, numer
ous Greek colonies were established ; how strong the foreign influ
ence must have been in Samaria and Galilee is evident from the
preservation of so many Grteco-Roman names like Neapolis
(Nabulus), Sebaste (Sebastiye), Tiberias (Tabariye). Elsewhere too,
in the south for example, the old nomenclature was altered : JEAia.
was substituted for Jerusalem, Azotus formed from Ashdod, and so
on ; but the old names were always retained in the mouth of the
people. The north of the country and the trans-Jordan region
were much more thoroughly brought under the influence of the
Greeks and Romans than the south. The Greek towns in some
cases date from the time of Alexander the Great, and others
were founded by the Ptolemies ; but most of them owe their
origin to the Seleucids. One district of the trans-Jordan region
retained at that period its old name in the Greek form of Penea.
Josephus says that this district extended from the Jordan to Phila
delphia (Rabbath Ammon, 'Amman) and Gerasa (Jerash), went
southward as far as Machserus (Mkaur on the Zerka Ma'in), and
north as far as Pella (Fahil opposite Beisan). Adjoining Periea, and
mainly to the east of Jordan, lay the Decapolis, which was not, how
ever, a continuous territory, but a political group of cities occupied
by Greek republics distinguished from the tetrarchies with their
Jewish-Syrian-Arabic population in the midst of which they were
scattered. The largest of these cities was Scythopolis (Beisan) ;
others were Hippos, Gadara (Mkes), Philadelphia, Dion, Gerasa,
&c. ; but ancient authorities do not agree about the names. Little
requires to be said about the division of the country in later Roman
times. In the 5th century a threefold partition began to prevail: —
Paloestina Prima (roughly equal to Judpea and Samaria), Palrestina
Secunda (the countries about the upper Jordan and the Lake of
Gennesaret), and Pakestina Tertia or Salutaris (Idumea and Moab).
In the time of the crusades the same names were applied to three
divisions (at once political and ecclesiastical) of the country west of
Jordan, — Palrestina Prima or Maritima being the coast region as far
as Carmel (with C?esarea as its archbishop's see), Pakestina Secunda
comprising the mountains of Judali and Ephraim (with the patri
archal see of Jerusalem), and Pakvstina Tertia corresponding
roughly to Galilee (with its bishop's see at Nazareth). The country
east of Jordan was called Arabia, and was in like manner divided
into three parts lying north and south of each other.
The Arabians retained the name Filistin, and they divided the
country into two principal portions, — the Jordan district (chiefly
the northern parts) and Flhstfn proper, which extended from the
Lake of Gennesaret to Aila and from Lejjun to Refah. Under the
Turks Palestine was till quite recently subject to the governor of
Syria ; the greater part of it now forms an independent vilayet.
The chief districts are (each with its town) Gaza, Hebron, Yafa,
Ludd (with Ramla), Nabulus, Sha'rawiye, Jcnnin (with Beisan),
Haifa, Acre, Tabariye, Nasira, Safed ; and in the country east of
Jordan 'Ajlun, Belka es-Salt, Kerak, and Ma'an.
Palestine is by no means so strikingly a country apart as is
usually supposed. It lay, as already mentioned, near the great
military highway from western Asia to Egypt and Africa. The
traffic by sea was also formerly of importance ; and even in the
Middle Ages something was done for the protection of the harbours.
At no time, however, was the country in the proper sense of the
word a rich one ; it hardly ever produced more than was necessary
for home consumption. The great trading caravans which passed
through were glad for the most part to avoid the highlands, and
that region at least was thus more or less isolated. The following
is a brief survey of the principal routes, partly as they formerly
existed, and partly as they are still used. From Egypt a road runs by
El-'Arish (Rhinocolura) or " the river of Egypt " by Rafah (Kaphia)
to GAZA (q.v.). From Gaza another runs by Umm Lakis (Lachish?)
and Bet Jibrin (Eleutheropolis) across the mountains to Jerusalem.
Northwards from Gaza the main route continues along the plain at
some distance from the sea (which in this part has piled up great '
sand dunes) to El-Mejdel (Migdul Gad) near Askelon, and so on j
to Ashdod (Ezilud, Azotus). From Ashdod a road runs by 'Aki'r '
(Ekron) to Ramie, an important town in the mediaeval Arabian I
period, and Ludd (Lod, Lydda). From these towns, which are con- [
nected with the port of Yafa (Japho, Joppa), three routes run to
Jerusalem, of which the one most used in antiquity was evidently
the northern one passing by Jimzu (Gimzo) and the two Bet Urs
(Beth-boron), and not the one now followed by 'Amwas (Nicopolis)
and Wadi 'Ali. From Yafa a road continues along the coast by
Arsiif (Apollonia) to the ruins of Kaisariye (Ceesarea), then past
Tantura (ruins of Dor) and 'Athlit (Castellum Peregrinorurn of the
crusaders) and round the foot of the promontory of Carmel, to
Haifa and Acre (a town of great importance from early times).
Another route starting from Ludd runs north close to the
mountains by Antipatris (now Kefr Saba or Eds el-'Ain ?) and
Kakun, and ends at Khan Lejjun. The Great Plain oifered the
easiest passage from the coast inland. El-Lejjuri (a corruption of
the Latin Legio) was certainly an important point ; it is still
conjecturally identified, according to Robinson's suggestion, with
the ancient Megiddo, which Conder would rather place at
Mejedde'a. In the vicinity lie the ruins of Ta'anuk (Taanach),
and farther south-west the great centre of Jennin ('En Gannim,
Ginna>a). From Acre there also runs a road directly east over the
mountains to Khan Jubb Yusuf.
The coast road from Acre northwards passes through Zib
(Akhzib, Ecdippa) and the two promontories of Ras en-Nakuraand
Ras-el-Abyad (Scala Tyriorurn), and so continues to the maritime
plain of Tyre. — To return to the south, from Egypt (Suez, Arsinoe)
the desert was crossed to Ruheibe (Rechoboth), Khulasa(Elusa), and
Bir-es-seb'a (Beersheba), and from this place the route went north
ward to Ed-Dhoheriye and El-Khah'l (Hebron). In like manner a
road from Aila up the Araba valley crossed the Es-Sufah pass to
Hebron. — One of the most frequented highways traverses the cen
tral mountain chain northwards, and, though somewhat difficult in
various parts, connects a number of the most important places of
central Palestine. Starting from Hebron, it runs past Rama and
Hulhul through the Wadi el-Biyar, and leaving Bethlehem on the
right holds on to Jerusalem, where a branch strikes east by Khan
Hadrur (probably there was once another route) to Jericho. From
Jerusalem northwards it naturally continues by Sha'fat past Er-Rftm
(Rama) to El-Biro (Beeroth), and then onwards by 'Ain el-Haramiye,
Sinjil, and Khan Lubban through the Mukhna plain to Nabulus
(Shechem). From this point a route runs down to the Jordan and Es-
Salt (Ramoth Gilead?); another passes by Tubas (Thebez) north
eastward in the line of the Jordan valley to Beisan (Bethsheau,
Scythopolis). The road across the highlands passes a little to the east
of Sebastiye (Samaria, Sebaste), running along the west side of the
Merj el-Ghurukand past Tell Dothan (Dothan) to Jennin. Thence
the road northward to Nazareth skirts the east side of the plain of
Esdraelon, and from Nazareth a path strikes to Acre. The caravan
route proper passes from 'Afule north-eastwards past Jebel et-Tiir
(Tabor) to Khan et-Tujjar (where several roads cross), and reaches the
Lake of Tiberias near Mejdel (Magdala). It keeps by the shore only
for a short distance. Having traversed the small plain of Gennesar,
it begins again to climb the mountains where they approach the
lake at Khan Minye (which, however, for many reasons cannot be
Capernaum), and then it goes on to Khan Jubb Yusuf, strikes down
again into the valley of the Jordan, and crossing the river at Jisr
Benat Ya'kiib holds on across Jebel Hish to Damascus. The moun
tain district of Samaria is crossed by a great number of small roads,
but none of them are true caravan routes or worth particular men
tion. An old caravan route once ran northwards up the Jordan
valley from Jericho to Beisan ; and from Beisan an important, now
less frequented, road crossing the river at the bridge El-Mejam'a
struck north-east to Fik Tseil and Nawain the Hauran, and finally
to Damascus. — In the country east of Jordan a great highway of
traffic ran from Petra (or really from the Elanitic Gulf) by Kerak
(Kir Moab) to Rabba (Rabbath Moab, Areopolis); in front of Aroer
('Arair) it crosses the Mojib (Arnon) and runs northwards through
the highlands to Hesban (Heshbon) and thence to 'Amman (Rabbath
Ammon, Philadelphia). A route also led from Jericho to Es-Salt
(which could also be reached from Hesban) and thence northwards
to the Jabbok and Jerash (GERASA, see vol. x. p. 441); and then
from Jerash one stretched north-west by Tibne to Mkes (Gadara)
and the valley of the Jordan, and another north-east to the Zumle
and the Hauran or more precisely to Bosra (Bostra), and so on to
Damascus. It must also be mentioned that the great pilgrim's
track direct from Damascus to Medina and Mecca skirts the eastern
frontier of the country. A great many roads await more detailed
investigation ; what has been said may suffice to show what lines
of communication existed and still exist between the more import
ant places of Palestine.
Population. — There are no trustworthy estimates of the numbi-r
of inhabitants in the country at any period of its history. Certain
districts, such as Galilee, have, there is no doubt, from early times
been much more populous than certain other districts ; the desert
of Judah and some portions of the country east of Jordan must all
along have been very sparsely peopled. The figures given in the
book of Numbers indicate that the whole country contained about
24 million souls, — it being assumed that the statistics do not refer
to the time of the wandering in the wilderness, and that the details
XVTTT. -- 21
178
P A L — P A L
may be suspected of being artificially adjusted. The number 2^ to
3 millions may indeed be taken as a maximum ; the population can
hardly ever have been more than four times its present strength,
which is estimated at 650,000 souls. Thus, in the most flourishing
period, about 250 to 300 inhabitants would go to the square mile,
while at present there may be about 65, a number which is rather
above than below the mark. Lists based on information collected
by the Turkish Government give much lower figures, viz., for the
sanjak of Jerusalem (with the districts Jerusalem, Yafa, Hebron),
276 places with about 24,000 houses (families) ; for the sanjak
Belka (with the districts of Nabulus, Jennin, Ajlun, and Es-Salt),
317 places and 18,984 houses ; for the sanjak 'Akka (Acre) (with the
districts 'Akka, Haifa, and Safed), 160 places with 11.023 houses,
— making a total of 753 places with 54,237 houses. Reckoning five
persons per house, this gives a population of 271,185, exclusive of
the small number of Bedouins. Detailed statistics there are none
as regards the relative strength of the Bedouin element and the
peasantry, the numerical representation of the different religions, or
any matter of this sort.
The ethuographico-geographical sketch given above has shown
how the population of Palestine even at an early date was a very
mingled one ; for even when they arrived in the country foreign
elements were present among the Israelites, and later on they
absorbed or were absorbed by the Canaanites. The Philistines,
Moabites, and others in course of time were merged in the new
nationality. From the period of the exile colonies from the east
settled in the country, and so powerful did the Aramaean con
tingent gradually grow that Aramaean became the popular tongue.
Next were added Greek and Roman colonies. The Arabic element
exerted considerable influence even before the days of Islam ; with
the Mohammedan concniest it became the dominant power, though
it was only by slow degrees that it obtained numerical superiority.
The Arab tribes transplanted to Palestine their old distinctions,
especially that -between Northern and Southern Arabs (Kais and
Yemen ; cf. ARABIA). The Arab peasantry is still divided into
clans ; for example, the districts of the Beni Hasan and Beni Malik
to the west of Jerusalem, those of the Beni Harith, Beni Zeid, and
Beni Murra to the north, and that of Beni Salim to the east. Till
recently the relations of the separate clans of fellahin was one of
mutual hostility, and, unhindered by the Turkish Government,
they engaged in sanguinary conflicts. In manners and in language
(though Arabic is universally in vogue) the Palestine peasants
retain much that is ancient. It is extravagant, however, to main
tain from the traditions they preserve that primeval Canaanite
elements still exist among them. The prevalent type, in fact, is
Syro- Arabic, or in many districts pure Arabic ; and their supersti
tious customs are partly remains of Syrian beliefs, partly modern
Arabic reproductions, under similar external conditions, of ancient
superstitions. These remarks are applicable to the saint worship
at present spread through the whole Oriental world. The fellahin
are on the whole a diligent frugal race, not destitute of intelli
gence. If well treated by a just Government which would
protect them from the extortions of the nomadic tribes, they would
be the means, with the assistance of the capitalist, of greatly
improving the cultivation of the country, especially in the various
lowland districts. They choose their own village sheiks, who
derive most of their authority from the reputation of their virtues,
their bravery, and their liberality. The Bedouins, i.e., wandering
tribes of pure Arab origin, also play an important part in the
country. Till quite recently they used to visit certain settled dis
tricts and exact black mail from the peasants ; and they find their
undisputed domain in those districts which are incapable of cultiva
tion, and fit only for cattle rearing, and in other fertile portions
which for various reasons are not occupied by the husbandman. To
the first class belong the belt of desert to the west of the Dead Sea,
the southernmost parts of the country west of Jordan and the south
country beyond the river (Moab) ; to the second belong the greater
portion of the maritime plain, the depression of the Jordan valley,
and part of the country to the east. The divisions of the Arab tribes
will be discussed in the article SYKIA. In Palestine east of Jordan
the Beni Sakhr (Moab) are of most importance ; Jebel 'Ajlun is the
seat of the 'Adwan. The Ghawarine (the inhabitants of the Ghor
or Jordan depression) form a peculiar race which, as they arc partly
agricultural, have been a long time settled in the district. In type,
as well as by their degeneracy, they are distinguished from the
other Bedouins. The true Bedouin style of life can be studied only
beyond the Jordan or to the south of Palestine, — the tribes west
of the river, such as the Ta'amire and Jehalin in the south being
all more or less deteriorated. As the Turkish race does not fall to
be treated in connexion with Palestine, it simply remains to mention
the Prankish (European) elements. During the Middle Ages these
were not unimportant, especially nlong the coast ; numerous ruined
churches are still to be seen as the last and only memorials of
crusaders' colonies (see Vogue, Les eglises de fa Terre Sainte, Paris,
1860, and the article SYRIA). Nor must the missionary efforts be
forgotten which in our own times have been again specially directed
to Palestine. As regards the Roman Catholic Church, the Francis
cans have maintained their position in the Holy Land even in
troublous times, and have not only established schools and
printing presses but protected the Christian sanctuaries and
taken care of pilgrims and travellers. On the whole it may
be said that, in comparison with that of the Roman and Greek
Churches, the influence of Protestants is outwardly small. A
German sect called the Templars settled in Palestine some years
ago, and has now colonies at Yafa, Sarona, Jerusalem, and Haifa.
The colonists, about 1000 in number, have to contend with many
and grievous difficulties, and are deficient in capital. AVine-growing
is the most lucrative branch of their activity. As long as the
Turks hold rule over the country successful colonization is hardly
possible.
Literature. — Tlie literature in regard to Palestine is extremely abundant. As
bibliographical guides of the first class may be mentioned — Tobler, Biblioyraphia
geograpkica Palasstinte, Leipsic, 18(J9 (a supplement to this appeared in Petz-
holdt's Seuer Anzeiger fur Bibliogr. und Bibliothekwissenschaft, Dresden,
1875). The works published between 18G7-77 (with additions to Tobler) will be
found in Rohricht and Meisner's Deutsche Pilgerreisen nach iletn Heiliyen Lande,
Berlin, 1880 (pp. 547-648). Socin has given an annual survey of current litera
ture from 1877 in the Zeitschr. ties Deutschen Paliistina-Vereins. Compare also
Archives de /'Orient Latin, i., Paris, 1881. The series of old pilgrimages pub
lished by the Societe" de 1'Orient Latin deserves special mention : — Itinera Latina
bel/is sacris anteriora, Geneva, 1879 ; Itineraires a Jerusalem et descriptions de
la Terre Sainte red. en franfais aux Xl-XIII siec'es, Geneva, 1882. Older
studies on the geography of Palestine are Eusebius, Onomasticon urbium et
locorum Sancl/e Scriptures (edited by Larsow and Pan hey, 1802, and 1 e La garde,
1S70); Neubauer, La geographic du Talmud, Paris, 1808; Haclr. Reland, Palxstina
monumeniis veteribus i/litstrata, 2 vols., 1714 ; Hitter, Vergleichende Erdkunde, vol.
xv.-xvii., Berlin, 1850-55 ; K. Raumer, Palastina (4th ed., 18'iO; now to be com
pletely remodelled by Furrer). Strictly scientific accounts of travel begin only in
the present century; the credit of having led the way belongs to E. Robinson
(Biblical Researches in Palatine, 1841 ; Later Biblical Researches, 1856 ; Physical
Geography, 1865). Of importance is the voluminous work of V. GneYin, Descrip
tion geographique, historique, et archeologique de la Palestine, 18(iS, s<?. Splenc'id
service has been rendered by the Palestine Exploration Fund, which has published
Quarterly Statements since 18l>9, — the labours of Wilson, Warren, and Cornier
being particularly noteworthy. In 1880 appeared Condor and Kitchener's Map
of Western Palestine (26 sheets), the result of surveys extending over many years;
an edition in. MX sheets was published in London in 1881. Trelawncy Saunders's
Special Edition illustrating the Divisions and the Mountain Ranges, 1882, is to bo
recommended (compare his valuable Introduction to the Survey <>f \Yfttirn
Palestine — its Waterways, Plains, and Highlands, 1881); but the same cannot be
said about the Special Edition of the map illustrating the Old Testament and that
illustrating the New Testament, London, 1882 (each -six. sheets), many of the
identifications resting on mere provisional conjecture. As companions to the
great maps we have Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and
Archxoloijy (3 vols.), a Name- List (1 vol.), Special Papers (reprinted from the
Statements, 1 vol.), Jerusalem (1 vol.), Flora and Fauna (1 vol.). The Exploration
Fund is preparing to accomplish a similar work for the country east of Jordan,
since the American Society, which was to have undertaken the survey of that
region, has relinquished the undertaking (compare also Selah Merrill, East of
the Jordan, New York, 1881). The German Palastina- Verein has published its
Zeitschrift since 1878, a yearly volume of topographical and historical investi
gations on definite points. Guide-books which may partly serve as works of
reference are — Baedeker's Palestine and Syria (written by Socin, 1876), Murray's
Handbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine (by Porter, 1875), and Joanne's
Guide (new edition, 1882). Th9 best illustrated work is Picturesque Palestine,
Syria, and E'iypt (edited by Colonel Wilson, &c., London, 1881), to which may
be added D. Roberts, The Holy Land, and Lortct, La Siirie d'aujourd'hui, 1884.
W. M. Thomson's Tlie Land and the Hook, London, 1881-83, is of particular value
for manners and customs. For natural history, see Tristram, The Land of Israel
(London, 1861) and Natural History of the Bible (London, 1873). Lartet's
geological investigations will be found in De Lnynes, Voy. d 'exploration a la,
Mer Morte, <fec., Paris, 1876. For matter of geographical detail consult especially
Tobler' s works (Bethlehem; Nazareth; Dritte Wanderung, Ac.). Wilson, The
Lands of the Bible, Edinburgh, 1847: Condor, Tent Work in Palestine, 1878; and
Finn, Byncays in Palestine. London, 18G8, may conclude thelist. Mcnke's Ilistor-
ischer At/as (Gotha, 1868) is still the best. (A. So.)
PALESTRINA. See PR^NESTE.
PALESTRINA, GIOVANNI PIERLTTIGI DA (r. 1524-
1594), now universally distinguished by the honourable title
Princeps Musicaz, occupies a more important position in
the history of art than any other composer, ancient or
modern ; for it is to his transcendent genius that music
is indebted for its emancipation from pedantic trammels,
which, ignoring beauty as its most necessary element, were
fast tending to reduce it to the level of an arithmetical
problem.
The exact date of Palestrina's birth is unrecorded. It
most probably took place in 1524, and certainly at
Palestrina (the Praeneste of Roman geographers, — whence
the style accorded to him in Latin1). Some early writers
call him Gianetto da Palestina, or simply Gianetto ; and
this early custom — -which has led some modern critics to
mistake his identity — combined with the general use of
his Christian names only, has induced the belief that he
was of peasant origin ; but Signor Cicerchia is said to
have discovered at Palestrina documents proving that bis
father bore the family name of Sante, and his mother that
of Gismondi, — in which case he must have been of gentle
birth. The statement, however, needs confirmation.
1 Joannes Petrus Aloysius (or Petraloysius) Pncnestinus.
PALESTRINA
179
In early youth Palestrina studied at Rome in company
with Animuccia, and, perhaps also, Giovanni Maria Nanini,
in a music-school founded by GOTJDIMEL (q.v.). After
this, we hear no more of him until 1551, when, by favour
of Pope Julius III., he was elected Magister Cappelke
and Magister Puerorum at the Cappella Giulia, S. Pietro
in Vaticano, with a salary of six scudi per month, and a
house. Three years later he published his First Book
of Masses, dedicated to Pope Julius III., and beginning
with the Missa " Ecce Sacerdos magnus," concerning
which we shall have to speak more particularly hereafter.1
On January 13, 1555, Palestrina was enrolled, by com
mand of Pope Julius III., among the singers of the
Cappella Sistina. This honour involved the resignation
of his office at the Cappella Giulia, which was accordingly
bestowed upon his friend Animuccia. But the legality
of the new appointment was disputed on the ground that
Palestrina was married, and the father of four children,
his wife, Lucrezia, being still alive ; and, though, for the
moment, the pope's will was law, the case assumed a
different complexion after his death, which took place only
five weeks afterwards. The next pope, Marcellus II., was
succeeded, after a reign of twenty-three days, by Paul IV. ;
and within less than a year,, that stern reformer dismissed
Palestrina, together with two other married singers,
Ferrabosco and Bari, with a consolatory pension of six
scudi per month to each. This cruel disappointment caused
Palestrina a dangerous illness ; but better fortune was in
store. In October 1555 he was appointed Maestro di
Cappella at the Lateran, without forfeiting his pension ;
and in February 1561 he exchanged this preferment for
a similar one, with an allowance of sixteen scudi per
month, at Santa Maria Maggiore.
Palestrina remained in office at this celebrated basilica
for ten years ; and it was during this period that the most
critical event in his life took place — an event of such
grave importance that its results have never ceased to
furnish matter for discussion to the musical historian from
the time of its occurrence to the present day.
In 1562 the council of Trent censured the pre
valent style of ecclesiastical music with extreme severity.
In 1564 Pope Pius IV. commissioned eight cardinals to
investigate the causes of complaint ; and these proved to
be so well founded that it was seriously proposed to forbid
the use of all music in the services of the church, except
unisonous and unaccompanied plain-chant — a proceeding
which, so far as the church was concerned, would have
rendered the " art of music, " properly so called, a dead
letter, not only for the time being, but in perpetuity, for
the decree, once promulgated, could only have been
repealed by another general council.
It is evident that very gross abuses must Lave been needed to
justify so stringent a measure as this in the eyes of men accustomed
to regard art as the obedient handmaid of religion; yet, strange
to say, the nature of these abuses has never yet been clearly
established by any musical historian, either English or foreign.
Baini devotes several chapters of his great work2 to their dis
cussion, but without arriving at any definite conclusion. Barney
and Hawkins seem to have regarded the question as one involving
no deeper significance than a more or less exalted standard of
artistic purity. Ambros, generally so reasonable a critic, denies
the existence of any just ground of complaint at all, even in the
limited sense claimed by Barney and Hawkins, and condemns the
severer censures of Baini and his followers as attempts to sub
stantiate a groundless myth. Bernsdorf speaks little less strongly,
simply because a certain tradition, which represented the circum
stances as having taken place in 1555, during the short reign of
Pope Marcellus II., has been proved to be certainly false. That
more than one groundless myth have been substituted for the real
1 The first edition of this was printed in 1554 ; the second — with a
title-page representing Palestrina offering his music to the Pope— in
1572.
2 Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina, Rome, 1828.
account of the occurrence is true enough — one, at least, involving
an anachronism of no less than twelve centuries. But no sober
historian has ever credited these absurd stories ; and it is not to
them that Baini gives currency or that Ambros objects. The
misfortune is that each successive narrator has perpetuated the
vague statements of his predecessors, instead of seeking for infor
mation at original sources ; and this mistaken course has resulted
in an infinity of oracular utterances, no two of which agree. To
conflicting opinions like these, one only form of answer is possible —
that furnished by contemporary documents. Fortunately, an
immense amount of church music, written in the style universally
cultivated at the period of which we are treating, has been
preserved to us both in MS. and in print ; and, though the forms
of notation employed by its transcribers are no longer in common
use, students of medieval music are able to decipher them with
absolute certainty. Objections like those raised by Ambros can
therefore be met by reference to examples of the music actually
sung at the time the council of Trent condemned the then prevail
ing style.
The first impression derived from the study of these venerable
records tends to confirm a statement already made, to the effect
that the art of music was rapidly degenerating into a mere system
of figures. There is evidence enough to prove the existence, from
the 14th century downwards, of a growing tendency to cultivate,
at the expense of ideal beauty, certain forms of technical ingenuity
worthy only of association with a clever conundrum. A canon
which could be sung upside down, as well as backwards and
forwards, was more highly esteemed than one that could be sung
backwards and forwards only. The amount of skjll and learning
wasted on the construction of such canons was almost incredible ;
and equally so was the puerility of the conceits with which men
known to have been profound scholars endeavoured to give an
additional zest to their strange inventions. When the construction
of a canon, often written in the form of a cross or a rainbow, was
so complicated that it was almost impossible to find out how to
sing it, they hinted at the secret by means of a motto as obscure
as the music itself. In one instance, Ecspice me, ostende mifii
faciem tuam, indicates that two singers are to hold the music
between them, each reading it upside down from the other's point
of view. In another, Justitia et Pax osculatse sunt intimates that
two singers are to begin 'simultaneously at opposite ends of the
music, singing all the notes in correct time until they meet in the
middle. In a third case, Barpaxos e/c 2epi</>oi< means that a certain
voice is to be silent — in allusion to ^Elian's assertion that the
frogs on the island of Seriphus do not croak. We do not say that
all the music of the period was of this character; but a multitude
of such examples, written by the most celebrated musicians of the
Middle Ages, have been preserved to us, and most of them are
adapted to the words of the Mass. Surely the council had just
right to complain of this.
Another still more serious abuse consisted in the introduction,
among the words of the Mass, of foreign passages having no
connexion whatever with the original text, — one voice being made
to sing "Alleluia" or "Ave Maria," while others were singing the
words of the "Credo" or the "Sanctus."
In order to justly appreciate the true bearing of this very
prevalent abuse, it will be necessary for the English Church
composer to divest himself of certain not very unnatural prejudices,
— and, first of all, of the idea that the custom implied intentional
irreverence on the part of those who introduced it, which, in spite
of appearances, it certainly did not. In England the music sung
forms an essential part of the service. This is not the case with
the Mass. In reciting the prescribed form of words with the
prescribed ceremonies, the officiating priest fulfils unaided all the
necessary conditions of the service, while the congregation looks
on and worships, and the choir endeavours to excite its devotion
by singing appropriate music. As a matter of fact, the words to
which this music is set are identical with a portion of those recited
by the priest ; but they represent no essential element of the
service, nor are they for the most part sung at the same time
that the priest recites them. Except in the delivery of a few
responses, the action of the choir is entirely independent of that
of the priest ; and the action of the congregation is independent
of both. Each member of it may use any book of devotions he
pleases, and he will generally be careful to use prayers and
meditations suitable to the festival in which he is taking part.
For instrnce, at Christmas he will meditate on the nativity of our
Lord, at Easter on His resurrection, — continuing his meditations
on these subjects, without reference, during the greater part of the
mass, to the words the priest is reciting. It is only by bearing
these facts carefully in mind that we can rightly understand what
is to follow.
The mediaeval composer very rarely constructed his Mass upon
an original subject. His favourite plan was to select as his
principal theme a fragment of some well-known plain-chant
hymn or antiphon, and from the words proper to this melody —
technically called the canto fermo—tlic Mass was named. We
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PALES T R I N A
still possess countless examples of the Missa "..Eterna Christ!
munera," the Missa "Vidi turbain magnam," "Repleatur os
meum," "Duin complerentur," "Iste Confessor," and others of like
character, all named after the cantifcrmi on which they are based,
though, except in a few comparatively rare cases to be presently
mentioned, the words proper to the cantifcrmi do not appear in the
work, the selected melody being adapted to the actual words of the
Mass. And thus far the custom was not only an unobjectionable
but a thoroughly commendable one ; for the melodies employed
were familiar to every educated member of the congregation, and to
these the sound of the well-known tune must necessarily have
suggested the sacred words belonging to it, and that so powerfully
that the performance on Christmas Day of a Mass founded on the
melody of " Hodie Christus natus est," or on Whitsunday of one
based on that of " Veui, Creator Spiritus," could scarcely have failed
to induce in the minds of the assembled worshippers the exact train
of meditation most desirable on these great festivals.
Had composers been contented with this, all would have been
well. But unhappily they were tempted to add the extraneous
words; and their intention, in doing so, has been grossly mis
represented. They have been accused of wilfully sacrificing sense
to sound, with the unworthy object of displaying their technical
skill to greater advantage. At the first blush there may seem some
truth in this ; but here again the strictures will not bear examina
tion in presence of the actual records.
Nearly a century before the birth of Palestrina, Joannes de
Tinctoris — the compiler of the earliest known Dictionary of Musical
Terms — wrote a Mass in which one voice interpolated the words
here printed in italics, while the others sang the authorized text,
exactly as it appears in the Missal : —
Cherubim ac seraphim cxteriqne spiritus angeUci Deo in allissimis incesxabili
race proclamant, " Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Duminus Dcus Sabauth." " Pueri
Hebrxorum sternentes reslimenta ramos palmarum Jtsu filio David clamabant
Osanna in excelsis." " Benedictus semper sit fi/ius Altissimi, qui de cce/is hue
venit in nomine Domini."
Clearly this is nothing more than an amplification of the received
version — a reverent commentary upon the words actually recited
by the priest. In what way can the addition of these extraneous
sentences conduce to the display of the composer's musical learning ?
He might just as easily have set the same notes to the unaltered
text.
Again, Palestrina himself begins his Liber primus Missarum,
already mentioned, with a Mass for which he has chosen, as a canto
fermo, the entire melody of the gradual, " Ecce Sacerdos magnus,"
sung on the festivals of certain great doctors of the church, such as
Ambrose and Athanasius, — one voice being constantly employed in
the reiteration of this in long, slow notes, sung to its own proper
words, while three others sing the authorized text in the usual way.
What object could possibly have tempted the composer to arrange
his music thus, other than that of using the familiar words and tune
as a means of reminding his hearers of the great work wrought by
the saints whose festival they are commemorating ? Palestrina
was the last man in the world to have paraded his learning ;
and, had he wished to call attention to it, he might have done
so in a hundred easier ways. Indeed, if the Mass were to be
sung to-morrow, nothing would be easier than to fit the words of
the Mass to the notes of the canto fcrmo throughout. Still, not
withstanding the innocence of the composer's intention, there can
be no doubt that the custom was a highly reprehensible one ; and
it led to something very much worse.
The troubadours and minnesingers of the Middle Ages produced
a host of beautiful secular melodies, many of which still live among
us in the guise of "national airs," though the names of their
authors have been forgotten for ages. The beauty of many of these
melodies tempted composers to select them as cantifenni for their
Masses ; and not a few such works were actually named after them,
as the Missa " L'Homme arme " (a very common example), the
Missa " Mon cueur se recommande a vous," and many others. And
in this the meditBval musician had no more thought of intentional
irreverence than had the Flemish painter when he represented the
Nativity as taking place in a little roadside hostelry like that to
which he was accustomed to resort for his evening meal. But he
committed a grave error of judgment. For, just as the sound of the
sacred canto fermo -brought to remembrance the words with which
it was connected, so, we may be sure, did that of the secular one ;
and the greater its beauty the more surely would it do its evil
work. It was by its beauty alone that it attracted the composer ;
yet his treatment of it proves beyond all doubt that he meant no
evil. This, however, is the last stage of our history at which we can
acquit him of it ; and perhaps even here we may have strained
the point a little too far.
As might naturally have been expected, the introduction of the
secular canto fcrmo was followed by exactly the same results as that
of the sacred one. It took a longer time to bring about the evil,
but it came at last. The familiar words were sung to the familiar
notes, not by the will of the composer, who would never have
dared to insert them, even had he wished to do so, but by that of
profane singers, who surreptitiously trolled them forth for the
gratification of a prurient taste, while the great body of the choir
adhered to the sacred text. And, in the face of these undeniable
facts, Hawkins calmly speaks of the reform as one of style only, while
Ambros, intoxicated by the beauty of so much of the music pre
served to us, and especially by the compositions of Claude doudimel,
for whom he entertained a well-founded admiration, tells us, in so
many words, that no reform of church music was ever needed or
demanded, and that no such reform as that popularly attributed
to the influence of Palestrina ever took place.
Two of the commissioners, however, — Cardinals Borromeo
and Vitellozzi, — while admitting the urgent need of reform,
pleaded for a compromise, and happily the commission
agreed to postpone its final decision until Palestrina — •
already recognized as the greatest composer then living —
had been permitted to prove, if he could, the possibility
of producing a Mass which should not only be free from
the abuses complained of, but should also conduce to the
excitation of true devotional feeling by bringing the plain
sense of the words into the strongest possible relief, and
that so manifestly that it might be presented to all future
composers as the pattern of what true ecclesiastical music
ought evermore to be.
A careful comparison of Palestrina's works with those
of the best of his contemporaries conclusively proves that
in him alone were united all the qualifications necessary
for the success of this difficult attempt, which demanded
the earnestness of a deeply religious mind, the science of
a profoundly learned musician, and the refined taste of an
artist whose sense of beauty was strong enough to over
come all desire for the display of technical power at the
expense of that delicacy of expression without which the
required solemnity of style would have been unattainable.
Animuccia lived as holy a life as Palestrina. The elder
Nanini, if not so learned a musician as he, was at any
rate more learned than by far the greater number of his
contemporaries. But the world had yet to learn how far
refinement of taste could be carried in the composition of
sacred music ; and upon Palestrina devolved the duty of
teaching it its lesson. Ockenheim. had already astonished
it by the ingenuity with which he evolved from the con
trapuntal materials at his command a form so symmetric
ally proportioned that it seemed as if no future artificer
could add to its perfection1; but the materials were dry
bones, and the resulting form no more than a wonderfully
articulated skeleton. To the erudition of Ockenheim
Josquin Depres united the fire of true genius. To him
we are indebted for many, if not most, of the finest works
produced before the age of Palestrina.2 Yet even he could
do no more than clothe Ockenheini's bare skeleton with
flesh. It remained for Palestrina to breathe into the
perfect body the breath of that artistic life which alone
could enable it to give thanks to the Creator of all things
in tones which betokened the presence of the soul within
it. He first taught the world that music was not a mere
lifeless collection of notes, — that, as the gift of speech
enabled man to express his thoughts to his fellow-man, so
the gift of harmony enabled him to express his feelings,
whether of devotion, or praise, or prayer, and this so
intelligibly that he might " sing praises with understand
ing " in the truest sense of the words. And it was to the
decree of the council of Trent that he was indebted for the
opportunity of showing how great a work it was possible
to accomplish in this direction, as well as for the means of
accomplishing it with .such good effect that to this day the
results are apparent in every church in which true ecclesi
astical music is sung.
Dreading to trust the issue of so severe a trial to a single
work, Palestrina, with characteristic modesty, submitted
1 For examples, consult the 1 ' )odccachordon of Glareamis, and
Petrucci's Odhe.caton and Canti C. No. cento cinquanta.
- See two extremely rare volumes of his Masses in the library of
the British Museum.
P A L — P A L
181
three Masses to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo for approval.
These were privately rehearsed, in presence of the com
missioners, at the palace of Cardinal Vitellozzi ; and, while
warmly admiring them all, the judges were unanimous in
deciding that the third mass fulfilled, in the highest
possible degree, all the conditions demanded. The private
trial took place in June 1565 ; and, on the 19th of that
month, the Mass was publicly sung at the Sistine Chapel,
in presence of Pope Pius IV., who compared its music to
that heard by St John in his vision of the New Jerusalem.
Thenceforth it was formally accepted as the type of all true
ecclesiastical music. Parvi transcribed it, for the library
of the choir, in characters of extraordinary size and beauty •
and, in acknowledgment of his services to art, Palestrina
was appointed by the pope composer to the Sistine Chapel,
an office created expressly in his honour, and confirmed to
him by seven later pontiffs, though with the very insufficient
honorarium of three scudi per month, in addition to the
six which formed his pension.
In 15G7 this Mass was printed in Palestrina's Liber
secundus Missarum. The volume was dedicated to Philip
II. of Spain, but the Mass was called the " Missa Papoa
Marcelli. " This title, clearly given in honour of the short
lived pope Marcellus II., has given rise to an absurd
story, told by Pellegrini anrl others, to the effect that the
Mass was composed by Pope Marcellus I., martyred early
in the 4th century, and was only discovered by Palestrina.
Of course, in the 4th century the composition of such
music was impossible ; but this is only a specimen of the
innumerable fables which have brought the true history
into disrepute. The Missa Pap<e Marcelli is undoubtedly
Palestrina's greatest work. Its ineffable beauty has often
been described in glowing terms by those who have heard
it in the Sistine Chapel, but it was never heard in Eng
land until 1882, when the Bach choir, consisting of two
hundred unaccompanied voices, sang it at St James's Hall,
under the direction of Mr Otto Goldschmidt ; and the
efiect produced on that occasion more than justified
all that had ever been said of the music, which is
certainly the most beautiful, the most solemn, and the
most truly devotional that has ever been dedicated to the
service of the church.
"We have dwelt at some length on these circumstances,
because they left a more indelible impression upon the
history of art than any other events in Palestrina's life,
which was not what the world would call a prosperous one,
though he himself was quite satisfied with his condition.
Upon the death of Animuccia in 1571 Palestrina was
re-elected to his appointment at the Cappella Giulia. He
also succeeded Animuccia as Maestro di Cappella at the
Oratory of Philip Neri ; but these appointments were
far from lucrative, and he still remained a very poor man.
In 1580 he was much distressed by the death of his wife ;
and the loss of three promising sons, Angelo, Ridolfo, and
Silla, left him with one child only — Igino — a very
unworthy descendant. In 1586 a new trouble befel him:
Pope Sixtus V. wished to appoint him maestro to the
pontifical choir, as successor to Antonio Boccapadule, then
about to resign, and commissioned Boccapadule to prepare
the choir for the change. Boccapadule, however, managed
so clumsily that Palestrina was accused of having meanly
plotted for his own advancement. The pope was very
angry, and punished the calumniators very severely ; but
Palestrina lost the appointment. These troubles, however,
did not hinder his work, which he continued, without
intermission, until February 2, 1594, when he breathed
his last in the arms of his friend, Filippo Neri.
The printed works of Palestrina include twelve volumes of Masses ;
seven .volumes of Motets for from four to twelve voices ; two
volumes of Offertoria, and one of Hymns, for the whole year ; one
volume of Lamentations, three of Litanies, and one of Magnificats ;
two of Madrigals, the loveliest in existence ; and two of Madvigali
spiritual! ; besides an immense number of compositions still remain
ing in MS. The whole of these are now in course of publication
by Breitkopf and Ha'rtel, of Leipsic. (W. S. R. )
PALEY, WILLIAM (1743-1805), was born in 1743 at
Peterborough, where his father was one of the minor
canons of the cathedral. The Paley family belonged to
the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1745 Paley's father
was appointed head master of the grammar school of
Giggleswick, his native parish. Here Paley received his
early education under his father's care. In 1759 he
proceeded to Cambridge, where his first undergraduate
years were given up, according to his own account, more
to society than to study. Bat, being roused by a reproof
from one of his companions, he used the remainder of his
time to such advantage that he came out senior wrangler
at the end of his course. After taking his degree in 1763,
Paley was for about three years assistant in a school at
Greenwich ; but on his election to a fellowship he
returned to Cambridge, and became, in 1768, one of the
junior tutors of his college. His colleague in this office
was John Law, son of Dr Edmund Law, then master
of Peterhouse, and afterwards bishop of Carlisle. To the
connexion thus formed Paley was afterwards indebted for
his first preferments in the church. As tutor at Christ's,
Paley lectured on Locke, Clarke, and Butler, and also
delivered a systematic course on moral philosophy, which
formed the basis, more than ten years later, of his well-known
treatise. The subscription controversy was then agitating
the university, and Paley published an anonymous Defence
of a pamphlet in which Bishop Law had advocated the
retrenchment and simplification of the thirty-nine articles.
But, though Paley was all for " worshipping God in that
generality of expression in which He himself has left some
points," he did not see his way to join the petitioners for
a relaxation of the terms of subscription. His own view
of the articles, as simply " articles of peace," probably led
him to consider their action as a piece of overstrained
conscientiousness. In 1776 Paley vacated his fellowship
by marriage, and retired to the rectory of Musgrave in
Westmoreland, which had been conferred on him the year
before by the bishop of Carlisle. This very modest living
was soon supplemented by the vicarage of Dalston, and
presently exchanged for that of Appleby. In 1782 he
became archdeacon of Carlisle on the appointment of the
younger Law to an Irish bishopric. His first important
work, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy,
was published (as Principles of Morality and Politics)
in 1785, and Paley received the unusually large sum of
£1000 for the copyright. The book at once became the
ethical text-book of the university of Cambridge, and
passed through fifteen editions in the author's lifetime.
It was followed in 1790 by his first essay in the field of
Christian apologetics, Horse, Paulinge, or the Truth of the
Scripture History of St Paul evinced by a comparison of
the Epistles which bear his name with the Acts of the
Apostles and uith one another. Though the original idea
of the book was derived from Doddridge, this is probably
the most original of its author's works. It was followed
in 1794 by a more general work in the same field,
the celebrated View of the Evidences of Christianity.
Paley's latitudinarian views, combined with a certain
homely outspokenness in the Moral and Political Philo
sophy regarding the foundations of civil authority ("the
divine right of kings is like the divine right of constables "),
are said to have debarred him from the highest positions
in the church. But his able defence of the faith brought
him substantial acknowledgments from the episcopal
bench. The bishop of London gave him a stall in St
Paul's ; the bishop of Lincoln made him snbdean of that
182
P A L — P A L
diocese ; and the bishop of Durham conferred upon him
the rectory of Bishop- Wearmouth, worth £1200 a year.
Paley transferred his household to Bishop-Wearmouth in
1795. His wife, the mother of eight children, had died
four years before, and in the end of 1795 Paley married a
second time. During the remainder of his life his time
was divided between Bishop- Wearmouth and Lincoln. In
1800 he was attacked by the disease of the kidneys which
ultimately carried him off. It was in the intervals of
comparative health and ease that remained to him that
his last, and in some respects his most remarkable, work
was produced, Natural Theology, or Evidences of the
Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the
Appearances of Nature (1802). He endeavoured, as he
says in dedicating the book to the bishop of Durham, to
repair in the study his deficiencies in the church. He
died on the 25th May 1805.
In the dedication just referred to, Paley claims a systematic
unity for his works. It is true that " they have been written in
an order the very reverse of that in which they ought to be read " ;
nevertheless the Natural Theology forms " the completion of a
regular and comprehensive design." The truth of this will be
apparent if it is considered that the Moral and Political Philo
sophy admittedly embodies two presuppositions — (1) that "God
Almighty wills and wishes the happiness of His creatures," and (2)
that adequate motives must be supplied to virtue by a system of
future rewards and' punishments. Now the second presupposition
depends, according to Paley, on the credibility of the Christian
religion (which he treats almost exclusively as the revelation of
these " new sanctions " of morality). The Evidences and the
Horse, Paulina were intended as a demonstration of this credi
bility. The argument of these books, however, depends in turn
upon the assumption of a benevolent Creator desirous of com
municating with His creatures for their good ; and the Natural
Theology, by applying the argument from design to prove the
existence of such a Deity, becomes the foundation of the argu
mentative edifice. The sense of unity in the structure is increased
to a reader of the present day by the uniformity of the point of
view from which the world is regarded throughout. Paley has
popularized for 19th-century use the Deistic conception of the
universe and the divine economy which was common ground last
century both to the assailants and the defenders of orthodox
Christianity.
In his Natural Theology Paley has adapted with consummate
skill the argument which Ray (1691) and Derham (1711) and
Nieuwentyt1 (1730) had already made familiar to Englishmen.
"For my part," he says, " I take my stand in human anatomy" ;
and what he everywhere insists upon is " the necessity, in each
particular case, of an intelligent designing mind for the contriving
and determining of the. forms which organized bodies bear." This
is the whole argument, and the book consists of a mass of .well-
chosen instances marshalled in support of it. But by placing
Paley 's facts in a new light, the theory of evolution has deprived
his argument of its force, so far as it applies the idea of special
contrivance to individual organs or to species. Paley's idea of
contrivance is only applicable if we suppose a highly developed
organism to be dropped suddenly into foreign surroundings. But
the relation of an organism to its environment is not of this external
nature, and the adaptation of the one to the other must be regarded
as the result of a long process of interaction in the past history of
the species. In thus substituting the operation of general laws for
Paley's continual invocation of a supernatural cause, evolution passes
no judgment on the question of the ultimate dependence of these
laws upon intelligence ; but it evidently alters profoundly our
general conception of the relation of that intelligence to the world.
The Evidences of Christianity is mainly a condensation of
Bishop Douglas's Criterion and Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
History. But the task is so judiciously performed that it would
probably be difficult to get a more effective statement of the
external evidences of Christianity than Paley has here presented.
The general position, "however, that the action of the first preachers
of Christianity was due " solely " to their belief in the occurrence of
1 Nieuwentyt (1654-1718) was a Dutch disciple of Descartes, whose
work, Regt yclmtyk der weereld leschovinye, published in 1716, was
translated into English in 1730 under the title of The Religious
Philosopher. A charge of wholesale plagiarism from this book was
brought against Paley in the AtJienseum for 1848. Paley refers
several times to Nieuwentyt, who uses the famous illustration of the
watch. But the illustration is not peculiar to Nieuwentyt, and had
been appropriated by many others before Paley. In the case of a
writer whose chief merit is the way in which he has worked up
existing material, a general charge of plagiarism is almost irrelevant.
certain miraculous events is on the same level as the view that
" the proper business of a revelation " is to certify future rewards
and punishments. It betrays a defective analysis of the religious
consciousness. For the rest, his idea of revolution depends upon
the same mechanical conception of the relation of God to the
world which dominates his Natural Theology ; and he seeks to
prove the divine origin of Christianity by isolating it from the
general history of mankind, whereas later writers find their chief
argument in the continuity of the process of revelation.
For the place of Paley's theological utilitarianism in the history
of ethical speculation in England, see ETHICS.
The face of the world has changed so greatly since Paley's day
that we are apt to do less than justice to his undoubted merits.
He is nowhere original, and nowhere profound, but he justly
claims to be "something more than a mere compiler." His strong
reasoning power, his faculty of clear arrangement and forcible
statement, place him in the iirst rank of expositors and advocates.
He masses his arguments, it has been said, with a general's eye.
His style is perfectly perspicuous, and its " strong home-touch "
compensates for what is lacking in elasticity and grace. Paley's
avoidance of ultimate speculative questions commended him to his
own generation, and enabled him to give full scope to the shrewd
practical understanding in which his strength lay. He displays
little or no spirituality of feeling ; but this is a matter in which
one age is apt to misjudge another, and Paley was at least practi
cally benevolent and conscientiously attentive to his parish duties.
The active part he took in advocating the abolition of the slave-
trade is evidence of a wider power of sympathy. His unconquerable
cheerfulness becomes itself almost religious in the last chapters of
the Natural Theology, when we consider the circumstances in which
they were composed. The chapter on the goodness of the Deity
is more touched with feeling than any other part of his writings,
and impresses the reader with respect for his essential goodness of
heart. (A. SE.)
PALGHAT, a town in Malabar district, Madras, India,
situated in the gap or pass of the same name in the
Western Ghats, in 10° 45' 49" N. lat. and 76° 41' 48" E.
long., 74 miles south-east of Beypur, with a population in
1881 of 36,339. Being the key to Travancore and Malabar
from the east, it was formerly of considerable strategic
importance. The fort fell for the first time into British
hands in 1768, and subsequently formed the basis of
many of the operations against Tippoo, which terminated
in the storming of Seringapatam. It still stands, but is
no longer garrisoned. PalghAt is a busy entrepot for the
exchange of produce between Malabar and the upland
country, and is a station on the Madras railway. The
easy ascent by the Palghdt Pass, formerly covered with
teak forests, supplies the great route from the south-west
coast of India to the interior.
PALGRAVE, SIR FRANCIS (1788-1861), historian, was
born in London in July 1788, the son of Meyer Cohen, a
Jew, and a wealthy member of the stock exchange. He
was privately educated, and such was his capacity for
languages that at the age of eight he translated the Latin
version of the Frogs and Mice into French, which his father
published in 1797 with a short preface. On account of the
failure of his father's fortunes in 1803 he was articled as
clerk to a firm of solicitors, with whom he remained till 1822,
acting for some years as their managing clerk, after which
he took chambers in King's Bench Walk, Temple, and was
employed under the record commission. On his marriage
in 1823 he obtained the royal permission to change his
name from Cohen to Palgrave, the maiden name of his
wife's mother. He was called to the bar at the Middle
Temple in 1827, and soon acquired a good practice in
pedigree cases in the House of Lords. From an early
period of his life he had devoted much attention to literary
and antiquarian studies. In 1818 he edited a collection
of Anglo-Norman chansons, and previous to his call to the
bar contributed largely to the Edinburgh and Quarterly
Reviews. In 1831 he published the History of England,
in the Family Library series, and in 1832 he brought out
The Rise and Pi-ogress of the English Commonwealth, and
Observations on the Principles of Neiv Municipal Corpora
tions. The same year he received the honour of knight-
P A L — P A L
183
hood. In 1837 he published Merchant and Friar, an
imaginary history of Marco Polo and Friar Bacon. On
the reconstruction of the record commission service in
1838, he was appointed to the post of deputy-keeper.
Under the sanction of Government he edited Rotuli Curix
Regis (2 vols., 1835) and Calendars and Inventories of the
Exchequer (3 vols., 1836). He was the author of Detached
ThougMs on the Polity and Ecclesiastical History of the
Middle Ages, printed for private circulation, and a learned
and elaborate History of Normandy and England (4 vols.,
185L-64). He died at Hampstead, 6th July 1861.
PALI (pronounced Bali by the Siamese) is the name
of the literary language of the Buddhists in Ceylon,
Burmah, Siam, and Cambodia. Laloubere (Rel. de Siam)
is the first European writer who mentions the name,
towards the end of the 17th century. Various opinions
have been advanced as to the etymology — from path, to
read (Mason, Minayeff), or pdli=pra + dli (J. D'Ahvis, E.
Kuhn) — and original meaning of the word. The latter,
given as " row," " range," " line," is applied by Trenckner
(Pali Misc., i. 69) to the "series" of teachers by whom
the text of the sacred tradition was handed down, and,
according to the Burmese conception of the word (see
Forchhammer's Report for 1879-80, p. 6), to the sacred
texts simply, irrespectively' of the language or dialect in
which they are written ; whereas Pali scholars generally
use the word less in the sense of sacred canon than in that
of the language in which the canon is written (Childers,
D'Ahvis, Fausboll, Oldenberg). The same applies to the
synonymous term Tanti. When and where that lan
guage was formed is still a matter of controversy. We
quote here only the opinions of the two principal writers
on the subject, Professors E. Kuhn and H. Oldenberg.
The former, following Westergaard, holds that Pali was
the Sanskritic vernacular spoken at Ujjain, the capital of
Malava, at the time when Mahendra, the son and
successor of the great Asoka, took the sacred canon with
him to Ceylon in the form in which it had two years
previously received the sanction of the third general
council (Beitr. zur Pdli-Gramm,, Berlin, 1875). On the
other hand, Professor Oldenberg, rejecting that tradi
tion, considers the naturalization of the Pali language in
Ceylon to have been the fruit of a period of long and
continued intercourse between that island and the adjacent
parts of India, more especially the Kalinga country.
Though he does not state within what limits of time
that gradual naturalization took place, he records his
opinion that at least one portion of the Buddhist canon,
the Vinaya, in its present form existed in the Pali
language about a hundred and fifty years before Mahendra,
that is, about 400 B.C. This is in all probability the
earliest period that may be assigned to Pali as a literary
language (The Vinayapitakam, edited by Oldenberg, vol. i.,
1879, Introduction). Both scholars have discussed the
question as to the Pali being identical with the Magadhi
dialect, and have satisfactorily disposed of it. There can
be no doubt that some considerable time must have elapsed
before the Pali recension of the canon was completed,
and that, as regards the locality of the language, through
the contiguity of cognate vernaculars a palpable number
of words and word-forms found their way into Pali,
enriching alike its vocabulary and its grammatical
resources ; or how else could we account for the occurrence
of such doublets and triplets as adda, alia (Sanskrit, ardra),
avata, avuta (S. avrita), isa, issa, ikka, accha (S. riksha),
kiccha, kasira (S. kricchra), gaddha, giddha, gijjha
(S. gridhra), kila, khela, khidda (S. Krida), tanha, tasina
(trishna'), tikkhina, tikkha, tinha (S. tikshna), dosina,
jimha (S. jyotsna), rukkha, vaccha (S. vriksha), sita,
mihita (S. smita), sinana, nahana (S. snana), sunisa,
suriha, husa (S. snusha), and for the many alternative
forms in the declensions, some of which will presently be
specified 1 It is also certain that the very belief in the
sacred character of the canon must have tended to preserve
the text unchanged in form and substance from the time
that it was received in Ceylon till the present day. There
is, however, a voluminous literature which has grown
around and out of the sacred texts, such as Buddhaghosa's
great commentary on them (beginning of the 5th century),
and several historical works and their commentaries.
In this secondary stage many new words and hybrid
grammatical forms, due to what Childers appropriately calls
false analogy, have found admission into the language
(see Fausboll's Dhammapada, Introduction) ; and the
grammarians who at this period appear to have treated of
language after the Sanskrit models enrol them in their
scheme as correct and legitimate.
Though tradition (Mahdvansa, xii. 6 ; Buddhavansa,
xxii.) makes the introduction of Buddhism into Burmah
contemporaneous with the conversion of Ceylon, there is
j every probability that the event took place at a much
later period. It must, however, have taken firm root
in Burmah at the time that in consequence of religious
persecutions Buddhist priests from Ceylon went to Burmah
to obtain a copy of the sacred canon and Buddhaghosa's
commentary thereon (5th century of our era). Thence an
uninterrupted religious intercourse has been kept up
between the two countries up to the present, notwith
standing which certain discrepancies between the Pali
texts of Burmah and those of Ceylon point to the fact
that the latter retain older forms and expressions, whereas
the former replace these by more modern, more common,
or more regular ones (Fausboll, Ten Jdtakas, Introd.).
This fact, however, can only be established on a scientific
basis when good old copies of grammatical works, both
in the Sinhalese and Burmese character, shall have
been carefully examined and compared ad hoc. It is
certainly true that in Ceylon, where the study of Sanskrit
flourishes, and where the people have spoken for upwards
of two thousand years an Indo- Aryan idiom, Pali learning
has obtained a far firmer and more favourable footing than
in Burmah, where the nature of the vernacular places
considerable difficulties in the path of the student of the
sacred language.
As regards the status of Pali in Siam, no trustworthy
information is available. It would appear, however, that
Pali MSS. from that country — invariably written in the
Cambodian character — are more remarkable for caligraphy
than for correctness. Both in Burmah and Ceylon Pali
is written in the character of the vernacular. The well-
known Manual used at the admission of a novice into the
monastic order is almost the only book in which the
so-called square character is customary (see Burnouf and
Lassen, Essai sur le Pali, Paris, 1826).
Since the days of Prinsep the name of Pali has also
been given to the various local dialects, and the name of
Pali character to the monumental alphabet, or rather
alphabets, in which the so-called Asoka inscriptions are
written. The language of these records, it is true, comes
nearer to the Pali than to any other early Sanskritic
idiom ; still it is sufficiently distinct from the language .of
Buddhist literature to be treated by itself (see E. Senart,
Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi, vol. i., Paris, 1881 ; and G.
Biihler, in Z. D. M. G., vol. xxxvii.).
Pali has aptly been said to stand phonetically in the same
position to Sanskrit as Italian does to Latin. There is the same
tendency to smooth down all sounds difficult of utterance, to
assimilate or otherwise simplify compound consonants, and to
substitute vocalic or nasal for consonantal word-terminations.
More especially, Pali lacks the ri and li vowels and the diphthongs
ai and au. The Sanskrit vowel ri generally passes in Piili into a,
184
PALI
sometimes also into i or u ; as isi (S. rishi), dalha (S. dridha),
putha (S. prithag). E and o, representing S. a;' and an respec
tively, can before double consonants be further shortened into i
and u, just as other long vowels may be shortened under the same
circumstances ; thus ussukka (S. autsukya), rat (ha (S. rashtra).
Some anomalous vowel changes are exhibited in the following
examples : — komjuilua (S. kaumlinya), pana (S. punar), purisa
(S. purusha), iisu (S. isliu), riil'iifl, (S. vijha), hcttM (S. adhastat).
As regards consonants, Pali has only the dental sibilant, and
replaces by anusvara most final consonants of Sanskrit words ; as
manam (S. manak), sanim (S. sanais), khattiiHi (S. kritvas). Two
or more consonants meeting in. the middle of a word are mostly
assimilated, as umniagya (S. unmarga), pabbhdra (S. pragbhara).
Other changes are jKinha (S. pragna), pall an ka (S. paryanka),
ddthd (S. damshtra), and of initial consonants lattlu (S. yashti),
ludda (rudra), ndngala (S. langala), kipillika (S. pipilika), khdnu
(S. sthanu). Contraction is very frequent, as well as metathesis,
as the following examples will show : — kho (S. klialu), acccka
(S. atyayika), Accra (S. acarya), cuddasa (S. caturda9an), issera
(S. aigvarya), abboMra (S. avyavahara). In the Scenic Prakrits
and in the Magadhi of the Jains the consonantal decay has
reached a much higher stage than it has in Pali, showing that the
latter holds its place between the former and the Sanskrit. This
applies also to Sandhi, which in Pali is indeed sporadically and
irregularly attended to, but shows a tendency to being altogether
neglected.
There is no dual in the declension any more than in the con
jugation ; the only remnants of it appear to be to (S. tau) and
ubho (S. ubhaut. The old dative case is rarely used, and the
genitive takes its place. The declension of nouns has in some
cases been encroached upon by the pronominal declension.
According to the nature of Pali phonology, there cannot be any
real consonantal stems, and therefore no regular consonantal
declension. Final consonants are either dropped or have an a
added to them. In the former case the final consonants reappear
before the vowel terminations, in the latter the declension follows
the false analogy of the a-declension. Thus, dhimd (S. dhimat) is
declined as follows: — Sing. — nom. dhima, dhimanto ; voc. dhimam,
dhima, dhima; ace. dhimantarn, dhimam; instr. dhimata, dhhnan-
tena ; dat. gen. dhimato, dhimantassa, dhimassa ; abl. dhimata ;
loc. dhimati, dhimante, dhimantasmim, dhimaiitamhi ; Plur. —
nom. voc. dhimanto, dhimanta ; ace. dhimante ; instr. abl.
dhimantebhi, dhimantehi ; dat. gen. dhimatam, dhimantanam ;
loc. dhimantesu. Examples of multiform cases are the loc. sing, of
itadi, which exhibits the forms nadiya, nadiyam, najjam ; the voc.
plur. of the. honorific pronoun bhavam (S. bhavat), which has
bhavanto, bhonto, bhante ; the gen. dat. sing, of pita, which has
pitu, pituno, pitussa, and in the plur. pitunam, pitunnam, pitara-
nam, pitanam ; the loc. sing, of mano, manam (S. manas), which
has manasi, mane, manasmim, manamhi. The personal pronouns
also show a variety of forms, some of which are still traceable in
the modern Prakrits. Thus aJiam has in the plural — nom. vayam,
mayarn, ainhe ; ace. asme, amhe, amhakam ; instr. abl. amhebhi,
amhehi ; dat. gen. amhakam, amhanam, amham ; loc. amhesu.
Similarly, the gen. dat. sing. fern, of the demonstrative pronoun
has the forms imissa, imissaya, imaya, assa, assaya.
The Pali verb shows even more than does the noun a tendency
to break with the analogy of the Sanskrit. Though native gram
marians arrange the conjugations on a plan similar to that of the
Sanskrit, the disorganizing process which pervades the whole of
Pali grammar is in no part so advanced as in this particular.
Thus, the present tense of the verb tha (S. stha) is that! as well as
titthati ; of dhd it is dadhati, dahati, and dhati ; of dA dadiiti,
deli, dati, and (by false analogy from the optative dajjam) dajjati ;
of ji jayati, jeti, and jinati; of bhl bhayati; of rudh rundhati,
rundhiti, rundluti, and rundheti ; of mar (S. mri) marati and
miyati ; and of knr (S. kri) the plural has karoma, karotha,
karonti, and also regularly kubbanti, from which form again by
false analogy a 3d person singular kubbati has been derived. The
termination re of the 3d person plural perfect atmanepada has been
transferred to the present tense, where it is used along with -ante.
But there is a general predilection for the parasmaipada termina
tions, even in the .passive. While the perfect sensibly recedes
before the other tenses, and is of rare occurrence, the use of the
aorist largely encroaches on that of the imperfect, the conjugation
of which is in many verbs influenced by the former, as, e.g., in the
verb as, in which the imperfect is: — 1st sing., asim or asi; 2d and
3d, asi; 1st plur., asimha; 2d, asittha; 3d, asimsu. In the impera
tive par. the 1st sing, and 2d plur. do not differ from the corre
sponding forms of the present. The affixes of the future (-ssa] and
passive (-ya) may also be added to the special base; thus we, have
the forms dakkhati and passissati, "he will see," and gamiyati
and gacchiyati, "he is gone to." In the causative verb the form
with p greatly preponderates, and may even be added to the special
base, as, e.g. , sunapeti (S. gravayati), "he informs"; ganhapeti
(S. grahayati). Lastly, the gerund in -tvd is not only used in
compound verbs in preference to the one in -ya, but may also
occasionally be superadded to the latter for the sake of greater
precision. Thus, sajjitva—sad + ya + i + tva; and abhiruyhitva =
abhiruh + ya + i ^Tva. Instead of tril the forms trAna and tfina
often occur. There are two forms of the infinitive, there being
besides the usual form in -turn one in -tare, which appears to have
lingered in the vernacular long after it was disused in Sanskrit
literature.
Literature. — The study of Pali by Europeans is of com
paratively recent date ; in fact, our knowledge of the
very existence of an extensive Pali literature dates scarcely
half a century back. It is true that in 1826 Professors
Burnouf and Lassen were enabled, from an examination of
certain Pali MSS. which had fallen under their notice, to
give a general account of the language ; but it was reserved
for the late Mr G. Tumour, colonial secretary of Ceylon,
to collect the first trustworthy information concerning the
sacred books of the island, and to edit and translate the
first Pali text of any extent. His choice of the M(thiivansa,
one of the oldest chronicles, was all the more fortunate, as,
in the almost total absence of historical works in Sanskrit
literature, these annals were calculated to yield a vast
amount of information regarding the origin and earlier
history of the Buddhistic religion in India. The book had
been ready for the press many years, but was not published
till 1837, while a series of articles by the same author, em
bodying the results of his examination of the Mahdvansa
and its commentary and of the contemporaneous Dipavansa
(Jour. Bengal As. Soc., vols. v. and vi.), had been received
by Oriental scholars with the utmost interest. The thirty-
eight chapters published by him bring the history of
Ceylon down to 477 A.D.; they comprise the original work
of Mahdndma. Six more chapters, ready for the press in
text and translation, were found among Tumour's papers
at his early death in 1842, and are now in the India office
library. The whole Mahdvansa, in Pali and Sinhalese,
has since been printed at the Government press, Colombo,
1877-83, and an English translation is in progress. How
ever, a critical edition of the earlier part, and more
especially of the commentary upon it, is still a desidera
tum. There is an excellent edition and translation of
the Dipavama by Professor Oldenberg (London, 1879),
according to whom the work was written between the
beginning of the 4th and the first third of the 5th cen
tury. Among the historical works may also be classed
the Dath&vansa, a poetical history of the tooth-relic of
Buddha, composed by Dhammakitti early in the 13th cen
tury. The work was printed at Colombo in 1882, and an
English translation by M. Kumaraswami appeared in Lon
don in 1874. Further, the Attanagaluvansa, the history
of a temple, likewise of the 13th century, edited and trans
lated by J. D'Alwis at Colombo in 1866. Other historical
works are described in the catalogues of Pali MSS.
Lastly, there exist many mediaeval Pali inscriptions, some
of considerable extent, as, e.g., those of Kalyani in Burmah,
which are now in course of publication, and are likely to
yield valuable historical results. Many of them are
accompanied by a translation in Burmese or Taking,— a
language now all but extinct. It is worth noting that
neither in Ceylon nor in Cambodia have any old Pali
inscriptions been found ; in the island the old inscriptions
are in Sinhalese, in Cambodia they are in Sanskrit, fre
quently with a translation in Khmer.
Though there is an old ninefold division (navanga, see
Dr R. Morris's " Report on Pali Literature," in Philological
Society's Proceedings, 1880) of the canonical scriptures, it
is the general practice of Pali scholars to abide by the
division into three " baskets " (tipitaka, pitakattaya), first
specified by G. Tumour, and then more correctly in
Childers's Dictionary, p. 507, viz., the Vinayapitaka, the
Xuttapitaka, and the Abhidharnmapitaka, or the baskets of
discipline, of discourses, and of metaphysics. Only the
P A L — P A L
185
first of these, and at the same time the earliest, has been
published in a critical edition in five volumes by Professor
Oldenberg, London, 1879-83, while a translation by the
same and Mr Khys Davids is in progress in the Sacred
Books of the East. One of its constituent parts, the
Pdtimokkha, mentioned already by Laloubere, was edited
and translated into Russian by Minayeff (1869) ; an
English translation by Gogerly had appeared thirty years
previously in vol. iii. of the Ceylon Friend, and the Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1875 brought out a new
translation, accompanied by the Pali text, by J. F. Dick-
son. Editions of the text have also appeared in Ceylon
and Burmah. A ritualistic manual, the Kammavaca, the
first chapter of which was edited by Spiegel with a Latin
translation in 1841, was the first Pali text published in
Europe. The first of the numerous works composing the
Suttapitaka that was made accessible to Pali scholars in
Europe was the Dhammapada, or Path to Virtue, a criti
cal edition of which, with a Latin translation and copious
extracts from Buddhaghosa's commentary, was brought out
by Professor Fausboll, of Copenhagen, in 1855. So popu
lar has this work proved as a type of Buddhistic sentiment
that no less than two English translations (by Professor F.
Max Miiller in 1870 and 1881, and by Professor J. Gray,
of Rangoon, in 1881), (5ne in German (by Professor A.
Weber, 1860), and one in French (by M. F. Hu, 1878)
have appeared, besides various editions printed at Colombo
and Rangoon, with translations into the respective ver
naculars. Other collections of moral maxims also, such as
Lokaniti and Dhammaniti, appear to be favourite books in
Burmah. Of the other works of the Suttapitaka, the Jdtaka
Book, an account of the five hundred and fifty previous
births of Buddha, has till quite recently absorbed the
lion's share of attention on account of its being the oldest
extant collection of fables and popular stories, many of
which have at an early date found their way to the West,
and are still current amongst us. Three volumes of the
text of this extensive work, edited by Professor Fausboll,
and one volume of the translation, by Professor Rhys
Davids, have up to the present appeared, while many of
the most interesting tales, in groups of from two to twelve,
were separately published by the same editor between the
years 1858 and 1872. Other works belonging to the same
division which have been published are Khuddakapatha (by
Professor Childers, 1869), Buddhavansa and Cariyapitaka
(by Dr Morris, 1882), Anguttaranikdya (by the same,
1884), and Majjhimanikdya (by Trenckner, 1884); and a
number of others, such as Itivuttaka, Theragdthd, Theri-
</athd, and Apadana, are, thanks to the active zeal of the
working members of the newly founded Pali Text Society,
either in progress or in preparation. An edition of Sutta-
nipdta, by Professor Fausboll, whose translation of the work
appeared in 1881, is also passing through the press. Seven
suttas from the Dighanikdya, prepared for publication by
the late P. Grimblot, appeared in Paris in 1876; and a
number of others, from various collections, edited and
translated by L. Feer. are to be found in the Journal
Asiatique. An edition, by Professor Childers, of the
Mahdparinibbdnasiitta, from the Dighanikdya, was pub
lished in 1876, and a translation of the same and other
suttas, by Professor Rhys Davids, forms vol. xi. of the
Sacred Books of the East. Lastly, Dr Morris has in the
press an edition and translation of " the Six Jewels of the
Law," one of which is the Mahdsatipatthdnasutta, a
favourite text-book in Burmah and Ceylon. The Milinda-
pa/lha, a work of the middle of the 2d century B.C., a
scholarly edition of which we owe to Trenckner (1880),
though obviously not a canonical book, may well be classed
with this second division. The Abhidhammapitaka has so
little in it to attract the European student of Pali that an
edition of any of its components parts is not likely to be
forthcoming for some time. A compendium of its tenets,
the Abhidhammatthasangaha, has been frequently printed
in the Burmese and in the Sinhalese character.
While in Siain ard Ceylon the law-books are in the vernacular,
they are in Burnu-.h in the original Pali, which is generally
accompanied by a Burmese gloss. San Germane translated one of
them (see his work on Burmah, p. 173 sq. ) in the end oflast century.
Several of them have in recent years been brought out at Rangoon
by Colonel H. Browne, and the oldest of them, by King Wagaru,
is passing through the press. The editor, Professor Forchhammer,
has also supplied valuable translations to the series of Mr Jardine's
Notes on Buddhist Law, which are appearing at Rangoon. A
critical edition of the Laws of JUanurdja, by Dr Fiihrer, is in the
press at Bombay.
The age of the oldest Pali grammarian, Kaccayana, is still under
dispute ; it is far more likely, however, that it has to be placed
towards the end of the llth century A.D. (see Colonel Fryer's paper
in Jonr. Bcng. As. Soc. for 1882) than with J. D'Alwis in the
6th century B.C. While his system is the one which has long been
current in Burmah, the grammar by Moggallana (second half of
the 12th century) represents the leading grammatical school of
Ceylon. Eound both a large number of grammatical works have
grown up, more than sixty of which are specified and fully
described by Subhuti in the introduction to his book on the Pali
declensions (A"dmamdld, Colombo, 1876). M. E. Senart has given
an excellent edition and exposition of Kaccayana's grammar
Paris, 1871), some chapters of which had previously been made
the subject of separate treatises by J. D'Alwis and Professor E.
Kuhn. The first five chapters of the Bdldtutdra were edited
and translated by L. F. Lee (Ceylon As. Soc. Jour, for 1870-71),
and the sixth chapter of the RApasiddhi, another old grammar,
was recently published by Dr Griinwedel (Berlin, 1883). The
oldest Pali vocabulary, called Abhidhanappadtpikd, and compiled
by the above-mentioned Moggallana on the model of the Amara-
kosha, was first printed at Colombo in 1824 as an appendix to
dough's grammar. A better edition, by Subhuti, with English
and Sinhalese interpretations, notes, and appendices, appeared in
1865, of which a much improved reissue has just appeared at
Colombo, to be followed in a second volume by full alphabetical
indices. The Dhdtumanjiisd, a dictionary of Pali radicals, by
Silavansa, was edited with English and Sinhalese translation at
Colombo in 1872. Vuttodaya, a work on metre by Sangharakkhita,
who is identified with Moggallana, was first edited and translated
by Professor Minayeff of St Petersburg in 1869, and in 1877, as
No, II. of his Pdli Studies, by Colonel G. E. Fryer, who had
previously, in the first essay (1875), given the text with a full
analysis of a work on rhetoric, called Subodh&lankdra, by the same
author.
There are great facilities in Europe for the study of Pali and its extensive
literature. The British Museum, the University Library of Cambridge, and the
library of the India Office are rich in Pali MSS., and a catalogue raisonne of the
last-mentioned collection, by Professor Oldenberg, is accessible to students. The
Royal Library of Copenhagen contains the MSS. which the late Professor E. Ra>k
had brought from India, probably the finest collection in Europe, a catalogue of
which was published in 1846. The National Library of Paris is the only one in
Europe that possesses, in addition to a large number of MSS. in the Sinhalese and
Burmese characters, a fine assemblage of MSS. in Cambodian letters. There are
also Pali MSS. in the museums of learned societies and in private hands, and it
would be well if means could be devised for bringing these hidden treasures to
light and utilizing them for literary purposes, for the study of the Pali language
and literature has been making rapid strides within the last ten years. Lectures
on Tali are delivered at Cambridge, in Paris, and in most of the German univer
sities, and the number of publications of Pali texts increases year by year. It
is already admitted that Childers's Dictionary, the publication of which in 1875
formed an epoch in the study of Pali, no longer suffices to supply the want, and
that a more comprehensive work, or at least a supplementary dictionary, is
urgently needed, dough's Pali Grammar, which appeared at Colombo in 1824,
found its way to Europe so tardily that it was still unknown to the authors of the
Essai sur le Pali when they published their supplement to it in 1827, and it has
always been a scarce book. In 1872 Professor Minayeff brought out at St
Petersburg a Pali grammar, written in Russian, which was translated into French
by M. S. Guyard five years later. An English translation made from that
French version, by C. G. Adams, appeared at Maulmain in 1882. Meantime
Professor E. Kuhn of Munich published his valuable Beitrage zur Pali-Gram-
matik (Berlin, 1875), a mine of wealth for all students of the language. It is
from this book and from Dr Ed. Miiller's grammar, to be named presently, that
most of the examples in the above grammatical sketch have been culled. In
1881 there appeared at Christiania Die Flexion des Pali in ihrem Yerhaltniss zum
Sanskrit, by Alf Torp, and last year in London Dr Frankfurter's Handbook of
Pali, being an Elementary Grammar, a Chrestomathy, and a Glossary, at the same
time that at Rangoon Professor J. Gray's Elements of Pdli Grammar left the
press. The grammar by Dr Ed. Miiller, just published, deserves to be called a
pattern of critical scholarship. Much valuable information on grammatical and
etymological questions may also be gained from Professor Fr. Miiller's Beitrage
zur Kenntniss der Pa'i-Spracha, Vienna, 18fi7-69; Dr Morris's ''Report on Pali
Literature," in Proc. Philol. Soc., 1880; and last, not least, V. Trenckner's Pali
Miscellany, part i., Copenhagen, 1879. (R. R.)
PALIMPSEST, a term applied to any material from
which writing has been removed to make room for another
text, and which has thus been prepared or scraped a second
time (TroAi/Lu/^o-Tos). Such an object therefore as an in
scribed monumental stone or brass may be made palimpsest.
XVIII. — 24
18(3
P A L — P A L
But the term is most commonly applied to ancient MSS.
which have undergone this treatment. See PALEOGRAPHY.
PALIXDROME (-d\tv, again, and 8/30^.09, a course), a
verse or sentence which runs the same when read either
backwards or forwards. Such is the verse —
or
or
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor ;
Signa te, signa, tcinerc me tangis et angis ;
fi^/of a.i'o/j.'fiiULara fj.fy fj.6va.v fyiv.1
Some have refined upon the palindrome, and composed
verses each word of which is the same read backwards as
forwards,— for instance, that of Camden —
Odo tenet raulum, madidam mappam tenet Anna,
Anna tenet mappam madidam, mulum tenet Odo.
The following is still more complicated, as reading in
four ways — upwards and downwards as well as backwards
and forwards : —
8 A T 0 B
A R E P O
TENET
0 P E R A
ROTAS
PALISSY, BERNARD (1510-1589), was born in 1510 at
La Chapelle Biron, a village in the province of Pe'rigord,
France. His parents were poor, and at an early age he
was thrown upon his own resources for even the most
elementary education. With indomitable energy he read
all the books within his reach, and, aided by naturally keen
powers of observation, gained a knowledge, remarkable for
that time, of chemistry, geology, botany, and other branches
of natural history. Bernard Palissy's father was a painter
of stained glass, and taught his son the practice of this
important craft ; he thus became a skilful draughtsman,
learned the manipulation of colours, and gained that train
ing of the eye which in after years helped to bring him
success and reward as a potter. After a period of travel
ling apprenticeship, Palissy married and settled in Saintes.
At first he practised his craft of glass-painter, varied by
portrait-painting and land-surveying. The search for
subjects for his window-paintings led Palissy to extend
his already wide course of study to history and classical
mythology. He had not long been married when the
whole course of his life was changed by a new ambition.
He happened to see a fine piece of enamelled pottery, prob
ably majolica ware from Italy, and thereupon resolved to
spend any time and labour to discover for himself the
secret of the beautiful enamelled surface that he admired
so much in that piece of pottery. His trade as a glass-
painter had taught him something of the methods of paint
ing and firing enamel colours, and at the neighbouring
village of La Chapelle des Pots he learned the rudiments
of the potter's art in its simplest form ; but this was all the
help he had. He knew nothing whatever of the manu
facture of the finer sorts of faience, or of the composition
of the white enamel which was to form the covering of
his clay vessels and the ground for his coloured ornament.
Year after year, through a succession of utter failures,
and almost without a gleam of hope, he laboured on,
working often blindly and at random in search for the
secret of the white enamel. Almost starving for want of
food, his wife in rags bitterly and not unreasonably
reproaching him for his cruelty, his furniture broken up
to feed his kilns, and without a hand to help, Palissy
struggled on for nearly sixteen years before success came.
A truly tragic story is this, for after all it was no new
discovery that Palissy ever reached or even aimed at.
1 This last is from the Kapxlvoi of the emperor Leo VI., the Philo
sopher, and occurs in a palindrome piece of twenty-seven lines, which
can be seen in the Excerpta Varut of Leo Allatius (1641). Bee also
2,T. and Q., 6th ser., vii. 372, viii. 77.
The secret of the white enamel was known to every potter
of northern Italy, and there, if he had but known, he
might have learned that process on the rediscovery of
which he wasted so many of the best years of his life.
All those struggles and failures are most vividly told by
Palissy himself in one of the most thrilling pieces of
autobiography ever written. The nearest parallel to it is
perhaps (widely different as the two men are) that of his
contemporary the Florentine Cellini.
For a few years Palissy enjoyed untroubled reward for
his years of toil and unflinching constancy of purpose.
His works were bought and appreciated by the queen,
Catherine de' Medici, and many of the great nobles of her
court, who were eager for specimens of his skill. But
before long Palissy, who had always been something
of a theologian and a constant Bible student, became
irresistibly enthralled by the new doctrines of the Ilefor-
mation, and enrolled himself an enthusiastic member of
the Huguenot party. He could do nothing by halves ; he
devoted himself heart and soul to the cause, and, in 1558,
while engaged in making plaques, tiles, and rustic figures
in faience to decorate the Constable de Montmorency's
Chateau d'Ecouen, Palissy was arrested and imprisoned at
Bordeaux, while his kilns and the materials of his trade
were destroyed by command of the magistrates.
Through the intervention of the French court Palissy
was, after a time, liberated, and about 1563, under the
protection of the king, set up his pottery-works in Paris,
on a plot of ground afterwards occupied by part of the
gardens of the Tuileries. Here Palissy lived and worked
in comparative peace and prosperity till 1588, when a
fresh outburst of religious zeal against the Huguenots
proved too strong even for the royal patronage, which for
so long had sheltered him. He was thrown into the
Bastille, and, though Henry III., who was then king, offered
him rewards and freedom if he would recant, Palissy
preferred death to falsehood. Henry III., though not
unmindful of the forty-five years during which Palissy had
faithfully served the court of France, was too timid or too
weak to save his old servant, then nearly eighty years of
age. Palissy was condemned to death, but died shortly
after, in one of the dungeons of the Bastille, in the year
1589. This martyr's death was a not unfitting end for
one whose whole life had been a sacrifice to noble aims,
and who, years before, had suffered a protracted martyrdom
in the to him sacred cause of art.
Palissy's Pottery. — Though very varied in design, Palissy's pot
tery is for the most part executed after one technical process.
Hard well-burnt earthenware, sometimes fired at so high a temper
ature as to have almost a metallic ring, was covered with a white
enamel, formed of the usual ingredients of glass, to which opacity
and creamy whiteness were given by the addition of an oxide of tin.
On this white ground various colours were applied in cmamel-
pigments, and the whole finally covered with a thin plumbo-
vitreous glaze. The potter's wheel was but little, if at all, used
by Palissy, who, in his pieces, aimed less at purity and beauty of
outline than at elaborate surface-decoration in high relief, formed
by pressing the clay into a mould.
Palissy's best-known productions are large plates, ewers, vases,
and other forms, decorated in alto-relief, with very realistic figures
of reptiles, fish, insects, shells, plants, and other objects, executed
with wonderful truth and accuracy from moulds formed by taking
casts of the objects themselves (see woodcut). Thus we see repro
duced every scale on a snake's or fish's back, and the minutest
peculiarities of the fossil shells and living plants which Palissy saw
around him and delighted in copying with the scientific accuracy
of a student of natural history and geology. Casts from these
objects were fixed on to a metal dish or vase of the shape required,
and a fresh cast from the whole formed a mould from which Palissy
could reproduce many articles of the same kind. After being covered
with the long-sought-for white enamel, the various parts of the piece
were painted in realistic colours, or as near truth as could be
reached by the pigments Palissy was able to discover and prepare.
These colours were mostly various shades of blue from indigo to
ultramarine, some rather crude greens, several tints of browns
PAL—PAL
187
and greys, and, more rarely, yellow. Other pieces, sucli as dishes
and plaques, were ornamented by figure subjects treated after the
same fashion, generally Scriptural scenes or subjects from classical
mythology. These were in many cases copied from works in
sculpture by contemporary artists.
Another class of designs used by Palissy were plates, tazze and
the like, with geometrical patterns moulded in relief and pierced
through, forming a sort of open network. Perhaps the most suc
cessful as works of art were those plates and ewers which Palissy
moulded in exact facsimile of the rich and delicate works in pewter
for which Francois Briot and other Swiss metal-workers were so
Hustle Plate by Palissy.
celebrated. These are in very slight relief, and are executed with
cameo-like finish, mostly of good design, after the style of the
Italian silversmiths of the 16th century. Palissy's ceramic repro
ductions of these metal plates are not improved by the colours with
which he picked out the designs.
Some enamelled and painted earthenware statuettes, full of life
and expression, have been attributed to Palissy; but it is .doubtful
whether he ever worked in the round. On the whole his produc
tions cannot be assigned a very high rank as works of art, though
they are certainly remarkable as objects of curiosity and marvels
of ingenious skill. They have always been highly valued, and in
the 17th century attempts were made both at Delft and Lambeth
to copy his "rustic" plates with the reliefs of animals and human
figures. These imitations are very blunt in modelling, and coarsely
painted. They are generally marked on the back in blue with
initials and a date — showing them to be honest copies, not attempts
at forgery, such as have been produced in the present century.
The best collections of Palissy ware are those in the museums of
the Louvre, the Hotel Cluny, and Sevres ; and in England that at
Narford Hall, with a few specimens in the South Kensington and
British Museums.
As an author Palissy was perhaps even more successful than as a
potter. A very high position among French writers is assigned to
him by Larnartine (B. Palissy, 8vo, Paris, 1852). He wrote on a
great variety of subjects, such as agriculture, natural philosophy,
religion, and especially his L'Art de tcrre, in which he gives an
account of his processes and how he discovered them. A complete
edition of his works was published by P. Antoine Cap, L'CEuvrcs
Completes de B. Palissy, Paris, 1844.
See Morley, Life of Palissy, 1855; Marryat, Pottery, 1850, pp. 31 sq. ;
Dumcsnil, H. Palissi/, le potter de terre, 1851 ; Taintnrier, Terres JZmaille'es de
Palissy, 1863; Dele'cluze, B. Palissy, 1838; Enjubault, L'Art ceramique de B.
Palissy, 1858 ; Audiat, Etude stir la vie . . . tie B. Palissy, 1868; Delnnge,
Monographic de I'oeuvre de B. Palissy, 1862. For Palissy as a Huguenot see
Rossijiiio], Les Protestants illustres, No. iv , 1861. (J. H. M.)
PALITANA, a " second class " native state of India,
in KATHIAWAR (q.v.), Bombay presidency, lying between
21° 23' 30" and 21° 42' 30" N. lat., and between 71° 31'
and 72° 0' 30" E. long., with an area of 305 square miles,
and a population (1881) of 49,271. The chief pays a
tribute jointly to the gaekwar of Baroda and the nawab of
Junagarh. The capital of the state is Palitana (popula
tion, 7659). Above the town, to the west, rises the sacred
hill of Satrunjaya, which is covered with temples dedicated
to Adindth, one of the deified saints of the Jains, and is the
resort of innumerable pilgrims from all parts of India.
PALLADIO, ANDREA (1518-1580), a native of Vicenza
in the north of Italy, one of the chief architects of his
century. Palladio's early student life was spent in Rome,
where he learned the practical part of his profession, and
spent several years in making drawings of the buildings of
ancient Rome. In 1547 he returned to his native city
Vicenza, where he designed a very large number of fine
buildings — among the chief being the Barbarano, Porti,
and Chieregati palaces, as well as many others for various
nobles of Vicenza and the neighbourhood. Perhaps his
finest work in Vicenza itself was the Palazzo della Ragione,
with two stories of open arcades of the Tuscan and Ionic
orders. Most of these buildings, however, look better on
paper than in reality, as they are mainly built of brick,
covered with stucco, now in a very dilapidated condition.
This does not affect the merit of their design, as Palladio
intended them to have been executed in stone. His fame
extended widely throughout Italy, and Pope Paul III. sent
for him to Rome to report upon the state of St Peter's.
In Venice, too, Palladio built many stately churches and
palaces, such as S. Giorgio Maggiore, the Capuchin church,
and some large palaces on the Grand Canal. His last
great work was the Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza, designed
after a classical model ; he died before its completion, and
it was finished, though not altogether after the original
design, by his pupil and fellow-citizen Scanu zzi.
In addition to his town buildings, Palladio designed
many country villas in various parts of northern Italy.
The villa of Capra is perhaps the finest of these, and has
frequently been imitated. Palladio was a great student of
classical literature, and was much influenced by Vitruvius's
great work on architecture. He also published in 1575 an
edition with notes of Caesar's Commentaries.
His great literary work was / quattro lilri dell' Archi-
tettura, first published at Venice in 1570, which has passed
into countless editions, and been translated into every
European language. The original edition is a small folio,
richly illustrated with well-executed full-page woodcuts
of plans, elevations, and details of buildings, — chiefly
either ancient Roman temples or else palaces designed
and built by himself. The influence of this book on the
architecture of Europe has been enormous. Among many
others, an edition with notes was published in England by
Inigo Jones, most of whose works, and especially the palace
of Whitehall, of which only the banqueting room remains,
owed much to Palladio's inspiration. Though other
Italian architects in the 16th century worked out and
developed the same style, yet, in England at least, the term
Palladian has been used to include all the results of this
revival of classicalism. Vignola, Scamozzi, and Serlio were
among the chief of Palladio's contemporaries. The style
adopted and partially invented by Palladio expressed a
kind of revolt against the extreme licence both of composi
tion and ornament into which the architecture of his time
had fallen. Though often noble, dignified, and full of the
most harmonious proportions, Palladio's style is dull and
lifeless, dominated by scholasticism, and regardless of con
siderations of utility and convenience.
He was fascinated by the stateliness and beauty of pro
portion which are the chief charms of the buildings of
ancient Rome, and did not stop to reflect that reproduc
tions of these, however great their archaeological accuracy,
could not but be lifeless and unsuited to the wants of the
16th century. Palladio's carefully measured drawings of
ancient buildings are now of great value, as in many cases
the buildings have altogether or in part ceased to exist.
The following is a short abstract of the contents of Palladio's
great work on architecture : —
Book I. Materials; construction; the five orders (Tuscan, Doiic,
Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite); the proportions of various parts
of buildings; construction of stairs.
Book II. Plans and elevations of city and country houses designed
by Palladio; restoration of Greek" and Roman houses; sites;
Palladio's designs for palaces for certain Venetian and other
noblemen, in Venice, Vicenza, Verona, and elsewhere.
188
P A L — P A L
Book 111. Road.s ; bridges; piazze; piazze of Greeks and Romans ;
ancient basilica; modern basilica at Vicenza; baths and xysti of the
Greeks.
Book IV. Temples of ancient Rome; Bramante's "Tempietto"
(S. Pietro in Montorio); Roman temples in Italy, outside Rome;
Roman temples (such as those at Nimcs) outside Italy.
Sec Montanari, Vila <1i Andrea Palladia, 1749; Rigato, Osservazioni sopra
Ait'/rfa I'aHailio, 1811; M:uiini, Meniorie intorno la vita di Andrea Palladia,
1845; Mihzia, Memorie </«•<//! Architetti, 1781, ii. pp. 35-54; Symonds, lltmaissance
in Jtuly — Fine Artt, pp. 94-JW.
PALLADIUM, an archaic wooden image (^oWov) of
Pallas, preserved in the citadel of Troy as a pledge of the
safety of the city. It represented the goddess, standing
in the stiff archaic style, holding the spear in her right
hand. According to one story, Zeus had thrown it down
from heaven when Ilus was founding the city of Ilium.
Odysseus and Diomedes carried it off from the temple of
Pallas, and thus made the capture of Troy possible.
Many different cities boasted that this ancient image had
passed into their possession — Athens, Argos, Rome,
Lavinium, Arc. It is probable that the Palladium is an
image of the warlike goddess Pallas, who must in origin
be distinguished from Athena. The theft of the
Palladium is a frequent subject in Greek art, especially
of the earlier time.
PALLADIUS, RUTILIUS TAURUS ^SMILIANUS, a writer
of the 4th century after Christ, author of a poem on
agriculture (De Re Rustica) in fourteen books. It is not
certain whether he can be identified with any known
historical person of the time. His work consists of an
introductory book of general directions on agriculture,
twelve books describing the operations suitable for the
twelve months of the year, and a final book on the
cultivation of trees. The material is derived from
Columella and other earlier writers. The work was
popular in the Middle Ages ; it is conveniently arranged,
but far inferior in every other respect to that of Columella.
PAL LAHARA, a tributary state of ORISSA (q.v.).
PALLAS. See ATHEXA, vol. ii. 830.
PALLAS, PETER SIMON (1741-1811), naturalist and
traveller, was born in Berlin, September 22, 1741, the son
of Simon Pallas, surgeon in the Prussian army, and pro
fessor of surgery in Berlin. Pallas was carefully educated
by his father, being accustomed from boyhood to the use
of several languages, among them English and French.
He was intended for the medical profession, and his
progress was such that in 1758 he lectured publicly on
anatomy. Pallas studied at the universities of Berlin,
Halle, Gottingen, and Leyden. He early displayed a
strong leaning towards natural history investigations,
which by the time he reached manhood almost monopolized
his attention. In 1761 he came to England, where he
spent a year, devoting himself to a thorough study of the
collections he found there, and to a geological investiga
tion of part of the English coast ; and at the age of
twenty-three he was elected a foreign member of the Royal
Society. Pallas spent some time in Holland, where he
found ample scope for investigation in his special subjects,
the results of which appeared at the Hague in 1766 in
his Elenchut Zoophytorum and Miscellanea Zoologica, and
in 1767-1804 in his well-known ftpicileyia Zooloyica
(Berlin). In 1768 he gladly accepted the invitation of the
empress Catherine to fill the professorship of natural
history in the Imperial Academy of Science, St Petersburg,
and from that time until within a year of his death his
home was in Russia. The great event of his life, and
that by which he will be permanently remembered, was
the expedition through Russia and Siberia in 1768-74, in
which he acted as naturalist, in company with Falk,
Lepechen, and Giildenstadt, the immediate object being
the observation of the transit of Venus in 1769. In this
leisurely journey Pallas went by Kasan to the Caspian,
spent some time among the Calmucks, crossed the Urals
to Tobolsk, visited the Altai Mountains, traced the Irtish
to Kolyvan, went on to Tomsk and the Yenissei, crossed
Lake Baikal, and extended his journey to the frontiers of
China, Few explorations have been so fruitful as this
six years' journey. Pallas's collections included all depart
ments of natural history, and his observations extended to
every point of interest in the region traversed and its
inhabitants. The leading results were given in his Jt risen
durch verschiedene Provinzen des Rilsvischen Reichs (3 vols.
4to, St Petersburg, 1771-76), richly illustrated with
coloured plates. A French translation in 1788-93, in 8
vols., with 9 vols. of plates, contained, in addition to the
narrative, the natural history results of the expedition ; and
an English translation in three volumes appeared in 1812.
As special results of this great journey may be mentioned
Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten iiber die Monyolischen
ViJlkerschaften (2 vols. 4to, St Petersburg, 1776-1802);
Novx S])ecies Quadrupedwn, 1778-79 ; Pallas's con
tributions to the dictionary of languages of the Russian
empire, 1786-89; Icones Insectorum, prsesertim Rossix
Siberieeyue pecuHarium, 1781-1806; Zooyraphia Rosso-
Asiatica (3 vols., 1831) ; besides many special papers
in the Transactions of the academies of St Petersburg and
Berlin. The empress bought Pallas's natural history collec
tions for 20,000 roubles, 5000 more than he asked for
them, and allowed him to keep them for life. He spent a
considerable time in 1793-94 in visiting the southern pro
vinces of Russia, and was so greatly taken with the Crimea
that he determined to take up his residence there. The
empress gave him a large estate at Simpheropol, and
10,000 roubles to assist in equipping a house. Though dis
appointed with the Crimea as a place of residence, Pallas
continued to live there, devoted to constant research,
especially in botany, till the death of his second wife in
1810, when he removed to Berlin, where he died September
8, 1811. The results of his journey in southern Russia were
given in his Bcmerkungen auf einer Reise durch die siid-
lichen Statthalterschaften des Riissischen Reichs (Leipsic,
1799-1801 ; English translation by Blagdon, vols. 5-8 of
Modern Discoveries, 1802, and another in 2 vols., 1812).
Pallas also edited and contributed to Neue Xordische
Beilrdge zur pliysikalisclien Erd- imd Viilkerbeschrcibuny,
Naturgeschichte, und Oekonomie (1781-96), published Illus-
trationes Plantarum imperfecte vel nondwn cognitarum
(Leipsic, 1803), and contributed to Buff on 's Xatural
History a paper on the formation of mountains, and to the
Transactions of various learned societies a great number of
special papers.
The solid value and great extent of Pallas's contributions to
natural science have been long admitted; his name is inseparably
associated with the geography (in its varied branches) of Siberia
and a large part of European Russia. That lie bad a marked
influence on the progress of zoology there is no doubt ; some
authorities even hold that he changed tbc face of the science ; while
his geological investigations and speculations, if they did not
revolutionize the young science (as has been maintained), greatly
helped its progress. Though not in any sense brilliant either as
an investigator or as a writer, Pallas is certainly one of the most
important figures in the science of the latter half of the 18th
century.
See the Essay, of Rudolph! In the Trati.tartiotis of the Hcrlin Academy for
1812; Cuvier's Kloge in his Recueil ties Etoyes Ilis/oriquex, vol. ii. ; iind the Life
in Jardine's Naturalists' Library, vol. iv., Edin., 1843.
PALLA VICING, FERRANTE (1618-1644), a writer of
pasquinades, who is now known chiefly for his early and
tragical end, was a member of the old and widely ramified
Italian family of the Pallavicini, and was born at Piacenza
in 1618. He received a good education at Padua and
elsewhere, and early in life entered the Augustinian order,
residing chiefly in Venice. For a year he accompanied
Ottavio Piccolomini, duke of Amalfi, in his German
campaigns as field chaplain, and shortly after his return
P A L — P A L
189
he published a number of clever but exceedingly scurrilous
satires on the Roman curia and on the powerful house of
the Barberini, which were so keenly resented at Rome that
a price was set on his head. A Frenchman of the name of
Charles de Breche decoyed him from Venice, where he
was comparatively safe, to the neighbourhood of Avignon,
and there betrayed him into his enemies' hands. After
fourteen months' imprisonment and some observance of
the formalities of a trial he was beheaded at Avignon on
March 6, 1644.
His Opcrc Pcrtnesse was published at Venice in 1655, but being,
as may be imagined, inferior in scurrility and grossness (Palla-
vicino's specialities), are much less prized by the curious than the
Opere Scelte (Geneva, 1660), which were more than once reprinted
in Holland, and were translated into German in 1663.
PALL A VICING, or PALLAVIOINI, SFORZA (1607-1667),
cardinal, representative of another branch of the same
family, was born at Rome in 1607. Having taken holy
orders in 1630, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1638, he
successively taught philosophy and theology in the Collegio
Romano ; as professor of theology he was a member of the
congregation appointed by Innocent X. to investigate the
Jansenist heresy. In 1659 he was made a cardinal by
Alexander VII. His death occurred in 1667.
Pallavicino is chiefly known by his history of the council of
Trent, written in Italian, 4and published at Rome in two folio
volumes in 1656-57 (2d edition, considerably modified, in 1666).
His avowed object was to correct and supersede the very damaging
work of Sarpi on the same subject, and he certainly, by virtue of
his position, had access to many important sources from the use of
which his predecessor had been precluded ; the contending parties,
however, are far from agreed as to the completeness of his success.
The work was translated into Latin by a Jesuit named Giattinus
(Antwerp, 1670). There is a good edition of the original by
Zaccharia (6 vols. 4to, 1792-99). It was translated into German
by Klitsche in 1835-37.
PALLIUM, PALLA. These articles of Roman dress,
corresponding to the Greek himation, are described in the
article COSTUME (vol. vi. pp. 453, 456-57), where also the
pallium, as an ecclesiastical vestment peculiar to arch
bishops in the Roman Church, has been spoken of (pp.
461, 463). In the East the pallium is worn by all bishops,
and one or two instances have occurred in the Western
Church also in which it has been conferred by the pope on
prelates of less than archiepiscopal rank. The canon law
forbids archbishops to Avear this vestment until it has been
solemnly asked for (either personally or by deputy) and
obtained from the holy see ; even then it is only to be
worn on certain specified occasions, such as at high ponti
fical mass or at an episcopal consecration. Every arch
bishop must apply for it within three months after his
consecration, and it is buried with him at his death. The
pallium is never granted until after payment of consider
able dues. The pallia are prepared by nuns from white
wool obtained from lambs which have been consecrated on
St Agnes's eve in the church of that saint in Rome ; the
vestments are blessed on the festival of Saints Peter and
Paul, and deposited for a night on the altar over St Peter's
tomb ; they are afterwards taken charge of by the sub-
deacon, and given out as required. The growth of the
occasional practice of bestowing the pallium into an
invariable custom, and of the custom into a law, will be
traced in the article POPEDOM.
PALM. From their noble aspect, and perhaps from
the surpassing utility of several of the members of the
group, the Palms (Palmacex) have been termed the princes
of the vegetable kingdom. Neither the anatomy of their
steins nor the conformation of their flowers, however,
entitles them to any such high position in the vegetable
hierarchy. Their stems are not more complicated in
structure than those of the common butcher's broom
(Ruscus) ; their flowers are for the most part as simple as
those of a rush (Juncus). For all that, palms have
always had great interest, not only for botanists, but also for
the general public, in the latter case by reason of the his
torical and legendary interest connected with them no less
than from their beauty and economic value. The order
Palmacese is characterized among monocotyledonous plants
by the presence of a stem very frequently unbranched, and
bearing a tuft of leaves at the extremity only, or with the
leaves scattered, these leaves, often gigantic in size, being
usually firm in texture and branching in a pinnate or
palmate fashion. The flowers are borne on simple or
branching spikes, very generally protected by a spathe or
spathes, and each consists typically of a perianth of six
greenish, somewhat inconspicuous segments in two rows,
with six stamens, a pistil of 1—3 carpels, each with a single
ovule and a succulent or dry fruit never dehiscent (figs. 1,
2). The seed consists almost exclusively of perisperm or
albumen in a cavity in which is lodged the relatively very
minute embryo (fig. 3). These are the general charac
Fig. 1. Fig. 2.
FIG. 1. — Diagram of the 6 flower of t'hamferops, Fan-Palm, showing
six divisions of the periantli and six stamens.
FIG. 2. — Diagram of the Q flower of the Chainserops, showing six
divisions of the perianth in two rows, and three cells of the ovary.
FIG. 3. — Portion of the perisperm of a palm, showing the embryo
within a small cavity.
teristics by which this very well-defined order may be
discriminated, but, in a group containing considerably
more than a thousand species, dispersed widely and at dif
ferent elevations throughout the tropics of both hemi
spheres, with stragglers in subtropical and even in warm
temperate regions, it may well be imagined that devia
tions from the general plan of structure occur with some
frequency. As the characteristic appearances of palms
depend to a large extent upon these modifications, some of
the more important among them may briefly be noticed.
Taking the stem first, we may mention that it is in very
many palms relatively tall, erect, unbranched, regularly
cylindrical, or dilated below so as to form an elongated
cone, either smooth, or covered with the projecting
remnants of the former leaves, or marked with circular
scars indicating the position of those leaves which have now
fallen away. In other cases the stem is very slender,
short, erect, prostrate, or scandent by means of formidable
hooked prickles which, by enabling the plant to support
itself on the branches of neighbouring trees, also permit
the stem to grow to a very great length and so to expose
the foliage to the light and air above the tree-tops of the
dense forests these palms grow in, as in the genus Calamus.
In some few instances the trunk, or that portion of it
which is above ground, is so short that the plant is in a
loose way called " stemless " or " acaulescent," as in
Geonoma, and as happens sometimes in the solitary
species found in a wild state in Europe, Chamserops
hwnilis. In many species the trunk is covered over
with a dense network of stiff fibres, often compacted
together at the free ends into spines. This fibrous
material, which is so valuable for cordage, consists of the
fibrous tissue of the leaf -stalk, which in these cases persists
after the decay of the softer portions. It is very character
istic of some palms to produce from the base of the stem a
series of adventitious roots which gradually thrust them
selves into the soil and serve to steady the tree and prevent
190
PALM
its overthrow by the wind. The underground stem of some
species, e.g., of Calamus, is a rhizome, or root-stock, lengthen
ing in a more or less horizontal manner by the development
of the terminal bud, and sending up lateral branches like
suckers from the root-stock, which form dense thickets
of cane-like stems. The branching of the stem above
ground is unusual, except in the case of the Doum Palm
of Egypt (Hyph&ne), and, when present, is probably the
result of some injury to the terminal bud at the top of the
stem, in consequence of which buds sprout out from below
the apex.
The internal structure of the stem does not differ funda
mentally from that of a typical monocotyledonous stem,
the taller, harder trunks owing their hardness not only to
the fibrous or woody skeleton but also to the fact that, as
growth goes on, the originally soft cellular tissue through
which the fibres run becomes hardened by the deposit of
woody matter within the cells, so that ultimately the
cellular portions become as hard as the woody fibrous
matters proper.
The leaves of palms are either arranged at more or less
distant intervals along the stem, as in the canes (Calamus,
<fcc.), or are approximated in tufts at the end of the stem,
thus forming those noble crowns of foliage which are so
closely associated with the general idea of a palm. In the
young condition, while still unfolded, these leaves, with the
succulent end of the stem from which they arise, form
" the cabbage," which in some species is highly esteemed
as an article of food.
The adult leaf very generally presents a sheathing base
tapering upwards into the stalk or petiole, and this again
bearing the lamina or blade. The sheath and the petiole
are very often provided with stout spines ; and when, in
course of time, the upper parts of the leaf decay and fall
off the base of the leaf-stalk and sheath often remain,
either entirely or in their fibrous portions only, which
latter constitute the investment to the stem already
mentioned. In size the leaves vary within very wide
limits, some being only a few inches in extent, while those
of the noble Caryota may be measured in tens of feet. In
form the leaves of palms are very rarely simple ; usually
they are more or less divided, sometimes, as in Caryota,
extremely so. In Geonoma Verschaffeltia, and some others,
the leaf splits into two divisions at the apex and not
elsewhere ; but more usually the leaves branch regularly
in a palmate fashion as in the fan-palms Latania,
Chamxrops, Sabal, &c., or in a pinnate fashion as in
Areca, Kentia, Calamus, &c. The form of the segments
is generally more or less linear, but a very distinct
appearance is given by the broad wedge-shaped leaflets of
such palms as Caryota, Martinezia, or Mauritia. These
forms run one into another by transitional gradations ;
and even in the same palm the form of the leaf is often
very different at different stages of its growth, so that it
is a difficult matter to name correctly seedling or juvenile
palms in the condition in which we generally meet with
them in the nurseries, or even to foresee what the
future development of the plant is likely to be. Like
the other parts of the plant, the leaves are sometimes
invested with hairs or spines; and, in some instances, as in
the magnificent Ceroxylon andicola, the under surface is
of a glaucous white or bluish colour.
The inflorescence of palms consists generally of a fleshy
spike like that of an Arum, either simple or much branched,
studded with numerous, sometimes extremely numerous,
flowers, and enveloped by one or more sheathing bracts
called " spathes." These parts may be small, or they may
attain relatively enormous dimensions, hanging down from
amid the crown of foliage like huge tresses, and adding
greatly to the noble effect of the leaves.
As to the individual flowers, they are usually small,
greenish, and insignificant; their general structure has been
mentioned already. Modifications from the typical struc
ture arise from differences of texture, and specially from
suppression of parts, in consequence of which the flowers
are very generally unisexual (figs. 1, 2), though the flowers
of the two sexes are generally produced on the same tree
(monoecious), not indeed always in the same season, for a
tree in one year may produce all male flowers and in the
next all female flowers. Sometimes the flowers are modi
fied by an increase in the number of parts ; thus the usually
six stamens may be represented by 12 to 24 or even by
hundreds. The carpels are usually three in number, and
more or less combined ; but they may be free, and their
number may be reduced to two or even one. In any case
each carpel contains but a single ovule.
Owing to the sexual arrangements before mentioned, the
pollen has to be transported by the agency cf the wind or
of insects to the female flowers. This is facilitated some
times by the elastic movements of the stamens and anthers,
which liberate the pollen so freely at certain times that
travellers speak of the date-palms of Egypt (Phoenix
dactyl if era] being at daybreak hidden in a mist of pollen
grains. In other cases fertilization is effected by the
agency of man, who removes the male flowers and scatters
the pollen over the fruit-bearing trees. This practice has
been followed from time immemorial ; and it afforded one of
the earliest and most irrefragable proofs by means of which
the sexuality of plants was finally established. The fruit
which results from this process of fertilization is various:
sometimes, as in the common date, it is a berry with a
fleshy rind enclosing a hard stony kernel, the true seed;
sometimes it is a kind of drupe as in the cocoa-nut, Cocos
nucifera, where the fibrous central portion investing the
hard shell corresponds to the fleshy portion of a plum or
cherry, while the shell or nut corresponds to the stone of
stone-fruits, the seed being the kernel. Sometimes, as in
the species of Sagus, Raphia, etc., the fruit is covered with
hard, pointed, reflexed shining scales, which give it a very
remarkable appearance.
The seed varies in size, but always consists of a mass
of perisperm, in which is imbedded a relatively very
minute embryo (fig. 3). The hard stone of the date is the
perisperm, the white flesh of the cocoa-nut is the same
substance in a softer condition; the so-called " vegetable
ivory ); is derived from the perisperm of Phytelephas.
Hooker, who in his recent revision of the genera follows
the work of his predecessors Martius, Wendland, and Drude,
enumerates about one hundred and thirty-two genera of the
order ranged under five tribes, distinguished by the nature
of the foliage, the sexual conditions of the flower, the seed
umbilicate or not, the position of the raphe, etc. Other
characters serving to distinguish the minor groups are
afforded by the habit, the position of the spathes, the
" aestivation " of the flower, the nature of the stigma,
the ovary, fruit, &c.
It is impossible to overestimate the utility of palms.
They furnish food, shelter, clothing, timber, fuel, building
materials, sticks, fibre, paper, starch, sugar, oil, wax, wine,
tannin, dyeing materials, resin, and a host of minor pro
ducts, which render them most valuable to the natives and
to tropical agriculturists. The Cocoa-nut Palm, Cocos nuci-
fera, and the Date Palm, Phcenix dactylifera, have been
treated under separate headings. Sugar and liquids capable
of becoming fermented are produced by Caryota urens,
Cocos nucifera, Borassus flabelliformis, Rhapis vim/era.,
Arenga saccharifera., Phoenix xilvestris, Mauritia vinifera,
&c. Starch is procured in abundance from the stem of the
Sago Palm, Sagus Rumphii, and other species. The seeds
of Elais guineensis of western tropical Africa yield, when
P A L — P A L
191
crushed and boiled, " palm oil." Cocoa-nut oil is extracted
from the cocoa-nut. Wax is exuded from the stem of
Ceroxylon andicola and Copernicict cerifera. A variety of
" dragon's blood," a resin, is procured from Calamus Draco
and other species. Edible fruits are yielded by the date,
the staple food of some districts of northern Africa. The
cocoa-nut is a source of wealth to its possessors, and many
of the species are valued for their " cabbage " ; but, as this
is the terminal bud whose removal causes the destruction
of the tree, this is a wasteful article of diet unless care be
taken by judicious planting to avert the annihilation of
the supplies. The famous "coco de mer," or double cocoa-
nut, whose floating nuts might have suggested the twin
steamboats, and are the objects of so many legends
and superstitions, is known to science as Lodoicea Sechel-
larum. The tree is peculiar to the Seychelles, where it is
used for many useful purposes. Its fruit is like a huge
plum, containing a stone or nut like two cocoa-nuts (in
their husks) united together. These illustrations must
suffice to indicate the numerous economic uses of palms.
The only species that can be cultivated in the open air
in England, and then only under exceptionally favourable
circumstances, are the European Fan-Palm, Ckamxrops
humilis, the Chusan Palm, C. Fortunei, of which speci
mens may be seen c-ut of doors at Kew, Heckfield,
Osborne, etc., and the Chilian Jiilasa spcctabitis. The
date-palm now so commonly planted along the Mediter
ranean coast is the common Date-Palm; but this does not
ripen its fruit north of the African coast. There are
several low growing palms, such as Rhapis fldbellifornds,
Chamxrops humilis, ttc., which are suited for ordinary
green-house culture, and many of which, from the thick
texture of their leaves, are enabled to resist the dry and
often gas-laden atmosphere of living rooms. Many species
are now cultivated for the special purpose of the decora
tion of apartments, particularly the very beautiful Cocos
Weddelliana. But, to gain anything like an idea of the
magnitude and majestic character of palms, a visit to such
establishments as the palm stoves at Kew, Edinburgh, or
Chatsworth is necessary. In some instances, as in the
famous Talipot Palm, Borassns flabelliformis, the tree
does not flower till it has arrived at an advanced age and
acquired a large stature, and, having produced its flowers,
it dies like an annual weed. (M. T. M.)
PALMA, the chief town of the Spanish province of
Baleares, the residence of a captain general, a bishop's see,
and a flourishing seaport, is situated 135 miles from
Barcelona, on the south west coast of Majorca, at the head
of the fine Bay of Palma, which stretches inland for about
10 miles between Capes Gala Figuera and Regana. It
is the meeting place of all the highways in the island, and
the terminus of the railway which (opened in 1875) runs
to Inca and (1879) Manacor, and will be extended to
Alcudia. The ramparts, which enclose the city on all sides
except towards the port (where they were thrown down in
1872), have a circuit of a little more than 4 miles.
Though begun in 1562, after the plans of Georgio Fretin,
they were not finished till 1836. Palma has undergone
considerable change since 1860; streets have been widened
and houses built in the ordinary modern style, and the
fine old-world Moorish character of the place has suffered
accordingly. The more conspicuous buildings are the
cathedral, the exchange, the palace, now occupied by the
captain-general and the law courts, the general hospital
(1456), the town-house (end of the 16th century), the
picture gallery, and the college. At the time of the partial
suppression in 1835 there were twenty-five monastic build
ings in Palma ; none of those still extant are of much note.
The church of San Francisco is interesting for the tomb of
Raymond Lully, a native of Palma. The cathedral, a fine
Gothic building with massive buttresses, crowns the sum
mit of the hill on which the city stands. It was erected
and dedicated to the Virgin in terms of a vow made by
King Jayme as he sailed to the conquest of Majorca, but,
though commenced in 1230, it was not finished till 1601.
The older and more interesting portions are the royal
chapel (1232), with the tomb (1779) of Jayme II., and
the south front with the doorway known as del mirador
(1389). The principal dimensions of the edifice are —
length from the door to the high altar, 347 feet ; width,
including the chapels, 190 feet; height of the central nave,
147 feet; height of the side naves, 78 feet ; and height of
the belfry tower, 166. Of the architecture of the exchange
(lonja), a Gothic building begun in 1426, the people of
Palma are particularly proud, as it excited the admiration
of the emperor Charles V. The columns of the windows,
in black and grey marble, are of almost unexampled slim-
ness. The harbour (formed by a mole constructed to a
length of 387 yards in the 14th century and afterwards
extended to more than 650 yards), has been greatly
improved and enlarged since 1875 by dredging operations
and a further addition to the mole of 136 yards. Pre
viously it was not accessible to vessels drawing more than
18 feet, and men-of-war and large merchant steamers
were obliged to anchor in the bay, which is sometimes
rendered dangerous by violent storms. Porto Pi, about 2
miles from the city, was once a good harbour, but is now
fit only for small craft. Shoemaking, tanning, and rope-
spinning are prosecuted on a very extensive scale ; and
direct commerce is carried on with Valencia, Barcelona,
Algeria, Marseilles, Cuba, Porto Rico, &c. Many of the
Majorcan vessels used to be Palma-built, but the increase
of steam navigation has changed the character of the trade.
The population of the ayuntamiento, 53,019 in 1860, was
58,224 in 1877. There is a considerable number of
Christian Jews (Chuetas) who were formerly confined to
their own quarter.
Palma probably owes, if not its existence, at least its name
(symbolized on the Roman coins by a palm branch), to JMetellus
Balearicus, who in 123 B.C. settled three thousand Roman and
Spanish colonists en the island. The bishopric dates only from the
14th century, its foundation having been strongly opposed by the
bishop of Barcelona. About a mile south-west of Palma is the
castle of Bcllver, where Jovellanos and Arago were imprisoned.
PALMA, distinguished since 1861 as Palma Campania,
a city of Italy, in the province of Caserta, 4^ miles south
of Nola. The population was 5858 in 1881.
PALMA, distinguished since 1861 as Palma di Monte-
chiaro, a city of Italy, in the province of Girgenti, Sicily,
13 miles S.E. of Girgenti. Though situated some distance
inland, it has a port of considerable value to the coasting
trade. The exports are wine, dried fruits, soda, and
sulphur. Hodierna, the mathematician (1597-1660), was
a priest at Palma patronized by the duke of Palma. The
population, 13,458 in 1871, was 11,702 in 1881.
PALMA, one of the CANARY ISLANDS (q.v.).
PALMA, JACOPO, a painter of the Venetian school, was
born at Serinalta near Bergamo, towards 1480, and is
said to have died at the age of forty-eight, or towards
1528, He is currently named Palma Vecchio (Old Palma)
to distinguish him from Palma Giovane, his grand-
nephew, a much inferior painter. About the facts of his
life little is known. He is reputed to have been a com
panion and competitor of Lorenzo Lotto, and to some extent
a pupil of Titian, after arriving in Venice early in the 16th
century; he may also have been the master of Bonifazio.
His earlier works are in the older manner, and betray the
influence of the Bellini ; but, modifying his style from the
study of Giorgione and Titian, Palma took high rank
among those painters of the distinctively Venetian type
who remain a little below the leading masters. For rich-
192
P A L — P A L
ness and suffusion of colour he is hardly to be surpassed;
but neither in invention, strength of character, nor
vigorous draughtsmanship does he attain any peculiar
excellence. His finish is great, his draperies ample, his
flesh golden-hued. He painted many fine portraits. A
face frequently seen in his pictures is that of his
daughter Violante, of whom Titian was more or less
enamoured. Two works by Palma are more particularly
celebrated. The first is a composition of six paintings
in the Venetian church of S. Maria Formosa, with St
Barbara in the centre, under the dead Christ, and to right
and left Sts Dominic, Sebastian, John Baptist, and
Anthony. The second work is in the Dresden Gallery,
representing three sisters seated in the open air (presum
ably the painter's daughters) ; it is frequently named The
Three Graces. Other leading examples are — the Last
Supper, in S. Maria Mater Domini ; a Madonna, in the
church of S. Stefano in Vicenza ; the Epiphany, in the
Brera of Milan ; the Holy Family, with a young shepherd
adoring, in the Louvre ; St Stephen and other Saints,
Christ and the Widow of Nain, and the Assumption of
the Virgin, in the Accademia of Venice ; and Christ at
Emmaus, in the Pitti Gallery. Palma's grand-nephew,
Palma Giovane, was also named Jacopo (1544 to about
1626). His works, which are extremely numerous in
Venice, and many of them on a vast scale, belong to the
decline of Venetian art.
PALMAS, LAS. See CANARY ISLANDS, vol. iv. p. 799.
PALMER, EDWARD HENRY (1840-1882), Orientalist,
was born at Cambridge, August 7, 1840. He lost his
parents when he was a mere child, and was then brought
up by an aunt. As a schoolboy he showed the character
istic bent of his mind by picking up the Romany tongue
and a great familiarity with the inner life of the Gipsies.
He wras not, however, remarkably bookish, and from school
was sent to London as a clerk in the City. Palmer
disliked this life, and varied it by learning French and
Italian, mainly by frequenting the society of foreigners
wherever he could find it. He had a peculiar gift for
making himself at home with all manner of strange people,
which served him throughout life, and was as effective with
Orientals as with Europeans. His linguistic faculty was
in fact only one side of a great power of sympathetic
imitation. He learned always from men rather than from
books, and by throwing his whole flexible personality into
unison with those from whom he was learning. In 1859
Palmer returned to Cambridge, apparently dying of con
sumption. He had an almost miraculous recovery, and in
I860, while he was thinking of a new start in life, fell in
at Cambridge with a certain Sayyid Abdullah, a teacher of
Eastern languages. Under his influence he resolved to
give himself to Oriental studies, in which he made very
rapid progress. He now attracted the notice of two fellows
of St John's College, became an undergraduate there, and
in 1867 was elected a fellow on the ground of his attain
ments, especially in Persian and Hindustani. He was
soon engaged to join the survey of Sinai, and followed up
this work in 1870 by exploring the Wilderness of the
Wandering along with Drake. After a visit to Palestine
and the Lebanon he returned to England in 1870, and next
year published his Desert of the Exodus. In the close
of the year 1871 he became Lord Almoner's Professor of
Arabic at Cambridge, married, and settled down to
teaching work. Unhappily his affairs were somewhat
.straitened, mainly through the long illness of his wife, whom
he lost in 1878 ; he was obliged to use his pen for Oriental
and other work in a way that did not do full justice to his
talents, and at length he became absorbed in journalism.
In 1881, two years after his second marriage, he finally left
Cambridge and ceased to teach. In the following year he
was asked by the Government to go to the East and assist
the Egyptian expedition by his knowledge and his great
influence over the Arabs of the desert Al-Tlh. It was a
hazardous task, but Palmer rightly judged that he could not
refuse his country a service which no one else was able
to render. He went to Gaza, and without an escort made
his way safely through the desert to Suez — an exploit of
singular boldness, which gave the highest proof of his
capacity for dealing with the Bedouins. From Suez he
was again sent into the desert with Captain Gill, to procure
camels and do other service of a very dangerous kind,
and on this journey he and his companion were attacked
and murdered (August 1882). Their remains were re
covered after the war, and now lie in St Paul's Cathedral.
Palmer's highest qualities appeared in his travels, especially in
the heroic adventures of his last journeys. His brilliant scholar
ship is also seen to advantage in what he wrote in Persian and
other Eastern languages, but not so much so in his English books,
which were generally written under pressure. His scholarship was
wholly Eastern in character, and lacked the critical qualities of
the modern school of Oriental learning in Europe. All his works
show a great linguistic range and very versatile talent; but he was
cut off before he was able to leave any permanent literary monu
ment worthy of his powers. His chief writings are The Desert of
the Exodus, 1871.; Poems of Bchd cd Din (Ar. andEng., 2 vols. ),
1876-77; Arabic Grammar, 1877; History of Jerusalem, 1871 (by
Besant and Palmer — the latter wrote the part taken from Arabic
sources); Persian Dictionary, 1876, and Ennlinh and Persian
Dictionary (posthumous, 1883) ; translation of ilicQu'rdn (unsatis
factory), 1880. He also did good service in editing the Name Lists
of the Palestine Exploration.
PALMER, SAMUEL (1805-1881), landscape painter
and etcher, was born in London on the 27th January
1805. He was delicate as a child, and received his educa
tion, in which a study of the classics — English as well as
Greek and Latin — played a notable part, at home under
the wise and genial care of his father. In 1819 we find
him exhibiting both at the Royal Academy and the
British Institution ; and shortly afterwards he became
intimate with John Linnell, who gave him excellent
counsel and assistance, advising drawing from the figure
and from the antique in the British Museum, and intro
ducing him to Varley, Mulready, and, above all, to
William Blake, whose strange and mystic genius had the
most powerful effect in impressing on Palmer's art its
solemn and poetic character. Before very long the studies
of this period were interrupted by an illness which led
to a residence of seven years at Shoreham in Kent. Here
the artist sought a closer acquaintance with nature, and
the characteristics of the scenery of the district are con
stantly recurrent in his works. Among the more important
productions of this time are the Bright Cloud and the
Skylark, paintings in oil, which was Palmer's usual medium
in earlier life, but one with which he is now hardly at all
associated in the popular mind. In 1839 he married a
daughter of Linnell's. The wedding tour was to Italy,
where he spent over two years in study. Returning to
London, he was in 1843 elected an associate and in 1854
a full member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours,
a method to which he afterwards adhered in his painted
work. His productions are distinguished by an excellent
command over the forms of landscape, and by mastery of
rich, glowing, and potent colouring. He delighted in the
more exceptional and striking moments of nature, and
especially in her splendours of sunrise and sunset. His
paintings are less literal transcripts than poetic and
imaginative renderings. They are admirably composed
and well-considered pastorals, which find a singularly
accurate literary parallel in the landscape work of Milton
in his minor poems ; indeed among the best and most
important paintings executed by Palmer during his later
years was a noble series of illustrations to L' Allegro and
// Penxeroso, now in the possession of Mr L. 11. Valpy.
P A L — P A L
193
In 1853 the artist was elected a member of the English
Etching Club ; and his work with the needle is no less
individual and poetic than his work with the brush. Mr
Hamerton has pronounced him "one of the few really
great English etchers," "one of the most accomplished
etchers who ever lived." Considering his reputation and
success in this department of art, his plates are few in
number. They are executed with care and elaboration.
Their virtues are not those of a rapid and vivid sketch,
depending on force and selection of line, and adopting a
frankly interpretative treatment ; they aim rather at
truth and completeness of tonality, and embody many
of the characteristics of other modes of engraving — of
mezzotint, of line, and of woodcut, lleadily accessible and
.sufficiently representative plates may be studied in the
Early Ploughman, in Etching and Etchers (1st ed.), and
the Herdsman's Cottage, in the third edition of the same
work. In 1861 Palmer removed to Keigate, where he
spent an honoured and productive old age, till his death
on the 24th of May 1881. One of his latest efforts was
the production of a series of etchings to illustrate his
English metrical version of Virgil's Eclogues, which was
published in 1883, illustrated with reproductions of the
artist's water-colours and with etchings, of which most were
left unfinished at his ^death, and completed by his son, A.
H. Palmer. A collection of Palmer's works was brought
together by the Fine Arts Society in the year of his
death. The descriptive and critical catalogue of this
exhibition, and the memoir by his son, may be consulted
for particulars of the painter's life and art.
PALMERSTOX, HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, VISCOUNT,
(1784-1865), statesman, minister of foreign affairs, and
twice prime minister of England, was born at Broadlands,
near Komsey, Hants, on the 20th October 1784. The
Irish branch of the Temple family, from which Lord
Palmerston descended, was very distantly related to the
great English house of the same name, which played so
conspicuous a part in the politics of the 18th century; but
these Irish Temples were not without distinction. In the
reign of Elizabeth they had furnished a secretary to Sir
Philip Sidney and to Essex. In the reign of William and
Mary Sir William Temple figured as one of the ablest
diplomatists of the age. From his younger brother, who
was speaker of the Irish House of Commons, Lord
Palmerston descended ; the son of the speaker was created
a peer of Ireland. March 12, 1722, and was succeeded by
his grandson, the second viscount, who married a Miss
Mee, a lady celebrated for her beauty, who became the
mother of the subject of this notice. Lord and Lady
Palmerston were persons of great taste and fashion, who
travelled several times in Italy with their children. Their
eldest son, Henry John, is mentioned by Lady Elliot in
her correspondence as a boy of singular vivacity and
energy. These qualities adhered to him through life, and
he had scarcely left Harrow, at the age of eighteen, when
the death of his father (April 17, 1802) raised him to
the Irish peerage, and placed him at the head of his
family. It was no doubt owing to his birth and con
nexions, but still more to his own talents and character,
that Lord Palmerston was thrown at a very early age into
the full stream of political and official life. Before he was
four-and twenty he had stood two contested elections for
the university of Cambridge, at which he was defeated,
and he entered parliament for a pocket-borough, Newtown,
Isle of Wight, in June 1807. Through the interest of his
guardians Lord Malmesbury and Lord Chichester, the
duke of Portland made him one of the junior lords of the
Admiralty on the formation of his administration in 1807.
A few months later he delivered his maiden speech in the
House of Commons in defence of the expedition against
Copenhagen, which he conceived to be justified by the
known designs of Napoleon on the Danish court. This
speech was so successful that it marked him out as one of
the rising statesmen of the day, in so much that, when
Perceval formed his Government in 1809, he proposed to
this young man of five and-twenty to take the chancellor
ship of the exchequer, following apparently the examples
of Pitt and Lord Henry Petty, who had filled that office
at about the same age. Lord Palmerston, however, though
extremely surprised and flattered by the proposal, had the
wisdom to refuse it, on the ground that he was totally
ignorant of finance, and had only once addressed the
House of Commons. Nor did he allow the offer of a seat
in the cabinet to break his modest resolution. He con
tented himself with the far less important office of secre
tary at war, charged exclusively with the financial business
of the army, without a seat in the cabinet, and in this
position he remained, singularly enough, without any signs
of an ambitious temperament or of great political abilities,
for twenty years (1809-1828). His administrative talents
were confined within the limits of the War Office, which
he kept in perfect order, and his parliamentary speeches
to the annual statements in which he moved the army
estimates of those eventful years. During the whole of
that period Lord Palmerston was chiefly known as a man
of fashion, and a subordinate minister without influence
on the general policy of the cabinets he served. Some of
the most humorous poetical pieces in the Nciv Whig Guide
were from his pen, and he was entirely devoted, like his
friends Peel and Croker, to the Tory party of that day.
The political opinions of Lord Palmerston at that time,
and perhaps through life, were those of the school of Pitt
— not the effete Toryism of the Pitt clubs, which he
always treated with disdain, but the enlarged Conserva
tive views of the great minister himself, as represented
after Pitt's death by Canning. Lord Palmerston never
was a Whig, still less a Ptadical ; he was a statesman of
the old English aristocratic type, liberal in his sentiments,
favourable to the cause of justice and the march of pro
gress, but entirely opposed to the claims of democratic
government. Thus he supported from the first the cause
of Catholic emancipation, and he sympathized warmly
with the constitutional party throughout the world, but
he was opposed to the extension of the franchise in
England, and he regarded the impulse of popular power as
a force to be directed and controlled rather than obeyed.
So successfully did he practise the art of governing a free
people that he lived to be regarded as a popular minister,
though he had been for twenty years a member of a Tory
Government, and never materially altered his own opinions.
In the later years of Lord Liverpool's administration,
after the death of Lord Londonderry in 1822, strong dissen
sions existed in the cabinet. The Liberal section of the
Government was gaining ground. Canning became foreign
minister and leader of the House of Commons. Huskisson
began to advocate and apply the doctrines of free trade.
Catholic emancipation was made an open question.
Although Lord Palmerston was not in the cabinet, he
cordially supported the measures of Canning and his
friends. Upon the death of Lord Liverpool, Canning was
called to the head of affairs ; the Tories, including Peel,
withdrew their support, and an alliance was formed
between the Liberal members of the late ministry and the
Whigs. In this combination the chancellorship of the
exchequer was first offered to Lord Palmerston, who
accepted it, but this appointment was frustrated by the
king's intrigue with Herries, and Palmerston was content
to remain secretary at war with a seat in the cabinet,
which he now entered for the first time. The Canning
administration ended in four months by the death of its
XVIII. --25
194
PALMERSTON
illustrious chief, and was succeeded by the feeble ministry
of Lord Goderich, which barely survived the year. But
the " Canningites," as they were termed, remained, and
the duke of Wellington hastened to include Palmerston,
Huskisson, Charles Grant, Lamb, and Dudley in his
Government. A dispute between the duke and Huskisson
soon led to the resignation of that minister, and his
friends felt bound to share his fate. In the spring of
1828 Palmerston found himself, for the first time in his
life, in opposition, From that moment he appears to have
directed his attention closely to foreign affairs ; indeed he
had already urged on the duke of Wellington a more
active interference in the affairs of Greece ; he had made
several visits to Paris, where he foresaw with great
accuracy the impending revolution ; and on the 1st June
1829 he made a speech on foreign affairs of such excellence
that never but once in his long career did he surpass it.
For it may here be remarked that Lord Palmerston was
no orator ; his language was unstudied, and his delivery
somewhat embarrassed ; but he generally found words to
say the right thing at the right time, and to address the
House of Commons in the language best adapted to the
capacity and the temper of his audience. An attempt
was made by the duke of Wellington in September 1830
to induce Palmerston to re-enter the cabinet, which he
refused to do without Lord Lansdowne and Lord Grey,
a»nd from that time forward he may be said to have
associated his political fortunes with those of the Whig
party. It was therefore natural that Lord Grey should
place the department of foreign affairs in his hands upon
the formation of the great ministry of 1830, and
Palmerston entered with zeal on the duties of an office
over which he continued to exert his powerful, influence,
both in and out of office, for twenty years.
The revolution of July 1830 had just given a strong
shock to the existing settlement of Europe. The kingdom
of the Netherlands was rent asunder by the Belgian
revolution ; Portugal was the scene of civil war : the
Spanish succession was about to open and place an infant
princess on the throne. Poland "was in arms against
Russia, and the Northern powers formed a closer alliance,
threatening to the peace and the liberties of Europe. In
presence of these varied dangers, Lord Palmerston was
prepared to act with spirit and resolution. The king of
the Netherlands had appealed to the powers who had
placed him on the throne to maintain his rights ; and a
conference assembled accordingly in London to -settle the
question, which involved the independence of Belgium and
the security of England. On the one hand, the Northern
powers were anxious to defend the king of Holland ; on the
other hand a party in France aspired to annex the Belgian
provinces. The policy of the British Government was a
close alliance with France, but an alliance based on the
principle that no interests were to be promoted at variance
with the just rights of others, or which could give to
any other nation well-founded cause of jealousy. If the
Northern powers supported the king of Holland by force,
they would encounter the resistance of France and England
united in arms ; if France sought to annex Belgium she
would forfeit the alliance of England, and find herself
opposed by the whole continent of Europe. In the end
the policy of England prevailed ; numerous difficulties,
both great and small, were overcome by the conference ;
although on the verge of war, peace was maintained ; and
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was placed upon the
throne of Belgium, which enjoyed for half a century the
benefits of his enlightened rule, followed with equal success
by that of his son and successor. Upon the whole this
transaction may be regarded as the most important and
most successful of Lord Palmerston's public life.
In 1833 and 1834 the youthful queens Donna Maria
of Portugal and Isabella of Spain were the representatives
and the hope of the constitutional party in those countries,
— assailed and hard pressed by their absolutist kinsmen
Don Miguel and Don Carlos, who were the representatives
of the male line of succession. Lord Palmerston conceived
and executed the plan of a quadruple alliance of the con
stitutional states of the West to serve as a counterpoise to
the Northern alliance. A treaty for the pacification of the
Peninsula was signed in London on the 22d April 1834 ;
and, although the struggle was somewhat prolonged in
Spain, it accomplished its object. France, however, had
been a reluctant party to this treaty. She never executed
her share in it with zeal or fidelity. Louis Philippe was
accused of favouring the Carlists underhand, and he
positively refused to be a party to direct interference in
Spain. It is probable that the hesitation of the French
court on this question was one of the causes of the extreme
personal hostility Lord Palmerston never ceased to show
towards the king of the French down to the end of his
life, if indeed that sentiment had not taken its origin at
a much earlier period, Nevertheless, at this same time
(June 1834) Lord Palmerston wrote that "Paris is the
pivot of my foreign policy." M. Thiers was at that time
in office. Unfortunately these differences, growing out of
the opposite policies of the two countries at the court of
Madrid, increased in eacli succeeding year : and a constant
but sterile rivalry was kept up, which ended in results
more or less humiliating and injurious to both nations.
The affairs of the East interested Lord Palmerston in
the highest degree. During the Greek War of Independ
ence he had strenuously supported the claims of the
Hellenes against the Turks and the execution of the treaty
of London. But from 1830 the defence of the Ottoman
empire became one of the cardinal objects of his policy.
He believed in the regeneration of Turkey. " All that we
hear," he wrote to Mr Bulwer, "about the decay of the
Turkish empire, and its being a dead body or a sapless
trunk, and so forth, is pure unadulterated nonsense."
The two great aims he had in view were to prevent the
establishment of Russia on the Bosphorus and the establish
ment of France on the Nile, and he regarded the main
tenance of the authority of the Porte as the chief barrier
against both these aggressions. Against Russia he had long
maintained a suspicious and hostile attitude. He was a
party to the publication of the " Portfolio " in 1834, and to
the mission of the " Vixen " to force the blockade of
Circassia about the same time. He regarded the treaty
of Unkiar Skelessi which Russia extorted from the Porte
in 1832, when she came to the relief of the sultan after
the battle of Konieh, with great jealousy; and, when the
power of Mohammed AH in Egypt appeared to threaten
the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, he succeeded in
effecting a combination of all the powers, who signed the
celebrated collective note of 27th July 1839, pledging them
to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish
empire as a security for the peace of Europe. On two
former occasions, in 1833 and in 1835, the policy of Lord
Palmerston, who proposed to afford material aid to the
Porte against the pasha of Egypt, was overruled by the
cabinet; and again, in 1839, when Baron Brunnow first
proposed the active interference of Russia and England,
the offer was rejected. But in 1840 Lord Palmerston
returned to the charge and prevailed. The moment was
critical, for Mohammed Ali had occupied Syria and won
the battle of Nezib against the Turkish forces, and on
the 1st July 1839 the sultan Mohammed expired. The
Egyptian forces occupied Syria, and threatened Turkey;
and Lord Ponsonby, then British ambassador at Constan
tinople, vehemently urged the necessity of crushing so
PALMERSTON
195
formidable a rebellion against the Ottoman power. But
France, though her ambassador had signed the collec
tive note in the previous year, declined to be a party
to measures of coercion against the pasha of Egypt.
Palmerston, irritated at her Egyptian policy, flung himself
into the arms of the Northern powers, and the treaty of
the 15th July 1840 was signed in London without the
knowledge or concurrence of France. This measure was
not taken without great hesitation, and strong opposition
on the part of several members of the British cabinet.
Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon and some other
ministers thought that, whatever might be the merits of
the quarrel between the sultan and the pasha, our interfer
ence was not worth the price we were paying for it — an
alliance with Russia and the rupture of our alliance with
France ; and the Government was more than once on the
point of dissolution. Lord Palmerston himself declared in
a letter to Lord Melbourne that he should quit the ministry
if his policy was not adopted ; and he carried his point.
His consummate knowledge of details, his administrative
ability, his impetuous will, and his conviction that France
could not declare war against the four great powers of
Europe prevailed over the resistance of an indolent premier
and hesitating colleagues. The operations were conducted
with extraordinary promptitude, good fortune, and success.
The bombardment of Beirut, the fall of Acre, and the
total collapse of the boasted power of Mohammed Ali
followed in rapid succession, and before the close of the
year Lord Palmerston's policy, which had convulsed and
terrified Europe, was triumphant, and the author of it was
regarded as one of the most powerful statesmen of the
age. At the same time, though acting with Ptussia in the
Levant, the British Government engaged in the affairs of
Afghanistan to defeat her intrigues in Central Asia, and a
contest with China was terminated by the conquest of
Chusan, afterwards exchanged for the island of Hong
Kong. Seldom has Great Britain occupied a prouder posi
tion abroad, although by a singular contrast the cabinet
was in the last stage of decrepitude at home. Within a
few months Lord Melbourne's administration came to an
end, and Lord Palmerston remained for five years out of
office. The crisis was past, but the change which took
place by the substitution of M. Guizot for M. Thiers in
France, and of Lord Aberdeen for Lord Palmerston in
England, was a fortunate event for the peace of the world.
Lord Palmerston had adopted the opinion that peace with
France was not to be relied on, and indeed that war between
the two countries was sooner or later inevitable. France
was in his eyes a power likely to become an enemy ; and
he encouraged the formation of an English party to thwart
her influence all over the world. Had he remained in
office, the exasperation caused by his Syrian policy and
his harsh refusal to make the slightest conciliatory conces
sion to France, in spite of the efforts of his colleagues,
would probably have led to fresh quarrels, and the emperor
Nicholas would have achieved his main object, which was
the complete rupture of the Anglo-French alliance. Lord
Aberdeen and M. Guizot inaugurated a different policy;
by mutual confidence and friendly offices they entirely
succeeded in restoring the most cordial understanding
between the two Governments, and the irritation which
Lord Palmerston had inflamed gradually subsided. During
the administration of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston
led a retired life, but he attacked with characteristic bitter
ness the Ashburton treaty with the United States, which
closed successfully some other questions he had long kept
open. In all these transactions, whilst full justice must
be done to the force and patriotic vigour which Lord
Palmerston brought to bear on the questions he took in
hand, it was but too apparent that he imported into them
an amount of passion, of personal animosity, and imperious
language which rendered him in the eyes of the queen and
of his colleagues a dangerous minister. On this ground,
when Lord John Russell attempted, in December 1845, to
form a ministry, the combination failed because Lord Grey
refused to join a Government in which Lord Palmerston
should resume the direction of foreign affairs. A few
months later, however, this difficulty was surmounted :
the Whigs returned to power, and Palmerston to the
foreign office, with a strong assurance that Lord John
Russell should exercise a strict control over his proceed
ings. A few days sufficed to show how vain was this
expectation. The French Government regarded the
appointment of Palmerston as a certain sign of renewed
hostilities, and they availed themselves of a despatch in
which Palmerston had put forward the name of a Coburg
prince as a candidate for the hand of the young queen of
Spain, as a justification for a departure from the engage
ments entered into between M. Guizot and Lord Aberdeen.
However little the conduct of the French Government in
this transaction of the Spanish marriages can be vindicated,
it is certain that it originated in the belief that in
Palmerston France had a restless and subtle enemy. The
efforts of the British minister to defeat the French
marriages of the Spanish princesses, by an appeal to the
treaty of Utrecht and the other powers of Europe, were
wholly unsuccessful ; France won the game, though with
no small loss of honourable reputation. Not long after
wards Sir Henry Bulwer was expelled from the Peninsula
for an attempt to lecture General Narvaez on his duties,
and for his notorious intrigues with the opposition ; and
in Paris the British embassy became the centre of every
species of attack on the king's Government, so that friendly
diplomatic relations were temporarily interrupted with
both countries. No doubt the rupture of the Anglo-French
alliance and the tension existing between the two Govern
ments contributed in some degree to the catastrophe of
1848, which drove Louis Philippe from the throne, and
overthrew the constitutional monarchy in France ; but
Palmerston did not regret the occurrence or foresee all its
consequences.
The revolution of 1848 spread like a conflagration
through Europe, and shook every throne on the Continent
except those of Russia and Spain and Belgium. Palmerston
sympathized, or was supposed to sympathize, openly with
the revolutionary party abroad. No state was regarded
by him with more aversion than Austria. Prince
Metternich he abhorred ; and, with some inconsistency,
after the fall of Metternich he still pursued a policy of
unrelenting hostility to his successors. Yet his opposition
to Austria was chiefly based upon her occupation of great
part of Italy and her Italian policy, for Palmerston
maintained that the existence of Austria as a great power
north of the Alps was an essential element in the system
of Europe. Antipathies and sympathies had a large share
in the political views of Lord Palmerston, and his
sympathies had ever been passionately awakened by the
cause of Italian independence. He knew the country; he
knew the language ; and in London some of his closest
friends were Italians, actively engaged in the national
cause. Hence he threw all the moral support he could
give into the Italian revolution. He supported the Sicilians
against the king of Naples, and even allowed arms to be
sent them from the arsenal at Woolwich ; and, although he
had endeavoured to restrain the king of Sardinia from his
rash attack on the superior forces of Austria, he obtained
for him a reduction of the penalty of defeat. Austria,
weakened by the revolution, sent an envoy to London to
request the mediation of England, based on a large cession
of Italian territory; Lord Palmerston rejected the -terms
196
P A L M E R S T O N
he might have obtained for Piedmont. Ere long the reac
tion came ; this stra\v-fire of revolution burnt itself out in
a couple of years. In Hungary the civil war, which had
thundered at the gates of Vienna, was brought to a close
by Russian intervention. Prince Schwarzenberg assumed
the government of the empire with dictatorial power ; and,
in spite of what Palmerston termed his "judicious bottle-
holding," the movement he had encouraged and applauded,
but to which he could give no material aid, was every
where subdued. The British Government, or at least
Palmerston as its representative, was regarded with sus
picion and resentment by every power in Europe, except
the French republic ; and even that was shortly afterwards
to be alienated by his attack on Greece.
This state of things Avas regarded with the utmost
annoyance by the British court and by most of the British
ministers. Palmerston had on many occasions taken
important steps, without their knowledge, which they dis
approved. Over the foreign office he asserted and
exercised an arbitrary dominion, which the feeble efforts
of the premier could not control. The queen and the
prince consort did not conceal their indignation at the
position in which he had placed them with all the other
courts of Europe. When Kossuth, the Hungarian leader,
lauded in England, after having been rescued by Palmerston
from the demands made for his surrender, he proposed to
receive this personage at Broadlands, a design which was
only prevented by a peremptory vote of the cabinet ; and
in 1850 he took advantage of some very questionable claims
on the Hellenic Government to organize an attack on the
little kingdom of Greece. Greece being a state under the
joint protection of three powers, Russia and France pro
tested against this outrage, and the French ambassador
temporarily left London, which promptly led to the termi
nation of the affair. But it was taken up in parliament
with great warmth. After one of the most memorable
debates of this century, Palmerston's policy was condemned
by a deliberate vote of the House of Lords. The House of
Commons was moved by Roebuck to reverse the sentence,
which it did by a majority of forty-six, after having heard
from Palmerston the most eloquent and powerful speech
ever delivered by him, in which he sought to vindicate, not
only his claims on the Greek Government for Don Pacifico,
but his entire administration of foreign affairs. It was in
this speech, which lasted five hours, that Palmerston made
the well-known declaration that a British subject — "Civis
Ilomanus sum " — ought everywhere to be protected by the
strong arm of the British Government against injustice
and wrong. The entire Liberal party, from motives of
party allegiance and patriotism, supported the minister
who uttered these words. Even Sir Robert Peel, who
opposed the resolution, said that the country Avas proud
of him. Yet notwithstanding this parliamentary triumph,
there were not a few of his own colleagues and supporters
who condemned the spirit in which the foreign relations of
the crown were carried on ; and in that same year the
queen addressed a minute to the prime minister in which
Her Majesty recorded her dissatisfaction at the manner
in which Lord Palmerston evaded the obligation to sub
mit his measures for the royal sanction, as failing in sin
cerity to the crown. This minute was communicated to
Palmerston, who did not resign upon it. These various
circumstances, and many more, had given rise to distrust
and uneasiness in the cabinet, and these feelings reached
their climax when Palmerston, on the occurrence of the
coup d'etat by which Louis Xapoleon made himself master
of France, expressed to the French ambassador in London,
without the concurrence of his colleagues, his personal
approval of that act of lawless violence. Upon this, Lord
John Russell advised his dismissal from office (December
1851). Palmerston speedily avenged himself by turning
out the Government on a Militia Bill ; but, although he
survived for many years, and twice filled the highest office
in the state, his career as foreign minister ended for ever,
and he returned to the foreign office no more. Indeed he
assured Lord Aberdeen, in 1853, that he did not wish to
resume the seals of that department. Notwithstanding
the zeal and ability which he had invariably displayed as
foreign minister, it had long been felt by his colleagues
that his eager and frequent interference in the affairs
of foreign countries, his imperious temper, the extreme
acerbity of his language abroad, of which there are ample
proofs in his published correspondence, and the evasions
and artifices he employed to carry his points at home
rendered him a dangerous representative of the foreign
interests of the country. He accused every foreign states
man who differed from him of " bully and swagger ";
foreign statesmen in more polite language imputed the
same defects to him. The lesson of his dismissal from
office was not altogether lost upon him ; and, although his
great reputation was chiefly earned as a foreign minister,
it may be said that the last ten years of his life, in which
he filled other offices, were not the least useful or dignified
portion of his career.
Upon the formation of the cabinet of 1853, which was
composed by the junction of the surviving followers of Sir
Robert Peel with the Whigs, under the earl of Aberdeen,
Lord Palmerston accepted with the best possible grace the
office of secretary of state for the Home Office. He
speedily overcame the slight hesitation or reluctance he
had expressed when the offer was first made to him, on the
ground that the views of Lord Aberdeen and Lord
Clarendon on foreign affairs had differed widely from his
own ; nor was he ever chargeable with the slightest attempt
to undermine that Government. At one moment he
withdrew from it, because Lord John Russell persisted in
presenting a project of reform, which appeared to him
entirely out of season ; and he advocated, with reason,
measures of greater energy on the approach of war, which
might possibly, if they had been adopted, have averted
the contest with Russia. As the difficulties of the
Crimean campaign increased, it was not Lord Palmerston
but Lord John Russell who broke up the Government by
refusing to meet Roebuck's motion of inquiry. Palmerston
remained faithful and loyal to his colleagues in the hour of
danger. Upon the resignation of Lord Aberdeen and the
duke of Newcastle, the general sentiment of the House
of Commons and the country called Palmerston to the
head of affairs, and he entered, on the 5th of February
1855, upon the high office which he retained, with one short
interval, to the day of his death. Palmerston was in the
seventy-first year of his life when he became prime minister
of England.
A series of fortunate events followed his accession to
power. In March 1855 the death of the emperor Nicholas
removed his chief antagonist. In September Sebastopol
was taken. The administration of the British army was
reformed by a consolidation of offices. In the following
spring peace was signed in Paris. Never since Pitt had a
minister enjoyed a greater share of popularity and power,
and, unlike Pitt, Palmerston had the prestige of victory in
war. He was assailed in parliament by the eloquence of
Gladstone, the sarcasms of Disraeli, and the animosity of
the Manchester Radicals, but the country was with him.
The Liberals applauded his spirit and his sympathy with
the cause of liberty abroad ; the Conservatives knew that
he would never lend himself to rash reforms and democratic
agitation at home. Defeated by a hostile combination of
parties in the House of Commons on the question of the
Chinese War in 1857, he dissolved the parliament and
197
appealed to the nation. The result was the utter defeat
of the extreme Radical party, and the return of ,1 more
compact Liberal majority. The great events of the suc
ceeding years, the Indian revolt and the invasion of Italy
by Napoleon III., belong rather to the general history of
the times than to the life of Palmerston ; but it was
fortunate that a strong and able Government was at the
head of affairs. Lord Derby's second administration of
1858 lasted but a single year, Palmerston having casually
been defeated on a measure for removing conspiracies to
murder abroad from the class of misdemeanour to that of
felony, which was introduced in consequence of Orsini's
attempt on the life of the emperor of the French. But
in June 1859 Palmerston returned to power, and it was on
this occasion that he proposed to Cobden, one of his most
constant opponents, to take office ; and, on the refusal of
that gentleman, Milner Gibson was appointed to the Board
of Trade, although he had been the prime mover of
the defeat of the Government on the Conspiracy Bill.
Palmerston had learnt by experience that it was wiser to
conciliate an opponent than to attempt to crush him, and
that the imperious tone he had sometimes adopted in the
House of Commons, and his supposed obsequiousness to
the emperor of the French, were the causes of the tem
porary reverse he Jhad sustained. Although Palmerston
approved the objects of the French invasion of Italy, in
so far as they went to establish Italian independence, the
annexation of Savoy and Nice to France was an incident
which revived his old suspicions of the good faith of the
French emperor. A proposal was made to him to cede to
Switzerland a small portion of territory covering the
canton of Geneva, but he rejected the offer, saying, " We
shall shame them out of it"; in this he was mistaken, and
his remonstrances found no support in Europe. About
this time he expressed to the duke of Somerset his convic
tion that Napoleon III. " had at the bottom of his heart a
deep and unextinguishable desire to humble and punish
England," and that war with France was a contingency to
be provided against. The unprotected condition of the
principal British fortresses and arsenals had long attracted
his attention, and he succeeded in inducing the House
of Commons to vote nine millions for the fortification of
those important points.
In 1856 the projects for cutting a navigable canal
through the Isthmus of Suez was brought forward by M.
do Lesseps, and resisted by Palmerston with all the weight
he could bring to bear against it. He did not foresee the
advantages to be derived by British commerce from this
great work, and he was strongly opposed to the establish
ment of a powerful French company on the soil of Egypt.
The concession of land to the company \vas reduced by
his intervention, but in other respects the work proceeded
and was accomplished. It may here be mentioned, as a
remarkable instance of his foresight, that Palmerston told
Lord Malmesbury, on his accession to the Foreign Office
in 1858, that the chief reason of his opposition to the
canal was this : — he believed that, if the canal was made
and proved successful, Great Britain, as the first mercantile
state, and that most closely connected with the East, would
be the power most interested in it ; that this country
would therefore be drawn irresistibly into a more direct
interference in Egypt, which it was desirable to avoid,
because England has already enough upon her hands, and
because our intervention might lead to a rupture with
France. He therefore preferred that no such line of com
munication should be opened. Recent events have shown
that there was much to be said for this remarkable forecast,
and that the mercantile advantages of the canal are to
some extent counterbalanced by the political difficulties to
which it may give rise.
Upon the outbreak of the American civil war iu 1861,
Lord Palmerston acknowledged that it was the duty of
the British Government to stand aloof from the fray, but
his own opinion led him rather to desire than to avert the
rupture of the Union, which might have been the result
of a refusal on the part of England and France to recog
nize a blockade of the Southern ports, which was
notoriously imperfect, and extremely prejudicial to the
interests of Europe. The cabinet was not of this opinion,
and, although the belligerent rights of the South were
promptly recognized, the neutrality of the Government
was strictly observed. When, however, the Southern
envoys were taken by force from the "Trent," a British
packet, Palmerston did not hesitate a moment to exact a
full and complete reparation for this gross infraction of
international law, which President Lincoln was wise enough
to make. But the attitude and language of some members
of the British Government at that crisis, and the active
operations of Southern cruisers, some of which had been
fitted out by private firms in British ports, aroused a
feeling of resentment amongst the American people whicli
it took many years to efface, and which was at last
removed by an award extremely onerous to England.
The last transaction in which Palmerston engaged arose
out of the attack by the Germanic confederation, and its
leading states Austria and Prussia, on the kingdom of
Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. There
was but one feeling in the British public and the nation as
to the dishonest character of that unprovoked aggression,
and it was foreseen that Austria would ere long have
reason to repent her share in it. Palmerston endeavoured
to induce France and Russia to concur with England in
maintaining the treaty of London, which had guaranteed
the integrity of the Danish dominions. But those powers,
for reasons of their own, stood aloof, and the conference
held in London in 1864 was without effect. A proposal
to send the British fleet into the Baltic was overruled, and
the result was that Denmark was left to her own resources
against her formidable opponents. It may be interesting
to quote, as a specimen of Lord Palmerston's clear and
vigorous style and insight, one of the last letters he ever
wrote, for, though it relates to the affair of Schleswig-
Holstein, it embraces at a glance the politics of the world.
"September 13, 1865.
"Mv DEAR RUSSELL, — It was dishonest and unjust to deprive
Denmark of Sleswick and Holstein. It is another question how
those two duchies, when separated from Denmark, can be disposed
of best for the interest of Europe. I should say that, with that
view, it is better that they should go to increase the power of
Prussia than that they should form another little state to be added
to the cluster of small bodies politic which encumber Germany, and
render it of less force than it ought to be in the general balance of
power in the world. Prussia is too weak as she now is ever to be
honest or independent in her action ; and, with a view to the
future, it is desirable that Germany, in the aggregate, should be
strong, in order to control those two ambitious and aggressive
powers, France and Russia, that press upon her west and east. As to
France, we know how restless and aggressive she is, and how ready
to break loose for Belgium, for the Rhine, for anything she would
be likely to get without too great an exertion. As to Russia, she
will, in due time, become a power almost as great as the old Roman
empire. .She can become mistress of all Asia, except British
India, whenever she chooses to take it ; and, when enlightened
arrangements shall have made her revenue proportioned to her
territorv, and railways shall have abridged distances, her command
of men will become enormous, her pecuniary means gigantic, and
her power of transporting armies over great distances most formid
able. Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian
aggression, and a strong Prussia is essential to German strength.
' Therefore, though I heartily condemn the whole of the proceedings
I of Austria and Prussia about the duchies, I own that I should
rather see them incorporated with Prussia than converted into an
additional asteroid in the system of Europe. Yours sincerely,
PALMERSTOX."
In little more than a month from the date of this
letter, on the 18th October 1865, he expired at Brocket
198
P A L — P A L
Hall, after a short illness, in the eighty-first year of his
age. His remains were laid in Westminster Abbey.
Although there was much in the official life of Lord
Palmerston which inspired distrust and alarm to men of a
less ardent and contentious temperament, it is certain
that his ambition was not selfish but patriotic, that he
had a lofty conception of the strength and the duties of
England, that he was the irreconcilable enemy of slavery,
injustice, and oppression, and that he laboured with
inexhaustible energy for the dignity and security of the
empire. In private life his gaiety, his buoyancy, his
high-breeding, made even his political opponents forget
their differences ; and even the warmest altercations on
public affairs were merged in his large hospitality and
cordial social relations. In this respect he was aided Avith
consummate ability by the tact and grace of Lady
Palmerston, the widow of Earl Cowper, whom he married
at the close of 1839. She devoted herself with enthusiasm
to all her husband's interests and pursuits, and she made
his house the most attractive centre of society in London,
if not in Europe.
A Life of Lord Palmerston, by the late Lord Bailing, was pub
lished in three volumes in 1870, which owes its chief merit to the
selections from the minister's autobiographical diavies and private
correspondence. The work, however, ends at the year 1840, when
more than half his ministerial career remained untold. This bio
graphy was resume! an 1 continued by Mr Evelyn Ashley in 1876,
after the death of Lord Balling ; but the whole period from 1846
to 1865 is compressed into two volumes, and no doubt materials are
in existence, though still unpublished, which will eventually supply
a fuller account of the important part played by this eminent
statesman for sixty years in the affairs of the British empire and of
Europe.
PALM SLTNDAY (Dominica in Palmis), the Sunday
immediately before Easter (see HOLY WEEK), in the
Roman Catholic communion is characterized by a striking
ceremonial which takes place in church at the beginning
of the high mass of the day. Branches of palms and
olives or other trees having previously been laid in suffi
cient quantity in front of the high altar, the anthem
Hosanna is sung by the choir, the collect is said by the
celebrant, and lessons from Exodus xv. and xvi. and Matt.
xxi. are sung by the subdeacon and deacon respectively.
The branches of palm and olive (held to symbolize
" victory over the prince of death " and " the coming of a
spiritual unction ") are then blessed with prayer and
aspersion, whereupon the principal person of the clergy
present approaches the altar, and gives a palm to the
celebrant, who afterwards gives one to him, then to the
rest of the clergy in the order of their rank, and finally to
the laity, who receive kneeling. During the distribution
appropriate antiphons are sung, and when it is over a
procession begins for which there is another series of
antiphons. At the return of the procession two or four
singers go into the church, and, shutting the door, with
their faces towards the procession, sing two lines of the
hymn " Gloria, laus, et honor," which are repeated by the
celebrant and others outside ; this continues till the end
of the hymn. The subdeacon next knocks at the door
with the end of the cross he carries ; the door is opened,
and the procession re-enters the church. Then fallows
mass, when all hold the palms in their hands during the
singing of the Passion and the Gospel. There is evidence
that the feast of palms (/?aum/ iopr-fj) was observed, in the
East at least, as early as the 5th century, but the earliest
mention of a procession similar to that which now takes
place on Palm Sunday both in the Greek and in the Latin
communion occurs in an Ordo Officii probably not earlier
than the 10th century.
PALMYRA is the Greek and Latin name of a famous
city of the East, now sunk to a mere hamlet, but still an
object of interest for its wonderful ruins, which its
1 Semitic inhabitants and neighbours called Tadmor. The
i latter name, which is found in the Bible (2 Chron. viii. 5),
and is written "iJDin and liO"in in Palmyrene inscriptions,
' has survived to the present day, and is now locally pro-
: nounced Tudmir or Tidmir. The site of Palmyra1 is an oasis
I in the desert that separates Syria from 'Irak, about 50 hours'
I ride or 150 miles north-east from Damascus, 32 hours from
' Emesa, and five days' camel journey from the Euphrates.2
The hills which fringe the oasis mark the northern limit of
the Hammad, the springless and stony central region of
the great Syrian desert. The direct route between the
Phoenician ports and the cities of ' Irak and the Persian
Gulf would be from Damascus eastward through the
Hammad, but this region is so inhospitable that for at
least two thousand years caravans have preferred to make
a detour to the north and pass through the oasis of
Tadmor. At this point also the great line between the
Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean is intersected by other
routes connecting Palmyra with northern Syria on the one
hand and with Bostra, Petra, and central Arabia on the other
— routes now deserted or little traversed, but which in
ancient times were of very considerable consequence,
especially in connexion with the overland incense trade.
The oasis was thus naturally marked out as a trading post
of some importance, but the commanding position which
Palmyra held in the 2d and 3d centuries of our era was due
to special causes. The rise and fall of Palmyra form one of
the most interesting chapters in ancient history, and must
be studied not only from ancient writers but from the
numerous inscriptions that have been collected from the
ruins of the city and the tombs that surround it.
The oldest notice of Palmyra is in 2 Chron. viii. 5, when
Tadmor in the wilderness is said to have been built by
Solomon. But the source of this statement is 1 Kings ix.
18, and here the name is TMR, which cannot be read
Tadmor, and from the context — in which Judiwan towns
are spoken of— is almost certainly the Tamar of Ezek.
xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28. It is indeed extremely improbable
that Solomon, whose policy was to enrich Judah by
developing the lied Sea traffic, and so carrying the trade
of the East to the Mediterranean ports through his own
country, would have encouraged the rival route by Tadmor,
which lies quite outside the Israelite settlements, and
passes through districts over which Solomon was unable to
maintain even the recognition of suzerainty which David
had extorted by his Syrian wars. After the time of
Solomon the Red Sea trade was interrupted, and an over
land caravan trade from Phoenicia to Yemen and the
Persian Gulf took its place. But neither on the cuneiform
inscriptions nor in the Old Testament writings prior to
Chronicles, not even in Ezekiel's account of the trading
connexions of Tyre, is there any mention of Tadmor ; up
to the 6th century B.C. the caravans seem to have been
organized by merchants of southern or central Arabia, and
they probably reached Damascus by way of Duma (Jauf
Beni'Amir) and the W. Sirhan, without coming near the
oasis of Palmyra (see especially Isa. xxi. 1 1 sy. ; Ezck.
xxvii.). On the other hand Tadmor cannot have been a
new place when the Biblical Chronicler ascribed its
foundation to Solomon, and thus we shall hardly be wrong
in connecting its origin with the gradual forward move
ment of the nomadic Arabs which followed on the over
throw of the ancient nationalities of Syria by the Chaldsean
empire. Arabian tribes then took possession of the partly
cultivated lands east of Canaan, and, as has been explained
in the article NABAT/EANS, became masters of the Eastern
1 According to the Due de Luynes, the great temple is in 34° 32'
30" N. lat. and 35° 54' 35" E. long.
2 Pliny (viii. 89) gives the distances as 176 Roman miles from
Damascus and 337 from Seleucia.
199
trade, gradually acquired settled habits, and learned
civilization and the use of writing from the Aramaeans,
whose language was in current official and commercial use
in the Persian empire west of the Euphrates. The
Nabatseans of Petra naturally appear in Western literature
before the remote Palmyrenes, who are not even mentioned
by Strabo. But we learn from Appian (Bell. Civ., v. 9)
that in 42-41 B.C. the city was rich enough to excite the
cupidity of Mark Antony, and that the population was
still small and mobile enough to evade that cupidity by
timely flight. The series of Semitic inscriptions of
Palmyra begins a few years later. The oldest (De Vogii6,
30) bears the date 304 of the Seleucid era (9 B.C.), and
was placed upon one of the characteristic tower-shaped
tombs which overlooked the city from the surrounding hill
sides. The dialect and the writing (a form of the
" square " character) are western Aramaic ; the era, as we
have just seen, is Greek,1 the calendar Macedonian ; and
these influences, to which that of Rome was soon added,
were the determining factors in Palmy rene civilization.
The proper names and the names of deities are also partly
Syriac, but in part they are unmistakably Arabic. The
Arabic element appears in the names of members of the
chief families, and these retain some distinctive grammati
cal forms which sliggest that, though Aramaic was the
written language, Arabic may have not been quite obsolete
in common life. That the town was originally an Arabic
settlement is further rendered probable by the use of a
purely Arabic term (iCID " fahdh ") for the septs into
which the townsmen were divided. And thus we can best
explain how, when the oasis was occupied by a settlement
of Arabs, it gradually rose from a mere halting-place for
caravans to a city of the first rank. The true Arab despises
agriculture ; but the pursuit of commerce, the organization
and conduct of trading caravans, is an honourable business
which gives full scope to all the personal qualities which
the Bedouin values, and cannot be successfully conducted
without widespread connexions of blood and hospitality
between the merchant and the leading sheikhs on the
caravan route. An Arabian merchant city is thus neces
sarily aristocratic, and its chiefs can hardly be other than
pure Arabs of good blood. The position of Palmyra in
this respect may be best illustrated by the analogy of
Mecca. In both cities the aristocracy was commercial,
and the ruling motive of all policy lay in the maintenance
of the caravan trade, which involved a constant exercise of
tact and personal influence, since a blood feud or petty
tribal war might close the trade routes at any moment.
To keep the interests of commerce free from these embar
rassments, it was further indispensable to place them
under the sanctions of religion, and, though we cannot
prove that this policy was carried out at Palmyra with the
same consistency and success as at Mecca, we can trace
significant analogies which point in this direction. Mecca
became the religious centre of Arabia in virtue of the
cosmopolitan worship of the Ka'ba, in which all tribes
could join without surrendering their own local gods. So
at Palmyra, side by side with the worship of minor deities,
we find a central cultus of Baal (Bel or Malachbel)
identified with "the most holy sun." To him belonged
the great temple in the south-east of the city with its
vast fortress-like courtyard 256 yards square, lined with
colonnades in the style of Herod's temple ; and the
presidence of the banquets of his priests, an office coveted
by the first citizens of Palmyra (W., 2606, a), may be
compared with the Meccan rifdda, or right of entertaining
1 The ollest Greek inscription (bilingual) is of 10 A.D., for a statue
erected jointly by the Palmyrenes and the Greeks of Seleucia, Jour.
As., ser. 8, i. 243.
the pilgrims.2 And, just as in Mecca the central worship
ultimately became the worship of the supreme and name
less god (Allah), so in Palmyra a large proportion of the
numerous votive altars are simply dedicated to " the good
and merciful one, blessed be his name for ever." In
Palmyra as at Mecca the name Rahman, (merciful) may be
due to the influence of the Jewish colony, which settled in
the town after the destruction of Jerusalem ; but the
tendency to a universal religion, of which the dropping of
the local proper name of God is so decided a mark, and
which nevertheless is accompanied by no such rejection of
polytheism as made Jehovah and Elohim synonymous in
the religion of the Hebrew prophets, appears too early to
be due to Jewish teaching (Mordtmann, 1), and seems as
at Mecca to be rather connected with the cosmopolitanism
of a merchant city. A secondary parallelism with Mecca
is found in the sacred fountain of Ephka. Its tepid and
sulphureous waters perhaps acquired their reputation from
their medicinal use to cure the rheumatism which has
always prevailed in Palmyra.3 This spring, like Zemzem
at Mecca, had a guardian, appointed by the " moon-lord "
Yarhibol (W., 2571, c ; De V., 30), whose oracle is alluded
to in another inscription, and who may therefore be com
pared with the Meccan Hobal.
The wars between Rome and Parthia favoured the
growth of Palmyra, which astutely used its secluded posi
tion midway between the two powers, and by a trimming
policy secured a great measure of practical independence
and continuous commercial relations with both (Appian,
ut sup.; Pliny, v. 89). These wars, too, must have given it
a share in the trade with north Syria, which in more peace
ful times would not have chosen the desert route. To
some extent, however, the oasis soon came under Roman
control, for decrees regulating the custom-dues were issued
for it by Germanicus and Corbulo. The splendid period
of Palmyra, to which the greater part of the inscribed
monuments belong, began with the overthrow of the
Nabatsean kingdom of Petra (105 A.D.), which left it
without a commercial rival. Hadrian took Palmyra into
his special favour, and gave it on the occasion of his visit
to the town (circa 130 A.D.) the name of Adrianopolis.4
Under the same emperor (8th April 137) the customs and
dues of Palmyra were regulated by a law which has recently
been copied from the stone on which it was engraved, and
gives the fullest picture of the life and commerce of the
city. At this time the supreme legislative authority lay
iu the hands of a senate (/3ovA.^), with a president, a scribe,
two archons, and a fiscal council of ten. At a later date,
probably under Septimius Severus or Caracalla, Palmyra
received the jus italicum and became a Roman colony,5
and according to usage the legislative power came into the
hands of the senate and people under the administration
of officers called strategi. The Romans had soon other
2 The sacrifices were partly maintained by endowments given by
rich citizens (De V., 3; W. 2588). The dates of the inscriptions show
that much the commonest time for the erection of honorific statues —
often in a connexion partly religious — was in spring (Adar, or more
often Nisan), and this seems to point to a great spring festival, corre
sponding to the Arabic sanctity of Rajab. Palmyra had an important
trade with the Bedouins in skins and grease (fiscal inscr., xvi. sq. ,
xxx.); the herds of the desert are in condition for slaughter in spring,
and this also points to a spring feast and fair. A trace of the hospi
tality so necessary to keep the Bedouins in humour may perhaps be
found in De V., 16; W., 2585.
3 See Mordtmann, 18, and his notes ; the oasis lies 1300 feet above
the sea, is constantly swept by cutting winds, and is liable to sudden
and extreme variations of temperature.
4 See Uranius, apud Steph. Byz. , now confirmed by the great fiscal
inscription.
5 See Ulpian, Dig., 1. 15, 1, and Waddington, p. 596. Palmyrenes
who became Roman citizens took Roman names in addition to their
native ones, and these in almost ever}" case are either Septimius or
Julius Aurelius.
200
P A L M Y R A
than commercial reasons to favour Palmyra, which became
an important military post, and turned its commercial
organization to good account in aiding the movements of
the legions marching against the Persians (De V., 15). It
was the Persian wars that raised Palmyra to brief political
importance, and male it for a few years the mistress of
the Roman East ; but before we pass to this last epoch of
its greatness we must attempt to describe the aspect and
life of the city during the century and a half of its chief
commercial prosperity.
The chief luxuries of the ancient world — silks, jewels,
pearls, perfumes, and the like — were drawn from India,
China, and southern Arabia ; and Pliny computes the
yearly import of these wares into Rome at not less than
three quarters of a million of English money. The trade
followed two routes, one by the Red Sea, Egypt, and
Alexandria, the other from the Persian Gulf through the
Syro-Arabian desert. The latter, after the fall of Petra,
was in the hands of the Palmyrene merchants. West of
Palmyra there were Roman roads, and the bales could be
conveyed in waggons, but east of the oasis there was no road,
and the caravans of Palmyra traversed the desert either to
Vologesias (near the ancient Babylon and the later Cufa),
where water carriage was available, or to Forath on the
Pasitigris and Charax at the head of the Persian Gulf.
The trade was enormously profitable not only to the
merchants but to the town, which levied a rigorous duty
on all exports and imports, and even farmed out the water
of the two wells ; but the dangers of the desert and the
risks of Parthian or Persian hostility were also formidable,
and successfully to plan or conduct a great caravan was a
distinguished service to the state, often recognized by
public monuments erected by the " senate and people," or
by the merchants of the caravan. These monuments,
which form a conspicuous feature in Palmyrene architec
ture, took the form of statues placed on pedestals project
ing from the .upper part of the long rows of pillars which
lined the chief streets ; for every great merchant was eager
to see his name handed down to posterity by an enduring
memorial, and to add to the colonnades a series of pillars
" with all their ornaments, with their brazen capitals (?)
and painted ceilings," was the received way of honouring
others or winning honour for oneself. Thus arose,
besides minor streets, the great central avenue which,
starting from a triumphal arch near the great Temple of
the Sun, formed the main axis of the city from south-east
to north-west for a length of 1240 yards, and at one time
consisted of not less than 750 columns of rosy- white lime
stone each 55 feet high. We must suppose that this and
the other pillared streets were shaded from the fierce heat
of the sun like a modern bazaar ; and in some parts the
pillars seem to have served to support a raised footway,
from which loungers could look down at their ease on the
creaking waggons piled with bales of silk or purple wool or
heavy with Grecian bronzes designed to adorn some Eastern
palace, the long strings of asses laden with skins or
alajbastra of precious unguents, the swinging camels
charged with olive oil from Palestine or with grease and
hides from the Arabian deserts, and the motley crew of
divers nationalities which crowded the street beneath — the
slave merchant with his human wares from Egypt or Asia
Minor, the Roman legionary and the half-naked Saracen,
the Jewish, Persian, and Armenian merchants, the street
hawkers of old clothes, the petty hucksters at the corners
offering roasted pine cones, salt fish, and other cheap
dainties, the tawdry slave-girls, whose shameful trade went
to swell the coffers of the state, the noisy salt auction,
presided over by an officer of the customs. The produc
tion of " pure salt " from the deposits of the desert was
apparently one of the chief local industries, and another
which could not be lacking on the confines of Arabia was the
manufacture of leather. We read too, on the inscriptions,
of a guild of workers in gold and silver ; but Palmyra was
not a great industrial town, and the exacting fiscal system,
which reached the most essential industries, and drew pro
fit from the barest necessaries of life, must have weighed
heavily on the artizan classes. Though all quarters of the,
town still show traces of splendid buildings, wealth was
probably confined to a comparatively small number of
great families, and we must picture Palmyra in its best
days as displaying a truly Oriental compound of magnifi
cence and squalor, where the mud or straw-built huts of
the poor stood hard by the palaces of the merchant
princes.
The life of the mass of the population was the unchang
ing life of the Eastern poor ; the great families too
remained essentially Oriental under the varnish of their
Greek culture and Roman citizenship. The life of a pro
minent townsman included an active share in the organ
ization and even the personal conduct of caravans, the
discharge of civic offices, perhaps the superintendence of
the market and the victualling of a Roman expedition.
The capable discharge of these functions, which sometimes
involved considerable pecuniary sacrifices, ensured public
esteem, laudatory inscriptions, and statues, and to these
honours the head of a great house was careful to add the
glory of a splendid family tomb, consecrated as the " long
home "(sobj? J"Q — the same phrase as in Eccles. xii. 5) of
himself, his sons, arid his sons' sons "for ever." These
tombs, which lie outside the city, are perhaps the most
interesting monuments of Palmyra. Some are lofty square
towers, with as many as five sepulchral chambers occupy
ing successive stories, and overlooking the town and its
approaches — a feature characteristically Arabic — from the
slopes of the surrounding hills. Others are house-like
buildings of one story, a richly decorated portico opening,
into a hall whose walls are adorned with the names and
sculptured portraits of the dead. The scale of these
monuments corresponds to the wide conception of an
Eastern family, from which dependants and slaves were not
excluded ; and on one inscription, in striking contrast with
Western usage, a slave is named with the sons of the
house (De V., 33, a). The tombs are the only buildings of
Palmyra that have any architectural individuality ; the
style of all the ruins is late classic, highly ornate, but
without refinement.
The frequent Eastern expeditions of Rome in the 3d
century brought Palmyra into close connexion with several
emperors, and opened a new career of ambition to her
citizens in the Roman honours that rewarded services to
the imperial armies. One house which was thus distin
guished was to play no small part in the world's history.
Its members, as we learn from the inscriptions, prefixed to
their Semitic names the Roman gentilicium of Septimius,
which shows that they received the citizenship under
Septimius Severus, presumably on the occasion of his
Parthian expedition. In the next generation Septimius
Odaenathus1 (Odhainat), son of Hairan, son of Wahballath,
son of Nassor, had attained the rank of a Roman senator,
conferred no doubt when Alexander Severus visited
Palmyra (comp. De V., 15). The East was then stirred
by the progress of the new SAsAnian empire, and the
Palmyrene aristocracy, in spite of its Roman honours, had
probably never cordially fallen in with the changes which
had made Palmyra a colony and a military station. Indeed
the Romanizing process had only changed the surface life
of the place ; it lay in the nature of things that the
1 'OSaivaOos, not 'O$(va6os, is the form of the name on the inscrip
tions.
PALMYRA
201
greatest merchant prince, with the openest hand, and the
Avidest circle of connexions along the trade routes, was the
real head of the community, and could do what he pleased
with boule and demos except when a Roman commander
interfered. Odaenathus appears to have been the head of
a party which secretly meditated revolt, but the outbreak
was prevented by a Roman officer Rufinus, who procured
his assassination.1 He left two sons ; the elder named
Hairan appears in an inscription of 251 A.D. as "head
of the Palmyrenes, but it was the
younger brother Odsenathus who sought revenge for his
father's death and inherited his ambition. In him the
old Bedouin blood reasserted itself ; an Esau among the
Jacobs of Tadmor, he spent his youth in the mountains
and deserts, where the hardships of the chase prepared
him for the fatigues of war, and where no doubt he
acquired the absolute influence over the nomad tribes
which was one of the chief secrets of his future success.
In 258, the year of Valerian's ill-fated march against
Sapor, Odyenathus is called hypatikos or consular, the
highest honorary title of the empire, in an inscription
erected to him by the gold and silver smiths of Palmyra.
The title no doubt had just been conferred by the emperor
on his way eastward, and the munificent patron of the
guild of workers irt precious metals had, we may judge,
liberally scattered their wares among the wives and
daughters of the Bedouin sheikhs. He meant to have a
strength and party of his own, whatever the issue of the
war. If we may trust the circumstantial account of Petrus
Patricius, the captivity of Valerian and the victorious
advance of Sapor induced Odienathus to send gifts and
letters to Sapor, and it was only when these were rejected
that he threw himself heart and soul into the Roman
cause. Sapor was offended that Odoonathus did not
appear before him in person ; the Palmyrene chief in fact
did not mean to be the mere subject either of Persian or
Roman, though he was ready to follow whichever power
would leave him practically sovereign at the price of
occasional acts of homage. Rome in her day of disaster
could not afford to be so proud as the Persian ; the weak
Gallienus was the very suzerain whom Odaenathus desired ;
and, joining his own considerable forces with the shattered
fragments of the Roman armies, the Palmyrene commenced
a successful war with Persia, in which he amply revenged
himself on the arrogance of Sapor, and not only saved the
Roman East but reduced Nisibis, twice laid siege to
Ctesiphon itself, and furnished Gallienus with the captives
and trophies for the empty pomp of a triumph. From the
confused mass of undigested and contradictory anecdotes
which form all the history we possess of this period it is
impossible to extract a satisfactory picture of the career of
Odtenathus ; but we can see that he steadily aimed at
concentrating in his OAvn person the whole sovereignty of
Syria and the neighbouring lands, and as the organization
of the empire had entirely broken down, and almost every
Roman general who had a substantial force at his com
mand sooner or later advanced a claim to the purple, the
Palmyrene prince, ahvays acting in the name of Gallienus,
gradually disembarrassed himself of every rival repre
sentative of Western authority throughout the greater
part of Roman Asia. In the year 264 he was officially
named supreme commander in the East,2 and, though to
1 See the anonymous continuator of Dio (Fr. Hist. Gr., iv. 19f>).
The elder Odtenathus is also alluded to in Pollio's life of Cyriades,
from which one may infer that he plotted with a Persian party in
Syria.
2 This date is given by Pollio (Gallienus, c. 10) and is confirmed by
other notices. The order of events is very obscure, and Pollio is self-
contradictory in several places. But the two events which he dates
by consulates, and which therefore are probably most trustworthy, are
the Impcrium si Odienathus in 264 and the rejoicings in Rome over his
the Romans he was a subject of the empire, among his
own people he was an independent sovereign, supreme
over all the lands from Armenia to Arabia, and able to
count on the assistance of both these nations. Odainathus
himself seems to have been engaged in almost constant
warfare in the east and north against the Persians and
perhaps the Scythians, but in his absence the reins of
government were firmly held by his wife Zenobia, the
most famous heroine of antiquity, to whom indeed
Aurelian, in a letter preserved by Trebellius Pollio,
ascribes the chief merit of all her husband's success.
Septimia Zenobia was by birth a Palmyrene ; her native
name was Bath Zabbai (De V., 29) ;3 and Pollio's descrip
tion of her dark beauty, black flashing eyes, and pearly
teeth, together with her unusual physical endurance and
the frank commanding manners which secured her author
ity in the camp and the desert, point emphatically to an
Arabic rather than a Syrian descent.4 To the union of
firmness and clemency, which is the most necessary quality
of an Eastern sovereign, Zenobia added the rarer gifts of
economy and organization, and an unusual range of
intellectual culture. She spoke Coptic as well as Syriac,
knew something of Latin, and had learned Greek from
the famous Longinus, who remained at her court to the
last, and paid the penalty of his life for his share in her
counsels. She was also a diligent student of Eastern and
Western history, and the statement that she enjoined her
sons to speak Latin so that they had difficulty in using
Greek implies a consistent and early adoption of the policy
which made the success of Odaenathus, and, taken in con
nexion with Aurelian's testimony, in a letter preserved by
Pollio, that she had the chief merit of her husband's
exploits, seems to justify the conclusion that it was her
educated political insight that created the fortunes of the
short-lived dynasty. In the zenith of his fame Odaenathus
was cut off by assassination along with his eldest son
Herod, and it is generally assumed that the murder took
place under Gallienus. The authority for this view is
Pollio, who says that on receiving the news Gallienus sent
an army against the Persians, which was destroyed to a
Persian victories in 265 (reading consulntu for consulta in Gall. c. 12
with Klein in Rhein. Mus. 1880, p. 49 sq. ). With this agrees Jerome's
date of 265 for the campaign ugainst Sapor ; and it is also possible to
make out from the series of Palmyrene inscriptions referring to a certain
Septimius Worod that in 263-264 the military organization of Palmyra
ceased to be Roman. On the other hand up to 262-263 Syria was
held by Macrianus and his son Quietus. Odfenathus took Emesa and
destroyed Quietus probably in 263. Up to this time his sphere of
action was limited by the desert, but the overthrow of Quietus left him
the only real power between Rome and Persia. There is really no evi
dence that he was at war with Sapor before 265, and before 263 he was
hardly in a position to send an embassy to him. It is most likely that
his final decision in favour of Rome was not made till the fall of Emesa.
Pollio is certainly wrong in saying that in 265 Odsenathus was named
Augustus. He seems to have been misled by a medal in which the
Augustus represented dragging Persians captive was really Gallienus,
whom we know to have triumphed for Odrenathus's victories. But
after his Persian successes Odaenathus strengthened his position, as we
learn from coins, by having his son associated in his imperium. The
first year of Wahballath is 266-267, when his father, as will be
presently shown, was still alive. The title of " king " was perhaps not
conferred on Wahballath till the reign of Aurelian (Sallet, Xum.
Zeit., 1870).
3 The original reading of De Vogiie and Waddington, Bath Zebina,
is now known to be incorrect. Zabbai is a genuine Palmyrene name,
borne also at this period by Septimius Zabbai, the general of the forces
of the city.
4 We need not attach any weight to the fact that Zenobia, when she
was mistress of Egypt, boasted of descent from Cleopatra and the
Ptolemies. Athanasius, in speaking of the support she gave to Paul
of Samosata, calls her a Jewess ; this is certainly false, for her coins
bear pagan symbols. Athanasius probably drew a hasty conclusion,
not so much from her sympathy with the Monarchian Paul as from
her patronage of the Jews in Alexandria, for which the evidence of an
inscription from a synagogue still exists (see Mommseu in Zcitsch. f.
Xumismalik, v. 229 sq., 1873).
XVIII. — 26
202
P A L M Y E A
man by Zenobia — a statement quite incredible, since we
know from coins of her son Wahballath or Athenodorus,
struck at Alexandria, that the suzerainship of Rome was
acknowledged in the Palmyrene kingdom till the second
year of Aurelian. That Odienathus fell under Gallienus
seems, however, at first sight to be confirmed by the coins,
which give 266-7 as the first year of Wahballath. On
the other hand the inscriptions on two statues of Odienathus
and Zenobia which stand side by side at Palmyra bear the
date August 271, and, though De Vogue, mistaking an
essential word, supposed the former to be posthumous, the
inscription really implies that Odaenathus was then alive.1
Now Pollio himself says that his wife and sons were
associated in the kingship of Odienathus, and therefore the
years of Wahballath do not necessarily begin with his
father's death. The fact seems to be that, while Odienathus
was busy at the other end of his kingdom, Zenobia
administered the government at Palmyra and directed the
conquest of Egypt, still nominally acting under the
emperor at Rome, whose authority on the Nile was dis
puted by one or more pretenders.2 It still seems strange
that Wahballath should strike money in his father's life
time — and he did so both at Antioch and Alexandria —
when there are no genuine coins of Odienathus ; but it is
equally strange and yet an undoubted fact that Zenobia,
who not only enjoyed the real authority behind her beard
less son, but placed her name before his on public inscrip
tions,3 struck no coins till the second year of Aurelian,
when the breach with Rome took place, and she suddenly
appears as an empress (2e/3a<rrr/, Augusta) of five years'
standing. Up to that date the royal pair probably did
not venture to coin in open defiance to Rome, and yet were
unwilling to circulate an acknowledgment of vassalship in
all the bazaars of the East.
When, however, Aurelian had restored the unity of the
West, and stood at the head of a powerful army flushed by
victory in Gaul, Palmyra had to choose between real sub
jection and war with Rome. Some time in the year ending
August 28, 271, Wahballath assumed the title of Augustus,
and drops Aurelian from his coins, and just at the same
time Zabdai, generalissimo of the forces, and Zabbai,
commander of the army of Tadmor, erected the statues
already mentioned, where Oda^nathus is styled " king of
kings and restorer of the state." This was an open
challenge, and the assassination of Odaenathus, which took
place at Emesa, a town in which the Roman party was
strong, must have followed immediately afterwards, and
on political grounds.4 Zenobia, supported by her two
generals, kinsmen of her husband, was now face to face
with a Roman invasion. She held Egypt, Syria, Mesopo
tamia, and Asia Minor as far as Ancyra ; and Bithynia was
ready to join her party had not the army of Aurelian
appeared just in time from Byzantium. She could count
too on the Armenians and the Arabs, but the loyalty of
Syria was doubtful: the towns disliked a rule which was
essentially "barbarian," and in Antioch at least the
patroness of the Monarchian bishop Paul of Samosata
could not be popular with the large Christian party by
whom he was bitterly hated. There were many Romans
1 That Odaeuathus lived to begin the war with Aurelian seems to
have been known to Vopiscus (Probus, c. 9).
2 That the Probatus of Pollio, Claudius, c. 11 (the Probus of Zosi-
mus), must have been a pretender was first seen by Mommsen, apud
Sallet, Fiirsten von Palmyra, p. 44.
3 This is shown for Syria by an inscription near Byblus (C. I. G.,
4503 b ; Waddington, p. 604), and for Egypt by the inscription from
the Jewish synagogue already quoted, where indeed the names are net
given but the order is Ba<riA.i<r<rr)s /cai jSa<ri\&s — in the Latin Regina
et rex jusserunt.
4 See, for the attitude of Emesa, Zosimus, i. 54, Fray. Hist. Grose.,
iv. 195. The assassin was a relative of Odaenathus named Maeonius,
that is M'anuai (Pollio Trig. Tyr.; Zonaras, xii. 24).
in Zenobia's force, and it was they who bore the brunt of
the two great battles at Antioch and Emesa, which follosved
Aurelian's rapid advance through Asia Minor. But
Zenobia made light of these defeats, — " I have suffered no
great loss " was her message to Aurelian, " for almost all
who have fallen are Romans" (Fr. H. Gr., iv. 197). It
was now plain that the war was one of races, and the fact
that the fellahin of Palestine fought with enthusiasm on
the side of Aurelian is the clearest proof that the empire
of Palmyra was really an empire of Arabs over the
peasants of the settled Semitic lands, whom the true
Bedouin always despises, and who return his contempt
with burning hatred. Thus the analogy already traced
between the early history of Tadmor and Mecca is com
pleted by an equally striking parallel between the empire
of the Septimians at Palmyra and that of the Omayyads at
Damascus. In each case it was a family of Arabian mer
chant princes, strong in its influence over the sons of the
desert, which rose to sovereignty and governed the old lands
of the Semites from a city which had the desert behind it.
But the empire of Palmyra came four centuries too soon.
Rome was not yet exhausted, and Zenobia had neither the
religious discipline of Islam to hold the Arabs together nor
the spoil of the treasuries of Persia to keep their enthu
siasm always fresh. Aurelian's military skill was strained
to the uttermost by the prudence and energy of Zenobia,
but he succeeded in forming and maintaining the siege of
Palmyra in spite of its bulwark of desert, and his gold
corrupted the Arab and Armenian auxiliaries. Zenobia
attempted to flee and throw herself on the Persians, but
she was pursued and taken, and then the Palmyrenes lost
heart and capitulated. Aurelian seized the wealth of the
city, but spared the inhabitants, and to Zenobia he granted
her life while he put her advisers to death. She figured
in his splendid triumph, and by the most probable account
accepted her fall with dignity, and closed her days at
Tibur, where she lived with her sons the life of a Roman
matron. The fall of Zenobia may be placed in the spring
of 272. Soon after, probably within a year, Palmyra was
again in revolt, but on the approach of Aurelian it yielded
without a battle ; the town was destroyed and the popula
tion put to the sword.
An obscure and distorted tradition of Zenobia as an Arab queen sur
vived in the Arabian tradition of Zabba, daughter of 'Ainr b. Zarib,
whose name is associated with Tadmor and with a town on the
right bank of the Euphrates, which is no doubt the Zenobia of
which Procopius speaks as founded by the famous queen. See C.
de Perceval, ii. 28. iq., 197 sq. ; Tabari, i. 757 sq. But the ruins of
Palmyra, which excited the lively admiration of the Bedouins, were
not associated by them with the great queen ; they are referred to
by Nabigha as proofs of the might of Solomon and his sovereignty
over their builders the Jinn. This legend must have come from
the Jews, who either clung to the ruins or returned when Palmyra
partially revived as a military station founded by Diocletian.
Under the Christian empire Palmyra was a bishopric ; about 400
A.D. it was the station of the first lllyrian legion (Not. Dig.}.
Justinian furnished it with an aqueduct, and built the wall of
which the ruins are still visible : it was deemed important, as we
gather from Procopius, to have a strong post on the disputed
marches of the Arabs of Ilira and Ghassan. At the Moslem
conquest of Syria Palmyra capitulated to Khalid without embrac
ing Islam (Beladhori, p. Ill sq. ; Yakut, i. 831). The town became
a Moslem fortress and received a considerable Arab colony; for in
the reign of Merwan II. it sent a thousand Kalhite horsemen to aid
the revolt of Emesa, to the district of which it is reckoned by the
Arabic geographers.5 The rebellion was sternly suppressed and
the walls of the city destroyed.6 References to Palmyra in later
8 Ibn Athir (127 A.H.); compare Fray. Hist. Ar., 139 (where it
is said to have been held by the Beni 'Amir); Ibn \Vudih, ii. 230;
Mokaddasi, p. 156.
fi In this connexion Yakut tells a curious story of the opening of
one of the tombs by the caliph, which in spite of fabulous incidents,
recalling the legend of Roderic the Goth, shows some traces of local
knowledge. Tlia sculptures of Palmyra greatly interested the
Arabs, and are commemorated in several poems quoted by Yakut and
others.
P A L — P A M
203
times have been collected by Quatremere, Sultans Mamlouks, ii. 1,
p. 255. Once all but annihilated by earthquake (434 A.H.), and
passing through many political vicissitudes, Tadraor was still
a wealthy place, with considerable trade, as late as the 14th
century ; but in the general decline of the East, and the change
of the great trade routes, it at length sunk to a poor group of
hovels gathered in the courtyard of the great Temple of Sun.
The ruins first became known to Europe in 1678 through W.
Halifax, an Aleppo merchant. The architecture was carefully
studied in 1751 by Wood and Dawkins, whose splendid folio (The
Ruins of Palmyra, Lond., 1753) also gave copies of inscriptions.1
But, though the site was often visited and some stones with Semitic
as well as Greek writing reached Europe, the great epigraphic wealth
of Palmyra was first thoroughly opened to study by the collections
of Waddington and De Vogue, made in 1861-62. Subsequent dis
coveries have been of minor importance, with the notable exception
of the great fiscal inscription spoken of above, discovered by Prince
Abamelek Lazarew.
Sources. — To the writers already nsed by Tillemont and Gibbon, of whom
Zosimus appears on the whole the best informed, must be added the fragments
of the anonymous continuator of Dio (Petrus Patricius?) first published by Mai.
For the coins, Sallet's Fursten von Palmyra (186G) must be read with his later
essay. Num. Zeitsch., ii. 31 sq. (Vienna, 1870). For the Greek inscriptions, see the
Cor. Insc. Gr., but especially the work of Le Bas and Waddington, vol. iii. To
the great collection of Aramaic inscriptions in De VogUe", Syrie Centrale, must
be added the gleanings of other travellers (Mordtmann, Sitzungsb. of the Munich
Ac., 1875; Sachau,_in Z. D. M. G., xxxv. 728 sq.), with some stones brought to
Europe at an earlier date, and the monuments of natives of Palmyra in Africa
and Britain (see Levy, Z. D. M. G., xii.. xv., xviii.; W. Wright, "The Palmyrene
Inscr. of S. Shields," Tr. Soc. Bib. Arch., vi.). The great fiscal inscription was
published by De Vogue", Jour. As., ser. 8, vols. i., ii.; comp. Sachau in Z. D. M. G.,
xxxvii. 562 sq., and 11. Cagnat in Rev. de PhiJoL, viii. 135 sq. The dialect lias
been thoroughly discussed by Noltleke iu Z. D. M. G., xxiv. 85 sq. Its nearest
affinities are with Biblical Aram .ic. (W. R. S.)
PALOMINO D"E CASTRO Y VELASCO, ACISCLO
ANTONIO (1653-1726), Spanish painter and writer on art,
was born of good family at Bujalance, near Cordoba, in
1653, and studied philosophy, theology, and law at that
capital, receiving -also lessons in painting from Yaldes
Leal, who visited Cordoba in 1672, and afterwards from
Alfaro (1675). After taking minor orders he removed to
Madrid in 1678, where he associated with Alfaro, Coello,
and Careno, and executed some indifferent frescos. He
soon afterwards married a lady of rank, and, having been
appointed alcalde of the mesta, was himself ennobled ; and
in 1688 he was appointed painter to the king. He visited
Valencia in 1697, and remained there three or four years,
again devoting himself with but poor success to fresco
painting. Between 1705 and 1715 he resided for con
siderable periods at Salamanca, Granada, and Cordoba; in
the latter year the first volume of his work on art appeared
in Madrid. After the death of his wife in 1725 Palomino
took priest's orders. He died on August 13, 1726.
His work, in three vols. folio (1715-24), entitled El Museo
Plctorico y Escala Optica, consists of three parts, of which the first
two, on the theory and practice of the art of painting, are with
out interest or value ; the third, with the subtitle El Parnaso
Espauol Pintorcsco Laurcado, is a mine of important biographical
material relating to Spanish artists, which, notwithstanding its
faulty style, has procured for the author the not altogether
undeserved honour of being called the " Spanish Vasari. " It was
partially translated into English in 1739 ; an abridgment of the
original (Las Villas de los Pintorcs y Estatuarios Espanolcs] was
published in London in 1742, and afterwards appeared in a French
translation iu 1749. X German version was published at Dresden
in 1781, and a reprint of the entire work at Madrid in 1797.
PALUDAN-MULLER, FREDERIK (1809-1876), the
leading poet of Denmark during the middle of the present
century, was born at Kjerteminde on the 7th February
1809. His father Avas Jens Paludan-M tiller, a distin
guished bishop of Aarhuus. He was educated at the
cathedral school of Odense from 1820 to 1828; in the
latter year he passed to the university of Copenhagen. In
1832 he opened his career as a poet with Four Romances,
and a romantic comedy entitled Kjserlighed ved Ho/et
("Love at Court"). This enjoyed a great success, and was
succeeded in 1833 by Dandserinden (" The Dancer"), and
] For the site and the present aspect of the ruins, which are less
perfect than at Wood's visit, see especially papers by W. Wright (of
Damascus) in Leisure Hour, 1876 ; Socin-Baedeker's Handbook; and
the recent Reise of Sachau (Berlin, 1883), which gives a general
photograph, and one of the most perfect ruin, the small Sun-Temple.
in 1 834 by the lyrical drama of Amor og Psyche. There was
now no do'ibt about Paludan-Miiller's genius. In 1835
he came under the influence of Byron, and published an
Oriental tale, Zuleimas Flugt (" Zuleima's Flight"), which
was less successful than the preceding books. But he
regained all that he had lost by his two volumes of Poems
in 1836 and 1838. Paludan-Miiller now left his native
country for the first time, and spent two years (1838-40)
in Germany, Italy, and France. The next dates in his career
are those of the publication of his principal masterpieces —
his lyrical dramas, Venus, 1841 ; Dryadens Bryllup (" The
Dryad's Wedding "), 1844 ; Tit /ion (" Tithonus "), 1844;
and his famous didactico-humoristic epic Adam Homo,
in three volumes, 1841-48. His later works include Abels
Ddd (" The Death of Abel "), 1854 ; Kalanus, an Indian
tragedy; Paradiset (" Paradise "), a lyrical drama, 1861 ;
Benedikt fra Nurcia, 1861 ; Tiderne Skifte ( "The Times
are Changing"), a comedy, 1874; and Adonis, an exqui
site romance in verse, 1874. Besides these works, all of
which are poetical, Paludan-Miiller published a story,
Ungdomskilden (" The Fountain of Youth"), in 1865, and
an historical novel in three volumes, Ivar Lykke's Historic
(" The Story of Ivar Lykke"), 1866-73. The poet lived a
very retired life, first in Copenhagen, then for many years
in a cottage on the outskirts of the royal park of
Fredensborg. He died in his house in Ny Adelgade,
Copenhagen, on the 27th December 1876.
Paludan-Miiller's genius has been made the subject of one of
the most brilliant of George Brandes's monographs. His work was
varied, but of remarkably high and level merit. His lyrical dramas
form a group of pure poems, of an elevated class, which would dis
tinguish him above most of the European poets of his time, even if
he had not shown himself, in Adam Homo, to be a great satirist
as well. His artistic form was singularly fine. He might have
been a more finished thinker if his imagination had not been dis
turbed by Byron. The reader who desires to study Paludan-
Miiller at his best must read the first book of Adam Homo, and
the whole of Kalanus and of Adonis. His poetical works were
collected in eight volumes in 1878-79.
PALWAL, in Gurgaon district, Punjab, India, with a
population in 1881 of 10,635, is a town of great antiquity,
supposed to figure in the earliest Aryan traditions under
the name of Apelava, part of the Pandava kingdom of
Indraprastha. Its importance is purely historical, and the
place is now a mere agricultural centre.
PAMIERS, capital of an arrondissement, an episcopal
see, and the most populous town (10,478 inhabitants) of
the department of Ariege, France, lies on the right bank
of that river, 40 miles south of Toulouse, in the middle of
a fertile and well- watered valley. Its wines were at one
time in high repute. Its industrial establishments at
present comprise flour mills, spinning-mills, serge factories,
and some large forges, and there is also a gold-washing
company (the Ariege derives its name from its auriferous
character). The cathedral of Pamiers, with an octagonal
Gothic tower, is a bizarre mixture of the Grseco-Roman
and Gothic styles ; the church of Notre Dame du Camp is
noticeable for its crenellated and machicolated fagade.
From the site of the old castle, which still retains the
name of Castellat, there is a fine view of the Pic de St
Barthelemy and the valley of the Ariege.
Pamiers was originally a castle built in the beginning of the 12th
century by Roger II., count of Foix, on lands belonging to the
abbey of St Antonin de Fredelas. The abbots of St Antonin, and
afterwards the bishops, shared the superiority of the town with the
counts. This gave rise to numerous disputes between monks,
counts, sovereigns, bishops, and the consuls of the town. Pamiers
was sacked by Jean de Foix in 1486, again during the religious
wars, and, finally, in 1628 by Conde.
PAMIR. See ASIA, vol. ii. p. 686, and Oxus, p. 103,
supra.
PAMPAS. See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, vol. ii. p. 487.
PAMPHILUS, an eminent promoter of learning in the
early church, is said to have been born, of good family.
204
P A M — P
at Berytus, in the latter half of the 3d century. After
studying at Alexandria under Pierius, the disciple of
Origen, he was ordained presbyter at Ca?sarea in Palestine,
where the remainder of his life was spent. There he
established a theological school, and warmly encouraged
.students ; he also founded, or at least largely extended, the
great library to which Eusebius and Jerome were after
wards so much indebted. He was very zealous in the
transcription and distribution of copies of Scripture and of
the works of various Christian writers, especially of Origen ;
the copy of the complete works of the last-named in the
library of Cresarea was chiefly in the handwriting of
Pamphilus himself. At the outbreak of the persecution
under Maximin, Pamphilus was thrown into prison, and
there, along with his attached friend and pupil Eusebius
(sometimes distinguished as Eusebius Pamphili), he com
posed an Apology for Origen in five books, to which a
sixth was afterwards added by Eusebius. He was put
to death in 309.
Only the first book of the Apology of Pamphilus is extant, and
that but in an imperfect Latin translation by Rufinus. It has been
reprinted in De la Rue's edition of Origen, and also by Routh and
by Galland. Eusebius wrote a memoir of his master which also has
unfortunately disappeared.
PAMPHLETS. The earliest appearance of the word is
in the Philobiblon (1344) of Richard de Bury, who speaks
of " panfletos exiguos " (chap. viii.). In English AVC
have Chaucer's "this leud pamflet" (Test, of Love, bk. iii.),
Occleve's "go litil pamfilet " (Mason's ed., 1796, p. 77),
and Caxton's "paunflettis and bookys" (Book of Eneydos,
1490, Prologue). In all these examples pamphlet is used
to indicate the extent of the production, and in contradis
tinction to book. In the 16th century it became almost
exclusively devoted in English literature to short poetical
effusions, and not till the 18th century did pamphlet begin
to assume its modern meaning of a prose political tract.
"Pamphlet" and " pamphletaire " are of comparatively
recent introduction into French from the English, and
generally indicate fugitive criticism of a more severe, not
to say libellous, character than with us. The derivation of
the word is a subject of contention among etymologists.
The experts are also undecided as to what is actually
understood by a pamphlet. Some bibliographers apply
the term to everything, except periodicals, of quarto size
and under, if not more than fifty pages, while others would
limit its application to two or three sheets of printed
matter which have first appeared in an unbound condition.
These are merely physical peculiarities, and include
academical dissertations, chap-books, and broadsides, which
from their special subjects belong to a separate class from
the pamphlet proper. As regards its literary character
istics, the chief notes of a pamphlet are brevity and
spontaneity. It has a distinct aim, and relates to some
matter of current interest, whether religious, political, or
literary. Usually intended to support a particular line of
argument, it may be descriptive, controversial, didactic, or
satirical. It is not so much a class as a form of literature,
and from its ephemeral character represents the changeful
currents of public opinion more closely than the bulky
volume published after the formation of that opinion. The
history of pamphlets being the entire record of popular feel
ing, all that is necessary here is to briefly indicate the chief
families of political and religious pamphlets which have
exercised marked influence, and more particularly in those
countries — England and France — where pamphlets have
made so large a figure in influencing thought and events.
It is difficult to point out much in ancient literature
which precisely answers to our modern view of the
pamphlet. The libelli famosi of the Romans were simply
abusive pasquinades. Some of the small treatises of
Lucian, the lost Anti-Cato of Caesar, Seneca's Apocolocyntosis
written against Claudius, Julian's Kaio-apes *j
and 'Ai/rto^iKos r/ Mio-oTrwywv, from their general applica
tion, just escape the charge of being mere satires, and may
therefore claim to rank as early specimens of the pamphlet.
At the end of the 14th century the Lollard doctrines
were widely circulated by means of the tracts and leaflets
of Wickliffe and his followers. The Ploughman's Prayer and
Lanthome of Light, which appeared about the time of Old-
castle's martyrdom, were extremely popular, and similar
brief vernacular pieces became so common that it was
thought necessary in 1408 to enact that persons in authority
should search out and apprehend all persons owning
English books. The printers of the 15th century pro
duced many controversial tractates, and Caxton and
Wynkin de Worde printed in the lesser form. It was
in France that the printing press first began to supply
reading for the common people. During the last twenty
years of the 1 5th century there arose an extensive popular
literature of farces, tales in verse and prose, satires,
almanacs, etc., extending to a few leaves apiece, and
circulated by the itinerant booksellers still known as
colporteurs. These folk-books soon spread from France
to Italy and Spain, and were introduced into England
at the beginning of the 16th century, doubtless from the
same quarter, as most of our early chap-books are transla
tions or adaptations from the French. Another form
of literature even more transient was the broadside, or
single sheet printed on one side only, which appears to
have flourished principally in England, but which had
been in use from the first invention of printing for
papal indulgences, royal proclamations, and similar docu
ments. Throughout western Europe, about the middle
of the 16th century, the broadside made a considerable
figure in times of political agitation. In England it was
chiefly used for ballads, which soon became so extremely
popular that during the first ten years of the reign of
Elizabeth the names of no less than forty ballad-printers
appear in the Stationers' Registers. The humanist move
ment of the beginning of the 16th century produced the
famous Epistolie Obscurorum Viroriim, and the leading
spirits of the Reformation period — Erasmus, Hutten,
Luther, Melanchthon, Francowitz, Vergerio, Curio, and
Calvin — found in tracts a ready method of widely circulat
ing their opinions.
The course of ecclesiastical events was precipitated
in England by the Supplicacyon for the Beggars (1523)
of Simon Fish, answered by Sir Thomas More's Stip-
plycacion of Soulys. In the time of Edward VI. brief
tracts were largely used as a propagandist instrument in
favour of the Reformed religion; political tracts were repre
sented by the address of the rebels in Devonshire (1549).
The licensing of the press by Mary greatly hindered the
production of this kind of literature. From about 1570
there came an unceasing flow of Puritan pamphlets, of
which more than forty were reprinted under the title of
A parte of a register (London, Waldegrave, 4to). To
this publication Dr John Bridges replied by a ponderous
quarto, A defence of the government established in tin'
church of England (1587), which gave rise to Oh read over
D. John Bridges . . . by the reverend and ivorthie Martin
Marprelate gentleman (1588), the first of the famous
Martin Marprelate tracts, whose titles sufficiently indicate
their opposition to priestly orders and episcopacy. Bishop
Cooper's Admonition to the. People of England (1589) came
next, followed on the other side by Hay any worke for
Cooper . . . by Martin the Metropolitans, and by others
from both parties to the number of about twenty-three.
The controversy lasted about a year, and ended in the
discomfiture of the Puritans and the seizure of their secret
press. The writers on the Marprelate side are generally
supposed to have been Penry, Throgmorton, Udal, and
Fenner, and their opponents Bishop Cooper, John Lilly,
and Nash.
As early as the middle of the 16th century we find
ballads of news ; and in the reigns of Elizabeth and
James I. small pamphlets, translated from the German and
French, and known as "news-books," were circulated by the
so-called " Mercury-women." These were the immediate
predecessors of weekly newspapers, and continued to the
end of the 17th century. A proclamation was issued by
Charles II., May 12, 1680, "for suppressing the printing
and publishing of unlicensed news-books and pamphlets of
news."
In the 17th century pamphlets began to contribute
more than ever to the formation of public opinion.
Nearly one hundred were written by or about the restless
John Lilburne, but still more numerous were those of the
undaunted Prynne, who himself published above one
hundred and sixty, besides many weighty folios and
quartos. Charles I. found energetic supporters in Peter
Heylin and Sir Roger L'Estrange, the latter noted for the
coarseness of his pen. The most distinguished pamphleteer
of the period was John Milton, who began his career in
this direction by five anti-episcopal tracts (1641-42) during
the Smectymnuus rjuarrel. In 1643 his wife's desertion
caused him to publish anonymously Doctrine and discipline
of divorce, followed by several others on the same subject.
He printed the Tract on Education in 1644, and, unlicensed
and unregistered, his famous Areopagitica — a speech for
the liberty of unlicensed printing. He defended the trial
and execution of the king in Tenure of kings and
magistrates (1648). The Eikon Basilike dispute was con
ducted with more ponderous weapons than the kind we
are now discussing. When Monk held supreme power
Milton addressed to him The present means of a free
commonwealth and Readie and easie way (1660), both
pleading for a commonwealth in preference to a monarchy.
John Goodwin, the author of Oostructors of Justice (1649),
John Phillipps, the nephew of Milton, and Abiezer Coppe
were violent and prolific partisan writers, the last-named
specially known for his extreme Presbyterian principles.
The tract Killing no murder (1657), aimed at Cromwell,
and attributed to Colonel Titus or Colonel Sexby, excited
more attention than any other political effusion of the
time. The history of the civil war period is told day by
day in the well-known collection made by Thomason the
bookseller, now preserved in the British Museum. It
numbers 30,000 separate books, pamphlets, and broadsides,
ranging from 1640 to 1662, and is bound in 2000 volumes.
Each article was dated by Thomason at the time of
acquisition. William Miller was another bookseller
famous for his collection of pamphlets, which were
catalogued by Tooker in 1693. Wm. Laycock printed a
Proposal for raising a fund for buying them up for the
nation.
The Catholic controversy during the reign of James II.
gave rise to a multitude of books and pamphlets, which
have been described by Peck (Catalogue, 1735) and by
Jones (Catalogue, Chetham Society, 1859-65, 2 vols.).
Politics were naturally the chief feature of the floating
literature connected with the Revolution of 1688. The
political tracts of Lord Halifax are interesting both in
matter and manner. He is supposed to have written The
character of a political trimmer (1689), sometimes ascribed
to Sir W. Coventry. About the middle of the reign Defoe
was introduced to William III., and produced the first of
his pamphlets on occasional conformity. He issued in
1 697 his two defences of standing armies in support of the
Government, and published sets of tracts on the partition
treaty, the union with Scotland, and many other subjects.
205
His Shortest way with the Dissenters (1702) placed him
in the pillory.
Under Queen Anne pamphlets arrived at a remark
able degree of importance. Never before or since has
this method of publication been used by such masters of
thought and language. Political writing of any degree
of authority was almost entirely confined to pamphlets.
If the Whigs were able to command the services of Addison
and Steele, the Tories fought with the terrible pen of
Swift. Second in power if not in literary ability were
Bolingbrokc, Somers, Atterbury, Prior, and Pulteney. The
Government viewed with a jealous eye the free use of this
powerful instrument, and St John seized upon fourteen
booksellers and publishers in one day for "libels" upon
the administration (see Annals of Queen Anne, October
23, 1711). In 1712 a duty was laid upon newspapers
and pamphlets, displeasing all parties, and soon falling into
disuse. Bishop Hoadly's sermon on the kingdom of Christ
(1717), holding that the clergy could claim no temporal
jurisdiction, occasioned the Bangorian controversy, which
produced seventy or eighty pamphlets. Soon after this
period party-writing declined from its comparatively high
standard and fell into meaner and venal hands. Under
George III. Bute took Dr Shebbeare from Newgate in order
to employ his pen. The court part received the support
of a few able pamphlets, among which may be men
tioned The consideration of the German War against the
policy of Pitt, and The prerogative droit de Roy (1764)
vindicating the prerogative. We must not forget that
although Samuel Johnson was a pensioned scribe he has
for an excuse that his political tracts are his worst per
formances. Edmund Burke, on the other hand, has pro
duced in this form some of his most valued writings.
The troubles in America and the union between Ireland
and Great Britain are subjects which are abundantly
illustrated in pamphlet literature.
Early in the present century the rise of the quarterly
reviews threw open a new channel of publicity to those
who had previously used pamphlets to spread their
opinions, and later on the rapid growth of monthly
magazines and weekly reviews afforded controversialists a
much more certain and extensive circulation than they
could ensure by an isolated publication. Although
pamphlets are no longer the sole or most important factor
of public opinion, the minor literature of great events is
never likely to be entirely confined to periodicals. The
following topics, which might be largely increased in
number, have each been discussed by a multitude of
pamphlets, most of which, however, are likely to have been
hopeless aspirants for a more certain means of preserva
tion:— the Bullion Question (1810), the Poor Laws (1828-
34), Tracts for t/ie Times and the ensuing controversy
(1833-45), Dr Hampden (1836), the Canadian Revolt
(1837-38), the Corn Laws (1841-48), Gorham Contro
versy (1849-50), Crimean War and Indian Mutiny (1854-
59), Schleswig-Holstein (1863-64), Ireland (1868-69), tin-
Franco-German War, with Dame Europa's School and its
imitators (1870-71), Vaticanism, occasioned by Mr Glad
stone's Vatican Decrees (1874), the Eastern Question
(1877-80), and the Irish Land Laws (1880-82).
France. — The activity of the French press in putting forth small
tracts in favour of the Reformed religion caused the Sorbonne in
1523 to petition the king to abolish the diabolical art of printing.
Even one or two sheets of printed matter were found too cumber
some, and single leaves or placards were issued in such numbers that
they were the subject of a special edict, September 28, 1553. An
ordonnanceot February 1566 was specially directed against libellous
pamphlets, and those who wrote, printed, or even possessed them.
The rivalry between Francis I. and Charles V. gave rise to many
political pamphlets, and under Francis II. the Guises were attacked
by similar means. Fr. Hotmail directed his Epistre cnvoiee au
tyijrc de Franc-" against the Cardinal de Lorraine. The Yak is and
206
P A M — P A M
Henry III. in particular were severely handled in Lcs Hcrmapln-o-
ditcs (c. 1605), which was followed by a long series of imitations.
Between Francis I. and Charles IX. the general tone of the pam
phlet literature was grave, pedantic, and dogmatic, with few songs
and an occasional political satire. From the latter period to the
death of Henry IV. it became audacious, cruel, and dangerous,
attended, however, with a considerable increase of political
songs.
The Satyrc Menippec (1594), one of the most perfect models of the
pamphlet in the language, did more harm to the League than all the
victories of Henry IV. The pamphlets against the Jesuits were
many and violent. Pere Richeome defended the order in Chasse du
renard Pasquier (1603), the latter person being their vigorous oppon
ent Etienne Pasquier. On the death of the king the country was
filled with appeals for revenge against the Jesuits for his murder;
the best known of them was the Anti-Colon (1610), generally attri
buted to Cesar de Plaix. During the regency of Mary de' Medici the
pamphlet changed its severer form to a more facetious type. In
spite of the danger of such proceeding under the uncompromising
ministry of Richelieu, there was no lack of libels upon him, which
were even in most instances printed in France. These largely
increased during the Fronde, but it was Mazarin who was the sub
ject of more of this literature than any other historical personage.
It has been calculated that from the Parisian press alone there
came sufficient Jfazarinadcs to fill 150 quarto volumes each of 500
pages. Eight hundred were published during the siege of Paris
(February 8 to March 11, 1649). A collection of satirical pieces,
entitled Tableau du gouvcrncmcnt de Richelieu, Mazarin, Fouquct,
et Colbert (1693) extends to 432 pages. Pamphlets, dealing with
the amours of the king and his courtiers were in vogue in the time
of Louis XIV., the most caustic of them being the Carte Geogra-
phiquc de la Cour (1668) of Bussy-Rabutin. The presses of Holland
and the Low Countries teemed with tracts against Colbert, Le
Tellier, Louvois, and Pere Lachaise. The first of the ever-memor
able Provincialcs appeared on January 23, 1656, under the title of
Lettre de Louis de Montallc, a un provincial de ses amis, and the
remaining eighteen came out at irregular intervals during the next
fifteen months. They excited extraordinary attention throughout
Europe. The Jesuit replies were feeble and ineffectual. John
Law and the schemes of the bubble period caused much popular
raillery. During the long reign of Louis XV. the distinguished
names of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, D'Alembert,
D'Holbach, Helvetius, and Beaumarchais must be added to the
list of writers in this class.
The preliminary struggle between the parliament and the crown
gave rise to hundreds of pamphlets, which grew still more numerous
as the Revolution approached. Linguet and Mirabeau began their
appeals to the people. Camille Desmoulins came into notice as a
publicist during the elections for the states-general ; but perhaps the
piece which caused the most sensation was the Quest ce que le Tiers
£tat (1789) of the Abbe Sieyes. The Domine salvum fac Regem
and Fange lingua (1789) were two royalist brochures of unsavoury
memory. The financial disorders of 1790 occasioned the Effets des
assignats sur le prix du pain of Dupont de Nemours ; Necker was
attacked in the Criminelle Neckerologie of Marat ; and the Vrai
miroir de la noblesse dragged the titled names of France through the
mire. The massacre of the Champ de Mars, the death of Mirabeau,
and the flight of the king in 1791, the noyades of Lyons and the
crime of Charlotte Corday in 1793, and the terrible winter of 1794
have each their respective pamphlet literature, more Or less violent
in tone. Under the consulate and the empire the only writers of
note who ventured to seek this method of appealing to the world
were Madame de Stae'l, B. Constant, and Chateaubriand. The
royalist reaction in 1816 was the cause of the Petition of Paul Louis
Courier, the first of those brilliant productions of a master of the
art. He gained the distinction of judicial procedure with his
Simple Discours in 1821, and published in 1824 his last political
work Le pamphlet des pamphlets, the most eloquent justification of
the pamphlet ever penned. The Memoire a consultcr of Montlosier
attacked the growing power of the Congregation. The year 1827
saw an augmentation of severity in the press laws and the establish
ment of the censure. The opposition also increased in power and
activity, but found its greatest support in the songs of Beranger and
the journalism of Migrtet, Thiers, and Carrel. M. de Comenin was
the chief pamphleteer of the reign of Louis-Philippe. His Oui et
non (1845), Feu, feu (1846), and Livredes orateurs, par Timon, were
extremely successful. The events of 1848 gave birth to a number
of parnphhts, chiefly pale copies of the more virile writings of the
first revolution. Among the few men of power Louis Veuillot was
the Pere Duchesne of the clericals and Victor Hugo the Camille Des
moulins or Marat of the republicans. After 1852 there was no lack
of venal apologies of the coup d'etat. Within more recent times
the second empire suffered from many bitter attacks, among which
may be mentioned the Lettre sur Vhistoire de France (1861) of the
Due d'Aumale, Propos de Labienus (1865) of Rogeard, Dialogue
aux enfrrs (1864) of Maurice Joly and Ferry's Comptcs fantas-
tiques (V Ilaussmann (1868).
Literature. — In the article LIHRARIES will be found references to collections of
pamphlets in public libnuirs. An excellent catalogue by W. Oldys of those in
the Hurleiun Library is added to the 10th volume of the edition of the Mis
cellany by T. Park; and in the Biblioteca volatile di 0. Cinelli, 2d ed., 1734-
47, 4 vols. 4to, may be seen a bibliography of pamphlet-literature, chiefly Italian
and Latin, with notes. It is of course impossible to supply an account of all the
volumes of collected pamphlets, but a few of the more representative in English
may be mentioned. These arc— The Phenijr. 1707, 2 vols. 8vo; Morgan's
P/iteni.c Britannicus, 1732, 4to; Hishop Edmund Gibson's Preservative against
Popery, 1738, 3 vols. foli->, new ed., 1848-40, 18 vols. sin. 8vo, consisting chiefly
of the anti-Catholic discourses of James II. 's time; The Harleian Miscellany,
1744-53, 8 vols. 4to, new ed. by T. Park, 1808-13, 10 vols. 4to, containing COO to
700 pieces illustrative of English history, from the library of Edward Ilarley,
earl of Oxford; Collection of scarce and valuab'e tracts [knoicn as Lord Somers'
Tracts], 1748-52, 1C parts 4to, 2d ed. by Sir W. Scott, 1800-15, 13 vols. 4to, also
full of matter for English history; and The Pamphleteer, 1813-28, 29 vols. 8vo,
containing the best pamphlets of the clay.
For the derivation of tt'.e word pamphlet consult Skcat's Etymological Diet.;
Pejrge's Anonymiana; Notes and Queries, 3d series, iv. 315, 379, 462, 482, v. 167,
290 ; 6th series, ii. 156. The grnenil history of the subject may be traced in M.
Davies, Icon libel/arum, 1715 ; W. Oldys, " History of the Origin of Pamphlets,"
in Morgan's Phoenix Brit, and Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes; Dr Johnson's Introduc
tion to the Harleian Miscellany. D'lsrueli, Amenities of Literature; Revue
dfs Deux Mondes, April 1, 1846; Irish Q. Review, vii. 267; Edinb. Rev., Oct.
1805; Huth'sJnctVnt Ballads and Broadsides (Philobiblon Soc.); Maskell, Martin-
ifarprelate Controversy ; T. Jones, Cat. of collection of tracts for and against
Popery — the whole of Peck's lists and his references (Chetham Soc., 1856-65);
ISlakey's Hist, of Political Literature; Andrews, Hist, of British Journalism;
Larousse, Grand Diet. Unirersel ; Nodier, Sur la liberte de la presse; Leber, De
I'e'tat reel de la presse; Morean, Bibliographic des Mazarinades; Bulletin du Bib
liophile Beige, 1859-62; Xisard, Hist, des litres populaires. (II. K. T.)
PAMPHYLIA, in ancient geography, was the name See vol. xv
given to a region in the south of Asia Minor, between Plate II.
Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to
Mount Taurus. It was bounded on the N. by Pisidia, a
rugged mountain tract, while Pamphylia occupied only
the district between this and the sea. It was therefore a
country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about
75 miles with a breadth of about 30. There can be little
doubt that the Pamphylians and Pisidians were really the
same people, though the former had received colonies from
Greece and other lands, and from this cause, combined
with the greater fertility of their territory, had attained a
higher degree of civilization and more refinement than
their neighbours of the interior. But the distinction
between the two seems to have been established at an
early period. Herodotus, who does not mention the
Pisidians at all, enumerates the Pamphylians among the
nations of Asia Minor, while Ephorus mentions them both,
correctly including the one among the nations on the coast,
the other among those of the interior. Strabo distinctly
describes the position of Pamphylia as given above,
and assigns as its limits the pass of Mount Climax on
the west, and the fortress of Coracesium, which belonged
to Cilicia, on the east. Under the Roman administration
the term Pamphylia was extended so as to include Pisidia
and the whole tract up to the frontiers of Phrygia and
Lycaonia, and in this wider sense it is employed by
Ptolemy.
Pamphylia is in one respect a country of peculiar
character : although it consists almost entirely of a plain,
1 extending from the slopes of Mount Taurus to the sea,
j this plain, though presenting an unbroken level to the eye,
| does not consist, as in most similar cases, of alluvial
• deposits, but is formed almost wholly of travertine. " The
rivers pouring out of the caverns at the base of the Lycian
and Pisidian ranges of the Taurus come forth from their
subterranean courses charged with carbonate of lime, and
I are continually adding to the Pamphylian plain. They
! build up natural aqueducts of limestone, and after flowing
! for a time on these elevated beds burst their walls and
take a new course. Consequently it is very difficult to
reconcile the accounts of this district, as transmitted by
' ancient authors, with its present aspect, and the distribution
of the streams which water it. By the sea-side the traver-
' tine forms cliffs from 20 to 80 feet high" (Forbes's
I Lycia, vol. ii. p. 188). Strabo describes a river which
i he terms Catarractes as a large stream falling with a great
noise over a lofty cliff, but for the reason above given it
1 cannot now be identified with certainty. He places it
i between Olbia and Attalia, where there is now no river of
P A M — P A N
207
any importance. East of the latter city is the Oestrus,
and beyond that again the Eurymedon, both of which are
considerable streams, navigable for some distance from
the sea. Near the mouth of the latter is a lake called
Caprias, mentioned by Strabo, but it is a mere salt marsh.
The chief towns on the coast are — Olbia, the first town
in Pamphylia, near the Lycian frontier ; Attalia, founded
by Attalus II., king of Pergamus, which still retains the
name of Adalia, and is the principal port in this part of
Asia Minor; and Side, about 15 miles east of the
Eurymedon. On a hill above that river, some distance
inland, stood Aspendus, and in a similar position above
the river Oestrus was Perga, celebrated for its temple of
Artemis. Between the two rivers, but somewhat farther
inland, stood Sylleum, a strong fortress, which even
ventured to defy the arms of Alexander. None of these
towns are historically known to have been Greek colonies ;
but the foundation of Aspendus was traditionally ascribed
to the Argives, and Side was said to be a colony from
Cyme in ^Eolis. But it is certain that the inhabitants, even
of these towns, retained little of a Hellenic character, and
spoke a semi-barbarous dialect. The legend related by
Herodotus and Strabo, which ascribed the origin of the
Pamphylians to a colony led into their country by Amphi-
lochus and Calchas, after the Trojan War, is merely one of
those mythical fictions current among the Greeks with
regard to so many non-Hellenic races. The coins of
Aspendus, though of Greek character, present us with
legends in a barbarous dialect.
The Pamphylians never appear in history as an inde
pendent people. They are first mentioned among the
nations subdued by the kings of Lydia, and afterwards
passed in succession under the dominion of the Persian and
Macedonian monarchs. After the defeat of Antiochus III.
in 190 B.C., they were included among the provinces
annexed by the Romans to the dominions of Eumenes,
king of Pergamum ; but at a somewhat later period they
joined with their neighbours the Pisidians and Cilicians
in their piratical ravages, and their port of Side became
the chief centre of the naval power of these freebooters,
and the place where the captives were sold as slaves.
Pamphylia was for a short time included in the dominions
of Amyntas, king of Galatia, but after the death of that
monarch lapsed into the ordinary condition of a Roman
province, and its name is not again mentioned in history.
PAMPLONA (Pampeluna, Fr. Pampelune), a city of
Spain, capital of the province of Navarre, and an epis
copal see, is situated 1378 feet above sea-level, on the
left bank of the Agra, a tributary of the Ebro, 'on a
height commanding a wide view of the hill-encircled
plain known as the " cuenca " or " bowl " of Pamplona.
It is a station on the Ebro railway connecting Alsasua
with Saragossa. The climate in general is cold and
moist, but owing to the purity of the air and the excel
lence of its drainage the town is not unhealthy. From
its position Pamplona has always been the principal
fortress of Navarre. The fortifications form a rectangle
of which the north-east and north-west sides face the river
(here crossed by several bridges), while on the south-west
side stands the citadel, which owes its present construction
to Philip II., who modelled it on that of Antwerp. It is
a pentagon, separated from the city by an esplanade, and
is calculated to accommodate 7500 men. The streets of
the town are regular and broad ; there are three " plazas,"
the principal of which, containing the Casa de la Diputa-
cion and the theatre, is sometimes on festive occasions
turned into a bull-ring. The cathedral is a late Gothic
structure begun in 1397 by Charles III. (El Noble) of
Navarre, who is buried within its walls ; of the previous
structure raised by Don Sancho about 1123 only a small
portion of the cloisters remains. The interior, which is
fine, is remarkable for the peculiar structure of its apse ;
the wood carvings of the choir, in English oak, by
Miguel Ancheta, a native artist, are excellent. The
principal fa9ade is Corinthian, from designs of Ventura
Rodriguez (1783). The same architect designed the
superb aqueduct by which the city is supplied with water
from Monte Francoa, some nine miles off. The beautiful
cloisters on the south side of the cathedral, and the
chapter-house beyond them, as well as the old churches of
San Saturnino (Gothic) and San Nicolas (Romanesque),
are also of interest to the student of architecture. Among
•other places of public resort in Pamplona may be mentioned
the bull-ring, capable of accommodating 8000 spectators,
and the tennis court (El Trinquete). The town has a well-
equipped secondary school, two normal and numerous
primary schools, as well as an academy of design ; and
there are three hospitals. Of the public gardens and
walks the finest is La Taconera. The surrounding district
is fertile, producing wine as well as grain and other seeds ;
! the manufactures are comparatively unimportant, the chief
I being that of linen. The yearly fair in connexion with
the feast of San Fermin (July 7), the patron saint of the
city, attracts a large concourse from all parts of the country.
Population of ayuntamiento in 1877, 25,630.
Originally a town of the Vascones, Pamplona was rebuilt in 68 B.C.
by Ponipey the Great, whence the name Pomprelo or Pompelo
(Strabo). It was captured by Euric the Goth in 466 and by the
Franks under Childebert in 542 ; it was dismantled by Charlemagne
in 778, but repulsed the emir of Saragossa in 907. In the 14th cen
tury it was greatly strengthened and beautified by Charles III., who
built a citadel on the site now occupied by the Plaza de Toros and by
the Basilica de S. Ignacio, the church markingthe spot where Ignatius
Loyala received his wound in defending the place against Andre de
Foix in 1521. From 1808 it was occupied by the French until
taken by Wellington in 1813. In the Carlist war of 1836-40 it
was held by the Cristinos, and in 1875-76 it was more than once
attacked, but never taken, by the Carlists.
. PAN, a Greek god worshipped chiefly in Arcadia,
among whose mountains he had numerous sanctuaries and
holy caves. While he is a very common figure in poetry
and art, it is exceedingly difficult to gain any clear idea of
his actual worship in his Arcadian home. He appears to
have been worshipped on the mountain tops as well as
in caves ; he was the herdsman's god, and the giver of
fertility to flocks ; he was a god of prophetic inspiration
and of dreams, in which he sometimes revealed the cure
of diseases ; he was himself a huntsman and the god of
hunters, and Arcadian sportsmen beat his image if they
returned empty-handed from the chase ; even fishermen
invoked him for aid in their occupation ; he guided
travellers (as eroStos and iro/ji-n-aios) on the pathless
mountains, and even smoothed the rough sea by the sound
of his flute; he was the god of music, of dance, and of song,
Echo and Syrinx were the objects of his love, and he
sported and danced with the mountain Nymphs. The
nineteenth Homeric Hymn gives a most poetic account of
his birth from the union of Hermes and the daughter of
Dryops, and of his life among the Arcadian mountains and
springs. His power of inspiration and prophecy shows
that there was an orgiastic, enthusiastic side of his worship,
which made it easy for Pindar to connect him with the
worship of Cybele, and for others to identify him with
Marsyas. His voice inspires terror, and he produced
sudden panics among men. The Athenian herald Phidip-
pides heard his voice by the way promising victory at
Marathon ; the Athenians attributed their triumph to his
aid, and to the panic he inspired among the Persians, and
consecrated to him a cave in the north side of the Acropolis.
He had a temple and oracle near Acacesium, in which a
fire burned continually. The analogy of his nature with
Dionysus led to his assimilation with the Satyrs, and he is
208
P A N — P A N
often pictured among the Bacchic Thiasus. It was only a
step further to speak of many Pans, male and female, and
of infant Panisci. In the mystic eclecticism of Orphic
religion, Pan was conceived as- the universal god in a
pantheistic fashion. His mother is variously called GSnoe,
or Callisto, or Penelope ; his father is Zeus, or Hermes, or
Apollo, or Odysseus, or the suitors generally. He was
represented as a half-human half-brute figure, with the
legs and horns of a goat and a face whose features
resembled those of an animal. According to the Homeric
Hymn, his mother was terrified when he wras born with
his hideous figure and long goat's beard. The story,
alluded to by Milton, Mrs Browning, and the modern
poets, of the pilot Thamus, who, sailing near Paxos in the
time of Tiberius, was commanded by a mighty voice to
proclaim that " Pan is dead," is first found in Plutarch
(De Orac. Defectu, 699).
PAX^ETIUS, a Stoic philosopher, lived about 185-112
B.C. He belonged to a Rhodian family, but was probably
educated partly in Pergamum and afterwards in Athens.
About 156 B.C. he came from Athens to Rome, where he
became a friend of La^lius and of Scipio the younger. He
lived as a guest in the house of Scipio, and accompanied
him in his final campaign against Carthage and in his
expedition to Egypt and Asia, 143 B.C. He had an
important influence in the introduction of Greek philosophy
into Rome, and taught a number of distinguished Romans.
He returned to Athens, probably after the murder of
Scipio in 129 B.C., and succeeded Antipater as head of the
Stoic school. The right of citizenship was offered him by
the Athenians, but not accepted. In his teaching he laid
most stress on ethics; and his most important works, of
which only insignificant fragments are preserved, were on
this subject. He wrrote (apparently during his Roman
visit) a treatise on virtue, Trtpi TOV KC^KOVTOS, in three
books, upon which Cicero has chiefly founded his work De
Officiis. Works Trepl Trpovotas, Trepl evOv/Jiias, Arc., were also
composed by Panaetius.
PANAMA, a state and city of Colombia, in the extreme
north of South America. The city, which is the capital
of the state and the seat of a 'bishop, is situated on the
coast of the Pacific at the head of the Gulf of Panama, a
fewr miles east of the mouth of the Rio Grande, occupying
partly a tongue of coral and basaltic rock and partly a
gentle rise towards Mount Ancon, an eminence 560 feet in
height. The cathedral stands in 8° 57' 16" N. lat, and
79° 30' 50" W. long. In the 16th and 17th centuries
Panama was, next to Cartagena, -the strongest fortress in
South America ; but its massive granite ramparts, con
structed by Alfonzo Mercado de Villacorta (1673), in some
places 40 feet high and 60 feet broad, have been razed on
the land side (where they separated the city proper from
the suburbs of Santa Ana, Pueblo Nuevo, and Arrabal)
and allowed to fall into a ruinous condition towrards the
sea. Of the old Spanish houses constructed in the Moorish
fashion comparatively few remain ; but three-story build
ings, in which the two upper stories project, are sufficiently
common to give a distinctive character to the city, which
thus differs from the other towns of Central America.
Ruins of churches' and convents occupy a large area, those
of the Jesuit college being the most imposing, and those
of the Franciscan monastery (on the north-west sea wall)
the most extensive. The cathedral, built in 1760, is a
spacious edifice in the so-called Jesuit style, and its two
lateral towers are the loftiest in Central America. It was
restored in 1873-76, but the fagade was destroyed and
columns thrown down by the earthquake of September
7, 1882. The church of Santa Ana, in the suburb of that
name, is of interest as the rallying point of the insurgents
in the local revolutions; the high ground on which it
stands commands the city, and was long kept carefully
free of all buildings. The president's residence, the
governor's office, the state assembly house, the hospital
in the old convent of the Conception, and the grand hotel
(now the head offices of the canal company) in the principal
square are the buildings now of most note. Besides the
episcopal seminary there exist a sisters-of-charity school
and a ladies' college, with teachers from the United States
and Canada. In the rainy season streams of water flow-
down the streets, but in the dry season the city is dependent
on water brought in carts from the Matasnillo, a distance
of several miles, the only perennial wells which it possessed
having been dried up by the earthquake of 8th March
1883. By 1885, however, water-works introducing the
Railway and Canal from Panama to Colon.
water of the Rio Grande at a cost of £50,000 are to be
completed. Rents are high, and living is expensive. As
Panama, like Colon, is a free port, statistics of trade arc
not collected. The local exports are india-rubber (growing
scarcer), gold-dust, hides, ivory nuts, manganese, shells,
tobacco, cocobolo (a cabinet wood), tortoise-shell, vanilla,
whale oil, sarsaparilla, and cocoa-nuts. The PanamA pearl
fishery is still prosecuted with success. The passengers
across the isthmus were 35,076 in 1868, 22,941 in 1876,
52,113 in 1881, and 75,703 in 1882. In 1870 the popu
lation of Panam.4 (of very varied origin) was 18,378; by
1880 it was 25,000, of whom about 5000 were strangers.
Panama (an Indian word meaning abounding in fish) was founded
in 1518 Ly Pedro Arias Davila, and is thus the oldest European
city in America, the older settlement at Santa Maria el Antigua
near the Atrato having been abandoned and leaving no trace.
Originally it was situated six or seven miles farther north on the
left side of the Rio Algarrobo; but, the former city, which was
the great emporium for the gold and silver from Peru, and "had
eight monasteries, a cathedral, and two churches, a iine hospital,'
200 richly furnished houses, nearly 5000 houses of a humbler sort, a
Cenoese chamber of commerce, and 200 warehouses, was after three
weeks of rapine and murder burned, February 24, 1671, by Morgan's
buccaneers, who carried off 175 laden mules and more than 600 pris
oners" (see Travels of Pedro de Cic~a dcLco7i, Hakluyt Soc., 1864).
A new city was founde'l on the present site by Villacorta in 1673.
P A N — P A N
209
The Isthmus and State. — By the Isthmus of Panama^ is
sometimes understood the whole neck of land between the
continents of North and South America ; more generally
the name is restricted to the narrow crossing from Panamd
to Colon, the two other narrowest crossings being distin
guished as the Isthmus of San Bias (31 miles) and the
Isthmus of Darien (46 miles). Nearly the whole isthmus,
in the wider sense of the word, constitutes (since 1855) a
state of the Confederation of Colombia, extending from
the frontiers of Costa Rica to those of the state of. Cauca.
Besides Panama the capital and Colon (Aspinwall), it con
tains Santiago, formerly chief town of a province and an
apanage of the family of Columbus, Penonome (about
15,000 inhabitants), Los Santos, formerly chief town of a
province, Nata, and David. It is divided into six depart
ments — Code, Colon, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama,
Veragua. The total population in 1870 was 221,052.
Railway and Canal. — It is the Isthmus of Panamd in the
narrower sense which is crossed both by the interoceanic
railway and by the line of the interoceanic ship-canal at pre
sent in course of construction. It affords a much shorter
route than that of Darien, and while the central Cordillera
does not sink lower than 980 feet in the Isthmus of San
Bias, at the Culebra Col it is rather less than 290 feet
high. As the watershed runs much nearer the south than
the north side of the isthmus, the streams flowing to the
Pacific are of comparatively little importance, while the
Chagres on the Atlantic slope, with its tributary the Rio
Obispo, forms a navigable river whose volume attains
formidable dimensions at certain seasons. The railway
(a single line) starting from Colon (on the swamp-island of
Manzanillo on Limon Bay) reaches the valley of the
Chagres at Gatun, runs along its northern flanks to Bar-
bacoas, crosses the river by a large bridge, continues along
the southern flank and up the tributary Obispo to the
Culebra Col, from which it descends straight to Panama.
The ship-canal is to follow very much the same route ;
only it will keep closer to the bed of the Chagres, which
it is to cross again and again, and on the Pacific slope it will
descend the valley of the Rio Grande and be continued
seaward to the island of Perico. The total length is 54
miles. Throughout the whole distance the bottom is to
lie 8?r metres (nearly 28 feet) below the mean level of
the oceans, and the width is to be 22 metres (72 feet) at
bottom and 50 metres (160 feet) at top, except in the
.section through the Culebra ridge, where the depth is
to be 9 metres, the bottom width 24, and the top width
28. The two great difficulties connected with the under
taking are those caused by the mountain and the river.
As the idea of tunnelling the col has been abandoned,
it will be necessary to cut down through the solid strata
for a depth of 300 to 350 feet over a considerable distance;
the rock happily is of a comparatively soft schistous
character, disposed almost horizontally. The Chagres
has an average discharge at Matachin of 100 cubic metres
per second, which at low water may sink to 15 or 20
cubic metres, and during flood rise to 500 or 600. At
Gamboa, which lies just above the influx of the Rio
Obispo, it is proposed to construct an enormous reservoir
by throwing a dam across the valley. From Cerro Obispo
on the one side to Cerro Santa Cruz on the other this dam
will be 960 metres long at the base and 1960 metres at
the top, with a width at the bottom of 1000 metres and a
height of 45 metres. It will thus be the largest dyke yet
constructed in the world. Altogether it is calculated that
the excavation of the canal involves the removal of 3531
millions of cubic feet of earth; by January 31, 1884, the
actual quantity removed was 118,448,595 cubic feet, or
only about one-thirtieth of the whole. All along the
route, however, at Buhio Soldado, Tabernilla, San Pablo,
Mamei, &c., workshops and settlements have been formed,
and by 1883 11,000 men were at work. At certain states
of the tide the levels of the two oceans differ materially:
while at Colon the difference between high and low water
is not more than 23 inches, at Panamd, it is generally 13
feet, and at times even upwards of 19| feet. The current
thus produced in the canal would be sufficient to stop
navigation for a number of hours at each tide ; and. to
obviate this difficulty it will be necessary either to con
struct locks at the Panamd extremity or to slope the canal
from Colon to Panama.
A proposal to pierce the Isthmus of Darien was made as early as
1520 by Angel Saavedra ; Cortez caused the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
to be surveyed for the construction of a canal ; and in 1550
Antonio Galvao suggested four different routes for such a scheme,
one of them being across the Isthmus of Panama. In 1814 the
Spanish cortes ordered the viceroy of New Spain to undertake tho
piercing of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec ; but the War of Independ
ence intervened, and, though a survey was made by General Obegoso
in 1821, and Jose de Garny obtained a concession lor a canal in
1842, nothing was accomplished. Bolivar, president of Colombia,
caused Messrs Lloyd and Falrnarc to study the Isthmus of Panama.
Lloyd, whose paper was published in the Philosophical Transactions,
London, 1830, proposed to make only a railway from Panama or
Chorrera to the Rio Trinidad (tributary of the Chagres), and to
establish a port on the Bay of Limon. M. Napoleon Garella, sent
out by the French Government in 1843, advocated the construction
of a sluiced canal. An American company, stimulated by the
sudden increase of traffic across the isthmus caused by the discovery
of gold in California, commenced in 1849 to construct a railway, and
their engineers, Totten and Trautwine, already known in connexion
with the canal from Cartagena to the Magdalena, managed, in spite
of the extreme difficulty of procuring labour, to complete the works
in January 1855. Meanwhile the question of an interoceanic canal
was not lost sight of ; and in 1875 it came up for discussion in the
Congres des Sciences Geographiques at Paris. A society iinder
General Tu'rr was formed for prosecuting the necessary explorations ;
and Lieutenant Wyse, assisted by Celler, A. Reclus, Bixio, &c., was
sent out to the isthmus in 1876. In 1878 the Colombian Govern
ment granted the society known as the Civil International Inter
oceanic Canal Society the exclusive privilege of constructing a
canal between the two oceans through the Colombian territory ;
and at the same time the ports and canal were neutralized. In
1879 M. de Lesseps took the matter up, and the first meeting of his
company was held in 1881. The capital necessary for the "Com
pany of the Interoceanic Canal of Panama," as it is called, was
stated at 600,000,000 francs, — the estimated cost of excavation being
430,000,000, that of weirs and trenches to take fresh waj;er to the
sea 46,000,000, and that of a dock and tide-gates on the Pacific
side 36,000,000. The Panama canal was bought for $20,000,000.
The contractors, Couvreux & Hersent, began operations in October
of the same year. Meanwhile the United States Government
proposed to make a treaty with Colombia by which it would be
free to establish forts, arsenals, and naval stations on the Isthmus
of Panama, though no forces were to be maintained during peace ;
but the British Government objected to any such arrangement.
Details in regard to engineering and finance will be found in the Bulletin du
Canal Oceanique, issued since 1879, and in Engineering, 1883 and 1884. See also
Kcclus's "Explorations" in Tour du Monde, 1880, for an interesting series cf
views.
PANATHENAEA, the most splendid and brilliant of
all the Athenian festivals, with perhaps the exception of
the Great Dionysia. The mythic foundation is ascribed to
Erechtheus; and Pausanias declares that the Olympia,
the Lycsea, and the Panathenaea were the three oldest
feasts in Greece. It was originally a religious celebration
in honour of the patron goddess of the city, celebrated by
her own worshippers. It is said that when Theseus united
the whole land under one government he made this festival
of the city-goddess common to the entire country, and the
older name Athenam was then changed to Panathenaea.
In addition to the religious rites there is said to have
been a chariot race from the earliest time ; Erechtheus
himself won the prize in the race. The Panathenaea were
modified and rendered far more magnificent by Pisistratus
and his sons. It is probable that the distinction of Greater
and Lesser Panathenaea dates from this period. Every
fourth year the festival was celebrated with peculiar
magnificence ; gymnastic sports were added to the horse
races; and there is little doubt that Pisistratus aimed at
XVIII. — 27
210
P A N — P A N
making the penteteric Panathensea the great Ionian
festival in rivalry to the Dorian Olympia. The penteteric
festival was celebrated in the third year of each Olympiad.
The annual festival consisted solely of the sacrifices and
rites proper to this season in the cultus of the goddess.
One of these rites originally consisted in carrying a new
peplus to the temple to serve as the clothing of the image,
a ceremonial known in other cities and represented by the
writer of the Iliad (vi.) as being in use at Troy; but it
is probable that this rite was afterwards restricted to the
great penteteric festival. Even the religious rites were
celebrated with much greater splendour at the Greater
Panathenrea. The whole empire shared in the great
sacrifice; every colony and every subject state sent a
deputation and sacrificial animals. On the great day of
the feast there was a procession of the priests, the sacri
ficial assistants of every kind, the representatives of every
part of the empire with their victims, the cavalry, in short
of the population of Attica and great part of its depend
encies. The peplus was borne in the procession and
presented to the goddess, and the hecatomb was sacrificed.
At least as early as the 3d century before Christ the
custom was introduced of spreading the peplus like a sail
on the mast of a ship, which was rolled on a machine in
the procession. The subject of the frieze of the Parthenon
is an idealized treatment of this great procession.
The festival which had been beautified by Pisistratus
was made still more imposing under the rule of Pericles.
He introduced a regular musical contest in place of the old
recitations of the rhapsodes, which were an old standing
accompaniment of the festival. The order of the agones
from this time onwards was — first the musical, then the
gymnastic, then the equestrian contest. Many kinds of
contest, such as the chariot race of the apobatai, which
were not in use at Olympia, were practised in Athens.
The season of the festival was the last days of Hecatom-
baeon, and the great day was the 28th, third from the end
of the month (rpirr) </>0iVoi/Tos, called by Euripides <£0ivas
d/te'pa). The prize in the games was an amphora full of
olive oil produced from the holy olives, the property and
gift of the goddess herself. Only one Panathenaic
amphora has been found in Attica itself ; and, though
many have been discovered outside of Attica, especially in
Cyrene, it has been maintained that the latter are- not
really prizes in the games, but imitations made in the
export trade as a sort of mark that the oil sold in them
was of the very finest quality.
PANAY. See PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
PANCH MAHALS, a district in the east of Guzerat,
Bombay presidency, India, lying between 22° 30' and
23° 10' N. lat., and between 73° 35' and 74° 10' E. long.,
with an area of 1613 square miles. The south-western
portion is for the most part a level plain of rich soil; while
the northern, although it comprises some fertile valleys, is
generally rugged, undulating, and barren, with but little
cultivation. The mineral products comprise limestone,
sandstone, trap, quartz, basalt, granite, and other varieties
of building stone. Only recently has any attempt been
made to conserve the extensive forest tracts, and con
sequently but little timber of any size is now to be found.
The census of 1881 returned the population at 255,479 (131,162
males and 124,317 females); the Hindus numbered 159,624;
Mohammedans, 16,060 ; Parsis, 30 ; and Christians, 44. Of the
total population 30 per cent, belong to aboriginal tribes, the ma
jority being Bhils. Of 350, 996 acres— the total area of Government
cultivable land— 202,498 acres were taken up for cultivation in
1881-82. Of 153,262 acres under actual cultivation (41,828 acres
being twice cropped), grain crops occupied 127,032 acres ; pulses
42,444; and oil-seeds, 22t238.
PANCSO.VA, a town of Hungary, near the Servian
frontier, is situated on the river Temes, just above its
junction with the Danube, which it reaches 9 miles above
Belgrade. The town contains Roman Catholic, Protestant,
and Greek churches, a convent, and manufactories of starch
and beetroot sugar. Cotton and mulberries (for feeding
silkworms) are cultivated, and a brisk trade in live stock
and grain is carried on with Turkey. The hog fairs are
largely attended. In 1880 Pancsova contained 17,127
inhabitants, partly Serbs and partly Germans. It was
burned by the retreating Austrians in 1788, and was
again occupied by Austrian troops in 1849, after they had
defeated the Hungarians in the vicinity.
PANDARUS, son of Lycaon, led the people of Zeleia in
the Troad as allies of the Trojans against the Greeks.
In other passages his country is named Lycia. It is
frequently said that the Lycians of the Iliad are a tribe of
the Troad, different from the people of the country Lycia ;
but it is more probable that the conflicting accounts belong
to different strata in the Homeric poetry. Pandarus was
worshipped as a hero at Pinara in Lycia. Lycaon, the
name of Pandarus's father, is merely an epithet of
Apollo, the great god of Lycia. Pandarus is not an
important figure in the Iliad. He breaks the truce
between the Trojans and the Greeks by treacherously
wounding Menelaus with an arrow, and finally he is slain
by Diomedes. In mediaeval romance he became a pro
minent figure in the tale of Troilus and Cressida. He
encouraged the amour between the Trojan prince and his
niece Cressida ; and his name has passed into modern
language as the common title of a lovers' go-between in
the worst sense.
PANDECTS. See JUSTINIAN and ROMAN LAW.
PANDERPUR, or PANDHARPUR, a town in Sholapur
district, Bombay, India, situated on the right bank of the
Bhima river, in 17° 40' 40" N. lat. and 75° 22' 40" E. long.,
with a population in 1881 of 16,910. It is held in great
reverence by the Bralamans for its celebrated temple dedi
cated to Vithoba, an incarnation of Vishnu. Three large
annual religious fairs are held.
PANDORA. See PROMETHEUS.
PANDUA, or PARRUAH. See GAUR, vol. x. p. 115.
PANGOLIN. In Africa, India, and Malayana are
found certain curious Mammals known to the Malays as
Pangolins, to the English as Scaly Anteaters, and to
naturalists by the scientific name of Manis. These
animals, which, by a superficial observer, might be taken
for reptiles rather than mammals, belong to the order
Edentata, otherwise almost wholly confined to the New
World, and containing, besides the Pangolins, the Sloths,
Anteaters, Armadillos, and Aard Varks.
In size pangolins range from 1 to 3 feet in length,
exclusive of the tail, which varies from much shorter than
to nearly twice the length of the rest of the animal ; their
legs are short, so that the body is only a few inches off the
ground ; their ears are very small ; and their tongue is long
and worm-like, and is used to catch ants with. Their
most striking character, however, is their wonderful
external coat of mail, composed " of numerous broad over
lapping horny scales, which cover the whole animal, with
the exception of the under surface of the body, and, in
most species, of the lower part of the tip of the tail.
Besides the scales there are generally, especially in the
Indian species, a certain number of isolated hairs, which
grow up between the scales, and are also scattered over
the soft and flexible skin of the belly. There are five toes
on each foot, the claws on the pollex and hallux rudi
mentary, but the others, especially the third of the fore
foot, long, curved, and laterally compressed. In walking
the fore claws are turned backwards and inwards, so that
the weight of the animal rests on their back and outer sur
faces, and their points are thus kept from becoming blunted.
p A N — P A N
211
Their skulls are long, smooth, and rounded, with imper
fect zygomatic arches, no teeth of any sort, and, as in
other ant-eating mammals, with the bony palate extending
unusually far backwards towards the throat. The lower
jaw consists of a pair of thin styliform bones anchylosed
to each other at the chin, and rather loosely attached to
the skull by a joint which, instead of being horizontal, is
tilted up at an angle of 45°, the outwardly-twisted
condyles articulating with the inner surfaces of the long
glenoid processes, an arrangement quite unique among
mammals, the sloths alone showing a slight tendency
towards it. The other skeletal and anatomical characters
have already been sufficiently described under MAMMALIA
(vol. xv. p. 388).
The single genus Manis, which contains all the
pangolins, may be conveniently divided into two groups,
distinguished both by their geographical distribution and
by certain convenient, though not highly important,
external characters. (1) The Asiatic pangolins are charac
terized by having the central series of body-scales con
tinued quite to the extreme end of the tail, by having
many isolated hairs growing up between the scales of the
back, and by their small external ears. They all have a
White-bellied Pangolin (Manis tricuspis),
small naked spot beneath the tip of the tail, which is said
to be of service as an organ of touch. There are three
species, viz., Manis javanica, ranging from Burmah,
through Malacca and Java, to Borneo ; M. aurita, found
in China, Formosa, and Nepal ; and the common Indian
Pangolin, M. pentadactyla, distributed over the whole of
India and Ceylon. (2) The African species have the
central series of scales suddenly interrupted and breaking
into two at a point about 2 or 3 inches from the tip of the
tail; they have no hair between the scales, and no external
ear-conch. The following are the four species belonging
to this group : — the Long-tailed Pangolin (M. macrura),
which has a tail nearly twice as long as its body, and
containing as many as forty-six caudal vertebrae, nearly
the largest number known among Mammals ; the White-
bellied Pangolin (M. tricuspis), closely allied to the last,
but with longer and tricuspid scales, and white belly hairs
(these two, like the Indian species, have a naked spot
beneath the tail tip, a character probably correlated with
the power of climbing, and they are, moreover, peculiar in
having the outer sides of their fore legs clothed with hair,
all the other species being scaly there as elsewhere); and the
Short-tailed and the Giant Pangolins (M. temminckii and
gigantea), both of which have their tails covered entirely with
scales, and evidently never take to arboreal habits. All
the four species of the second group are found in the West
African region, one only, M. temminckii, extending besides
into south and eastern equatorial Africa. The following
account of the habits of Manis tricuspis is taken from Mr
Louis Eraser's Zooloyia Typica : —
" During my short residence at Fernando Po I succeeded in
procuring two living specimens of this animal. The individuals,
judging from the bones, were evidently not adult ; the largest
measured 30 inches in length, of which the head and body were 12
inches and the tail 18 inches. I kept them alive for about a week
at Fernando Po, and allowed them the range of a room, where they
fed upon a small black ant, which is very abundant and trouble
some in the houses and elsewhere. Even when first procured they
displayed little or no fear, but continued to climb about the room
without noticing my occasional entrance. They would climb up
the somewhat roughly-hewn square posts which supported the
building with great facility, and upon reaching the ceiling would
return head foremost ; sometimes they would roll themselves up
into a ball and throw themselves down, and apparently without
experiencing any inconvenience from the fall, which was in a
measure broken upon reaching the ground by the semi-yielding
scales, which were thrown into an erect position by the curve of
the body of the animal. In climbing, the tail, with its strongly-
pointed scales beneath, was used to assist the feet ; and the grasp
of the hind feet, assisted by the tail, was so powerful that the
animal would throw the body back (when on the post) into a
horizontal position, and sway itself to and fro, apparently taking
pleasure in this kind of exercise. It always slept with the body
rolled up ; and when in this position in a corner of the building,
owing to the position and strength of the scales, and the power of
the limbs combined, I found it impossible to remove the animal
against its will, the points of the scales being inserted into every
little notch and hollow of the surrounding objects. The eyes are
very dark hazel, and very prominent. The colonial name for this
species of Manis is 'Attadillo,' and it is called by the Boobies,
the natives of the island, 'Gahlah.' The flesh is said to be
exceedingly good eating, and is in great request among the
natives." (0. T.)
PANIPAT, a decayed historical town in Karnal district,
Punjab, India, situated on the Grand Trunk Road, 53 miles
north of Delhi, in 29° 23' N. lat. and IT 1' 10" E. long.
The town is of great antiquity, dating back to the great
war of the Mahdbharata between the Pandavas and
Kaurava brethren, when it formed one of the tracts
demanded by Yudishthira from Duryodhana as the price
of peace. In modern times, the plains of Panipat are
celebrated as having thrice formed the scene of decisive
battles which sealed the fate of upper India, — in 1526,
when BAbar on his invasion of India with his small but
veteran army completely defeated the imperial forces; in
1556, when his grandson, Akbar, on the same battlefield,
conquered Hemu, the Hindu general of the Afghan Sher
Shah, thus a second time establishing the Mughal power;
and finally, on 7th January 1761, when Ahmad Shah
Durani decisively shattered the unity of the Mahratta
power. The modern town stands near the old bank of the
Jumna, upon high ground composed of the debris of earlier
buildings. The population in 1881 numbered 25,022,
including 16,917 Mohammedans. Although there are
many brick-built houses and some well-paved streets in the
centre of the town, the outskirts are low and squalid, and
the general aspect of the whole town miserable and
poverty-stricken.
PANIZZI, SIR ANTHONY (1797-1879), principal
librarian of the British Museum, was born at Brescello in
the duchy of Modena, September 16, 1797. After taking
his degree at the university of Parma, he became an
advocate, and speedily obtained considerable practice.
Always a fervent patriot, he was almost of necessity
implicated in the movement set on foot in 1821 to over
turn the miserable Government of his native duchy, and in
October of that year barely escaped arrest by a precipitate
flight. He first established himself at Lugano, where he
published an anonymous and now excessively rare pamphlet
212
P A N I Z Z I
generally known as / Proce.<si di JRidnem, an exposure of
the monstrous injustice and illegalities of the Modenese
Government's proceedings against suspected persons. Ex
pelled from Switzerland at the joint instance of Austria,
France, and Sardinia, he repaired to England, where he
arrived in May 1823, in a state bordering upon destitution.
His countryman Foscolo provided him with introductions
to Roscoe and Dr Shepherd, and by their aid he was enabled
to earn a subsistence in Liverpool by giving Italian lessons,
while diligently instructing himself in English. Roscoe
further introduced him to Brougham, by whose influence
he was called to London to assume the professorship of
Italian in University College, upon the foundation of that
institution in 1828. His chair was almost a sinecure;
but his manners, his culture, and his abilities rapidly
ingratiated him with the best London society ; and in
1831 Brougham, having become lord chancellor, used his ex
offtcio position as a principal trustee of the British Museum
to obtain for Panizzi the post of an extra assistant librarian
of the printed book department. At the same time he
was actively prosecuting the most important of his purely-
literary labours, his edition of Boiardo's Orlando Inna-
morato. Boiardo's fame had been eclipsed for three
centuries by the adaptation of Berni; and it is highly to
the honour of Panizzi's taste to have redeemed him from
oblivion, and restored to Italy one of the very best of her
narrative poets. His edition of the Orlando Innamorato
and the Orlando Furioso was published between 1830 and
1834, prefaced by a valuable essay on the influence of
Celtic legends on medieval romance, and dedicated to his
benefactor Roscoe. In 1835 he edited Boiardo's minor
poems, and was about the same time engaged in preparing
a catalogue of the library of the Royal Society, which led
to a warm controversy. Panizzi was shortly to find library
work of a much more important and agreeable description
in the institution with which he was officially connected.
The unsatisfactory condition and illiberal management of
the British Museum had long excited discontent, and at
length a trivial circumstance led to the appointment of a
parliamentary committee, which sat throughout the sessions
of 1835-36, and probed the condition of the institution
very thoroughly. Panizzi's principal contributions to its
inquiries as respected the library were an enormous mass
of statistics respecting foreign libraries collected by him
upon the Continent, and some admirable evidence on the
catalogue of printed books then in contemplation. In
1837 he became keeper of printed books upon the retire
ment of Mr Baber, and immediately set himself to grapple
with the special tasks imposed upon him by the peculiar
circumstances in which he found the library. The entire
collection, except the King's Library, had to be removed
from Montague House to the new building ; the reading-
room service had to be reorganized ; rules for the new
printed catalogue had to be prepared, and the catalogue
itself undertaken. All these tasks were successfully accom
plished ; but, although the rules of cataloguing devised by
Panizzi and his assistants have become .the basis of
whatever has since been attempted in this department, the
progress of the catalogue itself was slow. The first
volume, comprising letter A, was published in 1841, and
from that time, although the catalogue was continued and
completed in MS., no attempt was made to print any
more until, in 1881, the task was resumed under the
direction of the present principal librarian. The chief
cause of this comparative failure was injudicious interfer
ence with Panizzi, occasioned by the impatience of the
trustees and the public. Panizzi's appointment, as that
of a foreigner, had from the first been highly unpopular.
He gradually broke down opposition, partly by his social
influence, but far more by the sterling merits of his
administration, and his constant efforts to improve the
library. The most remarkable of these was his great
report, printed in 1845, upon the Museum's extraordinary
deficiencies in general literature, which ultimately pro
cured the increase of the annual grant for the purchase
of books to £10,000. In 1847 his friendship with the
Right Hon. Thomas Grenville led to the nation's being
enriched by the bequest of that gentleman's unique
library, valued even then at £50,000. In 1847-49 a
royal commission sat to inquire into the general state of
the Museum, and Panizzi was the centre of the proceedings.
His administration, fiercely attacked from a multitude of
quarters, was triumphantly vindicated in every point ; and
the inquiry had the excellent effect, not merely of establish
ing his reputation, but of abolishing the main source of
maladministration, the anomalous position and illegitimate
influence of the secretary. Panizzi immediately became by
far the most influential official in the Museum, though he
did not actually succeed to the principal librarianship
until 1856.
It was thus as merely keeper of printed books that he
conceived and carried out the achievement by which he is
probably best remembered, the erection of the new library
and reading-room. The want of space had become so
crying an evil that purchases were actually discouraged
from lack of room in which to deposit the books. Panizzi
cast his eye on the empty quadrangle enclosed by the
Museum buildings, and conceived the daring idea of occupy
ing it with a central cupola too distant, and adjacent
galleries too low, to obstruct the inner windows of the
original edifice. The cupola was to cover three hundred
readers, the galleries to provide storage for a million of
books. The original design, sketched by Panizzi's own
hand on April 18, 1852, was submitted to the trustees on
May 5 ; in May 1854 the necessary expenditure was sanc
tioned by parliament, and the building was opened in
May 1857. Its construction had involved a multitude of
ingenious arrangements, all of which had been contrived
or inspected by Panizzi with the genius for minute detail
which he shared with so many men equally remarkable for
the general breadth of their conceptions, and with the
mechanical inventiveness of which he was continually
giving proof. There is probably no building in the world
better adapted to the purpose which it is intended to serve ;
and it is no discredit to the designer if, imposing as it is.
neither the space nor the funds at his disposal allowed him
to plan it on the colossal scale which its utility would
have warranted.
Panizzi succeeded Sir Henry Ellis as principal librarian
in March 1856. The most remarkable incidents of hi*
administration were the great improvement effected in the
condition of the Museum staff by the recognition of the
institution as a branch of the civil service, and the decision,
not carried out for long afterwards, to remove the natural
history collections to Kensington. Of this questionable
measure Panizzi was a warm advocate ; he was heartily
glad to be rid of the naturalists. He had small love for
science and its professors, and, as his friend Macaulay said,
" would at any time have given three elephants for one
Aldus." Many important additions to the collections were
made during his administration, especially the Temple
bequest of antiquities, and the Halicarnassean sculptures
discovered at Budrun by Mr C. T. Newton. Feeling the
effects of age and excessive labour, he expressed a wish to
retire in 1865, but remained some time longer in office at
the instance of the trustees. He ultimately retired in
July 1866, receiving as a special mark of distinction a
pension equal to the full amount of his salary. He took
a house in the immediate neighbourhood of his cherished
institution, and continued to interest himself actively in its
P A N — P A N
213
affairs until his death, which took place on April 8, 1879.
He had been created a K.C.B. in 1869.
Along with Panizzi's visible and palpable activity as the centre
of energy at the British Museum was another systematic activity
no less engrossing and important, but unacknowledged by himself
and little suspected by the world. His devotion to the Museum
was rivalled by his devotion to his country, and his personal
influence with English Liberal statesmen enabled him to promote
her cause by judicious representations at critical periods. Through
out the revolutionary movements of 1848-49, and again during
the campaign of 1859 and the subsequent transactions due to
the union of Naples to the kingdom of Upper Italy, Panizzi was
in constant communication with the Italian patriots, and their con-
iidential representative with the English ministers. He laboured,
according to circumstances, now to excite now to mitigate the
latter's jealousy of France ; now to moderate their apprehensions
of revolutionary excesses, now to secure encouragement or con
nivance for Garibaldi. The letters addressed to him by patriotic
Italians, edited by his literary executor and biographer, Mr L.
Fagan, alone compose a thick volume. His own have not as
yet been collected ; but the internal evidence of the'correspondenee
published attests the priceless value of his services, and the
boundless confidence reposed in his sagacity, disinterestedness,
and discretion. He was charitable to his exiled countrymen in
England, and, chiefly at his own expense, equipped a steamer,
which was lost at sea, to rescue the Neapolitan prisoners of state
on the island of Santo Stefano. His services were recognized by
the offer of a senatorship and of the direction of public instruction
in Italy ; but England, where he had been legally naturalized, had
become his adopted country, though in his latter years he frequently
visited the land o^f his birth.
Panizzi's merits and detects were those of a potent nature. He
\vas a man born to rule, and in a free country would probably
have devoted himself to public life and become one of the leading
statesmen of his age. His administrative faculty was extra
ordinary : to the widest grasp he united the minutest attention to
matters of detail. His will and perseverance were indomitable,
but the vehemence of his temper was mitigated by an ample
endowment of tact and circumspection. He was a powerful writer,
a persuasive speaker, and an accomplished diplomatist. He was
undoubtedly arbitrary and despotic ; in some few points upon
which he had hastily taken up wrong views, incurably prejudiced ;
in others, such as the claims of science, somewhat perversely
narrow-minded. But on the whole he was a very great man, who,
by introducing great ideas into the management of the Museum,
not only redeemed that institution from being a mere show-
place, but raised the standard of library administration all over
England. His successors may equal or surpass his achievements,
but only on condition of labouring in his spirit, a spirit which
did not exist before him. His moral character was the counter
part of his intellectual : he was warm hearted and magnani
mous, extreme in love and hate, a formidable enemy, but a devoted
friend. The list of his intimate friends is a long and brilliant
one, including Lord Palmerston, Mr Gladstone, Roscoe, Grenville,
Macaulay, Lord Langdale and his family, Rutherfurd (Lord Advo
cate), and above all, perhaps, Haywood, the translator of Kant.
His most celebrated friendship, however, is that with Prosper Meri-
mee, who, having begun by seeking to enlist his influence with the
English Government on behalf of Napoleon III., discovered a con
geniality of tastes which produced a delightful correspondence.
Merimee's part has been published by Mr Fagan ; Panizzi's
perished in the conflagration kindled by the Paris commune. The
loss is to be regretted rather on acount of the autobiographical
than the literary value of Pauizzi's share of the correspondence,
although he was an accomplished man of letters of the 18th century
pattern. But no man of ability has more completely exemplified
the apophthegm of another distinguished person, that success is
won less by ability than by character.
See L. Fagiin, Life of Sir Anthony Panizzi, '2 vols., London, 1880. (R. G.)
PANNA, or PUNXAH, a native state in Bundelkhand,
India, situated for the most part on the table-lands above
the Vindhyan Ghats, and containing much hill and jungle
land, with an area of 2568 square miles, and a population
in 1881 of 227,306. The state was formerly celebrated
for its diamond mines in the neighbourhood of Panna
town, but these appear to have become almost exhausted,
and only a small and fluctuating revenue is now derived
from them.
PANNONIA, in ancient geography, is the country
bounded N. and E. by the Danube from a point 9 or 10
miles north of Vindobona (Vienna) to Singidunum
(Belgrade) in Moesia, and conterminous westward with
Noricum and Italy and southward with Dalmatia and
Moesia Superior. It thus corresponds to the south-west of
Hungary with portions of Lower Austria, Styria, Carniola,
and Croatia and Slavonia. Partially conquered in 35
B.C. (when the town of Siscia was taken), Pannonia (but
probably only what was afterwards known as Lower
Pannonia) was made a Roman province by Tiberius in 8 A.D.
The three legions stationed in the country at the death of
Augustus (14 A.D.) rose in rebellion and were quelled
by Drusus. Somewhere between 102 and 107 Trajan
divided the province into Pannonia Superior and Pannonia
Inferior. These, according to Ptolemy, were separated by
a line from Arrabona (Raab) in the north to Servitium
(Gradisca) in the south, but at a later date the boundary
lay farther east, to the diminution of Pannonia Inferior.
The erection of two new provinces, Valeria and Savia, in
the time of Diocletian gave rise to a fourfold division;
and Constantine placed Pannonia Prima, Valeria, and
Savia under the praetorian prefect of Italy, and Pannonia
Secunda under the praetorian prefect of Illyricum. Pannonia
Prima was the north part of the old Pannonia Superior
and Savia the south part ; Pannonia Secunda lay round
about Sirmium, at the meeting of the valleys of the Save,
the Drave, and the Danube ; and Valeria (so called by
Galerius after Valeria his wife and Diocletian's daughter)
extended along the Danube from Altinum (Mohacs) to
Brigetio (6-Szony). TheodosiusII. had to cede Pannonia to
the Huns, and they were followed in turn by the Ostrogoths,
the Longobards, and the Avars.
During the four hundred years of Roman occupation Pannonia
reached a considerable pitch of civilization, and a number of the
native tribes were largely Latinized. Upper Pannonia contained
Vindobona (Vienna), a municipium ; Carnuntuin (Petronell), which
became probably about 70 A.D. the winter quarters of the Pannonian
legions, was made a municipium by Hadrian or Antoninus Pius,
appears in the 3d century as a colonia, and has left important
epigraphic remains; Arrabona (Kaab or Gyb'r), a considerable
military station ; Brigetio (0-Szony), founded probably in the 2d
century as the seat of Legio Prima Adjutrix, and afterwards
designated municipium and colonia ; Scarabantia or Scarbantia
(Oedenburg or Soprony), a municipium of Julian origin according
to Pliny, but of yElian according to the inscriptions ; Savaria or
Sabaria (Stein am Anger or Szombathely), a purely civil municipium
founded by Claudius, and a frequent residence of the later emperors ;
Poetovio (Potobium of Ptolemy, Patavio of Itin. Anton. ; modern
Pettau), first mentioned by Tacitus (69 A.D.) as the seat of Legio
XIII. Gemina, and made a colonia by Trajan ; l Siscia (Sziszek),
formerly known as Segesteca or Segeste, a place of great importance
down to the close of the empire, made a colonia probably by
Vespasian, and restored by Severus (colonia Flavia Septimia) ;
Neviodunum (Dernovo), designated municipium Flaviurn ; muni
cipium Latobicorum (Treffen) ; Emona or Hemona, 'Hfj.uva (Laibach) ;
and'Nauportus (Ober-Laibach). Lower Pannonia contained Sirmium
(Mitrovic), first mentioned in 6 A.D., made a colonia by Vespasian
or his successor, and a frequent residence of the later emperors ;
Bassiana> (near Petrovce), Cusum (Peterwardein), Malata or Bononia
(Banostor), Cibalre (Vinkovce), a municipium ; Mursa (Eszek), made
a colonia by Hadrian 13 3 A.D. ; Sopianas (Fiinfkirchen or Pecs),
seat of the pneses of Valeria, and an important place at the meeting
of five roads; Aquincum (Alt-Ofen), made a colonia by Hadrian, and
the seat of Legio II. Adjutrix ; and Cirpi (near Bogdany). See
Corp. Inscr. Lett., vol. iii. 1.
PANORAMA is the name given originally to a
pictorial representation of the whole view which is visible
from one point by an observer who in turning round
looks successively to all points of the horizon. In an
ordinary picture only a small part of the objects visible
from one point is included, far less being generally given
than the eye of the observer can take in whilst stationary.
The drawing is in this case made by projecting the
objects to be represented from the point occupied by
the eye on a plane. If a greater part of a landscape has
to be represented, it becomes more convenient for the
artist to suppose himself surrounded by a cylindrical
surface in whose centre he stands, and to project the
1 In the 4th century it became a town of Noricum, not of Pannoiiia.
P A N — P A N
landscape from this position on the cylinder. In a :
panorama such a cylinder, originally of about 60 feet, j
but now extending to upwards of 130 feet diameter, is ;
covered with an accurate representation in colours of a
landscape, so that an observer standing in the centre of
the cylinder sees the picture like an actual landscape in
nature completely surround him in all directions. This
gives an effect of great reality to the picture, which is
skilfully aided in various ways. The observer stands on a
platform representing, say, the flat roof of a house, and
the space between this platform and the picture is
covered with real objects which gradually blend into the
picture itself. The picture is lighted from above, but a
roof is spread over the central platform so that no light but
that reflected from the picture reaches the eye. In order
to make this light appear the more brilliant, the passages
and staircase which lead the spectator to the platform are
kept nearly dark. These panoramas were invented by
Robert Barker, an Edinburgh artist, who exhibited the
first in Edinburgh in 1788, representing a view of that
city. A view of London and views of sea fights and
battles of the Napoleonic wars followed. Panoramas
gained less favour on the Continent, until after the
Franco-German war a panorama of the siege of Paris was
exhibited in Paris.
The name panorama, or panoramic view, is also given
to drawings of views from mountain peaks or other points
of view, such as are found in many hotels in the Alps,
or, on a smaller scale, in guide-books to Switzerland and
other mountainous districts. These too are drawn as if
projected on a cylinder afterwards cut open and unrolled,
The geometrical laws which guide the drawing of
panoramas follow easily from the general rules for
PROJECTION (q.v.).
PANSY (Viola sp.). This flower has been so long
cultivated that its source is a matter of uncertainty. As
we now see it, it is a purely artificial production, differing
considerably from any wild plant known. By some it is
supposed to be merely a cultivated form of Viola tricolor,
a corn-field weed, while others 'assert it to be the result of
hybridization between V. tricolor and other species such as
V. altaica, V. grandiflora, &c. As florists and gardeners
conducted, and still too often conduct, their operations
without scientific method, it is unfortunately not possible
to arrive at any definite conclusion on this point. Some
experiments of M. Carriere, however, go to show that seeds
of the wild V. tricolor will produce forms so like those of
the cultivated pansy that it is reasonable to assume that
that flower has originated from the wild plant by con
tinuous selection. Mr Darwin confesses himself to have
been foiled in the attempt to unravel the parentage of the
pansy, " and gave up the attempt as too difficult for any
one except a professed botanist." The changes that have '.
been effected from the wild type are, however, more strik
ing to the eye than really fundamental. Increase in size,
an alteration in form by virtue of which the narrow oblong
petals are converted into circular ones, and variations in
the intensity and distribution of the colour — these are the •
changes that have been wrought by continued selection,
while the more essential parts of the flower have been j
relatively unaffected. The stamens and pistil, in fact,
present the characteristics of the genus Viola. In that ;
genus the construction of the stamens and pistil is such as ;
to favour cross-fertilization, and that circumstance alone
would account for much of the variation that is observed. :
In practice it is customary to propagate by means of j
cuttings the varieties it is desired to perpetuate, while, if :
additional varieties are desired, reproduction by seed, and
careful selection of seedlings, according to the desire or ,
fancy of the cultivator, are had recourse to. Self-fertilizing ,
(cleistogamic) flowers, such as occur in various species of
violet, and in which the petals are absent or inconspicuous,
not being required for the purpose of attracting insects,
have not as yet been observed in pansies.
PANT/ENUS, head of the catechetical school at
Alexandria at the close of the 2d Christian century, is
known chiefly as having been the master of Clement, who
succeeded him. Eusebius and Jerome speak of him as
having been, originally at least, a Stoic, and as having
been sent, on account of his zeal and learning, as a
missionary to "India"- — Yemen perhaps being meant.
He was the author of commentaries on various books of
Scripture, all of which have been lost with the exception
of a few insignificant fragments. His teaching work in
Alexandria seems to have begun before 180 A.D., and it
was brought to an end by the persecution of Septimius
Severus in 202.
PANTELLARIA, PANTALARIA, or officially PASTEL-
LERIA (the ancient Cossyra or Cosyra), an island in the
Mediterranean, which, though only 45 miles from the
African coast to the south of Cape Bon, and 75 miles from
the coast of Sicily, is included in the Italian province and
circondario of Trapani. It is of volcanic origin, and its
area is estimated at 58 square miles. Its principal sum
mit reaches a height of 2-140 feet. Hot sulphur springs
occur in various places, and there is a small salt-lake of
somewhat high temperature ; but there is a lack of fresh
water. The principal town, Oppidolo or Pantellaria, on
the north-west, lies round a port protected by two redoubts
and a citadel now used as a prison. Trade is carried on
with Algeria, Tunis, and Malta, From 131 vessels (12,917
tons) in 1863 the movement of the port had by 1880 in
creased to 923 vessels (83,524 tons). In 1881 the popula
tion of the town was 3167, that of the island 7315.
The Phoenician name D3~1K, Iranim, on coins has led Rcnan to
identify the island with the Inarime of the Latin poets. The cap
ture of Cosyra by M. jEmilius and Servius Fulvius in the First
Punic War was thought worth mentioning in the triumphal
fasti, though the Carthaginians recovered possession in the fol
lowing year. In modern times the island has formed a princi
pality in the hands of the Requesens family. The bastard Italian
spoken by the inhabitants shows Arabic influence.
PANTHEISM. See THEISM.
PANTHER. See LEOPARD.
PANTOGRAPH is an instrument for making a reduced,
an enlarged, or an exact copy of a plane figure. One of
the simplest forms is represented in fig. 1. Four links of
wood or metal are jointed together so as to form a
parallelogram ABCS. On two sides BA and BC produced
points P and P' are taken in a line with S, so that the
triangles PSA and SP'C are similar, as the sides of the
T ~ B O'
Fig. 1. Fig- 2.
one are parallel to those of the other. Hence SA AP =
P'C/CS. Now the parallelogram ABCS is movable,
its angles changing Avhilst its sides remain unaltered. The
above ratio will therefore remain constant, and therefore
again the points PSP' will always remain in a line. At
the same time the ratio PS/SP' does not change, as it
equals the ratio PA/AB. If then the point S be kept
P A N — P A N
215
fixed in a plane, and if P be made to describe any given
figure, the point P' will describe another figure which is
similar and similarly situated to the given one with S as
centre of similitude, the ratio of similitude being PS : SP'.
Thus if the point S be fixed at S fig. 2, and if P be made
to describe the figure ABCD, then P' will describe the
similar figure A'B'C'D'. For the geometry of figures which
are similar and similarly situated, compare " Similar
Figures " under PROJECTION.
For practical working there is at P a steel tracer having a fine
but not sharp point, and at P' a tracing pencil for drawing the
copy, or sometimes a sharp steel point for at once engraving the
copy on a plate of metal. To obtain the smooth and steady
motion of the instrument required for delicate work, a variety of
different constructions are in use under various names, but all rest
on the above principle that three points are kept in a line with
their distances in a constant ratio. It will be noticed if any three
points T, Q, Q' in a line be taken, as in fig. 1, these fulfil the con
ditions required, so that, for instance, T might be taken as the
fixed point, and Q, Q' as the tracer and pencil.
PANTOMIME is a term which has been employed in
different senses at different times in the history of the
drama. Of the Roman pantomimus, a spectacular kind of
play in which the functions of the actor were confined to
gesticulation and dancing, while occasional music was sung
by a chorus or behind the scenes, some account has been
given elsewhere (vol. vii. p. 412). To speak of the Western
drama only,»there is no intrinsic difference between the
Roman pantomimus and the modern "ballet of action,"
except that the latter is accompanied by instrumental
music only, and that the personages appearing in it are
not usually masked. The English "dumb-show," though
fulfilling a special purpose of its own, was likewise in the
true sense of the word pantomimic. On the other hand,
the modern pantomime, as the word is still used, more
especially in connexion with the English stage, signifies a
dramatic entertainment in which the action is carried on
with the help of spectacle, music, and dancing, and in
which the performance is partly carried on by certain
conventional characters, originally derived from Italian
" masked . comedy, " itself an adaptation of the fabulx
Atellanx of ancient Italy. Were it not for this addition,
it would be difficult to define modern pantomime so as
to distinguish it from the mask, and the least rational of
English dramatic species would have to be regarded as
essentially identical with another to which in its later
development our dramatic literature owes some of its
choicest fruit (see DRAMA, vol. vii.).
As a matter of course, no fixed date can be assigned to
the birth of modern pantomime. The contributory elements
which it contains had very soon in varying proportions
and manifold combinations introduced themselves into the
modern drama as it had been called into life by the
Renaissance. In Italy the transition was almost imper
ceptible from the pastoral drama to the opera ; on the
Spanish stage ballets with allegorical figures and military
spectacles were known already towards the close of the
IGth century; in France ballets were introduced in the
days of Mary de' Medici, and the popularity of the opera
was fully established in the earlier part of the reign
of Louis XIV. Meanwhile, in the previous century the
improvised Italian comedy (commedia dell' arte) had crossed
the Alps with its merry company of characters, partly
borrowed from masked comedy, though also largely
corresponding to the favourite types of regular comedy
both ancient and modern, and including Pantalone, with
Arlecchino, among other varieties of zanni.1 Readers
of Moliere are aware of the influence of the Italian
1 Whether the traditional costume of the ancient Roman mimi —
the centunculus or variegated harlequin's jacket, the shaven head, the
sooty face, and the unshod feet — had before this been known among
the provincials, may be left undecided.
players upon the progress of French comedy, and upon
the works of its incomparable master. In other coun
tries, where the favourite types of Italian popular comedy
had been less generally seen or were unknown, popular
comic figures such as the English fools and clowns, the
German Hansivurst, or the Dutch Pickelheriny, were
ready to renew themselves in any and every fashion which
preserved to them the gross salt favoured by their patrons.
Indeed in Germany, where the term pantomime was not
used, a rude form of dramatic buffoonery, corresponding to
the coarser sides of the modern English species so-called,
long flourished, and threw back for centuries the progress
of the regular drama. After being at last suppressed, it
found a commendable substitute in the modern Zaulerposse,
the more genial Vienna counterpart of the Paris f eerie.
In England, where the mask was only quite exceptionally
revived after the Restoration, the love of spectacle and
other frivolous allurements was at first mainly met by the
various forms of dramatic entertainment which went by
the name of " opera." In the preface to Albion and Albanius
(1685), Dryden gives a definition of opera which would
fairly apply to modern extravaganza, or to modern panto
mime with the harlequinade left out. Character-dancing
was, however, at the same time largely introduced into
regular comedy ; and, as the theatres vied with one another
in seeking quocunque modo to gain the favour of the public,
the English stage was fully prepared for the innovation
which awaited it. Curiously enough, the long-lived but
cumbrous growth called pantomime in England owes its
immediate origin to the beginnings of a dramatic species
which has artistically furnished congenial delight to nearly
two centuries of Frenchmen. Of the early history of
vaudeville it must here suffice to say that the unprivileged
actors at the fairs, who had borrowed some of the favourite
character-types of Italian popular comedy, after eluding
prohibitions against the use by them of dialogue and
song, were at last allowed to set up a comic opera of their
own. About the second quarter of the 18th century,
before these performers were incorporated with the Italians,
the light kind of dramatic entertainment combining
pantomime proper with dialogue and song enjoyed high
favour with the French and their visitors during this
period of peace. The vaudeville was cultivated by Le
Sage and other writers of mark, though it did not conquer
an enduring place in dramatic literature till rather later,
when it had, moreover, been completely nationalized by the
extension of the Italian types.
It was this popular species of entertainment which,
under the name of pantomime, was transplanted to England
before in France it had attained to any fixed form, or could
claim for its productions any place in dramatic literature.
Colley Gibber mentions as the first example, followed by
" that Succession of monstrous Medlies," a piece on the story
of Mars and Venus, which was still in dumb-show ; for he
describes it as "form'd into a connected Presentation of
Dances in Character, wherein the Passions were so happily
expressed, and the whole Story so intelligibly told, by a
mute Narration of Gesture only, that even thinking Spec
tators allow'd it both a pleasing and a rational Entertain
ment." There is nothing to show that Harlequin and his
companions figured in this piece. Geneste, who has no
record of it, dates the period when such entertainments
first came into vogue in England about 1723. In that
year the pantomime of Harlequin Dr Faustus had been
produced at Drury Lane, — its author being John
Thurmond, a dancing master, who afterwards (in 1727)
published a grotesque entertainment called The Miser, or
Wagner and Abericock (a copy of this is in the Dyce
Library). Hereupon, in December 1723, John Rich
(1681-1781), then lessee of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn
216
P A N — P A O
Fields, produced there as a rival pantomime The Necro
mancer, or History of Dr Faustus, no doubt, says Geneste,
"gotten up with superior splendour." He had as early as
1717 been connected with the production of a piece called
Harlequin Executed, and there seem traces of similar enter
tainments as far back as the year 1700. But it was the
inspiriting influence of French example, and the keen
rivalry between the London houses, which in 1723 really
established pantomime on the English stage. Rich was
at the time fighting a difficult battle against Drury Lane,
and his pantomimes at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and after
wards at Covent Garden, were extraordinarily successful.
He was himself an inimitable harlequin, and from
Garrick's lines in his honour it appears that his acting
consisted of " frolic gestures " without words. The
favourite Drury Lane harlequin was Pinkethman (Pope's
"poor Pinky"); readers of The Tatler (No. 188) will
remember the ironical nicety with which his merits are
weighed against those of his competitor Bullock at the
other house. Colley Gibber, when described by Pope as
" mounting the wind on grinning dragons," briskly denied
having in his own person or otherwise encouraged such
fooleries ; in his Apology, however, he enters into an
elaborate defence of himself for having allowed himself to
be forced into countenancing the "gin-shops of the stage,"
pleading that he was justified by necessity, as Henry IV.
was in changing his religion. Another butt of Pope's,
Lewis Theobald, was himself the author of more than one
pantomime ; their titles already run in the familiar fashion,
e.g., A Dramatick Entertainment, call'd Harlequin a Sorcerer,
with the loves of Pluto and Proserpine (1725 ; the "book
of the words," as it may be called, is in the Dyce
Library). In another early pantomime (also in the Dyce
Library) called Perseus and Andromeda, ivith the Rape of
Colomline, or The Flying Lovers, there are five " inter
ludes, three serious and two comic." This is precisely in
the manner of Fielding's dramatic squib against panto
mimes, Tumble-down Dick, or Phaeton in the Suds, first
acted in 1744, and ironically dedicated to "Mr John
Lun," the name that Rich chose to assume as harlequin.
It is a capital bit of burlesque, which seems to have been
directly suggested by Pritchard's Fall of Phaeton, produced
in 1736.
There seems no need to pursue further the history of
English pantomime. " Things of this nature are above
criticism," as Mr Machine the " composer " of Phaeton says
in Fielding's piece. The attempt was made more than
once to free the stage from the incubus of entertainments
to which the public persisted in flocking ; in vain Colley
Gibber at first laid down the rule of never giving a
pantomime together with a good play ; in vain his son
Theophilus after him advised the return of part of the
entrance money to those who would leave the house before
the pantomime began. " It may be questioned," says the
chronicler, " if there was a demand for the return of £'2Q
in ten yeaYs." Pantomime carried everything before it
when there were several theatres in London, and a dearth
of high dramatic talent prevailed in all ; and, allowing for
occasional counter-attractions of a not very dissimilar
nature, pantomime continued to flourish after the Licensing
Act of 1737 had restricted the number of London play
houses, and after Garrick's star had risen on the theatrical
horizon. He was himself obliged to satisfy the public
appetite, and to disoblige the admirers of his art, in defer
ence to the drama's most imperious patrons — the public at
large.
It should be noted that in France an attempt was made
by NOVERRE (q.v.) to restore pantomime proper to the stage
as an independent species, by treating mythological subjects
seriously in artificial ballets. This attempt, which of
course could not prove permanently successful, met in
England also with great applause. In an anonymous tract
of the year 1789 in the Dyce Library, attributed by Dyce
to Archdeacon Nares (the author of the Glossary}, Noverre's
pantomime or ballet Cupid and Psyche is commended as of
very extraordinary merit in the choice and execution of the
subject. It seems to have been without words. The writer
of the tract states that " very lately the serious pantomime
has made a new advance in this country, and has gained
establishment in an English theatre ; " but he leaves it an
open question whether the grand ballet of Medea and
Jason (apparently produced a few years earlier, for a
burlesque on the subject came out in 1781) was the first
complete performance of the kind produced in England.
He also notes The Death of Captain Cook, adapted from
the Parisian stage, as possessing considerable dramatic
merit, and exhibiting " a pleasing picture of savage
customs and manners." To conclude, the chief difference
between the earlier and later forms of English pantomime
seems to lie in the fact that in the earlier Harlequin
pervaded the action, appearing in the comic scenes which
alternated throughout the piece with the serious which
formed the backbone of the story. Columbine (originally
in Italian comedy Harlequin's daughter) was generally a
village maiden courted by her adventurous lover, whom
village constables pursued, thus performing the laborious
part of the policeman of the modern harlequinade. The
brilliant scenic effects were of course accumulated, instead
of upon the transformation scene, upon the last scene of
all, which in modern pantomime follows upon the shadowy
chase of the characters called the rally. The commanding
influence of the clown, to whom pantaloon is attached as
friend, flatterer, and foil, seems to be of comparatively
modern growth ; the most famous of his craft was un
doubtedly Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837), of whom Charles
Dickens in his youth edited a biography. His memory
is above all connected with the famous pantomime of
Mother Goose, produced at Covent Garden in 1806. It
boots not to enumerate favourites of later days ; the
type of Christmas pantomime cherished by a generation
now passing away has been preserved from oblivion in
Thackeray's Sketches and Travels in London. The species
still maintains its hold over sections of the grown-up
public, and, though now only cultivated in a few of the
leading London theatres, appears at Christmas 1883-84,
according to professional statistics, to have multiplied
itself in the capital alone by thirteen examples.
See Geneste, Account of the English Stage, especially vol. iii. ;
Dibdin, Complete History of the Stage, especially vols. ii., iv., anclv. ;
I Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber; Fitzgerald, Life of Garrick;
Prtilss, Dramaturgic. (A. W. W. )
PANYASIS, of Halicarnassus, a poet of the early half
of the 5th century B.C. He was a near relation of the
historian Herodotus. According to some his father
Polyarchus was brother of Herodotus's father Lyxes;
| according to others, Rhceo or Dryo, the mother of
Herodotus, was a sister of Panyasis. He led a revival of
the old Ionian epic poetry, and his younger contemporary
Antimachus continued the movement. Only insignificant
fragments of his works are preserved. He wrote a llern-
cleas, in which the whole of the Heracles-myths were
embraced in 1 4 books (9000 lines), and another poem in
elegiacs, 7000 lines long, called 'Iwvi/ca, in which he related
the story of the Ionic settlements in Asia Minor and the
exploits of Codrus and Neleus. Though not much thought
of in his own time, he is praised by later critics. He was
slain by Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus.
PAOLI, PASQUALE DE (1725-1807), generalissimo of
Corsica, was the son of Giacinto Paoli, a Corsican patriot,
and his mother was descended from the old family of the
P A 0 — P A P
Caporali. He was born in the village of La Stretta in the
district of Rostino, 25th April 1725. After the hopes of
the Corsicans were overthrown by the French in 1738, he
accompanied his father to Naples, where he entered the
military college. In an expedition against Calabrian
bandits he greatly distinguished himself, and when in
1755 he returned to Corsica he had acquired so high a
reputation that he was chosen generalissimo in a full
assembly of the people. His refusal to accept Matra
for a colleague, led the latter to take advantage of
the dissatisfaction of some influential Corsicans to stir up
an insurrection. With the aid of the Genoese, Matra
for a time made a formidable stand, but after his death in
battle Paoli turned his arms against the Genoese with
such success that in 1761 they proposed terms of peace.
As Paoli would consent to nothing less than the com
plete independence of Corsica, the Genoese, despairing of
their ability to establish a hold on the island, sold
it in 1768 to France. The French effected a landing in
1769 with 22,000 men under Count Vaux, and after
a stubborn and prolonged resistance Paoli was totally
defeated, and, barely succeeding in cutting his way through
the enemy, escaped on board an English frigate and went
to England. His rule in Corsica, notwithstanding the
distraction of the continual struggle to maintain its
independence, had been marked by the introduction of
many important reforms, such as the remodelling of the
Jaws, the establishment of permanent courts, the regulation
of the coinage, and the furtherance of various measures
for the encouragement of agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce. At the instance of the duke of Grafton, prime
minister of England, Paoli received from the English
Government a pension of £1 200 a year. He came to be on
intimate terms with Dr Samuel Johnson, to whom he was
introduced by Boswell. When, after the French Revolu
tion, Corsica was numbered among the departments of
France, Paoli agreed to return to Corsica as lieutenant-
general and governor of the department ; but, the excesses
of the Convention having alienated his sympathies, he,
with the help of Great Britain, organized a revolt, and in
1793 was elected generalissimo and president of the
council of government at Corte. Despairing, however, of
maintaining the independence of the island, he in 1795
agreed to its union with Great Britain, and on George III.
being declared king returned to England, He died near
London in February 1807. Clemen te, elder brother of
Pasquale Paoli, also distinguished himself in the struggles
of Corsica against the Genoese. Subsequently he retired
to a convent at Vallambrosa, but at the end of twenty
years returned to Corsica, and died there in 1793.
See Boswell's Life of Johnson and his Account of Corsica, 1768;
Review of the Conduct of Pascal Paoli, 1770 ; Lives of Paoli, by
Arrighi (Paris, 1843), Klose (Brunswick, 1853), Bartoli (Ajaccio,
1867), and Oria (Genoa, 1869).
PAOLO, FRA. See SARPI.
PAOLO VERONESE. See VERONESE.
PAPA, a large country-town of Hungary, in the district
of Veszprim, lies on the Raab and Steinamanger Railway,
75 miles to the west of Pesth. It is the seat of a fine
chateau and park of the Eszterhazy family, by whom the
handsome Roman Catholic church, lined with red marble,
was built in 1778. It also contains a Protestant church, a
good Protestant school established about 1530, a Roman
Catholic gymnasium, and three convents. A quaint one-
storied edifice is shown as the house of Matthew Corvinus.
The chief industries are weaving, wine-growing, and the
manufacture of paper and stoneware. The population in
1880 was 14,654.
PAPACY. See POPE and POPEDOM.
PAPAL STATES. See STATES OF THE CHURCH.
P A P E E
r 1 1 HE origin and early history of paper as a writing
I material are involved in much obscurity. The art
of making it from fibrous matter, and, among other sub
stances, from the wool of the cotton plant, reduced to a pulp,
appears to have been practised by the Chinese at a very
distant period. Different writers have traced it back to the
2d century B.C. But however remote its age may have
been in eastern Asia, cotton paper first became available
for the rest of the world at the beginning of the 8th century,
when the Arabs captured Samarkand (704 A.D.), and there
learnt its use. The manufacture was taken up by them in
that city, and rapidly spread through all parts of their
empire. From the large quantities which were produced
at Damascus, it obtained one of the titles, charta Damascena,
by which it was known in the Middle Ages. The extent
to which it Avas adopted for literary purposes is proved by
the comparatively large number of early Arabic MSS. on
paper which have come down to us, dating from the 9th
century.1
1 A few of tlie earliest dated examples may be instanced. The Gharlbu
'l-Ifadith, a treatise on the rare and curious words in the sayings of
Mohammed and his companions, written in the year 866, is probably
one of the oldest paper MSS. in existence (Pal. Soc., Orient. Ser. ,
pi. 6). It is preserved in the University Library of Leyden. A
treatise by an Arabian physician on the nourishment of the different
members of the body, of the year 960, is the oldest dated Arabic MS.
on paper in the British Museum (Or. MS. 2600 ; Pal. Soc., pi.
96). The Bodleian Library possesses a MS. of the Dlivdnu 'l-Adab,
a grammatical work of 974 A.D. , of particular interest as having been
written at Samarkand on paper presumably made at that seat of the
first Arab manufacture (Pal. Soc., pi. 60). Other early examples
are a volume of poems written at Baghdad, 990 A.D. , now at Leipsic,
and the Gospel of St Luke, 993 A.D., in the Vatican Library (Pal.
With regard to the introduction of paper into Europe, it
naturally first made its appearance in those countries more
immediately in contact with the Oriental world. Besides
receiving the names of charta and papyrus, transferred to
it from the Egyptian writing material manufactured from
the papyrus plant (see PAPYRUS), cotton paper was known
in the Middle Ages as charta bombycina, gossypina, cuttunea,
.rylina, Damascena, and serica. The last title seems to
have been derived from its glossy and silken appearance.
It was probably first brought into Greece through trade
with Asia, and from thence transmitted to neighbouring-
countries. Theophilus presbyter, writing in the 12th
century (Schedula diversarum artium, i. 23), refers to it
under the name of Greek parchment — " tolle pergamenam
Grascam, quas fit ex lana ligni." In the 10th century
bambacinum was used at Rome. There is also a record of
the use of paper by the empress Irene at the end of the
11 th or beginning of the 12th century, in her rules for
the nuns of Constantinople. It does not appear, however,
to have been very extensively used in Greece before the
middle of the 13th century, for, with one doubtful excep
tion, there are no extant Greek MSS. on paper which bear
date prior to that period.
The manufacture of paper in Europe was first established
by the Moors in Spain, the headquarters of the industry
being Xativa, Valencia, and Toledo. But on the fall of
Soc., pis. 7, 21). In the great collection of Syriac MSS. which were
obtained from the Nitrian desert in Egypt, and are now in the British
Museum, there are many volumes written on cotton paper of the
10th century. The two oldest dated examples, however, are not
earlier than 1075 and 1084 A.D.
XVIII. — 28
218
P A P E It
the Moorish power the manufacture, passing into the hands
of the less skilled Christians, declined in the quality of its
production. In Italy also the art of paper-making was no
doubt in the first place established through the Arab
occupation of Sicily. But the paper which was made both
there and in Spain, it must be remembered, was in the
first instance cotton paper. In the laws of Alphonso of
1263 ft is referred to as cloth parchment, a term which
well describes the thick material made from cotton. As,
however, the industry was pushed north, into districts
where cotton was not to be found as a natural growth or
was not imported, other substances had to be pressed into
the service. Hence by degrees arose the practice of mixing
rags, in the first instance no doubt of woollen fabrics, with
the raw material. The gradual substitution of linen, in
countries where it was more abundant or where it was the
only suitable material at hand, was a natural step in the
progress of the manufacture.
The first mention of rag paper occurs in the tract of
Peter, abbot of Cluny (1122-50 A.D.), adversm Jud&os,
cap. 5, where, among the various kinds of books, he refers
to such as are written on material made " ex rasuris
veterum pannorum." At this early period woollen cloth
is probably intended. Linen paper was first made in the
1 4th century ; but in the first half of that century it is
probable that woollen fabrics still entered largely into the
component parts of the pulp — a fact which, however, can
only be proved in individual instances by aid of the micro
scope. This being the case, it is of less practical advantage
to try to. ascertain an exact date for the first use of linen
in paper-making than to define the line of demarcation
between the two classes of paper, viz., that made in the
Oriental fashion without water-marks, and that in which
these marks are seen. The period when this latter kind
of paper came into existence lies in the first years of the
14th century, when paper-making at length became a
veritable European industry. Cotton paper of the Oriental
pattern, it is true, is still found here and there in use some
time after the manufacture of the water-marked material
had begun, but the instances which have survived are few
and are mostly confined to the south of Europe.
A few words may here be said respecting the extant
examples of cotton paper MSS. written in European
countries. Several which have been quoted by former
writers as early instances have proved, on more recent
examination, to be nothing but vellum. The anci&rit
fragments of the Gospel of St Mark, preserved at Venice,
which were stated by Maffei to be of cotton paper, by
Montfaucon of papyrus, and by the Benedictines of bark,
are in fact written on skin. The oldest document on cotton
paper is a deed of King Roger of Sicily, of the year 1102;
and there are others of Sicilian kings, of the 12th century.
The oldest known imperial deed on the same material is
a charter of Frederick II. to the nuns of Goess in Styria,
of the year 1228, now at Vienna. In 1231, however, the
same emperor forbade further use of paper for official
documents, which were in future to be inscribed on vellum.
In Venice the Liber plegiorum, the entries in which begin
with the year 1223; is made of rough cotton paper; and
similarly the registers of the Council of Ten, beginning in
1325, and the register of the emperor Henry VII. (1308-
13) preserved at Turin, are also written on a like sub
stance. In the British Museum there is an older example
in a MS. (Arundel 268) which contains some astronomical
treatises written on an excellent paper in an Italian hand
of the first half of the 13th century. The letters addressed
from Castile to the English king, Edward I., in 1279 and
following years (Pauli in Beridd. Berl. A/cad., 1854) are
instances of Spanish-made paper ; and other specimens in
existence prove that in this latter country a rough kind of
charta bombycina was manufactured to a comparatively
late date.
In Italy the first place which appears to have become
a great centre of the paper-making industry was Fabriano
in the marquisate of Ancona, which rose into importance
on the decline of the manufacture in Spain. The jurist
Bartolo, in his treatise De insigniis et armis, refers to the
excellent paper made there in the middle of the 14th
century, an encomium which will be supported by those
who have had occasion to examine the extant MSS. of
Italian paper of that period, which even now excites
admiration for its good quality. In 1340 a factory was
established at Padua ; another arose later at Treviso ; and
others followed in the territories of Florence, Bologna,
Parma, Milan, Venice, and other districts. From the line
of factories of northern Italy the wants of southern
Germany were supplied as late as the 15th century. As
an instance the case of Gorlitz has been cited, which drew
its paper from Milan and Venice for the half century
between 1376 and 1426. But in Germany also factories
were rapidly founded. The earliest are said to have
been set up between Cologne and Mainz, and in Mainz
itself about the year 1320. At Nuremberg Ulman Stromer
established a mill in 1390, with the aid of Italian
workmen. Other places of early manufacture were
Eatisbon and Augsburg. Western Germany, as well as
the Netherlands and England, is said to have obtained
paper at first from France and Burgundy through the
markets of Bruges, Antwerp, and Cologne. France owed
the establishment of her first paper-mills to Spain, whence
we are told the art of paper-making was introduced, as
early as the year 1189, into the district of Hi'rault. The
French paper of this early date was of course of cotton. At
a later period, in 1406, among the accounts of the church
of Troyes, such mills appear as molins a toile. The develop
ment of the trade in France must have been very rapid,
for, as we have already noticed, that country was soon in
a position to supply her neighbours as well as to provide
for her own wants. And with the progress of manufac
ture in France that of the Netherlands also grew.
A study of the various water-marks has yielded some
results in tracing the different channels in which the paper
trade of different countries flowed ; but a thorough and
systematic collection and classification of them has yet to
be accomplished. Experience also of the different kinds
of paper, and a knowledge of the water-marks, aid the
student in fixing nearly exact periods to undated docu
ments. Rag paper of the 14th century may generally be
recognized by its firm texture, its stoutness, and the large
size of its wires. The water-marks are usually simple in
design ; and, being the result of the impress of thick
wires, they are therefore strongly marked. In the course
of the 15th century the texture gradually becomes finer
and the water-marks more elaborate. While the old sub
jects of the latter are still continued in use, they are more
neatly outlined, and, particularly in Italian paper, they are
frequently enclosed in circles. The practice of inserting
the full name of the maker in the water-mark came into
fashion in the course of the 16th century. The variety
of subjects of water-marks is most extensive. Animals,
birds, fishes, heads, flowers, domestic and warlike imple
ments, armorial bearings, &c., are found from the earliest
times. Some of these, such as armorial bearings, and
national, provincial, or personal cognizances, as the imperial
crown, the crossed keys, or the cardinal's hat, can be
attributed to particular countries or districts ; and the
wide dissemination of the paper bearing these marks in
different countries serves to prove how large and inter
national was the paper trade in the 14th and 15th
centuries.
P A P E K
In the second half of the 14th century the use of paper
for all literary purposes had become well established in all
western Europe; and in the course of the 15th century
it gradually superseded vellum. In MSS. of this latter
period it is not unusual to find a mixture of vellum and
paper, a vellum sheet forming the outside leaves of a quire
while the rest are of paper.
With regard to the early use of paper in England, there
is evidence that quite at the beginning of the 14th century
it was a not uncommon material, particularly for registers
and accounts. Under the year 1310, the records of
Merton College, Oxford, show that paper was purchased
" pro registro, " which Prof. Rogers (Hist. Ayricul. and
Prices, i. p. 644) is of opinion was probably cotton paper
of the same character as that of the Bordeaux customs
register in the Public Record Office, which date from the
first year of Edward II. The college register referred to,
which was probably used for entering the books that the
fellows borrowed from the library, has perished. There
is, however, in the British Museum a paper MS. (Add.
31,223), written in England, of even earlier date than the
one recorded in the Merton archives. This is a register
of the hustings court of Lyme Regis, the entries in which
commence in the year 1309. The material is cotton paper,
with apparently an admixture of rag, the threads of
which are^ visible, imbedded in the pulp— similar to the
kind which was used in Spain. It may indeed have been
imported direct from that country or from Bordeaux ; and
a seaport town on the south coast of England is exactly
the place where such early relics might be looked for.
Professor Rogers also mentions an early specimen of paper
made from rag in the archives of Merton College, on which
is written a bill of the year 1332; and some leaves of
water-marked paper of 1333 exist in the Harleian collec
tion. Of a date only a few years later is the first of the
registers of the King's Hall at Cambridge, a series of
which, on paper, are preserved in the library of Trinity
College. Of the middle of the 14th century also are
many of the municipal books and records still to be found
among the archives of ancient cities and towns. The
knowledge, however, which we have of the history of paper-
making in England is extremely scanty. The first maker
whose name is known is one Tate, who is said to have set
up a mill in Hertford early in the 16th century; and a
German named Spielman had works at Dartford in 1588.
But it is incredible that no paper was made in the country
before the time of the Tudors. No doubt at first it was
imported. But the comparatively cheap rates at which it
was sold in the 15th century in inland toAvns, as well as in
those nearer the coast, seem to afford ground for assum
ing that there was at that time a native industry in this
commodity, and that it was not altogether imported.
As far as the prices have been observed at which different
kinds of paper were sold in England in the early period
of its introduction, it has been found that in 1355-56 the
price of a quire of small folio paper Avas 5d.3 both in
Oxford and London. In the 15th century the average
price seems to have ranged from 3d. to 4d. for the quire,
and from 3s. 4d. to 4s. for the ream. At the beginning
of the 16th century the price fell to 2d. or 3d. the quire,
and to 3s. or 3s. 6d. the ream ; but in the second half of
the century, owing to the debasement of the coinage, it
rose, in common with all other commodities, to nearly 4d.
the quire, and to rather more than 5s. the ream. The
relatively higher price of the ream in this last period, as
compared with that of the quire, seems to imply a more
extensive use of the material which enabled the trader to
dispose of broken bulk more quickly than formerly, and
so to sell by the quire at a comparatively cheap rate.
Brown paper appears in entries of 1570-71, and was
sold in bundles at 2s. to 2s. 4d. Blotting paper is appar
ently of even earlier date, being mentioned under the year
1465. It was a coarse, grey, unsized paper, fragments of
which have been found among the leaves of 15th century
accounts, where it had been left after being used for blotting.
See Gcrardi Meerman ct doctorum viroi'um ad eum Epistolse atquc
Observationes de Charts vulgaris sen lincae oriyinc, Hague, 1767 ;
G. F. "Welirs, Vom Papier, Halle, 1789 ; M. Koops, Historical
Account of the substances used to describe events and to convey idea*,
from the earliest date to the Invention of Paper (London, 1801), in
great part repeating Welirs — the book is printed on paper manufac
tured from straAV ; Erscli and Gruber, Allgem. Encyklopadie, art.
"Papier," Leipsic, 1838; Sotzmann, "Ueber die altere Papier-
fabrikation," in Scrapeum, Leipsic, 1846 ; "W. Wattenbach, Das
Schriftivescn im Mittclaltcr, Leipsic, 1875, pp. 114-123 ; J. E. T.
Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Oxford,
1866-82, passim. (E. M. T.)
MANUFACTURE OF PAPER.
Paper is a thin tissue composed of vegetable fibres (rarely
of Avoollen fibres), resulting from their deposition on wire-
cloth Avhile suspended in \vater. At first it was entirely
made by hand, but the invention in 1798 of the paper
machine by Louis Robert, a clerk in the employment of
Messrs Didot, of the celebrated Essonnes paper-mills, near
Paris, gave a new impetus to the industry. The invention
Avas introduced into England through the agency of Messrs
Fourdrinier, Avho employed Bryan Donkin, the engineer, to
assist in working it out ; but, although they expended a
large fortune in developing the invention, their enterprise
resulted only in bankruptcy. Their first paper machine
Avas erected in 1804 at Frogmoor Mill, near Boxmoor,
Herts. In the United States it was not till 1820 that
such a machine Avas started for the first time by Messrs T.
Gilpin & Co., on the BrandyAvine. Since that period,
machine-made paper has gradually supplanted that made
by hand for all except special purposes, and has been
brought to a high state of perfection by subsequent* im
provements in the machinery.
Paper may be divided into three main classes : — Avriting
paper, printing paper, and AATapping paper. The staple of
Avhich writing and printing paper is made is, in Britain,
rags and esparto ; in America a considerable quantity of
Avood pulp is used. The staple of Avrapping papers is old
ropes and in some cases jute. The best AA^riting and print
ing papers are still made, Avhether by hand or by machine,
from rags.
Manufacture of Paper from Rags. — The first process is
the cutting and sorting of the rags, which is invariably
done by Avomen. The rag-cutter stands behind a knife
about 14 inches long set in an oblique position in a table
before her; the rags are cut into pieces about the size of
the hand, and the linen pieces separated from the cotton,
the various qualities being put into different receptacles.
After being cut they are subjected to the action of the
AvilloAv and duster, which knocks the loose dust off. The
AvilloAv is composed of two conical cylinders, inside of
Avhich iron spikes project. In the interior of these
cylinders an iron drum, also provided Avith spikes, revolves
at about 300 revolutions per minute. The rags are fed
into the first cylinder by a travelling felt, and dashed
through from the one to the other by the action of the
revolving drum, and from the second cylinder throAvn for-
Avard into the duster. This consists of a large rectangular
wooden case, in the interior of Avhich an iron cage, covered
with coarse wirecloth, revolves slowly at right angles to
the AvilloAv. This cage is set at a slight incline, so that the
rags AA'hich are thrown into it by the AvilloAv at one end
slowly pass to the other, Avhile the dust, &c., Avhich has
been disengaged by the action of the Avillow, falls through
the Avirecloth, and the dusted rags pass out at the other
end, IIOAV ready for the boiler. The boiler is of different
220
PAPER
forms, revolving or stationary. The most usual is
stationary. It consists of an upright cylinder of cast or
malleable iron (fig. 1), about 8 feet in diameter by 6 feet
deep, and fitted with a perforated false bottom, on which
the rags rest. The boiler is further fitted with a filling door
A at the top, and an emptying door B below. After being
FIG. 1. — Section of Rag- Boiler.
charged with rags, it is filled to about half its height with
water ; a sufficient quantity of caustic soda, varying accord
ing to the nature of the rags, is introduced ; the door is then
shut, and steam is admitted by a small pipe C which is con
tained in, and communicates at the foot with, a larger
pipe D and causes a constant circulation of hot liquid, which
is dispersed all over the boiler by striking against a hood E
at the top. This is technically known as the "vomit."
The rags are boiled in this solution of caustic soda for ten to
twelve hours, when the steam is turned off and the liquid'is
discharged by the pipe G. After a subsequent washing
with cold water in the boiler the lower door is opened and
the boiled rags withdrawn into small trucks, and picked
by women to remove impurities, such as india-rubber, &c.
The rags are now submitted to the action of the break
ing engine (figs. 2 and 3). This is an oblong trough with
FIG. 2. — Breaking Engine —Vertical Section.
lounded ends, and may be about 6 feet wide and 12 feet
long by about 2 feet in depth, but the size varies greatly.
It is partially divided in the centre by the midfeather A,
and provided with a heavy iron roll B, fitted with knives
technically called bars, which revolves at a high speed on
the plate C, also furnished with knives. The engine is
half filled with water and packed with the boiled rags.
Water is introduced by the valve D, and is withdrawn by
the washer E. The washer consists of a drum about 3
feet in diameter and 18 inches broad, covered with fine
wire-cloth, and fitted inside with buckets shown by the
dotted lines G. It is partially immersed in the pulp, and
as it revolves discharges the water by the centre down the
FIG. 3. — Breaking Engine — Horizontal Section.
shoot H. The rags are allowed to remain in this washer,
according to their cleanness, from one to two hours, and
then the solution of chloride of lime by which they are
bleached is introduced. After running mixed with this in
the engine from one to two hours, the pulp is run down
into large stone chests, where it is allowed to lie for
twenty-four hours till it becomes perfectly white ; it is
then drained and pressed to remove the remaining bleach
ing solution as far as possible.
The bleached pulp is now removed to the beating engine,
which differs but little from the washing engine except that
in the roll of the beater there are three bars to the bunch,
while in the washer there are only two to the bunch.
Here the pulp is furnished in the engine with water as
before, and washed till it is free from chloride of lime, or
this may be neutralized by the vise of a sulphite or
hyposulphite of soda. The pulp is then submitted to the
action of the beater roll for from four to six hours, the
circular knives being allowed to revolve very near the
plate, so as to draw out the fibres into a very fine state,
while preserving their strength as far as possible. While
the operation of " beating " is being proceeded with, the
loading material, consisting of china clay or pearl white,
is added. This is by no means to be viewed entirely as
an adulteration, as it too generally is. No doubt to a
certain extent it weakens the paper, but it is not added in
hand-made papers, in which great strength is required. In
writing papers for ordinary purposes, however, and in
printing papers, the addition of mineral matter in modera
tion is of positive advantage, as it closes up the pores of
the fibres and enables the paper to take a much better
finish than it would otherwise do.
The next process is the sizing, to which all papers for
writing and most of those for printing purposes are sub
jected. Sizing consists in the deposition on the fibres of
a substance which is comparatively waterproof, and for
engine sizing a mixture of resin soap treated with alum is
employed. The resin soap is formed by dissolving resin
in carbonate or caustic soda, allowing the mixture to cool,
when the soap floats on the surface, and the mother-liquor,
containing the excess of alkali, is run off. It is of con
siderable importance to get rid of this mother-liquor before
using the soap, as it is of no use, and takes alum to
neutralize it. The soap is now dissolved in water, and, in
many mills where starch is used for stiffening purposes,
PAPER
221
mixed with the starch. This mixture is put into the
beating engine in which the pulp is circulating, and when
it is thoroughly incorporated with the pulp the solution of
alum or sulphate of alumina is added. This forms a finely
divided precipitate of resinate of alumina on the fibres.
The pulp, after the sizing material is thoroughly incorpor
ated with it, is now ready for colouring. Even to produce
a pure white, colour must be added to the pulp. In
general, for white papers, either cochineal and ultramarine
blue are employed, or magenta and aniline blue. In all
cases where permanence of colour is of importance, the
former are to be preferred. For blue papers, ultramarine
is generally used. Tinted papers are, as a rule, pro
duced by the use of aniline colours. Coloured papers are
produced by the use of various pigments.
The operation of beating the pulp is of the greatest
importance, and too much care cannot be devoted to it.
In America, where the mills are generally driven by
water-power, the pulp is kept for a much longer time in
the engine than in Great
Britain, and this accounts to
a considerable extent for the superiority of the American
papers.1
After the pulp is prepared in the beating engine it is
run into the chests of the paper machine (figs. 4 and 5).
These chests A are fitted with agitators, and from them
the pulp is pumped into the supply-box B, which com
municates with the sand-traps C by means of a regulating
cock. Along with the pulp a certain amount of water is
allowed to flow into the sand-trap, so as to thin it down
sufficiently; in most cases the save-all water (see below) is
employed for this purpose. The pulp flows backward and
forward here in a shallow stream, so as to deposit any
heavy impurities which it may contain. After issuing from
the sand-traps it is delivered on to the strainers, which
are made in many varieties, the most common being
the revolving strainer D, shown on the plan. This is a
rectangular trough into which the pulp flows. In the
centre of this the strainer, rectangular in form, composed
of four sets of brass plates bolted to a frame in which very
fine slits are cut, revolves slowly. The size of this is
about 7 feet by 2 feet. The pulp is made to flow from the
FIG. 4. — Paper Machine — Vertical Section.
outside through the slits to the inside of the strainer by
means of suction produced by bellows or disks in the
interior of the plates, and is discharged by the pipe E into
a box from which it flows on to the apron F, which is
placed on the top of the breast roll. The apron is made
of a piece of moleskin or india-rubber cloth the fall width
of the wire, and prevents the pulp from running away
down the back of the wire. It covers the wire for 12 to
18 inches at the beginning. The wire consists of an end
less sheet of fine wirecloth (about 66 wires per square
inch) which stretches from the breast roll G to the couch
roll H, returning underneath by the leading rolls I.
Underneath the first portion of the wire are the tube rolls
K, and farther along are the vacuum boxes L, L. These
communicate by pipes with the vacuum pumps M. As
the wire revolves in the direction shown in fig. 4 the
pulp is allowed to flow from the strainer and spreads itself
out in a thin film, covering the surface of the wirecloth.
It is prevented from flowing over the sides of the wire by
the deckle straps, endless india-rubber straps N. Part of
the water runs off through the meshes of the wire by
gravitation, and the rest is removed through the suction
boxes L by the vacuum pumps M. Stretching along
under the wire from the breast roll to the first suction box
is the save-all, a shallow trough into which the water
which passes through the wire falls. The contents of this
box flow into a cistern at the back of the machine into
which the vacuum pumps also discharge their water ; and
from this cistern the water is pumped into a service box
and used instead of fresh water for mixing with the pulp
as it flows on to the sand-trap. There is a considerable
saving in this, as the fine fibre, size, &c., contained by
the water passing through the wire is all in this way
1 Another form of beating engine which is finding great favour
i is the Umpherston engine, which differs little from the ordinary
: beater, except in having, instead of a midfeather, a passage under
the roll by which the pulp circulates. It is claimed for it that one
; capable of preparing 10 cwts. of paper does not occupy more floor
area than an ordinary beater for 3 cwts. The pulp is also said to
travel more freely, and does not lodge about the corners as in the
• ordinary engine.
222
recovered. Between the first and second suction box the
dandy roll, a skeleton roll covered with wirecloth, revolves
on the top of the pulp. By means of raised wires on it in
the form desired the paper is rendered thinner at these
parts and a water-mark is produced. In order to secure
regularity in the layer of pulp, as also to increase the
strength of the paper, a lateral motion is communicated
to the wire by the shake O. The half-dried pulp now
passes between the couch rolls, where it receives the first
pressure. The under couch roll generally consists of a
brass shell fixed by iron rings to a spindle ; the top roll
may be either similar to the lower one or made of
mahogany, and is always covered with a felt jacket. Pres
sure is applied to the ends of the top roll by means of
levers and weights. From these the sheet of partially
dried pulp is carried by endless felts through the first and
second press rolls R and S. The press rolls are either
made of solid iron, or may with advantage have a brass
shell shrunk on. Having been freed by these from a
great part of its water, the web of paper is carried over
the steam-heated cylinders T, T. The first two cylinders
are generally bare, and the heat applied to these is gentle ;
in the case of the others, the paper is kept close to the
cylinder by means of endless felts. The web then passes
through the intermediate rolls U in a half-dried state,
over three more cylinders and the calenders Y. These are
heavy iron rollers heated by steam internally and polished
externally. Their object is to communicate a gloss to the
web of paper. It is then wound up on the reel W, and
these reels when filled with paper are removed as required
FIG. 5. — Paper Machine — Horizontal Section.
to the paper cutter. In cases where the paper is to be sized
with gelatin after leaving the machine, it is wound up rough.
A modification of the Fourdrinier machine, suitable for
the manufacture of .thin papers and those which only
require to be smooth on one side, is shown in fig. 6. It
consists of an ordinary paper machine as far as the couch
rolls A, A. From these the paper is carried backwards
on the top of the endless felt B till it comes in contact
with the large steam-heated cylinder C at d. Here it
adheres to the cylinder, being pressed against it at the
same time by the press roll E. The paper then continues
round the surface of the cylinder, and is wound up dry on
reels at G. The felt washer H is a box filled with water
through which the felt passes as it travels. After this the
paper is cut or glazed in the usual way.
At this stage papers which require to be hard-sized,
principally the better sorts of w-riting papers, are sized
with gelatin or " tub-sized. " This is done occasionally
by passing the sheets separately through a trough contain
ing a strong solution of gelatin, and afterwards hanging
them up to dry in the same way as hand-made papers, but
in general the paper is sized and dried in the web after
leaving the paper machine. For this purpose a sizing and
drying machine is used (fig. 7). The web of paper to be
sized is shown at A. From this it is passed through a
trough B containing a strong solution of gelatin into which
a certain amount of alum is introduced ; after passing
through this by means of the size rolls C, C, it is passed
through the press rolls D, which squeeze out the super
fluous size from it, and rewound on a reel at E to allow
223
the size time to set. The web is then transferred to the
drying machine at G, and passed over a series of spar
drains H, H at a slow speed. These drums are fitted
round their circumference with wooden spars I on which the
paper rests, while a current of heated air from pipes under
neath ascends through them and is driven against the inner
surface of the paper by the fanners K, K, which revolve
at a high speed. The great thing to be studied in this
operation is to keep as low a temperature as possible, not
above 80° Fahr. There may be any number of these
drums ; the larger the number the lower the temperature
at which the paper can br dried. In some mills as many
FIG. 6. — Single- Cylinder Machine.
as two hundred of them go to a drier. After being wound
up at the end of the drier the paper is ready for cutting in
the ordinary way.
The ordinary paper cutter (fig. 8) cuts from six to eight
FIG. 7. — Sizing and Drying Machine.
webs at once. The webs to be cut may be seen on the
drawing at a, a. The webs of paper from these are led
between the leading rolls b, b through the feeding rolls
c, c. These, by means of the change pulley d, are driven
at such a speed that they feed the
paper to the revolving knife at the
exact speed necessary to give the
length of sheet required. After pass
ing the feeding rolls the paper passes
on to the slitting knives e. These are
circular revolving knives which slit
the paper into the width required.
From these the webs pass through the
drawing rolls/, /to the revolving knife
«/, which, coming down with a sheer — -r~
against the dead knife g', cuts them
crosswise into the required length of
sheet. The size of the sheet may be
made longer or shorter, by altering the
size of the expanding pulley h and the
change pulley d. After being cut, the
sheets of paper are caught by the end
less felt i and carried forward to the table I; where they
are arranged by boys.
Another form of paper cutter which is employed for
water-marked papers (see paper machine) is the single-
sheet cutter, fig 9. In this cutter only one web of paper
is cut at a time, but it can be adjusted to a much
FIG. 8.— Reel Paper Cutter.
greater degree of nicety than the revolving cutter. After
passing through the slitting knives A, which are in all
224
P A P E R
respects similar to those in the revolving cutter, the paper
is carried over the measuring drum C, which, by a crank
arrangement DE receives an oscillating motion and can be
adjusted to draw the exact quantity of paper forward for the
length of sheet required. The paper is kept fast on the
drum by the gripper rolls F, F, arranged so as to rise and fall
FIG. 9.— Single-Sheet Paper Cutter.
as the drum oscillates, while the dancing roll B keeps the
web at a uniform tension. The paper is cut into sheets by
the knife I, connected with cranks and links G, and supported
by the link rods H, H working horizontally with a swinging
motion against the dead knife K. At the same time the
clamp L holds the web in position. The sheet to be cut
may be seen hanging down at the dotted line M. The
sheets are then caught by girls and dressed up in the usual
way. This cutter requires a great deal of attention, and
is only used when extreme accuracy is required.
Calenders. — If it is desired to give the paper a higher
gloss than can be done on the calenders of the paper
machine, or where, as in the case of papers sized with
gelatin, these must be glazed- after leaving the paper
machine, it Is done by the use either of the plate or roll
FIG. 10.— Plate Calender.
calender. (1) The plate calender (fig. 10) is composed of a
framework A, in which are set two highly polished rolls of
solid iron B, B, with a space of about f inch intervening.
By means of levers and weights pressure can be applied to |
the top roll. The paper to be glazed is placed sheet by
sheet between copper or zinc plates, till a bundle consider
ably thicker than the space between the rolls is made. I
This bundle is then passed backward and forward between
the rollers, under considerable pressure, and the polished
surface of the plates communicates a gloss to the paper.
(2) In America a calender of different construction is
employed (fig. 11). In it a perpendicular series of highly-
polished iron and compressed cotton or paper rolls are
placed alternately between frames, and revolve at a high
speed. The sheets of paper are one by one introduced by
an attendant, who sits in a convenient position near the
JL,
FIG. 11.— Sheet Glazing Calender.
top of the calender, under the tapes a, which, running
against the roll A, convey the sheet to the next roll B.
After passing under the roll A, the paper has a tendency
to adhere to the metal surface; this is overcome by a
sharp-pointed knife b placed against it, so that the sheet
is again caught by the next set of tapes, and so on till it
completes its course, and comes out at the foot of the
calender. If a still higher glaze is required, the .sheets are
passed through a second time. A much larger quantity
of paper can be glazed in the same time by one of these
calenders than by the so-called plate calender, and at a
greatly smaller outlay for wages, but the surface acquired
by the paper wants the peculiar gloss communicated to it
by the latter, and for the higher grades of paper this still
retains its position in Great Britain.
After being cut, and, if necessary, calendered, the paper
is sorted, that is to say, it is examined sheet by sheet,
and all torn or soiled sheets are taken out. It is then
counted into quires and reams, each quire containing
twenty-four sheets, and each ream twenty quires.
Hand-Made Paper. — So far the preparation of pulp,
whether for paper making by hand or by machine, is iden
tical, the chief difference being that only the most expensive
drawing and writing papers are now manufactured by
hand, and for this purpose only the finest qualities of rags
are used. The process will be best understood by reference
to the drawing (fig. 12). The pulp, after being prepared in
the beating engine as above described, is run into large
chests from which the vat is supplied. Before reaching this
it is strained as on the paper machine. Hand-made paper
is made by means of a mould (tig. 13). This consists of a
framework of fine wirecloth with a " deckle " or movable
frame of wood all round it, to keep the pulp from running
off. Nearly all "hand-made papers have also a water-mark
(W. King in this instance), which is produced by wires
representing these letters being raised above the rest of the
mould. Hence the paper in these parts is thinner, and the
letters can be read on holding the sheet up to the light.
PAPER
225
The sheet of paper is formed in the following way.
The vatman, fig. 1 2, takes up enough pulp on the mould to
fill the deckle. He runs the stuff evenly over the mould
from the foreside to the back, throwing back any pulp
FIG. 13.— Mould.
proper number of sheets of paper, with a felt between each,
has been placed in the pile called a " post, " it is taken to
the press, and a great quantity of the water is pressed out,
leaving the sheets of paper sufficiently dry to be handled
by the " layer," who places them in packs, one sheet above
the other, and after being parted sheet from sheet they are
re-pressed. After this the paper is hung in a drying loft
on cow-hair ropes in spurs of three to five sheets thick
until dry. It is then sized by passing the spurs through a
strong solution of gelatin contained in a long trough. The
paper passes along on an endless felt, and is freed from
superfluous size by press rolls at the end of the trough. It
is then parted again to prevent the sheets from sticking
together, and is again dried at a temperature of 70° to 80°
Fahr. After being picked and then glazed between plates,
it is sorted and finished in the same way as other paper,
but with much greater care.
It will readily be understood that the expense of manu
facturing paper in this way is very much greater than by
machinery ; but the gain in strength, partly owing to the
time allowed to the fibres to knit together, and partly to
the free expansion permitted them in drying, still maintains
a steady demand for this class of paper, and probably 60
to 70 tons per week are made in Great Britain at present.
Fig. 12.
which may be superfluous, and then gives the mould the
" shake," & gentle shake both along and across the mould,
causing the water to run through the wirecloth while
the pulp which forms the sheet of paper stays on the top.
The vatman then brings the mould to the stay ; it is placed
by the coucher on an inclined elbow, where some more
water drains away, and he afterwards turns it over on the
felt, leaving the sheet ' of paper on the felt. When the
•TO
In America, papers of great strength are manufactured by
machinery, and not much hand-made paper is made.
Manufacture from other Substances than Rags. — Although
the better varieties of both writing and printing paper ar&
still manufactured from rags, the supply of these has been
found altogether insufficient to supply the increasing
demand for paper, and other fibres have to a great extent
been substituted for the cheaper classes of paper. First
among these is ESPARTO (q.v.).1 The treatment of esparto
does not greatly vary from that of rags. On arrival at
the mill the grass is sorted ; that is to say, it is spread out
in bunches on a table with a wire gauze cover, and these
are shaken to remove the dust, while the roots and weeds
are removed by picking. This is technically known as dry
picking. In some mills this process is done mechanically
by aid of a duster, which removes dust and other heavy
impurities from the esparto, but it must then be picked
in the wet state after boiling. The boiling is done in the
same way as rags, but with a larger proportion of caustic
soda. Mr Thomas Routledge, the introducer of esparto,
specifies 10 per cent, real caustic soda, but with improved
forms of boilers such as Roeckner's or Sinclair's, operating
at 40 to 50 lb pressure, a considerable saving on this
amount of alkali may be effected. The subsequent treat
ment of esparto is similar to that for rags ; it is again
" wet-picked " after boiling, then washed and bleached, a
much larger quantity of chloride of lime being required
than in the case of rags. It can be treated either alone
or mixed with rags, and forms a very mellow bulky paper
admirably adapted for printing purposes.
A considerable quantity of straiv is used both in Britain
and in America for paper-making. In general it is mixed
either with rags or with esparto, being of too brittle a
nature when bleached to make into paper alone. It is
generally dusted after arrival at the mill, in many cases
cut into chaff before the boiling operation, so as to allow
the soda freer access to the fibres, and boiled under high
pressure with considerable quantities of caustic soda up to
15 per cent, of real caustic. It is then washed either
separately or along with esparto, and bleached in the
ordinary way. As at present treated, the yield averaging
only 33 to 40 per cent., straw will not come into general
use, except in cases where the raw material can be bought
on unusually advantageous terms. There is no doubt that,
in this case especially, a more rational method of extracting
the cellulose than by boiling under high pressure with a
large amount of caustic soda is most desirable, for, many
of the fibres of the straw being extremely fine, these are to
a considerable extent actually dissolved by tlae soda, and,
whereas theoretically straw with 15 per cent, moisture
ought to produce 45 per cent, cellulose, by the soda treat
ment not more than 33 per cent, are obtained, where a
good white colour is desired.
The only other fibre which has seriously threatened to
compete with rags or esparto is wood. From the fact
that the supply of this raw material is apparently
inexhaustible, a great deal of attention has been paid to
methods for reducing it to a fibre capable of being made
into paper. These divide themselves into two — (1)
mechanical and (2) chemical treatment. (1) The wood
generally selected for this purpose is white pine or poplar.
It is cut into slabs of convenient size, which are then
pressed against the face of a mill-stone revolving at a
high speed, while a flow of water conveys the fibres of
wood away as they are separated. They are then sieved
according to fineness, collected, and pressed into pulp
or half stuff, which is used for admixture in inferior
papers, or even, in some cases, for making paper. By
1 The imports, which in 1863 amounted to 18,000 tons, had risen
to 100,000 tons in 1870, and in 1883 reached 206,000 tons.
XVIII. — :
226
this means of treatment, however, the wood is not split
up into its ultimate fibres, but is left with all the incrust-
ing matter attached, and the pulp and paper so obtained
are only fitted for the commonest purposes. (2) Many
efforts have been made with the view of preparing wood
chemically, so that the resulting fibre might be introduced
into fine papers, and latterly with considerable success. In
the earlier processes, patented by Houghton and Sinclair,
wood was boiled with about 20 per cent, real caustic soda
under a pressure of from 10 to 14 atmospheres. By this
means, with certain improvements in detail, dictated by
experience, so-called chemical wood pulp is prepared in
large quantities on the Continent, and is imported as pulp
into England to a considerable extent. In America this
process has been extensively adopted. While pulp of very
fair quality is prepared in this way suitable for papers
where a perfectly white colour is not required, there is no
room for doubt that the action of the caustic soda solution
at the extreme temperature which a pressure of upwards
of 10 atmospheres involves, leads to a certain extent to a
degradation and consequent weakening and browning of
the fibres, and a great deal of work has been directed to
the surmounting of this difficulty. The result has been a
series of patents, all containing the same principle, namely,
the treating the wood with a chemical agent which should
prevent oxidation and subsequent degradation of the fibres
from taking place. Such patents are those of Mitscherlich
and Francke (bisulphite of
lime), Ekman and Graham
(bisulphite of magnesia).
While these all contain a
common principle, they
differ in detail, as to
pressure, blowing off of
the sulphurous acid gas,
<tc., but they all present
a very marked resemblance
to Tilghmann's expired patent, 1866, No. 2924. The pulp
produced by all those processes is of excellent quality; and,
according to the statements of the patentees, it can be
prepared at a cost greatly lower than by the soda process.
The strength of the fibre is maintained unimpaired even
after bleaching, and white paper made solely from such
pulp is in every respect superior to that manufactured
solely from pulp prepared by boiling with caustic soda.
Dr Mitscherlich's process has been extensively adopted
in Germany, and there seems little doubt that these pro
cesses will in time supplant the use of soda in the case of
wood. The great objection to them all is that, as they
all depend on the use of bisulphite, which, being an acid
salt, cannot be worked in an iron boiler, the boiler must
l>e lined with lead ; and great difficulty has been encoun
tered in keeping the lead lining of the boiler in repair.
This is a difficulty, however, which will probably be over
come with further experience. The objection to cellulose
prepared from wood by all the acid processes is that it is
not pure, but a considerable quantity of incrusting matter
is left in the fibre, and hence the paper manufactured from
it solely is harsh in character and very transparent; to pro
cure a pure cellulose, it must be exhausted in an alkaline
solution subsequent to the treatment with acid.
The waste of jute is largely used in the manufacture of
coloured papers, but it has not hitherto been found possible
to thoroughly bleach this fibre without at the same time
destroying its strength.
A long series of experiments, with a view to the intro
duction of bamboo fibre for paper making, has been
undertaken by Mr Thomas Routledge, the well-known
introducer of esparto, who recommends the employment
of the young shoots. It may well be doubted whether
the bamboo has any chance as a competitor against the
new processes for preparing wood.
A host of other fibres have been tried from
time to time, such as dis grass from the north
coast of Africa, the leaves of the dwarf palm,
sugar-cane refuse, the stalks of the hop plant,
nettles, peat, Phormium tenax from New
Zealand, with many others (see Dr Hugo
Miiller's Pflanzenfaser}, but none with such
success as to call for notice here.
Soda Recovery. — In the preparation of esparto,
wood, and other raw material for manufacture into
FIG. 14. — Porion Evaporator.
paper, large quantities of caustic soda are employed, and, as the
resulting liquid after boiling the fibre in caustic soda solution is
strongly alkaline and dark-coloured, it is very desirable to keep it
out of the rivers. In order to effect this it is in many mills evapo
rated, and the soda it contains recovered, and, after caustici/ing,
re-used. Many forms of evaporator have been proposed, and of late
years great improvement has been made in their construction. Pro
bably the best form is the Porion evaporator (fig. 14). This consists
of an evaporating chamber A, on the floor of which a few inches of
the liquid to be evaporated rest. By the action of fanners B, B re
volving at a high speed and dipping into the liquid, it is thrown up
in a fine spray through which the heated gases pass to the chimney.
After being concentrated in the evaporating chamber the liquid ilows
into the incinerating furnaces C,C, where the remaining water is
driven off by the heat of the fire D, and the mass afterwards ignited
to drive off the carbonaceous matter. A considerable feature in this
evaporator is Menzies and Davis's patent smell chamber E, a cham
ber filled with masonry in which the strongly-smelling gases from
the incinerating furnace are allowed to remain at a red heat for a
short time. After being recovered, the soda, in the form of crude car
bonate, is lixiviated and re-causticized by boiling with milk of lime.
Sizes of Paper. — The following are the ordinary sizes : —
Writing Papers.
Book and Drawing Papers.
Printing Papers.
Cartridge Papers.
Ins.
Pott . . " 124 x 15
Ins.
Foolscap 14 x 18f
Ins.
Crown 16}x21
Ins.
Foolscap 14 xlSf
Double pott 15 x 25
Demy 15| x 20
Demy 17fx22.$
Demy 17f x 22J
Foolscap 13} x 16£
Medium 17^x22^
Medium 18} x 23
Royal 19 x 24
Double foolscap 16| x 26i
Royal 19 x 24
Royal 20 x 25
Super royal 19} x 27£
Foolscap and third 131 x 22
Super royal 21 x 27
Imperial 21 x 26
Foolscap and half 13} x 24|
Imperial 22 x 30}
Double pott 15 x 25
Elephant 23 x 28
Pinched post 14^x18^
Elephant. .. 23 x 28
Double foolscap 17 x 27
Post .. 15^x19
Double elephant . 26J x 40
Double crown 20 x 30
Double post 19 x 30J
Atlas. 26} x 34
Double demy 22£ x 35 J
Lar»e post 16£x20f
Columbier 23£x244
Double large post 20f x 33
Antiquarian. 31 x 53
Copy 16| x20
Medium 18 x 22£
P A P — P A P
227
British Paper Trade. — The comparative returns of the I the Board of Trade (Great Britain) for the years 1882 and 1883
amounts and vahies of the imports and exports published by ( are as follows : —
Article.
Imports.
Exports.
Weight.
Value.
Weight.
Value.
1882.
1883.
1882.
1883.
1882.
1883.
1882.
1883.
Writing and printing papers
Cwts.
190,089
911,458
Cwts.
209,455
952,723
£
335,621
872,590
£
344,186
902,514
Cwts.
413,645
171,302
Cwts.
445,859
152,930
£
1,003,247
301,778
£
1,026,617
258,017
Miscellaneous papers
Total of paper .
1,101,547
1,162,178
1,208,211
1,246,700
584,947
598,789
1,305,025
1,284,630
Esparto
Tons.
181,056
20,977
lt)S.
84,981,120
Tons.
206, 558
29,687
its.
80,626,560
1,282,014
301,083
821,692
1,383,021
401,615
756,616
Tons.
49,352
Cwts.
121,607
Tons.
51,019
Cwts.
123,038
526,554
1,169,592
501,035
1,175,642
Ratrs .
Woollen rags
Printed books
American Paper Trade. — At the end of 1882 there were in the
United States 1051 paper mills (1004 the previous year). Of this
number 1018 are in active operation. These mills are owned and
worked by 823 firms or establishments, an increase of 23 over the
previous year. Twenty-three mills were abandoned during 1882,
while 17 were destroyed by fire ; 36 were in course of construction,
and 68 new mills went into full work during 1882. This number
is composed of a few mills reconstructed after fire, and 39 new
establishments erected during 1882. The mills represent almost
every variety of paper and pulp, and have an estimated daily
capacity of 30€ tons. Altogether there were in 1883 44 more mills
iu operation than in 1882. At the beginning of 1884 36 new mills
were being constructed and may be expected to be at work during
the year. Every variety of paper is extensively manufactured in
the United States with the exception of hand-made, but of late
years attention has been devoted to this also, English plant and
labour having been imported for the purpose, and hand-made papers
are now regularly produced in small quantities.
Bibliograplty. — Herring, Paper and Papermaking; Piette, Manuel de la Pape-
terie, 1861 ; Droplsch, Die Paptermaichtne, 1878 ; G. Planche, L' 'Industrie de
la Papeterie, 1853; L. M tiller, Fabrikation des Papiers, 1855 ; Proteaux, On the
Manufacture of Paper and Boards, 1866; Hugo Miiller, Pflanzenfaser, 1877;
C. Hofmann, Manufacture of Paper, 1873; T. Routleclge, Bamboo considered as
a Papermaking Material, 1875 ; Paperniakers' Monthly Journal, London ; Paper
Trade Journal, New York ; Papier-Zeitung, Berlin. (R. C. M.)
PAPER HANGINGS. See MURAL DECORATION, vol.
xvii. p. 38.
PAPHLAGONIA, in ancient geography, was the name
given to a province of Asia Minor, situated on the Euxine
Sea, and adjoining Bithynia on the west and Pontus on
the east, while towards the south it was separated from
Galatia by a range of mountains which may be considered
as a prolongation to the east of the Bithynian Olympus.
According to Strabo, whose authority is generally followed
upon this point, the river Parthenius formed the western
limit of the region so-called, and it was bounded on the
east by the much more important river Halys. Although
the Paphlagonians play scarcely any part in history, they
were one of the most ancient nations of Asia Minor, as
their name appears in the Homeric catalogue of the allies of
Priam during the Trojan War (II. , ii. 851). They are after
wards mentioned by Herodotus among the races reduced
to subjection by Croesus, and they sent an important con
tingent to the army of Xerxes in 480 B.C. They seem,
however, to have enjoyed a state of at least semi-independ
ence, as Xenophon speaks of them as being governed by a
prince of their own, without any reference to the satraps
of the neighbouring parts of Asia. The rugged and
difficult nature of their country, which is described by
Xenophon as containing fertile and beautiful plains, but
traversed by lofty ranges of mountains, which could only
be crossed by narrow and difficult passes, doubtless contri
buted to this result. At a later period Paphlagonia passed
under the yoke of the Macedonian kings, and we find it
after the death of Alexander the Great assigned, together
with Cappadocia, to Eumenes. It continued, however, to
be governed by native princes until it was absorbed by the
encroaching power of the neighbouring kingdom of Pontus.
The rulers of that dynasty became masters of the greater
part of Paphlagonia as early as the reign of Mithradates
III. (302-266 B.C.), but it was not till that of Pharnaces
I. that the important city of Sinope fell into their hands
(183 B.C.). From this time the whole province was
incorporated with the kingdom of Pontus until the fall of
the great Mithradates (65 B.C.). In the settlement of Asia
which followed that event, Pompey united the coast
districts of Paphlagonia with the province of Bithynia,
but left the interior of the country under one of the native
princes, two or three of whom followed in succession until
the dynasty became extinct and the whole country was
incorporated in the Roman empire. All these petty native
rulers appear to have borne the name or surname of
Pylaemenes, as a token that they claimed descent from the
chieftain of that name who figures in the Iliad as the
leader of the Paphlagonians. Under the Roman empire
Paphlagonia, with the greater part of Pontus, was united
into one province with Bithynia, as we find to have been
the case in the time of the younger Pliny ; but the name
was still retained by geographers, though its boundaries
are not distinctly defined by Ptolemy. It reappears as a
separate province in the 5th century (Hierocles, Synecd.,
c. 33).
The ethnic relations of the Paphlagonians are very
uncertain. It seems perhaps most probable that they
belonged to the same race with the Cappadocians, who
held the adjoining province of Pontus, and who were
undoubtedly a Semitic race. Their language, however,
would appear from the testimony of Strabo to have been
distinct from that of their neighbours. Equally obscure
is the relation between the Paphlagonians and the Eneti,
or Heneti, who are mentioned in connexion with them in
the Homeric catalogue, and who were supposed in the
mythical fictions of antiquity to be the ancestors of the
Veneti, who dwelt at the head of the Adriatic. But no
trace is found in historical times of any tribe of that name
in Asia Minor.
The greater part of Paphlagonia is a rugged and
mountainous country, but it contains fertile valleys, and
produces great abundance of fruit. The mountains also
are clothed with dense forests, which are conspicuous for
the quantity of boxwood which they furnish. Hence its
coasts were from an early period occupied by Greek
colonies, among which the flourishing city of Sinope, a
colony from Miletus, founded about 630 B.C., stood pre
eminent. Amastris, a few miles east of the Parthenius,
228
P A P — P A P
became an important town under the Macedonian monarchs ;
while Amisus, a colony of Sinope, which was situated a
short distance east of the Halys, and therefore did not fall
strictly within the limits of Paphlagonia as defined by
Strabo, though often considered as belonging to that pro
vince, rose to be almost a rival of its parent city. The
other towns along the coast of the Euxine were of little
consequence, and none of those in the interior ever rose to
any importance. The most considerable were Gangra, in
ancient times the capital of the Paphlagonian kings, after
wards called Germanicopolis, and situated near the frontier
of Galatia, and Pompeiopolis, in the valley of the Amnias
(a tributary of the Halys), near which were extensive mines
of the mineral called by Strabo sandarake (red arsenic),
which was largely exported from Sinope. (E. H. B.)
PAPHOS, the name of two cities near the west coast of
Cyprus. t Old Paphos was on the river Bocarus, about 10
stadia from the coast, near the promontory Zephyrium ; it
had a harbour at the mouth of the river. The city was
distinguished by a temple of Aphrodite, to which an oracle
was attached ; the priest exercised a sort of hieratic supre
macy over the whole island. Paphos was the favourite
city of Aphrodite, who is often styled the Paphian goddess.
The grave of Aphrodite was shown in the city, and her
image in the temple was a conical stone. There is no
doubt that both the city and the cultus were of Phoenician
origin. Apollodorus says that the Syrian king Cinyras was
the founder. The place was subject to earthquakes ; it
was totally destroyed by a shock in the time of Augustus,
and, being restored by that emperor, took the name
Augusta or Se/focm;, which, however, did not displace the
old name. New Paphos was situated in a fertile plain,
about 10 miles inland from Old Paphos. There was a
great festal procession from it every year to the temple of
Aphrodite in the old city. It was a nourishing commercial
place in the time of Strabo.
PAPIAS, bishop of the Phrygian Hierapolis in the
first half of the 2d century, is mentioned by Irenseus
as "an ancient man," "the hearer of John and the com
panion of Polycarp. " According to the Ckromcon Pascale,
Papias suffered martyrdom at Pergamum in the year of
that of Polycarp at Smyrna (163 A.D., or, according to
other reckonings, 156). His name figures largely in
Biblical criticism in connexion with his work entitled
AoyiW Kvpia.Kuv e£r/y?7<rts, of which only a few small frag
ments have been preserved in the form of citations in the
writings of Irenseus, Eusebius, and later authors. See
GOSPELS, vol. x. p. 815 sq.
The fragments are collected in Routh's Eeliq. Sacr. (vol. i., 1846),
and in'Gebhard and Harnack's Pair. Apost. Opera.
PAPIER MACH6 (mashed or pulped paper) is a term
embracing numerous manufactures in which paper pulp
is employed, pressed and moulded into various forms
other than uniform sheets, such as ordinary paper and
millboards. In the East the art has long been practised,
especially in Kashmir, where, under the name of kar-i-
kalamdani, or pen-tray work, the manufacture of small
painted boxes, trays, and cases of papier madid is a
characteristic industry. About the middle of the 18th
century papier madid work came into prominence in
Europe in the form of trays, boxes, and other small
domestic articles, japanned and ornamented in imitation of
Oriental manufactures of the same class ; and contempor
aneously papier mache snuff boxes ornamented in vernis
.Martin came into favour. In 1772 Henry Clay of
Birmingham secured a patent for a method of preparing
this material, which he used for coach-building, for door and
other panels, and for many furniture and structural pur
poses. In 1845 the application of the material to internal
architectural decoration was patented by C. F. Bielefeld
of London, and for this purpose it has come into extensive
use. Under the name of carton pierre, a substance which
is essentially papier mache is also largely employed as a
substitute for plaster in the moulded ornaments of roofs
and walls, and the ordinary roofing felts, too, are very
closely allied in their composition to papier madid. Under
the name of ceramic papier miichd, architectural enrich
ments are also made of a composition patented by Mr
Martin, the constituents of which are paper pulp, resin,
glue, a drying oil, and acetate of lead. Among the other
articles for which the substance is used may be enumer
ated masks, dolls' heads and other toys, anatomical and
botanical models, artists' lay figures, milliners' and clothiers'
blocks, mirror and picture frames, tubes, &c.
The materials for the commoner classes of work are old waste and
scrap paper, repulped, and mixed with a strong size of glue and
paste. To this very often are added large quantities of ground chalk,
clay, and fine sand, so that the preparation is little more than a
plaster held together by the fibrous pulp. For the finest class of
work Clay's original method is retained. It consists of soaking
several sheets of a specially made paper in a strong size of paste
and glue, pasting these together, and pressing them in the mould
of the article to be made. The moulded mass is dried in a stove,
and, if necessary, further similar layers of paper are added, till the
required thickness is attained. The dried object is hardened by
dipping in oil, after which it is variously trimmed and prepared
for japanning and ornamentation. For very delicate relief orna
ments, a pulp of scrap paper is prepared, which after drying is
ground to powder mixed with paste and a proportion of potash, all
of which are thoroughly incorporated into a fine smooth stiff paste.
The numerous processes by which surface decoration is applied to
papier mache differ in no way from the application of like
ornamentation to other surfaces. Papier mache for its weight is
an exceedingly tough, strong, durable substance, possessed of
some elasticity, little subject to warp or fracture, and unaffected by
damp.
PAPIN, DENIS (1647-C.1712), French physicist, and
one of the inventors of the steam-engine, was a native of
Blois, where he was born in 1647. In 1661 or 1662 he
entered upon the study of medicine at the university of
Angers, where he graduated in 1669, with the intention
apparently of settling as a practising physician in that city.
Some time prior to 1674 he removed to Paris and assisted
Huygens in his experiments with the air-pump, the results
of which (Experiences du Vuide) were published at Paris
in that year, and also in the form of five papers by Huygens
and Papin jointly, in the Philosophical Transactions for
1675. Shortly after the publication of the Experiences,
Papin, who had crossed to London hoping to find some
congenial employment, was hospitably received by Boyle,
and gave him some assistance in his laboratory and with
his writings ; about this time also he introduced into the
air-pump the improvement of making it with double
barrels, and replacing by the two valves the turn-cock
hitherto used. He is said, moreover, to have been the
first to use the plate and receiver, which are organs of
capital importance in the modern form of the instrument.
Subsequently he invented the condensing-pump, and in
1680 he was admitted, on Boyle's nomination, to the
Royal Society. In the following year he communicated
to the Society an account of his famous steam " digester,
or engine for softening bones," afterwards described in
a tract published at Paris, and entitled La maniere
d'amollir les os et dt, faire couire tmites sortes de viandes en
fort pen de terns et a pen de frais, avec une description de
la marmite, ses proprietes et ses usages. In this instrument
the principle of the safety-valve was applied for the first
time. After some further experiments with the digester
he accepted an invitation to Venice to take part in the
work of the recently founded Academy of the Philosophical
and Mathematical Sciences; here he remained until 1684,
when he returned to London and received from the Royal
Society an appointment as " temporary curator of experi
ments, " with a small salary. In this capacity he carried
P A P — P A P
on numerous and varied investigations, in the course of
which he discovered a siphon acting in the same manner
as the "Sipho Wirtembergicus " (Phil, Tr., 1685), and
also constructed a model of an engine for raising water
from a river by means of pumps worked by a water-wheel
driven by the current. In November 1687 he was ap
pointed to the chair of mathematics in the university of
Marburg, and here he remained until 1696, when he re
moved to Cassel. From the time of his settlement in
Germany he carried on an active correspondence with
Huygens and Leibnitz, which is still preserved, and in one
of his letters to Leibnitz, in 1698, he mentions that he is
engaged on a machine for raising water to a great height
by the force of fire ; in a later communication he speaks
also of a little carriage he had constructed to be propelled
by this force. Again in 1702 he wrote about a steam
" ballista," which he anticipated would "promptly compel
France to make an enduring peace." In 1705 Leibnitz
sent Papin a sketch of Savery's engine for raising water,
and this stimulated him to further exertions, which re
sulted two years afterwards in the publication of the Ars
nova ad aquam ignis adminiculo efficacissime elevandam
(Cassel, 1707), in which his high-pressure boiler and its
applications are described (see STEAM-ENGINE). In 1707
he resolved to quit Cassel for London, and on September
24th of that year he sailed with his family from Cassel in
an ingeniously constructed boat, propelled by paddle-
wheels, to be worked by the crew, with which he appa
rently expected to reach the mouth of the Weser. The
expedition, however, came to an ignominious end at
Miinden, where the vessel was confiscated at the instance
of the boatmen, who objected to the invasion of their ex
clusive privileges in the Weser navigation. Papin, on his
subsequent arrival in London, found himself without re
sources and almost without friends ; various applications
through Sloane to the Royal Society for grants of money
were made in vain, and he died in total obscurity, pro
bably about the beginning of 1712.
The published writings of Papin, besides those already referred
to, consist for the most part of a large number of papers, princi
pally on hydraulics and pneumatics, contributed to the Journal des
Savans, the Nouvellcs do la licpubliqiie des Lettres, The Philosophical
Transactions, and the Ada Ermlitorum ; many of them were
collected by himself into a Fasciculus dissertationum (Marburg,
1695), of which he published also a translation into Frencn (Rccueil
cL divcrscs pieces toiichant quclques nouvelles machines (Cassel,
1695). His correspondence with Leibnitz and Huygens, along
with a biography, has been published by Dr Ernst Gerland
(Leibnizeris und Huyycns Briefwechsel mil Papin, nebst der
Biographic Papin 's, Berlin, 1881).
PAPINIAN, the most celebrated of Roman jurists, was
mar/ister libellorum and afterwards praetorian prefect under
Septimius Severus. He was an intimate friend of the
emperor, whom he accompanied to Britain, and before
his death Severus specially commended his two sons to
his charge. Papinian was faithful to his trust, and tried
to keep peace between the brothers, but with no better
result than to excite the hatred of Caracalla, to which he
fell a victim in the general slaughter of Geta's friends
which followed the fratricide of 212 A.D. The details
are variously related, and have undergone legendary
embellishment, but it is certain that the murder of
Papinian, which took place under Caracalla's own eyes,
was one of the most disgraceful crimes of that hideous
tyrant. Little more is known about Papinian. He was
perhaps a Syrian by birth, for he is said to have been a
kinsman of Severus's second wife, Julia Domna ; that he
studied law along with Severus under Scsevola is asserted
in an interpolated passage in Spartian (Caracal., c. 8).
Papinian's place and work as a jurist will fall to be dis
cussed under ROMAN LAW (<j.v.}.
PAPPENHEIM, GOTTFRIED HEINRICH, GRAF zu
(1594-1632), imperialist general in the Thirty Years'
War, was born on the 29th May 1594. He attended the
high schools of Altdorf and Tubingen, but did not seem
to profit much by the instruction he received at either
institution. In his twentieth year he joined the Roman
Catholic Church ; and zeal for his new faith induced him
to enter the military service of King Sigismund in Poland
and afterwards that of Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, head
of the Catholic League. In 1620, as a colonel in the army
of the League, he distinguished himself in the battle near
Prague which decided the fate of Frederick, king of
Bohemia. In this battle, after fighting with extraordinary
energy, he was severely wounded, and for many hours lay
unnoticed under his horse. He received, in 1623, the
command of a regiment of cuirassiers who became famous
as the Pappenheimer, and with them he fought from 1623
to 1625 at the head of the Spaniards in Lombardy. In
1626, having been recalled to Germany by Duke
Maximilian, he crushed an insurrection of peasants in
Upper Austria, obtaining in the course of a month a series
of victories in which 40,000 peasants are said to have been
killed. He then went to the help of Tilly against
Christian IV. of Denmark, and took a prominent part in
the storming of Magdeburg, the inhabitants of which were
treated by him and by his soldiers with savage cruelty.
After the battle of Breitenfeld, which was fought at an
unsuitable time, contrary to the wish of Tilly, in conse
quence of Pappenheim's impetuosity, he covered the retreat
of the imperialists ; and in Westphalia and the country
of the lower Rhine he stimulated the enthusiasm of his
party by several successful engagements. When Tilly
died, Pappenheim aided Wallenstein in subduing Saxony.
On his way to the lower Rhine, where he proposed to
support the Spaniards, he was summoned by Wallenstein
to Liitzen, where battle was about to be given to Gustavus
Adolphus ; and at the moment of his arrival fortune seemed
already to have declared for the Swedes. Pappenheim
threw himself into the conflict, and his attack was so
furious that the enemy began to give way ; but two
musket balls penetrated his breast, and he had to be carried
from the field. He died on the 17th November 1632,
the day after the battle. He left behind him the reputa
tion of one of the bravest warriors and most ardent
Catholics of his day. Notwithstanding the sternness of
his discipline, he was idolized by his troops.
See Hess, Gottfried Heinrich, Graf zu Pappenheim, 1855.
PAPPUS, OF ALEXANDRIA, a geometer of a very high
order, belongs to a time when already the Greek
mathematicians of great original genius had been succeeded
and replaced by a race of learned compilers and com
mentators, who confined their investigations within the
limits previously attained, without adding anything to
the development of mathematics. To the general medio
crity Pappus must be considered to be a remarkable
exception ; for, although much even of his work is of the
nature of compilation (which is, however, itself of great
historical value), there is yet much the discovery of which
cannot well be attributed to any one else. According to
Proclus, he was at the head of a school ; but how far he
was above his contemporaries, how little appreciated or
understood by them, is shown by the absence of references
to him in other Greek writers, and by the fact that his
work had no effect in arresting the decay of mathematical
science. In this respect the fate of Pappus strikingly
resembles that of Diophantus, another living power amid
general stagnation. In reading the Collection of Pappus,
we meet with no indication of the date of the authors
whose treatises he makes use of, or of the time at which
he himself wrote. If we had no other information than
can be derived from a perusal of his work, we should
230
PAPPUS
only know that he was later than Claudius Ptolemy, whom
he quotes often and with respect. Suidas states that he
was of the same age as Theon of Alexandria, who wrote
commentaries on Ptolemy's great work, the Almagest, and
flourished in the reign of Theodosius I. (379-395 A.D.).
Suidas asserts also that Pappus wrote a commentary upon
the same work of Ptolemy. But it would seem incredible
that two contemporaries should have at the same time and
in the same style composed commentaries upon one and
the same work, and yet neither should have been mentioned
by the other, whether as friend or opponent. We have
apparently no reason to question the statement of Suidas
that Pappus wrote such a commentary. But the similarity
of two such commentaries as those of Pappus and Theon
may easily have led Suidas to confuse the two, and so
suppose the two authors to have been contemporary.
There is, then, reason to believe that Suidas may have been
mistaken ; we have, however, another authority, whose
statement, on the supposition that it is false, is completely
incomprehensible. This is the author of certain historical
glosses, which are found in the margin of a MS. belonging
to the beginning of the 10th century. Here it is stated,
in connexion with the reign of Diocletian (284-305 A.D.),
that Pappus wrote during that period. Except the two
distinctly contradictory statements of Suidas and the
scholiast, we have no evidence of the date of Pappus ; and
it seems accordingly best to accept the date indicated by
the scholiast.
The work of Pappus which has come down to us bore
the title a-vvaywyrj or Collection, as we gather from
references in the work itself, and from the scholia
appended to the Vatican MS. 218 of the 12th century.
This collection, which consisted of eight books, we possess
only in an incomplete form, there being no part remaining
of the first book, and the rest also having suffered con
siderably. It is curious that no ancient writer, with the
exception of the author of the appendix to book iii.,
quotes the work under its proper title, though Eutocius's
reference (Archimedes, p. 139 sq., ed. Torelli), ws IlaTTTros
(v fjLrjxaviKOLs eto-aywyats, is no 'doubt to book viii. of the
Collection.
Suidas enumerates other works of Pappus as follows : —
Xwpoypa0ia oiKovfj.€viKrj, ets TO. recrcrapa /3t/3At'a rrjs
TlTO\(/J.aiov /xeyaA/^s crwra£ea><; VTr6fJ.vr]/j.a, Trora/xo^s TCWS tv
A.i/3vr), oVetpoKpcTiKa. The question of Pappus's com
mentary on Ptolemy's work is discussed by Hultsch, Pappi
Collectio (Berlin, 1878), vol iii. p. xiii. sq. Pappus himself
refers to another commentary of his own on the ava.Xrj/j.fj.a
of Diodorus, of whom nothing is known. There are,
moreover, indications that he commented on Euclid's
Elements, and on Ptolemy's appovLKa. Further, there is a
doubtful work entitled Opusculum de multiplicatione et
divisione sexagesimcdihus Diophanto vel Pappo tribuendum,
which has been edited by C. Henry (Halle, 1879); and,
lastly, a tract, Anonymi commentarius de Jiguris plants
iso-perimetru, has been inserted by Hultsch in vol. iii. of
his edition of Pappus.
The characteristics of Pappus's Collection are that it con
tains an account, systematically arranged, of the most im
portant results obtained by his predecessors, and, secondly,
notes explanatory of, or extending, previous discoveries.
These discoveries form, in fact, a text upon which Pappus
enlarges discursively, many of his additions having no very
decided points of connexion with the direct subject under
discussion. Very valuable are the systematic introductions
to the various books which set forth clearly in outline the
contents and the general scope of the subjects to be
treated. From these introductions we are able to judge
of the style of Pappus's writing, which is excellent and even
elegant the moment he is free from the shackles of
mathematical formulae and expressions. At the same time,
his characteristic exactness makes his collection a most
admirable substitute for the texts of the many valuable
treatises of earlier mathematicians of which time has
deprived us.
We proceed to summarize briefly the contents of that
portion of the Collection which has survived, mentioning
separately certain propositions which seem, in the light of
modern developments of mathematics, to be among the
most important.
Of book i. the whole has been lost. We can only conjecture
that it, as well ns book ii., was concerned with arithmetic, book iii.
being clearly introduced as beginning a new subject.
The whole of book ii. (the former part of which is lost, the exist
ing fragment beginning in the middle of the 14th proposition)
related to a system of multiplication due to Apollonius of Perga.
On this subject see Nesselmann, Algebra der Gricchcn, Berlin,
1842, pp. 125-134 ; and Friedlein, Die Zahhcichen nnd das
clenientarc Rcchnen der Gricclien und Romer, Erlangen, 1869.
Book iii. contains geometrical problems, plane and solid. It
may be divided into five sections. (1) On the famous problem of
finding two mean proportionals between two given lines, which
arose from that of doubling the cube, reduced by Hippocrates to
the former. Pappus gives the solutions of this problem by
Eratosthenes, Nicomedes, and Heron, and finally his own solution
of the more general problem of finding geometrically the side of a
cube whose content is in any given ratio to that of a given one.
(2) On the three different means between two straight lines, the
arithmetic, the geometric, and the harmonic, and the problem
of representing all three in one and the same geometrical figure,.
This serves as an introduction to a general theory of means, of
which Pappus distinguishes ten kinds, and gives a table repre
senting examples of each in whole numbers. (3) On a curious
problem of the same type as Eucl. i. 21. (4) On the inscribing of
each of the five regular polyhedra in a sphere. (5) An addition
by a later writer on another solution of the first problem of the
book.
Of book iv. the title and preface have been lost, so that the
programme has to be gathered from the book itself. At the begin
ning are various theorems on the circle, leading up to the problem
of the construction of a circle which shall circumscribe three given
circles touching each other two and two. This and several other
problems of contact form the first division of the book. Pappus
turns then to a consideration of certain properties of Archimedes' s
spiral, the conchoid of Nicomedes (already mentioned in book i.
as supplying a method of doubling the cube), and the curve dis
covered most probably by Hippias of Elis about 420 B.C., and known
by the name fi T€Tpaycavi^ov<ra, or quadratrix, from the property
that, if it could be practically constructed, it would enable us to
square the circle. Having described the ordinary — the mechanical,
as Pappus calls it — definition of this curve, he proceeds to show
how it might be constructed by projecting orthogonally suitable
plane sections of certain surfaces which he calls plectoids described
by means of («) the helix described on a cylinder, (b) the plane
helix, or Archimedes's spiral. From these propositions it would
seem that plectoid was the Greek general term for sin-faces described
by the motion of a straight line always passing through a fixed
straight line and a curve, and remaining parallel to a fixed plane.
Proposition 30 describes the construction of a curve of double
curvature called by Pappus the helix on a sphere ; it is described
by a point moving uniformly along the arc of a great circle, which
itself turns about its diameter uniformly, the point describing a
quadrant and the great circle a complete revolution in the same
time. The area of the surface included between this curve and its
base is found — the first instance of quadrature of a curved surface.
The rest of the book treats of the trisection of an angle, and the
solution of certain problems by means of the quadratrix and spiritl.
In book v., after an interesting preface concerning regular
polygons, and containing some remarks upon the hexagonal form
of the cells of honeycombs, Pappus addresses himself to the com
parison of the areas of different plane figures which have all the
same perimeter (following Zenodorus's treatise on this subject), and
of the volumes of different solid figures which have all the same
superficial area, and, lastly, a comparison of the live regular solids
of Plato.
According to the preface, book vi. is intended to resolve diffi
culties occurring in the so called i*iKpbs aa-rpovo/nov/nft/os. It
accordingly comments on the Sphserica of Theodosius, a treatise
of Autolycus, Theo'Iosiiis's book on Day and Night, the treatise of
Aristarchus On the, Kiv, and Distances of the Sun and Moon, and
Euclid's Optics and Phenomena.
The preface of book vii. explains the terms analysis and
synthesis, and the distinction between theorem and problem.
Pappus then enumerates works of Euclid, Apollonius, Aristffius,
P A P — P A P
231
and Eratosthenes, thirty-three books in all, the substance of which
lie intends to give, with the lemmas necessary for their elucidation.
With the mention of the Porisms of Euclid we have an account of
the relation of porism to theorem and problem. In the same preface
we have enunciated (a) the famous problem known by Pappus's
name — Having given a number of straight lines, to find the geometric
locus of a point such that the lengths of the perpendiculars upon, or
(more generally] the lines drawn from it obliquely at given inclina
tions to, the given lines satisfy the condition that the product of
certain of them may bear a constant ratio to the product of the
remaining ones ; (b) the theorems which since the 17th century have
been called by the name of Guldin, but appear to have been dis
covered by Pappus himself. Book vii. contains also (1) under
the head of the de detcrminata sectione of Apollonius, lemmas
which, closely examined, are seen to be cases of the involution of
six points ; (2) important lemmas on the Porisms of Euclid (see
PORISM); (3) a lemma upon the Conies of Apollonius, which is the
first statement of the constant relation between the distances of
any point on a conic from the focus and directrix.
Lastly, book viii. treats principally of mechanics, the properties
of the centre of gravity, and some mechanical powers. Inter
spersed are some questions of pure geometry. Proposition 14 gives
a simple construction for the axes of an ellipse, when a pair of con
jugate diameters are given.
Of the whole work of Pappus the best edition is that of Hultsch, bearing the
title Pappi Alexandrini Collectionis qux supersunt e libris manuscriptis edidit
Latino interpretatione et commentariis instruxit Fridericus Hultsch, Berlin,
187<>-78. Previously the entire collection had been published only in a
Latin translation, Pappi Alexandrini mathematics: collectiones a Federico
Commandino Urbinate in latinum converses et commentariis illvstratx,
Pesaro, 1588 (reprinted at Venice, 1589, and Pesaro, 1602). A secoml edition
of this work was published by Carol us Manolessius, entitled Pappi Alexandiini
mathematics coUecliones a Federico Commandino Urbinate in latinum conversx
et cointnentai'iis illustrattc, in hoc nostra edit tone innumeris quibus scatebant
mendis et prxcipue in Grxco contextu. diligenter vindicate, Bologna, 1660. The
merits of these two works are discussed by Hultsch, who remarks that the editor
of the second edition, so far from making good the title and his boastful preface,
has actually much marred the original book.
Of books which contain parts of Pappus's work, or treat incidentally of it, we
may mention the following titles: — (1) Pappi Alexandrini col/ectiones mathe-
matlcie nunc primum Greece edidit Herm. Jos. Eisenmann, Libri quinti pars
altera, Parisiis, 1S24. (2) Pappi Alexandrini Secundi Libri Mathematical Col
lectionis Fragmentum e codice MS. edidit Latinum fecit Notitque illvstravit
Johannes Wallis, Oxonias, 1688. (3) Apollonii Pergxi de sectione rationis libri
duo ex Arabico MSto latine versi, Accedunt eiusdem de sectione spatii libri duo
restittiti, Priemittitur Pappi Alexandrini priefatio ad VJJmum collectionismathe-
maticx, nunc primum grxce editn : cum lemmatibus eiusdem Pappi ad has Apol
lonii librof, Opera et studio Edmundi Halle.y, Oxonii, 1706. (4> Apollonii Pergaii
fonicorum libri IV, priores cum Pappi Alexandrini lemmatis tx codd. MSS.
Orxcis edidit Edmundus Halleius, Oxonias, 1710. (-5) Der Sammlung des Pappus
von Alexandrien siebentes und achtes Buck griechisch und deutsch herausgegeben
von C. I. Gerhardt, Halle, 1871. (T. L. H.)
PAPUAN LANGUAGES. The languages spoken in
NEW GUINEA (q.v.) and other islands peopled by Papuas
differ more widely from the Malayo-Polynesian languages
than those of the Negritos in the Philippine Islands do
from the dialects of the contiguous Malayan tribes. In
fact, they form as separate a class by themselves as the
Melanesian languages do as contradistinguished from the
Polynesian group. From the meagre grammatical sketch
of the Mafor (or Nufor) language — the only one to which
the Dutch missionaries have paid some attention, but
which may be taken as a type of the class — we gather that
the verb has the subject pronoun prefixed in the singular,
dual, and plural ; past time is expressed by the word
kivdr, "already," prefixed, and futurity by nerri, "still,"
added to the verb ; certain modifications of the sense are
effected by i being prefixed, and others by i being affixed,
to the radical vowels a, o, or u, and others again by the
substantive affix ia (plur. sici). Much uncertainty, however,
still prevails as to the precise import of those grammatical
forms. See J. L. van Hasselt's Woordenboek and Beknopte
Spraakkunst der Noefoorsche taal, both of which appeared
at Utrecht in 1876 ; Fr. Miiller's Grundriss der Sprach-
wissenschaft, i., ii. p. 30 sq. ; and more especially G. von
der Gabelentz and A. B. Meyer, Beitrdge zur Kenntniss
der Melanesischen, Mikronesischen, und Papuanischen
Sprachen, Leipsic, 1882, and their essay, " Einiges iiber
das Verhaltniss des Mafoor zum Malayischen, " in
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-, en volkenkunde van Neder-
landsch- Indie, for 1883. The former of these publications
contains also a survey of the literature on the subject.
Vocabularies of the languages spoken by the various coast
tribes with whom Europeans have come in contact have
been collected by S. Miiller, Von Rosenberg, Miklucho
Maclay, and others. An intercomparison of those voca
bularies not only shows great phonetical divergencies,
especially in the liquids r and I, but also in many cases
the same absence of word affinity in consequence of which
neighbouring Melanesian tribes are known to be unable to
understand one another.
PAPYRUS, the paper reed, the Cyperus Papyrus of
Linnseus, was in ancient times widely cultivated in the
Delta of Egypt, where it was used for various purposes,
and especially as a writing material. As, however, the
plant is now extinct in Lower Egypt, it is believed that it
was not indigenous there, but was probably introduced from
Nubia, where it is found at the present time, as well as in
Abyssinia. Theophrastus (Hist. Plant., iv. 10) adds that
it likewise grew in Syria ; and, according to Pliny, it was
also a native plant of the Niger and Euphrates. From
one of its ancient Egyptian names, P-apu, was derived its
Greek title ird-n-vpos, Lat. papyrus. By Herodotus it is
always called fivfiXos, a word which was apparently also
of Egyptian origin. The first accurate description of the
plant is given by Theophrastus, from whom we learn that
it grew in shallows of 2 cubits
(about 3 feet) or less, its main
root being of the thickness of
a man's wrist, and 10 cubits
in length. From this root,
which lay horizontally, smaller
roots pushed down into the
mud, and the stem of the plant
sprang up to the height of 4
cubits, being triangular and
tapering in form. The tufted
head or umbel is likened by
Pliny to a thyrsus.
The various uses to which
the papyrus plant was applied
are also enumerated by Theo
phrastus. Of the head nothing
could be made but garlands
for the shrines of the gods ;
but the wood of the root was
employed in the manufacture
of different utensils as well
as for fuel. Of the stem of
the plant were made boats,
sails, mats, cloth, cords, and,
above all, writing material
(TO. /3i/3\icL). The pith was
also a common article of food, and was eaten both cooked
and in its natural state. Herodotus too notices its
consumption as food (ii. 92), and incidentally mentions
that it provided the material of which the priests'
sandals were made (ii. 37). He likewise refers to the
use of byblus as tow for caulking the seams of ships ;
and the statement of Theophrastus that King Antigonus
made the rigging of his fleet of the same material is illus
trated by the ship's cable, otrXov /3vj3\ivov, wherewith the
doors were fastened when Ulysses slew the suitors in his
hall (Odyss., xxi. 390). That the plant was itself used
also as the principal material in the construction of light
skiffs suitable for the navigation of the pools and shallows
of the Nile, and even of the river itself, is shown by
sculptures of the period of the fourth dynasty, in which men
are represented in the act of building a boat with stems
cut from a neighbouring plantation of papyrus (Lepsius,
Denkm., ii. 12). It is to boats of this description that
Isaiah probably refers in the " vessels of bulrushesi upon
the waters " (xviii. 2). If the Hebrew gome (**£3) also
is to be identified with the Egyptian papyrus, something
may be said in favour of the tradition that the bulrushes
Papyrus.
232
of which the ark was composed in which the infant Moses
was laid, in the flags by the river's brink, were in fact the
latter plant. Ancient authors have likewise referred to
the adaptation of the papyrus to other domestic purposes,
both culinary and medicinal. But it seems hardly credible
that the Cyperus Papyrus could alone have sufficed for
the many uses to which it is said to have been applied.
Wilkinson has pointed out (Anc. Egyptians, ii. 121) that,
the cultivation of this variety being limited to certain
districts, where, moreover, it was a monopoly of the
Government, it cannot have been employed for so many
purposes ; and we may therefore conclude that several
plants of the genus Ci/perm were comprehended under the
head of byblus or papyrus — an opinion which is supported
by the words of Strabo, Avho mentions both inferior and
superior qualities. The Cyperus dives is still grown in
Egypt, and is used to this day for many of the purposes
named by ancient writers.
The widespread use of papyrus as a writing material
throughout the ancient world is attested by early writers,
and by documents and sculptures. In addition to the
names of the plant, which were also applied to the material,
the latter was also known as x*P'n?5> charta. Papyrus
rolls are represented in ancient Egyptian wall-paintings ;
and extant examples of the rolls themselves are sufficiently
numerous. The most ancient of these, known, from the
name of its former owner, as the Prisse papyrus, and now
preserved at Paris, contains a work composed in the reign
of a king of the fifth dynasty, and is computed to be itself
of the age of upwards of 2000 years B.C. The papyri dis
covered in Egypt have generally been found in tombs, and in
the hands, or swathed with the bodies, of mummies. The
ritual of the dead, which in its entirety or in an abridged
form was buried with every person of consequence from the
eighteenth dynasty to the Roman period, is most frequently
the subject. And, besides the ritual and religious rolls,
there are the hieratic, civil and literary, documents, and the
demotic and enchorial papyri, relating generally to sales
of property. Coptic papyri usually contain Biblical or
religious tracts or monastic deeds.
The early use of papyrus among the Greeks is proved
by the reference of Herodotus (v. 58) to its introduction
among the lonians. An inscription of 407 B.C. records
the sale of two sheets (^aprm 8vo) at Athens, for two
drachmas and four obols. Greek papyri have been found
in Egypt of great importance both for their palaeographical
and literary worth. The first instalment which came to
light, as late as the year 1778, consisted of some fifty rolls,
which were discovered in the neighbourhood of Memphis ;
but all, with one single exception, were carelessly destroyed.
More fortunate were the documents found near the
Serapeum of Memphis, and connected with that temple ;
and further discoveries of valuable texts of Homer,
Hyperides, and other classical writers have rewarded later
searches (see PALEOGRAPHY). The numerous rolls found
in the ruins of Herculaneum generally contain the less
interesting works of writers of the Epicurean school.
Papyrus also made its way into Italy, but at how early a
period there is nothing to show. Under the empire its use
must have been extensive, for not only was it required for
the production of books, but it was also universally employed
for domestic purposes, correspondence, and legal documents.
So indispensable did it become that it is reported that in
the reign of Tiberius the scarcity and dearness of the
material, caused by a failure of the papyrus crop, nearly
brought on a riot (Pliny, N. II., xiii. 13).
The account which Pliny (N'. II., xiii. 11-13) has trans
mitted to us of the manufacture of the writing material
from the papyrus plant should be taken strictly to refer to
the process followed in his own time ; but, with some
differences in details, the same general method of treat
ment had doubtlessly been practised from time immemorial.
His text, however, is so confused, both from obscurity of
style and from corruptions in the MSS., that there is much
difference of opinion as to the meaning of many words and
phrases employed in his narrative, and their application
in particular points of detail. In one important parti
cular, however, affecting the primary construction of
the material, there can no longer be any doubt. The
old idea that it was made from layers or pellicules growing
between the rind and a central stalk has been abandoned,
as it has been proved that the plant, like other reeds, con
tains only a cellular pith within the rind. The stem
was in fact cut into longitudinal strips for the purpose of
being converted into the writing material, those from the
centre of the plant being the broadest and most valuable.
The strips (philyrse), which were cut with a sharp knife or
some such instrument, were laid on a board side by side
to the required width, thus forming a layer (scheda), across
which another layer of shorter strips was laid at right
angles. The two layers thus " woven "- — Pliny uses the
word texere in describing this part of the process — formed
a sheet (playultt, or net), which was then soaked in water
of the Nile. The mention of a particular water has caused
trouble to the commentators. Some have supposed that
certain chemical properties of which the Nile water was
possessed acted as a glue or cement to cause the two layers
to adhere ; others, with more reason, that glutinous matter
contained in the material itself was solved by the action
of water, whether from the Nile or any other source ; and
others again read in Pliny's words an implication that
a paste was actually used. Be this as it may, the sheet
was finally pressed and dried in the sun. Any roughness
was levelled by polishing with ivory or a smooth .shell.
But the material was also subject to other defects, such as
moisture lurking between the layers, which might be
detected by strokes of the mallet ; spots or stains ; and
spongy strips (tseniee), in which the ink would run and
spoil the sheet. When such faults occurred, the papyrus
must be re-made. To form a roll the sheets were joined
together with paste (glue being too hard), but not more
than twenty sheets in a roll (scapus). As, however, there
are still extant rolls consisting of more than the prescribed
number of sheets, either the reading of vicenx is corrupt,
or the number was not constant in all times. The best
sheet formed the first or outside sheet of the roll, and the
others were joined on in order of quality, so that the
worst sheets were in the centre of the roll. This arrange
ment was adopted, not for the purpose of fraudulently sell
ing bad material under cover of the better exterior, but in
order that the outside of the roll should be composed of
that which would best stand wear and tear. Besides, in
case of the entire roll not being filled with the text, the
unused and inferior sheets at the end could be better
spared, and so might be cut off.
The different kinds of papyrus writing material and their
dimensions arc also enumerated by Pliny. The best quality, formed
from the middle and broadest strips of the plant, was originally
named hieratica, but afterwards, in flattery of the emperor
Augustus, it was called, after him, Augusta ; and the charta Livia,
or second quality, was so named in honour of his wife. The
hieratica thus descended to the third rank. The first two were 13
digiti, or about 9^ inches in width; the hieratica, 11 digiti or 8
inches. Next came the charta amphithcatrica, named after the
principal place of its manufacture, the amphitheatre of Alexandria,
of 9 digiti or 6£ inches wide. The charta Fanniana appears to
have been a kind of papyrus worked up from the amphitheatrica,
which by flattening and other methods was increased in width by
an inch, in the factory of a certain Fannius at Rome. The S<dtica,^
which took its name from the city of Sais, and was probably of
8 digiti or 5f inches, was of a common description. The T&niotica,
named apparently from the place of its manufacture, a tongue of
land (rat via) near Alexandria, was sold by weight, and was of
P A R — P A R
233
uncertain width, perhaps from 4f to 5 inches. And lastly there
was the common packing-paper, the charta emporctica, of 6 digiti
or 4| inches. Isidore (Etymol., vi. 10) mentions yet another kind,
the Corneliana, first made under C. Cornelius Gallus, prefect of
Egypt, which, however, may have /been the same as the amphi-
theatrica or Fanniana. The name of the man who had incurred
the anger of Augustus may have been suppressed by the same
influence that expunged the episode of Gallus from the Fourth
Georgia (Birt, Antik. Euchivescn, p. 250). In the reign of the
emperor Claudius also another kind was introduced and entitled
Claudia. It had been found by experience that the charta
Augusta was, from its fineness and porous nature, ill suited for
literary use ; it was accordingly reserved for correspondence only,
and for other purposes was replaced by the new paper. The
charta Claudia was made from a composition of the first and second
qualities, the Augusta, and the Lima, a layer of the former being
backed with one of the latter ; and the sheet was increased to
nearly a foot in width. The largest of all, however, was the
macrocollon, probably of good quality and equal to the hieratic,
and a cubit or nearly 18 inches wide. It was used by Cicero (Epp.
ad Attic., xiii. 25 ; xvi. 3). The width, however, proved incon
venient, and the broad sheet was liable to injury by tearing.
An interesting question arises as to the accuracy of the different
measurements given by Pliny. His figures regarding the width of
the different kinds of papyri have generally been understood to
concern the width (or height) of the rolls, as distinguished from
their length. It has, however, been observed that in practice the
width of extant rolls does not tally in any satisfactory degree with
Pliny's measurements ; and a more plausible explanation has been
lately offered (Birt, Antik. Buchwesen, pp. 251 sq.) that the
breadth (not height) of the individual sheets of which the rolls
aw; composed is referred to.
The first sheet of a roll was named irpwTOKo\\ov ; the last,
t<rx"-TOKo\\iov. Under the Romans, the former bore the name of
the comes largitionum, who had control of the manufacture, with
the date and name of place. It was the practice to cut away the
portion thus marked ; but in case of legal documents this
mutilation was forbidden by the laws of Justinian. On the Arab
conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the manufacture was con
tinued, with the substitution of Arabic in marking the protocol.
An instance of one of these Arab signatures is preserved in a bull
of Pope John VIII. of the year 876.
Varro's statement, repeated by Pliny, that papyrus was first made
in Alexander's time, should probably be taken to mean that its
manufacture, which till then had been a Government monopoly,
was relieved from all restrictions. It is not probable, however, that
it was ever manufactured from the native plant anywhere but
in Egypt. At Rome there was certainly some kind of industry in
papyrus, the charta Fanniana, already referred to, being an instance
in illustration. But it seems probable that this industry was con
fined to the re-making of material imported into Italy, as in the
case of the charta Claudia. This second manufacture, however, is
thought to have been detrimental to the papyrus, as it would then
have been in a dried condition requiring artificial aids, such as a
more liberal use of gum or paste, in the process. The more brittle
condition of the Latin papyri found at Herculaneum has been
instanced as the evil result of this re-making of the material.
According to Strabo the Romans obtained the papyrus plant from
Lake Trasimene and other lakes of Etruria, but this statement is
unsupported by any other authority and appears to have been made
in error. At a later period, however, a papyrus was cultivated in
Sicily, which has been identified by Parlatore with the Syrian
variety (Cyperus syriacus), far exceeding in height the Egyptian
plant, and having a more drooping head. It grew in the east and
south of the island, where it was probably introduced during the
Arab occupation. It was seen in the 10th century, by the Arab
traveller Ibn-Haukal, in the neighbourhood of Palermo, where it
throve luxuriantly in the pools of the Papireto, a stream to which
it lent its name. From it paper was made for the sultan's use.
But in the 13th century it began to fail, and in 1591 the drying
up of the Papireto caused the extinction of the plant in that district.
It is still to be seen at Syracuse, but it was probably transplanted
thither at a later time, and reared only as a curiosity, as there
is no notice of it to be found previous to 1674. It is with this
Syracusan plant that some attempts have been made in recent years
to manufacture a writing material similar to ancient papyrus.
Even after the introduction of vellum, papyrus still continued in
use among the Romans, and was not entirely superseded until a
late date. It ceased, however, to be used for books sooner than for
documents. In the 5th century St Augustine apologizes for sending
a letter written on vellum instead of the more usual substance,
papyrus (Ep. xv. ); and Cassiodorus (Varr., xi. 38), writing in the
6th century, indulges in a high-flown panegyric on the plant and
its value, and refers to the abolition of the tax on paper by the
emperor Theodoric. Of mediaeval Greek papyri a very few remains
containing Biblical or patristic matter have survived, and one or
two fragments of Graeco-Latin glossaries have been published. Of
Greek documents, apart from monastic deeds discovered in Egypt,
there are two which are well known, viz., the fragmentary epistle
of Constantine V. to Pepin le Bref, of 753 or 756, now preserved
at Paris, and the papyrus containing the subscriptions to the
council of Constantinople of 680, at Vienna. Mediseval Latin MSS.
on papyrus in book form are still extant in different libraries of
Europe, viz. : — the Homilies of St Avitus, of the 6th century, at
Paris ; Sermons and Epistles of St Augustine, of the 6th or 7th
century, at Paris and Geneva ; works of Hilary, of the 6th
century, at Vienna; fragments of the Digests, of the 6th century,
at Pommersfeld ; the Antiquities of Josephus, of the 7th century,
at Milan ; Isidore, De Contemptu Mundi, of the 7th century, at St
Gall ; and the Register of the Church of Ravenna, of the 10th cen
tury, at Munich. Of Latin documents on papyrus (tomus was the
technical word of the Middle Ages to designate such a document),
the first to be mentioned are the fragments of two imperial
rescripts addressed to an official in Egypt in the 5th century. The
employment of this material in Italy for legal purposes is sufficiently
illustrated by the large number of documents which were preserved
at Ravenna, and date from the 5th to the 10th century. In the
papal chancery too it was used at an early date, evidence of its
presence there being found in the biography of Gregory I. But of
the extant papal deeds the earliest to which an authentic date can
be attached is a bull of Stephen III. of the year 757, while the
latest appears to be one of 1004. There is evidence to show that
in the 10th century papyrus was used, to the exclusion of
other materials, in papal deeds. In France it was a common
writing substance in the 6th century (Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. ,
v. 5). Of the Merovingian period there are still extant several
papyrus deeds, the earliest of the year 625, the latest of 692.
Under Charlemagne and his successors it was not used. By
the 12th century the manufacture of papyrus had entirely ceased,
as appears from a note by Eustathius in his commentary on the
Odyssey, xxi. 390.
See Melch. Guilandino's commentary on the chapters of Pliny relating to
papyrus, Papyrus, hoc est Commentaries, &c., Venice, 1572; Jlontfaucon, "Dis
sertation sur la plants appellee Papyrus," in the Afdmoires de r Academic des
Inscriptions, 1729, pp. 592-608; T. C. Tychsen, "DeChartas Papyracea? in Euvopa
per medium sevum usu," in the Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Qottin^ensis, 1820,
pp. 141-208; Dureau de la Malle, " Memoire sur le Papyrus," in the Mem. de
rinslitut, 1851, pp. 140-183; Ph. Parlatore, " Me'moire sur le Papyrus des
anciens," <fec., in the Mem. al'Acad. des Sci., 1854, pp. 46!) 502; Bluinner, Tech-
nologie vnd TerminoJogie der Gewerbe vnd Kiinste dci Griechen mid Romem,
Leipsic, 1875, i. pp. 308-327 ; Ces. Paoli, Del Papiro, Horence, 1878. See
also W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, Leipsic, 1875. pp. 80-91 ;
and T. Birt, Das unlike Buchwesen, Berlin, 1882, pp. 223-273. (E. M. T.)
PARA, or SANTA MAEIA DE BELEM DO GEAO PARA,
one of the most flourishing cities of Brazil, capital of the
province of Par4 or Grao Para, lies on a point of land with
sandy porous soil at the junction of the Guamd with the
Rio Pard or eastern arm of the Amazons, about 75 miles
from the sea. The main river is about 20 miles wide
opposite the town, but is broken by numerous islands.
Par4 is regularly built, well-paved, and well-lighted. The
houses, which seldom exceed two or three stories in
height, are usually substantial structures of stone ; and a
general brightness of aspect is produced by red-tiled roofs
and white, yellow, or even pink and blue coloured walls
relieved by dense tropical foliage. The Estrada das Mon-
gubeiras, running about a mile from the river to Largo da
Polvora in the east end of the city, has long been famous
for its magnificent cotton trees (Bonibax Mongtiba, B.
Ceibci) ; but the grand old trees are dying out, and the
finest avenue in Para is now the Estrada de Sao Jose', with
its colonnade of tall " royal palms " (Oreodoxa regia).
In the outskirts of the city the wealthy merchants have
villas with very extensive grounds, and a little way beyond
these begins the dense swamp-forest. Par& has a wonder
fully pleasant and healthy climate, with a temperature
extremely equable throughout the year. " The mornings
are cool. From 10 till 2 the heat increases rapidly, com
monly reaching 90° or 91°. A little later great black
clouds appear in the east and spread quickly over the sky ;
the temperature falls suddenly, the wind blows in varying
gusts, the rain pours down, and ere one is aware the sun
leaps out. Sometimes the first shower is followed by a
second or even a third. By sunset the ground is dry."
This is the rule all the year round ; only in the height of
the dry season a week may pass without any showers.
The Brazilians have a proverb, " Who came to Para was
glad to stay ; who drank assai went never away. " The
XVIIT. — 30
234
P A R — P A R
assai referred to is a beverage made by squeezing the
black grape-like berries of the assai palm (Euterpe edulis) ;
it is largely drunk by all classes in Para. The importance
of the city is due to its being the great emporium of the
rapidly-developing trade of the Amazons. The trade is
carried on by several steamboat companies ; the most im
portant, the Amazonian Steamboat Company, receives a
subsidy from the Brazilian Government. Two lines of
steamers run between Liverpool and Para ; there are also
a French line and a German line. A large trade is trans
acted with the United States, but mainly through English,
French, German, and Portuguese houses. The principal
exports are cocoa, Brazil nuts, hides, deer-skins, isinglass,
balsam of copaiba, tonka beans, and Peruvian bark. In
1863 the total value of the imports was about £500,000
and of the exports about £525,000 ; by 1882 the duties
paid to the custom-house amounted to £864,396.
Population has been growing faster than the supply of
houses. In 1819 the inhabitants were estimated at
24,500, but by 1850 they had declined to 15,000; in
1866 they were 36,000 (about 5000 slaves) ; and they
are now (1884) nearly 40,000. Besides a vast cathedral
(1720) and the president's palace, usually considered one
of the best buildings of its kind in Brazil, ParA contains an
episcopal palace (formerly the Jesuit college), a handsome
theatre, a large market building, a custom-house (formerly
a convent, with two great towers), naval and military
arsenals (the first of some size, with shipbuilding yards
and a gridiron), a botanical garden, &c. About a mile from
the city is the chapel of Our Lady of Nazareth, the most
celebrated shrine in northern Brazil.
In 1615 Francisco Caldeira de Castello Branco, sent cmt by the
Portuguese at Maranhao, built the fort of Santo Christo and founded
the settlement of Xossa Senhora de Belem. By 1641 it was a place
of 400 inhabitants, with four monasteries. A premature declaration
of independence was made at Para in 1823, and soon after Captain
Grenfell, sent by Lord Cochrane, brought the city over to the
Brazilian party ; but for many years it was subject to political
disturbance. In 1835 " every respectable white was obliged to
leave the city" by the anarchical proceedings of the so-called
" Liberals " Gomes, Vinagre, and Rodriguez.
See Bates, Naturalist on the River Amazons, 1863 ; H. H. Smith,
Brazil, 1879.
PARACELSUS (c. 1490-1541). It seems now to be
established that Paracelsus was born near Einsiedeln, in the
canton Schwyz, in 1490 or 1491 according to some, or 1493
according to others. His father, the natural son of a grand
master of the Teutonic order, was Wilhelm Bombast von
Hohenheim, who had a hard struggle to make a subsistence
as a physician. His mother was superintendent of the
hospital at Einsiedeln, a post she relinquished upon her
marriage. Paracelsus's name was Theophrastus Bombast
von Hohenheim ; for the names Philippus and Aureolus
good authority is wanting, and the epithet Paracelsus, like
some similar compounds, was probably one of his own
making, and was meant to denote his superiority to Celsus.
In 1502-3 his father, taking his family with him, removed
to Villach in Carinthia; and he resided there in the practice
of the medical art till his death in 1534. In one of his
works, dedicated to the magistracy of the town, Paracelsus
refers to the esteem, in which his father was held, and
expresses his own gratitude for it.
Of the early years of Paracelsus's life there is hardly
anything known. His father was his first teacher, and
took pains to instruct him in all the learning of the time,
especially in medicine. Doubtless Paracelsus learned
rapidly what was put before him, but he seems at a com
paratively early age to have questioned the value of what
he was expected to acquire, and to have soon struck out
ways for himself. As he grew older he was taken in hand
by several distinguished churchmen, although it has been
objected that dates will not warrant the idea of actual
personal instruction. This, however, is not correct, for all
the men Paracelsus mentions were alive in his lifetime,
though he was so young that he could hardly have profited
by their lessons, unless on the supposition that he was
a quick and precocious boy, which it is very likely he
was. At the age of sixteen he entered the university
of Basel, but probably soon abandoned the studies therein
pursued. He next went to Trithemius, the bishop of
Sponheim and Wiirzburg, under whom he prosecuted
chemical researches. Trithemius is the reputed author of
some obscure tracts on the great elixir, and as there was
no other chemistry going Paracelsus would have to devote
himself to the reiterated operations so characteristic of the
notions of that time. But the confection of the stone of
the philosophers was too remote a possibility to gratify the
fiery spirit of a youth like Paracelsus, eager to make what
he knew, or could learn, at once available for practical
medicine. So he left school chemistry as he had forsaken
university culture, and started for the mines in Tyrol
owned by the wealthy family of the Fuggers. The sort of
knowledge he got there pleased him much more. There
at least he was in contact with reality. The struggle with
nature before the precious metals could be made of use
impressed upon him more and more the importance of
actual personal observation. He saw all the mechanical
difficulties that had to be overcome in mining ; he learned
the nature and succession of rocks, the physical properties
of minerals, ores, and metals ; he got a notion of mineral
waters; he was an eyewitness of the accidents which
befel the miners, and studied the diseases which attacked
them ; he had proof that positive knowledge of nature was
not to be got in schools and universities, but only by
going to Nature herself, and to those who were constantly
engaged with her. Hence came Paracelsus's peculiar mode
of study. He attached no value to mere scholarship ;
scholastic disputations he utterly ignored and despised, —
and especially the discussions on medical topics, whicli
turned more upon theories and definitions than upon actual
practice. He therefore went wandering over a great part
of Europe to learn all that he could. In so doing he was
one of the first physicians of modern times to profit by a
mode of study which is now reckoned indispensable. In
the 16th century the difficulty of moving about was much
greater than it is now ; still Paracelsus faced it, and on
principle. The book of nature, he affirmed, is that which
the physician must read, and to do so he must walk over
the leaves. The humours and passions and diseases of
different nations are different, and the physician must go
among the nations if he will be master of his art ; the
more he knows of other nations, the better he will under
stand his own. For the physician it is ten times more
necessary and useful to know the powers of the heavens and
the earth, the virtues of plants and minerals, than to spend
his time on Greek and Latin grammar. And the com
mentary of his own and succeeding centuries upon these
very extreme views is that Paracelsus was no scholar, but
an ignorant vagabond. He himself, however, valued his
method and his knowledge very differently, and argued
that he knew what his predecessors were ignorant of, be
cause he had been taught in no human school. " Whence
have I all my secrets, out of what writers and authors 1
Ask rather how the beasts have learned their arts. If
nature can instruct irrational animals, can it not much
more men ? " In this new school discovered by Paracelsus,
and since attended with the happiest results by many
others, he remained for about ten years. He had acquired
great stores of facts, which it was impossible for him to
have reduced to order, but which gave him an unquestion
able superiority to his contemporaries. So in 1526 or 1527,
on his return to Basel, he was appointed town physician,
PARACELSUS
235
and shortly afterwards he gave a course of lectures on
medicine in the university. Unfortunately for him, the
lectures broke away from tradition. They were in German,
not in Latin ; they were expositions of his own experience,
of his own views, of his own methods of curing, adapted
to the diseases that afflicted the Germans in the year 1527,
and they were not commentaries on the text of Galen or
Avicenna. Unfortunately they attacked, not only these
great authorities, but the German graduates who followed
them and disputed about them in 1527. They criticized
in no measured terms the current medicine of the time,
and exposed the practical ignorance, the pomposity, and
the greed of those who practised it.
The truth of Paracelsus's doctrines was apparently con
firmed by his success in curing or mitigating diseases for
which the regular physicians could do nothing. For
about a couple of years his reputation and practice
increased to a surprising extent. But at the end of that
time people began to recover themselves. Paracelsus had
burst upon the schools with such novel views and methods,
with such irresistible criticism, that all opposition was at
first crushed flat. Gradually the sea began to rise. His
enemies watched for slips and failures ; the physicians
maintained that he had no degree, and insisted that he
should give proof of his qualifications. His manner of
Jife was brought up against him. It was insinuated that
he was a profane person, that he was a conjurer, a necro
mancer, that, in fact, he was to be got rid of at any cost
as a troubler of the peace and of the time-honoured tradi
tions of the medical corporations. Moreover, he had a
pharmaceutical system of his own which did not harmonize
with the commercial arrangements of the apothecaries, and
he not only did not use up their drugs like the Galenists,
but, in the exercise of his functions as town physician,
urged the authorities to keep a sharp eye on the purity of
their wares, upon their knowledge of their art, and upon
their transactions with their friends the physicians. The
growing jealousy and enmity culminated in the Lichtenfels
dispute ; and, as the judges sided with the canon, to their
everlasting discredit, Paracelsus had no alternative but to
tell them his opinion of the whole case and of their notions
of justice. So little doubt left he on the subject that his
friends j udged it prudent for him to leave Basel at once,
as it had been resolved to punish him for the attack on the
authorities of which he had been guilty. He departed
from Basel in such haste that he carried nothing with him,
and some chemical apparatus and other property were
taken charge of by Oporinus, his pupil and amanuensis.
He went first to Esslingen, where he remained for a brief
period, but had soon to leave from absolute want. Then
began his wandering life, the course of which can be traced
by the dates of his various writings. He thus visited in
succession Colmar, Nuremberg, Appenzell, Zurich, Pfaffers,
Augsburg, Villach, Meran, Middelheirn, and other places,
seldom staying a twelvemonth in any of them. In this
way he spent some dozen years, till 1541, when he was
invited by Archbishop Ernst to settle at Salzburg, under
his protection. After his endless tossing about, this seemed
a promise and place of repose. It proved, however, to be
the complete and final rest that he found, for after a few
months he died on the 24th of September. The cause
of his death, like most other details in his history, is
uncertain. His enemies asserted that he died in a low
tavern in consequence of a drunken debauch of some days'
duration. Others maintain that he was thrown down a
steep place by some emissaries either of the physicians or
of the apothecaries, both of whom he had during his life
most grievously harassed. In proof of this surgeons have
pointed out in Paracelsus's skull a flaw or fracture, which
could have been produced only during life. Authorities,
however, are not agreed on this point, and it may Le
simplest to suspend belief until more evidence is got. He
was buried in the churchyard of St Sebastian, but in 1752
his bones were removed to the porch of the church, and a
monument of reddish-white marble was erected to his
memory.
In making the attempt to ascertain what was Paracelsus's charac
ter, and what were his philosophical and medical opinions, a very
considerable difficulty presents itself at the outset. Of the volu
minous writings which pass under his name, what are really his
work, and what, if not actually composed by him, express his
ideas ? To this question no complete critical reply has as yet been
given, though many opinions have been expressed. Dr Marx, for
example, will admit only ten treatises as genuine. Dr Haeser allows
seventeen for certain, a considerable number — some twenty-four— as
doubtful, and the rest — he enumerates eleven — as spurious. Dr
Mook does not accept these estimates, or the criteria by which
the genuineness of a treatise is ascertained. But neither does he
give altogether convincing criteria of his own, and, what is still less
satisfactory, he does not apply them — such as they are — to decide
the numerous doubtful cases. The only thing Mook has done is to
draw up a list of ths different editions of Paracelsus's so-called
works. This list is not complete in the enumeration of editions,
and it is quite imperfect in bibliographical description, but with
these and other serious defects it is the fullest at present extant.
The first book by Paracelsus was printed at Augsburg in 1529. It
is entitled Practical). Theophrasti Paracclsi, gemacht auff Europen,
and forms a small quarto pamphlet of five leaves. Prior to this,
in 1526-27, appeared a programme of the lectures he intended
to deliver at Basel, but this can hardly be reckoned a specific
work. During his lifetime fourteen works and editions were pub
lished, and thereafter, between 1542 and 1845, there were at least
two hundred and thirty-four separate publications according to
Mook's enumeration. The first collected edition was made by
Johann Huser in German. It was printed at Basel in 1589-91, in
eleven volumes quarto, and is the best of all the editions. Huser
did not employ the early printed copies only, but collected all the
manuscripts which he could procure, and used them also in forming
his text. The only drawback is that rather than omit anything
which Paracelsus may have composed, he has gone to the opposite
extreme and included writings with which it is pretty certain
Paracelsus had nothing to do. The second collected German
edition is in four volumes folio, 1603-5. Parallel with it in 1603
the first collected Latin edition was made by Palthenius. It is in
eleven volumes quarto, and was completed in 1605. Again, in
1616-18 appeared a reissue of the folio German edition of 1603, and
finally in 1658 came the Geneva Latin version, in three volumes
folio, edited by Bitiskius.
The works were originally composed in Swiss-German, a vigorous
speech which Paracelsus wielded with unmistakable power. The
Latin versions were made or edited by Adam von Boden stein,
Gerard Dorn, Michael Toxites, and Oporinus, about the middle of
the 16th century. A few translations into other languages exist,
as of the Chirurgia Magna and some other works into French,
and of one or two into Dutch, Italian, and even Arabic. The
translations into English amount to about a dozen, dating mostly
from the middle of the 17th century. The original editions of
Paracelsus's works are getting less and less common ; even the
English versions are among the rarest of their class. Over and
above the numerous editions, there is a bulky literature of an
explanatory and controversial character, for which the world is
indebted to Paracelsus's followers and enemies. A good deal of it
is taken up with a defence of chemical, or, as they were called,
"spagyric," medicines against the attacks of the supporters of the
Galenic pharmacopoeia.
The aim of all Paracelsus's writing is to promote the progress
of medicine, and he endeavours to put before physicians a grand
ideal of their profession. In his attempts he takes the widest view
of medicine. He bases it on the general relationship which man
bears to nature as a whole ; he cannot divorce the life of man from
that of the universe ; he cannot think of disease otherwise than as
a phase of life. He is compelled therefore to rest his medical prac-
tice upon general theories of the present state of things ; his medi
cal system — if there is such a thing — is an adaptation of his cos
mogony. It is this latter which has been the stumbling-block to
many past critics of Paracelsus, and unless its character is remem
bered it will be the same to others in the future. Dissatisfied with
the Aristotelianism of his time, Paracelsus turned with greater
expectation to the Neoplatonism which was reviving. His eager
ness to understand the relationship of man to the universe led him
to the Kabbala, where these mysteries seemed to be explained, and
from these unsubstantial materials he constructed, so far as it can
be understood, his visionary philosophy. Interwoven with it, how
ever, were the results of his own personal experience and work in
natural history and chemical pharmacy and practical medicine,
23G
PAR — P A
unfettered by any speculative generalizations, and so shrewd an
observer as Paracelsus was must have often felt that his philosophy
and his experience did not agree with one another. It was doubt
less a very great ideal of medicine which Paracelsus raised ; but
when it came to realizing it in every-day life he could hardly do else
than fail. During the three hundred years which have elapsed since
his time knowledge both of the macrocosm and of the microcosm
has increased far beyond what Paracelsus could have understood,
even had it been all foretold him ; the healing art has advanced
also, though perhaps scarcely at the same rate, but it would be as
hard for us as for him to apply any cosmogony, however rational,
to curing disease. We are not one whit nearer the solution of the
problems which puzzled Paracelsus than he was ; the mystery of
the origin, continuance, and stoppage of life is, perhaps through the
abundance of light shed on other phenomena, even darker than it
may have seemed to Paracelsus. If this be so it is no matter for
• surprise, or blame, or ridicule that he missed constructing a theory
of the universe which at the same time would be a never-failing
guide to him in the practical work of alleviating the evils which a
residence in this universe seems to entail.
Some of his doctrines have been already alluded to in the
article MEDICINE (q.v. ), and it would serve no purpose to give
even a brief sketch of his views, seeing that their influence has
passed entirely away, and that they are of interest only in their
place in a general history of medicine and philosophy. Defective,
however, as they may have been, and unfounded in fact, his kab-
balistic doctrines led him to trace the dependence of the human
body upon outer nature for its sustenance and cure. The doctrine of
signatures, the supposed connexion of every part of the little world
of man with a corresponding part of the great world of nature, was
a fanciful and false exaggeration of this doctrine, but the idea
carried in its train that of specifics. This led to the search for these,
which were not to be found in the bewildering and untested mixtures
of the Galenic prescriptions. Paracelsus had seen how bodies
were purified and intensified by chemical operations, and he thought
if plants and minerals could be made to yield their active principles
it would surely be better to employ these than the crude and unpre
pared originals. He had besides arrived by some kind of intuition
at the conclusion that the operations in the body were of a chemical
character, and that when disordered they were to be put right
by counter operations of the same kind. It may be claimed for
Paracelsus that he embraced within the idea of chemical action some
thing more than the alchemists did. Whether or not he believed
in the philosopher's elixir is of very little consequence. If he did,
he was like the rest of his age ; but he troubled himself very little,
if at all, about 'it. He did believe in the immediate use for thera
peutics of the salts and other preparations which his practical skill
enabled him to make. Technically he was not a chemist ; he did
not concern himself either with the composition of his compounds
or with an explanation of what occurred in their making. If he
could g<?t potent drugs to cure disease he was content, and he worked
very hard in an empirical way to make them. That he found out
some new compounds is certain ; but not one great and marked dis
covery can be ascribed to him. Probably therefore his positive
services are to be summed up iu this wide application of chemical
ideas to pharmacy and therapeutics ; his indirect and possibly
greater services are to be found in the stimulus, the revolutionary
stimulus, of his ideas about method and general theory. It is
not difficult, however, to criticize Paracelsus and to represent him as
so far below the level of his time as to be utterly contemptible. It
is difficult, but perhaps not impossible, to raise Paracelsus to a place
among the great spirits of mankind. It is most difficult of all to
ascertain what his true character really was, to appreciate aright
this man of fervid imagination, of powerful and persistent con
victions, of unbated honesty and love of truth, of keen insight into
the errors (as he thought them) of his time, of a merciless will to
lay bare these errors and to reform the abuses to which they gave
rise, who in an instant offends us by his boasting, his grossness, his
want of self-respect. It is a problem how to reconcile his ignorance,
his weakness, his superstition, his crude notions, his erroneous
observations, his ridiculous inferences and theories, with his grasp
of method, his lofty views of the true scope of medicine, his lucid
statements, his incisive and epigrammatic criticisms of men and
motives.
A character full of contradictory elements cannot but have had
contradictory judgments passed on it ; and after three hundred
years the animus is as strong and the judgments are as diverse as
(J. F.)
PARADISE is an old Persian word (Pairidaeza in the
Vcndidad) meaning an enclosure, a park. The Greeks
use the word in the form IlapaoVuros of the parks of the
Persian kings, and it was borrowed also by the Hebrews
in the form DY|9 (Cant. iv. 13; Eccles. ii. 5; Neh. ii. 8;
A. V., "orchard," "forest"). The Septuagint chose the
Greek form to translate the "garden " of Genesis ii. ; other
Greek and Latin versions followed them, and thus
" paradise " became the usual ecclesiastical name for the
garden of Eden, which has been spoken of under EDEN.
Now, as Paradise in this sense was the residence of man
before he sinned, it was natural enough that theological
speculation as to the dwelling-place of the righteous, after
death, or in the future glory, should attach itself to the
account given in Genesis of the original habitation of
righteous Adam, and borrow not only the name but in
some measure also the conception of paradise as there
described. This took place in more than one way, as we
see from the Jewish apocalyptic literature, and especially
from the book of Enoch. Thus we find (1) the idea that
the old Paradise still exists in a secret part of the earth,
and that Enoch, Elijah, and other elect and righteous
persons dwell there. This is the foundation of the
doctrine of the earthly paradise, which passed into
Christianity — being supposed to find confirmation in the
New Testament, especially in Luke xxiii. 43. The earthly
paradise, as developed by Christian fancy, is the old
garden of Eden, which lay in the far East beyond the
stream of Ocean, raised so high on a triple terrace of
mountain that the deluge did not touch it. It is the
residence of certain departed saints, and the pictures drawn
of it are coloured with classical reminiscences of Elysium
and the Islands of the Blest. How these outlines were
filled up at different periods may be learned from Ephraem
Syrus's poem on Paradise (4th century), from Cosmas
Indicopleustes (6th century), from the Divina Commedia of
Dante, and other mediaeval sources. A more ideal con
ception is (2) that of the heavenly paradise. To the
Hebrews ideal things represent themselves as the heavenly
counterparts of earthly things ; ideals which God's people
are to realize in the future are already existent in heaven;
or even things which have once been lost, but which are
necessary to man's true happiness, are preserved in heaven.
Thus the heavenly paradise was either a mere figure for
the good things, corresponding to those which Adam lost,
which are reserved in heaven for the righteous, or it was
the heavenly archetype of which the earthly paradise was
a copy, or on a crasser way of thinking it was held that
the paradise which Adam lost had been actually trans
ported to heaven. The commonest form of the idea was
perhaps that expressed in 4 Ezra and the Talmud, by
saying that paradise was created before the earth. This
paradise is not conceived as the place of the souls of all
the righteous after death, but it is inhabited by certain
select persons — Enoch, Elijah, Moses, Ezra — who enjoy in
it the fellowship of the coming Messiah. After the last
judgment, when the enemies of Israel are cast into Gehenna,
the righteous are raised to paradise, and there behold the
glory of God. Associated with such views as these, we
find farther the idea (3) that in the future glory paradise,
or the heavenly Jerusalem, which stood in paradise before
the fall and was removed to heaven with it (Apoc. Baruch),
will be brought down from heaven to earth, that the tree
of life will be planted on Zion (Bk. Enoch, 4 Ezra). All
these apocalyptic crudities, which it is not necessary to
follow into details, are really mechanical developments of
a legitimate, one may even say an inevitable, inference
from the position that the garden of Gen. ii. represents a
state of ideal human felicity lost through sin. For, if this
be so, the future bliss of the redeemed must be conceived
as somehow analogous to the life of Eden, and a literal un
imaginative conception of this analogy, making no allowance
for the difference between the happiness of childhood, prior
to experience of the everyday world, and the happiness of a
life which has conquered the world, must end in regarding
the future home of the blest as a mere reproduction of
Eden. But the use of the word paradise for the home of
P A R — P A B
237
the blessed does not necessarily imply so mechanical a con
ception as we find in the Jewish apocalypses ; to speak of
the future bliss at all, without the use of metaphysics, is
possible only in the form of poetical description, and for
such description the story of the garden of Eden supplied
the necessary concrete elements, which the apocalyptists
took literally, while higher thinkers used them as symbols —
and ordinary language, perhaps, as mere conventional equi
valents — for ineffable things. Thus the images borrowed
from Eden in such a prophecy as Isa. xi. are certainly not
meant literally, any more than the figure of the tree of life
in the book of Proverbs. So in the New Testament even
Rev. ii. 7 is plainly figurative, and in Luke xxiii. 43
paradise is simply the place of bliss. In 2 Cor. xii. 4
paradise is a heavenly place where ineffable words were
heard by Paul ; but he himself does not know whether he
visited it in the body or out of the body.
See Dillmann's Buch Enoch, and his articles " Eden " and
•' Paradies " in Schenkel's Bibel- Lexicon ; Weber, Altsynagogale
Thcolocjie ; and the books on Biblical theology. The Mohammedan
paradise (al-Janna) is borrowed from the Jews, as appears from the
name Jannatu 'Adnin, that is, Garden of Eden. It is described
in the Koran and by later theologians as a place of all sensuous
delights, where the righteous recline on couches in a fair garden
drinking the delicious beverage supplied by the fountain Tasnim
and waited on by damsels with great bright eyes ("Hur," Kor. Iv.
72, hence our "houri," which is properly a Persian form). The
expression " gardens of Firdaus " (the Persian form of the word
Paradise) occurs in Kor. xviii. 107, and is interpreted as meaning
the highest region of the Janna (Beidawi in I.)
PARADISE, BIRDS OF. See vol. iii. p. 778.
PARAFFIN. In the course of his classical investiga
tion on the tar produced in the dry distillation of wood,
Reichenbach in 1830 discovered in it, amongst many
other things, a colourless wax-like solid which he called
paraffin (parum affinis) because he found it to be endowed
with an extraordinary indifference towards all reagents.
A few years later he isolated from the same material a
liquid oil chemically similar to paraffin, to which he gave
the name of eupion (eiWwv, very fat). For many years
both these bodies were known only as chemical curiosities,
and even scientific men looked upon them as things entirely
sui generis ; this was natural enough as far as paraffin is
concerned, but it is rather singular that it took so long
before it was realized that eupion or something very much
like it forms the body of PETROLEUM (q.v.), which had
been known, since the time of Herodotus at least, to well
up abundantly from the bowels of the earth in certain
places. Though extensively known, it was used only as
an external medicinal agent, until the late Mr James
Young conceived the idea of industrially working a com
paratively scanty oil-spring in Derbyshire, and subse
quently found that an oil similar to petroleum is obtained
by the dry distillation of cannel coal and similar materials
at low temperatures. This discovery developed into a
grand industry, which may be said to have led to the
utilization of those immense natural stores of petroleum
in America. Scientific chemists naturally directed their
attention to the products of these new industries, and it
was soon ascertained that solid paraffin and eupion, as well
as natural and artificial petroleum, are substantially more
or less impure mixtures of saturated hydrocarbons ; and so it
comes that, on the proposal of H. Watts, the word paraffin
in scientific chemistry has been adopted as a generic term
for this class of compounds of carbon and hydrogen.
When the electric light is generated within an atmo
sphere of hydrogen, then, at the immense temperature of
the electric arc, part of the carbon of the charcoal terminals
unites with the hydrogen into acetylene gas, C.2H2. Apart
from this isolated fact, which was discovered by Berthelot
in 1862, it might be said that the two elements are not
capable of uniting directly, although an innumerable
variety of hydrocarbons exist in nature, and can be pro
duced artificially from organic substances. Individual
hydrocarbons may differ very much in their properties.
At ordinary temperature and pressure a few are gases;
the majority present themselves as liquids ; not a few are
solids. But the solids are fusible ; and all liquid or
liquefied hydrocarbons, at a high enough temperature,
volatilize, as a rule without decomposition. To the latter
circumstance to a great extent we owe our precise know
ledge of their chemical constitution.
In all the numerous series of hydrocarbons the percentages of
carbon vary from 75 (in marsh gas) to 947 (in chrysene). Within
this narrow range of some 20 per cent, several dozens of elementary
compositions have to be accommodated ; and many of these, to be
represented in formulae CXH^ with an adequate degree of precision,
require formulas in which the coefficients x and y are so large that,
by means of integers less than these, any fancy composition (within
our limits) may be expressed with a degree of exactitude which is
quite on a par with the analyses. But these hydrocarbons, in
general, can be volatilized into gases, and in regard to these
Avogadro's law tells us that quantities proportional to the mole
cular weights (i.e., the weights represented by the true chemical
formulae) occupy the same volume. Hence, to find the true value,
M = C;eHj,, of the formula as a whole, we need only determine the
vapour density, and from it calculate the weight of the respective
hydrocarbon which, as a gas at t° and P millimetres pressure,
occupies the same volume as, for instance, H20 parts of steam.
This is M. The elementary analysis enables us to calculate the
weight x x C of carbon contained in M parts, and the analysis must
be very poor to leave us in doubt as to whether it is for instance
6 x 12 parts of carbon or 7x12 parts that we have to deal with.
The reader will now understand how it has been possible to ascer
tain the elementary composition of all pure hydrocarbons with a
degree of precision which goes beyond that of the analysis, and to
prove what analysis could never have done by itself, namely, that
there are numerous groups of hydrocarbons which have absolutely
identical elementary compositions, — cases of isomerism, as they
are called. We speak of isomerism in the narrower sense " when
the atomic formulae are identical (there are, for instance, two
hydrides of butyl, C4H10), while we speak of "polymeric" bodies
when the several formulae are integer multiples of the same primi
tive group (e.g. , ethylene, 2 x CH2, and butylene, 4 x CH2, are
polymers to one another).
The following table gives an idea of the several classes of hydro
carbons which for us come more particularly into consideration.
n
Paraffins.
Olefines.
Acetylenes.
Benzols.
I
CH4
Vacat.
Vacat.
Vacat.
2
C2H6
C2H4
C0H,
•2 ~s
Vacat.
3
C3H8
C3H4
S "M
Vacat.
4
C4H10
C4H8
-° -R Vacat.
5
C-H12
-S "
Vacat.
6
C6H14
C6H12
C6H6
7
8
C7H16
C7H14
a '3
a >>«
C7H8
r H
*-"R-"-10
as a o n~w"
^9M12
n
CBHSB+2
CnH2ra
HH s rt i CnH2n_6
The first column, under "n," gives the number of carbon atoms
per molecule in the compounds whose formula} stand in that hori
zontal line,— these latter being arranged in a descending series
according to the number of hydrogen atoms united with n atoms
of carbon. Instead of pointing out those regularities, in regard to
the atomic proportions in which carbon and hydrogen can unite
into compounds, which the table illustrates so forcibly, let us rather
state that the "benzols," in opposition to all that stands to their
left in the table, are things of their own kind. In them six atoms
of the carbon are most firmly united (into a "ring," as a certain
theory says), and the rest are, so to say, hooked on to the ring in a
less intimate fashion. Thus benzol is (C6)H6 ; each one of the six
H's being tied to one of the six C's ; toluol is (CBH5)— CH3 ; it is a
benzol from which one of the six hydrogen atoms has been removed,
and in which the gap left has been filled by a "methyl," CH3 : —
C6H6 + CH4 = H2 + (C6H5)-(CH3).
Benzol. Marsh gas.
But similarly two dehydrogeuated benzols, C6H5, can unite into
one double ring of diphenyl : 2C.H8 - 2H = (C6H6)(C6H6) ; and
two benzol rings may unite more firmly in such a manner that
two carbon atoms of the one ring do service for the two rings,
and a double ring is formed firmly united by these two common
carbons, the four hydrogens of the original two benzols being
away. This gives naphthalene : —
C6H6 + C6HG-2C-4H = C10H8.
Benzol. Naphthalene.
238
PARAFFIN
In a similar manner three benzols may unite into one anth
racene : —
C6H6 + C6H6 + C6H8 - 40 - 8H - CJ4H10 .
Benzol. Anthracene.
Generally speaking, a hydrocarbon is the more volatile
the less the number of carbon atoms and the greater the
number of hydrogen atoms in the molecule. Thus, in the
series of "paraffins," CH4 (marsh gas) and C2H6 (ethane)
are gases, C;)HS (propane) and C4H10 (butane) are very
volatile liquids, and C5H12, «fec., are liquids, — with higher
and higher boiling points as we ascend the series. From a
certain value of n upwards we find ourselves amongst the
paraffins proper, which are solids, more or less easily
fusible, but not, in general, volatile without decomposition.
Benzol, C0H6, and its neighbouring homologues are volatile
liquids. Naphthalene and anthracene are crystalline solids,
fusible at 79°'2 and 180° C., and boiling at 217° and above
300° C. respectively without decomposition.
All hydrocarbons agree in this, that they are practically
insoluble in water, but more or less readily soluble (in
general) in alcohol and in ether. They are all combustible ;
the more readily volatile ones are inflammable. Any
complete combustion, of course, leads to the formation of
only carbonic acid and water, with evolution of a large
amount of heat ; but the mechanism of the process is more
or less complex. Naphthalene and anthracene remain un-
decomposed at a red heat; only at the very high tempera
ture of their flames, and by the co-operation of the oxygen
of the air, they are decomposed with large elimination of
charcoal; a similar, though less, stability is exhibited by
the benzols. The paraffins, on the other hand, are relatively
unstable. Marsh gas, it is true, stands a red heat ; but,
to pass to the other end of the series, the paraffins proper,
and also the higher liquid paraffins to some extent, even
when being distilled, and especially when distilled "under
pressure," i.e., at higher temperatures than their natural
boiling points, break up into olefines and lower paraffins
(Thorpe and John Young). Similar changes take place
when the vapours of paraffins are passed through red-hot
tubes; only the products formed then suffer deeper-going
decomposition with formation of hydrogen, marsh-gas,
acetylene, ethylene, and charcoal, and, last not least,
benzols and naphthalene. To this latter fact the paraffins
owe their pre-eminent fitness as illuminating agents.
When organoid minerals, such as cannel coal, shale, &c.,
aVe subjected to dry distillation, all the several classes of
hydrocarbons are in general produced at the same time;
but, from what we have said it will be understood that,
even with the same material, the quantitative composition
of the complex vapour which comes out of the retort
depends on the way in which the distillation is being
conducted. If we operate at the lowest practicable
temperature, comparatively little gas is produced, and in
the condensible part of the vapour the paraffins pre
dominate largely ; at a bright red heat, such as is used in
making coal gas, and especially if the vapours have to pass
along red-hot surfaces before they get into the condenser
pipes, more gas is produced, and the place of the liquid
paraffins is taken by benzols. These latter, however, are
always accompanied by naphthalene, often also by anthra
cene, and invariably by certain ternary benzol-derivatives,
namely, by "phenols," feebly acid bodies containing
hydroxyl groups, OH's, where the corresponding hydro
carbon bore plain hydrogens (ordinary phenol, C6H5(OH),
derived from benzol, CCH5H, is a representative example),
and, secondly, basic compounds of carbon, hydrogen,
and nitrogen. Of the latter aniline and picoline —
both C0HrN, but widely different in their properties
— may be quoted as examples. The gas produced
in this case through the presence in it of the vapour
of higher hydrides, but especially of acetylene, C2H2, and
benzol is highly luminous. Supposing now, as a third
instance, the distillation to be conducted at a white heat,
and so that the primary vapour has to wind its way
through a spiral pipe kept at a bright red heat, the pro
portion of gas increases largely, and there is an increased
yield of retort charcoal; but the liquid hydrocarbons of
all classes almost vanish; the gas consists mainly of
hydrogen, marsh gas, carbonic oxide, and carbonic acid,
and gives little light when kindled.
The aim of the paraffin oil manufacturer is to produce
the best possible approximation to a mixture of paraffins,
wherefore he conducts his distillation at the lowest work
ing temperature. Of course his paraffin mixture contains
more or less of the other classes of bodies referred to,
whose removal, however, offers no great difficulty. In the
laboratory we should commence by shaking the crude oil
with caustic alkali ley, which withdraws the phenols and
other acid bodies, as part of a lower layer, the upper
being purified oil. By shaking the latter with dilute
sulphuric acid the bases are removed as a solution of their
sulphates, and a still purer oil results. Application of con
centrated sulphuric acid to the latter removes part at least
of the benzols and olefines as sulpho-acids, and also of
the phenols and all the bases, should the two preceding
operations have been omitted. But the most thorough
mode of getting quit of the benzols and their derivatives is
— after having exhausted the milder agents — to shake the
oil with first aqueous and then stronger and stronger nitric
acid, which reagent converts the benzol-bodies into nitro-
products, soluble in the acid, or removable, after separation
of the acid layer, by aqueous alkali. By all these tortures
the paraffins — being what the name implies — are not much
affected, so that what ultimately survives all belongs to
their family. The separation of the individual paraffins
from one another is a very difficult problem which has not
yet found a satisfactory solution. What we know of in
dividual paraffins is derived chiefly from the investigation
of decompositions of pure chemical substances leading to
the formation of that one paraffin principally if not solely.
To split up a mixture of paraffins approximately the only
known method is fractional distillation (see DISTILLATION,
vol. vii. p. 260), preferably by means of an apparatus so
constructed that the vapour, before reaching the con
denser, ascends through an intermediate inverted con
denser or still-head, and there suffers partial condensation
at some suitable temperature (enforced in the most perfect
form of the apparatus by an oil-bath surrounding the still-
head). In this latter case, singularly — not as a matter of
course by any means — what goes over boils very nearly at
the temperature of the still-head. This particular form of
the method therefore lends itself chiefly for the final
purification of an unitary substance of known boiling point
already purified by preceding distillations. With mixtures
of unknown composition the process is very tedious, and
may assume something like this form.
We distil tho cubstance (slowly and with ample chance
of partial condensation) and collect as separate fractions
what came over at, for instance, 100° to 105°, 105° to
110°, 110° to 115°, <fec., as I., II., III., IV., &c. Each of
these when redistilled yields I. and II. and III. and IV.,
&c., which parts are poured into the respective receptacles,
and on this principle Ave continue working. If the sub
stance happens to be of comparatively simple composition,
it usually turns out, after a while, that (say) the two
fractions II. and VI. increase while the rest get less and
less ; and by working on we may be able to isolate two
bodies of the constant boiling points t.2 and tf> respectively,
with formation of " tails " of other boiling points.
Unfortunately, even a constant boiling point is no proof of
chemical purity ; and, if a constant-boiling substance is a
PARAFFIN
239
mixture, only chemical methods can help us out of the
difficulty.
The following table (extracted from Roscoe and
Schorlemmer's Handbook of Chemistry, German edition)
gives the names, specific gravities, and boiling points
of the more important paraffins. The first column,
" n, " gives the number of carbon-atoms in the molecule,
and consequently the molecular weight M and the
vapour density S. In the case of "pentan," for
instance, we have n = 5 ; hence M = C5H12 = 72 ; and, as
H2 = 2, the gas-density, referred to hydrogen = S = 36,
while, as air is 14'45 times as heavy as hydrogen, for the
gas-density referred to air the value
n
1
2
Q
4
.j
5
6
6
i;
i;
<;
7
7
7
7
s
S
8
9
!l
9
10
10
lo
11
12
13
1 1
L6
it;
Name.
Boiling Point in
Degrees.
Sp. Gr. of
Liq. at<° C.
Fahr.
Cent.
t
Liquid at —1
pressure ((
Liquid at +4
(Cailletet).
—13° to —22°
+34°
+ 1°
99° to 102°
86°
49°
156°
144°
140°
136°
109° to 118°
209s
195°
205°
187° to 180°
258°
227°
221° to 223°
297° to 298°
270*
266°
331° to 334°
320°
320°
Not
396°
532°
1° C. and 180
Cailletet).
° C. under 46
-25°to-30°
+ 1°
-17'
+37° to 39"
30°
9° -5
69°
62°
60°
58°
43° to 48°
98° -4
90° -3
96°
86° to 87°
125°-5
108°-5
105° to 106°
147° to 148°
132°
130°
166° to 168°
about 160°
160°
yet isolated.
202°
278°
atmospl
atmospl
0-600
(?)
0-6263
0-6385
(?)
0-663
0-701
(?)
0-6769
(?)
0-7005
0-6969
0-689
0-7111
0-7188
0-7111
(?)
0-7279
0-7247
(?)
0-7394
(?)
0-7413
(?)
eres'
leres
(?)
iV°
14°
iV°
0°
io°
"d°
0°
27°
0°
0°
0°
13°-5
0°
13°-5
"6°
:
(
Isobutan or trimethylmethan, a gas
Methyl-diethylmethan
Hexmethylethan, fuses at 96° ^
to 97° j"
Dimethyl-heptylmethan
Tetramethyl-hexan or " diamyl "...
"^
> Not isolated yet.
Hekdi'ka-dekan, normal, fuses at )
+ 21° C f
Probably all the paraffins enumerated in the table are
present in paraffin oil and in petroleum ; those marked *
have been actually found in the one or the other. The solid
paraffins are not known as unitary chemical substances ; no
chemist as yet has succeeded in splitting up solid paraffin
into its proximate components. The manufacturer, in
regard to the liquid paraffins even, does not trouble him
self with the isolation of chemical species ; he contents
himself with splitting up his oil into fractions correspond
ing to certain ranges of boiling point, and consequently
adapted to certain practical applications. But even the
boiling point is not much heeded industrially ; the several
kinds of oil are defined by their specific gravity at 60°
F., which, as experience shows, increases as the boiling
point rises. But it is as well here to point out that the
same (initial) boiling point even, and in a much higher
degree the same specific gravity, may be exhibited by oils
of widely different proximate composition. Hence a
relatively (and in a sense sufficiently) high specific gravity
is no guarantee against dangerous inflammability ; the
degree of inflammability in an oil must be — and in practice
always is being — determined by direct experiment. For
this purpose it is not sufficient to heat a sample oil in an
open vessel gradually to higher and higher temperatures,
and to note the temperature at which the atmosphere over
the oil proves inflammable when a lighted taper is brought
in contact with it. By this method (which formerly
was the universally recognized test) the most varying
results may be obtained with the same oil. Far
more trustworthy is the close test first proposed by
Keates about 1870, the principle of which is to heat the
oil within a close vessel which is opened only from time
to time to apply a light to its atmosphere. For the
execution of this test many varieties of apparatus have
been proposed. That adopted by Abel, and now (1884)
legally recognized in Great Britain, is made of sheet
copper, the exact thickness of which is prescribed for
every part. The oil is placed in a close cup, suspended in
an air-bath, which latter is heated by immersion in a warm-
water bath, provided with an air-jacket. The top of the
oil cup is pierced with three circular orifices, one in the
centre for trying the best flame, and two smaller lateral
holes for admitting air at the close of each trial. The
holes are covered by a slide so contrived that when the
central hole has become almost uncovered the lateral ones
are also open. The slide carries a small colza-oil lamp
suspended on trunnions, having a flame of a prescribed
size. A pendulum two feet in length vibrates in front of
the observer, who, in testing, withdraws the slide slowly
during three vibrations, tilts the lamp to bring its flame
in contact with the atmosphere of the vessel, and quickly
shuts the slide during the fourth vibration. To execute a
test the oil at about 60° F. is placed in the cup, which is
immersed in the water-bath having water of 130° F. A
thermometer plunged into the oil and another in the
water-bath indicate their temperatures. When the oil has
approached its presumable flashing point, trials are made
at each rise of 1° F. in the temperature of the oil. The
lowest temperature at which the atmosphere of the cup
inflames is the flashing point of the oil tested. The legal
minimum flashing point of burning oil by the close test is
75° F., corresponding to about 100aF. by the obsolete open
test.
The variety of mixed paraffins which the oil-distiller
produces may be arranged under the following heads : —
(1) oils too volatile to be available for domestic illumina
tion, serving chiefly as solvents ; (2) burning oils, as
required for house lamps ; (3) oils of very high boiling
point, available, and used chiefly, for lubricating purposes ;
(4) solid paraffin.
The products of the second class have long come to
practically supersede the colza oil which used to be the
illuminating oil par excellence. Over it they offer the
advantages of greater cheapness and of giving, weight for
weight, more light. But their drawbacks are that, how
ever carefully refined they may be, they have, when
allowed to leak out, or in lamps of inferior construction, a
somewhat disagreeable pungent odour, and that there is
always a lurking danger in the possible presence of highly
volatile inflammable hydrocarbons. Colza oil will never
burn without a wick ; paraffin oil or petroleum may do so.
Products of the second and third classes, separately or
combinedly, are of course available as fuels proper, i.e., for
the production of heat. At the time when mineral oil
was first produced in great quantity in America, the
advantages it would offer as a fuel for marine boilers
especially were very emphatically insisted on. Of course
mineral oil can be more economically stored than coal,
and its combustion-heat is susceptible of more exhaustive
utilization. The latter fact forms the raison d'etre of those
beautiful petroleum kitchen-stoves and culinary lamps
which are very much used on the Continent where gas is
not at hand. But to talk of mineral oil as a cheap
fuel for wholesale heating is nonsense. H. St Claire
Deville, about 1870, made an extensive investigation on
the calorific value of American petroleum which, as we
know, is pretty much the same thing as paraffin oil. He
used a large apparatus, enabling him to burn several
hundred litres of oil in one experiment ; in fact he realized
240
PARAFFIN
more fully than other experimenters had ever done the
conditions prevailing in the working of steam-boilers ; the
only difference was that he took care to collect all the heat
produced in a large mass of water of known weight, and
measured the heat by the increase of temperature produced
in this heat receptacle. He found that even heavy
Virginia lubricating oil gave not more than 10,180
units of heat (Centigrade) per unit-weight of fuel burned.
But, on the other hand, in direct experiments made by
Scheurer-Kestner, a coal containing 88 '4 per cent, of
carbon, 4'4 of hydrogen, and 7 "2 per cent, of oxygen,
nitrogen, and ash gave 9628 units of heat, while another
coal of the same elementary composition gave 9117 units.
Gas retort coke (though a far closer approximation to pure
carbon) yields only 8050 units. Supposing coal yielded
just that in opposition to the 10,000 units from petroleum,
it is clear that the latter must not cost more than 1'25
times as much as coal weight for weight, or else it is the
more expensive fuel. Take one ton of coal at 10s.; eight-
tenths of a ton of petroleum is its calorific equivalent ; but
this weight of the oil (taking the specific gravity at 0'8)
measures 224 gallons. Hence petroleum, to be as cheap
as coal, must not cost more than about a halfpenny
a gallon. Cheap as mineral oil is nowadays, it has not
yet come down to this level.
To pass to the lubricating oil (third class), it, like the
burning oil, competes with the fats and fatty oils which
until lately were exclusively employed. In opposition to
these it offers other and very substantial advantages besides
its lower price. Good mineral lubricating oil may have
such very high flashing point that it may be positively less
inflammable than fatty oils or tallow ; and, as a lubricant
for high pressure steam cylinders, it offers the great
advantage that it is not, like fatty oils, decomposed by hot
steam into glycerin and fatty acids, which latter cannot
but attack the metal of the machinery to some extent. A
still more important feature in mineral lubricating oil is
that, even when diffused throughout a mass of cotton (or
other textile) waste, it shows no tendency towards spon
taneous combustion. In exhaustive experiments by
Galletly and by Coleman, it was found that mineral
lubricating oils diffused through textile waste do not take
fire at temperatures at which even colza oil ignites, and
also that fatty lubricants to which from 20 to 50 per cent.
of mineral oil was added were thereby prevented from
igniting.
Solid paraffin, industrially and commercially, is a sub
stitute for the more expensive stearin as a material for
candles. To this latter it is more than equivalent in light-
giving power ; but it offers the drawback of greater soft
ness and lower fusing point. In practice paraffin is always
alloyed with stearin to produce candles possessing the
necessary degree of hardness and stability of form.
The Paraffin Oil Industry of Scotland.
In December 1847 Lyon Play fair drew the attention of the late
Mr James Young, F.R.S., a Glasgow chemist, to a spring or exuda
tion of petroleum at Alfreton in Derbyshire, and induced him to
lease the spring, witli the view of turning the material to commercial
advantage. In 1848 -Mr Young commenced the purification and
preparation from this petroleum of two varieties of oil — one, thick,
for lubricating, the other, thin and limpid, for burning in lamps.
It was found that this crude petroleum contained paraffin in notable
proportion ; but the solid paraffin was not separated for trade
purposes, and that body continued still a simple chemical curiosity.
Within two years the quantity of petroleum yielded by the spring
began to decrease, and in the beginning of 1851 it was practically
exhausted, and the business there ceased. Meantime it had occurred
to Mr Young that the petroleum lie was working might have been
produced by the action of heat on the underlying coal ; and, under
the impression that it might be possible by artificial means to pro
duce a similar substance, he began an extensive series of experiments
on the destructive distillation of coal. As the result of a lom'-con-
tinned iiivestigalion in this direction, with many varieties of coal,
Mr Young in October 1850 secured a patent for the manufacture of
j paraffin and paraffin oil from bituminous coal, which patent became
the basis of the new industry. "The coals, " the patentee says,
" which I deem to be best fitted for the purpose are such as are
usually culled parrot coal, cannel coal, and gas coal, and which are
much used in the manufacture of gas for the purpose of illumination."
Early in 1850 Mr Young's attention was called to the Boghead
mineral, which he found to be of all the substances experimented
upon the most promising for his purpose. That circumstance
determined Mr Young and his original partners to set up their
works at Bathgate in the region of the Boghead mineral, where con
sequently, in 1850, the necessary buildings and plant were erected,
and manufacturing operations were begun in 1851. In 1853 a law
suit of great importance, which turned on the scientific question
" What is coal ? ' took place between the proprietor of a portion of
the Boghead mineral and his mineral tenant, who was entitled to
work coal only. The proprietor averred that the mineral in question
was not coal ; but, after a great amount of scientific evidence on both
sides had been heard, the decision was that the substance came, so
far as regarded the purposes of the lease, within the definition of coal.
Had the issue of the case been in favour of the proprietor of the
mineral, Mr Young's patent would have been practically valueless,
for he claimed only the distillation of bituminous coal. The dis
tillation of mineral schists or shale at a low red heat had, moreover,
been previously patented by Du Buisson ; and the only raw materials
which have been used to any extent in the Scottish industry are the
Boghead mineral and subsequently bituminous shale.
The essential feature of Young's invention was the distillation of
bituminous substances at the lowest temperature at which they
could be volatilized to a practically sufficient extent. In practice
it was found that a temperature of 800° F. is the point about which
the best results are obtained.
The material exclusively distilled in the early years of the industry
in Scotland was the Boghead cannel or Torbanehill mineral. The
supply of this mineral was limited, and, as its value for gas-making
as well as for oil -distilling was very great, it rapidly advanced in
price from 13s. 6d. per ton, at which it was contracted for when the
Bathgate works began operations, till it rose to 90s. per ton before
its final disappearance from the market about 1866. As early as
1859 the bituminous shales which are found in the Scottish
Carboniferous formation began to attract attention as a possible
source of raw material for the industry, and in that year a seam
was experimentally opened up at Broxburn, Linlithgowshire. In
1861 a shale oil work was established at Gavieside, West Calder,
and by the period of the expiry of Young's patent in 1864 several
works distilling shale were in operation. But, while from the Bog
head mineral from 120 to 130 gallons of crude oil were obtainable
for every ton distilled, the ordinary bituminous shales yield at
most only 35 gallons per ton ; and even with the improved methods
of working in use at the present day the average yield of crude oil
from shales is not more than 32 gallons per ton.
The bituminous shales of Scotland are found in a wide belt of the
Carboniferous formation, extending from Ayrshire in a north-easterly
direction to the Fife coast. In Ayr and Renfrew they are found to
some extent in the true Coal-measures; but, generally, and especially
in the east, they are obtained in the Lower Carboniferous series.
These oil shales consist of fissile argillaceous bands, highly impreg
nated with bituminous matter. As a rule the shale of the west
country yields a high percentage of crude oil, but the Linlithgow,
Midlothian, and Fife shales produce oils comparatively rich in
lubricating oil and solid paraffin, the most valuable product of the
industry. The ordinary Broxburn shale contains 17 per cent, of
bituminous volatile matter, and leaves 76 per cent, of spent shale
(char) on distillation. In contrast with this is the composition of
the Boghead mineral, which contained not less than 65 per cent,
of volatile bituminous matter and only 22 per cent, of ash.
In the early years of the industry at Bathgate, the two classes of
oil — heavy (lubricant) and light (illuminating) — were the products
to which attention was principally directed. Paraffin was separated
from the heavy oils ; but the demand for it was at first small, and
many difficulties had to be overcome before candles consisting
principally of that body could be favourably brought into the
market. With the increased knowledge, improved methods, and
eager competition of the present day, the range of products has
largely extended, and almost everything obtainable from the shale,
except the incombustible ash, is turned to profitable account. The
commercial products embrace sulphate of ammonia, illuminating
and heating gas, gasoline and naphtha, highly volatile oils, several
grades of burning oil and of lubricating oil, heavy green oil used for
making oil gas, and solid paraffin. The sequence of manufacturing
operations has not changed in any essential particular since first
established by Young ; but at every stage and in all the appliances
numerous and important modifications have been, and continue to
be, actively introduced, all tending to greater economy of work,
increase of production, and improvement of the quality and variety
of commercial products.
241
Manufacturing Operations.
The manufacture divides itself into two distinct sections : — (1) the
crude works, dealing with the preparation and distillation of the
shale and with the production of crude oil and the collateral products
— illuminating gas, gasoline, and ammonia ; and (2) the refinery,
in which the crude oil is purified and separated or split up into the
considerable range of commercial products obtainable from it. The
following table shows the stages through which the various pro
ducts are derived from shale : —
f Illuminating gas, partly burned and ) ) Al Gasoline.
partly condensed to form gasoline, j "
' \. Naphtha f A 2. Solvent naphtha.
f B 1. Naphtha ) A 3. liurning naphtha.
A 4. Burning oil.
Crude oil.
Ammoniacal liquor.
f 0:.ce-run oil.
1 Coke.
( With sulphuric acid
( =Sulphate of ammonia.
B. Burning portion.
B 2. Burning fraction.
Burning oil of various den
sities.
oil with soft)
~\ Intermediate
( scale.
1. Intermediate oi?.
2. Soft scale.
B 3. Heavy oil with soft \ 1. Lubricating oils, various
scale. densities.
3. Heavy oil with hard f C JJ*"* M with suft j 2' Soft SCllle'
Sca1u' 1 C -2. Hard scale. = Paraffin of high meltin
Crude, Works. — Bituminous shale as brought from the pits is
passed through powerful toothed cylinder machinery, reducing it
to fragments not larger than a man's fist. In this state it is
conveyed in hutches to the retorts, iu which it undergoes destruc
tive distillation — the distinctive operation under Mr Young's
patent. The retorts used have undergone many and important
modifications. Originally, as was natural, horizontal retorts
arranged in benches, in all respects like gas retorts, were employed,
but these in the Scottish trade very quickly gave way to the verti
cal retort. The form of vertical retort originally in general use
consisted of a cast-iron cylinder, circular or oval in cross section,
8 or 10 feet in height and about 2 feet in diameter, or equivalent
thereto. It tapered at the top, where it was provided with a hopper
for charging the material to be distilled and a valve for closing the
retort mouth. The bottom end dipped into a trough of water,
forming an efficient lute, and effectually preventing the escape
downwards of any of the gaseous products of distillation. These
retorts were arranged in linear benches of six, three on each side of
a furnace fed with coal, the heat from which passed to each side
into the chamber or oven in which the retort stood. The distilled
vapours passed away by a pipe at the upper end of the retort,
their emission being aided by a jet of superheated steam injected
at the bottom. The distillation in these retorts was continuous,
a portion of spent shale being withdrawn through the water
in the trough every hour or thereby, and a corresponding amount
of fresh shale being added by the hopper.
As competition with American petroleum increased, the efforts of
manufacturers were directed to cheapening the distilling process,
by utilizing the spent shale from the retorts in its hot condition as
fuel for distilling the succeeding charge. The difficulties in the
way of accomplishing this were very great, chiefly on account of
the large proportion of ash in the coked residue, amounting to
from 85 to 90 per cent, of the whole. To use spent shale so poor
in carbon it was essential that it should be dropped into the fur
nace direct from the retort without exposure to the air, and this was
first successfully accomplished by the improved retorts and furnace
patented by Mr Norman M. Henderson in 1873. According to the
Henderson system, which has been adopted in the more important
Scottish oil works — a scries of four vertical retorts are arranged in
quadrangular order over a common fire-chamber or furnace ; the
bottom ends of the retorts are provided with doors capable of being
closed gas-tight ; and immediately below each door there is a valve
which, in one position, and while the charge is being distilled,
entirely cuts otf the retort bottom from the furnace or fire-chamber,
leaving the retort bottom exposed to the external air, but when the
retort charge has been exhausted of oil, and is about to be passed into
the furnace as fuel, the valve can be turned over outwards, in which
position it forms an inclined shoot contiguous to the bottom of the
retort and the fire-chamber. The door-closing at the bottom of
the retort having been first withdrawn, and the valve drawn back,
the contents of the retort pass freely into the furnace, where their
combustion is at first assisted by a jet of the incondensible
inflammable gas given off by the retorts themselves.
Each Henderson retort can contain about 18 cwt. of shale. The
four retorts forming a set are being cleared in rotation at intervals
of five hours, so that each charge suffers distillation for twenty
hours. The temperature is kept at about 800° F. , this giving
the best results. The vapour produced in the retort is led off
by a pipe issuing from near the bottom, and, in order to avoid
unnecessarily prolonged sojourn of the vapour in the hot vessel, a
jet of superheated steam is constantly made to stream in above
and guide the vapour downwards. The vapour, which amounts to
about 3000 cubic feet per ton of shale distilled, is passed through a
system of condensing pipes, communicating below through a pro
perly divided horizontal chest, like that used in gas works for the
condensation of the tar. From the last compartment of the con
denser the still uncondensed gas is dia\vn away by a fan or other
"exhaust" through a set of "scrubbers." In the first of these the
point.
gas is washed with water and thus stripped of what it still contains
of ammonia ; in the succeeding ones it is washed with heavy oil,
which withdraws a considerable portion of the vapours of the more
highly volatile hydrocarbons which are diffused throughout it. From
this heavy-oil solution the absorbed hydrocarbons are extracted by
distillation as "naphtha." The gas, after having thus been freed
from its more readily condensible parts, is either led away into gas
holders to be utilized as illuminating gas or used directly as a fuel
(see above). The product which collects in the condenser chests
consists of crude oil (about one-fourth of it) and a weak aqueous
solution of ammonia and volatile ammonia salts, containing from 2
to 5 per cent, of real ammonia, NH3, which, however, in all cases
represents only a small percentage of the potential ammonia which
was contained in the original shale in the form of nitrogenous carbon
compounds. In the golden days of paraffin oil making this ammonia
liquor was simply allowed to go to waste ; but when the American
petroleum began to depress the prices of the oils the manufacturer
saw the propriety of working up the liquors for sulphate of
ammonia by the same methods as are employed in connexion with
the coal-gas industry (see NITROGEN, vol. xvii. p. 519). And as,
during the last decade or two, the demand for ammonia has been
steadily increasing, the ammonia in the shale industry by and by
rose from the rank of a minor collateral to that of one of the principal
products, and a number of attempts have been made to recover that
part of the nitrogen which, in the ordinary process, is lost as a com
ponent of the coke. Dr H. Grouven proved (1875-77) that all
nitrogenous organic or organoid matter when exposed to a current
of steam at about 1000° C. burns into carbon oxides, hydrogen, and
ammonia, the last-named including all the nitrogen. Messrs
G. T. Beilby and William Young have worked out and patented
a process for discounting this fact in the shale industry for a more
exhaustive extraction of the ammonia. In one of the later forms of
the process the shale is being distilled in retorts standing over a fire
brick chamber surrounded by flues and kept at a far higher tem
perature than the retorts themselves. The coke from the retorts is
discharged straight into this chamber, and therein exposed to a mixed
current of steam and air, which burns away the carbonaceous part
into carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, hydrogen, and ammonia. The
large mass of hot gas thus produced passes next through the retorts
above to aid in the distillation, and conjointly with the retort
vapour is subjected to systematic successive condensation. The
incondensible gas which is ultimately obtained includes all that
the gas from the ordinary process contains, and also a large pro
portion of hydrogen and carbonic oxide from the hot-chamber
process. It serves as a fuel for heating the chamber and the
retorts ; but, as it does not furnish quite enough of heat for all
this, a combined retort and gas-producer is built into the bench
with the shale retorts. This supplementary apparatus is charged
with coal, which, in it, is first distilled, then converted partiallv
into gas by steam and at last completely by a regulated cur
rent of air. The gas from the first and second stages is scrubbed
to strip it of its ammonia and tar, and then, conjointly with
the gas from the third, used as a fuel for the retorts. In this wa\
the advantages of gas-firing are secured at little expense, as the
condensed products are nearly equivalent in money value to the
coal consumed. In the Young-Beilby process, which is extensively
used in Scottish works, the yield of ammonia is on the average
double, and in special cases five times, that obtained in the ordin
ary process of distillation.
The Working of the Oil. — The composition of the crude oil is
very variable (see above). It generally forms a very dark green,
almost black, liquid, somewhat tarry in appearance, and endowed
with a highly unpleasant empyreumatic odour. The specific gravity
ranges from 0'S62 to 0'895. Each ton of shale distilled yields on an
average 30 gallons of crude oil (about 260 ft>), 700 lb of coke,
gas, and loss, and 1270 lb of cinders. The crude oil on refining
yields 38 to 44 per cent, of oils available as " spirit " or for burning, 1 5
to 20 per cent, of lubricating oil, and 9 to 12 per cent, of solid paraffin.
XVIII. - - 31
242
PARAFFIN
Refinery. — The first operation in oil refining consists in submit
ting the crude oil to distillation in large pot-shaped stills capable
of holding 1200 or 1400 gallons. The distillation is continued till
only a pure vesicular coke remains in the still, and the vapours
(condensed by the ordinary worm-pipe arrangement) constitute
''once-run oil," which from its bright green colour is also known
as green oil. The once-run oil is the material from which, by a
repeated series of washings with sulphuric acid and caustic soda
and fractional distillations, the graduated series of purified pro
ducts is finally obtained.
Washing. — Once-run oil contains a scries of basic and acid com
ponents. To separate these the oil is first repeatedly treated with
sulphuric acid of different degrees of strength, which is thoroughly
intermixed and brought in contact with the oil by mechanical means
in an agitating tank or washer. The acid first used is a weak tarry
acid which has been already used in a subsequent stage of the
manufacture. This produces a copious tarry deposit, which is
removed ; the process is repeated with a similar result ; and there
after the oil is further treated with t\vo successive washings of strong
vitriol. After settling and removal of the precipitated tars, a
similar series of washings with caustic soda solutions of increasing
strength, and corresponding precipitation and removal of tars
which combine with the alkali, are carried out. During both the
acid and the soda treatments the oil is maintained at a tempera
ture of about 1 00° F. by the circulation of steam through the tanks
in coiled pipes. The sulphuric acid tars are to some extent used as
fuel in the fractionating stills.
Fractional Distillation. — The purified once-run oil is a very mixed
substance, giving off vapours within a wide range' of temperatures,
which condense into products of varied specific gravity. By the
series of fractional distillations to which it is submitted a series of
products are ultimately obtained comparatively homogeneous in
constitution, which distil within relatively narrow limits of tem
perature. The ordinary method of fractionating once-run oil
consists in running it into large cylindrical boiler stills heated by
furnaces in which the acid tar already spoken of is consumed. The
stills have led into them steam-pipes, through which steam is
injected into the oil in process of distillation as required. When
the heat is first raised, superheated steam is injected to aid in carry
ing off the lighter vapours, which are condensed as naphtha or
•'spirit." As the distillation proceeds, and the gravity of the con
densed product increases, it is run into separate receivers, and thus
a series of fractionated intermediate products is produced, the first
portion up to 0750 specific gravity being naphtha, while from
0'750 to 0'850 is the burning oil portion, and the subsequent
portion separated is heavy oil containing paraffin. The portion
remaining in the still is removed to the residue stills, in which it is
distilled till the still contains only coke. The oil driven off from
the residue stills is called "heavy oil and paraffin," and passes to
the paraffin house for treatment there.
Improved Fractionating Stills. — Many attempts have been made
to adapt the fractionating still to a system of continuous working
by keeping the contents at a constant level as the distillation pro
ceeds. For a long period continuous distillation was only imper
fectly applicable, and yielded unsatisfactory results. The lighter
fractions alone were driven off, and as the distillation progressed
the density of the contents of the still gradually increased, making
the difference between the oil added to the still and that within it
increasingly great. In the end the contents of the still had to be
removed and completely distilled as one charge in a separate still.
In 1883 Mr Norman M. Henderson, the patentee of the Henderson
retort, patented a continuous process of distillation which com
pletely obviates all difficulties, and largely reduces the time, labour,
and cost of fractionation as compared with the ordinary intermittent
method. According to Henderson's system, purified once-run oil is
fractionated continuously in a connected series of three cylindrical
stills. Each still is fitted with inlet and outlet pipes, the months
of which opening upwards are placed at opposite extremities of the
still. The outlet pipe of No. 1 passes as inlet into No. 2, and
similarly outlet of No. 2 is connected as inlet with No. 3, while
the outlet of No. 3 passes into one or more common residue stills.
The inlet or feed pipe of No. 1 traverses the long horizontal con
densing pipes of the whole three, and thus the once-run oil, while
absorbing heat before entering No. 1 still, also aids the condensation
of the vapours. In working there is a constant feeding of heated
once-run oil into No. 1 still, a like steady flow from No. 1 to No.
2, from No. 2 to No. 3, and from No. 3 to a residue still. The oil
of course increases in density as it passes onwards ; but the specific
gravity in each still is practically constant, and, as the heat applied
is increased in proportion to the gravity, the oil vaporized in each
separate still is of uniform quality and specific gravity. In No. 3
still, where, in consequence of the high gravity and temperature,
there is a tendency to deposit cai'bonaceous matter, circulating plates
or dishes hinged to each side of the still, and concentric with the
bottom shell, are placed. The circulation of the oil from the bottom
up the sides in the space between the shell and the circulating
plates is directed and assisted by jets of steam from a pipe laid
along the bottom of the still. In this way the oil is kept in steady
circulation up the sides and down the centre, and any deposit of
coke which may take place forms on the inner surface of the circu
lating plates, from which there is provision for its easy removal
when required.
The manufacturer has now his material split up into three pro
ducts — naphtha, burning oil, and heavy oil with paraffin. By
renewed treatments with acid and alkali and fractional distilla
tions, these products are further purified and differentiated. We
cannot go into technical details, and in regard to the principles upon
which the processes are founded reference may be made to what
has been said above in connexion with corresponding laboratory
methods. As a final result the following products (or a similar
series of other products) are produced and sent out into the
market :—
1. Gasoline : a mixture of paraffins, so volatile that a current of air by being
passed through it at ordinary temperatures is converted into combustible (non-
explosive) gas.
2. Naphtha: a mixture of hydrocarbons which in volatility and otherwise arc
equivalent to the crude benzol of the coal-gas industry.
3. Burning oil : a mixture of oils sufficiently volatile and light to be suitable
for combustion in domestic lamps with wicks, and yet practically free of
dangerously volatile inflammable components.
4. Heavy oil, corresponding to a range of very high boiling points; too heavy
or viscid to be raised by the wick of a lamp, but well adapted for lubricating
purposes. This part contains the solid paraffin which the manufacturer takes
care to extract as completely as possible before the oil is sold as "lubricating
oil." The several kinds of crude paraffin extracted are classed as "hard scab:"
or " soft scale," according to their fusing points and consequent degrees of hard
ness at ordinary temperatures.
Separation of Hard Scale. — The heavy oil forming the last of
the three portions into which once-run oil is fractionated, at ordi
nary atmospheric temperatures, becomes thick and pasty by the
abundant formation of crystals of solid paraffin. This mixture of
oil and paraffin is separated by draining through canvas bags, or,
as is now the almost universal practice, by passing the magma into
a filter press. This apparatus contains a series of thirty or forty
perforated plates about 2 feet square, the faces of which are
covered with filtering canvas. They are screwed up together in
an oblong horizontal frame, so that a space or chamber about an
inch wide is left between each pair of plates. Into these chambers
the pasty mixture is forced under high pressure, the material pass
ing into and filling each chamber through an orifice in the centre
of the plates till the whole of the chambers are filled. The
pressure being kept up, the fluid oil exudes through the canvas and
perforations in the plates, leaving solid paraffin, which continues to
accumulate till the chambers are filled with it in a comparatively
dry condition. The soft cake from the filter press is further
squeezed in canvas in an hydraulic press giving off more fluid oil,
and the cake from this pressure consists of commercial hard scale
or crude paraffin.
Soft Scale. — The heavy oils separated in the second and third
fractionation of burning oils, and the oil from which the above hard
scale is separated, hold dissolved in them paraffin of low melting
point, which can only be crystallized out by bringing the oil to a
very low temperature. For this purpose the oils are reduced to
from 18° to 20° F. by artificial refrigeration. The method now
employed consists in sufficiently cooling a continuous current of
brine or of chloride of calcium solution by passing it through an
ether refrigerating machine. This cold current of brine circulates
through the interior of a large cylinder or drum, which revolves
slowly, dipping into a trough containing the oil to be cooled. The
cold surface of the drum in contact with the oil takes on a deposit
of solid paraffin crystallized out of the mixture. It is removed by
scrapers and made to fall into a separate receptacle, whence it goes
to the filter press and the hydraulic press in the same way as the
hard scale.
Lubricating Oil. — The oil from which hard and soft paraffin .ire
separated as above stated exhibits a blue fluorescence, and is hence
called blue oil. It receives an acid and soda series of washings,
after which it is submitted to fractionation. The first portion
given off, up to about 0'850 specific gravity, is transferred to the
burning-oil series, with which it is mixed for further treatment.
The remainder is received as various grades of lubricating oil, with
specific gravity ranging from 0'860 to 0'890. These heavy oils are
again refrigerated, yielding a further crop of soft scale, after which
they get a final acid and alkali treatment, and are finished for use
by having steam blown through them for a prolonged period,
the effect of which is to reduce greatly their objectionable smell.
Finally they are kept in warm settling tanks at a temperature of
not less than 90° F. for eight or ten days, when they are ready for
the market.
Occasion has already been taken to name the advantages which
this kind of mineral oil offers as a, lubricating agent. Let us now
add that it cannot quite take the place of fatty lubricants, lack
ing the degree and kind of viscosity which fits these for certain
purposes. A mixture of fatty and mineral oil in proper proportions
is often found to work better than either component would by
itself. As mineral oil is far cheaper than all the fatty oils, it
is largely used as adulterant of these. Such adulteration can
P A K — P A R
243
often be detected without the aid of chemical tests ; all heavy
mineral oils exhibit a characteristically strong blue fluorescence,
which becomes rather more prominent by the presence of fatty oil.
Manufacturers, however, have learned to remove the fluorescence
by the addition of certain chemical substances, and large quanti
ties of such " bloomless " oil are being sold and used as colza or
other fatty oil.
Paraffin Refining. — The crude paraffin which remains to be dealt
with consists of soft scale, melting point between 90° and 105° F. ,
and hard scale melting between 115° and 120° F. The greater
part of the soft scale is disposed of in the crude state for impreg
nating match splints in lucifer-match making. The remainder,
hard and soft, is purified by an acid and soda treatment, and
decolorized by repeated washings with solvent naphtha. To this
end the scale is melted, mixed with 25 per cent, of naphtha,
cooled down, and thus caused to crystallize, and subjected to
hydraulic pressure. The solvent naphtha is thus squeezed out,
and this series of operations is repeated two or three times. Each
of the mother-liquors produced is utilized as a purifying agent for
the paraffin of a preceding stage of purity, so that it at last arrives
at and serves for the original crude scale.
In its progress through these washings the naphtha takes up
much heavy oil and solid paraffin, which are extracted by systematic
fractionation and crystallization. The paraffin, after its last squeez
ing, is a dull chalky-looking white mass strongly impregnated with
naphtha, to drive off which it is melted and has a current of steam
blown through it, till no trace of naphtha odour comes away with
the steam. The ultimate decolorization is effected by mixing the
heated paraffin with animal charcoal, allowing the charcoal to settle,
and drawing off the paraffin through filters. The molten paraffin
flows into oblong tins which mould it into the beautiful translucent
blocks used for candle making and the several other purposes to
which paraffin is applied.
The soda-tar obtained in the various processes is to some extent
collected and treated for the recovery of a soda sufficiently pure to
be used in the first stages of purification of the crude oil. It is also
employed to neutralize the acid tar, after which both are distilled,
yielding as a bye-product an oil known as "green oil," largely used
for the manufacture of oil-gas under Pintsch's patent.
Commerce. — The development of the paraffin industry under
Young's patents, and the rapid increase of demand for the products,
led directly to the rise of the great petroleum industry in America.
The United States acting commissioner of patents, Mr John L.
Hayes, in reporting on M; Young's claim for an extension of his
patent rights, states that " the manufactures of coal oil in this
country had their origin in Mr Young's discovery. The use of
petroleum followed so directly and obviously from the use of coal
oils that it can hardly be denied that the one originated from the
other." The petroleum industry once started, however, grew with
so startling rapidity, and attained such gigantic proportions, that it
threatened the entire extinction of the parent manufacture. In the
early days of the trade a considerable development of manufacturing
activity took place in Wales, where an inferior kind of cannel coal
was distilled ; and at many localities in Germany brown coal and
sometimes peat were utilized as the raw materials of a considerable
industry. The pressure of the competition with American oil was
felt severely by all, and it was only with much difficulty that the
great Scottish companies succeeded in holding their own, and in
carrying on a constantly extending production. The Welsh industry
was practically extinguished, and the production in Germany, not
withstanding the imposition of high protective duties, was greatly
circumscribed. The chief seats of the manufacture in Germany
are now in Saxony, near Weissenfels, where a peculiar variety of
lignite called " pyropissite " forms the raw material for distillation.
In the Scottish industry there was in the middle of 1884 about
£2,000,000 of capital invested, the working capacity of works in
operation being equal to the distillation of 4170 tons of shale a
day, while plant is being provided to increase that capacity to
5920 tons. The following table represents the present output of a
year of 312 working days.
Actual.
In View.
Total.
Shale distilled per day tons ...
4 170
1 750
5 920
Shale distilled, tons per annum
1 301 040
546 000
1 847*040
Crude oil produced, gallons.. „
Burning oil and spirit, in
barrels of 40 gallons „
39,031/200
400 070
16,380,000
167 895
55,411,200
567 965
Lubricating oil, tons (of about
256 gallons)
">4 400
10 277
34 767
Paraffin scale, tons ,
15 334
6 435
21 769
Sulphate of ammonia, tons... ,,
10,454
4,388
14,842
(W. I).— ,1 PA.)
PARAGUAY, a South American republic situated in
the basin of the Parana-Paraguay system, between 22° and
27° 35' S. lat. and 54° 35' and 61° 40' W. long. It is
conterminous with Brazil, Bolivia, and the Argentine
Rep- blic, and its boundaries were long under dispute.
The Argentine Republic especially laid claim to a portion
of the Gran Chaco to the north-east of the Pilcomayo;
but in 1878 the president of the United States (to whose
arbitration the matter had been submitted) decided in
favour of Paraguay.1 The town of Villa Occidental, on
the Gran Chaco side of the Paraguay river, opposite
Asuncion, has since been called Villa Hayes. The whole
area of the country is estimated at 91,980 square miles,
of which 35,280 are in the Gran Chaco portion.
Paraguay proper, or the country between the Paraguay
and the Parana, is traversed from north to south by a
broad irregular belt of highlands which are known as the
Cordillera Amanbaya, Cordillera Urucury, &c., but partake
rather of the character of plateaus, and form in fact a con
tinuation and outwork of the great interior plateau of
Brazil (Keith Johnston, jun.2). The elevation nowhere much
exceeds 2200 feet. On the western side these highlands
terminate with a more or less sharply-defined edge, the
country sloping gradually up to their bases in gentle
undulations with open ill- defined valleys ; on the eastern
side they send out broad spurs enclosing deep-cut valleys,
and the whole country retains more of an upland character.
The tributaries that flow westward to the Paraguay are
consequently to some extent navigable, while those that
run eastward to the Parana are interrupted by rapids and
falls often of a formidable description.3 Apart from the
central highlands there are several plateaus and knots of
hills in the west between 25° and 26° 20' S. lat. The
plateau on the edge of which Asuncion is built has a
relative height of about 200 feet, and skirts the Paraguay
for about 25 miles with red sandstone cliffs ; to the north
of this is the Altos Cordillera, with a relative height of 600
feet. From the Asuncion plateau southwards, near the
confluence of the Paraguay and Parana, there is a vast
stretch of marshy country draining partly into the Ypoa
lagoon ; and smaller tracts of the same character are found
in other parts of the lowlands, especially in the valley of
the Paraguay. The country sloping to the Paran4 is
nearly covered with dense and well-nigh impenetrable
forest, and has been left in possession of the sparsely-
scattered native tribes. On the other hand the country
sloping to the Paraguay, and comprising the whole of the
properly settled districts, is, in keeping with its proximity
to the vast plains of the Argentine Republic, grassy and
open, though the hills are usually covered with forest, and
clumps of trees are frequent in the lowlands. Except in
the marshy regions already mentioned and along the rivers
the soil is dry, porous, and sandy, produced by the
weathering of the red sandstone, which is the prevailing
formation throughout the country.
The year in Paraguay is divided into two seasons, —
" summer " lasting from October to March, and " winter "
from April to September. December, January, and
February are generally the hottest months, and May, June,
July, and August the coldest. The most temperate month
is April. The mean temperature for the year seems to be
about 75° or 76°; for summer 81°, for winter 71°. The
rainfall, amounting to 58 inches at Asuncion, is distributed
1 By the treaty of 1872 the Brazilian frontier was drawn up the
Parana from the mouth of the Y-Guazu (25° 30' S. lat.) to the Salto
Grande or Great Cataract of La Guayra (24° 7'), thence west along the
watershed of the Sierra de Maracayii, north along the Sierra de
Amanbaya to the sources of the Apa, and down that stream to its
junction with the Paraguay. The Buenos Aires treaty of February 3,
1876, fixed the frontier between Argentina and Paraguay, and assigned
to Paraguay the portion of the Gran Chaco between Eio Verde and
Bahia Negra ; the appropriation of the portion between Rio Verde
and the Pilcomayo was left for after consideration.
2 See his papers in the Academy, 1875; Proc. R. Oeogr. Soc.
1876 ; and Geographical Magazine, 1875.
3 In regard to the rivers, compare the article PLATE RIVER.
244
PARAGUAY
over 84 days, — 75 days being cloudy and 206 bright and
clear. In the five years 1877-81 only 50 frosts were ,
observed, and of these 17 fell in August. The wind j
blows from the south on 118 days, and from the north on
103 ; while from the east it blows only 44 days, and from
the west only 3. Neither north nor south appears to
obtain any definite mastery in any month or season. The
south wind is dry, cool, fresh, and invigorating, and
banishes mosquitoes for a time ; the north wind is hot,
moist, and relaxing. Violent wind-storms, generally from
the south, average sixteen per annum. Goitre and leprosy
are the only endemic diseases ; but the natives, being
underfed, are prone to diarrhoea and dyspepsia.1
The fauna of Paraguay proper is practically the same
as that of Brazil. Caymans, water-hogs (capinckos),
several kinds of deer (Cervuspaludosus the largest), ounces,
opossums, armadillos, vampires, the American ostrich, the
ibis, the jabiru, various species popularly called partridges,
the pato real or royal duck, the Palamedea cornuta, parrots
and parakeets, are among the more notable forms. Insect
life is peculiarly abundant ; the red stump -like ant-hills
are a feature in every landscape, and bees used to be kept
in all the mission villages.
As to the mineral resources of Paraguay but little is
known — possibly because there is little to know. The
gold mines said to have been concealed by the Jesuits may
have had no existence; and, though iron was worked by
Lopez II. at Ibicuy (70 miles south-east of Asuncion), and
native copper, black oxide of manganese, marbles, lime,
and salt have been found in greater or less abundance,
the real wealth of the country consists rather in the variety
and value of its vegetable productions. Its forests yield at
least seventy kinds of timber fit for industrial purposes, —
some, such as the lapacho and quebracho, of rare excellence
and durability, as is shown by the wonderful state of pre
servation in which the wood-work of early Jesuit churches
still remains. Fifteen plants are known to furnish dyes,
and eight are sources of fibre — the caraguatay especially
being employed in the manufacture of the exquisite
iianduty or spiderweb lace of the natives. Fruit trees of
many kinds flourish luxuriantly ; the cocoa palm often
forms regular groves, and the orange tree (reaching a height
of 50 feet) is so common and bears so profusely that
oranges, like bananas, have a mere nominal value. In the
MATE (q.v.), or Paraguayan tea, Paraguay has a commercial
plant of great importance, which may be said to be peculi
arly its own ; and most of the primary crops of the tropics
could be cultivated with ease if there were only men and
means. Paraguay tobacco is prized in all the La Plata
countries, and, as men, women, and children all smoke,
there is a large home consumption ; but only a small
quantity finds its way to Europe, under other names;
coffee (though the berry is of excellent quality, if slightly
bitter) is even more neglected ; sugar is grown only for
manufacture into rum and syrups, and loaf-sugar has to
be imported from Brazil ; and, although the whole popula
tion is clothed exclusively in white cotton stuffs, and
cotton grows almost spontaneously in the country, English
goods burdened by a duty of 40 per cent, keep the market.
Wheat, oats, and rice can all be raised in different districts,
but the dietary staples of the Paraguayans are still, as when
the Spaniards first came, maize and mandioca (the latter
the chief ingredient in the excellent chipa or Paraguayan
bread), varied it may be with the seeds of the Victoria
rcffia, whose magnificent blossoms are the great feature of
several of the lakes and rivers. Cattle -breed! ig was
formerly a very important interest in several of the depart
ments, but the stock was nearly all destroyed during the
1 Further details will be found in Keitli Johnston (Vcog. May.) and
Mr Vansittart's Report.
war, and is only being slowly recruited from the Argentine
Republic. The total number of horned cattle is estimated at
500,000. Land may be purchased from private owners for
from £160 to £200 per square league of 4500 English acres,
but the Government rate amounts to £900 or £1000.
The inhabitants of Paraguay are mainly Guaranis or half-breeds
with a strong proportion of Guarani blood.- A peaceful, simple
people, fond of flowers and fetes, they displayed during the desolat
ing wars of 1865-70 (as so often before in the time of the Jesuits)
indomitable courage in the faee of overwhelming odds. Trust
worthy figures in regard to the population can hardly be said to
exist. A so-called census for 1879 gives a total of 346,048, which
is probably not far from the truth. The female births being always
in excess of the male, and most of the full-grown men having
perished in the wars, the females form about two-thirds of the whole.
Of the foreign residents in 1879, about 4000 were Italians, 400
Germans, 400 Spaniards, and 40 English. Formerly, about 1857,
divided into twenty-five departments, the country was in 1876
distributed into twenty-three electoral districts, each with a gefe
politico, ajuez de paz, and a municipality. ASUNCION (q.v.), the
capital, is also the largest city (40,000 in 1857,16,000 in 1879).
Other places of present or historical importance are Villa Rica
(12,570 in 1879), often called Villa Pobre, the chief seat of the,
tobacco trade, and the easternmost of the larger towns ; Villa Pilar
or El Pilar (3722), formerly Neembucu, opposite the mouth of the
Bermejo, and the "strangers' farthest" under Dr Francia's des
potism ; San Estanislao (7453) ; San Pedro (9706), near the Tejui,
about 3 leagues from its junction with the Paraguay ; Concepcion
(10,697), the northernmost of the towns or villages, 200 miles
above Asuncion, and the trading centre for the northern mate
plantations ; Humaita (3868), 198 miles below the capital, the site
of the great earthworks by which Lopez stopped the advance of
the allies for more than a year ; Paraguari (5315), the present ter
minus of the railway ; Jaguaron (3413), 2^ leagues from Paraguari,
founded in 1536, and the seat of a manufacture of orange-flower
essence ; Ita (6332), known for its earthenware ; Itangua (6948),
with brick and tile works ; Ltujue (8878), the provisional capital in
1868 ; Villa Hayes (Villa Occidental, Xouvelle Bourdeaux), 10 miles
above Asuncion, founded in 1854 by Lopez with French settlers.3
Paraguay is a constitutional republic. The president and vice-
president hold office for four years, and are again eligible after eight
years. The legislative bodies are a chamber of deputies (one deputy
from each 6000 inhabitants) and a senate (one senator from each terri
torial division with 8000 inhabitants, and beyond that from every
12,000 inhabitants). There are five Government departments, and
a supreme court of three salaried judges. The people are nominally
Roman Catholics, but full religious liberty prevails. Crime is
comparatively rare, and is rapidly diminishing. Marriage has
fallen so completely out of fashion that only 3 per cent, of the
births are legitimate. Education is technically compulsory ; but
the 178 schools were in 1879 attended only by 5862 boys and 920
girls. There is only one public library (3000 vols. ) in the country.
The army, which, when Lope/, II. ascended the throne, numbered
12,000 men, but with a reserve of 46,000, is now reduced to 500
men ; every able-bodied citizen is under obligation to serve in case
of need. There is but one war-steamer, of 440 tons burden. The
only railway is the line (45 miles) from Asuncion to Paraguari, which
wa& begun by Lopez I. in 1859, and surveyed as far as Villa Rica.
It was bought for £100,000 by a jcint-stock company in 1877. The
double run, occupying twelve hours, is performed four times a week.
The general trade of the country has begun to revive : from
£131, 493 in 1876, the value of the imports rose to £258,000 in 1881,
and the exports from £68,577 to £385, 7oO. Among the exports
(all duty free) there appeared in 1881 — mate, £182,025; dry hides,
£23,345; tobacco, £131,730; 20,009,597 cigars, £4802 (about
seventeen a penny) ; 47,917,700 oranges, £9583 ; and hard woods,
£3342. The customs furnish nearly four-fifths of the national
revenue (not much more than £100,000 in 1881). Previous to the
war there was no national debt. In 1871 and 1872 two foreign
loans (nominally £1,000,000 and £2,000,000) were contracted
through Messrs Robinson, Fleming, & Company, London, and hypo
thecated on the public lands of Paraguay, valued at £19,380,000.
Apart from the war debt of more than £45,000,000, the oilicial
statement for 1882 recognizes a foreign debt of £3,463,000.
Jlistury. — In 1528 Sebastian Cabot, following in the footsteps of
De Solis, reached Paraguay and built a fort called Santo Espiritu.
Asuncion was founded on August 15, 1537, by Juan de Ayolas, and
his successor Martinez de Irala determined to make it the capital of
the Spanish possessions east of the Andes. From this centre
Spanish adventurers pushed east to La Guavra beyond the Parana,
ami west into the Gran Chaco ; and before long vast numbers of the
less warlike natives were reduced to serfdom. The name Paraguay
2 A graphic description of the Guarani physique is given by Captain
Burton, Battlefields of Paraguay, p. 11.
3 Mr Vausittart in Ri'yvi-ls by .Sec. of Eiub. and L>'jaliun, 1883.
P A R — P A E
245
was applied not only to the country between Rio Paraguay and Rio
Parana, but to the whole Spanish territory, which now comprises
parts of Brazil, the republic of Uruguay, and the Argentine provinces
of Buenos Ayres,' Entre Rios, Corrientes, Misiones, and part of
Santa Fe\ It was not till 1620 that Paraguay proper and Rio de la
Plata or Buenos Ayres were separated from each other as distinct
governments, and they were both dependent on the vice -royalty of
Peru till 1776, when Buenos Ayres was erected into a vice-royalty,
and Paraguay placed under its jurisdiction. In the history of
Paraguay down to the latter part of the 18th century, the interest
develops along two main lines, which from time to time get entangled
with each other — the struggle between Spaniard and Portuguese for
the possession of the border region between the Brazils and the
country of the plains, and the formation and defence of a great
philanthropic despotism by the Jesuits. The first Christian mis
sions in Paraguay were established by the Franciscans — Armenta,
Lebron, Solano (who was afterwards canonized as the apostle of
Paraguay), and Bolanos — between 1542 and 1560 ; but neither they
nor the first Jesuit missionaries, Salonio, Field, and Ortega, were
allowed to make their enterprise a permanent success. This fell to
the lot of the second band of Jesuits, Cataldino, Mazeta, and
Lorenzana, who began work in 1605. The methods by which they
controlled and disciplined the Guaranis have been described in the
article AMERICA.1 The greater number of the Jesuit "reductions"
lay outside of the present limits of the republic, in the country south
of the Parana, which now forms the two Argentine provinces of
Corrientes and Misiones. La Guayra, one of the most celebrated, is
in the Brazilian province of Parana. Though they succeeded in
establishing a kind of imperium in imperio, and were allowed to
drill the natives to the use of arms, the Jesuits never held rule in
the government of Paraguay ; indeed they had nearly as often to
defend themselves from the hostility of the governor and bishop at
Asuncion as from the actual invasions of the Paulistas or Portu
guese settlers of Sao Paulo. It was only by the powerful assistance
of Zabala, governor of Buenos Ayres that the Anti-Jesuit and quasi-
national party which had been formed under Antequera was crushed
in 1735. In 1750 Ferdinand VI. of Spain ceded to the Portuguese,
in exchange for the fortified village of Colonia del Sacramento
(Uruguay), both the district of La Guayra and a territory of some
'20,000 square miles to the east of the Uruguay. Seven of their
reductions being included in this area, the Jesuits determined to
resist the transference, and it was only after several engagements
that they were defeated by the combined forces of Spain and Portu
gal. The treaty which they thus opposed was revoked by Spain
in 1761, but the missions never recovered their prosperity, and
the Jesuits were finally expelled the country in 1767. In 1811
Paraguay declared itself independent of Spain ; by 1814 it was a
despotism in the hands of Dr FRANCIA (q.v.). On Francia's death
in 1840, the chief power passed to his nephew Carlos Antonio LOPEZ
(q.v.), and he was in 1862 succeeded by his son Francisco Solano
Lopez, whose ambitious schemes of conquest resulted in the almost
total extinction of Paraguayan nationality. The three allies,
Uruguay, Brazil, and the Argentine Republic, which united against
him, bound themselves by the treaty of 1865 to respect and guaran
tee for five years the independence, sovereignty, and territorial
integrity of Paraguay, and at the close of the war in 1870 a new
constitution was established, and a president, Jovellanos, appointed
under their protection. Reduced to utter helplessness, the country
owes its continued existence to the jealousy and balance of power
existing between its neighbours. By a separate treaty with Brazil
in 1872 it undertook to pay the cost of the Avar — £40,000,000 to
Brazil, £7,000,000 to the Argentine Republic, and £200,000 to
Uruguay, or more than £136 per head of the population. An attempt
made in 1873 by Messrs Robinson and Fleming to establish an
English colony of so-called Lincolnshire farmers ended in disaster.
Somewhat better success has as yet attended the German colony
of San Bernardino on Lake Ipacanay (414 colonists in 1879). The
Brazilian army of occupation was withdrawn only in 1876.
Of older woflts on Paraguay the most important are Azara's Voyages dans /'
Amerique Meridionals, Paris, 1809; and Chnrlevoix, Histoire, already referred
to. As commissioner for the settlement (in 1781) of the frontier between Spanish
and Portuguese territory, Azara enjoyed exceptional opportunities of informa
tion. Lozano's Hist, de la Conquista del Paraguay (used in MS. by Azara) was
first printed at liuenos Ayres, 1873-74. Ulrich Schmidt (often, even in editions
of his work, called Schmidel or Sohmidels), a German adventurer, left a narrative
of the first Spanish expeditions, which was published at Frankfort in 1563. Like
much else of the older literature it is included in Pedro de Angelis, Coleccion de
(locum, hist, del Rio de la Plata, 1835, <fcc., and in De Bry's similar collection, as
well as in Barcia's ffistoriadores. A systematic narrative of events in the
Spanish period is given in Gregorio Funes, Ensayo de la hist, civil del Paraguay,
Jlnenos Aires, y Tucuman. 3 vols., Buenos Aire's, 1816; Washburn's History of
Paraguay, Boston, 1871, deals with later times. See also Dobrizhoffer, Hint, de
Abiponibui; Page, La Plata, &c., New York. 1867; Mansfield, Paraguay, &c.,
London, 18.56; Burton, Letters from the Battlefield* of Paraguay, 1870; Mulhall,
Handbook of the River Plate Republics, 1875; Mrs Mulhall, Between the Amazon
and Andes, 1881 ; K. F. Knight, Cruise of the Falcon, 1883. (H. A. W.)
1 See Duran, Relation, 1638 ; Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista Espi-
ritual del Paraguay, 1 639 ; Muratori's panegyrical II Cristianesimo
Jelice, 1743 ; Charlevoix, Histoire de Paraguay, 1756; Davie, Letters
Jrom Paraguay, 1805, &c.
PARAGUAY RIVER. See PLATE RIVER.
PARAHYBA, or PARAIBA, distinguished as Parahyba
do Norte from Parahyba do Sul or S. Joao de Parahyba
to the south of Rio de Janeiro, is a city of Brazil on the
right bank of the river of the same name, 1 2 miles from
the sea, at the terminus of a railway running 87 miles into
the interior. It is divided into a lower commercial town
and an upper town containing the governor's residence and
other public buildings. From December to March the
climate is not considered healthy. The harbour, ob
structed by several reefs, has a depth of 15 feet, but
vessels ground at low water; there is safe anchorage,
however, at Cabedello at the mouth of the river. The
population, which was 40,000 about 1845, has decreased
to between 12,000 and 14,000, and direct trade with
Europe has been given up since 1840. Sugar, cotton,
and india-rubber are still exported.
PARALLAX may be denned, generally, as the change
produced in the apparent place of an object when it is
viewed from a point other than that of reference. In
astronomy, the places of the moon and planets are referred
to the centre of the earth, those of the fixed stars to the
centre of the sun. It is shown in ASTRONOMY (vol. ii.
p. 775) that, the maximum or horizontal parallax of a
celestial object being known, its parallax from any point
of observation can be calculated. The present article will
be restricted to an account of the methods employed for
determining the solar and lunar parallaxes and those of
the fixed stars.
SOLAR PARALLAX. — The sun's mean equatorial hori
zontal parallax (termed briefly the " solar parallax ") is
the angle which the equatorial radius of the earth would
subtend to an observer at the sun when the earth is at
mean distance from the sun. For its determination it
would appear only necessary to observe the sun's apparent
position simultaneously 2 from two widely different points
on the earth's surface ; the difference of the apparent
positions will be due to displacement by parallax, from
which displacement the mean equatorial horizontal parallax
can be readily deduced.
The requirements of modern astronomy demand that
the solar parallax shall be determined with an accuracy
of YuW Par^ °f i^s amount — that is, within less than y^
part of a second of arc. But measures in the neighbour
hood of the sun cannot be made with any approach to
this accuracy, not only on account of the effect of the sun's
heat on the various parts of the instruments employed, but
also of the atmospheric currents created by heat, which
tend to destroy steady atmospheric definition and to
render the solar image incapable of exact observation.
It is thus hopeless to look for any solution of the problem
by the most direct method. Two courses remain — either
to seek some method which affords a larger angle to
measure, or one which permits a mode of observation
affording a higher precision. There are many relations to
the solar parallax which are well established.
(1) The parallax of the moon is known with very consider
able precision by direct determination. The proportion of
this parallax to that of the sun is an important term in
the lunar theory, and the constant of this term (the
parallactic inequality 3) is a known function of the solar
parallax. Hence, if the constant of the parallactic
inequality is independently determined, the solar parallax
becomes known. The elements of the orbits of Venus and
2 In using the word simultaneously the reader must understand
that, though it is impossible for two widely separated observers to
make precisely simultaneous observations, yet there is no difficulty
(since the apparent motion of the sun is accurately known) in reducing
the observations so as to represent the resiilt as if the two observations
had been made at the same instant.
3 See ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p. 796.
246
PARALLAX
Mars undergo secular variations which increase from year
to year, from century to century, and at last acquire very
large values. These secular variations (on the assump
tion that all the terms of the theories of the planets are
mathematically accurate) have also a well-determined
relation to the solar parallax, and therefore afford a means
of determining that parallax with an accuracy which
increases by the continuance of observation.
(2) It has been shown (ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p. 779 sq.,
and MECHANICS, vol. xv. p. 708) that the proportions of the
interplanetary distances can be very accurately determined
and tables be computed from observations of the apparent
places of the planets, without any knowledge or assump
tion as to absolute distances (although an accurate know
ledge of the solar parallax is required for giving final
perfection to the lunar and planetary tables). In astro
nomical ephemerides therefore the distances of planets from
the earth are accurately expressed in terms of the earth's
mean distance from the sun, the latter being reckoned
unity. Hence, to determine the solar parallax, it is only
necessary to measure, at some favourable opportunity, the
parallax of any planet, and to multiply the parallax so
found by the number which expresses the relation of the
distance of the planet from the earth to the earth's mean
distance from the sun.
(3) When Jupiter is in opposition he is nearer the earth
by the diameter of the earth's orbit than when in conjunc
tion ; hence, since light occupies a very sensible time to
travel, eclipses of Jupiter's satellites will seem to occur too
soon in the first case and too late in the latter, the differ
ence between the extremes of acceleration and retardation
being the time occupied by light in crossing the earth's
orbit. This time is about 16£ minutes for the mean
diameter of the earth's orbit; hence, if the velocity of
light can be independently determined, the diameter of
the earth's orbit becomes known. The determination, by
employing the velocity of light, is also arrived at in
another way. The constant of aberration (see ASTRONOMY,
p. 757), or the maximum apparent change of a star's true
place due to the motion of the observer, depends on the
relative velocity of the motion of the observer in space
compared with the velocity of light. The angular velocity
of the observer is perfectly known ; hence if his linear
velocity is known his radius of motion is known. Thus,
if the constant of aberration and the velocity of light are
independently determined, the radius of motion (that is
the sun's parallax) will be found.
There are thus three distinctive typical methods:- — (1)
the gravitational method, depending on terms in the
lunar and planetary theories, the constants of which are
determined by observation ; (2) the geometrical, or direct
observational, method; and (3) the physical method.
1. The Gravitational Method. — The moon's parallactic
inequality appears, at first sight, to furnish a very accurate
method, as its constant is about 1 25", or fourteen times as
great as the solar parallax, and the existing observations
are very numerous. Unfortunately its determination is
inextricably mixed up with the determination of the
moon's diameter— a diameter increased by irradiation, and
therefore different for every telescope, and perhaps for
every observer. But this is not all. The maximum and
minimum effect of the parallactic inequality occur at first
and last quarter, i.e., when the moon is half full. One
half of the observations for parallactic inequality therefore
are made when the sun is above the horizon, and a great
portion of the other half during twilight ; whilst those on
which the moon's diameter depend are made at midnight,
when the irradiation is a totally different quantity from
what it is in daylight or during twilight. Newcomb has
attempted to determine the correction of the diameter by
the errors in right ascension, derived by comparing
Hansen's tables of the moon with observations made by
daylight and at night ; but he confesses that the result is
so mixed up with the correction of the coefficient of the
variation (and, he might have added, with the observer's
personality and the telescope employed) that it cannot be
relied upon.
The following are the most important discussions : —
Hanson, Mon. Notices R. A. 8., vol. xxiv. p. 8 result 8*92
Stone, Mon. Notices 11. A. S., vol. xxvi. p. 271 ,, 8'85
iSTe\vcoml>, Washington Observations, 1865 ,, 8'84
Neison, unpublished, probably to appear in Mem. R. A. ,V. , , 878
One cannot look with confidence upon a method which
thus permits discordance of more than one per cent, in the
discussion of the same observations by different astronomers.
The result arrived at must depend on the adopted correc
tions of the moon's diameter, and, since that diameter is
not capable of determination under the same circumstances
of illumination as those in which the observations for paral
lactic inequality are made, the judgment of the theorist
must step in and assign some more or less hypothetical
grounds for the adoption of a particular diameter ; and
upon this assumption will turn the whole of the quantity
of which we are in search.
It is, however, not impossible that the method of observ
ing a spot near the centre of the moon, instead of the
moon's limb, may lead to a more reliable result. But it
will have to be shown by independent methods that the
position of the selected spot is not systematically affected
by phase.
Attention was first called to the method which employs
the secular variations of the elements of the orbits of
Venus and Mars for determining the solar parallax by a
most able and comprehensive paper communicated by
Leverrier to the Paris Academy of Sciences, and published
in their Comptes Rendus for 1872. July 22. The most
important of these variations is that of the perihelion of
Mars. The earth's attraction increases the heliocentric
position of Mars at perihelion by about 50" in a century,
and this change at a favourable opposition subtends an
angle of 185" at the earth.
On 1672, October 1, the star ^ Aquarii was occulted by
Mars. The appulse was observed by Richer at Cayenne,
by Picard near Beaufort, and by Homer at Paris. The
separate comparisons diffor only 0"'5, 0"'8, and 0"-3
respectively; and the star i// Aquarii was very frequently
observed by Bradley. The increase in two centuries of
the geocentric longitude, corresponding to the distance of
the planet Mars from the earth on 1G72, October 1, is
294". Hence M. Leverrier concludes that (attributing
an error not greater than 1" to the determination of the
observed variation) the time has arrived when the solar
parallax can be determined with a probable error not ex
ceeding -y^ of its amount, or the concluded parallax will
be exact to nearly ±0"01. The value of the parallax
so deduced M. Leverrier finds to be
8"-866 .
Similarly he finds from the latitude of Venus, determined
by the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, combined
with the latitude determined by meridian observations of
the present day
8"-853.
From the discussion of the meridional observations of
Venus in an interval of one hundred and six years, he
finds
8" -859.
These values from the theories of Venus and Mars accord
in a wonderful manner, and would appear at first sight to
justify considerable confidence in the result. But it is
impossible to forget the extraordinary intricacy of the
PARALLAX
247
processes through which these results have been evolved,
and the liability to some systematic source of error, such,
for example, as some neglected term producing a long
inequality which may become mixed up with the secular
variation.
In 1874 the tabular errors of Venus, as determined by
the planet's transit across the sun's disk, amounted to
more than 5" of arc both in R.A. and declination, and the
tabular errors of Mars amounted to more than 8" in R.A.
and to about 3" in declination at the opposition of 1877,
equivalent to an error of 2"'45 in heliocentric longitude
(Mem. R. A. S., vol. xlvi. p. 172). Leverrier's planetary
tables do not, therefore, possess the accuracy attributed to
them by their distinguished author, and the conclusions
at which he arrived probably require some further modi
fication. Tisserand (Comptes Rendus, 1881, March 21)
has continued the researches of Leverrier, and finds that
they require modification, and are also subject to very
considerable probable error. The later researches of Tisse
rand appear to point to a value of the solar parallax
smaller than that found by Leverrier, but his work has
not yet been brought to final conclusion.
2. The Geometrical Method. — The most favourable oppor
tunities for the application of this method are afforded, in
a geometrical sense, by the planets Venus and Mars, when
the former is in conjunction and the latter in opposition.
Of these Venus approaches the earth within one-fourth of
the sun's mean distance, whilst Mars, in the most favour
able circumstances, approaches only within one-third of
the same distance.
When Venus is near conjunction she is only visible as a
slende* crescent in the neighbourhood of the sun, and at
conjunction is only visible on the occasion of a transit
across the sun's disk. It generally happens, therefore,
that the only means of determining the apparent position
of Venus near conjunction is to refer that position to the
sun's limb or sun's centre. But the sun's place is also
affected by parallax, so that when the position of Venus is
referred to the sun the parallactic displacement is only the
difference of the parallax of the sun and Venus. Mars,
on the other hand, can be referred to stars of which the
parallax is absolutely insensible ; thus it happens that the
advantage of Venus in point of parallactic displacement is
diminished till the geometrical conditions are only 5 per
cent, in favour of Venus. Transits of Venus across the
sun's disk have been observed for parallax in 1761, 1769,
1874, and 1882.1
If an astronomer at each of two widely separated
stations observes the absolute instant of apparent internal
contact of Venus with the sun's limb, he is sure that the
centres of the sun and Venus are separated by an angular
distance equal to the " semidiameter of the sun minus the
semidiameter of Venus." The difference of the absolute
times at the two stations is due to parallactic displacement,
and, the planet's tabular motion being accurately known,
the amount of displacement becomes known. If instead
of one contact only the two observers note the instants
of internal contact both at ingress and egress, then they
practically find the chords described by the planet as seen
from both stations. The difference of length of these
chords (in time) being known, as well as the approximate
diameters of the sun and Venus, and their tabular motion,
we have the data for computing the difference of least dis
tance of centres of the sun and Venus at the two stations,
and this distance being due to parallax, we have the means
of computing the parallax of Venus and thence the solar
parallax. This latter method (originally proposed by
Halley in 1716) has the advantage of not requiring a
1 For conditions when a transit will occur, and past and future
transits, see ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p. 796
rigid determination of the absolute instant of each contact,
but merely of the duration of the transit ; in other words,
it involves no very rigid determination of the longitude or
clock error, but only an exact knowledge of the clock rate.
It was Halley's opinion that the instants of contact
could be observed with an accuracy within two or three
tenths of a second of time, but experience has gone to
show that the actual errors are from ten to forty times
this amount, and the causes of those errors can now be
assigned with considerable certainty. These causes are—
(1) irradiation and diffraction; (2) disturbance of the
image by irregular refraction in the earth's atmosphere;
(3) the effect of the atmosphere of Venus in complicating
the phenomena at the point of contact.
(1) Irradiation increases the diameter of the sun and
diminishes that of Venus. Its extent depends on the aper
ture of the telescope, the perfection of its optical quality,
and the perfection of the focal adjustment. Its amount is
also changed by the brilliancy of the sun, i.e., is affected
by the transparency of the sky and the density of the
sun-shade employed. Also, when the space between the
limbs of the sun and Venus becomes smaller than the
diffraction disk of the object-glass employed, a greyness or
shadow is perceived at the point of past or approaching
contact; therefore, within a minute angle equal to the sepa
rating power (the diameter of the diffraction disk) of the
object-glass, the actual instant of contact can only be esti
mated by changes in the diffraction phenomena. (2) When
the images are thrown into rapid vibration by irregular re
fraction in the earth's atmosphere, it becomes impossible
to distinguish between the vibration of the image of the
dark body of Venus across the sun's limb near the point of
contact and the regular phenomena of irradiation, provided
that the atmospheric vibrations are sufficiently rapid to
produce a persistent image on the retina of the observer's
eye. Thus at the transit of Venus in 1882 observers were
instructed to note at ingress the time when there was " a
well-marked and persistent discontinuity in the illumina
tion of the apparent limb of the sun." Now it so happened
that at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, the
definition was very bad — a south-easter was blowing, the
effect of which was, as is almost invariably the case, to
create a rapid minute vibration in the images of celestial
objects (see Sir John Herschel's Results of Observations at
the Cape of Good Hope, p. xiv.). Thus "a well-marked
and persistent discontinuity in the illumination of the
apparent limb of the sun" was seen by all of five observers
at the Royal Observatory from 10 to 20 seconds of time
longer than at the adjoining stations in the Cape Colony,
where the images were seen comparatively steady and well-
defined. The instant of occurrence of the above-described
phase is therefore a function of the state of the atmo
spheric definition, and no accurate means exist of estimat
ing such influence. (3) The observation is besides com
plicated by the illuminated atmosphere of Venus, which
forms an arc of light round the planet near the point of
contact. In many cases this light has been confounded
with the light of the sun, and has thus caused very con
siderable errors of observation.
From these various causes the apparent phenomena are
different at different stations ; and probably also the same
phenomena are described by different observers in very
different language. The real difficulty of the discussion
of the results arises when these different and differently
described phenomena have to be combined. It is of no
consequence whether a real or seeming contact has been
observed ; it is only necessary to be certain that those
observations are combined which represent the same
phenomenon. The same phenomenon would correspond
with the same apparent angular distance of centres of the
248
sun and Venus, if all the telescopes were alike, if all the
telescopes were in perfect focal adjustment, and if the atmo
spheric conditions of definition at all the stations were per
fect or identical. But if these conditions are not realized
(and they cannot be realized in practice) the same appar
ent phenomena will not represent corresponding phases ;
and, further, the observers at different stations use such
different language to express what they saw that it
becomes impossible to select even apparent corresponding
phases with any certainty.
The value of the solar parallax deduced from a series of
observations of the contacts of Venus with the sun's limb
will therefore entirely depend upon the interpretation put
upon the language of the various observers. The result
will besides be systematically affected if the state of
atmospheric definition is systematically different in the
opposite stations.
It is thus not surprising that very different results have
been arrived at by different astronomers from different
transits, and even from different discussions of the same
observations of the same transit.
Laplace, Mecluinique Celeste transits of 1761 and 1769, 8 '81
Kncke, Entfcrnung dcr Somic, p. 108 ,, ,, ,, 8'58
Stone, Mon. Notices R. A. S., vol. xxviii. p. 255. ..transit of 1769, 8'91
Powalky, Ast. Naehrichtcn, Ixxvi. col. 161 ,, 1769,879
Airy, Monthly Notices, vol. xxxviii. p. 16 ,, 1874, 876
Stone, Monthly Notices, vol. xxxviii. p. 294.... ,, 1874, 8'88
Tupnian, Monthly Notices, vol. xxxviii. p. 455. ,, 1874, 8'85
Besides observing the contacts, another method was employed by
the Germans, the Russians, the Dutch, by Lord Lindsay's expe
dition at the transit of Venus in 1874, and by the Germans in 1882,
viz., the heliometric method. This consists in observing with the
heliometer (see MICROMETER, vol. xvi. pp. 252-254) the distance
of Venus from opposite limbs of the sun along known position-angles
nearly in the line of greatest and least distance of Venus from the
-sun's limb. The method possesses many apparent advantages,
because it affords the opportunity of multiplying the observations
and of eliminating many sources of error.
At first sight it seems as if the method is free from the necessity
for any accurate determination of the scale-value of the instrument,
because, if measures are made from opposite limbs of the sun, the
sun's diameter may be taken as the standard for all observers, and
the place of the planet may be interpolated relatively to the oppo
site limbs. Unfortunately it happens that there is a very marked
difference in observing the sun's diameter due both to instrument
and observer. Thus two observers with different instruments,
who have compared scale-value by a number of pairs of stars, or
zones of stars, will measure sun-diameters with a marked constant
difference. If the sun's diameter is assumed to be constant, it, in
fact, determines the scale-value ; hence the distance of centres
measured by the two observers will differ by the proportionate part
'- x Ad, where s is the distance of centres, d the true diameter, and
A'l the difference of diameter as measured by the two observers.
Thus it is only when 5 = 0 (that is, when the planet is near the
centre of the sun) that this method can be used, — a condition that
does not exist in practice.
In the case of the transit of Venus fully one-third of the whole
of this personality would enter into the result by this method
of reduction. For rigid reduction therefore it is absolutely
necessary to have a rigid determination of scale-value in seconds
of arc. Unfortunately this value, when determined for any
uniform instrumental condition of temperature, is liable to change,
because, in observations of the sun, difference of temperature be
tween the tube, the object-glass, and the scale of the instrument
is produced, and the focal adjustment is also disturbed. The scale-
value depends on the relation of the focal length of the object-
glass to the length of a part of the scale, and is besides affected by
abnormal focal adjustment of the eyepiece.
Drs Auwers and Winnecke adopted a very complete scheme for
determining the scale-value at any instant.
1. The scale-value was determined for a uniform condition of the
temperature of the instrument by measuring zones of stars whose
places were rigidly determined by meridian observations ; and by
the same means the temperature coefficient of the instrument was
determined for different temperatures, the various parts of the
instrument being assumed of a uniform temperature in observations
of stars by night.
2. The effect of a displacement of focus was determined by
measuring the sun's diameter and distances of pairs of stars with
different positions of the focal adjustment.
3. The focal point was determined during sun-observations by
adjusting the focus on a telescope fixed in a specially prepared
chamber, where its temperature would change very slowly, and the
temperature of the scale (and hence its length) were measured by a
metallic thermometer ; hence the change of the proportion of the
scale-length to the focal length became known.
In Lord Lindsay's expedition similar precautions were employed,
excepting that in the last case an attempt was made to determine the
temperature of the tube by thermometers and that of the object-
glass by a thermo-pile, and the position of the focal point was cal
culated from these data.
The uncertainties of all these operations are considerable, and,
though from the extraordinary labour and care bestowed upon the
determination of the necessary corrections by the German astro
nomers a fairly reliable result may be arrived at, it is certain that
the method of determining the solar parallax from heliometric
observation of transits of Venus can now be surpassed by methods
more direct, more reliable, and at the same time less laborious and
costly.
If photographs can be obtained during a transit in which the
limbs of the sun and Venus are sufficiently well-defined, the
distance of the centres of the sun and planet can be determined (as
in the heliometer method) provided only that the pictures are
affected by no systematic errors. That this latter condition may be
fulfilled the following are the essential conditions.
1. The picture must be formed on the photographic plate
without distortion, or, if it is affected by distortion, that distortion
must be ascertained and allowed for.
2. No change must take place in the process of developing and
fixing the picture, or, if such change is possible, means must be
provided for its detection and elimination.
3. The angular value of one inch on the plate must be accurately
known, so as to convert measured distances into arc — for the same
reasons as in the heliometer method.
It is necessary to employ an image of considerable size, because
otherwise the particles of collodion, if magnified so much as to
permit measurement of the requisite accuracy, give an irregularity
to the limbs that is fatal to accurate estimation. Thus it becomes
necessary either to employ a lens of very considerable focal length
(40 feet was generally adopted), or to introduce a secondary lens
to magnify the image formed in the primary focus. The first of
these methods was employed by the Americans, by the French, and
in Lord Lindsay's expedition at the transit of 1874, the second by
the British, German, Russian, and Dutch expeditions.
The use of an object-glass of long focus renders mounting of the
lens in the usual manner, though not a practical impossibility, yet
at least a matter of extreme inconvenience. Accordingly, where
lenses of long focus were employed, the telescope was mounted in a
horizontal position, and the sun's rays were reflected by a plane
mirror in the direction of the tube's length. It is not easy to con
ceive that any sensible distortion in the image can be produced by
a lens of such long focus even if only of mediocre quality of figure ;
indeed the method may be assumed free from any such error ; but
it is undoubtedly exposed to all the errors of distortion which may
be produced by the plane. From the perfection now attained in
the construction of optical planes, and the means which exist for
testing them, the errors due to this cause may also probably be
safely neglected, except in so far as the figure of the plane is dis
torted by the heat of the sun, and it is not impossible that some
sources of systematic error may be thus created.
To determine the angular value of one inch (or other unit of
length) on the photographic plate, it is only necessary to measure
the distance of the plate from the posterior surface of the object-
glass, and then to determine the distance of the optical centre of
the lens from that surface ; the sum of these two distances is the
radius of which lines on the surface of the plate (reckoned from
the centre of the plate) are tangents.
The French adopted the daguerrotype method of photography, in
which it is impossible to imagine any errors due to contraction of the
photographic film, as in the collodion process, because the picture
is virtually a portion of the silver plate on which it is taken. But
in adopting this process the advantage of measuring the photo
graphs by transmitted light was lost ; and it is a practical question,
which experience has not yet decided, whether the loss or the gain
is the greater.
The Americans, and Lord Lindsay in 1874, using the collodion
process, took the precaution to provide means for the detection of
possible contraction of the film during development of the picture
or drying of the film. This was done by placing the sensitive plate
near to or in contact with a reticule ruled on glass near the
primary focus ; this reticule was thus photographed simultaneously
with each photograph of the sun ; hence any change produced
during the development would cause a similar change in the
relative positions of the images of the ruled lines on the developed
plate. As a matter of fact the American astronomers have found
fairly reliable results from their photographic operations, but the
accuracy arrived at is by no means very considerable, the probable
PARALLAX
249
error of the complete measurements of an average plate amounting
to ± 0"'5.
But the difficulties of dealing with systematic errors are enor
mously increased when a secondary magnifier is employed, be
cause it is theoretically impossible with the present optical glass
(employing spherical curves) to construct a perfect secondary
magnifier in which the scale value should be absolutely the same
in every part of the field ; still less is it possible, when the attempt
is made, to combine the visual and photographic rays in the same
focus ; hence every photoheliograph of this construction must be
separately studied for distortion of the image. The results of actual
trial prove that the distortion is even greater than was expected,
and is besides not the same in each radius, and the latter error may
be produced by a very small error of centring in the lenses
which compose the secondary magnifier. The investigation of
such errors with the required accuracy would be a laborious and
at best an unsatisfactory operation, and is rendered practically
impossible by the fact that, whenever the instrument is turned upon
the sun, the object-glass becomes heated, its focal length changed,
and the optical relation of the secondary magnifier to the image in
the principal focus of the object-glass changed also.
For these reasons the photographic observations in which second
ary magnifiers were employed might be expected to prove a
failure, and this expectation has been confirmed by the result of
experience.
The observation of the transit of Venus on a large scale
of national expenditure was certainly justified in 1761
and 1769. In those days there were no refined means of
measuring angles with high accuracy, and the employment
of the motion of Venus and a time-scale of measurement
was the best available method of determining the solar
parallax. But since 1820 the art of measurement has so
advanced, and such refined instruments and methods have
been thus introduced, that it may be a matter of some
.surprise and question to future generations of astronomers
why so much labour and money were expended upon so
imperfect a method in 1874 and 1882. The justification
of these expeditions must be found, not in the reliability
of the value of the solar parallax determined by them, but
in the impulse given to the construction of instruments,
the awakening of a widespread interest in astronomy, the
stimulus to invention of new methods of research, and the
accurate determination of the latitudes and longitudes of
a large number of important and previously undetermined
stations on the earth's surface.
If an opposition of Mars occurs when that planet is
near perihelion and the earth near aphelion the planet is
then about one-third of the sun's distance from the earth.
When these conditions are nearly realized the opportunity
is a favourable one for determining the solar parallax.
On 1672, October 1, the star ij/ Aquarii was occulted by
Mars. Estimations of the distance of the planet from
the star were made at well-observed instants of time by
Richer, Picard, and Homer, as already noticed, and from
these observations the first approximate determination of
the solar parallax was made by Cassini, viz., 9"'5.
The method of observing Mars that has been most
largely employed consists in observing the apparent declina
tion of the planet by means of the transit circle — at ob
servatories both in the northern and in the southern hemi
sphere. To increase the accuracy of the result, the same
stars near the planet are observed at the various observa
tories, so that the method is reduced to measuring the
difference of declination between the planet and neigh
bouring stars. The effects of periodic error in the gradua
tion of the circles, of flexure of the instruments, and of
abnormal refraction are thus nearly eliminated, and there
remain only the systematic errors which may be supposed
to arise from the difference of the habit of the observers
in bisecting a star and a planet. To some extent these
errors could be eliminated by the use of a reversing prism
applied in the place of a sun-shade between the eyepiece
and the observer's eye. By the use of such a prism the
motion of the spider-web and the limbs of the planet can
be reversed with respect to the vertical, and such errors as
depend on a different habit of bisecting a similar apparent
upper and lower limb would be thus eliminated. But on
account of the chromatic dispersion of the atmosphere the
lower limb of the planet is coloured red and the upper
limb violet ; and in the illuminated field of the telescope
it is probable that the observer has a tendency to cut with
his spider-web more deeply into the feeble violet limb than
into the more glaring red limb. The effect of his so doing
would be to increase the value of the resulting parallax,
and it seems not improbable that from this cause a larger
value of the parallax has been obtained by this than by
other methods.
The following are the most important series of observa
tions, and their discussion by this method : —
Winnecke (Ast. Nachrichten, lix. col. 261), opposition of
Mars 1862 ; from observations at Pulkowa and Cape of
Good Hope 8 '90
Newcomb (Washington Observations, 1865, Appendix II.);
from all meridian observations of Mars in 1862 8 '85
Eastman (Wash. Obs., 1877, Appendix III.); from meridian
observations of Mars at six observatories in 1877 8 '95
Stone, Monthly Notices, xlii. p. 300 ; including observations
rejected by Eastman 8 '95
In 1872 (Ast. Nach., No. 1897) Dr Galle of Breslau
proposed a method of determining the solar parallax which
appears to be the foundation of the method of the future,
viz., to measure, by means of the equatorial, the difference
of declination between selected stars and a minor planet,
or rather to interpolate the declination of a minor planet
relative to two stars of comparison. A minor planet
presents precisely the appearance of a star, and it is
impossible to conceive any personality which can affect the
observation of such a planet and a star. The interpolation
of the planet's declination relative to two including star-
declinations (i.e., measurement from stars nearly equally
north and south of the planet) entirely eliminates errors
due to error of the adopted arc-value of the micrometer
screw. It is true that in the case of minor planets the
parallax factor can hardly exceed 1^, whilst in the case of
Mars that factor may be 3 ; but their disks present
objects which are capable of being observed with quite two
and a half times the accuracy of Mars. Hence the condi
tions of accidental accuracy are equalized for a single
opposition, whilst the advantages of systematic accuracy
are entirely in favour of the minor planets. Moreover, the
opportunities offered by favourable oppositions of minor
planets are much more frequent than in the case of Mars.
The opposition of the minor planet Flora in 1874 was
observed, at the request of Dr Galle, by a considerable
number of observers in both northern and southern hemi
spheres, but unfortunately only in very few cases with the
precaution, care, and perfection of instrumental equipment
necessary. In 1882 the minor planets Victoria and Sappho
were similarly observed at the request of Gill. The work
was taken up by a number of astronomers in both hemi
spheres, in a much more complete and systematic manner,
with better instrumental means, and with the benefit of
former experience. The results have not yet been reduced,
but it is believed they will afford a valuable contribution
to the problem in question. The results of Dr Galle's
discussion of the observations of Flora in 1874 l give for
the solar parallax
8"'S7±0"-042 ;
but the same results when the relative weights are assigned
in a more legitimate manner lead to the value
8"'82±0"-06.
But in any plan requiring numerous and widely spread
observers it is very difficult to secure that entire sympathy
1 Ucber eine Bestimmung der Sonnen Parallaxe cms correspond iren
den Beobachtungen des Planetcn Flora in October und November 1873
Breslau, 1S75.
XVIII. — 72
250
PAKALLAX
with the end in view, that scrupulous care in minute
detail, which is essential in the highest class of observation,
and it becomes impossible to alter the previously prepared
programme in such a case, should circumstances render it
desirable to do so ; nor does it always happen that distant
observatories can be supplied with the necessary instru
mental details in sufficient time. In the case of the Victoria
and Sappho observations of 1882 the requisite sympathy
and care were accorded in a very remarkable degree, but
on account of the errors of the planetary tables (discover
able only when the observations were begun) the selected
stars of comparison were not by any means the most
favourable that could have been chosen, and were con
sequently not the stars that a single observer would have
selected at the time. Hence arises the desirability of a
method not requiring co-operation, in which success depends
upon a single observer, who may obtain independently
by his own observations a complete series of results.
In 1857 Airy, in an address to the Koyal Astronomical
Society on the methods available for determining the solar
parallax during the next twenty -five years, called attention
to the favourable opposition of Mars in 1877, and declared
his opinion that the best method of finding the solar
parallax was to determine at an equatorial station the
difference of right ascension of that planet and neighbour
ing stars in the evening and early morning, by observing
transits of stars and planet across the webs of a well-
adjusted rigidly mounted equatorial. The motion of the
earth's rotation would transport the observer 6000 or
70UO miles between the evening and morning observations,
and the requisite displacement would thus be obtained.
In other ^words, the observer would avail himself of the
diurnal displacement to determine the parallax of the
planet. Of course a very large number of observations
would be required, because tne observation of a transit
over the webs of a telescope is not so exact as the micro-
metric comparison of two points. Only one observer
availed himself of Airy's suggestion, but a very good series
of observations by this method was obtained by Maxwell
Hall at the island of Jamaica. The detailed observations
are printed in Mem. R. A. ,$'., vol. xliv. p. 121 ; the result
ing value of the solar parallax is
8"79±0"-06.
In 1874 (in connexion with Lord Lindsay's expedition to
Mauritius) Gill, combining the suggestion of Galle as to
the employment of a minor planet and Airy's suggestion
as to the employment of the diurnal displacement, observed
the minor planet Juno, which was at that time favourably
situated for the purpose. But instead of employing the
method of transits of the planet and stars across spider-
webs he used a heliometer, and measured with that instru
ment the distance of the planet from the same star in the
evening and morning. In order to eliminate the effects
of changes in the scale-value, Gill selected stars on opposite
sides of the planet, and so arranged his observations as to
measure simultaneously the angle between the planet and
both comparison stars. That is to say, if the two dis
tances in question are called a and b, the measures were ar
ranged in the order ' «,byb,a or b,a,a,b. Thus any abnormal
scale-value of the instrument applicable to the measurement
a would be equally applicable to the measurement b. If
the places of the comparison stars are thus determined
by meridian observations, the scale-value may be derived
from the observations themselves with all desirable accur
acy, and the effect of chanye in the scale-value (which
alone is all-important) be absolutely eliminated. The
observations so made at Mauritius showed that the posi
tion of the planet Juno relative to two stars of comparison
could be so interpolated with a probable error less than
-th of a second of arc. A full account of these observa
tions, together with a description of the heliometer, is
given in the Dunecht Publications, vol ii. Lord Lindsay's
yacht, which conveyed the heliometer to Mauritius, unfor
tunately did not reach her destination till the most
favourable time for making the observations was past ;
but sufficient observations were obtained to test the method
thoroughly and to prove its capabilities.1 The value of
the solar parallax resulting from the observations of Juno
at Mauritius was
8"77±0'"04
In 1877, instead of observing the favourable opposition of
Mars of that year by Airy's method, Gill proposed to the
Eoyal Astronomical Society to employ a heliometer (kindly
lent by Lord Lindsay) to observe the planet in a similar
manner to that in which he had observed the minor
planet Juno at Mauritius in 1874. The offer was accepted.
Gill selected the island of Ascension, and there carried out
the necessary observations. The stars of comparison, by
the kind and hearty co-operation of astronomers, were
observed at thirteen of the principal observatories with
meridian instruments, a combination of their results
affording standard places of high accuracy. In general
the angular distance of the planet was measured both in
the evening and morning from each of three surrounding
stars. The observed readings of the heliometer were
corrected for the effects of refraction and phase, for the
errors of division of the scales and of the micrometer
screw, and were then converted into arc on an assumed
value of one revolution of the micrometer screw (or rather
of half an interval of the scale divisions).
The tabular apparent distance of the centre of Mars from
each star for the instant of each observation was then
computed with an assumed approximate value of the solar
parallax (8"'80). The calculation of the solar parallax
and the elimination of errors of scale-value were then easily
effected as follows : —
Let Aa, AS = the corrections in seconds of arc to be applied to the
tabular right ascension and declination respectively
to obtain the true right ascension and declination
of Mars at the epoch TO .
p = the position angle of the planet referred to the star
of comparison.
S0 =the approximate mean declination of the star and
planet.
K = the daily rate of increase of Aa for the epoch TO.
K ' = the daily rate of increase of AS for the epoch TO.
T =the Greenwich mean time of observation.
n = the number of y^ parts (or the percentage) that the
assumed solar parallax must be increased.
z =the correction required to be applied to an observed
arc of 10000" reduced on the assumed scale-value,
the observed distance in seconds of arc
Toooo
0 — the observed angular distance, computed with the
assumed scale-value.
C =the calculated or tabular distance computed with
the assumed value of the solar parallax.
Then each observation furnishes an equation of condition of the
following form —
/'Aa +/"A5 +f'"n - vz = (0 - C) -/'(T - TO)K -/"(T - T0V' ;
where
f = sin p cos 80
/" = CQS;J
,,„ /parallax in R. A. \ , /parallax in declination \ „
= ( ioo )f +( ~Too~ -)J
the parallaxes in/'" being in seconds of arc.
The equations resulting from each group of observations are then
combined, care being taken to combine together in one group such
observations only as have been made nearly simultaneously and
where the value of z may therefore be assumed to be the same.
The combination of a group of evening with a group of morning
observations (in which the term representing the error of scale-
value must then be represented by z and z') thus affords six
1 A more complete test has since been furnished by observations
for stellar parallax, to which reference will afterwards be made.
PARALLAX
251
equations involving five unknown quantities, from which the most
probable value of n can be eliminated with its weight by the
method of least squares, in terms of K and K.
Care, however, must be taken to confine the combination to such
groups as depend on measures from the same stars, if it is desired
to eliminate the effects of errors in the adopted star places. Also,
since it is assumed that K and K vary proportionally with the
time, it is necessary that only such observations should be com
bined as have been made at epochs sufficiently near together to
render this a safe assumption.
Finally the absolute values of K and K' for the various combina
tions are deduced by developing the values of Aa and A3 from
each combination in terms of the time, and thus the definitive
values of n are obtained.
The combination of these values of n, having regard to
the weight of each, led to the result
n= -0-209.
Whence the value of the solar parallax was
8"'78±0"-012.
It should be remarked that in these observations a
reversing prism was so employed as to eliminate any
systematic error on the part of the observer which might
be due to astigmatism of his eye, or a habit of placing the
image of the star otherwise than truly central on the image
of Mars. The probable error of one observation of distance
having weight unity was found to be±0"'24. Twelve
such observations were generally made (and often more)
on each night, and complete combinations of observations
were secured on twenty-five nights.
This probable error does not exceed that of a single obser
vation of contact on the occasion of a transit of Venus,
and yet one hundred and ninety-six such observations
were secured, as compared with two which is the utmost
that can be secured as the result of any single observer's
expedition to observe a transit of Venus.
It is impossible, however, to say with certainty that the
above result is entirely free from systematic error. There
is one possible source of such error to be suspected, viz.,
the possible effect of the chromatic dispersion of the
atmosphere which colours the limbs of Mars in the manner
already described. In the case of heliometer observations
the effect is certainly minimized from the fact that the
star disk which is compared with the limb of Mars is
coloured precisely in the same way as the limb — but
whether all error is so eliminated it is impossible to say.
A detailed account of these observations and their reduc
tions is given in Mem. R. A. S., vol. xlvi. pp. 1-172.
If a minor planet, however, is observed in the above
described manner, no suspicion of the error in question can
attach to the final result ; and, so far as is known, that
method affords the only geometrical means of arriving at
an absolutely definitive value of the solar parallax.
The following table represents the oppositions of minor
planets that will be available for determining the solar
parallax till the end of the present century.
Date of
Opposition.
Number and Name
of Planet.
Approximate
Horizontal
Parallax at
Opposition.
Magnitude
at
Opposition.
1886 November.
8 Flora.
9"
84
1886 December.
79 Eurynome.
8
94
1888 September.
75 Eurydice.
10
94
1888 November.
7 Iris.
10
7
1889 July.
12 Victoria.
10
8
1889 August.
80 Sappho.
9
9
1890 January.
27 Euterpe.
8
84
1>90 June.
43 Ariadne.
10
84
1890 December.
20 Massilia.
8
84
1892 August.
192 Nausicaa.
8
84
1893 September.
6 Hebe.
9
74
1894 September.
84 Clio.
9
94
1897 July.
194 Procne.
8
9
1898 June.
25 Phocea.
8
9i
1899 November.
7 Iris.
9
74
1899 December.
8 Flora.
8
8
The results of many hundreds of observations for stellar
parallax by Gill and Elkin (Mem. K. A. #., vol. xlviii. part
1) prove that the difference of two opposite angular
distances each not greater than 2° can be measured by a
small heliometer with a probable error not exceeding
±0"415 when the objects measured are points of light
such as two stars (or a star and a minor planet). Hence
it is easy to show, that a single observer at an equatorial
station (furnished with a suitable heliometer] can determine
the solar parallax by the careful observation of two or three
of the more favourable of the above oppositions with a
probable error not exceeding ± 0"'01, and with absolute
freedom from systematic error. Such a result is not possible
by any other known method.
3. The Physical Method. — The determination of the
velocity of light has recently been the subject of very
refined and accurate measurement by the methods both of
Fizeau and of Foucault (see LIGHT, vol. xiv. p, 585). The
results of the most recent and best determinations of the
velocity of light, expressed in kilometres per second, are
the following (Sidereal Messenger, vol. ii. No. 6) : —
Cornu, by Fizeau's method 300,400
Michelson, by modification of Foucault's method 299,940
Newcomb, by still more powerful apparatus and modifica
tion of Foucault's method 299,717
If we denote by k the interval required by light to cross
the mean radius of the earth's orbit, any independent
determination of k will obviously afford, when combined
with the velocity of light, a determination of the sun's dis
tance, i.e., of the solar parallax (see LIGHT, vol. xiv. p. 584).
Such a determination of k is afforded by a discussion of
the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Only two such discus
sions that have any claim to acceptance exist: — the first
by Delambre in the early part of the present century, from
a discussion of an immense mass of eclipses of the satellites
of Jupiter comprising observations from 1662 to 1802 ;
the second by Glasenapp, in a Russian thesis, in which
there are discussed the observations of the first satellite of
Jupiter from 1848 to 1873.
Instead of Delambre's value of k = 4938'2
Glasenapp finds &=5008'8±18>02.
Todd, in calling attention to Glasenapp's results (Am.
Journal of Science, vol. xix. p. 62), remarks on these two
values as follows : —
"The former determination rests on a much greater number of
observations than the latter; but it is difficult to form a just
estimate of the work of an average last-century observation of an
eclipse of a satellite of Jupiter. And, moreover, astronomers have
no means of knowing the process which led the distinguished
French astronomer to his result — which was adopted in his own
tables of the satellites, and which -was adopted by Damoiseau in
his Tables Ecliptiques, published in 1836. The latter determina
tion rests upon a mass of observations of definite excellence, ichich
have been discussed after the modern fashion."
Astronomers, however, whilst generally endorsing these
remarks, will not be inclined to follow Todd in combining
Dalambre's value with Glasenapp's by giving double
weight to the latter. Having regard to those portions of
Todd's remarks which we have printed in italics, astro
nomers would generally be of opinion that only Glasenapp's
value of k can be seriously considered at the present day.
This value, combined with the above mean value of the
velocity of light, leads to
8"76±0"-02
as the value of the solar parallax.
The photometric observation of the eclipses of Jupiter's
satellites as now being carried out at Cambridge, U. S.,
under Prof. Pickering, will probably ere long furnish the
data for a much more accurate determination of k, and
it is not impossible that very refined heliometric observa
tions of the distance of the first satellite (when apparently
252
P A R A L L A X
near the planet) from the other satellites may likewise
yield a reliable value of k.
On the relations between the constant of aberration, the
solar parallax, and the velocity of light, see LIGHT, vol.
xiv. pp. 584, 585.
The mean of the nine best modern determinations of
the constant of aberration (i.e., from 1830 to 1855) gives
20"'496.1
The most recent and valuable paper on this constant
is that of Nyren (Mi'm. de I'Acad. de St Petersboury, 7th
ser., vol. xxxi. No. 9), in which the constant is derived
from independent researches extending over many years,
with each of the three great fixed instruments of the
Pulkowa observatory. The independent mean results
are —
From observations with the prime vertical transit 20 '490
,, ,, vertical circle 20'495
transit instrument. . . 20 '491
Mean 20"492
This result, combined with the above quoted values of
the velocity of light, gives the following values of the
solar parallax : —
Combined with Cornu's velocity '. . 8778
,, Michelson's velocity 8791
,, Newcomb's velocity 8798
Mean 8789
There still remain some little theoretical difficulties
with regard to the theory of aberration. That theory is
perfectly obvious on the emission theory of light, but is «
priori by no means so obvious on the undulatory theory.
Is it certain that the velocity of light in the celestial spaces
is identical with (or bears an exactly known relation to)
the velocity of light which, having travelled a certain
space in air, undergoes reflexion and returns 1 This is a
question for the physicist, and a question that probably
demands a practical as well as a theoretical answer.2
Also Yillarceau (Comptes Rendus, 1872, October 14)
points out that in the ordinary theory of aberration no
account is taken of the sun's motion of translation through
space, and shows that, if the normal constant of aberration
is A, the constant for any particular star is A + A x a,
where a depends on the angle which the star's direction
makes with the direction of the sun's translation in space.
In the observations of Nyren, above referred to, there is
a well-marked periodic variation in the values of the con
stant of aberration derived for twenty-seven stars, which
seems to be a function of the right ascension of the stars.
This variation may be due to some cause (such as lateral
refraction in the north-and-south direction) depending on
the seasons, or it may have a real physical significance on
the theory of Villarceau. If further observation (especi
ally in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are
reversed) should confirm the latter hypothesis, two im
portant conclusions result : —
(ft) We obtain some idea of the direction and amount
of motion of the milky way, combined with that of the
solar system in space ; and
(b) We may conclude that our theory of light is correct,
which supposes that a ray of light is transmitted through
space with uniform velocity, independently of the velocity
of the source of light, and that ether is fixed and
infinite — that is, nowhere limited in extent.
On the other hand a negative result would go far to
show that our conception of ether is not correct, at least
would force us to adopt one of two conclusions, — either
that the milky way is stationary in space (within limits
of our power of measurement), or that the ether accom-
1 See Mem. R. A. S., vol. xlvi. p. 166.
2 See also letter by Lord Hnyleigli in Nature 1881, August 25.
panics the milky way and is not fixed in space and not
infinite.
It is, however, a priori improbable that from any of
these causes the deduced value of the solar parallax will
be affected by y^tr °f its deduced amount.
The tendency of the best modern determinations is to
fix the solar parallax at
8"-78 or 8"-79,
and hence the mean distance of the earth from the sun at
93 millions of miles, a result which is almost certainly
exact within 200,000 miles.
LUNAR PARALLAX. — The constant of the lunar parallax
may be determined by a method precisely similar to
that followed in the meridian declination observations of
Mars. Our knowledge of the parallax of the moon de
pends at present entirely on such observations made nearly
simultaneously at the Royal Observatories of Greenwich
and the Cape of Good Hope. The resulting values of the
parallax, found directly from these observations, are then
multiplied by a factor which expresses the relation between
the constant of the lunar parallax (ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p.
798) to the moon's tabular parallax at the time; thus each
nearly simultaneous observation at the two observatories
gives an independent determination of the constant of the
lunar parallax.
A better method, however, will be found when the results
of numerous occultations of stars have been employed to
determine the constants of a new and more accurate lunar
theory — a work about to be undertaken by Prof. Simon
Newcomb.
The best determination of the constant of the lunar
parallax is that of Mr Stone, viz., 3422"'71 (Mem. R.A.S.,
vol. xxxiv. pp. 11-16), derived from meridian observa
tions at Greenwich and the Cape of Good Hope.
STELLAR PARALLAX. — The constant of parallax of a
fixed star is the maximum angle which a line equal to the
earth's mean distance from the sun would subtend if
viewed at the star.
The distances of the fixed stars are so remote that till
very recent times their parallaxes have been found to be
insensible ; that is to say, the earth's orbit viewed from the
nearest fixed star presents a disk (or ellipse) too small
for measurement.
The limits of this article do not permit a detailed history
of the early attempts of astronomers to determine the
parallaxes of the fixed stars. The reader is referred on this
point to Peters's Precis historique des travaux sur la
parallaxe des etoiles fixes, forming the first section of his
celebrated work .Recherches sur la Parallaxe des /'toil es fixes
(Mem. de I'Acad. Imp. de St Petersbourg, sec. Math, et
Physiques, vol. v.). The most notable incident in that
history was the discovery of aberration by Bradley, in 1728,
when engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to determine
the parallax of the star y Draconis.
The first determination of the parallax of a fixed star is,
due to Henderson, His Majesty's astronomer at the Cape
of Good Hope in 1832 and 1833.3 It was followed by the
nearly simultaneous discoveries of the parallax of 61
Cygni by Bessel 4 and that of a Lyrae by Struvc r> from
observations made in the years preceding 1840. Since
that time similar researches have been prosecuted with
gradually increasing success.
The methods of observation may be divided into two
classes, — the absolute and the differential.
The absolute met/tod depends on observation of the
zenith distance of a star about the epochs of maximum
3 Mem. R. A. .ST., vol. xii. p. 329.
4 Astron. Nachrichlen, Nos. 365, 366, and 401.
5 Astrm. Xachrichtcn, No. 396.
PARALLAX
253
parallactic displacement in declination — in practice, how
ever, generally throughout the whole year. The differences
of declination so observed, after allowing for the effects
of refraction, precession, aberration, nutation, and proper
motion, afford the means of deducing the parallax of the star.
The most notable series of observations of this character
are those of Maclear at the Cape of Good Hope, by which
he confirmed the results of his predecessor Henderson
and those of Peters at Pulkowa in the second section of
his work above mentioned. The latter is the most classic
work in existence on refined observations of absolute decli
nation, and it is by no means certain that, in more modern
meridian observations, the work and methods of that dis
tinguished observer have been equalled — except perhaps
at Pulkowa. The minute precautions necessary in such
work will be found in Peters's paper above mentioned
(see also TRANSIT CIRCLE). But not with all the skill of
Peters, nor with every refinement of equipment and obser
vation, can the difficulties caused by refraction and minute
change of instrumental flexure, &c., be completely over
come ; the method of absolute altitudes does not, in fact,
respond in accuracy to the demands of the problem.
The differential method depends on measuring the
difference of declination, of distance, or of position angle
between the star whose parallax is to be determined and
one or more stars of comparison. It is assumed that
the stars most likely to have sensible parallax are those
which are remarkable for brilliancy or proper motion, and
that the parallaxes of the stars of comparison (having
little or no sensible proper motion and • faint magnitude)
are so small as to be insignificant. So far as our know
ledge goes these assumptions are justified.
Researches on stellar parallax by these methods have
been followed of late years with considerable success. The
instruments employed have been the heliometer and the
filar micrometer (see MICROMETER, vol. xvi. pp. 243-248),
the latter instrument being used in conjunction with an
ordinary equatorial (see TELESCOPE). The precautions
ECONDJ
SCALE
OF T
ME IN
VEARS
FROM
1082-0
3F ARC
,-0
•5 -0
4 -O
3 -0
2 -0
1 0
O 40
1 40
- I'D
„
*T&
^
.
* •
X
"^
x^
*
s
S'
••*
*
*
•Js*
*/
S— •
^!
^s^ c
,»•
*'
- 1-0
^^^
r5^
^^<,
e
***r
H;-*
Fig. 1.
SECONDS SCALE OF TIME IN YEARS FROM 1882-0
- 0.5C
•5 -0
4 .-0
3 -0
•2 -0
•1 0
0 + O
•i + o
•2 +0
3 »0'
4+0
3 40
3 +0
•7 40
8 +0
9 +1-
O -M
1 ~l
2 -M
3 <l
4 *J
5 "I
6 fl
7 41
a -i-
^^
•
VTX
-*££_
" • •
•v>*
•
>""
*-is
^
U,
* e e
..-••*
*
'*"***•
•
- ,«,
.•«
«KMM
,
"""•
••-rs*
Fig. 2.
required to determine and eliminate systematic error,
and to secure the necessary refinement of accuracy, demand
more space for their description than the limits of this
article admit. The reader is referred for these particulars
to the undermentioned papers on the subject.
The heliometer method seems to present the greatest
facilities for extensive researches on stellar parallax, not
only because measures with this instrument seem, on the
whole, to possess the highest accuracy, but because (on
account of the large angles that can be measured) a much
wider selection of suitable stars of comparison is available.
Gylden of Stockholm has applied the method of observing
the differences of right ascension between the star whose
parallax is to be determined and each of two comparison
stars, and the same method has also been applied by
Auwers (Math. Abhand. Berliner Acad., 1867) ; but the
results obtained in this way do not compare at all
favourably with the accuracy of properly conducted helio
meter measu
The diagram (fig. 1) represents observations made by
Gill to determine the parallax of a Centauri, with a helio
meter at the Cape of Good Hope. The ordinates of the
curve are the time reckoned from 1832'0, the abscissae
the changes in the place of a Centauri due to the parallax
computed from the observations. Each dot represents the
observations of each single night, and the reader will be
able to judge of the accuracy of the observations from the
agreement of the dots with the curve. Fig. 2 in like
manner represents a series of observations of Sirius.
These and many other results show that, with similar
means, it is now possible to detect any differential parallax
amounting to 0"'0o with certainty, by a series consisting
of a reasonable number of like observations — thus opening
up a wide and important field for future research.
The following table contains a list of those stars of
which the parallax is known with considerable accuracy, —
Nos. 1 to 13 being in the northern and Nos. 14 to 22 in
the southern hemisphere.1
Magnitude.
1.
61 Cygni
6
2.
Lalande 21185 .
7k
3.
a Tauri
1
4.
5.
34 Groombridge
Lalande 21258
8
01
6.
0. Arg. 17415
9
7.
tr Draconis
5i
8.
a Lyrte
1
9.
p Ophiuehi
44
10.
a Bootis..
1
11.
12.
Groombridge 1830....
Bradley 3077
7
6
13.
85 Pegasi
6
14.
o Centauri
1
15.
Shins
1
16.
Lacaille 9352 .
7i
17.
e Indi
5?
18.
o.y Eiidani ..
4i
19.
e Kridani
44
20.
CTucanse . .
6
21.
Canopus
1
22.
j8 Centauri
1
Proper Motion.
Parallax.
5''l4
o"-50
4-75
0-50
0-19
0-52
2-81
0-29
4-40
0-26
1-27
0-25
T87
0-24
0-31
0'19
1-0
0-17
2-43
0-13?
7-05!
0-09
2-09 0-07
1-38
0-05
3-67
075
1-24
0-38
6-95
0-28
4-68
0-22
4-10
0-17
3-03
014
2-05
0-06
o-oo
Insensible.
Insensible.
1 Authorities. — 1. 0. Struve, Mem. Acad. •§< Petersbourg, ser. vii.
vol. i. p. 45 (0"'506); Auwers, Ast. iVach., 1411-16 (0"'56); Ball,
Dunsink Observations, vol. iii. p. 27 (0"'465); Hall, Wash. Observa
tions, 1879, Appendix I. (0"'478 ± '014). 2. Winnecke (helio
meter), Pub. Astron. Gesellsc.haft, No. xi. (0"'501±0"-011). 3. O.
Struve, Men. Notices R. A. S., vol. xliv. p. 237. 4. Auwers (differ
ences of R.A.), Math. Abhand. Berliner Acad., 1807 (0":292±
0""036). 5. Auwers (heliometer), Astron. Nachrichten, No. 1411
(0"'271±'011); Krueger (heliometer), Man. Notices R. A. S., vol.
xxiii. p. 173 (0"'260±0"-020). 6. Krueger (heliometer), Ibid.,
(0"'247 ± 0'''021). 7. Brunnow, Dunsink Observations, vol. ii.
p. 31 (0"-240±0"-011). 8. 0. Struve, Mem. Acad. St Peters-
254
P A R — P A R
A glance at the table is sufficient to show that neither ap
parent magnitude nor apparent motion affords a criterion of the
parallax of any fixed star. Similar researches must, in fact, be
carried out on a much more extended scale before any definite
conclusions can be drawn. At present we can only conclude that
different stars really differ greatly in absolute brightness and
absolute motion.
The following are the formula} which will be found
most useful in computing the corrections for parallax: —
For the Sun, Moon, and Planets.
Put 7i =the equatorial horizontal parallax ;
A =the distance of the object from the earth ; l
£ and £' = the geocentric and apparent zenith distances respec
tively;
A and A' = the geocentric and apparent azimuths respectively;
. <f> and <p' = the geographical and geocentric latitudes respec
tively;
p = the earth's radius corresponding to 4> ;
a and a =the geocentric and apparent right ascensions of the
object respectively;
5 and 5' =the geocentric and apparent declinations of the
object;
t =the hour angle of the object (reckoned + when west
of meridian).
1. To find the parallax of the moon in zenith distance and azi
muth, from the observed (or apparent) zenith distance and azimuth.
Put 7= (<£-<£') cos A'.
Then sin ((' - ()-=p sin TT sin (£' - 7); _
p sin TT sin (<p - <p') sin A' -
4. To find the parallax of the sun, planets, or comets in right
as. -ciision or declination.4
ir cos 0' sin t'
The corresponding quantities are found with all desirable
precision for the sun and planets by the formulae —
£' - £=pjrsin (£ ' - 7); or approximately = ir sin £';
A' - A = pir sin (<j> - <j> ) sin A' cos £';
the latter quantity may generally be neglected.
2. To find the parallax of the moon in right ascension and decli
nation from the true (or geocentric) right ascension and declination,
psin TT cos 0' cos t
cos 8
tan (a - a') = tan 6 tan (45° + J0) tan t .
tan (f)' cos ^(a - a')
Put
then
Put
• fl/_psiuirsin0'cos(7- 8)
sin 7
then tan (8 - 8') = tan ff tan (45° + *0') tan (7 - 8).
3. To find the parallax of the moon in right ascension and decli
nation from the observed (or apparent) right ascension and decli
nation.3
,. p sin IT cos a>' sin t'
sm(a-a) = — - ;
cos 8
tan 7 =
)si(a- a').
C0s[<' - |(a - a')] '
Bin (8 - 8'; -
sin 7
bourg, ser. vii. vol. i. (0"'147±0"'009 ?); Brunnow, Dunsink Obser
vations, vol. i. (0"'212±0"-012), vol. ii. (0"'188±0"'033) ; Hall,
Washington Observations, 1879, Appendix I. (0"-180±0"'005). 9.
Krueger (heliometer), Ast. Nach., 1403 (0"-162±0"'007). 10.
Johnson (heliometer), Radcliffe Obs., vol. xvi. p. xxiii (0"'138±
0""052). 11. Wichmann (heliometer), Ast. Nach., No. 841 (0"'087
±0"'02) ; Brunnow, Dunsink Obs., vol. ii. (0"-089±0"'0l7). 12.
Brunnow, Ibid. (0"'070±0"'014). 13. Brunnow, Ibid. (0"'054±
0"'019). 14. Gill and Elkin, Mem. R. A. 8., vol. xlviii. p. 40
(0"747±0"D13), p. 51 (0"76±'021), p. 71 (0"78±0"'028), p. 82
(0"'68± '027), independent investigations. 15. Gill and Elkin, Ibid.,
p. 97 (0"-87±0"-009), p. 115 (0"'39± '023), independent investiga
tions. 16. Gill, Ibuk, p. 154 (0"'285 ± 0"'02). 17. Gill and
Elkin, Ibid., p. 130 (0"-27±0"'02), p. 138 (0"-170±0"'03). 18.
Gill, Ibid., p. 160 (0" '166 ±0" "01 8).
(0"'14±0"-02). 20. Elkin, Ibid., p.
Elkin, Ibid., p. 184 (0"'03±0"'03).
(-0"'018±0"-019).
1 In the case of the sun, planets, and comets this distance is
generally expressed in terms of the earth's mean distance from the
sun, that distance being reckoned unity.
2 Here £ must first be found by subtracting the value of £ - £
from the observed value of £'.
3 In preliminary computation of (a - a') employ 8' for 8. With
this value compute 7 and 8 - 8'. Finally, with resulting value of 8,
correct preliminary computation of a - a'.
19. Elkin, Ibid., p.
174 (0"'06±0"'02).
22. Gill, Ibid., p.
180
21.
167
a - a =
cos 8'
tan <b'
tan 7= -7-;
cos f
0'sin (7 - 8')
fnip
0and r
o and
8
sin 7
When the distance of the object from the earth (A) is given (the
earth's mean distance from the sun being reckoned unity), as is
usually the case in ephemerides of minor planets and comets, we
have
mean solar parallax 8" '78
7T — — = — • . • .
A A
The reader will find the proof of these formulae in Chauvenet's
Spherical and Practical Astronomy, vol. i. pp. 104-127.
For the Parallax of the Fixed Stars.
= the maximum angle subtended by the mean distance
of the earth from the sun at the distance of the
star,
= the star's annual parallax;
= the obliquity of the ecliptic;
= the sun's longitude and radius vector;
and a ) _the star's true and apparent right ascensions and
and 8' ) ~ declinations respectively.
1. To find the heliocentric parallax of a star in right ascension
and declination, its annual parallax (^j) being known.
o' - a = -pr sec S(cos 0 sin a - sin 0 cos e cos a) ;
8' - 8 = -pr sin 0^cos e sin 8 sin a - sin e cos 8) -pr cos 0 cos a.
2. To find the effect of parallax on the distance (s) and position
angle 5 (P) of two stars, one of which has sensible annual parallax.6
As=prm cos (0 - M);
AP=prm'cos (0 - M');
where
m sin M = ( - cos a sin P + sin 8 sin a cos P) cos e - cos 8 cos P sin e ;
m cos M = sin o sin P + sin 8 cos a cos P ;
If -i
m sin M = - (cosacosP + sin8sinasinP)cose + cos8sinPsin e ;
s L J
?;i'cosM'= sin a cos P - sin S cos asm P .
PARALLELS, THEORY OF. The fundamental princi
ples of mathematics have not in general received from
mathematicians the attention which they deserve. Mathe
matical science might in fact be compared to a building
far advanced in construction. As to the firmness of its
foundations there can be no doubt, to judge by the
weighty superstructure which they carry ; but the aspect
of the building is not a little marred by the quantity of
irrelevant rubbish which lies around those foundations,
concealing their real strength and security. The question
of the parallel axiom in Euclid's geometry is to some
extent an exception. There have been endless discussions
concerning it. The difficulty is well known, and will be
found succinctly stated in the article GEOMETRY (vol. x.
p. 378). Those who have treated the subject have devoted
themselves either to criticizing the form of Euclid's axiom,
suggesting modifications or substitutes (sometimes with
undoubted advantage, e.g., Playfair), or to questioning its
necessity, offering either to demonstrate the axiom or to
dispense with it altogether. It would serve no useful
purpose to attempt a complete account of the literature of
the subject ; we may refer the reader who is curious in
such matters to the various editions of Perronet Thomson's
Geometry without Axioms. It will be sufficient to mention
Legendre's views, which, although by no means reaching
to the root of the matter, may be held as indicating the
dawn of the true theory.7 The delicacy of the question
4 t and S may be used instead of t' and 8' in these formulae without
sensible error.
5 The position angle is to be reckoned from north through east, the
star which has sensible parallax being taken for origin.
6 Obviously, also, P may here express the relative parallax of the
two stars.
7 For some interesting controversy on this subject see Leslie's
Geometry, 3d edition, p. 292 ; and Legendre, Elements de Qeometrie.
12th edition, p. 277.
P A R — P A R
255
may be illustrated by the story which is told of Lagrange.
It is said that towards the end of his life lie wrote and
actually took to the Institute a paper dealing with the
theory of parallels. He had begun to read it ; but, before
he had proceeded very far, something struck him. He
stopped reading, muttered "II faut que j'y songe encore,"
and put the paper in his pocket (De Morgan, Budget of
Paradoxes, p. 173). There appears to be no doubt that
the true theory first presented itself to the mind of Gauss.
The history of the matter is interesting, and deserves to
be more generally known than it appears to be. In his
earlier days, before his career in life was determined, when
he had to consider the possibility of his becoming a teacher
of mathematics, he drew up a paper in which he gave a
philosophical development of the elements of mathematics.
It was probably in the course of this discussion (about
1792) that he first came across the difficulty of the parallel
axiom. He arrived at the conclusion that geometry
became a logically consistent structure only after the
parallel axiom was given as part of its foundation; and
he convinced himself that this axiom could not be proved,
although from experience (for example, from the sum of
the angles of the geodesic triangle Brocken, Hohenhagen,
Inselberg) we know that it is at least very approximately
true. If, on the other hand, this axiom be not granted,
there follows another kind of geometry, which he developed
to a considerable extent and called the antieuclidian
geometry.1 Writing to Bessel on the 27th January 1829,
he says —
" In leisure hours now and then I have again been reflecting on
a subject which witli me is now nearly forty years old ; I mean
the first principles of geometry; I do not know if I have ever told
you my views on that matter. Here too I have carried many
things to farther consolidation, and my conviction that we cannot
lay the foundation of geometry completely a priori lias become if
possible firmer than before. Meantime it will be long before I
bring myself to work out my very extensive researches on this
subject for publication, perhaps I shall never do so during my
lifetime ; for I fear the outcry of the Boeotians, were I to speak
out my views on the question."
Bessel entered heartily into the ideas of Gauss, and
urged him to publish them regardless of the Boeotians.
Concerning the generality of mathematicians in his day,
Gauss probably judged rightly, however, for his intimate
correspondent Schumacher was, as we learn from their
correspondence in 1831, unable to follow the new idea.
One of the letters (Gauss to Schumacher, 12th July 1831)
is of great interest because it shows us that Gauss was
then in full possession of the most important propositions
of what is now called hyperbolic geometry. In particular
he states that in hyperbolic space the circumference of a
circle of radius r is Trk(e* _ e * J, where k is a constant,
which we know from experience to be infinitely great
compared with any length that we can measure (supposing,
he means, the space of our experience to be hyperbolic),
and which in Euclid's geometry is infinite.
Gauss never published these researches ; and no traces of
them seem to have been found among his papers after his death.
Our first knowledge of the hyperbolic geomctiy dates from the
publication of the works of N. Lobatschewsky and W. Bolyai.
Lobatschewsky's views were first published in a lecture before
the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in Kasan, 12th February
1826. See Frischanf, Elcmente dcr dbsolutcn Geometric, Leipsic,
1876, page 33. Speaking of a German edition of Lobatschewsky's
work, which he had seen published at Berlin in 18-10, Gauss says
that he finds nothing in it which is materially new to him, but
that Lobatschewsky's method of development is different from his
own, and is a masterly performance carried out in the true
geometric spirit. The theory received its complement in the
famous Habilitationsschrift of Riemann, in which the elliptic
geometry for the first time appears. Beltrami, Helmholtz, Cayley,
Klein, and others have greatly developed the subject ; but 'it 'is
1 Sartorius von Waltershausen, Gauss zum Ged&chtniss, Leipsic,
1856, p. 81.
unnecessary to pursue its later history here, since all essential
details will be found in the article MEASUREMENT, vol. xv. p. 6f>9.
All that we need do is to call the attention of those who busy
themselves with mental philosophy to this generalization of
geometry, as one of the results of modern mathematical research
which they cannot afford to. overlook. (G. CH.)
PARALYSIS,2 or PALSY, the loss of the power of
muscular action due to some interruption to the nervous
mechanism by means of which such action is excited (see
" Nervous System " in PHYSIOLOGY). In its strict sense the
term might include the loss of the influence of the nervous
system or any of the bodily functions, the loss of common
sensation or of any of the special senses ; but other terms
have come to be associated with these latter conditions,
and the word " paralysis " in medical nomenclature is
usually restricted to the loss or impairment of voluntary
muscular power. Paralysis is to be regarded rather as a
symptom than a disease^?- se, and is generally connected
with some well-marked lesion of some portion of the
nervous system. According to the locality and extent of
the nervous system affected, so will be the form and
character of the paralysis. It is usual to regard paralysis
as depending on disease either of the brain, of the spinal
cord, or of the nerves distributed to parts and organs ; and
hence the terms cerebral, spinal, and peripheral paralysis
respectively. The distribution of the paralytic condition
may be very extensive, tending to involve in greater or
less measure all the functions of the body, as in the general
paralysis of the insane (see INSANITY) ; or again, one half
of the body may be affected, or one or more extremities,
or it may be only a certain group of muscles in a part sup
plied by a particular nerve. Reference can be made here
only to the more common varieties of paralysis, and that
merely in general terms.
1. Paralysis due to Brain Disease. — Of this by far the
most common form is palsy affecting one side of the body,
or Hemipleyia. It usually arises from disease of the hemi
sphere of the brain opposite to the side of the body affected,
such disease being in the form of haemorrhage into the brain
substance, or the occlusion of blood-vessels, and consequent
arrest of the blood supply to an area of the brain; or again it
may be due to the effect of an injury, or to a tumour or mor
bid growth in the tissues of the brain. The character of the
seizure and the amount of paralysis vary according to
the situation of the disease or injury, its extent, and its
sudden or gradual occurrence. The attack may come on as
a fit of apoplexy, in which the patient becomes suddenly
unconscious, and loses completely the power of motion of
one side of the body ; or a like result may arise more
gradually and without loss of consciousness. In either
case of "complete" hemiplegia the paralysis affects more or
less the muscles of the tongue, face, trunk, and extremities.
Speech is thick and indistinct, and the tongue, when pro
truded, points towards the paralysed side owing to the
unopposed action of its muscles on the unaffected side.
The muscles of the face implicated are chiefly those of
mastication. The paralysed side hangs loose, and the
corner of the mouth is depressed, but the muscles clos
ing the eye are as a rule unimpaired, so that the eye
can be shut, unlike what occurs in another form of facial
paralysis (Bell's palsy). The muscles of respiration on
the affected side, although weakened, are seldom wholly
paralysed, but those of the arm and leg are completely
powerless. Sensation may at the first be impaired, but as
a rule returns soon, unless the portion of the brain affected
be that which is connected with this function. Rigidity
of the paralysed members is occasionally present as an
early or a late symptom. In many cases of even complete
hemiplegia improvement takes place after the lapse of
- From irapa\vf.iv, to relax. Wickliffe lias palesy, and another
old form of the word is parlesy .
256
weeks or mouths, and is in general first indicated by a
return of motor power in the leg, that of the arm following
at a longer or shorter interval. Such recovery of move
ment is, however, in a large proportion of cases only
partial, and the side remains weakened. In such instances
the gait of the patient is characteristic. In walking he
leans to the sound side and swings round the affected limb
from the hip, the foot scraping the ground as it is raised
and advanced. Besides this the evidence of the " shock "
is felt more or less upon the system generally, the patient
rarely (though occasionally) recovering his nervous stability.
The paralysed parts retain as a rule their electric con
tractility, but they are apt to suffer in their nutrition both
from disuse and also from certain degenerative changes
which the interruption of nervous influence is apt to exer
cise upon them.
It is to be observed that in many instances the hemi-
plegia is only partial, and instead of the symptoms of
complete paralysis above described there exist in varied
combination only certain of them, their association depend
ing on the extent and locality of the lesion in the brain.
Thus there may be impairment of speech and some amount
of facial paralysis, svhile the arm and leg may be unaffected,
or the paralysis may be present in one or both extremities
of one side while the other symptoms are absent. Further,
the paralysis may be incomplete throughout, and the whole
of the side be weak, but not entirely deprived of motor
power. To partial paralysis of this latter description the
term " paresis " is applied.
Besides hemiplegia, various other forms of paralysis
may arise from cerebral disease. Thus occasionally the
paralysis is crossed, one side of the face and the opposite
side of the body being affected simultaneously. Or again,
as is frequently observed in the case of tumours of the
brain, the paralysis may be limited to the distribution of
one of the cranial nerves, and may produce an association
of phenomena (such as squinting, drooping of the eyelid,
and impairment or loss of vision) which may enable the
seat of the disease to be accurately localized.
'2. Paralysis due to Disease of the Spinal Cord. — Of
paralysis from this cause there are numerous varieties
depending on the nature, the site, and the extent of the
disease. Some of the more important only can be noticed.
Paraplegia, paralysis of both lower extremities, including
usually the lower portion of the trunk, and occasionally
also the upper portion — indeed the whole parts below the
seat of the disease in the spinal cord — is a form of paralysis
which is a not unfrequent result of injuries or disease
of the vertebral column ; also of inflammation affecting
the spinal cord (MYELITIS, q.v.}, as well as of haemor
rhage or morbid growths involving its substance. When
due to disease, the lesion is generally situated in the
lower portion of the cord. The phenomena necessarily
vary in relation to the locality and the extent of the
disease in the cord. Thus, if in the affected area
the posterior part of the cord, including the posterior nerve
roots, suffer, the function of sensation in the parts below
is impaired because the cord is unable to transmit the
sensory impressions .from the surface of the body to the
brain. If on the other hand the anterior portion of the
cord and anterior nerves be affected, the motor impulses
from the brain cannot be conveyed to the muscles below
the seat of the injury or disease, and consequently their
power of movement is abolished. In many forms of this
complaint, particularly in the case of injuries, the whole
thickness of the cord is involved, and both sensory and
motor functions are arrested. Further, the functions of
the bladder and bowels are apt to suffer, and either spasm
or paralysis of these organs is the result. The nutrition
of the paralysed parts tends to become affected, and
bed-sores and wasting of the muscles are common. Occa
sionally, more especially in cases of injury, recovery takes
place, but in general this is incomplete, the power of
walking being more or less impaired. On the other hand
the patient may linger on for years bedridden, and at last
succumb to exhaustion or to some intercurrent disease.
A form of spinal paralysis, often showing itself as
paraplegia, occasionally occurs in children, and is termed —
Infantile or Essential Paralysis.— It is caused by an
inflammatory affection limited to the anterior portion of
the grey matter of the spinal cord throughout a greater or
less extent, and affects therefore the function of motion,
leaving that of sensation unimpaired. This disease is
most common during the period of first dentition (although
a similar affection is sometimes observed in adults). The
commencement may be insidious, or there may be an acute
febrile attack lasting for several days. In either case
paralysis comes on, at first very extensive, involving both
upper and lower extremities, but tending soon to become
more limited and confined to one or other limb or even
to a group of muscles. The affected muscles lose their
electric contractility and are apt to waste. Hence limbs
become shortened, shrivelled, and useless, and deformities
such as club foot may thus be readily produced. In many
instances fortunately recovery is complete, and the pro
spect of amendment is all the greater if the muscles show
any reaction to electricity. There is throughout an absence
of some of the more distressing of the phenomena of
paraplegia, such as disturbances of the bladder and bowels
or extensive bed-sores, and in general the health of the
child does not materially suffer.
Progressive Muscular Atrophy or Wasting Palsy is a
disease usually occurring in early or middle life. It is
characterized by the wasting of certain muscles or groups
of muscles accompanied with a corresponding weakness or
paralysis of the affected parts, and is believed to depend
on a slow inflammatory change in the anterior cornua of
the grey matter of the spinal cord. It is insidious in its
onset, and usually first shows itself in the prominent
muscular masses in the palm of the hand, especially the
ball of the thumb, which becomes wasted and deficient in
power. The other palmar muscles suffer in like manner,
and as the disease advances the muscles of the arm,
shoulders, and trunk become implicated if they have not
themselves been the first to be attacked. The malady
tends to spread symmetrically, involving the corresponding
parts of the opposite side of the body in succession. It is
slow in its progress, but, notwithstanding it may occasion
ally undergo arrest, it tends to advance and involve more
and more of the muscles of the body until the sufferer is
reduced to a condition of extreme helplessness. Should
some other ailment not be the cause of death, the fatal
result may be due to the disease extending so as to involve
the muscles of respiration.
Another form of paralysis in certain respects resembling
the last, and supposed by some to be due to a similar
cause, is Pseudo-hypertrophic Paralysis, a condition occur
ring most frequently in male children, in whom in such
cases there exists at first a remarkable enlargement of
certain muscles or groups of muscles, followed sooner or
later by wasting and paralysis. The enlarged muscles are
chiefly those of the calf and hips, and their abnormal size
is caused by an over-development of their connective
tissue, and is therefore not a true hypertrophy. The child
acquires a peculiar attitude and gait. He stands with his
legs widely separated, his body arched forward, and in
walking assumes a rocking or waddling movement. Later
on the enlarged muscles lose their bulk, and at the same
time become weakened in power, so that walking becomes
impossible, and the child is completely paralysed in the
P A R — P A K
257
limbs and all other affected parts. In most instances
death takes place from some intercurrent disease before
maturity.
Paralysis Ayitans or Trembling Palsy is a peculiar form
of paralysis characterized chiefly by trembling movements
in certain parts, tending to become more widely diffused
throughout the body. It is a disease of advanced life.
The symptoms come on somewhat insidiously, and first
show themselves chiefly by involuntary tremblings of the
muscles of the fingers, hand, arm, or leg, which are aggra
vated on making efforts or under excitement. These
trembling movements become more marked and more
extensive with the advance of the disease, and along with
the tremors there generally occurs increasing weakness of
the affected muscles. This is very manifest in walking,
the act being performed in a peculiar tottering manner
with the body bent forward. The trembling movements
cease during sleep. This disease is a chronic one, and is
intractable to treatment, but life may be prolonged for
many years.
Glosso-labio-laryngeal Paralysis is a form of paralysis
affecting, as its name indicates, the functions of the
tongue, lips, and larynx (besides others), and depending
upon disease of certain localities in the medulla oblongata
from which the nerves presiding over these functions arise.
The symptoms come on slowly, and are generally first
manifested in some difficulty of speech owing to impaired
movements of the tongue. Associated with this there is
more or less difficulty in swallowing, owing to paralysis of
the muscles of the pharynx and soft palate, by which also
the voice is rendered nasal. With the advance of the
disease the paralysis of the tongue becomes more marked.
It cannot be protruded, and frequently undergoes atrophy.
Certain of the facial muscles become implicated, especi
ally those in the neighbourhood of the mouth. The
features become expressionless, the lips cannot be moved
in speaking, the mouth remains open, and the saliva flows
abundantly. The muscles of the larynx may also be
involved in the paralysis. In the later stages of the
malady the power of speech is completely lost, the difficulty
in swallowing increases to a degree that threatens suffoca
tion, the patient's condition altogether is one of great
misery, which is in no way mitigated by the fact of his
mental power remaining unaffected. Complications con
nected with the respiratory or circulatory functions, or
disease affecting other parts of the nervous system with
which this complaint may be associated, often terminate
the patient's sufferings, and in any case life is seldom pro
longed beyond two or three years.
3. Peripheral Paralysis, or local paralysis of individual
nerves, is of not unfrequent occurrence. The most com
mon and important examples of this condition can only be
briefly referred to.
Facial Paralysis, Bell's Palsy, are the terms applied
to paralysis involving the muscles of expression supplied
by the seventh nerve. It is unilateral, and generally
occurs as the result of exposure of one side of the head
to a draught of cold air which sets up inflammation of the
nerve as it passes through the aqueductus Fallopii, but it
may also be due to injury or disease either affecting the
nerve near the surface or deeper in the bony canals through
which it passes, or in the brain itself involving the nerve
at its origin. Here the paralysis is manifested by a
marked change in the expression of the face, the patient
being unable to move the muscles of one side in such acts
as laughing, whistling, itc., or to close the eye on that
side. The mouth is drawn to the sound side, while,
although the muscles of mastication are not involved, the
food in eating tends to lodge between the jaw and cheek
on the palsied side. Occasionally the sense of taste is
impaired. In the ordinary cases of this disease, such as
those due to exposure, recovery usually takes place in from
two to six weeks, the improvement being first shown in
the power of closing the eye, which is soon followed by the
disappearance of the other morbid phenomena. When the
paralysis proceeds from disease of the temporal bone, or
from tumours or growths in the brain, it is more apt to
be permanent, and is in many cases of serious import.
Throughout there is no diminution of sensibility in the
paralysed muscles ; but they early lose their reaction to
faradization, retaining that to galvanism.
Lead Palsy is a not uncommon form of local paralysis.
It is due to the poisonous action of lead upon the system,
and, like the other phenomena of lead poisoning, affects
chiefly workers in that metal (see LEAD). The pathology
of this disease is still unsettled, but it is believed to
depend upon the local effect of the lead upon the nerves
of the part rather than to any disease, at least in the first
instance, of the nerve centres. The paralysis in this case
is as a rule confined to the muscles of the forearm which
extend the hand, and as they lose entirely their power the
hand cannot be raised when the arm is held out, which
gives rise to the condition termed " wrist drop." The
paralysis may come to affect other muscles of the arms as
well as certain of those of the legs and trunk, and along
with the paralysis there occurs wasting of the affected
muscles and loss of their electrical reactions. Occasionally
in severe cases other nervous phenomena, such as convul
sions, delirium, itc., may become superadded. The symp
toms usually disappear on the removal of the patient from
the source of lead contamination, along with the applica
tion of the treatment appropriate to poisoning with this
metal, — and all the more speedily if the case has not been
of long duration and the affected muscles have not under
gone atrophic change.
A form of peripheral paralysis not unlike the last
occasionally results from chronic alcoholism. The paralysis
occurring after diphtheria, another example of the peri
pheral variety, has been already referred to (see DIPH
THERIA).
Treatment. — It is impossible in a general notice like the
present to refer at any length to the treatment of paralysis.
The conditions of the disease in any particular case and
its associations are so manifold that they can only be fully
understood and appreciated by the medical expert under
whose direction alone treatment can be advantageously
carried out. It may be stated generally, however, that,
since paralysed muscles tend to undergo certain degenera
tive changes (see PATHOLOGY), it becomes an object in
I treatment to endeavour to maintain as long as possible
their molecular integrity. With this view, when pain and
other acute symptoms which may be present have ceased,
the use of nervine tonics such as iron, quinine, and strych
nine, and the suitable dieting of the patient, are the best
constitutional remedies ; while of local applications fric
tions or massage, but more particularly the employment
of electricity, will be found of service, the latter agent
often yielding markedly beneficial results. (j. o. A.)
PARAMARIBO, the administrative and commercial
capital of Dutch Guiana or Surinam, is situated in 5° 44'
30" N". lat. and 55° 12' 54" W. long., on the right bank of
the Surinam, which, though at that point 20 miles from
the sea, is a tidal river nearly a mile broad and 18 feet
deep. Built on a plateau about 16 feet above low-water
level, Paramaribo is well-drained, clean, and in general
healthy ; the straight canals running at right angles
to the river, the broad, straight, tree-planted streets,
the spacious squares, and the solid if plain looking public
buildings would not be unworthy of a town in the
Netherlands. Among the more conspicuous edifices
XVIII. - - 33
258
P A R — PAR
are — Fort Zeelandia (used as a civil and military prison) j
at the north corner, between the town proper and the
Combe suburb ; the Government-house, surrounded by a
magnificent garden and park ; the town-house, with a tower
100 feet high ; the law courts ; the public hospital, where
there is a remarkable betel -nut avenue 50 feet in height ;
the Reformed Dutch, Lutheran, Moravian, and Roman
Catholic churches; and the Portuguese and Dutch syna
gogues. The population, barely 16,000 in 1854, was
20,373 in 1869, and 21,265 in 1878.
The Indian village of Paramaribo became the site of a French
settlement probably in 1610, and in 1650 it was made the capital
of the colony by Lord Willougliby of Parham. In 1683 it was still
only a "cluster of twenty-seven dwellings, more than half of them
grog-shops," but by 1790 it counted more than a thousand houses.
The town was partly burned down in 1821, and again in 1832.
PARANA. See PLATE RIVER.
PARANAHYBA (PARNAHYBA, or PERNAHYBA), SAO
Lrjiz DE, a city of Brazil, the chief port of the province of
Piauhy, is situated on the right bank of the important Rio
de Paranahyba, near the beginning of its delta. It has a
population of about 15,000, and trades in cotton, leather,
&c., but its port is little visited by foreign steamers.
PARASITISM
ANIMAL PARASITISM.
THE problems suggested by the occurrence of parasites
not only in the intestines or the kidneys but even in
flesh and blood, in eye or brain, have occupied alike
physician and naturalist from the earliest times. From
ancient Egyptian and Jewish sanitary and religious codes
we may perhaps infer considerable knowledge of the distri
bution and danger of parasites, — unclean animals like the
pig, rabbit, and dog being peculiarly infested with them.
The schoolmen, too, perplexed themselves with quaint
hypotheses as to the time and place and mode of the
introduction of the parasites of man, while the long per
sistence of medioeval myths is evidenced by the " Furia
infernalis " of the Systema Naturse. The spontaneous
generation of parasites seems never to have been doubted
until the commencement of the 18th century, when Redi
proved the origin of maggots from eggs of the blow-fly,
and Swammerdam announced the similar origin of lice
and other insect parasites. Both naturalists, however,
opposed the extension of their results to the Entozoa, but
the discovery of microscopic animalcules, and the reflexion
that these must readily be introduced into the body,
induced Boerhaave to suggest the origin of parasites from
free-living worms and infusorians. The sexuality and char
acteristics of a few Entozoa gradually became better known,
while Linnaeus, though little dreaming of their complex
form-history, expelled the spontaneous generation theory
by the in-so-far fortunate mistake of identifying the free
Botlirioceplialus of the stickleback as the young stage of
B. latus of man, and certain free Planarians and Nematoids
as the young of liver flukes and thread worms. His school
vastly increased the hitherto scanty catalogue of known
forms, while their exacter knowledge rendered his hypo
thesis improbable. The origin of Entozoa from eggs which
leave the body of their host, enter new hosts in food or
drink, and when developing in other organs than the ali
mentary are carried thither by the circulation, was clearly
put forward by Pallas, who also revived the early view of
inheritance, which had been propounded before by the con
temporaries of Leeuwenhoek (then, however, to avoid the
apparently insoluble difficulty of tracing the origin of the
parasite from its innumerable yet apparently wasted ova).
With the enormous labours of Rudolphi and Bremser hel
minthology rose to the rank of an important special study,
yet tho degeneration of the Linnsean school had nowhere
fuller course : observation of faunistic and systematic
detail excluded all physiological or morphological research,
and the knotty problem of origin was simply cut by a {
return to the hypothesis of spontaneous generation. This
view seemed supported by the absence of reproductive •
organs in cystic parasites, and reigned almost undisputed
until the accumulation of a new chain of evidence. Of
this the main links were the discovery of the ciliated larva \
of a Trematode (Monostomum) by Mehlis in 1831, of the j
Redia or Cercaria stages of the same genus, and of the !
six-hooked embryo of Tsenia by Siebold in 1835, and the
renewed study of Bothriocejihalus latus by Eschricht, who
maintained that the encysted forms were persistently larval,
and that the life history of the Entozoa should be viewed as
broadly parallel to that of parasitic insects. Yet in spite
of all this, and of the corroborative researches of Valentin,
many helminthologists remained obstinate, until these
incredible life-histories had been confirmed and treated as
so many other cases of the "Alternation of Generations" in
the epoch-making work of Steenstrup (1842). Dujardin
next observed the wanderings of Afermis, and Siebold those
of Gordius; the latter, however, advanced the doctrine
that cysts were not larval stages, but mere pathological
modifications of those worms which had chanced to
"wander" into situations unfitted for their normal life.
Meanwhile were commencing the important labours of Van
Beneden, who traced the actual development of the cystic
parasites of the bony fishes into the tape-worms of the rays
and dogfishes which had devoured them, so proving that
the transmission of the parasites depended upon the mode
of feeding. These results were soon confirmed by
Kiichenmeister, who not only transmuted cyst into tape
worm by transmission in food, but redeveloped the cystic
form by feeding with eggs from the adult tape-worm, thus
(1852-53) commencing the modern era of experimental
helminthology. Haubner and Leuckart eagerly followed
for the same group ; Filippi, Valette, Pagenstecher, and
Cobbold .made similar investigations on Trematodes; while
Leuckart transferred Penta&tomum from rabbit to clog, and
traced the formidable Trichina from pig to man. From
this time (1860) the advances of our knowledge have been
no longer in principle, though numerous and important, but
in detail. To Kiichenmeister, Cobbold, Davaine, and
others, but more especially to Leuckart, we owe valuable
general works ; to the last the present article is especially
indebted.1
Any discussion of parasitism with its difficulties and
wide theoretic bearings should naturally be preceded by an
account of the known facts. This would involve the pre
paration of two systematic lists, — the first enumerating the
parasitic members of each animal group, while the second,
from the point of view not of parasites but of hosts, would
indicate the forms which are infested, stating by what
parasites. Of these lists the following scanty outlines
must suffice.
A. Hat of Parasites,
Protozoa (see PKOTOZOA). — Amoeboid organisms are occasionally
detected in dysentery and kindred diseases; the best known of
these is simceba coli. Parasitic Infusoria occur much more fre
quently : thus in the paunch of slieep and oxen six species (Oph-
ryoscohx, Entodinium, Isotriclta] are constant ; similarly in the
lectum of the frog or,; invariably present OpaJina, Nyctothcrns,
and L'alantidium; while B. coli, iirst described from man, inhabits
1 Sec Leuckart, Diemenschlichen Parasittn, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1863-7G; a second
edition (commencing in 1S79) is now in progress as Die J'arasiten des Menschen ;
Cobbold, Parasites, London, 1871); Kiichenmeister and Xiirn, Die Parasiten d.
Menschen, 1881 ; Hivsch, Hmdb. d. hist.-gcogi: I'athol., 2U ed., vol. ii., Stuttgart,
1883.
ANIMAL.]
PARASITISM
259
the pig. Trichodina infests Planarians. Flagellate parasites are
more numerous : Ccrcomonas intcstinalis is frequently observed in
choleraic affections ; Trichomonas intcstinalis and vaginalis are also
described in diseases. In perhaps all invertebrates and cold-blooded
vertebrates ciliate and flagellate parasites seem to occur. Acinet&
are sometimes parasitic on other Infusoria.
13y far the most important group, however, are the exclusively
parasitic Gregarinida. These are very widely distributed among
the tissues of invertebrates, especially worms and insects, and their
normal life-history is readily observed in the species infesting the
tissues of the common earthworm. Their spores or 2}SCUH°-
iiaviccllce are apparently closely related to the psorosperms fre
quently detected in both vertebrate and invertebrate tissues, and
even in the liver and hair of the human subject.1
Dicyemida. — This group contains only one entirely parasitic
genus, various species of which live in the renal organs of Cephalo
poda. The adult consists essentially of a simple sac of finely
ciliated ectodermal cells enclosing a single elongated endodermal
cell, which discharges nutritive and reproductive functions. Some
have attempted to demonstrate a mesoderm. The embryos are
of two kinds, nematogenic or vermiform, and rhombogenic or
infusiform, differing in origin, structure, and life-history, but of
still uncertain relations and import. The infusiform embryo which
becomes free is of complicated structure, and probably completes
its development in some new host. Some have connected the
Dicyemida with such higher forms as the Rotifcra or Trematodes,
and have regarded the simplicity of the adult as the result of that
degeneration which is suggested both by development and habit.
Haeckel, while acknowledging degeneration, regards Dicycma as
a survivor of the originally simple Gastrazada from which the
Metazoa have sprung.2
Orthonectida. — This group consists of a number of minute para
sites, such as PJiopalura, infesting some Nemertines, Turbellarians,
and Ophiuroids. Although moving in linear direction, as their
name implies, they exhibit radiate structure. The ciliated and
segmented ectoderm encloses an inner endodcrm layer and a central
cavity which usually contains embryos. They exhibit a well-
marked sexual dimorphism, the males being smaller and with
fewer segments. Their position is as problematic as that of the
Dicyemida • they may be regarded as degraded forms allied to
the Turbcllaria, T'rcmatoda, or Rotatoria, or as survivors of the
Gaslrezada. 3
Ccelenterata. — In this group (see CORALS, HYDROZOA), while the
fixed forms are frequently indebted for support to other organisms
or to each other, and although such associations occasionally seem
tolerably constant, true parasitism is remarkably rare. Young
Narcomedusse, (Cunina) are parasitic within the mouth of Carma-
riiia, and the hydroid Lafcea parasitica grows like ivy on
Aglaophcnia.
Similar remarks apply to the Mollusca, where, with one or two
exceptions (e.g., Entoconclia miralrilis discovered by Johannes
M tiller in Synapta, and another Philippine species described by
Semper) parasitism is unknown.
Echinodermata. — There are no parasitic Echinoderms.
Vcrmes. — To this sub-kingdom belong the majority of parasites,
but the greater groups are treated in separate articles. See
NKMATOIDEA, and for Cestoids and Trematodes see TAPEWORM.
Acanthocephala. — This group, usually regarded as degenerate
from NKMATOIDEA (q.v.), is represented by various species of
Echinorhynchus. These parasites possess a muscular elongated
body with a retractile proboscis armed with hooks, which serves to
fix the animal to its host. Sense organs, mouth, alimentary canal,
and anus are wanting ; but the muscles, nerves, and generative
organs are well developed. There is a complicated subcutaneous
canal system ; the sexes are distinct, and the reproduction is vivi
parous. The embryo, well provided with ensheathing membranes
and with hooks, is expelled with the excreta of its vertebrate host
and swallowed by some Arthropod, such as Ascllus or Gammarus.
There a remarkable metamorphosis takes place: the adult is formed
within the body of the larva, the skin being the only part of the
larva which passes over to the adult. The young Echinorhynchus
finally passes with its invertebrate host into the alimentary canal
of some vertebrate, e.g. , fish or bird or even pig, and there attains
sexual maturity.
Rotaloria.— Such forms as Albcrtia, found externally on certain
worms (Nais, &c.), and Balatro inside the same, are distinctly
parasitic, and are not improbably differentiations of the same form.
Among the Nemerteans various parasites occur, such as Ponto-
Mella, Branchcllion, Piscicola, found especially on fish. The
Cheztopoda are never parasitic, and but rarely commensal. The
1 See Lcuckart, Bronn's Protozoen, and article PROTOZOA.
2 E. van Beneden, Bnlletin de I'Ac.ad. Roiiale de Belgique, xli. and xlii., 187C;
C. 0. Whitman, Mitth. Zool. Slat. Neapel, 1882, iv. 1-89 ; Jour. Roy. Microscop.
Soc., passim.
3 Giard, Jour, de VAnat. ft de la Pfit/siol., xv.. 1879 ; Comptes Rendus. Ixxxix.,
1879; Quart. Jour. Microscop. Sci., vol. xx., 1880 (figure); Metschnikoff, Zool.
Am., 40-43, 1870 ; Jour. Hoy. Microscop. Soc., 1881; Ztschr. f. w. Zool.. xxxv
1881 ; Jour. Roy. Microscop. Soc., 1880, p. 86.
Myzostomata are probably, however, degenerate Chsetopods, repre
sented by the genus Myzostoma living ectoparasitically on
Crinoids.
Crustacea. — This group includes an immense number of forms in
varying degree parasitic. The Copepoda include all grades from
free-living forms to such degenerated parasites as Achtheres,
Lernsea, Chondracanthus, and Argulus. Many Entomostraca are
parasitic, and among the Isopoda we find such forms as Bopyrus
and Cryptoniscus. Among the Cirripedia again are various grades
of parasitism from some of the Lepadidae, to the ne plus ultra of
degeneration — the Rliiwcephala.*
Insecta. — Insects furnish a large proportion of ectoparasites, but
comparatively few endoparasites, for very obvious reasons. The
Strepsiptera, parasitic on bees, the ichneumon-flies, Flatygaster,
and allied Hymenopterous forms, the Pcdiculinse, (Hemiptera) and
the Mullophaga are the more important parasites. Many of the
other groups also include parasitic members. See INSECTS.
Arachnida.— The majority of Acarina (see MITE) are parasitic,
and there are many other Arachnida of similar habit. To the
Arachnida the Pycnogonida and the Pentastomida are often referred.
The former are parasitic in their youth at least on Hydroids.
Pcntastomum exhibits considerable divergence from the Arachnoid
type, and has a life-history closely parallel to that of the Cestoids.
The adult form is found in the frontal sinus of the dog or wolf;
the embryos pass through the nose to the exterior, and if eaten
by a hare or labbit lose their investment, penetrate to the liver,
encyst, and pass through a complicated series of changes, finally
attaining maturity and sexuality when the flesh of the rodent is
eaten by the original host.
Vcrtcbrata. — The Vertebrala are rarely parasitic. The best case
of incipient parasitism is that of Myxine, which burrows into the
codfish. With this may be compared the well-known Rfmora,
which attaches itself externally to sharks, &c. Commensalism is,
however, more common, many small Teleosteans living with
Medusas., sea anemones, and such like. Fierasfcr finds a lodgment
inside the respiratory tree of Holothurians; and Semper describes a
Philippine species which actually devours the viscera of its Holo-
thurian host.
B. Distribution of Parasites and List of Hosts.
Protozoa are of course rarely infested ; Ccclcnterata also rarely;
species of Distomum have been taken on Physophora, Velella,
Pclagia, Beroe, and Cesium ; a scolex and a nematoid have been
described from Ctenophores, while various Arthropods occur ecto
parasitically. Echinoderms are also very free from parasites ; on
Echinus, however, despite its pedicellarioe, occur occasionally the
semi-planariform Trematode Syndcsmis, and the molluscs Stylifcr,
Anaplodium, and Eulima (the latter occurs also on starfishes).
The Comcitulse, of all seas bear My~ostoma. Holothurians from
the Pacific occasionally contain crustaceans, such as the crab
Pinnotheres, and several Copepods. Their respiratory tree lodges
Fierasfcr, while Synapta contains the mollusc Entoconclia mirabilis.
Mollusca are more largely infested. Pinnotheres and other
Crustacea frequently inhabit the mantle cavity of marine Lamelli-
branchs, as the Arachnid Atax does the fresh-water mussel. The
Lamellibranchs also have their peculiar Trematodes like Aspido-
gaster and Buceplialus, besides Cercarise,, from which probablv few
Gastcropods, whether marine, fresh water, or terrestrial, are ever
free. The Cephalopods not only contain certain Dicycmse, in their
renal organs, but through their piscivorous habits acquire Tctra-
rhynchus and Ascarids. Among the Chsetopods not only are
Protozoan parasites frequent, but parasitic worms are occasionally
described.
Crustaceans frequently contain Gregarines ; and a few Cestoids,
Trematodes, and Nematoids (and Branchiobdella] have been
described, as well as the cystic Echinorhynclius, from Gammarus
index. More formidable, however, are the Copepods, like the
familiar Nicothoe of the lobster's gills ; and, worst of all, the
Rhizocephala, like Pcltogastcr and Sacculina of the hermit and shore
crab respectively.
Centipedes often contain Nematoids, and spiders Mermis and
Gordius. Insects are preyed upon by ichneumons, are largely
plagued by ticks externally, and internally by Gregarines and
worms, most frequently Gordius and Mermis ; but also by larval
Hymenoptera of many families, by certain Diptera, and by the
Strepsiptera. See INSECTS.
The Tunicata harbour many crustaceans, &c. , chiefly in the test.
It is among vertebrates, however, that parasitism is most frequent
and most fatal. Fishes swarm externally with Trematodes, leeches,
and parasitic crustaceans, internally with cysts and intestinal worms
all too numerous for enumeration. Nothing gives a more vivid idea
of the extent to which parasitism has reached than an examination
of a ray, or even better, the common sun fish (Orthagoriscus).
Amphibians are inhabited by many parasites, — the common frog
4 See CRUSTACEA, and the more recent researches of Claus and Kossmann, as
also those of Lacaze-Duthiers on Laura, and the especially remarkable investiga
tions of Delage on Sacculina (Zoolog. Jahresbericht, 1880-84).
260
PARASITISM
[ANIMAL
having almost constantly Ascaris ?iigrovenosa in its lungs, and
infusorial parasites in its rectum, and may also yield Distomum,
Echinorhynchus, &c., twenty species in all. Lizards harbour tape
worms, Nematoids, including species of Trichina-, more rarely
Trematodes. Ophidians have all kinds of parasitic worms, Chelo-
niaus chiefly Nematoids and Trematodes. The parasites of birds
are of extraordinary number and variety ; preying, fishing, and
omnivorous birds serve, of course, very constantly as intermediate
hosts ; but graminivorous birds are hardly more exempt. The
number of parasites is often so vast as to occasion the most serious
disease ; thus the " gapes " of poultry is due to the choking of
the bronchial passages by multitudes of Nematoids (Sderostoma
syngamus], and the grouse disease to a similar cause (Stronyylus
pcryracilis).
Yet a great number of parasites may be borne without apparent
injury : thus the post-mortem examination of a single stork has
yielded twenty four Filaria and sixteen Strongylus from the lungs
and air passages, one hundred Spiroptera from the coats of the
stomach, more than a hundred of various species of Distomum, and
many hundreds of Holostomum from the gullet and intestine. Ticks
and insect parasites are also common ; of these the most remarkable
are the feather-eating Mallophaga. The majority of the Mammalia
have as internal parasites many different species of worms either
in adult or cystic form, which are fully described in veterinary
works. The special parasites of man are estimated by Cobbold at
as many as 121 species (13 Trematodes, 16 Cestodes, 21 Nematoids,
10 Leeches, 17 Arachnids, 44 Insects) ; many of these, especially
among insects, have occurred only very rarely, and should not be
reckoned, e.g. , Musca vomitoria and £laps mortisaga, while a con
siderable number of the truly parasitic forms have only been once
or twice described, — the above estimate thus becoming reduced
well-nigh to half.1
Taxonomy. — Far then from there being, as was formerly
thought, one great group of Entozoa by itself, we have
seen that most invertebrate groups have their parasitic
members and exhibit transitions or grades connecting these
with free-living forms. The systematic position of many
parasitic species is, however, not yet clear, many have been
named by accident or according to habitat, and great con
centration seems necessary. It is, for example, extremely
probable that a careful systematic study of genera like
G'ordius, Distomum, and Tetrarhynchm, of which innumer
able species have been described from as many different
hosts, would result in proving the identity of many forms
described as distinct, and that experiment would show-
that many of the forms still apparently specifically distinct
are really only individuals of the same species more or less
modified by the host upon whom the lottery of nature has
chanced to quarter them.
With the increasing completeness of our knowledge of
parasitic forms the transitions from free to parasitic species
are becoming more prominent, and the relationships of the
parasitic to the non-parasitic groups more definite. Among
the Nematoidfd, for example, as Leuckart indicates, we are
able to construct a series, starting from free-living forms,
and through such cases as Leptodera (a fthabditis-like form,
.sometimes free, sometimes parasitic), thence to parasitic
Xematodes hardly to be distinguished from their free-living
relations, but passing gradually through Oryuris, Tricho-
cephalus, Spiroptera, &c., to such highly parasitic forms as
Trichina, where all relation to the outer world is lost. The
Acanthocephila Leuckart has taught us to regard as
Nematodes highly modified by parasitism, and he points out
how G'ordius, with its atrophied alimentary canal, terminal
position of female reproductive organs, and other persistent
and embryonic characters in which it differs from the typical
Xematoid, really leads up to Echinorhynchus. As Echino
rhynchus is related to the Nematodes, so are the Cestoids to
the Trematodes. The close alliance suggested by numerous
points of anatomical correspondence, and by the close
parallelism in life-history, is corroborated by such inter
mediate forms as Caryophyllaus and Amphilina, from
which we pass with ever-increasing parasitic adaptation
i Kor lists see, in addition to general authorities. Linstow Compendium <l.
He.lmiiitholorjic. Hanover. 1878; V. Beneden, Animal Parasites and Messmates;
Cobbold, Human /'ara.'itts (1832), anil Parasites of Domestic Animalt (1S74);
Zlegler's Patholoyij, English ed., London, 188:;.
through the Ligulidx to Bothriocephalw and Txnia.
Leuckart further points out how closely the Trematodes
are united by intermediate forms to the Planarians. The
affinities of Myzostoma and Pentastomum are not yet
precisely determined, though the former is most plausibly
regarded as a degenerate Chajtopod and the latter as
similarly degenerated from some low Arachnid or at
least Arthropod type. In the Copepoda, Cirripedia, and
other crustaceans all degrees in intimacy of association
may be observed, making the relations of the parasitic to
the free forms sufficiently obvious. Everywhere, in short,
we find a morphological and physiological gradation from
free to parasitic forms.
Nature and Degree of Parasitism — Commensalism. —
From the foregoing necessarily much abbreviated lists we
observe not only the enormously wide prevalence of para
sitism — the number of parasitic individuals, if not indeed
that of species, probably exceeding that of non-parasitic
forms — but its very considerable variety in degree and
detail. The majority indeed derive their main support
from their host, but of these some are free, wandering
about from animal to animal, some are attached per
manently to the exterior of their victim, while others
again are concealed within its body. In some cases the
parasitism is only temporary, with others it is a life-long
habit. The majority are free in their youth, while some
pass their early life as parasites, becoming free in their
mature state, and others again spend their whole life on
their host.
In some cases there is the very slightest association;
every student of marine forms is familiar with the complex
FIG. 1. — Colony of sea -anemones (Sagartia paraiftica) on s' cl! < f
hermit crab.
incrustations and intergrowths of sessile forms, and has
seen how almost any surface or cranny may afford a
lodgment. Parasitism for support is not infrequent ; it
may be temporary or permanent ; in the former case it is
useful in diffusion,— the glochidium-larva of the fresh
water mussel, for example, being transported on the fins of
fishes. From cases like those of many Cirripedes, which
occur indifferently on rocks or on animals, we pass readily
to permanent associations like that of Loxosoma on the
posterior end of Phascolosoma. Vague and loose associa
tions, if useful to one or both participants, may become
perpetuated by natural selection. Thus sea anemones may
settle on any surface, — occasionally therefore on shells
inhabited by hermit crabs ; hence have arisen permanent
ANIMAL.]
PARASITISM
261
associations. Of these there are many familiar instances,
such as the hermit crabs bearing Sagartia parasitica (fig. 1),
or having their shell-mouth enveloped by Adamsia. One of
the quaintest instances is a lately described species of crab
which wields an anemone firmly grasped in either claw.
In such cases the association is obviously useful : the crab
is protected from the octopus and other enemies by the
nematocysts of its comrade, which also aid in holding the
prey, while the Actinia too gains its share of the food, and
vicariously acquires means of locomotion. To such cases
where two animals are associated together for mutual sup
port and advantage the term " Commensalism" is applied.
In the struggle for existence increased complexity of needs,
and difficulty in satisfying them, evokes in the individual
organism a certain specialization of function and conse
quent differentiation of structure. Similar causes result
not so much in the differentiation of each individual of a
species as in the specialization of certain individuals
for certain specific functions, resulting again in that
specialization of structure which is called polymorphism.
Thus in a Hydmctinia or Siphonophore colony many
different individuals of the same species have been specia
lized in each to perform a certain function. The same
purpose is served by those associations, not of individuals
of the same species, but of two individuals of different
species, united as we have just seen for mutual advantage,
and each working out some definite part of the common
life-problem. Just as polymorphism in the same species
is physiologically equivalent to differentiation in the indi
vidual organism, so is commensalism between different
species the physiological equivalent of polymorphism in a
single species.
But cases of co-operation on equal terms are rare ; size
constitutes the most frequent disparity, and the smaller
tends to become first wholly dependent upon the other for
support, then for concealment, and finally perhaps for
sustenance. The reverse may occasionally occur, the
weaker being utilized for the purposes of the stronger ;
thus a species of Dromia adapts a colony of sponge or
ascidian as a removable upper garment for concealment.1
Parasitism within the same Species. — In some cases even
within the morphological unity of the species a physio
logical relation is established analogous to commensalism
if not to parasitism. Thus in BoneUia the diminutive
and degenerate male lives in the uterus of the female, in
Trichosomum crassicauda of the rat three or four male
are found within the spermatheca of the female, while in
Bilharzia the incipient reciprocal of these cases is found,
the male being host. Many of the most remarkable cases
are also afforded by the Cirripedia, in which a female may
bear males in various states of dependence and degenera
tion. In viviparous animals a certain absorption by the
young from the tissues of the parent can hardly avoid
taking place ; this is therefore so far an analogy to endo-
parasitism. This advantage is clearly retained and deve
loped if absorption take place by an organ specialized for
the purpose. Thus in the well-known shark Mustelus
lijevis the young are attached to the oviduct by a placenta
developed on the yolk sac ; and the like arrangement,
though morphologically different, is physiologically the
same among the Mammalia.
Hyperparasitism. — Not only are very few animals alto
gether free from parasites, but even parasites themselves
find their nemesis in being themselves infested by lesser
parasites, though not "ad injinitum." Thus Leuckart
mentions that water-lice and thread-worms are found on
parasitic crustaceans, and the endoparasitic larvae of some
Hymenoptera are themselves preyed upon by other larvae
1 For an account of many cases of commensnlisin, sou V. Beneden. Animal
I'nrasitfs, and Semper, Animal Life, both in International Science Series.
(Pteromalinx). Nematodes are found in Nicothoe, and
associated with Sacculina are frequently found two other
crustacean parasites, one of which, after destroying the
greater part of its host, continues to subsist upon the
nourishment afforded by its root-like processes which sur
vive the operation.
Classification. — Some classification of these various parasitic forms
is necessary. Van Beneden introduced the useful term commensals
or messmates, under which he includes (1) oikosites or fixed and (2)
coinosites or free partners. These he distinguishes not only from
parasites but from mutualists where two species are associated, but
neither share a common food nor does one prey on the other.
Parasites he divides according to the duration of their state
of attachment to a host, distinguishing (1) those which are free all
their life (leeches, bugs, fleas, &c. ); (2) those free as adults but
parasitic when young (Ichneumon, Mermis, &c.) ; (3) those free only
in youth, and attaining their adult form either directly in the first
host entered, or only after a migration from one host to another
(most parasitic worms) ; (4) those which pass all phases of their life
on or in their host, e.g., Slrepsiplcra, Tristomum, &c. In this
classification there is no attempt to define the degree of dependence
or the closeness of the association, except in the general distinction
between parasites and commensals ; the group of mutualists is
entirely superfluous and confused, no clear definition being given, and
in the examples of the various groups the limits of his own defini
tions are not adhered to.
Leuckart distinguishes parasites as ecto- and endo-parasitic, and
divides the former into temporary and permanent. Endoparasites
he divides according to the nature and duration of their strictly
parasitic life. (1) Some have free-living and self-supporting
embryos which become sexually mature either in their freedom or
only after assuming the parasitic habit. (2) Others have embryos
which, without having a strictly free life, yet pass through a period
of active or passive wandering, living for a while in an intermediate
host. They may either (a) escape to pass their adult life in freedom
(Archigctes and Aspidogaster}, or (ft) they may become sexual, or (r)
they may bore their way to another part of the body ( Trichina), or
(d) most frequently they pass to their final host either directly when
their intermediate host is devoured as food, or indirectly seeking
for themselves another intermediate host, or producing asexual
forms which do so (Trematodes and Cestoids), (3) Others again
have no free-living or even migratory embryonic stage, but pass
through their complete life-cycle in one host (Trichocephalus,
Oxyuris, &c. ). This somewhat detailed classification has at least
the advantage of clearness, and of showing to some extent the
various degrees of parasitism.
Kossmann has proposed a more physiological classification dealing
with the organization and habit of the parasite. This he has
applied to the Crustacea : — I. Biosnwlici, or vegetative without
independent digestive organs, e.g., Rhizoccphala ; II. Digcstorii,
with independent digestive system, and including (1) Scdentarii,
Copepoda atcktmcta, Sopyridse, Euboniscidee, Crypton iscidas; (2)
Vagantes, Copepoda holotmcta, Branchiura, Cymothoidte. The great
variety of details, however, makes it almost impossible to establish
any logically accurate division. Any strict classification of such a
variety of organisms having only in common the physiological corre
spondence of their mode of life is almost impossible, and the most
that can be done is to point out the existence of series of adapta
tions varying with the intimacy and constancy of the association
and the degree of dependence.
Origin of Parasitism and Transmission of Parasites. —
With the dismissal of the theory of generatio squivoca, the
question of the origin of parasites is limited to the discus
sion of the causes which might induce such a change of
habit and environment. There are obviously many oppor
tunities for one animal either in adult or larval state being
swallowed by another in food or drink, in which case, if
the environment were not too utterly different from that
previously enjoyed, parasitism might arise in a purely
unconscious way. It is again easily conceivable that
animals which have sought a host for temporary protection
from climate or enemies, or for safety and seclusion in the
bearing and breeding of the young, might, finding the
environment congenial and a supply of food at hand,
remain there during a large portion of their life. It is
worth noticing, as corroboratory of the idea that the host
was in many cases resorted to primarily as a sort of mater
nity asylum, that we find many parasitic females with free
males, e.g., Nicothoe. Given an animal with a carnivorous
habit, it is intelligible enough that during a period of
262
PARASITISM
[ANIMAL.
scarcity of food or of extreme pressure from enemies, vari
ous methods of solving the problem of life would be
attempted, the successful results of which in a few cases
persist especially in ectoparasitism, not the least obvious
mode of retaliation on stronger foes. The degree of the
parasitism is, as we have seen, not of primary moment, and
its intimacy may be increased. There are naturally some
physiological limits of respiration, &c., determining the
possibilities of parasitism — air-breathing insects are found
on land animals or at most on some amphibian forms,
water-breathing Arthropods on water-breathers, water-
breathing worms only in the interior of land animals ; but
even these limits may be overstepped by adaptation when,
for example, the respiration becomes cutaneous in Penta-
stomum, Sarcoptes, &c.
The various modes of transmission of parasites, though
of great practical importance, do not call for much dis
cussion here. They may be summarized as follows after
Leuckart : — (1) the majority of parasites reach their hosts
through the medium of food or drink ; (2) eggs are in
some cases transferred from one animal to another by
actual bodily contact, e.g., the eggs of Pentastomum by the
licking of dogs ; (3) sometimes the eggs are deposited in
or on the host by the mother, for example, by insect para
sites, such as Ichneumons, (Estridse, cfec. ; (4) in some rare
cases parasites are transmitted by self-infection,- — for
example, young Trichinx, born free in the alimentary canal
of their host, bore their way thence directly into the
muscles, there to grow into the well-known encapsuled
worms. Eggs or proglottides of tape-worm may, on gain
ing the exterior, be transmitted inadvertently to the
mouth, and so recommence their life-cycle within the same
host.
The mode of diffusion of the ova of parasites presents
many analogies to that of seeds in the vegetable kingdom :
thus wind and water are alike utilized, passing animals
may serve as unconscious bearers, and the like. Though
well protected by a usually thickened egg-shell and an
often remarkable degree of vitality, so as to resist pro
longed drought, burial, and other vicissitudes, the parasite
has an exceedingly small chance of success in finding a
host ; to preserve the species from extinction an enormous
number of eggs must be produced, far exceeding that of
free-living organisms. Thus Leuckart points out that as
a tapeworm has an average lifetime of two years, and pro
duces in that time about 1500 proglottides, each contain
ing say 57,000 ova, and since the species is not increasing
in numbers, an ovum has thus only one chance in
85,000,000 of reaching maturity. The difficulties are of
course increasingly greater as the life-history becomes more
complicated, demanding an increasing number of hosts.
Given a sufficient number of eggs, however, no difficulty
is insuperable, and few parasitic forms accordingly seem in
any risk of disappearance, except, it is to be hoped, in
the case of civilized man and the domestic animals, where
the large consumption of cooked food, aided by conscious
hygienic precautions and medical aid, tends to exclude or
remove them.
Effects of Parasitic Life on Parasites. — So far from treat
ing the phenomena of parasitic life as highly aberrant,
and the peculiarities of parasitic form as differentiations
sui generis, it becomes evident that we have to do with
only one of the many cases in which the influence of
environment on organism is clearly marked. The aetiology
of parasitism is only a fraction of a vaster general ques
tion; and we shall never fully understand the adaptation
of the parasite to its host until the relation of environment
to organism has been far more profoundly analysed and
completely experimented on — inquiries which have only
recently begun to be seriously set on foot. The most cur
sory consideration of the action of environment shows
how profoundly it determines form ; of this ho better
examples can be found than those furnished by the habit
of plants. It is easy to see how submerged leaves must
become dissected, or desert plants tend to become succu
lent ; how evergreens are only possible in certain condi
tions of climate, or thorns are only useful where herbivor
ous mammals abound. In the same way we can broadly
see that the conditions of life profoundly influence animal
form. Before considering how the abnormal parasitic
environment affects the parasite, we should know how the
normal environment affects the non-parasite, and how the
two cases differ. The environment thus needs analysis
into its factors, the organism similarly into its constituent
systems of organs ; and the influence of any factor of the
environment upon each system and organ demands deter
mination, species by species, before safe and exhaustive
generalizations can be obtained. Pending these inquiries,
which are destined to take so large a place in the biology
I of the future, and within the present narrow limits, only
the merest outline can be attempted.
Morphological science has but slowly and with difficulty
disentangled itself from the primitive classifications of
plants and animals by habit and resemblances of external
form • the physiologist, however, needs to reassert the
claims of these and develop them in detail ; as for the
child so for him whales are in a sense fishes, and bats
birds, — just as the swimming organs of the former, like
those of the penguin or cuttlefish, are all fins, or the flying-
organs of the latter and those of insects are wings alike.
Such considerations show too the first importance of the
mechanical conditions, primarily those of locomotion or
rest, and whether in water, or land, or in air, since these
determine, not only external form, but muscular and
skeletal disposition and structure. These determined,
conditions of heat and light play an obvious part ; copious
supplies of heat energy to the organism have a distinct
result in stimulating plant growth, and accelerating that
of animals ; light too, a primal necessity for green plants,
has also the most marked effect on animals, which develop
tracts of absorbent pigments in its presence, these
becoming locally evolved for perception into eyes ; while
in relation to sound-vibrations and impressions of contact
other sense organs develop. Quantity of food has its
influence mainly on size, but nature of food and mode of
feeding demand many appropriate specializations of details
of form. Expressing the same adaptations from the other
point of view, that of the organism, we see how not only
the general form but the integument with its colour and
texture, and also the respiratory and alimentary organs,
are necessarily fitted to avail themselves of the given con
ditions ; how the circulatory and how the reproductive
systems must comply ; how the sensory organs must take
note more and more of the changes in the environ
ment ; and how the whole series of complex adaptations
demands a similarly complex internal mechanism for their
co-ordination through the nervous system.
From the slightest analysis then of the relation of
organism to environment, the theory of evolution might
almost have been predicted, since, if the details of environ
ment and organism be indeed obviously and precisely
adapted one to another, change in the former must either
be followed by the extinction of the latter or its modifica
tion in the requisite details. To explain the modus operandi
of change in the organism, we have mainly to boar in mind
Dohrn's admirably expressed " principle of functional
change," — the simple conception that any living tissue,
however specialized, still retains traces of all the functions
of living protoplasm, and that any one of these traces may
be indefinitely increased by favourable conditions, and the
ANIMAL.]
PARASITISM
263
specialized function similarly reduced to a trace. Along
with this, or rather as a corollary of it, conies the concep
tion of economy of unused structure ; our notions of
specialization become henceforth associated with a corre
sponding possibility of simplification, and our idea of pro
gress must be for ever accompanied by the corresponding
possibility of degeneration.
The conditions of parasitic life are readily seen to differ
primarily from those of independent organisms in negative
characters, i.e., in the simplification of the factors of the
environment ; let us therefore .briefly consider the results
of such progressive simplification upon organisms in general.
Let the mechanical conditions be simplified by the cessation
of active movement ; the specialized body -form necessary
for locomotion then becomes unnecessary ; locomotor
muscles and their skeletal attachments are simplified or dis
appear ; organs of sense are far less needed ; and nervous
adaptations and structures become correspondingly reduced.
In all these respects then sessile parasites simply agree
with other sessile animals. Again, let us simplify the
environment by the deprivation of light ; eyes and pigment
are useless, and our organism, whether cave-dwelling insect
or crustacean or internal parasite, becomes blanched and
blind; and similarly with other senses. Or let us subtract
as far as possible the element of danger from other animals
by special protection or concealment in one of the " nooks
of life " ; here again for shelled mollusc, sand buried
AmphioxuS) or hidden parasite the diminished need of
nervous adaptations is a similar degenerative factor. Let
food become abundant, the same nervous economy follows;
let it be highly nutritive, and digestive structures and func
tions may be simplified ; thus the examples of progressive
degeneration of the alimentary system up to its complete
replacement by superficial absorption, afforded by various
parasitic series, are natural enough. The soft integument
unprotected and blanched, the reduced muscular activities,
the simple or absent alimentary tube, the reduced circu
latory and respiratory organs consequent upon diminished
waste and softened integument, are all intelligible enough,
as also is the increase in reproductive activity demanded
by increased risk of failure to find the appropriate condi
tions. The few adaptive conditions are readily understood :
given the continuous application of a flat muscular surface
to resist detachment from the host, and atmospheric pres
sure helps the development of the sucker; given either a
clutching limb or a portion of the body-wall thrust for
support into the host, and the mechanical conditions aid
the differentiation of a hook ; here, if anywhere, function
in fact may be said to make the organ, and such curious
resemblances of superficial form as those between say a
gregarine, a tapeworm, and an Echinorhynckus are not hard
to explain.
Further details of the process of retrograde metamor
phosis and of the enormously important phenomena of
degeneration cannot here be attempted ; it must suffice if
the general dependence of such changes upon simplification
of environment — freedom from danger, abundant alimen
tation and complete repose, &c. (in short, the conditions
commonly considered those of complete material well-
being) — has been rendered clearer, and if the phenomena
of parasitism, however apparently aberrant, become intel
ligible as new evidences of the unity of organic nature.1
Effects of Parasite on Host. — As the result of the associa
tion of two organisms with more or less constancy, various
mutual modifications of form and function must obviously
occur. The more important effects of parasite on host
may be briefly outlined. Semper cites numerous cases
where the commensal or parasite has a mechanically trans-
i See Dolirn, D. Princip. d. Functioiisicechsel; Lankester, On Degeneration,
London, 1880; Semper, Animal Life.
forming effect on the host. Thus a horny coral with
which an annelid is constantly associated has become
permanently modified to form an encasing tube. Worms
inside corals have enlarged the base of the cavity by
stimulating growth, and may also produce permanent pores.
Pycnogonids on Campanularia produce galls, which ac
quire specific characters, and various species of crab para
sitic on corals form galls, two of which coalescing, form a
sort of " cave dwelling " with two fissures which are kept
open by the respiratory currents of the crab, which thus
both stimulates and checks the growth of the polyps. In
higher animals, and with more intimate parasitism, the
mechanical influences of the parasite on the host are more
serious and more markedly pathological. Thus parasitic
worms, by their size and number, frequently close up
passages such as arteries, windpipe, ic., causing often
fatal results. But many parasites are also actively de
structive to certain tissues of their host — thus, as Semper
points out, Pdtoyaster destroys the female reproductive
organs of Payurus, a Trematode those of Limnxa stagnalis,
the larva of a fly (Cuterelra emasculator) the testes of various
species of American squirrel. In none of these cases, how
ever, is the general vitality of the host affected. The
results of active motion within the host are productive of
still more serious mischief; thus the internal migration and
burrowing of such parasites as Trichina and Bilharzia, is
well known to produce violent inflammation. The per
foration of vessels, the consequent extravasation of blood,
and the destruction of tissue often end fatally for the
host. Leuckart distinguishes pathological effects as due
either to growth and increase of parasites, or to their
wanderings within the host, or thirdly to the very consider
able loss of nourishment which a number of parasites of
appreciable size necessarily entails. Some blood-sucking
parasites are specially dangerous, and many less ferocious
forms doubtless poison their host to some extent by their
waste products. Roux also notes how parasites — an
Echinococcus, for example — by inducing a flow of nutritive
material, may develop a net work of capillaries and produce
other histological changes 2
It is probable that many of the most remarkable
integumentary specializations of the animal kingdom are
defences against parasites (somewhat as the stings or thorns
which protect foliage, or the hairs which keep ants from
flowers) ; thus the nematocysts of coelenterates, the mol-
luscan shell or the crustacean mail, the vigilant pedicellariaj
of the echinoderm, or the scales of the fish are alike largely
specialized as defences against the never-ceasing attacks
of swarms of larval parasites, eagerly struggling to gain
entrance or footing anywhere.
The history of the medical aspects of parasitism can only
be very briefly alluded to. From the time of the ancient
Arabian physicians some diseases, such as itch, have been
referred to parasites. With the increasing knowledge as
to the prevalence and importance of parasitism there arose
a distinct parasitic theory of disease, and in the 17th and
18th centuries such questions were discussed as "an mors
naturalis sit substantia verminosa." In spite of the
gradual unravelling of the mysteries of origin and life-
history, physicians long clung conservatively to the old
hypothesis of spontaneous generation, even Bremser
regarding the pathological states of the host not as caused
by the parasites, but as causing and in fact creating them.
It was not till within the last thirty years that, with the
rise of experimental helniinthology, medical science shook
itself free from superstition and ignorance, and devoted
close attention to aetiology and treatment, culminating in
that systematic warfare against all forms of parasitism
2 Leuckart, op. cit.\ Semper, Animal Life; Roux, D. Kampf d. Theile im
Organismtts ; Ziegler's Pathology, &o.
PARASITISM
[VEGETABLE
which now occupies so important a place in medicine and
the veterinary art (see p. 269 infra, and VETERINARY
SCIENCE). (p. GE.)
VEGETABLE PARASITISM.
The name of parasites has been given to those plants
which are nourished wholly or partially at the expense of
other living organisms. The degree and nature of the
benefit thus obtained varies greatly with different plants,
and the effect produced upon the host ranges from an
almost imperceptible one to complete destruction. At
one extreme are certain forms which, while drawing the
nourishment necessary for life from their hosts, yet do so
in such fashion that both organisms continue to live in
intimate association, and, it may be, rendering mutual
help. From these by a series of gradations we come to
parasites of such destructive influence as to cause wide
spread death to certain animal and vegetable forms of life.
This physiological group is closely related to another, the
saprophytes, which obtain their nourishment from the
dead remains of organisms. True parasites belong ex
clusively to the dicotyledonous flowering plants and the
fungi. A few algaj are partial parasites.
The remarkable appearance presented by most parasitic
flowering plants undoubtedly attracted notice in remote
times. They are frequently mentioned by early writers,
but there is no evidence sufficient to enable us to deter
mine whether they were regarded as independent plants
or merely as pathological excrescences — unless in the one
case of the mistletoe, which was recognized as the former
by Pliny, who gives an account of its reproduction by
seed. The effects of the attack of parasitic fungi were
also observed in very early times, as there is abundant
evidence to show, but the plants themselves which caused
the damage were necessarily not detected as such from
their minute size and obscure nature. We must come to
the middle of the 18th century for the first attempt to
establish a botanical group of flowering parasites. Pf eiffer,
in his treatise on the Fungus melitensis (Cynomorium
coccineum), divides all flowering parasites into three groups,
according as they infested the whole plant or attacked but
one place or were confined to the root ; but he includes
many epiphytes, such as ivy, lichens, &c. After this
remarkable classification a knowledge of native and exotic
forms grew up, and nothing noteworthy occurred in the
history of the subject until the end of last century and
beginning of the present one, when there was a relapse to
the old theory that parasites were no more than degener
ate outgrowths from their hosts. For example, Meyen
attempted to account on anatomical grounds for the exist
ence of Lathrsea squamaria on its host, and more absurdly
still, Trattinick, in a letter to Schlechtendal, gave a short
list of plants to which parasites bear a very superficial
resemblance, and gravely affirmed his belief that the latter
are but specific degenerations of these. Thus he con
tended that Balanophora is but an Arum, Cylinus a
Cotyledon, Raftlesia a cabbage, <kc. De Candolle made
the first genuine attempt in 1832 to establish a classifica
tion of parasites on morphological and physiological
grounds; Unger followed in 1840 with a purely morpho
logical arrangement, and, though he advanced matters
considerably, his treatise contains much speculation not
borne out by facts. Martius's classification of about the
sanvj time is on much the same lines as De Candolle's.
The knowledge of parasitic fungi has advanced gradually
with the improvement of the microscope, and the accumu
lation of the life-histories of forms has grown up under
the hands of numerous observers, among the earliest of
whom Knight performed admirable service. With increas
ing knowledge of native and exotic forms, and the advance
made in the fields of vegetable anatomy and physiology,
the whole group of vegetable parasites has become mere
strictly defined, — the last noteworthy service being tho
establishment by De Bary (jforpk. u. Physiol. dtr Pilte,
Flechten u. Myxomycelen) of the physiological group of
'•'saprophytes" to receive those plants which differ from
the parasites in obtaining their nourishment from the dead
bodies of organisms and from soil rich in humus.1
PHANEROGAM i A. — The parasitic flowering plants are ex-
j clusively dicotyledons confined to natural orders falling
under the two divisions of Camopetalx and Monochlamydes.
Among the Gamopetalse there are the (Hfonotropexl)
Lennoacex, Citscutex (Convolvulacex), certain genera of
Scrophiilariacex (such as Rhinanthus, Melampyrum, Eu-
phrasia, and Pedicularis), and the Orobanchex. Among
the Monochlamydetx there are the Cylinacex, Cassytlta
(Laurinese), Loranthaceee, Santalacese, and Bcdanophoracese.
The vegetative bodies of these exhibit various degrees of
degradation, and this process may go so far that, excepting
the parts concerned in reproduction, not only the external
appearance but the whole structure of the tissues character
istic of a vascular plant may be lost to the parasite. The
roots in particular undergo considerable change of form and
structure in adaptation to their peculiar function, and tho
typical root of a vascular plant may lose all its character
istics, retaining only its physiological properties. A
! degraded root or part of a root so adapted is termed a
haustorium, and the mistletoe, dodder, Thesium, Balano
phora, and J?((ftlesia exhibit such in various degrees of
removal from the true type.2
The arrangement of the orders as follows is that adopted
in systematic botany. Their physiological relations will
be afterwards indicated.
The Monotropeae, which are allied to the heaths, possess no
chlorophyll and only small scale-like leaves. Monotropa, which
may be taken as a type of the group, undoubtedly subsists as a
saprophyte on organic matter derived from the soil. There has
been some controversy as to the parasitism of these plants. Perhaps
the strongest evidence in its favour was offered by Drude, who
stated that he found a parasitic connexion between Monotropa and
the roots of Abies excelsa. Monotropa was then generally regarded
as both parasite and saprophyte. Wore recently, however,
Kamienski has denied the accuracy of Drude's interpretation of
the case, and, affirming that Monotropa possesses no haustoria,
upholds the view that it is no true parasite. Upon the evidence
it may be taken that no case has yet been satisfactorily made out
for the parasitism of this group. The suborder consists of ten or
twelve species included in nine genera occurring in north temperate
regions. Monotropa Ifypopitys, L., is distributed through Europe;
var. glahra, Roth, mostly among deciduous trees ; and var. kirstita,
Roth, commonly among conifers.3
The Lennoacex are a very small order confined to Mexico and
California. They are succulent herbs with simple or slightly
branched stems bearing small scale-like leaves, and resemble in
general habit the Monotropcai, to which they are allied. They
possess no chlorophyll, and are probably always parasitic.4
The CiiscutacciK (Dodders) are a suborder of Convolvulaccx, and
are distinguished by their fibrous, climbing stems bearing very small
scale-like leaves. They are entirely without chlorophyll, and are
true parasites. The gioup consists of annual plants reproduced
each year from their seed, which commonly ripens about the same
time as that of the host plants. The seeds of host and parasite
are frequently found mixed, and it consequently happens that they
are sown together. When the seed of the dodder germinates it
1 Pfeiffer, Fungus melitensis, Linnams's Anianitat. Acad., Dissert. lx\-., vol.
iv., 1755 ; De Candolle, I'hysiologie ve'gcta/e, ill., JJes parasites phanerogames,
1832; Ungcr, " Bfitr. zur Kenntniss dcr parasitischen Pflanzc'ii," Ann. d.
Wiener Jtfits., ii., 184<i; Muitius, "Ueber <lio Vegetation der unccliten und
ecliteu PiirasittMi zuniiclist in Brasilien," Gel. Am. d. K<jl. lair. Acad. d. Wissensch.,
xiv.
2 The following recent works deal more or less completely with parasitic
floweiing plants usa group : — Solms Laubacli, " Ueber den Bun und die, Kntwiek-
elung der Ernahrungsoigane pnrasitischer Phanerogamen," I'ringsfieiiii's Jalirb.
f. irissensch. Hot., vi.; Cliatin, Anatomic comparee des vegetaiix — I'lantes para
sites, Paris, 18G2; Brandt, A'onnulla de parasit. quibtisdam phanerogam, obs.
Linntea, 1849; Pitra, "Ueber die Anheftungsweisc einigcr phanerogamischer
Parasiten an Hire N&hrpflanzen," Hot. Ztg., 18(jl.
3 Solms Laubach, loc. cit. ; Drude, iJie Biologie rnn Monotropa Ilypopitys,
(iuttingen, 1873; Kamicnski, "Die Vegetatlonsorgane von Monotropa Hypo-
pityt," Hot. Ztg., 1881.
4 Solms Laubacli, " Die Familie der Lennoaceen," Abhandl. d. Naturf. Gesell-
at Ifa'le, xi.
VEGETABLE.]
PARASITIS M
265
pushes up its stem, which meeting with the stem of the host plant j
develops a papilla-like body at the point of contact. From the
papilla there proceeds the true haustorium, which penetrates the
tissues of the host as far as the vascular system, where it expands
slightly and terminates in a broad surface. The haustorium is
furnished with a central vascular bundle originating in the vascular
system of the dodder stem. When this haustorium has been
developed the root of the dodder dies off and all connexion with
the soil ceases, while the stem above the hauatorium continues to
wind round its host, producing fresh haustoria at short intervals,
and gradually enveloping and destroying the plant. The influences
exerted are of two kinds: — (1) a truly parasitic influence, since the
dodder, possessing neither connexion with the soil nor chlorophyll,
obtains all its nourishment from its host by the action of its
haustoria ; and (2) a mechanical influence, in depriving its host of
air, light, &c. , and preventing the development of branches, leaves,
&c. (see fig. 2). The commonest species are Cuscuta Epithymum,
Murr., distributed throughout Europe, growing on Thymus Ser-
pyllum, Calluna vulyaris, Genista, &c. ; var. trifolii on clover, to
which crop it is enormously destructive ; G. curopsea, L., occurring
throughout Europe on hops, vines, &c., and C. Epilinum, "VVeihe,
commonly found throughout Europe growing on flax.1
There are at least five genera of Serophulariacess which are
partially parasitic, viz., lUiinanthus, Mclampyrum, Pedicularis,
Euphrasia, and Striga. They all contain chlorophyll, and possess
true roots on which small haustoria are developed. Euphrasia,
occurring in both north and south temperate regions, is partially
parasitic on roots of grasses. Pedicularis is common in alpine and
arctic regions of the northern hemisphere, Mdampyrum and
FIG. V.— Cuscuta glomerata, Choisy. A, Parasite entwin'ng host; B, section
through union between parasite and host; c, stem of host; <i, stem cf Cuscula;
h, haustoria. After Dodel-Port.
Jlhinanthus in the north temperate zone, and Striga is a native of
Asia, Africa, and Australia. The last possesses perhaps more dis
tinctly parasitic habits than the others — though the cultivation
experiments of Decaisne, Cornu, and others tend to show that
parasitism is necessary in the cases of Melampyrum, Rhinanthus,
and Euphrasia.2
The Orobanchcse (Broomrapes) possess erect, simple or little-
branched sterns bearing numerous scale-like leaves, and are variously
coloured, but destitute of chlorophyll. They are parasitic on the
roots of many different herbs and shrubs by means of their haustoria,
which penetrate to the vascular system oif the host. They attach
themselves thus immediately after germination. There are about
one hundred and fifty so-called species of Orobanche, of which the
following are perhaps best kuown: — Orobanche rubens, Wallr.,
parasitic on and very destructive to lucerne; 0. minor, Sutr., on red
clover; 0. major, L. , which attains a height of 2 feet on roots of furze
and other leguminous plants; and 0. J-tapitm, Thuill. Phelipsea
ramosa, Mey., attacks particularly hemp and tobacco. Lath r sea,
which according to Solms Laubach belongs to Scrophulariacese,
is parasitic on the roots of trees such as hazels.3
The Cytinaccse are a very remarkable order of truly parasitic
plants which are wholly destitute of chlorophyll, and of a very
degraded structure. Cytinus possesses a scaly stem bearing sessile
flowers, while Rafflesia and Brugmansia consists one may say of
a single flower, measuring in the case of Rajflesia as much as
3 feet across. These flowers appear first in the form of knobs
emerging from the host plant, and before expanding resemble an
unopened cabbage. They remain expanded only for a few days,
when putrefaction begins and a smell as of putrescent flesh is
emitted, serving thus to attract insects which probably aid in
effecting fertilization, since the stamens are in different flowers.
There are about twenty-four species in the order, and these are
mostly tropical. Cytinus Hi/pocifitis, L., which is parasitic on
the roots of Cissus, occurs in southern Europe. Rafflesia and
Brugmansia are limited to the Malay Islands, and Sapria has a
wider distribution throughout the same region. Rafflesia is
parasitic on both roots and stems, the latter generally prostrate.
Pilostylcs, a native of America and Africa, and Apodanthes, confined
to America, are parasitic on branches. Hydnora, found in tropical
and south Africa, grows on succulent plants, chiefly Euphorbiaceee ;
and closely allied to it is J'rosopanche, an American genus.4
The genus Cassytha (Laurincee), of which there are about fifteen
species occurring in the tropics, but mostly in Australia, strongly
resembles Cuscuta. The plants are exceedingly alike in appearance
and in parasitic habit, for which reason the name of "dodder
laurels" has been given to the Cassythse. They are wholly without
chlorophyll, and their thin, twining, cylindrical stems, bearing
scaly leaves, envelop their hosts, to which they are attached by
means of papilla-like haustoria. The seeds germinate in the soil,
and the roots subsequently die off as in Cuscuta.5
The Loranthaceae. are parasitic on the stems and branches of trees,
but, since they bear mostly thick and leathery leaves containing
chlorophyll, their parasitism cannot be considered so complete as in
those cases where chlorophyll is absent. The order is for the most
part a tropical one, but it is represented in Europe by Loranthus
europeeus, L. , and Viscum album, L. , the common mistletoe. Lor
anthus is a large tropical genus containing upwards of three hun
dred species. Arceuthobium occurs in southern Europe. The
mode of parasitism of f^iscum album, L., the mistletoe, may be taken
as illustrative of the order. Its seeds adhere to the young shoots
of trees by means of the viscid pulp of the fruit (used in the pre
paration of bird-lime). On germination it shoots out rootlets
which traverse the cortex of the host mostly in the direction of
the axis, sending down numerous haustoria into the wood, where
the cells of the parasite become partly lignificd, and thus attain an
intimate connexion with the wood-cells of the host. A layer of
meristem is formed in the haustorium where it passes through the
cambium region of the host stt-ni, thus enabling the parasite to keep
pace with the growth in thickness, and gradually to become more
deeply fixed. The function of the growing point, which soon passes
over into permanent tissue, is thus transferred to this region of the
haustorium. Ultimately this layer of meristem is also transformed
into permanent tissue, and the activity of the parasite in this direc
tion ceases. The haustoria arc commonly situated close together
in considerable numbers, and an excessive demand upon the host
is thus brought about, causing local death and a hurtful influence
throughout the plant, exhibited in its defective development.
Where a tree has been attacked by mistletoe a corroded and dis
torted appearance is presented, owing to the drying up of the
tissues and the reparative processes that ensue. When the mistle
toe has thus exhausted one region of supply it frequently sends out
adventitious shoots, which, attacking the host in fresh places, give
rise to new growths of the parasite. The mistletoe grows on a large
number of different trees, such as the apple, lime, elm, maple,
willow, thorn, poplar, and even on conifers. Though exceedingly
plentiful on the apple, it rarely attacks the pear tree, and the
Lcmbardy poplar seems to be exempt, while other poplars suffer
considerably. Arery rarely does it attack the oak, and Dr Bull,
who made exhaustive inquiry (Jour/i. Bot., vol. ii.) into the
matter, succeeded in discovering only seven authentic cases in
Dissertat., 1865, and loc. cit., also in Ahhandl. <J. yaturforsch. Ges. zu Halle,
xiii., Koch, " Untersuch. liber <1. Entwlckelung d Satmns d. Orobanchen," in
Ja/trb. f. u-issensch Sot., xi.; Caspavy, " L'eber Sum en. Keimung, etc., der
Orobanchen," F,ora, 185-1; Lory, " Suv la respiration et la structure des Oro-
banch.," Ann. d. Sci. Nat., ser. iii., 1847.
1 R. Brown, " An Account of a New Genus of Plants, named Rajflesia, Trans.
Linn. Soc., xiii. (published also in Afiscel/aneous Works); Id.. "On the Female
Flower and Fruit of Rafflesia Anwldi, and on Jfydnora africana," Ibid., xix.;
Solms Laubach, loc. cit., and " Ueber das Haustorium der Loranthaceen und den
Thallus der Rafflesiaceen und Balanophoieen," Abltandl. d. A'aturfonch. Ges. zu
Halle, xiii.; Id., "Ueber den Ban der Samen in der Fam. tier Kuffiesiaceen und
Hydno:-ecn," Bot. Ztg., 1S74 ; Beccari, "Os^ervaz s. alcune Rajflesiacex," A'uovo
f/iorn. bot. Ital., 1875; Ttysmann, "Xouvelles recherchcssurla culture de Rajflesia
Arnoldi," Batavia. 1836 ; De Bary,'1 Prosopanche Burmeisteri, cine neue Ilydnorce
aus Sud-America," Abhandl. d. Naturf. Ges. zu Halle, x.; Schimper, ''Die V'egeta-
tionsoi'gane von Prosopanche Burmeisleri," Ibid., xv. ; Baillon, "Sur le developpe-
ment du Cytinus," Bull.de la Soc. Linn, de Paris, 1874; Archangeli, •' Etude sur
le Cytinus Ilypocistis," Atti del Congresso internaz. botan., Florence, 1874.
5 Poulsen, " UebLT d. morphol. VVerth d. Ilaustoriums v. Casujtha," Flora,
1877.
XVIII - - 34
266
PARASITISM
VEGETABLE.
England. Loranthus curopsens, L., occurs OH the oak in southern
Europe.1
The SantalacaK are mostly if not all partially parasitic shrubs or
herbs — their foliage containing chlorophyll. Santalum (S. album
yields sandal wood), distributed throughout the East Indies, Malay
Islands, and Australia, and Thcsium, a native of Europe, are parasites
on the roots of plants, especially monocotyledons. Their liaustoria
are more or less globular in shape, and emit from the surface
in contact with the host a process which penetrates the tissues.
Osijris also attacks the roots of trees. Henslowia and Myzodendron
are partially parasitic on the branches of trees. The latter, a native
of south temperate climates, attaches itself to its host by means of
the feathered processes on its seeds. These retain them in contact
with the branches on which they fall until germination (thus per
forming the same function as the viscid pulp of the mistletoe),
when the liaustoria penetrate the bark and become, as it were,
grafted into the living tissues.2
The BalanophoracesB are flowering plants of degraded structure,
destitute of chlorophyll, and generally coloured led, yellow, or
brown. In appearance they somewhat resemble Cyiinaccx, though
there is no real ailinity in the case. The steins are succulent, some
what knob-shaped or cylindrical, varying in height from a few
inches to a foot, in which latter case they are sometimes branched,
and bear imbricated scales in place of leaves. They are true parasites
on the roots of woody Dicotyledons, rarely on Monocotyledons.
The liaustoria vegetate in the tissues, frequently setting up exten
sive hypertrophy. They occur chiefly in mountainous tropical
regions — some in Australia and the Cape. The order contains
thirty-five species in fourteen genera, of which Balanvphora, Ci/no-
morium, and Laiigsdoiffia are the best known. Cynomorium
coccineiim — the Fiutyus i/icHtensis of old writers — is found in Malta,
the Levant, North Africa, and the Canary Islands.3
ALG.E. — Several microscopic algae may very well be
partial parasites, though it is"probable that in most cases
they are little more than epiphytes in their relation to the
plants in which they occur. They all possess chlorophyll
and are able to assimilate ; but from their situation in
the tissues of other plants a degree of parasitism may be
inferred A species of Nostoc. occurs in the intercellular
spaces of the roots, leaves, and thalli of other plants ; and
C klorochytrium is found in the tissues of Lemna, Cerato-
phyllum, and in another alga Schizonema. More distinctly
parasitic is -the case of Phyllosiphon Arisari, Kiihn,
which inhabits the parenchymatous tissue of Arum Ari-
sarum.*
LICHENES. — Mycoidea parasitica, Cunn., was described
and figured by Cunningham as a parasitic green alga.
It, or a closely allied form, has been recently examined by
Ward, who says, " It seems clear that the injury is not due
to a direct parasitic action of the thallus ; even in the
extreme case of Citrus I do not imagine the active
development to depend so much on absorption of food
from the living leaf as on the sheltered situation enjoyed
by the ensconced thallus.'' 5
FUNGI. — The absence of chlorophyll from all fungi, and
the necessity thus thrown upon them of taking up the
carbon compounds assimilated by other organisms, deter
mines their mode of life, which is therefore either parasitic
or saprophytic. The parasitic organ of the fungal thallus
is the mycelium, upon which haustoria are sometimes
developed in the form of lateral protuberances of various
shapes and sizes. In the same species of parasitic fungus
receptacles frequently occur of different kinds, succeeding
each other more or less regularly in cycles, and sometimes
in their course preying upon hosts of remote affinities
among themselves. This course of life is of practical
importance when effort is made to limit the ravages of
such a parasite (see MILDEW, vol. xvi. p. 293). Many
indiscriminately attack plants nearly allied to each other;
numerous species are peculiar to one host; while others
are confined to a single region such as the ovary, the
stem, or the leaf of one or more species of the higher
plants. The spores, invariably of microscopical dimen
sions, represent the infectious agent, as the seeds of
flowering parasites commonly do. They are conveyed by
the atmosphere, by contact of one plant with another, by
insects and other animals, &c., and germinate by the
emission of a germ-tube, the production of zoospores
sometimes intervening. Access to the host is obtained by
the penetration of the epidermal tissue or by way of the
open stomata. The main body of the fungus is either
endophytic or epiphytic — the spore-producing portion in
nearly all cases opening externally. The amount of
damage effected by the attack varies from slight local
injury to the destruction of the host; in some cases cell-
contents only are destroyed, while in others whole tissues
perish. The effect produced is often in the direction of
abnormal stimulus, and the hypertrophy of whole regions
or the production of galls ensues. The parasite commonly
prepares the way for the saprophyte, which steps in to
break up the dead and decaying remains. In certain rare
instances the union of parasitic and saprophytic modes of
life in the same species has been observed (see below).
The fungi which are concerned in the constitution of
lichens maintain with the algal components throughout
life relations of consortism which will be dealt with below,
under "Symbiosis."6
For the life-histories of the following groups the
student is referred to the article FUNGUS (vol. ix. p. 827),
and to the literature therein cited.
Snprolegniess. — The fungi of this suborder are many of them
saprophytes, as their name implies, but some are of distinctly para
sitic habits. Certain species of Pythium are parasitic on fresh
water alga?, on the prothallia of vascular cryptogams, and in the
tissues of the higher plants. Several species of Saprolegnia are
parasitic on similar hosts, but one in particular, S. fcrax, Gruith, is
well known for the part it, plays in the disease of fishes in fresh
water — commonly called the salmon disease. That this fungus
possesses both parasitic and saprophytic modes of life is established,
and the fact is one of remarkable importance, since it stands almost
by itself in this respect among the higher fungi.7
The Peronosporese are all parasites on vascular plants of many
different orders. The mycelium inhabits the tissues of the host,
and, in many of the species, while passing through the intercellu
lar passages, sends globular or irregularly brandling filamentous
haustoria (see fig. 3) into the adjoining cells. On the other hand the
mycelial filaments of certain species, such as Phytophthora infestans,
De Bary, the potato disease, possess no true haustoria, but they pene
trate the cells, breaking down the cell-walls in their course. In
the regions where the oospores of Pcronosporcte are formed hyper
trophy of the tissues of the host sometimes occurs, and, the normal
functions being checked, the parts in question die on0. The
Feronosporese are enormously destructive to the higher plants, and
may be reckoned among the most dangerous enemies of agriculture
and horticulture. Besides the potato disease, Cystnpus candidv.s
0 Ttie following works have ^peeial reference to fungal parasites : — Frank, Die
Krankheiten der Pfianzen, 1880; Soraucr, Handbuth tier Pflanzenkrankheiten,
1874: O. Comes, Le Crittogame parassite del/e piante agrarie, Naples, 1882. Of
historical interest arc Unger, Die Exantheme tier I'flanzen (i883), and Beitrage
zur reryleichenden Palfwlogie(l840); Meyen, Pflamen-l'atholoyie, 1841.
7 Pringsheim, "Die Saprolefinieen," in \\inJahrb.f. vissensch. JM., i., ii., and
ix. ; De Bary, " Einige neue Saprolegnieen," Hid., ii.; Lindstedt, Synopsis der
Saprolefjnieen, Berlin. 1872; Cornu, " Monographic des Saprolegnldes," in Ann.
Sci. Nat., ser. v., vol. xvi.; Hesse, Pythium tie Banmnum, Ac,. Halle, 1874;
Sadebeck, " Untersuch. liber Pythium Kquiseti," in Cohn's lieitr. zur Bio!, d.
Pjtanzcn, i.; T. H. Huxley and G. Murray, "On Salmon Disease," in Inspector
of Fisheries Reports for 1881, 1882, 1883 ; Marshall Ward. "Observations on the
Genus Pythium,'' in Quart. Journ. Aticroscop. Sri., vol. xxiii., hew ser.
VEGETABLE.]
PAKASITIS M
267
and Pcronospora parasitica, both occurring plentifully on C'rucifcrec,
may be mentioned as typical of the group.1
The Chytridicss, are a small suborder of parasitic fungi inhabiting
rarely the epidermal tissue of higher plants, but commonly attacking
fresh-water algte and sometimes Infusoria. Many of these exceed
ingly simple plants consist merely of a sporangial cell maintained
in position and nourishment by a haustorium which penetrates the
host cell. The affinities of the group are somewhat uncertain, but
probably they are correctly placed among Zygoinycetes.'2
The Uredinex, are endophytic parasites on vascular plants pro
ducing the disease popularly called rust. These fungi occur on
very various plants, and in their life-history go through a cycle of
generations on at least in many cases two different hosts. Corn-
mildew is the best known of them, and may be taken as typical of
the rest (see MILDEW, vol. xvi. p. 293 ; and for figures, see FUNGUS,
vol." ix. ). This suborder, like the Peronosporeae, is exceedingly
destructive to cultivated and other plants. The Rcestelia of the
pear tree (which alternates with the Podisoma of junipers) and the
P actinia of Malvaccse may be mentioned as familiar examples of
the group. The coffee-leaf disease, Hemileia vastatrix, is considered
by Ward to be allied to this group.3
The Ustilagincss are all parasites of a very destructive nature on
the stems, leaves, ovaries, &c. , of the higher plants. The mycelial
filaments inhabit the tissues of the host, where hypertrophy is
FIG. 3. — Peronospora parasitica, Dj By. A. Conidiophore with conidia.
15. Mycelium with haustoria (h).
frequently set up, and the enlarged space thus obtained is used by
the fungus to contain the masses of spores formed by the breaking
up of the hyphre. Their whole life-history is carried out in the same
host. Though attacking grain crops particularly, many species
infest other plants. Ustilayo Carlo, Tul. , is perhaps the commonest,
and is exceedingly destructive to a considerable number of grasses.4
The Entomorjhthorcae, are a very small group attacking insects.
The mycelium ramifies densely in the body of the insect and breaks
out through the skin where spores are produced singly on basidia.
Within the body resting spores are formed by means of which
the fungus hibernates. Emimsa MUSC& is very common on the
ordinary house fly.5
1 DC Bary, " Recherchcs sur le developpement do quelques champignons
parasites," Ann. d. Sci. Xat., ser. i\-., vol. xx. ; Id., " Zur Kcnntniss der Ferono-
sporecn," in Beitr. zur Morph. u. P/ivsiol. d. I'ilze, lift. 2. See also POTATO.
2 Hi'aun, " Ueber Cliytridium," Ac., in Abh. d. Berl. Akad., 185G; Xowakowski,
" Beitrag zurKenntnissderChytridiaceen,"in Coin's Beitr. zur JBiol. d. Pjlanzen,
ii. ; Do Bary and Woronin, " Beitrag zur Kenntniss d. Chytiidieen," in Ber. d.
Naturforsch. Gesell. zit Freiburg, 1803; Woronin, in Bot. Ztg., 1860.
3 Do Bary, Untersuch. utter die Brandpilze (Berlin, 1853), and " N"eue Untcrsuch.
liber Urediueen" in Monatsber. d. Berl. Akad. (18G5) ; Tulasne, "Me'm. sur les
Uredine'es," &c., in Ann. Sci. Nat., ser. Hi., vol. vii. (Uredin., p. 43), and Ibid., ser.
iv., vol. ii. ; Schroter, " Entwickelunctsgesehichte einiger Rostpilzo," in Cohn's
Beitr. zur Biol. d. Pflanzcn, i. ; Ward, " Researches on the Life-History of
Hemileia vastatrix," in Linn. S-jc. Journ. Bat., vol. xix.
uber die Brandpilze, Berlin, 1853; KUhn, "Ueber die Art dcs Einchingens der
Keimfaden," &c., in Sitzungtber. d. Naturforsch. Gesellsch, Halle, 1874, and Bot.
Ztg., 1874 ; B refold, Bot. Untersuch. uber Hefenpilze, v. 1883.
5 Cohn, " Empufa .l/wsc;e und die Kvankheit der Slubenfliege," in Kova Ada,
xxv.; Brefeld, "Untersuch uber die Entuickelung der E. Muscat und E. radi-
cans," in Abh. d. Naturforsch. Geselhch. Halle, 1871 ; and '• Ueber Entomoph-
thoreen," &c., inSiteungsber. d. Gesellsch. Naturforsch. Freunde, Berlin, 1877.
The Hymenomycctes is the only suborder of Basidiomycctes
certainly known to include parasitic members, and these relatively
few in number. Agaricus mdlcui, Vahl, by means of its subter
ranean mycelium (Rhizomorpha subtcrranca of older authors), is
exceedingly destructive to the roots of m;iny trees and woody plants.
Other Ayaricini, such as Nyctalis parasitica, attack members of the
same group as themselves, but by far the greater number are
saprophytes. Trametcs radiciperda, E,. Hart., and T. pini, Fr.,
Polyponts fulvus, Scop., P. vaporarius, Fr. , P. mollis, Fr. , and
P. borealis, Fr., all attack Conifers; especially, while P. sulphureiis,
Fr. , P. iyniarius, Fr., and P. dryadcus, Fr., are parasitic on oaks,
poplars, beeches, willows, and other dicotyledonous trees. Tlide-
phora, Stereum, and Hydnnm also include species parasitic on
trees.6
The Discomycctcs, like the last group, are mostly saprophytes, but
a few distinctly parasitic members are to be found in it. Ascomyccs,
Gymnoascus, and Exoascus (E. Priini, Fiickel, and E. deformans,
Fiickel) are parasitic, the last- named upon plum, peach, and cherry
trees. Several species of Pcziza, as P. calycina, Schum., on the
larch, and a number of those belonging to the section of Pseudo-
pezizct attack the higher plants. It is highly probable that many
Sclcrctia, numbers of them parasitic, the positions of which are not
definitely known, will be found to belong to such discomycetous
forms as Peziza. Peziza sderotioides, Lib., is said to remain living
as a saprophyte after the death of its host. PJiytisma is a very
common disease of leaves, such as those of Acer, in which it pro
duces large darkly discoloured patches.7
Pyrenomycetes.—Qf this group the Erysiphcee, are perhaps the
most destructive as para-
sites. They exhibit in
their life-history a cycle
of generations each of con
siderable parasitic activity.
The main body of the
fungus is commonly epi
phytic, the mycelium
sending down haustoria
through the epidermis of
the host (see fig. 4). Of
the peritheeial form of
fructification good ex
amples are Sphserotheca
Castcgnei, Lev., the hop
mildew (see MILDEW, vol.
xvi. p. 294), Phyllactinia,
Vncinula, Calocladia, and
Erysiphe (E. graminis,
Lev., E. Linkii, Lev.,
E. Martii, Lev., and E.
lamprocarpa, Link. ). The
oidium forms are also con
spicuous as parasites, a
familiar example being
found in E. Tuckcri, Berk., . /
the vine-mildew (see MIL- FlG> 4__Erysipj,e Tudert, Berk. A and B, my-
DEW, as above). Clari- celium (?»), with haustoria (fi). After De
ceps purpurea, Tul., the Bary.
ergot of grasses (see ERGOT, vol. viii. p. 251), is the best known and
most important of all pyrenomycetous parasites. The group
includes a multitude of minor parasites, — some of them, however,
doubtfully so — belonging to such genera as Stiymatca, Sphaerella,
Fusisporium, Ramularia, Fumago, Polystigma, Pleospora, Nectria,
&c. Nectria ditissima, Tul., is reputed to be the cause of canker in
certain trees. Cordyceps is well known as a disease of insects.8
NATURE OP VEGETABLE PARASITISM. — It has been
seen that the dependence of parasites upon their hosts
for the means of subsistence varies considerably in
degree, but it is equally manifest that underlying this
condition of existence there are certain facts which char
acterize every case. The most important of these is the
absence or the inadequate supply of chlorophyll and the
6 R. Hartig, Wiclitige Krankheiten der Watdbdww', Berlin, 1874 ; Brefeld,
Botanische Untersuch. 'uber d. Schimmelpilze, iii. ; and compare also De Bary in
Morph. v. Physio!, der Pilze, p. 22.
" Willkomm, Die mikroscopischen Ft inde des Waldet, ii. ; Ri-hm, Die Enticickel-
Flora, 1877; Ilartig, loc. cit. ; Tichomiroff, "Peziza Kaufmanniana, einc neue
aus Sclerotium stammende und auf Hanf schraarotzende Bechei-pilz-Species," in
Bull. Sue. Nat. Moscow, 1868; Brefeld, Bot. L'ntersuch. uber Schimmelpilze,
Leipsic, iv. Heft, 1881.
8 Tulasne, Selecta fungorum Carpologin, Paris, lSfil-65, and " Me'moire sur
Ztg. 1SG7.
P A K A S I T I S M
[VEGETABLE.
consequent loss or deficiency of the power of assimilation. '
For a comparison of this abnormal condition with the
normal state a subject is found ready to hand in the
nourishment of one organ by another, as exemplified in
the growth of young seedlings, which in the case of seeds
containing endosperm (cocoa-nut, date-palm, and many
other monocotyledons) absorb by means of a definite organ
the nourishment necessary for their development. Young
plants nourished from the reserve-materials stored in bulbs
and the like, and the young shoots of a tree from winter
buds, afford a comparison which is even closer in an
anatomical respect, since in this case there is present, as in
the intimate association of parasitic haustoria with the host,
a continuity of tissues which is not so strongly marked in
the union of the absorbing organ of a seedling with the
endosperm. Looking at the subject wholly from the point
of view of the process of nutrition, there seems to be little
essential difference between parasite and saprophyte, since
we have not only experimental instances of the nutrition
of parasites on artificially prepared solutions, but the
natural union of both habits in the same individual
(salmon-disease, ike. ; see also the experiments of Grawitz
on the growth of saprophytic fungi in the blood of
animals). These are exceptional instances, however, and
it is manifest that other properties must be brought into
play, since most parasites affect peculiar hosts, and many
of them certain regions only of the plant. It is equally
true that many saprophytes are able to grow only in
peculiar substrata.
That parasitism is often but partial is apparent from
such instances as the mistletoe, Rhinanthus, Thesium, itc.,
which probably obtain from their hosts in the main only
water and mineral substances in solution, to be prepared
for plant food in their green leaves. It is most likely,
however, that a small quantity of certain organic com
pounds is a necessary accompaniment in all such instances.
Here again there exist the means for comparison with
green saprophytes. The taking up of ash constituents
from the soil may occur in such parasites as Orobanche,
which possesses rootlets, though undoubtedly the whole
of the necessary carbon compounds are obtained from the
host.
This mode of life not only acts upon the host, but reacts
upon the parasite itself, as is manifested by the aberrant
and degraded structure of the parts (directly and indirectly)
concerned in nutrition, and even of the reproductive
system. This is strongly marked in the case of the '
embryo. It is apparent that large transpiratory surfaces
are unnecessary, and would even be of detriment to a
parasite ; and with this the formation of wood so intim
ately connected with the process of transpiration keeps
pace in degradation. In the mistletoe, for example, the
bulk of wrood is in relation to the small transpiratory
surface, and in the cases of parasites without chlorophyll
it dwindles to insignificance. No other abnormal mode of
life so influences the structure of a plant as a parasitic or
a saprophytic one, though we see an approach to it in the
adaptations existing in insectivorous plants.
The effect upon, the host ranges from local injury to
destruction on the one hand, and, on the other, in the case
of stimulus, from the local j (reduction of galls to the com
plete hypertrophy and transformation of at least large
regions of a plant. The exciting of definite reparative
processes is an indirect effect. It must be noticed also
that many parasites, especially fungi, cause in the host
enormous destruction of food material far exceeding that
necessary to their maintenance. In this way the parasite
frequently commits suicide as it were, and the act is in
striking contrast to the relations of symbiosis as exemplified
in the lichen thallu.s.
The change of or alternation between two different
hosts is adapted to suit the requirements of the parasite.
This is notably so in the case of the corn-mildew, which
passes an intermediate stage on the barberry until a period
when the wheat plant has sufficiently developed to become
a suitable host.
Most fungi are endophytic, and certain phanerogamic
parasites, such as JRqfflesia, develop within the cortex of
the host, while on the other hand the fungal part of a
lichen encloses the algal.
The existence and complete dependence upon its host
of a parasite culminating in the production of seed after
its kind is one of the most impressive relationships physio
logy presents.1
SYMBIOSIS. — This, the consortism of organisms in such
fashion that mutual services are rendered sufficient to
make the alliance profitable and successful to the whole
community of organisms, is a mode of life closely related
to parasitism, in which, however, as has been seen, the profit
is one-sided and the alliance ends with the exhaustion of
the host or the detachment of the parasite. The term
was first employed by De Bary (Die Erscheinuny dtr
Symbiose, 1879), but the relations expressed by it were first
brought into general notice by the epoch-marking discovery
of the dual nature of the lichen thallus by Schwendener
in 1868, and established after prolonged and searching
controversy, more especially by the classical histological
researches of Bornet, and the actual artificial lichen
synthesis (by sowing fungus on alga) by Staid. Some
theory of reciprocal accommodation was necessary to
account for the duration of such relations between a fungal
organism and an algal ; and, though it is not yet precisely
known in what way these relations are maintained, specu
lation has been active enough. It may safely be inferred
that the fungal portion of the thallus is nourished by the
exosmose of starch and the like in much the same fashion
as the colourless cells of a plant are fed by those bearing
chlorophyll ; and there can be little doubt that the algal
cells benefit in return by the endosmose of the waste pro
ducts of the fungal protoplasm. In the reproductive pro
cess an adaptation exists in certain lichens for the supply
of gonidia to the new lichen. Hymenial-gonidia (the
offspring of the thal-lus-gonidia) are present in the
apothecia, from which they are cast out along with the
spores, and falling with them are subsequently enclosed
by the germ tubes (see FUNGUS, vol. ix. p. 835). Jt
may be noted here that, though the fungal portions of the
thallus retain the marks of near relationship to ascom)--
cetous fungi, they arc yet considerably modified by this
mode of life, and unfitted most probably in nearly every
case for the distinctly parasitic or saprophytic life normal
to fungi. The algal portion, on the other hand, is capable
of independent existence after liberation from the fungal
thallus. The complete symbiotic community represents
an autonomous whole, living frequently in situations
where neither alga nor fungus is known to support
existence separately.2
The presence of chlorophyll in animals (Hydra and
Vortex) was discovered by Max Schultzc in 1851, and con
firmed more recently (Hydra and Spongilla} by the
spectroscopic evidence furnished by Lankester and by
Sorby. That a chlorophyll-bearing animal is able to
1 I'. Grawitz, " Ueber Srhimmelvegetationen ini tieri.schcn Orprnnisrnus," in
Virchoics Archie, Ixxxi., 1880; and " KxprriiKontcllcs zur Infectionsfrage," in
IlerliH. klinische Wochenschrift, No. 14, 1881 ; Brefcld, Butaniaclie Untertuchwtgen
liber Sehtmmelptlze (1881), and Ueler llefenjntze (!88:J). A very graphic account
of the physiology of parasitism is to be found in Sachs, Vorlesitnyen iibcr 1'Jlanzfn-
J'kysio!oyie, 1882. See also Pfeiffer, Pftanunphytiologie, 1881.
2 Scliwendener, Untersuch.itber den t'lech.'en-Tliullus, 18(i8; Stahl, Reitriiye zur
Enliciel-elungsffeschirhte der Flecliten, 1S77 ; IJornct, " Kechcrclu s sur 1. sgonidios
des Lichens." Ann. Sci. Nat., 5th sen, 1873; DC Bary, Morphologic v. I'himiolixjie
der Pilze, F/echten, und Myxomycetcn (18CG), and Die Ertcheinung clt-r Symbioff
(1879), which includes an account of the association of Azolla with AnabMia, and
of the relations of Nostoc to cycad roots.
VEGETABLE.]
vegetate by means of its own intrinsic chlorophyll was
finally established in 1878 by the experiments of Geddes
on Convoluta Schultzii, Schm. He found that the analysis
of the gas given off by these green animals, under the
influence of direct sunlight, " yielded from 45 to 55 per
cent, of oxygen." The discovery of these vegetating
animals directed fresh attention to chlorophyll-bearing
animals, with much result. The nature and functions of the
yellow cells of radiolarians had long been an unsolved
enigma. Haeckel had detected in them in 1870 the pre
sence of starch, and regarded them as stores of reserve
material. Cienkowski, in the following year, contended
for their algal nature without finally deciding the question, i
and without perceiving the significance such organisms
would have in the economy of the radiolarian. Much
suggestive observation followed by the Hertwigs, Brandt,
Entz, Korotneff, Lankester, Moseley, and others on similar
bodies in various organisms ; but the subject remained in
uncertainty till its reinvestigation by Brandt, and sim
ultaneously and much more conclusively by Geddes, finally
supplied the solution of the difficulties. After confirming
HaeckePs discovery of the presence of starch, and the
observations of Cienkowski, Brandt, and others on the
survival of the yellow cells after the death of the
radiolarian, and extending his observation to various other
organisms, Geddes demonstrated the truly algal nature
of these cells from their cellulose walls, the identity of
their yellow colouring-matter with that of diatoms, and
the evolution of oxygen (in some instances, such as Ant km
Cereas, very copiously) under the influence of sunlight.
It was pointed out that the animal protoplasm investing these
starch-producing cells (and containing amylolytic ferment)
must obtain by osmosis its share of the dissolved starch,
and that benefit must accrue to the animal from thedigestion
of the dead bodies of the algao. The evolution of oxygen
during sunshine into the surrounding animal protoplasm
is a respiratory function fittingly compared to that per
formed by certain stationary deposits of haemoglobin. On
the other hand the carbonic acid and nitrogenous waste
produced by the animal cell is the nutritive return made
to the alga, which in removing them performs an intracel-
lular renal function. The young gonophores of Vcldlit,
after budding off from the parent, start in life with a pro
vision of algte, and in this respect bear interesting resem
blance to the function performed by the hymenial-gonidia
of lichens described above. The physiological relations
are summed up as follows : — " Thus, then, for a vegetable
cell no more ideal existence can be imagined than that
within the body of an animal cell of sufficient active
vitality to manure it with abundance of carbonic anhydride
and nitrogenous waste, yet of sufficient transparency to
allow the free entrance of the necessary light. And, con
versely, for an animal cell there can be no more ideal
existence than to contain a sufficient number of vegetable
cells, constantly removing its waste products, supplying it
with oxygen and starch, and being digestible after death."
The completeness of the case thus established for a
symbiotic mode of life marks one of the most interesting
and impressive chapters in the history of the biological
relations between animals and plants.
A re-discussion of the subject, largely historical and
controversial, but with excellent bibliography, has been
lately furnished by Brandt, and more recently a further
contribution has been made by Oscar Hertwig, who repeats
the views of preceding investigators and goes on to
speculate as to the nature of symbiosis and its general
relations with other modes of life.1 (a. MU.)
1 Schultzc, Beitr. zur Xaturges. <!. TurMlarien, 1801 . Lankestcv, "Abstract of
a Report on the Spectroscopic Examination c f certain Animal Substances," .lout:
of Anat., iv. 1870; Id., U0n Ilaliphysema" Quart. Jour. Microscop. Sci., 1870,
and " On the Chlorophyll Corpuscles and Amyloid Deposits of Sponyilla and
269
PARASITISM ix MEDICINE.
Only a limited number of the parasitic diseases of man
are included in the present article. Under TAPEWORM
will be found all that medically relates to that important
parasitic group, and under SCHIZOMYCETES will be dis
cussed the significance of the parasitic micro-organisms
(Bacterium, Bacillus, Spirillum, Vibrio, Arc.) in morbid pro
cesses, and particularly in the infective diseases. There
fall to be considered here (1) the skin-diseases due to
filamentous fungi, (2) a peculiar disease called "actino-
mycosis," primarily affecting cattle, (3) the itch, and (4)
certain diseases caused by various species of nematodes,
and one disease caused by a trematode.
1. Skin Diseases due to Parasitic Funcji.
Favus ("honeycomb'') is a common disease of the scalp (more
rarely of the hairless parts of the skin) in children, primarily of scro
fulous or ill-cared-for children, but apt to spread to others, especially
in schools. The uncomplicated appearance is that of a number of
yellowish circular cup-shaped crusts, grouped in patches like a piece
of honeycomb, each about the size of a split pea, with a hair pro
jecting in the centre. This was the first disease in which a fungus
was discovered — by Schonlein in 1839 ; the discovery was published
in a brief note of twenty lines in Mailer's Archiv for that year
(p. 82), the fungus having been subsequently named by Kemak
Achorion Schonleinii after its discoverer. The achorion consists of
slender mycelial threads matted together, bearing oval nucleated,
gonidia either free or jointed. The spores would appear to enter
through the unbroken cutaneous surface, and to germinate mostly in
and around the hair-follicle and sometimes in the shaft of the hair.
Favus is commonest among the poorer Jews of Russia, Poland,
Hungary, Galicia, and the East, and among the same class of
Mohammedans in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Egypt,
Algiers, &c. It is not rare in the southern departments of France,
in some parts of Italy, and in Scotland.
The treatment of favus is difficult and disappointing. The first
requisite is good feeding; meanwhile the crusts are to be removed by
poulticing, the hair being cut short. The next thing is to destroy
the fungus, to which cud a lotion of sulphurous acid (one part to
three or four of water) may be applied repeatedly by means of lint,
and the scalp kept covered by an oil-silk cap. To prevent the
return of the fungus, various agents may be rubbed in, such as cod-
liver oil, oil of cade, or an ointment of iodine or of pitch, the oil-silk
cap being worn continuously. It has often been found of advantage
to pull out all the broken stumps of hairs with a tweezers (ste
Bennett's Prin. and Prad. of Mcd., 5th ed., Edin., 1868, p. 847).
Ringworm, or Tinea Tonsurans, a much more common disease
of the scalp (especially within the tropics), consists of biild patches,
usually round, and varying in diameter from half an inch up to
several inches, the surface showing the broken stumps of hairs and
a fine whitish powdering of desquamated epidermic scales. In
scrofulous subjects matter is sometimes produced, which forms
crusts or glues the hairs together or otherwise obscures the
characteristic appearance. The disease is due to a fungus, Tri-
chophyton tonsurans, which exists mostly in the form of innu
merable spores (with hardly any mycelium), and is most abund
ant within the substance of the hairs, especially at their roots. If
a piece of the hair near the root be soaked for a time in dilute liquor
potassre and pressed flat under a cover-glass, the microscope will
show it to be occupied by long rows of minute oval spores, very
uniform in size, and each bearing a nucleus. The treatment of ring
worm is very much the same as the treatment of favus.
The same fungus sometimes attacks the hairs of the beard, pro
ducing a disease called "sycosis. " Sometimes it invades the hairless
regions of skin, forming tinea circinata ;" circular patches of skin
disease, if they be sharply defined by a margin of papules or vesicles,
may be suspected of depending on the tinea-fungus. Interesting
vaiieties of tinea are found in some of the Pacific and East Indian
islands.
A less serious condition of the skin due to a fungus is Pttyriasis
Hydro," Quart. Jour. Microfcop. £<•/., 1SS2; Soiby, "On Ihe Cliromatologicul
Relations of Spongilla fluviatilh" Quart. Jour. Mitroteop. Sci., 1875; Geddes,
"Observations on the i'hysiology and Histology of Conroluta Schultzii," Pro?.
Roy . Soc. Lou-/., 1879, and "On the Nature and Functions of the Yellow Cells
of Radiolarians and CoMenteiates," Pmc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1882; Haeckel, " Amy-
Uim in d. gelben Zellcn d. Radiolar," Jena Zeitsch., 1S70; Cieukouski, "Ueber
SchwiirmeibiUhniK bei Radiolar ," Archie. Mikr. Anat . 1871; R. Herfwig, •' Zur
Jlisloloyie tier Radiolar.." 1870 ; '• Per Organismus der Radiolar. .'Venn Denkfchr.,
1879; 0. and R. Hertwig, "Die Actinien," Ji-na Zeilfc/ir., 187(1; O. Hertwig.
Die Sijmbiofe, 1883; Brandt, "Untersuchungcii an Iiadiolaiien," ifonatsb. Akact.
fieri., 1881 ; Id., "Ueber il. Zusammenlcben von TJiieren und Algen," Vtrhandl.
d. phusiol. Gcf. zu Ilerl., 1881 ; Id., " Ueber d. Morph. u. I'hyMol. Beileutung d.
Chlorophylls bei Thieren." Arch. f. Anat. u. J'hysM., 1882, and Mittheil (I. Zoo/.
Stat. ,\'enpe/, 1883; Entz, " Ueber d. Xatur. d. Chlorophyll-KCrperchen nicdercr
Tiere," ISiol. Cenlratblatt, 18K2; Korotneff. "On Myrtothela" Soc. Xat. Hist.
,1/osl-. 1881; Moscley, Notes <>/ a Naturalist on the ;l Challenger," p. 2M.
270
versicolor, consisting of patches of brownish discolorations of various
sizes and shapes, mostly on the front of the body, and often attended
with itching, especially after heating exercise. The pigmentation
seems to radiate from the orifices of hair-follicles. The epidermis
is in a scaly condition over the patch, and among the debris 'of the
epidermic cell there may be seen minute oval spores, which are sup
posed to belong to a fungus, the Microsporou Furfur. The disease
is mostly one of adult age, found all over the world, and not associ
ated in any special way with poor general health. The treatment
consists of rubbing in an ointment of sulphuret of potassium, or one
of the mercurial ointments, or using sulphur-soap habitually.
The remarkable brown, black, and blue spots of discoloration of
the whole body met with endemically in Mexico, Panama, New
Granada, and Venezuela, and known under the name of " pinto " or
"mal de los pintos," have been claimed by Gastambide (Prcssc Mcd.
Beige, 1881, Nos. 33-41) as due to the presence of a fungus, whose
spores and even mycelial filaments may be detected among the
deeper rows of cejls of the rete mucosum. The disease, which is some
what serious from its large superficial area, would appear to be one
of the many forms of morbus miserix ; but it is contagious, and is
sometimes seen in the well-to-do. In some villages of the western
districts of Tabasco (Mexico), it has been estimated that 9 per cent,
of the inhabitants suffer from the pinto ; M'Clellan says that in
1826 in the city of Mexico he saw a whole regiment of " pintados."
Before leaving the parasitic fungi of the skin, it should be
mentioned that Oidiiim albicans is apt to plant itself on the mucous
membrane of the mouth in young and ailing children, causing
whitish patches known as thrush.
2. Actinomycosis.
In certain tumour-like formations of cattle, usually growing from
the alveoli of the lower molar teeth, and protruding externally near
the angle of the jaw, Bellinger in 1877 detected the presence of a
number of sulphur-yellow bodies about the size of a hemp seed and
of a fatty consistence. These were found to be aggregates of a pecu
liar radiate fungus (Actinomyces'), which assumed the form of minute
rosettes, the mycelial filaments expanding into flask-like swellings
at their free or circumferential ends. The yellow seed-like con
glomerates lay in spaces of the tumour, and they were also found
within cavities on the tongue, fauces, larynx, mucous membrane of
the stomach, in lymphatic glands, and (by a later observer) in the
lungs. In 1879 Ponfick found the same sulphur-yellow bodies in
the body of a man who had died of chronic disease of the chest, and
who had a number of sinuses in the skin of the back. Some twenty
cases of actinomycosis in man have now been described in Germany ;
in most of them- there have been centres of chronic inflammation in
front of the vertebra in the cervical, dorsal, or lumbar regions, with
numerous sinuses penetrating the muscles and opening on the skin.
The yellow conglomerates of Actinomyces are found in or upon the
granulations of these sinuses, or in the sero-purulent discharge from
them, or in the muscles, or more rarely in centres of granulation-
like new growth in some of the viscera. The relation of the fungus
to the primary tumour-like new growth of the ox has not yet been
made out, and there is hardly any clue to the connexion between
the bovine disease and the somewhat modified form of it in man.
In some respects there is an analogy between actinomycosis and the
fungus-foot of India as described by Vandyke Carter.
3. Scabies.
Of the human diseases due to animal parasites there is only one
of any importance affecting the skin, namely, scabies or the itch.
The parasite is the Sarcoptcs scabiei (see MITE, vol. xvi. p. 529),
which burrows under the epidermis at any part of the body, but
hardly ever in the face or scalp of adults ; it usually begins at the
clefts of the fingers, where its presence may be inferred from several
scattered pimples, which will probably have been torn at their sum
mits by the scratching of the patient, or have been otherwise con
verted into vesicles or pustules. The remedy is soap and water,
and sulphur ointment.
4. Diseases due to Ncmatodc ami Trcmatodc Worms.
The common thread- worm (Oxyuris), a small white object about
half an inch long, is very frequent in all countries, mostly in
children; its habitat is the lower bowel, but it is often a troublesome
irritant outside the bowel as well. The round-worm (Ascaris
lumbricoides), about 6 inches long when full-sized, and not unlike
the common earth-worm, is less common in England and other
Western countries ; but it is enormously common all over the East,
and in the tropics generally. Hundreds of them may accumulate in
the body, causing an obvious enlargement of the abdomen. The
most valuable remedy against them is santonine powder. A third
intestinal nematode is the whip-worm ( Trichoceplialus dispar], about
2 inches long, having a slender anterior extremity joined on to the
body like the thong to the handle of a whip. It is said to be
very common in some countries, such as France, but it has no
great importance as regards disease.
The nematodes of greatest pathological interest arc Trichina
spiralis, causing the serious malady of trichinosis ; Anchylostoma
[l>' MEDICINE.
duodcnalc, often associated with the profound anaemia of men work
ing in mines, making tunnels, and the like ; Angmllula stercoralis,
associated with a specific kind of diarrhoea in Cochin China ; Filaria
sanguinis hominis, a blood-worm occurring mostly in China and
other parts of the East, and often associated with the disease called
lymph -scrotum, and with ha'mato-ehyluria ; and Filaria mcdiiiensis,
the Guinea-worm, very common on the Guinea coast and in many
other tropical regions, a long and slender filament like a hair from
a horse's tail, and mostly infesting the skin of the legs.
Trichinosis. — The presence of encysted trichina} in the muscles
was discovered in one or more of the London dissecting-rooms in
1828 and following years ; but it was not until thirty years later
that the clinical characters of the acute disease caused by the
invasion of the parasite were discovered. This discovery was made
in 1860 by Zenker, on examining the abdominal muscles of a
patient who had died at Dresden, witli symptoms taken to be those
of typhoid fever, the case being afterwards accounted one of trichi
nosis on the^osi mortem evidence. Epidemics of this disease occur
from time to time, especially in north Germany, from the eating
of uncooked swine's ilesh, in which trichina} are not uncommon.
The greatest care is now taken in Germany to examine the carcases
of swine for trichime, a piece of the diaphragm of every animal
being searched with the microscope by an inspector specially
appointed. The symptoms in man are occasioned by the presence
of the free parasites in the intestine, by the development of young tri
chinae from the eggs, and most of all by the migration of the parasites
from the intestinal canal to the muscles, where they become quiescent
within a calcareous shell. This cycle occupies from four to six
weeks. "When consumed in small quantity, the parasites may give
rise to no marked symptoms, and they are sometimes found acci
dentally in muscular fibre in the bodies of those who had probably
experienced no definite symptoms from their invasion. In the more
acute and serious cases, sometimes ending fatally, the early symp
toms are nausea, failure of appetite, diarrhoea, and fever ; later,
when the migration to the muscles begins, there is more fever,
stillness, pain, and swelling in the limbs, swelling of the eyelids,
continued exhausting diarrhoea, perspirations, and sometimes de
lirium. During convalescence there is descp.iamat.ion of the cuticle.
If the diagnosis be made early in the case, brisk purgatives, par
ticularly calomel, arc the best treatment ; if the parasites are already
on their way to the muscles, the only thing left to do is to support
the patient's strength.
Ansemia and Cachcxia caused lij Anchylostoma duodenalc. — A
disease which caused a great mortality among the negroes in the
West Indies towards the end of last century, and of which descrip
tions were afterwards sent from Brazil and various other tropical
and subtropical regions, was identified, chiefly through the labours
of Bilharz and Griesinger in Egypt (1854), as being due to the
presence in the intestine of nematoid worms from one-third to half
an inch long, and variously named Anchylostoma, Sclerostoma,
Strongylus, &c. The same disease has subsequently been found in
some places among miners, and particularly among the men employed
in making the St Gotthard tunnel. Various names have been given
to the malady, such as mal d'estomac, mal de caair, dirt-eating,
anffiinia intertropicalis, cachexia Africana, and eachexie aqueuse.
The symptoms, as first observed among the negroes, were pain in
the stomach, capricious appetite, pica (or dirt-eating), obstinate
constipation followed by diarrhoea, palpitations, small and unsteady
pulse, coldness of the skin, pallor of the skin and mucous mem
branes, diminution of the secretions, loss of strength, and, in cases
running a fatal course, colliquative diarrhoea and dysentery,
haemorrhages, and dropsies. The parasites, which cling to the
intestinal mucous membrane, draw their nourishment from the
blood-vessels of their host, and as they are found in hundreds in the
body after death, the disorders of digestion, the increasing anaamia,
and the consequent dropsies and other cachectic symptoms are
easily explained. It seems probable that the parasite is intro
duced in its larval stage through the medium of the drinking-water.
Male-fern, santonine, or other anthelmintic remedies are prescribed
for it ; but, inasmuch as it is most apt to lodge in the bodies of the
ill-fed and otherwise ailing poor, there is little doubt that the most
satisfactory remedy would be to increase the power of resistance by
improving the general well-being.
Chyluria and Lymph-Scrotum caused l)y Filaria sanguinis
hominis. — A milky appearance of the urine, due to the presence of
a substance like chyle, which forms a clot, had been observed from
time to time, especially in tropical and subtropical countries ; and
it has been proved by the late Dr Wucherer of Bahia, and by Dr
Timothy Lewis, that this peculiar condition is uniformly associated
with the presence in the blood of minute- eel-like worms, visible
only under the microscope, being the embryo forms of a Filaria.
The parent worms are very difficult to find, and their characters
and habits are imperfectly known ; but they are supposed to be
about 3 inches long, and to inhabit dilatations of the lymph-carrying
vessels. It is not yet clear how the chyle gets into the urine, but
it seems probable that the blood in which filarise are present is
altered in its constituents, although there is no obvious change in
P A R — P A K
271
its microscopic characters beyond the presence of the young nema-
todes. These are also present in the chylous urine. Sometimes
the discharge of lymph takes place at one or more points of the
surface of the body, and there is in other cases a condition of use-
void elephantiasis of the scrotum, or lymph-scrotum. More or less
of blood may occur along with the chylous fluid in the urine. Both
the chyluria and the presence of filarice in the blood are curiously
intermittent ; it may happen that not a single filaria is to be seen
during the daytime, while they swarm in the blood at night, and
it has been ingeniously shown by Dr S. Mackenzie that they may
be made to disappear if the patient sits up all night, reappearing
while he sleeps through the day.
Dr Mauson of Amoy has proved that mosquitoes imbibe the
embryo filaripe from the blood of man ; and that many of these
reach full development within the mosquito, acquiring their freedom
when the latter resorts to water, where it dies after depositing its
eggs. Mosquitoes would thus be the intermediate host of the filarise,
and their introduction into the human body would be through the
medium of water.
Dracontiasis or Guinea-worm. — Filaria incdincnsis, or Dracun-
culus, or Guinea-worm, is a very long filarious nematode like a horse
hair, whose most frequent habitat is the skin of the legs and feet.
It is common on the Guinea coast, and in many other tropical and
subtropical regions, and has been familiarly known since ancient
times The condition of dracontiasis due to it is a very common
one, and sometimes amounts to an epidemic. The black races are
most liable, but Europeans of almost any social rank and of either
sex are not altogether exempt. The worm lives in water, and, like
the Filaria sanguinis hominis, appears to have an intermediate
host for its larval stage. It is doubtful whether the worm pene
trates the skin of the legs directly ; it is not impossible that the
intermediate host (a Cyclops) which contains the larvre may be
swallowed with the water, and that the larvae of the Dracimculus
may be set free in the course of digestion.
Endemic Hxmatnria and Calculus due to Distoma hsematobium.
— D. h&matobium is a tiematode or fluke-worm, which is exten
sively parasitic in man in northern and southern Africa — in the
former along the Nile, and in the latter mostly on a narrow belt of
the Natal coast. The parasites live mostly in the blood-vessels of
the intestine and of the urinary bladder, whence they reach the
mucous membranes ; and the most remarkable effects of their para
sitism are bleeding from the surface of the bladder and the forma
tion of ura tic and phosphatic calculi around the clusters of eggs
deposited by the Distoma. The mode of access to their human
habitat is still uncertain.
Literature. — The more special memoirs nrc Ponfick, Die Actinomyttte det
Jtfenschen, eine neue liijectionskranklieit (plates, Berlin, 1882); Leuckart, Unter-
sucli. iiber Trichina spiralis (plates, Leipsic, 2cl eel., 18fif>); Virchow, Darstellung
der Lt-hre von den Trichinen (plate, Berlin, 2d ed., 1864); Long. '• De 1'andmie des
mineurs clu Gothard, caused par 1 Ankylostome Uuoddnal," in Trans. Internal.
Med. Congr., 1881, i. p 437, and papers quoted in llirscli; T. K. Lewis, On a
Jlaimatozoon inhabiting Human Blood, its relation to Chyluria, <tc., Calcutta,
1872; Manson, The Filaria Sanguinis Hominis, &c. dilates, London, 1884); S.
Mackenzie, "Case of h'larial liaamuto chyluria," in Trans. Path. Soc. Lond., 1882,
p. 394 ; see also Hirsch, Historisch-geographische Pathologic, vol. ii., Stuttgart,
1883 (English translation). (C. C.)
PARC/E. See FATES, vol. ix. p. 49.
PARCHMENT consists of skins of various animals,
unhaired, cleaned, and dried so as to form sheets of uniform
thickness suitable for writing upon and for the numerous
other purposes to which such preparations are devoted
(see PALEOGRAPHY, p. 144). The skins employed for
parchment are principally those of sheep, lambs, and calves;
but goat and ass skins are similarly dressed for special
purposes. The preliminary unhairing and cleaning of the
skins are effected as in the leather manufacture (see
LEATHER, vol. xiv. p. 380). In their moist flexible condi
tion the unhaired skins are tightly and uniformly stretched
over a wooden frame termed a herse, and on the flesh side
they are carefully gone over with a semicircular fleshing
knife which removes all adherent flesh. The grain side
is also gone over to clean the surface and squeeze out a
proportion of the absorbed moisture. Ordinary binder's
parchment and drum-head parchment need no further pre
paration, but are simply allowed to dry gradually on the
frames on which the skins are stretched. But fine
parchment for writing and vellum are powdered with
chalk on the flesh side and carefully rubbed with- fine
pumice stone till a delicate uniform velvety surface is
raised. All inequalities on the grain side are also re
moved by paring and rubbing with fine pumice. Stout
vellum is made from calf skins, and ordinary qualities
from split sheep skins ; for drum heads, tambourines, and
like applications goat and calf skins are used, and it is
said that wolf skins yield the best drum heads.
Veyetable Parchment, or parchment paper, is a modified
form of paper produced by chemical treatment, having
considerable similarity to ordinary animal parchment. It
is prepared by acting on ordinary unsized paper with
dilute sulphuric acid, and immediately washing away all
trace of acid. Paper so treated will be found to have
undergone a remarkable change : the porous intertexture of
cellulose composing unsized paper will have expanded and
agglutinated, forming a homogeneous surface, translucent,
horny, and parchment-like ; it will have acquired about
five times the strength of ordinary paper ; it will become
soft and flaccid when steeped in water, to which, however,
it is impervious ; and it is unaffected by boiling in water.
The formation of vegetable parchment is due to a
molecular change in cellulose when acted on by sulphuric
acid, owing to which the substance is transformed into a
starch-like body — amyloid — with simultaneous swelling of
the fibres, which thereby soften and agglutinate. The
preparation of vegetable parchment was patented in 18,57
by Mr W. E. Gaine, and machinery has been adapted for
the manufacture. The paper to be acted on passes in a
continuous web through a vat containing commercial
sulphuric acid diluted with half its volume of water. In
this it is immersed from five to twenty seconds at a tem
perature of about 60° Fahr. It then passes in succession
through pure water, next an ammoniacal solution to remove
all acid, and finally again through water, after which it is
dried and finished by passing between felted rollers and
over heated polished metal cylinders. A similar effect is
produced on paper by treating it with a syrupy solution of
zinc chloride at from 120° to 212° Fahr. Vegetable parch
ment has not realized all the expectations of it. It is most
largely used as covers for preserve jars, bottles, &c., and
to some extent for tracings of plans, charts, &c.
PARDON is the remission, by the power entrusted with
the execution of the laws, of the penalty attached to a
crime. The right of pardoning is coextensive with the
right of punishing. In a perfect legal system, says Beccaria,
pardons should be excluded, for the clemency of the prince
seems a tacit disapprobation of the laws (Dei Dehtti e delle
Pene, ch. xx.).1 In practice the prerogative is extremely
valuable, when used with discretion, as a means of adjust
ing the different degrees of moral guilt in crimes or of
rectifying a miscarriage of justice. By the law of
England pardon is the sole prerogative of the king, and it
is declared by 27 Hen. VIII. c. 24 that no other person
has power to pardon or remit any treasons or felonies what
soever. This position follows logically from the theory
of English lawr that all offences are breaches of the king's
peace. Indictments still conclude with a statement that
the offence was committed " against the peace of our lady
the queen, her crown and dignity." The crown by pardon
only remits the penalty for an attack upon itself. The
j prerogative is in modern times exercised by delegation, the
crown acting upon the representation of the secretary of
state for the home department in Great Britain, of the
! lord lieutenant in Ireland. The prerogative of the crown
j is subject to some restrictions. (1) The committing of a
1 See further, on the ethical aspect of pardon, Montesquieu, Esprit
des Lois, bk. vi. ch. 21; Beutham, Princijjlcs of Penal Law, bk. vi.
ch. 4.
272
PAR— P A U
subject of the realm to a prison out of the realm is by the
Habeas Corpus Act a praemunirf, unpardonable even by
the king (31 Car. II. c. 2, § 12). (2) The king cannot
pardon an offence in a matter of private rather than of
public wrong, so as to prejudice the person injured by the
offence. Thus a common nuisance cannot be pardoned
while it remains unredressed, or so as to prevent an abate
ment of it. A fine or penalty imposed for the offence may,
however, be remitted. By 22 Viet. c. 32 Her Majesty is
enabled to remit wholly or in part any sum of money
imposed upon conviction, and, if the offender has been
imprisoned in default of payment, to extend to him the
royal mercy. There are other statutes dealing with special
offences, e.g., by 38 «fc 39 Viet. c. 80 Her Majesty may
remit any penalty imposed under 21 Geo. III. c. 49 (an
Act for preventing certain abuses and profanations on the
Lord's Day called Sunday). (3) The king's pardon cannot
be pleaded in bar of an impeachment. This principle,
first asserted by a resolution of the House of Commons in
the earl of Danby's case, 5th May 1679, forms one of the
provisions of the Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2.
It is there enacted " that no pardon under the great seal of
England shall be pleadable to an impeachment by the
Commons in parliament," § 3. This provision does not ex
tend to abridging the prerogative after the impeachment has
been heard and determined. Thus three of the rebel lords
were pardoned after impeachment and attainder in 1715.
(4) In the case of treason, murder, or rape, a pardon is
ineffectual unless the offence be particularly specified
therein (13 Rich. II. c. 1, § 2). Before the Bill of Rights,
1 Will, it M. c. 2, § 2, this statute seems to have been
frequently evaded by a non obstante clause. But, since by
the Bill of Rights no dispensation by non obstante is allowed,
general words contrary to the statute of Richard II. would
seem to be ineffectual.
Pardon may be actual or constructive. Actual pardon is by
warrant under' the great seal, or under the sign-manual counter
signed, by a secretary of state (7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 28, § 13). Con
structive pardon is obtained by endurance of the punishment. By
9 Geo. IV. c. 32, §3, the endurance of a punishment on conviction
of a felony not capital has the same effect as a pardon under the
great seal. This principle is reaffirmed in the Larceny Act, 1861
(24 & 23 Viet. c. 96, § 109), and in the Malicious Injuries to
Property Act, 1861 (24 & 25 Viet. c. 97, § 67). 'Further,
pardon may be free or conditional. A conditional pardon most
commonly occurs where an offender sentenced to death has his
sentence commuted to penal servitude or any less punishment.
The condition of his pardon is the endurance by him of the substi
tuted punishment. The effect of pardon, whether actual or con
structive, is to put the person pardoned in the position of an
innocent man, so that he may have an action against any one
thenceforth calling him traitor or felon, lie cannot refuse to give
evidence respecting the offence pardoned on the gromid that his
answer would tend to criminate him. A pardon may be pleaded
on arraignment in bar of an indictment (though not of an impeach
ment), or after verdict in arrest of judgment. No doubt it woidd
generally be advantageous to plead it as early as possible.
It is obvious that, though the crown is invested with the right
to pardon, this does not prevent pardon being granted by the higher
authority of an Act of Parliament. Acts of Indemnity have fre
quently been passed, the effect of which is the snme as pardon or
remission by the crown. Recent examples of Acts of Indemnity arc
two private Acts passed in 1880 to relieve Lords Hyron and Pluuket
from the disabilities 'and penalties to which they were liable for
sitting and voting in the House of Peers without taking the oath.
Civil rights are not divested by pardon. The person injured
may have a right of action against the offender in spite of the
pardon of the latter, if the right of action has once vested, for the
crown cannot affect private rights. In Scotland this civil right is
specially preserved by various statutes. Thus 1593, c. 174, provides
that, if any respite or remission happen to be granted before the
party grieved be first satisfied, the same is to be null and of none
avail. The assytlnneut, or indemnification due to the heirs of the
person murdered from the murderer, is due if the murderer have
received pardon, though not if he have suffered the penalty of the
law. The pardon transmitted by the secretary of state is applied
by the supreme court, who grant the necessary orders to the
magistrates in whose custody the convict is.
In the United States the power of pardon vested in the president
is without any limitation, except in the case of impeachments
(U. S. Constitution, art. ii. § 2). The power of pardon is also vested
in the executive authority of the different States, with or without
the concurrence of the legislative authority. Thus by the New
York Code of Criminal Procedure, 1881, §§692, 693, the governor of
the State of New York has power to grant reprieves, commutations,
and pardons, except in the case of treason, where he can only
suspend the execution of the sentence until the case can be reported
to the legislature, with whom the power of pardon in this case rests.
The usual form of pardon in the United States is by deed under
seal of the executive.
PARDUBITZ, a town of Bohemia, situated at the
confluence of the Elbe and the Chrudimka, 55 miles to
the east of Prague. The most interesting buildings are
the old fortified chateau of the 16th century, with its
Gothic chapel ; the church of St Bartholomew, dating in
its present form from 1538; the quaint town-house; the
Griines Thor, a mediaeval gateway ; and the handsome
new synagogue. The inhabitants, amounting to 10,292 in
1 880, are engaged in the manufacture of sugar, agricultural
implements, sweetmeats, spirits, beer, and iron. There is
also a tolerably active trade in grain and timber, and the
horse fairs attract numerous customers. Pardubitz is a
town of ancient origin, the history of which is little more
than a record of a succession of feudal superiors. In
1560 it passed into the possession of the crown, which
retained the town-lands down to 1863, when it sold them
to the Austrian Credit Bank. Pardubitz suffered severely
in the Hussite wars.
PARK, AMBROISE, the father of French surgery, was
born at Laval, in the province of Maine, in 1509, and died
in 1590. A collection of his works was published at Paris
in 1561, and was afterwards frequently reprinted.
Several editions have also appeared in German and Dutch.
Among the English translations was that of Thomas
Johnson, London, 1634. For Pare's professional career
and services, see SURGERY.
PAREJA, JUAX DE (1606-1670), Spanish painter, was
a mestizo, born in the West Indies about 1606, and in
early life passed into the service of Velazquez, who
employed him in colour- grinding and other menial work of
the studio. By day he closely watched his master's
methods, and by night stealthily practised with his brushes
until he had attained considerable manipulative skill. The
story goes that, having succeeded in producing a picture
satisfactory to himself, he contrived furtively to place it
among those on which Velazquez had been working,
immediately before an expected visit of King Philip IV.
The performance was duly discovered and praised, and
Pareja forthwith received his freedom, which, however, he
continued to devote to his former employer's service. His
i extant works are not very numerous; the best known, the
Calling of St Matthew, now in the Royal Picture Gallery,
Madrid, has considerable merit as regards technique, but
1 does not reveal much originality, insight, or devotional
! feeling. He died in 1670.
PARENT AND CHILD. See BASTARD, INFANT, and
j MARRIAGE.
PAREXZO, a city on the west coast of Istria (Austria-
Hungary), 30 miles south of Trieste, with about 3000 in
habitants (2825 in 1879), has considerable historic and
architectural interest. It is built on a peninsula nowhere
1 more than 5 feet above the sea level ; and from the fact that
the pavements of the Roman period are 3 feet below the
present surface it is inferred that this part of the coast is
slowlysubsiding. The well-preserved cathedral of StMaurus
i was erected by Etiphrasius, first bishop of Parenzo, pro
bably between 535 and 543. The basilican type is very
; pure ; there are three naves ; the apse is hexagonal with-
! out and round within. The total length of the church
! proper is only 120 feet; but in front of the west entrance
P A R — P A R
273
is a square atrium with three arches on each side ; to the
west of the atrium is a now roofless baptistery, and to the
west of that rises the campanile ; so that the total length
from campanile to apse is about 230 feet. Mosaics, now
greatly spoiled, form the chief decoration of both outside
and inside. The high altar is covered with a noble
baldachin, dating from 1277. Small portions of two
temples and an inscribed stone are the only remains of
the ancient Roman city that readily catch the eye.
Parentium, conquered by the Romans in 178 B.C., was made a
colony probably by Augustus after the battle of Actium, for its
title in inscriptions is Colonia Julia and not, as it has often been
given, Col. Ulpia. It grew to be a place of some note with about
6000 inhabitants within its walls and 10,000 in its suburbs.
The bishopric, founded in 524, gradually acquired ecclesiastical
authority over a large number of abbeys and other foundations in
the surrounding country. The city, which had long been under
the influence of Venice, formally recognized Venetian supremacy in
1267, and as a Venetian town it was in 1354 attacked and plundered
by Paganino Doria of Genoa. In 1630 the plague (which had already
visited Parenzo in 1360, 1456, &c.) reduced the population to barely
100 ; but by 1800 the number had increased again to 2000. The
bishoprics of Pola and Parenzo were united in 1827. The basilica
is one of those churches in which the priest when celebrating mass
stands behind the altar with his face to the west.
See Vergottin, Breve saggio d'istoria delta cittd di Parenzo, Venice, 1796;
Handler, Cenni a! forestiero che visita Parenzo, Trieste, 1845 ; Neale, Notes on
Dalmatia, Istria, <kc,, 1861, with ground plan of cathedral; and E. A. Freeman
in Saturday Review, 1875, reprinted in his Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice,
1881.
PARGA, a town on the Albanian coast, in the Turkish
vilayet of Janina, beautifully situated in the midst of
orchards devoted to the cultivation of the larger citron,
with a rock-built citadel and a harbour formed by a mole
constructed by the Venetians in 1572. Its population
does not now exceed 1500, but its imports and exports
(citrons, wool, oak bark, and skins) reach a value of
£42,000 (1880), and the place is historically famous.
Originally occupying the site of the ancient Toryne (Palreo-Parga),
a short distance to the west, Parga was removed to its present position
after the Turkish invasion. Under Venetian protection, freely
accepted in 1401, the inhabitants maintained their municipal
independence and commercial prosperity down to the destruction
of the great republic in 1797, though on two occasions, in 1500 and
1560, their city was burned by the Turks. The attempts of Ali
Pasha of Janina to make himself master of the place were thwarted
partly by the presence of a French garrison in the citadel and partly
by the heroic attitude of the Pargiotes themselves, who were anxious
to have their city incorporated with the Ionian Republic. To secure
their purpose they in 1814 expelled the French garrison and accepted
British protection ; but the British Government in 1815, with a
breach of faith which excited general reprobation, determined to go
back to the convention of 1800 by which Parga was to be surrendered
to Turkey, though no mosque was to be built or Mussulman to settle
within its territory. Rather than subject themselves to the tyranny
of Ali Pasha, the Pargiotes decided to forsake their country ; and
accordingly in 1819, having previously exhumed and burned the
remains of their ancestors, they migrated to the Ionian Islands.
The Turkish Government was constrained to pay them £142,425 by
way of compensation.
See Edinburgh Review, 1819, and Finlay's Hist, of Greece (Tozer's edition) for
authorities.
PARHELIA. See HALO, vol. xi. pp. 398, 399.
PARIAN CHRONICLE. This famous Chronicle is
contained in the ARUNDELIAN MARBLES (q.v.) now at
Oxford. It originally embraced an outline of Greek
history from the reign of Cecrops, king of Athens (1582
B.C.), down to the archonship of Diognetus at Athens (264
B.C.), but the remaining portion extends no farther than
355 B.C. The Chronicle seems to have been set up by a
private person, but, as the opening of the inscription has
perished, we do not know the occasion or motives which
prompted the step. The author of the Chronicle has given
much attention to the festivals, and to poetry and music •
thus he has recorded the dates of the establishment of
festivals, of the introduction of various kinds of poetry,
the births and deaths of the poets, and their victories in
contests of poetical skill. On the other hand, important
political and military events are often entirely omitted;
thus the return of the Heraclidse, Lycurgus, the wars of
Messene, Draco, Solon, Clisthenes, Pericles, the Pelopon-
nesian War, and the Thirty Tyrants are not even mentioned.
The years are reckoned backward from the archonship of
Diognetus, and the dates are further specified by the kings
and archons of Athens. The reckoning by Olympiads is
not employed. Amongst the legendary dates recorded in
the Chronicle the following may be mentioned : —
Deucalion's Deluge, 1265 years before the archon
ship of Diognetus, i.c , 1529 B.C.
Origin of Amphictyonic league 1522 ,,
National name changed from Greeks (Graikoi) to
Hellenes 1521
Arrival of Cadmus ; foundation of Cadmea 1519
Arrival of Danaus and the Danaides in Greece 1511
Invention of the flute 1506
Minos reigns in Crete; discovery of iron in Mount
Ida 1432
Introduction of corn by Ceres and Triptolemus ... 1409
Orpheus publishes his poetry 1399
First puritication for manslaughter 1326
Theseus founds Athens by union of twelve cities ;
he establishes the democracy 1 259
Beginning of Trojan War 1218
Capture of Troy 1209
Hesiod flourishes 937
Homer flourishes 907
From the attention bestowed on poets and tyrants in the
Chronicle, Boeckh infers that its author drew mainly on the works
of Phanias of Eresus, a disciple of Aristotle, who wrote on poets,
the tyrants of Sicily, tyrannicide, &c. Further, from some resem
blances between Eusebius and the Chronicle, Boeckh is led to
conjecture that the Christian historian may have made use of the
same sources as the author of the Chronicle.
The Parian Chronicle is given by Boeckh in the Corpus Inscriptionum Grxca-
nim, vol. ii., and by Miiller in the Fragmenta Historicorum Grxcorum, vol. i.; it
is edited separately by Flach, Tiibingen, 1883.
PARIN1, GIUSEPPE (1729-1799), Italian poet, was
born in the district of Bosisio in the Milanese, on the
22d of May 1729. His parents, who possessed a small
farm on the shore of Lake Pusiano, sent him to Milan,
where he studied under the Barnabites in the Academy
Arcimboldi, maintaining himself latterly by copying manu
scripts. In 1752 he published at Lugano, under the
pseudonym of Ripano Eupilino, a small volume of sciolto
verse which secured his election to the Accademia dei
Transformati at Milan and to that of the Arcadi at Rome.
Encouraged yet further by his success in two controversies
with Alessandro Bandiera and Onofrio Branda, he pro
ceeded to utilize in the composition of the satire, II
Matfino, the knowledge of aristocratic life which he had
gained as tutor in the Borromei and Serbelloni families.
The poem, which was published in 1763, and which marked
a distinct advance in Italian blank verse, consisted of
ironical instructions to a young nobleman as to the best
method of spending his mornings. It at once established
Parini's popularity and influence, and two years later a con
tinuation of the same theme was published under the title
of II Mezzogiorno. The Austrian plenipotentiary, Count
Firmian, who had favoured the publication of the poems,
interested himself in procuring the poet's advancement,
appointing him, in the first place, editor of the Gazette, and
in 1769, in despite of the Jesuits, to a specially created
chair of belles lettres in the Palatine School. His subse
quent lectures as professor of rhetoric in the Gymnasium
di Brera are still of value, and as occupant of the chair of
fine arts he was frequently consulted by the artists of the
day in matters of taste and design. On the French
occupation of Milan he was appointed magistrate by
Napoleon and Saliceti, but almost immediately retired to
resume his literary work and to complete II Vespro and
La Notte, the two last divisions of the Giorno. He died
on the 15th of August 1799. An indisputable force in
the history of Italian literature, he owed his influence
rather to a carefully cultivated taste than to any strongly
marked originality of genius. His works were published
in 6 vols. 8vo, Milan, 1801-4.
XVIII. - - 35
274
P AEI S
Plate V. T)ARIS,ithe capital of France, the seat of the legislature
and of the administrative departments, is situated
on both banks of the Seine, in 48° 50' 14" N. lat. and
2° 20' 14" E. long. (Observatory). It occupies the centre
of the so-called Paris basin, which is traversed by the
Seine from south-east to north-west, open towards the
west, and surrounded by a line of Jurassic heights. The
granitic substratum is covered by Jurassic, Cretaceous,
and Tertiary formations ; and at several points building
materials — freestone, limestone, or gypsum — have been
laid bare by erosion. It is partly, indeed, to the existence
of such quarries in its neighbourhood, or on the very
ground on which it stands, that the city owes its vast
development.1 The mean elevation of the Seine valley
at Paris is from 100 to 130 feet. On the north bank rise
the heights of Charonne, of the Buttes-Chaumont (404
feet), of La Villette, and of Montmartre (345 feet) ; on
the left or south bank the Butte-aux-Cailles, and beyond
the valley of the Bievre the hill of Ste Genevieve and
Montrouge. Between those lines of heights, the Seine
flows from east to west, encircling the island of St Louis,
the lie de la Cite", and lower down the lie aux Cygnes.
The Bievre or Gobelins stream flows for some distance
in an open channel on the left side of the river, and
then disappears in a sewer. On the right side the brook
which used to run from M6nilmontant to Chaillot past the
site now occupied by the opera, has at length been dammed
by masonry, driven into the sewers, or lost underground.
Climate. Climate. — Paris enjoys a fairly uniform climate, subject,
however, to frequent changes at all seasons of the year.
The mean temperature, calculated by M. Flammarion
from observations extending over seventy-two years
(1804-76), is 51°'4 Fahr. The highest reading observed
(in July 1874, and again in July 1881) is 101° Fahr.,
the lowest (in December 1879) is - 14°. The monthly
means for the sixty-four years 1806-1870 are — January
36°'3, February 40° -1, March 43°'5, April 50° -2,. May
57°'6, June 63° '0, July 66°'0, August 65°'3, September
60° -3, October 52° -3, November 43° 7, December 38° -7.
The river freezes when the temperature falls below 18°. It
was frozen in nearly its whole extent from Bercy to Auteuil
in the winters of 1819-20, 1829-30, 1879-80; and
partially in the winters of 1840-41, 1853-54, 1857-58, and
1870-71. Rain falls, on an average, on 143 days, of
which 38 are in winter, 35 in spring, 34 in summer, and
36 in autumn, — the average quantity in a year being
19 '68 inches. The driest month is February, the rainiest
July, — the rainfall for these months being respectively
0'87 inch and 2 '15 inches. There are 12 days on which
snow falls, 184 on which the sky is covered, 40 with fogs,
and 9 with hail. The following figures show the directions
of the winds :— X. 38 days, N.E. 41, E. 24, S.E. 26,
S. 53, S.W. 70, W. 67, and N.W. 36, with 10 calm days.
Thunderstorms average 13 per annum, — ranging from 6
(in 1823) to 25 (1811). There is comparatively little
variation in the barometer. Its mean height is 2 9 '7 6 3
inches at a height of 216 feet above sea-level. On the
whole the climate is healthy and agreeable, its variations,
though frequent, being comparatively slight.
Bound- Boundaries.- -Since January 1, 1860, the boundaries of
aries. Paris have extended to the fortifications built in accordance
1 The quarries of Montrouge, the Montmartre and the Buttes-
Chaumont plaster-kilns, and the brick-works of Vaugirard or of Passy
are gradually being built over. At Passy there is a cold chalybeate
spring, and sulphurous waters are found at Belleville and at Les
Batignolles.
with the scheme of 1840. The total area thus included is
30 square miles, of which 6 square miles are occupied by
the public streets, 458 acres by squares and gardens,
642 \ acres by the river and canals, and 224 acres by
cemeteries. The line of fortifications measures 22^-
miles. On the right side of the river it presents 68 fronts,
and on the left 26, each consisting of a curtain connecting
two demi bastions. It is pierced by 56 gates, 9 openings
for railways, and 2 openings for the Ourcq and the St
Denis canals. Outside of this enceinte arc a number of
detached forts arranged in two main lines. First come the
forts erected previous to 1870 at St Denis, Aubervilliers,
Romainville, Noisy, Rosny, Nogent, Vincennes, Ivry,
Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves, Issy, and Mont Valerien ;
and next the new forts of Palaiseau, Villeras, Buc, and St
Cyr, which protect Versailles, and Marly, St Jamme, and
Aigremont, which surround St Germain. On the right side
of the Seine are Forts Cormeilles, Domont, Montlignon,
Montmorency, Ecouen, Stains, Vaujours, Yilliers, and
Villeneuve St Georges. Between the two lines the
Chatillon fort occupies the site of the German batteries
which bombarded Paris in 1871.
Boulevards, /Streets, and Squares. — The line of the Streets.
Boulevards from the Madeleine to the Bastille, nearly
3 miles, is one of the busiest and most fashionable in the
world ; here are the Porte St Denis, the Porte St Martin,
most of the large cafes, the Opera-House, and the various
theatres distinguished as Le Vaudeville, Les Nouveaute's,
L'Opera Comique, Les Varie'tes, Le Gymnase, La Porte
St Martin, La Renaissance, L'Ambigu, Les Folies Drama-
tiques, Dejazet, Beaumarchais, and Le Cirque. Traffic
passes east and west from the Bastille to the Place de la
Concorde by Rue St Antoine and Rue de Rivoli. North
and south the line of the Boulevard de Strasbourg and the
Boulevard de Sebastopol stretches from the station of the
Eastern Railway (Gare de 1'Est) to the Seine, and is
continued by the Boulevard du Palais in the Cite and
the Boulevard St Michel, on the left side of the river,
as far as the observatory. The total length is not less
than 2|- miles. On the right side of the river may also
be mentioned the Rue Royale ; the Malesherbes and
Haussmann boulevards, which cross the most elegant
quarters of the town ; the Avenue de 1'Opera, which unites
the Place du Palais Royal with the Place de 1'Opera, and
terminates at the main entrance of the Opera ; the Rue de
la Paix, Rue Auber, and Rue 4 Septembre, which also
terminate in the Place de I'Ope'ra, and are remarkable for
their magnificent shops ; Rue Lafayette, one of the longest
thoroughfares of Paris, traversing the town from the Opera
to the end of La Villette ; the Boulevard Magenta, from
Montmartre to the Place de la Rdpublique ; Rue de
Turbigo, from this place to the Halles Centrales. The
older streets known as Richelieu, Vivien ne, De la Chaussde
d'Antin, St Honore", Montmartre, St Denis, St Martin,
are full of shops and offices. The Place dc 1'Arc de
Triomphe de 1'Etoile is the centre of twelve avenues
stretching out from it like the spokes of a wheel, but
not all as yet lined with buildings. On the left side
of the river the main thoroughfare is the Boulevard St
Germain, from Pont Sully to the Pont de la Concorde,
which passes in front of the school of medicine, the Place
St Germain des Pro's, and the war office. The Rue de
Rennes, which extends from St Germain des Pre^s to the
Mont Parnasse Railway station, is to be prolonged as far as
the Seine.
The finest of the public squares in Paris are Place de la Squares.
VOL. AT///.
-Of«// rl^WsS^xk^* %,-^^W/N^J
ENCYCLOP/OIA BRITA
IIS.
PLATE V.
A NINTH EDITION,
PARIS
275
Concorde ; Place de 1'Etoile ; Place Vendome, with the
column and statue of Napoleon I. ; Place du Carrousel,
with a small triumphal arch commemorative of the cam
paign of 1806, which formed the entrance to the palace of
the Tuileries, now demolished ; Place des Victoires, with
the equestrian statue of Louis XIV.; Place des Vosges,
formerly Place Royale, with that of Louis XIII. ; Place de
la Bastille, with the column commemorative of the lie volu
tion of July 1830; Place de la Republique, with the
Republic statue ; Place de 1'Hotel de Ville ; Place du
Chatelet, with a column commemorative of the Italian
campaign of 1796 ; those which take their names from the
Bourse, the Palais Royal, and the Opera ; Place de Rivoli,
with the equestrian statue of Joan of Arc ; Place Moncey,
adorned with a monument in memory of the defence of
Paris in 1814, as Place Denfert, at the opposite extremity
of the town, is adorned with a colossal lion symbolizing the
defence of 1871. South of the Seine are the Place St
Michel, adorned with a monumental fountain, and one of
the great centres of traffic in Paris ; Place du Pantheon ;
Place St Sulpice ; Place Vauban, behind the dome of the
Invalides, and Place du Palais Bourbon, in front of the
chamber of deputies. Besides those already mentioned
there are monumental fountains in the Places de la Con
corde, de la Republique, and du Chutelet, the Avenue de
1'Opera, and the Place Louvois opposite the national
library ; and attention must also be called to the Fountain
of the Innocents near the markets, which was originally
adorned with sculptures by Jean Goujon ; the Moliere
Fountain, in the Rue Richelieu ; the Gaillon Fountain; and
on the left side of the river the Fountain of Rue de Grenelle.
The Seine. — The Seine flows for 7 miles (taking five
hours) through Paris. As it enters and as it leaves the
city it is crossed by a viaduct used by the circular railway
and for ordinary traffic ; that of Point du Jour has two
stories of arches. Two bridges, the Pont des Arts and the
Passerelle de Passy, are for foot passengers only ; all the
others are for carriages as well. The most famous is the
Pont Neuf, the two portions of which rest on the extremity
of the island called La Cite where the river is at its widest
(961 feet). On the embankment below Pont Neuf stands
the statue of Henry IV., the people's king. Between La
Cite and the left bank the width of the lesser channel is
reduced to 161 feet. The whole river has a width of 532
feet as it enters Paris and of 440 as it leaves it. As it
descends it passes under the bridges of Tolbiac, Bercy, and
Austerlitz (built of stone), that of Sully (of iron), those of
Marie and Louis Philippe between lie St Louis and the
right bank ; that of Les Tournelles between lie St Louis
and the left bank ; that of St Louis between lie St Louis
and La Cite"; and Pont d'Arcole, a very elegant structure
connecting La Cite with Place de 1'Hotel de Ville. La
Cite besides communicates with the right bank by the
bridges of Notre Dame and Au Change; with the left
bank by that of the Archeveche, the so-called Pont au
Double, the Petit Pont, and Pont St Michel. Below Pont
Neuf come the Pont des Arts, Pont du Carrousel (of iron),
Pont Royal (a fine stone structure leading to the Tuileries),
and those named after Solferino, La Concorde, the In
valides, Alma, Jena, (opposite the Champ de Mars), Passy,
and Grenelle.
The houses of Paris nowhere abut directly on the river
banks, which in their whole extent from the bridge of
Austerlitz to Passy are protected by broad embankments or
"quays." At the foot of these lie several ports for the
discharge of goods : — on the right side Bercy for wines,
La Rap6e for timber, the Port de 1' Arsenal at the mouth
of th5 St Martin Canal,1 the Port de l'H6tel de Ville for
1 This canal, leaving the Seine below Austerlitz Bridge, passes by a
tunnel under Place de la Bastille and Boulevard Richard Leuoir, and
fruits, and the Port St Nicholas or du Louvre (steamboats
for London) ; on the left bank Port de la Gare for timber,
St Bernard for wines, and those named after La Tournelle,
the Saints Peres, the Invalides, and Grenelle.
Promenades and Parks. — In the heart of Paris are Prome-
situated the gardens of the Tuileries (74 acres), laid out in uaues.
parterres and bosquets, planted with chestnut trees, lindens,
and plane trees, and adorned with playing fountains
and basins, and numerous statues mostly from the antique.
From the terrace along the river side a fine view is to be
had over the Seine to the park and palace of the Trocadero ;
and from the terraces along the Place de la Concorde the
eye takes in the Place and the Avenue of the Champs
Elysties. The gardens of the Luxembourg, in front of the
palace occupied by the senate, are rather larger than those
of the Tuileries ; with less regularity of form they present
greater variety of appearance. In the line of the main
entrance extends the beautiful Observatory Walk, terminat
ing in a monumental fountain, which is in great part the
work of Carpeaux. The Luxembourg conservatories are
rich in rare plants ; and classes are held in the gardens for
the study of gardening, fruit-tree pruning, and bee-keeping.
The Jardin des Plantes will be mentioned below in the
list of scientific establishments. Besides these three great
gardens laid out in the French taste, with straight walks
and regular beds, there are several in what the French
designate the English style. The finest and most exten
sive of these, the Buttes-Chaumont Gardens, in the north
east of the city, occupy 62 acres of very irregular ground,
which up to 1866 was occupied by plaster-quarries, lime
kilns, and brick-works. The " buttes " or knolls are now
covered with turf, flowers, and shrubbery. Advantage has
been taken of the varying relief of the site to form a fine
lake and a cascade with picturesque rocks. The Montsouris
Park, in the south of the city, 40 acres in extent, also con
sists of broken ground ; in the middle stands the meteoro
logical observatory, built after the model of the Tunisian
palace of Bardo, and it also contains a monument in
memory of the heroic and unfortunate Flatters expedition.
Monceau Park, surrounded by the most aristocratic quarters
of modern Paris, is a portion of the old park belonging to
King Louis Philippe, and is now the property of the town.
The gardens of the Palais Royal are surrounded by arcades
and fine shops. There is hardly, it may be further remarked,
a district in Paris which has not of recent years its well-
planted square kept up at municipal expense on some plot
of ground cleared during the improvements. Such are
those named after Tour St Jacques (one of the most
graceful monuments of old Paris), the Conservatoire des
Arts et Metiers, the Temple, Montholon, Cluny, <fcc. There
have recently been added the park of the Champs de Mars,
and that of the Trocadero with its fountains and aquarium.
But the real parks of Paris are the Bois de Boulogne Bois do
and Bois de Vincennes, which belong to the city, though Kou~
situated outside of the fortifications. The former is reached n
by the wide avenue of the Champs Elyse'es as far as the
Arc de Triomphe, and thence by the avenue of the Bois de
Boulogne or that of the Grande Armoe. The first of these,
with its side walks for foot passengers and equestrians,
grass-plots, flower-beds, and elegant buildings with gardens
and railings in front, affords a wide and magnificent prospect
over the Bois and the hills of St Cloud and Mont Valerien.
The Bois de Boulogne covers an area of 2158 acres, one-
fourth of which is occupied by turf, one-eighth by roads,
and the rest by clumps of trees, sheets of water, or running
streams. Here are the two race-courses of Longchamps
(flat races) and Auteuil (steeple-chases), and the gardens
rises by .sluices to the La Villette basin, from which the St Denis
Canal descends to the Seine at St Denis. In this way boats going up
or down the river can avoid passing through Paris.
276
P A R I 8
of the Acclimatization Society, which, with their mena
geries, conservatories, and aquarium, are largely visited by
Bois de pleasure-seekers. The Bois de Vincennes, a little larger
Via- than the Bois de Boulogne, is similarly adorned with
jennes. streams, lakes, cascades ; and from the Gravelle plateau
there is a splendid view over the valleys of the Marne and
the Seine. Unfortunately the wood is cut in two by an
open space comprising a drill-ground for artillery and
infantry, a race-course, and a farm (La Faisanderie) for
agricultural experiments. Trees for the public parks and
squares are grown in the great municipal nurseries at
Auteuil and Bois de Boulogne ; and the municipal
botanical gardens of La Muette, with thirty-five conser
vatories covering 1 1 acres, and an equal area under frames,
contain magnificent collections of azaleas, palm-trees, and
other exotics for ornamenting the public gardens or
decorating official apartments on fete days.
Public Public Buildings, Palaces, &c. — The following are among
suild- the public buildings of Paris which have most architectural
interest. The palace of the Louvre (see pp. 281, 288),
which lies on the right side of the Seine in the heart of the
city, consists of a quadrangle with an inner court 394 feet
square, two galleries extending westwards from two sides
of the quadrangle, and two galleries external and parallel
to these, and continued till they meet the side wings of the
Tuileries. The east front of the Louvre is 548 feet long
and 90 feet high, and the first story is occupied by
Perrault's famous colonnade. Towards the west are those
portions of the Tuileries which escaped the fire of 1871,
— the connecting galleries and (on the south) the Flora
pavilion and (on the north) the Marsan pavilion, which was
entirely rebuilt between 1872 and 1877. From Perrault's
colonnade to the Flora pavilion the side facing the quay is
2250 feet long. In the matter of sculpture the south and
west sides of the inner court are considered the best parts of
the Louvre. On the west side lies the oldest part of the
palace, and the principal points in the former arrangement
of the building are indicated by the paving of the court. In
the middle of each facade there is a pavilion rising above an
archway. The western archway, which is surmounted by
the clock, leads into Place Napoleon III., which has its
centre occupied by a square, and its north and south sides
bordered with porticos surmounted by statues of eminent
Frenchmen. To the west is the Place du Carrousel. On
the south side at the junction of the Louvre and the Tuileries
is a gateway with three arches, of which the middle one is
crowned with the bronze group by Mercier, " The Genius
of the Arts," erected in 1875. The river-front of the Louvre
is in an older and more elegant style than the side facing
Rue de Rivoli. It is connected with the buildings of the
quadrangle by Henry IV. 's pavilion, which contains in its
first story the elegant Apollo gallery.
The Palais de Justice in La Cite" presents on the W.
side, towards Place Dauphine, a Greek fa$ade by Due
(1865-1870), one of the finest productions of modern art.
From the Boulevard du Palais on the east it is separated by
a magnificent 18th-century railing in wrought iron and gilt.
On this side lie the Salle des Pas Perdus and the Sainte-
Chapelle. The fine square tower known as the Clock Tower
stands at the corner formed by the Quai du Nord and the
Boulevard du Palais ; and on the north side lies the Con-
ciergerie prison with the dungeon once occupied by Marie
Antoinette. Opposite the Palais de Justice on the other
side of the Boulevard is the Tribunal de Commerce with
a remarkable staircase under the cupola.
On the left bank of the Seine are the Luxembourg
palace, the seat of the senate and formerly the residence of
Mary de' Medici ; the Bourbon palace, the seat of the
chamber of deputies, fronting the river and Pont de la Con
corde with a fine columned portico and pediment ; the
palace of the Legion of Honour, an exquisite building of
Louis XIV.'s time ; and the palace of the Institute, with
a handsome dome. On the right side of the river lie the
Elysee palace (in the Champs-Elysees), a vast building in
a modern style, the residence of the president of the re
public, and the palace of the Trocadero, built for the Exhi
bition of 1878, the central rotunda of which contains the
largest music-hall in Paris (for 15,000 auditors) and a
colossal organ.
Among the Government and administrative buildings
may be mentioned the Hotel de Ville, burnt in 1871, but
rebuilt finer than before on the old site; the ministry of
foreign affairs, where the congress of Paris was held in 1856;
the ministry of marine, which occupies on Place de la Con
corde one of the two pavilions erected by Gabriel on each
side of Rue Royale ; the ministry of war in the Boulevard
St Germain ; the Bank, formerly the De la Vrilliere "hotel,"
built by Mansard ; the Mint, with a fine facade stretching
394 feet along Quai Conti not far from Pont Neuf ; the
national printing establishment, formerly Cardinal Rohan's
mansion ; and the national record office, close at hand,
formerly the Soubise mansion. These last two buildings
are in the Quartier du Marais, where a great many ancient
mansions are now used as warehouses and workshops.
Besides the Hotel Carnavalet and the Hotel de Cluny
may be mentioned the tower of Rue aux Ours, the last
remnant of the Hotel de Bourgogne; the Hotel de Sens,
formerly the residence of the archbishop of the province;
the Hotel Lambert at the head of lie St Louis, adorned
with paintings by Lesueur; the turret of the Hotel Barbette
(Rue vieille du Temple).
The largest and finest of the religious buildings of Paris Churches,
is the cathedral of Notre Dame (426 feet long by 164 wide),
restored between 1846 and 1879 by Viollet-le-Duc. As it
now exists this church has five naves running the whole
length of the building, and square chapels; the central
Heche, recently restored, is 312 feet high, and two massive
square towers worthily crown the principal facade, which is
one of the most beautiful that has come down to us from
the Middle Ages. The transept has also two facades, which,
while less imposing, are more richly decorated with chiselled
work, dating from about the middle of the 13th century.
Of the elaborate decoration of the interior all that is old i.s
a part of the screen of the choir, from the 14th century.
St Genevieve or the Pantheon, consecrated by the Con
vention to illustrious men, but since restored to Christian
worship, has the form of a Greek cross with a dome in the
centre and a columned portico in front, the pediment of
which contains an immense bas-relief by David of Angers
representing great men crowned by their country. Fenelon,
Rousseau, Voltaire, Mirabeau, Laplace, Cuvier, &c., may
be distinguished. The crypt contains the tombs of Soufflot
(the architect of the church), Rousseau, Voltaire, &c. Near
St Genevieve stand St Etienne du Mont with a magnificent
roodloft, and the chapel of St Genevieve with the tomb
of this patroness of Paris. The Madeleine, intended by
Napoleon I. for a temple of victory, has consequently the
form of a Greek temple. At St Germain des Pros, St
Severin, and St Vincent de Paul are beautiful frescos by
Hippolyte Flandrin, to whom a monument has been erected
in St Germain. St Eustache contains Colbert's tomb; St
Germain 1'Auxerrois has a curious porch ; and St Sulpice,
which is nearly as large as Notre Dame, presents in its
main front the most vigorous effort yet made to apply
classical architecture in the building of Christian churches.
Notre Dame des Victoires is a great resort of pilgrims.
The church of the Vow of the Sacred Heart, at present in
course of erection on Montmartre, will when finished be one
of the most remarkable buildings in Paris from its com
manding site, the extent of its crypt, and the vast proper-
PARIS
277
tions of its dome and tower, respectively 197 and 262 feet
in height.
Tieatres. Theatres. — Of the many buildings in Paris devoted to
theatrical entertainments there is only one, at once the
largest and the most beautiful, which is of real archi
tectural importance — the Grand Ope'ra, or national academy
of music and dancing. The opera house, which covers 2-|
acres, is the finest theatre in the world. The process of
erection, directed by Charles Gamier, lasted from 1861 to
1875, required 673,295 days' work, and cost £1,440,000.
The front is decorated on the ground story by allegorical
groups (music by Guillaume ; lyrical poetry by Jouffroy;
lyrical drama by Perraud ; and dancing by Carpeaux) and
allegorical statues. In the first story a row of coupled
Corinthian columns (each consisting of a single block) forms
an open gallery, above which are seven busts of famous
musicians, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. Above the architrave
of the front appears the dome which covers the auditorium,
and behind that rises the vast pediment above the stage
decorated at the corners with enormous groups. On the
summit of the pediment an Apollo, raising aloft his lyre, is
seen against the sky and forms the culminating point of
the whole edifice. The sides are not so richly decorated as
the front, but each has in the centre an elegant cylindrical
pavilion with a carriage entrance. Behind are the build
ings occupied by the managers and staff. The interior is
decorated throughout in the most gorgeous manner with
massive gilding, flamboyant scroll-work, statues, paintings,
&c. The grand vestibule with statues of Lully, Rameau,
Gluck, and Handel, the grand staircase (an indubitable
masterpiece), the avant-foyer or corridor leading to the foyer,
and the, foyer or crush-room itself are especially worthy of
mention. This last, which is 197 feet long, 43 broad, and
59 high, has its ceiling brilliantly painted by Baudry, whose
work, however, can hardly be appreciated properly from
the excess of light. The auditorium is seated for 2156;
its ceiling is painted by Lenepveu. Behind the stage is the
foyer de la danse or green-room for the ballet, adorned with
large allegorical panels and portraits of the most eminent
danseuses.
The comic opera has a theatre to itself, L'Ope'ra Co-
mique ; and operettas are played at La Renaissance, Les
Bouffes, Les Folios Dramatiques, and Dejazet. The
Thratre Frangais and the Ode"on represent the works of
the classical dramatists, as well as modern pieces tragic
or comic. Comedy and vaudevilles are played at the
Gymnase and the Vaudeville ; and the Palais Royal, the
\rarie'tes, and the Nouveantes devote themselves especi
ally to farce. Pieces of the popular class, fairy scenes
and spectacular displays, are the main attraction of
the Chatelet, the Gaiete, the Porte St Martin, and the
Ambigu. The Chateau d'Eau now gives popular operatic
performances. Equestrian entertainments are supplied by
the hippodrome and three circuses. The cafe concerts —
which during the summer season abound in the Champs
Elysdes — remove in winter to the Boulevard de Strasbourg
and the Montmartre and Poissonniere faubourgs, where
there are also some permanent establishments of the kind.
Several companies give concerts of classical music on stated
days in the winter season ; the finest are those of the
Conservatoire and the Chateau d'Eau, Chatelet, and Cirque
theatres.
rron- Arrondissements. — The city is divided into twenty arrondisse-
isse- ments. Only the first twelve belonged to Paris previous to 1860 ;
lents. the others correspond to the old suburban communes then annexed.
The first four arrondissements occupy the space on the right of the
river, extending from the Place de la Concorde to the Bastille, and
from the Seine to the line of the Grands Boulevards ; the 5th, 6th,
and 7th arrondissements lie opposite them on the left side ; the
8th, 9th 10th, llth, and 12th surround the first four arrondisse
ments on the north; the 13th, 14th, and 15th are formed out of the
old suburban communes of the left side ; and the 16th, 17th, 18th,
19th, and 20th out of the old surburban communes of the right
side.
Population and Vital Statistics. — The growth of the population Popula-
during the last six hundred years is shown in the following table tion.
(I.):-
Years.
Population.
Years.
Population.
1292
215,861
1841
935,261
1553
260,000
1846
1,053,897
1718
509,000
1851
1,053,2621
1755
576,000
1856
1,174,346
1784
660,000
1861
1,696,7412
1800
547.7561
1866
1,825,274
1817
713,966
1872
1,851,792
1831
785,862
1876
1,988,806
1836
868,438
1881
2,269,023
The figures for December 1881, like the rest of those in the table,
represent the number of people legally domiciled at Paris at the
date given, but the number actually present in the city at last
census was only 2,239,928 (1,113,326 males and 1,126,602 females).
The following table (II.) shows the distribution of the population
in the several arrondissements : —
Number and Name of
AiTondUsernent.
Area
in
Acres.
Inhabitants.
Houses.
Births
(1881).
Deaths
(1881).
No. of
Inhabit
ants per
Acre.
1. Louvre
470
241
287
387
015
521
996
941
526
706
892
1,803
1,544
1,147
1,782
1,752
1,100
1,282
1,398
1,287
: 5,390
76,394
94,254
103,700
114,444
97,735
83,327
89,004
122,896
1(9,809
209,246
102,435
91,315
91,713
100,079
60,702
143,187
178,836
117,885
126,917
2,104
2,278
2,380
2,404
3,208
2,746
2,441
3,393
3,480
3,773
5,539
4,181
3,933
4,372
5,229
4,406
5,366
6,166
4,033
5,522
1,605
1,873
2,434
2,724
3,033
2,188
1,796
1 ,403
2,597
3,879
6,472
2,984
2,883
3,071
2,915
1,265
3,637
5,426
3,682
4,007
1,428
1,452
2,000
2,473
2,780
1,989
1,994
1,372
1,887
3,646
5,654
2,864
3,154
2,782
2,981
1,265
3,214
4,804
3,490
3,875
160
317
328
268
186
188
84
95
234
22(5
235
79
59
80
57
35
130
139
84
T9
2. Uours-e
3. Temple
4. Hotel de Ville
5. Piinthdon
0. Luxembourg
7. Palais-Bourbon
8. Klysee
0. Opera
10. St Laurent
11. Popincourt
12. Keuilly
13. Gobelins
14. Observatoire
IS. Vaugirard
16. Passy
17. Batiguollcs
18. Montmartre
19. Buttes-Chaumont..
20. Mdnilmontanf
19.177
2,209,928 ' 77,014
50,874
57,000
117
The number of births and of deaths in Paris during the five
years 1876-80—278,785 births and 252,500 deaths— apparently
shows nothing exceptional as compared with the rest of France.
It is to be observed, however, that the population is composed to a
larger extent than usual of adults, young children being sent to the
country, and old men withdrawing. The number of marriages,
20,993' for 1881, with an average of 18,427 for the five previous
years, is rather small for the proportion of marriageable persons.
Of the 1,113,326 males in 1881, 621,569 were unmarried, 440,022
married, and 51,735 widowers; of the 1,126,602 females, 557,054
were unmarried, 446,297 married, and 123,251 widows. The sub
joined table (III.) shows the proportion of individuals of the
various ages specified, in each 10,000 of the inhabitants, according
to the census of 1881. It will be seen that the proportion was
greater in Paris from 20 to 55, and smaller below and above those
ages.
Number of Persons
Number of Pers-ns
Age.
In Paris.
In France.
Age.
In Paris.
In France.
Oto 5
711
976
50 to 55
554
546
5 , 10
642
867
55 60
391
483
10 , 15
671
869
60 65
297
415
15 , 20
849
858
65 70
186
317
20 , 25
1,118
874
70 75
119
222
25 . 30
1,010
709
75 80
67
140
30 , 35
966
707
80 85
22
62
35 , 40
901
682
85 90
9
18
40 , 45
800
641
90 . 95
2
7
45 , 50
675
604
95 , 100
0
3
The following table shows the occupations of the population in
1881:—
1 The decrease between 1784 and 1800 was due to the Reign of
Terror, and that between 1846 and 1851 to the Revolution of 1848.
a The increase in 1861 is largely due to the incorporation of the
suburban districts.
•278
PARIS
T.UU.K IV. — Distribution of Population according to Occupation (1881).
Employers. Agents or Clerks. Workpeople.
Males. Females. ' Males. Females. Males. Females
Agriculture.
Landowners fanning their lands. . ;
Farmers, cultivators, "metayers",
Small proprietors working tor ^
others f
Foresters. . . .
Industry.
Engaged in mines, quarries, and
metal-workingtstablishments
Engaged in other maniifactur-
In petty industries.
598
220
142
376
1,238
2,729
40,1-13
Trade.
Hankers, agents, wholesale
traders
Retail traders, shopkeepers....
Keepers of hotels,taverns,coffee-
houses, and lodging-houses.
14,128
40,525
21,178
Transport and Shipping.
Engaged on railways or as carriers'
Connected with mercantile )
marine, pilotage, fisheries, &c. (
1,401
261
96
28
49
210
121
357
20,521
1,539
15,349
7,1-16
Army, Navy, and Police.
Army. . .'. ". '10,988
Navy '' 198
Gendarmerie and police ' 8,105
Liberal Professions.
Civil service- I 6,045 553
1,308
1,107 ! 3,432
3,638 | ...
3,913 ! 1,429
4,398 i 4,032
11,374 ! 4,527
Science 3,591 281
Clergy
Religions communities
Justice, administration of...
Medicine
Education
Art...
1,314
29,700
43,092
47,972
11,118
10,737
US
182
8
995
16.509
166
273
2,114
994
1,573
2,931
208
170
1,686
19,919
7,288
25,306
4,568
639
264
455
489
12,728
46,478
258,506
6,970
23,128
6,467
222
85
78
222
Members of Family
living with tlie
Preceding.
Males. Females.
659
180
240
597
1,151
302
324
707
Domestics attached
to the Person.
Mules. Fern .iles.
248
69
24
75
451
50
47
127
Total.
4,143
1,232
1,380
2,923
Total.
9,678
1,080
31,743
239,364
5,133
17,984
108,663
9,940
27,835
185,844
267
1,474
8,123
863
3,769
18,813
32,854
139,863
929,596
Total... .. 1,102,313
3,917
17,851
3,006
17,781
29,520
16,033
40,033
61,605
27/975
3,794
5,687
14,844
16,082
6,518 11,255
85,765
146,835
61,314
Total... 293,914
514 ! 10,539
8 115
858
13
7,202 ' 16,301
147 326
281
32
48,830
1,075
Total.
49,905
1,947
72
309
23
412
1,407
538
28
789
1
614
3,149
32
36
n
335
109
1,921
37
7!
391
50
2,782
1,106
138
6,443
203
78
98
407
100
267
14,082
576
19,389
Total.
34,047
1,170
2
120
5
176
101
521
8,746
159
6
2,198
2,112
2,184
4,912
1,224
19,789
636
172
4,682
4,288
4,466
10,192
3,109
1,856
193
117
1,171
1,369
1,060
1,321
624
5,856
651
336
3,057
3,276
2,441
4,406
2,075
66,720
3,219
5,938
16,899
18,304
21,821
42,646
11,184
Living on Realized Means.
Proprietor*, "rentiers" ! 39,244 i 41,337
Pensioners, ' &c | 7,083 | 1383
Total 186,731
6,923 7,891 I 1,026 ! 1,577
448
54
98
18,171 i 4], 458
2,435 4,988
13,674
1,124
36,559
210,860
20,050
Total 230,910
Without Occupation. — Children supported outside of their own commune by their parents ; inmates of hospitals, prisons, &<
Occupation unknown
61,699
12,967
Grand Total 2.239,918
Barely a third (322 per 1000) of the population are Parisians by
birth, — 38 "2 per 1000 having been born in the other communes
of the department of Seine, 565 in the other departments of France
or in French colonies, and 74 '8 abroad. The foreign population
shows a tendency to increase ; in 1876 380 per 1000 were natives
of the department, the proportion of foreigners being only 60. In
1881 the English numbered 10,789; Germans, 31,190; Belgians,
45,281 ; Dutch, 9250; Italians, 21,577; Swiss, 20,810; Americans,
5987; and other nationalities, 19,154.
The following were the principal causes of death in 1882: —
phthisis, 10,342 deaths ; diarrhoea, 5095 ; pneumonia, 4127 ; conges
tion of the brain, 2668 ; organic diseases of the heart, 2873 ; men
ingitis, 2605 ; chronic bronchitis, 2630 ; cancer, 2251 ; typhoid
fever, 3352 ; acute bronchitis, 1730 ; croup and diphtheria, 1805 ;
small-pox, 661 ; infantile weakness, 1458 ; senile debility, 1350.
Municipal Administration. — Each arrondisscment is divided into
four quarters, each of which nominates a member of the municipal
council. The functionaries of the arrondissement are —a mayor
(mairc) and three deputies (adjoint.*) nominated by the prefect of
Seine, who act as registrars, and preside over the poor-relief (bureau
df biexfaisance) of their arrondisscment, and a justice of the peace
(jugc depaix) nominated by the Government. There is no elective
mayor of Paris : the president of the municipal council, who is nom
inated by his colleagues, merely acts as chairman of their meetings.
When occasion requires, the function of mayor of Paris is discharged
by the prefect of Seine. The municipal council discusses and votes
the budget of the city. The importance of the business thus trans
acted will be seen below. The prefect of Seine and the prefect of
police (both magistrates named by the Government, but each with
a quite distinct sphere of action) represent the executive authority
as opposed to the municipal council, which latter has no power by
refusing a vote of credit to stop any public service the maintenance
of which legally devolves on the city: in case of such refusal the
minister of the interior may officially insert the credit in the
budget. And in like manner lie may appeal to the head of the
state to cancel any decision in which the council has exceeded its
legal functions. The prefecture of Seine comprises a departmental
service, differing in no essential particular from that of other pre
fectures, and a municipal service for the city of much more import
ance. Elections, rates, municipal debt, city schools, public lands,
municipal buildings, markets and market-places (in respect to the
collection of dues), cemeteries, roads and streets, public edifices,
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279
water-works and sewers, promenades and plantations, river naviga
tion and river ports, public pawnbroking establishments, and the
relief of the poor are all under the control of the prefecture of
Seine.
The prefecture of police includes the whole department of Seine
and the neighbouring communes of the department of Seine-et-
Oise — Meudon, St Cloud, Sevres, and Enghien. It consists of
three sections — political police, police of public safety, and admin
istrative police, the two former being rather national than muni
cipal. The state consequently repays two-fifths of the animal
budget of about £800,000 which this prefecture receives from the
city.
The municipal police deals with public health, civil order, and
repression of crimes and misdemeanours, whether against person,
property, or morals. It exercises surveillance over lodging houses,
the insane, and prostitutes, tests weights and measures, and has
charge of the markets, the public vehicles, the fire department,
sanitary arrangements, and exhumations and reinterments in the
cemeteries.
The prefect of police has a staff of 8500 officials— cmnmissaires
de police, officiers de paix, gardiens de fa jiaix (a kind of police-
magistrate1;, and inspectors. He has also under his orders the sapeurs
pompiers or fire-brigade (1742 men), and the republican guard,
long called the municipal guard, which numbers 3295 men, besides
a mounted force of 726. He has full control over the budget of
his department, which is voted en bloc by the municipal council.
Expen- Revenue and Expenditure. — The heaviest item of expenditure is
diture. the public debt : the sum at 31st December 1883, represented by
the series of annuities terminable in 1950, amounts to a total of
£171,730,965. The annuity for 1883 was £3,693,303. Over and
above this the city is authorized to have a floating debt of £800,000.
The following are in round nr.nbers the main items of the ordinary
budget for IS 83, — the exact sum varying from year to year :—
Prefecture of police (partly repaid by the state) £950,000
Streets and roads (" voie publique" and "voierie") 999,000
Primary and professional education 890, 000
Poor relief. 795,000
Water-works and drainage 520,000
Public walks, plantations, and lighting 392,000
Octroi or customs (the main source of municipal revenue) 296,000
Central administration, " mairies," and municipal council 337.000
Architecture and fine arts 212,000
By the addition of the expenses of the College Rollin (an institu
tion for secondary education belonging to the city), and some
miscellaneous expenses of less amount, the ordinary budget for
1883 reached the sum of £10,106,533, and by the further addi
tion of £44,000 belonging to the previous year, a grand total of
£10,150,533.
The extraordinary budget shows expenses to the amount of
£298,444 on general funds, and £90,000 on special funds. The
former is specially devoted to architectural works (rebuilding the
Hotel de Yille) and keeping up streets and roadways, and the
latter to the erection of buildings ^Sorboune, f.icultv of law, and
canal St Denis).
Revenue. The following are the principal items of ordinary revenue : —
Octroi (municipal customs) £5,596,802
Communal centimes added to the direct contributions 948,805
Municipal share in the profits of the gas company 604,000
Water-rates and income from the canals belonging to
the city 442,867
Government subsidy to the municipal police 307,753
Fines, shooting licences 220,110
Revenue for public instruction (legacies, &c.) Unknown
Duty on gas supplied to private persons (0'02 fr. per
ciib. met., about 5^d. per 1000 cub. feet) 225,250
Cab-stands, omnibuses, and tramways 194,937
Government subsidy for the maintenance of the public
roads and streets 164,000
Dues from goods exposed for sale in the public markets 1 80,012
Slaughter-houses 138,136
Householders' street-cleaning tax (taxe de lalaijagc) . . . 108,416
Warehouses 101,492
Sale of burial-lots in the cemeteries 94,284
Stands in the markets and market-places 83,461
Paving and cleaning of the streets 95,717
Ground-rents 62,594
Nightsoil and sewage 56,597
Rent of stands on the public streets 51,782
Including less important items, the total ordinary revenue in
1882 was £10,489,373 ; and the arrears of former years' revenue
paid up amounted to £1,218,883.
The extraordinary budget on general and special funds amounts to
£6,450,037 ; but a large proportion of this consists of sums which
are carried forward from one fiscal year to another, till the expenses
which they are meant to cover are liquidated.
The chief items in the octroi are —
Beverages £2,566,118
Eatables 1,232,362
Liquids, other than beverages 608, 238
Fuel 463,278
Building materials 525,698
Wood for industrial purposes 246,693
Fodder. 204,102
Total (1882), comprising other less important items,.. ..£5, 986,541
Streets. — The public streets, covering an area of 3877 acres, Streets,
make a total length of 580 miles, 143 miles being bordered with
trees. The municipality is going on with the work of planting
as rapidly as possible, though each new tree costs about £8.
The staff entrusted with maintaining and cleaning the public
streets comprises 320 engineers, overseers, and timekeepers, who
have under their orders 2123 paviors and roadmen and 3185 per
manent and supernumerary scavengers. The maintenance of the
streets costs £406,800 ; that of the pavements and sidewalks,
£62,224; cleaning, £259,480. The streets are for the most part
paved (1525 acres on January 1, 1883), usually with Yvette sand
stone from the neighbourhood of Paris. The most frequented
crossings are laid with Belgian porphyry. The metalled roadways
cover 445 acres, the asphalted 83 acres, the earthen 26. Wooden
paving, previously employed only for 2 acres, was in 1883 laid
down in the Champs Elysees, and in 1884 extended to the Avenue
I de 1'Opera, Rue de Rivoli. the line of the Grands Boulevards, and
j Rue Royale. Of the total area of 1131 acres occupied by pavements
I and sidewalks, two-ninths are covered with asphalt, one-third
1 with sand, one-seventh with granite, and the rest with paving-
stone.
There are 5070 plugs for the watering of the streets, and 400
water-carts. The annual consumption of water for this purpose
amounts to 130,174,478 cubic feet (195 days). The sweeping of
the streets in the morning devolves on the householders, and is
commuted by payment of a tax (see above) ; during the day the
whole cost falls on the municipality.
The point of greatest traffic in Paris is the Place de la Bastille ;
one current passing from Rue St Autoine to the Faubourg St
Autoine and another from the Grands Boulevards to the railway
stations for Yincennes, Lyons, and Orleans. On an average 42,000
carriages and 55,900 draught horses pass through this square in
the twenty-four hours. Next in amount of traffic come Rue de
Rivoli, 33*232 vehicles ; Avenue de 1'Opera, 29,460 ; Rue du Pont
Neuf, 20,668; Boulevard des Italiens, 20,124; Place de 1'Etoile,
18,311; Rue Royale, 14,095. The most frequented of the bridges
are Pont de la Concorde, 10,003 ; Pont Neuf, 8519 ; and Pont
d'Austerlitz, 7340.
Means of Conveyance. — Cabs, omnibuses, tramways, steamboats, Convey-
and a railway (the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture) are the local ance.
means of transit in Paris. The steamboats ply up the river to
Charenton, down the river to Suresnes. Within the city, in 1882,
they plied on 329 days, made an aggregate of 8162 days of service,
traversed 479.997 miles, and conveyed 11,170,980 passengers. Out
side the limits of the city, up the river, the days were also 329 —
aggregate days 2265, aggregate distance 123,007 miles, passengers
3,122,593; down the river the days were 329 — aggregate days
2356, miles 180,138, and passengers 1,262,680. The omnibus
company employs both ordinary omnibuses and tramway-cars. In
1882 it employed 610 omnibuses and 255 tram-cars, conveying
200, 187, 455 passengers. The two tramway companies distinguished
as Northern and Southern have conveyed respectively 26,076,761
and 27,067,951 passengers. The Chemin de Fer de Ceinture,
which runs round the city just within the fortifications, conveyed
21,617,909 passengers. As cab-hiring is an open industry (though
the cabmen are restricted in their charges by a tarif, and are
subject to police control), the movement of the cabs cannot be
given exactly. In 1882 the number of horses belonging to private
persons and bound to be at the service of the army in case of mobi
lization was found to be 95,847 ; in 1878 the number of carnages
was 13,372.
Water and Drainage. —Paris derives its water-supply (1) from Water
the Seine and the Marne, (2) from the Ourcq Canal, (3) from supply,
artesian wells, and (4) from springs. (1) The two steam-pumps at
Chaillot on the Seine raise each at their ordinary rate 635,688
j cubic feet and at their maximum 1,518,588 in the twenty-four
| hours. The ten pumps at Port & 1' Anglais and Maisons- Alfort above
! Paris, at St Ouen below Paris, and at the Quai d'Austerlitz and
! Auteuil (within the city), can supply about 600,372,000 cubic feet
j per annum. In 1880 about 2,119,000 cubic feet on an average were
j taken daily from the Seine. The water is stored in reservoirs at the
• highest points in Passy, Montmartre, Charonne, and Gentilly. The
! establishment at St Maur, situated on the canal which closes the
! loop of the Marne, and partly moved by the head of water and
: partly by steam, supplies the Bois de Yincennes and the elevated
i districts of Belleville and Menilmontant. It can furnish 2,896,000
! cubic feet in the twenty-four hours. (2) The Ourcq Canal, which is
280
PARIS
also used as a water-way, comes from the department of Aisne, and
terminates at the La Villette basin, which also receives the St Denis
and St Martin Canals. It brings a volume of 4,414,500 cubic feet per
day, to which are added in summer from 2,000,000 to 2,500,000 cubic
fee't procured from the Marne near the confluence of the Ourcq,
and discharged into the canal. The water is hardly suitable for
domestic use owing to the quantity of foreign matter which it con
tains. (3) The water of the artesian wells is much purer. The
Crenelle well is 1797 feet deep, and reaches the greensand ; its daily
yield is 12,360 cubic feet of water at a temperature of 80° Fahr. ,
which rises to a height of 238 or 239 feet, and can thus be carried
to the summit of Mont St Gene vie ve. The Passy well is 1922 feet
deep, and yields an average of 233,000 cubic feet in the twenty-four
hours. By the hydrometer Seine water registers 18°, that of the
Ourcq 28°^ that of the Passy well only 9°. A new well is being
sunk (1884) at La Chapelle, and another at Butte-aux-Cailles.
(4) Till quite recently all the s'pring water was brought to Paris
by two aqueducts. The Arcueil aqueduct, 8 miles long, on the
left of the Seine, furnishes 67,100 cubic feet per day; that of
Belleville, on the right side, which up to the beginning of the
17th century fed all the fountains of Paris with the waters of
Belleville and the Pres St Gervais, now yields only 6000 cubic
feet in the twenty- four hours. This insufficiency of spring water
has been supplied by the Dhuis and the Vanne, two streams of La
Champagne. The former is diverted near Chateau Thierry (Aisne)
and conveyed by an aqueduct 81 miles long into the Menil-
montant reservoirs (354 feet above the sea, or more than 250 feet
above the level of the Seine), which consist of two stories, one
above the other, with a united capacity of 4,538,000 cubic feet,
and usually containing a store equal to five average days' influx.
In the valley of the Vanne (a tributary of the Yonne, which it
reaches at Sens), Paris has obtained possession of a great number
of springs, which, when the rivers are at their lowest, yield in
the twenty-four hours 3,531,600 cubic feet of a perfectly pure
water at a steady temperature of 52° Fahr. The aqueduct from
the Vanne ends at Montrouge at a height of 262 feet, in reser
voirs capable of holding 10,594,800 cubic feet, equal to three average
days' influx. Every year new works are constructed to increase the
quantity of water distributed. In June 1883 the machines raised
for the first time 2,825,000 cubic feet on the plateau of Villejuif.
The total quantity of water supplied to Paris will now be 20,130,000
cubic feet in the twenty-four hours. The quantity actually required
is not less than 14,127,000 cubic feet, or not quite 44 gallons per
head of the population, a proportion exceeded in several other great
cities. This water is distributed by 66 monumental fountains, 763
bornes-fontaines (i.e., smaller fountains or wells, similar in appear
ance to a boundary stone or milestone), 5249 common street taps, 53
pumps, 181 plugs for the use of the watering carts, 4175 plugs for
attachment of watering hose, 363 fire-plugs, 178 cocks at cab-stands,
in the Wallace fountains, and the urinals. There is a certain
number of fountains not open to the public where water is retailed
to the water-carriers ; and a large number of private houses have
water laid on to their courts, or in many cases to the several
stories. The public baths (151 in number) and the washing
establishments (263, with 21,911 stands) receive daily 2,358,000
gallons of water. The water-pipes, varying in diameter from a little
more than an inch to upwards of 4 feet, the commonest size being
about 8 inches, have a total leiigth of 94,904 miles.
Drain- Since about the middle of the present century all houses have
age. been bound to discharge their rain and waste water directly into the
sewers ; but, though these are annually being extended, there are
still streets into which they have not been introduced. On the
31st of December 1881 their total length was nearly 441 miles.
The drainage of both sides of the river is collected in a great sewer
ending in the Seine at Clichy opposite Asnieres ; the main sewer
of the left side of the river is connected with that of the right side
by a siphon which passes under the Seine by a tunnel near the
Pont de 1'Alma. A departmental sewer, receiving the waters of
the elevated districts of Charonne, Menilmontant, Belleville, and
Montinartre, terminates at St Denis. These sewers are much more
than great drains : they are used as passages for water-pipes, gas-
pipes, telegraph wrtes, and pneumatic tubes. The two largest
classes of them have a height respectively of 14£ feet and 17 feet 6
inches at the keystone, and a width respectively of 18 feet 5 inches
and 17 feet at the spring of the arch. The smallest class is only
6 feet high and 3 feet wide. The most usual class, of which there
are 171 miles, has a height of 7i feet and a width of 4^ feet.
The sewage from these mains is partly employed in irrigation in
the plain of Gennevilliers on the left bank of the Seine opposite St
Denis and Clichy. At the close of 1881 1216 acres were under treat
ment, though the system was only commenced in 1 872 on a tenth
of that area ; and the drains employed, varying from 1 to 4 feet in
diameter, had an extent of 21 miles, and discharged the sewage
by 571 outlets. The quantity of sewage discharged daily by the
sewers varies from 10,171,000 cubic feet to 13,112,266 cubic feet
(1881). The amount absorbed by.irrigation varies according to the
season. Thus in May 1881 it was 95,907,555 cubic feet, and in
September only 15,719,780 cubic feet. The daily average through
out the year shows 54,935,945 cubic feet, watering 213 acres.
The value of the land (originally sandy) at Gennevilliers has
considerably increased since the introduction of this system. The
rent of a hectare (2'47 acres), which was 152 francs between 1865 and
1870, reached 300 francs in 1878 and 450 in 1880. The cultivation
of the plain gives employment to 1350 hands, and the population
of the commune has steadily increased — 1897 in 1872, 2389 in 1876,
3192 in 1881. The municipality proposes to extend this system of
irrigation, which absorbs only a part of the sewage, to the foot of
the St Germain forest, and thus to utilize the masses of foul water
which still go to pollute the Seine.
Nightsoil is collected in three different ways : — (1) in cesspools
of mason-work, which ought to be watertight and to communicate
with the open air by a ventilating pipe rising above the tops of the
neighbouring houses ; (2) in movable buckets, placed in suitably
ventilated cellars ; (3) in filtering tinettes, which discharge their
liquids directly into the sewer. On the 31st December 1882 the
number of cesspools was 66,610, of movable buckets 14,952, and of
tinettes 17,033. The uightsoil contractors have to be authorized
by the prefect of Seine. The cesspools must not be emptied except
by night. The quantity removed in 1881 was 39,797,810 cubic
feet— 35,098,453 cubic feet from the cesspools, 3,682,187 from the
movable buckets, and 1,017,170 from the tinettes.
Lighting. — The lighting of Paris is practically in the hands of Light-
the gas company, electric lighting being still in the experimental ing.
stage (28 burners in the public streets in 1882), and oil being used
only in a small and ever-diminishing number of out-of-the-way
streets (472 burners in 1881). The gas company manufactured in
1861 2,974,690,553 cubic feet of gas, in 1875 6,213,435,025 cubic
feet, and in 1882 9,726,709,281 cubic feet, this last quantity being
obtained from 917,867 tons of raw material (10,597 cubic feet per
ton). The gas mains belonging to the company make a total length
of 1222 miles ; those in the public streets feed 42,514 burners, con
suming 1,301,226,027 cubic feet for public lighting. The company
further supplies 7,163,994,098 cubic feet to 154,962 private cus
tomers in the city, and 600,208,654 cubic feet to 53 communes
in the outskirts. About 660,593,880 cubic feet, or 6 '8 per cent.,
is lost in transmission. The daily consumption reaches a maxi
mum (36,005,949 cubic feet) in December and a minimum
(14,073,112 cubic feet) in July.
Public Instruction. — The so-called salles d'asile are infant Educa-
schools for children from three to six years of age, i.e., from the tion.
time when their mothers place them in the creches or day-nurseries
(see below) and the time when they may be admitted to the primary
schools. The municipality maintains 126 secular salles d'asile
receiving 15,939 children, and one salle congreganiste (i.e., under
the management of a religious society) with 279 children. The
private establishments comprise 23 secular "salles" with 1243
children, and 39 congreganist "salles" with 4231.
In 1882 the municipality supported 173 primary secular schools
(56,369 pupils) for boys, 161 secular schools (46,579 pupils) and 2
congreganist schools (765 pupils) for girls. The private primary
schools are 183 secular schools and 70 congreganist for boys,
577 secular schools and 136 congreganist for girls, — number of
pupils unknown. At certain hours the primary schools are trans
formed into classes for adults — 116, with 14,288 pupils. The
"higher schools" (tcoles superieures) supply education for in
dustrial or commercial careers. They have 677 pupils between
six and thirteen years of age and 2956 above thirteen, who are dis
tributed among the College Chaptal and the Turgot, Lavoisier,
Colbert, J. 13. Say, and Arago schools. The apprentice school (icole
d'apprcntis) with 228 pupils, the normal schools (for males, 205
pupils ; for females, 68 pupils), and the Pape-Carpentier school,
which trains matrons for the salles d'asile, complete the list of the
municipal establishments for primary education. Besides there are
private normal schools for Protestant teachers (male and female), a
private normal school for girls, normal classes for ladies under the
auspices of the Society for Elemental'}' Instruction, and ] rofcssional
schools for both girls and boys. Commercial instruction is given
in two schools placed under the patronage of the chamber of com
merce, and a special commercial high school establi.-hcd about 1880.
In 1881 a fund was established for placing indigent but deserving
pupils in free primary boarding-schools, at the expense of the city.
Between Oct. 1881 and Oct. 1882 494 pupils were thus dealt with
at a cost of £9367. Municipal libraries, subsidized by the city,
have been established in all the arromlisscments ; in 1882 they
lent 401,415 works, the number of books contained in the libraries
being 89,355.
Secondary education is provided by the municipal College Kollin ;
in the national lycees (Louis le Grand, Henry IV., St Louis, and
Vanves), which have both boarders and day pupils ; the Charlemagne
andCoudorcet lycees, for day pupils only ; and the College Stanislas,
more especially for boarders. It is between these establishments,
subjected to the same university programme, and the Versailles lyceo
that the great competition of the Sorbonne takes place at the close
of each school year. The number of their pupils in 1882 (Stanislas
PARIS
281
cxcepted) was 8048. Among the private establishments giving
secondary education mention must be made of the College Ste Barbe,
the Monge, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Massillon schools, the old Jesuit
colleges at Vaugirard, Rue do Madrid, and Rue Lhomond, the two
lesser seminaries of Notre Dame des Champs and St Nicolas, and
numerous institutions preparatory for the examinations and special
schools. In 1881 there were 11, 608 pupils in the secular and 15,811 in
the ecclesiastical establishments, of which 1584 in addition attended
a lycee course. For some years there have been at the Sorbonne
special classes for young ladies, but the secondary education of girls
is only beginning to be organized. Higher education is given in
the faculties of science, literature, and Catholic theology, which are
together iu the Sorbonne, and in the faculties of law and of medicine,
each of which is by itself. There is also a faculty of Protestant
theology transferred to Paris from Strasburg. These faculties
confer the degrees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor. The Catholic
Institute, a private foundation, has faculties of law, literature, and
science, but has no right of conferring degrees. The Sorbonne, the
seat of the Academy of Paris and of its rector, who is the head of
the whole educational system, contains a library of 100,000 volumes
belonging to the university, and a well-appointed museum of
physical science, and laboratories. The school of law has a library
of 30,000 volumes and the school of medicine 60,000 volumes,
forming the most complete medical collection iu the world.
Connected with the school of medicine are the Orlila museum of
comparative anatomy, the Dupuytren pathological museum, the
practical school of anatomy, and a botanic garden, and the
midwifery schools of the Maternity and De la Pitie hospitals ; the
higher school of pharmacy and the dissecting amphitheatre for
hospital students are also affiliated institutions.
Whilst the "faculties" are specially intended to prepare for and
confer university degrees (though their lectures are open to the
public), the College de France is meant to give instruction of the
highest order to the general public (men or women) ; and the various
sciences <are there represented by thirty-seven chairs. The E^ole des
Hautcs Etudes supplements the theoretical instruction provided by
the public lectures of the higher education by practical training. The
upper normal school is for the training of "professors" for secondary
classical education and for the faculties. The l^cole des Hautcs Etudes
Ecclesiastiques prepares ecclesiastical "professors" for the institu
tions and lesser seminaries which supply secondary education, and
are placed in the hands of the clergy. The free school of the
political sciences prepares more especially candidates for adminis
trative employments (council of state, &c. ). The Ecole des Chartes
trains record-keepers in the reading and study of ancient documents.
The school of living Oriental languages teaches the principal languages
from Russian and Modern, Greek to Malay, Chinese, and Japanese.
The Polytechnic school (Ecole Polytechuique) trains military and
naval engineers for the artillery corps, the corps of engineers, and
the navy-yards, and civil engineers for the national corps of the
roads and bridges, the mines, and the state manufactories (tobacco,
powder, and saltpetre). As for infantry and cavalry officers, they
usually come from the special military school of St Cyr, when they
do not rise from the ranks. In Paris too are situated — the Ecole
Superieure de Guerre ; the practical schools of roads and bridges
and of mines, for the training of civil engineers, with libraries
and collections of models and classes in some cases open to
the public ; the Ecole d" Application des Tabacs ; the school of
military medicine and pharmacy. The central school of the arts
and manufactures, though some years ago it became a Government
institution, still educates engineers for ordinary industrial careers.
The school of the fine arts (Ecole des Beaux Arts), intended for
painters, sculptors, and architects, contains valuable collections,
which render the palace in which they are exhibited one of the
most interesting museums in Paris. The instruction in this institu
tion is at once theoretical and practical. It is open to all French
men from fifteen to thirty years of age, and even in some cases to
foreigners. Of the various competitions open to the pupils the
most important is for the j>ri.v dc Rome. The successful com
petitor is rewarded with four years' residence in Italy at
Government expense, two years being spent at the Medici palace in
Rome. Schools of design for boys and girls serve as preparatory for
the school of the fine arts, or train designers for industrial occupa
tions. There is a free school of architecture. Music and elocution
are taught at the Conservatoire, which possesses a musical library
and a very curious collection of musical instruments. The
diocesan seminary of St Sulpice receives clerical pupils from all
France to the number of 200 ; the foreign mission seminary trains
missionaries for the far East, and the seminary of St Esprit mis
sionaries for the French colonies. The Lazarists have also a
noviciat of their own. The Irish, English, and Scotch colleges, as
their names suggest, prepare priests for the Roman Catholic dioceses
of the United Kingdom.
.Juartier A district at one time almost exclusively occupied by students
and known as the Quartier Latin or Pays Latin was situated on
the left side of the river mainly in the arrondissement of Luxem
bourg; the old houses have, however, been almost entirely
demolished since about 1850. It corresponded on the whole to the
pre- Revolutionary quarter of St Benoit or the University, otherwise
called the Faubourg St Jacques. The most distinctive portion
lay between Rue St Jacques and Boulevard St Michel. Rue de
la Harpe opens into Boulevard St Michel ; and Rue du Fouarre,
frequently mentioned in mediaeval and Renaissance writers, strikes
N. E. from Rue St Jacques. The students now live for the most
part in the vicinity of Sorbonne and the schools of medicine and
law. They frequent the cafes and beershops of Boulevard St
Michel and its neighbourhood.
The principal libraries in Paris have already been described Libra-
under LIBRARIES (vol. xiv. pp. 524-6), and an account of the rjes.
observatory will be found in vol. xvii. p. 712.
The Bureau des Longitudes, which was founded in 1795 for Bureau
the advancement of astronomy and navigation, and publishes the des
Connaissance des Temps, is located at the Institute. The meteoro- Longi-
logical office and observatory is situated in the Montsouris Park, and tudes.
in connexion with it is a school of nautical astronomy and practical
geodesy. The observatory for physical astronomy is at Meudon.
The Conservatoire des Arts et des Metiers, in the old priory of Conser-
St Martin des Champs, was founded (1794) as a public repository of vatoire
machines, models, tools, plans, descriptions, and books in regard des Arts,
to all kinds of arts and trades. Various courses of lectures on the
applications of science to commerce and industry have been added
from time to time ; they are all open to the public without fee,
and are addressed rather to workmen and artisans than to the
wealthy or learned. The Agronomic Institute has recently been
removed to the Conservatoire.
The Jardin des Plantes (1626), about 75 acres in extent, forms Jardin
one of the most interesting promenades in Paris ; its museum of des
natural history (1793), with its zoological gardens, its hothouses Plantes.
and greenhouses, its nursery and naturalization gardens, its
museums of zoology, anatomy, anthropology, botany, mineralogy,
and geology, its laboratories, and its courses of lectures by the
most distinguished professors in all branches of natural science,
make it an institution of universally acknowledged eminence.
Learned Societies. — Among the learned societies of Paris the first Learned
in importance is the Institut de France, which has already been societies,
described (see INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, vol. xiii. p. 160). The
committee of learned societies at the ministry of public instruc
tion forms, as it were, the centre of the various societies not
maintained by the Government ; and the French Association for
the Advancement of the Sciences, founded in 1872, is based on
the model of the older British society, and like it meets every
year in a different town. The other societies may be classified as
follows : — 1. Historical or Geographical — History of France, Anti
quaries of France (till 1814 known as Celtic Academy), Historic
Studies, Numismatics and Archaeology, Bibliophiles, School of
Charters, Ethnography, Geography (1821, and thus the oldest of
its class), Asiatic (1822), French Alpine Club (Club Alpin) ; 2.
Natural and Medical Sciences — Anthropology, Zoological Acclima
tization (which has the direction of the zoological gardens in
the Bois de Boulogne), Entomological, Geological, Surgery,
Anatomy, Biology, Medical of the Hospitals, Legal Medicine or
Medical Jurisprudence, Practical Medicine, Pharmacy, Agricul
ture,1 Horticulture ; 3. Industrial and Moral Sciences — Encourage
ment of National Industry, Statistics, Elementary Instruction,
Franklin (for the foundation of popular libraries) ; 4. Positive
Sciences and Fine Arts — Philomathic, Physical, Philotechnie,
Athenteum of the Arts, Sciences, and Literature (1792), Concerts
of the Conservatoire de Musiqne (1795).
Newspapers. —Paris is very largely supplied with newspapers of News-
all descriptions. Sec NEWSPAPERS, vol. xvii. pp. 423-8. papers.
Museums. — The richest museum in Paris occupies the Louvre, the Muse-
finest of its palaces. On the ground floor are museums (1) of urns,
ancient sculpture, containing such treasures as the Venus of Milo,
the Pallas of Velletri (the most beautiful of all statues of Minerva),
the colossal group of the Tiber, discovered at Rome in the 14th
century, &c. ; (2) of medieval and renaissance sculpture, compris
ing works by Michelangelo, Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, John
of Bologna, &c., and special rooms devoted to early Christian monu
ments and to Jewish antiquities (this last a feature peculiar to the
Louvre) ; (3) of modern French sculpture, with works by Puget,
Coustou, Coysevox, Chaudet, Houdon, Rude, David of Angers, &c. ;
(4) of Egyptian sculpture and inscriptions ; (5) of Assyrian anti
quities ; (6) of Greek and Phoenician antiquities ; (7) of engraving.
On the first floor are (1) the Lacaze museum, a magnificent collection
of pictures presented to the state by M. Lacaze in 1869 ; (2) the splen
did musec de peinture ; (3) the Campana museum ; (4) a museum of
Greek antiquities ; (5) a museum of Egyptian antiquities ; (6) an
Oriental museum (Persian pottery, Chinese vases, lacquered wor!-,
&c. ) ; (7) the Lenoir museum (snuff-boxes, jewels, miniatures, lac
quered wares, bequeathed to the Louvre by M. and Madame Lenoir
1 As the National Society of Agriculture, in contrast to neaily all the other
societies, cons:sts of only a limited number of jiersons named by the Government,
to be a member of this corporation 1ms a distinct value similar (though at a con
siderable remove) to that of being a member of the Institute.
XVI7I. — 76
282
PARIS
Hos
pitals.
in 1S74); (8) the Ducliatcl room, bequeathed by the widow of the
minister of that name (La Source, a masterpiece by Ingres) ; (9) the
Timbal, His de la Salle, and Davilliers collections, consisting re
spectively of furniture drawing and curiosities, drawings, and
pottery, furniture, and tapestry ; (10) a mediaeval and renaissance
muscu'm, comprising French, Italian, or Hispano-Moorish pottery
and terra cotta ware, as well as objects in bronze, glass, and ivory —
the Sauvageot collection being of note ; (11) the museum of drawings
and chalks, of which the more valuable are preserved in drawers ;
(12) a museum of ancient bronzes ; (13) the Apollo gallery, adorned
by the leading artists who have been employed on the palace, and
containing the royal gems and jewels, articles of goldsmith's work,
and enamels. The second floor accommodates the naval museum,
the ethnographic, museum (African, Chinese, Mexican), part of the
French school of painting, and rooms for the study of Egyptian
papyrus-rolls.
The museum of the Luxembourg, installed in a portion of the
palace occupied by the senate, is devoted to works of living painters
and sculptors acquired by the state. They remain there for ten
years after the death of the respective artists, that the finest may
be selected for the Louvre.
The Cluny museum occupies the old mansion of the abbots of
that order, built in the 15th century by Jacques d'Amboise. It
was found. -d by M. du Sommerard, whose collections were acquired
by the state in 1843. Increased from year to year since that date,
it now contains about 10,000 articles— pieces of sculpture in marble
and stone, carvings in wood, ivories, enamels, terra cottas, bronzes,
furniture, pictures, stained glass, pottery, tapestry, glass ware, lock
smith work, and jewellery of mediaeval and Renaissance times. In
the neighbourhood are the remains of the 'ancient palace of the
emperor Julian; in the midst of the ruins, and in the garden which
surrounds them, has been collected a Gallo-Roman museum, to
which have been added many fragments of mediaeval sculpture or
masonry, found in the city or its vicinity. The Carnavalet museum
occupies the mansion in which Madame de Sevigne resided ; it is a
municipal museum, in which are brought together all objects of
interest for the history of Paris. The artillery museum, in the
Hotel des Invalides, comprises ancient armour, military weapons,
flags, and an ethnographic collection reproducing the principal
types of Oceania, America, and the coasts of Africa and Asia. The
permanent exhibition of the products of Algeria and the colonies
is in the Palais de 1'Industrie ; and finally the Trocadero palace
contains a museum of comparative sculpture and ethnographic
galleries for exhibiting curiosities brought home from distant
countries by the principal French official travellers.
Public Charity — Hospitals, &c. — The administration of public
charity is entrusted to a responsible director, under the authority of
ths Seine prefect, and assisted by a board of supervision consisting
of twenty members. The funds at his disposal are derived (1)
from the revenue of certain estates, houses, farms, woods, stocks,
shares (£250,680 in 1882) ; (2) from taxes on seats in the theatres
(one-tenth of the price), balls, concerts, the Mont cle Piete,
and allotments in the cemeteries (£252,117); (3) from subsidies
paid by the town, the department, and the state (£970,368); (4)
from other sources (£522,398, including £130,787 from voluntary
donations). The charges on the administration consist of " outside
relief" to the poor (sccours a domicile) the "service" of the
hospitals, and the support of charity children. In each arrondisse-
ment there is a bureau dc bienfaisance, consisting of the maire, his
assistants, twelve administrators, and an indefinite number of ladies
and gentlemen (known as commissaires and dames de, charit6) who
give voluntary and gratuitous assistance. The secretary and
treasurer is a paid official ; and 180 doctors, 110 midwives, and
207 relicficuses, distributed among fifty-eight houses of relief (mai-
sons dc sccours), are employed in the service of the bureaus, which
in 1880 received 104.236 applications for aid presented by 63 "visi
tors." The expenses for that year amounted to £69, 843 for food,
£13,140 for clothing, £6114 for fuel, £29,361 for medicine and
medical advice, £15,032 for other assistance in kind, and £83,843
for assistance in money. The pauper population, enumerated
every three years, consisted in 1880 of 123,735 persons (53,591
males, 70,144 females) in 46,815 families, or at the rate of 1 person
for every 16 '07 inhabitants in the city, — an increase of 3153
families and 10,418 persons since 1877, and 10,102 families and
33,448 persons since 1861. Of the families assisted in 1880, 18,125
obtained temporary relief and 28,690 relief throughout the entire
year. This destitute class is very unequally distributed among the
several arrondissements. Whilst in the 9th arrondissement there
is only 1 pauper in 50 inhabitants, and in the 1st, 8th, and 2d
1 pauper in 46, 45, and 44 inhabitants, in the 13th arrondissement
there is 1 in 7, in the 20th 1 in 8, and in the 19th 1 in 9. The
paupers are for the most part under sixty years of age, and occupy
single rooms, at a rent of from £4 to £8 per annum, generally
with a single fireplace and a single bed. There are usually no
children under fourteen years of age.
The doctors in 1880 gave 453,036 consultations at the dispensaries,
and performed vaccination in 31,549 cases. The midwives attended
5126 women boarding in their houses for their confinement, and
gave assistance to 14,178 during pregnancy. Domiciliary visits
were paid by the medical staff in 1880 to 80,322 patients and to
48,269 necessitous persons.
The doctors, surgeons, chemists, both resident and non-resident,
connected with the hospitals, are all admitted by competitive ex
amination. In 1880 the staff for the hospitals of Paris and the
auxiliary hospitals of Forges, Garches, and Roche Guyon (Seine-
et-Oise), and Berck (Pas dc Calais) consisted of 32 doctors or
surgeons at the central office of admission, 118 hospital doctors or
surgeons, 8 doctors for the insane, 18 chemists. 291 internes,1 470
externes, 575 probationers, and 9 midwives or midwives' assistants.
The hospitals are classified as general hospitals — Hotel Dieu,
Pitie, Charite, Saint Antoine, Nccker, Cochin, Beaujon, Laribois-
iere, Tenon, Laennec, Tournelles ; special hospitals — St Louis (skin
diseases), Midi or South (venereal diseases, men), Lourcine (venereal
diseases, women and children), Maternity, Clinical (operations) ;
children's hospitals— Enfants Malades, Trousseau, Berck-sur-Mer,
La Roche-Guon ; hospices— Bicetre (old men), La Salpetriere (old
women), Ivry (incurables); maisons de rctraite— Issy, La Roche
foucauld, Ste Perine ; fondations— Boulard St Michel, Brezin at
Garches (for ironworkers), Devillas, Chardon Lagache, Lenoir-
Jousscran ; and asylums for the insane — Bicetre (men), Salpetriere
(women). The following table (V.) gives details regarding these
institutions in 1882: —
Xo. of Patirnts,
1st January 1882.
Kctered during
the Year.
Left during
the Year.
Deaths.
Remaining on
31st December.
Xo. of
Patient Days.
Mean Length
of Term.
Mortality."
General hospitals
6 097
79,106
67,375
11,339
6,489
2,932,302
29-28
6-94
Special hospitals
1,532
21,794
20,974
781
1,571
775,542
2570
27-85
Children's hospitals ... .
1,536
9,454
7,726
1,721
1,543
736,763
62-19
5-47
Maison de Sante
210
3,140
2,644
541
165
122,186
25-60
5 '88
Temporary service of the hospices...
113
872
COS
140
242
61,709
Grand total for the hospitals
9,488
114,366
99,322
14,522
10,010
4,628,502
31-24
7-86
Hospices, retraites, and fondations..
Hospitals for Insane —
Bicetre (men).. . ...
8782
652
6,811
426
4,979
308
1,413
105
9,201
665
3,561,342
293,016
7-29
10-18
Salpetriere (women)
711
266
205
64
708
330,525
15-14
Several of the hospitals are of recent construction — Hdtel-Dieu,
Tenon, Lariboisiere. The Hotel-Dieu was rebuilt in La Cite at
an outlay of £1,800,000, or £4000 per bed; the arrangements for
practical education are excellent, and secure the institution a
world-wide reputation. La Salpetriere (oldest of all the hospital
buildings) is remarkable for its extent, occupying 74 acres, with
45 large blocks lighted by 4682 windows.
The benefits of the hospitals or hospices are generally given gratu
itously, but a certain number of patients pay their expenses, and in
1880 the funds of the department were in this way augmented by
£89,262. In connexion with these establishments are a bakery, a
slaughter-house, a wine cellar, a central drug-store, a purveyor for
purchasing provisions in the open market, a central depot for bed
ding, linen, clothing, furniture, and utensils; and a certain number
of articles arc retailed to other departments or private institu
tions.
Foundlings and orphans are sent to the Hospice des Enfants
Assistes, which also receives children whose parents are patients in
the hospitals or undergoing imprisonment. In 1882 the hospice
received 9620 children ; the inmates from the preceding year num
bered 274. Of these children 2549 were restored to their parents,
2814 were boarded out in the country, 561 died, and 2594 were
1 The internes and externes arc two grades of medical students— the inter
nes the higher of the two and limited in number. Many doctors of medicine
have not passed the internal.
2 The mortality is here stated for the mean number present on the 1st of
January and admitted during the year, — one death for C-94, <tc., of this mean
number. The larger the number In the table the less, of course, is the mortality.
P A K I S
283
formally enrolled among the en/ants assistes, or charity children.
There are in the hospice 102 resident wet-nurses ; infants, however,
are not kept in the institution, but are boarded out with nurses in the
country, of whom 1707 were engaged under the supervision of 361
matrons. Up to twelve years of age these children are kept at the
expense of the department of Seine, and they remain under the
guardianship of the poor-board till twenty-one years of age. On
December 31, 1882, there were 13,861 children of the first class
and 12,135 of the second distributed among 32 agencies and 257
medical circuits situated in Nivernais, Burgundy, Bourbonnais,
Normandy, Artois, Picardy, and Brittany.
The Quinze-Vingts still gives shelter to the 300 (fifteen score)
blind for whom it was founded by St Louis, and gives outdoor assist
ance to 1550 besides. The blind asylum for the young (Institution
des Jeunes Aveugles) has 250 pupils (one-third girls, two-thirds
boys) ; the course of study lasts for eight years ; most of the pupils
are bursars of the state or the departments ; some pay a small i'ec ;
suitable trades are taught. The deaf-mute institution is for boys
only, and they arc generally paid for by the state, the departments,
and the communes. During a course of seven years they are taught
articulation and lip-reading. The Charenton asylum for the insane
receives 300 male and 280 female patients, most of them paying
for their board, and classed according to their means. Those of
Vinccnnes (522 beds for male patients) and Lc Aresinet (300 beds for
female patients) take in convalescents from the hospitals sent by
the charity boards or friendly societies which subscribe to the
institution. The Hotel des Invalides is for old and infirm soldiers.
The pensioners, who have numbered at times as many as 5000, are
now only a few hundred, and their immense edifice accommodates
the Ecole Superieure dc Guerre, the artillery museum, the galleries
for plans in relief of fortified posts, and numerous storehouses
of the war department. Under the dome of the Invalides is the
tomb of Napoleon I., and in the church the funeral obsequies
of distinguished soldiers are performed. There arc four military
hospitals in Paris — Val de Grace (960 beds for all ranks), Gros Cail-
lou (630 beds), Saint Martin (425 beds), and Vinccnnes (630).
'rivate Private beneficence maintains a great variety of institutions in
>enefi- Paris. There are 30 creches or day-nurseries in the city and 14
:ence. in the suburbs (capable of accommodating respectively 1093 and
393 infants), where mothers who have to go out to work may leave
their infants under two years ; they are under the direction of the
sisterhood of St Vincent de Paul. The Society of St Vincent de
Paul, which must not be confounded with the sisterhood, is a society
of Hymen founded in 1833 and divided into as many conferences
as there are parishes, for the purpose of visiting the poor and giving
them advice and assistance. The Societe Philanthropique distributes
food rations in its "kitchens" by means of a system of cheap
tickets. The Societe de Charite Matcrnelle devotes its attention to
women in childbed; the Petites Scours des Pauvres have five houses
for poor old men, for whom they collect scraps from the restaurants.
The Freres St Jean de Dicu take care of children suffering from
incurable diseases. A large number of institutions known as
ourroirs or workrooms bring up orphan and destitute girls and fit
them for various industrial occupations, especially the use of the
needle. The night asylums offer shelter to the homeless. The
Society for the Protection of the Alsace-Lorraincrs, and the charity
office of the British embassy, are naturally limited to special
nationalities. Friendly societies, supported by ordinary subscrip
tions, donations from honorary members, and state subsidies, arc
numerous ; they give assistance to their members when they are
sick or out of work, and pay their funeral expenses.
An evangelistic mission, commenced in 1872 by the Rev. Pi. W.
M'All in the district of Belleville has met with remarkable success.
By 1884 it had b3tween thirty and forty stations in Paris and the
suburbs, and had extended its activity to various towns in the
provinces, to Corsica, and to Algiers. Its income in 1883-4 was
£10,607. Homes for English girls were established in 1872 by
Miss Ada Leigh, and the association to which they have since
been transferred has been presented with an orphanage by M.
Galignani.
Wontde The Mont de Piete is a national pawnbroking establishment.
Piete. Charging 9 per cent, for working expenses, it hands over all its
proceeds to the public charity funds. The average number of
articles pawned per day is 5205, of which 5 only are of suspicious
origin (theft); the average sum lent on each was 23 francs in 1881.
When the depositor does not redeem his pledge or purchase a
renewal the article is sold. In 1882 there were 1,669,582 new
transactions and 664,617 renewals, while 1,401,944 articles were
redeemed, and 214,340 sold, — the loans amounting respectively to
£1,619,621, £676,671, £1,320,888, and £144,315. If the sale
involves a loss this falls on the agent who overestimated the
value when the article was deposited; any profit, on the con
trary, is divided between the administration and the person con
cerned.
Savings The Caisse d'l^pargne, or savings bank, the natural complement
Jank. of the Mont de Piete, was founded in Paris in 1818. It began that
year with 351 depositors, and deposits to the amount of £2153; in
1882 it had 440,728 depositors, and owed them £3,513,432.
The new deposits for the year reached a sum of £1,874,697, and
the repayments £1,236,060. The number of new pass-books issued
was 63,146, of accounts closed 24,228. Three per cent, interest
was paid to the depositors. The maximum deposit is £80.
Law and Justice. — Paris is the seat of four courts having juris- Justice,
diction over all France : — (1) the Tribunal des Conflits, for settling
disputes between the judicial and administrative authorities on
questions as to their respective jurisdiction; (2) the Council of State,
for litigations between private persons and public departments ;
(3) the Cour des Comptes ; and (4) the Cour de Cassation. The
first three sit in the Palais Royal, the fourth in the Palais de
Justice, which is also the seat of (1) a cour d'appel for seven
departments (five civil chambers, one chamber of appeal for the
correctional police, one chamber for preliminary proceedings), (2) a
cour d'assises (members nominated for a term of three months ; two
sessions per month), (3) a tribunal of first instance for the depart
ment of Seine (seven civil chambers for civil affairs, sequestration
of real estate, and sale of personal property; four chambers of correc
tional police), (4) a police court where each juge de paix presides in
his turn assisted by a commissairc de police. Litigations between
the departmental or municipal administrations and private persons
are decided by the conseil de prefecture.
The prefect of police, charged with the maintenance of public
safety, has the prison department under his supervision. There
are eight prisons in Paris — Mazas, La Sante, Ste Pelagie, St Lazare
(for females), the depot (police station) of the prefecture of police,
the Conciergerie or lock-up at the Palais de Justice, the Grande
Eoquette (for condemned criminals), and the Petite Roqtiette
reformatory. In 1882 there passed through these prisons 108,231
prisoners (83,022 men, 25,209 women), the daily average being 5529.
Out of the total number, 30,990 were kept in solitary confinement,
and 2905 (males) worked in company by day and were placed in
separate cells at night. The prisons also received 1067 young
children who accompanied their mothers, and 732 children lost in
the streets. The mendicity-station at Villers-Cotterets (Aisne) has
besides a daily roll of 919 prisoners (male and female). In the so-
called House of repression at St Denis are confined those mendi
cants who cannot be removed to ATillers-Cotterets, or those dis
charged prisoners who have not acquired a sufficiency for their im.
mediate necessities ; 3240 persons passed through St Denis in 1882.
The same year 46,457 persons were arrested in Paris, — 44,955 being
taken fiagrantc delicto or arrested as vagabonds ; 41,207 were brought
before the judges. Of the whole number eight-ninths were males.
Against five-ninths no previous charge had been made : 899 were
ticket-of-leave men, 3291 were foreigners (959 Belgians, 759 Italians,
376 Swiss, 379 Germans, and 126 English). The most frequent
causes of arrest were — vagabondism and begging, 16,985 ; theft in
its various forms, 8604 ; rioting, 5619 ; assaults and acts of
violence, 1338; offences against morals, 825; breach of certificate
by ticket-of-leave men, 899 ; murders, assassinations, and assault
by night, 330 ; drunkenness. 312.
The prefect of police has the control of the locating, discharg
ing, or maintaining of the insane in the six public asylums of
Ste Anne, La Salpetriere, Bicutre, Charenton, Vaucluse, and La
Ville Evrard, — the last two situated in the department of Scine-et-
Oise. The financial and administrative management of these
establishments is entrusted to the prefect of Seine. At the 1st of
January 1882 there were in the different asylums 8260 lunatics,
and during 1882 3670 were admitted, while 3938 left or died.
Private asylums for the insane cannot be opened within his pre
fecture without the permission of the prefect of police. Children
put out to nurse, and women wishing to be engaged as wet-
nurses, are also under his supervision. In 1881 18,527 infants
were registered by their parents as requiring to be put to nurse in
the various departments; on December 31, 1881, 4398 infants
under three years of age were out at nurse within the prefecture ;
407 died during the year. An institution of a reformatory character
commenced operations on January 1, 1881. In 1881 and 1882 it
received 1644 children — 1131 brought by their parents, 262 by the
magistrates, and 251 by the prefect of police. On December 1882
there remained 1330 children boarded out in the country. The
expense for the two years was £18,160.
Establishments which are dangerous or unhealthy are of three
classes, according as they have to be kept absolutely at a distance
from dwelling-houses or simply subjected to certain precautions.
They can be opened only with the permission and under the
surveillance of the prefect of police. The first class comprises
slaughter-houses, nightsoil reservoirs, vitriol works, &c. In 1882
there were of all the three classes 3049 establishments within the
city of Paris ; in 1881 there were 2922 in the suburban communes.
The shops for mineral oils (3615) and those for mineral waters
(1133) are also subject to inspection, and the groceries, drug-stores,
and chemists' shops in which medicines are sold (9224) are under
the supervision of the upper school of pharmacy. Steam machin
ery, (3317 machines, of 29,529 horse-power) which must be regis
tered, is inspected by the engineers.
284
PARIS
Eighty local committees —forty composed of men and forty of
women — are entrusted with the duty of visiting the 12,316 workshops
in which 27,402 children are employed (16,945 boys or girls between
twelve and sixteen years of age, and 10, 336 girls between sixteen and
twenty-one, i.e., still minors). Street porters (commissionaires),
rag-pickers, hawkers, and lodging-house keepers are under police
surveillance. The bodies of the drowned or of those who have
died in the streets are conveyed to the Morgue, where post-mortem
examinations are performed at the command of the court, and
lectures delivered on medical jurisprudence. The number of bodies
is increasing (718 in 1878 ; 879 in 1882). Of this total 673 were
adults (committed suicide, 219 ; killed by accident, 105; murdered,
45 ; died suddenly, 86). Drowning is the most frequent cause of
death (321 cases)." Of the 673 adults 588 were identified ; the 85
unidentified were photographed before burial.
Ceme- Cemeteries. — A corpse cannot be buried in Paris without a
teries. certificate from a medical man who has ascertained that deatli has
really taken place ; and at. least twenty-four hours must be allowed
to elapse, lu most cases (30,825 out of 57,871 deaths) the families
are too poor to pay any funeral expenses, arid the body is conse
quently buried free of charge. Other interments are divided into
nine classes, the cost of which ranges from 15s. to £287, without
counting secondary and religious expenses. There are twenty
cemeteries in Paris or outside the gates. Pere la Chaise, the most
extensive, contains 106J acres ; it is there that the most illus
trious personages are generally buried. In 1882 the number of
interments was no less than 3043 (all permanent). Montmartre,
or the Northern Cemetery (26 acres), received 970 (all permanent) ;
Montparnasse, or the Southern Cemetery (46 acres), 1945 (10 being
temporary). The two cemeteries of St Ouen (61 acres) received
12,462 gratuitous and 5761 temporary interments, but only 10
permanent ; and the two cemeteries at Ivry (69 acres) 20,380
gratuitous interments and 7038 temporary. It is towards St Ouen
and Ivry that most of the funerals now make their way and those
graveyards, though but recently formed, will before long prove
insufficient. The other Paris cemeteries are due to the incorpora
tion of the suburban communes in 1860. The little graveyard at
Picpus is the property of a few families. Old cemeteries, long ago
abandoned, in the heart of the city have gradually been built over.
The bones found on breaking up the ground are collected in the
ossuary of the Catacombs at Montrouge. The Catacombs are
ancient quarries extending under a great part of the city south of
the Seine ; they are subjected to continual inspections and shoring-
up to prevent subsidences such as have taken place on several
occasions.
Fires. — The fire brigade has a military organization, and consists
of 1742 officers and men. On 31st December 1882 they had at their
disposal 1678 fire-plugs. In the course of that year they extin
guished 982 fires (127 in January, the njaximum ; 55 in September,
the minimum) and 1656 burning vents ; and there were 72 false
alarms. They used 1778 lire-engines, 1C9 of them worked by
steam. Eight individuals perished in the conflagrations ; 55 were
saved by the firemen. Only 19 of the fires were serious. In 703
cases the damage was less than £40. The total loss for the year
was £309,200. The most frequent cause of fires was some defect
in the buildings (157 cases) ; lights ranked next (142 cases), and
the falling of petroleum or naphtha lamps accounted for 84.
Military. — Paris is the seat of a military government, whose com
mandant has under him all the troops stationed in the departments
of Seine and Seine-et-Oise. The soldiers recruited in the two
departments are distributed among the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th corps
d'armee, whose headquarters are at Amiens, Rouen, Le Mans, and
Orleans. The principal barracks belonging to the state in Paris
are those of the military school of Prince Eugene and Napoleon ;
the town possesses the barracks of the republican guard, the
gendarmes, and the firemen in different quarters. The most
important are those of La Cite, to which the prefecture of police
was transferred after the destruction of its former buildings by fire
in 1871. Besides the war office and the hospitals named above,
the main establishments comprise the depot of the fortifications,
the central artillery depot with the workshops of St Thomas
d'Aquin, and the depot of the commissariat department.
Food Supply. — The following table (VI.) shows the annual average
of food consumed per head of the inhabitants of Paris : —
Fires.
Military
organiza
tion.
Food
supply.
Population.
Wine and
Spirits.
Fish.
Oysters.
Poultry and
Gume.
Butcher
Meat.
Tripe, Ac.
liutter.
Eggs.
Cheese.
Gallons.
Ib
Jb
ft
Ib
ft
ft
Ib
1866
1,825,274
41
19'
24
165-78
6-148
18-36
158
4-54
1872
1,851,792
47-5
29-83
24
156-10
5-348
17-16
157
4-45
1876
. 1,988,806
48-2
28-12
2-95
24
168
6-391
15-96
1 50
4-62
1881
2,239,928
50
28-23
5-12
24
172-74
6'64
16-66
180
4-95
The average annual consumption of bread is 349 '46 pounds per
head. Wholesale merchandise in food stuffs, though legal in all the
market-places of Paris, is, as a matter of fact, concentrated in the
central markets (Italics ccntralcs), with the exception of the butcher-
meat trade, which is carried on by public auction or private sale both
in the central markets and the slaughter-houses. The central
markets comprise ten elegant " pavilions " of iron and glass, each
about i acre, and separated from each other by streets which are for
the most part covered. Dealers from the neighbourhood of Paris ;
took to these markets, in 1882, 80,472 vehicles loaded with fruit, j
723,257 with vegetables, 39,740 with potatoes, and 37,584 with j
pease and beans. These are entered as market-garden produce.
There was also sold wholesale in the pavilions 1506 tons of "choice"
fmits and vegetables, 6896 of "fine fruits and vegetables, 6903 of
ordinary vegetables, 4837 of cresses, 321,047,149 eggs (at an average j
price of 51s. per thousand), 192,629 "hundreds" of oysters, 21,144
tons of fish, 5746 tons of shell-fish, 6167 tons of "new" cheese,
697 tons of dry cheese, 12,419 tons of butter, 21,931 tons of
poultry and game (comprising 6,454,876 fowls, 3,102,269 rabbits,
2,819,083 pigeons, 1,936,560 larks, &c., at an average price of
10$d. per lt>), 33,086 tons of beef, veal, mutton and pork, — these
last figures including butcher meat sold by public auction in the j
market of the -La Villette slaughter-house. Through the same |
market there passed to the shambles in 1882 354,277 oxen, cows,
and bulls, 199,416. calves, 2,054,680 sheep, 315,306 pigs. This j
cattle-market, connected with the Chemin de Fcr de Ceinture so
that the trains bring the cattle trucks right into the market, '
occupies with its slaughter-houses an area of 1 1 1 acres. The places of |
sale (pavilions de vcnte) are capable of containing 4600 horned cattle,
22,000 sheep, 7000 pigs, 4000 calves. Horned cattle are liable to
an entry fee of 3 francs, calves and pigs 1 franc, sheep 0'30 franc.
Animals not sold are kept in sheds, cattle paying \ franc per night,
and the others in proportion. The slaughter-houses can accom
modate 1200 butchers, and contain a tallow-melting house (fondoir).
Most of the cattle come from Maine-et- Loire, Nievre, Calvados ;
sheep from Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et-Marne, Cote d'Or, Nord, Aisne,
Allier, Indre,Cher ; calves from Seine-et-Marne, Eure-et-Loir, Loiret,
Nord, Aube ; pigs from Sarthe, Allier, Creuse, Indre-et-Loire,
and Maine-et-Loire. Foreign countries also contribute to the
supply, especially of sheep. Germany in 1882 sent 576,563, Austria-
Hungary 352,376, Russia 156,005, Algeria 38,172, and Italy 37,694.
Beside the Halles Centrales is the Halle aux Bles or corn-market.
A certain number of full sacks are stored under the cupola (which,
architecturally considered, is a bold and striking design), but the
whole of this class of goods arriving at Paris does not necessarily
pass through the building. Brought by boat or rail, they are
cither stored at the stations or taken directly to the bakers, the
general warehouses, or the military stores. In 1881 71,961 tons of
grain and 208, 374 tons of flour reached the city.
The consumption of wine has not increased in Paris during the
last decade, allowance being made for the growth of the population.
For 1872 the figures were 85,407,322 gallons of wine in cask and
404,272 gallons in bottle ; for 1880, 92,840,374 in cask and 428,450
in bottle. But the average consumption of spirits (1,312,498 in
1872, 2,907,190 in 1880) has doubled in the interval. More than the
half of the wines and spirits consumed in Paris pass through the
entrepots of Bercy, Quai St Bernard, or Pont de Flandre. To these
great markets must be added the market for skins and hides (which,
according to the latest returns— taken, however, in 1872 — did
business to the amount of £880,000), the horse-market (£414,200),
charcoal-markets on the boats along the Seine (£180,000), flower-
markets (£80,000), and the markets for fodder, dogs, birds, &c. The
Marche du Temple, rebuilt about 1864, is devoted to the sale of old
clothes and second-hand artirles of all sorts. All the market-houses
and market-places are placed under the double supervision of the
prefect of Seine and the prefect of police. The former official has
to do with the authorization, removal, suppression, and holding of
the markets, the fixing and collecting of the dues, the choice of
sites, the erection and maintenance of buildings, and the locating
of vehicles. The latter maintains order, keeps the roads clear, and
watches against fraud. A municipal laboratory has recently been
established, where any purchaser can have the provisions he has
bought analysed, and can obtain precise information as to their
quality. Spoiled provisions are seized by the agents of the pre
fecture ; in 1880 458 tons of butcher meat, 123 tons of horse flesh,
52 tons of tripe, fish, vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, &c., were seized
in this way.
Industries and Commerce. — Returns issued by the chamber of Indus-
commerce for 1872 estimated the industrial production of Paris as tries.
in the following table: —
PARIS
285
TABLE VII. — Industries of Paris.
Class of Industry.
No. of
Work
men.
Average
Daily
Wage.
Total
Annual
Wages.
Food
55,952
55,894
36,441
112,205
26,733
32,161
18,219
10,109
i. d.
4 5
4 2
5 3
4 10
4 4i
4 7|
5 41
4 4{
4 7
5 li
4 4
4 111
4 2J
4 51
4 6
£
3,494,551
3,501,638
3,409,128
6,393,737
1,197,618
2,133,972
1,232,412
1,101,457
1,707,222
1,173,746
388,837
1,447,405
243,444
1,684.577
2,110,429
Clothing
Printing engraving, and paper
33,917
10,788
1,510
24,684
4,337
34,918
32,673
Philosophical instruments, musical instru-
Carriages, saddlery, military equipments
Miscellaneous
520,337
4 8
30,420,137
The larger manufacturing establishments of Paris comprise
engineering and repairing works connected with the railways, simi
lar private works, foundries, and sugar refineries. Government
works are the tobacco factories of Gros Caillou (2000 workmen)
and Reuilly (1000), the national printing establishment (1000), the
mint (where money and medals are coined by a contractor under
state control), and the famous tapestry factory and dye-works of the
Gobelins. The list of minor establishments is a very varied one ;
most of them devoted to the production of the so-called articles de
Paris, and carrying the principle of the division of labour to an
extreme. The establishments which rank next to those above
mentioned in the number of workmen are the chemical factories,
the gas-works, the printing offices, cabinetmakers' workshops, boot
factories, tailoring establishments, hat factories, and works for the
production of paperhangings.
Among the workers are included 189,401 women, girls, and boys,
and 123,369 masters — this last a figure which shows how great is
the number of the small establishments. The total value produced
was estimated at £134,763,717 in 1860, and must have since in
creased enormously. (Compare Table IV. p. 278.) In 1881 the
average day's wages paid in the petite Industrie were estimated
at 4s. 5d. for the men and 2s. 5d. for the women. Since 1878
an increase has taken place year by year, at least for the men.
Clerks in warehouses earn about £48 per annum, shop women £32,
shop girls £16, male domestics £24, and female domestics £20.
In 1882 2400 new houses were built and 1883 old houses en
larged ; on the other hand, 997 old houses were entirely demolished
and 777 partially. The last official industrial valuation of rental
is for the year 1876. At that date there were 76,129 houses con
taining 1,038,124 separate establishments, 699,175 being used as
dwelling-houses at a rental of £13,981,836, and 338,949 for in
dustrial purposes at a rental of £10,049,542.
Between 1872 and 1881 the navigation of the Seine doubled in Corn-
importance. It has been free from all dues since 1880. There are merce.
three divisions — the navigation of the upper Seine and the Marne
(above Paris), that of the lower Seine and the Oise (below Paris),
and that of the Canal de 1'Ourcq with its terminus at the La
Villette basin, whence the St Denis Canal branches off to the lower
Seine and the St Martin Canal to the upper Seine.
TABLE VIII. — Navigation of the Seine.
Arrivals.
Departures.
Upper Seine and
Marne.
Lower Seine
and Oise.
Canal de
1'Ourcq.
Upper Seine
and Marne.
Lower Seine
and Oise.
Canal de
1'Ourcq.
Average for 1872-80
Tons.
803,749
Tons.
417,780
Tons.
6,629
Tons.
106,160
Tons.
249,938
Tons.
12,246
Tons.
1 596 502
, 1882
1,220,015
521,332
11 286
193 445
329 966
10 594
2 286 638
The goods arriving by the upper Seine are chiefly building
sand, paving-stones, firewood, timber, grain, coal and coke, pyrites,
charcoal, and wines ; those by the lower Seine, coal and coke, sand,
paving-stones, wines, building materials, grain, and timber; and
those by the Canal de 1'Ourcq, building materials. By the upper
Seine Paris despatches mainly refuse and manure ; by the lower
Seine, manure, pyrites, grain, and refined sugars ; by the Canal de
1'Ourcq, agricultural produce and manure. To the traffic of the
river ports situated within the city must be added that of the
ports along the canals, and especially that of La Villette, the third
port of all France, judged by its commercial activity. The follow
ing table (IX.) shows the tonnage of the merchandise that passed
through each of the canals in 1882 (the same merchandise may
sometimes figure on two canals, or may have also been entered for
the ports within the city): —
The following table (X.) shows the number of passengers and
quantity of goods that left Paris in 1880: —
Nord. Est.
Quest.
Orleans.
Paris-Lyons-
Mediterranean.
Passengers
Goods (tons)
2,996,000 5,594,300
1,367,093 i 653,596
10.521.500
1,359,704
1,900,100
601,970
1,621,800
1,238,029
Some goods are registered and pay dues at the Paris custom
house ; but many pay these dues at the frontier. The following
returns (Table XL) must therefore be considered only as showing
the importance of the Paris custom-house, and not the extent of
the trade of the citv : —
Ourcq Canal.
St Denis Canal.
St Martin's Canal.
Total for
the Three
Canals.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Tons.
112,720
Tons.
894,198
Tons.
1,017,726
Tons.
361,002
Tons.
618,800
Tons.
424,603
Tons.
3,427,050
General Trade.
Special Trade.
Quantity in Vahie_
Tons.
Quantity in
Tons.
Value.
Imports .
Exports .
(A) 484,228 !£26,228,459
85,442 | 18,503,776
(B) 490,135
72,955
£26,602,716
17,331,080
The Ourcq Canal brings down wood, building stones, bricks, flour,
and especially plaster, and takes in return coal, manure, and night-
soil for the Bondy manure-works. The St Denis Canal brings up
coal from Nord, Pas de Calais, Belgium, and England ; freestone
from the valley of the Oise, sands from the lower Seine, wood for
industrial purposes, grain, sewage for the works at Aubervilliers,
colonial wares for La Villette, &c., and the most important articles
taken down are sewage for Aubervilliers, and the various wares
embarked at La Villette for Rouen or La Havre. Along the St
Martin Canal, on the upward passage, sand, gravel, paving-stones
or blocks, firewood, lime or cement, freestone, bricks, tiles, slates
are discharged, and sewage especially is taken in for Aubervilliers.
On the downward passage are discharged plasters from the Ourcq
Canal, coal, and stones and sand from the Oise and the Ourcq.
There is besides a large transit traffic.
Five of the great railway companies have a terminus at Paris.
The "Nord" and the "Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean" lines
have each only one station ; the " Quest " has two, St Lazare and
Montparnasse ; the " Est " two, one of which, Bastille, is only a
passenger station for the use of the Vincennes line and its pro
longation ; the " Orleans " two, of which one, Barriere d'Enfer, is
restricted to the short line from Paris to Sceaux and Limours.
The " special " trade is for home consumption. The duty paid on
the imports was £3,774,407.
Till 31st December 1897 the Bank of France has the exclusive Banks,
privilege of issuing bank-notes. Notes are at present issued for
1000, 500, 100, and 50 francs (£40, £20, £4, and £2); at different
times there have been notes for 5000, 2000, 25, 20, and 5. The
Bank of France, which has already been described in BANKING
(see vol. iii. p. 337-39), has 90 branch offices in the provinces. In
1877 the bank received bills and stock to the value of £56,022,532 ;
its advances on securities amounted to £15,038,072 ; and the
change of bank-notes into gold caused a movement of £33,288,000.
The other chief financial establishments in Paris are the Caisse
des Depots et des Consignations, which receives voluntary deposits
or those which are obligatory in certain cases fixed by law; the
Credit Foncicr de France, which gives advances to landowners on
real property; the Comptoir National d'Escompte, which carries on
the same branches of business as the bank, with the exception of
the issue of notes.
Among the great private joint-stock banks must be mentioned
the Societe Generale, the Credit Industriel et Commercial, the Credit
Lyonnais, the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, the Societe de
Depots et Comptes Courants, the Banque d'Escompte, &c. The
Bourse or Exchange is open from noon to 3 o'clock for the negotia-
28(5
PARIS
ticm of public stock, and from 3 to 6 for commercial transactions.
The former is effected by means of brokers (agents de change) named
by ministerial decree, and possessing the exclusive right of dealing
in public stocks and bills. Brokers for the purchase and sale of
goods enjoy freedom of trade, but the tribunal of commerce issues a
list of the brokers who have taken the oath. These brokers meet
to decide the prices current of the various goods.
The conseils dc pnufhommes settle ditl'erences between work
men and workmen, or between workmen and masters ; the whole
initiative, however, rests with the parties. There are four of
these bodies in Paris (for the metal trades, the chemical trades, the
textile trades, and miscellaneous industries), composed of an eijual
number of masters and men. They succeed in settling without
litigation 95 per cent, of the disputes submitted to them.
The tribunal of commerce, composed of business men elected by
the " notables " of their order, deals with cases arising out of com
mercial transactions ; declarations of bankruptcy are made before
it ; and it acts as court of appeal to the conseils de prud'hommes.
In 1882, out of 75,660 cases brought into this court, judgment was
given in 66,156, of which 20,696 were cases of first and 45,460 cases
of last instance ; 4584 cases were compromised. In the same year
1696 bankruptcies were declared, 10 applications made for rehabili
tation, and 7 such applications granted by the Paris court of
appeal. Money due to bankrupt estates is paid into the Caisse des
Depots et des Consignations. In 1882 the tribunal of commerce
registered 1963 deeds of partnership, 1167 dissolutions of partner
ship, 1340 home trade marks, and 175 foreign trade marks.
The chamber of commerce (under the honorary presidency of the
Seine prefect) consists of twenty-one elective members, of whom a
third are renewable every two years. Its duty is to present its
views on the means of increasing and developing Parisian com
merce. The Condition des Soies, as its name indicates, has to
determine exactly the quality of the silk purchased by the dealers.
The Chambre Syndicale des Tissus, a non-official association, is the
recognized mouthpiece of the textile industries and trade in their
dealings with the public administration.
Post-office and Telegraphs. — The post and telegraph department
comprised at the close of 1881 56 mixed offices, 22 post offices, 24
telegraph offices, and 862 letter boxes. The postal communications
are collected eight times per day, and conveyed to one or other of
the 15 sorting-offices (bureaux de passe), which arrange them accord
ing to their destinations. All are then brought together in the
General Post Office (Recette principale de la Seine), which in 1881
sent out 277,588,000 letters or post cards and 366,816,144 lower-
rate packets' (objets affranchis a prix reduits), and received
188,815,000 letters and post cards, and 40,716,000 lower-rate
packets. In 1882 there were issued 2,143,952 ordinary money
orders, 45,823 telegraphic orders, and 240,734 international orders;
3,841,335 ordinary orders, 30,693 telegraphic orders, and 188,430
international orders were cashed. The greatest number of foreign
orders is from Belgium (36,835) and from Germany (35,684). Great
Britain sent only 19,314 in 1881.
Telegraphic communication is effected partly by pneumatic tubes
and partly by electric apparatus. The year 1881 showed a great
increase over 1880 in the matter of pneumatic missives.
TABLE XII.
1881.
1882.
Telegram -cards within Paris
619 418
846 611
Closed telegrams do. do. . . .
Ordinary pneumatic telegrams do. ...
335,108
221,084
515,503
246,664
Total
1 715 610
1 608 778
Telegrams from outside of Paris
Do. . from Paris to places outside
Do. passing through Paris b}
pneumatic tubes
4,452,705
4,399,558
393,153
4,113,069
3,981,614
314 785
Total of telegraphic messages
10,421 024
10 018 246
The pneumatic system had at the close of 1881 64 miles of tube
and 49 offices, and by 1884 it was sxtended as far as the fortifica
tions, and into almost all quarters of the town. The Government
electric telegraph system has 27,000 miles of double wires; the
branch offices being connected with the central office by 94 wires
and with the Bourse office by 53. The municipal system, used
by the various departments of the local administration, the police,
the fire-brigade, &c., and for the indication of observatory time,
has a length of 534 miles. The telephonic system on the 1st
January 1882 had a length of 1392 miles and 2144 subscribers,—
increased to 2306 miles and 2637 subscribers on the 1st of January
1883. The central telegraphic office has 315 instruments at work
in direct communication with 22 foreign towns and 124 offices in
the provinces. In 1880 it sent 11,559,200 messages, and in 1881
13,955,291. (G. ME.)
HISTORY.
At its first appearance in history there was nothing
to foreshow the important part which Paris was to play
in Europe and in the world. An island in the Seine, now
almost lost in the modern city, and then much smaller
than at present, was for centuries the entire site. The
sole importance of the town lay in its being the capital of
a similarly insignificant Gallic people, which navigated
the lower course of the Seine, and doubtless from time
to time visited the coasts of Britain. So few were its
inhabitants that they early put themselves under the pro
tection of their powerful neighbours the Senones, and this
vassalship was the source of the political dependence of
Paris on Sens throughout the Roman period, and of a
religious subordination which lasted till the 17th century.
The capital did not at once take the name of the Parisii,
whose centre it was, but long kept that of Lucetia,
Lucotetia, or Lutetia, of which Lutece is the generally
recognized French form.
During the war of Gallic independence, after being
subjugated by Cresar, who even in 53 B.C. made their
territory the meeting-place of deputies from all Gaul, the
Parisii took part in the great rising of the year 52, at the
same time separating their cause from that of the Senones,
who were held in check by Ceesar's lieutenant, Labienus.
They joined their forces to the army commanded by an
Aulcrcian, the old Camulogenus, which in turn was to unite
with the Bellovaci to crash Labienus advancing from Sens
to attack the Parisians. Having marched along the right
bank of the river till opposite Lutetia, Labienus learned
that the Bellovaci were in arms, and, fearing to find himself
between two armies at a distance from his headquarters,
he sought to get rid of Camulogenus, who, posted on the
left bank, endeavoured to bar his way. The bridges had
been cut and the town burned by order of the Gallic chief.
By means of a stratagem Labienus drew his opponent up
the river to the district now occupied by the Jardin des
Plantes, and quietly by night crossed the Seine lower down
in the neighbourhood of Grenelle, near a place which Caesar
calls Metiosedum, identified, but not conclusively, with
Meudon. The Gauls, retracing their steps a little, met
the Romans and allowed themselves to be routed and
dispersed ; their leader fell in the fore-front of the battle.
Still unsubdued, the Parisii were called upon by the
general council assembled in Alesia to furnish eight
thousand men to help in raising the siege of that city.
It is doubtful whether they were able to contribute the
whole of this contingent, when their powerful neighbours
the Bellovaci managed to send only two thousand of the ten
thousand demanded of them. This was their last effort,
and after the check at Alesia they took no part in the
desperate resistance offered by the Bellovaci.
Lutetia was somewhat neglected under the Roman
emperors of the first centuries. Its inhabitants continued
quietly carrying on their river traffic, and devoted part
of their wealth to the maintenance of a great temple to
Jupiter built on the site of the present cathedral of Notre
Dame. It is not known at what date Christianity was
introduced into the future capital of France ; but it is
probable, judging by the use of the title "city," that
Lutetia was the see of one of the earliest of the bishoprics
of Gallia Celtica. The name of the founder of the church
is known, but a keen controversy, not yet settled, lias
recently been raised with regard to the date when the first
Roman missionary, St Dionysius or Denis, readied the
banks of the Seine, along with his two deacons Rusticus
and Eleutherius. A pious belief, which, in spite of its
'antiquity, has its origin in nothing better than parochial
vanity, identifies the first-named with Dionysius the
P A K I S
287
Areopagite, who was converted by St Paul at Athens, and
thus takes us back to the middle of the 1st century of
the Christian era. Better founded is the opinion which
dates the evangelization of the city two centuries later ;
the regular list of bishops, of whom, after Denis, the most
famous was St Marcel, begins about 250.
Lutetia was in some sort the cradle of Christian liberty,
having been the capital, from 292 to 306, of the mild
Constantius Chlorus, who put an end to persecution in
Brittany, Gaul, and Spain, over which he ruled. This
emperor fixed his residence on the banks of the Seine,
doubtless for the purpose of watching the Germans with
out losing sight of Brittany, where the Roman authority
was always unstable ; perhaps he also felt something of
the same fancy for Lutetia which Julian afterwards
expressed in his works and his letters. Be that as it may,
the fact that these two princes chose to live there naturally
drew attention to the city, where several buildings now
rose on the left side of the river which could not have
been reared within the narrow boundaries of the island.
There was the imperial palace, the remains of which, a
magnificent vaulted chamber, beside the Hotel de Cluny,
are now known, probably correctly, as Julian's Baths. At
some distance up the river, in the quarter of St Victor,
excavations in 1870 and in 1883 laid bare the foundations
of the amphitheatre, which was capable of holding about
10,000 spectators, and thus suggests the existence of a
population of 20,000 to 25,000 souls. Dwelling-houses,
villas, and probably also an extensive cemetery, occupied
the slope of the hill of St Genevieve.
It was at Lutetia that, in 360, Julian, already Caesar,
was in spite of himself proclaimed Augustus by the legions
he had more than once led to victory in Germany. The
troops invaded his palace, which, to judge by various
circumstances of the mutiny, must have been of great
extent. As for the city itself, it was as yet but a little
town (770X1^77) according to the imperial author in his
Misopogon. The successive sojourns of Valentinian I. and
Gratian scarcely increased its importance. The latest
emperors preferred Treves, Aries, and Vienne in Gaul, and,
besides, • allowed Paris to be absorbed by the powerful
Armorican league (c. 410). When the patricians Aetius,
/Egidius, and Syagrius held almost independent sway over
the small portion of Gaul which still held together, they
dwelt at Soissons, and it was there that Clovis fixed himself
during the ten or eleven years between the defeat of
Syagrius (486) and the surrender of Paris (497), which
opened its gates, at the advice of St Genevieve, only after
the conversion of the Frankish king. In 508, at the return
of his victorious expedition against the south, Clovis made
Paris the official capital of his TQ&lm—Cathedram regni
constituit, says Gregory of Tours. He chose as his
residence the palace of the Thermae, and lost no time in
erecting on the summit of the hill, as his future place of
interment, the basilica of St Peter and St Paul, which
became not long afterwards the church and abbey of St
Genevieve. After the death of Clovis, in spite of the
supremacy granted to the kingdom of Australia or Metz,
Paris remained the true political centre of the various
Frankish states, insomuch that the four sons of Clothaire,
fearing the prestige which would attach to whoever of
them might possess it, made it a sort of neutral town,
though after all it was seized by Sigebert, king of
Austrasia, Chilperic, king of Neustria (who managed to
keep possession for some time, and repaired the amphi
theatre), and Gontran, king of Burgundy. The last
sovereign had to defend himself in 585 against the pre
tender Gondowald, whose ambition aspired to uniting
the whole of Gaul under his dominion, and marching on
Paris to make it the seat of the half barbarian half
Roman administration of the kingdom of which he had
dreamed.
Numerous calamities befell Paris from 586, when a
terrible conflagration took place, to the close of the
Merovingian dynasty. During a severe famine Bishop
Landry sold the church plate to alleviate the distress of the
people, and it was probably he who, in company with St
F^loi (Eligius), founded the Hotel-Dieu. The kings in the
long run almost abandoned the town, especially when the
Austrasian influence under the mayors of the palace tended
to shift the centre of the Frankish power towards the Rhine.
Though the Merovingian period was for art a time of
the deepest decadence, Paris was nevertheless adorned and
enriched by pious foundations. Mention has already been
made of the abbey of St Peter, which became after the
death of Clovis the abbey of St Genevieve. On the same
side of the river, but in the valley, Childebert, with the
assistance of Bishop St Germain, founded St Vincent,
known a little later as St Germain-des-Pres, which was
the necropolis of the Frank kings before St Denis. On
the right bank the same king built St Vincent le Rond
(afterwards St Germain 1'Auxerrois), and in La Cite",
beside the cathedral of St Etienne, the basilica of Notre
Dame, which excited the admiration of his contemporaries
and in the 12th century obtained the title of cathedral.
Various monasteries were erected on both sides of the river,
and served to group in thickly-peopled suburbs the popula
tion, which had grown too large for the island.
The first Carlovingian, Pippin the Short, occasionally
lived at Paris, sometimes in the palace of Julian, sometimes
in the old palace of the Roman governors of the town, at
the lower end of the island ; the latter ultimately became
the usual residence. Under Charlemagne Paris ceased to
be capital; and when feudal France was constituted under
Charles the Bald it was liberally bestowed, like any
ordinary place, on mere counts or dukes. But the dangers
of the Norman invasion attracted general attention to the
town, and showed that its political importance could no
longer be neglected. When the suburbs were pillaged and
burned by the pirates, and the city regularly besieged in
885, Paris was heroically defended by its " lords," and the
emperor Charles the Fat felt bound to hasten from Ger
many to its relief. The pusillanimity which he showed in
purchasing the retreat of the Normans was the main cause
of his deposition in 887, while the courage displayed by
Count Eudes procured him the crown of France. Robert,
Eudes's brother, succeeded him; and, although Robert's
son Hugh the Great was only duke of France and
count of Paris, his power counterbalanced that of the last
of the Carlovingians, shut up in Laon as their capital.
With Hugh Capet in 987 the capital of the duchy of
France definitively became the capital of the kingdom, and
in spite of the frequent absence of the kings, several of
whom preferred to reside at Orleans, the town continued
to increase in size and population, and saw the develop
ment of those institutions which were destined to secure
its greatness. Henry I. founded the abbey of St Martin-
des-Champs, Louis the Stout that of St Victor, the
mother-house of an order, and a nursery of literature
and theology. Under Louis VII. the royal domain was
the scene of one of the greatest artistic revolutions
recorded in history : the Roman style of architecture was
exchanged for the Pointed or Gothic, of which Suger,
in his reconstruction of the basilica of St Denis, exhibited
the earliest type. The capital could not remain aloof
from this movement : several sumptuous buildings were
erected; the Roman choir of St Germain-des-Pre's was
thrown down to give place to another more spacious and
elegant; and when, in 1163, Pope Alexander had solemnly
consecrated it, he was invited by Bishop Maurice de
288
PARIS
Sully to lay the first stone of Notre Dame de Paris, a
cathedral on a grander scale than any previously under
taken. Paris still possesses the Roman nave of St
Germain-des- Pres, preserved when the building was rebuilt
in the 12th century; the Pointed choir, consecrated in
1163; and the entire cathedral of Notre Dame, which,
completed sixty years later, underwent various modifica
tions down to the beginning of the 14th century. The
sacristy is modern ; the site previous to 1831 was occupied
by the episcopal palace, also built by Maurice de Sully,
who by a new street had opened up this part of the island.
Philip Augustus may be considered the second founder
of Paris. He seldom quitted it save for his military
expeditions, and he there built for himself, near St Ger
main FAuxerrois, the Louvre, the royal dwelling par excel
lence, whose keep was the official centre of feudalism. He
created or organized a regular system of administration
with its headquarters at Paris ; and under his patronage
the public lectures delivered at Pre-aux-Clercs were regu
lated and grouped under the title of a university in 1200.
This university, the most famous and nourishing in
Christendom, considerably augmented the local population,
and formed as it were a new town on the left side of the
river, where the important abbeys of St Genevieve,
St Germain-des-Pres, and St Victor, and a vast Carthusian
monastery already stood. Colleges were erected to receive
the students of the different countries, and became the
great meeting-place of the studious youth of all Europe.
Returning to their native lands, where rank and honours
awaited them, the pupils of the Paris university spread
abroad the name and prestige of France ; and sometimes
they took home with them, or afterwards sent for,
French artists, to whose wanderings must be ascribed the
astonishing propagation in other countries of Pointed
architecture.
The right side of the river, where commerce and in
dustry had taken up their abode, and where the Louvre,
the abbey of St Martin, and a large number of secondary
religious establishments were already erected, became a
centre of activity at least as important as that on the
left. The old suburbs, too, were now incorporated with
the town and enclosed in the new line of fortifications con
structed by Philip Augustus, which, however, did not take
in the great abbeys on the left side of the river, and thus
obliged them to build defensive works of their own.
Philip Augustus issued from the Louvre a celebrated
order that the streets of the town should be paved. Not
far from his palace, on the site of the present Halles Cen-
trales, he laid out an extensive cemetery and a market-place,
which both took their name from the Church of the
Innocents, a building of the same reign, destroyed at the
Revolution. Fountains were placed in all the quarters.
As for the lighting of the town, till the close of the 16th
century the only lamps were those in front of the madonnas
at the street corners. But the first "illumination"
of Paris occurred under Philip Augustus : on his return
from a victorious expedition to Flanders in 1214 he was
welcomed by the. Parisians as a conqueror ; and the public
rejoicings lasted for seven days, "interrupted by no night,"
says the chronicler, alluding to the torches and lamps with
which the citizens lighted up the fronts of their houses.
Ferrand, count of Flanders, the traitor vassal, was dragged
behind the king to the dungeons of the Louvre, whose
doors closed on him for ever.
In 1226 there was held at Paris a council which, by
excommunicating Raymond VII., count of Toulouse, helped
to prepare the way for the most important treaty which
had as yet been signed in the capital. By this treaty
(12th April 1229) Blanche of Castile obtained from
Raymond VII. a great part of his possessions, while the
remainder was secured to the house of Capet through the
marriage of Alphonse of Poitiers, brother of St Louis,
with Jeanne, the last natural heiress of Languedoc.
In affection for his capital St Louis equalled or even
surpassed his grandfather Philip, and Paris reciprocated
his goodwill. The head of the administration was at that
time the provost of Paris, a judiciary magistrate and police
functionary whose extensive powers had given rise to the
most flagrant abuses. Louis IX. reformed this office and
filled it with the judge of greatest integrity to be found
in his kingdom. This was the famous Etienne Boileau,
who showed such vigilance and uprightness that the capital
was completely purged of evil-doers ; the sense of security
thus produced attracted a certain number of new inhabit
ants, and, to the advantage of the public revenue, increased
the value of the trade. It Avas Etienne Boileau who, by the
king's express command, drew up those statutes of the com
mercial and industrial guilds of Paris which, modified by
the necessities of new times and the caprice of princes,
remained in force till the Revolution.
St Louis caused a partial restoration of St Germain
PAuxerrois, his parish church (completed in the 15th
century, and deplorably altered under Louis XV.) ; and,
besides preferring the palace of La Cite" to the Louvre, he
entirely rebuilt it, and rendered it one of the most comfort
able residences of his time. Of this edifice there still
remain, among the buildings of the present Palais de
Justice, the great guard room, the kitchens with their four
enormous chimneys, three round towers on the quay, and,
one of the marvels of the Middle Ages, the Sainte Chapelle,
erected in 1248 to receive the crown of thorns sent from
Constantinople. This church, often imitated during the
13th and 14th centuries, is like an immense shrine in open
work ; its large window's contain admirable stained glass
of its own date, and the basements are adorned inside with
pictures recently restored. It has a lower story ingeni
ously arranged, which served as a chapel for the palace
servants. The Sainte Chapelle was designed by Pierre dc
Montereau, one of the most celebrated architects of his
time, to w7hom is attributed another marvel still extant, the
refectory of the abbey of St Martin, now occupied by the
library of the Conservatoire des Arts et des Metiers. This
incomparable artist was buried in the abbey of St Germain-
des-Pres, where, too, he had raised magnificent buildings
now no longer existing. Under St Louis, Robert de
Sorbon, a common priest, founded in 1253 an unpretending
theological college which afte'rwards became the celebrated
faculty of the Sorbonne, whose decisions were well-nigh as
authoritative as those of Rome.
The capital of France had but a feeble share in the
communal movement which in the north characterizes the
llth, 12th, and 13th centuries. Placed directly under the
central power, it was never strong enough to force con
cessions ; and in truth it did not claim them, satisfied with
the advantages of all kinds secured for it by its political
position and its university. And, besides, the privileges
which it did enjoy, while they could be revoked at the
king's pleasure, were of considerable extent. Its inhabit
ants were not subjected to forced labour or arbitrary
imposts, and the liberty of the citizens and their com
merce and industry were protected by wise regulations.
The university and all those closely connected with it pos
sessed the fullest rights and liberties. There was a muni
cipal or bourgeois militia, which rendered the greatest
service to Philip Augustus and St Louis, but afterwards
became an instrument of revolt. The communal adminis
tration devolved on echevins or jures, who, in conjunction
with the notables, chose a nominal mayor called provost of
the merchants (prcvot des marchands). The powers of this
official had been grievously curtailed in favour of the
P A K I S
289
provost of Paris, and his lieutenants named by the
sovereign. His main duties were to regulate the price of
provisions and to control the incidence of taxation on
merchandise. He was the chief inspector of bridges and
public wells, superintendent of the river police, and com
mander of the guard of the city walls, which it \vas also
his duty to keep in repair. And, finally, he had juris
diction in commercial affairs until the creation of the
consular tribunals by L'Hopital (Lalanne, Diet, historique
<le la France}. The violent attempts made by Etienne
Marcel in the 14th century, and those of the communes
of 1793 and 1871, showed what reason royalty had to fear
too great an expansion of the municipal power at Paris.
The town council met in the 13th and 14th centuries
in an unpretending house on Ste Genevieve, near the city
walls on the left side of the river. The municipal assem
blies were afterwards held near the Place de Greve, on the
right side of the river, in the " Maison aux Piliers," which
Francis I. allowed to be replaced by an imposing hotel
de ville.
The last of the direct descendants of Capet, and the first
two Valois did little for their capital. Philip the Fair,
however, increased its political importance by making it
the seat of the highest court in the kingdom, the parle-
ment, which he organized between 1302 and 1304, and to
which he surrendered a part of his Cit6 palace. Under
the three sons of Philip the Fair, the Tour de Nesle, which
stood opposite, on the site now occupied by the buildings
of the Institute, was the scene of frightful orgies, equally
celebrated in history and romance. One of the queens
who, if the chronicles are to be trusted, took part in these
expiated her crimes in Chateau-Gaillard, where she was
strangled in 1315 by order of her husband, Louis X.
During the first part of the war of the Hundred Years,
Paris escaped being taken by the English, but felt the
effects of the national misfortunes. Whilst destitution
excited in the country the revolt of the Jacquerie, in the
city the miseries of the time v/ere attributed to the vices
of the feudal system, and the citizens seemed ready for
insurrection. The provost of the merchants, Etienne Marcel,
equally endowed with courage and intellect, sought to turn
this double movement to account in the interest of the
Paris in 1380.
municipal liberties of Paris and of constitutional guarantees.
The cause which he supported was lost through the violence
of his own acts. Not content with having massacred two
ministers under the very eyes of the dauphin Charles, who
was regent whilst his father John lay captive in London,
he joined the Jacquerie, and was not afraid to call into Paris
the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, a notorious firebrand
who at that time was making common cause with the
English. Public sentiment, at first favourable to Marcel's
schemes, shrank from open treason. A watch was set on
him, and, at the moment when, having the keys of the
town in his possession in virtue of his office, he was pre
paring to open one of the gates, he was assassinated by
order of Jean Maillard, one of the heads of the milice, on
the night of July 31, 1358. Marcel had enlarged Philip
Augustus's line of fortifications on the right side of the
river, and had commenced a new one.
When he became king in 1364, Charles V. forgot the
outrages he had suffered at the hands of the Parisians
during his regency. He robbed the Louvre to some extent
of its military equipment, in order to make it a convenient
and sumptuous residence ; his open-work staircases and
his galleries are mentioned in terms of the highest praise
by writers of the time. This did not, however, remain
always his favourite palace ; having built or rebuilt in the
St Antoine quarter the mansion of St Paul or St Pol, he was
particularly fond of living in it during the latter part of
his life, and it was there that he died in 1380. It was
Charles V. who, in conjunction with the provost of the
merchants, Hugues Aubriot, erected the famous Bastille
XVIII. - 37
290
to protect the St Antoine gate. A library Avhich he
founded — a rich one for th3 times — became the nucleus
of the national library. With the exception of some of the
upper portions of the Saiute Chapelle, which were altered
or reconstructed by this prince or his son Charles VI.,
there are no remains of the buildings of Charles V.
The reign of Charles VI. was as disastrous for the city
as that of his father had been prosperous. From the very
accession of the new king, the citizens, who had for some
time been relieved by a great reduction of the taxes, and
had received a premise of further alleviation, found them
selves subjected to the most odious fiscal exactions on the
part of the king's uncle, who was not satisfied with the well-
stored treasury of Charles V., which he had unscrupulously
pillaged. Aubriot, having ventured to remonstrate, Avas
thrown into prison as a heretic, and in 1382 a riot took
place for the purpose of delivering the provost and seizing
the fiscal agents. Preoccupied with his expedition against
the Flemings, Charles VI. delayed putting down the revolt,
and for the moment remitted the new taxes. On his
victorious return on 10th January 1383, the Parisians in
alarm drew up their forces in front of the town gates under
the pretext of showing their sovereign what aid he might
derive from them, but really in order to intimidate him.
They were ordered to retire within the Avails and to lay doAvn
their arms, and they obeyed. The king and his uncles,
having destroyed the gates, made their Avay into Paris as
into a besieged city; and A\rith the decapitation of Desmarets,
one of the most faithful servants of the croAvn, who perished
at the age of seventy, began a series of bloody executions.
Ostensibly through the intercession of the regents an end
Avas put to that species of severities, a heavy fine being
substituted, much larger in amount than the annual value
of the abolished taxes. The municipal administration Avas
suspended for several years, and its functions bestowed
on the provost of Paris, a magistrate nominated by the
crown.
The calamities which folloAved Avere due to the Aveakness
and incapacity of the Government, given over because of the
madness of Charles VI. to the intrigues of a wicked queen
and of princes Avho brought the most bloodthirsty passions
to the service of their boundless ambition. First came
the rivalry betAveen the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy,
brought to an end in 1407 by the assassination of the
former in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. Next followed the
relentless struggle for supremacy betAveen tAvo hostile
parties, the Armagnacs on one side, commanded by Count
Bernard of Armagnac (Avho for a brief period had the title
of constable), and supported by the nobles and burgesses,
and on the other side the Burgundians, depending on the
common people, and recognizing the duke of Burgundy
(John the Bold) as their head. The mob Avas headed by
a skinner at the Hotel-Dieu called Jean Caboche, and
hence the name Cabochians given to the Burgundian
party. They became masters of Paris in 1412 and 1413 ;
but so violent were their excesses that the most timid rose
in revolt, and the decimated bourgeoisie managed by a
bold stroke to- recover possession of the town. The
Armagnacs again entered Paris, but their intrigues Avith
England and their tyranny rendered them odious in their
turn ; the Burgundians were recalled in 1418, and returned
with Jean Caboche and a formidable band of pillagers and
assassins. Perrinet Leclerc, son of a bourgeois guard,
secretly opened the gates to them one night in May. The
king resided in the Hotel St Paul, an unconscious spectator
of those savage scenes which the princes Louis and John,
successively dauphins, Avere helpless to prevent.
The third dauphin, Charles, aftenvards Charles VII.,
managed to put an end to the civil Avar, but it was by a
crime as base as it Avas impolitic — the assassination of
John the Bold on the bridge of Montereau (1419). Next
year a treaty, from the ignominy of which Paris happily
escaped, gave a daughter of Charles VI. to Henry V. of
England, and along Avith her, in spite of the Salic laAv, the
croAvn of France. The king of England made his entry
into Paris in December 1420, and was there received Avith
a solemnity Avhich ill concealed the misery and real con
sternation of the poor people crushed by fifteen years of
murders, pillage, and famine. Charles VI. remained almost
abandoned at the Hotel St Paul, Avhere he died in 1422,
Avhilst his son-in-law Avent to hold a brilliant court at the
Louvre and Vincennes. Henry V. of England also died
in 1422. His son Henry VI., then one year old, came to
Paris nine years later to be crowned at Notre Dame, and
the city continued under the government of the duke of
Bedford till his death in 1435.
The English rule Avas a mild one, but it Avas not signal
ized by the execution of any of those Avorks of utility or
ornament so characteristic of the kings of France. The
choir of St Severin, hoAvever, shoAvs a style of architec
ture peculiarly English, and Sauval relates that the duke
of Bedford erected in the Louvre a fine gallery decorated
Avith paintings. Without assuming the mission of deliver
ing Paris, Joan of Arc, remaining Avith Charles VII. after
his coronation at Rheims, led him toAvards the capital;
but the badly conducted and abortive enterprise almost
proved fatal to the Maid of Orleans, Avho Avas severely
Avounded at the assault of the gate of St Honorc on the 8th
September 1429. The siege having been raised, Charles
aAAraited the invitation of the Parisians themselves upon the
defection of the Burgundians and the surrender of St Denis.
The St Jacques gate Avas opened by the citizens of the
guard to the constable Arthur of Richemont on April 13,
1436 ; but the solemn entry of the king did not take place
till November 12 of the folloAving year; subsequently
occupied by his various expeditions or attracted by his
residences in Berry or Touraine, he spent but little time in
Paris, Avhere he retired either to the Hotel St Paul or to
a neighbouring palace, Les Tournelles, Avhich had been
acquired by his father.
Louis XI. made equal use of St Paul and Les
Tournelles, but toAvards the close of his life he immured
himself at Plessis-les-Tours. It Avas in his reign, in 14C9,
that the first French printing press Avas set up in the
Sorbonne. Charles VIII. scarcely left Plessis-les-Tours
and Amboise except to go to Italy ; Louis XII. alternated
betAveen the castle at Blois and the palace of Les
Tournelles, Avhere he died January 1, 1515.
Francis I. lived at Chambord, at Fontainebleau, at
St Germain, and at Villers-Cotterets ; but he proposed
to form at Paris a residence in keeping Avith the taste of
the Renaissance. Paris had remained for more than thirty
years almost a stranger to the artistic movement begun
betAveen 1498 and 1500, after the Italian expedition.
Previous to 1533, the date of the commencement of the
Hotel de Ville and the church of St Eustache, Paris
did not possess, apart from the " Court of Accounts," any
important building in the neAv style. BetAveen 1527 and
1540 Francis I. demolished the old Louvre, and in 1541
Pierre Lescot began a new palace four times as large,
Avhich Avas not finished till the reign of Louis XIV. The
buildings were not sufficiently advanced under Henry II.
to allow of his leaving Les Tournelles, Avhere in 1559 he
died from a wound received at a tournament. His AvidoAv,
Catherine de' Medici, immediately caused this palace to be
demolished, and sent her three sons — Francis II., Charles
IX., and Henry III. — to the unfinished Louvre. Outside
the line of the fortifications she laid the foundations of
the Chateau des Tuileries as a residence for herself.
Of the three brothers, it Avas Charles IX. Avho resided
PARIS
291
most at the Louvre; it was there that in 1572 he signed
the order for the massacre of St Bartholomew. Henry III.
remained for the most part at Blois, and hardly came to
Paris except to be witness of the power of his enemies the
Guises.
Taking advantage of the absence of the kings, the League
had made Paris a centre of opposition. The municipal
militia were restored and reorganized ; each of the sixteen
quarters or arrondissements had to elect a deputy for the
central council, which became the council or rather faction
of The Sixteen, and for four years, from 1587 to 1591, held
the city under a yoke of iron. Henry III., having come to
the Louvre in 1588, unwillingly received there the duke of
Guise, and while endeavouring to take measures for his
own protection provoked a riot known as the Day of the
Barricades. It was with difficulty that he escaped from
his palace, which at that time had no communication with
the country, and which Henry IV. afterwards proposed to
unite with the Tuileries in order to provide a sure means
of escape in case of need.
When, after the murder of the duke of Guise at Blois at
the close of 1588, Henry III. desired to return to Paris, he
was not yet master of the city, and was obliged to besiege
it in concert with his presumptive heir the king of Navarre.
The operations were suddenly interrupted on August 1,
1589, by the assassination of the king, and Henry IV. carried
his arms elsewhere. He returned with his victorious forces
in 1590. This second siege lasted more than four years,
and was marked by terrible suffering, produced by famine
and the tyranny of The Sixteen, who were supported by the
intrigues of the king of Spain and the violent harangues
of the preachers. Even the conversion of the king did not
allay the spirit of fanaticism, for the king's sincerity was
suspected, and the words (which history, however, fails to
substantiate), "Paris is surely worth a mass," were attri
buted to him. But after the coronation of the king at
Chartres the commonalty of Paris, weary of intriguing with
strangers and Leaguers, gave such decided expression to
its feelings that those of its leaders who had kept aloof or
broken off from the faction of The Sixteen attached them
selves to the parlement, which had already evaded the
ambitious designs of the king of Spain ; and after various
negotiations the provost of the merchants, L'Huillier,
offered the keys of the city to Henry IV. on March 22,
1594-. The king met no resistance except on the part of a
company of German landsknechts, which was cut in pieces,
and the students of the university, who, steeped in the
doctrines of the League, tried to hold their quarter against
the royal troops, but were dispersed. The Spanish soldiers
who had remained in the town decamped next day.
Henry IV., who carried on the building of the Louvre,
was the last monarch who occupied it as a regular residence.
Attempts on his life were made from time to time, and
at last on May 14, 1610, he fell under Ravaillac's knife near
the market-house in Hue de la Ferronnerie.
Whether royalty gave it the benefit of its presence or
not, Paris continued all the same to increase in political
importance and in population. Here is the picture of the
city presented about 1560 by Michel de Castelnau, one of
the most celebrated chroniclers of the 16th century: —
" Paris is the capital of all the kingdom, aiid one of the most
famous in the world, as well for the splendour of its parlement
(which is an illustrious company of thirty judges attended by
three hundred advocates and more, who have reputation in all
Christendom of being the best seen in human laws and acquainted
with justice) as for its faculty of theology and for the other tongues
and sciences, which shine more in this town than in any other in
the world, besides the mechanic arts and the marvellous traffic
which render it very populous, rich, and opulent ; in such sort that
the other towns of France and all the magistrates and subjects
have their eyes directed thither as to the model of their decisions
and their political administrations."
Castelnau spoke rather as a statesman and a magistrate,
and lie did not look close enough to see that the university
was beginning to decline. The progress of the sciences
somewhat lessened the importance of its classes, too specially
devoted to theology and literature ; the eyes of men were
turned towards Italy, which was then considered the great
centre of intellectual advance; the colleges of the Jesuits
were formidable rivals ; the triumphs of Protestantism
deprived it of most of the students who used to flock to
it from England, Germany, and Scandinavia; and finally
the unfortunate part it played in political affairs weakened
its influence so much that, after the reign of Henry IV., it
no longer sent its deputies to the states-general.
If the city on the left side of the river neither extended
its circuit nor increased its population, it began in the 16th
century to be filled with large mansions (hotels), and its com
munications with the right bank were rendered easier and
more direct when Henry IV. constructed across the lower
end of the island of La Cit6 the Pont ISTeuf, which, though
retaining its original name, is now the oldest bridge in Paris.
On the right side of the river commerce and the progress
of centralization continued to attract new inhabitants, and
old villages become suburbs were enclosed within the line
of a bastioned first enceinte, the ramparts of Etienne Marcel
being, however, still left untouched. Although Louis XIII.,
except during his minority, rarely stayed much in Paris,
he was seldom long absent from it. His mother, Mary de'
Medici, built the palace of the Luxembourg, which, after
being extended under Louis Philippe, became the seat of
the senate.
Louis XIII. finished, with the exception of the eastern
front, the buildings enclosing the square court of the Louvre,
and carried on the wing which was to join the palace to
the Tuileries. Queen Anne of Austria founded the Val de
Grace, the dome of which, afterwards painted on the interior
by Mignard, remains one of the finest in Paris. Richelieu
built for himself the Palais Royal since restored, and rebuilt
the Sorbonne, where now stands his magnificent tomb by
Girardon. The island of St Louis above La Cite, till then
occupied by gardens and meadows, became a populous
parish, whose streets were laid out in straight lines, and
whose finest houses still date from the 17th century.
Building also went on in the Quartier du Marais (quarter
of the marsh) ; and the whole of Place Royale (now Place
des Vosges), with its curious arcaded galleries, belongs to
this period. The church of St Paul and St Louis was built
by the Jesuits beside the ruins of the old Hotel St Paul ;
the church of St Gervais received a fa^-ade which has be
come in our time too famous. St Etienne du Mont and
St Eustache were completed (in the latter case with the
exception of the front). The beautiful Salle des Pas-Perdus
(Hall of Lost Footsteps) was added to the Palais de Justice.
Besides these buildings and extensions Paris was indebted
to Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu for three import
ant institutions — the royal printing press in 1620, the
Jardin des Plantes in 1626, and the French Academy in
1635. The bishopric of Paris was separated from that of
Sens and erected into an archbishopric in 1623.
As memorials of Mazarin Paris still possesses the College
des Quatre-Nations, erected with one of his legacies immedi
ately after his death, and since appropriated to the Institute,
and the palace which, enlarged in our own time, now
accommodates the national library.
The stormy minority of Louis XIV. was spent at St
Germain and Paris, where the court was held at the Palais
Royal. The intrigues of the prince of Conde, Cardinal de
Retz, and (for a brief space) Turenne resulted in a siege of
Paris, during which more epigrams than balls were fired off ;
but the cannon of the Bastille, discharged by order of
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, enabled Conde to enter the
292
PARIS
city. Bloody riots followed, and came to an end only with
the exhaustion of the populace and its voluntary submission
to the king. Though Louis XIV. ceased to stay in Paris
after he grew up, he did not neglect the work of embellish
ment. On the site of the fortifications of £tienne Marcel,
which during the previous hundred years had been gradually
disappearing, he laid out the line of boulevards connecting
the quarter of the Bastille with that of the Madeleine.
Though he no longer inhabited the Louvre (and it never
was again the seat of royalty), he caused the great colonnade
to be constructed after the plans of Claude Perrault. This
immense and imposing facade, 548 feet long, has the defect
of being quite out of harmony with the rest of the build
ing, which it hides instead of introducing. The same
desire for effect, altogether irrespective of congruity,
appears again in the observatory erected by the same
Perrault, without the smallest consideration of the wise
suggestions made by Cassini. The Place Vendome, the
Place des Yictoires, the triumphal gates of St Denis and
St Martin, and several fountains, are also productions of
the reign of Louis XIV. The hospital of La Salpetriere,
with its majestically simple dome, was finished by Liberal
Bruant. The Hotel des Invalides, one of the finest institu
tions of the Grand Monarque, was also erected, with its
chapel, between 1671 and 1675, by Bruant ; but it was
reserved for the architect Hardouin Mansart to give to this
imposing edifice a complement worthy of itself : it was he
who raised the dome, admirable alike for its proportions,
for the excellent distribution of its ornaments, and for its
gilded lantern, which rises 344 feet above the ground.
"Private persons," says Voltaire, "in imitation of their king,
raised a thousand splendid edifices. The number increased
so greatly that from the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal
and of St Sulpice there were formed in Paris two new
towns much finer than the old one." All the aristocracy
had not thought fit to take up their residence at Versailles,
and the great geniuses of the century, Corneille, Racine,
La Fontaine, Moliere, Madame de Se'vigne, had their houses
LiPCASTiJt: LAW LLT; rrT VNI\ K. u.^i rt, >; TJ-
Paris in 1615.
in Paris ; there also was the Hotel de Rambouillet, so
famous in the literary history of the 17th century.
The halls of the Palais Royal during the minority of
Louis XV. were the scene of the excesses of the regency ;
later on the king from time to time resided at the
Tuileries, which- henceforward came to be customarily
regarded as the official seat of the monarchy. To the reign
of Louis XV. are due the rebuilding of the Palais Royal,
the " Place " now called De la Concorde, the military school,
the greater part of the church of Ste Genevieve or
Pantheon (a masterpiece of the architect Soufflot), the
church of St Roch, the palace of the l^lyse'e (now the resi
dence of the president of the republic), the Palais Bourbon
(with the exception of the facade) now occupied by the
chamber of deputies, and the mint, a majestic and scholarly
work by the architect Antoine, as well as the rebuilding
of the College de France.
Louis XVI. finished or vigorously carried on the works
begun by his grandfather. He did not come to live in
Paris till compelled by the Revolution. That historical
movement began indeed at Versailles on June 17, 1789,
when the states-general were transformed into a con
stituent assembly; but the first act of violence which
proved the starting-point of all its excesses was performed
in Paris on July 14, 1789, when Paris inaugurated, with
the capture of the Bastille, its " national guard," organized
and then commanded by the celebrated La Fayette. At
the same time the assassination of the last provost of the
merchants, Jacques de Flesselles, gave the opportunity of
establishing, with more extended powers, the " mairie "
(mayoralty) of Paris, which was first occupied by Bailly,
and soon became, under the title of commune, a political
power capable of effectively counterbalancing the central
authority.
Paris had at that time once more outgrown its limits.
The quarter on the left side of the river had more than
PARIS
293
doubled its extent by the accession of the great monasteries,
the faubourgs of St Germain and St Marceau, the Jardin
des Plantes, and the whole of Mont Ste Genevieve. The
line of the new enceinte is still marked by a circuit of
boulevards passing from the Champs de Mars at Pont
d'Austerlitz by Place de 1'Enfer and Place d'ltalie. Similar
enlargements, also marked out by a series of boulevards,
incorporated with the town on the right side the faubourgs
of St Antoine and Poissonniere and the quarters of La
Chaussee d'Antin and Chaillot. In 1784 was begun,
instead of a line of fortifications, a simple customs-wall, with
sixty propylcea or pavilions in a heavy but characteristic
style, of which the finest are adorned with columns or
pilasters like those of Psestum. In front of the Place du
Trone (now Place de la Nation), which formed as it were a
facade for Paris on the east side, there were erected two
lofty rostral columns bearing the statues of Philip Augustus
and St Louis. Towards the vvrest, the city front was Place
Louis XV. (Place de la Concorde), preceded by the magni
ficent avenue of the Champs l^lysees. Between the barriers
of La Villette and Pantin, where the highways for Flanders
and Germany terminated, was built a monumental rotunda
fianked on the ground floor by four peristyles arranged as
a Greek cross, and in the second story lighted by low
arcades supported by columns of the Pyestum type. None
of these works were completed till the time of the empire.
It was also in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV.,
and under the first republic, that the quarter of La Chaussee
d'Antin was built.
It does not enter into the plan of the present sketch to
narrate the history of Paris during the Revolutionary period ;
that is the history rather of France, and to a certain extent
of the whole world (see FRANCE). During the consulate
hardly anything of note took place at Paris except the
explosion of the infernal machine directed against
Bonaparte on December 24, 1800.
The coronation of Napoleon by Pope Pius VII. Avas
celebrated in Notre Dame on December 2, 1804. Eight
years later, during the Russian campaign, the conspiracy
of General Malet, happily suppressed, was on the point
of letting loose on all France a dreadful civil war. The
empire, however, was then on the wane, and Paris was
witness of its fall when, after an heroic resistance of two
days, the city was obliged to surrender to the allies on
March 30, 1814.
After the return of the Bourbons, Paris had to submit
to a treaty more humiliating than the capitulation. Already
in 1763 Louis XV. had signed in his capital the treaty
with England known as the shameful (Ilonteuse), by which
he surrendered a great part of the American and Indian
colonies, and notably Canada. That of May 30, 1814,
was more truly disastrous, since it dismembered the mother-
country, cancelled almost all the conquests of the republic
and the empire, and lessened the military strength of
France by robbing it of half its fleet. And worse even
than this was the treaty of 28th November 1815, which
not only suppressed the slight accessions of territory re
cognized by the treaty of 1814, and doomed to. demolition
the fortifications of Huningue, but exacted a war indemnity
of 700 million francs (£28,000,000), and demanded the
maintenance in seven departments of 150,000 soldiers of
the allied army until the payment of the entire sum.
Under Louis XVIII. the only event of note that occurred
in Paris was the assassination of the duke of Berry by
Louvel, February 13, 1820. Ten years later the revolution
of 1830, splendidly commemorated by the Column of July
in Place de la Bastille, put Charles X. to flight and inaugur
ated the reign of Louis Philippe, a troublous period which
was closed by the revolution of 1848 and a new republic.
It was this reign, however, that surrounded Paris with
bastioned fortifications with ditches and detached forts.
The republic of 1848 brought no greater quiet to the city
than did the reign of Louis Philippe. The most terrible
insurrection was that of June 23 to 26, 1848, distinguished
by the devotion and heroic death of the Archbishop Affre.
It was quelled by General Cavaignac, who then for some
months held the executive power. Prince Louis Napoleon
next became president of the republic, and after dissolving
the chamber of deputies on December 2, 1851, caused
himself to be proclaimed emperor just a year later.
The second empire completed that material transforma
tion of Paris which had already been begun at the fall of
the ancient monarchy. First came numerous cases of
destruction and demolition caused by the suppression of the
old monasteries and of many parish churches. A number
of mediaeval buildings, civil or military, were cleared away
for the sake of regularity of plan and improvements in the
public streets, or to satisfy the taste of the owners, who
thought more of their comfort or profit than of the historic
interest of their old mansions or houses. Destructions of
this kind, in some instances of advantage, in other cases
without excuse, still continue with more or less frequency.
It was under the first empire that the new series of
improvements were inaugurated which have made Paris a
modern city. Napoleon began the Rue de Rivoli, built along
this street the wing intended to connect the Tuileries with
the Louvre, erected in front of the court of the Tuileries
the triumphal arch of the Carrousel, in imitation of that of
Septimius Severus at Rome. In the middle of the Place
Vendome was reared, on the model of Trajan's column, the
column of the grand army, surmounted by the statue of the
emperor. To immortalize this same grand army he ordered
from the architect Pierre Vignon a Temple of Victory, which
without changing the form of its Corinthian peristyle has
become the church of the Madeleine ; the entrance to the
avenue of the Champs Elysees was spanned by the vast
triumphal arch De 1'Etoile (of the star), which owes its
celebrity not only to its colossal dimensions and its magnifi
cent situation, but also to one of the four subjects sculp
tured upon its faces — the Chant du Depart or Marseillaise,
one of the masterpieces of Rude and of modern sculpture.
Another masterpiece was executed by David of Angers, the
pediment of the Pantheon, not less famous than Soufflot's
dome. The museum of the Louvre, founded by decree of
the Convention on July 27, 1793, was organized and con
siderably enlarged ; that of the Luxembourg was created
in 1805,. but was not appropriated exclusively to modern
artists till under the Restoration. The Conservatoire des
Arts et Metiers, due to the Convention, received also con
siderable additions in the old priory or abbey of St
Martin des Champs, where the council of the Five Hundred
had installed it in 1798.
Under the Restoration and under the government of July
many new buildings were erected; but, with the exception
of the Bourse, constructed by the architects Brongniart and
Labarre, and the colonnade of the chamber of deputies,
these are of interest not so much for their size as for the
new artistic tendencies affected in their architecture.
People had grown weary of the eternal Grajco-Roman
compilations rendered fashionable by the Renaissance, and
reduced under the empire to mere imitations, in producing
which all inspiration was repressed. The necessity of being
rational in architecture, and of taking full account of
practical wants, was recognized ; and more suggestive and
plastic models were sought in the past. These were to be
I found, it was believed, in Greece ; and in consequence the
government under Louis Philippe saw itself obliged to
found the French school at Athens, i:i order to allow young
artists to study their favourite types on the spot. In the
case of churches it was deemed judicious to revive the
294
PARIS
Christian basilicas of the first centuries, as at Notre Dame '
de Lorette and St Vincent de Paul; and a little later
to bring in again the styles of the Middle Ages, as in the
ogival church of Ste Clotilde.
Old buildings were also the object of labours more or
less important. The Place de la Concorde was altered in
various ways, and adorned with eight statues of towns and
with two fountains; on October 25, 1836, the Egyptian
obelisk, brought at great expense from Luxor, was erected
in the centre. The general restoration of the cathedral of
Notre Dame was voted by the Chamber in 1845, and en
trusted to Viollet-le-Duc; and the palace of the Luxembourg
and the Hotel de Yille were considerably enlarged at the
>ame time, in the style of the existing edifices.
But the great transformer of Paris in modern times was
Napoleon III. To him or to his reign we owe the Grand
Ope'ra, the finest theatre in the world, and the masterpiece
of the architect Gamier ; the new Hotel-Dieu ; the finish
ing of the galleries which complete the Louvre and connect
it with the Tuileries ; the extension of the Palais de Justice
and its new front on the old Place Dauphine; the tribunal
of commerce ; the central markets ; several of the finest
railway stations; the viaduct at Auteuil; the churches
of La Trinit^, St Augustin, St Ambroise, St Fran§ois
Xavier, Belleville, Me'nilmontant, &c. For the first inter
national Paris exhibition (that of 1855) was constructed
the "palace of industry"; the enlargement of the national
library was commenced ; the museum of French antiquities
was created by the savant Du Sommerard, and installed in
the old "hotel" built at the end of the 15th century for
the abbots of Cluny.
All this is but the smallest part of the memorials which
Napoleon III. left of his presence. Not only was the
city traversed in all directions by new thoroughfares, and
sumptuous houses raised or restored in every quarter, but
the line of the fortifications was made in 1859 the limit
of the city. The area was thus doubled, extending to
7450 hectares or 18,410 acres, instead of 3402 hectares
or 8407 acres. It was otherwise with the population ; to
the 1,200,000 inhabitants Avhich Paris possessed in 1858 the
incorporation of the suburban zone only added 600,000.
Paris had to pay dear for its growth and prosperity
under the second empire. This Government, which, by
straightening and widening the streets, thought it had
effectually guarded against the attempts of its internal
enemies, had not sufficiently defended itself from external
attack, and at the first reverses of 1870 Paris found itself
prepared to overthrow the empire, but by no means
able to hold out against the approaching Prussians.
The two sieges of Paris in 1870-71 are among the
most dramatic episodes of its history. The first siege
began on September 19, 1870, with the occupation by the
Germans of the heights on the left side of the river and
the capture of the unfinished redoubt of Chatillon. Two
days later the investment was complete. General Trochu,
head of the French Government and governor of the city,
had under his command 400,000 men — a force which
ought to have "been able to hold out against the 240,000
Germans by whom it was besieged, had it not been com
posed for the most part of hurried levies of raw soldiers
vnth inexperienced officers, and of national guards who,
never having been subjected to strict military discipline,
were a source of weakness rather than of strength. The
guards, it is true, displayed a certain warlike spirit, but it
was for the sole purpose of exciting disorder. Open revolt
broke out on October 31; it was suppressed, but increased
the demoralization of the besieged and the demands of the
Prussians. The partial successes which the French obtained
in engagements on both sides of the river were rendered
useless by the Germans recapturing all the best positions;
the severity of winter told heavily on the garrison, and
the armies in the provinces which were to have co-operated
with it were held in check by the Germans in the west
and south. In obedience to public opinion a great sortie
was undertaken ; this, in fact, was the only alternative to
a surrender ; for, the empire having organized everything
in expectation of victory and not of disaster, Paris, insuffi
ciently provisioned for the increase of population caused
by the influx of refugees, was already suffering the horrors
of famine. Accidental circumstances combined with the
indecision of the leaders to render the enterprise a
failure. Despatches sent by balloon to the army of the
Loire instructing it to make a diversion reached their
destination too late; the bridge of Champigny over the
Marne could not be constructed in time ; the most advan
tageous positions remained in the hands of the Germans ;
and on the 2nd and 3rd December the French abandoned the
positions they had seized on the 29th and 30th of November.
Another sortie made towards the north on December 21st
was repulsed, and the besieged lost the Avron plateau,
the key to the positions which they still held on that side.
The bombardment began on December 27th, and great
damage was done to the forts on the left of the Seine,
especially those of Vanves and Issy, directly commanded
by the Chatillon battery. A third and last sortie (which
proved fatal to Regnault the painter) was attempted in
January 1871, but resulted in hopeless retreat. An
armistice was signed on January 27th, the capitulation on
the 28th. The revictualling of the city was not accom
plished without much difficulty, in spite of the generous
rivalry of foreign nations (London alone sending provisions
to the value of £80,000).
On the 1st of March the Germans entered Paris. This
event, which marked the close of the siege, was at
the same time the first preparation for the " commune ; "
for the national guard, taking advantage of the general
confusion and the powerlessness of the regular army,
carried a number of cannon to the heights of Mont-
martre and Belleville under pretext of saving them.
President Thiers, appreciating the danger, attempted on
March 18th to remove the ordnance; his action was the
signal of an insurrection which, successful from the first,
initiated a series of terrible outrages by the murder of the
two generals, Lecomte and Thomas. The Government,
afraid of the defection of the troops, who were demoralized
by failure and suffering, had evacuated the forts on the
left side of the river and concentrated the army at
Versailles (the forts on the right side were still to be held
for some time by the Germans). Mont Val6rien happily
remained in the hands of the Government, and became
the pivot of the attack during the second siege. All the
sorties made by the insurgents in the direction of Versailles
(where the National Assembly was in session from March
20) proved unsuccessful, and cost them two of their
improvised leaders — Generals Flourens and Duval. The
incapacity and mutual hatred of their chiefs rendered all
organization and durable resistance impossible. On Sunday
May 21st the Government forces, commanded by Marshal
M'Mahon, having already captured the forts on the right
side of the river, made their way within the walls ; but
they had still to fight hard from barricade to barricade
before they were masters of the city ; Belleville, the special
Ked Republican quarter, was not assaulted and taken till
Friday. Meanwhile the communists were committing the
most horrible excesses : the archbishop of Paris (GEORGES
DARROY, </.?'.), President Bonjean, priests, magistrates,
journalists, and private individuals, whom they had seized
as hostages, were shot in batches in the prisons : and a
scheme of destruction was ruthlessly carried into effect by
men and women with cases of petroleum (petroleurs and
A K — P A R
295
petroleuses). The Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the
Tuileries, the Ministry of Finance, the palace of the
Legion of Honour, that of the Council of State, part of
the Rue de Rivoli, &c., were ravaged by the flames ; barrels
of gunpowder were placed in Notre Dame and the Pantheon,
ready to blow up the buildings ; and the whole city would
have been involved in ruin if the national troops had not
gained a last and crowning victory in the neighbourhood
of La Roquette and Pere-la-Chaise on May 28th. Besides
the large number of insurgents who, taken in arms, were
pitilessly shot, others were afterwards condemned to death,
to penal servitude, to transportation ; and the survivors
only obtained their liberty by the decree of 1879.
From this double trial Paris emerged diminished and
almost robbed of its dignity as capital ; for the parlia
mentary assemblies and the Government went to sit
at Versailles. For a little it was thought that the city
would not recover from the blow which had fallen on it.
All came back, however — confidence, prosperity, and, along
with that, increasing growth of population and the execu
tion of great public works. The Hotel de Ville has been
rebuilt, the school of medicine adorned with an imposing
fa9ade, a vast school of pharmacy established in the old
gardens of the Luxembourg, and boulevards completed.
The exhibition of 1878 was more marvellous than those of
1855 and 1867, and unlike that of the latter year has left
': a lasting memorial, the palace of the Trocaddro. Finally
! the chambers in 1879 considered quiet sufficiently restored
I to take possession of their customary quarters in the Palais
Bourbon and the Luxembourg. This happy event closes
1 for the present the annals, at times only too dramatic, of
! the capital of France. (A. s.-p.)
Bibliography. — From the immense list of works relating to Paris it is possible
i to make but a small selection here. For the history of the city the reader may
! consult Sauval, Histoire de Paris, 3 vols. fol., 1724; Dom Felibien, Histoire de
I Paris, 5 vols. fol., 1725; Lcbeuf, Histoire de la ville et du diocese de Paris, 15
i vols. 12mo, 1754-57, new eel. by Cocheris, 1803 sq.; Jaillot, Recherche* sur Paris,
5 vols. 8vo, 1772-74 ; Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, often reprinted ; Berty, Topo-
\ graphic historitjue du vieux Paris, 2 vols. 4to, 1800-G8, and Allan des ancient
i plans de Paris, published by the city and edited by Duclier. For the libraries
; an '1 art treasures of Paris the following works may be referred to : — Francklin,
Les anciennes bibliotheques de Paris (1867) ; L. Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscriti
de Ja bibliotheriue imperial e (1868); Inventaire genera! des ricltesses d'art de la
: France, public par !e Ministere de I' Instruction publique et des lieaux Arts (the
i volumes relati ig to Paris), and the Inventaire general des ceuvres d'art apparten-
ant a la ville de Paris, in course of publication by the municipality. As regards
the modern ;ity, see the official Annuaire statistique de la vine de Paris; the
Atlas de la ville de Paris par arrondissement, published by the municipality;
Maxime Duramp, Paris, ses organes, ses f auctions, sa vie (6 vols. 8vo and 6 vols.
18mo, 18C9-1875); Laeroix and Verbaeckhovcn, Paris-Guide, par les principaux
ecrivains et artistes de la France, 18G7 ; and A. Joanne, Paris illustre, 1881.
PARIS, the son of Priam, king of Troy. Before he was
born his mother Hecuba dreamed that she was delivered of
a firebrand. The dream was interpreted that her child
would ruin his country, and when Paris was born he was
exposed on Mount Ida. His life was saved by the herds
men, and he grew up among them, distinguished for beauty
and strength, till he was recognized and received by his
parents. When the strife arose at the marriage of Peleus
and Thetis between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, each
claiming the apple that should belong to the most beauti
ful, Paris was selected as the judge. The three rivals
unveiled their divine charms before a mortal judge on
Mount Ida. The scene afterwards became a favourite
subject in Greek art, and it is usual to represent Hermes
escorting the goddesses. Each tried to bribe the judge,
Hera by promising power, Athena wisdom, Aphrodite the
most beautiful woman in the world. Paris decided in
favour of Aphrodite, and thus made Hera and Athena the
bitter enemies of his country. To gain the woman whom
Aphrodite had promised, Paris set sail for Lacedaemon,
deserting his old love Qilnone, daughter of the river-god
Cebren, who in vain tried to induce him to give up his
purpose. He Avas hospitably received by Menelaus, whose
kindness he repaid by seducing his wife Helena to flee
with him to Troy. The details of the flight are variously
related (see HELENA). The siege of Troy by the united
Greeks followed. Paris proved a lazy and backward
fighter, though not wanting in actual courage when he
could be roused to exert himself. Before the capture of
the city he was mortally wounded by Philoctetes with an
arrow. He then bethought him of the slighted nymph
CEnone, who he knew could heal the wound. He was
carried into her presence, but she refused to save him.
Afterwards, when she found he was dead, she committed
suicide. Paris is represented in Greek art as a beautiful
young man, beardless, wearing the pointed Phrygian cap,
and often holding in his hand the apple.
PARIS, MATTHEW or. See vol. xv. p. 633.
PARISH. In England the parish may be regarded as
essentially an ecclesiastical institution, being defined as the
township or cluster of townships which was assigned to the
ministration of a single priest, to whom its tithes and other
ecclesiastical dues were paid ; and it has been decided that
if a place has not a church, churchwardens, and sacramen-
talia it is not a parish in this original sense of the term.
The word has now acquired several distinct meanings,
which must be separately mentioned and investigated.
The Old Ecclesiastical Parish. — In the absence of evi
dence to the contrary, the ecclesiastical parish is presumed
to be composed of a single township or vill, and to be con
terminous with the manor within the ambit of which it is
comprised. Before the process of subinfeudation became
prevalent, the most ancient manors were the districts which
we call by that name when speaking of the tenants, or
"townships " when we regard the inhabitants, or " parishes "
as to matters ecclesiastical. The parish as an institution is
in reality later in date than the township. The latter has
been in fact the unit of local administration ever since the
country was settled by the English in their several states
and kingdoms ; the beginnings of the parochial system are
attributed to Theodore of Tarsus, who was archbishop of
Canterbury towards the close of the 7th century. The
system was extended in the reign of Edgar, and it appears
not to have been complete until the reign of Edward III.
It has been considered that the intimate connexion of
church and state militates against the view that the
parochial system was founded as a national institution,
since any legislation on the subject of the township and
parochial systems would probably have resulted in the
merging of the one into the other. " The fact that the two
systems, the parish and the township, have existed for more
than a thousand years side by side, identical in area and
administered by the same persons, and yet separate in
character and machinery, is a sufficient proof that no
legislative Act could have been needed in the first place ;
nor was there any lay council of the whole nation which
could have sanctioned such a measure " (Stubbs, Const.
Hist., i. 227). The boundaries of the old ecclesiastical
parishes are usually identical with those of the township or
townships comprised within its precinct ; they are deter
mined by usage, in the absence of charters or records, and
are evidenced by perambulations, which formerly took place
on the " gang-days " in Rogation week, but are now for
the most part held triennially, the Poor-Law Act of 1844
permitting the parish officers to charge the expense on the
poor-rate, " provided the perambulations do not occur more
than once in three years." The expense of preserving the
boundary by land-marks or bound-stones is chargeable to
the same rate. Many parishes contain more than one
township, and this is especially the case in the northern
296
P A E I S H
counties, where the separate townships are organized for
administrative purposes under an Act passed in 1662. In
the southern and midland districts the parishes are for the
most part subdivided into hamlets or other local divisions
known as "tythings," "boroughs," and the like; the
distinction between a parish and a subordinate district lies
chiefly in the fact that the latter will be found to have
never had a church or a constable to itself. The select
committee of 1873, appointed to inquire into parochial
boundaries, reported to the effect that the parish bears no
definite relation to any other administrative area, except
indeed to the Poor-Law Union. It may be situated in
different counties or hundreds, and in many instances it
contains, in addition to its principal district, several outlying
portions intermixed with the lands in other parishes. Since
the abolition of compulsory church rates in 1868 (subject
to certain exceptions as to rates which had already been
mortgaged), the old ecclesiastical parish has ceased to Lc
of importance as an instrument of local governi lent. Its
officers, however, have still important duties to perform.
The rector, vicar, or incumbent is a corporation-sole, in
whom is vested the freehold of the church and churchyard,
subject to the parishioners' rights of user ; their rights of
burial have been enlarged by the Burial Laws Amendment
Act, 1880, and an Act passed in 1882 to regulate the inter
ment of suicides. The churchwardens are the principal
lay officers. Their duties consist in keeping the church
and churchyard in repair and in raising a voluntary rate
for the purpose to the best of their power ; they have also
the duty of keeping order in church during divine service ;
and by Acts passed in 1860 and 1877 they are required to
furnish annual accounts to the Local Government Board.
The other officials are the parish-clerk and sexton. They
have freeholds in their offices, and are paid by customary
fees. The office of the clerk is regulated by an Act of
1844, enabling a curate to undertake its duties, and
providing facilities for vacating the office in case of
misconduct. It is said that the only civil function of the
parish-clerk now remaining is to undertake the custody of
maps and documents, which may be deposited under the
provisions of the Railway Clauses Act, 1845.
The Neiu Ecclesiastical Parish. — Under the powers
given by the Church Building Acts, many populous parishes
have been subdivided into smaller ecclesiastical parishes.
This division has not affected the parish in its civil aspect
(Chalmers, Local Government, 39). The change has
helped to increase the distinction between the ecclesiastical
and civil parishes. Mi- Chalmers estimates that there are
now about 15,000 civil and 13,000 ecclesiastical parishes
in England, and that in 1871 not more than 10,000 civil
parishes coincided with the ecclesiastical districts of the
same names.
The Poor-Law Parish. — For the purposes of civil
government the term " parish " means a district for which
a separate poor-rate is or can be made, or for which a
separate overseer is or can be appointed ; and by the Poor
Law Amendment Act, 1866, this definition is to be used
in interpreting ail statutes except where the context is
inconsistent therewith. This district may of itself con
stitute a poor law union ; but in the great majority of cases
the unions, or areas under the jurisdiction of boards of
guardians according to the Poor-Law Amendment Act of
1834, are made up of aggregated poor-law parishes. Each
of these poor-law parishes may represent the extent of an
old ecclesiastical parish, or a township separately rated by
custom before the practice was stayed in 1819 or separated
from a large parish under the Act of 1662, or it may repre
sent a chapelry, tything, borough, ward, quarter, or hamlet,
or other subdivision of the ancient parish, or an area
formed by the merger of an sxtra-parochial place with an
adjoining district under the Acts of 1857 and 1869, or by
the union of detached portions with adjoining parishes
under the Acts of 1876 and 1879, or by the subdivision of
a large parish for the better administration of the relief of
the poor under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1867 and
the Local Government Board Act of 1871. The civil
importance of the poor-law parishes may be dated from the
introduction of the poor law by the statute of 43 Elizabeth,
which directed overseers of the poor to be appointed in
every parish, and made the churchwardens into CJG ojjicio
overseers. The statute was preceded by tentative provi
sions of the same kind enacted in the reigns of Edward the
VI. and Mary and in the fifth year of Elizabeth, and
after several renewals was made perpetual in the reign
of Charles I. The chief part of the parochial organization
is the vestry-meeting. It derives its name from the old
place of assembly, which in parishes exceeding two
thousand in population may now be replaced by a vestry-
hail. The vestry represents the old assembly of the town
ship, and retains so much of its business as has not been
insensibly transferred to the court-baron and court-leet.
The freemen, now appearing as the ratepayers, elect the
" parish officers, " as the churchwardens and way-wardens,
the assessors, the overseers, and (if required) paid assistant-
overseers, a secretary or vestry-clerk, and a collector of
rates if the guardians apply for his appointment. A meet
ing for the election of guardians is held in April every
year, subject to the rules laid down by the Local Govern
ment Board as to the number of guardians for each parish,
and the union of parishes for voting purposes. In case of
a contest the election is conducted under Sturges Bourne's
Act. Common vestries are meetings of all the ratepayers
assembled on a three days' notice ; the minister of the
ecclesiastical parish is chairman, if present ; the meeting
acts by show of hands unless a poll is demanded ; if
demanded, the poll is conducted by plural voting according
to payment of rates. Select vestries are regulated by the
local custom, or may derive their power from Hobhouse's
Act passed in 1831, now repealed in the Metropolitan
District, and not much used elsewhere. The functions of
the vestry, apart from elections, are practically confined to
the management of the property of the parish. The vestry,
however, has power to adopt the Free Libraries Act, or the
Lighting and Watching Act of 1833, and may appoint a
new burial board if a new burial-ground is required ; but
with these exceptions, most of its active powers and duties
have now been taken away by the Acts relating to the
poor laws and public health.
The Land-Tax Parish. — The parishes or places sepa
rately assessed for land tax form another class. They
are described in the series of land-tax accounts from 1692
to the present time, and are also defined in the Taxes-
Management Act of 1880.
The Jiurial Acts Parish. — The Burial Acts from 1852
to 1875 deal with areas which are treated as parishes for
the purposes of those Acts, but Avhich have no necessary
connexion with the boundaries of the civil and ecclesiastical
districts known as parishes in the ordinary sense of the term,
The Hif/hway Parish. — The word " parish " is used
in a very wide and vague manner in the Highway Acts..
It includes any civil district less than the county, such
as wapentakes, hundreds, cities, liberties, or franchises, as
well as subdivisions of the ordinary parish, such as town
ships and hamlets, if by reason of tenure or custom or
otherwise such larger or smaller district either maintains
its own highways or would do so if it were not included in
a highway district composed of several highway parishes
or in an urban sanitary district. The constitution of the
highway parish is discussed in the lleport of the Lords'
Committee on Highways. (c. I. E.)
P A R — P A R
297
The Parish in Scotland.— There can be little doubt that about
the beginning of the 13th century the whole, or almost the
whole, of the kingdom of Scotland was parochially divided. It
seems probable (though the point is obscure) that the bishops
presided at the first formation of the parishes — the parish being a
subdivision of the diocese — arid at any rate down to the date of the
Reformation they exercised the power of creating new parishes
within their respective dioceses (Duncan, Parochial Law, p. 4).
After the Reformation the power of altering parishes was assumed
by the legislature. The existing parochial districts being found
unsuited to the ecclesiastical requirements of the time, a general
Act was passed in 1581, which made provision for the parochial
clergy, and, inter alia, directed that "a sufficient and competent"
district should be appropriated to each church as a parish (1581,
cap. 100). Thereafter, by a series of special Acts in the first place,
and, subsequent to the year 1617, by the decrees of parliamentary
commissions, the creation of suitable parochial districts was pro
ceeded with. The powers conferred on the parliamentary commis
sions embraced what are technically known as (1) the disjunction
and erection of parishes, (2) the union of parishes, and (3) the
disjunction and annexation of parishes. In altering and defining
parochial areas in those several ways, the object which the com
missioners had in view was to provide for the spiritual wants of
particular districts of the country, and to procure from the lands
in the parish a proper stipend for the clergy. In the year 1707
the powers exercised by these commissioners were permanently
transferred to the Court of Session, whose judges were appointed
to act in future as "Commissioners for the Plantation of Kirks and
Valuation of Teinds" (Act, 1707, cap. 9). Under this statute the
areas of parishes continued to be altered and defined down to 1844,
when the Act commonly known as Graham's Act was passed,
(7 & 8 Viet. c. 44). This Act, which applies to the disjunction
and erection of parishes, introduced a simpler form of procedure,
and to some extent dispensed with the consent of the heritors,
which had been required under the earlier statute. Since 1844
proceedings for disjunction and erection of parishes have been
taken under it.
The main division of parishes in Scotland as they now exist is
into civil and ecclesiastical, or, to speak more accurately, into
parishes proper (i.e., for all purposes, civil and ecclesiastical) and
ecclesiastical parishes. This division is expressed in legal language
by the terms, parishes quoad ornnia (i.e., quoad civilia et sacra)
and parishes quoad sacra — civilia, being such matters as church
rates, education, poor la\v, and sanitary purposes, and sacra being
such as concern the administration of church ordinances, and fall
under the cognizance of the church courts. There are other minor
divisions which will be noticed below. (1) The Parish Proper. — In
a number of instances it is difficult to determine the exact areas of
such parishes at the presen t day. The boundaries of the old ecclesi
astical parish were nowhere recorded, and the descriptions in the
titles of private properties which appear to lie in the parish have
sometimes to be taken as evidence, and sometimes the fact that the
inhabitants attended a particular church or made payments in
favour of a particular minister. Where there has been a union or
disjunction and erection of parishes the evidence of the boundaries
is the relative statute, order in council, or decree of commission or
of Court of Teinds. The total number of parishes proper in
Scotland is eight hundred and eighty-six, and they vary to a great
degree both in size and population. For ecclesiastical purposes, the
minister and kirk-session constitute the parochial authority. The
minister is vested with the manse and glebe, to be held by him for
himself and his successors in office, and along with the kirk-session
he administers church ordinances and exercises church discipline.
For purposes of local government, on the other hand, the Scottish
parish, unlike that of England, has been largely utilized by modern
legislation. The oldest governing authority is the meeting of the
heritors or landowners of the parish. Though shorn of much of its
old importance, the heritors' meeting has still the power of imposing
an assessment for the purpose of providing and maintaining a
church and churchyard and a manse and glebe for the minister.
It also possesses power to assess under the Parochial Buildings Acts
of 1862 and 1866. In a certain number of parishes also, which
have not adopted a parochial board under the Poor-Law Act, 1845,
the heritors along with the kirk-session provide for the relief of the
poor, and administer the funds legally destined for that purpose.
In the great majority, however, of civil parishes the chief governing
authority is the parochial board, which in non-burghal parishes is
composed of owners of land of £20 annual value and upwards, and
representatives of the kirk-session and of the magistrates of any
burgh within the parish and of the rate-payers — the number of
representative members being in each case fixed by the Board of
Supervision. Another local authority of great importance is the
school board, created by the recent Education Acts. Speaking
generally, the matters administered in the civil parish are poor
relief, education, public health, burial, registration, and church
rates. _(2) QuoadSacra Parishes. — The ecclesiastical or quoad sacra
parish is a modern creation. Under Graham's Act, above mentioned,
a parish may be disjoined and erected quoad sacra tantum on the
application of persons who have built and endowed a church, and
who offer securities for its proper maintenance. The creation is
made purely on a consideration of the spiritual interests of a par
ticular district, and not for any purposes of civil administration.
By the Education Act of 1872, however, the quoad sacra parish
has been adopted as a separate school district. There are three hun
dred and twenty-five such parishes in Scotland. (3) Extra-Burghal
Parishes. — For sanitary purposes, highways, and some others, cer
tain classes of burghs have been made separate areas from the
parishes in which they lie. This fact creates a set of incomplete
parishes, which are called extra-burghal. (4) Burghal, Land
ward, and Burghal- Landward (or Mixed) Parishes. — This division
of parishes depends, as the names imply, upon local character and
situation of the parochial districts. The importance of the dis
tinction arises in connexion with the rule of assessment which is to
be adopted for various parochial burdens, and the nature of the
rights of the minister and corresponding obligations of the
parishioners. (5) Combined Parishes. — Under the Poor-Law,
Education, and Registration Acts power is given to the central
authority to combine parishes for purposes of local administration.
The Parish in the United States. — The term " parish " is not in
use as a territorial designation except in Louisiana, the fifty-eight
parishes of which correspond to the counties of the other States of
the Union.
The principal records from which information may be gained as to the oldest
parochial system in England are the records called A'omina Villarum, the Taxatio
Papx Nicholai made in 1291, the Nonarum Inqtiisitiones relating to assessments
made upon the clergy, the Valor Ecclesiastic its of Henry VIII., the lay subsidies
from the reign of Edward III. to that of Charles II., the hearth-tax assessments,
and the land-fax accounts. On the subject of the parish generally the reader
should consult Stubbs's Constitutional History, Glen's Parish Law, Toulmin
Smith's work on the Parifh, lloldsworth's Handy Book of Parish Law, and
M. D. Chalmers's work on Local Government, published in the English Citizen
Series. For fuller information regarding the Scottish parish the following-
works mity be consulted: — Connell on TeinJs ; Duncan's Parochial Ecc'esinstical
Laic; the Cobden Club essays on Local Government and Taxation in the United
Kingdom, published in 18S2 ; Goudy and Smith's Local Government in Scotland.
PARK, MUNGO (1771-1806?), a celebrated African
traveller, was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland, on the 20th
September 1771, at Fowlshiels on the Yarrow, — the
farm which his father rented from the duke of Buccleuch.
He was the seventh in a family of thirteen. Having
received a good education (at home from a private tutor,
and afterwards at the grammar school of Selkirk), he was
apprenticed to a surgeon named Anderson, in Selkirk, and
then attended the university of Edinburgh for three
sessions (1789-91). By his brother-in-law, James Dickson,
a botanist of repute, he was introduced to Sir Joseph
Banks, and through his good offices he obtained the post
of assistant-surgeon on board the "Worcester" East
Indiaman. In this capacity he made the voyage in 1792
to Bencoolen in Sumatra, and on his return in 1793 he con
tributed a description of eight new Sumatran fishes to the
Transactions of the Linnean Society. Park next offered
his services to the African Association, then looking out
for a successor to the unfortunate Major Houghton, and,
again supported by the influence of Sir Joseph Banks, he
was successful in his application. On the 21st June 1795
he reached the Gambia, but it was not till December 2d
that he started for Pisania with only two Negro servants
(Johnson and Demba) on the hazardous and difficult
expedition into the interior, from which he was to return
with the proud distinction of being the first of modern
Europeans to reach the well-nigh fabulous waters of the
Niger. Striking north-eastward across the upper basin of
the Senegal, he advanced through Kaarta and El Bodh,
and descended upon the great river of his quest a* Segu
on the north bank, about 13° 5' N. lat. and 6° 20' W. long.
Though he was not able to proceed down stream any
farther than Mursan and Silla, he managed on his home
journey to follow the river valley as far up as Bamrnako,
a distance of about 300 miles. By the 10th June he was
again at Pisania, but he did not reach England till
December 22, 1796. An account of his journey was at
once drawn up for the Association by Bryan Edwards,
and a detailed narrative from his own pen appeared in
1799 (Travels in the Interior of Africa}. Abundance of
incident, and an unaffected charm of style, at once rendered
XVIII — 38
298
P A E — P A 11
the work extremely popular, and it still holds its place as
one of the acknowledged classics in this department of
literature. It seemed for a time as if Park was now to
settle down quietly at home ; he married a daughter of
his old master, Mr Anderson, and commenced practice as
a country doctor at Peebles, where at least he could enjoy
"a glass of strong beer and a peep at the sky through Mi-
Oman's telescope"; but he was ill at ease — his heart was
in Africa. In 1804 the people of Peebles were amused
and alarmed by the vagaries of Sidi Omback Boubi from
Mogador, who had come to teach their doctor Arabic : and
in autumn Park parted from Sir Walter Scott, who had
been one of his best friends, with the hopeful proverb on
his lips, " Freits (omens) follow those that look to them."
He had accepted Lord Hobart's proposal that he should
take command of a Niger expedition. He sailed from
Portsmouth on January 30, 1805; and the expedition
started from Pisauia on May 4th. Unfortunately the
rainy season soon afterwards commenced ; by the time
r>ammako was reached the party was reduced from forty-
four Europeans to eleven, and from Sansanding the leader
had to report "five only are at present alive, viz., three
soldiers (one deranged in his mind), Lieutenant Martyn,
and myself." Among those who had died at Sansanding
was his brother-in-law Mr Anderson. On November 19th
he set sail down the river from Sansanding with the " fixed
resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or
perish in the attempt." Isaaco, the Mandingo guide who
had accompanied the expedition up to this point, was
afterwards sent on a mission to find out the fate of the
voyagers ; it was learned that they had managed to make
their way through countless perils to Bussa (Boussa)
between 9° and 10° N. lat., and that they were there
attacked by the natives, and were drowned in endeavouring
to escape. Park was 6 feet in height, active and robust ;
his countenance was prepossessing, his manner in company
plain and simple, but somewhat cold and reserved.
See the Life (by "\Vislia\v) prefixed to Journal of a Mission-
into the Interior of Africa in 1805, London, 1815 ; H. B., Life of
Munrja Park, Edinburgh, 1835 ; and an interesting passage in
Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii.
PARKER, JOHN HEXRY (1806-1884), architectural
archaeologist, was the son of a London merchant, and was
born in 1806. He was educated at Manor House School,
Chiswick, and in 1821 entered business as a bookseller.
Succeeding his uncle Joseph Parker as a bookseller at
Oxford in 1832, he conducted the business with great
success, the most important of the firm's publications
being perhaps the series of the " Oxford Pocket Classics."
The cares of business did not prevent him from devoting,
in the earlier period of his life, much of his time to those
architectural studies which latterly engaged his chief
attention. In 1836 he brought out his Glossary of
Architecture, which, published in the earlier years of the
Gothic revival, had considerable influence in extending the
movement, and supplied a valuable help to young architects.
In 1848 he edited the fifth edition of Rickman's Gothic
Architecture, and in 1849 he published a handbook based
on his earlier volume, and entitled Introduction to the
Study of Gothic A rchitccture. The completion of Hudson
Turner's Domestic Architecture of the Middle Af/es next
engaged his attention, three volumes being published
(1853-60). In 1858 he published Medixvd Architecture
of Chester. Parker was one of the chief advocates of the
" restoration " of ecclesiastical buildings, and published
in 1866 Architectural Antiquities of the City of Well*.
Latterly he devoted much attention to explorations of the
history of Rome by means of excavations, and succeeded
in satisfying himself of the historical truth of much usually
regarded as legendary. T\vo volumes of his Archeology
of Rome have been published, the one in 1873, and the
other in 1875, while six additional parts have also appeared,
and two others were in the press at his death. In recogni
tion of his labours he was decorated by the king of Italy,
and received a medal from Pope Pius IX. In 1869 he
endowed the keepership of the Ashmolean Museum with a
sum yielding £250 a year, and under the new arrange
ment he was appointed the first keeper. In 1871 he was
nominated C.B. He died 31st January 1884.
PARKER, MATTHEW (1504-1575), archbishop of
Canterbury, the eldest surviving son of William Parker
and Alice Monins, his wife, was born at Norwich 6th
August 1504. His father was an artisan, a calenderer of
woollen stuffs, but through his mother he could afterwards
trace his descent from the earls of Nottingham. He was
instructed in reading by Thomas Benis, rector of St
Clement's, Norwich, and in the elements of Latin by one
William Neve ; in the latter he found (a somewhat excep
tional experience in those days) a kind and sympathizing
teacher. When Matthew was twelve years of age he lost
his father ; but his mother was, notwithstanding, able to
send him at the commencement of the Michaelmas term,
1521, to Cambridge, and to maintain him there until his
merits secured some recognition. He was educated partly
in St Mary's Hostel and partly in Corpus Christi College.
In March 1523 he was elected to a bible-clerkship in
the college, an office which involved reading the Bible
aloud on prescribed occasions, and waiting at the fellows'
table at dinner. In the March of the following year he
was admitted B.A. ; he was subsequently made a deacon
and a priest, in 1527 was elected to a fellowship, and in
1528 commenced M.A.
His industry as a student and his general ability marked
him out for early notice; and when, in 1521, Wolsey was
founding Cardinal College (afterwards Christ Church),
Oxford, Parker was one among a number of rising
Cambridge students who were invited to become fellows
of the new society. Fortunately, however, for himself
and for Cambridge he elected to stay at Corpus. The
university was at this time becoming a great centre of the
Reformation movement, and he found himself attracted to
the meetings held at the White Horse (an inn in the town),
which the Catholic party derisively styled "Germany,"
from the fact that it was the known rendezvous of the
supporters of Lutheran tenets. Among those with whom
he was thus brought into contact was Bilney, the martyr ;
and when, in 1531, the latter was burned at Norwich,
Parker attended him in his last hours, and afterwards
bore testimony to his constancy. On Cranmer's election to
the archbishopric of Canterbury, Parker received a licence
to preach, and soon became known in Cambridge and its
neighbourhood as a divine of considerable oratorical power.
He was summoned to preach at court; and in 1535 the
queen, Ann Boleyn, appointed him her chaplain. He
shortly after received a further mark of her favour by
being made dean of the college of St John the Baptist, at
Stoke, near Clare, Suffolk — an institution for the training
of the secular clergy. Here he gave the earliest indication
of his skill as an administrator; and the new statutes
which he drew up for the college were deemed so judicious
that the duke of Norfolk, in 1540, adopted them as a model
for the code which he gave to a similar foundation at
Thetford. Parker's retired life at Stoke did not altogether
secure him from attack on account of his courageously
avowed sympathies with the Reformation, and in the year
1539 he was accused by the townsmen of Clare of mani
festing undue contempt for the Catholic ritual.
At Stoke Parker continued to reside more or less until
* the year 1545. His disposition throughout life was
| naturally retiring. In one of his letters to Cecil, written
299
about 1543, he confesses to a " natural -viciosity of over
much shamefacedness "; and this constitutional defect
would seem, at this time, to have been aggravated by a
state of health which made it necessary for him to obtain
the permission of the university, when preaching in St
Mary's, Cambridge, to do so with his head covered. In
the year 1538 he was created D.D. Although his in
different health and love of study alike inclined him to a
retired life, his seclusion was frequently broken in upon by
honours and preferment which came unsought. He was
selected by Thomas Cromwell to preach at Paul's Cross,
on account of " his learning in holy letters and uncorrupt
judgment in the same." He was appointed one of the
king's chaplains, and in the year 1541 was made a canon
of Ely. In 1542 his own college of Stoke presented him to
an Essex living. About this time it began to be rumoured
that, the dissolution of Stoke College could not be averted,
and the arguments for Parker's return to his university, in
whose welfare his interest had continued undiminished,
were such as he could no longer resist. The mastership of
Corpus having fallen vacant, he consented to be elected to
the post, at that time scarcely of the annual value of <£10 ;
to this, however, the society shortly after added the rectory
of Landbeach. In January 1545 he was elected to the
vice-chancellorship of the university by a large majority.
The colleges of both universities were at this period in
continual fear of being, sooner or later, handed over, as
the monasteries had been, to the greed of the despoiler.
It was accordingly resolved, in order to anticipate a
commission consisting of unscrupulous courtiers and
lawyers, that the university should obtain the royal
authority for a commission composed of those who were
intimately acquainted with the real state of affairs, and,
through the good offices of Catherine Parr, Parker, along
with two other heads of colleges, was selected for the task.
When their survey had been completed, they repaired to
Hampton Court, and laid their statement before the king.
Henry, on reading the report, expressed his emphatic
admiration at the economical management of the colleges,
and dismissed the commission with assurances which
completely baffled the expectations of the courtiers. The
fate which was averted from Cambridge fell, however, upon
Stoke College. Its estate was confiscated, but subject to a
charge of .£40 per annum as compensation. The purchaser
was Sir John Cheke, Parker's personal friend, by whom
the money was regularly paid to the former dean. Parker
now entered upon the married state, and espoused a Norfolk
lady named Margaret Harleston. His choice appears to
have been singularly fortunate. His wife proved a true
helpmate, and was distinguished for the graceful hospi
tality she extended to the poor clergy whom Parker was in
the habit of inviting to the college lodge at Cambridge.
In the measures which marked the further progress of
the Reformation during Edward's reign Parker seems to
have cordially co-operated. But he had no sympathy with
the bigotry which now began to characterize the contend
ing sects of Protestantism abroad ; and when Martin
Bucer was fain, to quit Strasburg, after the failure of
his efforts to mediate between the Lutherans and the
Zwinglians, the master of Corpus extended to that eminent
theologian a cordial welcome to England. During the
short time that the latter filled the post of regius
professor of divinity at Cambridge, he found in Parker
a firm friend, and it was by Parker that his funeral
sermon was preached. Parker's services to his party
were not unrecognized. He was occasionally appointed
to preach before the young king, and was promoted to the
deanery of Lincoln and to the prebend of Corringham in
that cathedral. On the occasion of Kett's rebellion in
Norfolk, happening to be in Norwich, he visited the rebels'
camp and ventured to preach submission to the constituted
authorities.
When Queen Mary ascended the throne, most of the
college heads at Cambridge were deprived of office, and
Parker only forestalled a like fate by resignation. The
fact of his being a married man alone sufficed to entail the
loss of all his ecclesiastical preferments. He did not,
however, like many of the leaders of his party, fly from the
country, but lived in strict retirement, his place of resid
ence being a secret which appears to have died with him.
This feature in his career is deserving of note, as offering
an important point of contrast to the experiences of those
other eminent churchmen who, known as the Marian exiles,
returned to England after a long sojourn at the chief
centres of the Reformed party on the Continent, strongly
; prejudiced in favour of Calviuistic doctrine, and bigotedly
intolerant of everything approaching to the Roman
discipline and ritual. Parker, like Whitgift, stayed in
England, and was thus probably better able afterwards to
maintain a fairly impartial position in relation to contend
ing religious parties. He himself speaks of these years of
his life, passed as they were in solitude among his books
and in meditation, but cheered by the possession of a clear
conscience, as productive of far more solid enjoyment than
he afterwards found in the varied duties and anxieties of
the episcopal office.
A fall from horseback, when he was on one occasion
compelled to flee by night from Mary's emissaries, resulted
in a permanent injury (his language appears to imply a
rupture) which still further disinclined him to active and
laborious public duties ; and upon Elizabeth's accession
he evinced little readiness to avail himself of prospects
of preferment held out by Sir Nicholas Bacon, the lord
keeper. He believed himself to be summoned by duty to
return to his former sphere of labour at Cambridge, at that
time, like Oxford, in a singularly depressed and unsatis
factory condition. " Of all places in England, " he writes
to Bacon, " I would wish to bestow most of my time in the
university, the state whereof is miserable at this present."
His services were needed, however, for a wider sphere of
action; and in December 1558 he was summoned by
royal command to London, where it was intimated to him
that he was to be appointed to the primacy. His election
to the office took place on the first of the following
August, and his consecration on the 17th December, in
the chapel at Lambeth Palace. He was consecrated by
Bishop Barlow, formerly bishop of Bath and Wells, bishop-
elect of Chichester; John Scory, formerly bishop of
Chichester, bishop-elect of Hereford ; Miles Coverdale, late
bishop of Exeter ; and John Hodgkin, suffragan bishop of
Bedford. The delay which took place in his consecration
arose from the fact that the three bishops named in the
original warrant (Tonstal, Bourne, and Poole) refused to act,
and a second warrant was consequently found necessary.
In the following century the Romanist party sought, by
circulating the "Nag's Head fable," to throw discredit on
Parker's consecration by representing that he, together
with certain other bishops, was simply ordained, and that
too in an irreverent and uncanonical fashion, at a tavern
in Fleet Street. The evidence which contravenes this
story (-see Pocock's edition of Burnet's History of the
Reformation, vol. v.) is, however, singularly full and
satisfactory.
During the fifteen years of his primacy, Parker's best
energies were devoted to defining more accurately the
discipline and belief of the newly constituted Church of
England, and to bringing about a general conformity.
The Thirty-Nine Articles were passed by convocation under
his presidency in 15G2. In the y6ar 1566 he issued his
celebrated "Advertisements," "for the clue order in the
300
PARKER
public administration of common prayers and using the
holy sacraments, and for the apparel of all persons eccle
siastical." Notwithstanding that they related mainly to
questions of detail and ceremonial, these new regulations
excited strenuous opposition from the Puritan party, owing
to the fact that, although they enjoined the discontinuance
of " gorgeous vestments" and the cope, they prescribed the
use of the surplice. It is asserted that they were promul
gated by the command of Elizabeth, who subsequently with
held her formal sanction, and permitted the obloquy they
evoked to fall on Parker. It is certain that they added
materially to the embarrassment of his position. The
revised translation of the Scriptures known as the Bishops'
Bible (1568 and 1572) owed its origin to Parker, and is
regarded by English Churchmen as a valuable service to
their communion, from the fact that it served to prevent
the adoption of the Geneva Bible until superseded by the
authorized version.
The determination which Parker showed to withstand,
and if possible repress, the growing boldness of the
Puritan party, involved him during the latter years of his
primacy in a struggle which was detrimental to his health,
his temper, and his reputation. In August 1570 his wife
died, and the blow was severely felt. He was still able,
however, to discharge with efficiency the duties of his
office; and in. 1573 he entertained Elizabeth with great
splendour and sumptuousness in the grand hall of his
palace at Canterbury. Among his last measures of reform
are to be noted his personal visitation of the church and
chapter at Canterbury, and the drawing up of a series of
injunctions for their more efficient regulation, the issuing
of a commission for the visitation of his diocese, and the
publication of new constitutions for the Court of Arches.
In 1575 his health began rapidly to give way, and he died
on the 17th May in that year, giving evidence almost to
the last of that vigorous intellect and strong will by which
he was distinguished throughout life.
As an author, Parker cannot be held entitled to any high place.
He compiled a Latin treatise, De Antiquitate Bvilannicae, Ecdcsise,
ct Privilcgils Ecdcsise, Cantuuricnsis, printed by John Day in 1572,
which shows considerable research in connexion with the circum
stances under which Christianity was introduced into Britain. In
this, however, as in most of his more learned work?, he was probably
largely assisted by his secretary, Josselin. His letters, which have
been published under the title of the Parker Correspondence (Parker
Society, 1853), are marked throughout by his usual natural good
sense and sobriety of judgment, but are characterized neither by
originality nor brilliancy of thought. His other writings are
chiefly statutes for various ecclesiastical or collegiate foundations,
sermons, forms of prayer, and ordinances for the church.
As an editor, while his industry must be admitted by all, he had
but an imperfect sense of the responsibilities attaching to such a
function and of the limits to be observed in its exercise. He edited
vElfric's Anglo-Saxon Homily, a treatise much valued by religious
controversialists as exhibiting the theory of the early English
Church in relation to the doctrine of transubstantiation. The
treatise of Gildas, De Excblio Britannia, next appeared ; but this
was mainly, if not entirely, the work of Josselin. The Florcs
Historiarum (probably the work of Roger of Wendover) was edited
by Parker under the belief that it wt^s the work of an unknown
"Matthew of Westminster." The other chronicles which he pub
lished were the Historia Major of Matthew Paris, the Hlstoria
Anglicana of Walshigham, the life of Alfred (Gcsta ^Hfredi) of
Asser, and the Itincrarium of Giraldus Cambrensis. The extreme
licence in which he indulged in altering the texts of these writers,
and especially that of Matthew Paris, renders his editions, how
ever, almost worthless, and has met with the severest censures from
succeeding historical scholars.
But, notwithstanding these errors and defects, Parker's memory
must ever be venerated by Englishmen and by scholars ; and his
country, his university, and his college were alike laid by him
under no ordinary debt of gratitude. He revived the stiidy of
Saxon literature and of the origines of our national history ; and
the scriptorium which he maintained at Lambeth (after the fashion
of the mediieval monasteries) was a busy scene where the transcriber,
the illuminator, the engraver, and the bookbinder each plied his
craft, to the no small after advantage of letters and of art. Among
the printers whom he patronized were Richard Jugge, John Day, !
and Richard Grafton. As a collector of books and manuscripts he
was indefatigable ; and one of his numerous agents, named Batman,
is stated to have collected in four years no less than 6700 volumes,
chiolly works which had been scattered on the dissolution of the
monasteries. The greater part of this, splendid collection, styled
by Fuller "the sun of English antiquity," Parker bequeathed
to Corpus Christ! College. His interest in his university at large
did not diminish after his elevation to the archbishopric, and the
Regent Walk (an improved approach to the public schools) and the
university library were long-standing memorials of his muniiicence.
He also founded a grammar school at Rochdale, and numerous
scholarships and annual charities elsewhere. That he died rich
cannot be denied ; and his enemies have asserted that he was far
from scrupulous in the means which he employed in acquiring
wealth, especially in "admitting children to cures." On the other
hand, it must be allowed that he made a good and generous use of
his wealth, and his contemporary biographer claims for him the
rare merit of combining strict economy with liberality. Parker
had five children. Of these the eldest, John, who was knighted
by King James in 1603, alone survived him ; he died at Cambridge
in 1620, in great want, the cost of his funeral bei_ng defrayed
by Corpus Christi College.
The best source of information in all that relates to Parker is his Life and Acts,
by Strype (3 vols., Oxford, 1824), a performance on which that distinguished
antiquary bestowed even more than his usual amount of painstaking research.
A copy of the folio edition (1711), preserved in the library of St John's College,
Cambridge, is enriched with numerous and valuable MS. notes by the donor, the
eminent Thomas Baker. The titles of the books which he presented to his own
college will be found in Xasmith's Cat. of the C.C. AISS. (1777). (J. B. M )
PARKER, THEODORE (1810-1860), a distinguished
American rationalistic preacher and social reformer, born
at Lexington, Massachusetts, August 24, 1810, was the
youngest of eleven children. His father, John Parker, a
small farmer and skilful mechanic, was a typical New
England yeoman, a man of sterling moral worth, of strong
intellect, meditative, and fond of reading, — a strict dis
ciplinarian in his house, a Unitarian in his theology before
Unitarianism was known in New England as a system,
and a Federalist in his politics when there were but four
Federalists in Lexington. His mother, "an imaginative,
delicate-minded, poetic, yet very practical woman," took
great pains with the religious education of her children,
" caring, however, but little for doctrines," and making
religion to consist of love and good works. Theodore's
paternal grandfather, Captain John Parker, fired the first
shot upon the British at the battle of Lexington, com
manding on that occasion a troop of seventy men. The
historic musket from which that shot was fired became one
of the most valued ornaments of the grandson's study,
His mother taught him to listen to the monitions of con
science as the voice of God, and from his infancy his life
was dominated by moral and religious emotions and ideas
of overpowering force. The boy was richly endowed
intellectually and physically. His memory was marvel
lously retentive. The acquisition of languages was a
delight and recreation to him. He obtained the elements
of knowledge in the schools of the district, which were
open during the winter months only. During the rest of
the year he worked on his father's farm. He was all the
time an immense and omnivorous reader, and his powerful
memory enabled him to remember all that he read. At
the age of seventeen he became himself a winter school
master, and in his twentieth year he entered himself at
Harvard, working on the farm as usual while he followed
his studies, and going over to Cambridge for the examina
tion only. For the theological course he took up in 1834
his residence in the college, meeting his expenses by
a small sum amassed by school-keeping and by help from
a poor students' fund. He studied fourteen hours a day,
not only following the usual course of the college, but
plunging deep into German theology and Biblical criticism,
and especially the history of non-Christian religions. At the
close of his college career he began his translation of De
Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament. His journal and
letters show that he had made acquaintance with a large
number of languages, including Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac,
Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, as well as the classical and the
p A K — P A R
301
principal modern European languages. When he entered
the divinity school he was an orthodox Unitarian; when he
left it, he entertained strong doubts about the infallibility
of the Bible, the possibility of miracles, and the exclusive
claims of Christianity and the church. Emerson's trans
cendentalism greatly influenced him, and Strauss's Lelen
Jfsu left its mark upon his thought. His first ministerial
charge was over a small village parish, Roxbury, a few
miles from Boston. He was ordained June 1837, and
held his pastorate there until the autumn of 1843. He
was extremely happy in his position. His parishioners
loved him, he had ample time to pursue his studies, and
the neighbourhood of Boston gave him congenial society.
His views were slowly assuming the form which subse
quently found such strong expression in his writings ; but
the process was slow, and the cautious reserve of his first
rationalistic utterances was in striking contrast with his
subsequent rashness. But in 1841 he preached at Boston
a sermon on "the transient and permanent in Christianity,"
which presented in embryo the main principles and ideas
of his final theological position, and the preaching of which
determined his subsequent relations to the churches with
which he was connected and to the whole ecclesiastical
world. The only permanent element he discovered in the
Bible, in Christianity, in Christ, was " absolute, pure
morality, absolute, pure religion, the love of man, -the love
of God acting without let or hindrance." He denied all
special authority to the Bible, to Christ, to Christianity.
He maintained that " Jesus had not exhausted the fulness
of God." The Boston Unitarian clergy denounced the
preacher, and declared that the "young man must be
silenced." No Unitarian publisher could be found for his
sermon, and nearly all the pulpits of the city were closed
against him. To exchange with him was fatal to a
minister's reputation for Unitarian orthodoxy. But when
the Unitarian clergy cast Parker off the laity took him
up. A number of gentlemen in Boston invited him to
give a series of lectures there. The result was that he
delivered in the Masonic Hall, in the winter of 1841-42,
as lectures, substantially the volume afterwards published
as the Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. The
lectures in their published form made his name famous
throughout America and Europe, and confirmed the stricter
•sect of the American Unitarians in their attitude towards
him and his supporters. His friends, however, resolved
that he should be heard in Boston. They engaged for him
the Music Hall in that city, in which he regularly preached
to a congregation of some three thousand persons during
the remaining fourteen years of his life. Previous to his
removal from Roxbury to Boston, Parker spent a year in
Europe, calling in Germany upon Paulus, Gervinus, De
Wette, and Ewald amongst other savants, and preaching
in Liverpool in the pulpits of James Martineau and J. H.
Thorn. Soon after his return, in 1844, to America he
resigned his charge at Roxbury, and devoted himself
exclusively to his work in Boston. In addition to his
Sunday labours, he lectured throughout the States, and
prosecuted his wide studies, collecting particularly the
materials for an opus magnum on the development of religion
in mankind. Above all he took up the question of the
emancipation of the slaves, and at the imminent risk of
his life nobly and powerfully advocated in Boston and
throughout the States, from the platform and through the
press, the cause of the negroes. Indeed, he did more.
He assisted actively in the escape of fugitive slaves, and
helped to furnish John Brown with means for carrying out
his schemes of liberation. His Sunday sermons were
themselves often elaborate essays, almost treatises, on
great questions of social and political reform, and he was
all along contributing articles and papers on literary,
political, social, and theological subjects to the periodical
press. By his voice, his pen, and his utterly fearless
action in social and political matters, he became a great
power in Boston and America generally. But his days
were numbered. From his mother he inherited consump
tion, and the reckless disregard of the laws of health which
he was guilty of in his early years, combined with the
tremendous strain of his ordinary work, and the terrible
privations and fatigues of his lecturing tours, developed
in the prime of his life the fatal seeds. In January 1859
he had an attack of bleeding of the lungs, and sought
relief by retreating first to Santa Cruz, and afterwards to
Europe. He died at Rome, May 10, 1860.
The fundamental articles of Parker's religious faith were the
three "instinctive intuitions" of God, of a moral law, and of
immortality. His own mind, heart, and life were undoubtedly
pervaded, sustained, and ruled by the feelings, convictions, and hopes
which he formulated in these three articles. But he cannot be
said to have achieved success when he came to strictly define,
expound, and establish them. In his doctrine of God he maintains
that man has an innate idea of God as a being of infinite power,
goodness, and wisdom ; but he often uses language which borders
on pantheism, while his criterion of the notions men have formed
of the Divine Being appears to leave him no foundation for anything
higher than an abstract pantheistic idea of Him. His proof of his
fundamental creed is no less at fault than his statement and
exposition of it. It is strange that a man who had read so widely
and honestly the best literature of his day on the religious ideas of
mankind should have referred to the consensus gentium for his main
proof of the universality of his triad of religious ideas. His own
chapter on the immortality of the soul in his Discourse abundantly
illustrates the weakness of his proof from induction. The dis
tinction he was compelled to draw between the conception and the
idea of God illustrates the weakness of his deductive proof. Parker's
definitions of religion are various, and show that he had never closely
traced its true nature. Of revelation — the counterpart of religion —
Ids notions were of the vaguest description. He could ask "Is
Newton less inspired than Simon Peter ? " He had never formed
any approximately just conception of the work of a great religious
teacher, and could say, "Christianity, if true at all, would be just
as true if Herod or Catiline had taught it." Naturally, therefore,
lie never formed an adequate idea of the place of Christianity
amongst the world's religions, though he often used language about
Christ which in the case of a closer thinker would have indicated
the acceptance of Christianity as the absolute and final religion for
man. But in truth Parker was more of a speaker than a thinker,
of a reformer than a philosopher. He had a wide and firm grasp
of facts and principles, but his thought was neither profound nor
subtle, neither accurate nor self-consistent. Although rich in poetic
elements, he was singularly defective, too, in artistic faculty. He
has produced nothing that is perfect in form, while all his works
are disfigured by outrageous violations of taste and good feeling.
But with all his numerous defects Pavker ranks amongst America's
great and noble sons, and may perhaps obtain finally a place
amongst the world's great men. A future biographer will have to
assign him his final position. The three biographies which at
present exist — Weiss's (1863), Frothingham's (1874), and Dean's
(1877) — are the work of eager partisans and admiring panegyrists
rather than of calm critics and historians.
Parker's principal works are A Discourse on Jlfatters pertaining to Religion,
1842; Ten Sermons of Religion, 1852; Theism, Atheism, and the Popular
Theology, 1853. A collected edition of his works has been published in England
by Frances Power Cobbe, in 12 vols. A German translation of part of his works
was made by Ziethen, Leipsic, 1854-57. Valuable reviews of his theological
position and of his character and work have appeared— by James Martineau, in
the National Review (April I860), and J. H. Thorn, in the Theological Review
(March 18G4). (J. F. S.)
PARKERSBURG, a city of the United States, next to
Wheeling the largest city in West Virginia, is the capital
of Wood county, and lies on the left bank of the Ohio, at
the mouth of the Little Kanawha, It is the western
terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and is con
nected by a fine railway bridge (1^ miles in length, and
constructed at a cost of more than 81,000,000 in 1869-
1871) with Belpre, where the Marietta and Cincinnati
Railroad begins. Steamers ply both on the Ohio and the
Little Kanawha (rendered navigable for 38 miles). The
staple industry is the refining of petroleum, but there are
also foundries, flour-mills, saw-mills, brickyards (most of the
buildings are of brick), &c. The population was 2493 in
1860, 5546 in 1870, and 6582 in 1880. As a town
Parkersburg dates from 1820, as a city from 1860.
302
PAELIAMENT
fTlHE British Pcarliament is the supreme legislature of
J_ the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
consisting of the King, or Queen, and the three estates of
the realm, viz., the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal,
and the Commons.
HISTORY.
An inquiry into the early growth and later development
of this powerful institution presents at once an interesting
historical study and profound" political instruction. Its
great antiquity, its continuous but ever -changing life, and
the social and political causes which have shaped its pre
sent constitution and authority are themes which can
never fail to attract the historian and the statesman ;
while speculations regarding its future course concern the
destinies of the British empire.
The Anglo-Saxon Polity. — The origin of parliament is
to be traced to Anglo-Saxon times. The Angles, Saxons,
and other Teutonic races who conquered Britain brought
to their new homes their own laws and customs, their
settled framework of society, their kinship, their village
communities, and a certain rude representation in local
affairs. And we find in the Anglo-Saxon polity, as deve
loped during their rule in England, all the constituent
parts of parliament. In their own lands they had chiefs
and leaders, but no kings. But conquest and territorial
settlement were followed by the assumption of royal
dignities ; and the victorious chiefs were accepted by their
followers as kings. They were quick to assume the tradi-
1 tional attributes of royalty. A direct descent from their
god Woden; and hereditary right, at once clothed them
with a halo of glory and with supreme power ; and, when
the pagan deity was deposed, the king received consecration
from a Christian archbishop, and was invested with sacred
attributes as " the Lord's anointed. " But the Saxon
monarch was a patriarchal king of limited authority, who
acted in concert with his people ; and, though his succes
sion was hereditary, in his own family, his direct descendant
was liable to be passed over in favour of a worthier heir.
Such a ruler was a fitting precursor of a line of constitu
tional kings, who in later times were to govern with the
advice and consent of a free parliament.
Meanwhile, any council approaching the constitution
of a House of Lords was of slow growth. Anglo-Saxon
society, indeed, was not without an aristocracy. The
highest in rank were sethelings — generally, if not exclu
sively, sons and brothers of the king. The ealdorman,
originally a high officer, having the executive government
of a shire, and a seat in the king's witan, became heredi
tary in certain families, and eventually attained the dignity
of an earl. But centuries were to pass before the English
nobility was to assume its modern character and denomi
nations. At the -head of each village was an eorl, the
chief of the freemen, or ceorls — their leader in war and
patron in peace. The king's gesiths and thegns formed
another privileged class. Admitted to offices in the king's
household and councils, and enriched by grants of land,
they gradually formed a feudal nobility.
The revival of the Christian church, under the Anglo-
Saxon rule, created another order of rulers and councillors,
destined to take a leading part in the government of the
state. The archbishops and bishops, having spiritual
authority in their own dioceses, and exercising much local
influence in temporal affairs, were also members of the
national council, or witenagemot, and by their greater
learning and capacity were not long in acquiring a leading
part in the councils of the realm. Ecclesiastical councils
were also held, comprising bishops, abbots, and clergy, in
which we observe the origin of convocation. The abbots,
thus associated with the bishops, also found a place with
them in the witenagem6t. By these several orders, sum
moned to advise the king in affairs of state, was formed a
council of magnates — to be developed, in course of time,
into an Upper Chamber, or House of Lords.
The rise of the commons, as a political power in the
national councils, was of yet slower development ; but in
the Anglo-Saxon moots may be discerned the first germs of
popular government in England. In the town-moot the
assembled freemen and cultivators of the " folk-lands "
regulated the civil affairs of their own township, tithing,
village, or parish. In the burgh-moot the inhabitants
administered their municipal business, under the presidency
of a reeve. The hundred-moot assumed a more representa
tive character, comprising the reeve and a selected number
of freemen from the several townships and burghs within
the hundred. The shire-moot, or shire-gem6t, was an
assembly yet more important. An ealdorman was its pre
sident, and exercised a jurisdiction over a shire, or district
comprising several hundreds. Attended by a reeve and
four freemen from every hundred, it assumed a distinctly
representative character. Its members, if not elected by
the popular voice, were, in some fashion, deputed to act on
behalf of those whose interests they had come to guard.
The shire-moot was also the general folk-moot of the tribe,
assembled in arms, to whom their leaders referred the
decision of questions of peace and war.
Superior to these local institutions was the witena-
gem6t, or assembly of wise men, with whom the king took
counsel in legislation and the government of the state.
This national council was the true beginning of the
parliament of England. Such a council was originally
held in each of the kingdoms commonly known as the
Heptarchy ; and after their union in a single realm, under
King Edgar, the witenagemot became the deliberative
and legislative assembly, or parliament, of the extended
estate.
The witenagemot made laws, imposed taxes, concluded
treaties, advised the king as to the disposal of public
lands and the appointment and removal of officers of state,
and even assumed to elect and depose the king himself.
The king had now attained to greater power, and more
royal dignities and prerogatives. He was unquestionably
the chief power in the witenagemot ; but the laws were
already promulgated, as in later times, as having been
agreed to with the advice and consent of the witan. The
witan also exercised jurisdiction as a supreme court.
These ancient customs present further examples of the
continuity of English constitutional forms.
The constitution of the witenagemot, however, was
necessarily less popular than that of the local moots in the
hundred or the shire. The king himself was generally
present ; and at his summons came prelates, abbots,
ealdormen, the king's gesiths and thegns, officers of state
and of the royal household, and leading tenants in chief of
lands held from the crown. Crowds sometimes attended
the meetings of the witan, and shouted their acclamations
of approval or dissent ; and, so far, the popular voice was
associated with its deliberations ; but it was at a distance
from all but the inhabitants of the place in which it was
assembled, and until a system of representation had slowly
grown up there could be no further admission of the
PARLIAMENT
303
people to its deliberations. In the town-moot the whole
body of freemen and cultivators of the folk-lands met
freely under a spreading oak, or on the village green ; in
the hundred-moot, or shire-gem6t, deputies from neighbour
ing communities could readily find a place ; but all was
changed in the wider council of a kingdom. When there
were many kingdoms, distance obstructed any general
gathering of the commons; and in the wider area of
England such a gathering became impossible. Centuries
were yet to pass before this obstacle was to be overcome
by representation ; but, in the meantime, the local institu
tions of the Anglo-Saxons were not without their influence
upon the central council. The self-government of a free
people informed the bishops, ealdonuen, ceorls, and thegns
who dwelt among them of their interests and needs, their
sufferings and their wrongs; and, while the popular forces
were increasing with an advancing society, they grew
more potential in the councils of their rulers. Some
writers, naturally sympathizing with every tradition of
English liberty, have discovered proofs of an earlier
representation ; but popular franchises are now too firmly
established to need support from doubtful traces of anti
quity.
Another circumstance must not be overlooked in esti
mating the political influence of the people in Anglo-Saxon
times. For five centuries the country was convulsed with
incessant wars — wars with the Britons, whom the invaders
were driving from their homes, wars between the several
kingdoms, wars with the Welsh, wars with the Picts, wars
with the Danes. How could the people continue to assert
their civil rights amid the clash of arms and a frequent
change of masters ? The warrior-kings and their armed
followers were rulers in the land which they had con
quered.
At the same time the unsettled condition of the country
repressed the social advancement of its people. Agricul
ture could not prosper when the farm of the husbandman
too often became a battlefield. Trade could not be
extended without security to property and industry.
Under such conditions the great body of the people con
tinued as peasants, handicraftsmen, and slaves. The time
had not yet come when they could make their voice heard
in the councils of the state.
The Norman Conquest. — The Anglo-Saxon polity was
suddenly overthrown by the Norman Conquest. A stern
foreign king had seized the crown, and was prepared to
rule his conquered realm by the sword. He brought with
him the absolutist principles of Continental rulers, and
the advanced feudal system of France and Normandy.
Feudalism had been slowly gaining ground under the
Saxon kings, and now it was firmly established as a
military organization. William the Conqueror at once
rewarded his warlike barons and followers with enormous
grants of land. The Saxon landowners and peasants were
despoiled, and the invaders settled in their homesteads.
The king claimed the broad lands of England as his own,
by right of conquest ; and when he allowed his warriors
to share the spoil he attached the strict condition of
military service in return for every grant of land. An
effective army of occupation of all ranks was thus quartered
upon every province throughout the realm. England was
held by the sword ; a foreign king, foreign nobles, and a
foreign soldiery were in possession of the soil, and swore
fealty to their master, from whom they held it. Saxon
bishops were deposed, and foreign prelates appointed to
rule over the English Church. Instead of calling a
national witenagem6t, the king took counsel with the
officers of his state and household, the bishops, abbots,
earls, barons, and knights by whom he was pleased to
surround himself. Some of the forms of a national council
were indeed maintained, and its counsel and consent were
proclaimed in the making of laws ; but, in truth, the king
was absolute.
Such a revolution seemed fatal to the liberties and
ancient customs of Saxon England. What power could
withstand the harsh conqueror ? But the indestructible
elements of English society prevailed over the sword. The
king grasped, in his own hands, the higher administration
and judicature of the realm ; but he continued the old
local courts of the hundred and the shire, which had been
the basis of Saxon freedom. The Norman polity was
otherwise destined to favour the liberties of the people,
through agencies which had been designed to crush them.
The powerful nobles, whom William and his successors
exalted, became formidable rivals of the crown itself ;
while ambitious barons were in their turn held in check
by a jealous and exacting church. The ruling powers, if
combined, would have reduced the people to slavery ; but
their divisions proved a continual source of weakness. In
the meantime the strong rule of the Normans, bitter as
it was to Englishmen, repressed intestine wars and the
disorders of a divided realm. Civil justice was fairly
administered. When the spoils of the conquerors had been
secured, the rights of property were protected, industry
and trade were left free, and the occupation of the soil by
foreigners drove numbers of landowners and freemen into
the towns, where they prospered as merchants, traders,
and artificers, and collected thriving populations of towns
men. Meanwhile, foreign rulers having brought England
into closer relations with the Continent, its commerce was
extended to distant lands, ports and shipping were
encouraged, and English traders were at once enriched
and enlightened. Hence new classes of society were
growing, who were eventually to become the commons of
England.
The Crown, the Barons, the Church, and the People. —
While these social changes were steadily advancing, the
barons were already preparing the way for the assertion of
popular rights. Ambitious, turbulent, and grasping, they
were constantly at issue with the crown. Enjoying vast
estates and great commands, and sharing with the prelates
the government of the state, as members of the king's
council, they were ever ready to raise the standard of
revolt. The king could always count upon barons faith
ful to his cause, but he also appealed for aid to the church
and the people. The baronage was thus broken by insur
rections, and decimated by civil wars, while the value of
popular alliances was revealed. The power of the people
was ever increasing, while their oppressors were being
struck down. The population of the country was still
Saxon ; they had been subdued, but had not been driven
forth from the land, like the Britons in former invasions.
The English language was still the common speech of the
people ; and Norman blood was being mingled with the
broader stream of Saxon life. A continuous nationality
was thus preserved, and was outgrowing the foreign
element.
The crown was weakened by disputed successions and
foreign wars, and the baronage by the blood-stained fields
of civil warfare ; while both in turn looked to the people
in their troubles. Meanwhile the church was struggling,
alike against the crown and the barons, in defence of its
ecclesiastical privileges and temporal possessions. Its
clergy were brought by their spiritual ministrations into
close relations with the people, and their culture contri
buted to the intellectual growth of English society. When
William Rufus was threatened by his armed barons, he
took counsel with Archbishop Lanfranc, and promised
good laws and justice to the people. His promises were
broken ; but, like later charters, as lightly set aside, they
304
PARLIAMENT
were a recognition of the political rights of the people.
By the charter of Henry I. restoring to the people the
laws of Ed\vard the Confessor, the continuity of English
institutions was acknowledged ; and this concession was
also proclaimed through Archbishop Anselm, the church
and the people being again associated with the crown
against the barons. And throughout his reign the clergy
and the English people were cordially united in support of
the crown. In the anarchic reign of Stephen — also dis
tinguished by its futile charters — the clergy were driven
into opposition to the king, while his oppressions alienated
the people. Henry II. commenced his reign with another
charter, which may be taken as a profession of good
intentions on the part of the new king. So strong-willed
a king, who could cripple his too powerful nobles, and
forge shackles for the church, was not predisposed to
extend the liberties of his people ; but they supported him
loyally in his critical struggles ; and his vigorous reforms
in the administrative, judicial, and financial organization
of his realm promoted the prosperity and political influence
of the commons. At the same time the barons created
in this and the two previous reigns, being no longer exclu
sively Norman in blood and connexion, associated them
selves more readily with the interests and sympathies of
the people. Under Kichard I. the principle of repre
sentation was somewhat advanced, but it was confined to
the assessment and collection of taxes in the different
shires.
The Great Charter. — It was under King John that the
greatest progress was made in national liberties. The loss
of Normandy served to draw the baronage closer to the
English people ; and the king soon united all the forces of
the realm against him. He outraged the church, the
barons, and the people. He could no longer play one class
against another ; and they combined to extort the Great
Charter of .their liberties at Runnymede. It was there
ordained that no scutage or aid, except the three regular
feudal aids, should be imposed, save by the common council
of the realm. To this council the archbishops, bishops,
abbots, earls, and greater barons were to be summoned per
sonally by the king's letters, and tenants in chief by a gene
ral writ through the sheriff. The summons was required
to appoint a certain place, to give forty days' notice at least,
and to state the cause of meeting. At length we seem to
reach some approach to modern usage.
Growth of the Commons. — The improved administration
of successive kings had tended to enlarge the powers of
the crown. But one hundred and fifty years had now
passed since the Conquest, and great advances had been
made in the condition of the people, and more particularly
in the population, wealth, and self-government of towns.
Many had obtained royal charters, elected their own
magistrates, and enjoyed various commercial privileges.
They were already a power in the state, which was soon
to be more distinctly recognized.
The charter of King John was again promulgated under
Henry III., for the sake of a subsidy ; and henceforth the
commons learned, to insist upon the redress of grievances
in return for a grant of money. This reign was memorable
in the history of parliament. Again the king was in con
flict with his barons, who rebelled against his gross mis-
government of the realm. Simon de Montfort, earl of
Leicester, was a patriot, in advance of his age, and fought
for the English people as well as for his own order. The
barons, indeed, were doubtful allies of the popular cause,
and leaned to the king rather than to Simon. But the
towns, the clergy, the universities, and large bodies of the
commonalty rallied round him, and he overthrew the king
and his followers at Lewes. He was now master of the
realm, and proclaimed a new constitution. Kings had
made promises, and granted illusory charters ; but the
rebel earl called an English parliament into being. Church
men were on his side, and a few barons ; but his main
reliance was upon the commons. He summoned to a
national council, or parliament, bishops, abbots, earls, and
barons, together with two knights from every shire and two
burgesses from every borough. Knights had been sum.
moned to former councils ; but never until now had repre
sentatives from the towns been invited to sit with bishops,
barons, and knights of the shire.
In the reign of Edward I. parliament assumed substan
tially its present form of king, lords, and commons. The
irregular and unauthorized scheme of Simon de Montfort
was fully adopted in 1295, when the king himself sum
moned to a parliament two knights from every shire,
elected by the freeholders at the shire court, and two bur
gesses from every city, borough, and leading town. The
rebel earl had enlarged the basis of the national council ;
and, to secure popular support, the politic king accepted it
as a convenient instrument of taxation. The knights and
freeholders had increased in numbers and wealth ; and the
towns, continually advancing in population, trade, and com
merce, had become valuable contributors to the revenue of
the state. The grant of subsidies to the crown, by the
assembled baronage and representatives of the shires and
towns, was a legal and comprehensive impost upon the
entire realm.
Secession of the Clergy. — It formed part of Edward's
policy to embrace the clergy in his scheme for the repre
sentation of all orders and classes of his subjects. They
were summoned to attend the parliament of 1295 and
succeeding parliaments of his reign, and their form of
summons has been continued until the present time ; but
the clergy resolutely held aloof from the national council,
and insisted upon voting their subsidies in their own con
vocations of Canterbury and York. The bishops retained
their high place among the earls and barons, but the
clergy sacrificed to ecclesiastical jealousies the privilege of
sharing in the political councils of the state. As yet,
indeed, this privilege seemed little more than the voting of
subsidies, but it was soon to embrace the redress of
grievances and the framing of laws for the general welfare
of the realm. This great power they forfeited ; and who
shall say how it might have been wielded, in the interests
of the church, and in the legislation of their country ]
They could not have withstood the Reformation ; they
would have been forced to yield to the power of the crown
and the heated resolution of the laity ; but they might
have saved a large share of the endowments of the church,
and perhaps have modified the doctrines and formularies
of the reformed establishment.
Reluctance of the Commons to Attend. — Meanwhile the
commons, unconscious of their future power, took their
humble place in the great council of the realm. The
knights of the shire, as lesser barons, or landowners of
good social standing, could sit beside the magnates of the
land without constraint ; but modest traders from the
towns were overawed by the power and dignity of their
new associates. They knew that they were summoned for
no other purpose than the taxing of themselves and their
fellow townsmen ; their attendance was irksome ; it inter
rupted their own business ; and their journeys exposed
them to many hardships and dangers. It is not surprising
that they should have shrunk from the exercise of so doubt
ful a privilege. Considerable numbers absented them
selves from a thankless service ; and their constituents, far
from exacting the attendance of their members, as in
modern times, begrudged the sorry stipend of 2s. a day,
paid to their representatives while on duty, and strove to
evade the burden imposed upon them by the crown. Some
PARLIAMENT
305
even purchased charters, withdrawing franchises which
they had not yet learned to value. Nor, in truth, did the
representation of towns at this period afford much protec
tion to the rights and interests of the people. Towns were
enfranchised at the will or caprice of the crown and the
sheriffs ; they could be excluded at pleasure ; and the least
show of independence would be followed by the omission
of another writ of summons. But the principle of repre
sentation, once established, was to be developed with the
expansion of society ; and the despised burgesses of
Edward I., not having seceded, like the clergy, were
destined to become a potential class in the parliaments of
England.
Sitting of Parliament at Westminster. — Another consti
tutional change during this reign was the summoning of
parliament to Westminster instead of to various towns
in different parts of the country. This custom invested
parliament with the character of a settled institution,
and constituted it a high court for the hearing of petitions
and the redress of grievances. The growth of its judica
ture, as a court of appeal, was also favoured by the fixity
of its place of meeting.
Authority of Parliament recognized by Law. — Great was
the power of the crown, and the king himself was bold and
statesmanlike ; but the union of classes against him proved
too strong for prerogative. In 1297, having outraged the
church, the barons, and the commons by illegal exactions,
he was forced to confirm the Great Charter and the Charter
of Forests, with further securities against the taxation of
the people without their consent, and, in return, obtained
timely subsidies from the parliament.
Henceforth the financial necessities of a succession of
kings ensured the frequent assembling of parliaments.
Nor were they long contented with the humble function
of voting subsidies, but boldly insisted on the redress of
grievances and further securities for national liberties.
In 1322 it was declared by statute 15th Edward II. that
" the matters to be established for the estate of the king
and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and
of the people, should be treated, accorded, and established
in parliament, by the king, and by the assent of the
prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the
realm, according as had been before accustomed." The
constitutional powers of parliament as a legislature were
here amply recognized, — not by royal charter, or by"
the occasional exercise of prerogative, but by an authori
tative statute. And these powers were soon to be
exercised in a striking form. Already parliament had
established the principle that the redress of grievances
should have precedence of the grant of subsidies ; it had
maintained the right of approving councillors of the
crown, and punishing them for the abuse of their powers ;
and in 1327 the king himself was finally deposed, and
the succession of his son, Edward III., declared by
parliament.
Union of Knights of the Shire and Burgesses. — At this
period the constitution of parliament was also settling
down to its later and permanent shape. Hitherto the
different orders or estates had deliberated separately, and
agreed upon their several grants to the crown. The
knights of the shire were naturally drawn, by social ties
and class interests, into alliance with the barons ; but at
length they joined the citizens and burgesses, and in the
first parliament of Edward III. they are found sitting
together as " the Commons."
This may be taken as the turning point in the political
history of England. If all the landowners of the country
had become united as an order of nobles, they might have
proved too strong for the development of national liberties,
while the union of the country gentlemen with the
burgesses formed an estate of the realm, which was
destined to prevail over all other powers. The withdrawal
of the clergy, who would probably have been led by the
bishops to take part with themselves and the barons,
further strengthened the united commons.
Increasing Influence of Parliament. — The reign of
Edward III. witnessed further advances in the authority
of parliament, and changes in its constitution. The king,
being in continual need of subsidies, was forced to sum
mon parliament every year, and in order to encourage its
liberality he frequently sought its advice upon the most
important issues of peace or war, and readily entertained
the petitions of the commons praying for the redress of
grievances. During this reign also, the advice and con
sent of the commons, as well as of the lords spiritual and
temporal, was regularly recorded in the enacting part of
every statute.
Separation of the Tivo Houses. — But a more important
event is to be assigned to this reign, — the formal separa
tion of parliament into the two Houses of Lords and Com
mons. There is no evidence — nor is it probable — that
the different estates ever voted together as a single
assembly. It appears from the Rolls of Parliament that
in the early part of this reign, the causes of summons
having been declared to the assembled estates, the three
estates deliberated separately, but afterwards delivered a
collective answer to the king. While their deliberations
were short, they could be conducted apart, in the same
chamber ; but, in course of time, it was found convenient
for the commons to have a chamber of their own, and
they adjourned their sittings to the chapter-house of the
abbot of Westminster, where they continued to be held
after the more formal and permanent separation had taken
place. The date of this event is not clearly established,
but is generally assigned to the 17th Edward III.
The Commons as Petitioners. — Parliament had now
assumed its present outward form. Bv.t it was far from
enjoying the authority which it acquired in later times.
The crown was still paramount ; the small body of earls
and barons — not exceeding forty— were connected with
the royal family, or in the service of the king, or under his
influence ; the prelates, once distinguished by their inde
pendence, were now seekers of royal favour; and the
commons, though often able to extort concessions in
return for their contributions to the royal exchequer, as
yet held an inferior position among the estates of the
realm. Instead of enjoying an equal share in the fram
ing of laws, they appeared before the king in the humble
guise of petitioners. Their petitions, together with the
king's answers, were recorded in the Rolls of Parliament ;
but it was not until the parliament had been discharged
from attendance that statutes were framed by the judges,
and entered on the statute rolls. Under such conditions
legislation was, in truth, the prerogative of the crown
rather than of parliament. Enactments were often found
in the statutes at variance with the petitions and royal
answers, and neither prayed for by the commons nor
assented to by the lords. In vain the commons pro
tested against so grave an abuse of royal authority ; but
the same practice was continued during this and succeed
ing reigns. Henry V., in the second year of his reign,
promised " that nothing should be enacted to the petitions
of the commons, contrary to their asking, whereby they
should be bound without their assent "; but, so long as
the old method of framing laws was adhered to, there
could be no security against abuse ; and it was not until
the reign of Henry VI. that the introduction of the more
regular system of legislating by bill and statute ensured
the thorough agreement of all the estates in the several
provisions of every statute.
XVIII - - 39
306
Increasing Boldness of the Commons. — The commons,
however, notwithstanding these and other discouragements,
were constantly growing bolder in the assertion of their
rights. They now ventured to brave the displeasure of
the king, without seeking to shelter themselves behind
powerful barons, upon whose forwardness in the national
cause they could not reckon. Notably in 1376 their
stout Speaker, Peter de la Warr, inveighed, in their name,
against the gross mismanagement of the war, impeached
ministers of the realm, complained of the heavy burdens
under which the people suffered, and even demanded that
a true account should be rendered of the public expendi
ture. The brave Speaker was cast into prison, and a new
parliament was summoned which speedily reversed the
resolutions of the last. But the death of the king changed
the aspect of affairs. Another parliament was called,
when it was found that the spirit of the commons was not
subdued. Peter de la Warr was released from prison, and
again elected to the chair. The demands of the former
parliament were reiterated with greater boldness and
persistence, the evil councillors of the late reign were
driven out, and it was conceded that the principal officers
of state should be appointed and removed, during the
minority of Richard II., upon the advice of the lords.
The commons also insisted upon the annual assembling
of parliament under the stringent provisions of a binding
law. They claimed the right, not only of voting subsidies,
but of appropriating them, and of examining public
accounts. They inquired into public abuses, and im
peached ministers of the crown. Even the king himself
was deposed by the parliament. Thus during this reign
all the great powers of parliament were asserted and
exercised. The foreign wars of Henry IV. and Henry V.,
by continuing the financial necessities of the crown, main
tained for a while the powers which parliament had acquired
by the struggles of centuries.
E 'elapse of Parliamentary Influence. — But a period of
civil wars and disputed successions was now at hand,
which checked the further development of parliamentary
liberties. The effective power of a political institution is
determined, not by assertions of authority, nor even by its
legal recognition, but by the external forces by which it is
supported, controlled, or overborne. With the close of the
Wars of the Roses the life of parliament seems to have
well-nigh expired.
To this constitutional relapse various causes contributed
at the same period. The crown had recovered its absolute
supremacy. The powerful baronage had been decimated
on the battlefield and the scaffold ; and vast estates had
been confiscated to the crown. Kings had no longer any
dread of their prowess as defenders of their own order or
party, or as leaders of the people. The royal treasury had
been enriched by their ruin ; while the close of a long
succession of wars with France and Scotland relieved it of
that continual drain which had reduced the crown to an
unwelcome dependence upon parliament. Not only were
the fortunes of the baronage laid low, but feudalism was
also dying out in England as on the Continent. It was no
longer a force which could control the crown ; and it was
being further weakened by changes in the art of war.
The mailed horseman, the battle-axe and cross-bow of
burgher and yeoman, could not cope with the cannon and
arquebus of the royal army.
In earlier times the church had often stood forth against
the domination of kings, but now it was in passive sub
mission to the throne. The prelates were attracted to the
court, and sought the highest offices of state ; the inferior
clergy had long been losing their influence over the laity
by their ignorance and want of moral elevation, at a period
of increasing enlightenment; while the church at large was
weakened by schisms and a wider freedom of thought.
Hence the church, like the baronage, had ceased to be a
check upon the crown.
Meanwhile what had become of the ever-growing power
of the commons ? It is true they had lost their stalwart
leaders, the armed barons and outspoken prelates, but
they had themselves advanced in numbers, riches, and
enlightenment ; they had overspread the land as knights
and freeholders, or dwelt in populous towns enriched by
merchandise. Why could they not find leaders of their
own 1 Because they had lost the liberal franchises of an
earlier age, All freeholders, or suitors present at the
county court, were formerly entitled to vote for a knight of
the shire; but in the eighth year of Henry VI. (1430) an
Act was passed (c. 37) by which this right was confined
to 40s. freeholders, resident in the county. Large
numbers of electors were thus disfranchised. In the view
of parliament they were "of no value," and complaints
had been made that they were under the t influence of the
nobles and greater landowners ; but a popular element
had been withdrawn from the county representation, and
the restricted franchise cannot have impaired the influence
of the nobles.
As for the cities and boroughs, they had virtually
renounced their electoral privileges. As we have seen, they
had never valued them very highly ; and now by royal
charters, or by the usurpation of small self-elected bodies
of burgesses, the choice of members had fallen into the
hands of town councils and neighbouring landowners.
The anomalous system of close and nomination boroughs,
which had arisen thus early in our history, was suffered
to continue without a check for four centuries, as a
notorious blot upon our free constitution.
All these changes exalted the prerogatives of the crown.
Amid the clash of arms and the strife of hostile parties, the
voice of parliament had been stifled ; and, when peace was
restored, a powerful king could dispense with an assembly
which might prove troublesome, and from whom he rarely
needed help. Hence for a period of two hundred years,
from the reign of Henry VI. to that of Elizabeth, the
free parliaments of England were in abeyance. The
institution retained its form and constituent parts; its
rights and privileges were theoretically recognized, but its
freedom and national character were little more than
shadows.
The Three Estates of the Realm.- — This check in the
fortunes of parliament affords a fitting occasion for
examining the composition of each of the three estates of
the realm.
Lords Spiritual and Temporal. — The archbishops and
bishops had held an eminent position in the councils of
Saxon and Norman kings, and many priors and abbots
were from time to time associated with them as lords
spiritual, until the suppression of the monasteries by
Henry VIII. They generally outnumbered their brethren,
the temporal peers, who sat with them in the same
assembly.
The lords temporal comprised several dignities. Of
these the baron, though now the lowest in rank, was the
most ancient. The title was familiar in Saxon times, but
it was not until after the Norman Conquest that it was
invested with a distinct feudal dignity. Next in antiquity
was the earl, whose official title was known to Danes and
Saxons, and who after the Conquest obtained a dignity
equivalent to that of count in foreign states. The highest
dignity, that of duke, was not created until Edward III.
conferred it upon his son, Edward the Black Prince. The
rank of marquis was first created by Richard II., with
precedence after a duke. It was in the reign of Henry VI.
that the rank of viscount was created, to be placed
PARLIAMENT
307
between the earl and the baron. Since that time no new
dignity has been invented, and the peerage consists of the
five dignities of duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and baron.
During the 15th century the number of temporal peers
summoned to parliament rarely exceeded fifty, and no
more than twenty-nine received writs of summons to the
first parliament of Henry VII. There were only fifty-nine
at the death of Queen Elizabeth. At the accession of
William III. this number had been increased to about one
hundred and fifty.
Life Peerages. — The several orders of the peerage are
alike distinguished by the hereditary character of their
dignities. Some life peerages, indeed, were created
between the reigns of Richard II. and Henry VI., and
several ladies had received life peerages between the
reigns of Charles II. and George II. The highest
authorities had alsj held that the creation of life peerages
was within the prerogative of the crown. But four
hundred years had elapsed since the creation of a life peer,
entitled to sit in parliament, when Queen Victoria was
advised to create Sir James Parke, lately an eminent
judge, a baron for life, under the title of Lord "\Vensleydale.
The object of this deviation from the accustomed practice
was to strengthen the judicature of the House of Lords,
without unduly enlarging the numbers of the peerage.
But the lords at once took exception to this act of the
crown, and, holding that a prerogative so long disused
could not be revived, in derogation of the hereditary
character of the peerage, resolved that Lord Wensleydale
was not entitled by his letters patent, and writ of summons,
to sit and vote in parliament. His lordship accordingly
received a new patent, and took his seat as an hereditary
peer. But the necessity of some such expedient for
improving the appellate jurisdiction of the House of
Lords could not be contested; and in 1876 three lords of
appeal in ordinary were constituted by statute, enjoying
the rank of baron for life, and the right of sitting and
voting in the House of Lords so long as they continue
in office.
The Commons.- — The commons formed a more numerous
body. In the reign of Edward I. there were about 275
members, in that of Edward III. 250, and in that of
Henry VI. 300. In the reign of Henry VIII. parliament
added 27 members for Wales and 4 for the county and
city of Chester, and in the reign of Charles II. 4 for the
county and city of Durham. Between the reigns of
Henry VIII. and Charles II. 130 members were also
added by royal charter.
Parliament under Henry VIII. — To resume the history
of parliament at a later period, let us glance at the reign
of Henry VIII. Never had the power of the crown been
greater than when this king succeeded to the throne, and
never had a more imperious will been displayed by any king
of England. Parliament was at his feet to do his bidding,
and the Reformation enormously increased his power. He
had become a pope to the bishops ; the old nobles who had
resisted his will had perished in the field or on the scaffold ;
the new nobles were his creatures ; and he had the vast
wealth of the church in his hands as largesses to his
adherents. Such was the dependence of parliament upon
the crown and its advisers during the Reformation period
that in less than thirty years four vital changes were
decreed in the national faith. Each of the successive
reigns inaugurated a new religion.
Queen Elizabeth and her Parliaments. — With the reign
of Elizabeth commenced a new era in the life of parliament.
She had received the royal prerogatives unimpaired, and
her hand was strong enough to wield them. But in the
long interval since Edward IV. the entire framework of
English society had been changed ; it was a new England
that the queen was called upon to govern. The coarse
barons of feudal times had been succeeded by English
country gentlemen, beyond the influence of the court, and
identified with all the interests and sympathies of their
country neighbours. From this class were chosen nearly all
the knights of the shire, and a considerable proportion of
the members for cities and boroughs. They were generally
distinguished by a manly independence, and were prepared
to uphold the rights and privileges of parliament and the
interests of their constituents. A change no less remark
able had occurred in other classes of society. The country
was peopled with yeomen and farmers, far superior to the
cultivators of the soil in feudal times ; and the towns and
seaports had grown into important centres of commerce
and manufactures. Advances not less striking had been
made in the enlightenment and culture of society. But,
above all, recent religious revolutions had awakened a
spirit of thought and inquiry, by no means confined to
questions of faith. The Puritans, hostile to the church,
and jealous of every semblance of Catholic revival, were
embittered against the state, which was identified, in their
eyes, with many ecclesiastical enormities ; and their stub
born temper was destined to become a strong motive force
in restoring the authority of parliament.
The parliaments of Elizabeth, though rarely summoned,
displayed an unaccustomed spirit. They discussed the
succession to the crown, the marriage of the queen, and
ecclesiastical abuses ; they upheld the privileges of the
commons, and their right to advise the crown upon all
matters of state ; and they condemned the grant of mono
polies. The bold words of the Wentworths and Yelvertons
were such as had not been heard before in parliament.
The conflicts between Elizabeth and the commons marked
the revival of the independence of parliament, and fore
shadowed graver troubles at no distant period.
Conflicts of James I. with the Commons. — James I., with
short-sighted pedantry, provoked a succession of conflicts
with the commons, in which abuses of prerogative were
stoutly resisted and the rights and privileges of parliament
resolutely asserted. The "remonstrance" of 1G10 and
the " protestation " of 1621 would have taught a politic
ruler that the commons could no longer be trifled with ;
but those lessons were lost upon James and upon his ill-
fated son.
Charles I. and the Commonwealth. — The momentous
struggles between Charles I. and his parliaments cannot
be followed in this place. The earlier parliaments of this
reign fairly represented the earnest and temperate judgment
of the country. They were determined to obtain the
redress of grievances, and to restrain undue prerogatives ;
but there was no taint of disloyalty to the crown ; there
were no dreams of revolution. But the contest at length
became embittered, until there was no issue but the arbitra
ment of the sword. The civil war and the commonwealth,
however memorable in the history of England, are beyond
the range of this narrative. But this period proved the
supreme power of the commons, when supported by
popular forces. Everything gave way before them. They
raised victorious armies in the field, they overthrew the
church and the House of Lords, and they brought the
king himself to the scaffold. It also displayed the
impotence of a parliament which has lost the confidence
of the country, or is overborne by mobs, by an army, or
by the strong will of a dictator.
Political Agitation of this Period. — It is to this time
| of fierce political passions that we trace the origin of
i political agitation, as an organized method of influencing
i the deliberations of parliament. The whole country was
then aroused by passionate exhortations from the pulpit
\ and iu the press. No less than thirty thousand political
308
tracts and newspapers during this period have been pre
served. Petitions to parliament were multiplied in order
to strengthen the hands of the popular leaders. Clamorous
meetings were held to stimulate or overawe parliament.
Such methods, restrained after the Restoration, have been
revived in later times, and now form part of the acknow
ledged system of parliamentary government.
Parliament after the Restoration. — On the restoration of
Charles II. parliament was at once restored to its old
constitution, and its sittings were revived as if they had
suffered no interruption. No outward change had been
effected by the late revolution ; but that a stronger spirit
of resistance to abuses of prerogative had been aroused
was soon to be disclosed in the deposition of James II. and
the "glorious revolution " of 1688. At this time the full
rights of parliament were explicitly declared, and securities
taken for the maintenance of public liberties. The theory
of a constitutional monarchy and a free parliament was
established ; but after two revolutions it is curious to
observe the indirect methods by which the commons were
henceforth kept in subjection to the crown and the terri
torial aristocracy. The representation had long become !
an illusion. The knights of the shire were the nominees
of nobles and great landowners ; the borough members
were returned by the crown, by noble patrons, or close
corporations ; even the representation of cities, with greater
pretensions to independence, was controlled by bribery.
Nor were rulers content with their control of the repre
sentation, but, after the Restoration, the infamous system
of bribing the members themselves became a recognized
instrument of administration. The country gentlemen
were not less attached to the principles of rational liberty
than their fathers, and would have resisted further
encroachments of prerogative ; but they were satisfied with
the Revolution settlement and the remedial laws of William
III., and no new issue had yet arisen to awaken opposi
tion. Accordingly, they ranged themselves with one or
other of the political parties into which parliament was
now beginning to be divided, and bore their part in the
more measured strifes of the 18th century. From the
Revolution till the reign of George III. the effective
power of the state was wielded by the crown, the church,
and the territorial aristocracy ; but the influence of public
opinion since the stirring events of the 17th century had
greatly increased. Both parties were constrained to
defer to it ; and, notwithstanding the flagrant defects in
the representation, parliament generally kept itself in
accord with the general sentiments of the country.
Union of Scotland. — On the union of Scotland in 1707,
important changes were made in the constitution of parlia
ment. The House of Lords was reinforced by the addition
of sixteen peers, representing the peerage of Scotland, and
elected every parliament ; and the Scottish peers, as a
body, were admitted to all the privileges of peerage,
except the right of sitting in parliament, or upon the
trial of peers. No prerogative, however, was given to the
crown to create new peerages after the Union ; and, while
they are distinguished by their antiquity, their number
is consequently decreasing. To the House of Commons
were assigned forty-five members, representing the shires
and burghs of Scotland.
Parliament under George III. — With the reign of
George III. there opened a new period in the history of
parliament. Agitation in its various forms, an active and
aggressive press, public meetings and political associations,
the free use of the right of petition, and a turbulent spirit
among the people seriously changed the relations of
parliament to the country. And the publication of
debates, which was fully established in 1771, at once
increased the direct responsibility of parliament to the
people, and ultimately brought about other results, to
which we shall presently advert.
Union of Ireland. — In this reign another important
change was effected in the constitution of parliament.
Upon the union with Ireland, in 1801, four Irish bishops
were added to the lords spiritual, who sat by rotation of
sessions, and represented the episcopal body of the Church
of Ireland. But those bishops were deprived of their
seats in parliament in 1869, on the disestablishment of
the Church of Ireland. Twenty-eight representative peers,
elected for life by the peerage of Ireland, were admitted
to the House of Lords. All the Irish peers were al-o
entitled to the privilege of peerage. In two particulars
the Irish peerage was treated in a different manner from
the peerage of Scotland. The crown was empowered to
create a new Irish peerage whenever three Irish peerages
in existence at the time of the LTnion have become extinct,
or when the number of Irish peers, exclusive of those
holding peerages of the United Kingdom, has been
reduced to one hundred. And, further, Irish peers were
permitted to sit in the House of Commons for any place
in Great Britain, forfeiting, however, the privilege of
peerage while sitting in the Lower House. The exped
iency of both these provisions has often been called in
question.
At the same time one hundred representatives of
Ireland were added to the House of Commons. This
addition raised the number of members to six hundred
and fifty-eight. Parliament now became the parliament
of the United Kingdom, and high hopes were entertained
of a salutary fusion of diverse nationalities into a single
assembly ; but these hopes have scarcely been realized,
and the relations of the Irish people to Great Britain and
the imperial government continue to be a source of the
gravest embarrassment and danger.
Schemes for Improving the Representation. — By the
union of Scotland and Ireland, the electoral abuses of those
countries were combined with those of England. Notwith
standing a defective representation, however, parliament
generally sustained its position as fairly embodying the
political sentiments of its time. Public opinion had been
awakened, and could not safely be ignored by any party in
the state. Under a narrow and corrupt electoral system,
the ablest men in the country found an entrance into the
House of Commons ; and their rivalry and ambition
ensured the acceptance of popular principles and the pass
ing of many remedial measures. As society expanded, and
new classes were called into existence, the pressure of
public opinion upon the legislature was assuming a more
decisive character. The grave defects of the representation
were notorious, and some minor electoral abuses had been
from time to time corrected. But the fundamental evils, —
nomination boroughs, limited rights of election, the sale of
seats in parliament, the prevalence of bribery, and the
enormous expense of elections, — though constantly exposed,
long held their ground against all assailants. So far back
as 1770 Lord Chatham had denounced these flagrant
abuses. " Before the end of this century," he said, " either
the parliament will reform itself from within, or be
reformed with a vengeance from without." In 1782, and
again in 1783 and 1785, his distinguished son, William
Pitt, condemned the abuses of the representation, and
proposed schemes of parliamentary reform. In 1793 Mr
Grey (afterwards Earl Grey) submitted a motion on the
same subject ; but the excesses of the French Revolution,
political troubles at home, and exhausting wars abroad
discouraged the supporters of reform for many years.
Under more favourable conditions the question assumed
greater proportions. Lord John Russell especially distin
guished himself in 1820, and in several succeeding years,
PARLIAMENT
309
by the able exposure of abuses and temperate schemes of
reform. His efforts were assisted by the scandalous
disclosures of bribery at Grampound, Penryn, and East
Retford. All moderate proposals were rejected ; but the
concurrence of a dissolution, on the death of George IV.,
with the French Revolution of 1830, and an ill- timed
declaration of the duke of Wellington that the representa
tion was perfect and could not be improved, suddenly
precipitated the memorable crisis of parliamentary reform.
It now fell to the lot of Earl Grey, as premier, to be
the leader in a cause which he had espoused in his early
youth.
The Reform Acts of 1832. — The result of the memorable
struggle which ensued may be briefly told. By the Reform
Acts of 1832 the representation of the United Kingdom
was reconstructed. In England, fifty-six nomination
boroughs returning one hundred and eleven members were
disfranchised ; thirty boroughs were each deprived of one
member, and Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which had
returned four members, were now reduced to two. Means
were thus found for the enfranchisement of populous
places. Twenty-two large towns, including metropolitan
districts, became entitled to return two members, and
twenty less considerable towns acquired the right of re
turning one member each. The number of county members
was increased from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-
nine, the larger counties being divided for the purposes
of representation.
The elective franchise was also placed upon a new basis.
In the boroughs a £10 household suffrage was substituted
for the narrow and unequal franchises which had sprung
up, — the rights of freemen, in corporate towns, being alone
respected. In the counties, copyholders and leaseholders
for terms of years, and tenants at will paying a rent of £50
a year, were added to the 40s. freeholders.
By the Scottish Reform Act, the number of members
representing Scotland was increased from forty-five, as
arranged at the Union, to fifty-three, of whom thirty were
assigned to counties and twenty-three to cities and boroughs.
In counties the franchise was conferred upon owners of
property of £10 a year, and certain classes of leaseholders ;
in burghs, upon £10 householders, as in England.
By the Irish Reform Act, no boroughs, however small,
were disfranchised ; but the franchise was given to £10
householders, and county constituencies were enlarged.
These franchises, however, were extended in 1850, when
an £8 household suffrage was given to the boroughs, and
additions were made to the county franchises. The
hundred members assigned to that country at the Union
were increased to one hundred and five. Notwithstanding
these various changes, however, the total number of the
House of Commons was still maintained at 658.
The Reformed Parliament. — The legislature was now
brought into closer relations with the people, reflected their
opinions, and was sensitive to the pressure of popular
forces. The immediate effects of this new spirit were per
ceptible in the increased legislative activity of the reformed
parliament, its vigorous grappling with old abuses, and its
preference of the public welfare to the narrower interests
of classes. But, signal as was the regeneration of parlia
ment, several electoral evils still needed correction.
Strenuous efforts were made, with indifferent success, to
overcome bribery and corruption, and proposals were often
ineffectually made to restrain the undue influence of land
lords and employers of labour by the ballot ; improve
ments were made in the registration and polling of electors,
and the property qualification of members was abolished.
Complaints were also urged that the middle classes had
been admitted to power, while the working classes were
excluded from the late scheme of enfranchisement. Twenty
years after the settlement of 1832, its revision was seri
ously approached.
Later Measures of Reform. — In 1 852, and again in 1854,
Lord John Russell introduced further measures of reform ;
but constitutional changes were discouraged by the Russian
war. In 1859 Lord Derby's Conservative government pro
posed another scheme of reform, which was defeated ; and
in 1860 Lord John Russell brought in another Bill, which
was not proceeded with ; and the question of reform con
tinued in abeyance until after the death of Lord
Palrnerston. Earl Russell, who succeeded him as premier,
was prompt to redeem former pledges, and hastened to
submit to a new parliament, in 1866, another scheme of
reform. This measure, and the ministry by whom it was
promoted, were overthrown by a combination of the Con
servative opposition and the memorable " cave " of mem
bers of the Liberal party. But the popular sentiment in
favour of reform, which had for some years been inert,
was suddenly aroused by the defeat of a Liberal ministry,
and the triumph of the party opposed to reform. Lord
Derby and his colleagues were now constrained to under
take the settlement of this embarrassing question ; and by
a strange concurrence of political events and party tactics,
a scheme far more democratic than that of the Liberal
Government was accepted by the same parliament, under
the auspices of a Conservative ministry.
The Reform Ads of 1867-68.— By the English Reform
Act of 1867, four corrupt boroughs were disfranchised, and
thirty-eight boroughs returning two members were hence
forth to return one only. A third member was given to
Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds ; a second
member to Merthyr Tydfil and Salford ; the Tower Hamlets
were divided into two boroughs, each returning two mem
bers ; and ten new boroughs were created, returning one
member each, with the exception of Chelsea, to which two
were assigned. By these changes twenty-six seats were
taken from boroughs, while a member was given to the
university of London. But before this Act came into
operation, seven other English boroughs were disfranchised
by the Scottish Reform Act of 1868, these seats being given
to Scotland. Thirteen new divisions of counties were
erected, to which twenty-five members were assigned. In
counties, the franchise of copyholders and leaseholders was
reduced from £10 to £5, and the occupation franchise from
£50 to £12. In boroughs the franchise was extended to
all occupiers of dwelling-houses rated to the poor-rates,
and to lodgers occupying lodgings of the annual value of
£10 unfurnished.
By the Scottish Reform Act of 1868, the number of mem
bers representing Scotland was increased from fifty-three
to sixty, — three new members being given to the shires,
two to the universities, and two to cities and burghs. The
county franchise was extended to owners of lands and heri
tages of £5 yearly value, and to occupiers of the rateable
value of £14 ; and the burgh franchise to all occupiers of
dwelling-houses paying rates, and to tenants of lodgings of
£10 annual value unfurnished.
By the Irish Reform Act of 1868, no change was made in
the number of members nor in the distribution of seats ;
but the boroughs of Sligo and Cashel, already disfranchised,
were still left without representation. The county fran
chise was left unchanged ; but the borough franchise was
extended to occupiers of houses rated at £4, and of lodg
ings of the annual value of £10 unfurnished.
Present Position of Parliamentary Reform. — That these
changes in the representation — especially the household
suffrage in boroughs — were a notable advance upon the
reforms of 1832, in the direction of democracy, cannot be
questioned. The enlarged constituencies speedily over
threw the ministry to whom these measures were due ; and
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PARLIAMENT
the new parliament further extended the recent scheme of
reform, by granting to electors the protection of the ballot,
for which advanced reformers had contended since 1832.
Xor was the representation, as lately determined, long
suffered to continue without question. First, it was pro
posed, in 1872, by Mr Trevelyan, to extend the household
franchise to counties, and this proposal found favour in
the country and in the House of Commons ; but, the Con
servative party having been restored to power in 1874, no
measure of that character could be promoted with any
prospect of success. At the dissolution in 1880 a more
general revision of the representation was advocated by
leading members of the Liberal party, who were soon re
stored to power ; and further measures of reform are now
under the consideration of parliament. Meanwhile, tren
chant enactments have been made in restraint of corrupt
practices, and for reducing the excessive cost of elections.
Relations of the Commons to the Crown and the Lords. —
Having brought this rapid sketch of the history and con
stitution of parliament to a close, a few remarks may be
offered as to the relations of the House of Commons to the
crown, the House of Lords, and the people. Prior to the
reign of Charles I. the condition of society was such as
naturally to subordinate the Commons to the crown and
the Lords. After the Revolution of 1688, society had so
far advanced, that, under a free representation, the Com
mons might have striven with both upon equal terms.
But, as by far the greater part of the representation was in
the hands of the king and the territorial nobles, the
large constitutional powers of the Commons were held
safely in check. Since 1832, when the representation
became a reality, a corresponding authority has been
asserted by the Commons. For several years, indeed, by
reason of the weakness of the Liberal party, the Lords
were able successfully to resist the Commons upon many
important .occasions ; but it was soon acknowledged that
they must yield whenever a decisive majority of the Com
mons, supported by public opinion, insisted upon the
passing of any measure, however repugnant to the senti
ments of .the Upper House. And it became a political
axiom that the Commons alone determined the fate of
ministries, and the policy of the state. The relations of
the two Houses, however, can only be understood in con
nexion with the action of political parties. The Lords may
be said, generally, to represent the opinions prevalent
before 1832, while, during the greater part of the period
since that time, the Commons, under leaders of the Liberal
party, have represented the progressive views of a later
generation. Hence, under Liberal administrations, the two
Houses have been in frequent conflict ; under Conservative
administrations they have been brought into general
agreement, the electors having supported the party which
commanded a majority in both Houses. In the conflict of
parties, the ultimate appeal is to the country. But as the
representation of the people is further extended, an accord
between the two Houses will be more difficult, while the
power of resistance on the part of the Lords will be pro
portionately weakened.
Severe Pressure upon the House of Commons. — The
House of Commons having thus become the centre of
political power, it has been impelled to extraordinary
activity. The legislation of the last fifty years affords the
only example in history of so wide a reconstruction of insti
tutions, and so bold a redress of grievances, having been
accomplished without a revolution. But this prodigious
work, of which the main burthen has rested upon the
Commons, has formed only a part of their labours. The
voting of supplies for the public service, and financial
policy, are their exclusive province, and offer unbounded
opportunities for debate. They have also assumed a large
' share of executive power. Every act of administration is
! open to question, controversy, and censure. Matters of
! executive policy — foreign, colonial, and domestic — are
1 eagerly discussed in this numerous and excited assembly.
i Nor are discussions mainly directed to such important
topics. The close connexion of the Commons with the
people, the publicity of debates, the rapidity of communi
cations with all parts of the world, and the activity of the
press, have made the floor of that House the popular plat
form of the country. On that arena are discussed every
conceivable grievance, complaint, opinion, project, or delu
sion. Subjects the most trivial are forced upon the
attention of the House, by means of questions and inci
dental debates ; and after weary sittings, such as no other
deliberative assembly has ever been willing to endure,
matters of the first importance fail to obtain a hearing.
These difficulties were apparent in the first reformed
parliaments after 1832 ; and they have since been aggra
vated so seriously as to threaten the character and com
petency of the most powerful branch of the legislature.
Such difficulties, grave enough in themselves, have
lately assumed more dangerous proportions under the per
nicious tactics of obstruction. The liberal opportunities
provided, by the rules of the House, for free discussion
have been perverted and abused ; and the effective power
of the House has often been held in check, and sometimes
nearly paralysed. Already some partial remedies have
been applied to this acknowledged evil, but further
measures are still needed for facilitating the action of
parliament. It were strange, indeed, if the House of
Commons, having attained pre-eminence in the legislature,
should now prove unequal to the responsibilities of its
freedom and its power. The methods of earlier times, and
other political conditions, will assuredly be reviewed, and
adapted to the multiplied obligations of an assembly
whose fruitful labours are essential to the welfare of tho
country.
POWERS AND PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT.
Such being the history and constitutional character of
parliament, this survey would be incomplete without a
more detailed view of the powers and privileges of each of
its constituent parts, and of its ordinary proceedings.
Prerogatives of the Crown. — The crown, pre-eminent i;i
rank and dignity, is also the legal source of parliamentary
authority. The Queen virtually appoints the Lords
Spiritual, and all the peerages of the Lords Temporal have
been created by herself or her predecessors. Thus the
entire House of Lords is the creation of the crown. The
Queen summons parliament to meet, and prescribes the time
and place of its meeting, prorogues and dissolves it, and
commands the issue of writs for the election of members of
the House of Commons. By several statutes, beginning
with the 4th Ed ward III. c. 14, the annual meeting of par
liament had been ordained ; but these statutes, continually
disregarded, were virtually repealed in the reigns of Charles
II. and William and Mary (16 Ch. II., 31"; 6 & 7 Will,
and Mary, 32). The present statute law merely exacts the
meeting of parliament once in three years ; but the anmvil
voting of supplies has long since superseded obsolete
statutes. When parliament is assembled, it cannot proceed
to business until the Queen has declared the causes of sum
mons, in person or by commission. Other prerogatives of
the crown, in connexion with parliament, will be noticed in
reference to the proceedings of the two Houses.
Powers of the House of Lords. — The House of Lords,
which at present consists of about five hundred and twenty
members, is distinguished by peculiar dignities, privileges,
and jurisdictions. Peers individually enjoy the rank and
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311
precedence of their several dignities, and are hereditary
councillors of the crown. Collectively with the Lords
Spiritual they form a permanent council of the crown ; and,
when assembled in parliament, they form the highest court
of judicature in the realm, and area co-equal branch of the
legislature, without whose consent no laws can be made.
Their judicature is of various kinds, viz., for the trial of
peers ; for determining claims of peerage and offices of
honour, under references from the crown ; for the trial of
controverted elections of Scotch and Irish peers; for the final
determination of appeals from courts in England, Scotland,
and Ireland ; and, lastly, for the trial of impeachments.
Powers of the House of Commons. — The House of Com
mons also has its own peculiar privileges and jurisdictions.
Above all, it has the paramount right of originating the
imposition of all taxes, and the granting of supplies for the
service of the state. It has also enjoyed, from early times,
the right of determining all matters concerning the election
of its own members, and their right to sit and vote in par
liament. This right, however, has been greatly abridged,
as, in 1868, the trial of controverted elections was trans
ferred to the courts of law ; but its j urisdiction in matters
of election, not otherwise provided for by statute, is still re
tained intact. As part of this j urisdiction, the House directs
the Speaker to issue warrants to the clerk of the crown
to make out new writs for the election of members to fill up
such vacancies as occur during the sitting of parliament.
Privileges of Parliament. — Both Houses are in the enjoy
ment of certain privileges, designed to maintain their
authority, independence, and dignity. These privileges are
founded mainly upon the law and custom of parliament,
while some have been confirmed, and others abridged or
abrogated by statute. The Lords rely entirely upon their
inherent right, as having " a place and voice in parliament ";
but, by a custom dating from the 6th Henry VIII. , the
Commons lay claim, by humble petition to the crown at the
commencement of every parliament, " to their ancient and
undoubted rights and privileges." Each House has its
separate rights and jurisdictions ; but privileges properly
so-called, being founded upon the law and custom of parlia
ment, are common to both Houses. Each House adjudges
whether any breach of privilege has been committed, and
punishes offenders by censure or commitment. This right
of commitment is incontestably established, and it extends
to the protection of officers of the House, lawfully and
properly executing its orders, who are also empowered to
call in the assistance of the civil power. The causes of
.such commitments cannot be inquired into by courts of law,
nor can prisoners be admitted to bail. Breaches of privi
lege may be summarized as disobedience to any orders or
rules of the House, indignities offered to its character or
proceedings, assaults, insults, or libels upon members, or
interference with officers of the House in discharge of their
duty, or tampering with witnesses. Such offences are
dealt with as contempts, according to the circumstances of
the respective cases, of which numerous precedents are to
be found in the journals of both Houses. The Lords may
imprison for a fixed period, and impose fines ; the
Commons can only imprison generally, the commitment
being concluded by the prorogation, and have long dis
continued the imposition of fines.
Freedom of Speech. — Freedom of speech has been one
of the most cherished privileges of parliament from early
times. Constantly asserted, and often violated, it was
finally declared by the Bill of Rights " that the freedom of
speech, and debates and proceedings in parliament, ought
not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place
out of parliament." Such a privilege is essential to the
independence of parliament, and to the protection of mem
bers in discharge of their duties. But, while it protects
members from molestation elsewhere, it leaves them open
to censure or other punishment by the House itself, when
ever they abuse their privilege and transgress the rules of
orderly debate.
Freedom from Arrest, — Freedom from arrest is a privi
lege of the highest antiquity. It was formerly of extended
scope, but has been reduced, by later legislation, within very
narrow limits. Formerly not only the persons of members
but their goods were protected, and their privilege extended
to their servants. At present members are themselves free
from arrest, but otherwise they are liable to all the pro
cesses of the courts. If arrested, they will be immediately
discharged, upon motion in the court whence the process
issued. Peers and peeresses are, by the privilege of peerage,
free from arrest at all times. Members of the House of
Commons are free only for forty days after prorogation
and forty days before the next appointed meeting ; but
prorogations are so arranged as to ensure a continuance of
the privilege. Formerly, even suits against members were
stayed, but this offensive privilege has been abolished by
statute. Exemption from attending as witnesses upon sub
poena, once an acknowledged privilege, is no longer insisted
upon; but immunity from service upon juries is at once an
ancient privilege and a statutory right. The privilege of
freedom from arrest is limited to civil causes, and has not
been suffered to exempt members from the operation of
the criminal law, nor even from commitments for contempt
by other courts. But, whenever the freedom of a member
is so interfered with, the courts are required immediately
to inform the House of the causes of his commitment.
Witnesses, suitors, counsel, and agents in attendance upon
parliament are protected from arrest and molestation, and
from the consequences of statements made by them, or
other proceedings in the conduct of their cases.
Conflicts between Privilege and Law. — As both Houses,
in enforcing their privileges, are obliged to commit
offenders or otherwise interfere with the liberty of the sub
ject, the exercise of these privileges has naturally been
called in question before the courts. Each House is the
sole judge of its own privileges; but the courts are bound
to administer the law, and, where law and privilege have
seemed to be at variance, a conflict of jurisdiction has arisen
between parliament and the courts. Many interesting
controversies have arisen upon such occasions ; but of
late years privilege has been so carefully restrained within
the proper limits of the law, and the courts have so amply
recognized the authority of parliament, that unseemly con
flicts of jurisdiction have been averted.
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
We may now present a general outline of the proceed
ings of parliament during the transaction of its multifarious
business.
On the day appointed by royal proclamation for the
meeting of a new parliament, both Houses assemble in
their respective chambers, when the Lords Commissioners
for opening the parliament summon the Commons to the
bar, by the gentleman usher of the black rod, to hear the
commission read. The Lord Chancellor then states that,
when the members of both Houses shall be sworn, Her
Majesty will declare the causes of her calling this parlia
ment ; and, it being necessary that a Speaker of the House
of Commons shall be first chosen, the Commons are
directed to proceed to the appointment of a Speaker, and
to present him, on the following clay, for Her Majesty's
royal approbation. The Commons at once withdraw to
their own ITcuss and proceed to the election of their
Speaker. The next day the Speaker-elect proceeds, with
the House to the House of Lords, and, on receiving the
royal approbation, lays claim, in the accustomed form, on
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behalf of the Commons, " to their ancient and undoubted
rights and privileges. " The Speaker, now fully confirmed,
returns to the House of Commons, and, after repeating his
acknowledgments, reminds the House that the first thing
to be done is to take and subscribe the oath required by
law. Having first taken the oath himself, he is followed
by other members, who come to the table to be sworn.
The swearing of members in both Houses proceeds from
day to day, until the greater number have taken the oath,
or affirmation, when the causes of summons are declared by
Her Majesty in person, or by commission, in "the Queen's
speech. " This speech being considered in both Houses, an
address in answer is agreed to, which is presented to Her
Majesty by the whole House, or by " the lords with white
staves" in one House and privy councillors in the other.
Sittings of Both Houses. — The real business of the session now
commences : the committees of supply and ways and means are
set up ; bills are introduced ; motions are made ; committees are
appointed ; and both Houses are, at once, in full activity. The Lord
Chancellor presides over the deliberations of the Lords, and the
Speaker over those of the Commons. A quorum of the House of
Lords, including the Chancellor, is three ; that of the House of
Commons, including the Speaker, is forty. If forty members cannot
be assembled at 4 o'clock, the House is at once adjourned ; and so
also if it be found, at a later hour, that less than that number are
present. The Lords usually met at 5 o'clock, but have recently
changed that hour to a quarter past 4. The usual hour for the
meeting of the Commons is a quarter before 4, except on Wed
nesdays, when the House meets at 12 and adjourns at 6, and
on other morning sittings from 2 till 7. In both Houses accommo
dation is provided for strangers and reporters, and there are separate
galleries for ladies.
Questions put from the Chair. — Every matter is determined, in
both Houses, upon questions put from the chair, and resolved in
the affirmative or negative, or otherwise disposed of by the with
drawal of the motion, by amendments, by the adjournment of the
House, by reading the orders of the day, or by the previous question.
Notices are required to be given of original motions ; and the
different stages of bills, and other matters appointed for considera
tion by the House, stand as orders of the day. Certain days in the
week are appointed for notices of motions and orders of the day
respectively ; and on Monday and Thursday Government orders of
the day have precedence. Questions of privilege are allowed pre
cedence of all the business on any day ; but this rule, being liable
to grave abuses, is guarded by strict limitations. Debate arises
when a question has been proposed from the chair ; and at the close of
the debate the question is put, with or without amendment, as the
case may be, and is determined, when necessary, by a division. No
question or bill, substantially the same as one upon which the
judgment of the House has already been given, may be again pro
posed during the same session.
Rules of Debate. — Members claim to be heard in debate by rising
in their places. When more than one member rises at the same
time, in the Lords the member who is to speak is called by the
House, in the Commons by the Speaker. Every member, when
called.is bound to speak to the question before the House ; and calls
to order for irrelevance, or for referring to other matters which have
been disposed of, or which stand for consideration on other days, are
very frequent. A member may speak once only to any question,
except to explain, or upon a point of order, or to reply when a mem
ber has himself submitted a motion to the House, or when an amend
ment has been moved which constitutes a new question. He may
not refer to past debates, nor to debates in the other House ; nor
may he refer to any other member by name, or use offensive and
disorderly language against the Queen, either House of Parliament,
or other members. Members offending against any of the rules of
debate are called to order by the Speaker, or the attention of the
chair is directed to the breach of order by another member. Order
is generally enforced by the authority of the chair ; but in extreme
cases, and especially when obstruction is being practised, the offend
ing member is named by the Speaker, and suspended by an order of
the House, or otherwise punished at the discretion of the House.
And, when a debate lias been unduly prolonged, the House may
order it to be closed, but under such conditions and restrictions
that this power can rarely be exercised. The rules to be observed
by members in the House during a debate are such as to ensure
the order and decorum becoming a deliberative assembly.
Divisions. — At the conclusion of a d<;bate,unlessthemotion be with
drawn, or the fjuestion (on being put from the chair) be agreed to, or
negatived, the House proceeds to a division, which effects the twofold
purpose of ascertaining the numbers supporting and opposing the
question, and of recording the names of members voting on either
side. Oa each side of the House is a division lobby ; and in the
Lords the "contents" and in the Commons the "ayes" are
directed to go to the right, and the "not contents" or "noes" to
the left. The former pass into the right lobby, at the back of the
speaker's chair, and return to the House through the bar ; the
latter pass into the left lobby, at the bar, and return at the back
of the chair. The opposing parties are thus kept entirely clear of
one another. In each lobby there are two members acting as t ellers,
who count the members as they pass, and two division clerks who
take down their names. After the division, the four tellers advance
to the table, and the numbers are reported by one of the tellers for
the majority. In case of an equality of numbers, in the Lords
the question is negatived in virtue of the ancient rule " semper
prresumitur pro negaute"; in the Commons the Speaker gives the
casting vote.
Committees of the Whole House. — For the sake of convenience in
the transaction of business, there are several kinds of committees.
Of these the most important is a committee of the whole House,
which, as it consists of the entire body of members, can scarcely
be accounted a committee. It is presided over by a chairman, who
sits in the clerk's chair at the table, the mace, which represents
the authority of the House itself, being for the time placed under
the table. In this committee are discussed the several provisions
of bills, resolutions, and other matters requiring the consideration
of details. To facilitate discussion, members are allowed to speak
any number of times to the same question ; otherwise the proceed
ings are similar to those of the House itself. In the Lords, the
chair is taken by the chairman of committees ; and in the Commons
by the chairman of the committee of ways and means, or in his
absence by any other member. The quorum of such a committee
is the same as that of the House itself. It reports from time to time
to the House, but has no power of adjournment.
Grand and Standing Committees. — In the House of Commons
there were formerly four grand committees, viz., for religion, for
grievances, for courts of justice, and for trade. They were founded
upon the valuable principle of a distribution of labours among
several bodies of members ; but, having fallen into disuse, they were
discontinued in 1832. The ancient committee of privileges, in
which "all who come are to have voices," is still appointed at the
commencement of every session, but is rarely called into action,
as it has been found more convenient to appoint a select committee
to inquire into any question of privilege as it arises. In 1882 a
partial revival of grand committees was effected by the appointment
of two standing committees for the consideration of bills relating to
law and courts of justice and to trade ; and there is reasonable
ground for hoping that this system may be widely extended, so as
to lighten the labours of the House, and facilitate the arduous
work of legislation.
Select Committees. — In select committees both Houses find the
means of delegating inquiries, and the consideration of other matters,
which could not be undertaken by the whole House. The reports
of such committees have formed the groundwork of many important
measures ; and bills are often referred to them which receive a fuller
examination than could be expected in a committee of the whole
House. Powrer is given to such committees, when required, to send
for persons, papers, and records. In the Lords the power of examin
ing witnesses upon oath has always been exercised, but it was not
until 1871 that the same power was extended to the Commons, by
statute.
Communications between the Two Houses.— In the course of the
proceedings of parliament, frequent communications between the
two Houses become necessary. Of these the most usual and con
venient form is that of a message. Formerly the Lords sent a
message by two judges, or two masters in chancery, and the
Commons by a deputation of their own members ; but since 1855
messages have been taken from one House to the other by one of
the clerks at the table. A more formal communication is effected
by a conference, in reference to amendments to bills or other matters ;
but this proceeding has been in great measure superseded by the
more simple form of a message. The two Houses are also occasion
ally brought into communication by means of joint committees and
of select committees communicating with each other.
Communications bctivccn the Crown and Parliament. — Communi
cations, in various forms, are also conducted between the crown
and both Houses of Parliament. Of these the most important are
those in which the Queen, in person or by commission, is present
in the House of Lords, to open or prorogue parliament, or to give
the royal assent to bills. Her Majesty is then in direct communi
cation with the three estates of the realm, assembled in the same
chamber. The Queen also sends messages to both Houses under
the royal sign manual, when all the members arc uncovered.
Verbal messages are also sent, and the Queen's pleasure, or royal
recommendation or consent to bills, or other matters, signified
through a minister of the crown or a privy councillor. Messages
under the sign manual are acknowledged by addresses, except
where grants of money are proposed, in which case no address is
presented by the Commons, who acknowledge them by making pro
vision accordingly.
PARLIAMENT
313
Both Houses approach the crown, sometimes by joint addresses,
but usually by separate addresses from each House. Such addresses
are presented to Her Majesty, either by the whole House, or by the
lords with white staves in one House and by privy councillors
in the other. Her Majesty answers, in person, addresses presented
by the whole_ House ; but, when presented otherwise, an answer is
brought by one of the lords with white staves, or by one of the
privy councillors, by whom the address has been presented. Re
solutions of either House are also sometimes directed to be laid
before Her Majesty ; and messages of congratulation or condolence
are sent to other members of the royal family.
The Passing of Public Bills. — The passing of bills forms the
most considerable part of the business of parliament ; but a brief
notice will suffice to explain the methods of procedure. These are
substantially the same in both Houses ; but the privileges of the
Commons, in regard to supply and taxation, require that all bills
imposing a charge upon the people should originate in that House.
On the other hand, the Lords claim that bills for restoration of
honours or in blood, or relating to their own privileges and juris
diction, should commence in their House. An act of grace, or
general pardon, originates with the crown, and is read once only
in both Houses. Bills are divided into public and private ; but
here the former only are referred to. In the Lords any peer is
entitled to present a bill, but in the Commons a member is required
to obtain the previous leave of the House to bring in the bill ; and,
in the case of bills relating to religion, trade, grants of public
money, or charges upon the subject, a preliminary committee is
necessary before such leave will be given. A bill, when presented,
is read a first time, and ordered to be printed ; and a day is
appointed for the second reading. At this latter stage, the prin
ciple of the bill is discussed ; and, if disapproved of by an adverse
vote, the bill is lost and cannot be renewed during the same
session. If approved of, it is usually committed to a committee of
the whole House, where every provision is open to debate and
amendment. When the bill has been fully considered it is reported
to the House, with or without amendments, and is ready to pass
through its remaining stages. Sometimes, however, the bill is re
ferred to a select committee before it is committed to a committee of
the whole House.
By recent standing orders of the Commons, bills relating to law
and courts of justice and to trade may be committed to standing
committees, specially constituted, instead of to a committee of the
whole House. When a bill has been reported from a committee of
the whole House, or from a standing committee, with amendments,
the bill, as amended, is ordered to be considered on a future day,
when further amendments may be made, or the bill may be recom
mitted. The next and last stage is the third reading, when the
principle of the measure, and its amended provisions, are open to
review. Even at this stage the bill may be lost ; but if the third
reading be agreed to, it is at once passed and sent to the other
House. There it is open to the like discussions and amendments,
and may be rejected. If returned without amendment, the bill
merely awaits the royal assent ; but if returned with amendments,
such amendments- must be agreed to, or otherwise adjusted, by
mutual concessions, by the two Houses, before it can be submitted
for the royal assent ; and in case of ultimate disagreement the bill
is lost. The royal assent consummates the work of legislation,
and converts the bill into an Act of Parliament.
Petitions. — Both Houses are approached by the people by means
of petitions, of which prodigious numbers are presented to the
House of Commons every session. They are referred to the com
mittee on public petitions, under whose directions they are classified,
analysed, and the number of signatures counted ; and, when neces
sary, the petitions are printed in cxtenso.
Parliamentary Papers. — Another source of information is found
in parliamentary papers. These are of various kinds. The greater
part are obtained either by a direct order of the House itself, or by an
address to the crown for documents relating to matters in which the
prerogatives of the crown are concerned. Other papers, relating to
foreign and colonial affairs and other public matters, are presented
to both Houses by command of Her Majesty. Again, many papers
are annually presented, in pursuance of Acts of Parliament. In
the House of Commons, these various printed documents occupy
from eighty to one hundred volumes every year.
The Granting of Supplies. — The exclusive right of the Commons
to grant supplies, and to originate all measures of taxation, imposes
a very onerous service upon that House. This is mainly performed
by two committees of the whole House, — the Committee of Supply,
and the Committee of Ways and Means. The former deals with
all the estimates for the public service presented to the House by
command of Her Majesty ; and the latter votes out of the Consoli
dated Fund such sums as are necessary to meet the supplies already
granted, and originates all taxes for the service of the year. It is
here that the annual financial statement of the chancellor of the
exchequer, commonly known as "the Budget," is delivered. The
resolutions of these committees are reported to the House, and,
when agreed to, form the foundation of bills, to be passed by both
Houses, and submitted for the royal assent ; and towards the close
of the session an Appropriation Act is passed, applying all the grants
for the service of the year.
Elections. — The extensive jurisdiction of the Commons in matters
of election, already referred to, formerly occupied a considerable
share of their time, but its exercise lias now been contracted within
narrow limits. Whenever a vacancy occurs during the conti7iu-
ance of a parliament, a warrant for a new writ is issued by the
Speaker, by order of the House during the session, and in pursuance
of statutes during the recess. The causes of vacancies are the
death of a member, his being called to the House of Peers, his
acceptance of an office from the crown, or his bankruptcy. When
any doubt arises as to the issue of a writ, it is usual to appoint a
committee to inquire into the circumstances of the case ; and during
the recess the Speaker may reserve doubtful cases for the determi
nation of the House.
Controverted elections had been originally tried by select com
mittees, afterwards by the committee of privileges and elections,
and ultimately by the whole House, with scandalous partiality, but
under the Grenville Act of 1770, and other later Acts, by select
committees, so constituted as to form a more judicial tribunaL
The influence of party bias, however, too obviously prevailed
until 1839, when Sir liobert Peel introduced an improved system
of nomination, which distinctly raised the character of election
committees ; but a tribunal constituted of political partisans, how
ever chosen, was still open to jealousy and suspicion, and at length,
in 1868, the trial of election petitions was transferred to judges of
the superior courts, to whose determination the House gives effect,
by the issue of new writs, or otherwise. The House, however, still
retains and exercises its jurisdiction in all cases not relegated, by
statute, to the judges.
Impeachments and Trial of Peers.— Other forms of parliamentary
judicature still remain to be mentioned. Upon impeachments by
the Commons, the Lords exercise the highest criminal judicature
known to the law ; but the occasions upon which it has been
brought into action have been so rare, in modern times, that its
procedure need not be dwelt upon. Another judicature is that of
the trial of peers by the House of Lords. And, lastly, by a bill of
attainder, the entire parliament is called to sit in judgment upon
offenders.
Private Bill Legislation. — One other important function of
parliament remains to be noticed, — that of private bill legislation.
Here the duties of parliament are partly legislative and partly
judicial. Public interests are promoted, and private rights secured.
The vast industrial undertakings of the country — canals, docks,
harbours, railways, waterworks, and the lighting and improvement
of towns — have thus been sanctioned, at a cost far exceeding the
amount of the national debt, while the rights of property have
been jealously guarded. This whole jurisdiction has been regulated
by special standing orders, and by elaborate arrangements for the
nomination of capable and impartial committees. A prodigious
legislative work has been accomplished, — but under conditions
most costly to the promoters and opponents of private bills, and
involving a serious addition to the onerous labours of members of
parliament. Means have already been found, by general Acts and
provisional orders, to lighten the pressure of private bill legisla
tion ; and further expedients will, doubtless, be devised for the
relief of parliament from a branch of business which is scarcely
compatible with the engagements of members in the weightier
affairs of state.
Varied Functions of Parliament. — Such are the vast and varied
functions of the imperial parliament, — to legislate for an empire,
to control the executive government, to hear the complaints of the
people, and to redress their grievances. To be equal to its high
jurisdiction, it needs the guidance of accomplished statesmen,
wisdom and patriotism in its members, and an organization which
shall make fruitful the talents, the practical knowledge and experi
ence, of the ablest men of their generation. Its history is bright
with records of eloquence, of statesmanship, of wise legislation, and
of generous sympathy with the people ; and that its future great
ness may be worthy of its past glories is the earnest hope of every
good citizen.
Literature. — See Rolls of Parliament, and Journals of both Houses; Parlia
mentary Hist..; Hansard, Par!. Hist., and Debates ; Gray, Debates ; Cavendish,
Debates; Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Sax. ; Kemble, The Saxons in England; Tumer,
History of the Anglo-Saxons, and Hist, of England during the Middle Ages ; Sir
F. Palgrave, English Commonwealth; Id., Hist, of Normandy and of England; Id.,
Parliamentary Writs ; Stubbs, Const. History of England; Holingslied, Chron. •
Selden, Titles of Honour; Ruffhead, Preface to Stat^ttes; Cotton, Abridgment
(Preface); Parry, Parliaments and Councils of England; Reports of Lords' Com
mittee on the Dignity of the Peerage; Coke, Institutes; Lord Hale, History of the
Common Law, Jurisdiction of the Lords ; Lord Lyttelton, Hist, of Henry ][.',
D'Ewes, Journals of Queen Elizabeth; Elsynge, Manner of holding Parliaments ;
Hakewel, Modus Tenendi Parliamentum ; Barrington, On the Statutes ; Mador,
Hist, of the Exchequer; Blackstone, Comm.; Lord Colcbester, Diary; Hallam,
Midd'e Ages, and Constitutional History of England; Hatsell, Precedents; Sir
T. Erskine May, Law and Usage of Parliainnit ; Id., Const. Hist, of England; Id.,
Democracy in Europe, a History (vol. ii.); Rules, Orders, and Forms of Proceeding-
of the House of Commons; Freeman, Growth of the English Constitution, and The
Norman Cont/veft of England • Green, History of the English People ; Bugeliot,
The English Constitution. (T. E. M.)
XVIII. — 40
314
PARMA
PARMA, one of the finest cities of northern Italy, is
situated in 44° 48' N. lat. and 10° 20' R long., 35i miles
by rail south-east of Piacenza and 32| north-west of Modena,
in a fertile tract of the Lombard plain within view of the
Alps, and sheltered by the Apennines. From south to
north it is traversed by the channel of the Parma, crossed
here by three bridges; and from east to west for a distance
of 6700 feet runs the line of the yEmilian Way, by which
ancient Parma was connected on the one hand with
Ariminum (Rimini), and on the other with Placentia
(Piacenza) and Mediolanum (Milan). The old ramparts and
bastions (excluding the circuit of the citadel in the south
east) make an enceinte of about 4^ miles, but the enclosed
area is not all occupied by streets and houses ; there is an
extensive "royal garden" or public park in the north-west
angle, as well as a botanical garden and public promenades
in the neighbourhood of the citadel, and various open spaces
in other parts. In the centre of the city the ./Emilian Way
widens out into the Piazza Grande, a large and picturesque-
looking square which contains the Palazzo del Comune and
a modern statue of Correggio, whose masterpieces form the
chief artistic attraction of Parma. The cathedral of the
Assumption (originally St Herculanus), erected between
1064 and 1074, and consecrated in 1106 by Pope Paschal
II., is a Romano-Byzantine building in the form of a Latin
cross, 230 feet .long by 84 feet wide. The west front, 94
feet high and 90 feet broad, is relieved by three rows of
semicircular arches, and has a central porch (there were at
one time three) supported by huge red marble lions
sculptured by Bono da Bisone. The walls and ceiling
of the interior are covered with frescos ; those of the
octagonal cupola representing the Assumption of the Virgin
are by Correggio, but much restored (see CORREGGIO, vol.
vi. p. 437). The crypt contains the shrine of Bishop San
Bernardino degli Uberti and the tomb of Bartolommeo
Prato — the former by Prospero Clementi of Reggio. To
the south-west of the cathedral stands the baptistery,
designed by Benedetto Antelami; it was commenced in
1196 and completed in 1281. The whole structure, which
has a height of 98 feet and a diameter of 76 feet, is com
posed of red and grey Verona marble. Externally it is
an irregular octagon, each face consisting of a lower story
with a semicircular arch (in three cases occupied by a
portal), four tiers of small columns supporting as many
continuous architraves, and forming open galleries, and
above these a row of five engaged columns supporting a
series of pointed arches and a cornice. Internally it is a
polygon of sixteen unequal sides, and the cupola is sup
ported by sixteen ribs, springing from the same number
of columns. In the centre is an octagonal font bearing
date 1298. To the east of the cathedral, and at no great
distance, stands the church of San Giovanni Evangelista,
which was founded along with the Benedictine monastery
in 981, but as a building dates from the 16th century,
and has a facade erected by Simone Moschino early in the
17th. The frescos on the cupola representing the vision
of St John are by Correggio, and the arabesques on the
vault of the nave by Anselmi. Madonna della Steccata
(Our Lady of the Palisade), a fine church in the form of a
Greek cross, erected between 1521 and 1539 after Zaccagni's
designs, contains the tombs and monuments of many of
the Bourbon and Farnese dukes of Parma, and preserves
among a rich variety of paintings Parmigiano's Moses
Breaking the Tables of the Law and Anselmi's Coronation
of the Virgin. The ducal palace, usually called La Pilot ta,
is a vast and irregular group of buildings dating mainly
from the 16th and 17th centuries; it now comprises the
academy of fine arts (1752) and its valuable picture
gallery (Correggio's St Jerome and Madonna della Scodella),
the schools of painting, sculpture, and engraving, the
archaeological museum (Trajan's Tabula Alimentaria and
ruins from Velleia), and the great royal library (with De
Rossi's Oriental MSS. and Zani's collection of engravings,
Luther's Hebrew Psalter and Bodoni's types and matrices).
The Teatro Farnese, a remarkable wooden structure erected
in 1618-19 from Aleotti d'Argenta's designs, and capable
of containing 4500 persons, has long been in a very ruined
condition; the new theatre, opened in 1829, cost £80,000,
and is celebrated as one of the best in Europe for the clear
conveyance of sound. The royal university of Parma,
founded in 1601 by Ranuccio I., and reconstituted by
Philip of Bourbon in 1768, had 217 students in 1881-82.
Among the benevolent institutions, in which the city is
particularly rich, are a monte di pieta dating from 1488
and a hospital for incurables founded in 1332. Leather,
silk-stuff for sieves, linen, hemp, and cotton stuffs, glass,
crystal, and earthenware, wax candles, cast-iron wares,
and pianofortes are all manufactured in or near the city ;
a very considerable trade is carried on in grain, cattle, and
the dairy produce of the district. The "grana" cheese
known as Parmesan is not now so well made at Parma as in
some other parts of Italy — Lodi, for example. The popula
tion in 1861 was 47,067 for the city and 47,428 for the
commune ; the removal of the military and civil function
aries of the old duchy caused a considerable decrease, and
the figures for 1881 were only 44,492 and 45,217.
The old Gallic town of Parma, which became a Roman colonia
civium for 2000 colonists in 183 B c., and after it had been plundered
by Mark Antony's soldiers was recruited by Augustus, continued
to be a place of importance till the later times of the empire.
Under Theodoric its walls were rebuilt. The Greeks of the 6th
century called it Chrysopolis or City of Gold, and this name appears
in the mediaeval chronicles as Grisopolis. In 872 Carloman
granted the city to bishop Widiboldus with the title of count.
During the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries Parma had its full share
of the Guelf and Ghibelline struggles, and also carried on repeated
hostilities with Borgo San Donnino and Piacenza. As a republic
its government was mainly in the hands of the Rossi, Pallavicino,
Correggio, and Sanvitale families. The fruitless siege of Parma in
1248 was the last effort of the unfortunate Frederick II. In 1303
the city became a lordship for Giberto da Correggio, who laid the
basis of its territorial power by conquering Reggio, Brescello, and
Guastalla, and was made commander-in chief of the Guelfs by
Robert of Apulia. The Correggio family never managed to keep
possession of it for long, and in 1346 they sold it to the Visconti,
and from them it passed to the Sforza. Becoming subject to Pope
Julius II. in 1512, Parma remained (in spite of the French occupa
tion from 1515 to 1521)apapal possession till 1545, when Paul III.
(Alexander Farnese) invested his son Pierluigi with the duchies
of Parma and Piacenza. There were eight dukes of Parma of the
Farnese line — Pierluigi (died 1547), Ottavio (1586), Alessandro
(1592), Ranuccio I. (1622), O.loardo (1646), Ranuccio II. (1694),
Francesco (1727), Antonio (1731). See FARNESE, vol. ix. p. 36.
Antonio and Francesco both having died childless, the duchy passed
to Charles of Bourbon (Don Carlos), infante of Spain, who, becom
ing king of Naples in 1735, surrendered Parma and Piacenza to
Austria, but retained the artistic treasures of the Farnese dynasty
which he had removed from Parma to Naples. Spain reconquered
the duchies in the war of succession (1745) ; they were recovered
by Austria in 1746 ; and Maria Theresa again surrendered them
to Don Philip, infante of Spain, in 1748. Ferdinand, Philip's son,
who succeeded under Dutillot's regency in 1765, saw his states
occupied by the revolutionary forces of France in 1796, and had to
purchase his life-interest with 6,000,000 lire and 25 of the best
paintings in Parma. On his death in 1802 the duchies were incor
porated with the French republic and his son Louis became " king
of Etruria." Parma was thus governed for several years by Moivau
de Saint-Mery and by Junot. At the congress of Vienna, Parma,
Piacenza, and Guastalla were assigned to Marie Louise (daughter of
Francis I. of Austria and Napoleon's second consort), and on her
death they passed in 1847 to Charles II. (son of Louis of Etruria
and Marie Louise, daughter of Charles IV., king of Spain). The
new duke, unwilling to yield to the wishes of his people for greateV
political liberty, was soon compelled to take flight, and the duchy
was for a time ruled by a provisional Government and by Charles
Albeit of Sardinia; but in April 1849 Baron d'Aspre, with 15,000
Austrians, took possession of Parma, and the ducal government was
restored under Austrian protection. Charles II. (who had in 1820
married Theresa, daughter of Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia) abdi
cated in favour of his son Charles III., March 14, 1849. On the
P A R— P A R
315
assassination of Charles III. in 1854, his widow, Marie Louise
(daughter of Ferdinand, prince of Artois and duke of Berry), became
regent for her son Robert. In 1860 his possessions were formally
incorporated with the new kingdom of Italy.
The duchy of Parma in 1849 had an area of 2-376 square miles,
divided into five provinces — Borgo San Donnino, Valditaro, Parma,
Lunigiana Parmense, and Piacenza. Its population in 1851 was
497,343. Under Marie Louise (1815-47) the territory of Guastalla
(50 square miles) formed part of the duchy, but it was transferred
in 1847 to Modena in exchange for the communes of Bagnone,
Filattiem, &c. , which went to constitute the Lunigiana Parmense.
Parma has given birth to Sforza Pallavicino, Mazzola (Parmigiaiio)
the painter, Antclami the architect, and Toschi the engraver.
Guicciardini, the historian, was governor of the city under Leo X.
See AfM, Storia di Parma, 1792-95 ; Searabelli, Storia dci ducati di Parma,
Piacenza, e Guastalla, 1808; Buttafuoco, Dizion. corogr. dei ducati, <fcc., 18.53;
Moii. hist, ad provincial Par mensem et Placentinam pertinentia, 1805, <fec. ;
Uglielli, Italia Sacra, vol. ii.
PAKMENIDES OF ELBA, the most notable of the
philosophers of the Eleatic succession, is said by Diogenes
Laertius (presumably on the authority of Apollodorus) to
have been " in his prime " in Olymp. 69 ( = 504-500 B.C.);
whence it would appear that he was born about 539. Plato
indeed (Parmenides, 127 B; compare Thextetus, 183 E,
Sophist, 217 C) makes Socrates, who was born 470 or 469,
see and hear Parmenides when the latter was about sixty-
five years of age, in which case he cannot have been born
before 519 ; but, in the absence of evidence that any such
meeting took place, it is reasonable to regard this as one
of Plato's many anachronisms. However this may be,
Parmenides was a contemporary, perhaps a somewhat
younger contemporary, of Heraclitus, with whom the first
succession of physicists ended ; while Anaxagoras and
Empedocles, with whom the second succession of physicists
began, as well as Protagoras, the earliest of those humanists
whose rejection of physical research prepared the way for
the Platonic metaphysic, were very decidedly his juniors.
Belonging, it is said, to a rich and distinguished family,
Parmenides attached himself, at any rate for a time, to the
aristocratic society or brotherhood which Pythagoras had
established at Croton ; and accordingly one part of his
system, the physical part, is apparently Pythagorean. To
Xenophanes, the founder of Eleaticism, — whom he must
have known, even if he was never in any strict sense of the
word his disciple, — Parmenides was, perhaps, more deeply
indebted, as the theological speculations of that thinker
unquestionably suggested to him the theory of Being and
Not-Being, of the One and the Many, by which he
sought to reconcile Ionian monism with Italiote dualism.
Tradition relates that Parmenides framed laws for the
Eleate.s, who each year took an oath to observe them.
Parmenides embodied his tenets in a short poem called
Natiire, of which fragments, amounting in all to about
a hundred and sixty lines, have been preserved in the
writings of Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius, and others.
Nature is traditionally divided into three parts — the
"Proem," "Truth" (TO. Trpos dXr/^etav), and "Opinion"
{TO. Trpos So^ai/). In "Truth," starting from the formula
" the Ent (or existent) is, the Xonent (or non-existent) is
not," Parmenides attempted to distinguish between the
unity or universal element of nature and its variety or
particularity, insisting upon the reality of its unity, which
is therefore the object of knowledge, and upon the
unreality of its variety, which is therefore the object, not
of knowledge, but of opinion. In " Opinion " he pro
pounded a theory of the world of seeming and its develop
ment, pointing out, however, that, in accordance with the
principles already laid down, these cosmological specula
tions do not pretend to anything more than probability.
In spite of the contemptuous remarks of Cicero and
Plutarch about Parmenides's versification, Nature is not
without literary merit. The introduction, though rugged,
is forcible and picturesque ; and the rest of the poem is
written in a simple and effective style suitable to the sub
ject. It is, however, a summary rather than an exposi
tion, and its brevity sometimes leads to obscurity. Partly
for this reason, but partly also in consequence of the
mutilations and the corruptions of the text, the interpreta
tion of the system which Nature represents early became
a matter of controversy.
" Proem." — In the " Proem " the poet describes his journey from
darkness to light. Borne in a whirling chariot, and attended by
the daughters of the Sun, he reaches a temple sacred to an unnamed
goddess (variously identified by the commentators with Nature,
Wisdom, or Themis), by whom the rest of the poem is spoken.
He must learn all things, she tells him, both truth, which is
certain, and human opinions ; for, though in human opinions there
can be no confidence, they must be studied notwithstanding for
what they are worth.
" Truth." — "Truth " begins with the declaration of Parmenides's
principle in opposition to the principles of his predecessors. There
are three ways of research, and three ways only. Of these, one
asserts the non-existence of the existent and the existence of the
non-existent [i.e., Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes suppose
the single element which they respectively postulate to be trans
formed into the various sorts of matter which they discover in the
world around them, thus assuming the non-existence of that which
is elemental and the existence of that which is non-elemental] ;
another, pursued by "restless" persons, whose "road returns upon
itself," assumes that a thing "is and is not," "is the same and
not the same " [an obvious reference, as Beruays points out in the
RJieinischcs Museum, vii. 114 sq., to Heraclitus, the philosopher of
flux]. These are ways of error, because they confound existence
and non-existence. In contrast to them the way of truth starts
from the proposition that "the Ent is, the Nonent is not. "
On the strength of the fundamental distinction between the Ent
and the Xonent, the goddess next announces certain characteristics
of the former. The Ent is uncreated, for it cannot be derived
either from the Ent or from the Konent ; it is imperishable, for it
cannot pass into the Xonent ; it is whole, indivisible, continuous,
for nothing exists to break its continuity in space ; it is unchang-
able [for nothing exists to break its continuity in time] ; it is per
fect, for there is nothing which it can want; it never was, nor will
be, but only is ; it is evenly extended in every direction, and there
fore a sphere, exactly balanced ; it is identical with thought [i.e.,
it is the object, and the sole object, of thought as opposed to
I sensation, sensation being concerned with variety and change].
As then the Ent is one, invariable, and immutable, all plurality,
i variety, and mutation belong to the Konent. Whence it follows
j that all the states and processes which we commonly recognize —
generation and destruction, being and not-being [predicated of
things], change of place, alteration of colour, and the like — arc
! no more than empty words.
"Opinion," — The investigation of the Ent [i.e., the existent unity,
I extended throughout space and enduring throughout time, which
j reason discovers beneath the variety and the mutability of things]
being now complete, it remains in "Opinion" to describe the plu
rality of things, not as they are, for they are not, but as they seem to
be. In the phenomenal world then, there are, it has been thought
[and Parmenides accepts the theory, which appears to be of
Pythagorean origin], two primary elements — namely, fire, which is
gentle, thin, homogeneous, and night [or earth], which is dark,
thick, heavy. Of these elements [which, according to Aristotle,
were, or rather were analogous to, the Ent and the Konent re
spectively] all things consist, and from them they derive their
several characteristics. The foundation for a cosmology having
thus been laid in dualism, the poem went on to describe the genera
tion of "earth, and sun, and moon, and air that is common to all,
and the milky way, and furthest Olympus, and the glowing stars";
but the scanty fragments which have survived suffice only to show
that Parmenides regarded the universe as a series of concentric rings
I or spheres composed of the two primary elements and of combina
tions of them, the whole system being directed by an unnamed
goddess established at its centre. Kext came a theory of animal
development. This again was followed by a psychology, which
made mind depend upon bodily structure, thought [as well as
sensation, which was conceived to differ from thought only in
respect of its object] being the excess of the one or the other of the
two constituent elements, fire and night. "Such, opinion tells
us, was the generation, such is the present existence, such will be
the end, of those tilings to which men have given distinguishing
names."
In the truism " the Ent is, the Nonent is not," ov eo-ri,
/j.r] ov OVK eo-rt, Parmenides breaks with his predecessors,
the physicists of the Ionian succession. Asking them
selves — AVhat is the material universe ? they had replied
respectively — It is water, it is yuera^v TI, it is air, it is fire.
Thus, while their question meant, or ought to have meant,
316
What is the single element which underlies the apparent
plurality of the material world 1 their answers, Parmenides
conceived, by attributing to the selected element various
and varying qualities, reintroduced the plurality which
the question sought to eliminate. If we would discover
that which is common to all things at all times, we must,
he submitted, exclude the differences of things, whether
simultaneous or successive. Hence, whereas his prede
cessors had confounded that which is universally existent
with that which is not universally existent, he proposed
to distinguish carefully between that which is universally
existent and that which is not universally existent, between
ov and p,r) ov. The fundamental truism is the epigram
matic assertion of this distinction.
In short, the single corporeal element of the Ionian
physicists was, to borrow a phrase from Aristotle, a per
manent ova- fa having TrdOrj which change ; but they either
neglected the Trd&r) or confounded them with the oiia-ia.
Parmenides sought to reduce the variety of nature to a
single corporeal element ; but he strictly discriminated
the inconstant irdOr} from the constant oixrta, and, under
standing by " existence " universal, invariable, immutable
being, refused to attribute to the 7rd6r] anything more than
the semblance of existence.
Having thus discriminated between the permanent unity
of nature and its superficial plurality, Parmenides pro
ceeded to the separate investigation of the Ent and the
Nonent. The universality of the Ent, he conceived,
necessarily carries with it certain characteristics. It is
one ; it is eternal ; it is whole and continuous, both in
time and in space ; it is immovable and immutable ; it is
limited, but limited only by itself ; it is evenly extended
in every direction, and therefore spherical. These pro
positions having been reached, apart from particular
experience, by reflexion upon the fundamental principle,
we have in them, Pannenides conceived, a body of infor
mation resting upon a firm basis and entitled to be called
" truth. " Further, the information thus obtained is the
sum total of " truth ;" for, as " existence" in the strict sense
of the word cannot be attributed to anything besides the
universal element, so nothing besides the universal element
can properly be said to be " known."
If Parmenides's poem had had " Being " for its subject,
it would doubtless have ended at this point. Its subject is,
however, " Nature"; and nature, besides its unity, has also
the semblance, if no more than the semblance, of plurality.
Hence the theory of the unity of nature is necessarily
followed by a theory of its seeming plurality, that is to
say, of the variety and mutation of things. The theory of
plurality cannot indeed pretend to the certainty of the
theory of unity, being of necessity untrustworthy, because
it is the partial and inconstant representation of that which
is partial and inconstant in nature. But, as the material
world includes, together with a real unity, the semblance
of plurality, so the theory of the material world includes,
together with the certain theory of the former, a probable
theory of the latter. " Opinion " is then no mere excres
cence ; it is the necessary sequel to " Truth."
Thus, whereas the lonians, confounding the unity and
the plurality of the universe, had neglected plurality, and
the Pythagoreans, contenting themselves with the reduc
tion of the variety of nature to a duality or a series of
dualities, had neglected unity, Parmenides, taking a hint
from Xenophancs, made the antagonistic doctrines supply
one another's deficiencies ; for, as Xenophanes in his theo
logical system had recognized at once the unity of God and
the plurality of things, so Parmenides in his system of
nature recognized at once the rational unity of the Ent and
the phenomenal plurality of the Nonent.
The foregoing statement of Parmenides's position differs
from Zeller's account of it in two important particulars.
First, whereas it has been assumed above that Xenophanes
was theologian rather than philosopher, whence it would
seem to follow that the philosophical doctrine of unity
originated, not with him, but with Parmenides, Zeller,
supposing Xenophanes to have taught, not merely the unity
of God, but also the unity of Being, assigns to Parmenides
no more than an exacter conception of the doctrine of the
unity of Being, the justification of that doctrine, and the
denial of the plurality and the mutability of things. This
view of the relations of Xenophanes and Parmenides is
hardly borne out by their writings ; and, though ancient
authorities may be quoted in its favour, it would seem that
in this case as in others they have fallen into the easy
mistake of confounding successive phases of doctrine, " con
struing the utterances of the master in accordance with
the principles of his scholar — the vague by the more
definite, the simpler by the more finished and elaborate
theory " (W. H. Thompson). Secondly, whereas it has
been argued above that "Opinion" is necessarily included
in the system, Zeller, supposing Parmenides to deny the
Nonent even as a matter of opinion, regards that part
of the poem which has opinion for its subject as no more
than a revised and improved statement of the views of
opponents, introduced in order that the reader, having
before him the false doctrine as well as the true one, may
be led the more certainly to embrace the latter. In the
judgment of the present writer, Parmenides, while he denied
the real existence of plurality, recognized its apparent
existence, and consequently, however little value he might
attach to opinion, was bound to take account of it : " pour
celui meme qui nie 1'existence rcelle de la nature," says
llenouvier, " il reste encore a faire une histoire naturelle
de 1'apparence et de 1'illusion."
The teaching of Parmenides variously influenced both
his immediate successors and subsequent thinkers. By
his recognition of an apparent plurality supplementary to
the real unity, he effected the transition from the monism
of the first physical succession to the pluralism of the
second. While Empedocles and Democritus are careful to
j emphasize their dissent from " Truth, " it is obvious that
" Opinion " is the basis of their cosmologies. The doctrine
of the deceitfulness of " the undiscerning eye and the
echoing ear " soon established itself, though the grounds
upon which Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Bemocritus
maintained it were not those which were alleged by
Parmenides. Indirectly, through the dialectic of his pupil
and friend Zeno and otherwise, the doctrine of the in
adequacy of sensation led to the humanist movement, which
for a time threatened to put an end to philosophical
and scientific speculation. But the positive influence of
Parmenides's teaching was not yet exhausted. To say that
the Platonism of Plato's later years, the Platonism of the
Parmenides, the Philebua, and the Timseus, is the philosophy
j of Parmenides enlarged and reconstituted, may perhaps
i seem paradoxical in the face of the severe criticism to
: which Eleaticism is subjected, not only in the Parme?tidesy
but also in the Sophist. The criticism wa/>, however, pre
paratory to a reconstruction. Thus may be explained the
i selection of an Eleatic stranger to be the chief speaker in
the latter, and of Parmenides himself to take the lead in the
former. In the Sophist criticism predominates over recon
struction, the Zenonian logic being turned against the
Parmenidean metaphysic in such a way as to show that
both the one and the other need revision : see 241 D,
244 B »/., 257 B »/., 258 D. In particular, Plato taxes
Parmenides with his inconsistency in attributing (as he
certainly did) to the fundamental unity extension and
sphericity, so that " the worshipped ov is after all a pitiful
/ZT) ov " (W. H. Thompson). In the Parinenides reconstruc-
P A R — P A R
317
tion predominates over criticism — the letter of Eleaticism
being here represented by Zeno, its spirit, as Plato con
ceived it, by Parmenides. Not the least important of the
results obtained in this dialogue is the discovery that,
whereas the doctrine of the " one " and the " many " is
suicidal and barren so long as the " solitary one " and the
" indefinitely many " are absolutely separated (137 C sq.
and 163 B 57.), it becomes consistent and fruitful as soon
as a " definite plurality " is interpolated between them
(142 B sq., 157 B sq., 160 B sq.). In short, Parmenides
was no idealist, but Plato recognized in him, and rightly,
the precursor of idealism.
Bibliography. — The fragments have been edited and annotated
by G. G. Fiilleborn (fragments dcs Parmenides, Ziillichau, 1795),
C. A. Brandis (Commentationes £leaticse, Altona, 1813), S. Karsten
(Phi/os. Gr&cor. Reliquiae, I., ii. , Amsterdam, 1835), F. W. A.
Mullach (Aristotelis de Melis. Xenopli. et Gorg. disp. cum Eleati-
corum fragm., Berlin, 1845; reprinted in the Fragmenta Philos.
Greecor., Paris, 1860, i. 109-130), T. Vatke (Parmcnidis doctrina
qualis fiLcrit, diss. inaug., Berlin, 1864), and H. Stein ("Die Frag-
mente des Parmenides irtpl <pvffecas," in the Symbola Philologorum
Bonnensium in honorem F. Ritschelii collecta, Leipsie, 1867, ii. 763-
806). The study of Karsten and Stein jointly is recommended.
The well-known Historia Philosophise, Gr. et Rom. of Ritter and
Preller contains all the important fragments. The extant remains
have been translated into English hexameters by T. Davidson
(Journal of Speculative Philosophy, St Louis, Mo., 1870, iv. 1-16),
and paraphrased in English prose by W. L. Courtney (Studies in
Philosophy, London, 1882, pp. 1-25).
The philosophical system has been treated by several of the
writers already mentioned, especially Brandis, Karsten, and Vatke,
by F. Riaux (Essai sur Parmenide d'Elee, Paris, 1840), and by the
historians of Greek philosophy, of whom it will suffice here to men
tion C. A. Brandis (Handb. d. Griechisch-Romischcn Philosophic,
Berlin, 1835), G. W. F. Hegel (Vorlesungen, itbcr d. Geschichte d.
Philosophic, Berlin, 1840), Ch. Renouvier (Manuel de Philosophic
Ancienne, Paris, 1844), L. Striimpell (Gesch. d. theorctischcn Philo-
sophie d. Griechen, Leipsic, 1854), J. F. Ferrier (Lectures on Greek
Philosophy, Edinburgh, 1866), J. E. Erdmann (Grundriss d.
Gesch. d. Philosophic, 2d ed. , Berlin, 1869), A. Schwegler (Gesch.
d. Griech. Philos., 2d ed., Tubingen, 1870), F. Ueberw eg (Grundriss
d. Gesch. d. Philosophic, 4th ed., Berlin, 1871 ; English translation,
3d ed., London, 1880), E. Zeller (Die Philosophic d. Griechen, 4th
ed., Leipsic, 1876 ; English translation, Presocratic Philosophy,
London, 1881). On the cosmology, see A. B. Krische (Die theolo-
gischcn Lehren d. Griechischcn Denker, Gottingen, 1840, pp. 97-
116). On the relations of Eleaticism and Platonism, see W. H.
Thompson, "On the Genuineness of Plato's Sophist," in Jour, of
Philol., viii. 303 sq. (H. JA.)
PARMENIO (LTap/Aevuov), a distinguished Macedonian
general, born about 400 B.C., was the son of Philotas, and
first appears in history as a favourite counsellor of Philip,
in the course of whose reign he obtained a great victory
over the Illyrians (356 B.C.), successfully upheld, at the head
of an army, the Macedonian influence in Eubcea (342), and
was appointed one of the commanders of the force that
was sent to secure a footing in Asia, and to prepare for the
future reduction of that country (336 B.C.). His influence
became still greater in the succeeding reign ; at Alexander's
council table he was always heard with deference, and in
the field he was virtually second in command. He led
the left wing of the army in the battles of the Granicus,
Issus, and Arbela ; and, while the king himself continued
the pursuit of Darius into the wastes of Parthia and
Hyrcania, Parmenio Avas entrusted with the task of
completing the conquest of Media. Here he was stabbed
by Oleander at the instance of the king, in 330, under
circumstances which have been elsewhere described (see
ALEXANDER, vol. i. p. 483).
PARMIGIANO (1504-1540). The name of this cele
brated painter of the Lombard school was, in full, Girolamo
Francesco Maria Mazzuoli, or Mazzola • he dropped the
name Girolamo, and was only known as Francesco. He
has been more commonly named II Parmigiano (or its
diminutive, II Parmigianino), from his native city, Parma.
Francesco, born on llth January 1504, was the son of a
painter. Losing his father in early childhood, he was
brought up by two uncles, also painters, Michele and
Pier-Ilario Mazzola. His faculty for the art developed at
a very boyish age, and he addicted himself to the style of
Correggio, who visited Parma in 1519. He did not, how
ever, become an imitator of Correggio ; his style in its
maturity may be regarded as a fusion of Correggio with
Raphael and Giulio Romano, and thus fairly original.
Even at the age of fourteen (Vasari says sixteen) he had
painted a Baptism of Christ, surprisingly mature. Before
the .age of nineteen, when he migrated to Rome, he had
covered with frescos seven chapels in the church of S.
Giovanni Evangelista, Parma. Prior to starting for the
city of the popes in 1523, he deemed it expedient to
execute some specimen pictures. One of these was a
portrait of himself as seen in a convex mirror, with all the
details of divergent perspective, &c., wonderfully exact, — a
work which, both from this curiosity of treatment and from
the beauty of the sitter — for Parmigiano was then " more
like an angel than a man " — could not fail to attract.
Arrived in Rome, he presented his specimen pictures to
the pope, Clement VII., who gladly and admiringly
accepted them, and assigned to the youthful genius the
painting of the Sala de' Pontefici, the ceilings of which
had been already decorated by Giovanni da Udine.
Patrons were willing to regard him as a second Raphael
for art and for sweetness of manner, and he was almost as
skilful at lute-playing as at painting • but, while fortune
was winning him with her most insinuating smiles, the
utter ruin of the sack by the Constable de Bourbon and
his German and other soldiers overtook both Rome and
Parmigiano. At the date of this hideous catastrophe he
was engaged in painting that large picture which now
figures in the London National Gallery, the Vision of St
Jerome (with the Baptist pointing upward and backward
to the Madonna and infant Jesus in the sky). It is said
that through all the crash and peril of this barbarian
irruption Parmigiano sat quietly before his vast panel,
painting as if nothing had happened. A band of German
soldiery burst into his apartment, breathing fire and
slaughter ; but, struck with amazement at the sight, and
with some reverence for art and her votary (the other
events of the siege forbid us to suppose that reverence for
religion had any part in it), they calmed down, and afforded
the painter all the protection that he needed at the
moment. Their captain, being something of a connoisseur,
exacted his tribute, however — a large number of designs.
Rome was now no place for Parmigiano. He left with
his uncle, intending apparently to return to Parma ; but,
staying in Bologna, he settled down there for a while, and
was induced to remain three or four years. Here he
painted for the nuns of St Margaret his most celebrated
altarpiece (now in the Academy of Bologna), the Madonna
and Child, with Margaret and other saints. This work
became the idol of the Caracci and their school — Guido
professing his preference for it even over the St Cecilia of
Raphael.
Spite of the great disaster of Rome, the life of Mazzola
had hitherto been fairly prosperous- — the admiration which
he excited being proportionate to his charm of person and
manner, and to the precocity and brilliancy (rather than
depth) of his genius ; but from this time forward he
became an unfortunate, and it would appear a soured and
self-neglectful, man. Greatly to his chagrin, a number of
his drawings were stolen by his assistant for engraving
purposes, Antonio da Trento. He painted, from observa
tion without sittings, a portrait of the emperor Charles V.
crowned by Fame, but through some mismanagement lost
the advantages which it had bidden fair to procure him.
In 1531 he returned to Parma, and was commissioned to
execute an extensive series of frescos in the choir of the
318
P A R — P A E
church of S. Maria della Steccata. These were to be com
pleted in November 1532; and half-payment, 200 golden
scudi, was made to him in advance. A ceiling was allotted
t3 him, and an arch in front of the ceiling ; on the arch
he painted six figures — two of them in full colour, and
four in monochrome — Adam, Eve, some Virtues, and the
famous figure (monochrome) of Moses about to shatter the
tables of the la\v. But, after five or six years from the
date of the contract, Parmigiano had barely made a good
beginning with his stipulated work. According to Yasari,
he neglected painting in favour of alchemy — he laboured
over futile attempts to " congeal mercury," being in a hurry
to get rich anyhow. It is rather difficult to believe that the
various graphic and caustic phrases which Yasari bestows
upon this theory of the facts of Mazzola's life are altogether
gratuitous and wide of the mark ; nevertheless the painter's
principal biographer, the Padre Affo, undertook to refute
Yasari's statements, and most subsequent writers have
accepted Affo's conclusions. Whatever the cause, Parmi
giano failed to fulfil his contract, and was imprisoned in de
fault. Promising to amend, he was released ; but, instead
of redeeming his pledge, he decamped to Casal Maggiore,
in the territory of Cremona. Here, according even to
Yasari, he relinquished alchemy, and resumed } tainting ; yet
he still hankered (or is said by Yasari to have hankered)
after his retorts and furnaces, lost all his brightness, and
presented a dim, poverty-stricken, hirsute, and uncivilized
aspect. A fever carried him off on 24th August 1540,
before he had completed his thirty-seventh year. By his
own desire, he was buried naked in the church of the
Servites called La Fontana, near Casal Maggiore.
Grace Las always and rightly been regarded as the chief artistic
endowment of Parmigiano, — grace which is genuine as an expression
of the painter's nature, but partakes partly of the artificial and
affected in its developments. "Un po' di grazia del Parmigia-
uino " (a little, or, as we might say, just a spice, of Parmigianino's
grace) was among the ingredients which Agostino Caracci's
famed sonnet desiderates for a perfect picture. Mazzola constantly
made many studies of the same figure, in order to get the most
graceful attainable form, movement, and drapery — the last being
a point in which he was very successful. The proportions of his
figures are over-long for the truth of nature— the stature, fingers,
and neck ; one of his Madonnas, now in the Pitti Gallery, is cur
rently named "La Madonna del collo lungo." He used to ponder
long over a picture, and construct it in his head before he began
actual work upon it ; lie then proceeded rapidly, with a resolute
pencil, his great exercise in drawing standing him in good stead.
His pictures were executed with diligence and finish, although he
was not on the whole a sedulous worker. Neither expression nor
colour is a strong point in his works ; the figures in his composi
tions are generally few — the chief exception being the picture of
Christ Preaching to the Multitude. He was good at portraits and
at landscape backgrounds, and famous for drawings ; lie etched a
few plates, being apparently the earliest Italian painter who was
also an etcher ; but the statement that he produced several woodcuts
does not seem to be correct.
The most admired easel-picture of Parmigiano is the Cupid Mak
ing a Bow, with two children at his feet, one crying, and the other
Itughing. This was painted in 1536 for Francesco lk>iardi of
Parma, and is now in the gallery of Vienna. There are various
replicas of it, and some of these may perhaps be from Mazzola's own
ban 1. Of his portrait-painting, two interesting examples are the
likeness of Amerigo Vespucci (after whom America is named) in the
Studj Gallery of Naples, and the painter's own portrait in the
L'ffizi of Florence. One of Parmigiano's principal pupils was his
cousin, Girolamo di Michele Mazzola ; probably some of the works
attributed to Francesco aye really by Girolamo. (W. M. R.)
PARNASSUS, a mountain of Greece, in the south of
Phocis, rising over the town of Delphi. It had two pro
minent peaks, Tithorea and Lycoreia, besides smaller ones,
Hyampeia, Nauplia, &c. Parnassus was one of the most
holy mountains in Greece, hallowed by the worship of
Apollo, of the Muses, and of the Corycian nymphs, and
by the orgies of the Bacchantes. The Delphic oracle, the
Castalian fountain, and the Corycian cave were all situated
among the clefts in its densely wooded sides.
PARNELL, THOMAS (1679-1718), has a place in
literature among the minor Queen Anne poets. He was a
man of some private fortune, being the head of an English
family settled in Ireland, and inheriting landed property
both there and in Cheshire. Born in Dublin in 1G79, and
educated at Trinity College, he took orders and obtained
various preferments in the Irish Church. But both as a
landowner and a clergyman he was an absentee, and spent
most of his time in London, where he was patronized by
Harley, and received into the intimate friendship of Swift
and Pope. He was a member of the Scriblerus Club, and
co-operated in burlesquing the "Dunces" and defending the
Tory ministry, at the same time attaining some repute in
the London pulpits as a preacher. An easy-going wit, with
interests mainly in literature and society, he made his
peace with the Whigs on the accession of George, but still
continued his alliance with Pope. When Pope published
! his Homer, Parnell produced a translation of the Battle of
\ the Frogs and Mice (1717), and indirectly defended Pope
I against, his critics in the accompanying " remarks of Zoilus "
j on the principles of translation. After his death in 1718 —
he died on his way to a living in Ireland — Pope published
I a collection of his poems. They are nearly all translations
j and adaptations. The best known of them, The Hermit,
; is sometimes overpraised on the supposition that it
is original ; all that Parnell did was to trick out a
tale from the Gesta Romanorum with reflexions in the
" elevated diction " of the period. " His praise, " Johnson
| says with justice, "must be derived from the easy sweetness
of his diction ; in his verses there is more happiness than
pains ; he is sprightly without effort, and always delights,
though he never ravishes ; everything is proper, yet every
thing seems casual."
PARNY, EVARISTE DESIRE DE FORGES, YICOMTE UE
(1753-1814), was born in the Isle of Bourbon on Gth
February 1753. He was sent to France at nine years old,
was educated at llennes, and in 1771 entered the army.
He was, however, shortly recalled to Bourbon, where he
fell in love ^with a young lady whom he celebrated
poetically as Eleonore. His earlier biographers state her
to have been called Esther de Baif, while the later give
her the name of Mcllle. Troussaille. His suit was not
favoured by the lady's family. He returned to France,
published his Poesies Erotiques in 1778, was saluted by
Voltaire on his last visit to Paris as " Mon cher Tibulle, "
and acquired at once a reputation for graceful and natural
verse-writing which, though he lived many years and pro
duced much inferior work, never entirely left him. He
had some fortune, and he established himself near Paris.
The Revolution impaired his means, but did not otherwise
trouble him ; indeed he obtained an appointment under it.
In 1796 (he had published much else, but nothing of
importance). appeared the Guerre des Dieiu', a poem in the
style of Voltaire's Pucelle, directed against Christianity,
and containing some wit, but much more that is simply
dull and indecent. It commended itself to the times,
however, and the author is said to have afterwards
amplified it into a Christianide, the manuscript of which
the Government of Louis XVIII., according to the story,
bought for thirty thousand francs and destroyed. Parny
devoted himself in his later years almost entirely to the
religious or anti-religious and political burlesque. Under
the consulate and the empire he turned his wrath from
Christianity to England, and produced in 1805 an extra
ordinary allegoric poem attacking George III., his family,
and his subjects, under the eccentric title of " Goddam !
Goddam ! par tin French-dog." The body of the poem is
quite worthy of its title. Another and longer poem called
Les Rose-Cruix, though less extravagant, is still less read
able; arid indeed all Parny's later work is valueless except
P A R — P A R
319
as a curiosity. His early love poems or elegies, however,
and some slight miscellaneous work of his more mature
years, show, with something of the artificiality of the
time, a remarkable grace and ease, a good deal of tender
ness, and not inconsiderable fancy and wit. One famous
piece, the Elegy on a Young Girl, is scarcely to be excelled
in its kind. In the natural comparison of Parny with his
younger English contemporary, Moore, whom he in many
ways resembles, the palm must be given to the French
poet for precision and enduring elegance of style at his
best, though he has less melody and tenderness, and though
he condescended to much work far inferior both morally
and artistically to the worst of Moore's.
There is no complete edition of Parny's works, and the loss is small.
There are several good selections containing almost everything of
real value, among which may be mentioned that of Gamier Freres.
PARODY (TrapwSta, literally a song sung beside, a comic
parallel) may be denned as an imitation of the form or
style of a serious writing in matter of a meaner kind so as
to produce a ludicrous effect. The lowest savages show
a turn for comic mimicry, and it is almost as old in
European literature as serious writing. The Batracho-
myomachia, or " Battle of the Frogs and Mice," a travesty of
the heroic epos, was ascribed at one time to Homer himself;
and it is probably at least as old as the 5th century B.C.
The great tragic poetry of Greece very soon provoked the
parodist. Aristophanes parodied the style of Euripides in
the Acharnians with a comic power that has never been
surpassed. The debased grand style of mediaeval romance
was parodied in Don Quixote. Shakespeare parodied the
extravagant heroics of an earlier stage, and was himself
parodied by Marston, incidentally in his plays and
elaborately in a roughly humorous burlesque of Venus and
Adonis. The wits of the Queen Anne age succeeded better
in mock-heroics than in serious composition. A century
later the most celebrated parodists were the brothers Smith,
whose Rejected Addresses may be regarded as classic in this
kind of artificial production. The Victorian age has pro
duced a plentiful crop of parodists in prose and in verse,
in dramatic poetry and in lyric poetry. By common con
sent, the most subtle and dexterous of metrical parodists is
the late Mr C. S. Calverley, who succeeded in reproducing
not merely tricks of phrase and metre, but even manner-
istic turns of thought. Johnson's dictum about pastoral
poetry, that most of it is " easy, vulgar, and therefore dis
gusting," might be applied to parody; but Calverley would
escape the censure.
PA11OS, or PARO, an island in the ^Egean Sea, one of the
largest of the group of the Cyclades, with a population of
8000. It lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is
separated by a channel about 6 miles broad, and with
which it is now grouped together, in popular language,
under the common name of Paronaxia. It is in 37° N.
lat, and 25° 10' E. long. Its greatest length from
north-east to south-west is 13 miles, and its greatest
breadth 10 miles. It is formed of a single mountain
about 2400 feet high, sloping evenly down on all sides to
a maritime plain, which is broadest on the north-east and
south-west sides. The island is composed of marble,
though gneiss and mica-schist are to be found in a few
places. Grey and bare rises the mountain, but on the
level ground as well as on some of the lower slopes corn
and vines are cultivated with success. A sweetish dark-
red wine is exported in considerable quantities. The
island is almost treeless ; the olives, which formerly yielded
abundance of oil, were cut down by the Venetians for fire
wood in the war of Candia. The capital, Paroikia or
Parikia (Italian, Parechiu\ situated on a bay on the north
west side of the island, occupies the site of the ancient
capital Paros. Its harbour admits small vessels ; the \
entrance is dangerous on account of rocks. Houses built
in the Italian style with terraced roofs, shadowed by
luxuriant vines, and surrounded by gardens of oranges
and pomegranates, give to the town a picturesque and
pleasing aspect. Here on a rock beside the sea are the
remains of a mediaeval castle built almost entirely of
ancient marble remains. Similar traces of antiquity in
the shape of bas-reliefs, inscriptions, columns, <tc., are
numerous in the town. Outside the town is the church
of Katapoliani (rj 'E/carovTairvXiai/^), well known in the
Archipelago. On the north side of the island is the bay
of Naousa (Naussa) or Agoussa, forming a safe and roomy
harbour. In ancient times it was closed by a chain or
boom. Another good harbour is that of Drios on the
south-east side, where the Turkish fleet used to anchor on
its annual voyage through the ^Egean. The three villages
of Tragoulas, Marmora, and Kepidi (K^Trt'St, pronounced
Tschipidi), situated on an open plain on the eastern side
of the island, and rich in remains of antiquity, probably
occupy the site of an ancient town. They are known
together as the " villages of Kephalos," from the steep and
lofty headland of Kephalos. On this headland stands an
abandoned monastery of St Anthony, amidst the ruins of
a mediteval castle, which belonged to the Venetian family
of the Venieri, and was gallantly though fruitlessly
defended against the Turkish general Barbarossa in 1537.
In antiquity the island contained a famous altar, the
sides of which were said to be a stadium (606 feet) long.
But the celebrated marble quarries are the real centre of
interest of the island. They lie on the northern side of
the mountain anciently known as Marpessa (afterwards
Capresso), a little below a former convent of St Mina.
The marble, which was employed by Phidias, Praxiteles,
and other great Greek sculptors, was obtained by means
of subterranean quarries driven horizontally or at a descend
ing angle into the rock, and the marble thus quarried
by lamplight got the name of Lychnites, Lychneus
(from lychnos, a lamp), or Lygdos (Plin., H. N., xxxvi.
5, 14; Plato, Eryxias, 400 D; Athen., v. 2050;
Diod. Sic., 2, 52). Several of these tunnels are still to be
seen. At the entrance to one of them is a celebrated bas-
relief dedicated to the Nymphs by one Adamas, of the
Thracian tribe of the Odrysae ; it represents a festival of
Silenus or Pan.
History.— Like the rest of the Cyclades, Paros seems to have been
peopled at an early date by Carians (Herod., i. 171 ; Time., i. 4)
— perhaps also by the Phoenicians, whom we know from the Greek
historians to have occupied other islands in the vEgean, including
the neighbouring Thcra (Herod., ii. 44 ; iv. 147 ; compare Time., i.
8). The institution of a form of sacrifice to the Graces, apparently
peculiar to Paros, at which neither garlands nor flutes were made
use of, was ascribed to Minos. The story that Paros was colonized
by one Paros of Parrhasia, who brought with him a colony of Arca
dians to the island (Heraclides, De Rebus Publicis, 8 ; Steph. Byz.,
s.v. Tldpos), is one of those etymologizing fictions in which Greek
legend abounds. Ancient names of the island are said to have been
Plateia (or Pactia), Demetrias, Zacynthus, Hyria, Hyleessa, Minoa,
and Cabarnis (Steph. Byz.). From Athens the island afterwards
received a colony of lonians (Schol. Dionys. , Per. , 525; comp.
Herod., i. 171), under whom it attained a high degree of prosperity.
It sent out colonies to Thasos (Thuc., iv. 104 ; Strabo, 487) and
Parium on the Hellespont. In the former colony, which was
planted in the.loth or 18th Olympiad, the poet Archilochus, a native
of Paros, is said to have taken part. As late as 385 B.C. the
Parians, in conjunction with Dionysius of Syracuse, founded a colony
on the Illyrian island of Pharos (Diod. Sic., xv. 13). So high was
the reputation of the Parians that they were chosen by the people
of Miletus to arbitrate in a party dispute (Herod., v. 28 sq.).
Shortly before the Persian "War Paros seems to have been a depend
ency of Naxos (Herod., v. 31). In the Persian War Paros sided
with the Persians and sent a trireme to Marathon to support them.
In retaliation, the capital Paros was besieged by an Athenian fleet
under Miltiades, who demanded a fine of 100 talents. But the
town offered a vigorous resistance, and the Athenians were obliged
to sail away after a siege of twenty-six days, during which they had
laid the island waste. It was at a temple of Demeter Thesmo-
320
P A R — P A R
pliorus in Pares that Miltiades received the hurt of which he
afterwards died (Herod, vi. 133-136). By means of an inscrip
tion Ross was enabled to identify the site of the temple ; it lies, in
agreement with the description of Herodotus, on a low hill beyond
the boundaries of the town. Faros also sided with Xerxes against
Greece, but after the battle of Artcmisium the Parian contingent
remained in Cythnos watching the progress of events (Herod., viii.
67). For this unpatriotic conduct the islanders were punished by
Themistocles, who exacted a heavy fine (Herod., viii. 112). Under
the Athenian naval confederacy, Paros paid the highest tribute of
all the islands subject to Athens, — 30 talents annually, according to
the assessment of Olymp. 88, 4 (429 B.C.). Little is known of the
constitution of Paros, but inscriptions seem to show that it was
democratic, with a senate (Boule) at the head of affairs (Corpus
Jnscript., 2376-2383 ; Ross, Inscr. Lied., ii. 147, 148). In 410 B.C.
the Athenian general Theramenes found an oligarchy at Paros ; he
deposed it and restored the democracy (Diod. Sic., xiii. 47). Paros
was included.in the new Athenian confederacy of 378 B.C., but after
wards, along with Chios, it renounced its connexion with Athens,
probably about 357 B.C. Thenceforward the island lost its political
importance. From the inscription of Adule we learn that the
Cyclades, and consequently Paros, were subject to the Ptolemies of
Egypt. Afterwards they passed under the rule of Rome. When the
Latins made themselves masters of Constantinople, Paros, like the
rest, became subject to Venice. In 1537 it was conquered by the
Turks. The island now belongs to the kingdom of Greece.
See Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, vol. i. p. 232 sq., Lyons, 1717; Clarke,
Travels, vol. iii., London, 1814; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii.
p. 84 sq., London, 1835; Prokesch, Denkwiirdigkeiten, vol. ii. p. 19 sq., Stutt
gart, 183fi; Ross, Reisen an/ den griechischen Jnseln. vol. i. p. 44 sq., Stuttgart
and Tubingen, 1840; Fiedler, Reise durch alle Theile des Konigreiches Griechen-
land, vol. ii. p. 179 sq., Leipsic, 1841; Bursian, Geographie von Griechcnlawl,
tol. ii. p. 483 sq., Leipsic, 1872.
PARQUETRY is a kind of mosaic of wood used for
ornamental flooring. Materials contrasting in colour and
grain, such as oak, walnut, cherry, lime, pine, &c., are
employed ; and in the more expensive kinds the richly
coloured tropical woods are also used. The patterns of
parquet flooring are entirely geometrical and angular
(squares, triangles, lozenges, &c.), curved and irregular
forms being avoided on account of the expense and
difficulty of fitting. There are two classes of parquetry in
use — veneers and solid parquet. The veneers are usually
about a quarter of an inch in thickness, and are laid over
already existing floors. Solid parquet of an inch or more
in thickness consists of single pieces of wood grooved and
tongued together, having consequently the pattern alike on
both sides. It forms in itself a sufficient floor of great
strength and durability; but veneer, on the other hand, is
generally more elegant and complex in design.
PARR. This name was originally applied to small
Salmonoids which are abundant in British rivers, and were
for a long time considered to constitute a distinct species
(Salmo salmulus). They possess the broad head, short
snout, and large eye characteristic of young Salmonoids,
and are ornamented on the sides of the body and tail with
about eleven or more broad dark cross-bars, the so-called
parr-marks. However, John Shaw proved, by experiment,
that these fishes represent merely the first stage of growth
of the salmon, before it assumes, at an age of two years,
and when about six inches long, the silvery smolt-dress
preparatory to its first migration to the sea. The parr-
marks are produced by a deposit of black pigment in the
skin, and appear very soon after the exclusion of the fish
from the egg ; they are still visible for some time below
the new coat of scales of the smolt-stage, but have entirely
disappeared on the first return of the young salmon from
the sea. Although the juvenile condition of the parr is
now almost universally admitted, it is a remarkable fact,
which has not yet received a satisfactory explanation, that
many male parr, from 7 to 8 inches long, have their sexual
organs fully developed, and that their milt has all the
fertilizing properties of the seminal fluid of a full-grown
and sexually matured salmon. On the other hand, no
female parr has ever been obtained with mature ova. Not
only the salmon, but also the other species of Salmo, the
grayling, and probably also the Coregoni, pass through a
parr-stage of growth. The young of all these fishes are
barred, the salmon having generally eleven or more bars,
and the parr of the migratory trout from nine to ten, or two
or three more than the river-trout. In other respects
these parr are very similar to one another ; and in the first
year of their life it is very difficult and sometimes almost
impossible to ascertain their parentage, whilst in the
second year the specific characteristics become more and
more conspicuous. In some of the small races or species
of river-trout the parr-marks are retained throughout life,
but subject to changes in intensity of colour.
PARR, SAMUEL (1747-1825), the son of Samuel
Parr, surgeon at Harrow-on-the-Hill, was born there 15th
January 1747. At Easter 1752 he was sent to Harrow
School as a free scholar, where he made the acquaintance
of many pupils, such as Bishop Bennet, Sir William
Jones, and Warburton Lytton, who became eminent in
after life. They read in the same class, they shared in
the same sports, and their friendship lasted from youth to
age. As Parr was destined for his father's profession, he
was removed from school in the spring of 1761, and for
the next few years assisted his father in his practice.
When the old surgeon realized that his son was but ill-
adapted for this pursuit, the boy was sent to Emmanuel
College, Cambridge (autumn of 1765), but on his father's
death shortly afterwards he was compelled, through lack of
means, to return to Harrow. From February 1767 to the
close of 1771 he acted as head assistant at Harrow School
to Dr Sumner, a teacher whom he idolized, and had under
his care many pupils, of whom Sheridan was the best
known. When the headmaster died in September 1771
Parr became a candidate for the place, but was rejected,
chiefly on account of his youth, whereupon he started
another school at Stanmore, and drew after him about
forty of his former scholars. After a trial of five years he
found himself unable to bear up against the attractions of
his old establishment, and dismissed the boys entrusted to
his charge, becoming first the headmaster of Colchester
Grammar School (1776-78) and then of Norwich School
(1778-86). The small rectory of Asterby in Lincolnshire
was conferred upon him in 1780, and it was followed
three years later by the vicarage of Hatton near Warwick.
Though he exchanged this latter benefice for Wadenhoe in
Northamptonshire in 1789, he stipulated to be allowed to
reside, as assistant curate, in the parsonage of Hatton.
In this retirement he spent the rest of his days, cheered by
the attractions of an excellent library, described by Mr H.
G. Bohn in Bibliotheca Parriana (1827), and the converse
of his classical friends, some of whom, like Person and E.
H. Barker, passed many months in his company. The
degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the university
of Cambridge in 1781. Parr died at Hatton vicarage, 6th
March 1825, and was buried in the chancel of its church.
He had to middle age felt the pressure of poverty, but
through the gift in 1788 of the prebendal stall of Wenlock
Barns in St Paul's Cathedral (then worth only a reserved
rent of £20 a year, but on the lapse of the lease in 1804 a
preferment of considerable value), and through the purchase
for him by his friends in 1789 of an annuity of £300, he
died possessed of a large fortune.
Dr Parr's writings fill several volumes, but they are all beneath
the reputation which he acquired through the variety of his know
ledge and the dogmatism of his conversation. The chief of them
are his character of Charles James Fox ; his Latin preface, a long
eulogy of Burke, North, and Fox, to a new edition of three books
of Bellendenus ; and his reprint of the Tracts of Warburton and a
Warlmrtonian, not admitted into their works, a volume still not
without interest for its scathing exposure of Warburton and Hurd.
The character of Parr's compositions may be gathered from a
passage in the Edinburgh Review (October 1802) on his Spital ser
mon, " a discourse of no common length .... an immeasurable
mass of notes which appear to concern every learned thing, every
P A R — P A R
321
learned man, and almost every unlearned man since the beginning
of tliu world." Lveii amid lae terrors of the French Revolution lie
adhered to Whiggism, and his correspondence included every man
of eminence, either literary or political, who adopted the same
creed. There are two memoirs of his life, one by the Rev. William
Field (1828, 2 vols.), the other, with his works and his letters, by
John Johnstone (1828, 8 vols.); and E. H. Barker published in
1828-29 two volumes of Parriana, a confused mass of information
on Parr and his friends. An essay on his life is included in De
Quincey's works, vol. v. , and a little volume of the Aphorisms,
Opinions, and Reflections of the late Dr Parr appeared in 1826.
PARRAMATTA, a town of New South Wales, at the
head of the navigation of the Parramatta river, and 14
miles to the west of Sydney, with wrhich it is connected by
railway, was one of the earliest inland settlements, and
the seat of many of the public establishments connected
with the working of the convict system. Many of these
still remain in another form (the district hospital, the
lunatic asylum, the gaol, two asylums for the infirm and
destitute, the Protestant and Catholic orphan schools),
involving a Government expenditure which partly sustains
the business of the town. Parramatta was one of the
earliest seats of the tweed manufacture, but its principal
industrial dependence has been on the fruit trade. With
the exception of Prospect and Pennant Hills, where there
is an outburst of trap rock, the surface soil is the disinte
gration of the Wainamatta shale, which is well suited for
orangeries and orchards. The value of the annual fruit
crop is estimated at £100,000. The earlier governors had
their country residence near the town, but the domain
is now a public park in the hands of the municipality.
Close by was an early observatory where, in 1822, were
made the observations for the Parramatta Catalogue,
numbering 7385 stars, but it has long been abandoned.
The Church of England grammar school (King's School),
which accommodates ninety boarders, is on the north side
of the river. The population in 1881 was 8453.
PARRHASIUS, of Ephesus, was one of the greatest
painters of Greece. He settled in Athens, and may be
ranked among the Attic artists. The period of his
activity is fixed by the anecdote which Xenophon records
of the conversation between him and Socrates on the
subject of art ; he was therefore distinguished as a painter
before 399 B.C. Seneca relates a tale that Parrhasius
bought one of the Olynthians whom Philip sold into
slavery, 346 B.C. (see OLYNTHUS), and tortured him in
order to have a model for his picture of Prometheus; but
the story, which is similar to one told of Michelangelo,
is chronologically impossible. Another tale recorded of
him describes his contest with Zeuxis. The latter painted
some grapes so perfectly that birds came to peck at them.
He then called on Parrhasius to draw aside the curtain and
show his picture, but, finding that his rival's picture was
the curtain itself, he acknowledged himself to be surpassed,
for Zeuxis had deceived birds, but Parrhasius had deceived
Zeuxis. The arrogance and vanity of Parrhasius are the
subject of many other anecdotes. He dressed himself in
the purple robe, golden crown, and staff of a king, called
himself the prince, and boasted his descent from Apollo.
As to his artistic position, it is impossible for us in the
entire absence of direct evidence to do more than repeat
the opinion of ancient critics, as retailed by Pliny. He
was universally placed in the very first rank among
painters. His skilful drawing of outlines is especially
praised, and many of his drawings on wood and parchment
were preserved and highly valued by later painters for
purposes of study. He first attained skill in making his
figures appear to stand out from the background. His
picture of Theseus adorned the Capitol in Rome. His
other works, besides the obscene subjects with which he is
said to have amused his leisure, are chiefly mythological
groups. A picture of the Demos, the personified People of
Athens, is famous ; according to the story, the twelve pro
minent characteristics of the people, though apparently
quite inconsistent with each other, were distinctly expressed
in this figure. The way in which this was accomplished
is an insoluble riddle.
PARROT, according to Prof. Skeat (Etymol. Dictionary,
p. 422), from the French Perrot or Pierrot, a proper name
and the diminutive of Pierre,1 the name given generally to
a large and very natural group of Birds, which for more
than a score of centuries have attracted attention, not
only from their gaudy plumage, but, at first and chiefly,
it would seem, from the readiness with which many of them
learn to imitate the sounds they hear, repeating the words
and even phrases of human speech with a fidelity that is
often astonishing. It is said that no representation of any
Parrot appears in Egyptian art, nor does any reference to
a bird of the kind occur in the Bible, whence it has been
concluded that neither painters nor writers had any know
ledge of it. Aristotle is commonly supposed to be the first
author who mentions a Parrot ; but this is an error, for
nearly a century earlier Ctesias in his Indica (cap. 3),2
under the name of /^'TTCIKOS (Bittacus), so neatly described
a bird wrhich could speak an " Indian " language — natur
ally, as he seems to have thought — or Greek — if it had
been taught so to do — about as big as a Sparrow-Hawk
(Hierax), with a purple face and a black beard, otherwise
blue green (cyaneus} and vermilion in colour, so that there
cannot be much risk in declaring that he must have had
before him a male example of what is now commonly
kmnvn as the Blossom-headed Parakeet, and to ornitho
logists as Pdlseomis cyanocephalus, an inhabitant of many
parts of India. Much ingenuity has been exercised in the
endeavour to find the word whence this, and the later form
of the Greek name, was derived, but to little or no purpose.
After Ctesias comes Aristotle's i/arTa/o; (Psittace), which
Sundevall supposes him to have described only from
hearsay, a view that the present writer is inclined to
think insufficiently supported. But this matters little, for
there can be no doubt that the Indian conquests of
Alexander were the means of making the Parrot better
known in Europe, and it is in reference to this fact that
another Eastern species of Palxornis now bears the name
of P. alexandri, though from the localities it inhabits it
could hardly have had anything to do with the Macedonian
hero. That Africa had Parrots does not seem to have been
discovered by the ancients till long after, as Pliny tells us
(vi. 29) that they were first met with beyond the limits of
Upper Egypt by explorers employed by Nero. These
birds, highly prized from the first, reprobated by the
moralist, and celebrated by more than one classical poet,
in the course of time were brought in great numbers to
Rome, and ministered in various ways to the luxury of the
age. Not only were they lodged in cages of tortoise-shell
1 "Parakeet" (in Shakespeare, 1 Hen. IV., ii. 3, 88, "Paraquito")
is said by the same authority to be from the Spanish Periquito or
Perroquelo, a small Parrot, diminutive of Perico, a Parrot, which
again may be a diminutive from Pedro, the proper name. Parakeet
(spelt in various ways in English) is usually applied to the smaller
kinds of Parrots, especially those which have long tails, not as
Perroquet in French, which is used as a general term for all Parrots,
Perruche, or sometimes Perriche, being the ordinary name for what
we call Parakeet. The old English " Popinjay " and the old French
Papegaut have almost passed out of use, but the German Papagei and
Italian Papagaio still continue in vogue. These names can be traced
to the Arabic Babaghd ; but the source of that word is unknown.
The Anglo-Saxon name of the Parret, a river in Somerset, is Pedreda
or Pedrida, which at first sight looks as if it had to do with the
proper name, Petrus ; but Prof. Skeat believes there is no con
nexion between them — the latter portion of the word being riff, a
stream.
2 The passage seems to have escaped the notice of all naturalists
except Broderip, who mentioned it in his article " Psittacidae, " in
, the Penny Cyclopaedia (vol. xix. p. 83).
XVIII. — 41
322
P A R R O T
and ivory, with silver wires, but they were professedly
esteemed as delicacies for the table, and one emperor is
said to have fed his lions upon them ! But there would
be little use in dwelling longer on these topics. With the
decline of the Roman empire the demand for Parrots in
Europe lessened, and so the supply dwindled, yet all
knowledge of them was not wholly lost, and they are
occasionally mentioned by one writer or another until in
the 15th century began that career of geographical dis
covery which has since proceeded uninterruptedly. This
immediately brought with it the knowledge of many more
forms of these birds than had ever before been seen, for
whatever races of men were visited by European naviga
tors — whether in the East Indies or the West, whether in
Africa or in the islands of the . Pacific — it was almost
invariably found that even the most savage tribes had
tamed some kind of Parrot ; and, moreover, experience
soon showed that no bird was more easily kept alive on
board ship and brought home, while, if it had not the
merit of " speech," it was almost certain to be of beautiful
plumage. Yet so numerous is the group that even now
new species of Parrots are not uncommonly recognized,
though, looking to the way in which the most secluded
parts of the world are being ransacked, we must soon come
to an end of this.
The home of the vast majority of Parrot-forms is
unquestionably within the tropics, but the popular belief
that Parrots are tropical birds only is a great mistake. In
North America the Carolina Parakeet, Conurus carolinensis,
at the beginning of the present century used to range in
summer as high as the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario —
a latitude equal to that of the south of France ; and even
within the last forty years it reached, according to trust
worthy information, the junction of the Ohio and the
Mississippi, though now its limits have been so much
curtailed. that its occurrence in any but the Gulf States is
doubtful. In South America, at least four species of
Parrots are found in Chili or La Plata, and one, Conurus
patagonus, is pretty common on the bleak coast of the
Strait of Magellan. In Africa, it is true that no species
is known to extend to within some ten degrees of the
tropic of Cancer ; but Pionias robustus inhabits territories
lying quite as far to the southward of the tropic of
Capricorn. In India the northern range of the group is
only bounded by the slopes of the Himalaya, and further
to the eastward Parrots are not only abundant over the
whole of the Malay Archipelago, as well as Australia and
Tasmania, but two very well-defined Families are peculiar
to New Zealand and its adjacent islands (see KAKAPO,
vol. xiii. p. 825 ; and NESTOR, vol. xvii. p. 354). No
Parrot has recently inhabited the Palaearctic Region,1 and
but one (the Conurus carolinensis, just mentioned) probably
belongs to the Nearctic ; nor are Parrots represented by
many different forms in either the Ethiopian or the Indian
Regions. In continental Asia the distribution of Parrots
is rather remarkable. None extend further to the west
ward than the valley of the Indus,2 which, considering the
nature of the country in Baluchistan and Afghanistan, is
perhaps intelligible enough ; but it is not so easy to under-
1 A few remains of a Parrot have been recognized from the Miocene
of the Allier in France, by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards (Ois. Foss.
France, ii. p. 525, pi. cc. ), and are said by him to show the greatest
resemblance to the common Grey Parrot of Africa, Psittacus erithacus,
through having also some affinity to the Ring-necked Parakeet of the
same country, Palieornis torquatvs. He refers them, however, to the
same genus as the former, under the name of Psittacus verreauxi.
z The statements that have been made, and even repeated by
writers of authority, as to the occurrence of "a green parrot" in
Syria (Chesney, Exped. Survey Euphrates and Tigris, i. pp. 443,
537) and of a Parrot in Turkestan (Jour. As. 8oc. Bengal, riii.
p. 1007) originated with gentlemen who had no ornithological
knowledge, and are evidently erroneous.
stand why none are found either in Cochin China or
China proper ; and they are also wanting in the Philippine
Islands, which is the more remarkable and instructive
when we find how abundant they are in the groups a little
further to the southward. Indeed Mr Wallace lias well
remarked that the portion of the earth's surface which
contains the largest number of Parrots, in proportion to its
; area, is undoubtedly that covered by the islands extending
from Celebes to the Solomon group. " The area of these
: islands is probably not one-fifteenth of that of the four
tropical regions, yet they contain from one-fifth to one-
fourth of all the known Parrots " (Geof/r. Distr. Animal*,
ii. p. 330). He goes on to observe also that in this area
are found many of the most remarkable forms — all the
red Lories, the great black Cockatoos, the pigmy Nasi-
ternae, and other singularities. In South America the
species of Parrots, though numerically nearly as abundant,
are far less diversified in form, and all of them seem
capable of being referred to two or, at most, three sections.
The species that has the widest range, and that by far, is
the common Ring-necked Parakeet, Pal&ornis torqwcttus, a
i well-known cage-bird which is found from the mouth of
the Gambia across Africa to the coast of the Red Sea, as
well as throughout the whole of India, Ceylon, and Burmah
to Tenasserim.3 On the other hand there are plenty of
cases of Parrots which are restricted to an extremely small
area — often an island of insignificant size, as Conurus
xantkola&nms, confined to the island of St Thomas in the
Antilles, and Pal&ornis exs^ll to that of Rodriguez in the
i Indian Ocean — to say nothing of the remarkable instance
I of Nestor productus before mentioned (vol. xvii. p. 355).
The systematic treatment of this very natural group of
birds has long been a subject of much difficulty, and the
difference of opinion among those who have made it their
study is most striking, for there is hardly an approach to
unanimity to be found, beyond the somewhat general belief
which has grown up within the last forty years that the
Parrots should be regarded as forming a distinct Order of
the Class, though there are some men, justly accounted
authorities, who even question this much. A few system-
atists, among whom Bonaparte was chief, placed them at
the top of the Class, conceiving that they were the analogues
of the Primates among mammals. Prof. Huxley has recog
nized the Psittacomorphx as forming 'one of the principal
groups of Carinate birds, and, by whatever name we call
them, that much seems to be evident. It will here, however,
be unnecessary to discuss the exact rank which the Parrots
as a group should hold, for sufficient on that score has already
been said above (ORNITHOLOGY, p. 47), and it is quite enough
of a task to consider the most natural or — if we cannot hope
at present to reach that — at least the most expedient way
of subdividing them. It must be admitted as a reproach
to ornithologists that so little satisfactory progress has been
made in this direction, for of that the existing differences
of opinion — differences as wide as have ever existed in any
branch of ornithic taxonomy — are sufficient proof. More
over, the result is all the more disheartening, seeing that
there is no group of exotic birds that affords equal oppor
tunities for anatomical examination, since almost every
genus extant, and more than two-thirds of the species, have
within recent times been kept in confinement in one or
another of onr zoological gardens, and at their death have
furnished subjects for dissection. Yet the laudable attempt
3 Tt is right to state, however, that the African examples of this bird
are said to be distinguishable from the Asiatic by their somewhat shorter
wings and weaker bill, and hence they are considered by some
authorities to form a distinct species or subspecies, P. docilis; but in
thus regarding them the difference of locality seems to have influenced
opinion, and without that difference they would scarcely have been
separated, for in many other groups of birds distinctions so slight are
regarded as barely evidence of local races.
PARROT
323
of M. Blanchard (Comptes Rendus, xliii. 1097-1100 and
xliv. 518-521) has not been regarded as successful, and
it cannot be affirmed positively that the latest arrange
ment of the Psittaci is really imich more natural than
that planned by Buffon one hundred and twenty years
ago. He was of course unaware of the existence of some
of the most remarkable forms of the group, in particular
of Strigops and Nestor; but he began by making two
great divisions of those that he did know, separating
the Parrots of the Old World from the Parrots of the
New, and subdividing each of these divisions into various
sections somewhat in accordance with the names they
had received in popular language — a practice he fol
lowed on many other occasions, for it seems to have been
with him a belief that there is more truth in the discrimi
nation of the unlearned than the scientific are apt to allow.
The result is that he produced a plan which is comparatively
simple and certainly practical, while as just stated it cannot
be confidently declared to be unnatural. However, not to
go so far back as twenty years, in 1867-68 Dr Finsch
published at Leyden an elaborate monograph of the Parrots,1
regarding them as a Family, in which he admitted 26 genera,
forming 5 Subfamilies: — (1) that composed of Strigops (KA-
KAPO, ut sup?-.) only; (2) that containing the crested forms
or Cockatoos ; (3) one which he named Sittadnx, compris
ing all the long-tailed species — a somewhat heterogeneous
assemblage, made up of MACAWS (vol. xv. p. 130) and
what arc commonly known as Parakeets ; (4) the Parrots
proper with short tails ; and (5) the so-called " brush-
tongued " Parrots, consisting of the LORIES (vol. xv. p. 7)
and NESTORS (ut sup.). Except in the characters of the
last group he recognized none that were not external, and
that fact is sufficient to cast suspicion on his scheme being
natural.
In 187-4 the late Prof. Garrod communicated to the
Zoological Society the results of his dissection of examples
of 82 species of Parrots, which had lived in its gardens,
and these results were published in its Proceedings for
that year (pp. 586-598, pis. 70, 71). The principal points
to which he attended were the arrangement of the carotid
artery, and the presence or absence of an ambiens muscle,
an oil-gland, and a furcula ; but except as regards the last
character he unfortunately almost wholly neglected the rest
of the skeleton, looking upon such osteological features as
the formation of an orbital ring and peculiarities of the atlas
as " of minor importance " — an estimate to which nearly
every anatomist will demur ; for, though undoubtedly the
characters afforded by blood-vessels and muscles are useful
in default of osteological characters, it is obvious that these
last, drawn from the very framework of any vertebrate's
structure, cannot be inferior in value to the former.
Indeed the investigations of Prof. A. Milne-Edwards
(Ann. Sc. Nat. Zoologie, ser. 5, vi. pp. 91-111 ; viii. pp.
145-156) on the bones of the head in various Psittacine
forms make it clear that these alone present features of
much significance, and if his investigations had not been
carried on for a special object, but had been extended to
other parts of the skeleton, there is little doubt that they
would have removed some of the greatest difficulties. The
one osteological character to which Garrod trusted, namely,
the condition of the furcula, cannot be said to contribute
much towards a safe basis of classification. That it is wholly
absent in some genera of Parrots had long been known,
but its imperfect ossification, it appears, is not attended in
some cases by any diminution of volant powers, which tends
to shew that it is an unimportant character, an inference
confirmed by the fact that it is found wanting in genera
placed geographically so far apart that the loss must have
had in some of them an independent origin. Summarily
expressed, Garrod's scheme was to divide the Parrots into
two Families, Palseomithidx and Psittacidee, assigning to
the former three Subfamilies Palfeornithina?, Cacntuinsc, and
Stringopinx, and to the latter four, Anna?, Pyrrhiirinse,
PlatycercinsR, and Chrysotinse. That each of these sections,
except the Ccicatuinse, is artificial any regard to osteology
would shew, and it would be useless here to further criticize
his method, except to say that its greatest merit is that, as
before mentioned (LovE-BiRT), vol. xv. p. 28), he gave
sufficient reasons for distinguishing between the genera
Agapornis and Psittacula. In the Journal fur Ornithologie
for 1881 Dr Reichenow published a Conspectus Psittacorum,
founded, as several others 2 have been, on external characters
only. He makes 9 Families of the group, and recognizes
45 genera, and 442 species, besides subspecies. His group
ing is generally very different from Garrod's, but displays
as much artificiality ; for instance, Nestor is referred to the
Family which is otherwise composed of the Cockatoos.
Still more recently we have the arrangement followed by
Mr Sclater in the List of those exhibited of late years in the
gardens of the Zoological Society, and published in 1883.
This is more in accordance with the views that the present
writer is inclined to hold, and these views may here, though
with much diffidence, be stated. First there is Strigops,
which must stand alone, unless, as before hinted (vol. xiii.
p. 826), Geopsittacus and Pezopoms may have to be placed
with it in a Family Strigopidse. Next Nestor, from its
osteological peculiarities, seems to form a very separate
type, and represents a second Family Nestoridm. These
two Families being removed, all the Parrots that remain
will be found to have a great resemblance among them
selves, and perhaps it is impossible justifiably to establish
any more Families. For the present at any rate it would
seem advisable to keep them in a single Family Psittacida?,
but there can be no objection to separating them into
several Subfamilies. The Cockatoos, for instance, can be
without much difficulty defined, and may stand as Cacatuinse,
and then the brush-tongued Lories as Loriinie, after which
the Macaws, Arinse — including possibly Conurus and its
allies. Platycercus and its neighbours may form another
section, and the same with Paleeornis ; but for the rest
there is not yet material for arriving at any determination,
though Chrysotis and Psittacus seem to furnish two different
types, to the former of which Psittacula appears to bear
much the same relation as Agapornis does to the latter.
Amongst the genera Chrysotis, Pal&ornis, and Psittacus are
probably to be found the most highly organized forms, and
it is these birds in which the faculty of so-called " speech "
reaches its maximum development. But too much import
ance must not be assigned to that fact ; since, while
Psittacus erithacus — the well-known Grey Parrot with a
red tail — is the most accomplished spokesman of the whole
group, it is fairly approached by some species of Chrysotis
— usually styled Amazons — and yet its congener P. timneh
is not known to be at all loquacious.3
Considering the abundance of Parrots both as species
and individuals, and their wide extent over the globe, it is
surprising how little is known of their habits in a wild state.
Even the species with which Englishmen and their
descendants have been more in contact than any other
has an almost unwritten history, compared with that of
many other birds; and, seeing how it is oppressed by and
yielding to man's occupation of its ancient haunts, the
2 Such, for instance, as Kuhl's treatise with the same title, which
appeared in 1820, and Wagler's Monograpliia Fsittacormn, published
in 1832 — both good of their kind and time.
3 In connexion with the "speaking" of Parrots, one of the most
curious circumstances is that recorded by Humboldt, who in South
America met with a venerable bird which remained the sole possessor
of a literally dead language, the whole tribe of Indians, Atures by
name, who alone had spoken it having become extinct.
324
P A R — P A R
extirpation of the Carolina Parakeet is certain, and will
probably be accomplished before several interesting and
some disputed points in its economy have been decided.
The same fate possibly awaits several of the Australian
species and all those in New Zealand — indeed the experience
of small islands only foreshadows what will happen in
tracts of greater extent, though there more time is required
to produce the same result ; but, the result being inevit
able, those who are favourably placed for observations
should neglect no opportunities of making them ere it be
too late. (A. N.)
PARROT-FISHES, more correctly called PARROT-
WRASSES, are marine fishes, belonging to the Wrasse family,
and referred to four closely-allied genera, viz., Scams,
Scarichthys, Callyodon, and Pseudoscarus. They are easily
recognized by their large scales, of which there are from
twenty-one to twenty-five in the lateral line, by having
invariably nine spines and ten rays in the dorsal fin and
two spines with eight rays in the anal, and especially by
their singular dentition, of jaws as well as pharynx. The
teeth of the jaws are soldered together, and form a sharp-
edged beak similar to that of a parrot, but without a middle
projecting point, and the upper and lower beak are
divided into two lateral halves by a median suture. In a
few species the single teeth can be still distinguished, but in
the majority (Pseudoscarus) they are united into a homo
geneous substance with polished surface. By this sharp
and hard beak parrot-fishes are enabled to bite or scrape
off those parts of coral-stocks which contain the animal
cules, or to cut off branches of tough f ucus, which in some
of the species forms the principal portion of their diet.
The process of triturating the food is performed by the
pharyngeal teeth, which likewise are united, and form
plates with broad masticatory surface, not unlike the
grinding surface of the molars of the elephant. Of these
plates there is one pair above, opposed to and fitting into
the single one which is coalesced to the lower pharyngeal
bone. The contents of the alimentary canal, which are
always found to be finely divided and reduced to a pulp,
prove the efficiency of this triturating apparatus ; in fact,
ever since the time of Aristotle it has been maintained
that the Scarus ruminates. Nearly one hundred species
of parrot-fishes are known from the tropical and subtropical
parts of the Indo- Pacific and Atlantic Oceans ; like other
coral-feeding fishes, they are absent on the Pacific coasts
of tropical America and on the coast of tropical West
Africa. The most celebrated is the Scarus of the Medi
terranean. Beautiful colours prevail in this group of
wrasses, but are subject to great changes and variation in
the same species ; almost all are evanescent, and cannot
be preserved after death. The majority of parrot- fishes
are eatable, some even esteemed ; but they (especially the
carnivorous kinds) not unfrequently acquire poisonous pro
perties after they have fed on corals or medusae containing
an acrid poison. Many attain to a considerable size,
upwards of 3 feet in length.
PARRY, SIR WILLIAM EDWARD (1790-1855), arctic
navigator, was the fourth son of Dr Caleb Hillier Parry, a
physician of some celebrity in Bath, and was born there
19th December 1790. He was educated at the Bath
Grammar School, and was intended for the medical pro
fession, but through the intervention of a lady friend of
the family he was permitted, through the kindness of
Admiral Cornwallis, to join the " Ville de Paris," the
flagship of the Channel fleet, as a first-class volunteer. In
1806 he became a midshipman in the " Tribune " frigate,
from which he was, in the spring of 1808, transferred to
the " Vanguard " in the Baltic fleet. After obtaining his
lieutenant's commission he joined the " Alexander " frigate,
employed in the protection of the Spitzbergen whale
fishery. Taking advantage of the opportunity for the
study of astronomy, and the observation of the fixed stars
in the northern hemisphere, he afterwards published the
result of his studies in a small volume on Nautical Astro
nomy. He also employed himself in preparing accurate
charts of the northern navigation. Having joined the " La
Hogue " at the North- American station, he remained there
till 1817, distinguishing himself in an expedition up the
Connecticut river, for which he received a medal. Shortly
after his return to England he obtained an appointment to
the " Alexander " brig in the expedition of Sir John Ross
to discover the probabilities of a North-West Passage to
the Pacific. Ross, mistaking clouds for the Croker
mountains barring his way westwards, returned to England
in the belief that further perseverance was hopeless ; but
Parry, confident, as he expressed it, " that attempts at polar
discovery had been hitherto relinquished just at a time
when there was the greatest chance of succeeding,"
obtained the command of a new expedition, consisting of
two ships, the " Griper " and " Hecla," with which he
sailed from the Thames in May 1819. Passing up Baffin's
Bay, he explored and named Barrow's Straits, Prince
Regent's Inlet, and Wellington Channel, and reached
Melville Island at the beginning of September, having
crossed longitude 110° W., thus becoming entitled to the
reward of .£5000 offered by parliament. After wintering
in Melville Island he made an effort to force a passage to
Behrings Straits, but, the state of the ice rendering this
impossible, he returned to England, re-entering the Thames
in November 1820. A narrative of the expedition
appeared in 1821. Shortly after his return he was pro
moted to the rank of commander, presented with the
freedom of Bath and Norwich, and elected a member of the
Royal Society. With the " Fury " and the " Hecla " he
set sail on a second expedition in May 1821, and after
great hardships returned to England in November 1823
without achieving his purpose. During his absence he
had in November 1821 been promoted to post rank, and
on 1st December 1823 he was chosen acting hydrographer
to the navy. His Journal of a Second Voyage for the
Discovery of the North-West Passage appeared in 1824.
With the same ships he, in May 1824, set sail on a third
expedition, which, however, was also unsuccessful, and
after the wreck of the " Fury " he returned home in
October 1825 with a double ship's company. Of this
voyage he published an account in 1826. Having obtained
the sanction of the Admiralty to journey to the North Pole
from the northern shores of Spitzbergen in boats that
could be fitted to sledges, he set sail with the " Hecla,"
March 27, 1827, and in June set out for the Pole. He.
however, failed to find the solid plain of ice he expected :
and as, moreover, owing to the ice drift, he found his
efforts at progress northwards in great degree frustrated,
he was compelled, after reaching 82° 45' N. lat., to retrace
his steps, and arrived in England in October. Of his
journey he published an account under the title of
Narrative of the Attempt to reach the North Pole in Boats,
1827. On April 29, 1829, he received the honour of
knighthood, Sir John Franklin being also knighted on the
same occasion. After continuing his duties as hydrogra
pher till May 1829, he went to New South Wales as com
missioner to the Australian Agricultural Company. On
his return to England in 1835 he was appointed assistant
poor-law commissioner in Norfolk. This he in little more
than a year resigned, and in 1837 he was employed in
organizing the packet service between Liverpool, Holyhead,
and Dublin. For nine years from 1837 he was comptroller
of the steam department of the navy. On retiring from
active service he was appointed captain-superintendent cf
Haslar Hospital. He vacated this office in 1852 on obtain-
P A R — P A R
325
ing the rank of rear-admiral, and in 1853 he was appointed
governor of Greenwich Hospital, which post he retained
till his death, 8th July 1855. Besides the journals of his
different voyages, Parry was the author of a Lecture to
Seamen, and Thoughts on the Parental Character of God.
See Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Sir W. E. Parry, by his son
Rev. Edward Parry, M.A., 3d ed., 1857.
PARStS, or PARSEES. The resident in Bombay who
wanders to the Back Bay beach at sunset to inhale the
fresh sea-breezes from Malabar Hill will there observe a
congregation of the most interesting people of Asia. They
are the Parsis, the followers of Zarathustra, and the
descendants of the ancient Persians who emigrated to India
on the conquest of their country by the Arabs, about the
year 720 A.D.
The men are well-formed, active, handsome, and
intelligent. They have light olive complexions, a fine
aquiline nose, bright black eyes, a well-turned chin, heavy
arched eyebrows, thick sensual lips, and usually wear a
light curling moustache. The women are delicate in frame,
with small hands and feet, fair complexions, beautiful
black eyes, finely arched eyebrows, and a luxurious
profusion of long black hair, which they dress to perfection,
and ornament with pearls and gems.
The Parsis are much more noble in their treatment of
females than any other Asiatic race ; they allow them to
appear freely in public, and leave them the entire manage
ment of household affairs. They are proverbial for their
benevolence, hospitality, and sociability. They are good
scholars, and usually learn several languages — Gujarati,
Hindustani, and English. The Parsis are notoriously
fond of good living, and do not hesitate to spend their
money freely for the best the market affords. They
indulge in wines, but do not reach the vice of intoxication.
On getting out of bed in the morning, an orthodox
Parsi first says his prayers. He then rubs a little nirang
(cow-urine) upon his face, hands, and feet, reciting during
the 'ceremony a prayer or incantation against the influence
of devas, or evil spirits, for which the " nirang " is
considered a specific. He next takes his bath, cleans his
teeth, and repeats his prayers. He then takes his morning
meal, a light breakfast, — say, tea or chocolate, bread, and
fruits. The dinner is more abundant, and is composed of
the dishes of the country — meats, stews, vegetables, rice,
fruits, &c. These dishes are seasoned with pungent sauces,
curries, chutneys, pickles, &c., one of which, famous in
Bombay, is marked with the mild initials H. F. (hell-fire).
The evening meal is taken after sunset, when the labours
and ceremonies of the day are over, and is the signal for
licence in eating, drinking, and conversation. A tat, or
parting drink for the night, is a time-honoured custom
among the Parsis.
The costume of the Parsi is loose and flowing, very
picturesque in appearance, and admirably adapted to the
climate in which he lives. The sadara, or shirt, which is
considered the most sacred garment, because it is worn
next the skin, is a plain loose vest, usually made of muslin,
or with the opulent of fine white linen. A long coat or
gown is worn over the sadara, extending to the knees,
and fastened round the waist with the kusti, or sacred cord,
which is carried round three times, and fastened in front
with a double knot. The jyyjamis, or loose trousers, are
fastened round the waist by a silken cord with tassels at
the ends, which are run through a hem. The material of
these pyjamis among the common classes is c tton, but
the rich indulge in fancy-coloured silks and satins. The
head is covered with a turban, or a cap of a fashion
peculiar to the Parsis ; it is made of stiff material, some
thing like the European hat, without any rim, and has an
angle from the top of the forehead backwards. It would
not be respectful to uncover in presence of an equal, much
less of a superior. The colour is chocolate or maroon,
except with the priests, who wear a white turban. The
shoes are of red or yellow morocco, turned up at the toes.
The dress of Parsi ladies is something gorgeous. They
are enveloped in a maze of mysteriously wound silk.
They appear as houris floating about the earth in silk
balloons, with a ballasting of anklets, necklaces, earrings,
and jewellery. The dressmakers' bills, fortunately for
the head of the family, are not exorbitant, as the
costumes have not been through the hands of the modiste,
but are composed of many yards of fancy-coloured silks
wound round the nether limbs and gradually enfolding
the body, covering part of the bosom, and then thrown
over the shoulders and head, drooping on the left arm, as
a shield against the inquisitive gaze of a stranger. The
pyjamis, or drawers, are common to both sexes, but the
ladies of course excel in the fine texture and fanciful
colours of these garments.
A Parsi must be born upon the ground floor of the
house, as the teachings of their religion require life to be
commenced in humility, and by " good thoughts, words,
and actions " alone can an elevated position be attained
either in this world or the next. The mother is not seen
by any member of the family for forty days. Upon the
seventh day after the birth of the child, an astrologer is
invited, who is either a Brahmana or a Parsi priest, to cast
the nativity of the child. He has first to enumerate the
names which the child may bear, and the parents have the
right to make choice of one of them. Then he draws on
a wooden board a set of hieroglyphics in chalk, and his
dexterity in counting or recounting the stars under whose
region or influence the child is declared to be born is
marvelled at by the superstitious creatures thronging
around him. All the relatives press forward to hear the
astrologer predict the future life and prospects of the babe.
This document is preserved in the family archives as a
guidance and encouragement to the child through life, and
may exert some influence in shaping its destiny. At the
age of seven years or thereabouts, according to the judg
ment of the priest, the first religious ceremony of the
Parsis is performed upon the young Zarathustrian. He
is first subjected to the process of purification, which
consists of an ablution with " nirang." The ceremony
consists in investing the young Parsi with the cincture, or
girdle of his faith. This cincture is a cord woven by
women of the priestly class only. It is composed of
seventy-two threads, representing the seventy-two chapter.-,
of the Yatna, a portion of the Zand-Avesta, in the
sacredness of which the young neophyte is figuratively
bound. The priest ties the cord around the waist as he
pronounces the benediction upon the child, throwing upon
its head at each sentence slices of fruits, seeds, perfumes,
and spices. He is thus received into the religion of
Zarathustra. After the performance of this ceremony, the
c Id is considered morally accountable for its acts. If ;
child die before the performance of this ceremony, it i:
considered to have gone back to Ahura-Mazda, who gave
it, as pure as it entered into this world, having not reached
the age of accountability. The ceremony of the l-usti, 01
encircling with the girdle, is closed by the distribution of
refreshments to the friends and relatives of the family win >
have attended the investiture of the younger follower of
Zarathustra with the sacred girdle of his faith.
The marriages of children engage the earliest attention
of the parents. Though the majority of Parsi marriages are
still celebrated while the children are very young, instances
frequently occur of marriages of grown-up boys and girl*.
The wedding day is fixed by an astrologer, who consult:
the stars for a happy season. The wedding day being
P A 11 S I S
fixed, a Parsi priest goes from house to house with a list of
the guests to be invited, and delivers the invitations with |
much ceremony. The father of the bride waits upon ,
near relatives and distinguished personages, soliciting the ,
honour of their attendance. A little before sunset a pro
cession is formed at the house of the bridegroom, and j
proceeds with a band of music, amid great pomp and cere
mony, to the house of the bride's father. Here a number
of relatives and friends are collected at the door to receive
the bridegroom with due honour. Presents are sent j
before, according to the time-honoured customs of the [
East. Upon the arrival of the procession at the house of i
the bride, the gentlemen gallantly remain outside, leaving j
room for the ladies to enter the house with the bridegroom j
as his escort. As he passes the threshold, his future
mother-in-law meets him with a tray filled with fruits and j
rice, which she strews at his feet. The fathers of the j
young couple are seated side by side, and between them ,
stands the priest ready to perform the magic ceremony.
The young couple are seated in two chairs opposite each
other, their right hands tied together by a silken cord,
which is gradually wound around them as the ceremony
progresses, the bride in the meantime being concealed with
a veil of silk or muslin. The priest lights a lamp of
incense, and repeats the nuptial benediction first in Zand
and then in Sanskrit. At the conclusion of the ceremony
they each throw upon the other some grains of rice, and
the most expeditious in performing this feat is considered
to have got the start of the other in the future control of
the household, and receives the applause of the male or
female part of the congregation as the case may be. The
priest now throws some grains of rice upon the heads of
the married pair in token of wishing them abundance ;
bouquets of flowers are handed to the assembled guests,
and rose-water is showered upon them. The bride and
bridegroom now break some sweetmeats, and, after they
have served each other, the company are invited to partake
of refreshments. At the termination of this feast the pro
cession forms, and with lanterns and music escorts the
bridegroom back to his own house, where they feast until
midnight. As midnight approaches, they return to the
house of the bride, and escort her, with her dowry, to the
house of the bridegroom, and, having delivered her safely
to her future lord and master, disperse to their respective
homes. Eight days after the bridal ceremony a wedding
feast is given by the newly-married couple, to which only
near relatives and particular friends are invited. This
feast is composed entirely of vegetables, but wine is not
forbidden ; at each course the wine is served, and toasts
are proposed, as " happiness to the young couple, " &c.
The funeral ceremonies of the Parsis are solemn and
imposing. When the medical attendant declares the case
of a Parsi hopeless, a priest advances to the bed of the
dying man, repeats sundry texts of the Zand-Avesta, the
substance of which tends to afford consolation to the dyi'ig
man, and breathes a prayer for the forgiveness of his sir,.;.
After life is extinct, a funeral sermon is delivered by tl 3
priest, in which the deceased is made the subject of an
exhortation to his relatives and friends to live pure, holy,
and righteous lives, so that they may hope to meet again
in paradise. The body is then taken to the ground floor
where it was born, and, after being washed and perfumed,
is dressed in clean white clothes, and laid upon an iron
bier. A dog is brought in to take a last look at his
inanimate master in order to drive away the evil spirits or
NasvA. This ceremony is called sayddd. A number of
priests attend and repeat prayers for the repose of the soul
of the departed. All the male friends of the deceased go
to the door, bow down, and raise their two hands from
touching the floor to their heads to indicate their deepest
respect for the departed. The body, when put upon the
bier, is covered over from head to foot. Two attendants
bring it out of the house, holding it low in their hands,
and deliver it to four pall-bearers, called nasasalar, all
clad in well-washed, clean, white clothes. All the people
present stand up as the body is taken out of the house,
and bow to it in respect as it passes by. A procession is
formed by the male friends of the deceased, headed by a
number of priests in full dress, to follow the body to the
dakhma, or " tower of silence," the last resting-place of
the departed Parsi. These towers are erected in a beauti
ful garden on the highest point of Malabar Hill, amid
tropical trees swarming with vultures ; they are constructed
of stone, and rise some 25 feet high, with a small door at
the side for the entrance of the body. Upon arriving at
the " tower of silence " the bier is laid down, and prayers
are said in the sagri, or house of prayer, containing a fire-
sanctuary, which is erected near the entrance to the garden.
The attendants then raise the body to its final resting-
place, lay it upon its stony bed, and retire. A round pit
about C feet deep is surrounded by an annular stone
pavement about 7 feet wide, on which the body is exposed
to the vultures, where it is soon denuded of flesh, and the
bones fall through an iron grating into a pit beneath, from
which they are afterwards removed into a subterranean
entrance prepared for their reception. On the third day
after death an assemblage of the relatives and friends of
the deceased takes place at his late residence, and thence
proceed to the Atish-bahrdm, or "temple of fire." The
priests stand before the urns in which the celestial fire is
kept burning, and recite prayers for the soul of the
departed. The son or adopted son of the deceased kneels
before the high-priest, and promises due performance of
all the religious duties and obsequies to the dead. The
relatives and friends then hand the priest a list of the
contributions and charities which have been subscribed in
memory of the deceased, which concludes the ceremony of
" rising from mourning," or " the resurrection of the dead."
On each successive anniversary of the death of a Parsi,
funeral ceremonies are performed in his memory. An iron
framework is erected in the house, in which shrubs are
planted and flowers cultivated to bloom in memory of the
departed. Before the frame, on iron stands, are placed
copper or silver vases, filled with water and covered with
flowers. Prayers are said before these iron frames two or
three times a day. These ceremonies are called mtiktad,
or ceremonies of departed souls.
The numerical strength of the followers of Zarathustra at the
present day does not exceed 82,000 persons, including the Par.sis
of Persia at Kcrman, Yazd, and Teheran. The greater number is
found in Bombay, and in some of the cities of Gujarat, as Now-
sari, Surat, Bharoch, Ahmeddbful, &c. Parsis have also settled for
the purpose of trade in Calcutta, Madras, and in other cities of
British India, in Burmali, China, and in other parts of Asia.
According to the census of 1881, there are in the Bombay presi
dency 72,065 Parsis, and in Persia 8499, according to lloutum-
Schindler (see Journal of the Oriental German Society, vol. xxxvi.
p. 54).
The Parsis of India are divided into two sects, the Shenshais and
the Kadmis. They do not differ on any point of faith ; the dispute
is solely confined to a quarrel as to the correct chronological date
for the computation of the era of Yazdagird, the last king of the
Sasanian dynasty, who was dethroned by the caliph Omar about
640 A.I). The difference has been productive of no other inconveni
ence than arises from the variation of a month in the celebration of
] the festivals. The Shenshai sect, represented by Sir Jamsetji
! Jijihhai, Bart., greatly outnumbers the Kadmis, formerly headed
i by the late famous high-priest Mulla Firoz.
The Parsis, as stated above, compute time from the fall of
i Yazdagird. Their calendar is divided into twelve months of thirty
! days each; the other five days, being added for holy days, are not
1 counted. Each day is named after some particular angel of bliss,
\ under whose special protection it is passed. On feast days a division
of five watches is made under the protection of live different
divinities. In midwinter a feast of six days is held in coiumemo-
P A R — P A 11
327
ration of the six periods of creation. About the 21st of March, the
vernal equinox, a festival is held in honour of agriculture, when
planting begins. In the middle of April a feast is held to celebrate
the creation of trees, shrubs, and flowers. On the fourth day of
the sixth month a feast is held in honour of Sahrevar, the deity
presiding over mountains and mines. On the sixteenth day of the
seventh month a feast is held in honour of Mithra, the deity pre
siding over and directing the course of the sun, and also a festival
to celebrate truth and friendship. On the tenth day of the eighth
month a festival is held in honour of Farvardin, the deity who pre
sides over the departed souls of men. This day is especially set
apart for the performance of ceremonies for the dead. The people
attend on the hills where the " towers of silence " are situated, and
perform in the sagris prayers for the departed souls. The Parsis
are enjoined by their religion to preserve the memory of the dead
by annual religious ceremonies performed in the house, as said
above ; but such of their friends as die on long voyages, or in un
known places, and the date of whose death cannot be known, are
honoured by sabred rites on this day. The Parsi scriptures require
the List ten days of the year to be spent in doing deeds of charity,
and in prayers of thanksgiving to Ahura-Mazda. On the day of
Yazdagird,or New Year's Day, the Parsis emulate the Western world
in rejoicing and social intercourse. They rise early, and after
having performed their prayers and ablutions dress themselves in
a new suit of clothes, and sally forth to the " fire-temples," to wor
ship the emblem of their divinity, the sacred fire, which is perpetu
ally burning on the altar. Unless they duly perform this ceremony
they believe their souls will not be allowed to pass the bridge
"Chinvad, " leading to heaven. After they have performed their
religious services, they visit their relations and friends, when the
ceremony of "hamijur," or joining of hands, is performed. The
ceremony is a kind of greeting by which they wish each other
" a happy new year." Their relatives and friends are invited to
dinner, and they spend the rest of the day in feasting and rejoicing ;
alms are given to the poor, and new suits of clothes are presented
to the servants and dependants.
There are only two distinct castes among the Parsis, — the priests
(dasturs, or high priests ; mobeds, or the middle order of priests ;
and herbads, or the lowest order of priests) and the people
(bchadtn, beJidin, or " followers of the best religion"). The priestly
oliice is hereditary, and no one can become a priest who was not
born in the purple ; but the son of a priest may become a
layman.
The secular affairs of the Parsis are managed by an elective com
mittee, or Panch&yat, composed of six dasturs and twelve mobeds,
making a council of eighteen. Its functions resemble the Venetian
council of ten, and its objects are to preserve unity, peace, arid
justice amongst the followers of Zarathustra. One law of the
Panchayat is singular in its difference from the law or custom of
any other native community in Asia ; nobody who has a wife living
shall marry another, except under peculiar circumstances, such as
the barrenness of the living wife, or her immoral conduct. It is a
matter of just pride that we find the Parsis have not imitated the
barbarous and tyrannical custom of prohibiting widows from re
marrying which is so prevalent among the Hindus.
Their religion teaches them benevolence as the first principle,
and no people practise it with more liberality. A beggar among the
Parsis is unknown, and would be a scandal to the society. In the
city of Bombay alone they have thirty -two different charitable
institutions. The sagacity, activity, and commercial enterprise of
the Parsis are proverbial in the East, and their credit as merchants
is almost unlimited. They frequently control the opium production
of India, which amounts annually to something like £10,000,000
sterling. They have some fifty large commercial houses in
Bombay, fourteen in Calcutta, twenty in Hong-Kong, ten in
Shanghai, four in London, three in Amoy, two in Yokohama,
and many throughout India, Persia, and Egypt. Further, their
interest in the extension of agriculture in India is prominent;
they are also very much esteemed as railway contractors or rail
way guards. It is often said that the Parsis are superstitious
about extinguishing fire, but this is a mistake. They are the only
people in the world who do not smoke tobacco, or some other
stimulating weed. Their reverence for fire as a symbol of Ahura-
Mazda prevents them from dealing with it lightly. They would not
play with fire, nor extinguish it unnecessarily; and they generally
welcome the evening blaze with a prayer of 'thanksgiving. Then-
religion forbids them to defile any of the creations of Ahura-Mazda,
such as the earth, water, trees, flowers, &c., and on no account
would a Parsi indulge in the disgusting habit of expectoration.
They have been accustomed to the refinement of tinger-bowls
after meals for several thousand years, and resort to ablutions
frequently.
Of all the natives of India the Parsis are most desirous of receiving
the benefits of an English education, and their eagerness to embrace
the science and literature of the West has been conspicuous in the
wide spread of female education among them. The difference
between the Parsis of thirty years ago and those of the present day
is simply the result of English education and intercourse with
Englishmen. The condition of the Parsi priesthood, however,
demands improvement. Very few of them understand their litur
gical /and works, although able to recite parrot-like all the
chapters requiring to be repeated on occasions of religious cere
monies, for which services they receive the regulated fees, and
from them mainly they derive a subsistence. It is, however, very
gratifying to notice an attempt that is now being made to impart a
healthy stimulus to the priesthood for the study of their religious
books. Two institutions, styled the " Alulla Firoz Madrusa"
and the "Sir Jamsetji Jijibhai Madrasa," have been estab
lished under the superintendence of competent teachers. Here
the study of Zand, Pazand, Pahlavi, and Persian is cultivated ;
and many of the sons of the present ignorant priests will
occupy a higher position in the society of their countrymen than
their parents now enjoy. The present dasturs are intelligent and
well-informed men, possessing a sound knowledge of their religion ;
but the mass of the mobeds and herbads are profoundly ignorant
of its first principles. As active measures are being devised for
improvement, the darkness of the present will doubtless be suc
ceeded by a bright dawn in the future. (A. F. )
PARSON is a technical term of English law, and is a
corruption of persona, the parson being, as it were, the
persona ecclesix, or representative of the church in the
parish. Parson imparsonee (persona impersonatci) is he
that as rector is in possession of a church parochial, and
of whom the church is full, whether it be presentative
or impropriate (Coke upon Littleton, 300 b). The word
parson is properly used only of a rector, though it is some
times loosely extended to any one in holy orders. Though
every parson is a rector, every rector is not a parson. A
parson must be in holy orders ; hence a lay rector could
not be called a parson. The parson is tenant for life of
the parsonage house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues,
so far as they are not appropriated. Further information
on this subject will be found under ADVOWSON, BENEFICE,
and TITHES,
PARSONS, or PEESONS, ROBERT (1546-1610), a cele
brated Jesuit, was the son of a blacksmith, and was born at
Nether Stowey, near Bridgwater, England, in 1546. His
precocity attracted the attention of the vicar of the parish,
who gave him private instruction, and procured his
entrance in 1563 as an exhibitioner to Balliol College,
Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1568, and M.A. in 1572.
He was fellow, bursar, and dean of his college, but in
1574 he resigned his fellowship and offices, for reasons
which have been disputed, some alleging improprieties of
conduct, and others suspected disloyalty. Soon after his
resignation he went to London, and thence in June to
Louvain, where he spent some time in the company of
Father William Good, a Jesuit. He then proceeded to
Padua to carry out a previously conceived intention to study
medicine, but further intercourse with English Jesuits so
influenced his mind, that in July 1575 he entered the Jesuit
Society at Rome. In 1580 he was selected along with Cam-
pian, a former associate at Oxford, and others, to undertake
a secret mission to England against Elizabeth. Through the
vigilance of Burghley the plot was discovered and Campian
arrested, but Parsons made his escape to Rouen, and
occupied himself for some time in the composition of
treasonable tracts against Elizabeth, which he caused to
be secretly sent to England. In 1583 he returned to
Rome, where he was appointed prefect of the English
mission, and in 1586 chosen rector of the English seminary.
He also devoted much energy to the establishment of
seminaries elsewhere on the Continent, for the training
of priests to be despatched to England to aid in reviving
the cause of Romanism. After the disaster to the Spanish
Armada in 1588, he endeavoured to persuade the Spanish
monarch to undertake a second invasion, and, unsuccessful
in this, he incited various plots against Elizabeth, all of
which were, however, abortive. On the death of Cardinal
Allen in 1594 he made strenuous efforts to be appointed
his successor, and, failing in this, he retired to Naples until
328
P A R — P A R
the death of Clement VIII. in 160G. From this time he
continued his active intrigues against Protestantism in
England until his death, 18th April 1610.
Parsons was the author of a large number of polemical tracts, a
list of which, to the number of thirty-three, is given in Chalmers's
Biographical Dictionary. For portrait, see Gentleman's Magazine,
vol. Ixiv.
PARSONSTOWN, formerly BIRR, a market-town of
King's County, Ireland, is situated on an acclivity rising
above the Birr, and on a branch of the Great Southern
and Western Railway, 12i miles north of Roscrea and 7|
south of Banagher. Cumberland Square, in which there is
a Doric column, surmounted by a statue of the duke of Cum
berland to commemorate the battle of Culloden, contains
a number of good shops, and the streets diverging from it
are wide and well built. The fine castle of Birr, besides
its historical interest, has gained celebrity on account of
the reflecting telescope erected there (1828-45) by the
third earl of Rosse. The other principal buildings are
the court-house, the Protestant Episcopal and Roman
Catholic churches, the convent of the sisters of mercy, the
model school, the mechanics' institute, the fever hospital,
and the infirmary. There is a bronze statue by Foley of
the late Lord Rosse. Some trade is carried on in corn
and timber, and the town possesses a distillery and
brewery. The population was 5401 in 1861, 4939 in
1871, and 4955 in 1881.
An abbey was founded at Birr by St Brendan. The district
formed part of Ely O'Carrol, and was not included in King's
County till the time of James I. A great battle is said to have been
fought near Birr in the 3d century between Cormac, son of Cond of
the Hundred Battles, and the people of Munster. The castle was
the chief seat of the O'Carrols. In the reign of James I. it and its
appendages were assigned to Lawrence Parsons, brother of Sir
William Parsons, surveyor-general. It was more than once besieged
in the time of Cromwell, and was taken by Ireton in 1650. It also
suffered assault in 1688 and 1690.
PARTABGARH, PRATABGARH, or PERTABGURH, a
district of Oudh, India, situated between 25° 34' and
26° 10' 30" N. lat., and between 81° 22' and 82° 29' 45"
E. long., is bounded on the N. by Rai Bareli and Sultan-
pur, and on the E., S., and W. by Jaunpur and Allahabad
districts. The Ganges forms the south-western boundary
line, while the Gumti marks the eastern boundary for a
few miles. The area (1881) is 1436 square miles. The
general aspect of Partabgarh is that of a richly wooded
and fertile plain, here and there relieved by gentle
undulations, and in the vicinity of the rivers and
streams broken into ravines. The one important river
(the Ganges and Gumti nowhere entering the district)
is the Sai, which is navigable in the rains, but in the
hot season runs nearly dry. The only mineral pro
ducts are salt, saltpetre, and kankar or nodular limestone.
The manufacture of salt and saltpetre from the saliferous
tracts is prohibited. Tigers and leopards are hardly ever
met with ; but wolves still abound in the ravines and grass
lands. Nilgai, wild cattle, hogs, and monkeys do much
damage to the crops. Snakes are not numerous. Small
game abounds.
The population in 1881 was 847,047 (420,730 males, 426,317
females ; 763,054 Hindus, 83,944 Mohammedans, 48 Christians).
The principal grain crops are barley, wheat, and rice. Other
food crops are gram, peas, arhar, jour , and Idjra. Sugar-cane
cultivation has largely increased of late years, and poppy is grown
under the superintendence of the Opium Department. Miscel
laneous crops include tobacco of superior quality, indigo, fibres,
pan, &c. Irrigation is extensively carried on, and manure is made
use of wherever procurable. Rents have steadily increased since
the introduction of British rule, and still show a tendency to rise.
Artisans and skilled labourers have much improved in circum
stances of late years ; but agricultural labour is still paid in kind at
about the same rates that prevailed under native rule. Partab
garh is now well opened up by roads. Four largo ferries are main
tained on the Ganges, and two on the Gumti. Partabgarh forms
a great grain-exporting district. Other important exports comprise
tobacco, sugar, molasses, opium, oil, ghi, cattle and sheep, hides, &c.
The imports consist mainly of salt, cotton, metals and hardware,
country cloth, and dyes. The manufactures of the district com
prise sugar, blanket weaving, glass beads and bracelets, water-bottles,
&c. The gross revenue of the district in 1882-83 was £175,735,
of which the land revenue contributed £98,220. Education is
afforded by 91 schools, on the rolls of which on 31st March 1883
there were 3493 scholars. The climate is healthy. The average
rainfall for the fourteen years ending 1881 was 37 inches.
PARTABGARH, or PERTABGURH, a native state in
Rajputana, India, lying between 23° 14' and 24° 14' N.
lat., and between 74° 27' and 75° E. long., and entirely
surrounded by native territory, has an estimated area of
1460 square miles, and an estimated population (1881) of
80,568, mostly Bhils and other aboriginal tribes. The
revenue is about £60,000, of which about £20,000 are
enjoyed by feudatory chiefs and nobles. It is a hilly
country, mainly producing maize andjodr (Ifolcits sorghum}.
PARTHENIUS, a Bithynian poet, said to have been
captured in the Mithradatic war and carried to Rome. He
lived there for many years, as late as the time of Tiberius.
His poems were on erotic subjects, and many of them
treated of obscure mythological stories. The only work
of his which is preserved is a collection of short love-
tales in prose, dedicated to the poet Cornelius Gallus, but
apparently not intended for publication.
PARTHENON. See ATHENS', vol. iii. p. 5.
PARTHIA. See PERSIA.
PARTINICO, a town of Sicily, in the province of
Palermo, and 28| miles W. of Palermo by rail, has a good
trade in wine and oil, and in 1881 had 21,000 inhabitants.
PARTITION, in law, is the division between several
persons of land or goods belonging to them as co-pro
prietors. It was a maxim of Roman law, followed in
modern systems, that in communione vel societate nemo potest
invitus detineri. Partition was either voluntary or was
obtained by the actio communi dividendo. In English law
the term partition applies only to the division of lands,
tenements, and hereditaments, or of chattels real between
coparceners, joint tenants, or tenants in common. It is to
be noticed that not all hereditaments are capable of parti
tion. There can be no partition of homage, fealty, or
common of turbary, or of an inheritance of dignity, such as
a peerage. Partition is either voluntary or compulsory.
Voluntary partition is effected by mutual conveyances, and
can only be made where all parties are sui juris. Since
8 & 9 Viet. c. 106, § 3, it must be made by deed, except in
the case of copyholds. Compulsory partition is effected by
private Act of Parliament, by judicial process, or through
the inclosure commissioners. At common law none but
coparceners were entitled to partition against the will of
the rest of the proprietors, but the Acts of 31 Henry VIII.
c. 1 and 32 Henry VIII. c. 32 gave a compulsory process
to joint tenants and tenants in common of freeholds,
whether in possession or in reversion, by means of the writ
of partition. In the reign of Elizabeth the Court of
Chancery began to assume jurisdiction in partition, and the
j writ of partition, after gradually becoming obsolete, was
finally abolished by 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27. The Court
of Chancery could not decree partition of copyholds until
4 & 5 Viet. c. 35, § 85. By the Judicature Act, 1873, § 34,
partition is one of the matters specially assigned to the
Chancery Division. An order for partition is a matter of
right, subject to the discretion vested in the court by the
Partition Act, 1868 (31 & 32 Viet. c. 40, amended by
39 & 40 Viet. c. 17). By § 3 of the Act of 1868 the court
may, on the request of a party interested, direct a sale
instead of a partition, if a sale would be more beneficial
than a partition. By § 12 a county court has jurisdiction
in partition where the property does not exceed £500
in value. Under the powers of the Inclosure Act, 1845,
P A R — P A R
329
8 <fe 9 Viet. c. 118, and the Acts amending it, the inclosure
commissioners have power of enforcing compulsory parti
tion among the joint owners of any inclosed lands. An
order of the inclosure commissioners or a private Act vests
the legal estate, as did also the old writ of partition. But
an order of the Chancery Division only declares the rights,
and requires to be perfected by mutual conveyances so as
to pass the legal estate. Where, however, all the parties
are not sui juris, the court may make a vesting order
under the powers of the Trustee Act, 1850, 13 & 14 Viet,
c. 60, § 30.
Partition is not a technical term of Scots law. In Scotland
division of common property is effected either extra -judicially, or
by action of declarator and division or division and sale in the
Court of Session, or (to a limited extent) in the sheriff courts.
Rights of common are not divisible in English law without an Act
of Parliament or a decree of the inclosure commissioners, but in
Scotland the Act of 1695, c. 38, made all commonties, except those
belonging to the king or royal burghs, divisible, on the application
of any having interest, by action in the Court of Session. By 40
& 41 Viet. c. 50, § 8, the action for division of common property
or commonty is competent in the sheriff court, when the subject
in dispute does not exceed in value £50 by the year, or £1000
value. Runrig lands, except when belonging to corporations, were
made divisible by the Act of 1695, c. 2£. A decree of division of
commonty, common property, or run rig lands has the effect of a
conveyance by the joint proprietors to the several participants
(37 & 38 Viet. c. 94, § 35).
In the United States, "it is presumed," says Chancellor Kent,
(4 Comm., lect. Ixiv.), "that the English statutes of 31 & 32 Henry
VIII. have been generally re-enacted and adopted, and probably
with increased facilities for partition." In a large majority of the
States, partition may be made by a summary method of petition to
the courts of common law. In the other States the courts of
equity have exclusive jurisdiction. As between heirs and devisees
the probate courts may in some States award partition, The various
State laws with regard to partition will be found in Washburn,
Heal Property, bk. i. ch. xiii., § 7.
PARTNERSHIP, in law, is a voluntary association of
two or more persons for the purpose of gain. This is of
course not an exhaustive definition, but will serve to
include most of the definitions of partnership which have
been attempted.1 The word partner is a contracted form
of partitioner.
The partnership of modern legal systems is based upon
the societas of Roman law. Societas is not defined by any
of the Roman jurists. But the Roman view is no doubt
sufficiently expressed in the definition by Voet : — societas est
contractus juris gentium, bonsefidei, consensu constans, semper
re honesta, de lucri et damni communione. Societas was
either universorum bonontm, a complete communion of
property ; negotiationis alicujus, for the purpose of a single
transaction ; vectigalis, for the collection of taxes ; or rei
unius, joint ownership of a particular thing. The prevail
ing form was societas universorum quse ex qusestu veniunt,
or trade partnership, from which all that did not come
under the head of trade profit (qusestus) was excluded.
This kind of societas was presumed to be contemplated in
the absence of proof that any other kind was intended.
Societas was a consensual contract, and rested nominally on
the consent of the parties — really, no doubt (though this
was not in terms acknowledged by the Roman jurists), on
the fact of valuable consideration moving from each
partner. No formalities were necessary for the constitution
of a societas. Either property or labour must be con
tributed by the socius ; if one party contributed neither
property nor labour, or if one partner was to share in the
loss but not in the profit (leonina societas), there was no
true societas. Societas was dissolved on grounds substan
tially the same as those of English law (see below). The
only ground peculiar to Roman law was change of status
(capitis deminutid). Most of the Roman law on the subject
of societas is contained in Dig. xvii. tit. 2, Pro Socio. The
1 The difficulties of definition are pointed out by Sir N. Lindley,
Cn Partnership, i., Introd.
main points of difference between the Roman and English
law will be treated below.
There is no statutory or judicial definition of partnership
in English law. It is defined by the Indian Contract Act,
§ 239,'2 as " the relation which subsists between persons
who have agreed to share the profits of a business carried
on by all or any of them on behalf of all of them." Sir
1ST. Lindley declines to pledge himself to any definition,
but lays down the following principles : — (1) partnership
is the result of an agreement to share profits and losses;
(2) partnership is prima facie the result of an agreement
to share profits, although nothing may be said about losses,
and although there may be no common stock ; (3) partner
ship is prima facie the result of an agreement to share
profits, although community of loss is stipulated against ;
(4) partnership is not the result of an agreement to share
gross returns ; (5) partnership is not the result of an
agreement which is not concluded ; (6) partnership is
not the result of an agreement to share profits so long as
anything remains to be done before the right to share them
accrues (1 Lindley, bk. i. ch. i., § 1). It was held in
1793, in the case of Waugh v. Carver, (2 H. Blackstone,
235), that sharing in profits constituted partnership,
though no partnership was in fact contemplated by the
parties. But in 1860 the House of Lords in Cox v.
Hickman (8 House of Lords Cases, 268), established the
principle that persons who share the profits of a business
do not incur the liabilities of partners unless the business
is carried on by themselves or their real or ostensible
agents. In 1865 the Act 28 & 29 Viet. c. 86 (which
applies to the United Kingdom, and is commonly called
BovilPs Act) was passed in order to remove certain
difficulties arising from Cox v. Hickman. It enacts that
the advance by way of loan to a person engaged or about
to engage in any trade or undertaking, upon a contract in
writing that the lender is to receive a rate of interest
varying with the profits, or a share of the profits, is not of
itself to constitute the lender a partner (§ 1) ; that no
contract for the remuneration of a servant or agent by a
share of the profits is of itself to render such servant or
agent responsible as a partner or give him the rights of a
partner (§ 2) ; that no widow or child of a partner of a
trader receiving by way of annuity a portion of the profits
is, by reason only of such receipt, to be deemed to be a
partner (§ 3) ; that no person receiving by way of annuity
or otherwise a portion of the profits in consideration of the
sale of the goodwill is, by reason only of such receipt, to
be deemed to be a partner (§ 4) ; that in the event of any
such trader being adjudged bankrupt, etc., the lender of
any such loan is not to be entitled to recover his principal
or profits and interest, or the vendor of a goodwill his
profits, until the claims of .the other creditors for valuable
consideration have been satisfied. Participation in profits
has thus ceased to be an absolute test of partnership.
Another test that has been proposed is the existence of
such a participation as to constitute the relation of principal
and agent. But this has been objected to on the ground
that agency is deducible from partnership and not partner
ship from agency (see Holme v. Hammond, Law Rep. 7
Exch. 218). The principles laid down by Sir N. Lindley
above no doubt form the best means of deciding the
matter, but every case must depend to a large extent upon
its own particular circumstances. Though participation
in profits is of itself no evidence of partnership, on the
other hand societies and clubs, the object of which is not
to share profits, are not partnerships. The liability of
clubs or provisional committee men depends entirely upon
2 The definition was adopted in the Partnership Bill which was
introduced into parliament in 1880 ; see Appendix to Pollock's Digest
of the Law of Partnership.
XVTIT. --42
330
P A 11 TNERSHIP
the question of agency. They are not as a rule in the
position of partners as against third persons. No partner
ship can exist in an office depending upon personal
confidence, as the office of executor or trustee. Joint
tenants or tenants in common are not necessarily partners.
If A and B agree to contribute a sum for the purchase of
goods to be divided between them, they are joint owners
after purchase and before division. But if they resell the
goods and divide the profits, they then become partners
(Smith's Mercantile Law, bk. i. ch. ii.).
A valid contract of partnership can be entered into
by any person not under the disability of minority or
unsoundness of mind, or of being a convict within the
Felony Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Viet. c. 23), or an alien enemy.
It is presumed that the disability of coverture no longer
exists since the Married Women's Property Act, 1882. An
infant may nominally be a partner, but he incurs no
liability, and may disaffirm past transactions when he
comes of age. A clergyman becoming a partner for pur
poses of trade is (with certain exceptions) liable to
ecclesiastical penalties, but the contracts of the partnership
are not void, 1 & 2 Viet. c. 106, § 31. At common law
there is no limit to the number of partners, but by the
Companies Act, 1862 (25 & 26 Viet. c. 89, § 4), not more
than ten persons can carry on the business of bankers, and
not more than twenty any other business, unless (with
some exceptions) they conform to the provisions of the
Apt. (See COMPANY.)
A partnership may be constituted by deed or other
'writing, or it may be implied from acts. It is usually,
though not of necessity, evidenced by deed. The usual
clauses in a partnership deed provide for the nature of the
business, the time of the commencement of the partnership
and its duration, the premium, the capital and property,
the interest and allowances, the conduct and powers of
the partners, the custody of the books, the taking of the
accounts, retirement, dissolution, and expulsion, the valua
tion and transmission of shares, annuities to widows of
deceased partners, prohibition against carrying on business
in opposition after retirement, sale of goodwill, getting in
debts, indemnity to outgoing partners, and arbitration
clauses. Though a deed may serve to adjust the rights
of the partners inter se, their liabilities to third persons
cannot be affected by provisions in a deed of which the
latter are ignorant. Whether a partnership exists in a
particular case is a mixed question of law and fact. The
partnership may last for any time agreed upon by the
partners. It is determinable at will unless it has been
agreed that it shall endure for a specified period, or unless
it is dissolved by some of the circumstances which will be
hereafter mentioned. A partnership may be general or
special, e.g., the ownership of a single race-horse, or the
conduct of a single case by a firm of solicitors. The rights
and liabilities of partners may be considered as they affect
the partners (1) inter se, and (2) in their relation to third
persons.
1. The shares of partners are prima facie equal.
Inequality must be proved by evidence. Each member of
a partnership is entitled to take a share in its management,
unless, as is frequently the case, one member is appointed
managing partner. A partner is in a fiduciary position.
It is therefore his duty to use reasonable diligence, to keep
within the limits of his authority, and to observe good
faith, e.g., not to compete with the partnership. He may
be a partner in another firm, and the fact of his being a
partner in firms A and B does not make A and B partners,
for socius mei socii non est meus socius. In matters which
are within the ordinary course of the business of the
partnership, such as the period of division of profits, if the
partnership articles be silent on the subject, the minority
must yield to the majority. In matters beyond the scope
of the partnership business, such as a change in the
character of the business, one dissentient can forbid a
change, and can obtain an injunction to prevent the change
from being carried out. A partner is entitled to have
accounts kept, and to inspect them at proper times.
Where a partner has as agent for the firm paid more than
his share, he is entitled to contribution from the rest.
One partner cannot be expelled by the others unless there
is a special power of expulsion given by the articles. A
partner has no right to assign his share without the express
or implied consent of the other partners. If the partner
ship be one at will, the assignment ipso facto dissolves it;
if not at will, the others are entitled to treat the assign
ment as a ground of dissolution. The assignee takes the
share subject to the claims of the other partners. Each
partner has an equitable lien upon the partnership property,
enabling him within certain limits to control the disposi
tion of it. On the death of a partner his share goes to his
representatives, not, as in joint-tenancy, by accretion to the
survivors. It is an ancient maxim of law that jus
accrescendi inter mercatores non halet locum (Coke upon
Littleton, 182 a).
2. A more important and difficult question is the rela
tion of partners to those not members of the partnership.
From this point of view partnership is to a great extent
a branch of the law of agency (see AGENT). As far as
contracts are concerned, it is the rule that one partner is
its general agent for the transaction of its business in the
ordinary way, and the firm is responsible for whatever is
done by any of the partners when acting for the firm
within the limits of the authority conferred by the nature
of the business which it carries on (1 Lindley, bk. ii.
ch. i.). The authority is defined by the business, not by
any private understanding between the partners. Thus a
merchant can bind his partners by accepting a bill of
exchange for the firm, but a solicitor or medical man
cannot. A partner cannot execute a deed, except a simple
release of a debt, so as to bind the firm. In many cases
an act not warranted by authority, such as a submission to
arbitration, may be adopted by ratification so as to bind
the firm. And in other cases the rights of a lona fide
claimant will prevail, even though the authority has been
exceeded and there has been no ratification, e.y., where a
bill given by a partner on his private account passes into
the hands of a lona fide holder for value. Where the
partner contracts on behalf of the partnership, it is the
latter and not the individual who is primarily liable. If
the name of a firm and an individual is the same, a bill
drawn in that name for partnership purposes is prima
facie a bill of the firm (Yorkshire Banking Co. v. Beatson,
Laiu Rep., 5 C. P. D., 109). But a partner may hold
himself out as the sole partner, and so make himself
separately liable. Every member of a partnership is at
common law liable in solido for the debts of the firm, a
liability co-extensive with his power to transfer the whole
property of the firm. This liability cannot be restricted
except by statute (as the Companies Act) or by express
contract with the creditors. A dormant partner is liable,
like an ostensible partner, for debts contracted during his
partnership ; if, however, the ostensible partners have
been sued to judgment, an action cannot be brought to
charge the dormant partner (Kendall v. Hamilton, Law
Rep., 4 App. Cas., 504). The liability of a dormant and
an ostensible partner terminates in a different manner, in
the former case by his simple retirement without notice,
in the latter only after notice, a general notice in the
Gazette being the usual means of informing the public of
the change, while special notice is given to known customers.
It is a question of fact whether the liability of the new
331
firm lias been accepted in place of that of the previous j
firm. A guarantee to or for a firm ceases upon a change
in the firm unless it appears by express stipulation or t
necessary implication that the guarantee is to continue, :
19 & 20 Viet. c. 97, § 4. There are cases in which a j
relation of quasi-partnership is created, i.e., in which
persons not partners inter se become partners qua third ,
persons. A person who holds himself out as a partner
incurs the liability of a partner. This was clearly laid
down by Lord Chief Justice Eyre in Waugh v. Carver,
and is now an established principle of law. " Holding
out " means that credit has been obtained by the use of
his name, or even by permitting reference to him as one
who wishes to have his name concealed.
Where the liability arises out of tort, the law is not
quite the same as it is where the liability arises from con
tract. The presumption is against the authority of a
partner to commit a tort, and so opposed to the presump
tion in the case of contract. But a partnership is liable
jointly and severally for any wrongful act or omission of
one of its members in conducting the business of the firm,
e.g., the neglect of a managing partner to keep the shaft
of a mine in order, but not for a wilful wrong unconnected
with the business, e.g., malicious prosecution. With
respect to fraud by misappropriation of money, some
obligation on the part of the firm to take care of the money
must be shown. A receipt from the firm pritna facie
imposes this obligation.
An action should be brought by all the partners (except
merely nominal partners, who need not be joined unless in
an action on a contract under seal). They cannot delegate
a right of action to one of themselves for convenience.
This can only be done by statute, as 7 Geo. IV. c. 46,
enabling banking companies to sue and be sued by a
public officer. All the partners ought to be sued, subject
to any statutory exception, as that contained in the
Carriers' Act, 11 Geo. IV., and 1 Will. IV. c. 68, §§ 5, 6.
But misjoinder or nonjoinder of parties does not defeat an
action (Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, ord. xvi. r.
11). The method of procedure does not affect the
principle of the liability of each partner in solido, a
principle on which is based one of the main points of
difference between a partnership and a corporation. In a
corporation the collective whole is distinct from the in
dividuals composing it (see CORPORATION). But in a
partnership the firm, as distinct from the individual
partners, is recognized by English law only to a very
limited extent, and as matter of procedure rather than of
substantive law. Since the Judicature Acts, in an action
against a partnership, power is given to sue and be sued
in the firm name, but the partners are bound to disclose
the names of the persons constituting the firm, and, though
judgment goes against the firm, execution may issue
against a partner (Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883,
ord. vii. r. 2, xvi. r. 14, xlii. r. 10). An adjudication
of bankruptcy cannot be made against the firm in the firm
name, but only against the partners individually (Bank
ruptcy Rules, 1883, r. 197).
A partnership at will is dissolved by determination of
the will or assignment of the partnership share. A
partnership other than a partnership at will is dissolved
by (1) effluxion of time; (2) retirement of a partner; (3)
alienation by operation of law of a partner's share, e.g., by
bankruptcy or (formerly) by marriage of a female partner ;
(4) death ; (5) business becoming unlawful, as by a
partner becoming an alien enemy ; (6) assignment of
partnership share ; (7) lunacy ; (8) liability of a partner
to criminal prosecution ; (9) impossibility of carrying on
the business. In the last four cases the partnership is not
ipso facto dissolved, but they are grounds on which the
court may order a dissolution (see Pollock, art. 47 sq.).
Where a partner has been induced to enter into a partner
ship by fraud, he has in general the option of affirming or
rescinding the contract at his election.
The dissolution of partnerships and the taking of partner
ship accounts are matters specially assigned to the
Chancery Division (Judicature Act, 1873, § 34). After
dissolution the persons who constituted the partnership
become tenants in common of the partnership property
until the division of assets, unless any other provision is
made by agreement. The partnership debts are paid out
of the partnership assets, and the private debts out of the
private assets.
The principle of law that a partnership debt is joint and
several comes into operation where the partnership is dis
solved by bankruptcy or death. The joint estate is the
primary fund for the payment of joint debts, but the joint
creditors can look to any surplus of the separate estate
(after payment of the separate debts) to satisfy any
deficiency in the joint estate. See the Bankruptcy Act,
1883, § 59. Partners cannot compete with the creditors of
the firm either against the joint estate or the several estate
of a partner; that is to say, they cannot be satisfied until
all the debts of the firm have been paid. In the case of
death, although the partnership is dissolved by death, it is
still treated as subsisting for the purposes of administra
tion. The creditor has the same rights against the estate
of the deceased as he would have had in his lifetime in
some cases, so that he may proceed against this estate in
the first instance, without recourse to the surviving
partners (see the judgment of Lord Selborne in Kendall v.
Hamilton, Law Rep., 5 App. Cas. 539). Further, the
death of a partner has the result of converting the real
property of the firm. " Whenever a partnership purchases
real estate for partnership purposes, and with partnership
funds, it is, as between the real and personal representatives
of the partners, personal estate" (Darby v. Darby, 3
Drewry 506).
At common law no criminal prosecution was maintain
able by one partner against another for stealing the
property of the firm. But this difficulty has been removed
by 31 & 32 Viet. c. 116.
Though the English law of partnership is based upon
Roman law, there are several matters in which the two
systems differ. (1) There was no limit to the number of
partners in Roman law. (2) In societas one partner could
generally bind another only by express mandatum ; one
partner was not regarded as the implied agent of the
others. (3) The debts of a societas were apparently joint,
and not joint and several. (4) The heres of a deceased
partner could not succeed to the rights of the deceased,
even by express stipulation. There is no such disability
in England. (5) In actions between partners in Roman
law, the beneficiiim competentiee applied, that is, thj
privilege of being condemned only in such an amount as
the partner could pay without being reduced to destitution.
(6) The Roman partner was in some respects more strictly
bound by his fiduciary position than is the English partner.
For instance, a Roman partner could not retire in order to
enjoy alone a gain which he knew was awaiting him. (7)
There was no special tribunal to which matters arising out
of societas were referred.
The law of Scotland as to partnership agrees in the main with
the law of England. The principal difference is that Scots law
recognizes the firm as an entity distinct from the individuals com
posing it. English law, as has been said, does this only to a very
limited extent. The firm of the company 1 is either proper or
descriptive. A proper or personal firm is a firm designated by the
1 The term " company " is not confined, as in England, to an
association existing by virtue of the Companies Act, 1862, or similar
Acts.
332
P A E — P A 11
name of one or more of the partners. A descriptive firm does not
introduce the name of any of the partners. The former may sue
and be sued under the company name ; the latter only with the
addition of the names of three at least (if there are so ninny) of the
partners. A consequence of this view of the company as a separate
person is that an action cannot be maintained against a partner
personally without application to the company in the first instance,
the individual partners being in- the position of cautioners for the
company rather than of principal debtors. The provisions of the
Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 1856 (19 & 20 Viet. c. 60,
§ 8), do not affect the case of partners. But, though the company
must first be discussed, diligence must necessarily be directed
against the individual partners. Heritable property cannot be held
in the name of a firm ; it can only stand in the name of individual
partners. Xotice of the retirement of even a dormant partner is
necessary. The law of Scotland draws a distinction between joint
adventure and partnership. Joint adventure or joint trade is a
partnership confined to a particular adventure or speculation, in
which the partners, whether latent or unknown, use no firm or
social name, and incur no responsibility beyond the limits of the
adventure. In the rules applicable to cases of insolvency and
bankruptcy of a company and partners, Scots law differs in several
respects from English. Thus a company can be made bankrupt
without the partners being made so as individuals. And, when
both company and partners are bankrupt, the company creditors
are entitled to rank on the separate estates of the partners for the
balance of their debts equally with the separate creditors. But in
sequestration, by 19 & 20 Viet. c. 79, § 66, the creditor of a com
pany, in claiming upon the sequestrated estate of a partner, must
deduct from the amount of his claim the value of his right to draw
payment from the company's funds, and he is ranked as creditor
only for the balance. (See Erskine's Inst., bk. iii. tit. iii. ; Bell's
Comm., ii. 500-562; Bell's Principles, §§ 350-403.)
In the United States the English common law is the basis of
the law. Most States have, however, their own special legislation
on the subject. Partnership is defined by Chancellor Kent to be
" a contract of two or more competent persons to place their money,
effects, labour, and skill, or some or all of them, in lawful
commerce or business, and to divide the profit and bear the loss
in certain proportions" (3 Kent's Comm., lect. xliii.). The defi
nition of the Xew York Civil Code, art. 1283, runs thus : —
" partnership is the association of two or more persons for the
purpose of carrying on business together, and dividing its profits
between them." The most striking feature of the law in the
United States is the existence of limited partnerships, correspond
ing to the 'societes en. commandite established in France by the
ordinance of 1673. The State of New York was the first to
introduce this kind of partnership by legislative enactment. The
provisions of the New York Act have been followed by most of the
other States. In many States there can be no limited partnership
in banking and insurance. In this form of partnership one or
more persons responsible in solido are associated with one or more
dormant partners liable only to the extent of the funds supplied
by them. In Louisiana such partnerships are called partnerships
in commendam (Civil Code, art. 2810). In New York the respon
sible partners are called general partners, the others special
partners. Such partnerships must, by the law of most States, be
registered. (In 1880 a bill providing for the legislation of such
partnerships in the United Kingdom was introduced in the House
of Commons, but failed to become lawr. ) In Louisiana universal
partnerships (the socictates univcrsorum bonorum of Roman law)
must be created in writing and registered (Civil Code, art. 2800).
In some States the English law as it stood before Cox v. Hickman
is followed, and participation in profits is still regarded as the
test of partnership, e.g., Leggett v. Hyde (58 New York Rep. 272).
In some States nominal partners are not allowed. Thus in New
York, where the words "and Company" or "and Co." are used,
they must represent an actual partner or partners. A breach of
this rule subjects offenders to penalties. In most States claiins
against the firm after the death of a partner must, in the first
instance, be made to the survivors. The creditors cannot, ,as in
England, proceed directly against the representatives of the
deceased. The law. as to the conversion of realty into personalty
on the administration of the estate of a deceased partner in some
States agrees with English law, in others does not. (See 3 Kent's
Comm., lect. xliii.; Story, On Partnership; Troubat, On Limited
Partnership; and Angell, On Private Corporations.) (J. Wf. )
PARTRIDGE, in older English PERTRICHE, Dutch
P<ttrijs, French Perdrix, all from the Latin Perdix, which
word in sound does not imitate badly the call-note of this
bird, so well known throughout the British Islands and
the greater part of Europe as to need no description OF
account of its habits here. The English name properly
denotes the only species indigenous to Britain, often now
adays called the Grey Partridge (to distinguish it from
others, of which more presently), the Perdix cinerea of
ornithologists, a species which may be regarded as the
model game-bird — whether from the excellence of the
sport it affords in the field, or the no less excellence of its
flesh at table, which has been esteemed from the time of
Martial to our own — while it is on all hands admitted to
be wholly innocuous, and at times beneficial to the agri
culturist. It is an undoubted fact that the Partridge
thrives with the highest system of cultivation; and the
lands that are the most carefully tilled, and bear the greatest
quantity of grain and green crops, generally produce the
greatest number of Partridges. Yielding perhaps in
economic importance to the Red Grouse, what may be
called the social influence of the Partridge is greater
than that excited by any other wild bird, for there must
be few rural parishes in the three kingdoms of which the
inhabitants are not more or less directly affected in their
movements and business by the coming in of Partridge-
shooting, and therefore a few words on this theme may
not be out of place.
From the days when men learned to "shoot flying''
until some forty years ago, dogs were generally if not
invariably used to point out where the " covey," as a family
party of Partridges is always called, was lodged, and the
greatest pains were taken to break -in the " pointers " or
" setters " to their duty. In this way marvellous success
was attained, and the delight lay nearly as much in seeing
the dogs quarter the ground, wind and draw up to the
game, helping them at times (for a thorough understanding
between man and beast was necessary for the perfection
of the sport) by word or gesture, as in bringing down the
bird after it had been finally sprung. There are many
who lament that the old-fashioned practice of shooting
Partridges to dogs has, with rare exceptions, fallen into
desuetude, and it is commonly believed that this result
has followed wholly from the desire to make larger and
larger bags of game. The opinion has a certain amount
of truth for its base ; but those who hold it omit to notice
the wholly changed circumstances in which Partridge-
shooters now find themselves. In the old days there were
plenty of broad, tangled hedgerows which afforded per
manent harbour for the birds, and at the beginning of the
shooting-season admirable shelter or "lying" (to use the
sportsman's word) was found in the rough stubbles, often
reaped knee-high, foul with weeds and left to stand some
six or eight weeks before being ploughed, as well as in
the turnips that were sown broadcast. Throughout the
greater part of England now the fences are reduced to the
narrowest of boundaries and are mostly trimly kept ; the
stubbles — mown, to begin with, as closely as possible to the
ground — are ploughed within a short time of the corn
being carried, and the turnips are drilled in regular lines,
offering inviting alleys between them along which
Partridges take foot at any unusual noise. Pointers in
such a district — and to this state of things all the arable
part of England is tending — are simply useless, except at
the beginning of the season, when the young birds are not
as yet strong on the wing, and the old birds are still feeble
from moulting their quill-feathers. Of late years there
fore other modes of shooting Partridges have had to
be employed, of which methods the most popular is
that known as "driving"- — the "guns" being stationed
in more or less concealment at one end of the field, or
series of fields, which is entered from the other by men or
boys who deploy into line and walk across it making a
noise. It is the custom with many to speak depreciatingly
of this proceeding, but it is a fact that as much knowledge
of the ways of Partridges is needed to ensure a successful
day's " driving " as was required of old when nearly every
thing was left to the intelligence of the dogs, for the course
P A S — P A S
333
of the birds' flight depends not only on the position of the
line of beaters, but almost on the station of each person
composing it, in relation to the force and direction of the
wind and to the points on which it is desired that the
Partridges should converge. Again, the skill and alacrity
wanted for bringing down birds flying at their utmost
velocity, and often at a considerable height, is enormously
greater than that which sufficed to stop those that had
barely gone 20 yards from the dog's nose, though ad
mittedly Partridges rise very quickly and immediately
attain great speed. Moreover, the shooting of Partridges
to pointers came to an end in little more than six weeks,
whereas " driving " may be continued for the whole season,
and is never more successful than when the birds, both
young and old, have completed their moult, and are
strongest upon the wing. But, whether the new fashion
be objectionable or not, it cannot be doubted that to go
back to the old one with success Avould necessitate a
reversion to the slovenly methods of agriculture followed
in former years, and therefore is as impossible as would
be a return to the still older practice of taking Part
ridges in a setting-net, described by Gervase Markham or
Willughby.
The Grey Partridge has doubtless largely increased in
numbers in Great Britain since the beginning of the
present century, when so much down, heath, and moor
land was first brought under the plough, for its partiality
to an arable country is very evident. It has been observed
that the birds which live on grass lands or heather only
are apt to be smaller and darker in colour than the average ;
but in truth the species when adult is subject to a much
greater variation in plumage than is commonly supposed,
and the well-known chestnut horse-shoe mark, generally
considered distinctive of the cock, is very often absent.
In Asia our Partridge seems to be unknown, but in the
temperate parts of Eastern Siberia its place is taken by a
very nearly allied form, P. barbata, and in Tibet there is
a bird, P. Jiodgsonix, which can hardly with justice be
generically separated from it. The relations of some other
forms inhabiting the Indian Region are at present too
obscure to make any notice of them expedient here.
The common Pted-legged Partridge of Europe, generally
called the French Partridge, Caccabis rufa, seems to be
justifiably considered the type of a separate group.1 This
bird has been introduced into England within little more
than one hundred years ago, and has established itself in
various parts of the country, notwithstanding a widely-
spread, and in some respects unreasonable prejudice against
it. It has certainly the habit of trusting nearly as much
to its legs as to its wings, and thus incurred the obloquy
of old-fashioned sportsmen, whose dogs it vexatiously kept
at a running point; but, when it was also accused of
driving away the Grey Partridge, the charge only shewed
the ignorance of those that brought it, for as a matter of
fact the French Partridge rather prefers ground which the
common species avoids — such as the heaviest clay-soils, or
the most infertile heaths. But even where the two species
meet, the present writer can declare from the personal ob
servation of many years that the alleged antipathy between
them is imaginary, and unquestionably in certain parts of
the country the "head of game" has been increased by
1 Prof. Parker first (Trans. Zool. Soc., v. p. 155) and, after him,
Prof. Huxley (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, pp. 299-302) have pointed
out that the true Gallinae offer two types of structure, " one of
which may be called Galline, and the other Tetraonine, " to use the
latter's words, though he is " by no means clear that they do not
graduate into one another"; and, according to the characters assigned
by him, Caccabis lies "on the Galline side of the boundary," while
Perdix belongs to the Tetraonine group. Further investigation of
this matter is very desirable, and, with the abundant material possessed
by zoological gardens, it might easily be carried out.
the introduction of the foreigner.- The French Partridge
has several congeners, all with red legs and plumage of
similar character. In Africa north of the Atlas there is
the Barbary Partridge, C. petrosa; in southern Europe
another, C. saxatilis, which extends eastward till it is re
placed by C. chukar, which reaches India, where it is a well-
known bird. Two very interesting desert-forms, supposed
to be allied to Caccabis, are the Ammoperdix heyi of North
Africa and Palestine and the A. bonhami of Persia; but
the absence of the metatarsal knob, or incipient spur,
suggests (in our ignorance of their other osteological char
acters) an alliance rather to the genus Perdix. On the other
hand the groups of birds known as Francolins and
Snow-Partridges are generally furnished with strong but
blunt spurs, and therefore probably belong to the Caeca-
bine group. Of the former, containing many species,
there is only room here to mention the Francolin, which
used to be found in many parts of the South of Europe,
Francolinus vulgaris, which also extends to India, where
it is known as the Black Partridge. This seems to have
been the Attagas or Attagen of classical authors,3 a bird so
celebrated for its exquisite flavour, the strange disappear
ance of which from all or nearly all its European haunts
has been before noticed (BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 736, note), and
still remains inexplicable. It is possible that this bird has
been gradually vanishing for several centuries, and if so to
this cause may be attributed the great uncertainty attend
ing the determination of the Attagen — it being a common
practice among men in all countries to apply the name of
a species that is growing rare to some other that is still
abundant. Of the Snow- Partridges, Tetraogallus, it is only
to be said here that they are the giants of their kin, and
that nearly every considerable range of mountains in Asia
seems to possess its specific form.
By English colonists the name Partridge has been very
loosely applied, and especially so in North America.
Where a qualifying word is prefixed no confusion is caused,
but without it there is sometimes a difficulty at first to
know whether the Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) or the
Virginian Colin (Ortyx virginianus) is intended. (A. N.)
PASCAL, BLAISE (1623-1662), was born at Clermont
Ferrand on the 19th June 1623. His father was Etienne
Pascal, president of the Court of Aids at Clermont; his
mother's name was Antoinette Begon. The Pascal family
were Auvergnats by extraction as well as residence, and
they had for many generations held posts in the civil
service. They were ennobled by Louis XI. in 1478, but,
as in many other cases, no attempt seems to have been
made to assume the privileged particle de. The earliest
anecdote of Pascal is a singular story recorded by his niece,
Marguerite Perier (the heroine of the Holy Thorn miracle),
of his being bewitched, and freed from the spell by the
witch with strange ceremonies. His mother died when
he was abeut four years old (the exact date is differently
stated), and left him with two sisters — Gilberte, who after
wards married M. Perier, and Jacqueline. Both sisters
are of importance in their brother's history, and both are
said to have been beautiful and accomplished. When
Pascal was about seven years old, his mother having been
already dead for some time, Etienne Pascal the father
gave up his official post at Clermont, and betook himself
2 It is a singular fact that the game -preservers who object most
strongly to the Red-legged Partridge are not agreed on the exact
grounds of their objection. One party will declare that it vanquishes
the Grey Partridge, while the other holds that, though the latter, the
" English " Partridge, is much vexed by the introduced species, it
invariably beats off the " Frenchman " !
3 However, many naturalists have maintained a different opinion —
some making it a Woodcock, a GODWIT (q.v. ), or even the Hazel-hen
(see GROUSE, vol. xi. p. 223). The question has been well discussed
by Lord Lilford (Ibis, 1862, pp. 352-356).
334
PASCAL
to Paris for the education of his children and for his own
indulgence in scientific society. It does not appear that
Blaise, who went to no school, but was taught by his
father, was at all forced, but rather the contrary. Never
theless he has a distinguished place in the story of pre
cocious children, and in the much more limited chapter of
children whose precocity has been followed by great per
formance at maturity, though he never became what is
called a learned man, perhaps did not know Greek, and
was pretty certainly indebted for most of his miscellaneous
reading to Montaigne. How, purposely kept from books,
he worked out the more elementary problems of geometry
for himself ; how at sixteen he wrote a treatise on conic
sections which Descartes refused to believe in except as
the work of a master and not of a student ; how he wrote
treatises on acoustics at twelve, and began elaborate cal
culating machines when he was still a boy, — are things
dwelt upon in all biographies of him. In this notice his
attainments in mathematical and physical science, except
those which have some special connexion with his life and
history, will be dealt with separately and later.
The Pascal family, some years after settling in Paris,
had to go through a period of adversity, ittienne Pascal,
on leaving Clermont, had bought certain of the Hotel de
Ville rentes, almost the only regular investment open to
Frenchmen at the time. Richelieu reduced the interest
and the investors protested, Pascal amongst them. But
the great cardinal did not understand such protests, and
to escape the Bastille Pascal had to go into hiding. He
was, according to the story, restored to favour owing to
the good acting and graceful appearance of his daughter
Jacqueline in a representation of Scude"ry's Amour Tyran-
nique before Richelieu. Indeed Jacqueline, who was only
fourteen, herself gives the account in a pleasant letter
which is extant, and which contains an allusion to her
brother's mathematical prowess. Madame d'Aiguillon's
intervention in the matter was perhaps as powerful as
Jacqueline's acting, and Richelieu not only relieved
Etienne Pascal from the necessity of keeping out of the
way, but gave him (in 1641) the important and lucrative
though somewhat troublesome intendancy of Rouen. The
family accordingly removed to the Norman capital, though
Gilberte Pascal shortly after, on her marriage, returned
to Clermont. At Rouen they became acquainted with
Corneille, and Blaise Pascal pursued his studies with such
vehemence that he already showed signs of an injured
constitution, Nothing, however, of importance happened
till the year 1646. Then Pascal the elder was confined to
the house by the consequences of an accident on the ice,
and was visited by certain gentlemen of the neighbourhood
who had come under the influence of St Cyran and the
Jansenists. It does not appear that up to this time the
Pascal family had been contemners of religion, but they
now eagerly embraced the creed, or at least the attitude of
Jansenism. One of the more immediate results of this
conversion has rather shocked some modern admirers of
Pascal, who forget that toleration, except of the Gallio
kind, is an idea which had no place in men's minds in
Pascal's day. .He came into contact with a Capuchin
known as Pere St Ange, but whose real name was Forton,
and who seems to have entertained some speculative ideas
on theological points which were not strictly orthodox.
Thereupon Pascal with some of his friends lodged an
information against the heretic with the representative of
the archbishop of Rouen. There seems to have been no
lack of zeal about the accusers, but the accused made no
difficulty whatever in making profession of orthodoxy,
and the judge appears to have been by no means anxious
to push the matter home. No doubt Pascal was perfectly
sincere, and like most of his contemporaries held the
opinion attributed to a great English nonconformist con
temporary of his, that, while it was very shocking that
men who were in the right should not be tolerated, it was
almost equally shocking that men who were in the wrong
should be.
His bodily health was at this time very far from satis
factory, and he appears to have suffered, not merely from
acute dyspepsia, but from a kind of paralysis. He was,
however, except when physicians positively forbade study,
and probably sometimes when they did so forbid, inde
fatigable in his mathematical work. In 1647 he published
his Nouvelles Experiences sur h Vide, and in the next year
the famous experiment with the barometer on the Puy de
Dome was carried out for him by his brother-in-law Perier,
and repeated on a smaller scale by himself at Paris, to
which place by the end of 1647 he and his sister Jacqueline
had removed, to be followed shortly by their father. In
a letter of Jacqueline's dated the 27th of September, an
account of a visit paid by Descartes to Pascal is given,
which, like the other information on the relations of the
two, gives strong suspicion of mutual jealousy. Descartes,
however, gave Pascal the very sensible advice to stay in
bed as long as he could (it may be remembered that the
philosopher himself never got up till eleven) and to take
plenty of beef tea. But the relations of Pascal with
Descartes belong chiefly to the scientific achievements of
the former. He had, however, other relations, both
domestic and miscellaneous, which had nothing to do
with science. As early as May 1648 Jacqueline Pascal
was strongly drawn to Port Royal, and her brother fre
quently accompanied her to its church. She dcsm.l
indeed to join the convent, but her father, who at thf
date above mentioned returned to Paris with the dignity
of counsellor of state (his functions at Rouen having
ceased), disapproved of the plan, and took both brother
and sister to Clermont. Pascal stayed in Auvergne for
the greater part of two years, but next to nothing is
known of what he did there. Flechier, in his account of
the Grands Jours at Clermont many years after, speaks
of a " belle savante " in whose company Pascal had
frequently been — a trivial mention on which, as on many
other trivial points of scantily known lives, the most
childish structures of comment and conjecture have been
based. It is sufficient to say that at this time, despite the
Rouen "conversion," there is no evidence to show that
Pascal was in any way a recluse, an ascetic, or in short
anything but a young man of great intellectual promise
and performance who was not indifferent to society, but
whose aptitude both for society and study was affected by
weak health and the horse-doctoring of the time. He,
his sister, and their father returned to Paris in the late
autumn of 1650, and in September of the next year
litienne Pascal died. Almost immediately afterwards
Jacqueline fulfilled her purpose of joining Port Royal —
a proceeding which led to some soreness, finally healed,
between herself and her brother and sister as to the dis
posal of her property. Perhaps this difference, but more
probably the mere habitual use of the well-known dialect
of Port Royal, led Jacqueline to employ in reference to
her brother expressions which have led biographers into
most unnecessary excursions of fancy. For these they have
seemed to find further warrant in similar phrases used by
the Periers, mother and daughter. It has been supposed
that Pascal, from 1651 or earlier to the famous accident
of 1654, lived a dissipated, extravagant, worldly, luxurious
(though admittedly not vicious) life with his friend the
Due de Roannez and others. His Discours sur les
Passions Je i1 Amour, a striking and characteristic piece,
only recently discovered and printed, has also been assigned
to this period, and has been supposed to indicate a hope-
PASCAL
335
less passion for Charlotte de Roannez, the duke's sister.
It cannot be too decidedly said that all this is sheer
romancing. The extant letters of Pascal to the lady show
no trace of any affection (stronger than friendship)
between them. As to Pascal's worldly life, it might be
thought that only the completest ignorance of the usual
dialect of the stricter religious sects and societies (and
it may be added of Port Royal in particular) could induce
any one to lay much stress on that. A phrase of
Jacqueline's about the " horribles attaches " which bound
her brother to the world may pair off with hundreds of
similar expressions from Bunyan downwards. It is, how
ever, certain that in the autumn of 1654 Pascal's second
" conversion " took place, and that it was lasting. He
betook himself at first to Port Royal, and began to live a
recluse and austere life there. Madame Perier simply says
that Jaccpueline persuaded him to abandon the world.
Jacqueline represents the retirement as the final result of
a long course of dissatisfaction with mundane life. But
there are certain anecdotic embellishments of the act which
are too famous to be passed over, though they are in part
apocryphal. It seems that Pascal in driving to Neuilly
was run away with by the horses, and would have been
plunged in the river but that the traces fortunately broke.
To this, which seems authentic, is usually added the late
and more than doubtful tradition (due to the Abb6
Boileau) that afterwards he used at times to see an
imaginary precipice by his bedside or at the foot of the
chair on which he was sitting. Further, from November
23, 1654, dates the singular document usually known as
" Pascal's amulet, " a parchment slip which he wore con
stantly about him, and which bears the date followed by
some lines of incoherent and strongly mystical devotion.
But, whatever may have been the immediate cause of
Pascal's conversion and (for a time) domestication at Port
Royal, it certainly had no evil effect on his intellectual or
literary powers. Indeed, if he had been drowned at
Neuilly he would hardly be thought of now as anything
but an extraordinarily gifted man of science. It must
also be noted that, though he lived much at Port Royal,
and partly at least observed its rule, he never actually
became one of its famous solitaries. But for what it did
for him (and for a time his health as well as his peace of
mind seems to have been improved) he very soon paid the
most ample and remarkable return that any man of letters
ever paid to any institution. At the end of 1655 Arnauld,
the chief light of Port Royal, was condemned by the
Sorbonne for a letter which he had published expressing
doubt whether the famous five propositions were to be
found in Jansen, and, as much was made of this condemna
tion, it was thought important by the Jansenist and Port
Royal party that steps should be taken to disabuse the
popular mind on the whole controversy. Arnauld would
have undertaken the task himself, but his wiser friends
knew that his style was anything but popular, and over
ruled him. It is said that he personally suggested to
Pascal to try his hand, and that the first of the famous
Provincial Letters (this familiar name, or rather misnomer,
is an abbreviation from the proper title of Lettres ficrites
par Louis de Montalte a un Provincial de ses Amis) was
written in a few clays, or, less probably, in a day. It was
printed on the 23d January 1656, and, being immensely
popular and successful, was followed by others to the
number of eighteen, in which not merely the special points
at issue but the whole ethical and doctrinal system of the
Jesuits was pulled to pieces.
In the Provinciates Pascal, who it must be remembered
published under a strict incognito, denies that he belongs
to Port Royal, and in fact, though during the last years
of his life he was wholly devoted to its interests, he was
never a regular resident there, and usually abode in his
own house at Paris. Shortly after the appearance of the
Provinciales, on May 24, 1656, occurred the miracle of
the Holy Thorn, a fragment of the crown of Christ pre
served at Port Royal, which cured the little Marguerite
Perier of a fistula lacrymalis. The Jesuits were much
mortified by this Jansenist miracle, which, as it was offici
ally recognized, they could not openly deny. Pascal and
his friends rejoiced in proportion. But the details of his
later years after this incident are somewhat scanty, and
as recorded by his sister and niece they tell of increasing
ill health, and of ascetic practices and beliefs increasing
still more. One curious incident, contrasting equally with
this state of things and with Pascal's studious character
and renown, is what Madame Perier calls " 1'affaire des
carrosses," a scheme of the Due de Roannez and others
for running omnibuses in Paris, which was actually carried
out, of which Pascal was in some sort manager, and from
which he derived some profit. This, however, is an excep
tion. Otherwise, for years before his death, we hear only
of acts of charity and of, as it seems to modern ideas,
extravagant asceticism. Thus Madame Perier tells us that
he disliked to see her caress her children, and would not
allow the beauty of any woman to be talked of in his pre
sence. What may be called his last illness began as early
as 1658, after which year he never seems to have enjoyed
even tolerable health, and as the disease progressed it was
attended with more and more pain, chiefly in the head.
In June 1662, having given up his own house to a poor
family who were suffering from small-pox, and being
unwilling that his sister should expose herself to infection,
he went to her house to be nursed, and never afterwards
left it. His state was, it seems, mistaken by his physicians,
who to the last maintained that there was little danger —
so much so that the offices of the church were long put
off. He was able, however, to receive the eucharist, and
soon afterwards died in convulsions on August 19th. A
post mortem examination was held, which showed not only
grave derangement in the stomach and other organs, but a
serious lesion of the brain.
Eight years after Pascal's death appeared, in a small
volume, the book which has given most trouble to all
students of Pascal, and most pleasure to some of them.
It purported to be Pascal's Pensees, and a preface by his
nephew Perier gave the world to understand that these
were fragments of a great projected apology for Christianity
which the author had in conversation with his friends
planned out years before. The editing of the book was
peculiar. It was submitted to a committee of influential
Jansenists, with the Due de Roannez at their head, and, in
addition, it bore the imprimatur of numerous unofficial
approvers who testified to its orthodoxy. It does not
appear that there was much suspicion of the garbling which
had been practised, — garbling not unusual at the time, and
excused in this case by the fact of a lull in the troubles of
Port Royal and a great desire on the part of its friends to
do nothing to disturb that lull. But as a matter of fact
no more entirely fictitious book ever issued from the press.
The fragments which it professed to give were in them
selves confused and incoherent enough, nor is it easy to
believe that they all formed part of any such single and
coherent design as that referred to above. But the
editors omitted, altered, added, separated, combined, and
so forth entirely at their pleasure, actually making some
changes which seem to have been thought improvements
of style. As an instance of their anxiety to avoid offence,
it may be noticed that they rejected, apparently as too
outspoken, Madame Perier's invaluable life of her brother,
which was written to accompany the second edition of the
Pensees, but did not actually appear with them till 1684.
336
PASCAL
This rifacimento remained the standard text with a few
unimportant additions for nearly two centuries, except
that by a truly comic revolution of public taste Condorcet
in 1776 published, after study of the original, which
remained accessible in manuscript, another garbling, con
ducted this time in the interests of unorthodoxy. It was
not till 1842 that Victor Cousin drew attention to the
absolutely untrustworthy condition of the text, nor till
1844 that M. Faugere edited that text from the MS. in
something like a condition of purity, though, as subse
quent editions have shown, not with absolute fidelity.
But even in its spurious condition the book had been
recognized as remarkable and almost unique. Its contents,
as was to be expected, are of a very chaotic character — of
a character so chaotic indeed that the reader is almost
at the mercy of the arrangement, perforce an arbitrary
arrangement, of the editors. But the subjects dealt with
concern more or less all the great problems of thought on
what may be called the theological side of metaphysics : —
the sufficiency of reason, the trustworthiness of experience,
the admissibility of revelation, free will, foreknowledge,
and the rest. The peculiarly disjointed and fragmentary
condition of the sentiments expressed by Pascal aggravates
the appearance of universal doubt which is present in
the Pensees, just as the completely unfinished condition,
from the literary point of view, of the work constantly
causes slighter or graver doubts as to the actual meaning
which the author wished to express. Accordingly the
Pensees have always been a favourite exploring ground,
not to say a favourite field of battle, to persons who take
an interest in the problems. Speaking generally, their
tendency is towards the combating of scepticism by a
deeper scepticism, or, as Pascal himself calls it, Pyrrhonism,
which occasionally goes the length of denying the possi
bility of any natural theology. Pascal explains all the
contradictions and difficulties of human life and thought
by the doctrine of the fall, and relies on faith and reve
lation alone to justify each other. Comparison of the
Pensees with the Provinciates is, considering the radical
differences of state (the one being a finished work deliber
ately issued from the master's hands, the other not even a
rough draught, scarcely even "heads" or "outlines," but
a collection of loose and uncorrected notes settled neither
as to the exact form of each nor as to the relation of each
to any whole), impossible. But it may be said that no
one can properly perceive how great a man of letters
Pascal was from the Pensees alone, and that no one can
perceive how deep if not wide a thinker he was from
the Provinciates alone. An absolute preference of either
argues a certain onesidedness in the relative estimate of
matter and form. The wiser mind distinctly prefers both,
and recognizes that if either were lacking the greatness of
Pascal would fail to be perceived, or at least to be per
ceived fully.
Excluding his scientific attainments, which, as has been
noted above, will be the subject of separate notice, Pascal
presents himself for comment in two different lights, the
second of which is, if the expression be permitted, a com
posite one. The first exhibits him as a man of letters, the
second as a philosopher, a theologian, and a man. If
this last combination seems to be audacious or clumsy, it
can only be said that in hardly any thinker are theological
thoughts, and thoughts more strictly to be called philo
sophical or metaphysical, so intimately, so inextricably
blended as in Pascal, and that in none is the colour of the
theology and the philosophy more distinctly personal.
This latter fact adds to the difficulty of the problem ; for,
though Pascal has written not a little, and though a vast
amount has been written about him, it cannot be said
that his character as a man, not a writer, is very distinct.
The accounts of his sister and niece have the defect of all
hagiology (to use the term with no disrespectful inten
tion) ; they are obviously written rather with a view to
the ideas and the wishes of the writers than with a view
to the actual and absolute personality of the subject.
Except from these interesting but somewhat tainted sources,
we know little or nothing about him. Hence conjecture,
or at least inference, must always enter largely into any
estimate of Pascal, except a purely literary one.
On that side, fortunately, there is no possibility of doubt
or difficulty to any competent inquirer. The Provincial
Letters are the first example of French prose which is at
once considerable in bulk, varied and important in matter,
perfectly finished in form. They owe not a little to
Descartes, for Pascal's indebtedness to his predecessor is
unquestionable from the literary side, whatever may be
the case with the scientific. But Descartes had had
neither the opportunity, nor the desire, nor probably the
power, to write anything of the literary importance of the
Provinciates. The unanimity of eulogy as to the style of
this wonderful book has sometimes tempted foreigners,
who feel or affect to feel an inability to judge for them
selves, into a kind of scepticism for which there is abso
lutely no ground. The first example of polite contro
versial irony since Lucian, the Provinciates have continued
to be the best example of it during more than two
centuries in which the style has been sedulously practised,
and in which they have furnished a model to generation
after generation without being surpassed by any of the
works to which they have shown the way. The unfailing
freshness and charm of the contrast between the import
ance, the gravity, in some cases the dry and abstruse
nature, of their subjects and the lightness sometimes
almost approaching levity in its special sense of the
manner in which these subjects are attacked is a triumph
of literary art of which no familiarity dims the splendour,
and which no lapse of time, affecting as that lapse has
already done to a great extent the attraction of the sub
jects themselves, can ever impair. The tools of phrase
and diction by which this triumph is achieved were not in
all cases of Pascal's invention — Descartes and Corneille
had been beforehand with him to some extent — but many
of them were actually new, and all were newly and more
skilfully applied. Nor perhaps is this literary art really
less evident in the Pensees, though it is less clearly dis
played, owing to the fragmentary or rather chaotic condi
tion of the work, and partly also to the fact that the
subject here for many readers and in many places claims
attention almost to the disregard of the form. The vivid
ness and distinction of Pascal's phrase, his singular faculty
of inserting in the gravest and most impassioned medita
tion what may be almost called quips of thought and
diction without any loss of dignity, the intense earnestness
of meaning weighting but not confusing the style, all appear
here, and some of them appear as they have no chance of
appearing in at least the earlier Provinciates.
No such positive statements as these are, however,
possible as to the substance of the Pensees and the attitude
of their author towards "les grands sujets." In the
space and circumstances of the present notice nothing
more can be attempted than a summary of the opinions
hitherto advanced on the subject, and an indication of the
results which may seem most probable to unprejudiced
inquirers who possess a fair knowledge of and interest in
the problems concerned. Hitherto the widest differences
have been manifested in the estimate of Pascal's opinions
on the main questions of philosophy, theology, and human
conduct. He has been represented as a determined apolo
gist of intellectual orthodoxy animated by an almost
fanatical " hatred of reason," and possessed with a purpose
PASCAL
337
to overthrow the appeal to reason ; as a sceptic and
pessimist of a far deeper dye than Montaigne, anxious
chiefly to show how any positive decision on matters
beyond the range of experience is impossible ; as a nervous
believer clinging to conclusions which his clearer and
better sense showed to be indefensible ; as an almost
ferocious ascetic and paradoxer affecting the credo quia
impossibile in intellectual matters and the odi quia
amabile in matters moral and sensuous ; as a wanderer in
the regions of doubt and belief, alternately bringing a vast
though vague power of thought and an unequalled power
of expression to the expression of ideas incompatible and
irreconcilable. In these as in all other matters the first
requisite seems to be to clear the mind of prepossession
and commonplace. It has already been hinted that far
too much stress may be laid on the description of Pascal
by his family as a converted sinner, and it may be added
that at least as much stress has been laid on the other side
of the notion of him as of a clear-headed materialist and
expert in positive science, who by ill-health, overwork, and
family influence was persuaded to adopt, half against his
will, supernaturalist opinions. An unbiassed study of the
scanty facts of his history, and of the tolerably abundant
but scattered and chaotic facts of his literary production,
ought to enable any one to steer clear of these exaggera
tions, while admitting at the same time that it is impossible
to give a complete and final account of his attitude towards
the riddles of this world and others. He certainly was no
mere advocate of orthodoxy ; he as certainly was no mere
victim of terror at scepticism ; least of all was he a free
thinker in disguise. He appears, as far as can be judged
from the fragments of his Pensees, to have seized much
more firmly and fully than has been usual for two cen
turies at least the central idea of the difference between
reason and religion. Where the difficulty rises respecting
him is that most thinkers since his day who have seen
this difference with equal clearness have advanced from
it to the negative side, while he advanced to the positive.
In other words, most men since his day who have not been
contented with a mere concordat, have let religion go and
contented themselves with reason. Pascal, equally dis
contented with the concordat, held fast to religion and
continued to fight out the questions of difference with
reason. The emotion, amounting to passion, which he
displays in conducting this campaign, and the superfluous
energy of his debate on numerous points which, for
instance, such a man as Berkeley was content to leave in
the vague must be traced to temperament, aggravated no
doubt by his extreme intellectual activity, by ill health,
and by his identification comparatively late in life and
under peculiar circumstances with a militant and so to
speak sectarian form of religious or ecclesiastical belief.
Surveying these positions, we shall not be astonished to
find much that is surprising and some things that are con
tradictory in Pascal's utterances on " les grands sujets."
But the very worst method that can be taken for dealing
with these contradictions is to assume, as his critics on
one side too often do, that so clever a man as Pascal could
not possibly be a convinced acceptor of dogmatic Christi
anity, or to assume, as too many of his critics on the other
do, that so pious and orthodox a man as Pascal could not
entertain any doubts or see any difficulties in reference to
dogmatic Christianity. He had taken to the serious con
templation of theological problems comparatively late ;
for the Rouen escapade noted above is- merely a specimen
of the kind of youthful intolerance which counts for no
thing when justly viewed. The influence exercised on him
by Montaigne is the one fact regarding him which has not
been and can hardly be exaggerated, and his well-known
Entretien with Sacy on the subject (the restoration of
which to its proper form is one of the most valuable
results of recent criticism) leaves no doubt possible as
to the source of his " Pyrrhonian " method. The atmo
sphere of somewhat heated devotion in which he found
himself when he retired to Port Royal must naturally
count for something in the direction and expression of
his thoughts ; his broken health for something more. It
is unfortunately usual with societies like Port Royal to
generate a kind of mist and mirage which deceives and
distorts even the keenest sight that looks through their
eyes. But it is impossible for any one who takes Pascal's
Pensees simply as he finds them in connexion with the
facts of Pascal's history to question his theological ortho
doxy, understanding by theological orthodoxy the accept
ance of revelation and dogma ; it is equally impossible for
any one in the same condition to declare him absolutely
content with dogma and revelation. Excursions into the
field beyond formularies were necessary to him, and he
made them freely ; but there is no evidence that these
excursions tempted him to remain outside, and it appears
particularly erroneous to take his celebrated "wager"
thoughts (the argument that, as another world and its
liabilities, if accepted, imply no loss and much possible
gain, they should be accepted) as an evidence of weakened
belief or a descent from rational religion. It is of the
essence of an active mind like Pascal's to explore and state
all the arguments of whatever degree of goodness which
make for or make against the conclusion it is investigat
ing, and this certainly is neither the least obvious nor the
weakest of the arguments which must have presented
themselves to him.
In ecclesiastical questions as distinguished from thec-
logical Pascal appears to have been an ardent Jansenist,
adopting without very much discrimination the stand
point of his friends and religious directors Sacy, Arnauld,
j Singlin, and others. In one point he went beyond them,
boldly disputing the infallibility of the pope, and hinting
not obscurely at the propriety of agitation against errone
ous papal decisions. The Jansenists as a body could not
muster courage to adopt this attitude. But it is not easy
to discuss isolated points of this kind here ; indeed their
discussion belongs more properly to the general subject
of Jansenism, and the history of Port Royal.
To sum up, the interest and value of the Penaees
is positively diminished if they are taken as gropings
after self-satisfaction or feeble attempts at freethinking.
They are excursions into the great unknown made
with a full acknowledgment of the greatness of that
unknown, but with no kind of desire for something more
known than the writer's own standpoint. If to any one
else they communicate such a desire that is not Pascal's
fault ; and, if it seems to any one that without such a
desire they could not have been indulged in, that comes
mainly from an alteration of mental attitude, and from a
want of familiarity with the mental attitude of Pascal's
own time. From the point of view that belief and know
ledge, based on experience or reasoning, are separate
domains with an unexplored sea between and round them,
Pascal is perfectly comprehensible, and he need not be
taken as a deserter from one region to the other. To
those who hold that all intellectual exercise outside the
sphere of religion is impious, or that all intellectual
exercise inside that sphere is futile, he must remain an
enigma.
There are few writers who are more in need than Pascal of being
fully and competently edited. The chief nominally complete edition
at present in existence is that of Bossut (1779, 5 vols., and since
reprinted), which not only appeared before any attempt had been
made to restore the true text of the Peiisecs, but is in other respects
quite inadequate. The edition of Lahure, 1858, is not much
better, though the Pensees appear in their more genuine form. An
XVIII. - 43
P A S — P A S
edition has been long promised for the excellent collection of
Les Grands ticrimins de la France; it has been understood
to be under the charge of M. Faugere. Meanwhile., with the
exception of the Provinciales (of which there are numerous
editions, no one much to be preferred to any other, for the text is
undisputed and the book itself contains almost all the exegesis
of its own contents necessary), Pascal can be read only at a dis
advantage. There are four chief editions of the true Pcnslcs: that
of M. Faugere (1844 1, the cditio princeps ; that of M. Havet (1852,
1867, and 1881), on the whole the best; that of M. Victor Rochet
(1873), good, but arranged and edited with the deliberate intention
of making Pascal first of all an orthodox apologist; and that of
M. Molinier (1877-79), a carefully edited and interesting text, the
important corrections of which have been introduced into M.
Havet's last edition. Unfortunately, none of these can be said to
be exclusively satisfactory. The minor works must chiefly be
sought in Bossut or reprints of him. Works on Pascal nre
innumerable: Sainte-Beuve's Port Royal, Cousin's writings on
Pascal and his Jacqueliiie Pascal, and the essays of the editors of
the Pensees just mentioned are the most noteworthy. Principal
Tulloch has contributed a useful little monograph to the series of
Foreign Classics fur English Readers (Edinburgh and London,
1878;. (G. SA.)
Pascal as Natiiral Philosopher and Mathematician. —
Great as is Pascal's reputation as a philosopher and man
of letters, it may be fairly questioned whether his claim
to be remembered by posterity as a mathematician and
physicist is not even greater. In his two former capa
cities all will admire the forni of his work, while some
will question the value of his results ; but in his two
latter capacities no one will dispute either. He was
a great mathematician in an age which produced Des
cartes, Fermat, Huygens, Wallis, and Roberval. There
are wonderful stories on record of his precocity in mathe
matical learning, which is sufficiently established by the
well-attested fact that he had completed before he was
sixteen years of age a work on the conic sections, in which
he had laid down a series of propositions, discovered by
himself, of such importance that they may be said to
form the foundations of the modern treatment of that
subject. ' Owing partly to the youth of the author, partly
to the difficulty in publishing scientific works in those
days, and partly no doubt to the continual struggle on
his part to devote his mind to what appeared to his
conscience more important labour, this work (like many
others by the same master-hand) was never published.
We know something of what it contained from a report by
Leibnitz, who had seen it in Paris, and from a resume of
its results published in 1640 by Pascal himself, under the
title Essai pour les Coniques. The method which he fol
lowed was that introduced by his contemporary Desargues,
viz., the transformation of geometrical figures by conical
or optical projection. In this way he established the
famous theorem that the intersections of the three pairs
of opposite sides of a hexagon inscribed in a conic are
collinear. This proposition, which he called the mystic
hexagram, he made the keystone of his theory ; from it
alone he deduced more than four hundred corollaries,
embracing, according to his own account, the conies of
Apollonius, and other results innumerable.
Pascal also distinguished himself by his skill in the
infinitesimal calculus, then in the embryonic form of
Cavalieri's method of indivisibles. The cycloid was a
famous curve in those days ; it had been discussed by
Galileo, Descartes, Fermat, Roberval, and Torricelli, who
had in turn exhausted their skill upon it. Pascal solved
the hitherto refractory problem of the general quadrature
of the cycloid, and proposed and solved a variety of others
relating to the centre of gravity of the curve and its
segments, and to the volume and centre of gravity of
solids of revolution generated in various ways by means
of it. He published a number of these theorems without
demonstration as a challenge to contemporary mathema
ticians. Solutions were furnished by Wallis, Huygens,
Wren, and others ; and Pascal published his own in the
form of letters from Amos Dettonville (his assumed name
as challenger) to M. Cercavi. There has been some dis
cussion as to the fairness of the treatment accorded by
Pascal to his rivals, but no question of the fact that his
initiative led to a great extension of our knowledge of the
properties of the cycloid, and indirectly hastened the pro
gress of the differential calculus.
In yet another branch of pure mathematics Pascal
ranks as a founder. The mathematical theory of proba
bility and the allied theory of the combinatorial analysis
were in effect created by the correspondence between
Pascal and Fermat, concerning certain questions as to the
division of stakes in games of chance, which had been
propounded to the former by the gaming philosopher De
Mer6. A complete account of this interesting correspond
ence would surpass our present limits ; but the reader may
be referred to Todhunter's History of the Thtory of Proba
bility (Cambridge and London, 1865) pp. 7-21. It
appears that Pascal contemplated publishing a treatise De
Alex Geometria; but all that actually appeared was a
fragment on the arithmetical triangle ("Properties of the
Figurate Numbers") printed in 1654, but not published
till 1665, after his death.
Pascal's work as a natural philosopher was not less
remarkable than his discoveries in pure mathematics. His
experiments and his treatise (written 1653, published
1662) on the equilibrium of fluids entitle him to rank
with Galileo and Stevinus as one of the founders of the
science of hydrodynamics. The idea of the pressure of
the air and the invention of the instrument for measuring
it were both new when he made his famous experiment,
showing that the height of the mercury column in a
barometer decreases when it is carried upwards through
the atmosphere. This experiment was made in the first
place by himself in a tower at Paris, and was afterwards
carried out on a grand scale under his instructions by his
brother-in-law Perier on the Puy de Dome in Auvergne.
Its success greatly helped to break down the old prejudices,
and to bring home to the minds of ordinary men the truth
of the new ideas propounded by Galileo and Torricelli.
Whether we look at his pure mathematical or at his
physical researches we receive the same impression of
Pascal ; we see the strongest marks of a great original
genius creating new ideas, and seizing upon, mastering,
and pursuing farther everything that was fresh and un
familiar in his time. After the lapse of more than two
hundred years, we can stil point to much in exact science
that is absolutely his ; and we can indicate infinitely more
which is due to his inspiration. (u. CH.)
PASCHAL L, pope from 817 to 824, a native of Rome,
was raised to the pontificate by popular acclamation,
shortly after the death of Stephen IV., and before the
sanction of the emperor (Louis the Pious) had been
obtained — a circumstance for which it was one of his
first cares to apologize. His relations with the imperial
house, however, never became cordial ; and he was also
unsuccessful in retaining in Rome itself the popularity to
which he had owed his election. He died at Rome while
the imperial commissioners were investigating the circum
stances under which two important officers of Lothair, the
eldest son of Louis, had been seized at the Lateran,
blinded, and afterwards beheaded ; Paschal had shielded
the murderers but denied all personal complicity in their
crime. The Roman people refused him the honour of
burial within the church of St Peter, but he now holds a
place in the Roman calendar (May 16). Like one or two
of his more immediate predecessors he was liberal in his
donations to several churches of the city, St Cecilia in
Trastevere having been restored and St Maria in Domnica
P A S — P A S
339
rebuilt by him ; he also built the church of St Prassede.
The successor of Paschal I. was Eugenius II.
PASCHAL II., pope from 1099 to 1118, was the
successor of Urban II. Of his early history nothing is
known except that his proper name was Rainieri, that he
was of Tuscan origin, and that in early life he became a
monk, probably of Cluny. He was raised to the cardin-
alate by Gregory VII. about 1076, and was elected to the
papal chair on August 13, 1099. In the long struggle
with the imperial power about INVESTITURE (<?.?'.) he
zealously carried on the Hildebrandine policy, but hardly
with Hildebrandine success. One of his first acts was to
expel from Rome the antipope Clement III., otherwise
known as Guibert of Ravenna, and to renew his prede
cessor's sentence of excommunication against the emperor
Henry IV., by the help of whose rebellious son it seemed
at one time as if the claims of the church were to become
wholly triumphant. But Prince Henry, who succeeded to
the purple in 1106 (see HENRY V.), proved a still more
active and persistent opponent of papal pretensions than
ever his father had been. Paschal was courteously invited
to Germany to assist in arranging definitely the affairs of
the empire (1107), but, while the pope delayed his journey,
the emperor proceeded actually to exercise all the rights
of investiture to the fullest extent, and, having disposed of
various wars in Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, announced
in 1110 the intention of proceeding to Rome to be crowned
and to re-establish order in Italy. From Arezzo he sent
ambassadors to Rome, and the pope after negotiation
agreed to his coronation on the footing that the church
should surrender all the possessions and royalties it had
received of the empire and kingdom of Italy from the
days of Charlemagne, while Henry on his side gave up the
form of investiture. But on Henry's arrival in Rome
(Feb. 1111), where feeling was strong against this pact,
Paschal was slow to implement it, and the emperor ulti
mately found it necessary to withdraw from the city, — not,
however, until he had compelled the pope and many of the
cardinals to accompany him. After two months the pope
yielded ; the coronation took place in the church of St
Peter on April 13, and forthwith the emperor withdrew
beyond the Alps after exacting a promise that no revenge
should be taken for what had passed. The Lateran
council, however, held in March 1112, repudiated as void,
under penalty of excommunication, the concessions that
had been extorted by the violence of Henry ; and a
council held at Vienne some months afterwards actually
excommunicated him, the pope himself ratifying the
decree. On the death of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany,
who had bequeathed her whole possessions to the church
(1115), the emperor at once laid claim to them as imperial
fiefs, and, descending into Italy, drove the pope first to
Monte Casino and then to Benevento. Paschal returned
to Rome, after the emperor's withdrawal, in the beginning
of 1118, but died within a few days (January 21, 1118).
His successor was Gelasius II.
PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. See EASTER, vol. vii.
p. 614.
PASCO. See CERRO DE PASCO, vol. v. p. 347.
PAS DE CALAIS, a maritime department of northern
France, formed in 1790 of nearly the whole of Artois and
the northern maritime portion of Picardy, including the
Boulonnais, CalaisLs, Ardresis, and the districts of Langle
and Bredenarde, lies between 50° 2' and 51° N. lat. and
1° 35' and 3° 10' E. long., and is bounded N. by the
Straits of Dover (" Pas de Calais"), E. by the department
of Nord, S. by that of Somme, and W. by the English
Channel. The distance from England is only 21 miles.
Nord, which separates Pas de Calais from Belgium, is at
one place only 3 miles wide, and from Arras (the chief
town) to Paris in a direct line is about 100 miles. Except
in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, with its cotes de fer or
"iron coasts," the seaboard of the department, which
measures 65 miles, consists of dunes. From the mouth
of the Aa (the limit towards Nord) it trends west-south
west to Gris Nez, the point of France nearest to England ;
in this section lie the port of Calais, Cape Blanc Nez,
rising 440 feet above the sandy shores, and the port of
Wissant (Wishant). Beyond Gris Nez the direction is due
south ; in this section are the port of Ambleteuse, Boulogne
at the mouth of the Liane, and the two bays formed by
the estuaries of the Canche and the Authie (the limit
towards Somme). The highest point in the department
(700 feet) is in the west, between Boulogne and St Omer.
From the uplands in which it is situated the Lys and
Scarpe flow east to the Scheldt, the Aa north to the
German Ocean, and the Slack, Wimereux, and Liane to
the Channel. Farther south are the valleys of the Canche
and the Authie, running from east-south-east to west-north
west, and thus parallel with the Somme. Vast plains,
open and monotonous, but extremely fertile and well culti
vated, occupy most of the department. The greenest and
most picturescpue valleys are in the west. To the north
of the hills running between St Omer and Boulogne, to the
south of Gravelines and the south-east of Calais, lies the
district of the Wattergands, fens now drained by means of
canals and dykes, and turned into highly productive land.
The climate is free from extremes of heat and cold, but
damp and changeable. At Arras the mean annual tem
perature is 47° ; on the coast it is higher. The rainfall
in the one case is 22 inches, in the other 31.
With a total area of 2550 square miles, the department has 1899
square miles (more than two-thirds) of arable land, while woods and
pasture land each occupy only about a twentieth. The live stock in
1880 comprised 76,224 horses, 9642 asses or mules, 156,060 cows,
35,272 calves, 5080 bulls or oxen, 256,031 sheep, 131,722 pigs,
26,760 goats. The sheep in 1880 yielded 857 tons of wool, worth
£57,398. The national sheepfolds of Tingry are in Pas de Calais.
The 22,260 beehives of the department yielded in 1878 1753 tons
of honey and 39^ tons of wax. No department except Somme
breeds fowls so extensively. Wheat, beetroot, and oil seeds are
the principal crops. In 1882 wheat gave 9,855,483 bushels, meslin
920,023 bushels; in 1879, rye 781,150 bushels, barley 2,362,133
bushels, oats 9,421,818 bushels, beetroot 1,576,355 tons (almost
entirely consumed by the sugar works), potatoes 7,250,813 bushels,
vegetables 581,727, and colza seed 30,263. Besides there were
considerable quantities of poppy-seed, flax (of excellent quality),
hops, hemp, and tobacco (1275 tons). There are two great coal
fields, that of Pas de Calais proper, a continuation of the coal-field of
Valenciennes and Hainault, and that of Boulonnais. The former
contains a total area of 134,270 acres ; the latter is about a tenth of
that size. Taken together they number 72 pits, 57 of which are
active. In 1882 5,036,455 tons of coal were extracted and 1,378,818
consumed in the department ; the industry gives employment to
22,925 persons. Peat (to the amount of 375,034 tons in 1882) is
obtained in the valleys of the Searpe and the Aa. Iron-mines in
the arrondissement of Boulogne employ 162 workmen (26,674 tons) ;
the stone and marble quarries 2130 workmen ; and about 800 are
engaged in obtaining phosphates of lime (295,566 tons), which are
exported for manure. Blast furnaces, foundries, engineering works,
naileries, boiler -works, agricultural implement factories, and steel-
pen works are all carried on in the department. In 1883 305 tons
of iron, 16,355 tons of steel, 65,025 tons of cast iron were manu
factured ; and the average production of pens is 400,000,000 per
annum. The establishments at Biache St Vaast melt, refine, and roll
copper and zinc, and also work lead and auriferous silver. The ship
yards do not launch any large vessels, but in 1881 they built eighty
luggers or sloops, with an aggregate burden of 2456 tons. The
eighty-nine sugar- works in 1880 produced 42,121 tons of sugar and
29,730 of molasses ; the distilleries 4,658,984 gallons of spirits ; the
oil works 15 tons of hempseed oil, 389 tons of linseed oil, 3066 tons
of poppyseed, rapeseed, and cameline oil, &c., and 797 tons of coka
oil. There are 553 breweries in the department. Cotton-spinning
and weaving employ 116,364 spindles and 625 looms ; wool-
spinning 26,300 spindles ; and the flax, hemp, and jute manufacture
35,700 spindles and 497 looms. St Pierre-les-Calais carries on the
weaving of tulles in linen, cotton, and silk, employing 10,000 hands,
and producing with its 1506 looms goods to the value of £2,400,0 0
per annum. There are besides in the department establishments
340
P A S — P A S
for the manufacture of paper and cardboard, hosiery, embroidery,
boots and shoes (for exportation), flooring, pipes, glass wares,
chemical products, pottery, chicory, starch, biscuits (300 to 400
workmen), and gin. The national powder-mills of Esquerdes nre i
among the largest in France. The port towns fit out a considerable j
number of vessels for the mackerel, cod, and herring fishing — a
a large export of sugar, spirits, calves, sheep, and eggs to England.
In 1882 the port of Boulogne had a movement of 3614 vessels and
that of Calais 4436, with a total burden for the two ports of
2,212,920 tons. In 1878 404,769 travellers passed by this way
between France and England. Calais is emphatically a transit port ;
Boulogne has besides an export trade in local products such as
marble, freestone, minerals, and Boulogne horses, remarkable for
size and strength. The roads of the department (national, depart
mental, &c. ) make a length of 9393 miles, the waterways 105^ miles,
the railways 546 miles, and the industrial railways 60 miles. The
canal system comprises part of the Aa, the Lys, the Scarpe, the
Deule (a tiibutary of the Lys passing by Lille), the La we (a tribu
tary of the Lys passing by Bethune), and the Sensee (an affluent of
the Scheldt), as well as the various canals proper from Aire to La
Bassi'e, Neutfosse, Calais, &c., and in this way a line of communi
cation is formed from the Scheldt to the sea by Bethune, St Onier,
and Calais, with branches to Gravelines and Dunkirk in Nord.
The total tonnage of the whole inland navigation was 2,124,442
tons in 1878.
In 1S81 Pas de Calais had 819,022 inhabitants (311 per square
mile), ranking sixth among the departments in density of popu
lation. It forms the diocese of Arras in the archbishopric of
Cambrai, belongs to the district of the first (or Lille) corps d'armee,
and is within the jurisdiction of the Donai court of appeal. There
are six arrondissements bearing the names of their chief towns —
Arras (27,041 inhabitants), Bethune (10,374), Boulogne (44,842),
Montreuil (3352), St Omer (20,479), and St Pol (3694). Other
places of importance are St Pierre- les- Calais (30,786 inhabitants),
the industrial town of Calais (13,529), Lens (10,515), Lievin (8281),
Carvin (6430) — the last three with important coal-mines, and Aire
(5000), formerly a fortified place.
PASIPHAE. See MINOS.
PASKEWITCH, IVAX FEDOROWITCH (1782-1856),
prince of Warsaw, and general-in-chief of the Russian
army, was descended from an old and wealthy family, and
was born at Poltava 8th May 1782. He was educated
at the imperial institution for pages, where his progress
was so rapid that after his first examination he received the
promise of a lieutenant's commission in the guards, and
was named aide-de-camp to the emperor. His first active
service was in 1805, in the auxiliary army sent to the
assistance of Austria against France, when he took part
in the battle of Austerlitz. From 1807 to 1812 he was
engaged in the campaigns against Turkey, and distinguished
himself by many brilliant and daring exploits. During
the French war of 1812-14 he was present, in command
of the 26th division of infantry, at all the most important
engagements ; at the battle of Leipsic he took 4000
prisoners. On the outbreak of war with Persia in 1826 he
was appointed second in command, and, succeeding in the
following year to the chief command, gained rapid and
brilliant successes which compelled the shah to sue for peace
19th February 1828. In reward of his services he was
raised by the emperor to the rank of count of the empire,
witli the surname of Erivan, and received a million of roubles
and a diamond-mounted sword. From Persia he was sent
to Turkey in Asia, and, having captured in rapid succession
the fortresses of Kars, Erzeroum, and Akalkalaki, he was
at the end of the campaign made a field marshal. In
1831 he was entrusted with the command of the army
sent to suppress the revolt of Poland, and after the fall of
Warsaw, which gave the death-blow to Polish independ
ence, he was raised to the dignity of prince of Warsaw,
and created viceroy of the kingdom of Poland. In this
position he is said to have manifested the highest qualities
as an administrator, and in his relations with the kings of
Prussia and Austria he secured their confidence and esteem.
On the outbreak of the insurrection of Hungary in 1848
he was appointed to the command of the Russian troops
sent to the aid of Austria, and finally compelled the
insurgents to lay down their arms at Vilagos. In April
1854 he again took the field in command of the army of
the Danube, but on the 9th June, at Silistria, where he
suffered defeat, he received a contusion which compelled
him to retire from active service. He died 29th January
1856
Tolstoy, Essai Biographique ct Historiqi/c sur le Fcld-Marechal
Prince de Varsovie, Paris, 1835; Notice J3iogra2)Jnquesur le Mareclial
Paskecitch, Leipsic, 1856.
PASQUIER, ETIENNE (1529-1615), one of the glories
of the French bar, and one of not the least remarkable
men of letters of the 16th century, was born at Paris on
the 7th June 1529 by his own account, according to others
a year earlier. Nothing is known of his family, and hardly
anything of his youth, but he seems to have inherited a
small property at Chatelet in the district of Brie. He
certainly studied law early, and in 1547 was a pupil of
the famous Cujas at Toulouse. Thence, like many of his
contemporaries, he went to finish his studies in Italy. He
was called to the Paris bar in November 1549, having not
yet (or at most barely) reached his majority. He practised
diligently and with success, but by no means neglected
literature. Some of his work both at this time and later is
light and almost frivolous. A treatise on love, the Mono-
phile, appeared in 1554, and not a few similar publica
tions followed it, one of them, the Ordonnances d' Amour,
being somewhat Rabelaisian in character. Pasquier, how
ever, though not a stoic, was a man of perfectly regular
life, and he married early ; his wife, who was of his own
age, affluent, and, it is said, handsome, being a widow for
whom he had gained a lawsuit. The next year he had
the misfortune to eat some poisonous mushrooms and very
nearly died of them ; indeed he did not recover fully for
two years. This lost him his practice for the time, and
he again betook himself to general literature, publishing
in 1560 the first book of his great work the Recherches de
la France. Before very long, however, clients once more
came to him, and in 1565, when he was thirty -seven, his
fame was established by a great speech still extant, in
which he pleaded the cause of the university of Paris
against the Jesuits, and won it. He was thenceforward
constantly employed in the most important cases of the
day, and his speeches, many of which we possess, displayed
a polished eloquence which was new in his time. But he
did not neglect general literature, pursuing the Recherchtx
steadily, and publishing from time to time much miscellan
eous work. His literary and his legal occupations coin
cided in a curious fashion at the Grands Jours of Poitiers
in 1579. These Grand Jours (an institution which fell
into desuetude at the end of the 17th century, with bad
effects on the social and political welfare of the French
provinces) were a kind of irregular assize in which a com
mission of the parlement of Paris, selected and despatched
at short notice by the king, had full power to hear and
determine all causes, especially those in which seignorial
rights had been abused. At the Grands Jours of Poitiers
of the date mentioned, and at those of Troyes in 1583,
Pasquier officiated; and each occasion has left a curious
literary memorial of the kind of high jinks with which he
and his colleagues relieved their graver duties. The Poitiers
work was the celebrated collection of poems on a flea, of
which English readers may find a full account in Southey's
Doctor. Up to this time Pasquier had held no regular
office except the lieutenant-generalship of Cognac, where
his wife had property; but in 1535 Henry III. made him
advocate-general at the Paris Cours des Comptes, an
important body having political as well as financial and
legal functions. Pasquier distinguished himself here
P A S — P A S
341
particularly by opposing, sometimes successfully, the mis
chievous system of selling hereditary places and offices,
which more perhaps than any single thing was the curse of
the older French monarchy. He was present at the famous
States of Blois, where Guise was assassinated, and he met
Montaigne there. The civil wars brought him much
personal sorrow. His wife and children had remained in
Paris much harassed by the Leaguers ; Madame Pasquier
was even imprisoned, and, though she regained her liberty,
she died shortly afterwards, in 1590. Her youngest son
was killed fighting on the royalist side the year before.
For some years Pasquier lived at Tours, working steadily at
his great book, but he returned to Paris in Henry IV.'s
train on the 22d March 1594. He continued until 1604
at his work in the Chambre des Comptes ; then he retired.
He survived this retirement more than ten years, produc
ing much literary work, and died after a few hours' illness
on September 1, 1615, at the age of at least eighty-six.
In so long and so laborious a life Pasquier'a work was naturally
considerable, and it has never been fully collected or indeed printed.
The standard edition is that of Amsterdam, 1723, 2 vols. folio.
But for ordinary readers the selections of M. Leon Feugere, pub
lished at Paris in 2 vols. 8vo, 1849, with an elaborate introduction,
are most accessible. As a poet, though very far from contemptible,
Pasquier is chiefly interesting as a minor member of the Pleiade
movement. As a prose writer he is of much more account. The
three chief divisions of his prose work are his Rcclierchcs, his letters,
and his professional speeches. All are of much value us important
documents in the history of the progress of French style. The
Jlcchcrches and the letters have a value independent of this. The
letters are of much biographical interest and historical importance,
and the Retficrchcs contain in a somewhat miscellaneous fashion
invaluable information on a Vast variety of subjects, literary,
political, antiquarian, and other.
PASQUINADE is a variety of libel or lampoon, of
which it is not easy to give an exact definition, separating
it from other kinds. It should, perhaps, more especially
deal with public men and public things. The distinction,
however, has been rarely observed in practice, and the chief
interest in the word is in its curious and rather legendary
origin. According to the received tradition, Pasquino was
a tailor (others say a cobbler) who had a biting tongue,
and lived in the 1 5th century at Rome. His name, at the
end of that century or the beginning of the next, was
transferred to a statue which had been dug up in a
mutilated condition (some say near his shop) and was set
xip at the corner of the Palazzo Orsini (al. Palazzo Braschi).
To this statue it became the custom to affix squibs on
the papal Government and on prominent persons. At the
beginning of the 1 6th century Pasquin had a partner pro
vided for him in the shape of another statue found in the
Campus Martins, said to represent a river god, and dubbed
Marforio, a faro Mctrtis. The regulation form of the
pasquinade then became one of dialogue or rather question
and answer, in which Marforio usually addressed leading
inquiries to his friend. The proceeding soon attained a
certain European notoriety, and a printed collection of the
squibs due to it (they were long written in Latin verse,
with an occasional excursion into Greek) appeared in
1510. In the first book of Pantac/ruel (1532 or there
abouts) Rabelais introduces books by Pasquillus and
Marphurius in the catalogue of the library of St Victor,
and later he quotes some utterances of Pasquin's in his
letters to the bishop of Maillezais. These, by the way,
show that Pasquin was by no means always satirical, but
dealt in grave advice and comment. The 1 Gth century
was indeed Pasquin's palmy time, and in not a few of
the rare printed collections of his utterances Protestant
polemic (which was pretty certainly not attempted on the
actual statue) is mingled. These utterances were not only
called pasquinades but simply pasquils (Pasquilhis, Pas-
quillo, Pasquille), and this form was sometimes used for
the mythical personage himself. Under this title a con
siderable satirical literature of quite a different kind from
the original personal squibs and political comments grew
up in England at the end of the 16th and the beginning
of the 17th century under the titles of Pasquil's Ajwloyy,
Pasquil's Nis/htcap, <tc. The chief writers were Thomas
Nash and, after his death, Nicholas Breton. These pieces
(of extreme rarity, but lately reissued by the Rev. A. B.
Grosart, in private reprints of the works of their authors)
were in prose. The French pasquils (examples of which
may be found in Fournier's Varietes Historiques ei
Littcraires) were more usually in verse. In Italy itself
Pasquin is said not to have condescended to the vernacular
till the 1 8th century. During the first two hundred years
of his career few mornings, if any, found him unplacarded,
and the institution supplied a kind of rough and scurrilous
gazette of public opinion. But the proceeding gradually
lost its actuality, and was, moreover, looked on with less
and less favour by the authorities. Indeed a sentinel was
latterly posted to prevent the placarding. It is said, how
ever, that isolated pasquinades, having at least local ap
propriateness, occurred not many years ago. Marforio, it
should be added, was soon removed from his companion's
neighbourhood to the Capitol. Contemporary comic peri
odicals, especially in Italy, still occasionally use the
Marforio-Pasquin dialogue form. But this survival is
purely artificial and literary, and pasquinade has, as noted
above, ceased to have any precise meaning.
PASSAU, an ancient town and episcopal see of Bavaria,
lies in the district of Lower Bavaria, and occupies a highly
picturesque situation at the confluence of the Danube, the
Inn, and the Ilz, 90 miles to the north-east of Munich, and
close to the Axistrian frontier. It consists of the town
proper, on the rocky tongue of land between the Danube
and the Inn, and of the three suburbs of Innstadt, on the
right bank of the Inn, Ilzstadt, on the left bank of the
Ilz, and Anger, in the angle between the Ilz and the
Danube. Passau is one of the most beautiful places on
the Danube, a fine effect being produced by the way
in which the houses are piled one above another on the
heights rising from the river. The best general view
is obtained from the Oberhaus, an old fortress now used
as a prison, which crowns a hill 300 feet high on the left
bank of the Danube. A detailed inspection of the
buildings of the town, most of which date from the 17th
and 18th centuries, scarcely fulfils the expectation aroused
by their imposing appearance as a whole. The most
noteworthy are the cathedral, a florid rococo structure on
the site of an earlier church, which claims to have been
founded in the 5th century ; the post-office, in which the
treaty of Passau was signed ; the episcopal palace ; the old
Jesuit college^ with a library of 30,000 volumes ; the
arsenal ; the Romanesque church of the Holy Cross ; and
the double church of St Salvator. The old forts and
bastions have been demolished, but the Niederhaus, at
the base of the Oberhaus, is still extant, though no longer
maintained as a fortress. The chief products of the
insignificant industry of the town are tobacco, leather, and
paper. It also possesses iron and copper foundries and a
few barge-building yards. The well-known Passau cru
cibles are made at the neighbouring village of Obernzell.
Trade is carried on in iron and timber, large quantities
of the latter being floated down the Hz. The inhabitants
(15,365 in 1880) are nearly all Roman Catholics.
Passau is a town of very ancient origin. The first settlement here
is believed to have been the Celtic Boiudurum, on the site of the
present Innstadt ; and the Romans afterwards established a colony
of Batavian veterans (Castra Batava) on the site of the town proper.
The bishopric was founded in the 8th century, and most of the sub
sequent history of Passau is made up of broils between the bishops
and the townsmen. The fortress of Oberhaus was erected by the
former in consequence of a revolt in the 13th century, andat a later
342
P A S— P A S
period its guns WITC often turned on the town. In 1552 Charles
V. and Elector Maurice of Saxony here signed the treaty of Passan,
by which the former was constrained to acknowledge the principle
of religions toleration. The town was a frequent object of dispute
in the war of the Spanish succession, and it was taken by the
Austrians in 1806. The bishopric was secularized in 1803, and its
territory annexed to Bavaria two years later. The present bishopric
was established in 1817.
PASSERAT, JEAN- (1534-1602), a poet of merit and a
contributor to the Satire Menippec, was born at Paris in
1534. He was well educated, but is said to have played
truant from school and to have had some curious adven
tures — at one time working in a mine. He was, however,
a scholar by natural taste, and after a time he returned to
his studies. Having finished them he became in his turn
a teacher at the College de Plessis, and at the death of
Ramus was made professor of Latin in the College de
France. This, however, was not till 1572. In the mean
while Passerat had studied law, and had composed much
agreeable poetry in the Pldiade style, the best pieces being
his short ode " On the First of May," and the charming
villanelle " J'ai perdu ma tourterelle." Like most of the
men of letters and learning at the time, Passerat belonged
to the politiques or moderate royalist party, and was
strongly opposed to the League. His exact share in the
Jfenippf'e, the great manifesto of the politique party when
it had declared itself for Henry of Navarre, is differently
stated ; but it is agreed that he wrote most of the verse,
and the charming harangue of the guerilla chief Rieux is
sometimes attributed to him. Towards the end of his life,
after he had re-entered on the duties of his professorship, he
became blind. He died at Paris in 1602, and his poems
were not published completely till four years later.
Passerat united with his learning abundant wit and a
faculty of elegant and tender verse, and was altogether a
good specimen of the man of letters of the time, free from
pedantry while full of scholarship, and combining a healthy
interest, in politics and a taste for light literature with
serious accomplishments. He had also a considerable
reputation as an orator.
PASSIONFLOWER (Passiflora) is the typical genus
of the order to which it gives its name. The species are
mostly natives of western tropical South America; others
are found in various tropical and subtropical districts of
both hemispheres. The tacsonias, by some considered to
form part of this genus, inhabit the Andes at considerable
elevations. They are mostly climbing plants (fig. 1) having
a woody stock and herbaceous or woody branches, from
the sides of which tendrils are produced which enable the
branches to support themselves at little expenditure of
tissue. Some few form trees of considerable stature desti
tute of tendrils, and with broad magnolia-like leaves in
place of the more or less palmately-lobed leaves which are
most generally met with in the order. Whatever be the
form of leaf, it is usually provided at the base of the leaf
stalk with stipules, which are inconspicuous, or large and
leafy; and the stalk is also furnished with one or more
glandular excrescences, as in some cases are the leaf itself
and the bracts. The inflorescence is of a cymose character,
the terminal branch being represented by the tendril, the
side-branches by flower-stalks, or the inflorescence may be
reduced to a single stalk. The bracts on the flower-stalk
are either small and scattered or large and leafy, and then
placed near the flower forming a sort of outer calyx or
epicalyx. The flower itself (seen in section in fig. 2)
consists of a calyx varying in form from that of a shallow
saucer to that of a long cylindrical or trumpet-shaped
tube, thin or fleshy in consistence, and giving off from
its upper border the five sepals, the five petals (rarely
these latter are absent), and the threads or membranous
processes constituting the "corona." This coronet forms
the most conspicuous and beautiful part of the flower of
many species, and consists of outgrowths from the tube
formed subsequently to the other parts, and having
little morphological significance, but being physiologically
useful in favouring the cross-fertilization of the flower by
means of insects. Other outgrowths of similar character,
but less conspicuous, occur lower down the tube, and
FIG. 1. — Passiflora carwfefl^var., showing leaf, stipule, tendril, and detached flower.
their variations afford useful means of discriminating
between the species. From the base of the inner part of
the tube of the flower, but quite free from it, uprises a
cylindrical stalk surrounded below by a small cup-like out-
FIG. 2.— Flower of Passionflow r cut through tlio centre to show the arrangement
of its constituent parts.
growth, and bearing above the middle a ring of five flat
filaments each attached by a thread-like point to an
anther. Above the ring of stamens is the ovary itself,
upraised on a prolongation of the same stalk which bears
the filaments, or sessile. The stalk supporting the stamens
and ovary is called the "gynophore" or the " gynandro-
phore," and is a special characteristic of the order, shared
P A S— P A S
343
in by the Capparids and no other order. The ovary of
passionflowers is one-celled with three parietal placentas,
and bears at the top three styles, each capped by a large
button-like stigma. The ovary ripens into a berry-like,
very rarely capsular, fruit with the three groups of seeds
arranged in lines along the walls, but embedded in a pulpy
arillus derived from the stalk of the seed. This succulent
berry is in some cases highly perfumed, and affords a
delicate fruit for the dessert-table as in the case of the
" granadilla," P. quadrangularis, P. edulis, P. macrocarpa,
and various species of Tacsonia known as " curubas " in
Spanish South America. The fruits in question do not
usually exceed in size the dimensions of a hen's or of a
swan's egg, but that of P. macrocarpa is a gourd-like
oblong fruit attaining a weight of 7 to 8 Ib. Many species
are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers, and one or
two species are nearly hardy in south and western Britain
and Ireland, the commonest, P. ccerulea, being, singular
to say, a native of southern Brazil. Many species of the
Tacsonia would probably prove equally hardy. The name
passionflower— -flos passionis — arose from the supposed
resemblance of the corona to the crown of thorns, and of
the other parts of the flower to the nails, or wounds, while
the five sepals and five petals were taken to symbolize the
ten apostles, — Peter, who denied, and Judas, who betrayed,
being left out of the reckoning. In some of the botanical
books of the 16th and 17th centuries curious illustrations
of these flowers are given, in which the artist's faith or
imagination has been exercised at the expense of actual
fact.
PASSION PLAYS. See DRAMA, vol. vii. p. 404. On
the Oberammergau Passion Play, see OBERAMMERGAU.
PASSION WEEK, the fifth week in Lent, begins with
Passion Sunday (Dominica Passionis or de Passione
Domini), so called from very early times because with it
begins the more special commemoration of Christ's passion.
In non-Catholic circles Passion Week is often identified
with HOLY WEEK (q.v.), but incorrectly.
PASSOVER AND FEAST OF UNLEAVENED
BREAD. It is explained in the article PENTATEUCH (p. 511)
that the ancient Israelites were accustomed to open the
harvest season by a religious feast. No one tasted the new
grain, not even parched or fresh ears of corn, till the first
sheaf had been presented to Jehovah, and then all hastened
to enjoy the new blessings of divine goodness by eating
unleavened cakes, without waiting for the tedious process
of fermenting the dough. This natural usage became
fixed in custom, and at a comparatively early date a new
significance was added to it by a reference to the exodus
from Egypt, when, as tradition ran, the people in their
hasty departure had no time to leaven the dough already
in their troughs. The two elements of a thankful recogni
tion of God's goodness in the harvest, which every one
was eager to taste the moment that Jehovah had received
His tribute at the sanctuary, and of grateful remembrance
of the first proof of His kingship over Israel, went very
fittingly together. A similar combination is found in the
thanksgiving of Deut xxvi. 5 sq , in the law, Deut.
xxiv. 19-22, and elsewhere; the yearly blessings of the
harvest were the proof of the continued goodness of Him
who brought Israel forth from Egypt to set him in a
fruitful and pleasant land
The feast of unleavened bread (Hebrew nfVO, maccoth},
with the presentation of the harvest sheaf, which is its
leading feature, presupposes agriculture and a fixed resi
dence in Canaan. In the pastoral life the same religious
feelings find their natural expression in thank-offerings for
the increase of the flocks and herds, consisting of sacrifices
"of the firstlings of the flock and the fatlings thereof,"
such as Gen. iv. 4 makes to date back from the very
beginnings of human history. The firstlings answer to
the first fruits ; the increase of cattle falls mainly in the
spring ; and spring is also the time of the best pasture in
a climate where the harvest-tide lies between Easter and
Whitsunday, the time therefore when a fat sacrifice can
be selected and when vows would generally be fulfilled ;
especially as the latter, among the pastoral Hebrews as
among the Arabs, would frequently have reference to the
multiplication of the flock. Abel's sacrifice of firstlings
and fatlings corresponds in fact exactly to the old Arabic
fara and \itira, the former of which was the firstborn of
the herd and the latter a sacrifice offered in the spring
month Rajab in fulfilment of a vow conditional on the
good increase of the herd.1 The accumulation of the
sacrifices of firstlings and fatlings at one season of the
year would readily give rise to a spring feast, and it appears
from the Jehovist that something of this kind existed
before the exodus (see PENTATEUCH), and gave occasion to
the request of Moses for leave to lead the people out into
the wilderness to sacrifice to Jehovah. Pharaoh's refusal
was appropriately punished by the destruction of the
firstborn of man and the firstlings of beasts in Egypt.
The recollection of this fact reacted on the old Hebrew
usage, and supplied a new reason for the sacrifice of all
male firstlings after the Israelites were settled in Canaan
(Exod. xiii. 11 sq.). Up to the time of Deuteronomy
this sacrifice was not tied to any set feast (contrast Exod.
xxii. 30 with Deut. xv. 20) ; the old sacrificial spring feast,
like the Arabic feast of Rajab, was not wholly dependent
on the firstlings, but might also be derived from vows.
But when Israel was thoroughly united under the kings
the tendency plainly lay towards a concentration of acts of
cultus in public feasts at the great sanctuaries; and the
final result of this tendency, which appears to some degree
in earlier laws, but reached its goal only through the
Deuteronomic centralization of all sacrifices at the one
sanctuary, was that the spring pastoral feast coalesced
with the agricultural Ma^coth, and that its sacrifices were
swollen by the prohibition of continued private sacrifices
of the male firstlings. This is the form of the Deutero
nomic passover (Deut. xvi. 1 sq. ). The passover is a
sacrifice drawn from the flock or the herd, presented at
the sanctuary and eaten with unleavened bread. It is
slain on the evening of the first day of the feast, so that
the sacrificial feast is nocturnal ; and the pilgrims may
return to their homes next morning, but the abstinence
from leaven lasts seven days, and the seventh day, observed
as a day of rest, is the 'asereth or closing day of the feast.
The passover is now viewed specially as a commemoration
of the Exodus; and by and by, in Exod. xii. 27, its name
(Heb. np.3f Gr. -n-do-xa-, Lat. pascha) is explained from
Jehovah " passing over " the Israelites when he smote
Egypt. That this was the original meaning is by no
means clear ; there is no certain occurrence of the name
before Deuteronomy (in Exod. xxxiv. 25 it looks like a
gloss), and the corresponding verb denotes some kind of
religious performance, apparently a dance, in 1 Kings
xviii. 26. A nocturnal ceremony at the consecration of a
feast is already alluded to in Isa. xxx. 29, who also perhaps
alludes to the received derivation of PIDS in ch. xxxi. 5.
But the Deuteronomic passover was a new thing in the
days of Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 21 sq.}. It underwent a
farther modification in the exile, when sacrifices in the
proper sense of the word were impossible, but the com
memorative side of the feast was perpetuated in the house
hold meal of the paschal lamb, eaten with unleavened
bread and bitter herbs (Exod. xii. — from the Priestly Code).
The paschal lamb is quite different from the paschal
1 Zuzeni on Harith's Mo all., 1. 69; Bokhari, vi. 207 (Bulak vocalized
edition).
P A S — P A S
sacrifices of Deuteronomy and from the ancient firstlings.
In Deuteronomy, for example, the sacrifices may be either
from the flock or from the herd, and are boiled, not roasted
(A.V. in Dent. xvi. 7 mistranslates) ; the paschal lamb is
necessarily roasted, and the only traces of sacrificial
character that remain to it are the sprinkling of the blood
on the lintel and door-posts,1 and the burning of what is not
eaten of it. After the restoration the passover seems to
have retained its domestic character, for, though the feast
at the sanctuary was renewed, its public features now con
sisted of a series of holocausts and sin-offerings continued
for seven days (Num. xxix. 16 sq.). The feast is now
exactly dated.2 The paschal lamb is chosen on the tenth day
of the first month (Abib or Nisan) and slain on the even
ing of the fourteenth. Next day — that is, the fifteenth —
is now the first day of the feast proper (a change from the
Deuteronomic ordinance naturally flowing from the fact
that the properly paschal ceremony is now not festal but
domestic), so that the seven days end with the twenty first
and close with a " holy assembly '' at Jerusalem The old
ceremony of presenting the first sheaf had been fixed, in
Lev. xxiii. 11, for the "morrow after the Sabbath." This
naturally means that the solemn opening of harvest was to
take place on a Sunday. But when the feast was fixed to
set days of the month the " Sabbath " was taken to mean
the first day of the feast or of unleavened bread (Nisan 15),
and the sheaf was presented on the sixteenth.3 As the
feast was now again a great pilgrimage occasion, there
was a natural tendency to restore to the paschal lamb a
more strictly sacrificial character. This tendency does not
appear as yet in the Pentateuch, where the latest provisions
are those put in historical form in Exod. xii. ; but in 2
Chron. xxxv., which must be taken as describing the practice
of the author's own time, the paschal lamb is slain
before the temple, the blood is sprinkled and the fat
burned (? verse 14) on the altar; and at the same time we
fiod the Deuteronomic paschal sacrifices existing side by
side with the paschal lamb of the later law as subsidiary
sacrifices. The later Jewish usage followed this practice ;
the Deuteronomic sacrifices in their new subsidiary form
constituted the so-called hayigtt. The pre-eminent import
ance which the passover (with the feast of unleavened
bread) acquired after the exile, from the fact that its rites,
like those of the Sabbath and of circumcision, could be in
great part adapted to the circumstances of the dispersion,
was still further increased by the fall of the second temple,
and the ritual of the Mishna (Pesahim) was supplemented
by the later paschal Haggada. The lamb, however, not
being slain at the temple, is not in later praxis regarded
as strictly the paschal lamb of the law. Some of the post-
P>iblical features are of interest in connexion with the
New Testament, and especially with the last supper. The
company for a single lamb varied from ten to twenty ; the
bitter herbs and unleavened cakes were dipped in a kind
of sweet sauce called har6seth ; and the meal was accom
panied by the circulation of four cups of wine and by songs
of praise, particularly the Hallel (Ps. cxiii.-cxviii.).
The history of the passover is one of the most complicated sub
jects in Hebrew- archreology, and has been a great battlefield of
Pentateuch criticism. The present article should therefore be read
with the article PENTATEUCH. The older books on Hebrew
archeology are of little use, except for the later Jewish practice ;
1 The sprinkling of blood on a tent in order to put it under divine
protection appears also among the Arabs; Wakidi, ed. Kremer, p. 28.
2 In everything that has to do with sacrifice a day means the day
time with the following night; in other words, the feast days do not
begin in the evening. Compare Reland, Ant. Heb., iv. § 15.
8 This exegesis and practice are as old as the LXX. version of
Leviticus. The passage of Leviticus has given rise to much contro
versy ; see the commentaries and Lightfoot's Horse on Luke vi. 1,
Acts ii. 1.
on this full details will be found iu Bartolocci's Bibliotlicca
Rabbinic.il, or in Bodenschatz's KirMichc Verfassung dcr Juden.
The liiblical data can only be understood in connexion with a criti
cal view of the Pentateuch, and liave been discussed in this con
nexion by Kuenen (Godsdicnst), "NVellhauscn (Prolegomena), and
Others. The present position of those who oppose the Grafiau
hypothesis may be gathered from Delitzsch's art. " Passali " in
Kichm's Hanaworterlucb, and from Dillmann's commentary on
Exodus and Leviticus. Hupfeld, De vera ct primitiva Festorum
. . . rationc, 1852-65, and EwahTs Antiquities, may also be con
sulted. (W. 11. S.)
PASSPORT. A passport or safe conduct in time of war
is a document granted by a belligerent power to protect
persons and property from the operation of hostilities. In
the case of the ship of a neutral power, the passport is a
requisition by the Government of the neutral state to suffer
the vessel to pass freely with her crew, cargo, passengers,
etc., without molestation by the belligerents. The requisi
tion, when issued by the civil authorities of the port from
which the vessel is fitted out, is called a sea-letter. But
the terms passport and sea-letter are often used indis
criminately. A form of sea-letter (liters salvi conduclus)
is appended to the treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659. The
passport is frequently mentioned in treaties, e.g., the treaty
of Copenhagen, 1670, between Great Britain and Denmark.
The violation of a passport, or safe conduct, is a grave
breach of international law. The offence in the United
States is punishable by fine and imprisonment where the
passport or safe conduct is granted under the authority
of the United States (Act of Congress, April 30, 1790).
In time of peace a passport is still necessary for foreigners
travelling in certain countries, and is always useful, even
Avhen not necessary, as a ready means of proving identity.
It is usually granted by the foreign office of a state, or
by its diplomatic agents abroad. Passports granted in
England are subject to a stamp duty of sixpence.
They may be granted to naturalized as well as natural-
born British subjects. Sweden was the first country to
abolish passports in time of peace, and Russia is one of the
last to retain them. They are demandable from foreigners
in England on their arrival from abroad by 6 ct 7 Will.
IV. c. 11, § 3; but this provision is not enforced in
practice.
PASTE, or STRASS. See GLASS, vol. x. p. 665.
PASTON LETTERS. This invaluable collection of
documents consists of the correspondence of the principal
members of the Paston family in Norfolk between the
years 1424 and 1506, including several state papers and
other documents accidentally in their possession. The
papers appear to have been sold by William Paston,
second earl of Yarmouth, the last representative of the
family, to the antiquary Le Neve early in the 18th
century. After Le Neve's death in 1729 they came
into the hands of Mr Thomas Martin of Palgrave, who
had married his widow, and upon Martin's death in or
about 1771 were purchased by Worth, a chemist at Diss,
from whose executors they were subsequently bought by
Mr (afterwards Sir) John Fenn. In 1787 Fenn published
two volumes of selections from the MSS., whose extreme
value was at once recognized by Horace Walpole and other
competent judges. In acknowledgment of his services
Fenn received the honour of knighthood, and on this
occasion, May 23, 1787, presented to the king three bound
volumes of MSS. containing the originals of the documents
printed by him. Most unfortunately these volumes have
disappeared, and the originals of two more subsequently
published by Sir John Fenn, and of a fifth edited after his
death by Mr Serjeant Frere, were also lost until very re
cently. Under these circumstances it is not surprising
i that doubts should have been raised as to the authenticity
of the papers. Their genuineness was impugned by Mr
Herman Merivale in No. 8 of the Fortnightly Ravieiv, but
P A S — P A S
345
satisfactorily vindicated on grounds of internal evidence
by Mr James Gairdner of the Record Office in No. 11 of
the same periodical. Within a year Mr Gairdner's position
was established by the discovery (1865) of the originals of
the fifth volume at Mr Serjeant Frere's house at Dungate,
Cambridgeshire. In 1875 the original MSS. of the third
and fourth, with many additional letters, were found at
the family mansion of the Freres at Roydon Hall, near Diss.
The MSS. presented to the king have not been found,
and were probably appropriated by some person about the
court. In 1872-75 Mr Gairdner published a most careful
and accurate edition in three volumes in Arber's English
reprints, accompanied with valuable introductions to each
volume, including an historical survey of the reign of
Henry VI., notes, and index, and incorporating more than
four hundred additional letters derived from Magdalen
College, Oxford, and other quarters. Abstracts of some of
the additional letters discovered at Roydon were added in
an appendix. . The total number of documents printed
wholly or in abstract is one thousand and six.
A thousand family letters of the 15th century must
in any case be full of interest; the Paston letters are
peculiarly interesting from the importance and in some
respects the representative character of the family. The
founder was Clement Paston, a humble peasant living at
the end of the 14th century, who throve in the world
and gave his son William the sound education which
enabled him to rise to the position of justice of the common
pleas. Judge Paston acquired much landed property in
Norfolk, and in the days of his son John, in 1459, the
family was greatly enriched by a bequest from the stout
old soldier but grasping usurer Sir John Fastolf, a kinsman
of Sir John Paston's wife. The Pastons, however, were
even at that time greatly harassed by rival claimants to
their estates ; and Sir John's legacy involved them in a
fresh set of troubles and contentions, which were not
allayed until the time of the third Sir John Paston, about
1480. This perturbed state of affairs imparts especial
interest to the correspondence, causing it to reflect the
general condition of England during the period. It was a
time of trouble, when the weakness of the Government had
disorganized the administration in every branch, when the
succession to the crown itself was contested, when great
nobles lived in a condition of civil war, when the prevalent
anarchy and discontent found expression in tumultuary
insurrections like Cade's, countenanced, as the Paston
letters show, by persons of condition, when any man's
property might be assailed with or without colour of law
by covetous rivals, and upstart families like the Pastons
were especially exposed to attack. The correspondence
therefore exhibits them in a great variety of relations to
their neighbours, friendly or hostile, and abounds with
illustrations of the course of public events, as well as of
the manners and morals of the time. Nothing is more
remarkable than the habitual acquaintance of educated
people with the law, which was evidently indispensable to
a person of substance. In its broader aspects the corre
spondence exhibits human nature much as it is now, except
for the notable deficiency in public spirit, and the absence
of large views or worthy interests in life. The contrast
with our own times is instructive, showing how largely
commerce and literature, art and travel, have contributed
to augment moral and intellectual as well as material
wealth. After the death of the second Sir John Paston,
grandson of the judge, in 1479, the letters become scanty
and of merely personal interest. The family continued to
flourish. In the next century it produced Clement Paston,
a distinguished naval commander under Henry VIII. ; and
in the days of Charles II. Sir Robert Paston was raised
to the peerage as earl of Yarmouth. His son dissipated
the hereditary property, and the title and the family
became extinct upon his death in 1732. (R. o.)
PASTORAL is the name given to a certain class of
modern literature in which the "idyl" of the Greeks and the
" eclogue" of the Latins are imitated. It was a growth of
humanism at the Renaissance, and its first home was
Italy. Virgil had been imitated, even in the Middle Ages,
but it was the example of THEOCRITUS (q.v.) that was
originally followed in pastoral. Pastoral, as it appeared
in Tuscany in the 16th century, was really a developed
eclogue, an idyl which had been expanded from a single
scene into a drama. The first dramatic pastoral which is
known to exist is the Favola di Orfeo of Politian, which
was represented at Mantua in 1472. This poem, which
has been elegantly translated by Mr J. A. Symonds, was a
tragedy, with choral passages, on an idyllic theme, and is
perhaps too grave in tone to be considered as a pure piece
of pastoral. It led the way more directly to tragedy than
to pastoral, and it is the II Sagrifizio of Agostino Beccari,
which was played at the court of Ferrara in 1554, that is
always quoted as the first complete and actual dramatic
pastoral in European literature.
In the west of Europe there were various efforts made
in the direction of non-dramatic pastoral, which it is hard
to classify. Early in the 16th century Alexander Barclay,
in England, translated the Latin eclogues of Mantuanus, a
scholastic writer of the preceding age. Barnabe Googe, a
generation later, in 1563, published his Eglogs, Epytaphes,
and Sonnettes, a deliberate but not very successful attempt
to introduce pastoral into English literature. In France
it is difficult to deny the title of pastoral to various pro
ductions of the poets of the Pleiade, but especially to
Remy Belleau's pretty miscellany of prose and verse in
praise of a country life, called La Bergerie (1565). But
the final impulse was given to non-dramatic pastoral by
the publication, in 1504, of the famous Arcadia of G.
Sannazaro, a work which passed through sixty editions
before the close of the 16th century, and which was
abundantly copied. Torquato Tasso followed Beccari
after an interval of twenty years, and by the success of
his Aminta, which was performed before the court of
Ferrara in 1573, secured the popularity of dramatic
pastoral. Most of the existing works in this class may be
traced back to the influence either of the Arcadia or of the
Aminta. Tasso was immediately succeeded by Al visit >
Pasqualigo, who gave a comic turn to pastoral drama, and
by Cristoforo Castelletti, in whose hands it grew heroic
and romantic, while, finally, Guarini produced in 1590 his
famous Pastor Fido, and Ongaro his fishermen's pastoral of
Alceo. During the last quarter of the 16th century pastoral
drama was really a power in Italy. Some of the best poetry
of the age was written in this form, to be acted privately
on the stages of the little court theatres that were every
where springing up. In a short time music was introduced,
and rapidly predominated, until the little forms of tragedy,
and pastoral altogether, were merged in opera.
With the reign of Elizabeth a certain tendency to
pastoral was introduced in England. In Gascoigne and
in Whetstone traces have been observed of a tendency
towards the form and spirit of eclogue. It has been con
jectured that this tendency, combined with the study of
the few extant eclogues of Clement Marot, led Spenser to
the composition of what is the finest example of pastoral
in the English language, the Shepherd's Calendar, printed
in 1579. This famous work is divided into twelve
eclogues, and is remarkable because of the constancy
with which Spenser turns in it from the artificial Latin
style of pastoral then popular in Italy, and takes his
inspiration direct from Theocritus. It is important to
note that this is the first effort made in European litera-
XVIIT. — 44
346
PASTORAL
ture to bring upon a pastoral stage the actual rustics of
a modern country, using their own peasant dialect. That
Spenser's attempt was very imperfectly carried out does
not militate against the genuineness of the effort, which
the very adoption of such names as Willie and Cuddie,
instead of the customary Damon and Daphnis, is enough
to prove. Having led up to this work, the influence of
which was to be confined to England, we return to
Sannazaro's Arcadia, which left its mark upon every
literature in Europe. This remarkable romance, which
was the type and the original of so many succeeding
pastorals, is written in rich but not laborious periods of
musical prose, into which are inserted at frequent intervals
passages of verse, contests between shepherds on the
" humile fistula di Coridone," or laments for the death of
some beautiful virgin. The characters move in a world of
supernatural and brilliant beings ; they commune without
surprise with " i gloriosi spirti degli boschi," and reflect
with singular completeness their author's longing for an
innocent voluptuous existence, with no hell or heaven in
the background.
It was in Spain that the influence of the Arcadia made
itself most rapidly felt outside Italy. Gil Vicente, who
was also a Portuguese writer, had written Spanish religious
pastorals early in the 16th century. But Garcilaso de la
Vega is the founder of Spanish pastoral. His first
eclogue, El dulee lamentar de los pastores, is considered one
of the finest poems of its kind in ancient or in modern
literature. He wrote little and died early, in 1536. Two
Portuguese poets followed him, and composed pastorals
in Spanish, Francisco de S& de Miranda, who imitated
Theocritus, and the famous Jorge de Montemayor, whose
Diana (1524) was founded on Sannazaro's Arcadia.
Gaspar Gil Polo, after the death of Montemayor in 1561,
completed his romance, and published in 1564 a Diana
enamorada. It will be recollected that both these works
are mentioned with respect, in their kind, by Cervantes.
The author of Don Quixote himself published an admirable
pastoral romance, Galatea, in 1584. The rise of the taste
for picaresque literature in Spain towards the close of
the 16th century was fatal to the writers of pastoral. In
Portugal it can hardly be said that this form of literature
has ever existed, although Camoens published idyls.
In France there has always been so strong a tendency
towards a graceful sort of bucolic literature that it is hard
to decide what should and what should not be mentioned
here. The charming pastourdles of the 1 3th century, with
their knight on horseback and shepherdess by the road
side, need not detain us further than to hint that when
the influence of Italian pastoral began to be felt in France
these earlier lyrics gave it a national inclination. We
have mentioned the Eergerie of Remy Belleau, in which
the art of Sannazaro seems to join hands with the simple
sweetness of the mediaeval pastourelle. But there was
nothing in France that could compare with the school of
Spanish pastoral writers which we have just noticed.
Even the typical French pastoral, the Astree of Honor£
d'Urfe (1610), has almost more connexion with the
knightly romances which Cervantes laughed at than with
the pastorals which he praised. D'Urf6 had been preceded
by Nicolas de Montreux, whose Bergeries de Juliette are
just worthy of mention. The famous Astree was the result
of the study of Tasso's Aminta on the one hand and
Montemayor's Diana on the other, with a strong flavouring
of the romantic spirit of the Amadis. To remedy the
pagan tendency of the Astree a priest, Camus de Pontcarre,
wrote a series of Christian pastorals. Of the romances
which followed in the wake of the Astree, and in which
the pastoral element was gradually reduced to a minimum, a
succinct but admirable account is given in Mr Saintsbury's
Short History of French Literature, The main authors in
this style were Mademoiselle de Scudery, La Calprenede,
and Gomberville. Racon produced in 1625 a pastoral
drama, Les Bergeries, founded on the Astree of D'Urfe".
In England the movement in favour of Theocritean
simplicity which had been introduced by Spenser in
the Shepherds Calendar was immediately defeated by the
success of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, a romance closely
modelled on the masterpiece of Sannazaro. So far from
attempting to sink to colloquial idiom, and adopt a realism
in rustic dialect, the tenor of Sidney's narrative is even
more grave and stately than it is conceivable that the con
versation of the most serious nobles can have ever been.
In these two remarkable books, then, we have two great
contemporaries and friends, the leading men of letters of
their generation, trying their earliest flights in the region
of pastoral, and producing typical masterpieces in each of
the two great branches of that species of poetry. Hence
forward, in England, pastoral took one or other of these
forms. It very shortly appeared, however, that the San-
nazarean form was more suited to the temper of the age,
even in England, than the Theocritean. In 1583 a great
impetus was given to the former by Robert Greene, who
was composing his Morando, and still more in 1584 by
the publication of two pastoral dramas, the Gallathea of
Lyly and the Arraignment of Paris of Peele. It is
doubtful whether either of these writers knew anything
about the Arcadia of Sidney, which was posthumously
published, but Greene, at all events, became more and
more imbued with the Italian spirit of pastoral. His
Menaplion and his Never too Late are pure bucolic
romances. While in the general form of his stories, how
ever, he follows Sidney, the verse which he introduces is
often, especially in the Menaplion, extremely rustic and
colloquial. In 1589 Lodge appended some eclogues to his
Scilla's Metamorphosis, but in his Rosalynde (1590) he
made a much more important contribution to English
literature in general, and to Arcadian poetry in particular.
This beautiful and fantastic book is modelled more exactly
upon the masterpiece of Sannazaro than any other in our
language. The other works of Lodge scarcely come under
the head of pastoral, although his Phillis in 1593 included
some pastoral sonnets, and his Margarite of America
(1596) is modelled in form upon the Arcadia. The Siooe
Idillia of 1588, paraphrases of Theocritus, are anonymous,
but conjecture has attributed them to Sir Edward Dyer.
In 1598 Bartholomew Young published an English version
of the Diana of Montemayor.
In 1585 Watson published his collection of Latin
elegiacal eclogues, entitled Amyntas, which was translated
into English by Abraham Fraunce in 1587. Watson is
also the author of two frigid pastorals, Meliboeus (1590)
and Amyntse Gaudia (1592). John Dickenson printed at
a date unstated, but probably not later than 1592, a " pas
sionate eclogue " called The Shepherd's Complaint, which
begins with a harsh burst of hexameters, but which soon
settles down into a harmonious prose story, with lyrical
interludes. In 1594 the same writer published the
romance of Arisbas. Drayton is the next pastoral poet in
date of publication. His Idea : Shepherd's Garland bears
the date 1593, but was probably written much earlier.
In 1595 the same poet produced an Endimion and I'hwbe,
which was the least happy of his works. He then turned
his fluent pen to the other branches of poetic literature;
but after more than thirty years, at the very close of
his life, he returned to this early love, and published in
1627 two pastorals, The Quest of Cynthia and The
Shepherd's Sirena. The general character of all these
pieces is rich, but vague and unimpassioned. The Queen's
Arcadia of Daniel must be allowed to lie open to the same
PASTORAL
347
charge, and to have been written rather in accordance
with a fashion, than in following of the author's predomin
ant impulse. It may be added that the extremely bucolic
title of Warner's first work, Pan: his Syrinx, is mislead
ing. These prose stories have nothing pastoral about
them. The singular eclogue by Barnfield, The Affectionate
Shepherd, printed in 1594, is an exercise on the theme
" O crudelis Alexi, nihil mea carmina curas," and, in spite
of its juvenility and indiscretion, takes rank as the first
really poetical following of Spenser and Virgil, in distinc
tion to Sidney and Sannazaro. Marlowe's pastoral lyric
Come live with Me, although not printed until 1599, has
been attributed to 1589. In 1600 was printed the anony
mous pastoral comedy in rhyme, The Maid's Metamor
phosis, long attributed to Lyly.
With the close of the 16th century pastoral literature
was not extinguished in England as suddenly or as com
pletely as it was in Italy and Spain. Throughout the
romantic Jacobean age the English love of country life
asserted itself under the guise of pastoral sentiment, and
the influence of Tasso and Guarini was felt in England
just when it had ceased to be active in Italy. In England
it became the fashion to publish lyrical eclogues, usually
in short measure, a class of poetry peculiar to the nation
and to that age. The lighter staves of The Shepherd's
Calendar were the model after which all these graceful
productions were drawn. We must confine ourselves to a
brief enumeration of the principal among these Jacobean
eclogues. Nicholas Breton came first with his Passionate
Shepherd in 1604. Wither followed with The Shepherd's
Hunting in 1615, and Braithwaite, an inferior writer,
published The Poet's Willow in 1613 and Shepherd's Tales
in 1621. The mention of Wither must recall to our
minds that of his friend William Browne, who published in
1613-16 his beautiful collection of Devonshire idyls called
Britannia's Pastorals. These were in heroic verse, and
less distinctly Spenserian in character than those eclogues
recently mentioned. In 1614 Browne, Wither, Christopher
Brook, and Davies of Hereford united in the composition
of a little volume of pastorals entitled The Shepherd's Pipe.
Meanwhile the composition of pastoral dramas was not
entirely discontinued. In 1606 Day dramatized part of
Sidney's Arcadia in his Isle of Gulls, and about 1625 the
Rev. Thomas Goffe composed his Careless Shepherdess,
which Ben Jonson deigned to imitate in the opening lines
of his Sad Shepherd. In 1610 Fletcher produced his
Faithful Shepherdess in emulation of the Aminta of Tasso.
This is the principal pastoral play in our language, and, in
spite of its faults in moral taste, it preserves a fascination
which has evaporated from most of its fellows. The
Arcades of Milton is scarcely dramatic ; but it is a bucolic
ode of great stateliness and beauty. In the Sad Shepherd,
which was perhaps written about 1635, and in his pastoral
masques, we see Ben Jonson not disdaining to follow along
the track that Fletcher had pointed out in the Faithfid
Shepherdess. With the Piscatory Eclogues of Phineas
Fletcher, in 1633, we may take leave of the more studied
forms of pastoral in England early in the 17th century.
When pastoral had declined in all the other nations of
Europe, it enjoyed a curious recrudescence in Holland.
More than a century after date, the Arcadia of Sannazaro
began to exercise an influence on Dutch literature. Johan
van Heemskirk led the way with his popular Batavische
Arcadia in 1637. In this curious romance the shepherds
and shepherdesses move to and fro between Katwijk and
the Hague, in a landscape unaffectedly Dutch. Heemskirk
had a troop of imitators. Hendrik Zoeteboom published
his Zaanlandsche Arcadia in 1658, and Lambertus Bos his
Dordtsche Arcadia in 1662. These local imitations of the
suave Italian pastoral were followed by still more crude
romances, the Rotterdamsche Arcadia of Willem den Elger,
the Walchersche Arcadia of Gargon, and the Noordwyker
Arcadia of Jacobus van der Valk. Germany has nothing
to offer us of this class, for the Diana of Werder (1644)
and Die adriatische Rosamund of Zesen (1645) are scarcely
pastorals even in form.
In England the writing of eclogues of the sub-Spenserian
class of Breton and Wither led in another generation to a
rich growth of lyrics which may be roughly called pastoral,
but are not strictly bucolic. Carew, Lovelace, Suckling,
Stanley, and Cartwright are lyrists who all contributed to
this harvest of country-song, but by far the most copious
and the most characteristic of the pastoral lyrists is
Herrick. He has, perhaps, no rival in modern literature
in this particular direction. His command of his resources,
his deep originality and observation, his power of concen
trating his genius on the details of rural beauty, his
interest in recording homely facts of country life, combined
with his extraordinary gift of song to place him in the
very first rank among pastoral writers; and it is noticeable
that in Herrick's hands, for the first time, the pastoral
became a real and modern, instead of being an ideal and
humanistic thing. From him AVC date the recognition in
poetry of the humble beauty that lies about our doors.
His genius and influence were almost instantly obscured
by the Restoration. During the final decline of the
Jacobean drama a certain number of pastorals were still
produced. Of these the only ones which deserve mention
are three dramatic adaptations, Shirley's Arcadia (1640),
Fanshawe's Pastor Fido (1646), and Leonard Willan's
Astrsea (1651). The last pastoral drama in the 17th
century was Settle's Pastor Fido (1677). The Restoration
was extremely unfavourable to this species of literature.
Sir Charles Sedley, Aphra Behn, and Congreve published
eclogues, and the Pastoral Dialogue between Thirsis and
Strephon of the first-mentioned was much admired. All
of these, however, are in the highest degree insipid and
unreal, and partook of the extreme artificiality of the age.
Pastoral came into fashion again early in the 18th
century. The controversy in the Guardian, the famous
critique on Ambrose Philips's Pastorals, the anger and
rivalry of Pope, and the doubt which must always exist as
to Steele's share in the mystification, give 1708 a consider
able importance in the annals of bucolic writing. Pope
had written his idyls first, and it was a source of infinite
annoyance to him that Philips contrived to precede him
in publication. He succeeded in throwing ridicule on
Philips, however, and his own pastorals were greatly
admired. Yet there was some nature in Philips, and,
though Pope is more elegant and faultless, he is not one
whit more genuinely bucolic than his rival. A far better
writer of pastoral than either is Gay, whose Shepherd's
Week was a serious attempt to throw to the winds the
ridiculous Arcadian tradition of nymphs and swains, and
to copy Theocritus in his simplicity. Gay was far more
successful in executing this pleasing and natural cycle of
poems than in writing his pastoral tragedy of Dione or his
" tragi-comico pastoral farce " of The What d'ye call it
(1715). He deserves a very high place in the history of
English pastoral on the score of his Shepherd's Week. Swift
proposed to Gay that he should write a Newgate pastoral
in which the swains and nymphs should talk and warble
in slang This Gay never did attempt ; but a northern
admirer of his and Pope's achieved a veritable and lasting
success in Lowland Scotch, a dialect then considered no less
beneath the dignity of verse. Allan Ramsay's Gentle
Shepherd, published in 1725, was the last, and remains the
most vertebrate and interesting, bucolic drama produced in
Great Britain. The literary value of this play has been
exaggerated, but it is a very clever and natural essay, and
348
P A S--P A S
the best proof of its success as a painting of bucolic life is
that it is still a favourite, after a hundred and fifty years,
among lowland reapers and milkmaids.
With the Gentle Shepherd the chronicle of pastoral in
England practically closes. This is at least the last per
formance which can be described as a developed eclogue
of the school of Tasso and Guarini. It is in Switzerland
that we find the next important revival of pastoral pro
perly so-called. The taste of the 18th century was very
agreeably tickled by the religious idyls of Salomon Gessner,
who died in 1787. His Daphnis und Phil/is and Der Tod
Abel's were read and imitated throughout Europe. In
German literature they left but little mark, but in France
they were cleverly copied by Arnaud Berquin. A much
more important pastoral writer is Jean Pierre Clovis de
Florian, who began by imitating the Galatea of Cervantes,
and continued with an original bucolic romance entitled
Estelle. His eclogues had a great popularity, but it
was said that they would be perfect if only there were
sometimes wolves in the sheepfolds- The tone of Florian,
as a matter of fact, is tame to fatuity. Neither in France
nor in Germany did the shepherds and shepherdesses enjoy
any considerable vogue. It has always been noticeable that
pastoral is a form of literature which disappears before
a breath of ridicule. Neither Gessner nor his follower
Abbt were able to survive the laughter of Herder. Since
Florian and Gessner there has been no reappearance of
bucolic literature properly so-called. The whole spirit
of romanticism was fatal to pastoral. Voss in his Luise
and Goethe in Hermann und Dorothea replaced it by poetic
scenes from homely and simple life.
Half a century later something like pastoral reappeared
in a totally new form, in the fashion for Dorfgeschichten.
About 1830 the Danish poet S. S. Blicher, whose work con
nects the grim studies of our own Crabbe with the milder
modern strain of pastoral, began to publish his studies of
out-door romance among the poor in Jutland. Immermann
followed in Germany with his novel Der Oberhof in 1839.
Auerbach, who has given to the 19th-century idyl its
peculiar character, began to publish his Schwarzwcttder
Dorffffschichten in 1843. Meanwhile George Sand was
writing Jeanne in 1844, which was followed by La Mare
au Diable and Francois le Ckampi, and in England dough
produced in 1848 his remarkable long-vacation pastoral
Tfte Bothie of Tober^na- Vuolich. It seems almost certain
that these writers followed a simultaneous but independent
impulse in this curious return to bucolic life, in which,
however, in every case, the old tiresome conventionality
and affectation of lady-like airs and graces were entirely
dropped. This school of writers was presently enriched in
Norway by Bjornson, whose Synnove tiolbakken was the first
of an exquisite series of pastoral romances. But perhaps
the best of all modern pastoral romances is Fritz Reuter's
Ut mine Stromtid, written in the Mecklenburg dialect of
German. In England the Dorsetshire poems of Mr Barnes
and the Dorsetshire novels of Mr Hardy belong to the
same class, which has finally been augmented by the ap
pearance of Mr Munby's remarkable idyl of Dorothy. It
will be noticed of course that all these recent productions
have so much in common with the literature which is pro
duced around them that they almost evade separate classifi
cation. It is conceivable that some poet, in following the
antiquarian tendency of the age, may enshrine his fancy once
more in the five acts of a pure pastoral drama of the school
of Tasso and Fletcher, but any great vitality in pastoral is
hardly to be looked for in the future. (E. w. c.)
PASTORAL EPISTLES, the name given to three
epistles of the New Testament which bear the name of
St Paul, and of which two are addressed to Timothy and
one to Titus. The reason of their being grouped together
is that they are marked off from the other Pauline epistles
by certain common characteristics of language and subject-
matter ; and the reason of their special name is that they
consist almost exclusively of admonitions for the pastoral
administration of Christian communities. None of the
Pauline epistles have given greater ground for discussion,
partly on account of the nature of their contents, partly on
account of their philological peculiarities, and partly on
account of their historical difficulties.
1. Contents. — The Pastoral Epistles are chiefly distin
guished from the other Pauline epistles by the prominence
which they give to doctrine. From an objective point of
view Christian teaching is "the word" (2 Tim. iv. 2), or
" the word of God " (2 Tim. ii. 9), or " the doctrine of God
our Saviour" (Tit. ii. 10), or "the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15,
2 Tim. ii. 18; iv. 4; Tit. i. 14), or "the faith" (1 Tim. iv.
1). From the point of view of the individual it is "the
knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. ii. 25; iii. 7); and Chris
tians are those who " believe and know the truth "
(1 Tim. iv. 3). It had existed long enough to have
become perverted, and hence a stress is laid upon
"sound " doctrine1 (1 Tim. i. 10 ; 2 Tim. iv. 3 ; Tit. i. 9 ;
ii. 1 ; in the plural, "sound words," 1 Tim. vi. 3 ; 2 Tim.
i. 13). It had also tended to become dissociated from
right conduct ; hence a stress is laid upon a " pure con
science " (1 Tim. i. 19; iii. 8), and the end which it
endeavours to attain is "love out of a pure heart, and
out of a good conscience, and out of unfeigned faith "
(1 Tim. i. 5). Consequently the "things that befit the
sound doctrine " are moral attributes and duties (Tit. ii. 1
sq.), and the things that are "contrary to the sound
doctrine " (1 Tim. i. 10) are moral vices. This combina
tion of sound doctrine and right conduct is " piety "
(do-e'/Seia, 1 Tim. ii. 2; iii. 16; iv. 7, 8; vi. 5, 6, 11 ; 2
Tim. iii. 4) or "godliness " (tfeocre'/^eia, 1 Tim. ii. 10); and
sound doctrine is, in other words, "the doctrine," or "the
truth, that is in harmony with piety" (1 Tim. vi. 3; Tit.
i. 1). This doctrine or truth is regarded as a sacred
deposit in the hands of the church or community (1 Tim.
vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 14), and is therefore a "common faith"
(Tit. i. 4), of which the church is the "pillar and stay"
(1 Tim. iii. 15). Its substance appears to be given in
1 Tim. iii. 16, which has been regarded, not without reason,
as a rudimentary form of creed, and possibly part of a
liturgical hymn. But the church is no longer identical
with "them that are being saved" or "the elect"; it is
compared to "a great house" which contains vessels
" some unto honour, and some unto dishonour " (2 Tim.
ii. 20). It is in other words no longer an ideal commu
nity, the "Israel of God" (Gal. vi. 16), but a visible
society. And, being such, its organization had come to
be of more importance than before. But the nature of
the organization to which these epistles point is an
unsolved problem. The solution of that problem is
attended by the preliminary question, which in the
absence of collateral evidence cannot be definitely answered,
of the relation in which Timothy and Titus are conceived
to stand to the other or ordinary officers. According to a
tradition mentioned by Eusebius, but for which he gives
no definite authority, Timothy was " bishop " of Ephesus
and Titus of Crete ; according to others their position
was rather that of the later " metropolitans "; and some
modern writers, accepting one or other of these views,
take it as part of the proof that the epistles belong to a
period of the 2d century in which the monarchical idea
of the episcopate was struggling to assert itself. On the
1 Most commentators have omitted to note that the word rendered
"sound" is a common expression of some of the later Greek philo
sophers, denoting simply "true," e.g., Epictet., Dissert., i. 11, 28;
ii. 15, 2.
PASTORAL EPISTLES
349
other hand, it appears from the epistles themselves that '
the positions of Timothy and Titus were temporary rather
than permanent, and that they were special delegates
rather than ordinary officers (1 Tim. iii. 14, 15; iv. 13;
Tit. iii. 12). For the ordinary officers the qualifications
are almost all moral, and they are so similar to each other, j
and to the moral qualifications of all Christians, as to
imply that the sharp distinctions of later times between
one grade of office and another, and between the officers
and the other members of the communities, were not yet
developed (1 Tim. iii. 2-12; Tit. i. 6-9, possibly also ii.
2-6). The most probable solution of the difficulties which
present themselves in relation to the apparent interchange
of the names " bishop " and " elder," and to the apparent
double use of the word " elder," sometimes as a title and
sometimes as a designation of age, is that in these epistles
there is an imperfect amalgamation of two forms of
organization, Jewish and Gentile : in the former the dis
tinction between the governing and the governed classes
was mainly that of age, and the functions of the govern
ing class were mainly those of discipline ; in the latter
the distinction was mainly that of functions, and the
functions were mainly those of administration. (1) The
distinction between elder and younger appears in regard
to both men and women (1 Tim. v. 1,2; Tit. ii. 2-6).
Out of the elder men some appear to have been chosen
or appointed to preside (ol Trpoeo-rcoTf s, 1 Tim. v. 17; a
cognate form of the designation is found in Rom. xii. 8,
1 Thess. v. 12, and constitutes almost the only link of
connexion between the organization of these and that of
the other Pauline epistles), and to have constituted a
collective body or "presbytery" (1 Tim. iv. 14, the word
was in use to designate the Jewish councils of elders, for
which the more common word was yepovcna). Their func
tions, like those of the corresponding officers in the Jewish
communities, were probably for the most part disciplinary;
to these some of them added the function of teaching
(1 Tim. v. 17). The elder women also were charged with
disciplinary functions ; they had to " train the young
women to love their husbands, to love their children, to
be sober-minded " (Tit. ii. 3, 4). Out of such of them as
were widows some were specially entered on the roll of
church-officers (Ko.TaA.oyos), and formed a class which,
though it did not long survive the growth of monasticism,
is mentioned in almost all early documents which refer to
ecclesiastical order (see Smith and Cheetham, Diet, of
Chris. Antiq., s.v, "Widows"). Whether the younger men
and women, or a selected number of them had, as such,
corresponding duties is not clear, but an inference in
favour of the supposition may be drawn from a comparison
of 1 Tim. v. 1, 2, 13, Acts v. 6, 10. (2) Side by side
with this, and sometimes, but not always, blended with it,
was the organization which was probably adopted from the
contemporary civil societies, especially those in which, as
in the Christian communities, there were funds to be
administered ; the presiding elders, or some of them, were
also "bishops" or administrators, and some of the younger
men were "deacons" or servants. A bishop was "God's
steward " (Tit. i. 7) ; a deacon was the active helper of the
bishops in both administration and discipline.
2. Language. — These epistles are distinguished from the
other Pauline epistles by many peculiarities of language,
of which only a few can be mentioned here. (1) In
1 Timothy there are seventy-four words which are not
elsewhere in the New Testament ; in 2 Timothy there are
forty-six such words, and in Titus forty-eight. In the
three epistles taken together there are one hundred and
thirty-three words which are not found in the other
Pauline epistles, though they are found elsewhere in the
New Testament; and many of the most marked and
frequent expressions of St Paul are absent. (2) There is
a tendency which is not found elsewhere in the Pauline
epistles to form unusual compounds, e.g., Xoyo)u.a^ftv,
lTfpo8i8a.crKa.XfLV, v^/rjXo^povftv , auTOKard/cpiTOS. (3) Words
are used for which the other Pauline epistles invariably
substitute a different, though nearly synonymous, word ;
e.g., Seo-TroTT^s is used for Kvpios, KTI'OT/O. for /crt'crts. (4) The
particles, which are even better tests of identity of style
than nouns and verbs, are different : the Pauline yap is
rare ; apa, apa ovv, en, yiAT^Trajs, TraXiv, axnrep, are absent.
(5) " In the other Pauline epistles the fulness of the
apostle's thought struggles with the expression, and
causes peculiar difficulties in exposition. The thoughts
slide into one another, and are so intertwined in many
forms that not seldom the new thought begins before a
correct expression has been given to the thought that
preceded. Of this confusion there is no example in the
Pastoral Epistles" (Huther, Introduction,^.^, tr., p. 10).
A complete account of the linguistic peculiarities of these
epistles will be found in Holtzmann, pp. 84-117.
3. Historical Difficulties. — The historical difficulties to
which these epistles give rise are of two kinds: — (1) that of
finding a place for them in any period of the recorded life
of St Paul, and (2) that of determining the state of theo
logical opinion to which they are relative.
(1) In regard to the first kind of difficulties, each of the
three epistles has its own problems.
The data of the historical position of 1 Timothy appear
to be (a) that St Paul had gone into Macedonia, (b)
that he had left Timothy at Ephesus (i. 3). The chief
hypotheses which have been framed to satisfy the con
ditions which these data imply are the following. (1)
The majority of older writers suppose that St Paul left
Timothy at Ephesus when he went into Macedonia after
the dmeute in the theatre (Acts xx. 1). The difficulties
in the way of this hypothesis are that Timothy had been
sent into Macedonia (Acts xix. 22), and probably at the
same time to Corinth (1 Cor. iv. 17), that he had not
returned when St Paul himself reached Macedonia, inas
much as St Paul waited for him there (1 Cor. xvi. 11),
that the two were together in Macedonia Avhen 2 Corin
thians was written (2 Cor. i. 1), and that they returned
together to Asia Minor (Acts xx. 4). Some of these
difficulties have been met by the conjecture that Timothy
never reached Corinth, but returned to St Paul at Ephesus
and rejoined him in Macedonia ; but the conjecture
implies that Timothy disobeyed the apostle's exhortation
to tarry at Ephesus almost as soon as he had received it,
and that the apostle, so far from "hoping to come unto
him shortly" (1 Tim. iii. 14), was in reality intending to
go to Jerusalem and to Rome (Acts xix. 21), not even
calling at Ephesus on his way (Acts xx. 17). (2) It has
been supposed that there was an unrecorded journey of
St Paul into Macedonia during his long stay in Ephesus
(Acts xix. 1-20 ; so Mosheim, Schrader, Wieseler, and
Reuss, the last of whom makes the journey extend to
Crete and Illyricum). There is little difficulty in the
supposition of such a journey into Macedonia, but there is
great difficulty in supposing that the epistle was written
in the course of it, — first, because its language is not
compatible with the idea that Timothy was merely left in
temporary charge during a short absence of the apostle,
and, secondly, because the epistle implies the existence of
an organized community which had existed long enough
to have had errors growing up in it (whereas in Acts xx.
29-30 the coming of heretical teachers is regarded as still
future), and in which it was possible that a bishop should
be "not a novice" (1 Tim. iii. 6). (3) It has been sup
posed that St Paul wrote the epistle during his imprison
ment at Caesarea or at Jerusalem ; but this does not
350
PASTORAL EPISTLES
avoid the difficulty which is fatal to the two preceding
hypotheses, that Timothy had been left at Ephesus when
the apostle was "going into Macedonia." (4) In order to
avoid this fatal difficulty some writers (especially Otto,
Die yetchichtlichen Verhdltnisse der Pastoralbriefe, Leipsic,
I860, and Rolling, Der ertte Brief Pauli an Timotheus,
Berlin, 1882) have attempted a new but impossible trans
lation of 1 Tim. i. 3, so as to make it appear that it was
Timothy and not Paul that was going into Macedonia
(for criticisms of this attempt see Huther's edition of
Meyer's commentary ad loc., and Weiss in the Studien u.
Kritiken for 1861, p. 577).
The data of the historical position of 2 Timothy appear to
be (a) that St Paul either was or had been in Rome (i. 17),
(b) that he was in prison (i. 16; ii. 9), (c) that he had already
had a trial (iv. 16), (d) that he believed himself to be near
the end of his life (iv. 6), (e) that he was expecting shortly
to see Timothy (i. 4 ; iv. 9, 21), (/) that he had been,
apparently not long before, at Troas, Corinth, and Miletus
(iv. 13, 20). Upon these data two hypotheses have been
framed. (1) It has been supposed that the required his
torical position is to be found at the beginning of the
" two whole years " of Acts xxviii. 30, and that con
sequently the epistle was written before those to the
Philippians and Colossians (so, among others, Schrader,
Otto, and Reuss). The difficulties in the way of this
hypothesis are chiefly two, — first, that of accounting for
the complete change of tone between the close anticipation
of death of 2 Tim. iv. 6 and the hopefulness of Philippians
ii. 23, 24, Philemon 22, and, secondly, that of accounting
for the " first defence " of 2 Tim. iii. 16 ; this Otto does by
supposing it to be the process before Festus at Ca^sarea, a
supposition which implies the very improbable further
supposition that the process before Felix was not what
was technically known as an " actio," and that the term
" make my defence " (Acts xxiv. 10) was wrongly applied
by St Paul himself to his own speech. (2) It has been
supposed that the required position is to be found in the
period immediately succeeding the " two whole years " of
Acts xxviii. 30, and that the epistle was written after
those to the Philippians and Colossians (so, among others,
Wieseler). One of the main difficulties in the way of this
hypothesis is that it implies an interval of at least four
years since the journey referred to in chap, iv., and that it
is incredible that St Paul should have written to a disciple
in Asia Minor to mention the casual incidents of a voyage
— such as the leaving a cloak at Troas and a companion
sick at Miletus — which had occurred several years before ;
the difficulty would not be much lessened even if the
ingenious conjectures were adopted by which Wieseler
endeavours to identify this voyage with that of Acts xxvii.
The data of the historical position of the epistle to Titus
are (a) that Paul and Titus had been in Crete together,
and that Titus had been left there, (b) that Paul was
intending to winter at Nicopolis (wherever that may be,
places of that name being found in several Roman pro
vinces). Upon these data many conjectures have been
built. It has been supposed that St Paul visited Crete
either (1) at the commencement of this second missionary
journey (Acts xv. 41), or (2) during his residence at
Corinth (Acts xviii. 1, 8; so Michaelis and Thiersch).
Each of these conjectures is met, in addition to other
difficulties, by the fact, which seems fatal to it, that Apollos,
who is mentioned in Titus iii. 13, was not known to Paul
and his company until after the second missionary journey
(Acts xviii. 24). (3) The same fact is also fatal to the
supposition of Hug and others that the visit to Crete took
place during the journey from Corinth to Ephesus (Acts
xviii. 18, 19), a supposition which is also inconsistent with
the apostle's apparent desire to reach Syria without much
delay, and which requires for its support the further
. supposition that, although on his way to Antioch and
Coesarea, he had selected the almost unknown town of
, Nicopolis in Cilicia to winter in. (4) It has been supposed
(Credner) that the visit to Crete was made as a detour in
the course of the journey from Antioch to Ephesus (Acts
xviii. 22, 23 ; xix. 1); this is not only improbable in itself
but also inconsistent with the summary of that journey :
" Paul, having passed through the upper," i.e., the inland,
"country, came to Ephesus." (5) It has been supposed
that St Paul called at Crete in the course of a journey
which he probably made to Corinth during his long sojourn
at Ephesus (so Wieseler, who thinks that he went first to
Macedonia, 1 Tim. i. 3, and thence to Corinth, Crete, and
back to Ephesus ; and Reuss, who thinks that the route
was Ephesus, Crete, Corinth, Illyricum, Macedonia,
Ephesus) ; but this supposition seems to be excluded by
the inconsistency between the expressed intention to
winter in Nicopolis (Tit. iii. 12) and the similar intention
to pass the same winter at Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 6), unless
the ingenious hypothesis of Wieseler be adopted that
he intended to spend part of the winter in one place and
the rest in the other. (6) It has been supposed that he
made his journey from Macedonia to Greece (Acts xx, 1-3)
by way of Crete (so Matthies) ; but this supposition seems
to be excluded by the fact that in 2 Cor. viii. 6, 17 (which
was written from Macedonia), Titus who had been with
Paul in Macedonia had gone forward on his own account
not to Crete but to Corinth. And all these endeavours to
find a place for the epistle in St Paul's life before his
voyage to Rome are met by the improbability that, if
Crete had been already so far Christianized as to have
communities in several cities (which is implied in Tit.
i. 5), there should be no hint of the fact in Acts xxvii.
7-13.
The difficulties of all endeavours to find a place for these
epistles in the recorded history of St Paul have been so
strongly felt by most of those modern writers who support
their authenticity that such writers have generally trans
ferred them to an unrecorded period of his life, subsequent
to the close of the Acts of the Apostles. The external
authorities for the belief that there was such a period, and
that in the course of it St Paul underwent a second im
prisonment, are chiefly the statement of Clement of Rome
that he went to "the goal of the West," and that of the
Muratorian fragment that he went to Spain (see PAUL,
infra, p. 422). Both these statements admit of much dis
pute, the one as to its meaning, the other as to its
authority ; and their value as evidence is weakened by the
fact that Irenseus, Tertullian, and Origen, though they
mention the death of the apostle at Rome, say nothing of
any journeys subsequent to his arrival there. In the 4th
century Eusebius, for the first time, mentions a second
imprisonment, but prefixes to his statement the ambiguous
words Aoyos e^ei, " there is a story " or " tradition holds."
Several fathers subsequent to his time repeat and amplify
his statement ; but that statement, if accepted, involves
the further difficulties on the one hand of finding room for
St Paul's journeys before the great Neronian persecution
of 64 A.D., and on the other hand of accounting for the
fact that, supposing the apostle to have survived that per
secution, he makes no mention of it. For all these diffi
culties more or less plausible answers have been framed,
| and many narratives of St Paul's unrecorded travels have
I been written ; but, although it may be admitted that such
narratives are conceivably true, yet it must be conceded
on the other hand that they rest rather upon conjecture
than upon evidence. It may be added that the hypothesis
of a second imprisonment is rejected not only by writers
like Baur and Hilgenfeld, who deny the authenticity of
P A S — P A S
351
both the Pastoral Epistles and the other " Epistles of the
Captivity," but also by conservative writers, such as Meyer,
Ebrard, Otto, Wieseler, Thiersch, and De Pressense.
(2) The second kind of historical difficulties, that of
determining the state of theological opinion to which these
epistles are relative, arises partly from the incidental
nature of the references to false teachers in the epistles
themselves and partly from the fragmentary character of
our knowledge of contemporary teaching. The character
istics of the false teachers are mainly the following, (i.)
They once held " sound doctrine " but have now fallen
away from it (1 Tim. i. 6, 19 ; vi. 5, 21 ; 2 Tim. ii. 18) ;
and, puffed up with self-conceit (1 Tim. vi. 4) and claiming
to have a special " knowledge " (yvwo-is, vi. 20 ; implied
also in Tit. i. 16), they oppose the truth (Tit. i. 9 ; 2 Tim.
ii. 25 ; iii. 8) and teach a different doctrine (1 Tim. i. 3) ;
yet they remain within the church and cause factions
within it (Tit. iii. 10). (ii.) They profess asceticism,
" forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from
meats, " apparently on the ground that some " creatures of
God " are evil (1 Tim. iv. 3), and at the same time their
moral practice is perverted, they are " unto every good
work reprobate " (1 Tim. vi. 5 ; 2 Tim. iii. 13 ; Tit. i. 16),
and they make their teaching of religion a means of gain
(1 Tim. vi. 5 ; Tit. i. 11). (iii.) Their teaching is concerned
with " fables and endless genealogies " (1 Tim. i. 4 ; Tit. i.
14), with questionings and disputes of words (1 Tim. vi.
4), with empty sounds and contradictions (1 Tim. vi. 20),
with " profane and old wives' fables " (1 Tim. iv. 7), with
" foolish questionings and genealogies, and strifes and
fightings about the law " (Tit. iii. 9), and they held that
the " resurrection is past already " (2 Tim. ii. 18). It has
been sometimes held that these statements refer rather to
errors of practice than errors of doctrine, and rather to
tendencies than to matured systems (Reuss) ; and it has
also been sometimes held that different forms of opinion
are referred to in either different epistles or different parts
of the same epistle (Credner, Thiersch, Hilgenfeld) ; but
the majority of writers think that the reference is to a
single definite form of error. The main question upon
which opinions are divided is whether the basis of this
false teaching was Judaistic or Gnostic, i.e., whether that
teaching was a rationalizing form of Judaism or a Judaiz-
ing form of Gnosticism. (1) The former of these views
branches out into many forms, and is held on various
grounds. It is sometimes held that the reference is to
the allegorizing and rationalizing school of which Philo is
the chief representative, and which was endeavouring to
take root in Christian soil, the " fables " being the alle
gorical interpretations of historical facts, the " genealogies "
those of the Pentateuch, or possibly the Pentateuch itself,
which served as the basis of philosophical speculations
(Wiesinger, Hofmann). It is sometimes held that the
reference is to what in later times was known as the
Kabbalah, the assumption being made that the Kabbalah
must be dated many centuries earlier than other testimony
warrants us in believing (so Vitringa, Grotius, Schottgen,
and more recently Olshausen and Baumgarten). It is
sometimes held that the false teachers were not so much
theosophic as thaumaturgic, allied to the Judseo-Samaritan
school of which Simon Magus is the typical representative,
and that this is the point of the reference to Jannes and
Jambres and to "jugglers .... deceiving and being
deceived" (2 Tim. iii. 8, 13). It is sometimes supposed
that they combined Essenism with a form of Ebionism,
and this view (the ablest supporter of which is Mangold,
Die Irrlehrer der Pastoralbriefe, 1856) is that which now
prevails among those who contend for the early date of
the epistles, if not for their authenticity. (2) It is con
tended on the other hand that none of these theories quite
cover the facts. It is maintained that genealogies did not
take the place in the Jewish speculative schools which they
evidently had in the false teaching to which these epistles
refer ; that even if they had done so it is difficult to
account for the epithet " endless " which is applied to
them ; that there is no sufficient proof that the Essenes
held a dualistic theory of the relation of spirit to matter,
or that they denied the resurrection (the testimony of
Hippolytus on this point being more probable than that of
Josephus), or that they taught for gain, or that they pro
secuted a propaganda among women (2 Tim. iii. 6). It is
further contended that all these points are generally
characteristic of Gnosticism. The use of the epithet
" falsely so called," it is urged, shows that " knowledge "
(yvwcris) is used in a technical sense ; in the " endless
genealogies " writers so early as Irenasus and Tertullian
recognized Gnostic systems of aeons, to which the phrase
seems exactly to apply ; the abstinence from meats and
from marriage belongs not to any form of Judaism but to
Gnostic theories of the nature of matter ; the description
of the teachers as making a gain of their teaching and as
" taking captive silly women laden with sins" suits no one
so well as the half-converted rhetoricians who brought into
Christian communities the practices as well as the beliefs
of the degenerate philosophical schools of the empire. It
is probable that this view is substantially correct ; at the
same time it may be granted that the evidence is too
scanty to allow of the identification of the Gnostics to
which reference is made with any particular Gnostic sect,
and that the several attempts which have been made so to
identify them have failed.
The result of this combination of difficulties — the
differences between the pastoral epistles and the other
Pauline epistles in respect of the character of their con
tents, their philological peculiarities, the difficulty of
reconciling the historical references with what is known
from other sources of the life of St Paul, the difficulty of
finding any known form of belief which precisely answers to
the opinions which they attack, and the further difficulty
of believing that so elaborate a debasement of Christianity
had grown up in the brief interval between St Paul's first
contact with Hellenism and his death — has been to make the
majority of modern critics question or deny their authenti
city. The first important attacks were that of Schleier-
macher, who, however, only rejected 1 Timothy, and a few
years afterwards that of Eichhorn, who rejected all three ;
but the modern criticism of them practically begins with
Baur's treatise Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostel's
Paulus in 1835. Since then the controversy has been
keenly waged on both sides ; the history of it will be found
in Holtzmann, Die Pastoralbriefe (Leipsic, 1880), which
is by far the ablest work on the negative side of the con
troversy, and which, whether its conclusions be accepted
or not, is more full of accurate information than any
other. The most available works on the conservative side,
for English readers, are the translation of Huther's edition
of Meyer's Commentary (Edinburgh, 1881); Dr Wace's
introduction to the Pastoral Epistles in the Speaker'*
Commentary (London, 1881); and Archdeacon Farrar's
excursus on " The Genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles "
in his St Paul (vol. ii. p. 607). (E. HA.)
PASTORAL LETTER, a letter addressed, in his pastoral
capacity, by a bishop to his clergy, or the laity of hi?
diocese, or both. In the Church of Rome it is usual for
every bishop to issue at least one pastoral annually, the
Lenten Mandates or Instructions, containing exhortations
relating to that fast, and enumerating the dispensations
granted and devotions prescribed. Others are issued in
connexion with the principal solemnities of the church, or
as occasion arises.
352
PATAGONIA
See Plate PATAGONIA, in the widest application of the name,
XI. vol. i. is that portion of South America which, to the east of the
Andes, lies south of Rio Negro (mouth in 41° 5' S. lat.),
and, to the west of the Andes, south of the Chilian pro
vince of Chiloe,1 with a total area of 322,550 square miles
(306,475 continental, 16,075 insular) according to Dr E.
Wisotzki's measurement (Behm and Wagner, Bevtilkerung
dtr Erde, 1880). By the treaty of 22d October 1881
this vast region was divided between Chili and the Argen
tine Republic, the boundary being the unexplored water
shed of the Andes down to 52° S. lat., and then con
tinuing along the parallel to 70° W. long., thence to Point
Dungeness, and so southwards (through Tierra del Fuego)
along the meridian of 68° 34' W. long.- In this way about
62,930 of the 322,550 square miles fall to Chili and
259,620 to the Argentine Republic.3
The Chilian portion, the main bulk of which is com
prised under the title of Magellan Territory (Territorio
Jfagallanes), is chiefly remarkable for the way in which
the combined action of glacier and sea has cut up the
country into a multitude of rugged and irregular islands
and peninsulas, separated by intricate channels and fjords.
South of Chiloe, the first great island of the Chilian coast,
the islands are grouped under the name of the Chonos
Archipelago, which is bounded on the south by the spacious
Gulf of Peiias. The Chonos Islands (upwards of 1000 in
number, without counting mere islets and rocks) are with
out exception mountainous, and in some cases the summits
remain white throughout the year, though in the lowlands
snow lies only a few days. The general temperature is
remarkably even. A thick covering of vegetation (low
and stunted on the seaward parts) is spread over nearly all
the surface, but the layer of vegetable soil is very thin.
Potatoes grow wild, and cabbage, onions, radish, &c., are
cultivated. The sea-elephant appears to be exterminated ;
seals still abound. On Taytao peninsula is found the
pudu, the. smallest known deer. The old Indian inhabit
ants — Chonos — are practically extinct, though their sitting
mummies give name to Momias Bay, and they still occupy
some of the islands far south near Magellan's Strait. There
are only one or two permanent settlements in the whole
archipelago — on the Guaitecas Islands (43° 52' S. lat.) and
at Puerto Americano or Tangbac (45° S. lat.). Wood
cutters, however, visit the islands in considerable numbers
for the sake of their valuable timber, mainly cipre (Libo-
cedrus tetragona). Besides Magdalena — which is by far
the largest of the whole group and contains the extinct
volcano of Motalat, 5400 feet high — it is enough to men
tion Chaffers, Forsyth, Johnson, Tahuenahuec, Narborough
(named after the old English explorer), Stokes, Benja
min, James, Melchor, Victoria, Luz, and Rivero Islands.
The broad Moraleda Channel, from 75 to 175 fathoms deep,
which may be said to separate the rest of the archipelago
from Magdalena and the mainland, is continued south by
the Costa and Elefantes Channels, and would have proved
of great service to navigation had it not been that the
southern exit is barred by the narrow isthmus of Ofqui,
which alone prevents the strangely formed Taytao peninsula
from being an island. The glacier of San Rafael, which
discharges into the lagoon of the same name on the north
side of the isthmus, is nearer the equator than any other
coast-glacier in the world.4
1 Chiloe is sometimes considered part of Patagonia.
2 Of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago 20,341 square miles are
Chilian and 7890 Argentine.
3 Documents in regard to the disputed possession will he found in
Qnesada, La Patagonia y las Tierras Australes, Buenos Ayres, 1875.
By a treaty in 1856 the i/ti possidetis of 1810 was accepted.
4 The Chonos Archipelago was explored by E. Simpson of the
Chilian navy in 1871-72. See map and text in Petermann's Miltheil.,
1878.
South of the Gulf of Peiias a navigable channel exists
between the mainland and the long succession of islands
which, under the names of Wellington Island (150
miles long), Madre de Dios Archipelago, Hanover Island,
and Queen Adelaide Archipelago, extend for about 400
miles to the mouth of Magellan's Strait ; and it is now
regularly used by steamers, which are thus protected from
the terrible western storms that make the deep-sea pass
age along this coast so dangerous. At one or two points
only is the navigation difficult — at the English Narrows
in Messier Channel (as the northern division is called),
and at the Guia Narrows farther south. The scenery
throughout is of the most beautiful and picturesque de
scription. Among the serviceable inlets are Connor Cove,
Port Grappler, Puerto Bueno (pointed out by Sarmiento),
and Isthmus Harbour.5
The southern coast of Patagonia is bounded for 365
miles by Magellan's Strait,6 which separates the mainland
from the countless islands of the Tierra del Fuego archi
pelago and breaks it up into a number of very irregular
peninsulas. Of these the largest are King William IV.
Land and Brunswick Peninsula, and between them lies
the extensive inlet of Otway Water, which is further con
nected westward by Fitzroy Channel with Skyring Water.
On the east coast of Brunswick Peninsula, opposite the
Broad Reach of the strait, and in the finest part of the
straitward district, lies the Chilian military post and penal
settlement of Punta Arenas or Sandy Point. It was
founded in 1851 as a substitute for the unfortunate Port
Famine settlement, which lay farther south on the same
coast. In spite of convict mutinies (as in 1878) and the
questionable character of many of the settlers (chiefly
Chilotes), Punta Arenas begins to flourish; in 1875 its
population was 915, and since that date a series of "fac
tories " or cattle-stations have been established along the
coast to north and ?outh. The country behind the settle
ment, unlike the districts at either end of the strait, is
well wooded, mainly with Chilian beech (Fayiis antarctica)
and Winter's bark (Drimys Winteri, so called after Captain
Winter, Drake's companion), and .considerable quantities
of timber are exported. Coal also, though of inferior
quality, is worked in the neighbourhood.7
Patagonia east of the Andes is for the most part a region
of vast steppe -like plains. Unlike the pampas of the
Argentine Republic, with which it is conterminous on the
north, it rises in a succession of abrupt steps or terraces
about 300 feet at a time, and is covered, not with soft
stoneless soil, but with an enormous bed of shingle, which
instead of luxuriant grass supports, where it is not abso
lutely bare, only a thin clothing of coarse and often thorny
brushwood and herbage. So peculiar is this, the largest
tract of shingle in the world, that from D'Orbigny down
wards geologists have generally characterized it simply as
the Patagonian formation. It is of Tertiary marine origin ;
but, whilst Bove makes it correspond to the Miocene sub
division, Doering (Roca's expedition) assigns it to the
somewhat older Oligocene. Beneath the shingle, which
is sometimes at least 200 feet thick, and has its pebbles
whitewashed and cemented together by an aluminous
substance, there stretches a vast deposit, sometimes more
than 800 feet thick, of a soft infusorial stone resem
bling chalk. In the hollows of the plain as far south as
5 See Lieut. Eardley- Wilmot, Our Journal in the Pacific, 1873,
especially the appendix; and The Voyages of the "Adventure" and
the " Bettf/le."
6 Magellan's Strait was first named, probably by its discoverer,
Canal de Todos los Santos, and in older writers often appears as
Estrecho Patayonico and Estraho de la nave Victoria (Magellan's
ship).
7 Punta Arenas was a German station for the observation of the
transit of Venus in 1882.
PATAGONIA
353
Santa Cruz there are frequently lakes or ponds ; they are
generally impregnated with common salt, Epsom salts, or
some other mineral ingredient, the substance varying from
lake to lake without any regularity of distribution (see Bur-
meister, La Republique Argentine, vol. ii. (1876) appendix).
Certain limited tracts with finer soil and richer vegetation
occur, especially in the river -valleys, but the general
aspect of the plains is one of sterility and desolation.
The most ordinary bushes are the jume (Salicornici) and
the calafate (Berleris buxifolia) ; the ashes of the former
contain 41 per cent, of soda, and the latter makes excel
lent fuel and bears a pleasant bluish-purple berry known
to the older English explorers as Magellan's grape. Among
the perennial herbs may be named Stronyyloma struthium,
Chuquiragas, Aclesmias, Azorellas. The palm-tree men
tioned by many travellers as growing on the south coast is
really a kind of fern, Lomaria boryana.1
The guanaco, the puma, the zorro or Canis Azarx (a
kind of fox), the zorrino or Mephitis patagonica (a kind of
skunk), and the tuco-tuco or Ctenomys magellanicus (a kind
of rodent) are the most characteristic mammals of the
Patagonian plains. Vast herds of the guanaco roam over
the country, and form with the ostrich (Rhea americana,
and more rarely Rhea Darwinii) the chief means of sub
sistence for the native tribes, who hunt them on horseback
with dogs and bolas.
Bird-life is often wonderfully abundant. The carrancha
or carrion-hawk (Polylorus Tharus) is one of the charac
teristic objects of a Patagonian landscape ; the presence
of long-tailed green parroquets (Conurus cyanolysim} as
far south as the shores of the strait attracted the attention
of the earlier navigators ; and humming-birds may be seen
flying amidst the falling snow. Of the many kinds of
water-fowl it is enough to mention the flamingo, the up
land goose, and in the strait the remarkable steamer duck.
As the Andes are approached, a great change is observed
in the whole condition of the country. The shingle is
replaced by porphyry and granite and vast masses of
basalt and lava; vegetation becomes luxuriant, majestic
trees — evergreen beeches, alerces, cipres, araucarias, &c. —
combined with jungle-like underwood clothing the ravines
and hillsides ; and, with the richer plant life, animal life
grows more abundant and varied, deer, peccaries, wild
cattle, and wild horses2 finding fitting pasture. The fruit
trees planted by the Jesuits in the neighbourhood of Lake
Nahuel-Huapi have spread into vast natural orchards,
which furnish the local tribes of Araucanians with food
and wine, and have given rise to the designation Man-
zancros or apple-folk by which they are distinguished.
Eastern Patagonia is traversed from west to east by a consider
able number of rivers, but few if any can ever be of much use as
highways. In their passage seawards they are joined by compara
tively few tributaries from the low country ; rain falls seldom, and
the water sinks away among the shingle and sand. The Rio Negro,
which separates the pampas from Patagonia proper, is formed by
the junction of the Neuquen and the Limay. The former collects
by numerous channels the drainage of the Andes between 36° 25'
and 38° 40' ; the latter has its main source in the great Nahuel-
Huapi Lake, which was discovered in 1690 by Mascardi the Jesuit
(whose station on the lake was maintained till 1723), and is
reached from Chili by the Bariloche pass, rediscovered by Joije
Rohde in 1882. For some distance the Rio Negro is navigable for
steamers drawing 12 feet, but only vessels with powerful engines
can make head against the current. South of this river there
stretches north and south a chain of hills — the Yalchita and Uttak
range — which, lying from 50 to 100 miles from the coast, forms a
secondary watershed, draining westward into the plain as well as
eastward to the Atlantic. The next great Andean river is the
Chubut (Chubat or Chuba, i.e., erosion), which gives its name of
1 See Dr Karl Berg, "Eine Naturhist. Eeise nach Patngonien," in
Petemmnns Mittheilungen, 1875 ; and tlie botanical part of the report
of Roca's expedition (resume in Nature, 1884).
2 Hence the name Cordillera de Bajuaks applied to the southern
extremitv of the Andes.
Chubut Territory to the northern division of Argentine Patagonia,
and is well known from the Welsh colonies established in its valley
in 1865 by Mr. Lewis Jones. Its northmost affluent rises probably
a little south of Nahuel-Huapi, about 41° 25', and its southmost
between 46° and 47°. The latter stream, the Sengel or Senguer
(explored by Durnford 1877, Moyano 1880), has this peculiarity,
that, before entering the shallow basin of Lake Colguape (Huapi),
Colhue, or, as Thomas and Moreno call it, Dillon, the volume of
water is so much larger than when it issues again that the Welsh
settlers distinguish the lower course of the stream as Sengellen or
the Little Sengel.3 Rio Deseado, which disembogues at Port Desire
(Puerto Deseado), well known in the early history of the coast, has
its source about 46° 42', in the vicinity of a large lake, Buenos Ayres
(20 miles long by 14 broad), which lies, however, 600 feet below the
level of the river, and consequently has no connexion with it. Of
the rivers which unite in the Santa Cruz estuary the Rio Chico
(explored by Musters, Moyano, and Lista) and the Chatta or Sheuen
(explored by Moyano and Moreno) have little that calls for notice ;
but the Santa Cruz is connected with the most remarkable cluster of
mountain-lakes in the country. The largest of these is Capar or
Viedma Lake (discovered by Yiedma in 1782) ; northward it com
municates by a narrow channel with what may be distinguished as
Moreno Lake, which again opens into San Martin, and southward it
discharges into the very irregular Lago Argentine or Fitzroy Lake
(discovered, according to Musters, by an adventurer called Holstein
in 1868, and next visited by Fallberg), which in its turn probably has
extensive ramifications. From the east end of Lago Argentine issues
the rapid current of the Santa Cruz. Round these lakes the moun
tains rise with glaciers and snow-fields from 3000 to 3500 feet, and
at the north-west end of Viedma stands the active volcano of Chalten.
At the time of Moreno's visit in March (the latter part of summer)
gigantic icebergs rising 70 feet above the water continued to float
about Lago Argentine. With the melting of the snows the river rose
rapidly, and by 17th March was 63 feet above its ordinary level.
So swift was its current that the explorers sped down the whole
length of its course in twenty-four hours, though they had taken a
month to ascend. In some parts the rate was at least 15 miles per
hour. The Rio Gallegos, the last of the rivers of Patagonia which
flow west and east, is comparatively insignificant except during
thaw-floods, when it completely interrupts communication by its
wide and raging torrent (see Beerbohm's exciting narrative). The
eastern coast of Patagonia contrasts strikingly with the western ;
hardly an island of any considerable size exists on all the 2000
miles of its development, and it is scooped out into spacious and
open gulfs. The peninsula of San Jose or Yaldes to the south of the
Gulf of San Matias is quite exceptional. But the whole seaboard
offers only one or two safe harbours ; and submerged reefs, strong
tides, currents, and overfalls combine to render it highly perilous.
Besides El Carmen or Patagones, near the mouth of the Rio Negro,
a place of 1690 inhabitants in 1869, there is hardly a permanent
settlement of any size from the river to the strait ; but, since the
partition between Chili and the Argentine Republic, beginnings of
colonization have been made at the more promising points. A
notice of the native Patagonians is given in the article IXDIANS
(AMERICAN), vol. xii. p. 829 ; and the history of the Araucanian
tribes of the Chilian side has been sketched under AMERICA,
vol. i. pp. 701-702.
History. — Patagonia was discovered in 1520 by Magellan, who
called the country Tierra de Patagones from the large footsteps
observed near his winter quarters at San Julian, and on his passage
along the coast named many of the more striking features— Bay of
San Matias, Bay of Santa Cruz, Cape of 11,000 Yirgins (now simply
Cape Virgin or De la Yierge), &c. By 1611 the Patagonian god
Setebos (Settaboth in Pigafetta) was familiar to the hearers of the
Tempest. Rodrigo de Isla, despatched inland in 1535 from San
Matias by Alcazava Sotomayor (on whom western Patagonia had
been conferred by the king of Spain), was the first to traverse the
great Patagonian plain, and, but for the mutiny of his men, he
would have struck across the Andes to the Chilian side. Pedro de
Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, lived to found
Buenos Ayres, but not to carry his explorations to the south.
Camargo (1539), Ladrilleros (1557), Hurtado de Mendoza, and
Ercilla (1558) helped to make known the western coasts, and
Drake's voyage in 1577 down the eastern coast through the strait
and northward by Chili and Peru was memorable for several
reasons ; but the geography of Patagonia owes more to Pedro
Sarmiento de Gamboa, who, devoting himself especially to the south
west region, made such careful and accurate surveys that from
twenty to thirty of the names which he affixed still appear in
maps (Kohl). The settlements which he founded at Nombre de
Dios and San Felipe were neglected by the Spanish Government,
and the latter was in such a miserable state when Thomas Cavendish
visited it in 1587 that he called it Port Famine. The district in
the neighbourhood of Port Desire, explored by John Davis about
3 See Durnfovd's account in The Field, 23d and 30th Dec. 1882,
and Proc. llmi. Ocugr. Si>c., 1883.
XVIII. — 45
354
P A T — P A T
the same period, was taken possession of by Sir John Narboroueh
in name of King Charles II. in 1669. In the latter half of the
18th century our knowledge about Patagonia was considerably
augmented by Byron (1764-65), Wallis (1766), Bougainville (1766) ;
Thomas Faltaier, a Jesuit who "resided near forty years in those
parts," published his Description of Patagonia (Hereford, 1774);
Francesco Yiedma founded El Carmen, and Antonio advanced inland
to the Andes (1782) ; and Villarino ascended the Kio Negro (1782).
The " Beagle " and "Adventure " expeditions under King (1826-30) and
Fitzroy (1832-36) were of first -rate importance, the latter especially
from the participation of Charles Darwin ; but of the interior of
the country nothing was observed except 200 miles of the course
of the Santa Cruz. Captain Musters wandered in company with a
band of natives through the whole length of the country from the
strait to the Manzaueros in the north-west, and collected a great
deal of information about the people and their mode of life. Since
that date explorations of a more scientific character have been
carried on by Moreno (1873-80), Rogers (1877), Lista (1878-80),
and Moyauo (1880, &c.), a convenient survey of which will be found
in Petcrmanris Mittheilungen, 1882.
Bibliographical lists for Patagonia are given in Wappa'us, Handbuch der
Geogr. u. Stat. des ehemal. span. Mittel- und Su<l-Amerika(Le\ps., 1863-70); in
Quesada's work already quoted ; and in Coan, Adventures in Patagonia (New
York, 1880). It is enough to mention Darwin's Journal of Researches (1845) and
Geological Observations on South. America (1846); Snow, A Two Years' Cruise off
. . . Patagonia (1857); Musters, At Home with the Patagonians(lS7l); Cunning
ham, Xat. Hist, of the Strait of Magellan (1871); Moreno, Viage a la Patagonia
austral (1879); Lady Florence Dixie, Across Patagonia (1880); Lista, Mis
esploracionts . . . en la Patagonia (Buenos Ayres, 1880) ; Beerbohm, IFande r-
ings in Patagonia (1S7S) ; Informe Oficial . . . de la Exp. al Rio Xegro (under
General Roca, 1879, Buenos Ayres, 1882); Giacomo Bove, Patagonia, Terra
del Fuoco (Genoa, 1S83). (H. A. W.)
PAT AR EXES, a name apparently first used in Milan
about the middle of the llth century to denote the party
most extremely opposed to the marriage of priests ; besides
Patareni, the forms Paterini, Patarelli, Patarsei occur
among others. Various etymologies, more or less far
fetched, have been offered ; it seems, however, pretty well
established that the party was so called because, under the
leadership of Arialdus, a deacon of Milan, its members
used to assemble in the Pataria, or ragmen's quarter of
that city (pates being a provincial word for a rag). The
name ultimately came to be applied to the dualistic sect
of the Cathari, who were opposed to marriage altogether,
and indeed was one of their most common designations in
Italy, France, and Bosnia.
PATENTS. Patents for inventions, instruments which
formerly bore the great seal of the United Kingdom, are
now issued at the Patent Office in London under the seal
of that office. By their means inventors obtain a monopoly
in their inventions for fourteen years, a term which, if
insufficient to remunerate the inventor, can be extended.
This monopoly is founded on exactly the same principle
as the copyright enjoyed by authors and artists. There
are persons who argue that no such privilege should be
permitted ; there are others who think that the most
trifling exertions of the inventive faculties should be pro
tected. The right course lies between these extremes. All
civilized nations have in modern times considered it desir
able to give inventors an exclusive right to their inven
tions for a limited period, not only as a matter of justice
to individuals but as a piece of sound policy tending to
the advantage of the whole community. The monopoly
is granted in the expectation that the inventor will derive
some profit from it ; and the hope of profit is known to
be a great stimulus to invention. When an author writes
a book, or an artist designs a picture, the law allows a
right of property to those persons in their productions, and
accompanies the recognition of this right with the power
to repress infringements. If this were not so, probably
very few persons would employ their time in writing books
or creating works of art ; and hardly any one will be bold
enough to assert that the extinction of the race of authors
and artists is to be desired. The same principle applies
to inventors, who ought to have the works of their brain
protected from piracy fully as much as the other classes
of mental producers. By holding out to them the pro
spect of gain they are induced, at a present loss of time
and money, to attempt to discover improvements in the
useful arts, in machinery, in manufacturing processes, etc. ;
and thus the interests of the community are advanced
more rapidly than if such exertions had not been brought
into play. Just as the rule of rewarding inventors is in
theory attended with some difficulty, so is the practical ap
plication of it. To grant a very long term of exclusive
possession would be detrimental to the public, since it
would tend to stop the progress of improvement. A
limited property must therefore be allowed, — large enough
to give the inventor an opportunity of reaping a fair
reward, but not barring the way for an unreasonable period.
And, when this compromise has been decided on, it will be
seen how difficult it may be to determine beforehand what
is the real merit of an invention, and apportion the time
to that merit. Hence it has been found necessary to allot
one fixed period for all kinds of inventions falling within
the purview of the patent laws. This regulation appears
to be open to the complaint that the least valuable and the
most meritorious inventions are placed on the same footing.
But it may be replied that in the result this is of little
consequence, since meritorious inventions alone obtain the
patronage of the public, those which are destitute of value
being neglected. Besides, if the complaint were well
founded, there is here no sound argument against the
policy of privileges of this nature, seeing that it is impos
sible to weigh beforehand one invention against another
in the scale of merit, or to obtain a true standard of com
parison.
Leaving the discussion of general considerations, we
will now give an outline of the law affecting patent privi
leges in the United Kingdom. Formerly the reigning
prince considered himself entitled, as part of his preroga
tive, to grant privileges of the nature of monopolies to any
one who had gained his favour. These grants became so
numerous that they were oppressive and unjust to various
classes of the commonwealth ; and hence, in the reign of
James I., a statute was wrung from that king which de
clared all monopolies that were grievous and inconvenient
to the subjects of the realm to be void. (See MONOPOLY.)
There was, however, a special exception from this enact
ment of all letters patent and grants of privilege of the
" sole working or making of any manner of new manufac
ture within the realm to the true and first inventor of such
manufacture, which others at the time of making such
letters patent and grants should not use, so they be not
contrary to law, nor mischievous to the state by raising of
the prices of commodities at home or hurt of trade or
generally inconvenient." Upon these words hangs the
whole law of letters patent for inventions. Many statutes
were afterwards passed, but these were all repealed by the
Patent Act of 1883 (46 and 47 Viet. c. 57), which, besides
introducing a new procedure, modified the law in several
particulars. When the law remains unaltered, it has to be
gathered from the numerous decisions of the courts, for
patent law is for the most part "judge-made law." Of
the law as it now stands we proceed to give an outline.
The inventions for which patents are obtained are chiefly
either vendible articles formed by chemical or mechanical
operations, such as cloth, alloys, vulcanized india-rubber,
etc., or machinery and apparatus, or processes. It may
be remarked here that a scientific principle cannot form
the subject of a valid patent unless its application to a
practical and useful end and object is shown. An abstract
notion, a philosophical idea, may be extremely valuable
in the realm of science, but before it is allowed to form a
sound basis for a patent the world must be shown how to
apply it so as to gain therefrom some immediate material
advantage. With regard to processes, the language of the
statute of James has been strained to bring them within
PATENTS
355
the words "any manner of new manufacture," and judges
on the bench have admitted that the exposition of the Act
has gone much beyond the letter. However, it is un
doubted law that a process is patentable ; and patents are
accordingly obtained for processes every day.
The principal classes of patentable inventions seem to be
these: — (1) new contrivances applied to new ends, (2) new
contrivances applied to old ends, (3) new combinations
of old parts, whether relating to material objects or pro
cesses, (4) new methods of applying a well-known object.
With regard to a patent for the new application of a
well-known object it may be remarked that there must
be some display of ingenuity in making the application,
otherwise the patent will be invalid on the ground that
the subject-matter is destitute of novelty. For example,
a machine already in use as an excavator on land cannot
be separately patented as an excavator under water ; nor
can a machine employed in the finishing of cotton goods
be afterwards patented without alteration as applied to
the finishing of woollen fabrics. A small amount of inven
tion is indeed sufficient to support a patent where the
utility to be derived from the result is great. A small
step in advance, a slight deviation from known processes,
may have been apparently brought about by the exercise
of little ingenuity ; but, if the improvement be manifest,
either as saving time or labour, a patent in respect of it
will stand. The mere omission of a step from some com
monly practised process has been held sufficient to support
a patent for a new method of manufacture ; and how often
do we see what appears to be a very trifling degree of
novelty attended with very advantageous consequences,
sometimes resulting in the entire revolution of a manu
facture, or in a lowering of price appreciable in every
pound of an article extensively used by the public 1
Whatever be the nature of the invention, it must possess
the incidents of utility and novelty, else any patent
obtained in respect of it will be invalid. The degree of
utility need not, however, be great. As to novelty, this
is the rock upon which most patents split ; for, if it can
be shown that other persons have used or published the
invention before the date of the patent, it will fall to the
ground, although the patentee was an independent inventor
deriving his ideas from no one else. The difficulty of steer
ing clear of this rock will be apparent at once. Suppose
A in London patents an invention the result of his own
ingenuity and patient study, and it afterwards appears
that B, in some distant part of the kingdom, had been
previously openly using the same thing in his workshop,
A's patent is good for nothing. Thus, in one of the cases
which arose out of Heath's carburet of manganese patent
— a patent celebrated in the law-courts — it appeared that
three firms had used a process in the manufacture of steel
which was substantially the same as that forming the
subject of the patent. They had used the process openly
in the way of their trade previous to the date of the
patent, although it had not become generally known.
This prior use of the invention was held to deprive the
patent of validity. It is therefore a very frequent sub
ject of inquiry, whether an invention has been previously
used to such an extent as to have been publicly used in
the sense attached by the courts to this phrase. The
inventor himself is not allowed to use his invention, either
in public or secretly, with a view to profit, before the
date of the patent. Thus, if he manufactures an article
by some new process, keeping the process an entire secret,
but selling the produce, he cannot afterwards obtain a
patent in respect of it. If he were allowed to do this he
might in many cases easily obtain a monopoly in his in
vention for a much longer period than that allowed by
law. The rule that an inventor's use of the invention
invalidates a subsequent patent does not, however, apply
to cases where the use was only by way of experiment
with a view to improve or test the invention. And it ha.s
been repeatedly decided that the previous experiments of
other persons, if incomplete or abandoned before the
realization of the discovery, will not have the effect of
vitiating a patent. Even the prior discovery of an inven
tion will not prevent another independent discoverer from
obtaining a valid patent if the earlier inventor kept the
secret to himself, the law holding that he is the " true ami
first inventor " who first obtains a patent.
When an invention is the joint production of more per
sons than one, they must all apply for and obtain a joint
patent, for a patent is rendered invalid on showing that a
material part of the invention was due to some one not
named therein. The mere suggestion of a workman em
ployed by an inventor to carry out his ideas will not,
however, require that he should be joined, provided that
the former adds nothing substantial to the invention, but
merely works out in detail the principle discovered by his
employer. In certain cases in which patents taken out
by the celebrated Sir Richard Arkwright came to be in
quired into, it was proved that the inventions were really
made by persons in Arkwright's employment. Their value
being perceived by him, he adopted them, and obtained
the patents in question, but under these circumstances
they were adjudged invalid.
If it can be shown that the invention in respect of
which a patent has been obtained was previously described
in a printed book in circulation in Great Britain, whether
such book be in the English or a foreign language, the
patent is also invalid, because a man has no right to
obtain a monopoly in that which is already a part of the
stock of public information ; and it is not necessary to
prove that the patentee was acquainted with the book,
and derived his ideas from that source. The most usual
prior publication fatal to a patent is a prior specification
of a similar invention. But persons are allowed to obtain
patents for inventions imported from abroad, if such in
ventions are new within the realm, and if they acknow
ledge, on the face of their applications, that the inventions
are imported, not original. Such patents are now common.
The attributes of novelty and utility being possessed in
due degree by an invention, the chief remaining difficulty
with which a patent has to contend resides in the com
plete specification, the instrument by which the inventor
describes the nature of the invention and the means by
which it may be carried into effect. An inventor is bound,
in return for the monopoly conceded to him, to instruct
the public how to work the invention when the monopoly
shall have expired, and to inform them in the meantime
what it is they are shut out from using ; and now the
patent is not granted till the complete specification is filed.
The patentee is bound to make by this instrument a full
disclosure of his secret ; he must not keep anything back
either wilfully or accidentally ; he must render everything
plain and clear, showing no attempt to mislead, and leaving
nothing ambiguous ; he must distinguish what is old from
what is new ; he must point out distinctly what it is that
he claims as his own exclusive property, and he must take
care that he claims no more than he is entitled to. Very
many patents have been invalidated by a disregard of the
requirements of the law, the most common fault being
that the specification claims too much ; in other words, it
claims something that is already public property, or another
man's patented invention. And here we are brought back
to the question of novelty. If a patentee discovers that
his specification claims more than he is entitled to, he may
put the matter right by filing an amendment, and excising
the superfluous parts ; but he will not be alloAved to extend
356
PATENTS
1m claims in any degree. lie may cut out anything, but
he can insert nothing, except matter which is of the nature
of correction or explanation.
The term for which a patent is originally granted is
fourteen years, but the crown has been empowered by
parliament and through the intervention of the judicial
committee of the privy council, before which the pro
ceedings take place, to extend the time of a patent from
its expiration for any additional time not longer than
fourteen years. But an extension will only be granted on
the patentee showing that the invention is meritorious, and
that he has not been adequately rewarded in spite of his
best efforts directed to that end. What is adequate re
ward depends on the special circumstances of each case.
The crown has hitherto had a right to the free use of a
patented invention, but this right has been abolished by
the new Act.
Patent privileges, like most other rights, can be made
the subject of sale. Partial interests can also be carved
out of them by means of licences, instruments which
empower other persons to exercise the invention, either
universally and for the full time of the patent (when they
are tantamount to an assignment of the patentee's entire
rights), or for a limited time, or within a limited district.
By an exclusive licence is meant one that restrains the
patentee from granting other licences to any one else. By
means of a licence a patentee may derive benefit from his
patent without entering into trade and without running
the risks of a partnership.
One of the regulations of the recent Act is that a
patentee can be compelled by the Board of Trade to grant
licences to persons who are able to show that the patent
is not being worked in the United Kingdom, or that the
reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the
invention cannot be supplied, or that any person is pre
vented from working or using to the best advantage an
invention of which he is possessed.
A patentee's remedy for an infringement of his rights
is by civil suit, there being no criminal proceedings in such
a case. In prosecuting such suit he subjects those rights
to a searching examination, for the alleged infringer is at
liberty to show that the invention is not new, that the
patentee is not the true and first inventor, &c., as well as
to prove that the alleged infringement is not really an
infringement. But it may here be remarked that a
patentee is not bound down (unless he chooses so to be)
to the precise mode of carrying the invention into effect
described in the specification. If the principle is new, it
is not to be expected that he can describe every mode of
working it ; he will sufficiently secure the principle by
giving some illustrations of it ; and no person will be per
mitted to adopt some mode of carrying the same principle
into effect on the ground that such mode has not been
described by the patentee. On the other hand, when the
principle is not new, a patentee can only secure the par
ticular method which he has invented, and other persons
may safely use other methods of effecting the same object.
Instances of this occur every day ; and it is well known
that scores of patents have been taken out for screw-
propellers, steam-hammers, water-meters, &c., each of
which is limited to the particular construction described,
and cannot be extended further. Again, where the inven
tion patented consists of a combination of parts, some old
and some new, the whole constituting a new machine or a
new process, it is not open to the world to copy the new
part and reject the rest. A man is not permitted to allege
that the patent is for a combination, and that, the identical
combination not having been used, there has been no in
fringement. If he has borrowed the substance of the
invention, it will be held that he has infringed the patent.
A patent may be revoked by a court of law on any one
taking proceedings for that purpose, and showing good
ground for a revocation, such as want of novelty or utility
in the invention, the fact of the patentee not being the in
ventor, insufficiency of the specification, fraud, or the like.
Patents are not now extended to the colonies, and such
of the English colonies as possess a legislature are gradually
acquiring patent laws for themselves (see infra).
The new Act enables the crown to make arrangements
with foreign states for the mutual protection of inventions,
under which a person who has applied for protection for
any invention in a foreign state will be entitled to apply
for a patent in England within a limited time in priority
to other applicants (see p. 358).
The patent business of the United Kingdom is transacted
at the Patent Office in London under the superintendence
of the comptroller, an officer appointed by the Board of
Trade, under whose direction he performs his duties. At
this office is kept a register of all patents issued, of assign
ments of patents, licences granted under them, Arc. An
illustrated journal of patent inventions is published at the
same office, where printed copies of all specifications can
also be obtained. The proceedings taken with a view to
obtain a patent commence with an application drawn up
in a special form and accompanied by a description of the
invention and a declaration as to its originality. Any
person, whether a British subject or not, may apply for a
patent. The actual inventor must always be a party to
the application, but he may join other persons with him
self, and the patent Avhen issued will be granted to them
all jointly. The fees payable to Government on patents
have been considerably reduced by the new Act, and they
may now be paid by convenient annual instalments.
During the ten years ending with 1882 the average
annual number of patents issued was 3506. There has
been a large increase under the new law, the number of
patents applied for in the first three months of 1884 being
5748.
Patents are frequently obtained through the intervention
of persons termed patent agents, who devote themselves
to this branch of business.
United States. — Under an Act passed in 1874 a patent
must in all cases be applied for in the name of the original
inventor, although he may contemporaneously execute an
assignment of the invention, and the patent will thereupon
be issued to the assignee. Every application is referred
to an official examiner. The patent will be refused if any
part of the invention is wanting in novelty, or if the
application is not in proper form. The applicant may,
however, make a re-application, and if the inventor is dis
satisfied with the report of the examiner he can appeal.
Patents are issued for the term of seventeen years, but
expire with any earlier foreign patents for the same inven
tion. A foreign inventor may obtain a patent if his inven
tion has not been in public use or on sale in the United
States for more than two years prior to his application.
Patent Laws in India and the Eritisk Colonies.
Prior to 1852 British letters patent extended to all Her Mnjesty's
colonies, but the Patent Act of 1852 restricted the rights granted
to Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle
of Man. Soon after the date of this Act the legislatures of the
colonies began to pass Acts of their own for the protection of inven
tions, and at the present time most English colonies have patent
laws. As a rule, the application in the colony must be made by
petition accompanied with a specification and drawings of similar
nature to those used in the British application ; and in most cases
the application must be made by the inventor himself or by his
assignee, or by some person holding his power of attorney. The
patents are in all cases assignable and the deeds of assignment
must be registered in the respective colonies. The patents are
usually granted for a term of fourteen years, and the inventions
must not have been publicly used in the colony prior to the date
PATENTS
357
of the application. Inventions may be protected in most if not
all the other British colonies by special Acts of the colonial legis
latures.
Australian Colonies. — The colonial Act for New South Wales is
dated 14th September 1852. Applications are referred to a board
consisting of two scientific men, and upon their report and the
payment of £20 the governor will grant letters patent of registra
tion, which have the effect of letters patent. These letters of registra
tion are granted for the term of fourteen years. The New South
Wales Act of 1852 still continues in force in Queensland. By an
order in council of 6th November 1859 patents similar in terms to
those granted in New South Wales can be obtained, and at the same
cost. By an Act passed in 1867 inventions can be provisionally
protected, but the provisional protection only appears to be useful
to residents in the colony. In South Australia the law of patents
is governed by the Acts of 1877 and 1881. The application is
submitted to an official examination. The patent is granted for a
term of fourteen years, and is subject to taxes of £2 10s. to be paid
before the end of the third year and £2 10s. before the end of the
seventh year. The invention must be worked in the colony within
three years from the date of the grant. In Victoria power is given
to the governor to issue letters patent by Act No. 240, 1865. The
sum of £15 must be paid before the expiration of the third year,
and £20 before the expiration of the seventh year. For Western
Australia the colonial Act is dated 15th August 1872, under which
bonafide holders of letters patent in any other country can obtain
letters of registration having the force of patents and expiring with
the original patent. The government fee is £25. The governor has
also power to grant original patents, but these are seldom applied
for except by residents in the colony. The government fee on
these is £50. The application for a patent must be made before
the application is made in any other colony or country.
British Guiana. — The law of patents is governed by an ordinance
dated 12th July 1861. Patents are granted very much in the
same form and on the same conditions as British letters patent.
A duty of $100 is payable before the end of the seventh year. The
governor has power to prolong the term for a period not exceeding
seven years.
British Honduras. — The Act for amending the law for granting
patents for inventions dated 10th September 1862 rules here. This
Act has provisions very similar to the British Patent Law Amend
ment Act 1852. The government fee on sealing is §30, and the
further government duties payable are $50 at the end of the third
year and $100 at the end of the seventh year. Prolongations of
the original term of fourteen years may be obtained for an addi
tional term not exceeding seven years.
Canada.— The Acts in force are those of 1872, 1875, and 1883.
Inventors or their assignees may obtain patents for fifteen years
for all inventions not having been in public use or on sale in
Canada for more than a year prior to the application. When a
period of more than twelve months has elapsed since the date of
any other patent for the same invention the application will be
refused. A government duty of $20 must be paid for the first five
years, $40 for the second five years, and $60 for the last five years.
These duties can be paid either altogether on application or by three
instalments. The invention must be worked in Canada within
two years from the date of the patent. The patent is void if after
the expiration of twelve months from the grant the patentee imports
into Canada the objects of the invention manufactured elsewhere.
Cape of Good Hope. — The Act of 1860 prescribes a system very
similar to that laid down by the English Patent Act of 1852. A
stamp duty of £10 is payable at the expiration of the third year
and £20 at the expiration of the seventh year of the grant. The
patent will expire with the expiration of any earlier patent in
any other country for the same invention.
Ceylon. — The inventions ordinance of 1859 governs the law of
patents here. Patents are granted for a term of fourteen years from
the time of filing the specification, and the governor has power to
grant prolongations not exceeding fourteen years. The fee on
filing the specification is £10.
Hong-Kong. — By the law of 3d July 1862 the governor in council
may grant patents for inventions which have already been patented
in England to the inventor or to the owner by assignment of the
British patent. The patent will extend over the same term as the
British patent. Subjects of foreign states not having British
patents cannot obtain patents in Hong-Kong.
India. — The law of patents is governed by an Act dated 17th
May 1859. Where there is no prior English patent the invention
must not have been used or published before filing the application.
Where an English patent has already been obtained, the applica
tion must be made within twelve months from the date of the
English patent. The exclusive privilege is acquired by merely
filing a specification of the invention upon leave obtained from the
governor-general for that purpose, and no patent is issued. The
governor-general has power to extend the original term for another
term not exceeding fourteen years. The government fees on
application amount to £10 ; no further duties are payable.
Jamaica. — Chap. 30, 21 Viet. 1857, governs the law of patents
here. The invention must be brought into operation in the island
within two years from the date of the patent. A patent bears a
stamp duty of £6 10s., and there is a reference to the attorney-
general, upon which he is paid a fee of £5. The duration of the
patent is limited to that of any previous foreign patent. Improve
ments on the original invention may be protected by certificates of
addition. Patents may be extended for a further period of seven
years beyond the original term of fourteen years.
Leeward Islands. — The law is regulated by the Acts of 1876 and
1878, the provisions being similar to those of the English Patent;
Act of 1852. The patent expires with the termination of any earlier
patent elsewhere for the same invention. The payments amount
to £28 on every application which is not opposed, and a duty of
£10 is payable at the termination of the third year and £20 at
the termination of the seventh year.
Mauritius. — The law is regulated by an ordinance dated 22d
May 1875. The governor has power to extend patents for any
period not exceeding fourteen years beyond the original term of
fourteen years. A patent may be applied for by the executors or
administrators of a deceased inventor. Payments of £12 are re
quired to be made upon application for the patent and upon sealing.
Natal. — The provisions of the colonial Act of 1870 are similar
to those of the English Patent Act of 1852. The fees on sealing
are £1 10s., and there is a third year's duty of £5, and a seventh
year's duty of £10. The patent expires with the termination of any
British or foreign patent of earlier date. The lieutenant-governor
can grant a prolongation of the original term for a fresh term not
exceeding fourteen years.
Newfoundland. — Under an Act passed in 1856 patents are granted
for fourteen years, but may be extended upon application for a
further period of seven years. The patent expires with the expira
tion of any previous foreign patent for the same invention. Im
provements may be protected by certificates of addition. The
invention must be worked in the colony within two years from the
date of the patent.
New Zealand. — Under the New Zealand Patent Act of 1883 in
ventors can obtain either letters patent or letters of registration as
they think fit. The fee for letters of registration is £10, and for
letters patent £2 10s., with a further duty of £10 at the end of
five years. Letters of registration are granted as of course upon
proof of the applicant being the actual owner of the foreign patent.
The invention patented must be worked in the colony within two
years from the date of the patent.
Tasmania. — The colonial Act for Tasmania is dated 5th Novembt r
1858. The proceedings prescribed are very similar to those in
England. The government fees are £7 10s. on application, £15 i.t
the end of the third year, and £20 at the end of the seventh year.
Patents may also be obtained in St Helena, the Straits Settlements,
and Trinidad.
Foreign Patent Laics.
Argentine Republic. — Patents are granted under a law dated llth
October 1864, for five, ten, or fifteen years, to the inventor or to his
assignee. The applications are subjected to an official examination,
and the patent when granted is liable to government fees and stamp
duties, which vary from about £20 to £60, according to the term
of the patent. The invention must not have been published either
at home or abroad prior to the application, and must be worked
in the republic within two years from the date of the issue of tho
patent.
Austria-Hungary. — By an imperial decree of the 15th August
1852, although separate patents are issued, they are made upon one
application. The protection extends to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Where the applicant for a patent is a foreigner he must have ob
tained a patent in his own country for the same invention, and
patents are only granted to the original inventor or his assignee.
Inventions are considered new when at the time of the applications
for patents they have not been put into operation or made public'
in the empire. The government taxes commence at the rate of 26
florins per annum for the first five years, and gradually increase
until in the fifteenth year the duty is 132 florins. If the patent
is originally granted for less than fifteen years it may at any tiir. j
be prolonged for that term. The invention must be worked in the
empire within a year from the date of the patent, and the working
must not be suspended for more than two years ; during its continu
ance there is no objection to the patented articles being imported
from a foreign country.
Belgium. — Patents are granted to the inventor or to his assignee,
or to any one holding the authority of the inventor for that purpose.
The term is fixed at twenty years, except in the case of inventions
previously patenteel elsewhere, when the Belgium patent expires
with the previous foreign patent of the greatest length. Patents
are subject to an annual tax beginning at 10 francs for the first
year, and increasing annually at the rate of 10 francs. Patents of
addition expiring with the original patent may be obtained. The
invention must be worked in Belgium within one year from its
358
P A T — P A T
being worked abroad, but patented articles manufactured abroad
may be introduced into Belgium.
Brazil. — By a statute passed in 1SS2 patents are granted alike
to natives and to foreigners. In the case of a foreigner the applica
tion must be made in Brazil within seven months from the date of
his foreign patent. The specification must be in the Portuguese
language. Patents are granted for a term of fifteen years, subject
to the payment of a duty of £1 for the first year, and increasing
,-Cl yearly. The patent must be put into operation in Brazil within
;i year from the date of the grant, and the working must not be
interrupted for more than a year. The Brazilian patent expires on
the expiration of any earlier foreign patent for the same invention.
The foreign patentee must appoint au accredited agent to represent
him in Brazil.
Chili. — Patents are granted for a term of ten years, subject to a
tax of i'10 to be paid on application. An extension of a patent
may be obtained when the importance of the invention is con
sidered sufficient to warrant it. The invention must be worked in
Chili within a term fixed in the patent, and the working must not
be discontinued as long as the patent is valid.
Denmark. — Native inventors may obtain patents for fifteen years,
but patents granted to foreigners are limited to five years. A tax
of 60 francs is payable on every patent. The invention must be
worked in the country during the first year of the patent, and must
be continued without interruption, but the patentee can import
the patented article into the country from abroad.
Frame. — Grants of patents (brevets d'invention) are regulated
in France by the law of 5th July 1844. Patents are granted to
inventors or their assignees, whether natives or foreigners, and the
French patent expires with any foreign patent of earlier date.
Applications for French patents must be made prior to the filing
of the complete specification in any foreign country. Patents are
granted for a term of fifteen years upon payment of an annual duty
of £4. All the duties must be paid up prior to an assignment of
the patent being registered. Alterations, additions, or improve
ments may be protected by patents of addition which expire witli
the original grant. The subject of the patent must be manufac
tured entirely in France, and cannot be imported from a foreign
country without invalidating the patent. The invention must be
put into execution within two years from the date of the grant,
!i:id the working must not then cease for any period of two con
secutive years. The patent extends to all the French colonies.
Germany. — By a law dated 25th May 1877 patents are granted
for fifteen years to natives and foreigners. The invention must
not have been previously described in a printed publication in any
way. The patentee may obtain supplementary patents for improve
ments expiring with the original patent. A government duty of
£1 10s. is paid on the issue of the patent, together with an annuity
commencing at £2 10s. and increasing by £2 10s. each year for
the whole term. The Government may revoke the patent if the
invention has not been carried out in Germany within three years
from the date of the patent.
Italy. — Patents are granted only to inventors or their assignees
for terms varying from one to fifteen years. The publication of a
previous foreign patent does not invalidate the grant provided the
application is made during the continuance of the foreign patent,
but the Italian patent will expire with the previous foreign patent.
Patents of addition are granted expiring with the original patent.
Patents are liable to taxes amounting to about 50 francs for each
of the first three years of the patent, and increasing gradually.
The invention must be worked in Italy within two years from the
date of the grant. The description of the invention may be either
in the Italian or the French language.
Norway.— By laws of 15th July 1839 and 9th May 1842 patents
are granted for a term not exceeding ten years to inventors only.
The invention must not have been published in Norway prior to
the application, which is subject to an official examination, not
usually of a stringent character. A payment of 10 specie dollars
must be made in respect of each application. The invention must
be put in practice in the country within two years from the date
of the grant.
Paroyuay. — Under a law of 20th May 1845 citizens or foreigners
are alike entitled to protection, and the term of the grant varies
from two to ten years. Where there is a previous foreign patent
for the same invention the patent is not valid for more than six
months beyond the termination of the foreign patent. The inven
tion patented must be worked within two years from the date of
the grant.
Portv.'jal. — By a royal decree of 31st December 1852 inventors,
whether natives or foreigners, may obtain patents for terms varying
from one to fifteen years. Certificates of addition are also granted,
but expire with the original patent. A patent will not be granted
to an inventor for a longer term than that of his original patent.
The government taxes amount to about £1 8s. per annum, in addi
tion to which certain official fees are payable. The patent becomes
void if the invention is not carried into practice within two years
from the date of its grant.
Russia. — The law is set forth in several imperial decrees, under
which patents are granted to natives and foreigners alike for the
term of three, five, or ten years, and upon payment of government
duties of 90 roubles for three years, 150 roubles for five years, and
450 roubles for ten years. The patent also covers the kingdom
of Poland. There is great delay in obtaining patents. A period
of from one to two years usually elapses between the application
and the date of the grant. The specification must be written in the
Russian language. The invention must be worked in Russia within
one quarter of the time for which the patent is granted. Separate
patents arc issued for Finland.
Spain.— The law is dated 1st August 1878. Patents are granted
to foreigners as well as to natives for terms varying from five to
twenty years. The application nmst be made prior to the publica
tion of the specification of the invention in another country. The
annual taxes begin with 10 francs for the first year, and increase
at the rate of 10 francs a year. The patent covers the Spanish
colonies of Cuba, Porto- Rico, and the Philippine Islands. The.
specification must be made in the Spanish language. Certificates
of addition are granted for improvements, expiring with the original
patent. The invention must be put into operation within two
years from the date of the grant.
Sweden. — Patents are granted to natives and foreigners for terms
varying from three to fifteen years, but the patent of a foreigner
expires with the expiration of the foreign patent. The invention
must be put into operation within the country before the expira
tion of two years from the date of the grant.
Turkey. — Under a law dated 2d March 1880 patents are granted
to natives or foreigners for five, ten, or fifteen years, subject to an
annual payment of two Turkish pounds. A patent expires with
the termination of any earlier foreign patent for the same invention.
Certificates of alteration, addition, or improvement are granted,
and expire with the termination of the original grant. The inven
tion must be worked within two years from the date of the patent,
and the working must not be discontinued for two consecutive
years subsequently. Patented articles manufactured abroad cannot
be imported into Turkey without invalidating the patent.
In addition to the above-mentioned countries the following also
have laws for the protection of inventions under which foreigners
may obtain patents : — United States of Colombia, Guatemala, Grand
Duchy of Luxemburg, Mexico, Nicaragua, and San Salvador.
International Patents.
The Governments of Belgium, Brazil, France, Guatemala, Holland,
Italy, Portugal, San Salvador, Servia, Spain, and Switzerland have
recently signed, and Great Britain is about to sign, an international
convention relating to patents, the salient points of which are : —
(1) that the subjects of each of the above states shall in all the
other states, as regards patents, enjoy the advantages that their
respective laws grant to their own subjects ; (2) that any person who
has duly registered an application for a patent in any one of the
states shall enjoy a right of priority protecting the first patentee
against any acts accomplished in the interval for a term of six
months — a month longer being allowed for countries beyond the
sea ; (3) that the introduction by the patentee into the country
where the patent has been granted of objects manufactured in any
of the other states shall not entail forfeiture ; but the patentee
remains bound to work his patent in conformity with the laws
of the country into which he introduces the patented objects ; (4)
that the states agree to grant temporary protection to paten table
inventions for articles appearing at ollicially recognized inter
national exhibitions.
It is understood that Holland and Switzerland, where there are
at present no patent laws, will shortly adopt measures in pursuance
of the terms of the above convention whereby inventions may bo
protected.1 (J. II. J.)
PATERCULUS, MARCUS 2 VELLEIUS, a Roman historian,
was probably born about 19 B.C. His father, a cavalry
officer, belonged to a good Capuan family, several members
of which had risen to some military or magisterial distinc
tion. The historian himself served as military tribune in
Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, and the East, and in 2 A.D.
was present at the interview on the Euphrates between
C. Ctesar (grandson of Augustus) and the Parthian king.
Afterwards as prsefect of cavalry and legatus he served
for eight years (from 4 A.D. onward) in Germany and
Pannonia under Tiberius, in whose triumph (12 A.D.) he
and his brother bore a conspicuous part. For his services
1 For further information on the subject the reader is referred to
Johnson's Patentee's Manual, fifth edition, 1884.
2 Marcus is the name given by Priscian ; but Renier identifies tlie
historian with the " C. Velleio Paterculo " of a North-African mile
stone (Aco.d. des Inscr., Dec. 1875; Rev. Archeol., 1875), the date
of which he places (on inconclusive grounds) iu 3ti A.D.
P A T — P A T
359
he was rewarded with the quaestorship in 7, and, along
with his brother, with the pnx-torship in 15. He was
still alive in 30, for his history contains many references
to the consulship of M. Vinicius in that year. The date
and manner of his death are unknown. It has been con
jectured that he was put to death in 31 as a friend of
Sejanus, whose praises he celebrates.
He wrote a compendium of Roman history in two books
dedicated to M. Vinicius, from the dispersion of the Greeks
after the siege of Troy down to the death of Livia in 29
A.D. The first book brings the history down to the
destruction of Carthage, 146 B.C.; portions of it are want
ing, including the beginning. The later history, especially
the period from the death of Caesar, 44 B.C., to the death
of Augustus, 14 A.D., is treated in much greater detail.
Brief notices are given of Greek and Roman literature,
but, strange to say, no mention is made of Plautus, Horace,
and Propertius. The author is a vain and shallow courtier ;
" full of wise saws," he is nevertheless entirely destitute
of true historical insight. His knowledge is superficial,
his blunders numerous, his chronology inconsistent. He
labours at portrait-painting, but his portraits are daubs.
On Ciesar, Augustus, and above all on his patron Tiberius,
he lavishes praise or flattery. The repetitions, redund
ancies, and slovenliness of expression which disfigure the
work may be partly due to the haste with which (as the
author frequently reminds us) it was written. Some
blemishes of style, particularly the clumsy and involved
structure of his sentences, may perhaps be ascribed to
insufficient literary training. The inflated rhetoric, the
straining after effect by means of hyperbole, antithesis, and
epigram, mark the degenerate taste of the Silver Age, of
which Paterculus is the earliest example. He purposed
to write a fuller history of the later period, which should
include the civil war between Caesar and Pompey and the
wars of Tiberius ; but there is no evidence that he carried
out this intention.
Paterculus was little known in antiquity. He seems to have
been read by Lucan and imitated by Sulpicius Severus, but he is
mentioned only by the scholiast on Lucan, and once by Priscian.
All we know of his life is derived from his own statements. The
text of his work, preserved in a single badly-written MS. (now lost),
is very corrupt, and its restoration has tasked the ingenuity of
many learned men. The editio princeps appeared at Basel in 1520 ;
subsequent editors have been J. Lipsius, Leyden, 1591 ; J. Gruter,
Frankfort, 1607 ; N. Heinsius, Amsterdam, 1678 ; P. Burmann,
Leyden (2d ed.), 1744 ; L>. Rulmken, Leyden, 1779 ; J. C. Orelli,
Leipsic, 1835; F. Kritz, Leipsic, 1840 and 1848; F. Haase, Leipsic
(2d ed.) 1858 ; C. Halm, Leipsic, 1876.
Besides the literary histories of Bernhardy and Teuffel, see the prolegomena
to Kritz's edition ; H. Sauppe, in Schweiz. Museum, i. p. 133 ; A. Pernice, De
Vellei fide historica, Leipsic, 18C2 ; contributions to the criticism of the text
by J. C. M. Laurent, Loci Velleiani, Altona, 1836; J. Jeep, Emendationes Vellei-
an/v, Wolfenbiittel, 1839; N. Madvig, Adversaria, ii. p. 297 sq. ; English trans
lations by Newcomb, Paterson, and Watson ; German by Jacobs, Walther, and
Eyssenhardt; French by Despres and Greard ; Italian' by Manzi, Boccanera,
and Spiridione Petrettini.
PATERINES. See PATARENES.
PATERNO, a town of Sicily, in the province of Catania,
stands at the south-west foot of Mount ^Etna, 10 miles
north-west of Catania near the railway from that city to
Leonforte. It is a long straggling place with a mediaeval
castle (1073) and several churches and suppressed convents.
The surrounding country is fertile, producing corn, oil,
wine, flax, hemp, and timber, in which articles an active
trade is carried on. Patern6 gives the title of " prince " to
a Sicilian family. In the neighbourhood the remains of
ancient baths, tombs, and aqueduct, and a bridge across
the Simcto have been discovered. The town is supposed
to occupy the site of the ancient Hybla Major. Population
15,230.
PATERSON, the " Lyons of America," a city of the
United States, capital of Passaic county, New Jersey, is
situated on the Passaic river and the Morris Canal, 17
miles north-west of New York by the Erie and the Dela
ware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroads. As the river,
which forms the boundary of the city for a distance of 9
miles, has at one place a sheer fall of 50 feet, it is an
unfailing source of abundant water-power ; and Paterson
ranks second among the manufacturing cities of the State.
Silk, iron, and cotton are the great industrial staples ;
silk-dyeing is also practised. One of the chief industries
is the making of locomotives. Further, fire-engines,
"Whitney" sewing-machines, iron bridges, brass wares,
flax, hemp, and jute goods, calico-prints, paper, and chemi
cals are all manufactured. The population was 11,334 in
1850, 19,586 in 1860, 33,579 in 1870, and 51,031 in
1880. Founded in 1792 by a cotton company under the
patronage of Alexander Hamilton and named after Gover
nor William Paterson, who signed its town charter, Paterson
obtained the rank of a city in 1851.
PATERSON, WILLIAM (1658-1719), founder of the
Bank of England, projector of the Darien scheme, and a
voluminous writer on subjects connected Avith finance, was
born in April 1658 at the farmhouse of Skipmyre, parish
of Tinwald, Dumfriesshire. His parents occupied the farm
there, and with them he resided till he was about seven
teen. A desire to escape the religious persecution then
raging in Scotland, and a wish to find a wider field for
his energies than a poor district of a poor country afforded,
led him southward. He went through England with a
pedlar's pack ("wherof the print may be seen, if he be
alive," says a pamphleteer in 1700), settled for some
time in Bristol, and then proceeded to America. There
he lived chiefly in the Bahamas, and is said by some to
have been a predicant or preacher, and by others to have
been a buccaneer. The truth is that his intellectual and
moral superiority to the majority of the British settlers
naturally caused his selection as their spiritual guide,
whilst his intense eagerness for information led to inter
course with the buccaneers, from whom alone much of the
information he wanted could be had. It was here he
formed that vast design which is known in history as the
Darien scheme. On his return to England he was unable
to induce the Government of James II. to engage in his
plan. He went to the Continent and pressed it in Ham
burg, Amsterdam, and Berlin, but unsuccessfully. A
countryman of his own talks of him as a well-known figure
"in the coffee-houses of Amsterdam" in 1687, and gives
us some idea of the strange impression that this thoughtful-
looking foreigner produced, as with fluent speech he un
folded to his astonished hearers a scheme which seemed
wild and dazzling as a dream of Eastern romance. On his
return to London he engaged in trade and rapidly amassed
a considerable fortune. His activity was not confined to
private business. About 1690 he was occupied in the
formation of the Hampstead Water Company, and in 1694
he founded the Bank of England. The Government of the
day required money, and the country, rapidly increasing in
wealth, required a bank. The subscribers lent their money
to the nation, and this debt became the bank stock. The
credit of having formulated the scheme and persuaded the
Government to adopt it is certainly due to Paterson. He
was one of the original directors, but in less than a year,
in consequence of some dispute with his colleagues, he
withdrew from the management. He had already pro
pounded a new plan for an orphan bank (so called because
the debt due to the city orphans by the corporation of
London was to form the stock). This, they feared, might
prove a dangerous rival to their own undertaking, and be
sides they looked with considerable suspicion and dislike
on this Scotsman whose brain teemed with new plans in
constant succession.
At that time the people of the northern kingdom were
engaged in considering how they might share in the bene-
3GO
PATERSON
fits of that trade -\vliicli was so rapidly enriching their
southern neighbours. Paterson embraced the opportunity
thus offered. He removed to Edinburgh, unfolded his
Darien scheme, and soon had the whole nation in favour
of it. He, it is supposed, drew up the Act of 1695 which
formed the " Company of Scotland trading to Africa and
the Indies." This company, he arranged, should establish
a settlement on the isthmus of Darien, and " thus hold the
key of the commerce of the world." There was to be free
trade, the ships of all nations were to find shelter in this
harbour not yet erected, differences of race or religion were
to be made nothing of ; but a small tribute was to be paid
to the company, and this and other advantages would so
act that, at one supreme stroke, Scotland was to be changed
from one of the poorest to one of the richest of nations.
On the 26th of July 1698 the first ships of the expedi
tion set sail "amidst the tears and prayers and praises of
relatives and friends and countrymen." Some financial
transactions in which Paterson was concerned, and in
which, though he had acted with perfect honesty, the com
pany had lost, prevented his nomination to a post of im
portance. He accompanied the expedition as a private
individual, and was obliged to look idly on whilst what his
enemies called his "golden dream " faded away indeed like
the " baseless fabric of a vision " before his eyes. His wife
died, and he was seized with a dangerous illness, "of which,
as I afterwards found," he says, " trouble of mind was not
the least cause thereof." One who knew him in this evil
time tells us " he hath been so mightily concerned in this
sad disaster, so that he looks now more like a skeleton than
a man." Still weak and helpless, and yet protesting to the
last against the abandonment of Darien, he was carried
on board ship, and, after a stormy and terrible voyage, he
and the remnant of the ill-fated band reached home in
December 1699.
In his native air Paterson soon recovered some of his
strength, and immediately his fertile and eager mind was
at work on new schemes. First he did all he could to pre
vent the Darien scheme already engaged in from being
finally abandoned, then he prepared an elaborate plan for
developing Scottish resources by means of a council of
trade, and then he tried to induce King William to enter
on a new Darien expedition. About the beginning of
the century he removed to London, and here by confer
ences with statesmen, by writing, and by personal persua
sion helped on the Union, of which his far-reaching mind
enabled him; perhaps better than any other man then living,
to see the advantages. At the Union one of the last acts
of the Scottish parliament was to recommend him to the
consideration of Her Majesty Queen Anne for all he had
done and suffered. The united parliament, to which he
was returned as a member for the Dumfries burghs, though
he never took his seat, decided that his claim should be
attended to, but it was not till 1715 that an indemnity of
£18,241 was ordered to be paid him. Even then he found
considerable difficulty in obtaining his due. His last
years were spent in Queen Square, Westminster, but he
removed from his house, though probably to some other
part of London, shortly before his death, which happened
22d January 1719.
As many as twenty-two works, all of them anonymous, arc attri
buted to Paterson. These are classified by Bannister under six
heads, as dealing with (1) finance, (2) legislative union, (3) colonial
enterprise, (4) trade, (5) administration, (6) various social and
political questions. Of these the following deserve special notice.
(1) Proposals and, reasons for constituting a Council of Trade
(Edinburgh, 1701). L This was a plan to develop the resources of
his country. A council, consisting of a president and twelve
1 This work was attributed to John Law (see LAW, vol. xiv. p.
367, note), who certainly borrowed some of his ideas from it. To Law's
"system " Paterson was strongly opposed, and it was chiefly due to his
influence that it made no way in Scotland.
members, was to be appointed. It was to have a revenue collected
from a duty on sales, lawsuits, successions, &c. With these funds
the council was to set the Darien scheme going again, to build
workhouses, to employ, relieve, and maintain the poor, and to encour
age manufactures and fisheries. It was to give loans without
interest to companies and shippers, it was to remove monopolies,
it was to construct all sorts of vast public works. Encouragement
was to be given to foreign Protestants and Jews to settle in the
kingdom, gold and silver were to be coined free of charge, and
money was to be kept up to its nominal standard. All export
duties were to be abolished and import regulated on a new plan.
By means like these Paterson believed the disasters lately under
gone would be more than retrieved. (2) A 2iroposal to plant a
colony in Darien to protect the Indians against Spain, and to open
the trade of South America to af I nations (1701). This was a proposal
to King William to establish the Darien scheme on a new and
broader basis. It points out in detail the advantages to be gained :
free trade would be advanced over all the world, and Great Britain
would derive great profits. (3) Wednesday Club dialogues upon
the Union (London, 1706). These were imaginary conversations
in a club in the city of London about the union with Scotland.
Paterson's real opinions were put into the mouth of a speaker called
May. The result of the discussion is that till the Darien busi
ness all Scots were for the Union, and that they were so still if
reasonable terms were offered. Such terms ought to include an
incorporating union with equal taxes, freedom of trade, and a
proportionate representation in parliament. A union with Ireland
"as likewise with other dominions the queen either hath or shall
have " is proposed. (4) Along with this another discussion of the
same imaginary body, An inquiry into the state of the Union of
Great Britain and the trade thereof (1717), may be taken. This
was a consideration of the consequences of the Union, which, now
" that its honeymoon was past," was not giving satisfaction in some
quarters, and also a discussion as to the best means of paying off
the national debt, — a subject which occupied a great deal of Pater-
son's attention during the later years of his life.
Paterson's plans were vast and magnificent, but it is a great
mistake to suppose that he was a mere dreamer. Every one of his
designs was worked out into minute detail,2 and every one was pos
sible and practical. The Bank of England was a stupendous success.
The Darien expedition failed from hostile attacks and bad arrange
ments. But the original design was that the English and Dutch
should be partakers in it, and, if this had occurred, and the arrange
ments, against many of which Paterson in letter after letter in vain
protested, had been different, Darien might have been to Britain
another India, whose history was shadowed by the memory of no
wrong.3 Paterson was a zealous almost a fanatic free-trader long
before Adam Smith was born, and his remarks on finance and his
argument against an inconvertible paper -currency, though then
novel, now hold the place of economic axioms. In his description
of the "merchants in an extended sense" Paterson has drawn his
own character for us. They are those "whose education, genius,
general scope of knowledge of the laws, governments, polity, and
management of the several countries of the world allow them suffi
cient room and opportunity not only to understand trade as ab
stractly taken but in its greatest extent, and who accordingly are
zealous promoters of free and open trade, and consequently of liberty
of conscience, general naturalization, unions, and annexions."
Paterson's works are well written, and the form as well as the
matter are excellent. As already noticed, they are all anonymous,
and they are quite impersonal, for few men who have written so
much ever said so little about themselves. There is no reference
to the scurrilous attacks made on him. They are the true products
of a noble and disinterested as well as vigorous mind. Paterson
was not rewarded for his labours. The Bank of England was a
great success, but he lost rather than gained by it. In the Darien
scheme he was ruined, and this ruin he never quite retrieved. The
credit of his other schemes has been usually ascribed to other and
inferior men. There is thus singular fitness in the motto "sic vos
non vobis " inscribed under the only portrait of him that we possess.
See Life ofW. Paterson, byS. Bannister (Edinburgh, 1858); Paterson's Works,
3 vols., by S. Bannister (London, 1859); The Birthplace and Parentage of W.
Paterson, by W. Pagan (Edinburgh, 18tK>). The brilliant account in the fifth
volume of Macaulay's History is incorrect and misleading. That in Burton's
Hist, of Scotland (vol. viii. ch. 84) is much truer. A list of a number of fugitive
writings on Paterson will be found in Poole's Mag. Index. (F. \VA.)
2 The books of the Darien company were kept after a new and
very much improved plan, which it is believed was an invention of
Paterson's (Burton's Hist. Scot., vol. viii. p. 36, note).
3 The revival of the Darien scheme in our own day is a signal proof
of Paterson's foresight. Of a canal he says : " From Venta Crucis to
Panama upon the South Sea there is by land about eight short
French leagues, six whereof is so level that a canal might easily be
cut through, and the other two leagues are not so very high and im
practicable ground, but that a cut might likewise be made vere it in
these places of the world, but considering the present circumstances of
things in those it would not be so easy" (Works, Bannister's ed., vol.
i. p. 140).
361
P
ATHOLOGY (irddo?, Aoyo?, the doctrine of disease or
(lit.) of that which is suffered) holds a peculiar place
among the natural sciences. Although it is laid down,
in the opening sentences of the Hippocratic treatise De
prism medicina, that the medical art, on which all men
are dependent, should not be made subject to the influence
of any hypothesis (such as that of the four cardinal
qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry), that the care and cure
of the sick should not be subordinated to pathological
ieory theory, but should be guided by experience ; yet the prac-
dprac- titioners of medicine have at no time been able to dispense
with theory, not even those avowed followers of the Hippo
cratic tradition who, while they professed a kind of quiet
ism amidst the rise and fall of systems, have none the less
been profoundly influenced by theory at every step of
their practice. The position of Cullen is the only rational
one : " You will not find it possible to separate practice
from theory altogether ; and, therefore, if you have a
mind to begin with theory, I have no objection. . . .
To render it safe, it is necessary to cultivate theory to its
full extent."
§ 1. — PROGRESS AND SCOPE.
The progress of pathology hitherto has been exactly
parallel with the progress of philosophy itself, system suc
ceeding system in genetic order. No other department
of biological science has shown itself so little able to shake
off the philosophical character, or to run in the career of
positivism or pure phenomenalism. This unique position
of pathology among the natural sciences is doubtless owing
to the fact that it is a theory of practice, a body of truth
and guess-work existing for the benefit of a working pro
fession which is daily brought face to face with emer
gencies and is constantly reminded of the need of a reasoned
rule of conduct. It is idle to attribute the philosophizing
habit in medicine, or the habit of system -making, to an
unscientific method in past times. The extremely various
points of view from which the problems of diseased life
are approached in the very latest and most authoritative
writings are an evidence that the difficulty is really in
herent in the subject-matter.
The positive progress of the biological sciences does
not essentially depend on the philosophical conception
of life as action and reaction ; but the notion of action
and reaction comes to the front in every page of a patho
logical treatise, and at every step of practice. In con
sidering the forms of diseased life, if not in the study of
living things themselves, we. are constantly driven back
to that ultimate analysis. The influences from without,
which make up aetiology or the doctrine of causes of
disease, assume a position in medicine the urgency or
immediate interest of which far exceeds that of the bio
logical problem, "the correspondence between life and
elation its circumstances." The standing difficulty in pathology
> aetio- has been its relation to aetiology, or the relation of the
)gy> ens morli to the agens morbi. One of the most singular
ways of meeting the difficulty is that of Paracelsus, who
boldly perpetrated the paradox : " Ens ist ein Ursprung,
welches Gewalt hat, den Leib zu regiren." The five classes
of entia of Paracelsus are a composite catalogue, of which
(1), (2), and (5) stand for influences from without, and
(3) and (4) for spontaneities, dispositions, or liabilities
within. From time to time the centre of interest has
been shifted to within the body, as in the "animism" of
Stahl, in the " vitalism " of the school of Montpellier (end
of 18th century), and in the "cellular pathology" of
Virchow. A discussion of the inherent difficulty of
holding the balance fair between that which is "exopathic"
in disease and that which is " endopathic " may be read
in Virchow's article, " Krankheitswesen und Krankheits-
ursachen," written in reply to objections that the cellular
pathology was inadequate. " What I wished to treat of
in the Celhdar Pathology" he says, " was the behaviour
of the elements of the living body in the usual kinds of
illness, or, to put it more briefly, the history of the element
ary processes of disease. Upon that basis, it seemed to
me, the doctrine of the nature of disease should be built.
The respective causes I adverted to only now and then ;
thus I spoke of poisons, and even fungi had a place in the
cellular pathology, although a very modest one. If the
Celhdar Pathology had ever pretended to be a general
pathology it would have contained also the whole of
aetiology." Thus far Professor Virchow writing in 1880.
If we now turn to a text-book of the same date, which
does bear the title of General Pathology, that of Professor
Cohnheim, we find pathology defined as "an explanatory
science which seeks (1) to discover the causes of disease,
and (2) to ascertain the esoteric connexion subsisting
among disease-manifestations." It is only (2) that forms
the subject of Professor Cohnheim's two volumes; aetiology,
he remarks, is absolutely without limits. It " comes into
relation with" cosmical physics, meteorology, geology,
sociology, chemistry, botany, and zoology ; from these
sciences it gets its subject-matter. In the general patho
logy of Cohnheim, accordingly, aetiology is omitted ; and
with it are omitted many of the problems underlying the
philosophical systems of the past, which have "only an
historical interest," as well as much of the natural history
of disease. General pathology, he says, knows no other
direction and no other order than physiology, "and
accordingly we shall take up successively, and in the same
order as physiology would take them, the pathology of the
circulation, digestion, respiration, tissue -nutrition, and
the like " (the pathology of the nervous system is not
included in the two volumes). Without adducing other
instances of eclecticism in the contents of modern patho
logical text-books, it will be convenient to give a brief
notice of the latest attempt at a philosophical scheme of
diseases, — the Elemente der Pathologic of liindfleisch, 1883.
There are certain groups of symptoms, says Rindfleisch, Riml-
which recur with the uniformity of a type in the most fltisch s
various diseases, depending as they do upon one constant r
factor, — the human body and its structural and functional
tendencies. The larger number of maladies do not arise
autochthonously or "under a whole skin," they are gener
ated by certain morbific causes ; and it is the variety of
causes that corresponds to the variety of disease-species,
or to those ever -changing sequences and coexistences of
symptoms in which the experienced eye of the practitioner
learns to distinguish one disease from another. The mor
bific cause is an invasion upon the normal course of our
life, usually a strong and forcible interference with the
physical and chemical constitution of a particular part of
the body. The disease as a whole stands for the effects
of this interference, and these effects flow in part from the
nature of the morbific cause and in part from the nature
of the body which suffers. That which is uniform in these
effects flows from the nature of the sick body ; that which
is various flows from the variety of morbific causes. It is
I above all the seat of the disease, its duration, the sequence
' and combinations of the type-groups of symptoms which
I are determined by the morbific cause. Only this vary-
| ing element can be used to distinguish one disease from
, another. Therefore there is only one truly natural prin-
XVIII. — 46
scheme.
362
PATHOLOGY
ciple of subdividing diseases and only one point of view
in special pathology from which the construction of a
natural system may be approached, — namely, the aitiolo-
gical principle of classification and the aetiological system.
In each group of diseases, and in each individual disease,
the causation has to be inquired into as closely as possible
and described after the natural-history manner ; we have
to ask how and where the cause acts upon the organism,
and finally to show how, from this action and from the re
action of the organism towards the same, we may explain
those special features of disease and that special morbid
process which are peculiar to each group of maladies or
to each malady individually. In a word, the species morbi
are made by the morbific causes ; all that separates one dis
ease from another is contained in the cause ; only the causal
differences, and no other, furnish those units of disease-life
wliich can be brought under genera and species.
If we now inquire into the categories of causation,
according to Rindfleisch, we find that they are five in
number, as were the categories of Paracelsus. They are
(1) injury from without, (2) parasitism, (3) deficient rudi
ments and defective growth, (4) over-exertion, and (5) pre
mature involution or obsolescence. It is impossible not
to discover heterogeneous elements in this enumeration ;
it is a composite catalogue like that of Paracelsus, and we
shall find it hard to say in the case of (3) and (5) whether
we are dealing with the ens morbi or with the agens morbi.
Simon's A statement of the definition and scope of pathology simi-
view. }ar to £nat Of Rinflfleisch had been given by John Simon
in his Lectures on General Pathology. Diseases were for the
most part the normal phenomena of life under abnormal
circumstances. " When you know the whole case you are
obliged to admit that, according to the normal constitution
of the body, the symptoms in question ought to have
followed the operation of those several causes." The doc
trine of disease, accordingly, is mostly an "exopathic" one,
although a small residue of it may be " autopathic." It
is impossible, says Simon, absolutely to exclude autopathic
diseased states ; there may be some such, mostly develop
mental, which " are actual caprices and spontaneities of
life, without any exterior causation whatsoever."
Exo- The exopathic point of view may be said to be the
dominant one at present; more particularly, it is from
^ie ^tiological side that the enormous aggregate of con
tagious and infective sickness is mostly studied. Thus in
the nosology of Rindfleisch the whole of the specific fevers
and infections (including even climatic fevers) are placed
(tentatively) under the head of " Parasitism," the parasites
being minute living organisms having their independent
place in the scale of being. The numerous researches of
the parasitic school may be regarded as the most formal
attempt as yet made to separate the study of the agens
morbi from that of the ens morbi.1
§ 2. — INTRODUCTION.
The plan of this article will be to take diseases as they
occur in the concrete, and to apply an analytical method to
them. In a given disease, or in an individual case of the
same, the object would be to find the point of divergence
from the beaten path of health, or, failing that, to seek
out the nearest analogies in the physiological life for the
unaccustomed and even grotesque things of disease. The
effects of disease in man's body may be likened, in a too
pleasing figure, to the effects of a magician's wand ; there is
1 Literature. — Hiiser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin und der
epidemischen Krankheiten, 3d ed., 3 vols., Jena, 1875-82 ; Virchow,
" Krankheitswesen und Krankheitsursachen," in Virchow's Archiv,
vol. Ixxix., 1880 ; Cohnheirn, Vorlesungen iiber allgemeine Patho
logic, 2 vols., Berlin, 1877-80 ; Rindfleisch, Die Eleinente der Putho-
li'fjie, ein naturlicher Grundriss der wissenschaftlichen Medicin, Leipsic,
1883; Simon, Lectures on General Pathology, London, 1850.
view
" nothing of him but is changed into something rich and
strange." This fascinating region of science is well outlined
by Buckle in his remarks on the genius of Hunter : —
"In nature, nothing is really irregular or disorderly ; if we are
apt to fancy that the chain is broken, it is only because we cannot
see every link in it. ... Being satisfied that everything which
happens in the material world is so connected and bound up with
its antecedents as to be the inevitable result of what had pre
viously occurred, Hunter looked with a true philosophical eye at
the strangest and most capricious shapes. To him they were
neither strange nor capricious. They were deviations from the
natural course ; but it was a fundamental tenet of his philosophy
that nature, even in the midst of her deviations, still retains her
regularity."
Hunter's own words are : " Nature is always uniform
in her operations, and, when she deviates, is still regular
in her deviations. ... It certainly may be laid down as
one of the principles or laws of nature to deviate under
certain circumstances." The interest of this science, says
Buckle, " depends simply on the fact that, when it is com
pleted, it will explain the aberrations of the Avhole organic
world." The same science of deviations was provided for
by Bacon in his classification of the sciences ; and, after
him, by D'Alembert, under the head of "Prodigies, or
deviations from the usual course of nature," in his classifi
cation for the Encyclopedic.
The science of deviations begins, in the writings of
Hunter and of Paget, with the erratic forms of crystals,
and with the indwelling power of crystals to repair injuries
on the lines of their growth if they be placed in the pro
per mother-liquor. In the hands of each of these two
pathologists this science next proceeds to elemental aber
rations in the life of plants, where there is neither heart
nor nervous system to complicate matters; and, so advanc
ing from the simpler to the more complex, we should have
a science of the abnormal coextensive with life itself.
Without attempting to treat of pathology in that evolu
tional order, which proceeds from elemental pathology
upwards, we may still adopt, for the narrower subject of
human pathology, a somewhat analogous order, that is to
say, a method based upon the facts of embryonic develop
ment. Confining our attention, then, to the processes of
disease within the human body, and seeking out from
among these the broadest of the facts, we shall find evi
dence, as we proceed, that the life of the body retains
vividly the memories of its past. Nothing marks so
generally the disease-incidents of life as crudity or re
crudescence in the activities of cells, tissues, organs, and
mechanisms. In other words, we shall find much in
pathology to show that, when the organism goes wrong, it
retreats to broader ground, or reverts to modes of life
which it had come through. But, even in the normal
functional and structural processes of the mature body, we
find occasional evidences of the same reversion to embryo
nic modes of life. These are practically limited, in health,
to the reproductive system, or to that part of life which
goes to the maintenance of the species. Here we find
periodicity still in full force, the same periodicity, prim
arily following the seasons, which underlies the life of
plants and of most animals. The greatest example in the
human body is the building up anew, from time to time, of
an entire organ, the placenta, for the intra-uterine nourish
ment of the child ; in this periodical formation we have a
reversion, in the midst of mature life, to vessel-making and
blood-making such as the body goes through otherwise only
during its development. The provision for the nourish
ment of the child after it is born is a somewhat modi
fied instance of the same kind. The full structure and
function of the breast also develop periodically (although
the framework is permanent), and each of these period
ical developments is a repetition of the incidents in the
original embryonic development of structure and function.
PATHOLOGY
363
It is when we come to the several tissues that we
meet with the most striking reminders of persisting de
velopmental characters, the most universal fact of the kind
being the indwelling embryonic character of the common
binding tissue. In that tissue, indeed, we have a constant
reminder that in the midst of the very highest or most
perfected modes of cellular life we are but a step removed
from the most rudimentary. Thus in the brain and in the
retina the elaborate nervous mechanism is supported on a
framework of connective tissue ; there is a morbid con
dition of these organs, called glioma, in which the con
nective tissue, or neuroglia, absolutely usurps the place of
the nervous mechanism of which it is ordinarily the mechan
ical support ; and this it may so completely do, as in disease
of the pons Varolii, that even the outward form and mark
ings of the part are not interfered with. An equally
striking instance of a return to embryonic characters and
predominance may sometimes be observed in the primi
tive nuclei of muscle ; the muscle-fibres will be found to
have surrendered their high function, to have retraced the
steps of their development, and to have sunk their identity
in a rudimentary form of cell-life.
Thus the body nowhere loses altogether the memory
of the past, even when the periods of development and
growth are, strictly speaking, ended. Among the normal
processes of mature life there are such as amount to a
recrudescence of structure and function ; and an analogous
recrudescence in the tissues is one of the most fundamental
facts in the processes of disease. There are several advan
tages in proceeding in an exposition of pathological prin
ciples from this evolutional or developmental basis. It
enables us to take up, in an order not unsuited to their
importance, the sections relating to repair, to new growth
of tumours, to errors of growth, such as rickets, to errors
of blood-making, and the like. At the outset comes the
process of repair, for which Paget has formulated the
embryological principle as follows : " The powers for
development from the embryo are identical with those
exercised for the restoration from injuries ; in other words,
the powers are the same by which perfection is first
achieved, and by which, when lost, it is recovered."
§ 3. — THE PROCESS OF KEPAIE.
onta- The spontaneity of certain polyps under injury is a
ty of good example of the indwelling power of all the cells and
tissues to return to the established order, to the order and
harmony which had been slowly acquired, and of which
the memory is vividly retained. Trembley cut a hydra
longitudinally, and "in an hour or less," says Paget,
" each half had rolled itself and seamed up its cut edges
so as to be a perfect hydra. He split them into four ; he
quartered them ; he cut them into as many pieces as he
could ; and nearly every piece became a perfect hydra.
He slit one into seven pieces, leaving them all connected
by the tail, and the hydra became seven-headed, and he
saw all the heads eating at the same time. He cut off the
seven heads and, hydra- like, they sprang forth again."
The recovery of perfection may be more gradual. Thus,
Sir J. G. Dalyell (as quoted by the same writer) cut a
specimen of Hydra tula in halves ; each half regained the
perfect form, but only very slowly, and, as it were, by a
gradual improvement of parts that were at first ill formed.
In Tubularia indivisa, after the natural fall of its head,
the stem was slit for a short distance down ; an imperfect
head was first produced, at right angles to the stem, from
one portion of the cleft ; "after its fall another and more
nearly perfect one was regenerated, and, as it grew, im
proved yet more. A third appeared, and then a fourth,
which was yet more nearly perfect, though the stem was
thick and the tentacula imperfect. The cleft was almost
healed, and now a fifth head was formed, quite perfect ;
and after it, as perfectly, a sixth and a seventh head. All
these were produced in fifteen months." This spontaneity
resides in every living thing, and its efforts are directed
by the memory of what the species had come through in
reaching its place in the scale of organization ; it is able,
indeed, to make perfect reparation for injuries or losses
only where the cells are little differentiated into tissues,
or where the tissues are little specialized for diverse func
tions. In all animals, and most notably in the higher,
this spontaneity is most effective for repair in the periods
of development and growth. With reference to the degree
of reparative power possessed, Paget formulates the rule
as follows : " The amount of reparative power is in an
inverse ratio to that of the development, or change of
structure and mode of life, through which the animal has
passed in its attainment of perfection, or on its way
thitherward."
Healing by Granulations. — It will now be convenient to advance Granu-
in medias res, and to give some account of the process of repair in lation-
inan, where there is a breach of continuity in the course of the repair,
blood-carrying and lymph-carrying vessels, of the nerves, sinews,
binding tissue, bone, fat, and skin. What is the effort that they
each and all make to adapt themselves to the circumstances, in
the case, let us say, of a stump after amputation ? (The repair be
tween the two ends of a broken bone will be discussed separately.)
Disregarding the cases where the most perfect coaptation of parts
is secured by the surgeon, and selecting the extreme case where the
wound is "left to granulate," the following is the order of events.
The divided vessels being sealed up either by ligature or by clots
of blood (which are in the end absorbed), there oozes from the raw
surface a blood -tinged serous - looking fluid. Becoming paler by
degrees, it sets on the surface as a greyish-white film or glazing,
especially on the exposed surface of muscle. The film of surface-
glazing will be found to contain numerous corpuscles embedded in
it resembling the colourless corpuscles of the blood. They have
probably the same formative or reparative value as the granulation-
cells proper, but it will appear from the facts about to be given
that they are practically superseded by the latter in all cases where
a wound is "left to granulate." After an interval of two or three
days of apparent rest reddish points are seen on the edges of skin,
on the muscular substance, and on the marrow of the bone ; these
are the beginnings of the granulation -tissue, which in the end covers
the whole surface and grows until it fills up the gap somewhat
beyond the level of the edges of skin. When the growth of granu
lations projects considerably beyond the skin it is known as "proud
flesh. " Usually the surface begins to skin over when the defect of
substance has been sufficiently made good, the new skin showing
as a delicate bluish border or frill to the old skin. This frill
becomes broader and broader until the growing points meet in the
centre, and the continuity of the skin is restored. Meanwhile the
granulation - tissue beneath has been changing into more charac
teristic forms of mature tissue, although the status quo antea is
never quite restored.
Notwithstanding the regularity of this process, and its daily
occurrence in surgical practice, there is an almost incredible amount
of conflicting opinion as to its details, — radical differences as to the
source or sources of the reparative material, and as to the mode of
development of the new blood-vessels and of the new skin ; and
these differences of opinion must be the measure of the difficulty
of analysis where the interference takes place in the highly com
plex and subtly integrated life of man. Direct observation of the
reparative process does not of itself suffice to discover the law of it ;
it is necessary to seek elucidation from the nearest analogies, both
among the regular processes of life and growth and among the
deviations therefrom. Among the former there is in particular
one rich source of analogous detail to be found in the periodical
new formation on the surface of the uterus for the purposes of the
embryo — in the placenta ; among the latter are certain kinds of
tumours and cysts. Hunter sought for a parallel to the new vessels
of granulation-tissue in the first formation of vessels in the embryo ;
but these arise in the continuity of development, and not as a
somewhat abrupt incident in the mature life. On the other hand,
the formative process of the placenta is an example — and a unique
example — of an extensive new growth of vascular tissue occurring
periodically in the adult, and as somewhat of an interruption on
the ordinary course of life. It matters little for this parallelism
whether we accept the extreme position of Ercolani, that a total
destruction of the uterine mucosa precedes the placental new growth,
or whether we adopt the more likely view that the new formation
takes place under an intact surface. In either case we have to do
with a remarkable spontaneity of the body, a spontaneity which
PATHOLOGY
reveals the indwelling power of the tissues, and especially the
vessel-making power.
Placental Analogy of Placental new Formations. — The first adaptations for
develop- the placenta are not in the pre-existing vessels, but in the pre-
meuts. existing tissues around. The elon
gated and almost fibre -like cells
become more plump, they join to
form cylinders of nucleated proto
plasm, the adjoining cylinders
open out to form meshes between
them, and all this takes place in
the intervals between the vessels
and their capillaries (fig. 1). The
cells of the tissue return to that
embryonic state which preceded ]J
the formation of blood-vessels,
supplying their own juices, as it
were, and opening out so as to
form plasmatic canals in their FIO. \.—a, uterine tissue at early stage
midst. In the placental rudiment of decidua ; b, c, the same at later
it is a mucus-like albuminous fluid stages.
that they mostly yield, but there is some evidence tliat they also
yield blood-corpuscles. Meanwhile, the same process of enlarge
ment has been taking place in the cells immediately surrounding
the blood-vessels ; and
at a later stage it is ^
the perivascular cells
that keep up this acti
vity (fig. 2). The phase
of development in which
the cells supply their
own juices, retaining
them in meshes of the
tissue, is succeeded by
a new formation of ves
sels, a more perman
ent provision. Certain
tracts of cells are told Fl°- 2-~ From deeper part of placenta (guinea-pig),
off to form the walls of ^$8 "^ °eU-growth m and around the
blood-vessels, the chan
nel of the vessel being the space between two such adjoining tracts
(fig. 3). These selected cylinders of cells become the new and
enlarged system of blood-vessels, adequate to the requirements of
the part. In this placental process the original capillaries play a
FIG. 3.— New formation of vessels in placenta (guinea-pig).
very subordinate part ; the thin cell-plates that form their walls
are far outrun in the hyperplastic race by the cells of the tissues
around, and it is the latter which furnish the materials for the new
vessels. That which distinguishes the placental new formation is
the enormous thickness of the walls of the new vessels and their
terminal capillary loops. It remains to consider whether this pla
cental new formation of vascular tissue — the only instance of the
kind in the ordinary course of adult life — offers any help to the
understanding of granulation-tissue.
Tendon- Tendon in a Granulating Stump. — It is at once evident that the
granula- tissues of a stump after amputation have a very unequal value for
tions. formative purposes, and probably all of them a lower value than
the uterine tissue, which is at no time far removed from embryonic
characters. This inequality is seen in the order in which granula
tions appear — first on the vascular layer of the skin, on the ends
of muscle, and on the marrow of bone, and last on the ends of
tendon. The attempt of a severed tendon to cover itself with a
cap of granulations is somewhat feeble, and its slowness gives us
an opportunity of marking points of detail. Tendon consists of
wavy bundles of fibres in close order, and in full-grown animals its
cellular elements are reduced to small dimensions. They are thin
plates folded round the bundles, presenting in the face view the
appearance in a, fig. 4, and in the side view the appearance in b,
fig. 4. In the granulating end of a tendon the appearance is that
of c, fig. 4 ; the thin plates have become solid or cubical, and where
they have increased in number at the free end of the tendon they
have lost their orderly arrangement ; they have, in fact, become
granulation-cells. The tendon has drawn upon its reserve of cells
and placed them at the disposal of the reparative process. All the
$/ nip^pi
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FIO. 4.— a, tendon-bundle covered by cell-plates, detached plate beneath (highly
magnified ; after Ranvier) ; b, ordinary appearance of normal tendon in section,
the plates being seen in profile as linear thickenings ; c, tendon from a gran
ulating stump of the leg, — the cell-plates have become cubical.
other tissues of the part have already done the same, some much
earlier and more extensively than others. Wherever capillaries
are most numerous there the cellular activity is greatest, the cells
nearest to the wall of the capillary becoming more plump or more
embryonic. The cellular material for the purposes of repair is
supplied first around the severed vessels (according to some it is even
supplied from within the vessels in the form of colourless blood-
corpuscles) of the highly vascular muscle, of the marrow of bone,
and of the subcutaneous tissue, and ultimately even by the ends
of the tendons. In the placental process the formative materials
had been furnished much more evenly over the whole area.
Blood-vessels of Repair. — The next step is towards the nutrition Blood-
of the formative cells. Whether their nutrition is for a time plas- vessels!
matic (as in fig. 1, from the placental growth) does not appear ; granula-
about the third day the formative tissue begins to be furnished tion.
with numerous blood
vessels. Their for
mation is very diffi
cult to observe in
young granulations ; .
in older granulation-
tissue they have the
appearance drawn in
fig. 5, a series of
parallel tubes mak
ing straight for the
surface, ramifying
on the same, joining
by numerous loops
near the surface, and
of unequal calibre
throughout their
course, being widest
on or nearthcsurface.
These vessels are dif
ferent in several respects from the vessels in a vascular area of the
normal organism of corresponding extent, unless it be in the decidua
uterina. They are not branching arteriolcs ending in a fine capillary
network, but they are of somewhat uniform and exceedingly simple
structure throughout, and their calibre is often greater at the distal
than at the proximal end. AVe have next to consider how these
vessels have originated.
The youngest granulations that can be prepared for examination
consist of a uniform mass of cells, mostly round, and of somewhat
wide vascular channels separated from the mass of cells by thin
walls of more elongated cells (fig. 6). The most probable analogy
for these new and wide vessels is not the embryo nor the tadpole's
tail, but the placenta ; that is to say, certain of the cells along pre
determined lines agminate to form the opposite sides of a tube, be
coming adapted in shape to that end (fig. 8). According to IHllroth,
there is hardly ever in granulations an extension of the pre-existing
capillaries by outgrowth of branching cells from their walls such
FIO.
,. — Blood-vessels in the surface-layer of chronic
granulations.
PATHOLOGY
365
as may be observed in the tadpole's tail (Unterauchungen fiber die
Entiuickeluny dcr Blutgcfdsse, Berlin, 1856, p. 30); and the circum
stances are so little ana
logous iu the two cases
that this statement may
be readily credited. How
the new vessels join on
to the old is not easily
made out, whether in the
placenta or in granula
tions.
As the granulations get
older, the vessels acquire
a considerable longitud
inal coat of spindle-cells.
The individual granula- FIO. 6.— Young granulation-tissue, where the ves-
tion-points on the surface sels are spaces bounded by rows of flattened
become fused into a more cells- (After Billroth.)
uniform fleshy stratum, the lower layers contract as the cells
approximate to fibrous tissue, and skin begins to form on the
surface. If a healed surface be examined long after, in micro
scopic sections through the skin and subjacent tissue, the parallel
vessels will still be observed running at intervals towards the
surface, only more obliquely than in the granulation-tissue, They
are invested by a certain quantity of fibrous tissue arranged parallel
to their course, while all the rest of the space between two of
them is occupied by horizontal lines of fibrous tissue, with spindle-
shaped cells lying regularly
among the bundles. This
change has been, first of
spherical granulation - cells
into spindle-shaped cells, with
development of intercellular
or perinuclear substance (fig.
7), and then fibrillation of
the latter. It is worthy of
note that a development into
clastic fibres goes on in the
.scar for months or even years
after healing is complete.
Hairs, hair - follicles, and se
baceous glands are not repro
duced
are sweat _
hand, fat develops readily in
the usual situations,
s. Suppuration in Repair. — Meanwhile there has been a remark
able concomitant of the growth and adaptation of the reparative
material, namely, a flow of pus or matter from the surface. Matter
or pus varies in its physical characters somewhat ; it may be
creamy and yellowish-white (pus laudabile) or greenish-white, or
it may be thin and watery or more viscid. It has an alkaline
reaction and a faintly sweetish odour. Standing in a vessel, it
separates into two parts, — a supernatant fluid or serosity, clear, and
of a yellowish tint, and a sediment of pus-cells. The serum coagu
lates when boiled, and it may even happen that a fibrinous clot
forms in pus after death, just as in drawn blood. The serum of pus
contains from 1 to 4 per cent, of albumen, and very much the same
salts as blood -serum. The cells of
pus are spherical elements of some
what uniform size, of the greyish colour
of protoplasm, granular on the surface,
and disclosing the presence of two,
three, or four nuclei when treated with
acetic acid (fig. 8). They are capable
of amoeboid movements, and they may
be seen to take into their substance
such particles as charcoal with which
the wound may be dressed.
Physiological Analogy of Pus. — Pus
is a very remarkable adjunct of the
reparative process — to go no farther FIG. 8.— Pus-corpuscles, n, fresh;
into the inflammatory processes for b. ""fler acetic acid— the nuclei
the present. The pus-cells are evi
dently a condition or product of the
granulation -cells on the extremities and sides of the vascular out
growths, and they are detached from these situations, carrying
with them a certain amount of fluid. Is there anything analogous
to this in other formative processes of the body ? The following
analogy is very close in some at least of the circumstances. The
ts, and interior of a cyst removed by operation from the neck region is
st-for- found to lie covered with vascular tufts, which have precisely the
itions. character of granulations as regards the blood-vessels. Each vas
cular tuft is covered by a cap of cells like a granulation, and the
same investment of cells can be followed as a cylindrical column
down the vessel into the depth of the cyst-wall. These cells are
somewhat peculiar. They are cubical or polyhedric elements, with a
ed in the skin of scars, nor Fl°- 7— Vessels of granulation-tissue, their
, i i ,-. ,, '.-, walls invested by longitudinal spmdle-
sweat-glands. On the other cclls. the lnter^al occupied by round
cells or transverse spindle-cells.
0,
visible ; c, blood-disks, to coin-
pare in size.
nucleus and a broad zone of protoplasm (fig. 9, «). On the summit
and sides of a vascular tuft they are found becoming detached and dis
integrated, the nucleus being cleft
into fragments, which afterwards
coalesce, while the cell-substance
ilow^ off in the form of spherical or
oval or pear-shaped vesicles of a
reddish tint (tig. 9, b}. The cyst
is a blood-cyst, — its contents, a clear i
brownish fluid with many red blood-
disks floating in it, having been
produced by the disintegration of
the cells covering the vascular
tufts. The cells are hrematoblasts;
their cell-substance is disengaged
in drops which afterwards become
red blood-disks, and their nucleus, FIG. 0.— n, perfect hfomatoblasts ; b,
after being cleft into several fra"-- disintegrated hsematoblasts, the
ments of unequal size is remade ^XS^lSSgR ?£
and survives as a cell of the size of mains of the ha-matoblasts, resem-
a pus-cell, and containing several id ing pus-corpuscles in the cleavage
nuclei like a pus-cell (fig. 9, c). This or dispersion of the nuclear particles,
is a curious instance of blood-making from connective-tissue cells
late in life, and it is not so much inexplicable in its characters as
it is rare in its occurrence. The formation of pus on the granu
lations of repair is one of the commonest of incidents, but it is
open to elucidation even by a rare analogy. In the one case a
blood-like fluid is formed, and in the other pus ; the fluid part of
pus corresponds to the plasma together icith the red blood-disks in
the cyst, and the cellular part of pus, the pus-corpuscle, corresponds
to the surviving but broken-up nucleus of the hsematoblast. The
granulation-cell is comparable to the perivascular cell of this blood-
making process, and in passing into the condition of a pus-cell with
several small nuclei it disengages merely a fluid plasma and no red
blood-disks. The cells of the injured part having returned to an
embryonic state, their first activity is a revival of early embryonic
activity ; if they do not make blood, they yield that which may
be regarded as its substitute, namely, pus.
This analogy will appear all the closer from a consideration of
another cyst. In this new growth, which occurred under the skin of
the back, and was removed, like the former, by operation, the wall
is lined by a certain thickness of tissue which is practically the
same as the granulation-tissue of repair ; there are the same parallel
vessels ending in loops, the same cells, and the same deliquescence
of the surface. The fluid in the cyst is indeed the result of this
liquefaction — a somewhat turbid brownish fluid. In a small recess
of the cyst there is a formation of a considerable layer of epidermis-
like scales on the surface. One important point of difference is
that the deeper layers of cells show no tendency to become spindle-
shaped, to take a transverse order in the intervals between the
parallel vessels, and so to become fibrous tissue. On the contrary,
one finds in the depths of the tissue the steins of vessels surrounded
by zones of young cells, perivascular sources of the new growth by
which the loss of substance around the terminal loops of the vessels
is constantly made good. On these terminal loops the process is
not one of pus-formation, nor is it altogether one of blood-formation
as in the former cyst ; but it is an intermediate process which helps
us still further to understand the significance of the pus in repair.
The new formation is comparable to that of the blood-cyst in the
obvious perivascular grouping of its cells, and it is comparable to
the granulations of repair in the forms of its cells ; and it thus
supplies the link between the blood -yielding tufts of the former
and the pus -yielding vascular points of the latter. What, then,
is the nature of the deliquescence in the interior
of this cyst ? It is partly blood ; and there may
be seen also the large cells from whose proto- v '
plasm the blood-disks have been derived. There
are also seen the remarkable cells with nucleus
cleft into three or four, so like the cells of pus
(fig. 10, b) ; the latter are the surviving nucleus
of the hrematoblast, the peculiar form of which
is best explained by watching the more perfect
process of blood -formation on the wall of the FIG. 10.— ff, large Wood-
blood -cyst. Fewer of the cells in the second -Vle1'
cyst undergo this transformation ; fewer of
them ever attain the perfect form of hfrmato-
blasts so as to be able to undergo it. For the
most part they pursue a devious development,
and it is in this that they resemble granulation-cells. The differ
ence is only one of degree ; the type or law of the process is the
hrematoblastic type, which may be more or less perfectly attained.
We are accordingly confirmed in the impression that pus-cells are
the surviving nuclei of embryonic cells whose perfect law is blood-
making, and that the fluid which accompanies them is the cell-pro
toplasm which has failed to disengage itself in the form of individual
buds that easily pass into red blood-disks, but has become a veritable
albuminous fluid. Pus, then, may be said to be blood absolutely
I @@-
O e
®
the wall of a cyst ;
?>, their nuclei sur
viving after the de
tachment of c, the
red blood-disks.
366
PATHOLOGY
wanting in red blood-disks, and with the colourless corpuscles in
enormously disproportionate numbers. We shall afterwards see
that there is a kind of blood — leucocythremic blood — which ap
proximates to pus in these its essential characters.
That which distinguishes the process of repair from the forma
tive process in the two cysts, and in all tumours whatsoever, is
that the former is self-limited ; after a time skin forms on the
surface of the granulations, and the lower layers of cells pass into
the resting condition of fibrous tissue. Each of these adaptations
has now to be described.
Skin-for- Formation of Skin on a Granulating Surface. — The new skin
mation. appears as a delicate bluish frill extending gradually over the raw
surface from the margin of the old skin. Nothing is more natural,
therefore, than to suppose that it is a continuous growth from the
cells of the rete mucosum of the old skin ; and, according to the
embryological dogma of an impassable gulf between the epiblast,
mesoblast, and hypoblast for histogenetic purposes, the new
epidermis can have no other source than proliferation from corre
sponding cells of the old. But, dogma apart, there is a radical
difference of opinion as to the origin of the epidermic or epithelial
cells on the surface of granulations. Notwithstanding the fact
that the new epithelium springs up alongside the old, it has
appeared to many observers with the microscope that it was derived,
not from subdivision of the latter, but from the granulation -
cells becoming flat and otherwise adapted to surface purposes. In
considering these difficulties let us, as before, seek analogies among
other formative incidents of mature life. In the first place it
should be mentioned that the new skin may be peculiar. The
accompanying figure (fig. 11) is drawn from a section through the
Giant-
cells.
FIG. 11.— Loop-like arrangement of rete mucosum in the skin of a scar.
scar of an ulcer of the leg which had broken out and healed re
peatedly. The peculiarity is that the epithelial cells are every
where a narrow belt which bends down and encloses the terminal
vessels as in a loop ; in other words, the surface vessels are driven
through the midst of the rete mucosum of the new skin. For an
analogy to this epitheliation of granulation-tissue we may take the
case of the cyst already referred to ; it was covered in part with a
thick layer of epidermic scales. The origin of these in the cyst is
not difficult to trace ; they are the **-_
granulation-cells enlarged, with two, '"
three, or four nuclei, and with a
more homogeneous protoplasm. The
surface-layer is in fact largely made
up of multinuclear blocks, some of
which become excavated in their in
terior, while their nucleated peri
phery forms a narrow belt of surface-
cells with a descending loop enclos
ing a space, in which collections of
blood-corpuscles may sometimes be
seen (fig. 12). If we imagine the
plexus of vessels ramifying on the Flo. 12.— From surface of a cyst
granulating surface to form com- lined with epidermis ; above, a
munications with these excavations continuous piece of the cyst- wall;
,, . , ill below, individual multinuclear
in the multinuclear blocks, we cejjs excavated,
should be able to understand how
it is that they are driven through the rete mucosum of a scar, as
in fig. 11.
Giant -cells in Repair. — These multinuclear blocks are the so-
called giant-cells. Their occurrence
in fungous granulations was de
scribed by Billroth (op. cit., p. 32)
in 1856, he having previously seen
them in the granulations of bone
and taken them to be elements
"necessary for the new formation
of vessels in osteophytes or in cal
lus. " The accompanying figure
(Tig. 13) shows several examples of
them from the granulations of a
slow-healing sturnp. Precisely the
same forms occur in the wall of
the cyst whose structure has been
already referred to in order to illus- Fia
trate the granulations of repair.
But for these multinuclear blocks of tissue we have a clear physio
logical parallel in that unfailing source of analogies for the formative
processes of mature life, namely, the placenta. The accompanying
examples (fig. 14) are drawn from the deepest layer of a discoid
placenta (the guinea-pig's). Here it is evident that they result
from the subdivision of a
single nucleus within
single nucleus within a /^3\ K*S®Stfl^\ & K ^-> r<\
growing cell of the inner „ ( @$ A W/^&ft}®^®. \$
muscular coat; and their (*?,\-^-'J (-ii^R ^^ i fi ("TT^rXxC
place in the placental pro- ^V\\%/ .'''3^ y^'P; ^ ^ " I -\A'\j}-V' • r5V '-f
cess is as clear as their s§)^ v;^vVv^/A^.'- J^4r>Ttfv^&'
histogenesis. They enter {•"?& - v_. ' 'r':> •• ' fo^- (C*'
into the formation of the
blood-sinuses of the deeper
parts of the organ, some
times forming a consider
able part of the wall of a
vessel by being excavated
in their interior (the nuclei
being driven to the side),
at other times forming one
side of a blood-channel, —
a corresponding multiline- „
1-pir block formin<r j-]1(1 FIG. 14.— ^ aso-formative giant-cells from deeper
real block loiming the layers of placenta (guinea-pig),
other, and the lumen of
the vessel being the space between them. They represent a some
what feebler continuation of those vaso-formative processes in the
placenta which we have already used as the analogy for the pro
duction of the new vessels of granulations. That their function
and significance in granulations is not wholly vaso-formative will
appear from the fact of their co-operating to build up the surface
epithelium.
Conversion of Granulation - tissue into Scar-tissue. — The skin Scar -
of a scar is never perfect ; it is always thin, wanting the descend- tissue,
ing processes and papillae of the natural skin, and wanting also the
hair -follicles, hairs, sebaceous glands, and sweat-glands. Its
blood-vessels never become the orderly capillary loops of the
original type ; they remain for a time as an extensive plexus of
large vessels close to the surface, giving a recent scar its livid ap
pearance ; afterwards the channels of the vessels become narrower,
and many of them quite occluded ; and the scar has in the end a
somewhat blanched appearance, which continues even when the
surrounding skin is thrown into a state of ruddy glow. The
underlying tissue, however, gradually acquires more of the natural
type. If a section be made through an old scar it will be seen
that the subcutaneous tissue is fibrillar and fibrous, with more or
less of fat -cells. In the figure (fig. 15), drawn from a section
FIG. 15. — Scar-tissue of an ulcer of the leg which had broken out and healed
repeatedly ; spindle-cells with brown pigment in the interfibrillar spaces.
through the scar of an ulcer of the leg which had broken out and
healed more than once, the tissue is composed of parallel wavy
fibres, with spindle - cells between them at regular intervals, the
cells having (as a characteristic of scar-tissue after repeated heal
ing) brown pigment -grains in their substance. The successive
changes which have led up to this horizontal fibrillation are not
difficult to follow. While the ascending vessels acquire more and
more of elongated cells on their walls, the granulation-cells in the
intervals between them become extended horizontally or obliquely
(see fig. 7), the spindle -cells among the fibrillar bundles in the
figure being the surviving representatives of them. The change of
the spherical cells into spindle-cells, which precedes the fibrillation,
takes place first in the deepest or oldest stratum of the granula
tion-tissue, and it appears to be accompanied by a certain dragging
down or obliquity of the vessels running to the surface. There is
always a considerable thickness of spindle -cells parallel to the
vessels, so that these, together with the horizontal tracts between
the vessels, make up a kind of warp and woof. But as the scar-
tissue matures the horizontal bands come to overshadow the vertical
or oblique. The fibrillation takes place, as it does in ordinary
growth, in an intercellular or perinuclear homogeneous protoplasm,
which becomes more extensive as the embryonic or purely cellular
character of the granulation-tissue fades. One of the most striking
facts in this development of embryonic tissue into mature tissue
in the adult is its shrinkage, corresponding to the well-known con
traction of the area of a healing surface.
Repair of a Broken Bone. — The reparative process in bone is Bone-
much simpler and it may be said to be much easier than in the repair,
healing of a stump. The bones retain even to old age the materials
out of which new bone may be produced ; these are the somewhat
PATHOLOGY
367
lage- callus opposite the
fracture (from Paget) ; ft,
embryonic membrane covering the bone, or the periosteum, and
the marrow. During the growing period these two tissues retain
pronounced embryonic characters, and at
all times they take on a formative action
readily. However unlikely an object, then,
a bone may seem for repair, it has within
and around it the materials for a tolerably
direct renewal of osseous substance. The
most orderly or intelligible form of the re-
parative process is that seen in animals.
A long bone, such as the tibia or shin-bone,
after having been broken and carefully set,
presents an appearance such as is drawn in
the figure (iig. 16, a). Opposite the line of
fracture there is a fusiform thickening all
round the bone, which is bulky and carti
laginous for a time, and afterwards becomes
greatly reduced in extent, and, at the same
time, osseous in its structure. It is called
the callus. It will be convenient to de
scribe the details of this process of repair
from actual specimens of the tibia of a
young frog which was found undergoing
repair after fracture. The tibia, when
cleared of the muscles, was found to have
a spindle-like enlargement about its middle
of the size and shape of an out (tig. 16, b) r
and of a whitish colour. It was easily cut j
np into sections passing through its whole
length as well as through the projecting
ends of the spindle representing the normal
shaft of the bone (fig. 17). The bulk of
this fusiform enlargement is made up of
cartilage developed between the upraised
periosteum and the dense substance of the
bone. But there is another and independ
ent new -formed mass projecting from the
canal of the bone, and clearly marked off
from the wide extent of cartilage around it,
—this is the direct osseous formation from Fio. 16. -a, broken tibia of
the marrow. The cartilage has been pro- '
duced from the periosteum, each spindle-
cell of the latter altering its form and
developing a disproportionate amount of ^f 'S*^
cell-substance, which becomes the hyaline cartilage covering a frac-
matrix of the cartilage, while the nucleus ture.
of the original cell, generally excavated or reduced to a crescentic
shape, remains as the cartilage -cell. From this cartilage, again,
bone is formed very
much as it is formed
from the ce 1 1 tral rod
of cartilage in the
fietal bone, and it
also resembles the
latter in being
formed only to lie
reabsorbed. In
these preparations
from the frog, nar
row spiculaj of bone
may be seen start
ing from the thin
end of the spindle
and spreading over
the surface of the
cartilaginous cal
lus. In the deeper
strata of the latter,
and still at the thin
end of the spindle,
the cartilage -cells
group themselves
round the walls of
alveolar spaces, as
in the ossification
of epiphysial carti
lage, and that is
doubtless the pro
cess which extends
throughout the
whole mass of car-
tih"p Meimvliilo Flr" 17-— Section through broken tibia of a young frog,
—upper fragment, a, ensheathing callus (cartilage)
there has arisen a between periosteum and shaft ; 6, Intermediate callus
fungus-like protril- (bone), growing from the cells and vessels of the
sion of new bone »««-row.
from the medullary canal of the bone ; it lines the inner walls of
the medullary cavity for a short distance up from the line of
a £—-.--
fracture, and projects for a greater distance into the midst of
the cartilaginous callus. This centre of ossification is intimately
connected with the blood-vessels of the marrow ; they form the
framework of the osseous growth, the embryonic marrow -cells
(themselves the lineal descendants of cartilage -cells) becoming
the osteoblasts or future bone -corpuscles. The whole of the new
growth of bone is ultimately moulded into a more compact form ;
but the seat of an old fracture will always retain a certain roughness
of exterior, and a certain want of regularity in its Haversian systems.
The repair of bone in man is not altogether the same as in
animals ; the ensheathing cartilage is not usually found except in
broken ribs, and the uniting osseous substance corresponds mostly
to that part of the new bone (in the preparation from the frog)
which issues from the medullary cavity in association with the
blood-vessels of the marrow. The callus in man is accordingly
said to be chiefly "intermediate" or between the broken ends,
and partly also " interior," or extending into the medullary canal ;
and it is naturally permanent and not subject to removal like the
"ensheathing" callus developed from cartilage. But the sources
of new bone in man depend upon the amount of displacement of
the broken ends ; if the displacement be very considerable, the
connective tissues around may be drawn upon for bone -forming
materials, their cells becoming embryonic in form and ultimately
osteoblasts. Comparing the repair of a bone with the repair of
soft parts, the former is much more direct ; the osteoblastic
tendency or memory is strong in the tissues within and around
a bone, above all in the periosteum and in the young or red
marrow ; and true osseous union is readily effected except in such
fractures as the neck of the thigh-bone and the knee-cap, where
the union is often merely ligamentons or fibrous. In the "green-
stick " fractures of children the periosteum is still a succulent
layer engaged in the natural growth of
the bones, and there is reason to suppose
that it is the chief source of whatever
reparative materials may be needed.
E,epair of Nerves and Muscles. — When
a nerve, such as the ulnar, is divided by
a cut near the wrist, sensibility is lost
over the area of skin to which the nerve
is distributed, and, under ordinary cir
cumstances, it is restored in about three
weeks. The severed ends of the nerve
are joined by a band of tissue, which has
been proved by examination of it at i
various stages of the reparative process
in animals to be at first composed of
embryonic spindle-cells arranged in the
line of the nerve-bundles (fig. 18) ; these
cells are derived from the nuclei of the
neurilemma, they pass through the ori
ginal embryonic phases, and ultimately
become more or less perfect nerve-tubes Fic.is.— Repaired nerve(frog)
filling the gap in the divided nerve,— a ten weeks after section;
gap which may be a quarter or half an ^f^r^i\\\,lT^ "(l&om
inch in length. In muscle, also, a cor- Billroth, after Hjelt.) Musrle-
responding process is described ; but the repair,
repair of a ruptured muscle such as the rectus extensor of the
thigh is commonly fibrous only, and the gap can be felt even
through the skin.1
§ 4. — ERRORS OF EMBRYOLOGICAL GROWTH IN CERTAIN
TISSUES — MESOBLASTIC TUMOURS.
No chapter or section treating of tumours as a whole can Tumour,
be homogeneous ; and, in order to preserve the develop
mental or evolutional order already sketched, it will be
convenient to consider here only a part of the morbid
processes which result in tumours, leaving the rest to be
introduced at appropriate points in the sequel. The dis
advantage of applying the developmental or embryological
idea to all tumours whatsoever comes out in the tumour-
hypothesis of Cohnheim. According to that hypothesis,
the tumours of the body are clue to the awakened growth
of small centres or foci of embryonic tissue which had
1 Literature. — Paget, Lectures on Surgical Pathology, 4th ed., Loud.,
1876 ; Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii.
chap, xxvii., newed., Lond., 1882; Billroth, Ueber die Enticickelung
dcr Blutgefasse, &c., Berlin, 1856 ; Id., in Beitrage zur pat hoi. Histol.,
Berlin. 1858, and in his Allgem. C'hirurg. Pathol. (Engl. transl.);
Ziegler, Untcrstich. liber pathol. Bindegeicebs- und Gefassneubildung,
Wiirzburg, 1876, and in his Pathol. Anat. und Pathogenese, Jena,
1880-84 (Engl. transl.) ; Rindfleisch, Lehrbiich der pathol. Geu-ebelehre
(Engl. transl., 1872-73); Golding Bird, "Constructive Inflammation
and Ulcers," in Guy's Hosp. Reports, vol. xxiv., 1879, p. 525.
368
PATHOLOGY
remained over from the foetal development, persisting in
their embryonic characters while all else around them had
assumed the characters of maturity. For the arguments
and illustrations of this hypothesis the reader may refer
to the section beginning at p. 622, vol. i., of Cohnheim's
Vorlesungen iiber allgememe Pathologic. It must suffice
to say here that groups of resting embryonic cells in the
various organs and parts of the body, or embryonic rudi
ments in the sense of Cohnheim, are not known to exist at
all generally. That which we are well assured of is an
indwelling power of all the mesoblastic tissues to revert
to embryonic characters, — the spontaneity of the tissues
never quite worn out, or the memory of development
more or less deeply rooted in them to the end of life.
From this point of view we have traced the process of
repair, finding a developmental analogy even for pus.
From the same point of view we have now to consider
certain kinds of new formation as arising, not to make
good defects, but under an erratic impulse, or in the course
of an erratic spontaneity. Congenital tumours have always
been regarded as errors of development, and it will be con
venient to select a simple congenital tumour to begin with.
Fibroma. Fibroma. — The texture drawn in the figure (fig. 19) occurred in
a tumour of the x \sx^<» - ^.'TV^ •//;-/--• - *, ,'/. ^-//^-^^ '-*=•
back of the neck vr: ^ ^ \. % .T ^:*>^.?°-'t-.j-^.^.'£~^<~/^ ''^fe'^-.
in ajroungchild ,V; '. C''- 'r*J^ ^.^V-ff? ••'^••^'<',- '"-'^'•^ ,' -,'T'x'c"^?;-'
having been ">f\ .."-^'^f^T^Y? ~*'^' '*'{:' '""?''?' ' 3 ^''^'^
there since ^ <>' • - ... ^~-\*_."?'~- "''&"'•- ^ '"."'' 'Z^Z&p'^f.
birth. It is a 'V; - :. -. : '/•-<__. -X : :'~; '-/'j'.'~ '^ <~*^ ''•'&?'!$/
fibroma, and *.;,' • ••'">:".' 'i&&^£$*'%^&t&$$fy
consists essen- %','•/•. ' I"?'?*'/-' -^\ . '^/5/''" '•'- • ' '-^:/'^
tiallyof bundles tv': ; l:rV • '.; •'-• .-.•• .' •- - • \- '''"-."^/
of wavy fibres •, ?, .."..''''..", ••'*".'•/ ;•';'•'•- .. •/- . \ "ii ^°V->';^
crossing or de- .•?•;•' .'Miffi *',*''*, C: *$£^'?ffi, ^-/f^/-^ -^>- "^^
cussating in di- ''ffli'si//A'/'%'*e '^\^ f^~t'~,t '#/'&< ? v ^cVi\R^<^-
rection, some- / •!•)' " « .'•'"•/ •d%Vi<r'^'<!1' f/^'. /'^ .^'''.-S'0' ' ,
times thick '<';,}'' f > •>, ' ' • '"• ^5"- ~^ '. "*' ' ^ '^'' a;r>'.' l
bundles, some- >^'.'o[! _ ^/'~ -'.^"'/^ /£'.'••'•= ''•^^'•^'l-
times only a few '" • ' ''; ~ ?. "'?'...-<. 'V-? ••*,'*/ '';'', '•'/.••/ '••'.??>;•'•' f\i} I
strands, . the '•';•,'' ,:,>Vc-.-'|, ^itj^^^^^^^^^^^^
wliole forming '•' "M'^''-''" '» W&'® •'/.'
a dense warp- FIG. 19.— Congenital fibroma from a child's back; warp-
and-woof tex- and -woof fibrous texture, with embryonic nuclei; bundles
ture The ne of fibres seen also in cross-section.
culiarity is that such a tissue should have formed under the skin
as a tumour or lump the size of a hen's egg ; spread out in thin
layers, the same warp-and-woof texture of fibres occurs naturally
in the aponeuroses and the sheaths of muscles, and in other fibrous
membranes, such as the dura mater; and the large number of nuclei
among the fibres, as shown in the figure, would be appropriate to
the fibrous tissue at the early period of life to which the tumour
belonged. At various centres these embryonic cells had developed
into fat-cells, so that the tumour may be called a fibro-lipoma. The
tissue has increased in three dimensions, and so has resulted in a
palpably distinct object in the body, which could be dissected out
from among the surrounding structures as an individual thing.
The overgrowth had taken place probably in one of the aponeu
roses of the trapezius muscle, and the noteworthy point is that it
has faithfully adhered to the warp-and-woof texture proper to the
tissue on which it is based. The new formation possesses length,
breadth, and thickness, and its fibres are interwoven in the three
dimensions as if it had been constructed at some unusual kind
of loom. The same interlacing of ./././ 4'-. ^ •, E,,,^/
bundles of wavy fibres is found very .;/.„•
commonly in the fibromata, — their '.'V •/< • . / '*
favourite seats, besides the flat fibrous .•/..,
sheaths, aponeuroses, and mi:in- ' './'//•
branes, being the uterus and it- ,••;•'"
appendages, where the tumours may ' .,»••.
be stalked or sessile. Sometimes tin- ,' ;
fibres are concentrically arnni, > /,< ' /
round a number of centres, or the l, ,V> ."'•' '' yy'''
bundles may pursue a sinuous course.
One variety may be specially ni'ii- /. -^
tioned as exemplifying a modification ? .I'-fjjfjl
of fibrous structure which is often met I -tf^""
with in various normal and patholo- !
gical processes. In this modification ***** ' ^-"' -"-
the fibres become as if fused into Fli;- 20.— Recurrent ossifying
broader homogeneous bundles, the fibroma of lower jaw.
nuclei being left lying as if in spaces or holes in a structureless
celluls
tumoi;
ground-substance. This variety of fibroma is generally found in
the bones of the jaws ; it may be ossified at some points, the
nuclei becoming the bone-corpuscles, and the homogeneous ground-
substance becoming impregnated with the earthy substance of bone.
The accompanying figure (fig. 20) is drawn from a preparation of a
fibrous tumour, ossified in part, within the medullary space of the
lower jaw in an adult. It had been removed once, and grew again
(recurrent fibroma or fibroid).
"Where the modification takes the direction of an increase of Fib
the cells at the
expense of the
fibres, we have
a fibro -cellular
tumour. The
tumour is com
posed of elon
gated elements,
which are vir
tually nucleated
cells with very
long bodies,
amounting al
most to fibres.
The figure (fig.
21) is made from
an extensive
tumour deeply
FIG. 21.— Fibro-cellular tumour ; decussating bundles.
FIG. 22. — Tumour composed of small spindle-cells
decussating bundles.
seated in the carotid region of the neck in a woman aged twenty-two.
There is nothing more remarkable in all these varieties of tumour Sarco
than the constancy of the warp-and-woof texture, and we shall
find that the same is an important characteristic of the class of
tumours where the fibrous structure is wanting and everything
becomes cellular.
Tumours of the
latter kind form
the group of sar
comata or flesh-like ^^^rvrx^^^O*
tumours. Proceed
ing from the fibro-
cellular tumour
last mentioned and
sketched, we come
to the variety of
spindle - celled sar
coma, in which the
cells differ from
the fibro -cellular
elements of the
former, chiefly in
the greater promi
nence of the nuc
leus and the greater delicacy of the tapering prolongation of cell-
substance. It is sometimes called a small spindle-celled sarcoma.
The figure (fig. 22) shows the structure to be purely cellular, with
out any fibrous supporting tissue. In the cross-section the spindle-
cell appears as a small round cell.
In the sarcoma ivith large spindle-cells we have a form of tumour
not uncommon in certain regions of the body, often associated with
brown pigmentation, and very generally malignant in its course.
One common seat
of it is the choroid
coat of the eye,
where large pig-
mented cells, both
spindle-shaped and
branched, exist
naturally. An
other common seat
is the subcutaneous , , . . , ..^^v^,- :stxs -•
tissue, where pig-^v^ ^Jb:J_§*^'
mentation is not a
normal occurrence.
The illustration
(fig. 23) is taken
from a case where
there was, how
ever, brown pig
mentation of the skin for a considerable distance round the tumour.
The situation was the shin, the common seat of chronic ulcers, and
the tumour seemed to have begun in the scar-tissue of an ulcer of
that kind. The cells are very large spindle-like elements grouped
in decussating bundles, the distribution of pigment being partial
(omitted entirely in the cut), and not uncommonly confined to the
narrow bands of cells separating two broader or thicker bundles.
The developmental or embryonic character of these cells is suffi
ciently obvious; but the occasion for their reappearance in mature
life is not so clear. For the particular ease of tumour over the shin
FIG. 23.— Tumour composed of large spindle-cells in
decussating bundles.
PATHOLOGY
369
the following may be conjectured. In the pigniented scar of an old
ulcer of the same region the subcutaneous fibrillar tissue is found
to be thickly occupied with large spindle-cells full of brown pigment
granules (see fig. 15). Now, the skin for some distance round the
tumour in question had precisely the brown pigmentation of a scar
that had re-formed repeatedly, and the brown colour resided pre
sumably in the same embryonic elements as are drawn in fig. 15. It
cannot be supposed, however, that that explanation applies to all
spindle-celled sarcomas with pigment, even if we do not include
those of the choroid tunic of the eye. A more general explanation
must be sought for the pigmentation, which will apply also to the
pigment in scar-tissue itself.
us of Cystic Sarcoma. — The activity of tumours, even of those classes
tion that we have hitherto considered, is not purely structural or forma
tive ; it may be obviously functional, involving an instability of the
>ur- structure. Even the fibrous tumours may become cystic in their
•.ture. interior, as notably in the case of fibroids of the uterus ; and it may
be stated generally that all such traces of cyst-formation in solid
masses of embryonic tissue are so many traces of the deeply-rooted
embryonic function of those tissues. This important principle of
tumour pathology may be conveniently introduced through a par
ticular case of spindle-celled sarcoma, which grew to a great size on
the outer side of the thigh of a boy aged fifteen, having its root deep
down in the interval between
the tensor fascia; muscle and
the vastus extern us. In no
part of this tumour were
traces wanting of an embry
onic function residing in its
component cells. Although
the section of the tumour
was close and firm, yet
found under the microscoj
the appearance drawn
figure (fig. 24). The tract;
surface -modification of the
spindle-cells. These are the
blood -spaces of the tumour,
and blood is to be seen in
them here and there Where Flo. 24.-Sarcomat.ms tumour growing from
the excavation has been ex- inter-muscular septum of the thigh; spaces
tensive the spaces have formed lined by cubical epitlwlial-like cells,
communications, and left the spindle-celled tissue projecting into
them as free cylinders or columns, with rounded ends covered with
the same cubical epithelial -like elements. A central area of the
tumour was more spongy in consistence ; and that character is
found to depend upon the greater development of the spaces, ap
proaching remotely to a cystic development. It is here that one
sees the true physiological or embryological significance of the inter
stitial spaces, of their contents, and of the cubical cells round their
walls. The surface-row of cubical cells loosen from their attach
ment, fall into the space, and are succeeded by another row, which
are detached in turn ; and so the excavation proceeds at many
centres. The detached cells do not remain free solid elements ;
they may sometimes change in toto
into a mucous fluid, but their full
physiological activity is the haema-
toblastic or blood-making. The
spaces contain the hrematoblastic
cells and their derivatives in various
forms. One may see the cubical cells
on the margin of the space (fig. 24)
acquiring a yellowish tint, then the
same cells disengaged and lying free
in the space and probably increased £ £3
in size (fig. 25), then red blood-disks @?
of the same colour as the protoplasm
of the haematoblasts, and cells with Fio. 25. — Htematoblastic process in
several nuclei corresponding to those the spaces of sarcomatous tumour
already described as the surviving f^^^^'HS
nuclei of the disintegrated hoemato- geneous; b, blood-disks of various
blast, the whole lying in the midst shapes ; c, the surviving nuclei,
of a mucus-like coagulum. This is neither more nor less than the
early blood-making function of the mesoblast revived. The result
is not by an}' means always or altogether blood, and in cysts it is
indeed for the most part a mucous or serous fluid.
In one direction this process goes on to the ultimate destination
of a thin-ioallcd cyst ; and the following case of spindle-celled sar
comatous tumour may be regarded as an interesting intermediate
phase. The tumour is the size of an orange, from the neck region
of a dog ; the peculiarity of it is that it is excavated completely on
the side next the skin, while the deeper half of the sphere is made
up partly of a firm texture with slits or spaces lined by cubical cells,
as already described, and partly of a beautiful interlacing system
of polished cylinders crossing the cavity from side to side, or han"-
ing free into it. The process of excavation has merely been an
extension of that drawn in fig. 24 ; it may be compared to the ex
cavation of the heart in the embryo, — the columns; carnese and
musculi papillares and pectinati of the latter corresponding to the
columns and free projecting cylinders of the cyst. It is noteworthy
that a trabeculated interior is characteristic of many cysts.
Myxoma or Mucous Sarcoma. — In another direction the hremato- Myxoma.
blastic softening process goes on to the variety of tumour called
myxoma or mucous sarcoma ; and this change may be actually
observed in parts of the above-mentioned extensive spindle-celled
sarcoma from the outer side of the thigh. A myxoma is that par
ticular modification of embryonic mesoblast in which the softening
or fluid disintegration takes place, not along definite or selected
tracts, but uniformly over a particular area. The cells become
excavated somewhat as in fat formation, the nucleus remaining at
one side, arid their thin membranous walls appearing as branching
processes, which join with those of the next cell. Hence the nuclei
often lie as if at nodal points of a meshwork of fibres, and they
are often triangular or lozenge- ,,* ,/(5v*, ^-t fv,
'shaped. This is one common ••••;•• -. ": ^fg$MsmJ:ii
form of myxomatous tissue.
But the mucous transformation
taking place in each individual
cell may result in a tumour pre
senting a very different appear
ance. The figure (fig. 26) is
taken from a soft gelatinous
tumour of the subcutaneous
tissue. Nothing could be more
orderly than the grouping of its
large mucus -yielding cells in
rows following the waved course
of the bundles of fibres or fibrils;
they are as regular as the cell-
plates of tendon. Their origin
can be traced to the fixed con
nective-tissue cells of the part,
which have emerged from their
inconspicuous state, and have FlG- 26.-Mucous sarcoma of subcuta-
acquired breadth and thickness,
a cubical form, and mucus-yielding protoplasm. Precisely the same
process may end in a cystic excavation. The relation of this change
to the indwelling tendency of the mesoblastic cells towards blood-
making is revealed in the actual hrematoblastic character of the
cells here and there, and in the blood-disks and cells with cleft
nucleus lying around. Another intermediate or occasional form of
the cells in this tumour reveals also the true affinities of spindle-
cells filled with yellow or brown or black pigment. Such pigniented
spindle-cells replace the mucous cells here and there ; we must
consider them to be also a somewhat devious development in the
hfematoblastic process, their pigment being practically the same as
blood-pigment.
Alveolar Sarcoma. — In this connexion also we must take the Alveolar
kind of tumour that is often called alveolar sarcoma. The epithelial- sarcoma,
like form of cell, which lines the spaces among the spindle-cells in
the case alread}7 mentioned, now comes to predominate. The follow
ing is an instance, with figure (fig. 27).
A tumour the size of a large walnut,
deeply pigmented, with the skin drawn
tightly over it as if it had grown in the
position of a mole or congenital mark,
was removed from a man's leg. Al
though the tumour is somewhat black
throughout, the pigment is found to
reside only in certain narrow tracts or
clusters of cells. The structure is divided
into oblong or alveolar spaces by narrow
bands of fibres, the cells within the spaces
being all of the epithelial type. Some
of the cells are much larger than others,
and these largest elements are tinted
bright yellow or brown. It is no great
step from this singular structure to the
embryonic structure and function of
former cases. Instead of a few cells at a pI(J- 27.— Melanotic alveolar
time forming an epithelial -like surface sarcoma of subcutaneous
to an alveolar space (the great bulk of tissue,
the tissue remaining as tracts and columns of spindle-cells), here
the alveolation has been general through the whole area, and all
the cells have become as if surface-cells. Furthermore, they have
been fixed in that condition, proceeding to no further develop
ment, whether mucus -forming or blood-forming, — only certain
groups of them, and these by far the largest and most epithelial-
like, acquiring the yellow colour of hrematoblasts, or a brown colour.
The pigment is otherwise contained in spindle-cells which occupy
the interalveolar septa, and in them it is in a more granular form.
XVIII. — 47
Cavern- Carcnioits Blood-tumours. — The pigmental alveolar sarcoma is
ous sufficiently common in the situation of congenital mother-marks
tumour, of the skin to be one of their characteristic developments. Another
of their developments or equivalents is the nsevus or angcioma or
cavernous tumour, whose structure may be said to consist, iu general
terms, of a spongy mesh work of alveolar spaces, bounded by coarse
and elastic trabeculffi and filled with blood. Arteries open into
such tumours and veins pass out from them, the cavernous territory
being intermediate ; but, according to several authorities, this con
nexion with the circulation is not primary to the cavernous tumour
but acquired. "Without entering upon a discussion of details, the
analogy of the alveolar sarcoma growing on the same basis of a
congenital pigment-spot may be kept in view. The^alveolation is
the same in both cases, although the trabeculre in the cavernous
tumour are somewhat stouter, the grand difference being in the
contents. If, however, we suppose the epithelial-like cells of the
alveolar sarcoma all to become large and filled with a yellowish
colouring matter, as indeed many of them do, and if we suppose
that these honnatoblasts (for such they are) go on to fulfil their
destiny, then we should have a cavernous blood-tumour, that is to
say, the alveoli would be filled with red blood-corpuscles. It will
not be possible to offer evidence of this process except for the
cavernous blood-tumour of the liver, an organ in which such tumours
are comparatively frequent, and mostly in later life. The cylinders
of liver-cells appear to become nar
rower and narrower, as if from pres
sure of the capillaries, and ultimately
to disappear. From the supporting
tissue a new growth of cells takes
place (fig. 28). These are hsemato-
blasts ; their protoplasm becomes red
blood-disks, and their nucleus sur
vives with the remarkable trefoil
arrangement of cleavage which has
been described for several other in
stances of the hpematoblastic pro
cess. There can be no mistaking
the identity of this process with that
of the blood-cyst of the neck already FlG 28.-Ha^atobla8tic process in
mentioned ; it is essentially a main- cavernous growths of liver (dog).
festation of hrematoblastic function
late in life, differing from that of
the blood -cyst in the fact that the
centres of blood-formation are sepa
rated from one another within alveolar boundaries. These cases
illustrate another striking property of cavernous blood -tumours,
namely, to heal spontaneously in parts or to develop embryonic scar-
tissue through more or less of their extent (fig. 29, a). The ordinary
cavernous texture of an angeioma is produced by the formative pro
cess stopping short of embryonic connective tissue or scar-tissue. The
accompanying figure (fig. 29, b) is from an enormous angeiomatous
a, the supporting tissue producing
hiematoblasts b ; c, nuclear re
mains of hsematoblasts and red
blood-disks side by side.
Fio. 29.— a, cicatricial tissue from cavernous tumour of liver (dog) ; b, mesh-
work occupied by red blood-disks, from cavernous tumour of head (ox).
tumour on the side of an ox's head ; the structure is very like that
of the young connective tissue of the former figure, except that the
meshes are densely packed with red blood-corpuscles. There are,
however, other parts of the tumour where the fibres are broader,
the meshes narrower, and with embryonic cells lying in them, in
stead of or along with blood -corpuscles.
There is no definite limit between such cavernous blood-tumours
and true blood-cysts ; in the latter the numerous hfematoblastic
centres open communications, and the further process takes place
in the cellular tissue forming the cyst-wall.
Traces of The blood-making office of the mesoblast is the earliest and
blood- greatest of the functions of embryonic cells, and it is not surprising
making that it should come out more or less obviously in those formative
in processes in the common binding tissue of the body where there is a
tumours, persistence or revival of embryonic activity. We seem to find traces
of it in the pigmentation, in the cystic excavation, in the alveolation,
in the mucous or myxomatous transformation, and in the cavernous
structure of mesoblastic new growths. The embryonic spontaneity
in the middle layer is, of course, wider than mere blood-making ;
but the hfematoblastic function or tendency is certainly the most
fundamental, and the traces of it in the foregoing tumours are our
best help towards a rational interpretation of them. Persisting or
revived embryonic activity in subcutaneous and other homologous
tissues cannot but bring to light more or less of this all-important
mesoblastic function ; the memory of it is too strong to be ignored.
We come next to a function of embryonic cells which is only second
to the h.Tinatoblastic, namely, the osteoblastic or bone-making func
tion ; and even with the bone -making process the earlier blood-
making process is deeply interwoven, for in the marrow of the
bones the hsematoblastic activity of cells persists long after it has
ceased elsewhere.
The bone -making function of embryonic tissue — if function it Turm
may be called — comes into a large number of tumours ; or, in other of bo:
words, a large proportion of all mesoblastic tumours are tumours
of the bones. In all of these the embryonic law of development and
growth is clearly present. The results, however, are frequently
more complex than in the tumours hitherto considered ; or, in
other words, tumours of the bones are exceedingly liable to have
a structure so mixed as almost to baffle systematic description.
One reason of this is that the osteoblastic and hsematoblastic
functions of embryonic cells go hand in hand in their production ;
and the complexity of structure is, accordingly, greatest in those
which grow from that part of the bone where the blood-making
resides, namely, the marrow. The other great formative tissue of
bone is the periosteum, a tissue which retains its embryonic struc
tural features long after the mesoblastic tissues elsewhere in the
body have lost theirs. The marrow and the periosteum are fre
quently involved in the same tumour ; or an essentially similar
morbid product may be derived from either. That is notably the
case with the tumours of the bones which we come to first, the
cartilaginous tumours or enchondromata.
Ecchondrosis. — It is only rarely that a cartilaginous tumour Carti
grows from cartilage, the observed instances having occurred at the tumo
cartilaginous lines of union of the base of the skull, at the epiphy-
sial lines in long bones, and in such permanent cartilages as those
of the larynx and trachea. To these direct outgrowths of cartilage-
cells Yirchow has given the distinctive name of ccchondroscs. Usually
the cartilaginous tumours do not grow from pre-existing cartilage ;
they grow either from the periosteum or the marrow of the bones,
or they form in certain glandular organs, especially the salivary
glands (parotid, labial, &c.), the mammary gland (oftenest in the dog),
the lacrymal gland, the testis, &c. These latter enchondromata
are a class apart, involving considerations of disordered everyday
secretion rather than of the revival of embryonic activity (see
"Errors of Secretion," p. 379 below). The enchondromata that fall
to be considered here are those which grow within or upon the
mctacarpal bones and the finger-bones, more rarely in the corre
sponding bones of the foot, not unfrequently in the bones of the
face, and, it may be, in the leg-bones and arm -bones, or in bone
anywhere.
Enchondroma. — The simplest cases (but the least frequent) are
those that form between the periosteum and the hard bone from
the growth and transformation of the cells of the periosteum, being
directly homologous to the ensheathing cartilage-callus of repair.
They differ from the cartilage of repair in precisely the same way
that a granulation-like sarcoma differs from the granulation-tissue
of repair, — that is to say, the existence of the tissue is not self-
limited, or it has no tendency, or only a feeble tendency, to cica
tricial modification, shrinkage, or absorption. These purely sub-
periosteal enchondromata are said by Paget to be nearly character
istic of the ends of long bones, although they do not encroach on
the articular cartilage. When a cartilaginous tumour occurs in
the shaft of the bone it is partly subperiosteal and partly in the
marrow ; and in the most characteristic seat of enchondromata,
the bones of the fingers, the growth is entirely in the marrow if the
tumours are multiple ; but, curiously enough, it is subperiosteal if
there is only a single tumour (Paget). There are also cases where
islands of cartilage form in the compact substance of the bones,
corresponding to Haversian systems.
The tissue-affinities of a cartilaginous tumour growing between
the periosteum and the hard bone are not difficult ; the homologue,
as we have said, is the callus-cartilage of repair. The histogcnesis
and physiological analogies of an enchondroma of the medullary
canal of a bone are less easy. We know that the marrow was pre
ceded, in the development, by a bluish rod of fa-tal cartilage, of
which all characteristic traces had disappeared before birth. As
the blood-vessels entered it, it had changed into a spongy kind of
bone, in whose spaces lay many spherical nucleated cells retaining
a hsematoblastic or blood-making function ; all the spongy bone is
gradually absorbed in the shaft, the last traces of it being a few
spiculrc on the hard inner wall of the medullary canal, and the
cavity is occupied by a highly vascular substance, the red marrow
characteristic of young bones. The spherical cells of the red mar
row become excavated into fat-cells, and the red colour changes
to yellow. It is probably in this final phase of the development
inside the shaft of a bone that we must look for the opportunity
of the central enchondromata forming. The secret of the return to
cartilage in some cases, and at certain spots, probably lies in the
change of red marrow into yellow ; instead of becoming fat, it
PATHOLOGY
371
becomes a kind of cartilage. The tumours in question are most
common, at least, just at the time of life when that change in the
character of the marrow takes place. Again, at the spongy ends of
bones, where the marrow remains red, the internal enchondromata
rarely occur (a case is quoted by Paget at the lower end of the
fibula), but chiefly the subperi osteal. If the enchondromata were
composed of a definite type of cartilage, and, above all, if they
were stable in their structural characters, the relation of them
to the marrow of bones, which these facts point to, would not
be a very intelligible one. But the enchondromata are rather
a kind of new growth in which there is a good deal of gristly
substance of one kind or another, associated with a good deal
of mucous or myxomatous tissue, with cystic spaces containing
mucous or honey-like fluid, and even with blood-spaces. Besides
the myxomatous tissue, there may also be tracts and areas of other
soft tissue made up of spindle-cells, multinuclear cells, and various
Fio. 30. — Foi'tal or parenchymatous cartilage from enchondroma of upper jaw
(horse). (The hyaline intercellular substance is left out.)
FIG. 31. — From enchondroma of upper jaw of woman ; a few large cartilage-
cells in a tissue consisting mostly of branched cells.
nondescript forms ; and, most significant of all, there may be
much of the cartilaginous substance quite fcetal in its characters,
— that is to say, consisting almost entirely of cells, with a small
amount of more or less tough hyaline intercellular substance. Fig.
30 shows a highly cellular kind of cartilage from a tumour of the
upper jaw of a horse. The next cut (fig. 31) is from a cartila
ginous tumour of the upper jaw of a woman ; it shows cartilage-
cells with definite capsules, and surrounded by a kind of tissue
which would be called myxomatous. The shades of difference
among the tissues of enchondromata are indeed endless. They
may be said to be all possibilities open to the red marrow (hremato-
blasts) on the way to become fat ; sometimes one devious route is
taken, sometimes another, and the result may be soft mucous tissue,
various forms of cartilage, or true bone as an ulterior development
of the cartilage.
Osteoma. — Next to the enchondromata among the tumours of
bone we may take the ostcomata, or outgrowths from the bone
which have themselves the structure of true bone. Their most
itosis. common form is the exostosis, an osseous node or spine, or
rounded tumour generally, on the outer surface of a bone. Some
times an exostosis is found covered by a considerable cap of car
tilage ; and, whether it be or had been partly cartilaginous, or
whether it be entirely osseous, it is a product of the periosteum,
and it illustrates the ordinary osteoblastic function of that tissue.
Sometimes the exostosis is spongy, at other times it is hard as
ivory, the flat bones of the head being the favourite seat of the
latter variety.
•old Osteoid Tumours (Subperiosteal Malignant Tumours). — By far the
our. most important of the tumours of bone are those which are com
posed of a crude kind of bone, or of various kinds of soft tissue which
show a more or less
ir^^-'^-s**-." i
3go=»
feeble tendency to
osseous transforma
tion. These tu
mours of the bones
are apt to occur
during the growing
period, or shortly
after growth has
ceased ; they are by
no means rare, and
are often fatal1. Like
the enchondromata,
they are divided into
those which grow
under the perios
teum, or the external tumours of bone, and those which begin in
the medullary canal, or the internal. The former are much the
least complex ; and, like the subperiosteal enchondromata, they
are mostly found at the ends of long bones, especially at the end of
O
FIG. 32. — Structure of osteoid tumour.
the femur. The growth is clearly subperiosteal ; the outlines of
the compact bone of the shaft can often be seen running through it.
The structure of this kind of tumour is tolerably uniform ; it is
not bone, but an irregular product of the periosteum to which the
name of "osteoid" lias been given. The structure is that shown
in fig. 32. There is a network of slender trabeculre, mostly form
ing long parallel meshes, and with numerous but less conspicuous
cross subdivisions; these are impregnated with osseous salts ; but
it can hardly be said that bone-corpuscles are embedded in them,
as in the normal growth
of bone from periosteum
(fig. 33). The cells which
correspond to the osteo-
blasts are ranged along
the sides of these trabe- Fl"- 3i2-TSpiciulc, ,fl'T <?ssif>'inK parietal bone
culre and in the spaces <kltten); "steoblasts becoming included as
bone-corpuscles,
between them ; but they
fall short of the true osteoblastic grouping, and they seldom become
bone-corpuscles embedded in an osseous ground-substance. This is
a peculiar error of the osteoblastic process, but a not unintelligible
one. It may be further illustrated by another form of periosteal
tumour in which there was no deposition of the hardening matter
at all. This tumour (fig. 34) grew around the metatarsal bone of Softperi-
the little toe, and, like the osteoid kind of tumour last described, osteal
it had a power of infecting the neighbouring tissues and even dis- tumour,
tant organs, which need not be dwelt upon at present. The struc
ture is a strange reminder of the inherent osteoblastic function
of the periosteum from which it grew. There is not a particle
^j^®^ *
FIG. 34. — Periosteal tumour of lifth metatersal bone.
of osseous or earthy matter in its substance ; but it has the trabe-
cular type of osteoid tissue, and the cells have the surface-grouping
of osteoblasts. They are the elongated or spindle-shaped cells of
the periosteal tissue, which have become more cubical and angular,
and have formed rows of free cells round the walls of the inter
stitial slits or alveolar spaces. The difference between this and an
osteoid tumour is that a certain attempt has been made in the latter
towards true bone in the deposition of earthy or bone salts in the
trabeculre. In the case of the soft tumour of the periosteum there
were clear traces of rickets in infancy, and the essential thing in
rickets is the tardy or inadequate deposition of earthy matter in the
growing bone. In both tumours the formative activity of the
periosteal cells outruns their osteoblastic and ossifying functional
activity, so that the latter is always behind, and the perfect result
of hard bone is never attained. How this error makes a malignant
tumour is another and more difficult question.
Mycloid and other Internal Tumours of Bone. — The foregoing are Myeloid
representative instances of external or subperiosteal tumours of bone-
bone in addition to the enchondromata and osteomata. There tumour.
remains an important group of internal tumours, or tumours of the
bone-marrow ; and these, with the corresponding group of internal
enchondromata, exhaust the morbid new formations incidental to
the growth of the skeleton. There is, indeed, no hard-and-fast line
between the enchondromata and the internal tumours of bone ;
the latter have almost the same mixture and confusion of structure
in various parts that the cartilaginous tumours have. The principal
seat of the soft tumours of the bone-marrow is the lower end of the
thigh-bone, the ends of the other long bones being the next most
favourite seats. A certain tumour of the jaws, the mycloid cpulis,
is also classed with them. The tumour often grows quickly, and
may attain an enormous size ; it causes the absorption or trans
formation of the hard walls of the bone, and there may be nothing
between it and the skin, muscles, and tendons but a more or less
continuous thin shell of bone. The interior has a most diversified
aspect. Many patches are friable and yellowish, other areas are a
livid purple and gelatinous, and there are often blood -clots and
cystic spaces filled with a tenacious brownish mucous or colloid
fluid. Amidst these softer parts there run tracts of more spindle-
celled or fibrous tissue, and there are often islands of cartilage, or
fragments of osteoid substance. The only clue to this puzzling
diversity of texture is the inherent range of possibilities in the
function of the bone-marrow. Derived from embryonic mesoblast,
PATHOLOGY
"
cvst.
Fie. 35. — Myeloid tissue
it began as a temporary fatal cartilage ; it then became spongy
l>oue tilled with red marrow, in which state it remains in the
ends of long bones, in the diploe of flat bones, and in the in
terior of bones like the vertebra.'. In the shafts of lov.g bones
the trabecul* of bone are all removed and only u-d marrow
remains, with a pronounced ha-matoblastic function ; but, when
growth is well advanced, the cells of the ml marrow become exca
vated to fat-cells, their blood-forming function ceasing therewith.
We have also seen that, in the process of repair, the marrow and its
blood-vessels together are able to produce new bone between the
broken ends. There are here memories enough to produce very
fantastic results if anything should arise to recall the develop
mental activity. Disregarding the livid or blood-like patches, the
mucous areas (whether myxouiatous tissue or colloid fluid \ and the
fragments of cartilage and of osteoid tissue, some of which have
been spoken of above, let us consider the tissue that is most
characteristic of this group of internal bone-tumours. It is the
yellowish or sand-coloured areas of friable texture, corresponding
to the tissue named by Paget "myeloid," or marrow-like. Its name
is due to the fact that it always contains a number of multiuuclear
cells, giant-cells or
myflopkurts, such
as are found in the
marrow of young
bones. Its yellow
ish colour is almost
sufficient of itself
to indicate the
presence of these
elements. The cut
(fig. 35) shows
several of t;.
myeloplaxes lying among cells of various shapes with a single
nucleus. In oue^direction it is no great step from this to myxo-
inatous tissue or other luematoblastic modifications ; and in
another direction it is no great step back to cartilage. "We shall
probably not go very wide of the mark if we take the common
starting-point of the various tissues to be fcetal cartilage, as drawn
in fig. 30 from an enchoudroma of the upper jaw ; and, given fo?tal
cartilage, it is not difficult to follow it along the various lines of
its historical development in the shaft of a bone, to imagine the
development taking a devious turn -at one point or another, and so
to account for the heterogeneous structure of the tumour, — some of
the structure, indeed, being strange to the normal types of growth.
Drrmoid Cysts. — Having now illustrated two great instances of
embryonic function revived in after life to the production of
tumours — namely, the blood-making and the bone-making functions
— and having therewith disposed of a considerable number of all the
tumours that have a mesoblastic homology, it will be convenient
to advert to a remarkable kind of tumour which shows to the
fullest extent what the embryonic mesoblast can do in the way of
fantastic new productions, namely, dermoid cysts. Not only blood
and bone, but teeth, skin, hair, glands, muscle, and nerve are pro
duced as the tumour-constituents in these remarkable new growths.
Their usual seat, and the invariable seat of the most perfect
of them, is the ovary ; and the ovarian is just that mesoblastic
tissue upon which the memories of development are as if concen
trated ; for it is from an ovarian cell that the embryo grows in the
perfect likeness of the parent These selected cells of the ovary,
or, in other words, the ova, are specially charged with the recollec
tions of the past history of evolution and growth ; and the rest of
the ovary appears to possess the same lively memory, if not to the
same extent, yet to a much greater extent than mesoblastic tissue
elsewhere. The stroma of the ovary is the best example in the
body of embryonic spindle-celled mesoblast ; only in some animals
doe* it become normally fibrous, and in any animal it may revert
to embryonic characters with the greatest ease at the generative
periods or at other times, and even in extreme old age. But for the
fact that the tissue keeps within normal limits of form and extent
it might pass muster for spindle -celled sarcoma, in all respects,
including the warp-and-woof arrangement of the tracts of eeDa.
From this tissue cysts are developed interstitially. and they are
not the less interstitial in their development that their homo-
logue is often, if not always, a Graafiau follicle. That, however,
is a region of controversy, and it will be more convenient to take
an unambiguous case first Such would be a dermoid cyst under
the skin, say in the neighbourhood of the orbit It is "true that
even these cases are sometimes explained by assuming that the
skin has somehow become involuted at the particular spot during
development ; but no observed facts warrant this assumption, and
the histogenetic facts of the new growth itself are entirely against
it. Fig. 36 shows a portion of new -formed skin on "the wall
of a small congenital dermoid cyst over the external angular
process of the frontal bone : adjoining the actual skin there may
be seen the interstitial cells of the connective tissue becoming
adapted in form and arrangement to continue the layer of rete
mucosum over the cyst -wall beyond- The adaptation is very
much the same which has already been mentioned with reference to
the new skin of a granulating surface ; the connective-tissue cells
become large and cubical, often multinuclear, and elongated towards
FIG. 36. — Wall of dennoid cyst, showing how the surface-stratum is produced
from interstitial connective-tissue cells.
the surface. The supply of these formative cells comes from the
connective-tissue elements lying among the parallel fibrous bundles
of the cyst-wall.
For a dermoid of the ovary it is impossible in a brief space to
give any idea of the marvellous textures that are being woven side by
side in various parts of the cyst-wall, — the areas of fcetal cartilage,
the interlacing bundles of plain muscular fibres, the long rows of
pigment-cells, and, not far off, the rows of mucous cells developed
iuterstitially, and maturing so as to be fused into the fluid of sub
ordinate cysts. At one place there is a piece of skin, underneath
which will be found an enormous development of sebaceous glands ;
where the skin ends a brownish velvety patch begins, with no
sebaceous glands, although there are rudimentary hairs at various
depths. This under the microscope will IK- found to approximate to
granulation-like tissue, with many variously-shaped pigment-cells,
and corresponding probably to the congenital mother-marks of the
skin proi«er. It must suffice to give a single illustration of the
strange formative activity of this mesoblastic tissue, namely, the
formation of hairs. Hairs in dermoid cysts are formed in a very Hairs
peculiar manner. It is usual in subcutaneous demioids to find them derm«
embedded parallel to the surface at various depths in the midst of cysts,
multiuuclear or giant -cells. Some of these multiuuclear masses
may be seen undergoing a vitreons transformation down the middle,
as in fig. 37, a ; elsewhere
may be seen the same peculiar
central rod extending through
a succession of giant - cells :
and, most remarkable of all,
there is the appearance drawn
in c. In this last case the
vitreons rod is capped at each
cud by a giant -cell, and the $flr
characteristic imbrication of
scales has developed on it
over the intervening length.
The cross section of such a
hair is seen in d. The section
of hair is evidently a part of
the multinuclear cylinder ; it
is in this instance well to one FlG- 37.- n. vitreons trs:
• i i . ... - .-,1 , , central line in interior of giant - cell ; b.
side, but it is still enclosed *, hairs lying among giant £ils in wall of
by the marginal nuclei of the dermoid cyst ; c, hair in dermoid cyst,
cell, which are flattened into capped by giant-cells ; rf, cross-section of
plates upon it ; in other in- * fefrJ^futetanCe °f * ?iant-ce11 ('ier'
• , • f 11- •-.""•
stances it is found lying out
side the largest of a cluster of giant-cells and surrounded by the
smaller ones. The nature of the transformation in the heart of
these multinuclear blocks is not easy to determine; the most
striking circumstance is that other giant-cells, which appear to be
advancing in the same direction, or to have diverged from the same
kind of development, have an area of deep-brown or orange pig
ment in their centre instead of the vitreous or horny transforma
tion, — the marginal belt being free from pigment. This is a
]K-culiar formative use of giant-cells. We have already seen that
they are used in the vessel-making processes of the placenta and of
rejtair ; we have seen also that they may be the media through
which a granulation-surface acquires a covering of epidermis ; and
here we find them playing the part of hair-follicle.
A dermoid cyst reveals the surprising spontaneities of a collec
tion of embryonic cells of the mesoblast, — the inherited traditions
of their life, — manifested in diverse ways side by side, and mani
fested often feebly and grotesquely. There is no reason to seek for
the source of these various products beyond the stroma of the ovary
itself ; and the variety of the products must be a measure of what
that kind of tissue can do in the way of new formation. When
various kinds of structure are thus brought together in their de
velopment we have an evidence, not only" of the indwelling power
of mesoblastic tissue to revert to embrvonic modes of life, but also
PATHOLOGY
373
of a common starting-point for structures that come to be very
unlike. We may note, among other things, how small a step there
is from the production of blood and blood -pigment on the one
hand to that of hair on the other.1
§ 5. — ERRORS OF DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH IN
GENERAL.
The more iisual departures from the normal type in the
embryological rudiments or in the growth of particular
organs and parts of the body have been already described
in the article MONSTER. The present section will be de
voted to those errors of development and growth which
amount practically to constitutional diseases.
:kets. Rickets. — We have hitherto considered the indwelling spon
taneities of the cells and tissues as manifested in the process of
repair, and manifested capriciously in some tumour-processes ; in
these it has seemed as if the blood-making function of the embryo
were the most fundamental of all its primitive tendencies, traces of
it being found in the reparative process and in the new growth of
tumours. Xext to it, and even bound up with it, is the bone-making
function ; and we now come to a general or universal disorder of
the bone-making function in which these developmental doctrines
will be found to have a useful application. This disorder is rickets,
a common malady of infancy and childhood. Attention was first
drawn to it in 1650 by Glisson, who spoke of it as a disease of
children that had been known to be endemic for thirty years in
Somersetshire, and had been brought from the country to London.
It is very common in all great cities ; in ATienna it is still known
as "die Englische Krankheit." A child developing this error of
growth becomes profoundly affected in its health generally. It is
tender all over, dislikes to be touched or handled, throws off the
bedclothes even in cold weather, perspires profusely about the
head, moves its head restlessly in sleep, so as even to wear the hair
off, and in its waking hours sits perfectly still and subdued under
a kind of suffering which can be but half -realized by its. con
sciousness. Such children give little trouble, seldom crying even
when left alone. They are very sensitive to cold, and proportion
ately liable to catarrh ; their nervous impressibility also is height
ened, making a peculiar liability to convulsions and to laryngismus
stridulus. They are "backward children," and, in particular, late
in getting their teeth.
>e- The conspicuous error in such subjects is in the growth of the
th bones everywhere throughout the body. The rickety condition
often begins in children who are plump and apparently well
ets. nourished ; and, if the nutritive and other processes are involved
at length, it is the osteoblastic process that is primarily at fault.
The details are somewhat different for the two kinds of ossifica
tion — in membrane or periosteum, and in cartilage. Regarding
the former, the error will be readily understood by reference
to the accompanying cut (fig. 38) of normal ossification of the
FIG. 88. — Ossifying parietal bnne of total kitten, a, a, spindle-celled mem
brane, corresponding to periosteum ; 6, spicule of calcified ground-substance,
with free osteoblasts at one end and imprisoned bone-corpuscles at the other ;
c, broader bars of bone.
parietal bone. The spindle-cells of the membrane are becoming
cubical along a line a little below the surface, and a few of them
are half-included or imprisoned in the thin bar of bone ; most of
them are free on the surface of the calcified bar, as osteoblasts, the
included ones being bone-corpuscles. Increase of the osseous tissue
takes place through other osteoblasts becoming surrounded by cal
cifying ground-substance ; and, in the broader bars of bone below,
the bone-corpuscles may be seen to be two or three rows deep. This
process goes on until the whole of the osteoblasts (derived from
spindle-cells) have been included one by one within the calcifying
matrix ; once included, these cells are incapable of growth ; the
multiplication is always in the spindle-shaped cells of the membrane,
or on the surface of the bony bars or trabeculrc ; and the inclusion
1 See Virchow, Die krtcnkhnjten Geschwubte, 3 vols. , 1 863-67 ; Paget,
Surrj. Path.; Cohnheim, Varies, iiberally. Pat/wl., vol. i. p. 622 ; Rud.
Maier, Lehrb. der ally, patlwl. Anatomic, Leipsic, 1871.
is of that gradual and co-ordinated kind that there is always a st t
of free cells left on the surface to keep up the succession of formative
elements. It is not until growth is completed that osteoblasts
cease. The error in rickets is that the multiplication of spindle-
shaped cells and osteoblasts far outruns the calcifying process.
Instead of these elements being produced only as fast as they are
wanted for inclusion as bone-corpuscles, they are produced regardless
of the forwardness of the calcifying process, upon whose exact
co-operation with the cellular formative process all true periosteal
bone-making depends. The error, or part of the error, of rickets
is that the calcifying process is behindhand. A large quantity of
soft bone-making material accumulates, which would, under ordi
nary circumstances, have become hard bone as soon as it was formed ;
sooner or later it becomes bone, even, in rickets, but the deposition
of earthy salts is slow, and in the meantime the bones have be
come bent. Not only is there a relative, slowness in the calcifying
process, but there is an absolute excess of the cellular elements or
of the osteoblasts ; and, in the flat bones of the skull, this is shown
in the thickness of the bones ultimately, especially along their
growing edges. The same excess of formative material beyond
what can be used up for bone is seen in the ossification from carti
lage at the epiphysial line. The cartilage-cells divide and multiply
at an excessive rate, and the columns of them, instead of keeping
in the line of the axis of the bone, radiate to the sides, so that there
is often a bulbous enlargement where the epiphysis joins the shaft.
The want of harmony in the calcifying and osteoblastic parts of
the process is shown by the irre
gularity of the epiphysial line (fig.
39) ; it is a straight line normally,
but in rickety growth it runs out
and in, cutting off islands of car
tilage in the midst of spongy bone ;
and this irregularity is due to the
fact that the blood-channels in the
cartilage are formed sooner at some
points than at others, the calcifi
cation following close on them. In
the shaft of a long bone the process
is the same as in a flat membrane-
bone of the skull ; the periosteum ,
is thick and its inner layers are V"
blood -red, and in extreme cases
there is what looks like a stratum
of blood between it and the bone.
Bone is at length formed from this
layer, but it is of the spongy kind,
so that the shaft is softer and more
porous on the outside than on the FIG. so. — Lower end of femur < f
baboon with rickets, showing the
broad and irregular epiphysial line
of growing cartilage (white), with
spongioid tissue above it and islets
of cartilage in the spongy bone be
neath, a, a, a; 6, &, irregular epi
physial line of cartilage. (From J.
B. Button, in Path. Trans., xxxiv.)
inside. In the fat bones of the
head, also, the structure is apt to
be of the spongy kind throughout,
so that they consist as if of diploe
entirely, and not of a layer of diploe
between two hard plates. Sooner
or later, under favourable circum
stances, the spongy bone is replaced by compact bone, and in th<~>
end the bones of a rickety subject are harder and thicker than usual.
In the worst cases deformities remain, notably the bent spine, the
pigeon-breast, and the deformed pelvis. In the very worst cases the
stature is dwarfed and the long bones are bent and twisted.
Analysing these phenomena and filling in details, we come in
the last resort to an indwelling disposition, probably acquired in
most cases, or in largest measure, before birth. These tendencies
come to an issue in the skeleton, because the growth of the bones
is of a nature to tax the organism. The growth of the bones is
the great instance of metaplasia; it is a succession of tissue -
changes long kept up, and it requires a peculiar co-ordination or
orderliness at each step, owing to the fact that stiffness has to be
combined with plasticity. The requisite stiffness can only be got
step by step through the sacrifice of that plasticity which goes
with growth, and hence the special adaptation of a free row of
osteoblasts on the surface of bone-trabeculrc to ensure the apposi
tion of new layers. Cartilage gives the stiffness for a time in all
the bones except the clavicle and those of the vault of the skull ;
having served its purpose, it becomes spongy bone, blood, and
marrow, the spongy bone being finally removed in the shafts of
long bones, the marrow remaining, and the blood continuing to be
added to the general blood of the body. In these adaptations the
early importance of blood-making among the embryonic cells is
duly asserted. When the fretal cartilages have served their turn
the hrematoblastic function becomes prominent in the cells, and a
large part of all that was cartilage literally becomes blood. Accord
ing to numerous observers, it even becomes blood without the
accompanying formation of blood-vessels with definite walls.
Some of it becomes bone ; but the bone is in thin plates only,
and much of it is ultimately removed. In the periosteal process,
also, where the cartilage-stage of the formative tissue is never gone
374
PATHOLOGY
through, there arc not wanting indications that the same luemato-
blastic function is present concurrently with the osteoblastic.
Kasso- Coming, then, to the actual facts of rickets, we shall find that
witz's re- those features of the process on which the greatest stress has been
searches laid in the recent elaborate researches of Kassowitz are of the
on nature of over-vascularization or hypencmia. In the ossification
rickets, from cartilage he finds that the vessels from the perichoridium
extend inwards to a greater extent and with less orderliness than
usual ; then there is a development in the cartilage of colossal
vessels, and finally of blood-spaces, packed full of red blood-disks,
and with no very definite walls, so that it looks, at the first glance,
as if hemorrhage had taken place into the bone-marrow. In many
cases there is no sharp line of separation of the embryonic marrow
from the contents of these blood - spaces ; it is probable that the
gelatinous tissue of the former had "passed direct into hsemato-
blastic substance and so into blood-corpuscles." In the periosteum
also there is much more blood than usual, and the same large blood-
spaces are sometimes found. These errors of vascularization Kasso
witz places at the foundation of the rickety process. Deposition
of calcareous salts, he points out, cannot take place where there is
so much blood ; the calcification follows in an orderly way only
where the movements of the blood and juices are restrained or
distant, the best example of this law being the gradual reduction
of the wide central space of an Haversian system to a narrow
channel containing a single twig of blood-vessel.
The excess of vascularity in rickets is, by Kassowitz, put down
to "inflammation," or to the hypereemia of the same ; but we have
seen that he also invokes, as a detail in the process, an excessive
hamaatoblastic activity in the embryonic marrow-cells. The latter
is a more fundamental and intelligible fact than "inflammation"
(which begs all the fundamental questions), and we shall do well
to give it prominence accordingly. We should then interpret the
observations of Kassowitz as follows.
The due regulation of the blood-supply, the restriction of it to
definite and ever-narrowing channels, is necessary for the proper
deposition of the earthy matter and for the building up of bone
in Haversian systems. The embryonic cells surrender their indi
vidual hrematoblastic function, while certain tracts of them become
definite vessels for the supply of all the rest ; and in proportion as
they give up individually their primitive function of blood-making
they are in a position to take on individually the function of bone-
making. In compact bone this change of direction is carried out
most completely ; the cells become osteoblasts in successive rows,
a ground - substance impregnated with earthy matter closes in
around them, and they are imprisoned for ever as bone-corpuscles.
In spongy bone, however, there is still a reserve of haeinatoblastic
force ; only thin lamina? of bone are formed out of some of the
cells, while many of them continue to be hsematoblasts and to
form the familiar red marrow. Adopting, then, the figure of a
struggle between the hrematoblastic and osteoblastic tendencies in
embryonic cells, or the perception of a divided duty, we shall con
clude that rickets is the undue preponderance of the former. It
means spongy bone where there should be hard bone, and much
wider spaces than usual, with much more blood in them in the
proper seats of spongy bone itself ; and it means in general a
retardation of the hardening process.
All this enormous haematoblastic energy or local blood-forma
tion is unfortunately wasted ; the child is no better for it, and is
more likely than not to be anaemic. The formative powers are
diverted from bone-making, and spent upon blood-making ; and
the lime-salts in the organism that should have gone to make bone
are actually thrown out with the urine, which has been known to
have as much as four or even six times its due amount of phos
phates. The organism, when rickets overtakes it, is in this fix,
that it makes blood which it can no longer profit by, and has
meanwhile to part with bone-salts which it will want again. The
disease is, in fact, an unfortunate contretemps.
Many of the facts of rickets are thus secondary to an initial
error in the embryonic functions of the tissues, and the evidence
seems to show that the error must have begun in most cases before
birth. Although it is well known that the obvious phenomena of
rickets are not usually remarked until the child is a few months
old, yet, as Kassowitz has ascertained, the condition "begins much
more frequently than has hitherto been assumed in the later
months of intra-uterine development." The facts point very clearly
to the health of the mother as being primarily at fault. "The
health of the mother," says Sir William Jcnner, "has a decided
influence on the development of rickets in the child. Whatever
renders her delicate, whatever depresses her powers of forming
good blood, that tends to produce rickets in an oifspring. . . .
The child of an ill-nourished mother is disposed to become rickety
when placed under unfavourable circumstances after birth, or even
under favourable circumstances in some cases." The disposition
must be in most cases, and in the worst cases, congenital in the
child's tissues. We should therefore seek in the intra-uterine con
nexion between mother and child for some defect on the maternal
side which would induce that which would appear to be essential
to rickets in the child, namely, a preponderance of the luemato-
blastic function of embryonic cells over the osteoblastic, a reversion
in the cell-life of the growing frame towards independent blood-
making. In seeking for this source of error, it will be necessary to
recall for a moment the nature of the intra-uterine connexion
between mother and child, or the part played by the placenta.
Placental Function in Congenital Disorders. — The embryo makes
its own blood and establishes the connexion with the mother by
its own blood-vessels. Its blood is carried to the placenta to be
aerated, as the phrase goes ; but it is much more than aerated.
The placenta is a glandular or secreting organ of the mother,
inasmuch as the maternal blood, flowing slowly through the sponge-
like tissue of thick-walled vessels, receives additions of mucus-like
drops from the deliquescence of the large nuclei in the proto
plasmic vessel-walls (tig. 40). This mucus-like addition is clearly
an adaptation for the
foetus ; and the sur
faces of the placenta,
where the foetal ves
sels touch it, are
further adapted,
through a thick-set
cap of nuclei, for
exuding it where it
can be taken up by
the plasmatic tissue
of the chorion. This
placental contribu
tion is the "uterine
milk " furnished by
the mother for the
use of the foetus, so
that, although the
latter makes its own
blood (and blood
vessels), it receives
material additions to
its blood from the
mother. It is obvi
ous, therefore, that FIG. 40.— Secreting structure of placenta (guinea-pig);
the secretion of the the wa^s °f the maternal blood-channels are them-
i , , • , ( selves the secreting structure, their substance yield-
piacenia is \ eiy es- jng cu.0ps Of mucus a, which mix with the blood l>.
sential to the foetus,
and the due endowment of the latter must depend greatly upon
the structural and functional sufficiency of that organ. It sup
plies the foetus with much of the fluid that circulates in the latter's
vessels ; it may be said to spare the foetus to that extent the need
of producing such fluid itself, or to dispense with the ha'inato-
blastic activity of its tissues, so that they may take other formative
directions, such as bone-making. Or it may be contended that
there are ingredients in the normal placental secretion which are
specially adapted to bone-making. Now, if there should be any
interference with these placental contributions, we are left to sup
pose that there must then be a reversion on the part of the fa-tul
cells to self-helping tendencies, and especially to local blood-making.
The excessive blood-making of rickets, and the retardation of bone-
making consequent thereon, would thus be traced to failure in the
placental function.
But, if there be such a change in the direction of the formative
processes of the foetus as an adaptation to its special intra-uterine
conditions, why should rickets not become declared until several
months after birth ? In the first place, we have the evidence col
lected by Kassowitz that there are plain indications of the rickety
process to be observed where death of the child has occurred before
the full term ; and, further, there are analogies to show that it
requires all the extra-uterine functions to have been in action for
some little time before a congenitally-acquircd tendency manifests
itself. Although the intra-uterine life comes to an end, and the
child ceases to be dependent on the placental function of the
mother, yet the acquired tendency, or the adaptation to a deficient
performance of that function, remains for a certain time longer. It
comes to an end, however, from the second to the fourth year ; the
bone-forming tissues cease to follow the devious direction, the bone-
salts present in the organism are put to their proper use, ossification
resumes its normal course, and, as the soft formative material of
bone had accumulated in excess, the bones of the once rickety child
are in the end harder and thicker than those of normal growth.
There is an assumption in the foregoing which calls for remark,
the assumption, namely, that the placental function has been in
adequate on the mother's side or that the requisite additions to the
blood have not been made. Our almost complete ignorance of the
pathology of the placenta is the reason why the above-mentioned
facts and principles have to be eked out by an assumption. We
do, indeed, know that the placenta suffers in syphilis of the parent ;
and we know that in congenital syphilis of the child the growth of
the bones is affected in many ways analogous to the shortcomings
of rickets, and that, as in rickets, the error of growth may not show
Plac-
tal i !
nexi
and
lick
PATHOLOGY
375
itself for some time after birth. It is highly probable that the
placental structure and function suffer under many less special con
ditions of ill-health and mal-iiutrition of the mother. The placenta
is, in fact, a great formative effort, and the formative power cannot
always be adequate. There are in particular two conditions in
the mother favourable to rickets in the child, in each of which an
absence of structural and functional perfection in the new-formed
organ of intra-uterine nutrition is a priori probable. The one is the
extreme youth or immaturity of the mother, assigned by Schb'nlein
as the chief cause of rickets ; the other is child-bearing up to a
comparatively late period, the latest of a succession of pregnancies
being often found to be those which yield the rickety members of a
family. But amongst the poor there must be many other causes
of general ill - health in the mother operating from time to time.
Whatever makes the mother's milk poor cannot but have told at an
earlier stage upon the placental structure and function ; and that
earlier stage is a vastly more critical time for the endowments of
the child, — for all its formative, nutritive, and functional tendencies.
Mollities Ostcomalacia. — A sort of counterpart to rickets occurs in the
ossium. disease known as osteomalacia or mollities ossium ; and, curiously
enough, this is a disease (as distinguished from senile softening)
almost exclusively of women during mature life, apt to occur in the
gravid state, and especially if there have been repeated pregnancies.
It is mostly a disease of poor and hard -worked women, just as
rickets is a disease of the children of poor and hard-worked women ;
it is not very common, although it is said to be endemic in some
localities. The bones become soft or friable, owing to the encroach
ment of the medullary cavity upon the compact substance and the
further absorption of spongy bone ; the encroachment may be so
extensive that only a thin shell of bone or parchment-like mem
brane remains. This enormous medullary space is filled with
marrow, but not the marrow of adult life. The marrow is of the
fcetal kind, red, and often containing areas of blood, abounding
in nucleated marrow-cells, and with a decreasing number of fat-
cells. Ultimately the marrow becomes gelatinous. The process
consists essentially of a reduction of the bone to red marrow, as
in the first formation of the medullary cavities of long bones ; the
earthy salts are removed, and all the cells of the tissue acquire an
embryonic character. Although there are some facts to show that
this process takes place sometimes in the young, especially in
young animals under confinement, yet its characteristic occurrence
is in women during one of their later pregnancies. It is generally
admitted that there is some intimate connexion between the out
break of mollities ossium and the gravid state. We have found
reason to conclude that there is an equally intimate connexion
between rickets and the gravid state, only that the rickets is in
the child. If, in rickets, the child is deprived of something
maternal which it should have received, then in osteomalacia the
mother parts with something for the child which she ought to
have kept. In both cases the organism of the mother is overtaxed ;
but in the more general case, where the child becomes rickety, the
tax has not been met. In the rarer case, the welfare of the child in
utero takes precedence of the welfare of the parent ; one may conceive
that the formative effort for the placenta had been so great that the
organism in genei'al was impoverished. As a matter of fact, the
bones of the mother are robbed of their earthy matter, and the
commencement, at least, of that diversion of substance is somehow
connected with the gravid state. It is noteworthy, in this con
nexion, that a fractured bone in a pregnant woman repairs badly,
owing to the deficient production of bony callus. Having once
begun, the disease progresses, and the patient dies bedridden ;
only in rare instances do the bones become hard again. The loss
of osseous matter in mollities is accompanied by a return to em
bryonic characters and function on the part of all the cells that
now form the very extensive marrow ; the hffiinatoblastic function
is conspicuous in the process, and there are also numerous rnyelo-
plaxes. Both the unmaking of bone in the parent and the diversion
of embryonic tissue from bone-making in the child would appear
to be correlated with the hrcmatoblastic function of the cells. In
both diseases phosphates are discharged in excess in the urine, and
in neither is there any advantage from the excessive formation
of blood. In osteomalacia the embryonic state of the marrow
changes after a time to a more gelatinous state ; sometimes a wall
forms round the red pulpy fluid, producing a cyst of the bone
with brownish contents, and in these cases the disease is said not
to progress farther.
Cretin- Cretinism. — A much more profound error or defect of all the
^m. developmental powers of the body than that of rickets is found in
cretinism. Certain aspects of this subject have already been treated
of in the articles CRETINISM and INSANITY ; and another aspect
of it is referred to in the section of this article dealing with the
thyroid gland (see p. 385). It remains to mention here a few of
the anatomical and external characters of the disease. With the
low mental development there usually go a large tongue, a broad
and flat nose, loose and thick skin, and stunted limbs. The error
of growth in the bones, which is only a part of a very extensive
range of erroneous development, is somewhat different from that of
rickets. In the bones of the skull there is usually found synostosis,
or premature union at one suture or another, not unfrequently at
the sphenobasilar, giving the base of the skull an up-and-down
direction. The premature union along one line or other leads to
compensating expansion elsewhere, so that the skull is misshapen ;
the forehead usually retreats, the top of the head is flat, and the
occiput small, the type of skull being markedly brachycephalic or
broad. One distinctive point in the bone-lesions of cretinism relates
to the stunted limbs, which are not at all characteristic of rickets.
The stunted growth depends upon a complete departure from the
ordinary relation of the epiphysis to the shaft. A bone such as the
thigh-bone grows normally to the length, chiefly by the activity of
the cartilage of the epiphysis along the epiphysial line : the carti
lage-cells multiply on the surface of the epiphysis next to the shaft ;
they become grouped in long perpendicular columns ; and, as ossi
fication proceeds, the new bone becomes an integral part of the
shaft. Meanwhile the epiphysis itself is becoming ossified radially
from the centre outwards. In the cretin the activity along the
epiphysial line is somehow checked, and it has been found that a
fibrous band extending inwards from the periosteum forms a kind
of barrier in the position of the proliferating epiphysial line, cutting
off the shaft from the epiphysis ; thus the shaft is deprived of those
accretions at each end upon which its elongation mainly depends.
At the same time the cartilaginous epiphysis spends its proliferative
force within itself ; it expands in all directions, becoming a large
knob, and part of its ossification may be effected by a sort of in
verted activity of the epiphysial line, which proliferates towards
the interior of the epiphysis, instead of growing towards the con
tiguous shaft. No analysis of these peculiarities of bone-growth in
cretins need be attempted, but some remarks are offered on p. 385
with reference to the mother's share in this congenital condition.
Chlorosis. — Contrasting with rickets, in which the tendency Chlor-
born with the child produces symptoms of ill-health in children of osis.
both sexes within the first year, and seldom later than the second,
chlorosis is a congenital condition of which there are symptoms
first at the age of puberty, and almost exclusively in the female
sex. The congenital nature of this condition has been made prob
able by the anatomical observations of Virchow, which go to show
that in chlorotic subjects there is very uniformly found a narrow
or inadequate aorta, much more elastic than usual, with its inner
coat irregular in thickness and disposed to degenerative changes,
and with its intercostal branches coming off in a more than ordi
narily irregular manner. These anatomical peculiarities are natur
ally part of the congenital endowment of the individual. The full
force of the chlorotic state is not felt until the time of puberty,
and in the male sex it is hardly felt at all. It is, indeed, associated
in the most intimate way with the remarkable periodicity of ovu-
lation to which the female sex is subject ; it manifests itself in the
years when that function begins, and chiefly at each successive
period of the function. After a few years the indications of it
become feebler and tend to disappear. Want of sunlight in the
daily life of the individual is the chief aggravating circumstance of
the anaemia of chlorosis. The vascular system is on a small scale,
to begin with, and there is too much blood in the body for the size
of the vessels ; the blood is not quite normally constituted, having
too few corpuscles in proportion to the plasma, and in the red disks
there is too little haemoglobin or colouring matter. While the
blood and blood-vessels are poor, the fat of the body, and especially
the subcutaneous, is abundant.
Haemophilia.— This is another general state of the vascular sys
tem, which is always congenital, and often runs in families, one
or more of whose members are " bleeders." It is a disorder of the
boys of a family just as distinctively as chlorosis is a disorder of the
girls. A remarkable disposition to bleed, with or without the pro
vocation of an injury, is the whole disease ; neither structural change
of the blood-vessels nor peculiar composition of the blood has been
made out, and there is nothing remarkable in the ordinary appear
ance of a bleeder. When the bleeding is spontaneous it comes
from the mucous membranes, especially from the nose, but also from
the mouth, bowel, and bronchial tubes ; one of the most common
and fatal traumatic occasions of bleeding is the extraction of a
tooth. Even slight bruises are very apt to be followed by extrava
sations of blood into the tissues ; the swollen joints (knee especially)
of a bleeder are probably due, in the first instance, to the escape of
blood into the joint-cavity or into the synovial membrane. It is
always from the very smallest vessels that the blood escapes, and
from these it may escape in such quantities as to cause death within
a few hours. It appears that the same extensive capillary haemor
rhage may occur anywhere in the body provided the opportunity is
furnished, by a slight injury or otherwise, for the blood to escape.1
1 Literature. — Of rickets : — W. Jenner, Med. Times and Gaz., 1860,
vol. i. ; Virchow, Cellular- Pathologic, 4th ed., 1871, chap. xx. (also in
his Archiv, vol. v., 1851) ; Kassowitz, Die normale Ossification und
die Erkrankungen des Knochensystems bei Rachitis und hereditarer
Sy2)hiiis, Vienna, 1883; Id., in summary, in Trans. Internat. Med.
Congress, vol. iv. p. 45, Lond. , 1881 ; J. Guerin, Memoires sur les
376
PATHOLOGY
§ 6. — ERRORS OF BLOOD-MAKIXG ix MATURE LIFE.
The words quoted above from Sir William Jenncr —
" Whatever depresses the mother's powers of forming good
blood tends to produce rickets in an offspring" — are a
special application of a general doctrine of blood-making
which has been held empirically by the medical profession
at all times. It is not easy to discover with scientific pre
cision the facts of blood-making in mature life upon which
this doctrine, otherwise amply justified, is based. It is
remarked by Sir Thomas Watson : " Although we cannot
doubt that any considerable modification or defect of the
fluids that feed and renovate the blood, and particularly
of the chyle, must have a direct influence upon its com
position and quality, we really know but little about them
except in their effects. We seldom have any means of
procuring these the first products of nutrition so as to ex-,
amine them, or to test their qualities, yet we can perceive
causes that are likely to deteriorate or deprave those fluids
(unfit aliment, impure air), and we know that, under the
continued operation of such causes, the blood, replenished
by these fluids, is actually and sensibly modified." The
more recent development of the physiology of metabolism
has been followed by an extension of our knowledge of the
state of the blood in disease ; thus the text-books speak of
such conditions as glycaemia (glucose in the blood), aceton-
asmia, cholremia (jaundice), lipaamia (fat in the blood),
uraemia, tfcc., some of which fall to be spoken of in sec
tions following. In the presenf section it is rather the
corpuscular part of the blood that has to be considered
with reference to its renewals in mature life. It is now
known that red blood-disks are continually being added to
the blood, continually perishing in a like ratio ; the red
marrow of bone is unquestionably a source of the red disks,
and so probably is the pulp of the spleen ; again, the liver
plays some part, not yet precisely determined, in the cycle
of changes that the solid elements of the blood undergo.
Confining the attention, then, to the corpuscular elements
of the blood, we shall best approach the question from the
side of the colourless or white blood-corpuscles, the undue
proportion of which is the most obvious fact in the import
ant disease called leukaemia.
Leuk- Leukasmia, or Lcucocythasmia. — The relation of the colourless
semia, corpuscles of the blood to the red disks is variously explained ; all
that we know, however, from such occasional cases as blood-cysts
points to the red blood -disks being the detached protoplasm of
the haematoblast, — the nucleus surviving. Appearances in the sub
cutaneous tissue of the foetus, in the thymus, in the spleen, and in
bone-marrow point in the same direction. The colourless corpuscles
of the blood would thus be the surviving nuclei of the original
hrematoblasts, the red disks being detached portions of the proto
plasm of the same. There would be in any case several red disks
for one surviving nucleus ; but in actual blood the proportion of
cells of the latter kind is very much smaller than that. The pro
portion varies in health from time to time, and it is usually
increased during pregnancy, making a physiological leucocytosis.
Ordinarily the colourless corpuscles are in the proportion of from
1 in 300 red (after a meal) to 1 in 1000 red (in the fasting
state). If the colourless cells are the surviving nuclei of haemato-
blasts, we must suppose that the protoplasm continues to be
renewed around the old nucleus, so that the same htematoblast
gives off successive generations of red disks. The cells of red
marrow, of the thymus (while it lasts), and of the splenic pulp
would thus be standing sources of new red corpuscles. Evi
dences that they are so are not wanting in fine sections of these
tissues, although the process of budding of the hfemoglobin-
Difonnit&s du Systems, osseux, Paris, 1839-43; Humphry, The JIvmnn
Skeleton, Catnb., 1853 ; various authors in Trans. Path. Soc., vol.
xxxii., Lond., 1881. Of osteomalacia : — Kassowitz, op. cit., chap.
vi.; Cohnheim, Varies, uber allgem. Patholorjie, vol. i. p. 513; Pub-
bert, in Virchoio's Archiv, vol. Ixxx. Of cretinism (morbid anatomy):
— Virchow, several papers reprinted in his Oes. Abhandl, p. 891 sq.,
Frankfort, 1856 ; Eberth, Diefoetale Rachitis und ihre Rrziehungen
zum Cretinismm, Leipsic, 1878 ; Barlow and others in Trans. Path.
Soc., Loud., 1881-84. Of chlorosis: — Virchow, Ueberdie C/ilorose, &c.,
Berlin, 1872 ; Laache, Die A ndmie, Christiania, 1883. Of hemophilia :
— J. Wickham Legg, Treatise on Haemophilia, Lond., 1872.
tinted fragments of protoplasm is not so marked in all its stages as
in those abnormal instances of haematoblastie activity to which
reference has been made (blood-cysts, angeioma of liver). In the
normal process there seems to be less cleavage of the nucleus,
although the nucleus is not unfrequently seen to be constricted or
half - divided ; the marginal protoplasm detaches itself from one
side as if with little trouble, new protoplasm gathers around the
nucleus, and so the supply is kept up just as if it were secretion
from the cells of a gland. If the cell which had disengaged its red
dish protoplasm in the form of one or more disks or globules were
thereupon to continue in its nuclear state, and to acquire no further
investment of cell -substance, it would practically amount to a,
colourless corpuscle of the blood. There are, as we have seen,
always a few such cells in the blood — one in several hundred red
disks — and the real difficulty about them is to understand why they
should be present in the circulating fluid at all. In the disease of
leucocythaemia they increase enormously, so as to be in the ratio of
twenty, fifty, or even one hundred to the hundred red disks, which
are themselves absolutely fewer ; and, if we interpret that pheno
menon according to the view that they are residual nuclei of
hrematoblasts, we shall conclude that the hasmatoblasts have veiy
generally ceased to produce new generations of red disks, have
stood still at the lower grade, and have passed bodily from their
blood-forming habitat into the blood-stream. There would be, in
short, an arrest of function, manifesting itself not only in the great
falling off in the number of red disks but also in the presence
within the vessels of these sluggish or crippled elements of the
blood-making organs and tissues, as if in lieu of the red disks
themselves. What, then, is the actual condition of the proper
seats of blood-making in the leucocy thsemie disease 1
The interest centres in the state of the spleen and of the bone- Moi
marrow ; according to modern views the so-called lymphatic leuco- anal y
cythaemia belongs to another class of processes and may be here of 1< -
disregarded. The spleen is in all cases enlarged, from twice up a-mi
to fifty times its normal size ; it retains its form, but its struc
ture is firmer, less sanguineous, streaked with pale or yellowish
lines, or mottled with yellowish patches. The marrow in the
bones is often changed in appearance : it has become grey or red
dish grey and diffluent ; and this change may be observed even
in the marrow-fat of long bones. These changes are essentially in
the haematoblastic tissue, — in the splenic pulp and in the bone-
marrow ; the cells of that tissue have to a great extent ceased to
form blood, their activity has taken another and formative direc
tion, from which no functional product results (red blood-disks),
but mere overgrowth of tissue and of cellular nuclei. The haana-
toblasts have, in fact, become constructive when they should
have continued functional. The enormous number of colour
less corpuscles thrown into the blood has to be traced to the
same diversion of the haematoblastic forces which has in the
spleen led to textural overgrowth ; instead of remaining in the
seats of blood-making, and continually reclothing themselves uith
haemoglobin -tinted protoplasm, the haematoblasts have passed
bodily into the blood -current in their naked nuclear condition.
The colourless cells of leukaemia may be said to have the same
relation to the haematoblastic process that was claimed, in a former
section (see p. 365), for the pus-cells of granulations. The peculiar
state of the bone-marrow characteristic of leukaemia has often been
compared to granulation-tissue ; in some cases it has even the appear
ance of puriform infiltration. Again, the first cases of leucocy thannia
were described by Hughes Bennett as cases of "suppuration of the
blood" ; and, if the pus of granulations is an analogy for the cells
of leukremic blood, the textural developments of granulations may
be held to be an analogy for those formative changes in the spleen
which are found in its enlarged state.
Pscudo-lf,uk(emia. — Leucocy thaemia is a definite and generally
fatal disease wherein the increase of colourless corpuscles of the
blood and the decrease of the red disks are referable, in the last
resort, to disordered hrematoblastic function in the spleen or bone-
marrow, or in both. There may be a state of Icucocytosis without Leu
this profound and fatal haematoblastic disorder, wherein the in- cyt< .
crease of colourless corpuscles is referable to organs and tissues
which have no blood-making function. Affections of the lymph
atic glands are the principal occasion of this leucocytosis or
pseudo-leukaemia, and such affections may occur in the course of
morbid processes so various as scrofula, cancer, and typhoid fever.
A considerable degree of leucocytosis occurs also in the later
months of pregnancy as a perfectly normal incident. The lymph
atic glands and the lymphatic follicles of the mucous mem
branes are collections of lymphoid cells which have no true
blood-making^ function, however closely their cells may resemble
those of the bone-marrow, of the spleen -pulp, and of the thymv.s ;
they are rather related to the cellular by-products, or the solid
waste of secretion (see section 7). From them, or through them,
the colourless cells in the blood may receive considerable additions
from time to time ; but these have a significance quite different
from the profound disturbance of blood-making which constitutes
leucocytlutmia, and they are better classed under the heading of
PATHOLOGY
377
leucocytosis or pseudo-leucocythsemia. The difference is even dis
coverable, according to Virchow, in the morphological character of
the colourless corpuscles in the two cases. In true leukaemia
(splenic) the corpuscles in the blood are somewhat large, with
multiple nuclei, and more rarely with a single nucleus ; in the
pseudo-leukaemia (lymphatic) the cells are small, the nucleus single
and large for the cell, the cell - substance being often so narrow a
zone as to be hardly appreciable around the nucleus. These are
practically the differences between the cells of lymph -glands or
follicles and the residual nuclei of hfematoblasts (or pus-cells).
This pseudo-leukaemia connects, on the one hand, with Hodgkins
disease, a general condition of lymph-gland overgrowth, and, on
the other hand, with solitary lymphomatous tumours, such as grow,
mostly perhaps, in children in the kidney, or in the follicular
tissue of the intestine, or elsewhere.
Pernicious Aneemia. — This is another serious and generally fatal
error of blood-making, which presents both an instructive parallel
to leucocythaemia and an instructive contrast. The onset of this
disease is often sudden, it may be with symptoms of chills and
heats and other febrile manifestations. It occurs at all periods of
life, and in both sexes. The body seems to become strangely blood
less, so that even the point of the finger will not bleed if cut. There
is much listlessness, often giddiness, tendency to haemorrhages,
especially into the retina, and pains in the bones. Recoveries,
temporary or permanent, are more usual than in leucocythaemia,
especially under the administration of arsenic. The blood is pro
foundly altered, and the state of it may vary much within a space
of weeks or even of days. The red disks are enormously reduced
in number, and many of those that are left have departed from
the usual type ; they may be either very large or very small, two
or three times larger than usual, or two or three times smaller.
Some of them are oval and flat, and sonic of them pear-shaped
vesicles (fig. 41). They
may have also an in
creased colouring power,
which means an undue
concentration of haemo
globin. When the two
chief blood-making tis
sues are investigated in
such cases after death
they do not always fur
nish a rational explana
tion of the state of the
blood. It is, in fact,
somewhat rare to find
anything elucidative in
the state of the spleen,
and the interest is thrown
mostly upon the bone-
marrow Not always, but
very often, this tissue is
profoundly altered ; even
the yellow marrow of the
long bones is red or jelly-like, few or no fat-cells are visible, red
blood-disks are everywhere, along with granulation-like marrow-
cells, in a fine reticulum, and traversed by blood -sinuses which
have been compared to the sinuses of the spleen. Sometimes the
nuclear cells of the marrow are found with a zone of reddish pro
toplasm round them or in the state of perfect hsematobksts. In
this peculiar disorder of the blood-making process the salient facts
appear to be the following. Red disks are formed from hfemato
blasts with difficulty ; they are mostly either much too large or
much too small ; the haemoglobin is too concentrated in them ; the
bone -marrow makes quite unusual haematoblastic efforts; but the
vessels at large remain ill supplied with blood, while the marrow
itself is everywhere full of blood, and sometimes even tends to or
ganize itself into a structure like the spleen. Degeneration follows
in the muscular structure of the heart and in the walls of blood
vessels ; to the former are owing some prominent symptoms, and
probably to the latter the haemorrhages. One of the most singular
things in this remarkable disease is the power of recovery, either
temporary or permanent, that the organism may acquire, chiefly
under the stimulus of arsenic. As compared with leucocythrcmia
the striking fact is that the part played by the colourless corpuscles
is from first to last a subordinate and even unrecognizable one.
Scurvy. ^Scurvy. — In scurvy we have a blood-disease of a kind somewhat
different from leucocythaemia and pernicious anaemia, inasmuch as it
depends, not upon unaccountable and seemingly capricious errors
in the blood-making tissues, but upon errors in the ingesta, upon
well -understood defects of diet. (See SCURVY. )
Irregular Irregularities of Blood -distribution. — While the facts of blood-
Wood- making are among the most fundamental in pathology, the facts
distri- of blood-distribution come more visibly into the every-day mani-
bution festations of disease. The speed and force with which the blood
is driven round its whole circuit vary much ; as measured by the
pulse at the wrist these conditions of the circulation have at all
. -e blood-disks from a case of pcnii-
Cious anaemia ; in the left lower corner is a
group of normal red blood -disks for com-
Parison. (After Laache.)
times been held by practitioners to be of the first importance in
diagnostics and prognostics. The local distribution of blood, -or
the amount of it within and the rate of its passage through particular
organs and parts, is a more recently investigated subject bound up
with the doctrine of vaso-motor nerves. One of the most striking
facts in this chapter of physiology is the varying amount of blood
within the "splanchnic area" from time to time. In pathology
the question of the varying distribution of blood comes largely
into the doctrine of fever and of inflammation ; the further discus
sion of it is reserved for a later part of the article.1
§ 7. — ERRORS OF SECRETION.
The pathology of secreting structures is concerned, not
only with deviations from their normal activities as de
scribed in physiological treatises, but also with an addi
tional series of phenomena recalling the more elementary
or embryonic kinds of cellular activity. Besides those
great disorders of glandular structure and function which
fall to be considered in the next section as errors of meta
bolism, there is a large part of the sum -total of disease
which is merely an affair of elementary cellular irregu
larities in the mucous surfaces and glandular organs of
the respiratory, digestive, and reproductive systems. In
the foregoing illustrations of pathological processes it has
often occurred to notice the obtrusion, as it were, of earlier
phases of cellular activity into later life, or the revival of
embryonic characteristics, both structural and functional.
The illustrations already given have related chiefly to
blood-making and bone-making ; we now come to a corre
sponding class of illustrations from the epitheliated parts
of the body. In the latter also there is a liability to revert
to rudimentary forms of cell -life, wherein the epithelial
cells reveal their inherent power to act as independent units,
or their spontaneity and their self-governing properties.
Thus, among the morbid conditions of the respiratory
apparatus there are only a few, such as asphyxia, the
Cheyne- and -Stokes breathing, and the like, which are
directly in contact with the physiology of the respiratory
mechanisms. On the other hand, pulmonary catarrhs and
their structural after-effects (together with laryngeal and
trachea! inflammations) enter largely into the pathology
of the respiratory organs, although they are hardly devia
tions from those respiratory functions that have the en
grossing interest for physiology. There is the same class
of elementary cellular deviations among the morbid states
of the digestive organs, and, most of all, in the pathology
of the genito-urinary system, — of the uterus, bladder, and
prostate, — and of the breasts. The most universal error
that epitheliated surfaces or organs are liable to is catarrh ;
and closely related to their liability to catarrh is their
liability to polypous and simple-glandular tumours, and,
under special circumstances, to cancer.
Catarrh in general. — The term catarrh (KCLTOL, down ; ptw, flow) Catarrh
was originally applied to a running from the nose ; the mucus was in gen-
called " pituita," and in the Hippocratic doctrine of the humours it eral.
was exalted to a place side by side with the blood and the bile.
The vague importance assigned to this humour in the medical
philosophy of the Greeks is further shown in the curious fiction
which made it to issue from the hypophysis cercbri or "pituitary"
body. The mucus of the nose may stand for the mucus of the air-
passages generally, and it differs only in degree from that which
is expectorated when there is considerable bronchial catarrh. It
is now usual, and the usage is scientifically justified, to include
all other mucous or muco - purulent or purulent discharges from
epitheliated surfaces as the result of a "catarrhal" process.
Those mucous surfaces that are most liable to catarrh are ordi
narily kept moist by an exhalation or secretion ; in the mucous
1 See Virchow, Cellular- Pathologie, chaps, ix., x. ; Wilks, articles
on leukaemia in Guy's Hosp. Reports, and in Wilks and Moxon, Path.
Anat., 2d ed., London, 1875; M osier, Die Pathologie und Therapie
der Leukamie, Berlin, 1872; Gowers, art. "Leucocytha?mia," in Rey
nolds 's System of Med. ; Malassez, in Arch, de Physiol., 1877 sq.;
Pye-Smith, " Idiopathic Anoemia of Addison," in Guys Hasp. Reports,
xxvi. ; Eichorst, Progressive perniziose Andmie, Leipsic, 1878; Laache,
Die Andmie, Christiania, 18S3; Bizozzero, Rindrleisch, and others on
the haematoblastic function.
XVIII. — 43
378
PATHOLOGY
membrane of the stomach and intestine the surface-moisture
amounts to a definite layer of glairy or tenacious mucus. In some
of the mucous membranes, such as those of the pharynx and
oesophagus, trachea and bronchi, there are distinct racemose glands
which appear to subserve solely the purpose of lubricating or
keeping moist. In every case the normal mucus of an epithelial
surface may be taken to be a product of the epithelial cells ; it is as
if it were a common and rudimentary function of surface-epithelium
anterior to the specific secretions of organs. It is in this common
and rudimentary function that the catarrhal process has its roots,
a process which not only exceeds the physiological limits of sur
face-moisture, but may even throw into the shade the specific
secretion of the part or organ. The catarrhal secretion is always
characterized by the large preponderance of cells, and the propor
tion of cellular elements increases as the mucous substance becomes
muco-puruleut and purulent. It is important to observe that there
is no definite line where the limits of normal moistness end and
"inflammation" begins ; and, as it is desirable to put off as long
as possible the introduction of that entity into pathology, we shall
best proceed in the study of catarrh by advancing from the physio
logical activities of cells.
The ca- Nature of the CatarrJuil Process. — The catarrhal process, like all
tarrhal the so-called inflammatory processes, has been rendered ambiguous
process, by the undoubted share in it that is taken by hyperamiia or afflux
of blood to the particular epithelial region. By some the hyper-
rcmia has been taken to be the primary fact, the increased rush of
blood to the part and the local stagnation of the same being traced
to an upset of the controlling and equalising nervous mechanism of
the vessels and to alteration of their walls ; by others the local
cellular process has been regarded as determining the afflux of
blood, as if by a kind of attraction. Whether the afflux of
blood precedes the unusual activity of the epithelial cells, and
whether some of the catarrhal cells may not be emigrated colour
less corpuscles, are questions that may be considered open ; but
there can be no question that catarrh is essentially a hypersecre-
tion of the epithelium, or the secretory activity so modified that it
becomes to a great extent formative, or its product to a great extent
cellular. The difficulty of proving this is owing to the fact that
the normal production of mucus from epithelium is a very subtle
and rapid process, the morphological phases of which are hardly
to be detected ; in this respect it must be considered analogous to
the formation of red blood -disks from hrematoblasts. And, as
the details of the luematoblastic process are best seen in certain
abnormal manifestations of it, and even in those cases where the
morbid condition is one of anremia, so the complete physiological
paradigm of mucus-production is best seen where there has been
some interference with the perfection of function. We shall per
haps not go wide of the mark if we describe the catarrhal process
as a reversion to a more embryonic or more elementary type of
cellular activity. The higher the type of secretion, the less obvious
are the morphological changes in the secreting cell ; in an organ
like the liver, which had been early acquired in the evolution of
the animal body, the secretion has become so elaborated in the
higher animals that the steps of it present hardly any morphologi
cal features at all ; on the other hand, in an organ like the breast,
which is a late (mammalian) acquisition, the changes in the secret
ing cell can be followed at leisure. Catarrh in any mucous surface
is the same primitive kind of secretion, and it may be said, in a
word, to consist of a fluid product and of an additional by-product
of cells. The original epithelial cell is detached bodily, nucleus
and all ; the protoplasm becomes the more or less viscid or semi
fluid part of the mucus ; and the nucleus goes with it as the
catarrhal cell. The more the cellular elements predominate, the
farther does the secretion deviate from the normal, until we reach
the limit of pus, where we invoke the entity of "inflammation."
Catar- Succulence and Thickening of the Catarrhal Mucous Membrane. —
rhal infil- A mucous membrane which has been the subject of catarrh for
tration. some considerable time becomes thicker and more succulent. If
it be examined in microscopic sections it will be found that the
underlying connective tissue has become involved ; the tissue is
"infiltrated "with round nuclearcells (fig.42); the fibres are becoming
^B^N!!&*V -'-*fjfe>
t •=*
FIG. 42. — Epithelial surface and subrnucous tissue in a state of catarrh (tubular
gland of the dog's skin), a, a', collections of catarrhal cells in the epithelial
layer ; 6, the same in the underlying connective tissue.
thicker ; and the fineness, delicacy, and translucency of the tissue are
disappearing. At certain spots where the "infiltration " and asso
ciated changes are greatest the surface breaks or ulcerates, and a
"catarrhal ulcer" remains. The central fact in this process is the
infiltration of the round nuclear cells beneath the epithelial surface.
The facile way of accounting for them is to assume that the colour
less corpuscles of the blood had escaped through the walls of the
small veins ; but it is more in accordance with observed facts and
with unambiguous analogies to regard them as catarrhal cells which
have found their way into the depths of the tissue instead of flowing
off' by the surface. The presence of these cells in the spaces of the
connective tissue is not without effect on that tissue itself ; they
rouse it to a formative activity which conducts to the succulence
and thickening of the mucous membrane, and, it may be, to ulcera-
tion at particular spots. To enter on this subject at present would
be to open up the question of the infective action of one kind of
cell upon cells of another kind (see pp. 382, 383).
Physiological Analogies of Catarrhal Infiltration. — The infiltration
of catarrhal cells beneath the mucous surface has close analogies
in the normal processes of the body. It is exactly paralleled in
one of those crude forms of secretion to which the catarrhal pro
cess has been compared, namely, the kind of secretion, gradually
rising in intensity, which goes on in the breast during the period
'of gestation. This process can be most conveniently observed in
the mamma of the cat or dog, where the crude secretory products
are for a time cells of considerable size filled with yellow or brown
pigment ; the pigmented cells can be followed from the secreting
structure into the spaces of the surrounding connective tissue,
and thence into lymphatic glands. It would not be carrying this
analogy too far to regard the lymphatic follicles of the mucous
membranes as collections of or receptacles for the cellular by-pro
ducts of the mucous secretion ; such are the tonsils, the follicles
on the back of the tongue and pharynx, the lymphatic follicles
of the stomach of some animals (but not of man, unless it be in
infancy), the extensive stratum of lymphoid cells in the villi of
the small intestine and the more definite collections of the same
(Peyer's patches), and the lymphatic follicles of the great intestine.
Certain it is that all these collections of round nuclear cells are
subject to very considerable increase when there is catarrh in the
corresponding mucous surface. Not only so, but in catarrh they
will show themselves prominently even where they are hardly known
to exist normally ; thus, in the intestinal catarrh (summer diarrhoea)
of young children, even the thin folds of the mucous membrane
(valvulse conniventes) will be found studded with round nodular
or somewhat flattened lymphatic follicles. In intense catarrh
these follicles are the favourite seats of ulceration, their substance
changing into a "follicular ulcer." In other cases the catarrhal
process makes its influence felt in the nearest lymphatic glands,
which may be regarded as the second line of receptacles for the
by-products of secretion (as well as for the matters of absorption),
the submucous follicles being the first line ; and, under these
circumstances, the lymphatic glands may even suppurate (as in the
axillary lymph-glands of the breast after weaning).
Tumour-diseases of Mucous Membranes and of Secreting Structures Tumoi
generally. — If catarrh of mucous membranes enters, as Rindfleisch diseast
says, into the larger half of all the morbid conditions to which of epi-
marikind is subject, the tumour-diseases of the epitheliated surfaces tlieliat
and organs may be said to rank among the most formidable of all surfaci
maladies, inasmuch as they include, cancer. Cancers are diseases
primarily of mucous membranes and other secreting structures,
most commonly of the stomach, next to it of the uterus, of the
female breast, and of the intestine ; another variety of cancers
(epithelioma) is diseases of modified epithelial surfaces, namely,
the skin in general, and the lip and tongue. There are, however,
much simpler tumour-disorders of epitheliated surfaces which it
will be convenient to take first.
Warts (Pajnllomata). — Papillomata of the moist epitheliated Warts
surfaces are found almost exclusively in those situations where
there is a transition from skin to mucous membrane. The rule
may not be universal, but there are many instances in which these
wart-like growths have an undoubted relation to a catarrhal pro
cess of the surface, where the removal of the catarrhal products
has been interfered with. One of the most striking illustra
tions of this law occurs in veterinary practice ; in the horse,
especially when he is overworked and ill cared for, the natural
smegma of the prepuce gets retained, owing to the fixity of the
sheath ; the accumulation has more than a mechanical effect, for it
appears to induce a papillomatous condition sometimes of the whole
mucous surface. The papillomata are new growths, either in a broad
layer of the uniform thickness of a quarter of an inch or more, or
theyr are large dendriform masses arising at various points and each
attached by a narrow stem. It is hardly a catarrhal process that we
have here to deal with, but it is none the less a disorder of secretion.
The natural secretion not finding an outlet, the secreting surface
adapts itself gradually to the unusual conditions. The surface
becomes ridged or thrown into folds, or papilla? arise at isolated
points ; blood-vessels run in the central parts of all these reduplica
tions of the membrane ; and the epithelium, instead of disengaging
itself in successive generations of cells after the manner of the
natural smegma, takes on a formative activity and builds up an
PATHOLOGY
379
1COUS
^pi-
adventitious tissue on the surface, the pattern of which is deter
mined by the
looping or den
driform branch
ing of the blood
vessels (fig. 43).
These formative
aberrations of
secretion are apt
to return after
removal, even al
though the con
ditions which
gave rise to them
are obviated ; the
new development
and persistence
of the blood-
a '""cous polypus
pear to be the
occasion of recur- Fio. 43. — Portion of a dendriform papilloma or wart (horse);
rence in these blood-vessels run in the central stem and in the branches
of fibrous tissue,
cases.
Mucous Polypi. — In many cases mucous polypi have an un
doubted connexion with those states of the mucous membranes
which are included under catarrh. An approximation to a multiple
polypous condition may be found in the stomach subject to long
standing catarrh, where the ridges and furrows of the mucous mem
brane amount to an actual polyiwsis ventriculi. Multiple polypi are
sometimes met with also in the intestine. The commonest seats of
the isolated and stalked mucous polypus are the nasal passages and
the cervix uteri. Their structure is after the same plan as the more
epidermic papilloma, everywhere tu
bular mucous glands, the epithelium
of which is wonderfully perfect (fig.
44) ; these may branch or communi
cate more than do the normal gland-
tubes of the part, and they are
separated by tracts of connective
tissue which appear to the naked £
eye as dendriform white lines. In
these morbid products the line is
definitely crossed from functional to
formative, but we cannot assume any
other force than the indwelling
secretory activity of the part ; the
unique fact that presents itself here
is that a perversion of that force
gives rise to an organ-like new forma- FlG- 44-~
tion whose plan of structure is plainly
determined by the blood-vessels. It is worthy of note that the
bronchial mucous membrane, which is the most liable to catarrhs,
has practically no liability to mucous polypi ; and the bronchial
mucosa is distinguished, not only by its investment of cartilaginous
rings and plates, but by the density of its elastic and muscular coats.
Single Glandular Tumour (Adenoma). — As the mucous polypus
andular is characteristic of the wide expanse of mucous membrane, so the
mour. simple glandular tumour or adenoma is the formative result of
functional disorder in the definitely bounded epithelial organs with
racemose systems of ducts. The glands that are most liable to this
condition are the breast, the salivary glands (including the buccal
and labial), the lacrymal glands, and the skin -glands in certain
regions. Whenever the more uniform expanses of glandular struc
ture, such as those of the stomach and the intestine, take on a
formative activity to the depth (instead of to the surface, in the
form of polypi), the result is a cancer, involving other considerations
besides those primary or direct deviations from the secreting activity
which we are now considering.
Intra-canalicular Papilloma. — The simple or non - cancerous
tumour-disease of glands may be represented in most cases in the
ularpa- light of deviations from the normal secretory activity, — deviations
illoma. which take a formative direction. They connect not remotely
with catarrhal states of the secreting structure ; but, speaking
generally, they stand for irregularities of the apparatus and process
of secretion which transcend the notion of catarrh. It will be
convenient, however, to proceed in the analysis of them from that
familiar basis. The nearest approach to the effects of catarrh is
shown in the folded or uneven state of the wall of the terminal
secreting recesses or acini of a gland ; this condition may be ob
served in certain skin-glands and in the breast. The cut (fig. 45)
is taken from a tumour of the skin-glands of the dog. The lining
of columnar or cubical epithelial cells, which is ordinarily a perfectly
even surface, is raised into distinct papillary eminences. These may
even meet across the space, changing its interior into a nearly solid
or at least trabecular tissue. The next cut (fig. 46) shows precisely
the same process in the breast, this time not in an acinus but in a
mple
itra-
inal-
duct ; the result is what is called an " intra-canalicular papilloma,"
FIG. 45. — Papillary outgrowths
of epithelial lining in a tubu
lar gland.
FIG. 40.- -Intra-canalicular
papilloma of breast.
and it is not different in its origin and nature from the papillomata
of expanded mucous surfaces which we have already considered.
Cartilaginous Tumours of Glands. — Another formative result of Dis-
disordered function, which takes us quite beyond the limits of ordered
catarrhal effects, is the occupation of the walls and interior of the glandu-
acinus, not with papillae of the lining epithelium nor with the lar func-
epithelial cells shed into the free space as solid by-products oftionspro-
the secretion, but with a new tissue foreign to the gland. This ducing
occurs in the mamma (more often in the dog than in man), in the cartilage,
salivary glands (parotid, submaxillary, and labial), in the lacrymal
gland, and in skin-glands (e.g., of the scalp) ; the new tissue may
be of the mucous or myxomatous kind, and it is not rarely carti
laginous, or even osseous, at a few points in the midst of the car
tilage. The occurrence of myxomatous and cartilaginous areas is
common in the parotid tumours of man and in the mammary
tumours of the dog, and it is usually explained as an arbitrary
and unaccountable overgrowth and transformation of the support
ing connective tissue of those organs. It remains to inquire whether
it may not be brought into a rational connexion with disorder
of the proper
secretory func
tion. The cut
(fig. 47) is taken
from a case of
extensive tu
mour-disease in
the mamma of
the bitch, in
which much
cartilage had J^*^
formed. It \J*% v t-
represents se- ^f^/FY"
veral acini of
the gland, hav
ing their in
terior occupied
with large
spherical or
oval vesicu
lated cells with FIG. 47.— Group of acini of mamma (dog), occupied in part
firm hvaline with large vesiculated 'hyaline cells which are practically
contents.There cartilaginous.
can be no question that these are epithelial cells strangely changed ;
but the change will not seem so strange if we keep in mind the range
of transformation which the secreting cells of the breast are nor
mally liable to. There is a stage in the unfolding of this gland
from its periodical state of rest in which the cells become vesicles
filled with mucus, just as there is a more mature period when
they are still vesicles but filled with a more fatty or milk -like
fluid. The change in the tumour is, after all, only from the
mucus -filled vesicles to vesicles occupied by a firm hyaline sub
stance ; and, if it were connective -tissue cells that we were deal
ing with, the explanation would be at once accepted, according
to the well-known correlation between fat, myxomatous tissue, and
cartilage. The facts seem to require that the same formative
possibilities be granted to epithelial cells ; so that the myxomatous
and cartilaginous formations in secreting structures would be traced
to their active elements. The supporting tissue of the glands is
a priori passive, and, as a matter of fact, it has not been proved by
any detailed observations to be the source of those myxomatous
and cartilaginous new formations. The occurrence of vesiculated
epithelial cells with firm hyaline contents is not the only piece of
positive evidence. It is much more common to find the columnar
epithelial cells elongating into fibre -like elements, straight or
crescentic, and developing mucous or hyaline intervals of inter
cellular substance ; in this way there results the myxomatous and
fibro- cartilaginous tissue that is so often found in the tumour-
disordei's of the salivary glands and more rarely in the labial mucous
glands. The glandular plan of the structure in these cases very
soon becomes obliterated, and the limits between supporting tissue
and secreting apparatus removed ; in a considerable area of hyaline
cartilage or nbro-cartilage there are naturally few or no traces left
of the apparatus and process of secretion ; and there may some-
380
PATHOLOGY
Seats of
times be seen (as in the mamma of the bitch) the most remarkable
development of all, the change of the cartilage into bone, with
perfect medullary spaces lined by perfect osteoblasts. There are,
indeed, no limits, other than the fundamental embryological limits,
to the formative possibilities of cells which have reverted to
primitive embryological function. We have already seen that the
standing example of an embryonic tissue, the spindle-celled tissue
of the ovary, contains within itself the whole range of development
which is expressed in the grotesque variety of a dermoid cyst.
Another common effect of disordered glandular function is the
excessive formation of solid by-products of the secretion, which
are either retained in the recesses of the gland or are infiltrated
into the spaces of the underlying and supporting connective tissue.
Where the products arc retained within the gland-space we have
the familiar and simple result of cysts from retention, of which the
sebaceous cysts or " wens " of the scalp are good examples. But a
far more momentous occurrence is the infiltration of these crude pro
ducts or by-products of secretion into the depth. We have already
found reason to believe that the same kind of infiltration below the
surfact takes place in catarrhs, that the nuclear cells found in the
deeper layers of a thickened mucous membrane arc of the same
origin as the catarrhal cells of the surface-discharge, and that their
presence in the spaces of the connective tissue had been the excit
ing cause of the fibres becoming thick and coarse, or, in other
words, of the "inflammatory" changes in that tissue. The infil
tration which conies under our notice in tumours of secreting
structures is different from this as regards the characters and pro
perties of the cells : as regards their characters, the cells retain
more of the epithelial type, that is to say, they are not naked
nuclei, but they have a considerable investment of cell-substance ;
as regards their properties, these epithelial cells infiltrated below
the nmcosa do not excite " inflammation," but they excite cancer.
What remains to be said of the infiltration of by-products of
glandular secretion will be included in the section on cancer
immediately following.
§ 8. — CAXCEE.
The popular estimate of the nature of cancer is so well
founded that a definition is superfluous. Cancer in patho
logical anatomy differs from cancer as commonly under
stood in being restricted to the malignant tumour-diseases
of secreting structures and epitheliated surfaces generally,
to the exclusion of a certain number of equally malignant
tumours which grow from the periosteum or the marrow of
bone, or from other mesoblastic tissues. The great majority
of all the cases which have the fatal progressiveness of
cancer are diseases of the stomach, the uterus, the breast,
the intestine, and the skin ; this group makes so large an
element in the sum-total of tumour-disease, and is so homo
geneous within itself, that it may justly appropriate the
name of cancer, leaving the other cases of tumour-malig
nancy to be described by- more technical names. At the
same time it should be clearly understood that the smaller
detached group does contain cases where the particular man
ner of fatal progression is not different from the progressive-
ness of the epithelial tumour-disorder, such, for example,
as the cases of periosteal tumours becoming parosteal.
Chief Scats of Cancer. — The absolute and relative frequency of
cancer in the various seats of secretion has been ascertained by
D'Espine, from the mortality returns of the canton of Geneva, for
both hospital patients and the well-to-do treated at home, to be as
follows over the period from 1838 to 1855 : —
Stomach 300 cases, or 45 per cent.
Uterus 130 ,, 15
Liver 03 „ 10'5
Breast 70 , , s-5
Bmall and large intestine :J,0 „ 3-3
Rectum 25 ,, 3
being 762 or 85 '3 per cent in a total of 889 cases of malignant
tumours of all sorts. Most cases of cancer of the liver are really
secondary to cancers in the stomach or elsewhere, so that the
leading position of the stomach, and after it of the uterus, the
breast, and the intestine, becomes more marked. According to the
facts collected by Yirchow from the mortality returns of the town
of Wurzburg from 1852 to 1855, the deaths from malignant tumours
were 5 '3 per cent, of the total mortality, and the percentages among
malignant tumours were as follows : —
Stomach 34 -9 per cent.
Uterus, &c 18'5 „
Intestine S'l „
Liver, <tc 7-5 „
Face and H;K 4-9 M
Breast 4-:j „
78-2 per cent, of all malignant tumours.
It may be accepted, then, that the digestive tract is the seat in
about one-half of the cases of malignant tumour -disease, and the
female sexual organs (excluding the ovaries, but including the
breasts) in about one -fourth, while the remaining fourth has to be
apportioned among other epithelial organs or parts and the bones
and other mesoblastic tissues. It must not be supposed that these
ratios hold good equally for all localities ; the breast sometimes
appears to usurp a larger share, and sometimes the rectum. Again
it is a noteworthy fact that cancer is a comparatively rare disease
among the vast populations within the tropics.
The beginnings of cancer have to be sought for in disturbances
of the apparatus and process of secretion. Even in the cases where
hereditary or congenital predisposition plays a part there must
have been local irregularities of structure and function to deter
mine the seat of the disease ; thus, of four sisters of whom three
were married and had families, one died of cancer of the breast,
another of cancer of the stomach, a third of cancer of the rectum,
and the fourth of cancer of the uterus, — the incidence of the disease
in them all happening about the age of fifty to sixty. Cancer in
secreting structures is essentially one process ; but each of the
• favourite seats of cancer has its own special liability, as Avell as points
of structure special to itself. The liability of the female breast is an
entirely different tiling from the liability of the stomach ; and the
liability of the uterus is more closely allied to that of the stomach
than to that of the breast, although the breast and the uterus have
a closer systemic relationship. There is, however, something in the
cellular law of secretion common to them all, and it is that common
feature of the secretory process which first engages the attention.
Relation of Cancer to Secretory Process. — The product of secretion Cancel
is not, under all circumstances, a fluid; in the simpler forms ofandtb
animal life, and in more recent or less elaborated glands of the secrete
higher forms, it may be thrown off in cellular shape, just as it is proces
always cellular in its origin. We have already seen that in the
catarrhal state the cellular admixture is considerable, and there can
be hardly any question that the cells of a catarrhal discharge are
derivatives of the epithelial cells, being indeed little other than their
nuclei. We have also seen reason to believe that the infiltration of
nuclear cells in the thickened mucous membrane of chronic catarrh
had been a real infiltration of the catarrhal cells beneath the surface.
Xow the favourite seats of chronic catarrh, the stomach and the
uterus, are also the favourite scats of cancer. What, then, is the
relation between these two very different diseases, both of them
primarily disorders of the apparatus and process of secretion ?
A particular case will bring out the points of resemblance and the Diffuse
points of difference. In a fatal case of cancer of the stomach the cancer
whole organ is found to be uniformly thickened, the mucous mem- whole
brane being much ridged and furrowed ; but its epithelium is un- stomat
broken. The interval of submucous tissue, ordinarily a loose layer
between the mucosa and the muscular coats, is occupied through
out the whole extent of the organ by a nearly uniform stratum
of firm whitish tissue. This is an exceptional case of cancer of the
stomach, but it is a very instructive one ; the morbid condition is
as uniformly
diffused over
the organ as if
it had been
the thickening
of chronic ca
tarrh, and it
wants the usual
tumour - char
acter of cancer.
The micro
scopic exami
nation proves,
whatthewhite-
ness and almost
gristly firmness
of the submu
cous interval
had suggested,
that the disease
is hard cancer.
The white stra
tum iimlpr flip
un, 4,
mucosa has the
structure shown in the cut (fig. 48), and it is an average example
of the infiltration of scirrhous cancer. Epithelial -like cells, with
a disproportionately large nucleus, are as if packed in rows in the
spaces of a very dense fibrous tissue, which contains a large
number of elastic fibres. Besides the linear processions of cells,
there are elsewhere groups of them arranged round the walls
of spaces like the epithelium of a gland. Throughout the whole
thickness of the coats of the stomach in this case such collections
of cells are found ; in the muscular coats they are met with chiefly
where there are fibrous septa ; and it is noteworthy that the gland-
like collections are by far the most numerous in the tissue most
48. — Indltration of scirrhoug cancer uniformly diffused
throughout the whole sub-nmcosa of the stomach.
PATHOLOGY
381
remote from the physiological glandular surface, namely, the
connective tissue of the serous or external coat (fig. 49). It is
impossible to trace a continuous
growth of these subscrous gland-
like groups of cells from the actual
glands of the mucous surface ; they
are separated from the latter by
nearly a quarter of an inch of mus
cular and other tissue, in which
the " infiltration " occurs only here
and there. The wide extension of
the cancerous process is not mere
overgrowth or protrusion of the
secreting structure, nor is it even
an infiltration, in the literal sense,
of the cast-off secreting cells ; it is
an infection of the cells of the sub- FIG. 49.— Diffused cancer of stomach ;
jacent tissue to become epithelial tubular- gland grouping of cells in
cells and gland - like cell - groups, sub-peritoneal tissue.
And therein lies the essence of cancer.
acer- Extension of Cancer from the Surface to the Depth. — Whereas,
i pro- under commoner circumstances, the catarrhal by-products of the
s. process of secretion find their way to the underlying textures and
there give occasion to an " inflammatory " reaction, to hardness and
coarseness of the connective tissue, under other circumstances the
less nuclear or more epithelial by-products of the glandular activity
have the power to induce the remarkable formative process in the
neighbouring tissues which we know as cancer. The cancerous pro
cess implies, accordingly, such a condition of the secreting structure
and function, or of its individual cells, as can excite this formative
reaction, and it involves also the changing of the surrounding tissue
(or of its cells) into epithelial forms of cells, either in rows or groups
or in gland-like systems. As regards the former, there is no lack
of evidence that cellular by-products of secretion are often the ante
cedent or concomitant of cancer in an epithelial organ or part ; they
may be seen sometimes in the stomach heaped up between the
glandular tubules, or in the mammary gland (especially of the bitch)
infiltrated into the sur
rounding stroma. The cut
(fig. 50) is an illustration
from the mamma ; the
rows of cells which lie in
the spaces of the connect
ive tissue are the cellular
products of the secretory
function characteristic of
an immature or low-pow
ered intensity of secretion,
and they are easily iden
tified in all phases of the
mammary secretion in the
dog, whether regular or
irregular, by their yellow
ish-brown pigmentation.
It is not to be expected
that such an infiltration of
by-products of secretion
can be proved for every
case of cancer, nor is there
reason to suppose that
there is always such an
infiltration. The elements
of the secreting structure
may serve in situ to excite
or infect the neighbour- Flo 50._ infiltration of pigmented^epithelial
ing tissue, and this they cells into the stroma of the mamma in a
usually do for the con- case of tumour (dog),
nective tissue on which they immediately rest. But we have to
take due account of the much more important fact that the in
fection also manifests itself at a number of remote and isolated
centres, within each of which the new growth arranges itself as if
implicitly according to a design, the pattern being the more or
less regular epithelial type proper to the organ or part. Thus in
fig. 49, from a diffuse cancer of the whole stomach, the glandular
tube-like structures have arisen at a number of points in the con
nective tissue of the outer coat. The pattern of tubular glands
is often more complex than in that figure, both in other stomach
cases and in cancers of the great intestine and rectum. This
remarkable breaking out, as it were, of very perfect epithelial
tubules, disconnected from the physiological tubules and often in the
midst of dense tracts of plain muscular fibre, appeared to Johannes
Mailer to be so extraordinary that he ascribed them to an invisible
seminium dispersed through the tissues ; according to him, the
seminium was a literal seed whose particles themselves grew to be
the new epithelial cells. We do not now admit the possibility
of cells so arising by gcneratio equivoca ; every cell must be the
descendant of some pre-existing cell. And, although it is neces
sary to retain the doctrine of the seminium, the part played by that
hypothetical element is not formative within its own particles ; but
it is a fertilizing or infecting influence upon the pre-existing cells of
the neighbourhood. In most cases the cells so fertilized are the
corpuscular elements of the common binding-tissue of the body, or
the connective-tissue cells.
Cancerous Infection of the Connective-tissue Cells. — The cut (fig. Cancer -
51) is an exact drawing of a piece of cancerous tumour where the ous in-
connective-tissue cells can be seen in the act of transforming into fectiou.
epithelial cells, or in various stages of that transformation-process.
The process carries us once more back to that embryonic activity
*$®..&~-... .— ?T'
-^uea§ •,.„ -zg—^jgf^ ^ - -;-£ ^
<^
•^S^-ffSmsSsSS^&^^SES^^SKf^
i^z~39Ms**a
FIG. 51. — Cancerous infection of connective tissue in a case of tumour of
skin-glands of the dog.
of cells in mature life which we have had frequently occasion to
discover in other elementary processes of disease. The cells of the
connective tissue are ordinarily quiescent in the form of plates more
or less compressed laterally, the cell-plates of tendon being extreme
examples. Just as, in the process of repair, they become plump and
granular, developing in the third dimension as well, and ultimately
becoming granulation-cells, so in cancerous infection they start from
their obscurity among the bundles of fibres, passing by rapid trans
itions into the form and semblance of the epithelial cells proper to
the occasion ; and they may even go on to assume a glandular
grouping round the wall of a space, acting as if harmoniously or
according to an implicit design. There is no fact in pathology more
noteworthy than this ; if it has any analogy among the facts of
normal biological processes, we shall probably have to go to the very
lowest groups of animals or to the earliest stages of evolution to find
it. Whatever the infective influence may have been, it touches all
the quiescent cells over a certain area simultaneously ; a " terri
tory " of tissue, larger or smaller as the case may be, but always
involving a number of cells, assumes the embryonic life throughout
its whole extent, and goes through all the steps of the transformation
towards the epithelial type and grouping, as if its cells had received
one common impact.
States of the Connective Tissue predisposing to Infection. — There
are, indeed, reasons for thinking that the special factor in the
production of cancer, and of the production of it at particular
spots in a large area of choice, is not so much the presence of
cellular by-products of the secretion as a particular disposition of
the connective tissue of the particular spot to be easily acted on by
them. Catarrhal products are often present without any infection
following ; but the two favourite seats of repeated or chronic
catarrh, namely the stomach and the uterus, may at length become
the seats of cancer. Cancer is hardly ever a disease of the first
half of life ; it is very distinctively a disease apt to occur after the
meridian is passed. In those who are liable to uterine and gastric
catarrhs the mucosa and the submucosa at length become thick
and succulent. This happens at particular spots, notably just
within the pylorus of the stomach ; the epithelial surface may not
be appreciably different from the surface elsewhere, but the under
lying tissues are thickened and, it may be, contracted to a stricture.
It is in such dense new formations of connective tissue that cancer
is most apt to form ; what is called cicatricial tissue is proverbially
liable to cancer, and a tissue may be to all intents and purposes
" cicatricial " (and apt to shrink) even if it underlie an unbroken
surface. Some cancers of the stomach form entirely below the
surface, in the thickened floor of a healed nicer, or even in the not
unfrequent dense adhesions between the serous membrane of the
back of the stomach and the piece of peritoneum which is drawn
over the anterior surface of the pancreas. A cancerous stricture of
the intestine or rectum is not unlikely to have been to some extent
a stricture before it became a cancer. The condition of the con
nective tissue in all such circumstances is not easy to define ; it is
often spoken of as young connective tissue or "embryonic," and
there is probably in it a smaller preponderance of the fibrous
element over the cellular than is usual in mature life. A general
change in the connective tissue of the body has been asserted to
take place as age advances, a senile change which has been described
by Thiersch, for the corium, as a relaxed state. The epitheliated
localities subject to persistent functional disturbance do at least
seem to undergo a change in their \inderlying or surrounding con
nective tissue, whereby that tissue becomes predisposed to cancerous
infection. The infection emanates from the secreting structure
proper, for it carries with it the likeness of such structure (in its
more or less irregular or morbid state). The cellular waste or by
products of the secretion would appear to acquire something of the
property of sperm-cells ; and, inasmuch as the infected or impreg
nated connective tissue produces not merely individual epithelial
382
PATHOLOGY
cells of the appropriate type but also the appropriate grouping of
such cells, the sperm-cells must be held to carry more than the
influence of cell-units, and in fact to be representative of the whole
structural and functional process in which they had played a part.
Varieties of Cancer. — The two main varieties of cancerous texture
are the hard and the soft, or the scirrhous and the medullary.
Scirrhous Scirrhous cancer is very often the "infiltrating" kind, with the
cancer, epithelial cells lying in scattered groups or in single file within the
spaces of a peculiarly dense and elastic connective tissue. It is
Medul- common in the breast and not rare in the stomach. The medullary
lary cancer consists of very much larger
cancer, and closer groups of cells, which
may be in nondescript heaps or in
the more regular arrangement of
glandular structure. When the
glandular tvne is very distinct the
• n 1 IL l
tumour is sometimes called a de-
Colloid structive adenoma." Colloid can-
cancer. ccr is a very peculiar variety, apt
to occur in the stomach but not
unknown in the breast ; most of
the structure is changed into a
brownish jelly - like substance
which forms more or less definite
spherical or alveolar masses sepa
rated by narrow bands of stroma.
Under the microscope (fig. 52)
little of cellular structure of any
kind is found remaining, but in
place of it there are an immense FlG 52. -Colloid cancer of the breast,
number of spherical pearl - like
bodies, each of which consists of several delicate concentric lamina?
arranged round a more dense nuclear point.
Cancer of Cancer of the skin, and of the lips and tongue, is generally termed
skin, &c. epiUiclioma ; it is not a disorder of secretion in the same sense as
(epitheli- other cancers are, but it is a disorder incidental to the constant
oma). waste and repair of the epithelium of the skin. It is characterized
by the encroachment of processes of the rete mucosum upon the
corium and subcutaneous tissues, or, in the lips, tongue, upper
part of the oesophagus, &c., of epithelial columns of cells upon
the subepithelial region. The type of this encroachment is the
papillary arrangement of the normal rete mucosum, where the
appearance of regular columns of epithelium reaching down into
the corium is equally due to the reciprocal protrusion of loops of
blood - vessels upwards.
The interlockinL
epithelial -columns
connective-tissue
in epithelioma is
more extensive and
regular than in
normal skin, and
always difficult to
cide, from the super
ficial microscopic ap
pearances, whether the
encroachment of
epithelium is men
displacing or a trans
forming encroachment •
(fig. 53). In some cases,
such as destructive epi
theliomas of the tongue,
or of chimney-sweep's
cancer, it is possible to
find reliable evidence in
the microscopic sections r
Fio. 53.— Epithelial cancer of skin deeply involv-
tnat the progressiveness jng the side of the neck. The cylinders of
of the disease is really epithelial cells, resembling those of the rete
an infection, like that ""icosum, are surrounded by fibrous tissue in-
of cancer elsewhere— Crated with smaU nuclear cells,
that is to say, the neighbouring tissues, and more especially the
connective -tissue cells, are infected so that they assume the epi
thelial type proper to the locality— and that infection tends to
spread without limit. But the doctrine of continuous growth from
the rete mucosum downwards, by mere subdivision of pre-existing
epithelium, appears to be justified as a part, at least, of the patho
logy of cancer of the skin. As in cancers of the stomach and uterus,
the regions liable to skin-cancer are especially those subject to re
peated irritation or to prolonged functional disturbance. One of
the most striking instances of this law used to be the cancer of
the skin of the scrotum and groins in chimney-sweeps, a form of
disease which has become much less common of late. Again, it is
nearly always the lower of the two lips that suffers, and the rare
cases of epithelioma of the lip that occur in women are among those
of the sex who smoke pipes. Like other cancers, the cancer of the
skin, lips, and tongue, &c., is a disease of later life ; according to
Thiersch, it is due to a "disturbance of the bistogenetic equilibrium
between epithelium and stroma, to the disadvantage of the stroma."
The perfect balance of tissues would be exemplified by that regular
interlocking of vascular papilla? from below and epithelial processes
from above which the skin ordinarily shows ; as age advances the
downward force of the epithelial growth prevails, owing to a certain
decreased " turgor vitalis," or to loss of resistance on the part of
the tissue carrying the blood-vessels, so that, when long-standing
irritation of a particular spot is added, we should have the two
great determining causes of cancer of the skin. But the question
will always remain, whether the essence of the disease is not really
an infective transformation of the quiescent cells of the connective
tissue into the type and pattern of the irritated epithelial structure.
The female breast is peculiar among the glands of the body in
its great liability to cancer ; the disease is of essentially the same
nature as that which \ve find in the stomach and other epitheliated
organs, but the occasion of it is quite different. It will therefore
be convenient to reserve further remarks on cancer of the female
breast until the next section — that on the "liabilities of obsolescence."
Extension of Cancer to Lymphatic Glands and other Discontinuous Discon-
•Parts. — If the beginnings of cancer are to be sought for in some tinuous
disorder of the apparatus and process of secretion, the disease very infectio
soon passes the limits of the primarily disordered organ or part.
The cancerous property of a tumour, as we have concluded, is from
the first an affair of infection of the neighbouring tissues by epithelial
products ; the infected neighbourhood is the seat of the primary
tumour, the progressiveness or infiltrating character of which may
soon cause a large area to be involved and a large growth to result.
Sooner or later there is discontinuous infection, or the infection of
more or less remote centres, whereby secondary tumours arise.
This phase of cancerous infectiveness is by no means dependent
on the extent of the primary infection or the infection of the
original neighbourhood. That which distinguishes secondary can
cerous nodules, wherever they are found, is the very close mimicry
of the pattern of structure in the indigenous seat of disease, a
pattern which is itself determined by the structural and func
tional characters of the secreting organ or part concerned. In
the majority of cases the nearest lymphatic glands become the
subject of this mimetic process first ; the liver also is very liable
to discontinuous infection, not only in cancers of the stomach
and intestine, but even in cases of cancer of the breast, sub-
maxillary glands, &c. There is always an interval of time before
this secondary infection is set up ; and, although the cellular
process is not different in kind from the infection of the neigh
bourhood of the indigenous disease, it is necessary to regard the
latter as, in a sense, the parent of the former. This parental Contra?
relationship is made all the more probable by the fact that sar- betweei
comatous tumours, which depend in many cases upon a reversion sarcom.
to or survival of embryonic characters in the mesoblastic cells of a and
particular locality, are also apt to be followed by tumours in distant cancer.
parts, particularly in the lungs. In cancers, accordingly, we should
distinguish three factors, and in sarcomas only two : in the former
we have first the accumulation of cellular by-products of the secre
tion, next the infection of the predisposed connective tissue by
these epithelial products, and lastly the parental influence of the
whole primary seat of infection ; in the latter we have the embryonic
reversion of cells over a particular region, together with their
increase or growth, and then the parental influence of the tumour
which had so arisen. In both cases the primary tumour acquires
a kind of individuality and a power to reproduce itself ; but it is
only in some cases of sarcoma, especially those soft tumours of
periosteal origin which become parosteal, that there is infection of
the neighbourhood, whereas a cancer is not a cancer at all until
the tissues adjoining or supporting the epithelial secreting structure
are epithelially infected. This difference between sarcoma and
cancer corresponds to the familiar fact that the former are only
occasionally "infiltrating" tumours, being in most cases marked
off from the neighbouring tissues by a definite capsule.
The simplest case of discontinuous cancerous infection is in the
lymphatic (/lands near the original seat of disease. It is only ex
ceptionally that the lymphatic glands are infected in sarcomatous
tumours, and those cases appear to be mostly the infiltrating
sarcomas which have the distinctively cancerous property of in
fecting the neighbourhood. Infection of the axillary lymphatic
glands is the common sequel of cancer of the breast, while the epi
gastric, portal, mesenteric, and other abdominal lymph-glands receive
the infection in cancer of the stomach and intestine. In epithelioma
of the lip and tongue the infection of lymph-glands is much slower,
and is often so slight as to be undetected during life ; it specially
affects the lymph-glands under the chin. In all cases the tendency
is to reproduce the exact pattern of the primary tumour. In some,
including those sarcomatous cases where this kind of infection does
take place, the lymph-gland seems to have been transformed en
masse, very rapidly and directly, so that steps in the process are
hardly to be detected. But in other cases it is possible to find,
either within the same gland or among the various glands of a
cluster, a certain amount of instructive histogenetic detail as to the
PATHOLOGY
383
mode of infection. The lymphoid cells become affected, not cer
tainly in the way of atrophy, but in the way of transformation.
There is indeed nothing more wonderful in the whole range of
biological phenomena than to observe the adaptation of the cells
and tissues of a lymph -gland to assume the cancerous structure
already established in the organ to which they are related, an
adaptation always close in its mimicry, involving the co-operation
of large groups of cells and fibres, and directed as if by a presiding
intelligence. In many instances the infecting substance may even
want the perfect cellular character ; it may be no more than the
detritus or the juices of cells and tissues. The most obvious form
of infection, although probably the rarest, is where the new growth
extends continuously along the sides or in the interior of lymphatic
vessels from the secreting structure to the lymph-gland ; but even
this continuous extension has been shown to be, not a protrusion
of the primary tumour by increase or subdivision of its elements,
but a succession of infective transformations along the line of cells
constituting the lymph-vessel or investing it. Under all circum
stances the lymph-gland becomes changed ultimately into a texture
which reproduces with astonishing fidelity the particular pattern of
the primary cancer, a pattern which is never quite the same in any
two cases of tumour-disease even of the same organ. In some cases
it is not always uniform throughout the same tumour ; thus pre
parations might be described from a cluster of infected lymph-glands
under the cancerous mamma of the bitch wherein two kinds of
structure in the extensive strip of primary disease are severally
reproduced in different lymph-glands.
ection The infection of the liver is a very common sequel of cancer of
liver, the digestive tract, as well as of other cancers, and even of sarcomas
(especially the melanotic) and lymphomas. Opinions differ as to
the share which the liver-cells take in the building up of the new
texture ; but there is hardly any room for doubting that it is
from the pre-existing cells of each infected area, even if it be exclu
sively from the cells of the supporting tissue and the capillary
walls, that the elements of the secondary tumours are derived by
infective transformation. The infection breaks out and proceeds
pari passu at a number of areas throughout the liver-substance,
affecting the whole of an area as if at one blow ; there is an absolute
lack of evidence in favour of the .assertion often made, that the
secondary tumours are due to the mere increase, by division, of cells
detached from the primary mass and lodged here and there in the
liver. There is a certain amount of evidence in favour of some
such embolic theory for the secondary tumours of the lungs, which
are usually a sequel of sarcomatous growth in some bone or in other
mesoblastic tissue. Sarcomatous tumours are apt to grow through
the walls of neighbouring veins, and pieces of them doubtless get
detached and carried into the pulmonary circulation ; but it is
more than doubtful whether even these emboli give rise to the
secondary tumours of the lungs merely by continuous proliferation
of their cells, and not rather
by the infective action of
their presence.
mary Another seat of secondary
I sec- tumour-formation, both epi-
lary thelial and melanotic sarco-
sc- matous, is the serous mem-
n. branes. The accompanying
figure (fig. 54), from a nodule
on the diaphragm in a case
of cancer of the colon in the
horse, may be set beside fig.
51 as showing the substan
tial identity of the infective
process in the secondary and •
primary seats of disease ; in
both cases the cells of the
connective tissue are seen in
the stages of transformation
towards the epithelial form
and grouping. The infection Fro. 54.— Cancerous nodule on the peritoneal
of the neighbourhood is the Sl"^acc °,f diaphragm, secondary to cancer
*?. , •, of the colon (horse),
essence of the cancerous
process. But the discontinuous infection of distant parts is not
different from it in kind. It is merely "Wirkung in der Feme,"
and it is more mysterious only because it is more remote.
The disorder of secretion thus eventually assumes a cancerous
character in which traces of its origin may be hard to find. As the
disease persists or extends the patient's colour becomes sallow or
dull grey, the colourless cells are increased in the blood, the bones
may become fragile, and general wasting (curiously associated some
times with local production of fat at the seat of disease) puts an end
to a life of suffering. In abdominal cancers death may be hastened
by dropsy of the peritoneum ; in various forms of the disease there
may be fatal bleeding from an eroded vessel. It has often been
remarked that an appearance of exceptionally blooming health
goes with the liability to cancer ; and the blooming appearance
of the face and plump condition of the tissues will sometimes
persist when the local ravages of the disease have made consider
able progress.1
§ 9. — THE LIABILITIES OF OBSOLESCENCE.
We have seen in the foregoing sections that various
liabilities to error underlie the embryological tissue -de
velopments, the process of blood-making, the process of
bone -making, and the process of secretion. But there
are functions of the body, of its tissues and organs, in
which the morbid liability is something special. The
most striking instance of this is in the reproductive organs,
particularly those of the female ; the obsolescence of the
function, and in part of the structure, in the ovaries, uterus,
and breasts of women long before the natural term of life
creates a peculiar liability to disease. There are two other
organs, the thyroid and the suprarenal, which hold a some
what special position ; it cannot be doubted that each of
these organs plays an important part in the economy, but
there are suggestions in their morphology of survivalship
from a former state of things, and their diseased conditions
are not only peculiar in their occasion but also peculiarly
important in their consequences. Lastly, there are two
minute bodies situated at the bifurcation of great arterial
trunks, the coccygeal gland and the intercarotid body, which
are clearly marked as survivals; and the former, at least,
of these carries a peculiar liability to tumour-disease during
the period of intra- uterine life. These instances do not
include the so-called "involution-diseases" or the liabilities
of old age. The self -limitation of life may be said to be
too large a problem for the present purpose ; but sexual
involution is a part of this problem which comes directly
into pathology.
Cancer of the Breast in connexion v;ith Obsolescence of Structure Obsoles-
and Function. — The diseases of the climacteric period in women cence of
make an important chapter in the special pathology of the sex ; mam-
together with the disorders incidental to maturation, they stand mary
for the larger part of the special ill health of women. It will not function,
be possible in this article to give more than a single illustration of
the morbid effects of this peculiar periodicity, namely, the obsolescence
of the mammary function. The statistics collected by Paget clearly
show that cancer of the breast in women is peculiarly a disease of
the climacteric and post-climacteric period ; throughout the whole
period from the age of about fifteen to about forty-five, during
which the breast is capable of lactation, the cancerous disorder is
rare in it, the tumour-disorders to which the organ is then liable
being comparatively tractable. A few words about the physiology
will serve to indicate the pathology of the simpler as well as of
the more formidable malady.
The reproductive functions in the female are not only peculiar
among other functions of the organism in their maturation and
obsolescence, but they are further remarkable for their periodicity
within the period of vigour itself. In the lower species of the
vegetable and animal kingdoms seasonal periodicity is in every
thing, in the higher it is only in the sexual and secondary sexual
characters, and in the human species it is practically confined to
the reproductive system. The consequences, as regards the breast,
are that its structure and function unfold during the term of
gestation, continue in full vigour for a longer or shorter period
(which may be arbitrarily limited), and then go through definite
stages of subsidence and npfolding to the resting state. This
periodical reduction of structure in an orderly way is a peculiar
and unique thing; it is "as though a rose should shut and be
a bud again." The upfolding and unfolding of structure have
corresponding functional aspects ; there are crude secretory pro
ducts formed and discharged, and hence it is that the breast is a
peculiarly suitable organ in which to investigate the question of
cellular by-products or waste of secretion, and their disposal by
the lymphatic system. Compared with other secreting organs and
parts the breast is not peculiarly liable to catarrh, but it has a
physiological liability of its own which puts it on the same footing,
as regards tumour-disease, with the great seats of catarrhal dis
order, the stomach and the cervix uteri. Like these organs, it is
not generally subject to cancer until after middle life ; but, where
as in them the predisposition appears to depend on long-continued
functional irregularities, the liability of the breast arises out of its
1 See Paget, Lectures on Surgical Pathology ; Riudfleisch, Die Bos-
artigkeit der Carcinome, dargestettt als eine Folge ihrer ortliclien DC-
structivitat, Leipsic, 1877 ; various contributors in Pathol. Trans.,
xxv., 1874; C. H. Moore, The Antecedents of Cancer, Loud., 1865 :
K. Thierscri, Der Epithelialkrels, namcntlich der Haut, Leipsic, 1865.
PATHOLOGY
normal obsolescence. Its secreting mechanism becomes finally
broken up, so that one may find little left besides traces of the
larger ducts in the midst of wide areas of fibrillar tissue and fat.
Traces of the glandular structure persist to a very various extent
in different women, and even in different parts of the same breast.
It is obvious that the process is one which offers numerous oppor
tunities for a devious course ; it may be retarded, or advance un
equally, or be in the end incomplete. That which in all cases
must be held to create the peculiar liability to cancerous infection
is the readiness of the preponderant connective tissue to be acted
on by epithelial cells dispersed throughout it or otherwise in direct
contact with its corpuscles.
§ 10. — SPECIAL LIABILITIES OF THE SUPRARENAL AND
THYROID.
(1) Of the Suprarenal — Addison's Disease. — The peculiar
condition of ill health — always fatal — which Addison dis
covered to be associated with caseous degeneration of both
suprarenal bodies was described by himself as " anaemia,
general languor and debility, remarkable feebleness of the
heart's action, irritability of the stomach, and a peculiar
change of colour in the skin." Some of these symptoms
appear to be due to interference with the function of the
sympathetic nervous system ; the disease, as a whole,
however, is almost certainly the direct effect of withdrawal
from the general life of the body of those services which
the suprarenals are adapted to render. Where there is no
caseous degeneration (and consequent non- circulation of
blood) in each of the suprarenals the peculiar group of
symptoms constituting Addison's disease does not occur ;
there may be hyperplasia (struma suprarenal is) of one or
both suprarenals, or even true cancer of one or both, but
these morbid conditions do not seem to be able to produce
the same effect on the organism which is produced by
caseous degeneration. On the other hand, Addison's disease
lias resulted in a few cases where the suprarenals had not
been destroyed by caseous degeneration, but had undergone
extreme atrophy. We shall best approach this somewhat
intricate disease by considering it from the point of view
of suprarenal function, and of the peculiar relation of the
present probable function of the organ to its past morpho
logical history.
Supra- Evidence of Suprarenal Function. — A simple experiment will
renal show that the blood passing through the suprarenal receives im-
blood. portant additions. If the organ taken quite warm from a recently-
killed animal, such as the horse, be cut into pieces and placed in
a solution of potassium bichromate the central region assumes a
rich brown colour. Under the microscope the brown colour will
be found to reside in the coagulated plasma filling the numerous
lacunar spaces and large veins of the central region and in the
cells adhering outside their walls. At the same time it will be
seen that the groups of red blood-disks, wherever they occur in
the coagulated plasma, form areas of bright green colour. These
colour-reactions with chromium are not known to occur anywhere
else in the tissues and fluids of the body ; there is that in the out
going blood of the suprarenal which reduces the orange-red chro
mium-salt to a brown oxide, and (in the case of the red blood-disks
with more oxygen) to a green oxide. It will hardly prove an easy
task to isolate the substance whose existence is thus indicated, but
it is not difficult to follow in the suprarenal structure the adaptations
for supplying some such substance to the blood. It is precisely
analogous to the adaptation of the placenta, as described above
(p. 374), for supplying its metabolic product to the blood destined
for the fcetus. Several arteries reach the suprarenal all round its
circumference ; they break up into capillaries which radiate to the
centre, carrying the suprarenal cells closely adherent to their walls ;
towards the centre certain lacunar spaces form, and from these the
central outcarrying vessel receives its blood, being provided with
contractile muscular walls (in man, the horse, &c. ). Whatever is
added to the blood passing through the suprarenal must come from
the suprarenal cells. There is reason to suppose that this addition
is an actual exuded plasma, just as it is in the placenta. In the
latter case the added fluid drops from the protoplasmic wall of the
vessel into the circulating blood ; in the suprarenal a membrane
is interposed between the lumen of the vessel and the cylinders of
secreting cells, namely, the wall of the vessel itself. In this respect
the suprarenal cells are as well placed for contributing to the blood
flowing past them as are the liver-cells for exercising their glyco-
gcnic function. We shall conclude, at least, that the suprarenal
blood has received additions whilst in the organ, and that these
additions have been a material exudation (plasma) from the supra
renal cells.
The caseous or putty-like or cretaceous change which overtakes the Addi-
suprarenals in Addison's disease involves the complete suppression son's
of this function, for it practically amounts to the arrest of circula- disease
tion through the organ ; blood neither enters the organ nor passes
out of it, and there can be therefore no metabolism. Whatever
be the nature of the services that this remarkable organ is adapted
to render to the general life, Addison's disease is the evidence that
such services cannot permanently be withdrawn with impunity.
The most striking effect is the formation of brown pigment, often
so abundant as to appear almost black, in the lower cells of the
rete mucosum in certain regions of predilection of the skin, and
here and there in tlue mucous membranes. Doubtless a large part
of the symptoms of Addisou's disease might be traced vaguely to
disorder of the sympathetic nervous system ; but, while it is difficult
to prove the existence of such disorder of the solar plexus, except
as an inference from the symptoms, we have the patent fact that
the full train of symptoms in Addison's disease is associated with
loss of suprarenal structure and function, including naturally so
much of the structure and function of the sympathetic nerve as
properly belongs to the organ.
The causes of the molecular decay of the suprarenals and conse
quent cessation of their function are various. It may be the mere
contiguity to a lumbar abscess, or. it may be a part of general
tuberculous disease in the body, or it may be associated with no
extrinsic morbid condition whatsoever. Enlargement seems
usually to have preceded the final molecular break -down. The
liability of the suprarenals (with or without preceding enlargement)
to caseous degeneration must be considered to be somewhat special
to the pair of organs, just as the suppression of their function is of
special significance for the life of the body. The caseation soon
overtakes the whole structure on both sides, so that a relatively
small amount of that not very rare degeneration is of fatal import
if the suprarenals be the seat of it. There is a good deal of
morphological and developmental evidence that the suprarenals
are in one sense obsolete, their structure being, however, adapted
or utilized for new functions ; associated with this adaptation of
the organs we have the peculiar instability of their protoplasm, the
absence of any power of recovery, and the very marked and fatal
effects that follow the withholding of their contributions to the
metabolism of the body.
(2) Sjtccial Liabilities of the Thyroid Gland.— The thyroid is in The
some respects parallel with the suprarenals. Its cells furnish a thyroid
mucus-like plasma which is, in the first instance, poured into the gland.
closed vesicles of the organ, but is taken up again and carried into
the circulation (as Baber's observations tend to prove, Phil. Trans.,
1876, 1881) by the lymphatic vessels in their walls. We have now
to consider those not unimportant or infrequent morbid condi
tions which are associated with the peculiar functional position of
this organ.
Goitre. — The grand disease in which the functional activity of Goitre,
the thyroid is implicated is goitre. Under certain conditions of
locality a large part of the population become goitrous, that is to
say, their thyroids undergo enlargement. (See GOITKE.) There
have also been epidemics of temporary enlargement of the thyroid
in garrisons. The simple enlargement undergoes a considerable
variety of subsequent changes in the different cases : it may be
general or partial at the outset, it may become cystic or " aneur-
ismal," gelatinous or hrcmorrhagic, it may become fibrous, very
generally it becomes petrified at various centres, sometimes there is
a kind of osseous framework developed through its substance, and
there may be amyloid concretions. These transformations are too
many and complex to be entered upon, although they are full of
interest for the elucidation of indwelling embryonic tendencies.
The primary fact is enlargement of the thyroid among popula
tions whose food, water, air, or environment generally has some
thing defective or unsuitable. The enlargement of the thyroid
means that the organ has greater calls upon its ordinary func
tion, that it makes an effort to meet the circumstances of the
case. And there can be no doubt that in most cases the effort
is successful ; for goitre, apart from the inconvenient size of the
thyroid and the mechanical consequences of pressure, is a harmless
condition. The subsequent changes in the enlarged organ are the
inevitable consequences of hyperplasia ; but the primary enlarge
ment is conservative and adaptive. The adaptation has the effect
of elaborating from the blood brought to the thyroid more of the
mucous substance which it is the office of the thyroid to elaborate,
the same being probably returned to the blood more or less directly.
There is that in the water, food, or air of these populations, and
in the nutrition of men and animals in isolated cases elsewhere,
which calls for more of this peculiar metabolism.
Myxadcina. — Surgeons have in some places practised removal Myxce-
of the enlarged thyroid ; and attention has lately been called in dcina.
Switzerland to the after-effects of such removals. The connective
tissue in all parts of the body has become occupied with a mucus-
like substance or lias shown evidence of unwonted functional and
PATHOLOGY
385
plastic activity in its ceils and fibres. Of eighteen cases of com
plete removal of the enlarged thyroid at the hospital of Bern
this condition followed in sixteen, and in the two which escaped
it an "accessory" thyroid had arisen. The condition is that
which had been described by Ord as myxoedema (from the mucous
dropsy of the skin), a progressive disease, with hebetude and
other symptoms of impaired higher functions, and tending to a
fatal result in a few years. The interesting fact is that in such
cases of idiopathic myxoedema the thyroid has very generally been
observed to be small or wanting ; where the diminished organ
has been examined after death it has been found practically re
duced to a mass of connective tissue infiltrated with mucus, like
the connective tissue elsewhere. The relation then between the
cases of myxcadema following operative removal of a goitre and
the idiopathic cases would seem to be that, in the one, a mucous
condition of the whole connective tissue of the body follows when
the thyroid, enlarged to meet the metabolic needs of the body, has
been removed by the surgeon, while, in the other, the same condi
tion has followed where the thyroid lias either proved too small
for the ordinary metabolic ends that it is adapted to serve, or has
degenerated under an unusual call upon its metabolism. Of the
nature of this metabolism we are ignorant ; we know only that a
material fluid is elaborated, and that the fluid is of the mucous kind.
Cretinism. — If reference be made to fig. 40, showing the more
spongy tissue of the placenta, it will be seen that there also a fluid
is elaborated and added to the blood from the richly protoplasmic
walls of the vessels ; and that fluid is also of the mucous kind. It
is the "uterine milk" of earlier authors, and it would appear to
exude through the densely nucleated marginal tracts of the placenta
where the fcetal vessels and their plasmatic supporting tissue touch
it. It is this great metabolic function, so essential to the vigorous
development of the child, that is probably at fault in the poor and
over- worked or otherwise over-taxed mothers whose offspring become
rickety ; and the fault may be said more particularly to be deficient
quantity or quality of the placental mucous secretion. The simi
larity of the thyroid and placental metabolisms cannot but come
into account in considering the very peculiar condition of cretinism,
proper to the offspring of goitrous mothers, or of mothers who had
resided during their pregnancy in a goitrous district.
Under the same endemic circumstances which cause the com
pensatory enlargement of the thyroid in the parents we meet
with cretinism in the offspring. Although the defects of develop
ment and growth in cretinism are on the whole different from and
much more universal than those of rickets, yet there is a certain
parallelism between the two conditions. The cretin, like the child
who becomes rickety, must have been born with the disposition.
The condition is not inherited, but it is congenital, — that is to say,
it is derived from the mother in respect of her pregnancy only, and
that means that it is derived most of all from the placenta.
Cretinism is to goitrous districts what rickets is to other localities.
And, although there is no positive evidence as to the placental
function either in the one case or in the other, yet the placenta is
clearly pointed to in both cases; and we may conjecture that cretins
are the offspring of those mothers whose maternal nutriment is
impaired, not by the general hardships of those who bear rickety
children, but by the special endemic conditions which serve also
to tax that other mucus-producing organ, the thyroid gland. The
endemic conditions may not have caused goitre in the mother,
although, as a matter of fact, they generally do ; but, under a special
concurrence of circumstances, as common in goitrous districts as
are the determining causes of rickets elsewhere, they have caused
a cretinous habit of body in the child, and to do so they must have
affected the placental efficiency in some manner as yet unknown.
This mode of associating goitre and cretinism assumes an error
in the placental function which has not been shown by direct
observation of the placenta to have existed. It has probably not
been looked for ; and, even if it had been, there would have been
some difficulty in making out its morphological characters. Under
the circumstances of the case the evidence can hardly be other than
deductive.
Graves' 's Disease, or Exophthalmic Goitre. — In certain cases of
anaemia in women there is enlargement of the thyroid, fluctuating
in amount or permanent, but not liable to the common develop
ments or degenerations of endemic goitre. Associated with the
ansemia and the enlarged thyroid there are disturbance of the func
tions of the sympathetic nervous system and a remarkable promi
nence of the eyeballs. It is probable that another aspect of the
thyroid function than the mucus-making is involved here. It is an
old contention of Kohlrausch that the droplets of hyaline substance,
often with a yellowish or pale reddish tint, that are found in the thy
roid mixed with the ordinary mucus of its alveoli were an embryonic
form of blood-globules. In the thyroid of the dog these droplets may
be often seen of a more uniform size, and so like blood-corpuscles
(allowing for irregularities of form and size) that they have been
actually regarded as such, and put down, when in considerable quan
tities, to " Haemorrhage " from the vessels that run on the other side
of the epithelial wall of cells. There is not the slightest reason to sup
pose that these droplets have escaped from the blood-vessels ; they
are produced from the epithelium of the organ along with the otheV
mucus-like fluid. They point, indeed, to a hsematoblastic function
of the cells, somehow correlated to their ordinary mucus-yielding
function. There are analogies among the connective tissues, at
least, for this correlation between mucous and hamatoblastic pro
duction, in new growths, and there is an analogy in the early stage
of embryonic fat -formation, in the production of red blood -disks
from the same mesoblastie cells at one stage of their existence and
of mucus-like fluid within them at the next. Now, although there
is no evidence that the enlargement and increased functional
activity of the thyroid in these peculiar cases of antemia has a more
special relation to the hsematoblastic side of the function than
to the mucous, yet the coexistence of an enlarged thyroid with
certain cases of amemia becomes intelligible in the light of these
indications of hrematoblastic function. The enlargement of the
thyroid may be considered a special effort, comparable to the effort
of the bone -marrow in pernicious anaemia. The profound dis
turbance of the vascular system which goes with this condition
must stand as an empirical fact, but it may be classed with the
analogous sympathetic disturbances in Addison's disease ; both the
suprarenal and the thyroid are to be considered as organs in which
disorder of function has a special relation to the sympathetic, — the
abdominal sympathetic in the one case and the cei'vical in the other.
It is to be observed that in common goitre, where there is not so
much an alteration, diversion, or disorder of function as a com
pensating increase of the ordinary function, there are no symptoms
referable to the sympathetic ; so that the relation in the enlarged
thyroid of ana'inia cannot be a mere mechanical one.
Secondary Tumours of the Thyroid. — The last special liability of
the thyroid to be mentioned is a very peculiar one ; there is a
number of well-authenticated cases in which a simple enlargement
or hyperplasia of the organ has been associated with the new forma
tion of masses of the proper thyroid -texture, with the proper
mucous secretion, in the lungs and at various points of the sub
cutaneous tissue. In these cases the hyperplastic thyroid exhibits
the property of an infective tumour, the new growth of thyroid-
tissue at remote points being the secondary products of infection.
Is there anything in the normal overgrowth of the thyroid to
account for its infectiveness as manifested on rare occasions ? One
of the unsettled questions of thyroid physiology is the mode of
development of the new alveoli when the organ enlarges. It is
apt to be too readily assumed that the new structure is formed by
continuous extension from the pre-existing, by expansion or germi
nation ; but the point has been raised by observers whether the
new alveoli are not formed interstitially at numerous independent
centres throughout the stroma or supporting tissue of the organ, at
first as small groups of cells which come to develop a space in their
midst, and to group themselves as epithelium round the periphery.
This is the ordinary mode of interstitial development in cancerous
infection ; and, if that mode be substantiated for the physiological
increase of the thyroid (and the facts in the dog's thyroid point
that way), it would enable us to understand how7 it is that some
times, as if in a freak, the simple hyperplastic thyroid plays the
part of an infective tumour, reproducing its own likeness at dis
continuous and even distant centres. 1
§ 11. — ERRORS OF METABOLISM.
In the foregoing sections metabolic functions have been
claimed for the placenta, for the suprarenal, and for the
thyroid. Connected with these obscure and hitherto al
most unregarded metabolic functions are several important
morbid conditions, which are mostly of the so-called con
stitutional sort ; with errors of the placental metabolism
we connect such defective intra-uterine endowments of the
foetus as gave rise to rickets and cretinism in the child
(and, it may be added, to some of the manifestations of
congenital syphilis) ; with loss of the suprarenal meta
bolism we connect Addison's disease ; and with a compen
sating or conservative increase of the thyroid metabolism
we connect goitre, a condition which is harmless but for
its mechanical effects. It will now be convenient to pass
to those greater but hardly better understood metabolic
1 See Thomas Addison, On the Constitutional and Local Effects of
Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules, Lond. , 1855 ; Greenhow, On
Addison's Disease, Lond., 1875 ; Id., in Trans. Internal. Med. Con
gress, Lond., 1881, vol. ii. ; Wilks, "Addison's Disease," in Reynolds's
' Si/ stem of Med., vol. v., Lond., 1879. Goitre, Cretinism, &c. — Hirsch,
Historisch-gcographisclie PatJiologie, 2d ed., vol. ii., Stuttgart, 1883
(Engl. trans.) ; Virehow, Ges. Abhandl. zur u-iss. Med., Frankfort,
1856, p. 891; Old, "On Myxoedema," in Med. Chir. Trans., 1878;
and various authors in Clin. Trans., 1882-84.
XYIIT. — 49
386
PATHOLOGY
functions with whose disorders are associated some of the
severe diseases of common occurrence, taking them accord
ing to the organs, and taking the liver first.
The liver-structure is very much that of a blood-gland ;
its system of bile-ducts is subordinate to its blood-system,
just as its biliary function, though the amount of its product
be great, is in modern physiology subordinate to its glyco-
genic. Except in connexion with JAUXDICE (*/.?'.), the biliary
function does not concern us ; we come at once to the not
uncommon and very serious malady which may be regarded
as an error of the glycogenic function, namely, diabetes.
Dia- Diabetes. — Like the errors of metabolism treated of in previous
betes. sections, diabetes is a "constitutional " or general disease. It depends
essentially upon the circumstance that the blood passing to the
kidney is overcharged with sugar ; the kidney drains off the sugar
along with an immense quantity of water, so that the prominent
symptom is copious urine loaded with sugar. Diabetes can hardly be
called a disease of the kidneys ; these organs are but the ministers
of disordered metabolism whose seat is elsewhere, and their structure
is not even materially altered in the disease. In pronounced dia
betes sugar is everywhere. There may be half a per cent, of it in
the blood, it is in all the tissue-juices and in all secretions, and it
may enter into the composition of the urine to as much as 10 per
cent. The diabetic patient drinks enormously (the thirst being
due, it is conjectured, to the more concentrated state of the sugary
blood), and eats or desires to eat two or three times more than in
health ; the amount of urine voided is proportionately great, and it
contains a total of urea in the twenty-four hours which corresponds
approximately to the high feeding. All the while there is no
proper nutrition ; the body wastes, the skin becomes dry, the hair
falls out, the 'muscles become flabby, the heart's action is weak, and
the secreting organs become reduced in bulk and enfeebled in func
tion. AVounds tend to become gangrenous, boils and carbuncles
are apt to form, and pulmonary consumption is a frequent com
plication. The saccharine state of the fluids is favourable to the
lodgment of fungi (moulds), and these are found in the centres of
disease in the lungs. The disease is an example of those paradoxes
that we frequently come to in the last resort in the analysis of con
stitutional disturbances ; in spite of the enormous supplies that the
organism demands (and receives), the tissues and organs are not
nourished. It is only in some cases that the disease is checked
by a pure nitrogenous diet. There is some maladaptation in the
economy whereby there is an enormous quantity of sugar produced
which is not wanted, and a great lack of that which is wanted.
AVhere does the divergence occur from the physiological track ?
The blood ordinarily contains a trace of sugar, and traces of it
may be discovered in the urine. It may be permitted to regard
these traces as no more than the slight margin of non-perfect adapt
ation which is discoverable in many structural and functional
effects. But the antecedent of this sugar, namely glycogen, exists
in considerable quantity in animals the moment after death, and .
is assumed to exist in them during life. Although this assumption
must be granted, it is not so justifiable to admit, with some authors,
that the glycogen of the body is normally changed into sugar, the
latter being at once disposed of in the further course of combustion.
Glycogen is now known to exist in various tissues, more parti
cularly in inactive muscle ; but it is impossible not to conclude, on
the evidence, that the liver is still the organ of its choice ; and Ber
nard's original position, that diabetes is a disorder of the glycogenic
function of the liver, may be regarded as the reasonable one. The
structure of the liver is in great part an adaptation to some such
metabolic function, an adaptation to take somewhat from the blood
and to add somewhat to the blood again. The intermediate state
of this metabolism is glycogen, a starchy substance which changes
to sugar under the action of a ferment out of the body, and changes
to sugar sometimes in the body. Various kinds of interference
canse glycogen to change to sugar within the body — puncturing the
medulla oblongata at a particular spot with a fine spear-like point ;
the administration of curare, whose chief action is to paralyse the
muscles through their nerves; the administration of nitrite of amyl,
whose more owious effect is vaso- motor paralysis of the surface-
vessels, causing dilatation of them. These interferences produce a
passing diabetes. It has been objected that the diabetes so pro
duced is too transitory to be counted as analogous to the grave
human malady ; but it is well known that the same transitory
effects are not uncommonly met with in medical practice. The
time and serious diabetes is merely the established and confirmed
habit of turning everything to sugar, and it cannot be doubted that
Bernard's original experimental analogies are still the best clue to
the nature of the disease.
These experimental interferences point to some profound upset of
the nervous control. The spot in the medulla where puncture causes
temporary diabetes is otherwise known to be the vaso-motor centre ;
the effects of nitrite of amyl are otherwise such nerve -effects as
blushing ; the several effects of curare are identical with the muscular
limpness of fear. The observations of clinical medicine point in the
same direction ; a large proportion of all the cases of diabetes
where the antecedents have been ascertained with any degree of
relevancy are cases of profound emotional and intellectual strain,
of shocks and jars and worries to the mind, and especially to the
primary instincts and affections. Along with these we have a few
significant cases of tumour in, or upon, or in the neighbourhood of
the medulla. These clinical facts point clearly enough to some
upset of the nervous control, although there are certainly few or
none of the usual concomitants of nervous disturbance. The nerve-
paths that are implicated are the same as the vaso-motor ; but the
effects themselves are not vaso-motorial. Nitrite of amyl causes
artificial blushing, and it also causes diabetes ; in like manner those
subjective states of the mind (or mechanical states of the brain)
which ordinarily take such outward directions as blushing and
pallor, or the vaso-motorial direction, sometimes spend themselves
otherwise, causing an upset of the glycogenic adaptation. It is cer
tainly not a simple affair of vaso-motor paralysis, even if the path
of influence be the same. Some nervous mechanism allied to the
vaso-motor, or using the same path of influence, is probably con
cerned, the same kind of unknown nervous mechanism which
would appear to be concerned in Addison's disease (of the supra
renal) and in Graves's disease (of the thyroid). The upset of this
controlling nerve-force is followed by the production of a substance
from the liver-cells which is directly added to the blood as sugar,
and is removed as sugar in the urine. This substitution of sugar
in the blood for some other substance is fatal to nutrition ; it is
so wasteful an expenditure that the physiological bankruptcy
cannot be averted even when the patient receives the enormous
amount of food and drink for which he craves.
For the pathology of diabetes the obvious desiderata are to know
the normal sources and normal ways of disposal of the glycogen
of the liver. It seems to be premature to infer that, because gly
cogen, as its name implies, may easily become sugar, therefore it
ordinarily does become sugar as a transition -stage towards some
other product. If the regular conversion of glycogen into sugar be
assumed, the cause of diabetes would be referred to the inadequate
disposal of the sugar (e.g., its inadequate combustion in the lungs).
Cohnheim, after summing up the evidence from all sources, con
cludes that such inadequate disposal of sugar, properly present in
the bodjr, does occur in diabetes ; and he would seek for the reason
of the failure in the want of some "ferment" which, in health, brings
about the further breaking up of the sugar. The question, how
ever, is a sufficiently open one for us to contend that the initial
error lies in the making of sugar at all ; or, in other words, that
the failure of the ferment (or of the nerve-control of metabolism)
has to be assigned to an earlier stage of the metabolic process.
It is probably more than an accidental coincidence that the
pancreas has often been found shrunken and indurated in diabetes,
the shrinkage having followed apparently on an earlier hyperplasia.
According to analogy it would mean that the error of the hepatic
function had thrown more work upon the pancreas. Apart from
the state of the pancreas there is nothing distinctive in the struc
tural conditions associated with diabetes.
Acute Yellow Atrophy of the Liver. — Here we have another severe Acut
constitutional disorder, but much rarer than diabetes, in which the yelk
hepatic functions are chiefly, and perhaps primarily, concerned, atroj
It arises under a variety of circumstances, the chief of which are of li-
respectively poisoning by phosphorus, profound emotional troubles,
and the state of pregnancy. The early implication of the hepatic
functions is shown by the existence of a degree of common jaundice
for some time before the distinctive and fatal onset. The disease
may be said to consist in a complete disorganization of the whole
hepatic activity, — in the arrest of its biliary secretion and of its
other metabolism. The liver- cells fall into a state of molecular
disintegration, and the organ shrinks bodily, sometimes to a mere
fraction of its original volume. The ducts contain no bile, but a
colourless plasma in place of it ; the cells, where they keep their
outlines, are full of allmminous granules; large quantities of leucin
and tyrosin are found in the organ after death. "What is there
common to phosphorus -poisoning, profound emotional troubles,
and the state of pregnancy which can be brought into relation
with this remarkable upset of function and rapid disintegration of
structure ?
As regards the effects of phosphorus, they belong to a remarkable
class of effects, counterfeiting idiopathic diseased states, which it is
the property of certain of the chemical elements, inchiding arsenic,
antimony, and lead, to induce. The action of this element may
be said to be an arrest of metabolism, falling with special stress
upon the great seat of such functional activity (and on the secret
ing cells of the stomach and kidney as well). As regards the
acute yellow atrophy of the liver which follows profound emotional
troubles, we have many slighter analogous instances of nervous
inhibition of visceral function due to more transitory states of
emotion ; the disorganization of the liver -function would be the
proportionate effect of a more profound and more lasting mental
PATHOLOGY
387
trouble. As to the acute yellow atrophy of the pregnant state the
circumstances are doubly complex. In all the incidents of preg
nancy we must take into account the placental function, a meta
bolism almost as great for the time as that of the liver itself; and,
if we are to find any link of connexion between the seemingly
diverse conditions here in question, we should have to resort to the
somewhat vague generality that, in a rare concurrence of circum
stances, the placental function makes demands upon the maternal
blood and tissues, or upon the ordinary metabolisms of the mother,
which are of an upsetting kind, the incidence falling sometimes on
the metabolic functions of the liver.
* umin- Albuminuria. — The waste of albumen in the course of the
t .. urinary excretion is a much more frequent and hardly less serious
factor in disease than the sugar - waste ; but albuminuria differs
from diabetes in two important respects : firstly, the albumen which
escapes is, in great part at least, the proper albumen of the blood
(serum-albumin and globulin); and secondly, there goes hand in hand
with the error of function a series of progressive structural changes
fatal to the general efficiency of the kidney itself. Albuminuria
is the functional error that corresponds on the whole closely to
fright's disease ; but it would be a mistake to suppose that Bright's
disease can be measured by the amount of albumen lost. A con
sideration of these complex forms of constitutional disturbance
may proceed, however, from the side of albuminous leakage, and
from the point of view of the adaptations in the kidney whereby
the leakage is ordinarily prevented or reduced to a minimum.
The problem, as it maybe called, of the renal excretion is how to
discharge from the blood and from the body absolutely the wash
ings of the tissues, or the waste-matters of metabolism, without
allowing other dissolved substances of the blood to be discharged
at the same time. In adaptation hereto, the kidney is in part a
secreting organ and in part a mechanical filter. Those parts or
regions of its structure where its epithelium is in the form of very
large and richly protoplasmic cells have a true secretory function,
so that nothing passes from the blood to be cast out from the body
except through the interior of a very considerable cell, and in all
probability through a metabolic selective process therein. This is
known to be the urea-region of the kidney ; and the separation of
urea from the blood may be said to be the greatest of the renal
functions. But by far the largest part of the urine, namely the
water of it, is strained off from the blood by another kind of kidney-
structure, which is more truly a mechanism ; not all the water of
the urine, but the greater part of it, is filtered from the blood as it
passes through the remarkable coils or glomeruli of small vessels
which are placed at the farther end of the tubular system. In
these the structural adaptations all point to mechanical filtration
and not to selective secretion. The circulation in the vascular
coils of the kidney is unique as regards the balance of driving force
and resisting force ; the lateral pressure in these spherical coils of
small vessels is greater than in any other capillary region of the
body. It is indeed great enough to cause a transudation of water ;
but is it so nicely balanced as not to allow an escape of albumen ?
P-sio- There can be no question that albumen does often find its way into
If cal the urine without amounting to a serious functional error or to a
:i iiuiii- clinical condition of disease; and it is equally certain that the
u .. leakage takes place at the glomeruli. Albumen is found so often
in the urine when it is looked for systematically from day to day
that we may admit, with Senator, that any one may be more or less
albuminuric from time to time. In 119 healthy soldiers, 19, or 16
per cent., had albumen in the urine ; in 200 seemingly healthy
persons examined for life assurance there were 24 with albumen,
or 12 per cent. ; in 61 healthy children, 7, or 11 -5 per cent ; in 32
hospital attendants in good health, 14, or 44 per cent. Add to these
experiences the difficulty of detecting small quantities of albumen
in ordinarily dilute urine and the impossibility of detecting certain
varieties of albumen (known to occur in the urine) except by
special tests, and we may safely conclude that the filtration of
water from the blood in the renal capillaries is very apt to be
attended with a slight leakage of albumen also. The adaptation
that water should drain off, but not albumen, is a very nicely
balanced one, and therefore very easily upset. As a matter of fact
it is frequently upset ; the physiological albuminuria, like the
physiological glycosuria, and like the small admixture of colourless
cells among the multitude of blood -disks proper, is the narrow
margin of non- perfect adaptation which meets us frequently in
the economy of living organisms. The nicely-adjusted balance of
driving .force and resisting force in the vascular tufts is constantly
exposed to disturbing influences, so that one may reckon to find a
certain small average of albuminous leakage.
The great occasion of this leakage is sluggish circulation through
the glomeruli, whether from over-distension of the veins beyond or
from other cause. The faster the blood passes through these capil
laries the greater the quantity of water drained off, and the more
minimal the quantity of albumen that escapes ; but when the blood
travels slower there is absolutely less water filtered off in a given
time, and the proportion of albumen that passes with it is increased
from a minimal quantity to something considerable. Thus a con
gested state of the kidney, whether the embarrassment be traced to
the side of influx or of efflux, to the arterial or the venous side, is
favourable to the leakage of albumen, and a large part of all the
albuminuria of medical practice is of that nature. The congested
state has been often experimentally induced in animals by various
devices, and the laws of albuminous leakage have thus been
determined with an exactitude which is very considerable. In
these experiments the embarrassment of the circulation has been
induced in various ways — by clamping the renal vein so as to dam
up the blood in the kidney, by clamping the renal artery, by inter
fering with the nervous mechanisms, either at the spot or more
centrally, and by introducing toxic substances into the circu
lating blood. Probably all of these forms of experimental inter
ference have their analogies in disease, although the gross mechan
ical impediments are a rare type. The albuminuria of the pregnant
state — not certainly an invariable occurrence, but rather a liability
of that condition — may be referred in great part, if not altogether,
to embarrassed venous reflux, for there are analogous cases of tem
porary albuminuria in which the cause is not the gravid uterus, but
a uterine or ovarian tumour. In pregnancy it is specially apt to
occur in primipar.ie and in cases of twins, and in the later months.
Again, the albuminuria of some forms of heart-disease, of emphy
sema, and of chronic bronchitis is an affair of difficult venous
reflux. It is on the arterial side that we have to place the deter
mining forces of a considerable number of albuminuric cases, and
these the most insidious. In all those cases where the congestion
of the kidney is " inflammatory " there are the irregularities of
circulation usual in inflammation, the parenchymatous cellular
changes of inflammation, and the somewhat difficult correlation
between these two factors in the process.. These cases may be said
to exhaust the instances of albuminuria due to heightened blood-
pressure. The albuminuria of cachectic subjects is known to be
dependent mostly on the impaired integrity of the glomerular
vessel-walls, — on an amyloid change in them which permits the
transudation of albumen under the ordinary conditions of pressure.
But there is still a third determining cause of albuminuria, namely,
a changed state of the blood when both the pressure and the state
of the vessel-walls are constants.
It has been mentioned that there are two instructive points of
contrast between the drain of sugar and the drain of albumen ; the
sugar is not ordinarily present in the blood, and its discharge by
the kidney is unattended with structural changes in that organ.
The albumen of albuminuria is to a great extent the ordinary albu
men of the blood (serum-albumin and globulin) ; but in the urine
there are other albumins found which are not ordinarily present in
the blood, such as the variety identical with pepton, and another
variety, hemialbumose, or " propepton. " The latter is found in
cases of osteomalacia, and it may be detected under other circum
stances as well. Even when there are no new and specially diffus
ible albumins in the blood, it is probable that some alteration in
the relative composition of the blood — in the proportion of its
salts and the like — will make its albumen more liable to transude
in the renal glomeruli.
The albuminuria of phosphorus-poisoning and of acute yellow
atrophy of the liver raises another possibility, — the possibility,
namely, that the albumen is produced in the course of the meta
bolic process in the proper secreting epithelium of the kidney-
tubules. Certainly the large epithelial cells of the kidney in these
two conditions are filled with peculiar granules of "albuminous"
matter. The question has to be at least entertained, whether
certain cases of albuminuria may not be due to a primary disorder
of the renal metabolism, to some interference with its "ferment."
Four factors, then, are concerned in the waste of albumen, and
they may act either singly or in combination. In the order of
their importance they are : — (1) disorder of the vascular pressure,
whereby the nicely-adjusted filtering mechanism in the glomeruli
is deranged ; (2) states of the blood exceptionally favourable to the
diffusion of its albumen, or even the presence in the blood of pecu
liar forms of albumen with high difl'usibility ; (3) a more perme
able condition of the vessel-wall (as in amyloid disease) ; and (4) an
error in the proper metabolism of the secreting epithelium where
by an albuminous by-product is formed from it. It now remains
to consider briefly the other distinctive point in the acquired habit
of albuminous waste, namely, the associated structural changes.
Structural Changes in the Kidney. — If the kidneys be examined Large
from a case in which the symptoms, sometimes lasting for years, white
had been albumen in the urine (with cylindrical casts of the kid- kidiiey.
ney-tubules), a more or less scanty amount of urine, and a small
proportion of urea, together with dropsy and marked anaemia, they
will most likely be found to be enormously enlarged, and of a pale
fawn colour, compared by Watson to the cut surface of a parsnip.
This is the "large white kidney" of chronic Bright's disease, the
enlargement being in the outer zone of the organ, in the region of
the glomeruli and secreting tubules. "The incised surface gives one
the notion of some deposit whereby the original texture of the part
is obscured." How comes it that an attack of congestion at some
more or less remote period, or repeated congested states of the
388
PATHOLOGY
organ, have led to so remarkable a result ? It does not help us,
for the purpose of rational analysis, to turn to "inflammation" as
a last resource ; what the analysis really conducts us to is the corre
lation between the disordered function and the structural changes.
It is impossible not to connect the remarkable form of hyper-
plasia in the large white kidney (or where there is also the
amyloid complication) with the albuminous character of the exuda
tion in which the organ, and more especially its cortex, is bathed.
Sugar, as we have seen, has no such effect on structure, nor has
uric acid, as we shall see in speaking of the kidney in gout ; the
albumen has a special influence on the local centres of nutrition,
on the cells and tissues of the organ. Again, the excess of nutri
tion does not conduct to increase on the normal lines. There are
such cases of normal increase in the kidney's bulk, as when one
kidney has to do the work of two, owing to removal or congenital
absence of the other. But in the large white kidney of albumin-
aria the increase is of an unprofitable kind ; it is a hypcrplasia that
not only does not add to the efficiency of the organ but even seri
ously impairs it. The large epithelial cells of the secreting region
are clouded with albuminous deposit, and their nuclei show a
fainter reaction to the colouring agents ; or they fall into an unstable
granular condition and into molecular detritus ; or they are shed
bodily into the lumen of the tubule. The flattened cells of the
Bowman's capsule are less apt to degenerate ; they are more likely
to multiply in situ, and to build up an unnaturally thick wall
around the capsule. Further, the interstices of the tubules and
the margins of the glomeruli are occupied by collections of round
nuclear cells, like the collections underlying a catarrhal mucous
membrane. All this activity is misdirected ; it does not help the
function, but overwhelms it. The urine is scanty and the propor
tion of urea small ; and these consequences may be traced, firstly
to the sluggish circulation within the organ, and secondly to the
complete obliteration of some glomeruli and the cumbrous thicken
ing of others, and to the degeneration of the secreting epithelium
interfering with its proper metabolism. There is hardly any
tendency to rcstitutio ad integrum in the large white kidney, the
unprofitable overfeeding of its elements continuing to the end.
Granular Contrasting with the large white kidney is the contracted kidney
2on- in another variety of chronic Bright's disease. For the present
tracted purpose it is necessary to follow the broader lines of distinction,
kidney. and to avoid the transitions and finer shades in the pathology ; and
it may be stated as a general truth that the large white kidney goes
with scanty urine and much waste of albumen (the waxy modifica
tion having only the latter), while the small granular contracted
kidney is associated with even copious urine and a waste of albu
men which is often small, and in any case variable. The error in
these latter cases appears to lie with the arterial side of the circula
tion ; the left heart is hypertrophied, and so is the muscular coat
of the arteries in the kidney, if not also elsewhere. It is essen
tially an interstitial disease of the kidney, leading to enormous
development of its supporting tissue ; whole tubules become obli
terated, but in those that remain the epithelium is not degenerated.
Obliteration also overtakes the glomeruli, but there must be a
compensating increase in the work done by those that survive to
account for the copious urine ; it often happens, also, that num
erous small cysts are produced.
Shrinkage of the connective tissue after a period of revived
embryonic activity is the cause of all these changes ; it is the
ordinary shrinkage of cicatricial tissue, and it has the effect of com
pressing the proper urinary apparatus — the filtering and the secret
ing — to its destruction. The kidneys may be reduced even to one-
fourth of their natural size, and their uneven surface shows that
there has been mechanical dragging along certain lines. In the
end the urea- waste accumulates in the blood to such an extent that
death results, usually from unemic coma and convulsions. In some
cases cerebral haemorrhage anticipates the fatal effect of uraemia.
The small granular contracted kidney is usually of a reddish-
brown colour, but it may be whitish, in which case the lobulation
of its surface is larger. It is one of the standing difficulties of
renal pathology to decide whether the small contracted kidney is
not often a later stage of the large white. But there can be hardly
any doubt that it is oftenest the structural manifestation of an
entirely different disease, an arterial disease. That which has been
emphasized by some pathologists as the distinctive process in this
affection is the overgrowth of cells on the inner wall of the arteries,
the so-called endo-arteritis or arterio-capillary sclerosis, whereby
the lumen of the vessel tends to be occluded. But it may be made
a question whether this is not really a part of the revived embry
onic activity in the connective tissue, whose shrinkage gives the
organ its granular contracted character. The interest would thus
come to centre in the error of nutrition whereby so much activity
is diverted to the connective tissue, an activity that takes the em
bryonic formative direction. We have a close analogy in cirrhosis
of the liver, a disease associated with the drinking of raw spirits ;
and it is noteworthy that the insidious form of Bright's disease,
whose morbid anatomy is summed up in the small contracted and
puckered kidney, occurs most frequently in those who sustain
themselves more by ardent spirits than by ordinary food, and next
most frequently in the subjects of gout and of lead -poisoning,
although there are a good many cases of the disease remaining to
be accounted for by less obvious causes.
The dropsy of Bright's disease is difficult in its pathology. The Drops
watery state of the blood, or the hydrsemia, consequent on the loss of
of much of its albumen does not suffice by itself. A subsidiary Bright
hypothesis, adopted by Cohnheim, is that the blood-vessels of the disease
skin become unusually permeable. Sometimes the dropsy appears
first round the ankles, at other times it shows itself in pulliness
of the eyelids and a somewhat bloated pallor of the face.
Gout and the Uratic Diathesis. — Many other states of the system Gout,
besides podagra — the disease which usually begins in the night with
pain and redness of the great-toe joint — are now reckoned as be
longing to gout. The disease, in the extended use of the name, is
indeed a widespread error of metabolism which may manifest itself
in very various ways. The particular liabilities to error arise dur
ing the metabolism of protcids, from the first stage of digestion in
the stomach to the last stage of excretion in the kidney. Hence it
is that gout, in its widest meaning, has been taken to be a form of
"dyspepsia." The opportunity for going wrong may be said to
depend on the fact that there are two chief forms of nitrogenous
waste remaining to be got rid of in the end, which are somehow
correlated to one another, — the highly soluble substance urea, and
the highly insoluble substance uric acid. There are remarkable
differences in the proportions of these two waste-products through
out the animal kingdom ; in most reptiles and in birds the fonn
of nitrogenous waste is mostly uric acid, whereas in man (and other
mammals) it is mostly urea. But in man the waste is still to a
small extent in the form of uric acid. In normal human urine
the proportions are : — to 1500 grammes (52 '91 ounces) of water in
the urine of twenty-four hours the total of solids is 72 grammes
(2'54 ounces), of which 33'18 (1'17 ounces) are urea, and only
"555 (-019 ounce) uric acid, or not more than one-sixtieth of the
quantity of urea. Whether or not we are to regard this small
margin of uric acid as another of those instances of non-perfect
adaptation of which we have previously found instances in the
physiological traces of sugar and of albumen in the urine, and of
colourless corpuscles in the blood, there can be no doubt that the
adaptation, such as it is, whereby the nitrogenous waste is mostly
the highly soluble urea, but to a very small amount also the less
soluble uric acid, is the occasion of many and serious morbid con
ditions. The liability to these gouty and calculous disorders
depends partly on the increase of uric acid at the expense of the
urea, together with the low solubility of the former, but it seems
to depend also on an abnormally low power of the animal fluids
to dissolve uric acid, or of the kidney to eliminate it when its
quantity is not excessive.
The peculiar liability from uric acid is sometiines called the Urati
iiric-acid or uratic diathesis or constitution ; some persons have it ,iia.
much more than others, and it is exceedingly apt to be handed tliesii-
down from parent to offspring, so that the stock, in countries and
among classes where gout is common, may be said to be widely
inoculated with it. Where the acquisition of it can be traced at
first hand it is often found that the associated circumstances are
high-feeding and a life of physical inaction and feeble intellectual
zest. These are among the best-known conditions of gout, admitted
equally by the ancients and the moderns. It is now known, how
ever, that practically the same gouty constitution may be and
often is induced by conditions which have hardly anything in
common with luxury. Thus gout is a common liability of workers
in lead, being one of the various manifestations of lead-poisoning ;
it is also common among those classes of labourers, such as dock-
labourers on the Thames, whose habitual drink is porter ; and it
is said to have become common among the working-class in Dublin,
where it was rare twenty or thirty years ago, according as they
have taken to drinking porter instead of ardent spirits. There are
still other cases of gouty constitution for which neither heredity,
nor luxury, nor lead-poisoning, nor porter-drinking can be in
voked as an explanation ; and these are the cases which justify the
somewhat wide definition of gout as a form of dyspepsia.
In order to have the gouty effect there need be no great increase Uric
in the amount of uric acid formed in the course of the metabolism in go
of proteids. During an acute attack of gout, and previous to it,
the amount of uric acid in the urine will probably be much below
the average ; it is the kidney that has failed in its function, so
that the uric acid is retained in the blood to be deposited else
where. The presence of uric acid (urato of soda) in the blood in gout
is the well-known discovery of Uarrod, who has also pointed out
that its proportion in the urine is at the same time reduced.
But there need not even be failure of the kidney's function, al
though, as a matter of fact, there often is ; the error may lie in
the heightened insolubility of the uric acid. It is observed that
the uric acid of urine is apt to be deposited in the form of nrates,
as a brick -red sediment, even when there is no excess of it; a
more acid state of the urine seems to favour the precipitation of
the uric acid ; and it has been conjectured (from the success of the
PATHOLOGY
389
k uey.
I .tic
i
I us in
gyel.
B-
t ue.
1 esity,
alkaline treatment) that there may be some analogous acidity intro
duced into the blood and lymph in the form of organic acids (pro
duced in the course of faulty digestion), which would cause the
uric acid to be deposited from the blood as it circulates generally.
It is in the cartilages of the joints that the deposition usually takes
place, the great -toe joint (nietatarso-phalangeal) having a quite
remarkable and inexplicable liability. The surface of the cartilage
is crusted with patches of a whitish opaque substance, which proves
to be needle-shaped crystals of urate of soda ; the deposition ex
tends deeper and affects the fibrous structures of the joint ; it may
be so extensive in other fibrous structures as to amount to tophi
or chalk-stones. In some rare cases of gout such organs as the
parotid glands may be completely disorganized by the chalky de
posit, or there may be numerous centres of its deposition in the
membranes of the spinal cord.
Albuminuria and Eczema of Gout. — Two morbid conditions are
so frequently associated with gout as to be part of its natural
history, namely, eczema of some regions of the skin (eyelids, back
of neck, &c. ) and albuminuria. We have absolutely no clue to
the connexion between the skin-disease and the uratic diathesis ;
for the albuminuria a connexion may be suggested. The albumen
will at first be absent in the intervals of gouty attacks, showing
itself during the attack, or for a few days previously ; its appear
ance in the urine thus coincides, so far as it goes, with the decrease
of uric acid in the urine. It is impossible to exclude the possibility
that the albumen is here an error of the renal metabolism. All
the facts of the gouty constitution point to a far-reaching disturb
ance of the metabolic functions, which may be induced by causes
so different as lead-poisoning and a luxurious life ; uric acid is
not the only metabolic product concerned, although it is the
chief, for there is even an occasional implication of the glycogenic
metabolism, as shown by the presence of sugar in the urine, and
there is the much more common albuminuria. It is impossible to
believe that there are structural changes in the kidney to account
for the earliest occurrences of albumen in the urine in gout, for the
urinary secretion may be normal for long intervals ; and it is by
no means certain that the albumen is a leakage from the glomeruli
owing to the altered pressure of congestion.
The kidney in chronic gout may bo affected in obvious characters ;
it will show, on section, streaks of white opaque substance within or
between the tubules, — that which is between them being composed of
crystals of urate soda often in fan-shaped bundles, while that which
is within them is an amorphous mixture of urates of ammonia and
soda and uric acid. The so-called gouty kidney may and often does
assume the progressive structural changes which lead to the state of
contraction and puckering. (There are other renal deposits of uric
acid, as in new-born children, which are transitory.)
The uric-acid diathesis may manifest itself, not in gout, but in
gravel. In this case the excess of uric acid is thrown into the
tubules of the kidney, where it forms concretions ; these may
either be washed out by the urine as fine grains, or may remain for
a time to increase by accretion, forming renal and vesical calculus.
Obesity, Local Formations of Fat. — The significance of fat under
all circumstances in the animal body is by no means well under
stood, but it may be conveniently approached from the side of
metabolism. Adipose tissue is a somewhat special development of
mesoblastic tissue, and most usually of the common binding tissue.
The embryonic cell transforms the greater part of its protoplasm
into an oily fluid which contains no nitrogen, the nucleus being
retained on one side along with a narrow fringe of cell-substance ;
a fat-cell in its early stage thus resembles a signet-ring, and in
its later development it becomes a thin -walled vesicle which
may be distended by its oily contents much beyond the limits
of even the largest cells of other tissues.- This transformation may
happen to the cells of the connective tissue in almost any part
of the body ; but in the ordinary course of development it has
certain scats of election, such as the stratum of gelatinous tissue
underlying the kidney and the subcutaneous tissue. All synovial
and serous membranes, except those of the liver and lungs, are
favourite seats of fat-formation. In the subcutaneous tissue the
first formation of fat appears to be associated with local formation
of blood, the same mesoblastic elements being at one stage hremato-
blasts and afterwards, in their vesiculated state, fat -cells. It
cannot be doubted that there is a close adaptation to the needs
of the economy in the vicissitudes of the fat-tissue ; but it must
be admitted at the same time that the adaptation is often singularly
obscure. In many cases the changes in the fat-tissue seem rather
to be a correlated necessity.
One of the earliest facts that wre meet with in this connexion
is the gradual replacement of the thymus gland by fat, the fluid
being absorbed in its turn, and the mass of tissue shrinking.
Another fact of the same kind is the change into fat -cells of
"lymphoid" cells elsewhere, as the change of red marrow into
yellow marrow in the central canals of the long bones. Both of
these changes have a prototype or an analogy in the transition that
one sees in groups of the subcutaneous spindle-shaped cells from
a hoematoblastic activity to a fat-making activity. The season of
puberty is a time of active fat-formation, more especially in women,
and notably in the breast-region. A still more remarkable develop
ment of fat occurs in many cases of sterility, and in many women
after the child-bearing period has ceased in ordinary. Such in
stances of a greater or less degree of obesity are so clearly associated
with the obsolescence of an important function that they may be
called physiological. Other instances of obesity have no such
obvious or uniform association. Thus, an obese habit may follow
one or more attacks of malarial fever ; it sometimes occurs as one
of the lifelong changes induced by an attack of typhoid fever.
There is often a great degree of plumpness along with the extreme
ill health of chlorosis. Idiocy and some forms of insanity are apt
to be associated with fatness ; in the pseudo-hypertrophic muscular
paralysis of boys the connective-tissue cells between the muscular
bundles become so active in fat-making that they usurp the place
of the muscle. As an effect of dietetic errors obesity usually follows
the inordinate consumption of starchy and saccharine substances,
and especially the drinking of much beer, stout, and even other
forms of alcohol. As a racial character obesity is found among the
negro populations in some parts of Africa (South Africa and the
Upper Nile).
Among the most extraordinary developments of true fat are those Local
cases where it develops locally in association with cancers or other fat-for-
malignant tumours. Thus, in a boy who had suffered amputation mations.
of the leg for a malignant tumour of the tibia there was a recur
rence of the disease in the stump and in the ilium ; he died in a
state of extreme emaciation of all the body except the thigh of
the affected side, which was enveloped in a layer of ordinary sub
cutaneous fat half an inch thick all round, contrasting strangely
with the wasted limb of the other side. To take another unambigu
ous case, an extensive development of fat through all its embryonic
phases can actually be traced in the serous covering of the rectum
in a case of cancerous stricture of the part. There is usually much
local development of fat round the sac of an old hernia. In certain
glandular organs, such as the pancreas, the supporting connective
tissue sometimes takes on an extensive fat-forming activity, so that
the organ is half transformed into adipose tissue ; the same may
be found around the pelvis of the kidney in old age.
Lipomatous Tumours. — It is not always possible to say whether Lipoma.
a local development of fat should be called a lipoma or not ; thus,
the fat around an old hernia may be so circumscribed as practically
to amount to a fatty tumour, and that may be the case also with
the fat around the breast or behind the eyeball. On the intestine,
notably the transverse colon, the masses of fat do becoriie pendulous
fatty tumours (much more often in the domestic quadrupeds than
in man) of a uniform or lobulated structure, which may hang by a
long and slender vascular stem, like an apple or a cherry on its .
stalk ; when the vascular supply is kept up with difficulty these pen
dulous masses of fat tend to become calcified or otherwise sclerosed,
and to fall off into the abdominal cavity as "loose bodies." The
loose bodies of the joints originate sometimes in the same manner
from the pendulous masses of subsynovial fat. On the peritoneal
surface the pendulous growth of fat may have a short stem and
abundant blood-vessels, and go on to form a large lobulated tumour ;
but more usually in that situation the tumour-habit is established
at a number of points, leading to the condition of multiple lipo-
mata. The lipomata of the subcutaneous tissue may be single or
multiple ; if they are not congenital they are most often associated
with a general obese habit ; and they may grow to an enormous
size. The submucous tissue of the stomach or intestine is a com
paratively rare seat of fatty tumour. The most inexplicable lipo
mata are those which form, under very rare circumstances, as
circumscribed nodular masses in the interstitial connective tissue
of the cortex of the kidney, and in the subarachnoid tissue of the
brain and spinal cord.
It is convenient to place these occurrences of obesity, of local Of fat-
overgrowths of fat, and of lipomatous tumours under the head of making
errors of metabolism, but it is difficult to find one physiological in gen-
rationale for them all. Where obesity is due to dietetic errors we eral.
may say that the carbohydrates supplied to the body have been more
than the combustion could overtake, and that the residue is " stored
up " as fat. Where there is a degree of embonpoint in such a malady
as chlorosis we may say that the feeble oxygen-carrying capacity
of the red-blood corpuscles has led to an inadequate combustion
of the carbohydrates supplied in due quantity, and that the
residue has been stored up in that case also. In the unhealthy
fattening that sometimes follows malarial or typhoid fever it does
not appear why there should be the residue requiring to be stored
up. Again, there are persons of an obese habit (probably con
genital) who avoid a diet of carbohydrates, but turn even their
meat diet to fat, just as there are confirmed diabetics who turn
everything to sugar. Still further, we have the very remarkable
tendency to make fat when the reproductive functions have ceased
either prematurely or in the ordinary course ; and that is a fre
quently occurring case which can hardly be brought into the
doctrine of inadequate combustion of carbohydrates. The peculiar
liability of the connective tissue between or upon the bundles of
390
PATHOLOGY
muscle to become fat -tissue may point to some defective com
bustion in the work done by muscles. In the cases of pseudo-
hypertrophic paralysis of the leg-muscles in children we are con
fronted with an enormous development of the same process. Other
cases of local fat -formation, as in the interstitial tissue of the
pancreas or around the kidney, are still more inexplicable. Lipo-
matous tumours, where they are congenital, may be referred to an
early error of tissue -growth ; where they are acquired, we have
usually a coexisting or previous obesity (local or general) to resort
to, and the only difficulty is to understand how the lobules of fat
came to acquire the delimitation or individuality of a tumour.
Degenera- Degenerations. — In a nosological outline there is perhaps no
tions. more convenient place for some remarks on the general subject of
degenerative changes than at the end of sections dealing with the
liabilities of obsolescence, the special liabilities of the suprarenal
and thyroid, and the larger errors of metabolism.
The usual healthy appearance of the most elementary kind of
protoplasm is a soft translucent grey ; under the microscope this
greyish protoplasm is uniformly and finely granular. From that
standard of health there are various deviations, representing various
kinds or degrees of degeneration. The chief degenerations are the
mucous, the albuminous, the fatty, the calcareous, the caseous, and
the amyloid.
Mucous. The mucous change proceeds on more obvious physiological lines
than most of the others ; it is, as we have seen, the proper destiny
of surface-epithelium in many situations ; and we have found also,
in treating of myxomatous tumours, that even in these it has
not very remote affinities to the hsematoblastic function. A some
what obscure form of it, the colloid change, has been mentioned in
connexion with cancer of the stomach and breast.
Albu- The albuminous change is that which is often found in the large
miiious. glandular cells of the liver, kidney, &c., in disorders accompanied
by a rise of temperature. The cells are somewhat swollen, and
their substance is clouded so as to obscure the central nucleus.
Fatty. Merging imperceptibly with the albuminous degeneration is the
fatty, in which numerous small droplets appear in the cell -sub
stance, which is no longer uniform but diversified with highly-
refracting granules ; these droplets are of the nature of fat. In
the liver-cells the droplets may run together, so that the liver-cell
has the ordinary appearance of a physiological fat-cell. But there
is in general a broad line of distinction between the transformation
of protoplasmic substance into fat (usually in the connective-tissue
cells) and fatty degeneration as above described. The latter occurs
under many circumstances. It is an accompaniment of phosphorus-
poisoning and of those idiopathic states which run parallel with
the former, such as acute yellow atrophy of the liver. It is apt
. to occur in the inner coat of arteries in chlorotic subjects, producing
yellowish opaque patches, which sometimes give rise to erosions.
The arteries of the brain are liable to a similar degeneration more
universally and under other circumstances than chlorosis. The
very common condition of athcroma of the large arteries (especially
aorta) is a more extensive degeneration of a fatty kind, on the
basis of antecedent swelling or increase of tissue in the deeper part
of the inner coat, or in the interval between the inner and the
middle coats. This variety of fatty change is often associated with
the production of cholesterin scales, and with a subsequent calcare
ous transformation. Although it is most common after middle life,
it is not a senile change proper, inasmuch as the most long-lived
persons have none of it.
Calcare- The calcareous degeneration is most often found in the cartilages
ous. of the ribs after middle life ; but, like the atheromatous change, it
is not properly senile, as the very aged sometimes have their costal
cartilages quite soft. The deposition of lime -salts (carbonate of
lime) is in the capsules of the cartilage-cells ; on applying a drop
of hydrochloric acid to a thin slice of such cartilage an efferves
cence of carbonic-acid gas will occur. Lime is often deposited in
the enlarged thyroid of goitre, and it is sometimes found in degen
erated areas of the placenta. In the suprarenal it is much rarer
than the cheesy degeneration. Fatty tumours in the lower animals,
especially in the bovines, are liable to become calcareous ; and the
presence of granules of lime is a very common feature (along with
the cheesy degeneration to be next mentioned) of the peculiar form
of tuberculous .growths of the serous membranes, or tuberculous
aodules and infiltrations of the viscera and lymphatic glands, in
those animals. In other tumours, of man or of animals, it is much
less common. Lastly, foreign bodies lodged in the tissues, and
the encysted trichina-parasite in the muscles, acquire a deposit of
lime in the thickening of tissue which forms their capsule.
Caseous. The caseous or cheesy form of degeneration is the characteristic
disintegration that the cells and tissues undergo in tuberculous
and scrofulous disease. Collections of pus, as in chronic abscess of
the liver or in chronic empyema (pus in the pleural cavity), are
liable to the same process of drying up and molecular disintegra
tion. In the central parts of hard cancers also it is not unusual
to find cheesy areas. A form' of degeneration not very unlike
the caseous may be observed as a perfectly normal incident in the
deeper parts of the placenta. It is by far the most common degen
eration of the suprarenal cells, whether in association with general
tuberculous disease or not. Under all these circumstances the
caseous change follows upon a certain amount of hyperplasia of the
tissue, for the maintenance of which there has been no adequate
provision in the way of new blood-vessels.
The gummatous degeneration of the products of syphilitic infec- Gumm
tion is not always easily distinguished from the ca.seous ; but, for tous.
the most part, the substance is firmer and more cohesive, as the
name implies, less dry and friable in the section, and of a brown colour
rather than of the yellowish or fawn colour of cheesy degeneration.
A vitreous, hyaline, or waxy degeneration of muscular fibre occurs Vitreoi
in the courseof some fevers,as well as in progressive muscularatrophy.
The amyloid degeneration is the most peculiar of them all. The Amyl-
degenerate substance was thought to be allied to starch (whence oid.
the name) on account of the reaction with iodine (mahogany-red),
but it is now known to be a nitrogenous principle. "When it is
present in large quantity, as in the amyloid liver, it gives the cut
surface a peculiar glance, like that of fat bacon, and hence it has
been called lardaceous or waxy degeneration. Its proper seat is
the walls of the smaller arteries and the capillaries ; these undergo
a kind of hyaline swelling, like the swelling of boiled sago, so that
the aggregate effect in such an organ as the liver is to make it
very much larger, firmer, and more rigid in its outlines. This
alteration in the vessel-wall facilitates the escape of the fluid part
of the blood ; hence the amyloid change in the kidney is a cause
of albuminuria and in the intestine of diarrhoea. In the wall of
the intestine the course of the amyloid vessel may be tracked by
the mahogany - red line left by iodine. This remarkable form of
degeneration of the vessels is associated with long-standing sup
puration (especially in diseases of bone), with chronic dysentery,
syphilis, arid other of the constitutional states called cachectic. l
§ 12. — ERRORS OF THE NERVOUS CONTROL.
Reference has already been made to the obscure impli
cation of nerve-control in such disorders as Addison's dis
ease, Graves's disease, diabetes, and acute yellow atrophy
of the liver ; the integrity of the controlling nerve-force
may be said to be necessary to the perfect carrying out of
the give-and-take of metabolism, or to the full effect of
the " ferment " in each of the breaking-up processes. In a
subsequent section (p. 393 sq.) reference is made to another
controlling nervous mechanism, whose paralysis or dis
order is immediately accountable for a very large part
of the sum-total of sickness in the world, namely, the .
mechanism which regulates the animal heat. The present
section will be devoted to a few morbid conditions of the
cerebro- spinal system, selected to illustrate pathological
principles.
Neuralgia and Tetanus. — One or two instances of neuralgia and Neur-
of tetanus will serve to illustrate a peculiarity of the disorders of the algia.
nervous system among morbid processes of the body. A person in
getting up from a stooping posture before the fire hits the right
eyebrow hard against the edge of the mantelpiece ; the blow has
touched the filaments of the supra-orbital nerve, and there is more
or less of pain for a time over the limited area to which these small
sensory twigs are distributed. Several weeks afterwards, when the
accident had been forgotten, there is an attack of severe neuralgia
over the whole of that side of the face ; the pain shoots along all
the nerve -branches above the eyebrow, along all the branches
below the eye-socket (infra-orbital), and along the branches going
to the skin of the lower -jaw region or chin. The sequence of
events means that the injury to the branch of the trigeminus above
the eyebrow has touched the trunk of the nerve in such a manner
that, after a considerable interval, intermittent attacks of pain
are felt along all three sets of branches covering the whole of one
side of the face. In other words, a molecular condition of nerve,
originally peripheral and limited, has become central and diffusive.
Another instance is as follows. A person seated at a high desk
day after day exposes the outer side of the ankle and region of the
Achilles-tendon to currents of cold air from the opening and shut-
1 See Cl. Bernard, Nouvelle fonction du Foie, comme Organe pro-
ductcur de Matiere sucree, Paris, 1853, and Lemons sur le Diabete et la
Glycogenese animale, Paris, 1877 ; Pavy, Researches on the Nature
and Treatment of Diabetes, Loud., 1S62 ; Senator, Die Albuminurie,
Berlin, 1882; Cohnlieim, Ally. Path/il., vol. ii., Berlin, 1881; Grainger
Stewart, Practical Treatise on Brig/it's Disease of the Kidneys, Edin.,
1868, and in Trans. Internal. Med. Congr., Loud., 1881, vol. ii. ; S.
Rosenstein, Die Pathologic vnd Tlvrapie der Xierenkrankheiten, Berlin,
1863,andin Trans. Internal. Med. Congr., Lond., 1881, vol. ii. ; Garrorl,
Treatise on Gout, &c., 3d ed., Lond., 1876, and on " Eczema and Albu
minuria in relation to Gout," in Trans. Internal. Med. Congr., Loud.,
1881, vol. ii. ; Virchow, "Lipoma," iu Krankhaft. Geschicti'.ste, vol. i.
PATHOLOGY
391
ting of a door, some occasional pains being felt where the external
sapluenous nerve runs behind the outer ankle and over the outside
of the heel. After a lapse of time there is an attack of sciatica, the
first of a series continuing for years, in which the course of the
diffusive pain can be tracked, as if it had had an anatomical know
ledge of the nerves of the limb, along all the branches of the great
sciatic nerve to the thigh, leg, and foot. In this case the sequence
of events is the same as in the former : the original excitant had
touched the terminal twigs of the external saphsenous branch of
the great sciatic nerve ; after an interval intense neuralgic pain
begins to be felt far up the great nerve-trunk itself ; and the pain
diffuses itself not only to the filaments belonging to the external
saphrenous branch but along all the branches. A limited peri
pheral disturbance has, after an interval, become central and
diffusive, and the pain apt to recur intermittently for years after.
' tanus. Let us now take a case of tetanus involving the very same peri
pheral nerve as the last case. A boy engaged on a farm chafes the
outer side of one heel by wearing boots too large for his feet ; the
abrasion, which is exactly over the course of the external sapluenous
nerve, is disregarded, and the irritation of the boot permitted to
continue. In a few days he is admitted into hospital with tetanus,
that is to say, with the neck -muscles rigid, the jaw locked, the
features drawn, the recumbent body bent forwards from time to
time like a bow, its whole weight resting on the head and heels,
occasional wild jerkings of the limbs, and the muscles everywhere
as hard as boards. This horrible and painful state of the muscular
system usually ends in the patient dying after a week or ten days
or less, exhausted by hunger and thirst and want of sleep, or by
inability to breathe under the vice-like grip in which the chest is
held by the muscles of respiration. The sequence of events is here
closely parallel with that in the cases of neuralgia : an irritated
condition of a small outlying nerve -twig, which is not a motor
nerve, has, after a short interval, touched the spinal cord in such a
manner that motor force is freely and continuously let loose over
the whole muscular system, with occasional discharges of a more
intense kind. Spasm commencing in the muscles near the injury
has been spoken to by the patients or attendants sometimes ; but
the observation has been recorded, on the whole, seldom. Strangely
enough, it is in the muscles of the face, neck, and throat that the
tetanic rigidity shows itself first, in whatever part of the body the
injured nerve may be. There probably always is an injured nerve
somewhere, although it is necessary to admit a few cases of " idio-
pathic " tetanus in which the nerve-injury is unknown. Gunshot-
wounds of nerves are most likely to be followed by tetanus, as well
as lacerated, contused, and punctured wounds generally, including
the bites inflicted by canine teeth. The tetanic onset may follow
the wound immediately, or it may come on while the wound is
" cleaning " or suppurating, or during the stage of scarring, or
some time after the cicatrix has formed. A wound which has
been neglected in the healing, in which foreign particles have been
left, or in which the nerve has been involved in the tightening
of the scar is most apt to be followed by tetanus. A certain
temperament, or state of the mind and body, predisposes to it ;
the frequency of tetanus in war may be due to more than one
cause, but it seems necessary to include among the predisposing
factors the excitement or preoccupation of the battlefield. Certain
states of climate predispose to it ; in the dry Australian air it is
not uncommon for wounds to be followed by tetanus, and the
disease is equally common within the tropics, especially under the
circumstances which ordinarily cause chill. Among animals the
horse is particularly liable to it, especially as a sequel of castration.
The rise of temperature in tetanus is probably the effect of the
excessive muscular metabolism.
is- Explosive Discharges of Nerve -force on slight Provocation. —
mrges Instances of neuralgia and of tetanus as the sequel of a peripheral
:' nerve- injury, or series of scarcely observed excitations, are illustrations
•rce. of that remarkable property of the nervous system which Rind-
fleisch speaks of as involving a "disproportion between cause and
effect." The central nervous system, he says, "has a capacity for
absorbing enormous quantities of centripetal or ingoing excitations
as if they left no trace ; but in reality it stores them up in the form
of potential energy. It is this that enables an impression which
may hardly exceed the limits of physiological excitation, but is
aided in various ways by circumstances, such as inherited feeble
ness, lowered nutrition, or blood-poisoning, suddenly to let loose
the whole store of these accumulated forces and to give rise to an
outbreak of the most acute feelings and the most powerful move
ments." The want of outlet at the time is an error that underlies
much of nervous disease, both purely psychical and other. The
brooding upon wrongs, real or imagined, the unsatisfied hunger
for sympathy, pent-up or unexpressed emotion under many cir
cumstances, even the solitude of shepherds on the Australian and
New Zealand downs, are among the causes tending to a total un
hinging of the mind. Such illustrations of the general principle
are beyond the scope of this article ; the illustrations that concern
us most at present are found rather in the province of reflex nervous
activity, where the response is automatic, not always recorded by
the consciousness, and little if at all controlled by the will. Some
disorders in this group are purely functional, that is to say, there
are no concurrent structural changes. In others, the functional
disorder is attended or closely followed by degeneration ; and these
are mostly diseases of the spinal cord. Representative instances
from each of these two classes will now be adverted to briefly.
Convulsions (Eclampsia). — Apart from the convulsions of ursemie Convul-
poisoning, there are two prominent divisions of eclampsia — the sions.
convulsions of infancy and childhood and the convulsions of the
pregnant or puerperal state. In infancy the reflex movements and
uncontrolled spontaneities are predominant, just as the impressions
from the outer world are but little discriminated or retained. It
takes little to throw some infants into a fit ; the irritation of
teething, of ill-digested food, of worms, and the like will suffice.
Whether in these cases the excitations have been accumulating or
not, the discharge of outgoing energy is always explosive. The
muscles that straighten the back are contracted to the utmost, and
the air is forcibly expelled from the chest with a prolonged cry ;
the head is thrown back, and the arms and legs kept rigid. The
state of rigid spasm (tonic contraction) is succeeded by rapid con
tractions and relaxations (clonic) of the muscles of the face and
limbs and whole body, which gradually become more comprehensive
in sweep and slower in rhythm until they cease. Consciousness
has meanwhile been suspended, and does not return until some ten
or twenty minutes after the convulsive movements have ceased ;
with the return of consciousness the patient " comes out of the
fit." The liability to such attacks diminishes very strikingly as
the intelligence and the will develop and the body hardens. It is
not until the circumstances of pregnancy and childbed arise that
any liability to convulsions at all comparable to that of infancy is
again met with. No analysis of the circumstances of puerperal
convulsions can be attempted here ; if they are in some cases of
" unemic " origin, in association with the albuminuria of pregnancy,
there are other cases that are primarily disorders of reflex inner-
vation.
Epilepsy. — An epileptic fit does not differ materially in its pheno- Epilepsy.
mena from a fit of convulsions as above described ; the tongue is
more apt to be caught between the teeth in the rapid movements
of the lower-jaw muscles, and the spectacle of a grown person in
a fit is more distressing in every way. That which really distin
guishes epilepsy from eclampsia is that it is a habit of the nervous
system, with a good deal of regularity in its recurrences. Fits of
convulsions in infancy will cease when the cause is removed, when
teething is over, or worms expelled, or after the probationary state
of the nervous system has been outgrown. The convulsions of
childbed also, if the patient happily survive the attack, come to
an end when the critical state of the system has passed. But it
is the distinctive mark of epilepsy that it tends to become an
ingrained habit, that the fit is there in jwssc, as if detached from
its exciting cause, established, permanent, and self-existent on the
paths of ingoing and outgoing nerve-influence. This tendency of
a disordered reflex action to repeat itself is the same "memory"
that has been claimed by Hering for the cells and mechanisms of
the body generally. That which is implied in the original use of
the word, namely, retentiveness or the resurrection of past im
pressions, and the contagion of associated ideas, is a mystery large
enough to cover the minor mystery of morbid habit. Epilepsy is,
as it were, the self-existent memory of a disordered reflex ; and this is
what we may understand by the term "neurosis." It is true that
a primary disorder of reflex action due to an adequate cause, such
as infantile or puerperal convulsions are, cannot be always shown to
have occurred at one time or another in epileptics. In a certain
proportion of cases there has been an injury to the skull, or there
are evidences of tumour or other new formation within the skull,
or there is a tumour of a peripheral nerve, or a nerve involved in
the scar of a wound or sore ; but there are many more epileptics
in whom such antecedents cannot be made out. The habit, in fact,
is one which tends to be ingrained not only in the individual who
has begun it but also in his or her family. Epilepsy is one of the
clearest instances of a liability transmissible from parent to off
spring. The heredity of epilepsy has even been proved by Brown -
Sequard for the guinea-pig ; when an epileptic habit was induced
in guinea-pigs by injuring the spinal cord or the medulla oblongata,
or by cutting the sciatic nerves, the litters of such epileptic guinea-
pigs were apt to have epileptic seizures, attributable to nothing but
inherited liability. According to Hasse's figures, epilepsy has
begun before the age of twenty in by far the larger number of cases,
and that fact is doubtless an index of the extent of hereditary
influence. If we do not assign all such cases to heredity, the
advent of puberty in girls may be held to be itself a cause of epi
lepsy ; that time of life is distinguished by the somewhat abrupt
acquisition of a much wider emotional and intellectual range, and
presumably by some special liability to explosions of reflex nerve-
force upon slight provocation.
Ckorca(St Virus's Dance). — This is another variety of uncontrolled St
movement which is also a habit, like epilepsy, and is practically Vitus's
confined to girlhood and boyhood. It may occur in pregnant dance.
392
PATHOLOGY
women, but it disappears with delivery. The movements are
intermittent, beginning from a state of repose with a certain
fidgety restlessness, and going on to the most irrelevant and un
rhythmical jerkings, hitchings, and twistings of the limbs, head,
and body, or of one limb only, or one shoulder, or of the head
only, or of the tongue. The muscles do not cease to be the
ministers of the will, but voluntary movements are performed
with some want of aim and certainty ; and the gait in walking
may be seriously affected. The choreic movements themselves can
not be restrained by the will ; excitement and self-consciousness
intensify them ; and they cease during sleep. One of the most
singular facts in this strange nervous habit is its association with
rheumatic fever ; a significant proportion of those subject to it are
found to have had rheumatic fever, but there are others, curiously
enough, who afford indications only of that state of the endo
cardium (or lining membrane of the heart and its valves) which
often goes with rheumatic fever. This fact of endocarditis has
suggested a theory that the disease is due to the minute arteries
of the corpus striatum being blocked with small fibrinous plugs
washed off from the inflamed interior of the left ventricle, or from
the surface of its valves. It is more accordant, however, with all
the phenomena to regard the disease as a functional habit of muscle
and nerve, with the usual intermissions of a nervous habit and the
usual exacerbations, in which the implication of the heart-muscle
creates a peculiar liability to endocarditis. A further analysis is
offered at the end of the remarks on rheumatic fever (p. 398).
Mimetic Mimetic and Epidemic Chorea. — The choreic habit has, like
and epi- hysteria, a singular power of becoming a fixed idea in others ; there
demic is no doubt that choreic movements are involuntarily mimicked by
chorea, young persons who witness them in orphanages or other institutions
Avhere a number of girls are living under the same circumstances
of work and leisure. Chorea may thus be said to be contagious,
while epilepsy is hereditary. It is no great step from these cases,
which depend solely upon the fantastic trick being caught under
the influence of the idee fixe, to the remarkable epidemics of dancing
frenzy of which some are historical, and of which there are still
instances occurring from time to time under some general excite
ment, particularly the vivid prepossession of a large number of
persons at once by the same religious hopes and fears.
In this connexion come certain other diseases — ecstasy, catalepsy,
and hysteria, — -of which the details are given in the respective
articles, ECSTASY, &c.
Degenera- Diseases of the Spinal Cord. — In the foregoing group of errors of
tiou.s the nervous control we have had to consider a mere functional con-
of spinal dition, — a molecular state, no doubt, but one which cannot be seen
cord. any more than can the electricity in a wire. Structural changes,
when they occur at all, are a very late effect, as in some cases of
epilepsy. But there is a very large and important part of the
functional errors in the controlling nervous mechanisms which
are associated with textural changes or degenerations. The most
obvious of these are disorders of the reflex functions of the spinal
cord. In respect of these structural changes accompanying func
tional irregularities, the spinal cord approximates to the organs
and parts of the body which we have already considered. But
there is one character in the textural changes of the spinal cord
(and of the brain) which is in a sense unique, namely, their tend
ency to spread up and down in the particular tracts of fibres.
Hence the ascending and descending degeneration and sclerosis of
the cord, the extensions of bulbar paralysis, and the like.
Loco- Locomotor Ataxia, or Tabes Dorsalis. — The muscles of the body act
motor ordinarily in groups, so that complex movements, such as carrying
ataxia. a spoonful of soup to the mouth, are performed by a number of
independent voluntary muscles as if by a mechanism or automaton.
The highest point attained by the muscles in this direction is the
precision of military drill. In the disease called locomotor ataxia
the muscles that are ordinarily grouped together in their action
become slow to act in concert, the want of co-ordination being
most obvious in the legs and hips in walking. Progression is not
of the usual well-considered kind, but the leg is thrown outwards
as well as forwards, and the foot is brought down as if the inten
tion were to strike the ground with it, the knee having been pre
viously straightened. With so little case are these muscular com
binations initiated that the patient requires to look at his feet as
if the sense of effect were failing and had to be aided by the sight.
Later on the muscles of the upper extremity are in like manner
unable to act consentaneously, so that the patient cannot fasten a
button, pick up a pin, or the like. Still later there is not only
loss of the nicely-adjusted harmonious action among the muscles,
but there is a loss of all moderation or graduation in the move
ments instituted. Whether or not this also be due to loss of the
sense of effect, the movement is not adapted to the effect required ;
it is quick and of short range even when it should be slow and
sweeping, and the time and range of the movement of the given
limb are practically the same under all circumstances. These errors
of the locomotor control are so conspicuous as to have given the
disease one of its names ; to them we have to add other symptoms
varying in the different cases, such as flying pains in the limbs,
numbness, squinting and double vision, and functional disorders
of the abdominal and pelvic organs. A certain painless structural
alteration of the joints (especially the knee), first described by
Charcot, is now and then met with, and the remarkable condition
known as perforating ulcer of the foot is sometimes found (but not
every case of it) to be associated with locomotor ataxia.
The structural changes in the spinal cord begin in the lumbar
region and spread upwards ; they are in the posterior columns, and
especially on their outer limits. Grey degeneration is the name
given to the structural condition, and it depends essentially upon
the loss of the opaque white substance that invests the axis-
cylinder of each nerve like an insulating stratum ; this layer
gives the colour to the white tracts of the cord, and the loss of it
reduces these tracts to the grey condition of the central columns
of cord where the nerves are normally without the white insulat
ing layer.
The degenerations of the spinal cord, however caused, have
little variety ; the loss of the white substance may be followed
by hardening of the tract of tissue (sclerosis), or there may be a
development of the cells of the supporting tissue or neuroglia,
keeping pace with the decay of the nerves themselves, whereby
the tract acquires a gelatinous appearance. Sometimes the degen
eration is not perfectly continuous, but occurs at many isolated
spots (multiple disseminated sclerosis).
The causes of the degeneration in locomotor ataxia are various. Cause:
According to the statistics of Erb, it is nearly always associated of the
with constitutional syphilis ; other causes are probably always degem ]
peripheral somewhere within the region supplied with nerves from tions.
the lumbar part of the cord.
The causes of degeneration other than that of tabes dorsalis are
also various, and associated with various groups of symptoms, which
need not further be considered. Mechanical injury to the cord is
followed by degeneration, and the pressure of a tumour may have
the same effect. It is found that the solution of continuity of a
nerve causes the same loss of the white substance in its peripheral
portion as in these degenerations of the cord, and the degeneration
of the nerve is set down to its being cut off from its <; trophic
centre." The same "trophic" hypothesis is applied to the spinal
decay. If the structural degeneration in the cord differs from the
degenerations that elsewhere go with disordered function, in its
remarkable tendency to spread up or down, that is a difference
which may be itself associated with the distinctive conducting
function of the nerves and nerve-centres.
In so-called bulbar paralysis, associated with inarticulateness ofBulba I
speech, there is described a certain decay of the ganglion-cells in paralj
the nucleus of the hypoglossal nerve, situated in the " bulb " or
medulla oblongata, together with general shrinkage of the nucleus ;
this condition progresses both structurally and functionally towards
a more general paralysis.
In infantile paralysis the structural degeneration is found per- In fall
vading the anterior horns of grey matter of the cord (anterior polio- paralj j
myelitis), and it includes the ganglion-cells.
Pscudo-hypcrtrophic Paralysis, Progressive Muscular Atrophy. — Pseud :
These are two closely allied conditions, the one in young children and hyper
the other mostly in male adults, which afford the most instructive trophi
contrasts. There is gradual loss of muscular power in both, in the paralj
case of the children's malady chiefly in the coarse or static muscles sis, pr ;
that keep the body erect, and in the nimble and richly inner- gressi-
vated muscles of the hand, forearm, and tongue in the progressive muscu
muscular atrophy of male adults. In both the loss of muscular atropl
power goes hand in hand with a loss of muscular structure ; but in
the coarse and sluggish groups of muscles which are mostly affected
in growing children the loss of muscular structure is more than
made up for, in mere bulk, by the development of interstitial con
nective tissue and fat, while in the nimble muscles of the hand and
tongue, chiefly and primarily implicated in the characteristic disease
of maturity, there is visible shrinkage of the part. It is only in
the limbs, when the affection extends to them, that the bulk and
outline are preserved in adults. Hence the affection in children is
called pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis, and in adults progressive
muscular atrophy. A few cases of great interest have been recorded
in which adults have had the two conditions in combination.
Children so affected walk as if on tiptoe, with a waddling gait,
balancing the body for a perceptible interval on one foot ; when
they are stripped the dorsal contour is peculiar, the shoulders
being thrown back and the belly forward, the calves and hips
standing out prominent and hard. In the muscular atrophy of
adults the ball of the right thumb is nearly always wasted, and if
the other muscles of the hand are equally attenuated there is pro
duced the characteristic appearance of a bird's claw ; the tongue
also is often shrivelled.
In contrast to locomotor ataxia, and to paralysis from injury to
or pressure on the brain and spinal cord, these two diseases arc
illustrations of the peripheral relationship of muscle and nerve, of
a loss of integrity in that executive relationship, which brings with
it both loss of power in the muscle and concomitant failure of its
nutrition. They may be quoted as instances of tropho-neuroses,
PATHOLOGY
393
so long as it is clearly understood that the term really explains
nothing. There are, indeed, changes described for them in the
anterior cornua of the grey matter of the cord, with wasting of the
anterior roots of the spinal nerves.
"Dissolution " Principle of Nervous Diseases. — It is known from
" physiological experiment that a muscle is capable of excitation
-when the nerve-force is withdrawn from it ; muscular substance is
not only a contractile form of protoplasm under the control of
nerves, but it has proper irritability when the nervous influence is
paralysed (as by the action of the curare poison). The condition
of the motor nerves in pseudo-hypertrophic muscular paralysis and
in progressive muscular atrophy is such that the muscles are left to
their indigenous contractility, being deprived of their innervating
force. We shall find these two diseases a convenient opportunity
of stating a principle in nervous diseases which has been expounded
by Hughlings Jackson under the name of the "dissolution" prin
ciple. Morbid states of the nervous system (or many of them) are
said to be of the nature of a breaking up of the acquisitions of
evolution, with loss of the more finished acquisitions, and a falling
back to a simpler type, whose unsuitability to the individual in
his then general circumstances amounts to a disease. The illus
trations already given (§§ 4, 5) of "memories" of development
inherent in the cellular life of the body belong to the same class of
facts or the same order of ideas.
In applying this principle to the diseases in question we have to
consider both the electrical reaction of the muscles and the retro
grade changes in their structure. The ''reaction of degeneration "
is a peculiar one, and it is the diagnostic mark of paralysis of peri
pheral origin. The degenerated muscle shows a considerable in
crease of irritability for a time imder the galvanic current ; the
contraction is sluggish and sustained ; the anodal closure gives a
stronger contraction than the kathodal, while, conversely, the
kathodal opening has the advantage. These peculiarities of the
electrical reaction in " degenerated " muscles are analogous to the
physiological reaction when the nerve-influence has been abrogated.
We may take it that a "degenerating" muscle falls back upon its
proper irritability, that the contractility becomes " ideo-muscular "
as contrasted with "neuro-muscular." The muscle, so to speak,
takes lower ground by way of adapting itself to circumstances.
In the disease in question, as it alt'eets children, the groups of
muscles that suffer are precisely those in which the contractility
is already of the sluggish, sustained, and ideo-muscular kind, —
such muscles as the erector spinas, gluta>i, and others, which
have an extremely limited nerve -supply in proportion to their
bulk. Side by side with this fact we have the other fact of an
increase of bulk, as shown in the seemingly strong and hard
back, hips, and calves. The paralysis of the muscles has brought
with it extreme dilatation of their small arteries, and consequent
venous hyperrcmia ; and this presence of the blood in increased
quantity has given an enormous impetus to the growth of the
interstitial tissue, in the form of young connective tissue and
more particularly in the form of fat-tissue. On the other hand,
in the muscular atrophy as it affects adults (mostly of the male
sex), it is the very nimblest of all the muscles of the body that are
picked out first — the muscles of the right hand — in which the ideo-
muscular contractility is naturally small and the neuro-muscular
contractility naturally great ; and these muscles, with those of the
tongue, undergo a remarkable atrophy with little or no spurious
compensation from the interstitial tissue. When the disease pro
gresses to other muscles, however, there may be so much new-
formed interstitial tissue (fibrous and adipose) that there may be
no actual loss of volume in the limb. The precise significance
of these differences in the two diseases is not easy to state ; in
both the males are very much more often affected than the females,
being in the one mostly very young boys beginning to walk, and
in the other men whose manual dexterity is a formed habit.
The structural changes in the muscular fibre itself are very much
the same in both ; as the striation of the fibres disappears the quies
cent muscle-nuclei become numerous and prominent. The muscle
may be said to fall back upon the more embryonic condition, upon
the individual life of the cell-units which had been fused in the fibre ;
it retreats to earlier ground, and, as the proper texture of muscle
finally goes, the life of the part takes the still more elementary
direction of the common binding-tissue and fat. In this sequence
of functional and structural events we may discover an illustration
of the dissolution principle. The muscles, having lost, or beginning
to lose, their innervation, fall back upon the more primitive kind
of irritability ; as the downward course of failure proceeds, they
retreat still farther to an embryonic structural condition ; when
the muscle itself is practically lost the commoner forms of meso-
blastic tissue take up the retrograde succession ; and, last stage of
all, even the fat and the fibrous tissue waste.1
^ See Wilks, Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, Lond. ,
1878 ; James Ross, Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System, 2
vols., 2ded., Lond., 1883; Buzzard, din. Led. on Din. of Nervous
Syst., Lond., 1883; Gowers, Epilepsy and other Chronic Convulsive
§ 13. — EP.KORS IN THE REGULATION OF THE BODILY HEAT.
The constancy of the bodily temperature under all circum
stances of external heat and cold — of torrid and arctic zones,
of summer and winter, of sunshine and darkness — is not the
least remarkable instance in nature of a self-adapting me
chanism. The average internal heat of the human body or
of the blood is from 98° to 99° Fahr., and the healthy range
in different individuals, or in the same individual at various
periods of life, or in various circumstances of exercise and
repose, sleeping and waking, is not more than a degree or
two below or above the mean. It will be at once apparent
that the sensations of heat and cold are no measure of
the bodily temperature. The mechanism by which the
body's heat is kept uniform is a co-operation of a number
of agencies. It is an equation, of which the two sides
are the amount of heat produced in the organism and the
amount of heat dissipated. In hibernating mammals the
former of these is the side to which adaptation is most
directed, in such Avise that the whole fires of the animal
burn lower while the winter cold lasts. But in man the
work and Avaste go on always, and therefore the heat of
combustion is practically uniform at all times, so that
the adaptation to seasonal and climatic changes of tem
perature is mainly on the other side of the equation, the
regulation of the amount of heat given off from the body.
In cold weather the amount of bodily heat parted with
is limited by warm clothing (or clothing which conducts
heat with difficulty), by keeping up the temperature of
the air artificially by fires, and by the contraction of the
surf ace -vessels and other muscular structures in the
skin, which has the effect of diminishing the insensible
perspiration and makes the familiar sensation of cold.
While these adaptations to external cold are decidedly the
greatest, it is not to be supposed that there are no adapta
tions on the other side of the account. There is, in fact,
an increased production of animal heat also, so that more
can be parted Avith, and the constant temperature of 98° '5
be still unaffected. The increased production is often in
the Avay of increased muscular exercise, A\7hich every one is
prone to in cold weather ; it is to some extent also through
the more active circulation in all the internal organs,
especially brain and liver, their greater functional activity
being attended Avith a larger amount of the heat of meta
bolic combustion. A heat-forming diet of carbohydrates
(chiefly fats), and the physical benefit of the subcutaneous
fat resulting therefrom, are Avell-knoAvn elements of the
adaptation in colder latitudes.
When it comes to be an adaptation to great solar heat,
the adaptation is again mostly in the Avay of regulating
the heat lost. The vessels of the skin are dilated, and
its other muscular elements (in the sweat-glands, <tc.) re
laxed (making the familiar sensation of heat), so that per
spiration floAvs freely ; the evaporation of the sweat on the
surface of the body is constantly consuming heat, and the
clothing is Avorn light, and of such colour and texture as
will readily conduct heat (both of radiation and of evapora
tion). There is noAv as much effort to part with the body's
heat as in Avinter there AA'as effort to retain it. At the
same time the heat of combustion in the body is kept
down as much as possible ; muscular exertion is aAToided,
the brain and the digestive functions are less active, and
fatty substances are partaken of more sparingly.
The various parts of this conservative adaptation are
somehoAV co-ordinated through the central nervous system.
The vascular system is obviously a chief means by which
the body's heat is kept constant, not only by the quick
transit of the blood to all parts and the free mixture and
Diseases, Loud., 1881, and Morbid Conditions of the Spinal Cord, 3d
ed., Lond., 1884 ; J. Hughlings Jackson, "Evolution and Dissolution
of the Nervous System," in Brit. Med. Journ., i., 1884.
XVIII. — 50
394
PATHOLOG Y
interchange of its particles, but also by the control of the
amount of blood sent to the skin on the one hand (say, in
warm weather) and to the muscles and viscera on the other
(say, in cold weather). The vaso-motor nervous mechan
ism, therefore, is an integral part of the nervous control
of the bodily temperature. But there is reason to think
that the regulation of the bodily heat is committed to the
charge of a still higher and more commanding centre in
the nervous system than the vaso-motor. It is a remark
able fact, observed from time to time in clinical practice,
that certain cases of injury to the brain, from fracture of
the skull or internal hiemorrhage, are attended with a
quite phenomenal rise of the body-temperature — a rise to
107° or 108° Fahr., — and that, too, when there is nothing
strikingly unusual in the vaso-motor effects, as revealed
in the skin or elsewhere. In such cases it is the surface-
region of the pons Yarolii, the great cerebellar commissure,
that has been injured or compressed by the effusion and
coagulation of blood. The evidence of specially-devised
experiments confirms and amplifies the clinical evidence ;
and it is considered in physiology to be a well-grounded
fact that there are thermic or heat -regulating centres in
the brain, one, at least, being in the region of the pons
Yarolii. Bernard would further assume the existence of
" calorific " and " frigorific " nerves side by side with vaso
dilator and vaso-constrictor.
Thermic Fever and Heat- Stroke. — Such, then, being the nicely-
balanced and carefully safeguarded mechanism for keeping man's
internal heat about 98° Fahr. under all circumstances, the question
arises whether we may trace any considerable part of the sickness
and mortality of the globe to a marked and conspicuous failure or
break-down of this mechanism of adaptation : —
" But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend?"
Thermic Undoubtedly the ardent or thermic fever of Indian practice, the
fever. heat-apoplexy, heat-stroke, or sunstroke, is the direct result of an
upset or disintegration of the heat-regulating nerve-centre. Either
the disorder of innervation is shown in sudden syncope or depres
sion of the heart's action, as among labourers working or soldiers
marching' in the sun ; or the effect of atmospheric heat, direct
solar or other, is a universal state of venous engorgement, indicat
ing profound vaso-motor paralysis, and ending in death from
asphyxia, literally the " livid death " alluded to in the couplet ; or
the heat-stroke leads to an attack of thermic or " ardent " fever,
coming on perhaps in the night within a few hours of exposure, or
after a longer interval, having a prodromal stage of malaise, a rise
of the body-heat to as much as 108° or 110° Fahr., embarrassments
of the lungs and heart, profound brain -troubles, and probably a
fatal termination in general venous engorgement and asphyxia.
These various forms of heat-stroke all point to a profound dis
organization of the nervous centres by the more or less direct action
of solar heat, — to cardiac depression in the syncopal form, to more
general vaso-motor paralysis in the asphyxial form, and to dis
organization of the thermic nerve-mechanism in the hyperpyrexial
form. When recovery takes place, as it does in a large proportion
of cases, there are often lasting traces of injury to the nervous
system in other functions than the vaso-motor or thermogenic.
These cases of heat-stroke or thermic fever are the most obvious
illustrations of a break-down of the heat-regulating mechanism,
but they are by no means the most usual illustrations of it. It is
in a vastly more common form of sickness, in malarial fevers of all
kinds, that we discover the typical failure of the heat-regulating
centre under circumstances that tax the self-adapting powers of
the body. The enormous prevalence of malarial or climatic fever
may be said to be the greatest indication of failure or imperfection
. in the adaptation of man to his surroundings. In some few spots,
which even the instinct of the brutes leads them to desert for a
season, the effects of heat and moisture are such as to induce an
endemic diseased habit of body, so universal in its incidence and
so insidious in its development as practically to amount to an
ethnological distinction (see Heber's description of villagers in the
Terai, Indian Journal, vol. i. p. 251). Throughout the whole
intertropical zone, and for 5' beyond it in the southern hemisphere
and 20° beyond it in the northern, the climatic fever, in its various
forms, stands for almost as much sickness and mortality as all other
diseases put together. So stupendous a power has it always been
that its pathology has with difficulty emerged from the stage of
gross materialism and superstition. But malarial or climatic fever
is the true "essential" or "primary" fever of the older writers; its
paroxysm is the abstract fever of pathological treatises, which is
discussed without reference to communicability from person to
person ; and, if it has a periodicity which seems to give it specific
characters of its own, a little analysis serves to show that its
periods of waxing and waning are no other than the cosmical
periods of the earth itself.
Cullcris Theory of Fever. — According to Cullen's theory of fever Primai
(which was a modification of Hoffmann's), "the first incident in or
the chain of sequences constituting fever is a depressed state of essenti i
the brain and nervous system ; spasm of the extreme capillaries fever. '
results from this depression ; and reaction of the circulation,
with its accompanying phenomena, is an effort of the system
to overcome the spasm. The Cullenian theory, in a modified
form, continues still to be the prevailing creed of those who
adhere to the tenets of solidism, and who believe at the same
time in the existence of primary or essential fever." This is the
language of Christison in 1840 (Tweedie's Library of Mcdicim;
vol. i. p. 116) ; and he adds that the chief rival to this doctrine
is one which "denies the existence of any primary or essential
fevers, and holds them all to be merely symptomatic of somo
local disorder." Cullen did not ignore the differences among
fevers in respect of the local condition, exanthematous or other ;
but his desire for a broad generalization led him to find something
common in the antecedents of them all. This was "diminished
energy of the brain," and the nervous depression was caused by
"human and marsh effluvia." When the disentanglements of
the century following are credited to Cullen's doctrine the latter
will be seen to be still radically sound. The collocation of " human
and marsh effluvia" is nothing but a verbal one ; there is no uni
formity of effect among human "effluvia" themselves, but rather
specific differences ; in marsh effluvia nothing has ever been found
but common watery vapour ; and the characteristic effects of
" marsh effluvia " are by no means rare on barren uplands where
there is no standing water or decaying vegetation for miles around.
The modern disentanglement has put into a class by themselves
all the communicable infective diseases which bring more or less
of febrile disturbance, and has fixed the attention on the specific
features and evolutional antecedents of each. Hence the existence
of "primary or essential fever" has come to be denied, except as
the abstract febrile state. But it had been forgotten that, for
malarial or climatic fevers, there is no communicability, and no
specific virus bred in the body or in the body's discharges ; and
to them therefore belongs the heritage of " primary or essential
fever." The common aguish intermittent is the source of all the
concepts that enter into the doctrine of fever, — the initial malaise,
the cold fit and the hot fit, the crisis and the defervescence. It is
to it that the classical description of a febrile paroxysm applies,
in paragraphs 16 to 23 of Cullen's First Lines, just as the fever
pathology of Hippocrates and Sydenham applies to it; and the
first incident in the chain of sequences, according to Cullen, was an
"enfeebled energy of the brain." It will be found that this doc
trine of primary or essential fever, understanding climatic or malarial
fever therein, is fundamentally in agreement with modern physio
logical teaching as to the animal heat and the errors in its regulation.
Malarial or Climatic Fevers. — Turning, then, to the analysis of a Parox-
paroxysm of ague, we find that there is a preceding sense of languor ysm 01
and un fitness for a few hours ; all at once the patient begins to ague,
feel cold, he shivers, his teeth chatter, his skin becomes " goose-
skin " from the powerful contraction of all the muscular elements
in it. If this occurred in the orderly course of regulating the
body-heat it would mean that the internal temperature was falling
below the mean ; the vigorous contraction of the blood-vessels on
the surface of the body is by way of preventing the escape of heat.
But the truth is that the body-heat is rising much beyond the normal
all the while that the skin is acting so as to keep in the heat.
This procedure at cross purposes goes on for a few hours, during
which the internal heat may rise to 104° or 105° Fahr. The cold
fit passes into the hot, and then the crisis is reached ; there is a
violent rebound, the muscular elements of the skin and its vessels
relax, perspiration flows freely, the kidneys begin to remove all the
products of excessive and uncalled-for combustion, and in the
morning the patient awakes with probably no very serious effects
after his feverish night. Assuming the case to be a common
quartan, the individual goes to his work next day feeling tolerably
well ; on the day after he has probably forgotten all about his
feverish paroxysm, if it be his first ague ; and it is not until the
afternoon of the third day that he is again reminded of it. Let us
say tl>at he is returning from work towards the end of an ordinarily
active day ; suddenly he has the same uncontrollable feeling of
chills, he shivers, and seeks warmth by crouching over the fire or
by wrapping himself in warm clothes. The drama of three days
before is repeated, he awakes again from a feverish night, the
morning urine being again full of brick-red urates ; he now knows
that he is the subject of quartan ague, and that another paroxysm
is due three days later, which he is fortunately able to prevent or
at least to mitigate by taking quinine in the meantime. Whatever
may have induced the first paroxysm, the second is a mere imita
tion of it, an affair of habit, just as a return of an epileptic con-
395
vulsion is. It can hardly be doubted that in the repetition of a
simple ague -paroxysm we are concerned, not with the nervous
system as co-ordinating the two sides of the account in the produc
tion and discharge of animal heat, but with an acquired habit of
the nervous system, with a usurpation of the power committed to
it for the purposes of control only. This acquired faculty of the
heat-regulating centre to act quasi-autocratically is often exempli
fied in those persons who, having suffered from malarial fever under
its usual exciting circumstances, experience a return of it under
widely different circumstances. Thus, a pronounced ague-shake
has occurred to a person crossing an ice-slope 10,000 feet above the
sea-level, the original ague having been contracted several years
before in a malarious locality.
We come next to the circumstances under which the heat-regu
lating centre sutfers this disorganization, the memory of which may
remain with it for long after. The circumstances of intermittent
and remittent fevers have been already discussed in the article
MALARIA, and it remains to give here only a brief epitome. Where-
ever and Avhenever malarial fevers occur there are considerable degrees
of solar heat and of moisture in the lowest stratum of the air, and
a considerable drop of the temperature after sunset. So far as the
individual is concerned, he incurs risk by working in the sun and
resting or sleeping in the chill of the evening, by letting a wind
such as the monsoon blow upon his fatigued body, by passing
suddenly from the relaxing conditions of heat to the constricting
conditions of cold, by arriving from cooler latitudes in the hot
season, and by doing one or all of these things when his nervous
power, as Cullen said, is enfeebled by such causes as anxiety, in
temperance in drinking, "and other circumstances which evidently
weaken the system." A high degree of moisture in the lowest
stratum of the air is the most universal of the external factors
within the malarious latitudes, and it may be produced either by
the extreme dampness of the soil or by the extremely rapid cooling
of a dry soil (even bare rocks) by radiation of heat after sunset,
whereby a moderate degree of atmospheric moisture gives a fall of
dew. On the other hand, wherever the atmosphere is exceptionally
dry, as on the southern littoral of Australia, there is no malaria
notwithstanding the great solar heat ; and wherever there are only
a few degrees of difference between the day and night temperature
and a very slight range throughout the year, as at sea within the
tropics, or at such localities as Singapore and the Amazon valley
under the line, malaria is far less active than the great solar heat
and moisture might lead one to expect. Whatever in the telluric
and atmospheric surroundings taxes the nervous mechanism which
keeps the heat of the body always about 98° or 99° Fahr. is a cause
of malarial fever.
( d fit The Cold Fit of Fever. — The central point of interest in a par-
c fever, oxysm of fever, the grand paradox of fever-pathology, is the rise
of the heat of combustion, as shown by the clinical thermometer,
and the simultaneous closing of the natural outlets of excessive
heat, as shown by the shivering and the feeling of "goose-skin."
The value of any pathological doctrine of intermittent and remit
tent fever may be estimated by its success in dealing with this
paradox. We may conveniently approach this subject through
the following concrete instance, as given by Oldham. "At Jhansi,
in June 1860, a young officer of the battery of artillery to which
I belonged was exposed for some time to the sun at mid-day ;
he then, in a profuse perspiration, came into the house, through
which a hot wind was blowing, as all the woodwork had been
burned by the rebels, and the tatties, which served for doors
and windows, were almost dry ; in a few minutes he complained
of being chilly, and in a few more he was in the cold stage of
a sharp attack of intermittent. This officer had never previously
suffered from fever ; when he went out a short time before he
was in perfect health, and he had not, whilst away, been into
any malarious locality ; in fact, at that season, the whole
country round was parched and dry." This case illustrates an
important point, — antecedent exposure to great solar heat. Exer
cise in the sun means active internal combustion in the muscles,
liver, &c. , and the body warmed at the same time by the sun's
rays ; the equalizing of the heat made and the heat lost is accord
ingly a difficult task, which falls mostly on the skin (and lungs)
to execute, and the heat - regulating centre to order and control.
We may take it that both the regulating function of the nerve-
centre and the executive function of the skin are strained to the
utmost. In the case quoted, where there was no interval between
the cause and the effect, the body in its glowing state is suddenly
exposed to a slight abstraction of heat through the draught in the
house ; the sudden loss of heat, however slight the amount, is the
signal for the skin to close its pores so as to lose no more heat, and
hence the passing feeling of chill. But the passing feeling of chill
is in this case succeeded, at only a few minutes' interval, by the
prolonged state of con traction of the cutaneous vessels, sweat-glands,
and other muscular structures which corresponds to the rigors and
the cold fit of ague ; and, all the while that the skin is thus vigor
ously adapting itself to prevent the escape of heat, the heat of the
body is rising several degrees. The skin and the nervous centre,
the executive and the central authority, are at cross purposes so far
as the object is to keep the temperature at the level of 98° or 99J
Fahr. Now, the rise of temperature in this case can have had no
other source than internal combustion (in the liver, muscles, brain,
&c. ) ; but the combustion is an unnatural one, inasmuch as no
proper physiological work has been got as its equivalent out of the
muscles, brain, or liver, although there has been the due physio
logical waste (carbonic acid and urea). A slight chill, or the sudden
abstraction of a not very large amount of heat from the surface of
the body, has excited the heat-regulating centre in such a way that
it lets loose an extravagant amount of its " thermogenic " force.1
The nervous centre has been called upon to equalize the slight
abstraction of heat at a moment when it is still in the state of
strain from its previous and well - sustained efforts to keep the
balance, and it is upset by the sudden call. It answers by an
altogether disproportionate discharge of its force, which is both
ill adapted to the momentary needs of the body and continues in
operation much beyond the occasion for it.
Under ordinary circumstances of taking the ague there is usually
an interval between the exposure to heat and the exposure to chill.
Usually, also, the exposure to heat is more or less prolonged or
habitual ; the heat-regulating centre is taxed over and over again,
and it is taxed so much the more if there is moisture in the air along
with solar heat, the dissipation of the body's heat by the insensible
perspiration and by radiation being much more difficult in a damp
atmosphere than in a dry. Whenever the chill comes, it finds the
heat-regulating centre without that tone which would enable it to
act according to the emergency, so that the abstraction of heat,
even if it be slight, is the signal for an enormous stirring up of all
the internal iires and a rapid combustion to meet a loss of heat
which is not greater than the body endures under other circum
stances with impunity. This phenomenal burst of heat-making is,
so to speak, misunderstood by the motor nerves of the skin ; when
ever, under the same circumstances of repose, there is the same
thermogenic activity, it means that the heat is wanted to keep up
the level of 98° or 99° Fahr., and all the muscular elements in the
skin and in its vessels contract to keep the heat in, producing the
feeling of external cold, or of shivering if the contraction be
extreme. The same thing happens under the incoherent and
extravagant action of the heat-regulating centre ; and hence the
paradox of the body shivering all the while that its internal heat
is rising to 5° or 6° Fahr. above the average of health.
Another way of expressing the paradox is to employ Bernard's A long
language of " thermic nerves " ; we should then say that stimula- cold lit
tion of "calorific nerves " goes with a stimulation of " vaso-con- means a
stricter" nerves in the skin, so that a violent discharge of force mild
along the one path is associated with a violent discharge along the fever,
other. Whether, as Traube has suggested, the extravagant action
of the heat-regulating centre might be altogether counteracted by
the usual heat -discharging mechanism but for the inopportune
constriction in the cutaneous vessels and the surface of the body
generally, is a curious question, but hardly a practical one. In
that degree of shock to or disorganization of the nerve-centre
which occurs in ordinary tertian or quartan intermittent the dura
tion and degree of the shivering fit are the index of the mildness
of the attack ; the more pronounced the cold stage, the more prompt
is the crisis and the more certain the defervescence. But in the
much more severe shock which brings a quotidian or a remittent,
the cold stage is short and feeble, and the crisis and defervescence
are proportionately undecided and uncertain. The remittent degree
of climatic fever approximates, indeed, to the forms of continued
fever in which the rigor is a mere survival of the great cold fit of
intermittent ; the initial rigors even of pneumonia are little more
than formal, and the hot stage of the process is practically the whole.
It would thus appear that the vaso-motor constriction, upon which
the phenomena of the cold fit depend, is the due accompaniment
of a certain moderate degree of upset in the thermogenic nerve-
mechanism ; the paradox of the body shivering while its internal
heat is rising is after all a paradox, and not an antagonism. The
severer types of climatic fever are those in which the primary shock
has been most severe or least well sustained. " Degrees of fever,"
says Ferguson, "might be almost measured by degrees of solar heat,
from the agues of Lincolnshire to the malignant remittents of the
West Indies."
The periodicity of agues is a reflex of the normal periodicities Period-
of the bodily heat ; in health the temperature rises to its highest icity of
point in the course of the afternoon and falls to its lowest a little agues,
after midnight, and in a typical intermittent these are usually the
1 " There is no a priori reason," says Foster (Text-book of Physiology, p. 377),
"positively contradicting the hypothesis that the metabolism of even muscular
tissue might be influenced by nervous or by other agency in such a way that
a large decomposition of the muscular substance, productive of much heat,
might take place without any contraction being necessarily caused. If we
were to permit ourselves to suppose that the contractile material whose meta
bolism when resulting in a contraction gives rise to so much heat, could undergo
the same amount of metabolism, in so far a different fashion that all the energy
thereby set free took on the form of heat, variations in the temperature of the
body, at present difficult to understand, would become readily intelligible."
396
PATHOLOGY
hours when a paroxysm begins and ends respectively. These normal
maxima and minima of the body's heat within a diurnal revolution
are probably in their origin an adaptation to the periods of labour
and rest, both muscular and digestive ; but the habit is an ingrained
one, and it obtains when the ordinary round of work and repose,
of waking and sleeping, is departed from. In short, it follows the
sun and not the vicissitudes of human occupation. Again, the
periodical recurrences of the febrile paroxysm appear to follow the
lunar intervals. In the United States an ag^ue is observed which
has only a weekly paroxysm ; the quartan of northern latitudes is
the bi - weekly interval. Tertian and quotidian agues would not
of themselves suggest lunar periodicity, but they are related to the
types with obvious lunar intervals. The " critical days " of con
tinued fevers, which were closely observed in former times, have
been brought with much ingenuity under a law of cosmical period
icity. It is observed in climatic fevers that, if there be an interval
of one or more weeks in which the paroxysms are in abeyance, the
next succeeding paroxysm will occur at its due time, and that
various minor indications of constitutional disturbance in the inter
val (perhaps neuralgias) will have marked the periods when the full
paroxysm should have developed.
It is necessary to pass over the changes in the blood and in the
secretions which accompany the febrile paroxysm. In ague there
is a remarkable production of free pigment traced to the red blood-
disks, which accumulates in the spleen, the bone-marrow, and else
where. The spleen undergoes also an enlargement, and so does
the liver ; these are permanent where the malarial cachexia exists.
Malarial The malarial cadwxia, marked by hydrremia and lassitude, occurs
cachexia. most frequently in those who reside on a waterlogged soil, and are
permanently subject to the difficulties of heat-regulation during
their work which an atmosphere saturated with watery vapour
entails. In such cases there may be no febrile paroxysms from
first to last, but a state of adaptation of the body which is at once
a disease and almost an ethnological character.
Dyseii- Dysentery. — It is universally admitted that the causes which
tery. produce intermittent in one man of an exposed part)' may produce
remittent in another, dysentery in a third, and abscess of the liver
in a fourth. The incidence in the form of dysentery is apparently
capricious ; we have simply the fact that, in a certain proportion of
cases, the shock resolves itself into a profound disorganization of the
function of the great intestine, which may pass off in a few days or
become chronic. The dysenteric seizure is most frequent where there
is extreme atmospheric moisture as well as extreme heat, and where
the surface of the body is most directly exposed. The region of the
loins is somehow a region of great liability, just as the head is, the
turban or pith helmet and the loin-cloth of hot countries being the
indications of these liabilities. One important point of difference
between dysentery and intermittent and remittent is that the
former disease runs its course in one attack, whereas in the latter
there is the remarkable habit of repetition. The return of the
ague paroxysm is an evidence that the disorder is fundamentally
one of the nerve-centres ; it is an instance of the "memory" or
" habit " which disordered nerve-mechanisms are peculiarly apt to
fall into and to retain. In dysentery the disorder is localized ; it
is not so much central as peripheral. Whoever has had dysentery
once is apt to have it again, and it may become chronic from the
first seizure. But it has obvious points of difference from climatic
fever, and these differences are associated with the localized inci
dence of the primary disturbance.
Dysentery may arise under other circumstances than exposure to
tropical heat and moisture and to tropical chill, as in wars and
famines, in cold, and amidst privations and overcrowding. In such
cases it is correlated rather to typhus fever than to malarial, but it
is probable that there is the same kind of primary effect produced
through the nervous mechanisms as when the vicissitudes of a
tropical climate are the cause. Again, the dysentery of slave-ships
(formerly) and of coolie-ships (at present), in tropical waters, would
appear to be a mixed effect.
The effluvia from dysenteric dejecta (or water contaminated by
the dejecta) appear to have the power of exciting, in persons who
have not been directly exposed to the causes of dysentery, either
dysentery itself or some vicarious infection, such as typhus fever
or yellow fever, according to the source of the dejecta, or the kind
and degree of putrefaction which they had undergone, or according
to racial differences in the exposed persons. This question belongs
to another part of the subject.
Tropical Tropical Abscess of the Liver. — This is intimately associated with
abscess dysentery in its causation ; it may be either a primary effect, as it
of liver, were, instead of dysentery, or it may be an after-effect of one or more
attacks of the latter. The primary effect has been dwelt upon
by some, and the after-effect by others (notably W. Biuld), but there
is really no antagonism between them. As a primary effect tropical
abscess of the liver is closely parallel with tropical dysentery and
with malarial fever. It is not the effect of heat by itself, but of
chill as the sequel of great exposure to heat. Solar heat is trying
to the hepatic function, there being an increase of bile ; when the
organ has been thus overtaxed it is sensitive to the vicissitudes of
heat and cold. It is pointed out by Dr James Johnson ( The Influ
ence of Tropical Climates, p. 177) that genuine hepatitis is even
more frequent in the Carnatic, with uniform but high temperature,
than in Bengal with a more variable and damp climate. "The
casual visitor may well wonder how cold can be often applied on
the burning coast of Coromandel, where the temperature is high
and steady by day, where the nights are, for months together, hot,
and seldom raw or damp as at Bombay or Bengal. . . . The
European soldier or sailor, exhausted by exercise in the heat of the
day and by profuse perspiration, strips himself the moment his duty
is over, and throws himself down opposite a window or port to inhale
the refreshing sea-breeze, his shirt in all probability dripping with
sweat," and the consequences are likely to be an attack of hepatitis
or abscess of the liver. A slight abstraction of heat completely
upsets the organ which had been most taxed under the particular
climate; the incidence is not so much upon the heat -regulating
central government as upon a most important member of its
executive. As the sudden abstraction of a small amount of heat
from a fatigued and perspiring body can produce an extravagant dis
charge of heat-producing force, or a paroxysm of fever, by touching
' the nerve-centre, so it can produce a peripheral effect in the most
important of the heat-forming organs, which had under the special
circumstances been overtaxed in its function. But the effect on
this peripheral part of the heat-producing mechanism is not, for the
most part, an increased production of heat as in fever ; it is, in
fact, local congestion of blood and suppuration. AVhen the strain
falls on the central government the eilect is fever ; when the strain
falls on an important member of the executive the effect is inflam
mation.
Pneumonia. — Congestion of the lungs and pneumonia are not Pneu-
unfrequent accompaniments of remittent fever in India, especially monia.
in those whose health had been previously enfeebled, and among the
more ill-clad natives. Pneumonia is liable to occur in those who
had been acclimatized to heat, on their exposiire to unusual degrees
of cold, as among the negroes in the United States. It has been
also observed to become widely prevalent, and in a form which
amounted almost to pneumonia pure and simple, among the troops
from India employed in Afghanistan in 1838-39, and again in 1878,
when they were exposed to the winter cold.
Pneumonia is indeed an effect of chill proper to higher lati
tudes, just as intermittents and remittents, dysentery, and hepatic
abscess are most characteristically the effects of disorder, either
central or peripheral, in the heat-regulating mechanism as adapted
to tropical and sub-tropical conditions. That pneumonia is nearly
always caused by chill is generally believed (the pneumonias of con
tagious origin being excepted) ; but it may not be so readily admitted
that we have here to deal with a disorder of the heat-regulating
mechanism. Pneumonia is, at all events, a fever ; it has an initial
period of rigors, more pronounced than in most continued fevers,
although far behind the cold fit of intermittent ; the pyrexia is
sometimes present for some hours before the other symptoms be
come marked ; it usually comes to an end abruptly some time
before the consolidation of the lung is all cleared up ; and that
crisis in the disease is apt to fall within a week of the onset,
and is seldom delayed more than a day or two over the week.
The stress of this disease falls upon the lung, usually upon one
lung, and more particularly upon the lower half of the lung.
Leaving, for the present, the question why the lung is in this case
the organ of metabolism upon which the stress falls, let us consider
the nature of the pulmonary condition.
First, there is engorgement of blood, a condition which is due,
according to all analogies, to paralysis of the vase-motor nerves.
The abundant capillary vessels round the air-cells are greatly dis
tended with blood, and the mucous membrane of all the bronchial
tubes is also much injected. Accompanying this state of the pul
monary circulation there is more or less obvious distress-1 of breath
ing, or dyspnoea, together with a strong, full, and quickened action
of the heart. If the action of the heart be weak and the distress
of breathing great it is a
sign that the shock has
been more severe than the
patient, as he is then cir
cumstanced, can stand, and
death may result merely
from congestion of the
lung. Usually the extreme
congestion of the vessels is
relieved by exudation from
them into the air-cells which
they surround ; if the pa
tient should die at this, the
second stage of pneumonia,
the lung, or lobe of the
lung, is found to be solid
enough to sink in water ; it is still red, as in the stage of engorge
ment, but the cut surface is firm, and under a lens looks to be
finely granulated. Each little granule corresponds to an air-cell,
ia 65.- Pneumonic lung, stage of rod he-
patization; alveoli occupied by fibnnous
threads and a few cells.
PATHOLOGY
397
the air-cell no longer containing air, but a solid coagulum consist
ing of numerous threads of fibrin, with a homogeneous plasma as
the basis, and a few red blood - disks and white blood - corpuscles
(fig. 5o). The whole of this is an escape from the overloaded
blood-capillaries. The lung is just one of those organs where such
an escape from the blood is possible ; the engorged vessels are dis
tributed as a plexus over the thin walls of air-filled spaces, and the
fluid part of the blood, together with a certain proportion of its
solid particles, passes through the walls of the vessels into the air
space. If the lung be examined from a case of pneumonia fatal
a day or two later, or in the third stage, it is still solid, but the
redness is mottled with grey,
or has become uniformly grey.
The number of round nuclear
cells in the air -vesicles has
increased enormously, usurp
ing the place of the fibrin and
plasma (fig. 56). There is no
good reason to suppose that
this enormous accumulation
of cells is due to successive
additions of colourless cor
puscles from the blood ; they
are now, many of them, much
larger than the blood -cells,
and we may take it that they
are the product either of sub
division of the few original
blood -cells or of the epithe
lium of the air-vesicles. The
solidity now begins to give
way, the contents of the air- Fl?- M;-^eum(;nic I""?' , ste?e of grey
*. i , . ••• hepatization ; alveoli filled with cells.
vesicles undergoing a mucoid
or other disintegration, and they are gradually removed for the
most part by expectoration. In ten days from the onset the lung
may have returned to its normal condition.
We have now to consider briefly this disease as an error in the
heat-regulating mechanism, in which the strain falls upon an im
portant peripheral or executive part. Hepatitis may be taken to be
this kind of effect where the chill is a slight abstraction of the
body's heat under tropical conditions ; pneumonia is this kind of
effect where the chill is caught under the vicissitudes of the
weather in spring, or in changeable weather generally, within the
temperate zone. Why should the liver be the organ of choice in
the one case and the lung in the other? It may be said at least
that each organ, in the respective circumstances, is the locus mino-
ris rcsistentiae. A sudden abstraction of heat is a strain or shock
to the heat-regulating centre, and, if the incidence is to be on the
executive, it will fall on that member of the executive whose
function had been, under the circumstances, most taxed. It is to
be remarked that such cases of so-called peripheral incidence are
associated with individual predisposition ; hence these diseases are
generally sporadic. Something in the antecedents of the individual
has determined the local character of the effects of chill, whereas
the great climatic fevers more uniformly befall those who expose
themselves.
Rheumatic Fever. — Eheumatic fever is universally admitted to
be an effect of chill. " I know of no other exciting cause of acute
rheumatism," says Watson, "than exposure to cold, and especially
cold combined with moisture. " The conditions, both external and
predisposing in the individual, which constitute the peculiar lia
bility to rheumatic fever are nowhere found more distinctively
than in the variable climate of the British Islands, and in the
habit of body of the people. It is especially a disease of early
manhood and womanhood, and of the working class ; when it
occurs before puberty it is associated in a remarkable way with the
liability to chorea.
The onset of the fever is preceded for a few days by general
ill health, chilliness, furred tongue, " break- bone " pains, flying
pains in the joints, some quinsy, and disturbed sleep. If these
symptoms proceed no farther, the patient would be judged to have
had a chill, a catarrhal attack, a quinsy, or the like. When the
initial upset has been more considerable the pains "settle" in
one or more of the larger joints, often the ankles at first, the knees
subsequently, or the wrists, elbows, and shoulders. The patient
lies flat on his back, not daring to move, and following the objects
around with his eyes only. Profuse sweats break out from time
to time, having a peculiar acrid smell, by which rheumatic fever
can even be diagnosed. The joints where the acute pain is seated
for the time being are swollen, tender, and often red and hot, the
swelling being either in the fibrous structures around the joint or in
its synovial cavity. The locale both of pain and swelling shifts from
joint to joint ; the disease often "flies to the heart" (pericardium
and endocardium), more rarely it "flies to the brain " (membranes).
The urine is scanty, high-coloured, depositing brick -red urates,
and with an excess of urea on analysis ; it is, in fact, the urine of
disordered heat -regulation. The temperature is 100° or 101° up
to 104° or 105°, and in some exceptional cases (of "hyperpyrexia")
rising to 109° Fahr. There is an afternoon rise of 1° or more,
and a corresponding fall in the night. The severity of the case
—apart from its danger, which really depends on the pericardial
or endocardial part of the disease, or on complications with pneu
monia and the like — is measured by the height of the tempera
ture, with which, again, the intensity of the pain in the joints
goes hand in hand. The outbreaks of sweat do not follow any
obvious law, and they are not "critical," as in intcrmittents ;
but they seem to give the patient relief for the time, even if they
leave weakness behind. Nine days is considered an average time
for such an attack to run its course if the patient be well cared
for ; but defervescence is gradual, and complete restoration to
health is often slow, much weakness and anaemia remaining to be
made good. Warren, a physician of a former generation, when
asked what was the best remedy for rheumatic fever, answered
"Six weeks." Relapse is not uncommon, a very slight chill or
sudden abstraction of heat sufficing to bring the fever back.
Now if we assume that the occasion of an attack of rheumatic
fever is chill — that is to say, a sudden shock or injury to, or dis
organization of, the nervous centre which presides over the uniform
body -temperature — we enter upon a profoundly interesting prob
lem in following out the constitutional manifestations. Every
thing points to the mechanisms of locomotion, to the structures and
surfaces where muscular work is applied ; even the heart, as Watson
remarks, is in its perpetual to-and-fro movement comparable to
" one of the large joints." There is heat of combustion from some
source or another to account for the rise of temperature, which is
sometimes enormous ; but it is not the heat of work done. We are
again confronted with that most fundamental of all the questions
relating to fever, the question, as stated by Foster, whether the
" metabolism of even muscular tissue might be influenced by nerv
ous or by other agency in such a way that a large decomposition of
the muscular substance, productive of much heat, might take place
without any contraction being necessarily caused ... in such a
way that all the energy set free would take on the form of heat."
Is rheumatic fever one of those cases where disorder of the heat-
regulating mechanism falls on an important member of the exe
cutive, namely, the muscular system, just as it falls on the liver in
tropical abscess, and on the lungs in pneumonia ?
Certainly we know of no muscle but the heart itself which The
shows appreciable structural changes in rheumatic fever ; the heart articular
is liable to " myocarditis," as well as to endocarditis and pericarditis, nerves,
but, for all other muscles, the changes are in the tendons, liga
ments, and synovial membranes only, or, in fact, in those structures
by which the work of muscles is applied. These structures have
nerves, some of them large enough to be looked for in the dis
secting-room, although less is made of them in physiology. The
function of the nerves of the joints is not sensory in the ordinary
use of the term, but it may be said to be to convey to the centres
the sense of effect of the work done by muscles. When there is
intense metabolism of the muscular substance, but no work done,
the same nerves, having no sense of effect to convey, convey an
acute sense of pain. The pain of rheumatic fever is altogether
more acute than in inflammations. In tropical abscess pain is
subordinate, and its place is taken by a vague feeling of trouble,
or tightness, or weight, or heat in the hypochondrium, and tho
same substitution is sometimes made for the pain in pneumonia ;
but in rheumatic fever pain may be said always to be the grand
symptom, and a measure of the very remarkable power of recovery.
Reversing the maxim which applies to tropical abscess and to the
worst cases of pneumonia, we may say of rheumatic fever : " Affert
plus doloris quam periculi. "
Sweating is the other grand symptom of rheumatic fever. It
can hardly be said to be critical for the disease as a whole, because
the temperature does not fall ; but the joints affected for the time
being are relieved by it, and it is critical to that extent. We may,
indeed, say that the temperature does not fall because the heat
goes on being generated in some other group or groups of muscles
in whose joint or joints the pain is next felt.
We may regard, then, the sequence of events in rheumatic fever
somewhat as follows. There is an upset of the heat-regulating
centre by chill, owing to which an extravagant amount of heat-
generating nerve-influence is sent out ; this falls, for some reason
of the body's habit (inherited or proper to the individual's occupa
tion, or otherwise special), upon the muscular system, whose meta
bolism produces heat without work ; the articular nerves which
are ordinarily employed to convey the sense of effect of woik done,
from the surfaces where the movement is applied, convey, under
the changed circumstances of the muscles' activity, a sense of pain.
One set of muscles after another generates heat without work, so
that one joint becomes painful after another ; and, although there
are perspirations by which the heat of the body is parted with,
other sets of muscles take up the work of combustion in their turn,
so that the excessive temperature is maintained. Among other
muscles the heart is affected; and, just as in the voluntary- muscles
the structural effects are in the synovial membranes, ligaments,
398
PATHOLOGY
tendons, and aponeuroses, so in the heart they are in the peri
cardium and in the more fibrous parts of the endocardium. But
they are sometimes in the cardiac muscular tissue itself, the mus
cular substance of the heart being peculiar.
Chorea The association with chorea may now be noticed. Chorea is not
and a disorder of heat-regulation, and it is not due to chill ; it is a
rheuma- disorderly habit of some nervous centre or centres whereby the
tic fever, ordinary work of muscles is made irregular, and it is due to some
feebleness in, rather than to injury of, the nervous mechanism.
The considerable liability of choreic subjects to rheumatic fever,
the actual endocarditis that they suffer from even if they have
never had rheumatic fever, the occasionally observed choreic
movements of the muscles in the course of true rheumatic fever
in adults, the occurrence of chorea as a sequel of rheumatic fever
— all these associated things go to show that the disordered nerve-
centre is the same in both diseases, and that the discharge of its
force may pass readily from one path to another. It may either
set free muscular heat without muscular work, excessive in degree
and attended by unique pain in the joints ; or it may spend itself in
those gratuitous displays of muscular work which amount to chorea.
Herpes The foregoing diseases have been regarded as errors of the heat-
in febrile regulating nervous mechanism. In rheumatic fever we have seen
attacks, that there is a singular relationship to a truly nervous disorder,
namely, chorea. It remains to mention another implication of the
nervous system which several of them have in common, namely,
an herpetic eruption about the corners of the mouth. Herpes is
now accepted as an affair of certain cutaneous nerve-areas ; and in
malarial fever, pneumonia, and acute attacks of quinsy due to chill
there are very apt to be eruptions of herpes labialis. Why the
labial region should be involved is not obvious:1
§ 14. — INFLAMMATION.
The inflammations may be regarded as an empirically
made-up group of disordered states which have somewhat in
common. Although inflammation is certainly a provisional
category, there has always been a tendency to overcrowd
it with newly-described morbid conditions, rather than to
empty it of its temporary occupants. Whenever patho-
logists have become impatient to say the last word about
the endless perplexities of disease the class of inflamma
tions has become unusually full ; this happened in the
period of Broussais, when even the specific infections
were placed therein, as gastro-enteritis and the like ; and
the frequent resort to the termination itis in more recent
pathology may be taken as an evidence of a correspond
ing habit of mind. Thus there is much fairness in
the bold criticism of Andral : "Recu dans le langage,
sans qu'aucune idee precise lui ait jamais ete attachee,
sous le triple rapport des symptomes qui 1'annoncent,
des lesions qui la caracterisent, et de sa nature intime,
1'expression inflammation est devenue une expression
tellement vague, son interpretation est tellement arbitraire,
qu'elle a reellement perdu toute valeur ; elle est comme
une vieille monnaie sans empreinte, qui doit etre mise
hors de cours, car elle ne causerait qu'erreur et confusion."
It is at least the duty of pathology to reduce the congeries
of inflammations to as small a bulk as possible, to follow
up the analysis of the inflammations one after another
until they are reduced to the scientific position of errors
of the respective structures and functions. Inflamma
tions, indeed, are best regarded as an ever -diminishing
residue ; there is always the residue, because the correlated
structural and functional aspects of the life of the tissues
cannot be stated with equal clearness for all of them. It
is the great binding tissue of the body that gives occasion
for this nosological residue ; the connective tissue is the
one tissue about whose dual life of structure and function
there is a difficulty. We shall appreciate its unique posi
tion best by comparing it with so direct a modification of
1 See Senator, Untersuch. uber den falerhaflen Process, Berlin,
1873 (abstract and criticism by Sanderson, in Rep. Med. Off. Privy
Council, 1875) ; C. F. Oldham, What is Malaria, and why is it mast
intense in Hot Climates? Lond. , 1871 ; C'l. Bernard, Lemons sur la
Chaleur aninvile, Paris, 1876 ; Morehead, Clinical Researches on
Diseases in India, 2 vols., Lond., 1856 ; Jas. Johnson, Influence of
Tropical Climates, 4th ed. , Lond., 1827.
itself as fat-tissue. But even these phlegmasire are capable
of some further analysis in the direction of disordered
structure and function if we have regard to the functions
of the embryonic mesoblast, and to the " memories " of
the same that the common binding tissue never quite
loses.
The earliest and most fundamental notions about inflam
mation, and those which pertain to the residue above
spoken of, were derived from the external parts of the
body when injured by blows, wounds, scalds, the lodg
ment of foreign bodies, and such-like palpable irritations.
Along with simple inflamed wounds were taken cases of
erysipelas, a disease which has now become the sole heir
of the original Greek name for inflammation, namely,
phlegmon. It will be convenient to begin with a brief
reference to erysipelas.
Erysipelas. — Besides phlegmonous erysipelas, or diffuse inflam- Erysi-
mation and suppuration of the cutaneous and subcutaneous con- pelas.
nective tissues, there is a common form consisting of redness,
swelling, pain, and heat of the surface only, and stopping short of
suppuration.
This condition often follows a wound, especially in the, region of
the scalp or face ; it may occur also when there is no obvious
wound, although there will probably have been a catarrhal state
of the nearest mucous membrane. Fever or constitutional dis
turbance usually precedes the inflammation twenty-four hours or
less, and in this respect erysipelas is comparable to the effects of
chill already treated of. Wounds received in a drunken brawl are
especially apt to become erysipelatous ; also the wounds of those
suffering from kidney-disease or liver-disease. Erysipelas is most
apt to occur in cold weather with east winds, or in cold and damp
weather. One attack predisposes to others. It often arises spon
taneously or autochthonously, but it is perhaps equally often
induced by contagion and inoculation from pre-existing cases. Of
its origin do now from time to time there need be no question ;
thus, it has been observed in a single individual of a ship's com
pany at sea off Cape Horn. The redness and swelling advance
witli a well-marked border from the wound or other starting-point
until they have invaded, it may be, a large cutaneous area. There
is exuded plasma in the spaces of the connective tissue, and there
are also nuclear cells (leucocytes) in the lymphatic spaces and vessels,
and in the tissue generally. An increase of the colourless cells in
the blood is also described. Since attention has been called to
the presence of minute living organisms in disease there have not
been wanting authentic descriptions of micrococci in the lymphatic
spaces of the advancing margin in erysipelas, although they are
said to be absent in the older areas of the inflammation, and during
the stage of subsidence generally.
In phlegmonous erysipelas the connective tissues to a consider- Plileg-
able depth beneath the skin are soaked in serous fluid, which be- inonoii
comes turbid, like thin pus ; at a later stage the lines of pus extend erysi-
in all directions along the tracts of binding tissue, fragments of the pelas.
latter being found as detached shreds in the larger purulent centres.
The skin, usually of a limb, may thus become involved over a large
area and to a great depth, considerable pieces of tissue falling at
once into a state of slough. The temperature is often as high as 105°,
and delirium, with other symptoms of nervous disorganization, is
common. Death from failure of the heart is probable. This dis
ease is the most extreme form of phlegmon, by far the most formid
able inflammation that exists. It is usually the sequel of a wound,
but not invariably. Chilliness and all the other symptoms of com
mencing fever precede the local phlegmon, so that the condition
is comparable to those errors in the regulation of the animal heat,
previously mentioned, in which the incidence falls upon a peripheral
part. That it is itself a local effect of general temperature disorder
cannot be maintained, inasmuch as there is usually nothing in the
antecedent circumstances to implicate directly the heat-regulating
centre. However, it is not the extent of the local injury that
serves to account for the inflammation, but the habit of body of
the patient, especially the drinking habit. It is not an overtaxed
heat-regulating centre that is implicated, but a nervous system
overtaxed in more general respects. A peripheral injury, not
necessarily a severe one, tells in an unusual way upon the unstable
centres, just as in tetanus ; and the outgoing response falls in a
peculiar way or with a peculiar force upon the wounded part, pro
ducing phlegmon there and fever generally. Whether the rise of
the body -temperature is mainly due to over -combustion within
the injured area is open to discussion. The connective tissue as
a source of heat has not hitherto come into our consideration ; if
it is to be regarded as a member of the heat-producing executive,
under the central nervous control, its membership is at least not
important except when the redness, swelling, heat, and pain of
inflammation arc present.
PATHOLOGY
399
pig-
in
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ii ion.
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e trol
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c ciou.
The same state of the tissues as in phlegmonous erysipelas is
brought about, all but the redness of the surface, by a very different
cause — the introduction of a minute quantity of venom, either the
cadaveric venom introduced in a dissection-wound or the venom
of the rattlesnake and adder. The bites or stings of many other
animals produce more transitory inflammatory effects.
In common inflammation, such as follows the lodgment of a
spicule of broken glass under the skin of the hand or arm (to bor
row Watson's illustration), there is first pain ; soon there is redness
around the point of entrance, with swelling and heat ; the skin
becomes of a bright-red colour ; the swelling increases, becoming
hard and firm at the centre of the inflamed area, and exquisitely tender,
or painful to the touch. If these local effects are at all considerable
(according to the nature and extent of the injury, and to the sus
ceptibility or habit of body of the individual) there is inflammatory
fever some hours later. At first there is usually chilliness and
feebleness, then there is a general feeling of heat and dryness, with
a quick, full, and hard pulse, headache, wandering pains in the
limbs, restlessness, some mental confusion, disturbed sleep, a white
tongue, thirst, and loss of appetite. If the piece of glass be removed
all these symptoms, local and general, may subside quickly. If the
source of irritation remain, or even, notwithstanding its removal, if
the primary shock has been severe, the symptoms conthme and
intensify. Relief to the constitutional disturbance comes with the
further developments in the injured area — with suppuration or, at
the latest, with the bursting or letting out of the matter. Healing
then proceeds as described under "repair."
This is the usual sequence of events in common inflammation,
in the inflammation of moderate degree in a healthy person. It
differs from erysipelas or phlegmon in the important respect that
the fever follows the local effects at an interval of several hours.
Where the injury is of the most violent kind, as in some machinery
accidents, neither the local effects nor the fever are pronounced ;
the "reaction " is said to be in abeyance, and death is apt to occur
from shock. In these cases the face is blanched, the action of the
heart and lungs feeble, and the mental faculties profoundly op
pressed ; the presiding control has been so upset by the injury to
even a limb that the forces of the body do not rally.
The heat of an inflamed part is not merely in the feelings of the
patient ; it is actually several degrees (up to 6° or 7° Fahr. ) higher
than the temperature of the part in health or of the corresponding
part on the opposite side, although it is never above the central
blood-heat of health. It is not solely dependent, therefore, on the
general state of fever. Neither can it be said that the general state of
fever is solely dependent on the increased local combustion. In
erysipelas, as we have seen, the general fever usually precedes the
local, and must depend upon some general error of heat-making.
Again, in a common inflamed wouncl, the general fever may, and
usually does, subside some time before the cellular changes in the
part, degenerative or formative or both, have passed their climax.
Implication of the Nervous Control in Inflammation. — From slight
inflammations, with little more than redness and pain at the seat
of injury, to the most shattering strokes there is a succession of
steps. The nervous system is implicated in them all, for the
reason that the nerves are everywhere, and everywhere ready to
transmit impressions to the centre. It is not surprising, then,
that in every doctrine of inflammation since the time of Cullen
the events have been largely traced to the direct action of the
nerves and nerve-centres. Amidst all the conflicting views taken
of the nature of inflammation in current writings, there is agree
ment on this point at least, that the nervous control has much
to do with it, — if not always the central control, yet some local
control whose existence would hardly be suspected but for the
phenomena of inflammation. The differences of opinion begin
when we come to the details of the nervous control. Does the
nervous system preside over the action of the vessels only, or
does it preside over the whole cellular life or the nutrition of the
part ? Opinions have had a tendency to range themselves on
two sides, corresponding in the main to the more mechanical or
to the more "vitalist" conception of life as a whole. The afflux
of blood, which every one recognizes as the first conspicuous event
in an inflamed part, has been attributed in the latter view to an
attraction exercised by the cells of the part, to a hunger for blood
comparable to that which causes a determination of blood in an
organ that is going to be physiologically active. "The facts,"
says Alison, " afford a strong presumption that the impressions
made on the capillaries, and on the blood contained in them, solicit
the flow through them on the principle of a vital attraction of the
blood rather than of relaxation of the vessels." This is the "soli
citation of fluids," the "movement of turgescence" or the "vital
erection of vessels " of the older authors. If the needs of nutrition
are the ordinary attraction, they may be simulated by such in
cidents as wounds, scalds, and the like ; and it is the peculiarity
of inflammation that the incidence of these is on a tissue whose
physiological interest is ordinarily of little or no account, namely,
the common binding tissue. It is with justice that Rindflcisch
emphasizes the intimate connexion between the common binding
tissue and the peripheral nerves and nerve-plexuses. " They run
exclusively in the connective tissue ; in it they divide and form
plexuses, which ultimately join, without any definite demarcation,
with the network of connective-tissue corpuscles. Their distribu
tion in the connective tissue designates these nerves for some de
finite function ; they are admirably adapted to play a part in the
general physical and chemical changes of the organs, to give in
formation of the same to the central nervous system through their
corresponding states of excitation. With the connective tissue
they participate in the most intimate structure of organs, with the
connective tissue they are stretched and pressed upon, with it also
they suffer those chemical excitations which any considerable accu
mulation of waste matters brings with it." Now, it is known from
numerous experiments that, if a nerve of common sensation be
stimulated, the outgoing response from the centre is by way of
removing the tonicity of the arteries of the part, so that they dilate
and transmit much more blood. This outgoing influence is assumed
to travel by a special set of fibres called, for convenience, " depressor
fibres," because the effect has been to take off the tonic contraction
of the arteries. The same effect is strikingly seen (although it is
there accompanied by a conscious mental state) in the rising wattles
of a cock, for which class of erectile effects the nerves are called
"nervi erigentes."
But if this kind of turgescence is the best physiological analogy
for the redness of inflammation it goes but a little way with us
into the morbid condition. The tonic contraction of the arteries
is no doubt taken off, and the vessels become distended with blood
passing through them ; but the next event is peculiar to inflamma
tion, — the current of blood becomes slower, slow even to a stop in
some of the numerous cross-channels of the capillaries. There is
nothing in the mechanics of the circulation to account for this
dallying of the blood at the seat of injury. The further discussion
of the subject will be made easier by a reference to slight degrees
of inflammation set up experimentally in transparent and delicate
parts where the process can be watched through the microscope, —
in a piece of frog's mesentery drawn out through an aperture of the
abdomen, or in the everted membrane -like tongue of the same
animal. When the microscope was first applied to the study of
inflammation these same effects were often observed by Paget and
Wharton Jones in the wing of the bat, an animal which has the
advantage of being comparatively warm-blooded.
Experimental Study of Inflammation. — The frog having been Experi-
paralysed by curare, a loop of the intestine is pulled out through a ment in
slit in the abdomen, and its mesentery stretched over a ring of intlam-
cork, so that the light may be reflected to it from the mirror of the matioii.
microscope. It hardly wants an irritant, such as a drop of weak
acid, to produce the inflammatory effects on this thin membrane ;
mere exposure to the air suffices. In ten or fifteen minutes the
arteries begin to dilate and then the veins, and the vessels go on
dilating for the next two hours, when they will have reached about
twice their ordinary calibre. They remain so dilated, and in an
hour or two the current of the blood becomes slower in them. In
the older observations on the bat's wing acceleration of the current
through the dilated vessels was first noted ; then came the transi
tion to the peculiar inflammatory action, namely, slowing of the
current, the vessels still remaining dilated. This slowing of the
stream is most obvious close to the injured point, where there may
be complete stagnation in the capillaries, the croAvded corpuscles
giving the central area a brilliant carmine appearance. Farther
away from this area the streams are more rapid ; and at the farthest
limits there is the unusually full and rapid flow of normal hyper-
remia. The fulness of these dilated vessels exhausts their elasticity,
so that the pulse-wave of the blood, which should be felt only in
larger vessels, becomes perceptible also in the smallest.
In the area of retardation in the frog the blood -disks and the
white corpuscles cling to the sides of the capillaries and small veins,
instead of forming, as usual, a procession in the central line of the
tube. Most of all do the colourless corpuscles adhere to the walls,
in the experiment on the frog, until they form a kind of outlined
mosaic on the side of the vessel. Then, if a particular spot be
watched for several hours continuously, it will be found that some
of these cells have actually worked their way slowly through the
wall of the small vein. This is the important phenomenon of emi
gration of the cells of the blood, known to Gendrin and W. Addison,
accurately followed by Waller, and rediscovered by Cohnheim.
Incontinence of the Vessel-walls. — The incontinence of the vascular Incon-
walls in inflammation is proved, not only by this emigration oftinence
cells from the small veins, but also by the escape of red blood-disks of vessel-
from the capillaries, and by the familiar and old-established fact walls,
of exudation of the fluid part of the blood, — the plasma or serosity.
In the words of Alison : "First, the surrounding textures are loaded
with a serous fluid ; but gradually changes take place in this fluid,
which indicate that other constituents of the blood have exuded
from the vessels ; or part of the fluid effused assumes a gelatinous
consistence, and forms flakes or layers which gradually become
solid. In the semi-fluid matter first effused, according to Gendrin
and others, decolorized globules of the blood may often be per-
PATHOLOGY
ceived ; and in many cases globules of pus, known by their larger
size and freer motion on one another (and, when observed in mass,
by their yellow colour), soon appear in this effused matter ; and it
assumes more or less rapidly, and more or less generally, the form
of purulent matter. . . . Along with the semi-fluid lymph effused
in the earlier stage of inflammation there is often extravasation of
the colouring matter of the blood, and sometimes of entire blood."
This, then, is the central fact of inflammation, — the incontinence
of the vessels and the exudation from them.
Addison adopted the theory that the pus of inflammation was
nothing but the colourless cells of the blood tliat had been washed
out with the plasma ; and that doctrine has been revived by
Cohnheim with little or no reserve. There have been serious
objections to this doctrine of the origin of pus ; practical surgeons
have always failed to understand how all the pus could come from
the blood, which has not only a mere trace of colourless cells in it,
but, moreover, contains neither more nor less of these cells during
suppuration than at other times. Again, in cases of leukaemia,
where the number of them is enormously increased, the course of
inflammation does not appear to be affected thereby. Lastly, it is
pointed out that we cannot infer altogether fully from the extremely
susceptible transparent membranes of the frog to the subcutaneous
and other connective tissues which are the usual seats of the in
flammations met with in practice. So far, then, we are justified
in admitting only the incontinence of the vessel-walls, the escape
of some colourless cells, and of plasma, the latter yielding fibrin
under some circumstances, in combination with the paraglobulin
and the ferment known to reside in the white corpuscles.
The cause of the incontinence of the vessel -walls naturally
engrosses attention. In an experiment of Cohnheim's a. similar
condition was produced in the vessels of the frog's tongue by liga
turing the tongue bodily at the root, so as to stop the circulation
in it altogether. If the ligature were kept on for six days the
tongue began to mortify, and the circulation showed no power to
re-establish itself; if it were removed after forty-eight hours the
current slowly resumed its flow, the arteries returned from their
dilated condition, but not the veins, and the colourless cells began
to escape from the latter ; on removing it after twenty-four hours
only, the circulation quickly resumed its normal course without
any transient emigration of cells. The conclusion was that the
walls of the vessels suffered a certain loss of " integrity " if the
circulation through them were stopped beyond a certain limit of
time, and this loss of integrity seemed to be analogous to the altera
tion of the vessel-walls under the blow of an inflammation. On
the other hand, it has been pointed out that not the vessel-walls
only, but the cells in closest proximity to and in intimate nutri
tive relation with them, are affected by the stroke of inflammation ;
where such cells have processes, and can be seen, they are found
to draw in their processes under an irritant. In the exposition of
Cohnheim, however, these changes in the cells of an inflamed part
are not admitted to be other than regressive or passive ; according
to him, the walls of the vessels only are affected, and affected in
their molecular constitution.
Suppura- Suppuration. — We have seen that there still remains the difficulty
tion. of accounting for the large quantity of pus ; and it will probably
be found that to account for the pus we shall have to ascribe a more
than passive attitude to the connective -tissue corpuscles of the
inflamed area. Where the suppuration is diffuse, as in phlegmon,
and still more where it is discontinuous, as in secondarily inflamed
lymphatic glands, it is not to be supposed that the pus is a mere
aggregate of blood -cells brought thither. Something from the
primary seat of inflammation has caused the more distant parts,
whether they be continuous or discontinuous, to take on the in
flammatory and suppurative action ; but it is quite clear, if we
examine a lymphatic gland beginning to suppurate, that its own
cells yield the pus. There has been an action of presence on the
parenchyma of the lymphatic gland ; and it will be difficult to
account for the production of pus in acute primary inflammation
without assuming the same action of presence. In inquiring after
the catalytic agent suspicion falls on the substances exuded from
the vessels, and mostly upon the emigrated colourless cells. Sup
puration, when it occurs, is subsequent to and secondary to the
exudation. When no suppuration occurs, as in what is called
(tdhcsive inflammation, which is the commonest kind on free sur
faces, the exuded blood-plasma simply coagulate!*, forming a fibriu-
ous layer, in the meshes of which are a larger of smaller number
of colourless blood -corpuscles. In the further development these
blood-cells are probably themselves the active elements ; they pro
duce the tissue of adhesions, which is a form of the tissue of repair.
In situations which are not free surfaces — that is to say, in the
subcutaneous tissue, or more generally in the tracts or planes of
the common binding tissue — the exuded substances are less apt to
coagulate or to take the adhesive fibrinous course. It is in these
deeper situations that we ordinarily get suppuration, an event
subsequent to exudation and undoubtedly dependent thereon. It
is true that "inflammation" may be excited on tlie surface of
articular cartilages and in the cornea, where there are no blood
vessels to yield an exudation ; but the inflammation is not of the
ordinary kind, and in particular there is no true suppuration until
the nearest blood-vessels have projected their system as far as, or
close up to, the irritated area. Artificial keratitis has been tho
chosen ground of controversy to determine whether it is the vessels,
or not rather the cells, of the part that are primarily and actively
concerned in the inflammatory process ; but it will probably be
found that the two sides of the controversy correspond to two dif
ferent sets of facts. The transparent superficial ulcer of the cornea
has hardly anything to do with inflammation ; it does not sup
purate, although there is some formative action in the cells of the
part to enable it to heal. Whenever there is true inflammation of
the cornea it is accompanied by or preceded by extension of the
nearest vessels to the transparent and non-vascular surface.
Changes in the Connective Tissue. — In the events of true inflam
mation, therefore, exudation from the vessels precedes suppuration ;
and it can hardly be doubted that they are cause and effect, to the
extent, at least, that exudation is a necessary antecedent. At the
same time the connective-tissue cells of the part can hardly have
escaped that molecular injury, or injury to their nutrition, which
the elements of the vascular wall would appear themselves to have
suffered ; they are, as Rindfleisch points out, intimately bound np
with the plasmatic circulation or the ultimate diffusion of the
juices ; they are in closest relation with the terminal nerve-plexuses ;
and, histogenetically, they are the remains of that "parablastic"
embryonic tissue from which the blood-channels themselves were
made. It would be surprising, indeed, if they escaped the shock
which had deeply affected the integrity of the cells in the vascular
wall. A concurrent alteration, at least, must be postulated for
them ; but that can hardly account for more than a preparedness
in them to form pus. According to Strieker, the elements of the
connective tissue revert to an embryonic character before pus is
formed from them. If the hardness of the central core of an inflam
mation under the skin be analysed, it will be found to depend, says
Strieker, upon the following things : the tissue is thickened, the
network of cells in it is swollen, the intercellular substance is re
duced, the network of cells has broken up into independent pieces
of nucleated protoplasm. This is the swelling of the tissues which
precedes abscess-softening ; it is essentially a return to a more pro
toplasmic and less fibrillar state, and accordingly to a more embryonic
state. Of this power of reversion to an embryonic state, which the
common binding tissue of the body retains as a memory of develop
ment, we have already had illustrations in the processes of repair,
of tumour formation, and of cancerous infection. In all these cases
the tissue falls back upon a more elementary condition, or we may
say that it retreats to broader ground, where, however, it cannot
stand still. Its special destiny is settled for it in each case by the
circumstances, and, for the particular case of inflammation (as dis
tinguished from the process of repair), its special destiny is to form
pus. If the analogy adduced in the section on "repair" has any
value, pus is the by-product of a kind of blood-making from the
embryonic cells, a ha-matoblastic activity in which no red disks are
formed, but only pus-corpuscles and a fluid, the corpuscles stand
ing for the residual nucleus of the hasmatoblast (with evidence of
cleavage in it) and the liquor pur 'is for both the red disks and the
plasma. This ha>matoblastic doctrine of pus would correspond, in
form at least, to Hunter's conjecture that " the new-formed matter
peculiar to suppuration is a remove further from the nature of the
blood." So long as the intensity of the process lasts, the connective
tissue uses its reacquired embryonic powers only to make pus ; when
the effects of the blow have subsided (or if they have been from the
first slight, as in the reparative process) the formative powers of
the tissue make granulation-cells and new blood-vessels (including
even new blood within the vessels), and so the incident ends in
repair. The pus of a granulating surface would thus differ from
the pus of acute inflammation only in degree. In like manner,
common inflammation with a moderate degree of fever differs only
in degree from phlegmon, or diffuse suppuration, with its peculiar
fever. The diffuse suppuration of phlegmon is the case where tho
infection or action of presence extends by continuity along tho
tracts of connective tissue ; the implication of lymphatic glands (it
may be at the outset) is the case where the infection is carried to
a distance by the lymph-drainage of the tissues. Contrasting with
such cases, the area of suppuration in a healthy subject (where there
has been no extrinsic poison introduced) is a limited one ; but,
however limited the focus, it seems necessary to resort to infection
of the connective tissue for an explanation if the exuded fluid turn
to pus or the inflammatory swelling turn to abscess. It is in this
sense that every inflammation may be said to be infective.
Assuming, then, that pus-formation is due to an infective influ
ence impressed upon the protoplasmic connective tissue, and know
ing, as we do, that the exudation from the blood-vessels is an invari
able antecedent, the role of infecting cells would precisely suit those
elements of the exudation about whose share in the inflammatory
process there has been much controversy, namely, the emigrated
colourless cells of the blood. As a material contribution to the
pus all the cells that escape from the blood would go but a little
PATHOLOGY
401
way ; as infecting cells they might be the agents of much suppura
tion, and, through their wandering propensities, of suppuration at
discontinuous points. They would thus have a power in inflam
mation analogous to that which has been claimed in a former sec
tion for catarrhal and other epithelial cells of a mucous membrane
(or of a gland) which had found their way into the supporting
connective tissue.
Among the things that determine the degree and course of an
inflammation, besides the kind and extent of the injury, may be
mentioned the florid or anaemic habit of body, the gouty habit, the
alcoholic dyscrasia, the diabetic cachexia, the scrofulous inherited
constitution, and the syphilitic taint. There are even cases where
the predisposing cause is, as it were, strong enough to dispense with
all but the slightest exciting cause ; where, accordingly, the inflam
mation would be called idiopathic. But, however much the "crasis "
of the blood or influence of the nerve -force may determine the
degree and kind of inflammation, it is clear that the stagnation of
the blood, the incontinence of the vessel-walls, the exudation, and
the suppuration may all follow an injury where the crasis and the
general nervous control are perfectly normal. The significance of
micro -organisms in the inflamed area must be judged from the
same point of view ; all the events of inflammation may happen
without them, but they may help to determine the kind and extent
of the inflammatory eil'ects. *
§ 15. — INFECTIVENESS.
One of the most dreaded results of a wound, or an
inflammation from other causes, happily rarer in modern
surgical practice than in former times, is pyaemia, septic
aemia, or purulent infection. About a week, more or less,
after the injury, the patient has a shivering fit followed
by a perspiration ; he may feel comparatively comfortable
for a time, but there soon begin to be grave symptoms
of constitutional disturbance. He becomes uneasy, has
pains in the limbs, a weak and quick pulse, fever, loss of
appetite and thirst, a dry and brown tongue, a somewhat
jaundiced skin, and sometimes diarrhoea. The shivering
fit returns at intervals followed by the sweating, the tem
perature rising to a great height and falling rapidly to
a corresponding degree. Death usually ensues, sometimes
not for two, three, or four weeks, being preceded by mut
tering delirium and unconsciousness. A curious symptom
accompanying these phenomena is the sweetish odour of
the breath. Meanwhile the wound, where there is one,
will have ceased to discharge pus freely, becoming dry
and brownish and yielding only a thin ichor ; at a dis
tance from the wound one or more joints may become
swollen and painful, or an abscess may form at one or
more points under the skin, or there may be pustules and
discoloured patches on the skin.
Vund- In the examination after death the secondary abscesses may be
ii ction. very various in their seat, oftenest perhaps in the lungs, under
certain circumstances in the liver, or in one or more joints, or in
the substance of the heart, or at the back of one or both wrists.
The parotid glands are peculiarly liable to diffuse secondary in
flammation. In a class of cases called septicremic for distinction,
no secondary inflammations or products of inflammation can be
discovered anywhere ; in these cases the periodical shivering fits
are not marked, although there may be profuse sweatings from
time to time. In another class of cases, to which Paget has called
special attention, the course of the disease is very protracted, being
marked by relapses from time to time ; and the chances of recovery
are found to be in proportion to the chronicity.
In the pathology of these cases attention has always been fixed
on the state of the veins leading from the wounded part, and of
the blood in them. The old doctrine was that the veins secreted
pus from their walls, which was carried into the blood - stream.
This pre-microscopic opinion has given way to the modern doctrine
of thrombosis and infective embolisms elaborated by Virehow.
Not only the veins leading from an external wound, but the veins
of the uterus after delivery, and other internal veins under various
circumstances, may become lined by a layer of coagulum, or even
blocked in their entire lumen ; the coagulum undergoes puriform
(although not purulent) degeneration ; pieces of it, or molecular
1 See Paget, Sury. Path.; Simon, "Inflammation," in Holmes's
Sijst. of Surg. , vol. i., 2d ed. ; Sanderson, ib., vol. v. ; Cohnlieim,
X'eue Untersuclmnyen iiber die Entziindung, Berlin, 1872 ; Strieker,
Dories, uber ally, und exper. Patholor/ie, Vienna, 1878-83, and in
Aslmrst's Internal. Encycl. of Surg., vol. i., Fliilad. audLond., 1882;
Van Buren, ibid.
particles of it, get washed off, carried into the blood-stream, and
lodged as emboia in the small vessels of a terminal vascular area
of the lungs or other organ or part, where an unhealthy form of
inflammation arises secondarily. These events will become more
intelligible by reference to a particular case.
A woman undergoes an operation for internal piles — saccular
dilatations of the inferior haanorrhoidal veins. The haemorrhoids
had been ligatured, and for some reason there ensues an altogether
unusual course of events. In a few days the patient has symptoms
of pyamiia, and death follows in a fortnight. At the examination
the inferior mesenteric vein, all the way up from its ligatured
inferior luemorrhoidal branch to where it joins the splenic on its
way to the liver, is found much dilated, lying along the left side
of the lumbar vertebrae as thick as the little finger, of a greyish
appearance externally, and filled with greyish puriform detritus.
In the liver, to which this vein conducts, there are a number of in
flammatory centres, some of them merely dark -red or livid circular
areas, others of them purulent centres or true pyamiic abscesses.
In this case the wall of the ligatured vein had taken on some
action which had affected the clot formed naturally within it ;
instead of the clot organizing, it had become a semi-iluid mass of
puriform. detritus ; it had extended by continuity far up the main
trunk of the inferior mesenteric vein, the puriform softening follow
ing it ; particles or larger pieces of this unnatural clot had passed
into the portal vein, and had become impacted in certain capillary
territories of the liver, where they had infected the elements of the
part (probably the connective tissue exclusively) to take oil an
inflammatory and suppurative action.
It is questioned by some whether there may not be a class of Infective
pyaemic and septicaemia cases in which no thrombosis (with puriform throru-
softening of the thrombus) of peripheral veins occurs ; but it can- bosis.
not be doubted that this kind of thrombosis, and the discharge of
particles or pieces of the thrombus into the general circulation,
are very general accompaniments of pyremia and septicaemia, puer
peral and other. The interest centres in the state of the vein-wall,
which causes the blood to clot within it, where it would not other
wise have clotted, and causes the clot to undergo a puriform
degeneration, or to acquire an infective power. The state of the
primary wound must be held answerable in general for all the
secondary events, from the thrombosis onwards. In the wound the
ordinary products of inflammation cease to be formed, and, instead
of them, there is an ichorous foul -smelling discharge, or a dry and
semi-gangrenous condition of the parts ; whatever this action may
be, it communicates itself to the walls of the vessels, and the throm
bosis (with detachment of the puriform particles) follows.
There are certain well-understood circumstances in which wounds
take on such an action : the crowding of a number of cases of
suppurating wounds in a limited space without adequate attention
to the removal of the putrid discharges from the wounds, great
nervous prostration of the subjects of wounds, the coexistence of
kidney-disease, and such-like constitutional states personal to the
case. The situation of the wound or exposed surface comes also
into account ; thus injuries of the bones (as in compound fractures),
and especially injuries of the cranial bones, arc more liable to take
the pyaemic direction. Above all, the surface of the uterus after
delivery, or contused wounds of the labia, or other lacerations, will
take on an unhealthy action, either from the circumstances of the
patient, or owing to a very minute quantity of infective substance
(cadaveric or other) having reached it from without, or from the
putrescence of portions of retained placenta. The liabilities of
child-bed are increased by the circumstance that the blood in the
puerperal condition is unusually liable to clot in the veins, even
when their walls are in good condition, and also by the fact that
the venous sinuses of the uterus after delivery are such as to afford
opportunities for stagnation of the blood in them (unless the vigor
ous contraction of the organ have practically obliterated them), in
which respect they resemble the venous sinuses of the dura mater.
Experimental Septicaemia. — The injection of small quantities of Experi-
putrid substance into the circulation in animals, such as the dog, mental
produces symptoms of septic poisoning corresponding somewhat to septic-
the symptoms as observed in practice. In this experimental septic- aemia.
aemia, as well as in the septic processes of man, there are many
facts to show that bacteria are concerned. How these micro-organ
isms are concerned is another and much more difficult question.
According to one view the lowered vitality of the tissues in a certain
class of injuries, or in the injuries of a certain class of subjects, gives
these ubiquitous organisms their opportunity. In this view the
organisms initiate nothing ; they are incidental to the morbid state
of the tissues, and their presence in large numbers is rather the
index of the liability to septic infection than the cause of any
septic infection that may occur. The most extreme claim made
for these organisms in purulent and septicsemic infection (as well
as in erysipelas, ulcerative endocarditis, and diphtheria) is that
their physiological activity (if not even their mechanical presence)
determines the nature of the morbid process, including the tissue-
changes, the type of constitutional disturbance, and, in general, the
development, course, and termination of the infection. In judging
XVIII. — 51
402
PATHOLOGY
between the two extreme positions it should be remembered that
there -is nothing morphologically distinctive in these organisms
found in diseased or injured tissues, that their so-called physio
logical activity in disease is merely begging the question, and that
their mechanical presence, even if they were always present in
sufficient numbers, has not yet been brought into any intelligible
relation with the symptoms and the morbid anatomy. On the
other hand, there cannot be the slightest doubt that one of the
greatest desiderata of surgical practice is to keep them out of
•wounds (see SURGERY).
Tumour- Tumour-infection. — This subject has already been treated of in
infection, the section on "cancer," but it will be convenient to add a few re
marks on the parallelism between tumour-infection and purulent
infection. In both cases we have a primary seat of morbid action
and a secondary infection, and in each case the seats of secondary
infection correspond on the whole closely. The closest correspond
ence is perhaps with sarcomatous tumours, which have the same
relation to veins that primary infective inflammations have, and the
same predilection for the lungs. Again, where the liver becomes the
seat of secondary tumours, the first steps of the process of infection
are on the whole parallel with those that may be observed in
multiple abscesses of that organ, that is to say, the liver-tissues
at a number of points undergo changes which are practically simul
taneous within a certain radius, leading to a circumscribed abscess
in the one case and to a circumscribed tumour -nodule in the
other. Both the abscess-area and the tumour-area may be found
at half-way stages of their development, the former being often
recognizable in the section of a pyremic liver as a somewhat livid
circular spot. In the tumour-process the morphological characters
are always very definite, and the exciting agent has plainly come
from the primary disease, carrying the structural marks of the pri
mary disease in it. The primary inflammatory process wants the
definite structural characters of the primary tumour-process, and
still more does it want the endless variety of the latter ; but it is
still a textural process of the body, and its secondary processes are
like it. The tumour-analogy, therefore, is strongly in favour of the
idea that purulent infection, and inflammatory infection in general,
has an autochthonous origin in the life of the cells and tissues.
Melan- Melanosis. — The term "melanosis" is used in pathology in at least
otic in- two distinct senses. It is applied, in the first place, to the general-
fection. ization or secondary extension of a primary tumour (usually sar
comatous), containing black or brown pigment ; and, in the second
place, it has reference to a remarkable generalization or widespread
deposition of black pigment in the bone-marrow and elsewhere in
the horse, particularly in those horses which are apt to lose what
ever hair-pigment they may have had. Each of these two very dif
ferent cases has its interest for general pathology.
The generalization of a melanotic tumour, even a very small one,
is one of the most remarkable facts of infection. It is not unfre-
quently seen in the case of the spindle-celled sarcomatous tumours
which grow from the pigmented connective -tissue cells of the
choroid tunic of the eye (not the choroidal epithelium of the
retina). In such cases the primary tumour is serious enough from
its pressure effects, but it is infinitely more serious from its infect-
iveness. The liver may be full of large tumour -masses, black
throughout or in part, and there may be other secondary growths
elsewhere. Even more striking is the generalization which is apt
to ensue from a subcutaneous melanotic sarcoma, or from a small
spot of pigmented new growth on the basis of an old pigmentary
mole, or noevus, or mother-mark (melanotic alveolar sarcoma). The
secondary tumours occur at other points under the skin, often
widely remote from the primary, and in the axilla, in the membranes
of the spinal cord, in the liver, in the lungs, and even on the serous
membranes. We have here to do with the ordinary considerations
of tumour -infection, as already spoken of; but the presence of
pigment in. the cells and partitions of the new growth raises a
further consideration. If we collect all the secondary tumours
from a case where infection has been extensive, and express from
them all the pigment, we should get a very considerable quantity,
perhaps half a pint, of a thick black fluid not unlike printers' ink.
The source of all this pigment has been perhaps a small speck of
melanotic tumour-tissue in the skin, or, to mention a particular
case, in the granulation-like tumour-tissue in the bed of the thumb
nail after an injury. How is it that from so small a source so much
of this black substance has been produced ?
The pigment is, of course, contained within the individual cells
of the secondary tumours ; these cells are a mimicry of the primary
tumour-elements, and, as they reproduce the form and size of these,
so also they reproduce their pigment -granules. So stated, there
is nothing remarkable in the quantity of black fluid that may
be collected from a case of generalized melanotic sarcoma. The
primary tumour impresses the type of its own life upon a number
of distant centres of cellular activity, so that these grow to be
tumours, their cells at the same time becoming each a laboratory for
the manufacture of pigment, extracting it from the blood for their
erratic purpose. The true suggestiveness of these events is really
in the way of analogy for another class of infections. It is often
said that, in an infection like smallpox, the virus must be an
independent living organism, because it multiplies within the
body during the evolution of the disease, the body which had
received a most minute quantity of virus becoming in its turn a
centre from which a thousandfold of the virus may issue. Hut, if
a small speck of melanosis may yield half a pint of inky fluid by
so impressing the cells of the body that they become so many
laboratories of black pigment, then we can understand how, in
smallpox, the cells of the skin at many points become laboratories
in like manner, not indeed yielding black pigment, but supplying
that which has to the primary contagion of a case of small
pox the same relation that the generalized pigment of nielanosis
has to the primary speck or nodule of pigmented spindle-celled or
alveolar sarcoma. It is not necessary n priori to go so far afield
as the ferment - action of living organisms for an analogy of this
thousandfold multiplication ; there is an analogy nearer home in
the marvellous metabolic capabilities of the body's own protoplasm.
Melanosis of the Horse. — It sometimes happens that we find, in Melan
the carcase of an aged grey or white horse which had been originally osis oi
brown or black or other shade of colour, that the marrow of all the horse.
bones in its body is changed into a uniform black inky pulp or
fluid, that the clusters of lymphatic glands are full of the same in
a drier form, and that there are black patches on the more exposed
parts of the mucous membranes. This remarkable malady is not
found except in horses whose coat had lost its originally abundant
hair-pigment. Trousseau and Leblanc, who investigated the facts
on a large scale at the Paris horse-knackers', were of opinion that in
every horse which had turned white, more particularly if it had been
originally black or brown or roan, the inguinal lymphatic glands
were full of black pigment ; and they concluded that the pigment
there deposited was the equivalent of the colouring matter that the
hair had lost, and that the blood being, as it were, overcharged
with colouring matter, had deposited pigment in unusual places.
It is difficult to suppose that the melanosis in these cases is
a mere quantitative equivalent of the pigment lost from the hair.
The pigment of melanosis is more probably a true metabolic pro
duct of cells ; and it is significant that it is most abundant, in
the horse, in the old seats of haemoglobin-formation, namely, the
red bone-marrow. The bone-mamnv (with other tissues as well)
takes on a pigment-making activity, coincidently with the blanch
ing of the horse's coat, and vicariously thereto. The melanosis of
the horse is a striking instance of a constitutional i/talad//, that
is to say, it illustrates the very important pathological doctrine
that an error in one part or function of the organism entails vital
consequences elsewhere.1
§ 16.— SPECIFIC INFECTIONS.
Infective disease of one kind or another stands for a
very large part of the total sickness and mortality of man
kind. It is entitled, therefore, to a larger space in a
nosological outline than a single section at the end of an
article. Each infective disease has to be considered by
itself, from the natural -history point of view, and the
salient facts of its history, geography, and ethnology, and
its other particular circumstances to be taken along with its
morbid anatomy and clinical history. It will be necessary,
for the present purpose, to adopt a much more restricted
programme, and to indicate little more than the place of
the specific infections in the general scheme of disease.
Of diseases that have the property of infectiveness we
have already dealt with cancers and other malignant
tumours, and with the common infective inflammations.
Reference has also been made to erysipelas, which is
sometimes not merely infective as regards the individual
body in which it arises, but a source of infection (or
contagion) also for other bodies through conveyance of
a virus. In the communicable class of infections we
have to include so ordinary and simple a malady as a
common cold, which is notoriously apt to go through a
whole household, having been acquired in the usual way
by some one member of it. The great historical epidemics
of influenza which have overrun whole continents from
time to time are held by some to be little else than colossal
1 See Virchow, Gesammelte Abhandl. cms clem Gebiete dcr wissensch.
Med., Frankfort, 1856, Cellular - pathologic, chaps, x. and xi., and
Krankliaften Geschwiilste, vol. i. chap. 3, and vol. ii. (" Melanosis ") ;
Billroth, AUgemeine chirurgische Pathologic, 8th ed., Berlin, 1876
(Engl. transl., New Syd. Soc., 2 vols., 1877); R. Koch, Actiologie
cler Wundinfections-Krankheiten, Leipsic, 1878 (Engl. transl., New
Syd. Soc., 1880).
PATHOLOGY
403
developments of those catarrhal epidemics which we meel
with on a homely scale within single households. Another
example of the same kind of communicability of a simple
catarrhal affection of a mucous membrane is the Egyptian
form of "cold in the eye" or ophthalmia, which was
brought to England by a few of the troops returning from
the expedition of 1801, and which spread by contagion
for several years through the home-garrisons with a viru
lence quite unknown in the Egyptian climate, so that
more than two thousand soldiers had to be pensioned for
total blindness due to it.
lies In such instances a common and, it may be, trivial
1 s" malady becomes a species of disease ; it acquires the
remarkable power of reproducing itself in persons who
had not been exposed to the primary exciting causes.
Not one in a hundred of the soldiers who were blinded by
ophthalmia during the first ten years of the century had
ever been in Egypt, just as, in a household where catarrh
has become prevalent, perhaps not more than one member
of it had sat in a draught, or been caught in the rain, or
otherwise been subject to the conditions that ordinarily
bring on a common cold. It is the acquired catarrhal
condition that spreads from person to person, being faith
fully reproduced in each new victim. The morbid con
dition becomes a kind of individual thing, of which the
seminal particles are scattered abroad and induce the same
morbid condition where they find a favouring soil or a
favourable lodgment.
If all the instances of infection could be reduced to the
same category as these, we should simply have to regard
the specific infective diseases as the spreading or com
municable forms of morbid conditions of the body other
wise accounted for — as states of disease leading a kind of
independent life, but traceable in the last resort each to
its origin in certain structural and functional errors of the
body. The great problem of the species of disease would
thus become an evolutional problem. While this evolu
tional problem would always have underlying it the unique
difficulty of conceiving how a morbid state of the body
could be integrated to become a semi-independent exist
ence, with the power of reproducing itself by its germs
as in the generation of living things, the interest for each
specific disease would be to follow up, historically, geo
graphically, ethnologically, sociologically, and otherwise,
the conditions of body out of which the complex natural
history of the disease-species had grown.
Proceeding, then, in the natural -history manner, and
attempting, in the first instance, a grouping of the species
of disease, the broad lines of division are into the chronic
and the acute, and, among the acute themselves, into exo
genous and endogenous.
*:en- Acute Infective Diseases — Exogenous and Endogenous. — The endo-
i mil genous species of disease are those in which the infecting particles
|cgen- pass directly from the sick body to the sound, giving rise in the
i .cute latter to a morbid state which follows the same order of unfold-
•ses. ing, and attains the same type as in the former. The exogenous
species of disease are those in which the infecting or germinal
particles have an intermediate state of ripening in the soil, or in
water, or amidst other favouring conditions, producing a definite
set of morbid phenomena in the exposed body, but a set of pheno
mena which may be, and often are, different in important respects
from those of the primarily-ailing subject. These contrasts between
the endogenous and the exogenous infections may be illustrated
by a reference to smallpox on the one hand and to cholera on the
other. Any person whose skin is covered with the drying crusts
of smallpox pustules may give off infecting particles which will
set up the same disease if they find a lodgment in a susceptible
person, the contagiousness of such a case of smallpox being some
what heightened, no doubt, by a close atmosphere and the like.
But for cholera, speaking generally, much more than this is wanted
for the development of the communicated disease ; the infecting
particles have in most cases to undergo an intermediate stage of
ripening in the soil or in other outside media. Yellow fever is
even more than an exogenous infection ; it is also vicarious, inas
much as, over and over again, it has been from the emanations of
dysenteric dejecta of the negro (who can hardly take yellow fever),
and not necessarily from the effluvia of pre-existing yellow fever
cases, that the infective power has proceeded. The vicariousness
of yellow fever brings it into close relation with typhus fever, which Typhus
is not otherwise counted as an infection of the exogenous group, fever.
No attempt to trace all cases of typhus to pre-existing cases of the
same fever can possibly succeed ; the succession has been broken
repeatedly, and repeatedly started anew, amidst well-known circum
stances of cold, hunger, filth, and general misery. In the larger
proportion of typhus cases it is the miserable themselves who have
suffered from the disease in addition to their other miseries ; but
there are numerous classical instances in which the more wretched
of mankind have imparted typhus to their more comfortable fellows
without themselves exhibiting the symptoms of the disease. The
best-known historical cases are the Black Assizes, when prisoners
who were brought into court from filthy dungeons so tainted the air
of the court-house that the judges, the members of the bar, the
jurymen, and the public were seized with a virulent typhus infec
tion. If, in such cases, it should be contended that the prisoners
carried the specific effluvia of typhus about their persons, although
they themselves did not suffer with the specific symptoms of the
fever, there are other cases where such a contention is entirely in
admissible. Perhaps the most remarkable of these is the case of
the Egyptian ship-of-war which brought an epidemic of typhus to
Liverpool in 1861. (Epidcm. Trans., i. p. 246, 1862.) More usually,
however, it is the miserable themselves who first develop this morbus
miserix, afterwards communicating it to the physicians and others
who enter their dwellings or otherwise come near them. The de
novo development of the symptoms of typhus, and subsequently of
the independent contagion of typhus, has been abundantly illus
trated in the naval and military history down to the close of the
Napoleonic wars. The writings of Huxham, Lind, Pringle, D.
Monro, Blanc, and others, who served in the great typhus period,
are full of evidence of that kind ; the doctrine of the continuous
reproduction of the typhus virus always from pre-existing cases is
a purely academical affair, which dates from the ingenious dialectic
of Bancroft's Essay on the Yellow Fever, &c., 1811. The rational
doctrine of this kind of infective disease, based upon the practical
experience of all times, is that which is stated by Pliny : ' ' Prime,
temporis ac loci vitio, et segri erant et moriebantur ; postea, curatio
ipsa et contactus rcgrorum vulgabat morbos " (xxv. 26).
Relapsing Fever. — Closely related to typhus in the circumstances Relaps-
of its origin is relapsing fever, which has extremely slight power of ing fever,
spreading among the well-to-do. Its synonym of famine fever is on
the whole a sufficiently accurate designation of its circximstances of
origin. Its more recently -acquired synonym, spirillum fever, is
derived from the presence in the blood of a minute spiral living
organism, as to which the standing question arises whether it is
there because the particular state of fever is favourable to it, or
whether the fever is there because the organism has, for some
reason, invaded the body. Here, again, the conflict arises between
academical dialectic and the more tangible facts of experience. It
is maintained that relapsing fever can be given to the monkey by
injecting the spirilla ; but that circumstance by no means serves
to show that the pre-existing cases of relapsing fever had occurred
because spirilla had invaded the bodies of a certain number of
persons. Relapsing fever is sometimes, though rarely, conveyed
by infection to those who had not been living in a state of over
crowding and of semi-starvation ; and such an incidence of the
disease is so entirely arbitrary that even the spirilla, if they came
from other cases, might be accepted as the active agents. The
spirilla would have a real interest if it could be shown that they
could initiate relapsing fever proprio motu. As the case stands,
the predisposing causes of relapsing fever completely overshadow all
other elements in the causation. The disease is always and every
where morbus pauper um, and very often it is typhus famelicus.
Typhoid fever. — This fever holds a peculiar place in the history of Typhoid,
specific diseases. It is unquestionably a far more common disease
at present than it was fifty years ago, and it is certain that it was
prevalent in Paris for some time before it began to occur, except as a
rarity, in London and Edinburgh. The evidence of Christison and
of other highly observant pathologists may be implicitly accepted
ihat, while Louis and others in Paris were finding ulceration of
;he small intestine in fatal cases of typhus -like fever, no such
esion was ordinarily found in the Edinburgh practice. More
generally, it may be said that typhoid fever has been a prominent
'actor in the mortality during the periods when typhus has been
an insignificant one. The coincidence of decided typhoid years
with the cholera years is perhaps irrelevant. But there can be
'ittle doubt that there is a close connexion between the rise of
;yphoid and the more or less considerable diminution of intermit-
;ent fever ; there is indeed much evidence in a certain number of
ocalities in favour of the opinion of Boudin, that malarial fever and
;yphoid fever are mutually exclusive in a given place.
Typhoid fever is undoubtedly a disease associated with the
nanner of disposal of human excrement. Whether the typho-
404
PATHOLOGY
malarial fever of the American Civil War, and of Rome, Naples, and
other localities, is also an excrementitious infection is not so clear.
The ordinary typhoid is peculiarly bound up with the modern
system of water-closets and sewers, and with the faulty construc
tion of the same ; it was a familiar observation in Edinburgh that
the Old Town, with its closes and huge tenement-houses, without
the water-closet system, remained practically free from typhoid for
many years after the disease began to be common in the New
Town. The association with faulty sewerage is, however, not an
invariable one. The disease occurs among remote and primitive
communities, such as Norfolk Island in the Pacific, in Fiji, in
Greenland, and elsewhere.
According to the contention of Murchison, and of many other
living authorities, typhoid fever may, and often does, develop dc
novo in an individual who has received, either by the breath or in
his food or drink, some peculiar or not altogether ordinary product
of focal decomposition. It is not alleged by this school that
faecal decomposition under ordinary circumstances (especially under
the free access of air) is attended with the risk of typhoid fever ;
but that a virulent property may, and often does, develop under
some peculiar concurrence of circumstances, especially when faecal
matters percolate and accumulate where little air reaches. If the
process of typhoid fever be so induced in an isolated case, the de
jecta of the patient are specifically virulent ; and from one such
case many may be poisoned by means of specifically tainted water
or milk distributed in common. The possibility of a dc novo origin
of typhoid fever now and then is vehemently objected to by the
more doctrinaire school of pathologists ; according to them there
is always a pre-existing case, the virus of typhoid having been
continuously reproduced ab ceterno.
The Exanthemata. — Another class of acute infections is those
which are virtually independent of external circumstances, which
affect all classes equally, and which pass by direct contact from
the sick to the sound. The chief diseases of this class are small-
Small- pox, measles, and scarlet fever. As to smallpox, it has been con-
pox, tended, on the historical and geographical evidence, that it is
primarily an African and Indian skin-disease which has acquired
spreading power ; and there is really no rival hypothesis of its
Measles origin. For measles the evolutional clue would appear to be en
tirely lost. The old notion about it, expressed in the name " mor-
billi," was that it corresponded to a lesser kind of smallpox.
There can be no doubt, however, of its present absolute nosological
distinctness. It is as universal in its distribution as smallpox,
sparing no race, and, like smallpox, committing its greatest
ravages among virgin communities and among the dark-skinned.
Scarlet The natural history of scarlet fever is altogether different. It is
fever. peculiarly a disease of northern Europe ; it is practically unknown
as an epidemic throughout the whole continent of Asia (except
Asia Minor), and the whole of Africa (except Algiers) ; and in
North and South America and Australasia it seems to have fol
lowed the European immigration. One of the most remarkable
facts concerning it is that it may occur in quite sporadic or isolated
cases in extra- European countries. Some favourable concurrence
of circumstances had given it a permanent hold in Europe, or had
enabled an occasional erythema of the skin, with fever, to develop
into a species of disease, in which the almost diphtheritic affection
of the throat, the brawny swelling of the neck (with tendency to
sloughing), and the acute affection of the kidneys may be so pro
nounced in certain individuals, and in all the cases of certain
epidemics, or of the epidemics of certain localities, that the simple
type of disease is obscured and the line of evolution lost. Perhaps
one clue to the development of scarlatina from non-specific states
of the body may be found in the cases of scarlet rash in children,
in the surgical wards of hospitals. The evidence seems to show
that in such cases there is something different from a merely
heightened predisposition to the specific scarlatinal poison, on the
supposition that the latter is ubiquitous ; that there is, in fact, an
inherent liability in some children to develop a scarlet rash, with
fever, near a wound or sore, the condition so developed becoming
communicable to others, as in the analogous case of erysipelas.
Syphilis. Chronic Infective Diseases. — The greatest of the chronic infections
is syphilis, unless, indeed, we admit tubercle unreservedly into the
same class. Its enormous prevalence in modern times dates, with
out doubt, from the European libertinism of the latter part of the
15th century. It is almost certain that the same disease, with
symptoms of constitutional infection, had developed in various
parts of the ancient world under similar circumstances ; but it is
not less certain that a great redevelopment came in about the year
1490 in France, Italy, and Spain, so that we do not even require
to assume a continuity of the virus from earlier times. The his
torical evidence may be read, in a convenient abridgment, in the
third volume of H;iser's Gcschichte der Mcdicin und dcr cpidcrnischcn
Krankheiten.
Two forms of sore are described concurrently in all writings upon
syphilis, and, although it has been usual during the last thirty years
to regard only one of these as truly syphilitic, there has always been
a certain inability in the profession at large to apprehend the reason
for making a radical distinction. One of the forms is a considerable
and quickly-developed ulceration, sometimes multiple and with a
marked tendency to extend its borders ; it heals under treatment,
like any other ulcer, and in many cases there arc no after-effects
throughout the body generally. The same person may develop
such sores repeatedly. For a considerable time after the establish
ment of the doctrine of " true " or indurated infecting sore it was
taught that these simple ulcers were never followed by constitu
tional infection ; but it is now very generally admitted that ;-iu-h
teaching is too rigid or dogmatic, not according with the facts of
experience. A recent writer on the subject in Berlin, who has kept
records of his private practice, estimates that no fewer than 40 per
cent, of all the cases which developed constitutional symptoms
were consequent on primary ulcerations that would not have been
included in the definition of " true " or Hunterian sores. It is not
seriously disputed that these simpler ulcerations may arise inde
pendently of conveyance, as the direct results of gross personal
negligence. It is at the same time admitted that they may become
inveterate, that the process of healing may become irregular, and
that they may gradually acquire that character of " induration "
which is distinctive of the "true" sore. The various circum
stances under which this change of type or development of char
acters may take place have, for obvious reasons, escaped being
recorded with scientific accuracy ; but of the fact of some such
evolution there can be hardly any doubt.
The "true" or Hunterian sore is usually at first a small indurated
papule, which breaks after a time, but causes little trouble in heal
ing. The after-effects are, in their severity and long-continuance,
in striking contrast to the disease at the outset. This form of
the disease is an affair of infection from beginning to end, from
the primary papule to the "gummatous" internal nodules years
after ; there is no evolution in the individual of an infective virus
out of a common and unclean ulceration. The simple sore, the
result of common inflammation under circumstances of gross per
sonal negligence is not without a degree of infectiveness of its own.
It has a tendency to spread, to enlarge its borders by including
the margin of sound tissue in the ulcerative process, and it has
also a tendency to infect the nearest packet of lymphatic glands
with a suppurative action. Further, it is highly communicable to
the persons of others by contact, reproducing one or more sores
very like itself, and such communication is accountable for its
wide distribution. But that degree of infectiveness is a very dif
ferent thing from the true and full syphilitic infection. The
latter is often an affair of years, and, it may be, of a lifetime,
and it passes directly to the offspring. Its earlier constitutional
manifestations are in the throat, the skin, and the hair ; its later
in the bones, some muscular structures and some of the viscera,
and more particularly in their blood-vessels, or in the blood-vessels
of their coverings. It infects the lymphatic glands with an indura-
tive rather than a suppurative process, and not only the nearest
packet of them but also the lymph -glands in the neck and else
where.
In seeking for the beginnings of this profound constitutional
taint, for the first steps in the evolution of the infection out of a
common morbid state of the body, we naturally arrive at that
irregular process of healing, or the inveterate soreness which the
granulations of a simple ulcer (due to personal unclean ness or con
tact with the same) sometimes assume. The tissue of syphilitic
formations, wheresoever occurring, has been named by V ire-how
"granuloma," being a persistent state of granulation -like tissue,
not proceeding to ordinary cicatrization, but to indurative and
degenerative changes. In true syphilis,, as we have said, this kind
of formation is from first to last the product of an infective virus,
equally the primary hard papule, the indurated lymph-glands, the
thickening and destruction of mucous surfaces, the nodes and
inflammatory products in the periosteum, and the guminata in and
upon the viscera. But the type of all this mimetic formative action
must have been somewhere acquired or evolved ; and we shall prob
ably not err if we seek for the acquisition of the granulomatoua
type in the inveteracy and irregular healing of the granulations of
an ordinary foul sore under the peculiar circumstances of its own
degree of local infectiveness, and in the continuous reproduction of
such sores. In this way we should have granulations becoming
specifically infective towards the body, or its distant parts, just as
the products of simple acute inflammation may be infective to a
distance, or as rnelanotic and other slight primary tumours are apt
to propagate their texture and characters far and wide, or even as
a common granulating sore under certain circumstances of irritation
may develop the characters of tumour-tissue and a high degree of
tumour-infectiveness. The products of syphilis have a near affinity
to new growths of the tumour kind ; and it is with justice that
Yirchow includes them among tumours as one of the gramilomata,
and Klebs makes provision for them, along with tubercle, glanders,
lupus, &c., in a class of "infective tumours." If we take the
primary type to be the granulation-tissue of repair we shall assign
it an intermediate position, and, at the same time, do justice to the
circumstances in which this infective granulation-like new growth
PATHOLOGY
405
probably had its origin, namely, the reparative process in inveterate
or neglected ulcers of common and every -day origin, but with a
contagiousness of their own, and with a certain infectiveness of
their own towards the adjoining tissues and the nearest packet of
lymphatic glands.
The most characteristic form of the generalized syphilitic infec
tion, which may not manifest itself for several years after the
reception of the virus, is a nodular or infiltrating new growth in
various organs — in the liver, in the testes, in or upon the brain,
in the muscles (tongue and jaw -muscles especially), in the peri
osteum, and in the lungs. These nodules are called gummata from
the somewhat tenacious, firm, opaque brownish appearance of the
fresh-cut surface. The structure, where its vascularity is perfect,
consists of small round cells lying mostly in rows among thin
fibres, and it closely resembles granulation - tissue, only that the
cells are smaller and the intercellular substance (fibres) harder or
denser. Molecular death, or ^necrosis, overtakes this new forma
tion at various central points, owing to the inadequacy or suppres
sion of the blood-supply. One of the most remarkable features of
the process is the enormous overgrowth of cells in the inner coat
of the arteries within the affected area, leading to an accumulation
of elongated cells and intercellular substance, which may even
obliterate the channel of the vessel altogether.
Over the later products of syphilitic infection, both the nodular
and the infiltrated, there are two drugs, mercury and iodide of
potassium, which have a remarkable power, causing their absorp
tion and conducting the infective process to a safe issue. Syphilis
has been compared by Hutchinson to a very prolonged fever, with
its stages separated by intervals of months ; like a fever, it burns
itself out, so that a time comes in the course of years, if the patient
have not succumbed to the effects, when the system is practically
free of the virus, just as it is free of the virus of smallpox in three
weeks. In a certain proportion of cases only the secondary symp
toms occur, and not the tertiary, the virus having presumably
exhausted itself in the earlier manifestations.
In the syphilis of the offspring it is necessary to distinguish two
classes of effects. On the one hand, there are the effects of general
intra-uterine mal-nutrition, due to the placental syphilis of the
mother ; and, on the other hand, there are the true specific effects
acquired by inheritance from either parent and conveyed, along
with all other inherited qualities and tendencies, in the sperm-
elements or in the ovum. These two classes of effects are com
mingled in such a way as not to be readily distinguished ; but it
is probable that the erroneous growth of bone, at the epiphysial
line in the long bones (sometimes amounting to suppuration), and
on the surfaces of the membrane-bones of the skull, is a result
of general placental mal-nutrition, like the corresponding errors of
growth in rickets. The rashes and fissures of the skin, the snuffles,
and such-like well-known symptoms in the offspring of syphilitic
parents are to be counted among the true mimetic effects of the
specific taint ; so also the peculiar nuclear overgrowth in the sup
porting tissue of the liver, the interstitial pneumonia alba of the
lungs, and the like. As in rickets, it is in many cases some
months after birth before the congenital syphilitic effects show
themselves, while other effects, such as interstitial keratitis, the
mal-formations of the permanent teeth, and the rarer occurrence of
laryngitis, come to light during childhood and youth. Injury to
a syphilitic child is apt to have unusual consequences ; thus a
blow on the arm may be followed by a gummatous growth in one
of the muscles.
nrcle Tubercle and Scrofula. — Tubercle and scrofula are among the
i ;cro- commonest and most fatal diseases of mankind. No chapter in
il pathology has a more pressing interest ; none is surrounded by so
much theoretical difficulty, or concluded by so much practical
failure. It is not only in Europe, but in America and the British
colonies, as well as throughout the whole inter-tropical zone, that
this remarkable wasting disease is found. The most considerable
degree of immunity is said to be in Iceland and on the Asiatic
steppes. While the mortality from this disease is very great, in
some European countries amounting to one-seventh of the death-
rate, and that, too, among the youth and flower of the people, there
is everywhere evidence that a very much larger proportion had
incurred a slight degree of the malady and had survived it.
Nothing is more common in the course of post-mortem examinations
than to find traces of " obsolete tubercle " in the lungs and lymph
atic glands. Cohnheim recalls with some approval a saying that
used to be current at Greifswald, that almost every one proved to
have been " a little bit tuberculous " ; and Rindfleisch bases his
pathology of the disease on the assumption that a tuberculous dis
position has become practically universal throughout the human
stock, so that inflammations, under certain aggravated circum
stances, may light up the disease in almost any one. It is peculiarly
common in prisons, barracks, and workhouses ; and, in the last-
mentioned, tubercle and scrofula are not rare among the aged.
There are instances within the knowledge of most people where the
marriage of first cousins, and still more certainly of double cousins,
has been followed by a very pronounced consumptive tendency in
the offspring, even if there had been no very clear history of con
sumption on either side before. No disease runs more in families
than tubercle. While there arc all these evidences of a widespread
constitutional liability to tubercle, it is at the same time clear that
the victims of the hereditary taint are only here and there, — perhaps
one out of a large family, or one member of a family in childhood
and another in the second half of life, according as they had been
exposed to sufficient exciting causes. In the most extreme cases
of heredity, which are not so rare but that one or more are familiar
to every circle, the members of a family fall into consumption one
after another as they grow up, as if by an inevitable fate.
The relation of scrofula to tubercle is a subject of much intricacy.
The familiar instances of scrofula are the enlarged clusters of lymph
atic glands of the neck in boys and girls, who are either of the fair
and delicate type or of the dark and coarse type. Another large
class of scrofulous cases are subject to white swellings or other
chronic diseases of joints, usually the knee, hip, or elbow. But
many slighter conditions, such as eczema of the head and face in
children, are set down to scrofula. Again, serious visceral disease
leading to a fatal result, especially in the kidneys, testes, ovaries,
and bladder, is for some reason reckoned scrofulous rather than
tubercular. But this latter class of cases is certainly tubercular,
as much as anything can be said to be tubercular. A great part of
all that is reckoned scrofulous may be said to be inherited tubercle,
affecting the lymphatic glands of the neck most conspicuously,
running a very chronic course, often disappearing at puberty, and
associated with a delicate skin, fair hair, large eyes, and other
features of a well:known type. Of the cases of scrofulous disease
in the genito-urinary system and in the joints there may be some
in which the disease had been inherited, but there are others in
which it had been acquired. The senile scrofula of workhouses
and the like is almost certainly an acquired condition. Whether
as an inherited disease or as an acquired, scrofula can be separated
from tubercle by no very definite line.
Tubercle, as the name implies, is a small tuber or round nodule;
the nodules are often "miliary" or the size of millet-seed. For
the variety of diffuse or " infiltrated " tubercle, which is often found
in the lungs, it has been made a question whether it should be
reckoned as tubercle at all, by reason of its wanting from first to
last the character of distinct small nodules. Tubercles are some
times large, especially the tubercles of the genito - urinary organs
and of the brain ; and these are generally made up of a number of
smaller nodules fused together, and surrounded by a common cap
sule. The larger tubercular masses, or conglomerates of tubercles,
are those that have been claimed as in a peculiar sense scrofulous.
The fusion of numerous small tubercular centres into one large area
can often be seen in lymphatic glands in all its stages under the
microscope. The prevalent modern opinion is that all these vari
ous manifestations are due to the infective action of a virus, just
as in syphilis ; and, as the effects of the syphilitic virus include
not only gummatous nodules but also " inflammations "of the skin,
mucous membranes, periosteum, and other textures, so the effects
of the tubercular virus include not only "tubercles," properly so
called, but also a variety of diffuse " inflammatory " conditions.
The most common seat of the tuberculous process is the lungs, so
that tubercle and phthisis pulmonalis have almost come to be
synonymous. In a certain proportion of cases the tubercles and
tuberculous "infiltrations" are found in the lungs only; but in
many cases the pulmonary tuberculosis is only a part of a general
infection which includes the serous membranes and lymphatic
glands, the intestine, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, the brain-
membranes, the choroid coat of the eye, the bones, and the joints.
Cases have been described also of tuberculous ulcers of the tongue
and stomach, and of tubercles in and around the thoracic duct.
On the assumption that tubercle is due to an introduced virus, it
has been attempted to classify the cases according to the probable
way of ingress of the virus ; those with the pulmonary condition
most prominent would have received the infection with the breath,
while another class, including the numerous cases where miliary
tubercles are found in the liver when carefully looked for with the
microscope, would have absorbed the virus along with the food
from one part or another of the digestive mucous membrane ; the
tuberculous kidney (with ureters and bladder), again, would be
explained on the hypothesis of that organ attempting to eliminate
the virus from the system. But even among the pulmonary cases
there are some in which the tubercles had arisen from infection
brought by the venous blood, just as in the dissemination of sarco-
matous tumours ; it has been shown by the very elaborate dissec
tions of Weigert that tubercles may grow into the walls of veins,
the tuberculous substance so getting carried into the blood-current,
wherein the first resting-place would be the pulmonary capillaries,
except when the vein was tributary to the portal system.
It is difficult to say what is the most characteristic structure of
a tubercle. In the class of small grey translucent tubercles, all
the same (miliary) size, the cells are practically granulation-cells ;
these are not uncommon in childhood and youth, where the attack
is sudden and the progress ra'nd. In another kind, which Kind-
406
PATHOLOGY
fleisch would regard as distinctively "scrofulous," the substance is
opaque and yellowish-white ; there are many epithelial-likc cells,
or cells with a considerable zone of protoplasm round the nucleus,
and, mixed with these, giant -cells or cells with many nuclei,
usually marginal. Except in the most acute cases of miliary
tuberculosis, the new formation, whether in the shape of isolated
nodules or continuous tracts of " infiltration," undergoes changes.
Sometimes it becomes a fibrous substance, but by far the most
common change is into a yellow cheesy matter. This degeneration
is comparable to the gummutous change in syphilitic formations,
but in tubercle the degenerate tissue is much less cohesive, more
friable, drier, more apt to fall into a molecular detritus. The
caseous change is the distinctive degeneration of tubercle, the more
occasional fibrous and calcareous changes being either its associates
or its mollifications. The reason of this change is the insufficient
blood-supply of the new formation. Nothing so clearly accounts
for the structural as well as the degenerative characters of tubercle
as growth of tissue without adequate provision for admitting the
blood into it.
Dovine Bovine Tubercle. — In the corresponding disease of the domesti-
tubercle. cated bovines — a very common disease of cows in town dairies — the
characters of the new formations are equally determined by the kind
and degree of blood-supply. In this form of tubercle the nodules
are, in the first instance, on the serous membranes of the thorax
and abdomen ; they often attain a considerable size, and sometimes
the size of quite large tumours ; the vascularity of their surface is
very considerable, and it is around their periphery that they grow,
as in the case of sarcomatous tumours ; but the- blood-vessels do
not go all through the nodules, their central parts being either
calcareous, or caseous, or reduced to a thick riiortar-like substance.
The chief differences between this form of tubercle and the varieties
ordinarily met with in man are that it is a more vascular structure,
more like a sarcomatous or fibromatous tumour, with a power of
growth from its surface (where the vessels are numerous), and some
times attaining a great size, often suspended from the serous mem
brane by a vascular stalk or pedicle, and, in the interior of organs
such as the lung, surrounded by a translucent capsule of vascular
tissue, or excavated into a smooth-walled cavity, the thick trans
lucent capsule being all that remains of the original nodule.
The origin of these peculiar multiple new formations in the
domesticated bovines is a more likely subject of inquiry than the
origin of human tubercle. The bovine disease is generally admitted
to have its nodules referable to two distinct classes — primary and
secondary: the primary are the multiple nodular tumour -like
growths of the serous membranes, and the secondary are the in
fective descendants of these in the lymphatic glands, the lungs, the
liver, spleen, kidneys, Fallopian tubes, bones, and joints. The
secondary infectiveness of primary new growths is otherwise intel
ligible, according to analogies, and the interest therefore centres
in the conditions of origin of the primary, parent, or infecting
growths on the serous membranes. They occur by far most fre
quently in the cows of town dairies, that is to say, in animals
closely confined for long periods, deprived of pure air and sunlight,
forced in their feeding and milking, and altogether placed under
such conditions of nutrition as commend themselves, not to an
intelligent acquaintance with ruminant requirements, but to the
-short-sighted maxims of profit and loss which govern the policy of
the cowkeeper. The vicissitudes of nutrition are pretty clearly
indicated as the starting-point of tubercle in the cow.
In human tubercle we have no such indications of a division into
primary new formations arising out of errors or vicissitudes of
nutrition in some tissue, and into secondary new formations due to
the infectiveness of the primary. On the other hand, the various
new formations in a case of tubercle in man would appear to be
co-ordinate, or all of them due to a common cause. Human tubercle
is not by any means a multiple nodular eruption on the serous
membranes first and in the lymphatic glands and lungs afterwards ;
if the disease occur in these three localities it is necessary to assume
the same infective cause for it in them all. Most usually the first
indications of human tubercle are at the apex of one or both lungs,
and, in a considerable proportion of cases, the disease never goes
beyond the lungs. But it is not on that account a purely pul
monary disease. For some reason the lungs are most apt to become
the seat of the. infection ; but there are many cases in which the
infection locates itself elsewhere as well, and there are some cases
in which it avoids the lungs altogether. An infective virus has to
be assumed, and yet we are unable, as in bovine tubercle, to dis
cover any primary source of it in the physiological aberrations of
the human body itself. The problem of human tubercle, therefore,
may be said to be : Does the infection reach the body from with
out ? and, if so, whence are its structural or morphologically mimetic
characters originally derived ? While some such question as that
has to be stated for human tubercle in the last resort, it has to be
kept in mind that a very la.-ge part of the sum-total of human
tuberculous disease is an affair of strong hereditary predisposition,
and even of direct inheritance. In bovine tubercle itself, which is
often acquired de now by cows subjected to grossly artificial con
ditions of life, inheritance is credibly estimated to be answerablo
for more than one-half of its present very considerable total.
The pathology of tubercle (bovine and other) has had much
light thrown on it by experiments to jjroducc it artificially in
animals by inoculation of minute quantities of tuberculous matter
under the skin, or by mixing considerable quantities of tuberculous
matter with the food for a length of time, or by feeding with the
milk of tuberculous cows. A very suggestive proportion of all
such experiments have succeeded. It has been boldly alleged by
Koch that the active agent in the inoculative production of
tubercle is not the tuberculous matter from a previous case, but a
minute rod -like living parasite belonging to the order of schizo-
mycetes (see SCHIZOMYCETE.S). According to this view tubercle is
from first to last an affair of a parasite, equally the human tubercle
and the bovine, although these two forms of tubercular disease
are widely different in their anatomy. The weak point in the
experimental evidence of Koch is that we are not sufficiently assured
of the absolute separation of the ' tuberculous matter from the
parasites. There is not reason enough to suppose, from the pub
lished details of these experiments, that the original tuberculous
matter had all been got rid of ; and there is therefore not reason
enough to suppose that the induced tuberculous infection is due to
anything but that matter itself, whose infective power, although
not initiated by the organisms present, would probably be multi
plied by their cultivation.
In the same class with syphilis and tubercle should be taken Othe
glanders, primarily a disease of the horse, but now and then com- eliroi
nmnicated to man. There are various tropical and sub-tropical infec
granulomatous infections of great scientific interest which can only tions
be mentioned, such as yaics, vcrmga Pcruviana, Ahppo boil, Delhi
boil. There is also the button- scurvy of Ireland, now probably
extinct. Lupus holds a peculiar place in this class of diseases.
The position of leprosy also is an intermediate one, and its patho
logy the most difficult of all the constitutional endemic infective
diseases. It was with reference to leprosy, and with particular
reference to its enormous mediaeval prevalence and subsequent
extinction in most parts of Europe, that Sir James Y. Simpson Sim]
wrote as follows in 1841 ("Antiquarian Notices of Leprosy and on tl.
Leper Hospitals in Scotland and England," Edin. Med. and Sury. origi
Journ., vol. Ivi.) :— " 'The gencratio do novo of a really new species of ilise;
disease,' says Dr Mason Good (Study of Med., i. pref. p. xxiii. ), 'is sped
perhaps as much a phenomenon as a really new species of plant or of
animal.' Dr Good's remark is probably too sweeping in its princi
ple ; for, if necessary, it might be easy to show that, if the particular
diseases of particular animal species are liable to alteration at all, they
must necessarily alter more frequently than those animal species
themselves. In pursuing such an inquiry the pathologist labours
under comparative disadvantages. The physiologist can, by the aid
of geological research, prove that the individual species of plants and
animals inhabiting this and other regions of the earth have again
and again been changed. The pathologist has no such demonstra
tive data to show that, in the course of time, the forms and species
of morbid action have undergone great mutations, like the forms
and species of normal life. But still we have strong grounds for
believing that, in regard to our own individual species alone, the
diseases to which mankind are subject have already undergone,
in some respects, marked changes within the historic era of
medicine." 1
§ 17. — Toxic DISEASES.
In various parts of the world and at various periods
there have been widespread outbreaks of sickness due to
1 See Hirsch, Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologic,
vols. i. and ii., 2d ed., Berlin, 1881-83 (Engl. transl., vol. i., New
Sycl. Soc., Lond., 1883) ; Haser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medici n
und der epidcmischen Krankheiten, vol. iii. , 3d ed. , Jena, 1882;
Robert Williams, On Morbid Poisons, 2 vols., Lond., 1836-41 ; Mur-
chison, The Continued Fevers of Great Britain, 2d ed. , Lond., 1873 ;
G. Gregory, Lectures mi the Eruptive Fevers, Lond., 1843 ; Christison
on "Fevers" and "Continued Fever," in Tweedie's Library of Medi
cine, vol. i., Lond., 1840; La Roche, Yellow Fever, 2 vols., Phila
delphia, 1855 ; Audouard, Recueilde Mtmoires sur le Typhus nautique,
ou Fievre jaune, Paris, 1825; John Simon, "On Filth Diseases,"
Report of the Med. Officer of the Privy Council for 1874 ; J. Hutchin-
son, Clinical Memoirs . . . on inherited Sy2>hilis, &c., Lond., 1S6-5,
and "Constitutional Syphilis," in Reynolds's System of Medicine, vol.
i. , 1866; Virchow, Ueber die Natur der constitutioncU-syphilitisclioi
A/ectionen, Berlin, 1859, and in his Krankhaftcn Geschwiilste, vol. ii. ,
chapter on "Gramiloma" ; Klebs, " Ueber die Entstehung der Tuber-
culose und ihre Verbreitung ini Klirper," Virchovis Archiv, vol. xliv.,
1868; Cohnheim, Die Tuberculosevom Standpunkte der Infectionslehre,
Leipsic, 1880 ; Walley, Tlie Four Bovine Scourges, chapter on " Bovine
Tuberculosis," Edin., 1879 ; Lydtin, "Die Perlsucht," in Archiv f'Ar
wissensch. und pract. TJuerheilkunde for 1884 (Engl. ed. by Fleming);
R. Koch, " Die Aetiologie der Tuberculose," Berl. Klin. \Vochenschrift,
April 1882.
PATHOLOGY
Mt-
lid
( ic, &c
:ohol-
certain toxic or poisonous substances mixed with the
staple food of the people. Perhaps the best known of
these is gangrene caused by ergot of rye. One form of
the disease is characterized by acute pain and gangrenous
destruction of the skin, the gangrene sometimes spreading
to the deeper structures and to the bones, and leading to
loss of the limbs. At times the mortality from this disease
has been great. Numerous epidemics of it have occurred
in France (rarely during the present century) ; in other
parts of the continent of Europe (Sweden, Norway, Russia)
the effects of ergotism have taken the form of a nervous
(convulsive) disease called " Kriebelkrankheit." The effects
are those due to ergot, the compact mycelium of Clavi.ceps
purpurea, produced within the paleae of the common rye.
This substance, well known in medicine, is accidentally
ground with the rye, and produces gangrene by contract
ing the muscular coats of the arteries of the skin so as
to seriously diminish the amount of blood sent to it, or it
affects the nervous system. (See ERGOT.)
Another toxic effect closely allied to ergotism is the pellagra of
Lombardy. (See PELLAGRA.)
A third disease of the same kind is acrodynia, having a resem
blance to ergotism on the one hand and to pellagra on the other.
It appears to be somehow connected with bad grain, but the actual
poison has not been traced, as in the case of ergot. The observa
tions relating to it have been mostly made in France, and in the
French army in Syria, in Algiers, and in Mexico. The succession
of symptoms is somewhat complex, including disorders of the
stomach and intestine, conjunctivitis, oedema of the face, disorders
of sensibility and locomotion, and erythematous rashes, mostly on
the hands and feet.
In Colombia (South America) a peculiar disease, characterized by
the hair coining out (pelade), is traced to the ergot - parasite of
maize.
In the prairie States of the American Union there is a disease of
cattle (and sheep) called "the trembles," supposed to be due to some
toxic substance in the pasturage. In the human subject in those
localities there is a corresponding malady called " the milk-sickness"
and suspected of being caused by partaking of the milk or flesh of
cows which had been primarily affected.
Among toxic diseases we have to include also lead colic, or " dry
belly-ache," to which workers in the various compounds of lead
are liable, as well as communities here and there whose food or
drink, in the course of its preparation or storage, has been con
taminated by lead. Workers with phosphorus, also, are liable to
necrosis of the lower jaw. More occasional effects are produced by
some other chemical elements used in manufacture.
By far the most important toxic agent is alcohol, which is
often sold in public - houses when it has all the powerfully in
jurious properties of new spirit in it. The enormous excise duty
of 10s. per gallon is apt to make us forget the coarse and cheap
nature of the alcohol often sold as whisky ; this product of
distillation may be purchased new from distilleries at as low a rate
as Is. 6d. per gallon. The retailing of such new whisky is answer
able for an amount of disease — to say nothing of violence and crime
— which an equal quantity of mellowed spirit would by no means
produce. There are some not uncommon forms of kidney-disease
and of liver-disease which are, in the great majority of cases, the
direct results of raw spirits. Both in the liver and the kidney the
effect of such spirits is to cause an active growth of the support
ing tissue of the organ at the expense of its proper metabolic or
glandular tissue. In the case of the liver it causes cirrhosis
or hobnailed liver, which is accompanied by abdominal dropsy ;
in the case of the kidney it causes a contracted condition, to
which the name of cirrhosis is also applied, being one of the forms
of Bright's disease. Besides these organs the stomach is apt to
become affected by coarse spirits taken frequently ; it falls into a
state of chronic catarrh, on the basis of which cancer is apt to
plant itself.
§ 18. — PARASITIC DISEASES.
Reference has been made to the occurrence of a spiral
micro-organism in the blood in cases of relapsing fever, to
the so-called "bacillus of tubercle," and to the occurrence
of micrococci in erysipelas and infective inflammations.
For the splenic fever and other anthraceous diseases of the
domestic animals, very conclusive experimental evidence
has been brought forward by Pasteur and others that the
virus somehow goes with or resides in the bacilli which are
apt to swarm in the blood. These bacilli also occur in the
malignant pustule and wool-sorters' disease of man, — forms
of anthrax which are produced by handling the hides and
fleeces of animals. In diphtheria and ulcerative endocarditis
micrococci are abundant in the tissues of the affected
localities. They are also described for malignant osteo
myelitis, and a peculiar double form (diplococcus) has been
discovered in pneumonia. The doctrine of infective para
sitism is applied by some pathologists to the whole of the
specific infective diseases, acute and chronic, as well as to
malarial fevers, which are non-communicable. There can
be no doubt of the occurrence of very various forms of
micro-organisms in the tissues after death from diseases,
specific and other, and in the blood and tissues during the
course of some diseases, and even in states of fair health.
It is premature to call all these bacteria " pathogenic."
Their significance in morbid states of the body will be
considered, along with their natural history, in the article
SCHIZOMYCETES.
The animal parasites infesting the human body and the
fungi concerned in some skin-diseases and in actinomycosis
are treated of in the articles PARASITISM, NEMATOIDEA,
and TAPEWORM. (c. c.)
INDEX.
Addison's disease, 384.
Adenoma, 379.
..Etiology, 361.
Ague paroxysm, 394.
Agues, periodicity of, 395.
Albuminuria, 387.
Alcoholism, 407.
Angeioma, 370.
Atrophy, acute yellow, 386.
Bacillus, 407.
Bacteria, 401.
Blood-making, 376.
Bright's disease, 3S7.
Callus, 307.
Cancer, 380.
,, colloid, 382.
Catarrh, 377.
Chlorosis, 375.
Chorea, 391, 398.
Cicatrix, 366.
Convulsions, 391.
Cretinism, 375, 385.
Degenerations, 390.
Dermoid cysts, 372.
Diabetes, 386.
" Dissolution principle" in nervous
diseases, 393.
Dropsy, 388.
Dysentery, 396.
Emigration of blood-corpuscles, 399.
Enchondroma, 370.
Epilepsy, 391.
Epithelioma, 382.
Erysipelas, 398.
Exanthemata, contagious, 404.
Fever, 394.
„ malarial, 394.
„ relapsing, 403.
,, rheumatic, 397.
„ spirillum, 403.
,, thermic, 394.
: Fibroma, 368.
„ ossifying, 368.
i Giant-cells, 366, 372.
i Goitre, 384.
Gout, 3SS.
Granulations, 363.
Graves's disease, 385.
Hiematoblasts, 365.
Hajmophilia, 375.
Hairs in dermoids, 372.
Herpes in febrile attacks, 398.
Infections, endogenous, 403.
,, exogenous, 403.
,, vicarious, 403.
Infectiveness, 401.
Inflammation, 398.
Leucocytosis, 376.
Leuka-mia, 376.
Lipoma, 389.
i Locomotor ataxia, 392.
; Melanosis, 402.
„ of horse, 402.
Myxcedema, 384.
; Myxoma, 369.
Nerve-repair, 367.
Neuralgia, 390.
Obesity, 389.
Obsolescence, 383.
Osteomalacia, 375.
Pain in rheumatic fever, 397.
Parasitic diseases, 407.
Pernicious an»mia, 377.
Phlegmon, 398.
Phosphorus poisoning, 386.
Placental function in congenital
diseases, 374.
Pneumonia, 396.
Polypi (mucous), 379.
Progressive muscular atrophy, 392.
Pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis, 392.
Pus, 365.
Pyaemia, 401.
Repair, 363.
Rickets, 373.
Rigors, 395.
Sarcoma, 368.
,, cystic, 369.
Scar, 366.
Schizomycetes, 406, 407.
Scrofula, 405.
Septicsemia, 401.
Skin in dermoid cyst, 372.
„ of scar, 366.
Species of disease, 403.
,, Simpson on, 406.
Spinal cord, degenerations of, 392.
Suppuration, 365, 400.
Syphilis, 404.
Tendon-repair, 364.
Tetanus, 391.
Thrombosis, 401.
Thyroid, secondary tumours of, 3S5.
Toxic diseases, 406.
! Tropical abscess, 396.
Tubercle, 405.
„ bovine, 406.
Tumour-infection, 402.
Tumours, 367.
,, cavernous, 370.
,, embryological principle in,
367"
., fibro-cellular, 308.
., glandular, 379.
,, myeloid, 371.
„ osteoid, 371.
Typhoid, 403.
Typhus fever, de rtoro origin of, 403.
' Uratic diathesis, 388.
Warts, 378.
P A T — P A T
PATIALA, one of the cis-Sutlej states, Punjab, India,
lying between 29° 23' 15" and 30° 54' X. lat., and be
tween 74° 40' 30" and 76° 59' 15" E. long., has an area
of 5887 square miles, and a population (1881) of 1,467,433.
The estimated gross revenue is £471,624. The larger
portion of the state is situated in the plain south of the
Sutlej, while the other is hill country stretching up to
Simla, which formerly belonged to Pati.Ua. The usual
cereals form the principal agricultural products. The ruling
family are Sikhs of the Sidhu Jat tribe.
PATMOS (now pronounced by the natives "Patino"), an
island in the east of the yEgean Sea, one of the group of
the Sporades, about 28 miles south-south-west of Samos.
It lies in 37° 20' N. lat and 26° 35' E. long. Its greatest
length from north to south is about 10 miles, its greatest
breadth 6, its circumference, owing to the winding nature
of the coast, about 37. The island, which is volcanic,
is bare and rocky throughout ; the hills, of which the
highest rises to about 950 feet, command magnificent
views of the neighbouring sea and islands. The Avoods
which once covered the island have disappeared ; of the
palms, from which it formerly received its Italian name
of Palmessa, not more than one is left. Some poor olive
trees and a few specimens of the mulberry, the fig, the
orange, the lemon, the carob, the cypress, the oak, and
the pine here and there refresh by their verdure an eye
wearied by the prospect of barren mountains, only relieved
in places by scrubby bushes or clumps of thyme. The skill
of the natives as seamen is proverbial in the archipelago.
The deeply-indented coast, here falling in huge cliffs sheer
into the sea, there retiring to form a beach and a harbour,
is favourable to commerce, as in former times it was to
piracy. Of the numerous bays and harbours the chief is
that of La Scala, which, running far into the land on the
eastern side, divides the island into two nearly equal
portions, a northern and a southern. A narrow isthmus
separates La Scala from the Bay of Merika on the west
coast. On the belt of land between the two bays, at the
junction between the northern and southern half of the
island, stood the ancient town. To judge from its traces,
it may have contained 12,000 to 13,000 inhabitants. On
the hill above are still to be seen the massive remains of
the citadel, built partly in the polygonal style known as
Cyclopean. The modern town stands on a hill-top in the
southern half of the island. A steep paved road leads to
it in about twenty minutes from the port of La Scala.
The town clusters at the foot of the monastery of St John,
which, crowning the hill with its towers and battlements,
resembles a fortress rather than a monastery. Of the 600
MSS. once possessed by the library of the monastery only
240 are left, badly preserved, and none of them of value.
The houses of the town are better built than those of the
neighbouring islands, but the streets are narrow and wind
ing. The population is about 4000. The port of La
Scala contains about 140 houses, besides some old well-
built magazines and some potteries. Scattered over the
island are about 300 chapels.
Patmos is mentioned first by Thuoydides (iii. 33) and afterwards
by Strabo and Pliny. From an inscription it lias been inferred that
the name was originally Patnos. There are some grounds for the
conjecture that the island was first colonized by Carians. Another
ancient inscription sf-ems to show that the lonians also settled there
at an early date. The chief, indeed the only, title of the island to
fame is that it was the place of banishment of St John the Evan
gelist, who according to Jerome (Dc Scr. III., c. 9) and others, was
exiled thither under Domitian in 95 A.r>. , and released about
eighteen months afterwards under Nerva. Here he is said to have
written the Apocalypse ; to the left of the road from La Scala to the
town, about half-way up the hill, a grotto is still shown (rb <nrrj\aiov
TTJJ 'A7ro/ta\i''i/<ews) in wnich the apostle is said to have received the
heavenly vision. It is reached through a small chapel dedicated
to St Anne. In the library of the monastery there is a Greek MS.
containing a curious history of St John, purporting to be by Pro-
chorus, one of his disciples but apparently composed in the 4th
century. It narrates the miracles wrought by the apostle during
his stay on the island, but, strangely enough, while describing how
the Gospel was revealed to him in Patmos, it does not so much as
mention the Apocalypse. During the Dark Ages Patmos seems to
have been entirely deserted, probably on account of the pirates.
In 1088 the emperor Alexis Comnenus, by a golden bull, which is
still preserved, granted the island to St Christodulus for the pur
pose of founding a monastery. This was the origin of the monastery
of St John, which now owns the greater part of the southern half
of Patmos, as well as farms in Crete, Samos, and other neighbouring
islands. The embalmed body of the saintly founder is to be seen
to this day in a side chapel of the church. The number of the
monks, which amounted to over a hundred at the beginning of last
century, is now much reduced. The abbot (i)yov/j.evos) has the rank
of a bishop, and is subject only to the patriarch of Constantinople.
There is a school in connexion with the monastery which formerly
enjoyed a high reputation in the Levant. The lay population was
originally confined by St Christodulus to the northern part of the
island, but at the beginning of the 13th century the people received
'permission to build their houses near the monastery for protection
against the pirates. Hence arose the modern town. It was recruited
by refugees from Constantinople in 1453, and from Crete in 1669,
when these places fell into the hands of the Turks. The trade of
the island seems to have been considerable. It was in intercourse
with Genoa and Venice that the port received its modern name of
La Scala ; its ancient name seems to have been Phora. The island
is subject to Turkey ; the governor is the pasha of Rhodes. The
population is Greek. The women, who are handsome, are chiefly
engaged in knitting cotton stockings, which, along with some pot
tery, form the chief exports of the island.
See Tournefort, Relation cl'un Voyage du Levant, Lyons, 1717; Wai pole,
Memoirs (relating to Turkey), London, 1820 ; Ross, Reisen auf den griechischf-n
Inseln, Stuttgart and Halle, 1840-02 ; and especially Guerin, Description ile Vile
de Patmos, Paris, 1856.
PATXA, a district in the lieutenant-governorship of
Bengal, and in the division or commissionership of Patna,1
lying between 24° 58' and 25° 42' N. lat., and between
84° 44' and 86° 5' E. long., is bounded on the N. by the
river Ganges, which separates it from Saran, Muzaffarpur,
and Darbhangah, on the E. by Monghyr, on the S. by
Gaya, and on the W. by the Son, which separates it from
Shahabad. Patna district, with an area (1881) of 2079
square miles, is, throughout the greater part of its extent,
a level plain ; but towards the south the ground rises into
hills. The soil is for the most part alluvial, and the
country along the bank of the Ganges is peculiarly fertile.
The general line of drainage is from west to east ; and
high ground along the south of the Ganges forces back the
rivers flowing from the district of Gaya. The result is
that, during the rains, nearly the whole interior of the
district south of a line drawn parallel to the Ganges, and
4 or 5 miles from its bank, is flooded. There are no
forests or jungles of any extent, but fine groups of trees
are found in many places. In the south-east arc the
Ilajagrlha Hills, consisting of two parallel ridges running
south-west, with a narrow valley between, intersected by
ravines and passes. These hills, which seldom exceed 1 000
feet in height, are rocky and clothed with thick low jungle,
and contain some of the earliest memorials of Indian Buddh
ism. Hot springs are common on the Piajagriha Hills.
The chief rivers are the Ganges and the Son. The total
length of the former along the boundary of Patna is 93
miles. The Son first touches the district near Mahiballpur
village, and flows in a northerly direction for 41 miles, till
it joins the Ganges. The only other river of any con
sequence is the Punpun, which is chiefly remarkable for
the number of petty irrigation canals which it supplies.
So much of the river is thus diverted that only a small
portion of its water ever reaches the Ganges at Fatwa.
Great changes have from time to time taken place in the
course of the Ganges, and the point at which the Son
1 The division of Patna lies between 24° 17' 15" and 27° 29' 45" N.
lat., and between 83° 23' and 86° 46' E. long., and comprises the
districts of Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Darbhangah, Muzaffarpur, Saran,
and Champaran. The area (1881) was 23,647 square miles, and
the population 15,063,944, viz., Hindus 13,327,728, Mohammedans
1,730,093, Christians 5875, and "others" 248.
P A T — P A T
409
joined this river was once several miles east of its present
position. Large game is not abundant except on the
Rajagriha Hills, where bears, wolves, and jackals are com
mon, and hyaenas are sometimes seen. Of smaller game,
duck, quail, and ortolan are abundant, and partridges and
wild geese are also found.
The census of 1881 returned the population at 1,756,856 persons
(males 858,783, and females 898,073). Hindus numbered 1,541,061,
Mohammedans 213,141, Christians 2588, and "others" 66. Of
high-caste Hindus there are 47,041 Brahmans and 64,332 Rajputs.
Ranking next to these two castes are the Babhans, a class who
number 121,381 in Patna district, and whose origin is much dis
puted. They assert themselves to be Sarwaria Brahmans, but,
although they are held in high respect, this rank is not generally
accorded to them. Among the Suilras the most numerous are the
Goalas or Ahirs, the great herdsman class, of whom there are 217,845;
and the Kurim's, an agricultural caste, who number 194,222.
Among the semi-Hinduized aboriginal tribes the Dosadhs, the or
dinary labouring class of Behar, number 99,976. The Wahabis
form the most interesting section of the Mohammedan community.
They are a numerous body, and include several wealthy traders,
though the majority belong to the lower classes. The following
towns in the district contained a population in 1881 exceeding
10,000— Patna city (170, 654) ; Behar (48,968) ; Dinapur, including
the cantonment (37,893); Barh (14,689); Khagaul (14,075);
Mukama (13,052) ; Fatwa (10,919).
Rice, which forms the staple of the district, is divided into two
great crops — the kartikd or early rice, sown in June or July and
reaped in October or November ; and the aghdni or winter rice, sown
after the commencement of the rains and cut in November or
December. The loro or spring rice is also cultivated to a limited
extent, being sown in November or December and reaped in April
or May. By far the most important of these is the aghdni crop, of
which forty-six varieties are named. Among the other principal
crops are wheat and barley, Mesdri, gram, pease, cotton, tobacco,
sugar-cane, a little indigo and mustard, several other oil-producing
plants, and poppy. All the poppy grown in the province of Behar
is manufactured at Patna city.
Patna is subject to blights, floods, and drought, but seldom to such
an extent as to seriously interfere with the general harvest. There are
abundant facilities for importations of grain in case of distress. The
trade of the district centres in Patna city, which, next to Calcutta,
is the largest river -mart in Bengal. The total length of district
and provincial roads is 454 miles. The East Indian Railway tra
verses the entire length of the district for 86 miles. Several news
papers are published at Patna, the most important being the Behar
Herald, published weekly and conducted by the native pleaders of
the Patna bar.
Patna is one of the two places in British India where opium is
manufactured. The poppy cultivated is exclusively the white
variety (Papaver somniferuin album), and the crop requires great
attention. The amount of produce from various lands differs con
siderably. Under favourable circumstances of soil and season, the
out-turn per acre may be as high as 41 lb of standard opium (i.e.,
containing 70 per cent, of pure opium and 30 per cent, of water),
paid for by the Government at the rate of 5s. per lb ; but the aver
age is from 21 to 27 lb per acre. The opium is made up into cakes
weighing about 4 lb, and containing about 3 lb of standard opium.
These cakes are packed in chests (forty in each), and sent to Cal
cutta for exportation to China. The price which they fetch varies
every year; the average rate per chest in 1880-81 was about £135
and the cost £39.
The net revenue of Patna in 1882-83 amounted to £278,550, of
which £147,205 was derived from the land-tax. In 1874-75 there
were, exclusive of the Patna college, 309 Government and aided
schools with 9003 pupils ; by 1877-78 the number had risen to
816, and the pupils to 16,396. The Patna college was founded in
1862, and is the only institution for superior instruction in Behar ;
the total number of pupils in 1881-82 was 166. The climate of
Patna is considered remarkably healthy. The average annual rain
fall is 35'66 inches.
PATNA, chief city of the above district, is situated in
25° 37' 15" N. lat. and 85° 12' 31" E. long., on the right
or south bank of the Ganges, and adjoining Bankipur, the
civil station and administrative headquarters of the dis
trict. Its central position at the junction of three great
rivers, the Son, the Gandak, and the Ganges, where the
traffic of the North-Western Provinces meets that of Bengal,
gives it great natural advantages. The city proper com
prises the large business quarters of Marufganj, Mdn-
.siirganj, the Kila or fort, the Chauk, with Mirchaiganj,
Maharajganj,Sadikpur, Alabakhshpur, Gulzarbdgh, Colonel-
ganj, and other petty bazaars extending westwards as far
as Bdnkipur civil station. According to the census of
1881 its population was 170,654 — Hindus 127,076,
Mohammedans 43,086, "others" 492.
History. — Patna city has been identified with Pataliputra (the
Palibothra of Megasthenes, who came as ambassador from Seleucus
Nicator to Chandragupta about 300 B.C.). Megasthenes describes
Palibothra as being the capital city of India. He adds that its length
was 80 stadia, and breadth 15, that it was surrounded by a ditch 30
cubits deep, and that the walls were adorned with 570 towers and
64 gates. According to this account the circumference of the city
would be 190 stadia or 25 \ miles. When Hwen T'sang visited
the place in 637 A.D. the kingdom of Magadha was subject to the
rule of Kanauj. The old city had then been deserted for a long
time, and was in ruins, although a new Pataliputra had sprung up
close to it. In the south-east of Patna district, in the Rajagriha
Hills, are found some of the earliest remains of Indian Buddhism.
During the early years of Mohammedan rule the governor of the
B'ovince resided at Behar town in the south-east of the district,
uring Slier Shah's revolt against the Mughals, Patna became the
capital of an independent state, which was afterwards reduced to
subjection by Akbar. The two events in the modern history of the
district are the massacre of Patna (1763) and the Sepoy Mutiny in
1857. The former occurrence, which may be said to have settled
the fate of Mohammedan rule in Bengal, was the result of a quarrel
between the nawab, Mir Kasim, and the English authorities re-
farding transit duties, which ultimately led to open hostilities,
'he company's sepoys, who had occupied Patna city by the orders
of the company's factor, were driven out by the nawab's troops
and nearly all killed. The remainder afterwards surrendered, and
were put into confinement, together with the European officers
and the entire staff of the Kasimbazar factory, who had also been
arrested on the first outbreak of hostilities. Mir Kasim was defeated
in two pitched battles at Gheria and Udhanala (Oodeynullah) in
August and September 1763, and in revenge ordered the massacre
of the whole of his prisoners, which was carried out with the help
of a Swiss renegade in his employment, named Walter Reinhardt
(afterwards the husband of the famous Begam Samru). About
sixty English prisoners were murdered on this occasion, the bodies
being thrown into a well belonging to the house in which they were
confined.
At the outbreak of the mutiny in May 1857 the three sepoy
regiments stationed at Dinapur (the military cantonment of Patna,
adjoining the city) were allowed to retain their arms till July,
when, on an attempt being made to disarm them, they broke into
open revolt. Although many who attempted to cross the Ganges
in boats were fired into and run down by a pursuing steamer, the
majority crossed by the Son river into Shahabad, where they joined
the rebels under Kuar Sinli, who were then besieging a small
European community at Arrah.
PATNA, a native state in the Central Provinces of
India, lying between 20° 5' and 21° N. lat., and between
82° 45' and 83° 40' E. long., has an estimated area of 2399
square miles, of which 550 are under cultivation, and
other 950 are returned as cultivable. The country is an
undulating plain, rugged and isolated, with ridges of hills
crossing it here and there, and shut in on the north by a
lofty irregular range. Rice forms the staple produce, but
pulses, oil-seeds, sugar-cane, and cotton are also grown.
A vast forest extends for 30 miles around Patna village
containing valuable large timber, but infested by tigers,
leopards, and other wild animals. Iron ore exists in many
parts of the state, but no mines are regularly worked.
The only means of communication are a few bullock or
pony tracks. The estimated population in 1881 was
257,959, nearly all of whom were Hindus. Patna was
formerly the most important of the cluster of chiefships
known as the Athdra Garhjdt (The Eighteen Forts), but
under its later rulers it greatly declined. Since 1871,
however, when it was taken under direct British manage
ment, it has gradually been regaining prosperity.
PATRAS, or PATE.E (Ital. Patrasso, Turkish ftatta-
badra), a fortified city of Greece, the principal port of the
Morea, and the chief town of the nomos of Achaia and
Elis, lies on the north coast of the Morea on the east side
of the Gulf of Patras, which opens into the Gulf of Corinth
by the Little Dardanelles, marked by forts Kastro Moreas
and Kastro Rumelias, Since the War of Independence
Patras has been one of the most prosperous cities in the
XVIII. — 52
410
P A T — P A T
kingdom ; the quarters of the new town are well laid out ;
its old harbour being considered hardly safe in winter, a
new harbour defended by a breakwater was commenced in
1880 ; new roads (to Kalavryta, for example) are opening
up communication with the interior ; a railway to connect
the city with Corinth and Athens is in process of con
struction (1884); and the proposed cutting of the canal
across the isthmus of Corinth would add new elements to
its commerce. The population, which had sunk to 8000
at the time of the war, was 16,641 in 1870, and 24,993 in
1879. Patras is the seat of one of the four courts of
appeal in the kingdom, and the residence of the arch
bishop of Patras and Elis. The custom-house is the most
important in all Greece. Like the ancient city, the modern
Patras previous to the revolution occupied the high ground
of Scatovuni (a hill connected with Mount Yoidia or Pan-
achaicum, the dominant summit in this region), but since
then it has spread out over the plain towards the sea. The
two most interesting buildings are the castle, a mediaeval
structure on the site of the ancient acropolis, and the
cathedral of St Andrew, which is highly popular as the
reputed burial-place of the saint, and has been rebuilt
since the revolution. The commerce of Patras consists
mainly in the export of currants, valonia, olive-oil, wine,
and sheepskins (value in 1881, 19,369,270 francs, of which
18,104,046 francs were for currants alone), and the import
of cotton and woollen goods, grain, flour, and colonial
wares (value in 1881, 16,560,600 francs). Great Britain
and Austria almost divide the foreign shipping trade, with
a preponderance in favour of the former country, which
takes more thaji half of the currants. August and Sep
tember are the months when the port is at its busiest
with British vessels. Famous even in antiquity for its
flax manufactures (whence the number of females in the
city was double that of the males), Patras at present
contains several steam factories with about 4000 spindles
producing coarse cotton twist from cotton grown in north
ern Greece ; and there are also sulphur -crushing mills,
flour and macaroni mills, and an iron-foundry. Gas-works
and water-works were constructed about 1874.
The foundation of Patras goes back to prehistoric times, the
legendary account being that Eumelus, having been taught by
Triptolemus how to grow grain in the rich soil of the Glaucus
valley, established three townships, Aroe (i.e.,ploughland), Antheia
(the flowery), and Mesatis (the middle settlement), which were united
by the common worship of Artemis Triclaria at her shrine on the
river Meilichus. The Achaians having strengthened and enlarged
Aroe called it Patrse as the exclusive residence of the ruling families.
In 419 B.C. the town was, by the advice of Alcibiades, connected
with its harbour by long walls in imitation of those at Athens.
The whole armed force of Patrrc was destroyed by Metellus after
the defeat of the Achaians at Scarpheia, and many of the remain
ing inhabitants forsook the city ; but after the battle of Actium
Augustus restored the ancient name Aroe, introduced a military
colony of veterans from the 10th and 12th legions (not, as is usually
said, the 22d), and bestowed the rights of coloni on the inhabitants
of Rhypse and Dyme, and all the Locri Ozolse except those of Am-
phissa. Colonia Augusta Aroe Patrensis became one of the most
populous of all the towns of Greece ; its colonial coinage extends from
Augustus to Gordian III . That it was the scene of the martyrdom
of St Andrew is purely apocryphal, but, like Corinth, it was an early
and effective centre of Christianity ; its archbishop is mentioned in
the lists of the council of Sardica in 347. In 551 Patrte was laid
in ruins by an -earthquake. In 807 it was able without external
assistance to defeat the Slavonians (Avars), though most of the
credit of the victory was assigned to St Andrew, whose church was
enriched by the imperial share of the spoils, and whose archbishop
was made superior of the bishops of Methone, Lacedaemon, and
Corone. Captured in 1205 by William of Champlitte and Villc-
hardouin, the city became the capital and its archbishop the
primate of the principality of Achaia. In 1587 De Heredia, grand
master of the order of the Hospital at Rhodes, endeavoured to
make himself master of Achaia, and took Patras by storm. At
the close of the 15th century the city was governed by the arch
bishop in name of the pope ; but in 1428 Constantino, son of John
VI., managed to get possession of it for a time. Taken by a
Spanish fleet under Andrea Doria in 1532, sacked by another
Spanish fleet in 1595, and again sacked by the knights of Malta
in 1(503, Patras was at length in 1687 surrendered by the Turks to
the Venetians, who made it the seat of one of the seven fiscal boards
into which they divided the Morea. It was at Patras that the
Greek revolution began in 1821 ; but the Turks, routined to the
citadel, held out till 1828, when the French troops took possession
of the Morea.
See C. 1. L., vol. iii. 1 ; Bur.sian, Gcogr. von driechenlanil and Finlay's Hist.
of Greece.
PATRIARCH (Trarpiapx^ lit. the head or ruler of a
7rciT/Ha, tribe, family, or clan) occurs four times in the
New Testament, being applied to Abraham, the twelve
sons of Jacob collectively, and David, and several times
in the LXX., where the word is used to denote the officials
called by the chronicler "princes of the tribes of Israel,"
" princes of hundreds," " chiefs of the fathers." Under the
late Roman empire the title was officially applied down to
the 5th century to the chief rabbi in Palestine (see Cod.
Theod., xvi. 8, 1 ; and comp. ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 428) ; the
head of the synagogue at Babylon appears also to have
been known as patriarch until 1038. The title at an early
date passed over into the Christian church as an honorific
though not official designation of all bishops ; thus Gregory
of Nyssa (Or. Fun. in Mel.} alludes to the fathers assembled
in council at Constantinople as " these patriarchs." After
wards the Easterns showed a tendency to limit the appella
tion to the occupants of the more important sees, just as
in the West the so-called " metropolitans " began to receive
more definite recognition. At the present day the heads
of the various extant churches and sects in the East are
very commonly called patriarchs (see vol. xi. p. 154 ,<••'/.),
and in the West the Roman Church gives the honorary
title to several dignitaries, such as the archbishops of
Lisbon and Venice. In a strictly technical sense, how
ever, that church recognizes only five patriarchates, those
of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and
Rome. This peculiar restriction of the word, which may
be said to date from the council of Chalcedon in 451,
can be traced downwards from the time of Constantino,
when the altered political circumstances and the civil
division of the empire into four prefectures (Orientis,
Illyrici Orientalis, Italian, Galliarum), each containing a
number of "dioceses," gave a new importance to ques
tions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Thus the council of
Nice (can. 6) adjusted the jurisdiction of the " bishop "
of Alexandria so as to include Libya and Pentapolis as
well as Egypt, the ancient rights of Rome, Antioch,
and the other " eparchies " being at the same time con
served. The third canon of the council of Constantinople
assigned precedence to the "bishop" of Constantinople
immediately after the " bishop " of Rome ; and by the
28th of Chalcedon the "metropolitans" of Thrace, Pontus,
and Asia were appointed to receive their consecration
at his hands. The same council invested the bishop of
Jerusalem, formerly under the jurisdiction of the metro
politan of Antioch, with supremacy over the whole of
Palestine. Thenceforward a certain co-ordinate primacy was
thus accorded to Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria,
and Jerusalem ; but it is to be observed that in no official
document belonging to this period is the title "patriarch"
given to the bishop of any one of these sees, though the
word " eparch " or "exarch" is occasionally employed.
We find Theodosius, however, so designating the bishop
of Rome, and not only is it given to the bishop of Con
stantinople in the Novelise of Justinian, but we find Mennas
in 536 claiming to be called 6 oi'tfoi'/zeviKo? xaTpidpxys,
not, of course, without violent protest in the West. After
the fall of Jerusalem (637), Antioch (638), and Alexandria
(640) into the hands of the Saracens, the importance of
these sees became of course nominal merely, and it grew
easier for Rome, at the head of the unbroken Western
church, to give practical expression to its claims of superi-
P A T — P A T
ority over its sole surviving Eastern rival. Finding it
difficult, however, to avoid the appearance of equality that
was involved in the name of "patriarch," now convention
ally bestowed on the occupants of other ancient and
apostolic sees, the bishops of Kome rather avoided the
title, preferring the more colourless designation of papa
or pope (see POPE).
PATRICIAN. The history, in the Roman state, of the
hereditary patrician order (patricii, patres, house-fathers,
goodmen) who originally constituted the entire popuhis
Romanus has been traced in the article NOBILITY (vol.
xvii. pp. 525-6). With the transference of the imperial
capital to Byzantium under Constantino, the title patridus
became a personal and not an hereditary distinction ; the
name was held to denote a fatherly relation to the emperor,
and those who bore it stood first among the illustres, re
ceiving such appellations as " magnificentia," " celsitudo,"
"eminentia," "magnitude." High civil and military office
was usually conferred on them, and they were frequently
sent into the provinces as viceroys. After the overthrow
of Romulus Augustulus in the West, Odoacer claimed and,
practically at least, received from the emperor Zeno the
title of "patricius," in virtue of which he governed Italy.
It was similarly assumed by other barbarian conquerors.
In 754 it was conferred by Pope Stephen on Pippin the
Short, and it was afterwards borne by Charlemagne. It
was as patrician of Rome that the emperor Henry IV.
claimed the right to depose Pope Gregory VII. The title
was abolished by Pope Eugenius III. in 114-5.
PATRICK, ST. In one of the incursions of the Scots
and Picts upon the neighbouring Roman province south
of the wall of Severus, probably that of 411 A.D., the year
after Honorius had refused aid to the Britons, a youth
of about fifteen was carried off with many others from
the district in the neighbourhood of the wall at the head
of the Solway, and sold as a slave on the opposite coast
of Ireland in the territory of the Irish Picts called Dal
Araicle.1 This youth was the future apostle of the Irish.
As his name implies, he was of noble birth, and he tells us
so himself. He was the son of the deacon Calpurnius,
who was the son of Potitus, a priest. His father was a
clecurio or magistrate, and, as Patrick according to tradi
tion was born at Xemthur,2 he must have exercised his
functions of magistrate at that place, but on the with
drawal of the Roman garrisons from Britain probably
1 The province of Valentia, reorganized by Theodosius I., was com
prised between the wall of Antonimis, which extended from the Clyde
to the Firth of Forth, and the wall of Severus, which extended from
the Solway to Tynernouth. Although the destruction of the pagan
temples was decreed in 381, and the pagan religion prohibited in 390,
that is, a few years after the restoration of Roman power in Britain
and the reorganization of this province by Theodosius, the greater
part of the Romanized population of Britain seems to have been pagan
at the end of the 4th century, and especially in Valentia, where Patrick
was born about 396. Amidst the many evidences of Roman occupa
tion that have been found there not a relic of Roman Christianity has,
so far as we know, been yet discovered. In the south-west part of
Valentia, along the north shore of the Solway Firth from the Nitli to the
Irish Channel, Ptolemy placed the tribe of the Novantre, its principal
dun or oppidum being on the west side of Wigtown Bay, and called
by him Leukopibia, a name still preserved in Whithorn. During the
great displacements of tribes consequent upon the Roman conquests
and the inroads of the Scots and Picts, the British Novantsj disappear,
and in their place we find at the end of the 4th century Goidelic
Cruithni or Picts. Their position in the midst of a British population,
and their contiguity to the part of Ulster occupied by the Irish
Cruithni or Picts, clearly indicate that the Picts of Galloway were
part of the Ulidian or Irish Picts pressed out of Ireland by the intru
sion of the Scots. This settlement of the Irish Picts in Galloway
afforded an excellent vantage-ground for such attacks as that spoken
of in the text.
2 There can be no doubt that Nemthur was situated at the Clyde
end of the wall of Antoninus, where Dumbarton no\? is. It is called
Nevtur in the Old Welsh MS. known as the "Black Book of Car
marthen."
retired for safety south of the wall of Severus, where, as
Patrick tells us, he had a small country place (villula)
near the town (vicus) of Bannavem Taberniaj, whence
Patrick was carried off. The country along the south of
the wall, especially near the Solway, was a region of camps
or military posts to which the designation Tabernia would
be appropriate. Bannavem seems to be a Romanized form
of a British name signifying "river foot," and most
probably was the Banna of the Chorography of Ravenas,
and of the inscription on an altar said to have been found
at Birdoswald (the Romano-British Amboglanna), and now
at Lanercost Priory. The name also occurs on the well-
known bronze cup found about two hundred years ago at
Rudge in Wiltshire, which dates from about 350. Banna
must have been near Petriana, the former being probably
the vicus or town, and the latter the military station proper.
Towards the end of the 4th century, before the withdrawal
of the Roman garrisons, there were along the wall 10,300
foot and 1500 horse according to the Notitia Imperii, so
that Bannavem Tabernias, or Bannavem of the military
posts or encampments, was descriptive of the district, and
the office of decurio in such a place one of considerable
dignity.
The youth Succat or Patrick remained in hard slavery
for six years, tending cattle, probably on Slemish Mountain
in the county Antrim. He seems to have been of an
enthusiastic temperament, and much given to prayer and
meditation. Learning of a means of escape, it so filled
his mind as to give rise to visions. The bays and creeks
of the west and north-west of Ireland, especially Killala
Bay, were much frequented in ancient times, for they
afforded secure retreats to sea-rovers when they crept
round the coast of Ireland and swooped down on that of
Roman Britain. Ptolemy's town of Nagnata was probably
on the bay just named ; it is celebrated in the stories of
Fomorians, Norsemen, and other sea-rovers. The kindred
of the Ard Ri or paramount king of Ireland of the time,
Dathi or rather Athi, one of the greatest leaders among
the invading Scots, dwelt there ; it was consequently a
place which offered facilities for going to Britain, and from
that place most probably Patrick succeeded in escaping.
After his escape he appears to have conceived the noble
idea of devoting himself to the conversion of the Irish, and
to have gone somewhere for a few years to prepare himself
for the priesthood. His biographers take him to Tours to
St Martin, who was then dead several years, afterwards
to the island of Lerins in the Mediterranean, and lastly to
Rome, where he received a mission from Pope Celestine.
For all this there is no evidence whatever, the whole story
being the result of the confusion of Palladius with the real
Patrick. The tradition of some connexion between the
Irish apostle and St Martin of Tours, the monastic type
of the earliest Irish Church, the doubts as to Patrick's
fitness for the work which led to his writing his Confession,
and indeed all the difficulties that beset the question of the
origin of the Irish Church, receive a simple and satisfactory
explanation upon the hypothesis of Patrick having pre
pared himself for the priesthood at Candida Casa, the
monastic institution founded by St NIXIAN (q.v.).
Patrick tells us that after a few years (i.e., after his
escape) he was among the Britons with his kindred, who
received him as a son. He was evidently bent upon his
mission, for they besought him after such tribulations not
to part from them again. Full of it, he dreams that a
man whose name was Victorious came to him bearing
innumerable epistles, one of which he received and read ;
the beginning of it contained the words, "The voice
of the Irish"; whilst repeating these words he says, "I
imagined that I heard in my mind (in mente) the voice of
those who were near the wood of Fochlad. which is near
412
P A T — P A T
the western sea, and thus they cried : We pray thee, holy
youth, to come and henceforward walk amongst us." The
wood here referred to, which was in the neighbourhood
of Killala Bay, was most probably the place where he
remained concealed when waiting for a boat to make his
escape from slavery. This dream was followed by others,
which shows how completely his mission occupied his
mind. Patrick was about twenty-two years of age when
he escaped from slavery, and, if we allow seven or eight
years for the " few years' " preparation, he probably was
not more than thirty years of age when he entered on his
mission about 425. There is a passage in his Confession
which shows that he was still a young man when he
commenced his work : " You know and God knows how
I have lived among you from my youth up." Probus, the
author of the fifth life published by Colgan, who has
many claims upon our confidence, supports this view that
Patrick began his mission while still a priest. We see in
Patrick's own authentic acts that he must have sought
among his friends in Britain to be made a bishop, for he
complains in his Confession, that a friend to whom he had
communicated some fault he had committed when about
fifteen years old had urged this thirty years after as a
reason against his being consecrated to the higher office.
This proves that he was only about forty-five years old
when made bishop. If we assume that 411 was the year
he was carried off as a slave, his consecration as bishop
would fall in about 441, the fifteenth year of his mission,
a date which corresponds with the results of Dr Todd's
speculations based on a close analysis of all available
chronological data. Compare in general on the conversion
of Ireland what has been said in vol. xiii. p. 247 sq.
The date of St Patrick's death is as uncertain as that
of every other event connected with him. The Annals of
the Four Masters give 493, with which Ussher agrees ;
Tirechan's Annotations, on the other hand, state that
Loegaire, . son of Niall, king of Ireland, lived from two
to five years after St Patrick. According to this account
the death of St Patrick took place in 469, and that of
Loegaire in 471 or 474, after a reign of thirty-six years,
so that Loegaire's reign began either in 435 or 438. The
Annals of the Four Masters record the death in 457 of Senn
Patraicc, or Old Patrick, and of Loegaire in the following
year, 458. The Patrick who died in 493 is a fiction due
to the fusion of the acts of the two real Patricks, Palladius
Patrick and Senn Patraicc, doubtless so called because he
was the Patrick known as a priest before the arrival of
the Roman bishop. Assuming Tirechan's statement as
correct, and that St Patrick died in 469, his mission as
priest and bishop lasted about forty-four years.
The materials for a life of the apostle of Ireland are very scant}' ;
they consist indeed of only two Latin pieces — one the so-called
Confession and the other an Epistle about a certain Coroticus.
Some persons, apparently in Britain or Gaul, seem to have accused
Patrick of presumption in having undertaken so great a work as
the Christianizing of Ireland, and of incapacity for the task ; the
Concession is a defence of himself against these charges, and is a
kind of autobiographical sketch. The Epistle is a denunciation of
a British chief called Coroticus, supposed to be Caredig or Ceredig,
son of Cynedda, conqueror of North Wales, who had ravaged the
coast of Ireland, killed a number of Christian neophytes on the
very day of their baptism while still clad in white garments, carried
off others into slavery, and scoffed at a deputation of clergy Patrick
had sent to ask their release. There is a copy of the Confession in
the MS. called the " Book of Armagh," written about the year 807,
and apparently made from Patrick's autograph, which the scribe
several times complains of being then obscure. There are copies in
other MSS. which contain nearly as much additional matter not in
the "Book of Armagh " as would, if put together, be nearly equal
to the text of the MS. just named. Are these additions part of
the original work of Patrick omitted by the scribe because they
were illegible, or for some other reason, or are they interpolations ?
Judging by many examples in other Irish MSS.. the former appears
to be the better interpretation, for they are written in the same
rude and archaic style, exhibit the same peculiarity of grammatical
construction somewhat like Irish, and are not inconsistent with the
rest. He modestly tells us himself that he is unlearned (indoctus)
and very rustic (rustieissiinus). The Epistle is not in the "Book
of Armagh," but both pieces possess all the characteristics of the
time and place, and may be regarded as genuine documents, and
have been so regarded by nearly all scholars who have written on
the subject.
There are also several old lives of the saint, seven of which have
been published by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga, the last of
which, known as the Tripartite life, is the most copious. These
lives are based upon the two genuine documents above mentioned,
and are a tissue of legends and miracles, and, though no doubt
containing a few genuine traditions, are only of value for manners
and customs, and even for this purpose require much care in their
use.
The place, time, and circumstances of Patrick's labours have
largely contributed to the obscurity which surrounds him. His
very name has helped to increase it. Patricius, like Augustus,
seems to have been commonly used, even down to the 7th century,
in the sense of nobleman or gentleman ; thus Dynamius, who
lived in the beginning of the century just referred to, is described
as "Yir illustris ac pntricius Galliarum. " Patrick's real name,
according to tradition, was Succat, but in his own writings he calls
himself Patrick. There was, however, another Patrick who under
the name of Palladius was unquestionably sent as bishop to Ireland
by Pope Celestine in the year 431, that is, the year before the other
Patrick commenced his mission according to the generally received
accounts. Irish writers also mention a third Patrick, Senn
Patraicc, or Old Patrick, the head of St Patrick's community (caput
sapientum seniorum ejus) according to one account, and his tutor
according to another. The three Patricks have sorely puzzled
hagiologists, and created so much confusion and conjecture in the
history of the early church that some have doubted the existence
of such a personage as St Patrick at all. The absence of any con
temporary reference to him, or of any mention of him by Colum-
banus, Bede, and indeed with very few exceptions by any writers
outside of Ireland before the 9th century, adds very much to the
uncertainty and obscurity of the subject. (W. K. S. )
PATRICK, ST, ORDER OF. See KNIGHTHOOD, vol. xiv.
pp. 123-24.
PATRICK, SIMON (1626-1707), bishop of Chichester,
and afterwards of Ely, author of a number of works in
practical divinity, was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire,
on 8th September 1626, entered Queens' College, Cam
bridge, in 1644, and, after taking orders in 1651, became
successively chaplain to Sir Walter St John, and vicar of
Battersea, Surrey. He was afterwards (1662) preferred
to the rectory of St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, where
he continued to labour during the year of the plague.
Dean of Peterborough from 1678, he became bishop of
Chichester in 1689, in which year he was employed,
along with others of the new bishops, to settle the affairs
of the church in Ireland. In 1691 he received the bishop
ric of Ely, which he held until his death, 31st May 1707.
His sermons and devotional writings, which are very numerous,
were held in high estimation in last century, and his edifying
Commentary on the Historical and Poetical Books of the Old Testa
ment, in 10 vols., brought down as far as to the Song of Solomon,
has been reprinted comparatively recently (1853). His Friendly
Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist was a contro
versial tract which excited considerable feeling at the time of its
publication in 1668, but he lived long enough to soothe by his
moderation and candour the exasperation it had caused. The first
collected edition of his works appeared at Oxford in 1859 (9 vols.,
8vo) ; a small Autobiography was published also at Oxford in 1839.
PATRON AND CLIENT. Clientage appears to have
been an institution of most of the Grajco-Italian peoples
in early stages of their history; but it is in Rome that we
can most easily trace its origin, progress, and decay. Until
the reforms of Servius Tullius, the only citizens proper
were the members of the patrician or gentile houses; they
alone could participate in the solemnities of the national
religion, take part in the government and defence of the
state, contract quiritarian marriage, hold property, and
enjoy the protection of the laws. But alongside of them
was a gradually increasing non- citizen population com
posed of slaves and clients. Some historians class amongst
the latter, as clients of the state, those vanquished com-
P A T R 0 N
munities Avhich, having made an unconditional submission,
were allowed to retain a quasi-corporate existence under
the protection of Rome. But the name (derived from
duere, /c/Xuetv, to obey) was common before Rome had
made any conquests, and was usually applied to indi
viduals who had attached themselves in a condition of
dependence to the heads of patrician houses as their
patrons, in order thereby to secure a de facto freedom.
The relationship was ordinarily created by what, from the
client's point of view, was called adplicatio ad patronum,
from that of the patron, susceptio clientis, — the client being
either a person who had come to Rome as an exile, who
had passed through the asylum, or who had belonged to
a state which Rome had overthrown. According to Diony-
sius and Plutarch, it was one of the early cares of Romulus
to regulate the relationship, which, by their account of it,
was esteemed a very intimate one, imposing upon the
patron duties only less sacred than those he owed to his
children and his ward, more urgent than any he could be
called upon to perform towards his kinsmen, and whose
neglect entailed the penalty of death (Tellumoni sacer esto).
He was bound to provide his client with the necessaries of
life ; and it was a common practice to make him a grant
during pleasure of a small plot of land to cultivate on his
own account. Further, he had to advise him in all his
affairs ; to represent him in any transactions with third
parties in which, as a non-citizen, he could not act with
effect ; and, above all things, to stand by him, or rather
be his substitute, in any litigation in which he might be
come involved. The client in return had not only gener
ally to render his patron the respect and obedience due by
a dependant, but, when he was in a position to do so and
the circumstances of the patron required it, to render him
pecuniary assistance. As time advanced and clients
amassed wealth, we find this duty insisted upon in a great
variety of forms, as in contributions towards the dowries
of a patron's daughters, towards the ransom of a patron
or any of his family who had been taken captive, towards
the payment of penalties or fines imposed upon a patron,
even towards his maintenance when he had become reduced
to poverty. Neither might give evidence against the other,
— a rule we find still in observance well on in the 7th
century of the city, when C. Herennius declined to be a
witness against C. Marius on the ground that the family
of the latter had for generations been clients of the
Herennii (Plut., Mar. 5). The client was regarded as a
minor member (gentilicius) of his patron's gens • he was
entitled to assist in its religious services, and bound to
contribute to the cost of them ; he had to follow his patron
to battle on the order of the gens • he was subject to its
jurisdiction and discipline, and was entitled to burial in
its common sepulchre. And this was the condition, not
only of the client who personally had attached himself to
a patron, but that also of his descendants ; the patronage
and the clientage were alike hereditary. In much the
same position as the clients, in the earlier centuries of Rome
at least, were the freedmen ; for originally a slave did not
on enfranchisement become a citizen ; it was a de facto
freedom merely that he enjoyed ; his old owner was always
called his patron, while he and his descendants were sub
stantially in the position of clients, and often so designated.
In the two hundred years that elapsed before the Servian
constitutional reforms, the numerical strength of the clients,
whether in that condition by adplicatio, enfranchise
ment, or descent, must have become considerable ; and
it was from time to time augmented by the retainers
of distinguished immigrants admitted into the ranks of
the patriciate. That all these, concurrently with the un
attached plebeians, must have been admitted by Servius
to nominal citizenship can hardly be doubted. They
probably were included in the four urban tribes ; but,
being incapable as yet of owning land, they could have
no admission to the higher centuries, paid no census-
tribute, were not qualified to serve in the legion, and most
likely ranked no higher than accensi. With the institution
of the assemblies of the plebeians of the tribes they must,
thanks to their numbers, have gained in influence politic
ally. But it was only with the enactment of the XII.
Tables that their relations to their patrons were sensibly
affected. For, while that code still denied them, in common
with the plebeians generally, the right of intermarriage
with the patrician families, it conferred upon them most
of the other private rights of citizens ; in particular, it
entitled them to hold and acquire property, to enter into
contracts on their own responsibility, and to litigate in
person on their own behalf. The relation of patron and
client, it is true, still remained ; the patron could still
exact from his client respect, obedience, and service, and
he and his gens had still an eventual right of succession
to a deceased client's estate. But the fiduciary duties of
the patron were greatly relaxed, and practically little more
was expected of him than that he should continue to give
his client his advice, and prevent him falling into a con
dition of indigence ; sacer esto ceased to be the penalty of
protection denied or withheld, its application being limited
to f rails facta, which, in the language of the Tables, meant
positive injury inflicted or damage done. So matters re
mained during the 4th and 5th centuries. In the 6th a
variety of events, social and political, contributed still
further to modify the relationship. The rapacity of patrons
was checked by the Cincian law, which prohibited their
taking actual gifts of money from their clients ; marriages
between patron and client gradually ceased to be regarded as
unlawful, or as ineffectual to secure to the issue the status of
the patron father ; political changes opened to the clients the
rural tribes and the higher centuries, and qualified them
for the legion, the magistracy, and the senate ; hereditary
clientage ceased when a client attained to a curule dignity ;
and, in the case of the descendants of freedmen enfranchised
in solemn form, it came to be limited to the first generation.
Gradually but steadily one feature after another of the
old institution disappeared, till by the end of the 7th
century it had resolved itself into the limited relationship
between patron and freedman on the one hand, and the
unlimited honorary relationship between the patron who
gave gratuitous advice on questions of law and those who
came to consult him on the other. To have a large follow
ing of clients of this class was a matter of ambition to
every man of mark in the end of the republic ; it increased
his importance, and ensured him a band of zealous agents
in his political schemes. But amid the rivalries of parties
and with the venality of the lower orders, baser methods
had to be resorted to in order to maintain a patron's influ
ence ; the favour and support of his clients had to be
purchased with something more substantial than mere
advice. And so arose that wretched and degrading client
age of the early empire, of which Martial, who was not
ashamed to confess himself a first-rate specimen of the
breed, has given us such graphic descriptions ; gatherings
of miserable idlers, sycophants, and spendthrifts, at the
levees and public appearances of those whom, in their fawn
ing servility, they addressed as lords and masters, but whom
they abused behind their backs as close-fisted upstarts, —
and all for the sake of the sjjortida, the daily dole of a
dinner, or of a few pence wherewith to procure one. With
the middle empire this disappeared ; and, when a reference
to patron and client occurs in later times, it is in the sense
of counsel and client, the words patron and advocate being
used almost synonymously. It was not so in the days of
the great forensic orators. The word advocate, it is said,
414
P A T — P A U
occurs only once in the singular in the pages of Cicero ;
and by adi'ocati was generally understood at that time the
body of friends who stood by a litigant in a great cause
to give him in any shape their countenance and support.
The orator who then appeared in the comitia or before a
judge was almost invariably called patron, though the
name of client was not so commonly given to the litigant
he represented. But at a later period, when the bar had
become a profession, and the qualifications, admission,
numbers, and fees of counsel had become a matter of state
regulation, advocati was the word usually employed to
designate the pleaders as a class of professional men, each
individual advocate, however, being still spoken of as
patron in reference to the litigant with whose interest he
was entrusted. It is in this limited connexion that patron
and client come under our notice in the latest monuments
of Roman law.
Literature. — On the clientage of early Rome, see Mommsen, " Die
RomischeClientel," Rom. Forschungcn, vol. i. p. 355 (Berlin, 1864) ;
Voigt, " Ueber die Clientel uml Libertinitat, " in Bcr. d. phil. histor.
Classc d. Konigl. Sachs. Gcscllsch. d. JFissenschaftcn (1878, pp. 147-
219) ; Marquardt, Privatleben d. Homer, pp. 196-200 (Leipsic,
1879) ; Voigt, Die XII. Tafdn, vol. ii. pp. 667-679 (Leipsic, 18S3).
Earlier literature is noted in Willems, Le Droit Public Eomain, 4th
ed., p. 26 (Louvain, 1880). On the clientage of -the early empire,
see Becker, Gallus, vol. ii., Excursus 4 ; Friedlander, Sittcn-
Gcschichte Horns, vol. i. pp. 207-219 (Leipsic, 1862) ; Marquardt,
op. cit., pp. 200-208. On the latest clientage, see Grellet-Dumazeau,
Le Barrcau Romain (Paris, 1851). (J. M*.)
PATTESON, JOHN COLERIDGE (1827-1871), bishop of
Melanesia, was the eldest son of Justice Patteson and
Frances Duke Coleridge, a near relation of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, and was born in Gower Street, Bedford Square,
2d April 1827. He was educated at Ottery St Mary, and
at Eton, where he greatly distinguished himself on the
cricket-field. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1845,
and graduated B.A. in 1848. After spending some time
on the Continent in the capacity of tutor, he in 1852 be
came a fellow of Merton College. In 1853 he became
curate of Alfington, Devon, and in the following year he
was ordained priest and joined the mission to the Mela-
nesian islands in the South Pacific. There he laboured
with great success, visiting the different islands of the
group in the mission ship the " Southern Cross," and by
his good sense and unselfish devotion winning
the esteem and affection of the natives. In
1861 he was consecrated bishop of Melanesia,
and in this capacity did much to promote
the Christianization of the islands until his
premature death by the hand of a native,
20th September 1871.
See Life by Charlotte M. Yonge, which first ap
peared in 1873, and has gone through several
editions.
PAU, a city of France, formerly the capital
of Beam, and now the chief town of the de-
partment of Basses Pyrenees, and the seat
of a court of appeal, is situated in 43° 17'
N. lat. and 0° 23' W. long., on the edge of
a plateau 130 feet above the right bank of
the Gave de Pau (a left-hand affluent of the
Adour), at a height of about 620 feet above
the sea. It thus enjoys an admirable view
of the Pyrenees, which rise about 25 miles
to the south. A small stream, the Hedas,
flowing in a deep ravine and crossed by several
bridges, divides the city into two parts. The
older and larger is enclosed between the
Hedas, the Gave, and its other tributary the
Ousse, and ends with the castle in the west,
while the new districts stretch northward in the direction
of the landes of Pont-long. The modern importance of Pau
is due to its climate, which makes it a great winter health-
resort. The most striking characteristic is the stillness of
the air, resulting from the peculiarly sheltered situation.
The town is built on a sandy soil, and the line of the
streets running east and west is favourable to ventilation.
The average rainfall is about 40 inches, and the mean
winter temperature is 44°, the mean for the year being
62D.
Apart from an export flour-trade and some manufactures
of chocolate and Beam linen, the inhabitants of Pau depend
entirely on their four thousand winter -visitors. Place
Royale (in the centre of which, instead of the older statue
of Louis XIV., now stands Raggi's statue of Henry IV., with
bas-reliefs by Etex) is admired for the view which it affords
over the valley of the Gave and the Pyrenees ; it is con
nected by a fine boulevard with the castle gardens. Be
yond the castle a park of thirty acres planted with beech
trees stretches along the high bank of the Gave. The
castle is bounded on the north and west by the Hedas,
on the south by a canal drawn from the Gave, and on the
east by a moat 30 feet deep ; access is obtained by three
bridges, that across the Hedas being of ancient construction.
The castle is flanked by six square towers : south-east is
that of Gaston Phoebus (113 feet high); north-east is the
tower of Montauset or Montoiseau, so called because
reached by removable ladders ; east, the new tower ;
north-west, that of Billeres ; and on the west are those of
Mazeres. Another to the south is named after the mint
in which Calvin used to preach.
In the gardens to the west of the castle stand a statue
of Gaston Phoebus by Triquety and two porphyry vases
presented by Bernadotte king of Sweden, Avho was born
at Pau. In the castle court is a well 223 feet deep, with
100 feet of water; but it has been closed since 1855 On
the ground-floor is the old hall of the estates of Beam, 85
feet long and 36 feet wide, adorned with a white marble
statue of Henry IV., and magnificent Flemish tapestries
ordered by Francis I. Several of the upper chambers are
adorned with Flemish, Brussels, or Gobelin tapestry, with
tables in Swedish porphyry, Sevres vases, fine coffers
(notably a Gothic coffer from Jerusalem), arm-chairs of the
16th century, Venetian and St Gobain glass, etc. ; but the
Plan of Pau.
most interesting room is that in which Henry IV. was
born, still containing his mother's bed (from the castle of
P A U — P A U
415
Richelieu) and his own cradle made of a tortoise-shell.
In the keep is a library of 6000 volumes, mainly of works
relating to Henry IV. The two Gothic churches of St
Jacques and St Martin are both modern ; but the latter is
of note for the height and elegance of its tower, its stained
glass, and the fine Pyrenean marbles used in the high
altar, the baldachin, and the sanctuary. Besides the state
Protestant church (figlise Franchise Reformee) there are
Presbyterian, Anglican, and Russian places of worship.
The population of Pau (about 6000 at the close of the
18th century) was 27,300 in 1871, and 29,971 in 1881.
Pan derives its name from the "pale " (in Langue d'Oc " paii ") or
palisade surrounding the old castle mentioned in the fors of Ossau
in 1221. By the erection (1363) of the present castle Gaston
Phoebus made the town a place of importance, but the viscounts
of Beam continued to reside at Orthez till the reign of Gaston XL,
when the states of Beam were united at Pau. Gaston's grand
son and successor Francis Plucbus, became king of Navarre in 1479.
Margaret of Valois, who married Henry d'Albret, embellished the
castle and gardens, and made her court one of the most brilliant
of the time. In the religious disturbances under her daughter,
Jeanne d'Albret, several Catholic nobles were put to death in the
castle as rebels. In 1572, while a prisoner, Henry (afterwards IV.
of France) restored the Catholic religion in Beam, but the provincial
estates met at Pau and rejected the decree, which Henry himself
cancelled when he obtained his freedom. Pau continued to be the
capital till 1620, though in 1614 the states of France demanded
the union of Beam and Basse Navarre with the French crown.
When Louis XIII. entered the town in 1620 he restored the
Catholic clergy to their privileges and possessions, disbanded the
forces of Beam, and caused the parliament of Pau to register the
edict of union. The castle was occupied by Abd-el-Kader during
part of his captivity.
PAUL
SAUL, who is also (called) Paul," was a " Hebrew
of the Hebrews," i.e., of pure Jewish descent
unmixed with Gentile blood, of the tribe of Benjamin
(Rom. xi. 1 ; 2 Cor. xi. 22 ; Phil. iii. 5). In the Acts of
the Apostles it is stated that he was born at Tarsus in
Cilicia (ix. 11, xxi. 39, xxii. 3); but in the 4th century
there still lingered a tradition that his birthplace was
Giscala, the last of the fortress -towns of Galilee which
held out against Rome (Jerome, De vir. illustr. c. 5 ; Ad
i and Philcm. v. 23). l The fact that he was called by two names
a • has been accounted for in various ways. Saul (the Aramaic
form, used only as a vocative, and in the narratives of his
conversion, Acts ix. 4, 17, xxii. 7, 13, xxvi. 14; else
where the Hellenized form, 2avAos) was a natural name
for a Benjamite to give to his son, in memory of the first
of Jewish kings ; Paul is more difficult of explanation. It
is first found in the narrative of the conversion of Sergius
Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus (Acts xiii. 9), and it has
sometimes been supposed either that Paul himself adopted
the name in compliment to his first Gentile convert of
distinction (Jerome, Olshausen, Meyer, Ewald), or that
the writer of the Acts intended to imply that it was so
adopted (Baur, Zeller, Hausrath). Others have thought
that it was assumed by Paul himself after the beginning
of his ministry, and that it is derived from the Latin
pauhis in the sense either of " least among the apostles "
(St Augustine) or "little of stature" (Mangold, with
reference to 2 Cor. x. 10; Gal. iv. 13). But these and
many similar conjectures may probably be set aside in
favour of the supposition that he had a double name from
the first, one Aramaic or Hebrew and the other Latin or
Greek, like Simon Peter, John Mark, Simeon Niger, Joseph
Justus ; this supposition is confirmed by the fact that
Paul was not an uncommon name in Syria and the eastern
parts of Asia Minor (instances will be found in the Index
Nominum to Boeckh's Corp. Inscr. Greet'.}. Whatever be
its origin, Paul is the only name which he himself uses of
himself, or which is used of him by others when once he
had entered into the Roman world outside Palestine. The
Acts speak of his having been a Roman citizen by birth
(xxii. 28; cf. xvi. 17, xxiii. 27), a statement which also
has given rise to several conjectures, because there is no
clue to the ground upon which his claim to citizenship was
based. Some modern writers question the fact, consider
ing the statement to be part of the general colouring which
the writer of the Acts is supposed to give to his narrative;
and some also question the fact, which is generally con-
:a- sidered to support it, of the appeal to the emperor. That
he received part of his education at Tarsus, which was a
1 It was an Ebionite slander that he was not a Jew at all, but a
Greek (Epiphan., Hxr., xxx. 16).
great seat of learning, is a possible inference from his
use of some of the technical terms which were current
in the Greek schools of rhetoric and philosophy ; but, since
the cultivation of a correct grammatical and rhetorical
style was one of the chief studies of those schools, Paul's
imperfect command of Greek syntax seems to show that
this education did not go very far. That he received the
main part of his education from Jewish sources is not only
probable from the fact that his family were Pharisees, but
certain from the whole tone and character of his writings.
According to the Acts, his teacher was Gamaliel, who as
the grandson of Hillel took a natural place as the head of
the moderate school of Jewish theologians ; nor, in spite
of the objection that the fanaticism of the disciple was at
variance with the moderation of the master, does the
statement seem in itself improbable. A more important
difficulty in the way of accepting the statement that Jeru
salem was the place of his education is the fact that in
that case his education must have been going on at the
time of the preaching and death of Jesus Christ. That he
had not seen Jesus Christ during His ministry seems to be
clear, for a comparison of 1 Cor. ix. 1 with xv. 8 appears
to limit his sight of Christ to that which he had at his
conversion, and the " knowing Christ after the flesh " of
2 Cor. v. 16 is used not of personal acquaintance but of
" carnal " as opposed to " spiritual " understanding ; nor
does the difficulty seem to be altogether adequately ex
plained away by the hypothesis which some writers (e.g.,
Neander, Wieseler, Beyschlag) have adopted, that he was
temporarily absent from Jerusalem at the times when
Jesus Christ was there. Like all Jewish boys, he learnt a
trade, that of tent-making ; this was a natural employment
for one of Cilician origin, since the hair of the Cilician
goat was used to make a canvas (cilicia) which was specially
adapted for the tents used by travellers on the great routes
of commerce or by soldiers on their campaigns (cf. Philo,
De anim. sacrif. idon., i. vol. ii. p. 238, ed. Mang.).
Whether he was married or not is a question which has
been disputed from very early times ; his expressions in
1 Cor. vii. 8, ix. 5, were taken by Tertullian to imply
that he was not, and by Clement of Alexandria and Origen
to imply that he had once been, but that he had become a
widower.
The beginning of his active life was doubtless like its Inner
maturity ; it was charged with emotion. He himself gives aiul
a graphic sketch of its inner history. His conversion to outp[
Christianity was not the first great change that he had see_
undergone. " I was alive without the law once " (Rom.
vii. 9). He had lived in his youth a pure and guileless
life. He had felt that which is at once the charm and the
force of such a life, the unconsciousness of wrong. But,
416
PAUL
while his fellow-disciples in the rabbinical schools had been
content to dissect the text of the sacred code with a minute
anatomy, the vision of a law of God which transcended
both text and comment had loomed upon him like a new
revelation. And with the sense of law had come the sense
of sin. It was like the first dawn of conscience. He
awoke as from a dream. "The commandment came." It
was intended to be "unto life," but he found it to be
"unto death"; for it opened up to him infinite possibili
ties of sinning: "I had not known lust except the law had
said, Thou shalt not lust." And the possibilities of sinning
became lures which drew him on to forbidden and hated
ground: "sin, finding occasion through the commandment,
beguiled me and through it slew me "(Rom. vii. 7-11).
This was his inner life, and no man has ever analysed it
with a more penetrating and graphic power. In his out
ward life this sense of the law of God became to him an
overpowering stimulus. The stronger the consciousness of
his personal failure the greater the impulse of his zeal.
The vindication of the honour of God by persecuting
heretics, which was an obligation upon all pious Jews, was
for him a supreme duty. He became not only a persecutor
but a leader among persecutors (Gal. i. 14). What he
felt was a very frenzy of hate ; he " breathed threatening
and slaughter," like the snorting of a war-horse before a
battle, against the renegade Jews who believed in a false
Messiah (Acts ix. 1, xxvi. 11). His enthusiasm had been
known before the popular outbreak which led to Stephen's
death, for the witnesses to the martyr's stoning " laid
down their clothes " at his feet (Acts vii. 58), and he
took a prominent place in the persecution which followed.
.He himself speaks of having "made havoc" of the com
munity at Jerusalem, spoiling it like a captured city (Gal.
i. 13, 23); in the more detailed account of the Acts he
went from house to house to search out and drag forth to
punishment the adherents of the new heresy (viii. 3).
When his victims came before the Jewish courts he tried,
probably by scourging, to force them to apostatize (xxvi.
11); in some cases he voted for their death (xxii. 4, xxvi.
10). The persecution spread from Jerusalem to Judaea
and Galilee (ix. 31) ; but Paul, with the same spirit of
enterprise which afterwards showed itself in his missionary
journeys, was not content with the limits of Palestine.
He sought and obtained from the ecclesiastical authorities
at Jerusalem letters similar to those which, in the 13th
century, the popes gave to the " militia Jesu Christi contra
hasreticos." The ordinary jurisdiction of the synagogues
was for the time set aside ; the special commissioner was
empowered to take as prisoners to Jerusalem any whom
he found to belong to the sect known as " The Way "
(Acts ix. 2, xxii. 4, xxiv. 14; it is possible that the
phrase wras used of Christians by themselves, like the
phrase " The Cause " among some of the nonconforming
churches of England). Of the great cities which lay near
Palestine Damascus was the most promising, if not the
only field for such a commission. At Antioch and at
Alexandria, though the Jews, who were very numerous,
enjoyed a large amount of independence and had their own
governor, the Roman authorities would probably have
interfered to prevent the extreme measures which Paul
demanded. At Damascus, where also the Jews were
numerous and possibly had their own civil governor (2
Cor. xi. 32), the Arabian prince Aretas (Haritha), who
then held the city, might naturally be disposed to let an
influential section of the population deal as they pleased
with their refractory members.
Conver- On Paul's way thither an event occurred which has
siou to proved to be of transcendent importance for the religious
history of mankind. He became a Christian by what he
111 J' believed to be the personal revelation of Jesus Christ.
His own accounts of the event are brief, but they are at
the same time emphatic and uniform. " It pleased God
... to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. i. 16) ; "have I not
seen Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. ix. 1); "last of all
He was seen of me also as of one born out of due time "
(1 Cor. xv. 8, where axj>6->) Ka/W must be read in the sense
of the parallel expressions w</>6fy K»/c/>a, Ac. ; in other words,
Paul puts the appearance to himself on a level with the
appearances to the apostles after the resurrection). These
accounts give no details of the circumstances. St Paul's
estimate of the importance of such details was probably
different from that which has been attached to them in
later times. The accounts in the Acts of the Apostles are
more elaborate ; they are three in number, one in the con
tinuous narrative, ix. 3-19, a second in the address on the
temple stairs, xxii. 6-21, a third in the speech to Agrippa,
xxvi. 12-18; they all differ from each other in details,
they all agree in substance ; the differences are fatal to
the stricter theories of verbal inspiration, but they do not
constitute a valid argument against the general truth of
the narrative.1
It is natural to find that the accounts of an event which
lies so far outside the ordinary experience of men have
been the object of much hostile criticism. The earliest
denial of its reality is found in the Judax>- Christian
writings known as the Clementine Homilies, where Simon
Magus, who is made to be a caricature of Paul, is told
that visions and dreams may come from demons as well
as from God (Clem. Horn., xvii. 13-19). The most import
ant of later denials are those of the Tubingen school,
which explain the narratives in the Acts either as a trans
lation into the language of historical fact of the figurative
expressions of the manifestation of Christ to the soul, and
the consequent change from spiritual darkness to light
(e.g., Baur, Paul, E.T., vol. i. p. 76; Zeller, Acts, E.T., vol.
i. p. 289), or as an ecstatic vision (Holsten, Das Evanyelium
des Paulus, p. 65). But against all the difficulties and ap
parent incredibilities of the narratives there stand out the
clear and indisputable facts that the persecutor was suddenly
transformed into a believer, and that to his dying day he
never ceased to believe and to preach that he had " seen
Jesus Christ."
Nor was it only that he had seen Him ; the gospel which His
he preached, as well as the call to preach it, was due to special
this revelation. It had " pleased God to reveal His Son missi
in him" that he "might preach Him among the Gentiles"
(Gal. i. 12, 16). He had received the special mark of
God's favour, which consisted in his apostleship, that all
nations might obey and believe the gospel (Rom. i. 5, cf.
xii. 3, xv. 15, 16). He had been entrusted with a secret
(/xifm/pioi') which had "been kept in silence through times
eternal," but which it was now his special office to make
known (Rom. xi. 25, xvi. 25, 26 ; and even more promi
nently in the later epistles, Eph. i. 9, iii. 2-9, vi. 19; Col.
i. 26, 27, iv. 3). This secret was that " the Gentiles are
fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-
partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the
gospel." This is the key to all his subsequent history.
He was the " apostle of the Gentiles," and that " not
from men, neither through man" (Gal. i. 1); and so
thoroughly was the conviction of his special mission
wrought into the fibres of his nature that it is difficult to
give full credence to statements w7hich appear to be at
variance with it.
Of his life immediately after his conversion he himself
1 For a clear and concise summary of the points of agreement and
difference between the three accounts, reference may be made to an
article by F. Zimnier, "Die drei Berichte der Apo.stelgeschiclite u'ber
die Bekehrung des Paulus," iu Hilgeufeld's Zeitschr. f. icisscnsch.
TkeoL, 1882, p. 465 sq.
PAUL
417
gives a clear account : "I conferred not with flesh and
blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which
were apostles before me ; but I went away into Arabia "
(Gal. i. 16, 17). The reason of his retirement, whether
it was to the HaurAn (Renan) or to the Sinaitic peninsula
(Holsten), is not far to seek. A great mental no less
than a great bodily convulsion naturally calls for a period
of rest ; and the consequences of his new position had to
be drawn out and realized before he could properly enter
upon the mission -work which lay before him. From
cto Arabia he returned to Damascus (Gal. i. 17), and there
' s- began not only his preaching of the gospel but also the
long series of "perils from his own countrymen," which
constitute so large a part of the circumstances of his sub
sequent history (Acts ix. 23-25 ; 2 Cor. xi. 32, 33).
.•u- It was not until "after three years," though it is un
certain whether the reckoning begins from his conversion
or from his return to Damascus, that he went up to Jeru
salem ; his purpose in going was to become acquainted
with Peter, and he stayed with him fifteen days (Gal. i.
18). Of his life at Jerusalem on this occasion there
appear to have been erroneous accounts current even in
his own lifetime, for he adds the emphatic attestation, as
of a witness on his oath, that the account which he gives
is true (Gal. i. 20). The point on which he seems to lay
emphasis is that, in pursuance of his policy not to " confer
with flesh and blood," he saw none of the apostles except
Peter and James, and that even some years afterwards he
was still unknown by face to the churches of Judaea which
were in Christ.1
'•ia, From Jerusalem he went "into the regions of Syria and
Cilicia," preaching the gospel (Gal. i. 21, 23). How much
that brief expression covers is uncertain ; it may refer
only to the first few months after his departure from Jerusa
lem, or it may be a summary of many travels, of which that
which is commonly known as his "first missionary journey "
is a type. The form of expression in Gal. ii. 1 makes it
probable that he purposely leaves an interval between the
events which immediately succeeded his conversion and
the conference at Jerusalem. For this interval, assuming
it to exist, or in any case for the detail of its history, we
have to depend on the accounts in Acts xi. 20-30, xii. 25
to xiv. 28. These accounts possibly cover only a small
part of the whole period, and they are so limited to Paul's
relations with Barnabas as to make it probable that they
were derived from a lost "Acts of Barnabas." This sup
position would probably account for the fact that in them
the conversion of the Gentiles is to a great extent in the
background.
The chief features of these accounts are the formation
of a new centre of Christian life at Antioch, and a journey
which Paul, Barnabas, and for part of the way John Mark
took through Cyprus and Asia Minor.
The first of these facts has a significance which has
sometimes been overlooked for the history not only of
Paul himself but of Christianity in general. It is that the
mingling together, in that splendid capital of the civilized
East, of Jews and Syrians on the one hand with Greeks
and Romans on the other furnished the conditions which
made a Gentile Christianity possible. The religion of
Jesus Christ emerged from its obscurity into the full glare
of contemporary life. Its adherents attracted enough
attention to receive in the common talk and intercourse
of men a distinctive name. They were treated, not as a
Jewish sect, but as a political party. To the Greek equiva
lent for the Hebrew " Messiah," which was probably con
sidered to be not a title but a proper name, was added the
^ A different account of this visit to Jerusalem is given in Acts ix.
26-30, xxvi. 20 ; the account of the trance in the temple, Acts xxii.
17-21, is in entire harmony with Paul's own words.
termination which had been employed for the followers of
Sulla, of Pompey, and of Caesar. It is improbable that
this would have been the case unless the Christian com
munity at Antioch had had a large Gentile element ; and
it is an even more certain and more important fact that in
this first great mixed community the first and greatest of
all the problems of early Christian communities had been
solved, and that Jews and Gentiles lived a common life
(Gal. ii. 12). What place Paul himself had in the forma
tion of this community can only be conjectured. In the
Acts he is less prominent than Barnabas ; and, although it
must be gathered from the Epistle to the Galatians that
he took a leading part in the controversies which arose,
still it is to be noted that he never elsewhere mentions
Antioch in his epistles, and that he never visited it except
casually in his travels. It may be supposed that from an
early period he sought and found a wider field for his
activity. The spirit of the Pharisees who "compassed
sea and land to make one proselyte " was still strong
within him. The zeal for God which had made him a
persecutor had changed its direction but not its force.
His conversion was but an overpowering call to a new
sphere of work. It is consequently difficult to believe
that he was content to take his place as merely one of a
band of teachers elected by the community or appointed
by the Twelve. The sense of a special mission never passed
away from him. "Necessity was laid upon him" (1 Cor.
ix. 16). Inferior to the Twelve in regard to the fact that
he had once "persecuted the church of God," he was
"not a whit behind the very chief est apostles" (2 Cor.
xi. 5) in regard both to the reality and the privileges of
his commission, and to the truth of what he preached
(1 Cor. ix. 3-6; 2 Cor. iii. 1-6; Gal. i. 12). It is also
difficult to believe that he went out with Barnabas simply
as the delegate of the Antiochean community ; whatever
significance the laying on of hands may have had for him
(Acts xiii. 3), it would be contrary to the tenor of all his
writings to suppose that he regarded it as giving him his
commission to preach the gospel.
The narrative of the incidents of the single journey Journey
which is recorded in detail, and which possibly did not through
occupy more than one summer, has given rise to much C-VP™S .
controversy. Its general credibility is supported by the jiinor.
probability that in the first instance Paul would follow
an ordinary commercial route, on which Jewish missionaries
as well as Jewish merchants had been his pioneers. For
his letters to his Gentile converts all presuppose their
acquaintance with the elements of Judaism. They do
not prove monotheism, but assume it.
According to the narrative, Paul and his companions
went first to Cyprus, the native country of Barnabas, and
travelled through the island from its eastern port, Salamis,
to its capital, Paphos. At Paphos a Jewish sorcerer, Bar
Jesus, was struck with blindness, and the proconsul, Sergius
Paulus, was converted. From Cyprus, still following a
common route of trade, they went into the south-east
districts of Asia Minor, through Pamphylia to Antioch in
Pisidia. At Antioch, on two successive Sabbaths, Paul
spoke in the synagogue ; the genuineness of the addresses
which are recorded in the Acts has been disputed, chiefly
because the second of them seems to imply that he " turned
to the Gentiles," not as a primary and unconditional obli
gation, but owing to the rejection of the gospel by the
Jews. Expelled from Antioch, they went on to Iconium
(where the apocryphal "Acts of Paul and Thekla" place
the scene of that improbable but not ungraceful romance),
and thence to Lystra, where the healing of a cripple
caused the simple and superstitious Lycaonians to take
them for gods. Their farthest point was the neighbouring
town of Derbe, from whence they returned by the route
XVIII. — 53
418
the
Twelve.
by which they had come to the sea-coast, and thence to
Antioch in Syria.
But, although the general features of the narrative may
be accepted as true, especially if, as suggested above, its
basis js a memoir or itinerary not of Paul but of Barnabas,
yet it must be conceded that this portion of the Acts
has large omissions. It is difficult to believe that the
passionate zeal of an apostle who was urged by the stimu
lus of a special call of Jesus Christ was satisfied, for
the long period of at least eleven years, with one short
missionary journey, and that, with the exception of a
brief visit to Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30), he remained quietly
at Tarsus or at Antioch (xi. 25, xiii. 1, xiv. 28). In this
period must fall at least a portion of the experiences which
he records in 2 Cor. xi. 24-27, and for which no place can
be found in the interval between the conference at Jeru
salem and the writing of that epistle. The scourging in
the synagogues, the beating with the lictor's rods in the
Roman courts, the shipwrecks, the "night and day in the
deep," the "perils of robbers," and "perils in the wilder
ness " belong no doubt to some of the unrecorded journeys
of these first years of his apostolic life. A more important
omission is that of some of the more distinctive features
of his preaching. It is impossible to account for his atti
tude towards the original apostles in his interview with
them at Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 1-10) except on the supposi
tion that before that interview, no less than after it, he
was that which he had been specially called to be, the
" apostle of the Gentiles " and the preacher of the " gospel
of the uncircumcision."
His rela- At the end of fourteen years, either from his conversion
tion to or from his visit to Peter at Jerusalem, the question of the
relation of the communities which he had formed, and of
the gospel which he preached, to the original Christian
communities, and to the gospel of the Twelve, came to a
crisis. His position was unique. He owed neither his
knowledge of the gospel nor his commission to preach it to
any human authority (Gal. i. 1, 11, 12). As Jesus Christ
had taught and sent forth the Twelve, so had He taught
and sent forth Paul- He was on equal terms with the
Twelve. Until a revelation came to him he was apparently
at no pains to co-operate with them. But between their
respective disciples there was evidently a sharp contention.
The Jewish party, the original disciples and first converts,
maintained the continued obligation of the Mosaic law and
the limitation of the promises to those who observed it ;
the Pauline party asserted the abrogation of the law and
the free justification of all who believed in Jesus Christ.
The controversy narrowed itself to the one point of cir
cumcision. If the Gentiles were without circumcision
members of the kingdom of God, why was the law obli
gatory on the Jews ? If, on the other hand, the Gentiles
had to be circumcised, the gospel had but a secondary im
portance. It seemed for a time as though Christianity
would be broken up into two sharply-divided sects, and
that between the Jewish Christianity, which had its seat
at Jerusalem, and which insisted on circumcision, and the
Gentile Christianity, which had its seat at Antioch, and
which rejected circumcision, there would be an irreconcil
able antagonism. It was consequently " by revelation "
(Gal. ii. 2) that Paul and Barnabas, with the Gentile con
vert Titus as their "minister" or secretary, went to confer
with the leaders among the original disciples, the "pillars"
or "them who were of repute," "James, and Cephas, and
John." He put the question to them : Was it possible
that he was spending or had spent his labour in vain 1
(/zr/7To>s . . . e'opa//ov in Gal. ii. 2 form a direct question
depending on avctfe/^v). He laid before them the "gospel
of the uncircumcision." They made no addition to it (Paul
says of himself dve6f/j.r/r. and of " them who were of re
pute " oi'Sev TrpocraveOei'To, Gal. ii. 2, 6), but accepted it as
Paul preached it, recognizing it as being a special work of
God, and as being on the same level of authority with
their own (Gal. ii. 7-9). The opposition was no doubt
strong; there .were "false brethren" who refused to eman
cipate the Gentile world from the bondage of the law •
and there was also apparently a party of compromise
which, admitting Paul's general contention, maintained
the necessity of circumcision in certain cases, of which the
case of Titus, for reasons which are no longer apparent,
was typical. But Paul would have no compromise. From
his point of view compromise was impossible. " Justifica
tion" was either "of faith " or "by the works of the law";
it was inconceivable that it could be partly by the one and
partly by the other. And he succeeded in maintaining his
position at all points. He received " the right hand of
fellowship," and went back to Antioch the recognized head
and preacher of the "gospel of the uncircumcision." With
in his own sphere he had perfect freedom of action ; the
only tie between his converts and the original community
at Jerusalem was the tie of benevolence. Jew and Gentile
were so far " one body in Christ " that the wealthier Gen
tile communities should "remember the poor."1
When Paul returned to Antioch Peter followed him, Peter
and for a time the two apostles worked in harmony. Peter aild
" did eat with the Gentiles." He shared the common table .a
Antu
1 Few passages of the New Testament have been more keenly de
bated of late years than the accounts of this conference at Jerusalem Coufi
in Acts xv. 4-29 and Gal. ii. 1-10. The only writers of eminence in ence
recent times who think that the two accounts refer to separate events Jeru-
are Caspari, who identifies the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal. salen
ii. 1-10 with that of Acts xi. 30, xii. 25, and Wieseler, who identifies
it with that of Acts xviii. 21, 22 ; both theories are chronologically
impossible. Almost all writers agree in thinking that the two accounts
refer to the same event, but no two writers precisely agree as to the
extent to which they can be reconciled. (1) The differences between
them were first insisted on by Schwegler, Das nachapostolische Zeit-
alter, 1845, vol. i. 116 ; then by Zeller, Die Apostelgeschichte, E.T.,
vol. ii. 8 ; Baur, Paulus, E.T., vol. i. 109 ; Hilgeufeld, Der Gala-
terbrief, 1852, p. 52, and in his Einleitung in das Xeue Testament,
1875, p. 227, &c. ; Krenkel, Paulus, 1869, p. 62; Lipsins, s.v.
" Apostelkouvent," in Schenkel's Ribel-Lexikon, 1868, vol. i. 194;
Overbeck, in his edition of De Wette's ApostelgesddcJite, 1870, p.
216 ; Prteiderer, Paulinismus, 1873, E.T., vol. ii. 5 and 234, and
also in his "Paulinische Studien," in the Jahrb. f. prot. Theol., 1883,
No. 2; Weizsacker, in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Tlicol., 1873, p. 191 ;
Hausrath, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 2d ed. , vol. iii. 151, vol.
iv. 249 ; Holsten, Zum Evangelium des Paulus und Petrus, pp. 241,
292, Das E-mngelium des Paulus, p. 143; Holtzmann, "Der Apos-
telconvent," in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschr. f, wissensch. Theol., 1882 p.
436, 1883 p. 129 (to which articles the writer is indebted for several
of the references here given). (2) The harmony of the two accounts
is maintained, mostly in opposition to the above-named writers, by
Neander, Gesch. d. Pflansung, 5th ed., 1862, p. 158; Ewald, Gesch.
d, Volkes Israel, 3d ed., 1868, vol. vi. 470 ; Kitsch], Ent. d. altkath.
Kirche, 2d ed., 1857, p. 128 ; Lechler, Das apostol. u. nachaposlol.
Zeitalter, 2d ed., 1857, p. 397 ; Baumgarten, Die Apostelgeschichle,
2d ed. , 1859, i. 461 ; Pressense, Hist, des trois premiers siecles, 2d
ed., 1868, vol. i. 457 ; Weiss, Lehrb. d. bib. Theol. (des N.T.), 2d ed.,
1873, p. 141 ; Schenkel, Das Christusbild der Apostel, 1879, p. 38 ;
K. Schmidt, s.v. " Apostel-Konvent," in Herzog's lieal-Encyklopddie,
2ded. , vol. i. 575; Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 123; Weudt, in his edition
of Meyer's Apostelgesch., 1880, p. 311 ; Sieffert, in Meyer's Brief
an die Galater, 18SO, p. 84, &c. ; Zimmer, Galaterlirief und A2)ostd-
geschichte, 1882 ; Nosgen, Comm. iiber die Aposlelgeschichte, 1882,
p. 287. (3) A compromise between the two accounts is attempted
by Renan, SI Paul, 1869, p. 81 ; Reuss, Die Gesch. d. heil. Schr.,
N.T., 5th ed., 1874, p. 57 ; Keim, "Der Apostelconvent," in his Aus
dem Urchristenthum, 1878, p. 64; Grimm, "Der Apostelconvent,"
in Studien u. Kritiken for 18SO, p. 405.
The main points of difficulty in the two accounts are these. (1)
The Acts say that Paul went up by appointment of the brethren at
Antioch ; Paul himself says that he went up "by revelation." (2) In
the Acts Paul has a subordinate position ; in his own account he
treats with "the three" on equal terms. (3) In the Acts Peter and
James are on Paul's side from the first ; in Galatians they are so only
at the end of the conference, and after a discussion. (4) The Acts
make the conference result in a decree, in which certain observances
are imposed upon the Gentiles ; Paul himself expressly declares that
the only injunction was that they "should remember the poor."
PAUL
419
at which the Jewish distinctions of meats were disregarded.
He thereby accepted Paul's position. But when " certain
came from James " he drew back. The position of James
was probably that, even if the law had ceased to be valid
as a means of justification, it was still valid as a rule of
life. For reasons which are not apparent, possibly the
wish not to break with the community at Jerusalem, not
only Peter but Barnabas and the whole of the Jewish party
at Antioch accepted that position, with its consequent
obligation of separation from the Gentile brethren, not only
in social life, but probably also in the partaking of the
Lord's Supper. Paul showed that the position of Peter
was illogical, and that he was self-convicted (/careyrwcr/xevos
r}v, Gal. ii. 11). His argument was that the freedom from
the law was complete, and that to attach merit to obedience
to the law was to make disobedience to the law a sin, and,
by causing those who sought to be justified by faith only
to be transgressors, to make Christ a " minister of sin."
Obedience to any part of the law involved recognition of
the whole of it as obligatory (Gal. v. 3), and consequently
"made void the grace of God."
The schism in the community at Antioch was probably
never healed. It is not probable that Paul's contention
was there victorious ; for, while Paul never again speaks of
that city, Peter seems to have remained there, and he was
looked upon in later times as the founder of its church.
[i mis- But this failure at Antioch served to Paul as the occasion
CTy for carrying out a bolder conception. The horizon of his
irs- mission widened before him. The " fulness of the Gentiles "
had to be brought in. His diocese was no longer Antioch,
but the whole of the Roman empire. The years that
followed were almost wholly spent among its great cities,
" preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ " (Eph. iii. 8). He became the spiritual father of
many communities, and he watched over them with a
father's constant care. He gathered round him a company
of faithful disciples, who shared with him his missionary
work, and whom he sent sometimes to break new ground,
sometimes to arrange disputes, sometimes to gather con
tributions, sometimes to examine and report. Of his travels,
whether with them or alone, no complete record has been
preserved ; some of them are minutely described in the
Acts, others within the same period are knoAvn only or
chiefly from his epistles. In giving an account of them
it is necessary to change to some extent the historical
perspective which is presented in the Acts ; for, in working
up fragments of itineraries of Paul's companions into a
consecutive narrative, many things are made to come into
the foreground which Paul himself would probably have
disregarded, and many things are omitted or thrown into
the shade to which, from his letters, he appears to have
attached a primary importance.1
The first scene of his new activity, if indeed it be allow
able to consider the conference at Jerusalem and the subse
quent dispute at Antioch as having given occasion for a
new departure, Avas probably the eastern part of Asia Minor,
n and more particularly Galatia. Some of it he had visited
'atia. before ; and from the fact that the Galatians, though they
had been heathens (Gal. iv. 8), were evidently acquainted
with the law, it may be inferred that he still went on the
track of Jewish missionaries, and that here, as elsewhere,
Judaism had prepared the way for Christianity. Of his
preaching he himself gives a brief summary ; it was the
vivid setting forth before their eyes of Jesus as the crucified
1 The most important instance of this is probably the almost entire
omission of an account of his relations with the community at Corinth ;
one of his visits is entirely omitted, another is also omitted, though it
may be inferred from the general expression " he came into Greece "
(xx. 2) ; and of the disputes in the community, and Paul's relations
to them, there is not a single word.
Messiah, and it was confirmed by evident signs of the
working of the Spirit (Gal. iii. 1, 5). The new converts
received it with enthusiasm ; he felt for them as a father ;
and an illness (some have thought, from the form of ex
pression in Gal. iv. 15, that it was an acute ophthalmia)
which came upon him (assuming this to have been his first
visit) intensified their mutual affection. What we learn
specially of the Galatians is probably true also of the other
Gentiles who received him ; some of them were baptized
(Gal. iii. 27), they were formed into communities (Gal.
i. 2), and they were so far organized as to have a distinc
tion between teachers and taught (Gal. vi. 6).
But an imperative call summoned him to Europe. The
western part of Asia Minor, in which afterwards were formed
the important churches of Ephesus, Colossae, Hierapolis,
and Laodicea, was for the present left alone. He passed
on into Macedonia. The change was more than a passage in Mace
from Asia to Europe. Hitherto, if Antioch be excepted, <lonia.
he had preached only in small provincial towns. Hence
forward he preached chiefly, and at last exclusively, in the
great centres of population. He began with Philippi, which
was at once a great military post and the wealthy entrepot
of the gold and silver mines of the neighbouring Mount
Pang8eus. The testimony of the eye-witness whose account
is incorporated in Acts xvi. 12-18 tells us that his first
convert was a Jewish proselyte, named Lydia ; and Paul
himself mentions other women converts (Phil. iv. 2). There
is the special interest about the community which soon
grew up that it was organized after the manner of the
guilds, of which there were many both at Philippi and
in other towns of Macedonia, and that its administrative
officers were entitled, probably from the analogy of those
guilds, " bishops " and " deacons."
In Europe, as in Asia, persecution attended him. He
was "shamefully entreated" at Philippi (1 Thess. ii. 2),
and according to the Acts the ill-treatment came not from
the Jews but from the Gentile employers of a frenzied
prophetess, who saw in Paul's preaching an element of
danger to their craft. Consequently he left that city, and
passingover Amphipolis, the political capital of theprovince,
but the seat rather of the official classes than of trade, he
went on to the great seaport and commercial city of
Thessalonica. His converts there seem to have been chiefly
among the Gentile workmen (1 Thess. iv. 11 ; 2 Thess. iii.
10-12), and he himself became one of them. Knowing as
he did the scanty wages of their toil, he " worked night
and day that he might not burden any of them" (1 Thess.
ii. 9 ; 2 Thess. iii. 8). But for all his working he does
not seem to have earned enough to support his little com
pany ; he was constrained both once and again to accept
help from Philippi (Phil. iv. 16). He was determined that,
whatever he might have to endure, no sordid thought should
enter into his relations with the Thessalonians ; he would
be to them only what a father is to his children, behaving
himself "holily and righteously and unblameably," and
exhorting them to walk worthily of God who had called
them (1 Thess. ii. 10-12). But there, as elsewhere, his
preaching was " in much conflict." The Jews were actively
hostile. According to the account in the Acts (xvii. 5-9),
they at last hounded on the lazzaroni of the city, who were
doubtless moved as easily as a Moslem crowd in modern
times by any cry of treason or infidelity, to attack the
house of Jason (possibly one of Paul's kinsmen, Rom. xvi.
21), either because Paul himself was lodging there, or be
cause it was the meeting-place of the community. Paul
and Silas were not there, and so escaped ; but it was thought
prudent that they should go at once and secretly to the
neighbouring small town of Beroea. Thither, however, the
fanatical Jews of Thessalonica pursued them ; and Paul,
leaving his companions Silas and Timothy at Beroea, gave
420
PAUL
up his preaching in Macedonia for a time and went south
wards to Athens.
At The narrative which the Acts give of his stay at Athens
Athens. [s one of the most striking, and at the same time one of
the most difficult, episodes in the book. What is the
meaning of the inscription on the altar? What is the
Areopagus 1 ' How far does the reported speech give Paul's
actual words 1 What did the Athenians understand by the
Insurrection 1 These are examples of questions on which it
is easy to argue, but which, with our present knowledge,
it is impossible to decide. One point seems to be clear,
both from the absence of any further mention of the city
in Paul's writings and from the absence of any permanent
results of his visit, that his visit was a comparative failure.
It was almost inevitable that it should be so. Athens was
the educational centre of Greece. It was a great university
city. For its students and professors the Christianity
which Paul preached had only an intellectual interest.
They were not conscious of the need, which Christianity
presupposes, of a great moral reformation ; nor indeed was
it until many years afterwards, when Christianity had
added to itself certain philosophical elements and become
not only a religion but a theology, that the educated Greek
mind, whether at Athens or elsewhere, took serious hold
of it. Of Paul's own inner life at Athens we learn, not from
the Acts, but from one of his epistles. His thoughts were
not with the philosophers but with the communities of
Macedonia and the converts among whom he had preached
with such different success. He cared far less for the
world of mocking critics and procrastinating idlers in the
chief seat of culture than he did for the enthusiastic
artisans of Thessalonica, to whom it was a burning ques
tion of dispute how soon the Second Advent would come,
and what would be the relation of the living members of
the church to those who had fallen asleep. He would fain
have gone back to them, but "Satan hindered him" (1
Thess. ii. 17, 18); and he sent Timothy in his stead "to
comfort them as concerning their faith," and to prevent
their relapsing, as probably other converts did, under the
pressure of persecution (1 Thess. iii. 2, 3).
At From Athens he went to Corinth, the capital of the
Corinth, Roman province of Achaia, and the real centre of the busy
life of Greece. It was not the ancient Greek city with
Greek inhabitants, but a new city which had grown up in
lloman times, with a vast population of mingled races,
who had added to the traditional worship of Aphrodite
the still more sensuous cults of the East. Never before
had Paul had so vast or so promising a field for his preach
ing ; for alike the filthy sensuality of its wealthy classes
and the intense wretchedness of its half-million of paupers
and slaves (T?)V f38e\vpiav TMV fKeicrt TrXovcriuv /cat TWV
Treyr/Tojv a^AioT^Ta, Alciphr. iii. 60) were prepared ground
upon which his preaching could sow the seed, in the one
case of moral reaction, and in the other of hope. At first
the greatness of his task appalled him : "I was with you
in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling" (1 Cor.
ii. 3). But he laid down for himself from the first the
fixed principle that he would preach nothing but " Jesus
Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor. ii. 2), compromising
with neither the Jews, to whom "the word of the cross,"
i.e., the doctrine of a crucified Messiah, was "a stumbling-
block," nor with the Gentile philosophers, to whom it was
"foolishness" (1 Cor. i. 18, 23). It is probable that there
were other preachers of the gospel at Corinth, especially
among the Jews, since soon afterwards there was a Judaizing
party ; Paul's own converts seem to have been chiefly
among the Gen tiles (1 Cor. xii. 2). Some of them apparently
belonged to the luxurious classes (1 Cor. vi. 11), a few of
them to the influential and literary classes (1 Cor. i. 26) ;
but the majority were from the lowest classes, the " foolish,"
the "weak," the "base," and the "despised" (1 Cor. i.
27, 28). And among the poor he lived a poor man's life.
It was his special "glorying" (1 Cor. ix. 15 ; 2 Cor. xi. 10)
that he would not be burdensome to any of them (1 Cor.
ix. 12 ; 2 Cor. xi. 9, xii. 13). He worked at his trade
of tent-making ; but it Avas a hard sad life. His trade
was precarious, and did not suffice for even his scanty needs
(2 Cor. xi. 9). Beneath the enthusiasm of the preacher
was the physical distress of hunger and cold and ill-usage
(1 Cor. iv. 11). But in "all his distress and affliction"
he was comforted by the good news which Timothy brought
him of the steadfastness of the Thessalonian converts ; the
sense of depression which preceded it is indicated by the
graphic phrase, " Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord "
(1 Thess. iii. 6-8). With Timothy came Silas, both of them
bringing help for his material needs from the communities
of Macedonia (2 Cor. xi. 9 ; Acts xviii. 5 ; perhaps only
from Philippi, Phil. iv. 15), and it was apparently after
their coming that the active preaching began (2 Cor. i. 19)
which roused the Jews to a more open hostility.
Of that hostility an interesting incident is recorded in
the Acts (xviii. 12-16); but a more important fact in Paul's
life was the sending of a letter, the earliest of all his letters
Avhich have come doAvn to us, to the community which he
had founded at Thessalonica. Its genuineness, though
perhaps not beyond dispute, is almost certain. Part of it
is a renewed exhortation to steadfastness in face of perse
cutions, to purity of life, and to brotherly love ; part of it
is apparently an ansAver to a question which had arisen
among the converts when some of their number had died
before the Parousia ; and part of it is a general summary
of their duties as members of a Christian community. It
Avas probably f olloAved, some months af terAATards, by a second
letter ; but the genuineness of the Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians has been much disputed. It proceeds upon
the same general lines as the first, but appears to correct
the misapprehensions Avhich the first had caused as to the
nearness of the Parousia.
After having lived probably about tAvo years at Corinth
Paul resolved, for reasons to Avhich he himself gives no
clue, to change the centre of his activity from Corinth to
Ephesus. Like Corinth, Ephesus Avas a great commercial At
city Avith a vast mixed population ; it afforded a similar El''ies
field for preaching, and it probably gaA'e him increased
facilities for communicating Avith the communities to Avhich
he Avas a spiritual father. It is clear from his epistles
that his activity at Ephesus was on a much larger scale
than the Acts of the Apostles indicate. Probably the author
of the memoirs from AA'hich this part of the narrative in
the Acts was compiled Avas not at this time Avith him ;
consequently there remain only fragmentary and for the
most part unimportant anecdotes. His real life at this,
time is vividly pictured in the Epistles to the Corinthians.
It was a life of hardship and danger and anxiety : "Even
unto this present hour AVC both hunger and thirst, and are
naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain chvelling-
place ; and AVC toil, working with our OAVH hands ; being
reviled, Ave bless ; being persecuted, we endure ; being
defamed, we intreat ; Ave are made as the filth of the-world,
the offscouring of all things even until now" (1 Cor. iv.
11-13). It Avas almost more than he could bear: "We
Avere Aveighed doAvn exceedingly, beyond our pOAver, inso
much that Ave despaired even of life " (2 Cor. i. 8). He
went about like one condemned to die, upon Avhom the
sentence might at any moment be carried out (2 Cor. i. 9).
Once, at least, it seemed as though the end had actually
come, for he had to fight Avith beasts in the arena (1 Cor.
xv. 32) ; and once, if not on the same occasion, he was
only saved by Prisca and Aquila, " who for his life laid
down their own necks " (Rom. xvi. 4). But that Avhich
PAUL
421
filled a larger place in his thoughts than the " perils " of
either the past or the present was the " care of all the
churches." He was the centre round which a system of
communities revolved ; and partly by letters, partly by
sending his companions, and partly by personal visits, he
kept himself informed of their varied concerns, and en
deavoured to give a direction to their life.
[ re- His most important relations were those with the communities
tins of Asia Minor and of Corinth.
> i the (A) It is probable that from Ephesus he went to the churches of
li jhes Galatia. Before writing to the Galatians he had paid them at least
e two visits (Gal. i. 9, iv. 13), and, although it is conceivable that
oided. both visits may belong to his earlier journeys, yet the tone of his
letter implies that no great interval had elapsed since his last visit
(Gal. i. 6). The Acts mention that soon after his arrival at Ephesus
he went to Syria, and returned " through the region of Phrygia and
Galatia in order, stablishing all the disciples " (xviii. 23) ; and,
although the motive which is assigned for that journey has been
called in question, the journey itself is not inconsistent with the
statements of his epistles.1 He appears to have been followed by
vigorous opponents, who denied his authority as a Christian teacher,
and who taught "another gospel" (Gal. i. 6, 7). He consequently
wrote a letter, the Epistle to the Galatians, which, from its marked
antithetical character, throws greater light upon the essential points
of his preaching than any other which has come down to us. It
is mainly directed to three points : first, to assert that what he
preached had its origin in a direct revelation to himself, and was
consequently of divine authority ; secondly, to show that the bless
ings of the gospel were not limited to the seed of Abraham, but
were given to all that believe ; thirdly, to maintain that submis
sion to the requirements of the law was not merely unnecessary,
but an abandonment of the gospel. To this he adds the practical
exhortation that they should not " use their freedom for an occa
sion to the flesh," but " walk by the Spirit," from whom their new
life came.
It is also probable that during his stay at Ephesus several com
munities were formed in the western corner of Phrygia, in the
valley of the Lycus, at Laodicea, Colossre, and Hierapolis. If the
testimony of the Epistle to the Colossians be accepted, they were
formed, not by Paul himself, but by Epaphroditus (Col. i. 7, ii.
1, iv. 12, 13).
(B) His relations at this time with the community at Corinth
may for the most part be clearly inferred from his epistles, but,
since they are ignored in the Acts and since the words of the epistles
are in some cases ambiguous, there are some points of comparative
uncertainty. The following is the most probable account of them.
(1) Corinth, soon after Paul left it, was visited by Apollos, who
is described in the Acts as an Alexandrian Jew, "a learned man"
and "mighty in the Scriptures " (xviii. 24). Paul had "planted,"
and Apollos "watered" (1 Cor. iii. 6); to the unrhetorical and
unphilosophical gospel of the one was added the rhetorical and
philosophical preaching of the other ; they both preached in effect
the same gospel, but between their followers there soon came to be
a rivalry ; and it is probably in contrast to Apollos that Paul sub
sequently protests that his own preaching was " not in persuasive
words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power"
(1 Cor. ii. 4). (2) It is probable that Paul then went to Corinth a
second time ; since his next visit was his third (2 Cor. xiii. 1, which,
however, has sometimes been understood of an unfulfilled intention).
(3) The Corinthians afterwards wrote to ask his advice on several
points, viz., on marriage, on virgins, on things sacrificed to idols, on
spiritual gifts, on the collection for the poor, and on his relations
with Apollos (it is probable that the sections of Paul's letter which
begin with the preposition irepi, "concerning," are the direct
answers to the letter of the Corinthians). He also received news
of the state of affairs at Corinth from the slaves of Chloe, who told
him of the divisions in the community (1 Cor. i. 11), and from
Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who not only gave him
better news, but probably also brought him material help (1 Cor.
xvi. 17). He probably also learnt something from Apollos, who
1 It has been customary to give this visit to Syria a factitious im
portance by representing it as constituting the point of division be
tween the second and the third missionary journeys. But the arrange
ment of Paul's active life into " missionary journeys " is artificial and
unsatisfactory. The so-called " first missionary journey " is, as has
been pointed out above, only a single episode in at least eleven years
of work ; and, even if it be allowed that the conference at Jerusalem
constitutes a sufficiently important epoch in his life to warrant a
break in his biography, there is no solid reason whatever for fixing
upon this particular visit to Syria as constituting such an epoch. If
the latter part of his biography be broken up into chapters at all, it
would be much more useful to divide it according to the centres at
which he settled from time to time, and from which his activity
radiated, Corinth, Ephesus, C;csarea (probably), and Rome.
had come to him (1 Cor. xvi. 12). (4) He then sent Timothy to
them (1 Cor. iv. 17, xvi. 10, 11), possibly by way of Macedonia,
and with Erastus (Acts xix. 22). It has been thought that Timothy
never reached Corinth (Neander, De Wette, Hausrath, partly on
the ground that he would have been mentioned in 2 Cor. xii. 17) ;
but, on the other hand, since his intended visit was mentioned in
the first letter, his non-arrival would probably have been expressly
accounted for in the second (Heinrici, Holtzmann). (5) Before
Timothy reached Corinth Paul addressed to the Corinthians the first
of the two letters which have come down to us. (6) Afterwards,
possibly in consequence of the news which Timothy brought to
him at Ephesus, he sent a second letter, which has not been pre
served ; this is an inference from 2 Cor. ii. 3, 4, vii. 8-12, where
the description of a letter written "with many tears," which made
the Corinthians "sorry," does not seem applicable to the existing
1 Cor. (Hausrath thinks that this intermediate letter is to be
recognized in 2 Cor. x.-xiii. ; but his hypothesis is rejected
by Hilgenfeld, Beyschlag, Klopper, "Weizsacker, Holtzmaun, and
others). (7) Then he sent Titus, probably with a view to the col
lection of alms for the poor Christians in Palestine (2 Cor. viii. 6,
xii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. xvi. 1-3). (8) After this, without waiting for
the return of Titus, he resolved to carry out the intention which he
had for some time entertained, but which he had abandoned or
postponed, of going again himself (1 Cor. xvi. 5, 6 ; 2 Cor. i. 15,
23 ; it may be noted that, while in the first epistle his intention
was that which he actually carried out, viz. , to go first to Mace
donia and then to Corinth, in the second epistle the order of his
intended route is altered).
An emeute which took place at Ephesus was, according
to the Acts, the occasion if not the cause of his leaving
that city ; " a great door and effectual had been opened
unto him" there (1 Cor. xvi. 9), and the growth of the
new religion had caused an appreciable diminution in the
trade of those who profited by the zeal of the worshippers
at the temple (Acts xix. 23 to xx. 1). He went overland
to Troas, where, as at Ephesus, "a door was opened unto
him in the Lord" (2 Cor. ii. 12); but the thought of
Corinth was stronger than the wish to make a new com
munity. He was eager to meet Titus, and to hear of the
effect of his now lost letter ; and he went on into Mace- In Mace
donia. It is at this point of his life more than at any donia
other that he reveals to us his inner history. At Ephesus 'lg
he had been hunted almost to death ; he had carried his
life in his hand ; and, " even when we were come into
Macedonia, our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted
on every side ; without were fightings, within were fears "
(2 Cor. vii. 5). But, though the "outward man was
decaying, yet the inward man was renewed day by day " ;
and the climax of splendid paradoxes which he wrote soon
afterwards to the Corinthians (2 Cor. vi. 3-10) was not a
rhetorical ideal, but the story of his actual life. But after
a time Titus came with news which gladdened Paul's Titus
heart (2 Cor. vii. 7). He had been well received at comes
Corinth. The letter had made a deep impression. The p0111 ,,
admonitions had been listened to. The Corinthians had
repented of their conduct. They had rid themselves of
"him that did the wrong," and Paul was "of good
courage concerning them " (2 Cor. vii. 8-16). He then
wrote the second of his extant letters to them, which was
sent by Titus and the unknown " brother whose praise in
the gospel is spread through all the churches," and who
had been elected by the churches to travel with Paul and
his company (2 Cor. viii. 18, 19). It was probably in the
course of this journey that he went beyond the borders of
Macedonia into the neighbouring province of Illyricum
(Rom. xv. 19); but his real goal was Corinth. For the At
third time he went there, and, overcoming the scruples of Corinth
his earlier visits, he Avas the guest of Gaius, in whose house a°
the meetings of the community took place (Rom. xvi. 23).
Of the incidents of his visit no record remains ; the
Acts do not even mention it. But it was the culminating
point of his intellectual activity ; for in the course of it
he wrote the greatest of all his letters, the Epistle to the
Romans. And, as the body of that epistle throws an
invaluable light upon the tenor of his preaching at this
422
PAUL
Christian
poor.
time to the communities, among which that of Rome can
hardly have been singular, so the salutations at the end,
whether they be assumed to be an integral part of the
whole or not, are a wonderful revelation of the breadth
and intimacy of his relations with the individual members
of those communities. But that which was as much in
his mind as either the great question of the relation of
faith to the law or the needs of individual converts in
Collec- the Christian communities was the collection of alms " for
tion of the poor among the saints that were at Jerusalem " (Rom.
" xv. 26). The communities of Palestine had probably
^" never ceased to be what the first disciples were, communi
ties of paupers in a pauperized country, and consequently
dependent upon external help. And all through his mis
sionary journeys Paul had remembered the injunction
which had sealed his compact with " the three " (Gal. ii.
10). In Galatia (1 Cor. xvi. 1), among the poor and
persecuted churches of Macedonia (Rom. xv. 26 ; 2 Cor.
viii. 1-4), at Corinth, and in Achaia (1 Cor. xvi. 1-3 ;
2 Cor. viii. and ix.), the Gentiles who had been made
partakers with the Jews in spiritual things had been
successfully told that " they owed to them also to minister
unto them in carnal things " (Rom. xv. 27). The con
tributions were evidently on a large scale ; and Paul, to
prevent the charges of malversation which wrere sometimes
made against him, associated with himself " in the matter
of this grace " a person chosen by the churches themselves
(2 Cor. viii. 19-21, xii. 17, 18); some have thought that
all the persons whose names are mentioned in Acts xx. 4
were delegates of their respective churches for this purpose.
He resolved to go to Jerusalem himself with this material
testimony of the brotherly feeling of the Gentile communi
ties, and then, " having no more any place " in Greece, to
go to the new mission fields of Rome and the still farther
West (Rom. xv. 23-25). He wras not certain that his
peace-offering would be acceptable to the Jewish Christ
ians, and he had reason to apprehend violence from the
Sets out unbelieving Jews. His departure from Corinth, like that
from Ephesus, was probably hastened by danger to his
life ; and, instead of going direct to Jerusalem (an intention
which seems to be implied in Rom. xv. 25), he and his
companions took a circuitous route round the coasts of
the ^Egean Sea. His course lay through Philippi, Troas,
Mitylene, Chios, and Miletus, where he took farewell of
the elders of the community at Ephesus in an address of
which some reminiscences are probably preserved in Acts
xx. 18-34. Thence he went, by what was probably an
ordinary route of commerce, to the Syrian coast, and at
last he reached the Holy City.
The narrative which the Acts give of the incidents of
his life there is full of grave difficulties. It leaves alto
gether in the background that which Paul himself mentions
as his chief reason for making the visit ; and it relates
that he accepted the advice which was given him to avail
himself of the custom of vicarious vows, in order to show,
by his conformity to prevalent usages, that " there was
no truth " in the reports that he had told the Gentiles
"not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after
the customs" (Acts xxi. 20-26). If this narrative be
judged by the principles which Paul proclaims in the
Epistle to the Galatians, it seems hardly credible. He
had broken with Judaism, and his whole preaching was
a preaching of the "righteousness which is of faith,"
as an antithesis to, and as superseding, the "righteous
ness which is of the law." But now he is represented
as resting his defence on his conformity to the law, on
his being " a Pharisee and the son of Pharisees," who
was called in question for the one point only that he
believed, as other Pharisees believed, in the resurrection
of the dead.
salein.
What colouring of a later time, derived from later con
troversies, has been spread over the original outline of the
history cannot now be told. While on the one hand the
difficulties of the narrative as it stands cannot be over
looked, yet on the other hand no faithful historian will
undertake, in the absence of all collateral evidence, the
task of discriminating that which belongs to a contempo
rary testimony and that which belongs to a subsequent
recension. From this uncertainty the general concurrence
of even adverse critics excepts the "we" section (Acts xxvii.
1, xxviii. 16); whoever may have been the author of
those " we " sections, and whatever may be the amount of
revision to which they have been subjected, they seem to
have for their basis the diary or itinerary of a companion
of Paul, and the account of the voyage contains at least
the indisputable fact that Paul went to Rome.
But his life at Rome and all the rest of his history are
enveloped in mists from which no single gleam of certain
light emerges. Almost every writer, whether apologetic
or sceptical, has some new hypothesis respecting it ; and
the number and variety of the hypotheses which have been
already framed is a warning, until new evidence appears,
against adding to their number. The preliminary ques
tions which have to be solved before any hypothesis can
be said to have a foundation in fact are themselves ex
tremely intricate ; and their solution depends upon con
siderations to which, in the absence of positive and deter
mining evidence, different minds tend inevitably to give
different interpretations. The chief of these preliminary Genuir
questions is the genuineness of the epistles bearing Paul's ness °*
name, which, if they be his, must be assigned to the later a. .!"'•
period of his life, viz., those to the Philippians, Ephesians,
and Colossians, to Philemon, to Timothy, and to Titus. As
these epistles do not stand or fall together, but give rise in
each case to separate discussion, the theories vary accord
ing as they are severally thought to be genuine or false.
The least disputed is the Epistle to Philemon ; but it is
also the least fruitful in either doctrine or biographical
details. Next to it in the order of general acceptance is
the Epistle to the Philippians. The Epistles to the Ephe
sians and to the Colossians have given rise to disputes
which cannot easily be settled in the absence of collateral
evidence, since they mainly turn partly on the historical
probability of the rapid growth in those communities of
certain forms of theological speculation, and partly on the
psychological probability of the almost sudden develop
ment in Paul's own mind of new methods of conceiving
and presenting Christian doctrine. The pastoral epistles,
viz., those to Timothy and to Titus, have given rise to still
graver questions, and are probably even less defensible.
But, even if this preliminary question of the genuine- Difficu
ness of the several epistles be decided in each instance in ties c
the affirmative, there remains the further question whether with
they or any of them belong to the period of Paul's imprison- iater li
ment at Rome, and, if so, what they imply as to his history.
It is held by many writers that they all belong to an
earlier period of his life, especially to his stay at Cajsarea
(Acts xxiv. 23, 27). It is held by other writers that
they were all sent from Rome, and with some such writers
it has become almost an article of faith that he was im
prisoned there not once but twice. It is sometimes further
supposed that in the interval between the first and second
imprisonments he made his intended journey to Spain
(Rom. xv. 24, which is apparently regarded as an accom
plished fact by the author of the Muratorian fragment) ;
and that either before or after his journey to Spain he
visited again the communities of the Mgca.ii seaboard
which are mentioned in the pastoral epistles.
The place and manner and occasion of his death are
not less uncertain than the facts of his later life. The
PAUL
423
only fragment of approximately contemporary evidence is
a vague and rhetorical passage in the letter of Clement of
Rome (c. 5) : " Paul . . . having taught the whole world
righteousness, and having come to the goal of the West
(evrt TO repfj.a TT^S Svo-ews), and having borne witness (fJ-ap-
Tt'pijcras) before the rulers, so was released from the world
and went to the Holy Place, having become the greatest
example of patience." The two material points in this
passage, (1) "the limit of the West," (2) "having borne
witness," are fruitful sources of controversy. The one
may mean either Eome or Spain, the other may mean either
"having testified "or "having suffered martyrdom." It
is not until towards the end of the 2d century, after
many causes had operated both to create and to crush
traditions, that mention is made of Paul as having suffered
about the same time as Peter at Home ; but the credibility
of the assertion is weakened by its connexion in the same
sentence with the erroneous statement that Peter and Paul
went to Italy together after having founded the church at
Corinth (Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius, //. E.,
ii. 25). A Roman presbyter named Gaius speaks, a few
years later, of the martyr-tombs of the two apostles being
visible at Rome (quoted by Eusebius, I. c.) ; but neither
this testimony nor that of Tertullian (De prxscr. 36,
Scorp. 15, Adv. Marc. iv. 5) is sufficient to establish more
than the general probability that Paul suffered martyrdom.
But there is no warrant for going beyond this, as almost
all Paul's biographers have done, and finding an actual
date for his martyrdom in the so-called Neronian persecu
tion of 64 A.D.1
The chronology of the rest of his life is as uncertain as
the date of his death. We have no means of knowing
when he was born, or how long he lived, or at what dates
the several events of his life took place. The nearest
approach to a fixed point from which the dates of some
events may be calculated is that of the death of Festus,
which may probably, though by no means certainly, be
placed in 62 A.D. ; even if this date were certainly known,
new evidence would be required to determine the length
of time during which he held office ; all that can or could
be said is that Paul was sent to Rome some time before
the death of Festus in 62 A.D. How widely opinions
differ as to the rest of the chronology may be seen by a
reference to the chronological table which is given by Meyer
in the introduction to his Commentary on the Acts, and after
him by Farrar, St Paul, vol. ii. p. 624.2
t per- Of his personality he himself tells us as much as need
)lity. be known when he quotes the adverse remarks of his
opponents at Corinth : " his letters, they say, are weighty
and strong ; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech
of no account" (2 Cor. x. 10). The Christian romance-
writer elaborated the picture, of which some traits may
have come to him from tradition : "a man small in stature,
bald-headed, bow-legged, stout, close-browed, with a slightly
prominent nose, full of grace ; for at one time he seemed
like a man, at another time he had the face of an angel "
(" Acta Pauli et Theclae," c. 3, ap. Tischendorf, Ada Apos-
tolorwm Apocrypha, p. 41) ; and the pagan caricaturist
speaks of him in similar terms, as "bald in front, with a
slightly prominent nose, who had taken an aerial journey
1 The Martyrium Pauli in Zacagni, Coll. mon. vet. eccl., Rome,
1698, p. 535, gives not only details but an exact date, viz., 29th
June 66 A.D. ; the day has been adopted by the Latin Church as the
common anniversary of St Peter and St Paul. All the early evidence
which bears upon the point has been collected by Kunze, Prsecipua
patrum ecclesmsticorum testimonia quse ad mortem Pauli apostoli
spectant, Gottingen, 1848.
2 The literature of the subject is extensive ; the most convenient
summary of the discussions, for English readers, will be found in the
introduction to Meyer's Commentary, which is mentioned above, and
of which there is an English translation.
into the third heaven" (pseudo-Lucian, Philopatris, c. 12).
Some early representations of him on gilded glasses and
sarcophagi still remain ; accounts of them will be found
in Smith and Cheetham, Diet. Chr. Ant., vol. ii. p. 1621 ;
Schultze, Die Katakomben, Leipsic, 1882, p. 149. That
he was sometimes stricken down by illness is clear from
Gal. iv. 13 (some have thought also from 2 Cor. ii. 4);
and at his moments of greatest exaltation "there was
given to him a stake in the fiesh . . . that he should not
be exalted overmuch" (2 Cor. xii. 7). The nature of this
special weakness has given rise to many conjectures ; the
most probable is that it was one of those obscure nervous
disorders which are allied to epilepsy and sometimes mis
taken for it.3
Of the writings which are ascribed to him in the current lists of Pseudo-
the canonical books of the New Testament, and also of the Epistle nymous
to the Hebrews, accounts will be found in separate articles under writings,
their respective titles. The writings which are ascribed to him
outside the canon, and which are all unquestionably pseudonymous,
are the following. (1) The Epistle to the Laodiceans. This is sup
posed to be the letter mentioned in Col. iv. 16 ; it has been recog
nized as apocryphal from early times (Jer., Catal. script, eccl., c.
5 ; Theodoret on Coloss. iv. 16, &c. ), but it is found in many Latin
MSS. of the New Testament. The text, which is a cento from
genuine Pauline epistles, will be found, e.g., in Anger, Ucber den
Laodicener brief, Leipsic, 1843 ; Lightfoot, Colossians, p. 274, who
also gives a convenient summary of the views which have been held
respecting the letter which is actually mentioned. (2) A Third
Epistle to the Corinthians, i.e., the letter mentioned in 1 Cor. v. 9.
This is found in an Armenian version, together with an equally apo
cryphal letter of the Corinthians to Paul ; it has been several times
printed, the best edition of it being that of Aucher, Armenian and
English Grammar, Venice, 1819, p. 183. An English translation will
be found in Stanley, Epistles of St Paul to the Corinthians, p. 593.
(3) Letters between Paul and Seneca. These are first mentioned by
Jerome, Catal. script, cedes., c. 12, and Augustine, Epist. 54(153),
ad Maccdonium, and have given rise to interesting discussions as
to the possibility of personal relations having actually existed be
tween the two men. The letters will be found in most editions of
Seneca, e.g., ed. Hasse, vol. iii. 476 ; for the questions which have
been raised concerning them reference may conveniently be made
to Funk, "Der Briefwechsel des Paulus mit Seneca," in the Theol.
Quartalschr., Tubingen, 1867, p. 602, and Lightfoot, Philippians,
p. 327. Besides these apocryphal letters there are several apocry
phal works which profess to add to our information respecting his
life ; the most important of these are (1) The Acts of Peter and Paul,
(2) The Acts of Paul and Thecla, (3) The Apocalypse of Paul ; the
first two are printed in Tischendorf s Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha,
pp. 1, 40, the third in his Apocalypses Mosis, Esrse, Pauli, p. 34 ;
all three will be found in an English version in The Apocryphal
Gospels, Acts, and Revelations, translated by A. Walker, Edinburgh,
1870 ; an elaborate and trustworthy account of them will appear
in the not yet completed work of R. A. Lipsius, Die apokryphen
Apostdgcsclrichtcn und Apostellcgenden.
Pauline Theology.
The consideration of Paul's theology is rendered difficult by Difficul-
several circumstances. Some of these circumstances attach to the ties at-
theology itself. (1) It has two elements, the logical and the mysti- taching
cal, which are seldom altogether separable from each other ; it to his
cannot be stated in a consecutive series of syllogisms, nor can any theology,
adequate view of it leave out of sight elements which belong to
another order of thought than that within which the modern world
ordinarily moves. (2) He belonged to an age in which abstract
conceptions had a greater power over men's minds than they have
now ; the extreme tendency of that feature of his age is seen in
Gnosticism, which not only gave abstract ideas an independent
existence but endowed them with personality ; and, although he
was not a Gnostic, yet he lived at a time at which Gnosticism was
conceivable, and some of his own expressions are not out of har
mony with it. (3) Since he was in some instances attaching new
meanings to words which were already in use, and since in such a
case it is difficult for even the most rigidly logical writer to keep
the new meaning entirely distinct from the old, it is natural to
find that a writer of Paul's temperament, especially when writing
as he did under different circumstances and to different classes of
people, should sometimes use the same word in different senses.
Other circumstances arise from the manner in which his theology
3 See Krenkel, " Das korperliche Leiden des Paulus," in the Zeitschr.
f. wissensch. Theol., 1873, p. 238 ; and for various views, Lightfoot,
Galatians, p. 188 ; Farrar, St Paul, vol. L, Excurs. x. p. 652.
424
PAUL
has been treated. (4) It has proved to be ditlieult for most writers
to avoid attaching to some of the words which he uses, and which
are also used by writers of other parts of the New Testament, ideas
which may be true in themselves, and which were probably in the
minds of those other writers, but which do not appear to have
entered into Paul's own system of thought. (5) It lias proved
to be difficult for most writers to keep Paul's own ideas clear
from their later accretions. Those ideas form the basis alike of
Augustinianism, of Thomism, and of Lutheranism ; and, since one
or other of these systems of theology, or some modification of it,
forms part of the education of most theological students, and is
embodied in the catechism or confession with whose words, if not
always with their meaning, every member of a Christian community
is more or less familiar, it is not unnatural to find that almost all
writers have approached the subject with a certain amount of
prepossession in favour of some particular interpretation or com
bination of Paul's phrases. (6) Another kind of difficulty arises
from the very limited extent to which it is possible to apply to his
theology the method of comparison. If it were possible to recover
a sufficient amount of current Palestinian theology for the purpose,
any exposition of Paul's theology would begin by setting forth
the main points of the system of ideas in which he was educated,
and would proceed to show how far they were affected by the new
elements which were introduced into that system by his conversion.
Much light is thrown upon some points by the large knowledge of
current Alexandrian theology which may be obtained from Philo ;
but, although Palestinian and Alexandrian theology had many
elements in common, they seem to have differed most of all in those
respects in which a knowledge of the former would have thrown
light upon Paul. It becomes necessary, in the absence of most
of the materials which would have been valuable for comparison, to
content ourselves with putting together the predicates which he
attaches to the several terms which he employs, with disentangling
the winding threads of his arguments, and with endeavouring to
ascertain what conceptions will best account for the several groups
of his varying metaphors. The danger of stating the results of
these processes in a systematic form is partly that, without the
checks and side-lights which arc afforded by a knowledge of their
antecedents and surroundings, any such statement is liable to have
a false perspective, by making prominent that which was subordinate
and giving to unimportant phrases a disproportionate value ; and
partly that Paul's own variety and complexity of expression re
flect the variety and complexity of the spiritual truths with which
he deals, and for which any single form of statement is inadequate.
Sin, the The most fundamental conception, both historically in the de-
funda- velopment of Paul's own thought, and logically as the ground
mental from which the rest of his theology may be deduced, is that of sin.
concep- The word is used sometimes to denote the actual doing of a wrong
tion. action, or the consciousness of having done it, and sometimes to
denote the tendency to do such actions, or the quality of such
actions in the abstract. This tendency or quality is conceived as
a quasi-personal being, which dwells in men (Rom. vii. 20), which
exercises dominion over them (Rom. v. 21, vi. 12, 14), to which
they are slaves (Rom. vi. 13, 17 sq. , vii. 14), which pays them
wages (Rom. vi. 23), which imposes its law upon them (Rom. vii.
23, 25, via. 2), which keeps them shut up in prison (Gal. iii. 22),
or which, in less metaphorical language, causes evil desires (Rom.
vii. 8). It is not precisely defined, but, since it is the opposite of
obedience (Rom. vi. 16), its essence may be regarded as disobedience.
No such definition was at the time necessary, for neither in his
belief in the existence of sin nor in his conception of its nature
did he differ from the great mass of his countrymen. His pecu
liarity was that he both believed in its universality and made that
fact of its universality the basis of his teaching. In the early
chapters of the Epistle to the Romans he rests the proof of the
fact on an appeal to common experience. But the proof is rather
of rhetorical than of logical validity. It was easy in addressing a
congregation of Gentiles to point to the general and deep depravity
of the society which surrounded them, and in addressing Jews not
only to show that they fell short of their own standard, but also to
clench the argument by an appeal to Scripture, which declared that
"there is none righteous, no not one " (Ps. xiv. 1 ; Rom. iii. 10 ;
cf. Gal. iii. 22). But the general prevalence of depravity did not
show its universality, and the appeal to Scripture was not convincing
to a Gentile. These arguments are not further insisted on, and a
more cogent proof is found in the fact of the universality of death ;
for it was a fixed Jewish belief that "God created man to be
immortal " (Wisd. ii. 23), and the fact that all men died showed
that all men sinned (Rom. v. 12). Nor was even this proof suffi
cient. What had to be shown, for the purposes of his further
arguments, was not merely that sin was universal but that it was
so inevitably. This is done by showing that sin is inseparable
from human nature on two grounds, the relation of which to each
other is neither clear in itself nor clearly explained by Paul.
(1) The one is that mankind as a race were involved in the sin of
Adam (Rom. v. 12-19; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22). "Through the one
man's disobedience the many were made sinners" (Rom. v. 19) is
an alternative expression with "through the trespass of the one
the many died" (Rom. v. 15). But as to the mode in which the
"disobedience" or "trespass" of Adam affected the whole human
race no information is given, and the question has been one of the
chief puzzles of Christian theology in all ages. It is a point upon
which, more than perhaps upon any other, light would be thrown
by a fuller knowledge of contemporary Jewish theology (cf. Ecclesi-
asticus, xxv. 24, "of the woman came the beginning of sin and
through her we all die " ; the question is complicated by the men
tion of Adam in 1 Cor. xv. 47 as "of the earth, earthy," and
apparently corruptible by virtue of his earthy nature, without
reference to his trangression). (2) The second ground is at once
more prominent and more intelligible to a modern mind. It is
that human nature consists of two elements, and that one of them,
as Paul gathered from his own experience, which he took to be
identical in this respect with the universal experience of mankind,
is constantly suggesting sinful actions. Whether it does so because
it is in itself essentially sinful, or because sin has effected a perma
nent lodgment in it, is a question which has been vigorously
debated, and which is the more difficult of solution because some
of Paul's expressions appear to favour the former view and some
the latter. To this element of human nature he gives the name
"flesh," apparently including under it not only the material body
but also, and more especially, the affections and desires which
spring out of the body, such as love and hate, jealousy and anger ;
its tendency or " mind " ((f>p6vij/j.a) is always in antagonism at once
to the higher element or "spirit" (Gal. v. 17) and to the law of
God, so that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God"
(Rom. viii. 7, 8).
So far, in his conception of the dualism of human nahire, of the
inevitable tendency of the lower part to prevail over the higher,
and of the consequent universality of wrongdoing, Paul did not
differ from the majority of those who have at any time reflected
cither upon themselves or upon mankind. The idea of sin was
common to him with the Stoics. But it was impossible for him to
stop where the Stoics stopped, at the exhortation to men to live
by the rule of what was highest in them, and so to "follow God."
For he was not a philosopher but a theologian ; he was not a
" citizen of the world " but a " Hebrew of the Hebrews." God had
stood to his race in an especially close relation ; He had given it a
code of laws, and that code of laws was to a Jewish theologian the
measure not only of duty but of truth. How was the conception
of the universality of sin consistent with the existence of "statutes"
and "judgments, which if a man do he shall live in them " (Lev.
xviii. 5, quoted in Rom. x. 5 ; Gal. iii. 12) ? That statement of
Scripture clearly implied, and most of his countrymen believed,
that the perfect observance of the law was possible, and that so a
man might be " righteous before God. "
It was at this point that he broke off, not only from the majority His co
of his countrymen, but from his own early beliefs. The thought ceptioi
came to him with the overwhelming power of a direct revelation, of the
that the law not only had not been, but could not be, perfectly law.
observed. In one sense he seems to have held even to the end of
his life that there was "a righteousness that is in the law" (Phil,
iii. 6). But in another and truer sense such a righteousness was
impossible. " By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified "
(Gal. ii. 16), and that not only in fact but of necessity. For the
law went deeper than was commonly supposed.1 It touched not
only the outer but also the inner life, and in doing so it inevitably
failed from the very constitution of human nature. The existence
in that nature of the " fleshly " element was of itself a constant
breach of the law. The "mind," the "inner man," might delight
in the law of God, but the "flesh," even if it were not inherently
sinful, was in perpetual "captivity to the law of sin." And for
this state of things the law had no remedy. On the one hand, it
was external to men ; it could not give them the force of a new
life (faoTToirjffai, Gal. iii. 21). On the other hand, the flesh was
too strong for it (Rom. viii. 3). Its failure had been foreseen and
provided for. The blessing of which, before the law, God had
spoken to Abraham was to come, not by observance of the law,
but as the result of " promise " on the part of God, and of " faith "
on the part of men (Horn. iv. 13-14; Gal. iii. 11-18). And when
the question naturally presented itself, Why, if the law was an
inevitable and predestined failure, it had been given at all ? two
answers suggested themselves; the one was that "it was added
because of transgressions," i.e., probably to make men's sins and
their failure to avoid them more apparent (Gal. iii. 19), since
" through the law came the knowledge of sin " (Rom. iii. 20) ; the
other was that the law came in " that the trespass might abound "
(Rom. v. 20), and that so " through the commandment sin miglit
1 It must be noted that there appears to be a constant interchange in his
mind between the conception of the Mosaic law and the ideal conception of
law in the abstract; but it is difficult to inaintiiin that the two conceptions
may always be distinguished by the presence or absence of the Greek article.
1 Cor. ix. 20, Phil. iii. 5, seem of themselves sufficient to make such a distinc
tion untenable, but the contrary view is maintained in an excellent discussion
of the point by Dr Giflbrd, "Introduction to the Epistle to the Romans," p.
41 sq., in the Xjieaker's Commentary on the New Testament.
PAUL
425
become exceeding sinful" (Rom. vii. 13 ; so 1 Cor. xv. 56, "the
strength of sin is the law "). It was consequently a jailer and
"tutor," keeping men under restraint and discipline, until they
were ready for that which God had purposed to give them in due
time (Gal. iii. 23, 24).
For " in due season, when the fulness of the time was come, God
sent forth His Son," "in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,"
to do that which " the law could not do " (Rom. v. 6, viii. 3 ;
Gal. iv. 4). This was a "free gift" of God (Rom. iii. 24, v. 15).
The constant expression for it, and for the sum of the blessings
which flow from it, is " grace " or " favour " (x<ipts), a term which
was already becoming specialized in an analogous sense in Hellen
istic Greek (e.g., Wisd. iii. 9, iv. 15, "grace and mercy is to His
saints"; Philo, vol. i. p. 102, ed. Mang. , " the beginning of crea
tion ... is the goodness and grace of God"). Two corollaries
followed from it ; in the first place, the law, having failed, was
superseded, and, so far from the performance of its requirements
being necessary to ensure peace with God, " if ye receive circum
cision, Christ will profit you nothing " (Gal. v. 2) ; in the second
place, the distinction between Jew and Gentile was abolished, "for
ye are all one in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 28).
This was "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts xx. 24), which
it was his special mission to preach ; he speaks of it sometimes as
" my gospel " (Rom. ii. 16, xvi. 25), or the "gospel of the uncircum-
cision " (Gal. ii. 7), as well as in a special sense "the gospel of
God" (Rom. i. 1, xv. 16; 2 Cor. xi. 7; 1 Thess. ii. 2, 8, 9), or
"the gospel of Christ" (Rom. i. 9, xv. 19 ; 1 Cor. ix. 12, 18 ; 2
Cor. ii. 12, ix. 13. x. 14 ; Gal. i. 7 ; Phil. i. 27 ; 1 Thess. iii. 2 ;
2 Thess. i. 8), or "the gospel of the glory of Christ " (2 Cor. iv. 4) ;
and elsewhere he speaks of it as his special " secret " or " mystery "
(Rom. xvi. 25 ; 1 Cor. ii. 1 [Codd. N, A, C], and more emphatically in
the later epistles, Eph. i. 9, iii. 3-9, vi. 19, Col. i. 26, 27 ; iv. 3).
Of this gospel Christ is the beginning and the end : theology
and Christology are blended into one. Sometimes He is represented
as having been "sent forth" (Rom. viii. 3), or "set forth" (Rom.
iii. 25), or "given up" (Rom. viii. 32), by God; sometimes, on
the other hand, it is said that He "gave Himself" (Gal. i. 4), or
"gave Himself up" (Gal. ii. 20 ; Eph. v. 2), or "made Himself
poor " (2 Cor. viii. 9), or "emptied Himself" (Phil. ii. 7-8). The
act by which He accomplished what He designed or was designed
to do was His death on the cross (Rom. v. 6, 8, vi. 10, viii. 34,
xiv. 15 ; 1 Cor. viii. 11, xv. 3 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; Gal. ii. 21 ; 1
Thess. v. 10). The "blood" of Christ (Rom. iii. 25, v. 9 ; 1 Cor.
xi. 25 ; Eph. i. 7, ii. 13 ; Col. i. [14], 20), the "cross" of Christ
(1 Cor. i. 17 ; Gal. v. 11, vi. 12, 14 ; Phil. ii. 8, iii. 18 ; Eph.
ii. 16_;_Col. i. 20, ii. 14), "Christ crucified" (1 Cor. i. 23, ii. 2;
Gal. iii. 1), are therefore used as concise symbolical expressions
for His entire work.1 The act by which the completion of that
work was ratified and made manifest was His resurrection from the
dead (Rom. i. 4; cf. Acts xiii. 33, 34, xvii. 31); hence " He was
delivered up for our offences and raised again for our justification"
(Rom. iv. 25). The resurrection is thus the guarantee of the truth
of the gospel ; without it there is no certainty that God has for
given us; "if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain" (1 Cor. xv. 14). What quality there
was in the death of Christ which gave it efficacy is probably indi
cated in Rom. v. 19, Phil. ii. 8, where it is spoken of as an act of
"obedience." The precise force of the expressions, "being made a
curse for us" (Gal. iii. 13), "He made Him to be sin for us" (2
Cor. v. 21), which probably also refer to the efficacious quality of
the death of Christ, is less obvious.
The death of Christ was a death on our behalf (vw£p ryxwj', Rom.
v. 6, 8, viii. 32, xiv. 15 ; 1 Cor. i. 13 [Codd. N, A, C], [v. 7], xi.
24 ; 2 Cor. v. 15 ; Gal. ii. 20, iii. 13 ; 1 Thess. v. 10 [Codd. N, B] ;
cf. Eph. v. 25), or on behalf of our sins (1 Cor. xv. 3 ; Gal. i. 4
[Cod. B]), or on our account (irepl TJ/J.UV, 1 Cor. i. 13 [Codd. B, D] ;
1 Thess. v. 10 [Codd. A, D]), or on account of our sins (Gal. i. 4
[Codd. X, A, D]), or of sin in general (Rom. viii. 3), or because of us
or our transgressions (5ia ra TrapaTrra^ara, 5i' avrbv, Rom. iv. 25 ;
1 Cor. viii. 11 ; cf. 2 Cor. viii. 9). These general expressions are
expanded into more explicit statements in various ways ; for the
nature of the work which the death of Christ effected was capable
of being regarded from several points of view, nor was any one
metaphor or form of words adequate to express all its relations
either to God or to mankind.
(1) The nature of Christ's work is sometimes expressed in lan
guage which is relative to the idea of sacrifice ; and it is conceivable
that, if the contemporary conception of sacrifice were better known
to us, most of the other expressions would be found to be relative
to the ideas which were connected by that of sacrifice (1 Cor. v. 7,
"Christ our passover is sacrificed " [some MSS. add " for us "] ; the
uncertain expression IXaa-Tijpiov, Rom. iii. 25, probably belongs to
end in view.
the same group of ideas ; the expressions with virtp and irepl, which
have been quoted above, are sometimes regarded as being in all
cases primarily sacrificial).
(2) It is sometimes expressed in language which is relative to
the conception of sin as rebellion or enmity against God ; what
God effected through Christ was a reconciliation (KctraAXcry?;, Rom.
v. 10, 11 ; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19), or peace (Rom. v. 1 ; Eph. ii. 14 ;
hence the special force of the salutation " Grace to you and peace
from God," which is prefixed to every epistle).
(3) It is sometimes expressed in language which is relative to
the idea of deliverance or "salvation" (<7c6fe<r0cu, awrrjpia, Rom.
i. 16, v. 9, arid in all the epistles; dTroAirrpoxns,3 Roin. iii. 24;
1 Cor. i. 30 ; Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14). The idea was originally
Messianic, and referred to national deliverance from foreign oppres
sion ; but it had been raised into a higher sphere of thought, that
from which men are saved being conceived to be the "wrath" of
God, i.e., His punishment of sin (Rom. v. 9).
(4) It is sometimes expressed in language which is relative to
the idea of purchasing a slave (1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23, and probably
Rom. xiv. 8, 9). That to which men were in bondage was the
law (Gal. iv. 5), which cursed those who did not fully obey it (Gal.
iii. 10, 13), or the "elements of the universe" (Gal. iv. 3, 9), i.e.,
(Col. ii. 15). Hence, probably, Paul's own "description of himself
as the "slave of Jesus Christ" (Horn. i. 1).
(5) It is sometimes expressed in language which is relative to
the conception of God as the supreme lawgiver and judge. Sin is
regarded as affording ground for a charge (2yK\i)[j.a, cf. Rom. viii.
33) against the sinner, and, sin being universal, all the world was
liable to the judgment of God (Rom. iii. 19). But it was possible
for the Judge, for certain reasons which He considered valid, i.e.,
on account of the sufficient exhibition or declaration of His
righteousness in the death of Christ, not to take account of the
offences charged, but to acquit (diKaiovv) instead of pronouncing
sentence of condemnation ; by this acquittal the person acquitted
was placed in the position of one against whom no charge existed
(BiKatot Ka.To.ffTa.O-fjffovra.L, Rom. v. 19) ; and, since the acquittal
might be regarded in its different relations as a consequence of
either the favour of God, or the death of Christ, or the trust in
God which made it valid for the individual, men are said in various
passages to be acquitted by God's favour (Rom. iii. 24), or by the
blood of Christ (Rom. v. 9; cf. Gal. ii. 17), or by faith (Rom. iii.
28, v. 1 ; Gal. iii. 8, 24). 3
(6) It is sometimes expressed in language which is relative to the
conception of a mystical union between Christ and the human race,
or part of it, of such a kind that when He died men also died,
and that when He rose again they also rose with Him (Rom. vi.
3-10 ; Gal. ii. 20 ; and also in the later epistles. Eph. ii. 5, 6 ; Col
ii. 12, iii. 3).
Some of these expressions are occasionally combined ; for example,
the ideas of acquittal and reconciliation (Rom. v. 1 ; 2 Cor. v. 19),
those of acquittal and deliverance (Rom. v. 9), and those of sacrifice,
in which Christ is conceived as dying on men's behalf, and of mystical
union in which they die with Him (2 Cor. v. 14). The facts both
of their variety and of their combination afford a strong argument
against treating any one mode of expression as though it stood
alone and gathered up into a single metaphor the whole of the new
relations of God to men.
The effect of Christ's work upon mankind is also expressed in Christ's
various ways. Sometimes it is expressed under the form of an work,
imparted attribute, sometimes under that of a new condition of life
or a new relation to God. It is most frequently spoken of as (1)
righteousness, or (2) life, or (3) sonship. (1) When spoken of as
righteousness, it is sometimes said to have been given to men (Rom.
v. 17) ; sometimes it is reckoned to them or placed to their account
(Rom. iv. 6, 11 ; Gal. iii. 6) ; sometimes it is a power to which they
have become, or ought to become, subject (Rom. vi. 18, x. 3) ;
sometimes it is regarded as a quality which men already possess by
virtue of Christ's death (Rom. v. 17) ; sometimes it is still to be
attained (Rom. iv. 24, vi. 16 ; Gal. v. 5). (2) When spoken of as
life, the conception also seems to vary between that of a life which
men have already received, or into which they have already entered
(Rom. vi. 4, viii. 10), and that of a life which is future (Rom. v.
17 ; Gal. vi. 8 ; cf. Col. iii. 3, 4, where it is conceived as being now
2 This word seems to have lost its etymological sense of "ransoming,"
and to have connoted only "deliverance," e.g., in the LXX., Dan. iv. 29(31),
Nebuchadnezzar speaks of 6 xP<Ws r?}s aTroAirpoio-ecos ftov, " the time
of my deliverance " ; in Irenceus, i. 9, 5, it is used of the dismissal of the
spectators in a theatre.
3 It is difficult to estimate the mischief which has been caused by the fact
that justificare was adopted from early times as the translation of diKaiovv,
and the consequent fact that a large part of Western theology has been based
upon the etymological signification of justificare rather than upon the mean
ing of its Greek original. One of the clearest instances of the meaning of
5i.Ka.Lovv in Biblical Greek is LXX. Exod. xxiii. T, ov diKOucLfffts rbv aaeprj
eveKfv oup'jiv, "thou shalt not acquit the wicked man for bribes."
426
PAUL
"hid with Christ in God," to be manifested at His coming) ; and
similarly sometimes men are regarded as having already died with
Christ (Rom. vi. 6-11), and sometimes the Christian's life is regarded
as a prolonged act of dying in the " mortification " of the " deeds of
the body " (Rom. viii. 13 ; cf. Col. iii. 5). (3) When spoken of as
sonship, the conception also varies between that of a perfected and
that of a still future " adoption " ; on the one hand " we have
received a spirit of adoption" (Rom. viii. 15), so that we are "all
sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 26), and on
the other hand we are still " waiting for the adoption, the deliverance
of our body " (Rom. viii. 23).
For, although Christ died for all men (Rom. v. 18 ; 2 Cor. v. 14,
15 ; so in the pastoral epistles, 1 Tim. ii. 4, 6 ; Tit. ii. 11), it does
not therefore follow that all men are at once in full possession of the
benefits which His death made possible to them. Their righteous-
Faith a ness or life or sonship is rather potential than actual. It becomes
state of actual by the co-operation of their own mind and will, that is, by
mind. the continuous existence in them of the state of mind called trust
or " faith." 1 For this view of the place of trust or " faith " St Paul
finds support, and may perhaps have found the original suggestion,
in the Old Testament. Abraham had believed that God both could
and would perform His promises, and this belief " was counted to
him as righteousness" (Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3; Gal. iii. 6);
Habakkuk had proclaimed that " the just shall live as a consequence
of his faith" (Hab. ii. 4; Rom. i. 17 ; Gal. iii. 11) ; and another
prophet had said, " whosoever believeth in Him shall not be put to
shame" (Rom. ix. 33, x. 11). The object of this trust or faith is
variously stated to be " Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the
dead" (Rom. iv. 24; x. 9), "Him that justifieth the ungodly"
(Rom. iv. 5), or "Jesus Christ" (Rom. iii. 22; Gal. ii. 16, &c.), or
His "blood" (Rom. iii. 25 probably). Hence the statement, that
the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation," is limited by the
condition " to every one that believeth " (Rom. i. 16). Hence, also,
since this state of mind is that by which the death of Christ becomes
of value to the individual, while he is said on the one hand to be
acquitted or justified by Christ's blood (Rom. v. 9), he is said
on the other hand to be acquitted or justified as a result of his faith
(Horn. v. 1). Hence, also, the new relation of "righteousness" in
which men stand to God, — while on the one hand it is "God's
righteousness," as being a relation which is established by His
favour and not by their merit (Rom. i. 17, iii. 21, 22, v. 17), it is
on the other hand a " righteoxisness which results from faith" (ij €K
TricTTews 5iKa.Lo<?vvT}, Rom. x. 6). From another point of view it is
an act of obedience or state of submission (Rom. i. 5, vi. 16, 17,
x. 16, xvi. 19, 26 ; 2 Cor. x. 5, 6), being the acceptance by men
of God's free gift as distinguished .from " seeking to establish their
own righteousness," i.e., to attain to a freedom from sin which their
fleshly nature renders impossible (Rom. x. 3).
It is obvious that such a doctrine as that of acquittal from the
guilt of wrongdoing by virtue of an act or state of mind, instead
of by virtue of a course of conduct, is " antinomian," not merely in
the sense that it supersedes the law of Moses, but also because it
appears to supersede the natural law of morality. It was no wonder
that some men should infer, and even attribute to Paul himself
the inference, "Let us do evil that good may come" (Rom. iii. 8).
The objection was no doubt felt to be real, inasmuch as it is
more than once stated and receives more than one answer. (1) One
of the answers which Paul gives to it (Rom. vi. 15 sq. ) is due to his
conception of both sin and righteousness as external forces. He
had regarded sinful acts as the effects of the dominion of a real
power residing within men and compelling them to do its will.
He now points out that, to those who believe, this dominion is at
an end. The believer is not only acquitted from the guilt of sin,
but also emancipated from its slavery. He has become a slave
to righteousness or to God (Rom. vi. 18, 22). This is stated partly
as a fact and partly as a ground of obligation (Rom. vi. 18, 19) ;
and the disregard of the obligation, or " building up again those
things which I destroyed," brings a man again under the cognizance
of God's law as a transgressor (Gal. ii. 18). (2) Another answer is
due to the conception which has been mentioned above of the
mystical union between Christ and mankind. This also is stated
partly as a fact and partly as a ground of obligation. In one sense
the believer has already died with Christ and risen with Him : "our
old man was crucified with Him" (Rom. vi. 6), "they that are
Christ's have crucified the flesh" (Gal. v. 24), "the life which I
now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me " (Gal. ii. 20) ; so that on
the one hand Christ is said to be in the believer (2 Cor. xiii. 5),
and on the other hand the believer is said to be "in Christ,"
Whichever mode of conceiving the Christian life be adopted, a life
of sin is impossible to it : " if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature" (2 Cor. v. 17), and the "new man" which thus comes
1 " Faitli " is not defined by Paul, but his use of the term so nearly re
sembles Philo's as to be explicable by it. With Philo it is the highest form of
intellectual conviction, being more certain than either that which comes from
the senses or that which comes from reasoning; cf., e.g., De prtemiis etpanls
c. 5, vol. ii. p. 412, ed. Maiig.
into being " is created after God in righteousness and true holiness "
(Eph. iv. 24). In another sense this mystical dying with Christ
and living with Him is rather an ideal towards which the believer
must be continually striving ; it affords a motive for his resistin<*
the tendency to sin : " reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord ; let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body" (Rom. vi. 11, 12). (3) A third
answer, which, though less directly given, is even more constantly
implied, is that faith is followed by, if it be not coincident with",
an immediate operation of God upon the soul which becomes for
it a new moral power. For, although in the "natural man" there
is an element, "the flesh," over which sin has such an especial
dominion as to be said to dwell in it, there is also another element,
the "mind" (vovs), or "spirit" (irvfvfj.a), or "inner man" (6 &7w
dvOpuiros), which is the slave, not of the "law of sin," but of the
"law of God."- Against this the flesh wages a successful war and
" brings it into captivity to the law of sin " (Rom. vii. 22-25). The
result is that the mind may become " reprobate " (a.56Kifj.os, Rom. i.
28; cf. Col. ii. 18, where the "mind" is so completely under the
dominion of the flesh as to be called " the mind of the flesh "), or it
may become defiled and ultimately lost (2 Cor. vii. 1 ; 1 Cor. v. 5).
It is upon this part of man's nature that God works. By means
of faith (Gal. iii. 14), or as a result of faith (Gal. iii. 2, v/5), God
gives and men receive His own Spirit (1 Thess. iv. 8) or the
Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 10 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; Phil. i. 19). Some
times the Spirit of God is said to " dwell in " them (Rom. viii. 9 ;
1 Cor. iii. 16), and once the closeness of the union is expressed by
the still stronger metaphor of a marriage: "he that is joined to
the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). This indwelling of, or union
with, the Spirit is for the believer a new life ; Christ has become
for him " a life-giving spirit " (1 Cor. xv. 45) ; this is a fact of his
spiritual nature which will in due time be manifest even in the
quickening of his mortal body (Rom. viii. 11), but in the mean
time it becomes, like the facts of emancipation from sin and of
union with Christ, a ground of moral obligation. " If we live by
the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk " (Gal. v. 25) ; and the
freedom from spiritual death is conditional on the " mortifying of
the deeds of the body " (Rom. viii. 13).
It will be evident that, although Paul nowhere defines his
conception of faith, he did not conceive it as a mere intellectual
assent ; it was a complete self-surrender to God (Gal. ii. 20), and
on its human side it showed its activity in the great ethical prin
ciple of "love," which is the sum of a man's duties to his fellow-
men (Gal. v. 6, 14).
But, as his conception of the effects of Christ's death, and of the Eschato-
nature of faith by which these effects are appropriated by the indi- logical
vidual, has, so far as the present life is concerned, chiefly a moral function
aspect, and connects itself with practical duties, so, on the other of faith,
hand, it comprehends the whole physical and spiritual being of
man, and connects itself with his eschatology. The resurrection
of Christ is not merely the type of moral resurrection from sin to
holiness, but at once the type and the cause and the pledge of the
actual resurrection of the body. " If we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus
will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. iv. 14) ; "He which raised up
the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus" (2 Cor. iv. 14) ;
"if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
Him " (Rom. vi. 8). Sometimes the new life of the body is viewed
in relation to the mystical union of the believer with Christ : " we
which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the
life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh " (2 Cor. iv.
11) ; and it follows from the conception of the "last Adam " as a
"life-giving spirit" that, " as we have borne the image of the earthy,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly " (1 Cor. xv. 49 ; this
will follow from the context, even if with most uncial MSS. we
read " let us also bear "). Sometimes this new life is viewed as a
result of the present indwelling of the Spirit : "if the Spirit of Him
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised
up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
through" (or "because of") "His Spirit that dwelleth in you"
(Rom. viii. 11). This redemption or deliverance of the body from
the "bondage of corruption" is the completion of the "adoption,"
"the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21,
23) ; but the nature of the new body is not clearly explained.
Sometimes the language seems to imply that this mortal body will
be "quickened" or "transformed" (Rom. viii. 11 ; Phil. iii. 21),
and the analogy afforded is that of a seed which after being buried
reappears in a new form (1 Cor. xv. 36, 37) ; sometimes, on the
2 The relation of vovs to wvfv/j.a has been much discussed ; among contem
porary theologians Holsten and Weiss deny the existence of a irvfufjia. in the
natural man, Liidemann and Pfleiderer allow it. It is certain that the two
words are used in the same sense by Philo ; and it is most probable that they
are also so used by Paul. One of many proofs is that in quoting Isa. xl. 13
in 1 Cor. ii. 13 he adopts vovv from the LXX. as the translation of H^l (whereas
TTvev/j-a. is the more usual translation), and proceeds to use the phrase vovv
XpKTToD for Trvfi'fjia. XpicrroC, which the argument requires, and with which
it must be identical.
PAUL
427
other hand, it seems to be implied that the earthly body will be
dissolved, and that what awaits us is a new body, " a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens "
(2 Cor. v. 1).
This change will come to all believers at the " advent " (irapovtria.,
1 Cor. [i. 9, Cod. D.] xv. 23; 1 Thess. ii. 19, &c.), or "revelation"
(dTTo/cdXi'^is, 1 Cor. i. 7 ; 2 Thess. i. 7), or "manifestation" (^TTI-
<j>dveia, 2 Thess. ii. 8, and afterwards in the pastoral epistles) of
Jesus Christ. Some of them will have "fallen asleep in Christ,"
in which state he seems to conceive that they are " at home with
the Lord " (2 Cor. v. 8) ; and others, among whom, in the language
of confident hope, he includes himself, will be still alive (1 Thess.
iv. 15-17). For "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. i. 8,
v. 5 ; 2 Cor. i. 1 4, &c. ) was conceived to be not far distant : " the
night is far spent, the day is at hand" (Rom. xiii. 12), and "the
mystery of lawlessness," which was to be revealed before that day
could come, was already at work (2 Thess. ii. 3-7). But the "day"
itself is variously conceived ; sometimes the eternal life of believers
in and with Christ appears to begin at the very moment of the
Advent (1 Thess. iv. 17), and hence the day is spoken of as "the
day of deliverance " (Eph. iv. 30) ; but more frequently " the day
of the Lord " is also the day of judgment (l!om. ii. 5, 16), according
to the eschatological ideas which had for some time been current
among the Jews ; in it all men, believers and unbelievers alike, are
represented as standing before the judgment-seat of God (Rom. xiv.
10) or of Christ (2 Cor. v. 10) to give account of themselves to
God, and to receive the reward of the things done in the body, whether
good or evil. There is a similar variety of view in regard to what
will happen after the Advent. The language which is used some
times leads to the inference that the destruction of the enemies of
the cross will be immediately effected (2 Thess. i. 9, ii. 8), and
sometimes to the inference, which was also in accordance with
current eschatological ideas, that there will be a Messianic reign,
during which Christ will "put all enemies under His feet" (1 Cor.
xv. 25). And, while in some passages unbelievers or evildoers are
said to be punished with " eternal destruction from the face of the
Lord " (2 Thess. i. 9 ; cf. Rorn. ii. 8, 9), the view elsewhere seems
to be that "in Christ shall all be made alive," the universality of
the life in Christ being coextensive with the universality of the
death in Adam (1 Cor. xv. 22).
It is difficult to reconcile these conceptions with one another,
and still more so to reconcile some of them with other parts of
Paul's doctrine of salvation, except perhaps on the hypothesis that
even after his conversion many of the apocalyptic ideas which were
current among his countrymen remained in his mind ; this hypo
thesis is made the more probable by the fact that in the later and
the probably post-Pauline epistles the apocalyptic elements are
rare, and that the most definite eschatological statement which
they contain is in full harmony with the conception of the believer's
mystical union with Christ, "when Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4).
Such are the main elements of Paul's soteriology. To most of
the philosophical questions which have since been raised in con
nexion with it he neither gives nor implies an answer. It is
possible that many of such questions did not even suggest them
selves to him. The chief of all of them, that of the necessity of
sacrifice, was probably axiomatic to a Jewish mind, and its place in
Paul's system must be accepted with all the difficulties which such
an acceptance involves. But there is one such philosophical ques
tion which even in Paul's time had begun to have a fascination for
Ration Oriental thinkers. What is the relation of free will to God? or in
) ree other words, Is what men do the result of their own choice, or is it
i\ to determined for them ; and, if it be determined for them, how can
31. God punish them as though they had been free (Rom. iii. 5, ix.
19)? The answer is given in the form of an antinomy, of which
the thesis is the sovereignty of God and the antithesis the respon
sibility of men. The sovereignty of God is absolute. Instead of
entertaining the objection which has since been raised, that God,
having created rational and moral agents, has placed Himself under
an obligation to deal with them as such, he makes the dependence
of men upon God to be unconditioned, and the alleged rights of
men as against God to be as non-existent as those of an earthenware
vessel against the potter who has given it shape (Rom. ix. 20-21).
Some men are "vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction," some are
"vessels of mercy . . . prepared unto glory" (Rom. ix. 22, 23) ; and
God's dealings with them are as little conditioned by necessity as His
original creation of them : " He hath mercy on whom He will, and
whom He will He hardeneth" (Rom. ix. 18). But, over against this
view of God's sovereignty, and without any endeavour to reconcile
the difficulties which suggest themselves, he places the fact of
human responsibility. The purpose of God worked itself out in his
tory, but not without men's co-operation. He had first "called" the
Jews; and though, on the one hand, "God gave them a spirit of
stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should
not hear" (Rom. xi. 8), yet, on the other hand, they were "a
disobedient and gainsaying people" (Rom. x. 21), "seeking to
establish their own righteousness," and not subjecting themselves
"to the righteousness of God" (Rom. x. 3). God had now carried
out another part of His purpose. He had " called " the Gentiles.
In the earlier epistles Paul spoke of this calling as having been
not only part of God's purpose, but also expressly announced from
time to time by the prophets (Rom. ix. 25, 26, x. 20) ; but in the
doubtful later epistles it is spoken of as a " mystery which hath
been hidden from all ages and generations " (Col. i. 26), but now
had been "made known through the church" "unto the principali
ties and the powers in the heavenly places" (Eph. iii. 9, 10). But
as with the Jews so with the Gentiles, the divine call was not only
a fact but also a ground of obligation. While, on the one hand,
" we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God afore prepared that we should walk in them " (Eph. ii.
10), yet, on the other hand, the Ephesians are entreated to "walk
worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called " (Eph. iv. 1). In
the Epistle to the Romans a still further part of God's purpose is
indicated. The salvation which had come to the Gentiles by the
fall of the Jews was "to provoke them to jealousy" (xi. 11) ; as in
time past the Gentiles "were disobedient to God but now have
obtained mercy " by the disobedience of the Jews, " even so have
these also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you
they also may now obtain mercy" (xi. 30, 31). And so not only
would "the fulness of the Gentiles come in," but also "all Israel
shall be saved " (xi. 25, 26) ; " for God hath shut up all unto dis
obedience that He might have mercy upon all " (xi. 32).
But, just as the apparent fatalism of the theory of absolute pre- The
destination without reference to works stands side by side with the "called '
obligation of men to " work out their own salvation with fear and or the
trembling" (Phil. ii. 12), so this apparent universalism stands side "saints. :
by side with the fact that all men do not receive the gospel. Out
of the mass of men some, whether Jews or Gentiles, are "called."
They constitute a separate class. As from one point of view they
are the " called according to God's purpose " (Rom. viii. 28), or
"called to be saints" (Rom. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 2), or simply "called"
(1 Cor. i. 24 ; it is to be noted that the expression does not occur
in the later epistles), or "chosen" (Rom. viii. 33; Col. iii. 12),
so, on the other hand, they are "they that believe" (Rom. iii. 22;
1 Cor. i. 21, xiv. 22 ; Gal. iii. 22 ; Eph. i. 19 ; 1 Thess. i. 7, ii. 10,
13 ; 2 Thess. i. 10) ; the call and the belief are complementary of
each other, and therefore the terms are used as convertible (1 Cor.
i. 21, 24). But the more frequent terms are those which came to
Paul from his earlier associations. The Jews had known one
another, and had spoken of themselves, in contrast to the rest of
the world, as "brethren" (e.g., Deut. xv. 12, xvii. 15; Philo, ii.
285, ed. Mang.) or "saints" (e.g., Deut. xxxiii. 3 ; Dan. vii. 21).
Paul applies these terms to the new "people of God"; they are
" brethren " (e.g., Rom. i. 13, most commonly as a term of address),
and "the saints" (e.g., Rom. xii. 13, xv. 25 ; 1 Cor. vi. 1). As
such they are regarded as forming collectively a unity or society,
which Paul, adopting a current Latinism, calls a " body " (corpus
is frequently used in this sense ; <TW/JM is its Hellenistic translation
in, e.g., the letter of Mark Antony in Joseph., Ant. Jud., xiv. 12, 3,
TO rrjs 'A(naj o-cijjaa). A more important and permanent application
of the view that those who believed in Jesus took the place of the
Jews, and stood to God in the same special relation in which
the Jews had stood, was the use of the term " congregation " or
"assembly" (Heb. qahal, which the LXX. renders by both ffwa-
yuyri and eKK\i]ala ; in the Epistle of James (ii. 2) the former of
these words is used of a particular Christian congregation ; Paul
uses the latter only, and the English translators render it invariably
by "church") to designate the mass of believers regarded as a
unity. The use of the word ^/cKAr?<n'a in this sense in the undis
puted epistles is rare,- — probably only in 1 Cor. xv. 9, Gal. i. 13,
in each of which passages it is qualified, as in, e.g., Deut. xxiii. 1,
Nehem. xiii. 1, as "God's congregation. " But either towards the
end of his life, or, according to many modern critics, only among
his followers after his death, this conception of Christians as
forming a congregation was idealized. The common metaphor of
a- " body " by which that congregation had been designated, and
which had already been elaborated as indicative of the diversity of
parts and functions in the several Christian communities (1 Cor.
xii. 12-30), is elaborated in the Epistles to the Ephesians and
Colossians as indicative of the relation of the aggregate of believers
to Christ. They are conceived, not as forming a society which
bears Christ's name, :but as bearing to Him partly the relation
which the several members of an organized body bear to the head
(Eph. i. 22, iv. 15, 16 ; Col. i. 18, 24), and partly the relation of a
wife to a husband (Eph. v. 23-32). In a phrase of difficult and
doubtful meaning the congregation of Christians, or "church," is
spoken of as His "fulness" (ir\-fipwfj.a, Eph. i. 23), and the progress
in Christian virtues is represented partly as the growth of an
organism to its full stature (Eph. iv. 14-16 ; Col. ii. 19), and partly
as the filling out or realization of that which is empty or imperfect
(Eph. iii. 19 ; Col. i. 9).
Side \>y side with this conception of the "called" or "saints"
as collectively forming a "body" or "congregation," which was
the Christian counterpart and fulfilment of the Jewish " congre-
428
PAUL
gallon, " was the fact that wherever the gospel was preached,
especially in the great cities of the empire, the converts tended to
Christian form communities. Such communities, whether for religious or
commu- non-religious purposes, were among the commonest phenomena
nities. of the age. How far Paul himself encouraged the formation of such
communities among his converts is uncertain ; but many considera
tions lead to the inference that where they were so formed they were
formed rather upon the Gentile than upon the Jewish model. Out
of several names which were in current use to designate them, that
which Paul used was common to both Gentile and Jewish com
munities, and it was also that which he continued to use in
another sense to designate the whole body of Christians. Hence
has arisen the confusion which pervades almost all Christian litera
ture between the use of the word fKK\rjjia, or " church," to denote
the whole multitude of those who will be saved regarded as an
ideal aggregate, and the use of the same word to denote a visible
community of professing Christians in any one place or country.
The raison d'etre of these communities was mutual help in the
spiritual, the moral, and the outward life. Every member of a
community had received the new life of the Spirit, and the diver
sities of character and opportunity which exist between man and
man were conceived as diversities of manifestation (0oW/>wcrts) of
the Spirit who lived within them, or, from another point of view,
as diversities of gifts (xapt'oyxaTa). " But to each one was given the
manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal " (1 Cor. xii. 7). When
the community met in assembly some of its members " prophesied,"
preaching as though with a divine inspiration ; some spoke in such
ecstasy that their words seemed to be those of an unknown tongue
and needed an interpreter ; some taught again the lessons which
they had learned from Paul ; some hid " a psalm " ; some had " a
revelation" (1 Cor. xiv. 26 sq.}. Sometimes the aim was rather
moral than spiritual "edification." They exhorted one another,
and "admonished" one another (Rom. xv. 14). Sometimes on
points of practice they carried this "judging" of one another
farther than Paul approved. The Christian liberty, which was no
less a bond of union than the recognition of the new Christian law,
was in danger of being overthrown ; and more than once Paul
thought it necessary to insist that they should not judge one another
any more, but rather strive not to put a stumbling-block in each
other's way (Rom. xiv. 10 sq. ; 1 Cor. x. 25 sq. ). If, however,
the offence of any member were gross and open, the assembly
became a court of discipline. To the community at Corinth, which
had been slow to recognize the necessity of being thus "children of
God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse genera
tion," Paul wrote peremptorily "not to keep company, if any man
that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater,
or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner " (1 Cor. v. 11). In one
flagrant case they were bidden to " put away the wicked man from
among themselves " (1 Cor. v. 13) ; but the right of the community
to deal with such cases at their discretion was also recognized ; for,
when the guilty person had on his repentance been forgiven, or
punished with a lesser punishment, instead of being expelled, Paul
wrote again that the action of the majority was sufficient and had
his approval (2 Cor. ii. 6, 10). But all such action was subordi
nated to the general rule, which is repeated in many forms, " let
all that ye do be done in love" (1 Cor. xvi. 14). A not less promi
nent aim of these communities was mutual help in the material
and outward life. Some of their members were necessitous or
sick ; and the duty of helping all such was discharged partly by
giving contributions to the common fund and partly by distri
buting it. Sometimes also the members of other communities came
as strangers, travelling as men did, " quorum cophinus fo&numque
supcllcx" (Juvenal, iii. 14, of Jews). For such men, who probably
brought, as in later times, letters of recommendation from one
community to another (2 Cor. iii. 1), there was an ungrudging
hospitality ; and not long afterwards, if not in Paul's own time, it
was a necessary qualification for a widow who wished to be placed
as such on the roll of the community that she should not only
have "used hospitality" but also herself have "washed the feet"
of the tired travellers as they came in (1 Tim. v. 10). In Thessa-
lonica, where the community was probably both poor and small,
it seems probable that the members worked together at common
trades, making contributions to a common fund and sharing a
common table. It was natural that some should presume on the
goodness of their brethren, and try to share the latter without
making contributions to the former. Paul made a special rule
that this should not be the case, and he himself, though he had
the right to exemption, yet, for the sake of example, would not
" eat bread for nought at any man's hand, but in labour and travail
worked night and day" that he might not burden the slender
resources of the brethren (2 Thess. iii. 8 ; 1 Thess. ii. 9).
In such communities, where the "gift " of each member was used
for the common good, organization had not the importance which it
had in an ordinary secular society. All work which the members of
the community did for one another, including that which was done
by the apostle himself, was a "ministry" (dtaKovia], and every one
who did such work was, so far forth, a " minister" (5ia.Kovos). The
names which ultimately came to be appropriated by special officers,
appointed to do delegated work, were at first common to the whole
body of members. As is natural in all communities, there were
some who devoted themselves to the work with especial zeal ; and
the most rudimentary form of organization is found at Thessalonica,
where certain persons are spoken of as devoting themselves to the
special works of" labouring," i.e., probably attending to the material
needs of the poorer brethren, "admonishing," i.e., probably bring
ing back erring brethren to the right way, and " presiding," or more
probably (though the word is of uncertain meaning) " acting as
protector," like a Roman "patronus," against oppression from with
out. The community are enjoined to recognize such persons, " and
to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake " (1 Thess.
v. 12, 13). In a similar way at Corinth, where the democratical
character of the community is even more apparent, Paul beseeches
the brethren to " be in subjection " to those who had " set them
selves to minister unto the saints" (1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16). But this
recognition of the special zeal of certain members was very far from
being a recognition or appointment of officers as such. The functions
which came in time to be regarded as giving those who discharged
them an exceptional status, were onlyregarded as "gifts," resembling
in kind and not surpassing in excellence those of the other members
of the community. In the Epistle to the Romans, " he that ruluth "
(or "protecteth ") is in the same rank as "lie that giveth" and
"he that exhorteth" (Rom. xii. 8) ; and in the First Epistle to the
Corinthians " helps " and " governments " are not prominent above
"miracles," "healings," and "divers kinds of tongues" (1 Cor.
xii. 28). It is not until the later period, and probably also the
different circumstances, of the Epistle to the Philippians that officers
are found with definite titles, and probably also with a distinct
status ; Paul there writes " to all the saints . . . with the bishops
and deacons " (Phil. i. 1). Still later, in the Epistle to the Ephesians,
it seems probable that those who are spoken of as "apostles,"
"prophets," "evangelists," "pastors and teachers," are distinct
from the great body of the community (Eph. iv. 11, 12). But
it is to be noted that in no certainly authentic epistle does Paul
make any mention of "presbyters." The view of Grotius and
Vitringa that the " church " took the place of the " synagogue "
seems, as far as the Pauline communities are concerned, to have
little foundation. Those communities had a much closer resem
blance to the Greek and Roman associations in the midst of which
they grew ; they stood side by side with the Jewish communities,
but distinct from them, as "the churches of the Gentiles" (Rom.
xvi. 4).
Admission to the community, or at least to full membership of Baptism,
the community, seems to have been effected by the rite of baptism :
"in one spirit were we all baptized into one body" (1 Cor. xii. 13).
So important was this form of admission conceived to be that when
a believer died before baptism another appears to have been baptized
vicariously for him (1 Cor. xv. 29). It was a baptism "into Christ
Jesus" (Rom. vi. 3 ; "into Christ," Gal. iii. 27),— a phrase which
must probably be interpreted by the analogous expressions in 1 Cor.
i. 13, 15, to mean that the name of Jesus Christ alone was used
(that the name of the Trinity was not invariably used in early
times is clear from St Ambrose, DC S2nritu Sancto, i. 3). But in
the teaching of the apostle baptism was more than an initiatory
rite, and baptism " into Christ Jesus " had for him a special signi
ficance. The immersion of the body in water was a "being buried
with Christ," and that not only symbolically but in a real, though
mystical, sense ; the rising out of the water was in a similar sense
an actual rising with Christ into a new life, " that, like as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
also might walk in newness of life " (Rom. vi. 4, where the word
fwTjs, "life," must be taken in its customary sense of actual or
physical, not metaphorical or moral, life). It was otherwise ex-
B-essed as the "putting on " of Christ, i.e., the being endowed with
is nature (Gal. iii. 27, where the same word is used as in 1 Cor.
xv. 53, "this mortal must 2>ut on immortality "). In the later form
of Paul's doctrine an analogy was drawn between baptism and cir
cumcision (Col. ii. 11, 12), the point of the analogy apparently
being, not merely that each was an initiatory rite, but that, as in
circumcision there Avas a "putting off" of a part of the body, so in
baptism the whole " body of the flesh " was destroyed and the
" new man " put on. There was the further significance in the rite
that by baptism "into one body" the distinctions of race were
obliterated. The baptized became "one man in Christ Jesus," so
that there could no longer be either Jew or Greek, bond or free,
male or female (Gal. iii. 28 ; cf. 1 Cor. xii. 13). The differences
between the several members were merely the differences of functions
which result from the diversity of parts in an organic whole ; and
thereby the foundations of a world-wide society were laid.
The most significant act of the community when it met together Tlie ^
was the common meal. Like the members of most contemporary Lord s
associations, the members of the Christian communities dined Supper,
together. This common meal was a sacred meal ; it was " the Lord's
Supper"; it continued and commemorated the Paschal supper at
which the Lord had bidden His disciples to eat the bread which was
PAUL
429
His body, and to drink of the cup which was the "new covenant
in His blood," in remembrance of Him; it thereby "proclaimed
the Lord's death till He come " (1 Cor. xi. 24-26). Possibly owing
to the double sense of the word KoivtavLa, viz., "partaking," and
"sharing in common, " two views seem to be mingled together in
the siginficance which Paul attached to the rite. The one is that,
as in "Israel after the flesh" "they which eat the sacrifices" had
"communion with the altar," and as those who partook of the
heathen sacrifices had "communion with demons" (i.e., with the
false gods to whom the sacrifices were offered), so to those who
" partook of the table of the Lord " the " cup of blessing " was " a
participation in the blood of Christ " and the " bread which we
break" was "a participation in the body of Christ" (1 Cor. x. 16-
21). The other view is that in thus partaking in common of the
" body of Christ " the members of the community realized and con
solidated their unity ; " seeing that it is one bread, we who are
many are one body" (1 Cor. x. 17). Both views must be regarded
in relation to his conception of the mystical union of Christ with
those who were baptized into His name, and of their consequent
union with one another.
Literature. — The literature which bears upon St Paul is so extensive that a
complete account of it would be as much beyond the compass of this article as
it would be bewildering to its readers. The books which are here mentioned
are the more important modern books which, without being in all cases con
clusive or satisfactory, will enable a student to learn the nature of the main
questions which have been raised. I. LIFE : — Neander, Geschichte der Pjlanzung
u. Leituny der christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel (vol. i., 4th ed., Hamburg,
1847, Eng. tr. in Bohn's Standard Library) ; Baur, Paulus der Apostel Jesu
Christ i (Leipsic, 1845, Eng. tr. in Theological Translation Fund Library) ;
Renan, Les Apotres (Paris, 180(5), and Saint Paul (1869); Krenkel, Paulus der
Apostd der Ileiden (Leipsic, 1869) ; Hausrath, Der Apostel Paulus (2d ed.,
Heidelberg, 1872), and art. " Paulus," in Schenkel's Bibd-Lexicon ; Straatmann,
PAUL THE DEACON. See PAULUS DIACONUS.
PAUL OF SAMOSATA, bishop of Antioch from about
260 A.D., is famous in church history as the author of the
last attempt to replace the doctrine of the essential (phy
sical) divinity of Christ by the old view of the human
personality of the Redeemer. The effort was not success
ful even within his own community. At an Oriental
general council, held at Antioch as early as the year 264,
his teaching was investigated ; but no conclusion was come
to because it was alleged Paul had been cunning enough
to disguise his real opinions. A second synod was equally
abortive ; but at a third (probably in the year 268), after
a discussion between Paul and a presbyter named Mal-
chion — a sophist of Antioch, and head of a scholastic
institution — the metropolitan was excommunicated and
his successor appointed. Under the protection of Zenobia,
however, Paul continued in his office for four years
longer ; and the church of Antioch was split into two
factions. In the year 272 the city was taken by the
emperor Aurelian, who decided in person that the church-
building belonged to the bishop who was in epistolary
communication with the bishops of Rome and Italy. This
decision of course proceeded on political considerations ;
and indeed it is probable that behind the theological con
troversy there had been all along a political disagreement,
the opponents of Paul being enemies of Zenobia and ad
herents of the Roman party. About the life of Paul we
know scarcely anything. His enemies, indeed, describe
him as an unspiritual prelate, an empty preacher, an arro
gant man of the world, and a crafty sophist ; but this
portrait must not be too readily accepted. We are told
that he preferred the title of Ducenarius to that of bishop.
This probably implies that he actually was a procurator
ducenariiis, a civil post of considerable dignity, and we
may well believe that he was very conscious of his posi
tion, maintained its formalities with some pride, and used
it to give effect to his peculiar views. As an accomplished
theologian he strenuously opposed the old expositors, i.e.,
the theologians of Alexandria, and prohibited the use in
public worship of all those church hymns in which the
essential divinity of Christ found expression.
His doctrine was no novelty, but merely a development
of primitive Christian belief as represented, e.g., by Her
nias, and at a later time by the so-called Alogi in Asia
Paulus de Apostel van Jezus Christus (Amsterdam, 1874) ; Beyschlag, in Riehm's
Ilandworterb. des bibl. Alterthums ; W. Schmidt, in Herzog's Realencykl. (2d
ed.) ; and, in English, Conybeare and Howson, The Life and Epistles of St Paul ;
Farrar, The Life and Work of St Paul ; Lewin, The Life and Epistles ofSt Paul.
Detailed discussions of most of the important points will also be found in
books upon the Acts of the Apostles ; e.g., in Overbeck's edition of De Wette's
Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch (Leipsic, 1870 ; the Introduction is translated
and prefixed to the translation of Zeller's. Die Apostelgeschichte in the Theolo
gical Translation Fund Library) ; Wendt's edition of Meyer's Kritisch-exegetisches
Handbuch (Gottingen, 1880); and K. Schmidt, Die Apostelgeschichte (vol. i.,
Erlangen, 1882, the best modern book on the apologetic side). II. THEOLOGY : —
The books which first opened up the study of St I'aul's theology in distinction
from that of other writers of the New Testament were Usteri's Die Entwickelung
des paulinischen I^ehrbegriffs (Zurich, 1824, Oth ed. 1851), and Dahne's book
with the same title (Halle, 1835). The most important books on the subject
which have since appeared (in addition to some of those which have been
mentioned above) are Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (2d ed.,
Bonn, 1857) ; Reuss, Histoire de la theologie chretienne au siecle upostolique
(Strasburg, 3d ed., 1804); Holsten, Zum Evangelium des Paulus u. Petnts
(Rostock, 1S68), and Das Evangelium des Paulus dargestellt (part i., Berlin,
1880) ; Pfleiderer, Der Paulinismus (Leipsic, 1873, Eng. tr. in the Theological
Translation Fund Library) ; Sabatier, L'aputre Paul (2d ed., Paris, 1881) ;
Menegoz, Le Peche et la Redemption d'a.pres S. Paul (Paris, i882) ; Ernesti,
Die Ethik des Apostels Paulus (3d ed., Gottingen, 1882). English literature is
singularly deficient in works on St Paul's theology, as distinguished from the
philological and archaeological questions which arise out of his life and epistles ;
almost the only important contributions to the subject are contained in the
essays appended to Jowett's Epistles of St Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians,
and Haitians (2d ed., 1859). Further information as to the literature of the
subject, and especially as to the numerous monographs and magazine-articles
on special points, will be found in the books which deal with New Testament
literature in general ; especially, for the older literature, Credner, Einleitung in
das N. T. (Halle, 1836), and, for more recent literature, Reuss, Die Geschichte
der heiligen Schriften N. T.'s (4th ed., Brunswick, 1874); Mangold's edition
of Bleek's Einleitung in das N. T. (Berlin, 1875); Hilgenfeld, Historische-
kritische Einleitung in das N. T. (Leipsic, 1875) ; Weiss, Lehrbuch der biblischen
Theologie des N. T.'s (3d ed., 1880, Eng. tr. in Clark's Foreign Theological
Library). (E. HA.)
Minor, and the Theodotians and Artemonites in Rome.
Even in Syria it was not extinct at the end of the 3d century
(see the Acta Archelai) ; but in the great churches of the
empire — especially in the West and in Egypt— the Logos-
Christology was already in the ascendant. And, since the
previous state of things had passed from memory, it soon
came to be regarded as "heresy" and "innovation" to
think of Christ as most Christians had thought in the 2d
century. It was chiefly Origen and his philosophical dis
ciples, however, who had brought about the victory of the
Logos-Christology, and discredited contrary opinions not
only as unchurchly but also as unscientific. Thus the under
taking of Paul was no longer in harmony Avith the times.
And yet his much-abused doctrine, as is now more and more
clearly perceived, deserves the highest respect, inasmuch
as it is an attempt to express the significance of Christ's
person without the aid of cosmology or philosophical
theories. The leading outlines of his Christology are as
follows. God is to be conceived as one person ; from
Him, however, there proceeds eternally as force a Logos
(cro</>6a), who maybe called "Son." This Logos worked
in the prophets, and at last, in the highest degree and in
a unique manner, in Jesus. Jesus is in His own nature a
man, originating in time ; He is " from beneath." But, by
means of inspiration and indwelling, the divine Logos
worked upon Him " from above." A physical union is out
of the question, because the Logos Himself is no "</>ixrts."
To this divine endowment of Jesus corresponds His tried
moral perfection. Through the unchangeableness of His
mind and will He became like God ; through love He be
came one with Him. For, said Paul, " the only kind of
unity which can exist between two persons is that of dis
position and direction of will, which comes to pass through
love ; only that which results from love has value, what
ever is physical is worthless." Thus during all His life
the Redeemer moved steadily onward, the Father enabling
Him to perform mighty works, and finally He proved His
indissoluble union in love with God by His death. As the
reward of victory for His love and for His work among
men He has received from God the name Avhich is above
every name ; God has invested Him with divine honour,
so that now we may call Him "the God born of the virgin."
Since Jesus was eternally foreordained by God, we may
even speak of a pre-existence of Christ ; and Paul goes
PAUL
so far as to use these words : "By the grace of God, and
through progressive development under trial, Christ be
came God."
Although Paul was excommunicated, his teaching did
not remain altogether without effect in the church. It
had a marked influence on Lucian, and through him on
Arianism. But it is in the Christological statements of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, of Diodorus, and of Theodoret that
we can most clearly recognize the influence of the teaching
of Paul of Samosata,
Sources. — Euseb., H. E., vii. 27-30. Compare also the collection
rn Ronth, Rcliq. Sacr., iii. pp. 286 sq., 300 sq., 326 sq. Literature. —
Bernh&rdt, Gcschichtc dc-s rom. ficichcs seit dcm Tode Valerian'*,
pp. 170 sq., 178 sq., 306 sq. ; Hefele, Concilicngcsch. , 2d ed., p.
135 ; Lipsius, Chronologic der rom. Bischofc (1869) ; Feuerlin, DC
hferesi Pauli Sam. (1741); Ehrlich, DC erroribus Pauli Sam.
(1745) ; Schwab, Diss. de Pauli Sam. vita atque doctrina (1839) ;
Harnack, art. " Monarchianismus," in llcalcncykl. f. Thcol. u.
Kircht, 2d ed., x. p. 178 sq. (A. HA.)
PAUL, the name of five popes.
PAUL I., pope from 757 to 767, succeeded his brother
Stephen III. on 29th May 757. His pontificate was chiefly
remarkable for his close alliance with Pippin, king of
France, to whom he made a present of books highly signi
ficant of the intellectual poverty of the times, and for his
unsuccessful endeavours to effect a reconciliation with the
iconoclastic emperor of the East, Constantine Copronymus.
He died on 28th June 767, and received the honour of
canonization, Avhich he seems to have merited by his piety
and virtues. His successor was Stephen IV.
PAUL II., Pietro Barbo, pope from 1464 to 1471, was
born at Venice, 28th February 1418. He was on the
mother's side the great-nephew of Gregory XII. and the
nephew of Eugenius IV., to whose favour he owed his ele
vation to the cardinalate at the early age of twenty-two.
He seems, however, to have made no especial figure at
the papal court until the death of Calixtus III. in 1458,
when we hear of his interfering actively to protect the late
pope's nephew, Pietro Luigi Borgia, from the vengeance of
the Roman nobility, and escorting him safely to Civita
Vecchia. Upon the death of Pius II. he was unanimously
and unexpectedly elected his successor, 31st August 1464.
Vain of his personal appearance, he wished to take the
name of Formosus, and afterwards that of Mark in honour
of the patron saint of his native city, but, being dissuaded
from both, called himself Paul. He abandoned his prede
cessor's projects for a crusade, which he saw to be impractic
able, and made it his leading objects to preserve peace in
Italy and to enhance the dignity of the papal see by a dis
play of outward magnificence. He embellished the costume
of the cardinals, collected jewels for his own adornment,
entertained the Roman people with shows and banquets,
and introduced the sports from which the Corso takes its
name to this day. If the spirit of his pontificate was
secular, its administration was in general prosperous, and
no serious reproach would rest upon his memory but for
his violent persecution of the humanists and scholars who
adorned his court, the truth respecting which it is exceed
ingly difficult to discover. Whether actuated by a per
ception of the incompatibility between Renaissance culture
and traditional Christianity, or by a panic fear of imaginary
conspiracies against his own person, he appears to have
acted with much arbitrary severity, and to have exhibited
himself in the unamiable light of a comparatively illiterate
man persecuting letters and learning. At the same time,
his severities have been without doubt considerably ex
aggerated by the sufferers, from whom our knowledge of
them is almost entirely derived, and his own official acts
and documents give a much more favourable view of his
character, confirmed by the tranquillity of Italy in his day.
He was undoubtedly not a man of qiiick parts or enlarged
views, but he must have possessed considerable administra
tive ability, and his lavish ostentation, not in itself wholly
impolitic, was frequently accompanied by displays of charity
and munificence. He died very suddenly, probably of
apoplexy, on 28th July 1471. The inventory of his per
sonal effects, recently published by M. Eugene Miintz, is
a valuable document for the history of art. He was suc
ceeded by Sixtus IV.
PAUL III., Alessandro Farnese, pope from 1534 to
1549, was born 28th February 1468, of an ancient and
noble Roman family. He received an excellent education,
but his youth was dissolute and stormy, and he owed his
promotion to the cardinalate (September 1493) to the ad
miration of Alexander VI. for his beautiful sister Giulia,
whence he was derisively nicknamed Cardinal Petticoat.
He soon showed himself, however, to be a man of ability
and character, and his reputation and influence went on
steadily increasing until, upon the death of Clement VII.,
being at the time senior cardinal of the sacred college, he
was unanimously elected pope after a conclave of only two
days, having been in a manner nominated by his prede
cessor (13th October 1534).
Succeeding the most unfortunate of the popes, at the
most critical period in the history of the church, the part
assigned to Paul III. was one of no common difficulty.
But he also possessed no common qualifications, — prudence
increased and vigour tempered by age, learning, modera
tion, and a prolonged experience of affairs. It was his
misfortune to be not altogether a man of his own day :
deeply penetrated with the ambitious, luxurious, and
secular spirit of the Renaissance, he found it difficult to
adapt himself personally to the changed circumstances of
the times by entering into the Catholic Puritanism which,
however disagreeable to a man of taste and refinement,
was an indispensable necessity in combating the Reforma
tion. The want was in a manner supplied by the men
whom, conscious perhaps of his own deficiencies, he called
around him. No pope has made so many distinguished
cardinals, and his promotions included both men of evan
gelical piety inclined to the new doctrines like Contarini,
and fanatical devotees of the old system like Caraffa. The
latter group, though Paul had probably little personal
inclination for them, triumphed in his councils. The bull
instituting the order of the Jesuits (1540) marks the
commencement of the Roman counter-reformation ; two
years afterwards the Roman Inquisition was established,
Contarini died with strong suspicions of poison, Ochino
was hunted from Italy, and a persecution broke out which
soon exterminated Protestantism inside the Alps. Another
memorable measure extorted from Paul by the necessities
of his position was the convocation of the council of
Trent in 1545; but he soon found means to suspend ils
sittings, which were not resumed for many years. His
brief condemning slavery (1537) ranks among the most
honourable actions of his reign. As a politician Paul con
tinually strove to trim between Charles V. and Francis I.,
and to preserve the peace of Italy as far as compatible
with his darling aim of procuring an establishment for his
natural son. All these objects were accomplished. Paul's
contemporaries respected and courted him, Italy in general
enjoyed tranquillity, and the monster who brought such
disgrace upon him acquired the principalities of Parma and
Piacenza. After, however, the murder of this unworthy
son, the ingratitude of his grandsons broke Paul's heart,
and, overcome by a sudden fit of passion, he expired on
10th November 1549, — enjoying the rare distinction of
being one of the very few popes who have died lamented
by their subjects. His character Avas in many respects a
very fine one, but in every respect the character of a prince
and a scholar, not of an ecclesiastic. He was a munificent
PAUL
431
patron of learning, was versed in science, and had an
especial weakness for judicial astrology. The arts also
owed much to him. Michelangelo's Last Judgment and
other works of the first rank were completed under his
auspices, and he greatly improved and beautified the city
of Rome. Julius III. was his successor.
PAUL, IV., Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, pope from 1555
to 1559, born 28th June 1476, was the nephew of Car
dinal Oliviero Caraffa, by whose interest he became at an
early age chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI., and subse
quently, though contrary to his own inclination, archbishop
of Chieti. He was afterwards nuncio in England and
Spain, both of which missions he discharged with credit ;
but in 1524, under the influence of strong religious im
pressions, he resigned his archbishopric, distributed his
goods among the poor, and retired from the world to direct
the monastic order of Theatins, founded by himself. In
1536 the fame of his sanctity induced Paul III. to call
him to his court and confer the dignity of cardinal upon
him, notwithstanding his own reluctance. He now be
came the head of the reactionary party at Rome, bent on
crushing all tendencies to religious innovation, while in
sisting on reforms in discipline and moral deportment.
Such was unquestionably the policy required by the times
from the exclusive point of view of the interests of the
church, and it was thoroughly incarnate in Caraffa, in
whom the spirit of the Dominican exterminators of the
Albigenses seemed to revive. Having taken an important
part in two conclaves, he was himself unexpectedly elected
pope on 23d May 1555, after the death of Marcellus II.,
notwithstanding his personal unpopularity and the positive
veto of Charles V. Raised to the pontifical throne, Paul
showed himself a man of extreme counsels in every respect.
He endeavoured to efface the prejudice against his former
austerity by excessive magnificence. He rushed into
politics, and evinced himself as rash in his partisanship as
his predecessors had been dexterous and ambiguous. His
open espousal of the cause of France brought upon him a
Spanish invasion which would have destroyed his temporal
sovereignty but for the superstition of Philip II. and his
general Alva, who embraced the first opportunity of making
peace. He called his nephews to court and trusted them
with blind confidence, but unhesitatingly disgraced them
when convinced of their unworthiness. He refused to
acknowledge Ferdinand as emperor of Germany, maintain
ing that Charles had no right to abdicate or Ferdinand to
succeed without his own permission. Amid all these
agitations he never lost sight of the main purpose of his
life : he struggled incessantly against heresy, and was the
first pope to issue a full official Index Librorum Prohibit-
orum (see vol. xii. p. 730). He died, on 18th August 1559,
recommending the Inquisition to the cardinals with his
last breath, and leaving the character of a pope of rare
energy of body and mind, upright in all his thoughts and
actions, but intoxicated with fanaticism and the pride of
office, and more perverse, obstinate, and impracticable than
any occupant of the papal chair since Urban VI. His
memory was so detested by the Roman people that the
hawkers of glass and earthenware were compelled for a
time to discontinue their usual cry of " carafe " and cry
" ampolle." He was succeeded by Pius IV.
PAUL V., Camillo Borghese, pope from 1605 to 1621,
was born in Rome, 17th September 1552, of a noble
family. He followed the study of canon law, and after
having filled various important offices was made a cardinal
in 1596. He succeeded Leo XI. on 16th May 1605, after
an unusually long and stormy conclave, the vicissitudes of
which are dramatically narrated in Mr T. A. Trollope's
Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar. No one, till the last
moment, had thought of Borghese, who owed his election
to his supposed inoffensiveness and the inability of the
leaders of the factions to agree upon any other man -
Scarcely had he been elected ere he gave convincing proof
that his character had been very much mistaken. He
showed himself harsh, domineering, impatient of advice,
fanatical in his devotion to the secular as well as the
spiritual prerogatives of the church, and inflexible in his
resolution to uphold them. He began by successfully re
pressing numerous encroachments of the civil power in
various Roman Catholic countries, and thus became tempted
to embark in a contention with the republic of Venice,
which inflicted a deeper wound on Rome than anything
that had taken place since the Reformation. The dispute
was occasioned by the claim of the Venetians to try eccle
siastical culprits before the lay tribunals, and by the ex
tension of old laws forbidding the unauthorized formation
of religious corporations and the acquisition of property
by ecclesiastics to the entire territory of the republic. Paul
protested and menaced (October 1605), and, when the
Venetians refused to yield, he launched (April 1606) a
bull of excommunication against them, and placed the whole
republic under an interdict. The Venetians set him at
defiance, forbidding their clergy to pay the least attention
to the papal censures, and banishing those who disobeyed
from their dominions. A vehement literary controversy
arose, in which the famous Father Sarpi, the chief coun
sellor of the Venetian senate, especially distinguished him
self. Paul found himself impotent, and, disappointed in
his expectations of material aid from Spain, was thankful
to escape from the difficulty by the mediation of France,
whose representative, Cardinal Joyeuse, negotiated a com
promise in April 1607. The Venetians made some nominal
concessions, but gained every substantial point at issiie ;
the main result of the contention, however, was to demon
strate the inefficacy of the spiritual weapons on which
Rome had so long relied, and the disrepute into which
papal pretensions had fallen even among Catholic nations.
Throughout the remainder of his long pontificate Paul
acted with comparative moderation, maintaining, never
theless, the character of a zealous pontiff intent on combat
ing heresy, and especially active in his encouragement of
foreign missions. He ranks among the popes who have
contributed most to the embellishment of Rome ; the nave,
fa5ade, and portico of St Peter's were completed by him ;
he also erected the sumptuous Borghese chapel in Santa
Maria Maggiore, and greatly benefited the city by improv
ing streets and constructing public fountains. He died
on 28th January 1621, and was succeeded by Gregory
XV. (R. G.)
PAUL (1754-1801), emperor of Russia, son of Peter
III. and of Catherine, was born on the 2d of October
1754. During the early part of his life he was treated
with great harshness by his mother, who had usurped
the throne and did not allow him to take any part in
the government. There is little doubt that she did not
intend him to succeed, but her will was burnt by one of
Paul's adherents. His days were spent in retirement,
with the exception of a tour which he made in the west
of Europe in the year 1780. He was twice married, first,
in 1773, to Augusta, princess of Hesse Darmstadt, who
died three years afterwards, leaving no issue ; secondly, in
1776, to Dorothea Sophia, princess of Wiirtemberg, who
was received into the Greek Church as Maria Feodorovna.
Paul Petrovich ascended the throne on the death of his
mother Catherine, 17th November 1796. One of his first
acts was to cause the body of his father to be exhumed
from the Nevski monastery and buried with the empress
his wife in the Petropavlovski church among the rest
of the czars. Orloff and the other persons implicated in
Peter's assassination were compelled to follow the coffins,
432
P A U — P A U
and afterwards banished the empire for ever. The chief
ministers of the new emperor were Rostopchin and Arak-
cheeff. Paul now gave signs of a benevolent disposition ;
among other acts of generosity he set at liberty Kosciusko,
who had been detained a prisoner at St Petersburg. He,
however, revived many obsolete imperial privileges which
were offensive to the nobility, and became unpopular
by introducing German regulations into the army. He
altered the ouJcaz (ukase) of Peter the Great which
made the succession to the throne dependent upon the
will of the reigning sovereign, and declared it inherent
in the eldest son. In 1798 he was appointed grand
master of the order of the Knights of Malta. Alarmed
at the progress of the French Republic, he joined Turkey,
England, Austria, and Naples in a coalition against Bona
parte. To command the Russians, the veteran Suwaroff
•was summoned from his rural retreat, to which he had
been banished in consequence of making some satirical
verses on the new regulations which had been introduced
by Paul. For the campaigns of the Russian general, the
article RUSSIA may be consulted. It may suffice to say
here that he, triumphant at first, wras eventually compelled
to retreat, and was recalled by Paul. He died in disgrace
in the year 1800. Soon afterwards the capricious emperor
completely changed his plans. Having been flattered by
Bonaparte, he secretly made overtures to him and quarrelled
with England, seizing English vessels and goods which hap
pened to be in the Russian ports. Bonaparte now entered
into an agreement with Paul, whereby they should simul
taneously invade the English possessions in India. But
the coalition was broken up by the assassination of the
Russian emperor in the night of 23d to 24th March
1801, which Bonaparte had the meanness to declare in
the Moniteur had been planned by the English. The
story of his death is well known : he was strangled in
the Mikhailovski Palace by Zouboff, Pahlen, and other
conspirators. Their original object appears to have been
only to make him abdicate. An interesting account of
the events immediately preceding the emperor's death has
been given by General Sabloukoff, who was on duty that
evening at the palace. The empress Maria survived till
1828.
The solution of the incongruities of the character of
Paul seems to lie in the fact that he was more or less
insane. Hence his outbursts of cruelty in such cases as
those of the pastor Seidler and Kotzebue, alternating with
generosity, as in his treatment of Kosciusko and other
Poles. Englishmen are familiar with some of his mad
pranks from the highly interesting travels of Edward
Clarke, who suffered from the despot's caprice. Among
other whimsicalities, Kotzebue tells us that he seriously
proposed that the sovereigns of Europe should settle their
differences by single combat. He had so imperilled the
position of the country by his extravagance and eccentric
policy that his death, however unjustifiable the means,
seemed almost a necessity. All Russia breathed afresh
when Alexander II. ascended the throne.
The only event of the reign of Paul of permanent im
portance to Russia was the annexation of Georgia in 1799.
PAUL, ST VINCENT OF. See VINCENT OF PAUL, ST.
PAULDING, JAMES KIKKE (1778-1860), in his day a
successful 'politician, and a writer of some distinction,
was born in Dutchess county, New York, United States,
on 22d August 1778, and, after a brief course of edu
cation at the village school, removed to New York city
in 1800, to reside with his brother-in-law, William
Irving, a brother of Washington Irving. In connexion
with the latter Paulding began in 1807 a series of brief
lightly humorous articles, which, under the title of "The
Salmagundi Papers," soon became popular, and continued
to appear until 25th June 1808, when they terminated
with the twentieth number. Six years later he published
a political pamphlet, The United States and England, which
attracted the notice of President Madison, who in 1814
appointed the author secretary to the Board of Navy Com
missioners. Subsequently Paulding was for twelve years
navy agent in New York city, and from 1837 to 1841 secre
tary of the navy, under President Van Buren. Although
much of his literary work consisted of political contributions
to the press, he yet found time to write a large number of
essays, poems, and tales. His marriage in 1818, the death
of his wife, and his own withdrawal from public life in
1841, with his death on 5th April 1860, comprise the chief
remaining facts of his useful, honourable, and uneventful
career.
From his father, who was an active revolutionary patriot, Fauld-
ing inherited strong anti-British sentiments, which colour much of
his satire, but otherwise he was a just and genial critic, and a deli
cate and kindly humorist. Of a reserved disposition and hasty
temper, with many prejudices, and of extreme political views, he
was yet an eminently upright man ; of an affectionate nature and
a forgiving disposition ; a hater of debt, lies, and shams ; and an
absolutely incorruptible official, who, in every relation of life,
was inspired by a lofty, if sometimes mistaken, sense of honesty
and honour. In literature he merits notice chiefly as a pioneer,
and, though his place was never high, and will certainly not be per
manent, he was among the first distinctively American as opposed
to English writers, and protested more vigorously than any of his
contemporaries against intellectual thraldom to the mother-country.
As a prose writer he is chaste and elegant, with a fine negligence,
which is sometimes the result of art, more frequently of haste ; and,
while not so elaborate as Irving, so diffuse as Cooper, or so frank as
Neal, he is generally just, neat, fanciful, and realistically descrip
tive. Among his short stories perhaps the best are Di/sjwpsy and
The Politician, among the long The Dutchman s Fireside. As a
poet he is gracefully commonplace, — a weak reflexion of Thomson,
with a dash of the prairie and the backwoods. His longest ami
most ambitious poem is — or was, for it is now forgotten — The Back
woodsman, which is ill-constructed and tedious, and the only lines
of Paulding's which survive in popular memory are the familiar —
" Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers ;
Where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked ? "
which may be found in Koningsmarke.
The following is a list of his writings : — The Diverting History of John Hull
and Brother Jonathan (1812); The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle; a Tale of Havre
de Grace, supposed to be written by Walter Scott Esq. (1813), a good-natured
parody on The Lay of the Last Minstrel written with the special intention of ridi
culing certain American follies and exposing the excesses of the British in the
Chesapeake ; The United States and England(l814) ; Letters from the South (1817) ;
The Backwoodsman; a Poem (1818); Salmagundi, second series (1819-20); A
Sketch of Old England, by a New England Man (1S22) ; Koningttinarke, the Long
Finne (1823), a quiz on the romantic school of Scott; John Bull in America;
or the New Munchaiisen (1824), a broad caricature of the early type of British
traveller in America ; The Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham (182ti) ;
The New Mirror for Travellers (1S28) ; The Tales of the Good Woman, by a Doubt
ful Gentleman, — otherwise James K. Paulding (1829) ; Chronicles of the City of
Gotham, from the papers of a retired Common Councilman (1830) ; The Lion of the
West; a Comedy (1831) ; The Dutchman's Fireside (1831) ; Westward Ho ! (1832) ;
A Life of Washington (183o), ably and gracefully written ; Slavery in the United
States (1836) ; The Book of Saint Nicholas, a series of stories of the old Dutch
settlers (1837); A Gift from Fairyland .(1838) ; The Old Continental; or the
Price of Liberty (1846) ; American Comedies, the .joint production of himself and
his son William J. Paulding (1847) ; and The Puritan and his Daughter (1849).
The same son also published a posthumous volume by his father, entitled A
Book of Vagaries, which is included in an edition of Paulding's Select Works (4
vols., 1867-68), and a most unsatisfactory biography, mostly made up of long
extracts from Paulding's writings, called Literary Life of James A'. 1'auhliiuj
(1807).
PAULI, REINHOLD (1823-1882), historian, was born at
Berlin on 25th May 1823. From his mother, Avho was of
Huguenot descent, he derived a vivacious temperament ;
from his father, a minister of the Reformed Church, sprung
of a family of clergymen and theological professors, he
inherited strong religious convictions. He spent his boy
hood in Bremen, from whose republican citizens he early
imbibed a hearty admiration of liberal self-government,
moral discipline, and extensive sea-trade. With the ex
ception of two semesters when he heard Dahlmann at Bonn,
he studied at the university of Berlin (1842-46), where he
acquired a lifelong predilection for the Hohenzollerns and
for the civil service and army of Prussia. Ranke was young
Pauli's model historian, but he had far too much individu
ality to bind himself slavishly to any school. After having
taken his degree and passed the public schoolmaster's ex
amination, he became in 1847 private tutor in the family
P A U — P A U
433
of Mr Bannatyne, a solicitor in Glasgow, and stayed seven
years in Great Britain. During 1849-52 he served as
private secretary to the Prussian ambassador Bunsen in
London, and made the acquaintance of many eminent
politicians of the day and of distinguished antiquaries, such
as Kemble, Thorpe, and Hardy. Never a mere book-scholar,
he saw various parts of England with an observant eye, and
followed public questions with warm interest. He now
conceived the plan of investigating the history of England
in its original sources. In this way he was the first faith
fully to copy some of the Anglo-Saxon annals ; but, as soon
as he learned that Thorpe was going to edit them for the
Master of the llolls, he liberally committed his transcripts
to him. The roots of Great and Greater Britain appeared
to him to lie in Anglo-Saxon, not in Celtic, institutions,
and therefore his first book was Konig Aelfred (Berlin,
1851). Though critically destroying many long-cherished
legends, he described his hero's character and times in
warm colours. The book was twice translated into English,
and Lappenberg, the best judge then living, declared its
author worthy to continue his own Geschichte von England.
Not without material privations Pauli continued his stay
in England, and between 1853 and 1858 published three
large volumes, comprising the period from Henry II. to
Henry VII. In 1855 he became privat-docent at Bonn, and
he obtained a professorship at Rostock in 1857. Thence he
removed in 1859 to Tiibingen, where, however, in 1866 he
offended the Wiirtemberg Government by vehemently de
nouncing its Austrian policy in an essay which appeared
during the Prussian war in the Preussische Jahrbiicher.
Exiled to a remote country seminary, he preferred to resign.
He noAv returned to his native country and obtained in
1867 a post in the university of Marburg, which he once
represented in the Prussian Upper House. In 1870 he
found an honourable position at Gottingen, where the
former dynastic union of Hanover with Great Britain had
left a splendid English library, and where Waitz had
brought together a flourishing historical school.
Pauli's later life was chiefly devoted to modern history,
and the Geschichte Englcmds 1814-52, in 3 vols. (Leipsic,
1864-75) made his name widely known. He fulfilled his
duties as a teacher and examiner and as a fellow of different
learned societies with punctual accuracy ; he became member
of the academies of Gottingen, Munich, and Berlin, and
honorary doctor of Oxford and Cambridge. He helped
friends and pupils with untiring kindness ; in his happy
and social home he was often visited by distinguished
English scholars. And he was for a whole generation a
living link between the historical literature of England
and Germany, "those two columns of the Teutonic world,
Avhich, for the benefit of human progress he firmly believed
in, he fondly hoped would never be torn asunder." When
suddenly called away by a stroke of apoplexy on 3d June
1882, he was deeply lamented on both sides of the Channel.
Pauli's History of England was remarkable for its research. Never
before had the records, then piled up iu the Tower without calendars
or indexes, been used in so full a way ; never before had the
chronicles and memoirs been so thoroughly criticized. The short
review of these original sources, given in the appendices, formed a
guide to the mediaeval historiography of England, and was later on,
\vhen_ better editions appeared, supplemented by Pauli's critiques
contributed to German periodicals. The main narrative follows the
king, but at the end of each reign the literary, religious, social,
economical, and especially the commercial features of the period are
cleverly grouped together. Though Pauli was no regular jurist,
even the development of the constitutional side of his subject was
then superior to the general standard. Indeed these parts, and these
only, Pauli lived to see without jealousy superseded by Gneist and
Stubbs, while in every other respect his work, then an immense
advance upon Lingard, still remains the most solid of its kind. It
has never been translated, perhaps on account of its almost annal-
istic form, and its contempt for the popular attractions of moralizing
remarks, philosophical speculation, or picturesque style. To gain
new facts, to show the way for further investigation, seemed to
Pauli a worthier task than to amuse the public with a brilliant
story. The history is remarkable for the completeness with which
the author has used all reports, letters, and memoirs he could lay
his hands upon. He was also allowed to inspect private papers of
Cobden and of the Prussian ambassadors Biilow and Bunsen ; and
he knew something by personal recollection. Still he openly con
fessed that this contemporary history could be only preliminary,
on account of the wide gaps in our knowledge of the secret policy,'
and because "he felt, in dealing with the flowing formless mass
of living characters, as if he were touching hot lava that could
not yet be shaped into constructive material. " Nevertheless the
carefully - weighed judgment and the profound understanding of
the manifold and tangled tendencies of modern strife are simply
astonishing, if we consider that the author was a foreigner. Abroad
no guide through the English history of the 19th century can rival
this work, while the English reader will find at least the chapters
on foreign policy to contain much that is new, and will be sure to
admire the impartial views of a distant but lofty and noble observer.
Pauli had learned to love the organic growth of the English consti
tution, and could not look without misgivings on the radical de
struction of its aristocratic basis.
Besides a great many essays on the Middle Ages, of which only
the popular ones have been collected in Bilder aus Alt -England
(Gotha, 1860; 2d ed. 1876, translated 1861), and in Aufsdtze zur
Englischen Geschichte (Leipsic, 1869 ; Neue Folge, edited by Hartwig,
Leipsic, 1883), Pauli published two monographs : "Grosseteste und
Marsh," in the Tubingen Program for 1864, and Simon von Montfort
(Tubingen, 1867). From a literary point of view these biographies
are the best things Pauli wrote, and in them he was successful in
creating figures of impressive character ; but his general histories
also usually centre round a hero, e.g. , Canning and Peel in his
history of England in our own times. Well versed in palaeography,
Pauli discovered several important memorials, and never despised
the humbler task of an editor ; he edited Gower's Confessio Amantis
(1857), The Libcll of Englishe Policye 0/1436 (1878), and three tracts
on political economy of the time of Henry VIII., Transactions of
the Gottingen Society, 1 878. For the Monumenta Germanise Historica
he furnished a quantity of MS. collations, and extracted conjointly
with Liebermann pieces of interest for Germany out of English
historians before 1300 A.D., which appeared in part in vol. xiii.
(1881), and in part will fill vol. xxvii. For the Berlin Academy he
selected and copied a mass of records relating to Germany, mainly
of the 14th century, which did excellent service for the Hanseatic
publications. For the Camden Society he had prepared the account
book of the Prussian crusade of Henry Earl of Derby in 1392, which,
it is hoped, will be edited by an eminent English historian. He
contributed numberless reviews and detailed, often exhaustive,
essays on minor subjects of English history to Sybel's Historische
Zeitschrift, Preussische Jahrbiicher, Grenzboten, Rundschau, Im
Neuen Reich, Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte, Archiv fur
dltere deutsche Geschichtskunde, Hansische Geschichtsbldtter, Zeit
schrift fur Kirchenrecht, Deutsche Litter aturzeitung, Gottingischc
Nachrichtcn, Goltingische Anzeigen. These articles possess in some
respects a very high value as material for future scholars. Pauli's
last studies on Henry VIII. and the Hanoverian succession, based
on' the discovery of the papers of Robethon, the elector's agent, are
printed in the Aufsatze, Neue Folge.
Hartwig prefixed a sketch of Pauli's life to the Aufsatze, Neue Folge, and
Frensdortf delivered a lecture upon him, printed in the Transactions of the
Gottingen Society (1882). (F. L.)
PAU LICIANS (UavAtKtavot), the name of a religious
sect which sprang up in Armenia in the latter half of the
7th century. Their founder was Constantino, belong
ing to a village near Samosata called Mananalis, where a
dualistic, perhaps Marcionite, community had long sub
sisted. About 660 A.D. his attention had been drawn to
the New Testament, and especially to the epistles of Paul,
whence he derived a set of opinions which, in their com
bination at least, were quite peculiar to himself, and
under their inspiration he forthwith came forward as a
reforming preacher. The scene of his first efforts was
Cibossa, in the district of Colonia in Armenia Prima,
where, in token of his Pauline discipleship, he called himself
Sylvanus and his flock Macedonians. He died about the
year 684, but had a succession of like-minded followers —
Simeon (called Titus), Paul, Gegnsesius (Timothy), Joseph
(Epaphroditus) — under whom the sect continued to spread
into Asia Minor, ultimately taking up its headquarters in
Phanersea in Helenopontus. According to Petrus Siculus,
whose Historia Manichseorum was written about 870, they
held the ordinary dualistic doctrine common to all the
XVIII. --55
434
P A U — P A U
Maniclutans, expressly distinguishing the Being to whom
the present world owes its creation and government from the
maker and ruler of that which is to come ; further, besides
being quite out of sympathy with the Catholic doctrine
as to the Theotokos, they rejected the Old Testament, the
sacraments, the symbol of the cross, and the ordained
ministry of the church. The morals of the followers of
Constantino seem to have been for the most part unex
ceptionable, tending to severity, but one of his remoter
successors, Baanes by name, gave way to such excesses as
to earn for himself the surname of 6 pvirapos • and Sergius
(Tychicus), about the beginning of the 9th century, found
so great scope for a moral reformation and was so success
ful in his efforts for this end that he is sometimes spoken
of, not extravagantly, as the second founder of the sect.
Their aversion to images made them specially obnoxious to
persecution by both parties during the iconoclastic con
troversy, — the iconoclasts specially finding it necessary to
give practical demonstration of their antipathy to the
Paulician heretics. The violence of Leo the Armenian in
particular compelled many of their number, and Sergius
among them, to seek refuge in the Saracen part of Ar
menia, where the emir of Melitene assigned them a seat
in the little town of Argaum ; from this settlement, not
withstanding the remonstrances of their head, they made
frequent and damaging inroads on the Byzantine territory.
After the death of Sergius in 835 their government be
came more political and republican, until the violence of
Theodora drove new reinforcements to their camp, includ
ing an able military leader named Carbeas, who presently
placed himself at their head. The sect continued to grow
and to found new settlements, among which Tephrica is
specially mentioned by the Byzantine historians as a cause
of embarrassment. At the head of an army composed of
Paulicians and Moslems, Carbeas more than once invaded
the territory of the empire and inflicted defeat on the
opposing forces. Chrysocheir, his stepson and successor,
was still more successful ; sweeping all opposition before
him, he overran the whole of Asia Minor, pillaging Nice and
Nicomedia, Ancyra and Ephesus, — Basil the Macedonian
vainly appealing now to arms and now to negotiation.
At last, however (871), he was surprised and slain, and
his followers were driven back to their mountain fastnesses.
In 970 John Zimisces succeeded in removing a large
colony of them, as guardians of the frontier, to the region
about Philippopolis in Thrace, where full religious liberty
was guaranteed them. Here they continued to flourish in
virtual independence for more than a century, until Alexius
Comnenus inflicted chastisement on them for having de
serted his standard in the course of the Norman war. In
1115 that emperor fixed his winter quarters in Philippo
polis to use for their conversion the various powers of
persuasion at his command, and the orthodox city of
Alexiopolis was founded in the immediate neighbourhood.
The sect, however, called " Popelicans " by Villehardouin,
continued to subsist in Thrace until at least the beginning
of the 13th century, as did also the Euchites, afterwards
Bogomili, who had been attracted to the locality by the
toleration of Zimisces. Meanwhile, branch societies of
Paulicians had established themselves in Italy and France,
and reappear in history there under various names, such as
Bulgari, Patareni, Cathari, and Albigenses.
The Paulicians are the subject of a monograph by F. Schmidt
(Historic Paulicianorum Orientalium, Copenhagen, 1826) ; and the
Historist, of Petnis Siculus, already referred to, has been edited
(Gottingen, 1846) by Gieseler, whose " Untersuchungen iiber die
Gesehichte der Paulicianer," in Stud. u. Krit. (1829), as well as the
relative sections of his Church History, deserves special mention.
See also vol. iii. of Xeander's Kirchencjcschichte.
PAULINUS, ST, OF NOLA. Pontius Meropius Anicius
Paulinus, who was successively a consul, a monk, and a
bishop, was born at Bordeaux in 3o3 A.D. His father,
pnefectus prcetorio in Gaul, was a man of great wealth,
so that Augustine could speak of Paulinus, who inherited
it, as " opulentissimus dives," and Ausonius, himself a man
of property, could speak of his estates as "regna." The
literary education of the future saint was entrusted to his
elder contemporary and townsman Ausonius, and how con
siderable was the degree of culture to which he attained
as a writer both in prose and verse can yet be seen from
his extant works, though it is of course impossible for any
one in cold blood to concur in all the friendly praises of
Ausonius and Jerome, the latter of whom compares him
as a letter- writer to Cicero. In 378 he was raised to the
rank of consul suffectus, and in the following year he
appears to have been sent as consularis into Campania.
Here, whether in an official capacity or not, he certainly
remained for some time; and, according to his own account,
it was at this period, while present at a festival of St Felix
of Nola, that he first entered upon his lifelong devotion
to the cultus of that saint. Probably before this time he
had married a wealthy Spanish lady named Therasia ; the
union appears to have been a sympathetic and happy one,
though not unclouded by domestic sorrows, among which
may be mentioned the death in infancy of their only child,
— a bereavement which, combined with the many disasters
by which the empire was being visited, did much to foster
in them that world-weariness to which they afterwards gave
such emphatic expression. From Campania Paulinus re
turned to his native place and came into correspondence
or personal intimacy with men like Martin of Tours and
Ambrose of Milan, whose example could not fail to keep
before him the claims of Christianity as conceived by them ;
and ultimately (about 389) he was formally received into the
church by Bishop Delphinus of Bordeaux, whence shortly
afterwards he withdrew with his wife beyond the Pyrenees.
This withdrawal from the pursuits and pleasures of the
world called forth the playful banter and serious remon
strances with which alternately he was plied by Ausonius ;
all appeals, however, to the common memories of an old
friendship and to the claims of patriotism and of ambition
were made in vain. It is impossible, of course, to say what
precise amount of truth may underlie the poet's hint at
an undue feminine ascendency over his friend, which is
implied in the expression "Tanaquil tua." Therasia was
certainly at least not behind her husband in eagerness to
have done with the fast- failing friendship and help of
" the world " ; but Paulinus is unflinching in his reply to
every reproach and entreaty : "Negant Camoenis, nee patent
Apollini dicata Christo pectora. . . . Nunc alia mentem
vis agit, major deus. . . . O beata injuria, displicere cum
Christo." The personal asceticism of Paulinus and his
liberality towards the poor soon brought him into great
repute among all the devout of the region in which he
had settled ; and while he was spending Christmas at
Barcelona the enthusiasm of the people rose to such a
pitch that they insisted on his being forthwith ordained
to the priesthood. The irregularity of this step, however,
was resented by many of the clergy, and the occurrence is
still passed lightly over by his Roman Catholic panegyrists.
In the following year he went into Italy, and after visit
ing Ambrose at Milan and Siricius at Home — the latter of
whom, however, jealous probably of the growing monkish
spirit and mindful also of the irregular ordination, received
him somewhat coldly — he proceeded into Campania, where,
in the neighbourhood of Nola, he settled among the rude
structures which on his former visit he had caused to be
built around the tomb and relics of his " dominsedius "
(lord of the edifice) and patron saint. Along with Ther
asia (now a sister, not a wife), while leading a life of rigid
asceticism, he devoted the whole of his vast wealth to the
P A U — P A U
435
entertainment of needy pilgrims, to payment of the debts of
the insolvent, and to public works of utility or ornament ;
besides building basilicas at Fondi and Nola, he provided
the latter place with a much-needed aqueduct. At the
next vacancy, not later than 409, he succeeded to the
bishopric of Nola, and this office he held with ever-increas
ing honour until his death, which occurred shortly after
that of Augustine in 431. He is commemorated by the
Church of Rome on 22d June.
The extant writings of Paulinus consist of some fifty Epistolas,
addressed to Sulpicius Severus, Delphinus, Augustine, Jerome, and
others ; thirty-twi Carminct in a great variety of metre, including
a series of hexameter "natales," begun about 393 and continued
annually in honour of the festival of St Felix, metrical epistles to
Ausonius and Gestidius, and paraphrases of three psalms ; and a
Passio S. Gencsii. They reveal to us a kindly and cheerful soul,
well versed in the literary accomplishments of the period, but
without any strength of intellectual grasp and peculiarly prone to
superstition. The somewhat conspicuous place in church history
occupied by Paulinus is chiefly due to the effect his great influence
had in promoting the practice of pilgrimage, relic - hunting, and
picture - worship, as well as the uncritical acceptance of every
alleged miracle ; to the intellectual development of Christianity he
contributed nothing and it may well be questioned whether the
manner in which he discharged the stewardship of his wealth was
as judicious and beneficial as it certainly was generous.
His works were edited by Rosweyde and Fronton le Due in 1622 (Antwerp,
8vo), and their text was reprinted in the Bibl. max. patr. (1677). The next
editor was Le Brun des Marettes (Paris, 1685, 2 vols. 4to), whose text was
reproduced in substance by Muratori (Verona, 1736), and reprinted by Migne.
PAULUS, HEINRICH EBEEHARD GOTTLOB (1761-1851),
the distinguished representative of the rationalistic school
of German theologians of the beginning of this century,
was born at Leonberg, near Stuttgart, 1st September
1761. His father, the Lutheran clergyman at Leonberg,
was convinced of the immortality of the soul by spirit
ualism, and was deprived of his living in consequence of
his belief in the intercourse of departed spirits with men.
He likewise required of his children unconditional obedi
ence, and commanded them to believe the doctrines of
religion without asking wherefore. The father's spiritual
ism and dogmatism drove the son by natural reaction
to the rationalism which prevailed at the time, and of
which, in its application to Biblical history, Paulus became
the most famous representative. He was educated at
Tubingen, was three years headmaster of a German school,
and then spent two years in travelling through England
and the principal countries of the Continent. He subse
quently published interesting passages from the journal of
his tour. In 1789 he was chosen ordinary professor of
Oriental languages at Jena. In addition to the studies
of his own department he prosecuted especially mathe
matics, as the best preparation for clear thinking. At
Jena he lived in close intercourse with Schiller, Goethe,
Herder, and the most distinguished literary men of the
time. In 1793 he succeeded Doederlein as professor of
theology. His special work was the exposition of the
Old and New Testaments in the light of his great Oriental
learning and according to his characteristic principle of
"natural explanation." He held that miracles in the
strict sense were impossible, that the events recorded in
the Bible took place naturally, and that the narratives of
the Gospels are the true reports of men who either were eye
witnesses or had obtained information from such as were.
From a purely apologetic motive he sought to remove
what other interpreters regarded as miracles from the
Bible by distinguishing between the fact related and the
author's opinion of it, by seeking a naturalistic exegesis
of a narrative, e.g., that ori r?;s OaXda-o-rjs (Matt. xiv. 25)
means l>y the shore and not on tlie sea, by supplying circum
stances omitted by the author, by remembering that the
author produces as miracles occurrences which can now be
explained otherwise, e.g., exorcisms. The chief exegetical
works of Paulus are his Philologisch-kritischer und histor-
ischer Commentar iiber das Neue Testament (4 vols., 1800-
1804), Clavis iiber die Psalmen (1791), and Clavis iiber
Jesaias (1793), and particularly his Exegetisches Handbuch
iiber die drei ersten Evangdien (3 vols., 1830-33; 2d ed.,
1841-42). His Life of Jesus (2 vols., 1828) is a synop
tical translation of the Gospels, prefaced by an account of
the preparation for the Christ and a brief summary of His
history, and accompanied by very short explanations inter
woven in the translation. The form of the work was fatal
to its success, and the subsequent Exegetisches Handbuch
rendered it quite superfluous. In the latter work Paulus
really contributed much to a true interpretation of the
Gospel narratives, notwithstanding his entire failure to ex
plain the miracles away. The historical and geographical
excursuses and dissertations interwoven in his comment-
aries are of considerable value. He was particularly well
acquainted with the conditions of Oriental life. In the
year 1803 Paulus left Jena on account of his health, and
filled various posts in south Germany until 1811, when
he became professor of exegesis and ecclesiastical history
at Heidelberg. It was there that he found the freest
scope for his great learning and tutorial abilities. He
filled this chair until 1844, when he retired on account of
his great age. He died, faithful to his first rationalistic
position, a staunch friend of intellectual and political free
dom and light, 10th August 1851, in his ninetieth year.
The literary labours of Paulus were not confined to exegesis. He
edited a collected small edition of Spinoza's works (1802-1803), a
collection of the most noted Eastern travels (1792-1803), Schel-
ling's Vorlesungcn iiber die Offcnbaruny (1843), &c. He was also
the author of Skizzen aus meincr Bildunys- und Lcbeiisgeschichte
(1839), and he left behind him the materials for a biography, which
was published by Professor Reichlin-Meldegg, under the title //.
E. G. Paulus und seine Zeit (1853).
PAULUS, JULIUS. See KOMAN LAW.
PAULUS (or PAULLUS), Lucius ^MILIUS, a dis
tinguished Roman general, of the patrician family of the
./Emilii, was born about 229 B.C. He was the son of the
consul of the same name who fell at Cannae. As curule
cedile in 192 he gave a proof of his integrity by prose
cuting the persons who made an illegal use of the public
pastures. His first laurels were won in Further Spain,
whither he was sent as prsetor in 191. Though at
first defeated with loss, he finally overthrew the enemy in
a bloody battle (189) and tranquillized Spain. In 182
he was consul, and in the following year subdued the
Ingauni, a piratical tribe of Liguria, dismantling their
towns and carrying off their ships. For this service he
was granted a triumph. After a period of retirement from
public life he was elected consul a second time, for 168,
and entrusted with the command in the Macedonian war,
which the incapacity of previous Roman generals had
allowed to drag on without success for three years. Paulus
brought the war to a speedy termination by the battle
of Pydna, fought on 22d June (Julian calendar) 168.
The battle decided the fate of Macedonia, which was
henceforward a Roman province. The Macedonian king
Perseus surrendered shortly afterwards and met with a
courteous reception from the Roman general. Paulus now
availed himself of his position to make the tour of Greece,
visiting with an intelligent interest the places immortalized
in Greek history and legend. Afterwards, assisted by ten
Roman commissioners, he arranged the affairs of Macedonia.
In obedience to the orders of the senate, on his return
through Epirus to Italy he gave up seventy towns to pillage
and carried off 150,000 of the inhabitants as slaves. A
magnificent triumph, graced by the presence of the captive
king Perseus and his three children, rewarded the con
queror of Macedonia (167). But his public glory was
closely attended by private misfortune ; of the two sons
borne him by his second wife one died a few days before,
436
P A U — P A U
the other a few days after, his triumph. The veteran was
thus left without a son to bear his name ; for of his two
sons by his first wife Papiria, the elder had been adopted
by Quintus Fabius Maximus, Hannibal's great opponent,
and the younger by the son of Scipio Africanus. The
latter, known as P. Cornelius Scipio ^Emilianus, was the
conqueror of Carthage and Numantia. Paulus was censor
in 164, and died in 160. At the funeral games exhibited
in his honour the Hecyra of Terence was acted for the
second and the Adelphi for the first time.
Paulus was a fine specimen of a Roman noble. An aristocrat to
the backbone, he was yet beloved by the people, whose favour he
never deigned to court by unworthy means. His integrity was
perfect ; of the vast sums brought by him into the Roman treasury
from Spain and Macedonia he kept not a penny to himself. At
his death his property with difficulty sufficed to pay his wife's dowry.
As a general he was a strict disciplinarian ; as an augur he dis
charged the religious duties of his office with conscientious care and
exactness. His piety passed iixto superstition, as when before the
battle of Pydna he' sacrificed to the moon, then under eclipse.
His sympathy with Greek learning and art is attested by the Greek
masters whom he procured for his sons, as well as by his travels in
Greece, the works of art he brought home, and his friendship for
the historian Polybius. His nobility of nature won him the affec
tion and esteem of all who knew him, of his enemies no less than
of his countrymen. An affecting proof is the fact recorded by
Plutarch that" his body was carried to the grave by volunteers
from all the nations he had conquered, while old men from Spain,
Liguria, and Macedonia followed lamenting the man who (accord
ing to them) was at once their conqueror and their saviour.
There is a life of him by Plutarch, but his campaigns in Liguria and Mace
donia are more fully described by Livy (xl. 25-28 ; xliv. 17 - xlv. 41).
PAULUS jEGIXETA. See ^EGINETA, vol. i. p. 181,
and MEDICINE, vol. xv. p. 804.
PAULUS DIACONUS, the historian of the Lombard
dominion in Italy, flourished in the 8th century (see
LOMBARDS, vol. xiv. p. 813). An ancestor of his named
Leupichis entered Italy in the train of Alboin and received
an allotment of lands at or near Forum Julii (Friuli). By
an invasion of Avars all the five sons of this warrior were
swept 'off into Illyria, but one, his namesake, returned
through many perils and restored the ruined fortunes of
his house. His grandson was Warnefrid, who, by his
wife Theodelinda, became the father of Paulus. The
future historian (born about 720 or 725) received an
education unusually good for his times, possibly in part
conducted at the court of King Ratchis in Pavia. From
a teacher named Flavian he received at least the rudiments
of Greek. In middle life, probably, he retired into the
great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, which his
patron King Ratchis had entered in 749. The ruin which
befell the Lombard monarchy in 774 at the hands of
Charles the Great may have caused him to take this step.
In this ruin was involved his brother Arichis, Avhose estates
were confiscated, himself confined in prison for seven years,
and his wife and children reduced to beggary. About
781 Paulus left his monastery and travelled to France,
probably in order to intercede for this brother, and after
considerable delay his request was granted. Meanwhile,
his literary gifts had come to be highly appreciated by the
Frankish king. The letters and the verses which passed
between Charles (employing the pen of a secretary) and
Paulus give a pleasant idea of the relation between the
two parties, and remind us of the intercourse between the
Italian princes and the scholars of the Renaissance. After
some years' residence in France Paulus returned to Italy
and to his convent, and died, probably between 790 and
800, at his beloved Monte Cassino. His surname, Diaconus
(or Levita), shows that he took orders as a deacon, no
doubt during his residence in the monastery.
The chief works of Paulus are his Continuation of^ Eutropius and
his Lombard History. The former (one of his earliest works) was
written at the request of Adelperga, wife of the duke of Benevento.
Paulus recommended her to read the Roman history of Eutropius,
but, as she complained that this heathen writer said nothing ot
church affairs, and stopped short at the deatli of Jovian, Paulus
interwove some extracts from the ecclesiastical historians, and
added six books (xi.-xvi.), bringing down the history to 553 A.D.
At this point his Lombard History, in six books, written in the
later years of his life and cut short by his death, takes up the tale,
which is told henceforward from the point of view of a Lombard
patriot. The sagas of the Langobardic warriors, plentifully inter
spersed, give to the narrative a wild barbaric interest. The
document called the Oriyo Gcntis Langobardicse and the lost his
tory of Secundus of Trieut furnished some of his materials. He
also makes free use of Gregory of Tours, Bcde, Isidore, and others.
In some aspects Paulus naturally suggests a comparison with
Jordanes, that other historian of a barbarian nation falling into
ruin, but in learning and literary honesty the Lombard is greatly
the superior of the Goth. His style is, for his age, wonderfully
good, though his grammar shows the breaking down of the old
Latin inflexions into the lingua volgarc.
Paulus wrote also a history of the bishops of -Metz, some homilies,
and several small poems, some rhythmical, some metrical. His
works were frequently copied in the Middle Ages. Of the Lombard
History there are more than a hundred MSS. extant, those of Assisi,
Cividale, and St Gall being the most important. The edition of
his histories published as part of the Monumcnta Germanise,
Historica (1878-79) supersedes all others. For further informa
tion, the student may consult G. Waitz's preface to the Lombard
History in that edition, and F. Dahn's Langobardische Studien, an
able monograph, but perhaps too negative in its conclusions. The
English reader will find an excellent sketch of Paulus's life and
writings in Ugo Balzaui's Early Chroniclers of Italy (London,
1833).
PAUPERISM. See POOR LAWS.
PAUSANIAS, the general who led the Greeks to vic
tory at Platea, was a Spartan and a member of the Agicl
branch of the royal house. In 479 B.C. he succeeded his
father Cleombrotus as regent and guardian of his cousin
the youthful king Plistarchus, and in the same year he
was appointed, by virtue of his rank, to lead the army
despatched by the Spartans to help the Athenians against
the Persians under Mardonius. He commanded the
united Greek army at the memorable battle of Platsea
(479), which for ever secured the freedom of Greece
against the Persians. The credit of that great victory
belongs to the soldiers rather than to their general, for
Pausanias seems to have acted without any settled plan,
and to have given battle only when he was forced to do
so by the enemy. Indeed, his attempt to withdraw the
Spartan contingent from the post of honour on the right,
in order to avoid encountering the native Persian troops
under Mardonius, savours of positive cowardice. But, if
he feared the living, he respected the dead ; a proposal
made by a Greek after the battle to avenge the death of
Leonidas by mutilating the corpse of the gallant Mardonius
received from Pausanias a stern rebuke. After the expul
sion of the Persians from Greece Pausanias led a Greek
fleet (478 or 477) to Cyprus and thence to Byzantium,
which he captured from the Persians. But the successes
he had hitherto enjoyed only fed without satisfying his
ambition. He conceived the design of making himself
master of all Greece, and with this view he opened a corre
spondence with Xerxes, offering to marry his daughter and
reduce Greece to a Persian province. The proposal was
hailed with delight by the Persian monarch. Puffed up
with these hopes, Pausanias now assumed by anticipation
the airs and state of a tyrant, and by his overbearing
manners offended the Greeks so deeply that in disgust
they transferred the leadership of the allied forces from
Sparta to Athens, — a momentous step, from which sprang
the maritime empire of Athens. Pausanias was recalled
to Sparta and tried, but, though convicted and punished
for minor offences, the evidence was insufficient to sub
stantiate the charge of treason, and he was acquitted.
Having afterwards the folly to return to Byzantium in a
private capacity and reopen communications with Persia,
he was again recalled and put on his trial. There was
strong suspicion of his treason, but no positive evidence.
It was known, too, that he had incited the Helots to revolt,
PAUSANIAS
437
promising them freedom and citizenship if they would
join him ; but, with characteristic caution, the authorities
declined to accept the evidence of a Helot against a
Spartan, and Pausanias might, after all, have been acquitted
if it had not been that a messenger to whom he entrusted
a letter for Artabazus, the Persian satrap, opened it, and,
finding in it a direction to put the bearer to death, carried
it to the ephors. But not until they had contrived to over
hear a conversation between Pausanias and his messenger
were the ephors satisfied of his guilt ; and then they pro
ceeded to arrest him. Foreseeing their intention, Pausanias
took refuge in the temple of Athene of the Brazen House.
The ephors took off the roof, blocked up the doors, and
starved him. When on the point of death he was dragged
out, that his corpse might not defile the sanctuary. This
happened about 467.
The principal authorities for the life of Pausanias are Herodotus
(ix. 10 sq.) and Thucydides (i. 94, 95, 128-134). There is a
biography of him by Cornelius Nepos. See also Diodorus, xi. 29-
34, 44-46 ; Pausanias, iii. 4, 7 and ib. 17, 7 ; Plutarch, Tkcmistoclcs,
23 ; Id., Aristidcs, 11, 14-20, 23 ; Aristodemus, ii. iv. vi.-viii. (in
Midler's Fragm. Hist. Grsec., vol. v.) ; Justin, 2, 14.
PAUSANIAS, a prose-writer (Aoyoypa^os) of Greek
traditions, mythical and historical, and a critic of Greek
art. His important work, in ten books, called 'EAAaSos
ITepi?/yr;o-6s, usually known as Pausanix Descriptio Grsecise,
has come down to us entire. It is strictly an itinerary
through the Peloponnesus, including Attica, Boeotia, and
Phocis, with a rather slight mention of the adjacent islands
and some of the principal towns on the Asiatic coast. It
was evidently compiled by one whose interest was mainly
centred in making notes of art-collections as they existed
in the Greek temples and public places in the time of the
Antonines. In connexion with these he expatiates on the
myths and legends locally preserved, and thus he has
handed down to us much valuable mythological material
which would otherwise have been lost. A large portion of
his work, however, is devoted to Greek history, properly so
called, though, after the manner of Herodotus and the early
logographers, he draws no distinction between legend and
history. In a general sense he may be styled an antiquary
rather than an art-critic, a man of industry rather than of
genius, and one who deserves praise more from the matter
of his work than for the manner of it. Of the personal
history of Pausanias nothing is recorded. He lived during
the prosperous times of the Eoman empire under Hadrian,
whom he often mentions by name, and his successors An
toninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, the latter of whom be
came emperor in 161 A.D. His wars against the German
Marcomanni are alluded to,1 and Antoninus Pius2 is also
named in reference to his successful contest with the
Moors. Mention is also made of the "Avail" raised be
tween the Forth and the Clyde by the elder Antonine to
keep off the assaults of the Brigantes. About himself and
his birthplace the author is singularly reticent. Nor has
his work any formal introduction or conclusion. He com
mences abruptly with a description of Attica : " The
mainland of Hellas off the Cyclades and opposite the
^Egean Sea is called Attica, the jutting headland of which
is Sunium. There is a harbour when you have sailed past
this foreland, and a temple of Athena the Sunian goddess
on the height." He goes on to describe Athens at consi
derable length, and gives a valuable though too brief
account of the Parthenon and the great bronze statue of
the goddess on the Acropolis, the work of Phidias,3 the
1 Descr. Gr., viii. (Arcadica), 43, 6.
2 viii. 43, 5, TOVTOV Ewre/S?; rbv /3a<nX^a fK<i\ecra.i> ol 'Pw/J-cuoi,
5i6n r-fi £$ TO Qeiov TL/ATJ /xdXterra £<paivero x/WjUevos. The epithet is
usually attributed to the affection shown to the memory of Hadrian,
by whom he had been adopted.
3 i. 28, 2. This statue is referred to by Aristophanes (Eq., 1172)
and Euripides (Here. Fur., 1003).
spear and helm of which were visible to those sailing into
the harbour from Sunium. On the ivory and gold statue
of the goddess in the Parthenon (c. 24) he Avrites very
briefly ; on the Erechtheum and its antiquities he expa
tiates more largely. The great temple of Ephesus, the very
site of which was lost till Mr Wood's explorations between
1863 and 1874, appears to have been perfect in his time,
but he does not describe it; he merely says4 that "Ionia
contains temples such as are not elsewhere to be seen, and
first of all that of the Ephesian goddess, remarkable for
its size and its wealth in general."
Like Herodotus and Strabo, Pausanias was a traveller
and an inquirer. In some respects it is probable that he
imitates the manner of Herodotus, as in his credulity5
and the affectation of reserve in sacred matters. But,
while geography and ethnology chiefly engaged the atten
tion of Strabo, art and antiquities generally form the
staple of Pausanias's work. The passion of the Romans
for securing specimens of Greek art had long been fed by
the plunder of temples and the removal of statues from
the towns of the Greek provinces, so graphically described
in the orations against Verres. Pausanias comments on
the great antiquity of this kind of sacrilege. "It is clear,"
he remarks,6 " that Augustus was not the first who estab
lished the custom of carrying away offerings from the
temples of conquered nations, but that he merely followed
a very old precedent." And he quotes many examples of
statues removed by right of conquest, as from Troy, from
Brauron and Branchidce by Xerxes, from Tiryns by the
Argives, &c.
In the age of the Antonines special attention was directed to
the works of art still remaining in the Greek cities. The work
known as Antonine's Itinerary, which is a kind of handbook of
the whole Roman empire and its complex system of roads and
colonies, may have suggested to Pausanias a " Description of
Greece," on the lines laid down by Herodotus and Strabo ; but we
have no exact date of the composition of either work. Leland
compiled his Itinerary or tour through Britain on much the same
principles, and his record of churches and castles as they remained
in the later years of Henry VIII. is a survey of mediseval art which
resembles the notes of Pausauias formed from his own inquiry and
observation.
The vast wealth of the Greek cities in statuary and sculpture,
which had been accumulating from the 5th century B.C. till the
capture of Corinth by Mummius, may be judged of by the records
of the plunderings of Verres and the costly purchases of Cicero 7
and his successors to the time of Nero, and even of Hadrian, which
are matters of history. Nevertheless, after the drain of more than
three centuries, "Pausanias," says Mr. "Westropp,8 "was able to
describe 2827 statues."
Whether Pausanias had any real taste or enthusiasm for or
judgment of fine art does not appear from his somewhat matter-
of-fact accounts. He reminds us of a catalogue of goods made
with the view of a sale, minus the auctioneer's "puffing." Nor is
his motive much more apparent ; he may have written to let
connoisseurs know what was yet to be had, or to put on record
existing works, with the names of the artists, as a protest against
further spoliation, or he may have been commissioned by imperial
authority to make a list of the art-treasures still exhibited to
travellers in the Roman provinces. In the century from Augustus
to Trajan Greek education in art, literature, and philosophy was
much affected by the rich and well-born Romans, and collections of
Greek bronzes and real or spurious articles of antiquity were keenly
competed for, as we know from many of the epigrams of Martial.9
Pausanias does not usually say that an object is beautiful ;
he tells us what it is, where it is, and who executed it ; that is
generally all. Occasionally he remarks that a statue is " worth
4 vii. (Achaica), 5, 2.
5 As when he says, as if seriously (viii. 2, 4), that it seems to him
quite credible that Lycaon was changed into a wolf and Niobe into
a stone in the good old times when the gods conversed with men on
earth. 6 viii. 46, 2.
7 Often referred to in his letters to Atticus.
8 The Cycle of Development of the Art of Sculpture in Greece and
Ro'-me, lect. v. p. 166.
9 Propertius has a curious critique on the relative merits of the
Greek sculptors and painters (iv. 8, 9-16). In elegy 4 of the same
bonk, ver. 6, he disclaims the character of a wealthy collector, " nee
miser tera paro clade, Corinthe, tua."
438
p A U — P A V
looking at," Otas
but criticism, in the true sense of the
word, is hardly ever attempted. In ii. 27, 5 he speaks highly of
Polyclitus as an architect, and says that none can rival him for
beauty or proportion. In vii. 5, 2 he says the temples of Hera in
Samos and of Athena at Phoca>a "were objects of admiration,"
though they had been burned and greatly injured by the Persians.
Occasionally (as viL 5, 4 ; 26, 6) he guesses the name of an un
known artist from the style of a sculpture ; in vii. 25, 4 he describes
some marble statues of women as showing a good style of art,
fx°l'ffa>- T^X>"?* (t'- His descriptions of a series of designs, like
those painted by Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi,1 arc dry and
without a glimpse of discrimination, — mere lists of names and sub
jects, like modern "guides " to a gallery or museum of art. At the
same time the minuteness of observation and the careful record
of all the inscribed names are most commendable, and the value
of the account to us from a literary point of view, as showing what
subjects were regarded as " Homeric " in the time of Polygnotus,
a contemporary of Pericles, cannot be overrated. The same re
marks apply to the account of the famous "chest of Cypselus,"
preserved at Olympia, and claiming a great antiquity from the
inscriptions being written povaTpo^Sbv, alternately from left to
right and right to left.2 He ends his description of scenes chiefly
taken from the Troica with these words : 3 " Who the maker
of this chest was we had no means of forming any conjecture.
The inscriptions upon it may perhaps be by another hand ; but our
general impression was that the designer was Eumelus of Corinth,
mainly on account of the processional hymn which he composed for
Delos." This Eumelus is believed to have flourished about 750
B.C. The suspicion of Pausanias that the inscriptions were later
make it probable that the whole design and workmanship were
imitative on an archaic model.
Recent explorations, especially those at Olympia, are largely
indebted to the careful and detailed accounts of Pausanias.4 The
temples at Ephesus, Branchidai, Claros, Samos, and Phocsea he
merely mentions, his researches being limited to the cities of western
Greece.5 His notes on the topography of Athens, though he passes
over several of the more important buildings, as the great theatre
and the Odeum, with little more than a mere reference, are still
the principal authority confirming the allusions in early writers.
He seems, indeed, to have admired objects more for their antiquity
than for their beauty. He often diverges into long details of his
tory, largely mixed with legend, as in his long account of the Mes-
scnian wars in book iv. ; indeed, mythology and history proper
stand with Pausanias in precisely the same category. He does not
show any great advance in this respect from the times of Hecatreus
or Pherecydes of Syros.
The style of Pausanias is simple and easy, but it is wanting in
the quaintness and vivacity of Herodotus, and it has not the florid
eloquence of Plato or Lucian. The simple and genuine credulity
of Herodotus seems foolish or affected in a writer who lived in a
much more advanced period of human knowledge. Thus he gravely
tells us 6 that the water of the Styx will break crystal and precious
stones and vessels of clay, and cause metals, even gold, to decay,
and can only be kept in a horse's hoof.
The titles of the several books are taken from the divisions of
the Peloponnesus, together with the three lying immediately north
of the isthmus ; the first book being devoted to Attica, the ninth
to Bceotia, and the tenth to Phocis. The remainder are (ii.) Cor-
inthiaca, (iii.) Laconica, (iv. ) Messeniaca, (v. and vi. ) Eliaca, (vii.)
Achaica, (viii. ) Arcadica. In adopting this nomenclature he prob
ably followed the Troica, Pcrsica, &c. , of Hellanicus. A vast mass
of information is contained in these several books, which may be
closely compared in their treatment and in the great variety of
subjects with English "county histories."
Without the sustained interest and the genial humour which
characterize the work of Herodotus, composed as it evidently was
for recital and not for private reading, Pausanias is an accurate
and diligent recorder of what he saw and knew. He copied inscrip
tions, and, like Herodotus, he often quotes oracles ; in ascertaining
the names of artists he is particularly careful. That he had made
great research into the history and topography of Greece is abun
dantly shown ; but he is rather chary in his reference to previous
authors. Of Herodotus he makes mention in eight or nine places,
of Plutarch in one (i. 36, 4), of Plato in four. Thucydides is
referred to once (vi. 19, 5), Acusilaus once (ii. 16, 4), Hellanicus
1 x. (Phocica), 25-31. 2 v. (Eliaca), 17-19. 3 19, 2, p. 427.
4 Eliaca (II.), book vi., the later chapters of which give a very full
description of Olyrnpia and its buildings and statues.
5 vii. 5, 4. Here occurs one of the few faint expressions of pleasure
or praise that the writer indulges in. "You would be pleased," he
says, " also with the temple of Hercules at Erythra, and that of
Athena at Priene, the latter on account of the statue, the Heracleum
for its antiquity." These remarks show that he had visited and knew
something of the temples in Ionia. The tomb of Mausolus at Hali-
carnassus he mentions in terms approaching to praise, viii. 16, 4.
6 viii. (Arcadica), 18, 5.
twice, Hecateus four times, Strabo nowhere. Of the poets, epic,
lyric, and dramatic, he displays a good knowledge, as well as of
Pindar, whom he frequently quotes. It is clear, therefore, that
Pausanias was a literary man, and perhaps it is more an idiosyn
crasy than a fault that he is cold and prosaic in his descriptions.
Of the author's birth, family, or country there are no indications.
The name is Doric, but the style is the Attic of Plutarch, Strabo,
and Lucian.
The best editions of Pausanias are those of Sicbelis (5 vols. Svo, Loipsic,
1822-28), and of Schubart and Wsdz (3 vols. Svo, Leipsic, 18:i8-40). Schubart's
text was reprinted in the Triibner series (2 vols. 12ino, Leipsic. 1S02), with
brief introductory critical notes and a very careful and complete index. This
is an excellent and accurate edition, and one which leaves nothing to be de
sired. (P. A. P.)
PAUSILIPO, or POSILLIPO. See NAPLES, vol. xvii. p.
187.
PAVIA, a city of Italy, the chief town of a province,
and a bishop's see, is situated at a height of 270 feet above
the sea -level, 22^ miles by rail south of Milan, on the
left bank of the Ticino, about 2 miles above its junction
•with the Po. The railway from Milan to Genoa, which is
there joined by lines from Cremona, Arc., crosses the river
on a fine bridge constructed in 1865; and, farther down,
the city is connected with the suburban village of Ticino
by a remarkable brick -built covered bridge dating from
the 14th century. Though it has lost its importance as a
fortified town, and no longer deserves the designation of
" City of the Hundred Towers," Pavia is still for the most
part surrounded by its ramparts, which in a circuit of
about 3| miles enclose an area of 400 acres. Several of
its buildings are of great architectural interest. The
basilica of San Michele is one of the finest specimens ex
tant of the Lombard style (cf. ARCHITECTURE, vol. ii. p.
435), and as it was within its walls that the crown was
placed on the head of the "kings of Italy," from whom
the house of Savoy claims to be descended, it has received
the legal title of Basilica Reale (royal decree of 18G3). A
careful restoration has since been effected. The cathedral of
San Stefano, of which the first stone was laid by Bishop
Ascanio Sforza in 1488, is still unfinished, the original
design by Cristoforo Rocchi, a pupil of Bramante, consist
ing of a central octagon from which four arms projected
so as to form a cross. In the interior is the tomb of St
Augustine, a remarkable specimen of 14th-century sculp
ture, which presents the saint life-size in pontifical robes,
and is surrounded by a profusion of bas-reliefs and minor
figures representing saints of his order, liberal arts, and
cardinal virtues — in all, 420 heads. The relics which it
enshrines are said to have been brought from Hippo to Sar
dinia by African refugees, purchased in 724 by Liutprand,
and deposited in the now ruined church of San Pietro in
Ciel d'Oro, and thence transferred to the cathedral subse
quent to their rediscovery in 1695. Beneath the high
altar is the tomb of Boetius, whose remains were also
brought from San Pietro ; and from the roof of the build
ing is suspended the lance of Roland (Orlando).7 Of
7 The famous Certosa of Pavia, one of the most magnificent monas
teries in the world, is not situated within the city, but at a distance of
about 5 miles towards the north. Its founder, Gian Galeazzo Visconti
(to whom we also owe the Milan cathedral), laid the first stone on 27th
August 1396, and the building was nominally finished in 1542. A
parallelogram, about 140 yards long by 110 broad, is surrounded on
.all sides by a lofty cloister formed of 123 arches. The church, whose
marble fi^ade is more richly decorated than any other in north Italy,
is in the form of a Latin cross, 253 feet long by 177 feet wide, with
three naves and a vast octagonal dome. In the south transept stands
the mausoleum, in Carrara marble, of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, designed
by Galeazzo Pellegrini in 1490 ; and in the north transept are the
marble statues of Lodovico Sforza il Moro and his consort Beatrice by
Cristoforo Solari. The Carthusian monks, to whom the monastery was
entrusted from the first by its founder, were bound to employ a certain
proportion of their annual revenue in prosecuting the work till its
completion ; and even after 1542 they voluntarily continued to expend
large sums on further decoration. The Certosa of Pavia is thus a
practical text-book of Italian art for well-nigh three centuries (see
Durelli, La Certosa di Facia, Milan, 1823 ; and Gainer's Fresco De
corations, 1854, and Terra Cotta Architecture in North Italy, 1867).
P A V — P A X
439
secular edifices in Pavia the most noteworthy is the palace
or castle of the Visconti, begun in 1360 for Galeazzo II.
It is a vast quadrangle, presenting to the outside heavy
fronts of massive masonry, but in the 15th and 16th
centuries it was as remarkable for sumptuousness as for
strength. Originally there was a square tower at each
corner ; two were destroyed by the French artillery in
1527.1 The university of Pavia (formally constituted in
1361 by the emperor Charles IV., but claiming to have its
first origin in a school founded by Charlemagne) has
faculties of law, medicine, and science. The professors
number between forty and fifty, but the students have de
creased from 1475 in 1860 to 604 in 1881-82. Among its
subsidiary establishments are two colleges— the Borromeo
and the Ghislieri — founded respectively by Archbishop
Borromeo (1563) and Pope Pius V. (1569) for the gratu
itous maintenance of a certain number of poor students ;
a museum of natural history, instituted in 1772 under
Spallanzanij a botanical garden, commenced in 1774; an
agricultural garden, bestowed on the university by Napo
leon in 1806 ; and the oldest anatomical cabinet in Italy.
The university library was founded by Maria Theresa in
1754 ; the famous collection of books which Gian Galeazzo
brought together by the aid of Petrarch was carried off to
Blois by the French in 1500. The civil hospital of San
Matteo is a large and flourishing institution, dating from
1449; like the Borromeo and Ghislieri colleges, it has
large landed estates in the circondario. Comparatively
few manufactures are prosecuted in Pavia, but there is
considerable trade by water as well as by rail, barges being
able to pass down the Po to the Adriatic and along the
canal to Milan. The population of the city was 27,885 in
1871 and 27,792 in 1881, or, including the suburbs Ticino,
Calvenzano, and Borcjorato, 29,836 ; that of the commune
was 29,618 in 1871 and 29,941 in 1881.
History. — Ticinum — it was not till the close of the 7th century
that the city was called Papia or Pavia — -was a place of some import
ance under the Roman empire, having, according to Pliny, been
founded by two Gallic tribes at the time of the first Gallic immigra
tion into Italy. It was at Ticinum that Augustus met the funeral
procession of Drusus ; and Claudius II. was first saluted emperor
by the garrison in the city. Ravaged by Attila in 452 and by
Odoacer in 476, Ticinum was, after 489, raised to much more than
its former position by Theodoric the Goth, who restored its fortifi
cations and made it the seat of a royal palace. From Theodoric's
successors it was recovered for the Eastern empire by Narses ; but
the imperial garrison, after a siege of more than three years, was
obliged by famine to surrender to the Lombards in 573, and Ticinum -
Pavia became, as the capital of the Lombard kingdom, one of the
leading cities of Italy. By the conquest of Pavia and the capture
of Desiderius in 774 Charlemagne completely destroyed the Lom
bard supremacy ; but the city continued to be the centre of the
Carolingian power in Italy, and a royal residence was built in the
neighbourhood (Corteolona on the Olona). It was in San Michele
Maggiore in Pavia that Berengar of Friuli and his quasi-regal
successors down to Berengar II. and Adalbert II. were crowned
" kings of Italy." Under the reign of the first the city was sacked
and burned by the Hungarians, and the bishop was among those
who perished in the flames. At Pavia was celebrated in 951 the
marriage of Otto I. and Adelheid (Adelaide), which exercised so
important an influence on the relations of the empire and Italy ;
but, when the succession to the crown of Italy came to be dis
puted between the emperor Henry II. and Harduin of Ivrea, the
city sided strongly with the latter. Laid in ruins by Henry, who
was attacked by the citizens on the night after his coronation in
1004, it was none the less ready to close its gates on Conrad the
Salic in 1026. The jealousy which had meanwhile been growing
up between Pavia and Milan having in 1056 broken out into open
war, Pavia in the long run had recourse to the hated emperors to
aid her against her now more hated rival ; and for the most part
The Carthusians were expelled in 1782, and, after being held for a
time by Cistercians (1784) and Carmelites (1798), the monastery
•was closed in 1810 ; but it was restored to the Carthusians in 1843,
and was exempted from confiscation in 1866. The lead was all
stripped from the roof in 1797 by order of the French Directory ; but
the building as a whole is still in excellent preservation.
1 See Professor Magenta's monograph, / Visconti e cjli Sforza nel
Castello di Pavia, Milan, 1884, 2 vols., folio.
she remained, through all the broils and revolutions of the time,
attached to the Ghibelline party till the latter part of the 14th
century. From 1360, when Galeazzo was appointed imperial
vicar by Charles IV., Pavia became practically a possession of the
Yisconti family, and in due course formed part of the duchy of
Milan. For the success which attended its insurrection against the
French garrison in 1499 it paid a terrible penalty in 1500, being
both given over to pillage and forced to furnish a contribution of
50,000 gold crowns. Having been strongly fortified by Charles V.,
the city was in 1525 able to bid defiance to Francis I., who was so
disastrously beaten in the vicinity ; but two years later the French
under Lautrec subjected it to a sack of seven days. In 1655 Prince
Thomas of Savoy invested Pavia with an army of 20,000 French
men, but had to withdraw after fifty-two days' siege. Durinf the
18th century the city had its full share of the wars. The Austrians
under Prince Eugene occupied it in 1706, the French in 1733, and
the French and Spaniards in 1745 ; and the Austrians were again
iii possession from 1746 till 1796. In May of that year it was
seized for the French republic by Napoleon, who, to punish it for an
insurrection, condemned it to three hours' pillage. The revolu
tionary movement of February 1848 was crushed by the Austrians
and the university was closed ; and, though the Sardinian forces
obtained possession in March, the Austrians soon recovered their
ground. It was not till 1859 that Pavia passed with the rest of
Lombardy to the Sardinian crown.
At several periods Pavia has been the centre of great intellectual
activity. It was in a tower which, previous to 1584, stood near the
church of Dell' Annunziata that Boetius wrote his De Consolatione
Philosophise, ; the legal school of Pavia was rendered celebrated in
the llth century by Lanfranc (afterwards archbishop of Canter
bury) ; Christopher Columbus studied at the university about 1447 ;
and printing was introduced in 1471. Two of the bishops of
Pavia have been raised to the papal throne as John XIV. and
Julius III. Lanfranc, Pope John XIV., Porta the anatomist, and
Cremona the mathematician were born in the city.
See Breventano, Istoria di Pavia, 1570 ; Marroni, De ecclesia et episcojris
papiensibus commentarius, 1757 ; Capsoni, Mem. star, di Pavia, 1782 ; Carpa-
nelli, Compendia istorico delle cose pavesi, 1817 ; and various monographs by
the local antiquarians Magenta and Dell' Acqua.
PAVLOGRAD, a town of European Russia, at the head
of a district in the government of Ekaterinoslaff, on the
river Voltch'ya, 13 miles from its junction with the Samara
(a tributary of the Dnieper), and a short distance to the
left of the railway from Kharkoff to Sebastopol. It dates
from the latter half of the 1 8th century, and was originally
known as Luganskoe Selo. It was made a district town
of Ekaterinoslaff in 1784. Its population increased from
8653 in 1865 to 11,400 in 1870; and it is the seat of
three annual fairs, and has a large trade in cattle.
PAWNBROKING. See PLEDGE; also USURY AND
USURY LAWS.
PAWTUCKET, a town of the United States, in Provid
ence county, Rhode Island, 4 miles north-east of Providence
by the Providence and Worcester Railroad, is situated on
both sides of the navigable Pawtucket river (Blackstone
river above the falls), which falls about 50 feet at this point,
affording abundant water-power. At Pawtucket in 1790
Samuel Slater erected the first water-power cotton-factory
in America. In the early part of the present century Paw
tucket was the seat of shipbuilding and of considerable
ommerce. It is now a place with nearly 100 different
industries, including the Conart Thread Works (employ
ing over 2000 hands), large manufactories of cotton and
woollen cloths, steam-engines, fire-engines, <tc. The exports
and imports amount to several million dollars annually.
In 1862 Pawtucket, originally belonging to Massachusetts,
became part of Rhode Island. The population in 1880
was 19,030, and in 1884 (estimated) about 23,000.
PAXO, or PAXOS, one of the IONIAN ISLANDS (q.v.),
about 8 miles south of the southern extremity of Corfu, is
a hilly mass of limestone 5 miles long by 2 broad, and not
more than 600 feet high. Though it has only a single
stream and a few springs, and the inhabitants were often
obliged, before the Russians and English provided them
with cisterns, to bring water from the mainland, Paxo is
well clothed with olives, which produce oil of the very
highest quality. Gaion (or, less correctly, Gaia), the prin-
ipal village, lies on the east coast, and has a small liar-
440
P A X — P A Y
bour. Towards the centre, on an eminence, stands Papandi,
the residence of the bishop of Paxo, and throughout the
island are scattered a large number of churches, whose
belfries add greatly to the picturesqueness of the views.
On the west and south-west coasts are some extensive and
remarkable caverns, of which an account will be found in
Davy's Ionian Islands, vol. i. pp. 66-71. Ancient writers —
Polybius, Pliny, itc. — -do not mention Paxos by itself, but
apply the plural form Paxi (Ila^ot) to Paxos and the smaller
island which is now known as Antipaxo (the Propaxos of
the Antonine Itinerary). Compare PAN, p. 208 above.
PAXTON, SIR JOSEPH (1803-1865), architect and orna
mental gardener, was born of humble parents at Milton
Bryant, near Woburn, Bedfordshire, and was educated at
the grammar-school of that town. Having served his
apprenticeship as gardener, he obtained employment at
Chiswick, the seat of the duke of Devonshire, and eventually
became superintendent of the duke's gardens and grounds
at Chatsworth, and manager of his Derbyshire estates.
The design according to which he remodelled the gar
dens and grounds has awakened the general admiration
of landscape gardeners ; and he also built a grand con
servatory, in which he introduced various improvements of
great value in construction and arrangements. To this
edifice there attaches a peculiar interest from the fact that
it formed the model for the Great Exhibition building of
1851. The happy suggestion of Paxton solved a difficulty
which threatened to render it impossible to hold the exhi
bition, and in recognition of his great services he received
the honour of knighthood. On the formation of the
Crystal Palace Company he was invited to prepare the
design for the building at Sydenham, and was also appointed
director of the gardens and grounds. Subsequently he
received several commissions as an architect, his most
important design being that for the mansion of Baron
James de Rothschild at Ferrieres in France. His versa
tility of invention was also shown by his organization of
the Army Work Corps which served in the Crimea. In
1854 he was chosen M.P. for Coventry, which he continued
to represent till his death, which occurred at his residence
near the Crystal Palace, 8th June 1865. Paxton was
elected in 1826 a Fellow of the Horticultural Society, in
1833 a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and in 1844 he
was made a knight of the order of St Vladimir by the em
peror of Russia. He is the author of several contributions
to the literature of horticulture, including a Practical
Treatise on the Culture of the Dahlia (1838) and a Pocket
Botanical Dictionary (1st ed., 1840). He also edited the
Cottage Calendar, the Horticultural Register, and the
Botanical Magazine.
PAYMENT, in English law, is one of the modes of per
formance of an obligation, and consists in the discharge of
a sum due in money or the equivalent of money. In order
that payment may extinguish the obligation it is necessary
that it should be made at a proper time and place, in a
proper manner, and by and to a proper person. If the
sum due be not paid at the appointed time, the creditor is
entitled to sue the debtor at once, in spite of the readiness
of the latter to pay at a later date, subject, in the case of
bills and notes, to the allowance of days of grace. In the
common case of sale of goods for ready money, a right to
the goods vests at once upon sale in the purchaser, a right
to the price in the seller; but the seller need not part
with the goods till payment of the price.
Payment may be made at any time of the day upon
which it falls due, except in the case of mercantile contracts,
where the creditor is not bound to wait for payment beyond
the usual hours of mercantile business. If no place be
fixed for payment, the debtor is bound to find, or to use
reasonable means to find, the creditor, unless the latter be
abroad. Payment must be made in money which is a legal
tender (see below), unless the creditor waive his right to
payment in money by accepting some other mode of pay
ment, as a negotiable instrument or a transfer of credit. If
the payment be by negotiable instrument, the instrument
may operate either as an absolute or as a conditional dis
charge. In the ordinary case of payment by cheque the
creditor accepts the cheque conditionally upon its being
honoured ; if it be dishonoured, he is remitted to his
original rights. The creditor has a right to payment in
full, and is not bound to accept part payment unless by
special agreement. Part payment is sufficient to take the
debt out of the Statute of Limitations. It is a technical
rule of English law that payment of a smaller sum, even
though accepted by the creditor in full satisfaction, is no
defence to a subsequent action for the debt. The reason
of this rule seems to be that there is no consideration for
the creditor foregoing his right to full payment. In order
that payment of a smaller sum may satisfy the debt, it
must be made by a person other than the person originally
liable, or at an earlier date, or at another place, or in another
manner than the date, place, or manner contracted for.
Thus a bill or note may be satisfied by money to a less
amount, or a money debt by a bill or note to a less amount ;
a debt of £100 cannot be discharged by payment of £90
(unless the creditor execute a release under seal), though
it may be discharged by payment of £10 before the day
appointed, or by a bill for £10. Payment must in general
be made by the debtor or his agent, or by a stranger to
the contract with the assent of the debtor. If payment
be made by a stranger without the assent of the debtor, it
seems uncertain how far English law regards such payment
as a satisfaction of the debt. If the debtor ratify the pay
ment, it then undoubtedly becomes a satisfaction. Pay
ment must be made to the creditor or his agent. A l>ona
fide payment to an apparent agent may be good, though
he has in fact no authority to receive it. Such payment
will usually be good where the authority of the agent has
been countermanded without notice to the debtor. The
fact of payment may be presumed, as from lapse of time.
Thus payment of a testator's debts is generally presumed
after twenty years. A written receipt is only presumptive
and not conclusive evidence of payment. If payment be
made under a mistake of fact, it may be recovered, but it
is otherwise if it be made under a mistake of law, for it is
a maxim of law that ignorantia legis neminem excusat.
Money paid under compulsion of law, even though not due,
cannot generally be recovered where there has been no
fraud or extortion.
Appropriation of Payments. — Where the creditor has two debts
due to him from the same debtor on distinct accounts, the general
law as to the appropriation of payments made by the debtor is that
the debtor is entitled to apply the payments to such account as he
thinks fit. Solvitur in modum solvcntis. In default of appropria
tion by the debtor the creditor is entitled to determine the applica
tion of the sums paid, and may appropriate them even to the dis
charge of debts barred by the Statute of Limitations. In default
of appropriation by either debtor or creditor, the law implies an
appropriation of the earlier payments to the earlier debts.
Payment into and out of Court. — Money is generally paid into
court to abide the result of pending litigation, as in interpleader
proceedings, or where litigation has already begun, as security for
costs or as a defence or partial defence to a claim. Payment into
court does not necessarily (except in actions for libel and slander)
operate as an admission of liability. Money may sometimes be
paid into court where no litigation is pending, as under the Trustee
Relief Act, 1847. Payment of money out of court is obtained by
the order of the court upon petition or summons or otherwise, or
simply on the request or the written authority of the person
entitled to it.
Payment of Wages.— By the "Truck Act," 1 and 2 Will. IV. c.
37 (which applies to Great Britain), the payment of wages to most
kinds of labourers and workmen otherwise than in coin is prohi
bited. This Act does not apply to domestic or agricultural servants.
The provisions of the Act are extended to the hosiery trade by 37
P A Y — P E A
441
and 38 Viet. c. 48. Payment of wages in public-houses (except in
the case of domestic servants) is illegal hy the combined effect of 35
and 36 Viet. cc. 76 and 77, and 46 and 47 Viet. c. 31.
Tender. — This is payment duly proffered to a creditor, but ren
dered abortive by the act of the creditor. In order that a tender may
be good in law it must as a rule be made under circumstances which
would make it a good payment if accepted. The money tendered
must be a legal tender, unless the creditor waive his right to a
legal tender, as where he objects to the amount and not the mode
of tender. Bank of England notes are legal tender for any sum
above £5, except by the bank itself, 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 98,
s. 6. Gold is legal tender to any amount, silver up to 40s., bronze
up to Is., 33 and 34 Viet. c. 10. By 29 and 30 Viet. c. 65 the
.gold coinage of colonial mints may be made legal tender by pro
clamation. Under the powers of this Act the gold coinage of the
Sydney mint has been declared to be legal tender. The effect of
tender is not to discharge the debt, but to enable the debtor, when
sued for the debt, to pay the money into court and to get judg
ment for the costs of his defence.
Scotland. — The law of Scotland as to payment agrees in most
points with that of England. Where a debt is constituted by writ
payment cannot be proved by witnesses ; where it is not consti
tuted by writ, payment to the amount of £100 Scots may be proved
by witnesses ; beyond that amount it can only be proved by writ or
oath of party. The term tender seems to be strictly applied only
to a judicial offer of a sum for damages and expenses made by the
defender during litigation, not to an offer made by the debtor before
litigation. Bank of England notes are not a legal tender in Scot
land, 8 and 9 Viet. c. 38, s. 15, or in Ireland, 8 and 9 Viet. c. 37, s. 6.
United States. — In the United States the law as a rule does not
materially differ from English law. In some States, however,
money may be recovered, even when it has been paid under a mis
take of law. The question of legal tender has been an important
one. In 1862 Congress passed an Act making treasury notes legal
tender. After much litigation, the Supreme Court of the United
States finally decided in 1870 in favour of the constitutionality of
this Act, both as to contracts made before and after it was passed
(see 1 Kent's Comm., p. 252). These notes are legal tender for all
purposes except duties on imports and interest on the public debt.
All gold coins, silver dollars, and silver coins below the value of a
dollar coined before 1854 are legal tender to any amount. Silver
coins below the value of a dollar of 1854 and subsequent years are
legal tender for sums not exceeding five dollars. Silver three-cent
pieces of the dates 1851 to 1853 are legal tender for sums not exceed
ing thirty cents, those of subsequent years for sums not exceeding
five dollars. Cents and foreign coins are not legal tender. Postage
•currency is not legal tender for private debts (Bouvier's Law Diet.,
"Legal Tender"). It falls exclusively within the jurisdiction of
Congress to declare paper or copper money a legal tender. By
the constitution of the United States, " no State . . . shall make
anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts "
(art. i. s. 10).
PAYSANDU, formerly SAN BENITO, a port and depart
mental town of Uruguay, is situated on the left bank of
the river Uruguay in 32° 20' S. lat. and 58° 1' W. long.,
270 miles by river from Montevideo, and 120 miles by road
from Durazno, the present terminus of the railway. The
long streets run east and west at right angles to the river,
and the slope of the ground makes drainage easy. Paysandu
has been a great battle-ground : in 1846, for instance, it
was held by Oribe and bombarded by Rivera, and in 1865
it was captured by the Brazilians after a twenty-eight days'
siege. But the name is best known in Europe for the ox
tongues, &c., preserved in its extensive saladeros. In 1868
the population was about 9000, and it has since consider
ably increased. Taking Paysandu to mean Father Sandu
or Alexander, the inhabitants call themselves Sanduseros.
PAYTA, or PAITA, a town of Peru, in the province of
Piura, with only 2390 inhabitants in 1876, but of im
portance as the northmost harbour of the Peruvian coast,
the port of the city of Piura (San Miguel de), with which
it is connected by rail, a regular calling-place for steamers,
and a great rendezvous for whaling vessels. It consists of
a single narrow street of reed and wattle houses, but there
are a good harbour and an iron custom-house. The great
drawback of the place used to be want of water, previous
to the construction by the Government of an aqueduct
from the Chira river. Straw hats, cattle, hides, and cotton
are exported. Formerly a rich and nourishing place,
Payta has never recovered from the effects of Lord Anson's
attack in 1741, when only two of its churches were spared.
There is a. raised beach at Payta 300 feet high ; the slate
and sandstone are covered by conglomerate sand and a
gypsum formation containing shells of living species.
PAZ DE AYACUCHO, LA. See LA PAZ.
PEA (Pisum), a genus of Leguminosse, consisting of
herbs with compound pinnate leaves ending in tendrils, by
means of which the weak stems are enabled to support
themselves, and with large leafy stipules at the base. The
flowers are typically "papilionaceous," with a "standard"
or large petal above, two side petals or wings, and two
front petals below forming the keel. The stamens are
ten, — nine united, the tenth usually free or only slightly
joined to the others. The ovary is prolonged into a long,
thick, bent style, compressed from side to side at the
tip and fringed with hairs. The fruit is a characteristic
" legume " or pod, bursting when ripe into two valves,
which bear the large globular seeds (peas) on their edges.
These seeds are on short stalks, the upper extremity of
which is dilated into a shallow cup or aril ; the two
cotyledons are thick and fleshy, with a radicle bent along
their edges on one side. The genus is exceedingly close
to Lathyrus, being only distinguished technically by the
style, which in the latter genus is compressed from above
downwards and not thick. It is not surprising, therefore,
that under the general name "pea" species both of Pisum
and of Lathyrus are included. The common field or grey
pea with compressed mottled seeds and two to four leaflets
is Pisum arvense, which is cultivated in all temperate parts
of the globe, but which, according to the Italian botanists,
is truly a native of central and southern Italy. The garden
pea, P. sativum, is more tender than the preceding, and
its origin is not known. It has not been found in a wild
state anywhere, and it is considered that it may be a form
of P. arvense, having, however, from four to six leaflets to
each leaf and globular seeds of uniform colour.
P. sativum was known to Theophrastus ; and De Candolle points
out that the word " pison " or its equivalent occurs in the Albanian
tongue as well as in Latin, whence he concludes that the pea was
known to the Aryans, and was perhaps brought by them into
Greece and Italy. Peas have been found in the Swiss lake-dwell
ings of the bronze period. The garden peas differ considerably in
size, shape of pod, degree of productiveness, form and colour of
seed, &c. The sugar peas are those in which the inner lining of
the pod is very thin instead of being somewhat horny, so that the
whole pod can be eaten. Unlike most papilionaceous plants, pea-
flowers are perfectly fertile without the aid of insects, and thus do
not intercross so freely as most similar plants do. On the other
hand, a case is known wherein the pollen from a purple-podded
pea applied to the stigma of one of the green-podded sugar peas
produced a purple pod, showing that not only the ovule but even
the ovary was affected by the cross. The numerous varieties of
peas in cultivation have been obtained l>y cross-fertilization, but
chiefly by selection. Peas constitute a highly nutritious article of
diet from the large quantity of nitrogenous materials they contain
in addition to starchy and saccharine matters.
The Sivcct Pea, cultivated for the beauty and fragrance of its
flowers, is not a true Pisum, but a species of Lathyrus (L. odoratus),
a native of southern Europe. The Chick Pea (Cicer arictinum),
not cultivated in England, is still farther removed from the true
peas. The Everlasting Pea of gardens is a species of Lathyrus,
with very deep fleshy roots, bold foliage, and beautiful but scentless
flowers. L. latifolius, a British wild plant, is the source of most
of the garden varieties.
PEABODY, a town of the United States, in Essex
county, Massachusetts, 5 miles north-west of Salem. In
corporated as South Danvers in 1855, it adopted its pre
sent name in 1868 in honour of the philanthropist George
Peabody, who was born in the township, and in 1852
erected there the Peabody Institute, which now contains
various memorials of its founder, the portrait of herself
presented by Queen Victoria, the Congress medal, &c.
Peabody contains a large number of leather and morocco
factories, and several glue-works, print-works, &c. Its
inhabitants numbered 7343 in 1870 and 9028 in 1880.
XVIII. — 56
442
P E A — P E A
PEABODY, GEORGE (1795-1869), philanthropist, was
descended from an old yeoman family of Hertfordshire,
England, named Pabody or Pebody, who, six generations
before his birth, had emigrated to New England. He was
born at Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts, 18th
February 1795. The only regular education he received
was at the district school, and when only eleven years of
age he became apprentice at a grocery store. At the end
of four years he became assistant to his brother, who kept
a dry goods shop, and a year afterwards, on the shop being
burned, to his uncle, who had a business in George Town,
District of Columbia. After serving as a volunteer at Fort
Warburton in the short war between Great Britain and
the United States in 1812, he became partner with Elisha
Riggs in a dry goods store, Riggs furnishing the capital,
while Peabody had the practical management. As bagman
he travelled through the western wilds of New York and
Pennsylvania and the plantations of Maryland and Vir
ginia. Through his energy and skill the business increased
with astounding rapidity, and on the retirement of Riggs
about 1830 Peabody found himself at the head of one
of the largest mercantile concerns in the world. About
1837 he established himself in London as merchant and
money-broker at Wanford Court, City, and in 1843 he
withdrew from the concern in America. It is, however,
as a sagacious and generous philanthropist that Peabody
has made his name a household word. While holding
aloof from the strife of politics in the United States, he
was ready to give his native country the benefit of his
business skill and the aid of his wealth in its financial
difficulties. The number of his great benefactions to
public objects is too great for bare mention here. It must
suffice to name among the more important a gift of
£25,000 for educational purposes at Danvers; of £100,000
to found and endow an institution for science in Baltimore,
a sum afterwards increased by a second donation of
£100,000 ; of various sums to Harvard University ; and of
£350,000 for the erection of dwelling-houses for the work
ing-classes in London, which sum was increased by his will
to half a million. If this last benefaction has failed to
produce the good results anticipated, this has been due to
causes for which Peabody was not responsible, and which
do not at all detract from the wise beneficence of the gift.
He received from the Queen the offer of a baronetcy, but
declined it. In 1867 the United States Congress awarded
him a special vote of thanks for his many large gifts to
public institutions in America. He died at Eaton Square,
London, 14th November 1869.
PEACH. By Bentham and Hooker the peach is in
cluded under the genus Prunus (Prunus persicri), and its
resemblance to the plum is indeed obvious ; others have
classed it with the almond, Amygdalus; while others again
have considered it sufficiently distinct to constitute a genus
of its own under the name Persica.
In general terms the peach may be said to be a medium-
sized tree, with lanceolate, stipulate leaves, borne on long,
slender, relatively unbranched shoots, and with the flowers
arranged singly, or in groups of two or more, at intervals
along the shoots. The flowers have a hollow tube at the
base bearing at its free edge five sepals, an equal number
of petals, usually concave or spoon-shaped, pink or white,
and a great number of stamens. The pistil consists of a
single carpel with its ovary, style, stigma, and solitary ovule
or twin ovules. This carpel is, in the first instance, free
within the flower-tube, but, as growth goes on, the flower-
tube and the carpel become fused together into one mass,
the flesh of the peach, the inner layers of the carpel be
coming woody to form the stone, while the ovule ripens
into the kernel or seed. This is exactly the structure of
the plum or apricot, and differs from that of the almond,
which is identical in the first instance, only in the circum
stance that the fleshy part of the latter eventually becomes
dry and leathery and cracks open along a line called the
suture.
The nectarine is a variation from the peach, mainly
characterized by the circumstance that, while the skin of
the ripe fruit is downy in the peach, it is shining and
destitute of hairs in the nectarine. That there is no
essential difference between the two is, however, shown
by the facts that the seeds of the peach will produce
nectarines, and vice versa, and that it is not very uncommon,
though still exceptional, to see peaches and nectarines on
the same branch, and fruits which combine in themselves
the characteristics of both nectarines and peaches. The
blossoms of the peach are formed the autumn previous to
their expansion, and this fact, together with the peculiarities
of their form and position, requires to be borne in mind
by the gardener in his pruning and training operations, as
mentioned in HORTICULTURE (vol. xii. pp. 272, 273). The
only point of practical interest requiring mention here is
the very singular fact attested by all peach-growers, that,
while certain peaches are liable to the attacks of a para
sitic fungus known as mildew, others are not, showing a
difference in constitution analogous to that observed in the
case of human beings, some of whom will readily succumb
to particular diseases, while others seem proof against their
attacks. In the case of the peach this peculiarity is in
some way connected with the presence of small glandular
outgrowths on the stalk, or at the base of the leaf. Some
peaches have globular, others reniform glands, others none
at all, and these latter trees are much more subject to mil
dew than are those provided with glands.
The history of the peach, almond, and nectarine is interesting
and important as regards the question of the origin of species and
the production and perpetuation of varieties. As to the origin of
the peach two views are held, that of Alphonse de Candolle, who
attributes all cultivated varieties to a distinct species, probably of
Chinese origin, and that adopted by many naturalists, but more
especially by Darwin, who looks upon the peach as a modification
of the almond. The importance of the subject demands that a
summary of the principal facts and inferences bearing on this ques
tion should be given. In the first place, the peach as we now know
it has been nowhere recognized in the wild state. In the few
instances where it is said to have been found wild the probabilities
are that the tree was an escape from cultivation. Aitchison, how
ever, gathered in the Hazardarakht ravine in Afghanistan a form
with different-shaped fruit from that of the almond, being larger
and flatter. "The surface of the fruit," he observes, "resembles that
of the peach in texture and colour ; and the nut is quite distinct
from that of 419 [the wild almond]. The whole shrub resembles
more what one might consider a wild form of the peach than that
of the almond." It is admitted, however, by all competent botan
ists that the almond is wild in the hotter and drier parts of the
Mediterranean and Levantine regions. Aitchison also mentions
the almond as wild in some parts of Afghanistan, where it is known
to the natives as "bedam," the same word that they apply to the
cultivated almond. The branches of the tree are carried by the
priests in religious ceremonies. It is not known as a wild plant
in China or Japan.
As to the nectarine, of its origin as a variation from the peach
there is abundant evidence, as has already been mentioned ; it is
only requisite to add the very important fact that the seeds of the
nectarine, even when that nectarine has been produced by bud-
variation from a peach, will generally produce nectarines, or, as
gardeners say, "come true."
Darwin brings together the records of several cases, not only of
gradations between peaches and nectarines, but also of intermediate
forms between the peach and the almond. So far as we know,
however, no case has yet been recorded of a peach or a nectarine
producing an almond, or vice versa, although if all have had a com
mon origin such an event might be expected. Thus the botanical
evidence seems to indicate that the wild almond is the source of
cultivated almonds, peaches, and nectarines, and consequently that
the peach was introduced from Asia Minor or Persia, whence the
name Persica given to the peach ; and Aitchison's discovery in
Afghanistan of a form which reminded him of a wild peach lends
additional force to this view.
On the other hand, Alphonse de Candolle, from philological and
other considerations, considers the peach to be of Chinese origin.
A — P E A
443
The poach has not, it is true, been found wild in China, but it has
been cultivated there from time immemorial ; it has entered into
the literature and folk-lore of the people ; and it is designated by
a distinct name, "to" or "tao," a word found in the writings of
Confucius five centuries before Christ, and even in other writings
dating from the 10th century before the Christian era. Though
now cultivated in India, and almost wild in some parts of the north
west, and, as we have seen, probably also in Afghanistan, it has no
Sanskrit name ; it is not mentioned in the Hebrew text of the
Scriptures, nor in the earliest Greek times. Xenophon makes no
mention of the peach, though the Ten Thousand must have traversed
the country where, according to some, the peach is native, but
Theophrastus, a hundred years later, does speak of it as a Persian
fruit, and De Candolle suggests that it might have been introduced
into Greece by Alexander. According to his view, the seeds of the
peach, cultivated for ages in China, might have been carried by
the Chinese into Kashmir, Bokhara, and Persia between the period
of the Sanskrit emigration and the Greece-Persian period. Once
established, its cultivation would readily extend westward, or, on
the other hand, by Cabul to north-western India, where its cul
tivation is not ancient. While the peach has been cultivated in
China for thousands of years, the almond does not grow wild in
that country, and its introduction is supposed not to go back
farther than the Christian era.
On the whole, we should be inclined to attribute greater weight
to the evidence from botanical sources than to that derived from
philology, particularly since the discovery both of the wild almond
and of a form like a wild peach in Afghanistan. It may, however,
well be that both peach and almond are derived from some pre
existing and now extinct form whose descendants have spread over
the whole geographic area mentioned ; but of course this is a mere
speculation, though indirect evidence in its support might be ob
tained from the nectarine, of which no mention is made in ancient
literature, and which, as we have seen, originates from the peach
and reproduces itself by seed, thus offering the characteristics of a
species in the act of developing itself. (M. T. M.)
PEACOCK (the first syllable from the Latin Pavo, in
Anglo-Saxon Pawe, Dutch Pauuw, German Pfau, French
Paon), the bird so well known from the splendid plumage
of the male, and as the proverbial personification of pride.
A native of the Indian peninsula and Ceylon, in some
parts of which it is very abundant, its domestication dates
from times so remote that nothing can be positively stated
on that score. Setting aside its importation to Pales
tine by Solomon (1 Kings x. 22 ; 2 Chron. ix. 21), its
assignment in classical mythology as the favourite bird
of Hera or Juno testifies to the early acquaintance the
(Greeks must have had with it ; but, though it is mentioned
by Aristophanes and other older writers, their knowledge
of it was probably very slight until after the conquests of
Alexander. Throughout all succeeding time, however, it
has never very freely rendered itself to domestication,
and, retaining much of its wild character, can hardly be
accounted an inhabitant of the poultry-yard, but rather an
ornamental denizen of the pleasure-ground or shrubbery ;
while, even in this condition, it is seldom kept in large
numbers, for it has a bad reputation for doing mischief in
gardens, it is not very prolific, and, though in earlier days
highly esteemed for the table,1 it is no longer considered
the delicacy it was once thought.
As in most cases of domestic animals, pied or white
varieties of the ordinary Peacock, Pavo cristatus, are not
(infrequently to be seen ; and, though lacking in propor
tion the gorgeous resplendence for which the common
bird stands unsurpassed, they are valued as curiosities.
Greater interest, however, attends what is known as the
"japanned" Peacock, often erroneously named the Japanese
or Japan Peacock, a form which has received the name of
P. nigripennis, as though it were a distinct species. In
this form the cock, besides other less conspicuous differ
ences, has all the upper wing-coverts of a deep lustrous
blue instead of being mottled with brown and white, while
the hen is of a more or less greyish- white, deeply tinged
1 Classical authors contain many allusions to its high appreciation
at the most sumptuous banquets ; and mediaeval bills of fare on state
occasions nearly always include it. In the days of chivalry one of
the most solemn oaths was taken " on the Peacock ", which seems to
have been served up garnished with its gaudy plumage.
with dull yellowish-brown near the base of the neck and
shoulders. It " breeds true " ; but occasionally a presum
ably pure stock of birds of the usual coloration throws
out one or more having the "japanned " plumage, leading
to the conclusion that the latter may be due to " reversion
to a primordial and otherwise extinct condition of the
species", and it is to be observed that the "japanned"
male has in the coloration of the parts mentioned no
little resemblance to that of the second indubitably good
species, the P. muticus (or P. spicifer of some writers) of
Burma and Java, though the character of the latter's
crest — the feathers of which are barbed along their whole
length instead of at the tip only — and its golden -green
neck and breast furnish a ready means of distinction. The
late Sir R. Heron was confident that the "japanned " breed
had arisen in England within his memory,2 and Darwin
(Anim. and Plants under Domestication, i. pp. 290-292) was
inclined to believe it only a variety ; but its abrupt appear
ance, which rests on indisputable evidence, is most suggest
ive in the light that it may one day throw on the question
" Japanned " or '• black-shouldered " Peafowls.
of evolution as exhibited in the origin of " species ". It
should be stated that the "japanned " bird is not known
to exist anywhere as a wild race. The accompanying
woodcut is copied from a plate drawn by Mr Wolf, given
in Mr Elliot's Monograph of the Phasianidse.
The Peafowls belong to the group Gallinse, from the normal
members of which they do not materially differ in structure ; and,
though by some systematists they are raised to the rank of a
Family, Pavonidse, most are content to regard them as a Subfamily
of PMsianidx (PHEASANT, q.v.). Akin to the genus Pavo is Poly-
plcdrum, of which the males are armed with two or more spurs on
each leg, and near them is generally placed the genus Argusiamis,
containing the Argus-Pheasants, remarkable for their wonderfully
ocellated plumage, and the extraordinary length of the secondary
quills of their wings, as well as of the tail-feathers. It must
always be remembered that the so-called "tail" of the Peacock is
formed not by the rectrices or true tail-feathers, but by the singular
development of the tail-coverts, a fact of which any one may be
satisfied by looking at the bird when these magnificent plumes are
erected and expanded in disk-like form as is his habit when dis
playing his beauty to his mates. (A. N. )
PEACOCK, GEORGE (1791-1858), mathematician, was
born at Thornton Hall, Denton, near Darlington, 9th April
- This is probably not the case. The present writer has a distinct
recollection of having seen a bird of this form represented in an old
Dutcli picture, though when or where he cannot state.
444
PEACOCK
1791. He was educated at Richmond, Yorkshire, and
entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1809. He was
second wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1812 (Sir J.
F. W. Herschel being senior), was elected fellow of his
college in 1814, and became assistant tutor and lecturer
in 1815, fall tutor in 1823, and sole tutor of "his side"
in 1835. Peacock distinguished himself by his business
capacity, and by his broad views of the duties and func
tions of the educational institution in whose management
he had so large a share.
Peacock was all his life an ardent educational reformer.
While still an undergraduate he formed a league with
Herschel, Babbage, and Maule to conduct the famous
struggle of "d-ism versus dot-age," which ended in the
introduction into Cambridge of the Continental notation
-T- ) in the infinitesimal calculus to the exclusion of the
ax/
fluxional notation (y] of Newton. This was an import
ant reform, not so much on account of the mere change
of notation (for nowadays mathematicians follow Lagrange
in using both these notations), but because it signified the
opening to the mathematicians of Cambridge of the vast
storehouse of Continental discoveries. Up to that time
Cambridge mathematicians had been resting supinely under
the shadow of Newton, despising the Continental methods,
but doing nothing to demonstrate the power of their own.
The analytical society thus formed in 1813 published vari
ous memoirs, and translated Lacroix's Differential Calculus
in 1816. Peacock powerfully aided the movement by pub
lishing in 1820 A Collection of Examples of the Application
of the Differential and Integral Calculus, which remains a
valuable text-book to this day. He also took a great in
terest in the general question of university education. In
1841 he published a pamphlet on the university statutes,
in which he indicated the necessity for reform ; and in
1850 and 1855 he was a member of the commission of
inquiry relative to the university of Cambridge.
In 1837 he was appointed Lowndean professor of
astronomy. In 1839 he took the degree of D.D., and
the same year was appointed by Lord Melbourne to the
deanery of Ely. Without in any way neglecting his
university duties, Peacock threw himself with character
istic ardour into the duties of this new position. He
improved the sanitation of Ely, published in 1840 Ob
servations on Plans for Cathedral Reform, and carried out
extensive works of restoration in his own cathedral. He
was twice prolocutor of the lower house of convocation for
the province of Canterbury.
This list by no means exhausts the sphere of Peacock's
activity. He was a prime mover in the establishment of
the Cambridge Astronomical Observatory, and in the
founding of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. He
was a fellow of the Royal, Royal Astronomical, Geological,
and other scientific societies. In 1838, and again in 1843,
he was one of the commissioners for standards of weights
and measures ; and he also furnished valuable information
to the commissioners on decimal coinage, a matter in which
he took great interest. He died on the 8th November
1858, before the university commission, in whose work he
took so great an interest, had finished its labours.
It will excite little surprise that a man of so many occupations
should have left more mark upon the men of his own day than
upon the science of the succeeding generation. Although Peacock
was most distinguished and will be longest remembered as a mathe
matician, it would be difficult to point to much work of his which
is of importance at the present day. His original contributions to
mathematical science were concerned chiefly with the philosophy
of its first principles. He did good service in systematizing the
operational laws of algebra, and in throwing light upon the nature
and use of imaginaries. His work in this field was, however, thrown
into the shade by the later and farther -reaching discoveries of
Hamilton and Grassmann. Two great services he did for mathema
tical education which deserve especial mention. He published,
first in 1830, and then in an enlarged form in 1842, a Treatise mi
Alytbra, in which he applied his philosophical ideas concerning
algebraical analysis to the elucidation of its elements. This text
book was probably too far ahead of his age, for it does not seem to
have come into very general use ; at all events, it might with great
advantage be studied by the teachers of elementary mathematics at
the present day, and is very much superior in method and arrange
ment to any of the English text-books at present in vogue. The
second great service was the publication in the British Association
Reports for 1833 of his "Report on the Recent Progress and Present
State of certain branches of Analysis. " English mathematicians of
this generation will doubtless find on reading this brilliant summary
a good many dicta which they will call in question, and they will
see a good deal of evidence that Peacock did not always fully appre
ciate, or perhaps always quite understand, the work of the foremost
Continental mathematicians of his time ; but they will be ready to
condone these shortcomings when they remember that they were
carried on the shoulders of Peacock and his "d-istic league" out
of the mire into which English mathematics had fallen, and that
it- is but natural that they should catch a better view of the sur
rounding scenery than did their bearer. Whatever its defects may
be, Peacock's report remains a work of permanent value, one of the
first and one of the best of those valuable summaries of scientific
progress which have enriched the annual volumes of the British
Association, and which would have justified its existence had it
done nothing else for the advancement of science.
PEACOCK, THOMAS LOVE (1785-1866), novelist and
poet, was born at Weymouth, 18th October 1785. His
father, a glass merchant in London, died soon after his
son's birth, and young Peacock received his education at
a private school at Englefield Green, where he distinguished
himself by unusual precocity. After a brief experience of
business he elected to devote himself to study and the
pursuit of literature, living with his mother on their
private means. His first books were poetical, The Monks
of St Mark (1804), Palmyra (1806), The Genius of the
Thames (1810), The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812),—
works of no great merit. He also made several dramatic
attempts, which did not find their way to the stage. He
served for a short time as secretary to Sir Home Popham
at Flushing, and paid several visits to Wales. In 1812
he became acquainted with Shelley, who made him his
executor together with Lord Byron. In 1815 he evinced
his peculiar power by writing Headlong Hall, the proto
type of all his subsequent novels. It was published in
1816, and Melincourt followed in the ensuing year. During
1817 he lived at Great Marlow, enjoying the almost daily
society of Shelley, and writing Nightmare Abbey and
Rhododaphne, by far the best of his long poems. In 1819
he received the appointment of assistant examiner at the
India House, at the same time as Mill and Strachey.
Peacock's nomination appears to have been due to the
influence of his old schoolfellow Peter Auber, secretary to
the East India Company, and the papers he prepared as
tests of his ability were returned to him with the high
encomium, "Nothing superfluous and nothing Avanting."
This was characteristic of the whole of his intellectual
work ; and equally characteristic of the man was his
marriage about this time to a Welsh lady, to whom he pro
posed by letter, not having seen her for eight years. His
official duties greatly interfered with independent com
position. Maid Marian nevertheless appeared in 1822,
The Misfortunes of Elphin in 1829, and Crotchet Castle in
1831 ; and he would probably have written more but for
the death in 1833 of his mother, to whom he was deeply
attached. He also contributed to the Westminster Review
and the Examiner. His services to the East India Com
pany, outside the usual official routine, were considerable.
He defended it successfully against the attacks of Mr J.
S. Buckingham and the Liverpool salt interest, and made
the subject of steam navigation to India peculiarly his
own. He represented the company before the various
parliamentary committees on this question ; and in 1839
and 1840 superintended the construction of iron steamers,
P E A — P E A
445
which not only made the voyage round the Cape success
fully, but proved very useful in the Chinese war. He also
framed instructions for the Euphrates expedition, pro
nounced by General Chesney to be models of sagacity.
In 1836 he succeeded Mill as chief examiner, and in 1856
he retired upon a pension. During his later years he
contributed several papers to Eraser's Magazine, including
reminiscences of Shelley. He also wrote in the same
magazine his last novel, Gryll Grange (1860), inferior to
his earlier writings in humour and vigour, but still a
surprising effort for a man of his age. He died 23d
January 1866 at Lower Halliford, near Chertsey, Avhere,
so far as his London occupations would allow him, he had
resided for more than forty years.
Peacock's position in English literature is unique. There
was nothing like his type of novel before his time ; though
there might have been if it had occurred to Swift to invent
a story as a vehicle for the dialogue of his Polite Conversa
tion. But, while Swift's interlocutors represent ordinary
types, Peacock's are highly exceptional ; while the humour
of the former consists in their stereotyped conventionality
or unconscious folly, the talk in Peacock's novels is brilliant ;
and, while Swift's characters utter proverbs, Peacock's are
equipped from the author's own stores of humorous observa
tion or reflexion. He speaks as well in his own person as
through his puppets ; and perhaps no writer since Pope
has enriched English literature with such an abundance of
quotable things. This pithy wit and sense, combined with
remarkable grace and accuracy of natural description, atone
for the primitive simplicity of plot and character. There
is just enough of both to keep the story going, and the
author's plan required no more. Of his seven fictions,
Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle are perhaps on the
whole the best, the former displaying the most vis comica
of situation, the latter the fullest maturity of intellectual
power, and the most skilful grouping of the motley crowd
of " perf ectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phreno
logists, transcendentalists, political economists, theorists
in all sciences, projectors in all arts, morbid visionaries,
romantic enthusiasts, lovers of music, lovers of the pictur
esque, and lovers of good dinners," who constitute the
dramatis personse, of that comedy in narrative, the Pea-
cockian novel. Maid Marian and The Misfortunes of
Elphin are hardly less entertaining, but are somewhat
cramped by the absence of portraiture from the life and
the necessity for historical colouring. Both contain de
scriptive passages of extraordinary beauty. Melincourt
is a comparative failure, the excellent idea of an orang
outang mimicking humanity being insufficient as the sole
groundwork of a novel. Headlong Hall, though more
than foreshadowing the author's subsequent excellence, is
marred by a certain bookish awkwardness characteristic
of the recluse student, which reappears in Gryll Grange
as the pedantry of an old-fashioned scholar, whose likes
and dislikes have become inveterate and whose sceptical
liberalism, always rather inspired by hatred of cant than
enthusiasm for progress, has petrified into only too earnest
conservatism. Pianos and perspective equally with com
petitive examinations and " panto-pragmatism " are the
objects of the writer's distaste, and for the first time in
his career we feel inclined to laugh at him, being no
longer able to laugh with him. The book's quaint resolute
paganism, however, is very refreshing in an age eaten up
with introspection; it is the kindliest of Peacock's writings,
and contains the most beautiful of his poems, " Years
Ago," the reminiscence of an early attachment. In general
the ballads and songs interspersed through his tales are
models of exact and melodious diction, and instinct with
true feeling. His more ambitious poems are worth little,
except Bhododaphne, attractive as a story and perfect as a
composition, but destitute of genuine poetical inspiration.
His critical and miscellaneous writings are always interest
ing, especially the restorations of lost classical plays in the
Horse, Dramaticge, but the only one of great mark is the
witty and crushing exposure in the Westminster Review of
Moore's ignorance of the manners and belief he has ven
tured to portray in his Epicurean. Peacock resented the
misrepresentation of his favourite sect, the good and ill of
whose tenets were fairly represented in his own person.
Somewhat sluggish and self-indulgent, incapable of enthu
siasm or self-sacrifice, he yet possessed a deep undemon
strative kindliness of nature ; he could not bear to see any
one near him unhappy or uncomfortable ; and his sym
pathy, no less than his genial humour, gained him the
attachment of children, dependants, and friends. His
feelings were steady rather than acute ; he retained
throughout life with touching fidelity the memory of an
early affection. In official life he was upright and conscien
tious ; his judgment was shrewd and robust, and the quaint
crotchets and prejudices which contrasted so curiously
with his usual sagacity were in general the exaggeration
of jsound ideas held with undue exclusiveness. As a
candidate for literary immortality he should be safe. The
same causes which restrict his popularity ensure his perma
nence. His novels depend but slightly on temporary
phases of manners, but are vitally associated with standard
literature, and with general tendencies innate in the human
mind. Neither his intellectual liberalism nor his constitu
tional conservatism will ever be out of date ; and what
Shelley justly termed "the lightness, strength, and chastity"
of his diction secures him an honourable rank among those
English writers whose claims to remembrance depend not
only upon matter but upon style.
Peacock's works were collected, though not completely, and pub
lished in three volumes in 1875, at the expense of his friend and
former protege, Sir Henry Cole, with an excellent memoir by his
grand-daughter Mrs Clarke, and a critical essay by Lord Houghton.
Other criticisms have been written, by Mr Spedding in the Edin
burgh Review and by James Hannay in the North British Review.
For an interesting personal notice, see A Poet's Sketch Book, by
R. \V. Buchanan, 1884. (R. G.)
PEAR (Pyrus communis). The pear has essentially the
same floral structure as the apple. In both cases the so-
called fruit is composed of the flower-tube or upper end of
the flower-stalk greatly dilated, and enclosing within its
cellular flesh the five cartilaginous carpels which constitute
the " core " and are really the true fruit. From the upper
rim of the flower-tube or receptacle are given off the five
sepals, the five petals, and the very numerous stamens.
The form of the pear and of the apple respectively, although
usually characteristic enough, is not by itself sufficient to
distinguish them, for there are pears which cannot by
form alone be distinguished from apples, and apples which
cannot by superficial appearance be recognized from pears.
The main distinction is the occurrence in the tissue of the
fruit, or beneath the rind, of clusters of cells, filled with
hard woody deposit in the case of the pear, constituting
the "grit," while in the apple no such formation of woody
cells takes place. The appearance of the tree — the bark,
the foliage, the flowers — is, however, usually quite char
acteristic in the two species. Cultivated pears, whose
number is enormous, are without doubt derived from one
or two wild species widely distributed throughout Europe
and western Asia, and sometimes forming part of the
natural vegetation of the forests. In England, where the
pear is sometimes considered wild, there is always the
doubt that it may not really be so, but the produce of
some seed of a cultivated tree deposited by birds or other
wise, which has degenerated into the wild spine-bearing
tree known as Pyrus communis.
The cultivation of the pear extends to the remotest
446
P E A — P E A
antiquity. Traces of it have been found in the Swiss lake-
dwellings ; it is mentioned in the oldest Greek writings,
and was cultivated by the Romans. The word "pear" or
its equivalent occurs in all the Celtic languages, while in
Slavonic and other dialects different appellations, but still
referring to the same thing, are found, — a diversity and
multiplicity of nomenclature which leads De Candolle to
infer a very ancient cultivation of the tree from the shores
of the Caspian to those of the Atlantic. A certain race
of pears, with white down on the under surface of their
leaves, is supposed to have originated from P. nivalis, and
their fruit is chiefly used in France in the manufacture of
PERRY (q.v.). Other small-fruited pears, distinguished by
their precocity and apple-like fruit, may be referred to
P. cordata, a species found wild in western France, and
in Devonshire and Cornwall.
The late Professor Karl Koch considered that cultivated pears
were the descendants of three species — P. pcrsica (from which the
bergamots have descended), P. clasagrifolia, and P. sincnsis. De-
caisne, who made the subject one of critical study for a number of
years, and not only investigated the wild forms, but carefully
studied the peculiarities of the numerous varieties cultivated in the
Jardin des Plantes, refers all cultivated pears to one species, the
individuals of which have in course of time diverged in various
directions, so as to form now six races : — (1) the Celtic, including
P. cordata ; (2) the Germanic, including P. communis, P. Achras,
and P. pirnster ; (3) the Hellenic, including P. parviflora, P. sinaica,
and others ; (4) the Pontic, including P. elieagrifolia ; (5) the
Indian, comprising P. Pasch& ; and (6) the Mongolic, represented
by P. sincnsis. With reference to the Celtic race, P. cordata, it is
interesting to note its connexion with Arthurian legend, and the
Isle of Avalon or Isle of Apples. An island in Loch Awe has a
Celtic legend containing the principal features of Arthurian story ;
but in this case the word is "berries" instead of "apples." Dr
Phene visited Armorica (Brittany) with a view of investigating
these matters, and brought thence fruits of a small berry-like pear,
which were identified by the writer with the Pyrus cordata of
western France, as well as with a tree which had then been recently
discovered in some parts of Devonshire and Cornwall by Mr Briggs.
(For cultivation of pears see HORTICULTURE, vol. xii. p. 274.)
PEARL. Pearls are calcareous concretions of peculiar
lustre, produced by certain molluscs, and valued as objects
of personal ornament. It is believed that most pearls are
formed by the intrusion of some foreign substance between
the mantle of the mollusc and its shell, which, becoming a
source of irritation, determines the deposition of nacreous
matter in concentric layers until the substance is com
pletely encysted. The popular notion that the disturbing
object is commonly a grain of sand seems untenable ;
according to Dr Gwyn Jeffreys and some other concho-
logists, it is in most cases a minute parasite ; while Dr
Kelaart has suggested that it may be the frustule of a
diatom, or even one of the ova of the pearl -producing
mollusc itself. The experience of pearl-fishers shows that
those shells which are irregular in shape and stunted in
growth, or which bear excrescences, or are honeycombed
by boring parasites, are those most likely to yield pearls.
The substance of a pearl is essentially the same as that
which lines the interior of many shells, and is known as
" mother-of-pearl." Sir D. Brewster first showed that the
iridescence of this substance was an optical phenomenon
due to the interference of rays of light reflected from micro
scopic corrugations of the surface — an effect which may
be imitated by artificial striations on a suitable medium.
When the inner laminated portion of a nacreous shell is
digested in acid the calcareous layers are dissolved away,
leaving a very delicate membranous pellicle, which, as
shown by Dr Carpenter, may retain the iridescence as long
as it is undisturbed, but which loses it when pressed or
stretched.
Although a large number of molluscs secrete MOTHER-
OF-PEARL (y.v.), only a few of them yield true pearls. The
finest are obtained from the so-called " pearl oyster," the
Avicula (Meleagrina) maryaritifera, Linnaeus, while fresh
water pearls are procured chiefly from the "pearl mussel,"
Unto (Margaritana) margaritiferw, L.1 These river-pearls
are generally of dull leaden hue, and inferior in beauty to
those of marine origin.
It is obvious that if a pearl presents a perfectly spheri
cal form it must have remained loose in the substance of
the muscles or other soft tissues of the mollusc. Fre
quently, however, the pearl becomes cemented to the in
terior of the shell, the point of attachment thus interfering
with its symmetry. In this position it may receive suc
cessive nacreous deposits, which ultimately form a pearl of
hemispherical shape, so that when cut from the shell it
may be flat on one side and convex on the other, forming
what jewellers know as a "perle bouton." In the course of
growth the pearl may become involved in the general de
posit of mother-of-pearl, and be ultimately buried in the
substance of the shell. It has thus happened that fine
pearls have occasionally been unexpectedly brought to
light in cutting up mother-of-pearl in the workshop.
When a pearl oyster is attacked by a boring parasite
the mollusc protects itself by depositing nacreous matter
at the point of invasion, thus forming a hollow body of
irregular shape known as a "blister pearl." Hollow warty
pearl is sometimes termed in trade " coq de perle." Solid
pearls of irregular form are often produced by deposition
on rough objects, such as small fragments of wood, and
these, and in fact all irregular-shaped pearls, are termed
" perles baroques," or "barrok pearls." It appears that the
Romans in the period of the Decline restricted the name
unio to the globular pearl, and termed the baroque
margaritum. It was fashionable in the 16th and 17th
centuries to mount curiously -shaped baroques in gold
and enamel so as to form ornamental objects of grotesque
character. A valuable collection of such mounted pearls
by Dinglinger is preserved in the Green vaults at Dresden.
A pearl of the first Avater should possess, in jewellers'
language, a perfect "skin" and a fine "orient"; that is
to say, it must be of delicate texture, free from speck or
flaw, and of clear almost translucent white colour, with a
subdued iridescent sheen. It should also be perfectly
spherical, or, if not, of a symmetrical pear-shape. On re
moving the outer layer of a pearl the subjacent surface is
generally dull, like a dead fish-eye, but it occasionally
happens that a poor pearl encloses a "lively kernel," and
may therefore be improved by careful peeling. The most
perfect pearl in existence is said to be one, known as " La
Pellegrina," in the museum of Zosima in Moscow ; it is a
perfectly globular Indian pearl of singular beauty, weigh
ing 28 carats. The largest known pearl is one of irregu
lar shape in Mr Beresford Hope's collection at the South
Kensington museum. This magnificent pearl weighs 3 oz.,
has a circumference of 4^ inches, and is surmounted by
an enamelled and jewelled gold crown, forming a pendant
of great value.
Pearl Fisheries. — The ancients obtained their pearls
chiefly from India and the Persian Gulf, but at the present
time they are also procured from the Sulu seas, the coast
of Australia, the shores of Central America, and some of
the South Pacific islands. The ancient fisheries of Ceylon
(Taprobane) are situated in the Gulf of Manaar, the fishing-
1 Meleagrina maryaritifera, L. , belongs to the family Aviculidfe of
most zoologists, to the family Avicidacete, order Monomya, of article
MOLLUSCA. Meleagrina is merely a sub-genus of Avicula. The animal
which produces fresh-water pearls in Britain and other parts of Europe
was named Unio msiryaritiferus by Retzius in Nova Gen. Test., and
this is the name adopted by most modern zoologists ; the animal was
placed in a separate genus, Margarititna, by Schumacher for insuffi
cient reasons. It belongs to the order Isomya, family Unionaccie.
The molluscs from which river-pearls are obtained in the United States
and other parts of the world are mostly species of Unio or Anodonta.
The above are all Lamellibranchs.
PEARL
447
banks lying from 6 to 8 miles off the western shore, a little
to the south of the isle of Manaar. The Tinnevelly fishery
is on the Madras side of the strait, near Tuticorin. These
Indian fishing -grounds are under the control of Govern
ment inspectors, who regulate the fisheries, and permit
fishing only when they consider the banks to be in a satis
factory condition. The oysters yield the best pearls at
about four years of age. Fishing, when permitted, gener
ally commences in the second week in March, and lasts
for from four to six weeks, according to the season. The
boats are grouped in fleets of from sixty to seventy, and
start usually at midnight so as to reach the oyster-banks
at sunrise. Each boat generally carries ten divers. On
reaching the bank a signal-gun is fired, and diving com
mences. To facilitate the descent of the diver, a stone of
granite weighing about 40 Bb is attached to the cord by
which he is let down. The divers work in pairs, one man
diving while the other watches the signal -cord, drawing
up the sink-stone first, then hauling up the baskets of
oysters, and finally raising the diver himself. On an
average the divers remain under water from fifty to
eighty seconds, though some can endure a much longer
submergence, and exceptional instances are cited of men
remaining below for as long as six minutes. After resting
for a minute or two at the surface, the diver descends
again ; and so on, until exhausted, when he comes on
board and watches the rope, while his comrade relieves
him as diver. Using neither diving dress nor bell, the
native descends naked, carrying only a girdle for the sup
port .of the basket in which he places the pearl-oysters.
In his submarine work the diver makes skilful use of his
toes for prehensile purposes. To arm himself against the
attacks of the sharks and other fishes which infest the
Indian waters, he carries spikes of iron wood ; and the
genuine Indian diver never descends without the incanta
tions of shark -charmers, one of whom accompanies the
boat while others remain on shore. Not only is the
diver exposed to the danger of attack by sharks, but his
exciting calling, in a tropical climate, is necessarily ex
hausting, and as a rule he is a short-lived man.
The diving continues from sunrise to about noon, when
a gun is fired, and the work stopped. On the arrival of
the fleet at shore, the divers carry their oysters to a shed,
where they are made up into four heaps, one of which is
taken by the diver as his remuneration. The oysters are
then sold by auction in lots of 1000 each. The pearls,
after removal from the dead oysters, are " classed " by
passing through a number of small brass cullenders, known
as " baskets," the holes in the successive vessels being
smaller and smaller. Having been sized in this way, they
are sorted as to colour, weighed, and valued. (For the
history and production of the Ceylon fishery, see CEYLON,
vol. v. p. 364.)
Since the days of the Macedonians pearl -fishing has
been carried on in the Persian Gulf. It is said that the
oyster-beds extend along the entire Arabian coast of the
gulf, but the most important are on sandbanks off the
islands of Bahrein. According to Colonel Felly's report
in 1863, there were 1500 boats belonging to Bahrein alone,
and the annual profit from the pearl-fishery was about
£400,000. The chief centre of the trade is the port of
Lingah. Most of the products of this fishery are known
as " Bombay pearls," from the fact that many of the best
are sold there. The shells usually present a dark colour
about the edges, like that of " smoked pearl." The yellow-
tinted pearls are sent chiefly to Bombay, while the whitest
go to Baghdad. Very small pearls, much below a pea in
size, are generally known as " seed-pearls," and these are
valued in India and China as constituents of certain electu
aries, while occasionally they are calcined for chunam, or
lime, used with betel as a masticatory. There is a small
pearl-fishery near Kurrachee on the coast of Bombay.
From the time of the Ptolemies pearl-fishing has been
prosecuted along the coast of the Red Sea, especially in
the neighbourhood of Jiddah and Koseir. This fishery is
now insignificant, but the Arabs still obtain from this
district a quantity of mother-of-pearl shells, which are
shipped from Alexandria, and come into the market as
"Egyptians."
Very fine pearls are obtained from the Sulu Archipelago,
on the north-east of Borneo. The mother-of-pearl shells
from the Sulu seas are characterized by a yellow colour
on the border and back, which unfits them for many orna
mental purposes. Pearl-oysters are also abundant in the
seas around the Aru Islands to the south-west of New
Guinea. From Labuan a good many pearl-shells are
occasionally sent to Singapore. They are also obtained
from the neighbourhood of Timor, and from New Caledonia.
The pearl-oyster occurs throughout the Pacific, mostly in
the clear water of the lagoons within the atolls, though
fine shells are also found in deep water outside the coral
reefs. The Polynesian divers do not employ sink-stones,
and the Avomen are said to be more skilful than the men.
They anoint their bodies with oil before diving. Fine
pearl-shells are obtained from Navigators' Islands, the
Society Islands, the Low Archipelago or Paumota Isles, and
the Gambier Islands. Many of the Gambier pearls present
a bronzy tint.
Pearl-fishing is actively prosecuted along the western
coast of Central America, especially in the Gulf of California,
and to a less extent around the Pearl Islands in the Bay
of Panama. These pearls are obtained from the Meleagrina
californica, Cpr., and the mother-of-pearl shell is known
in commerce as " Panama " or " bullock " shell. The
fishing-grounds are in water about 40 feet deep, and, the
season lasts for four months. An ordinary fishing-party
expects to obtain about three tons of shells per day, and it
is estimated that one shell in a thousand contains a pearl.
The pearls are shipped in barrels from San Francisco and
Panama. Some pearls of rare beauty have been obtained
from the Bay of Mulege, near Los Coyetes, in the Gulf of
California; and in 1882 a pearl of 75 carats, the largest
on record from this district, was found near La Paz in
California. The coast of Guayaquil also yields pearls.
Columbus found that pearl-fishing was carried on in his
time in the Gulf of Mexico, and pearls are still obtained
from the Caribbean Sea. These are produced chiefly by
Melea<jrina squamulosa, Lam. ; and the mother-of-pearl
shells are known as " blue-edged " or " black-lipped," these
being less valuable than the " silver -lipped" shells of
India. In the West Indies the best pearls are obtained
from St Thomas and from the island of Margarita, off the
coast of Venezuela. From Margarita Philip II. of Spain is
said to have obtained in 1579 a famous pearl of 250 carats.
Of late years pearl -fishing has been started with con
siderable success in the Australian seas. Good pearls are
found in Shark's Bay, on the coast of West Australia,
especially in an inlet termed Useless Harbour. Mother-
of-pearl shells are also fished at many other points along
the western coast, between the 15th and 25th parallels of
south latitude. An important pearl-fishery is also estab
lished in Torres Strait and on the coast of Queensland.
The shells occur in water from four to six fathoms deep,
and the divers are generally Malays and Papuans, though
sometimes native Australians. On the western coast of
Australia the pearl-shells are obtained by dredging rather
than by diving. Quite recently (1884) pearl-shells have
been found at Port Darwin. Pearls have also been found
in Oakley Creek, New Zealand.
JRii'cr-pcarls are produced by the fresh-water mussels inhabiting
448
P E A — P E A
the mountain-streams of temperate climates in the northern hemi
sphere, — especially in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Saxony, Bohemia,
Bavaria, Lapland, and Canada. The pearls of Britain are men
tioned by Tacitus and by Pliny, and a breastplate studded with
British pearls was dedicated by Julius Caesar to Venus Genetrix.
As early as 1355 Scotch pearls are referred to in a statute of the
goldsmiths of Paris ; and in the reign of Charles II. the Scotch
pearl trade was sufficiently important to attract the attention of
parliament. Writing in 1705, John Spruel says, " I have dealt in
pearls these forty years and more, and yet to this day I could never
sell a necklace of fine Scots pearl in Scotland, nor yet line pendants,
the generality seeking for Oriental pearls, because farther fetched.
At this very day I can show some of our own Scots pearl as fine,
more hard and transparent, than any Oriental" (An Account
Current betwixt Scotland and England, Edinburgh, 1705). The
Scotch pearl-fishery, after having declined for years, was revived
in 1860 by a German named Moritz linger, who visited Scotland
and bought up all the pearls he could find in the hands of the
peasantry, thus leading to an eager search for more pearls the
following season. It is estimated that in 1865 the produce of the
season's fishing in the Scotch rivers was worth at least £12,000.
This yield, however, was not maintained ; the rivers were over-
fislied, and the industry was discouraged inasmuch as it tended to
interfere with the salmon-fishery, and in some cases injured the
banks of the streams. At the present time only a few pearls are
obtained at irregular intervals by an occasional fisherman.
The principal rivers in Scotland which have yielded pearls are
the Spey, the Tay, and the South Esk ; and to a less extent the
Doon, the Dee, the Don, the Ythan, the Teith, the Forth, and many
other streams. In North Wales the Conway was at one time cele
brated for its pearls ; and it is related that Sir Richard Wynn,
chamberlain to the queen of Charles II., presented her with a Con-
way pearl which is believed to occupy a place in the British crown.
In Ireland the rivers of Donegal, Tyrone, and Wcxford have yielded
pearls. It is said that Sir John Hawkins the circumnavigator had
a patent for pearl-fishing in the Irt in Cumberland. Although the
pearl-fisheries of Britain are now neglected, it is otherwise with
those of Germany. The most important of these are in the forest-
streams of Bavaria, between Ratisbon and Passau. The Saxon
fisheries are chiefly confined to the basin of the White Elster, and
those of Bohemia to the Horazdiowitz district of Wotawa. For
more than two centuries the Saxon fisheries have been carefully re
gulated by inspectors, who examine the streams every spring, and
deteftnine where fishing is to be permitted. After a tract has been
fished over, it is left to rest for ten or fifteen years. The fisher folk
open the valves of the mussels with an iron instrument, and if they
find no pearl restore the mussel to the water.
River -pearls are found in many parts of the United States, and
have been systematically worked in the Little Miami river, Warren
county, Ohio. The season extends from June to October. Japan
produces freshwater pearls, found especially in the Anodonta
japonica,. But it is in China that the culture of the pearl-mussel
is carried to the greatest perfection. The Chinese also obtain
marine pearls, and use a large quantity of mother -of -pearl for
decorative purposes. More than twenty-two centuries before our
era pearls are enumerated as a tribute or tax in China ; and they
are mentioned as products of the western part of the empire in the
llh'ya, a dictionary compiled earlier than 1000 B.C. A process for
promoting the artificial formation of pearls in the Chinese river-
mussels was discovered by Ye-jin-yang, a native of Hoochow, in
the 13th century; and this process is still extensively carried on
near the city of Teh-tsing, where it forms the staple industry of
several villages, and is said to give employment to about 5000
people. Large numbers of the mussels are collected in May and
June, and the valves of each are gently opened with a spatula to
allow of the introduction of various foreign bodies, which are in
serted by means of a forked bamboo stick. These ' ' matrices " are
generally pellets of prepared mud, but may be small bosses of bone,
brass, or wood. After a number of these objects have been placed in
convenient positions on one valve, the unfortunate mollusc is turned
over and the operation is repeated on the other valve. The
mussels are then placed in shallow ponds connected with the
canals, and are -nourished by tubs of night-soil being thrown in
from time to time. After several months, in some cases two or
three years, the mussels are removed, and the pearls which have
formed over the matrices are cut from the shells, while the molluscs
themselves serve as food. The matrix is generally extracted from
the pearl and the cavity filled with white wax, the aperture being
neatly sealed up so as to render the appearance of the pearl as perfect
as possible. Millions of such pearls are annually sold at Soo-chow.
The most curious of these Chinese pearls are those which present
the form of small seated images of Buddha. The figures are cast
in very thin lead, or stained in tin, and are inserted as previ
ously described. As many as twenty may sometimes be seen,
ranged in parallel rows, in the valves of a single individual.
Covered with nacreous matter, closely adherent to the shell, they
have all the appearance of natural objects, and, exciting the wonder
of the ignorant, are prized as amulets. Specimens of these Buddha
pearls in the British Museum are referred to the species Dipsas
plicata. It should be mentioned that Linnnms, probably ignorant
of what had long been practised in China, demonstrated the pos
sibility of producing artificial pearls in the freshwater mussels of
Sweden.
Pink pearls are occasionally found in the great conch or fountain
shell of the West Indies, Strombus gigas, L. ; but these, though
much prized, are not nacreous, and their tint is apt to fade. They
are also produced by the chank shell, Turbinclla seolymits, L. *
Yellowish-brown pearls, of little or no value, are yielded by the
Pinna squamosa, and bad-coloured concretions are formed by the
Placuna placenta.- Black pearls, which are very highly valued,
are obtained chiefly from the pearl-oyster of the Gulf of Mexico.
Artificial pearls were first made in western Europe in 1680 by
Jacquin, a rosary-maker in Paris, and the trade is now largely
carried on in France, Germany, and Italy. Spheres of thin glass
are filled with a preparation known as "essence d'orient," made from
the silvery scales of the bleak or "ablette, " which is caused to adhere
to the inner wall of the globe, and the cavity is then filled with
white wax. The scales are in some cases incorporated with celluloid.
Many imitation pearls are now formed of an opaline glass of nacre
ous lustre, and the soft appearance of the pearl obtained by the
judicious use of hydrofluoric acid. An excellent substitute for
black pearl is found in the so-called "ironstone jewellery," and
consists of close-grained haematite, not too highly polished ; but the
great density of the haematite immediately destroys the illusion.
Pink pearls are imitated by turning small spheres out of the rosy
part of the conch shell, or even out of pink coral.
See W. H. Dall, " Pearls and Pearl Fisheries," in American Naturalist, xvii.,
1S83, p. 549 ; P. L. Simmonds, The Commercial 1'roducts of the Sea (London, 1879) ;
Clements It. Markham, "The Tinnevelly Pearl Fishery," in Journ. Soc. Arts,
xv., 1867, p. 256 ; D. T. Macgowan, "Pearls and Pearl-making in China," ibid.
ii., 1854, p. 72 ; F. Hague, " On the Natural and Artificial Production of Pearls
in China," in Journ. ]!. Asiatic Soc., xvi., 1856 ; H. J. Le Beck, " Pearl Fishery
in the Gulf of Manar," in Asiatic Researches, v., 1798, p. 393 ; T. Von Hessling,
Die Perlmitschel und Hire Perlen (Lcipsic, 1859) ; K. Mo'bius, Die echten 1'erlen
(Hamburg, 1857). (F. W. R.)
PEARSON, JoHN(1612-1686),a learned English bishop,
was born at Great Snoring in the county of Norfolk, on
the 28th of February 1612. After attending Eton,
he entered Queens' College, Cambridge, 10th June 1031,
and was elected a scholar of King's in April following
and a fellow in 1634. Entering holy orders in 1639,
he was collated to the prebend of Nether-Avon, in the
church of Sarum. In 1640 he was appointed chaplain
to the lord -keeper Finch, by whom he was presented
to the living of Thorington in Suffolk during the same
year. In 1650 he was made preacher of St Clement's,
Eastcheap, in London. Seven years later he and Peter
Gunning had a dispute with two Roman Catholics upon
the subject of schism, a one-sided account of which was
printed at Paris by one of the Roman Catholic disputants,
under the title Schism Unmasked, 1658. In 1659 Pearson
published at London his celebrated Exposition of the Creed,
dedicated to his parishioners of St Clement's, Eastcheap,
to whom the substance of that now standard work had
been preached several years before, and by whom he had
been desired to make it public. The same year he likewise
published the Golden Remains of the ever -memorable Mr
John Hales of Eton, to which he prefixed a preface con
taining a character of that eminent man, with whom he
had been acquainted for many years, drawn up with great
elegance and force. Pearson had also a principal share in
the editing of the Critici Sacri, first published in 1660.
Soon after the Restoration he was presented by Juxon,
then bishop of London, to the rectory of St Christopher's
in that city; and he Avas also in 1660 created doctor of
divinity at Cambridge, in pursuance of the king's letters
mandatory, installed prebendary of Ely, archdeacon of
Surrey, and made master of Jesus College, Cambridge. In
1661 he was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity
1 Strombus fjirjas, L., is a Gastropod belonging to the family Strom-
bidte, of the order Azyyobranchia. Turbinella scolymns, Lam., is a
Gastropod belonging to the family Muricidee, of the same order.
2 Placuna placenta, L. , belongs to the family Ostreidse of tlie
manuals (family Oslracea of article MOLLUSCA) ; it is found on the
shores of North Australia. J'inna squamosa, Gmelin, belongs to the
MytiliiJue (the Mi/tilacese of article MOLLUSCA) ; it occurs in the Medi
terranean. Both are Lamellibranchs.
A — P E D
449
in that university ; and on the first day of the ensuing year
he was nominated one of the commissioners for the review
of the liturgy in the conference held at the Savoy. On
the 14th of April 1662 he was elected master of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and in August resigned his rectory of
St Christopher's and his prebend of Ely. In 1667 he was
admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1672 he
published at Cambridge Vindicix Epistolarum S. Ignatii,
in 4 to, in answer to Daille, to which is subjoined Isaaci
Vossii Epistolse, dux. adversus Davidem Blondellum. Upon
the death of Dr. Wilkins in 1672, Pearson was appointed
his successor in the see of Chester. In 1682 his Annales
Cyprianici were published at Oxford, with Fell's edition
of that father's works. Pearson was disabled from all
public service by ill health a considerable time before his
death at Chester on the 16th of July 1686. His last
work, the Two Dissertations on the Succession and Times of
the First Bishops of Rome, formed the principal part of
his Opera Posthuma, edited by Henry Dodwell in 1688.
See the memoir in Biographia Britannica, and another by Edward
Churton prefixed to the edition of Pearson's Minor Theological
Works, 2 vols., Oxford, 1844.
PEAT. See FUEL, vol. ix. p. 808.
PECCARY. Under this name are included two species
of small pig-like animals forming the genus Dicotyles of
Cuvier, belonging to the section Suina of the Artiodactyle
Ungulates (see MAMMALIA, vol. xv. p. 430). They are
peculiar to the New World, and in it are the only surviv
ing members of the large group now represented in the
Old World by the various species of swine, babirussas,
Avart-hogs, and hippopotami.
The teeth of the peccaries differ from those of the true
pigs (genus Sus) numerically, in wanting the upper outer
incisor and the anterior premolar on each side of each
jaw, the dental formula being i | , c i, p f , m §, total 38.
The upper canines have their points directed downwards,
not outwards or upwards as in the boars, and they are
very sharp, with cutting hinder edges, and completely
covered with enamel until worn. The lower canines are
large and directed upwards and outwards, and slightly
curved backwards. The premolar and molar teeth form a
continuous series, gradually increasing in size from the
first to the last. The true molars have square quadricus-
pidate crowns. The stomach is much more complex than
in the true pigs, almost approaching that of a ruminant.
In the feet the two middle (third and fourth) metapodial
bones, which are completely separate in the pigs, are united
at their upper ends, as in the ruminants. On the fore
foot the two (second and fifth) outer toes are equally de
veloped as in pigs, but on the hind foot, although the inner
(or second) is present, the outer or fifth toe is entirely
wanting, giving an unsymmetrical appearance of the mem
ber, very unusual in Artiodactyles. As in all other exist
ing Ungulates, there is no trace of a first digit (pollex or
hallux) on either foot. As in the pigs, the snout is trun
cated, and the nostrils are situated in its flat, expanded,
disk-like termination. The ears are rather small, ovate,
and erect ; and there is no external appearance of a tail.
The surface is well covered with thick bristly hair, and
rather behind the middle of the back is a large and pecu
liar gland, which secretes an oleaginous substance with a
powerful musky odour. This was mistaken by the old
travellers for a second navel, a popular error which sug
gested to Cuvier the name of Dicotyles. When the animal
is killed for food, it is necessary speedily to remove this
gland, otherwise it will taint the whole flesh so as to
render it uneatable.
There are two species, so nearly allied that they will breed
together freely in captivity. Unlike the true pigs, they
never appear to produce more than two young ones at a birth.
The collared peccary (D. tajacu, Linn., torquatus, Cuvier)
ranges from the Red river of Arkansas through the forest
Peccary.
districts of Central and South America as far as the Rio
Negro of Patagonia. Generally it is found singly or in
pairs, or at most in small herds of from eight to ten, and
is a comparatively harmless creature, not being inclined to
attack other animals or human beings. Its colour is dark
grey, with a white or whitish band passing across the
chest from shoulder to shoulder. The length of the head
and body is about 36 inches. The white-lipped peccary
or warree (D. labiatus, Cuvier) is rather larger, being about
40 inches in length, of a blackish colour, with the lips and
lower jaw white. Its range is less extensive ; it is not
found farther north than British Honduras or south of
Paraguay. It is generally met with in large droves of
from fifty to a hundred or more individuals, and is of a
more pugnacious disposition than the former species, and
capable of inflicting severe wounds with its sharp tusks.
A hunter who encounters a herd of them in a forest has
often to climb a tree as his only chance of safety. Both
species are omnivorous, living on roots, fallen fruits,
worms, and carrion ; and when the^ approach the neigh
bourhood of villages and cultivated lands they often inflict
great devastation upon the crops of the inhabitants.
Fossil remains of extinct species of peccaries of the
Pleistocene period have been found in the caves of Brazil,
and also as far north as Virginia and South Carolina.
They have also been traced backwards in time, with appar
ently little modification of structure, to the Upper Miocene
formations of Oregon.
PECS. See FUNFKIRCHEN, vol. ix. p. 827.
PEDOMETER is an apparatus in the form of a watch,
which, carried on the person of a traveller, indicates the
number of paces made, and thereby approximately the
distance travelled. The ordinary form has a dial -plate
with chapters for yards and miles respectively, but in
some, miles and their fractions only are indicated, while
others are divided for kilometres, &c. The registration is
effected by the fall of a heavy pendulum, caused by the
percussion of each step. The pendulum is forced back to
a horizontal position by a delicate spring, and with each
stroke a fine-toothed ratchet-wheel attached to it is moved
round a certain length. The ratchet communicates with a
train of wheels which govern the dial -hands. In using
the apparatus a measured mile or other known distance is
walked, and the indication thereby made on the dial-plate
observed. According as it is too great or too small, the
stroke of the pendulum is shortened or lengthened by a
screw which correspondingly affects the ratchet motion,
XVIII. — 57
450
D — P E D
and thereby regulates the indication to the average pace.
Obviously the pedometer is little better than an ingenious
toy, depending even for rough measurements on the uni
formity of pace maintained throughout the journey
measured.
PEDRO (PETER), the name borne by several sovereigns
of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal. Three of them were
contemporaries, and, to add to the confusion to which this
has given rise, each of them was the son and successor of
an Alphonso.
Araijon. — PEDRO IV. (1317-1387), surnamed "the
Ceremonious," succeeded his father Alfonso IV. in 1336,
placing the crown upon his own head at Saragossa to
make it quite plain that he did not hold of the pope. In
1344 he deposed his brother-in-law Jayme from the throne
of Majorca, and again made the Balearic Isles, Cerdagne,
and Eoussillon directly subject to the crown of Aragon. In
1346 jealousy of his brother Jayme led him to alter the
succession in favour of his daughters, but two powerful
unions or leagues in Aragon and Valencia compelled him
in the following year anew to recognize the legitimate
heir-presumptive. The victory of Epila, however, in 1348
enabled him to triumph over his factious nobles and to
cancel the privileges they had extorted from him. In 1351
Pedro, desiring to strengthen his precarious hold upon the
island of Sardinia, entered into an alliance with Venice, and
began hostilities against Genoa, which, carried on at inter
vals for many years, were definitively terminated only by
his successor. In 1356 a breach of neutrality by some
Catalan ships at San Lucar led to a war with the king of
Castile, which was carried on with occasional suspensions
until 1375, when the infanta Leonora of Aragon was
married to Don Juan (afterwards John I.) of Castile. In
1377 Pedro succeeded in reconquering Sicily after the
death of Frederick III., but, to avoid the threatened inter
dict of Urban VI., he ceded the island to Martin, his
grandson, retaining the suzerainty only. In 1382 he sent
troops to Greece to seize, on his behalf, the duchy of
Athens. Pedro died at Barcelona on 5th January 1387,
and was succeeded by his son John I. He left a curious
history of his reign, written in Catalan, which has been
printed by Carbonell in his Chroniques de Espanya (1547).
Three other kings of Aragon bore this name. PEDRO I. suc
ceeded his father Sancho Ramirez on the throne of Aragon and
Navarre in 1094, and died in 1104. The leading event of his
reign was the conquest of Huesca (1096). PEDRO 'll. (1174-1213)
succeeded his father Alphonso II. in Il96. In November 1204
he was crowned in St Peter's, Rome, by Innocent III., in return
for which honour he declared his kingdom feudatory of the Roman
see and promised an annual tribute, not, however, without a strong
protest on the part of his subjects, whose hostile demonstrations
in the following year he had difficulty in repressing. In 1209 he
purchased peace with Sancho VII. of Navarre, and in 1212 he,
along with that sovereign, gave valuable help to Alphonso of Castile
in securing the splendid victory over the Arabs at Navas de Tolosa.
In the following year, having taken up arms on behalf of his brother-
in-law, Count Raymond of Toulouse, he was slain in the disastrous
battle of Muret (12th September 1213). He was succeeded by his
only son, Jayme I., "el Conquistador." PEDRO III. (1236-1285),
son of Jayme I. and grandson of Pedro II., succeeded to the crowns
of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia in 1276. In 1262 he had
married Constance, daughter of Manfred, king of the Sicilies, and
on the strength--of this alliance he took advantage of the Sicilian
Vespers to lay claim to the kingdom of Sicily. This involved him
in a ruinous war, in the course of which his dissatisfied subjects
united to assert their ancient "fueros" or privileges, exacting from
him at Saragossa in 1283 the " Privilegio General ", which in spirit
and import may be compared to the English Great Charter. Charles
of Valois, invested by the pope with the crown of Aragon, sought
to invade the kingdom, but was repulsed both by Innd and sea.
Charles's death in 12S5, which terminated the war, was followed by
that of Pedro in the same year.
Castile and Leon,— PEDRO I. (1333-1369), commonly
surnamed " the Cruel," but sometimes referred to as " the
Justiciary," was the only legitimate son of Alphonso XL,
and was born at Burgos on 30th August 1333. When
raised to the throne at Seville by his father's premature
death before Gibraltar (29th March 1350), Pedro was a
mere lad, with exceptionally small experience of courts
and camps, having lived in comparative retirement along
with his mother, Dona Maria of Portugal, in the Andalu-
cian capital, while his illegitimate brothers, the children
of Leonora de Guzman, the eldest of whom were Don
Enrique (Henry), count of Trastamara, and Don Fadrique
(Frederick), grandmaster of Santiago, had remained beside
Alphonso, and had accompanied him on his warlike expe
ditions. At the beginning of his reign he was thus, almost
of necessity, compelled to abandon the conduct of affairs
to more experienced hands ; by the skilful policy, accord
ingly, of the powerful and ambitious Juan Alonso de
Alburquerque, who had been his father's chancellor and
prime minister, his many enemies and rivals were, for a
'time at least, successfully kept at bay. The king, how
ever, soon began to assert his independence ; whereupon
the minister, remembering how helpful a royal mistress
had been for the furtherance of his own ends during the
preceding reign, did not scruple to encourage Pedro's
passion for the young, well-born, and beautiful Maria de
Padilla, even after his marriage with Blanche de Bourbon
had been arranged. His experiment proved a disastrous
one, and not least so to himself. The influence of Maria
and of her relations, which rapidly became great, was soon
turned against the too politic Alburquerque ; and, as a first
step towards his dismissal from power, they succeeded in
making him seem less indispensable by effecting a superficial
reconciliation between the king and his brothers. Then,
on the minister's remonstrating against the conduct of Pedro
in deserting Blanche for his mistress almost immediately
after his marriage at Valladolid in June 1354, a complete
change of administration took place, and Alburquerque
retired to his estates. Shortly afterwards he was joined
by the king's brothers Enrique and Fadrique in raising the
standard of revolt in Castile ; in this formidable movement
they were speedily joined by Pedro's cousins, the infantes
of Aragon, as well as by increasing numbers of the ricos
hombres and caballeros of the kingdom, and by several of
the towns, their grievances being his repudiation of Blanche,
his deposition of Alburquerque, and the murder of Juan
Nunez de Prado, the master of Calatrava, for which he was
believed to be responsible. The cortes of Toro accordingly
asked him to take back his queen and dismiss the Padillas ;
and so general was the national feeling in this matter that
even his own mother deserted his cause, and on his giving
evasive replies he found himself before the end of the year
practically stripped of all his real authority, surrounded by
officials of his enemies' choosing, and virtually a prisoner
in their hands. He succeeded, however, in making his
escape from Toro to Segovia with a handful of followers
in the following year, and the divergence of interest that
soon arose to separate the Aragonese princes from the bas
tard sons of Alphonso XI. so wrought in his favour that he
was soon able (1356) to recover all the authority he had
ever had, and to secure at least a transitory peace by the
policy of reckless assassination which years previously he
had inaugurated while Alburquerque was still his minister,
and which he brought to a climax in the cold-blooded murder
of his brother Don Fadrique at Seville in 1358, the tragedy
to which he is said to have been specially indebted for his
unenviable surname. In 1356 he already found himself
strong enough to enter upon a war with his namesake
Pedro IV. of Aragon, and, with inconsiderable intervals of
truce brought about through the intervention of the papal
legate, he continued to carry it on for several years. In
1365 he was still campaigning beyond the borders of his
kingdom when Castile was invaded by the "free companies "
of French and English troops under Du Guesclin and
P E E — P E E
Calverley on behalf of Don Enrique, whose cause had now
been espoused by France. He returned only to find him
self practically unthroned, and towards the close of 1366
he sailed from Coruila for Guienne almost unaccompanied,
save by his three daughters, but taking with him a con
siderable quantity of money and jewels. He was befriended
in his exile by the Black Prince, and by liberal promises
obtained his alliance and assurances of material help ; the
English troops accordingly crossed the Pyrenees in the
following spring, and, by the bloody victory of Najera
or Navarrete near Logrofio (13th April 1367), once
more restored him to his kingdom. Pedro, however, was
unwilling or unable to implement the bargain he had
made, and by his arrogant demeanour soon alienated
his chivalrous ally ; before the close of the year Don
Enrique had again begun to collect his forces, while the
Black Prince, injured and indignant, turned his face home
wards. A final battle between Pedro and his brother took
place at Montiel (13th March 1369), with the result that
the former was driven for shelter into the fortress. Ten
days afterwards he was induced to visit the camp of
Enrique by illusory hopes of a favourable treaty through
Du Guesclin ; the brothers, who had not seen each other
for fifteen years, met for the last time ; angry words
passed between them, soon they came to blows, and in the
desperate struggle that ensued Don Pedro met his death.
Pedro was in no way remarkable either as a soldier or as
a ruler of men, and his character, so odious in the one''
feature expressed by his only too well deserved surname,
presents singularly few redeeming traits ; it is not even
picturesque. The best that can be alleged by way of
apology for him and excuse for his barren reign is the
untowardness of the circumstances of his birth, education,
and accession. To a narrow and uncultivated mind like
his " the tyrant's plea " could hardly ever have appealed
with greater plausibility. It is significant, however, that
in Spain itself there are two nearly opposite points of
view from which Pedro appears not as "el Cruel " but as
" el Justiciero." On the one hand, the common people of
Andalucia among whom he lived, the Jews whose com*
merce he encouraged, the Moors whom his very want of
religion enabled him to tolerate, have helped to keep alive
the tradition of the substantial if occasionally capricious
and whimsical justice he often delighted personally to
administer. The other point of view is that of such mon-
archs as Isabella "la Catolica" and Philip II., who could
not but be grateful to him for all he had done to weaken
the power of the nobles of Castile.
The chief source for the incidents of the reign of Don Pedro is
the Chronicles of Castile, by Pero Lopez do Ayala, of \vhich there
are two redactions known as the Vulgar and the Abrcviada. These
form the basis of Prosper Merimee's Histoirc da Don Pedre, Premier
Roi (U CasWle (1848; 2d ed. 1865; Eng. trans., anon., 1849).
Portugal. — PEDRO I. (1320-1367) was the son of Al-
phonso IV. and Beatrice of Castile, and in 1339 married
Constance, daughter of the duke of Peliafiel and marquis
of Villena. The story of his passion for Inez de Castro,
of his supposed marriage with her, of her cruel murder
in 1355, and of the exhumation and coronation of her
dead body has been told elsewhere (see vol. v. p. 202).
He succeeded to the throne in 1357 and died in 1367,
after a peaceful and comparatively uneventful reign of
ten years.
For other sovereigns bearing this name see BRAZIL and PORTUGAL.
PEEBLES, a midland county of Scotland, is bounded
N. and N.E. by Midlothian, E. and S.E. by Selkirk, S.
by Dumfries, and W. by Lanark. Its outline is somewhat
irregular, the greatest length from north to south being
about 30 miles, the greatest breadth about 20, and the
smallest about 10. The area is 226,899 acres, or about
355 square miles.
From the fact that the county lies within the upper
valley of the Tweed, it is sometimes known as Tweeddale.
The surface consists of a succession of hills broken by
the vale of the Tweed, which in some parts attains con
siderable breadth, and by the narrow valleys forming the
courses of numerous " waters " and smaller streams. The
lowest point above sea -level is about 450 feet, but the
hills generally vary in height from 900 to 1500 feet, while
several attain an altitude considerably over 2000 feet.
The highest summits are Broad Law (2754 feet), Cramalt
Craig (2723 feet), and Dollar Law (2680 feet). The hills
for the most part are rounded in form. The scenery is
thus generally devoid of very striking or picturesque
features, and its quiet pastoral character has a pleasing
effect, while the exuberant plantations which clothe the
sides and summits of the hills in the neighbourhood of
the Tweed, with the well -cultivated fields adjoining its
banks, lend to this district an aspect of rich luxuriance.
The Tweed has its source in a small fountain named
Tweed's Well at the base of a hill on the south-western
border called Tweed's Cross, from the farther side of which
flow the Annan and the Clyde. It rises about 1300 feet
above sea -level, and, with waters of sparkling clearness
and purity, justly entitling it to the name of the " silver
Tweed," flows with rapid course north-eastwards to the town
of Peebles, receiving continual accessions from mountain
streamlets, the principal being the Biggar Water from the
west at Drumelzier, the Lyne from the north-west at
Lyne, the Manor Water from the south near Edderston,
and the Eddlestone Water from the north at Peebles.
After passing Peebles the river bends in a more easterly
direction, receiving, before it leaves the county, the Quair
Water from the south and the Leithen from the north.
The Megget Water flows eastwards into St Mary's Loch,
which forms, for a very short distance, the south-eastern
boundary of the county with Selkirkshire. The Medwin
Water separates a portion of the south-western boundary
of Linton parish from Lanarkshire. Peebles is, perhaps,
more resorted to by anglers than any other county in
Scotland, and it would be difficult to find anywhere else
in the kingdom, within an equal area, so many streams
and rivers affording such good sport and so unhampered
by restrictions. Apart from St Mary's Loch, on the bor
ders of the county, there are no sheets of water of much
extent.
Geology. — Peeblesshire is included in the Silurian table
land of southern Scotland, and consists chiefly of Upper
Silurian rocks, having generally a north-western dip. The
strata have been thrown into great flexures by volcanic
action, and are frequently mingled with igneous rocks,
such as trap, felspar, and porphyry. In the valley of the
Tweed, where there is a great anticlinal flexure, slates
with thin beds of anthracite are found, and also limestone.
In a slate-quarry near Traquair graptolites, trilobites, and
shells are met with, but nowhere else in the county have
fossils been discovered. There are evidences of glacial
action in the rounded forms of the hills, the frequent
groovings along their flanks, and the large number of
striated boulders. In the northern part of the county, in
the parishes of Linton and Newlands, the Silurian rocks
dip beneath the Carboniferous strata of the West of Scot
land coal-field. In Peeblesshire the strata consist of sand
stone and coal-beds. Ironstone is also found, and lead-
ore occurs in thin beds near the Leithen. Limestone and
mari are abundant, and at Stobo there is a quarry of
excellent blue slate.
Climate, Soil, and Agriculture. — In the uplands the
climate, though colder than that of the Lothians, is gener
ally pure and dry, and remarkably healthy. The average
rainfall is about 29 inches. On the summits and slopes of
452
P E E — P E E
the hills frequent showers occur when it is quite fair in the
valleys. The reflexion of the " slanters " on the hillsides
sometimes greatly increases the heat in the valleys and
assists the early ripening of the crops. The character of
the soil varies considerably, moss, gravel, and clay being
all represented. The flat lands consist generally of rich
loam, composed of sand and clay.
As may be supposed from its hilly character, the county is
pastoral rather than agricultural. The old system of small farms
is nearly completely broken up, the average size of the holdings
being now about 200 acres of arable land, with pasturage for 600
to 800 sheep attached. According to the agricultural returns of
1883, of the total area only 42,433 acres, or a little less than a
fifth, were under cultivation, corn crops occupying 9832 acres, green
crops 5716, rotation grasses 12,078, and permanent pasture 14,763.
There were 10,177 acres under woods, 11 acres of market-gardens,
and 6 of nursery-grounds. The most common rotation of crops is a
six-course shift of (1) turnips, (2) barley or oats, (3), (4), and (5)
grass or pasture, and (6) oats. The principal crops are oats, which
in 1883 occupied 8797 acres, or about nine-tenths of the total area
under corn crops, and turnips, for which the soil is specially well
adapted, and which occupied 4679 acres, or about four-fifths of
the total area under green crops. Horses in 1883 numbered 1142,
cattle 5664, and sheep 192,122. The horses are frequently Clydes
dales, and many are bred in the county. The most common breed
of cattle in the county is a cross between Ayrshire and shorthorns,
the cows being principally Ayrshire. Yorkshire calves and stirks
are occasionally bought for feeding. The pasture, on account of
the hilly character of the land, is better adapted for sheep than
for cattle. On the green grassy pasture Cheviots and half-breds
are the sheep most commonly preferred, and the heathery ranges
are stocked with blackfaced. Crosses of blackfaced, Cheviot, and
half-bred ewes with Leicestershire rams are common.
According to the latest return, the land was divided among 708
proprietors, possessing 232,410 acres, with an annual valuation of
£142,614, the annual average value per acre being about 12s. 3d.
Of the owners, 532, or about 75 per cent., possessed less than one
acre each. The following possessed over 5000 acres each : — earl of
Wemyss and March, 41,247; Sir G. G. Montgomerie, 18,172; Sir
J. Murray Nasmyth, 15,485; John Miller, 13,000; James Tweedie,
11,151 ; trustees of the late earl of Traquair, 10,778; Colonel James
M'Kenzie, 9403 ; Sir Robert Hay, 9155 ; Sir W. H. G. Carmichael,
8756; John White, 6366; George Graham Bell, 6600; James
Wolfe Murray, 5108.
Manufactures. — Although the county has the advantage of con
venient railway communication both by the North British and
Caledonian systems, and possesses also abundant water-power,
the only textile industries are the weaving of tweeds and shawls
at Peebles and Innerleithen. The other manufactures are con
nected with the immediate wants of an agricultural population.
Administration and Population. — The county includes sixteen
parishes, and one royal burgh, the county town. Along with the
neighbouring county of Selkirk it forms a parliamentary county,
which returns one member to parliament. Within the last fifty
years the population of Peebles has increased about one-third, and,
•while in the first decade, between 1831 and 1841, there was a
decrease from 10,578 to 10,499, the rate of increase has since then
augmented in every succeeding decade. In 1861 the population
amounted to 11,408, in 1871 to 12,330, and in 1881 to 13,822, of
whom 6626 were males and 7196 females. In 1831 females were
in a minority, being only 5236 to 5342 males. The county includes
two towns, Peebles (3495) and Innerleithen (2313), and two
villages, Walkerburn (1026) and West Linton (434). The town
population in 1881 numbered 5808, the village 1460, and the
rural 6554.
History and Antiquities. — There are a great number of British
remains, including five circular British camps and numerous
sepulchral tombs, where many cists and stone coffins have been dis
covered, sometimes containing armill;e of gold, and stone axes and
hammers. The standing-stones of Tweedsmuir and the remarkable
earthen terraces on the hillsides, especially at Purvis Hill near
Innerleithen and at Romanno, also deserve notice. The only im
portant Roman remains are traces of a camp on the Lyne, which
some suppose to be the Coria of Ptolemy. The district was included
in the old kingdom of Northumbria, and passed to the kingdom
of Scotland in the llth century. By David I. it was made a
deanery in the archdeaconry of Peebles, and it was subsequently
included in the diocese of Glasgow. About the middle of the 1 2th
century it was placed under the jurisdiction of two sheriffs, one of
whom was settled at Traquair and the other at Peebles. There
are a considerable number of old castles, some of special interest, as
Neidpath Castle on the Tweed, about a mile west from Peebles,
originally a Norman keep, built about the time of David I., and
enlarged for a baronial residence by the Hays, who came into pos
session of it in the 15th century ; Horsburgh Castle, a picturesque
ruin near Innerleithen, once the seat of the Horsbtirghs, hereditary
sheriffs -depute of Peebles; and the mansion-house or palace of
Traquair, frequently resided in by the Scottish kings when they
came to hunt in Ettrick Forest.
See Pennecuick, Description of Twecddale, 1715 ; TV. Chambers, History of
Peeblesshire, 1864.
PEEBLES, the county town of Peeblesshire, is finely
situated at the junction of the Eddlestone Water and the
Tweed, and on the North British and Caledonian Railways,
22 miles south of Edinburgh. The new town, consisting of
a main street (High Street) with several streets diverging,
is situated on the south side of the Eddlestone Water; and
the old town, consisting now of only a small number of
houses, is on the north side ; while a number of villas
cover the elevated ground on the south of the Tweed.
The Tweed is crossed by a bridge of five arches, lately
widened and improved, and the Eddlestone Water by two
bridges. Among the modern public buildings are. the
town -hall, the corn exchange, and the hydropathic estab
lishment. At the beginning of the present century Peebles
possessed manufactures of fine cottons, but the industry
is now discontinued. The town possesses woollen mills
and meal and flour mills ; it is also a centre of agriculture
and has attractions as a summer residence. The popula
tion in 1801 was 2088, which had increased in 1831 to
2750, and, although in 1871 it had diminished to 2G31,
by 1881 it had increased to 3495. The population of the
royal burgh in 1881 was 2609.
'*. The castle of Peebles had disappeared about the beginning of the
18th century, and its site is now occupied by the parish church.
There are still, however, numerous antique architectural relics,
including some portions of the old town wall ; the ruins of the
church of the Holy Cross, founded in 1261, and of St Andrew's
parish church, founded in 1195, both in the old town ; vaulted
cellars of the 16th and 17th centuries, situated in a close behind
Mungo Park's laboratory, and built for security against Border
freebooters. Queensberry Lodge, formerly the town residence of
the duke of Queensberry, a building in the old style of Scottish
domestic architecture, was purchased by the late William Chambers
of Edinburgh, and, after being fitted up as a public reading-room,
museum, and gallery of art, was presented by him to his native
town under the name of the Chambers' Institution (opened in 1859).
The ancient cross of Peebles now occiipies the centre of the court
yard of the institution.
Peebles was at a very early period a favourite residence of Scottish
kings, who came to hunt in the neighbouring Ettrick Forest. It
received its original charter in all probability from Alexander III.,
who built and endowed the church of the Holy Cross, and also
founded a monastery for red friars. It was created a royal burgh
in 1367. In 1545 the town and the ancient churches were de
stroyed by Protector Somerset, and in 1604 it suffered severely
from accidental fire. Its charter was extended by James VI., but
after the union of the English and the Scottish crowns it lost its
early importance.
PEEKSKILL, a manufacturing village of the United
States in Cortlandt township, Westchester county, New
York, lies on the east bank of the Hudson, 43 miles
above New York city, with which it has communication
by rail and (in summer) by river. Besides iron -smelt
ing, it carries on the manufacture of railings, stoves, and
fire-bricks. A church, dating from 1767, and the Van
Cortlandt mansion are among its principal buildings.
Incorporated in 1816, Peekskill had 6560 inhabitants in
1870 and 6893 in 1880.
PEEL, SIR ROBERT (1788-1850), twice prime minister
and for many years the leading statesman of England, was
born 5th February 1788 in a cottage near Chamber Hall,
the seat of his family, in the neighbourhood of Bury (Lan
cashire), — Chamber Hall itself being at the time under
repair. He was a scion of that new aristocracy of wealth
which sprang from the rapid progress of mechanical dis
covery and manufactures in the latter part of the 18th
century. His ancestors were Yorkshire yeomen in the
district of Craven, whence they migrated to Blackburn in
Lancashire. His grandfather, Robert Peel, first of Peelfold,
and afterwards of Brookside, near Blackburn, was a calico-
PEEL
453
printer, \vlio, appreciating the discovery of his townsman
Har greaves, took to cotton-spinning with the spinning-jenny
and grew a wealthy man. His father, Robert Peel, third
son of the last-named, carried on the same business at Bury
with still greater success, in partnership with Mr Yates,
whose daughter Ellen he married. He made a princely
fortune, became the owner of Drayton Manor and member
of parliament for the neighbouring borough of Tamworth,
was a trusted and honoured, as well as ardent, supporter
of Pitt, contributed magnificently towards the support of
that leader's war policy, was rewarded with a baronetcy,
and founded a rich and powerful house, on whose arms he
emblazoned, and in whose motto he commemorated, the
prosperous industry from which it sprang. The example
and precepts of the father took early effect upon his eldest
son, whom from the first he destined and prepared to
serve his country in public life. At Harrow, according to
the accounts of his contemporaries, Peel was a steady
industrious boy, the best scholar in the school, fonder of
solitary walks than of the games of his companions, but
ready to help those who were duller than himself, and
not unpopular among his fellows. At Christ Church,
where he entered as a gentleman commoner, he studied
hard, and was the first who, under the new examination
statutes, took a first class both in classics and in mathe
matics. His examination for his B.A. degree in 1808 was
an academical ovation in presence of a numerous audience,
who came to hear the first man of the day ; and a relation
who was at Oxford at the time has recorded that the
triumph, like both the triumphs and reverses of after life,
was calmly borne. From his classical studies Robert Peel
derived not only the classical, though somewhat pompous,
character of his speeches and the Latin quotations with
which they were often happily interspersed, but something
of his lofty ideal of political ambition. Nor did he ever
cease to love these pursuits of his youth; and in 1837,
when elected lord rector of Glasgow university, in his
inaugural speech he passed a glowing eulogy on classical
education. To his mathematical training, which was then
not common among public men, he no doubt owed in part
his method, his clearness, his great power of grasping
steadily and working out difficult and complicated ques
tions. His speeches show that, in addition to his academi
cal knowledge, he was well versed in English literature,
in history, and in the principles of law. While reading
hard he did not neglect to develop his tall and vigorous
frame, and fortify his strong constitution, by manly exer
cises ; and, though he lost his life partly through his bad
riding, he was always a good shot and an untiring walker
after game. Sprung from the most religious class of
English society, he grew up and remained through life a
religious man, and from that source drew deep conscien
tiousness and tranquillity under all difficulties and in all
fortunes. His Oxford education confirmed his attachment
to the Protestant Church of England. His practical mind
remained satisfied with the doctrines of his youth ; and he
never showed that he had studied the great religious con
troversies, or that he understood the great religious move
ments of his day.
In 1809, being then in his twenty-second year, he was
brought into parliament for the close borough of Cashel,
which he afterwards exchanged for Chippenham, and
commenced his parliamentary career under the eye of his
father, then member for Tamworth, who fondly saw in
him the future leader of the Tory party. Pitt, Fox, and
Burke were gone. Sheridan shone with an expiring ray.
But in that House of Commons sat Wilberforce, Windham,
Tierney, Grattan, Perceval, Castlereagh, Plunkett, Romilly,
Mackintosh, Burdett, Whitbread, Horner, Brougham, Par-
nell, Huskisson, and, above all, George Canning. Lord
Palmerston entered the house at the same time, and Lord
John Russell a few years afterwards. Among these men
young Peel had to rise. And he rose, not by splendid
eloquence, by profound political philosophy, or by great
originality of thought, but by the closest attention to all
his parliamentary duties, by a study of all the business of
parliament, which made him at length familiar with the
whole range of public questions and public interests, and
by a style of speaking which, owing its force not to high
flights of oratory, but to knowledge of the subject in
hand, clearness of exposition, close reasoning, and tact in
dealing with a parliamentary audience, backed by the
character and position of the speaker, improved with his
information, practice, station, and experience till it gave
him an unrivalled command over the House of Commons.
The Tory party was then all-powerful at home ; while abroad
Europe was at the feet of Napoleon. But Napoleon's for
tune was about to turn ; and, with the close of the struggle
against revolutionary France, political progress in England
was soon to resume the march which that struggle had
arrested. Young Peel's lot, however, was cast, through
his father, with the Tory party. In his maiden speech in
1810, seconding the address, he defended the Walcheren
expedition, which he again vindicated soon afterwards
against the report of Lord Porchester's committee. It is
said that even then Lord Liverpool discerned in him a
dangerous tendency to think for himself, and told his
father that he must be put at once into the harness of
office. At all events he began official life as Lord Liver
pool's private secretary, and shortly afterwards, in 1811,
was made under -secretary for the colonies by Perceval.
In 1812 he was transferred by Lord Liverpool to the more
important but unhappy post of secretary for Ireland.
There he was engaged till 1817 in maintaining, by insur
rection Acts and other repressive measures, English and
Protestant ascendency over a country heaving with dis
content, teeming with conspiracy, and ever ready to burst
into rebellion. A middle course between Irish parties was
impossible. Peel became, by the necessity of his situa
tion, " Orange Peel," and plied the established engines of
coercion and patronage with a vigorous hand. At the
same time, it was his frequent duty to combat Grattan,
Plunkett, Canning, and the other movers and advocates
of Catholic emancipation in the House of Commons. He,
however, always spoke on this question with a command
of temper wonderful in hot youth, with the utmost courtesy
towards his opponents, and with warm expressions of sym
pathy and even of admiration for the Irish people. Nor
was the ground he took against the Catholics that of
religious principle never to be abandoned, but that of
political expediency, which political necessity might over
come. He also, thus early, did his best to advocate and
promote secular education in Ireland as a means of recon
ciling sects and raising the character of the people. He
materially improved the conduct of ordinary business in
his office, and gave great satisfaction to merchants and
others with whom he had to deal. But his greatest
service to Ireland as secretary was the institution of the
regular Irish constabulary, nicknamed after him " Peelers,"
for the protection of life and property in a country where
both were insecure. His moderation of tone did not save
him from the violent abuse of O'Connell, whom he, young,
hot-tempered (though his temper was generally under con
trol), and sensitive on the point of honour, was ill advised
enough to challenge, — an affair which covered them both
with ridicule. In 1817 he obtained the highest parlia
mentary distinction of the Tory party by being elected
member for the university of Oxford, — an honour for which
he was chosen in preference to Canning on account of his
hostility to Catholic emancipation, Lord Eldon lending
454
PEEL
him his best support. In the following year he resigned
the Irish secretaryship, of the odious work of which he
had long been very weary, and remained out of office till
1822. But he still supported the ministers with official
zeal, even in the question of the " Peterloo massacre." In
the affair of Queen Caroline, however, he stood somewhat
aloof, disapproving some steps taken by the Government,
and sensitive to popular opinion ; and when Canning
retired on account of this affair Peel declined Lord Liver
pool's invitation to take the vacant place in the cabinet.
During this break in his tenure of office he had some time
for reflexion, which there was enough in the aspect of the
political world to move. But early office had done its
work. It had given him excellent habits of business,
great knowledge, and a high position ; but it had left him
somewhat stiff, somewhat punctilious, somewhat too cold
and reserved to win the hearts of those whose confidence
he might command, and somewhat over anxious for formal
justifications when he might well have left the essential
patriotism and probity of his conduct to the judgment of
men of honour and the heart of the people. At the same
time he was no pedant in business ; in corresponding on
political subjects he loved to throw off official forms and
communicate his views with the freedom of private corre
spondence ; and, where his confidence was given, it was
given without reserve.
At this period he was made chairman of the bullion
committee on the death of Homer. He was chosen for
this important office by Huskisson, Ricardo, and their
fellow-economists, who saw in him a mind open to con
viction, though he owed hereditary allegiance to Pitt's
financial policy, and had actually voted with his Pittite
father for a resolution of Lord Liverpool's Government
denying the existence of any depreciation in the paper
currency. The choice proved judicious. Peel was con
verted to the currency doctrines of the economists, and
proclaimed his conversion in a great speech on the 24th
of May 1819, in which he moved and carried four reso
lutions embodying the recommendations of the bullion
committee in favour of a return to cash payments. This
laid the foundation of his financial reputation, and his
co-operation Avith the economists tended to give a liberal
turn to his commercial principles. In the course he
took he somewhat diverged from his party, and parti
cularly from his father, who remained faithful to Pitt's
depreciated paper, and between whom and his schismatic
son a solemn and touching passage occurred in the debate.
The author of the Cash Payments Act had often to defend
his policy, and he did so with vigour. The Act is some
times said to have been hard on debtors, including the
nation as debtor, because it required debts to be paid in
cash which had been contracted in depreciated paper ;
and Peel, as heir to a great fundholder, was even charged
with being biassed by his personal interests. But it is
answered that the Bank Restriction Acts, under which the
depreciated paper had circulated, themselves contained a
provision for a return to cash payments six months after
peace.
In 1820 Peel married Julia, daughter of General Sir
John Floyd, who bore him five sons and two daughters.
Three of his sons, Robert, Frederick, and Arthur, have
followed him in holding parliamentary office, the youngest
being now (1884) speaker of the House of Commons;
while another, William, the sailor, has run a bright course
in another sphere, and found a glorious grave. The writers
who have most severely censured Sir Robert Peel as a
public man have suspended their censures to dwell on the
virtues and happiness of his private and domestic life. He
was not only a most loving husband and father but a true
and warm-hearted friend. In Whitehall Gardens or at
Drayton Manor he gladly opened his mind, wearied with
the cares of state, to the enjoyments of a circle in which it
was his pleasure and his pride to gather some of the most
distinguished intellects of the day. He indulged in free
and cheerful talk, in which he showed a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and a dry sarcastic humour, which often broke
out also in his speeches in the House of Commons. He
sought the conversation of men of science ; he took delight
in art, and was a great collector of pictures ; he was fond
of farming and agricultural improvements ; he actively
promoted useful works and the advancement of knowledge;
he loved making his friends, dependants, tenants, and
neighbours happy. And, cold as he was in public, even
to those whom he desired to win, yet in his gay and social
hour few men whose minds were so laden could be more
bright and genial than Sir Robert Peel.
In 1822 Peel consented to strengthen the enfeebled
ministry of Lord Liverpool by becoming home secretary ;
and in that capacity he had again to undertake the office
of coercing the growing discontent in Ireland, of which he
remained the real administrator, and had again to lead in
the House of Commons the opposition to the rising cause
of Catholic emancipation. In 1825, being defeated on the
Catholic question in the House of Commons, he wished to
resign office, but Lord Liverpool pleaded that his resigna
tion would break up the Government. He found a happier
and more congenial task in reforming and humanizing the
criminal law, especially those parts of it which relate to
offences against property and offences punishable by death.
The five Acts in which Peel accomplished this great work,
the first step towards a complete and civilized code, as
well as the great speech of 9th March 1826, in which he
opened the subject to the House, will form one of the most
solid and enduring monuments of his fame. Criminal law
reform was the reform of Romilly and Mackintosh, from
the hands of the latter of whom Peel received it. But the
masterly bills in which it was embodied were the bills of
Peel, — not himself a creative genius, but, like the founder
of his house, a profound appreciator of other men's creations,
and unrivalled in the power of giving them practical and
complete effect. This great measure, beyond the sphere of
party, was probably also another step in the emancipation
of Peel's mind.
In 1827 the Liverpool ministry was broken up by the
fatal illness of its chief, and under the new premier,
George Canning, Peel, like the duke of Wellington and
other high Tory members of Lord Liverpool's cabinet,
refused to serve. Canning and Peel were rivals ; but
we need not interpret as mere personal rivalry that
which was certainly, in part at least, a real difference of
connexion and opinion. Canning took a Liberal line, and
was supported by many of the Whigs ; the seceders were
Tories, and it is difficult to see how their position in Can
ning's cabinet could have been otherwise than a false one.
Separation led to public coolness and occasional approaches
to bitterness on both sides in debate. But there seems no
ground for exaggerated complaints against Peel's conduct.
Canning himself said to a friend that " Peel was the only
man who had behaved decently towards him." Their
private intercourse remained uninterrupted to the end ;
and Canning's son afterwards entered public life under
the auspices of Peel. The charge of having urged Catholic
emancipation on Lord Liverpool in 1825, and opposed
Canning for being a friend to it in 1827, made against
Sir Robert Peel in the fierce corn-law debates of 1846,
has been withdrawn by those who made it.
In January 1828, after Canning's death, the duke of
Wellington formed a Tory Government, in which Peel
was home secretary and leader of the House of Commons.
This cabinet, Tory as it was, did not include the impracti-
PEEL
455
cable Lord Eldon, and did include Huskisson and three
more friends of Canning. Its policy was to endeavour to
stave off the growing demand for organic change by ad
ministrative reform, and by lightening the burdens of the
people. The civil list was retrenched with an unsparing
hand, the public expenditure was reduced lower than it
had been since the Revolutionary war, and the import
of corn was permitted under a sliding scale of duties.
Peel also introduced into London the improved system of
police which he had previously established with so much
success in Ireland. But the tide ran too strong to be thus
headed. First the Government were compelled, after a
defeat in the House of Commons, to acquiesce in the
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Peel bringing
over their High Church supporters, as far as he could,
through Dr Lloyd, bishop of Oxford, his tutor at Christ
Church, and now his beloved friend and the partner of
his counsels in political matters affecting the interests of
the church. Immediately afterwards the question of
Catholic emancipation was brought to a crisis by the menac
ing power of the Catholic Association and the election of
O'Connell for the county of Clare. Peel expressed to
the duke of Wellington his conviction that the Catholic
question must be settled. The duke consented. The
consent of the king, which could scarcely have been
obtained except by the duke and Peel, was extorted,
withdrawn (the ministers being out for a few hours), and
again extorted ; and on the 5th of March 1829 Peel pro
posed Catholic emancipation in a speech of more than
four hours, which was listened to with unflagging atten
tion, and concluded amidst cheers which were heard in
Westminster Hall. The apostate was overwhelmed with
obloquy. Having been elected for the university of
Oxford as a leading opponent of the Catholics, he had
thought it right to resign his seat on being converted to
emancipation. His friends put him again in nomination,
but he was defeated by Sir 11. H. Inglis, though the great
majority of distinction and intellect was on his side. He
took refuge in the close borough of Westbury, whence he
afterwards removed to Tamworth, for which he sat till
his death. Catholic emancipation was forced on Peel by
circumstances ; but it was mainly owing to him that the
measure was complete, and based upon equality of civil
rights. This great concession, however, did not save the
Tory Government. The French Revolution of July 1830
gave fresh strength to the movement against them, though,
schooled by the past, they promptly recognized King Louis
Philippe. The parliamentary reform movement was joined
by some of their offended Protestant supporters. The
duke of Wellington committed them fatally against all
reform, first by cashiering Huskisson for voting in favour
of giving the forfeited franchise of East Retford to Bir
mingham, and then by a violent anti- reform declaration
in the House of Lords. The elections went against them
on the demise of the crown ; they were compelled, by
popular feeling, to put off the king's visit to the city;
they were beaten on Sir H. ParneU's motion for a com
mittee on the civil list, and resigned.
While in office, Peel succeeded to the baronetcy, Dray-
ton Manor, and a great estate by the death of his father
3d May 1830. The old man had lived to see his fondest
hopes fulfilled in the greatness of his son ; but he had also
lived to see that a father must not expect to. fix his son's
opinions,— above all, the opinions of such a son as Sir
Robert Peel, and in such an age as that which followed
the French Revolution.
The ability and obstinacy of Sir Robert Peel's resistance
to the Reform Bill won back for him the allegiance of his
party. His opposition was resolute, but it was temperate,
and not such as to inflame the fierce passions of the time,
delay the return of civil peace, or put an insurmountable
barrier between his friends and the more moderate among
their opponents. Once only he betrayed the suppressed
fire of his temper, in the historical debate of the 22d April
1831, when his speech was broken off by the arrival of the
king to dissolve the parliament which had thrown out
reform. He refused to join the duke of Wellington in the
desperate enterprise of forming a Tory Government at the
height of the storm, when the Grey ministry had gone
out on the refusal of the king to promise them an un
limited creation of peers. By this conduct he secured for
his party the full benefit of the reaction which he no
doubt knew was sure to ensue. The general election of
1832, after the passing of the Reform Bill, left him with
barely 150 followers in the House of Commons; but
this handful rapidly swelled under his management into
the great Conservative party. He frankly accepted the
Reform Act, stamped it as final, taught his party to
register instead of despairing, appealed to the intelligence
of the middle classes, whose new-born power he appreciated,
steadily supported the Whig ministers against the Radicals
and O'Connell, and gained every moral advantage which
the most dignified and constitutional tactics could afford.
The changes which the Reform Act necessarily drew with
it, such as municipal reform, he rather watched in the
Conservative interest than strongly opposed. To this
policy, and to the great parliamentary powers of its author,
it was mainly due that, in the course of a few years, the
Conservatives were as strong in the reformed parliament
as the Tories had been in the unreformed. It is vain to
deny the praise of genius to such a leader, though his
genius may have been of a practical, not of a speculative
or imaginative kind. The skill of a pilot who steered for
many years over such waters may sometimes have resem
bled craft. But the duke of Wellington's emphatic eulogy
on him was, " Of all the men I ever knew, he had the
greatest regard for truth." The duke might have added
that his own question, " How is the king's Government to
be carried on in a reformed parliament?" was mainly
solved by the temperate and constitutional policy of Sir
Robert Peel, and by his personal influence on the debates
and proceedings of the House of Commons during the
years which followed the Reform Act.
In 1834, on the dismissal of the Melbourne ministry,
power came to Sir Robert Peel before he expected or
desired it. He hurried from Rome at the call of the
duke of Wellington, whose sagacious modesty knew his
superior in politics and yielded him the first place, and
became prime minister, holding the two offices of first
lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer.
He vainly sought to include in his cabinet the two recent
seceders from the Whigs, Lord Stanley and Sir James
Graham. A dissolution gave him a great increase of
strength in the House, but not enough. He was outvoted
on the election of the speaker at the opening of the session
of 1835, and, after struggling on for six weeks longer, was
finally beaten, and resigned on the question of appropriat
ing the surplus revenues of the church in Ireland to
national education. His time had not yet come ; but the
capacity, energy, and resource he displayed in this short
tenure of office raised him immensely in the estimation
of the House, his party, and the country. Of the great
budget of practical reforms which he brought forward,
the plan for the commutation of tithes, the ecclesiastical
commission, and the plan for settling the question of
dissenters' marriages bore fruit, then or afterwards. His
scheme for settling the question of dissenters' marriages,
framed in the amplest spirit of liberality, was a striking
instance of his habit of doing thoroughly and without
reserve that which he had once made up his mind to do.
456
PEEL
From 1835 to 1840 he pursued the same course of
patient and far-sighted opposition, the end of which, sure
though distant, was not only office but power. In 1837
the Conservative members of the House of Commons, with
victory now in sight, gave their leader a grand banquet at
Merchant Taylors' Hall, where he proclaimed in a great
speech the creed and objects of his party. In 1839, the
Whigs having resigned on the Jamaica Bill, he was called
on to form a Government, but failed, through the refusal
of the queen, by advice of Lords John Russell and Palmer-
ston, to part with the ladies of her bedchamber, whom he
deemed it necessary to replace by ladies not connected with
his political opponents. His time was not even yet fully
come. In 1840 he was hurried, it is believed by the
ardour of his followers, into a premature motion of want
of confidence, which was brought forward by Sir John
Yarde Buller and failed. But in the following year a
similar motion was carried by a majority of one, and the
Whigs were compelled to appeal to the country. The
result was a majority of ninety- one against them on a
motion of want of confidence in the autumn of 1841,
upon which they resigned, and Sir Robert Peel, becoming
first lord of the treasury, with a commanding majority
in both Houses of Parliament, the country in his favour,
and many colleagues of the highest ability and distinction,
grasped with no doubtful hold the reins of power.
The crisis called for a master-hand. The finances were
in disorder. For some years there had been a growing
deficit, which for 1841 was upwards of two millions, and
attempts to supply this deficit by additions to assessed
taxes and customs duties had failed. Distress and discon
tent reigned in the country, especially among the trading
and manufacturing classes. The great financier took till
the spring of 1842 to mature his plans. He then boldly
supplied the deficit by imposing an income-tax on all in
comes above a certain amount. He accompanied this tax
with a reform of the tariff, by which prohibitory duties
were removed and other duties abated on a vast number
of articles of import, especially the raw materials of manu
factures and prime articles of food. The increased con
sumption, as the reformer expected, countervailed the
reduction of duty. The income-tax was renewed and the
reform of the tariff carried still further on the same prin
ciple in 1845. The result was, in place of a deficit of
upwards of two millions, a surplus of five millions in 1845,
and the removal of seven millions and a half of taxes up
to 1847, not only without loss, but with gain to the ordi
nary revenue of the country. The prosperous state of the
finances and of public affairs also permitted a reduction of
the interest on a portion of the national debt, giving a
yearly saving at once of £625,000, and ultimately of a
million and a quarter to the public. In 1844 another
great financial measure, the Bank Charter Act, was passed
and, though severely controverted and thrice suspended at
a desperate crisis, has ever since regulated the currency
of the country. In Ireland O'ConnelPs agitation for the
repeal of the Union had now assumed threatening propor
tions, and verged upon rebellion. The great agitator was
prosecuted, with his chief adherents, for conspiracy and
sedition ; and, though the conviction was quashed for in
formality, repeal was quelled in its chief. At the same
time a healing hand was extended to Ireland. The Chari
table Bequests Act gave Roman Catholics a share in the
administration of charities and legal power to endow their
own religion. The allowance to Maynooth was largely
increased, notwithstanding violent Protestant opposition.
Three queen's colleges, for the higher education of all the
youth of Ireland, without distinction of religion, were
founded, notwithstanding violent opposition, both Protest
ant and Roman Catholic. The principle of toleration, once
accepted, was thoroughly carried out. The last remnants
of the penal laws were swept from the statute-book, and
justice was extended to the Roman Catholic Church in
Canada and Malta. In the same spirit Acts were passed
for clearing from doubt Irish Presbyterian marriages, for
settling the titles of a large number of dissenters' chapels
in England, and removing the municipal disabilities of the
Jews. The grant for national education was trebled, and
an attempt was made, though in vain, to introduce effective
education clauses into the factory bills. To the alienation
of any part of the revenues of the Established Church Sir
Robert Peel never would consent ; but he had issued the
ecclesiastical commission, and he now made better provi
sion for a number of populous parishes by a redistribution
of part of the revenues of the church. The weakest part
of the conduct of this great Government, perhaps, was its
failure to control the railway mania by promptly laying
down the lines on a Government plan. It passed an Act
in 1844 which gave the Government a right of purchase,
and it had prepared a palliative measure in 1846, but was
compelled to sacrifice this, like all other secondary measures,
to the repeal of the corn laws. It failed also, though not
without an effort, to avert the great schism in the Church
of Scotland. Abroad it was as prosperous as at home.
It had found disaster and disgrace in Afghanistan. It
speedily ended the war there with honour. By the hand
of its governor-general of India the invading Sikhs were
destroyed upon the Sutlej. Guizot has said that the ob
jects — not only the ostensible but the real objects — of Sir
Robert Peel's foreign policy were peace and justice among
nations. The angry and dangerous questions with France,
touching the right of search, the war in Morocco, and the
Tahiti affair, and with the United States touching the
Maine boundary and the Oregon territory, were happily
settled by frank and patient negotiation. In this and in
other parts of his administration Sir Robert Peel was well
seconded by the ability of his colleagues, but the premier
himself was the soul of all.
Yet there was a canker in all this greatness. There
were malcontents in Sir Robert Peel's party whose presence
often caused embarrassment and twice collision and scan
dal. The Young Englanders disliked him because he had
hoisted the flag of Conservatism instead of Toryism on the
morrow of the Reform Bill. The strong philanthropists
and Tory Chartists disliked him because he was a strict
economist and an upholder of the new poor law. But the
fatal question was protection. That question was being
fast brought to a crisis by public opinion and the Anti-
Corn-Law League. Sir Robert Peel had become in prin
ciple a free-trader. Since his accession to power a new
responsibility had fallen on him, which compelled him to
think less of a class and more of the people. He had
expressed to Guizot a deep, nay, a passionate conviction
that something must be done to relieve the suffering and
precarious condition of the labouring classes. He had
lowered the duties of the sliding scale, and thereby caused
the secession from the cabinet of the duke of Buckingham.
He had alarmed the farmers by admitting foreign cattle
and meat under his new tariff, and by admitting Canadian
corn. He had done his best in his speeches to put the
maintenance of the corn laws on low ground, and to wean
the landed interest from their reliance on protection. But
to protection the landed interest fondly clung ; and it is
hard to say how far Sir Robert Peel himself dreaded the
consequences of repeal to the steadiness of prices and to
mortgaged estates. The approach of the Irish famine in
1845 decisively turned the wavering balance. The ports
must be opened, and, being opened, they could not again
be closed upon the same conditions. The Clare election
and Catholic emancipation were played over again. Sir
P E E — P E E
457
Robert proposed to his cabinet the repeal of the corn laws.
Lord Stanley and the duke of Buccleuch dissented, and
Sir Robert resigned. But Lord John Russell failed to
form a new Government. Sir Robert again came into
office ; and now, with the consent of all the cabinet but
Lord Stanley, who retired, he, in a great speech on 27th
January 1846, brought the repeal of the corn laws before
the House of Commons. In the long and fierce debate
that ensued he was overwhelmed, both by political and
personal enemies, with the most virulent invective, which
he bore with his wonted calmness, and to which he made
no retorts. His measure was carried ; but immediately
afterwards the offended protectionists, goaded by Lord
George Bentinck and Disraeli, coalesced with the Whigs,
and threw him out on the Irish Coercion Bill. He went
home from his defeat, escorted by a great crowd, who un
covered as he passed, and he immediately resigned. So fell
a Conservative Government which would otherwise have
probably ended only with the life of its chief. Those who
overthrew Sir Robert Peel have dwelt on what they natur
ally believe to have been the bitterness of his fall. It is
certain that he was deeply pained by the rupture with his
party, but it is doubtful whether otherwise his fall was so
bitter. For evening had begun to steal over his long day
of toil ; he had the memory of immense labours gone
through, and of great things achieved in the service of the
state ; he had a kingly position in the country, great
wealth, fine tastes, and a happy home.
Though out of office he was not out of power. He had
" lost a party, but won a nation." The Whig ministry
which succeeded him leant much on his support, with
which he never taxed them. He joined them in carrying
forward free-trade principles by the repeal of the naviga
tion laws. He joined them in carrying forward the prin
ciple of religious liberty by the bill for the emancipation
of the Jews. One important measure was his own. While
in office he had probed, by the Devon commission of
inquiry, the sores of Ireland connected with the owner
ship and occupation of land. In 1849, in a speech on the
Irish Poor Laws, he first suggested, and in the next year
he aided in establishing, a commission to facilitate the sale
of estates in a hopeless state of encumbrance. The Encum
bered Estates Act made no attempt, like later legislation,
to secure by law the uncertain customary rights of Irish
tenants, but it transferred the land from ruined landlords
to solvent owners capable of performing the duties of pro
perty towards the people. On the 28th of June 1850 Sir
Robert Peel made a great speech on the Greek question
against Lord Palmerston's foreign policy of interference.
This speech, being against the Government, was thought
to show that he was ready to return to office. It was
his last. On the following day he was thrown from his
horse on Constitution Hill, and mortally injured by the
fall. Three days he lingered in all the pain which
the quick nerves of genius can endure. On the fourth
(2d July 1850) he took the sacrament, bade a calm fare
well to his family and friends, and died ; and a great
sorrow fell on the whole land. All the tributes which
respect and gratitude could pay were paid to him by the
sovereign, by parliament, by public men of all parties,
by the country, by the press, and, above all, by the
great towns and the masses of the people to whom he
had given "bread unleavened with injustice." He would
have been buried among the great men of England in
Westminster Abbey, but his will desired that he might
be laid in Drayton church. It also renounced a peerage
for his family, as he had before declined the garter for
himself when it was offered him by the queen through
Lord Aberdeen.
Those who judge Sir Robert Peel will remember that he
was bred a Tory in days when party was a religion ; that
he entered parliament a youth, was in office at twenty -four
and secretary for Ireland at twenty-five ; that his public
life extended over a long period rife with change ; and that
his own changes were all forwards and with the advancing
intellect of the time. They will enumerate the great
practical improvements and the great acts of legislative
justice of those days — Catholic emancipation, freedom for
dissenters, free trade, the great reforms in police, criminal
law, currency, finance, the Irish Encumbered Estates Act,
even the encouragement of agricultural improvement by
loans of public money — and note how large a share Sir
Robert Peel had, if not in originating, in giving thorough
practical effect to all. They will observe that of what he
did nothing has been undone. They will reflect that as
a parliamentary statesman he could not govern without a
party, and that it is difficult to govern at once for a party
and for the whole people. They will compare his admin
istration with those that preceded and those that followed,
and the state and fortunes of his party when he was at its
head with its state and fortunes after his fall. They will
consider the peace and goodwill which his foreign policy
diffused over Europe. They will think of his ardent love
of his country, of his abstinence from intrigue, violence,
and faction, of his boundless labour through a long life
devoted to the public service. Whether he was a model
of statesmanship may be doubted. Models of statesman
ship are rare, if by a model of statesmanship is meant a
great administrator and party leader, a great political
philosopher, and a great independent orator, all in one.
But if the question is, whether he was a ruler loved and
trusted by the English people, there is no arguing against
the tears of a nation.
Those who wish to know more of him will consult his own post
humous memoirs, edited by his literary executors Earl Stanhope
and Viscount Card well ; the four volumes of his speeches ; a sketch
of his life and character by Sir Lawrence Peel ; an historical sketch
by Lord Bailing ; Guizot's Sir Robert Peel (1857) ; Kiinzel's Lcben
und Reden Sir Robert Peel's (1851) ; Disraeli's Life of Lord George
JBcniinck (1858) ; 3>lorley'sLifeofCobden; and the general histories
of the time. (G. S. — C. S. P.)
PEELE, GEORGE (1558-1598), was one of the group
of university poets with whom Shakespeare entered into
competition at the beginning of his career. His exact
age has been ascertained and the facts of his life diligently
searched out by Mr Dyce, the editor of his works. It
appears from a deposition made by him at Oxford that he
was twenty-five years old in 1583. He took his bachelor's
degree at Oxford in 1577, and his master's degree two
years afterwards. Before he reached middle age, Peele
was " driven to extreme shifts " for a living, and he be
came so notorious for disreputable practical jokes that a
body of " merrie conceited jests " was fathered upon him ;
but he began life brilliantly. He was "a noted poet at
the university." He married a woman of property.
When a distinguished foreigner was entertained at Christ
Church with elaborately -mounted plays and pageants,
Peele was entrusted with the superintendence of the show.
He was complimented in Latin pentameters on his trans
lation of one of the plays of Euripides. He wrote The
Arraignment of Paris, a bright little comedy with pretty
songs, for representation before Queen Elizabeth. This
was published in 1584; and in 1587 his friend Nash
declared him to be " the chief supporter of pleasance now
living, the atlas of poetry, and primus verborum artifejc."
From this brilliant height the reckless poet quickly slid
down to a much less respectable position, and acquired
renown of a different kind by his clever tricks on creditors,
tavern-keepers, and " croshabells." He began to write for
the common players, whose ingratitude to gentlemen of
education was bitterly deplored by his friend Greene. Of
XVIII. — 58
458
P E E — P E E
these productions the following have been preserved and
edited by Mr Dyce : — The Chronicle History of Edward
I. (published in 1593); The Battle of Alcazar (1594);
The Old Wives' Tale (1595); David and Betlwtbe (1599);
Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes (1599). These plays,
which are very different in kind, testify to Peele's versatility
and adroitness, but do not entitle him to much considera
tion either as a poet or as a dramatist. Quickness of wit
and fancy and a certain neatness of versification are their
highest qualities. As Peele lived through the transition
from the first tentative essays to the full maturity of the
great Elizabethan drama, his works have an historical
interest as showing what an ingenious man of culture
could do with the common stock of theatrical characters,
situations, and imagery. His comedies are often pretty,
but his tragedies are inflated and preposterous.
P E E E AGE
IT was remarked in the article XOBILITY (vol. xvii. pp.
529, 530) that the existence of the peerage, as that
word is understood in the three British kingdoms, is
something altogether peculiar to those kingdoms, and that
it has actually hindered them from possessing a nobility
Special of the Continental type. Before we try to trace out the
character history of the British peerage, it will be well to show
g ...e, more fully than was done in that article in what the insti-
peerage. tution consists, and in what it differs from those institu
tions in other countries which are most like it. And to
this end we must define what we understand by the word
peerage in the British sense. In its historical use it takes
in all the members or possible members of the House of
Lords and no other persons. But modern usage and
modern decisions seem to limit the use of the name on
one side, and to extend it on another. There is no kind
of doubt that, according to the earliest precedents — pre
cedents reaching up to the earliest official use of the word
peer — the spiritual lords are equally peers with the temporal.
But it has been held, at least from the 17th century, that
the spiritual lords, though lords of parliament equally with
the temporal lords, are not, like them, peers. Again, in
earlier times no peers were heard of except members of the
House of Lords, but membership of that House, even as
a temporal lord, was not necessarily hereditary. But a
decision of the present reign has ruled that a life-peerage
is possible, but that the holder of such a peerage has no
right to a seat as a lord of parliament. And an Act of
the present reign of later date has actually called into
being a class of lords who, it would seem, may possibly be
either lords of parliament without being peers, or peers
without being lords of parliament. These doctrines, some
of which trample all the facts of history under foot, but
which must be supposed to declare the modern law, establish
the possibility of peers who are not lords of parliament, as
well as of lords of parliament who are not peers. The
question whether all lords of parliament were peers has
been debated for several centuries; that all peers were in
esse or in posse lords of parliament, that the right to a seat
in parliament was the essence of peerage round which all
other rights have grown, was surely never doubted till the
year 1856.
Still these later doctrines, though founded on altogether
wrong historical grounds, give us a definition of peerage
which is intelligible and convenient. Setting aside the
possible peers who are not lords of parliament, the two
decisions between them rule that the parliamentary peer
age is confined to the temporal lords, and that, except in
the case of the very modern official lords, their peerage
is necessarily hereditary. This definition is convenient in
practice, because it is the hereditary temporal peerage
whose growth and constitution is of that unique kind which
distinguishes it from all other bodies which bear the same
name or which present any likeness to it in other ways.
It will save trouble in this inquiry if we use the word
peerage in what — with the possible exception of the last-
created official lords — seems now to be its legal sense, as
meaning the hereditary temporal peerage only.
In this sense then the peerage of England — continued Defii
after the union between England and Scotland in the peerage tion
of Great Britain, and after the union between Great Britain pem
and Ireland in the peerage of the United Kingdom — is
a body of men possessing privileges which are not merely
personal but hereditary, privileges which descend in all
cases according to some rule of hereditary succession, but
which pass only to one member of a family at a time. In
this the peerage differs from nobility strictly so called, in Its c
which the hereditary privileges, whatever they may con-tinct
sist in, pass on to all the descendants of the person first fro,™
created or otherwise acknowledged as noble. The essen
tial and distinguishing privilege of the peer, as defined
above, is that he is an hereditary lord of parliament, that
he has, by virtue of his birth, a right to a summons from
the crown to attend personally in every parliament and to
take his seat in the House of Lords. He is thus, by right
of birth, a member of the great council of the nation, an
hereditary legislator, and an hereditary judge. Whatever
other privileges, substantial or honorary, the peer may pos
sess, they have all gathered round this central privilege,
which is that which distinguishes the peer from all other
men. The peer of parliament thus holds a different position
from the lords spiritual, equally lords of parliament with
himself, but holding their seats by a different tenure from
that of an hereditary peerage. He holds a different position
from the possible non-parliamentary peers implied in the
decision of 1856. He holds a different position from the
official lords of parliament created by the last Act. The
number of the peerage is unlimited ; the crown may raise
whom it will to any of its ranks ; but it is now understood
that, in order to make the persons so raised peers in the
full sense, to 'make them lords of parliament, the creation
must extend to their heirs of some kind as well as to
themselves.
The special character of the British peerage, as distin
guished from privileged orders in any other time or place,
springs directly from the fact that the essence of the
peerage is the hereditary right of a personal summons to
parliament. To determine the origin of the peerage is
thus to determine how a certain body of men came to
possess this hereditary right of summons. But, before we
enter on this inquiry, one or two remarks will be needful
which are naturally suggested by the definition of peerage
which has just been given.
It has been said above that the holder of a peerage as Posit
defined is a lord of parliament in esse or in posse. It has °^
become necessary during the present and last centuries to an(1 ]
add these last words to the definition. For it is plain peers
that, since the successive unions of England and Scotland
and of Great Britain and Ireland, an hereditary peerage
has not always in practice carried with it a seat in the
House of Lords (cf. the Lords' Report on the Dignity of
a Peer, ii. 16). For since those unions certain persons,
namely those peers of Scotland and Ireland who are not
representative peers and who do not hold peerages of Eng
land, of Great Britain, or of the United Kingdom, have been
undoubted peers, they have enjoyed some or all of the per-
PEERAGE
459
Q\stion
a: o the
p rage
o he
Ids
,s] itual.
>ne of
p-s.
sonal privileges of peerage, but they have had no seats in the
House of Lords. But this is a modern accident and anomaly.
The persons spoken of hold peerages which entitled their
holders to seats in the parliaments of Scotland and Ireland
as long as those parliaments were distinct bodies. And
their present holders, if not members of the House of
Lords in esse, are such in posse. They have a capacity for
being chosen to seats in that House which is not shared by
other persons. Their membership of the House is rather
suspended than altogether taken away. Their rather
anomalous case hardly affects the general principle that,
as far as the hereditary peerage is concerned, peerage and
membership of the House of Lords are the same thing.
A few words are also needed as to the effect of the
earlier doctrine which rules that peerage is an attribute
of the lords temporal only and not of the lords spiritual
(see Lords' Report, i. 323, 393 ; ii. 75). This is doubtless
meant to imply a certain inferiority on the part of the
spiritual lords, as not sharing in that nobility of blood
which is looked on as the special attribute of the heredi
tary peerage. But the inferiority thus implied, as it has
nothing to do with parliamentary powers, has also nothing
to do with precedence. The lords spiritual as a body are
always mentioned first ; one class of them, namely the
archbishops, take precedence of all temporal peers who are
not of the royal family, as the other bishops take preced
ence of the temporal barons. What the distinction is con
cerned with is simply certain personal privileges, such as
the right of being tried by the court of our lord the king
in parliament, that is by the House of Lords or some part
of it, instead of in the ordinary way by a jury. The
doctrine which denies "peerage" to the spiritual lords
is altogether contrary to earlier precedents ; but the way
in which it came about is one of the most curious parts of
our inquiry. It was the natural result of the ideas under
whose influence the temporal peerage grew up and put on
its distinguishing character.
The use of the word peers (pares) to denote the members
of the House of Lords first appears in the 14th century,
and it was fully established before the end of that century.
The name seems to be rather a direct importation from
Prance than anything of natural English or even Norman
growth. In the 12th and 13th centuries the great men
of the realm appear under various names, English, Latin,
and French, ivitan, sajnentes, magnates, proceres, grantz,
and the like ; they are pares only incidentally, as other
men might be. In the Great Charter the word pares,
in the phrase judicium parium, has simply the general
meaning which it still keeps in the rule that every man
shall be tried by his peers, the peer (in the later sense)
by his peers and the commoner by his. In the 13th
century this seems to have still been the only meaning of
the word in England. This is illustrated by the story of
Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester (see R. Wendover,
iv. 277 ; M. Paris, ed. Luard, iii. 252 ; Stubbs, Const.
Hist., ii. 48, 183), when in 1233 the right of being tried
by their peers was asserted on behalf of Richard earl
Marshall, and others. The bishops and other lords exhort
the king to make peace with certain of his nobles and
other subjects, " quos absque judicio parium exsulaverat,"
&c. The Poitevin bishop, either through ignorance or
of set purpose, misunderstood the phrase, and answered
that in England there were no peers (pares) as there
were in France, and that therefore the king might deal
with all his subjects as he chose by means of his own
justices only.1 The word pares is here clearly used in one
sense and understood in another. The English lords used
1 "Quod non suut pares in Anglia, sicut in regno Francorum, unde
licet regi Anglorum per justitiarios quos constituent quoslibet de
regno suo exulare et mediante judicio coudemnare. "
the word in its older general sense ; Peter des Roches used
it in the special sense which it bore in France. Neither
used it in the sense which it took in the next century. It
was perfectly true that there Avas in England no body of
men answering to the peers of France, of whom we shall
speak presently. But there is every likelihood that the
name, as describing a particular body of men in England,
was borrowed from the peers of France.
But the thing is more important than the name. What
ever view may be taken of the constitution of the ancient
Witenagem6t, we may safely assume that that assembly,
with whatever change in its constitution, is personally
continued in the House of Lords. That house consists House of
of two classes of men who have never lost their right Lords ;
to a personal summons, together with certain other classes j^JT1"
who have acquired that right in later times. Two constitu-
classes of men, namely earls and bishops, have, with a tion ; the
certain interval in the 17th century, sat continuously bishops
in the councils of the nation from the earliest times. an(iearls-
These two classes are those whose presence connects the
earliest and the latest English assemblies. From the time
when the House of Lords began to take anything like its
present shape, other classes of men, spiritual and temporal,
were summoned as well as the bishops and earls, but
not with the same regularity as they were. Some abbots
were always summoned from the beginning, and a few
other churchmen afterwards obtained the same right.
But, while every bishop — except in a few cases of personal
enmity on the part of the king — was summoned as a
matter of course, there was great irregularity in summon
ing of abbots. So some barons were always summoned
as well as the earls ; but, while every earl was — with a few
such exceptions as in the case of the bishops — summoned
as a matter of course, there was great irregularity in sum
moning the barons. The bishops and earls in short were
personages too great to be left out ; so were a few of the
greatest abbots. Lesser men, spiritual or temporal, might
be summoned or not according to a hundred reasons of
convenience, caprice, or accident. But it is only the common
tendency of things that the occasional summons should
grow into the perpetual summons, and that the perpetual
summons should, wherever it was possible, that is, in the
case of the temporal lords, grow into the hereditary sum
mons. In other words, the doctrine was gradually estab- Growth
lished that, when a man was once summoned, a right of of the.
summons was created for him and his heirs for ever. The j16
establishment of this doctrine called into being a new order triue
of men, of lower rank than the bishops and earls but of
equal parliamentary power, namely the class of barons
having an hereditary right to seats in parliament. Pre
sently, in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, the
ranks of the temporal peerage were increased by the in
vention of new orders, those of duke, marquess, and vis
count, the two former classes taking precedence of the
ancient earls.
It is easy to see how the growth of these several classes New
of hereditary lords of parliament tended to strengthen the position
notion of the temporal peerage as a body by itself, apart of the
from all other men, even from those lords of parliament ^e
whose seats were not hereditary. Here were five classes of
men who were not peers in the sense of strict equality
among themselves, for they were divided by rigid rules of
precedence, but who were peers in the sense of having each
of them an equal right to something peculiar to themselves,
something which was so far from being shared with any
who were not lords of parliament that it was not shared by
all who were. The archbishop took precedence of the duke,
the bishop took precedence of the baron ; but duke and
baron alike shared in something which archbishop and
bishop had not, the hereditary right to a summons to
460
PEERAGE
Doctrine
of the en
nobling
of blood.
Peerage
hinders
nobility.
parliament. The peerage of the temporal lord came to be
looked on as something inherent in the blood, something
which could not, like the official seat of the churchman, be
resigned or lost by any means except by such legal pro
cesses as involved "corruption of blood." The parlia
mentary powers, the formal precedence, of the spiritual
lords were not touched, but the idea silently grew that
they were not the peers of the hereditary members of the
House. In short, the doctrine grew that the temporal lords
alone were peers, as alone having their blood " ennobled,"
which is the herald's way of saying that they held their
seats by hereditary right. The extinction of so many
temporal peerages in the Wars of the Roses, the creation
of so many new peerages under the Tudors, while in one
way they lowered the strength and dignity of the order,
in another way helped more and more to mark it out as a
separate order, distinct from all others.
But the spiritual lords were not the only class that lost
by the growth of the doctrine of hereditary peerage. No
doctrine about blood or peerage could get rid of the fact
that the parliamentary position of the bishops and the
greater abbots was as old as that of the earls, far older
than that of the barons, to say nothing of the ranks more
lately devised. But there was another body of men whom
the growth of the hereditary doctrine hindered from be
coming peers, and from becoming lords of parliament in any
full sense. These were the judges. As the judges grew to
be a distinct and recognized class, they came to be sum
moned to parliament like the barons. The same reason
which made it expedient to summon bishops, earls, and
barons, made it expedient to summon judges also. It
would not have been unreasonable if, in the many shiftings
and experiments which took place before the constitution
of the two Houses finally settled itself, the judges had come
to hold official seats in the House of Lords in the same
way as the bishops. But the growth and strengthening of
the hereditary doctrine hindered the judges as a body from
ever winning the same position in parliament as the bishops
and abbots. They had not the same antiquity ; they had
not the same territorial position ; their tenure was less
secure ; the spiritual lord might lose his office by resigna
tion or by a legal process ; the judge might lose his by the
mere arbitrary will of the sovereign. The bishops then
could be denied the right of personal peerage ; they could
not be denied their full parliamentary position, their seats
and votes. But the same feeling which deprived the
bishop of his personal peerage hindered the judge from
ever obtaining the personal peerage, and even from obtain
ing a full seat and vote in parliament. Owing to these
influences, the judges have ever held an anomalous position
in parliament ; they came to be in a manner in the House
of Lords but not of it, to be its counsellors and assessors,
but not its members.
The growth of the hereditary doctrine pressed hardly,
we must allow, on both bishops and judges. But its
working on either of those classes has been of small
moment indeed compared with the effect on the nation at
large. There is no institution for which England has
greater reason to be thankful than for her hereditary
peerage ; for, as we began by saying, it has saved her from
the curse of a nobility. Or rather, to speak more accurately,
the growth of the peerage with its comparatively harmless
privileges hindered the real nobility from keeping or
winning privileges which would have been anything but
harmless. If the word nobility has any real meaning, it
must, according to the analogy of lands where there is a
real nobility, take in all who bear coat-armour by good
right (see NOBILITY). It is a remark which has been
made a thousand times, and no remark can be truer, that
countless families which would be reckoned as noble any
where else are not reckoned as noble in England. That is
to say, though they may be rich and ancient, though they
may claim an illustrious pedigree and may be able to
prove their claim, yet they have nothing to do with the
peerage. In England no family is looked upon as noble
unless its head is a peer. In other words, the idea of peerage
has altogether displaced the older idea of nobility. The
growth of the order of peers has hindered the growth of any
nobility apart from the peerage. The hereditary dignity
of the peer, the great political position which it carries
with it, stands so immeasurably above any hereditary
dignity which attaches to the simple gentleman by coat-
armour, that the gentleman by coat-armour — the noble of
other lands — ceased in England to be looked on, or rather
perhaps never came to be looked on, as noble at all. In
other words, the growth of the peerage saved the country
from the curse of a nobility after the fashion of the nobility
of France or of Germany. The difference in this respect
between England and other lands is plain at first sight,
and there really seems no other way to explain the differ
ence except that every notion of hereditary dignity and
privilege gathered so exclusively round the hereditary
peerage as to leave nothing of any account to gather
round any smaller hereditary position.
But, while the growth of the peerage thus hindered the
growth of a nobility of which every gentleman should be
a member, it was still possible that a real nobility might
have grown up out of the peerage itself. That is to say,
it might have come about that, while none but the descend
ants of peers were privileged, all the descendants of peers
should be privileged. A nobility might thus have been
formed, much smaller than a nobility taking in all lawful
bearers of coat-armour, but still a nobility by no means
small. But in England no such nobility has ever grown
up. No one has any substantial privilege except the peer
himself. No one in short is noble but the peer himself.
Even in common speech, though we speak of a noble family,
we do not personally apply the word noble to any other
member of that family, unless, in the case of the higher
ranks of the peerage, to a few immediate descendants of
the peer. In short, while the blood of the peer is said
to be ennobled, it is ennobled with a nobility so high and
rare that it cannot pass to more than one at a time even
of his own descendants (see the plain speaking of Dr
Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 443). The eldest son of a duke is
legally a commoner ; the children of his younger sons are
not only legally but socially undistinguishable from other
commoners. That is to say, the hereditary possession of
the peer is not nobility at all in the sense which that
word bears in other lands. It is a fiction to say that the
peer's blood is ennobled, when the inheritors of his blood
are not inheritors of his nobility. In short, as there is
no nobility outside the families whose heads are peers,
neither is there any real nobility within those families.
As the growth of the hereditary peerage made nobility
impossible outside the families of peers, so the particular
form of its growth made true nobility impossible even
within those families. For, after all, the essence of
peerage is simply that the peer becomes by birth what
other men become either by royal nomination or by popu
lar election. The official origin of the peer still cleaves
to him. The best description of his position is that he
holds a great hereditary office. His place as legislator and
judge is in itself as strictly official as the dignity of the
bishop or the sheriff; but, as, unlike the dignity of the
bishop and the sheriff, it has become hereditary, something
of the magic sentiment of hereditary descent has spread
itself over its actual holder and over a few of his immediate
descendants. But, as the dignity is in itself official, the
hereditary sentiment has not been able to go further than
PEERAGE
461
in, of
=e?e
"m"
>; -ast
t ^er~
this ; it has not prevailed so far as to establish any nobility
or any privilege of any kind for all the descendants of the
hereditary legislator and hereditary judge.
This result was further strengthened by the peculiar
nature of the office which became hereditary in the peers
of England; it is an office which can be discharged only
in concert with others; the very essence of the peerage
is the summons to take part in the proceedings of an
assembly. In itself nothing is more natural than the
growth of nobility out of office ; it is as one of the chief
ways in which nobility has come into being. And, to
take a position higher than that of mere nobility, men in
other lands whose dignity was in its beginning yet more
purely official than that of the peers of England, say the
dukes and counts of Germany, contrived, not only to make
their offices hereditary but to make at least their honorary
privileges extend to all their descendants for ever and ever.
That is to say, they grew into a nobility — a nobility to be
sure within a wider nobility — in the strictest sense. Why
did not the English peerage do the same ? For two reasons,
which are in truth different forms of the same reason,
different results of the fact that the royal power was so
much stronger in England than it was in Germany. One
is because the growth of the dukes and counts of Germany
belongs to a much earlier state of things than the growth
of the English peerage, to a state of things when national
unity and the royal authority, though much stronger than
they were afterwards, were much less firmly established
than they were in England in the age when the hereditary
peerage grew up. But partly also, and chiefly, because
the dignity and authority of the German duke or count
was mainly a local and personal dignity and authority, a
dignity and authority which he held in himself and exer
cised apart from his fellows, while the dignity and autho
rity of the English peer was one which he could hold and
exercise only in partnership with his fellows. To the
German duke or count his position in the national assembly
was the least important part of his powers ; to the English
peer it was the essence of his whole position. After the
purely official character of the earldoms had died out, the
English peer was nothing apart from his brother peers.
His greatness was the greatness of the member of a power
ful assembly. He might be hereditary legislator and
hereditary judge ; but he could not act as either except in
concert with all the other hereditary legislators and here
ditary judges. The earls and bishops of England, each
by himself, might, if the royal authority had been weaker,
have grown into princes, like the dukes and bishops of
Germany. The earls, after the change in their character,
and the other ranks of peerage from their beginning,
were shown to be simple subjects by the very nature of
their dignity and power. The position of the German
duke or count doubtless came from a royal grant ; but it
was from a royal grant of some distant age. The position
of the English peer rested altogether on a writ from the
crown, and that not a writ of past ages, but a writ which,
though it could not be refused, needed to be renewed in
each successive parliament. In other lands the assembly
of the nobles was great and powerful because it was an
assembly of great and powerful men ; in England the peer
was great and powerful because he was a member of a
great and powerful assembly. A parliamentary dignity of
this kind, even when it became strictly hereditary, was
very different from the quasi princely position of the great
nobles of other lands. And, though the peer commonly had
a great local position, sometimes an almost princely position,
it was not as peer that he held it. Whatever might be
his local dignity and local rights, they had nothing to do
with his peerage ; they were shared in his degree by the
smallest lord of a manor. In short, the hereditary dignity
6
of the peer, hereditary membership of the great council
of the nation, was on the one hand so transcendent as to
extinguish all other hereditary dignities; on the other
hand, as resting on membership of an assembly, it could
not well grow into nobility in the strictest sense. The
peerage therefore, the office of hereditary legislator and
hereditary judge, passed, and such nobility as it conferred
passed with it, to one member only of the family at a time.
The other members had no share in the office, and therefore
had no share in the nobility which it conferred.
It was then in this way that the peerage, growing out of
the hereditary summons to parliament, hindered the growth
of any nobility outside the families of peers and by the same
means hindered the growth of any real nobility within their
families. To the existence of the peerage then, more than Equality
to any other cause, England owes its happy freedom from of a11
the curse of a really privileged class, the happy equality in 'T j
the eye of the law of all men who are not actually peers, — peen
an equality which reaches so high that the children of the
sovereign himself, whatever may be their personal honours
and precedence, are, unless they are formally created peers,
in the eye of the law commoners like other men. The
privileges of the actual peerage have been a small price to
pay for such a blessing as this. But we must remember
that this happy peculiarity, like all other features in the
English constitution, came about by accident, or more truly
by the silent working of historical circumstances. As no Silent
English lawgiver ever decreed in so many words that there growth
should be two Houses of Parliament and not one, three, or ° e
four — as no lawgiver ever decreed in so many words that
one of these Houses should be elective and the other here
ditary or official — so no lawgiver ever decreed in so many
words that the children of the hereditary lord of parliament
should be in no way partaker of his privileges. All these
things came of themselves ; we cannot point to any parti
cular enactment which established any of them, or to any
particular moment when they were established. Like
everything else, they grew by usage, not by enactment ;
later enactments confirmed them or took them for granted
(see Lords' Report, i. 47, 483 ; ii. 25). But we can see
that the rule which has established but one form of real Constitu-
distinction among Englishmen, that which parts the actual tion of
peer and the commoner, grew out of the way in which H'oUS^°
the elements of the parliament finally settled themselves, gradu-
The parliamentary line was in the end drawn between the allyfixed.
baron and the knight. One is rather surprised that it was
drawn at that point. The gap between the earl and the
baron, and again the gap between the knight and the
citizen, might either of them seem wider than the gap
between the baron and the knight. Yet in the end the
barons were lifted up to the fellowship of bishops and earls,
while the knights were thrust down to the fellowship of
citizens and burgesses. This must have done much to hinder
the knightly families, families which in any other land would
have ranked as noble, from keeping or claiming any strictly
hereditary privilege. On the other hand, as we have al
ready seen, the nature of that privilege of peerage which
the barons were admitted to share hindered the baronial
families from claiming any fresh hereditary privilege be
yond the hereditary transmission of the peerage itself.
Such is a general view of the nature and origin of
peerage in England, following at greater length the lines
already traced out in the article ENGLAND. This view
may now be confirmed by a few of the special facts and The Wit-
dates which stand out most conspicuously in that course enage-
of events which led to the received doctrine of peerage. ^u^jn"
We assume the House of Lords as the personal continua- jn the
tion of the ancient Witenagemot, Mycel Gemot, Magnum House
Concilium, by whatever name we choose to call that im- of Lords.
462
PEERAGE
The
barons.
Greater
and
lesser
barons.
The
greater
barons
sum
moned
person
ally.
Irregu
larity of
the sum
mons.
memorial body which, whatever was its constitution, was
certainly not representative in the sense of being elective.
Alongside of this older body grew up that newer repre
sentative and elective body which became the House of
Commons. We may best place the beginnings of the
peerage at the point when we can distinctly see that barons
are personally summoned to the one House, while knights
find their way into the other only by election. It hardly
needs to be explained that the word baron, originally
meaning simply man, has in itself nothing to do with
peerage or with seats in parliament. Survivals of its
earlier and wider meaning may still be traced in the titles
of the Barons of the Exchequer and the Barons of the
Cinque Ports, and in other uses of the word, more common
perhaps in Scotland and Ireland than in England. Baro
often translates the older English thegn, and perhaps neither
of these names is very easy to define. By the 1 3th century
the name baron had come specially to mean the highest
class among the king's lay tenants-in-chief under the rank
of earl ; the baron was the holder of several knight's fees.
In a wider and vaguer sense, the word often takes in both
the earls and the spiritual lords. In its narrower sense
it means those who were barons and not more than barons.
As the practice of personal summons to parliament came
in, the barons formed a class of men who might reasonably
hope or fear, as the case might be, that the personal
summons might come to them ; and to many of them it
did come. And its coming or not coming established a
distinction between two classes of barons. A distinction
between greater and lesser barons is implied in the Great
Charter (c. xiv.), which asserts the right of the "majores
barones " to a personal summons along with the arch
bishops, bishops, abbots, and earls, while the other tenants-
in-chief — among them by implication such barons as did
not come under the head of majores — were to be summoned
generally by the sheriff. And this ordinance must be taken
in connexion with the earlier writ of 1215 (Selden, Titles of
Honour, 587 ; Stubbs, Select Charters, 278, and Const. Hist.,
i. 568), in which the sheriff is bidden to summon the knights
in arms, and the barons without arms, and also four discreet
men from each shire, "ad loquendum nobisciim de negotiis
regni nostri," that is, in other words, to a parliament. The
Charter thus secures to the greater barons, as a separate
class, the right of. being personally summoned by the king,
and not by the sheriff along with other men. It parts
them off from other tenants-in-chief and puts them along
side of the prelates and earls. These two documents be
tween them may be taken as giving us at once the first
distinct approach to the notion of peerage and the first
distinct approach to the notion of representation. The
" majores barones " are not defined ; but the summons sup
plied the means of defining them, or rather it became a
means of making them the only barons. As the summons
became hereditary, barons came more and more to be
looked on simply as a class of men who had seats in the
House of Lords. The word came to mean a rank in the
peerage, and it was gradually forgotten that there ever
had been territorial barons who had no claim to seats in
parliament.
But it was only by slow degrees that the hereditary
summons, or even the necessary summons of every man
who had once been summoned, became the established
rule. Throughout the 13th century the language in which
the national assembly is spoken of is wonderfully shifting.
Sometimes its constitution seems more popular, sometimes
less so. Sometimes its more dignified members are spoken
of vaguely under such names as magnates, without dis
tinction into particular classes. But, when particular classes
are reckoned up, the barons always form one class among
them ; but the number of barons summoned varies greatly.
The Charter gives the majores barones the right of personal
summons ; but the majores barones are not as yet a defined
and undoubted class of men like the bishops and earls.
None but the holder of a barony in the territorial sense
was likely to be summoned ; but the king still had a wide
choice as to whom among the holders of such baronies he
would acknowledge as majores barones ; and we find that
dissatisfaction was caused by the way in which the king
exercised this power. In 1255 there is a remarkable notice
in Matthew Paris (v. 520, ed. Luard ; cf. Hallam, Middle
Ages,i\. 153) where the "magnates "complain that all of their
number had not been summoned according to the Charter,
and they therefore decline to grant an aid in the absence
of their peers.1 It is possible that some bishops or earls
may, for some personal reason, have been left unsummoned,
but the complaint is far more likely to haye come from the
barons specially so called. Here the word pares is still
used in its more general sense, but it is used in a way that
might easily lead to its special use. On the other hand,
it has been alleged that, by a statute of the later years of
Henry III., it was formally ordained that no barons, or
even earls, should come to parliament, except those whom
the king should specially summon (see Selden, Titles of
Honour, 589; Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 142; Stubbs,
Const. Hist., ii. 203). The existence of such a statute
may be doubted ; but, as far as the barons are concerned,
the story fairly expresses the facts of the case. Under First
Edward I. an approach, to say the least, is made to the sisns (
creation of a definite class of parliamentary barons. Dr ^l16
Stubbs marks the year 1295 as "the point of time f rom simim(
which the regularity of the baronial summons is held to
involve the creation of an hereditary dignity, and so to
distinguish the ancient qualification of barony by tenure
from that of barony by writ" (Const. Hist., iii. 437). In
another passage (ii. 183) he thus marks the general result
of Edward's reign —
" The hereditary summoning of a large proportion of great vassals
was a middle course between the very limited peerage which in
France coexisted with an enormous mass of privileged nobility,
and the unmanageable, ever-varying assembly of the whole mass
of feudal tenants as prescribed in Magna Carta."
It may be thought that the hereditary nature of the
barony is here put a little too strongly for the days of
Edward I. One may certainly doubt whether Edward,
when he summoned a baron to parliament, meant positively
to pledge himself to summon that baron's heirs for ever
and ever, or even necessarily to summon the baron himself
to every future parliament. The facts are the other way ;
the summons still for a while remains irregular (see Nicolas,
Historic Peerage, xxiv., xxv., ed. Courthope ; Lords' Report,
ii. 29, 290). But the perpetual summons, the hereditary
summons, gradually became the rule, and that rule may in
a certain sense be said to date from 1295. That is, from
that time the tendency is to the perpetual summons, to the
hereditary summons; from that time anything else gradually
becomes exceptional (cf. Const. Hist., ii. 203 with iii. 439) ;
things had reached a point when the lawyers were sure
before long to lay down the rule that a single summons
implied a perpetual and an hereditary summons. It is not
too much to fix the reign of Edward I. as the time when
the hereditary parliamentary baronage began, without
rigidly ruling that the king could not after 1295 lawfully
refuse a summons to a man who had been summoned
already.
From this time then we may look on the class of par- Growtl
liamentary barons with succession as beginning arid steadily of H16
growing. And the admission of the barons had a great ^^
1 " Responsum fuit, quod onmes time temporis non fuerunt jnxta
tenorem magnse carte SUSP, et ideo sine paribus suis tune absentibus
mi Hum responsum dare vocati auxilium concedere aut prrestare."
baroM
PEERAGE
463
if , of
16 !•
1
,rs
effect on the position of the older members of the House,
the prelates and earls. It was in fact their admission
which gave the English peerage its distinctive character.
A house of earls, bishops, and great abbots would have
remained an official house. The earldom might pass from
father to son ; but it would pass as an hereditary office,
entitling its holder to a seat by virtue of his office, just like
those lords who held their seats by virtue of offices which
did not pass from father to son. Indeed we must not
forget the meaning of the word hereditary in early times.
It is applied to whatever goes by succession, whether that
succession is ruled by natural generation, by election or
nomination, or by any other way. The office and estate of
the bishop or abbot is hereditary in this sense ; it must
pass to some successor, and it is therefore often spoken of
as hereditary. Indeed, as long as the earl was appointed,
his office was hereditary only in the same sense as that of
the bishop. The only difference was that the office of the
bishop could not possibly become hereditary in the modern
sense, while the office of the earl easily might, and there
fore did. But, if the earls had continued to have no fellows
in the Upper House except the prelates, the earldom could
hardly have sunk into a mere rank. It was the addition
of a class which had no official position — save that which
their seats in parliament conferred upon them — a class
whose seats were first purely personal and then purely
hereditary in the modern sense, which helped more than
anything else to do away with the official character of the
earls. And in so doing it helped to widen the gap between
the spiritual and temporal lords. The earl and the baron
alike came to be looked on as sitting by some hereditary
virtue of descent ; their blood was said to be ennobled,
while the bishop and the abbot still sat only by what
might seem to be in some sort the lower claim of holding
an elective office.
Iml It is then to the days of Edward I. that we are to look,
11 v not strictly for the creation of peerage in the modern sense,
^ but for the beginning of a system out of which peerage in
\ h that sense very naturally grew. In the words of the great
5i3s. constitutional historian, Edward I. must,
" in the selection of a smaller number to be the constant recipi
ents of a summons, have introduced a constitutional change scarcely
inferior to that by which he incorporated the representatives of the
commons in the national council ; in other words, he created the
House of Lords as much as he created the House of Commons."
That is to say, he did not create the first elements of
either, which existed long before, nor did he give either
its final shape, which neither took till afterwards ; but
he established both in such a shape that all later changes
may be fairly looked on as merely changes in detail.
The succession of regular parliaments in the established
sense of the word thus begins in 1295, and from that time
we have a House of Lords consisting of prelates, earls, and
barons, of whom the barons are fast becoming hereditary
as well as the earls. But the body so formed is still
spoken of by various names (see Lords' Report, i. 273, 277,
279, 302, 316 — where we find the word nobles — et al.).
J use The earliest use of the word peer in anything like its present
sense is found in the Act against the Despensers, 1322
€ (Lords' Report, i. 281), where, as Bishop Stubbs says (Const.
Hist., ii. 183), "it is used so clumsily as to show that it
was in this sense a novelty." The words are "prelatz,
countes, baronnes, et les autres piers de la terre," and again
"nous piers de la terre, countes et barouns." It comes
again in the act of deposition of Richard II. (Lords' Report,
i. 349) in the form "pares et proceres regni Anglias, spirit-
uales et temporales." Nothing therefore can be plainer
than that the spiritual lords were looked on as peers no
less than the temporal. The point indeed was formally
settled at an intermediate time, namely by the Act of 1341
(Lords' Report, i. 313 ; Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 389), when Rights of
Archbishop Stratford secured the right of the peers (" piers the Peers
de la terre ") of both orders to be tried only by their peers ^oTJ
in parliament ("en pleyn parlement et devant les piers ou m
le roi se fait partie"). It is worth noticing that at this
point the Lords' Report stops to comment at some length
on the special position of the peerage now established. As
the committee puts it,
" The distinction of the peers of the realm as a separate class,
by privileges confined to themselves personally as peers, and not
extending to any others, but throwing at the same time all the
rest of the free population into one class, having all equal rights, is
a singularity which marks the constitution of the English govern
ment, and was first apparently clearly established by this statute
to which all the other subjects of the realm gave their assent."
And again they remark (p. 314) that
" the confinement of the privilege of peerage to those called the
peers of the realm, as a personal privilege, giving no privilege or
even legal rank to their families, and moulding all who had not
that privilege, however high their birth, into the mass of the
commons, has been considered an important feature in the consti
tution of the government of England. It may have prevailed, and
probably did in some degree prevail, before ; but by this statute
it was clearly and distinctly recognized."
This is true ; yet the object of the statute is not to shut
out the peers' children from privilege, but to assert the
disputed privilege of the peers themselves. The exclusion
of the peers' children from privilege is a mere inference,
though a necessary one. No legislator ever decreed in so
many words the exclusion of the children of peers from
privilege, because no legislator ever decreed in so many
words the privileges of the peers themselves.
By this time we may look on the position of the peerage The posi-
as fully established. It is now fully received, as at least t-ion of
the ordinary rule, that the baron who was once summoned tlie peer
should be always summoned, and that his right to the g^ab^
summons should pass to his representative after him (Lords' lished.
Report, ii. 28). In short the parliamentary position of baron
has become successive, a word answering pretty well to
hereditary in the older sense. A question might now arise
as to the nature of the succession, a question which could
not arise as long as the person summoned had no certainty
that he would be summoned again. In other words, was
it necessarily hereditary in the later sense of that word ?
That is to say, the question of peerage by tenure, or rather Peerage
the question whether the succession to a peerage might be by ten-
by tenure, now sprang up. Did the right to the summons, ure'
and hereby the right to the peerage, go with the territorial
barony itself, or did it go according to the line of natural
descent from the first baron 1 There was a good deal to be
said for the first view. "We cannot doubt that barony by
writ arose out of barony by tenure, that is, that the writ of
summons was originally sent only to persons who held by
barony, and, as the phrase " majores barones" implies, not to
all of them. If then the barony and the natural line of
descent of the first baron should be parted from each other,
it was by no means unreasonable to argue that the writ, a
consequence of the tenure, should go with the actual barony
rather than follow the line of natural descent. And the
same notion seems implied in the ancient practice of
sending writs to the husbands of heiresses, even, by the
courtesy of England, after the death of their wives (see
Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 438 ; Hist. Peerage, xxxviii.). On
the other hand the natural feeling in favour of direct
hereditary succession would tell the other way, especially as
soon as the doctrine of the ennobling of the blood had fully
come in. It is that doctrine more than anything else
which has got rid alike of peerages by tenure, of peerages
for life, and of peerages held by the husbands of heiresses.
If the peerage could pass by marriage or purchase, the doc
trine of nobility of blood was set aside. Till that doctrine
was fully established, there was nothing unreasonable in
464
PEERAGE
either practice. Again, as the hereditary right to the
summons became the rule, writs, held to be no less heredi
tary than those issued to the barons by tenure, began, even
under Edward I., to be issued to persons who had no
baronial tenure at all (see Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 204; His
toric Peerage, xxvi.). This practice would of course tell in
favour of strict hereditary succession and against succes
sion by tenure. The result has been that hereditary suc
cession became the rule, but that the claim of succession
by tenure was brought forward in some particular cases, as
the earldom of Arundel and the baronies of Abergavenny,
Berkeley, and others. The case of the earldom of Arundel
(more truly of Sussex) is discussed at length in the Lords'
Report (i. 405 sq.\ and it is held (ii. 320) to be the
only case in which peerage by tenure has been allowed.
Yet nothing can be more contrary to all ancient notions
of an earldom than that it should follow the possession of
certain lands and buildings, as the castle and honour of
Arundel. What is chiefly proved is that by the eleventh
year of Henry VI. the ancient notion of an earldom had
passed away, and that the earldom had sunk to be a mere
rank. The succession to the earldom of Arundel was settled
by Act of Parliament in 1627 (Lords' Report, ii. 242), an
Act whose preamble seems to acknowledge the fact of the
earldom by tenure. But succession by tenure seems as
distinctly agreeable to the oldest notion of a barony as it
is contrary to the oldest notion of an earldom. The tend
ency of later times has been against it, because it contra
dicts the fancy about " ennobling " of blood ; yet those
who have at different times claimed a place in the peerage
by virtue of baronies by tenure have not been without
strong arguments in the way of precedent. The latest
claim of the kind, that to the barony of Berkeley, was
not formally decided. The facts and arguments will be
found at great length in Appendix III. to Sir Harris
Nicolas's Report on the Barony of Lisle. His conclusion
is against the claim by tenure ; yet it certainly seems that,
when the castle of Berkeley, the tenure of which was said
to carry with it the barony and peerage, was separated
from the direct line of succession, as specially when the
castle was held by the crown in the 16th century (see
pp. 321-327), the heirs were not summoned to parliament,
or were summoned as a new creation (see on the other hand
Lords' Report, ii. 143). There is no strictly legal decision
Order in of the general question ; but an order in council in 1669
council (Lords' Report, ii. 242) declares against barony by tenure,
rather on grounds of expediency than of law. It was
declared in the case of the barony of Fitzwalter that
"barony by tenure had been discontinued for many ages,
and was not then in being, and so not fit to be revived
or to admit any pretence of right to succession thereon."
And the Lords' Committee (p. 241) give their own opinion
that " the right of any person to claim to be a lord of
parliament, by reason of tenure, either as an earl or as a
baron, supposing such a right to have existed at the time
of the charter of John, may be considered as abrogated by
the change of circumstances, without any distinct law for
the purpose." That is to say, the claim was as legal as
any other claim of peerage, resting equally on usage ; but
it was inconvenient according to the new doctrine about
blood being " ennobled."
New The same age which saw the earls and barons put on
of the shape of an hereditary peerage was also that which saw
the order enlarged by the creation of new classes of
peers. The ancient earls of England now saw men placed
over their heads bearing the French titles of duke and
marquess. Neither title was absolutely new in England ;
but both were now used in a new sense. Duke and earl
were in truth the same thing ; dux, afterwards supplanted
by comes, was the older Latin translation of the English
peers.
ealdorman or eorl, and eorl was the English word commonly
used to express the dukes as well as the counts of other lands.
So the marchio, markgraf, marquis, was known in England
in his official character as the lord marcher. But now, first
dukes and then marquesses come in as distinct ranks of
peerage higher than earl. That the earls of England put
up with such an assumption was most likely owing to the
fact that the earliest dukes were the king's own sons and
near kinsmen, the first of all being the eldest son of Edward
III. He was created duke of Cornwall in 1337, a duke
dom to which the eldest son of the reigning sovereign is
born. Marquesses began under Richard II. in 1386, when
Robert Vere, earl of Oxford, was created marquess of Dub
lin and directly afterwards duke of Ireland (Lords' Fifth
Report, 78, 79). Lastly, in the next century, the tale of
the ranks of the temporal peerage was made up by the in
sertion of another French title, that of viscount, between
the earl and the baron. John Beaumont was in 1440
created Viscount Beaumont (Lords' Fifth Report, 235).
The choice of a title, as concerned England, was a strange
one, since, at least from the Norman Conquest onwards,
viscount, mcecomes, had been the everyday French and
Latin description of the ancient English sheriff (see
Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 436, and the patent of creation in
Lords' Report, v. 235, where the new viscount is placed
" super omnes barones regni "). Since that time no title
conveying the rights of peerage has been devised. The
Lords' Committee (i. 470) look on it as doubtful whether
such a power abides in the crown, and a decision in the
spirit of the Wensleydale decision would most likely rule
that such a creation would at least give no right to a seat
in the House of Lords. Yet, if the crown be, as lawyers
tell us it is, the fountain of honour, it is hard to see why its
streams should not flow as readily in one age as in another.
If Henry VI. could give his new invention of viscounts
seats in parliament with precedence over barons, it is hard
to see why James I. might not, if he had chosen, have
given his new invention of baronets seats in parliament
with precedence over dukes.
The five ranks of the temporal peerage were thus estab- Use
lished in the order of duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron. ^e
But it must be noticed that duke, marquess, and viscount,
are strictly speaking titles in a sense in which baron is not.
Baron in truth is very seldom used as a personal descrip
tion (Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 440), except in two or three
special cases which are hard to account for, those chiefly of
the baronies of Stafford and Greystock (see Lords' Report,
i. 261, 394; ii. 185). The baron is commonly described
by some of the endless forms of senior, or as chivaler, or
sometimes — doubtless if he held that particular dignity —
as banneret. To this day, though in familiar speech all
ranks of peerage under duke are often confounded under
the common description of lord, yet the names marquess,
earl, and viscount are all far more commonly heard than
the name baron, which is hardly ever used except in the
most formal language. As for bannerets, though they
seem sometimes to be mentioned along with various ranks
of peerage (Lords' Report, i. 328), it does not appear (see
Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 446) that banneret ever really was
a rank of peerage, like the others from baron up to duke.
The invention of these new ranks of peerage undoubtedly
helped to strengthen the notion of the temporal peerage
as an order distinct both from all who are not lords of
parliament and from the spiritual lords also. Another
novelty also came in along with the dukes and marquesses.
The right of the earls was immemorial ; the right of the
barons had grown up by usage. Edward III. began to Crea
create earls and, when dukes were invented, dukes also, by ^y
patent. They were commonly created in parliament and pa '
with becoming ceremonies. Earls were thus first created
PEERAGE
465
4 of
•!
P
h
i il.
in 1328. This bestowal of an earldom as an hereditary
rank is another process from granting an earldom, conceived
as an office or even as an estate. Later in the century, in
1387, Richard II. began to create barons also by patent
(Historic Peerage, p. xlii.), and this form of creation gradu
ally supplanted the ancient peerage by writ. The object
of this change seems to have been (see Historic Peerage, p.
xxviii.) the better to mark the dignity as hereditary (for
the hereditary nature of the barony by writ was after all
only a matter of usage or inference), and at the same time
to define the line of succession. This, in the baronies by
writ, is said to be in the heirs -general of the grantee —
words to be understood, as it would seem, of the heirs-
general of his body only ; in a barony or other peerage
conferred by patent the line of succession may take any
shape that the crown chooses, the most common limitation
being to the heirs-male of the body of the grantee. Very
singular lines of succession have sometimes been chosen
(Historic Peerage, xlv.), as specially in the case of the
dukedom of Somerset in 1547, in which the line of the
eldest son was placed after that of the second. And the
manifest right of the crown to name no line of succession
at all, that is, to create a life-peerage only, was often exer
cised in the first days of dukes and marquesses. A duke
of Exeter was created for life as late as 1416. Perhaps
the strangest case of all is the patent of the barony of
Lisle in 1444, which may be called the creation by patent
of a barony by tenure. The whole story of the Lisle
barony has been dealt with by Sir Harris Nicolas in a
separate volume (see also Lords' Report, ii. 199 sq. ; Stubbs,
Const. Hist., iii. 437) ; but it is only this patent that
concerns us. It seems to grant a barony with a seat in
parliament to the grantee John Talbot and his heirs and
assigns, being lords of the manor of Kingston Lisle (see
the document, the language of which varies in different
parts, in the Lords' Report, ii. 199; v. 243). This is
certainly strange ; but, if we once grant the royal power
to create peerages and to limit their succession at pleasure,
it seems necessarily to follow that the crown may exercise
that power in any way that it chooses, whether by limiting
it to the grantee personally or giving any kind of remainder
that it is thought good.
The temporal peerage being thus fully established on
its present ground in the course of the 15th century, we
come in the course of the next two centuries to see the
effect of the theories under which it had grown up. A
series of deductions are gradually made, naturally enough as
deductions from the premises; but then the premises can
be admitted only by trampling ancient precedents under
foot. First of all, we have the denial already spoken of
of some of the personal privileges of peerage to the spiritual
lords. This was silently brought about in the Tudor times,
when Bishop Fisher and Archbishop Cranmer — one might
perhaps add Abbot Whiting — were tried by juries in de
fiance of the principle laid down by Archbishop Stratford
under Edward III. Against this course no remonstrance
seems to have been made ; indeed the times were not
favourable for remonstrances, least of all for remonstrances
made by spiritual persons. The doctrine that the spirit
ual lords were lords of parliament but not peers was estab
lished by a standing order of the House of Lords older than
1625, as it is referred to in the journals of the House in
that year. It was then referred to a committee of privi
leges for further consideration, but no report is recorded
(cf. Coke's Institutes, ii. 30).
Presently all the powers both of the spiritual and the
temporal lords were for a while extinguished, and those of
the spiritual lords by an undoubted legislative act. The
Act of 1642, by which the bishops lost their seats in par
liament, stands distinguished, as a real and lawful act of
the legislature, from the process by which so much of the
so-called law on the subject grew up through a series of
resolutions, dictated mostly, we may venture to say, neither
by precedent nor by written law, but by the prejudices
and assumptions of a particular class of men. The exclusion Aboli-
of the bishops by the regular Act of 1642 was followed intion
1649 by the less regular exclusion of the temporal lords ^ouT of
also. The House of Lords was abolished by a vote of the Lords.
House of Commons only. The essence of peerage was
thus taken away, but the peers kept their titles and pre
cedence, and they were allowed to be chosen to seats in the
House of Commons. When the old parliamentary con
stitution revived in 1660, the Act of 1649 was naturally
treated as null, while the Act of 1642 was of course treated
as valid. In 1660 therefore a House of Lords again sat
which consisted of temporal lords only. But the bishops Question
were restored to their seats by an Act of the next parlia- of tlie
ment in 1661, and the lords again ordered a committee 1)isn°Ps
" to consider of an order in the standing orders of this r>e
House which mentions the lords the bishops to be only lords
of parliament and not peers, whereas several Acts of Parlia
ment mentions them to be peers." Nothing came of the
labours of this second committee, and the doctrine which
it was to consider has since been held for law. Both the
doctrine and the reason for it have raised the indignation,
not only of the two great constitutional historians, one of
them himself a churchman, but of at least one great legal
authority (see Blackstone, book i. c. 12, vol. i. p. 401, ed.
Christian; and contrast Stephen, New Commentaries, ii. 590,
and Kerr's Blackstone, i. 407 ; cf. Hallam, Middle Ages, ii.
138 ; Lords' Report, ii. 323, 339). The attack on the rights
of the spiritual lords was carried yet further by the Com
mons in the case of the earl of Derby in 1679, when they
objected to their voting on an impeachment even in its pre
liminary stages. Their right to take a part in all such pro
ceedings up to the question which might involve life or death
(a share in which on the part of churchmen would be con
trary to canon law) is asserted by the eleventh article of the
Constitutions of Clarendon (Stubbs, Select Charters, 133).
The question now raised, which was decided in favour of Bishops'
the bishops, according to the terms of the Constitutions, yotes on
did not directly touch the question of the peerage of the lmP^ach'
bishops, but it had an indirect connexion with it. The m'
denial of the bishops' peerage implied that they had no
right to be tried as peers in the court of the king in par
liament, as not being, as the phrase goes, "of trial by
nobility." It might therefore be plausibly argued that
they had no right to be judges in that court. The right
of the bishops to vote on a bill of attainder, which, on
any canonical ground, would seem quite as objectionable
as their voting on an impeachment, was never denied,
because a bill of attainder is a legislative act, and does
not touch the question of peerage. Indeed, we may say
that the law is still far from clear on the whole matter.
The statute of 1696 (7 and 8 Will. III.) for " regulating of
Trials in cases of Treason and Misprision of Treason " speaks
of " trials of peers " and of " all the peers who have a
right to sit and vote in parliament," without distinctly
defining whether the word peer is meant to apply to the
lords temporal only.
In the same century another step in the development Aliena-
of the theory of peerage was taken by the resolutions of tion of
the lords in 1640 and 1678 that a peer could not relin- £ere_rages
quish his peerage. This inference also, whatever may be bidden,
thought of it, though distinctly against earlier precedents,
follows (see Lords' Report, ii. 25, 26, 48) directly from the
doctrine of "ennobling of blood."
The next point in the history of the peerage is one
which, like the exclusion of the bishops in 1642, was a
matter of real legislation, as distinguished from mere
XVIII. — 59
The
1719.
466
decisions and resolutions. This was the change in the
theory of peerage which followed on the union of England
and Scotland in 1 707. By the treaty of union the peerage
peers of of Scotland was to be represented by sixteen of its number
)tlan(J- chosen for each parliament by the Scottish peers them
selves. This amounted, as has been already set forth, to the
creation of a class of men who are peers as concerns their
personal privileges, but who are lords of parliament only
in posse and not in esse. The Scottish peers were made
incapable of sitting in the House of Commons, and the
Scottish peerage was doomed to gradual extinction, as no
new peers of Scotland were to be created. And further,
by a resolution of the lords in 1711, it was held during the
greater part of the last century that a patent of peerage
of the United Kingdom granted to a Scottish peer did
not give him a seat in parliament. Presently an attempt
at legislation with regard to the peerage was made which,
if carried, would have altogether changed its character.
Peerage This was the Peerage Bill of 1719. That bill was not
Bill of carried, but its proposals are worth notice, not only because
they would, if they had become law, have altogether
changed the nature of the peerage as a political institution,
but also because they illustrate the way in which, like
everything else in English constitutional history, the peer
age and everything belonging to it had grown up gradually
by force of precedent. The right of the crown to create
peers at pleasure, and to entail their peerages on any line
of succession that it thought good, had never been disputed,
but neither had it ever been the subject of any legislative
enactment. The proposed bill, in limiting both powers,
would have given them their first being by formal legisla
tion. The proposal was that the peerage of the United
Kingdom should, after a creation of six peers, be confined
to its existing number, with an exception in favour of
members of the royal family. For the future, with that
exception, no peerage could be created, except when one
had become extinct. Instead of the sixteen elective peers
of Scotland, the king was to bestow hereditary seats on
twenty-five members of the Scottish peerage, and the
number was to be kept up by a new promotion whenever
any of the twenty-five peerages became extinct. It Avas
forcibly remarked at the time that this would place the re
mainder of the Scottish peerage in a condition politically
inferior to that of all other British subjects, as they would
have been incapable both of sitting in either house of parlia
ment and of choosing those who should sit in either. But
the general effect of the bill on the constitution of the
country would have been far more important. The crown
would have lost one of its chief powers, and the relations
between the peers and the rest of the nation would have
been altogether changed. They would not have come any
nearer to the strict notion of a nobility, for it was not pro
posed to confer direct privilege on any but the peers them
selves. But the bill would have placed both the peers and
their families in a wholly new position. They would have
become a body into which no one could be raised, except
in the occasional case of a peerage becoming extinct. It
would have been impossible to move a statesman from the
Commons to the Lords at any moment when it might be for
the public good that he should be moved. Even the lord
chancellor, the speaker of the House of Lords, could not
have received a peerage unless one chanced to be extinct
at the needful time. It is plain that the peers, if they
did not become a nobility, would have become an oli
garchy, a close body, cut off both from the crown and
from the mass of the people in a way in which they had
never been cut off before.
The next change in the peerage was that which followed
the union with Ireland in 1800. The terms of that union,
as regarded the peerage, differed a good deal from those of
the union with Scotland. The twenty-eight representative Thi
peers of Ireland are chosen for life, and the other Irish P««
peers are capable of sitting in the House of Commons for Ire
constituencies in Great Britain ; only by so doing they lose
the privileges of peerage (other than mere titles and pre
cedence) so long as they are members of that body. The
Irish peerage is not doomed to extinction as well as the
Scottish ; one Irish peerage may always be created when
ever three have become extinct, and the Irish peerage is
always to be kept up to the number of one hundred, not
counting those who hold peerages of the United Kingdom.
The changes with regard to the lords spiritual intro- Iris
duced by the union with Ireland, by the disestablishment En
of the Irish Church, and by the increase in the number ™*
of English bishoprics have affected the character of the
House of Lords, but not that of the hereditary temporal
peerage. By the Act of Union one Irish archbishop and
four bishops — afterwards only three — were entitled to seats
in rotation, changing, not from parliament to parliament,
but from session to session. This arrangement was probably
practically more convenient ; but it seems contrary to the
nature of a summons, which must surely be a summons for
the whole life of a parliament. Each Irish bishop was thus
an in posse lord of parliament, like the Scottish and Irish
temporal peers, only with the certainty of a seat some time,
if he lived long enough. By the Act of Disestablishment
in 1869 the Irish bishops lost their seats altogether. And
by two Acts of the present reign the English prelates,
except the holders of the two archiepiscopal sees and those
of London, Durham, and Winchester, have their position
completely changed. The number of bishops has been in
creased, but not the number of spiritual lords. The bishop
therefore who holds any see but one of those five waits for
his summons to parliament till he reaches it by seniority.
Till then he too is a lord of parliament in posse.
In our own clay too we come, in 1856, to the case of Lif
the Wensleydale peerage, which has been already referred p«
to (see May, Constitutional History, i. 291-298). Sir
James Parke was by letters -patent created a peer for lifecai
only, and a summons to parliament was issued to him accord- L°'
ingly. This was a return to the ancient practice of the 14th w<
and 15th centuries ; but the power does not appear to have
been exercised in later times except in the case of peeresses
(see Nicolas, Historic Peerage, xlvi. ; May, i. 292). One
hardly knows what to make of such creations as those of
Lord Hay in 1606 and Lord Reede in 1644, the accounts
of which in the Historic Peerage (xlvi. 243, 394) seem some
what contradictory. But, if the creation of Lord Hay was
a real creation of a peer for life, but without the right to
a seat in parliament, it was so defined by a clause in the
patent itself, which would seem to imply that, without such
a clause, the creation would have given a right to a seat in
parliament. The right of the crown to create life-peers,
though not exercised, was constantly asserted by the best
lawyers, and it is admitted even in the Lords'1 Report (ii.
37; see May, i. 294). Yet in 1856 the House of Lord.-,
took upon itself, in defiance of the whole history of their
order, to refuse admission to a baron lawfully created, law
fully summoned, merely because the crown had not bound
itself, in the 19th century any more than in the 13th or
1 4th, to summon the representatives of the baron so created
for ever and ever. This decision seems to be now accepted
as law; yet it is hard to see how, except when they have
been taken away by Act of Parliament, any powers whicli
were exercised by Edward I. can be refused to Queen
Victoria. In short, the rights of the crown, the reason and
expediency of the case, were all sacrificed to the supersti
tion about "ennobling of blood." And Sir T. E. May, re
cording the resolution with admiration (i. 296), tells us that
" by constitutional usage, having the force of law, the House
PEERAGE
467
.11 Of
)ll
(li-
of Lords had been for centuries a chamber consisting of
hereditary councillors of the crown," and that " the crown
could not change its constitution by admitting a life-peer
to a seat in parliament." Three pages further on he found
out that the House of Lords contained other members
whose seats were not "hereditary" in the modern sense,
and we can hardly think that he used that word in its
ancient meaning. The crown yielded to the pretensions
of the lords ; Lord Wensleydale received a fresh creation
by a patent extending to his imaginary heirs, and it is to
be presumed that he was thereby "ennobled in blood" to
the satisfaction of those with whom he had to sit. While
the question of life-peerage was left in abeyance, the official
peerages referred to at the beginning of this article were
created by an act of 1876. These are the Lords of Appeal
in Ordinary, paid officers who hold their office, like other
judges, during good behaviour, who are lords of parliament,
with a right to a writ of summons to sit and vote so long as
they hold office, and who rank for life as barons with such
titles as the crown may appoint. In the case therefore of
the resignation or removal from office of a lord of appeal
we should have the non- parliamentary baron revived.
Whether in such a case he would be entitled to be tried in
the king's court in parliament does not appear. Nor does
the Act rule whether the lord so created is a peer, either
while he is a lord of parliament or after he ceases to be
such. The doctrine of " ennobling of blood " would seem
to imply that, as his title is not hereditary, he is not a
peer. It would follow then that a lord of appeal who has
resigned or has been removed, though " entitled to rank as
a baron for life," is a baron who is neither a peer nor a
lord of parliament.
A peerage, by the decisions of 1G40 and 1678 (Lords'
Report, ii. 25, 49) cannot be either surrendered to the
crown or alienated to any other person. It can be for
feited only by attainder or by Act of Parliament. Of this
last process there seems to be only one case, that of George
Neville, duke of Bedford, degraded by parliament in the
reign of Edward IV., as not being wealthy enough to
support his dignity. This of course, like attainder by
Act of Parliament, comes under the general principle that
parliament may do anything. It is further held (Historic
Peerage, Ixviii.) that, while an attainder for high treason
extinguishes a peerage of any kind, an attainder for felony
only extinguishes a peerage by writ, but not a peerage by
patent. A peeress in her own right by descent or creation
has all the privileges of a peer, except that of sitting in
parliament, which is suspended while the peerage is held
by a female, but revives when it passes to a male heir.
The wife or widow of a peer, not being a peeress in her own
right, has also the same privileges ; but she loses them if
she marries a commoner. By social usage she keeps her
title, but, if charged with treason or felony, she is tried by
a jury and not by the lords. If a peerage which passes to
heirs-general, like the ancient baronies by writ, is held by
a man who leaves no son, but more than one daughter, the
peerage goes into abeyance ; that is, it is held by no one
till the abeyance is terminated. If there comes to be
only one person representing the claims of all the sisters,
he can claim the termination of the abeyance as a matter
of right. The crown also can terminate it at any moment in
favour of any of the persons between whom it is in abeyance,
that is, in favour of the representative of any of the sisters.
It is by this transmission through females that the ancient
baronies have mainly lived on, often overshadowed by
higher but more modern titles. Those peers who can
show a direct succession in the male line from 1295 are
few indeed. By female succession also the titles of these
and other ancient baronies have in most cases got parted
from the original surnames of the holders. This seems to
have led to the practice, which of late has been rather the
rule than the exception, of creating peers with fancy titles,
often very strange ones, sometimes neither their own
surnames nor the name of any place with which they have
anything to do. Yet, by a survival of the ancient notion
of barony, the baron is always created Lord A of B (per
haps more strictly Lord A, Baron of B), though the place
named is by no means always his own manor. The earl
of course could originally be only the earl of a shire — the
name of the shire and of the shire-town being often used
indifferently. But, as the order of earls became more
numerous, and as the official character of the earldom was
quite forgotten, men were made earls of places of all
kinds, and in modern times a surname has often been the
title of both earls and marquesses. It is needless to say
that the titles of marquesses, when territorial, have had
no necessary reference to the original meaning of the title,
as keeper of a march. The titles of dukedoms seem always
to have been territorial, unless in the singular case of
"Duchess Dudley" in the reign of Charles I. Dudley
was the lady's surname ; she does not seem to have been
in any sense duchess of the town of Dudley. Clarendon
always talks of " Duke Hamilton " ; but here the surname
is taken from a place. Viscounts take their titles both
from names and places; but the viscount who has a
territorial title is never spoken of as viscount of A, as
the duke is always, and the marquess and the earl in
language which is at all formal.
Children of peers have a definite precedence and an Position
elaborate system of courtesy titles and epithets which of.
perplexes foreigners and sometimes natives. The eldest clul<lren
son of a peer ranks immediately after peers of the rank °
next below that of his father ; the younger sons rank after
peers of the next degree below that. Thus a duke's eldest
son ranks next after marquesses ; a marquess's eldest son
ranks next after earls, and a duke's younger son next after
eldest sons of marquesses. The precedence of daughters
follows the general principle, the principle implied in the
doctrine of abeyance, that all daughters rank with the
eldest son. Then again the eldest sons of dukes, mar
quesses, and earls bear by courtesy the second title of
their fathers, and the eldest sons of the eldest sons of
dukes and marquesses bear what may be called the grand
father's third title. All these, though called by a title
of peerage, are, as we have already had need to insist,
legally commoners ; but the eldest sons of peers have been
not uncommonly summoned to the House of Lords by
the title of some barony held by their fathers. Their pre
cedence is in no Avay affected by the title which they may
happen to bear. The eldest son of a duke always ranks
next after -marquesses, Avhether his courtesy title, that is
the second title of his father, is marquess or baron. The
younger sons of dukes and marquesses bear the courtesy
title of Lord with the Christian and surname, and, on
the principle which regulates the precedence of daughters,
the title of Lady extends to the daughters of earls as
well as to those of dukes and marquesses. The daughter
of a peer married to a commoner keeps her rank ; but, if
she marries a peer, she takes the rank of her husband,
whether that be higher or lower than the rank which
she has by birth. In all these matters the substantial
privileges of the peerage and its mere honorary titles
and precedence are often at curious cross purposes with
one another. All sons of peers are esquires of right. By
courtesy all children of peers who do not bear any higher
title are entitled to the conventional epithet of "honour
able " ; " noble " they are not in any, even conventional,
sense. The style formerly was, with perfect correctness,
"Hon. A B, Esq." The "Esq." is now left out; it is
not easy to see why.
468
P E G — P E I
Peers of
France.
The It is curious to compare the peerage of England, and the
Twelve peerages of Scotland and Ireland formed after its model,
-^ £jie famous body of the twelve peers of France, from
* ft
which we cannot doubt that the name pares was transferred
to the English assembly of witan, magnates, or proceres.
The twelve were the archbishop and duke of Rheims, the
bishops and dukes of Langres and Laon, the bishops and
counts of Beauvais, Noyon, and Chalons, the dukes of Bur
gundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine, the counts of Flanders,
Toulouse, and Champagne. The list of the spiritual peers,
a little startling at first, is easily understood when we take
in the circumstances of the French kingdom in the 12th
century. The six prelates are those who held of the king
of the French as king ; the other great churchmen of the
Western Kingdom held either of one of the vassal princes
(as the archbishop of Rouen did of the duke of the Nor
mans) or of the king as duke, as did among others the
bishop of Paris, whom at first sight we might have looked
for on the list. The institution of this body is commonly
attributed to the age of Philip Augustus, and indeed to
that king personally ; and it can hardly be doubted that
it had its origin in the romances of Charlemagne. The
twelve peers are said to have appeared at Philip's corona
tion, and also to have formed the court by which John,
duke of the Normans and king of the English, was
deprived of the lands that he held in fief of the French
crown. But it is certainly hard to see them all in the
character of twelve peers on either occasion, though it is
certain that some of them were present at Philip's corona
tion in 1179, and among them the then duke of the Nor
mans and husband of the duchess of Aquitaine, Henry
king of the English.1 Nor does the exact name of pares
seem to be given by any contemporary writer to the body
by which John is said to have been condemned, though it
is so used in the next century (see Prxclara Francorum
Facinora, ap. Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Script., v. 764). But
that there was an acknowledged body of peers of France in
the 13th century is shown, if by nothing else, by the speech
of Peter bishop of Winchester quoted above. Gradually all
the temporal peerages became united with the crown, save
only Flanders, which was released from vassalage when the
emperor Charles V. was its count. It therefore became need
ful on ceremonial occasions that, while the spiritual peers
appeared in person, the temporal peers should be repre
sented by persons who were created peers for the occasion.
The later peerage of France, those dukes, counts, and barons The la
who were distinguished as peers, dates from the 14th cen- Frencl
tury. The duchies so distinguished were at first confined Peerag
to the royal family, and in some sort represented the
ancient peerage ; but the title of duke and peer was after
wards extended to others, among them in 1674 to at least
one prelate, that of Paris, then become an archbishopric.
The counties and baronies distinguished as peerages were
but few, and most of them were reunited to the crown ;
they are therefore much less known than the duchies. In
the more modern use of the word, the Chamber of Peers The
dates from the charter of Louis XVIII. in 1814. It was a Cham'
body of hereditary members created by the crown after the of ^ee
model of the temporal peerage of England. After the revolu
tion of 1830 this was changed into a Chamber of Peers for
life, which "ceased to exist" at the revolution of 1848.
The fullest account of the origin and growth of the English peer
age will be found in the five volumes of the Reports of the Lords'
Committees touching the Dignity of a Peer of the Realm (1820-1829).
The mass of information brought together is wonderful, and, though
the prejudices of the order sometimes peep through, the general
treatment of the subject is on the whole fair and highly creditable,
especially when we remember that the inquiry was begun before
any light had been thrown on the subject by modern research.
Besides this, the works of Selden, Hallam, Nicolas, and Stubbs
have been, as will have been remarked, constantly referred to
throughout the article. But it is sometimes curious to compare
the point of view of a professional antiquary like Sir Harris Nicolas
with that of the two great constitutional historians. (E. A. F.)
PEGASUS, a famous horse of Greek fable, was said to
have sprung from the trunk of the Gorgon Medusa when
her head was cut off by Perseus. Bellerophon caught him
as he drank of the spring Peirene on the Acrocorinthus at
Corinth, or (according to another version) received him
tamed and bridled at the hands of Athene. Mounted on
Pegasus, Bellerophon slew the Chimaara and overcame the
Solymi and the Amazons, but when he tried to fly to
heaven on his back the horse threw him and continued
his heavenward course. Arrived in heaven, Pegasus served
Zeus, fetching for him his thunder and lightning. Hence
some have thought that Pegasus is a symbol of the thunder
cloud. In later legend he is the horse of Eos, the Morning.
Pindar and later poets represent him as winged. The
name is from 7n?yos, "compact," "stout." The erroneous
derivation from Trr/y-^, " a spring of water," may have given
birth to the legends which connect Pegasus with water, as
that his father was Poseidon, that he was born at the
springs of Ocean (like the fabulous Indian horse Uccaihs-
ravas, prototype of horses, produced at the churning of
Ocean), and that he had the power of making springs gush
from the ground by a blow of his hoof. This was said to
have been the origin of Hippocrene (Horse-spring), the
fountain of the Muses on Mount Helicon, as well as of
another spring of the same name at Troezen. But there
are facts that speak for an independent mythological con
nexion between horses and water, e.g., the sacredness of
the horse to Poseidon, the epithets Hippios and Equester
1 See Rigordus, De Oestis Philippi Augusti, ap. Duchesne, Hist.
Franc. Script., v. ; Will. Arm., ib. 101 ; Ben. Petrib. 242, ed. Stubbs ;
Matthew Paris, ii. 658, ed. Luard ; cf. Sismondi, Ilistoire des Fran-
cais, i., 363, 489-492.
applied to Poseidon and Neptune, the Greek fable of the
origin of the first horse (produced by Poseidon striking
the ground with his trident), and the custom in Argolis of
sacrificing horses to Poseidon by drowning them in a well.
(The Illyrians similarly sacrificed horses by drowning.)
From his connexion with Hippocrene Pegasus has come
to be regarded as the horse of the Muses and hence as
a symbol of poetry. But this is a modern attribute of
Pegasus, not known to the ancients, and dating only from
the Orlando Innamorato of the Italian poet Boiardo.
PEGU, a division of British Burmah, comprising the
districts of Rangoon, Hanthawaddy, Tharawadi, and Prome,
has an area of 9159 square miles, with a population (in
1881) of 1,162,393. The province of Pegu was annexed
by the British after the second Burmese war in 1852-53.
PEGU, an ancient town in the Rangoon district of
British Burmah, is situated on the Pegu river, 20 miles
west of the Tsit-toung, in 17° 20' N. lat. and 96° 30'
E. long. It was founded in 573 A.D., and was for a
long time the capital of the Taking kingdom, overthrown
by Aloung-bhura in the middle of the 18th century.
Early European travellers describe the city as of great
size, strength, and magnificence. Modern Pegu lies close
to the river-side, and had a population in 1881 of 5891.
PEHLEVI. See PAHLAVI.
PEIRCE, BENJAMIN (1809-1880), mathematician and
astronomer, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, 4th April
1809. Graduating at Harvard College in 1829, he be
came mathematical tutor there in 1831 and professor in
1833. He had already assisted Bowditch in his transla
tion of the Mecanique Celeste, and now produced a series
of mathematical text-books characterized by the brevity
P E K — P E K
469
and terseness which marks all his work and made his
teaching unattractive to inapt pupils. To young men of
real talent, on the contrary, his teaching and warm personal
interest in their work were of the greatest advantage, and
he holds a most honourable place in the development of
American mathemati 'S. After Bowditch's death in 1838
Peirce stood at the head of American mathematicians ; but
the first work that gave him a Avider fame was his com
putation of the general perturbations of Uranus and Nep
tune (Proc. Amer. Acad., 1848). In 1849 he became con
sulting astronomer to the American Nautical Almanac,
and for this Avork he prepared new tables of the moon
(1852). Another piece of important astronomical work
was his discussion of the equilibrium of Saturn's ring, in
which he showed that a fluid ring Avas necessarily unstable
as Avell as a solid one. From 1867 to 1874 he was super
intendent of the coast survey; in 1857 he published his
largest and most characteristic work, the System of Ana
lytical Mechanics. He himself, hoAvever, seems to have
thought most of his Linear Associative A lyebra (lithographed
privately in a feAv copies, 1870 ; reprinted in the American
Journ. of Math., 1882). His death took place at Cam
bridge, United States, on 6th October 1880.
PEKING or PEKIX, the capital of the Chinese empire,
is situated in 39° 54' 36" N. lat. and 116° 27' E. long.,
and stands on the northern extremity of the great al
luvial delta Avhich extends soutliAA'ards from its Avails for
700 miles. For the last nine centuries Peking, under vari
ous names and under the dominion of successive dynasties,
has, Avith some short intervals, remained an
imperial city. Its situation near the north
ern frontier recommended it to the Tatar
invaders as a convenient centre for their
pOAver, and its peculiarly fortunate position
as regards the supernatural terrestrial influ
ences pertaining to it has inclined succeeding
Chinese monarchs to accept it as the seat of
their courts. In 986 it AATas taken by an in
vading force of Khitan Tatars, Avho adopted
it as their headquarters and named it Nan
king, or the " southern capital." During the
early part of the 12th century the Chinese
recaptured it and reduced it from the rank
of a metropolis to that of a provincial city
of the first grade, and called it Yen-shan Foo.
In 1151 it fell into the hands of the Kin
Tatars, AA'ho made it a royal residence under
the name of Chung-tu, or " central capital."
Less than a century later it became the prize
of Jenghiz Khan, Avho, having his main in
terests centred on the Mongolian steppes,
declined to move his court soutlwards. To
his great successor Kublai Khan (1280-1294),
hoAvever, the establishment of a capital Avithin
the frontiers of China became a necessity, and,
following the example set him by preceding
sovereigns, he made choice of Yenking, as he
rechristened the city. With his usual magni
ficence, he rebuilt the town, which became
known in Chinese as Ta-tu, or "great capi
tal," and in Mongolian as Khanbalik, or "city
of the khan." During the reign of the first
emperor of the dynasty (1368-1399) which
succeeded that founded by Jenghiz Khan the
court resided at the modern Nanking, but in
the eyes of the succeeding sovereign Yung-
lo (1403-1425) the political advantages of
a northern residence appeared so obvious
During the periods above mentioned the extent and
boundaries of the city varied considerably. Under the
Kin dynasty the walls extended to the south-west of the
Tatar portion of the present city, and the foundations of
the northern ramparts of the Khan-balik of Kublai Khan
are still to be traced at a distance of about 2 miles in a
northerly direction beyond the existing walls. The modern
city consists of two parts, the nui ch'ing, or inner city,
commonly known to foreigners as the " Tatar city," and
the wai ch'iny, or outer city, known in the same way as
the " Chinese city." These names are somewhat mislead
ing, as the inner city is not enclosed within the outer city,
but adjoins its northern wall, which, being longer than the
nui ch'iny is wide, outflanks it considerably at both ends,
as may be seen in the accompanying plan. The outer
walls of the double city contain an area of about 25
square miles, and measure 30 miles in circumference.
Unlike the walls of most Chinese cities, those of Peking
are kept in perfect order. Those of the Tatar portion,
which is the oldest part of the city, are 50 feet high,
with a width of 60 feet at the base and 40 feet at
the top, while those of the Chinese city, which were
built by the emperor Kea-tsing in 1543, measure 30
feet in height, and have a width of 25 feet at the base
and 15 feet at the top. The terre-plein is well and
smoothly paved, and is defended by a crenellated parapet.
The outer faces of the walls are strengthened by square
buttresses built out at intervals of 60 yards, and on
that he transferred his court to Peking (i.e., the northern
capital), which has ever since been the seat of government.
Plan of Peking. (Scale, one mile and a half to an inch.)
the summits of these stand the guard -houses for the
troops on duty. Each of the sixteen gates of the city
470
P E L — P E L
is protected by a semicircular enceinte, and is surmounted
with a high tower built in galleries and provided with
countless loopholes.
The population of Peking is reckoned to be about
1,000,000, a number which is out of all proportion to the
immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity is
partly accounted for by the facts that large spaces, notably
in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds
surrounding the imperial palace, private residences, and
temples are very extensive. Viewed from the walls
Peking looks like a city of gardens. Few crowded neigh
bourhoods are visible, and the characteristic features of
the scene which meets the eye are the upturned roofs
of temples, palaces, and mansions, gay with blue, green,
and yellow glazed tiles, glittering among the groves of
trees with which the city abounds. Enclosed within the
Tatar city is the Hwang ch'iny, or "Imperial city," which
in its turn encloses the Tsze-kin ck'iny, or " Purple For
bidden city," in which stands the emperor's palace. On
the north of the Tsze-kin ch'ing, and separated from it by
a moat, is an artificial mound known as the King skan, or
" Prospect Hill." This mound, which forms a prominent
object in the view over the city, is about 150 feet high,
and is topped with five summits, on each of which stands
a temple. It is encircled by a wall measuring upwards of
a mile in circumference, and is prettily planted with trees,
on one of which the last emperor of the Ming dynasty
(1644), finding escape from the Manchti invaders impos
sible, hanged himself. On the wrest of Prospect Hill is
the Se yuen, or " Western Park," which forms part of the
palace grounds. This park is tastefully laid out, and is
traversed by a lake, which is mainly noticeable from the
remarkably handsome marble bridge which crosses it from
east to west. Directly northwards from Prospect Hill
stand the residence of the Titu, or "governor of the city,"
and the Bell and the Drum Towers, both of which have
attained celebrity from the nature of their contents, — the
first from the huge bell which hangs in it, and the second
from the appliances it contains for marking the time. The
bell is one of five which the emperor Yung-lo ordered to
be cast. In common with the others, it weighs 120,000 ft>,
is 14 feet high, 34 feet in circumference at the rim, and
is 9 inches thick. It is struck by a wooden beam swung
on the outside, and only at the changes of the night-
watches, when its deep tone may be heard in all parts of
the city. In the Drum Tower incense -sticks, specially
prepared by the Astronomical Board, are kept burning to
mark the passage of time, in which important duty their
accuracy is checked by a clepsydra. Another of Yung-lo's
bells is hung in a Buddhist temple outside the north-west
angle of the city wall, and is covered both on the inside
and outside with the Chinese texts of the Lankdvatara
Sutra, and the ftaddharma pundarika Sutra.
Turning southwards we again come to the Purple For
bidden city, the central portion of which forms the
imperial palace, where, in halls which for the magnificence
of their proportions and barbaric splendour are probably
not to be surpassed anyAvhere, the Ron of Heaven holds
his court, gives audience to ambassadors from tributary
states, and receives the congratulations of his ministers
at the annual seasons of rejoicing. In the eastern and
western portions of this city are situated the residences of
the highest dignitaries of the empire; while beyond its
confines on the south stand the offices of the six official
boards which direct the affairs of the eighteen provinces.
It was in the "yamun" of one of these boards — the
Le Pu or board of rites — that Lord Elgin signed the
treaty at the conclusion of the war in 1860, — an event
which derives especial interest from the fact of its having
been the first occasion on which a European plenipoten
tiary ever entered Peking accompanied by all the pomp
and circumstance of his rank.
Outside the Purple Forbidden city the most noteworthy
building is the Temple of Heaven, which stands in the
outer or Chinese city. Here at early morn on the 22d of
December the emperor offers sacrifice on an open altar to
Shang-ti, and at periods of drought or famine presents
prayers for relief to the same supreme deity. The altar
at which these solemn rites are performed " consists of a
triple circular marble terrace, 210 feet wide at the base,
150 in the middle, and 90 at the top." The uppermost
surface is paved with blocks of the same material forming
nine concentric circles, the innermost consisting of nine
blocks, and that on the outside of eighty-one blocks. On
the central stone, which is a perfect circle, the emperor
kneels, " surrounded first by the circles of the terraces
and their enclosing walls, and then by the circle of the
horizon." In the same temple stands the altar of prayer
for good harvests, which is surmounted by a triple-roofed
circular structure 99 feet in height. The tiles of these
roofs are of glazed porcelain of the most exquisite deep-
blue colour, and add a conspicuous element of splendour
to the shrine, which even without their aid would inspire
admiration by the grace of the design and the rare beauty
of the materials employed in its construction.
The other powers of nature have shrines dedicated to
them at the altar to Earth on the north of the city, the
altars to the Sun and Moon outside the north-eastern and
north-western angles respectively of the Chinese city, and
the altar of Agriculture inside the south gate of the
Chinese city. Next to these in religious importance comes
the Confucian temple, known as the Kivo-tsze-keen. Here
there is no splendour ; everything is quite plain ; and one
hall contains all that is sacred in the building. There the
tablets of " the soul of the most holy ancestral teacher,
Confucius," and of his ten principal disciples stand as
objects of worship for their countless followers. In one
courtyard of this temple are deposited the celebrated ten
stone drums which bear poetical inscriptions commemor
ative of the hunting expeditions of King Suen (827-781
B.C.), in whose reign they are believed, though erroneously,
to have been cut ; and in another -stands a series of stone
tablets on which are inscribed the names of all those who
have obtained the highest literary degree of Tsin-s.:e for
the last five centuries.
In the south-eastern portion of the Tatar city is the
observatory, which was built by order of Kublai Khan in
1296. During the period of the Jesuit ascendency in the
reign of K'ang-he (1661-1721), the superintendence of this
institution was confided to Roman Catholic missionaries,
under whose guidance the bronze instruments now existing
were constructed. Unlike the thoroughfares in the cities
of central and southern China, the streets of Peking are
wide and open, but, being unpaved and the soil being light
and alluvial, they easily become almost impassable from
mud in wet weather and ankle-deep in dust in dry weather.
The inhabitants of Peking being consumers only, and in
no way producers, the trade of the city is very small, and
the article of the European treaties which prohibits foreign
merchants from trading within the walls is, therefore, to
be regretted only as an instance of the narrow-mindedness
of the Chinese Government.
E. Bretsclineider, slrch&ological and Historical Researches en
Peking and its Environs (1876) ; S. Wells Williams, The Middle
Kingdom (1884) ; Kclkins, Peking (1870). (11. K. D.)
PELAGIA, ST. An Antiochene saint of this name, a
virgin of fifteen years, who chose death by a leap from the
housetop rather than dishonour, is mentioned by Ambrose
(De Viry., iii. 7, 33 sq., Ep. xxxvii. ad Simpl.), and is the
subject of two sermons by Chrysostom. More famous ia
P E L — P E L
471
the story of another Pelagia of Antioch, a famous baliet-
girl of the town, who, in the full flower of her beauty and
guilty sovereignty over the youth of the city, was suddenly
converted by the influence of the holy bishop Nonnus,
whom she had seen and heard for a moment as he preached
in front of a church which she happened to pass with her
gay train of attendants and admirers. She sought out
Nonnus, and her tears of genuine penitence overcame his
canonical scruples ; she was baptized, and, disguising her
self in male attire and in the dress of a penitent, she retired
to the grotto on the Mount of Olives which still bears her
name, and there died after three years of strict penance.
This story, which seems to combine with the name of the
older Pelagia some traits from an actual history referred to
by Chrysostom (Horn. Ixvii. in Mat. § 3), is preserved in a
narrative bearing the fictitious name of John, a deacon of
the equally fictitious Xonnus, which by internal evidence
is assigned by Usener to the second quarter of the 5th
century. Usener, however, has shown that the very
popular legend has a much older basis, and that, in common
with a number of other female saints, including Marina or
MARGARITA (q.v.), and Pelagia of Tarsus, whose story is
closely akin to the Marina legend, Pelagia is only a
Christianized travesty of an old local form of Aphrodite.
The name of Marina or Pelagia is an epithet of Aphrodite ;
the parallel figiire of Anthusa in Seleucia of Cilicia bears
a name to be explained by the Anthera of Cnossus ; the
corresponding saint at Tyre is Porphyria, corresponding to
Venus Purpurissa. The contradictory attributes of a pure
virgin and a penitent are explicable in legends proper to
the Syrian coast, where Astarte- Aphrodite had corre
spondingly opposite forms and character; the masculine
garb of the converted Pelagia is to be explained from the
hermaphrodite Aphroditus- Aphrodite of western Asia, the
Cyprian Amathusia.
See Usener, Lcgenden dcr hciligcn Pelagia, Bonn, 1879, and
Gildemeister's edition of the Syriac version of the legend of Pelagia
of Antioch, Bonn Univ. Prorjr. of 22d March 1879.
PELAGIUS. Of the origin of Pelagius almost nothing
is known. The name is supposed to be a Graecized form
of the Cymric Morgan (muir, sea; gin, begotten). His
contemporaries understood that he was of British birth,
and gave him the distinctive appellation Brito. He was
a large ponderous person, heavy both in body and mind,
if we are to believe Jerome ("stolidissimus et Scotorum
pultibus prsegravatus"). Born during the second half of
the 4th century, he was influenced by the monastic enthu
siasm which had been kindled in Gaul by Athanasius (336),
and which, through the energy of Martin of Tours (361),
rapidly communicated itself to the Britons and Scots. For,
though Pelagius remained a layman throughout his life,
and though he never appears in any strict connexion with
a ccenobitical fraternity, he yet adhered to monastic disci
pline (" velutt monachus "), and distinguished himself by
his purity of life and exceptional sanctity ("egregie Chris-
tianus "). He seems to have been one of the earliest, if
not the very earliest, of that remarkable series of men who
issued from the monasteries of Scotland and Ireland and
carried back to the Continent in a purified form the religion
they had received from it. Coming to Rome in the be
ginning of the 5th century (his earliest known writing is of
date 405), he found a scandalously low tone of morality
prevalent. From his extant Commentaries on the Epistles
of St Paul it may be gathered that men were encouraged
to rely on a profession of the Christian creed, and on the
magical efficacy of the sacraments, while they entirely
neglected to cultivate a Christian character. This state of
things Pelagius denounced. But his remonstrances were
met by the plea of human weakness (" durum est, arduum
est, non possumus, homines sumus, fragili carne circum-
dati ;'). To remove this plea by exhibiting the actual powers
of human nature became his first object. It seemed to him
that the Augustinian doctrine of total depravity and of
the consequent bondage of the will both cut the sinew of
all human effort and threw upon God the blame which
really belonged to man. Unless men had the power to do
God's will, it was vain for Him to declare it. And, if men
believed they were incapable of virtue, they would make
no effort to reach it. His favourite maxim was, " If I
ought, I can." xiccordingly, he expressed unmeasured
disapproval when he heard a bishop at Rome quoting with
approbation the characteristic words of Augustine : " Give
what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt."
The views of Pelagius did not originate in a conscious
reaction against the influence of the Augustinian theology,
although each of these systems was developed into its
ultimate form by the opposition of the other. Neither
must too much weight be allowed to the circumstance that
Pelagius was a monk, for he was unquestionably alive to
the delusive character of much that passed for monkish
sanctity. Yet possibly his monastic training may have
led him to look more at conduct than at character, and to
believe that holiness could be arrived at by rigour of dis
cipline. This view of things suited his natural tempera
ment, which was essentially matter-of-fact and somewhat
shallow. Judging from the general style of his writings,
his religious development had been equable and peaceful,
not marked by the prolonged mental conflict, the spiritual
turmoil, the hand-to-hand wrestling with God, the abrupt
transitions, which characterized the experience of his great
opponent. With no great depth of mind, he saw very
clearly the thing before him, and many of his practical
counsels are marked by sagacity, and are expressed with
the succinctness of a proverb ("corpus non frangendum,
sed regendum est "). His interests were primarily ethical ;
hence his insistence on the freedom of the will and his
limitation of the action of divine grace.
The peculiar tenets of Pelagius, though indicated in the
commentaries which he published at Rome previous to
409, might not so speedily have attracted attention had
they not been adopted by Ccelestius, a much younger and
bolder man than his teacher. Ccelestius had been trained
as a lawyer, but abandoned his profession for an ascetic
life. When Rome was sacked by the Goths (410) the two
friends crossed to Africa. There Pelagius once or twice
met with Augustine, but very shortly sailed for Palestine,
where he justly expected his opinions would be more
cordially received. Ccelestius remained in Carthage with
the view of receiving ordination. But Aurelius, bishop of
Carthage, being warned against him, summoned a synod,
at which Paulinus, a deacon of Milan, charged Coelestius
with holding the following six errors : — (1) that Adam
would have died even if he had not sinned ; (2) that the
sin of Adam injured himself alone, not the human race;
(3) that new-born children are in the same condition in
which Adam was before the fall ; (4) that the whole
human race does not die because of Adam's death or sin,
nor will the race rise again because of the resurrection of
Christ ; (5) that the law gives entrance to heaven as
well as the gospel ; (6) that even before the coming of
Christ there were men who were entirely without sin.
To these propositions a 7th is sometimes added, "that
infants, though unbaptized, have eternal life," a corollary
from the third. Ccelestius did not deny that he held these
opinions, but he maintained that they were open questions,
on which the church had never pronounced. The synod,
notwithstanding, condemned and excommunicated him.
Coelestius, after a futile appeal to Rome, repaired to
Ephesus, and there received ordination.
In Palestine Pelagius lived unmolested and revered,
472
PELAGIUS
until in 415 Orosius, a Spanish priest, came from August
ine to warn Jerome against him. The result was that in
June of that year Pelagius was cited before John, bishop
of Jerusalem, and charged with holding that man may be
without sin, if only he desires it. This prosecution broke
down, and in December of the same year Pelagius was
summoned before a synod of fourteen bishops at Diospolis
(Lydda). The prosecutors on this occasion were two
Gallican bishops, Heros of Aries and Lazarus of Aix, but
on account of the illness of one of them neither could
appear. The proceedings, being conducted in various lan
guages and by means of interpreters, lacked certainty, and
justified Jerome's application to the synod of the epithet
" miserable." But there is no doubt that Pelagius repu
diated the assertion of Coelestius, that " the divine grace
and help is not granted to individual acts, but consists in
free will, and in the giving of the law and instruction."
At the same time he affirmed that a man is able, if he likes,
to live without sin and keep the commandments of God,
inasmuch as God gives him this ability. The synod was
satisfied with these statements, and pronounced Pelagius
to be in agreement with Catholic teaching. Pelagius natur
ally plumed himself on his acquittal, and provoked August
ine to give a detailed account of the synod, in which he
shows that the language used by Pelagius Avas ambiguous,
but that, being interpreted by his previous written state
ments, it involved a denial of what the church understood
by grace and by man's dependence on it. The North-
African church as a whole resented the decisions of Dios
polis, and sent up from their synods of Carthage and
Mileve (416) an appeal to Innocent, bishop of Rome, who
decided the question in favour of the African synods on
" the broad, popular, and unanswerable ground that all
Christian devotion implies the assistance of divine grace,
that it is admitted in every response of the service, in
every act of worship." And, though his successor Zosimus
wavered. for a time, influenced partly by his Greek training,
which led him to consider the points in dispute as idle,
and partly by the Confession of Faith which Pelagius had
addressed to the see of Rome, he at length fell in with what
he saw to be the general mind of both the ecclesiastical
and the civil powers. For, simultaneously with the largely
attended African synod which finally condemned Pelagian-
ism in the West, an imperial edict was issued at Ravenna
on 30th April 418, peremptorily determining the theological
question and enacting that not only Pelagius and Coelestius
but all who accept their opinions shall suffer confiscation
of goods and irrevocable banishment. Thus prompted,
Zosimus drew up a circular inviting all the bishops of
Christendom to subscribe a condemnation of Pelagian
opinions. To this document signature was refused by
nineteen Italian bishops, among whom was Julian of Ec-
lanum (Apulia), a man of good birth, approved sanctity,
and great capacity, who now became the recognized leader
of the movement. But not even his acuteness and zeal
could redeem a cause which was rendered hopeless when
the Eastern Church (Ephesus, 431) confirmed the decision
of the West.
Pelagianism.
The system of Felagius is a consistent whole, each part involving
the existence of every other. Starting from the idea that " ability
limits obligation," and resolved that men should feel their responsi
bility, he insisted that man is able to do all that God commands,
and that there is, and can be, no sin where the will is not absolutely
free, — able to choose good or evil. The favourite Pelagian formula,
"Si necessitatis est, peccatum non est; si voluntatis, vitari potest,"
has an appearance of finality which imposed on superficial minds.
The theory of the will involved in this fundamental axiom of
Pelagianism is that which is commonly known as the " liberty of
indifference," or "power of contrary choice," — a theory which affirms
the freedom of the will, not in the sense that the individual is self-
determined, but in the sense that in each volition and at each
moment of life, no matter what the previous career of the indi
vidual has been, the will is in equipoise, able to choose good or
evil. We are born characterless (non pleni), and with no bias
towards good or evil (ut sine virtute, ita et sine vitio). It follows
that we are uninjured by the sin of Adam, save in so far as the
evil example of our predecessors misleads and influences us (non
propagine sed exemplo). There is, in fact, no such thing as
original sin, sin being a thing of will and not of nature ; for if it
could be of nature our sin would be chargeable on God the creator.
This will, capable of good as of evil, being the natural endowment
of man, is found in the heathen as well as in the Christian, and
the heathen may therefore perfectly keep such law as they know.
But, if all men have this natural ability to do and to be all that
is required for perfect righteousness, what becomes of grace, of the
aid of the Holy Spirit, and, in a word, of Christianity ? Pelagius
vacillates considerably in his use of the word "grace." Sometimes
he makes it equivalent to natural endowment. Indeed one of his
most careful statements is to this effect : " We distinguish three
things— the ability, the will, the act (posse, velle, esse). The
ability is in nature, and must be referred to God, who has bestowed
this on His creature ; the other two, the will and the act, must be
referred to man, because they flow from the fountain of free will "
(Aug., De Gr. Christ! , c. 4). But at other times he admits a
much wider range to grace, so as to make Augustine doubt whether
his meaning is not, after all, orthodox. But, when he speaks of
grace "sanctifying," " assisting," and so forth, it is only that man
may " more easily " accomplish what he could with more difficulty
accomplish without grace. A decisive passage occurs in the letter he
sent to the see of Rome along with his Confcssio Fidei : " We main
tain that free will exists generally in all mankind, in Christians,
Jews, and Gentiles ; they have all equally received it by nature,
but in Christians only is it assisted by grace. In others this good
of their original creation is naked and unarmed. They shall be
judged and condemned because, though possessed of free will, by
which they might come to the faith and merit the grace of God,
they make an ill use of their freedom ; while Christians shall be
rewarded because, by using their free will aright, they merit the
grace of the Lord and keep His commandments" (ib., c. 33, 34).
Pelagius allowed to grace everything but the initial determining
movement towards salvation. He ascribed to the unassisted
human will power to accept and use the proffered salvation of
Christ. It was at this point his departure from the Catholic
creed could be made apparent : Pelagius maintains, expressly
and by implication, that it is the human will which takes the
initiative, and is the determining factor in the salvation of the
individual ; while the church maintains that it is the divine will
that takes the initiative by renewing and enabling the human will
to accept and use the aid or grace offered.
Scmi2xlayianism.
It was easy for Augustine to show that this was an "impia
opinio " ; it was easy for him to expose the defective character of a
theory of the will which implied that God was not holy because He
is necessarily holy ; it was easy for him to show that the positions
of Pelagius were anti-Scriptural (see AUGUSTINE) ; but, though his
arguments prevailed, they did not wholly convince, and the rise of
Semipelagianism — an attempt to hold a middle course between the
harshness of Augustinianism and the obvious errors of Pelagianism
— is full of significance. This earnest and conciliatory movement
discovered itself simultaneously in North Africa and in southern
Gaul. In the former church, which naturally desired to adhere to
the views of its own great theologian, the monks of Adrumetum
found themselves either sunk to the verge of despair or provoked
to licentiousness by his predestinarian teaching. When this was
reported to Augustine he wrote two elaborate treatises to show that
when God ordains the end He also ordains the means, and if any
man is ordained to life eternal he is thereby ordained to holiness
and zealous effort. But meanwhile some of the monks themselves
had struck out a via media which ascribed to God sovereign grace
and yet left intact man's responsibility. A similar scheme was
adopted by Cassian of Marseilles (hence Semipolagians are often
spoken of as Massilians], and was afterwards ably advocated by
Vincent of Lerins and Faustus of Rhcgium. These writers, in
opposition to Pelagius, maintained that man was damaged by the
fall, and seemed indeed disposed to purchase a certificate of ortho
doxy by the abusive epithets they heaped upon Pelagians (ranae,
nmscje moriturse, &c.). The differentia of Semipelagianism is the
tenet that in regeneration, and all that results from it, the divine
and the human will are co-operating (synergistic) coefficient factors.
After finding considerable acceptance, this theory was ultimately
condemned, because it retained the root-principle of Pelagianism, —
that man has some ability to will good nnd that the beginning of
salvation may be with man. The councils of Orange and Valence
(529), however, which condemned Semipelagianism, did so with
the significant restriction that predestination to evil was not to
be taught, — a restriction so agreeable to the general feeling of the
church that, three centuries after, Gottschalk was sentenced to be
PELAGIUS
473
degraded from the priesthood, scourged, and imprisoned for teaching
reprobation. The questions raised by Pelagius continually recur,
but, without tracing the strife as sustained by Thomists and
Janscnists on the one side and the Jesuits and Arminians on the
other, this article can only indicate the general bearing of the con
troversy on society and the church.
The anthropology of Pelagius was essentially naturalistic. It
threatened to supersede grace by nature, to deny all immediate
divine influence, and so to make Christianity practically useless.
Pelagius himself did not carry his rationalism through to its
issues ; but the logical consequence of his system was, as Augustine
perceived, the denial of the atonement and other central truths of
revealed religion. And, while the Pelagians never existed as a sect
separate from the church catholic, yet wherever rationalism has
infected any part of the church there Pelagianism lias sooner or
later appeared ; and the term " Pelagian " has been continued to
denote views which minimize the effects of the fall and unduly
magnify man's natural ability. These views and tendencies have
appeared in theologies which are not in other respects rationalistic,
as, c. y. , in Arminianism ; and their presence in such theologies is
explained by the desire to remove everything which might seem to
discourage human effort.
It is not easy to determine how far the vices which ate so deeply
into the life of the church of the Middle Ages were due to the
sharpness with which some of the severer features of the Augustin-
ian theology were denned during the Pelagian controversy. The
pernicious belief in the magical efficacy of the sacraments and the
consequent defective ethical power of religion, the superstitious
eagerness to accept the church's creed without examining or really
believing it, the falsity and cruelty engendered and propagated
by the idea that in the church's cause all weapons were justifiable,
these vices were undoubtedly due to the belief that the visible
church was the sole divinely-appointed repository of grace. And
the sharply- accentuated tone in which Augustinianism affirmed
man's inability quickened the craving for that grace or direct
agency of God upon the soul which the church declared to be need
ful and administered through her divinely-appointed persons and
sacraments, and thus brought a decided impulse to the development
of the sacerdotal system.
Again, although it may fairly be doubted whether, as Baur sup
poses, Augustine was permanently tainted with the Manichrean
notion of the inherent evil of matter, it can scarcely be questioned
that his views on marriage as elicited by the Pelagian contro
versy gave a considerable impulse to the already prevalent idea of
the superiority of virginity. When the Pelagians declared that
Augustine's theory of original sin discredited marriage by the impli
cation that even the children of the regenerate were born in sin, he
couid only reply (De Nuptiis ct Comupiscentm) that marriage now
cannot partake of the spotless purity of the marriage of unfallen
man, and that, though what is evil in concupiscence is made a
good use of in marriage, it is still a thing to be ashamed of, — not
only with the shame of natural modesty (which he does not take
into account) but with the shame of guilt. So that, even although
he is careful to point out the advantages of marriage, an indelible
stigma is still left even on the lawful procreation of children.
The remark of ililman, that "all established religions subside
into Pelagianism, or at least semi-Pelagianism," is unexpected, but
the converse remark, that "no Pelagian ever has or ever will work
a religious revolution," may be easily substantiated. It has indeed
become a commonplace of historical science that in order to do or
to endure great things men must believe in one form or other of
predestination. They must feel confident that they are made use
of by God to accomplish things that to Him seem worthy, and
that until these be accomplished no earthly power can defeat or
harm them. They must feel that their will is embraced in the
divine and empowered by it. And it is the consciousness of their
own impotence that leads men to yield themselves as instruments
of the divine power. Pelagianism is the creed of quiet times and
commonplace people ; Augustinianism is the inevitable faith of
periods that are dangerous and eventful, and in which men must
exhibit some heroism.
Of the writings of Pelagius there have been preserved to us in the works of
Jerome (5th vol. of Martianay's ed., and llth vol. of Vallarsi's ed.) :— (1) Com-
mentani in Kpistolas Pauli ; (2) Epistola ad Demetriadem (also published sepa
rately by Semler, Halle, 1775) ; (3) Llbellus Fidei. But in Augustine's various
writings against Pelagianism (in the 10th vol., Bened. ed.) many passages are
cited from the writings of Pelagius ; and in the appendix of the same volume a
valuable collection of documents connected with the controversy will be found.
In the ordinary histories of the church other authorities are mentioned, and
reference need here be made only to Wiggers, Versuch. . . . des Augustinismus
und I'elag. (Hamburg, 1833 ; translated by Emerson, Andover, 1840) ; Worter,
DerPelagiiuiUmus^ ed., Freiburg, 1874); Guizot, Histoire <1e la Civilisation en
e, 5 lec/m) ; Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (London, 1855);
trance,
, ,
and Cunningham, Historical Theology (Edin., 1803).
(M. D.)
.
_ PELAGIUS I., pope from 555 to 560, was a Roman by
birth, and first appears in history at Constantinople in the
rank of deacon, and as apocrisiarius of Pope Silverius,
whose overthrow in favour of Vigilius his intrigues pro
moted. Vigilius continued him in his diplomatic appoint
ment, and he was sent by the emperor Justinian in 542
to Antioch on ecclesiastical business ; he afterwards took
part in the synod at Gaza which deposed Paul of Alex
andria. In his official position he had amassed some
wealth, which on his return to Home he so employed
among the poor as to secure for himself great popularity ;
and, when Vigilius was summoned to Byzantium in 544,
Pelagius, now archdeacon, was left behind as his vicar,
and by his tact in dealing with Totila, the Gothic invader,
succeeded in saving the citizens from murder and outrage.
He appears subsequently to have followed his master to
Constantinople, and there to have taken part in the Three
Chapters controversy ; in 553, at all events, he signed the
" constitutum " of Vigilius in favour of these, and for
refusing, along with him, to accept the decrees of the fifth
general council (the 2d of Constantinople, 553) shared
his sentence of exile. Like Vigilius, he afterwards, how
ever, condemned the chapters, and accordingly, when the
citizens of Rome, through the mediation of Xarses, begged
for the restoration of the pope and his clergy, both were
recalled from banishment. The emperor now asked the
Roman representatives whom they should prefer — Vigilius
or Pelagius — and it may safely be presumed that their reply,
to the effect that they would not choose the latter as long
as the former was alive, was hardly such as Justinian had
expected or wished. Both set out for Rome, but Vigilius
died mysteriously on the way at Syracuse. Pelagius, as
the nominee of Justinian, at once succeeded on his arrival
in Rome, but most of the clergy, suspecting his orthodoxy,
and believing him to have had some share in the unlooked-
for removal of his predecessor, shunned his fellowship, and
only two bishops and one presbyter could be got to take
part in his ordination to the pontificate. He enjoyed,
however, the support of Narses, and, after he had publicly
purged himself of the charge of complicity in Vigilius's
death by solemn oath in the church of St Peter, he met
with toleration, at least so far as his own immediate
diocese was concerned, the populace remembering his
former charities and his success in dealing with Totila.
The rest of the Western bishops, however, still held aloof
from the man who, by condemning the Three Chapters,
had put a slight, as they thought, upon the council of
Chalcedon ; and the episcopate of Tuscany caused his
name to be removed from the diptychs. This elicited
from him a circular, in which he asserted his loyalty to the
four general councils, and declared that in their action
against the holy see the hostile bishops had been guilty of
schism. The bishops of Liguria and ^Emilia, headed by
the archbishop of Milan, and those of Istria and Venice,
headed by Paulinus of Aquileia, also withheld their fellow
ship from one who had taken part in the council of Con
stantinople ; but Narses resisted the appeals of Pelagius,
who would fain have invoked the secular arm. Childebert,
king of the Franks, also, even after the pope had sent a
confession of his faith, refused to interfere. Pelagius died
on 3d March 560, and was succeeded by John III.
PELAGIUS II., a native of Rome, but of Gothic
descent, was pope from 578 to 590, having been conse
crated successor of Benedict I., without awaiting the
sanction of the emperor, on 27th November of the former
year. To make his apologies for this irregularity he sent
deacon Gregory, who afterwards became Pope Gregory the
Great, as his apocrisiarius to Constantinople. In 585 he
sought to heal the schism which had subsisted since the
time of Pelagius I. in connexion with the Three Chapters
controversy by writing to the bishops of Istria with the
exhortation to "avoid foolish and unlearned questions,"
but his efforts as a peacemaker were without success. In
588 John, patriarch of Constantinople, by reviving the
XVIII. — 60
474
P E L — P E L
old and disputed claim to the title of oecumenic patriarch,
elicited a vigorous protest from Pelagius, but the decretal
which professes to convey the exact words of the docu
ment is now known to be false. He died in January 590,
and was succeeded by Gregory I.
PELARGONIUM. See GERANIUM, vol. x. p. 439, and
HORTICULTURE, vol. xii. pp. 263-4.
PELASGI. See GREECE, vol. xi. p. 90, and ITALY,
vol. xiii. p. 444.
PELEW, PELLEW, PALAU, or PALAO, ISLANDS, a group
in the western Pacific at the intersection of 134° 30' E.
long, by 7°, 8°, and 9° N. lat., which, as it is often con
sidered part of the Caroline Archipelago, has been described
in the article CAROLINE ISLANDS, vol. v. pp. 125, 126. The
name Islas Palaos, by which the islands are first designated,
is of doubtful but certainly not of native origin, and was
originally applied by the Spaniards in an indefinite way
to all the islands east of Mindanao (Philippines). The
English form " Pelew " may be a corruption either of Palao
or of Peleliu (Pellelew), the proper name of one of the
southern islands. According to Miklukho-Maklay (Izvyest-
iya of the Imp. Russian Geogr. Soc., 1878, pp. 257-297 ;
cf. Zeitschr. f. EthnoL, Berlin, 1878) the ordinary nomen
clature on our maps is often erroneous, the correct forms
being Babeltop, Kayangel (not Yanguel or Kiangle), N'yaur
(not Angaur or Angour), Arkledeu (not Korph), Namalakal
(not Amanakal), &c. The men vary in height from 5 feet
to 5 feet 7 inches, the women from 4 feet 9 to 5 feet 2.
The character of the hair differs greatly in different indi
viduals; both sexes wear it wound up in a back -knot.
Tattooing (but not of a very elaborate type) is in vogue,
especially among the women, by whom the operation is
always performed. The skull shows a strong tendency to
brachycephalism. Adults of both sexes have their teeth
carefully blackened by teldalek (a kind of earth). Sir
John Lubbock (The Origin of Civilisation] places the
Pelew Islanders among the peoples destitute of religion ;
but Miklukho-Maklay found among them a well-developed
Shamanism, every village having a kalit, or shaman, and
the group containing five high kalits with an extensive
jurisdiction. The ornithology of the Pelew Islands has
been investigated by Dr Otto Finsch (Journal des Museum
Godeffroy, 1875), who enumerates fifty-six species, of which
twelve are peculiar to the group. The occurrence of
Callus bankiva and the Nicobar pigeon and the absence
of parrots and finches are points of interest.
PELHAM, SIR HENRY (1696-1754), prime minister of
England, was the younger brother of Thomas Holies Pel-
ham, duke of Newcastle, and was born in 1696. He was
educated by a private tutor and at Christ Church, Oxford,
which he entered in July 1710. As a volunteer he served
in Dormer's regiment at the battle of Preston in 1715;
subsequently he spent some time on the Continent, and
in 1718 entered parliament for Seaford, Sussex. Through
strong family influence and the recommendation of Walpole
he was chosen in 1721 a lord of the treasury. The follow
ing year he was returned for Sussex county. In 1724 he
entered the cabinet as secretary of war, but this office he
exchanged in 1730 for the more lucrative one of paymaster
of the forces. He made himself conspicuous by his support
of Walpole on the question of the excise, and during the
subsequent attacks, which ultimately led to his resignation
in 1742. In the following year a union of parties resulted
in the formation of the administration of which Pelham
was prime minister, with the additional office of chancellor
of the exchequer. Being strongly in favour of peace, he
carried on the war with languor and indifferent success,
but the country, wearied of the interminable struggle, was
disposed to acquiesce in his foreign policy almost without
a murmur. The king, thwarted in his favourite schemes,
made overtures in 1746 to Lord Bath, but his purpose was
upset by the sudden resignation of the Pelhams, who, how
ever, at the king's request, immediately resumed office.
His very defects were, in the peculiar condition of parties,
among the chief elements of Pelham's success, for one with
a strong personality, moderate self-respect, or high concep
tions of statesmanship could not have restrained the dis
cordant elements of the cabinet for any length of time.
Moreover, he undoubtedly possessed the important re
quisites of considerable practical tact and a thorough
acquaintance with the details of business and the forms
of the House. Whatever quarrels or insubordination might
exist within the cabinet, they never broke out into open
revolt, and during his administration there was seemingly
a complete lull in the strife of parties. Nor can a high
degree of praise be denied to his financial policy, especially
his plans for the reduction of the national debt and the
simplification and consolidation of its different branches.
He died 6th March 1754.
See Coxe, Memoirs of the Pelham Administration, 1 vols., 1829.
PELIAS, PELIADES. Pelias, a celebrated character
in Greek fable, was the son of Poseidon and Tyro, daughter
of Salmoneus. Because Tyro afterwards married her
father's brother Cretheus, king of lolcus in Thessaly, to
whom she bore ^Eson, Pheres, and Amythaon, Pelias was
by some thought to be the son of Cretheus. He and his
twin-brother Neleus were exposed by their mother, but
were found and nurtured by a herdsman, who called one
of them Pelias, because his face was discoloured by a blow
from the hoof of a mare, and the other Neleus, because a
bitch had out of pity suckled him. When grown to man
hood they discovered their mother, and Pelias slew Sidero,
Tyro's stepmother, on the altar of Hera, whither she had
fled, because she had ill-used their mother. On the death
of Cretheus Pelias made himself master of the kingdom
of lolcus. (According to others, after the death of his
half-brother ^Eson, he ruled as regent for JEson's son
Jason.) He had previously quarrelled with his brother
Neleus, who went to Messenia, where he founded Pylus.
Pelias married Anaxiboea, daughter of Bias, or, according
to others, Philomache, daughter of Amphion, and became
the father of a son, Acastus, and of daughters, Pisidice,
Pelopea, Hippothoe, and Alcestis ; to these daughters
(called Peliades after their father) others add Amphinome,
Evadne, Asteropasa, and Antinoe. In order to rid himself
of Jason Pelias sent him to Colchis in quest of the golden
fleece, and he availed himself of the absence of the son in
order to put to death his father ^Eson together with his
mother and brother. When Jason returned with the
golden fleece he cast about how he should avenge the
death of his parents. In this he was helped by Medea,
who persuaded the Peliades to cut in pieces and boil their
father Pelias, assuring them that he would thus be restored
to youth. Acastus drove out Medea and celebrated far-
famed funeral games in honour of his father. The Peliades
fled to Mantinea in Arcadia, where their graves were shown
in the time of Pausanias.
The tragic death of Pelias was the subject of Sophocles's
drama Rhizotomoi (Root-cutters), and in the Tyro he treated
another portion of the legend. Peliades was the name of
Euripides's first play.
PELICAN (Fr. Pelican, Lat. Pelecanus or Pelicamts), a
large fish-eating water-fowl, remarkable for the enormous
pouch formed by the extensible skin between the lower
jaws of its long, and apparently formidable but in reality
very weak, bill. The ordinary Pelican, the Onocrotalus of
the ancients, to whom it was well known, and the Pelecanus
onocrotalus of ornithologists, is a very abundant bird in
some districts of South-eastern Europe, South-western
Asia, and North-eastern Africa, occasionally straying, it is
P E L — P E L
475
believed, into the northern parts of Germany and France ;
but the possibility of such wanderers having escaped from
confinement is always to be regarded,1 since few zoological
gardens are without examples which are often in the finest
condition. Its usual haunts are the shallow margins of
the larger lakes and rivers, where fishes are plentiful,
since it requires for its sustenance a vast supply of them,
pursuing them under water, and rising to the surface to
swallow those that it has captured in its capacious pouch.
The nest is formed among the reeds that border the waters
it frequents, placed on the ground and lined Avith grass.
Therein two eggs, with white, chalky shells, are commonly
laid. The young during the first twelvemonth are of a
greyish-brown, but this dress is slowly superseded by the
growth of white feathers, until when mature almost the
whole plumage, except the black primaries, is white, deeply
suffused by a rich blush of rose or salmon-colour, passing
into yellow on the crest and lower part of the neck in front.
A second and somewhat larger species, Pelecanus crispus,
also inhabits Europe, but in smaller numbers. This, when
adult, is readily distinguishable from the ordinary bird by
the absence of the blush from its plumage, and by the
curled feathers that project from and overhang each side of
the head, which with some differences of coloration of the
bill, pouch, bare skin round the eyes, and irides give it a
Avholly distinct expression.- Two specimens of the humerus
of as many Pelicans have been found in the English fens
(Ibis, 1868, p. 363; Proc. Zool. Society, 1871, p. 702), thus
proving the former existence of the bird in England at no
very distant period, and one of them being that of a young
example points to its having been bred in this country.
It is possible from their large size that they belonged to
P. crispus. Ornithologists have been much divided in
opinion as to the number of living species of the genus
Pelecanus (cf. op. cit,, 1868, p. 264; 1869, p. 571 ; 1871,
p. 631) — the estimate varying from six to ten or eleven;
but the former is the number recognized by the latest
author on the subject, M. Dubois (Bull. Mus. de Belgique,
1883). North America has one, P. erythrorhynchus, very
similar to P. onocrotalus both in appearance and habits,
but remarkable for a triangular, compressed, horny excres
cence which is developed on the ridge of the male's bill in
the breeding season, and, as ascertained by Mr Ridgway
(Ifnv, 1869, p. 350), falls off without leaving trace of its
existence when that is over. Australia has P. conspicillatiis,
easily distinguished by its black tail and wing-coverts. Of
more marine habit are P. pldlippensis and P. fuscus, the
former having a wide range in Southern Asia, and, it is
said, reaching Madagascar, and the latter common on the
coasts of the warmer parts of both North and South
America.
The genus Pelecanus as instituted by Linnoeus included
the CORMORANT (vol. vi. p. 407) and GANNET (vol. x. p.
70) as well as the true Pelicans, and for a long while these
and some other distinct groups, as the SNAKE-BIRDS (q.v.),
FRIOATE-BIRDS (vol. ix. p. 786), and TROPIC-BIRDS (q.v.),
which have all the four toes of the foot connected by a web,
w'ere regarded as forming a single Family, Pelecanidse ; but
this name has now been restricted to the Pelicans only,
though all are still usually associated under the name
Steyanoiiodes (ORNITHOLOGY, p. 46). It may be neces
sary to state that there is no foundation for the venerable
legend of the Pelican feeding her young with blood from
1 This caution was not neglected by the prudent, even so long ago
as Sir Thomas Browne's days ; for he, recording the occurrence of a
Pelican in Norfolk, was careful to notice that about the same time one
of the Pelicans kept by the king (Charles II.) in St James's Park
had been lost.
2 It is also said to have twenty-two rectrices, while the ordinary
species has only eighteen.
her own breast, which has given it an important place in
ecclesiastical heraldry, except that, as Mr Bartlett has
suggested (Proc. Zool. Society, 1869, p. 146), the curious
bloody secretion ejected from the mouth of the Flamingo
may have given rise to the belief, through that bird having
been mistaken for the "Pelican of the wilderness." (A. N.)
PELIGNI. See ITALY, vol. xiii. p. 444.
PtiLISSIER, JEAN JACQUES AMABLE (1794-1864),
duke of Malakhoff, marshal of France, was born 6th
November 1794 at Maromme (Seine Inferieure), where his
father was employed in a powder-magazine. After attend
ing the military college of La Fleche and the special school
of St Cyr, he in 1815 entered the army as sub-lieutenant
in an artillery regiment. A brilliant examination in 1819
secured his promotion to the staff. He served as aide-de
camp in the Spanish campaign of 1823, and in the expedi
tion to the Morea in 1828-29, at the conclusion of which
he received the grand cross. In 1830 he took part in an
expedition to Algeria, and on his return was promoted to
the rank of major. Nine years later he was again sent to
Algeria as chief of the staff with the rank of lieutenant-
colonel, and remained there in active service till the
Crimean war, taking a prominent part in many important
operations, and, by gradual promotion, advancing to the
rank of general of division. The merciless severity of his
conduct in suffocating a whole Arab tribe in a cavern,
where they had taken refuge and refused to surrender,
awakened in 1846 such a strong feeling of indignation in
Europe that Marshal Soult, the French minister of war,
expressed in the chambers his regret at its occurrence; but
Marshal Bugeaud, the governor -general of Algeria, not
only gave it his approval but shortly afterwards secured
for Pelissier further promotion. On the declaration of war
with Russia Pelissier was sent to the Crimea, where on
16th May 1855 he succeeded Marshal Canrobert as com-
mander-in-chief of the French forces before Sebastopol.
After the capture of the fortress he was, on the 12th
September, promoted to be marshal. On his return to
Paris he was named senator, created duke of Malakhoff
(22d July 1856), and rewarded with a grant of 100,000
francs per annum. From March 1858 to May 1859 he
acted as French ambassador in London, whence he was re
called to take command of the army of observation on the
Rhine. In 1860 he was appointed governor -general of
Algeria; and he died there 22d May 1864.
See ALOERIA (vol. i. pp. 568, 569) ; Marbaud, Lc Narechal
Pelissier, 1863 ; Castille, Portraits Historiqucs, 2d series, 1859.
PELL, JOHN (1610-1685), mathematician, was born
on 1st March 1610 at Southwick in Sussex, where his
father was minister. He was educated at the free school
of Steyning, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the
age of thirteen. During his university career he made him
self an accomplished linguist, and even before he took his
M.A. degree (in 1630) he was engaged in learned corre
spondence with Briggs and other mathematicians. His
great reputation and the influence of Sir William Boswell,
the English resident, with the States -General procured his
election in 1643 to the chair of mathematics in Amsterdam,
whence he removed in 1646, on the invitation of the
prince of Orange, to Breda, where he remained till 1652.
From 1654 to 1658 Pell acted as Cromwell's political
agent to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. On his
return to England he took orders and was appointed by
Charles II. to the rectory of Fobbing in Essex, and in
1673 he was presented by Bishop Sheldon to the rectory
of Laindon in the same county. His devotion to mathe
matical science seems to have interfered alike with his
advancement in the church and with the proper manage
ment of his private affairs. Cheated, it is said, by his
tenants and relations, he was reduced to the utmost
476
P E L
poverty. For a time he was confined as a debtor in the
King's Bench prison. He lived, on the invitation of Dr
Whistler, for a short time in 1682 at the College of Physi
cians, but died 12th December 1685 at the house of Mr
Cothorne, reader of the church of St Giles in the Fields.
He was buried at the expense of the rector of this church
and of Dr Busby, the master of Westminster School.
Many of Pell's manuscripts fell into the hands of Dr
Busby, and afterwards came into the possession of the
Royal Society ; they are still preserved in something like
forty folio volumes, which contain, not only Pell's own
memoirs, but much of his correspondence with the mathe
maticians of his time.
The Diopliantinc analysis was a favourite subject with Pell ; he
lectured on it at Amsterdam ; and he is now best remembered for
his solution of the indeterminate equation, ax~ — y- = \, which is
now known by his name, and which had been proposed by Fermat
as a challenge to the English mathematicians. His chief works
are Astronomical History of Observations of Heavenly Motions and
Appearances, 163-4 ; Ediptica Prognostica, 1634 ; Controversy with
Longomontanm concerning the Quadrature of the Circle, 1646 (?) ;
An, Idea of the Mathematics, 12mo, 1650 ; Branker's Translation
of Ehonius's Algebra, imich altered and augmented, 4to, 1668 ; A
Table of Ten Thousand Square Numbers, fol., 1672.
PELLA. See MACEDONIA, vol. xv. p. 137.
PELLAGRA (Ital. pelle agra, smarting skin) is the
name given, from one of its early symptoms, to a peculiar
disease, of comparatively modern origin, occurring among
the peasantry, in Lombardy and other provinces of northern
Italy, and in the Asturias (inal de la rosa), Gascony,
Roumania, and Corfu. It is a progressive disease of nutri
tion tending towards profound paralytic and mental dis
orders, and is associated to a very significant extent, if
not even invariably, with a staple diet of damaged maize
along with other peculiarly wretched and hopeless con
ditions of living. Although Lombardy is the garden of
Italy, its peasantry are over- worked, under-paid, and under
fed ; instead of a diet suited to their severe labour, their
sustenance consists largely of the more worthless kinds of
Indian corn of their own growing, the produce of poorly-
cultivated ground, sown late, harvested before maturity,
and stored carelessly in its wet state ; even if they grow a
certain proportion of good maize-corn the millers, to whom
they are often in debt, are more likely to grind the worst
samples for the peasants' own use. The flour is either
made into a kind of porridge — the "polenta" of Italy, the
"cruchade" of Gascony, or the "mamaliga" of Roumania —
or it is made into loaves, without yeast, baked hastily on
the surface only or on one side, and raw and wet within,
large enough to last a week, and apt to turn sour and
mouldy before the week is out.1
That pellagra is not a morbus miseries pure and simple,
wanting some more specific cause, will be at once apparent
when we consider that the misery of living is as old as the
human race, whereas pellagra is a disease of the last
hundred years or so, and that in Ireland, Russia, Upper
Silesia, Galicia, or other headquarters of the morbi miserise,
1 Of the peasantry of the Asturias, Townsend, a traveller of the last
century, says :
"They eat little flesh, they drink little wine; their usual diet is Indian
corn, with beans, peas, chestnuts, apples, pears, melons, and cucumbers ; and
even their bread, ro.ade of Indian corn, has neither barm nor leaven, but is
unfermented, and in the state of dough ; their drink is water" (ii. 14).
The following is the most recent account (by Dr Petit) of the
condition of the peasantry in the pellagrous district of the Gironde :
" The cultivation of this district consists of millet, rye, a small quantity of
maize, and a few rare vineyards. The soil does not suffice for the nourishment
of the miserable population who cultivate it. They are slovenly, and sleep in
their clothes ; their labour is in general of the severest kind, and they are very
ill fed. Their food is mostly a porridge of millet ; maize is rarely part of their
diet [elsewhere he says, " in all these provinces the flour of maize'enters largely
into the food of the people"), which includes a little rye-bread, sour most of
the time, a few sardines, and rancid lard. Meat is almost excluded from their
food ; sometimes on fete-days one may see a quarter of mutton or veal at the
repast. Their usual drink is water, and mostly bad water ; wine is not drunk
except in well-to-do families. Their dwellings are deplorable ; they are low-
roofed and damp, built of wattle, and constantly enveloped in reek. It often
happens that man and beast live together. Pellagra rages as an endemic
among these populations."
pellagra is unknown. The special factor is undoubtedly
maize as an article of diet or as the staple diet ; but it is,
on the other hand, perfectly clear that there is nothing in
a maize diet itself to induce pellagra. Compared with
the enormous extent of the maize-zone both in the western
and eastern hemispheres, the pellagra-area is a mere spot
on the map ; excluding Corfu, it lies between the parallels
of 46° and 42° N. ; and the exception of Corfu is a signi
ficant one. It is only since 1856 that pellagra ha,:, become
endemic in that island. Maize has always thriven well
there ; but wine-growing has displaced it to a great extent,
and the maize, which is still largely in request with the
peasantry, is now mostly imported ; it is in fact chiefly
Roumanian maize of an inferior kind, and all the more
deteriorated owing to its long water-transit by way of the
Danube and Black Sea. Again, in the Danubian provinces
themselves the peasantry of Transylvania, who are by no
means well off, are free from pellagra, notwithstanding their
addiction to polenta, having long ago learned the art of
husbandry from the Saxon part of the population ; they
allow the maize to ripen to the utmost, and then let it dry
on the ground and afterwards in barns, whereas the Wallack
peasantry of Roumania, who are subject to pellagra, gather
the corn before it is ripe, and shoot it into pits where it
becomes musty. In other countries where the conditions
of climate and soil are somewhat trying for maize, as in
Burgundy, Franche Comte, and the Bresse in France, and
in Mexico, the greatest care is taken to dry the Indian corn
before it is stored ; and it may be said that wherever these
precautions are taken pellagra does not follow. It has
happened on several occasions, after a particularly bad
maize-harvest, that pellagra has risen almost to an epidemic.
Again, its prevalence within its actual endemic area varies
much from province to province or from commune to com
mune, being always last where the maize-diet is supple
mented by wheaten flour, rice, beans, chestnuts, potatoes,
or fish.
Characters of the Disease. — The indications of pellagra
usually begin in the spring of the year, declining towards
autumn, and recurring with increasing intensity and per
manence in the spring seasons following. A peasant who
is acquiring the malady feels unfit for work, suffers from
headaches, giddiness, singing in the ears, a burning of the
skin, especially in the hands and feet, and diarrhoea. At
the same time a red rash appears on the skin, of the nature
of erysipelas, the red or livid spots being tense and painful,
especially where they are directly exposed to the sun.
About July or August of the first season these symptoms
disappear, the spots on the skin remaining rough and dry.
The spring attack of the year following will probably be
more severe and more likely to leave traces behind it ;
with each successive year the patient becomes more like a
mummy, his skin shrivelled and sallow, or even black at
certain spots, as in Addison's disease, his angles protruding,
his muscles wasted, his movements slow and languid, and
his sensibility diminished. Meanwhile there are more
special symptoms relating to the nervous system, including
drooping of the eyelid, dilatation of the pupil, and other
disorders of vision, together with symptoms relating to
the digestive system, such as a red and dry tongue, a
burning feeling in the mouth, pain on swallowing, and
diarrhoea. Peasants with this progressive malady upon
them come to the towns spring after spring seeking relief
at the various hospitals, and under a good regimen and a
permanently improved diet the malady is often checked.
But after a certain stage the disease is confirmed in a pro
found disorganization of the nervous system ; spasms of
the limbs begin to occur, and contractures of the joints
from partial paralysis of the extensor muscles and pre
ponderant action of the flexors ; melancholy, imbecility,
P E L — P E L
477
and a strong suicidal tendency are common accompani
ments. A large number of pellagrous peasants end their
days in lunatic asylums in a state of drivelling wretched
ness or raving madness ; many more drag out a miserable
existence in the communes where their working years had
been spent, sometimes receiving the communal relief to
which the law entitles them ; while the cases that are
reckoned curable are in Italy received into the various
endowed hospitals, of which there are a large number.
Cases that are rapidly fatal end in delirium or a state of
typhoid stupor ; the more protracted cases are cut off at
last by rapid wasting, colliquative and ill-smelling sweats,
profuse diarrhoea, and dropsy. After death a variety of
textural changes are found, which may be referred in
general to trophic disorders, or disorders of tissue-nutrition ;
in a considerable number the kidneys are in the contracted
state corresponding to the clinical condition of Bright's
disease without albuminuria ; another condition often
remarked is thinning of the muscular coats of the intes
tine ; deposits of pigment in the internal organs are also
characteristic, just as the discoloration of the skin is
during life.
Treatment. — There is hardly any doubt as to the remedy
for pellagra, just as there is hardly any doubt as to its
cause. The question is mainly one of the social condition
of the peasantry, of their food and wages ; it is partly, also,
a question of growing Indian corn on a soil or in a climate
where it will not mature unless with high farming. There
is nothing in the resources of medicine proper to cure this
disease ; as the cause is, so must the remedy be.
Affinities of Pellagra. — The disease has the general characters of
a tropho-neurosis. The early involvement of certain areas of the
skin, especially in exposed places such as the hands and feet, suggests
leprosy ; as in that disease, there is first hypenesthesia and then loss
of sensibility, sometimes a thickening of the surface and discolora-
tions ; and, although in pellagra the onset each successive spring and
the subsidence towards autumn are distinctive, yet in leprosy also the
cutaneous disorder is apt to come and go at first, reappearing at the
same spots and gradually becoming fixed. The grand difference in
leprosy, at least in the nodular variety of it, is that a new growth
of a granulomatous kind arises at these spots in the skin and around
the nerves. The occasional deep discoloration of the pellagrous skin
in certain spots has suggested a resemblance to Addison's disease of
the suprarenals, and has even made the diagnosis difficult. But
after the cutaneous disorders the course of pellagra is something
sui generis ; the melancholy, imbecility, or mania, as well as the
mummified state of the body, are peculiar to it. With ergotism
the points of resemblance are more perhaps in the causation than
in the nosological characters ; both diseases are specifically due to
damaged grain, ergotism being caused by the presence of an actual
bulky parasitic mould on rye, whereas pellagra is more probably
caused by fermentation and decomposition within the proper sub
stance of the maize -corn. As regards heredity, it is much less
marked in pellagra than in leprosy, but there are good grounds for
believing that the disease is in fact inherited sometimes by the
offspring ; infants at the breast may show the symptoms of it, but
that fact is not in itself conclusive for heredity, for the reason that
infants at the breast are partly fed on the household polenta. As
regards contagiousness, there is no more proof of it in pellagra
than there is in leprosy.
_ Geographical Distribution and History. — Pellagra is peculiarly a
disease of the peasantry, being hardly ever seen in residents of the
towns. In Italy the number of peasants affected by it was estimated
in 1879 at 100,000, the distribution being as follows :— Lombardy,
40,838 ; Venetia, 29,386 ; Piedmont, 1692 ; Lignria, 148 ; ^Emilia,
18,728 ; Tuscany, 4382 ; the Marches and Umbria, 2155 ; Rome, 76.
In Lombardy the worst centres are in the provinces of Brescia,
Pavia, Piacenza, and Ferrara. In Italy the disease has increased
very considerably within the last thirty years ; thus, in the pro
vince of Vicenza the number of persons known to be pellagrous in
1853-55 was 1380, in 1860 it was 2974, and in 1879 it had risen to
3400. There are no accurate returns from the Asturias and other
affected provinces of Spain, but the malady there is said to have
declined very materially of late. In Gascony, where it did not
begin until about fifty years ago, it is somewhat common, more in
the Landes than in the Gironde ; in one district of the latter Petit
estimates that there are 200 cases in a population of 6000. In
Roumania the total number is given at 4500, Moldavia having a
larger share than Wallachia. In Corfu it exists in 27 out of the
117 communes, the proportion of cases for the whole island being
3'2 per 1000 inhabitants.
Maize was grown in Europe for many years before pellagra showed
itself (see MAIZE) ; but the outbreak of the disease corresponds on
the whole closely in time (particularly in Gascony and Roumania)
with the introduction of an inferior kind of maize as the staple
food of the peasantry. The first accounts of pellagra come from
Spain. Casal in 1762 described the disease in the Asturias under
the name of mal de la rosa ; it is said to have been noticed first in
1735 around Oviedo, being then confined within very narrow limits.
The Asturias are still its headquarters in Spain, but it is prevalent
also in Burgos, Navarra, Zaragoza, Lower Aragon, Guadalajara,
and Cuenca, and it is met with in other provinces as well. In Italy
it was first reported from the vicinity of Lago Maggiore, and a few
years later (in 1750) it broke out simultaneously in the districts of
Milan, Brescia, Bergamo, and Lodi, extending afterwards to Como,
Cremona, Mantua, and Pavia, and to the whole of Lombardy before
the end of the century. It became endemic also in Venetia on the
one side and in Piedmont on the other, almost contemporaneously
with this. Within the present century it has extended its area
southwards into ^Emilia and into Tuscany, while it has become
more prevalent in its earlier seats at the same time. There is very
little of it in central Italy, while southern Italy with Sicily, is
absolutely exempt, notwithstanding the common use of Indian
corn in the form of bread and macaroni. The first authentic in
formation of its existence in Gascony came from near Arcachon in
1818, after which it spread along the coast of the Gironde and the
Landes. It has extended subsequently along the left bank of the
Garonne and towards the Pyrenees ; but around Dax it is said to
have decreased considerably of late. In Roumania, where the
medical profession is unanimous in tracing it to the use of damaged
maize, it dates from about 1833-46. It is only since 1856 that it
has become endemic in Corfu, under the circumstances already
mentioned.
Literature.— La Pellagra in Italia, Rome, 1880 (official report, with appendices
relating to France, Spain, and Roumania, and a copious bibliography extending
to fifteen pages). An article on "The Pellagra in Italy," in the Edin. EKV. for
April 1881, is based on this report. The authority for Corfu isTypaldos. The
best inquiries on the toxic properties of damaged maize are those' of Lombroso.
See also Hirsch, Historisch-geographiiche Pathologie, vol. ii., 2d eel., Stuttgart,
1883 (Engl. trans.). (C. C.)
PELLICANUS, CONRAD (1478-1556), one of the most
interesting minor figures in German theology and scholar
ship in the great age of the Reformation, was born at
Ruffach in Alsace in the winter of 1478. His paternal
name was Kiirsner, his father's father having been a
currier of Wyl in the Black Forest. The Latin name of
Pellicanus was chosen for him by his mother's brother
Jodocus Gallus, an ecclesiastic connected with the univer
sity of Heidelberg, who gave his nephew sixteen months
at the university at the cost of some fourteen florins in
1491-92. Pellican's parents were worthy people, but very
poor ; the boy was eager for learning, but had no books ;
at school at Ruffach, where he had learned well, "with
much fear and many a scourging," it was only the richer
boys who had a copy of the Ulm Donatus of 1485. So
when his uncle tired of him and he came back to Ruffach,
with some knowledge of the great Latin classics as well as
of the usual bachelor's course, he was glad to teach gratis
in the Minorite convent school that he might borrow books
from the library, and in his sixteenth year he resolved to
become a friar. This step helped his studies, for he was
sent to Tiibingen in 1496 and became a favourite pupil
of the guardian of the Minorite convent there, Paulus
Scriptoris, a man of considerable general learning and of
much boldness and honesty, who anticipated Luther in his
open preaching on such topics as vows, indulgences, and
the sacraments. There seems to have been at that time
in south-west Germany a considerable amount of sturdy
independent thought among the Franciscans, and more
genuine conformity to the original ideas of the order than
is often supposed ; Pellicanus himself became a Protestant
very gradually, and without any such revulsion of feeling as
marked Luther's conversion; at the moment when he went
to Zurich and threw off the cowl he was pleased to think
that the good St Francis would not abhor him for his
change of dress, and for learning for the first time at
the age of forty-eight the difference between crowns, florins,
and batzen. At Tubingen the future "apostate in three
478 PEL-
languages " was able to begin the study of Hebrew. He
had no teacher and no grammar ; but Paulus Scriptoris
carried him a huge codex of the prophets on his own
shoulders all the way from Mainz. He learned the letters
from the transcription of a few verses in the Star of the
Messiah of Petrus Niger, and, with a subsequent hint or
two from Reuchlin, who also lent him the grammar of
Moses Kimhi, made his way through the Bible for himself
with the heip of Jerome's Latin. He got on so well that
he was not only a useful helper to Reuchlin but anticipated
the manuals of the great Hebraist by composing in 1501
the first Hebrew grammar in a European tongue. It was
printed in 1503, and afterwards included in Reysch's
Margarita Philosophica. Hebrew remained a favourite
study to the last. Pellican's autobiography is full of
interesting details as to the gradual multiplication of
accessible books on the subject, which he hunted up in
every journey ; and ultimately he not only studied but
translated a vast mass of rabbinical and Talmudic texts.
With a cooler judgment than Reuchlin, however, he was
not deceived as to the true value of the later Hebrew
wisdom, and his interest in Jewish literature was mainly
philological. In linguistic knowledge he reached a high
standard for that time, — certainly higher than that of his
better-known pupil, S. Miinster. The chief fruit of these
studies is the vast Biblical commentary published at
Zurich in his later years (1532-39, 7 vols.), which shows a
remarkably sound judgment on questions of the text, and
a sense for historical as opposed to typological exegesis,
such as soon disappeared from the Protestant Church and
was hardly equalled by any in his own day. Pellicanus
became priest in 1501 and continued to serve his order at
Ruffach, Pforzheim, and Basel till 1526. At Basel he did
much laborious work for Froben's editions, and acquired a
thorough knowledge of the early fathers, through which
his dissatisfaction with current dogma gradually ripened
into conviction that the church taught many doctrines of
which the early doctors of Christendom knew nothing.
He spoke his views frankly, but he disliked polemic, and
was happy in his convent or in long journeys in the service
of his order, which carried him over all south Germany
and through Italy as far as Rome ; he found also more
toleration than might have been expected, even after he
became active in circulating Luther's books. Thus, sup
ported by the civic authorities, he remained guardian of
the convent of his order at Basel from 1519 till 1524, and,
even when he had to give up this post, remained in the
monastery for two years, professing theology in the
university and always toiling with indefatigable zeal. At
length, when the position was becoming quite untenable,
he received through Zwingli a call to Zurich as professor
of Hebrew, and, formally throwing off his monk's habit,
entered on a new life. Here he remained till his death in
1556, falling into his new surroundings with the ease of
a simple affectionate nature, happy in the friendship of
Zwingli and Bullinger, hospitably entertaining the many
learned strangers who visited Zurich or the poor students
who crowded to its school, avoiding religious controversy,
and always deep in his books. The step in life which cost
him most thought was his marriage, but this' also proved
so happy an experiment that he lived to be married a
second time. In his later years he was afflicted with the
stone, the torture of so many of the older scholars, but he
continued active till the last.
Pellican's scholarship, though not brilliant, was really extensive ;
his sound sense and his singularly pure and devoted character gave
him a great influence, as is apparent even in the too modest auto
biography which he wrote for his son. He was curiously free from
the pedantry of the time for a man who had lived so much among
books ; his views about the use of the German vernacular as a
vehicle of culture (Chron., 135, 36) are a striking proof of this.
-PEL
As a theologian his natural affinities were with Zwingli, with whom
in his smaller sphere he shared the advantage of having grown up
to the views of the Reformation, without any sudden and violent
mental struggle, by the natural progress of his studies and religious
life. Thus he never lost his sympathy with humanism and with
its great German representative, Erasmus. The Reformed Church
might have had a happier course if it had longer kept to the
lines of the first Zurich doctors. Fellican's Latin autobiography
(Chronicon C, P. R.} is one of the most interesting documents of
the period. It was first published by Kiggenbach in 1877, and in
this volume the other sources for his life are registered.
PELLICO, SILVIO (1788-1854), Italian dramatist, was
born at Saluzzo in Piedmont on 24th June 1788, the earlier
portion of his life being passed at Pinerolo and Turin under
the tuition of a priest named Manavella. A taste for the
drama, fostered by private theatrical recitals, showed itself
at the age of ten in the composition of a tragedy under the
inspiration of Caesarotti's translation of the Ossianic poems.
On the marriage of his twin sister Rosina with a maternal
cousin at Lyons he went to reside in that city, devoting
himself during four years to the study of French literature.
His patriotism having been re-awakened by the reading of
Foscolo's Dei Sepolcri, he returned in 1810 to Milan, where
he became professor of French in the Collegio degli Orfani
Militari. The appearance of Carlotta Marchionni on the
Milan stage induced him to compose for her the tragedy
Francesco, da Rimini, which, despite the adverse criticism
of Foscolo, was brought out with success on the return of
the actress to the city a few years later. Its publication
was followed by that of the tragedy Eufemio da Messina,
but the representation of the latter was forbidden. Pellico
had in the meantime continued his work as tutor, first to
the unfortunate son of Count Briche, and then to the two
sons of Count Porro Lambertenghi. In this capacity he
was brought into contact with many of the foremost men
of the day and threw himself heartily into an attempt to
weaken the hold of the Austrian despotism by indirect
educational means. Of the powerful literary executive
which gathered about Counts Porro and Confalonieri,
Pellico was the able secretary, — the management of the
Conciliatore, which appeared in 1818 as the organ of the
association, resting largely upon him. But the paper,
under the relentless censorship of the Austrian officials,
ran for a single year only, and the society itself was
broken up by the more vigorous action of the Government
consequent upon the formation of the constitution of
Naples. In October 1820 Pellico was arrested on the
charge of carbonarism and conveyed to the Santa Mar-
gherita prison. Occupied at first in preparing his defence
and in religious meditation, he found means, after his
removal to the Piombi at Venice in February 1821, to
resume literary work, composing there several Cantiche and
the tragedies Ester d'Engaddi and Iginia d'Asti. The
sentence of death pronounced on him in February 1822 was
finally commuted to fifteen years carcere duro, and in the
following April he was placed in the Spielberg at Briinn.
His chief work during this part of his imprisonment was
the tragedy Leoniero da Dertona, for the preservation of
which he was compelled to rely on his memory. After
his release in 1830 he commenced the publication of his
prison compositions, of which the Ester was played at
Turin in 1831, but immediately suppressed. In 1832
appeared his Gismonda da Mendrizio, Erodiade, and the
Leoniero, under the title of Tre nuovi Tragedie, and in the
same year the work which gave him his European fame,
Le Mie Prigioni. The last gained him the friendship of
the Marchesa di Barolo, the reformer of the Turin prisons,
and in 1834 he accepted from her a yearly pension of 1200
francs. His tragedy Tommaso Moro had been published
in 1833, his most important subsequent publication being
the Opere Inedite in 1837. On the decease of his parents
in 1838 he was received into the Casa Barolo, where he
P E L — P E L
479
remained till his death, assisting the marchesa in her
charities, and writing chiefly upon religious themes. Of
these works the best known is the Dei Doveri d?cjli Uomini,
a series of trite maxims which do honour to his piety
rather than to his critical judgment. A fragmentary
biography of the marchesa by Pellico was published in
Italian and English after her death. He died 31st
January 1854, and was buried in the Campo Santo at
Turin. His writings, whether in prose or verse, are chaste
and graceful, but defective in virility and breadth of
thought, and his tragedies display neither the insight into
character nor the constructive power of a great dramatist.
It is in the simple narrative and naive egotism of Le Mie
Prvjioni that he has established his strongest claim to
remembrance, winning fame by his misfortunes rather
than by his genius.
Cf. Piero Maroncelli, Addizioni (die Mie Prigioni,^ Paris, 1834 ;
the biographies by Latour ; Gabriele Ros.selli ; Didier, Revue des
Deux Mondes, September, 1842 ; De Lomenie, Galerie des Contemp.
Illustr., iv., 1842; Chiala, Turin, 1852; Nollet-Fabert, 1854;
Giorgio Briano, 1854 ; Bourdon, 1868 ; and the life of the Mar
chesa di Barolo.
PELOPIDAS, a distinguished Greek general, who, in
conjunction with Epaminondas, raised his native city Thebes
to a pitch of power such as she never attained to before or
afterwards. He was the son of Hippoclus and member of
an illustrious Theban family. The large property to which
lie succeeded in his youth, and which he seems to have in
creased by a brilliant marriage, was liberally employed by
him in the relief of the destitute. When he could not
persuade his friend Epaminondas to share his wealth, he
imitated that great man in the stern simplicity and fru
gality of his life and in his cheerful endurance of hard
ships. Though his taste for hunting and gymnastics, and
his fiery temper, contrasted with the studious habits and
the "gentle and majestic patience" of his friend, no one
appreciated better than Pelopidas the greatness of Epami
nondas, to whom, if inferior as a general and a statesman,
he was equal in romantic courage and unselfish devotion
to his fatherland. Their friendship continued unbroken
till death. It was cemented by a battle in which Epami
nondas saved the life of Pelopidas. When the Spartans
under Phoebidas seized the Cadmea or citadel of Thebes
(summer of 383 or 382 B.C.), Pelopidas, as a member of
the democratic club which was opposed to the Spartans,
was forced to flee. Along with other exiles he found a
refuge at Athens. Epaminondas, protected from suspicion
by his poverty and his studies, was suffered to remain in
Thebes. Though a very young man, Pelopidas took a lead
ing part in persuading his fellow -exiles to strike a blow
for the liberation of Thebes. Having concerted a plan
with their friends in Thebes, Pelopidas, with a few com
panions, entered the city in disguise, surprised and slew
the magistrates favourable to Sparta, and roused the people
to attack the Spartan garrison in the citadel. But the
Spartans capitulated and marched out. This happened in
the early winter of 379. Pelopidas and two others of the
liberators were elected " boeotarchs," or chief magistrates
of Boeotia, an office which had been in abeyance for some
years. Henceforward to the end of his life Pelopidas was
annually elected to one of the chief offices of the state.
The treacherous attempt made soon afterwards by the
Spartan Sphodrias to seize the Piraeus was said, with
little probability, to have been instigated by Pelopidas in
order to embroil Sparta with Athens. The liberation of
Thebes Avas followed by some years of desultory warfare
with Sparta. At Tanagra, however, Pelopidas defeated
the enemy and slew the Spartan governor. Still more
brilliant was the victory gained by him at Tegyra over a
numerically superior force of two Spartan divisions. His
success was due chiefly to the disciplined valour of the
Sacred Band, a picked regiment of 300 men, whom Pelopidas
led to glory on many a bloody field. The battle of Tegyra,
as the first occasion on which the Spartans had ever been
worsted by an inferior force, made a deep impression on
Greece. At the great battle of Leuctra (July 371), which
permanently crippled the power of Sparta, Pelopidas and
the Sacred Band were again conspicuous. Pelopidas was
one of the generals in command of the Theban army which
invaded the Peloponnesus in 370-369, and he joined with
Epaminondas in persuading their colleagues to prosecute
the campaign even after the expiry of their year of office.
For this the two friends were tried for their life, but
acquitted. Soon afterwards (apparently in 369), in
response to a petition of the Thessalians, Pelopidas was
despatched with an army to Thessaly against Alexander,
tyrant of Pherae. After occupying Larissa and freeing the
Thessalians from the oppression of the tyrant, Pelopidas
marched into Macedonia, where, at the request of the belli
gerents, he acted as arbitrator between Alexander king of
Macedonia and the pretender Ptolemceus. Having con
cluded an alliance with the Macedonian king, he brought
back to Thebes, amongst other hostages, the youthful
Philip, brother of the king and afterwards father of Alex
ander the Great. In the following year (368), Pelopidas
returned to Thessaly as ambassador and without an army.
Learning that Ptolemaeus had killed Alexander of Mace
donia and seized the throne, he collected a body of mer
cenaries and marched against him. Ptolemaeus induced
the troops of Pelopidas to desert their leader, but he was
too prudent to press his advantage, and agreed to act as
regent for the brothers of the late king and to be an ally
of Thebes. On his return from Macedonia Pelopidas was
seized and detained by Alexander of Pherae. From this
captivity, in which his scornful bearing excited the wonder
of his captor, he was released by a Theban force under
Epaminondas. By the exertions of Epaminondas and
Pelopidas, Thebes had by this time become the most
powerful state in Greece ; and that she might be formally
recognized as such Pelopidas was sent as ambassador
(367) to the Persian court. Favourably impressed by
the renown and still more by the personal character of the
envoy, the Persian king, Artaxerxes, loaded him with marks
of honour and ratified all his proposals. These were, that
Messene should be independent, that Athens should lay
up her warships, and that any city which declined to
follow the leadership of Thebes should be treated as an
enemy by Persia. The purpose of the treaty, to strengthen
Thebes by weakening Athens and Sparta, was obvious.
It found no favour with the Greek states and remained
a dead letter. In 364 the Thessalian towns once more
appealed to Pelopidas for help against their old enemy
Alexander of Phene. Disregarding an ominous eclipse of
the sun, Pelopidas pushed on with a handful of troops,
leaving the main body to follow. At the heights of
Cynoscephalae, near Pharsalus, he came up with the tyrant
Alexander at the head of a much superior force. The
valour of Pelopidas secured another victory, but it was his
last, — catching sight of his hated foe, he rushed on him
single-handed and fell covered with wounds. The Thes
salians, in whose cause he died, requested and received the
honour of carrying the hero to his last home, and the
crowns, trophies, and golden arms by which the coffin was
surrounded bore witness to the love and sorrow of a whole
people. His friend did not long survive him. He too
was to die fighting his country's battles in a foreign land.
The pre-eminence of Thebes was the work of these two men
alone, and with them it passed away.
Our chief authority is Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas. Xenophon
was a contemporary, and his 'history covers the whole period of the
life of Pelopidas, but, with his usual malignity to the enemies of
480
P E L — P E L
Sparta, he only mentions Pelopidas in connexion with his fruitless
embassy to Persia. There is a meagre life by Cornelius Nepos.
See also Diod. Sic., xv. 62, 67, 71, 75, 80, 81.
PELOPONNESUS. See GREECE.
PELOPS, a hero of Greek mythology, was the grand
son of Zeus, son of Tantalus and Dione, and brother of
Xiobe. His father's home was on Mount Sipylua in Asia
Minor, whence Pelops is spoken of as a Lydian or a
Phrygian, or even as a Paphlagonian. Tantalus was a
friend and companion of the gods, and one day he served
up to them his own son boiled and cut in pieces. The
gods detected the crime, and none of them would partake
except Demeter (according to others Thetis), who, dis
tracted by the loss of her daughter Persephone, ate of
the shoulder. The gods restored Pelops to life, and the
shoulder consumed by Demeter was replaced by one of
ivory. Wherefore the descendants of Pelops had a white
mark on their shoulder ever after. This tale is perhaps a
reminiscence of human sacrifice, of which numerous traces
remain in Greek legend and history. Poseidon admired
Pelops, the beautiful boy, and carried him off to Olympus,
where he dwelt with the gods, till, for his father's sins,
he was cast out from heaven. Then, taking much wealth
with him, he crossed over from Asia to Greece. He went
to Pisa in Elis as suitor of Hippodamia, daughter of King
CEnomaus, who had already vanquished in the chariot-
race and slain many suitors for his daughter's hand. But
by the help of Poseidon, who lent him winged steeds, or
of (Enomaus's charioteer Myrtilus, whom he or Hippodamia
bribed, Pelops was victorious in the race, wedded Hippo
damia, and became king of Pisa. Pelops's race for his wife
was a favourite subject of Greek poetry and art. It may
be a confused recollection of the custom of wife-snatching
prevalent in early times. When Myrtilus claimed his
promised reward, Pelops flung him into the sea near
Gerrestus in Eubcea, and from his dying curse sprang
those crimes and sorrows of the house of Pelops which
supplied the Greek tragedians with such fruitful themes.
Among the sons of Pelops by Hippodamia were Atreus,
Thyestes, and Chrysippus. According to others Chrysippus
was his son by a different mother. Atreus and Thyestes
were jealous of Chrysippus and murdered him, wherefore
Pelops drove them out. According to another story it
was Hippodamia who murdered him and fled, but after
wards her bones were brought back to Olympia, where she
had a temple, in which the women offered her a yearly
sacrifice. From Pisa Pelops extended his sway over the
neighbouring Olympia, where he celebrated the Olympian
games with a splendour unknown before. He warred
against and treacherously slew Stymphalus, king of Arcadia.
His power and fame were so great that henceforward the
whole peninsula was known to the ancients as Peloponnesus
(Isle of Pelops). In after times Pelops was honoured at
Olympia above all other heroes ; a temple was built for
him by Heracles, his descendant in the fourth generation,
in which the annual magistrates sacrificed to him a black
ram. During the Trojan war the Greeks were told that
Troy could not be taken until they fetched a bone of
Pelops. So a shoulder-blade of Pelops was brought from
Pisa. When it was being brought back again the ship
carrying it was wrecked off Eubcea. Many years after
wards the bone was taken up by Damarmenus, a fisher
man, in his net. Astonished at its size, he went to inquire
of the Delphic oracle. There he met envoys from Elis
come to discover a remedy for a pestilence. The oracle
bade them recover the bone of Pelops, and commanded
Damarmenus to restore it to them. He did so, and he
and his descendants were appointed custodians of the
bone. Some thought that the Palladium was made of the
bones of Pelops. This belief in the miraculous efficacy of
the bones of heroes was common in Greece (witness, e.g.,
the story of the bones of Orestes in Herodotus). From
the great size of the bones they may sometimes have been
those of large extinct animals.
From the reference to Asia in the tales of Tantalus,
Niobe, and Pelops it has been conjectured with some
probability that Asia was the original seat of these legends,
and that it was only after emigration to Greece that the
people amongst whom they were current localized a part
of the tale of Pelops in their new home. In the time
of Pausanias the throne of Pelops was still shown on the
top of Mount Sipylus. The story of Pelops is told in
the beautiful first Olympian ode of Pindar. The prosaic
version of the story found in Nicolaus Damascenus (17)
differs in several points from the usual legend.
PELOUZE, THEOPHILE JULES (1807-1867), French
chemist, was born on 26th February 1807 at Valognes
in Normandy, where his father was manager of a porcelain
manufactory. The elder Pelouze was a man of great
ability and energy, but of a peculiarly susceptible tempera
ment, which made it impossible for him to remain long in
any position. He gave up his post at Valognes, and
found employment successively at the glass-works of St
Gobain, the iron-works at Charenton, and in gas-works.
This moving life was unfavourable for the family finances,
but doubtless gave young Pelouze opportunities of seeing
and becoming familiar with a great variety of chemical
operations on a large scale. He studied pharmaceutical
chemistry first at La Fere, and afterwards, under Chevalier,
at the Ecole de Pharmacie in Paris. He then became a
clinical clerk under Magendie in the Salpetriere hospital.
One day, when returning from a visit to his father at
Charenton, he was surprised by a heavy shower, and seeing
what he took to be a public carriage — the omnibus of the
period — he hailed it. It contained only one passenger,
but the driver, instead of stopping for another fare, drove
on without taking the least notice. Pelouze rushed up
and stopped the horse. On this the solitary passenger,
who was Gay-Lussac, explained that he had hired the
vehicle for his own use, but that he would be glad of the
company of the new-comer. The result of this accidental
introduction was that Pelouze abandoned medicine and
continued the study of chemistry in Gay-Lussac's laboratory.
From 1827 to 1829 he acted as assistant to Gay-Lussac
and Lassaigne, and in 1830, on the recommendation of
Gay-Lussac, he was appointed professor of chemistry at
Lille. Returning to Paris, he was appointed in 1831 pro
fessor of chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique and at the
College de France, in 1833 assay er to the mint, and in
1848 president of the Mint Commission. In 1850 he
succeeded Gay-Lussac as chemical adviser to the glass
works of St Gobain. He was elected a member of the
Institute of France in 1837. He died, after a short illness,
on the 31st of May 1867.
Along with Fremy, Pelouze published a Treatise on Chemistry
(1849-50 ; 2d ed. 1854-56). His numerous chemical papers were
published in the Annalcs de Chimie ct de Physique and in the
Comptcs rvndus. Among these the most important are: — "On
Beetroot Sugar" (1831), "On Salicine " (1830 and 1831), "On the
Transformation of Hydrocyanic Acid and Water into Formiatc of
Ammonia" (1831), "On Lactic Acid" (with Gay-Lussac, 1833),
"On Tannin, Gallic Acid, Pyrogallic Acid, &c. " (1833), "On the
Product of the Distillation of Organic Acids" (1834), "On Nitro-
sulphatcs" (1835), "On Butyric Acid" (with Gelis, 1844), "On
Gun-cotton" (1846 and 1847), "On the Effect of Light on the
Colour of Glass" (1865 and 1867).
PELTIER, JEAN CHARLES ATHANASE, was originally a
watchmaker, but retired from business about the age of
thirty and devoted himself to experimental and observa
tional science. He was born at Ham (Somme) in February
1785 ; his death took place at Paris in October 1845.
His great experimental discovery was the heating or
P E L — P E M
481
cooling of the junctions in a heterogeneous circuit of
metals according to the direction in which an electric
current is made to pass round the circuit (1834). This
reversible effect is proportional directly to the strength of
the current, not to its square, as is the irreversible genera
tion of heat clue to resistance in all parts of the circuit.
It is found that, if a current pass from an external source
through a circuit of two metals, it cools one junction and
heats the other. It cools the junction if it be in the
same direction as the thermo-electric current which would
be caused by directly heating that junction. In other
Avords, the passage of a current from an external source
produces in the junctions of the circuit a distribution of
temperature which leads to the weakening of the current
by the superposition of a thermo-electric current running
in the opposite direction. The true importance of this
so-called "Peltier effect" in the explanation of thermo
electric currents was first clearly pointed out by Joule ; and
Sir W. Thomson (see vol. viii. p. 97) further extended the
subject by showing, both theoretically and experimentally,
that there is something closely analogous to the Peltier
effect when the heterogeneity is due, not to difference of
quality of matter, but to difference of temperature in
contiguous portions of the same material. Shortly after
Peltier's discovery was published, Lenz effected by means
of it the freezing of small quantities of water by the cold
developed in a bismuth-antimony junction when a voltaic
current was passed through the metals in the order named.
Peltier's other papers, which are numerous, are devoted
in great part to atmospheric electricity, waterspouts,
cyanometry and polarization of sky-light, the temperature
of water in the spheroidal state, and the boiling-point at
great elevations. There are also a few devoted to curious
points of natural history. But his name will always be
associated with the thermal effects at junctions in a voltaic
circuit, a discovery of importance quite comparable with
those of Seebeck and Gumming.
PELUSIUM, an ancient city of Egypt, at the mouth of
the most easterly (Pelusiac) branch of the Nile, was the
key of the land towards Syria and a strong fortress, which,
from the Persian invasion at least, played a great part in
all wars between Egypt and the East. It has not, however,
been satisfactorily identified with any place mentioned in
the hieroglyphic monuments, and the conjecture of Jerome,
who supposes it to be the Sin of Ezekiel xxx. 15, 16,
though admirably suited to the context and certainly
preferable to the Sais of the LXX., cannot be positively
established, Pelusium is the Farama of the Arabs ; the
neighbouring place still called Tina is hardly to be identified
etymologically with Sin. The country about Pelusium was
noted for the production of flax ; the fame of the Pelusian
linen is, perhaps, still preserved in the word " blouse."
The whole district has now relapsed into sand and marsh,
and the site has not yielded any important remains.
PEMBERTON, an urban sanitary district of Lanca
shire, England, situated on the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway, 2| miles west from Wigan. Near the town are
stone quarries and collieries, and the town itself possesses
cotton -mills, chemical works, and iron-foundries. At a
short distance is Hawkley Hall, an ancient timber house.
At Ancliff in the township of Pemberton there was, accord
ing to ancient records, a burning well of considerable fame,
but the name Ancliff has now disappeared, and the site
cannot be verified. The population of the urban sanitary
district (area 2894 acres) in 1871 was 10,374, and in 1881
it was 13,762.
PEMBROKE, the most westerly county of South Wales,
lies to the west of the counties of Cardigan and Carmar
then, and is bounded on three sides by the ocean — on
the S. by the Bristol Channel, on the W. by St George's
Channel, and on the N. by Cardigan Bay. Its length from
Strumble Head to St Gowan's Head is about 30 miles,
and its average breadth a little over 20. The area is
393,682 acres, or about 615 square miles.
The coast-line is extremely irregular and extends to over
1 00 miles, the principal inlets being Newport Bay ; Fish-
guard Bay, 3 miles in breadth, with an average depth of
from 30 to 70 feet, and possessing a good anchorage-ground
of mud and sand ; St Bride's Bay, 8 miles long by 8 broad ;
and Milford Haven, a splendid landlocked natural harbour,
having a length of about 20 miles, and including numerous
small bays and creeks. A considerable number of islands
adjoin the coast, the largest being Ramsey, which (except
ing some small rocks) includes the most westerly land in
Wales ; Skomer and Stockham, between St Bride's Bay
and Milford Haven ; and Caldy, south of Tenby. The
southern coast, consisting of bare, broken, and beetling
limestone cliffs, in many cases 200 feet in height, is exposed
to the full force of the Atlantic, which in several places
has hollowed out long funnel-shaped cavities into which
the sea has entrance, the most remarkable being Bosheston
Mere, near St Gowan's Head. Owing to the ocean storms
the county is almost bare of trees, and the bareness is not
relieved or atoned for by mountains, although in many
parts of the coast the scenery is wildly picturesque. For
the most part the surface is gently undulating, the small
rounded hills rising in height towards the north, until they
merge in the Preseley range, which runs from east to west
and divides the county into two parts, the highest summits
being Cwm-Cerwyn, 1754 feet, in the centre of the chain,
the lesser eminences of Moel Trigarn and Carn-meyn in
the east, and Bwlch-gwnt and Foel Eryr in the west. The
principal rivers are the Teifi, which forms for a short
distance the north -eastern boundary of the county with
Cardiganshire ; the Cleddy or Cleddou, of which there
are two branches, an eastern and a western, both flowing
south and mingling their waters in Milford Haven ; the
Nevern, which flows north into Newport Bay ; and the
Gwaen, which flows through a narrow and beautifully-
wooded glen to Fishguard Bay.
Geoloyy and Minerals. — Three -fourths of the county,
including the northern portion stretching westwards to
the western Cleddou river, and, with certain exceptions, to
the Channel, is formed of Llandeilo flags. The Carbonifer
ous strata from the South -Wales coal-field extend across
the centre of the county from east to west, their area
narrowing towards the west. The Pembrokeshire coal-field
differs entirely from the South- Wales coal-field both in the
lie of the strata and in the character of its beds, due to
the occurrence of volcanic action. It is separated also
from the main field by an interpolation of Old Red Sand
stone. North, east, and north-west it is bounded by beds
of mountain limestone and millstone grit, and on the
south by Cambrian beds and by the ocean, below which
the Coal-measures extend. The strata are composed of
Coal-measures, Carboniferous Limestone, and Old Red Sand
stone, and are frequently extremely contorted. Igneous
stratified rocks also occur in the Preseley range, and in the
neighbourhood of St David's Head. The coal is anthracite,
and when put on the fire in a wet state emits a blue flame
without smoke. About 80,000 tons are now dug annually,
the coal being used for furnaces and for smelting and brew
ing purposes. There is a lead mine at Llanfyrnach, from
which a considerable yield of silver is obtained, the annual
value of the ore raised being about <£15,000. In caves
explored near Tenby and on Caldy Island there have been
found remains of various species of extinct mammals.
Climate, Soil, and Agriculture. — Although Pembroke
shire is exposed to frequent violent gales from the south
west, the climate in the south is very mild and warm ; and
XVIII. — 6 1
482
PEMBROKE
flowers, fruits, and vegetables are earlier than in most other
districts of the United Kingdom. Towards the north,
especially on the higher ground, it is much colder, and
dani}> fogs and rain are frequent. The most common soil
is a dark-grey loam, which is much improved by admixture
with lime and sand. The sandstone and limestone forma
tion in the south produces an excellent quick soil, admir
ably adapted for horticulture, which is generally pursued
in this district. In the more northerly and higher regions
more attention is given to cattle-rearing and dairy-farming
than to the raising of crops or sheep -farming. The farm
houses and buildings, which formerly were rude and primi
tive in construction, with low mud-walls, are now generally
built of stone on improved methods. The cottages of
the peasants are, however, still for the most part uncom
fortable huts built of a clay and straw compound called
" clom." Great improvements have lately taken place in
farming, owing in great part to the enlightened encourage
ment of the landlords.
From 5935 in 1875 the number of holdings had increased to
5999 in 1880 (the latest return). Nearly four-fifths, 4222, were not
above 50 acres each in extent, 837 were between 50 and 100 acres, 853
between 100 and 300, and only 87 above 300 acres. In 1883 there
were 305,644 acres, or about 77 per cent, of the total area, under
tillage, corn crops occupying 55,011 acres, green crops 13,266,
rotation grasses 28,409, permanent pasture 206,052, and fallow
2906. The principal cereals are barley occupying 24,799 acres and
oats (of which -the black species occupy a large area) 25,494 acres,
wheat occupying only 4604 acres. Potatoes were grown on 3042
acres, turnips and swedes on 8038, and mangolds on 1322. Horses
in 1883 numbered 14,383 (of which 8665 were used solely for
purposes of agriculture), cattle 83,436 (of which 31,779 were cows
and heifers in milk or in calf), sheep 91,901, and pigs 27,623.
The principal breed of cattle are the native Castlemartins, black
in colour, and well suited to the climate and the system of farm
ing, as they both fatten readily and yield large supplies of milk.
Herefords and Alderneys ha/e lately been introduced on many
farms, but the old breed is still the favourite.
According to the latest return the land was divided among 3121
owners, possessing 356,699 acres, at an annual valuation of £389,701,
or about £1 Is. lOd. per acre. The estimated amount of common
or waste land was 11,260 acres. Of the owners, 1492, or about 44
per cent., possessed less than one acre each. The following owned
over 5000 acres each, viz., C. E. G. Phillips, 18,729 acres; earl
of Cawdor, 17,736 ; Sir Owen Scourfield, Hart., 11,243 ; Lord
Kensington, 6537; bishop of St David's, 5651; George Harries,
5173 ; and M. A. Sawin, 5168.
Manufactures. — Flannels are woven in various towns, and are
the principal textile manufacture of the county ; there are also
rope and sail works, and hat-making is practised. Many of the
inhabitants are engaged in coal-mining and in fishing. At Pater
there is a very extensive dockyard, and shipbuilding is carried on
at several other ports. Since the opening up of railway communi
cation the shipping trade, and the mining and other industries,
have made extensive progress, but the railway connexion is still
somewhat imperfect.
Administration and Population. — The county includes seven
hundreds ; the municipal boroughs of Haverfordwest (6398), Pem
broke (14,156), and Tenby (4750), and part (2058) of the municipal
borough of Cardigan, the remainder of which is in Cardiganshire.
In addition to Haverfordwest, Pembroke, and Tenby, there are
four other market towns,— Fishguard (2009), Milford (3812), Nar-
berth (2334), and Newport (1504). The county is divided into
three poor-law unions — Haverfordwest, Pembroke, and Narberth.
It is included in the south-western circuit. It has one court of
quarter-sessions, and is divided into seven petty and special sessional
divisions. One member is returned to parliament for the county,
one for the Haverfordwest district of boroughs, consisting of Fish-
guard, Haverfordwest, and Narberth, and one for the Pembroke
district of boroughs, consisting of Milford, Pembroke, Tenby, and
Wiston. Pembrokeshire contains 153 civil parishes, with part of
one other. It constitutes the archdeaconry of St David's in the
diocese of the same name, and forms part of the province of
Canterbury. From 56,280 in 1801 the population had increased
in 1821 to 74,009, in 1851 to 94,140, but in 1871 it had diminished
to 91,998, and in 1881 to 91,824, of whom 43,449 were males and
48,375 females. The number of inhabited houses in 1881 was
19,462, the average number of persons to an acre 0'23, and of acres
to a person 4 ' 26.
History, <Lc. — Although the limestone caves of Pembrokeshire
abound with relics of the Pleistocene fauna, no traces have as yet
been discovered of Palaeolithic man. Neolithic remains are plenti
ful. In caves, clitf-castles, bogs, kitchen-middens, &c., implements
of the polished stone age are frequently found, but, strange to say,
the long barrows typical of this period are wanting ; dolmens or
cromlechs, however, are very common : the ordnance map gives
eighteen, but this is by no means an exhaustive list. Llech-y-
Drybedd near Nevern, Pentre Evan near Newport, another one in
the same town, Longhouse near Mathry, Tre Llys on Pencair, are
magnificent specimens of Megalithic work. Stone circles, cairns,
monoliths, and earthworks abound in the county ; what proportion
of these are attributable to the dolichocephalic non-Aryan Silures
who used stone implements it is impossible to say.
The Goidel or Gaelic branch of the Celtic family has the credit
of having introduced bronze and round tumuli with cremated
bodies ; of these latter there are a great number in Pembrokeshire,
and considerable quantities of bronze implements have been dis
covered. A mixture of Silures and Goidels seem to have held
the country until they were conquered by the Romans about the
year 70 A.D. Roman remains are but scantily represented in
Pembrokeshire. Via Julia terminated at St David's, but no traces
of the peculiar Roman roadmaking exist. Fenton, the county
historian, fancied he discovered the station Ad Viycsimum of
the spurious Itinerary of Antonine at Ambleston, and there can
be no doubt that a large Roman building of some sort did exist
at that place. The late Professor Rollcston and Mr E. Laws
discovered Samian ware in the cave of Longbury near Tenby, and
Roman coins, ranging from Vespasian, 78 A. i>. , to Constantino II.,
340 A.D. , have been found very plentifully in the county.
"NVlieu the Saxons pressed the Cymric tribe of Brythonic Celts in
Cumbria, the latter appear to have migrated into Wales, and to
have conquered the inhabitants ; the Pembrokeshire Goidels seem
to have held out for some time. During this troubled period there
was a great incursion of missionaries, both Goidel and C3rmric ;
to these we owe the nomenclature of many villages. To this period
must be attributed the sepulchral inscriptions in that strange char
acter which has been called Ogam. Of these so many are to be
found in Pembrokeshire that it has been considered probable they
were invented in the district. They are usually in base Latin ; good
specimens are to be seen on Caldy Island, St Dogmel's, Cwingloyne
near Nevern, and Treffgarne near Haverfordwest. Most of the
crosses must be attributed to this period, though probably the
inscribed ones at Carew and Nevern are of later date.
After Wales had been completely conquered by the Cymry,
Rhodri Mawr divided it among his sons, and Pembrokeshire fell
to Cadell in 877. From that period until its complete incorpora
tion with England it suffered terribly from the family feuds of
the AVelsh princes. The Scandinavians also proved a fearful
scourge. Their first incursion, according to the Brut-y-Tywysogion,
took place in 795. The creeks of Pembrokeshire were peculiarly
adapted to the wants of the vikings, and they seem to have formed
a strong colony in the county, of which such names as Asgard,
Fishguard, Grafsholm, Freystrop, Goodwich, Milford Haven (Mid-
fjord Havn), Haverfordwest (Havards Fjord), &c., are an abiding
evidence.
During the reign of William Rufus, Arnulph de Montgomery,
sou of Roger de Belesme, invaded the southern portion of the
county with the king's sanction ; he gained a district and built
Pembroke Castle ; Manorbier was most likely erected at the same
time. In 1107 a colony of Flemings was sent into Pembrokeshire
by the king (Henry I.); they settled at Haverford and Tenby.
A second party of Flemings and other adventurers was despatched
to Pembroke by Henry II. ; these were mercenaries who had served
in the civil war between Stephen and Maud. In April 1170 a
party of Pembrokeshire men invaded and overran the eastern shores
of Ireland.
In 1405 Owen Glendower harried the country ; he occupied Tenby
with 10,000 Welshmen, and was joined by a French force of 12,000
men who had landed in Milford Haven. In 1456 Henry VII. was
born in Pembroke Castle, the residence of his uncle Jasper Tudor,
earl of Pembroke. After a long exile he landed at Brunt near
Dale with French troops ; here he was joined by Sir Rhys ap Thomas
at the head of a large number of Welshmen, with whom he marched
to Bosworth field. When the church property was disposed of
under Henry VIII., Lamphey Court, once a bishop's seat, fell to
the Devereux family, and it was the residence of the three Devereux
carls of Essex. These noblemen were extremely popular, and it was
most likely in consequence of the political views held by Robert
the third earl that when the civil war broke out Pembrokeshire
was found to be "the most seditious county in all Wales, or rather
of England, for the inhabitants were like English corporations,
unlike loyal Welshmen " (Mcrcurius Aulicus, 29th week, 2()th
July 1644). Pembroke and Tenby held out until 1648, ^when the
Presbyterians rebelled against the Independents ; then under Mayor
and Colonel Poyer the royal standard was hoisted on Pembroke
keep. Cromwell himself besieged Pembroke, which yielded to
him on 17th July 1648.
Besides the ruins of the fine castle of Pembroke, many others are
to be found in the county, — Manorbier, Carew, Lamphey, Narberth,
P E M — P E N
483
Llawhaddou, Haverford, Roch, Newport ; but Newport lias been
turned into a modern dwelling-house. Most of these are Edwardian
erections on Norman work, some of them having Tudor additions.
The most important ecclesiastical building is the cathedral of St
David's. Some sort of church existed on the site from the 6th
century, but the earliest work now remaining is that of Bishop
Peter do Leia (1180). This was seriously injured by the fall of the
tower in 1220 ; the damage had scarcely been repaired when the
church was wrecked by an earthquake in 1248. In 1328 Henry
Gower succeeded to the bishopric, the most munificent benefactor
the church of St David's ever saw ; he transformed the cathedral,
introducing the Decorated style throughout the edifice. After the
Reformation the building was permitted to fall gradually into de
cay, until it had become little better than a ruin. But in 1863
the edifice, more especially the tower, was thoroughly restored
under the late Sir Gilbert Scott.
PEMBROKE, a municipal and parliamentary borough
of South Wales, is picturesquely situated on an elevated
ridge at the head of Pennar Mouth Creek, on the south side
of Milford Haven, 30 miles south-west of Carmarthen. The
ruins of the ancient castle, originally founded by Arnulph
do Montgomery in 1094, occupy the summit of the ridge.
The castle was one of the strongest of the ancient fortresses
of Wales. Beneath it is an enormous natural cavern,
called "The Wogan," 70 feet long and 50 feet wide. At
the beginning of the Civil War the castle was held for the
Parliament, but, the commandants having gone over to
the Royal cause, it was taken by Cromwell after six weeks'
siege. Near the castle are the ruins of Monkton Priory
church, in the Norman style, containing a long vaulted
nave in good preservation.' The church of St Mary, in
the Early Pointed style, possesses a massive steeple. At
Pater, 2 miles west of Pembroke, is Pembroke dock, an
important Government dockyard, surrounded with very
strong fortifications. The dock is 70 acres in extent, and
the yard affords employment to about 24,000 artisans.
There are also artillery and infantry barracks. Pembroke
possesses a town-hall, assembly rooms, a mechanics' insti
tute, an infirmary, and several charities. The town was
incorporated by Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, in the reign
of Stephen, but the earliest charter preserved is one granted
by John, which was confirmed by successive sovereigns.
The population of the municipal borough (area, 5626 acres),
which includes the two wards of Pater and Pembroke, in
1871 was 13,704, and in 1881 it was 14,156. The popu
lation of the parliamentary borough (area, 6298 acres) in
the latter year was 16,339.
PEMPHIGUS. See SKIN, DISEASES OF.
PEN, an instrument for writing or for forming lines
with an ink or other coloured fluid. The English word,
as well as its equivalents in French (plume) and in German
(Feder), originally means a wing-feather, but in ancient
times the implements used for producing written charac
ters were not quills. The earliest writing implement was
probably the stylus (Gr. o-ruAos), a pointed bodkin of metal,
bone, or ivory, which, however, was only used for produc
ing incised or engraved letters. The calamus (Gr. KaAa/xos)
or arundo, the hollow tubular stalk of grasses growing in
marshy lands, was the true ancient representative of the
modern pen ; hollow joints of bamboo were similarly
employed. The use of such pens can be traced to a remote
antiquity among the civilized nations of the East, where
reeds and canes are to this day in common use as writing
instruments. The earliest specific allusion to the quill
pen occurs in the writings of St Isidore of Seville (early
part of the 7th century).1 But there is no reason to
assume that the quill pen was not in use at an earlier
period, and, indeed, remains have been found which prove
that even metal pens were not altogether unknown to the
ancient Romans.
" Instrumenta scriboe calamus et penna ; ex his enim verba paghiis
infiguntur ; sed calamus arboris est, penna avis, cujus acumen divi-
ditur iii duo."
The quills, formerly in exclusive use, and still largely
employed among Western communities as writing instru
ments, are obtained principally from the wings of the
goose. Swan-quills are also highly prized, and for special
purposes crow-quills and the wing-feathers of certain other
birds are adopted. For the method of preparing quills, &c.,
see FEATHERS, vol. ix. p. 60. In 1809 Joseph Bramah,
the famous inventor, devised and patented a machine for
cutting up the quill into separate nibs by dividing the
barrel into three or even four parts, and cutting these
transversely into "two, three, four, and some into five
lengths." Bramah's invention first familiarized the public
with the appearance and use of the nib and holder in place
of the complete quill or barrel, and in that sense he anti
cipated the form of pen now most commonly used. In
1818 Charles Watt obtained a patent for gilding and pre
paring quills and pens by manual labour and chemical
means, which may be regarded as the precursor of the
gold pen. But a more distinct advance in this direction
was effected in 1822, when Hawkins and Mordan patented
the application of horn and tortoise-shell to the formation
of pen-nibs, the points of which were rendered durable by
impressing into them small pieces of diamond, ruby, or
other very hard substance, or by lapping a small piece of
thin sheet gold over the end of the tortoise-shell, and by
various other ways securing a hard unalterable point to
the pen.
Metallic pens, though perhaps not altogether unknown
even in classical times, did not come into use till the pre
sent century, and indeed did not become common till
near the middle of the century. At the meeting of the
British Association in Birmingham in 1839 steel pens
were scarcely known ; ten years later the manufacture had
become an important local industry. In 1803 a steel pen
was made and sold in London by a Mr Wise, which was in
the form of a tube or barrel pen, the edges meeting to form
the slit with sides cut away as in the case of an ordi
nary quill. These sold at about five shillings each, and as
they were hard, stiff, and unsatisfactory instruments they
were not in great demand. In 1808 a metallic pen was
patented by Bryan Donkin, made of two separate parts, flat
or nearly so, with the flat sides opposite each other forming
the slit of the pen, or, as an alternative, of one piece, flat
and not cylindrical as in the usual form, bent to the proper
angle before being inserted into the tube which forms its
holder. In Birmingham a steel pen was made by a split-
ring manufacturer, Harrison, for Dr Priestley towards the
end of the 18th century. Harrison in after years became
associated in the split- ring business with Josiah Mason,
who was one of the great pioneers of the steel-pen trade.
Mason developed the manufacture on the basis of an in
vention by James Perry, who in 1830 obtained a patent
for improvements which must be regarded as the founda
tion of the steel -pen industry. Perry's improvements
consisted in producing pens from hard, thin, and elastic
metal, the most suitable material being described as the
very best steel brought to a spring temper. The necessary
flexibility was given to the pen by a central hole formed
in the pen between the nib and the shoulder in connexion
with a central slit, and by making between the nib and
the shoulder one or more lateral slits on each side of the
central slit. Joseph Gillott, who divides with Mason and
Perry the credit of perfecting the metallic pen, does not
appear as a patentee till 1831, when he patented an im
provement which consisted in forming elongated points on
the nibs of pens. These early pens lacked softness, flexi
bility, and smoothness of action, and subsequent inventions
of Perry, Gillott, Mordan, and others were largely devoted
to overcoming such defects. Metals other than steel were
also frequently suggested by inventors, those most commonly
P E N — P E N
proposed being silver, zinc, German silver, aluminium, and
aluminium bronze, the last-named having at one time come
into extensive use. The development of the gold pen can
not be traced through the patent records in the same way
as some others. Dr Wollaston, it is recorded, used a gold
pen composed of two thin slips of gold tipped with rhodium,
made apparently on the principle patented by Donkin in
1808. Messrs Mordan of London have the credit of being
the earliest regular makers of gold pens with tips of osmium-
indium alloy, and that manufacture was subsequently de
veloped by Messrs Wiley of Birmingham. The gold pens
now made are provided with indium tips, and their manu
facture is a special industry, requiring processes and
machines different from those used in the steel-pen industry.
Fountain pens and penholders in which considerable
reservoirs of ink could be carried ready for use were intro
duced by a patented invention of the ingenious Joseph
Bramah. Of his several plans for a fountain pen one
proposal was a hollow tube of silver or other metal, the
tube being made so thin that it could readily be compressed
out of shape and so cause an escape of ink to the nib, and
another plan was to fit the tube with a piston which
might slide down the interior and so force out ink.
John Scheffer in 1819 patented a device consisting of a
reservoir in the holder operated on by a stud, which, when
pressed by the thumb, yielded a flow of ink to the nib.
Many forms of attachment and modifications of the shape
of the pen have also been introduced with the view of
enabling the pen itself to carry a considerable supply of
ink, and to discharge it in writing in a safe and equal
manner. A highly original and comparatively successful
form of fountain pen of recent introduction is known as
the stylograph, in which the ordinary form of nib is dis
pensed with, and connected with the barrel or reservoir is
a finely-tapered point tipped with indium pierced with a
fine aperture. Into the aperture is fitted an iridium needle
or plug attached internally to a delicate gold spring, and
the act of writing sufficiently pushes back the needle to
allow the escape of the requisite flow of ink by the aperture.
The two principal forms of stylograph are that of Mac-
kinnon, patented first in the United States in March 1879,
and that of Cross, the United States patent for which
was secured in January 1878.
The finish which the common steel pen now shows, and the low
price at which it can be sold, are triumphs of manufacturing skill,
the credit of which is largely due to Birmingham. For the fraction
of a farthing there can now be purchased an article incomparably
superior to that which in the early years of the century cost five
shillings. The metal used consists of rolled sheets of cast steel
of the finest quality, made from Swedish charcoal iron. These
sheets are cut into strips of suitable width, annealed in a muffle
furnace, and pickled in a bath of dilute sulphuric acid to remove
the oxidized scale from the surface. The strips so cleaned are next
rolled between steel rollers till they are reduced to ribbons the
thickness of the pens to be made. At this stage the raw material
is ready for the series of manufacturing operations, most of which
are performed with the aid of hand fly-presses, moving suitable
cutting, stamping, and embossing attachments. The pen blanks
are first cut out of the ribbon so as to leave as little scrap as possible.
These blanks are next pierced, that is, the central perforation and
the side or shoulder slits by which flexibility is secured are made
at one operation.. After again annealing, they are marked and em
bossed with maker's name, trade-mark, or any of the endless variety
of marks by which pens are distinguished from each other. Up
to this point the blanks are flat ; they are now raised or rounded
into the semi-cylindrical form in which pens are used. At this
stage the pens are tempered by heating in iron boxes in a muffle,
plunging in oil, and heating over a fire in a rotating cylindrical
vessel till their surfaces attain the dull blue colour characteristic
of spring steel elasticity. They are then scoured and polished
by being revolved in large tin cylinders, in which they are mixed
with sand, pounded crucibles, or such substances. The grinding
of the points next follows, an operation performed by small rapidly-
revolving emery-wheels, on which the points are first ground
lengthwise and then across the nib, the object of the process being
to increase the elasticity of the point. The slitting process which
follows— that is, the cutting of the pen-slit from the perforation to
the point — is effected with a chisel-cutter worked by a hand screw-
press. On the precision with which the slit divides the point
depends the perfection of the pen, to finish which it now only re
mains to colour the surface in a revolving cylinder over a charcoal
fire, and to varnish it in a solution of shellac.
Birmingham, which was the first home of the steel-pen industry,
continues to be its principal centre, but steel pens are also made in
the United States and in France and Germany. (J. FA.)
PENANCE. The word "penance" (poenitentia) has a
double signification, — its strict legal meaning of a penalty
inflicted by the formal sentence of a spiritual authority in
punishment of an offence, and with the primary object of
amending and so benefiting the offender ; and its wider
and more popular sense of any ascetic practice adopted,
whether voluntarily or under compulsion, for the expiation
of sin or for advance in spiritual attainment. Broadly
speaking, no trace of such a theory is visible in classical
paganism, from which the idea of sin as a moral defile
ment is almost absent. There are faint marks discernible
in the Greek heroic legends of something analogous to
penance, when we read of a hero being driven into exile
for some crime (most usually unpremeditated homicide),
and not permitted to return till he had found some one
able and willing to purify him with certain lustra! sacrifices.
In the historical period these lustral sacrifices continue,
but the accompanying penalty disappears. Punishments
for religious offences, and of a very severe kind, extending
to death itself, as in the case of Socrates, are frequent,
but they are not of the nature of penance, not having the
amendment of the offender in view, but only the safety of
the state, to be secured by an act of vengeance designed
to avert the anger of the gods and to prevent the repetition
of the crime believed likely to invoke it. The Oriental
religions, contrariwise, teem with the ascetic principle, and
personal austerities form a large part of the Zoroastrian,
Buddhist, and Brahman systems. Yet, with the exception
of the pilgrimages, which enter so deeply and widely into
the religious habits of the peoples professing these creeds,
and involve much toil and suffering in the case of the
poorer pilgrims, these austerities are not of general inci
dence, but are confined to a comparatively small, and, so
to say, professional body of devotees, such as the Indian
Jogis, who are entirely distinct from the main body of
their co-religionists. Islam had originally nothing even
remotely like the practices in question, save in so far as
the annual fast of liamadan and the hajj to Mecca and
other sacred places necessitated self-denial ; and it is even
on record that Mohammed himself directly discouraged an
ascetic spirit which displayed itself in some of his trustiest
companions and disciples, such as 'Omar, 'All, Abvt-Dharr,
and Abu-Hrreirah. But the reaction of conquered Persia,
long the home of Zoroastrian asceticism, on the Arab
victors was marked and early, and an inner body of austere
devotees arose in the midst of Mohammedanism within a
century and a half of the Flight, though having no justifi
cation in the Koran or in the body of early tradition for
their tenets antl usages. They were in almost every
instance of Persian origin, and the most famous of them
all, the converted robber Fodheil Abu 'All ZalikhAnf, the
Benedict of Islam, who first organized the scattered ascetics
into the brotherhood of dervishes, was himself a Khorasanf
of pure descent. But, like the Indian Jogis, the Moham
medan dervishes and fakirs have continued as an isolated
class, and have never exerted the kind of influence which
Christian monachism, especially in the West, has done.
Nor has the principle of penance ever formed an import
ant integer of the Jewish religion. The Levitical code
enjoins the performance of various lustral sacrifices in
expiation of certain sins ; but the cost of the victims is
the only element of penalty, being virtually a money fine
PENANCE
485
on the offender. The prophets, while dwelling much on
the necessity of repentance, of a moral change in the
sinner, are almost entirely silent as to any accompanying
acts and observances of an ascetic nature ; and, though
occasional references to prolonged fastings and to the
wearing of sackcloth as penitential exercises are found,
yet they appear as exceptional and spontaneous, and not
as part of an accredited system, nor as enjoined by any
authority external to the devotee or penitent himself.
Even under the Talmudic code there is no organized
system of penance. The three degrees of excommunica
tion, niddui, cherem, and shammata, ascending from mere
exclusion from the congregation for a month, through
the stage of anathema, to that of public and ignominious
expulsion from fellowship in Israel (and that at first
irrevocably, though the penalty was afterwards relaxed),
practically exhaust the code, since there are no formal
provisions for inflicting other penalties, whatever voluntary
observances may at any time have been superadded.
The Christian theory of penance ultimately rests on the
view that the Christian church is the precise analogue of
the Jewish people under the elder dispensation. As the
Jews were the one family on earth in direct covenant
with God, so that it became necessary for all Gentiles who
desired to be brought into the like relation to abandon
their own proper nationality and to become Jews by adop
tion, forsaking their former habits and associations together
with their creed ; and as various offences against the law
of Moses were punished with temporary or final exclusion
from fellowship in the Hebrew polity ; so was it from a
very early period in the Christian church. One marked
difference between the Rabbinical and the Christian dis
cipline is indeed visible from the first, that the former in
volved the suspension or deprivation of civil rights, whereas
the latter, in all the earlier centuries at any rate, was a
purely spiritual penalty. But they are agreed in com
bining two ideas, one wholly foreign (as already observed)
to paganism, and the other but vaguely shadowed therein,
— the aim of healing the offender himself and the need of
his making public satisfaction to the society whose rules
he had broken, and which might suffer in reputation
and influence by reason of his misconduct. It is this
notion of satisfaction which has led to the extension of the
word "penance" itself from its more restricted and legal
meaning to its wider use as covering the whole range of
ascetic practices. And, as it soon came to be accepted
that the inward sorrow for sin would be attended with an
outward token of that sorrow, involving pain or humilia
tion in some form or other, there are four distinct stages
in the ecclesiastical use of the word " pccnitentia," — first, as
denoting the change of mind due to sorrow for sin ; next,
the external penalty attached to each offence ; thirdly, the
discipline of the church in dealing with all spiritual offences ;
and lastly, any piece of austerity practised with a religious
motive ; and the fact of the Latin language having no
doublets like the English " penitence " and " penance " to
express the distinct though allied ideas of the mental
attitude and the outward action has powerfully conditioned
Latin theology and practice.1
There is naturally but little to be found in the New
Testament on the subject of discipline ; but the whole
principle is provided for and anticipated in one saying of
1 The Greek word /j.erdvoia, which stands both for repentance and
for the sacrament or mystery of penance, has undergone a singular
degeneration of meaning in ecclesiastical language, being often used to
denote an obeisance of head and body, because that gesture is one which
was enjoined upon penitents as part of the outward expression of sorrow
for sin. But this ambiguity has had no theological results ; because
the penalty imposed in the confessional is not called peravoia., but
tirm/mia, and thus no confusion can arise, especially as the context
always shows clearly when fj.fra.voia. stands for a mere gesturo.
Christ — that which directs that he who neglects to hear
the church as arbiter in a dispute shall be regarded as a
heathen man and a publican, and which goes on to con
fer upon the apostles the power of binding and loosing
(Matt, xviii. 17, 18), — words which they, with their Jewish
experience and associations, must needs have interpreted
as authorizing, and even enjoining, the infliction of pen
alties, and notably that of excommunication, upon members
of the new society. Accordingly, the leading example of
such discipline, the case of the incestuous Corinthian,
attests plainly some form of trial, a sentence of excom
munication, some proof of repentance, and the consequent
reconciliation and restoration of the offender (1 Cor. v. ;
2 Cor. ii. 6-10); and it is most probable that some such
method was pursued in the sub-apostolic church, each case
being dealt with locally, and on its separate merits, long-
before any formal system or code came into existence.
The penalties seem at first to have been very simple and
lenient, leaving out of account the difficult problem of the
phrase " delivering to Satan," twice found in this connexion
(1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20), which may mean merely
relegating to heathen fellowship by exclusion from the
society of Christians, but also may cover much more
ground. Exclusion from the eucharist itself, exclusion
from non-communicating attendance at the eucharist, and
exclusion from all religious assemblies for even the minor
offices of worship are the only censures discoverable in
the earlier period, though it is not long before certain
additional penalties accompanying these grades of separa
tion begin to appear. The following broad rules govern
all cases of penitential discipline in the ancient church.
(1) Penance related only to baptized and communicant
Christians. Even catechumens were not held capable of
it, to say nothing of Jews or Pagans. (2) It was ex
clusively spiritual, and in no way touched the civil con
dition of the penitent, even after the conversion of the
empire. (3) It was not compulsory, but spontaneous ; nay,
so far was it from being imposed, that it had to be sought
as a favour. Of course, where it was not so sought the
excommunication of the offender remained in force, but
this excommunication was not regarded as in itself a
penance in the later use of that term. (4) The most
usual rule allowed of penance but once. The relapsing
offender had no second opportunity granted him. (5) It
was always preceded by confession (e^oftoAoy^cris), a term
which, however, even as early as Tertullian's time, was
already extended to include, over and above the oral
acknowledgment of guilt, the external acts of mortification
accompanying it (De Pcen., c. 9). (6) There was a careful
classification of the offences involving penance, and after
a time a corresponding classification of penitents into
certain fixed grades, through which it was in many cases
necessary to pass, from the lowest to the highest, before
receiving absolution and being restored to full communion.
The case dealt with by St Paul establishes one point,
that of the comparative brevity of the time of penance,
even for very grave offences, since three years is the
longest period which can have elapsed between the two
epistles to the Corinthians ; whereas under the later
system periods of fifteen and twenty years are not rarely
to be found, and in some cases penance was for life,
however protracted. The earlier method can be shown
to have come into wide acceptance far within the 2d
century, because it forms the subject of a charge made
against the church by Tertullian in one of his Montanist
treatises (De Pudicitia] ; and the more stringent discipline
of the succeeding era appears to be due to the nearly
simultaneous action of two causes, — the great success
which attended the persecution set on foot by the emperor
Decius in 249, resulting as it did in a far larger propor-
486
PENANCE
tion of apostasies and compromises than any of the others,
and the rise of Novatianism within two years, in protest
against the leniency exercised towards the lapsed. Although
the church rejected the extreme theories of rigid discipline
which Xovatian formulated, yet it was tacitly admitted
that he did but exaggerate a truth, and the reins began
to be drawn tighter from that time forward. Much in
formation regarding the practical working of the system
in the third century can be gathered from the epistles of
Cyprian, and from his treatise On the Lapsed ; but the
fact that he had to struggle against a lax party in Africa,
at the very time when laxity was preponderant in the
Italian Church, proves that no uniform system had yet
been evolved. The 4th century is the period when
broad general rules, intended to apply to all cases, begin
to be laid down, and when the distribution of penitents
into fixed classes or grades is clearly evident. The Eastern
Church took the lead in this development, and canons of
Ancyra and Xeo-Ca?sarea in 314 refer to the grades of
penance in terms which imply their general recognition as
already established. They are first defined in an epistle
ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus about the year 258,
and are as under : (1) Weepers, forbidden to. enter a church,
and permitted merely to assemble at the doors to ask the
prayers of those entering ; (2) Hearers, suffered to come
in for the Scripture lessons and the minor offices, but
obliged to depart before the eucharistic office began ;
(3) Kneelers, allowed to attend the earlier part of the
eucharistic office, as far as the close of the introductory
portion, but obliged to withdraw then along with the
catechumens ; (4) Standers, who might remain throughout
the entire rite, but were not suffered to communicate.
This minute subdivision does not seem to have made good
a footing in Western Christendom, where the first of these
degrees is not found on record (Morinus, De Penitent., vi.
8), nor did it hold its ground very long in the East itself,
disappearing as it does during the 5th century. The
penitential observances usually imposed on those who
were admitted to these grades were public confession of
their offence in presence of the congregation, and that, in
the case of the lowest grade, several times over ; the disuse
of all ornaments, and the assumption of a sackcloth garb,
with the streAving of ashes on the head (Euseb., If. U., v.
28) ; men had to cut off their hair and shave their beards ;
women to wear their hair dishevelled and to adopt a special
veil ; all had to abstain from baths, festivals, and, gener
ally speaking, all physical enjoyments, and fasting on bread
and water was often enjoined ; they were bound to much
more frequent and regular attendance at all religious assem
blies than the faithful or the catechumens (Cone. Carthag.
IV., c. 81); if possessed of means, they were required to
give largely in alms, or to assist actively in works of charity ;
and they were, for the first ten centuries, incapable of being
admitted to ordination. One result of the crowds of peni
tents which had to be dealt with after the lull that followed
the Decian persecution was that the bishops were no longer
sufficient in numbers to deal with each case separately,
though under the earlier system the bishop alone (even
when the presbyters acted as his assessors) could put to
penance, as he continued for a long time to be the only
officer who could reconcile and readmit those who had per
formed their appointed penance. A practice arose, therefore,
of appointing certain presbyters to confer with all persons
applying for admission to penance, and to receive their
confessions privately, in order to prepare them for the public
confession which made an integral part of penance, and
indeed to decide whether they could be admitted thereto
at all. These officers, known as "penitentiaries," were
abolished in the church of Constantinople by the patriarch
Xectarius about 390 (Socrat., If. E., v. 19 ; Sozom., //. E.,
vii. 16), and his example was followed throughout nearly
the whole East ; but the office continued in the AYest, with
various modifications necessitated by the gradual change
of discipline.
The main difference between the earlier and later systems
lies in the fact that penance was for some centuries
restricted to certain very grave sins, to wit, idolatry,
adultery, and murder, with such lesser offences as were
closely allied (as, for instance, the delivery of the sacred
books to pagan inquisitors, that traditio which has given
the words "treason" and "traitor" to modern diction);
nor does it appear that any distinction was made between
the treatment of those penitents whose guilt was notorious
and those whose own voluntary confession alone made it
manifest. Minor offences were punished with suspension
of communion and with refusal of oblations at the hands
of the offender, and many Avere left wholly to the indi
vidual conscience. But the catalogue of canonical offences
was much enlarged at the time when the penitential system
Avas developed and codified, — theft, usury, false Avitness,
polygamy, habitual drunkenness, and some others being
included amongst those Avhich had to be publicly expiated.
Yet it Avas this increased severity Avhich led to the almost
total abrogation of public penance, because of the scandal
given by the publication of the numerous offences on the
IICAV list, Avhereas the cases under the older rule Avere
necessarily feAV, hoAvever serious. It is clearly stated by
both Socrates and Sozomen that the motive of Xectarius
in abolishing the office of penitentiary Avas to avoid the
recurrence of an uproar occasioned by the public confession
of a lady of high rank, implicating others in a disgraceful
fashion, so that he judged it better to leave the question
of communion to be settled in private by penitents Avith
their religious advisers, and not to be made matter of
general publicity. This became the rule at once in the
East, but public penance held its place in the West for
many centuries longer, and in fact has never become
entirely obsolete. There AAras, hoAvever, a considerable
innovation introduced after the 7th century, in that offences
privately committed Avere put in a different category from
public sins, and Avere no longer made liable to public
penance, but might be, and soon Avere, dealt with by private
confession and penance only. Not only so, but, Avhereas
the accusation of any person to the bishop as an offender
Avas the usual mode of bringing his case under ecclesiastical
cognizance in the earlier Christian centuries, on the other
hand the discipline introduced in the Middle Ages Avas to
exact public penance from such alone as had been convicted
on trial before secular judges. The first beginnings of this
innovation on Western usage are attributed by Morinus
Avith much probability to Theodore of Tarsus, the Greek
archbishop of Canterbury, Avho sat from 668 to 690, and
whose Penitential (or code of ecclesiastical discipline),
though not the earliest even noAV extant in the British Isles,
soon achieved wide acceptance throughout the West, not-
Avithstanding that it folloAved the then long- established
Eastern usage in favour of private as opposed to public
confession. A more serious innoATation, fraught with
dangerous consequences, made its appearance somcAvhat
later, that of buying off a penance by a money payment
to be expended in alms, a system in full force in the 9th
century, as attested by the capitularies of Hincmar of
Kheims and Herard of Tours. Another custom Avhich
tended to break doAvn the efficiency of the earlier discipline
was that of resorting to Home to have the more serious
cases adjudicated on by the pope. At first this Avas an
exceptional mode of dealing with difficult matters, regarded
as too serious or too intricate for local decision, but by
the llth century it had become a fashion, so that offenders
of any rank or Avealth refused habitually to submit to
PENANCE
487
penance at the hands of the local authorities, and betook
themselves to Rome, where they stated their case in their
own way, with no evidence to check them, so that they
were enabled either to evade the canonical penances
altogether or to get them much lightened. This abuse
was combated by various councils, notably that of Seligen-
stadt in 1022, which decreed in its eighteenth canon
" that no indulgences obtained from the Roman pontiff
should avail for penitents, unless they had first fulfilled
the penances set them by their own priests according to
the degree of their offence ; and, if they chose to go then
to Rome, they must procure a permit from their own
bishop, and letters on the matter in question to be carried
to the pope." But this attempt to check the practice
was unsuccessful, and it became established that, just as
certain cases of conscience were reserved to the bishop,
and could not be dealt with by ordinary parish priests, so
certain other cases were withdrawn from the cognizance
of the bishops themselves, and reserved for the hearing
and decision of the pope alone. Many alterations in the
nature and incidence of penances were made in the course
of the later Middle Ages, but the details are unimportant
except for specialists ; it will suffice to mention such ex
amples as imprisonment in monasteries, penitential pil
grimages, and flagellations, the last having been introduced
by the hermit Dominic the Cuirassier (died 1060).
It is time to speak of the position occupied by penance in
the theological systems of the Latin and Greek Churches.
Both of them account penance, taken in its widest sense
of the method of dealing spiritually with sins by confession,
discipline, and absolution, as a sacrament, but there are
various differences in their theories and methods. The
Greek and Armenian Churches are in full agreement with
the Latin Church in regarding confession as an integral
and essential part of penance, of which they consider it
the outward and visible sign, while the spiritual part of
the sacrament consists in the form of absolution, whether
precatory or declaratory, pronounced by the priest. And
they lay down that the external acts of asceticism per
formed by the penitent are not strictly part of the sacra
ment itself, but merely the fulfilment of the church's
injunctions, and tokens of that repentance which should
attend the confession of sins. And confession, though
recommended as a religious observance, is not a matter of
formal ecclesiastical precept in the Eastern Church, but
is left to the individual conscience, though it is usual
to practise it at least once a year, prior to the Easter
communion. There are also certain public penances some
times enjoined in the East for sins of exceptional gravity,
publicly or legally proved, but they do not form part of
the normal system, one part of which, in strict agreement
with ancient usage, consists in suspending heinous offenders
from communion for some years, during which they can
receive only the dvriSwpov or blessed bread. And in all
cases the Easterns deny that penances are in any sense
satisfactions or expiations of sins made to appease divine
justice.
In the Latin Church the first noticeable divergence
from Oriental usage is that the old public form of penance,
technically known as " solennis," still survives in a docu
mentary fashion in the Pontifical, though it has dropped
into virtual abeyance. It consists of two distinct and
correlative parts, — the public expulsion of penitents from
church on Ash Wednesday and their reconciliation and
readmission on Maundy Thursday following. As these
rites preserve in essentials the traditions of very early
Western usage, it is well to give some account of them here.
On Ash Wednesday, then, those penitents whose names are
written down on a list for the purpose assemble, in coarse raiment
and barefoot, at the cathedral of their diocese at nine o'clock A.M.
Their penances are then assigned them severally by the penitentiary,
or some other officer deputed for the purpose, after which they are
sent out of the church, and bidden to wait at the doors. The
bishop, attended by the clergy and choir, takes his seat in the
middle of the nave, facing the doors, having previously blessed
ashes for the coming rite. The penitents are next admitted, and,
kneeling before the bishop, have ashes sprinkled on their heads by
him or by some other dignitary present, and sackcloth is also laid
upon them in similar fashion. The penitential psalms and the
litanies are then said, all kneeling ; after this the penitents stand
up to hear a sermon from the bishop, at the close of which he takes
one of them by the right hand, and leads him towards the doors,
followed by all the other penitents, each grasping another's hand,
and also holding lighted tapers, when they are ejected in a body.
They kneel outside, and are again addressed by the bishop, enjoining
them to spend the time of penance in prayers, fastings, almsdeeds,
and pilgrimages, and to return on Maundy Thursday for reconcilia
tion. The church-doors are then shut in their faces, and the bishop
proceeds to celebrate mass.
The office on Maundy Thursday begins with the penitential
psalms and the litanies, said by the bishop and clergy in church,
while the penitents wait, barefoot and with unlighted tapers, out
side the doors. After some preliminary ceremonies, a deacon goes
to the penitents with a lighted candle, and kindles their tapers.
The bishop then seats himself, as in the former rite, and the peni
tents are presented to him collectively by the archdeacon with a
formal address. The bishop then rises, and with his immediate
attendants advances to the doors, where he delivers a short address
to the penitents, which ended, he returns into the church, still
keeping near the doors, and, while a psalm is sung, the penitents
enter and kneel before him ; then the archdeacon or archpriest
petitions for their reconciliation, and, having replied to the bishop's
question as to their fitness, recites certain versicles and responses
alternately with the choir, while the bishop takes "
of one of the penitents, who in his turn takes that of another, till
all form a chain, and thus they are led by the bishop to the middle
of the church, where he recites a form of absolution over them.
Psalms and prayers, closing with another absolutory form and a
benediction, end the office, after which the penitents resume their
ordinary dress, laying aside that which they had worn during Lent.
A further difference between the Eastern and Latin
Churches is that the latter has made confession a formal
precept ever since the canon of the Lateran council under
Innocent III. in 1215, Omnis utriusque sexus, which enjoins
all those arrived at years of discretion to confess at least
once a year to their own parish priest, or to another priest
with consent of the parish priest, the act being no longer
left optional. And the choice of a confessor is limited
also by the rule that absolution is not accounted valid
unless pronounced by a priest having local jurisdiction
and faculties. The chief divergence, however, between
East and West on the sacrament of penance is due to the
remarkable developments both in the doctrinal and the
disciplinary aspects of the rite which took place in Latin
Christendom during the Middle Ages. The former of these
is mainly concerned with the new application, in the 12th
century, of the system of indulgences, from its original
character of a relaxation of the duration or severity of the
temporal penalties annexed to offences by the canons to the
remission of purgatorial chastisement of departed souls in
the intermediate state — a tenet which seems to have been
first developed by Hugh and Richard of St Victor— which
gave rise to the practice of penitential observances by persons
not lying under any censure, with the aim of acquiring the
advantages thus held out to them for themselves or others,
living or departed, to whom they are at liberty to transfer
them. The latter is due to the legal, methodizing, and
codifying temper which forms such a marked peculiarity
of the Latin mind, in contrast with the more speculative
Greek. Hence has arisen a copious literature, beginning
with those Penitentials, or codes of disciplinary canons,
already mentioned, but amplified at a later time into a vast
system of moral theology and casuistry, mainly elaborated in
the 1 6th and 1 7th centuries (see LIGUORI), whereby the whole
modern administration of penance in the Latin Church is
regulated. The Oriental churches have no corresponding
system or text -books, and continue to observe the less
488
P E N — P E N
methodized and determinate order in use during the 6th
and immediately succeeding centuries. There is no theo
logical difference between them, however, in respect of their
view of absolution, although in the one case a declaratory,
and in the other a precatory, form is employed. But a dis
tinction in practice is maintained hereupon, for even the
United Greeks are obliged, in virtue of an instruction issued
by Clement VIII. in 1595, to use only the declaratory
form when pronouncing absolution. In Latin theology the
matter of the sacrament of penance is distinguished as
" remote " and " proximate," as "-exterior " and " interior,"
as " necessary " and " sufficient." The remote and exterior
matter of penance is all post-baptismal sin, with the remis
sion and correction of which penance has to do. The class
of mortal sins are the necessary exterior matter, because
confession is the only recognized mode of obtaining their
remission. Venial sins are sufficient or voluntary matter
of penance, because confession of them is not compulsory,
and remission may be otherwise had. The contrition,
confession, and satisfaction of the penitent are the proxi
mate and interior matter of penance, with this further
distinction, that the two former are "essential" and insepar
able parts of it, while satisfaction, though an " integral "
part, is not essential, being capable of dispensation. The
form of the sacrament is the absolution pronounced by
the priest. And, as before stated, the acts of bodily or
spiritual mortification enjoined on the penitent as parts of
his satisfaction, are called penances.
In the Church of England, penance, governed by pre-
Reformation canons and statutes, has continued to be
inflicted by sentence of the ecclesiastical courts down to
very recent times, — one of its commonest forms being that
of standing at the church-door clad in a white sheet. Pre
cautions were taken by constitutions of Cardinal Othobon
and Archbishop Stratford against the abuse of money com
mutations of penance ; and the right of the spiritual courts
to deal with cases involving penance, whether corporal or
pecuniary, was protected against writs of prohibition by the
statutes Circwnspecte agatis, 13 Edward I. st. 4, and Articuli
Cleri, 9 Edward II. st. 1, c. 2. The Reformatio Legum
provided that ecclesiastical penances should not be com
muted for money, save for some grave and necessary cause,
and that such money should be applied to the relief of the
poor, while a repeated offence should admit of no com
mutation. This same question came up frequently, having
been dealt with under Queen Elizabeth, Charles I., William
III., and Queen Anne, on the last occasion by Convocation,
which laid down rules that no commutation- money should
be allowed by any ecclesiastical judge without the consent
of the ordinary in writing, nor disposed of without the like
consent. The commination office in the Book of Common
Prayer makes reference to the solemn Lenten penance
described above, as a thing desirable to be restored ; but
no action has ever been taken for the purpose.
In the Lutheran communion, penance, though at first
amongst the usages intended to be maintained, and
acknowledged in the Articles of Schmalkald, and also in
the Apology for the Confession of Augsburg, has never
held an effective place, being in truth incompatible with
the doctrines and polity elaborated by Luther himself ; so
that, although confession and absolution continue as sur
vivals in the Lutheran system, they are not associated
with any regular discipline. Far otherwise is it with
Calvinism. The twelfth chapter of the fourth book of
Calvin's Institutes is mainly taken up with the question of
ecclesiastical discipline, whose necessity is broadly stated,
and alleged to extend to the Avhole body, clerical and lay
alike, and to be derived from the power of the Keys. No
precise rules are laid down, beyond saying that censures
may begin with private monition, but should ascend in
severity in proportion to the gravity and notoriety of
offences ; but, in point of fact, the system raised on this
basis by most of the Calvinist societies was a stringent
and searching one. In particular, the First and Second
Books of Discipline, put forth by John Knox and by the
second generation of Scottish Reformers, lay down the
principles for dealing with offenders against religion and
morals with much clearness and precision, and the Form
of Process in the Judicatories of the Kirk, as approved by
the General Assembly in 1707, prescribes the manner of
proceeding to inflict the several penalties enacted against
a variety of offences and scandals. These at one time
covered a wide area, but in later times only certain forms
of immorality have continued to be brought under ecclesi
astical cognizance for public censure and penalties. All
the other more important Protestant sects have their own
systems of discipline, more or less stringent, but they are
virtually restricted in operation to suspension of communion
with the body, or to expulsion from membership, no other
penalties being provided.
Bibliography.— Mormus, Comment. Hist, dc Discipl. in Administr.
Sacram. Pcenit. (Antwerp, 1682) ; Pelliccia, De Christ. Eccl. Pol.
(Cologne, 1828-38) ; Siegel, Handb. dcr Christ. -kirchl. AUcrthiimcr,
s. v. " Busse " (Leipsie, 1880); Bingham, Antiq. of the Christ.
Church, bk. xvi. (London, 1840) ; Smith and Cheetham, Diet, of
Christ. Antiq., s. v. "Penitence" (London, 1880) ; Richard et Giraud,
Bibliotheque Sacree, s. v. "Penitence" (Paris, 1824); Wasser-
sclileben, Bussordn. der Abcndldnd. Kirchc (Halle, 1851) ; Theodoii
Cantuariensis, Posnitentialc (Paris, 1679) ; Probst, Kirchl. Disci})!,
in den drei ersten Christ. Jahrh. (Tubingen, 1873), and Sakramcntc
u. Sakramcntalicn in d. drei erst. Christ. Jahrh.. (Tubingen, 1872) ;
Chardon, Hist, des Sacrein. (Paris, 1745) ; Guettee, Expos, de hi
Doct. del' tig. Cathol. Orthod. (Paris, 1866) ; JMacaire, Theol. Dogm.
Orthod. (Paris, 1860) ; Calvin, Institutiones ; Phillimore, Eccles. Law
oftJie Ch. of Encjl. (London, 1873); Ayliffe, Paregon Jin: Can. Angl.
(London, 1726) ; Du Cange, Gloss, ad Script. Mod. ct Inf. Latin.,
s. v. " Pcenitcntia " (Basel, 1762); Contend, of the Laics of the
Ch. ofScotl. (Edinburgh, 1831). (R. F. L.)
PENANG. See PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND.
PENARTH, a seaport of Glamorganshire, Wales, is
picturesquely situated on rising ground on the south side
of the mouth of the Taff opposite Cardiff, from which it
is four miles distant by rail and two by steamer. It
was a small and unimportant village until an Act was
passed in 1856 for making a tidal harbour. The docks
(1865-84) are on a very extensive and complete scale, and
the town is now an important shipping port for the minerals
of South Wales, especially alabaster, coal, and iron. In
1883 there entered 1130 steamers and 567 sailing-vessels
with an aggregate registered tonnage of 1,316,265 tons.
The total quantity of coal and coke shipped in the same
year was 2,274,003 tons. A line of rails 4 miles in length
connects the docks with the Taff Vale Railway. The town
is frequented in summer as a bathing-place, and the Rhaetic
beds at the head are of special interest to geologists. The
principal buildings are the custom-house and dock-offices,
and the church of St Augustine, in the Early English style,
erected by the Baroness Windsor, who also built national
schools. The population of the urban sanitary district
(area, 2202 acres) in 1871 was 3104, and in 1881 it was
6228.
PENATES, Roman gods of the store-room and kitchen,
derived their name from penus, "eatables, food." The
store-room over which they presided was, in old times,
beside the atrium, the room which served as kitchen, par
lour, and bedroom in one ; but in later times the store
room was in the back part of the house. It was sanctified
by the presence of the Penates, and none but pure and chaste
persons might enter it, just as with the Hindus the kitchen
is sacred and inviolable. The family hearth, which
anciently stood in the atrium, was their altar ; on it were
placed their images, two in number, for the Penates were
always in pairs — the name does not occur in the singular.
p E N — P E N
489
They had no individual names, but were always known
under the general designation, Penates. Closely associated
with the Penates were the Lares, another species of domestic
deity, who seem to have been the deified spirits of deceased
ancestors (see LARES). But while each family had two
Penates it had but one Lar. In the household shrine the
image of the Lar (dressed in a toga) was placed between
the two images of the Penates, which were represented as
dancing and elevating a drinking-horn in token of joy and
plenty. The three images together were sometimes called
Penates, sometimes Lares, and either name was used meta
phorically for " home." The shrine stood originally in the
'atrium, but when the hearth and the kitchen were sepa
rated from the atrium and removed to the back of the
house, and meals were taken in an upper story, the position
of the shrine was also shifted. In the houses at Pompeii
it is sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the rooms.
In the later empire it was placed behind the house-door,
and a taper or lamp was kept burning before it. But the
worship in the interior of the house was also kept up even
into Christian times ; it was forbidden by an ordinance of
Theodosius (392 A.D.). The old Roman used, in company
with his children and slaves, to offer a morning sacrifice
and prayer to his household gods. Before meals the
blessing of the gods was asked, and after the meal, but
before dessert, there Avas a short silence, and a portion of
food was placed on the hearth and burned. If the hearth
and the images were not in the eating-room, either the
images were brought and put on the table, or before the
shrine was placed a table on which were set a salt-cellar,
food, and a burning lamp. Three days in the month, viz.,
the Calends, Nones, and Ides (i.e., the first, the fifth or
seventh, and the thirteenth or fifteenth), were set apart for
special family worship, as were also the Caristia (22d
February) and the Saturnalia in December. On these
days as well as on such occasions as birthdays, marriages,
and safe returns from journeys, the images were crowned
and offerings made to them of cakes, honey, wine, incense,
and sometimes a pig. As each family had its own Penates,
so the state, as a collection of families, had its public
Penates. Intermediate between the worship of the public
and private Penates were probably the rites (sacra} observed
by each clan (gens) or collection of families supposed to be
descended from a common ancestor. The other towns of
Latium had their public Penates as well as Rome. The
sanctuary of the whole Latin league was at Lavinium. To
these Penates at Lavinium the Roman priests brought
yearly offerings, and the Roman consuls, praetors, and dic
tators sacrificed both when they entered on and when they
laid down their office. To them, too, the generals sacri
ficed before departing for their provinces. Alba Longa,
the real mother-city of Latium, had also its ancient Penates,
and the Romans maintained the worship on the Alban
Mount long after the destruction of Alba Longa. The
Penates had a temple of their own at Rome. It was on
the Velia near the Forum, and has by some been identified
with the round vestibule of the church of SS. Cosma e
Damiano. In this and many other temples the Penates
were represented by two images of youths seated holding
spears. The Penates were also worshipped in the neigh
bouring temple of Vesta. To distinguish the two wor
ships, it has been supposed that the Penates in the former
temple were those of Latium, while those in the temple of
Vesta were the Penates proper of Rome. Certainly the
worship of the Penates, whose altar was the hearth and to
whom the kitchen was sacred, was closely connected with
that of Vesta, goddess of the domestic hearth.
The origin and nature of the Penates was a subject of
much discussion to the Romans themselves. They were
traced to the mysterious worship of Samothrace ; Dar-
danus, it was said, took the Penates from Samothrace to
Troy, and after the destruction of Troy yEneas brought
them to Italy and established them at Lavinium. From
Lavinium Ascanius carried the worship to Alba Longa,
and from Alba Longa it was brought to Rome. Equally
unsatisfactory with this attempt to connect Roman religion
with Greek legend are the vague and mystic speculations
in which the later Romans indulged respecting the nature
of the Penates. Some said they were the great gods to
whom we owe breath, body, and reason, viz., Jupiter
representing the middle ether, Juno the lowest air and
the earth, and Minerva the highest ether, to whom some
added Mercury as the god of speech (Servius, on sEn.,
ii. 296 ; Macrobius, fiat., iii. 4, 8 ; Arnobius, Adv.
Nat., iii. 40). Others identified them with Apollo and
Neptune (Macrob., iii. 4, 6 ; Arnob., I.e. ; Serv., on
sEn., iii. 119). The Etruscans held the Penates to be
Ceres, Pales, and Fortuna, to whom others added Genius
Jovialis (Serv., on ^En., ii. 325 ; Arnob., I.e.). The late
writer Martianus Capella records the view that heaven was
divided into sixteen regions, in the first of which were
placed the Penates along with Jupiter, the Lares, &c.
More fruitful than these misty speculations is the suggest
ion, made by the ancients themselves, that the worship of
these family gods sprang from the ancient Roman custom
(common to many savage tribes) of burying the dead in
the house. But this would account for the worship of the
Lares rather than of the Penates. A comparison with other
primitive religious beliefs suggests the conjecture that the
Penates may be a remnant of that fetishism or animism
(i.e., the attribution of life, thought, and feeling to all
objects animate and inanimate) in which many savage
tribes exist to this day, and through which the higher races
have probably passed at some period of their history,
whether we suppose animism to be the primitive state of
the human mind, or to be itself a development from the
worship of ancestors, as Mr Herbert Spencer believes, or
from some lower form of belief. The Roman genii seem
certainly to have been fetishes, and the Penates were per
haps originally a species of genii. Thus the Penates, as
simple gods of food, are probably much more ancient than
deities like Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, and Minerva, whose
wide and varied attributes represent a power of abstraction
and generalization in the minds of their worshippers such
as is not possessed by very primitive men. With the
Penates we may compare the kindly household gods of old
Germany ; they too had their home on the kitchen hearth
and received offerings of food and clothing. In the castle
of Hudemuhlen (Hanover) there was a kobold for whom a
cover was always set on the table. In Lapland each house
had one or more spirits. The souls of the dead are regarded
as house-spirits by the Russians ; they are represented as
dwarfs, and are served with food and drink. Each house
in Servia has its patron-saint. In the mountains of Mysore
every house has its bhuta or guardian deity, to whom
prayer and sacrifices are offered. The Chinese god of the
kitchen presents some curious analogies to the Penates :
incense and candles are burnt before him on the first and
fifteenth of the month ; some families burn incense and
candles before him daily ; and on great festivals, one of
Avhich is at the Avinter solstice (nearly corresponding to
the Saturnalia), he is served with cakes, pork, wine, in
cense, itc., Avhich are placed on a table before him.
See Hartung, Die Religion der Homer ; Hertzberg, De diis
Roman, pair. ; Preller, Rom. Mythol. ; Marquarclt, Rom. Staats-
verwalt., vol. iii. For household gods of other peoples see Bastiau,
Der Mcnsch in dcr Gcschichtc, iii. p. 202 sq. ' ( J. G. FR. )
PENCIL (Lat. penici-llus, a small tail), a name originally
applied to a small fine-pointed brush used in painting, and
still employed to denote the finer camel's -hair and sable
XVIII. — 62
490
p E N — P E N
brushes used by artists, has, in English, come commonly to
signify solid cones or rods of various materials used for
writing and drawing. Some method of producing black or
coloured markings with rods of solid material on parchment,
paper, wood, and other like smooth surfaces must have been
known from time immemorial, but the ordinary so-called
black-lead pencil does not possess a very high antiquity.
It has been asserted that a manuscript of Theophilus,
attributed to the 13th century, shows signs of having been
ruled with a black-lead pencil; but the first distinct
allusion to the common form of the instrument occurs in
the treatise on fossils by Conrad Gesner of Zurich (1565),
who describes an article for writing formed of wood and
a piece of lead, or, as he believed, an artificial composition
called by some stimmi anglicanum (English antimony).
The famous Borrowdale mine in Cumberland having been
discovered about that time, it is probable that we have
here the first allusion to that great find of graphite which
for so long supplied the world with its best lead pencils.
While the supply of the Cumberland mine lasted, the
material for the highly-esteemed English pencils consisted
simply of the native graphite as taken from the mine.
The pieces were sawn into thin veneers, which again were
cut into the slender square rods forming the "lead" of the
pencil. These leads were either cased in pencil cedar
(the wood of the Virginian cedar, Juniperus virginiana),
forming ordinary pencils, or they were, by an ingenious
and delicate process of turning, in which ruby-cutters were
used, rendered circular to supply the "ever-pointed pencils,"
which, however, are of comparatively modern origin.
Strenuous efforts were made on the Continent and in
England to enable manufacturers to become independent
of the product of the Cumberland mine. In Nuremberg,
where the great pencil factory of the Faber family was
established in 1761, pencils were made from pulverized
graphite cemented into solid blocks by means of gums,
resins, glue, sulphur, and other such substances, but none
of these preparations yielded useful pencils. About the
year 1795 Conte of Paris devised the process by Avhich
now all black-lead pencils, and indeed pencils of all sorts,
are manufactured. In 1843 Mr Brockedon patented a
process for compressing pure black-lead powder into solid
compact blocks by which he was enabled to use the dust,
fragments, and cuttings of fine Cumberland lead. He sub
mitted the powdered substance to enormous pressure, and,
by concurrently exhausting the air from the dies and the
block of graphite in process of compression, he succeeded
in forming a dense compact and uniform cake which could
be treated in the same way as natural massive graphite
from the mine. Brockedon's process would have proved
successful and important had the supply of fine English
black lead continued, but the exhaustion of the Borrowdale
supplies and the excellence of Conte's process have rendered
it more of scientific interest than of commercial value.
The pencil leads prepared by the Conte process consist of a most
intimate mixture of graphite and clay, both first brought to a con
dition of the finest subdivision. The graphite is reduced to fine
powder in a mortar ; it is sifted and sometimes treated with mineral
acid, to free it from iron, &c., then washed, and thereafter calcined
at a bright-red heat. To get it in the condition of fine division,
it is mixed with water and poured into a vat, where the heavier
particles sink. From this vat the water bearing the lighter particles
passes into another at a lower level, and so into one or two more,
in each of which the comparatively heavy particles sink, and only
the still finer particles are carried over. That which sinks in the
last of the series is in a condition of extremely fine division, and is
used for pencils of the highest quality. The clay, which must be
free of sand and iron, is treated in the same manner, and brought
to a state of great uniformity and smoothness. Clay and graphite
so prepared are mixed in varying proportions from about equal parts
to two of day for one of graphite according as the pencils are to be
hard or soft. They are thoroughly incorporated and ground to
gether, then placed in bags and squeezed in a hydraulic press till
they have the consistency of stiff dough, in which condition they
are ready for forming pencil rods. For this purpose the plastic
mass is placed in a strong xipright cylinder of brass, into which a
plunger or piston works, moved by a powerful screw-press. The
bottom of the cylinder consists of a thick bronze plate having in it
a number of small apertures the section and size of the leads to be
made. By the application of pressure to the plunger the graphite
mixture is squeezed in continuous threads through the holes, and
these threads are received and arranged in straight continuous
lengths on a board, on which they are left to dry for some hours.
For further drying by gentle heat they are placed in straight grooves
in a grooved board, covered with another board, in which position
they harden to stiff rods. These arc afterwards cut into lengths
for pencils, which are packed with charcoal in a covered crucible
and submitted to a high furnace-heat. The t\vo elements which
regulate the comparative hardness and blackness of pencils are the
proportions of graphite and clay in the leads and the heat to which
they are raised in the crucible. According as the proportion of
graphite is greater and the heat lower the pencil is softer and of
deeper black streak.
The cedar in which pencils are cased is cut into two sets of
rectangular slips of unequal thickness ; but so that a thick and a
thin slip put together form in section a square. In the thick or
body piece is formed the groove or depression to receive the lead,
which perfectly fits and fills it. The thinner covering piece is
glued on and the pencil rounded between revolving cutters working
at great speed. The cutters leave the rounded surface perfectly
smooth, and it only remains to stamp the finished pencil with
name and grade, &c. Very many pencils — but not usually good
English qualities — are lacquered or varnished, and have the names,
&c., stamped in gold letters.
Black pencils of an inferior quality are made from the dust of
graphite melted up with sulphur and ran into moulds. Such, with
a little tallow added to give them softness, are the pencils commonly
used by carpenters. Coloiired pencils consist of a mixture of clay,
with appropriate mineral colouring matter, wax, and tallow, treated
by the Conte method as in making lead pencils. In the indelible
and copying pencils which have come into use in recent years, the
colouring matter is an aniline preparation mixed with clay and gum.
The mixture not only makes a streak which adheres to the paper,
but, when the writing is moistened w:ith water, it dissolves and
assumes the appearance and properties of an ink.
Nuremberg is the great centre of the pencil trade, possessing
twenty-six factories which give employment to 5500 persons, the
annual output of pencils numbering not less than 250 millions, of a
value of upwards of £400,000. (J, PA.)
PENDULUM. See CLOCKS, vol. vi. p. U, and
MECHANICS, vol. xv. pp. 705, 718, 768.
PENELOPE, the faithful wife of the Greek hero Odys
seus (Ulysses), immortalized by Homer in the Odyssey.
She was the daughter of the Spartan Icarius and Peribcea.
Shortly before Odysseus left his native island of Ithaca to
war against Troy, Penelope bore him a son, Telemachus.
When her husband tarried long many chieftains of Ithaca
and the islands round about wooed her to wife ; they
behaved wantonly, wasting the substance of Odysseus,
insulting his son, and corrupting the maidservants. The
heart of Penelope yearned for Odysseus, and, to rid herself
of the importunities of the wooers, she bade them wait till
she had woven a winding-sheet for old Laertes, the father
of Odysseus. But every night she undid the piece which
she had woven by day, so that the web was always un
finished. This she did for three years, till her maids
revealed the secret to the wooers. Eobbed of her pretext
for delay she was in sore straits, till she was relieved by
the arrival of Odysseus after an absence of twenty years.
He slew the wooers, and the long-parted husband and wife
were united once more.
Such is the story of Penelope in Homer. Later writers add other
particulars about her. She was won by Odysseus in a race proposed
by Icarius to his daughter's suitors. When Icarius would fain
that Odysseus should bide with him in Sparta, or at least leave him
his daughter, and Odysseus let Penelope choose whether she would
go with him to Ithaca or stay with her father in Sparta, she
silently drew her veil over her fiace. Her father understood her
and let her go (Pausan., iii. 12, 20). Some said that she bore a son,
Ptoliporth.es, to Odysseus after his return from Troy. Others (mar
ring Homer's picture of her as a true and loving wife) said that in
her husband's absence she bore Pan to Hermes or the suitors.
Another story was that on his return Odysseus repudiated her as
P E N — P E N
491
unfaithful, that she went to Sparta and thence to Mantinea, where
she died and where her tomb was shown (Pausan., viii. 12). Ac
cording to others, after the death of Odysseus she married Telegonus
(son of Odysseus and Circe) in y£iea, or in the Islands of the Blest.
The name is connected with TTTJVOS, irrivri, "woof," and hence means
"weaver." The Homeric form is I'enelopeia.
PENGUIN, the name (of very uncertain origin) of a
flightless sea-bird,1 but, so far as is known, first given to
one inhabiting the seas of Newfoundland, as in Hore's
"Voyage to Cape Breton," 1536 (Hackluyt, Researches, iii.
pp. 168-170), which subsequently became known as the
Great Auk or GARE-FOWL (vol. x. p. 78) ; and, though the
French equivalent Pingouin 2 preserves its old application,
at the present day, the word Penguin is by English ornitho
logists always used in a general sense for certain Birds
inhabiting the Southern Ocean, called by the French Man-
chots, the Spkenisddse of ornithologists, which in some
respects form perhaps the most singular group of the whole
Class, or at least we may say of the Carinate Subclass. For
a long while their position was very much misunderstood,
some of the best of recent or even living systematists having
placed them in close company with the Alcidx or Auks, to
which they bear only a relationship of analogy, as indeed
had been perceived by a few ornithologists, who recognized
in the Penguins a very distinct Order, Impennes. The view
of the latter is hardly likely to be disputed in future, now
that the anatomical researches of MM. Paul Gervais and
Alix (Joiirn. de Zoologie, 1877, pp. 424-470), M. Filhol
(Bull. Soc. Philomathi'£iie, ser. 7, vi. pp. 226-248), and
above all of Prof. Watson (Zoology, Voy. Challenger, part
xviii.) have put the independent position of the Spheniscidx
in the clearest light.3 The most conspicuous outward
character presented by the Penguins is the total want of
quills in their wings, which are as incapable of flexure as
the nippers of a Cetacean, though they move freely at the
shoulder-joint, and some at least of the species occasionally
make use of them for progressing on land. In the water
they are most efficient paddles, and are usually, if not
always, worked alternately with a rotatory action. The
plumage which clothes the whole body, leaving no bare
spaces, generally consists of small scale-like feathers, many
1 Of the three derivations assigned to this name, the first is by
Draytoii in 1613 (Polyolbion, Song 9), where it is said to be the Welsh
pen gwijn, or "white head" ; the second, which seems to meet with
Littre's approval, deduces it from the Latin pinyuis (fat) ; the third
supposes it to be a corruption of "pin-wing" (Ann. Xat. History,
ser. 4, iv. p. 133), meaning a bird that has undergone the operation
of pinioning or, as in one part at least of England it is commonly
called, "pin-winging." In opposition to the first of these hypotheses
it has been urged (1) that there is no real evidence of any Welsh dis
covery of the bird, (2) that it is very unlikely for the Welsh, if they
did discover it, to have been able to pass on their name to English
navigators, and (3) that it had not a white head, but only a patch of
white thereon. To the second hypothesis Prof. Skeat (Dictionary, p.
433) objects that it "will not account for the suffix -in, and is therefore
wrong ; besides which the ' Dutchmen ' [who were asserted to be the
authors of the name] turn out to be Sir Francis Drake " and his men.
In support of the third hypothesis Mr. Reeks wrote (Zoologist, ser. 2,
p. 1854) that the people in Newfoundland who used to meet with this
bird always pronounced its name "Pin wing." Prof. Skeat's inquiry
(loc. cit.}, whether the name may not after all be South-American,
is to be answered in the negative, since, so far as evidence goes, it
was given to the North-American bird before the South-American was
known in Europe.
~2 Gorfou has also been used by some French writers, being a corrup
tion of Geirfuyl or Gare-fowl.
3 Though the present writer cannot wholly agree with the conclusions
of the last of these investigators, his remarks (pp. 230-232) on the
" Origin of the Penguins " are worthy of all attention. He considers that
they are the surviving members of a group that branched off early from
the primitive " avian " stem, but that at the time of their separation
the stem had diverged so far from Reptiles as to possess true wings,
though the metatarsal bones had not lost their distinctness and become
fused into the single bone so characteristic of existing Birds. The
ancestral Penguin, Prof. Watson argues, must have had functional
wings, the muscles of which, through atrophy, have been converted
into non-contractile tendinous bands.
of them consisting only of a simple shaft without the
development of barbs; but several of the species have the
head decorated with long cirrhous tufts, and in some the
tail- quills, which are very numerous, are also long.4 In
standing these birds preserve an upright position, gener
ally resting on the "tarsus"5 alone, but in walking or
running on land this is kept nearly vertical, and their
weight is supported by the toes alone.
The most northerly limit of the Penguins' range in the
Atlantic is Tristan d'Acunha, and in the Indian Ocean Am
sterdam Island, but they also occur off the Cape of Good
Hope and along the south coast of Australia, as well as
on the south and east of New Zealand, while in the Pacific
one species at least extends along the west coast of South
America and to the Galapagos ; but north of the equator
none are found. In the breeding season they resort to the
most desolate lands in higher southern latitudes, and indeed
have been met with as far to the southward as navigators
have penetrated. Possibly the Falkland Islands may be
regarded as the locality richest in species,6 though, what
ever may have been the case once, their abundance there
King-Penguin (Aptenodytcs pennanti).
as individuals does not now nearly approach what it is in
many other places, owing doubtless to the ravages of man,
whose advent is always accompanied by massacre and
devastation on an enormous scale — the habit of the help
less birds, when breeding, to congregate by hundreds and
thousands in what are called " Penguin-rookeries " contri
buting to the ease with which their slaughter can be effected.
Incapable of escape by flight, they are yet able to make
enough resistance or retaliation (for they bite powerfully
4 The pterylographical characters of the Penguins are well described
by Mr Hyatt (Proc. Boston Soc. Xat. History, 1871). Mr Bartlett has
observed (Proc. Zool. Society, 1879, pp. 6-9) that, instead of moulting
in the way that birds ordinarily do, Penguins, at least in passing from
the immature to the adult dress, cast off the short scale-like feathers
from their wings in a manner that he compares to " the shedding of the
skin in a serpent."
5 The three metatarsals in the Penguins are not, as in other birds,
united for the whole of their length, but only at the extremities, thus
preserving a portion of their originally distinct existence, a fact probably
attributable to arrest of development, since the researches of Prof.
Gegeubaur shew that the embryos of all birds, so far as is known,
possess these bones in an independent condition. More recently Prof.
Marsh has found that in the Dinosaurian genus Ceratosaurus the
metatarsals acquire a condition very similar to that which they present
in the Penguins (Am. Journ. Science, Aug. 1884).
6 An interesting account of the Penguins of these islands is given
by Capt. Abliott (P,f.t, I860, p. 336).
492
X — P E X
when they get the chance) to ^xcite the wrath of their
murderers, and this only brings upon them greater destruc
tion, so that the interest of nearly all the numerous accounts
of these "rookeries" is spoilt by the disgusting details of
the brutal havoc perpetrated upon them.
The SpheniscidsR have been divided into at least eight
genera, but three, or at most four, seem to be all that are
needed, and three can be well distinguished, as pointed out
by Dr Cones in the Philadelphia Proceedings for 1872 (pp.
170-212), by anatomical as well as by external characters.
They are (1) Aptenodytes, easily recognized by its long and
thin bill, slightly decurved, from which Pyc/oscelis, as
Prof. Watson has shewn, is hardly distinguishable ; (2)
Eudi/jitcs, in which the bill is much shorter and somewhat
broad ; and (3) Spheniscm, in which the shortish bill is
compressed and the maxilla ends in a conspicuous hook.
Aptenodytes contains the largest species, among them those
known as the "Emperor " and "King " Penguins, A. patagonica
and A. longirostris.1 Three others belong also to this genus,
if Pygoscelis be not recognized, but they seem not to require
any particular remark. Eudyptes, containing the crested
Penguins, known to sailors as "Rock-hoppers" or "Maca
ronis," would appear to have five species, and Spheniscus
four, among which S. mendiculus, which occurs in the
Galapagos, and therefore has the most northerly range of
the whole group, alone needs notice here. The generic
and specific distribution of the Penguins is the subject of
an excellent essay by Prof. Alphonse Milne -Edwards in
the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1880 (vol. ix.
art. 9, pp. 23-81), of which there is a German translation
in the Mittheilungen of the Ornithological Union of Vienna
for 1883 (pp. 179-186, 210-222, 238-241). (A. N.)
PEXN, WILLIAM (1644-1718), the Quaker, was the son
of Admiral William Penn and Margaret Jasper, a Dutch
lady, and was born at Tower Hill, London, on 14th October
1644. During his father's absence at sea he lived at
Wansteacl in Essex, and went to school at Chigwell close
by, in which places he was brought under strong Puritan
influences. Like many children of sensitive temperament,
he had times of spiritual excitement ; when about twelve
he was "suddenly surprised with an inward comfort, and, as
he thought, an external glory in the room, which gave rise
to religious emotions, during which he had the strongest
conviction of the being of a God, and that the soul of man
was capable of enjoying communication with Him. He
believed also that the seal of divinity had been put upon
him at this moment, or that he had been awakened or
called upon to a holy life." It would indeed have been
unnatural if a mind so disposed had not, when the time
came, seized with avidity upon the distinctive doctrine of
the Friends, that of the " inward light."
Upon the death of Cromwell, Penn's father, who, like
Monk, was purely an adventurer, and had served the Pro
tector because there was no other career open, and who,
according to Clarendon, had previously offered to bring over
the fleet to Charles, remained with his family on the Irish
estates which Cromwell had given him, of the value of
£300 a year. On the deposition of Richard Cromwell he
at once declared for the king and went to the court at
Holland, where he was received into favour and knighted ;
and at the elections for the Convention Parliament he was
returned for Weymouth. During these events young Penn
studied under a private tutor on Tower Hill until, in
October 1660, he was entered as a gentleman commoner at
Christ Church. He appears in the same year to have
contributed to the Threnodia, a collection of elegies on the
death of the young duke of Gloucester.
1 An example, presumably of the former species, weighing 78 lt>,
was, according to Dr M'Connick (Voyages of Discovery, i. p. 259),
obtained by the "Terror" in January 1842.
The rigour with which the Anglican statutes Avere
revived, and the Puritan heads of colleges supplanted,
roused the spirit of resistance at Oxford to the uttermost.
With this spirit Penn, who was on familiar terms with
John Owen, and who had already fallen under the influ
ence of Thomas Loe the Quaker, then at Oxford, actively
sympathized. He and others refused to attend chapel and
church service, and were fined in consequence. So far did
the young enthusiasts proceed in the expression of their
hatred to the Anglican regulations that it is said they fell
upon the students who were clothed in surplices and
violently tore the hated vestments from them. How far
his leaving the university resulted from this cannot be
clearly ascertained. Anthony Wood has nothing regarding
the cause of his leaving, but says that he stayed at Oxford
for two years, and that he was noted for proficiency in
manly sports. There is no doubt that in January 1662
his father was anxious to remove him to Cambridge, and
consulted Pepys on the subject ; and in later years he speaks
of being "banished" the college, and of being whipped,
beaten, and turned out of doors on his return to his father,
in the anger of the latter at his avowed Quakerism. A
reconciliation, however, was effected ; and Penn was sent
to France to forget this folly. The plan was for a time
successful. Penn appears to have entered more or less
into the gaieties of the court of Louis XIV., and while
there to have become acquainted with Robert Spencer,
afterwards earl of Sunderland, and with Dorothy, sister to
Algernon Sidney. What, however, is more certain is that
he somewhat later placed himself under the tuition of
Moses Amyraut, the celebrated president of the Protestant
college of Saumur, and at that time the exponent of liberal
Calvinism, from whom he gained the patristic knowledge
which is so prominent in his controversial writings, and
whose example, doubtless, stimulated the tolerant views
he already entertained. He afterwards travelled in Italy,
returning to England in August 1664, with " a great deal,
if not too much, of the vanity of the French garb and
affected manner of speech and gait." -
Until the outbreak of the plague Penn was a student of
Lincoln's Inn. For a few days also he served on the staff
of his father — now great captain commander — and was by
him sent back in April 1665 to Charles with despatches.
It will be observed that his letters to his father even at this
time are couched in quaintly devout phraseology. Return
ing after the naval victory off Lowestoft in June, Admiral
Penn found that, probably from the effect upon his mind
of the awful visitation of the plague, his son had again
become settled in seriousness and Quakerism. To bring
him once more to views of life not inconsistent with court
preferment, the admiral sent him in February 1666 with
introductions to Ormonde's pure but brilliant court in
Ireland, and to manage his estate in Cork round Shannan-
garry Castle, his title to which was disputed. Penn appears
also later in the year to have been " clerk of the cheque ''
at Kinsale, of the castle and fort of which his father had
the command. When the mutiny broke out in Carrick-
fergus Penn volunteered for service, and acted under Arran
so as to gain considerable reputation. The result was that
in May 1666 Ormonde offered him his father's company
of foot, but, for some unexplained reason, the admiral
demurred to this arrangement. It was at this time that
the well-known portrait was painted of the great Quaker in
a suit of armour; and, strangely enough, it was at this time,
too, that the conversion, begun when he was a boy, accord
ing to Penn's own account, by Thomas Loe in Ireland, was
completed at the same place by the same agency.3
On 3d September 1667 Penn attended a meeting of
- Pepys, 30th August 1664.
3 Webb, The Penns and Penninfjtons, 1867, p. 174.
P E N N
493
Quakers in Cork, at which he assisted to expel a soldier
who had disturbed the meeting. He was in consequence,
with others present, sent to prison by the magistrates.
From prison he wrote to Lord Orrery, the president of
Minister, a letter, in which he first publicly makes a claim
for perfect freedom of conscience. He was immediately
released, and at once returned to his father in London,
with the distinctive marks of Quakerism strong upon him
— the use of the "thee" and " thou," and the refusal to
remove his hat. So staunch on the hat question was he
that he could not accept even the compromise suggested
by his father, viz., that he should uncover before the king,
the duke of York, and himself.
Penn now became a minister of the denomination, and
at once entered upon controversy and authorship. His
first book, Truth Exalted, in which he summons to trial
princes, priests, and people, was "a short but sure testi
mony against all those religions, faiths, and worships that
have been formed and followed in the darkness of apo-
stacy," and declared Quakerism to be " the alone good way
of life and salvation." Its tone and language were violent
and aggressive in the extreme. The same offensive per
sonality is shown in The Guide Mistaken, a tract written
in answer to John Clapham's Guide to the True Religion.
It was at this time, too, that he appealed, not unsuccess
fully, to Buckingham, who on Clarendon's fall was posing
as the protector of the Dissenters, to use his efforts to
procure parliamentary toleration.
Penn's first public discussion was with Thomas Vincent, a
London Presbyterian minister, who had reflected on the
" damnable " doctrines of the Quakers. In this he appears
to have acted as second to George Whitehead.1 The dis
cussion, which had turned chiefly upon the doctrine of the
Trinity, ended uselessly, and Penn at once published The
Sandy Foundation Shaken, a tract of ability sufficient to
excite Pepys's astonishment, in which orthodox views on
the Trinity, plenary satisfaction, imputed righteousness,
and other doctrinal points were so offensively attacked that,
at the instance of the bishop of London, Penn was placed
in the Tower, where he remained for nearly nine months.
The imputations upon his opinions and good citizenship,
made as well by Dissenters as by the church, he repelled
in Innocency ivith her Open Face, in which he asserts his
full belief in the divinity of Christ, the atonement, and
justification through faith, though insisting on the necessity
of good works. It was now, too, that he published the
most important of his books, No Cross, no Crown, which,
besides the lessons of constancy and resignation indicated
by the title, contained an able defence of the Quaker doc
trines and practices, and a scathing attack on the evils of the
age, especially the loose and unchristian lives of the clergy.
While completely refusing to recant or to yield to the
persuasions of Stillingfleet, who, it is stated on doubtful
authority, was sent to argue with him, Penn addressed a
letter to Arlington in July 16G9, in which, on grounds of
religious freedom, he asked him to interfere. It is note
worthy, as showing the views then predominant, that he
was almost at once set at liberty.
An informal reconciliation now took place with his
father, who had been impeached through the jealousy of
Rupert and Monk (in April 1668), and whose conduct in the
operations of 1665 he had publicly vindicated; and Penn
was again sent on family business to Ireland. There is
good reason for thinking that the extent of the differences
between him and his father have been much exaggerated.2
While there he regularly attended Quaker meetings, and
was active in intercession for imprisoned Friends. At
the desire of his father, whose health was fast failing, Penn
1 Sewel's Hist, of Fri-ends, p. 172.
2 Granville's Memorials of Sir W. Penn, vol. ii. p. 571.
returned to London in 1670, and was immediately involved
in fresh trouble. Having found the usual place of meeting
in Gracechurch Street closed by soldiers, Penn, as a protest,
preached to the people in the open street. With William
Mead he was at once arrested and indicted at the Old
Bailey on 1st September for preaching to an unlawful,
seditious, and riotous assembly, which had met together
with force and arms. The Conventicle Act not touch
ing their case, the trial which followed, and which may
be read at length in Penn's People's Ancient and Just
Liberties Asserted, was a notable one in the history of trial
by jury. The prisoners and the jury were alike brow
beaten and threatened by the bench, and particularly by
the recorder. With extreme courage and skill Penn ex
posed the illegality of the prosecution, while the jury,
for the first time, asserted the right of juries to decide
in opposition to the ruling of the court. They brought in
a verdict declaring Penn and Mead " guilty of speaking in
Gracechurch Street," but refused to add "to an unlawful
assembly " ; then, as the pressure upon them increased,
and as they were sent back time after time without food,
light, fire, or tobacco, they first acquitted Mead, while
returning their original verdict upon Penn, and then, when
that verdict was not admitted, returned their final answer
" not guilty" for both. The court fined the jurymen 40
marks each for their contumacy, and, in default of payment,
imprisoned them, whereupon they vindicated and estab
lished for ever the right they had claimed in an action
before the Court of Common Pleas, when all twelve judges
unanimously declared their imprisonment illegal.
Penn himself had been fined for not removing his hat
in court, had been imprisoned on his refusal to pay, and
had earnestly requested his family not to pay for him.
The fine, however, was settled anonymously, and he was
released in time to be present at his father's death on 16th
September 1670, at the early age of forty-nine. Penn now
found himself in possession of a fortune of £1500 a year,
and a claim on the crown for £15,000, lent to Charles II.
by his father. The admiral appears, from a later statement
of Penn, to have asked the king and James to become his
son's protectors, and James accepted and acted up to the
engagement in a special manner. Upon his release Penn
at once plunged into controversy, challenging a Baptist
minister named Ives, at High Wycombe, to a public dispute
and, according to the Quaker account, easily defeating him.
No account is forthcoming from the other side. Hearing
at Oxford that students who attended Friends' meetings
were rigorously used, he wrote a vehement and abusive
remonstrance to the vice-chancellor in defence of religious
freedom. This found still more remarkable expression in
the Seasonable Caveat against Popery (January 1671), in
which, while refuting the arguments of Roman Catholics,
he urges, far in advance of his age and of all other sects,
entire and unlimited toleration of faith and worship, — not,
be it observed, on the grounds of expediency or of Scripture,
but upon the distinctively Quaker doctrine of the " inward
light." .
In the beginning of 1671 Penn was again arrested for
preaching in Wheeler Street meeting-house by Sir J.
Robinson, the lieutenant of the Tower, formerly lord
mayor, and known as a brutal and bigoted churchman.
Legal proof being wanting of any breach of the Conventicle
Act, and the Oxford or Five Mile Act also proving inap
plicable, Robinson, who had some special cause of enmity
against Penn, urged upon him the oath of allegiance. This,
of course, the Quaker would not take, and consequently was
imprisoned for six months. A saying is recorded of Penn
on this occasion worthy of remembrance. Robinson had
ordered a corporal and some soldiers to take him to prison.
"No, no," said Penn, "send thy lacquey. I know the way
P E N N
to Newgate." During this imprisonment Perm wrote
several works, the most important being The Great Case
of Liberty of Conscience (February 1671), a noble defence
of complete toleration. Upon his release he started upon
a missionary journey through Holland and Germany ; at
Emden he founded a Quaker Society, and established an
intimate friendship with the princess palatine Elizabeth.
In his letters written during this journey will be found a
full exposition of the doctrine of the " inward light."
Upon his return home in the spring of 1672 Perm
married Gulielma Springett, daughter of Mary Pennington
by her first husband, Sir William Springett; she appears to
have been equally remarkable for beauty, devotion to her
husband, and firmness to the religious principles which she
had adopted when little more than a child.1 He now settled
at Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, and gave himself up
to controversial writing. To this year, 1672, belong the
Treatise on Oatlis and England's Present Interest Considered,
in the latter of which, written immediately after the with
drawal of the Declaration of Indulgence, is contained an
able statement of the arguments against comprehension
and for toleration. It should not be omitted by any one
who desires to understand the state of feeling on the sub
ject. In the year 1673 Penn was still more active. He
secured the release of George Fox, addressed the Quakers
in Holland and Germany, carried on public controversies
with Hicks, a Baptist, and Faldo, an Independent, and
published his treatise on the Christian Quaker and his
Divine Testimony Vindicated, the Discourse of the General
Rule of Faith and Practice,2 Reasons against Railing (in
answer to Hicks), Counterfeit Christianity Detected, and a
Just Rebuke to One-and-twenty Learned Divines (an answer
to Faldo and to Quakerism no Christianity). His last
public controversy was in 1675 with Richard Baxter, in
which, of course, each party claimed the victory. During
this year his active sympathies were enlisted on behalf of
imprisoned Quakers at Aberdeen. At this point Penn's
connexion with America begins.
The province of New Jersey, comprising the country
between the Hudson and Delaware rivers on the east and
west, had been granted in March 1663-64 by Charles II.
to his brother ; James in turn had in June of the same
year leased it to Lord Berkeley and Sir G. Carteret in
equal shares. By a deed, dated 18th March 1673/74, John
Fenwick, a Quaker, bought one of the shares, that of Lord
Berkeley (Stoughton erroneously says Carteret's) in trust
for Edward By Hinge, also a Friend, for £1000. This sale
was confirmed by James, after the second Dutch war, on
6th August 1680. Disputes having arisen between Fenwick
and Byllinge, Penn acted as arbitrator ; and then, Byllinge
being in money difficulties, and being compelled to sell his
interest in order to satisfy his creditors, Penn was added,
at their request, to two of themselves, as trustee. The
disputes were settled by Fenwick receiving ten out of the
hundred parts into which the province was divided,3 with
a considerable sum of money, the remaining ninety parts
being afterwards put up for sale. Fenwick sold. his ten
parts to two other Friends, Eldridge and Warner, who
thus, with Penn and the other two, became masters of
West Jersey, West New 'Jersey, or New West Jersey, as
it was indifferently called.4 The five proprietors appointed
three commissioners, with instructions dated from London
6th August 1676, to settle disputes with Fenwick (who
J For a very charming account of her, and the whole Penniugton
connexion, see Maria Webb's The Penns and Penninyions.
2 See on this Stoughton's Penn, p. 113.
3 The deed by which Fenwick and Byllinge conveyed New West
Jersey to Penn, Gawry, and Nicholas is dated 10th February 1674/75.
4 The line of partition was " from the east side of Little Egg Harbour,
straight north, through the country, to the utmost branch of Delaware
river."
had bought fresh land from the Indians, upon which Salem
was built, Penn being himself one of the settlers there)
and to purchase new territories, to survey and divide
them, and to build a town, — New Beverley, or Burlington,
being the result. For the new colony Penn drew up a
constitution, under the title of "Concessions," which he
himself thus describes : " There we lay a foundation for
after ages to understand their liberty as men and Chris
tians, that they may not be brought in bondage but by
their own consent ; for we put the power in the people."
The greatest care is taken to make this constitution "as
near as may be conveniently to the primitive, ancient, and
fundamental laws of the nation of England." But a
democratic element is introduced, and the new principle
of perfect religious freedom — " that no men, nor numbers
of men upon earth, hath power or authority to rule over
'men's consciences in religious matters " — stands in the first
place (chap. xvi.). With regard to the liberty of the
subject, no one might be condemned in life, liberty, or
estate, except by a jury of twelve, and the right of
challenging was granted to the uttermost (chap. xvii.).
Imprisonment for debt was not abolished (as Dixon states),
but was reduced to a minimum (chap, xviii.), while theft
was punished by twofold restitution either in value or in
labour to that amount (chap, xxviil). The provisions of
chap, xix., taking their rise doubtless in Penn's own trial
at the Old Bailey in 1670, deserve special notice. All
causes were to go before three justices, with a jury. " They,
the said justices, shall pronounce such judgment as they
shall receive from, and be directed by the said twelve men,
in whom only the judgment resides, and not otherwise.
And in case of their neglect and refusal, that then one of
the twelve, by consent of the rest, pronounce their own
judgment as the justices should have done." The justices
and constables, moreover, were elected by the people, the
former for two years only (chap. xli.). Suitors might
plead in person, and the courts were public (chap. xxil).
Questions between Indians and settlers were to be arranged
by a mixed jury (chap. xxv.).
An assembly was to meet yearly, consisting of a hundred
persons, chosen by the inhabitants, freeholders, and pro
prietors, one for each division of the province. The election
was to be by ballot, and each member was to receive a
shilling a day from his division, " that thereby he may be
known to be the servant of the people." The executive
power was to be in the hands of ten commissioners 5 chosen
by the assembly. Such a constitution, Avhich is in marked
contrast with Locke's aristocratic one for Carolina, settled
eight years previously, soon attracted large numbers of
Quakers to West Jersey.
It was shortly before these occurrences that Penn in
herited through his wife the estate of Worminghurst in
Sussex, whither he removed from llickmansworth. He now
(25th July 1677) undertook a second missionary journey to
the Continent along with George Fox, Robert Barclay, and
George Keith. Of this journey a full account, published
seventeen years later, will be found in his selected works.
He visited particularly Rotterdam and all the Holland
towns, renewed his intimacy with the princess Elizabeth at
Herwerden, and, under considerable privations, travelled
through Hanover, Germany, the lower Rhine, and the
electorate of Brandenburg, returning by Bremen and the
Hague. It is worthy of recollection that the American
settlers from Kirchheim, one of the places which responded
in an especial degree to Penn's teaching, are noted as the
first who declared it unlawful for Christians to hold slaves.
Penn reached England again on 24th October.
5 Penn's letter of 26th August 1676 says twelve, and Clarkson has
followed this ; but the Concessions, which were not assented to by the
inhabitants until 3d March 1676/77, say ten.
P E N N
495
His attention was at once taken up both with the
disputes which had arisen within the Quaker body itself
on questions of discipline, and still more with an endeavour
to secure some decent measure of toleration for the Friends.
He tried to gain the insertion in the Bill for the relief of
Protestant Dissenters of a clause enabling Friends to affirm
instead of taking the oath, and twice addressed the House
of Commons' committee with considerable eloquence and
effect. The Bill, however, fell to the ground at the sudden
prorogation.
In 1678 the Popish Terror came to a head, and to calm
and guide Friends in the prevailing excitement Perm wrote
his Epistle to the Children of Light in this Generation.
A far more important publication was An Address to Pro
testants of all Persuasions, by William Penn, Protestant, in
1679. In the first part of this work he inveighs against
the five crying evils of the time so far as they are "under
the correction of the civil magistrates," with an address to
the magistrates for redress of those evils ; the second part
deals similarly with " the five capital evils that relate to
the ecclesiastical state of these kingdoms " ; the whole
work is a powerful exposition of the doctrine of pure toler
ance and a protest against the enforcement of opinions
as articles of faith. This was succeeded, at the general
election which followed the dissolution of the pensionary
parliament, by an important political manifesto, England's
Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament, in
which he insisted on the following points : — the discovery
and punishment of the plot, the impeachment of corrupt
ministers and councillors, the punishment of "pensioners,"
the enactment of frequent parliaments, security from
Popery and slavery, and ease for Pro'*,a.,tant Dissenters.
Next came One Project for the Good of England, perhaps
the most pungent of all his political writings. A single
sentence will show the homely style of illustration which
Penn usually adopted. " But since the industry, rents, and
taxes of the Dissenters are as current as their neighbours',
who loses by such narrowness more than England, than
the Government, and the magistracy 1 . . . Till it be the
interest of the former to destroy his flock, to starve
the horse he rides and the cow that gives him milk, it
cannot be the interest of England to let a great part of
her sober and useful inhabitants be destroyed for things
that concern another world." But he was not merely active
with his pen. He was at this time in close intimacy with
Algernon Sidney, who stood successively for Guildf ord and
Bamber. In each case, owing in a great degree to Penn's
eager advocacy, Sidney was elected, only to have his elec
tions annulled by court influence. Toleration for Dissenters
seemed as far off as ever. The future of English politics
must have appeared to Penn well-nigh hopeless. Encouraged
by his success in the New Jersey provinces, he again turned
his thoughts to America. In repayment of the debt men
tioned above Penn now asked from the crown, at a council
held on 24th June 1680, for "a tract of land in America
north of Maryland, bounded on the east by the Delaware,
on the west limited as Maryland [i.e., by New Jersey], north
ward as far as plantable " ; this latter limit Penn explained
to be "three degrees northwards." This formed a tract
300 miles by 160, of extreme fertility, mineral wealth, and
richness of all kinds. Disputes with James, and with Lord
Baltimore, who had rights over Maryland, delayed the
matter until 24th March 1681, when the grant received
the royal signature, and Penn was made master of the
province of Pennsylvania. His own account of the name is
that he suggested " Sylvania," that the king added the
" Penn " in honour of his father, and that, although he
strenuously objected and even tried to bribe the secretaries,
he could not get the name altered. It should be added
that early in 1682 Carteret, grandson of the original pro
prietor, transferred his rights in East Jersey to Penn and
eleven associates, who soon afterwards conveyed one- half
of their interest to the earl of Perth and eleven others.
It is uncertain to what extent Penn retained his interest
in West and East Jersey, and when it ceased. The two
provinces were united under one government in 1699, and
Penn was a proprietor in 1700. In 1702 the government
of New Jersey was surrendered to the crown.
By the charter for Pennsylvania Penn was made proprie
tary of the province. He was supreme governor ; he had
the power of making laws with the advice, assent, and appro
bation of the freemen, of appointing officers, and of grant
ing pardons. The laws were to contain nothing contrary to
English law with a saving to the crown and the English
council in the case of appeals. Parliament was to be supreme
in all questions of trade and commerce ; the right to levy
taxes and customs was reserved to England ; an agent to
represent Penn was to reside in London ; neglect on the part
of Penn was to lead to the passing of the government to
the crown (which event actually took place in 1692); no
correspondence might be carried on with countries at war
with Great Britain. A clause added at the last moment
illustrates curiously both the strength and the jealousy of
the Anglican Church at the time. The importunity of the
bishop of London extorted the right to appoint Anglican
ministers, should twenty members of the colony desire it,
thus securing the very thing which Penn was anxious to
avoid,— the recognition of the principle of an establishment.
Having appointed Colonel Markhain, his cousin, as
deputy, and having in October sent out three commis
sioners to manage affairs until his arrival, Penn proceeded
to draw up proposals to adventurers, with an account of
the resources of the colony. He negotiated, too, with
James and Lord Baltimore with the view, ultimately
successful, of freeing the mouth of the Delaware, wrote
to the Indians in conciliatory terms, and encouraged the
formation of companies to work the infant colony both in
England and Germany, especially the "Free Society of
Traders in Pennsylvania," to whom he sold 20,000 acres,
absolutely refusing, however, to grant any monopolies.
In July he drew up a body of " conditions and con
cessions." This constitution, savouring strongly of Har
rington's Oceana, was framed in consultation with Sidney,
though to what extent is doubtful. The inferences drawn
by Hepworth Dixon from a single letter of Penn to Sidney,
given at length by Stoughton, are quite unjustifiable.
This sketch of a constitution was democratical in the
purest sense. Until the council of seventy-two (chosen by
universal suffrage every three years, twenty-four retiring
each year) and the assembly (chosen annually) were duly
elected, a body of provisional laws was added.
It was in the midst of this extreme activity that Penn
was made a Fellow of the lloyal Society. Leaving his
family behind him, Penn sailed with a hundred comrades
from Deal in the "Welcome" on 1st September 1682.
His Last Farewell to England and his letter to his wife
and children contain a beautiful expression of his pious
and manly nature. He landed at Newcastle on the Dela
ware on 27th October, his company having lost one-third
of their number by smallpox during the voyage. After
receiving formal possession, and having visited New York,
Penn ascended the Delaware to the Swedish settlement
of L'pland, to which he gave the name of Chester. The
assembly at once met, and on the 7th December passed the
" Great Law of Pennsylvania." The idea which informs
this law is that Pennsylvania was to be a Christian state
on a Quaker model. Only one condition is made necessary
for office or citizenship, viz., Christianity. The constitu
tion is purely democratic ; all offices, for example, are
elective. In many other provisions Penn showed him-
496
P E N N
self far in advance of his time, but in none so much as
where the penalty of death was abolished for all offences
except murder. Lawsuits were to be superseded by arbi
tration, always a favourite idea with Penn. Philadelphia
was now founded, and within two years contained 300
houses and a population of 2500. At the same time an
Act was passed, uniting under the same government the
territories which had been granted by feoffment by James
in 1682. Idealistic and entirely imaginative accounts (</.
Dixon, p. 270), inspired chiefly by Benjamin West's picture,
have been given of the treaty which there seems no doubt
Penn actually made in November 1682 with the Indians.
His connexion with them was one of the most successful
parts of his management, and he gained at once and
retained through life their intense affection. At his death
they sent to his widow a message of sorrow for the loss
of their "brother Onas," with some choice skins to form
a cloak which might protect her "while passing through
the thorny wilderness without her guide."
Penn now wrote an account of Pennsylvania from his
own observation for the "Free Society of Traders," in
which he shows considerable power of artistic description.
Tales of violent persecution of the Quakers, and the
necessity of settling disputes which had arisen with Lord
Baltimore, his neighbour in Maryland, brought Penn back
to England (2d October 1 684) after an absence of two years.
In the spring of 1683 he had modified the original charter
at the desire of the assembly, but without at all altering
its democratic character.1 He was, in reference to this
alteration, charged with selfish and deceitful dealing by
the assembly. Within five months after his arrival in
England Charles II. died, and Penn found himself at once
in a position of great influence. His close connexion
with James, dating from the death of his father, was
randered doubly strong by the fact that, from different
causes, each was sincerely anxious to establish complete
liberty of conscience. Even before his coronation James
had told Penn that "he desired not that peaceable men
should be disturbed for their religion." Penn now took up
his abode at Kensington in Holland House, so as to be
near the court. His influence there was great enough to
secure the pardon of John Locke, who had been dismissed
from Oxford by Charles, and of 1200 Quakers who were in
prison. At this time, too, he was busy with his pen once
more, writing a further account of Pennsylvania, a pam
phlet in defence of Buckingham's essay in favour of tolera
tion, in which he is supposed to have had some share, and
his Persuasive to Moderation to Dissenting Christians, very
similar in tone to the One Project for the Good of England.
When Monmouth's rebellion was suppressed he appears to
have done his best to mitigate the horrors of the western
commission, opposing Jeffreys to the uttermost ; 2 and he
stood by Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt at their execu
tions. He says himself in a letter dated 2d October 1685,
" About 300 hanged in divers towns in the West, about
1000 to be transported. I begged twenty of the king."
Macaulay, the grotesqueness of whose blunders on this
matter is equalled only by the animus that inspired them,
and by the disingenuousness with which he defended them,
has accused Penn of being concerned in some of the worst
actions of the court at this time. His complete refutation
by Forster, Paget, Dixon, and others renders it unneces
sary to do more than allude to the cases of the Maids of
Taunton, Alderman Kiffin, and Magdalen College (Oxford).
In 1686, when making a third missionary journey to
Holland and Germany, Penn was charged by James with
an informal mission to the prince of Orange to endeavour
to gain his assent to the removal of religious tests. Here
1 Dixou, p. 276.
2 Burnet, iii. 66 ; Dalrymple, i. 282.
he met Burnet, from whom, as from the prince, he gained
no satisfaction, and who greatly disliked him. On las
return he went on a preaching mission through England.
His position with James was undoubtedly a compromising
one, and it is not strange that, wishing to tolerate Papists,
he should, in the prevailing temper of England, be once
more accused of being a Jesuit, while he was in con
stant antagonism to their body. Even Tillotson took
up this view strongly, though he at once accepted Penn's
vehement disavowal. It was in reference to this that Penn
wrote one of his pithy sentences : " I abhor two principles
in religion, and pity them that own them ; the first is obe
dience upon authority without conviction ; and the other,
destroying them that differ from me for God's sake. Such
a religion is without judgment, though not without teeth."
In 1687 James published the Declaration of Indulgence,
and Penn probably drew up the address of thanks on the
part of the Quakers. It fully reflects his views, which
are further ably put in the pamphlet Good Advice to the
Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dis
senters, in which he showed the wisdom and duty of
repealing the Test Acts and Penal Laws.
At the Revolution he behaved with courage. He was
one of the few friends of the king who remained in
London, and, when twice summoned before the council,
spoke boldly in his behalf. He admitted that James had
asked him to come to him in France ; but at the same
time he asserted his perfect loyalty. During the absence
of William in 1 690 he was proclaimed by Mary as a dan
gerous person, but no evidence of treason was forthcom
ing. It was now that he lost by death two of his dearest
friends, Robert Barclay and George Fox. It Avas at the
funeral of the latter that, upon the information of the
notorious informer Fuller, an attempt Ava.s made to arrest
him, but he had just left the ground; the fact that no
further steps A\Tere then taken shows how little the Govern
ment believed in his guilt. He noAv lived in retirement
in London, though his address was perfectly Avell known
to his friends in the council. In 1691, again on Fuller's
evidence, a proclamation Avas issued for the arrest of Penn
and tAvo others as being concerned in Preston's plot. He
might, on the intercession of Locke, have obtained a pardon,
but refused to do so. He appears to have especially felt the
suspicions that fell upon him from the members of his OAvn
body. In 1692 he began to Avrite again, both on questions
of Quaker discipline and in defence of the sect. Just Mea
sures in an Epistle of Peace and Love, The New Athenians
(in reply to the attacks of the Athenian Mercury], and A Key
opening the Way to every Capacity are the principal publi
cations of this year.
Meantime matters had been going badly in Pennsyl
vania. Penn had, in 1687, been obliged to make changes
in the composition of the executive body, though in 1689
it reverted to the original constitution ; the legislative
bodies had quarrelled ; and Penn could not gain his rents.
He A\ras closely concerned also in this year Avith a dispute
between East and West Jersey regarding the dividing
line, in AA'hich he espoused the cause of the former (and
richer) province. The chief difficulty, hoAvever, in Penn
sylvania Avas the dispute between the province — i.e., the
country given to Penn by the charter — and the "territories,"
or the lands granted to him by the duke of York by feoff
ment in August 1682, which Avere under the same Govern
ment but had differing interests. No sooner had Penn
by a skilful compromise settled this matter than the colony
Avas torn by the religious schism caused by George Keith.
The difficulties which Quaker principles placed in the way
of arming the colony — a matter of grave importance in
the existing European complications — fought most hardly
against Penn's poAver. On 21st October 1692 an order of
P E N N
497
council was issued depriving Penn of the governorship
of Pennsylvania, and giving it to Colonel Fletcher, the
governor of New York.1 To this blow were added the
illness of his wife and a fresh accusation of treasonable
correspondence with James. In his enforced retirement
he wrote the most devotional and the most charming of
his works, — the collection of maxims of conduct and reli
gion entitled The Fruits of Solitude. In December, thanks
to the efforts of his friends at court, among whom were
Buckingham, Somers, Rochester, and Henry Sidney, he
received an intimation, that no further steps would be
taken against him. The accusation, however, had been
public, and he insisted on the withdrawal being as public.
He was therefore heard in full council before the king, and
honourably acquitted of all charge of treason. It was now
that he wrote an Essay towards the Present and Future
Peace of Europe, in which he puts forth the idea of a great
court of arbitration, a principle which he had already
carried out in Pennsylvania.
In 1694 (23d February) his wife Gulielma died, leaving
two sons, Springett and William, and a daughter Letitia,
afterwards married to William Aubrey. Two other
daughters, Mary and Hannah, died in infancy. He con
soled himself by writing his Account of the Rise and
Progress of the People called Quakers. The coldness and
suspicion with which he had been regarded by his own
denomination had now ceased, and he was once more
regarded by the Quaker body as their leader. About the
same time (20th August) he was restored to the governor
ship of Pennsylvania ; and he promised to supply money
and men for the defence of the frontiers. In 1695 he went
on another preaching mission in the west, and sent a peti
tion to parliament praying that affirmations might be sub
stituted for oaths. This year and the next were busily
occupied with preaching and writing, one of his auditors
being no less a person than Peter the Great. In March
1696 he formed a second marriage, with Hannah Callow-
hill, his son Springett dying five weeks later. In this
year he wrote his work On Primitive Christianity, in which
he argues that the faith and practice of the Friends were
those of the early church. In 1697 Penn removed to
Bristol, and during the greater part of 1698 was preaching
with great success against oppression in Ireland, Avhither
he had gone to look after the property at Shannangarry.
In 1699 he was back in Pennsylvania, landing near
Chester on 30th November, where the success of Colonel
Quary, judge of the admiralty in Pennsylvania, who was in
the interests of those who wished to make the province an
imperial colony, and the high-handed action of the deputy
Markham in opposition to the crown, were causing great
difficulties. Penn carried with him particular instructions
to put down piracy, which the objections of the Quakers
to the use of force had rendered audacious, and concern
ing which Quary had made strong representations to the
home Government, while Markham and the inhabitants ap
parently encouraged it. Penn and Quary, however, came
at once to a satisfactory understanding on this matter,
and the illegal traffic was vigorously and successfully
attacked. The next question he took up was slavery,
and his attitude towards it is curious. In 1696 the Phila-
delphian yearly meeting had passed a resolution declaring it
contrary to the first principles of the gospel. Penn, how
ever, did not venture upon emancipation ; but he insisted
on the instruction of negroes, permission for them to marry,
1 Colonel Fletcher's commission recites " that by reason of great
neglect and miscarriage in the government of Pennsylvania Her Majesty
found it necessary to take the government into her hands and under
her immediate protection." The attorney-general and the solicitor-
general were of opinion (on 12th July 1694) that, when the aforesaid
reasons failed or ceased, the right of government belonged to the
petitioner.
repression of polygamy and adultery, and proposed regula
tions for their trial and punishment. The assembly, how-
ever, a very mixed body of all nations, now refused to
accept any of these proposals except the last-named.
His great success was with the Indians ; by their treaty
with him in 1 700 they promised not to help any enemy
of England, to traffic only with those approved by the
governor, and to sell furs or skins to none but inhabitants
of the province. At the same time he showed his capacity
for legislation by the share he took with Lord Bellomont
at New York in the consolidation of the laws in use in the
various parts of America.
Affairs now again demanded his presence in England.
The king had in 1 701 written to urge upon the Pennsylvania
Government a union with other private colonies for defence,
and had asked for money for fortifications. The difficulty
felt by the crown in this matter was a natural one. A Bill
was brought into the Lords to convert private into crown
colonies. Penn's son appeared before the committee of the
House and managed to delay the matter until his father's
return. On 15th September Penn called the assembly to
gether, in which the differences between the province and
the territories again broke out. He succeeded, however,
in calming them, appointed a council of ten to manage the
province in his absence, and gave municipal institutions to
Philadelphia. In May 1700, experience having shown
that alterations in the charter were advisable, the assembly
had, almost unanimously, requested Penn to revise it.
On 28th October 1701 he handed it back to them in the
form in which it afterwards remained. An assembly was
to be chosen yearly, of four persons from each county,
with all the self-governing privileges of the English House
of Commons. Two-thirds were to form a quorum. The
nomination of sheriff's, coroners, and magistrates for each
county was given to the governor, who was to select from
names handed in by the freemen. Moreover, the council
was no longer elected by the people, but nominated by the
governor, who was thus practically left single in the execu
tive. The assembly, however, who, by the first charter, had
not the right to propound laws, but might only amend or
reject them, now acquired that privilege. In other respects
the original charter remained, and the inviolability of con
science was again emphatically asserted. Penn reached Eng
land in December 1701. The accession of Anne appears to
have put an end to the Bill in the Lords, and to his troubles
on this score. He once more assumed the position of leader
of the Dissenters and himself read the address of thanks
for the promise from the throne to maintain the Act of
Toleration. He now too took up his abode again at Kensing
ton, and published while here his More Fruits of Solitude.
In 1703 he went to Knightsbridge, where he remained
until 1706, when he removed to Brentford, his final resi
dence being taken up in 1710 at Field Ptuscombe, near
Twyford. In 1704 he wrote his Life of Bulstrode White-
locke. He had now much trouble from America. The terri-
torialists were openly rejecting his authority, and doing their
best to obstruct all business in the assembly ; and matters
were further embarrassed by the injudicious conduct of Go
vernor Evans in 1706. Moreover, pecuniary troubles came
heavily upon him, while the conduct of his son William,
who became the ringleader of all the dissolute characters in
Philadelphia, was another and still more severe trial. This
son was married, and had a son and daughter, but appears
to have been left entirely out of account in the settlement
of Penn's proprietary rights on his death.
Whatever were Penn's great qualities, he was deficient
in judgment of character. This was especially shown in
the choice of his steward Ford, from whom he had borrowed
money, and who, by dexterous swindling, had managed,
at the time of his death, to establish a claim for £14,000
XVIII. — 63
498
P E N — P E N
against Penn. Perm, however, refused to pay, and spent
nine months in the Fleet rather than give way. He was
released at length by his friends, who paid £7500 in
composition of all claims. Difficulties with his govern
ment of Pennsylvania continued to harass him. Fresh
disputes took place with Lord Baltimore, the owner of
Maryland, and Penn also felt deeply what seemed to him
the ungrateful treatment which he met with at the hands
of the assembly. He therefore in 1710 wrote, in earnest
and affectionate language, an address to his "old friends,"
setting forth his wrongs. So great was the effect which
this produced that the assembly which met in October
of that year was entirely in his interests ; revenues were
properly paid ; the disaffected were silenced and com
plaints were hushed ; while an advance in moral sense was
shown by the fact that a Bill was passed prohibiting the
importation of negroes. This, however, Avhen submitted
to the British parliament, was cancelled. Penn now, in
February 1712, being in failing health, proposed to sur
render his powers to the crown. He appears, from Dixon's
work (p. 413), to have offered previously, just before he
was arrested by the Fords, to give up his government for
£20,000, but with stipulations which rendered the crown
unwilling to take it. On the present occasion the com
mission of plantations recommended that Penn should
receive £12,000 in four years from the time of surrender,
Penn stipulating only that the queen should take the
Quakers under her protection ; and £1000 was given
him in part payment. Before, however, the matter could
go further he was seized with apoplectic fits, which shat
tered his understanding and memory. A second attack
occurred in 1713, and from that time until his death his
powers gradually failed, although at times his intellect was
clear and vigorous. He died on 30th May 1718, leaving
three sons by his second wife, John, Thomas, and Richard,
and was buried along with his first and second wives at
Jourdan's meeting-house, near Chalfont St Giles in Bucking
hamshire. It has finally to be mentioned that in 1790 the
proprietary rights of Penn's descendants were bought up
for a pension of £4000 a year to the eldest male descend
ant by his second wife, and that this pension was commuted
in 1884 for the sum of £G7,000. (o. A.)
PENNANT, THOMAS (1726-1798), naturalist and anti
quary, was descended from an old Welsh family, who for
many generations had resided at Downing, Flintshire,
where he was born 14th June 1726. He received his
early education at Wrexham and Fulham, and afterwards
attended Queen's and Oriel Colleges, Oxford, but did not
take a degree. At twelve years of age he was inspired
with a passion for natural history through obtaining a
present of Willughby's Ornithology ; and a tour in Corn
wall in 1746-47 after leaving Oxford awakened his strong
interest in minerals and fossils. In 1750 his account of
an earthquake which he felt at Downing was inserted in
the Philosophical Transactions, where there also appeared
in 1756 a paper on several coralloid bodies he had col
lected at Coalbrook Dale, Shropshire. In the following
year, at the instance of Linnaeus, he was elected a member
of the Royal Society of Upsala. In 1766 he published
a folio volume entitled British Zoology. The work is
meritorious rather as a laborious compilation than as an
original contribution to science, but that it served a good
purpose is evidenced by the number of editions (see ORNI
THOLOGY, p. 9 above) through which it passed. During its
progress he visited the Continent and made the acquaint
ance of Buffon, Voltaire, Haller, and Pallas. In 1771 was
published his Synopsis of Quadrupeds, afterwards extended
into a History of Quadrupeds. At the end of the same
year he published A Toiir in Scotland in 1709, which
proving remarkably popular was followed in 1774 by an
account of another journey in Scotland published in two
volumes, afterwards distinguished as the second and third
Tour. In these works he manifested the rare faculty of
investing with interest details of antiquarian lore, while
they have also proved invaluable as preserving the record
of important antiquarian relics which have now perished.
In 1778 he brought out a similar Tour in Wales, which
was followed by a Journey to Snoivdon (part i. 1781, part ii.
1783), afterwards forming the second volume of the Tour.
In 1782 he published a Journey from Chester to London.
He brought out Arctic Zoology in 1785-87. In 1790
appeared his Account of London, which has gone through
a large number of editions, and has justly been termed
"the most popular book ever written on the subject."
Three years later he published the Literary Life of the late
T. Pennant, written by himself. In his later years he was
engaged on a work entitled Outlines of the Globe, vols. i.
and ii. of which appeared in 1798, and vols. iii. and iv.,
edited by his son David Pennant, in 1800. He was also
the author of a number of minor works, some of which
were published posthumously. He died at Downing 16th
December 1798. Pennant was in 1767 elected a member
of the Royal Society, and he was a member of many
other learned societies, both home and foreign. In 1771
he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of
Oxford.
PENNI, GIANFRANCESCO (1488-1528), Italian painter,
surnamed " II Fattore," from the relation in which he stood
to Raphael, whose favourite disciple he was after Giulio
Romano, was a native of Florence, but spent the latter
years of his life in Naples. He painted in oil as well as
in fresco, but is chiefly known for his work in the Loggie
of the Vatican.
PENNSYLVANIA, one of the original thirteen States Plate
of the North American Union, lying between 39° 43' and
42° 15' N. lat., and between 74° 40' and 80° 36' W. long.,
is 160 miles wide, and more than 300 miles long from east
to west. Its northern, southern, and Avestern border-lines
were meant to be straight ; the eastern follows the course
of the Delaware river. It is bounded by the States of
New York and New Jersey on the N. and E., by Ohio on
the W., and by Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia
on the S. At its north-west corner a small triangular
addition gives it a shore- line of 40 miles, with one good
harbour, on Lake Erie. At its south-eastern corner, a circle
of 10 miles radius (struck from the court-house at New
castle) throws a small area into the State of Delaware. Its
surface, subdivided into sixty -seven counties, measures
nearly 28,800,000 acres or 45,000 square miles; less than
one -half of its acreage is in cultivated farms, and only
1,000,000 of the people live in separate farm-houses. Out
of a population of 4,283,000, nearly 2,000,000 lived in
towns and cities in 1880, and more than 2,000,000 in
country hamlets or factory villages, at iron mines and
furnaces, at coal-mines and coke-ovens, at lumber-camps
and oil-wells, or along the many lines of canal and railroad
which traverse the State in all directions.
Physical Features. — Pennsylvania is topographically divi
sible into three parts : a south-east district, the open country
between the South Mountains and the sea; a middle belt of
parallel valleys separated by low parallel mountain-ridges;
and a northern and Avestern upland, behind the escarpment
of the Alleghany Mountain. One and a half millions of
its people inhabit the fertile and highly-cultivated south
eastern triangle, Avhich is noAvhere more than 600 or 700
feet above the level of the sea. One million inhabit the
middle belt of higher-lying valleys, rich in iron ore and
anthracite coal. One and a half millions occupy the great
bituminous coal and oil regions of the northern and Avestern
counties, elevated from 1000 to 2500 feet above the sea,
VOL. XVIII
PENN8
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRI
PLATE 17.
PENNSYLVANIA
499
which constitute at least one-half of the State, and drain,
not eastward into the Atlantic, but northward into the St
Lawrence and westward into the Mississippi.
The valleys of the middle belt are of two characters, dis
tinguished by the farming population of the Atlantic States
as " rich valleys " and " poor valleys." The former, whether
large or small, are completely enclosed and comparatively
level arenas of limestone land, surrounded by rocky and
wooded barriers, less than 1000 feet high, through narrow
gaps in which streams enter or issue. A curiously sculptured
slate-terrace, half the height of the encircling mountain,
overlooks each of these secluded valleys. Their entire
limestone floor has been under cultivation for a century,
and the best iron-ore deposits of the State and its oldest
mines are situated in them. They are gardens of fertility,
yielding heavy crops of wheat, rye, and maize to the frugal,
thrifty, and laborious descendants of their early settlers.
Innumerable caverns ramify beneath the surface ; sink
holes receive the drainage of the fields ; many of the water
courses appear and disappear beneath sunken arches of
limestone ; and wells are the chief source of supply. Old
orchards and great planted trees abound, and more pictur
esque landscapes cannot be found. Nittany, the largest
of these isolated valleys, occupies the centre of the State.
It is 60 miles long, but its greatest width is only 10 miles ;
and it is subdivided at its north-eastern end by long pro
jecting mountain-spurs into narrow parallel coves, each of
which is known by a special name, Brush valley, Penn's
valley, &c. Sinking Spring valley is at its south-western
end, and here it is traversed by the Little Juniata river,
along the banks of which runs the Pennsylvania Railroad.
A narrow valley, called Canoe valley, leads southward into
Morrison's cove, which is half as large as dittany valley.
The next largest limestone valley is Kishicoquilis, 40 miles
long by 5 miles wide, ending southward in a point, and split
at its north-east end into three. German Amish (Mennonite
sect) and Scotch-Irish Presbyterian settlers, separated by
an ideal cross line, have made this valley famous for its
loveliness and wealth. Farther south is M 'Council's cove,
west of this Friend's cove, and still farther west Millikin's
cove. Two little oval holes in the mountains north-east
of dittany valley, Nippenose valley and Oval valley, and
two long slit-like depressions in Tuscarora and Black Log
Mountains conclude the short list of these remarkable
limestone threshing-floors of Pennsylvania.
Across the whole State, however, stretches the Great
Valley in a wide and gentle curve from east to south, one-
half its surface covered with the soil of the terrace-slate,
the other half with the same limestone soil which causes
the exceptional fertility of the isolated valleys above
enumerated. This very remarkable feature of the Atlantic
side of the continent extends in an unbroken line for
nearly 1000 miles, from eastern Canada to the low
lands of the Gulf of Mexico, only 150 miles of its length
being in Pennsylvania, where its average width may be
called 15 miles. Everywhere on its north-west side rises
a sharp and regularly level-crested ridge, about 1000 feet
high, heavily timbered. On its other or southern side a
range of irregular mountain-land completely secludes the
Great Valley from the seaboard, except for about 50
miles in Pennsylvania. This mountain-range is known in
Vermont as the Green Mountains, in Massachusetts as the
Taconic Mountains, in New York and New Jersey as the
Highlands, in Pennsylvania and Maryland as the South
Mountains, in Virginia as the Blue Ridge, in North
Carolina as the Unaka or Smoky Mountains. In their
northern extension they rise to heights of 3000 and 4000
feet ; in the southern States they have summits from
4000 to 7000 feet above the sea. In Pennsylvania few
parts of the range exceed 1500 feet; and at the broken
gap of 50 miles already mentioned the Great Valley lime
stone land protrudes southward through the interrupted
range, to make of Lancaster the richest agricultural county
in the State. Before the era of railways Lancaster county
made the markets of Philadelphia the cheapest and most
luxurious in the world. It was on this exceptional out
spread of the Great Valley limestone that the Germans
of the first immigration settled. The limestone plain of
Lancaster spreads west across the Susquehanna river into
York county, and east into Berks and Chester counties to
within 20 miles of Philadelphia. The whole plain swarms
with life ; the houses are small, but the stone barns are of
colossal size, 100 and even 150 feet long and from 30 to
50 feet high, the barnyard-wall supported on ranges of
heavy columns, while on the other side of the building an
earthen slope ascends to the great barn door.
The eight counties which lie along the face of the South
Mountains, in the south-eastern region of the State, are in
the highest state of cultivation, and resemble the most
picturesque rural districts of England, — a country of roll
ing hills and gently sloping vales, with occasional rocky
dells of no great depth, and low cascades utilized for grist
mills, factories, and machine shops ; a country of wheat, rye,
maize, potatoes, tobacco, turnip-fields, orchards, meadows,
and patches of woodland ; a country of flowing water,
salubrious, fertile, and wealthy; dotted with hamlets,
villages, and towns, and Avith the country-seats of affluent
citizens. But the region as a whole is divisible into at
least four districts, differing as much in population as in
soil and situation. The counties of York and Adams,
lying west of the Susquehanna river along the Maryland
line, are inhabited by Germans, who for the most part still
use the patois of their fatherland, mixed with English
words and phrases. The counties of Montgomery and
Bucks, lying between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers,
have a mingled population of the descendants of Germans,
Quakers, and French Huguenots. The hilly district of
northern Chester is also partly German. Southern Lan
caster, southern Chester, and Delaware counties support
the most intelligent and virtuous population in the State,
largely composed of the descendants of Penn's colonists,
who have mostly escaped the narrowing and enervating
influences of the city, and enjoy the mental and physical
activity, the simplicity of manners, and the loyalty to
truth, justice, and charity which characterized the Quakers
at the origin of the sect in England. The district which
they inhabit is a veritable fairyland, and its principal
town, Westchester, has been for a long time one of the
notable centres of scientific life in the State.
Climate. — The climate of so great a State is necessarily
various, and is made more variable by its situation on the
eastern side of the continent facing the Gulf Stream. The
north-west wind is dry and cold in winter, the south-west
wind always mild and rainy, and the south-east ocean wind
wet and sultry in summer ; but the dreaded north-easters
of New England lose much of their rigour by the time
they reach the Delaware. The northern highlands of the
State are buried under 4 or 5 feet of snow four months
of the year. The southern middle counties enjoy genial
weather the whole year round, interrupted only by a few
short intervals of intense heat or cold, never lasting more
than three consecutive days. The midland valleys are
very hot in midsummer and very cold in mid -winter, the
thermometer ranging between 0° and 100,° with a not
unfrequent sudden fall after a sultry week of 30° or 40° in
a few hours, ending with thunderstorms, and followed by
dry, clear, cool weather, with winds from the north-west.
The climate of the south-western counties is comparatively
dry and equable, but with a sufficient annual rainfall, and
plenty of snow in winter, productive of great river -floods
500
PENNSYLVANIA
in spring. The average annual rainfall ranges from 36
inches in the western counties to 42 inches at Philadelphia.
Destructive "freshets" descend the eastern rivers when
the ice breaks up ; for the Delaware and Susquehanna
rivers are almost every year frozen over from tide -water
to their sources ; thunderstorms happen in the midst of
winter ; the January thaw is always to be apprehended ;
and when heavy rains break up the ice and it accumulates
in the gaps of the mountains, the main river -channels
become scenes of inevitable disaster. In 1837 the valley
of the Lehigh was swept clean for 60 miles, the dams and
locks of the canal were all destroyed, and every bridge
and mill disappeared. Along the lower Susquehanna the
floating ice has often been piled upon the railroad embank
ment to the height of several yards. Even in midsummer
a heavier downpour than usual in 1836 carried destruction
through the valley of the Juniata. But the affluents of
the Ohio river in the western part of the State are subject
every year to this danger.
Geology. — For unknown geological reasons Pennsylvania
is peculiar for exhibiting the Palaeozoic system in its
maximum development, that is, from the Permian forma
tion down to the base of Murchison's Lower Silurian,
with a total thickness of more than 40,000 feet at the
eastern outcrops, diminishing to half that amount in the
western counties. As all the formations are thrown into
great anticlinal and synclinal folds, and cut through trans
versely by the rivers, they can be measured along numerous
continuous and conformable section lines. Near Harris-
burg, at Potts ville, and at Mauch Chunk the Carboniferous,
Devonian, and Upper Silurian rocks, standing vertical,
show a cross section 5 miles thick. At the Delaware and
Lehigh water-gaps the Lower Silurian slates are 6000 feet
thick. In Canoe valley the underlying Lower Silurian
limestones have been measured 6500 feet thick. In the
south-western corner of the State about 1000 feet of
Permian rocks overlie the Coal-measures proper. Thus
the following Palaeozoic column can be studied with peculiar
advantages in Pennsylvania, many of its more important
stages either becoming greatly attenuated or wholly dis
appearing when followed into the neighbouring States of
New York, Ohio, and Virginia.
Geological Map of Pennsylvania.
{Permian, or Upper Carboniferous.
Upper productive Coal-measures^
Barren measures L Middle Carboniferous.
Lower productive Coal-measures I
12. Pottsville conglomerate
1 1. Mauch Chunk red shale \ L Carboniferous.
10. I ocono grey sandstone J
9. Catskill red sandstone ; Upper Devonian.
fChemung and Portage shales ; Middle Devonian,
o J Tennessee, Hamilton, and Mar-"j
' | cell us r Lower Devonian.
V. Upper Helderberg limestone J
7. Oriskany sandstone.
6. Lower Helderberg limestones ^
5. Clinton shales [-Upper Silurian.
4. Medina and Oneida sandstones )
3. Hudson river and Utica slates S
2. Trenton and Great Valley lime- [-Lower Silurian.
stones I
1. Potsdam sandstone.
The geology of south-eastern Pennsylvania is not under
stood. There can be no doubt that the copper-bearing
porphyritic Huronian system is well represented in the
South Mountains, south of the Chambersburg fault, on the
borders of Maryland ; but the systematic age of the gneisses,
mica schists, garnetiferous schists, serpentine and chrome
iron rocks, of the Philadelphia belt, commencing at Trenton,
crossing the Schuylkill river on a section line 15 miles
wide, and extending through DelaAvare and Chester counties
into Maryland, is still under discussion, some geologists
considering them of pre-Cambrian age and others regard
ing them as metamorphosed Silurian rocks. They contain
minute quantities of gold and are evidently a prolongation
of the great gold-bearing belt of Virginia and the Carolinas.
Minerals. — The mineral resources of Pennsylvania have never
been exaggerated except by those who compare its iron-mines with
those of other States. It possesses a virtual monopoly of anthra
cite. The output of rock-oil is still amazing. The bituminous,
coking, and block coal district is only one large part of an enormous
area which includes eastern Ohio, West Virginia, middle Tennes
see, and northern Alabama ; and the ranges of iron-ores extend
through New Jersey and New York into New England and Canada,
and through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, ami eastern
Tennessee into Alabama, with no sensible difference of quantity
or quality in either direction. But Pennsylvania has the advan
tage over other States of a first plant, both in iron-works and coal
mines, and in a consequent multiplication and concentration of
capital for these industries, which must keep \\c\\facile princeps in
this respect for a long time to come. Sooner or later she must
take a second rank in iron, but never in coal and coke. It is
possible that the oil-fields of the three States to the south and west
of her may become as productive as her own, although no signs of
such an event are visible yet to geologists ; but no contingency of
events can affect her absolute control of the anthracite market.
PENNSYLVANIA
501
Three anthracite coal-regions in eastern Pennsylvania are recog
nized by railroad men, coal-dealers, and statisticians ; but they do
not exactly correspond to the three anthracite coal-fields of the
geological survey reports. (1) By the Schuylkill region is meant
all the surface of coal-land which is drained by that river, with
two small additions from the upper water-basins of the Shamo-
kiu and Swatara rivers, affluents of the Susquehanna. In 1822 it
supplied the Philadelphia market with 1480 tons of coal ; in 1880
it distributed, in all directions along the lines of the Reading Rail
road, 9,500,000 tons. (2) By the Lehigh region is meant all the
coal-lands on that river, furnishing in 1821 1073 tons, and in 1882
5,700,000, chiefly to the city of New York. (3) By the Wyoming
region is meant the isolated valley of the Susquehanna (north branch)
and Lackawanna rivers, commencing its shipments in 1829 with
7000, and sending in 1882 14,000,000 tons of coal eastward, north
ward, and westward, to Boston, Montreal, and Chicago. In 1883
these three regions shipped a total of 31,800,000 tons.
The three anthracite coal-fields into which the region divides
itself geologically — the southern, the middle, and the northern — are
three groups of narrow parallel basins filled with crumpled Coal-
measures. Each field has a characteristic grouping of its basins
different from the other two : the southern in perfectly straight
lines, except at its western end, which has a long fork or fish-tail ;
the middle in echelon ; the northern in a long sweeping curve from
west by east to north. The southern field has for its southern
border a sharp low mountain-ridge, 62 miles long, bearing about
N. by 60^ E., and ending abruptly westward near the Susquehanna
river and eastward at the Lehigh river. It is gapped in four places,
by the Swatara, by the Schuylkill, and by its two principal branches,
giving passage to three railways and two canals, one of which has
been abandoned and the other is little \ised. In this mountain
the lower Coal-measures descend vertically to a depth of 3000 feet
below tide-level, and then rise again in a series of waves to the top
of a much higher mountain which borders the field upon the north.
From the top of this broad mountain the Coal-measures have been
swept away. They are next seen descending steeply northward
into the middle iield, where they sink to various depths of 1000 or
2000 feet below sea-level, rolling six times so as to make that
number of mining basins, and then rise into the air, along a
bounding mountain at the northern edge of the field, not to de
scend again to the present surface of the earth for 40 miles. Only
the lowest beds, however, appear there in narrow strips upon the
highest plateau of the State, and not as anthracite, but as bitu
minous coal. This description, however, only applies to the western
division of the middle field. Its eastern division has a very different
character. On the broad rolling top of the Beaver Meadow Moun
tains, west of the Lehigh river, lie a group of closely-folded parallel
troughs, in which the coal-beds descend steeply to depths of 1000
or 2000 feet, and rapidly rise again to the surface, each trough
being pointed at both ends and disappearing on the summits of
mountain-spurs, which look down upon deeply-indented red-shale
valleys. The collieries of this eastern division of the middle field
are all on very high land, from 1600 to 1800 feet above the sea; and
branch railroads descend from them by steep gradients to the two
rival main lines, which follow the banks of the Lehigh and Dela
ware rivers to the Atlantic coast.
The northern field corresponds exactly to the Wyoming region.
It is a moon-shaped trough, 50 miles long by 6 miles wide, tapering
to a point both ways. Its eastern half is drained by the Lacka
wanna river westward into the Susquehanna river, where the latter
breaks through the northern mountain-wall and begins to meander
westward through the Kingston iiats'in the centre of the coal-field
made famous by the incidents of Indian warfare. A few miles
farther on the river breaks half through the northern wall, split
ting it lengthwise, and then cuts olf the western point of the basin,
leaving a little patch of it capping the isolated spur. This magni
ficent coal-field is traversed diagonally by anticlinal and synclinal
folds in the Coal-measures in such a manner as to subdivide it into
more than thirty small coal-basins, all connected underground,
the deepest of which hold more than 3000 feet of Coal-measures ;
so that in a hilltop near Wilkesbarre fossil-shells of the Permian
formation, the uppermost division of the Carboniferous system,
have been collected.
Until the maps of the anthracite section of the State Geological
Survey have been completed, the area of anthracite coal-land in
all three fields cannot be accurately stated. The total number of
coal-beds cannot be stated, because some are hardly noticeable ;
others are composed of several layers separated elsewhere by 50 or
100 feet of intervening rock. The identification of the beds across
the intervals which separate the fields, and even from colliery to
colliery, is not in all cases satisfactory. It may, however, be
said generally that the whole column of Coal-measures contains
more than a hundred coal-beds. Less than one -fourth of these
have hitherto been considered of desirable size and quality for
mining. Most of the output in past years and at present comes
from five or six of them, from the Lykens valley bed, from the
Buck Mountain bed, especially from the Mammoth bed— all of 1
them white ash — and from two or three red ash beds next higher
in the series. The first quantities of coal which were sent to the
market came from an open quarry on the summit of the mountain
at Mauch Chunk, where the Mammoth bed is 60 feet thick. In
subsequent years a long range of extensive collieries were created
on the Mine Hill slope of the bed behind Pottsville. Later still
the Mahanoy and Shenandoah collieries were established behind
the Broad Mountain. From early years the great bed was worked
in the "Wyoming region by the Baltimore Company. Other cor
porations have extensively exploited it throughout the valley.
Old mines in this bed are worked on a great scale also at Hazelton
and Beaver Meadow, and later plants were made at Jeanesville,
Clifton, and elsewhere. A choice though smaller bed, called the
Buck Mountain vein, extends through all three fields, and is largely
mined in many places, sometimes in tunnel-connexion with the
Mammoth and sometimes alone. The Lykens valley bed, holding
10 and 12 feet of exceedingly choice coal, lies near the bottom of
the Millstone grit (the base of the Coal-measures), but is scarcely
workable anywhere except at the western end of the southern field.
The waste in mining anthracite coal is enormous, although it
has been somewhat diminished by the concentration of most of the
coal-properties under the control of a few railway companies, who
employ competent engineers and superintendents. But the markets
demand the delivery of the coal in sizes. Iron furnaces alone
accept the run of the mine. The <; breaker, " an anthracite inven
tion, and a monster of destruction, is an edifice of wood and iron
100 feet high, furnished with slopes and lifts to take the mine-
cars to the top, with rollers set with teeth to crush the larger
lumps, with bolting screens to separate the sizes, with picking
banks and boys to throw out slate descending the shoots, and with
bays or pockets from which the coal is drawn at will to fill railway
trains passing underneath. The waste is carted off to a neighbour
ing hillside. Hills of this "dust," 100 feet high and hundreds
of feet long, encumber the country, and awaken the anxiety of
proprietors respecting its future disposal. All plans for utilizing
it cheaply on a large scale have as yet failed, and no serious change
in the situation can take place until the supply in the earth begins
to fail. The time for that is distant. The annual output can
reach 50,000,000 tons, and, in spite of the waste, can continue at
that figure for three centuries. An exact calculation of solid con
tents in the ground, of waste in mining and breaking, and of
quantity sent to market has been made for only one division of
one iield.
At the eastern end of the southern field, for instance, six beds, as
yet locally worked by only thirteen collieries (four of them now
abandoned), contained originally 1,033,000,000 tons, of which only
54,000,000 have been extracted (between 1820 and 1882), leaving
979,000,000 tons still untouched. The output in 1820 was less
than 400 tons, that of 1849 nearly 400,000 tons, that of 1882
838,000. In a few years it will reach 2,000,000, and might con
tinue at that rate five centuries.
The number of working collieries in the anthracite region is con
stantly changing. The list for 1881-82, reported by the official
mine inspectors, numbers 141 in the northern field, 51 in the eastern
middle, 91 in the western middle, and 70 in the southern field, 353
collieries in all. The fuel they send to market is both white coal
from the lower and red-ash coal from the higher beds of the series,
the market sizes being designated egg, stove, chestnut, pea, and
buckwheat. By sampling carefully the contents of five cars from
one colliery carrying each a different size of coal, and analysing the
samples, it was found that, while there was little difference in the
percentage of water (say 1'7), of sulphur (say 0'7), and of volatile
matter (say 4'0), the percentage of ash regularly increased as the
size diminished (egg 5'662, stove 10'174, chestnut 12'666, pea
14 '664, buckwheat 16 '620), showing the finer breakage of the slaty
layers, and the mixture of slate-dust with the smaller sizes of coal.
The percentage of solid carbon, of course, diminished directly with
the size, from 88 '5 in egg-coal to 76 '9 in buckwheat. The coal-
dust of the heaps about the mines, before alluded to, is therefore,
no doubt, still lower in solid carbon ; yet Captain Wootten's dust-
burning locomotives on the Reading Railroad have been a success ;
and the dust or " braize'' of the Philadelphia coal-yards is sold for
use in fire-boxes of suitable construction.
The bituminous coal-region of Pennsylvania covers the western
third of the State, the greatest thickness of Coal-measures being in
the south-western corner. Six wide parallel basins sweep round
from the boundary-line with New York State south-westward into
Ohio and West Virginia. The summit of the Alleghany Mountain,
containing the lowest coals, limits the region towards the south
east ; an irregular line parallel with and 30 miles distant from the
shore of Lake Erie limits it on the north-west. The basins all
gradually deepen going south-west, and are all subdivided into
smaller local basins by gentle rolls. In one or two neighbourhoods
the coal-beds dip as much as 30" ; but over almost the entire area
they are so nearly horizontal that a dip of 2° or 3a is exceptionally
great. Over thousands of square miles they lie as flat as geological
formations can ever lie, considering the accidents of original deposi-
502
PENNSYLVANIA
tion in the quiet Carboniferous sea. There is a striking uniformity
in the composition of the whole formation, which is naturally
divisible into : (1) upper (Permian) barren-measures ; (2) upper
(Pittsburgh) productive Coal-measures ; (3) lower barren-measures ;
(4) lower productive Coal-measures; (5) Millstone grit (Pottsville
conglomerate) ; (6) Mauch Chunk shale and mountain limestone ;
(7) Poeono sandstone and lowest (worthless) coal-beds. These rest
on more than 10,000 feet of Devonian rocks.
The area of the State actually covered by one or more workable
bituminous coal-beds is about 9000 square miles. Dr H. M.
Chance's calculation of area, thickness, content, &c. (in a paper
read before the Am. Inst. Min. Eng., October 1881), is the most
trustworthy yet made. He assumes sixteen important coal-beds,
none workable over the whole area of thirty-one counties, — only
the lowest beds being preserved in ten, and the principal upper
beds only in seven of these counties. Beds less than 2 feet thick
are ignored. Beds from 2 to 3 feet thick are estimated only from
outcrop down to water-level ; beds from 3 to 5, to 150 feet below
water-level ; beds over 5, to 400 feet below water-level. Allowing
1650 gross tons per foot to the acre (less 11 per cent, for slate,
bone, and sulphur partings, say 1500 gross tons) the mass of beds
over 6 feet is 11,000,000,000 tons; of beds between 6 and 3 feet,
19,500,000,000 ; and of beds under 3 feet, 3,000,000,000,— making
a total of 33,500,000,000 gross tons, 75 per cent, of which can be
mined, i.e., 25,000,000,000 tons; of this 10,500,000,000 are in the
Pittsburgh bed. An exaggerated statement was current thirty years
ago that the Pittsburgh coal-bed within the limits of the State of
Pennsylvania would equal the whole annual British coal-trade
(then 100,000,000 tons) for 2000 years. According to our present
knowledge such an output would exhaust it in a single century.
The upper productive Coal-measures, about 300 feet thick, con
tain four workable beds, of which the lowest (Pittsburgh) is the
mainstay of the coke and iron interests of the seven south-western
counties, furnishing to 77 collieries in Allegheny county 4,000,000
tons, to 50 in Fayette county 1,566,000, to 45 in Westmoreland
county 2,335,000, to 31 in Washington county 798,000, to 14 in
Somerset county 200,000,— total nearly 9,000,000 tons mined out of
217 collieries, most of them mere adits into the hillsides, at various
levels (from 30 to 300 feet) above the water-level of the Ohio river,
or its main branch, the Monongahela river, and its branch the
Youghuogheny river. Along these streams railroad stations and
slack water pools receive the coal let down by trestle-work slopes
from the adits. A few shafts are sunk to the bed where, for short
distances, it sinks a few yards beneath water-level.
The iron-ores of Pennsylvania formerly sufficed for stocking the
furnaces of the State ; but for more than twenty years past large
outside supplies have been in demand, — the red haematites of
Michigan, the magnetic ores of Canada, northern New York, and
especially of northern New Jersey, and the limonites of Virginia,
not to speak of numerous cargoes of Algerian ore. To understand
the native ores it will be necessary to refer to the schedule of the
geological formations of the State (see p. 500 above). The more
recent formations — the Tertiary and the Cretaceous — poor in iron
ores, are not found in Pennsylvania, being confined to the Atlantic
seaboard. The next older formation — the Trias — also poor in iron
ore, makes an independent belt across the State through Bucks,
Montgomery, Chester, Lancaster, York, and Adams counties.
Hence we have only to consider five sources of supply, — (a) the
carbonate ores of the Coal-measures, with brown ha-matite outcrops ;
(b) the lower Devonian brown haematites ; (c) the Upper Silurian
red fossil-ore ; (d) the Lower Silurian brown haematites ; and (e) the
Azoic magnetites, some of them apparently in Cambrian rocks,
overlaid by Trias, and the rest of them iuterbedded with the oldest
(Laurentian ?) gneisses.
The ordinary ironstone of the Coal-measures occurs in ball or
plate layers throughout the bituminous coal-region, but is almost
wanting in the anthracite region. Brown hematite deposits,
always connected with the limestone beds in the Coal-measures,
were formerly extensively mined, but the supplies of Carboniferous
ore of both kinds are far from meeting the present demand, and
the make of charcoal iron from them has been virtually abandoned.
At the base of the Devonian series the Marcellus still yields con
siderable quantities of brown haematite from the outcrop of a fer
ruginous clay-bed, but only in two or three noteworthy localities.
The Clinton beds of red fossil-ore (soft and rich at the outcrop, hard
and lean lower down) at Danville and Bloomsbury, at Frankstown
and Hollidaysburg, at Bloody Run and Bedford, kept furnaces
going for a good many years, and are still used as mixtures at
Johnstown and elsewhere. The Lower Silurian brown haematite
mines, however, have been the chief dependence of the industry.
They are very numerous in the isolated limestone valleys and along
the whole course of the Great Valley. Some of these open quarries
are of vast size, and between 100 and 200 feet deep ; furnishing
shot and ball and pipe ore of the finest quality, both cold-short and
red-short ; and the high reputation of American or Juniata iron is
based upon the history first of the charcoal and then of the an
thracite make of pig-metal from these special ores. Railroads now
carry them long distances to the present centres of the iron manu
facture, in the heart of the bituminous coal-region, or in front of
the anthracite region, on the Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna
rivers, where they can be mixed with the subcrystalline iron ores
of the South Mountains or of the Highlands of New Jersey. The.
South Mountains of Pennsylvania, however, cannot be said to be
rich in these last-mentioned deposits, a few of which are indeed
mined to a considerable extent ; but no thorough exploration of the
range has yet been undertaken to see if the deep-lying strata contain
the Canadian and New York magnetites which are to be expected.
Some of the oldest and largest mines are situated at the edge of
the Trias belt, and were formerly supposed to be of Trias age ; but
it seems now probable that they belong to a Cambrian slate forma
tion covered by the Trias ; and in all cases they are touched or
surrounded by trap-dykes, which cut the Trias or trap-beds that
interlie the Trias. The most remarkable of these mines is the
" Cornwall " near Lebanon, where great quantities of cupriferous
magnetite are obtained by stoping the walls of a vast open
quarry.
The iron industry of Pennsylvania has always competed with
the cotton growth of the southern States and the cotton industry
of the eastern States for political power in Congress, to save itself
against a foreign importation of rolled iron. The iron-masters of
Pennsylvania have led in every debate upon a protective tariff.
Pennsylvania has always furnished one-half of the total amount of
pig-iron cast in the United States. In 1883 it made 2,638,891
tons out of a total of 5,146,972 tons made in twenty-four States
and one Territory. Of these 1,416,468 tons were anthracite pig,
1,184,108 coke and raw coal pig, and only 38,349 were charcoal pig ;
and the number of furnaces at the end of 1883 was 142 in blast and
129 out of blast. In like manner Pennsylvania has always rolled
more than one-half of the iron and steel rails of American manufac
ture,— in 1883, for instance, 857,818 tons out of a total of 1,360,694,
and of these 819,544 were Bessemer. So of crucible-steel ingots
Pennsylvania in 1883 made 63,687 out of a total of 80,455 ; open-
hearth steel ingots, 72,333 of a total of 133,679 ; in a word, of all
kinds of rolled iron, 1,081,163 tons out of a total of 2,348,874.
The petroleum statistics for 1882, partly mixed with those of
an adjoining district in New York, show a product of 30,541,740
barrels (of 42 gallons).
Vegetation. — The vegetation of the State corresponds in variety
with the variety of elevation and distance from the seaboard. The
mountains are clad with forests of pine, hemlock, oak, beech,
maple, walnut, wild cherry, cucumber, dogwood, and laurel, and
cultivated apple, cherry, pear, and peach trees grow in the clearings.
Wild grapes grow in sheltered places ; wild huckleberries, straw
berries, and blackberries flourish. Oats, barley, and timothy grass
yield heavy crops. The original forest remains only here and there
in secluded spots. All its white-pine timber has been cut, and
none grows to replace it. The spruce -pine, hemlock, and oak
woods have been girdled by settlers, or barked by tanners and left
to die. Extensive iron -furnace tracts have been systematically
cut several times ; the deserted charcoal grounds in the anthracite
and coke districts have become covered with a dense low growth of
oak, maple, birch, dogwood, and other deciduous vegetation. Two
other motives have co-operated for the destruction of the original
forest, — the demand for railway sleepers and the still greater
demand for timber and slabs in mines. The annual forest fires,
sometimes of enormous magnitude, help to keep the size of forest-
wood small, and to cover the uncultivated part of the State with
brushwood. The early settlers of the low country also cut with
out mercy and without fear ; ifo shadojv was allowed to fall on a field.
The traditional practice lasted long ; but the scarcity of wood at
length made itself felt. The last generation began to plant ; the
present cherishes and multiplies trees, in and around fields, along
roads, and on rough ground. The old settled parts of the State
are becoming again well wooded. The mountain-ridges will always
remain so, for outcrops of sandstone make them rocky, and the
terracing of their steep slopes is not yet to be thought of. In the
north-western counties the discovery of petroleum in 1859 produced
a great demand for derrick lumber, and the ephemeral wooden cities
which sprang up during the succeeding twenty-five years caused a
rapid bringing under cultivation of at least 5000 square miles, lying
between 1000 and 2000 feet above the level of the sea.
Two hundred and eighty-four genera and 544 species of plants
are enumerated as growing on the plateau of Wayne county, in
the north-east corner of the State, a typical portion of the whole
upland region, covered with glacial drift -sand and gravel, with
innumerable lakes, ponds, and small swamps, lying at various
elevations from 1100 to 2000 feet above the sea.
Fauna. — The zoology of Pennsylvania exhibits that transition
stage of its history in which we live. The elk has disappeared ;
but the panther (puma) and the small wolf are occasionally met
with. The black bear is not by any means extinct, and can always
find its way anew into the State from West Virginia. The wild
cat is common in the least settled counties. Hedgehogs, ground
hogs, weasels, polecats, squirrels of three species, mice of several
PENNSYLVANIA
503
species, and musk-rats abound ; but the beaver, which has given
name to so many mountains, rivers, creeks, and swamps all over
the State, no longer exists. The wild turkey is practically exter
minated, but is occasionally shot on the mountains. Owls, wood-
doves, thrushes, and other birds are abundant. Harmless snakes
of various species are innumerable, especially a constrictor, the
black snake, which grows to a length of 5 or 6 feet. Two venomous
snakes are still numerous, the copper-head in the half-cultivated
districts and the rattlesnake in the mountains. The latter, in
spite of all efforts to exterminate it, breeds with incredible rapidity.
In summer it descends into the valleys. But, while the more
dreaded copper-head is active and malicious and bites without
warning, the rattlesnake is always sluggish and timid, and takes
so much time to get into coil, and is so noisy about it, that it is
an object more of contempt than of apprehension. The black
snake is its worst enemy and is always victorious ; the deer also
bounds around it, leaps upon it, and scatters it in pieces ; the
hog feeds upon it ; and yet half the State is infested with it.
Poisonous insects are almost unknown ; but infinite swarms of
gnats torment cattle and men in the forest counties. During a
short season in summer mosquitoes abound along the tidal rivers,
when the south wind blows. Fleas have only recently been im
ported ; but ticks are common in the lowland woods, and the
native bed-bug, which breeds under the bark of the hemlock, has
become domiciled throughout the State, and is the curse_not only
of the traveller but of a large part of the resident population.
Government. — The constitution of 1874 gives the right to vote to
every male citizen over twenty-one years of age who has been a
citizen of the United States one month, resident in Pennsylvania
one year, and in his election district two months ; but, if over
twenty-two years old, he must have paid a tax at least two months
before the day of election. The legislative power is vested in a
general assembly of two houses, — fifty senators elected by the
people for four years and two hundred representatives for two years.
There are strong constitutional guards against special legislation.
The executive department consists of a governor, lieutenant-gover
nor, and secretary of internal affairs, elected each for four years, an
auditor for three, and a treasurer for two, together with a secretary
of state, an attorney-general, and a superintendent of public in
struction, each appointed for four years by the governor with con
sent of the senate. The judiciary consists of a supreme court of
seven judges elected for twenty-one years ; forty-three district courts
of common pleas each with one or more judges elected for ten years,
and exercising probate jurisdiction except in cities where there are
orphans' courts ; and local magistrates of minor jurisdiction. The
State sends twenty-seven representatives to the national Congress ;
and federal courts for the eastern districts are held at Philadelphia,
and for the western district at Pittsburgh, Williamsport, and Erie.
Population. — The population was estimated in 1755 at 200,000.
The results of subsequent censuses are shown in the following table —
Census.
17<K)
1800
1S10
18^0
1830
1840
1S50
I860
1870
1880
Males.
Females.
Total.
Density per
square mile.
0-6
13-4
18-0
23-3
30-0
38-3
51-4
64-6
78-2
95-2
Of the last total 85,535 were coloured ; 587,829 were of foreign
birth, including 80,102 English, 236,505 Irish, 20,735 Scotch,
29,447 Welsh, and 168,426 Germans.
Education. — In 1880 but 4'6 per cent, of the population over ten
years old were unable to read, and 7 '1 per cent, unable to write.
The State is divided into 2215 districts, which hold school property
valued at §28,341,560, and maintain 19,183 schools, of which 7812
are graded. Directing boards elected by the people appoint county
superintendents. The State superintendent has two deputies. The
teachers number 21,289, of whom 12,778 are women, the average
monthly wages for men being §35 '12, and for women $28 '89.
There are fourteen normal schools, ten being under State patronage.
The total school expenditure for 1882 was §8,262,244, including
bl,000, 000 of State aid, given every year. The schools are free to
all persons from six to twenty-one years of age ; and this " school
population" in 1880 numbered 1,422,377. In 1883 there were
945,345 on the registers; the average attendance was 611,317.
There are twenty-eight colleges giving four-year courses, but only
five confine themselves strictly to college work, viz., university of
Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, Lehigh university at South Bethle
hem, Lafayette college at Easton, Haverford college at Haverford,
and Dickinson college at Carlisle. The grounds, buildings, and
apparatus of twenty institutions are valued at $3,186,000, and
they hold §3,951,000 in productive funds. Swarthmore college
and eight others admit both sexes to equal privileges. The pecu
liar industries of tho State have led to extensive provisions for
technical and scientific instruction. There are seventeen theological
schools, a law department in the university of Pennsylvania, five
medical colleges, all in Philadelphia, an academy of fine arts, and
about two hundred academies of various grades.
Prisons, <kc. — There are two penitentiaries, the Eastern, at Phil
adelphia, on the separate-cell system, with about 1000 convicts, and
the Western, at Allegheny, on the congregate system, with about
650 convicts. The reform school at Morganza (cottage system)
and the house of refuge at Philadelphia receive youthful offender.'-,
who in both institutions average over 1000. An industrial reforma
tory at Huntingdon, with room for 500 youthful criminals sentenced
for first offences, is near completion (1884). There are 69 county
jails, costing annually §750,000; the commitments for the year
ending 30th September 1883 were 2323, and the inmates 1127.
Pauperism, Insanity, etc. — On 30th September 1883 there were 38
county almshouses, containing 8313 inmates, costing for the year
§1,296,945, to which add §203,830 for township poor and §226,000
for outdoor relief. A law of 1883 forbids the retention of children
over two and under sixteen in almshouses with adult paupers for
more than sixty days. Charitable institutions and societies are
numerous. Since 1879 a society for organizing charity has been
operating in Philadelphia to prevent indiscriminate and duplicate
giving, and mendicancy. There are five State hospitals for insane,
— at Harrisburg, Danville, Warren, Dixmont, and Norristown.
These with three other prominent establishments had 3575 inmates
on 1st October 1882, of whom 2220 were indigent. In one year
5107 cases were treated, 1552 newly admitted, 968 persons dis
charged, 368 died. In 1880 there were 3884 blind persons in the
State ; in January 1884 there were 373 in institutions assisted by
the State. Of those discharged about two-thirds have a fair pro
spect of self-support. In institutions for deaf and dumb there were
321. Of 404 children in the institute for feeble-minded at Media
only 100 were deemed incapable of improvement.
Agriculture. — By the census of 1880 there were 301,112 persons
engaged in agriculture, and 1,154,955 in all other occupations.
The number of farms was 213,542, averaging 93 acres each. There
were under improvement 13,423,007 acres, an increase of 1,907,042
since 1870 ; the value of products was §129,760,476. The principal
crops are wheat, maize, hay, and tobacco, the cultivation of the last
having greatly increased of late, so that Pennsylvania ranks third
among the tobacco-raising States of the Union, its product in 1880
being 36,943,272 It). It is most largely grown in Lancaster county.
There is a large yield of honey and maple sugar, and the butter
product of 1880 was 79,336,012 lb.
Manufactures. — The manufacturing industry has more than
trebled since 1860. In 1880 the capital invested in 31,232 estab
lishments was §474,510,993, the cost of material used in a year
§465,020,563, the total sum paid in wages §134,055,904,— the
number of persons employed being 387,072, and the value of pro
duct §744,818,445, or nearly one-seventh of the total product of
manufactures in the United States (§5,369,579,191). Iron and
steel take the lead ; textile fabrics, including carpets, cottons,
woollens, silks, yarns, hosiery, and hats make a large item ; 333
tanneries yield in leather §23,735,814 ; flour and grist mills do a
large business ; the lumber interest centres at Williamsport and
glass-making at Pittsburgh, and there are salt-wells at Allegheny.
Communications. — Connexions between the navigable rivers were
effected in former years at a cost of over §50,000,000, by a system of
canals now chiefly used for the carriage of coal, subordinate to the
mining and railway corporations, which are closely related. There
are about 5500 miles of railroad in the State belonging to numerous
companies, but the Pennsylvania Railroad system and the Phil
adelphia and Reading system are by far the most important. The
Pennsylvania has not only consolidated under its management
many lines within the State but has gained control by purchase or
lease of trunk lines and branches leading through other States,
east, west, north, and south, including in all over 6000 miles of
road. Of these 2555 belong to the Pennsylvania division, of which
the gross earnings in 1883 were §32,017,818, and the net earnings
$13,696,399. The Philadelphia and Reading owns or controls
1583 miles of road, and along with a heavy passenger business
(18,195,264 carried in 1883) is largely occupied with transporta
tion of coal from the mines to Philadelphia and New York. Its
gross earnings in 1883 were §29,797,927, its net earnings §14,464,070,
exclusive of rentals of leased lines and interest. In conjunction
with the Reading Coal and Iron Company, a separate corporation,
it controls seventy-four collieries, covering 163,317 acres of anthra
cite coal lands. The gross earnings of the Coal and Iron Company
for 1883 were §17,038,858, and the net earnings §921,771. Other
companies control lines leading from the coal and iron regions to
New York city. The railroad interest gives employment to over
76,000 men, besides the 3000 employed by the Baldwin Locomo
tive Works in Philadelphia.
Finance.— For the year ending 30th November 1882 the State re
venue, exclusive of a loan of §9,360,120, was §7,068,529, of which
over §4,000,000 came from taxes on corporations, and nearly all the
504
P E N — P E N
rest from various business licences. The State imposes no tax on
real estate, but collects $437,77(5 from taxes on money at interest,
watches, and carriages. The expenditure, exclusive of payment on
debt, was §5,024,7(56. The debt was $20,225,083, with $7,992,983
of assets in the sinking fund. Thirty-eight counties report debts
aggregating $76,301, 876, and there are heavy municipal debts.
The value of real estate reported in 1SS2 was $1,598,430,041, of
which $110,000,126 were legally exempt from taxation.
Militia.— Distributed over the State and organized into regiments
and brigades are 137 volunteer companies, containing 8220 men
and otiicers, and called collectively the "national guard." They
include three batteries of artillery, three companies of cavalry,
and 131 of infantry, and are armed, equipped, and supplied by
the State at an annual expense of about $242,000.
History. — The grant of the extensive territory called Pennsyl
vania, made by Charles II. in 1681 to "William PENX (q.v.), carried
with it full proprietorship and dominion, saving only the king's
sovereignty. Penn at once created a quick market for lands by
publishing in England and on the Continent his liberal scheme of
government and his intention to try the "holy experiment" of
"a free colony for all mankind." In 1682, when he crossed the
sea to take possession, he found the western bank of the Delaware
already occupied by nearly 6000 Swedes, Dutch, and English, the
Swedes having begun a settlement in 1638. To these, as to settlers
from all nations, he conceded equal liberties. The desire to escape
from spiritual and temporal despotisms, and the chance of acquir
ing rich lands in a salubrious climate on easy terms, drew thousands
of immigrants : English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians,
German Mennonites, French Huguenots, men ,of all religions, were
alike welcome ; the population increased for a few years at the rate
of one thousand a year ; then more rapidly, so that at the end of
seventy-five years it exceeded 200,000. Penn twice visited Penn
sylvania, staying each time two years. In December 1682 he
.summoned delegates to meet him at Upland (now Chester) to con
fer about government ; the land was divided into counties, and in
March following representatives chosen by the people of these dis
tricts agreed on a constitution, based upon popular suffrage, and
guaranteeing liberty of conscience. All magistrates and officers
were to be chosen by the people, Penn surrendering all claim for
revenue by taxation, and retaining for himself and his deputies
only the governorship. For his further connexion with Pennsyl
vania, see PEXX. In 16S2 PHILADELPHIA (q.v.) was founded.
The failure to settle the boundary-line between Pennsylvania and
Maryland, in dispute between Lord Baltimore and Penn, long
caused great irritation among the settlers, who were liable to double
taxation.; but in 1750 Lord Hard wick's decree in Chancery con
firmed the original claims of Penn, and in 1763-67 Mason and
Dixon definitely fixed and marked 246 miles of the line, since
made famous as the separation between free and slave States.
For over sixty years the predominance of the Quakers in the
assembly had prevented any legislation for public defence, — of
which, indeed, there was little need so long as Indians and whites
kept their covenant. But in 1744 the Indians became allies of the
French, then at war with Great Britain. French military posts
established in western Pennsylvania not only violated the integrity
of the province but threatened to confine the English to the east of
the Alleghanies, and perhaps to crowd them oif the continent. The
party of non-resistance was overborne by a sense of public danger,
which found strong expression in a pamphlet by Franklin ; and in
1747 the assembly permitted volunteer organization. One hundred
and twenty companies were soon enrolled, ten of them, of a hundred
men each, in Philadelphia. But there was no efficient manage
ment nor hearty co-operation with adjacent colonies. Braddock's
defeat in 1754 intensified the alarm ; Fort Duquesne (site of Pitts
burgh), which he aimed to reduce, was held by the French till 1758.
The peace of Paris in 1763 did not quiet the lied Men. Pontiac,
a famous sachem, united the western tribes in a war of extermina
tion, only ended when the whites had proved their mastery. The
royal council, displeased with self-governing tendencies, annulled
the militia law of Pennsylvania ; but the pressure of common
danger and the dread of tomahawk and torch not only led to the
oiler of a bounty of $130 for Indian scalps, but taught the lessons
of comradeship, and co-operation, and nourished the self-reliant
courage of the generation which was to strike for independence.
Though stout against the Stamp Act of 1765 and other parliamentary
encroachments, Pennsylvania was not swift to move ; the assembly
sought to mediate between the parliament and the colonies, but
the course of events soon made neutrality impossible. A long
adjournment was construed as abdication ; a committee of safety
seized the reins till the people could speak through a representative
convention. The convention espoused the revolution ; in Septem
ber 1776 a State constitution was promulgated ; in 1778 the old
charter was formally annulled and the Penn claims silenced by
payment of £130,000. During the war Pennsylvania was the
scene of important events, — the deliberations of the Congress and
the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the battles of Brandy-
wine and Germantown in 1777 ; the British occupation of Phil
adelphia, and the encampment of "Washington at Valley Forge,
in 1777-78. A brief but violent mutiny of the unpaid soldiery of
Pennsylvania in 1781 led Congress to adopt a better system of
finance, under the wise guidance of Robert Morris of Philadelphia.
In 1812, at the outbreak of war with Great Britain, Pennsylvania
promptly furnished its quota of troops. At the opening of the war
with the southern States in 1861, in response to the president's
call for 14,000 men as the State's quota, Pennsylvania sent '25,975,
and during the war furnished a total of 387,284. Ko other northern
State was invaded. At Gettysburg, near the State border, a three
days' battle was fought, 30th June to 3d July 1863, resulting in a
decisive victory of the Federal forces. In 1S64 Chambersburg was
burned by the Confederates. For more than two centuries Penn's
commonwealth has been advancing in population and prosperity,
and the great body of the people have dwelt in peace. There have
been five serious local disturbances. Between 1791 and 1794 there
was organized resistance to the collection of a federal tax on distilled
spirits, but a strong display of force quelled the insurrection without
bloodshed. In 18'44 there were riots in Kensington, a suburb of
Philadelphia, between " native Americans " and Catholic Irish, re
sulting in the destruction of thirty dwellings, three churches, one
convent, and many lives. Between 1835 and 1861 anti-slavery
meetings in Philadelphia were often roughly interrupted, and in
1838 Pennsylvania Hall was burned by a pro-slavery mob. A
criminal combination in the anthracite mining region, known as
the " Molly Maguires," was broken up in 1876 by due course of
law, twenty men being hanged for murder. In 1877 the "railroad
riots," an outbreak of dissatisfied railway employes, caused a vast
destruction of property at Pittsburgh and vicinity, but were quelled
by the military. The constitution has been four times revised,- —
in 1838, 1850, 1857, 1874. (J. P. L. — C. G. A.)
PENRITH, a market-town of Cumberland, England,
is situated near the river Eamont, and on the Lancaster
and Carlisle section of the London and North-AVestern
Hail way, 18 miles south of Carlisle, and 5 north-east of
Ullswater. The town consists chiefly of one long and wide
street. To the west once stood an ancient castle, erected
as a protection against the Scots, on the site of an old
Roman encampment. But it was dismantled by Charles I. ;
the ruins still remain. The principal public buildings are
the grammar-school, founded by Queen Eli/abeth in loGG,
the- agricultural hall, the mechanics' institute, and the
working-men's literary institute. There are breweries,
tanneries, and saw-mills, but the town depends chiefly on
agriculture. The population of the urban sanitary district
in 1871 was 8317, and in 1881 it was 9268.
Old Penrith, the Bremetenracuin of the Romans, was about 5
miles north by west of the present town. At the Conquest the honour
of Penrith was a royal franchise ; but it was alternately in the pos
session of the English and Scottish kings until given to Anthony
Beck, bishop of Durham, by Edward I. The town more than om-e
lapsed to the crown. In 1696 it was granted to AVilliam Bentinck,
earl of Portland, and in 1783 it was sold by the duke of Portland
to the duke of Devonshire.
PEXSACOLA, a city of the United States, capital of
Escambia county, Florida, on the north-west coast of
Pensacola Bay. The harbour has recently been improved
so as to secure a uniform depth of 24 feet. Pensacola is
the terminus of three railway lines which connect it with
Mobile, Montgomery, Jacksonville, and Millview, the start
ing-place of steamers plying to Cedar Keys, ic., and the
seat of a large trade in lumber (mainly pitch pine), early
vegetables, and winter fruits. About 7 miles west of Pen
sacola lies a United States navy-yard. The value of the
exports to Great Britain and the British colonies in 1882
was $1,481,702, to other foreign countries $1,091,113,
and to the United States $535,225. The total imports
were only 8169,082. In 1850 the population was 2164,
in 1870 3347, and in 1880 6845; and it has since in
creased to upwards of 8000.
Pensacola Bay is said to have been discovered by Narvaez in 1528.
French, and afterwards Spanish, colonists settled on the site of the
town in the close of the 17th century. In 1719 it was captured by
Bienville, in 1723 restored to the Spaniards, in 1763 occupied by
the British, in 1781 captured by General Galvez, in 1814 taken
from the British by the United States general Jackson, and again
in 1818 taken by the same general from the Spaniards. In 1821,
according to the treaty of 1819, it became, with the rest of Florida,
part of the United States territory.
PENTATEUCH
505
PENTATEUCH AND JOSHUA. The name Penta
teuch, already found in Tertullian and Origen, corresponds
to the Jewish minn ''E'Bin n^DH (the five-fifths of the
Torah, or Law) ; the several books were named by the
Jews from their initial words, though at least Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy had also titles corresponding to
those we use, viz., D'oro min, Q'nipan E^on (A/z/xecr^eKwSet/.t,
Origen, in Eus., H. £., vi. 25), and mm nj^D. The
Pentateuch, together with Joshua, Judges, and Euth,
with which it is usually united in Greek MSS., makes up
the Octateuch ; the Pentateuch and Joshua together have
recently been named the Hexateuch. The date of the
division of the Torah into five books cannot be made out ;
it is probably older than the Septuagint translation.
ft i- Moses is already taken for the author of the Pentateuch
i( il in '2 Chronicles xxv. 4, xxxv. 12 sq. ; only the last eight
in or- verses Of Deuteronomy are, according to the rabbins, not
from his pen. From the synagogue belief in the Mosaic
authorship passed to the church, and is still widely pre
valent among Christians. At an early date, indeed, doubts
suggested themselves as to the correctness of this view,
but it was not till the 17th century that these became so
strong that they could not be suppressed.1 It was ob
served that Moses does not speak of himself in the first
person, but that some other writer speaks of him in the
third, — a writer, too, who lived long after. The expression
of Gen. xii. 6, "the Canaanite was then in the land," is
spoken to readers who had long forgotten that a different
nation from Israel had once occupied the Holy Land ; the
words of Gen. xxxvi. 31, "these are the kings that
reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the
children of Israel," have no prophetic aspect ; they point
to an author who wrote under the Hebrew monarchy.
Again, the " book of the wars of Jehovah " (Num. xxi. 14)
cannot possibly be cited by Moses himself, as it contains
a record of his own deeds ; and, when Deut. xxxiv. 1 0
(comp. Num. xii.) says that "there arose not a prophet
since in Israel like unto Moses," the writer is necessarily
one who looked back to Moses through a long series of
later prophets.
At the same time attention was drawn to a variety of
contradictions, inequalities, transpositions, and repetitions
of events in the Pentateuch, such as excluded the idea that
the whole came from a single pen. Thus Peyrerius re
marked that Gen. xx. and xxvi. stand in an impossible
chronological context ; and on the incongruity of Gen. i.
and ii., which he pressed very strongly, he rested his hypo
thesis of the Preadamites. Such observations could not but
grievously shake the persuasion that Moses was the author
of the Pentateuch, while at the same time they directed
criticism to a less negative task — viz., the analysis of the
Pentateuch. For this, indeed, the 17th century did not
effect anything considerable, but at least two conclusions
came out with sufficient clearness. The first of these was
the self-contained character of Deuteronomy, which in
these days there was a disposition to regard as the oldest
book of the Pentateuch, and that with the best claims to
authenticity. And in the second place the Pentateuchal
laws and the Pentateuchal history were sharply distin
guished ; the chief difficulties were felt to lie in the
narrative, and there seemed to be less reason for question
ing the Mosaic authorship of the laws.
Spinoza's bold conjecture that in their present form not
only the Pentateuch but also the other historical books of
the Old Testament were composed by Ezra ran far ahead
of the laborious investigation of details necessary to solve
1 Hobbes, Leviathan, cliap. xxxiii. ; Peyrerius, S/jst. thcol. ex 7Va?-
adamitarum Hi/pothesi, iv. 1, 2; Spinoza, fr.Theologico-poL,c\\o.^.\\\. ;
R. Simon, Hist. C'rit. dn V. T., i. 5-7 ; Le Clerc, Sentimens dequebjiies
tkeuloyiens de IMlande (Amst., 1685). lett. G.
the previous question of the composition of the Pentateuch.
Jean Astruc has the merit of opening the true path of Astruc.
this investigation. He recognized in Genesis two main
sources, between which he divided the whole materials of
the book, with some few exceptions, and these sources he
distinguished by the mark that the one used for God the
name Elohim (Gen. i., v.; comp. Exod. vi. 3) and the other
the name Jehovah (Gen. ii.-iv.).2 Astruc's hypothesis,
fortified by the observation of other linguistic differences
which regularly corresponded with the variation in the
names of God, was introduced into Germany by Eichhorn's
Einleitung in d. A.T., and proved there the fruitful and just
point of departure for all further inquiry. At first, indeed,
it was with but uncertain steps that critics advanced from
the analysis of Genesis to that of the other books, where
the simple criterion of the alternation of the divine names
was no longer available. In the hands of the Scotsman
Geddes and the German Vater the Pentateuch resolved
itself into an agglomeration of longer and shorter fragments, Frag-
between which no threads of continuous connexion could "ientary
be traced 3 (" Fragmentary Hypothesis "). The fragment- ljyp°"
ary hypothesis was mainly supported by arguments drawn
from the middle books of the Pentateuch, and as limited
to these it long found wide support. Even De Wette De
started from it in his investigations ; but this was really Wette.
an inconsistency, for his fundamental idea was to show
throughout all parts of the Pentateuch traces of certain
common tendencies, and even of one deliberate plan ; nor
was he far from recognizing the close relation between the
Elohist of Genesis and the legislation of the middle books.
De Wette's chief concern, however, was not with the
literary but with the historical criticism of the Pentateuch,
and in the latter he made an epoch. In his Diss. Critica
of 1805 (Opusc. Theol., pp. 149-168) he placed the composi
tion of Deuteronomy in the time of King Josiah (arguing
from a comparison of 2 Kings xxii., xxiii., with Deut. xii.),
and pronounced it to be the most recent stratum of the
Pentateuch, not, as had previously been supposed, the
oldest. In his Critical Enquiry into the Credibility of the
-Books of Chronicles (Halle, 1806) he showed that the laws
of Moses are unknown to the post-Mosaic history; this he
did by instituting a close comparison of Samuel and Kings
with the Chronicles, from which it appeared that the
variations of the latter are not to be explained by the use
of other sources, but solely by the desire of the JeAvish
scribes to shape the history in conformity with the law,
and to give the law that place in history which, to their
surprise, had not been conceded to it by the older historical
books. Finally, in his Criticism of the Mosaic History
(Halle, 1807) De Wette attacked the method then preva
lent in Germany of eliminating all miracles and prophecies
from the Bible by explaining them away, and then ration
alizing what remained into a dry prosaic pragmatism. De
Wette refuses to find any history in the Pentateuch ; all is
legend and poetry. The Pentateuch is not an authority for
the history of the time it deals with, but only for the time
in which it was written ; it is, he says, the conditions of
this much later time which the author idealizes and throws
back into the past, whether in the form of narrative or of law.
De Wette's brilliant debut, which made his reputation
for the rest of his life, exercised a powerful influence on
his contemporaries. For several decennia all who were
open to critical ideas at all stood under his influence.
Gramberg, Leo, and Von Bohlen wrote under this influence ;
Gesenius in Halle, the greatest Hebraist then living, taught
under it ; nay, Vatke and George were guided by De
- Conjectures sur les memoires originaux, dont il paroit que Moyse
s'est servi pour composer le livre de In Gene.se (Brussels, 1753). Comp.
Joitrn. des S^ai-ans, October 1767, pp. 291-305.
3 J. S. Vater, Commcntar iiber den Pentateuch, Halle, 1S02-1S05.
XVIII. — 64
506
PENTATEUCH
Wette's ideas and started from the ground that he had
conquered, although they advanced beyond him to a much
more definite and better established position, and were
also diametrically opposed to him in one most important
point, of which we shall have more to say presently.1
Positive But meantime a reaction was rising which sought to
literary direct criticism towards positive rather than negative re-
sm' suits. The chief representatives of this positive criticism,
which now took up a distinct attitude of opposition to the
negative criticism of De Wette, were Bleek, Ewald, and
Movers. By giving up certain parts of the Pentateuch,
especially Deuteronomy, they thought themselves able to
vindicate certain other parts as beyond doubt genuinely
Mosaic, just in the same way as they threw over the Davidic
authorship of certain psalms in order to strengthen the
claim of others to bear his name. The procedure by which
particular ancient hymns or laws were sifted out from the
Psalter or the Pentateuch had some resemblance to the
decretum absolutum of theology ; but up to a certain point
the reaction was in the right. The youthful De Wette
and his followers had really gone too far in applying the
same measure to all parts of the Pentateuch, and had been
satisfied with a very inadequate insight into its composi
tion and the relation of its parts. Historical criticism
had hurried on too fast, and literary criticism had now to
overtake it. De Wette himself felt the necessity for this,
and from the year 1817 onwards — the year of the first edi
tion of his Einleiturtfj — he took an active and useful part
in the solution of the problems of Pentateuchal analysis.
The fragmentary hypothesis was now superseded ; the con
nexion of the Elohist of Genesis with the legislation of
the middle books wTas clearly recognized ; and the book of
Joshua was included as the conclusion of the Pentateuch.
The closely-knit connexion and regular structure of the
narrative of the Elohist impressed the critics ; it seemed
to supply the skeleton which had been clothed with flesh
and blood by the Jehovist, in whose contributions there
wras no such obvious conformity to a plan. From all this
it was naturally concluded that the Elohist had written
the Grundschrift or primary narrative, which lay before the
Jehovist and was supplemented by him (" Supplementary
Hypothesis ").2
Hupfeld. This view remained dominant till Hupfeld in 1853 pub
lished his investigations on The Sources of Genesis and the
Method of their Composition. Hupfeld denied that the
Jehovist followed the context of the Elohistic narrative,
merely supplementing it by additions of his own. He
pointed out that such Elohistic passages in Genesis as
clearly have undergone a Jehovistic redaction (e.g., chaps.
xx., xxi., xxii.) belong to a different Elohist from the author
of Gen. i. Thus he distinguished three independent sources
in Genesis, and he assumed further, somewhat inconse-
quently, that no one of them had anything to do with the
others till a fourth and later writer wove them all together
into a single whole. This assumption was corrected by
Noldeke. Noldeke, who showed that the second Elohist is preserved
only in extracts embodied in the Jehovistic book, that
the Jehovist and second Elohist form one whole and the
Grundschrift another, and that thus, in spite of Hupfeld's
discovery, the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy being excluded)
was still to be regarded as made up of two great layers.
Noldeke had also the honour of having been the first to
1 H. Leo, Vorlesunyen uber die Geschichte des jiidischen Staat.s,
Berlin, 1828 ; C. P. W. Gramherg, Kritische Geschichte der Religion s-
ideen des A.T., Berlin, 1829-30 ; P. v. Bohlen, Die Genesis, Konigs-
berg, 1835 ; W. Vatke, Biblische Thcoloyie, Berlin, 1835 ; J. F. L.
George, Die iilterenj'ddischen Feste, Berlin, 1835.
'2 Bleek, in Rosenmiiller's Itepertorium, 1822, and in Stud, und
Krit., 1831 ; Ewald, Stud. u. Krit., 1831 ; Tuch, Kommentar itb. d.
Genesis, Halle, 1838 ; especially De Wette in the various editions of
his ElnUitung.
trace in detail how the Elohistic Grundschrift runs through
the whole Hexateuch, and of having described with masterly
hand the peculiar and inflexible type of its ideas and
language. In this task he was aided by the commentary
of Knobel, whose industry furnished very valuable materials
for men of judgment to work upon.3
Thus the investigation into the composition of the Penta
teuch had reached a point of rest and a provisional con
clusion. The results may be thus summarized. The five
books of Moses with Joshua form one whole ; and it is not
the death of Moses but the conquest of the promised land
which forms the true close of the history of the patriarchal
age, the exodus, and the wanderings in the wilderness ; it
is therefore more correct to speak of the Hexateuch than of The
the Pentateuch. From this whole it is most easy to detach Hexa
the book of Deuteronomy, and accordingly its independence teuc*
was very early recognized. Of the other elements, that
which has the most marked individuality is the work of
the Elohist, which we shall in the sequel call the Priestly The
Code. This too, like Deuteronomy, is a law-book, but it Pnes
has an historical setting. Its main stock is Leviticus, with (~c
the cognate parts of the adjacent books, Exod. xxv.-xl.
(except chaps, xxxii.-xxxiv.) and Num. i.-x., xv.-xix., xxv.-
xxxvi. (with some inconsiderable exceptions). This law-
book does not, like Deuteronomy, embrace precepts for
civil life, but is confined to affairs of worship, and mainly
to the esoteric aspect of public worship, that is, to
such points as belonged to the function of the priests as
distinguished from the worshipping people. The legal
contents of the Code are supported on a scaffolding of
history, which, however, belongs to the literary form rather
than to the substance of the work. It is only where some
point of legal interest is involved that the narrative acquires
any fulness, as it does in the book of Genesis in connexion
with the three preparatory stages of the Mosaic covenant
attached to the names of Adam, Noah, and Abraham.
Generally speaking, the historical thread is very thin, and
often (Gen. v., xi.) it becomes a mere genealogical line, on
which is hung a continuous chronology carried on from
the creation to the exodus. The Priestly Code is charac
terized by a marked predilection for numbers and measures,
for arrangement (titles to sections) and formality of scheme,
by the poverty and inflexibility of its language, by standing
repetitions of certain expressions and phrases such as are
not elsewhere found in old Hebrew'. Thus its distinguish
ing marks are very pronounced, and can always be recog
nized without difficulty. If now Deuteronomy and the
Priestly Code are successively subtracted from our present
Pentateuch the Jehovistic history -book remains, distin- Jeho
guished from both the others by the fact that it is essentially vistil
narrative and not law, and by the pleasure it takes in
bringing out details of the historical tradition, so that
individual points of the story receive full justice and are
not sacrificed to the interests of the general plan. The
patriarchal history belongs almost entirely to this docu
ment, and forms the most characteristic part of it ; here
that history forms no mere epitomized introduction to more
important matter, as in the Priestly Code, but is treated
in all fulness as a subject of first-rate importance. Legis
lative elements are incorporated in the Jehovistic narrative
only at one point, where they naturally fall into the his
torical context, viz., in connexion with the law-giving on
Sinai (Exod. xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.).
These, then, are the three main component parts of the
Hexateuch — Deuteronomy, the Priestly Code, and the
Jehovist. But the Jehovist has woven together in his
history -book two sources, one of which uses the name
3 Knohel, Die Genesis crklart (Leipsic, 1852), Exodus und Leviticus
(1857), Numeri, Deuteron., und Josua(l86l) ; Noldeke, Untersuchungen
zur Kritikdcs A.T. (Kiel, 1869).
PENTATEUCH
Se.ra-
:i< of
Pistly
Elohim (Hupfeld's younger Elohist), while the other says
lahwe, as does the Jehovist himself. So, too, the Priestly
Code is not a perfectly incomposite structure ; it has one
main stock marked by a very definite historical arrange
ment and preserved with little admixture in the book of
Genesis ; but on the one hand some older elements have
been incorporated in this stock, while on the other hand
there have been engrafted on it quite a number of later
novelise, which in point of form are not absolutely homo
geneous with the main body of the Code, but in point
of substance are quite similar to it, reflecting the same
tendencies and ideas and using the same expressions and
mannerisms, so that the whole may be regarded as an
historical unity though not strictly as a literary one.
The very name of Deuteronomy shows that from the earliest
times it has been regarded as at least possessing a relative inde
pendence ; the only difficulty is to determine where this section of
the Pentateuch begins and ends. In recent times opinion has in
clined more and more to the judgment of Hobbes and Vater, that the
original Deuteronomy must be limited to the laws in chaps, xii.-xxvi.
The reasons that compel us to distinguish the Priestly Code from
the Jehovist, and the relation that subsists between these two
elements, may be exemplified and illustrated by the first nine
!J(3 chapters of Genesis. We begin by comparing Gen. i. 1 to ii. 4«
'r i with Gen. ii. 46 to iii. 24. The history of the first man in paradise
Jovist. has nothing to do with the preceding record of the creation of the
world in six days, which is neither referred to nor presupposed.
" In the day that Jehovah made the earth there was as yet no
plant of the field upon the earth, and no herb grew in the field ;
for Jehovah had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was
not a man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth
and watered the whole face of the ground. And Jehovah formed
man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life." It might be supposed that the picture drawn in
chap. i. is here briefly referred to in order to add a particular
feature which had not been fully brought out there. But there is
no situation in chap. i. which this scene fits. There man is made
last of all, but here first of all, before vegetation, and according to
ii. 19 sq. also before the beasts. There man and woman are created
together, here at first the man is alone. There vegetation and
wet stand opposed, the plants spring up as soon as there is dry
land ; here the condition of vegetation is the moistening of the
dry land — it must first rain ; the earth, therefore, was originally
not water but a parched desert, — the same conception as in the
book of Job, where the sea bursts forth from the womb of the hard
earth. The conceptions of the two narratives are different all
through, as appears equally in what follows. " Jehovah planted a
garden eastwards in Eden, at the place where the four chief rivers
of the world are parted from a common source. Here among other
goodly trees grew the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. In
this garden Jehovah set the man, to dress it and to keep it, to eat
of all the fruits save only that of the tree of knowledge." In
chap. i. man receives from the first as his portion the whole great
earth as he now occupies it, and his task is a purely natural one ;
"be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." But
in chap. ii. the first man is placed in a mysterious garden of God,
with a very limited sphere, where all is supernatural and marvellous.
To speak generally, the ideas of God and man in chap. i. are rational
and enlightened, but bare and prosaic ; in chaps, ii. -iii. they are
childlike and primitive, but full of meaning. The point of the
contrast is mainly this: in Gen. ii., iii., man is in fact forbidden
to lift the veil of things and know the world, represented by the
tree of knowledge ; in Gen. i. this is his primary task, to rule over
all the earth, for sovereignty and knowledge come to the same thing.
There nature is to man altogether a marvel ; here it is a mere
thing, an object for him. There it is robbery for man to seek to be
as God ; here God from the first created man in His own image, after
His likeness, and appointed him His vicegerent on earth. With
these incongruities in the substance and spirit of the two sections
we must take also the differences of form and language observable
alike in the whole manner of the narrative — which in Gen. i. is con
fined by a precise and formal scheme, while in Gen ii. , iii., it has a
free poetic movement — and in individual expressions. Thus Gen.
i. has Elohim, Gen. ii., iii., Jehovah;1 Gen. i. has the technical
word &O2, "create," while the other narrative uses the ordinary
words nC^y, "make," IV, "form;" and so forth.
The contrast between the two records appears in a somewhat
different way when we go on to compare Gen. v. with Gen. iv. 17 sq.
The elements of the genealogy of ten members in the Priestly Code
1 The addition of Eloliim, which produces the mi-Hebrew form
Jehovah Elohim, in Gen. ii., iii., is due to an editor who desired to
soften the abrupt transition from the Elohim of the one narrator to the
Jehovah of the other.
and that of seven members in the Jehovist correspond, save that
the former adds Noah after Larnech, and that at the beginning
Adam -Cain is doubled and becomes Adam- Seth-Enosh-Cainan.
Adam and Enosh both mean " man," so that the latter series is equi
valent to Adam-Seth-Adam-Cainan ; in other words Enosh-Cainan
is the beginning of a series corresponding to that in chap, iv., and
Adam-Seth is a parallel and variation. Linguist ically chap. v. is
distinguished from chap. iv. by the use of "1 vlH in place of "1?\
In Gen. i.-v. we find the two narratives lying side by side in
continuous pieces and without intermixture; in Gen. vi.-ix., on
the other hand, we have a kind of mosaic, in which elements taken
from each are interwoven to form a single narrative. The narrative
of the Priestly Code is preserved entire in vi. 9-22, vii. 11, 13-16
(except the last clause of ver. 16), 19-22, 24, viii. 1-5 (with one
small exception), 13, 14, ix. 1-17. The Jehovistic narrative, on
the other hand, is curtailed to prevent repetition ; it would not
have done to relate twice over the building of the ark and the
divine command to do so, or to give the ordinance of the rainbow
once after viii. 22, and then again in ix. 9 sq. The hand that
fused the two sources together into one continuous account is very
plainly recognized in vii. 8, 9, as compared on the one side with
vi. 19, 20, and on the other with vii. 2.
The justice of Hupfeld's observation, that besides the first Elohist
(our Priestly Code) there is a second author who uses the same
name of God, can be best proved from Gen. xx.-xxii., where this
second Elohist appears for the first time. According to the Priestly
Code Ishmael was fourteen years old at the birth of Isaac, and
thus would be seventeen when some three years later Isaac was
weaned. But how does this accord with xxi. 9 sq. , where Ishmael
appears not as a lad of seventeen but as a child at play (pl~IYO,
ver. 9), who is laid on his mother's shoulder (ver. 14), and when
thrown down by her in her despair (ver. 15) is quite unable to help
himself ? Similar inconsistencies appear if we attempt to place chap,
xx. in the context of the Priestly Code ; it was already observed by
Peyrerius that it is " non vero simile, regem Geraraj voluisse Saram
vetulamcui desierant fieri muliebria." We come, then, to ask what
is the relation between this second Elohistic writing, from which
the greater part of Gen. xx.-xxii. is derived, and the Jehovistic
history. In their matter, their points of view, and also in language —
apart from the names of God — the two are on the whole similar, as
may be seen by comparing chap. xx. with chap, xxvi., or chap. xxi.
with chap. xvi. Moreover, the Elohistic history is preserved to us
in a Jehovistic setting, as can be plainly discerned, partly by certain
slight changes (xxi. 33, xxii. 11-14), partly by larger additions (xx.
18, xxi. 1, 32b, xxii. 15-18). But we cannot suppose that it was the
principal narrator of the Jehovistic history — the author of the main
mass of chaps, xii. , xiii., xvi., xviii. , xix., xxiv., xxvi. — who incor
porated chaps, xx. -xxii. in his own book. For how can we imagine
anything so absurd as that, before or after, he should have chosen
to tell again in his own words and with full detail and important
variations almost all the stories which he borrowed from another
work ? Bather must we conclude that the union of the Elohistic
work (E) with the main Jehovistic narrative (J) was accomplished
by a third hand. This third author is most conveniently designated
as the Jehovist, and his work is compendiously cited as JE ; the
authors of its two component parts are frequently called for dis
tinction the Jahvist and the Elohist. The editorial hand of the
Jehovist can be traced not only in E but in his main source J (the
source which uses the name lahwe) ; compare, for example, Gen. xvi.
8-10 with Gen. xxv. 15, 18.
Still more complicated than the work of the Jehovist is the
Priestly Code, at least in its main section, the ritual legislation of
the middle books. It is conceded on all hands that the collection
of laws in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. was originally a small independent code,
though it has now been worked into the Priestly Code by the aid of
very considerable editorial treatment. It is equally undeniable,
though not as universally admitted, that — to take one example —
Exod. xxx. and xxxi. cannot be placed in the same line with Exod.
xxv.-xxix. , but form a supplement to the last-named section. No
reason can be assigned why the author of Exod. xxv.-xxix., if he
intended to mention the golden altar of incense at all, should have
failed to include it in the passage where he describes all the other
furniture within the tabernacle,— the ark, mercy -seat, golden
table, and candlestick ; that the altar of incense is first mentioned
in Exod. xxx. 1-10 is only to be understood on the assumption that
chaps, xxx. and xxxi. were added by a later author.
Such are the main lines of the view now most prevalent
as to the composition of the Hexateuch. We come next
to consider the date and mutual relations of the several
sources. As regards Deuteronomy and the Jehovist there
is tolerably complete agreement among critics. Some,
indeed, attempt to date Deuteronomy before the time of Date of
Josiah, in the age of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4, 22), feutero
or even still earlier ; but on the whole the date originally 110111>r-
508
PENTATEUCH
Date of
Priestly
Code. "
assigned by De Wette has held its ground. That the
author of Deuteronomy had the Jehovistic work before
him is also admitted ; and- it is pretty well agreed that the
latter is referred, alike by the character of its language and
the circle of its ideas and by express references (Gen. xii.
6, xxxvi. 31, xxxiv. 10; Num. xxii. sq.; Dent, xxxiv. 10),
to the golden age of Hebrew literature, the same which
has given us the finest parts of the books of Judges,
Samuel, and Kings, and the oldest extant prophetical
writings, — the age of the kings and prophets, before the
dissolution of the sister states of Israel and Judah.
On the other hand, the date of the Priestly Code is
disputed. Till pretty recently it was commonly regarded
as the oldest part of the Hexateuch. The fact that it
is mainly legal seemed to give it the priority over the
history of the Jehovist ; for Moses was a lawgiver, not
a narrator. Again, the priestly legislation has reference
to worship, and regulates all points of ritual with great
exactness ; and by the rule that the earliest forms of
religion lay most weight on ceremonies of worship and all
matters of form, this fact seemed to mark the Priestly Code
as older than Deuteronomy, where affairs of ritual wor
ship are less prominent than precepts of ethical conduct.
Once more, the demands made by Deuteronomy for the
maintenance of the priesthood and ritual service are much
less heavy than the corresponding demands of the Priestly
Code ; and here again it was natural enough to argue that
practical difficulties had led to the abolition or modifica
tion of the heavier burdens. And these conclusions were
confirmed by the prevalent impression that the final
redaction of the Pentateuch, and still more of the book of
Joshua, was Deuteronomic, and that the same Deuteronomic
redaction could be traced also in the other historical books.
But even more weight than was laid on these really
plausible arguments was held to attach to another point
which seemed not merely to prove the priority of the
Priestly -Code but to indicate that it was at least partly
of Mosaic origin. Alike in the Jehovistic Book of the
Covenant and in Deuteronomy the legislation is expressly
constructed on the supposition of a nation no longer
nomadic but settled in the land of Canaan. The Priestly
Code, on the contrary, is throughout directed to Israel as it
lived encamped during the wilderness wanderings, and never
makes anticipatory reference to later conditions. So also
in Genesis the Priestly Code strictly observes the difference
between the patriarchal age and later times, and is careful
not to transfer Mosaic institutions to the times of the
Hebrew forefathers. This air of antiquity, combined with
a corresponding severe simplicity in the style and form,
and a cast of language which differs profoundly from
classical Hebrew, and was conjectured to be of an older
mould, was the principal feature relied on as evidence that
the Priestly Code deserved the title of the Grundachrift,
the original and fundamental part of the Hexateuch.
But, in point of fact, it was none of these arguments
which really gave rise to the doctrine of the priority of
the Priestly Code ; that doctrine had its veritable source
in the supplementary hypothesis described above. After
the supplementary hypothesis was given up, the infer
ences originally drawn from it continued to hold their
ground ; though it was made out that the Jehovist did
not presuppose the existence of the Priestly Code, critics
still assumed without question that the latter Avas the
older work of the two. Critical analysis made steady pro
gress, but the work of synthesis did not hold even pace
with it ; this part of the problem was treated rather
slightly, and merely by the way. Indeed, the true scope of
the problem was not realized ; it was not seen that most im
portant historical questions were involved as well as ques
tions merely literary, and that to assign the true order of
the different strata of the Pentateuch was equivalent to
a reconstruction of the history of Israel. As regards the
narrative matter it was forgotten that, after the Jehovistic,
Deuteronomic, and priestly versions of the history had
been felicitously disentangled from one another, it was
necessary to examine the mutual relations of the three, to
consider them as marking so many stages of an historical
tradition, which had passed through its successive phases
under the action of living causes, and the growth of
which could and must be traced and historically explained.
Still greater faults of omission characterized the critical
treatment of the legal parts of the Pentateuch. Bleek,
the oracle in all such matters of the German school of
" Yermittelungstheologen " (the theologians who tried to
mediate between orthodoxy and criticism alike in doctrine
and in history), never looked beyond the historical frame
work of the priestly laws, altogether shutting his eyes to
their substance. He never thought of instituting an exact
comparison between them and the Deuteronomic law, still
less of examining their relation to the historical and pro
phetical books, with which, in truth, as appears from his
Introduction, he had only a superficial acquaintance.
Ewald, on the other hand, whose views as to the Priestly
Code were cognate to those of Bleek, undoubtedly had an
intimate acquaintance with Hebrew antiquity, and under
stood the prophets as no one else did. But he too neglected
the task of a careful comparison between the different
strata of the Pentateuchal legislation and the equally neces
sary task of determining how the several laws agreed with
or differed from such definite data for the history of religion
as could be collected from the historical and prophetical
books. He had therefore no fixed measure to apply to
the criticism of the laws, though his conception of the
history suffered little, and his conception of prophecy still
less, from the fact that in shaping them he left the law
practically out of sight, or only called it in from time to
time in an irregular and rather unnatural way.
Meanwhile, two Hegelian writers, starting from the
original position of De Wette, and moving on lines apart
from the beaten track of criticism, had actually effected
the solution of the most important problem in the whole
sphere of Old Testament study. Vatke and George have
the honour of being the first by whom the question of the
historical sequence of the several stages of the law was
attacked on a sound method, with full mastery over the
available evidence, and with a clear insight into the far-
reaching scope of the problem. But their works made no
permanent impression, and were neglected even by Pieuss,
although this scholar had fallen at the same time upon
quite similar ideas, which he did not venture to publish.1
1 The following propositions were formulated by Reuss in 1833 (or, Reuss.
as he elsewhere gives the date, in 1834), though they were not published
till 1879. 1. L'elumeut historique du Pentatenque pent et doit etre
examine a part et ne pas etre confondu avec 1'element legal. 2. L'un
et 1'autre out pu exister sans redaction ecrite. La mention, diez
d'anciens ecrivains, de certaines traditions patriarcales ou mosaiques,
ne prouve pas 1'existenee du Pentateuque, et une nation pent avoir
un droit coutumier sans code ecrit. Les traditions nationales de.s
Israelites remontent plus liaut que les lois du Pentateuque et la redac
tion des premieres est anterieure a celle des secondes. 4. L'iliteret
principal de 1'historien doit porter sur la date des lois, parce que sur
ce terrain il a plus de chance d'avriver a des resultats certains. Jl
faut en consequence proceder a I'interrogatoire des temoins. 5. L'his-
toire racontee dans les livres des Juges et de Samuel, et meme en
partie celle comprise dans les livres des Rois, est en contradiction avec
des lois dites mosaiques ; done celles-ci etaient inconnues a 1'epoque
de la redaction de ces livres, a plus forte raison elles n'ont pas existe
dans les temps qui y sont di'crits. 6. Les prophetes du 8e et du 7"
siecle ne saveut rien du code mosaique. 7. Jeremie est le pn-mier
prophete qui connaisse une loi ecrite et ses citations rapportent au
Deuti'-ronome. 8. Le Deuteronome (iv. 45-xxviii. 68) est le livre que
les pretres pretendaient avoir trouve dans le temple, du temps du roi
Josias. Ce code est la partie la plus aneienne de la legislation
(rudigi'-e) comprise dans le Pentateuque. 9. L'histoire des Israelites,
PENTATEUCH
509
The new ideas lay dormant for thirty years, when they
I were revived through a pupil of Keuss, K. H. Graf. He
u1 too was deemed at first to offer an easy victory to the
weapons of "critical analysis," which found many vulner
able points in the original statement of his views. For,
while Graf placed the legislation of the middle books very
late, holding it to have been framed after the great captivity,
he at first still held fast to the doctrine of the great antiquity
of the so-called Elohist of Genesis (in the sense which that
term bore before Hupfeld's discovery), thus violently rend
ing the Priestly Code in twain, and separating its members
by an interval of half a millennium. This he was compelled
to do, because, for Genesis at least, he still adhered to the
supplementary hypothesis, according to which the Jehovist
worked on the basis laid by the (priestly) Elohist. Here,
however, he was tying himself by bonds which had been
already loosed by Hupfeld ; and, as literary criticism actu
ally stood, it could show no reason for holding that the
Jehovist was necessarily later than the Elohist. In the
end, therefore, literary criticism offered itself as Graf's
auxiliary. Following a hint of Kuenen's, he embraced the
proffered alliance, gave up the violent attempt to divide
the Priestly Code, and proceeded without further obstacle
to extend to the historical part of that code as found in
Genesis those conclusions which he had already established
for its main or legislative part. Graf himself did not live
to see the victory of his cause. His Goel, to speak with
the ancient Hebrews, was Professor A. Kuenen of Leyden,
who has had the chief share in the task of developing and
enforcing the hypothesis of Graf.1
The characteristic feature in the hypothesis of Graf is
that the Priestly Code is placed later than Deuteronomy,
so that the order is no longer Priestly Code, Jehovist,
Deuteronomy, but Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Priestly Code.
The method of inquiry has been already indicated ; the
three strata of the Pentateuch are compared with one
another, and at the same time the investigator seeks to
place them in their proper relation to the successive phases
of Hebrew history as these are known to us from other
and undisputed evidence. The process may be shortened
if it be taken as agreed that the date of Deuteronomy is
known from 2 Kings xxii. ; for this gives us at starting a
fixed point, to which the less certain points can be referred.
The method can be applied alike to the historical and legal
parts of the three strata of the Hexateuch. For the
Jehovist has legislative matter in Exod. xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.,
and Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code embrace historical
matters ; moreover, we always find that the legal stand
point of each author influences his presentation of the
history, and vice versa. The most important point, how
ever, is the comparison of the laws, especially of the laws
about worship, with corresponding statements in the his
torical and prophetical books.
I ori- The turning-point in the history of worship in Israel is
the centralization of the cultus in Jerusalem by Josiah
(^ Kings xxii., xxiii.). Till then there were in Judah, as
for- there had been before in Samaria, a multitude of local
en tant qu'il s'agit du developpement national determine par des lois
ocrites, se divisera en deux periodes, avant et apres Josias. 10.
Ezechiel est anterieur a la redaction du code rituel et des lois qui ont
defmitivement organise la hierarchic. 11. Le livre de Josue n'est pas,
tant s'en faut, la partie la plus vecente de 1'ouvrage entier. 12. Le
redacteur du Pentateuque se distingue clairement de 1'ancien propliute
Moyse. (Vhistoire sainte et la loi, Paris, 1879, pp. 23, 24.)
1 K. H. Graf, Die geschichtlichen Biicher des A.T., Leipsic, 1866 ;
essays by Graf, in Merx's Archiv, i. 225 sq. , 466 sq. ; A. Kuenen,
" De priesterlijke Bestanddeelen van Pentateuch en Jozua," in Theol.
Tijdschrift, 1870, p. 391 sq., and De Godsdienst van Israel, 2 vols.,
Haarlem, 1869-70. See also J. Wellhauseii, Prolegomena zur
GescMchte Israels, 2d ed., Berlin, 1883 (Eng. tr., Edinburgh, A. &
C. Black, 1885) ; the first edition appeared in 1878 as Geschichte
Israels, vol. i.
sanctuaries, the legitimacy of which no one dreamt of dis
puting. If Hezekiah made an attempt to abolish these
local shrines, as we are told in 2 Kings xviii. 4, 22, it is
yet plain that this attempt was not very serious, as it had
been quite forgotten less than a hundred years later. Josiah 's
reforms were the first that went deep enough to leave a
mark on history. Not, indeed, that the high places fell at
one blow ; they rose again after the king's death, and the
attachment to them finally disappeared only when the
Babylonian exile tore the nation from its ancestral soil and
forcibly interrupted its traditional customs. The returning
exiles were thoroughly imbued with the ideas of Josiah's
reform, and had no thought of worshipping except in
Jerusalem ; it cost them no sacrifice of their feelings to
leave the ruined high places unbuilt. From this date all
Jews understood as a matter of course that the one God
had only one . sanctuary. Thus we have three distinct
historical periods, — (1) the period before Josiah, (2) the
transition period introduced by Josiah's reforms, and (3)
the period after the exile. Can we trace a correspondence
between these three historical phases and the laws as to
worship ?
1. The principal law-book embodied by the Jehovist, the First
so-called Book of the Covenant, takes it for granted in Exod. period.
xx. 24-26 that altars are many, not one. Here there is no
idea of attaching value to the retention of a single place
for the altar ; earth and rough stones are to be found
everywhere, and an altar of these materials falls into ruins
as easily as it is built. Again, a choice of materials is given,
presumably for the construction of different altars, and
Jehovah proposes to come to His worshippers and bless
them, not in the place where he causes His name to be cele
brated, but at every such place. The Jehovistic law there
fore agrees with the customary usage of the earlier period
of Hebrew history ; and so too does the Jehovistic story,
according to which the patriarchs wherever they reside
erect altars, set up cippi (mac^eboth), plant trees, and dig
wells. The places of which these acts of the patriarchs
are related are not fortuitous, they are the same places as
were afterwards famous shrines. This is why the narrator
speaks of them ; his interest in the sites is not antiquarian,
but corresponds to the practical importance they held in
the worship of his own day. The altar which Abraham
built at Shechem is the same on which sacrifices still con
tinued to be offered ; Jacob's anointed stone at Bethel was
still anointed, and tithes were still offered at it in fulfil
ment of vows, in the writer's own generation. The things
which a later generation deemed offensive and heathenish
— high places, ma^ebotk, sacred trees, and wells — all appear
here as consecrated by patriarchal precedent, and the narra
tive can only be understood as a picture of what daily took
place in the first century or thereabout after the division
of the kingdoms, thrown back into the past and clothed
with ancient authority.
2. The Deuteronomic legislation begins (Deut. xii.), Second
just like the Book of the Covenant, with a law for the period,
place of worship. But now there is a complete change ;
Jehovah is to be worshipped only in Jerusalem and no
where else. The new law-book is never weary of repeating
this command and developing its consequences in every
direction. All this is directed against current usage,
against "what we are accustomed to do at this day" ; the
law is polemical and aims at reformation. This law
therefore belongs to the second period of the history, the
time when the party of reform in Jerusalem was attack
ing the high places. When we read, then, that King Josiah
was moved to destroy the local sanctuaries by the discovery
of a law-book, this book, assuming it to be preserved in the
Pentateuch, can be none other than the legislative part of
Deuteronomy, which must once have had a separate exist-
510
PENTATEUCH
ence in a shorter form than the present book of Deutero
nomy ; this, too, is the inference to which we are led by
the citations and references in Kings and Jeremiah.
Third 3. In the Priestly Code all worship depends on the
period, tabernacle, and would fall to nothing apart from it. The
tabernacle is simply a means of putting the law of unity
of worship in an historical form ; it is the only legitimate
sanctuary ; there is no other spot where God dwells and
shows Himself, no other where man can approach God and
seek His face with sacrifice and gifts. But, while Deutero
nomy demands, the Priestly Code .presupposes, the limitation
of worship to one sanctuary. This principle is tacitly
assumed as the basis of everything else, but is never
asserted in so many words ; the principle, it appears, is
now no novelty, but can be taken for granted. Hence we
conclude that the Priestly Code builds on the realization of
the object aimed at in Deuteronomy, and therefore belongs
to the time after the exile, when this object had been fully
secured. An institution which in its origin must necessarily
have had a negative significance as an instrument in the
hands of polemical reformers is here taken to have been
from the first the only intelligible and legitimate form
of worship. It is so taken because established customs
always appear to be natural and to need no reason for their
existence.
Priest- The abolition of the local shrines in favour of Jerusalem
hood. necessarily involved the deposition of the provincial priest
hood in favour of the sons of Zadok in the temple of
Solomon. The law of Deuteronomy tries to avoid this
consequence by conceding the privilege of offering sacrifices
at Jerusalem to the Levites from other places ; Levites in
Deuteronomy is the general name for priests whose right
to officiate is hereditary. But this privilege was never
realized, no doubt because the sons of Zadok opposed it.
The latter, therefore, were now the only real priests, and the
priests of the high places lost their office with the destruc
tion of their altars ; for the loss of their sacrificial dues they
received a sort of eleemosynary compensation from their
aristocratic brethren (2 Kings xxiii. 9). The displacing of
the provincial priests, though practically almost inevitable,
went against the law of Deuteronomy ; but an argument
to justify it was supplied by Ezekiel (Ezek. xliv.). The
other Levites, he says, forfeited their priesthood by abusing
it in the service of the high places ; and for this they shall
be degraded to be mere servants of the Levites of Jerusalem,
who have not been guilty of the offence of doing sacrifice
in provincial shrines, and thus alone deserve to remain
priests. If we start from Deuteronomy, where all Levites
have equal priestly rights, this argument and ordinance are
plain enough, but it is utterly impossible to understand
them if the Priestly Code is taken as already existing.
Ezekiel views the priesthood as originally the right of all
Levites, while by the Priestly Code a Levite who claims
this right is guilty of baseless and wicked presumption,
such as once cost the lives of all the company of Korah.
And the position of the Levites which Ezekiel qualifies as
a punishment and a degradation appears to the Code as
the natural position, which their ancestors from father to
son had held from the first. The distinction between priest
and Levite, which Ezekiel introduces expressly as an
innovation, and which elsewhere in the Old Testament is
known only to the author of Chronicles, is, according to
the Code, a Mosaic institution fixed and settled from the
beginning. Ezekiel's ideas and aims are entirely in the
same direction as the Priestly Code, and yet he plainly
does not know the Code itself. This can only mean that
in his day it did not exist, and that his ordinances formed
one of the steps that prepared the way for it.
The Priestly Code gives us an hierocracy fully developed,
such as existed after the exile. Aaron stands above
his sons as the sons of Aaron stand above the Levites.
He has not only the highest place, but a place quite unique, Tositi
like that of the Roman pontiff ; his sons minister under °f hig
his superintendence (Num. iii. 4) ; he himself is the only Priest
priest with full rights ; as such he wears the Urim and
Thummim, and the golden ephod ; and none but he can
enter the holy of holies and offer incense there. Before
the exile there were, of course, differences of rank among
the priests, but the chief priest was only primus inter
pares ; even Ezekiel knows no high priest in the sense of
the Priestly Code. The Urim and Thummim were the
insignia of the Levites in general (Deut. xxxiii. 8), and
the linen ephod was worn by them all, while the golden
ephod was not a garment but a gold-plated image such as
the greater sanctuaries used to possess (Judges viii. 27 ;
Isa. xxx. 22). Moreover, up to the exile the temple at
Jerusalem was the king's chapel, and the priests were his
servants ; even Ezekiel, who in most points aims at secur
ing the independence of the priests, gives the prince a
weighty part in matters of worship, for it is he who
receives the dues of the people, and in return defrays the
sacrificial service. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand,
the dues are paid direct to the sanctuary, the ritual service
has full autonomy, and it has its own head, who holds his
place by divine right. Nay, the high priest represents
more than the church's independence of the state ; he
exercises sovereignty over Israel. Though sceptre and
sword are lacking to him, his spiritual dignity as high
priest makes him the head of the theocracy. He alone is
the responsible representative of the commonwealth ; the
names of the twelve tribes are written on his shoulders
and his breast. Offence of his inculpates the whole people
and demands the same expiation as a national sin, while
the sin-offerings prescribed for the princes mark them out
as mere private persons compared with him. His death
makes an epoch ; the fugitive manslayer is amnestied, not
on the death of the king, but on the death of the high
priest. On his investiture he receives a kingly unction
(whence his name, " the anointed priest ") ; he wears the
diadem and tiara of a monarch, and is clad in royal purple,
the most unpriestly dress possible. When now we find
that the head of the national worship is as such, and
merely as such — for no political powers accompany the
high priesthood — also the head of the nation, this can
only mean that the nation is one which has been deprived
of its civil autonomy, that it no longer enjoys political
existence, but survives merely as a church. In truth the
Priestly Code never contemplates Israel as a nation, but
only as a religious community, the whole life of which is
summed up in the service of the sanctuary. The com
munity is that of the second temple, the Jewish hierocracy
under that foreign dominion which alone made such an
hierocracy possible. The pattern of the so-called Mosaic
theocracy, which does not suit the conditions of any earlier
age, and of which Hebrew prophecy knows nothing, even
in its ideal descriptions of the commonwealth of Israel as
it ought to be, fits post -exilic Judaism to a nicety, and
was never an actual thing till then. After the exile the
Jews were deprived by their foreign rulers of all the
functions of public political life ; they were thus able,
and thus indeed compelled, to devote their whole energies
to sacred things, in which full freedom was left them.
So the temple became the one centre of national life, and
the prince of the temple head of the spiritual common
wealth, while, at the same time, the administration of the
few political affairs which were still left to the Jews them
selves fell into his hands as a matter of course, because
the nation had no other chief.
The material basis of the hierarchy was supplied by the Saci
sacred dues. In the Priestly Code the priests receive all duei
PENTATEUCH
511
I igions
f.its.
sin-offerings and guilt-offerings, the greater part of the cereal
accompaniments of sacrifices, the skin of the burnt-offering,
the breast and shoulder of thank-offerings. Further, they
receive the male firstlings and the tithe of cattle, as also
the firstfruits and tithes of the fruits of the land. Yet
with all this they are not even obliged to support at their
own cost the stated services and offerings of the temple,
which are provided for by a poll-tax. The poll-tax is not
ordained in the main body of the Code, but such a tax, of
the amount of one-third of a shekel, began to be paid in the
time of Nehemiah (Xeh. x. 32), and in a novel of the law
(Exod. xxx. 15) it is demanded at the higher rate of half a
shekel per head. That these exorbitant taxes were paid to
or claimed by the priests in the wilderness, or during the
anarchy of the period of the judges, is inconceivable. Nor
in the period of the kingship is it conceivable that the
priests laid claim to contributions much in excess of what
the king himself received from his subjects ; certainly no
such claim would have been supported by the royal author
ity. In 1 Sam. viii. 1 5 the tithes appear as paid to the king,
and are viewed as an oppressive exaction, yet they form
but a single element in the multiplicity of dues which the
priests claim under the Priestly Code. But, above all, the
fundamental principles of the system of priestly dues in
the Code are absolutely irreconcilable with the fact that
as long as Solomon's temple stood the king had the power
to dispose of its revenues as he pleased. The sacred taxes
are the financial expression of the hierocratic system ; they
accord with the condition of the Jews after the exile, and
under the second temple they were actually paid accord
ing to the Code, or with only minor departures from its
provisions.
Before the exile the sacred gifts were not paid to the
priests at all but to Jehovah ; they had no resemblance to
taxes, and their religious meaning, which in the later
system is hardly recognizable, was quite plainly marked.
They were in fact identical with the great public festal
offerings which the offerers consumed in solemn sacrificial
meals before Jehovah, that is, at the sanctuary. The
change of these offerings into a kind of tax was connected
with an entire transformation of the old character of
Israel's worship, which resulted from its centralization at
Jerusalem. In the old days the public worship of the
nation consisted essentially in the celebration of the yearly
feasts ; that this was so can be plainly seen from the pro
phets, — from Amos, but especially from Hosea. And accord
ingly the laws of worship are confined to this one point in
the Jehovist, and even in Deuteronomy. After the exile
the festal observances became much less important than the
tdmld, the regular daily and weekly offerings and services ;
and so we find it in the Priestly Code. But, apart from this,
the feasts underwent a qualitative change, a sort of de
generation, which claims our special attention. Originally
they were thanksgiving feasts in acknowledgment of
Jehovah's goodness in the seasons of the year. The ex
pression of thanks lay in the presentation of the firstlings
and firstfruits, and these constituted the festal offerings.
The chief feast, at the close of the old Hebrew year, was
the autumn feast of ingathering (Feast of Tabernacles), — a
thanksgiving for the whole produce of the winepress and
the corn-flour, but especially for the vintage and the olive
harvest. Then, at the beginning of the summer half-year,
came the feast of unleavened bread (Macbeth, Easter),
which in turn was followed by the harvest feast (Pente
cost). Between the two last there was a definite interval
of seven weeks ; hence the name " Feast of Weeks " (Exod.
xxxiv.). In Deut. xvi. 9 the seven weeks are explained
as " seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put
the sickle to the corn." The Easter feast, therefore, is the
commencement of the corn harvest, and this throws light
on its fixed relation to Pentecost. The one is the end of
the harvest, the other its commencement in A bib (the
month of " corn-ears") ; between them lie the " determined
weeks of harvest " (Jer. v. 24). The whole of this tejiipus
clausum is one great time of gladness (Isa. ix. 3), bounded
by the two feasts. According to Lev. xxiii. 9-22 the dis
tinguishing ceremony at Easter is the presentation of a
sheaf of barley, before which no one is allowed to taste the
new corn ; the corresponding rule at Pentecost is the pre
sentation of leavened wheaten bread. The barley of course
is the first and the wheat the last grain ripe ; at the be
ginning of harvest the firstfruits are presented in the sheaf,
and men also partake of the new growth in the shape of
parched ears of corn (Lev. xxiii. 14 ; Josh. v. 11); at the
end of harvest the firstfruits take the form of ordinary
bread. We now see the meaning of the " unleavened
bread." Unleavened cakes are quickly prepared, and were
used when bread had to be furnished suddenly (1 Sam.
xxviii. 24) ; here it is the new meal of the year which is
hastily baked into a sort of bannock without waiting for
the tedious process of leavening. The unleavened bread
contrasts with the Pentecostal cake in the same way as the
barley sheaf and the parched ears do, and so, as AVC see
from Josh. v. 11, parched corn maybe eaten instead of
unleavened bread, — a point worthy of notice.
Thus the three feasts are all originally thanksgivings The
for the fruits of the ground, and in all of them the offering Passover,
of firstfruits is the characteristic feature. Quite similarly
the Passover, which was celebrated at the same season
as the Easter feast of unleavened bread, is also a thanks
giving feast ; but here the offerings are not taken from the
fruits of the ground but from the male firstlings of the
cattle (sheep and oxen). The Jehovistic tradition in
Exodus still exhibits this original character of the Pass
over with perfect clearness. Jehovah demands that His
people shall go forth and celebrate His feast in the wilder
ness with sacrifices of sheep and oxen ; and, because Pharaoh
refuses to allow the Hebrews to serve their God by offer
ing the firstlings of cattle that are His due, He takes
from the king the firstborn of his subjects. The feast,
therefore, is older than the exodus, and the former is the
occasion of the latter, not vice versa. In the Priestly Code
the true significance of the feasts appears only dimly in
particular details of ritual ; their general character is
entirely changed. They no longer rest on the seasons and
the fruits of the season, and indeed have no basis in the
nature of things. They are simply statutory ordinances
resting on a positive divine command, which at most was
issued in commemoration of some historical event. Their
relation to the firstfruits and firstlings is quite gone; indeed
these offerings have no longer any place in acts of worship,
being transformed into a mere tax, which is holy only in
name. This degeneration of the old feasts is carried
furthest in the case of the Passover. An historical reason
is assigned to the Passover as early as Deuteronomy and
the Deuteronomic redaction of the Jehovist, but in these
writings the real character of the feast remains so far
unchanged that it is still celebrated by the sacrifice of the
firstlings of oxen and of sheep. But in the Priestly Code
the paschal sacrifice has quite lost its old character, and
consists of a yearling sheep or goat, while the firstlings
have no more connexion with the Passover, but are a mere
due to the priests without any properly religious character.
The other feasts have also lost their individuality by being
divorced from the firstfruits and celebrated instead by
stated sacrifices, which are merely the tdmld on a larger
scale, and have no individuality of meaning. All this is
a consequence of the centralizing process which took the
observances of worship away from their natural soil,
spiritualized them, and gave them a stereotyped reference to
512
Jehovah's relation with Israel as a whole, and to the sacred
history. This centralization, indeed, was not the work of
the Priestly Code but of the prophets ; but in the Code
we find all its consequences fully developed, while even in
Deuteronomy the prdcess is still quite in an early stage.
Jewish practice after the exile is guided by the Priestly
Code, not in every detail, but quite unquestionably in its
main features. In the time of Christ no one thought of
any other kind of Passover than that prescribed in the
Code ; the paschal lamb had obliterated all recollection of
the sacrifice of the firstlings.
The conclusions which we have reached by comparing
the successive strata of the laws are confirmed by a com
parison of the several stages of the historical tradition
embodied in the Pentateuch. The several threads of nar
rative which run side by side in the Pentateuch are so
distinct in point of form that critics were long disposed to
assume that in point of substance also they are independ
ent narratives, without mutual relation. This, however,
is highly improbable on general considerations, and is seen
to be quite impossible when regard is paid to the close
correspondence of the several sources in regard to the
arrangement of the historical matter they contain. It is
because the arrangement is so similar in all the narratives
that it was possible to weave them together into one book ;
and besides this we find a close agreement in many notable
points of detail. Here too analysis does not exhaust the
task of the critic ; a subsequent synthesis is required.
When he has separated out the individual documents the
critic has still to examine their mutual relations, to com
prehend them as phases in a living process, and in this
way to trace the gradual development of the Hebrew
historical tradition. In the present article, however, we
cannot say anything of the way in which the Deuteronomist
views the Hebrew history, nor shall we attempt to char
acterize the differences between the two sources of the
Jehovist, but limit ourselves to a general comparison be
tween the Jehovistic narrative and that of the Priestly
Code.
Narra- Bleek and his school viewed it as a great merit of the
lives of latter narrative that it strictly observes the difference
Jehovist between various ages, mixes nothing Mosaic with the
Priestly patriarchal period, and in the Mosaic history never forgets
Code con- that the scene lies in the wilderness of wandering. They
trasted. also took it as a mark of fidelity to authentic sources that
the Code contains so many dry lists, such a mass of un
important numbers and names, such exact technical
descriptions of details which could have no interest for
posterity. Against this view Colenso, in the first part of
his Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined
(Lond., 1862), proved that just those parts of the Hexa-
teuch which contain the most precise details, and so have
the air of authentic documents, are least consistent with
the laws of possibility. Colenso, Avhen he wrote, had no
thought of the several sources of the Hexateuch, but this
only makes it the more remarkable that his criticisms
mainly affect the Priestly Code. Noldeke followed Colenso
with clearer insight, and determined the character and
value of the priestly narrative by tracing all through it
an artificial construction and a fictitious character. In
fact the supposed marks of historical accuracy and depend
ence on authentic records are quite out of place in such a
narrative as that of the Pentateuch, the substance of
which is not historical but legendary. This legendary
character is always manifest both in the form and in the
substance of the narrative of the Jehovist ; his stories of
the patriarchs and of Moses are just such as might have been
gathered from popular tradition. With him the general
plan of the history is still quite loose ; the individual stories
are the important thing, and they have a truly living
individuality. They have always a local connexion, and
we can still often see what motives lie at the root of them ;
but even when we do not understand these legends they
lose none of their charm ; for they breathe a sweet poetic
fragrance, and in them heaven and earth are magically
blended into one. The Priestly Code, on the other'hand,
dwells as little as possible on the details of the several
stories ; the pearls are stripped off in order that the thread
on which they were strung may be properly seen. Love
and hate and all the passions, angels, miracles, and theo-
phanies, local and historical allusions, disappear ; the old
narrative shrivels into a sort of genealogical scheme, — a
bare scaffolding to support a pragmatic construction of the
connexion and progress of the sacred history. But in
legendary narrative connexion is a very secondary matter ;
indeed it is only brought in when the several legends are
'collected and written down. When, therefore, the Priestly
Code makes the connexion the chief thing, it is clear that
it has lost all touch of the original sources and starting-
points of the legends. It does not, therefore, draw from
oral tradition but from books ; its dry excerpts can have
no other source than a tradition already fixed in writing.
In point of fact it simply draws on the Jehovistic narrative.
The order in which that narrative disposed the popular
legends is here made the essential thing ; the arrange
ment, which in the Jehovist was still quite subordinate to
the details, is here brought into the foreground ; the
old order of events is strictly adhered to, but is so em
phasized as to become the one important thing in the
history. It obviously was the intention of the priestly
narrator to give by this treatment the historical quint
essence of his materials, freed of all superfluous additions.
At the same time, he has used all means to dress up the
old naive traditions into a learned history. Sorely against
its real character, he forces it into a chronological system,
which he carries through without a break from Adam to
Joshua. Whenever he can he patches the story with
things that have the air of authoritative documents, great
lists of subjects without predicates, of numbers and names
which could never have been handed down orally without
being put in writing, and introduces a spurious air of
learned research in the most unsuitable places. Finally,
he rationalizes the history after the standard of his own
religious ideas and general culture ; above all, he shapes it
so that it forms a framework, and at the same time a
gradual preparation for the Mosaic law. With the spirit
of the legend, in which the Jehovist still lives, he has
nothing in common, and so he forces it into conformity
with a point of view entirely different from its own.
The greater part of the narratives of the Pentateuch cannot he
measured by an historical standard ; but within certain limits that
standard can be applied to the epical age of Moses and Joshua.
Thus we can apply historical criticism to the several versions of
the way in which the tribes of Israel got possession of the land of
Canaan. The priestly narrator represents all Canaan as reduced
to a tabula rasa, and then makes the masterless and unpeopled
land be divided by lot. The first lot falls to Judah, then come
Manasseh and Ephraim, then Benjamin and Simeon, and lastly
the five northerly tribes, Zebnlon, Issachar, Ashcr, Naphtali, Dan.
" These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest and Joshua
the son of Nun and the heads of the tribes of Israel apportioned
by lot at Shiloh before Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle."
According to the Jehovist (Josh. xiv. 6) Judah and Joseph seem
to have had their portions assigned to them while the Israelite
headquarters were still at Gilgal — but not by lot — and to have
gone forth from Gilgal to take possession of them. A good deal
later the rest of the land was divided by lot to the remaining tribes
at Shiloh, or perhaps, in the original form of the narrative, at
Shechem (Josh, xviii. 2-10) ; Joshua casts the lots and makes the
assignments alone, Kleazar is not associated with him. The abso
lute uniformity in the method of the division of the land to all
the tribes is in some degree given up in this account ; it is still
more stnmgly contradicted by the important chapter, Judges i.
Fragments of this chapter are found also in the book of Joshua, and
there is no doubt that it belongs to the Jehovistic group of narra-
PENTATEUCH
513
tives, in common with which it speaks of the Angel of Jehovah.
It is in truth not a continuation of but a parallel to the book of
Joshua, presupposing the conquest of the lands east of the Jordan,
but not of western Canaan. The latter conquest is what it relates,
and in a way quite different from the book of Joshua. From
Gilgal, where the Angel of Jehovah first set up his camp, the tribes
go forth singly each to conquer a land for itself, Judah going first
and Joseph following. It is only of the movements of these two
tribes that we have a regular narrative, and for Joseph this is
limited to the first beginnings of his conquests. There is no men
tion of Joshua ; a commander-in-chief of all Israel would indeed
be out of place in this record of the conquest, but Joshua might
have appeared in it as commander of his own tribe. The incom
pleteness of the conquest is frankly admitted ; the Canaanites con
tinued to hold undisturbed the cities of the plain, and it was only
in the time of the kingship, when Israel was waxen strong, that
they became subject and tributary. From all that we know of the
subsequent history there can be no doubt that this account of the
conquest is vastly nearer to the facts than that which prevails in
the book of Joshua, where everything is done with systematic
completeness, and the whole land dispeopled and then divided by
lot. This latter and less historical view is most consistently carried
through in the priestly narrative, which accordingly must be the
narrative most remote from the origin of the Hebrew tradition.
The same conclusion may be drawn from the fact that the priestly
writer never names the tribe of Joseph, but always the two tribes
of Ephraim and Manasseh, which, moreover, do not receive nearly
so much notice as Judah, although Joshua, the leader of Ephraim,
is retained in the character of leader of all Israel from an old and
originally Ephraitic tradition.
u -o- The middle position which the legal part of Deuteronomy
ID holds between the Jehovist and the Priestly Code is also
characteristic of the Deuteronomic narrative, which is
founded throughout on the narrative of the Jehovist, but
from time to time shows a certain leaning to the points of
view characteristic of the priestly narrator. The order of
the several parts of the Hexateuch to which we have been
led by all these arguments is confirmed by an examination
of the other historical books and the books of Chronicles.
The original sources of the books of Judges, Samuel, and
Kings stand on the same platform with the Jehovist ; the
editing they received in the exile presupposes Deuteronomy;
and the latest construction of the history as contained in
Chronicles rests on the Priestly Code. This is admitted
and need not be proved in detail ; the conclusion to be
drawn is obvious.
We have now indicated the chief lines on which criticism
must proceed in determining the order of the sources of
the Hexateuch, and the age of the Priestly Code in parti
cular, — though, of course, it has not been possible at all to
exhaust the argument. The objections that have been
taken to Graf's hypothesis partly rest on misunder
standing. It is asked, for example, what is left for Moses
ie if he was not the author of the Torah. But Moses may
tl(1- have been the founder of the Torah though the Penta-
teuchal legislation was codified almost a thousand years
)r _ later ; for the Torah was originally not a written law but the
oral decisions of the priests at the sanctuary — case-law, in
short, by which they decided all manner of questions and
controversies that were brought before their tribunal ;
their Torah was the instruction to others that came from
their lips, not at all a written document in their hands
guaranteeing their own status, and instructing themselves
how to proceed in the sacrificial ritual. Questions of
clean and unclean belonged to the Torah, because these
were matters on which the laity required to be directed ;
but, speaking generally, the ritual, so far as it consisted in
ceremonies performed by the priests themselves, was no
part of the Torah. But, while it was only at a late date
that the ritual appeared as Torah as it does in the Priestly
Code, its usages and traditions are exceedingly ancient,
going back, in fact, to pre-Mosaic and heathenish times.
It is absurd to speak as if Graf's hypothesis meant that
the whole ritual is the invention of the Priestly Code, first
put into practice after the exile ; all that is affirmed by
the advocates of that hypothesis is that in earlier times
the ritual was not the substructure of an hierocracy, that
there was in fact no hierocracy before the exile, but that
Jehovah's sovereignty was an ideal thing and not visibly
embodied in an organization of the commonwealth under
the forms of a specifically spiritual power. The theocracy
was the state ; the old Israelites regarded their civil con
stitution as a divine miracle. The later Jews assumed
the existence of the state as a natural thing that required
no explanation, and built the theocracy over it as a special
divine institution.
There are, however, some more serious objections taken
to the Grafian hypothesis. It is, indeed, simply a mis-
statement of facts to say that the language of the Priestly
Code forbids us to date it so late as post -exilic times.
On the other hand, a real difficulty lies in the fact that, Diffi-
while the priestly redaction extends to Deuteronomy (Deut. culties of
i. 3), it is also true that the Deuteronomic redaction prafian
extends to the Priestly Code (Josh. xx.). The way out of thesis,
this dilemma is to be found by recognizing that the so-
called Deuteronomic redaction was not a single and final
act, that the characteristic phrases of Deuteronomy became
household words to subsequent generations, and were still
current and found application centuries after the time of
Josiah. Thus, for example, the traces of Deuteronomic
redaction in Josh. xx. are still lacking in the Septuagint ;
the canonical text, we see, was retouched at a very late
date indeed. Of the other objections taken to the Grafian
hypothesis only one need be mentioned here, viz., that the
Persians are not named in the list of nations in Gen. x.
This is certainly hard to understand if the passage was
written in the Persian period. But the difficulty is not
insuperable ; the Persians, for example, may have been
held to be included in the mention of the Medians, and
this also would give the list the archaic air which the
priestly writer affects. At any rate, a residue of minute
difficulties not yet thoroughly explained cannot outweigh
the decisive arguments that support the view that the
Priestly Code originated in and after the exile. Kuenen
observes with justice that "it is absolutely necessary to start
with the plain and unambiguous facts, and to allow them
to guide our judgment on questionable points. The study
of details is not superfluous in laying down the main lines
of the critical construction, but, as soon as our studies
have supplied us with some really fixed points, further pro
gress must proceed from them, and we must first gain a
general view of the whole field instead of always working
away at details, and then coming out with a rounded
theory which lacks nothing but a foundation."
Finally, it is a pure petitio principii, and nothing more,
to say that the post-exilic age was not equal to the task
of producing a work like the Priestly Code. The posi
tion of the Jews after the exile made it imperative on
them to reorganize themselves in conformity with the
entire change in their situation, and the Priestly Code
corresponds to all that we should expect to find in a consti
tution for the Jews after the exile as completely as it fails
to correspond with the conditions which a law-book older
than the exile would have had to satisfy. After the final
destruction of the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar, they found
in the ritual and personnel of the temple at Jerusalem
the elements out of which a new commonwealth could be
built, in conformity with the circumstances and needs of
the time. The community of Judaea raised itself from
the dust by holding on to its ruined sanctuary. The old
usages and ordinances were reshaped in detail, but as a
whole they were not replaced by new creations ; the novelty
lay in their being worked into a system and applied as
a means to organize the " remnant " of Israel. This was
the origin of the sacred constitution of Judaism. Religion
XVIII. — 65
514
P E N — P E N
in old Israel had been a faith which gave its support to
the natural ordinances of human society ; it was now set
forth in external and visible form as a special institution,
within an artificial sphere peculiar to itself, which rose far
above the level of common life. The necessary presup
position of this kind of theocracy is service to a foreign
empire, and so the theocracy is essentially the same thing
as hierocracy. Its finished picture is drawn in the Priestly
Composi- Code, the product of the labours of learned priests during
tion ami tne exile. When the temple was destroyed and the ritual
introduc- interrupted, the old practices were written down that they
Priestly might not be lost. Thus in the exile the ritual became
Code. matter of teaching, of Torah ; the first who took this step,
a step prescribed by the circumstances of the time, was
the priest and prophet Ezekiel. In the last part of his
book Ezekiel began the literary record of the customary
ritual of the temple; other priests followed in his footsteps
(Lev. xvii.-xxvi.) ; and so there arose during the captivity
a school of men who wrote down and systematized what
they had formerly practised. When the temple was restored
this theocratic zeal still went on and produced further
ritual developments, in action and reaction with the actual
practice of the new temple ; the final result of the long-
continued process was the Priestly Code.
This Code, incorporated in the Pentateuch and forming
the normative part of its legislation, became the definitive
Mosaic law. As such it was published and put in action
in 444 B.C. by the Babylonian priest and scribe Ezra.
Ezra had come to Jerusalem as early as 458, at the head
of a considerable body of zealous Jews, with full authority
from Artaxerxes Longimanus to reform the community of
the second temple in accordance with the law of God in
his hand. But Ezra did not introduce this law imme
diately on his arrival ; it took him fourteen years to effect
his purpose. The external circumstances of the young
community, which were exceedingly unfavourable, made it
at first undesirable to introduce legislative innovations ;
perhaps, also, Ezra needed time to correct the product of
Babylonian learning by the light of Judagan practice, and
wished, moreover, to train assistants for his task. The
chief reason of the delay seems, however, to have been
that, in spite of the royal favour, he could not get any
energetic support from the local representatives of the
Persian Government, and without this he could not have
given authority to his new law. But in 445 a kindred
spirit, Nehemiah b. Hakkeleiah, came to Jerusalem as
Persian governor of Judaea. Ezra's opportunity had now
arrived, and he was able to introduce the Pentateuch in
agreement with the governor. The record of this step is
contained in Neh. viii.-x. ; it is closely analogous to the
narrative of the introduction of the Deuteronomic law
under Josiah in 2 Kings xxii. Just as we are told there
that Deuteronomy became known in 621 B.C., having been
unknown previously, so we are told here that the Torah
in the rest of the Pentateuch became known in 444, and
was unknown till that date. This shows us, in the first
place, that Deuteronomy contains an earlier stage of the
law than the priestly Torah. And further, as the date of
Deuteronomy can be inferred from the date of its publi
cation and introduction under Josiah, so in like manner
the date of the composition of the Priestly Code can be
inferred from its publication and enforcement by Ezra
and Nehemiah.
The establishment of the right date for the written law
is of the highest importance for our understanding of the
prophets, and for our whole conception of the history of
Israel. See the articles ISRAEL arid PROPHET, (j. WE.)
PENTECOST, a feast of the Jews, was in its original
meaning, as has been explained in PENTATEUCH (supra,
p. 511), the closing feast of the harvest gladness, at which,
according to Lev. xxiii. 17, leavened bread was presented
at the sanctuary as the firstfruits of the new cereal store.
Hence the names "Feast of Harvest" (Exod. xxiii. 16),
" Day of Firstfruits " (Num. xxviii. 26) ; but the com
moner Old Testament name (Exod. xxxiv. 22 ; Deut. xvi.
10, 16 ; 2 Chron. viii. 13) is " Feast of Weeks," because it
fell exactly seven weeks (Deut. xvi. 9), or, on the Jewish
way of reckoning an interval by counting in both termini,
just fifty days (Lev. xxiii. 16) after the offering of the
first sheaf of the harvest at the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Pentecost or " Fiftieth " day is only a Greek equivalent of
the last name (Trevr^Koo-r?; in the Apocrypha and New
Testament). The orthodox later Jews reckoned the fifty
days from the sixteenth of Nisan, cutting the ritual sheaf
on the night of (that is, on our division of days, the night
preceding) that day (see PASSOVER). In Deuteronomy
Pentecost, like the other two great annual feasts, is a pil
grimage feast (Deut. xvi. 16), and so it was observed in
later times ; but, unlike the others, it lasts but one day,
agreeably to its character (expressed in the name rnvy,
'AcrapOd, given to it by Josephus and the later Jews) as
merely the solemn closing day of harvest-time. Like the
other great feasts, it came to be celebrated by fixed special
sacrifices. The amount of these is differently expressed
in the earlier and later priestly law (Lev. xxiii. 18 sq. ;
Num. xxviii. 26 sq.) ; the discrepancy was met by adding
the two lists. The later Jews also extended the one day
of the feast to two. Further, in accordance with the tend
ency to substitute historical for economic explanations
of the great feasts, Pentecost came to be regarded as the
feast commemorative of the Sinaitic legislation.
To the Christian church Pentecost acquired a new sig
nificance through the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts ii.).
See WHITSUNDAY.
PENZA, a government of eastern Russia, bounded on
the N. by Nijni Novgorod, on the E. by Simbirsk, and
on the S. and W. by Saratoff and Tamboff, and having an
area of 15,000 square miles. The surface is undulating,
with deep valleys and ravines, but even in its highest parts
it does not reach more than 600 to 900 feet above sea-
level. It is chiefly made up of Cretaceous sandstones,
sands, marls, and chalk, covered in the 'east by Eocene
deposits. Chalk, potter's clay, peat, and iron are the chief
mineral products, in the north. The soil is a black earth,
more or less mixed with clay and sand ; the only marshes
of any extent occur in the Krasnoslobodsk district ; and
considerable sand-areas appear in the broad valleys of the
larger rivers. There are extensive forests in the north,
but the south shows the characteristic features of a steppe-
land. The government is watered by the Moksha, the
Sura (both navigable), and the Khoper, belonging respect
ively to the Oka, Volga, and Don systems. Timber is
floated down several smaller streams, while the Moksha
and Sura are important means of conveyance for grain,
spirits, timber, metals, and oils. The climate is harsh and
continental, the average temperature at Penza being
only 39°-8 (12°'2 in January and 68°'5 in July).
The population — 1,356,600 in 1881, and in 1884 estimated at
about 1,465,000 — consists principally of Russians, mixed to some
extent with Mordvinians ; there are also about 150,000 Mordvinians
who are to a large extent Russified ; some 40,000 Meschoryaks, who
have undergone the same process still more fully; and 60,000
Tatars, who still keep their own religion, language, and customs.
The Russians profess the Greek faith, and very many, especially in
the north, are Raskolniks. Somewhat less than 10 per cent, of the
population (133,250 in 1881) live in towns ; the chief occupation of
the inhabitants is agriculture, 61 per cent, of the soil being arable.
Wheat and millet are raised only to a limited extent, the chief
crops being rye, oats, buckwheat, hemp, potatoes, and beetroot. The
averages for 1870-77 were 3,900,000 quarters of corn and 1,779,200
bushels of potatoes. The chief centres of corn export are Penxa,
Narovtchat, and Golovinshtchina. Market-gardening is successfully
T> TT \T
1: Hj IN -
carried on in several districts, and improved varieties of fruit-trees
are being introduced through the imperial botanical garden at Penza
and a private school of gardening in the Gorodishtche district.
Fourteen per cent, of the area is under meadows or grazing land; and
in 1881 there were within the government 244,000 head of cattle,
383,000 horses, and 235,000 pigs. Sheep-breeding is especially
developed in Tchembar and Insar (670,000 sheep, including 72,000
of finer breeds, in 1881). The Mordvinians are very partial to bee
keeping. The forests (620,000 acres) are a considerable source of
wealth, especially in Krasnoslobodsk and Gorodishtche, whence
timber, a variety of wooden wares, and also pitch and tar are ex
ported to the south. As many as 30 per cent, of the adult male
population leave the government in search of employment, either
on the Volga or in southern Russia. •
The manufactures are few, employing only 13,300 hands.
The yearly returns in 1879 did not exceed 13,325,000 roubles
(£1,332,500). The distilleries come first (£973,200), followed by the
woollen cloth industry (£237,000), the paper industry (£37,200),
tanneries, soap-works, glass-works, machine-works, iron-works, and
beetroot-sugar factories. Trade, which has been favoured by the
completion of the railway from Tula to Samara, is still limited
to the export of corn, spirits, timber, hemp-seed oil, tallow, hides,
honey, wax, some woollen cloth, potash, and cattle, the chief
centres for trade being Penza, Nijni Lomoff, Mokshan, Saransk,
Krasnoslobodsk, and Golovinshtchina.
The government is divided into ten districts, the chief towns of
which are:— Penza (41,650), Gorodishtche (3200), Insar (5230),
Kerensk (12,450), Krasnoslobodsk (7000), Mokshan (13,050),
Narovtchat (5150), Nijni Lomoff (10,500), Saransk (13,450), and
Tchembar (5320). Troitsk (5700), Verkhnii Lomoff (7300), and
Sheshkeeff (3500) also have municipal institutions.
The present government of Penza was formerly inhabited by
Mordvinians, who had the Mescheryaks in the west, the Bulgars in
the north, and the Burtases in the south. In the 13th century
these populations fell under the dominion of the Tatars, with whom
they fought against Moscow. As early as the 14th century they
possessed the town of Narovtchat. The Russians penetrated into
the country in the 16th century, founding the town of Mokshan in
1535, and several others in the course of that and the following
centuries. Penza was founded in the beginning of the 1 7th century,
the permanent Russian settlement dating as far back as 1666. Its
wooden fort, on the site of the present cathedral of the Saviour,
protected the neighbourhood against risings of the Mordvinians
and Mescheryaks. In 1776 it was taken by Pugatcheff. The town
was almost totally destroyed by the great conflagrations of 1836,
1839, and 1858.
PENZA, capital of the above province, is situated 440
miles by rail south-east from Moscow. It is mostly built
of wood, on the slopes of a plateau 730 feet above the sea,
at the confluence of the little Penza with the navigable
Sura. The Spasopreobrajensky cathedral was built in
the end of the 17th century, the monastery of the same
name, which formerly adjoined it, being now in the suburbs.
A few educational and philanthropic institutions, a theatre
which has played some part in the history of the Russian
stage, and a municipal bank are the chief buildings of
Penza, which derives its importance chiefly from its being
the seat of the provincial authorities and the see of a
bishop. The great bulk of the inhabitants are peasants,
who support themselves by agriculture or fishing in the
Sura, some artisans, and a few merchants. An imperial
botanical garden is situated within 2 miles of the town.
Apart from a paper-mill and two steam flour-mills, the
manufacturing establishments (producing soap, candles,
wax-candles, cosmetics, machinery), distilleries, breweries,
and saw-mills are small. Trade in corn, oil, tallow, and
spirits is on the increase. There are two fairs where cattle
and horses are sold for export, grocery and manufactured
wares being the corresponding imports. The population
in 1881 had reached 41,650.
PENZANCE, a seaport and municipal borough of Corn
wall, and the westernmost borough of England, is finely
situated on gently rising ground on the north-western
shore of Mount Bay, at the terminus of the Great Western
Railway, 10 miles east-north-east of Land's End and 20
west-south-west of Truro. It is the nearest port to the
Scilly Isles, which are about 40 miles distant to the west-
south-west. The market-place is in the centre of the town,
and near it the four principal streets intersect each other at
P E O
515
right angles. The southern arm of the pier was built in
1772, the Albert or new pier on the east in 1845. The
piers are connected by a wharf, viaduct, and swing-bridge
(1882); and a dock is being at present constructed at a
cost of £60,000, which will extend to about 3 acres. The
limits of the port have lately (1884) been extended. The
churches are St Mary's, constructed of cut granite, in the
Perpendicular style, with lofty pinnacled tower and peal
of eight bells ; St Paul's, of cut and rubble granite, in the
style of the 13th century (1843) ; and St John's, of stone,
Early English (1881). The public buildings, erected of
granite in the Italian style in 1867, include the town-hall
and council-chambers, St John's Hall for public meetings,
the lecture -hall, the public library (upwards of 16,000
volumes), the news-rooms, the masonic hall, the museum
of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society,
and the museum and other rooms of the Geological Society
of Cornwall. The market-house (1837), in the Grecian
style, with a central dome, includes a meat-market on the
ground-floor with a corn-market above, and in the east end
of the building is the grammar-school, founded in 1789.
In front of the east end is a marble statue of Davy.
Somewhat east of the market-house are the post and tele
graph offices, completed in 1883. Among the benevolent
institutions is the West Cornwall Infirmary (1874), which
includes the dispensary (1809). The town has a con
siderable shipping trade, the total number of vessels which
entered the port in 1882 being 1829 of 197,933 tons
burden, the number which cleared 1774 of 187,569 tons.
The exports include tin, copper, granite, serpentine, and
fish, and the imports coal, timber, and provisions. Large
quantities of pilchard are annually exported to Italy.
Fruits, flowers, and vegetables are grown in the neighbour
hood for the London market. On account of its sheltered
situation and its remarkably mild and equable climate, the
town has a high repute as a winter residence for persons
suffering from pulmonary complaints ; and on account of
its fine scenery it is also becoming a favourite watering-
place. The population of the municipal borough in 1871
was 10,414, and in 1881 it was 12,409.
Penzance is said to mean "holy head," the name being derived
from a chapel dedicated to St Anthony, formerly situated on a head
land now forming the base of the old pier, around which a few
fishermen built their huts and thus originated the town. A castle
built by the Tyes, possessors of the manor of Alwarton or Alverton,
is supposed to have occupied the present site of St Mary's Church.
Alice de Lisle, sister and heiress of the last Baron Tyes, obtained
for the town the grant of a weekly market from Edward III. In
the 15th century Penzance was known as a "place of ships and
merchandise ;" and on the 16th March 1512 it received from Henry
VIII. a charter granting to the inhabitants all profits arising from
ships visiting the harbour upon condition that the quays and bul
warks of the town were kept in repair. In 1595 the town was
burned and pillaged by the Spaniards, and in 1644 sacked by
Fairfax. In 1614 it was incorporated by James I. ; and in 1663 it
obtained a coinage charter, — a privilege it retained till 1838. On
account of the usurpation of its chief magistrate its municipal
charter was forfeited in the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne,
but was restored in 1706. By the Municipal Act of 1835 the govern
ment was made to consist of a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen
councillors.
Lach-Szyrma, History ofPe.nzancf, 1878 ; Millett, Penzance Past and Present,
1876-1880.
PEONY. See P.EOXY.
PEORIA, a city of the United States, capital of Peoria
county, Illinois, lies on the edge of a rolling prairie at
the lower end of the so-called Lake Peoria, an expansion
of the Illinois river, and is connected by the Michigan
Canal with Chicago. It is a flourishing place, the meeting-
point of nine railway lines, the trading centre for an exten
sive district, and the seat of a large grain traffic and of
various manufactures ; 117,158,670 proof gallons of high
wines were made in 1883. From 5095 in 1850 its popu
lation increased to 14,045 in 1860, 22,849 in 1870, and
29,259 in 1880. Though its permanent settlement dates
516
P E P — P E P
only from 1811 and its city charter from 1844, Peoria was
one of the trading ports established by La Salle (1680),
and was long known as a point of some importance on the
route between Canada and Louisiana.
PEPPER, a name applied to several pungent spices
known respectively as Black, White, Long, Red or Cayenne,
Ashantee, Jamaica, and Melegueta Pepper, but derived
from at least three different natural orders of plants.
Black pepper is the dried fruit of Piper niyrttm, L., a
perennial climbing shrub indigenous to the forests of
Travancore and Malabar, from whence it has been intro
duced into Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula,
Slam, the Philippines, and the West Indies. It is one of
the earliest spices known to mankind, and for many ages
formed a staple article of commerce between India and
Europe, — Venice, Genoa, and the commercial cities of cen
tral Europe being indebted to it for a large portion of their
wealth. Tribute has been levied in pepper ; one of the
articles demanded in 408 by Alaric as part of the ransom
of Rome was 3000 It) of pepper. Pepper-corn rents pre
vailed during the Middle Ages, and consisted of an obliga
tion to supply a certain quantity of pepper, usually 1 ft>,
at stated times ; and the term still lingers in use at the
present day. The
price of the spice
during the Middle
Ages was exorbi
tantly high, and
its excessive cost
was one of the in
ducements which
led the Portu
guese to seek a
sea-route to India.
The discovery of
the passage round
the Cape of Good
Hope led (1498)
to a considerable
fall in the price,
and about the
same time the
cultivation of the
plant was extend
ed to the western
islands of the Ma
lay Archipelago.
Pepper, however,
remained a monopoly of the Portuguese crown as late
as the 18th century. In Great Britain it was formerly
taxed very heavily, the impost in 1623 amounting to 5s.,
and as late as 1823 to 2s. 6d. per Ib.
The largest quantities of pepper are produced in Penang,
the island of Rhio, and Johore near Singapore, — Penang
affording on an average about half of the entire crop.
Singapore is the great emporium for this spice in the East,
the largest proportion being shipped thence to Great
Britain. In 1880 the imports into England from Singa
pore amounted to 21,179,059 ft>, valued at £385,108,
and from other countries 559,909 Ib, valued at £12,979,
the re-exports being 12,925,886 Ib, chiefly to Germany,
Italy, Russia. Holland, and Spain. The varieties of black
pepper met with in commerce are known as Malabar,
Aleppy or Tellicherry, Cochin, Penang, Singapore, and
Siam. The average market value in the London market
is — Malabar, 3.',d to 5id per tt> ; Penang, 2|d to 4|d;
Singapore, 3£d to 4|d.
Pepper owes its pungency to a resin, and its flavour to a
volatile oil, of which it yields from 1*6 to 2'2 per cent. The
oil agrees with oil of turpentine in composition as well as
Piper nigrum. a, Twig with fruit; 6, longitudinal
section of flower ; c, section of fruit.
in specific gravity and boiling point. In polarized light
it deviates the ray, in a column 50 mm. long, 10>2 to 30g4
to the left. Pepper also contains a neutral crystalline
substance, called piperin, to the extent of 2 to 8 per cent.
This substance has the same empirical formula as morphia,
C^Hj^NOy, but differs in constitution and properties. It
is insoluble in water when pure, is devoid of colour, flavour,
and odour, and may be resolved into piperic acid, C10H10O4,
and piperidin, C5HnN. The latter is a liquid colourless
alkaloid, boiling at 106° C., has an odour of pepper and
ammonia, and yields crystallizable salts. A fatty oil is
found in the pericarp of pepper, and the berries yield on
incineration from 4'1 to 5'7 of ash. The only use of pepper
is as a condiment. Notwithstanding its low price and
the penalty of ,£100 to which the manufacturer, possessor,
or seller of the adulterated article is liable, powdered
pepper is frequently diluted with starch, sago, meal, and
other substances, which can be readily detected under the
microscope.1
In the south-west of India, where the pepper-plant grows wild,
it is found in rich, moist, leafy soil, in narrow valleys, propagating
itself by running along the ground and giving off roots into the
soil. The only method of cultivation adopted by the natives is to
tie up the end of the vines to the neighbouring trees at distances '
of at least 6 feet, especially to those having a rough bark, in order
that the roots may easily attach themselves to the surface. The
underwood is then cleared away, leaving only sufficient trees to
provide shade and permit free ventilation. The roots are manured
with a heap of leaves, and the shoots are trained twice a year. In
localities where the pepper does not grow wild, ground is selected
which permits of free drainage, but which is not too dry nor liable
to inundation, and cuttings are planted at about a foot from the
trees either in the rainy season in June or in the dry season in
February. Sometimes several cuttings about 18 inches long are
placed in a basket and buried at the root of the tree, the cuttings
being made to slope towards the trunk. In October or November
the young plants are manured with a mixture of leaves and cow-
dung. On dry soils the young plants require watering every other
day during the dry season for the first three years. The plants
bear in the fourth or fifth year, and if raised from cuttings are
fruitful for seven years, if from seed for fourteen years. The pepper
from plants raised from cuttings is said to be superior in quantity
and quality, and this method is in consequence most frequently
adopted. Where there are no trees the ground is made into terraces
and enclosed by a mud-wall, and brandies of Erythrina indica are
put into the ground in the rainy season and in the course of a year
are capable of supporting the young pepper plants. In the mean
time mango trees are planted, these being preferred as supports,
since their fruit is not injured by the pepper plant, while the
Eri/thrina is killed by it in fourteen or fifteen years.
In Sumatra the ground is cleared, ploughed, and sown with rice,
and cuttings of the vine are planted in September 5 feet apart each
way, together with a sapling of quick growth and rough bark.
The plants are now left for twelve or eighteen months and then
entirely buried except a small piece of bent stem, whence new
shoots arise, three or four of which are allowed to climb the tree
near which they are planted. These shoots generally yield flowers
and fruits the next year. Two crops are collected every year, the
principal one being in December and January and the other in
July and August, the latter yielding pepper of inferior quality and in
less quantity. Two or three varieties are met with in cultivation ;
that yielding the best kinds has broadly ovate leaves, five to seven
in number, nerved and stalked. The flower-spikes are opposite the
leaves, stalked and from 3 to 6 inches long ; the fruits are sessile
and fleshy. A single stem will bear from twenty to thirty of these
spikes. The harvest commences as soon as one or two berries at the
base of the spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is mature,
but when full-grown and still hard ; if allowed to ripen, the berries
lose pungency, and ultimately fall off and are lost. The spikes are
collected in bags or baskets and dried in the sun, on mats or hard
ground, for two or three days. When dry the pepper is put into
bags containing from 64 to 128 Ib, and is then ready for the market.
The yield varies in different localities. In Sumatra it is estimated
at about 1^ Ib per plant per annum. In Malabar each vine gives
2 Ib a year up to the fifteenth or twentieth year, or about 24 Ib from
each tree, a single tree sometimes supporting eight or twelve vines ;
an acre is calculated to bear 2500 plants, to cost about £4 in outlay
to bring it into bearing, and to yield a produce of £80 when in its
best condition.
1 Hassall, Food and its Adulteration (1855), p. 42, and Evans,
Phurm. Joitrn., [2] i. p. 605.
P E P — P E P
517
White pepper is obtained from the same plant as the
black, and differs only in being prepared from the ripe
f mits. These, after collection, are kept in the house three
days and then bruised and washed in a basket with the
hand until the stalks and pulpy matter are removed, after
which the seeds are dried. It is, however, sometimes pre
pared from the dried black pepper by removing the dark
outer layer. It is less pungent than the black but
possesses a finer flavour. It is chiefly prepared at the
island of Rhio, but the finest comes from Tellicherry.
The Chinese are the largest consumers. In 1877 Singa
pore exported 48,461 piculs (apicul=133^ B>) to that
country. The London market value is about 4|d to 7d
per Ib. White pepper affords on an average not more than
1 • 9 per cent, of essential oil ; but, according to Cazeneuve,
as much as 9 per cent, of piperin, and of ash not more than
1-1 per cent.
Long pepper is the fruit-spike of Piper officinarum,C.DC.,
and P. Ion-gum, L., gathered shortly before it reaches
maturity and dried. The former is a native of the Indian
Archipelago, occurring in Java, Sumatra, Celebes, and
Timor. It has oblong, ovate, acuminate leaves, attenuated
to the base, which are pinnate and veined. The latter is
indigenous to Ceylon, Malabar, eastern Bengal, Timor, and
the Philippines ; it is distinguished from P. officinarum
by the leaves being cordate at the base and five-veined.
Long pepper appears to have been known to the ancient
Greeks and Romans under the name of ire-n-epi /j.aKp6v ; and
in the 10th century mention is made of long pepper, or
macropiper, in conjunction with black and white peppers.
The spice consists of a dense spike of minute baccate
fruits closely packed around the central axis, the spike
being about 1| inch long and \ inch thick ; as met with in
commerce they have the appearance of having been limed.
In Bengal the plants are cultivated by suckers, which
are planted about 5 feet apart on dry rich soil on high
ground. An English acre will yield about 3 maunds (80
ft) the first year, 12 the second, and 18 the third year;
after this time the yield decreases, and the roots are there
fore grubbed up and sold as pipli mid, under which name
they are much used as a medicine in India. After the
fruit is collected, which is usually in January, the stem
and leaves die down to the ground. Long pepper contains
piperin, resin, and volatile oil, and yields about 8 per cent,
of ash. Penang and Singapore are the principal centres
in the East for its sale. In 1871 Singapore shipped 3366
cwt., of which 447 were sent to Great Britain. Penang
exports annually about 2000 to 3000 piculs. The value
in the London market is from 37s. to 45s. a cwt.
Askant ee or West African pepper is the dried fruit of
Piper Clusii, C. DC., a plant widely distributed in tropical
Africa, occurring most abundantly in the country of the
Niam-niam. It differs from black pepper in being rather
smaller, less wrinkled, and in being attenuated into a stalk,
like cubebs, to which it bears considerable resemblance ex
ternally. The taste, however, is pungent, exactly like that
of pepper, and the fruit contains piperin. It was imported
from the Grain Coast by the merchants of Rouen and
Dieppe as early as 1364, and was exported from Benin by
the Portuguese in 1485 ; but, according to Clusius, its
importation was forbidden by the king of Portugal for f ear
it should depreciate the value of the pepper from India.
In tropical Africa it is extensively used as a condiment,
and it could easily be collected in large quantities if a
demand for it should arise.
Jamaica pepper is the fruit of Pimento, officinalis, Lindl.,
an evergreen tree of the Myrtle family. It is more correctly
termed " pimento," or " allspice," as it is not a true pepper.
Melegueta pepper, known also as " Guinea grains,"
"grains of paradise," or "alligator pepper," is the seed of
Amomum Melegueta, Roscoe, a plant of the Ginger family;
the seeds are exceedingly pungent, and are used as a spice
throughout central and northern Africa. See vol. vi. p. 36.
For Cayenne pepper, see vol. v. p. 280. (E. M. H.)
PEPPERMINT, an indigenous perennial herb of the
natural order Labiate, and genus Mentha, the specific
name being Mentha Piperita, Huds., is distinguished from
other species of the genus by its stalked leaves and oblong-
obtuse spike-like heads of flowers. It is met with, near
streams and in wet places, in several parts of England and
on the Continent, and is also extensively cultivated for
the sake of its essential oil in England,1 in several parts
of continental Europe, and in the United States. Yet it
was only recognized as a distinct species late in the 17th
century, when Dr Eales discovered it in Hertfordshire
and pointed it out to Ray, who published it in the second
edition of his Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarwn (1696).
The medicinal properties of the plant were speedily recog
nized, and it was admitted into the London Pharmacopoeia
in 1721, under the name of Mentha piperitis sapor e.
Two varieties are recognized by growers, the one being
known as white and the other as black mint. The former
has purplish and
the latter green
stems ; the leaves
are more coarsely
serrated in the
white. The black
is the variety more
generally culti
vated, probably
because it is found
to yield more oil,
but that of the
green variety is
considered to have
a more delicate
odour, and obtains
a higher price.
The green is the
kind chiefly dried
for herbalists ;
it is said to be
of less vigorous
growth than the black. The annual yield of peppermint
oil from all parts of the world has been estimated at
90,000 ft, but this is probably much below the mark,
without taking into consideration the Chinese and Japan
ese oils of peppermint, which, however, are obtained from
a different species of mint.
Peppermint oil varies considerably in commercial value,
that of Mitcham commanding nearly three times the price
of the finest American. The flavour varies to a slight
extent even with particular plots of land, badly drained
ground being known to give unfavourable results both as
to the quantity and quality of the oil. That of the Japan
ese and Chinese oil also differs slightly from the English,
and is thus distinguishable by experts. In America the
oil is liable to be injured in flavour by aromatic weeds
which grow freely among the crop, the most troublesome
of these being Erigeron canadense, L., and Erechthites
hieracifolia, Raf. When pure the oil is nearly colourless
and has an agreeable odour and powerful aromatic taste,
followed by a sensation of cold when air is drawn into the
mouth. It has a specific gravity of 0'S4 to 0'92, and boils
at 365° Fahr. Mitcham oil, when examined by polarized
light in a column 50 mm. long, deviates from 14° "2 to 10° "7
1 Near Mitcham in Surrey (219 acres in 1864), Wisbeach in Cam
bridgeshire, Market Deeping in Lincolnshire (150 acres in 1881), and
Hitohin in Hertfordshire.
cr
FIG. I.— Mentha Piperita. a, Flowering branch ;
I, flower showing form of calyx teeth.
518
PEPPERMINT
to the left, the American 4° '3. When oil of peppermint is
cooled to 4° C. it sometimes deposits colourless hexagonal
prisms of menthol, C10H20O, which are soluble in alcohol
and ether, almost insoluble in water, and fusible at 92°
Fahr. The liquid portion of the oil appears to consist
chiefly of the compound C10H1SO, but it has not been
thoroughly investigated. Oil of peppermint is often adul
terated with a third part of rectified spirit, which may be
detected by the milkiness produced when the oil is agitated
with water. Oil of rosemary and rectified oil of turpen
tine are sometimes used for the same purpose. If the oil
contains turpentine it will explode with iodine. If quite
pure it dissolves in its own weight of rectified spirits of
wine. Peppermint oil is
largely distilled at Canton, a
considerable quantity (about
300 catties annually) being
sent to Bombay, also about
600 catties of menthol. The
exports from Canton in 1883
amounted to about 1200 ft>.
The species cultivated in the
neighbourhood of Canton, and
probably at Shanghai also, is
Mentha arvensis, var. glabrata.
Peppermint is chiefly culti
vated in the province of
Keang-se; and according to
native statements as much as
40 piculs of oil of peppermint
are sent annually to ports on
the coast. In Japan also the
distillation of oil of pepper
mint forms a considerable
industry, the plant cultivated
being If. arvensis, var. piper- calyx showing form of teeth.
a-scens (see Ph. Journ. [3] vol. ii. p. 324), of which both a
purplish and a white form appear to be grown. The oil,
under the name of hakka no alura, is exported from Hiogo
and Ozaka, but is said to be frequently adulterated. Since
1872 the peppermint camphor or menthol has been largely
exported in the separate state from Japan to Germany and
Great Britain. The menthol is obtained by subjecting the
oil to a low temperature, when it crystallizes out and is
separated. The two varieties of M. arvensis just named
yield much more menthol than M. Piperita. It is re
markable, however, that the M. arvensis, var. javanica,
Blume, growing in Ceylon, has not the flavour of pepper
mint but that of garden mint, while the typical form of
M. arvensis grown in Great Britain has an odour so
different from peppermint that it has to be carefully re
moved from the field lest it should spoil the flavour of the
peppermint oil when the herb is distilled. M. incana,
Willd., cultivated near Bombay as a herb, also possesses
the flavour of peppermint. In the form in which menthol
is imported it bears some resemblance to Epsom salts, with
which it is said to be sometimes adulterated. It is usually
not entirely free from the essential oil, and consequently
undergoes purification and recrystallization in England
and on the Continent. The amount of menthol imported
by a large firm at Leipsic between September 1883 and
April 1884 is stated by them to have been 6380 ft, while it
is certain that at least an equal quantity is imported into
England from Yokohama. Although the Japanese pepper
mint plant has been imported by a London merchant, no
attempt has as yet been made to cultivate the plant in
order to manufacture menthol in England. Menthol is
now (1884), however, manufactured from M. Piperita in
the United States, where also J/. arvensis, var. piperascens,
is cultivated.
Oil of peppermint is used in medicine as an antispasmodic
for the relief of griping pains in the alimentary canal, to
expel flatulence, to relieve nausea, to hide the taste of
other medicines, and to act as an adjunct to purgatives.
The dose is usually from one to three minims. It forms a
most valuable remedy in diarrhrea, acting as an antiseptic,
and as a stimulant to the circulation, and as an anodyne.
The oil rubbed over the head is used in China to cure sun
stroke. Menthol has lately come largely into use as a
remedy for neuralgia, being moulded by heat into the form
of small cones, which are rubbed over the part affected.
A small portion placed on the tongue frequently relieves
headache, and catarrh and coryza if placed in the nostril.
The largest consumption of the oil is in the manufacture
of peppermint lozenges.
The following mode of cultivation is adopted by Mr Holland,
at Market Deeping. A rich friable soil, retentive of moisture, is
selected, and the ground is well tilled 8 to 10 inches deep. The
plants are propagated in the spring, usually in April and May.
When the young shoots from the crop of the previous year have
attained a height of about 4 inches they are pulled up and trans
planted into new soil. They grow vigorously the first year, and
throw out numerous stolons on the surface of the ground. After
the crop has been removed these are allowed to harden or become
woody, and then farmyard manure is scattered over the field and
ploughed in. In this way the stolons are divided into numerous
pieces, and covered with soil before the frost sets in. If the
autumn is wet they are liable to become sodden, ami rot, and the
next crop fails. In the spring the fields are dressed with Peruvian
guano. In new ground the peppermint requires hand-weeding two
or three times, as the hoe cannot be used without injury to the
plants. Moist heavy weather in August is apt to cause the foliage
to drop off and leave the steins almost bare. Under these circum
stances rust (Puccinia Alenthai) also is liable to attack the plants.
This is prevented to a certain extent by a rope being drawn across
the plants, by two men walking in the furrows, so as to remove
excessive moisture. The average yield of peppermint is about 165
cwt. per acre. The first year's crop is always cut with the sickle
to prevent injury to the stolons. The herb of the second and third
year is cut with scythes, and then raked by women into loose heaps
ready for carting. The field is then gleaned by boys, who add
what they collect to the heaps. The plants rarely yield a fourth
crop on the same land. The harvest usually commences in the
beginning or middle of August, or as soon as the plants begin to
flower, and lasts for six weeks, the stills being kept going night
and day. The herb is carted direct from the field to the stills,
which are made of copper, and contain about 5 cwt. of the herb.
Before putting the peppermint into the still water is poured in to
a depth of about 2 feet, at which height a false bottom is placed,
and on this the herb is thrown and trodden down by men. The
lid, which fits into a water-joint, is then let down by pulleys and
fastened by two bars, any excess of pressure or temperature being
indicated by the water that is ejected at the joint. The distillation
is conducted by the application of direct heat at the lowest pos
sible temperature, and is continued for about four and a half hours.
When this operation is completed, the lid is removed and a rope is
attached to a hook on the false bottom, which, as well as the herb
resting on it, is raised bodily by a windlass and the peppermint
carried away in the empty carts on their return journey to the fields,
where it is placed in heaps and allowed to rot, being subsequently
mixed with the manure applied in the autumn as above stated.
At Mitcham extra payment is given to the reapers to induce
them to keep the mint free from corn mint (Mentha arvensis) and
other herbs, which would injure or spoil the flavour of the oil if
not removed before distillation. The usual yield of oil, if the
season be warm and dry, is said to be 1 oz. from 5 Ib of the fresh
flowering herb, but, if wet and unfavourable, the product is barely
half that quantity. Mr Holland estimates the yield of a charge
of the still at from 1 Ib 12 oz. to 5 Ib. The oil improves in mellow
ness even if kept as long as ten or fourteen years. The green
colour sometimes present in the oil is stated to be due to a quantity
of water larger than necessary having been used in the distillation ;
on the other hand, if the herb be left in the still from Saturday to
Monday, the oil assumes a brown tint.
In France peppermint is cultivated on damp rich ground at Sens,
in the department of the Yonne. In Germany it i.s grown in the
neighbourhood of Leipsic, where the little town of Cblleda produces
annually as much as 40,000 cwt. of the herb. In the United
States peppermint is cultivated on a most extensive scale, chiefly
in southern Michigan, the west districts of New York State, and
Ohio. The amount of peppermint oil now produced in the United
States has been estimated at 70,000 ft annually, of which 30,000 fl>
are exported, about two-thirds of this quantity being produced in
P E P — P E P
519
New York State and the remaining one-third in Michigan. The
yield averages from 10 to 30 fb per acre. The cultivation of pepper
mint has recently been extended to the southern States. In Michi
gan the plant was introduced in 1855, and in 1858 there were about
'2100 acres under cultivation, and 100 distilleries yielding 15,000 ft>
of oil. In 1870 one of the best-known growers of New York State
is said to have sent out as much as 57,365 lb. In 1876 the United
States exported to Hamburg 25,840 R> of peppermint oil against
14,890 ft sent by Great Britain to the same port. (E. M. H.)
PEPPER TREE. The tree usually so called has no
real consanguinity Avith the true pepper (Piper'), but is a
member of the Anacard family known botanically as
Schinus Molle or Mulli, the latter epithet representing, it
is said, the Peruvian name of the plant. It is a small tree
with unequally pinnate leaves, the segments linear, entire
or finely saw-toothed, the terminal one longer than the
rest, and all filled with volatile oil stored in large cells or
cysts, which are visible to the naked eye and appear like
holes when the leaf is held up to the light. When the
leaves are thrown upon the surface of water the resinous
or oily fluid escapes with such force as violently to agitate
them. The flowers are small, whitish, arranged in terminal
clusters, and polygamous or unisexual, with five sepals, as
many petals, ten stamens (as large as the petals in the case
of the male flower, very small in the female flower, but in
both springing from a cushion-like disk surrounding the
base of the three -celled ovary). The style is simple or
three-cleft, and the fruit a small, globose, pea-like drupe
with a bony kernel enclosing a single seed. The fleshy
portion of the fruit has a hot aromatic flavour from the
abundance of the resin it contains, and to this circumstance
the tree probably owes its popular name. The resin is
used for medicinal purposes by the Peruvians, and has
similar properties to mastic. The Japan pepper tree is
Xanthoxylum piperitum, the fruits of which have also a
hot taste. Along the Riviera the tree known as Mdia
Azedarach, or the " Pride of India," a very ornamental tree
with elegant foliage and dense clusters of fragrant lilac
flowers, is also incorrectly called the pepper tree by visitors.
PEPSIN. See NUTRITION, vol. xvii. p. 675 sq.
PEPYS, SAMUEL (1633-1703), was the fifth child of
John Pepys and Margaret (Perkins? Diary, 17th Septem
ber 1663), and was born on 23d February 1632/3. His
family was of the middle class, and at this time was in
humble circumstances, his father being a tailor in London,
while an uncle and an aunt, named Perkins, lived in
poverty in the Fens near Wisbeach. His father's elder
brother Robert had a small property at Brampton in
Huntingdonshire, and Samuel was at school at Hunting
don about 1644. Thence he went to St Paul's, London,
and on 21st June 1650 was entered as a sizar at Trinity
College, Cambridge, but was transferred on 1st October in
the same year to Magdalene, where he became pensioner
on 4th March following. On 3d April 1651 he was
elected scholar on the Spendluffe foundation, and on 4th
October 1653 on that of Dr John Smith. Exactly a
fortnight afterwards he was admonished by the registrar
before all the fellows in residence for being " scandalously
overserved with drink the night before." His love of
drink, so constantly illustrated in the early pages of his
Diary, would have been a serious drawback to his advance
ment, had not his love of work and order been a still
stronger impulse. The crisis was reached on Sunday, 29th
September 1661, when he was too drunk to trust himself
to read prayers to the household. After that he makes
resolute vows against wine, which he often breaks, and with
regard to which he displays curious powers of self-deception.
Nothing more is known of Pepys's college career, though
he tells us that he was addicted to writing romances. He
became a moderate classical scholar ; it is, however, a
curious commentary upon the university training of those
days that, after his appointment to the navy board, he is
found busy with the multiplication table, which he speaks
of as entirely new to him, and of his daily progress in
which he is not a little proud. After this he becomes en
amoured of arithmetic and teaches his wife the science also.
In October1 1655 Pepys married Elizabeth St Michel,
a girl of fifteen, of great beauty, whose father, a Hugue
not refugee in England, was at this time in very poor
circumstances. She was a good cook and a good house
keeper, and was both clever and warm-tempered ; Pepys,
vain, quarrelsome, fussy, and pedantic, was unfitted, save
by a general goodness of heart, to manage a high-spirited
girl ; and the pages of the Diary are full of bickerings and
downright quarrels arising out of trifles, the entries of Avhich,
though often amusing, are as often extremely pathetic.
Pepys and his wife, who were destitute of funds, were
received by Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards earl of
Sandwich, whose mother had married Pepys's grandfather.
Pepys probably acted as Montagu's secretary. He was
successfully cut for the stone on 26th March 1657/8, an
anniversary which he always notes with gratitude. In
March 1658/9 he accompanied Montagu and Algernon
Sidney to the Sound on board the "Naseby" (afterwards
the " Charles "). To this he more than once refers as the
beginning of his fortunes. On his return he was employed
as a clerk in the army pay-office of the exchequer under
Downing, afterwards Sir George Downing.
In January 1659/60 Pepys began to keep his Diary.
He was at this time living in Axe Yard, Westminster, in
a small house with one servant, on straitened means. On
29th January he can count but £40 ; his great object is
to get on and to " put money in his purse ; " and by 24th
May 1661 he is worth ,£500. Political principles he had
none, though his personal attachment to James (II.) makes
him call himself a Tory ; but it is noticeable that even
before the Restoration he regularly attended the Church of
England service carried on by Peter Gunning, afterwards
successively bishop of Chester and of Ely. Of active
religious convictions Pepys leaves no trace, but he was ever
a steady church-goer ; and the epithets he applies to the
sermons are very happy in their causticity. In February
he went to Cambridge to settle his brother in his old
college. One side of what was distinctly a coarse-grained
nature is exhibited in an entry during this week, where he
describes himself (as on many other occasions) as " playing
the fool with the lass of the house." His views of women,
indeed, are almost always vulgar ; he was given to clumsy
gallantry, and he was certainly unfaithful to his wife.
In March Montagu gave Pepys the post of secretary to
the generals at sea. While the fleet lay off the Dutch
coast he made a short journey into Holland. At this time
he secured the favour of the duke of York; and he retained
it through life. On 28th June he became clerk of the acts
of the navy, an office which Montagu had procured for him
against powerful competition. A salary of a little over
£100 a year, afterwards increased to £350, was attached
to the post, but Pepys had to pay an annuity of £100 to
his predecessor in office. On 23d July he became clerk of
the privy seal, the fees from which, at any rate for a time,
brought him in an additional £3 a day (Diary, 10th
August 1660). In this month he took his M.A. degree.
On 24th September he was sworn in as J.P. for Middlesex,
Essex, Kent, and Southampton. He now lived in Seething
Lane, in front of the navy office, Crutched Friars. In
July 1661, on the death of his uncle, the Brampton estate,
worth £80 a year, came to his father, and on the latter's
1 Pepys himself gives 10th October as the date ; the registers of St
Margaret's church (Westminster) say that the banns were published
on 19th, 22d, and 29th October, and that he was married on 1st
December. See Notes and Queries, 30th August 1S84.
520
P E P Y S
death in 1680 to Pepys himself. In July 1662 he was
made a younger brother of the Trinity House.
Pepys's untiring industry in office, his prudence, his
unfailing usefulness, his knowledge of business, which he
was ever diligent to increase, and his general integrity
secured him the greatest confidence at headquarters. As
early as August 1662, when placed on the Tangier com
mission, he had found himself "a very rising man." In
March 1664/5 he was made treasurer to the commission,
and received also the contract for victualling the garrison,
both lucrative appointments ; and in October, through the
influence of Sir W. Coventry, he was further made sur
veyor-general of the victualling office, a post which he
resigned at the conclusion of the peace. His conduct
during the Great Plague, when, alone of all the navy board,
he stayed in the city of the dead and carried on the whole
administration of the navy, was admirable. During the
Fire also his readiness and presence of mind were of the
greatest service in staying the conflagration.
In the spring of 1667/8, in the blind rage at the
national disgrace generally termed the miscarriage of
Chatham, the whole navy board were summoned before
the House of Commons to give an account of their con
duct. Pepys was deputed by his colleagues to conduct
the defence, and he did so with complete success on 5th
March in a speech of three hours' duration, which gained
him great reputation.
In 1669 the increasing weakness of his eyesight com
pelled him to discontinue the Diary, his last entry being
on 31st May. What was to us an irremediable misfortune
was to Pepys "almost as much as to see myself go into
the grave." He now took leave of absence and spent some
months in travelling through France and in revisiting
Holland. On the day of his return his wife fell ill, and
died in the early spring, before 3d March 1669/70. In July
1669 Pepys stood as the duke of York's nominee, backed
by the Howard influence, for the borougli of Aldborough
in Suffolk, but was defeated. In November 1670 we find
him engaged in a quarrel with the Swedish resident, which
was likely to have been followed by a duel, as Pepys, doubt
less to his exceeding comfort (for he was a great coward),
received an order from the king neither to send nor accept
a challenge. In 1672 he was promoted to the secretary
ship of the admiralty ; and, when James resigned his office
of lord high admiral, Pepys did all the work until the
commission was appointed. He was placed also upon the
new commission for Tangier.
In June 1673 he was chosen at a by-election, again as
James's nominee, for Castle Rising, a Howard borough, but
a vote of the committee of privileges declared the election
void. Pepys, on the authority of Sir J. Banks and the
earl of Shaftesbury, was denounced before the House of
Commons as being a Papist ; but, when these persons were
called upon, they denied any definite knowledge of the
altar and crucifix which he was charged with having in
his house. The parliament being prorogued, he retained
his seat, and is recorded as speaking on 17th May and
26th October 1675, on the latter occasion against the pro
posal made, in distrust of the crown, to lodge the money
for the ships in the chamber of London instead of in the
exchequer; and again on llth May 1678, in the debate
on the king's message to quicken supply for the navy,
when he was sharply reproved by Sir R. Howard for
speaking " rather like an admiral than a secretary, ' I ' and
' we,' " an amusing instance of how completely Pepys had
obtained control of the business of the navy and had
identified himself with the work. He was afterwards, in
1678/9, returned for Harwich (see a note on p. 122 of
vol. vi. of Bright's edition of the Diary}. In the list,
however, of members of the parliament which met on 6th
March in that year, which is given by the Parliamentary
History (vol. iv. p. 1082), the members for Harwich are
recorded as being Sir Anthony Deane and Sir Thomas
Pepys. An investigation of the records of Harwich leaves
no doubt that the Parliamentary History is wrong upon
this point, and that Pepys did sit for the borough during
this parliament.
On 7th August 1677 Pepys was elected master of the
Clothworkers' Company, who still possess the silver cup
he gave them on the occasion. He continued to hold the
secretaryship until 1679, when fresh complaints of mis
carriages in the navy were made before the House. The
country was then in the throes of the popish terror. Pepys
was accused, on the evidence of one Colonel Scott, an in
famous character, "a very great vindicator of the Sala
manca doctor" (Intelligencer, 20th May 1681), of sending
'secret information regarding the English navy to France
(Intelligencer, 23d May 1681), and was again charged with
being a Papist. On 22d May he was sent, nominally on
the first charge, though really on the second, to the Tower,
with his colleague Sir Anthony Deane. As he himself
wrote to James on 6th May, " a papist I must be, whether
I will or no, becaiise favoured by your royal highness."
On 2d June he appeared before the King's Bench, and
was remanded three times, bail being refused by Jones,
the attorney-general. At length Pepys was allowed out
on bail for £30,000. The trial was four times postponed,
in the hope that evidence would be obtained, and at la.st
on 12th February 1680 he was released only because Scott
refused to swear to his depositions, and no prosecutor ap
peared, and because his old servant, who had given evidence
against him, being now on his deathbed, confessed that it
was utterly false. This illustrates admirably the wild in
justice that prevailed during that feverish time.
In April 1680 Pepys attended the king by command to
Xewmarket, and there took down in shorthand from his
own mouth the narrative of his escape from Worcester. His
post had meantime been abolished, or at any rate the con
stitution of the navy board changed. We find him writing
to James on 6th May 1679, asking leave to lay down " this
odious secretaryship," and to be placed on the commission
of the navy. James urged his claims upon Charles, but
the imprisonment in the Tower probably put an end to
the affair. In May 1682 Pepys accompanied James when
he took the government of Scotland, and while there made
with Colonel Legge a tour of the chief towns. In the
autumn of 1683 he sailed with the same Colonel Legge,
then Lord Dartmouth, on the expedition to destroy the
fortifications of Tangier, though not aware when he started
of the object of the expedition. The ships reached Tangier
on Friday, 14th September. Here he stayed, with the
exception of a short visit to Spain, until 5th March, and
arrived in London on 6th April.
On his return Pepys was again made secretary to the
admiralty. In this same year (1684) he was elected pre
sident of the Royal Society. At the coronation of James
II. he figured as one of the barons of the Cinque Ports;
and he sat in James's parliament for his old seat of Har
wich along with his former colleague Sir Anthony Deane,
— a fact which illustrates how completely the crown had
regained possession of political power in the boroughs.
He lost both his seat and his secretaryship at the Revolu
tion, though he was consulted on navy matters to the time
of his death. Having been rejected at Harwich in the
new elections, he tried in vain to find another seat. His
well-known intimacy with and regard for James made him
a special object of suspicion to the Government, and in
1690, in common with others suspected for similar reasons,
though without cause, he was suddenly arrested and sent
to the Gate House, but was almost immediately released,
P E R — P E R
521
15th October, on bail (see his letter, Bright, vol. vi. p. 169).
He was, however, afraid of fresh attacks as late as Easter
1692 (Letter to Evelyn, Bright, vi. p. 173). It was about
this time that he published his long-intended Memoirs of
the Navy. He gave, as in former years, great attention to
the government of Christ's Hospital, and especially to the
mathematical foundation ; and he was concerned with the
establishment of Sir William Boreman's mathematical
.school at Greenwich. He was, too, a benefactor of his old
school of St Paul's, and of Magdalene College.
In the spring of 1700, being very ill with the breaking
out of the wound caused by the operation of 1658, he
removed to the house of his old clerk William Hewer, at
Clapham, and, against the urgent advice of his doctors
(Bright, Preface), gave himself up to indefatigable study,
feeling that his health was restored by the change. He
himself, however, on 7th August 1700, wrote in a charm
ing letter l that ho was doing " nothing that will bear
naming, and yet I am not, I think, idle ; for who can,
that has so much of past and to come to think on as
I have? And thinking, I take it, is working." And he
speaks of himself in September as making several country
excursions. He was, immediately after this, confined
entirely to the house with his old disease of stone, and
gradually failed. He bore his long and acute sufferings
with extreme fortitude, and died, in reduced circumstances
(though he claimed a balance of £28,007 2s l|d against
the crown), on 26th May 1 703. He was buried by the side
of his wife in St Olave's, Crutched Friars, London, on 5th
June. His library of 3000 volumes, which he had collected
with much labour and sacrifice, and which he would not
allow to be divided, was bequeathed to Magdalene College.
The last fact to be recorded of Pepys is that on 18th
March 1884, two centuries after his official employment,
a monument was unveiled in the church where he was
buried to the "Clerk of the Acts and Secretary to the
Admiralty" (Times, 19th March 1884).
The importance of Pepys's Diary, historically speaking, may lie
summed up by saying that without it the history of the court of
Charles II. could not have been written. We do not, it is true,
gain from it any information as to what was going on in the
country. Utterly destitute of imagination or political knowledge,
Pepys could only record the sights and the gossip that were evident
to all. It is because he did record these, without hesitation or
concealment, that from his Diary we can understand the brilliancy
and wickedness of the court, as well as the social state and daily
life of the bourgeois class. Viewed in another light, it is unique
as the record of a mind formed of inconsistencies. To him especi
ally would his own motto apply, "Mens cujusque, is cst quisque. "
Probity in word and integrity in office, along with self-confessed
mendacity and fraud ; modesty, with inordinate self-conceit ; inde
pendence of mind, with the vulgarest striving after and exultation
at the marks of respect which he receives as he rises in the world,
and at little advantages gained over others; high - mindedness,
with sordid spite ; dignity, with buffoonery ; strong common sense,
with great superstition ; kindness, with brutality ; the eager pursuit
of money, with liberality in spending it, — such are a few of the
more obvious contrasts. He gained his reputation by fair means,
and yet was willing enough to lie in order to increase it ; he practised
extreme respectability of deportment before the world, while he wor
shipped the most abandoned of Charles's mistresses, and now and
again gave loose rein to his own very indifferent morals ; and he
combined with courage amid difficulties and devotion to duty in
the face of almost certain death a personal poltroonery to which
few men would care to confess. The best tribute to him as a man
is that in his later years Evelyn became his firm and intimate
friend, and that he died amid universal respect.
Authorities.— Diary (Bright's edition ; compared with which other editions
are of slight value) ; Rev. J. Smith, Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Pepys
(1841); Parliamentary History, vol. iv. ; Journals of the House of Commons ; Evelyn,
Diary ; Wheatley, Samuel Pepys and the World he Lived in (1880) ; and articles
in various magazines and reviews. (0. A.)
PERA. See CONSTANTINOPLE, vol. vi. p. 306.
PEILEA. See GILEAD, vol. x. p. 595.
PEPiAK. See MALAY PENINSULA, vol. xv. p. 320 sq.,
and STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
1 He carried on an active correspondence with literary i'rieiids,
among them being Dryden, Sloane, and Evelyn.
PERCEVAL, AMAND-PIERRE CAUSSIN DE (1795-1871),
Orientalist, was born at Paris, where his father was pro
fessor of Arabic in the College de France, on 13th January
1795. In 1814 he went to Constantinople as a student
interpreter, and afterwards travelled in Asiatic Turkey,
spending a year with the Maronites in the Lebanon, and
finally becoming dragoman at Aleppo. Returning to Paris,
he became professor of vulgar Arabic in the school of
living Oriental languages in 1821, and also professor of
Arabic in the College de France in 1833. In 1849 he
was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions. He died at
Paris during the siege, 15th January 1871, regretted not
only for his ripe scholarship but for the gentleness and
modesty of a character which represented the best features
of the old school of French savants.
Caussin de Perceval published a useful Grammaire Arabe vulgaire,
which passed through several editions (4th ed. 1858), and edited
and enlarged Bocthor's Dictionnairc Fran ^ais- Arabe (3d ed. 1864) ;
but his great reputation rests almost entirely on one book, the
Essai sur Vhistoire des Arabcs (3 vols., Paris, 1847-48), in which
the native traditions as to the early history of the Arabs, down to
the death of Mohammed and the complete subjection of all the
tribes to Islam, are brought together with wonderful industry and
set forth with much learning and lucidity. One of the principal
MS. sources used is the great Kitdb al-Aghdny, which has since
been published in Egypt ; but no publication of texts can deprive
the L'ssai, which is now unhappily very scarce, of its value as a
trustworthy guide through a tangled mass of tradition.
PERCEVAL, SPENCER (1762-1812), prime minister of
England from 1809 to 1812, was the second son of John,
second earl of Egmont, and was born in Audley Square, Lon
don, in November 1762. He was educated at Harrow and at
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in
1781. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1786.
A very able speech in connexion with a famous forgery
case having drawn attention to his talents, his success was
from that time rapid, and he was soon regarded as the
leading counsel on the Midland circuit. Entering parlia
ment for Northampton in April 1796, he distinguished
himself by his speeches in support of the administration
of Pitt. In 1801, on the formation of the Addington
administration, he was appointed solicitor-general, and in
1802 he became attorney-general. An ardent opponent
of Catholic emancipation, he delivered in 1807 a speech
on the subject which helped to give the deathblow to the
Grenville administration, upon which he became chancellor
of the exchequer under the duke of Portland, whom in
1 809 he succeeded in the premiership. Notwithstanding
that he had the assistance in the cabinet of no statesman
of the first rank, he succeeded in retaining office till he
was shot by an assassin, perhaps a madman, named Bel-
lingham, in the lobby of the House of Commons, llth
May 1812. Perceval will be chiefly remembered for his
strenuous opposition to Catholic emancipation, an opposi
tion due to a conscientious dread of the political evils that
might result from it. He was a vigorous debater, specially
excelling in replies, in which his thorough mastery of all
the details of his subject gave him a great advantage.
PERCH (Perm fluviatilis), a freshwater fish generally
distributed over Europe, northern Asia, and North America,
and so well known as to have been selected for the type of
an entire family of spiny-rayed fishes, the Percidse, which
is represented in European freshwaters by several other
fishes such as the pope (Acerina cernua) and the pike-perch
(Lucwperca). It inhabits rivers as well as lakes, but
thrives best in waters with a depth of not less than 3
feet ; in large deep lakes it frequently descends to depths
of 50 fathoms and more. It occurs in Scandinavia as far
north as the 69th parallel, but does not extend to Iceland
or any of the islands north of Europe. In the Alps it
ascends to an altitude of 4000 feet.
The shape of its body is well proportioned, but many
XVIII. — 66
522
PER—PER
variations occur, some specimens being singularly high-
backed, others low and long-bodied ; sometimes such varia
tions are local, and Agassiz and other naturalists at one
time thought it possible to distinguish two species of the
common perch of Europe ; there are not even sufficient
grounds, however, for separating specifically the North-
American form, which in the majority of ichthyological
works is described as Perm ffavescens. The brilliant and
The Perch, Perca fluviatilis.
striking colours of the perch render it easily recognizable
even at a distance. A rich greenish-brown with golden
reflexions covers the back and sides, which are ornamented
with five or seven dark cross-bands. A large black spot
occupies the membrane between the last spines of the
dorsal fin; and the ventral, anal, and lower part of the
caudal are bright vermilion. In the large peaty lakes of
north Germany a beautiful variety is not uncommon, in
which the golden tinge prevails, as in a gold-fish.
The perch is strictly carnivorous and most voracious ;
it wanders about in small shoals within a certain district,
playing sad havoc among small fishes, and is therefore
not to be tolerated in waters where valuable fry is culti
vated. Perch of three pounds in weight are not unfre-
quently caught in suitable localities ; one of five would
now be regarded as an extraordinarily large specimen,
although in older works AVC read of individuals exceeding
even that weight.
Perch are good wholesome food, and highly esteemed
in inland countries where marine fish can be obtained only
with difficulty. The nearly allied pike -perch is one of
the best European food-fishes. The perch is exceedingly
prolific ; it begins to spawn when three years old, in April
or in the first half of May, depositing the ova, which are
united by a viscid matter in lengthened or net -shaped
bands, on water plants.
PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES (1795-1856), an American
writer of many-sided activity, but chiefly remembered by
his verses, was born at Berlin, Connecticut, on 15th Sep
tember 1795, and studied at Yale, graduating in 1815,
and taking a medical degree in 1820. His life was
straitened by poverty and divided among a variety of
occupations. He was by turns an army surgeon, professor
of chemistry at West Point, a recruiting surgeon at Boston,
geological surveyor of Connecticut (writing a Report pub
lished in 1842), and State geologist of Wisconsin, where
he died at Hazel Green, 2d May 1856. The intervals of
these employments were filled up with literary work of a
miscellaneous kind. An edition of his collected poems
appeared at Boston in 1859 (2 vols. 8vo). Some of his
miscellaneous and patriotic verses hold a high place in
American poetry.
PERCY. This family, whose deeds are so prominent
in English history, claimed descent from one Manfred de
Perci, who was said to have come out of Denmark into
Normandy before the adventure of the famous Hollo. But
it is more certain that two brothers, William and Serlo de
Percy, came into England with William the Conqueror,
who endowed his namesake the elder with vast possessions
in Hampshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, among which
were Topcliffe in the North Hiding and Spofforth in the
West Riding, the principal seats of the family for many
ages afterwards. This William deserves special notice
besides, since he refounded the noble abbey of Whitby,
which had been destroyed by the Danes, — obtaining a
grant of the lordship from Hugh, earl of Chester. Yet
his piety would seem to have been of a rather unsteadfast
character, for, having endowed the abbey with certain
lands, he resumed them in order to reward a faithful
dependant, till his brother Serlo, the abbot, complained
to King William, and caused him to make restitution.
The family, however, did not really descend in a direct
male line from this William ; for in the reign of Henry II.
his male descendants became extinct, and the inheritance
was divided for a time between two sisters, though by
failure of issue of one of them it was reunited in the next
generation. Agnes, the sister from whom all the subse
quent Percies Avere descended, accepted as her husband
Josceline, a son of Geoffrey, duke of Louvain, on the ex
press condition that he and his posterity should bear the
surname of Percy, and assume the arms of her family, re
linquishing their own. This Josceline was a brother of
Adelais or Alice of Louvain, the second queen of Henry I.,
and by an arrangement with his sister, confirmed by Henry
II. when duke of Normandy, he became possessed of the
honour of Petworth in Sussex. He was also castellan at
Arundel, and held several other important posts in the
south of England. His son Richard and Richard's son
William were among the barons who rose in arms against
John and Henry III. respectively ; but the grandson made
his peace with his sovereign, and had his lands restored
to him. It should be remarked, however, as a feature of
the times, that Richard de Percy was not the eldest but
the youngest son of Josceline, and that, according to
modern notions, he Avas really a usurper, Avho occupied
the inheritance of a nepheAV ; his right, however, passed
undisputed. He Avas one of the tAventy-five barons ap
pointed to enforce the observance of Magna Charta.
The next important member of the family is Henry de
Percy, Avhom EdAvard I., after the deposition of John
Baliol, appointed governor of Galloway, and Avho Avas one
of his most active agents in the subjugation of Scotland,
till the success of Robert Bruce drove him out of Turnberry
Castle, and made him Avithdraw into England. He was
rewarded by Edward II. Avith the barren title of earl of
Carrick, declared to be forfeited by the Scottish hero ; and
the same king appointed him governor of the castles of
Bamborough and Scarborough. But he himself made his
position strong in the north of England by purchasing
lands from Anthony Beck, bishop of Durham, among Avhich
Avas the honour of Almvick, the principal seat of the family
ever since. His son, another Henry, took part in the
league against EdAvard II. 's favourites the Despensers, Avas
in favour with Edward III., and obtained from EdAvard
Baliol as king of Scotland grants of Lochmaben, Annan-
dale, and Moffatdale, which he surrendered to the English
king for the castle and constableship of Jedburgh or Jed-
Avorth, Avith the forest of JedAvorth and some neighbouring
tOAvns. A few years later, in fuller recompense of the
unprofitable gift of Baliol, a grant of 500 marks a year
was made to him out of the old customs at Benvick ; and
in 1346 he did splendid service to his sovereign by defeat
ing and taking prisoner David, king of Scotland, at the
battle of Neville's Cross.
To him succeeded another Henry Percy, a feudal baron
like his predecessors, Avho fought at Crecy during his
father's lifetime ; and to him another Henry, Avho Avas
made earl of Northumberland at the coronation of Richard
II. It may be remarked incidentally that the succession
of the name of Henry in this family is altogether extraor
dinary. For three generations before this first earl of
PERCY
523
Northumberland, and for five different descents after him
(making altogether a period of 238 years), the head of the
house invariably was a Henry. Such a remarkable con
tinuance of a single Christian name would have been less
surprising in later and more peaceful times, when we might
reasonably have expected the eldest born to succeed his
father quietly through many generations. But the first
four earls of this family were all slain in battle or in civil
tumult, and the heir-apparent of the first, a Henry like
the rest, was cut off in the same way during his father's
lifetime. Was it that the incessant activity due to Border
raids and moonlight expeditions created in these men a
physical vigour of constitution which protected them to a
large extent against disease and infirmity 1
The first earl of Northumberland, certainly, had led a
busy life enough, not only on the Borders but elsewhere.
He had been in the French wars of Edward III. ; he had
been at times a warden of the marches against Scotland, or
a commissioner to treat for peace with that country. He
had ravaged the lands of the earl of Dunbar and had won
Berwick. Powerful in the south as well as in the north,
he was the Lord Henry Percy who protected Wickliffe
when cited before the archbishop at St Paul's. As earl
of Northumberland he exhibited his independence of
Richard II. in a way characteristic of a northern baron.
Sent for to court, he neglected to come, was disgraced and
banished, and thereupon fled to Scotland. He repaired to
Henry of Lancaster .soon after his landing at Ravenspur,
and helped treacherously to decoy Richard II. into his
hands at Conway. Naturally he received great honour
from Henry after he had become king. He was made
constable of England for life, and received a gift of the
Isle of Man and a number of important offices in Cheshire,
Wales, and the borders of Scotland. He was even appointed
one of the commissioners for the marriage of the king's
daughter Blanche with Louis, duke of Bavaria ; and for the
first three years of the reign both he and his family seemed
faithful to the new dynasty which they had greatly helped
to establish. In 1402 he and his brave son Henry, the
celebrated Hotspur, won the battle of Homildon Hill and
took the earl of Douglas prisoner. But immediately
afterwards Harry Hotspur, whose character is so well
known through Shakespeare's play of Henry the Fourth,
resenting the king's injustice to his brother-in-law, Sir
Edmund Mortimer, who had been taken prisoner by the
Welsh, and whom Henry, for reasons of policy, declined to
ransom, entered into a league with Owen Glendower, in
whose custody Mortimer was, for a combined Avar against
the king.
The whole family of the Percies seem to have felt that
their services to Henry of Lancaster were ill requited. The
earl himself joined the conspiracy. His brother Thomas
Percy, earl of Worcester (so created by Richard II.), stood
also to all appearance in high favour with the king, who
had entrusted him with the care of his son Henry, prince
of Wales. But he suddenly left the court and joined his
nephew in the north, both sending forth proclamations
and raising the country. The rebellion was crushed in the
battle of Shrewsbury (1403), in which Hotspur was slain,
and the earl of Worcester was beheaded just after the fight,
while Northumberland was marching southwards to join
with them. Having taken no active part in the movement,
the earl pretended that he had really been going to assist
the king, and had wished to avert hostilities. He after
wards went peaceably to the king at York, and was placed
in custody ; but such was his power and influence that
next year he was acquitted of treason in full parliament,
and had all his honours and possessions restored to him.
All confidence, however, between him and the king was at
an end, and in 1405 he joined the insurrection of Arch
bishop Scrope, who, after being beheaded as a rebel, was
venerated as a martyr over the whole north of England.
Then he fled to Scotland, afterwards to Wales, amd in the
end, returning to his own country, perished in a new
rebellion at Bramham Moor.
The title and estates were thus forfeited. But, by an
act no less gracious than politic, Henry V. restored them
to this earl's grandson, then a prisoner with the Scots,
whose liberation he had no difficulty in procuring from the
duke of Albany during the time of James I.'s captivity.
From that day the loyalty of the family to the house of
Lancaster was steadfast and undeviating. The second earl
died fighting for Henry VI. at the first battle of St Albans
in 1455 ; the third was slain in the bloody field of Towton
(1461) ; the fourth Avas killed in quelling an insurrection
in the time of Henry VII. So strong was the Lancastrian
feeling of the family that even Sir Ralph Percy, a brother
of the earl Avho fell at Towton, though he had actually
submitted once to EdAvard IV., turned again, and Avhen he
fell at Hedgiey Moor consoled himself Avith the thought that
he had, as he phrased it, "saved the bird in his bosom."
No Avonder, then, that in EdAvard IV. 's days the title
and estates of the family Avere for a time taken aAA'ay and
given to Lord Montagu, brother of Wanvick the king
maker. But the north was so accustomed to the rule of
the Percies that in a feAv years EdA\rard saAv the necessity
of restoring them, and did so even at the cost of alienating
still further the poAverful family of the Nevilles, who Avere
then already on the point of rebellion.
A crisis occurred in the fortunes of the family in the
reign of Henry VIII. on the death of the sixth earl, AA^hose
tAvo brothers, much against his Avill, had taken part in the
great insurrection called the " Pilgrimage of Grace." A
thriftless man, of whom it is recorded that in his youth he
Avas smitten Avith the charms of Anne Boleyn, but was forced
to give her up and marry a Avoman he did not love, he
died childless, after selling many of the family estates and
granting the others to the king. The title was forfeited,
and was granted by EdAvard VI. to the ambitious Dudley,
earl of Wanvick, who AATas attainted in the succeeding reign.
It Avas restored in the days of Queen Elizabeth to Thomas
Percy, who, being a staunch Catholic, Avas one of the three
earls Avho took the lead in the celebrated " Rising in the
North," and AAras beheaded at York. His brother Henry,
AArho succeeded him, Avas no less unhappy. Involved in
Throgmorton's conspiracy, he Avas committed to the ToAver,
and AATas supposed to have shot himself in bed with a pistol
found beside him ; but there were grave suspicions that it
had been discharged by another hand. His son, the next
earl, suffered like his two predecessors for his attachment
to the religion of his forefathers. The crown laAvyers
sought in vain to implicate him in the Gunpowder Plot ;
but he AAras imprisoned for fifteen years in the ToAver and
compelled to pay a fine of ,£30,000. The son Avho next
succeeded Avas a Parliamentary general in the Civil War.
At length, in 1670, the male line of this illustrious family
became extinct, just five hundred years after the marriage
of Agnes de Percy Avith Josceline of Louvain.
Not one of the English noble houses is so distinguished
as the Percies throughout the Avhole range of English
history. It is remarkable alike for its long unbroken line,
its high achievements, its general culture of arts and of
letters. Pre-eminent also, as remarked by Sir Harris
Nicolas, for its alliances among the peerage, it continues
to this day, though represented once more by a female
branch. The present dukedom of Northumberland Avas
created in 1766 in the family of Smithson, AATho assumed
the name of Percy and have borne it ever since. Sir
Hugh Smithson, AAT!IO became the first duke, married a
granddaughter of a daughter of the last earl. (.T. GA.)
P E R — P E R
PERCY, THOMAS (1729-1811), bishop of Dromore, the
editor of the Percy ^cliques, was bom at Bridgnorth 13th
April 1729 and baptized at St Leonard's Church 29th
April. His father, Arthur Lowe Percy, a grocer by trade,
lived in a large house at the bottom of the street called
" The Cartway," and acquired sufficient means to send his
son, who had received the rudiments of his education at
Bridgnorth grammar-school, to Christ Church, Oxford, in
1746. He graduated in 1750 and proceeded M.A. in
1753. In the latter year he was appointed to the vicarage
of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, and three years later
instituted to the rectory of Wilby in the same county,
benefices which he retained until 1782. On the 24th of
April 1759 Percy was married at Desborough, North
amptonshire, to Anne, daughter of Barton Gutteridge.
During his residence in the delightful but secluded neigh
bourhood of Easton Maudit most of the literary work for
which he is now remembered — including the Jteliques —
was completed. When his name became famous through
his publications he complied with the request of the duke
and duchess of Northumberland that he would reside
with them as their domestic chaplain, and was tempted
into the belief that he belonged to the illustrious house of
Percy. Through this connexion he became dean of
Carlisle in 1778 and bishop of Dromore in Ireland in
1782, from which date he was a constant resident in his
adopted country. His wife predeceased him at Dromore
Palace, 30th December 1806 ; the good bishop, blind but
otherwise in sound health, lived until 30th September 1811;
both of them were buried in the transept which he added
to Dromore Cathedral.
For many years Dr Percy enthusiastically laboured in the fields
of literature. He translated the Song of Solomon and published a
key to the New Testament, a work often reprinted; he edited poetry
from the Icelandic language and translated Mallet's Northern Anti
quities. His reprint of The, Household Book of the Earl of Northum
berland in 1512 is of the greatest value for the illustrations of
domestic life in England at that period. But all of these works
are of little estimation when compared with the Rcliqucs of Ancient
English Poetry, a publication which has entranced successive gen
erations of schoolboys and students since its first appearance in
February 1765. It was based on an old manuscript collection of
poetry, but, unfortunately for the editor's peace of mind, it was
modernized in style, a circumstance which exposed him to the
sneers and suspicions of Ritson. The work as originally issued by
Percy has been re-edited by many British antiquaries, whilst selec
tions have been issued for boys and girls, and the manuscript on
which he worked has been edited in its complete form by J. W.
Hales and F. J. Furnivall. The bishop was possessed of great
poetic feeling. His ballad of "The Hermit of Warkworth " was
too simple for the austere taste of Dr Johnson, but it has always
and deservedly been popular; and his song now generally known
as " 0 Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?" is a universal favourite,
from its own merits as well as from the musical setting of an
Irishman called Thomas Carter. The greater part of the seventh
volume of Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the
18th Century is filled with Bishop Percy's correspondence.
PERDICCAS, son of Orontes, a distinguished Mace
donian general under Philip and Alexander the Great,
and regent of the empire from the death of the latter till
he perished in a mutiny in 321 B.C. See MACEDONIAN
EMPIRE, vol. xv. p. 142, and PERSIA, infra, p. 585.
The same name was borne by three kings of Macedonia :
PERDICCAS I., whom Herodotus calls the founder of the
monarchy of Macedon ; PERDICCAS II., the enemy of Athens
in the Peloponnesian War (died c. 414 B.C.); and PEKDICCAS
III. (died 359 B.C.).
PEREKOP, a town of European Russia, in the Crimea,
60 miles south-east of Kherson on the isthmus which con
nects the peninsula with the continent, and, as its name
(perekop, a cutting) indicates, commanding the once de
fensive ditch and dyke which cross from the Black Sea to
the Sirvash lagoon. It was formerly an important place,
with a great transit trade in salt (obtained from the great
salt lakes of the immediate neighbourhood), which occupied
so large a place in popular estimation that the Tatars of
the Crimea were usually styled the " Perekop horde" and
their khans the " Perekop khans." Since the opening of
the railway route to the Crimea it has greatly declined.
In 1865 the population of Perekop and its mercantile
suburb (Armyanskii Bazar, 3 miles to the south) was only
4927, and the number has slightly decreased since.
In ancient times the isthmus was crossed (about H miles south
of the present town) by a ditch which gave the name of Taphros to
a Greek settlement. This line of defence having fallen into decay,
a fort was erected and a new ditch and dyke constructed in the loth
century by Mengli Girai and his son and successor Sahib Girai.
The fort, known as Kapu or Or-Kapi, became the nucleus of the
town. In 1736 Perekop was captured by Field-Marshal Munnich,
and in 1738 by Field-Marshal Lascy, who blew up the fort and de
stroyed a great part of the dyke. In 1754 the fort was rebuilt by
Krim Girai ; but the Greek and Armenian inhabitants of Perekop
preferred to form a new settlement at Armyanskii Bazar (Armenian
'Market). Captured by the Russians in 1771, the town passed into
Russian possession with the rest of the Crimea in 1783.
PEREYASLAFF, a town of European Russia, in the
Poltava government, 175 miles west-north-west of Poltava,
at the junction of the Trubezh and the Alta, which reach
the Dnieper 5 miles lower down at the town's port, the
village of Andrushi. Besides the town proper there are
three considerable suburbs. Though founded in 993 (by
Vladimir Svyatoslavitch in memory of his signal success
over the Petchenegs), Pereyaslaff has now few remains
of antiquity; while the original erection of some of the
churches goes back for many hundred years (that of the
Assumption, e.f/., to 1010), the actual buildings are not
older than the 17th century. The town has trade in grain,
salt, cattle, and horses, and some manufactures — tallow,
wax, tobacco, etc. The population was 10,835 in 1865
and 9300 in 1870.
From 1054 Pereyaslaff was the chief town of a principality which
passed from one prince to another of the Mstislavitches, Vladimir-
ovitches, and Olgovitches. As a southern outpost it often figures
in the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries; in later times it was one
of the great centres of the Cossack movement; and in 1628 the
neighbourhood of the town was the scene of the extermination of
the Polish forces known as " Taras's Night." It was by the treaty
of Pereyaslaff that in 1654 Bogdan Khmyelnitzkii and the Cossacks
acknowledged the supremacy of Alexis. At that time the town
contained from 25,000 to 30,000 inhabitants.
PEREYASLAVL, or PERESLAVL (called Zalyesskii, or
" Beyond the Forest," to distinguish it from the older town
in Poltava after which it was named), is one of the earliest
and most interesting cities in north-west Russia, situated
in Vladimir government, 87 miles east of Moscow on the
road to Yaroslavl, and on both banks of the Trubezh near
its entrance into Lake Pleshtcheevo. Pereyaslavl was
formerly remarkable for the number and importance of its
ecclesiastical foundations (there were in 1764 no fewer
than eleven monasteries in the town and neighbourhood,
and the churches about the same period numbered thirty-
seven). Among those still standing are the 12th-century
cathedral of the Transfiguration (with ancient wall-paint
ings and the graves of Demetrius, son of Alexander Nev-
skii, and other princes), and the church of the Birth of John
the Baptist, founded by Euphrosyne, wife of Demetrius
Donskii, in the close of the 14th century. It is by its
extensive cotton manufactures (the spinning factory alone
employing 1700 hands and producing to the annual value
of £195,000) that Pereyaslavl is now best known through
out Russia ; and it also manufactures linen, leather, and
tobacco. The fisheries on the lake (20 square miles in
extent and 175 feet deep) have long been of great value.
The population was 6253 in 1864, 7210 in 1870, and
8700 in 1880.
Founded in 1152 by Yurgii (George) Vladimirovitch Dolgoruki,
prince of Suzdal, Pereyaslavl soon began to play a considerable
part in the history of the country. From 1195 till 1302 it had
princes of its own ; and the princes of Moscow, to whom it was
then bequeathed, kept it (apart from some temporary alienations
PT? T>
-Hi ±t -
in the 14th century) as part of their patrimony throughout the
15th and 16th centuries. The town enjoyed a great many privi
leges, and in return was bound to furnish the court with fish. Its
earthen walls, from 20 to 50 feet in height and 7260 feet in circuit,
remained till 1759. Lake Pleshtcheevo was the scene of Peter the
Great's first attempts at creating a fleet.
PEREZ, ANTONIO (c. 1540-1611), for some years the
favourite minister of Philip II. of Spain and afterwards
for many more the object of his unrelenting hostility, was
by birth an Aragonese. His reputed father, Gonzalo Perez,
an ecclesiastic, has some place in history as having been
secretary both to Charles V. and to Philip II., and in litera
ture as author of a Spanish translation of the Odyssey (La
Ulyxea de Homero, Antwerp, 1556). Antonio Perez, who
was legitimated by an imperial diploma issued at Valladolid
in 1542, was, however, believed by many to be in reality
the son of the well-known Ruy Gomez, prince of Eboli, to
whom, on the completion of a liberal education at home
and abroad, he appears at least to have owed his first
introduction to a diplomatic career. In 1567 he became
one of the secretaries of state, receiving also about the
same time the lucrative appointment of protonotary of
Sicily, and in 1573 the death of Ruy Gomez himself made
room for Perez's promotion to be head of the "despacho uni
versal," or private bureau, from which Philip attempted to
govern by assiduous correspondence the affairs of his vast
dominions. Another of the king's secretaries at this time,
though in a less confidential relation, was a friend and
contemporary of Perez, named Juan de Escovedo, who,
however, after the fall of Tunis in 1574, was sent off to
supersede Juan de Soto as secretary and adviser of Don
John of Austria, thus leaving Perez without a rival. Some
time after Don John's appointment to the governorship
of the Netherlands Perez accidentally became cognizant of
his inconveniently ambitious "empresa de Inglaterra," in
which he was to rescue Mary queen of Scots, marry her,
and so ascend the throne of England. This secret scheme
the faithful secretary at once carried to Philip, who char
acteristically resolved to meet it by quietly removing his
brother's aider and abettor. With the king's full cognizance,
accordingly, Perez, after several unsuccessful attempts to
poison Escovedo, succeeded in procuring his assassination
in a street of Madrid on 31st March 1578. The imme
diate effect was to raise Perez higher than ever in the royal
confidence and favour, but, wary though the secretary had
been, he had not succeeded in obliterating all trace of his
connexion with the crime, and very soon a prosecution
was set on foot by the representatives of the murdered
man. For a time Philip was both willing and able to
protect his accomplice, but ultimately he appears to have
listened to those who, whether truly or falsely, were con
tinually suggesting that Perez had had motives of his
own, arising out of his relations with the princess of Eboli,
for compassing the assassination of Don John's secretary ;
be this as it may, from trying to screen Perez the king came
to be the secret instigator of those who sought his ruin.
The process, as such matters often are in Spain, was a
slow one, and it was not until 1589 that Perez, after more
than one arrest and imprisonment on a variety of charges,
seemed on the eve of being convicted and condemned as
the murderer of Escovedo. At this juncture he succeeded
in making his escape from prison in Castile into Aragon,
where, under the ancient "fueros" of the kingdom he
could claim a public trial in open court, and so bring into
requisition the documentary evidence he possessed of the
king's complicity in the deed. This did not suit Philip,
who, although he instituted a process in the supreme tri
bunal of Aragon, speedily abandoned it and caused Perez
to be attacked from another side, the charge of heresy
being now preferred, arising out of certain reckless and even
blasphemous expressions Perez had used in connexion with
P E R
525
his troubles in Castile. But all attempts to remove the
accused from the civil prison in Saragossa to that of the
Inquisition raised popular tumults, which in the end led to
Perez's escape across the Pyrenees, but unfortunately also
furnished Philip with a pretext for sending an army into
Aragon and suppressing the ancient " fueros " altogether
(1591). From the court of Catherine de Bourbon, at Pau,
where he was well received, Perez passed to that of Henry
IV. of France, and both there and in England his talents
and diplomatic experience, as well as his well-grounded
enmity to Philip, secured him much popularity. While in
England he became the " intimate coach-companion and
bed-companion " of Francis Bacon, and was also much in
the society of the earl of Essex. The peace of Vervins in
1598 greatly reduced his apparent importance abroad, and
Perez now tried to obtain the pardon of Philip III., that
he might return to his native country. His efforts, how
ever, proved vain, and he died in comparative obscurity in
Paris on 3d November 1611. Some years afterwards his
wife and family were relieved from the ban of the Inquisi
tion, under which, along with himself, they had been laid.
Perez's earliest publication was a small quarto, dedicated to the
earl of Essex, written and apparently printed in England about
1594, entitled Pcdazos de Historia, and professedly published at
Leon. A Dutch translation appeared in 1594, and in 1598 he pub
lished his Relacioncs, including the Memorial del Hecho de su Causa,
drawn up in 1590, and many of his letters. The Paris edition is
dedicated to Henry IV., but apparently another issue was inscribed
to the pope. Both dedications are given in the fullest reprint,
that of Geneva (1654), which includes a collection of "aphorisms"
culled from the author's writings. The literary performances of
Perez owe their importance almost exclusively to the fascination
of his personal narrative, which, however, gives no great impres
sion of simplicity and straightforwardness ; the letters, though
admittedly models of idiomatic Castilian, are somewhat tedious
reading. Much has recently been done, by Mignet (Antonio Perez
ct Philippe II., 1845, 4th ed., 1874) and by Froucle ("An Unsolved
Historical Riddle," Nineteenth Cent., 1883) among others, towards
the elucidation of various difficult points in Perez's somewhat per
plexing story.
PERFUMERY is the art of manipulating odoriferous
substances for the gratification of the sense of smell.
Perfumes may be divided into two classes, the first of
which includes all primitive or simple odoriferous bodies
derived from the animal or vegetable kingdom, as well as
the definite chemical compounds specially manufactured,
while the second comprises the various "bouquets" or
"melanges" made by blending two or more of the fore
going in varying proportions, — toilet powders, dentifrices,
sachets, and the like. To the former class belong (1) the
animal products, ambergris, castor, civet, musk ; (2)
essential oils (more properly called attars), mostly procured
by distillation ; (3) the philicome butters or oils, which
are either solid or liquid fats charged with odours by
the processes of inflowering or maceration ; (4) the odori
ferous gum -resins or balsams which exude naturally or
from wounds in the trunks of various trees and shrubs,
such as benzoin, opoponax, peru, tolu, storax, myrrh ; (5)
a few chemical bodies, similar in odour to or identical in
odoriferous active principle with certain plants, e.g., nitro-
benzol, called attar of mirbane or false almond, vanillin
or methyl-protocatechuic aldehyde, coumarin or coumaric
anhydride, and a few others. Ammonia and acetic acid
are used respectively as smelling salts and in the prepara
tion of aromatic vinegar, but can scarcely be considered as
perfumes. The second class contains the endless combina
tion of tinctures for scenting the handkerchief sold under
fancy names which may or may not afford a clue to their
composition, such as "comedie francaise," " eau de senteur,"
"eau de Cologne," "lavendre ambree," "blumengeist."
These are sometimes made upon a quasi-scientific basis,
namely, that of the odophone or gamut of odours of the
late Dr Septimus Piesse. Their numbers may be almost
5'26
PERFUMERY
infinite; one large firm in London is known to manufacture
several hundreds.
Sources and Commercial Values. — For the sources of the
various animal perfumes the reader is referred to the
articles AMBERGRIS : (vol. i. p. 660), BEAVER- (vol. iii. p.
476), CIVET 3 (vol. v. p. 796), and MusK4 (vol. xvii. p. 106).
The sources of the attars are the different parts of the
plants which yield them, — the wood (lign aloe, santal,
cedar), the bark (cinnamon, cascarilla), the leaves (patch
ouli, bay, thyme), the flowers (rose, lavender, orange-
blossom), the fruit (nutmeg, citron), or the seeds (caraway,
almond). Some plants yield more than one, such as lemon
and bergamot. They are mostly obtained by distilling
with water that part of the plant in which they are con
tained ; but some few, as those from the rind of bergamot
(from Citrus bergamia), lemon (citron zeste, from C.
Limonum), lime (C. Limetta), by " expression." The outer
layer of the cortex is rasped off from the unripe fruits, the
raspings placed in a canvas bag, and squeezed in a screw
or hydraulic press. The attars so obtained are separated
from the admixed water by a tap -funnel, and are then
filtered (see OILS, ESSENTIAL, vol. xvii. p. 748). Certain
flowers, such as jasmine, tuberose, violet, cassia, either do
not yield their attars by distillation at all, or do it so
sparingly as not to admit of its collection for commercial
purposes ; and sometimes the attar, as in the case of orange
(neroli), has an odour quite different from that of the fresh
blossoms. In these cases the odours are secured by the
processes of inflowering (enfleurage), or by maceration.
Both depend upon the remarkable property which fats
and oils possess of absorbing odours. The former process
has already been described in the article JASMINE (vol.
xiii. p. 595). Maceration consists in soaking the flowers
in heated fat ; in due time they are strained off and re
placed by fresh ones, as in the enfleurage process. The
whole of the necessary meltings and heatings of the per
fumed greases are effected by means of water -baths,
wllereby the temperature is kept from rising too high.
For the manufacture of perfumes for the handkerchief
the greases now known as pomades, butters, or philocomes
are treated with rectified spirit of wine 60° overproof, i.e.,
containing as much as 95 per cent, of absolute alcohol by
volume, which practically completely abstracts the odour.
The gum-resins have been employed as perfumes from
the earliest ages ; many are referred to in the Old Testament ;
see INCENSE (vol. xii. p. 718) and FRANKINCENSE (vol. ix.
p. 709). They are largely used in the manufacture of
perfumes, both for burning as pastilles, ribbon of Bruges,
incenses, &c., and in tinctures, to which they impart their
characteristic odours, affording, at the same time, a certain
fixity to other perfumes of a more fleeting nature when
mixed with them. The chemical perfumes are relatively
new. Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of vanilla ( V.
planifolia), was first artificially prepared by Tielman and
Hermann in Germany, who obtained it from the sap of
certain kinds of fir, and established its composition. Their
research was afterwards remarkably verified by Dr C. R.
Alder Wright, who prepared it from crude opium. It is a
pale straw-yellow crystalline substance, smelling exactly
like vanilla, and said to be forty times stronger. Its value
commercially is about 23s. per oz. Coumarin, the odori
ferous principle of Tonquin beans (Dipterix odorata), is
also artificially prepared. In appearance it resembles
vanillin, and is valued at 9s. per oz. Some similar bodies
with fancy names, such as " hemerocalle," "bromelia,"
" aubepine," are in the market, but have scarcely yet found
1 The present (1884) value of ambergris is about 90s. per oz.
2 The present value of castoreum is about 32s. per It).
3 Its price is about 9s. per oz.
4 Average value about £5 per oz.
their way into the perfume manufactory. Xitro-benzol,
before mentioned, is employed only for imparting an
almond -like odour to inferior soaps. The various com
pound ethers called artificial fruit essences, from their
resemblance to the odours of certain fruits (jargonelle pear,
pine-apple, plum, «fcc.), find no place in perfumery, though
largely used in confectionery for flavouring.
As before stated, the bouquets constituting the second
class of perfumes are but alcoholic solutions, i.e., tinctures
of some of the foregoing blended together in various pro
portions, of which the following well-known recipes are
examples : —
" Rondeletia. " " Bouquet du Roi."
Ext. Vanilla 2 pints. Ext. Neroli 2 pints.
,, Musk 1 ,, ! ,, Rose 2 ,,
„ Civet 1 ,, j ,, Musk i ,,
Attar Rose 1 oz. j ,, Vanilla ^ .,
,, Mitcham Lavender 1 ,, j Attar Rose 1 dram.
The Odophone. — The late Dr Septimus Piesse endeavoured to
show that a certain scale or gamut existed amongst odours as
amongst sounds, taking the sharp smells to correspond with high
notes and the heavy smells with low. He illustrated the idea by
classifying some fifty odours in this manner, making each to corre
spond with a certain note, one-half in each clef, and extending
above and below the lines. For example, treble clef note E (4th
space) corresponds with Portugal (orange), note D (1st space below
clef) with violet, note F (4th space above clef) with ambergris.
It is readily noticed in practice that ambergris is much sharper in
smell (higher) than violet, while Portugal is intermediate. He
asserted that properly to constitute a bouquet the odours to be
taken should correspond in the gamut like the notes of a musical
chord, — one false note among the odours as among the music
destroying the harmony. Thus on his odophone, santal, geranium,
acacia, orange-flower, camphor, corresponding with C (bass 2d line
below), C (bass 2d space), E (treble 1st line), G (treble 2d line), G
(treble 3d space), constitute the bouquet of chord C.
Other Branches of Perfumery. — For the preparation of scented
soaps two methods are in use ; both start with a basis either of fine
yellow soap (which owes its odour and colour to the presence of
resin), or of curd soap (which is hard, white, and odourless, and is
prepared without resin). In one process the soap is melted by super
heated steam, and while still hot and semi-fluid mixed by means of
a T-shaped stirrer of wood with iron cross-bar, technically called a
" crutch," with the attars and colouring matter. It is then removed
from the melting pan to a rectangular iron mould or box, the sides
of which can be removed by unscrewing the tie-rods which hold
them in position ; when cold the mass is cut into slabs and bars
with a thin brass wire. In the other or cold process the soap is
first cut into chips or shavings by a plane or "chipping machine,"
then the colouring matters are added and thoroughly incorporated
by passing the soap between granite rollers driven by steam-power ;
the tinted soap emerges in a continuous sheet but little thicker
than paper. The attars are then added, and after standing for
about twelve hours the soap is again sent through the rolling
machine. It is next transferred to a bar-forming machine, which
consists of an Archimedean screw with tapering thread revolving in
a box ; the soap in sheets is roughly squeezed through a hopper over
the widest threads of the screw and is forced, as this revolves, towards
the distant end of the box, to an opening of the required size,
through which it emerges in a continuous bar almost as hard as
wood. Soap thus worked contains less than 10 per cent, of water;
that prepared by melting contains 20 and even 30 per cent. The
amount of attars added depends upon the nature of the perfume,
and amounts usually to about 7 or 8 per cent. The finest soaps
are always manufactured by the cold process. Toilet powders are
of various sorts. They consist of rice-starch or wheat-starch, with
powdered orris-root in varying proportions, and with or without
the addition of oxide of zinc, oxide of bismuth, or French chalk.
The constituent powders, after the addition of the attars, arc
thoroughly incorporated and mixed by sifting through a fine sieve.
Violet powder for the nursery should consist entirely of powdered
violet root (Iris florentina], from the odour of which the powder is
named. It is of a yellowish tint, soft, and pleasant to the touch.
The white common so-called "violet powders" consist of starch
only scented with attar of bergamot, and are in every sense
inferior. Tooth powders consist for the most part of mixtures of
powdered orris-root with precipitated chalk, and some other con
stituent destined to particularize it as to properties or flavour, such
as charcoal, finely-pulverized pumice, quassia, sugar, camphor, &c.
The perfume of the contained orris-root is modified, if required, by
the addition of a little of some attar. Toothpastes are not much in
vogue ; they are formed of the same constituents as the powders, and
are worked into a paste by the addition of a little honey or glucose-
P E R— -P E B
527
syrup, which substances are usually believed ultimately to have an
injurious effect on the teeth. Perfume sachets consist either of a
powder composed of a mixture of vanilla, musk, Tonquin beans, &c.,
one or other predominating as required, contained in an ornamental
silk sac ; or of some of the foregoing substances spread upon card
or chamois leather or flannel after being made into a paste with
mucilage and a little glycerin. When dry the card so prepared is
daintily covered with various party-coloured silks for sale. Where
the ingredients employed in their manufacture are of good quality
these cards, known as " peau d'Espagne " sachets, retain their odour
unimpaired for years.
Adulterations. — There is, as might be expected, considerable
scope for the adulteration of the " matieres premieres " employed in
perfumery, and it is to be stated with regret that many unscrupulous
dealers avail themselves of the facilities offered for this dishonourable
practice. Thus, in the ease of musk, the " pods " are frequently found
to be partially emptied of the grain, which has been replaced by hide
or skin, while the weight has been increased by the introduction of
lead, &c. In other instances the fraud consists in the admixture
of refuse grain, from which the odour has been exhausted with
spirit, with dried blood, and similar substances, whilst pungency is
secured by the addition of carbonate of ammonia. Attar of rose is
diluted down with attar of Palma rosa, a variety of geranium of
only a quarter or a fifth of the value. The main adulterant of all
the attars, however, is castor oil. This is a bland neutral body,
practically odourless, and completely soluble in alcohol ; it therefore
presents all the requisites for the purpose. Its detection is difficult
even by chemical analysis, which is obviously inapplicable in most
instances ; the safeguard of the purchaser is the knowledge resulting
from experience.
Statistics. — In Europe, flower-farming for perfumery purposes is
almost exclusively confined to that triangular portion of the valley
of the Yar (France) which has Grasse for its apex and the Mediter
ranean shore between Nice and Cannes for its base, with an area of
about 115,000 English acres. It is here that the jasmine, tuberose,
cassia, rose, and violet grow to such perfection, and that the processes
of enfleurage and maceration are commercially worked. Subjoined
is an estimate 1 of the weight of flowers annually employed.
r ~
i TlJ"s-
Harvest Time.
1 18(50
20th April to 31st May.
. i 930
May.
Violets
147
15th January to loth April.
| 147
20th July to 10th October.
| 74
August, September, and October.
Cassia
.... I 30
'• 15
October, November, and December.
February and March.
Great praise is due to the pioneers of flower-farming in the British
colonies of South Africa and Australia, and especially to Colonel
Talbot in Jamaica, whose efforts in this direction bid fair to meet
with complete commercial success.
The attars from peppermint (Mentha Piper ita), thyme (T. vul-
garis), and lavender (Lavandula vera), the finest in the world, are
distilled from plants grown in the neighbourhood of Mitcham in
Surrey. It is estimated that between 8000 and 10,000 ounces of
musk are annually imported from all sources, while the quantity
of alcohol employed in the manufacture of perfumes is calculated
to exceed 60,000 gallons.
See Piesse's Art of Perfumery, 4th ed., 18SO. (C. H. P.)
PERGAMUM, an important city of Teutlirania, a dis
trict in Mysia ; it is usually named Hepya/xov by Greek
writers, but Ptolemy has the form Hepyapos. The name,
which is related to the German bury, is appropriate to the
situation on a lofty isolated hill in the broad and fertile
valley of the Caicus, about 120 stadia, less than 15 miles,
from its mouth. According to the belief of its inhabitants,
the town was founded by Arcadian colonists, led by Tele-
phus, son of Heracles. Auge, the mother of Telephus,
was priestess of Athena Alea at Tegea, and daughter of
Aleus • fleeing from Tegea, she became the wife of Teuthras,
the eponymous king of Teutlirania, and her son Telephus
succeeded him. Athena Polias was the patron-goddess of
Pergainum, and the legend combines the ethnological
record of the connexion claimed between Arcadia and
Pergainum with the usual belief that the hero of the city
was son of its guardian deity, or at least of the priestess who
represented her. Nothing more is recorded of the city till
the time of Xenophon, when it was a small fortified town
on the summit of the hill. Its importance began under
1 Kindly furnished by M. Bruno Court, head of the well-known
house of Notre Dame des Fleurs of Grasse.
Lysimachus, who deposited his treasures, 9000 talents, in
this strong fortress under the charge of a eunuch Phil
etaerus of Tium. In 283 B.C. Philetaerus rebelled, Lysi
machus died without being able to put down the revolt,
and Pergamum became the capital of a little principality.
Partly by clever diplomacy, partly through the troubles
caused by the Gaulish invasion and by the dissensions
among the rival kings, Philetaerus contrived to keep on
good terms with his neighbours on all sides (283-263 B.C.).
His nephew Eumenes (263-241) succeeded him, increased
his power, and even defeated Antiochus of Syria in a
pitched battle near Sardis. His successor Attains I. (241-
197) won a great battle over the Gauls, and assumed the
title of king. The other Greek kings who aimed at power
in Asia Minor were his natural enemies. On the other
hand, the influence of the Romans was beginning to make
itself felt in the East. Attains perceived the advantage
of their alliance against his Greek rivals, connected himself
with them from the first, and shared in their continuous
success. Under the reign of Attalus Pergamum became
the capital of a considerable territory and a centre of art
and regal magnificence. Sculptors were attracted by the
wealth of the state and the king's desire to celebrate his
victories by monuments of art, and thus arose the so-called
"Pergamenian school" in sculpture. The Pergamenian
kings appear to have been far more truly Hellenic, and to
have admitted far less of the " barbarian " Oriental char
acter to their court, than the other Hellenistic sovereigns,
whose habits and surroundings were those of Eastern
sultans with a thin surface-gloss of Greek manners. We
hear more of the munificence of Attalus towards Athens,
then the educational centre of Greece, than to his own
capital. The splendour of Pergamum was at its height
under Eumenes II. (197-159). He continued true to the
Romans during their wars with Antiochus and Perseus,
and his kingdom spread over the greater part of western
Asia Minor, including Mysia, Lydia, great part of Phrygia
and Caria. To celebrate the great achievement of his
race, the defeat of the barbarian Gauls, he built in the
agora a vast altar to Zeus Soter, adorned with sculptures
and especially with a gigantic frieze, in which the symbolic
theme of the defeat of the barbarian giants by the gods
was treated on such a scale, and with such wealth of de
tail and perfection of technical skill, as made the monu
ment one of the marvels of the ancient world. He devoted
great care to the improvement and embellishment of the
city. It is not certain when the old Doric temple of
Athena Polias and Nicephorus on the Acropolis was re
placed by a more magnificent marble temple, but Eumenes
planted a grove in the Nicephorion, the sacred precinct of
the goddess, and established libraries and other great
works in the city. He left an infant son, Attalus (III.), and
a brother, Attalus II. (Philadelphia), who ruled 159-138,
and was succeeded by his nephew, Attalus III. (Philometor).
The latter died in 133, and bequeathed his kingdom to the
Romans, who erected it into a province under the name
of Asia. Pergamum continued to rank, with Ephesus and
Smyrna, as one of the three great cities of the province,
and the devotion of its former kings to the Roman cause
was continued by its citizens, who erected on the acropolis
a magnificent temple to Augustus. It was the seat of a
convents, including the cities of the Caicus valley and
some of those in the northern part of the Hermus valley.
Under the Roman empire Pergamum was one of the chief
seats of the worship of Asclepius ; invalids came from dis
tant parts of the country to ask advice from the god and
his priests. The temple and the curative establishment
of the god were situated outside the city. Pergamum
was one of the early seats of Christianity, and one of the
seven churches enumerated in the Revelation was situated
528
P E R — P E R
there. Two tributaries of the Caicus, named Selinus and
Cetius, flowed through or near the city. The ancient
name is still preserved under the form " Bergamo."
The excavations conducted by the Prussian Government at Per-
gamum under the direction of Humaun and Bohu have disclosed
many of the buildings with which the acropolis was adorned, the
temples of Athena and Augustus, the Stoa, &c., have recovered
great part of the frieze on the altar of Zeus, and have given materials
of every kind for the elucidation of Pergamenian history and Greek
antiquities generally, which it will take years to classify and place
before the public (see the preliminary reports published by Conze,
Bohn, and Humann).
PERGOLESI (or PERGOLESE), GIOVANNI BATTISTA
(1710-1736), Italian musical composer, was born at Jesi,
Ancona, 3d January 1710, and educated at Naples in
the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesu Cristo, where he
studied the violin under Domenico de Matteis, and coun
terpoint under Gaetano Greco, Durante, and Francesco
Feo. While learning all he could from these great
teachers he struck out from the very first a style of his
own, and brought it prominently forward in his earliest
known composition, an oratorio, called La Conversion*
di S. Guglielmo, performed in the church of S. Agnello
in 1731, in which year he also produced his first opera,
Sallustia, at the Teatro Fiorentino. After receiving fur
ther instruction from Vinci he produced another opera,
Rerimiro, which failed lamentably. This disappointment
led him to devote his chief attention to church music ; and
his next great works — two masses, one for two and the
other for four choirs, with double orchestra — established
his reputation as a genius of the highest order, and proved
that he was at least as great in his newly-adopted style as
in his dramatic pieces. Nevertheless, the greatest success
that he was ever destined to attain was reserved for his
celebrated intermezzo1 — or, as we should now call it, operetta
— La Serva Padrona. This delightful work, fairly success
ful on the occasion of its first production in 1731 or 1733,
became after Pergolesi's death a recognized favourite at
every theatre of importance in Europe. In 1746 it found
its way to Paris, and had a long run at the Theatre Italien,
followed in 1752 by an equally successful one at the
Academic. Two years later it was translated into French,
and ran for 150 successive nights. As late as 1867 it was
revived in this form at the Opera Comique ; and in 1873
it was revived in London at the Royalty Theatre. The
libretto by Nelli is unusually bright and sparkling ; and
so fresh is the music that it still sounds as if composed but
yesterday. In this characteristic, indeed, lies the secret of
its extraordinary success, for the scale on which it is written
is of the smallest imaginable dimensions. The dramatis
personse consist of three characters only, one of them being
mute, and the orchestra is limited entirely to the stringed
band, unrelieved by a single wind instrument. But the
fire of genius breathes in every bar, and the whole work
has the character of a continuous inspiration.
In 1734 Pergolesi was appointed maestro di cappella at
Loreto. Soon after this his health began to fail rapidly,
but he worked on incessantly to the end. His last com
positions were a cantata for a single voice, Orfeo ed Euri-
dice ; a lovely Salve Reyina, also for a single voice ; and
his famous Stabat Mater, for two female voices. For this
last-named work — the best known of all his sacred com
positions — he received in advance ten ducats (£1 15s.),
and thought the price enormous. He was barely able to
finish it before his death, which took place at Pozzuoli,
16th March 1736.
Pergolesi's works comprise fourteen operas and intermezzi, nine
teen sacred compositions, and many charming pieces of chamber
music, — a long list, when one remembers that he died at the age of
26 years and 3 months. The purity of his style has not been ex-
1 A light buffo piece, the acts of which were interpolated, for the
sake of relief, between those of a serious opera.
ceeded by any composer of the Italian school ; and in his orchestral
e fleets and other points of little less importance he shows himself
immensely in advance of all his predecessors.
PERIANDER was born about 665 B.C. and succeeded
his father Cypselus as despot of Corinth in 625 B.C. His
rule appears to have been at first mild and beneficent, but
evil advice or domestic calamity converted him into a cruel
tyrant. There runs a well-known story that he sent to
ask the advice of Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, who, in
stead of replying, walked with the messenger through a
cornfield and struck off as he walked the tallest and fairest
of the ears. Periander took the hint, and proceeded to
exterminate the most eminent of his subjects.1 Whatever
the cause, there seems no reason to doubt that the latter
part of the despot's life was darkened by crime. Goaded
by the slanders of concubines, he murdered his beloved wife
Melissa, daughter of Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, and then,
in a fit of remorse, burned the slanderers alive.2 The
murder of his wife alienated from the tyrant the affection
of his favourite son Lycophron, whom, failing to move
either by rigour or blandishments, he banished to Corcyra,.
then a dependency of Corinth. At last, enfeebled by age,
Periander offered to resign the tyranny to his son and to
retire himself to Corcyra ; but the prospect alarmed the
Corcyreans, and they put Lycophron to death. The tyrant
took his revenge by sending three hundred of the noblest
Corcyrean youths to Alyattes, king of Lydia, to be made
eunuchs of ; they were rescued, however, by the Samians.
Periander did not long survive his son ; he fell into a deep
despondency, and died either of grief or by violence volun
tarily incurred in 585 B.C., at the age of eighty.
The accounts of Periander's character are at first sight discrepant.
One writer (Heraclides) describes him as just and moderate, an enemy
of vice and luxury, which he severely repressed. But more com
monly he appears as cruel and oppressive. He surrounded himself
with a body-guard, and, according to Aristotle, reduced tyranny to
a system by putting down eminent and aspiring citizens, impover
ishing the rich, maintaining spies, and sowing distrust between
classes and individuals. His costly offerings to the gods drained
the resources, while his public works and constant wars taxed the
energies and distracted the attention of the citizens. The privilege
of settling in Corinth was placed by him under certain restrictions.
On the other hand, he not only patronized literature in the person
of the poet Arion but was himself the author of a collection of moral
maxims in 2000 verses. His reputation for wisdom stood so high
that he was commonly reckoned amongst the seven wise men,
though some, as Plato, denied his claim. Amongst the wars to
which he owed his military fame were successful expeditions against
Epidaurus and Corcyra. He built a fleet and scoured the seas
on both sides of the isthmus, through which it is said that he
meditated cutting a canal. To him were due the Greek colonies
of Apollonia, Anactorium, and Leucas. On the whole, Periander
would appear to have been one of those brilliant despots whose
personal vices have not destroyed their literary and artistic sense, and
who by their abilities have raised the states which they governed
to a high pitch of outward prosperity and power. Certain it is
that with the close of his dynasty, which happened a few years
after his death, when his successor Psammetichns perished in a
popular rising, the golden age of Corinthian history came to an end.
There was another Periander, tyrant of Ambracia, said to have
been a relative of the tyrant of Corinth. He was deposed by the
people, probably not long after the death of the latter.
The chief authorities for the life of Periander are Herodotus (iii. 48-53 ;
v. 92), Aristotle (Pol., v. 11, 12), Heraclides Ponticus (v.), Nicol. Damasc.
(59, (30), Diog. Laert. (i. 7). The letters in Diogenes ascribed to Periander are
no doubt spurious.
1 In Aristotle's version of the story the rules of Periander and
Thrasybulus are reversed.
- The relations of Periander to his dead wife form the subject of a
curious tale. It is said that he got a necromancer to call up the spirit
of Melissa (as Saul called up Samuel), in order to question her about
a hidden treasure, just as people in Wiirtemberg used to call up ghosts
in churchyards for a similar purpose. But the ghost refused to answer.
" For," said she, " I am cold ; 1 cannot wear the garments laid in my
grave, because they have not been burned." So Periander called to
gether all the women of Corinth in their best attire as for a festival,
stripped them, and burned their garments on the grave of his wife,
that her ghost might not go naked. Similar to this is the story in
Lucian of the ghost of a dead wife appearing to her husband and
begging him to find and burn one of her golden sandals which had fallen
underneath the chest and so had not been burned with the other.
PERICLES
529
PERICLES, a great Athenian statesman, and one of
the most remarkable men of antiquity, was the son of
Xanthippus, who commanded the Greeks at the battle of
Mycale in 479 B.C. By his mother Agariste, niece of
Clisthenes, who reformed the democracy at Athens after
the expulsion of the Pisistratidae, he was connected both
with the old princely line of Sicyon and with the great
but unfortunate house of the Alcmagonidit.1 The date of
his birth is unknown, but his youth must have fallen in
the stirring times of the great Persian war. From his
friendship with the poet Anacreon, his father would seem
to have been a man of taste, and as he stood in relations
of hospitality to the Spartan kings his house was no doubt
a political as well as literary centre. Pericles received the
best education which the age could supply. For masters
he had Pythoclides and the distinguished musician Damon,
who infused into his music lessons a tincture of philosophy,
whereby he incurred the suspicions of the vulgar, and
received the honour of ostracism.- Pericles listened also
to the subtle dialectics of the Eleatic Zeno. But the man
who swayed him most deeply and permanently was the
philosopher Anaxagoras. The influence of the speculative
genius and dignified and gentle character of the philosopher
who resigned his property that he might turn his thoughts
more steadily to heaven, which he called his home, and
who begged as his last honour that the school-children
might have a holiday on the day he died, can be traced
alike in the intellectual breadth and the elevated moral
tone of the pupil, in his superiority to vulgar superstitions,
and in the unruffled serenity which he preserved through
out the storms of political life.3 It was probably the
grand manner of Pericles even more than his eloquence
that won him the surname of Olympian Zeus.4 In his
youth he distinguished himself in the field, but eschewed
politics, fearing, it is said, the suspicions which might be
excited in the populace not only by his wealth, high birth,
and powerful friends, but by the striking resemblance to
the tyrant Pisistratus which old men traced in his personal
appearance, musical voice, and flowing speech. But, when
the banishment of Themistocles5 and the death of Aristides
had somewhat cleared the political stage, Pericles came
forward as the champion of the democratic or progressive
party, in opposition to Cimon, the leader of the aristocratic
or conservative party. The two leaders differed hardly less
than their policies. Both indeed were men of aristocratic
birth and temper, honourable, brave, and generous, faith
ful and laborious in the service of Athens. But Cimon
was a true sailor, blunt, jovial, freehanded, who sang a
capital song, and was always equally ready to drink or
fight, to whose artless mind (he was innocent of even a
smattering of letters6) the barrack-room life of the bar
barous Spartans seemed the type of human perfectibility,
and whose simple programme was summed up in the
1 Herod., vi. 131.
2 Plut., Per., 4 ; cp. Plato, Laches, pp. 180, 197, 200, amlfiep., 400, 424.
3 If the statement reported by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 3, 7), that
Anaxagoras spent thirty years at Athens, is correct, he probably arrived
there about 462, and Pericles must have reached maturity before he
met him (see Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen, i. p. 865 sq. ).
4 It is said that once, when Pericles was transacting business in
public, a low fellow railed at him all day long, and at nightfall dogged
him to his house, reviling him in the foulest language. Pericles took
no notice of him till he reached his own door, when he bade one of
the servants take a torch and light the man home.
5 Variously placed in 476 (Kriiger), 471 (Clinton), and 470 (Cur-
tius). Considerable divergence of opinion prevails as to the dates of
most events between the Second Persian War and the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian War (see Pierson, in Philologus, 1869; Classen's Thucy-
dides, book i. Anh.). Pericles, who died in 429, is said to have had
a public life of forty years ; hence he probably began to take part in
politics about 469.
6 Plut., dm., 4. It is amusing to read of this stout old salt sitting in
judgment on the respective merits of JSschylus and Sophocles (ib.,8).
maxim "fight the Persians." Naturally the new ideas of
political progress and intellectual development had no
place in his honest head ; naturally he was a sturdy sup
porter of the good old times of which, to the popular
mind, he was the best embodiment. Pericles, grave,
studious, reserved, was himself penetrated by those ideas
of progress and culture which he undertook to convert into
political and social realities ; philosophy was his recrea
tion ; during the whole course of his political career he
never accepted but once an invitation to dinner, and he
was never to be seen walking except between his house
and the popular assembly and senate-house. He husbanded
his patrimony and regulated his domestic affairs with rigid
economy that he might escape both the temptation and
suspicion of enriching himself at the public expense.
The steps by which he rose to the commanding position
which he occupied in later life cannot be traced with cer
tainty. According to Plutarch, Pericles, whose fortune
did not allow him to imitate the profuse hospitality by
which Cimon endeared himself to the people, sought to
outbid him by a lavish distribution of the public moneys
among the poorer classes ; this device was suggested to
him by Damonides, says Plutarch on the authority of
Aristotle. We may doubt the motive alleged by Plutarch,
but we cannot doubt the fact that Pericles did extend, if
not originate, the practice of distributing large sums among
the citizens either as gratuities or as payment for services
rendered, — a practice which afterwards attained most mis
chievous proportions. According to Plato (Gorgias, 515
E), it was a common saying that Pericles, by the system of
paymentswhichhe introduced, had corrupted the Athenians,
rendering them idle, cowardly, talkative, and avaricious.
It was Pericles who introduced the payment of jurymen,
and, as there were 6000 of them told off annually for duty,
of whom a great part sat daily, the disbursement from the
treasury was great, while the poor and idle were encouraged
to live at the public expense. But the payment for
attendance on the public assembly or parliament (of which
all citizens of mature age were members), though probably
suggested by the payment of the jurymen, was not intro
duced by Pericles, and indeed does not seem to have
existed during his lifetime." It Avas he who instituted
the payment of the citizens for military service,8 — a
measure but for which the Athenians would probably not
have prolonged the Peloponnesian War as they did, and
in particular would not have been so ready to embark on
the fatal Sicilian expedition. There was more justifica
tion, perhaps, for the practice, originated by Pericles, of
supplying the poorer citizens from the public treasury
with the price of admission to the theatre. For in an
age when the study of the poets formed a chief element
of education, and when the great dramas of ^Eschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides were being put on the stage in
all their freshness, such a measure may almost be regarded
as a state provision for the education of the citizens. It
was part of the policy of Pericles at once to educate and
delight the people by numerous and splendid festivals,
processions, and shows. But the good was mixed with
seeds of evil, which took root and spread, till, in the days
of Demosthenes, the money which should have been spent
in fighting the enemies of Athens was squandered in
spectacles and pageants. The Spectacular Fund or Theori-
kon has been called the cancer of Athens. Vast sums
were further spent by Pericles in adorning the city with
those buildings which even in their ruins are the wonder
of the world. Amongst these were the Parthenon, or
Temple of the Virgin (Athene), and the Erechtheum,
7 See Boeckh, Staatsaushaltung der Athener, i. p. 320 ; Curtius,
Griech. Ge.sch., ii. pp. 227, 842.
8 Ulpian on Demosth., jrepi ffwrd^. , 50 A, ap. Boeckh, i. 377.
XVIII. — 67
530
both on the Acropolis, the former completed in 438,1 the
latter left unfinished at Pericles's death ; the magnificent
Propyliea or vestibule to the Acropolis, built 437-432 ; and
the Odeum or music-hall, on the south-eastern slope of the
Acropolis, compitted before 444. The musical contests
instituted by Pericles, and for which he himself laid down
the rules and acted as judge, took place in the Odeum.
Many artists and architects were entrusted with the
execution of these great works, but under the direction of
the master-mind of Phidias, sculptor, architect, painter, —
the Michelangelo of antiquity. But Pericles fortified as
well as beautified Athens. It had been the policy of
Themistocles to make her primarily a naval and commercial
power, and to do so he strengthened the marine, and gave
to the city as far as possible the advantages of an insular
situation by means of fortifications, which rendered both
it and its port (the Piraeus) impregnable on the land side.
By thus basing the Athenian state on commerce instead of,
like Solon, on agriculture,2 he at the same time transferred
the political predominance to the democratic or progressive
party, which is as naturally recruited from a commercial
as a conservative or aristocratic party is from an agricul
tural population. This policy was fully accepted and
carried out by Pericles. It was in his time and probably
by his advice that the Long Walls were built, which, con
necting Athens writh Piraeus, converted the capital and its
seaport into one vast fortress.3 Further, in order to train
the Athenians in seamanship, he kept a fleet of sixty ships
at sea eight months out of every year. The expenses
entailed by these great schemes were chiefly defrayed by
the annual tribute, which the confederates of Athens
originally furnished for the purpose of waging war against
Persia, but which Athens, as head of the league, subse
quently applied to her own purposes. If, as seems prob
able, the transference of the treasury of the league from
Delos to Athens, which sealed the conversion of the
Athenian headship into an empire, took place between
460 and 454, the step was probably suggested or supported
by Pericles, and at all events he managed the fund after,
its transference.4 But, though the diversion of the fund
from its original purpose probably did not begin with
Pericles, yet, once established, he maintained it unwaver
ingly. The Athenians, he held, fulfilled the trust committed
to them by defending their allies against all comers, and the
tribute (increased during his administration from 460 to
600 talents annually) was their wages, which it was their
right and privilege to expend in wrorks which by employ
ing labour and stimulating commerce were a present benefit,
and by their beauty would be "a joy for ever." That
Athens ruled by force, that her empire was in fact a
1 The date of the commencement of the Parthenon is variously put
at 444 (Leake), 454 (Michaelis), and 460 (Wachsmuth). From an
inscription it would seem that the building of the temple extended at
least as far back as 447. See Curtius, Gr. Gesch., ii. p. 852.
2 Solon's classification of the citizens for political purposes rested
exclusively on the possession of cultivated land.
3 There were three of these walls, of which the northern (to Piraeus)
and the southern (to Phalerum) were completed after the battle of
CEuophyta (Thucyd., i. 108) in 456. The foundation of these two walls
seems to have been laid by Cimon (Plut., dm., 13) about 462. See
Leake's Tujijoyraphy of Athens, i. p. 424. Some scholars, relying on
an interpretation of Thucydides (i. 107, 108), suppose that these walls
were begun in one year and finished in the next. But considering the
length of the walls (8 miles) and their massiveness (as shown by their
remains) this seems quite impossible. The middle wall, which ran
parallel to the northern wall and at no great distance from it, was
built later (it was not begun before 449, Andocides, Dej)ace cum Laced.,
7, and the progress was slow, Pint., Per., 13), and there is no doubt
that Pericles advised its construction (Plato, Gorgias, 455 E). The
wall to Phalerum seems afterwards to have fallen into decay, and
the middle wall then went by the name of the southern, and it and
the northern were known as the Long Walls (Harpocration, s.v. Sia
fjLlcrov rebel's ; Leake, i. p. 427).
4 Justin, iii. 6, 4 ; Diod., xii. 38 ; Curtius, Gr. Gesch., ii. 168, 837.
tyranny, he fully admitted, but he justified that tyranny
by the high and glorious ends which it subserved.5
The rise of Pericles to power, though it cannot be
followed step by step, has an obvious and sufficient explana
tion in his combined wisdom and eloquence. Plato traces
his eloquence largely to the influence of Anaxagoras ; in
tercourse with that philosopher (he says) filled the mind
of Pericles with lofty speculations and a true conception
of the nature of intelligence, and hence his oratory possessed
the intellectual grandeur and artistic finish characteristic
of the highest eloquence (Phsedrus, 270 A). The range
and compass of his rhetoric were wonderful, extending from
the most winning persuasion to the most overwhelming
denunciation. The comic poets of the day, in general very
unfriendly to him, speak with admiration of his oratory :
" greatest of Grecian tongues," says Cratinus; " persuasion
sat on his lips, such was his charm," and "he alone of the
orators left his sting in his hearers," says Eupolis ; "he
lightened, he thundered," says Aristophanes. His speeches
were prepared with conscientious care ; before rising to
speak he used to pray that no inappropriate word might
fall from his lips.6 He left no written speeches,7 but the
few sayings of his which have come down to us reveal a
passionate imagination such as breathes in the fragments
of Sappho. Thus, in speaking of those Avho had died in
war, he said that the youth had perished from the city
like the spring from the year.8 He called the hostile
island of ^Egina " the eye-sore of the Piraeus," and declared
that he saw Avar " lowering from Peloponnesus." Three
of his speeches have been reported by Thucydides, who
may have heard them, but, though their substance may
be correctly recorded, in passing through the medium of
the historian's dispassionate mind they have been shorn of
the orator's imaginative glow, and in their cold iron logic
are hardly to be distinguished from the other speeches in
Thucydides. An exception to this is the speech which
Thucydides reports as having been delivered by Pericles
over the slain in the first year of the Peloponnesian War.
This speech stands quite apart from the others ; and as
well in particular touches (e.y., the saying that " the grave
of great men is the world " ) as in its whole tenor we catch
the ring of a great orator, such as Thucydides with all his
genius was not. It is probably a fairly close report of the
speech actually delivered by Pericles.
The first public appearance of Pericles of which we
have record probably fell about 463. When Cimon, on
his return from the expedition to Thasos, was tried on
the utterly improbable charge of having been bribed by
the Macedonian king to betray the interests of Athens,
Pericles was appointed by the people to assist in conduct
ing the prosecution ; but, more perhaps from a conviction
of the innocence of the accused than, as was said, in com
pliance with the entreaties of Cimon's sister Elpinice, lie
did not press the charge, and Cimon was acquitted. Not
long afterwards Pericles struck a blow at the conservative
5 Cp. Thucyd., i. 143, and ii. 63, 64 ;' Plut., Per., 12.
6 Compare the story in Plutarch (De educ. pucr., 9), that on one
occasion, though repeatedly called on by the people to speak, he
declined to do so, saying that he was unprepared.
7 Plut., Per., 8. In the time of Cicero there were some writings
bearing his name (Brutus, 7, 27 ; l>e Or., ii. 22, 93), but they were
no doubt spurious. Cp. Quintilian, iii. 1, 12 ; xii. 2, 22 and 10, 49.
8 Cope (on Aristotle, Rhetoric, i. 7, 34) denies that Pericles was
the author of the saying. His only plausible ground is that a similar
saying is attributed to Gelon by Herodotus (vii. 162). But from the
clumsy way in which the simile is there applied it has all the appear
ance of being borrowed, and Herodotus, who long survived Pericles,
may have borrowed it from him. It is more open to question whether
the simile occurred in the funeral speech delivered at the close of the
Samian War, or in that during the Peloponnesian War, but the former
is more probable. In Thucydides's report of the latter speech the
simile does not occur.
PEEICLES
531
party by attacking the Areopagus, a council composed of
life-members who had worthily discharged the duties of
archon. The nature of the functions of the Areopagus at
this period is but little known ; it seems to have had a
general supervision over the magistrates, the popular
assembly, and the citizens, and to have exercised this
supervision in an eminently conservative spirit. It sat
also as a court for the trial of certain crimes, especially
murder. Pericles seems to have deprived it of nearly all
its functions, except its jurisdiction in cases of murder.1
The poet ./Eschylus composed his Eumenides in vindica
tion of the ancient privileges of the Areopagus. Though
Pericles w^as the real author of the attack on the Areo
pagus, the measure was nominally carried by Ephialtes.
It was, indeed, part of Pericles's policy to keep in the
background, and to act as far as possible through agents,
reserving himself for great occasions. Ephialtes, a friend
of Pericles, and a patriot of inflexible integrity, paid dearly
for the distinction; he fell by the hand of an assassin
employed by the oligarchical party, — an event the more
striking from the rarity of political assassinations in Greek
history. The popular party seems to have immediately
followed up its victory over the Areopagus by procuring
the ostracism of Cimon,2 which strengthened the hands of
Pericles by removing his most influential opponent (461).
Pericles took part in the battle of Tanagra (457) and bore
himself with desperate bravery. After the battle Cimon
was recalled from banishment, and it was Pericles who
proposed and carried the decree for his recall. In 454
Pericles led an Athenian squadron from the port of Pegse
on the Corinthian Gulf, landed at Sicyon, and defeated
the inhabitants who ventured to oppose him ; then, taking
with him a body of Achseans, he crossed to Acarnania, and
besieged the town of (Eniadge, but had to return home
without capturing it. Not long afterwards 3 Pericles con
ducted a successful expedition to the Thracian Chersonese,
where he not only strengthened the Greek cities by the
addition of 1000 Athenian colonists, but also protected
them against the incursions of the barbarians by fortifying
the isthmus from sea to sea. This was only one of Pericles's
many measures for extending and strengthening the naval
empire of Athens. Colonies were established by him at
various times in Naxos, Andros, Oreus in Eubcea (in 446),
Brea in Macedonia (about 443), and ^Egina (in 431).
They served the double purpose of establishing the
Athenian power in distant parts and of relieving the
pressure of population at Athens by providing the poorer
citizens with lands. Somewhat different were the famous
colonies established under Pericles's influence at Thurii in
Italy, on the site of the ancient Sybaris (in 443), and at
Amphipolis on the Strymon (in 437), for, though planted
under the conduct of Athens, they were not exclusively
Athenian colonies, other Greeks being allowed, and even
invited, to take part in them. This was especially true of
Thurii, which was in a manner a national Greek colony, and
never stood in a relation of subjection to Athens. On one
occasion (some time apparently between 454 and 449) 4
1 Cp. Philochorus, 141 b, in Miiller's Fragm. Hist. QTKC., vol. i. ;
Plut., Per., 9, and dm., 15 ; Aristotle, Pol., 1274 a, 7 ; Thirlwall's
Hist, of Greece, ii. pp. 458, 459.
2 The ostracism of Cimon lasted between four and five years (Theo-
pompus, 92, in Fr. Hist. Gr. ; cp. Corn. Nep., Cimon, 3). Hence, if
his recall took place shortly after the battle of Tanagra (Plut., dm., 17,
and Per. , 10), say at the beginning of 456, he must have been ostracized
about the middle or latter part of 461. Diodorus (xi. 77) places the
attack on the Areopagus in 460 ; but, if that attack preceded (as
Plutarch implies) the banishment of Cimon, i-t would be necessary, in
order to harmonize Diodorus and Theopompus, to place the recall of
Cimon in 455 or 454 — i.e., between one and two years after the battle
of Tanagra — and this seems forbidden by Plutarch's narrative.
3 In 453, according to Diod., xi. 88.
4 The expedition is only recorded by Plutarch (Per., 20), and is
Pericles sailed at the head of a splendid armament to the
Black Sea, where he helped and encouraged the Greek
cities and overawed the barbarians. At Sinope he left a
force of ships and men under the gallant Lamachus, to
co-operate with the inhabitants against the tyrant Tirnesi-
leus, and on the expulsion of the tyrant and his party he
carried a decree for the despatch of 600 Athenian colonists
to Sinope, to occupy the lands vacated by the exiles. But,
with the sober wisdom which characterized him, Pericles
never allowed his plans to exceed the bounds of the pos
sible ; he was no political dreamer like Alcibiades, to be
dazzled with the vision of a universal Athenian empire
in Greece, Italy, and Africa, such as floated before the
minds of many in that and the following generations.5
The disastrous expedition which the Athenians sent to
Egypt, to support the rebel Inarus against Persia (460-455),
received no countenance from Pericles.
When Cimon died in 449 the aristocratical party sought
to counterbalance the power of Pericles by putting forward
Thucydides, son of Melesias, as the new7 head of the party.
He seems to have been an honest patriot, but, as the event
proved, he was no match for Pericles. The Sacred War
in 448 showed once more that Pericles knew how to defend
the interests of Athens. The Phocians, under the protec
tion of Athens, had wrested the control of the Delphic
oracle from their enemies the Delphians. The latter were
friendly to Sparta, and accordingly the Spartans marched
into Phocis and restored the oracle to the Delphians.
When they had departed, Pericles, at the head of an
Athenian force, placed the oracle once more in the hands
of the Phocians. As the seat of the great oracle, Delphi
was to ancient Greece much what Rome was to mediaeval
Europe, and the friendship of the god, or of his priests,
was no small political advantage. When the Athenians
despatched a small force under Tolmides to crush a rising
in Bceotia, they did so in spite of the warnings of Pericles.
These warnings were soon justified by the unfortunate battle
of Coronea (447), which deprived Athens at a blow of the
continental dominion she had acquired a few years before
by the battle of CEnophyta (456). The island of Eubcea
nowr revolted from Athens, and hardly had Pericles crossed
over with an army to reduce it when word came that the
Megarians had massacred the Athenian garrison, and, in
league with Corinth, Sicyon, and Epidaurus, were up in
arms, while a Peloponnesian army under King Plistoanax
was on the point of invading Attica. Pericles recrossed
in haste to Attica. The Peloponnesians returned home,
having advanced no farther than Eleusis and Thria. It
was said that Pericles had bribed Cleandridas ; certain it is
that both Cleandridas and Plistoanax were charged at Sparta
with having misconducted the expedition and were found
guilty. Having saved Attica, Pericles returned to Eubcea,
reduced it to subjection, expelled the Histireans, and settled
the Athenian colony of Oreus (446) on their lands. The
thirty years' peace, concluded soon afterwards (445) with
Sparta, was probably in large measure the work of Pericles.
The Athenians had evacuated Boeotia immediately after
the battle of Coronea, and by the terms of the peace they
now renounced their other continental possessions,— Acha-a,
Troezen, Niscea, and Pegae. The peace left Pericles at
liberty to develop his schemes for promoting the internal
welfare of Athens, and for making it the centre of the
intellectual and artistic life of Greece. But first he had
to settle accounts with his political rival Thucydides ; the
struggle was soon decided by the ostracism of the latter
in 444. Thenceforward to the end of his life Pericles
mentioned by him immediately after the expedition against CEuiadaa
(454) and before the Sacred War (449).
6 Thucyd. , vi. 15, 90 ; Diod., xii. 54 ; Plut., Per., 20, and Alcib., 17 ;
Pausau., i. 11, 7.
532
PERICLES
guided the destinies of Athens alone ; in the words of the
historian Thucydides, the government was in name a de
mocracy, but in fact it was the rule of the first citizen.
The unparalleled ascendency which he wielded so long over
the fickle people is one of the best proofs of his extraor
dinary genius. He owed it entirely to his personal character,
and he used it for the wisest and purest purposes. He
was neither a vulgar demagogue to truckle to the passions
and caprices of the mob, nor a vulgar despot to cow it
by a hireling soldiery ; he was a citizen among citizens,
who obeyed him because they trusted him, because they
knew that in his hands the honour and interests of Athens
were safe. The period during which he ruled Athens was
the happiest and greatest in her history, as it was one of
the greatest ages of the world. Other ages have had their
bright particular stars ; the age of Pericles is the Milky
Way of great men. In his lifetime there lived and worked
at Athens the poets yEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Cratinus, Crates, the philosophers Anaxagoras, Zeno, Pro
tagoras, Socrates, the astronomer Meton, the painter Poly-
gnotus, and the sculptors Myron and Phidias. Contem
porary with these, though not resident at Athens, were
Herodotus, the father of history ; Hippocrates, the father
of medicine ; Pindar, " the Theban eagle " ; the sculptor
Polyclitus ; and the philosophers Empedocles and Demo-
critus, the latter joint author with Leucippus of the atomic
theory. When Pericles died other stars were rising or
soon to rise above the horizon, — the historians Thucydides
and Xenophon, the poets Eupolis and Aristophanes, the
orators Lysias and Isocrates, and the gifted but unscru
pulous Alcibiades. Plato was born shortly before or after
the death of Pericles. Of this brilliant circle Pericles
was the centre. His generous and richly-endowed nature
responded to all that was beautiful and noble not only
in literature and art but in life, and it is with justice that
the age of Pericles has received its name from the man in
whom, more than in any other, all the various lines of
Greek culture met and were harmonized. In this perfect
harmony and completeness of nature, and in the classic
calm which was the fruit of it, Pericles is the type of the
ideal spirit, not of his own age only, but of antiquity.
It seems to have been shortly after the ostracism of
Thucydides that Pericles conceived the plan of summon
ing a general congress of all the Greek states to be held
at Athens. Its objects were the restoration of the temples
which the Persians had destroyed, the fulfilment of the
vows made during the war, and the establishment of a
general peace and the security of the sea. Invitations
were sent to the Greeks of Asia, the islands from Lesbos
to Rhodes, the Hellespont, Thrace, Byzantium, Boeotia,
Phocis, Peloponnesus, Locris, Acarnania, Ambracia, and
Thessaly. The aim of Pericles seems to have been to
draw the bonds of union closer between the Greeks and to
form a national federation. The beneficent project was
defeated by the short-sighted opposition of the Spartans.
But, if in this scheme Pericles rose above the petty
jealousies of Greek politics, another of his measures proves
that he shared the Greek prejudices as to birth. At an
early period of his career (apparently about 460) he
enacted, or perhaps only revived,1 a law confining the
rights of Athenian citizenship to persons both of whose
parents were Athenian citizens. In the year 444, on the
occasion of a scrutiny of the list of citizens, nearly 5000
persons claiming to be citizens were proved to be aliens
under this law, and were ruthlessly sold into slavery.
The period of the thirty years' peace was not one of
uninterrupted tranquillity for Athens. In 440 a war
broke out between the island of Samos (a leading member
1 See Schoniaim's Antiquities of Greece, p. 357, Eng. tr. ; Hermann's
Staatsalterthiimer, § 118.
of the Athenian confederacy) and Miletus. Athens sided
with Miletus ; Pericles sailed to Samos with an Athenian
squadron, and established a democracy in place of the
previous oligarchy. After his departure, however, some
of the exiled oligarchs, in league with Pissuthnes, satrap
of Sardis, collected troops and, crossing over to Samos,
overpowered the popular party and revolted from Athens.
In this revolt they were joined by Byzantium. The situa
tion was critical ; the example set by Samos and Byzantium
might be followed by the other confederates. Pericles
discerned the danger and met it promptly. He led a
squadron of sixty ships against Samos ; and, after detach
ing some vessels to summon reinforcements from Chios
and Lesbos, and others to look out for the Phoenician fleet
which the Persians were expected to send to the help of
Samos, he gave battle with forty-four ships to the Samian
fleet of seventy sail and defeated it. Having received
reinforcements of sixty-five ships, he landed in Samos and
laid siege to the capital. But, when he sailed with sixty
ships to meet the Phoenician vessels which were reported
to be near, the Samians sallied out with their vessels,
defeated the besiegers, and remained masters of the sea for
fourteen days. On his return, however, they were again
blockaded, and were compelled to surrender, nine months
after the outbreak of the war (spring of 439).
Though Pericles enjoyed the confidence of the people as
a whole, his policy and opinions could not fail to rouse
the dislike and suspicions of many, and in the last years
of his life his enemies combined to assail him. Two points
in particular were singled out for attack, his administration
of the public moneys and his religious opinions. With
regard to the former there must always be a certain
number of persons who will not believe that others can
resist and despise a temptation which to themselves would
be irresistible ; with regard to the latter, the suspicion
that Pericles held heretical views on the national reli
gion was doubtless well grounded. At first, however, his
enemies did not venture to impeach himself, but struck at
him in the persons of his friends. In 432 2 Phidias was
accused of having appropriated some of the gold destined
for the adornment of the statue of Athene in the Par
thenon. But by the prudent advice of Pericles the golden
ornaments had been so attached that they could be taken
off and weighed, and when Pericles challenged the accusers
to have recourse to this test the accusation fell to the
ground. More dangerous, for more true, was the charge
against Phidias of having introduced portraits of himself
and Pericles into the battle of the Amazons, depicted on
the shield of the goddess : the sculptor appeared as a bald
old man lifting a stone, while Pericles was represented as
fighting an Amazon, his face partly concealed by his raised
spear. To the pious Athenians this seemed a desecration
of the temple, and accordingly Phidias was clapped into
gaol. Whether he died there or at Elis is uncertain.3
Even more deeply was Pericles wounded by the accusation
levelled at the woman he loved. This was the famous
Aspasia, a native of Miletus, whose talents won for her
general admiration at Athens. Pericles divorced his wife,
a lady of good birth who had borne him two sons, Xan-
thippus and Paralus, but with whom he was unhappy,
and attached himself to Aspasia. With her he lived on
terms of devoted affection to the end of his life, though,
as she Avas a foreigner, their union was not a legal marriage.
She enjoyed a high reputation as a teacher of rhetoric, and
- A scholiast on Ari.stoph., Pax, 605, places the condemnation of
Phidias seven years before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, or
in 438 (according to Palmer's correction) ; see Miiller ad L, in Frag.
Hist. Or., v. p. 18.
3 Different views of the fate of Phidias are taken by scholars. See
PHIDIAS.
PERICLES
533
seems to have been the centre of a brilliant intellectual
society, which included Socrates and his friends. The
comic poet, Hermippus, brought her to trial on the double
charge of impiety and of corrupting Athenian women for
the gratification of Pericles. A decree was further carried
by a religious fanatic named Diopithes, whereby all who
denied the existence of the gods or discussed the nature
of the heavenly bodies were to be tried as criminals.
This blow was aimed directly at the aged philosopher
Anaxagoras, but indirectly at his pupil Pericles as well as
at Aspasia. When this decree was passed, and apparently
while the trial of Aspasia was still pending, Pericles him
self was called upon by a decree of the people to render
an account of the money which had passed through his
hands. The result is not mentioned, but we cannot doubt
that the matter either was dropped or ended in an acquittal.
The perfect integrity of Pericles is proved by the unim
peachable evidence of his contemporary, the historian
Thucydides. Aspasia was acquitted, but not before
Pericles had exerted all his eloquence in her behalf.
Anaxagoras, tried on the charge of impiety, was obliged
to quit the city.1
It was in the same year (432) that the great contest
between Athens and Sparta, known as the Peloponnesian
War, broke out. We may dismiss as a vulgar calumny the
statement, often repeated in antiquity,2 but quite unsup
ported by Thucydides, that the war was brought about by
Pericles for the purpose of avoiding a prosecution. The
war was in truth inevitable ; its real cause was Sparta's
jealousy of the growing power of Athens ; its immediate
occasion was the help lent by Athens to Corcyra in its
war with Corinth. At first, with a hypocritical regard
for religion, the Spartans demanded as a condition of peace
that the Athenians should expel the race of the Alcmseon-
idse (including, of course, Pericles), whose ancestors had
been guilty of sacrilege about two centuries before. The
Athenians retorted in kind, and, after a little more diplo
matic fencing, the Spartans were constrained to show their
hand by demanding bluntly that Athens should give back
to the Greeks their independence, — in other words, renounce
her empire and abandon herself to the tender mercies of
Sparta. Pericles encouraged the Athenians to reject the
demand. He pointed out that Athens possessed advan
tages over the Peloponnesians in superior wealth and
greater unity of counsels. He advised the Athenians, in
case of war, not to take the field against the numerically
superior forces of the Peloponnesians, but to allow the
enemy to ravage Attica at will, while they confined them
selves to the defence of the city. Through their fleet they
would maintain communication with their island empire,
procure supplies, and harass the enemy by sudden descents
on his coasts. By pursuing this defensive policy without
attempting to extend their empire, he predicted that they
would be victorious. The people hearkened to him and
replied to the Spartan ultimatum by counter -demands,
which they knew would not be accepted. Pericles had
not neglected in time of peace to prepare for war, and
Athens was now well equipped with men, money, and
ships. In June of the following summer (431) a Pelo
ponnesian army invaded Attica. By the advice of Pericles
the rural population, with their movables, had taken
refuge in the city, while the cattle had been sent for safety
to the neighbouring islands. The sight of their country
ravaged under their eyes excited in the Athenians a long
ing to march out and meet the enemy, but in the teeth of
popular clamour and obloquy Pericles steadily adhered to
1 The accounts of the issue of the trial are somewhat discrepant ;
see Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen, i. p. 872.
2 Aristophanes, Pax, 605 sq. , with schol. ad I.; Diod., xii. 38-
40; Plut., Per., 31, 32; Aristodernus, xvi. ; Suidas, s.v. "<l>«Sias."
his defensive policy, content to protect the suburbs of
Athens with cavalry. Meanwhile, Athenian fleets retaliated
upon the enemy's coasts. About the same time, as a
punishment for the share that they were supposed to have
had in bringing on the war, the whole population of ^Egina
was expelled from their island to make room for Athenian
colonists. This measure, directed by Pericles, relieved to-
some extent the pressure in the overcrowded capital, and
secured a strong outpost on the side of the Peloponnesus.
In the autumn, after the Peloponnesian army had been
obliged by want of provisions to quit Attica and disband,
Pericles conducted the whole available army of Athens-
into the territory of Megara, and laid it waste.
It was a custom with the Athenians that at the end of
a campaign the bones of those who had fallen in battle
should be buried with public honours in the beautiful
suburb of Ceramicus, the Westminster of Athens, and the
vast crowd of mourners and spectators gathered about the
grave was addressed by a citizen chosen for his character
and abilities to pay the last tribute of a grateful country
to its departed brave. On the present occasion the choice
fell on Pericles. Once before, at the close of the Samian
War, it had been his lot to discharge a similar duty. The
speech which he now delivered, as reported to us by
Thucydides, is one of the noblest monuments of antiquity.
It is indeed the creed of Athens and of Greece. In its
aristocratic republicanism — recognizing at once the equal
legal rights and the unequal intrinsic merits of individuals
— it differs alike from the monarchical spirit of mediaeval
and modern Europe, with its artificial class distinctions,
and from that reactionary communism which preaches the
natural as well as the legal equality of men. In its frank
admiration of art and letters and all the social festivals
which humanize and cheer life it is as far from the sullen
asceticism and the wild debauchery of the East, as the grave
and manly simplicity of its style is removed from the
fanciful luxuriance of Oriental rhetoric. Finally, in the
words of comfort a: . exhortation addressed to the bereaved,
the speech — to adopt Thirl wall's description of another
great effort of Athenian oratory 3 — " breathes the spirit of
that high philosophy which, whether learnt in the schools
or from life, has consoled the noblest of our kind in prisons,
and on scaffolds, and under every persecution of adverse
fortune."
The fortitude of the Athenians was put to a still severer
test in the following summer (430), when to the horrors
of war (the Peloponnesians had again invaded Attica) were
added the horrors of the plague, which spread havoc in
the crowded city. Pericles himself escaped the scourge,4
but many of his relations and best friends, amongst them
his sister and his two sons Xanthippus and Paralus, were
struck down. With the elder of his sons, Xanthippus, a
worthless young man, the father had been on bad terms,
but the death of his surviving son, at an interval of a few
days, affected him deeply, and, when he came to lay the
wreath upon the corpse, though he struggled hard to
maintain his habitual calm, he broke down, and for the
first time in his public life burst into a passion of weeping.5
But neither private grief nor public calamity shook for a
moment the lofty courage and resolution with which he
continued to the last to oppose a firm front alike to enemies
without and to cravens within. While refusing as before to
risk a battle in Attica, which he allowed the Peloponnesians
3 The speech of Demosthenes "On the Crown."
4 Plutarch, admitting that Pericles was not attacked by the plague
in its acute form, believes that it so far affected him as to throw him
into a lingering decline. But we do not gather from Thucydides's
description of the plague that it ever had this effect.
5 Not inconsistent with this are the accounts of the general fortitude
with which he bore his bereavement (Plut., C'onsol. ad ApolL, 33 ;
^Elian, Var. Hist., ix. 6; Val. Max.. v. 10].
534
P E R — P E R,
to devastate at pleasure, he led in person a powerful fleet
against Peloponnesus, ravaged the coast, and destroyed
the town of Prasije in Laconia. But the Athenians were
greatly disheartened ; they sued for peace, and when their
suit was rejected by Sparta they vented their ill-humour
on Pericles, as the author of the war, by subjecting him
to a fine. However, they soon repented of this burst of
petulance, and atoned for it by re-electing him general l
and placing the government once more in his hands.
Further, they allowed him to legitimate his son by Aspasia,
that his house might not be without an heir. He survived
this reconciliation about a year, but his name is not again
mentioned in connexion with public affairs. In the autumn
of 429 he died. We may well believe that the philosophy
which had been the recreation of his happier days supported
and consoled him in the clouded evening of his life. To
his clement nature it was a peculiar consolation to reflect
that he had never carried political differences to the shed
ding of blood. Indeed, his extraordinary, almost fatherly,
tenderness for the life of every Athenian citizen is attested
by various of his sayings.2 On his deathbed, when the
friends about him were telling his long roll of glory, rous
ing himself from a lethargy into which he had fallen, he
reminded them of his fairest title to honour : "No Athenian,"
he said, " ever put on black through me."
He was buried amongst the great dead in the Ceramicus,
and in after years Phormio, Thrasybulus, and Chabrias
slept beside him.3 In person he was graceful and well
made, save for an unusual height of head, which the comic
poets were never weary of ridiculing. In the busts of
him which we possess, his regular features, with the straight
Greek nose and full lips, still preserve an expression of
Olympian repose.
The chief, perhaps the only trustworthy, authority for the life of
Pericles is the history of his contemporary Thucydides. The bio
graphy by Plutarch is compiled from Thucydides, Ephorus, Ion,
Stesimbrotus, Duns of Samos, Aristotle, Idomeneus, yEschines,
and Hera'clides Ponticus, together with the comic poets Cratinus,
Teleclides, Hermippus, Plato, Eupolis, and L istophanes. Ephorus,
a pupil of Isocrates, must have had plenty of means of ascertaining
the facts, but how little his judgment is to be trusted is shown by
his account of the origin of the Peloponnesian War, — an account
'also followed by Diodorus Siculus, whose history adds nothing of
importance to the narratives of Thucydides and Plutarch. Ion
and Stesimbrotus were contemporaries of Pericles, but, as both
were admirers of Cimon and opposed to the policy of Pericles, their
accounts have to be received with caution. (J. G. FR. )
PERIDOTE, a name applied by jewellers to the green
transparent varieties of olivine. When yellow, or yellowish-
green, the stone is generally known as " chrysolite." The
colour of the peridote is never vivid, like that of emerald,
but is usually some shade of olive-, pistachio-, or leek-green.
Although sometimes cut in rose-forms and en cabochon, the
stone displays its colour most advantageously when it is
worked in small steps. Unfortunately the peridote is the
very softest of gem-stones, its hardness being only about
6 '5, or but little above that of glass ; hence the stone,
when polished, rapidly loses its lustre, and readily suffers
abrasion by wear. There is considerable difficulty in
polishing the peridote ; the final touch is given on a copper
wheel moistened with sulphuric acid, yet, curiously enough,
the mineral is soluble in this medium. The peridote is a
silicate of magnesium and iron, having a specific gravity
of about 3 '4, and crystallizing in the orthorhombic system
(see fig. 468, MIXERALOGY, vol. xvi. p. 410). Good crystals,
1 There were ten generals at Athens annually elected by the votes
of the people. They seem to have had civil as well as military duties,
and the importance of tlie office must have increased in proportion to
the degradation of the offices which were filled by lot. After the
ostracism of Thucydides Pericles was elected to the office again and
again.
2 Pint., Per., 18, 33, 38; Rey. et imp. Apopli. ; Prascept. c/er.
Reip., xvii. 4.
3 Pausan., i. 29, 3 ; cp. Cic., De Fin., v. 2.
however, are extremely rare, the mineral being usually
found as rolled fragments. The localities for peridote and
chrysolite are Egypt, Ceylon, Pegu, and Brazil, while the
dull varieties of olivine enjoy a world-wide distribution in
various eruptive rocks and in serpentine. Olivine is found
also in meteorites.
There can be little doubt that the ancient " topazion "
was our peridote or chrysolite, and that the mineral now
called topaz was unknown to ancient and media:val writers.
The earliest mention of the word " peridote " is said to
occur in the Wardrobe Book of 27 Edward I., where,
among the jewels of the bishop of Bath and Wells which
had escheated to the crown, mention is made of "unus
annulus auri cum pereditis." The origin of the word has
given rise to much speculation, some authorities deriving
it from TrepiSoTos, "a wager," and others from Trepukros,
" banded," while others, again, refer it to an Arabic origin.
For the history of the stone see King's Natural History, Ancient
and Modern, of Prccioiis Stones, 1865.
PERIGORD, an old province of France which formed
part of the military government of Guienne and Gascony,
and was bounded N. by Angoumois, E. by Limousin and
Quercy, S. by Agenais and Bazaclais, and W. by Bordelais
and Saintonge. It is now represented by Dordogne and
part of Lot-et-Garonne. The capital was PERIGUEUX (</•*'•)•
PERIGUEUX, formerly capital of Perigord, now chief
town of the department of the Dordogne, France, situated
on the slope of an eminence commanding the right bank
of the Isle, one of the tributaries of the Dordogne. It is
310 miles by rail south-south-west of Paris and 79 miles
east-north-east of Bordeaux. Perigueux is divided into
three distinct parts. In the middle, on the slope of the hill,
is the town of the Middle Ages, with narrow, crooked, and
dirty streets, above which rises the cathedral of St Front ;
higher up comes the modern town, its houses separated
by gardens and public walks ; and at the foot of the hill
and lying along the Isle are small houses of modern con
struction, built on the fine ruins of the Roman town. Three
bridges connect Perigueux with the left bank of the Isle,
where stood Vesunna, the capital of the Petrocorii. Hardly
a trace of this old Gallic oppiclum remains, but not far
off, on the Plateau de la Boissiere, the rampart of the old
Roman camp, 1970 feet long and half as wide, is still to
be recognized. On the right bank of the Isle, in the Roman
city, there have been discovered some baths of the 1st or
2d century, which had a frontage of 200 feet, and were
supplied by an aqueduct 4 miles long, which spanned
the Isle. In several places numerous mosaics have been
found, some of which have been placed in the museum. A
circular building, called the " Tower of Vesunna," 68 feet in
diameter and 89 feet in height, stands at what was formerly
the centre of the city, where all the chief streets met. It
is believed to have been originally the cella or main part
of a temple, of which the peristyle has disappeared, prob
ably dedicated to the tutelary deities of Vesunna. Of the
amphitheatre there still remain huge fragments of wall
built of pebbles and cement, staircases, vomitories, and
partly uncovered vaults. The building, which held 40,000
spectators, had a diameter of 1312 feet, that of the arena
being 876 feet ; judging from its construction it must be
as old as the 3d or even the 2d century. The counts of
Perigueux used it for their chateau, and lived in it from
the 12th to the end of the 14th century. In 1644 it was
given over by the town to the Order of the Visitation, and
the sisters took from it the stones required for the con
struction of their nunnery. At present it is private pro
perty. The most remarkable, however, of the ruins of old
Vesunna is the Chateau Barricre. It rests on stones of great
size, and dates in part from a very remote period. Two
towers date from the 3d or 4th century, and formed part
P E R — P E R
535
of the fortified enceinte; the highest tower is of the 10th
century; and the part now inhabited is of the llth or
12th century, and was formerly used as a burial chapel.
The bulk of the chateau is of the 12th, and some of the
windows of the 16th century. Lastly, there are still to
be traced the two tiers of wall of the enceinte, built round
the city in the 5th century ; but these are partly hidden
by restorations of a later date. Numerous courses of
stone are also to be seen, shafts of columns, and marbles
of various shapes and sizes. Of the mediaeval town the
feature most worthy of notice is the cathedral of St Front,
which is indeed (or rather was) one of the most interesting
of sacred buildings. It bears a striking resemblance to
the Byzantine churches and to St Mark's at Venice, and
was built from 984 to 1047, contemporaneously with the
latter (977-1085). It consists of five great cupolas, arranged
in the form of a Greek cross, and conspicuous from the
outside. The arms of the cross are 69 feet in width, and
the whole is 184 feet long. These cupolas, 89 feet high
from the keystone to the ground, and supported on a
vaulted roof with pointed arches after the manner charac
teristic of Byzantine architecture, served as models for
many other churches in Aquitania ; thus St Front is
entitled to a prominent place in the history of art. The
pointed arches imitated from it prepared the way for the
introduction of the Gothic style. The restoration of the
edifice, begun in 1865, resulted, unfortunately, in an almost
complete reconstruction, in which the old features have
been largely lost. The belfry of St Front is the only one
in the Byzantine style now extant ; it dates from the llth
century, and is composed of two massive cubes, placed the
one above the other in retreat, with a circular colonnade
surmounted by a dome. The interior of the church has
a fine altar-screen of carved oak. Near St Front are the
ruins of the old basilica built in the 6th century. The
bishop's palace, in the grounds of the ancient abbey, has
a curious subterranean cloister of the 12th, 13th, and
14th centuries. Perigueux has several old and curious
houses of the mediaeval and Renaissance periods ; a large
prefecture of some architectural merit, built at great
expense a few years ago in the style of the Renaissance
and of the 1 8th century ; a museum which is singularly
rich in Roman, Frank, Egyptian, and pre-Celtic antiquities ;
and a library of 30,000 volumes. In the squares are
statues of Montaigne, Fenelon, General Daumesnil, the
defender of Vincennes (1814-15), and Marshal Bugeaud.
The town has iron and copper foundries, serge and bom-
basin factories, tanneries, and dye-works. It does a large
trade in flour, wine, brandy, hides, poultry, and in the
celebrated pates du Perigord. It is the junction of the
railway from Paris to Agen with that from Bordeaux
to Lyons via Clermont. The population in 1881 was
25,036. -
Vesunna, as has already been said, was the capital of the Petrocorii,
allies of Vercingetorix when Caesar invaded Gaul. The country
was afterwards occupied by the Romans, who built a second city of
Vesunna on the right bank of the Isle opposite the site of the Gallic
oppidum. It contained public buildings, and Roman roads led
from it to Limoges, Agen, Bordeaux, and Saintes. The barbarian
invasion brought this prosperity to a close. In the 6th century St
Front preached Christianity here, and over his tomb there was
raised in the 10th century an abbey, which became the centre of
the new town, called Puy St Front. The latter soon began to rival
the old city in importance, and it was not until 1269 that they were
united by a solemn treaty. After the time of Charlemagne Perigord
was governed by a line of counts. During the Hundred Years' War
Perigueux was twice attacked by the English, who took the forti
fied town in 1356 ; and the town was ceded to them by the treaty of
Bretigny, but returned to the French crown in the reign of Charles
V. The county passed by marriage into the hands of Anthony of
Bourbon, father of Henry IV., and was converted by the latter
into royal domain. During the Huguenot wars Perigueux was
frequently a Calvinist stronghold, and it also suffered during the
troubles of the Fronde.
PERINTHUS, a town of Thrace, on the Propontis, 22
miles to the west of Selymbria, strongly situated on a
small peninsula on the Bay of Perinthus, on the site of
the modern Eski Eregli. It is said to have been a Samian
colony, and to have been founded about 599 B.C. Accord
ing to Tzetzes, its original name was Mygdonia ; later it
was called Heraclea (Heraclea Thracice, Heraclea Perinthus).
It figures in history chiefly by its stubborn and success
ful resistance to Philip of Macedon in 340, at which
period it seems to have been even more important than
Byzantium itself. A number of extant coins of Perinthus
show that it was the seat of large and celebrated festivals.
PERIODICALS
PERIODICALS may be broadly divided into two classes,
the one chiefly devoted to general literature, apart
from political and social news (a subject dealt with under
the heading of NEWSPAPERS), and the other more exclusively
to science and art, or to particular branches of knowledge
or trade. The former class, and those of general interest
only, will be principally dealt with in this article, where
an endeavour is made to trace briefly the history of the
rise and progress of that vast and increasing body of
printed matter which, under the different names of re
views, magazines, &c., forms so large a part of current
literature.
BRITISH.
7th and The first literary periodical in English was the Mercurius
8th cen- Librarius, or a Faithful Account of all Books and Pamphlets
(1680), a mere catalogue, followed by Weekly Memorials
for the Ingenious (16th January 1681/82 to loth January
1683), which was more of the type of the Journal des
Savants, whence it borrowed many contributions, and by
the Bibliothcque Universelle et Historique (January 1686-93),
begun by Jean Leclerc, continued with the assistance of
J. de la Grose, and carried on during the last six years of
its existence by J. Bernard. Of the History of Learning
(1691 ; another with the same title in 1694) only a few
numbers appeared, as the conductor, De la Grose, started
the Works of the Learned (August 1691 to April 1692),
devoted principally to Continental scholarship. The Corn-
pleat Library (1692 to Decemberl693)wasaventureof John
Dunton ; the Memoirs for the Ingenious (1693) ran to six
monthly numbers, and another with the same title appeared
in the following year, only to enjoy an equally brief career.
The first periodical of merit and influence was the History
of the Works of the Learned (1699 -1712), largely consisting
of descriptions of foreign books. The Memoirs of Litera
ture, the first English review consisting entirely of original
matter, published in London from 1710 to 1714, had for
editor Michel de la Roche, a French Protestant refugee,
who also edited at Amsterdam the BiUiotheque Angloise
(1717-19), and subsequently Memoires Litteraires de la
Grande Bretagne (1 720-24). Returning to England in 1 725,
he recommenced his Neio Memoirs of Literature (1725-28),
and in 1730 a Literary Journal. Dr Samuel Jebb started
Bibliotheca Literaria (1722-24), which dealt with medals and
antiquities as well as with literature, but only ten numbers
appeared. The Present State of the Republick of Letters
was commenced by Andrew Reid in January 1728, and
completed in December 1736. It contained not only
excellent reviews of English books but papers from the
works of foreigners, and, as well as the Historia Literaria
536
PERIODICALS
(1730-34) of Archibald Bower,1 was very successful. The
Bee (1733-34) of the unfortunate Eustace Budgell, and the
Literary Magazine (\ 735-36), with which Ephraim Chambers
had much to do, were very short-lived. In 1737 the History
of the Worts of the Learned appeared again, and was con
tinued without intermission until 1743, when its place was
taken by A Literary Journal (Dublin, 1744-49), the first
review published in Ireland. The Museum (1746) of R.
Dodsley united the character of a review of books with
that of a literary magazine. Although England can show
nothing like the Journal des Savants, which has flourished
almost without a break for 220 years, a nearly- complete
series of reviews of English literature may be made up
from 1681 to the present day.
After the close of the first quarter of the 1 8th century
the literary journal began to assume more of the style of
the .modern review, and in 1749 the title and the chief
features were united in the Monthly Revieiv, established
by Ralph Griffiths,2 who conducted it until 1803, wrhence
it was edited by his son down to 1825. It came to an end
in 1845. From its commencement the Review dealt with
science and literature, as well as with literary criticism.
It was Whig in politics and Nonconformist in theology.
The Tory party and the established church were defended
in the Critical Review (1756-1817), founded by Archibald
Hamilton and supported by Smollett, Johnson, and Robert
son. Johnson took a considerable part in the Literary
Magazine (1756-58). The reviews rapidly increased in
number towards the end of the century. Among the prin
cipal were the London Review (1775-80), A New Review
(1782-86), the English Review (1783-96), incorporated in
1797 with the Analytical Review (1788-99), the Anti-
Jacobin Review and Magazine (1798-1821), and the British
Clitic (1793-1843), the organ of the High Church party,
and first edited by Archdeacon Nares and Beloe.
These periodicals had now become extremely numerous,
and many of the leading London publishers found it con
venient to maintain their own particular organs. It is
not a matter of surprise, therefore, that the authority of
the reviews should have fallen somewhat in public estima
tion. The time was ripe for one which should be quite
independent of the booksellers, and which should also aim
at a higher standard of excellence. As far back as 1755
Quarter- Adam Smith, Blair, and others had endeavoured to carry
lies. on such a quarterly without achieving success, and in 1773
Gilbert Stuart and William Smellie issued during three
years an Edinburgh Magazine and Review. To the northern
capital is also due the first high-class critical journal which
has kept up its reputation to the present day. The Edin
burgh Review was established in 1802 by Jeffrey, Scott,
Homer, Brougham, and Sydney Smith. It created a new
era in periodical criticism, and assumed from the com
mencement a wider range and more elevated tone than
any of its predecessors. The first editor was Sydney Smith,
then Jeffrey for many years, and afterwards Macvey Napier.
At one time 20,000 copies are said to have been published,
but the circulation declined in 1832 to less than 9000.
Scott, being dissatisfied with the new review, persuaded
John Murray to start its brilliant Tory competitor, the
Quarterly Review (1809), first edited by William Gifford,
then by Sir J. T. Coleridge, and subsequently by J. G.
Lockhart. The Westminster Review (1824), established by
the disciples of Jeremy Bentham, advocated radical reforms
1 Archibald Bower (1686-1766) was educated at Douai, and be
came a Jesuit. lie subsequently professed himself a convert to the
Anglican Church, and published a number of works, but was more
esteemed for his ability than for his moral character.
2 The biographers of Goldsmith have made us familiar with the
name of Griffiths, the prosperous publisher, with his diploma of LL.D.
granted by an American university, and with the quarrels between
him and the poet.
in church, state, and legislation. In 1836 it was joined
to the London Review (1829), founded by Sir William
Molesworth, and then bore the name of the London and
Westminster Revieiv till 1851, when it returned to the
original title. The other quarterly reviews are the Eclectic
Review (1805-68), edited down to 1834 by Josiah Conder
and supported by the Dissenters; the British Review (1811-
25); the Christian Remembrancer (1819-68); the Retro
spective Renew (1820-26, 1828, 1853-54), for old books;
the Foreign Quarterly Revieiv (1827-46), afterwards incor
porated with the Westminster; the Foreign Review (1828-
29); the Dublin Review (1836), still continued as the organ
of the Roman Catholics ; the Foreign and Colonial Quar
terly Review (1843-47); the Prospective Reiiew (1845-55),
given up to theology and literature, previously the Christian
Teacher (1835-44) ; the North British Review (1844-71);
the British Quarterly Review (1845), successor to the
British and Foreign Review (1835-44) ; the New Quarterly
Review (1852-61); the Scottish Review (1853-62), published
at Glasgow; the Wesleyan London Quarterly Review (1853) ;
the National Review (1855-64); the Diplomatic Review
(1855-81) ; the Irish Quarterly Review (1851-59), brought
out in Dublin; the Home, and Foreign Review (1862-64);
the Fine Arts Quarterly Review (1863-65); the New Quar
terly Magazine (1873-80) ; the Catholic Union Review
(1863-74); the Anglican Church Quarterly Review (1875) ;
Mind (1876), dealing with mental philosophy ; the Modern
Reiiew (1880) ; and the Scottish Review (1882).
The monthly reviews include the Christian Observer Monti
(1802-57), conducted by members of the established church lies-
upon evangelical principles, with Zachary Macaulay as the
first editor ; and the Monthly Repository (1806-37), origin
ally purely theological, but after coming into the hands of
the Rev. W. J. Fox made entirely literary and political.
The Fortnightly Review (1865) was intended as a kind of
English Revue des Deux Mondes. Since 1866 it has
appeared monthly. The Contemporary Review (1866) and
the Nineteenth Century (1877) are similar in character,
consisting of signed articles by men of mark of all opinions
upon questions of the day. The National Review (1883)
was brought out to supply the demand for an exclusively
Conservative review, and Modern Thought (1879) for the
free discussion of political, religious, and social subjects.
The weekly reviews dealing generally with literature, Week
science, and art are the Literary Gazette (1817-62), first lies-
edited by William Jerdan, which had for many years a circu
lation of 6000 copies; the Athenxum (1828), established
by Silk Buckingham, but which was not very success
ful until it was taken over by C. W. Dilke ; and the
Academy (1869), founded, and at first edited, by Dr
Appleton. Those which also include political and social
topics are the Examiner (1808-81), the Spectator (1828),
the Saturday Review (1855), and the Chronicle (1867-68).
The reviews in the Academy are signed.
Soon after the introduction of the literary journal in
England, one of a more familiar tone was started by the
eccentric John Dunton inihe Athenian Gazette, or Casuistical
Mercury, resohing all the most Nice and Curious Questions
(1689/90 to 1695/96), a kind of forerunner of Notes and
Queries, being a penny weekly sheet, with a quarterly
critical supplement. In the last part the publisher an
nounces that it will be continued " as soon as ever the glut
of news is a little over." Defoe's Reiiew (1704-13) dealt
chiefly with politics and commerce, but the introduction
in it of what its editor fittingly termed the " scandalous
club " was another step nearer the papers of Steele and
the periodical essayists, the first attempts to create an
organized popular opinion in matters of taste and manners.
These little papers, rapidly thrown off for a temporary
purpose, were destined to form a very important part of
PERIODICALS
537
the literature of the 18th century, and in some respects
its most marked feature. Although the frequenters of
the clubs and coffee-houses were the persons for whom the
essay-papers were mainly written, a proof of the increas
ing refinement of the age is to be found in the fact that
now for the first time were women specially addressed as
Ta r, part of the reading public. The Taller was commenced
.tc. by Richard Steele in 1709, and issued thrice a week until
1711. The idea was at once extremely popular, and a
dozen similar papers were started within the year, at least
one half bearing colourable imitations of the title. Addi-
son contributed to the Tatler, and together with Steele
established and carried on the Spectator (1710-14), and
subsequently the Guardian (1713). The newspaper tax
enforced in 1712 was a sore blow. Before this time the
daily issue of the Spectator had reached 3000 copies ; it
then fell to 1 600 ; the price was raised from a penny to
twopence, but the paper came to an end in 1714. Dr
Drake (Essays ilhistr. of the Rambler, <fec., ii. 490) drew
up an imperfect list of the essayists, and reckoned that
from the Tatler to Johnson's Rambler, during a period of
forty-one years, 106 papers of this description were pub
lished. Dr Drake continued the list down to 1809, and
described altogether 221 which had appeared within a
hundred years. The following is a list of the most con
siderable, with their dates, founders, and chief contri
butors.
Tatter (12th April 1709 to 2d January 1710/11), Steele, Addison,
Swift, Hughes, &c. ; Spectator (1st March 1710/11 to 20th December
1714), Addison, Steele, Budgcll, Hughes, Grove, Pope, Parnell, Swift,
&c. ; Guardian (12th March 1713 to 1st October 1713), Steele,
Addison, Berkeley, Pope, Tickell, Budgell, &c. ; Rambler (20th
March 1750 to 14th March 1752), Johnson ; Adventurer (7th No
vember 1752 to 9th March 1754), Hawkesworth, Johnson, Bathurst,
\Varton, Chapone ; World (4th January 1753 to 30th December
1756), E. Moore, earl of Chesterfield, R. 0. Cambridge, earl of Orford,
Soame Jenyns, &c. ; Connoisseur (31st January 1754 to 30th Sep
tember 1756), Colman, Thornton, Warton, earl of Cork, &c. : Idler
(15th April 1758 to 5th April 1760), Johnson, Sir J. Reynolds, and
Bennet Laiigton ; Bee (6th October 1759 to 24th November 1759),
0. Goldsmith ; Mirror (23d January 1779 to 27th May 1780),
Mackenzie, Craig, Abercromby, Home, Bannatyne, &c. ; Lounger,
(5th February 1785 to 6th January 1787), Mackenzie, Craig, Aber
cromby, Tytler ; Observer (1785 to 1790), Cumberland; Looker-on
(10th March 1792 to 1st February 1794), W. Roberts, Beresford,
Chalmers.
As from the " pamphlet of news " arose the weekly
paper wholly devoted to the circulation of news, so from
the general newspaper was specialized the weekly or
monthly review of literature, antiquities, and science,
which, when it included essay-papers, made up the maga
zine or miscellaneous repository of matter for information
and anmsement. Several monthly publications had come
'idem into existence since 1681, but perhaps the first germ of
l§a" the magazine is to be found in the Gentleman's Journal
(1G91-94) of Peter Motteux, which, besides the news of the
month, contained miscellaneous prose and poetry. In
1722 Dr Samuel Jebb included antiquarian notices as well
as literary reviews in his Bibliotheca Literaria (1722-24),
but the Gentleman's Magazine, founded in 1731, fully
established, through the tact and energy of the publisher
Edward Cave, the type of the magazine, from that time
so marked a feature of English periodical literature. This
magazine, so long a source of fortune to its successive
owners, was vainly offered during four years to different
publishers before Cave was able to start it himself. The
first idea is due to Motteux, from whom the title, motto,
and general plan were borrowed. The chief feature in the
new venture at first consisted of the analysis of the journals,
which Cave undertook personally. Prizes were offered for
poetry. In April 1732 the leading metropolitan publishers,
jealous of the interloper Cave, started the London Maga
zine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer (1732-84), which
had a long and prosperous career. The new magazine
closely copied Cave's title, plan, and aspect, and bitter war
was long waged between the two. The rivalry was not
without benefit to the literary public, as the conductors
of each used every effort to improve their own review.
Cave introduced the practice of giving engravings, maps,
and portraits, but his greatest success was the addition of
Johnson to the regular staff. This took place in 1738,
when the latter wrote the preface to the volume for that year,
observing that the magazine had " given rise to almost
twenty imitations of it, which are either all dead or very
little regarded." The plan was also imitated in Denmark,
Sweden, and Germany. Cave edited his magazine down
to his death in 1754, when it was continued by his brother-
in-law David Henry, afterwards by John Nichols and his
son. The specially antiquarian and historical features
were dropped in 1868, and it was changed to a miscellany
of light literature.
Many other magazines were produced in consequence of
the success of these two. It will be sufficient to mention
the foil- -ing. The Scots Magazine (1739-1817) was the
first published in Scotland; from 1817 to 1826 it was
styled the Edinburgh Magazine. The Universal Magazine
(1747) had a short, if brilliant, career; but the European
Magazine, founded by James Perry in 1782, lasted down to
1826. Of more importance than these, or than the Royal
Magazine (1759-71), was the Monthly Magazine (1796-
1843), with which Priestley and Godwin were originally
connected. During thirty years the Monthly was con
ducted by Sir Richard Phillips, under whom it became
more statistical and scientific than literary. Class maga
zines were represented by the Edinburgh Farmer's Maga
zine (1800-25) and the Philosophical Magazine (1798),
established in London by Alexander Tilloch ; the latter at
first consisted chiefly of translations of scientific articles
from the French. The following periodicals, all of which
date from the 18th century, are still published :— the
Gentleman's Magazine (1731), the Gospel Magazine (1768),
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (1778), Curtis 's Botanical
Magazine (1786), Evangelical Magazine (1793), Methodist
Neiv Connexion Magazine (1797), Philosophical Magazine
(1798).
The increased influence of this class of periodical upon
the public opinion of our own era was first apparent in
Blackivood's Edinburgh Magazine, founded in 1817 by the
publisher of that name, and carried to a high degree of
excellence by the contributions of Scott, Lockhart, Hogg,
Maginn, Syme, and John Wilson, the editor. It is still
issued, and has always remained Liberal in literature and
Conservative in politics. The New Monthly Magazine is
somewhat earlier in date. It was founded in 1814 by
the London publisher Colburn, and was edited in turns by
Campbell, Theodore Hook, Bulwer Lytton, and Ainsworth.
Many of Carlyle's and Thackeray's pieces first appeared in
Eraser's Magazine (1830), long famous for its personalities
and its gallery of literary portraits. The Metropolitan
Magazine was started in opposition to Eraser, and was first
edited by Campbell, who had left its rival. It subsequently
came into the hands of Captain Marryatt, who printed in
it many of his sea-tales. The British Magazine (1832-49)
included religious and ecclesiastical information. From
Ireland came the Dublin University Magazine (1833). The
regular price of these magazines was half a crown ; the
first of the cheaper ones was Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
(1832-61) at a shilling. It was Radical in politics, and
had Roebuck as one of its founders. Bentley's Miscellany
(1837-68) was exclusively devoted to novels, light liter
ature, and travels. Several of Ainsworth's romances,
illustrated by Cruikshank, first saw the light in Bentley.
The Nautical Magazine (1832) was addressed specially to
XVIII. — 68
538
PERIODICALS
Cheap
publica
tions.
Statis
tics.
sailors, and Colburn's United Service Journal (1829) to
both services. The Asiatic Journal (1816) dealt with
Oriental subjects.
From 1815 to 1820 a number of low-priced and unwhole
some periodicals flourished. The Mirror (1823-49), a two
penny illustrated magazine, begun by John Limbird,1 and
the Mechanics Magazine (1823) were steps in a better
direction. The political agitation of 1831 led to a further
popular demand, and a supply of cheap and healthy serials
for the reading multitude commenced with Chambers' s
Edinburgh Journal (1832), the Penny Magazine (1832-45)
of Charles Knight, issued under the patronage of the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and the
Saturday Magazine (1832-44), begun by the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge. The first was published
at IJd. and the last two at Id. Knight secured the best
authors and artists of the day to write for and illustrate
his magazine, which, though at first a commercial success,
may have had the reason of its subsequent discontinuance
in its literary excellence. At the end of 1832 it had
reached a sale of 200,000 in weekly numbers and monthly
parts. It came to an end in 1845 and was succeeded by
Knight's Penny Magazine (1845), which was stopped after
six monthly parts. These periodicals were followed by a
number of penny weeklies of a lower tone, such as the
Family Herald (1843), the London Journal (1845), and
Lloyd's Miscellany ; the two former are still thriving. In
1850 the sale of the first of them was placed at 175,000
copies, the second at 170,000, and Lloyd's at 95,000. In
1846 fourteen penny and three halfpenny magazines,
twelve social journals, and thirty-seven book-serials were
produced every week in London. A further and permanent
improvement in cheap weeklies for home reading may be
traced from the foundation of HowMs Journal (1847-49),
and more especially Household Words (1850), conducted by
Charles Dickens, All the Year Round (1859), by the same
editor, and afterwards by his son, Once a Week (1859), and
the Leisure Hour (1852). The plan of Notes and Queries
(1849), for the purpose of intercommunication among
those interested in special points of literary and anti
quarian character, has led to the adoption of similar depart
ments in a great number of newspapers and periodicals,
and, besides several imitators in England, there are now
parallel journals in Holland, France, and Italy.
Recent shilling monthlies began with Macmillan (1859),
the Cornhill (1860), and Temple Bar (1860). The Corn-
hill, first edited by Thackeray, was known for its specially
literary tone down to 1883. St James's Magazine (1861),
Belgravia (1866), St Paul's (1867-74), London Society
(1862), and Tinsley's (1867) are devoted chiefly to novels
and light reading. The sixpenny illustrated magazines
commenced with Good Words (1860) and the Quiver (1861),
both religious in tendency. In 1882 Eraser changed its
name to Longman's Magazine, and was entirely popularized
and reduced to sixpence. The Cornhill followed the same
example in 1883, reducing its price to sixpence and devot
ing its pages to light reading. The English Illustrated
Magazine (1883) was brought out in competition with the
American Harper and Century. Of the artistic period
icals we may signalize the Art Journal (1849), long known
for its line engravings, the Portfolio (1870), which has
done much to popularize etching, and the Magazine of
Art (1878).
The following statistics furnish an idea of the marvel
lous increase in the number of periodicals issued at different
times during the last fifty years. In figures submitted
. J John Limbird, to whom even before Chambers or Knight is due
the carrying out the idea of a cheap and good periodical for the people,
died so recently as 31st October 1883, without having achieved the
worldly prosperity of his two followers.
to the House of Commons in 1864 Sir Edward Baines
estimated the circulation of the monthly magazines in
1831 at no more than 125,000 copies; when he spoke
the number had increased to 3,609,350. The weeklies
might be reckoned in 1831 at about equal to the monthlies
in circulation, and the miscellaneous serials at 120,000,
amounting altogether to 420,000 copies. In 1864 the
circulation of weeklies and monthlies reached a total of
6,094,950 (Journal of Statist, Soc., 1864, pp. 410-412).
Concurrently with this increase in the whole number pub
lished there may be observed an equally regular decrease
in the average cost of each. In 1831 there were issued
in London alone 177 monthlies, costing £17, 12s. 6d., or
an average of 2s. apiece. At the end of 1833 there were
236 of the same class, costing <£23, 3s. 6d., and the average
price had decreased to Is. IHd. Twenty years later, in
1853, there were 362 monthlies, costing £14, 17s. 6d., the
average cost of each being now only 9J-d. (Knight's Old
Printer and Modern Press, 263).
In London itself the increase of the weeklies, monthlies,
and quarterlies at different periods has been as follows : —
Weekly.
Monthly.
Quarterly.
Total.
1833
21
236 25
282
1837
50
186
34
220
1844
60
227
38
325
1853
56
302
50
408
1863
f Included in |_
( monthlies )
453
75
528
1874
50
402
84
500
1SS4
110
009
126
905
Extending the inquiry to the whole of the United
Kingdom, and including every description of periodical,
with the exception of annuals and newspapers, May's
British and Irish Press Guide for the years 1874 and 1884
supplies this comparison : —
1874.
1884.
1874.
1SS4.
541
771
Daily
1
12
England
GO
154
2
15
26
Weekly
53
114
27
61
Twice a month
5
13
11
26
482
699
2
5
9
84
i°9
Total
602
1041
Half-yearly
4
16
28
47
Total....
602
1041
The chief classes into which the same periodicals may be
divided are : —
Religious.
Illustrated.
Juvenile.
Trade-organs.
1863
1874
1884
196
297
350
175
333
59
100
04
137
Among the different periodicals issued in 1884 there
were also 73 advocating temperance, 28 devoted to agri
culture, 57 family magazines, 31 financial, 15 insurance,
18 medical, 7 secularist, 9 tailoring, and 7 bicycling.
Indexes to English Periodicals. — Lists of the separate indexes to
particular series are given in H. B. Whcatlcy's What is an Index ?
1879, and List of Bibliographies in the Heading Room of the British
Museum, 1881. The valuable and elaborate work of W. F. Poole,
Index to Periodical Lit., Boston (Massachusetts), 1882, supplies
an exhaustive alphabetical index to the titles of articles in 6205
volumes of English and American serials of the present century.
Monthly supplements appear in the Library Journal.
Authorities.— "Periodicals," in the British Mnsenm catalogue; Lowndes,
9 ; Andrews, Hist, of Brit. Journalism, 1859 ; Cucheval Clarigny, Hist, de la
•sse en Angleterrc etaux Ktats Unis, 1857 ; Madden, Hint, of Irish Period. Lit.,
"Account of Periodical Literary Journals from 1081 to 1749," by S. Farkes, in
Quart. Journ. ofSc., Lit., etc., xiii. 36, 289; "Last Century Magazines," in Fraser's
PERIODICALS
539
iv. 211; Timperley, Ency. of Lit. Anec., 1842; C. Knight, The Old Printer ami
the Modern Press, 1854, and Passages of a Working Life, 1864-65 ; Memoir of
Robert Chambers, 1872 ; The London Cat. of Periodicals, Newspapers, &c., 1844-84 ;
Mitchell, Newspaper Press Directory, 1S46-S4 ; Nay, British, and Irish Press
(fuule, 1874-84 ; The Bookseller, Feb. 1867, June and July 1868, Aug. 1874, July
1879.
India and the British Colonies. — The first Indian periodical was
the Calcutta, Monthly Register (1790), which lasted but a short time.
A Calcutta Literary Gazette came out in 1830. In 1844 appeared
the first number of the Calcutta, Review (1844), which is still the
most important serial of the Indian empire. The Bombay Quarterly
Review was founded in 1855. Madras had a Journal of Literature
and Science and the Oriental Magazine and Indian Hurkuru (1819).
The Religious and Theological Magazine was produced at Colombo
in 1833. The Christian College Magazine was commenced in 1883.
At Singapore the Journal of the, Indian Archipelago appeared from
1847 to 1855. The Chinese Repository (1832), edited at Canton by
Morrison, dealt with the farther East.
See " Periodical Literature in India" in Dark Blue, 1872-73.
Hubbard (Newspaper Directory) estimates the existing periodicals
(omitting newspapers) of British North America at 652.
The number of weekly, monthly, and quarterly publications of
Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand is placed by the same
authority at 570. The Melbourne Review (1876) deserves special
mention.
FOREIGN.
France. — We owe the literary journal to France, where it soon
attained to a degree of importance unapproachcd in any other
country. The first idea may be traced in the Bureau d'Adrcsse
of Theophraste Renaudot, giving the proceedings of his conferences
upon literary and scientific matters (1633-42). About the year
1663 Mezeray obtained a privilege for a regular literary periodical,
which came to nothing, and it was left to Denis de Sallo, counsellor
of the parliament of Paris and a man of rare merit and learning, to
actually carry the project into effect. The first number of the
Journal des Savants appeared on 5th January 1665, under the
assumed name of the sieur d'Hedouville. The prospectus promised
to give an account of the chief books published throughout Europe,
obituary notices, a review of the progress of science, besides legal
and ecclesiastical information and other matters of interest to cul
tivated persons. The criticisms, however, wounded alike authors
and the clergy, and the journal was suppressed after a career of
three months. Colbert, seeing the public utility of such a periodical,
ordered the abbe Gallois, a contributor of De Sallo's, to re-establish
it, an event which took place on 4th January 1666. It lingered
nine years under the new editor, who was replaced in 1675 by the
abbe de la Roque, and the latter in his turn by the president
Cousin in 1686. From 1701 commenced a new era for the Journal,
which was then acquired by the chancellor de Fontchartrain for
the state and placed under the direction of a commission of learned
men. Just before the Revolution it developed fresh activity, but
the troubles of 1792 caused it to be discontinued until 1796, when
it again failed to appear after twelve numbers had been issued.
In 1816 it was definitively re-established and replaced under
Government patronage, remaining subject to the chancellor or
garde-des-sceaux until 1857, when it was transferred to the control
of the minister of public instruction. The present organization
much resembles that of an academy. The members of the commis
sion are elected, approved of by the minister, and divided into
assistants and authors, the latter furnishing at least three articles
per annum at a fixed and modest rate of payment. All communica
tions are discussed at fortnightly conferences.
Louis Anguste de Bourbon, sovereign prince of Dombes, having
transferred his parliament to Trevoux, set up a printing press, and
was persuaded by two Jesuits, Michel le Tellier and Philippe Lalle-
man, to establish the Memoires pour scrvir a I'Histoire des Sciences
et des Arts (1701-67), more familiarly known as the Journal de
Trevoux, long the best-informed and best-written journal in France.
One feature of its career was its constant appeal for the literary
assistance of outsiders. It was continued in a more popular style
as Journal des Sciences ct des Beaux-Arts (1768-75) by the abbe
Aubert and by the brothers Castilhon (1776-78), and as Journal de
Litterature, des Sciences, ct des Arts (1779-82) by the abbe Grosier.
The first legal periodical was the Journal du Palais (1672) of
Blondeau and Gueret, and the first devoted to medicine the Nouvellcs
Decouvertes dans toutes les Parties de la Medecine (1679) of Nicolas
de Blegny, frequently spoken of as a charlatan, a term which some
times means simply a man of many ideas. Religious periodicals date
from 1680 and the Journal Ecdesiastique of the abbe de la Roque.
The prototype of the historico-literary periodical may be discovered
in La Clef du Cabinet des Princes de I 'Europe (1704-6), familiarly
known as Journal de Verdun, and carried on under various titles
down to 1794.
Literary criticism was no more free than political discussion, and
no person was allowed to trespass either upon the domain of the
Journal des Savants or that of the Mercure dc France without the
payment of heavy subsidies. This was the origin of the clandestine
press of Holland, and it was that country which for the next
hundred years supplied the ablest periodical criticism from the pens
of French Protestant refugees. During that period thirty-one
journals of the first class proceeded from these sources. From its
commencement the Journal des Savants was pirated in Holland,
and for ten years a kind of joint issue made up with the Journal
des Trevoux appeared at Amsterdam. From 1764 to 1775 miscel
laneous articles from different French and English reviews were
added to this reprint. Bayle, a born journalist and the most able
critic of the day, conceived the plan of the Nouvellcs de la Rfymb-
lique des Lettrcs (1684-1718), which at once became entirely success
ful and obtained for him during the three years of his control the
dictatorship of the world of letters. He was succeeded as editor
by La Roque, Barrin, Bernard, and Leclerc. Bayle's method was
followed in an equally meritorious periodical, the Histoirc des
Ouvrages des Savants (1687-1704) of H. Basnage de Beauval.
Another continuator of Bayle was Jean Leclerc, one of the most
learned and acute critics of the 18th century, who carried on three
review's, the Bibliotheque Univcrselle ct Historique (1686-93), the
Bibliotheque Choisie (1703-13), and the Bibliotheque Ancienne et
Modcrne (1714-27). They form one series, and, besides valuable
estimates of new books, include original dissertations, articles, and
biographies like our modern learned iriagazines. The Journal
Litteraire (1713-22, 1729-36) was founded by a society of young
men, who made it a rule to discuss their contributions in com
mon. Specially devoted to English literature were the Bibliothiquc
Anglaise (1716-28), the Memoires Litteraircs de la Grande Brctayne
(1720-24), the Bibliothiquc Britanniquc (1733-34), and the Journal
Britannique (1750-57) of Maty,1 who took for his principle, "pour
penser avec liberte il faut penser seul." One of these Dutch-
printed reviews was V Europe Savante (1718-20), founded chiefly by
Themiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, with the intention of placing each
separate department under the care of a specialist. The Bibliotheque
Germanique (1720-40) was established by Jacques Lenfant to do for
northern Europe what the Bibliotheque Britannique did for England.
It was followed by the Nouvcllc Bibliotheque Germanique (1746-59).
The Bibliotheque Raisonnee des Ouvrages des Savants (1728-58) was
supplementary to Leclerc, and was succeeded by the Bibliothiquc
des Sciences ct des Beaux-Arts (1754-80). Nearly all of the preced
ing were produced either at Amsterdam or Rotterdam, and, although
out of place in a precise geographical arrangement, really belong to
France by the close ties of language and of blood.
Taking up the exact chronological order again, we find the
success of the English essay-papers led to their prompt introduction
to the Continent. An incomplete translation of the Sficctator was
published at Amsterdam in 1714, and many volumes of extracts
from the Tatlcr, Spectator, and Guardian were issiied in France
early in the 18th century. Marivaux brought out a Spcctatcur
Francis (1722), which was coldly received ; it was followed by
fourteen or fifteen others under the titles of La Speciatricc (1728-
30), Le Radoteur (1775), Le Babillard (1778-79), &c. Of a similar
character was Lc Pour ct le Contre (1723-40) of the abbe Frevost,
which contained anecdotes and criticism, with special reference to
Great Britain. Throughout the 18th century, in France as in
England, a favourite literary method was to write of social subjects
under the assumed character of a foreigner, generally an Oriental,
with the title of Turkish Spy, Lettrcs Chinoiscs, &c. These produc
tions were usually issued in periodical form, and, besides an immense
amount of worthless tittle-tattle, contain some valuable matter.
During the first half of the century France has little of import
ance to show in periodical literature. The Nouvellcs Ecclesias-
tiqucs (1728-1803) were first printed and circulated secretly by the
Jansenists in opposition to the Constitution Unigcnitus. The
Jesuits retaliated with the Supplement des Nouvclles Ecclesiastiqucs
(1734-48). The promising title may have had something to do
with the temporary success of the Memoires Secrets dc la Republiquc
des Lettrcs (1744-48) of the marquis d'Argens. In the Observations
sur les Ecrits Moderncs (1735-43) Desfontaines held the gates of
Philistia for eight years against the Encyclopaedists and even the
redoubtable Voltaire himself. It was continued by the Jiigcmcnts
sur quelqucs Ouvrages nouvcaux (1744-45). The name of Freron,
perhaps the most vigorous enemy Voltaire ever encountered, was
long connected with Lettrcs sur quelqucs Ecrits de ce Temps (1749-
54), followed by L'Annee Litteraire (1754-90). Among the con
tributors of Freron was another manufacturer of criticism, the abbe
de la Porte, who, having quarrelled with his confrere, founded
Observations sur la Litterature Moderne (1749-52) and L ' Obscrvatcur
Litteraire (1758-61).
A number of special organs came into existence about this period.
The first treating of agriculture and domestic economy was the
Journal Economique (1751-72) ; a Journal de Commerce was founded
1 Matthew Maty, M.D., born in Holland, 171S, died principal librarian of
the British Museum, 1776. He settled in England in,1740, published several
books, and wrote the preface to Gibbon's first work, Etude de la Litterature.
540
PERIODICALS
in 1759 ; periodical biography may be first seen in the Necrologe des
Homines Celebres de France (1764-82) ; the political economists
established the Eph^meride-s du Citoycn in 1765 ; the first Journal
d' Education was founded in 1768, and the Courrier de. la Mode in
the same year ; the theatre had its first organ in the Journal des
Theatres (1770) ; in the same year were produced a Journal de
Musique and the Encyclopedic Militairc ; the sister service was
supplied with a Journal de Marine in 1778. We have .already
noticed several journals specially devoted to one or other foreign
literature. It was left to Freron, Grimm, Prevost, and others in
1754 to extend the idea to all foreign productions, and the Journal
Stranger (1754-62) was founded for this purpose. The Gazette
Litteraire (1764-66), which had Voltaire, Diderot, and Saint-
Lambert among its editors, was intended to swamp the small fry
of criticism ; the Journal des Dames (1759-78) was of a light
magazine class ; and the Journal de Monsieur (1776-83) had three
phases of existence, and died after extending to thirty volumes.
The Memoires Secrets pour scrvir a I'Histoire de la Republique des
Lettrcs (1762-87), better known as Memoircs de Bachaumont, from
the name of their founder, furnish a minute account of the social
and literary history for a period of twenty-six years. Of a similar
character was the Corrcspondance Litteraire Secrete (1774-93), to
which Metra was the chief contributor. Z' Esprit des Journaux
(1772-1818) forms an important literary and historical collection,
which is rarely to be found complete.
The movement of ideas at the close of the century may best be
traced in the Annalcs Politiques, Civilcs, et Litteraires (1777-92) of
Linguet. The Decade Philosophiquc (year V. or 1796/97), founded
by Ginguene, is the first periodical of the magazine class which
appeared after the storms of the Revolution. It was a kind of
resurrection of good taste ; under the empire it formed the sole
refuge of the opposition. By a decree of 17th January 1SOO the
consulate reduced the number of Parisian journals to thirteen, of
which the Decade was one ; all the others, with the exception of
those dealing solely with science, art, commerce, and advertise
ments, were suppressed. A report addressed to Bonaparte by
Fievee1 in the year XI. (1802/3) furnishes a list of fifty-one of these
periodicals. In the year XIII. (1804/5) only seven non-political
serials were permitted to appear.
Between 1815 and 1819 there was a constant struggle between
freedom of thought on the one hand and the censure, the police,
and the law-officers on the other. This oppression led to the
device of " semi -periodical" publications, of which La Minerve
Francaise (1818-20) is an instance. It was the Satire Menijrpee of
the Restoration, and was brought out four times a year at irregular
intervals. Of the same class was the Bibliotheque Historiquc (1818-
20), another anti-royalist organ. The censure was re-established
in 1820 and abolished in 1828 with the monopoly. It has always
seemed impossible to carry on successfully in France a review upon
the lines of those which have become so numerous and important
in England. The short-lived Revue Francaise (1828-30), founded
by Guizot, Remusat, De Broglie, and the doctrinaires, was an
attempt in this direction. The well-known Revue des Deux Mondcs
was established in 1829 by Segur-Dupeyron and Mauroy, but it
ceased to appear at the end of the year, and its actual existence
dates from its acquisition in 1831 by Francois Buloz,2 a masterful
editor, under whose energetic management it soon achieved a world
wide reputation. The most distinguished names in French litera
ture have been among its contributors, for whom it has been styled
the " vestibule of the Academy." It was preceded by a few months
by the Revue de Paris (1829-45), founded by Veron, who introduced
the novel to periodical literature. In 1834 this was purchased by
Buloz, and brought out concurrently with his other Revue. While
the former was exclusively literary and artistic, the latter dealt
more with philosophy. The Revue Independante (1841-48) was
founded by Pierre Leroux, George Sand, and Viardot for the
democracy. The times of the consulate and -the empire were the
subjects dealt with by the Revue de V Empire (1842-48). In Le
Correspondent, (1843), established by Montalembert and De Falloux,
the Catholics and Legitimists had a valuable supporter. The
Revue Contemporaine (1852), founded by the comte de Belval as a
royalist organ, had joined to it in 1856 the Athen&um Franc,ais.
The Jtevue^ Germanique (1858) exchanged its exclusive name and
character in 1865 to the Revue Moderne. The Revue Europecnne
(1859) was at first subventioned like the Revue Contemporaine, from
which it soon withdrew Government favour. The Revue Nationale
(1860) appeared quarterly, and succeeded to the Magazin de
Libraire (1858).
The list of current periodicals, to which should be added the
1 The novelist and publicist Joseph Fievee (1767-1830), known for his rela
tions with Napoleon I., has been made the subject for a study by Sainte-Beuve
(Canneries, v. 172).
'•* This remarkable man (1 804-1877) began 1 ife as a shepherd. Educated through
the charity of M. Naville, lie came to Paris as a compositor, and by translating
from the English earned sufficient to purchase the moribund Revue des Deux
Mowlts, which acquired its subsequent position in spite of the tyrannical
editorial behaviour of the proprietor. M. Monod (Academy, 20th Jan. 1S77)
states that latterly Buloz enjoyed an income of 365,000 francs from the Revue.
Revue des Deux Mondcs and the Correspondant, include the following.
Among those devoted to literature and criticism may be mentioned
the Revue Britanniquc (1825) ; the Revue. Critique d'Histoire et de
Litterature (1856), one of the first of European weekly reviews ;
Revue Politique ct LUltraire, successor to the Revue des Cours Litter-
«i><;s(lS63), also weekly ; Lc Livrc (1880), confined to bibliography
and literary history, monthly ; and the Nouvelle Revue (1879),
already a serious rival of the Revue des Deux Mondcs, which it
resembles in character and mode of publication, although distinctly
Republican in politics. History and archaeology are represented by
the Bibliotheque de I'Ecolc des Charles (1839), which deals especially
with the Middle Ages, and is published every two months ; the
Cabinet Historiquc (1855), a monthly, devoted to MSS. and un
published documents ; the Revue Historique (1876), two-monthly ;
and the monthly Revue Archeologiquc (1860). The fine arts are cared
for by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1859), monthly, and L 'Art (1875),
published weekly. We may also mention the Revue Philosophiquc
(1876), monthly, and Le Tour du Monde (1860), an illustrated
weekly, consisting entirely of voyages and travels.
In 1883, apart from political newspapers, there were published
in Paris 1379 periodicals of all kinds. They may be classified in the
following order : — theology 96, jurisprudence 130, reviews 75, popular
reading 169, history and geography 37, political economy and finance
243, science generally 26, mathematics 6, medicine 101, natural
science 21, military 14, naval 12, fine arts 75, fashion 81, education
46, technology 137, agriculture 46, sport 24, miscellaneous 40.
Authorities.— The subject of French periodicals has been exhaustively treated
in the valuable works of Eugene Hatin, — Histoire de la 1'resse en France,
1859-01, 8 vols. ; Les Gazettes de Hollande. et la Presse Clandestine aux 17« ct 18«
Siecles, 18(55 ; and Bibliographie de la Presse Periodique Francaise, 1S66. See
also Catalogue de I'Histoire de France, 1855-79, 11 vols. ; V. Gebe, Catalogue des
Journaux, etc., publies a Paris, 1870 ; Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, avec Supple
ment, 1860-80, 8 vols. ; H. Le Soudier, Catalogue-tarif des Journaux, Itcvues, et •
Publications .Periodiqu.es parus en Paris jusyu'en 1SS3, 1883; F. Mi'ge, Les
Journaux et Ecrits Periodiqnes de la Basse Aurergne, 1809.
Germany. — The earliest trace of the literary journal in Germany Gernia:
is to be found in the Erbauliche Monatsuntcrredungcn (1663) of the
poet Johann Rist and in the Miscellanea curiosa medico -physica
(1670-1704) of the Acadcmia naturns curiosorum Leopoldina-Caro-
lina, the first scientific annual, uniting the features of the Journal
des Savants and of the Philosoi)hical Transactions. D. G. Morhof,
the author of the well-known Polyhistor, conceived the idea of a
monthly serial to be devoted to the history of modern books and
learning, which came to nothing. While professor of morals at
Leipsic, Otto Mencke planned the Acta Eruditorum, with a view
to make known, by means of analyses, extracts, and reviews, the
new works produced throughout Europe. In 1680 he travelled in
England and Holland in order to obtain literary assistance, and
the first number appeared in 1682, under the title of Acta Erudi
torum Lipslcnsium, and, like its successors, was written in Latin.
Among the contributors to subsequent numbers were Leibnitz,
Seckendorf, and Cellarius. A volume came out each year, with
supplements. After editing about 30 volumes Mencke died, leaving
the publication to his son, and the Acta remained in the possession
of the family down to 1745, when they extended to 117 volumes,
which form an extremely valuable history of the learning of the
period. A selection of the dissertations and articles was published
at Venice in 7 vols. 4to, 1740. The Acta soon had imitators. The
Ephcmeridcs Littcrariie (1686) came out at Hamburg in Latin and
French. The Nova Littcraria maris Balthici ct Septentrionis (1698-
1708) was more especially devoted to north Germany and the univer
sities of Kiel, Rostock, and Dorpat. Supplementary to the preceding
was the Nova Litteraria Germanic collccta ffamburgi (1708-9), which
from 1707 widened its field of view to the whole of Europe. At Leip
sic was produced the Teutsche Acta Eruditorum (1712), an excellent
periodical, edited by J. G. Rabener and C. G. Jocher, and continued
from 1 740 to 1 758 as Zuvcrldssigc Nachrichten. It included portraits.
The brilliant and enterprising Christian Thomasius brought out
periodically, in dialogue form, his Monatsfjcspriichc. (1688-90),
written by himself in the vernacular, to defend his novel theories
against the alarmed pedantry of Germany, and, together with
Strahl, Buddeus, and others, Observationes sclcctie ad rem littcrariam
specialties (1700), written in Latin. W. E. Tenzel also published
Monatliclic Untcrredungcn (1689-98), continued from 1704 as Curi-
euse Bibliothck, and treating various subjects in dialogue form.
After the death of Tenzel the Bibliothck was carried on under differ
ent titles by C. Woltereck, J. G. Krause, and others, down to 1721.
Of much greater importance than these was the Monatlicher Auszuy
(1701), supported by J. G. Eccard and Leibnitz. Another periodical
on Thomasius's plan was Neue Untcrreduncjen (1702), edited by
N. H. Gundling. The Gundlingiana of the latter person, published
at Halle (1715-32), and written partly in Latin and partly in
German by the editor, contained a miscellaneous collection of juri
dical, historical, and theological observations and dissertations.
Nearly all departments of learning possessed their several special
periodical organs about the close of the 17th or the beginning of
the 18th century. The Anni Franciscanorum (1680) was edited
by the Jesuit Stiller ; and J. S. Adami published, between 1690
and 1713, certain theological repertories under the name of Dclicise.
PERIODICALS
541
Historical journalism was first represented by Elccta Juris Publici
(1709), philology by Neuc Accrra Philologica (1715-23), pliilosophy
by the Acta Philosophorum (1715-27), medicine by Der patriotische
Mcdikus (1725), music by Der miisikalischc Patriot (1725), and edu
cation by Die Matrone (1728). Reference has already been made to
the Miscellanea curiosa mcdico-physica (1670-1704) ; the Monatliche
Erzdhlungcn (1689) was also devoted to natural science.
Down to the early part of the 18th century Halle and Leipsic
were the headquarters of literary journalism in Germany. Other
centres began to feel the need of similar organs of opinion. Hamburg
had its Nicdcrsdchsische ncue Zeitungen, styled from 1731 Nicder-
sdchsischc Nachrichtcn, which came to an end in 1736, and Mecklen
burg owned in 1710 its Neucr Vorrath, besides others brought out
at Rostock. Prussia owes the foundation of its literary periodicals
to G. P. Schulze and M. Lilienthal, the former of whom began with
Gelchrtcs Prcussen (1722), continued under different titles down to
1729 ; the latter helped with the Erldutcrtes Prcussen (1724), and
was the sole editor of the Acta Borussica (1730-32). Pomerania
and Silesia also had their special periodicals in the first quarter of
the 18th century. Franconia commenced with Nova Littcraria,
and Hesse with the Kurze Historic,, both in 1725. In south Germany
appeared the Wiirttcmbergische Ncbcnstundcn (1718), and the Par
nassus Boicus, first published at Munich in 1722. The Frankfurter
gelchrte Zeitungen was founded in 1736 by S. T. Hocker, and existed
down to 1790. Austria owned Das mcrkwiirdige Wicn.
In 1715 the Ncue Zeitungen von gelchrtcn Sachen\\&s founded by
J. G. Krause at Leipsic and carried on by various editors down to
1797. It was the first attempt to apply the form of the weekly
political journal to learned subjects, and was imitated in the Ver-
mischte Bibliothck (1718-20), and the Bibliothcca Novissima (1718-
21), both founded by J. G. Francke in Halle. Shortly after the
foundation of the university of Gottingen appeared Zeitungen von
gclehrtcn Sachscn (1739), still famous as the Gottingische gelchrte
Anzeigen, which during its long and influential career has been
conducted by professors of that university, and among others by
Haller, Heyne, and Eichhorn.
Influenced by a close study of English writers, the two Swiss
Bodmer and Breitinger established Die Discursc der Malcr (1721),
and, by paying more attention to the matter of works reviewed than
to their manner, commenced a critical method new to Germany.
The system was attacked by Gottsched, who, educated in the French
school, erred in the opposite direction. The war between the two
parties gave fresh life to the literature of the country, but German
criticism of the higher sort can only be said really to begin with
Lessing. The Berlin publisher Nicolai founded the Bibliothck der
schonoi Wisscnschaftcn, and afterwards handed it over to C. F.
Weisse in order to give his whole energy to the Briefc, die ncueste
Literatur betrcffcnd (1759-65), carried on by the help of Lessing,
Mendelssohn, and Abbt. To Nicolai is also due the Allgcmeiiic
deutsche Bibliothck (1765-1806), which embraced a much wider
field and soon became extremely influential. Herder founded the
Kritische Wdldcr in 1766. Der deutsche Merkur (1773-89, revived
1790-1810) of Wieland was the solitary representative of the French
school of criticism. A new era in German periodical literature
began when Bertuch brought out at Jena in 1785 the Allgcmcine
Literaturzeitung, to which the leading writers of the country were
contributors. On being transferred to Halle in 1804 it was re
placed by the Jcnaische allgcmeine Literaturzeitung, founded by
Eichsta'dt. Both reviews enjoyed a prosperous career down to the
year 1848.
At the commencement of the present century we find the Erlangcr
Literaturzeitung (1799-1810), which had replaced a Gclehrtc Zcitung
(1746) ; the Lcipzigcr Literaturzeitung (1800-34) ; ihelfeidclbergische
Jahrbiicher der Literatur (1808) ; and the Wiener Literaturzeitung
(1813-16), followed by the Wiener Jahrbiicher der Literatur (j.818-
48), both of which received Government support and were like the
Quarterly Review in their Conservative politics and high literary
tone. Hermes, founded at Leipsic in 1819 by W. T. Krug, was dis
tinguished for its erudition, and came out down to 1831. One of the
most remarkable periodicals of this class was the Jahrbiicher fur
wissenschaftliche Kritik (1827-46), first published by Cotta. The
Hallischc Jahrbiicher (1838-42) was founded by Huge and Echter-
meyer, and supported by the Government. The Eepcrtorium der
gcsammten dcutschen Literatur, established by Gersdorf in 1834,
and known after 1843 as the Leipzigcr Rcpertorium der dcutschen
und ausldndischen Literatur, existed to 1860. Buchner founded
the Literarischc Zcitung at Berlin in 1834. It was continued by
Brandes down to 1849. The political troubles of 1848 and 1849
were most disastrous to the welfare of the literary and miscellaneous
periodicals. Gersdorfs Repertorium, the Gelchrte Anzeigen of Gottin
gen and of Munich, and the Heidelberg Jahrbiicher were the sole
survivors. The Allgcmcine Monatschrift fur Literatur (1850), con
ducted after 1851 by Droysen, Nitzsch, and others, continued only
down to 1854 ; the Literarisches Centralblatt (1850) had a longer
existence. The Blatter fur literarische Untcrhaltung sprang out
of the Literarisches Wochcnblatt (1818). founded by Kotzebue ;
since 1865 it has been edited by R. Gottschall with considerable
success. Many of the literary journals did not disdain to occupy
themselves with the fashions, but the first periodical of any merit
specially devoted to the subject was the Bazar (1855). The first
to popularize science was Natur (1852). The Hausbldttcr (1855), a
bi-monthly magazine, was extremely successful. The Salon (1868)
followed more closely the type of the English magazine.
About this period arose a great number of serials for popular
reading, known as "Sontagsblatter," of which the Gartcnlaubc (1858)
and Dahcim are examples. Of a more solid character are the
Dcutschcs Museum (1851-57) of Prutz and Frenzel ; the Grenzboten ;
the Preussischc Jahrbiicher (1858) ; the Berliner Revue (1855) ;
Unserc Zeit (1857), at first only a kind of supplement to Brockhaus's
Conversationslexikon, but now an important review of matters of
contemporary interest; Die Gegcnwart (1872) ; the new Literatur
zeitung (1874) of Jena ; the Deutsche Rundsclutu (1874), conducted
upon the method of the Revue dcs Deux Mondcs ; and many others.
Periodicals have been specialized in Germany to an extent perhaps
unequalled in any other country. Those of a really high class
have become so numerous and form so marked a feature in the
current literature that it may be useful to give a classified list
of the chief of them, including the many Jahrcsbcrichte which
supply summaries of the works published annually in particular
departments. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY: — Pctzholdt's ncuer
Anzeiger; Centralblatt fiir Bibliothcksv-isscnschaft; Allgemeinc Bib
liographic fur Dcutschland ; Bibliographic und literarische Chronik
der Schweiz ; Polytcchnischc Bibliothek ; Blatter fur literarische Un
terhaltung, ed. by Rud. von Gottschall ; Literarisches Centralblatt
fiir Dcutschland ; Die Gegcnwart ; Die Grenzboten ; Deutsche Rund
schau ; Im neuen Reich ; Preussische Jahrbiicher ; Magazin fiir
die Literatur dcs In- und Auslandes ; Die ncue Zeit ; Archiv f.
Litcraturgcschichte ; Wcstermann's illustrirte deutsche Monatshcfte.
THEOLOGY : — Der Katholik ; Theologische Literaturzeitung ; Thco-
logischc Studien und Kritiken ; Theologische Studicn aus Wiirttcm-
berg; Theologische Quartalschrift ; Zeitschrift fiir Kirchcngeschichte ;
Ncue cvangclische Kirchen- Zcitung ; Protestantische Kir chen- Zcitung;
Monatsschrift fiir Gcschichte d. Judenthums. LAW, POLITICAL
ECONOMY, &c. : — Jahrbuchf. Gesetzgcbung ; Jahrbuch der dcutschen
Gerichtsverfassung ; Zeitschrift fur Rcchtsgeschichte ; Jahrbuch der
prcussischen Gerichtsverfassung ; Annalcn d. Rcichsgcrichts ; Scu/crfs
Archiv fiir Entscheidung der oberstcn Gerichtc ; Scufferfs Blatter f.
Rechtsanwcndung ; Jahrbuch fiir das deutsche Vcrsichcrungswcscii ;
Jahrbiicher fiir Nationalokonomic und Statistik ; Zeitschrift f. ge-
sammte Staatsivisscnschaft; Viertclja hrsschrift fiir Volkswirtschaft ;
Statistische Monatsschrift. MEDICINE AND SURGERY : — Archiv
fiir Anthropologic ; Archiv f. cxperimcntcllc Pathologic ; Schmidt's
Jahrbiicher der in- und auslandischen ges. Mcdicin ; Zeitschrift f.
klin, Mcdicin ; Archiv fur Anatomic und Physiologic ; Morpho-
logischcs Jahrbuch ; Archiv fiir Gyndkologie ; Deutsche Zeitschrift
fur Chirurgic ; Archiv f. klin. Chirurgie ; Gracfes Archiv ; Viertel-
jahrsschrift fiir gerichtl. Mcdicin. NATURAL SCIENCE : — Archiv
fiir Anatomic u. Physiologic ; Archiv fur Naturgcschichte ; Annalcn
der Physik und Chemie ; Annalen der Mathcmatik und Physik ;
Botanischer Jahrcsbcricht ; Botan. Jahrbiicher ; Flora ; Botanische
Zeitung ; Zoologischer Jahrcsbericht ; Zeitschrift fiir wisscnschaftl.
Zoologic ; Jahrcsbcricht iibcr d. Fortschritte d. Chemie ; Licbig's
Annalen d. Chemie. PHILOSOPHY : — Philosophische Monatshcfte ;
Zeitschrift fiir Philosophic. EDUCATION : — Rhcinische Blatter ;
Ncue Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie ; Pddagogischer Jahresbericht.
JUVENILE LITERATURE : — Herzbldttch-cns Zcitvertrcib ; Deutsche
Jugend. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY : — Jahrbiicher
fiir class. Philologie ; Hermes ; Rheinisches Museum ; Philologus ;
Archdologische Zeitung; Jahrcsbcrichte iib. d. Fortschritte d. class.
Altcrthumswissenschaft. ORIENTAL LITERATURE : — Zeitschrift d.
deutschen morgenldndischcn Gesellschaft ; Zeitschrift f. Volkcrpsycho-
logie. MODERN LANGUAGES -.—Anglia ; Archiv f. d. Studium d.
ncueren Sprachen ; Germania ; Zeitschrift f. dcut. Alterthum.
HISTORY, &c. -.— SybeVs hist. Zeitschrift ; Jahresbcrichte der Ge-
schichtswisscnschaft; Archiv f. Anthropologie ; Archiv f. oesterr.
Gcschichte ; Das Staatsarchiv ; Forschungcn z. deut. Gcschichte ;
Baltischc Studien ; Zeits. f. Museologie ; Zcits. f. Numismatik. GEO
GRAPHY:— Geogr. Jahrbuch; Globus ; Das Ausland; Petermann's
Mittcilungcn ; Zeitschrift f. Ethnologic. MATHEMATICS AND ASTRO
NOMY :— Jahrbuch iib. d. Fortschritte d. Mathemalik ; Archiv d.
Mathcmatik u. Physik; Journal f. d. rtint. u. angewandte Math. ;
Zeitschrift f. Mathcmatik; Astronomische A'achrichten. ARMY AND
NAVY: — Jahresberichte iib. d. Vcrdnderungen im Militdru-escn ;
Deutsche Heeres- Zeitung ; Jahrbiicher f. d. deut. Armee u. Marine ;
Mi litdr- Literaturzeitung; Militdr-Wochenblatt; Strtffleurs ostcrr.
Militdr-Zeitschrift. TRADE ORGANS, &c. : — Borsenblatt f. d. deut.
Buchhandel; Deutsches Handelsarchiv ; Stammer, Jahresbericht u. d.
Zuckcrfabrikation; Geu-erbehalle ; Polytechn. Notizblatt. ARCHI
TECTURE, ENGINEERING, &c. : — Allgcmeine Bauzeitung ; Der Civil-
ingcnieur ; Dingier' s polytechnischcs Journal ; Zeitschrift f. Bau-
wesen ; Ostcrr. Zeitschrift f. Berg.- u. Huttenwesen; Jahrbuch der
Erfindungcn auf d. Gcbieten der Physik u. Chemie, der Technologic,
u. s. w. RAILWAYS, TELEGRAPHY, SHIPPING, &c. : — ffansa ; Mit-
teilungen aus d. Gcbicte d. Secivescns ; Elcktrotcchnische Zeitschrift ;
542
Kant inches Jahrbuch; Dcr JIaschincnbauer. FORESTRY AND SPOUT
ING : — Forstlichc Blatter ; Ally. Forst- u. Jagdzeitung ; Zeitsch riftf.
Forst- u. Jagdiccscn. AGRICULTURE, GARDENING, &c. : — Biencnzcit-
ung; Forschungen auf d. Gebide d. Agrikulturphysik ; Landwirth-
sclutftlidicJahrbuchcr; Allg. Zeitung fur deut. Land- u.Forstwirthc;
Gartenflora ; Ncubcrt's dcut. Gartenmagazin ; Dcut. allg. Zeitung
f. Landwirthschaft, u.s.w. THEATRES i—Neuer Theatcrdiencr ;
Miinchcncr 2'hcatcr- Journal. FINE ARTS : — Jahrbuch d. k. preuss.
Kunstsammlungen ; Die graphischcn Kiinste ; Zcitschrift f. Kunst-
und Aiitiqiiitdtoisammler. Music : — New Berliner Musikzeitung ;
Keue Zcitschrift f. Musik. FICTION : — Deut. Romanzeitung. STENO
GRAPHY : — Jahrbuch d. Schule Gabclsbergcrs ; Allg. dcutsch-c Steno-
grafcnzcitung. POPULAR READING : — Daheim ; Die Gartcnlaube ;
Ucbcr Land und Meer ; Vom Pels zum Mccr. FREEMASONRY : —
Freimaurcrzcitung. HUMOROUS: — Flicgendc Blatter; Kladder-
adatsch. CHESS: — Deutsche Schachzeitung. MISCELL. ILLUS
TRATED : — Illustrirtc Zeitung.
There were in Austria in 1848 22 literary and 41 special period
icals, and in 1873 110 literary and 413 special periodicals (see
the extremely valuable statistical inquiry of Dr Johann Winckler,
Die period. Presse Oestcrrcichs, 1875). Germany possessed in 1848
about 947 periodicals (Deutscher Zeitungs-Katalog, 1848), and in
1884 1550 (Gracklauer's Deutscher Journal - Katalog fur 1884).
According to the Deutscher Zeitschriftcn-Katalog, 1874, there were
published in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland in 1874 2219
periodicals in the German language.
Authorities.— For the general history of the subject consult C. Juncker,
Schediasma de ephemerulibus eruditorum, Leipsic, 1692 ; H. Kurz, Geschichte
der deutschen Literatur, Leipsic, 1852 ; R. Prutz, Geschichte des deutschen Jour-
nalismus, vol. i., 1845 — unfortunately it does not go beyond 1713 ; H. Wuttke,
Die deutschen Zeitschriften, 1875; and P. E. Richter, Verzeichniss der Periodica
im Besitze der k. off. Bibl. zu Dresden, 1SSO.
Sicitzerland. — The Nova Littcraria Helvetica (1703-15) of Zurich
is the earliest literary periodical which Switzerland can show. From
1728 to 1734 a Bibliotheque Italique, and towards the end of the
century the Bibliotheque Britannique (1796-1815), dealing with
agriculture, literature, and science, in three separate series, were
published at Geneva. The latter was followed by what still re
mains the leading periodical of French-speaking Switzerland, the
Bibliotheque Universcllc (1816), which also has a scientific and a
literary series. The Revue Suissc (1838) was produced at Neuchatel.
Italy. — Prompted by M. A. Ricci, Francesco Nazzari, the future
cardinal, established in 1668 the Giornalc de' Lettcrati upon the plan
of the Journal des Savants. His collaborateurs each agreed to
undertake the criticism of a separate literature, while Nazzari re
tained the general editorship and the analysis of the French books.
The journal was continued to 1675, and another series was carried
on to 1769. Bacchini brought out at Parma (1688-90) and at
Modena (1692-97) a periodical with a similar title. A much better
known Giornale was that of Apostolo Zeno, founded with the help
of Mafl'ei and Muratori (1710), continued after 1718 by Pietro Zeno,
and after 1728 by Mastraca and Paitoni. Another Giornalc, to
which Fabroni contributed, was published at Pisa in 1771 ; it has
been continued almost down to our own times. The Galleria di
Minerva was first published at Venice in 1696. One of the many
merits of the antiquary Lami was his connexion with the Novelle
Letterarie (1740-70), founded by him, and after the first two years
almost entirely written by him. Its learning and impartiality gave
it much authority. The Frusta Letteraria (1763-65) was brought
out at Venice by Giuseppe Baretti under the pseudonym of Aristarco
Scannabue. The next that deserve mention are the Giornalc Enci-
clopedico (1806) of Naples, followed by the Progresso delle Scienze
(1833-48) and the Museo di Scienze e Lctteratura of the same city,
and the Giornalc Arcadico (1819) of Rome. Among the contributors
to the Poligrafo (1811) of Milan were Monti, Perticari, and some
of the first names in Italian literature. The Biblioteca Italiana
(1816-40) was founded at Milan by the favour of the Austrian Govern
ment, and the editorship was offered to and declined by Ugo Foscolo.
It rendered service to Italian literature by its opposition to the
Della-Cruscan tyranny. Another Milanese serial was the Concilia-
tore (1818-20), which, although it only lived two years, will be
remembered for the endeavours made by Silvio Pellico, Camillo
Ugoni, and its other contributors to introduce a more dignified and
courageous method of criticism. After its suppression and the
falling off in interest of the Biblioteca Italiana the next of any
merit to appear was the Antologia, a monthly periodical brought
out at Florence in 1820 by Gino Capponi and Giampetro Vieusseux,
but suppressed in 1833 on account of an epigram of Tommaseo, a
principal writer. Some striking papers were contributed by Giuseppe
Mazzini. Naples had in 1832 II Progresso of Carlo Troya, helped
by Tommaseo and Centofanti, and Palermo owned the Giornale di
Statifitica (1834), suppressed eight years later. The Archivio Storico,
consisting of reprints of documents with historical dissertations,
dates from 1842, and was founded by Vieusseux arid Gino Capponi.
The Civiltd Cattolica (1850) is still the organ of the Jesuits. The
Rivista ContcmjMranea (1852) was founded at Turin in emulation
of the Revue des Deux Mondes, which has been the type followed by
so many Continental periodicals ; it still appears. The Politecnico
(1839) of Milan was suppressed in 1844 and revived in 1859. The
Nuova Antologia (1866j has already acquired a well-deserved reputa
tion as a high -class review and magazine. Its rival, the Rivista
Europca, is now considered the special organ of the Florentine
men of letters. The Rasscgna Scttimanalc was a weekly political
and literary review, which after eight years of existence gave place
to a daily newspaper, the Rasscgna. The Archivio Trcntino (1882)
is the organ of "Italia Irredenta." The Rasscgna Nazionalc, con
ducted by the marchese Manfredo di Passano, a chief of the moder
ate clerical party, the Nuova Rivista of Turin, the Fan/ alia dclla
Dumcnica, and the Gazzctta Letteraria may also be mentioned.
During the last few years Italy has been showing such vigour in
her periodical literature that it may be worth while to append the
titles of the chief of those which are now appearing : Annali di
Matematica (1867) ; Annuario di Giurispnidcnza (1883) ; Archivio
di Statistics (1876) ; Archivio storico Lombardo (1874) ; Archivio
Vcneto (1871) ; Archivio per lo Studio dclle Tradizioni popolari ;
Archivio per la Zoologia; II Bibliofilo; Bollcttino di Archeologia
cristiana; II Filangieri (1876); La Natura (1884); Nuovo
Giornale botanico (1869) ; Giornale dcgli Eruditi (1883) ; Giornale
di Filologia Romanza ; Giornale storico dclla Lctteratura Italiana
(1883) ; Nuova Rivista internazionalc (1879) ; IlPolitecnico(l^5B) ;
La Ritssegna Italiana (1881) ; Rivista storica Italiana (1884) ; Revue
Internationale (1883).
Not counting political newspapers, there were published in Italy
in the year 1871 133 literary periodicals, 43 devoted to the fine arts,
132 commercial, 49 scientific, 19 administrative, 20 humorous, &c.
showing a total of 416. Ten years later, in 1881, the number had
increased to 892, of which 46 were religious, 23 administrative, 114
scientific, 52 agricultural, 36 humorous, &c.
Authorities. — See G. Ottino, La Stampa periodica in Italia, Milan, 1875;
Raccolta dei periodici presentata all' Esposizione in Milano, 1SS1 ; A. Roux, La
litteruture contemporaine en Italie (1873-83), Paris, 1883.
Belgium. — The Journal Ency doped ique (1756-93), founded by Belgitii
P. Rousseau, made Liege a propagandist centre for the philosophical
party. In the same city was also first established L' Esprit des
Journaux (1772-1818), styled by Sainte-Beuve "cette considerable
et excellence collection," but "journal voleur et compilateur." The
Journal historique et litterairc (1788-90) was founded at Luxem
burg by the Jesuit De Feller ; having been suppressed there, it was
transferred to Liege, and subsequently to Maestricht. It is one of
the most curious of the Belgian periodicals of the 18th century,
and contains most precious materials for the national history. A
complete set is very rare and much sought after. The Revue Beige
(1835-43), in spite of the support of the best writers of the kingdom,
its successor the Revue de Liege (1844-47), the 2'resor National
(1842-43), published at Brussels, and the Revue dc Bclgique
(1846-51) were all shortlived. The Revue dc Bruxcllcs (1837-48),
supported by the nobility and the clergy, had a longer career.
The Revue Nationale was the champion of Liberalism, and came
to an end in 1847. The Mcssagcr des Sciences historiqucs (1833),
which still comes out at Ghent, has been much more successful,
and is in repute on account of its historical and antiquarian char
acter. The Revue Catholique is also still published by the pro
fessors of the university of Louvain. In 1846 it began a contro
versy with the Journal historique ct litterairc of Kersten (1834) upon
the origin of human knowledge, which lasted for many years and
excited great attention. The Revue Trimestriellc was founded at
Brussels by Van Bemmel in 1854. The Athcnseum Beige (1868)
did not last long.
Among Flemish serials may be mentioned the Nedcrduitsche Flemi
Letterocfeningcn (1834) ; the Bclgisch Museum (1836-46), edited by
"VVillems ; the Brocderhand, which did not appear after 1846 ; the
Taalverbund of Antwerp ; the Kunst- en Lcttcrblad (1840-43) ; and
the Vlacinsche Redcryker (1844).
The Annalcs des Travaux Publics (1843), the Bulletin dc I' Indus
trie (1842), the Journal des Beaux-Arts (1858), the Catholic Precis
historiqucs (1852), the Protestant Chretien Beige (1850), Van Bene-
den's Archives de Biologic, the Revue dc Bclgique (1868), and the
Revue de Droit international are representative of their several
respective classes.
It has been calculated that in 1860 there were 51 periodicals
published in Belgium. In 1884 the number had increased to 412.
See U. Capitaine, Recherchcs sur les journmtx et les ecrits perioiliques Liegeois,
1850; Releve de tons les ecrits periodiqites qui se publient dans le royaiime de
Belyii/ue, 1875; Catalogue des journavx, revues, et publications penodiques de la
Befgigue, 1883 ; Annuaire de la libraire Bulge, 1884.
Holland. — This country occupies a distinguished position in the Holla
history of the periodical literature of the 18th century, from the
labours of the French refugees already referred to (see p. 539). The
first serial written in Dutch was the Bockzaal van Europa (1692-
1708, and 1715-48), which had several changes of name during its
long life. The next of any note was the Republijk der Gclccrdcn
(1710-48). The English Spectator was imitated by J. van Kffen in
his Misanthrope (1711-12), written in French, and in the Hollandsche
Spectator (1731-35), in Dutch. An important serial was the long-
lived Vadcrlandsche Letterocfeningcn (1761). The Algcmccne Kunst-
cn Lctterbode (1788) was long the leading review of Holland ; in
PERIODICALS
543
I860 it was joined to the Ncdcrlandsch Sf>cctator (1855). Of those
founded in the present century may be mentioned the Reccnscnt
(1803) and Nieuwe Recensent ; the Ncdcrlandsch Museum (1835) ;
the Gids (1837) ; the Tijdstroom (1857) ; the Tijdspicgcl, a literary
journal of Protestant tendency; The Theologisch Tijdschrift (1867),
the organ of the Leyden school of theology ; and the Dictsche
Warandc, a Roman Catholic review devoted to the national anti
quities. Colonial interests have been cared for by the Tijdschrift
voor Ncdcrlandsch Indie (1848). The Nedcrlandish Magazin and
Minerva are still published.
See Alphabetische Naamlijst van Soeken (1790-1875), Amsterdam, 1835-78.
Scandinavia. — Early in the 18th century Denmark had the Nye
Tidender(1720), continued down to 1836 under the name oiDansk-
litcraturtidendc. The Minerva (1785) of Rahbek was carried on to
1819, and the Skandinavisk Museum (1798-1803) was revived by
the Litter atur - Selskabs Skrifler (1805). These were followed by
the Licrdc Eftcrrctningcr (1799-1810), afterwards styled Litteratur-
Tidende (1811-36), the Athene (1813-17), and Historisk Tidsskrift
(1840). In more modern times appeared Tidsskrift for Litteratur
og Kritik (1832-42, 1843); Mannedsskrift for Litteratur (1829-38) ;
Nord og Syd (1 848-49) of Goldschmidt, succeeded by Udc og Hjemme,
still published ; and the Dansk Maanedsskrift (1858) of Steenstrup,
with signed historical and literary articles. One of the most note
worthy Scandinavian periodicals has been the Nordisk Universitets
Tidsskrift (1854-64), a bond of union between the universities of
Christiania, Upsala, Lund, and Copenhagen.
See Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st August 1861.
Iceland has had the Islcnzk Sagnablod (1817-26), Skirnir (1827),
still published, Ny Fjclagsrit (1841-73), and Gcfn (1870-73).
See T. Mobius, Cat. libb. Island, et Norvegicorum, Leipsic, 1856-80.
The first trace of the serial form of publication to be found in
Norway is in the Ugcntligc kortc Afhandlinger (1760-61), "Weekly
Short Treatises," of Bishop Fr. Nannestad, consisting of moral and
theological essays. The Maanedligc Afhandlinger (1762), " Monthly
Treatises," was supported by several writers and devoted chiefly to
rural economy. These two were followed by Politik og Historic
(1807-10) ; Saga (1816-20), a quarterly review edited by J. S.
Munch ; Den Norske Tilskucr (1817-21), a miscellany brought out
at Bergen ; Hermodcr (1821-27), a weekly aesthetic journal ; Iduna,
(1822-23), of the same kind but of less value ; Vidar (1832-34), a
weekly scientific and literary review ; Nor (1840-46), of the same
type ; Norsk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Litteratur (1847-55) ;
Illustreret Nyhcdsblad (1851-66), "Illustrated News"; Norsk
Maanedsskrift (1856-60), " Monthly Review for Norway," devoted to
history and philology ; and Norden (1866), a literary and scientific
review. Popular serials date from the Shilling Magazin (1835),
which first introduced wood-engraving, and is still published. The
Norsk Familjcblad is a current weekly of the same class.
See P. Botten-Hansen, La Norvege Litteraire, Christiania, 1868 ; Norsk Bog-
Forteijnelse (1814-72).
The Sioenska Argus (1733-34) of Olof Dalin is the first contribution
of Sweden to this subject. The next were the Tidningar om den
Ldrdas Arbcten (1742) and the Larda Tidningar. The patriotic
journalist C. C. Gjorwell established about twenty literary period
icals, of which the most important was the Swenska Mercurius
(1755-89). Atterbom and some fellow-students founded about 1810
a society for the deliverance of the country from French pedantry,
which with this end carried on a periodical entitled Phosphoros
(1810-13), to propagate the opinions of Schlegel and Schelling. The
Svensk Liter atur -Tidning (1813-25) of Palmblad and the Polyfem
(1810-12) had the same objects. Among more recent periodicals we
may mention Skandia (1833-37) ; LitcraturUadct (1838-40) ; Stall-
ningar och Forhallandcn (1838) of Crusenstolpe, a monthly review
of Scandinavian history ; Tidskrift for Litteratur (1850) ; Norsk
Tidsskrift (1852), weekly, still published ; Fo'rr och N^u ; and the
"Revue Su6doise (1858) of Kramer, written in French. The Ny illus-
trered Tidning and Hcmvdnnen are current illustrated weeklies ;
the Svcnska Veckoblad is also weekly.
See Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st August 1861.
Spain and Portugal. — Spain owes her intellectual emancipation
to the monk Benito Feyjoo, who in 1726 produced a volume of
dissertations somewhat after the fashion of the Spectator, but
on graver subjects, entitled Teatro Critico, which was continued
down to 1739. His Cartas Eruditas (1742-60) were also issued
periodically. The earliest critical serial, the Diario de los Literatos
(1737-42), kept up at the expense of Philip V., did not long sur
vive court favour. Other periodicals which appeared in the 18th
century were Manor's Mcrcurio (1738) ; the Diario Noticioso (1758-
81) ; El Pensador (1762-67) of Joseph Clavijo y Fajardo ; El Belianis
Literario (1765), satirical in character ; the Semanario Erudito
(1778-91), a clumsy collection of documents ; El Corrco Literario
de la Europa (1781-82) ; El Censor (1781) ; the valuable Memorial
Literario (1784-1808); El Correo Literario (1786-91), devoted to
literature and science ; and the special organs El Corrco Mcrcantil
(1792-98) and El Semanario de Agricultura (1797-1805). In the
present century we have Variedades dc Ciencias, Literatura, y
Artes (1803-5), among whose contributors have been the distin
guished names of Quintana, Moratin, and Antillon ; Misceldnea de
Comercio (1819) ; and Diario general de las Ciencias Medicos. The
Spanish refugees in London published Ocios dc Espauoles Refugiados
(1823-26) and Misceldnea hispano-americana (1824-28), and at Paris
Misceldnea escojida americana (1826). The Crdnica cientifica y
literaria (1817-20) was afterwards transformed into a daily news
paper. Subsequently to the extinction of El Censor (1820-23) there
was nothing of any value until the Cartas Espanolas (1832), since
known as the Rcvista Espanolu (1832-36) and as the Revista de
Madrid (1838). Upon the death of Ferdinand VII. periodicals
had a new opening ; in 1836 there were published sixteen journals
devoted to science and art. The fashion of illustrated serials was
introduced in the Semanario pintoresco Espanol (1836-57), notice
able for its biographies and descriptions of Spanish monuments.
El Panorama (1839-41) was another literary periodical with
engravings. Of more recent date have been the Revista Iberica
(1861-63), conducted by Sanz del Rio; La America (1857-70),
specially devoted to American subjects and edited by the brothers
Asquerino ; and the Rcvista dc Cataluna, published at Barcelona.
The chief of those published at the present time are the Rcvista dc
Espana, the Rcvista Contempordnca, the Rcvista Huropea, and the
Rcvista de Archives.
was 377 — 24 legal, 24 agricultural, 35 commercial, 15 army and
navy, 14 theatrical, 45 illustrated, 36 literature and science, 52
medical, 11 fashions, 51 education, 44 religion, 26 miscellaneous.
See G. Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, New York, 1872 ; G. Hubbard,
Histoire de la litterature contemporaine en Espagne, Paris, 1876 ; E. Hartzen-
busch, Periodicos de Madrid, 1876; Lapeyre, Catalogo-tarifa de los period icos,
revistas, y ilustraciones en Espana, 1882.
Portugal could long boast of only one review, the Jornal End- Portugal.
clopcdico (1779-1806), which had many interruptions ; then came
the Jornal dc Coimbra (1812-20) ; the Panorama (1836-57), founded
by Herculano ; the Revista Universal Lisbonense (1841-53), estab
lished by Castilho ; the Instituto (1853) of Coimbra ; the Archivo
Pittoresco (1857) of Lisbon ; and the Jornal da Socicdade dosAmigos
das Lctteras. In 1868 a review called Voz Femenina, and con
ducted by women, was established at Lisbon.
I. F. Da Silva, Diccionario Bibl. Portvgvez, 1858.
Greece. — The periodical literature of modern Greece commences Greece,
with '0 A6yios 'Ep^j, brought out at Vienna in 1811 by Anthimos
Gazi and continued to 1821. A philological serial with the same
title is still published. In jEgina the Aryivata appeared in 1831,
edited by Mustoxidis ; and at Corfu, in Greek, Italian, and English,
the 'Av0o\oyia (1834). After the return of King Otho in 1833 a
literary review called 'I/sis was commenced. Lc Spcctateurde T Orient,
in French, pleaded the national cause before Europe for three years
from 1853. A military journal was published at Athens in 1855,
and two years later the archseological periodical conducted by
Pittakis and Rangavi. For many years Ilavdupa (1850-72), edited
by Rangavi and Paparrigopoulos, was the leading serial. Among
existing periodicals <f>wns deals with natural science, the TfuiroviKa.
with agriculture, and the 'Iepofj.vrifj.wv with theology.
See A. R. Rangabe, Hist, litteraire de la Grece Moderne, Paris, 1879 ; R. Nicolai,
Geschichte der neugricchischen Literatur, 1876.
Russia. — The historian Miiller made the first attempt to establish Russia,
periodical literature in Russia in his YcjciriyesyatchniyaSotchincniya
(1755-64), or " Monthly Works." In 1759 Sumarakoff founded the
Trudolyubivaya Ptcheld, or "Industrious Bee," giving translations
from the Spectator, and, for the first time, critical essays. Karamsin
brought out in 1802 the Vyestnik Evropi, an important review with
Liberal tendencies, which is still appearing. The Conservative
Russkoi Vyestnik (1808) was revived at Moscow in 1856 by Kattkoff,
and is also published now. The romantic school was supported
by Sin Otetchestva (1812), "Son of the Fatherland," united in 1825
to the Scvernoi Arkhiv (1822), which dwindled and came to an
end soon after 1839. One of the most successful Russian reviews
has been the Biblioteka dl'ya Tchtenia (1834), or " Library of Read
ing." The Slavophile party is represented by the Russkaya Missl,
"Russian Thought," published in Moscow.
Finland has had Suomi (1841), written in Swedish. Finland.
See C. Courriere, Histoire de la litterature contemporaine en Russie, Paris, 1875,
and the bibliographical works of Mejoff.
Slavonic Countries. — Bohemia has had the Casopis Ceskeho Bohemia.
Museum (1827), founded by Palacky ; Ziva (1853), a review of
natural history ; and the Samatky Archeologiske.
Hungary can show the Ungrischcs Magazin (1781-87, 1791), Hungary,
piiblished at Pressburg, and the Magyar Muzeum (1788). The
Tudomdnyos gyujcte'meny (1817-41) and the Figyctmezo (1837-43)
deserve mention. Uj Magyar Muzeum was a scientific magazine,
and the Budapesti Szcmle (1857) of a more general character.
Before the revolution of 1830 Poland had the Pamietnik War- Poland.
szaivski of Lach Szyrma. Among other reviews may be mentioned
the Dziennik Litcracki of Lemberg, the Biblioteka Warszaicska of
Warsaw, and the Przegland Polski of Cracow.
Ronmania commenced with the Magasinal istorica pentru Dacia Rou-
(1845), containing valuable historical documents, and Moldavia mania,
with Dacia Literaria (1840) and Archiva Romancsca (1841).
544
PERIODICALS
Servia. The best literary review Servia has had was the JVila, edited
by Xovakovic.
See A. Bourgeault, Histoire des litteraturcs itrangeres, 1876, 3 vols.; D. larcu,
BMiografla chronologica romana, 1873.
UNITED STATES.
United Spurred by the success of the Gentleman's Magazine in England,
States. Benjamin Franklin printed and published the earliest miscellany
in America, under the title of the General Magazine (1741), at
Philadelphia, which, owing to want of support, expired after six
monthly numbers had appeared. Franklin's rival, John Webbe,
brought out in opposition the American Magazine (1741), which
ran only to two numbers. Further attempts at Philadelphia in
1757 and 1769 to revive periodicals with the same name were both
fruitless. The other pro-revolutionary magazines were the Boston
American Magazine (1743-47), in imitation of the London Magazine ;
the Boston Weekly Magazine (1743) ; the Christian History (1743-
44) ; the New York Independent Reflector (1752-54) ; the New England
Magazine (1758-60), a collection of fugitive pieces ; the Boston Royal
American Magazine (1774-75) ; and the Pennsylvania Magazine
(1775-76), which, founded by R. Aitken, with the help of Thomas
Paine, came to an untimely end upon the commencement of the
war. The Columbian Magazine (1786-90) was continued as the Uni
versal Asylum (1790-92). Matthew Carey brought out the Ameri
can Museum in 1787, and it lasted until 1792. Five or six more
magazines ran out a brief existence before the end of the century.
One of the most successful of them was the Farmer s Museum
(1793-99), supported by perhaps the most brilliant staff of writers
American periodical literature had yet been able to show, and edited
by Deimie, who in 1801 commenced the publication of the Portfolio,
carried on to 1827 at Philadelphia. For five years it was a weekly
miscellany in quarto, and afterwards an octavo monthly ; it was the
first American serial which could boast of so long an existence.
The Literary Magazine (1803-8) was established at Philadelphia by
C. B. Brown, who, with Denaie, may be considered as having been
the first American professional man of letters. The Anthology Club
was founded at Boston in 1803 by Phineas Adams for the cultiva
tion of literature and the discussion of philosophy. Ticknor,
Everett, and Bigelow were among the members, and were con
tributors to the organ of the club, the Monthly Anthology (1803-11),
the forerunner of the North American Review. In the year 1810
Thomas (Printing in America, ii. 292) informs us that 27 periodicals
were issued in the United States. The first serious rival of the
Portfolio was the Analectic Magazine (1813-20), founded at Phil
adelphia by Moses Thomas, with the literary assistance of W. Irving
(for some time the editor), Paulding, and the ornithologist Wilson.
In spite of a large subscription list it came to an end on account of
the costly style of its production. The first southern serial was
the Monthly Register (1805) of Charleston. New York possessed
no periodical worthy of the city until 1824, when the Atlantic
Magazine appeared, which changed its name shortly afterwards to
the New York Monthly Review, and was supported by R. C. Sands
and W. C. Bryant. For many years Graham's Magazine was the
leading popular miscellany in the country, reaching at one time a
circulation of about 35,000 copies. The first western periodical was
the Illinois Monthly Magazine (1830-32), published, owned, edited,
and almost entirely written by James Hall, who followed with his
Western Monthly Magazine (1833-36), produced in a similar manner.
In 1833 the novelist C. F. Hoffman founded at New York The
Knickerbocker (1833-60), which soon passed under the control of
Timothy Flint and became extremely successful, most of the leading
native writers of the next twenty years having been contributors.
Equally popular was Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1853-57, 1867-69).
The Dial (1841-44), Boston, the organ of the transcendentalists,
was first edited by Margaret Fuller, and subsequently by R. W.
Emerson and G. Ripley. Among other extinct magazines may be
mentioned the American Monthly Magazine (1833-38), the Southern
Literary Messenger (1834), Richmond, the Gentleman's Magazine
(1837-40), and the International Magazine (1850-52), edited by
R. W. Griswold. The Yale Literary Magazine dates from 1836.
The Merchants' Magazine was united in 1871 with the Commercial
and Financial Chronicle. Foremost among existing magazines
come Harper's Monthly Magazine (1850) and Scribner's Monthly
(1870), now Tli£ Century, both famous for their unrivalled wood-
engraving arid literary excellence. Within the last few years the
circulation of these two periodicals has increased to a remarkable
degree both at home and abroad. Not less admirable in their
way are the Atlantic Monthly (1857), Lippincott's Magazine, and
the Manhattan.
The first attempt to carry on an American review was made by
Robert Walsh in 1811 at Philadelphia with the American Review
of History and Politics, which lasted only a couple of years. Still
more brief was the existence of the General Repository and Review
(1812), brought out at Cambridge by Andrews Norton with the
help of the professors of the university, but of which only four
numbers appeared. Niles's Weekly Register (1811-48) was political,
historical, and literary. The North American Review, the oldest
and most prosperous of all the American reviews, dates from 1815,
and was founded by William Tudor, a member of the previously,
mentioned Anthology Club. After two years' control Tudor handed
over the review to the club, then styled the North American Club,
whose most active members were E. T. Channing, R. H. Dana,
and Jared Sparks. On his return from Europe in 1819 E. Everett
became the editor ; his elder brother Alexander acquired the pro
perty in 1829. The roll of the contributors to this review numbers
almost every American writer of note. Since January 1879 it has
been published monthly. The American Quarterly Review (1827-
37), established at Philadelphia by Robert Walsh, came to an end
on his departure for Europe. The Southern Review (1828-32), con
ducted by H. Legare, S. Elliott, and G. W. Simms in defence of
the politics and finance of the South, enjoyed a shorter career.
It was resuscitated in 1842, and lived another ten years. These
two were followed by the Democratic Review (1838-52), the Ameri
can Rcvieiv, afterwards the American Whig Review (1845-52), the
Massachusetts Quarterly Review (1847-50), and a few more. The
New Englandcr (1843), the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review
(1825), and the National Quarterly Review (1860) are still published.
The critical weeklies of the past include the New York Literary
Gazette (1834-35, 1839), De Boic's Revicic (1846), the Literary
World (1847-53), the Criterion (1855-56), the Round Table (1863-
64), the Citizen (1864-73), and Applcton's Journal (1869). The
leading weeklies of the clay include the Nation (1865), the Literary
World (1870), and the Critic (1881).
Religious periodicals have been extremely numerous in the
United States during the last hundred years. The earliest was
the Theological Magazine (1796-98). The Christian Examiner
dates from 1824 and lasted down to 1870. The Panoplist (1805),
changed to the Missionary Herald, still represents the American
Board of Missions. The Methodist Magazine dates from 1818 and
the Christian Disciple from 1813. The American Biblical Reposi
tory (1831-50), a quarterly, was united with the Andover Bibliothcca
Sacra (1843) and with the Theological Eclectic (1865). Brownsons
Quarterly Review began as the Boston Quarterly Review in 1838,
and did much to introduce to American readers the works of the
modern French philosophical school. Among more recent serials
of this class we may notice the Protestant Episcopal Quarterly
Review (1854), the Presbyterian Magazine (1851-60), the Catholic
World (1865), the Southern Review (1867), the New Jerusalem
Magazine (1827), American Baptist Magazine (1817), the Church
Review (1848), the Christian Review (1836), the Univcrsalist
Quarterly (1844). Among historical periodicals may be numbered
the American Register (1806-11), Stryker's American Register (1848-
51), Edwards's American Quarterly Register (1829-43), the New
England Historical and Genealogical Register (1847), Folsom's
Historical Magazine (1857), the New York Genealogical Record
(1869), and the Magazine of American History (1877).
For many years the leading English periodicals have been
regularly reprinted in the United States, and many serial publica
tions have been almost entirely made up of extracts from English
sources. Perhaps the earliest example is to be found in Select
Views of Literature (1811-12). The Eclectic Magazine (1844) and
LittcU's Living Age (1844) are still published.
In 1817 America possessed only one scientific periodical, the
Journal of Mineralogy. Professor Silliman established the journal
known by his name in 1818. Since that time the American Journal
of Science has enjoyed unceasing favour. Among other special
periodicals of the day may be mentioned the American Naturalist,
the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, the American Jour
nal of Speculative Philosophy, the American Journal of Philology,
the American Railroad Journal, the Banker's Magazine, the Index
Medicus, and the Journal of the Franklin Institute.
The number of periodicals devoted to light literature and to
female readers has been, and still remains, extremely large. The
earliest in the latter class was the Lady's Magazine (1792) of Phil
adelphia. The name of the Lowell Offering (1841), written chiefly
by factory girls, is well known in England. Godcy's Ladies' Book
is still issued. Children's magazines originated with the Young
Misses' Magazine (1806) of Brooklyn ; St Nicholas is a modern
high-class representative of this kind ; another current example
is the Child's Paper (1852).
The following estimate of the number of periodicals now appear
ing in the United States is taken from G. P. liowell and Co.'s
American Newspaper Record (1883). Weeklies, and those pub
lished more frequently than once a week, are omitted on account
of the difficulty of distinguishing them from newspapers. The
numbers given are — bi-weeklies 47, semi-monthlies 175, monthlies
1034, bi-monthlies 12, quarterlies 59 ; total 1327.
See an excellent article on the subject in Ripley and Dana's American Cyclo
paedia ; Cuc.heval Clarigny, Histoire de la pre.sse en Anqleterre et aux Mats llnis,
1857 ; H. Stevens, Catalogue of American Books in, the Library of the British
Museum, 1866, and American Books with Tails to 'em, 1873 ; I. Thomas, History
of Printing in America, Albany, 1874; J. Nichol, American Literature (1620-
18SO), 1882 : Pettengill's Newspaper Directory for 1878 ; G. P. Rowell and Co.'s
American News^iper Directory, New York, 1S69-83; Hubbard's Newspaper
Directory of the World, New York, 18S2-84. The leading periodicals of the
United States are indexed in \V. F. Poole's Index, Boston, 1882, and Library
Journal. (H. R. T.)
PERIPATETICS
545
PERIPATETICS was the name given in antiquity to
the followers of Aristotle, from their master's habit of
walking up and down as he lectured conversationally to
his pupils. Others derive the name from the TrepiTraros, or
covered walk of the Lyceum. An account of the Aristotelian
philosophy will be found in the articles ARISTOTLE, ETHICS,
LOGIC, and METAPHYSIC. Here it must suffice to recall
those features of the system which mainly conditioned the
development of the school. Aristotle's central conception
is the correlative opposition of form and matter. This
may be called the supreme category under which he views
the world ; it is the point where, as Zeller puts it, Aris
totle's system at once refutes and completes the Platonic
doctrine of the "idea" in its relation to phenomena. But
Aristotle did not succeed in expelling the dualism which
he blamed in Plato. His deity is pure form, and dwells
in abstract self-contemplation withdrawn from the actual
life of the world. The development of the world remains,
therefore, unrelated to the divine subject. In Aristotle's
doctrine of man, precisely the same difficulty is experienced
in connecting the active or passionless reason with the in
dividual life, the latter being a process of development
bound up with sense, imagination, and desire. The soul is
originally denned as the entelechy of the body, and, more
over, not of body in general but of its particular body. It
is impossible, therefore, from this point of view to speak of
soul and body as separate entities. Yet Aristotle holds that
besides the individual mind, which is all things potentially
— which becomes all things — there is superinduced upon
the process of development the active or creative reason,
the pure actuality (eVepyeia) which the development pre
supposes as its necessary jyrius, just as the world-process
presupposes God. This reason is "separable," and is said
to enter " from without " when it unites itself to the pro
cess of individual life. It must therefore exist before
the individual, and it alone outlasts the death of the body ;
to it alone properly belong the titles of "immortal" and
"divine." But its relation to the universal divine reason was
not handled by Aristotle at all. The question was destined
to become the crux of his commentators. In general it is
evident that, if reason in man be identified with the process
of natural development (and there is Aristotelian warrant
for declaring these to be simply two aspects of the same
thing), we drift into a purely naturalistic or materialistic
doctrine. On the other hand, the doctrine of the "active
reason " may be maintained, but what Aristotle left vague
may be further defined. The rational soul of each indi
vidual may be explicitly identified with the divine reason.
This leads to the denial of individual immortality and the
doctrine of one immortal impersonal reason, such as we
find, for example, in the rationalistic pantheism of Averroes.
A third position is possible, if the statements of Aristotle
be left in their original vagueness. Aristotle may then be
interpreted as supporting monotheism and the immortality
of separate rational souls. This was the reading adopted
by the orthodox scholastic Aristotelians, as well as by those
early Peripatetics who contented themselves with para
phrasing their master's doctrine.
Aristotle's immediate successors, Theophrastus, who pre
sided over the Lyceum from 322 to 288 B.C., and Eudemus
of Rhodes, were distinguished by a learned diligence rather
than by original speculative power. They made no inno
vations upon the main doctrines of their master, and their
industry is chiefly directed to supplementing his works in
minor particulars. Thus they amplified the Aristotelian
logic by the theory of the hypothetical and disjunctive
syllogism, and added to the first figure of the categorical
syllogism the five moods out of which the fourth figure
was afterwards constructed. The impulse towards natural
science and the systematizing of empirical details which
distinguished Aristotle from Plato was shared by Theo
phrastus. His two works on the History of Plants and
Causes of Plants prove him to have been a careful and acute
observer. The same turn for detail is observable in his
ethics, where, to judge from the imperfect evidence of the
Characters, he elaborated still further Aristotle's portraiture
of the virtues and their relative vices. In his doctrine of
virtue the distinctive Peripatetic position regarding the
importance of external goods was defended by him with
emphasis against the assaults of the Stoics. He appears
to have laid even more stress on this point than Aristotle
himself, being doubtless led to do so, partly by the heat of
controversy and partly by the importance which leisure
and freedom from harassing cares naturally assumed to
a man of his studious temperament. The metaphysical
diropiai of Theophrastus which have come down to us
show that he was fully alive to the difficulties that start
up round many of the Aristotelian definitions. But we
are ignorant how he proposed to meet his own criticisms ;
and they do not appear to have suggested to him an
actual departure from his master's doctrine, much less any
radical transformation of it. In the difficulties which he
raises with reference to the relation of the active and the
passive reason, as well as in his ascription of the physical
predicate of motion to the activity of the soul, we may
perhaps detect a leaning towards a naturalistic interpreta
tion. The tendency of Eudemus, on the other hand, is
more towards the theological or Platonic side of Aristotle's
philosophy. The Eudemian Ethics (which, with the
possible exception of the three books common to this
treatise and the Nicomachean Ethics, there need be no
hesitation in ascribing to Eudemus) expressly identify
Aristotle's ultimate ethical ideal of $eco/cna with the know
ledge and contemplation of God. And this supplies
Eudemus with a standard for the determination of the
mean by reason, which Aristotle demanded, but himself
left vague. Whatever furthers us in our progress towards
a knowledge of God is good ; every hindrance is evil. The
same spirit may be traced in the author of the chapters
which appear as an appendix to book i. of Aristotle's
Metaphysics. They have been attributed to Pasicles, the
nephew of Eudemus. For the rest, Eudemus shows even
less philosophical independence than Theophrastus. Among
the Peripatetics of the first generation who had been
personal disciples of Aristotle, the other chief names are
those of Aristoxenus of Tarentum and Dicsearchus of
Messene. Aristoxenus, " the musician," who had formerly
belonged to the Pythagorean school, maintained the posi
tion, already combated by Plato in the Phsedo, that the
soul is to be regarded as nothing more than the harmony
of the body. Dicrearchus agreed with his friend in this
naturalistic rendering of the Aristotelian entelechy, and is
recorded to have argued formally against the immortality
of the soul.
The naturalistic tendency of the school reached its full
expression in Strato of Lampsacus, who succeeded Theo
phrastus as head of the Lyceum, and occupied that posi
tion for eighteen years (287-269 B.C.). His predilection
for natural science earned for him in antiquity the title of
"the physicist." He is the most independent, and was prob
ably the ablest, of the earlier Peripatetics. His system is
based upon the formal denial of a transcendent deity.
Cicero attributes to him the saying that he did not require
the aid of the gods in the construction of the universe ;
in other words, he reduced the formation of the world to
the operation of natural forces. We have evidence that
he did not substitute an immanent world-soul for Aristotle's
extra-mundane deity; he recognized nothing beyond natural
necessity. He Avas at issue, however, with the atomistic
materialism of Democritus in regard to its twin assump-
XVIII. — 69
540
PERIPATETICS
tions of absolute atoms and infinite space. His own specu
lations led him rather to lay stress on the qualitative
aspect of the world. The true explanation of things was
to be found, according to Strato, in the forces which pro
duced their attributes, and he followed Aristotle in de
ducing all phenomena from the fundamental attributes or
elements of heat and cold. His psychological doctrine
explained all the functions of the soul as modes of motion,
and denied any separation of the reason from the faculties
of sense -perception. He appealed in this connexion to
the statement of Aristotle that we are unable to think
without a sense-image.
The successors of Strato in the headship of the Lyceum
were Lyco, Aristo of Ceos, Critolaus (who, with Carneades
the Academic and Diogenes the Stoic, undertook in 155
B.C. the famous embassy to Rome, more important in its
philosophical than in its political bearings), Diodorus of
Tyre, and Erymneus, who brings the philosophic succession
down to about the year 100 B.C. Other Peripatetics
belonging to this period are Hieronymus of Rhodes, Pry-
tanis, and Phormio, the delirus senex who attempted to
instruct Hannibal in the art of war. Sotion, Hermippus,
and Satyrus were historians rather than philosophers.
Heraclides Lembus, Agatharchides, and Antisthenes of
Rhodes are names to us and nothing more. The philo
sophic unfruitfulness of the school during this whole period
is expressly charged against it by Strabo, who explains it
by his well-known story of the disappearance of Aristotle's
writings after the death of Theophrastus. But it is im
possible that this story should be true in the shape in
which it is told by Strabo ; and a sufficient explanation
of the barrenness of the school may be found in the general
circumstances of the time. From the outset the character
istic of the Aristotelian philosophy had been its disinter
ested scientific character ; but the age was one for which
speculation as such had lost its attractiveness. At such
a time it was natural, therefore, that the Peripatetic
school should suffer more than the others. It had also in
practical matters taken up a mediatizing position, so that
it lacked the attractions which, in the case of extreme
views, enlist supporters -and inspire them with propa
gandist zeal. The fact, at all events, is not to be denied
that, after Strato, the Peripatetic school has no thinker of
any note to show for about 200 years. With Strato,
moreover, the scientific activity of the school has an end ;
when it received a new infusion of life its activity took
another direction. Strato accuses the Peripatetics of this
period of devoting themselves to the tricking out of
commonplaces. This seems in great measure true of those
who still occupied themselves with philosophy ; they culti
vated ethics and rhetoric, and were noted for the elegance
of their style. But the majority followed the current
of the time, and gave themselves up to the historical,
philological, and grammatical studies which mark the
Alexandrian age.
Early in the 1st century B.C. all the philosophic schools
began to be invaded by a spirit of eclecticism. This was
partly the natural result of the decay of speculative interest
and partly due to the unconscious influence of Rome upon
the philosophers. The Roman mind measured philosophy,
like other things, by the standard of practical utility. As
an instrument of education, and especially as the inculcator
of moral principles, the Roman welcomed and appreciated
philosophy ; but his general point of view was naively
put by the proconsul Gellius (about 70 B.C.), who proposed
to the representatives of the schools in Athens that they
should settle their differences amicably, at the same time
offering his personal services as mediator. Though the
well-meant proposal was not accepted, this atmosphere of
indifference imperceptibly influenced the attitude of the
contending schools to one another. Thus Boethus the
Stoic deserted the pantheism of his school and assigned
the deity, as Aristotle had done, to the highest sphere.
He likewise embraced the Peripatetic doctrine of the
eternity of the world. A similar approximation to Peri-
pateticism is seen in Pansetius. About the same time,
Antiochus of Ascalon, founder of the so-called fifth Academy,
tried to combine Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, asserting that
they differed only in words. Meanwhile the Peripatetic
school may be said to have taken a new departure and a
new lease of life. The impulse was due to Andronicus of
Rhodes, the well-known editor of Aristotle's works, who
presided over the Lyceum towards the middle of the 1st
century B.C. His critical edition indicated to the later
Peripatetics the direction in which they could profitably
work, and the school devoted itself henceforth almost
exclusively to the writing of commentaries on Aristotle.
Boethus of Sidon and Aristo of Alexandria carried on the
work of interpretation begun by Andronicus. Boethus
appears, like many of his predecessors, to have taken the
naturalistic view of Aristotle's doctrines, and even in some
respects to have approximated to the Stoic materialism.
Staseas, Cratippus, and Nicolaus of Damascus need only be
named as belonging to this century. The most interesting
Peripatetic work of the period is the treatise De If undo,
which has come down to us under Aristotle's name, but
which internal evidence obliges us to assign to a date later
than the writings of the Stoic Posidonius. The interest
of the treatise lies in the evidence it affords within the
Peripatetic school of the eclectic tendency which was
then in the air. The admixture of Stoic elements is so
great that some critics have attributed the work to a Stoic
author ; but the writer's Peripateticism seems to be the
more fundamental constituent of his doctrine.
Our knowledge of the Peripatetic school during the first
two centuries of the Christian era is very fragmentary ;
but those of its representatives of whom anything is known
confined themselves entirely to commenting upon the
different treatises of Aristotle. Thus Alexander of vEga),
the teacher of Nero, commented on the Categories and
the De Cselo. In the 2d century Aspasius and Adrastus
wrote numerous commentaries. The latter also treated of
the order of the Aristotelian writings in a separate work.
Somewhat later, Herminus, Achaicus, and Sosigenes com
mented on the logical treatises. Aristocles of Messene, the
teacher of Alexander of Aphrodisias, was the author of a
complete critical history of Greek philosophy. This second
phase of the activity of the school closes with the compre
hensive labours of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the exegete
par excellence, called sometimes the second Aristotle. He
became head of the Lyceum during the reign of Septimius
Severus, some time between 198 and 211 A.D. Alexander's
interpretation proceeds throughout upon the naturalistic
lines which have already become familiar to us. Aristotle
had maintained that the individual alone is real, and had
nevertheless asserted that the universal is the proper object
of knowledge. Alexander seeks consistency by holding to
the first position alone. The individual is prior to the
universal, he says, not only "for us," but also in itself,
and universals are abstractions which have merely a sub
jective existence in the intelligence which abstracts them.
Even the deity must be brought under the conception of
individual substance. Such an interpretation enables us
to understand how it was possible, at a later date, for
Aristotle to be regarded as the father of Nominalism.
Form, Alexander proceeds, is everywhere indivisible from
matter. Hence the soul is inseparable from the body
whose soul or form it is. Reason or intellect is bound up
with the other faculties. It exists primarily in man only
as a disposition or capacity — vous vAt/cos K.O! </>i>criKos — and
P E R — P E R
is afterwards developed into actual intelligence —
liriKTrjTos — the intellectus acquisitus of the Scholastics. The
active reason — vous TTCH^TIKOS — which effects this develop
ment is, according to Alexander, no part of the soul, but
simply the divine reason acting upon it. The influence of
God upon nature is elsewhere reduced by Alexander, as
far as possible, to a mechanical process. Aristotle's ethico-
mystical conception of God as the ultimate and tran
scendent object of desire is set aside ; and the influence of
the deity is represented simply as a diffusion of force, first
into the heavens and thence downwards, each lower element
receiving less according to its greater distance from the
source. The commentaries of the Aphrodisian formed the
foundation of the Arabian and Scholastic study of Aristotle.
Soon after Alexander's death the Peripatetic school was
merged, like all others, in the Neoplatonic. Neoplatonists
like Porphyry, lamblichus, Themistius, Dexippus, Syrianus,
Ammonius, Simplicius, and Philoponus carried on the work
of commenting on Aristotle till the final disappearance of
Greek philosophy. For the further history of Aristotelian-
ism, see ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY and SCHOLASTICISM.
The authorities on whom we depend for our knowledge of the
Peripatetics are collected and sifted with exhaustive care by Zeller
in the relative sections of his Philosophic der Griechcn (ii. 2 and
iii. 1). (A. SE.)
PERIPATUS. See MYRIAPODA, vol. xvii. p. 116.
PERITONITIS, inflammation of the peritoneum or
membrane investing the abdominal and pelvic cavities and
their contained viscera. It may exist in an acute or a
chronic form, and may be either localized in one part or
generally diffused.
Acute peritonitis may attack persons of both sexes and
of any age. It is sometimes brought on, like other inflam
mations, by exposure to cold, but it would appear to arise
quite as frequently in connexion with some antecedent
injury or disease in some of the abdominal organs, or with
depraved conditions of the general health. It is an
occasional result of hernia and obstructions of the bowels,
of wounds penetrating into the abdomen, of the perfora
tion of viscera by disease (e.g., in ulcer of the stomach and
in typhoid fever), of the bursting of abscesses or cysts
into the abdominal cavity, and also of the extension of
inflammatory action from some of the abdominal or pelvic
organs. Not unfrequently it is at first localized, and then,
spreading onwards, becomes general.
The changes which take place in the peritoneum are
similar to those* undergone by other serous membranes
when inflamed, viz., (1) congestion; (2) exudation of lymph
in greater or less abundance, at first greyish in colour and
soft, thereafter yellow and becoming tough in consistence,
causing the folds of intestine to adhere together ; (3)
effusion of fluid, either clear, turbid, bloody, or purulent ;
(4) absorption more or less complete of the fluid and
lymph. Occasionally shreds or bands of unabsorbed
lymph remain, constituting a subsequent danger of strangu
lation of the bowel. The symptoms usually begin by a
rigor, together with vomiting and pain in the abdomen of
a peculiarly severe and sickening character, accompanied
with extreme tenderness, so that the slightest pressure
causes a great aggravation of suffering. The patient lies
on the back with the knees drawn up, and it will be
noticed that the breathing is rapid and shallow and per
formed by movements of the chest only, the abdominal
muscles remaining quiescent, unlike what takes place in
healthy respiration. The abdomen becomes swollen by
flatulent distension of the intestines, which increases the
patient's distress. There is usually constipation. The
skin is hot, although there may be perspiration ; the pulse
is small, hard, and wiry ; the urine is scanty and high-
coloured, and passed with pain. The patient's aspect is
one of anxiety and suffering. These symptoms may subside
in a day or two, but if they do not the case is apt to go
on rapidly to a fatal termination. In such an event the
pain and tenderness subside, the abdomen becomes more
distended, hiccough and vomiting of brown or blood-
coloured matter occur, the temperature falls, the face be
comes pinched, cold, and clammy, the pulse exceedingly
rapid and feeble, and death takes place from collapse, the
patient's mental faculties generally remaining clear till the
close. When the peritonitis is due to perforation, as may
happen in the case of the gastric ulcer, or the ulcers of
typhoid fever, the above-mentioned symptoms and the
fatal collapse may all take place in from twelve to twenty-
four hours. Further, the puerperal form of this disease,
which comes on within a day or two after parturition, is
always very serious and is often rapidly fatal. The symp
toms are similar to those already described, but in addition
there are generally superadded those of septicaemia (blood-
poisoning).
Chronic peritonitis occurs in two forms — (1) as a result
of the acute attack ; (2) as a tubercular disease. In the
former case, the acute symptoms having subsided, abdominal
pain to some extent continues, and along with this there
is considerable swelling of the abdomen, corresponding to
a thickening of the peritoneum, and it may be also to fluid
in the peritoneal cavity. Occasionally a condition of this
kind appears to develop slowly without there having been
any preceding acute attack. In this form of peritonitis
there is considerable constitutional disturbance, together
with loss of strength and flesh; nevertheless, although the
disease is essentially a chronic one, it is often recovered
from. The tubercular form of peritonitis occurs either
alone or associated with tuberculous disease of the lungs or
other organs. The chief symptoms are abdominal pain and
distension, along with disturbance of the functions of the
bowels, there being either constipation or diarrhoea, or each
alternately. Along with these local manifestations there
exist the usual phenomena of tuberculous disease, viz., high
fever, with rapid emaciation and loss of strength. Cases
of this kind are of grave import, and their tendency is to
a fatal termination.
In the treatment of acute peritonitis the remedy upon which most
reliance is to be placed is opium, which affords relief to the pain,
and appears to exercise a certain controlling influence upon the
inflammatory process. It requires to be given in considerable
quantity, yet with due care, so as to avoid its narcotic action. The
old plan of covering the abdomen with leeches is now seldom
resorted to ; nevertheless a moderate abstraction of blood by this
means in a previously healthy person may contribute to the relief
of the pain. Hot fomentations with turpentine or opium applied
over the abdomen are of value. The strength must be maintained
by milk, soups, and other light forms of nourishment. It is not in
general desirable that the bowels should act, and this is one of the
benefits obtained by the internal administration of opium. In the
simple chronic form the use of iodine externally and of tonics with
cod-liver oil internally will be found of service ; while in the tuber
cular form remedies are as a rule of little value, but such symptoms
as pain, fever, diarrhoea, &c., must be dealt with by palliative
measures appropriate to these conditions.
PERIZONIUS, JACOB (1651-1715), classical scholar
the most distinguished member of a learned Dutch family
of that name (Voorbroek in the vernacular), was the eldest
son of Anton Perizonius, author of a once well-known
treatise, De ratione studii theoloyici, and was born at Dam
in Groningen on 26th October 1651. He received his
school education at Dam and Deventer, and afterwards
studied in the university of Utrecht, where he came under
the influence of Graevius and abandoned theology for
pure literature. The death of his father and other un
toward circumstances involved him in a struggle with
various outward difficulties, but the influence of Heinsius
and Gra?.vius, who already appreciated him highly, and
expected great things from him, ultimately procured for
548
P E R — P E R
him in 1682 the appointment to the chair of eloquence and
history at Franeker, where his expositions of Cicero, Terence,
Floras, and Suetonius, as well as his lectures on general
history, attracted a large and increasing number of hearers.
In 1693 he was promoted to the corresponding chair at
Leyden, where he succeeded F. Spanheim in 1701. His
death took place in that city on 6th April 1715.
The works of Perizonius both as an author and as an editor were
very numerous, and by universal consent entitle him to a place of
the highest rank among the scholars of his age. Special interest
.attaches to his edition of the Minerva of Sanctius or Sanchez (1st
•ed. 1687, 4th ed. 1714), which may be said to be one of the last
•developments of the study of Latin grammar while in its pre-
scientitic stage, when the phenomena of language had not yet ceased
to be regarded as for the most part disconnected, conventional, or
fortuitous. Mention must also be made of his Animadvcrsioncs
historicse, in quibus qiuim plurima in priseis Romanarum rerum
scd utriusquc linguae auctoribus notantur, multa ctiam illustrantur.
atque emcndaniur, varia denique antiqtwrum rituum eruuntur et
uberii'S explicantur (1685), a work which Bayle lias characterized as
deserving to be entitled "The Errata of scholars and critics," and
of his Dissertationes duie de Rcpublica Romanci,, alluded to with
honour by Niebuhr in the preface to his Roman History (4th ed.,
1833) as marking the beginning of that new era of classical study
with which his own name is so closely associated.
PERJURY is an assertion upon an oath duly admin
istered in a judicial proceeding, before a competent court,
of the truth of some matter of fact, material to the question
depending in that proceeding, which assertion the assertor
does not believe to be true when he makes it, or on which
he knows himself to be ignorant (Stephen, Digest of the
Criminal Laio, Art. 135). In the early stages of legal
history perjury seems to have been regarded rather as a
sin than as a crime, and so subject only to supernatural
penalties. The injury caused by a false oath was supposed
to be done not so much to society as to the Divine Being
in whose name the oath was taken (see OATH). One of
the practical effects of this view was to make perjury so
common in the Middle Ages that the probable reason for
preserving trial by combat was the difficulty of securing a
just cause against the perjury of witnesses (Hallam, Middle
Ages, ch. ix. pt. 1). The almost universal existence of
compurgation was no doubt another explanation of the
frequency of perjury. In cases of compurgation, or in
cases where wager of law was allowed, it is difficult to
imagine that the defence could as a rule have been an
honest one. In Roman law, even in the time of the
empire, the perjurer fell simply under divine reprobation,
and was not dealt with as a criminal, except where lie had
been bribed to withhold true or give false evidence, or
where the oath was by the genius of the emperor. In the
latter case punishment was no doubt inflicted more for the
insult to the emperor than for the perjury. False testi
mony leading to the conviction of a person for a crime
punishable with death constituted the offence of homicide
rather than of perjury. In England, perjury, as being a sin,
was originally a matter of ecclesiastical cognizance. At a
later period, when it had become a crime, the jurisdiction
of the spiritual courts became gradually confined to such
perjury as was committed in ecclesiastical proceedings, and
did not extend to perjury committed in a temporal court.
The only perjury which was for a long time noticed at
common law was the perjury of jurors. Attaint of jurors
(who were originally rather in the position of witnesses
than of judges of fact) incidentally subjected them to
punishment for perjury. Criminal jurisdiction over perjury
by persons other than jurors seems to have been first
assumed by the Star Chamber, acting under the powers
supposed to have been conferred by 3 Hen. VII. ch. 1.
After the abolition of the Star Chamber by the Long Parlia
ment in 1641 and the gradual diminution of the authority
of the spiritual courts, perjury (whether in the strict sense
of the word or the taking of a false oath in non-judicial
proceedings) practically fell entirely within the jurisdiction
of the ordinary criminal tribunals. The jurisdiction of the
spiritual courts over perjury may now be considered
obsolete. An unsuccessful attempt was made as lately as
1876 to induce the Court of Arches to entertain a criminal
suit against a layman for a false oath taken before a surro
gate (Phillimore v. Machon, Law Rep., 1 Prob. Div., 481).
See further, for the history of the law of perjury, Stephen,
History of the Criminal Law, vol. ii. p. 408 ; vol. iii. p.
240. At common law only a false oath in judicial pro
ceedings is perjury. But by statute the penalties of perjury
have been extended to extra-judicial matters, e.y., false
declarations made for the purpose of procuring marriage
(19 and 20 Viet. c. 1 19, s. 18), and false affidavits under the
Bills of Sale Act, 1878 (41 and 42 Viet. c. 31, s. 17). False
affirmation by a person permitted by law to affirm is
perjury (32 and 33 Viet. c. 68, s. 4; 33 and 34 Viet. c. 49).
In order to support an indictment for perjury the prosecu
tion must prove the authority to administer the oath, the
occasion of administering it, the taking of the oath, the
substance of the oath, the materiality of the matter sworn,
the falsity of the matter sworn, and the corrupt intention
of the defendant. The indictment must allege that the
perjury was wilful and corrupt, and must set out the false
statement or statements on which perjury is assigned,
subject to the provisions of 23 Geo. II. c. 11 (which also
applies to subornation of perjury). By that Act it is
sufficient to set out the substance of the offence, without
setting forth the bill, answer, etc., or any part of the record,
and without setting forth the commission or authority of
the court before whom the perjury was committed. The
matter sworn to must be one of fact and not of mere belief or
opinion. It is not homicide, as in Roman law, to procure the
death of another by false evidence, but the Criminal Code,
ss. 118, 164, proposes to make such an offence a substantive
crime of greater gravity than ordinary perjury, and punish
able by penal servitude for life. It is a rule of evidence,
founded upon obvious reasons, that the testimony of a
single witness is insufficient to convict on a charge of per
jury. There must be corroboration of his evidence in
some material particular. Perjury is a common law mis
demeanour, not triable at quarter- sessions. Proceedings
may also be taken under 5 Eliz. c. 9, but this Act is of
little practical importance, as the common law is more
extensive than the statute. Most persons in a judicial
position have the right of directing the prosecution of any
witness, if it appears to them that he has been guilty of
perjury (14 and 15 Viet. c. 100, s. 19). The provisions of
the Vexatious Indictments Act (22 and 23 Viet. c. 17)
extend to perjury and subornation of perjury. By that
Act no indictment for either of such offences can be pre
ferred unless the prosecutor or accused is bound by recog
nizance, or the accused is in custody, or the consent of a
judge is obtained, or (in the case of perjury) a prosecution
is directed under 14 and 15 Viet. c. 100.
Subornation of perjury is procuring a person to commit
a perjury which he actually commits in consequence of
such procurement. If the person attempted to be suborned
do not take the oath, the person inciting him, though not
guilty of subornation, is liable to fine and corporal punish
ment. Perjury and subornation of perjury are punishable
at common law with fine and imprisonment. By the
combined operation of 2 Geo. II. c. 25 and later statutes,
the punishment at present appears to be penal servitude
for any term, or imprisonment with or without hard labour
for a term not exceeding seven years (see Stephen,
Digest, Art. 137). Perjury or prevarication committed
before a committee of either House of Parliament may be
dealt with as a contempt or breach of privilege as well as
by prosecution. As to false oaths not perjury, it is a
P E R — P E R
549
misdemeanour at common law, punishable by fine and
imprisonment, to swear falsely before any person author
ized to administer an oath upon a matter of common con
cern, under such circumstances that the false swearing, if
committed in judicial proceedings, would have amounted
to perjury. There are some cases of making false declara
tions which are punishable on summary conviction, e.g.,
certain declarations under the Eegistration of Births and
Deaths Act, 1874, and the Customs Consolidation Act,
1876. A conviction for perjury subjects the person con
victed to certain disqualifications. He cannot hold a
parish office (4 and 5 Will. IV. c. 76, s. 48). If a solicitor,
and he attempt to practise after conviction, he is liable on
summary conviction by a judge to seven years' penal
servitude (12 Geo. I. c. 29, s. 4). If the prosecution be
under the statute of Elizabeth, the person convicted is
disabled from giving evidence for the future (5 Eliz. c. 9,
s. 2). The provisions of the last two Acts may, however,
be regarded as virtually obsolete. The perjury of a witness
may be a ground for pardon where the perjury has taken
place in a criminal trial in which accused was convicted,
or for a new trial in a civil action. In order to procure a
pardon or a new trial it is generally necessary to show
that the witness was a material one, and also that the
perjurer has been prosecuted to conviction.
In Scotland the law, as a general rule, agrees with that of Eng
land. Perjury may be committed by a party on reference to oath
as well as by a witness. A witness making a false affirmation is
guilty of perjury (28 Viet. c. 9). The Acts 14 and 15 Viet. c. 100
and 22 and 23 Viet. c. 17 do not extend to Scotland. The trial,
though usually by the Court of Justiciary, may be by the Court
of Session if the perjury is committed in the course of an action
before that court. The punishment is penal servitude or imprison
ment at the discretion of the court. Formerly a person convicted
of perjury was disabled from giving evidence in future ; this dis
ability was abolished by 15 Viet. c. 27, s. 1.
In the United States the common law has been extended by most
States to embrace false affirmations and false evidence in proceedings
not judicial. Perjury in the United States courts is dealt with by
an Aet of Congress of 3d March 1825, by which the maximum
punishment for perjury or subornation of perjury is a fine of §2000
or imprisonment for five years. The jurisdiction of the States to
punish perjury committed in the State courts is specially preserved
by the same Act. Statutory provisions founded upon 23 Geo. II.
c. 11 have been adopted in some States, but not in others. In the
States which have not adopted such provisions, the indictment
must set out the offence with the particularity necessary at common
law. ( J. Wt. )
PERKINS, JACOB (1766-1849), inventor and physicist,
was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1766, and ap
prenticed to a goldsmith. He soon made himself known
by a variety of useful mechanical inventions, and in 1818
came over to England with a plan for engraving bank-notes
on steel, which, though it did not find acceptance at once,
ultimately proved a signal success, and was carried out by
Perkins in partnership with the English engraver Heath
during the rest of his long business life. Perkins con
tinued to be fertile of inventions, and his steam-gun,
exhibited in 1824, attracted much attention, though the
danger attending the use of highly-compressed steam pre
vented its practical adoption. His chief contribution to
physics lay in the experiments by which he proved the
compressibility of water and measured it by a piezometer
of his own invention ; see vol. vii. p. 801, and Phil.
Trans., 1820, 1826. He retired in 1834, and died in
London, 30th July 1849.
PERM, a government of Russia, on both slopes of the
Ural Mountains, with an area of 128,250 square miles.
Though Perm administratively belongs entirely to Russia
in Europe, its eastern part (about 57,000 square miles) is
situated in Siberia, in the basin of the Obi. It is traversed
from north to south by the Ural range, a low ridge, from
30 to 45 miles in width, thickly covered with forests, and
deeply excavated by rivers. The highest summits do not
rise above 3600 feet in the northern section of the range
(the Vogulian Ural) ; in the central portion, between 59°
and 60° 30' N. lat., they once or twice exceed 5000 feet
(Denezhkin, 5027 feet, and Konzhakovskii Kamen, 5135
feet) ; but the chain soon sinks towards the south, where
it barely attains an elevation of 3000 feet. Where the
great Siberian road crosses the ridge the highest point is
1400 feet. Westward the plain of the river Kama is still
500 feet above sea-level at a distance of 120 miles from
the main watershed, but to the east the secondary ridges.
and spurs of the central chain fall away somewhat more
rapidly, — Kamyshloff, 100 miles distant, being situated
amidst the lowlands of the Obi at an altitude of less than
200 feet.
The geology of Perm has been the subject of very many
investigations since the journeys of Humboldt and Mur-
chison ; but several parts of the government still remain
unexplored. Granites, diorites, porphyries, serpentines,
and Laurentian gneisses and limestones, containing iron,
copper, and zinc ores, constitute the main axis of the
Ural chain ; their western slope is covered by a narrow
strip of Huronian crystalline slates, which disappear in
the east under the Post -Tertiary deposits of the Siberian
lowlands, while on the west narrow strips of Silurian
limestones, quartzites, and slates, and separate islands of
Devonian deposits appear on the surface. These in their
turn are covered with Carboniferous clays and sandstones,
containing Coal-measures in several isolated basins. The
Permian deposits extend as a regiilar strip, parallel to the
main ridge, over these last, and are covered with the so-
called "variegated marls," which are now considered as
Triassic, and which appear only in the western corner of
the territory. Perm is the chief mining region of Russia,
owing to its wealth in iron, silver, platinum, copper, nickel,
lead, chrome ore, and auriferous alluvial deposits. Many
rare metals, besides, such as iridium, osmium, rhodium,
and ruthenium, are found along with the above, as also a
great variety of precious stones, such as sapphires, jacinths,
beryls, phenacites, chrysoberyls, emeralds, aquamarines,
topazes, amethysts, jades, malachite. Salt-springs appear
in the west ; and the mineral waters, though still little
known, are also worthy of mention.
The government is very well watered by rivers belonging
to the Petchora, Tobol (affluent of the Obi), and Kama
systems. The Petchora itself rises in the northern corner
of the government, and its tributary the Volosnitsa is sepa
rated by a distance of only 4900 yards from the navi
gable Vogulka, a tributary of the Kama, — a circumstance
of some commercial importance. The tributaries of the
Tobol (Sosva, Tura, Isset, and Ui) are far more important.
Their sources, which approach those of the tributaries of
the Kama very closely, early became a link between Russia
and Siberia, and the first section of the Siberian railway
(completed for 312 miles from Perm to Ekaterinburg) has
been planned to connect the Kama at Perm Avith the Tura
at Tumen, whence there is a navigable route by the
Siberian rivers to the very heart of western Siberia at
Tomsk. The chief river of Perm is, however, the Kama,
whose great navigable tributaries the Tchusovaya, Sylva,
and Kolva are important channels for the export of the
heavy iron goods to Russia, — 5,000,000 cwts., valued at
upwards of £2,000,000, being annually shipped on these
rivers to the Volga. Timber also is floated down many
of the smaller streams. Altogether, the rivers supply to
some extent the want of roads or the defects of those
which exist, the great Siberian highway even (ria Kazan,
Okhansk, Perm, Ekaterinburg, and Tumen) being usually
in a bad state.
The government is dotted with a great number of lakes
of comparatively trifling size, and marshes also are extensive
550
PERM
in the hilly tracts of the north. No less than 45,750,000
acres are forest; of this large area only 2,175,600 acres
are under proper forest administration. The forests are
distributed very unequally, covering 95 per cent, of the area
in the north, and only 25 per cent, in the south-east. Fir
(Abies sibirica, Picea obovata), pine (Finns sylvestris), cedar
(Pinus Cembm), larch (L. sibirica), birch, alder (Alnus),
and lime are the most common woods ; the oak appears
only in the south-west. The flora of Perm (956 Phanero
gams) presents a mixture of Siberian and Russian species,
several of which have their north-eastern or south-western
limits within the government. The climate is severe, the
average temperature at different places being as follows : —
Lat. X.
^titude. J-g
January
average.
July
average.
i
Feet. ; Fahr.
Fahr.
Fahr.
Bogoslovsk 59° 45'
630 ! 29° -3
3°'0 62°'6
Usolie (Kama)... 59° 25'
300 i 34°'0
4° -5 : 63° '8
Nijne-Taghilsk I 57° 55'
590 ! 33° -1
2°'0
64°-9
Ekaterinburg ... 56° 48'
890 • 32° "9
2° -5 63" '5
The population in 1881 amounted to 2,520,100, of which number
106,500 lived in towns. It consisted chiefly of Great Russians,
Bashkirs (about 100,000, including Mescheryaks and Teptyars),
about 65,000 Permyaks or Permians, 25,000 Tatars, 8000 Tchere-
misses, and some 2500 Voguls. More than a million of the Great
Russians are Nonconformists, their number having rapidly increased
within the last twenty years. Except in the northern districts,
which are covered with marshes and tundras, and in a zone 70
miles wide, which includes the higher and stony parts of the Ural
.Mountains to the north of the 58th parallel, agriculture is the
general occupation of the inhabitants, who are favoured with a very
fertile soil in the southern districts. Nevertheless, only 8,000,000
acres are under crops, the proportion of arable land ranging from
2 to 34 per cent, of the area in different districts. Rye, oats, barley,
and hemp are raised in all parts, and wheat, millet, buckwheat,
and flax in the south. The average crops in recent years have been
4,198,000 quarters of grain and 1,866,400 bushels of potatoes.
Cattle-breeding is specially developed in the south-east among
the Bashkirs, who have large numbers of horses, but is at present
decreasing. In 1881 there were 837,000 horses, 820,000 horned
cattle, 1,055,000 sheep, and 267,000 pigs. These figures vary,
however, from year to year, in consequence of the murrains that
periodically destroy great numbers of horses and cattle. Agriculture
is widely spread among the Bashkirs, Teptyars, and Tcheremisses,
and the chase is still a source of wealth, especially among the
Voguls. Shipbuilding is developed on the Kama, Vishera (a tribut
ary of the Kama), Sylva, and Tchusovaya ; and large amounts of
timber, pitch, and tar, as also wooden implements, are exported to
the Volga. Some 100,000 hands find occupation in connexion with
the mining industry, and a number are engaged in the transport
trade to and from Siberia, or in shipping. Mining increases every
year, especially since private enterprise has been allowed to develop
freely. In 1879 the total production of metals on the mining-
works of the crown and of private individuals was (in cwts. ) : — gold,
102'7; copper, 12,913; pig-iron, 4,457,000 ; iron, 2,704,000; steel,
599,600; salt, 3,750,000. The working of coal, although recent,
promises to be most valuable. In 1865 the aggregate of all manu
factures connected with mining hardly exceeded 15,000,000 roubles
(£1,500,000) in value. In 1879 it was :— copper, 879,800 roubles ;
pig-iron, 14,076,000 ; iron, 9,077,900 ; and steel, 2,218,000. The
aggregate of other manufactures, employing 7400 hands, in the
same year reached 20,962,000 roubles, against 5,802,000 in 1S65.
The first place is taken by flour- mills (£973,500), followed by distil
leries (£566,500) and tanneries (£212,300) ; next in order come the
manufactures of spirits, saddlery, woollen cloth, ropes, oils, cakes,
paper, chemicals, candles, tallow, soap, matches, wax-candles, glass,
pottery, &c. The cutting of precious stones is extensively carried
on throughout the villages on the eastern slope of the Ural Moun
tains, the chief market for them being at Ekaterinburg. Besides, a
variety of petty trades are carried on, the manufacture of carpets
in the south-east (Tumen carpets), as also that of boots at Kungur,
being especially worthy of mention.
An active trade, greatly favoured by the easy communication
of the chief centres of the mining industry with the great market
of Xijni Novgorod on the one side and with the great network
of Siberian rivers on the other, is carried on in metals and metal
wares, minerals, timber and wooden wares, tallow, skins, cattle,
furs, corn, and linseed. Large caravans descend the affluents of
the Kama ev ^ry spring, and reach the great fairs of Laisheff and
Nijni Novgorod, or descend the Volga to Samara and Astrakhan ;
while Ekaterinburg is an important centre for the trade with
Siberia. The fair at Irbit, second in importance only to that of
Nijni Novgorod, is a great centre for supplying Siberia with grocery
and manufactured wares, as also for the purchase of tea, of furs for
Russia, and of corn and cattle for the mining districts. About 180
other fairs are held every year within the government. The chief
commercial centres are Ekaterinburg, Irbit, Perm, Kamyshloff.
Shadrinsk, Tcherdyn, and several iron-works (Mvodij).
Perm is more largely provided with educational institutions anil
primary schools than most of the governments of central Russia.
Besides the usual lyceum and ecclesiastical seminary at Perm, there
are a mining school at Ekaterinburg and lower mining schools at
Bogoslovsk and Kushva, and two lyceums for women at Perm and
Ekaterinburg. The number of primary schools in 1881 was 621
(39,773 scholars, including about 8000 girls). The Nonconformists
are very diligent in teaching reading (in Old Slavonian) to their
girls. The Ural Society of Naturalists, at Ekaterinburg, issues
valuable scientific serials, and there are within the government
two first-rate meteorological and magnetic observatories, at Ekater
inburg and Bogoslovsk.
Perm is divided into twelve districts having for their chief
towns (with populations in 1879) — Perm (32,350), Kungur (14,000),
Krasnoufimsk (3700), Okhansk (1650), Osa (2850), Solikamsk
(16,900), and Tcherdyn (3260) in Europe ; Ekaterinburg (25,150),
Irbit (4250), Kamyshloff (2160), Shadrinsk (11,550), and Ver-
khoturie (8900) in Asia. Alapaevsk (5450), Dalmatoll' (4350), and
Dedyukhin (3900, with important salt-works) have also municipal
institutions. The iron- works form the following important towns:
—Nijne-Taghilsk (30,000 in 1881), Neviansk (14,000), Kyshtym
(12,350), Revdinsk (9950), Upper and Lower Turinsk (9750),
Nyazepetrovsk (9000), Verkh - Issetskii (7000), Nijne-Issetskii,
Sysertskii (5900), Bogoslovsk (4500), Verkhne-Taghilsk (3850), and
Suksunsk (3150). The salt-works of Usclie (7700) and Lenva (3250)
ma}' also be mentioned.
History. — Remains of Paleolithic man, everywhere very scarce
in Russia, have not yet been discovered in the upper basins of the
Kama and Obi, with the exception, perhaps, of a single human
skull found in a cavern on the Tchariva (basin of Kama), together
with a skull of Ursus spelasus. Neolithic remains, on the other
hand, are met with in immense quantities on both Ural slopes
throughout the territory of Perm. Still larger quantities of imple
ments belonging to an early Finnish, or rather Ugrian, civiliza
tion are found everywhere in the basin of the Kama, even in its
northern parts, the present district of Tcherdyn. Even Herodotus
speaks of the richness of this country inhabited by the Ugrian s,
who kept up a brisk traffic with the Greek colony of Olbia, and
with the Bosphorus by way of the Sea of Azoff and the Volga.
The precise period at which the Ugrians left the district for the
southern steppes of Russia (the " Lebedia " of Constantino Porphyro-
genitus) is not known. In the 9th century the Scandinavians were
acquainted with the country as Biarmia, and Byzantine annalists
knew it as Permia. Nestor describes it as a territory of the Perm,
a Finnish people, some 50,000 of whom still remain, and whose
name seems to have been derived from parma, a Finnish word
denoting hilly tracts thickly covered with forests.
The Russians penetrated into this region at an early date. In
the llth century Novgorod levied tribute from the Finnish in
habitants, and undertook the colonization of the country, which
in the treaties of the 13th century is dealt with as a separate
territory of Novgorod. In 1471, after the fall of Novgorod, Perm
was annexed to Moscow, which in the following year erected a fort
to protect Russian settlers and tradesmen from the Voguls, Ostyaks,
anil Samoyedes. Tcherdyn, the oldest town of Perm, was already
in existence in the 15th century. The mineral wealth of the
country soon attracted the attention of the Moscow princes, and
Ivan III. sent two Germans to search for ores ; these they succeeded
in finding south of the upper Petchora. A great impulse to colon
ization and mining was given by the Strogonoffs, when in the 16th
century they received immense tracts of land oil the Kama and
Tchusovaya. They founded the first salt and iron works, built
forts, and colonized the Ural region. Solikamsk, Osa, Okhansk,
and Verkhoturie were founded during this century. By the latter
part of the century the Russian colonies had spread beyond the
Ural Mountains ; and in this direction the Strogonoffs continued
to extend their mining operations. The rapidly -growing trade
with Siberia gave a new impulse to the development of the coun
try. This trade had its centres at Perm and Solikamsk, where
merchandise brought up the Kama was unshipped and transported
by land to Verkhoturie, at that time the first Siberian town and
custom-house on the great highway. Kungur, too, attained some
commercial importance. The fair of Irbit in the 17th century
became the chief seat of the trade in merchandise, brought both
from Russia to Siberia and from Siberia and Bokhara to Russia.
Communication with Siberia having taken a northern route, the
southern parts of the territory were not colonized until the next
century, when Ekaterinburg, Krasnoufimsk, and Alapaevsk were
founded. In 1780 the provinces of Perm and Ekaterinburg were
instituted, but were soon united into one. (P. A. K.)
P E R — P E R
551
PERM, capital of the above government, stands on the
left bank of the Kama, on the great highway to Siberia,
930 miles north-east from Moscow. During summer it
has regular steam communication with Kazan, 685 miles
distant, and it is connected by rail with Ekaterinburg. The
town is mostly built of wood, with broad streets and wide
squares, and has a somewhat poor aspect, especially when
compared with Ekaterinburg. It is the see of a bishop, and
has an ecclesiastical seminary and a military school. The
manufactures are few ; the Government manufactory of
steel guns and munitions of war, in the immediate neigh
bourhood of the town, turns out about 1600 tons of guns
annually. The aggregate production of the private manu
factories of all kinds did not exceed £165,000 in 1879;
they included tanneries (£78,600), distilleries (£61,000),
rope-works (£9500), brick-works, breweries, soap and
candle works, iron-wire and copper-ware works. Numerous
flour-mills and several oil-works occur within the district.
The town derives its commercial importance as being the
chief place of storage for merchandise to and from Siberia
(tea, metals and metal-wares, skins, leather, butter, wool,
bristles, tallow, cedar nuts, linseed, &c.), which is un
shipped here from the steamers coming up the Kama, and
despatched by rail or on cars and sledges to Siberia, or
rice versa. The trade is chiefly in the hands of Nijni Nov
gorod, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, and Siberian merchants. The
population of Perm in 1879 was 32,350.
The present site of Perm was occupied, as early as the year 1568,
by a settlement named Brukhanovo, founded by one of the Strogo-
noffs ; this settlement seems to have received the name of Perm in
the 17th century. The Yagozhikhinsky copper -work was founded
in the immediate neighbourhood in 1723, and in 1781 it received
officially the name of Perm, and became an administrative centre
both for the country and for the mining region. The mining
authorities left Perm for Ekaterinburg in 1830.
PERMUTATIONS. See ALGEBRA, vol. i. p. 560.
PERNAMBUCO, or RECIFE, a city and seaport of Brazil
and the chief town of the extensive province of Pernam-
buco. As it is situated on the coast in 8° 3' 27" S. lat.
and 34° 50' 14" W. long. (Fort Picao), not far from the
point where the continent begins to trend towards the
south-west, it is naturally the first port visited by steamers
from Lisbon to Brazil. The reef, which can be traced
more or less distinctly along the Brazilian seaboard for
several hundred miles, rises at Pernambuco into a perfectly
straight artificial-looking wall, 3£ miles long, with even
Plan of Pernambuco.
sides and a smooth and almost level top from 30 to 60
yards in width. It is of a hard pale-coloured sandstone,
breaking with a very smooth fracture ; and a tough layer
of calcareous matter, generally several inches thick, pro
duced by the successive growth and death of the small
shells of 8erpulse, with some few barnacles and nullipores,
proves so effectual a protection of the outer surface that
though it is exposed to the full force of the waves of the
open Atlantic the oldest pilots know of no tradition of
change in its appearance.1 The belt of water within the
reef is about a mile in width and forms a safe but rather
shallow harbour; vessels drawing 19| feet can enter, and
there is abundant room for mooring along the shore and
reef, but mail-steamers usually anchor in the roads and
discharge by means of lighters. Sir John Hawkshaw's
scheme for the improvement of the harbour (1874) was
rejected by the Government as too costly ; but extensive
dredging operations are being prosecuted. The city of Per
nambuco lies low, and is surrounded by a swampy stretch
of country, with no high ground nearer than the hill on
which Olinda is built, 8 miles to the north. It used to be
considered the most pestilential of Brazilian seaports ; but
its sanitary condition has greatly improved, partly owing
to drainage- works executed by an English company. There
are three natural divisions in the city — Recife ("the Reef "),
situated not on the reef proper but on an island forming
the southern end of a sandbank that stretches north towards
Olinda ; Sant' Antonio, on a peninsula separated from the
island by the united waters of the Capibaribe and the
Biberibe ; and Boa Vista, the fashionable residential district
on the mainland opposite Sant' Antonio. In Recife the
streets are narrow and crooked and many of the houses
are of great age and present Dutch characteristics ; but
Sant' Antonio has broad straight streets, with well-paved
side -walks, tramways (worked by mules), and modern-
looking houses. Among the public buildings in Pernam
buco it is enough to mention the governor's palace, the
episcopal palace, the hospital of Pedro II. (5000 patients
per annum, with French sisters of mercy as nurses), the
foundling hospital, the poorhouse, the new lunatic asylum
(1881), the university (18 professors and 530 students in
1879), the normal school, and the provincial library (13,000
vols., 11,581 readers, in 1880). The great commercial
staple is sugar, and the brown sticky mud of the streets
owes its peculiar character to the juice of the cane ; 825,711
bags of sugar were brought to the market in 1875-76 and
1,715,637 bags in 1879-80. Cotton, which was first ex
ported in 1778 and continued a small item till 1781, now
holds the second place,— 130,925 bales in 1875-76 and
60,117 in 1879-80. Coal began to be imported in 1834,—
25,314 tons in 1879-80. The total value of the exports
and imports has greatly increased.
1S16.
1836.
1856.
1870.
1880.
Imports
KxDorts .
£103,023
£029,794
£052,120
£947.603
£1,517,403
£1.507,019
£1,821,104
£1,508,958
£2,478,823
£2,021,518
The port was opened to British vessels in 1 808, and goods,
which formerly had to pass through Portugal, began to
be brought to England direct. A cemetery for British
subjects was opened in 1814, a British hospital in 1821,
and a British chapel in 1836. In 1880, out of a total of
1047 vessels (674,227 tons) calling at Pernambuco 451
(249,912 tons) were British. Pernambuco is connected
with Olinda by a steam-tramway line and with Caxanga
(8 1 miles) by a mule -tram way ; the Recife and San
Francisco Railway (1856-62) runs 78 miles to Una, and
is continued by a narrow-gauge line to Garanhuns ; and
another narrow line strikes up the Capibaribe 52 miles
to Limoeiro. In 1878 the population of the town and
immediate suburbs was 94,493.
The name of Pernambuco (pcra, "a stone," namlmco, " pierced")
appears to have been originally applied to Itamaraca (a town in
552
P E R— P E R
7° 44' S. lat., now decayed, but formerly the capital of an independ
ent captaincy), where also there is an opening in the reef. In 1532
Duarte Coefho founded the city of Oliiula, which continued to be
the capital of the captaincy of Pernambuco till 1710. When in
1580 the country passed into the hands of Spain it had 700 stone
houses, 4000 to 5000 negro slaves were employed in its sugar-planta
tions, and from 40 to 50 vessels came annually to load with sugar
and Brazil wood, often called simply Pernambuco or Fernambuk.
Recife, which was a mere collection of fishers' huts when occupied
by the French under Yillegagnon in 1561, shortly afterwards began
to attract attention as a port. It was captured and held for thirty-
four days in 1595 by Sir JAMES LANCASTER (q.v.), who did not,
however, succeed in his attack on Olinda. In the 17th century
this part of Brazil was the scene of a great struggle between the
Spaniards and the Dutch. Olinda and Recife were captured by the
Dutch under Admiral Loncq in 1630, and in the following year,
when they were obliged to retreat to the reef, they left Olinda in
flames. Fort Brim was built in 1631. In 1639 (Recife already con
taining 2000 houses) Count Maurice laid out a new town (Maurits-
stad) on the island of Antonio Vaz, and built himself a palace
(Vrijburg or Sans Souci) of materials obtained by the demolition
of Olinda. A bridge was thrown across from Recife to Mauritsstad,
and another from Mauritsstad to the mainland, where the count
had his summer palace of Schoonzigt or Boa Vista. An observa
tory was erected under Marcgraf and De Laet. In 1654 the Dutch
garrison, neglected by the authorities at home, who were at war
with Cromwell, was obliged to capitulate to the Portuguese (26th
January).
See J. B. Fernandes Gama, Mem. hist, da Prov. de Pernambuco (Pernambuco,
1844) ; Barliuus, Rerum in Brasilia gcstarum hlstoria (1060) ; and Xetscher, " Les
Hollandais an Bresil," in Le Monitevr des Indes Orient, et Occid. (1848-49).
PERNAU, in Russian PERNOFF, a seaport town and
watering-place of European Russia, in the government of
Livonia, is situated in 58° 23' N. lat. and 24° 30' E. long.,
155 miles north of Riga, on the left bank of the Pernau
or Pernova, which about half a mile farther down enters
the Bay of Pernau, the northern arm of the Gulf of Riga.
The town proper is well and regularly built, and contains
two public gardens and two public parks (Salon Park and
Bade Park), a town-house, a hospital, and a public library.
On the right side of the river lies the suburb of Bremer-
seite. The harbour is small, and the depth of water on
the bar under 10 feet. The exports, which consist mainly
of flax (to Great Britain, France, and Portugal), linseed
(to Germany), mats, and cereals, had a value of 8,220,421
silver roubles in 1880, and of 5,427,465 in 1881 (a bad
year). The population was 6690 in 1863, 9525 in 1867,
and 12,918 in 1881.
Founded on the right side of the river in 1255 by one of the
bishops of Oescl, Pernau, with its walls and castle, soon became a
flourishing place. In the 16th century it was occupied in succession
by the Swedes, the Poles, and the knights of the Teutonic order.
After 1599 the Poles transferred the town to the left side of the
river ; and in 1642 the Swedes, who had been in possession since
1617, strengthened it with regular fortifications. In 1710 it was be
sieged and taken by the Russians, and the fortress is now demolished.
PERNE, ANDREW (1519-1589), a notable character in
16th-century history, was born at East Bilney in Nor
folk in 1519. He received his education at St John's
College, Cambridge, was afterwards a fellow of Queens'
College, and finally master of Peterhouse in the same
university. He is best known as a remarkable example
of the tergiversation in reference to religious profession
which, owing to the sudden changes in the prescribed
theological belief of the state, was only too common in his
age. In the reign of Henry VIII. he defended the adora
tion of saint's, but subsequently abandoned this doctrine
in the reign of Edward VI., and became distinguished
as an active promulgator of Reformation tenets. In the
reign of Mary he subscribed the Roman Catholic articles,
and when the remains of Martin Bucer and Paulus Fagius,
— two Protestant professors in the university— were ex
humed and burnt, he preached on the occasion. He was
rewarded for his subservience by being promoted to the
deanery of Ely. Notwithstanding this discreditable com
pliance, he succeeded in gaining Elizabeth's favour on her
accession ; he signed the grace for restoring the names of
Bucer and Facias in the lists of honours and dignities
from which they had been expunged ; and he was elected
by the university to the office of vice-chancellor. He thus,
like Symond Symonds, the vicar of Bray, was twice a
Papist and twice a Protestant. During the remainder of
his career he was known as a moderate supporter of
Church of England doctrine against the Puritan party.
"What bishop or politician in England," asks Gabriel
Harvey, "was so great a temporizer as he V The wags
of the university invented a verb, perno, which, they de
clared, meant, "I rat," "I change often." Yet the
satirist, notwithstanding, admits his many excellent
qualities and eulogizes him for his urbanity and singular
tact in his intercourse with men of every class and shade
of opinion. To this latter characteristic we must attribute
the fact that, while, throughout his life, Perne preserved
the friendship of austere churchmen like Whitgift, he was
popular with critics of a very different stamp, such as the
dissolute Thomas Nash, who declares that " few men lived
better." It is not a little to Perne's credit that the social
influence which he thus acquired was uniformly exerted
to bring about the ends which he had in view as a philan
thropist and a true lover of learning. He was a dis
tinguished benefactor of the university in which his life
was mainly passed, and its library was restored chiefly
through his efforts. His own library at Peterhouse was
said to be the best at that time in England. Dr Perne died
in 1589 while on a visit to Archbishop Whitgift, on whose
gratitude he had established a lasting claim by the protec
tion he accorded him during the persecution under Mary.
He belongs to the class of men whose influence during
their lives is felt rather than seen ; and the services he
rendered to his generation become increasingly apparent
in proportion as this period of English history is more
closely studied.
PERONNE, chief town of an arrondissement of the
department of the Somme, France, and a fortified place
on the right bank of that river at its confluence with the
stream called the Doingt or Cologne, lies 94 miles north-
north-east of Paris on the railway from Paris to Cambrai.
Wet moats surround the ramparts, which are built of brick.
The church of >St Jean (1509-1525) was greatly damaged
during the bombardment of 1870-71, but has since been
restored. The castle of Peronne, in one of the bastions of
the enceinte, was partially destroyed by fire in 1877 ; it
still retains four large conical-roofed towers dating from
the Middle Ages, one of which is said to have been the
prison of Louis XL, when he had his famous encounter
with Charles the Bold (1468). The town-hall, which was
built in the 16th century, has an elegant campanile of
modern construction. The population of Peronne in 1881
was 4696.
The Frankish kings had a villa at Peronne, which Clovis II. gave
to Erchinoaldus, mayor of the palace. The latter founded a
monastery here, and raised in honour of St Furcy a collegiate
church, which was a wealthy establishment until the Revolution ;
it is the burial-place of Charles the Simple, who died of starvation
in a dungeon in Peronne, into which he had been thrown by the
count of Vermandois (929). After the death of Philip of Alsace
Peronne, which he had inherited through his wife, escheated to the
French crown (1199), and in 1209 received a charter w.ith municipal
privileges from Philip Augustus. By the treaty of Arras (1435) it
was given to the Burgundians ; bought back by Louis XI., it passed
again into the hands of Charles the Bold in 1465. On the death of
Charles, however, in 1477, Louis XL resumed possession. In 1536 the
emperor Charles V. besieged Peronne, but without success ; in its
defence a woman called Marie Fourre greatly distinguished herself,
and the anniversary of the raising of the siege was celebrated at
Peronne for many years. It was the first town after Paris at which
the League was proclaimed in 1577. Pennine's greatest misfortunes
occurred during the late Franco-German war. It was invested on
27th December 1870, and bombarded from the 28th to the 9th of
the following January, upon which date, on account of the suffer
ings of the civil population, among whom smallpox had broken
out, it was compelled to capitulate. Out of 700 houses 600 were
P E R — P E R
553
more or less injured and eighty-two buildings set on fire ; the tower
of the church of St Jean was also burnt, its roofing and timber-work
destroyed, and the bells melted by the flames. This damage has
since been repaired.
PEROUSE. See LA PEROUSE, vol. xiv. p. 298.
PERPETUAL MOTION, or PERPETUUM MOBILE, in its
usual significance does not mean simply a machine which
will go on moving for ever, but a machine which, once
set in motion, will go on doing useful work without draw
ing on any external source of energy, or a machine which
in every complete cycle of its operation will give forth
more energy than it has absorbed. Briefly, a perpetual
motion usually means a machine which will create energy.
The earlier seekers after the "perpetuum mobile" did not
always appreciate the exact nature of their quest ; for we
find among their ideals a clock that would periodically
rewind itself, and thus go without human interference as
long as its machinery would last. The energy created by
such a machine would simply be the work done in over
coming the friction of its parts, so that its projectors might
be held merely to have been ignorant of the laws of friction
and of the dynamic theory of heat. Most of the perpetual
motionists, however, had more practical views, and ex
plicitly declared the object of their inventions to be the
doing of useful work, such as raising water, grinding corn,
and so on. Like the exact quadrature of the circle, the
transmutation of metals, and other famous problems of
antiquity, the perpetual motion has now become a vener
able paradox. Still, like these others, it retains a great
historical interest. Just as some of the most interesting
branches of modern pure mathematics sprang from the
problem of squaring the circle, as the researches of the
alchemists developed into the science of modern chemistry,
so, as the result of the vain search after the perpetual motion,
there grew up the greatest of all the generalizations of
physical science, the principle of the conservation of energy.
There was a time when the problem of the perpetual
motion was one worthy of the attention of a philosopher.
Before that analysis of the action of ordinary machines
which led to the laws of dynamics, and the discussion of the
dynamical interdependence of natural phenomena which
accompanied the establishment of the dynamical theory of
heat, there Ava.s nothing plainly unreasonable in the idea
that work might be done by the mere concatenation of
machinery. It had not then been proved that energy is
uncreatable and indestructible in the ordinary course of
nature ; even now that proof has only been given by in
duction from long observation of facts. There was a time
when wise men believed that a spirit, whose maintenance
would cost nothing, could by magic art be summoned from
the deep to do his master's work ; and it was just as
reasonable to suppose that a structure of wood, brass, and
iron could be found to work under like conditions. The
disproof is in both cases alike. No such spirit has ever
existed, save in the imagination of his describer, and no
such machine has ever been known to act, save in the
fancy of its inventor.
The principle of the conservation of energy, which in
one sense is simply a denial of the possibility of a perpetual
motion, rests on facts drawn from every branch of physi
cal science ; and, although its full establishment is not half
a century old, yet so numerous are the cases in which it
has been tested, so various the deductions from it that
have been proved to accord with experience, that it is now
regarded as one of the best -established laws of nature.
Consequently, on any one who calls it in question is
thrown the burden of proving his case. If any machine
were produced whose source of energy could not at once
be traced, a man of science (complete freedom of investi
gation being supposed) would in the first place try to
trace its power to some hidden source of a kind already
known ; or in the last resort he would seek for a source
of energy of a new kind and give it a new name. Any
assertion of creation of energy by means of a mere machine
would have to be authenticated in many instances, and
established by long investigation, before it could be
received in modern science. The case is precisely as with
the law of gravitation ; if any apparent exception to this
were observed in the case of some heavenly body, astro
nomers, instead of denying the law, would immediately seek
to explain the occurrence by a wider application of it, say
by including in their calculations the effect of some dis
turbing body hitherto neglected. If a man likes to indulge
the notion that, after all, an exception to the law of the
conservation of energy may be found, and, provided he
submits his idea to the test of experiment at his own
charges without annoying his neighbours, all that can be
said is that he is engaged in an unpromising enterprise.
The case is otherwise with the projector who comes for
ward with some machine which claims by the mere in
genuity of its contrivance to multiply the energy sup
plied to it from some of the ordinary sources of nature
and sets to work to pester scientific men to examine his
supposed discovery, or attempts therewith to induce the
credulous to waste their money. This is by far the largest
class of perpetual-motion-mongers nowadays. The interest
of such cases is that attaching to the morbid anatomy
of the human mind. Perhaps the most striking feature
about them is the woful sameness of the symptoms of their
madness. As a body perpetual-motion seekers are ambi
tious, lovers of the short path to wealth and fame, but
wholly superficial. Their inventions are very rarely char
acterized even by mechanical ingenuity. Sometimes in
deed the inventor has simply bewildered himself by the
complexity of his device ; but in most cases the machines
of the perpetual motionist are of child -like simplicity,
remarkable only for the extraordinary assertions of the
inventor concerning them. Wealth of ideas there is none ;
simply assertions that such and such a machine solves the
problem, although an identical contrivance has been shown
to do no such thing by the brutal test of standing still in the
hands of many previous inventors. Hosts of the seekers
for the perpetual motion have attacked their insoluble
problem with less than a schoolboy's share of the requisite
knowledge ; and their confidence as a rule is in proportion
to their ignorance. Very often they get no farther than a
mere prospectus, on the strength of which they claim some
imaginary reward, or offer their precious discovery for sale ;
sometimes they get the length of a model which wants
only the last perfection (already in the inventor's brain)
to solve the great problem ; sometimes fraud is made to
supply the motive -power which their real or pretended
efforts have failed to discover.
It was no doubt the barefaced fallacy of most of the
plans for perpetual motion that led the majority of scien
tific men to conclude at a very early date that the "per
petuum mobile" was an impossibility. We find the Parisian
Academy of Sciences refusing, as early as 1775, to receive
schemes for the perpetual motion, which they class with
solutions of the duplication of the cube, the trisection of
an angle, and the quadrature of the circle. Stevinus and
Leibnitz seem to have regarded its impossibility as axi
omatic ; and Newton at the beginning of his PrincApia
states, so far as ordinary mechanics are concerned, a prin
ciple which virtually amounts to the same thing (see
MECHANICS, vol. xv. p. 715).
The famous proof of De la Hire simply refers to some
of the more common gravitational perpetual motions, to
which we shall refer shortly. The truth is, as we have
said already, that, if proof is to be given, or considered
XVIII. — 70
554
PERPETUAL MOTION
necessary, it must proceed by induction from all physical
phenomena.
It would serve no useful purpose here to give an
exhaustive historical account of the vagaries of mankind
in pursuit of the "perpetuum mobile." The reader may
consult on this subject the two volumes by Henry Dircks,
C.E., published by E. and F. N. Spon, London, 1861 and
1870, from which, for the most part, we select the follow
ing facts to give the reader some idea of this department
of the history of human fallibility.
By far the most numerous class of perpetual motions is
that which seeks to utilize the action of gravity upon rigid
solids. We have not read of any actual proposal of the
kind, but the most obvious thing to imagine in this way
would be to procure some substance which intercepts
gravitational attraction. If this could be had, then, by
introducing a plate of it underneath a body while it was
raised, we could elevate the body without doing work ;
then, removing the plate, we could allow the body to
fall and do work ; eccentrics or other imposing device
being added to move the gravitation intercepter, behold
a perpetual motion complete ! The great difficulty is that
no one has found the proper material for an intercepter.
Fig. 1 represents one of the most ancient and oftenest-
repeated of gravitational perpetual motions. The idea is
that the balls rolling in the compartments between the
felloe and the rim of the wheel will, on the whole, so com
port themselves that the moment about the centre of those
on the descending side exceeds the moment of those on the
ascending side. Endless
devices, such as curved
spokes, levers with elbow-
joints, eccentrics, itc.,
have been proposed for
effecting this impossibi- // \\ NV" ^\~:::::\\. \\ \
lity. The modern student 1 1 XsQl ° K x) I 4-
of dynamics at once con
vinces himself that no
machinery can effect any
such result ; because, if
we give the wheel a com
plete turn, so that each
ball returns to its ori
ginal position, the whole work done by the ball will, at
the most, equal that done on it. If we were to start the
wheel and balls in the most general way possible, we
should doubtless have a very pretty problem to solve ;
but we know that, if the laws of motion be true, in each
step the kinetic energy given to the whole system of wheel
and balls is equal to that taken from the potential energy
of the balls less what is dissipated in the form of heat by
frictional forces, or vice versa, if the wheel and balls be
losing kinetic energy, — save that the friction in both cases
leads to dissipation. So that, whatever the system may
lose, it can, after it is left to itself, never gain energy
during its motion.
The two most famous perpetual motions of history, viz.,
the wheels of the marquis of Worcester and of Councillor
Orffyreus were, probably of this type. The marquis of
Worcester gives the following account of his machine in
his Century of Inventions (art. 56).
" To provide and make that all the "Weights of the descending
side of a Wheel shall be perpetually further from the Centre than
those of the mounting side, and yet equal in number and heft to
the one side as the other. A most incredible thing, if not seen, but
tried before the late king (of blessed memory) in the Tower, by
my directions, two Extraordinary Embassadors accompanying His
Majesty, and the Duke of Richmond, and Duke Hamilton, with
most of the Court, attending Him. The Wheel was 14. Foot over,
and 40. Weights of 50. pounds apiece. Sir William Bed/ore, then
Lieutenant of the Tower, can justify it, with several others. They
all saw, that no sooner these great Weights passed the Diameter-
line of the lower side, but they hung a foot further from the Centre,
nor no sooner passed the Diameter-line of the upper side but they
hung a foot nearer. Be pleased to judge the consequence."
Orffyreus (whose real name was Bessler) also obtained
distinguished patronage for his invention. His last wheel,
for he appears to have constructed more than one, was 12
feet in diameter and 1 foot 2 inches broad ; it consisted
of a light framework of wood covered in with oil-cloth so
that the interior was concealed, and was mounted on an
axle which had no visible connexion with any external
mover. It was examined and approved of by the land
grave of Hesse-Cassel, in whose castle at Weissenstein it
is said to have gone for eight weeks in a sealed room.
The most remarkable thing about this machine is that it
evidently imposed upon the mathematician 's Gravesande,
.who wrote a letter to Newton giving an account of his
examination of Orffyreus's wheel undertaken at the request
of the landgrave, wherein he professes himself dissatisfied
with the proofs theretofore given of the impossibility of
perpetual motion, and indicates his opinion that the in
vention of Orffyreus is worthy of investigation. He him
self, however, was not allowed to examine the interior
of the wheel. The inventor seems to have destroyed it
himself. One story is that he did so on account of diffi
culties with the landgrave's Government as to a licence for
it ; another that he was annoyed at the examination by
's Gravesande, and wrote on the wall of the room containing
the fragments of his model that he had destroyed it because
of the impertinent curiosity of Professor 's Gravesande.
The history of this case is noteworthy, because it con
tains all the characters that usually appear in such comedies
even now, — the fraudulent paradoxer, the illustrious and
intelligent patron, the simple-minded, unbiassed, scientific
witness.
It is worthy of remark that the overbalancing -wheel
perpetual motion seems to be as old as the 13th century.
In his second series Dircks quotes an account of an inven
tion by Wilars de Honecort, an architect whose sketch-book
is still preserved in the Ecoles des Chartes at Paris. De
Honecort says, " Many a time have skilful workmen tried
to contrive a wheel that shall turn of itself ; here is a
way to do it by means of an uneven number of mallets,
or by quicksilver." He thereupon gives a rude sketch of
a wheel with mallets jointed to its circumference. It
would appear from some of the manuscripts of Leonardo
da Vinci that he had worked with similar notions.
Another scheme of the perpetual motionist is a water-
wheel which shall feed its own mill-stream. This notion
is probably as old as the first miller who experienced the
difficulty of a dry season. One form is figured in the
Mathematical Mayic of Bishop Wilkins (1614-1672); the
essential part of it is the water-screw of Archimedes, which
appears in many of the earlier machines of this class.
tSome of the later ones dispense with even the subtlety
of the water -screw, and boldly represent a water-wheel
pumping the water upon its own buckets.
Perpetual motions founded on the hydrostatical paradox
are not uncommon ; Papin, the
well-known inventor of the digester,
exposes one of these in the Philo
sophical Transactions for 1685. The
most naive of these devices is that
illustrated in fig. 2, the idea of
which is that the larger quantity
of wTater in the wider part of the
vessel weighing more will over
balance the smaller quantity in the
narrower part, so that the water will run over at C, and
so on continually.
Capillary attraction has also been a favourite field for
P E R — P E R
555
the vain quest ; for, if by capillary action fluids can be
made to disobey the law of never rising above their own
level, what so easy as thus to produce a continual ascent
and overflow, arid thus perpetual motion? Various schemes
of this kind, involving an endless band which should raise
more water by its capillary action on one side than on the
other, have been
proposed. The
most celebrated
is that of Sir Wil
liam Congreve,
who invented the
rockets that bear
his name. EFG
(fig. 3) is an
inclined plane
over pulleys ; at
the top and bot
tom travels an
endless band of
sponge, abed, and over this again an endless band of
heavy weights jointed together. The whole stands over
the surface of still water. The capillary action raises the
water in ab, whereas the same thing cannot happen in the
part ad, since the weights squeeze the water out. Hence,
inch for inch, ab is heavier than ad ; but we know that if
ab were only just as heavy inch for inch as ad there would
be equilibrium, if the heavy chain be also uniform; there
fore the extra weight of ab will cause the chain to move
round in the direction of the arrow, and this will go on
continually,
The more recondite vehicles of energy, such as electricity
and magnetism, are more seldom drawn upon by perpetual-
motion inventors than might perhaps be expected. In
stances do occur, but devices of this kind have not become
a common part of the folklore of nations like the over
balancing wheel and the self-sufficient water-mill. Gilbert,
in his treatise De Magnete, alludes to some of them, and
Bishop Wilkins mentions among others a machine "wherein
a loadstone is so disposed that it shall draw unto it on a
reclined plane a bullet of steel, which, still as it ascends
near to the loadstone, may be contrived to fall through
some hole in the plane and so to return unto the place
whence at first it began to move, and being there, the
loadstone will again attract it upwards, till, coming to this
hole, it will fall down again, and so the motion shall be
perpetual." The fact that screens do exist whereby elec
trical and magnetic action can be cut off would seem to
open a door for the perpetual -motion seeker. Unfortu
nately the bringing up and removing of these screens
involves in all cases just that gain or loss of work which
is demanded by the inexorable law of the conservation of
energy. A shoemaker of Linlithgow called Spence pre
tended that he had found a black substance which inter
cepted magnetic attraction and repulsion, and he produced
two machines which were moved,
as he asserted, by the agency of
permanent magnets, thanks to the
black substance. The fraud was
speedily exposed, but it is worthy
of remark that Sir David Brewster
thought the thing worth mentioning
in a letter to the Annales de Ckimie,
1818, wherein he states "that Mr
Playfair and Captain Kater have
inspected both of these machines
and are satisfied that they resolve
the problem of perpetual motion."
Not very long ago the writer of this article received by
post an elaborate drawing of a locomotive engine which
was to be \vorked by the agency of permanent magnets.
He forgets the details, but it was not so simple as the
plan represented in fig. 4, where M and N are permanent
magnets, whose attraction is " screened " by the wooden
blocks A and B from the upper left and lower right quad
rants of the soft iron wheel W, which consequently is
attracted round in the same direction by both M and N,
and thus goes on for ever.
One more page from this chapter of the book of human
folly ; the author is the famous John Bernoulli. We
translate his Latin, as far as possible, into modern phraseo
logy.
In the first place we must premise the following (see fig. 5).
1. If there be two fluids of different densities whose densities are
in the ratio of G to L, the height of equiponderating cylinders on
equal bases will be in the inverse ratio of L to G.
2. Accordingly, if the height AC of one fluid, contained in
the vase AD, be in this ratio to the height EF of the other liquid,
which is in a tube open at both ends, the liquids so placed will
remain at rest.
3. Wherefore, if AC be to EF in a greater ratio than L to G, the
liquid in the tube will ascend ; or if the tube be not sufficiently
long the liquid will overflow at the orifice E (this follows from
hydrostatic principles).
4. It is possible to have two liquids of different density that
will mix.
5. It is possible to have a filter, colander, or other separator, by
means of which the lighter liquid mixed with the heavier may be
separated again therefrom.
Construction. — These things being presupposed, I thus construct
a perpetual motion. Let there be taken in any (if you please, in
equal) quantities two liquids of different densities mixed together
(which may be had by Hyp. 4), and let the rntio of their densities
be first determined, and be the
heavier to the lighter as G to L,
then with the mixture let the vase
AD be filled up to A. This done,
let the tube EF, open at both
ends, be taken of such a length
that AC:EF>2L:G+L; let the
lower orifice F of this tube In
stopped, or rather covered with the
filter or other material separating
the lighter liquid from the heavier
(which may also be had by Hyp. 5) ;
now let the tube thus prepared be
immersed to the bottom of the ves
sel CD ; I say that the liquid will
continually ascend through the ori- —"g^^s^
(ice F of the tube and overflow by
the orifice E upon the liquid below. Q
Demonstration. — Because the ori
fice F of the tube is covered by the L ~ — ~
filter (by constr. ) which separates
the lighter liquid from the heavier, it follows that, if the tube be
immersed to the bottom of the vessel, the lighter liquid alone which
is mixed with the heavier ought to rise through the filter into the
tube, and that, too, higher than the surface of the surrounding
liquid (by Hyp. 2), so that AC : EF = 2L : G + L ; but since (by
constr.) AC:'EF>2L:G + L it necessarily follows (by Hyp. 3)
that the lighter liquid will flow over by the orifice E into the vessel
below, and there will meet the heavier and be again mixed with it ;
and it will then penetrate the filter, again ascend the tube, and be a
second time driven through the upper orifice. Thus, therefore, will
the flow be continued for ever. Q.E.D.
He then proceeds to apply this theory to explain the perpetual
rise of water to the mountains, and its flow in rivers to the sea,
which others had falsely attributed to capillary action, — his idea
being that it was an effect of the different densities of salt and
fresh water.
One really is at a loss with Bernoulli's wonderful theory,
whether to admire most the conscientious statement of the
hypothesis, the prim logic of the demonstration, so care
fully cut according to the pattern of the ancients, or the
weighty superstructure built on so frail a foundation.
Most of our perpetual motions were clearly the result of
too little learning ; surely this one was the product of too
much. (G. CH.)
PERPIGNAN (Spanish, Perpinan), the ancient capital
of Eoussillon, and now the chief town of the department
of Pyrenees Orientales, France, and a first-class fortress,
556
P E
R
stands about 66 feet above sea-level, on the right bank of
the Tet, 7 miles above the point where it falls into the
Mediterranean. The streets of Perpignan are narrow and
crooked, and the houses have no architectural pretensions.
The cathedral of St Jean, in the Third Pointed style, was
commenced in 1324 by the bishop of Elne, and carried
on by Sancho II., king of Majorca. The chancel, built
when Louis XL was master of Roussillon, bears the arms
of France. The nave is 259 feet long, 64 wide, and 89
high. The most noteworthy feature in the building is an
immense reredos of white marble, begun in 1618 by Bar
tholomew Soler of Barcelona. The tomb of Louis de Mont-
mor, first French bishop of Elne after the annexation of
Roussillon to France, is also worthy of notice ; the black
marble sarcophagus is supported by four white marble
lions, and surmounted by the recumbent figure of the
bishop. The bede- tower, built over a small Romanesque
chapel, is crowned by an iron cage which dates from 1742.
The Place de la Loge, which derives its name from the
Spanish word lonja (market or bazaar), was built in 1396
in a Pointed style suggestive of the Moorish, and was in-
Plan of Perpignan.
tended for a cloth-exchange. The gate-house adjoining the
Narbonne road, built in the time of Louis XL, has elegant
turrets. The fortifications of the citadel, which is large
enough to contain 2000 men, are of various times. The
kings of Majorca had a castle on the terrace commanding
the town, of which all that now remains is the keep. The
chapel is remarkable as being a mixture of the Romanesque,
Pointed, and Moorish styles ; the top of its tower com
mands a view of the whole plain of Roussillon, with its
flourishing market-gardens and vineyards, overhung on
the south-west by Mount Canigou, and bounded by the
Corbieres on the north, the Alberes on the south, and
the Mediterranean on the east. The ramparts surround
ing the citadel are the work of Louis XL, Charles V.,
and Vauban. The sculptures and caryatides still to be
seen on the gateway were placed there by the duke of
Alva. Perpignan was the seat of a university founded by
the kings of Aragon, and the town still possesses an inter
esting museum of sculptures and pictures, where are to
be seen the first photographic proofs produced by Daguerre,
a natural history collection, and a library containing 30,000
volumes. In one of the squares of the town is the statue of
Arago, unveiled in 1879. The manufactures of Perpignan
are cloth-making, cork-cutting, tanning, and cooperage, and
it has a large trade in wine, brandy, honey, fine wool, fruit,
and vegetables. The population in 1881 was 31,735.
Perpignan had its origin in a Benedictine monastery, and its
name first appears in charters of the 10th century. The place had
-PER
already grown into a town when Philip the Bold, king of France,
died there in 1285, as he was returning from an unsuccessful expedi
tion into Aragon. At that time it belonged to the kingdom of
Majorca, which was created in 1262, and its sovereigns resided
there until, in 1344, that small state reverted to the possession of
the kings of Aragon. When Lonis XI. occupied Koussillon as
security for money advanced by him to the king of Aragon, Per-
pignan resisted the French arms for a considerable time, and only
yielded through stress of famine (15th March 1475). Roussillon
was restored to Aragon by Charles VIII., and Perpignan was again
besieged in 1542 by Francis I., but without success. Later on,
however, the inhabitants, angered by the tyranny and cruelty of
the Spanish governor, surrendered the town to Louis XIII. The
citadel held out until the 9th of September 1642, and the place has
ever since belonged to France, to which it was formally ceded by
the treaty of the Pyrenees.
PERRAULT, CHARLES (1628-1703), the most pro
minent author of France in a specially French kind of
literature — the fairy tale — and one of the chief actors in
the famous literary quarrel of ancients and moderns, was
born at Paris on 12th January 1628. His father, Pierre
Perrault, was a barrister, all whose four sons were men of
some distinction, — Claude, the second, who was first a
physician and then an architect, being the best known
next to Charles the youngest. The latter was brought up
at the College de Beauvais, until he chose to quarrel with
his masters, after which (an incident rather rare at the
time when patriarchal government of families was in full
fashion) he was allowed to follow his own bent in the way
of study. He took his degree of "licencie en droit" at
Orleans in 1651, and was almost immediately called to the
Paris bar, where, however, he practised for a very short
time. In 1654 his father bought himself the post of
receiver-general at Paris, and made Charles his clerk.
After nearly ten years of this employment he was, in
1663, chosen by Colbert as his secretary in a curious and
not easily describable office. Put shortly, Perrault's duties
were to assist and advise the minister in matters relating
to the arts and sciences, not forgetting literature. The
protection of Colbert procured a place in the Academic
Franchise for his protege in 1671, and Perrault justified
his election in several ways. One was the orderly arrange
ment of the business affairs of the Academy, another was
the suggestion of the custom (which more than anything
else has given the institution a hold on the French public)
of holding public seances for the reception of candidates.
Colbert's death in 1683 put an end to Perrault's official
career, but even before that event he had experienced the
morose and ungenerous temper which was the great draw
back of that very capable statesman. He now gave him
self up to literature, in which, like most men of his time,
he had made some experiments already. The famous
dispute of ancients and moderns is said to have arisen in
consequence of some words used by Perrault in one of the
regular academic discourses, on which Boileau, with his
usual rudeness, commented in violent terms. Perrault,
though a very good-natured man, had ideas and a will of
his own, and the Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes,
which appeared between 1688 and 1696, was the result.
The well-known controversy that followed in its train
raged hotly in France, passed thence to England, and in
the days of La Motte and Fenelon broke out again in the
country of its origin. As far as Perrault is concerned,
he was inferior to his adversaries in learning, but decidedly
superior to them in wit. It is not known what, except
the general popularity of the fairy tale in the last decade
of the century, drew Perrault to the composition of the
only works of his which are still read. The first of them,
GriseMdis, which is in verse, appeared in 1691, Peau d'Ane
and Les Souliaits Ridicules, also in verse, in 1694. But
Perrault was no poet, and the merit of these pieces is
entirely obscured by that of the prose tales, La Belle au
Bois Dormant, Petit Chaperon Rouge, La Barbe JJleue, Le
P E R — P E R
557
Chat Botte, Les Fees, Cendrillon, JRiquet a la Ifouppe,
which, after being published in a miscellany during 1696
and 1697, appeared in a volume with the last-named year
on the title-page, and with the general title of Histoires du
Temps Passe. No criticism of these famous productions
is necessary, and it is scarcely less superfluous to observe
that Perrault has no claim to the invention of the subjects.
His merit is that he has treated them with a literary skill
in adapting style to matter which cannot possibly be ex
ceeded. Of his other work some Memoires and academic
filoges need alone be mentioned. He died on 16th May
1703.
Except the tales, Perrault's works have not recently been re
printed. Of the tales the best recent editions are those of Giraud
(Lyons, 1865) and Lefevre (Paris, 1875).
PERRONE, GIOVANNI (1794-1876), Roman Catholic
theologian, was born at Chieri (Piedmont) in 1794, studied
theology at Turin, and in his twenty-first year went to
Rome, where he joined the Society of Jesus, and, after his
ordination to the priesthood, became a teacher in the Col
legium Romanum. From Ferrara, where he was rector of
the Jesuit college after 1830, he returned to his teaching
work in Rome, being made head of his old college in 1850.
He died on 26th August 1876. He was the author of
numerous dogmatic works, which, as clearly and faithfully
reflecting the prevailing tendencies of Roman theology,
obtained wide currency and were extensively translated.
They may still be regarded as representing most nearly
the modern orthodoxy of his church. The Prselectiones
Theologicx may be specially named (1st ed. 1835, 31st
ed. 1866).
PERRY, an alcoholic beverage, obtained by the fermenta
tion of the juice of pears. The manufacture is in all
essentials identical with that of CIDER (q.v.), though there
are some variations in detail arising from the more abund
ant mucilage of the pear. The clearest and most concise
account of making cider and perry is contained in the
fourth part of the Herefordshire Pomona for 1881 (p. 133
.«'/.). The fruits are either taken at once to the crushing
mill or allowed, like apples, to remain in heaps so as to
ripen uniformly ; they are then crushed between rollers
of granite or millstone grit, and the must or juice poured
into casks. In making the better kinds of perry only the
best sorts of pears are used without admixture ; but for
ordinary purposes pears of various kinds are mixed indis
criminately, although, as in the case of the apple, the
fruits used for the mamifacture of perry are not those
which are the most suitable for dessert. It is con
sidered better not to crush the pips, as the flavour of the
perry is thereby deteriorated. The most scrupulous clean
liness is absolutely requisite, and all the metal-work of the
machinery should be sedulously kept bright, otherwise the
acids of the juice dissolve the oxides, and, in the case of
lead, produce poisonous salts. Pear-juice contains grape-
sugar, tannic, malic, and tartaric acids, albumen, lime, pectin,
mucilage, and other ingredients. The quantity of potash
and phosphoric acid in the juice is relatively large. At a
temperature ranging from 50° to 80° the juice undergoes
natural fermentation without the addition of yeast. This
fermentation, however, is brought about by the agency
of a " ferment " (saccharomyces), which feeds on the
grape-sugar of the juice, decomposing it, and causing the
rearrangement of its constituents in the form of alcohol,
carbonic -acid gas, glycerin, etc. The saccharomyces fer
ments in the first instance absorb oxygen and liberate car
bonic acid, as in the process of respiration, but the air of
the fluid in which they live speedily becomes exhausted of
its oxygen, and then the ferments obtain further supplies
from the glucose, in effecting the decomposition of which
they set free more oxygen than they require, and this,
uniting with the hydrogen and the carbon, forms the pro
ducts of fermentation.
In practice the pulp is removed from the mill and placed
in open vats for forty -eight hours or longer. Gentle
fermentation sets in, as shown by the formation of froth
and bubbles of carbonic-acid gas. The pulp is then placed
in layers separated by hair-cloths, which act as sieves or
filters when the mass is placed in a press like a cheese-
press. The pressure is gradual at first and afterwards
increased. The juice or must is poured into hogsheads,
leaving an unfilled space as " ullage." The hogsheads
are placed in a cool cellar, when fermentation begins as
above explained, and a thick scum forms on the surface
called the " upper lees." At the same time mucilage and
ferment-cells with the more solid particles sink to the
bottom and form the " lower lees " at the bottom of the
barrel. When the fermentation has subsided the liquor
between the upper and lower lees should be bright, but in
the case of perry, owing to the large quantity of mucilage,
the juice has to be filtered through filters of Forfar linen, —
a tedious process. The clear liquor is now racked off into
clean casks, not quite filled, but leaving space for "ullage,"
and kept uncorked at a low temperature. A better practice
is to close the cask with a bung, through which a curved
siphon-like tube is passed, one end of it being in the
" ullage " and the portion of it outside the cask being bent
downwards and then upwards ; then either the bend of the
tube may be filled with one or two tablespoonfuls of water,
or the outer end of the bent tube may be plunged in a cup
of water, — the object in all cases being to provide for the
escape of gas from the cask and to prevent the passage of
air into it. In a week or so the fermentation ceases or
nearly so, the liquor becomes clear and quiet, when isinglass
is added in the proportion of one ounce to a hogshead of
100 to 115 gallons. (In Devonshire, the hogshead con
tains uniformly fifty gallons.) In January or February
the bungs are driven in firmly. While fermentation is
going on, a temperature of 50° to 70° is most propitious,
but after the liquor lias been racked off it should be kept
in a uniformly cool cellar as near to 40° Fahr. as can be
done. When it is desirable to restrain over-violent or
hasty fermentation, sulphur or salicylic acid is employed.
The latter, being the simpler and cleaner, is the better
agent to be adopted. An ounce or an ounce and a half to
a hundred gallons should be poured into the fermenting
liquor immediately after it has been racked. It is very
effectual, and leaves no sensible effects on the liquor if
carefully used, being tasteless and free from smell. Great
care should be taken, however, not to allow the acid to
Come into contact with any metal such as iron, or a black
colour will result. Perry contains about 7 per cent, of
alcohol, and will keep in casks if well made for three or
four years, or longer if in bottle. It does not, however,
travel well.
PERSEPHONE. See PROSERPINE.
PERSEPOLIS. In the interior of Persia proper, some
40 miles north-east of Shiraz, and not far from where the
small river Pulwar flows into the Kur (Kyrus), there is a
large terrace with its east side leaning on Kuhi Rahmet
(" the Mount of Grace "). The other three sides are formed
by a retaining wall, varying in height with the slope of
the ground from 14 to 41 feet; and on the west side a
magnificent double stair, of very easy steps, leads to the
top. On this terrace, which is not perfectly level, stand
and lie the ruins of a number of colossal buildings, all
constructed of exquisite dark -grey marble from the adja
cent mountain. The stones were laid without mortar, and
many of them are still in situ, although the iron clamps
by which they were fastened together have been stolen or
destroyed by rust. The mason-work is excellent, and the
558
style of the lofty palaces, colonnades, and vestibules most
imposing. Especially striking are the huge pillars, of
which a number still stand erect. No traveller can escape
the spell of these majestic ruins.1 It is impossible to
give a minute account of them here ; the reader must
refer to the numerous descriptions and illustrations in the
works of ancient and modern travellers.2 It is to be
observed that several of the buildings were never finished.
Stolze has shown that in some cases even the mason's rub
bish has not been removed, and remarks accordingly that in
those early times, just as at the present day, an Oriental
prince would rather commence a new building of his own
than complete the unfinished work of his predecessor.
These ruins, for which the name Chihil mendre or "the
forty minarets " 3 can be traced back to the 13th century,4
are now known as Takhti Jamshid, "the throne of Jamshid"
(a mythical king). That they represent the Persepolis
captured and partly destroyed by Alexander the Great
has been beyond dispute, at least since the time of Pietro
della Valle.5 Amongst the earlier scholars the fanciful
notions of the Persians, who are utterly ignorant of the
real history of their country before Alexander, often re
ceived too much attention ; hence many of them were of
opinion that the buildings were of much higher antiquity
than the time of Cyrus ; and even those who rightly
regarded them as the works of the Achsemenians were
unable to support their theory by conclusive evidence.6
The decipherment of the cuneiform Persian inscriptions
found on the ruins and in the neighbourhood has put an
end to all doubt on this point. We now read with absolute
certainty that some of the edifices are the work of Darius
L, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes III. (Ochus), and with equal
certainty we may conclude that all the others were built
under the Achagmenian dynasty.
Behind Takhti Jamshid are three sepulchres hewn out
of the rock in the hillside, the facades, one of which is
incomplete, being richly ornamented Avith reliefs. About
8 miles to the north-north-east, on the opposite side of
the Pulwar, rises a perpendicular wall of rock, in which
four similar tombs are cut, at a considerable height from
the bottom of the valley. The modern Persians call this
place Nakshi Rustam (" the picture of Rustam ") from
the Sasanian reliefs beneath the opening, which they take
to be a representation of the mythical hero Rustam. That
the occupants of these seven tombs were kings might be
inferred from the sculptures, and one of those at Nakshi
Rustam is expressly declared in its inscription to be the
tomb of the great Darius, concerning whom Ctesias relates
1 See the description of Mas'udi (e<\. Barbier de Meynard, iv. 76 sq.},
written 944 A.D. ; and that of Makdisi (Mokaddasi, ed. De Goeje,
p. 444), written forty years later.
2 See especially Chanlin, Kaempfer, Niebulir, and Ouseley. Niebuhr's
drawings, though good, are, for the purposes of the architectural student,
inferior to the great work of Texier, and still far more to that of
Flandin and Coste. Good sketches, chiefly after Flandin, are given
by Kossowicz, Inscriptioncs palseo-persicse, St Petersburg, 1872. In
addition to these we have now the photographic plates in Stolze's
Persepolis (2 vols., Berlin, 1882). Stolze's " photogramnietric " plan
surpasses all previous attempts in accuracy. The numerous reliefs
found in this group of ruins (especially on the great double stair),
executed in a very remarkable style of art, were first brought within
the scope of accurate examination by these works, since, with some
individual exceptions (as in Ouseley), the drawings of the figures in the
older works were quite inadequate.
3 Neither "the forty towers" nor "the forty pillars" is a correct
rendering of the expression. The round pillars with their heavy
capitals have a much closer resemblance to the turrets of the Moham
medan mosques than to our church towers. An older name for all
the splendid ruins through the Pulwar valley is hnzAr sut&n, "the
thousand pillars" (Hamza Isp., ed. Gottwaldt, p. 38). A thousand
is, of course, like forty, a round number.
4 Sir W. Ouseley, Travels, ii. 309.
5 Lettera xv. (ed. Brighton, 1843, ii. 246 57.).
6 See the discussion of this question in Ouseley.
that his grave was in the face of a rock, and could
be reached only by means of an apparatus of ropes.
Ctesias mentions further, with regard to a number of
Persian kings, either that their remains were brought es
nj/xras, "to the Persians," or that they died there." Now
we know that Cyrus was buried at PasargacUe, the modern
Murgab, two days' journey north-east from Persepolis,s
and if there is any truth in the statement that the body
of Cambyses was brought home " to the Persians " his
burying-place must be sought somewhere beside that of
his father. In order to identify the graves of Persepolis
we must bear in mind that Ctesias assumes that it was
the custom for a king to prepare his own tomb during his
lifetime. Hence the kings buried at Nakshi Rustam are
probably, besides Darius, Xerxes I., Artaxerxes L, and
Darius II. Xerxes II., who reigned for a very short time,
could scarcely have obtained so splendid a monument, and
still less could the usurper Sogdianus. The two com
pleted graves behind Takhti Jamshid would then belong
to Artaxerxes II. and Artaxerxes III. The unfinished
one is perhaps that of Arses, who reigned at the longest
two years, or, if not his, then that of Darius III. (Codo-
mannus), who is one of those whose bodies are said to
have been brought " to the Persians." 9
Another small group of ruins in the same style is found
at the village of Haji abaci, on the Pulwar, a good hour's
walk above Takhti Jamshid. These formed a single
building, which was still intact 900 years ago, and was
used as the mosque of the then existing city of Istakhr.
For there is no other place that can have answered to the
description of the eminent geographer Makdisi, who was
himself in this neighbourhood, when he says : "The chief
mosque (jdmi1} of Istakhr is situated beside the bazaars.
It is built after the fashion of the principal mosques in
Syria,10 with round pillars. On the top of each pillar is a
cow.11 Formerly it is said to have been a fire-temple. The
bazaars surround it on three sides " (p. 436).
In the time of its greatest prosperity the Persian metro
polis must undoubtedly have covered a great part of the
extremely fertile valley of the Pulwar. It is not at all
necessary to suppose that its limits are determined by the
two heaps of ruins. The great bulk of the houses would,
of course, be built in the wretched manner which is all
but universal in the East.
Since Cyrus was buried in Pasargadte, which moreover
is mentioned in Ctesias as his own city,12 and since, to
judge from the inscriptions, the buildings at Persepolis
commenced with Darius L, it was probably under this
king, with whom the sceptre passed to a new branch of
the royal house, that Persepolis became the capital.™ At
least it is probable that the great city, in the original
home of the dynasty, with its lordly palaces and royal
sepulchres, was theoretically considered the metropolis of
the whole empire. But certainly, as a residence for the
rulers of such extensive territories, a remote place in a
7 This statement is not made in Ctesias (or rather in the extracts
of Photius) about Darius II., which is probably accidental ; in the
case of Sogdianus (Sekydianus), who as a usurper was not deemed
worthy of honourable burial, there is good reason for the omission.
8 See art. PERSIA (p. 567 below). The complete proof will be found
in Stolze's work already mentioned, and in his paper cited below.
9 Arrian, iii. 22, 1.
10 This refers only to its solidity and magnifi cuce, and perhaps also
to some of its minor features, but not to its general style. These
Moslems had no great discernment in matters of style. For instance,
Makdisi and others compare the ruins of Takhti Jamshid to those of
Palmyra and Baalbek.
11 Capitals formed of recumbent animal figures are peculiar to the
buildings of the Achremenians.
12 Cf. also in particular, Plutarch, Arinx., iii., where Pasargadaa is
distinctly looked on as the sacred cradle of the dynasty.
13 The story of ^Elian (//. A., i. 59), who makes Cyrus build his
royal palace in Persepolis, deserves no attention.
P E U S E P O L I S
559
difficult alpine region was far from convenient. The
practical capitals were Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana.
This, at the same time, accounts for the fact that the
Greeks were not really acquainted with the city until it
was taken by Alexander.1 Ctesias must certainly have
known of it, and it is possible that he may have named it
simply Hepo-cu,2 after the people, as is undoubtedly done
by certain writers of a somewhat later date.:! But whether
the city really bore the name of the people and the country
is another question. And it is extremely hazardous to
assume, with Sir H. Rawlinson and Oppert, that the words
and Pdrsd, "in this Persia," which occur in an inscription
on the gateway built by Xerxes (D. lin. 14), signify "in
this city of Parsa," and consequently prove that the name
of the city is identical with the name of the country.
The name Persepolis appears to have been first used by
Clitarchus, one of the earliest, but unfortunately one of
the most imaginative annalists of the exploits of Alexander.
The word was no doubt meant to allude to the " Persians,"
but apparently he pref erred this extraordinary form4 to
the regular " Persopolis " 5 for the sake of a play on the
destruction (Tre/oo-i?) which he relates. Later writers have
followed him in the use of the name Persepolis.6 For
information about the capture and treatment of the city by
Alexander we are almost entirely dependent on narratives
which are based on Clitarchus, since Arrian unfortunately
disposes of this episode in a very summary fashion. The
course of events may be traced somewhat as follows.
Alexander, having crushed the resistance of the Persian
army under Ariobarzanes at the " Persian Gates,"7 marched
rapidly on the capital. Ariobarzanes had made his way
thither with a few followers, but was refused admission
by Tiridates, the commandant of the citadel, who had
already commenced negotiations with Alexander, and at
last surrendered the place with its immense treasures to
the conqueror. In a subsequent battle Ariobarzanes was
killed.8 Alexander then ordered a general massacre, and
gave up the city to be plundered. In the citadel he placed a
garrison of 3000 men under Nicarchides,9and then caused
1 ^Eschylus, whose knowledge of the world is certainly not very
extensive, takes the " city of the Persians " to be Susa. Of. especially
Pers., v. 15 with v. 761 (r6S' darv Zoucruv). Herodotus does not
mention the capital of Persis at all.
" The only expression that could be interpreted in this sense is ^s
Ilc'pcras, "to the Persians." But perhaps es Il^pcras, with him, means
only "to the land of Persis." No doubt, when he says that the body
of Cyrus was conveyed es Il^pcra?, this might be explained on the
supposition that he wrongly imagined that Cyrus was buried in Perse
polis. Xenophon, who knew of Pasargadas from Ctesias, calls it llepcrai
(C'l/r., viii. 5, 21) ; but, as he was not acquainted with the country,
this goes for nothing. Of more importance is the fact that Plutarch,
Artax., iii. (probably after Dinon), places Pasargadse ev Hfyxrcus, where
the expression applies to the country and not to the city.
3 So undoubtedly Arrian (iii. 18, 1, 10), or rather his best authority,
King Ptolemy. So, again, the Babylonian Berosus, shortly after
Alexander. See Clemens Alex., Admon. ad gentes, c. 5, where, with
Cleorg Hoffmann (Pers. Miirtyrer, 137), /ecu is to be inserted before
Ilepo-ais, and this to be understood as the name of the metropolis.
4 Ilepo-f TroXtj means strictly " city-destroying." TlepcraliroXis, a well-
authenticated reading in Strabo and ^Elian (I.e.), is no improvement.
5 This form is actually restored by later scholars, and seems to have
been used by the geographer Ptolemy (vi. 4).
6 Besides the historians who draw upon Clitarchus (Diodorus,
Curtius, Justin, Plutarch in Alexander), Strabo (79 sq., 727 sq.), Pliny
(vi. 115, 213), and several others. Justin (i. 6, 3) introduces the name
Persepolis in an account which is based on Ctesias, just as Arrian
(vii. 1, 1) once employs it, although he can scarcely have got it from
his excellent sources.
7 On this locality, see the paper of Fr. Stolze in the Verhand-
lungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin, 1883, Nos. 3 and 6.
8 This is mentioned by Curtius only, but it has great intrinsic prob
ability. The massacre at the taking of the city appears to be confirmed
by Plutarch (Alex., 37) from the letters of the king.
9 This again is only found in Curtius. Alexander was in the heart
of a country which he had laid waste, but by no means thoroughly
subdued, which hated him bitterly, and which was the native land of
the dynasty ; he was amongst a people who still felt themselves to be
the royal palaces to be set on fire, — certainly not in a
drunken freak, but apparently with deliberate calculation
on the effect it would produce on the minds of the Asiatics.10
Now it has hitherto been universally admitted that
" the palaces " or " the palace " (TO, /^uo-t'Aeta) burned down
by Alexander are those now in ruins at Takhti Jamshid,
as already described. From Stolze's investigations it
appears that at least one of these, the castle built by
Xerxes, bears evident traces of having been destroyed by
fire.11 The locality described by Diodorus after Clitarchus
corresponds in important particulars with Takhti Jamshid,
for example, in being supported by the mountain on the
east.12 And, if there are other details, such as the triple
wall, which it is difficult to reconcile with the existing
state of things, we must bear in mind on the one hand
the great destruction that must have been wrought in
the course of thousands of years, and on the other that
small inaccuracies are not to be wondered at in a writer
like Clitarchus, who is constantly straining after effect.
Tli ere is, however, one formidable difficulty. Diodorus
says that the rock at the back of the palace containing
the royal sepulchres rises so steep that the bodies could
be raised to their last resting-place only by mechanical
appliances. This is not true of the graves behind Takhti
Jamshid, to which, as Stolze expressly observes, one can
easily ride up ; on the other hand, it is strictly true of the
graves at Nakshi Rustam. Stolze has accordingly started
the theory that the royal castle of Persepolis stood close
by Nakshi Rustam, and has sunk in course of time to
shapeless heaps of earth, under which the remains may be
concealed. He and Andreas, our highest authorities on the
topography of this district,13 consider this spot peculiarly
adapted for the site of a citadel, while the water-supply
would suffice for a numerous court-retinue and garrison,
and for a royal residence with its palaces and gardens.
Nevertheless we are unable to adopt this suggestion. The
vast ruins of Takhti Jamshid, and the terrace constructed
with so much labour, appear to us of more importance than
any number of doubts and conjectures. These remains can
hardly be anything else than the ruins of palaces and the
other belongings of a kingly residence ; as for temples, the
Persians had no such thing, at least in the time of Darius
and Xerxes. And it can hardly be supposed that such
solid structures were much more numerous in former times,
and that these alone have survived owing to their peculiar
situation on the terrace. For, in the first place, it is
evident at a glance that the situation itself is of an excep
tional kind. Moreover, Persian tradition at a very remote
period knew of only three architectural wonders in that
region, which it attributed to the fabulous queen Humai
(Khumai) — the grave of Cyrus at Murgab, the building at
Haji abad, and those on the great terrace.14 It is safest
therefore to identify these last with the royal palaces
destroyed by Alexander. Clitarchus, who can scarcely
have visited the place himself, has simply, with his usual
the dominant race, and knew that their king was still alive. That in
these circumstances he should have a strong garrison under a trust
worthy Macedonian was simply a matter of course. Nicarchides after
wards commanded a trireme in the fleet that sailed from the Indus to
the Tigris (Arrian, Indica, xix. 5 ; after Nearchus).
10 See art. PKRSIA (p. 582 below).
11 Dr Stolze has kindly explained to the writer of this article that
the layer of charcoal in the " hall of a hundred pillars " is apparently
the result not of a conflagration but of gradual decomposition.
12 The name of this mountain too, fiaaiKiKov &pos, is identical with
SlMikuh, which is at least tolerably well established by Ouseley (ii.
417) as a synonym of Kuhi rahmet.
13 We are here again indebted to private communications from Stolze,
as well as to his published papers.
14 See especially Hamza Isp., 38 ; Tabari, i. 690, 816 (cf. Nuldeke,
Geschichte der Perser . . . aus . . . Tabari, p. 8). The ruins at Takhti
Jamshid are alluded to as the work of Humai, in connexion with an
event which occurred shortly after 200 A.D.
560
P E R — P E R
recklessness of statement, confounded the tombs behind the
palaces with those of Nakshi Rustam ; indeed he appears
to imagine that all the royal sepulchres were at the same
place. It is possible, however, that the discrepancy ori
ginated with Diodorus, who often makes his extracts in
a very perfunctory manner.1
If it should prove that, after all, the terrace is not large
enough to have contained the treasure-houses and the
barracks of the garrison, in addition to the palaces, or that
Alexander could not have set fire to the latter without en
dangering the former and the safety of the whole fortress,
then we should have to assume that a separate citadel (uK-pa)
stood somewhere outside of the terrace with the palaces.
There are many positions naturally adapted for defence in
the vicinity. But, as far as yet appears, such an assump
tion is scarcely required. Of course we need not suppose
that the number 3000 represents the actual strength of
Alexander's garrison ; and we must consider that, Avhen
Darius, in the height of his power, laid out this place in
the heart of his empire, he was thinking more of regal
magnificence than of security. A high wall and a guard
of 200 men would suffice for the protection of the treasures
at a time when battering engines were unknown.
In 316 B.C. Persepolis is still the capital of Persis as a province
of the great Macedonian empire (see Diod. , 19, 21 sq., 46 ; probably
after Hieronymus of Cardia, who was living about 316). The city
must have gradually declined in the course of time ; but the ruins
of the Achannemans remained as a witness to its ancient glory.
It is probable that the principal town of the country, or at least
of the district, was always in this neighbourhood. About 200 A.I).
we find there the city Istakhr'- as the seat of the local governors.
There the foundations of the second great Persian empire were
laid, and once more there arose round the tombs of the Achre-
menians what was for centuries the theoretical metropolis of a
great monarchy whose administrative capitals lay far to the west.
Istakhr acquired special importance as the centre of priestly wisdom
and orthodoxy. In its most nourishing days it was probably as
large as Persepolis had been, whose ruins undoubtedly furnished
much of the material for its houses. The peaceable resident, intent
on building his house or hut, has too often proved more destructive
to ancient buildings than a foreign invader or even the disintegrat
ing forces of nature. The Sasanian kings have covered the face
of the rocks in this neighbourhood, and in part even the Achfe-
menia'i ruins, with their sculptures and inscriptions, and must
themselves have built largely here, although never on the same
scale of magnificence as their ancient predecessors. The Romans
knew as little about Istakhr as the Greeks had done about Perse-
]x>lis, and this in spite of the fact that for four hundred years they
maintained relations, friendly or hostile, with the empire, while their
own sway extended far into the heart of Asia. So remote is Persis !
At the time of the Arabian conquest Istakhr ottered a desperate
resistance, which was renewed again and again before the place was
finally subdued. Blood flowed like water in these struggles for
religion and liberty. Nevertheless the city was still a place of
considerable importance in the first century of Islam, although its
greatness was speedily eclipsed by the new metropolis Shiraz. In
the 10th century Istakhr had become an utterly insignificant place,
as may be seen from the descriptions of Istakhri, a. native (c. 950),
and of Makdisi (c. 985). At this time the little town occupied
approximately the site assigned to it on Flandin's map, near the
present village of Haji abad, surrounding the ruined structure of
the Achfemenians, and principally on the left side of the stream.
During the following centuries Istakhr gradually declined, until,
as a city, it ceased to exist. This fruitful region, however, was
covered with villages till the frightful devastations of last century ;
and even now it is, comparatively speaking, well cultivated.
The "castle of Istakhr" played a conspicuous part several times
during the Mohammedan period as a strong fortress. It was the
middlemost and the highest of the three steep crags which rise
from the valley of the Kur, at some distance to the west or north
west of Nakshi Rustam.3 We learn from Oriental writers that one
1 Curtins repeatedly confounds the palace with the metropolis (both
being TO. /SacriXaa), and so speaks of the city being set on fire.
2 Properly Stakhr, as written in Pahlavi ; on the coins of the
Sasariids "ST" stands as an abbreviation for the name. The Armenians
write Stahr. The form with the prosthetic vowel Istakhr is New
Persian; the Syrians used at a still earlier time the form Istahr or Istalir.
3 This height is now called, from its situation, Miydnkala (middle
fortress). Older writers and travellers give other names, the nomen
clature of all this part of Persia having greatly altered ; but the name
" castle " or " hill of Istakhr " appears not to have entirely disappeared.
A,
of the Buwaihid sultans in the 10th century of the Flight con
structed the great cisterns, which may yet be seen, and have been
visited, amongst others, by .lames Morier and Flandin.4 Ouseley,
who has extracted a vast amount of information from Persian
authors about the ruins of Persepolis and about Istakhr,5 points out
that this castle was still used in the 16th century, at least as a
state prison. But when Delia A'alle was there in 1621 it was
already in ruins. (Til. N.)
PERSEUS, a hero of Grecian fable, son of DANAE (<y.v.)
and Zeus. When Perseus was grown to manhood Poly-
dectes, the wicked king of Seriphus, cast his eye on Danae;
and, that he might rid himself of the son, he exacted of
him a promise that he would bring him the head of the
Gorgon Medusa. Now the dreadful GORGONS ('/.?'.) dwelt
with their sisters the Grseai (the Gray Women) by the
great ocean, far away in the west. Guided by Hermes
and Athene, Perseus came to the Grseas. They were three
hags, with but one eye and one tooth between them, which
they handed one to the other. Perseus stole the eye and
tooth, and would not restore them till the Gnva) had
guided him to the Nymphs, from whom he received the
winged sandals, the wallet (ju)3uris), and the cap of invisi
bility. These he put on, and, being armed by Hermes
with a scimitar (apTr?/), came upon the Gorgons as they
slept and cut off Medusa's head, while with averted eyes
he looked at her image on his brazen shield lest he should
be turned to stone. Perseus put the Gorgon's head in his
wallet and fled. Coming to ./Ethiopia he delivered and
married ANDROMEDA (q.v.). With her he returned to Seri
phus in time to rescue his mother and Dictys from Poly-
dectes, whom he turned to stone along with all his court by
showing them the Gorgon's head. The island itself was
turned to stone, and was still and lonely ever after; the
very frogs of Seriphus (so ran the proverb) were dumb.
Perseus then gave the head of Medusa to Athene, who
put it on her shield, and, with Danae and Andromeda, he
hastened to Argos to see his grandfather, Acrisius,once more.
But he, fearing the oracle, had gone to Larissa in Thessaly.
Thither his grandson followed him, but at some games
given by Teutamias, king of Larissa, he threw a quoit
which lighted on his grandfather's foot and caused his
death. Ashamed to return to Argos, Perseus gave his
kingdom to Megapenthes, and received from him Tiryns
in return. There he reigned and founded Midea and the
famed Mycenae, and became the ancestor of the Persides,
amongst whom were Eurystheus and Heracles.
The legend of Perseus was a favourite theme of Greek poetry and
art. Sophocles and Euripides had each several dramas on the sub
ject, and sculptor and painter vied with each other in depicting the
rescue of Andromeda from the sea-monster. The story was localized
in various places. Italy claimed that the ark with Danae and
Perseus had drifted to the Latin coast (Servius on Virg., -En., vii.
372, and viii. 345). The Persian kings were said to have sprung
from a son of Perseus (Apollod., ii. 4, 5 ; Herod., vii. 61) ; and,
according to Pausanias Damascenus, Perseus taught the Persians
to worship fire, and founded the Magian priesthood. The talc of
the rescue of Andromeda by Perseus from the sea-beast is akin
to that of Heracles and Hesione. Both have been interpreted of
the sun slaying the darkness, Andromeda or Hesione being the
moon, whom the darkness is about to devour. According to one
version Heracles rescued Hesione from the sea-beast by leaping into
its mouth, from which he came forth after three days spent in the
belly of the beast. This points to a connexion with the Semitic
story of Jonah and the fish. Greek sculptures of Andromeda's
monster were the models for Jonah's fish in early Christian art, and
on a rock at Joppa they showed the chains which had bound
Andromeda, and the bones of the sea-beast (Pliny, //. N., v. 13 ;
Mela, i. 11). Tarsus in Cilicia was said to have been founded by
Perseus, who appears on coins of the city, as well as on coins of
Pontus and Cappadocia.
4 See the plans and sketches in Flamlin, to whom it was stated that
the castle-rock was called Kakd sarv, "castle of the cypress," from a
solitary cypress growing there. It is unfortunate that for this particular
locality the newest map of Hausknecht (Berlin, 1882) is quite unreliable.
8 These references are still very useful, although we have now the
advantage of knowing the extremely valuable Arabian sources of
many of his Persian narratives from printed texts.
561
PE E S I A
PERSIA, or IRAN. In modern political geography these
two terms are synonymous ; the kingdom which we
call Persia the Persians themselves call Iran. But each
of the words has a somewhat complicated history, a brief
sketch of which will best explain the connexion between
the several subjects which, in an encyclopaedic treatment,
naturally demand notice under one or other of the names
which head this article.
Persia, or rather Persis (Greek exclusively Hepcm), is
the Latinized form of a name which originally and strictly
designated only the country bounded on the N. by Media
and on the N.W. by Susiana, which of old had its capital
at Persepolis or Istakhr, and for almost twelve centuries
since has had it at Shiraz. This country and its people
were anciently called Parsa (now Pars or Fars). The oldest
certain use of the name is in Ezekiel (xxvii. 10, xxxviii.
5). The Greek form Ilepcrcu, with e for a, which all Euro
pean languages follow, seems to have come from the lonians,
who disliked to pronounce a even in foreign words. Thus
Ilepcrai would stand for Il^pcrai, which in turn stands to
Parsa as Mv/Soi. to Mada.
The name of Persian was naturally extended to the great
monarchy of the Achcemenians who came forth from Persis ;
and so again, when a second great empire, that of the
Sasanians, arose from the same land, all its subjects began
to be called Persians, and Persis or Persia was sometimes
used of the whole Sasanian lands (Ammianus, xxiii. 6, 1).
The prevalent language of this empire (see PAHLAVI) had
a still better right to be called Persian, for it seems to
have had its basis in the language of the old Persis. The
same thing is true of the so-called New Persian, which has
been a literary language for the last thousand years.
Historically, then, the term Persian is fitly applied to
the two great empires which rose in Pars or Persis — the
form Persis will be used in this restricted sense throughout
the present article — and not unfitly to the modern state
which embraces Persis and its sister lands, and in which a
descendant of the ancient tongue of Persis is still the
official and literary language.
The name Iran, on the other hand, was originally of
much wider signification than Persia, and the whole upland
country from Kurdistan to Afghanistan may, in accordance
with the native use of its ancient inhabitants, be called
the Iranian upland. The inhabitants of this upland,
together with certain tribes of the same race in adjacent
lands, shared with their near kinsmen in India the name
of Aryans (Ariya, Airya of the Avesta ; Sk. Arya). King
Darius calls himself " Persian son of a Persian, Aryan son
of an Aryan," and Herodotus (vii. 62) knows "Apiot as an
old name of the Medes. The ancient nobles affected names
compounded with Arya, — Ariyaramna ('Aptapa/^v^s), Ario-
barzanes, and the like. The lands of the Aryans, as a
whole, were called Ariyana (Airiyana of the Avesta) ;
Eratosthenes and after him Strabo and others are cer
tainly wrong in limiting 'Apiav/j, 'Apiavoi, to eastern iran
(Afghanistan, Baluchistan, &C.).1
Ardashir, the first Sasanian, is called on coins and
inscriptions "king of the kings of Eran," his son Shapiir
or Sapor is "king of the kings of Eran and not-Eran."
Now Ardashir, as well as his son, had non- Aryan subjects,
the main population of Babylonia and other provinces
being of Semitic race ; Eran and not-Eran therefore must
here be used not ethnographically but in a definite politico-
geographical sense. The official name of the empire, how
ever, was always Eran, and the great officers of state had
such titles as Eran-Spahpat, "general of Eran," Eran-
Anbarakpat, "store-master of Eran."2
For the last 500 years most Persians havej^ronounced
Iran instead of Eran (more recently also fr6n, trim),
and this is the official title of the kingdom which
once had Ispahan, and now has Teheran, as capital.
Modern Iran, or Persia, does not embrace nearly the whole
Iranian upland, still less all men of Iranian nationality,
that is, all who speak an Iranian dialect akin to Persian.
On the other hand, the modern kingdom of iran has many
subjects who are not Iranians ethnographically, but come
originally from Central Asia or Arabia, and speak Turkish
or Arabic.
PART I.— ANCIENT IRAN.
SECTION I. — MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE.
leVII. The Babylonian Berosus, writing soon after Alexander
the Great, states that at a very early time, which we must
place somewhat over two thousand years before Christ, the
Medes conquered Babylonia, and that eight Median kings
reigned thereafter in Babylonia for a space of 224 years.3
This is an early instance of the occupation of the rich low
lands by warlike tribes of the neighbouring highlands ;
and indeed the contrast between the plain of the Euphrates
and Tigris, peopled mainly by Semites, and the tableland
of the Iranians, surrounded by lofty mountains, is a very
important factor in the whole history of wide regions of
Asia. But it is, to say the least, not certain whether
Berosus means the Iranian people afterwards called Medes.
The expression might have a merely geographical significa
tion, and it is at all events possible that at that distant
period tribes of different descent dwelt in the land. In
any case, we have here no Iranian empire, but only a
Babylonian dynasty founded by foreigners.
Be this as it may, it is certain that at an early period
there were regular monarchies of some size even in the
distant Iranian lands. Unmistakable traces lead us to
1 Less careful writers, like Pliny, confuse Ariana with Aria, properly
Haria, the land of Haraiva, the later Haruv, Hare, Hari ; Arabic Herat.
assume an old empire in Bactria — the Iranian land far to
the east, in the region of the Oxus, beyond the great table
land — which must have developed a tolerably high civiliza
tion. But we have no exact information about it.
The series of the great Iranian monarchies begins for Medes.
us with the Median empire of Ecbatana. Unfortunately
we possess but little trustworthy information about its
history, being almost wholly dependent on what two
Greeks, Herodotus and Ctesias, who wrote long after the
fall of the kingdom, report from the mouths of Orientals.
These two authorities differ so widely that their statements
are to a great extent mutually exclusive. Nevertheless
careful investigation has shown that many of the state
ments of Ctesias (which are only preserved through the
medium of later writers, like Diodorus) rest on the same
basis as those of Herodotus. This common basis included
an artificially arranged chronology.4 According to Herod-
2 Sasanian inscriptions in Chaldaic Pahlavi still show the ancient
form Arian (JX'HX), and Greek inscriptions of the older kings have
the genitive pi. 'Apiav&v. But the corresponding common Pahlavi
inscriptions and the coins already show the form Eran (JST'X), fol
lowing an established law of phonetic decay.
3 The information is preserved by Eusebius, who took it from Alex
ander Polyhistor ; see Eusebins, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, 25.
4 See Hupfeld, Exercitationes Herodotese Spec. II. : sivc de vetere
Medorum regno, Rinteln. 1843.
XVIII. — 71
562
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
c. 715-634. otus the Medes freed themselves from the Assyrians, and
lived for a time without a master till Deioces obtained the
kingly power by stratagem. There reigned then
Deioces 53 years \ ~5
Phraortes 22 „ / 70 yea S
?5
150 years.
Cyaxarcs 40
Astyages 35 ,, /
The totals show how the figures are arranged on an
artificial system. The duration of the kingdom is exactly
a century and a half, divided into two exactly equal por
tions, each of which is occupied by the reigns of two kings.
But further, according to Herodotus, the rule of the Medes
over Upper Asia, i.e., the land east of the Halys, lasted
128 years, save only (jrape^) the twenty-eight years during
which the Scythians ruled. It is easy to see that " save
only "means "minus," and that thus the foreign supre
macy of the Medes is reckoned at exactly 100 years, or
two-thirds of the total duration of the kingdom. Obvi
ously such figures can at most be only approximately
correct. Now the number 128 is got by adding the reigns
of the first king and the last two. This number is certainly
due to an error on the part of Herodotus, who has com
mitted similar mistakes. in arithmetic elsewhere ; in adding
up he took the reign of Deioces for that of Phraortes. We
may conjecture that the original statement received by
Herodotus was that the supremacy, represented by the
last three reigns, lasted a century, a round number being
put for 97 (22 + 40 -1- 35). With regard to the indi
vidual items, it is somewhat suspicious that the second
half (75 years) is divided into its two most convenient
fractions, 40 and 35. Consequently we cannot place much
reliance on the figures representing the reigns of the first
two rulers either, especially as it can be made probable
that they also rest on an artificial basis.
Now it can be proved that Ctesias's list of nine or
properly ten kings was based on that of Herodotus, but
with all the numbers doubled. Probably this list of
Ctesias assigned 350 years as the total duration of the
empire, which is the number given in Justin, i. 6, 17.
The Mede from whom Ctesias derived his information, or
the Median source on which his informant drew (there is
no mistaking the Median colouring which pervades Ctesias's
narrative), wished to glorify the empire of his people by
the length of its duration, hence the doubling. The source
from which the names of the Median kings in Ctesias are
derived is still a mystery ; they are quite different from
those of Herodotus. Even Oppert's hypothesis, that the
names of the last four kings in Ctesias are the Iranian
translation of the non- Iranian names in Herodotus and
belong to the language of the second kind of cuneiform
writing, though perhaps plausible at first sight, is on close
examination untenable. In general there is no warrant
for the assumption that as late as the time of the Median
and Persian empires there was a large non-Iranian popula
tion in Media, — an assumption which conflicts with all
tradition and originates solely in the difficulty of finding
a home for the second kind of cuneiform writing. But
the names of the kings in Herodotus are now all authenti
cated, directly or indirectly, by the inscriptions lately dis
covered. Probably too the reckoning of the total duration
of the empire at a century and a half is about right.
Indeed such chronological systems sometimes correspond
better, on the whole, with the facts than their artificiality
would lead us to expect.
Ctesias's narrative opens with a highly-coloured descrip
tion of a real event, namely, the destruction of Nineveh by
the leader of the Medes, called by him Arbaces, with the
helpof the Babylonian Belesys(the historical Nabopolassar).
But the fact that by this event the position of Media as a
great power was for the first time assured is mixed up by
Ctesias with the beginning of the monarchy itself. In
addition, he grossly exaggerates the duration of the empire;
so that we arrive at the monstrous result that between GOG
or 607, the real date of the destruction of Nineveh, and
550, the year of the fall of the Median supremacy, more
than 300 years are supposed to have elapsed.
Down to the destruction of Nineveh we must ignore
Ctesias almost completely and follow Herodotus alone.
We will not repeat Herodotus's naive story of the founda- Deioce;
tion of the Median kingdom by Deioces, son of Phraortes,
a story in which Greek and Oriental colours are charm
ingly blended. We may assume as certain that Deioces
possessed a principality, the central point of which was
Ecbatana (or Agbatana ; Old Persian Hagmatdna, now
Hamadan), a place which for thousands of years has held the
rank of a capital. This principality probably never embraced
the whole of Media (i.e., nearly the present provinces of Irak
Adjemi and Azerbijan with a portion of Turkish Kurdistan),
but by his successors it was enlarged into the great Median
empire. Of course there was no smooth and formal con
stitution, no fixed frontier, no exact determination of the
prerogatives of different chiefs in the particular districts.
From of old the Assyrians had made frequent attempts to
subjugate the country of the Medes, but perhaps never
quite possessed the whole land with its numerous inaccess
ible mountains and warlike robber tribes. Nevertheless
they made successful expeditions into the interior of
Media even down to the time at which Herodotus regards
Media as independent.1 Neither the liberation of Media
nor the foundation of the monarchy is an event which can
be limited to a particular year, the thing took place gradu
ally. In the period not long before Deioces, according to
Herodotus's reckoning, very many tributary Median chief
tains are mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions ; this
confirms, in some measure at least, the statement that
"anarchy" then prevailed.2 In 715 B.C. there was carried
off as prisoner one Dajaukku ; this is certainly the same
name, perhaps the same person (for his captivity may have
been brief), as Daiokes, which appears in Herodotus in
the Ionic form Deiokes. We can certainly identify Herod
otus's first king with the prince whose land, called Bit
Dajaukku, i.e., land of Dajaukku, King Sargon of Assyria
conquered in 713 B.C. The man who thus gave his name
to the land must have occupied a high station. The date
is not very remote from that assigned by Herodotus to
Deioces ; for we get from Herodotus as the date of Deioces
709-656, or, if we correct his error in dating the end of
the empire, 700-647. Deioces was not a king of kings ;
he was forced to bow to the Assyrians repeatedly, but he
was the founder of the empire. Three kings followed him.
It is possible that there were really more, and that in the •
summary list the shorter reigns are passed over. Nor can
we place much reliance on Herodotus's assertion that each
successive ruler was the son of his predecessor.
In perfect harmony with the conditions of development Phr
of a small state into a great power is the statement of Herod- orte
otus that the second king of the Medes, Phraortes (Fraivarti;
according to Herodotus's reckoning 656-634 [647-625]),
extended his sway beyond the limits of Media and first of
all subjugated Persis, or Persia proper, the secluded moun
tain-land south-east of Media. During all this time indeed,
as we learn from Darius's great inscription, Persis had kings
of its own ; but these were simply vassals of the sultan
1 For tins and what follows compare, besides the works of the Assyrio-
logists, A. v. Gutsch mid, Neue Beitrage zur Geschichte des alien Orients,
87 sq.
2 That parts at least of Media were subject to Assyria at that period
is further shown by 2 Kirrgs xvii. 6, xviii. 11 — surer evidence than
that of the inscriptions, which may not always be rightly interpreted,
and contain, besides, many exaggerations.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
563
who had his seat in Ecbatana. After conquering the
Persian, Phraortes, says Herodotus, subjugated piece after
piece of Asia, until he was discomfited and slain in the
attempt to conquer the Assyrians in Nineveh, whose empire
was by that time completely lost. Allowing for some
exaggerations with respect to the extent of the empire,
there is nothing in these statements that need excite sus
picion. Independent evidence seems to show that towards
the middle of the 7th century the Assyrian empire had
fallen very low ; l and that the inhabitants of the cluster
of vast cities to which Nineveh belonged were able to repel
the first attack of an enemy who could hardly have been
their match in the art of siege- warfare is perfectly natural.
Besides, the stability of the Median military, political, and
court institutions, which were afterwards taken over un
altered by the Persians, must surely have required for its
development a longer time than some modern inquirers,
following exclusively the cuneiform inscriptions, have
assumed for the actual duration of the Median empire.
.res. Phraortes's successor Cyaxares (Huwakhshatara ; accord
ing to Herodotus's reckoning 634-594 [625-585]) brought
the empire to the highest pitch of power. He is said to
have introduced fixed tactical arrangements into the army.
It was to him that the pretenders whom Darius had to over
come traced their descent, as he tells us himself. Cyaxares,
according to Herodotus, took the field successfully against
Nineveh, but as he was besieging the city the inroad of
the "Scythians" compelled him to forego for a time all the
fruits of victory. Who these Scythians were is unknown.
Herodotus took them for the people tolerably familiar to
the Greeks, whose true name was Scolotse ; but his evidence
does not go for much, since he often falls into the popular
misuse of the term " Scythian " as a name for all the
peoples of the steppes, and brings the inroad of these
Scythians into a most unlikely connexion with the
desolating raids of Thracian tribes (the Trares or Treres,
commonly called Cimmerians) in Asia Minor. We must
content ourselves with assuming that we have here one of
those irruptions of northern barbarians into Iran of which
we hear so often in later times. Probably these nomads
came, as Herodotus indicates, through the natural gate
between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, the pass of
Derbend, though it is quite possible that they came from
the east of the Caspian, from the steppes of Turkestan.
Whether these Scythians are really the same people who
made their way as far as Palestine and Egypt 2 is, indeed,
far from being as certain as is commonly supposed, nor
can the date of the irruption into these countries be deter
mined. At any rate, the barbarians overthrew the Medes
and flooded the whole empire. From what we know of
the doings of Huns, Khazars, Turks, and Mongols in later
times we can infer how these Scythians behaved in Iran.
Cyaxares must have come to some sort of terms with them ;
and at last he rid himself of them in a truly Eastern fashion,
by inviting most of them — i.e., of their chiefs — to a feast,
where he made them drunk and slew them at their wine.3
It is not in the least surprising that Cyaxares afterwards
had Scythians in his service ; savages like these have no
steady national feeling, and serve any potentate for pay.
With the Scythian disorders we might combine the
contests which, according to Ctesias, the Parthians and
Sacas (i.e., the inhabitants of the Turkoman desert, who
are also called " Scythians " by the Greeks) waged with
1 The Assyrian inscriptions break off abruptly with the year 644 ;
Gutschmid, op. cit., 89.
2 Herod., i. 105 ; compare Trogus, in Justin, ii. 3, and Jordanes,
De orig. Get., 6, whose account perhaps goes back to Dinon.
3 Between the years 1030 and 1040 A.D. we know three cases where
princes of Iranian lands despatched inconvenient Turkomans in exactly
similar fashion ; see Ibu Athir, ix. 266 sq., 272.
Cyaxares or Astibaras, as Ctesias calls him.4 But it is 634-585.
not safe to do so, as the whole narrative is only the frame
work for a pretty romance.
Cyaxares marched a second time against Nineveh and Nineveh
destroyed it about 607. Not only Ctesias but also Berosus 5 taken,
asserts that the king of the Medes achieved this great
success in league with the king of Babylon. That the
Median tradition represented the Mede and the Babylonian
tradition the Babylonian as suzerain, and the other king
as a vassal, is not surprising. The more powerful of the
two was doubtless the Median, the richer the Babylonian.
Unfortunately Herodotus's work does not include the
"Assyrian memoirs," in which he intended to give a fuller
account of the fall of Nineveh, — probably because he died
before completing the task. In order to protect himself
against his ally, who by the fall of the Assyrian empire
had grown too powerful, the Chaldaean king had recourse
to a double precaution : he married his son, afterwards the
potent Nebuchadnezzar, to Amyite or Amyitis, daughter of
the Median king ; but he also erected extensive fortifica
tions. After the fall of Nineveh, Nebuchadnezzar made
himself master of Syria and Palestine, and Cyaxares
acquired most of the rest of the Assyrian territory. Prob
ably Assyria proper belonged to him also, and we can thus
explain Xenophon's error that the Assyrian cities before
their destruction belonged to the Medes (Anab., iii. 4, 7-
10). When Cyaxares afterwards began the war with the War with
Lydians he was already master of Armenia and Cappadocia, Lydians.
though he probably did not acquire them until after he
had got rid of the Scythians and destroyed Nineveh. The
pretext for the war was afforded by the flight of some
Scythians in Cyaxares's service to Alyattes,6 king of Lydia ;
but the real cause was doubtless thirst of conquest. The
war lasted for five years with varying fortune, and was
ended by the battle during which the eclipse of the sun,
said to have been predicted by Thales, took place. The
terrified combatants saw in this a divine warning and
hastily concluded peace. An impression so profound could
be produced by nothing short of a total eclipse. Now,
according to Airy's calculation, of all the eclipses of that
period the only one which was total in the east of Asia
Minor (where we must necessarily look for the seat of war)
was that of 28th May 585. Ancient writers " also place
the eclipse in this year. But this only proves that learned
Greeks of a much later age calculated the year of an eclipse
which they took to be that of Thales ; yet in this case they
have hit the truth. More exact calculations have shown
that the eclipse of 30th September 610, formerly regarded
as that mentioned by Herodotus, was total only to the
north of the Black Sea. Besides, it is inconceivable that
this war and the new grouping of states which it involved
should have taken place before the destruction of Nineveh.
The 28th of May 585 is perhaps the oldest date of a great
event which can be fixed with perfect certainty down to the
day of the month. The conclusion of peace which followed
affords us a remarkable instance of diplomatic mediation in
4 See Diod. , ii. 34 ; Nicol. Dam., 6 ; Anonynius de inulieribus.
5 See Euseb., Chronicon, pp. 30, 35, 37, and Syncellus, 210 B. The
first passage refers to Abydenus, who made use of Berosus. He
names the Median king ' Aem'cryT/s, which Gutschmid regards as a
corruption of 'AffTvdprjs = 'Acm/Sapi??. This is acute, but it seems better
to suppose that Abydenus or an excerptor confused Cyaxares with
the last king of the Medes.
6 He reigned, according to Herodotus's reckoning, from 618 to 561.
As this is narrated by Herodotus in his history of Lydia, he probably
has it from Lydian sources, and we may regard this as a welcome con
firmation of what we are told on Median authority about the destruc
tion of the Scythians.
7 Pliny, If. J?., ii. § 53, and other passages; compare Gelzer, in
PJieiii. Museum fiir Pliilologie, N. F. , xxx. 264 sq. An astronomer,
a friend of the writer of this article, has by independent calculations
confirmed the dates assigned iu the text for both eclipses.
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
c. 585-550. very ancient times. The peace was brought about by
Syennesis, prince of Cilicia, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon.1 Astyages, son of Cyaxares, married Aryenis,
daughter of Alyattes. But according to Herodotus's cal
culation the above date does not fall within the time of
Cyaxares ; and even with the necessary correction (of nine
years ; see below) Astyages ascended the throne in this
same year. We might suppose that the battle fell in the
father's, the peace in the son's time. But, as we saw above,
the dates of these reigns are not of a sort in which we
can place much confidence, and it is more likely that the
reign of Astyages did not last so long as tradition asserts.
Thus Cyaxares probably died after 585.
Astyages. Of the reign of his son Astyages (in Ctesias Astyigas,
in a Babylonian inscription Ishtuvigu) we have no par
ticulars. It is not even certain that he was cruel, for
Herodotus's account of him and of the revolt of Cyrus is
not impartial, based as it is on the narratives of the de
scendants of Harpagus, who had an interest in portraying
in unfavourable colours the prince whom their ancestor
had betrayed. On the other hand, Ctesias's Median
authority (Nicolaus Dam., 64 #/.), which sets Astyages in
a very favourable light, has no better claim to credence on
this point.
State of The Median empire must at this time have reached a
Median tolerably high degree of civilization. As remarked above,
empire. ^e pO}^ical and military institutions of the Persians are sub
stantially those of the Medes ; even the dress (of the Persian
troops) was borrowed from the Medes.2 Of buildings
erected by the Median kings there are, so far as we know,
no remains. The colossal lion, still to be seen, though in
a sadly mutilated state, at HamadAn, and about which
Arabian writers have all sorts of wonderful tales, is perhaps
a monument of the Median age. The fortifications of
Ecbatana must certainly have been magnificent ; according
to Herodotus's description, they showed strong traces of the
influence of the star- worship practised by the neighbouring
Babylonians, whose civilization was of a much earlier date.3
It may be that careful explorations in the neighbourhood
of Hamaddn or excavations will one day bring to light
traces of that distant age, perhaps even some distinct
inscriptions of Median kings. Such inscriptions would be
of the highest value ; and we might almost conjecture
that the language and writing would be identical with
those of the Persian kings. Since the Magi are expressly
described by Herodotus as a Median tribe, and since in the
age of the Achoemenians the Persian priests were drawn
as exclusively from the Magi as in later times, it is highly
probable that the Median kings established the Zoroastrian
religion as the state religion, and appointed this Median
tribe to be the priests. The religion itself arose in the far
east, probably in Bactria. It is often assumed nowadays
to have originated in Media, but the fact that its sacred
books know nothing of the Magi tells particularly against
this view. How firmly the Median Magi were in posses
sion of the priesthood in Persia proper (Persis) about the
year 522 we learn from the circumstance that they main
tained their position in spite of the catastrophe of the
false Smerdis. They must therefore have already held it
for some time, and this carries us back almost necessarily
to the influence of the Median empire. If this is correct,
the Median empire has an extraordinary importance in
the history of religions. The consideration enjoyed by the
Median monarchy is proved by the fact that in Western
lands which never came in contact with it at all its name
1 For the latter Herodotus wrongly substitutes his successor
Labynetus (Nabunaid ; Persian Xabunaita).
2 "Herod., vii. 62.
3 See Sir H. Rawlinson, in G. Rawlinson's Herodotus, i. 98, and
Joh. Brandis, in Hermes, ii. 264.
was so familiar that more than a hundred years after its
fall the Persians were still mostly called Medes by the
Greeks ; in particular the wars of independence with the
Persians still went at a much later date simply by the
name TO. M?;8tKa.4
Nor was the Median empire properly destroyed by
Cyrus ; it was only transformed. Another race of the
Iranian people and another dynasty stood at the head of
the Iranian empire and carried out, as far as it was at all
possible, Cyaxares's scheme for the conquest of Asia and
the border-lands. That the Persian empire was the direct
heir of the Median was known both to the Greeks — for
only on this supposition were the above-mentioned expres
sions possible — and to the Hebrews (Isa. xiii. IT; Ezra
i. 3, &c.).
We possess three accounts of the mode in which the Fall of
transition was effected, that of Herodotus, that of Ctesias, Mediai
(of which that of Dinon, preserved only in some fragments emP1K
and vestiges, is merely a variation), and that of Xenophon
in the Cyropsedia. Though Xenophon had before him
the works of both Herodotus and Ctesias, we must, with
Niebuhr,5 regard his book as nothing more than an ex
tremely silly romance ; the attempts to employ it as an in
dependent historical source have always failed. Herodotus
probably got his charming narrative directly or indirectly
from the descendants of Harpagus, a man who undoubtedly
played a chief part in transferring the supremacy from the
Medes to the Persians. Ctesias's narrative, which we are
obliged to piece together from Nicolaus Damascenus,
Photius, Justin, Polytenus, and Diodorus, is highly coloured,
but in parts very pretty, and has, in contradistinction to
Xenophon's romance, a genuinely Oriental stamp. It
appears to be based on the account of a Mede, Avho gave a
marked preference to his own people, and represented the
founder of the Persian empire in as unfavourable a light as it
was possible for a Persian subject (and probably an official)
to do. There was no denying the fact of Cyrus's final
victory, but in Ctesias's narrative he achieves his greatest
successes by cunning and deceit. He is a genuine herds
man's son, takes early to robbery, and discharges menial
services, in the course of which, significantly enough, he
gets plenty of hard knocks. His accomplice (Ebares is a
cowardly rascal. Astyages defeats Cyrus in Persis itself
and pursues him to his home, Pasargadse ; he is only saved
by the intervention of the women. On the other hand,
Astyages magnanimously spares Cyrus's father, who had
fallen into his power. It is particularly significant that
over the corpse of Astyages, who had been left by stratagem
to pine in the wilderness, a royal guard of lions kept watch
and ward. Of course all this does not exclude the sup
position that this partisan narrative is founded on a genuine
Persian legend. For the rest, the narrative of Ctesias
agrees in some particulars, and even in some names, with
that of Herodotus.
That Cyrus (Kuru, nominative Kitrush, or rather Kuru, Cy
Kurush °) was not of lowly descent but of a princely house
was long ago seen to be a necessary supposition. Popular
legend loves the elevation of sons of the people to the
throne, but as a matter of fact national kingdoms are not
easily founded anywhere, and least of all amongst primitive
peoples, except by persons of distinguished birth. A know
ledge of the Persian inscriptions has put it beyond a doubt
4 It is noteworthy, however, that ^Eschylus in the Persse says
" Persians" almost exclusively, but " Medes " only exceptionally (ver.
236, 791, and so in his epitaph) ; perhaps the poet chose "Persians"
as the less usual expression.
5 Lectures on Ancient History, i. 96, Eng. tr.
6 The u is long, as is shown by the agreement of KGpos, ^Eschyl.,
Pers., 768, and BH13 of the Old Testament. The long u makes it
impossible to identify the name with the Indian Kuril, as Spiegel
proposes.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
565
that Cyrus was of royal blood. A cylinder with an in
scription of his, found lately at Babylon,1 affords us fuller
information. Cyrus's father was, just as Herodotus tells
us, Cambyses (Kambujiya), his grandfather Cyrus, his
great-grandfather Sispis (i.e., the Persian Chaispi, Greek
Teispes). We can combine the contents of this cylinder,
on the one hand with the list of Darius's ancestors in
Herodotus (vii. 11), and on the other hand with Darius's
own statements in the great Behistun inscription. The
last list is shorter by three than that of Herodotus ; but,
as Darius says that eight of his family were kings, and
that they reigned in two lines, while neither he nor his
successors in their inscriptions give the title of king to
his immediate predecessor, we must assume that the Be
histun list of ancestors is somewhat curtailed ; and we can
with some probability draw out the complete list in exact
harmony with Herodotus.2 We shall indicate the kings
by figures and give the names in the ordinary Greek form.
Achremeues.
1. Teispes.
I
2. Cambyses.
3. Cyrus.
4. Teispes.
.g 7. Cyrus (great king).
Ariaramnes.
I
Arsames.
Hystaspes.
18. Cambyses (great king). 9. Darius (great king), j
Achaemenes (Persian Hakhdmani), ancestor of the whole
family, is perhaps not an historical personage, but a heros
eponymus. According to our calculation Teispes, the first
king, flourished about the year 730, therefore somewhat
earlier than the foundation of the Median empire, but
somewhere about the time which Herodotus assigns for
the beginning of the independence of Media. Perhaps
the rise of the provincial dynasty is connected with the
weakening of the Assyrian power in Iran. Now on the
cylinder Cyrus calls himself and his forefathers up to
Teispes not kings of Persia but kings "of the city Anshan."
Similarly on a lately-discovered monument of still greater
importance, a Babylonian tablet,3 he is called "king of
Anshan," but also "king of Persia." Anshan has been
looked for, without sufficient grounds, in the direction of
Susiana. Even if it be true that Anshan, written as here
in two ways, elsewhere means Susiana — and this Oppert
emphatically denies — we should still have to regard this
only as a Babylonian inexactitude of expression. It is
far more likely that Anshan was a place in Persis, the
proper family seat of the Achaemenians, therefore perhaps
near Pasargadae or identical with it. An attempt has
even been made, in consequence of this designation, to
deny that Cyrus was a Persian at all, although Darius
calls himself an Aryan and a Persian, and therefore regarded
Cyrus and Cambyses as such ; indeed he expressly desig
nates them members of his family. It may be that the
Achaamenians ruled in a part only of Persis ; but we have
just as good a right to assume that, as Herodotus and
Ctesias assert, Cyrus's father at least was governor of the
whole province. His mother, according to Herodotus, was
the daughter of Astyages. This may very well be historical,
1 Trans, of the Roy. As. Soc., N. S., xii. 70 sq. (Sir H. Rawlinson).
2 See Biidinger, Die neuentdeckten Inschriften iiber Cyrus, p. 7
(Vienna, 1881). The pedigree is almost certain, though possibly it
may be incomplete and may not contain all " kings. "
3 Transactions of the Soc. of Bible Arch., vii. 139 sq. (Pinches).
though the confirmation by the oracle which describes him 550-547.
as a "mule" (Herod., i. 55) does not go for much, since
these oracles are tolerably recent forgeries, and it is con
ceivable that we have here nothing more than an exam
ple of the well-known tendency of lords of new empires
in the East to claim descent, at least in the female line,
from the legitimate dynasty. Ctesias indeed tells us that
Cyrus afterwards married a daughter of the dethroned
Astyigas, Amytis (which was also the name of Astyages's
sister, wife of Nebuchadnezzar). Of course this does not
absolutely exclude the possibility of Cyrus being the son
of another daughter of the king.
Stripped of its romantic features, Herodotus's narrative Cyrus's
of the rise of Cyrus is in fundamental harmony with conquest
the new document which we possess on the subject, inofMedia-
the shape of annals inscribed on a Babylonian tablet.
According to Herodotus, Cyrus and the Persians revolted ;
Harpagus the Mede, who was in league with him, was
despatched against him. A part of the Median army
fought, but another part went over to Cyrus or fled. In
a second battle Astyages was defeated and taken prisoner.
Now the tablet tells us among other things : " and against
Cyrus king of Anshan, . . . went and . . . Ishtuvigu,
his army revolted against him and in hands took, to Cyrus
they gave him." Thereupon, it proceeds, Cyrus took
Ecbatana and carried off rich booty to Anshan. This
summary account of the Babylonian annalist by no means
excludes the supposition that Cyrus had fought a previous
battle against Astyages. Both accounts say that the
treachery and faithlessness of the army procured Cyrus
the victory. We might even harmonize the Babylonian
document with Ctesias's narrative that Cyrus was at first
hard pressed and driven back as far as Pasargadae, if there
were not other grounds, quite apart from its fabulous
embellishments, which render this account improbable.
The date of the overthrow of Astyages and the taking of
Ecbatana is, according to the Babylonian tablet, the sixth
year ; and, as it is in the highest degree probable that the
years in this memorial are those of the Babylonian king
Nabunaid, we must place these events in the year 550.
Hitherto it has been supposed, following Herodotus, that
the reign of Cyrus (559-530) was to be reckoned from the
fall of the Median empire, and that accordingly the latter
event was to be placed in 559. But now we see that
Cyrus numbered his years from the time when he ascended
the throne in Persia. Whether the revolt against Astyages
began when he ascended the throne, we do not know.
We may very well believe Herodotus (i. 130), that Cyrus
treated Astyages well down to his death. On this point
Ctesias agrees with Herodotus.
After the taking of Ecbatana, which made Cyrus the
great king, he must have had enough to do to subdue the
lands which had belonged to the Median empire. Little
reliance can be placed on Ctesias's account of these struggles.
Herodotus (i. 153) states that the Bactrians, who accord
ing to Ctesias were soon subdued, were, like the Sacae, not
subjugated until after the conquest of Babylon.
The next war was against the powerful and wealthy king War
Crcesus of Lydia, who ruled over nearly the whole western asaiu!;t;
half of Asia Minor. It was a continuation of the war be
tween the Medes and Lydians which had been broken off
in 585. Here again the story in Herodotus is embellished
with many marvellous incidents, and is employed to exem
plify moral doctrines. If Croesus really began the war, he
assuredly did so not frivolously but deliberately, in order
to anticipate the inevitable attack. A fierce struggle
seems to have taken place in Cappadocia (Herod., i. 76,
and especially Polyaenus, vii. 8, 1 sq.), which already be
longed to Cyrus. Crcesus retreated to prepare for another
campaign, but Cyrus followed hard after him, routed him
566
PERSIA
[M EDO-PERSIAN
547-539. when he offered battle, and captured his capital Sardis
after a short siege. Not only Herodotus but also apparently
his contemporary Xanthus the Lydian, quite independently
of Herodotus, told how Cyrus would have burned Croesus
alive.1 The statements of Ctesias and Xenophon to the
same effect are borrowed from Herodotus. But there is
also a vase of the time of Pericles representing Croesus
seated on a pyre and majestically pouring out a libation.2
We may not of course infer from this that Croesus offered
himself as a willing sacrifice ; but it certainly shows that
a hundred years later there was a general belief that
Croesus had stood upon the pyre. And it is by no means
inconceivable that Cyrus, whom we must picture to our
selves, not as the chivalrous and sentimental hero of Xeno
phon, but as a savage conqueror, should have destined such
a punishment for a vanquished foe, against whom he may
personally have been especially embittered. No doubt to
pollute the fire with a corpse was even in those days an
impiety in the eyes of the Persians, but who knows whether
Cyrus in his wrath paid much more heed to such religious
maxims than did his son Cambyses1? However, Croesus
was pardoned, after all, perhaps because some external
circumstance interposed (because a sudden shower pre
vented the fire from burning 1), or because the conqueror
changed his mind before it was too late. The pious and
believing saw in the event a direct intervention of Apollo
on behalf of the man who had honoured the Delphic
shrine so highly.3
The date of Croesus's fall is not quite certain. It may
have been 547 or 546. When Cyrus had marched away,
the Lydian Pactyas, whom Cyrus had appointed guardian
of the treasures, raised a revolt, but it was speedily put
down by the king's generals. From that time forwards
the Lydians never made the slightest attempt to shake off
the Persian rule.
War with But now began that struggle of the Persians with the
Asiatic Greeks which has had so much importance for the history
of tke world. The Lydian kings had subdued a number
of Greek cities in Asia Minor ; but even these latter shrank
from submitting to the still barbarous Persians, whose
rule was far more oppressive, inasmuch as they ruthlessly
required military service. But Harpagus and other Per
sian leaders quickly took one Greek town after the other ;
some, like Priene, were razed to the ground. Some of the
lonians, such as the Teians, and most of the Phocseans,
avoided slavery by emigrating. Miletus alone, the most
flourishing of all these cities, had early come to an under
standing with Cyrus, and the latter pledged himself to lay
no heavier burden on it than Croesus had before him. In
most of the cities the Persians seem to have set up tyrants,
who gave them a better guarantee of obedience than demo
cratic or aristocratic governments. In other respects they
left the Greeks alone, just as they left their other subjects
alone, not meddling with their internal affairs so long as
they paid the necessary contributions, and supplied men and
ships for their wars. Most of the other peoples in the west
of Asia Minor submitted without much resistance, except
the freedom -loving Lycians. Driven into Xanthus, the
capital, they perished in a body rather than surrender.4
Some Carian cities also defended themselves stoutly. This
Greeks
1 See Nicolaus Dam., 67 (apparently put together from Herodotus
and Xanthus).
2 Mon. de VInst, Arch., i. 54.
3 Croesus's good repute amongst the Greeks of the mainland (see Pin
dar, Pyth., i. 184 [94]) was due to his liberality to the Delphians. Even
400 years afterwards the Delphians appealed to their old friendship
•with the people of Sardis (i.e., with Croesus). Bulletin de corresp.
hellenique, v. 383, 389 sq. That Croesus could also be inhuman
enough is shown by Herod., i. 92.
4 About 500 years later the inhabitants of Xanthus followed their
example in the straggle with that champion of freedom, Brutus.
may have given a Persian here and there an inkling even
then that the little peoples on the western sea were, after
all, harder to manage than the nations of slaves in the
interior of Asia. Sardis became and remained the mainstay
of the Persian rule in western Asia Minor. The governor
ship was one of the most influential posts in the empire,
and the governor seems to have exercised a certain supre
macy over some neighbouring governorships.
Though Cyrus had made, and continued to make, con- Babyloi
quests in the interior of Asia, he was still without the true taken.
capital of Asia, Babylon, the seat of primeval civilization,
together with the rich country in which it lay, and the
wide districts of Mesopotamia,5 Syria, and the border
lands over which it ruled. Now that we know the two
Babylonian memorials mentioned above we can dispense
with most of the various, often very fabulous, accounts
which Greek writers give of the conquest of Babylon ; but
when these documents are rightly understood the diver
gence between them and the account of Berosus G is, on the
main points, not very great. Before the capture of the
city, in the summer of 539, a great battle took place, in
consequence of which Cyrus occupied the capital without
any further serious fighting, since the Babylonian troops
had mutinied against their king. Late in the autumn
of 539 7 Cyrus marched into Babylon, Nabunaid, the king,
having previously surrendered himself. According to
Berosus, Cyrus appointed Nabunaid governor of Carmania,
east of Persis 8 ; but in the annals inscribed on the tablet
it is said to be recorded that Nabunaid died when the city
was taken. If both memorials represent Cyrus as a pious
worshipper of the Babylonian gods, if, according to the
cylinder, the Babylonian god Merodakh, wroth with the
king of Babylon because he had hot served him aright,
actually himself led and guided Cyrus, such a piece of
priestly diplomacy ought not to impose on any student of
history. The priests turned to the rising sun, whether
they had been on good or bad terms with Nabunaid.
Cyrus certainly did not put down the Babylonian worship,
as the Hebrew prophets expected ; he must even have
been impressed by the magnificence of the service in the
richest city of the world, and by the vast antiquity of the
rites. But he was no more an adherent of the Babylonian
religion, because the priests said he was, than Cambyses
and the Roman emperors were worshippers of the Egyptian
gods, because Egyptian monuments represent them as doing
reverence to the gods exactly in the style of Egyptian
kings. Sayce doubts whether Cyrus could read their
documents ; we doubt whether Cyrus understood their lan
guage at all, and regard it as inconceivable that he learned
their complicated writing ; indeed, on the strength of all
analogies, we may regard it as scarcely probable that he
could read and write at all.9 The countries subject to
5 We always use " Mesopotamia " in the sense in which alone this
geographical conception ought to be used, viz., as equivalent to the
Arabic Jazira, i.e., to denote the cultivated land between the middle
Euphrates and the Tigris, which is separated by the Mesopotamian
desert from the totally different 'Irak (Babylonia).
6 In Josephus, c. Ap., i. 20. On many particular points in these
memorials the Assyriologists themselves hold different opinions ; but
the part which concerns us most seems to be free from doubt.
7 On 3d Marheshwan, which month corresponds nearly to our
November. The year which begins with 5th January 538 is, in the
astronomical cnnon, the first year of Cyras as king of Babylon. If,
as the strict rule requires, we make the small remainder of the year
after the taking of the city to be the first year of Cyrus's reign, then
the events in the text fall in 538. But probably the remainder of the
year was not reckoned in, and for this there are analogies. (See below.)
8 This statement is further supported by that of Abydenus, doubt
less taken from Berosus, that Darius drove Nabunaid out of Carmania
(Euseb. , Chron., p. 41). This is certainly not an invention. At the
most, the former king of Babylon might have been confounded with
another Babylonian prince.
9 Even the comparatively simple Persian cuneiform writing was
certainly always the secret of a few ; otherwise it could not have
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
567
Babylon seem to have submitted without resistance to the
PersTans. The fortress of Gaza alone, in the land of the
Philistines, perhaps defended itself for a time.1 On the
other hand, the Phoenician cities, some of which offered a
sturdy resistance to other conquerors, submitted immedi
ately, and remained steadily obedient to the Persians down
almost to the end of the empire. It seems, however, that,
as the real prop of the naval power of Persia, they were
almost always treated with special consideration by the
latter. In the very first year of his reign in Babylon2 (538)
Cyrus gave the Jewish exiles in Babylon leave to return
home (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 sq. = Ezra i. 1 sq.). Compara
tively few availed themselves of this permission, but these
few formed the starting-point of a development which has
been of infinite importance for the history of the world.
How far to the east Cyrus extended his dominion we do
not know, but it is probable that all the countries to the
east which are mentioned in the older inscriptions of Darius
as in subjection or rebellion were already subject in the
time of Cyrus. In this case Chorasmia (Kharezm ; the
modern Khiva) and Sogdiana (Samarkand and Bokhara)
belonged to him. Agreeably with this, Alexander found a
city of Cyrus (Cyropolis)3 on the Jaxartes, in the neighbour
hood of the modern Kh6kand. He doubtless ruled also
over large portions of the modern Afghanistan, though it
is hardly likely that he ever made his way into the land
of the Indus. The story of his unsuccessful march on
India 4 seems to have been invented by way of contrast
to Alexander's fortunate expedition.
Different accounts of Cyrus's death were early current.
Herodotus gives the well-known didactic story of the battle
with Tomyris, queen of the Massageta?, as the most prob
able of many which were told. If we accept Herodotus's
statements, we must look for the Massagetae beyond the
Jaxartes. In Ctesias Cyrus is mortally wounded in battle
with the Derbices, who probably dwelt near the middle or
upper Oxus. A fragment of Berosus5 says that Cyrus fell in
the land of the Dai (Dahas), i.e., in the modern Turkoman
desert, perhaps in the southern or south-western portion of
it ; this account may very well be derived from contem
porary Babylonian records. Be that as it may, Cyrus met
his death in battle with a savage tribe of the north-east.
The battle was probably lost, but the Persians rescued his
body, which was buried at Pasargadoe in the ancient land
of his race. To this day there is to be seen at Murghab,
north of Persepolis (on the telegraph line from Abiishehr
to Teheran), the empty tomb and other remains of the great
mausoleum, which Aristobulus, a companion of Alexander,
described from his own observation 6 ; and on some pillars
there the inscription is to be read : "I am Cyrus, the king,
the Achsemenian." Till lately the same inscription was also
to be found high on the pillar which bears in bas-relief a
winged figure of a king. This figure is furnished with a
"pshent," i.e., such an ornamented crown as is worn by
kings and gods on Egyptian monuments.7 This was no
happened that, e.g. , the Behistun inscriptions of Darius should have
been described to Ctesias as those of Semiramis (Diod. , ii. 13).
1 According to the conjecture of Valesius in Polyb., xvi. 40, rr\v
Ilepcruw, which, though not absolutely certain, is still the best emenda
tion of the passage.
2 This statement goes to show that the small remainder of the year
after the taking of Babylon was not reckoned in Cyrus's first year.
For he had at that time something more important to do than to
trouble himself straightway about the Israelites.
3 Arrian, iv. 2 sq. ; Curtius, vii. 6, 16, vii. 6, 20 ; Strabo, 517 ;
Ptol., vi. 12 ; Steph. Byz. ; Plin., vi. 49 ; Solinus, xlix. 4.
4 Nearchus, in Arrian, vi. 24, 2 ; Strabo, 686, 742.
5 Euseb., Chron., p. 29.
8 See Strabo, 730 ; Arrian, vi. 29, 4 sq.
7 See the copies in the great works of Texier and of Flandin and
Coste. The most exact representations are those from photographs in
Stolze, Persepolis (Berlin, 1882), tab. 128 sq., 132 sq. The proof that
this is really the grave of Cyrus is given in Stolze's Introduction, as
doubt meant by Cambyses as a special mark of honour to his 539-525.
father, whose monument must have required years to finish.
It is quite natural that the ancient art of Egypt should have
made a deep impression even upon those of its conquerors
who in other respects had little liking for Egyptian ways.
If one could accept without question the judgment of the His
Persians as recorded by Herodotus (iii. 89, 160), expanded character,
by Xenophon, and repeated by later writers (from Plato
downwards), Cyrus must have been the most perfect model
of a ruler. But we must view with great suspicion a
tribute of praise like this paid to the founder of an empire
by those who reaped the fruits of his labours. The founder
of the Sasanian empire is also described as a paragon of
wisdom and virtue, though his deeds strikingly belie such
an estimate. We must be content to know that we are no
better informed about the character of many other great
men of the past than about that of Cyrus. That he was
a very remarkable man and a great king is a matter of
course. Whether he deserves the reputat.on of a great
statesman, which even in modern times has been accorded
to him, we cannot say. Certain it is he left the empire
still in a very unformed condition. To expend the immense
treasures of Ecbatana, Sardis, and Babylon for the benefit
of the empire was to be sure an idea which certainly would
never have entered into the head of any Eastern conqueror.
The treasures simply became the property of the king,
though of course a large part went to the leading Persians
and Medes who filled the most important offices.
Cyrus died in the beginning of the year 529. He left
behind him two sons, Smerdis 8 (Persian Bardiya) and
Cambyses (Kambujiyci) • their common mother was accord
ing to Herodotus an Achaernenian, according to Ctesias
the daughter of the Median king. The great inscription
of Darius states that Cambyses caused Smerdis to be put Cam-
to death without the people being aware of it. From this byses.
it follows that the partition of the kingdom between the
two brothers, of which Ctesias speaks, can hardly have
taken place ; for the murder of a king or consort could
not have remained concealed. Besides, in both the Baby
lonian inscriptions, of which mention has been frequently
made, Cambyses is spoken of in a way which distinctly
shows him to have been heir -apparent. This fratricide,
the true motives of which we do not know, was the fore
runner of many similar horrors in the dynasty. The
inscription proves, as against Herodotus, that the deed
was done before the expedition to Egypt. Nothing else
is told us about the earlier part of the reign of Cambyses.
It is only when we come to his conquest of Egypt that Conquest
we have more exact information. The pretexts for the
Egyptian war meed not detain us. The riches of Egypt
had from of old allured the lords of the neighbouring lands,
and Herodotus takes it for a matter of course that Cyrus
had occupied himself with plans against Egypt. According
to the statements of Manetho 9 and of the Egyptian monu
ments, the conquest of Egypt took place in the spring of
525. Vast warlike preparations preceded the expedition.
The Greeks, of Asia Minor, the Cyprians, who had just
submitted, and the Phoenicians had to furnish the fleet.
A countryman of Herodotus, the mercenary captain Phanes
of Halicarnassus, deserted from the Egyptians to the
well as in his paper in the Verhandl. der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde
zu Berlin, 1883, Nos. 5 and 6 (p. 19 sq. of the separate edition).
8 So Herodotus (the name being assimilated to a genuine Greek
name Smerdies, Smerdes). ^Eschyl., Pers., 774, has Mardos ; Justin,
i. 9, 9 sq., Mergis ; the scholium on J£sch., I. c., Merdias.
9 See Wiedemann, Geschichte ^Egyptens von Psamm-etich I. bis auf
Alexander den Grossen, p. 218 sq. ; comp. too Diod., i. 68. For
what follows, and for all that concerns the relations between Egypt
and Persia, the work of Wiedemann is to be consulted. At the same
time the assumption of the year 525 as the date of the conquest is
open to some objections ; there are many arguments in favour of 527.
568
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
525-521. Persians and made himself very useful in the conquest. It
seems that only one great battle was fought, at Pelusium,
the gateway of Egypt. The Egyptians, utterly beaten,
fled to Memphis, which soon fell into the enemy's hands.
Thus Egypt became a province of Persia ; and a pretext was
soon found for executing the captured king Psammenitus.
This was followed by the submission of the neighbouring
Libyans and the princes of the Greek cities of Gyrene and
Barca. The peculiar religious feelings of the Egyptians
were almost as easily wounded as those of the Jews were
in later times. The Persians, flushed with victory, recked
little of Egyptian wisdom or folly, least of all recked the
brutal king. It is true that even Egyptian inscriptions
represent him as a pious worshipper of the Egyptian gods,
but this is only the courtly ecclesiastical style, which the
Egyptians, partly from servility, partly from long habit, can
never drop. And, even if Cambyses did once in a way
gratify a pious Egyptian, e.g., by ordering his troops to
quit a temple which they had occupied as a barrack, no
great importance is to be attached to the fact. No doubt
the Egyptian priests grossly exaggerated the king's wicked
nesses, but enough remains after all deductions. The
dreadful hate which again and again goaded the naturally
patient and slavish nation into revolt against the Persians
dates from this time ; Darius could not atone for the guilt
of Cambyses. The brutality of the latter began with
maltreating and burning the mummy of the former king
Amasis, who had personally insulted him or his father ; to
the Persians, as Herodotus expressly says, the burning of
the body was no less an impiety than to the Egyptians.
From Egypt he sent an expedition to the shrine of Ammon
in the Libyan Desert, but, caught presumably in a simoom,
it was never heard of again. He led in person a great
expedition to Nubia ("^Ethiopia"). It does not seem to
have been such an utter failure as one might at first infer
from Herodotus's narrative, for some districts to the south
of Egypt were conquered ; but the results purchased by
hecatombs of men who perished by fatigue or were buried
in the sands were far from contenting the king. Returning
to Memphis, he found the people exulting over the discovery
of a new Apis. Their joy did not fall in with his mood.
In a fury, or perhaps out of a tyrant's caprice, he inflicted
with his own hand a mortal wound on the sacred steer and
instituted a massacre among its worshippers. We may well
believe Herodotus that from that time his barbarity to the
Egyptians showed itself in ever darker colours. He spared
not even the Persians. Ctesias too calls him bloodthirsty.
Added to this was his drunkenness. But his marriage
with one or two sisters, at which Herodotus takes offence,
was really, according to Persian notions; an act of piety.1
Similarly, when he put to death a corrupt judge of the
highest family and caused his skin to be made into a
covering for the seat on which his son was to sit and
administer justice, the act was one which all Orientals
recognized as truly kingly (Herod., v. 25).
The empire was extended in another direction, when
Polycrates, the powerful tyrant of Samos and the neighbour
ing islands, sought safety in submission to the great king.
The false Suddenly, however, the empire rang with the news that
king's brother Smerdis had seized the crown in Persis.
We are now in possession of Darius's own account of these
events, and can fairly dispense with the Greek narratives ;
but we may note that here again, in spite of his poetical
colouring, Herodotus stands the test much better than
Ctesias.2 Gaumata (in Ionic form Gametes, Justin, i. 9), a
Smerdis.
1 Herodotus's Persian informants told him much of the real or pre
tended virtues of their people, but concealed things which would have
offended him.
2 Small remains of another ancient and trustworthy account are to
be found in Justin.
Magian, gave himself out as Smerdis (spring of 522) and
formally assumed the government. Even Darius's account
lets us see that Cambyses was very unpopular, and the same
thing appears from the fact that everybody sided with the
new king. Cambyses seems to have marched against him
as far as Syria, but there he put an end to himself, — an
end plainly affirmed by the great inscription, and quite in
keeping with the wildly passionate nature of the man.
Gaumdta reigned, universally acknowledged, and, as it
seems, beloved, because he granted extensive remissions of
taxes. He appeared in the character of Smerdis, son of
Cyrus, and therefore as Persian king. This is enough to
show that there can be here no question of a political
opposition of the Medes to the Persians, such as Herodotus
imagines, nor yet of a religious opposition to the Persians
by the Magians. The changes for the worse now intro
duced, and abolished again by Darius when he ascended
the throne,3 seem to imply no more than a very intelligible
disregard of the leading Persian families, whom Gaumata
could not but fear, since they knew much better than the
people that he was an impostor. He fell, not through the
patriotic indignation of the Persian people, but through
the enmity of these families. Seven persons conspired
against him ; their names, each with that of his father, are
given by Darius in full agreement with Herodotus, while
the list of Ctesias presents somewhat more divergence.4
No doubt they were members of the seven most illustrious
houses, but certainly not the actual heads of these houses ;
for such a life -and -death enterprise, where all depended
upon energy and silence, could not be entrusted to persons
who happened to be heads of families and some of them
perhaps old men. Moreover, Darius himself, who was
undoubtedly from the outset the real leader, was certainly
not the head of his house, for his father Hystaspes (Visht-
aspa) was still alive and in full vigour, since he afterwards
governed a province and fought the rebels. But the ring
leaders would choose one out of each of the seven families
in order to commit the families themselves. The conspiracy
was completely successful ; and the seven killed Gaumata
in the fortress Sikathahuvati near Ecbatana, in the land
of Nisa in Media. This happened in the beginning of
521. Darius was then made king. He was probably the
only one of the seven who was qualified to be so, for he
alone belonged to the royal family, of which, it is true,
there may have been many members more nearly related
to Cambyses. At any rate there was hardly another can
didate for the crown as able as he.
Darius (Ddrayavahu, in the nominative Ddrayarahnsti) Dar
was then, according to Herodotus (i. 209), about thirty
years of age. Amongst other measures for securing himself
and adding to his dignity he took to wife Atossa, daughter
of Cyrus, who had already been married to her brother
Cambyses and to the false Smerdis. He soon showed
that his six comrades were not his peers by executing
Intaphernes, who had forgotten the respect due to the
king, together with his whole family. That at first his
seat on the throne was far from firm is intimated by Herod
otus (iii. 127), who also mentions cursorily an insurrection
of the Medes against him (i. 130), but it is only from the
king's great inscription that we learn the gigantic nature
of the task he undertook when he ascended the throne.
He had first to unite the empire again ; one province after Ins _«•
the other was in insurrection ; the west alone remained *101
quiet, but it was partly in the hands of governors of^
3 Unfortunately in this interesting passage of the great Behistun
inscription the particulars are very obscure.
4 In Ctesias the name of a son is twice given for that of the father.
It is obvious that we are here dealing with the ancestors of the seven
great families, and one generation could very easily be named by
mistake for another.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
569
doubtful loyalty. Darius gives the day of the month for
the most important events, but unfortunately not the
year. Moreover, in consequence of the mutilation of the
Babylonian text it is only of some of the Persian months
that we can say with certainty to what parts of the year
they roughly correspond.1 Thus the particular chronology
of these insurrections remains in many points quite un
certain, especially as it can be seen that many events nar
rated as successive were contemporaneous. In any case
Darius acted very energetically and promptly ; and the
chief provinces were undoubtedly again reduced to sub
jection in the first three years of his reign. The insur
rection of Athrina in Susiana was promptly suppressed
by a Persian army. More dangerous was the revolt in
Babylon of Nidintubel (Nadintabaira), a real or pretended
member of the Babylonian royal house who assumed
the august name of Nabukadrachara (Nebuchadnezzar).
Darius hastened thither and defeated him in several
battles. But the long siege after which, according to
Herodotus, the rebel city fell into the hands of Darius,
cannot have taken place then.2 While Darius was in
Babylon a whole series of revolts broke out. That of
Martiya in Susiana, who called himself Imani, and appeared
in the character of king of that country, was indeed soon
put down with the help of the people of Susiana them
selves, but in Media, the heart of the monarchy, the situa
tion was much more grave. Phraortes (Frawarti), who
gave himself out to be a scion of the old royal house of
Media, was made king of Media, and the Parthians and
Hyrcanians to the eastward, whose satrap was Hystaspes,
father of Darius, sided with him. The king's generals
could effect nothing decisive against Phraortes ; at last he
was overthrown by the king in person. Like all rebels
who deduced their descent rightly or wrongly from the
old dynasties, he was put to death with circumstances of
especial cruelty. In the meantime one of Darius's generals
had put down a second false Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon ;
others had to suppress insurrections in two regions of
Armenia, which were, perhaps, connected with the revolt
of Phraortes, and a rising in the distant Margiana (the
district of Merv). Even Persis had risen. Another false
Smerdis, Vahyazdata, appeared in the east while Darius
was in Babylon, and crowds nocked to him. His power
increased so much that he was even able to send an army
to Arachosia (a part of western Afghanistan). While
Darius in person took the field against Phraortes, he
despatched against Vahyazdata a general who at last over
threw the rebel. Arachosia, too, was reduced to subjection.
So, too, was the nomad tribe of the Sagartii (perhaps on
the northern or north-eastern frontier of Persis), with
Chitratahma at their head, who also claimed to be of the
royal house of Media. Afterwards Gobryas (Gaubruva),
one of the seven, suppressed a third revolt in Persis. The
king in person reconquered the Sacas, who had been in
subjection before. The generals employed by Darius were
Persians and Medes ; but there was one Armenian among
them. His faithful army was composed of Persians and
Medes, but his adversaries were also supported in part by
Persians and Medes. Darius must have been a great ruler
to conquer them all. Picture his position when he took
1 The obvious assumption that the strange name Andmaka, i.e.,
"anonymous," for a month means an intercalary month would compel
us to infer that all the events falling in this mouth belonged to one
and the same year, for two successive years or every other yeai cannot
each have an intercalary month. But a careful consideration of the
particulars shows that all these events could not fall in the same year.
Another obstacle to regarding Anamaka as an intercalary month is
the circumstance that it corresponds to the tenth Babylonian month
Teliet, i.e., probably to December or January, whereas intercalary
months usually follow the twelfth or sixth month.
2 See below under Xerxes.
the field against Phraortes ; Babylonia was his once more, 521-515.
and its wealth must have supplied him with the means of
war, but almost the whole of Iran and Armenia was in
the hands of men whom he calls rebels and liars, but some
of whom, at least, had perhaps more right than he to the
sovereignty, and whose people were devoted to them. No
sooner had he reached Media than Babylon was again in
arms. Nothing but great energy and circumspection could
have carried him safely through all his difficulties.
The satrap of Sardis, Oroetes, had not revolted, but his
conduct was that of an independent prince. Him Darius
put out of the way by stratagem (Herod., iii. 120 sq.).
At the same time Samos became definitively a Persian pro
vince, after a royal army had, with much bloodshed, set
up as tyrant Syloson, brother of Polycrates, whom Oroetes
had put to death. The removal of Aryandes,3 governor
of Egypt, who assumed, even at that date, the royal privi
lege of minting money, seems to have followed not long
afterwards.4 He had extended his power westwards. But
we see from Herodotus that to the west of the last mouth
of the Nile the Persian rule was always precarious ; and
that he can have conquered Carthage, whose naval power
was perhaps a match for that of the whole Persian empire,
is quite incredible. At the most it is possible that the
prudent leaders of that commercial state may in negotia
tions and treaties have occasionally recognized the king
in ambiguous phrases as their lord.
The experience gained by Darius in the first unsettled Organi-
years of his reign must have been in part the occasion of zation of
his introducing numerous improvements into the organiza- en'Pire>
tion of the empire. Governors with the title of satraps
(kkskathrapdvan, i.e., land-rulers) there had been before, but
Darius determined their rights and duties. Vassal princes
of dangerous power were tolerated only with reluctance.
The satrap had indeed the power and splendour of a king,
but he was nevertheless under regular control. The court
received from special officials direct reports of the conduct
of the governors, and from time to time royal commissioners
appeared with troops to hold an inspection. The satrap
commanded the army of his province, but the fortresses he
was obliged to leave in the hands of troops directly under
the king. But the most important part of the reform was
that Darius regulated the taxes and imposed a fixed sum
upon each province, with the exception of the land of his
fathers, which enjoyed immunity. The Persians were
discontented at this, and dubbed Darius in consequence
" higgler " (KctTr^Aos) ; but this is doubtless only the cry of
high officials, to whom any regulated fiscal system was
objectionable, as making it somewhat more difficult for
them to fleece their subordinates. It is not at all to be
supposed that the irregular contributions ("presents,"
Herod., iii. 89) previously levied were less burdensome to
the subjects. However imperfect the Persian state system
was, and however illusory the measures of control may
often have been, still the organization introduced by Darius
marks a great step in advance over the thoroughly rude
old Asiatic system.
In the Behistim inscription, which is placed not long Expedi-
after the conclusion of the great revolts, India does not as tion to
yet appear as a province, though it does in the later India-
inscriptions of Persepolis, and in the epitaph of Darius.
Herodotus says that Darius caused the Indus to be explored
from the land of the Pactyans (Pakhtu, Afghans) to its
mouth by Scylax, a Greek or rather Carian, and then con
quered the country. But in any case this Persian " India "
was only one portion of the region of the Indus. If this
conquest was somewhat adventurous, much more so was
3 Polyrenus, vii. 10. 7, calls him Oryandres.
4 Wiedemann, op. cit., p. 236, fixes as the date the year 517 ; but
his grounds are not conclusive.
XVIII. — 72
570
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
tion.
515-500. the enterprise against the Scythians. Profound motives
for this expedition have been sought for, but it no doubt
sprang simply from the longing to conquer unknown
lands. That Darius, an energetic and valiant Eastern
prince, always hitherto favoured by fortune, should have
been free from lust of conquest is in itself very unlikely.
Scythian The expedition against the Scythians falls about 515.
expedi- "With regard to the preparations and the beginning of the
expedition up to the crossing of the Danube we are well
informed. The Greek subjects, of whom even by this
time there were many on the European (Thracian) side —
such as the inhabitants of Byzantium and the Thracian
Chersonese— wrere obliged to supply the fleet. Mandrocles
of Samos built a bridge over the Bosphorus. The Persians
must soon have found how useful the skill of the Greeks
might be to them, without suspecting the dangers with
which the Greek spirit threatened them. The king's march
may be followed as far as the Danube ; it lay pretty nearly
due north, the warlike Getas, a Thracian people, being
subdued on the way. With the entry into the Scythian
country itself Herodotus's narrative becomes completely
fabulous. His chief error is in leaving out of sight the
enormous distances in these regions (the southern part of
modern Russia) and the great rivers. Hence he represents
the native tribes and Darius as marching the distance
between the Danube and the Don, or even the Volga,
twice in not more than two months, as if the distances
were as in Greece. Darius, who passed the Danube by a
bridge in the neighbourhood, perhaps, of Isaktchi, can
hardly have crossed even the Dniester. Strabo, who either
possessed more exact accounts of the expedition, or drew
correct inferences from the disaster which afterwards over
took King Lysimachus in this neighbourhood, forms a very
intelligent judgment on these matters. The expedition
failed, not through the superior tactics of the Scythians,
who behaved just as might be expected of such nomads,
with a mixture of timidity and audacious greed of booty,
but through the impassable and inhospitable nature of the
country, through hanger and thirst, through exhaustion
and disease. After sustaining heavy losses Darius was
obliged to retreat across the Danube. The king, or at all
events his army, was saved by the Greek tyrants, especially
Histiaeus of Miletus, who refused to follow the advice of
their colleague Miltiades to break down the bridge. But
the damage to the prestige of the empire was great ; the
Greeks had seen their lord and master in distress. Never
theless the district south of the Danube was retained.
That the Scythians immediately followed up their enemy,
or that they even opened negotiations with the Spartans,
as Herodotus states,1 is not to be supposed. Moreover,
Megabyzus, whom Darius on his return left behind in
Europe, subdued great districts of Thrace along with the
Greek cities on the coast. The king of Macedonia also
acknowledged the great king as his liege lord. The cities
on the Hellespont,2 which after the failure of the expedi
tion made no secret of their feeling towards the Persians,
and in part expressed their hostility in overt acts against
them, received sharp punishment. The islands of Lemnos
and Imbros were occupied. At the mouth of the Hebrus
(Maritza) Doriscus was converted into a fortress with a
standing garrison.3
1 The story of the dealings of King Cleomenes with the Scythians
(Herod., vi. 84) rests on a joke, — he drank immoderately, "like a
Scythian."
2 This expression is used to designate the towns lying on the Helles
pont, Propontis, and Bosphorus.
3 To the same time may be referred the foundation on the Asiatic
side of Dareium, named after Darius, just as Harpagium probably has
its name from Harpagus. It is to be observed that in the district of
Old Phrygia such towns called after persons are found from of old, as
Midseium, Gordiseium, Dascylium, and others.
The eyes of the Persians were now turned towards Persian
Greece proper. While the Greek coast of Asia Minor was relations
indispensable to the power which held the interior, thetoGreec'
possession of the mother-country of Hellas was, as we can
easily see, not only unnecessary but positively dangerous to
the Persians, especially as they were themselves absolutely
unfitted for the sea. But to the Persians of those days,
absorbed in schemes of universal empire, considerations
such as these could not present themselves. Besides, the
enterprises of the Persians against the Greeks were to a
large extent suggested and furthered by the Greeks them
selves. Repressed factions, tyrants in exile or in danger,
were but too ready to invoke the help of the foreigner at
the price of slavery. When the Persians attacked a Greek
state there was always another at enmity with it which
at once took their side. Even the inconsiderable enter
prise which was the outward occasion of the Ionian revolt,
namely, the attack of the Persians on Naxos, was brought
about by the banished aristocrats of the island, who
applied to Aristagoras, lord of Miletus, and hence to his
superior, Artaphernes, the king's brother and satrap of
Sardis. The enterprise failed, and in his embarrassment
Aristagoras gave the signal for the revolt which he and
his father-in-law Histia^us, the proper tyrant of Miletus,
who was detained at the court of Susa, had planned long
before.
The great rising of the lonians and other Greeks and Revolt
non- Greeks shows a vigorous love of freedom, and much Ionian;
individual boldness and skill on the side of the insurgents ;
but, quite apart from the vast odds against them and the
unfavourableness of their geographical situation, their
enterprise was from the outset doomed to failure, because
they did not form a compact party, because not even the
Ionian cities practised that discipline and subordination
which for war are indispensable, and lastly because Arista
goras and HistitBus were adventurous intriguers and tyrants,
but without the gifts of rulers or generals. Of the history
of the revolt, in addition to the excellent accounts which
he derived from Hecatteus of Miletus, a contemporary and
actor in the events he describes, Herodotus has all sorts
of popular fables to tell. The chronology is uncertain;
probably the revolt began in 500 or 499, and was substan
tially ended by the capture of Miletus in 495 or 494 (six
years later, Herod., vi. 18). Aristagoras made himself
master of the fleet on its return from Naxos, took prisoner
the tyrants on board at the head of the contingents of
their cities, and restored the republic in Miletus, only of
course with the view of thereby ruling the confederacy.
The Spartans, admittedly at that time the first power of
Greece, were sober enough to refuse the help requested.
But the Athenians, who had already excited the wrath
of the Persians by refusing to comply with the demand of
Artaphernes that they should receive back Hippias as
tyrant, had the courage or rather the foolishness to de
spatch twenty ships to the help of the lonians. They thus
mortally insulted the Persians without really benefiting
their friends. The Athenians shared in the march on
Sardis. The confederates burned the city, but could not
capture the citadel ; on the contrary, they were obliged
to beat a hasty retreat, and were after all routed at
Ephesus. However, the Persian army did not as yet per
manently take up quarters in Ephesus. The Athenians,
who may have dreamed of pressing forward into the
interior of Asia, returned home with their illusion dis
pelled, and Athens took no further part in the war. But
the impression produced by this unsuccessful expedition
upon a modern critic is very different from that which it
produced upon the Asiatics of those times. They said :
" The lonians have risen against the king ; the lonians
from beyond the sea have come to their help ; they have
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
571
burned the king's capital," and many added, "It is all
over with the king's supremacy ! " Not only did the Hel-
lespontine cities, with Byzantium at their head, join the
lonians, but also a great part of the Carians, the Greeks
in the Troad, and almost the whole of the very flourishing
island of Cyprus. By this time the possession of these
lands was really endangered by the revolt. But now the
Persians came with a great fleet to Cyprus. The lonians
sailed to meet them, beat them at sea off Salamis in
Cyprus, but were beaten by the Persians on land. After
great struggles, which are described in an almost epic
style, befitting the primitive state of the island, Cyprus
came once more under the power of the Persians, after
being free only one year. This was the first heavy blow
to the insurrection. Much fighting took place on the
mainland ; and most of the Persian enterprises were success
ful, but not all. In particular the Carians, who in general
displayed great gallantry in this war, annihilated a whole
Persian army under a son-in-law of Darius. But the
longer the war lasted, the more marked became the progress
made by the Persians. Aristagoras left the seat of war,
and withdrew to his possessions of Myrcinus on the Lake
of Prasias in the south of Thrace, near what was afterwards
Amphipolis, but was there slain by natives as early as
49 7. : Darius then despatched Histiaeus, whom he still
continued to believe faithful, to Ionia, probably in order
to open negotiations. He availed himself of the oppor
tunity to seek to regain the lordship of Miletus and put
himself at the head of the whole revolt, but the Milesians
would have nothing more to do with him or with Aris
tagoras. The great intriguer had connexions on all sides,
but no one trusted him in the long run. He became at
last a pirate on his own account ; and after many adven
tures he fell into the hands of the Persians and was crucified.
It is a noteworthy fact that Histigeus had actually concerted
a conspiracy with the Persians in Sardis, against Artaphernes
and Darius, the discovery of which cost many their head.
Fidelity has never been an Iranian virtue.
The decisive struggle was concentrated about Miletus.
There, at the little island of Lade, as Grote points out,
the odds against the Greek fleet (600 triremes against 353)
were not so unfavourable as they were at Salamis, and the
want of unity of leadership was not much greater than it
was there ; but the lonians and Lesbians were not, or were
no longer, the equals of the European Greeks in bravery
and warlike skill. A complete overthrow was the result,
in which treachery on the Greek side had its share. Miletus
long defended itself by sea and land, but was at last taken
and destroyed ; the women and children were sold as slaves.
The captured Milesians were carried off into the heart of
Asia and settled at Susa. Miletus, up to that time by far
the most important of all Greek cities in Asia, though it
afterwards recovered, still never regained its old position.
The most important city of the coast was henceforward
Ephesus, which took no part in the battle of Lade, and
perhaps had at that time already submitted amicably to
the Persians.
The subjugation of the rest of the Greeks of the main
land and islands, as well as of the Carians, now rapidly
followed, not without dreadful massacres and devastations.
The Phoenicians, who formed the main body of the Persian
fleet, seem to have been especially zealous in the work of
destruction. The old bitterness between the Canaanites and
the Hellenes, so vividly shown during these centuries in
Sicily, cannot have died out in the east. In ruined Ionia
a frightful state of things must have prevailed, so that at
last Artaphernes saw himself obliged to undertake a regu
lar organization to ensure the peace of the country. At
1 Time., iv. 102.
the same time he caused the land to be surveyed, and estab- 500-485.
lished fixed imposts.2 These were not higher than before
the war, but naturally they now pressed much harder on the
impoverished lonians. Thereupon the young Mardonius,
son of the Gobryas who has been mentioned before, and
brother-in-law and son-in-law of the king, established de
mocracies in all Ionian cities. The weakened communities
might well seem to the Persians at that time less dangerous
than ambitious tyrants. However, this measure apparently
applied only to the lonians of the mainland, not to the
islanders nor to the other Greeks of the mainland.
Mardonius cherished great designs. He wished to con
quer Greece itself. He did actually conquer Greeks and
non-Greeks in the north-west of the Archipelago, but at
the promontory of Athos his fleet was shattered by a
storm.
The second expedition against Greece was on a greater Expedi-
scale. Under the conduct of the Mede Datis and the tl01^
younger Artaphernes, son of Darius's brother of the same Qga
name, the Persians took Naxos, and destroyed Eretria in
Euboea, the inhabitants of which had sent five ships to
help the lonians at the beginning of the revolt. But at
Marathon they were utterly defeated by the Athenians
and Platseans (September or October 490). They quickly
renounced the project of subjecting Athens to Hippias as
tyrant and to Darius as suzerain, and departed home.
Miltiades, who, as lord of the Thracian Chersonese, had
once been the king's vassal and had afterwards been obliged
to fly, had taken the measure of the Persian. By his
victory Athens had rendered immortal service to Europe
and the cause of civilization. It was the first great victory
of the Greeks over the Persians in the open field ; the
moral impression had an immense effect in the sequel,
when the danger was much greater.
The south-west of the empire alone had hitherto re- Relations
mained free from rebellion against Darius. Darius, who with
had been with Cambyses in Egypt (Herod., iii. 139), treated ^gyp*-
the Egyptians rath forbearance, and in return loyal priests
praised him to fellow-countrymen and Greeks. If a notice
of Polysenus is to be trusted, he must have gone in person
to Egypt in the year 517,3 in order to lighten the burdens
of the people. Amongst other measures which promoted
the material wellbeing of the land, he made a canal from
the Nile to the Red Sea, as an inscription of the king
himself testifies to this day. But the hatred of the Egyp
tians to the Persians was too great. In the year 486
(Herod., vii. 1, 4) the first great insurrection of the Egyp
tians against the Persians took place. From an inscription
we know that during it Khabbash or Khabash was king
of Egypt. Darius did not live to see the revolt put down,
for he died in the following year, 485.
Darius is the most remarkable king of the dynasty of Darius's
the Achaemenians, and perhaps the most remarkable of all character,
the native kings of Iran. So far as we know, only the
Sasanid Khosrau I. in the 6th and the Safavid Abbds
the Great in the 17th century A.D. can be compared with
him. He was as energetic as he was prudent. He was
of course a despot, and could be ruthless and even cruel,
but on the whole he was inclined to be mild. We lay
especial weight on the testimony of ^Eschylus, who had
himself fought at Marathon against the army of Darius,
and who shared the exasperation of the Athenians against
the Persians, but nevertheless in his Persse expresses very
high respect for the king. This, then, was the judg
ment of educated Greeks on the prince who had brought
such untold misery upon their nation. To such a judgment
great weight is to be attached. In harmony with it are
the particulars which we know of the doings and ordi-
- Herod., vi. 42; Diod., x. 59.
3 See Wiedemaun, op. cit.,\~>. 237.
572
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
485-479. nances of Darius. He seems, too, to have shown a correct
insight in his choice of the persons to whom he entrusted
important positions.
Xerxes I. He was succeeded, apparently without any disturbance,
by his son Xerxes (Khshayarshd) L, who, as son of Atossa,
elder daughter of Cyrus, had probably always been regarded
as heir-apparent.1 The time was not yet come when claim
ants to the throne and suspects were assassinated. On
the contrary, the king's blood-relations played under Xerxes
as under Darius a great role as leaders and counsellors.
But the whole generation was probably deeply degenerate,
though the difference could hardly anywhere have been so
great as that between Darius and Xerxes, who begins the
series of weak and unworthy kings.
The subjugation of Egypt was effected in 484 (Herod.,
vii. 7). The measures taken by Khabbash to protect the
mouths of the Nile against the " fleet of the Asiatics " had
thus been unsuccessful. According to Herodotus a much
harder yoke was laid on Egypt than before. The king's
own brother Acluemenes wras made satrap of the country.
Babylon Babylon too seems to have again risen in revolt. Ctesias
revolts, assigns to this date the revolt with which the well-known
story of Zopyrus2 is connected, naming instead of Zopyrus
his son Megabyzus. The long siege of which Herodotus
speaks does not, as we saw, fit in with the revolt under
Darius ; it belongs, perhaps, to the time of Xerxes. Ctesias
gives us to understand that Xerxes wounded the religious
feelings of the Babylonians, and Herodotus speaks ex
pressly of the desecration of their sanctuaries by the same
king (i. 183). To the victorious Macedonians, who em
phatically asserted that they were come to avenge the
destruction of Greek temples by Xerxes, the Babylonian
priests afterwards told many tales of the outrages he
perpetrated on their sanctuaries.3 Doubtless they grossly
exaggerated, but they did not invent everything. Of
course such sacrileges may equally well have taken place
when. the city wras reconquered, or have been the occasion
of a revolt.
Invasion Darius was firmly resolved to wipe out the disgrace of
of Greece. Marathon, and to bring the whole of Greece under the
yoke. His mighty preparations for the march thither had
been interrupted by the revolt of Egypt, and, if our con
jecture is right, of Babylon. They were now vigorously
recommenced ; and provision was made for the mainte
nance of the army, at least within the limits of the Persian
domain. Xerxes himself went to Sardis, the. first great
rendezvous. From there he set forward in the spring of
480. We will not further describe the great expedition,
which, after the dearly-bought successes at Thermopylae
and Artemisium, ended with the defeats of Salamis (Sep
tember 480) and Plataea (479) — all this belongs rather
to the history of Greece — but we will briefly discuss the
causes which procured for the disunited and far from
numerous Greeks a victory over the mighty power of the
great empire. It may very well be said that it would
have been possible to subdue even Hellas, and to put an
incalculable check upon the Greek spirit, if the great enter
prise had been conducted with more sagacity. There was
no lack of Greek traitors, nor even of traitor states, from
which the king might have learned how to set about the
business. But the blind arrogance of the Asiatic king was
bent on bearing down everything by the sheer weight of
his masses, and when he failed in this his arrogance passed
at once into childish cowardice. The fleet certainly mus
tered over 1 200 sail at the beginning of the war, and even
1 In spite of the anecdote in Herod., vii. 2-4 ; Justin, ii. 10 ; Plut.,
De frat. amore, p. 488, and Reg. apophth., p. 173.
2 This story, with all sorts of variations, is very widely spread in
the East, but it can hardly rest on an historical fact.
3 Arrian, vii. 17, 2; Strabo, 738.
' after the heavy losses by storms at Eubcea, losses, however,
which the Greeks no doubt exaggerated, it must with rein
forcements have numbered fully 1000 ships of war, — a force
too large to operate, at least in a single mass, in the narrow
Greek seas. Moreover, it was without an able head. If
the ships furnished by the Phoenicians and the subject
Greeks were fairly a match for those of the free Greeks,
on the other hand the Persians, Medes, and Sacaj who
manned the fleet as soldiers probably cut but a sorry figure,
and the Persian officers associated with the native ship
captains cannot have contributed to the more efficient
working of these powerful engines of war. Again, the
army, which in any case numbered over a million men,
was far too numerous to find sufficient sustenance for any
length of time, in spite of the frugal habits which mostly
characterize Asiatics. To this must be added the circum
stance that the levies were drawn from peoples many of
whom were totally unused to the Greek climate. Famine
and pestilence must have wrought dreadful havoc among
the soldiers. By far the most of them were a useless rabble.
Of the Asiatics proper probably only some Persian and
Median regiments of guards were well armed, but even
they were not to be compared, man for man, with the
heavy-armed soldier-citizens of Greece. Moreover, in the
use of their weapons on land the Greeks, and above all
the Spartans, were far superior to all the Persians. Even
the Greeks on the Persian side were no match for the
Greeks of Europe ; some of them fought half-heartedly,
and an anxious watch was kept on them, so that they were
more a hindrance than a help. If the Persians were kept
well informed of the enemy's affairs by means of traitorous
Greeks, much more so were the Greeks through deserters
and friends in the enemy's camp. Even when the Persians
were driven by necessity to take the resolution of sending
back all worthless troops, and when the king had fled.
Greece was still in great danger, for an able man, Mar
donius, now stood with the best part of the army in the
heart of the country. But even with a defeat at Plata?a
all would not have been over, for the enemy was without
his fleet. Add to all this the excellent bearing of those
Greeks who remained faithful to their fatherland. Exem
plary above all was the conduct of Athens ; she durst not
allow the laurels won at Marathon to wither. The Spartans,
too, with their morbidly exaggerated sense of military
honour, earned immortal renown. Even petty Greek
communities like Thespise, Tegea, and JEgina came glori
ously to the front. At the head of the Greeks stood many
distinguished men, above all Themistocles. On the whole,
we may say that here Greek intellect, Greek valour, and
Greek virtue triumphed over the spiritless and helpless
hordes of Asiatic slaves.
Here and there a modern 4 has expressed the opinion
that the conquest of the Greeks by the Persians would
have been no such great misfortune after all, inasmuch
as the intellectual superiority of the former would have
asserted itself even under a foreign dominion, especially
as the Persians were not regular barbarians ; but this
opinion is entirely false. Only in a free country could
the Greek spirit fully unfold itself, only in democratic
Athens could it accomplish its highest work and achieve
imperishable results for all time. In the externals of
civilization the Asiatics might, in some respects, be actu
ally the superiors of the Greeks ; but genuine free human
culture first arose among the latter, and if there was one
pride that was justified it was that of the cultivated Greeks
as against all barbarians. The Greeks themselves had no
inkling of the high sense in wrhich the watchword at
Salamis, " All is at stake " (yEschyl., Pers., 405), was ap
plicable to the whole of human culture.
4 E.g., Maspero, Hist, ancienne des peuples de I 'Orient, chap. xiv.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
573
King Xerxes had shown himself in the war a thoroughly
commonplace Eastern despot, as boastful as he was effemi
nate. The dreadful sacrifice described by Herodotus (vii.
114) may be excused on the ground of religious supersti
tion, but the mutilation of the corpse of Leonidas and the
decapitation of the Phoenicians who commanded the fleet
show the spirit of the man. His disgraceful flight must
have been welcome to Mardonius. The latter fell like a
man at Platsea ; indeed the battle of Platsea did honour
to a large part of the vanquished. Of course great masses
I'euns of the vast army returned to Asia, several doubtless still in
irin good order, but many, very many, must have perished in
} Greece, and in Thrace, where the savage Thracians cut off
large numbers of the fugitives.
The Greek fleet did not at first venture to pursue the
Persians to Asia, but afterwards it crossed at the request
of the Greek islanders. At the headland of Mycale, not
far from Miletus, the remainder of the Persian fleet was
annihilated just about the time of the battle of Plateea.
The liberation of the islands and of the greater part of
the Greek cities on the coast of Thrace followed. Thrace
and Macedonia regained their independence without any
effort of their own. The whole of the islands were per
manently wrested from the Persians, and the liberation of
the Asiatic coast was already begun.
We stand here at the decisive turning-point of Persian
history. Henceforward Greece might be coveted and
designs against it cherished, but no enterprises were under
taken. The Persians were thrown back upon the defensive.
Though they often afterwards exercised an influence on
the history of Hellas by means of money or diplomacy,
still the respect for their fighting power was gone, and so
far it is possible to regard Alexander's expedition as a
result and continuation of the old struggles, and the saying
of ^Eschylus, " In Salamis the power of the Persians lies
buried," may be called prophetic.1
Xerxes was still in Sardis when his full brother Masistes
came thither with the beaten forces from Mycale. Dis
quieted probably by the neighbourhood of the victors, the
king retired into the depths of Asia. About the same
time he deeply offended Masistes on a point of family
honour ; in revenge Masistes intended to go to his province
of Bactria and there raise a revolt, but was cut down by
horsemen despatched after him (Herod., vii. 108 sq.). This
story (like that told by Herodotus in iv. 13) exhibits all
those horrors of a later age which Ctesias loves • to paint.
The idea of a revolt, moreover, was not far to seek after
the profound humiliation inflicted by the Greek war and the
dreadful losses of men, — how many Sogdianians, Indians,
and Nubians can have returned to their homes 1 The in
habitants of distant frontier lands may even then have
severed their connexion with Persia, and even then mountain
and desert tribes in the very heart of the empire may have
regained their full independence.
Unfortunately the work of Herodotus breaks off abruptly
with the battle of Mycale, and with it our only continuous
ancient history of the empire comes to an end. The frag
ments of Ctesias and the occasional statements of other
writers can only, to a small extent, supply the deficiency.
Henceforward we possess tolerable information on the
f.hifting relations between the Persian empire and the
Greek states, but on little else.
'au- Under the conduct of Pausanias, the victor of Plattea,
lnias- the Greeks sailed (477) first to Cyprus and then to By
zantium. At the capture of the latter many distinguished
Persians fell into their hands, and Pausanias, who must have
appeared to Xerxes as a sort of king of Greece, took advan
tage of this opportunity to open a correspondence with
1 JEschyl., Pers., 596 sq. The brevity and simplicity of the expres
sion ^xe' Tb nepcrCy cannot be rendered in any modern language.
the Persian monarch. Artabazus, son of the Pharnaces 479-464.
who had held a command under Mardonius, received the
satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia (where his family retained
the power thenceforward down to the fall of the empire),
for the purpose of conducting the negotiations. The
definite statements of Thucydides leave no doubt as to
Pausanias's guilt. In particular the king's letter (i. 129)
bears every mark of genuineness. Happily he proved
himself a clumsy intriguer, and when long afterwards in
Sparta retribution at last overtook him he had ceased to
be dangerous, at least for the freedom of Greece as a
whole. The conduct of Pausanias, together with a want
of inclination and capacity for distant naval expeditions,
caused the Spartans to resign the conduct of the maritime
war against Persia. They withdrew, and the command
passed into the hands of the Athenians (476). The naval
power of Sparta was quite insignificant, and was certainly
surpassed by that of some of her allies, such as yEgina
and Corinth ; and the advantage to Persia of the absence
of the Peloponnesian fleet was far more than counter
balanced by the circumstance that the Greek naval forces
were now under a single energetic leadership, which aimed
at nothing less than the exclusion of the enemy from all
Greek seas and coasts. The war lasted for a long time,
but few of its details are known to us, though the scanty
statements of the Greek writers are partly illustrated by
Attic inscriptions. The European coast was soon completely
cleared. Eion fell after an arduous siege (about 470).
Doriscus alone continued for long to be a Persian possession.
The most brilliant episode of this period of the war is the Cimon's
great naval expedition of Cimon.2 He liberated the Greek liaval
cities of the Carian and Lycian coast, and took the bilingual exp OI s<
towns, which were occupied by a Persian force ; all were
incorporated in an Attic maritime league. The important
Phaselis on the borders of Lycia and Pamphylia also fell
into his hands. At the mouth of the Eurymedon the Persian
fleet, under a son and a nephew of Xerxes, was defeated and
destroyed, and a land-victory for the Greeks followed im
mediately. Upon this Cimon sailed hastily for Cyprus,
where he captured eighty ships. Here for once the Greeks
were numerically superior, but nevertheless it was a great
exploit to have advanced victoriously so far beyond their
own waters.
About this time Xerxes was assassinated. From various Xerxes
writers we can piece together an account of this event by assassin-
Ctesias, and another by Dinon,3 which differ from each
other in numerous particulars; a third version is given
by Aristotle (Pol., p. 1311 b). For such scenes, occurring
in the interior of the seraglio, an outsider is not a trust
worthy authority, but this much is clear : Xerxes was
killed by Artabanus, captain of the body-guard ; his
youngest son Artaxerxes, in league with the murderer,
put to death his elder brother Darius, who had a better
title to the throne. It does not, however, follow with
certainty that Artaxerxes was a parricide. We have here
a change of sovereign of the sort which abounds in Oriental
history. Artabanus was soon afterwards put out of the
way by Artaxerxes. Later chronologists represent him as
actually reigning for seven months, but this is probably a
mistaken interpretation of expressions used by Dinon.
Artaxerxes (Artakhshathra*} I. came to the throne in Arta-
464. His surname "Longhand" (MaK-po^ei/)), which xerxes I.
seems to have been first mentioned by Dinon, has no
doubt a symbolical meaning, " of far-reaching power," but
later Greek writers took it literally. Ctesias tells of a
2 About 465. Perhaps it falls within the reign of Artaxerxes.
3 He wrote in the time of Alexander.
4 A second form, Arlakhshasht, is represented by Hebrew and
Egyptian forms, and by 'Apra£e cFff-rjt on a Greek inscription (Le Bas
and Waddington, No. 1651).
ated.
574
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
464-445. rising of the Bactrians immediately after his accession to
the throne, which may have been instigated by Hystaspes,
the king's elder brother, who was then in his satrapy of
Bactria (Diod., xi. 69). Two battles took place, the
second of which ended in a decisive victory for the
royalists, so that Bactria was once more reduced to sub
jection.
In the early part of the reign of Artaxerxes falls the
appearance of Themistocles at the Persian court ; so say
the contemporary Charon of Lampsacus (Plut., Tkemist.,
27), and also Tlmcydides (i. 137).; to their authority that of
all later writers, who here mention Xerxes, must give way.
On calmly weighing the trustworthy accounts and taking
into consideration the circumstance that even at a later
time Themistocles as a " traitor " was refused a grave in
Attic earth, we can hardly avoid concluding that the
gifted saviour of Greece, the founder of the Attic sea-
power, a man far superior intellectually to Pausanias,
but of boundless ambition, and with a strong propensity
to intrigue, was really guilty of entering into traitorous
communication with the Persians in his own interest.
Certainly he knew admirably how to give himself out as
an old friend of the Persians,1 and to hold out to them the
prospect of still doing them valuable service against his
countrymen. The king gave him Magnesia on the
Maeander in Lydia and two other towns ; as the tyrant
of these places under Persian supremacy the victor of
Salamis lived some time longer.2 Like this illustrious
fugitive, other Greek exiles or adventurers came to the
Persian court from time to time, and played there occa
sionally a certain role.
Second Hardly was Artaxerxes seated on the throne when the
Egyptian second great revolt of Egypt broke out. Inarus, son of
revolt. Psammetichus, a Libyan prince, placed himself at the head
of the Egyptians and was made king of the whole country.
The satrap Achsemenes, son of Darius, fell in battle. Inarus
summoned to his aid the Athenians, who were still at Avar
with the Persians, and the Athenians were rash enough to
involve themselves in the struggle (about 460). They had
just come once more to Cyprus with 200 ships. They
sailed to Egypt, and with the help of the Egyptians shut
up the Persians and the Egyptians who sided with them in
the castle of Memphis. Persia had recourse to diplomacy :
an embassy was sent to Sparta in order to stir up the Spar
tans to make a vigorous diversion against Athens. When
this attempt failed, a large army was at last despatched
under Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, which subdued the
country after hard fighting ; for, with all their hatred of
the Persians, the Egyptians were no match for them in
battle. The Athenians in Egypt were annihilated (prob
ably 455) ; the same fate befell a reinforcement of fifty
ships. Inarus fell by treachery into the hands of the
Persians and was crucified. His son Thannyras, however,
received (Herod., iii. 15) his original province (probably
the Libyan nome), which points to the war having been
concluded by a treaty, of which Ctesias also makes mention.
In the swamps of the Delta Amyrtaeus (Amun-art-rut)
maintained himself as an independent king ; and by him
the Athenians were once more invited to Egypt (450 or
449). Cimon, who was again at Cyprus with 200 ships,
despatched sixty to his help, but they soon returned,
probably without accomplishing much. Cimon died during
the siege of Citium, one of the most important cities of
Cyprus, and the mainstay of the Phoenician nationality on
1 But the letter in Thuc., i. 137, cannot be regarded as an authentic
document.
2 Here, too, he coined money. Of the two specimens known to us,
one is plated, "which seems to show that with the coinage the
cunning Athenian combined a financial speculation," Brandis, Munz-,
Mass-, und Gewichtwesen V order asiens, p. 459.
that island. The Athenians raised the siege, but achieved
on their retreat once more a brilliant victory by sea and
land.3
These are the last contests of the Athenians and their Peace
allies with the Persians. Peace must have been concluded hetweo
shortly aftersvards. We cannot here enumerate and criticize *?*
the arguments which have often been adduced for and Atheni
against the supposition that a regular peace (though not
a " peace of Cimon ") was concluded. No one probably
would have questioned the reality of such a peace were it
not that the Attic orators of the 4th century, by grossly
exaggerating the terms of a treaty which in their time had
long been a dead letter, had rendered the very existence
of the treaty open to suspicion, and that the able historian
Theopompus, moved apparently by dislike of the Athenian
democracy and a desire to gratify his powerful patron,
King Alexander, had attempted by false though learned
arguments to disprove the genuineness of the original
treaty of peace, of which only a copy was extant in his
time. The text of the original document was given by the
best authority on Attic decrees, Craterus.4 It is hardly
conceivable that the great war should have died out of
itself without the Athenians getting some security that
their possessions and their widely ramifying commerce
would be left unmolested. Moreover, all that we are told
or can infer as to the contents of the treaty agrees perfectly
with the political relations of the time. The treaty was
not at all in the spirit of the high-flying plans of Cimon's
party ; for, while the Persians acknowledged the independ
ence of the Greek towns on the west coast, including the
Lycian, and pledged themselves to send no ships of war
into Greek waters, the Athenians in return renounced all
rights in the eastern seas. The most sagacious of the
Athenians had perceived that Cyprus, and much more
Egypt and Phoenicia, lay outside the natural sphere of
Athenian power. We can understand, however, that Callias,
the author of the treaty, earned the dislike of the Athenians
for his pains. The balance of advantages secured by the
peace was on the side of Athens, but the Persians resigned
nothing which they actually possessed, and they were now
secured against Athenian raids. It was certainly anomalous
that the great empire Avhich owned the rest of Asia Minor
should have no rights over the narrow strip of coast, which
could everywhere be overlooked from the interior. Even
the capital of the Hellespontine-Phrygian satrapy, Dascyl-
ium, from which that province is sometimes called Dascyl-
itis, was now a member of the Attic naval confederacy.
The satraps were still obliged as before to pay to the king
the taxes due from the coast-lands, and this must have
been a constant incitement to them to reconquer those
lands. There was no Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The
Greek towns on its coast were free, and some of them
belonged to the Athenian league and were occasionally
visited by Athenian war- ships. At most a portion of the
natives of the countries round about the Black Sea were
in a state of loose dependence on the Persian empire. In
Lycia and Caria there were districts which obeyed neither
the king nor Athens, or at least were not closely dependent
on any foreign power.5
The condition of Egypt at this time is very obscure.
Amyrtasus had no doubt been finally overthrown by the
Persians, but his son Pausiris was left by them in posses
sion of his father's kingdom. In the year 445 we find an
Egyptian or Libyan king, Psammetichus, who presented
the Athenians with a great quantity of corn.0 This was
3 The epigram which Diodorus (xi. 62) wrongly applies to the battle
of the Eurymedon refers to this battle.
4 Shortly after Alexander. 5 Compare Thuc. , ii. 69; iii. 19.
6 Philochorus, in schol. Aristoph. Vcsp., 716 ; schol. Aristoph. 1'lnt.,
178 ; Plut., Pericles, 37.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
575
perhaps another son of Inarus. But we know nothing
more of him and his reign.
The conclusion of peace did not prevent the Persians,
or at least individual satraps, from occasionally supporting
enemies of Athens. Samian oligarchs, with the help of
Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis, made themselves masters of
the island (440 or 439), and estranged it from Athens. The
Athenians feared that a Phoenician fleet might come to
the help of the oligarchs, but not a Persian interfered
when they reduced the island once more to subjection.
About 430 Colophon was made over to Itamenes (no doubt
a Persian general or governor) and the barbarians by a party
among the inhabitants favourable to Persia, and thereupon
Notium,1 a dependency of Colophon, was also occupied
by the royalists, for thither also Pissuthnes despatched
Persian troops, who entrenched themselves in the town.
Amongst these troops were Arcadian mercenaries. This
is the first undoubted mention of Greek mercenaries in
Persian pay ; henceforward they play a very great part
in the history of the empire. The Persian rulers had
observed how far superior the Greeks were to the Asiatics,
and in Greece there were always plenty of stout fellows who
were impelled by political events, the love of adventure,
or poverty to enter foreign service as soldiers of fortune.
Most of them came from the Peloponnesus, presumably from
the mountains of Arcadia, which yielded but a scanty sub
sistence to its inhabitants. The Athenian party in Notium
called in the Athenian admiral Paches ; by shameful per
fidy he made himself master of the entrenchments, and
put the garrison to the sword. With Notium, Colophon
was now once more a member of the Athenian league.
No further consequences followed from these hostilities.
During the early years of the Peloponnesian War the
Spartans repeatedly held communications with the Persians,
whose assistance they desired against Athens. These
negotiations were, for the time being, without result. The
Spartan diplomatists were unskilful, and the Persian
authorities were cowardly, indolent, ignorant, and selfish.2
The impecunious Peloponnesians wished above all for
Persian gold, and, moreover, for the Phoenician war-ships.
The Athenians also tried to tap the inexhaustible source
of wealth for their own benefit, but of course in vain.3
Of the internal state of the empire during the long
reign of Artaxerxes I. we know very little. Ctesias, or
rather the extract of him made, not always carefully, by
Photius, tells us indeed various stories, but he jumbles
together fact and fiction, history and anecdote. Of most
importance is the quarrel of Megabyzus, conqueror of
Egypt, with the Persian court ; he maintained a rebellion
for several years in Syria, till at last, after several conflicts,
a full pardon was assured him by treaty. It is not im
probable that this war was the occasion of the destruction
of the walls and gates of Jerusalem lamented by Nehemiah
(in the year 445). According to Ctesias, Megabyzus after
wards fell into disgrace again, but was again taken into
favour. In all these complications an important part is
played by those cruel, intriguing, dissolute women, the
queen -mother Amestris, daughter of Otanes, of whose
character we get a very unpleasing view from Herodotus
(vii. 114; ix. 109 sq.\ and her daughter Amytis, wife of
Megabyzus. Even without an exact knowledge of the
circumstances, we can well understand how it was that
Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus, came to take refuge in Athens.
He fell while attempting, in company with the Athenians,
1 In addition to purely political opposition, the local jealousy be
tween Notium and its "superior town" Colophon had its share in
the matter. See Avistot., Pol., p. 1303 b.
2 See Thuc., ii. 67 ; iii. 31 ; iv. 50.
3 Aristophanes, iu the Acharnians (represented January B.C.),
ridicules these long and fruitless negotiations of the Greeks with the
Persian king.
to capture Caunus (in Caria), which had revolted. His 445-410.
grandmother Amestris got the Carian who had killed him
into her power and had him crucified.
From Nehemiah's memoirs we see that in those days
one who was not a Persian might not only fill the tolerably
high office of cupbearer 4 in the royal household, but might
also become deputy-governor over his fellow-countrymen.
The history of Ctesias, untrustworthy as it is in par
ticulars, shows us the manner of life at court. Artaxerxes
I. was a very weak man, and women and favourites took
the government out of his hands. Still, he may have
deserved the praise, often bestowed on him, of good-nature.
He may also have been of stately presence ; as an Iranian
chief he was doubtless an excellent huntsman 5 ; but his
"incredibilis virtus belli" (Nepos, De regibus, 1) is precisely
"incredibilis." In reading the eulogies of Persian kings
we must always remember that the ultimate sources of
writers like Ctesias and Dinon are court news, wherein
even the deceased kings are spoken of in a courtly tone.
Artaxerxes died in 424. His successor, Xerxes II., the Xerxes
only one of his eighteen sons who was legitimate,6 was H-
murdered after a month and a half by his brother Secy-
dianus or Sogdianus. But after six and a half months 7
the murderer was in his turn overthrown by his brother
Ochus, satrap of Hyrcania, and, in violation of solemn
oaths, put to death.8 Ochus assumed the name of Darius,
ascending the throne about the beginning of the year 423.9
Darius II. is called Nothus or Syrus,10 because his mother Darius
was a Babylonian concubine. From the first mention of II.
him by Ctesias his wife and sister Parysatis appears as the
prompter of all his acts and all his crimes ; and this mis
chievous woman possessed the greatest influence for many
years. The king's full brother Arsites, in conjunction
with another son of Megabyzus, Artyphius, raised the
standard of revolt, probably in Syria. But his Greek
soldiers were bribed, and thus he fell into the hands of
the royalists, and, in violation of the oath, was put to
death at the instigation of Parysatis. The same fate
befell some of those who had taken part in the murder of
Xerxes II. Darius had presumably come forward from
the beginning as his avenger. Soon after 410 the great
revolt of the Egyptians was successfully accomplished.
The first independent king was called Amyrtaus, and was
presumably a grandson or other relative of the former
Amyrtaeus. The deep decay of the Persian military power
is proved by the fact that for sixty years it failed to reduce
the unwarlike Egyptians, though the latter Avere frequently
divided amongst themselves by internal dissension and
double rulers.
The above-mentioned Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis, had
also revolted. Tissaphernes, who here appears for the first
time, put down the rebellion by the usual means of bribery
and perjury ; the Athenian Lycon, leader of Pissuthnes's
Greek mercenaries, plays a far from honourable part in
the affair. The events fall after 424, and at least some
years before 412. But Pissuthnes's son Amorges continued
4 Cp. Herod., iii. 34, and Nicol. Damasc. (i.e., Ctesias), 64.
5 Cp. the anecdote of Ctesias in Photius about his lion hunt.
6 This probably means that the wife who bore him was of a noble
Persian famity.
7 No reliance is to be placed on these numbers in Ctesias. Others
assign to the two monarchs two and seven months respectively. In
any case they did not together reign a full year, since the astronomical
canon ignores them.
8 Cp. also Pausauias, vi. 5, 3, where probably we should read 267-
diov with Bekker.
9 The beginning of 411 falls, according to the document in Thnc.,
viii. 58, in his thirteenth year ; this is probably a reckoning which
begins the year with the spring, and accordingly reckons his first year
(or rather the year in which he came to the throne) from the spring
of 424 to 423. The astronomical canon begins the year of his accession
with 7th December 424.
J0 Hypothesis of ^Eschyl. , Pers., and schol. on v. 6.
576
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
410-401. the revolt in Caria, and was supported therein by the
Athenians, perhaps because they already knew for certain
that Tissaphernes was preparing to help the Spartans.1
Relations When the power of Athens seemed annihilated by the
Yith dreadful catastrophe in Sicily, the Persians expected to
Sparta. regajn tjie w}loie sea-coast. Tissaphernes, satrap of Sardis,
and his rival Pharnabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia,
vied with each other in invoking the help of the Spartans.
The party hostile to Athens in the cities of the mainland
and in the islands displayed great zeal in bringing about
the alliance. Moreover, the no less able than infamous
Alcibiades strained every nerve to secure so favourable
an opportunity of distinguishing himself personally and
injuring his native city. Not without reluctance the
Spartans resolved on a decisive step. They might have
known beforehand that they would only receive real sup
port from the Persians on condition of surrendering to
them a great portion of the Greek cities which had once
been freed by Athens, though now mostly hostile to her.
They chose to attach themselves to the more powerful but,
as it soon appeared, wholly untrustworthy Tissaphernes
rather than to Pharnabazus. Of course the confederates
did the Athenians much damage, and wrested from them
a great part of their domain. The Lacedaemonians actually
served the satrap as catchpolls against Amorges, who
resided in lassus near Miletus, and so he could be taken
captive and carried alive to the king. But the Athenians
still exhibited astonishing endurance and resource. It is
true that neither of the confederates meant honestly by
the other. Whether from avarice or mere whim, Tissa
phernes supplied the Peloponnesians in insufficient measure
with money and stores, and Avithout these they were not
in a position to wage war in Asia. The intrigues of Alci
biades contributed to sow mistrust and confusion. The
Spartan leaders repeatedly concluded treaties with the
satrap, but they were not ratified. At last it was agreed
that the whole mainland of Asia, and therefore all the
Greek cities there, should belong to the king, but that in
return for this the Persians should give the Spartans
effective help. If Tissaphernes had rapidly and energetic
ally carried out the terms of this treaty, the war might
perhaps have been ended quickly enough. But to keep
faith was contrary to the nature of the man. Moreover,
he had probably promised more than lie could perform :
to bring up the great Phoenician fleet was not quite in his
power. The Phoenicians themselves, and perhaps high
Persian lords also, had certainly little desire to engage
again the Attic galleys which had handled them so roughly
at the Eurymedon and at Cyprus. Pharnabazus supported
the Spartans much more honourably and effectively. This
he showed especially when the Athenians were again mak
ing steady progress (410) under the leadership of Alci
biades after his return. The Athenians now devastated
the king's territory in various places, and Pharnabazus
had at length to engage to forward Athenian envoys to
the king for the purpose of conducting negotiations for a
peace (409) at the court itself. But events now took a
decisive turn. Cyrus, the king's son, was made satrap of
Lydia, Great Phrygia, and Cappadocia, and commander-
in-chief of all the troops in Asia Minor, Tissaphernes re
taining only the coast-cities (408). Cyrus possessed burn
ing ambition, and longed to avenge the defeats which his
house had experienced at the hands of the Athenians.
Hence he sought to unite himself closely with the Spartans.
Just at this time the command fell to the cunning, ener
getic, and unscrupulous Lysander. These two men were
the ruin of Athens. Cyrus granted Lysander, who had
1 On the other hand, Andocides (De pace, p. 27), twenty years later,
it is true, represents the support given to Amorges rather as the cause
of the king's enmity to the Athenians.
completely won his affection, all the money he wanted,
and when after Lysander's temporary recall the relations
with Sparta were disturbed, because the noble Callicratidas
did not care to play the courtier to the barbarians, the
return of Lysander sufficed to put everything on its former
footing. When Cyrus was summoned to the bedside of
Darius (either really ill or pretending to be so), he left his
Spartan friend the most abundant resources and the fullest
authority. With this help Lysander succeeded in at last
compelling Athens, now completely isolated, to accept the
melancholy peace of March 404. Even after all the mis
fortunes of Athens it was only Persian gold which enabled
the Spartans to humble her.
According to Ctesias, Terituchmes revolted against King
Darius, caused his wife Amestris, daughter of the king
and Parysatis, to be put to death, but was himself slain
by treachery. This event, garnished in the usual manner
with a full measure of perfidy and cruelty, is perhaps to
be connected with the unsuccessful revolt of the Medes
mentioned by Xenophon (Hell., i. 2, 19) under the year
410/409. In the fall of Terituchmes his sister Statira,
wife of the king's eldest son Arsicas,2 was nearly involved ;
thenceforward the bitterest hatred subsisted between Pary
satis and her daughter-in-law Statira.
About the time of the conclusion of peace between Arta-
Athens and Sparta Darius II. died. Arsicas ascended xerxe
the throne under the name of Artaxerxes (II).3 The sur
name " Mnemon " (the mindful) seems again to have been
first mentioned by Dinon.4 The younger and much abler
son Cyrus, preferred by Parysatis, came with 300 Greek Cyrni
mercenaries, no doubt to seize the throne, but he was too tlie
late. Tissaphernes, professedly the friend of Cyrus, sa
warned the king against him, and with good reason.
Cyrus was arrested, but at the instance of Parysatis he
was released and sent back to his satrapy, — a very unwise
measure, for his ambition was only inflamed by his im
prisonment and by his exasperation against Tissaphernes.
Meantime Lysander lorded it over the Greeks, He
even possessed sufficient influence to induce Pharnabazus,
who in other respects was remarkably respectable 5 for a
satrap, to violate the law of hospitality by causing Alci
biades to be put to death. But even the patience of
Pharnabazus was at last worn out by Lysander ; he urgently
demanded the recall of the latter, and the Spartans, who
had allowed the atrocities of Lysander towards the Greeks
to pass unnoticed, respected the satrap's demand, and re
called their admiral (402 or 401).
No sooner was Cyrus in his satrapy again than he began
to make great encroachments. He gained over the Ionian
cities which belonged to the province of Tissaphernes and
laid siege to Miletus, which adhered to Tissaphernes. On
Orontes, a partisan of the latter, he made open war. Mean
time he collected under false pretexts an army of Greek
mercenaries, and in 401 set out with the real purpose of
seizing the throne. He had with him nearly 13,000
Greek mercenaries commanded by Clearchus, a Spartan
exile, and a vast host of Asiatics. But Tissaphernes
hastened into the interior before him to carry the tidings.
Of this expedition we have the well-known account by
Xenophon, who took part in it.6 The Spartans favoured
2 Arsikas is the form in Ctesias ; Plut., Art., 1. From this Photius
has wrongly made Arsakes. Dinon called him Oarses. The initial
sound was perhaps w.
3 At the very beginning of the new reign Ctesias has again some
dreadful stories of murder and intrigue to tell. As court physician of
Parysatis he had seen only too much of such things, which are charac
teristic of the Persian court.
4 See Plut., I.e.
5 But the worth of his character has been often over-estimated ; the
contrast with the baseness of Tissaphernes is apt to place Pharnabazus
in too favourable a light.
6 Good supplementary information is given by Diodorus, who has
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
577
the enterprise of their friend, but without openly breaking
r ie en with the king. Cyrus advanced boldly, confident in the
r ic military superiority of the Greeks ; but he had some trouble
i: Ul in carrying them with him as far as Syria and Babylonia,
for they were not engaged for so distant a goal. He made
his way without difficulty into the heart of the empire.
Neither the passes of the Taurus leading from Cappadocia
into Cilicia nor those of the Amanus from Cilicia into Syria
were blocked. The vassal-prince of Cilicia, Syennesis, put
a good face on a bad business and let him through. Even
the line of defence between Babylonia and the Mesopota-
mian desert was unoccupied. At Cunaxa, 500 stadia from
Babylon,1 they came upon the mighty royalist army. The
Greeks carried everything before them ; the king proved
a miserable coward and fled. But, in fighting the Asiatic
rabble, Clearchus seems to have adhered too pedantically to
the cautious Spartan tactics, and not to have dashed with
sufficient rapidity at the enemy's centre. Cyrus, however,
rushed foolhardily into the melee and there fell.
Even if we deduct much from Xenophon's idealistic
portrait, we must still admit that Cyrus was a very able
and in many respects honourable man, far worthier of the
throne than his brother. From his grim mother he probably
inherited his spirit and energy. Certainly none of the
kings after Darius I. can be compared with him, except
perhaps Artaxerxes III. But for Greece, as Grote shows,
it was very fortunate that at that time the kingdom of
Persia did not fall to a man whose most ardent endeavour
it would have been to bring the Greeks into subjugation
to himself, and who had learned in the school of Lysander
and elsewhere the best means of accomplishing that object.
Cyrus's Greeks were an object of terror to the king's
troops. All the deception and crimes employed against
them had their source in cowardice. The king's hosts
were reinforced by the army of Cyrus, which after their
leader's fall passed over to the enemy ; but all these
Asiatics trembled before the dauntless Greek mercenaries,
comparatively few in number as they were and strangers
to the country. It is characteristic of the state of the
empire that Tissaphernes allowed the Greeks to plunder
the villages which were the special property of Parysatis ;
he probably thought that with the death of her favourite
son her power was broken, while he himself had succeeded
in appearing as the deliverer of the empire. After elect
ing fresh leaders in place of those who were foully assas
sinated, the "ten thousand" made themselves a way through
wild mountains and wild peoples ; they had to endure a
thousand dangers and hardships, but from the king's forces
they experienced no serious hindrance.
This expedition revealed to the Greeks the weakness of
the empire and the cowardice of its rulers and defenders.
Cyrus had penetrated to its centre without striking a blow,
and an army of ordinary Greek mercenaries proved itself
more than a match for the power of the whole empire. It
was perceived how helpless the colossus was; it was perceived
that great territories, which had been regarded as royal
provinces, were completely independent.2 Independent
at that time were the predatory Mysians (in Olympus),
Pisidians, and Lycaonians ; :J the Lycians (entirely 1) and
the Bithynians and Paphlagonians half and half, — the last
two peoples had kings of their own ; further, the Greek
indirectly made use of the narrative of another writer who shared in
the expedition.
1 So says Ctesias, who knew the country. Xenophon says 360
stadia. These figures are equal to nearly 58 and 42 English miles
respectively, — about 93 and 67 kilometres.
2 On the effect produced by the expedition, see Xenophon, Hell.,
vi. I, 12 ; Isocrates, passim.
3 At least in part ; such mountain peoples did not, of course, form
integral wholes, and, if one tribe was independent, another may have
obeyed the satrap.
cities on the Euxine ; finally, the Carduchi and other wild 401-394.
peoples in the south and north-west of Armenia.
The death of Cyrus widened the breach between Parysatis
and Statira. The former could not forget her dailinc, and
succeeded in bringing to a cruel end one after another all
who had participated in his death. Statira was exultant ;
but she was eventually poisoned by her mother-in-law.
Artaxerxes was indignant at this deed and banished Pary
satis for ever from his sight ; but he could not live without
the firm guidance of his mother, and soon recalled her.
Tissaphernes succeeded to all the privileges of the post
which Cyrus had occupied. This could not but hasten
the inevitable conflict with Sparta, which now, at the War
height of her power, could not bring herself to fulfil the ™lth
treaty and resign to the Persians all the Greek cities of ' *Jar
Asia Minor. The Greeks expected to be protected by Sparta
against Tissaphernes, who was already enforcing his rights
with the strong arm, and the war which the Spartans began
in 401 against the Persians in Asia Minor was no doubt
popular, but as a land-power with limited resources they
were not in a position to conduct much more than a purely
predatory war. The state of Ionia and ^Eolis must have
changed very much for the worse since the termination of
the Attic supremacy, and the Asiatic Greeks were now
perhaps for the most part unworthy of the blood that
ran in streams on their behalf. Tissaphernes and Phar-
nabazus sought each to shift upon the other the burden
of the war, the conduct of which was not essentially
altered when the command of the Spartans devolved on
Agesilaus (396), who strove in vain to give the struggle
the prestige of a Pan-hellenic enterprise. But, when Agesi
laus had gained a great victory close to Sardis, Tissaphernes,
who had meantime, more from cowardice than treachery,
remained inactive in Sardis, was quietly displaced by a
successor in the person of Tithraustes, who succeeded in
seizing and executing him.4 The real cause of his fall was
the hatred of Parysatis. The game of treaties, which neither
side meant to keep, and the efforts of the one satrap to
thrust the Spartans upon the other, began afresh. In
course of time Agesilaus certainly gained ground rapidly.
But his successes were in part much exaggerated even by
contemporaries.5 On the whole, they were predatory ex
peditions on a large scale, which showed with ever greater
clearness the weakness of the empire, but did not directly
affect its stability. Even after his great victory, Agesilaus
did not venture to attack Sardis— a striking contrast to
the speed and thoroughness with which Alexander took
possession of these lands. In 394 Agesilaus was recalled,
for Sparta needed him in Europe more than in Asia ; the
intolerable nature of the Spartan supremacy had done more
than Persian gold to rouse even the proved allies of Sparta,
such as the Thebans and Corinthians, into leaguing them
selves with Athens in revolt. When Agesilaus reached the
frontier of Boeotia he heard the dreadful tidings of Cnidus.
After the decisive defeat at ^Egospotami the admiral of
the Athenian fleet, Conon, had fled to Evagoras, prince
of Salarnis in Cyprus. Evagoras, a tyrant of the " grand "
type like Pisistratus or Gelo, favoured Conon's efforts to
enter into relations with the Persian king with a view to
raise Athens from her fall. When the war between Persia
and Sparta broke out, Pharnabazus had made it clear to
the court that it was absolutely necessary to raise a fleet,
and that no better commander could be found for it than
the tried sailor-hero of Athens. Under the leadership of
such a man the Persians actually dared to send Phoenician
ships once more into those Greek waters which they had
long anxiously avoided. But Conon's successes, such especi
ally as the revolt of Rhodes from Sparta (probably in 396),
4 See Diod., xiv. 80 ; Pint., Art., 23 ; Polyoeuus, vii. 16, 1
5 Isocrates, Paney , 70.
XVIII. — 73
578
394-376. were crippled by the miserable Oriental administration,
e.g., the tardiness in paying the men. Hereupon Conon
went himself to the king at Babylon, obtained a grant of
the necessary money and powers and the king's consent to
bestow the nominal command of the fleet upon the trust
worthy Pharnabazus. Then at the head of the Persian
fleet the Athenian admiral utterly defeated the Spartans
at Cnidus (beginning of August 394). In a short time
nearly all the islands and cities on the Asiatic coast were
freed from the Spartan prefects ("harmosts"), and Conon
carried his point of nowhere occupying the citadels with
Persian garrisons. The Spartan sovereignty of the seas,
after lasting ten years, was over for ever. Pharnabazus
sailed to the Peloponnesus (393), and at Corinth was joy
fully greeted by the Greeks gathered for the Avar with
Sparta. He supplied them liberally with money and then
returned home, while Conon restored the marine fortifi
cations of Athens. Thus as a matter of fact a Persian
fleet now ruled the Archipelago, but it was a menace
and danger to Greek freedom no more. It was only with
Greek help, under the leadership of a man like Conon,
that the king's ships could still achieve much.
As the land-war in Greece dragged on for a long time,
the Spartans had again recourse to diplomacy. The new
satrap in Sardis, Tiribazus, who in some measure revived
the vacillating policy of Tissaphernes, met their advances.
He overthrew Conon, who escaped death at his hands
only with extreme difficulty and fled to Evagoras, at whose
court he must have died soon afterwards.1 But Tiribazus
soon received in the person of Struthas a successor more
favourably disposed to Athens. Many conflicts of Greeks
against Greeks still took place by land and sea, but all the
belligerents were exhausted, at least financially. So, when
the Spartans at last succeeded through their ambassador
Peace of Antalcidas and through Tiribazus in bringing about a
Antal- peace, all the more important states of Greece found
:idas. themselves obliged to accede to it, however unwillingly.
This is the notorious peace of Antalcidas, which Tiribazus
laid before the delegates of the Greeks at Sardis or
Ephesus in 387. It is not a mutual compact but a simple
edict of the king. It sets forth that in the king's opinion
all cities of the Asiatic mainland, as well as the islands of
Clazomenae and Cyprus, ought to belong to him ; that, on
the other hand, all other Greek states, even the petty ones,
ought to be independent, with the single exception of
Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which should continue as of
old to belong to Athens. If any one refused to accept
this decision, upon him the king and his allies (particularly
the Spartans) would wage war with all their power.
It is hardly likely that the true import of this document
was understood at the Persian court. That the great
king should issue a simple order was there regarded as a
matter of course, but the Persian statesmen, who really
knew the state of affairs, may have had trouble in securing
the acknowledgment of the freedom of the islands. By
this peace the Spartans personally gained a great success ;
for they gave up nothing which they still possessed, while
by the declaration of the independence of even the pettiest
communities they secured this advantage, that the cities
which had hitherto ruled over wider areas were restricted
to their own special domain, that, e.g., Thebes, hitherto
head of Bceotia, now remained only one of many independ
ent Bceotian cities. Thus Greece was split up into a thou
sand petty communities, which Sparta, who did not dream
of extending the independence to her own subjects, could
with ease dominate collectively. Through this peace the
Spartans gained for about sixteen years a much greater
1 This follows, in opposition to other statements, from Lysias, Pro
fanis Aristnph., p. 155 ; cp. Isoer., Paney., 73, and Dinon in Nepos's
Conon, at the end.
[MEDO-PERSIAN
power over the Greek mainland than they had ever
possessed before, and they ruthlessly turned it to account.
Athens, slowly regaining her strength, was appeased by
the three islands, but nowhere was " the peace sent down
by the king " felt to be a disgrace more keenly than at
Athens. In that peace the king issued orders to the
Greeks as to his subjects, and the express and definitive
surrender of all the Greeks on the Asiatic coasts was felt
all the more bitterly in the intellectual capital of Greece
because there was no prospect of ever again freeing them
as in the days of Xanthippus and Cimon. And yet it
was known that the Persian empire was now much weaker
than it had been then, and that it was only maintained
by Greek mercenaries.- The real gain to Persia by the
peace was a firm hold on the sea-coast. The domineering
attitude towards the other Greeks was a mere appearance.
In the following decades the king repeatedly commanded
peace, even after Thebes had completely broken the power
of Sparta (371). The powers for the time being employed
Persian intervention as a means to their own ends, and
there were plenty of diplomatic negotiations with the king,
but Persia had no advantage from them. Moreover, now
one, now another Greek state supported rebel satraps and
vassals. They all, the king as well as the rebels, procured
mercenaries from Greece/1
Meantime another enemy had arisen to the Persian Eva-
supremacy in the west — an enemy who, if Athens, hisg°ras-
friend and sympathizer, had at that time been once more
a great naval power with a7i aggressive policy, might
perhaps have excluded the Persians from all the western
seas. Evagoras of Salamis had made himself the almost
independent lord of Cyprus, relying on the ancestral an
tagonism of the Greek to the Phoenician element in the
island. As early as 390 forces were levied against him.
Athens, under obligations to him on Conon's account, sup
ported him openly, although she was at that time still
formally leagued with the Persians against Sparta. After
the peace of Antalcidas Persia made great efforts to reduce
Evagoras again to subjection. He was in league with
Egypt, scoured the seas far and wide, and had even for
some time maintained a siege of Tyre. The cunning
Cypriot also kept up a secret correspondence with the
vassal princes of Caria. After a ten years' struggle he had
to yield to superior force, but by skilful negotiation with
the satraps he was able to procure a tolerable peace. Soon
afterwards he was murdered, but his descendants long con
tinued to be princes of different towns in Cyprus.
About this time probably the expedition of Artaxerxes Cadu
against the Cadusians took place, of which Plutarch, after exPe<
-1- * .*:„«
Dinon, has given us a detailed account.4 The Cadusians
are the inhabitants of the modern Gilan, who were prob
ably never completely subdued, and who certainly by their
raids inflicted much annoyance on the neighbouring terri
tory of the king. Darius II. had taken the field against
them shortly before his death,5 and the repeated mention
in the fragments of Ctesias of the Cadusians at the time
of the Median empire is presumably a reflex of the state of
things in his own day. Artaxerxes's campaign turned out
disastrously. The king probably thought to crush the wild
mountain tribes — who, however, are only to be caught by
small and skilfully led armies — by masses of troops ; but
he fell into an ambush, from which he was only saved by
2 C'ompare many passages in the orators and Plato. Especinlly
interesting is the passage in Isocr. , Epist. ad Archid., p. 436, on the
wild doings of the Greek mercenaries, who were specially burdensome
to the Greek cities under Persian rule.
3 We are told that the king desired the internal peace of Greece,
because he hoped thereby to procure mercenaries all the more easily
from that country (Diod., xv. 38).
4 Artax., 24 : cp. Diod., xv. 8, 10.
5 Xenophon, Hell., ii. 1, 13.
tion.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
579
the negotiations which Tiribazus astutely opened with the
rebel chieftains. No doubt he had to pay a large sum for
his liberation.
,'yptian Meanwhile the war with Egypt was never quite at a
ir- standstill. Even before the subjugation of Evagoras much
fighting took place, but without result. Our knowledge
of the particulars, even of the chronology, is very inexact.
After the conquest of Cyprus the war was renewed. The
Egyptian king invited the Athenian Chabrias to take the
command, but Pharnabazus contrived that the Athenians
should recall him (376/375). Pharnabazus, who by this
time must have been about seventy years old, was placed
at the head of the army which was being mustered at
Accho on the Phoenician coast. The Athenian mercenaries
were commanded by Iphicrates, who had been sent from
Athens. The campaign opened successfully, but dissen
sions arose between Iphicrates and Pharnabazus, whose
proceedings were much too slow to suit the dashing free
lance, for Pharnabazus had to report everything to court
and to ask instructions from the same quarter. This,
along with other circumstances, saved Egypt once more
(374). There is the old story, too, of the difficulties of the
wars of this period — a mutiny amongst the mercenaries
for arrears of pay. The third of the great Athenian
condottieri, Timotheus, son of Conon, who fought in the
king's service against Egypt in 372, seems also to have
been unable to effect anything.
evolts The last part of the reign of Artaxerxes II. is filled
Asia with revolts of the satraps and chiefs of Asia Minor, of
mor- which we have numerous but mostly isolated and, to a
large extent, inexact accounts. It is impossible to deter
mine the connexion of events. We do not even know in
all cases whether the same names designate the same
persons ; and we are nowhere exactly informed of the
motives which induced the individuals to revolt. It is the
more difficult to form a judgment on the events because
sometimes the same persons side now with, now against
the king. These revolts, which lasted in part into the
reign of Artaxerxes III., must have weakened immensely
the imperial power in the western provinces, and prepared
the way for the Macedonians. Rich Greek cities and
energetic tyrants probably won for themselves at that time
a tolerably independent position. At the head of those
who remained faithful to the king we find Autophraclates,
satrap of Lydia. He fought the rebels repeatedly. Never
theless Diodorus (xv. 90) names him among the rebels ;
and it is, after all, possible that there is here no confusion,
but that Autophradates was also a rebel for a time. If
we omit some smaller risings, such as that of Tachos,
who established himself in a fortress on the Ionian coast
(after 380), the series begins with Ariobarzanes, successor
of Pharnabazus in the Hellespontine satrapy, and no
doubt a near relative. Before the beginning of the revolt
(about 367) he had formed connexions with Sparta and
with Athens, which again stood at the head of a naval
confederacy, and he was supported, at least indirectly, by
both states. Accordingly, by the diplomatic intervention
of Sparta, Autophradates and Mausolus of Caria were in
duced to raise the siege of Assus (in the Troad), into which
Ariobarzanes had thrown himself. The satrap fell by the
treachery of his own son Mithradates into the hands of
the royalists and was crucified (probably about 365). x
Mausolus (or rather, according to the inscriptions and
coins, Maussollos, MaiWwAAos), a native hereditary prince
of part of Caria (probably 3 7 5-3 5 12), had extended his
1 Xen., Cyrop., viii. 8, 4 ; Aristot., Pol., 1312a ; Harpocration, s.v.
'Apiopap^dvris. He is to be distinguished from Ariobarzanes (about
362-337), ancestor of the kings of Pontus, who, however, seems to
have belonged to the same house, and was probably heir to a district
on the Propontis. 2 See Pliny, xxxvi. 30, 47.
power tolerably far. These Carian potentates, who bore 376-358.
the title of satraps, were in point of fact but little depend
ent on Persia, and were watched by the Persians with
great mistrust. In their cunning and in the sagacity with
which they profited by circumstances they recall the Mace
donian kings of that period, whom they also resemble in
their patronage — often perhaps ostentatious — of Greek art
and manners. Mausolus appears to have once been in
open conflict with his suzerain ; but, though nothing de
finite is known on the subject, there is no doubt that he
came off without serious harm.
Datames, satrap of Cappadocia, of Carian race, had ren
dered many good services ; in particular he had reduced
the nearly independent Paphlagonians once more to sub
jection to the great king.3 But at last he also revolted in
league with Ariobarzanes. He was a man of great shrewd
ness and versatility, whose stratagems and adventures af
forded much entertainment even to later generations. He
long kept the king's troops in check, till he was at last
treacherously murdered by Mithradates, son of Ariobar
zanes, — the same Mithradates probably whom we found
above betraying his father.
The command of the rebel forces was entrusted to
Orontes, satrap of Mysia.4 From the confused accounts
it is unfortunately impossible to determine whether he is
identical with one or other of the persons of that name
who are elsewhere mentioned. Further, we have no clear
conception of the position which he occupied in the revolt,
nor of the way in which he came to betray his comrades.
We read, moreover, of the treachery of a less conspicuous
confederate. The rebels had despatched Ptheomithres to
Tachos, king of Egypt, who sent them fifty war-ships and
much money. Ptheomithres summoned the commanders
to a rocky fortress on the northern coast of Ionia, bound
them, and delivered them up to the king.
In the year 361 Tachos actually assumed the offensive Tachos
against the Persians. On his side he had once more °f Egypt.
Chabrias as leader of mercenaries, and the aged Agesilaus,
officially sent by the Spartans, who were bitterly enraged
at the Persians because they had now, after the destruc
tion of the Spartan power by Epaminondas, recognized
the independence of Messenia, though in doing so they
only carried out the letter of the peace of Antalcidas.
But, when Tachos was engaged in Phoenicia, his nephew
Nectanebus set himself up as rival king, and Tachos was
obliged to take refuge with the Persians. If the Persians
had been still energetic they would have used the oppor
tunity, when the legitimate king of Egypt had fled to
them and two claimants were struggling for the throne,
to subjugate the country. But they did nothing of the
kind, even when Chabrias had returned to Athens and
Agesilaus had died on the way home (probably 360).
At the instigation of Parysatis Artaxerxes had mar- intrigues
ried his own daughter Atossa. She used her interest of Ochus.
to secure the succession for the energetic and violent
Ochus, who is said to have promised to marry her ; the
Persian religion approved marriage not only with a sister
but also with a daughter, and even with a mother. The
elder son Darius was already invested with the succession
and the royal title, but having engaged in a conspiracy
against his father he was tried and executed, and Ochus,
it is said, found means of getting rid of his other brothers,
who stood in his way. Soon afterwards the aged Arta
xerxes died after a reign of forty-six years (in the course
of the year 358). Many stories are told of his mildness
3 The Greek cities on the southern coast of the Euxine, which
Xenophon about 400 found quite free, were again subjugated at this
time. Datames coined money in Sinope, as did also his (probably
indirect) successor Ariarathes.
4 Diod., xv. 91. Mysia is not otherwise known as a satrapy proper.
But at any rate Asia Minor was the scene of his exploits.
580
PERSIA
[MEDO-PERSIAN
358-344. and affability, but, even if they are true, they have little
significance. The contempt for his brother which Cyrus
exhibited was perfectly justified ; under the effeminate
king the empire gradually fell to pieces.
Arta- But his successor, Ochus, who took the title of Artaxerxes
xerxes (TIL), was of a different stamp. True, it is not perfectly
1 ' certain that the great restoration of the empire is to be
ascribed to his personal influence; it may be that the
whole merit belongs to some of his officials, and that he
only lent it his name, but it is much more probable that
the initiative was his. He was, it appears, one of those
great despots who can raise up again for a time a decayed
Oriental empire, who shed blood without scruple and are
not nice in the choice of means, but who in the actual
position of affairs do usually contribute to the welfare of
the state as a whole. At the very beginning of his reign
he secured himself on the throne by a massacre of his
nearest relatives, though no doubt the statement of Curtius
(x. 5, 23) is exaggerated.1 The judgment of the Greek
writers on Artaxerxes III. was too much influenced by
such deeds as found an historian in Dinon, as well as
by the hatred of the Egyptians, whom he humbled and
mortally offended; hence it was one-sided and unjustly
unfavourable.
Defec- But for a while the empire was in a state of absolute dis-
tion of solution. Artabazus, satrap of the Hellespontine Phrygia,
barn ver^ Pro^a^^y a son °f Pharnabazus and immediate suc
cessor of Ariobarzanes, had fought against Autophradates
as early as 365 and been taken prisoner by him. At that
time the Athenians had acted against him openly enough,
at least towards the end.2 But it is not clear how far
Artabazus then rebelled against the king, who was father
to his mother, Apama. But at the time of the so-called
Social War (about 355) he fought against the king's sa
traps and was powerfully supported by the Athenians.
Chares won for him a great victory over Tithraustes.
And, when, at the king's threats, Athens left him in the
lurch, he was able, being well furnished with money, to
procure the services of the Theban Pammenes, and main
tained himself for a long time. The turn in his fortune
seems to have come from the Thebans also entering into
an understanding with the king. About 350 we find Arta
bazus a fugitive at the court of Philip of Macedonia, and
with him his brother-in-law, the Rhodian Memnon. How
ever, after the subjugation of Egypt, Memnon's brother
Mentor, who, like Memnon, was one of the most distin
guished generals of his time, succeeded in procuring
pardon for both, and thenceforward Artabazus remained
loyal down to the overthrow of the empire.
Revolt of The revolt of Orontes (or Orontas) fell somewhat later.
Orontes. Probably he is the same whom we found above betraying
his comrades. He may very well have received the rule
over a wide coast district 3 as the price of his treachery (see
Diod., xv. 92). He is mentioned in 354 by Demosthenes
1 More distant relatives were left alive, as lie who was afterwards
Darius III. and his brother, Oxyathres. A son of the Darius who
was executed appears in Arrian, i. 16, 3 (334 B.C.). Thus the king
did not extirpate even the branch that was most dangerous to him.
It is to be remembered that even Alexander the Great, after ascending
the throne, put several near relatives out of the way.
2 Owing to the inconstant nature of the foreign policy of Athens
at that time — a policy too often influenced by the personal interests
of the great captains of mercenaries — as well as to the shifting atti
tude of the satraps, it is impossible for us to form a clear conception
of these events from the isolated statements of contemporaries (like
Demosthenes and ^Eneas Tacticus) and later writers. It is to be
observed that in these decades violent revolutions took place in some
Greek cities under Persian supremacy, and that they even made war
on each other. With the restless character of the Greeks such things
were not to be averted unless each town was occupied by a Persian
garrison, which was certainly not the case.
3 There are coins ascribed to Larnpsacus and to Clazoruenie bearing
the name of an Orontes.
(De symmoriin, 186) as an enemy of the king. In 349/348
the Athenians formed an alliance with him. From the
fragmentary inscription in which this is recorded it does
not follow with certainty that at that time he was still in
rebellion. About his end we knoAV nothing, but perhaps
he was removed after the restoration of Artabazus.
That from the outset Artaxerxes III. was believed to be
a person of greater activity than his father may perhaps
be inferred from the rumour current in 354/353 that the
king was preparing a great expedition against Athens and
Greece. Many Greek states may certainly have had a
guilty conscience towards the king on account of their
wavering policy and the purely mercenary support which
they had repeatedly lent to rebellious satraps. Demosthenes
warned the Athenians against taking up a hostile attitude
to the king on the ground of mere rumours.4
The war in Egypt still went on. And now the cities of Phce-
Phcenicia, previously so trustworthy, also revolted, and so nicia
did the kings of Cyprus. Even in Judaea there must have su
been an insurrectionary movement. The revolted Sidonians
showed such exasperation that we can hardly avoid the
supposition that Persian rulers had wounded their religious
feelings, — the sensitive side of Semitic peoples. The satraps
Mazajus (Mazdai) of Cilicia and Belesys of Syria were
driven back by Mentor, whom Nectanebus, king of Egypt,
had sent to the help of Tennes, king of Sidon. But, when
the great king himself took the field at the head of a
powerful army, which included 10,000 Greek mercenaries,5
Tennes and Mentor made terms. Sidon surrendered —
though probably only after a severe siege — and was fear
fully punished. More than 400,000 men are said to have
burned themselves in Sidon on this occasion. The fate of
the first-born of Canaan quickly brought the rest of the
Phoenicians to their knees. At this time much blood was
shed in Judaea also, though we have only scattered notices
of the fact.6 Mentor now went over to the king's side and
fought against his former employers. It was to him and
not to the Persian eunuch Bagoas that the king chiefly
owed his success ; but undoubtedly the royal presence
contributed much to the result by facilitating rapid deci- Egypt
sions and preventing dangerous jars. Mentor succeeded cou"
in everywhere sowing dissension between the Greek mer- fiuere
cenaries of the Egyptian king and the Persians ; and even
more by intimidation than by the sword Egypt was, after
long independence, again made a Persian province (344). 7
Artaxerxes seems to have made the "va: victis" thoroughly
clear to the Egyptians, and to have treated even their
religion with little more respect than Cambyses before
him : temples were desecrated and sacred animals slaugh
tered. For a time the Egyptians had to satisfy their rage
with nicknaming the king, after the unclean Typhonian
beast, "ass." Cyprus, too, was again reduced. The en- Cyprus
terprise was conducted by the prince of Caria, Idrieus. reduced
The Greek mercenaries were led by the well-known
4 In the speech De symmoriis. Similarly in the speech De Rhodiorum
libertate (191 sq. ) he advises the Athenians not to offend the king
frivolously (351 B.C.).
5 Through Diodorus and some statements of others we possess
by exception fairly good information about these struggles.
6 Josephus, Arch., xi. 7, 1 ; by Eusebius's canon 1657 from Abr.,
and his copiers ; Solinus, xxxv. 4. The king at that time settled a num
ber of Jews in Hyrcania. Judaea was forcibly pacified, perhaps by
Orophernes (or Olophernes), brother of the then satrap of Cappadocia.
Orophernes distinguished himself in this war (Diod., xxxi. 28) ; the
assumption that it was he who reduced Judosa would explain why
in the book of Judith — mere romance though it is — an Olophernes
appears as the wicked commander who fights against the Jews.
7 So Manetho, who makes Ochus reign six years in Egypt. In
harmony with this we learn from Isocrates (Phil., 102) that in 347/346
Egypt was not yet subdued, while according to the letter of King Philip
(l)emosth., p. 160) in 340 the reduction of Egypt and Phoenicia had
long been effected.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
581
Athenian Phocion,1 and with him was a pretender Evagoras,
of the family of the famous Cyprian prince of that name.
Thus by force and policy the old state of the monarchy
was restored in all the western lands. Mentor, the real
conqueror of Egypt, was splendidly rewarded. He received
the satrapy of the west coast of Asia Minor, and quickly
removed by cunning and treachery Hermias, tyrant of
Atarneus and the friend of Aristotle, who had concluded
treaties like an independent prince 2 and stood in suspicious
relations to King Philip of Macedonia. It has been already
mentioned that Mentor procured the pardon of his brother-
in-law Artabazus and his brother Memnon. It is not im-
Jontact probable that the bestowal of this province on the skilful
;ith general and diplomatist, and the restoration of Artabazus
onC;a" ^° k*s nereditary satrapy, may be connected with the
attention which the king paid to the plans of the Mace
donian, which were gradually disclosing themselves more
and more. Of course no one thought of danger to Asia
Minor, much less to the whole empire, but Philip's efforts
to secure the mastery of the Bosphorus and Hellespont
were enough in themselves to excite grave anxiety.
As early as 350 the story went that Philip had sent an
embassy to the king,3 and it is definitely stated that he
concluded a treaty with Ochus.4 The pacific intentions
of the Persians, at least for the moment, were no doubt
sincere ; not so those of Philip, who had to subdue
Greece before he could put into execution his designs on
Asia Minor, a circumstance overlooked by the honest but
politically short-sighted Isocrates in his exhortation to
Philip to attack Persia (347/346). Probably Demosthenes
was not alone in perceiving that the safety of Greece now-
lay in an alliance with the Persians against Philip. Negotia
tions went on busily between Athens and the king, who
at all events sent subsidies repeatedly for the conflict with
Macedonia. In the year 340 Persia interfered actively by
rescuing, in conjunction with Athens, the town of Perinthus
on the Propontis (and therefore close to Persian territory),
which was besieged by Philip ; and the Macedonians could
perhaps with some right assert that with this step the war
between the Persians and them had begun.5 But the
Persians did not see, what to us is obvious from the result,
that it was necessary for them to prevent the subjugation
of Greece ; or, if they saw it, they lacked the energy to act.
Artaxerxes probably did not reach the battle of Chae-
ronea (August 338), which made Philip master of Greece.
So far as we can judge, however, it was a great misfor
tune for the empire that this king, the first since Darius I.
who had in person energetically conducted a great ex
pedition and restored the empire, died just at this critical
moment. Probably he was murdered by Bagoas, who
placed Arses, the youngest of the sons of Artaxerxes, on the
Arses, throne.6 But, when Arses was preparing (so it is said) to
punish Bagoas, the latter put him and his children to death
(335). We know nothing further of this king. Under
his reign (spring 336) a Macedonian army first crossed
into Asia, after Philip had previously caused himself to be
nominated general of the Greeks against the Persians. The
Macedonians gained some not unimportant successes, but
the undertaking was checked in the very same year by
the assassination of Philip. The commander Parmenio re
turned to Europe, and Memnon, who after Mentor's death
commanded in these regions, probably won back from the
1 Diod., xvi. 42 ; the sources from which our biographers of Phocion
(Plutarch and Nepos) draw did not mention this fact, which does not
accord very well with the pattern of philosophic virtue which they
made out Phocion to be.
2 Cp. the treaty with Erythrse, Le Bas and Waddington, No. 1535.
3 Demosth., Phil. I., p. 54.
4 Arrian, ii. 14, 2. 5 Arrian, ii. 14, 5.
6 InPlut., Defort. Alex., p. 336 s^. , he is called Oarses. The Persian
form of the name is not known.
Macedonians nearly all their conquests in Asia, though it 344-333,
is likely that Abydus, commanding the passage of the
Hellespont, and perhaps one or two more strong places,
remained in their hands.
In order to rule securely Bagoas placed on the throne, not Darius
a near relation of the murdered man,7 but Codomannus,8 ^I-
who reigned as Darius (III.), a great-grandson of Darius
II., and a man of about forty-five years of age.9 But the
king-maker was caught in his own snare, for Darius soon
put him out of the way.
Over the last of the Achasmenians misfortune has thrown
a halo of romance, but sober criticism can see in him only
an incapable despot like so many whom the East has pro
duced. It may be true that in earlier life, under Artaxerxes
III., he once proved his personal bravery in the war against
the Cadusians, and was rewarded with the satrapy of
Armenia ; 10 as a king he always behaved like a coward
in the moment of danger. Vast attempts and a shameful
flight, feeble or rather effeminate behaviour combined with
braggart pride, lack of intelligence, especially in the con
duct of war, — these are features which fully justify Grote
in comparing him with Xerxes. It is no reproach that he
was not a match for perhaps the greatest general in history,
but an Ochus would doubtless have made the task a some
what harder one, and would scarcely have been guilty of the
folly of beheading, in a fit of bad temper, so useful a man
as the old condottiere Charidemus, who thoroughly under
stood the mode of fighting the Macedonians.
The history of Alexander the Great is given under the Alex-
articles ALEXANDER THE GREAT and MACEDONIAN EMPIRE ; ander's
here we can only enumerate the chief steps in the down- m
fall of the Persian empire. We see how great is the force
of cohesion in such an empire, even after all the shocks
it has received, and under an incapable ruler. What the
giant powers of Alexander achieved in a few years might
never have been accomplished at all by the qualities and
resources of an Agesilaus.
After placing a terrible curb on the Greek love of
freedom by the destruction of Thebes, Alexander crossed
the Hellespont in the beginning of spring 334. A few
weeks later, on the Granicus, he annihilated the great
Persian army which should have barred his onward march.
Sardis, the capital, at once fell into his hands. Here, for
the first time, we see the miserable spectacle of a high
Persian officer going over to the enemy and surrendering
to him the town or district committed by his king to his
charge. At the beginning of winter the whole coast as far
as Pamphylia was Alexander's ; Miletus and Halicarnassus
were the only places which he had had seriously to besiege,
and it was only the narrowly-enclosed citadel of the latter
town which yet withstood all attacks. But there was still
a great danger. The Rhodian Memnon, who had been
joint-commander at the Granicus, undertook with all his
might to kindle a conflagration in Alexander's rear, and
to force the king to cross over to Greece. The Persian
fleet, which he commanded, ruled the sea ; several of the
most important islands were occupied ; and from the Greek
mainland thousands of patriots were looking for Memnon's
arrival in order tp rise against the Macedonians. But
Memnon died suddenly. The death of this man, his only
worthy adversary, is perhaps the greatest of those pieces
of luck which so highly favoured the great Alexander.
His successor Pharnabazus, son of Artabazus, continued,
it is true, the naval operations, but he was not able to
carry out Memnon's plans. Meanwhile Alexander secured
7 We read of a son of Ochus in 330 (Arrian, iii. 19, 4). We had
above a grandson of Artaxerxes II. Thus Bagoas had not killed all
" the brothers " of Arses, and the king's family was not extinct, as
Diodorus asserts (xvii. 5).
8 The name is given only by Justin (from Dinon), x. 3.
9 Arrian, iii. 22, 6. 10 Justin, I.e. ; Diod., xvii. 6.
582
PERSIA
[GREEK
Persian
empire
333-331. the most important parts of Asia Minor, and then set out
on his forward march. At the farthest extremity of Cilicia
Darius in person met him at the head of a huge army, but
the field of battle was so badly chosen that the numerical
superiority of the Persians did not come into full play.
The brilliant victory of Issus (about November 333) and
the flight of Darius threw wide regions into the power of
Alexander, who, with all his daring, was also cautious, and
did not follow the Persian king in his flight into the in
terior. He sought first to make himself master of the
whole Phoenician coast, in order to cut off from the Per
sians every possibility of annoying him any longer at sea.
And in reality the fleet, which was chiefly furnished by
the Phoenicians, melted away when Alexander had taken
possession of their country. The Cyprian ships, too, re
turned home, and Cyprus also submitted. But Tyre with
stood the great conqueror for seven months1 (332), and
had to pay a dreadful penalty for its resistance. Gaza,
too, defended itself bravely. Egypt welcomed exultingly
the Macedonian who freed them from the hated Persians.
After the acquisition of Egypt Alexander possessed a
territory large and strong enough to be able to survive, if
need be, a reverse. In the spring of 331 he left Egypt
and marched through Syria and Mesopotamia to Assyria
proper, where Darius awaited him at the head of vast
masses of troops, and this time in a favourable position.
Over- But on 1st October 331 Alexander defeated the king at
throw of Gaugamela so decisively that henceforward the Persian
empire, as such, was shattered. Darius fled to Media.
Without striking another blow Alexander captured the
capitals, Babylon and Susa, with their vast treasures. In
vain the wild independent Uxians (better " Huxians ")
barred a difficult mountain-pass against him, in vain did
a Persian army do the same : he quickly forced a passage
through the mountains and marched into Persia proper.
Pasargadse and Persepolis, the cradle of the monarchy,
were his. Persepolis, in the immediate neighbourhood of
which another conflict took place, was given up by him to
his soldiers to plunder ; the royal palace he caused to be
burned.2 In this act we discern, in opposition to the
usual view, a well-considered measure, excellently calcu
lated to work upon the Asiatic mind. The burning of the
royal castle was meant to show the Asiatics that their
empire was utterly overthrown, and that Alexander was
their only lord. Besides the Greeks might see in the
step an act of vengeance for the destruction of the Greek
temples by Xerxes, as the official phrase ran.
Thereupon Alexander hastened to Media in pursuit, once
for all, of Darius. The latter fled eastwards. He had still
a considerable army with him, but only the Greek mercen
aries were absolutely true to him, like the Swiss guard to
Bessus. Louis XVI. At last Bessus, satrap of Bactria (and Sogdiana
apparently), seized the person of the king, in order either
to make use of him for his own ambitious purposes or to
put him out of the way. As a matter of fact, he murdered
him in Parthia, just when the pursuing Alexander had
nearly overtaken him (July or August 330). Such was
the melancholy end of the last of the Achiemenian great
kings.
Bessus thereupon hastened into his satrapy and assumed
the title of king and the name of Artaxerxes (IV.). We
know that he was a " kinsman " of Darius ; perhaps in
his case this means more than that he was merely con
nected with him by marriage, and this satrap of Bactria
1 The resistance of the Tyrians is certainly not explained by their
attachment to the Persians, scarcely either by their love of freedom.
We suspect here again a religious motive. Alexander desired to offer
sacrifice in the temple of Heracles, and probably the pious Canaanites
would as little allow this as the Jews would have permitted any foreign
ruler to enter their temple.
2 Cp. the article PERSEPOLIS.
may have actually belonged to the race of the Achremenians,
like his predecessors the princes Masistes and Hystaspes.
It would thus be more easy to explain why various
grandees favoured his undertaking, and why he was recog
nized as king, e.g., by the satrap of Aria (the district of
Her At), and vigorously supported. That he enjoyed the
royal title for some time is due only to the circumstance
that Alexander first made himself securely master of
eastern Iran before he marched into Bactria and Sogdiana.
After many adventures Bessus fell into Alexander's power
on the farther side of the Oxus, and was put to death.
After the return from India the satrap of Media con
ducted in chains to Alexander a certain Baryaxes, who
during Alexander's absence had declared himself king of
the Persians and Medes. Of course he was .executed. He
is said to have been a Mede, not a Persian. Certainly
his movement had never even a momentary importance ;
he is only once mentioned (Arrian, vi. 29, 3). But such
last throes of a mighty monarchy are, after all, worthy of
attention.
Literature. — Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vols. ii. , iii.
(2d ed., London, 1871), gives a useful account of the Medo-Persian
history down to Alexander, as does also vol. ii. of Fr. Spiegel's
Erdnischc Altcrthumskunde (Leipsic, 1873). Neither work is ex
haustive, and in both we frequently miss true historical criticism.
For the time down to Xerxes Duncker's Geschichte des Altcrthums,
vol.iv.(5th ed., Berlin, 1880 ; Eng. tr. by Abbot, 1877-83), is recom
mended by its very careful use of all the sources and its acute mode
of combining them, though the latter quality often leads to some
what arbitrary construction. Owing to the close contact between
Persian and Greek history the larger works on the latter are obliged
to cover much of the same ground as the former. In this department
Grote 6 irdi>v is to be named above all; unfortunately at the time
he wrote it was not in his power to make use of the important
Persian inscriptions. (TH. N.)
SECTION II. — GREEK AND PARTHIAN EMPIRES.
After the decisive battle of Gaugamela (331 B.C.) Alex
ander proclaimed himself king of Asia.3 He never ac
cepted the compromise recommended by Parmenio, which
would have left to the Persians the upper satrapies east
of Mount Zagrus, and established a sharply-marked natural
and ethnographic frontier. Soon a symbolic act, the
burning of the palace of Persepolis, announced to the
Asiatics that the Acliaemenian monarchy was dead, and
that Alexander claimed its whole inheritance. The punish
ment of Bessus, exactly modelled on that inflicted on
pretenders by Darius I., showed that Alexander claimed
to be the legal heir of the Achaemenians. Bessus's ears
and nose were cut off, and he was brought to Ecbatana
for execution before the assembled Medes and Persians,
for " this Bessus lied and said, I am Artaxerxes king of
Persia."
After Alexander had by his rapid and effective move- Complc
ments taken actual possession of the whole empire, Media tlon °^
was swiftly traversed, but the eastern frontier was not ' g^
subdued and secured so easily. Crossing the mountain-
wall that separates the southern margin of the Caspian
from the rest of Iran, Alexander received in person the
homage of the coast-lands. Khorasan and the region of
the Oxus were traversed by his armies in all directions ;
from Bactria the march was obliquely through Sogdiana
to the Jaxartes on the farthest limits of the empire, and
an onslaught was even made on the Scythians beyond that
river. 4 Alexander was determined to secure a frontier so
important for the trade of Central Asia, and to free the
peaceful industry of Iran from the incursions of its here-
3 Pint., Alex., 34, 37, does not prove that there was another, still
less a preferable account of the date of this occurrence.
4 Here perhaps occurs the first trace in history of the Turkish race.
Carthasis, the brother of the Srythian king in Curtius (vii. 7, 1), may
be, as Noldeke observes, Turkish kardOshy, " his brother," from ddsh,
of which tush, is the older form.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
583
ditary enemies the Turanian nomads. Prestige rather
than material advantage was gained by the rapid fall of the
supposed impregnable rocky nests of Arimazes in Sogdiana,
of Chorienes or Sisimithres in the mountain region of the
upper Oxus,1 and, above all, of the Indian fortress Aornus.
Though usually clement to the conquered, Alexander was
terrible to those who rose against him — to the Arians, for
example, and to the strong cities that headed the insur
rection in Sogdiana ; when the movement was crushed, he
laid the land waste far and wide and slew all the males ;
120,000 Sogdians are said to have thus lost their lives.
Alexander too, like Caesar, did not shrink from a breach of
faith if it served his purpose ; this was seen in the massacre
of the Indian mercenaries who had defended Massaga,
which was meant to spread terror before him as he entered
India.2 The Achaamenian power at its climax had never
crossed the Indus ; Alexander passed the river and pushed
into India proper. This adventurous march was under
taken wholly for the sake of prestige, and was specially
meant to impress the imagination of the Greeks, to whom
India was a land of marvels. Alexander proposed to reach
the Ganges and the ends of the habitable earth ; and it
was sorely against his will that his own soldiers forced him
to confine his plans to the rational scope of securing the
Indus as his frontier and adding to his realm its com
mercially important delta.3 Alexander had now accom
plished what, in the eyes of the Arian peoples, was neces
sary to give the last stamp of legitimacy to the new
empire ; he had led his armies round all the frontiers and
taken personal possession of his lands. To close the circle
he had still to march back through Gedrosia and Car-
mania. But it may well be doubted if he would have
faced this last exploit had he known beforehand the full
terrors of the burning desert ; not a fourth part of the
forces that began the march from India survived a jour
ney which has been fitly compared with the retreat from
Moscow.
A series of minor expeditions completed the work of the
great campaigns by reducing a number of mountain tribes,
which had shaken off the weak yoke of the Achsemenians,
exacted tribute at the chief passes, and in their irreclaim
able savage habits of plunder were like the modern Kurds,
the born foes of the Iranian peasant. Such were the
Uxians, the Mardians in Persis, and the people of the
same name to the south of the Caspian, and finally the
Cossasans, whom Alexander disposed of in his last cam
paign in forty mid-winter days. The future obedience of
these brigands was secured by planting fortresses at the
most difficult points of the roads, and they were compelled
to settle down and take to husbandry.4
Alex- These vast results were only obtained by the aid of
ander's continual fresh levies in Europe, and strong garrisons had
> omes. £Q j^ ig£{. -n j^g conquerec[ lands. Alexander's work could
not last unless the European occupation became perma
nent ; and therefore he planned a great netAvork of new
cities, in which colonies of Greek or Macedonian soldiers
were planted. According to Plutarch (De Alex, fort., i. 5,
p. 328 F) more than seventy cities owed their origin to
Alexander ; some forty of these can still be traced.5 In
Media, in the Cossaean neighbourhood, and in Carman ia we
1 The last two places are identical. All the sources know only two
fortresses taken by Alexander in these regions : those which mention
Sisimithres omit Chorienes and vice versa ; and the essential points are
the same in Arrian (iv. 21) and Curtius (viii. 2, 19-33).
2 Diod., xvii. 84. The official Macedonian account in Arriau (iv. 27)
ignores the treachery.
3 As the Greeks then knew India only from Ctesias, whose geography
is of the vaguest, Alexander probably under-estimated the vast size of
the peninsula.
4 Arrian, Ind., 40, 8.
5 See the careful enumeration in Droysen, Gesch. d. JIdlenismus,
2d ed., vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 187 sq.
know only two by name, though we are told that in the 331-323.
first two districts there were really a large number of such
towns, seemingly inconsiderable places. In the east of
Iran the settlements were more important, and twenty-six
can be enumerated in Aria, the country of the Paropanisus,
Bactria, Sogdiana, India, and the land of the Oritae, —
Bactria and Sogdiana alone claiming eight of these.6 The
composition of these settlements is illustrated by the
details given for Alexandria in the Indian Caucasus ;
according to Diodorus, the city and one or more minor
settlements within a day's journey of it received 7000
barbarians, 3000 camp-followers, and as many of the
mercenaries as volunteered to stay ; but Curtius, who cer
tainly reproduces the common source more accurately than
Diodorus, names 7000 Macedonian veterans and a number
of mercenaries whose engagement had expired. The Greek
element in this colony must have been large, for the town
still keeps its Greek name (Alasadda) in an Indian book
of the 4th century A.D. Alexandria on the Tanais
(Jaxartes), again, was partly peopled by Sogdian insur
gents, forcibly transplanted from their homes, which the
conqueror had destroyed. Some of Alexander's last orders
refer to the founding of cities and the transplanting of
Europeans to Asia and Asiatics to Europe, a measure
designed to promote the assimilation of all parts of the
empire. Macedonia alone did not suffice for this gigantic
scheme of colonization, and it was chiefly Greeks who
were planted in the most eastern satrapies, in Bactria
and Sogdiana. At such a distance from home the Greeks
could have no other interest than loyalty to Macedon ; it
was the same policy as dictated to the Romans the
establishment of Latin colonies in their new conquests.
But the antagonism between Greeks and Macedonians was
too great to allow the former to forget that they were, after
all, really men deported by the great king (avda-iraa-rot) ;
and so even from the first there were seeds of discord
between them and the rest of the empire.
Alexander's capital was Babylon, the natural centre of Satrapies
an empire that embraced both Iran and the West, and and
recommended also by its command of the great lines of govArn"
international traffic, and by its historical traditions of
empire. The Acha?menian system of satrapies was re
tained ; kingships were left only in the exceptional case
of India.7 The satrapies of the upper country seem to
have been fourteen : Persis, Paraetacene, Carmania, Media,
Tapuria with the Mardian country, Parthia with Hyrcania,
Bactria, Aria with Drangiana, Gedrosia with the Oritae,8
Arachosia, the Paropanisus country (which probably was
quite independent under the later Achaemenians, and was
first placed under a satrap by Alexander), India on this
side the Indus, India beyond the Indus (from the Bactrian
frontier to the confluence of the Indus and the Acesines),
and beyond this the province of the lower Indus extending
to the sea. The last three satrapies were also new. Alex
ander retained the old satraps of Darius in three provinces ;
in Paraetacene and Tapuria it would have been impossible
to drive the old rulers from their mountains without a
tedious campaign, and in Aria Satibarzanes was confirmed
in his post to detach him from Bessus. But in all three
6 Strabo, xi. p. 517. Alexandria on the Tanais and twelve other
towns are spoken of by Justin (xii. 5, 16), but xii. is perhaps a cor
ruption of vii.
7 Oxyartes is sometimes called king by a mere inaccuracy. Dexippus,
ap. Phot., cod. 82, p. 64, b. xxii. (Bekker), makes Alexander give Oropius
the 'Zoydiavwv fiaffiXfiav. The geographical order, and the fact that
Sogdiana has been mentioned before, demand the correction ^ovfftavuv,
and for KOIVWS we must read KOLVOS ; see Justin, xiii. 4, 14. Oropius
was the successor of Abulites. The province seems to have been
officially designated a kingdom, but that does not make its governor
a king.
8 Tli is province was perhaps formed by Alexander ; it was after
wards joined to Arachosia.
584
PERSIA
[GREEK
331-323. cases the old satraps were superseded on the first oppor
tunity. Most new appointments, however, were given
to Persians ; at first there were Macedonian satraps only
in rebellious Arachosia, Gedrosia, and the three new
Indian provinces. This policy helped the subjects to fall
in with the new rule ; but on second appointments Mace
donians generally took the place of Persians, and at
Alexander's death there were Persians only in Media (from
which Atropates, as the sequel proved, could not have
been removed without a fight), in Parthia, and in the
Paropanisus, which was held by Alexander's father-in-law.
The power of the satraps was considerably reduced ; in
Parthia, Aria, and the Paropanisus there seems to have
always been a Macedonian resident (eTrur/coTros) beside the
satrap, with the control of the military. Indeed in all the
provinces the command of the forces seems to have been
separated from the office of satrap, though it was not
always entrusted to a single officer. The satraps also lost
the right to engage mercenaries and to coin ; and in the
western countries, of which we know most, a single officer
— always a Macedonian — was sometimes charged with the
tribute of several provinces. Perfect order and an exact
definition of the functions of every officer could not be
attained from the very first ; yet even in this period of
transition the finances of the empire improved. At Alex
ander's death 50,000 talents (£11,288,515) lay in the
treasury, and the annual tribute was 30,000 talents, or
six and three-quarters millions sterling. What was of
more consequence, the treasures of the East were no longer
hoarded in the old Oriental fashion, but put in circulation
and applied to a number of great and useful enterprises.
Such were the exploration of the course and mouths of
the Indus ; the voyage of Nearchus, which opened the sea-
road between the Indus and the Euphrates; the restora
tion of the trade of Babylon by removing the weirs which
obstructed navigation, and by works on the canals and
the Pallacopas; the attempt to discover a sea-way round
Arabia, in which Hiero of Soli explored the east coast of
the peninsula; and the commission given to Heraclides
for exploration of the Caspian.
Alexander sought to assure the permanence of the em
pire by fusing Greeks and Persians into one mass. Thirty
thousand Persians, the so-called eTrtyovoi, were armed and
disciplined like Macedonians, and Persians were received
on equal footing in the Macedonian corps and even, to the
disgust of the Macedonian nobles, in the corps d'elite of
the cavalry, in which the latter served. Macedonia, in
truth, was not populous enough to keep the cadres full.
Alexander adopted the regal robes of Persia and the regal
state. The court was served by eunuchs, and men kissed
the ground before the great king. It was a strange sight
for Hellenes when a poor wretch from Messene was ordered
to execution because he had inadvertently sat on the kingly
throne.1
To the Greeks a union with a barbarian was no regular
marriage ; but the Bactrian Roxana was Alexander's queen.
His friends were urged to follow his example ; eighty of
his courtiers married Persians on the occasion of the great
wedding at Susa, and 10,000 soldiers who had chosen
Asiatic wives received gifts on the occasion. Still more
startling was the introduction of polygamy ; the king took
a second wife, Statira, daughter of Darius, and a third,
Parysatis, daughter of Ochus.
All this was Persian fashion ; but when Alexander
claimed divine honours as the son of Jupiter Ammon he
asked both Persians and Macedonians to adopt from the
Egyptians the most perfect model of devout submission to
their sovereign. Could this compound of nationalities
1 trove more than a kingdom of iron and clay ? The answer
! Pint., Alex., 73.
lay in the attitude of that part of its subjects which still
retained a vigorous life. The western nations, long schooled
to slavery, were passive under the change of rule. The
Persians, too, and all western Iran acquiesced after the first
conflict was decided. In the east it was not so. Here the
northern province of Chorasmia had been independent of
the later Acluemenians, and its kings had ruled the great
plains as far as the north-east slopes of the Caucasus.2
Bactria, Sogdiana, Aria, Arachosia, Drangiana, and the
borderlands towards India had obeyed Persian satraps,
but Bessus and his partisans did not forfeit their allegiance
by the murder of Darius. These eastern Iranians, who had
no close connexion with Persia, opposed the most obstinate
resistance to the conqueror : the Arians rose again and
again ; and an energetic chief like Spitamenes could always
stir up a party in Sogdiana. These risings began in the
castles of the numerous chieftains (vTrap^ot), but it was a
national spirit that made them so obstinate and bloody ;
the Iranians of Sogdiana and Bactria had acquired in their
constant wars with the Turanians a sense of self-respect
which the effeminate Medes and Persians wanted. Their
situation, too, favoured their resistance ; for their ancient
enemies in the desert had a common interest with them in
opposing a strong central government, and were easily
persuaded to lend them succour or shelter. Sacse and
Dahse fought for Bessus, and Spitamenes found refuge with
the Massageta? ; the wilderness offered a retreat where
regular troops could not follow, and from which a petty
warfare could always be renewed. In India the Brahmans
had been the soul of a still more vigorous resistance ; they
preached revolt to the rajahs of the lower Indus, and were
the object of Alexander's special severity. Eastern Iran was
the cradle and always remained the chief support of Zoro-
astrianism,3 and religion must have had its part in the
patriotic resistance of Bactria and Sogdiana. Alexander
forbade the practice of throwing the dying to the dogs
(Onesicritus, ap. Strabo, xi. p. 517), which the Bactrians
certainly took from the Avesta ; and this was just the
kind of decree which drives an Oriental people to despera
tion. The Macedonians did pay some attention to Iranian
thought ; a magian Osthanes is said to have been in the
train of Alexander, and Theopompus, a contemporary of
the conqueror, shows the first traces of acquaintance with
the Avesta. The Persian tradition that Alexander burned
the twenty-one nosks of the original Avesta, and that only
one part of the holy book was subsequently recovered from
memory, is of course not historical, but it rests on a very
true feeling that the new order of things was at irrecon
cilable war with the old faith.4
Alexander desired to fuse the Greeks and barbarians Alex-
together, but the practical means directed to this ideal amler's
aim were such as brought him into conflict with the natural failine-
leaders of the new state. By asking the Greeks as well
as the barbarians to worship him as divine he destroyed
the whole effect of the theatrical arts in which he was a
master, and by which he hoped to recommend his mission
as an eminently Hellenic one to the masses ; even Callis-
thenes, the enthusiastic herald of the new era, was bitterly
undeceived, and, turning against Alexander, fell a victim
to the despotism of the man who had been his idol. But,
what was still more fatal, the net result of his efforts at a
fusion of races was not to Hellenize the Persians but to
teach the Macedonians to exchange their old virtues for the
effeminacy and vices of the East. It is not fair to say that
if the Macedonians had possessed a riper civilization they
- So in the Middle Ages Kharezm and Kipchak stood under the same
sovereign, and were not included in the realm of Jagatai.
3 Sisimithres's wife was his own mother, a union which the A vesta
specially approves.
4 See Spiegel, Z. D. M. G., ix. 174.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
585
might have resisted the foreign influence ; their numbers
were too small, and Alexander pushed his plans too hastily
and with too exclusive regard to surface -effect, to make
any other issue possible. Nay, Alexander wished to have
it so, and there was no surer path to his favour than to"
wear a Persian coat and talk broken Persian like the schem
ing Peucestas. Alexander liked Oriental splendour and the
Oriental ceremony which placed an infinite distance be
tween the king and his highest subjects ; great statesmen
generally love to be absolute, and Alexander enjoyed
Oriental despotism and mechanical obedience much more
than councils of state and discussions of policy with the
Macedonian soldier-nobility, whose sturdy independence was
always asserting itself, and whose kings, unless in virtue
of great personal qualities, had never been more than primi
inter pares. Then, too, Alexander, in the splendour and
magnitude of his conquests, lost touch of the movements
that were going on at home. The true task of Macedonia
in the world's history was to unite Greece under its hege
mony, — a task clearly marked out, and one which Philip
had pursued with masterly skill. But the completion of
this task called for a modest and unsensational line of
action quite foreign to Alexander's spirit ; Antipater's hard-
won victory at Megalopolis, but for which his father's work
would have fallen to pieces behind him, was received with
a characteristic sneer on the war of mice which seemed to
be going on in Arcadia.1 Philip's old generals judged
otherwise and judged better ; it was not blindness to the
conqueror's genius, but a just perception of what was
practicable and desirable, and an instinctive dread of the
unknown issues of the king's plans, which gradually
estranged from him his truest councillors ; and it was an
evil sign that his only close friend was a poor creature
like Hephrestion, who could not boast of a single service.
Then came the first conspiracy and the murder of the
aged Parmenio, whose son Philotas was mixed up with it, —
a crime to which Alexander was led simply through fear.
The wild extravagances of grief that marked the death of
Hephaestion, and of which a pyre worth two and a half
millions sterling was the least, show how Alexander lost him
self more and more as he broke with the Macedonian char
acter. His last orders, cancelled at his death by Perdiccas,
included an invasion of Carthage by land and sea, with a
further view to Spain, and the erection to King Philip of a
tomb surpassing the Great Pyramid. The extravagance of
these plans was as palpable to the Macedonian soldiery
as to their leaders, and they too shared the growing aliena
tion from the monarch. There were mutinies as well as
conspiracies ; the soldiers were tired of following from
adventure to adventure, and at the Hyphasis they had
their way. In his later days Alexander was repeatedly
wounded, a fact significant of a change in the spirit of the
troops, for no great general would expose himself as
Alexander did — for example, in storming the city of the
Malli — unless his men required this stimulus.
The want of coherence in the empire was seen even
while Alexander was in India. Many satraps broke all
restraint, renewed the old oppressions of the Persian time,
hired mercenaries again, and only awaited a fit moment
for open rebellion ; the generals of the army that lay in
Media committed sacrilege and crimes of every kind ; the
treasurer Harpalus violated his trust and escaped with
his plunder. Alexander, on his return, soon restored order
with terrible severity, but the ferment was still at work,
especially in the west, and was increased through the dis
banded mercenaries of the satraps who returned to the
coast. There is one event of the time of anarchy when
Alexander was in India which, though passed over in the
official sources of Arrian, deserves special notice as a pre-
l Pint., AffcsiL, 15.
lude of what was to come (326 B.C.). The Greeks settled 331-312.
in Bactria and Sogdiana rose against the Macedonians on
a false rumour of Alexander's death. Three thousand of
them seized the citadel of Bactra, gained the support of
the natives, and, crowning their leader Athenodorus, pro
posed to make their way home. Athenodorus was assassin
ated, but his followers remained unmolested, and joined
the mass of their countrymen in the general rising of the
Greek military stations after Alexander's death.
One Macedonian custom Alexander had retained, that Death of
of carousing with his generals. A series of debauches in Alex-
the malarious climate of Babylon brought on a violent an
fever, which ended in his death (13th June 323).2 The
object of his life, the fusion of Macedonians and Persians,
was not attained. The Persians still felt themselves subject
to a foreign power, and in eastern Iran this feeling was
bitter. The Macedonians again had been carried by Alex
ander's genius far out of their true path of development
into a giddy career, in which a capable and valiant nation
found its ruin. Alexander did not die too soon, if he
was not to see the collapse of his work.
Terrible civil wars broke out at once on Alexander's Civil
death, and lasted almost unbroken for forty-two years, wars-
tearing his work to pieces, and scattering to the winds
Macedonia's claims to universal empire. There was no
legitimate heir, but the name of "king" was borne by Philip
(323-317), a bastard of the elder Philip, and by Alexander
II., Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana (323-311).
The real power lay at first with Perdiccas, who as regent
governed the whole empire from Babylon, and, after Per-
diccas was killed in a mutiny in the Egyptian campaign of
321, passed for the moment to Pitho and Arrhidaeus, till in
the same year the regency fell to Antipater. As he ruled
from Macedonia, the eastern satrapies were pretty much
left to themselves, but Pitho, who held the chief of these
— that of Media — took the first place, and soon appears as
strategus of all the upper satrapies. But his ambition
united the satraps against him, and he was driven not only
out of Parthia, which he had occupied after murdering the
satrap Philip, but out of Media too. The satraps now
joined hands with Eumenes and placed themselves under
his leadership when he came to Susa in 316 as the king's
strategus at the head of the argyraspids. Pitho had
meantime fled to Seleucus, satrap of Babylon, and with
him sought help from Eumenes's great enemy, Antigonus.
A war in Media and Susiana ensued, and Eumenes, whose
military successes were constantly frustrated by disobedi
ence and treason in his followers, was betrayed to Antigonus
and put to death in 315. Antigonus, already furnished
with a commission as strategus from Antipater, now lorded
it over all. Pitho, still greedy of power, and thinking of
conspiracies to recover it, was executed ; the Persian satrap,
Peucestas, who had led the allies against Pitho, was super
seded, and Seleucus fled to Ptolemy. Soon, however, the Seleucus
other potentates united against the threatening power of !•
Antigonus, and in the war that followed Seleucus, with
some help from Ptolemy's soldiers, repossessed himself of his
satrapy of Babylon, — an important event, which forms the
epoch of the Seleucid era (1 Sel. = 312/311 B.C.). Presently
a victory over Nicanor, who held Media for Antigonus,
made Seleucus master of Media and the adjoining provinces.
Antigonus had still some temporary successes, but at the
end of the war Seleucus was acknowledged lord of Baby
lonia and the upper satrapies.
In these conflicts we can distinguish two main interests,
represented by the cavalry and the infantry, or, what is
2 The exact date in our calendar, which cannot be calculated from
the Macedonian date 27 or 29 Dsesius, is found by the aid of Pseudo-
Callisthenes (Cod. A in C. Miiller's ed., p. 151 ; Arm. Tr. in Zacher,
Pseudo-Col., p. 100).
XVIII. — 74
586
PERSIA
312-280. the same thing, by the higher and lower nobility respect
ively." The former fought for the unity of the realm of
Alexander, the latter for the national traditions of Macedon.
In the first years the mass of the army made its wishes very
distinctly felt, e.g., in the rising against Perdiccas ; even the
esprit de corps of a single body like the argyraspids had
often a decisive influence on general politics. The fall of
Perdiccas was really the end of the Perso-Macedonian empire
founded by Alexander, as was made manifest by the fact
that Babylon ceased to be the capital, and Antipater with
the kings passed into Europe. On the ruin of Alexander's
political structure the ruin of his house directly followed ;
all the political and military talent of Eumenes, its one
sincere defender, could not avert the catastrophe, for
Eumenes, who as a Greek was always looked on with
suspicion, soon fell a victim to Macedonian jealousy. With
him the kingship really came to an end, though the empty
name of it lasted a little longer. The later conflicts have
a different character ; a certain number of leaders had
risen gradually above the mass of the officers, attaching to
their parties the less prominent men, and it was the con
flicting interests of these leaders which were now repre
sented in politics and war. Last of all, the particular
interests of the subject provinces came to find expression
in the conflicts of their chiefs, and the signal was given
for the formation of distinct kingdoms. In the wild
struggles for sxipremacy the last remains of Macedonian
loyalty disappeared ; when we are told that the strategi
and satraps of the upper provinces were still faithful to
the royal house, and that Antigonus, as late as 315,
counted on it in making war against Cassander, the loyalty
can hardly be regarded as a genuine sentiment, but was
merely a cover for the pride of chieftains who were willing
to acknowledge a distant and merely nominal sovereign,
but not to obey men who had lately been their equals.
And in truth the sentiments of the upper satrapies were
of little consequence. The power to give them effectual
expression was lacking, and these lands, till much later,
received all their political impulses from the west.
To make up for this, Iran was little touched by the civil
wars ; only Media and Parthia were seats of war, and that
for a short time. Among the satraps Peucestas of Persia,
Tlepolemus of Carmania, and Stasanor of Bactria are re
presented as good rulers, beloved by the natives ; when
Antigonus deposed Peucestas, a Persian notable told him
to his face that the Persians would obey no one else, and
lost his life for his frankness. Antigonus's realm was
less than Alexander's by Egypt, Syria, Thrace, and Mace
donia, and the tribute from it was 11,000 talents (two and
a half millions sterling). The ordinary taxes, therefore,
had not been raised ; but Antigonus raised special war-
taxes also, 5000 talents at one time in Susiana and as
much in Media.
Satra- The list of satrapies at this period is known from the records of
pies. the partitions of Babylon (323), Triparadisus (321), and Persepolis
(315). There were twelve upper satrapies, Persis, Carmania, Great
Media, Lesser Media, Parthia with Hyrcania, Bactria with Sogdiana,
Aria with Drangiana, Arachosia with Gedrosia, the ParopanisadfB,
India front the Paropanisadse to the Indus, India between the
Indus and Hydaspes, India on the lower Indus with Pattala. Of
Alexander's satrapies we miss Paraetacene, included in Persis, and
Tapuria, which Alexander himself seems to have joined to Parthia.
The only new satrapy is Lesser Media. It was thought proper to
place Media, the most important Iranian province, in the surer
hands of the Macedonian Pitho, son of Crateuas, but the north-west
part of the province was left to the old satrap Atropates, whom
Alexander had sent to Media in 328. He was father-in-law of
Perdiccas, and so claimed consideration, but probably he could not
have been displaced if it had been tried.1 At the new division on
1 On Atropates see Arrian, iv. 18, 3, and Pseudo-Cal. in C. Muller,
p. 149, where after Ileu/c^crT?; read 'ATpaTrdrrjv 'O^vSdTTjv yueracrTTjcrcu
&irb TTJS M?;5/as. His connexions in north-east Media are illustrated
by the fact that he had with him at Gauganiela Cadu.sians, Albanians,
and Sacesina.
the death of Perdiccas (321) Pitho was confirmed in Media as far as
the Caspian Gates, but nothing is said of Lesser Media, which was
really no longer part of the empire. Thus Atropates was the
founder of a small separate kingdom, which thenceforth continued
to bear his name, in Greek Atropatene, in Arabic and Persian Adhar- Atroi
baijan, and in Armenian (more nearly conformed to the original) tene.
Atrpatakan. It was never a very important state, but is worth
notice as the first new native realm within the empire of Alexander
and the first symptom of the Iranian reaction against Hellenism. 'J
Except in the case of Media the partition of Babylon made no
change in the holders of the upper satrapies. So we are expressly
told (Curt., x. 10, 4, and Just., xiii. 4, 19, where for ultcriorc read
ultcriusquc], and the apparent exceptions to the principle are per
haps merely due to our ignorance of previous changes. The most
remarkable of these is that Pitho, son of Agenor, who under Alex
ander shared with a Persian the satrapy of the lower Indus, is now
found in India Citerior in room of Nicanor, while his old satrapy
has fallen to no other than King Porus.3 AVe may be sure that
the Macedonians sanctioned this extension of the power of the
Indian king only because they could not help it, and it is probable
that Porus had usurped the province in the troubles that broke out
in India as soon as Alexander left it in 326 (Arr. , vi. 27, 2). Thus
one more province was now only nominally attached to the empire.
Porus, indeed, was assassinated through Macedonian intrigue be
tween 321 and 315, but the country never again came permanently
under their power.
The partition of 321 was less conservative. Nicanor was removed
from Aria to Bactria, and Philip from Bactria to Parthia, super
seding Phrataphernes. These changes had probably some con
nexion with the rising of the Greeks in Bactria and Sogdiana after
Alexander's death. No Persian satraps now remained except
Atropates and Oxyartes, who had connexions by marriage with the
conquerors. Antigonus, to please the natives, changed this policy,
and even put the Mede Orontobates in the great province of Media,
but he returned at the same time to Alexander's policy of limiting
the satraps' power. We hear nothing of strategi in the satrapies
from 321 to 315, so it is probable that Perdiccas and his immediate
successors had allowed the satraps to hold also the military com
mand in their provinces. Antigonus again appointed strategi,
who were always Macedonians.
In a time of civil war it is not surprising that the old
disorders of the Achaemenian period reappeared. During
the wars of Eumenes and Antigonus the Uxians and
Cossieans again appear as independent, and as plundering
travellers. But a much more serious outbreak was that of
the Greek settlers in the north-east against the Macedonians.
On the news of Alexander's death in 323 the military
colonies rose under Philo, the ./Enian, and with 20,000 foot
and 3000 horse attempted to fight their way home. They
were met by Pitho, governor of Media, and defeated by
an inferior force through the treachery of one of their
chiefs. Pitho granted them terms if they would lay down
their arms and return home, but the Macedonians refused
to respect the convention ; they knew Perdiccas had or
dered the extermination of the rebels, and, falling on the
disarmed foe, they massacred them and divided their spoil.
Such a catastrophe could not fail to embitter the rela
tions between eastern and western Iran, between Greeks
and Macedonians. It is hardly accidental that the only
notice we have as to how Seleucus Nicator (reigned 312-
280) came into possession of the upper satrapies is that he
subdued Bactria by force of arms. To his Asiatic subjects
Seleucus appeared as a king from the first ; officially, and
among the Greeks, he received this title only in 300. His
first care was directed to India, where, probably during
the wars of Eumenes and Antigonus, the Macedonian
officials had been slain and obedience transferred to Chan-
clragupta, founder of the Maurya kingdom. Seleucus
crossed the Indus, but Chandragupta obtained peace on
favourable terms, giving Seleucus five hundred war-
elephants, but increasing his dominions by the parts of the
Paropanisadse, Arachosia, and Gedrosia that lay towards
2 The hypothesis that Atropatene was an important place as a
refuge for the fire-worshippers has no other basis than a false etymology,
Adharbaijan= Fireland. It became important politically only in the
later Middle Ages, when it was the gateway of the Turkish migration
westward and received a Turkish population.
3 This is certain from Arrian, ap. Phot., cod. 92, p. 71, b. xl. (Bekker),
where Pattala is said to have obeyed Porus.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
587
the Indus. The kings swore to this treaty and became
lasting allies.
Instead of the twenty-one Asiatic satrapies of the parti
tions Seleucus divided his empire into seventy-two, thus
diminishing the dangerous strength of the individual
. governors. But the old arrangement was restored later,
and at the beginning of the reign of Antiochus III. we
find Media, Persia, Susiana, and the district of the Ery
thraean Sea (separated off from Babylonia) standing each
under one head (Polyb., v. 40-54). Apparently an eparch
came to be appointed with military command over all the
sections of each old satrapy, and gradually drew to himself
all the functions of the satraps in the old regime, so that
he could be spoken of indifferently as satrap or strategus.
Seleucus had built for himself a new capital, Seleucia on
the Tigris, but in process of time his chief attention came
to be more and more engrossed by the affairs of the west,
and the seat of power was shifted to Antioch in Syria. A
kingdom like that of Seleucus could hardly be governed
from Syria, which lay so far from its natural centre, and
about 293 or a little later Seleucus found it advisable to
make over the upper satrapies to Antiochus, his son by
his first marriage with Apama, daughter of Spitamenes,
giving him Seleucia as his capital and his stepmother
Stratonice as wife. Seleucus, like Antigonus, dreamed
of regaining the whole monarchy of Alexander, and fancied
himself within reach of his goal after the fall of Lysimachus,
at when he was himself removed by assassination. Antiochus
hl1- Soter (280-261) was prudent enough to be content with
what he possessed and acquiesce in the actual division of
the empire into three realms, practically corresponding to
the three continents.
No one had been so zealous as Seleucus in extending
Alexander's schemes of colonization ; he is said to have
founded seventy-five cities. Among such of these as we
know an unusual proportion lies in Media — the breast of
Iran, as the Orientals call it — where it was doubly import
ant to strengthen the Macedonian element. A Greek settle
ment in Ecbatana and the cities of Laodicea, Apamea near
Rhagae, and Europus were his foundations ; Alexandria
Eschata, in the extreme north-east, was strengthened by
new recruits ; and even beyond this city, as *it seems, in
the land of the Scythians, an Antioch was founded. These
last undertakings probably came after the association in
the empire of Antiochus, who, through his grandfather
Spitamenes, had special reasons for interest in these parts.
It was then that Demodamas crossed the Jaxartes and
raised altars beyond it to the Apollo of Didyma, the patron
god of the dynasty. Then, too, Alexander's plan of explor
ing the Caspian was resumed; the admiral Patrocles made
a voyage of discovery, and got only just far enough to be
confirmed in the false notion of a north-east passage to
India, — probably, therefore, to the extremity of the penin
sula of Mangishlak. It was seen, on the other hand, that
the Caspian was not connected with the Mseotis ; but
Seleucus shortly before his death still entertained a plan
for a canal from the Caspian to the Cimmerian Bosphorus.
Antiochus carried on his father's work of founding cities,
and built Laodicea in the east of Persis ; but he gave more
attention to eastern Iran. A wall of 1 500 stadia (about 172
miles) was carried round the oasis of Merv, and there, at
the confluence of the Margus and the Zothales, the ruined
city Syriana was rebuilt as Antioch, with a circuit of 8
miles. In Aria Antiochus Soter founded Sotira, his general
Achseus Achaia ; the older chief towns Artacabane and
Alexandria on the Arius received new walls, the latter with
a circuit of from 3 to 6 miles. Alexandropolis in Arachosia
had been similarly strengthened by Seleucus. With all
these efforts, however, Hellenism made no such deep im
pression on Iran as on the west, nor did the loosely-jointed
empire attain to anything higher than a Hellenistic repro- 280-250.
duction of the kingdom of the Achsemenians. Even in the
fragmentary records that we possess we hear from the first
of rebellions little favourable to consolidation of the realm ;
Seleucus, like Alexander, still had an army of Macedonians
and Persians together, while the later Seleucids, at least in
their western wars, used natives sparingly and only as bow
men, slingers, or the like, and preferred for these services
the wild desert and mountain tribes of Iran.1 Of the
Persian troops of Seleucus we read that 3000 rebelled, and
were mastered and destroyed only by treachery ; another
and seemingly connected story speaks of a rising of 3000
Macedonians (Polyaenus, vii. 39, 40). Antiochus himself
executed his eldest son, Seleucus, on suspicion of conspiracy
against his life ; the heir of the kingdom was his second son,
Antiochus II. Theos (261-246), a drunken and dissolute Anti-
prince, who neglected his realm in the society of unworthy ochus n-
favourites.
This king is mentioned in a remarkable contemporary
Indian inscription. The Seleucids were constant allies of the
great Maurya (Magadha) kingdom. Between 311 and 302
Megasthenes repeatedly went as ambassador from Seleucus
to Chandragupta, and Daimachus went in like manner from
Antiochus to the court of Chandragupta's successor, Ami-
traghata (280-276). The next king, Asoka, became a
Buddhist about 263. He then founded hospitals for men
and beasts throughout his realm, planted places where
nothing had grown before, and provided wells and grew
trees along the roads for the refreshment of man and beast.
Further, he tells us, he caused his example in these things
to be followed by his neighbours, whether southern or
western. Among the latter Antiochus, king of the Greeks,
has the first place.
Under the weak Antiochus II. north-eastern Iran was lost
to the empire. While the Seleucids were busy elsewhere,
probably in the long war with Ptolemy Philadelphia, which
occupied Antiochus's later years, Diodotus, viceroy of
Bactria, took the title of king. The new kingdom included
Sogdiana and Margiana from the first, while the rest of
the East, with a single exception scarcely noticed at the
time, adhered to the Seleucids.2 Now the formation of
a strong local kingdom, heartily supported by the Greek
colonies, and likely to control the neighbouring nomads
and protect its own frontiers with strictness, was by no
means agreeable to the chiefs of the desert tribes who, like
the modern Turcomans, had been wont to pillage the settled
lands, and raise blackmail with little hindrance from the
weak and distant central authority at Antioch.3 Accord
ingly two brothers, Arsaces and Tiridates, whose tribe, Arsaces
the Parnians, a subdivision of the Dahse, had hitherto1-
pastured their flocks in Bactria, on the banks of the Ochus,
moved west into Seleucid territory near Parthia. An in
sult offered to the younger brother by the satrap Pherecles
moved them to revolt ; Pherecles was slain, and Parthia
freed from the Macedonians. Arsaces was then proclaimed
first king of Parthia (250 B.C.). Such is the later official
tradition, and we possess no other account of the beginnings
of the Arsacid dynasty. But when the official account
transforms Arsaces, who, according to genuine tradition, was
the leader of a robber horde and of uncertain descent, into
a Bactrian, the descendant of Phriapites, son of Artaxerxes
II. (who was called Arsaces before his accession), and makes
him conspire with his brother and five others, like the seven
1 See the accounts of the army of Antiochus III. in Polyb., v. 79,
and Livy, xxxvii. 40.
2 Justin, xli. 4, 5, exaggerates rhetorically, on the basis of some such
expression as that used by Strabo, in speaking of the event.
3 These brigands had destroyed two of Alexander's cities, Alexandria
in Margiana and Heraclea in Media, before the time of Antiochus I. ;
Pliny, X. II., vi. 47, 48.
PERSIA
[GR.ECO-PARTHIAN
250-220. who slew the false Sinerdis, wo detect the inventions of a
period when the Arsacids had entered on the inheritance of
the Achsemenians, and imitated the order of their court.
The seven conspirators are the heads of the seven leading
noble houses to whom, beyond doubt, the Karen, the Suren,
and the Aspahapet belonged.1 And further, genuine tradi
tion does not know the first Arsaces as king of Parthia at all,
and as late as 105 B.C. the Parthians themselves reckoned
the year (autumn) 248/247 as the first of their empire.2
But 248 is the year in which Arsaces I. is said to have been
killed, after a reign of two years, and succeeded by his
brother, who, like all subsequent kings of the line, took
the throne-name of Arsaces. The first Arsaces must have
existed, for he appears as deified on the reverse of his
brother's drachmae, but he was not king of Parthia. Nay,
we have authentic record that even in the epoch -year
248/247, the year of the accession of Tiridates, Parthia was
still under the Seleucids. These contradictions are solved
by a notice of Isidore of Charax (Geog. Gr. ^fin., i. 251),
which names a city Asaak, not in Parthia, but north-west
from it, in the neighbouring Astauene, where Arsaces was
proclaimed king, and where an everlasting fire was kept
burning. This, therefore, was the first seat of the mon
archy, and Pherecles was presumably satrap of Astauene,
not eparch of Parthia.
The times were not favourable for the reduction of the
rebels. When Antiochus II. died, the horrors that accom-
Seleucus panied the succession of his son Seleucus II. Callinicus
(246-226) gave the king of Egypt the pretext for a war, in
which he overran almost the whole lands of the Seleucids
as far as Bactria. Meantime a civil war was raging between
Seleucus and his brother Antiochus Hierax, for whom the
Galatians held, and at the great battle of Ancyra in 242
or 241 Seleucus was totally defeated and thought to be
Arsaces slain. At this news Arsaces Tiridates, whom the genuine
Tiridates tradition still represents as a brave robber-chief, broke into
'" . . Parthia at the head of his Parnians, slew the Macedonian
eparch Andragoras, and took possession of the province/'
These Parnian Dahae were a branch of the Dahaa who lived
beyond the Sir Darya and the Sea of Aral (the Tanais and
Maeotis of Strabo, xi. p. 515, and Curt., vi. 2, 13, 14), and
were called Xandians or Parnians ; but, in consequence of
internal dissensions, they had migrated at a remote date
to Hyrcania and the desert adjoining the Caspian.4 Here,
and in great measure even after they conquered Parthia,
they retained the peculiarities of Scythian nomads. The
Parthian language is described as a sort of compound
between Median and Scythian ; and, since the name of the
Dahae and those of their tribes (Strabo, xi. p. 511) show-
that they belonged to the nomads of Iranian kin, who in
antiquity were widely spread from the Jaxartes as far as
the steppes of south Russia, we must conclude that the
mixed language arose by the action and reaction of two
Iranian dialects, that of the Parthians and that of their
masters.5 Their nomad costume the Parnians in Parthia
gradually gave up for the Median dress, but they kept
their old war-dress, the characteristic scale-armour, com-
1 Moses of Chorene (ii. 28) knows only these three lines besides the
Arsacids. Other Armenian historians, however (Langlois, i. 109, 199),
know four lines of Arsacids which may have taken the place of lost
families.
2 See the cuneiform tablet in G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries,
p. 389, which agrees with Euseb. , C'kron., p. 299 (Aucher).
3 Justin, xli. 4, 2. What is said of Andragoras in xii. 4, 12, rests
on a slip of the memory.
4 The common tradition connects the migration with the conquests
of the Scythian king landysus, a contemporary of Sesostris. It adds
that Parthian means "fugitive" or "exile" (Zend, pZrgtu). But the
name Parthava is found on the inscriptions of Darius long before the
immigration of the Parnians.
5 An idea of the difference between the two may be got from the
fragments of Kharezmian, preserved by Buruni.
pletely covering man and horse. The founder of the
empire appears on coins in this dress, with the addition
of a short mantle, and so again does Mithradates II. The
hands and feet alone are unprotected by mail ; shoes with
laces, and a conical helmet with flaps, to protect the neck
and ears, complete the costume.6 The conquerors of Parthia
continued to be a nation of cavalry ; to walk on foot was
a shame for a free man ; the national weapon was the
bow, and their way of fighting was to make a series of
attacks, separated by a simulated flight, in which the rider
discharged his shafts backwards. Many habits of the life
they had led in the desert were retained, and the Parthian
rulers never lost connexion with the nomad tribes on their
frontiers, among whom several Arsacids found temporary
refuge. Gradually, of course, the rulers were assimilated
to their subjects; the habitual faithlessness and other
qualities ascribed to the Parthians by the Romans are such
as are common to all Iranians. The origin of the Parthian
power naturally produced a rigid aristocratic system : a
few freemen governed a vast population of bondsmen ;
manumission was forbidden, or rather was impossible,
since social condition was fixed by descent; the 10,000
horsemen who followed Surenas into battle were all his
serfs or slaves, and of the 50,000 cavalry who fought
against Antony only 400 were freemen.
Arsaces Tiridates soon added Hyrcania to his realm and
raised a great host to maintain himself against Seleucus,
but still more against a nearer enemy, Diodotus of Bactria.
On the death of the latter, however, the common interests
of the Parthians and Bactrians as against the Seleucids
brought about an alliance between Arsaces Tiridates and
Diodotus II. With much ado, Seleucus had got the
better of his foreign and intestine foes and kept his king
dom together, and in 238 or a little later, having made
peace with Egypt and silenced his brother, he marched
from Babylon into the upper satrapies. Tiridates at first
retired and took shelter with the nomadic Apasiacie, but
he advanced again and gained a victory, which the Par
thians continued to commemorate as the birthday of their
independence. Seleucus was unable to avenge his defeat,
being presently called back by the rebellion stirred up by
his aunt Stratonice at Antioch. This gave the great
Hellenic kingdom in Bactria and the small native state in
Parthia time to consolidate themselves. Tiridates used
the respite to strengthen his army, to fortify towns and
castles, and to found the city of Dara or Dareium in the
smiling landscape of Abevard. Tiridates, who on his coins
appears first merely as Arsaces, then as King Arsaces, and
finally as "great king " (probably in imitation of Antiochus
Magnus), reigned thirty -seven years, dying in 211/10.
His nation ever held his memory in almost divine honour.
Seleucus III. Soter (226-223) died early, and was
followed by Antiochus III. Magnus (223-187), who in his An
brother's lifetime had ruled from Babylon over the upper oc^
satrapies. Molon, governor of Media, supported by his
brother Alexander in Persis, rose against him in 222 and
assumed the diadem.7 The great resources of his province,
which followed him devotedly, enabled Molon to take the
offensive and even to occupy Seleucia after a decisive battle
with the royal general Xenoetas. Babylonia, the Erythraean
district, all Susiana except the fortress of Susa, Parapotamia
as far as Europus, and Mesopotamia as far as Dura were
successively reduced. But the young king soon turned
the fortunes of the war. Crossing the Tigris in person, he
6 Mithradates I. was the first to adopt the robes of a Persian great
king.
7 The coins of "King Molon" show that his rebellion has nothing
to do with the King Antiochus of C. I. G., 4458. The latter, appearing
in a list of deified kings arranged in the order of their deification or
death, is the eldest son of Antiochus III., who died in 193.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
589
penetrated into Apolloniatis and cut off Melon's retreat.
Molon was forced to accept battle near Apollonia ; his left
wing passed over to the enemy, and, after a crushing defeat,
he and all his kinsmen and chief followers died by their
own hands (220). Antiochus now marched to Seleucia to
regulate the affairs of the East. He used his victory with
moderation, mitigating the severities of his minister
Hermias ; but he had effectually prevented the rise of a
new kingdom in the most important province of Iran. In
the same year, before he returned to Syria, he marched
across Mount Zagrus against the aged Artabazanes, the
most powerful of the native princes, who ruled not only
Atropatene but the neighbouring lands, especially east
Armenia (Polyb., v. 55, 7), and by the terror of his approach
extorted an advantageous treaty.
A period followed in which the king was fully occupied
in the west, but after this he began a campaign of several
years in the upper satrapies, to which his contemporary
renown was mainly due. First he regulated the affairs of
the Armenian kingdom of Arsamosata, whose king, Xerxes,
had fallen by the intrigues of his own wife, a sister of
Antiochus.1 Then, descending the Euphrates by ship to
Seleucia, he appeared in Media in 209, hardly as an enemy,
though he seized the gold and silver decorations of the
temple of the goddess ^Ene in Ecbatana. Thence with
100,000 foot and 20,000 horse he marched against the new
.rsijs Parthian king, Arsaces II.,2 son and successor of Tiridates.
'- Crossing the desert obliquely to Hecatompylus, he forced
his way into Hyrcania over Mount Labus (the eastern part
of the Elburz mountains), defeating the Parthians on the
summit, and besieged the fugitives in Sirynca. The
Parthians planned an escape by night, and massacred the
Greek residents to prevent its betrayal ; but the plan
failed. The city yielded, and the war ended in a treaty
which left Arsaces his kingdom, but beyond question
reduced him to a vassal. In 208 began the much more
serious war with Bactria. Here the successors of Diodotus
had been dethroned by a usurper, Euthydemus of Magnesia,
whose coins indicate a long reign. Euthydemus tried to
defend the line of the Arius (Herirud), but Antiochus
effected a passage a little west of the city Guriana,:i inflicted
a decisive defeat on the hostile cavalry, and forced Euthy
demus to retreat to Zariaspa. But the siege of Bactra,
the capital, proved tedious, and the war made little progress.
Antiochus himself opened negotiations and was impressed
by the declaration of the Bactrian king, that if he were
reduced to extremities he must call in the help of the
nomads, which would be fatal to the Greek civilization of
the land. At length, in 206, a peace was arranged, and
Antiochus was visited in his camp by Demetrius, the
youthful son of Euthydemus, who pleased the king so well
that he betrothed to him his daughter ; Euthydemus was
left on his throne, and the two powers swore an alliance
offensive and defensive, which cost Bactria no more than
certain payments of money, the victualling of the Mace
donian troops, and the surrender of the war-elephants. The
Bactrian Greeks were grateful for this moderation ; their
memorial coins place Antiochus Nicator with Euthydemus
Theos, Diodotus Soter, and Alexander Philippi among the
founders of their political existence.4 Antiochus next
1 John of Antioch, in Mu'ller, iv. 557.
2 This king seems to have had Arsaces as his proper name, for
Justin always uses the proper name of Parthian kings. Vaillant's
conjecture, which gives him the name of Artabanus I., has no basis.
3 For Tayovpiav, Polyb., x. 49, where all editors adopt the geograph
ically impossible Tcurovpiav of Eeiske, read TO. Tovpiava, comparing
Ptol., vi. 10, 4.
4 That Antiochus Nicator is Antiochus III. Magnus follows from
Malalas, i. 261 ; if the style of his Bactrian coins, resembling as they
do those of Diodotus, really demands an earlier date, they must belong
to the last of the Diodotides not mentioned by the authors, not, as
the numismatists suppose, to Antiochus II.
crossed the Paropanisus into the valley of Cabul, renewing 220-1C4
the friendly relations of his dynasty with the Indian king
Subhagasena, and receiving from him 150 war-elephants.
The return march was through Arachosia and Drangiana,
the winter being spent in Carmania. Thus it appears that
south of the Paropanisus political relations had remained
unchanged for a hundred years, and the successes of
Antiochus in Upper Asia, together with the prudent limita
tion of his schemes to what was practicable, did much to
give permanence to the empire in the East, notwithstand
ing its many points of weakness. The series of victorious
campaigns was concluded by a maritime excursion in 205
against the rich merchant -community of Gerrha on the
Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf, in which Antiochus
again showed his moderation, receiving from the Gerrhaeans
a gift, 500 talents of silver, 1000 talents of incense, and
200 talents of oil of myrrh, but leaving them the freedom
they had enjoyed from time immemorial.
Under very different circumstances did Antiochus revisit
the eastern lands eighteen years later, his prestige broken
by the war with Rome, and his position as a great power
shattered in a way that could not fail ultimately to react
on his Asiatic subjects. His most urgent difficulty, how
ever, lay in an exhausted treasury, and the demands of
Rome for a heavy war-tribute. Antiochus came to Su^a
in search of money and seized a pretext to plunder the
rich and famous temple of Bel in Elymais ; but the attempt
was fatal to its author, who was destroyed, together with
his followers, by a rising of the Elymseans (187). This, no
doubt, was the moment when Elymais became independent
and formed a small separate kingdom in the upland part
of Susiana.
Antiochus was followed in the kingdom by his sons,
first the weak Seleucus IV. Philopator (187-175), and
then the gifted Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (175-164), Avho Anti-
had a clear insight into the evils that were sapping the ochuslV
empire, but attempted to cure them and bind the loose
complex of provinces more closely to the centre with such
impatience and violence that he only hastened the fall
of his dynasty. He too, like all the later Seleucids, was
in chronic want of money, and it was chiefly to raise
tribute that he marched into the East in 166. He first
made for Greater Armenia and the neighbouring Sophene,
which had never paid much more than nominal allegiance
to Macedon, and after the defeat of Antiochus the Great by
Rome (189) had formed themselves into kingdoms under
Artaxias and Zadriades, the former strategi. Antiochus
penetrated into Armenia and took Artaxias prisoner, but
restored him to his kingdom. He was next called by
urgent affairs to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Over the
Persians we read that his lieutenant in Mesene gained a
double victory in one day, by sea and by land, at the pro
montory of Naumachaea5 over against the Carmanian coast.
This victory, however, implies that Persis had already
cast off the Macedonian yoke,6 and that the new kingdom
had already extended its sway over the opposite coast of
'Oman, as we know to have been the case about 70 A.D.7
At the mouth of the Tigris Antiochus restored an old
city of Alexander's and called it Antioch ;8 it had been
destroyed by an inundation, a sign that the negligent
government of the later Seleucids had let the canal system,
5 Pliny, vi. § 152 ; but one is tempted to suspect a corruption of
the text and read Drymatina, Macs ; liorum, &c.
6 Strabo, xv. p. 736, gives a general confirmation of the existence
of a kingdom here in the time of the Macedonians.
7 Peripl. M. Er. (Geog. Gr. Min., i. 283). The connexion of the
opposite coasts is natural ; in the 10th century the Buwaihids ruled
over 'Oman.
8 Pliny, JV. H.,\\. 139, says "Antiochus quintus regum," reckon
ing Antiochus Hierax. We call Eupator Antiochus V., but he cannot
be meant, and there is no way of counting which would make Sidetes
the 5th Autiochus.
590
PERSIA
[GR.ECO-PARTHIAN
191-171. restored by Alexander, fall again into ruin. Another of
Epiphanes's measures directed to the strengthening of the
Hellenic element in the East was the occasion of the
change to Epiphanea of the name of the Median capital.
But against these useful efforts must be set the plundering
of the temples of the barbarians, a sure way to exhaust
Oriental patience, and one which involved the king in a
catastrophe so like to that of his father that we should
suspect some confusion were the accounts not so Avell con
firmed.1 The king, we are told, heard of a rich temple of
the goddess Namea in Elymais stored with the gifts of
many generations ; he marched out to plunder it, but was
driven back by the natives to Babylon. In Persis he
received tidings of the formidable rising in Judaea; excited
by similar acts of violence ; apparently he was then on
his way against the Persian rebels, but on the journey he
died of consumption in the Persian town of Tabas (164). .
Antiochus had given Mesene with its capital, Antioch, to
a native dynast, Hyspaosines, as satrap ; and, when Antioch,
like its predecessor Alexandria, was soon ruined by floods,
the city was removed to an artificial hill and protected
by an embankment. Under the name of Spasinu Charax
(Hyspaosines's pile-town) the new city rose to commercial
prosperity, and became the capital of . the petty kingdom
Chara- of Characene, which probably became independent at the
cene. death of Antiochus. Thus the Seleucid empire was now
quite cut off from the Persian Gulf by a circle of small
native states.2
Now followed the troubled reign of the child -king
Antiochus V. Eupator (164-162), which was cut short by
Deme- Demetrius Soter (162-150). The latter was constantly
trios I. persecuted by the Romans, who raised enemies against him
on every side, and so the times seemed to invite a renewal
of the enterprise of Molon. Since the time of Epiphanes
the satrap of Media had been one Timarchus of Miletus,
brother of the intriguing and influential treasurer Hera-
elides, and, like the latter, a favourite of the late king, who
had often sent him to Rome. Knowing the ground there,
he went to Rome, and easily persuaded the senate to grant
him the title of king (16 1).3 He made a treaty with
Artaxias of Armenia against Demetrius, compelled the
neighbours of Media to acknowledge him, and extended
his power as far as Zeugma, and finally over Babylonia.4
But .he fared in the end no better than Molon. The
Babylonians were oppressed and hated him, and the self-
conceived majesty of Timarchus, who on his coins called
himself "the Great," soon broke down in conflict with
Demetrius, one of the most gifted princes of a highly-
gifted dynasty. Timarchus was slain, his brother fled,
and the victor was saluted as " saviour " (Soter) by the
grateful Babylonians (160). It was a great victory for
Demetrius ; he had saved the best part of Iran for his
monarchy, and he had shown all who speculated on the
support of Rome that the decrees of the republic were
powerless in regions to which its arm could not reach.
The true danger for the Macedonian monarchy came not
from rebellious lieutenants but from the ever stronger re
action of the Oriental element, of which the little state of
Parthia was the most vigorous champion. The kings of
Parthia had long kept quiet after the war with Antiochus the
Arsaces Great. Phriapatius, successor of Arsaces II., who reigned
fifteen years (c. 191 -c. 176), calls himself on his coins
Phil-
adelphus.
1 Comp. Gran. Licinian., p. 9, with the first confused account in the
letter of the Jews to Aristobulus, 2 Mac. i. 10 sq.
2 Hyspaosines was not an Arab, as Pliny states, vi. § 139. The
Iranian names of the older kings of Characene justify Juba's account
of their extraction.
3 The corrupt passage of Diodorus, Exc. Escur., 13, ought to run
thus, Tt^dpxV t£eii>ai Kal avry fiacriXta elvai.
4 In Diod., I.e., read TT}S Ba/SiAwj/t'as for rr?5 /3a<7t\ei'as. Hence the
error of Appian, who does not mention Media at all.
"Arsaces Philadelphus," perhaps because he had married a
sister, and (first of all Parthian kings) Philhellen.5 By the
last title he presents himself, at a time when the Seleucid
power was sinking, as the protector of his present and
future Greek subjects. His eldest son and successor,
Phraates I. (Arsaces Theopator of the coins), conquered Phn
the brave Mardian Highlanders and transplanted them to I-
Charax in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Gates, a proof
that the Parthians had already detached Comisene and
Choarene0 from Media (Strabo, xi. 514), probably just after
the death of Antiochus the Great.
About 171 Phraates died and left the crown not to his Mitl
sons but to his brother Mithradates (Arsaces Epiphanes and date
apparently also, on tetradrachms of 139, 138, Arsaces Phil- I-
hellen), a prince of remarkable capacity, who made Parthia
the ruling power in Iran. His first conquests, it would
seem, were made at the expense of Bactria.
The kingdom of Bactria had made vast advances under Den
Euthydemus, whose son Demetrius crossed the Indian*™1
Caucasus and began the Indian conquests, which soonBac!
carried the Greeks far beyond the farthest point of Alex
ander. The Punjab was reduced and the city of Cakala,
under the name of Euthyclemia, became the capital of the
Indian conquests; but besides this it appears that Demetrius
himself marched down the course of the Indus, conquered
Pattala and the kingdoms of Saraostes (Surashtra) and
Sigerdis, probably the district of the commercial city
Barygaza. The object, it is plain, was to reach the sea
and get a share in the trade of the world ; and it is possible
that the extension of the power of the Bactrian Greeks
over Chinese Tartary as far as the Seres and Phaunians
had a similar object, viz., to protect the trade-route with
China along the Tarym river. For the Seres are the
Chinese, and the Phauni, according to Pliny,7 lay west of
the Attacori (the mythical people at the sources of the
Hoang-ho) and east of the Tochari, whose earlier settle
ments were east of Khoten. They occupied, therefore, the
very region which, according to Chinese sources, was then
held by a nomadic pastoral people, the Tibetan No-kiang.
History shows that Chinese Tartary is easily conquered
from the Oxus and Jaxartes, but very hard to hold, and
there is thus no reason to doubt the truth of the Bactrian
advance in this direction. Strabo, unluckily, does not tell
us whether the campaign was made by Demetrius ; it must
have fallen before 177, when the great conquests of
the Hiung-nu began, but after 201, when the founder of
the Han dynasty regained the country as far as the Great
Wall, and put China in a position to take part in the trade
of inner Asia. This is precisely the period of the greatest
power of the Greeks in Bactria. Demetrius, having suc
ceeded his father, was displaced in Bactria by the able
usurper Eucratides, some time between 181 and 171. 8 A Em
thousand cities obeyed Eucratides, and both he and his **4
rival Demetrius sought to extend the Greek settlements,
the one founding Eucratidia in Bactria, the other Deme-
trias in Arachosia. Now Justin tells us that the Bactrians
were so exhausted by wars with the Sogdians, Arachosians,
Drangians, Arians, and Indians that they at length fell
an easy prey to the weaker Parthians ; but Eucratides he
describes as a valiant prince, who once with 300 men held
out during five months, though besieged by 60,000 men of
Demetrius, king of India, and then, receiving succours,
subdued India.
5 For these and other Parthian coins P. Gardner's work is the
authority. One of them is dated 125 Sel. = 187 B.C.
6 Choarene contains the only Greek city in the older conquests of
the Parthians, and the coin with Greek date and title is of the year
of Antiochus's death.
7 y. If., vi. 55, where read " Phuni et Thocari. ;>
•8 Sallet's numismatic arguments, which place Eucratides about 200
B.C., are not conclusive, and do violence to the other testimonies.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
591
This implies that besides the kingdom of Bactria and that of
Demetrius — the latter now confined to India and probably to the
lands east of the Indus — there were independent states in various
districts still Seleucid in 206. Justin's statement is confirmed
by the coins, which also show that Eucratides came forth as victor
from a series of wars with the lesser states. Sogdiana, accord
ing to Chinese authorities, was occupied by the Scythians in the
lifetime of Eucratides ; Antimachns, to judge from a naval victory
recorded on his coins, once reigned on the lower Indus ; the prin
cipal place where coins of him and his successor Antialcides have
been found is the Cophen valley ; the latter prince, who borrows
from Antiochus Epiphanes the title "Nicephurus," may be viewed
as his younger contemporary. The neighbouring realm of Plato
was ephemeral, but his money is unique as giving a date by the
Seleucid era (165 B.C.). Pantaleon and Agathocles, whose coins
are chiefly to be found in Begram, Cabul, Ghaznf, Kandahar, and
Sistan, were doubtless kings of Arachosia and Drangiana. Before
this these countries belonged to Demetrius, and even, as the coins
show, to his father Euthydemus, who cannot have been contem
porary with the last years of Antiochus the Great, so that they
were probably given as a dowry to his daughter when she married
Demetrius. This marriage really took place, for the Seleucid name
Laodice is found among the Bactrian Greeks. The victories of
Eucratides are proved by his surfrappe coins. Thus he restruck
coins of Antialcides and appears posthumously as "God of the city
Kariei " l on money of Apollodotus, king of the Indians. Heliocles,
co -regent and successor of Eucratides, and Strato, apparently the
successor of Apollodotus, restruck each the money of the other, and
Heliocles's name also appears over what is perhaps a coin of Pliilo-
xenus, who reigned in the region of Peshawar. '•'
On his way back from the conqiiest of India Eucratides
was murdered by his son and co-regent, probably Helio
cles.3 The date of this murder may be fixed by that of
Demetrius, who must have been born not later than 224,
and may be taken to have lost his kingdom not later than
159. Eucratides cannot, according to Justin's account,
have lived many years longer. This would give c. 155 B.C.
as the lowest possible date for the death of Eucratides.
A little before this time notable signs of concession to the
rising spirit of the natives appear on the coins. The
medals of the older Greek kings follow the Attic standard
and have only Greek legends, but from the time of Deme
trius the reverse bears a legend in the Indian language
spoken in the Cabul valley and in the so-called Arianian
character, a letter derived from the Semitic. At the same
time we begin to find square coins, and in the later part
of the reign of Eucratides a new native standard begins to
prevail.4
lira- In the midst of the civil wars, which became more
18 .of serious after the death of Eucratides, Mithradates of Parthia
' ia' began to extend his dominions at the expense of Bactria ;
even in the lifetime of Eucratides he succeeded in annexing
the satrapies of Aspiones and Turiua. These seem to have
covered Aria, for the Hindu-Kush is named as the eastern
boundary of the Parthians (Justin, xli. 6, 8), — whence
perhaps the mention of Arians amongst the foes of Eucra
tides. Another account makes Mithradates rule as far
as India, and declares him to have obtained without war
the old kingdom of Porus, or the rule over all nations be
tween the Indus and the Hydaspes.5 The two accounts
are reconciled by Chinese records, which tell that c. 161
B.C. the nomad people Sse broke into the valley of the
Cophen and founded a kingdom in the very place of the
1 7.fi.,Cliaris, a Greek town, which Appian, Syr. , 57, placed in Parthia
with two other towns which really lay in Aria.
- See in general, A. v. Sallet'.s " Nachf. Alex. d. Gr," in Zcitschr.
f. Num., vi. , and Cunningham, Num. Chron., ix. x.
a This is the usual assumption, for Heliocles appears on coins both
as contemporary and as successor of Eucratides, and there is a surfrappe
coin of his which was originally struck by Eucratides for the marriage
of Heliocles \\ith Laodice (perhaps a daughter of Demetrius by his
Seleucid queen). But there is much to be said for the view of
Cunningham (Journ. As. S. Reng., 1840, p. 869; Num. Chron., ix.
239), that the murderer was Apollodotus, whose title "Philopator"
always points to a co-regency.
4 Sallet, op. cit., p. 25 sq.
5 This account goes back through Oros., v. 4 (following Livy),"and
Biod., p. 597, to the excellent authority of Posidonius.
Parthian conquests in India, which must therefore have 164-138.
been ephemeral. This fact has its importance, as illustrat
ing the way in which the internal wars of the east Iranian
Greeks helped to prepare the ground for the Scythian in
vasion. After this success in the east Mithradates turned
his attention to the west, where the chances of success were
not less inviting. Demetrius had at length fallen before
a coalition of the neighbouring sovereigns, powerfully sup
ported by the Romans through their instrument the exile
Heraclides. A pretender, wyho called himself son of Anti
ochus Epiphanes, was put up as king by the coalition ; he
appeared in Syria in 152, and slew Demetrius in battle in
150. The pretender, who took the name of Alexander
Theopator Euergetes, proved quite incompetent, and lost
the support of Ptolemy Philometor, who in 147 put up
Demetrius, the son of Demetrius, against him. At length,
in 145, Alexander, utterly defeated by Ptolemy, was slain
in his flight by an Arab chieftain. Demetrius II. Nicator,
however, soon made himself bitterly hated, and a certain
Diodotus of Casiana, in the region of Apamea, a man of Deme-
mean origin, was able first to set up against him Alexander's trius IJ-
young son Antiochus Epiphanes Dionysus, and then to
murder his puppet and proclaim himself as King Trypho.
Five years of fighting drove Demetrius out of the greater
part of Syria. Such was the state of the empire when war
broke out between Media and Parthia, and was finally
decided in favour of the latter. Mithradates left Eacasis
in Media and turned to Hyrcania. Media in this account
appears as independent, and that this was so is confirmed
by the notice in Diod., Exc. Esc., 25, that a certain
Dionysius "the Mede" raised Mesopotamia in 142 against
Trypho to avenge the murder of the young Antiochus.
Dionysixis must be a son of Timarchus ; Heraclides, Avhen
he installed Alexander in Syria, must have thought also of
his own family, and raised it again to the throne of Media,
which the senate had already recognized as a separate king
dom. But the short-lived independence of Media was, as
we have seen, soon cut short by Mithradates, who did not
lose the opportunity afforded by the civil wars of Syria in
147. Babylonia followed the fate of Media; Demetrius's
lieutenant was defeated, and the whole province, with its
capital Seleucia, fell into the hands of the Parthians.
Thus the East was finally lost to the Macedonians.
The change of rule was not well received by the new
subjects of Parthia, least of all by the Greeks and Mace
donians of the upper provinces, who sent embassy after
embassy to Demetrius. That prince, who had now little
to lose in Syria, at length accepted their invitation to
come and take the rule over them, hoping that if he could
secure the upper satrapies they would help him against
Trypho. In 140 he marched into Mesopotamia, and thence
by Babylon to the upper provinces. He was well received
by the natives, and even the small native states made
common cause with him against the proud barbarians,
whose neighbourhood they felt as oppressive. He was
joined by the Persians and Elymseans, and the Bactrians
helped him by a diversion, appearing now for the last time
as an independent people. At first things wrent well, and
the Parthians were defeated in several battles, but in
Media in 139 Demetrius was surprised by the lieutenant
of Mithradates during negotiations for peace ; his forces
were annihilated, and he himself taken prisoner and dragged
in chains through the provinces that had joined his cause.
The Parthian king received his captive with favour and
assigned him a residence and suitable establishment in
Hyrcania. He even gave him his daughter Rhodogune,
and promised to restore him to his kingdom, but this plan
was interrupted by death.
Mithradates's last campaign was against the king of
Elymais, Demetrius's ally; the rich temples of Elymais,
592
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
133-128. that of Athena, and that of Artemis or Nausea in Azara
yielded him a booty of 10,000 talents (£2,258,000), and
the great town of Seleucia on the Hedyphon was taken l
(Strabo, xvi. p. 744). The country was brought under
Parthia, but continued to have its own kings. The coins
make it likely that Mithradates simply set up a new
dynasty, a branch of his own house.2 Mithradates died in
a good old age in 138, or a little later.3 His memory was
reverenced almost equally with that of the founder of his
house, but his real glory was much greater, for it was he
who made Parthia a great power. He is praised as a just
and humane ruler, who, having become lord of all the
lands from the Indian Caucasus to the Euphrates, intro
duced among the Parthians the best institutions of each
country, and so became the legislator of his nation.
Parthian The divisions of the empire which lie founded can be sketched
" kin::- by the aid of an excerpt from the itinerary of Isidore of Charax
domsT" (at the beginning of the Christian era) and of Pliny (X. //., vi. 44,
112). The empire was divided into the upper and lower kingdoms,
separated by the Caspian Gates. The lower kingdoms were seven
— (1) Mesopotamia and Babylonia, (2) Apolloniatis, (3) Chalonitis,4
(4) Carina,5 (5) Cambadene, (6) Upper Media, (7) Lower or Rhagian
Media.6 The upper kingdoms were eleven— (8) Choarene, (9)
Comisene,7 (10) Hyrcania, (11) Astauenc, (12) Parthyene, (13)
Apauarcticene,8 (14) Margiana, a part of Bactria, (15) Aria,_ (16)
the country of the Anauans (a division of Aria), (17) Zarangiana,9
(18) Arachosia, now called " White India." The eighteen Parthian
kingdoms thus correspond to six old satrapies ; the new divisions
were probably derived from the provinces of Seleucus Nicator (see
especially Posidonius in Strabo, xvi. p. 749). But upper and lower
provinces have changed their meaning ; apart from Arachosia, the
upper provinces are the old conquests of the Parthians before they
occupied Media and became lords of Iran, and the lower all the
liter conquests in the west. The Parthians, we see, gave much
less attention to the west than did their predecessors, and they
still left Mesopotamia as the only great satrapy, and perhaps first
added Babylonia to it when Ctesiphon became the residence of the
Arsacids. We note also that they cared little for reaching the sea,
which they can have touched only for a little way at the mouth of
the Euphrates ; and even here they allowed the petty Characene
quite to outstrip them in competing for the great sea-trade. As
compared with the older Macedonian empire, the Parthian realm
lacked the east Iranian satrapies, Bactria with Sogdiana, and the
Paropanisadse, andalso the three Indian one.s, which, with Parretacene,
or, as it was afterwards called, Sacastane, remained under the Bactrian
Greeks and their successors. In the north they lacked Lesser Media,
which had long been an independent state, and in the south they
lacked Susiana, which now belonged to Elymais, and the satrapies
of Persis and Carmauia, which the Persians held along with the
1 In giving this order of events it is assumed that the capture of
Demetrius, omitted in Justin's epitome of Trogus, xli. C, comes after
§ 7, not, as has been assumed since Vaillant, after § 8. When Trogus
mentions such unimportant events as the nomination of Bacasis to
Media and the visit of Mithradates to Hyrcania, we must suppose that
these facts bore on others of more note, that Bacasis was the captor
of Demetrius, and that the royal court was in Hyrcania when the
captive was brought before the Parthian king.
2 Coins of the venerable Camnascires, whom Pseudo-Lucian Macrobii
calls a Parthian, but separated from the great kings by Armenia and
Characene, have been brought from Baghdad and Shuster, and can
hardly have been struck elsewhere than in Elyrnais. He was preceded
by an Ar.^aces, not one of the main Parthian line. See Sallet, in Z.
f. Num., viii. 207 sq.
3 Demetrius had married Rhodogune when Antiochus VII. married
his deserted wife Cleopatra in 138, and there were children by the
marriage, though not earlier than the time of Demetrius's second
attempt to escape ; hence both attempts must have been after the
deatli of Mithradates.
4 These three make up the old satrapies of Mesopotamia (with
Arbelitis) and Babylonia. The whole land between the Euphrates and
the Tigris was now put together, and the countries to the east of
the Tigris detached, Apolloniatis being taken fiom Babylonia, and
Chalouitis from Arbelitis.
5 In Isid., § 4 (Geog. Min., i. 250), read 'EvrfuOtv Mijota Kal x<l>pa
K.dpii>a, TJTLS Kar^xfi ffxolvovt Kff, i) apx^i O.VTUJV.
6 Nos. 4 to 7 are all parts of the old satrapy of Media.
7 The two most eastern parts of Media fliat were the first Parthian
conquests.
8 Nos. 10 to 13 form the old satrapy of Parthia and Hyrcania.
9 Nos. 15 to 17 belong to the old satrapy of Aria with Draugiana.
Sacastane, another part of this satrapy, was not Parthian, but, as
Isidore remarks, belonged to the Sacse.
western part of Gedrosia (Per. Mar. Er., § 37). In the extreme
west they lacked Arbelitis proper, which formed a small kingdom
under the name of Adiabene, first mentioned in 69 B.C. (Pint,
Lucullus, 27). The kingdom of Mannus of Orrha (Mdycou "Oppaj,
so ruad) in north Mesopotamia, which accc riling to Isidore (§ 1)
reached a good way south of Edessa, seems also to have been independ
ent, and, like Adiabene, probably existed before the Parthian time.
From these small kingdoms the Parthians asked only an acknowledg
ment of vassalship. When Parthia was vigorous the vassalship was
real, but when Parthia was torn by factions it became a mere name
(Stralio, xvi. p. 732). The relation was always loose, and the political
power of Parthia was therefore never comparable to the later power
of the Sasauians. Arsaces Tiridates and his successors called them
selves "great king. " Mithradates, as overlord of the minor kingships,
first bore the title "great king of kings." The title seems to have
been conferred, not assumed in mere boastfulness ; for (apart from
a single usurper in times of disorder who calls himself ''king of
kings") none of his successors bears it until Phraates III., seventy
years later, — a fact clear from the coins, but hitherto unnoticed.
The nobility had great influence in all things, and especially in the
nomination of the king, who, however, was always an Arsacid. Next
to the king stood the senate of probuli, 10 from whom all generals and
lieutenant-governors were chosen. They were called the king's kin,
and were no doubt the old Parniaii martial nobility. A second
senate was composed of the Magians and wise men, and by these two
senates the king was nominated (Posidonius, ap. Strabo, xi. p. 515).
The Parthians were, in fact, very pious, conscientious in observing
even the most troublesome precepts of Zoroastrianism as to the dis
posal of dead bodies, which were exposed to birds of prey and dogs,
the bare bones alone being buried (Justin, xli. 3, 5, 6). When the
Parthian prince Tiridates visited Nero he journeyed overland that
he might not be forced to defile the sea when he spat, :ind his
spiritual advisers the Magians travelled with him (Plin., xxx. 17).
The Magians were not, indeed, so all-powerful as under the Sasanians,
but it is quite a mistake to think that the Parthians were but
lukewarm Zoroastrians.
The complete annihilation of the Macedonian empire in Fall <
Iran was closely followed by the destruction of Creek in- Creel
dependence in eastern Iran, north of the Paropanisus. The • r
last mention of independent Bactria is in 140 ; no king of
Bactria and Sogdiana is known from coins after the parri
cide Heliocles. Classical writers give only two laconic
accounts of the catastrophe. Strabo says that " the no
madic peoples of the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacaraucu)
(so read for 2aKa/3auAoi K-CU in xi. p. oil), dwellers in the
land of the Sacse, beyond the Jaxartes [in its middle
course], opposite to the Sacao and Sogdians, came and took
Bactria from the Greeks." Trogus (Pro!., xli.) names the
Scythian peoples Saraucoa and Asiani.11 Fortunately the
lively interest taken by the Chinese in the movements of
the nomads of Central Asia enables us to fill up this meagre
notice from the report of the Chinese agent in Bactria in
128, as recorded a little later by the oldest Chinese
historian, and from other notices collected by the Chinese
after the opening of the regular caravan route with the
west, about 115, and embodied in their second oldest
history.12 According to these sources the Yue-chi, a nomad Chin
people akin to the Tibetans, lived aforetime between !lcc°l
Tun-hoang (i.e., Sha-cheu) and the Kilien-shan moun
tains, and about 177 were subjugated, like all their neigh
bours, by the Turkish Hiung-nu. Between 167 and 161
they renewed the struggle without success; Lao-shang,
the great khan of the Hiung-nu, slew their king Chang-
10 For popular um (Just., xli. 2, 2) a synonym of senatas (xlii. 4, 1)
is wanted ; write, therefore, probulorum.
11 Modern writers since Bayer make the Greek kingdom in Bactria
fall before the Parthians, appealing to Just., xli. 6, 3. But the epi
tome here contradicts its source, and confounds the fall of the king
dom with the earlier loss of two satrapies to the Parthians under Euera-
tides. The right account is to be found elsewhere in Justin himself,
ii. 1, 3; 3, 6.
la Comp. the Sseki of Ssematsien (100 B.C.), tr. by Brosset, Wouv.
Journ. As., ii. 418 sq., and the Annals (of the first Han] of Panku (80
A.D. ), excerpts from which are given by Hitter, Erdk., pt. vii. bk. 3,
pp. 604-728; Deguignes, Hist, des Huns, 1, 2, p. Ixiv. 57., 41 sq., and
" Becherches sur quelques eVenements," &c., in Mem. Ac. Inscr., xxv.
17 sq. ; Abel Kc'musat, on th* Fu8-kouS-ki, p. 37 sq. The account
given in the text is based wholly on the two oldest sources, without
reference to the newer Chinese encyclopaedias. Comp. further Richt-
hofeu, China, p. 447.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
593
lun. and made a drinking-cup of his skull,1 and the great
mass of the vanquished people (the great Yue-chi) left
their homes and moved westward, and occupied the land
on Lake Issyk-kul, driving before them another nomad
race, the Sse. The Sse took the road by Utch and Kash-
gar, ultimately reaching and subduing the kingdom of
Kipin (the Cabul valley), while their old seats were occu
pied by the Great Yue-chi, till they in turn were soon
attacked by the U.sun, who lived west of the Hiung-nu,
and forced to move farther west (160 or 159). The older
Chinese account ignores the residence of the Yue-chi at
Lake Issyk-kul, which can at most have lasted only for a
few years : the later account goes on to say that, moving
westward, they conquered the Ta-hia, i.e., the Bactrians.
The language of the older narrative has been held to imply
that they went by way of Ferghana and remained there
for some time ; but in reality it only says that they retired
beyond Ferghana and conquered the Ta-hia, thereupon
pitching the royal camp north of the Oxus, and so it ap
pears that in 159 they moved straight on Sogdiana, reach
ing that land just at the time when internal wars were
undermining the might of Eucratides. The conquest, how
ever, may have been gradual, since Bactria is still named
as independent in 140.
"When the Yue-chi were already settled in their new homes the
king of China sent a certain Chang-kien to urge them to return and
help him to clear the caravan-road by thrusting back the Hiung-nu.
He was arrested on his way by the latter, but escaped in 129 to
Ferghana, and thence was led to the Yue-chi through the land of
the Khang-kiu, on the middle course of the Jaxartes. But the
Yue-chi were too happily settled in a rich and peaceful land to
listen to his representations, and after a year's residence (128-127)
he returned to China, which he reached in 126, after falling again
into the hands of the Hiung-nu on the way. From him are derived
almost all the accounts of the country and its inhabitants given
by the Chinese historians. There were, we arc told, settled and
agricultural peoples in Great Wan (Ferghana), Ta-hia (Bactria),
and An-si (Parthia). All the races from Ferghana to Parthia had
deep -set eyes and strong beard and moustache ; their dialects
varied, but as they all understood each other all must have been
Iranian in speech. Their manners, too, were much alike ; they
paid great respect to women, and the men were very complaisant
to their wives. This is almost exactly what Bardesanes says of
the position of women in his time among the Kushan in Bactria ;2
but it was quite otherwise in Parthia, where the Oriental seclusion
of women was carried to the extreme (Just., xli. 3, 1, 2). They were
all knowing traders, and understood the preparation of silk and
lac, but not metallurgy till they were taught that art by Chinese
agents and deserters. They then imported the precious metals
from China and made gold and silver vessels, but not money, being
in this respect behind the Parthians.3 Great AVan probably corre
sponds to the Ovapvoi of Ptolemy (though he misplaces them) and the
Varena of the Vcndldad ; it was a separate kingdom, with a popula
tion estimated at 300,000 souls in the 1st century B.C., and seventy
subject cities. The king, probably a native who had risen on the
fall of the Greeks, lived in Kuei-shan (probably Khojend, at the
mouth of the Ferghana valley), and could call out an army of 60,000
men, — lancers, archers, and mounted bowmen. The land was famous
for its wine and for horses of divine race which sweated blood, and
for the possession of which China went to war with Great Wan in
104-103, and again in 102-98. Lucerne and grapes were exported
to China ; the name of the latter, "po-tao, " is held to be the Greek
fiorpvs, which would show that the vine was introduced by the
Greeks of Alexandria Eschata. South of the Wei or Oxus lies Ta-
hia (probably Zend Dahviju, the land *). Here there was no king,
but the several cities were the seats of chiefs, a state of things
such as Alexander had found in the country and as reappeared
under the Turks in the 7th century A.D. Chang-kien estimated
the population at a million ; the}' were bad and cowardly soldiers,
but excelled in trade, and the chief town, Lan-shi, had rich bazaars
of many wares. This town must be one of the commercial cities
on the river Bactrus, along which lay the trade-route from India
to the north (Pliny, vi. 52), i.e., either Baetra or Encratidia
(which, according to Ptolemy, vi. 11, 8 [Codd. B., E., Pal. 1], lay
lower down the stream on the left bank). In the latter case Lan-
shi may stand for "EXAT^es. North of Ta-hia lay the Great Yue-chi,
1 The Lombards had the same custom, learned, no doubt, in the
childhood of the race from their Avarian neighbours.
2 See Langlois, Coll. d. hist, dc VAvmenic, i. 84.
3 Ssematsien, in Ritter, vii. 3, p. 642.
4 Certainly not Dalia?, for they were never in Bactria.
and west of the latter was An-si towards the Oxus. This was a 160-44.
very great country, whose length might be 1000 li (358 miles),
and it had 100 cities great and small. The first caravan from
China to An-si passed on its way from the east frontier to the capital
(called in the 1st century B.C. Fari-teu, i.e., probably Parthau), a
dozen walled cities, which lay almost close together, so dense was
then the population of the fertile part of Khorasan. The merchants
of An-si visited the neighbouring lands with waggons or with
ships for distances of Several thousand li. The coinage was silver,
with the image of the king, and was called in and restamped on a
new accession.5 Writing was on skins in horizontal lines. Now,
though the money as here described fits Parthia, the mercantile
character of the race does not at all correspond to that of the
Parthian aristocracy. Both here and in the general description
given above, which also contains features not applicable to the
Parthians, we see that the Chinese did not distinguish the ruling
race from their subjects, and mainly described the latter, who were
in point of fact very similar to the people of Bactria and Ferghana.
As An-si extends to the Oxus the description is taken from the
inhabitants of Margiana, a country which -must have been then
subject to Parthia. A later Chinese account, referring to the period
24-220 A.D. , places on the east frontier the city Mo-lu or Little
An-si, which is plainly the Mourn of the Vendidad, modern Merv-
i-rud, and the Greek Antioch 17 Zvvdpos ; An-si is a corruption^
the last name, just as the Persians call the Syrian Antioch Andiv,
and so came to be a name for the Parthian rulers of the city. West
of An-si, on the western (Caspian) sea, layTiao-chi (Media), an agri
cultural country with a dense population, a dependency of An-si,
and in part governed by tributary chiefs. Chang-kien is thinking
less of the central parts of Media than of Gilan and Mazandaran,
for he speaks of the warm moist climate where rice is produced.
And in this quarter there were really various petty states ; not
only Atropatene but Dilem had its own king, as appears for the
year 65 B.C. from Plutarch, Pomp., 36 (where for 'E\vfj.aiwv read
AeXu/icu'aw), and the Gelfe and Cadusians doubtless stood under their
own mountain chiefs as they had done under the later Achfemenians,
and did again under the first Sasanians. It is a proof of the solid
power of the empire founded by Mithradates that Parthia was able
to assert some kind of supremacy over these hardly accessible
districts. North of An-si lay Li-kan (Hyrcania), whose wizards,
with those of Tiao-chi, had great reputation. It is clear from this
whole account that the centre of the empire was still in the old
Parthian lands, and that the lower satrapies were viewed as mere
dependencies, " outer lands." In the following century the Chinese
obtained knowledge of the west by the caravan-route which passed
through Kipin (the Cabul valley) to U-ghe-shan-li (Arachosia) ;
and now we find a changed state of affairs ; these two countries
are bounded on the west by Tiao-chi, whose powerful king has his
capital a hundred days' journey from the frontier. An-si is now only
mentioned incidentally as reached from Arachosia by going first
north and then east, which is correct if we take the name in its
original sense of the subjects of Parthia in Margiana and its capital
Antioch. But the empire of Parthia, which now had its centre in
Media and the western lands, is certainly Tiao-chi, a word that is
probably connected with the word for "land" in the official lan
guage of the Achremenians, old Persian dahydus.
As nomadic peoples Chang-kien names the Great Yue-chi in
Sogdiana, the Khang-kiu on the middle course of the Jaxartes,
and the Yen-tsai in Chorasmia. The Yue-chi could put from
100,000 to 200,000 bowmen in the field ; later they were reckoned
at 100,000 warriors and their families. The royal camp had been
north of the Oxus even after the conquest of Bactria, but they
finally withdrew entirely to this district. Their capital is called
Lan-shi; and the name of Ta-hia disappeared before that of
" Land of the Great Yue-chi." At the conquest they had a single
king ; afterwards they formed five principalities. The fifth of these
corresponds to Cabul, so that the division is younger than the
Scythian invasion of Asia after the death of Phraates II. Imme
diately north of Ferghana, but separated from the Yue-chi in the
south and the Hiung-nu in the east by a series of small kingdoms,
were the pasture-grounds of the Khang-kiu on both sides of the
Jaxartes ; their force was 80,000 to 90,000 bowmen. North-west of
these were the Yen-tsai on the Aral, the northern neighbours of the
An -si, and east of Hyrcania, that is, in Chorasmia. If there is
no error in the writing of the number they mustered but 10,000
warriors ; then again considerable changes had taken place when
the Chinese made war on the Khang-kiu in 44 B.C. The small
kingdoms south and east of the latter have disappeared, so that the
Khang-kiu border on the Hiung-nu and the great Yue-chi ; but
the latter have now moved south, and now, too, the Khang-kiu are
the northern neighbours of An-si, and not the Yen-tsai ; the latter
are their dependants, and a tribute of mouse-skins is even drawn
from the kingdom of Yen beyond the Yen-tsai. Such_a tribute
cannot have come from any "place south of the Mukhajar moun-
5 On this point the younger Chinese account falls into a confusion
with the coins of the kings of Kipin.
XVIII. — 75
594
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
138-128. tains. The Khang-kiu have risen in number as the Yue-chi fall,
and have now 120,000 bowmen, or a population of 600,000 souls.
Like the Yue-chi, they are divided into principalities, which are
five in number, and the king is the prince of Su-hiai, with his
winter residence iu a place of that name east of Ferghana, and his
summer court much farther west at Lo-yuei-ni. The east of the
Khang-kiu country was often subject to the Hiung-nu, and the
pressure of this Turkish tribe seems to have been the cause which
pushed the Khang-kiu and Yen-tsai farther west. The latter have
now at least 100,000 bowmen, and extend westwards to the limits
of Great Tsin or the Roman empire. This compels us to conclude
that the Yen-tsai are the Aorsi, the western part of whom ranged
between the lower Don and the west coast of the Caspian, while
the older upper Aorsi were round the north coast, and so on to the
neighbourhood of the lower Jaxartes (Strabo, xi. p. 506 ; Ptol., vi.
14, 10). When Pharnaces ruled on the Bosphorus (63-47 B.C.) both
parts of the Aorsi intervened in the affairs of the neighbouring
kingdom with large armies, and as Pharnaces was a client of Rome
the Chinese statement is intelligible. Later Chinese accounts
relating to the first Christian century give A-lan-na as the later
name of the Yen-tsai, which agrees with the fact that the Aorsi
appear last in history in 49 A.D. (Tac., Ann., xii. 15 sq.), and that
Lucan, ten or fifteen years later, is the first to name the Alans, who
succeed to their geographical place. When we understand the
Chinese data we can speak with more definiteness about the four
nations to whom Strabo ascribes the fall of Greek Bactria, and
which Ptolemy also seems to name from a source relating to the
time when the invasion began. From these data, compared with
our Chinese sources, we can be sure that the Tochari are the great
Yue-chi, the former being probably the name of the nation and the
latter that of the leading horde. The Asii of Strabo, Asiani of
Trogus, Jatii of Ptolemy, will then be all attempts to render the
difficult name of ,the horde which the Chinese call Yue-chi. But,
while the classical writers place the Sacaraucse in the west to
balance the Tochari in the east, the Chinese know no second great
nation between the latter and the Parthians in Margiana. We
must therefore suppose that the Sacaraucaj are the Scythians who
occupied part of the Greek lands, and were in turn conquered by
Parthia according to Strabo (xi. 515) ; that this part was Margiana
is known from a drachma of Phraates II. (Gardner, Parthian
Coinage, p. 33) ; the conquest must have taken place a good while
before 128, when Chang-kien visited Sogdiana, since by that time
the Parthians had again displaced them. But he must have known
and mentioned the Sacaraucre in some form, and they can hardly
be other than the most powerful nation known to him in Trans-
oxiana, the Khang-kiu. These, like the Sacaraucfe, came from
beyond the Jaxartes ; they were the northern neighbours of Parthia
just at the time when the Sacarauca? are so described. The only
other tribe that can be thought of, the Yen-tsai, are known to the
Greeks and Romans by a different name, as the Aorsi ; and Trogus
(ProL, xlii.) mentions the fall of the Sacaraucte as one of the latest
events in Scythian history, which, as he wrote soon after 2 B. c.,
agrees with the fact that the last mention of the Khang-kiu in
Chinese history is in 11 B.C. ; while the Aorsi are mentioned much
later. Khang-kiu seems to be properly the name of a country
identical with the Kangha of the Khorda-Avesta and the Gangdiz
of Firdausi. Finally, the Pasicaj or Pasiani are the same as the
Apasiacse of the earlier Parthian history ; the Sacaraucte will have
conquered them and swept them with them as the Mongols did
with many Tatar tribes. The conquest of Bactria probably fol
lowed soon after the last hopes of the Eastern Greeks in Demetrius
II. came to nothing. It is very remarkable that Chang-kien
notices no difference between the Greeks who had been rulers and
the Iranians who were their subjects. This implies not merely
some lapse of time but a marked decrease in the number of the
Greeks, and probably also that here, as in other Eastern parts, they
had become more and more completely Orientalized.
Phraates II.,1 who succeeded his father in 138, and
continued his work, wresting Margiana from the Scythians
of Bactria in an expedition commemorated on extant coins,
had also to meet the last and most formidable attempt to
restore the sovereignty of the Seleucids. Antiochus VII.,
one of the ablest kings of his race, had put down the civil
wars in Syria, even taking Jerusalem and compelling the
Jews to acknowledge his might by paying him military
service, and in 130 he marched eastward at the head of a
force of 80,000 combatants, swollen by camp-followers to
a total of 300,000. Many of the small princes, on whom
the hand of Parthia lay heavy, joined him as they had
joined his brother ; the enemy Avas smitten on the Great
Zab, and in two other battles ; Babylon and then Ecbatana
Phraates
II.
In coins Arsaces Theopator Euergetes Epiphanes Philhellen.
opened their gates to the conqueror; and the subject-nations
rose against the Parthians, who, when Antiochus took up
his winter quarters in Media, were again confined to their
ancient limits. "When the snows began to melt, an embassy
from Phraates appeared to ask for peace ; but the terms
demanded by Antiochus — the liberation of Demetrius, the
surrender of all conquests, and the payment of tribute for
the old Parthian country — were such as could not be
accepted without another appeal to the fortunes of war.
Demetrius, indeed, was released and sent to Syria, but
only to stir up a hostile party in his brother's rear. During
the winter the Syrian host had been dispersed over a wide
range of cantonments ; the disorderly insolence of the
soldiers, for which the general Athenseus was held to be
mainly responsible, and of the levies raised in the towns had
disgusted the natives ; the Medes made secret terms with
Parthia, and all the cantonments were attacked by concert
on a single day. Hastening to relieve the nearest corps,
Antiochus was met by the Parthian with a superior force of
120,000 men; he refused the advice of his officers to fall
back to the neighbouring mountains, and accepted battle
on a field too narrow for the evolution of his troops. The
Syrian soldiers, enervated by luxury, were readier to imitate
the flight of Athenseus than the valour of his master ; the
whole host Avas involved in the rout and annihilated.
Antiochus himself escaped Avounded from the fray and
cast himself from a rock that he might not be taken alive.
This catastrophe (February 1292) freed the Parthians for
ever from danger from Syria.
Phraates paid funeral honours to the fallen king, and
afterwards sent his body to Syria in a silver coffin. He
entertained his captive family royally, married one of the
tAvo daughters, and sent the eldest son Seleucus to Syria to
claim the sovereignty, and so serve future plans of his OAVH ;
for an attempt to folloAv and recapture Demetrius, made
immediately after the battle, had proved too late. But
dangers in the east soon turned the Partisan's attention
away from enterprises in the west. In his distress he
had bribed the Scythians3 to send him help ; as they arrived
too late he refused to pay them, and they in turn began
to ravage the Parthian country. Phraates marched against
them, leaving his charge at home to his favourite, the
Hyrcanian Euhemerus, Avho chastised the countries that
had sided with Antiochus, made war with Mesene, and
treated Babylon and Seleucia Avith the utmost cruelty.
But the Scythian Avar proved a disastrous one ; the enemy
overran the whole empire, and for the first time for five
hundred years Scythian plunderers again appeared in
Mesopotamia 4 ; in a decisive battle Phraates was deserted
by the old soldiers of Antiochus, Avhom he had forced into
his service and then treated Avith insolent cruelty ; the
Parthian host sustained a ruinous defeat, and the king
himself Avas slain (spring 128, or someAvhat later).5
Artabanus I.6 (third son of Phriapatius), who now became Arta-
king, was an elderly man. The Scythians, according to 1)anu
the too favourable account by our chief authority, Avere con
tent with their victory, and moved homewards, ravaging
the country. But Ave knoAv from John of Antioch (66, 2)
that the successor of Phraates paid them tribute ; and the
southern part of Drangiana must UOAV have been per-
2 The date is fixed by Livy, who, according to Orosius, v. 10, and
Obseq., De Prodig., 28, places the expedition in the consular year 130.
With this it agrees that Antiochus came to the throne in 138 and reigned
nine years. Too much weight is often attached to Porphyry's dates by
Olympiads, which are merely calculated from the years of reigns.
3 Justin, xlii. 2, 1-2, plainly distinguishes these Scythians from the
Tochari, so the Sacaraucae must be meant.
4 Jo. Ant., in Miiller, iv. 561.
5 The remains of Antiochus reached Syria in the reign of Alexander
II., who came to the throne in 128 (Justin, xxxix. 1, 6).
6 Arsaces Theopator Nicator of the coins.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
595
manently occupied by the Scythian tribes, who gave it the
name of Sacastane (Sistan), for that name appears in Isidore
of Charax (1 B.C.), which implies that the Scythian occupa
tion was even then of long standing. Finally, the coins
reveal the existence of Arsacids who were rival kings to
Artabanus I. and Mithradates II., and perhaps borrow
from individual successes against the Scythians the proud
titles which so strongly contrast with the really wretched
condition of the empire. One of these pretenders, Arsaces
Euergetes Dicaios Philhellen, resumes the style "king of
kings," which had lapsed since Mithradates I. ; and his
title "the just," which seems to be imitated from the
Bactrian Heliocles, suggests that he may have come with
the Scythians from the land where Heliocles once reigned.
Meanwhile it would appear that the men of Seleucia,
driven to desperation, had seized the tyrant Euhemerus and
put him to a cruel death.1 Artabanus, when they sought
his pardon, threatened to put out the eyes of every man of
Seleucia, and was prevented only by his death, in battle
with the Tochari, after a very short reign,
thra- His son and successor, Mithradates II. the Great,2 was
tes II. the restorer of the empire.3 We are briefly told that he
valiantly waged many wars with his neighbours, added
many nations to the empire, and had several successes
against the Scythians, so avenging the disgrace of his
predecessors. His successes, however, must have been
practically limited to the recovery of lost ground, and
the eastern frontier was not advanced. It has been
common to connect with his successes the appearance of
Parthian names among the Indo-Scythian princes of the
Cabul valley ; but this must be false, for even Candahar
(U-ghe-shan-li), which lies so much farther west, is repre
sented by the Chinese as an independent kingdom in the
middle of the 1st century B.C. On the other hand, Mithra
dates, if not the first to conquer Mesopotamia, was the first
to fix the Euphrates as the western boundary of the empire,
and towards the end of his reign he was strong enough to
interfere with the concerns of Great Armenia and place
Tigranes II. on the throne in a time of disputed succes
sion (94), accepting in return the cession of seventy
Armenian valleys. Now, too, the Parthians, as lords of
Mesopotamia, came for the first time into contact with
Home, and in 92, when Sulla came to Cappadocia as
proprietor of Cilicia, he met on the Euphrates the ambas
sador of Mithradates seeking the Roman alliance.4 This
embassy was no doubt connected with the Parthian
schemes against Syria ; Mithradates about this time was
at war with Laodice, queen of Gommagene or some neigh
bouring part; and her cousin, Antiochus X.,5who supported
her, fell in battle with the Parthians. A few years later
Strato, tyrant of Beroea, called in the Arab phylarch Azizus
and the Parthian governor of Mesopotamia, Mithradates
Sinaces, against Demetrius III., who reigned at Damascus.
The Seleucid was compelled to surrender with his whole
army and ended his life as a captive at the Parthian court.
Mithradates the Great seems to have died just after this
event ; there is no reason to suppose that he lived to see
the disasters which followed so close on his great successes.
1 In Diod., Exc. Vat., p. 107, there can be little doubt that eviov is
a corruption of Bi^epou.
2 On coins Arsaces Theos Euergetes Epiphanes Philhellen.
3 The time of his accession follows approximately from the date
123 on a coin of his rival, Arsaces Nicephorus.
4 The ambassador allowed Sulla to take the place of honour, and on
his return was punished for this by death.
5 The queen rCov TaXiK^dv of Jos., Ant., xiii. 13, 4 (Leyden MS.—
the usual text has " queen of Gilead "), is doubtless the Laodice Thea
Philadelphos, daughter of Antiochus VIII. of Syria, who, as Mommsen
has shown (A/YM/i. Arch. Inst. At/ten., i. 32), was ancestress of the later
sovereigns of Commagene. The word in Josephus is not perhaps a
corruption of Commagene but of some neighbouring place — say
Artabanus II. was tke next monarch,6 but after him the 128-66.
style of king of kings was taken by the Armenian Tigranes,
one of the most dangerous foes Parthia ever had. In Tigranes
86 it was still a reason for choosing Tigranes as kingof Al>-
of part of Syria that he was in alliance with Parthia ""
(Just., xl. 1, 3), but very soon the latter state was so
ruined by civil and foreign war that it was no match for
Armenia (Plut., Lucullus, 36). Of the details in this
history we know only the last act. In 77 the Arsacid
Sinatruces 7 returned from the land of the Sacaraucae to
take the throne at the age of eighty, and reigned seven
years. There were probably other usurpers ; the silence
of the coins does not prove the contrary, but rather that
the times were so bad that no money was struck, a case
of which Parthian numismatics offer other examples.
Tigranes conquered Media — primarily, that is, Atropatene
— but he also entered Great Media and destroyed the city
of Adrapanan, 7 miles west of Ecbatana, " the castle of
those who have their seat in Batana " (Ecbatana),8 i.e., of
a line of the Arsacids, for, though Mithradates I. had had
his seat in Hyrcania, Phraates II. and his successors down
to Mithradates III. held their court in Media (Diod., Exc.
Vat., p. 603). The seventy valleys which had been the
price of his throne were restored to Tigranes, and he also
ravaged the country of Arbela and Nineveh, and compelled
the cession of Adiabene, hitherto a Parthian dependency,
and of Mesopotamia, with the fortress of Nisibis. This
last war was against Sinatruces,9 and was probably going
on in 73 when Mithradates Eupator of Pontus made
a vain appeal for help to both combatants (Memnon, in
Photius, p. 234 b, 27).
Phraates III. succeeded his father Sinatruces a little Phraates
before the arrival of Lucullus in the East in 70,10 and in IIJ-
C9 refused a second invitation to give help against Rome
which Mithradates and Tigranes addressed to him jointly,
the latter offering to reward him by giving up all that
he had taken from the Parthians. His hatred of Tigranes
made him more disposed to alliance with Rome ; and after
a period of hesitating neutrality Phraates accepted the
overtures of Pompey and prepared to invade Armenia
(66), guided by the younger Tigranes, who had quarrelled
with his father and taken refuge in Parthia, where he
wedded the daughter of the king. Tigranes the elder
fled to the mountains ; and, after forming the siege of
Artaxata, which proved tedious, Phraates turned home
ward, leaving young Tigranes with part of the army to
continue the war. The latter, who alone was no match for
his father, fled after an utter defeat to Pompey, who was Pompey
just preparing to invade Armenia, and to whom the elder in Ar-
Tigranes presently surrendered at discretion. The Roman, meuia-
however, gave him very good terms, altogether abandon
ing his son's cause and even casting him into chains.
0 In Trogus, Prol., 41, the sentence " successores deinde eius Artabanus
et Tigranes cognomine Deus a quo subacta est Media et Mesopotamia
dictusque in excessu Arabioe situs" is wrongly referred (after Vaillant)
to Mithradates I. of Parthia. It can really refer only to the famous
Tigranes, and in that case must have originally belonged to Prol., 42,
having dropped out by homoioteleuton, and been restored from the
margin in a false place. Artabanus II. , therefore, followed Mithradates
II., and his probably are the base coins of Arsaces Euergetes Epi
phanes Philhellen, which according to Gardner, p. 38, seem to belong
to this time.
7 On coins Arsaces Autocrator Philopator Epiphanes Philhelleu.
8 Isid. Char., in Geog. Gr. Min., i. 250.
9 Sallust, Hist., iv. fr. 19, § 3.
10 So Memnon, ir Photius, p. 239 a, 13, confirmed by Phlegon, ibid.,
p. 84 a, 15. These sources, being independent, have more weight
than Appian, Mithr., 104, and Dio Cassius, xxxvi. 45, who speak of the
arrival of Pompey. Phraates III. is the "king of kings, Arsaces
Dicaios Epiphanes Theos Eupator Philhellen," whose coins Gardner
wrongly ascribes to Mithradates III. "VYe have express testimony
that Phraates was styled " king of kings " and had the epithet "Theos "
(Plut., IJo>»2>., 38 ; Dio Cass. , xxxvii. 6 ; Phlegon, v.t sup.'.
596
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
66-53 B.C. Meantime Phraates had occupied the Parthian conquests
of Tigranes, which the Romans had promised him, and
invaded Corduene (Beth-Kardo, now Jezirat bent 'Omar),
whence he sent an embassy to Pompey to intercede for
his son-in-law. But the Romans had no further occasion
for Parthian help ; and, instead of granting his request,
Pompey commanded him to leave Corduene, and followed
up the command by sending Afranius to clear the coun
try and restore it to Tigranes. Immediately afterwards
Pompey's officer marched into Syria through Mesopotamia,
which by treaty had been expressly recognized as Parthian ;
and it was another grievous insult that Pompey in writing
to Phraates had withheld from him the style of " king of
kings." This no doubt was done out of regard to Tigranes,
who claimed the sole right to the title, and had probably
enforced his claim upon the weak predecessors of Phraates.
Of the four subordinate kingships, the patronage of which
was held to give a right to the title, Atropatene, Adiabene,
Corduene are known, and the fourth was probably Or-
rhoene. All these had once stood under Parthian suzerainty,
and, now that Phraates had recovered the lost territory of
his predecessors including these states, he resumed, as his
coins show, the proud title which had dropped since the
days of Mithradates I., and to which Tigranes had lost his
real claim. Nevertheless Phraates at first contented him
self with again sending a fruitless embassy to demand that
Pompey would observe the treaty and acknowledge the
Euphrates as the Parthian frontier, and it was only when
Pompey had gone to Syria (6-4) that he again attacked
and defeated Tigranes. Pompey declined to interfere by
force and burden himself with a Parthian war while
Mithradates of Pontus was still under arms, but, as both
sides appealed to him, he sent umpires to settle the dis
pute (which probably turned on the possession of Cor
duene), and a peaceable solution was effected.1 The Romans
had done more than enough to irritate Parthia and not
enough to inspire respect, but, as the Parthians were only
beginning to recover from the inner and outer troubles
of the last two decennia, they were not yet prepared to
enter on a struggle with Rome.
For a century and a half up to the death of Mithradates
the Great there had been an unusual degree of unity in
the house of the Arsacids ; but the corruptions to which
every Eastern dynasty ultimately falls a prey appeared at
length. About 57 Phraates, the restorer of the empire,
Orodes I. was murdered by his two sons, one of whom, Orodes or
Hyrodes I. (Zend, Huraodha\ took the throne, while his
brother Mithradates III. got Media ; 2 but the latter ruled
so cruelly that he was expelled by the Parthian nobles, and
Orodes reigned alone. Mithradates, with a loyal follower,
Orsanes, fled to Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, who had
already crossed the Euphrates to restore him by force when
he was summoned by Pompey to restore Ptolemy XI. to
the throne of Egypt (55). Mithradates, dismissed by the
Romans, now tried what he could do without help. Orodes
had at first to flee, but soon regained his position, mainly
through the help of Surenas, a young noble who had the
hereditary right of croAvning the king, and was the second
person in the empire in point of wealth, nobility, and
1 Dio, using in xxxvii. 6 a different source from that which lay
before him at xxxvi. 51, has not observed that the former recapitulates
the whole story from the beginning, including the rebellion and defeat
of the younger Tigranes as related above.
2 This is Dio's account, and, though other writers dissent, it is justified
by the coins. The coins of Arsaces Philopator (or Theopator) Euergetes
Epiphanes Philhellen belong to Mithradates, — not, as Gardner thinks, to
his father, for Theopator denotes a king whose father was Arsaces Theos,
and these coins call him only " great king, " while Orodes ( Arsaees Philo
pator — or Euergetes — Dicaios Epiphanes Philhellen) is called "king
of kings." Both princes, it will be observed, ultimately give up the
title of Philopator, which marks them as colleagues or recognized heirs
of their father, — an indirect confirmation of their guilt as parricides.
influence, and the first in courage and political skill.
Surenas took Seleucia by storm ; Babylon received Mithra
dates, but was reduced by famine ; Mithradates then sur
rendered to his brother and was killed before his eyes.
These events carry us far into the year 54.
Meantime Crassus, hoping for a rich and easy prey, Cam-
had invaded Mesopotamia without a shadow of pretext, paign of
had defeated a small Parthian force at Ichmv, and occu- (-'rassus-
pied a number of large towns, such as Nicephorium,
Ichnse, Carrhai, whose Greek inhabitants welcomed the
Romans as liberators. As Mithradates was at this time
in arms in Babylonia, we can understand why Crassus
was blamed for a grave error of judgment in not march
ing direct from Nicephorium on Seleucia and Babylon
(Plut., Crassus, 17). Instead of this, he retired to winter-
quarters in Syria, leaving 7000 foot and 1000 horse to
garrison the Mesopotamia]! cities. Thus his hands were
tied for the following campaign, and he could not accept
the invitation of Artavasdes II. of Armenia to advance
through his country and have his co-operation. A Par
thian embassy appeared in Syria in spring to remonstrate
against the faithlessness of Rome, but at the same time
the Parthians were ready for war. Surenas, with Silaces,
satrap of Mesopotamia, was pressing the Roman garrisons,
and prepared to confront Crassus with an army wholly
composed of cavalry, Avhile Orodes in person invaded
Armenia. In the spring of 53 Crassus crossed the Euphrates
at Zeugma with seven legions and 8000 cavalry and light
troops, making up a total of 42,000 or 43,000 men,3 and
was persuaded by Abgar of Orrhoene to leave the river and
march straight across the plains against Surenas. At mid
day, 6th May (9th June as the calendar then stood) the
Romans had crossed the Balissus (Nahr Belik) and met
Surenas half way between Carrhse and Ichnrc, or a little
nearer the latter town. They were not, therefore, in the
desert — as the older account represents — for it begins be
yond the Chaboras.4 Surenas kept the mass of his troops
concealed by a wooded hill, showing only the not very
numerous vanguard of cataphracts till the Romans were
committed to do battle. The Roman cavalry under Publius
Crassus, son of the proconsul, charged the enemy to pre
vent a threatening flank movement, and were drawn away
from the mass of the army by the favourite Parthian man
oeuvre of a simulated flight, and then surrounded and cut to
pieces. The mass of the Roman host lost courage at this
disaster, and already had suffered terrible loss from the
light-armed hordes of Parthian serfs who hovered round
the enemy at a safe distance and galled it with arrows
shot with deadly precision. The legionaries serried their
ranks and covered themselves with their shields ; but in
this close order they were easily broken by the charge of
the Parthian freemen with their long heavy lances and
almost impenetrable suits of complete armour. The heat,
too, thirst, and dust oppressed the Romans, and this first
day would have decided their fate but that the Parthians
withdrew before evening, true to their rule of encamping
3 Florus says eleven legions and Appian 100,000 men ; but Appian
has made the mistake of adding to the legion its auxiliaries and count
ing the whole at the higher footing adopted under the empire. Seven
such legions with the 8000 cavalry and light troops, and the 8000 men
in garrison, make up his total. For the campaign of Crassus we have
two independent narratives preserved in Plutarch and Dio ; Plutarch's
is the older account, full of colour and valuable detail, but larking in
topographical precision ; in this respect Dio's source is much to be
preferred but it has suffered from that author's somewhat arbitrary
way of meddling with his materials. The accounts based on Livy
(Periodic lib., 106; Florus, iii. 11 ; Festus Ruftis, Ercii., 17, and
Orosius, -i. 13) agree in all essential points with Plutarch, who, how
ever, dra vs not from Livy but from some Greek writer, perhaps Nicolaus
of Damascus.
4 Plutarch himself speaks of marshes (cap. 25) ; the only modern
account that agrees with the facts is that of G. Kawlinson, p. 163 sq.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
597
at a distance from the foe. Crassus retired at night, leav
ing all who were badly wounded behind him, and reached
Carrhie safely ; but his army was sadly demoralized, and
he himself lost his head, and, though fairly secure at Carrhie,
thought only of immediate retreat to Syria.1 He marched
by night northwards towards the mountains ; the several
divisions lost one another and each sought only to shift
for itself. The quaestor Cassius, one of Crassus's best
officers, returned to Carrhae and thence regained Syria
in safety. Crassus himself, after getting dangerously en
tangled in marshy ground, had almost reached the moun
tains when he was induced, by the despair of his troops
rather than by error of his own judgment, to yield to
treacherous proposals of Surenas and descend again into
the plain. As he mounted the horse which was to convey
him to a meeting with the enemy's general the gestures
of the Parthians excited suspicions of treachery, a struggle
ensued, and Crassus was struck down and slain. Scarcely
10,000 men out of the whole host reached Syria by
way of Armenia (Appian, B. C., ii. 18); 20,000 had
fallen and 10,000 captives were settled in Antioch, the
capital of Margiana. The token of victory, the hand and
head of Crassus, reached Orodes in Armenia just as he
had made peace with Artavasdes and betrothed his eldest
son Pacorus to the daughter of the Armenian king. The
Roman disaster was due primarily to the novelty of the
Parthian way of assault, which took them wholly by sur
prise, and partly also to bad generalship ; but the Romans
always sought a traitor to account for a defeat, and in the
present case threw the blame partly on Andromachus of
Carrha?, who really did mislead Crassus in his retreat, and
was rewarded by the Parthians with the tyranny of his
native town (Nic. Dam., in Athen., vi. p. 252 D),2 but had
no great influence on the disaster, and partly on Abgar,
whose advice was no doubt bad, but not necessarily treach
erous,-3 while the silence of the older account disposes of
Dio's improbable assertion that the men of Orrhoene fell
on the rear of the Romans. That the Parthians did not
count Abgar their friend and punished him with deposi
tion may be fairly inferred from the list4 of kings of Edessa
given by Dionysius of Telmahar, which shows that the
reign of Abgar II. ended in 53, and was followed by a year
of interregnum.
Surenas, the victor of Carrhae, whose fame was now too
great for the condition of a mere subject, was put to death
a little later, the victim of Orodes's jealousy ; the victory
vA7ars itself was weakly followed up. Not till 52 was Syria
vith invaded, and then with forces so weak that Cassius found
lomans. ^Q (jefence easv_ jn jupy 5} (Sextilis, according to the
old calendar) the attack was renewed with greater forces ;
the Romans were still weak in troops, their harshness and
injustice had alienated the provincials, and some districts —
as Judaea — openly sympathized with the foe. Thus all
the chances were still favourable to the Parthians, who
indeed overran the open country, but were too unskilled in
siege to take Antioch. As they drew off, Cassius stopped
their way at Antigonia and inflicted on them a defeat in
which Osaces, the real leader of their host under the young
prince Pacorus, was mortally wounded (August 51). Pacorus
wintered in Cyrrhestica, the Romans under the new pro
consul Bibulus not venturing beyond the walls of Antioch ;
1 That lie waited for the new moon — i.e., some twenty days, as Dio
says — seems to be a mistake. Perhaps it is clue to Dio himself ; at all
events, the older account is preferable.
2 The Parthians leaned much on the despots of the Greek cities.
Zenodotia, the only Mesopotamia!! town that Crassus had to storm,
had a despot, Apollonius.
3 The alternative of a march along the Euphrates was also open to
serious military objections.
4 It must be remembered that a correction of four years has to be
applied to all the dates in this list.
but, the satrap of Mesopotamia 5 having raised a revolt 53-38 B.C.
against Orodes in the name of Pacorus, the latter was
recalled by his father and Syria was entirely evacuated
by May 50.
Orodes avoided the threatened breach with his son by
associating Pacorus in the empire ; 6 but the Parthians
took little advantage of the civil wars that preceded the
fall of the Roman republic. They occasionally stepped in
to save the weaker party from utter annihilation, but even
this policy was not followed \vith energy, and Orodes
refused to help Pompey in his distress because the Roman
would not promise to give him Syria. The Pompeian
Ccecilius Bassus was saved from Caesar's general Antistius
Vetus by the sudden appearance of a Parthian force under
Pacorus, which, however, retired when winter came on
(December 45). In 43, again, Cassius had a force of
mounted Parthian bowmen with him in Syria, but dismissed
them when he marched to join Brutus and face the
triumvirs. Labienus Avas with Orodes negotiating for
help on a larger scale when the news of Philippi arrived,
and remained with him till 40, when he was at last sent
back to Syria, together with Pacorus and a numerous host.
The Roman garrisons in Syria were old troops of Brutus
and Cassius, who had been taken over by Antony ; those
in the region of Apamea joined Labienus ; Antony's legate
Decidius Saxa was defeated, and fled from the camp afraid
of his own men. Apamea, Antioch, and all Syria soon fell
into the hands of the Parthians, and Decidius was pursued
and slain. Pacorus advanced along the great coast road and
received the submission of all the Phoenician cities save
Tyre. Simultaneously the satrap Barzaphranes appeared in
Galilee; the patriots all over Palestine rose against Phasael
and Herod (see ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 425) ; and five hundred
Parthian horse appearing before Jerusalem were enough
to overthrow the Roman party and substitute Antigonus
for Hyrcanus. The Parthian administration was a favour
able contrast to the rule of the oppressive proconsuls, and
the justice and clemency of Pacorus won the hearts of the
Syrians. Meantime Labienus had penetrated Asia Minor
as far as Lydia and Ionia ; the Roman governor Plancus
could only hold the islands ; most of the cities opened their
gates to Labienus, the " Parthicus Imperator," Stratonicea
alone resisting and successfully standing a siege. But
Rome even in its time of civil divisions was stronger than
Parthia ; in 39 Ventidius Bassus, general for Antony,
suddenly appeared in Asia and drove Labienus and his
provincial levies before him without a battle as far as the
Taurus. Here the Parthians came to Labienus's help, but,
attacking rashly and without his co-operation, they were
defeated by Ventidius, and Labienus's troops were involved
in the disaster. Labienus himself escaped to Cilicia, but
was captured and executed by the Egyptian governor of
Cyprus. In the passes of the Amanus the Romans were
again in danger, but Ventidius at length gained a decisive
victory at Trapezon, north of the Orontes valley, where
Phranipates, the ablest lieutenant of Pacorus, fell ; and the
Parthians evacuated Syria. Before Ventidius had com
pleted the resettlement of the Roman power in Syria and
Palestine, and while his troops were dispersed in winter-
quarters, the Parthians fell on him again Avith a force of
more than 20,000 men and an unusually large proportion
of free caA'aliers in full armour. Ventidius, hoAvever,
gained time to bring up legions from Cappadocia by de
ceiving a dynast . of Cyrrhestica, who Avas Pacorus's spy.
Then a battle Avas fought near the shrine of Hercules at
Gindarus in Cyrrhestica, on the anniversary, it is said, of
the defeat of Crassus (9th June 38), and the Parthians Avere
5 The name was Orondapates, corrupted to 'OpvoSaTravrrj in Dio,
xl. 30.
6 So the coins show, Gardner, p. 41.
598
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
38-27 B.C. utterly routed and Pacorus himself slain. His head was
sent round to the cities of Syria which were still in revolt
to prove to them that their hopes had failed. There was
no further resistance save from Aradus and Jerusalem.
Orodes, now an old man and sorely afflicted by the death
of his favourite son, nominated his next son, Phraates, as
his colleague, and the latter began his reign by making
away with brothers of whom he was jealous as the sons of
a princely mother, daughter of Antiochus of Commagene,
and then strangling his father, who had not concealed
his anger at the crime (37). The reign of Orodes was
the culminating point of Parthian greatness, and all his
successors adopted his title of "king of kings, Arsaces
Euergetes" (taken from Phraates II.) "Dicaios" (first
borne by the pretendant spoken of at p. 595, who was
perhaps father of Sinatruces, and so ancestor of the suc
ceeding princes) "Epiphanes" (like Mithradates I.)
" Philhellen " l (like Phriapatius). It was he who moved
the capital westward to Seleucia, or rather to Ctesiphon
(Taisefiin), its eastern suburb.2
Phraates Phraates IV. continued his reign in a series of crimes,
IVl murdering every prominent man among his brothers, and
even his own adult son, that the nobles might find no
Arsacid to lead their discontent. Many of the nobles fled
to foreign parts, and Antony felt encouraged to plan a war
of vengeance against Parthia.3 Antony had no hope of
forcing the well-guarded Euphrates frontier, but since the
death of Pacorus Armenia had again been brought under
Roman patronage, and he hoped to strike a blow at the heart
of Parthia through Atropatene. Keeping the Parthians
in play by feigned proposals of peace while he matured
his preparations, he appeared in Atropatene in 36 with
60,000 legionaries and 40,000 cavalry and auxiliary troops,
and at once formed the siege of the capital Phraaspa
(Takht-i-Suleiniean). The Median king Artavasdes, son
of Ariobarzanes,4 had marched to join Phraates, who looked
for the attack in another quarter. Phraates had only
40,000 Parthians, including but 400 freemen who never
left the king, and probably 10,000 Median cavalry;5 but
these forces were well handled, and the two kings had
reached the scene of war before Antony was joined by his
baggage and heavy siege-train, and opened the campaign
by capturing the train and cutting to pieces its escort of
7500 men under the legate Oppius Statianus. Antony
was still able to repel a demonstration to relieve Phraaspa,
but his provisions ran short, and the foraging parties were
so harassed that the siege made no progress ; and, as it was
now October, he was at length forced to open negotia
tions with Phraates. The Parthian promised peace if the
Romans withdrew, but, when Antony took him at his word,
abandoning the siege-engines, he began a vigorous pursuit,
and kept the Romans constantly on the defensive, chastis
ing one officer who hazarded an engagement by a defeat
which cost the Romans 3000 killed and 5000 wounded. Still
1 Orodes indeed knew Greek and cared for Greek literature. The
Baxchae was performed at his son's betrothal.
2 Ctesiphon was capital at the time of Crassus's invasion, and
Ammianus (xxiii. 6, 23) calls Paconis the second founder of the city,
the first Vardan.es being perhaps a mythical person. A coin of
Orodes with the title KrLirr^ (Gardner, 39) may refer to this.
3 Of this war we have three accounts, all based on one source, prob
ably a monograph by Dellius. The best is Plutarch's (Ant., 37 sq.,
favourable to Antony). The later minor historians (who drew from
Livy) and Dio (xlix. 23 sq.) are hostile to Antony (Octavianist) ; but
the former, while sharing Dio's general point of view, approach Plutarch
in many points of detail. Plutarch drew from the original source,
indirectly perhaps through Nic. Darn. ; Dio used Livy, but not exclu
sively. The point in the story where the mutual relations of the
several narratives come out most clearly is in what is said of the
adviser who saved the Romans from utter destruction.
4 Mon. Ancyr., col. vi. 1. 12.
5 Pint., Ant., 44 ; Justin, xli. 2, 6. The number 10,000 is given by
Apollonides in Strabo, xi. p. 523.
greater were the losses by famine and thirst and dysentery ;
and the whole force was utterly demoralized and had lost
a fourth part of its fighting men, a third of the camp-
followers, and all the baggage when, after a retreat of
twenty-seven days from Phraaspa to the Araxes by way
of Mianeh (276 miles), they reached the Armenian frontier.
Eight thousand more perished of cold and from snow
storms in the Armenian mountains ; the mortality among
the wounded was terrible ; the Romans would have been
undone had not Artavasdes of Armenia allowed them to
winter in his land. The failure of the expedition was
due partly to the usual Roman ignorance of the geo
graphical and climatic conditions, partly to a rash haste
in the earlier operations, but very largely also (as in the
case of Napoleon's Russian campaign) to the lack of dis
cipline in the soldiers of the Civil War, which called for
very stern chastisement even during the siege of Phraaspa,
and culminated at length in frequent desertions and in
open mutiny, driving Antony to think of suicide. The
Romans laid the whole blame on Artavasdes, but without
any adequate reason. At the same time the disaster of
Antony following that of Crassus seemed to show that
within their own country the Parthians could not safely be
attacked on any side, and for a century and a half Roman
cupidity left them alone.
The Median Artavasdes, whose little country had borne
the whole brunt of the war, fell out with the Parthians
about the division of booty, and made overtures to Antony
for alliance with Rome; and in 33, when the Romans
had treacherously seized the person of the Armenian Arta
vasdes and occupied his land, a treaty was actually con
cluded by which Symbace, which had once been Median,
was again detached from Armenia, and Roman troops were
sent to co-operate with the Median king in repelling the
efforts of the Parthians to reseat on the throne of his
fathers Artaxes, son of the deposed king of Armenia.
These troops, however, Avere recalled before the battle of
Actium, and then Media and Armenia fall before the
Parthians ; the Romans who were still in the country were
slain, and Artaxes II. was raised to the Armenian throne
(30). In the very next year, however, the course of Par
thian affairs led Artaxes to make his peace with Rome.6
Phraates's tyranny had only been aggravated by his
successes, and open rebellion broke out in 33. We have
coins of an anonymous pretender dating March to June 32.7
To him succeeded Tiridates II., whose rebellion was at aTirida)
climax during the war of Actium. Towards the end of11-
30 Tiridates succumbed and fled to Syria, where Octa-
vian, who was wintering in the province, allowed him to
remain. A fresh attempt made from this side, with the help
perhaps of the Arabs of the desert, and by crossing the
Euphrates at the island now called Koha, had better success.
The order of events here given is that deduced by Vaillant
and Longuerue, combining the Roman history of Dio
with the Parthian of Trogus, — Lachmann, who makes
Tiridates be expelled only once and supposes a mistake on
the part of Trogus as to place and date of his meeting
with Augustus, assigning 1st March 29 as the date of
Horace, Carm., iii. 8 ; but the chronological difficulties of
this view are insuperable. Phraates was taken by surprise
and fled, slaying his concubines that they might not fall a
prey to his victor (Isid. Char., 1). Tiridates seated him
self on the throne in June 27,8 and Phraates wandered
for some time in exile till he persuaded the Scythians to
undertake his cause.
6 See coins in Eckhel, vi. 82, compared with Dio, li. 16, and the
reference in Horace, Carm., ii. 9, 20-22.
7 Ascribed to Tiridates II. by Gardner, p. 44 sq.
8 D;esius, 285 Sel. In this month there are coins of Phraates and
also of an Arsaces Euergetes Autocrator Epiphanes Philhellen, who
must be Tiridates II.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
599
To understand who his helpers were we must take up again the
thread of the history of the far Eastern lands. It was now a century
since the Tibetan races who had supplanted the Greeks to the north
of the Hindu Kusli had first exercised a decisive influence 011 western
affairs, and during most of that time there had been little change
in the boundaries of empire in eastern Iran. Since the time of
Eucratides the centre of Greek influence had lain more to the south
of the Hindu Rush and in India proper, and this was perhaps one
reason why Sogdiana and Bactria were lost so early ; since that
loss Greek power and culture had their chief and most lasting seat
in the Cabul valley, where colonies of Alexander were particularly
numerous.
The places where coins have been found — and these are almost
our only source of knowledge1 — prove that on the death of Eucra
tides the Indian country fell to Apollodotus and Bactria to Heliocles.
Each of these held for a time the greater part of east Iran, but Apollo
dotus was the last Greek king who ruled over Kandahar and Sistan.
For a time there were also separate kingdoms in the Cabul valley
under Autialcides, and in the district of Peshawar under Lysias, but
after a period of civil wars they were all merged in one great Grreco-
Indian realm extending from Cabul to the Sutlej, and at times as far
south as Barygaza ; the capital was Cakala (officially called Euthy-
demia). Eight Yavana kings, says the V&yu-Pw&na, reigned eighty-
two years, and just eight names 2 are found on coins whose distri
bution justifies us in attributing them to kings whose sway extended
over the whole Greek realm. This confirms the historical value of
the Indian source, and the eighty-two years will have to be reckoned
from the time when Demetrius was driven out of Bactria and fixed
his residence in the Punjab (c. 175), so that the end of the kingdom
will fall about 93. Menander, the most important of the eight (c.
125 -c. 95 ?),3 carried his arms farther than any of his predecessors,
crossed the Hypasis, and pushed as far as the " Isamus," a locality
which must be sought much farther east than used to be supposed,
since his coins are common as far as Mathura (Muttra) and Rampur,
and Indian sources4 tell us that the Greeks subdued Ayodhya, the
land of the Panchala, and Mathura, and even took the old capital,
Pataliputra. The Greeks were too few to hold these exorbitant
conquests without much concession to native habits and prejudices,
and we learn without very great surprise from a Buddhist book
that Menander became a Buddhist. The same source 5 tells us that
Menander was born at Alasanda (Alexandria ad Caucasum) or at
the (neighbouring ? ) village of Kalasi. Buddhism was strong in this
quarter at an early date, and a Buddhist stupa appears as type on
a coin of Agathocles, who reigned in Arachosia and Drangiana about
180-165 (Sallet, op. cit., p. 95). A Greek source praises Men-
ander's just rule ; the Milinda-prasna says, " In the whole of Jam-
bud ipa there was no one comparable to Milinda R;ija . . .he was
endowed with riches . . . and guarded by military power in a state
of the utmost efficiency" (Jour. As. Soc. Seng., v. 532). When he
died in the camp he received every honour paid to a deceased
" chakravartti," and his ashes were divided, as Buddha's had been, in
cenotaphs erected in every town. Perhaps political mingled with
pious motives ; the struggle for the dust of Menander mentioned by
a Greek writer may be compared with that among the "diadochi "
for the bones of Alexander, and so will be one phase of the many and
long divisions among the Indian Greeks testified to by the coins.
In little less than a century we have the names of twenty-three
kings all later than Eucratides, and nine of them apparently later
than Menander. They appear to belong to four kingdoms, the
upper and lower Cabul valley, Peshawar, and the Punjab, and as
there are but two names common to more than one king we may
conclude that the rapid changes were often violent, that these were
not fixed dynasties, perhaps that the kings rose by military election.
All this confirms the Indian source (in Kern, ut supra, p. 38), " the
fiercely-fighting Greeks did not stay in Madhyadeca ; there was a
cruel dreadful war in their own kingdom between themselves. "
All the time that the Greek kingdom lasted there was beside it
another whose kings bear Scythian or Parthian names ; their coins
belong chiefly to the western Punjab, the outrunners of the Kashmir
Himalayas, and west of the Indus, Bajawar, and sometimes Bamian.
The founder of this kingdom was Maues, a younger contemporary
of Demetrius and Apollodotus, whose types are imitated on his
coins. The coins confirm the Chinese notice that the Sse, driven
from their scats at Balkash and Issi-kul, founded a kingdom in
Kipin (Cabul valley) about 161, with the correction that the
kingdom did not at once extend so far west, the coins of Maues
being found only in the Punjab. Now this is just the country
is said to have submitted
! For the facts used in this paragraph see especially Cunningham, in Num.
Chron., new series, x., xii.
2 Demetrius, Eucratides, Apollodotus, Strato I., Strato II., Zoilus, Menander,
Dionysius.
3 He must have had a long reign ; see Sallet, Nacltfolfter Al. rf. Or., p. 34.
4 "Gargi-Sanhita," in Kern, Vardka-Mihira, p. 37. This is an astronomical
work of the 1st century of onr era. The Isamus of Strabo, xi. p. 516, is prob
ably the Sambus of Arr., Intl., 4, 4. The name is presumably corrupt, and
Cunningham's conjecture, 2ocivotr(the Cona) for 'Iad/j.ov, would suit best
but for the graphical difficulty it involves.
"Milinda-prasna," in Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, pp. 510, 440.
without a war to Mithradates I. of Parthia, and we must probably c. 175-32
assume that it was the Sse who put themselves under the Parthian B.C.
empire, but that the arrangement was not a lasting one, the parties
to it lying so far apart.
The kings of the Sse do not seem to have been Parthians,6 but Kings of
the nation was one of the many Iranian nomad tribes that once the Sse.
roamed over the steppes north of Sogdiana, while their coins show
that they were influenced by the culture of the Indian Greeks, from
whom they copied the titles of "satrap" and " strategtis. " The
kingdom lay north of the Greeks, roughly bounded by the Cabul
river and a line continuing eastward in the same latitude, and it is
one of the unsolved puzzles of this obscure history how such a strip
of mountain-land ever became so prosperous and powerful as it did
under the second king, Azes, and how it was able to resist the
might of Menander. We know from the Pcriplus that on the
lower Indus the Parthians who fixed themselves there in the first
Christian century had been preceded by a Scythian kingdom of
sufficient permanency to leave to the district the name of Scythia
or Indo- Scythia. But that the Sse were the founders of this
remote kingdom is not so certain as is usually supposed ; it is
quite as possible that at the time when the Scythians overran Iran
the founders of the Indo-Scythian kingdom advanced from Sacas-
tane through the Bolan Pass. The Sse certainly did not force
themselves wedge -like between the Greek settlements, and the
chronology of the coins precludes the easy solution that their
power developed only after the fall of the Greeks. The coins
name five supreme kings — Maues, Azes, Azilises, Onones, Spalirises ;
the dynasty began about 161 ; Azes, the second king, restruck coins
of Apollodotus ; and there is not the least reason to doubt that he
directly followed him, and that the power of the Sse under Azes
fell in the time before Menander, when the Greeks were weak and
divided. It was probably Menander who again drove the Scythians
within narrower limits. The coins show further a lack of unity
in the late~ days of the Scythian kingdom, and, taking this fact
with the smallness of the total number of names, we cannot con
clude that it lasted much later than the Greek realms.
Hermreus, the last of the Greek kings, held the lower valley of Chinese
the Cabul river and Peshawar with the district around it and the annals,
belt of the Punjab opposite, and he reigned, as the effigies on his
coins show, from youth to old age. These last days of Greek rule
in the East fortunately receive light from the Chinese Annals (of
the first If an).7 After the opening of trade with the West about
105 B.C. the Chinese also visited Kipin, but their agents in this
remote realm were repeatedly plundered by the King U-to-lao
(between 105 and 87). At length, under the son of the latter, the
Chinese commander on the frontier joined In-mo-fu. son of the king
of Yung-khiu, in a sudden attack on the king of Kipin, who was slain
and In-mo-fu installed in his place. Difficulties arose between the
new king and China, and when In-mo-fu ultimately tried to make
his peace the emperor Hiao-yuan-ti had just resolved to break off
all connexion with the distant western lands. As the Chinese kept
no military guard of the western frontier till 59 B.C.,8 and the new
policy of Hiao-yuan-ti began soon after 49, y In-mo-fu must have
begun to reign in Kipin some time between 59 and 51. In 32 he
again, but still in vain, sent tribute and attempted to reopen the
profitable commerce with China. The coins keep us so well in
formed of the names of rulers in this period that In-mo-fu must be
capable of identification, and no ruler can be meant but Hermams,
who in the commonest dialect of Prakrit would be Hermaio, a word
necessarily mutilated by Chinese inability to pronounce r. Yung-
khiu is therefore Yonaki " the city of the Greeks." The dethroned
king of Kipin and his father U-to-lao must, from what the Chinese
records tell of the origin of their power, be kings of the Sse ;
U-to-lao is probably Azo Rao, "king Azes."
We have Chinese accounts of the eastern lands of Iran in the
time of open trade along the great south road from Phi-shan on the
Chinese frontier over the Hanging Pass (beside Lake Yashil-Kul at
the west end of the Alichur Pamir"),10 and so south-west to Hian-tu
(the Indians), and then to the fruitful and temperate plain of Kipin.
The king of Kipin, a mighty lord, resided at Sim-Sun (perhaps
kiovvaov, Dionysopolis or Nagara, now Jalalabad). The inhabitants
were industrious and ingenious in carving, building, weaving, and
embroidery, and in silk manufacture ; vessels of gold and silver,
utensils of copper and tin, were found in their bazaars. Their
coins of gold and silver had a horseman on one side and a human
head on the other. The silver pieces here described may be those
of Hippostratus, or of any other of the later Greek, or of the
Scythian kings ; but as none of these kings struck gold the pieces of
6 Mau??s differs only by a formative syllable from Mai'ci/C7;s, leader of the
Sacse at Gaugamela (Arr., iii. S, 3). 'Ovwv-rjs is a Parthian name, but really
identical with that of Eunones, king of the Aorsi (Tac., Ann., xii. 15); the
other five names can hardly be Parthian.
7 See Ritter, Frdkunde, vii. 3, 682 sq. ; and Abel Remusat, Nou reaux Melanyis
Asiatiqitcs, i. 205 sq.
8 Abel Remusat, Mem. de I' Ac., viii. (1S27) p. 110.
9 See what is related for the year 46 in Hist. Gen. de la Chine, iii. 161.
10 This identification is obtained by comparing the old description of the
Hanging Pass (Remusat, Xour. Mi' 1., i. 200) with that of the pass traversed by
the Chinese expedition to Badakhshan in 1759 (Hist. Cen., xi. 572).
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
27 B.C.
21 A.D.
Wars
and
C1
Eucratides with his bust on one side anil the mounted Dioscuri
on the other will still have had course. South-west of Kipin lay
the hot plain of U-ghe-shan-li (Kandahar and Sistan), where the
southern road ended (necessarily at a considerable commercial
town, therefore at Alexandria in Arachosia). Hence a road leads
to An-si (in its original sense, supra, p. 593), first northward (to
Herat) and then east (to Merv). The inhabitants of U-ghe-shan-li,
which was too remote to be often visited from China, hated blood
shed and had weapons adorned with gold and silver. Their coins
are described in the same terms as those of Kipin ; and probably
the latter had course, and there was no native mint. But there
was an independent kingdom ; and, as it is certain that Drangiana
and Arachosia were not at this time (middle of 1st century B. c. )
subject to the Greeks — no coins of the successors of Apollodotus
having been found there — we conclude that this kingdom was that
of the Saca?, who overran Iran in 128. Later Chinese writers say
that the country was subject to An-si (Parthia), and Isidore of
Charax (1 B.C.) makes Arachosia a Parthian satrapy. It was prob
ably under Orodes that Arachosia was conquered and the Sactu
confined to Sacastane.
The latest coins of Hermreus bear also the name of a king, Kujula-
Kaso, first in the Arianian and finally also in the Greek legend
(Kofoi'\o-Ka5</>i£w). Now the Chinese tell us (Mem. de I' Ac., xxv.
27, 29) that about a century after the Tochari (Yue-chi) conquered
Bactria — i.e., 39-27 — Kieu-tsieu-khio, prince of Kuei-shuang,
conquered the other four principalities of the Tochari and named
his whole kingdom Kuei-shuang (Kashan). He then warred against
the Parthians and took the great land of Kao-fu (Cabul), which had
been subject to India, Kipin, and Parthia, as well as the neigh
bouring lands of Po-ta (north of U-ghe-shan'-li ; to be identified
with the Pactyes or Patans originally settled in Glior) and Kipin.
The last fact shows that Kieu-tsieu-khio is none other than
Kofoi'\o-Ka§0£foi», who indeed is called on the coins Kashana-
Yavugo, "king of Kashan," and "steadfast in the fai.h," i.e., in
Buddhism, which early found entrance among the Tochari. "\Vith
this account of the conquest of Cabul it agrees that Isidore names
Arachosia but not Cabul as Parthian. Now the war of the king
of Kashan with the Parthians is none other than that undertaken
by the Scythians to restore Phraates to the throne. Trogus had
an excursus in this connexion on the Asianic kings of the Tochari
and the fall of the Sacaraucne (doubtless before the increased might
of the realm of the Tochari). These intestine conflicts of the
Scythians seem to have been at their height during the exile of
Phraates, and their issue decided his fortunes. The Romans
followed these movements with attention because they threatened
Tiridates, and Horace has repeated references to them of a kind
that is more than poetic fancy (Carm., i. 26, 3 sq., and especially
iii. 29, 20 sq., — " Tanais discors," wars of Tochari and Sacaraucrc ;
"plans of the Seres," the Chinese stood in close relation to these
lands and had powerfully intervened in the affairs of the SacarauctB
in 44).
Before the great host of the Scythians Tiridates retired
without a contest. On 1st March 2G * the news of
this had not reached Rome; but in June, as the coins
prove,2 Phraates again held the throne. Tiridates fled to
Augustus, who refused to give him up, but agreed not to
support him, and restored to Phraates a son whom Tiridates
had carried off and placed in his hands as a hostage. The
Parthian in return promised to give up the captives and
ensigns taken from Crassus and Antony, and fulfilled his
promise in 20, when Augustus was in Syria. He would
hardly have done so perhaps had not his throne been
again insecure ; there is a break in the Parthian coinage
after October 23, and it is not resumed for many years
— a sure sign of inner troubles. There is just one coin
known of Phraates's later years (October 10 B.C.; Gardner,
p. 62), which probably marks his return from a second
exile; for we know from Josephus (Ant., xvi. 8, 4) that
between 12 and 9 B.C. Mithradates IV. was on the throne
of the Arsacids, and that Herod of Judaea was accused
of plotting with him against Piome.3 The revolt of
Media Atropatene, which asked a king from Rome some
time between 20 B.C. and 2 A.D., and received Ario-
1 Hor., Car., iii. 8, 19-20, belongs to this year, as appears from
Phraates's coinage of D;usius, 286 Sel. The reduction of the Can-
tabrians refers to Augustus's personal presence in Spain in the end of
27 (Dio, liii. 22), not to their second reduction in 25, which could
hardly be known in Rome on 1st March. The retreat of the Scythians
refers to the Sarmatian war (Floras, iv. 12, 20).
2 Prokesch-Osten, Monnaits des Rois Purthcs, p. 37.
3 Vaillant having missed this passage, no later writer cites it.
barzanes II., son of Artavasdes, was probably about this
time (J/o/i. ARC., vi. 9). In 10 or 9 B.C. Phraates took the
precaution of sending his family to Rome so that the
rebels might have no Arsacid pretender to put forward,
keeping only and designating as heir his youngest son by
his favourite wife Thea Musa Urania, an Italian slave-girl
presented to him by Augustus. This was mainly a scheme
of Urania's, and she and her son crowned it by murdering
the old tyrant. Phraates V., or as he is usually called
Phraataces (diminutive), was thus the third Arsacid, in
successive generations, to reach the throne by parricide.4
Phraates V., whose first coin is of May 2 B.C., tried an Phraa
energetic policy, expelling Artavasdes III. and the Roman v-
troops that supported him from Armenia, and seating on
the throne Tigranes IV., who had been a fugitive under
Parthian protection. Ariobarzanes of Atropatene was
probably expelled at the same time ; a little later we
find him in exile at Rome, and (in spite of Strabo, xi. p. 523,
who perhaps had not the latest news) the old line of
Atropates seems now to have been superseded by a line of
Parthian princes. As Augustus did not wish to extend
the empire, and Phraates was not very secure on his throne,
neither party cared to fight, and an agreement was patched
up after some angry words, Phraates resigning all claim
on Armenia and leaving his brothers as hostages in Rome
(1 A.D.). Phraates now married his mother, who appears
with him on coins from April 2 A.D., a match probably
meant to conciliate the clergy, as he knew that the nobles
hated him. In fact he Avas soon driven by a rebellion
(after October 4 A.D.) to flee to Roman soil, where he died,
it seems, not long afterwards.
The Parthians called Orodes II. from exile to the throne. Civil
Of him we have a coin of autumn G A.D. ; but his wildwars<
and cruel temper soon made him hated, and he was
murdered while out hunting. Anarchy and bloodshed
now gaining the upper hand, the Parthians sent to Rome
(before 9 A.D.), and received thence as king Vonones, the
eldest of the sons of Phraates IV., a well-meaning prince,
whose foreign education put him quite out of sympathy
with his country. He preferred a litter to a horse, cared
nothing for hunting and carousals, liked to be with Greeks,
and relaxed the stringent etiquette that barred approach
to the sovereign, and at the same time he tried to check
peculation. A strong reaction of national feeling took place,
and the main line of the Arsacids being now exhausted
by death or exile, Artabanus, an Arsacid on the mother's
side, who had grown up among the Daha3 and had after
wards been made king of Media (Atropatene), was set up
as pretendant in 10 or 11 A.D. Artabanus was defeated
at first,5 but ultimately gained a great and bloody victory
and seated himself in Ctesiphon. Vonones fled to Armenia
and was chosen as king of that country (1C A.D.), but
Tiberius, who was anxious to avoid war, and did not wish
to give Artabanus III. any pretext to invade Armenia, Arta-
persuaded Vonones to retire to Syria. By and by he waslliuius
interned in Cilicia, and in 19 A.D. lost his life in an
attempt to escape.
The clearest proof of the miserable results of continual
civil war in Parthia at this time is that a Jewish robber
state maintained itself for fifteen years in the marshes of
Nearda and the Babylonian Nisibis a little after 21 A.D.,
4 Of the Beni Jellab, who reigned in Tugurt till after the middle
of the present century, every sultan is said to have murdered his
father, and Mahmud Shah of Guzerat (1538-54) made all his wives
procure abortion as the only possible protection for a king against
attempts of sons on his life.
5 A drachma of King Vonones when he had conquered Artabanus
is one of the earliest examples of the use of the personal name of the
king instead of the throne name. The practice became common, and
marks an era of disputed successions, when it was necessary to indi
cate to which pretendaut a coin belonged.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
601
and that, when some satrapies were in revolt and others
threatened it, the great king made a pact with the bandits
to keep Babylonia in control in his absence. Yet amidst
such constant rebellions Artabamis III., shrewd and
energetic, not merely held his own but waged successful
foreign wars, set his son Arsaces on the throne of Armenia,
and challenged Rome still more directly by raising claims
to lordship over the Iranian population of Cappadocia.
Through the whole first century of the Roman empire all
relations to Farthia turned on the struggle for influence in
Armenia, and, much as he loved peace, Tiberius could not
suffer this disturbance of the balance of power to pass un
noticed. He persuaded Pharasmanes, king of Iberia, to
put forward his brother Mithradates as claimant to the
Armenian throne. The Iberians, after having procured
the assassination of Arsaces, advanced and took Artaxata,
the capital ; and, when the Parthians came against them
under Orodes, another son of Artabanus, Pharasmanes
strengthened himself by opening the Caucasian Gates to
the Sarniatians,1 whose chiefs were easily gained to fight
where there was money or booty to be got. A bloody
battle ensued ; Orodes was wounded in single combat
with Pharasmanes, and his troops fled, believing him to
be dead. In 36 Artabanus himself took the field, but
a widespread revolt, long prearranged by Tiberius with a
Parthian party led by Sinnaces, rose behind him in the
name of Tiridates, a grandson of Phraates IV., who had
been chosen as pretendant from the Parthian princes at
Rome, and Artabanus retired to Hyrcania to resume his
old relations with the adjacent nomads. The Roman legate
of Syria, Lucius Vitellius, with his legions, led Tiridates
into Parthia, where his followers joined him; Mesopo
tamia, Apolloniatis, and Chalonitis did homage ; and the
Syrian and Jewish population of Selcucia, which hated
the party of Artabanus (the oligarchy of the 300 " adi-
ganes " drawn from the old Greek families), were grati
fied by democratic institutions. In Ctesiphon Tiridates
was crowned by Surenas, but without waiting for Phraates
and Hiero, satraps of two chief provinces (Upper and
Rhagian Media?), who became his enemies for this slight.
Nor were they alone in their jealousy of the absolute
court -influence of Sinnaces and his father Abdagases.
Artabanus was called back and appeared from Hyrcania
with an auxiliary force of Dahce and Sacse ; Tiridates re
tired to Mesopotamia, where his party was strongest, but
his army melted away, and in 36 A.D. he took refuge in
Syria. Much as Artabanus hated the Romans, his insecure
position at home drove him in 37 to make an accommoda
tion on terms favourable to them and send his son Darius
as hostage to Tiberius. Indeed, he was again for a short
. time an exile with Izates of Adiabene,who, however, effected
his restoration and was rewarded by the transference of
Nisibis to him from Armenia, which the Parthians had
again got in their hands, taking advantage of the foolish
policy of Gains Caesar, who had tempted Mithradates of
Armenia to Rome and imprisoned him there. Artabanus
died soon after his second restoration, probably in 40 A.D.,
as Josephus (Ant., xviii. 7, 2) still mentions him in 39.
Gotarzes In Artabanus's lifetime the second place in the empire
and Var- jja(j keen \IQ[C\ ]jy one Gotarzes, who appears to have been
his colleague in the upper satrapies, and perhaps his lieu
tenant in his flight to Adiabene. But there is monumental
evidence 2 that he was not, as Josephus says and Tacitus
1 Josephus, Ant., xviii. 4, 4 (according to the MSS. ), says Alans;
Z/a'i$as is an interpolation. In modern as in ancient times Iberian
kings have repeatedly followed the same dangerous policy to increase
their strength. The power of the Christian kings of Georgia in the
12th century rested wholly on alliance with the mountain tribes.
- On a Greek inscription at Bisutun he is " satrap of satraps and
FeoTroflpos" (son of Giiw) ; on a coin he probably appears as Goterzt's,
king of the kings of the Areani (east Iranians), son of Ge, '• kalymenos "
implies, Artabanus's son (except by adoption), and so we 21-45 A.D
find that the succession first fell to Vardanes, who coined
money in September 40. But in 41 Gotarzes appears as
king. The cruelties of Gotarzes gave Yardanes an oppor
tunity of return ; in two days he rode 345 miles, and
taking his rival by surprise forced him to flee, and occupied
the lower satrapies, where he coins regularly from July 42
onwards. Vardanes now laid siege to Seleucia, which had
been in rebellion since it opened its gates to Tiridates in
36, but was presently called away to meet Gotarzes, who
had secured the aid of the Hyrcanians and Dahte. The
renewal of civil war enabled the emperor Claudius, with
the aid of the Iberians, to drive the Parthian satrap
Demonax from Armenia and reseat Mithradates on the
throne.3 Meantime Gotarzes and Vardanes were face to
face in the plain of western or Parthian Bactria, but an
attempt on the life of the latter having been disclosed by
his foe they made peace, and Gotarzes withdrew to Hyr
cania, while Vardanes, confirmed in his empire, returned to
Seleucia and took it in 43 after a siege of seven years.
Seleucia was then a city of vast resources ; in the time of Pliny Seleucia.
it reckoned 600,000 souls, and the neighbourhood of Ctesiphon had
not ruined it as Selcucia had ruined Babylon. Indeed Strabo (xvi.
p. 743) is probably to bo believed when he says that Ctesiphon was
founded as the winter residence of the Parthian kings mainly out
of consideration for Seleucia, whose merchants would have been
incommoded by the quartering on them of the rude hordes of
nomads who formed the larger part of the army which surrounded
the court. The friendship of the Parthians was necessarily impaired
by the long rebellion and the insolence of the Seleucians : in 41 the
Syrians and Greeks put aside their own quarrels and united to
slaughter the Jews ; the survivors fled to Ctesiphon, and even
here the hatred of the Seleucians followed them in despite of the
great king. Probably, therefore, it was as a rival to Seleucia that
Volagascs (or Vologeses) I. founded a little later Yologesocerta
(near Hira) on a site very favourable for commerce. From the
middle of the first Christian century Greek influence declined, and
Orientalism revived in Parthia. The t3Tpes of the Arsacid drachmae
— the imperial money — grow more and more barbaric from the time
of Artabanus III. ; and Pahlavi legends, first found on coins of
Yolagases I., become predominant with Mithradates VI., the con
temporary of Trajan.
Vardanes was deterred from an attempt on Armenia by
the threatening attitude of Vibius Marsus, legate of Syria
from 42 to 44, and the rest of his reign was fully occupied
by internal affairs. In February 45 Gotarzes had renewed
his pretensions and struck money, supported by the re
bellious nobles, and Vardanes, after defeating him at the Var-
passage of the Erindes,4 pursued him eastwards through danes.
the deserts, driving the nomads before him as far as the
Sindes (Tejend), which divided the Dahoe from the Arians,
and returned boasting " that he had reduced nations who
never before had paid tribute to an Arsacid." The glory
that was held to surround these exploits on a stage scarcely
different from that on which the oldest Parthian history
had been enacted is a striking proof of the neglect of
the original home of the monarchy under the pressure of
"Western affairs ; but that Vardanes was a great king is
plain from the high praise of Tacitus and the attention
which the greatest of Roman historians bestows on a reign
which had no direct relations to Rome. Vardanes, whose
last coin is of August 45, was murdered while hunting — a
victim, we are told, to the hatred produced by his severity
to his subjects. But in judging of the charges brought
against him and his two predecessors we must remember
that the rise of a new dynasty like that of Artabanus is
of Artabanus. The last title seems to mean "alter ego" ; it appears
miswritten 1a\vfj,evos in Dio. xl. 12, as applied to Silaces, whom
Orodes I. sent against Crassus ; comp. New Persian kaherm&n, " agent."
Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius, which contains much that is
useful for this period, regards the expulsion of Gotarzes as a restoration
of the Arsacids.
3 In the chronology of what follows Longuerue's arrangement has
been brilliantly confirmed by the coins.
4 Or Charindas (Ptol., vi. 2, 2), now the Keriiid, which separates
Mazandaran from Astarabad.
XVIII. — 76
602
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
15-75 A.P. always accompanied by deeds of violence, and that the
oppressed subjects are simply the utterly unruly Parthian
nobles who had lost all discipline in the long civil wars,
and could only be controlled by force.
Gotarzes. After another period of dispute we now find Gotarzes
again on the throne and coining regularly from September
46 onwards. But his qualities had not improved, and in
47 a secret embassy of malcontents was at Rome asking
Claudius to send them as king Meherdates, son of Vonones.
In 49 the legate, Gains Cassius, did in fact conduct Meher
dates (Mithra dates V.) as far as Zeugma, where he was
met by divers Parthian magnates, and ultimately, after a
detour through the snows of Armenia, got as far as Nineveh
and Arbela. But his only real strength lay in Carenes,
satrap of Mesopotamia ; Abgar V. and Izates, the kings of
Orrhoene and Adiabene, pretended to be with him, but
were in private understanding with Gotarzes, and deserted
before the decisive battle in which Carenes was surrounded
and Meherdates taken (50 A.D.). Gotarzes cut off his rival's
ears, but spared his life — an act of leniency most unusual
in the East, which proves how much the national feeling
of the Iranians despised the pretenders foisted on them
by Home.
Gotarzes died of a sickness, not before June 51, and
was followed by Vonones II., who had been king in Atro-
patene, and was probably a brother of Artabanus III.
According to the coins his short reign began before Sep
tember 51 and did not end before October 54.1 He was
Vola- succeeded by his eldest son, Volagases I., the brothers
gases I. acquiescing in his advancement, although his mother was
only a concubine from Miletus (comp. Tac., Ann., xii. 44,
with Plut., Crassus, 32), and receiving their compensation
by being nominated to kingdoms which gave them the
second and third places after the " king of kings," — Pacorus
to Media or Atropatene and Tiridates to Armenia,2 which
the Parthians invaded (in 52 1) to expel the usurper Rada-
mistus, murderer of King Mithradates. Radamistus was
not finally disposed of till 54, when his own people rose
against him. The • Armenians now offered no resistance
to the Parthians, but the Romans were not content to lose
their influence in the land, and their plans were favoured by
the rising of a new pretendant, the son of Vardanes, against
Volagases. The latter had marched to chastise Izates of
Adiabene, whose conduct had been very ambiguous in
previous embroilments with Rome, when a great army of
Dahae and Sacae entered Parthia. Of the son of Vardanes :3
we have coins from December 55 to July 58, and as the
series of coins of Volagases begins only in 6 1 it was prob
ably not till then that he had quite mastered his more
powerful rival and consolidated his own authority. At first
he had to evacuate Armenia, and in 55 he even gave up the
chief Arsacids as hostages to Domitius Corbulo, Nero's
commissioner on the frontier. In 58, however, Volagases
was again able to commence great operations in Armenia,
though direct war between Parthia and Rome was still
avoided, both sides accepting the fiction that what was
done in Armenia was the private affair of Tiridates. The
Parthians, indeed, were still in no condition for a great
war ; the intestine discords continued, and in 58 Hyrcania,
1 Gardner (p. 51) is wrong in ascribing this coin to Volagases I.
Tacitus makes Volagases come to the throne in 52 or 53, hut if this
is right he must have been associated in the empire under Vonones.
2 Tac., Ann., xv. 2. There was at this time a fourth monarchy
under a Parthian king in east Iran and on the Indus, and a fifth
among the Scythians (or rather the Maskhuth) on the northern slopes
of the Caucasus, where an Arsacid reigned in 19 A.D. (Tac., Ann. , ii.
68). As the Median kingdom was subsequently united to the chief
empire, the later Armenian historians, Agathangelus (Langlois, i. 109)
and Sebeus (ibid., p. 199), are right in speaking of four Arsacid
kingdoms.
3 His name was probably Nanes, for BXANO on a copper coin
(Gardner, p. 51) must be read B[ctcriXeu>s] Xdvofi'].
one of the oldest Parthian lands, revolted and sent an
embassy to seek alliance with Rome. In the same year,
and in that which followed, Corbulo was able with little
resistance to destroy Artaxata, occupy Tigranocerta, and
set on the Armenian throne, supported by Roman troops,
Tigranes V., a prince of that branch line of the Herods
which had been established in Cappadocia. At length,
in 61, Volagases made peace with the Hyrcanians, ac
knowledging their independence ; then, solemnly crowning
Tiridates as king of Armenia, he directed his whole forces
against Tigranes. Open war with Rome, however, was
still delayed by negotiations with Corbulo, who proposed
a peace with a secret condition that the Roman troops
should be withdrawn from Armenia. He felt, no doubt,
that Tigranes, who had inherited the servility but not the
vigour of his ancestor Herod, was not strong enough to
secure the obedience of a population which greatly pre
ferred the rule of the Parthians as their brethren in faith,
manners, and descent. But Rome refused to confirm the
treaty, and war was declared.4 The first year of the war
(62) was unfortunate for the Romans, and ended with the
capitulation of Caesennius Psetus (who now commanded in
Armenia) at Randea, on the southern bank of the Arsanias
(i.e., Aradzani, the Armenian name for the upper Euphrates),
near Arsamosata. The Romans evacuated Armenia and
had also to build the Parthians a bridge over the Arsanias.
Corbulo meantime was in Syria, and had purposely left
Paetus in the lurch, contenting himself with securing the
passages of the Euphrates and guarding them by castles
on Parthian soil. He now came to an agreement with the
Parthian general, Monseses, to raze the castles in return
for the evacuation of Armenia by the Parthians till Rome
should be again consulted. Next year the war was re
sumed, and Corbulo, crossing the Euphrates at Melitene,
had penetrated into Sophene when the Parthians earnestly
sought peace. It was agreed that Tiridates should lay
down his diadem and go to Rome in person to receive it
again from the emperor, which was done accordingly in
66. The real advantage of the war lay more with Parthia
than with Rome, for, if the Roman suzerainty over Armenia
was admitted, the Parthians had succeeded, after a contest
which had lasted a generation, in placing an Arsacid on
the Armenian throne. After Nero's death Volagases formed
very friendly relations with Vespasian, which endured till
75. Meantime all Iran was sorely troubled by the Alans, Alan
who had spread themselves a little before over the plains inroad,
on the north-west slopes of the Caucasus as far as the
Don and the Sea of Azoff. In 72 the king of Hyrcania
opened the pass of Derbend to these barbarians, who
ravaged Media and drove King Pacorus into the recesses
of his mountains, even capturing his harem. Armenia was
also plundered, and the bandits retired laden with booty.
In 75 the Alans entered Parthia itself and pressed Vola
gases so hard that he made an ineffectual application for
help to Vespasian.5 Vespasian's refusal very nearly led to
war, and Trajan, who was now governor of Syria, was pre
pared for a Parthian invasion,6 but Vespasian's pacific
firmness ultimately averted an outbreak.7
We have the evidence of Tacitus (Ann., xi. 8) and Josephus (Ant.,
xx. 4, 2) that Bactria was the eastern limit of the Parthian empire
4 Tacitus and Dio in this part of the history are both dependent
on the very mendacious memoirs of Corbulo. Tacitus, as appears from
Ann., xv. 16, distrusted his source and followed it with more discrimi
nation than Dio, but is still more favourable to Corbulo than a criticism
strictly proceeding on the known facts can admit to be right.
5 It must have been against the Alans that Vespasian in this year,
according to a Greek inscription of Metskheta (Journ. As., ser. 6,
xiii. 93), fortified the castles of the Iberian Mithradates and of the
Jamasdaites.
6 This is all that is meant by " Parthica laurus," Plin., Paneg., 14.
7 In Victor, Ctes., 9, 10, read "ab illo " for "ac bello," comparing
the epitome.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
603
h
oari
in 42 and 54 A.TX, but in 59 the Ilyrcaiiian ambassadors were able
to return home from a port on the Persian Gulf without touching
Parthian soil (Tac., Ann., xiv. 25). This implies that all the upper
satrapies had been lost to the empire. The Hyrcanians were still
independent c. 155 during the reign of Antoninus Pius (Victor,
Epit., 15, 4). In 72 they held the whole southern coast of the Cas-
j:i om plan, and for a time at least bordered on a Parthian kingdom which
n tt had succeeded that of the Scythians in Sacastane at a date subse-
ruJ qucnt to that of Isidore of C'harax (1 n. c. ). The names of seven
kings of this dynasty, beginning apparently with an Arsaces Dicreus,
are known from coins. The most powerful of these was the Gon-
dophares under whom, according to the legendary Ada Thomas,1
the apostle Thomas came to India in 29 A.D. ; he reigned over a
great territory, which in large part had formerly belonged to Par-
thia, his coins being found mainly in Herat, Sistan, and Kandahar,
but also in Begram and sometimes in the Punjab ; an inscription
at Takht-i-Bahi, north-east of Peshawar, makes his twenty-sixth
year the hundredth of an era which is probably that of the intro
duction of Buddhism in the C'abul valley.2 The dynasty of Gon-
dophares, however, was but loosely constituted : we often find two
kings at one time ; and the Pcriplus (70 A.D. ), which tells ns of the
possession of old Indo-Scythia by these Parthians, says that one
king was constantly displacing another, a sure symptom of a mori
bund condition. One of the last kings, Sanabares, reigned a little
after 78 A.D. (Sallet, op. cit., p. 158). The author of the Periplus
had also heard of the independent and very warlike nation of the
Bactrians, i.e. , the Tochari, whose greatest conquests fall at this
time. Kieu-tsieu-khio, the founder of their power, died, according
to Chinese accounts, at the age of eighty, and was succeeded by
his son Yeii-kao-chin, who conquered the Indus lands. The Tochari
were then more powerful than ever, and ruled as far as Shao-ki or
Oude. The coins, on the other hand, lead us to distinguish between
Kozola - Kadaphes, the immediate successor of Kozulo - Kadphizu
(who borrows the latter's name and titles, and whose copper money
found at Manikyala in the Punjab may be dated by its offering a
close imitation of the head of Augustus on denarii struck between
4 B.C. and 2 A.D. ), and the real conqueror of India, Ooemo-Kad
phises (Ar. Hima Kapii^o), who reigned from about the middle of
the 1st century A.D. , and whose might is proved by his striking
gold, which no one had clone since Eucratides. His coins, frequent
in Kabulistan and the Punjab, have been found as far as Benares.
This evidence is reconciled with the Chinese account by an Indian
notice in Kern, VarAha-Mihira, p. 39, which shows that the con
quests of the Tochari were for a time interrupted. It speaks of a
robber £aka king who was very powerful (i.e., Yen-kao-chin, or
Kozola -Kadaphes), after whom there were five native kings. Of
these the first four reigned but a few years, while the fifth, who is
unnamed, had a reign of twenty years over a happy land, after which
the C^akas began their depredations again. The unnamed king may
be identified with a king wearing earrings, and therefore Indian,
whose coins, found by sackfuls in Begram, and occasionally in the
Punjab, Malwa, and even farther east, mark him as a neighbour
and probably contemporary of Gondophares ; they bear no name,
but only the title "king of kings" and "great saviour.'13 The
recommencement of the Caka conquest will thus begin with
Ooemo-Kadphises, who was the immediate predecessor of Kanerki
or Kanishka, the founder of the Tumshka dynasty, whose accession
in 79 A.D. is the epoch of the Caka era (Oldenberg, Z.f. Num.,
viii. 290 sq. ), and marks the consolidation of affairs in the East.
Volagases I. died soon after the Alan wars, leaving a
just reputation by his friendly relations to his brothers — a
thing so long unknown — his patient steadfastness in
foreign war and home troubles, and his foundation of a
testine new capital. Perhaps also he has the merit of collecting
iorder?. from fragments or oral tradition all that remained of the
Avesta.^ From June 78 we find two kings coining and
reigning together, Volagases II. and Pacorus II., probably
brothers. From 79 there is a long break in the coins of
the former, and Artabanus IV. takes his place with a coin
struck in July 81. This Artabanus appears as the pro
tector of a certain Terentius Maximus, who pretended to
be Nero 5 ; he threatened to restore him and displace Titus
by force, and, though the pretender was at length given
up, the farce, which was kept up till 88, might have ended
1 See N. Rhein. Mus., xix. 161 sq.
2 This was 500 years after Buddha (Z. f. K. d. Morgenl, iii. 129),
which would give the date 57 A.D.
3 This is perhaps the king qui regnavll sine nomine of Suetonius,
De Regibus (Auson., Ep., 19).
4 Dinkart, in Hang, Pahl.-Paz. Gloss., p. 144, calls the king who
did this only Valkosh (i.e., Volkash), descendant of Ashkan.
5 Zonaras, xi. 18; Orac. Sib., iv. 124, 137.
in earnest but for the disorders of the times, indicated by 75-115 A.D.
a break in the Parthian coinage between 84 and 93, in
which latter year Pacorus appears as sole king.6
At this time the political horizon of Parthia was very
wide, and its intercourse with the farthest East was
livelier than at any other date. In 90 the Yue-chi had
come to war with the governor of Chinese Tartary and
been reduced to vassalship ; in 94 a Chinese expedition
slew their king, and, advancing to the " North Sea "
(Lake Aral), subdued fifty kingdoms.7 The Tochari, one
sees, like the Greeks before them, had neglected the
lands north of the Hindu-Kush in their designs on India ;
even of Ooemo-Kadphises no coins are found north of that
range. In 97 Chinese envoys directed to Rome actually
reached the Mediterranean, but were dissuaded from going
farther by Parthian accounts of the terrors of the sea voyage,
and in 101 Muon-kiu, king of the An-si (Parthians), sent
lions and gazelles of the kind called "fu-pa" (/3or(3aX.os)
to the emperor of China. Muon-kiu reigned in Ho -to,
i.e., Carta or Zadracarta in Hyrcania ; he was therefore a
king of the Hyrcanians, who also held the old Parthian
lands east of the Caspian Gate, and may be identical with
a king, rival to Pacorus, who struck copper coins in 107
and 108, if the latter is not identical with the later
monarch Osroes. But anyhow the representative of the
Parthian power in the west was still Pacorus II., who
in 110s sold the crown of Edessa to Abgar VII. bar Izat,
and died soon after, making way for his brother Osroes,
who coins in the same year, but had to reckon with two
rivals, viz., Volagases II. (who reappears after an interval
of thirty-three years), from 112 onwards, and Meherdates
(Mithradates) VI. The latter was a brother of Osroes,
and so probably was the former. None of the three
was strong enough to conquer the others, and continual
war went on between them till Osroes was foolish enough
to provoke Roman intervention by taking Armenia from
Exedares, son of Pacorus, to whose appointment Rome had
not objected, and transferring it to another son of Pacorus
called Parthamasiris. Trajan, who had quite thrown over Trajan's
the principle of the Julii and Flavii, that the Danube and con-
the Euphrates were the boundaries of the empire, and was (lues s-
fully embarked on the old Chauvinist traditions of the
republic, would not let such an occasion slip ; and, refus
ing an answer to an embassy that met him at Athens, he
entered Armenia and took Arsamosata 9 without battle,
after receiving the homage of western Armenia (114).
Parthamasiris submitted himself to the emperor, but Trajan
declared that Armenia must be a Roman province, appointed
an escort to see the Parthian over the border, and when
he resisted and tried to escape ordered his execution,—
a brutal act, meant to inspire terror and show that the
Arsacids should no longer be treated with on equal terms.
Armenia and the neighbouring kings to the north having
given in their submission, Trajan marched back by Edessa,
receiving the homage of Abgar. The campaign of 115
was in Mesopotamia, and the burden of it fell on Mebar-
sapes of Adiabene and his ally Mannus of Singara. At
6 There is a naive personal character about all the feelings of the
Arsacids towards the Csesars. Artabanus III. orders deep mourning
for Germanicus, and sends Tiberius an insulting letter, advising him to
escape the hate of his subjects by suicide. Volagases I. urges the senate
to honour the memory of Nero. In the support given to the pseudo-
Nero legitimist sympathies with the Julii may have combined with
the wish to pay back in their own coin the Romans who had so often
backed Parthian pretendants. 7 Hist. Gen. de la Chine, iii. 393 sq.
8 The third year of Abgar VII. was the fifteenth of Trajan (Cureton,
Anc. Si/r. Doc., p. 41) ; this involves a correction of +23 years applied
to all Dionysius of Telmahar's dates for the later kings of Edessa,
as well as a blank of nineteen years before Abgar VII.
u Read ^X/"J ' Aptra/Mffdruv in Dio, Ixviii. 19. Samosata was a
Roman town, and if they had lost it first this would have been
mentioned.
604
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN
115-191. its close Mesopotamia was made a Roman province ; the
Cardueni and the Marcomedi l of the Armenian frontier
had also been reduced, and Trajan received the title of
" Parthicus." In 116 the Tigris was crossed in face of
the enemy (probably at Jezirat ibn 'Omar), and a third
new province of Assyria absorbed the whole kingdom
of Mebarsapes. Once more the Tigris was crossed and
Babylonia invaded, still without resistance from the
Parthians, whose intestine disorders continued. A Roman
fleet descended the Euphrates and the ships were conveyed
across on rollers to the Tigris, to co-operate with the
army ; and now Ctesiphon fell and Osroes fled to Armenia,
the north-east parts of which cannot have been thoroughly
subdued. The Roman fleet descended the Tigris and
received the submission of Mesene ; but now, while Trajan
was engaged in a voyage of reconnaissance in the Persian
Gulf — plainly aiming at Bahrein— all the new provinces
revolted and destroyed or expelled the Roman garrisons.
The rebels, whose centre was in Mesopotamia, set Meher-
dates VI. at their head ;2 and, when he died by a fall from
his horse in a foray on Commagene, his son, Sinatruces
II., took his place, and was aided by an army which Osroes
sent from Armenia under his son Parthamaspates. The
reconciliation of the Arsacids among themselves was
rewarded by the defeat and death of the Roman general
Maximus; but jealousy now sprang up between the cousins,
and of this Lusius, a second general sent by Trajan from
Babylon, took advantage to draw Parthamaspates to the
Roman side by a promise of the Parthian throne. Sina
truces was defeated and slain, Nisibis retaken, Edessa
stormed and destroyed, and the whole rebellion put down ;
but Trajan now saw what it would cost to maintain direct
Roman rule over such wide and distant conquests, and
Parthamaspates was solemnly crowned in the great plain
by Ctesiphon in the presence of Romans and Parthians
(winter 117). An unsuccessful siege of Atra (Hatra) in
the Mesopotamian desert was Trajan's next undertaking ;
illness and the revolt of the Jews prevented him from
resuming the campaign, and after Trajan's death (7th
August 117) Hadrian wisely withdrew the garrisons from
the new provinces, which would have demanded the con
stant presence of the imperial armies, and again made the
Euphrates the limit of the empire. Parthamaspates too
had soon to leave Parthia, and Hadrian gave him Orrhoene.3
Thus Trajan's Chauvinist policy had no other result than
to show to the world the miserable weakness to which
discord had reduced the Parthians.4 And the discord did
not cease even now, for, though Osroes was restored, Vola-
gases still continued to coin, whether as rival or as partner
of his rule, in some part of the realm. Hadrian continued
to preserve peace, though a war threatened in 123,5 and in
130 he restored to Osroes his daughter taken captive by
Trajan at Ctesiphon. Osroes died soon after, and Volagases
II. became sole monarch, dying in November 148 at the
age of about ninety-six, after a reign of seventy-one years.6
1 Eutr. , viii. 3 ; Festus Rufus, Brev., 20. Marcomedi are the Medea
called Markh, the plural of Mar, " Mede " in Armenian.
2 What follows is drawn from Malalas, who has two passages (i. 351-
352 and 357-358) drawn from Arrian's Parthica, but placed in a
wrong context. .
3 He is the Parnathsapat who was king of Edessa from 119 to 123 ;
this fact and its relation to Spart. , JIadr., 5, has escaped notice owing
to the false chronology of Dion. Telm.
4 A proof of this is that very few silver drachmae and no tetra-
drachms were struck between 96 and 120.
5 See Diirr, Iteisen des K. Hadrian, p. 48. The removal of Partha
maspates and restoration of the old dynasty of Osrhoene may have
been a concession made on this occasion.
6 The Volagsesus who appears in connexion with an Alan invasion
of Media, Armenia, and Cappadocia in 135 is from the context a
different person, viz., the unnamed king of Armenia who was appointed
by Hadrian in 117 (Spart., Hadr., 21), and whose successor took the
throne between 140 and 143 (Eckhel, Jjoct. num. vet., vii. 14).
Volagases III., who succeeded, had designs on Armenia, Tola-
but an interview between him and Antoninus Pius (spring gases
155) delayed for a time the outbreak of war.7 However,
martial preparations went on, and on the death of
Antoninus Volagases entered Armenia (162),s expelled
the Arsacid Sohonnus, who was a client of Rome, and
made Pacorus king. The destruction of a Roman legion
under the legate of Cappadocia (yElius Severianus), who
fell on his own sword, laid Cappadocia and Syria open to
the Parthians ; Attidius Cornelianus, legate of Syria, was
routed, and the provincials were in such distress that they
even began to speak of revolt from Rome. AY hen late in
the year vElius Verus arrived from the capital lie found
the troops so demoralized by defeat that he was ready to
offer peace; but, when Volagases refused to treat, the
able lieutenants whom Verus directed from Antioch soon
changed the face of affairs. The war had two theatres,
and was officially called the Armenian and Parthian war.0
Armenia was regained and Soha3inus restored by Statins
Priscus and Martius Verus (163, 164), while Avidius Cassius
drove Volagases from Syria in a bloody battle at Europus,
and, entering north Mesopotamia, took Edessa and Nisibis,
though not without serious opposition.10 At length, deserted
by his allies (i.e., by the local kings, who were becoming
more and more independent), Volagases abandoned Meso
potamia, and Cassius entered Babylonia, where, on a frivo
lous pretext, he gave up to rapine and fire the friendly city
of Seleucia, still the first city of the East, Avith 400,000
inhabitants. The destruction of Seleucia was a hideous
crime, a mortal wound dealt to Eastern Hellenism by its
natural protectors ; that Cassius next, advancing to Ctesi
phon, razed the palace of Volagases to the ground may,
on the other hand, be defended as a symbolical act calcu
lated more than anything else to impair the prestige of the
Parthian with his Oriental subjects. Cassius returned to
Syria in 165, with his victorious army much weakened
through the failure of the commissariat and by the plague,
which, breaking out in Parthia immediately after the fall
of Seleucia, spread over the whole known world. In the
same year Martius Verus won hardly less considerable
successes in Media Atropatene, then apparently a separate
kingdom.11 The peace which followed in 166 gave Meso
potamia to Rome. This was the greatest of all wars
between Rome and Parthia, alike in the extent of the
lands involved and the energy of attack shown by the
Parthians. The Romans used their victory with modera
tion, but Parthia, after this last effort, continued steadily
to sink.
The Romans at the same time made an effort to compete
with Parthia for the Chinese trade (especially in silk),
which the latter had jealously kept in their own hands,
and in 166 an envoy of An-thun (M. Antoninus) reached
the court of the emperor Huan-ti, via the sea and Tong-
king. But the effort to establish a direct trade with China
was unavailing, and the trade still flowed in its old
channels when a second Roman agent reached China in
226, a little before the fall of the Parthian empire. The
Chinese tell us that with India also the Parthians drove
a considerable trade.12
7 Aristides, Or. Sacra, \. 493, Cant. ; cp. Waddington, in Mem. Ac.
Inscr., xxvi. (1867) p. 260 sq.
8 For this war cp. the excellent monograph of E. Napp, J)c rebus
imp. M. Aur. Ant. in Or. getstis, 1879.
9 C. I. L., vi. Nos. 1377, 1457, 1497. For the order of events cp.
Lucian, De C'onsc. Hist. , 30.
10 Details in Suidas, s.v. Zevy/jLO. ; Luc., op. cit., 29 ; Fronto, Epp.
ad Verum, ii. 1, 121, Naber.
11 This seems to follow from the fact that both emperors, who were
already called "Armeniacus" and "Parthicus Maximus, " also call them-
selves " Medicus " (on a coin earlier than 28th August 165), Eckhel,
iv. 76 ; inscr. of Sigma, Orelli, No. 859.
l'2 The " Annals of the Second Han," in Deguignes, Mtm.Ac. Inscr.,
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
605
Yolagases III. died in 191, having reigned forty-two
years without civil war, and was succeeded by Yolagases
IV. During the civil troubles of Rome which preceded
the establishment of the military empire this prince main
tained friendly relations with Pescennius Niger ;. and his
vassal Barsenius of Atra was permitted to supply a force
of bowmen, who took part in the fighting against Septimiua
Severus at Nicusa (194). When Niger's cause declined,
however, Volagases allowed his clients of Adiabene to join
with Orrhoene, now in revolt against the Roman power.
The strongholds of Mesopotamia were taken, and their
garrisons put to the sword ; Nisibis itself was besieged.
In truth, the Parthian could no longer pretend to control
the policy of the princes on his frontier, who felt them
selves their own masters since they had borne the chief
brunt of the last two Roman wars. But in summer 195
.r Severus appeared in Mesopotamia, received the submission
i|S of of Abgar VIII. of Orrhoene, and from Nisibis (which, with
true insight into its strategic importance, he raised to a
colony and great military station) directed two successful
campaigns against Adiabene1 (196) and the Arabs of the
Singara district, incorporating the latter in the province
of Mesopotamia.2 The Parthians made no movement till
Severus was busy with Albinus, when they ravaged Meso
potamia and besieged Laetus in Nisibis; but in 198
Severus was again on the scene of war, and they fell back
without fighting, leaving the emperor free to prepare for
next year a campaign on a great scale. In 199 a fleet on
the Euphrates co-operated with the Roman army, and
Severus, taking up an unaccomplished plan of Trajan,
dredged out the old Naarmalca canal, through which his
ships sailed into the Tigris, and took the Parthians wholly
by surprise. Seleucia and Coche3 were deserted by their
inhabitants ; Ctesiphon was taken by the end of the year
with terrible slaughter, 100,000 inhabitants being led cap
tive and the place given up to pillage, for the great king
had fled powerless at the approach of the foe. Severus,
whose force was reduced by famine and dysenteries, did
not attempt pursuit, but drew off up the Tigris. The
army was again in its quarters by 1st April 200 (C.I.L., vi.
225 a), and for some time thereafter Severus was occupied
in Armenia. But in 201 he undertook a carefully organ
ized expedition against Atra, from whose walls the Romans
had been repulsed with great loss when Severus, returning
from the Tigris in the previous year, had attempted to
carry it by a coup de main. This city, which in Trajan's
time was neither great nor rich, was now a wealthy place,
and the sun-temple contained vast treasures. The classical
authors call Atra Arabian, but the king's name is Syriac,
Barsenius, i.e., Bar Sin, son of the moon, and we may
suppose that it was really an Aramaean principality,4 which,
like Palmyra, had its strength from the surrounding Arab
tribes that it could call into the field. Severus lay before
Atra for twenty days, but the enemy's cavalry cut off his
foraging parties, the admirable archers galled the Roman
troops, a great part of the siege train was burned with
naphtha ; and, when, in addition, two assaults had been
repulsed with tremendous loss on two successive days, the
emperor was compelled to raise the siege, — a severe blow
to Roman prestige in the East, and one that greatly raised
the name of Atra and its prince, but did not help the decay
ing power of Parthia in the least.
xxxii. (1768), p. 358 ; Pian-i-tiau, in Mem. Ac. Inscr., viii. (1827) p.
124 sq. ; and Journ. As., ser. 3, viii. 278, 280 sq.
1 In Dio, Ixxv. 3, read ryv ' Ap/SyXiTiv for TT]V apx^v.
- Not only Herodian, iii. 9, but Capitol., Macrinus, 12, implies that
these Arabs were Yemenites ; the great migration of southern Arabs,
which led to the foundation of the kingdom of Hira, had therefore
already taken place.
3 Dio, Ex,,'. , Ixxv. 9, has Babylon, but it was a mere heap of ruins
in the beginning of the 2d century A.D.
4 Cp. Xuldeke, Tabari, p. 34.
In 209 Yolagases IY. was succeeded by his son Volagases 191-219.
V., under whom in 212 the fatal troubles in Persis began,
while in 213 his brother Artabanus rose as rival claim
ant of the kingship ; 5 and the civil war lasted for many
years. A fresh danger arose when Tiridates, a brother of
Yolagases IY., who had long been a refugee with the
Romans and had accompanied Severus's campaign of 199,
escaped, in company with a Cilician adventurer, the Cynic
Antiochus, to the court of his nephew Volagases ; for the
emperor Antoninus (Caracalla) demanded their surrender,
and obtained it only by a declaration of war (215). About
the same time Artabanus gained the upper hand, and in Arta-
216 he held Ctesiphon and its district ; but Volagases still banns,
held out in the Greek cities of Babylonia, as his tetra-
drachms prove (till 222). Artabanus's strength lay in the
north ; the Arab histories of the Sasanians make him king
of the Median region, and agreeably with this he coins
only drachmae.6 Presently Artabanus had a war with
Rome on his hands ; the pretext was that he had refused
his daughter to Antoninus, but the emperor was mindful
of his father's dying advice to enrich the soldiers and
despise all other classes, and saw a prospect of rich booty.
In 216 the Romans penetrated to Arbela by way of
Carduene and Calachene, 7 and violated the graves of the
kings of Adiabene, which they falsely took for those of the
Arsacids. Thus far the Parthians, who had been taken by
surprise in full peace, had offered little or no resistance,
but Antoninus was murdered (8th April 217) while he was
preparing for a new foray, and his successor Macrinus at
once found that Artabanus was now armed, and was not
the man to let the insult to his territory pass with im
punity. An overwhelming Parthian force fell on Mesopo
tamia and refused to be appeased by the restoration of the
captives of the previous year ; Macrinus was beaten in two
engagements8 and compelled to retire to Syria, abandoning
the Mesopotamian plain; and in the winter of 217/218 he
was glad to purchase peace for an indemnity of 50,000,000
denarii (£1,774,298). In or about 222 Artabanus must
also have displaced his brother in Babylonia, for he was a
patron of Rab Abba, who became head of the Jewish school
of Sura in 219.9
Persis, which dealt the last blow to the Arsacids, had Persis.
through the whole Parthian period held an isolated position,
and is so seldom mentioned that our knowledge of its
history and native princes is almost wholly due to recently-
found coins.10
These embrace a triple series of silver coins and a class of copper
pieces. The oldest of the latter class bears the name of Camnascires,
and his is the only name in the class known to us from other
sources, for Hyrodes and Phraates (each of which names was borne
by two kings of the series) are not Arsacid great kings, as their
title is only "king," not "king of kings" (against Mordtmann).
Nor do they seem to have ruled in the same quarter with the kings
who struck silver ; the latter were native kings of Persis, the former
rather Elymreans, who in the times after Camnascires were forced
back in a south-east direction (as appears from the places in which
the coins are found), and ruled parts of Persis side by side with the
5 According to Mani, in the book ShalurJxm, the 4th year of
Ardhabau = 216/21 7 ; see Al-Beruni, tr. by Sachau, pp. 121, 190. This
proves that in 216 Artabanus was the recognized sovereign in the
district of Ctesiphon to which Mardinu (on Habl Ibrahim) belongs ; cf.
Noldeke, Tabari, p. 16.
6 See above, p. 601.
7 Dio says they invaded Media, but Antoninus had not such a hold
of Armenia as to open to him the route of the triumvir Antony, and
a march from Gazaca to Arbela over Mount Zagrus is incredible. But,
if Media at this time extended so far west as to include Arrapachitis
and Calachene (the Marcomedians of Trajan's wars), the campaign is
intelligible, and Spartian's mention of the Cadusians and Babylonians
can be explained as a misreading of KapSorcu'as /ecu ' ' A.pfirj\uv in a Greek
source.
8 The lacuna in Dio, Ixxviii. 26, is to be supplied by a passage of
Xiphilinus. not given in recent editions.
a Jost, Gesch. d. Jud., ii. 139.
10 See Mordtmann in Z. f. Num., iv. 152 sq., vii. 40 sq.
606
PERSIA
[PARTHIAN EMPIRE.
219-228. native princes. Camnascires appears as an old man on coins of
82 and 81 B.C., and his ten successors whom we know from the
coins carry us down to 36 A.D., the latest date at which the
Klymreans are mentioned as independent (Tac., Ann., vi. 44). The
older coins have Greek inscriptions and often figures of Greek gods,
but under the fifth successor of Camnascires, i.e., about the time
of Christ, Pahlavi takes the place of Greek and Mithras of Serapis.
The silver class, again, has in all three series Pahlavi legends
and the fire-altar on the reverse. The first series has seven princes
with the unexplained title "Feritkara," the second has three kings
(Malka), the third ten kings ; the names are throughout either
Acluenieiiian (Artahshetr, Daryav), pointing perhaps to a claim of
Achajmenian descent, or sacred names like those common with the
Sasanians (Nerseh, Yezdikert), or are taken from sacred legend
(Minuchetr). The second and third series appear to be continuous
(against Mordtmann) ; the last king of the second series is Zaturdat
(II.), the first of the third Daryav (I.) son of Zaturdat. With
Daryav I. the kings assume a Parthian costume, and his son
Artahshetr II. is the only king of that name who from the number
and various types of his coins can be fairly identified with the
Artaxerxes of Isidore of Charax, who reigned " in the time of his
fathers " (c. 80-50 B.C.), and was slain at the age of ninety-three by
his brother Gosithres. As Daryav I. must also have reigned for
a considerable time this datum places him about the commencement
of the Parthian supremacy, which naturally explains his Parthian
dress. Then the princes of the first silver series will be Seleucid
vassals, and the shorter series of kings before Daryav independent
princes falling between the Seleucid and Parthian suzerainty.
Finally Gosithres, brother of Artahshetr II., has the same name
as Gozihr, the last Ba/rangi king before the rise of the Sasanians,
so that it was probably one dynasty. The eight kings, in at least
six different generations, who appear on coins between Artahshetr
II. and Ti'rdat II., will carry us roughly to the middle of the
second Christian century, leaving a space sufficient for Gozihr, the
last Bazrangian, and the anarchy of the first days of the Sasaniaus.
The emblems on the coins show that Persis was always
loyally Zoroastrian, and at Istakhr stood the famous fire-
temple of the goddess Anahedh. Its priest was Sasan,
whose marriage with a Bazrangian princess, liambehisht,
laid the foundation of the greatness of his house, while
priestly influence, which was very strong, doubtless favoured
its rise. Pabak, son of Sasan, and Ardashir, son of Pabak,
begin the history of the Sasanian dynasty, which occupies
the next section of this article. Artabanus did nothing to
check the use of the new power till Ardashir had all Persis
in his hand (221) and had begun to erect a palace and temple
at G6r (Firuzabad). Nir6far, king of Elymais, was then sent
against him, but was defeated, and now Ardashir passed
beyond Persis and successively reduced Ispahan (Pareeta-
cene), Ahwaz (Elymais), and Mesene.1 After this victory
Ardashir sent a challenge to Artabanus himself ; their
armies met by appointment in the plain of Hormizdjan,
and Artabanus fell (28th April 227). Ctesiphon and
Babylonia must have fallen not much later, though Vola-
gases V. seems to have re-established himself there on his
brother's death, and a tetradrachm of 539 Sel. shows that
he held the city till autumn 227. The conquest of Assyria
and great part of Media and Parthia is assigned by Dio
expressly or by implication to the year 228, and so the
Parthian empire was at an end.
Indo- The part of Parthia of which Dio speaks can only be Choarene and
Iranian Comisene ; it was only in a later expedition that Ardashir reached
frontier. Sacastane, Hyrcania, Xishapur, and Merv, and these do not seem to
have been Parthian. Indeed, from 58 A.D. Comisene appears to have
been the most eastern satrapy of the Arsacid empire. Eastern Iran
was in this period very flourishing under the Tochari of the dynasty
which Indian sources call Turushka, and which can be traced on
inscriptions till 213 and 259 (or 359). Kanishka, the founder of the
dynasty, is said to have ruled Cabul and all Hindustan, and in
fact his coins extend over all northern India. The empire of which
Kashmir was a main province was wider than that of the Greeks
had been, and also more consolidated, for strategi took the place of
the native kings (Journ. As., ser. 3, viii. 264, and ser. 4, x. 95). So,
1 The flourishing state of Mesene had, as its coins show, been long
sinking into barbarism ; the latest date they supply is 167 (Z. f. Num.,
viii. 212 .<sf/.). A little earlier, in 143, they are associated with coins
of Meredates, son of Phobas, king of the Ornanians. The latter,
already known to I'liny as dwelling in the desert west of Charax, must
be the Azd from 'Oman, a part of whom shared the great migration and
finally settled in Anbar and I lira.
too, Kanishka banished the native language from his coins, usin<*
Greek letters and his own foreign language. His predecessor had
supplanted the Greek gods, except Helios, by Oriental divinities,
and now Helios too gives way to the Iranian Mupo or Mtopo. The
motley pantheon on the coins of Kanishka and his successors gives
tin interesting glimpse of the faiths of the Indo-Iranian frontier.
We find here the old Iranian popular deities : Mao, the moon-god ;
Mupo, the sun-god ; Nava, the goddess of war ; Oado, the wind-god ;
Op\ayvo, i.e., Yerethraghno (see Benfey, Z. D. M. G., viii. 459) ; Avpo,
identical with the Zoroastrian Ahura-mazda ; we find also abstrac
tions like the Izeds of the heavenly hierarchy in official Zoroastrian-
ism, e.g. , Ovip, i.e., Aniran, the eternal self-created lights, and <i>appo
(Pers.,/rm- ; synonymous with Zend, hvartnd), the royal majesty,
side by side with Indian deities, such as Siva, and a number of un
known deities with barbarous names brought from the old homes of
the Tochari. Heracles and Helios appear transformed by barbarous
pronunciation or epithets, and Zapairo is the cosmopolitan Serapis,
probably introduced, as in Elymais, by Alexandrian sailors. Buddha,
too, appears (Sallet, Nachf. AL, p. 189 sq.). The Buddhists were
the most active religious body in the kingdom, and the king, if not
actually a convert, as the legend claims, showed them such favour
as gave their faith a wide missionary field and unparalleled success.
The kings built many Buddhist meeting-houses, monasteries, and
shrines, and it was Kanishka who called together in Kashmir the
council of 500 fathers that finally redacted the Tripitaka collection.
Ptolemy (vi:. 1, 47) speaks of Tochari as the HaffTnpa.1oi ; the Chinese
bear witness to their might in 159 ; and from 220 to 265 their empire
retained its old compass (Journ. As., ser. 3, viii. 263, 268). Kashmir
was lost in the course of the 3d century, but the western provinces
remained. About 100 A.D. Greek ceased to be understood in east Iran,
and from this. time we can trace a growing Iranian influence on the
coins of the Tochari, especially in the Sasanian period. The latest
coins of the Tochari come mostly from Balkh, so that they seem to
have been gradually pushed backwards to the point from which
they started. Finally, their empire was overthrown by another
branch of their own race, for, early in the 5th century, those of
the Great Yue-chi who had remained in their old homes, a little
west of Badakhshan, were compelled, by the pressure of the Juan-
juan of Tartary, to move west to Po-lo or Balkh, and thence, under
their warlike king Ki-to-lo (Kidara ; whence they are called Cidaritic
Huns by Prisons, in Fr. II. Gr., iv. 102), crossed the Hindu-Knsh
and destroyed the old empire of the Tochari, founding in its place
the kingdom of the Little Yue-chi. The date of this invasion
can, from a variety of data, be fixed as c. 430, jnst about the time
when the Sasanians, in 429, destroyed the last of the Arsacids in
Armenia ; and with this agrees the Indian statement that eighteen
Caka kings reigned 380 years (50-430 A.D. ). Their successors
were still powerful in India about 520, and in their old homes
their empire fell in 562.
Sources. — 1. FOE THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD. — For Alexander the sources are
of two classes. (1) Arrian, and for the most part Plutarch also, drew from
ottieial Macedonian sources, especially the works of King Ptolemy anil Aristo-
bulus of Cassandrea. (2) An unofficial history, written by a Greek Clitarehus
for the Greeks, is faithfully excerpted by Diodorus. Curtins and Justin (or rather
Trogus) drew from a later work based on the same source but supplemented
by extracts from a book of the first class and another book hostile to Alexander
and of very indifferent authority. Droysen follows the writings of the first
class exclusively, and indeed for military and historical points they alone are
to be trusted. Grote uses also the works of the second class, which, though
rhetorical, romantic, and uncritical, have the advantage of telling us many
things that the official histories pass over, and, though they show little judg
ment themselves, are rich in materials to guide our .judgment. The historian
must deal with the material as a philologist would deal with a book preserved
in two classes of MSS., one good, the other interpolated but independent.
One must first restore as nearly as may be the archetype of the second class
and then use it to correct the text — or here the history — based on the first
class. For the immediate successors of Alexander, Diodorus, the excerpts from
Arrian in Photius, and Plutarch's lives of Eumenes and Demetrius are our best
guides, all three drawing from the excellent Hieronymns of Cardia. Trogus
(Justin) makes a defective use of indifferent, sources, and is good for little.
Droysen's is the best modern book ; Grote is useful because he does not take so
purely Macedonian a standpoint, but he deals mainly witli the West. We have
no really continuous ancient account for 801-220 B.C., for Justin's narrative is
even less worthy of the name of a history than in the preceding period. Tlie
scattered material is best collected by Droysen. From 220 onwards we have
the excellent work of Polybius, at first complete and then in large excerpts.
There are some good modern monographs, but nothing that can be railed
even a tolerable general history of the latest period of Macedonian rule in
Asia.
2. FOR THE PARTHIAN PERIOD. — The only continuous account of Parthian
and Bactrian history which has reached us is Justin's abridgment of Trogus
Pompcins, ending with 9 B.C., and having also a lacuna, due to Justin's care
lessness, between 94 and 55 B.C. Fur the wars with Home in 53 and 30 B.C.,
Plutarch's Crassus and Antonius give full accounts. Under the early Civsars
the Parthians were, in a sense, viewed as sharing the empire of the world with
Rome (Strabo, xi. p. 515 ; Just., xli. 1, 1), and Roman historians began briefly
to note events in Parthian history which had no direct connexion with Roman
affairs. Thus, from 69 B.C. to 72 A.D., Dio, Josephus, and Tacitus give us pretty
complete accounts. Between 94 and 09 B.C. and between 72 anil 227 A.n. the
history is very much lost. The coins are most valuable, especially after 37
B.C., when they begin to be dated ; for the later period they are our chief aid,
the excerpts from Dio not helping us much.
Aiih. — Foy Vaillant, Arsacidnrvm imperinm (Paris, 1728), and Du Four de
Longuerue, A nnales A rsandarum (Strasb., 1732), are still indispensable compila
tions, to which G. E. J. Guilhem de Sainte-Croix, "Mem. sur le gouvernement
des Parthes," Mem. Ac laser., 1. 48 sr/., 755 S(]., gives a good supplement. The
most important modern books are those that explain the coins historically—
SASANIAN EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
607
E. Q. Visconti, Icon. Gr., iii.; Bartholomsei, "Rech. sur la num. Arsac. ," Mem.
Soc. Arch., ii.; A. de Longperier, Mem. sur la chron. et iiconogr. des rois Partlins
Arsac. (Paris, 1853) — and the catalogues of coins in Prokesch-Osten's Monnairs
des rois Partkcs (Paris, 1874-75) and P. Gardner's Parthian Coinage (London, 1877).
There are also recent histories of Parthia by Rawlinson, Schneiderwirth, and
Spiegel, and a book on the coins by Lindsay. As regards Bactria Bayer's
Historia (Petersb., 1738) is poor, and quite upset by recent finds of coins.
The Chinese material is still best given by Deguignes in Mem. Ac. Inscr., xxv.
17 sq. Of recent books see H. H. Wilson, Ariana Antiqua (London, 1841);
Lassen, Zur Gescli. der Griech. itnd Indoskyth. Konirje (Bonn, 1838) and Ind.
Alterthumsk., ii. The best works on the coins are by Thomas, in his edition of
Prinsep, Essay* on 2nd. Antiquities, ii. 173 sq. ; A. Cunningham, in Num.
Chron., vols. viii.-xii.; and Sallet, Nachfolger Alexanders des Gr. in Baktrien
und Indien (Berlin, 1878). (A. v. G.)
SECTION III. — SASANIAN EMPIRE.
Of the minor kings who ruled in Persis, in the Arsacid
period, in real or nominal allegiance to the Parthian "king
of kings " we know some names from coins or ancient
writers, but we cannot tell whether they were all of one
dynasty. In the beginning of the 3d century the kings,
who then belonged to a dynasty of which the name prob
ably was BAzrangik, had lost much of their power ; lesser
potentates ruled in various parts of the land, which, by
being all mountainous, falls naturally into ill -connected
sections. One of these local princes was Papak, or, in
the more modern pronunciation, Pabak,1 son or descend
ant of Sasan, a native of the village of Khir on the southern
margin of the great salt lake east of Shiraz. Pabak
overthrew Gozihr, the last prince of the Bazrangik, and
became master of the district of Istakhr (Persepolis), and
the coins and inscriptions of his son give him the title
of king. His legitimate heir was his son Shapur, for
whom Pabak is said to have asked recognition from the
A. asm'r Arsacids; but on Pabak's death a second son, Ardashir,
refused to acknowledge his brother, and Avas in arms against
him when Shapur died suddenly, and hardly by mere
accident. That Ardashir's claims were opposed by his
brothers and that he put them to death are not to be
doubted, as we have these facts from a tradition of strictly
legitimist tendency.
Tradition names various local princes conquered by
Ardashir for himself or for his father, and perhaps Pabak
before his death was already lord of all Persis. Ardashir,
at least presumably, was so when he struck the coins still
extant.2 Ardashir, who is to the Sasanian what Cyrus was
to the Achsemenian empire, probably came to the throne
in 211/212 A.D.3 From the first he plainly leaned on the
clergy of the Zoroastrian faith, which all through the
Macedonian and Parthian eras had undoubtedly continued
to be the religion of the people in Iran proper, and especi
ally in Persis. The Parthian monarchs were Zoroastrians,
but probably often very lukewarm in the faith. Ardashir,
on the contrary, ostentatiously placed symbols of fire-wor
ship on his coins, and on his inscriptions boasts himself
a " Mazdayasn," or orthodox Zoroastrian. From his days
onward the often fanatical and persecuting clergy enjoyed
great power in the Sasanian empire, and the hierarchical
organization of the state church, so similar to that of the
Christian clergy, probably dates from Ardashir; it is referred
to, at least, on the inscriptions of his immediate successors.
Popularity and a certain religious prestige were the natural
fruits of this orthodox zeal on the part of Ardashir, but
his success was essentially the fruit of his energy and
1 The Arabs, having no p, pronounce Babak ; but this is not Persian.
In general the forms of proper names followed in this article give the
more recent pronunciation, which may have prevailed about the end
of the Sasanian period.
2 These show a full-face portrait with the legend " Artakhshathr
king." The reverse has his father's portrait in profile with the legend
"son of the divine Papak." The older form of Ardashir's name,
Artakhshathr, is the ancient Aetuemenian name, which the Greeks
write Artaxerxes, and which, singularly enough (together with the name
Darius, Daryav, Darab, Dara), had survived in the home of the Achse-
nienians, although genuine Persian tradition had lost all memory of
the old empire.
3 See A. v. Gutschmid, in Z.D.M.G., xxxiv. 734.
valour. Slowly and not without toil he rose from king 212-233.
of Persis to be king of the kings of Iran. He began by
subduing successively Kirman, Susiana, and the petty states
at the mouth of the Tigris. But after this he came into
conflict with the great king, whom, according to the con
temporary account of Dio Cassius, he smote in three battles.
The decisive engagement with Ardavan (Artabanus) in
which the last Parthian monarch fell, and where Ardashir
gained the title of "king of kings," seems to have been on
28th April 224 (or 227, according to A. v. Gutschmid), and
was probably fought in Babylonia or Susiana, for the next
enterprise of Ardashir was an unsuccessful attack on the
strong walls of Hatra, which perhaps was not taken and
destroyed till the reign of his successor. Ardashir con
quered Media, where an Arsacid prince was his adversary,
and gained the greater part of the Iranian highlands, but
failed in Armenia, whither a son of Ardavan had fled.
The Romans saw with concern the rise of a prince who
already directed his aims against their Asiatic possessions,
and seems to have had some success in this quarter, till in
233 he was smitten by Alexander Severus in a great battle.4
Henceforth, though peace was often made between the
two powers, they remained constant rivals, — and rivals on
equal terms, for, though under able rulers and when the
inner condition of the empire was not greatly disturbed,
the Europeans of Rome or Byzantium were still too strong
for the Asiatics, the tables were not seldom turned, and
Rome sustained many a shameful defeat. This struggle
fills the chief place in the political history of the Sasanians ;
and the inner development of the empire, its martial and
political institutions, its art and industry, were also most
powerfully influenced by the superior civilization of the
West.
The nominal capital was always at Istakhr, where, for Sasanian
example, the holy " pyreum " of the royal house stood, and swav-
where the heads of conquered foreign kings were hung up.
But the real metropolis was the Arsacid capital of Ctesiphon,
with Ardashir's new foundation of Veh- Ardashir, just across
the Tigris on the site of the old Seleucia. The rich
alluvial land that surrounded these twin cities was no
part of Iran proper, and its inhabitants were mainly Sem
ites ; but old example, and probably its vicinity to Roman
soil, marked it out for the true seat of government.
The extent of the empire at the time of Ardashir's
death is uncertain, for the national tradition ascribes to him
some conquests that were really made by his successors,
and others which the Sasanians never made at all. Shapur,
his son, calls himself on his inscriptions king of the kings of
Iran and non-Iran, where his father says only "of Iran " ;
so that it was the son who first extended the realm beyond
the bounds of what was then known as Iran. Non-Iran may
refer to districts in the far East, where, however, the Sasan
ian power never reached so far as that of the Achaemenians,
and it may also include Armenia. At any rate, Ardashir
won a great empire and consolidated it, so that it held to
gether for four centuries. He gave a powerful blow to
the system of vassal states, which had become more and
more prevalent under the Arsacids, and reduced most of
these states to provinces. In this sense he is justly viewed
by tradition as the restorer of the unity of Iran ;5 but the
4 Lampridius, Al. Sev., 56. His statement rests on documentary
evidence, and is accepted by Tillemont and by Clinton, who confirms
it from coins. The attachment of the troops from Orrhoene for
Alexander (Capitol., Maximinus, ii. ) was probably connected witli his
liberation of their country from the Persians. Rawlinson's and Spiegel's
preference for the statement of the romancer Herodian, that the Per
sians were the victors, is pseudo-criticism.
5 It must not be supposed that the Persians had a clear recollection
of the might and breadth of the Achsemenian empire, though Western
writers, who knew the old history from books, sometimes make Per
sians speak as if they shared in that knowledge. No doubt a Sasaniau
would sometimes hear from a Greek or Syrian how his predecessors
608
PERSIA
[SASANIAN
233-282. unity, of course, was not such as in a modern European state.
The great barons in particular were still very powerful, and
were more than once a danger to the kings. At bottom
they were a continuation of the Parthian nobility, falling
into clivers classes, headed, as in the Acluumenian empire,
by the seven noblest houses. There was also a numerous
minor nobility. Later generations looked back upon the
founder of the empire as the best of lawgivers and the
ideal monarch ; and, of course, so great a patron of Zoro-
astrianism left a high reputation for piety. A man of
mark he certainly was, but the fratricide that opened his
reign, and such a barbarity as tradition itself relates of his
conduct to the conquered Ardavan, whose head he spurned
with his feet, show him to have been very far from a
pattern character. It is interesting to find his memory
intertwined with similar romantic legends to those told of
Cyrus. He was born of (we are told) a mean father, and
lived as a page at the court of Ardavan, as Cyrus lived at
that of Astyages, and so forth. Dreams and portents
figure in the later as in the earlier legend, and even a
mythical conflict with a dragon is recounted.1 Fortunately
a much more historical picture has been preserved by
genuine tradition.
Ardashir is said to have adopted his son Shapur as
partner of his throne, and this is confirmed by coins on
which a youthful head appears along with Ardashir's like-
Shapdr ne.ss. He died late in 241 or early in 242. Shapur I.
1 '-fhwars (older form Shahpuhr ; Sapor or Sapores of the Westerns)
Rome was probably crowned on 20th March 242. Legendary
tradition makes his mother an Arsacid princess taken at
the capture of Ctesiphon ; but, according to a more prob
able account, Shapur was already able to bear arms in the
decisive battle with Ardavan. Nor can he have been a
mere stripling when his reign began, as his prowess against
Rome shows ; for in Ardashir's last years, in the reign of
Maximin (236-238), the war had been renewed, and Nisibis
and Carrhse (Haran), two fortresses which constantly re
appear in this history, had been taken. In 242 Shapur
had penetrated to Antioch, before Gordian III., or rather
his father-in-law Timesitheus, drove him back and retook the
Mesopotamian strongholds. The Persians were defeated
at Reshaina, and Gordian proposed to march on the capital
by way of the Euphrates, as Julian subsequently did ; when
almost on the frontier, a little below the junction of the
Euphrates and Chaboras, he was murdered by Philip the
Arab (244), who concluded a humiliating peace with
Shapur, and is said — for the details are obscure — to have
given up to him Armenia and Mesopotamia. Our whole
knowledge of the Perso-Roman wars in the 3d century is
very defective ; but there seems now to have been a lull for
some years, till in 251 or 252 Shapur again was in motion,
now at length effecting an occupation of Armenia and com
pelling its king to flee to Roman soil. The Roman world
was at this period so shaken that Syria was again and
again invaded, — how often we can hardly say ; nay, a
Syrian, Cyriades, himself led the Persians to Antioch and
assumed the purple under their protection. At last the
emperor Valerian took the field in person ; but, after pro
tracted operations in Mesopotamia, fortune turned against
the Romans and Valerian himself became Shapur's captive
(2GO), under unknown circumstances, and, according to
hail reigned as far as Constantinople, but this was not living tradition.
Western scholars again sometimes mixed up the old and the new
state, as when Libanius supposes that Susa, the residence of Xerxes
and Artaxerxes, must also be the residence of his contemporary Sapor
(Shapur). The Sasanians, however, regarded themselves as successors
of the mythical kings of Iran.
1 An abridged extract of the romantic history of Ardashir has been
preserved in the original Pahlavi, and has been published by Noldeke
(see p. 135, note 1, above). The same legendary material is used by
Firdausi; cp. also Z.D.M.G., xxxiv. 585, 599.
Roman accounts, through treachery, but certainly not till he
had entered into negotiations and vainly sought to purchase
a free retreat for his army with gold. Shapur now pene
trated with an invading host far into Roman territory
towards Asia Minor, but he met with not unsuccessful
opposition. The general Ballista cut off many Persians ;
but a heavier blow was struck by Ocltenathus at the head
of his Palmyrenes, who, in this or a subsequent campaign,
smote the retreating Persians and even captured the royal
harem ; nay, once, if not twice, he laid siege to Ctesiphon
itself (for details see PALMYRA). Presumably now as
in later times the Persian empire proved unable to sustain
the cost of prolonged campaigns. These Oriental kingdoms
are on the whole poor, though they include some fertile
regions, and though the kings accumulate large stores of
treasure. The Persians had no great standing army like
the Romans, and the levies summoned to the standard
could not long be kept together; hence so many brilliant
debuts in warfare without lasting result. Shapur effected
no permanent gain of territory, for even Armenia seems
now to have fallen again under Roman suzerainty.2 But
Valerian was not delivered, and died in captivity. The
figures of the victorious king and the captive Ciesar are
still to be seen hewn, perhaps by Roman subjects, on the
rocks of Persis, and Persian tradition, which preserves
so few historical facts as to the immediate successors of
Ardashir, has not forgotten this crowning humiliation of
Rome. Some of the traditional deeds of Shapur I. really
belong to Shapur II., but we may accept him as the author
of the great irrigation works at Shushtar, and it was he
who built Gundev Shapur (Ar. Jundai-Sabur, Syr. Beth
Lapat), which was often used by the kings as their second
residence, and stood to Ctesiphon as its neighbour Susa in
Achsemenian times did to Babylon. Shapings sway over
non-Iranian peoples has been already referred to ; but the
Augustan historians are certainly right in speaking of the
Bactrians as a nation still independent and often hostile
to Persia, and the same is true of the Cadusians (Pollio, ]ral.,
ch. i.), i.e., the Delamites of Gilan, who were never subdued
by the Sasanians. At the very beginning of Shapur's reign
Mani, founder of the Manichsean sect (see MANICHJEISM),
began to preach, against which the Persian priests fought
for centuries as vigorously as against the various sections
of Nicene Christians.
The close of Shapur's reign saAV great changes in the
Roman east (see PALMYRA). At the fall of Palmyra
Shapur was probably no longer alive. His son Hormizd Succe:
(Ohrmazd) I. came to the throne in 272 or 273, having snr,s °
previously been governor of Khorasan. His title, " the
hero," appears to have been gained by prowess against
the Romans before his accession, for his reign of one year
gave little time for great deeds.
His successor, Bahram ( Vardhrdn) I., was not his son
as tradition represents, but, according to an inscription, his
brother. He is said to have been a weak prince, given to
pleasure. The execution of Mani falls within his reign,
which (subject to a possible error of as much as two years,
which affects all dates of reigns between Bahram 1. and
Shapur II.) may be dated between 274 and 277.
Of his son, Bahram II. (c. 277-294), Persian tradition
has next to nothing to tell. To him may be probably
ascribed two long but ill-preserved inscriptions, religious
in content, almost sermonizing, and of very clerical colour.
He had wars with Rome, of which we only know that they
were terminated by a peace with Probus (27G-282),3 and
that Probus was murdered before he could renew the con-
2 See an essay by Gutschmid, Z. D.M.ff., xxxi. 5], which is instinct
ive as to the relations between Persia and Armenia generally.
3 Vopiscus, Probns, 17, who, as Tillemont remarks, wrongly puts
" Narseus " for " Bahram."
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
609
flict. Carus, however, in 283 led his army as far as the
hostile capital, and had taken Ctesiphon and Coche (a part
of Seleucia) when he suddenly died (by lightning, it is
said), and the Romans drew off. Carus is said to have
been favoured by intestine disorders, which at this period
were certainly common in Persia. In 291 a rhetorician
mentions the rebellion of a certain Hormizd (Ormies)
against his brother the king, in alliance with barbarians.
A youthful son, who appears opposite the queen on coins
of Bahrain II., seems never to have ascended the throne,
which was probably contested between Bahrain III. (a
son of Hormizd 1. 1) and Narseh (according to an inscrip
tion, son of Shdpiir I.). Bahrdm III., called SagAn Shah,
because he had been governor of Sagastan (Sistan), reigned,
or at least held the capital, for a very short time ; Narseh
reigned from c. 293 to 303, and, following up Shapiir's
policy, occupied Armenia and defeated Galerius (probably
in 297) between Carriage and Callinicus (Rakka) in Meso
potamia. But under Diocletian's wise rule Galerius soon
restored the honour of the Roman arms, totally defeating
Narseh in Armenia and taking his wives and children. A
brilliant peace (298) rewarded the victors ; to recover his
family the Persian ceded Armenia and Mesopotamia, and
even some districts east of the Tigris as far as Kurdistdn.
The peace lasted forty years.
Narseh's son, Hormizd II., came to the throne about 303
and was succeeded early in 310 by his son, Adharnarseh,
who was soon deposed, and probably slain, ostensibly for
his cruelty. The nobles now held the reins of power, and,
having blinded one brother of the fallen king and im-
S piir prisoned another (Hormizd),1 crowned Shapur II., the new-
I born (or unborn) son of Queen Ifra (?) Hormizd (310).
The rule of the queen-mother and nobles was what may
be readily imagined in an Oriental empire, which above all
things needs a strong man at the head ; but such a man
young Shapur, one of the greatest princes of the dynasty,
soon proved himself to be. Persian tradition preserves
few really historical notices of Shapur II., but is full
of stories of astounding campaigns against the Arabs,
highly coloured by hatred of that race ; and there is no
doubt that Shapur did devote himself with energy to the
always important task of repelling the plundering Bedouins
from the civilized lands on which their deserts border.
Another notable undertaking was the new foundation
of Susa after it had rebelled and been chastised by total
demolition, the very ground being stamped down by the
king's elephants. NISHAPUR (q.v.), i.e., Nev-shdhpuhr, may
be his foundation, or that of Shapur I.
In Shapiir's youth fell the victory of Roman Christian
ity over paganism under Constantino, and the Christians
of Persia at once threw in their sympathies with the
Christian state. These feelings were openly shown when
Shapur in 337 or 338 began a Roman war, as appears in a
homily of the Syrian bishop Aphraates, a subject of Persia.
The bishop of the capital, too, ventured to use language
against the king which no Oriental prince, least of all
ersecu- one like Shapur, could submit to. And so almost simul
taneously with the Roman war a terrible persecution of
ans the Christians broke out (339/340), of which the Syrian
Acts of Persian Martyrs give a lively picture, — instructive,
too, for the light cast on persons and affairs in the realm.
Sh&piir was no fanatic, as even the Acts of the martyrs
show, and he did not molest the Jews, whom his priests
hated quite as much as the Christians. But, like Diocle
tian, he wished to destroy the organization of the church,
and therefore used the utmost rigour against the lower as
well as the higher clergy, and destroyed the ecclesiastical
1 Hormizd escaped to the Romans in 323 and remained with them
all his life. As late as 363 lie shared the Roman campaign against
his half-brother Shapur.
buildings. To break up congregations he often constrained 282-363.
prominent church members to stone their own priests.
The Persian priests, of course, used the opportunity to
gratify their hatred of the Christians, and other impure
passions increased the cruelty of Shapiir's hard measures.
The Christians on their part showed much heroic courage
mixed with not a little cowardice.
Roman sources tell us that the war was begun by the Shapur
Persians with an invasion of Mesopotamia. Constantino H-'8 C011'
died on 22d May 337, before he could march against them.
But Shapiir's great preparations, as we learn from Aphraates,
fell in the year that begins with autumn 337. With many
vicissitudes and long pauses the war endured for twenty-
five years, but only for its second part do we possess fuller
accounts by contemporaries and in part eye-witnesses.
Shapiir's aim was to drive the Romans from the upper
Tigris, where they were dangerously near Ctesiphon, and
especially to seize Nisibis, and then to reduce Armenia,
that old apple of discord between East and West. Three
times Nisibis victoriously resisted a severe siege (338, 346,
350), and other sieges occupy a great place in the story of
the war. Constantius, when he took the field in person,
was always defeated, as in 348 at the great battle of Sin-
gara (Shingar, Ar. Sinjar). Yet Shapiir's successes bore
little fruit, mainly perhaps because Diocletian and Con-
stantine had put the fortresses in the best condition, and
in all respects had made wise provisions to cover the
threatened districts. Even when victorious the Persians
could hardly penetrate into western Mesopotamia, and if
Shapiir had taken all the strong places he could hardly
have garrisoned them. Thus he took Amida (Amid) after
long and costly sieges, and in the very next year (360) the
Romans found it ungarrisoned. The Romans were helped,
too, by the trouble which Shapiir had with barbarous ene
mies ; the third siege of Nisibis was all but successful when
the Persian was called away to Khorasan by urgent affairs
there. These eastern conflicts were the prelude to a long
pause in the contest (350-358), broken only by small forays.
When, however, the Romans opened negotiations (356 to
358) Shapur had made peace in the east and offered no
conditions that could be accepted. In 359 and 360 the war
was again hotly renewed, and Shapur took several im
portant fortresses. Then there was a lull till 363, when
the warlike, active, and ambitious Julian, now sole emperor,
resolved to strike at the capital of the enemy, as Trajan,
Severus, and Carus had done. He left Antioch for Meso
potamia in March and swiftly descended the Euphrates,
wasting the enemy's land with fire and sword and taking
several cities by short sieges, among others the royal city
of Mah6z Malka, not far from Ctesiphon. Julian now
occupied Seleucia, but, finding he was not strong enough to
take Ctesiphon, the fortified capital on the opposite bank of
the Tigris, he ordered a retreat along the left bank. And
now for the first time Shapiir's troops began to harass him,
but the army might have regained Roman soil without seri
ous loss had not Julian fallen mortally wounded in a skir
mish (26th June 363). The army chose Jovian emperor,
a man too weak for such an occasion, who managed his
soldiers and the negotiations so badly that a shameful peace
was the result, and Shapur regained the lands east of the
Tigris lost to Galerius, and part of Mesopotamia with
Nisibis and Singara. Nisibis was the gravest loss, for in
all future wars it was to the Persians a sure base for
advance and a bulwark for defence. But a still more
shameful condition was that the Romans should not help
their ally Arsaces of Armenia against Shapiir. The
Persian, nevertheless, did not find Armenia an easy con
quest. He took Arsaces captive, but this did not decide
the fate of the whole country, divided as it was by nature
into a number of separate regions under almost independent
XVIII. — 77
Ardashir
*r- to,
610
363-429. captains. The Christian Armenians leaned on the whole
towards Rome, while the Zoroastrians, who still formed a
large part of the nation, inclined to Persia, and the personal
interests of the great barons, who preferred to recognize
no lord, inclined them now to this side, now to that. Papa,
son of Arsaces, fled to the Romans and got help from them,
first secretly and then openly ; but he was only their tool
in the design of reducing Armenia to a province. Con
flicts between the rival empires took place also to the
north of Armenia in Iberia, and after five years they were
practically again at war. In 371 ShApur was openly met
by Roman troops in Armenia, which both parties were
determined to have by force or by fraud. Once and again
negotiations failed, but a general war was still averted by
external circumstances (on Rome's part by the Gothic war)
and considerations of prudence.
Shapiir II., who is justly celebrated by the later tradi-
tions, died towards the end of the summer of 379, and was
succeeded by his brother, Ardashir II., an old man, who
was perhaps chosen king for similar reasons to those
which governed the choice of Shapur as an infant. As
prince and governor of Adiabene Ardashfr had taken an
active part in the suppression of Christianity in 344 and
as late as 376, but with his accession the persecution ceased
— whether of purpose or merely from the Oriental lack of
persistency we cannot tell — and a bishop was again ad
mitted even in the capital. Ardashir was deposed in 383
or 384, having taken strong measures against the nobles
and put some of them to death.
His successor, Shapur III., son of Sh&pur II., at once
sent ambassadors to Constantinople and made a definite
treaty of peace (384). In 388 or 389 he was murdered
by the nobles. His successor (a son, or perhaps a brother),
Bahrain IV., called Kirm&n Shah,1 kept peace with Rome
and was clement to the Christians. In 390 Armenia was
divided by treaty, much the larger part becoming a vassal
state of Persia and the rest falling to Rome. The division,
with various modifications and vicissitudes, lasted into Arab
times. Bahrain was shot by a band of " miscreants " in
the summer of 399.
Yazdegerd I., son of Shapur II. or Shapiir III., seems
to have been designated heir to the throne while Bahrain
IV. was still alive, or at least he held such high dignity
that his name appears on coins of his predecessor. Persian
tradition makes him wise but very wicked. Christian
witnesses, on the other hand, speak very favourably of him,
and it appears certain that his surname, " the Sinner/' was
gained by a severity, perhaps tyrannical, towards the
grandees, by tolerance towards the Christians, and little
favour shown to the priests. In 410 the Christians were
even allowed to hold a regularly constituted synod in the
capital, and the king employed the "Catholicus" — i.e., the
primate of the church, a functionary possessed of full
religious autonomy — on a mission to the emperor, and even
in settling differences with his own brother, who governed
Persis. Yazdegerd had no personal inclination towards
Christianity, and he severely punished the fanaticism of
Bishop 'AbdA, who had insulted a Zoroastrian sanctuary
in Susiana, but his habitual tolerance was enough to make
him hated of the Persian priests. The warlike nobles also
found cause for dissatisfaction in his earnest endeavours
to keep on quiet terms with Rome, with whom he made a
treaty of peace and friendship in the summer of 408, when
he seems to have pledged himself to support the throne of
Theodosius II. during his minority. Over Persian Armenia
he set his own son Shapur. We have every reason to deem
Yazdegerd an excellent prince for the time and circum
stances, but he was not well pleasing to the god of the
1 He had mled in Kirman, and from him two towns, in Kurdistan
and in Rinnan, take the name Kirmanshahan.
[SASANIAN
Persians, who smote him with sudden and miraculous death
in distant Hyrcania. The explanation of the miracle is
no doubt that he was murdered by the magnates (probably
late in summer 420).
Shapur, hurrying from Armenia on the news of his
father's death, was slain by the grandees, who had resolved
altogether to exclude from the throne the seed of the
hated Yazdegerd. A distant relation, Khosrau, was made
king, but had to contest the throne with another son of
Yazdegerd, Bahrain, who in his father's lifetime had dwelt
apparently in a sort of exile, with the powerful vassal
prince Al-Mondhir (Alamundaros) of Hira, on the borders
of the desert to the west of the Euphrates. Moridhir
energetically supported the claims of his guest-friend, and
appeared with a vast Arab horde before the gates of
Ctesiphon, which is only three or four days' march from
Hira. As Bahrain doubtless had support among the
Persians also, Khosrau gave way, and Bahrain took the
throne, but with a promise to reign in a different spirit
from his father and please the magnates and the priests.
This is the first important intervention of the Arabs in
the affairs of Persia.
Bahrain V., surnamed G6r or Wildass, is the favourite Bahran
hero of Persian tradition, which tells many incredible v-
stories about him. He came to the throne young, and
was always a jolly prince, very fond of women, and whose
personal strength and prowess as a huntsman, perhaps
also in Avar, blinded men's eyes to the real weakness of
his sway. The change of policy was at once announced
in a systematic persecution of the Christians and in war
with Rome. For the latter there were pretexts enough
on both sides, but the Romans would not have begun the
war merely because the Christians were persecuted ; its
real authors Avere presumably the Persian nobles. The
chief seat of war was the north of Persian Mesopotamia
and the mountain-land above. The Persians were led by
one of the greatest nobles, Mihr Narseh, whom Persian
tradition represents as taking Constantinople, while we
know that he really sustained heavy defeat at the very
commencement of the Avar (August 421). Nisibis was
attacked by the Romans, but relieved after a siege of some
length. In 422 both parties Avere glad to make peace ;
religious freedom AA'as given to Christians in Persia and to
Zoroastrians in the Roman empire. There seems to have
been no change of frontier, but the Romans promised to
receive no Arabs Avho Avished to change their allegiance,2
and to pay an annual sum toAATards the maintenance of
the defences of the Caucasian Gates (the pass of Dariel),
Avhich protected both poAArers from the inroads of the
northern barbarians. This last condition reappears in
almost all treaties and ah\Tays caused soreness. For, IIOAV-
ever carefully the provision Avas Avorded, both sides looked
on the contribution as a tribute, of Avhich the Romans
evaded payment Avhenever they could.
The Persians, AVC may suppose, Avere the readier to
make peace that they Avere again embroiled with the
nation of Kiishdn or Haital, the Hephthalites or " Avhite
Huns," Avho then ruled in Bactria and the surrounding
lands. Constant Avars of Persia with this people Avent
on during the 5th century and gave the Romans repose,
and we are hardly bound to believe the Persian tradition
that Bahrain had a glorious victory over the Hephthalites.
A movement for freedom had taken place in Persian
Armenia during the Roman Avar ; but after the peace
Bahrain established a neAv vassal king, till in 429 the
conduct of the selfish Armenian nobles led the Persians
- The Bedouin tribes, " nee amici nobis unquam nee hostes optandi "
(Annnian., xiv. 4, 1), and the petty states that had been formed out
of them, under Roman or Persian suzerainty, were a constant trouble
to both empires in war and in peace.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
611
to make Armenia a province, — a change which was sup
ported by a strong party among the Armenians themselves.
But the Persian governors had as much trouble with
barons and clergy as the old kings had had.
Bahrdm, dying in 438 or 439, was succeeded by his son,
Yazdegerd II., of whom little good can be said. He per-
secuted both Jews and Christians, abolished the audiences
on the first day of each month on which every man of posi
tion could approach the king with petitions or complaints,
and is recorded to have married his daughter (that, of course,
was no crime in a Zoroastrian) and then murdered her.
In 441 he very nearly came to war with Rome, but
peace was concluded without further conflict than some
harrying of the inarches, and it was provided (as in later and
probably in earlier treaties) that no new fortresses should
be erected on the border by either party. Yazdegerd was
much in KhorAsAn, where he sustained repeated defeats
from the Hephthalites ; and in 450/451 he had to deal
with a serious rebellion in Armenia, mainly produced by
persecution of the Christians, which was not quelled till
he promised complete freedom of Christian worship.
On the death of Yazdegerd II. (457) the throne was for
two years contested between his two sons by Dinak 1 —
Hormizd, prince-governor of SagastAn, and Peroz. The
latter, who was the younger, proved successful by aid of
the Hephthalites and the energy of RahAm of the house
of MihrAn, and put his brother and three others of the
nearest royal kin to death. Per6z was again a persecutor
of Jews and Christians, but had political wisdom enough
to favour the reception of Nestorianism by his Christian
subjects when that party was driven from the Roman
empire. At the synod of Beth LApAt (483 or 484) the
old Christian church of Persia adopted the Xestorian con
fession, and was thus separated from Byzantium by a wide
breach. But in truth Christianity in Persia had never been
really much of a danger to the state.2
The Hephthalites and Per6z soon fell out about the
reward for their services, and fierce fighting ensued, in which
Peroz gained several victories ; but the seat of war was a
desert very unfavourable to his operations, and twice he
had to make peace on disadvantageous terms, while at
least once he was himself taken prisoner and released on
heavy ransom, leaving his son KavAdh a hostage for its
payment for the space of two years. But Peroz always
broke faith again with the foe, and at length, in 484, he
was among the missing after a terrible battle, in which
his daughter was taken captive and placed in the harem
of the Hephthalite king. The conquerors now overflowed
Persia, which for a time was without a monarch till order
was restored by Zarmihr, of the great house of KAren,
who at the time of Peroz's death had been successfully
dealing with a revolt in Armenia, and now hastened to the
capital and made BalAsh, Peroz's brother, king. The
Hephthalites seem to have been bought off by a yearly
tribute.3 BalAsh's brother, Zareh, who also claimed the
crown, was vanquished and put to death. But the new
king had little power, and secured the obedience of the
Armenians only by granting that the Persian state religion
should be wholly excluded from their land. The clemency
of BalAsh is praised by the Syrians and Armenians, possibly
for no other reason than that his relations with the Persian
priesthood were unfriendly. Their enmity proved fatal to
him ; his treasuries were empty, so that he could neither
1 Dinak's likeness is preserved on a gem ; see B. Born, in Compte-
rendu de la Com. Arch, pour 1S78, 1879, \\ 162 sq. (St Petersburg).
2 The Armenians, on the other hand, joined the Monophysites, who
had a large party in the Roman empire and often had the upper hand
there.
3 Persian tradition makes Sokhra (i.e., Zarmihr) humble the enemy
and compel them to restore their booty.
I gain a party among the nobles nor secure the support of 429-526.
an army, and in 488 or 489 he was deposed and blinded.
His nephew and successor, KavAdh I., son of Peroz, Kavadh
found the land in a very disturbed state ; there were I-
rebellions among the barbarous mountain tribes and there
was another rising in Armenia. Now KavAdh was not
disposed to be the humble servant of the priests and
nobles to whom he owed the crown, and to humiliate them
he played the dangerous game of encouraging Mazdak,
the energetic priest of a new religion, which demanded in
the name of justice that he who had a superfluity of goods
and several wives should impart to those who had none.
This theory was actually put in practice to some consider
able extent, but then the nobility and clergy rose, deposed
KavAdh, and imprisoned him in the " Castle of Oblivion," 4
placing his brother JAmAsp on the throne (c. 496). But
KavAdh escaped to the Hephthalites, where he had once
lived as a hostage, received in marriage the daughter of
the king (whose mother was the captive sister of KavAdh),
and with his help expelled JAmAsp and recovered his king
dom (498 or 499). 5 KavAdh held severe judgment on the
traitors, and it was probably at this time that he gave up
Zarmihr into the hands of his most dangerous rival,
ShApur of the house of MihrAn. He does not seem to
have carried his Mazdakite experiment farther, and he had
put the realm into fair order when he began a war with
Rome.
Between Rome and Persia there had been such a series
of negotiations and compacts, none of which had been
scrupulously observed, that either side could find a ca^us
belli at will. KavAdh had the will, and in summer 502
he opened that era of hideous strife between Rome and
Persia which so exhausted both powers as to pave the way
for the new empire of the Arabs. In August he seized
without a fight Theodosiopolis (Karin, Erzerum), capital of
Roman Armenia. On 10th January 503 Amida fell after
a siege of three months and was cruelly chastised for its
resistance, tens of thousands of the inhabitants being put
to the sword.0 The Romans acted with little energy or unity
of plan, and in the course of the war Mesopotamia suffered
terribly. Amida was restored to the Romans by compact,
or rather by purchase, after a long siege in 504 ; and after
much fighting a peace was concluded in the autumn of 506,
leaving things as they were before the war. The Persians,
we are told, were ready for peace because they had on
their hands a war with the " Huns," — a very vague word
in the mouth of a Greek. But KavAdh must have been
in considerable difficulty, for he tamely submitted to a
gross breach of the treaty when Anastasius raised the
village of Dara to a great fortress to hold Nisibis in check.
There was no more war while Anastasius was emperor, but
Justin I. (518-527) seems to have ceased the payment for
the Caucasian Gates again stipulated in the peace of 506,
to which KavAdh replied by letting loose his Arabs on the
empire, and the Romans retaliated by forays in Persian
Armenia. There were also serious disputes about the
suzerainty of the lands between Caucasus and Pontus, but
KavAdh was still anxious to avert war, from which pre
sumably he saw that no permanent advantage could flow.
At the same time he was very eager to secure the succes
sion for his favourite son, Khosrau, who was not his
eldest ; and he thought that if he could induce the emperor
to adopt Khosrau as his own son this would form a sort
of guarantee and greatly impress the Persians. A nego-
4 Identified by Sir H. Rawlinson as Gilgerd in northern Susiana.
5 Kavadh's escape and restoration seem to have been favoured by
some of the greatest nobles, and Persian tradition, which, however, is
very confused in this whole chapter, makes Zarmihr the companion of
his flight.
6 Of this war we have good accounts in contemporary Syriac
sources.
612
526-546. tiation on this and other matters at Xisibis (525 or 526)
seems, however, to have been badly managed on both
sides, and its failure cost the Roman ambassador his place
and the Persian his head. War now began on the borders
in 527 before Justin's death (i.e., before 1st August).1
A Roman attack on Xisibis and a Persian on Dara failed.
Fighting, broken by negotiations, went on for several years,
and in it Belisarius first came to the front as a general.
Mondliir An important episode in this war is the invasion of Syria by
of I lira. Mondliir of Hira. This prince seems to have been more powerful
than was safe for Persia, and Kavadh had stripped him of all or
part of his possessions and given them to Hdrith, a scion of the
widespread house of the kings of the Kinda. When war broke
out Mondliir, who was an experienced warrior, was restored to his
old sway, and in 529 he fell on Syria, pillaging and holding captives
to ransom as far as Antioch. Mondliir was a savage heathen, who
on one day sacrificed 400 nuns of a Syrian cloister to his goddess
'Uzz;i (the planet Venus). In the same year he slew Harith in
battle and executed in Hira a number of captives of the Kinda
house. For half a century he was the terror of the subjects of
Rome, little recking whether they were at peace or at war with his
master, till in 554 he fell in battle with a Roman vassal, Harith
ibn Jabala, whose son he had also sacrificed to 'Uzza.
Under Mondhir's influence Kavadh in 531 undertook a
regular campaign against Syria, the first since centuries.
The Persians crossed the Euphrates and had pressed far
to the north when Belisarius compelled them to turn back.
In a battle at Rakka Belisarius was defeated, but the
Persians found it expedient to continue their retreat (19th
April 531). In Mesopotamia the Persians were this year
successful, and had almost reduced the great fortress of
Martyropolis (Maiferkat, Arab. Mayafarikin) when news
came of Kav&dh's death, and a truce was made.
In 528 or 529 Kavadh, through his son Khosrau, had
made a bloody end of the Mazdakites, whose success proved
too dangerous to society to be longer endured.
Kavadh died, eighty-two years old, 13th September 531,
and was succeeded by his destined heir, Khosrau (Chosroes),
surnamed An6sharvan, "the Blessed," whom his father is
said to have caused to be crowned as he lay on his death
bed.2 Khosrau I. was a great king, and deserved the title
of "the Just," though he was not the ideal prince that
Khosrau Eastern writers make him. By carrying out the regula
tion of the land-tax already commenced by his father, and
by measures to control the collection of taxes, he benefited
his subjects as well as the treasury. In Babylonia at
least, the richest province, his fiscal ordinances proved
productive, and, according to an Eastern standard, not too
oppressive, down to the fall of the Sasanian empire ; the
Arabs themselves contrast the old Persian system with the
oppressive taxation of Moslem times, which was ruinous
to the finances of the state as well as to the inhabitants.
The public welfare, too, was served by the construction
or repair of bridges, canals, embankments, and the like.
The priests favoured Khosrau for his extirpation of the
Mazdakites, which he completed at the beginning of his
reign ; but they were not permitted to rule his policy.
He managed the great nobles with tact, rather strengthen
ing than weakening the aristocratic basis of the realm,
but making it serviceable to himself. Measures were
taken to relieve the insecurity which the Mazdakites had
introduced in relations of property and the family, and
the army was the object of special care. Khosrau had a
decided leaning to Western civilization ; and, though an
Oriental despot could not be expected to sympathize with
the highest fruits of Hellenic genius at a time when they
1 The principal sources for this war are Procopius and the Syrian
account in Land, Anecdota, iii.
2 That the nomination of Khosrau surprised the Persian nobles is
simply impossible. Procopius, it must be remembered, drew for the
events at Khosrau's accession on the tales of the (true or false) pre-
tendant Kavadh, son of Jam, and grandson of King Kavadh. But it
is quite possible that such things as the removal of princes and the
execution of valuable officials took place under Khosrau.
I.'s in
ternal
rule.
[SASANIAN
were little appreciated even in Europe, and the heathen
philosophers who came to Persia to seek a philosophic
state soon returned undeceived, it is to his honour that
the Persian secured for them the free exercise of their
faith by a clause in the treaty of 549. The Christians,
so long as they obeyed the laws, were unmolested ; nay,
Khosrau helped to maintain the worship not only of the
Nestorians but even of the Monophysites, who had much
more friendly relations to the Roman empire. Apostasy
from Zoroastrianism was forbidden by ancient law, and
proselytizing by Christians was strictly prohibited, yet the
Monophysite abbot Ahudemmeh, who had got a large
contribution from the king to build his monastery, and
thereafter baptized a son of Khosrau, who presently fled
to the Romans, was punished only by a mild imprisonment,
in which he was allowed to see his scholars.3 Nor did
the Christians suffer for their sympathy with the rebellious
prince Anoshazadh ; and yet Khosrau was no weakling,
but energetic, warlike, and on occasion cruel.4
The negotiations begun in 531 issued in September 532
in a "perpetual peace," the Romans promising a large
annual subsidy and other concessions, while the Persians
gave back certain castles in Lazistdn at the eastern end of
the Black Sea. Khosrau had need of peace, and used it
probably to protect the frontiers from divers barbarous
foes, for tradition speaks of his measures for the safety of
the borders towards the Caucasus and on the east. Un
manageable tribes, too, were moved to new homes. In a
few years he was strong enough to go to war again, feel
ing perhaps that Justinian's successes in Africa and Italy
had made the hereditary foe too strong. This clanger, no
doubt, was forcibly set before him by the emissaries of the
Gothic king Vitiges, and a tempting opportunity was
presented by an appeal which came to him from the rebel
nobles of Roman Armenia, Christians though they were.
Pretexts for war were never lacking, if only through the
Arab subjects of the two powers. But Khosrau certainly War wit
desired the war, and early in 540 he set forth to attack Rome.
Syria as Shapur I. had done, and marched through the
land to the shore of the " Roman sea," taking and pillaging
such strong cities as did not buy him oft'. Antioch in
particular yielded an enormous booty ; it was burned and
the inhabitants carried captive. Turning homewards, the
Persian traversed north Syria and Mesopotamia from west
to east, levying a contribution even from the hated fortress
of Dara. Carrha? alone, whose population was still mainly
heathen, and so presumably inclined to the non-Christian
empire, escaped scot free. Ctesiphon was reached at the
close of summer, the whole campaign having come off
without a single pitched battle. Khosrau, still more than
Shapur II., sought in the barbarous old usage of whole
sale captivities a means of appropriating to his own
service the culture and technical skill of the West. Thus
he made for the captive Antiochians a new municipality
( Khosrau- Antiochia, or "the Roman town") hard by the
royal residence, which was a notable tribute to the
superiority of Roman culture and life. The town was
made as Western in character as could be, and the inhabit
ants were established in comfort, and had religious freedom,
and even a Christian mayor. They retained their national
manners till the fall of the empire. Chariot -races, for
example, were as popular as they had been in old Antioch.
Next year Khosrau was invited to Lazistan by the
natives, and penetrated to the Black Sea and took the strong
place of Petra. In Mesopotamia war went on for several
3 This is known from an imprinted Syrian biography by a disciple
of Ahudemmeh, who manages to make the king a tyrant by inventing
a silly miracle to explain his clemency. Ahiidemmeh died, after two
years' imprisonment, 2d August 575.
4 Procopius naturally speaks unfavourably of so dangerous an
enemy of the Romans.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
613
years with chequered fortune. In 546 the Romans paid
a large sum for a five years' truce, and another five years'
truce followed in 553, though LAzistan was excluded from
both truces until 556, when the Romans had gained suc
cesses there ; but during all this time the Persian and
Roman Arabs never laid down their arms. At length,
about Christmas 562, a fifty years' peace was concluded,
the Romans again promising a considerable yearly subsidy,
and the Persians withdrawing their claims on Lazistan,
though the possession of the neighbouring Suania was left
an open question. The treaty also provided for religious
freedom to the Persian Christians, while all proselytizing
among Zoroastrians was strictly forbidden.
stern During the truces (546-562) great changes had taken
•!- place in the East, where a powerful empire had been formed
ests' in the northern steppes by the Turks, whose name then, for
the first time, became known in the West. The khakdn
of the Turks, whom the Greeks call Silzibulos and the
Arabs (after the Persians) name Sinjibu, took from the
Hephthalites the right bank of the Oxus, while Khosrau
(seemingly in alliance with the khakan, whose daughter
he wedded) occupied the left bank (c. 560). Thus
Bactria, from which the Sasanians had suffered so much,
was at length embodied in their empire, and Per6z was
fully avenged.1 But the friendship of Turks and Persians
was soon changed to that hostility which has long made
the rulers of Turkestan and the deserts appear the natural
enemies of the lords of Khorasdn. Khosrau must have
made other conquests about the same time, for in the
negotiations with Rome the Persian representative boasts
that his master had conquered ten nations, and tradition
enumerates the conquest, or rather recovery, of seven eastern
lands. These statements must be taken with some discount,
and it is not to be believed that Khosrau really ruled in
Afghanistan or Sind, as tradition says, though he doubtless
widened and secured the eastern limits of the empire.2
About 570 an expedition was sent against Yemen, which
the Christian Abyssinians had conquered in 525. A native
prince invited Khosrau to expel the Blacks, and, after some
hesitation, he sent a small force under Vahriz which easily
effected this object. Persian rule was nominally maintained
in Yemen till the time of Islam, and tribute was paid
more or less irregularly ; but, as the Persians were not a
seafaring people, this remote province beyond the waters
was of no practical use to them in the way of diverting
trade from the hands of the Romans. Khosrau had pre
sumably hoped otherwise, for affairs of trade, especially the
overland silk trade in inner Asia, had considerable influence
on Sasdnian policy.
About 551 Khosrau had to deal with a rebellion of his
son Anoshazddh, who was then in disgrace in Susiana ;
hearing that his father was dangerously ill, he claimed the
crown, leaning on the Christians, whose religion was that
of his mother. The rebel was easily overpowered and
taken ; his punishment was not death, but such a partial
blinding as made him unfit to reign.
Second In his last years Khosrau had again to face the Romans.
Roman The Roman alliance with the Turkish khakan, the efforts
of Khosrau to hamper their intercourse with that potent
ate, now his dangerous foe, the annoyance of the Christian
empire at the fall of the Christian realm in Yemen, and
the refusal of Justin II. (565-578) to pay the stipulated
subsidy were all pretexts for war, but the decisive thing
was that all Armenia suddenly threatened to become
Roman. There Avere already plans of rebellion among the
1 A curious proof of the late character of Persian tradition is that
it regards the Oxus as having always divided Iran and Turan, and the
Turks as having always been next neighbours of Persia.
- Purely fabulous exploits, like the conquest of Ceylon, mean only
that to the Persians Khosrau, like Bahrain V., was lord of the whole
world.
Armenian nobles when an outburst of popular fanaticism 546-589.
was caused by the attempt to erect a fire-temple in the
capital Dovin, and the Persian Siiren 3 was slain (spring
571). The rebels and the king of Iberia turned to Con
stantinople, and were taken under the protection of the
incapable emperor, who fancied that he could regain both
countries. This, of course, was a declaration of war. The
events that followed are known from good contemporary
sources, but cannot be arranged in clear chronological
order. One of the first operations was an unsuccessful
siege of Nisibis by the Romans. Khosrau, on the other
hand, took Dara in 573, after a siege of six ^onths, and
was joined beneath its walls by his captain Adharmahan,
returning from a successful campaign in Syria on the
model of that of 540, in which he had destroyed Apamea.4
Tiberius, who with the empress Sophia held the reins of
power in Constantinople and was recognized as co-regent
in the end of 574, desired peace; but Armenia was ex
cluded from the three years' truce that he procured. In
575 Khosrau penetrated through that country into Cappa-
docia, and, though he had to retire before the Romans
and leave his camp to be pillaged, he escaped safely,
burning Sebastia and Melitene on the way. The Romans
pressed forward and spent the winter in Persian Armenia,
but were driven back next year ; they had not even
secured the sympathy of the Monophysite population.
Even beyond Armenia the war broke out again before the
truce had expired, and the Romans conducted it with no
more humanity than the Persians, leading captive the
Christian inhabitants of Arzanene, and making it a special
favour to give them a place in Cyprus (577). Negotia
tions for peace were frequent ; the Romans saw that it
was vain to try to hold Armenia and Iberia, and might
even have consented to give up the temporal and spiritual
heads of the rebellion who had taken refuge at Constan
tinople, but they very naturally would not make peace
without recovering Dara. So things stood when Tiberius
became sole emperor, and some months later Khosrau died
(c. February 579).
Hormizd IV., son of Khosrau by the Turkish princess, HormM
was a proud enterprising prince. The Greeks speak ill of I^r-
him, and indeed were much offended from the first that
he neglected the usual courtesy of formally announcing his
accession at Constantinople. Persian tradition makes him
ill-disposed and a shedder of blood, and we know that he put
his brothers to death when lie took the throne, but that,
as the contemporary Christian narrator says, was a Persian
custom. On the other hand, tradition acknowledges the
strict impartial justice with which he upheld the cause of
the poor against the great. It was the great man who
felt his severity. In the army, too, he was careful of the
plebeian troops, and lowered the status of the aristocratic
cataphracts. Much to his honour is his reply to the priests
when they asked him to withdraw his favour from the
Christians. " As our royal throne," he said, " cannot stand
on its front legs alone, so our rule cannot stand and be
firm if we turn against us the Christians and members of
other alien religions. Cease, therefore, your attacks on
the Christians and follow zealously good works, that the
Christians and others of alien faith may see them, and
give praise and be drawn towards your faith." In many
respects Hormizd seems to have resembled Yazdegerd I.,
whose fate, too, he shared ; the misfortune was that he had
not his father's tact in managing the nobles and the clergy.
The Avar with Rome Avent on throughout his reign with
A-arying fortune. There Avas a serious Avar, too, with the
Turks, but over these, or rather over one of their vassals,
the Persian general Bahrain Ch6bin gained so complete
3 A member of the same house with the conqueror of Crassus.
4 Part of the captive Apameaus were settled in Xew Antioch.
614
PERSIA
[SASANIAN
589-623. a victory that he is said to have made the Turks pay
instead of receiving tribute. Bahrain was next sent into
the lands south of the Caucasus to strike a great blow at
Rome (589), but here he was utterly defeated, and Hor-
mizcl was foolish enough to dismiss him with disgrace.
The general, who was head of the great house of Mihran,
replied by open revolt, feeling, no doubt, that he could
reckon on the discontent of the nobles and the other
armies. The troops in Mesopotamia which had" been
driven back on Xisibis by the Romans and were afraid of
punishment did in fact mutiny and open communication
with Bahram, who marched against the capital and reached
the Great Zab. An army sent forth against him also
mutinied, but declared for Hormizd's son, Khosrau, who
was on bad terms with his father. Next, part of the
troops rose in Ctesiphon, whither Hormizd had hurried
from Media. Bindoe, Khosrau's maternal uncle, was in
prison there, and his brother Bistam (Vistahm) set him
free by force. Hormizd was deposed and soon after put
to death, and Khosrau, who had probably consented to a
crime he could not prevent, was proclaimed king (summer
590).
Civil Khosrau II. Parvez, "the conqueror," had now to deal
war. with Bahram) who sought the crown, or at least the regency,
for himself. But the pusillanimous king could not inspire
his troops with courage to face the experienced general ;
he was deserted in the first shock of battle, and fled to
Circesium to cast himself on the aid of the emperor
Maurice, who undertook to restore Khosrau, but, able
prince as he was, missed the great opportunity of securing
an adequate equivalent for the service. Himself a man
of obscure descent, he seems to have been flattered by the
idea of posing as " father " of a legitimate king of ancient
stock. The enterprise was not very difficult, for though
Bahram had seized the crown and begun to coin in his
own name the nobles would not submit to one of their
own peers, and the people were still stricter legitimists
than they had been under the Arsacids. In their view the
royal majesty (farrahi kaydnik] was innate in the house
of Ardashir, and none outside of it could be king. Bahram
had to put down an insurrection in Ctesiphon itself, and
Bindoe escaped and took up his nephew's cause. In the
beginning of 591 a Roman host drew near, and Khosrau
caused the gates of Martyropolis l and Dara to be opened
to them. He was now joined by the Persian army of
Nisibis, and Persian and some Armenian grandees came in
to him day by day. The other armies took the same side.
In Atropatene Bistc4m, Bindoe's brother, gathered a host
against Bahram, while the united Persian and Roman
forces advanced along the left bank of the Tigris and
smote him in a decisive battle near the Zab (summer 591).
Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and New Antioch had already been
taken by troops sent through the Mesopotamian desert.
Khosrau Thus Khosrau was restored, and peace with Rome followed
of course. The Romans ceased to pay tribute, but only
recovered their old frontier, Nisibis still remaining Per
sian. Bahram fled to the Turks and was honourably re
ceived, but was murdered not long afterwards. Khosrau
was still so insecure that he asked a bodyguard of 1000
Romans, and now he set himself to remove all dangerous
persons, especially Bindoe and the other conspirators who
had overthrown his father and set himself on the throne.
Bistam was not so easily reached. When he saw himself
condemned he made himself king in Media, and held out
for almost six years with the help of the remnants of
Bahrain's forces and in alliance with Turks and Delamites.
He fell by treachery probably in 595 or 59 G.
To a land already weakened by long wars all these
1 This town had been betrayed to the Persians, and the Romans
had lain before it for some time.
disorders were ruinous. Nor was Khosrau II. the king
fit for such times. A weak coarse-minded man, at once
boastful and timid, avaricious and fond of luxury and
splendour, he was at best a very ordinary Oriental despot.
He found the treasury empty and left it full, while the
empire was impoverished by wars. And in these he won
no glory ; his victories were those of his generals. To
the Christians he long extended protection and favour,
and even built them churches ; for he fancied that not
only the Christian empire but St Sergius himself, the
chief saint of the Roman Syrians and Arabs, had a share
in his restoration, and he was much under the influence
of a Christian wife, Shirin, and of some other Christians,
such as his physician Gabriel.2 But in later years his
disposition toward the Christians was altogether reversed.
When Maurice fell by treason and the hideous tyrant
Phocas seized the throne (November G02) Khosrau felt
himself called to avenge his " father " and protect Maurice's
supposed son, Theodosius, who had fled to the Persian
court. Narses too, the commandant of Edessa, called for
help against Phocas. Khosrau accordingly imprisoned
the ambassadors who came to announce the new accession,
and a war began, early in 604, which for twenty years laid
the Roman lands open to such ravages as had never before
been known ; so helpless was the empire under the bad
rule of Phocas and through the pressure of Avars and
other barbarians. Khosrau was present at the taking of
Dara (604), 3 but had no personal share in the war after
that event. After a few years the Persian armies were
seen as far west as Chalcedon over against Constantinople.
Yet the real weakness of the Sasanian realm was strikingly
exposed in these very years (604-G10) in the battle of
Dhu KAr, a small affair in itself, but very significant.
Khosrau had abolished the kingdom of Hira and put King
No'man to death, thus ridding himself of a troublesome
vassal, but at the same time losing a very useful
means of influencing and checking the desert tribes.
And soon after No'man's fall the tribe of Bakr ibn WAil
actually defeated a regular army at Dim Kar near the
Euphrates, but a few days' journey from Ctesiphon, and
maintained themselves on the soil in spite of the Persians.
Arabic vanity greatly exaggerated this success, and the
result was a notable increase of self-confidence on the part
of the Arabs, by which the Moslems ultimately benefited
when they came to attack Persia.
The Romans still had the worst of the war when in
October 610 Phocas gave place to the valiant Heraclius.
The new emperor, hard pressed on all sides, vainly asked
for peace. In 613 Damascus was taken, and the country
round it, on which the Persians had never before set foot,
was ravaged in a way of which countless ruins bear wit
ness to this day. In June §14 Jerusalem fell, and, to the
horror of all Christendom, the "precious and life-giving
cross " went into captivity. Next Egypt was conquered,
and Asia Minor swept as far as Chalcedon. Heraclius was Cam
not able to strike a counter blow till 622, when an ex
pedition towards Armenia and the Pontine territories from .]?
the Gulf of Issus restored respect for the Roman arms.
His great campaigns began in the following year and
carried him deep into the Persian country, often quite cut
off from his base, in a way that could not have succeeded
with any leader who was not a great politician as well
as a great general. In the first year of these campaigns
he destroyed one of the holiest of Persian shrines, the
fire -temple of Ganjak, near Lake Urmiyah, and so
2 Shirin and the king even took part in the quarrels of Nestorians
and Monophysites, and foolishly took the side of the latter, who were
the minority and less Persian in sympathy. There are good contem
porary Syriac records of all this which in part are still unused.
3 Land, Anted. Syr., i. 15.
EMPIRE.]
PERSIA
615
avenged Jerusalem. Now we find him near the Caucasus,
now in eastern Asia Minor, now again in Mesopotamia,
never beaten, often victorious, but oftener perhaps out
witting superior forces by adroit movements. In 626
Khosrau attempted a diversion by sending his best gene
ral, Shahrbaraz, with a great force directly against Chal-
cedon. It was an anxious summer in Constantinople,
with the Avars behind and the Persians in front, and the
emperor almost lost in the depths of Asia. But in the
beginning of August the Avars drew off, the Persians,
who had no ships, having failed to cross the Bosphorus
and effect a junction with them. Heraclius replied by
drawing the KHAZARS (q.v.) down into Persian territory,
and in 627 he ventured to strike a blow at the heart of
the monarchy. The feast of 6th January 628 he cele
brated in Dastagerd, which was but some three days'
march from Ctesiphon, and had been Khosrau's usual
residence for twenty -four years. Khosrau had fled in terror,
and did not deem himself safe till he and his harem were
over the bridge of Ctesiphon. The capital was, of course,
too strong to be carried by the small forces that the Roman
had been able to lead by a rapid march from the Caucasus,
and Heraclius turned swiftly before any great army could
be gathered against him, and cut his way through the
enemy's country back to Ganjak over the Kurdish Alps
amid the snows of February and March, — an exploit
almost unparalleled in the history of war.
Meantime there was revolution in Ctesiphon. Khosrau's
tyranny and greed had offended high and low ; his panic
flight had made him contemptible ; and, to crown all, his
legitimate heir Kavadh and most of his brothers were
pining in prison to leave the heirship open to Mardanshah,
son of Shirin, who, even in advanced years, had retained
absolute command of her husband, in spite of his thousands
Kidh of other wives. Certain nobles liberated Kavadh and pro
claimed him king (25th February 628), and Khosrau,
deserted by all, was dragged from his hiding-place and
executed (29th February). Thus miserably perished a
prince whose armies had covered almost the whole breadth
of the Achaemenian empire. No hand was raised to help
him, and the Christians, who had never forgiven the insult
to the true cross, were the first to welcome the elevation
of the parricide Kavadh, in which, indeed, one of their
own number, Shamta, son of the farmer-general Yazdin,
had a leading part.
The first act of Kavadh II. Sh6r6e was to murder some
eighteen brothers, his second to ask peace from the Romans.
A truce was conceded, but Heraclius was too much master
of the situation to agree to a final peace at once. Persian
troops were recalled from Roman soil, but, when Heraclius,
after a hasty reorganization of Mesopotamia, had gone on
to Syria, he learned that the -Persian king was already
dead after a reign of but six months, in which the chief
occurrence was a terrible pestilence.
iarchy. Ardashir III., son of Kavadh, was now crowned at the
age of seven. An era of distress and trouble followed, in
which children or women sat on the throne, and the nobles
disputed with one another for the reality of power. The
holy cross was sent back from Ctesiphon through the
primate of the Nestorians ; and the feast of the Elevation
of the Cross still commemorates the joyful day (14th
September 629) when Heraclius solemnly re-erected it in
Jerusalem. The Government at Ctesiphon was powerless ;
the Khazars harried the empire ; and it was perhaps at this
time that Khosrau, son of Kavadh, and grandson of
Hormizd IV., who had been brought up among the Turks,
sought to make himself king in Khorasan, but was slain
after a few months. A more dangerous pretendant was
the victorious general Shahrbaraz, who met with Hera
clius in June 629 at Arabissus in Cappadocia, and prob-
,bly there obtained an approval of his enterprise from the 623-634.
mperor, who naturally favoured the cause of disorder in
Persia. Shahrbaraz took Ctesiphon with a small force
aided by treason within ; Ardashir was put to death (27th
April 630) ; and robbery, murder, and every terror raged
in the royal city. But Shahrbaraz, too, fell on the 9th of
June a victim to the envy of his peers and the spirit of
legitimism. His body was dragged through the streets,
and tradition speaks with grotesque irony of the man who
sought to be king but could not, because he was not of
the lawful house.
B6ran, daughter of Khosrau II., now sat for a time on
the throne (till about autumn 631), and appears to have
closed the treaty of peace with Heraclius. The conditions
are not recorded, but were probably the same as in the
peace with Maurice ; at all events the Persians kept
Nisibis. Boran was followed in Ctesiphon by her sister
Azarmidokht, probably after a short interval in which a
certain Per6z reigned. But in Nisibis the soldiery of the slain
Shahrbaraz put forward Hormizd V., a grandson of Khosrau
II., and he maintained himself in that quarter for a time
(631-32). Azarmidokht was dethroned by Rustam, the
powerful hereditary marshal of Khorasan, whose father's
death she had procured. Our confused records of this
age of disorder do not permit us to give a clear chrono
logical or geographical view of all pretenders who arose in
the capital and provinces ; but in Ctesiphon, we know,
there reigned for a time a certain Ferrukhzadh (or Khor-
rezAdh) Khosrau, apparently a child.1 But another child,
Yazdegerd III., son of Shahriydr, and so a grandson ofYazde-
Khosrau II., was put forward by certain nobles in Persis, gei'd III.
and crowned in the fire-temple of Ardashir (second half
of 632 or first half of 633). Soon Khosrau was slain and
Yazdegerd acknowledged in the capital, and without much
resistance in the provinces also.
Fond hopes could now be entertained that the wounds
of the monarchy might be healed under a legitimate prince
unstained by descent from the parricide Sher6e, conse
crated in the cradle of the monarchy, and upheld by the
strong hand of Rustam. Some temporary recovery seems
actually to have taken place ; but a new foe more danger
ous than Julian or Heraclius was already knocking at the
gates of the monarchy. That Yemen and some tracts in
north Arabia had already been lost by Persia to the
Moslems had scarcely been observed at Ctesiphon amidst
so many greater disasters. But now the Moslems already
hovered on the frontier. Mothanna, one of the boldest
leaders of those Bedouins who since Dhu Kar had made
frequent forays on Persian soil, accepted Islam, and had
its strength at his back. These attacks became bolder and
bolder. Presently Khalid, in all the prestige of his victory Moslem
over the revolt of the Arabs against Islam (see vol. xvi. p. invasion.
562), appeared with a small force on the lower Euphrates
to take the lead of these Bedouins. Persian troops and
their Arab allies were repeatedly beaten in small engage
ments, and soon a number of frontier -posts were in the
hands of the Moslems.2 The inhabitants of the western
bank of the lower Euphrates, who were all Christians and
had little attachment to Persia, submitted themselves and
promised to supply the victors with intelligence. Soon
the Arabs ventured to cross the river and plunder the
villages west of the Tigris.3 In the early summer of 63-1,
however, Khalid was called away to Syria ; his successor,
Abu 'Obaid of Taif, though strengthened by reinforce-
1 He appears beardless on his only known coin. By some accounts
he was the only son of Khosrau II. who had escaped massacre.
2 The history of the conquest is here given mainly after Beladhori,
whose short notices stand examination much better than Tabari and
the historians who follow him. The chronology is in many points
uncertain.
3 Baghdad, then such a village, was plundered on a fair tide.
616
PERSIA
[SASANIAN EMPIRE.
meats, was utterly defeated and slain on his first meeting
with a regular Persian host in the hard- fought " battle of
the bridge " at the Euphrates, and MothannA had great
difficulty in saving the remains of the army (26th Novem
ber 634). Not without hesitation the caliph 'Omar
resolved to send a greater force to 'Irak, calling on his
Arabs to win for themselves the treasures of the Khosraus
and paradise ; and now for the first time a considerable
Persian army was defeated at Bowaib (635 or 636), with
the loss of its general, a prince of the house of Mihran.
In Sa'd ibn AM Wakk&s the Moslems had now an ener
getic and cautious leader, and the Persian court began to
see its danger, especially when the news arrived of the
battle of Yarmuk, by which Syria was lost to Heraclius.
Rustam in person placed himself at the head of a great
army, over which, in sign of the gravity of the enterprise,
was borne the venerable sacred banner of the empire
(dirafshi kdviydii). Sa'd fell back before the Persian
advance and posted himself at Kddisiya on the edge of
the desert south or south-west of Hira, where the armies
lay facing each other for months. The Arab force must
have been inferior in strength, for no great army could
have long held such a barren post nourished only by forays
and what the caliph could send from Medina. At length,
towards the close of the year 636, or in 637, battle was
joined and raged for several days, Sa'd giving orders to
his men in spite of a sickness under which he laboured.
The Persians were better armed, but the Arabs fought
with desperate energy. The elephants, which formed part
of every regular Persian army, greatly terrified them at
first, but ultimately these huge beasts, getting out of com
mand, only aided the discomfiture of the Persians. Of the
mass of a Persian host no great bravery was to be expected ;
yet it was only after a hard fight that the victory was de
cided, Rustam slain, and the sacred banner taken.
The battle of Kadisiya virtually decided the fate of the
Tigris valley ; but there was still some fighting on the
plains of Babylonia, at Birs (Bomppa), and Seleucia was
not taken without a lengthy siege. Then the Arabs
crossed the Tigris and fell on Ctesiphon, Yazclegerd fleeing
before them to Holwan on the Medo-Babylonian frontier.
At JalulA on the road to Holwan the Arabs gained a fresh
victory over Rustam's brother, Khorrezadh, and Yazdegerd
continued his flight. Meantime another body of Arabs
had occupied Lower 'Irak and entered Susiana. A strong
and wise leader might still perhaps have saved Iran
proper, and 'Omar, as energetic as cautious, was in fact
slow to allow his armies to assail the highlands. It
was not till some time between 640 and 642 that the
" victory of victories," as the Arabs rightly call it, was
gained at NehAvend (a little south of the old high road
from Babylon to Ecbatana), and the last great army of
the Persians was shattered by No'man, who fell on the Over-
field, and the Meccan Hodhaifa. Even now many indi- throw o
vidual provinces and cities did not yield without stubborn eilll)ire-
resistance, and in many places rebellion after rebellion
had to be crushed, especially in the region around Istakhr,
the cradle and sacred hearth of the fallen monarchy.
Everywhere the great local barons and even the lesser
nobility dealt with the Arabs as independent chiefs, and
in many cases came to peaceful terms with them.
Yazdegerd fled from one to another of his lieutenants
without venturing himself to strike a blow for his crown
and his life. He still retained the forms of sovereignty,
and coins were still struck in his name ; but one host
after another dismissed him as a burdensome guest, and
at length he was miserably murdered in the remote dis
trict of Merv, not, it would appear, without the conniv
ance of Mahoe, governor of that province (651 or 652).
The great similarity in the ends of the Achamienian and Sasanian
empires is no mere accident, but significant of the internal resem
blance between the two. Granicus which showed the reality of the
danger, Issns which lost Darius his western provinces, Gaugamela
which broke up the monarchy and yet did not at once give pos
session of the several lands of the realm, have their parallels a
thousand years later at Bowaib, Kadisi'ya, and Nehavend. The
flight of Darius to the farthest north-east, and his death by the
hand of traitors, not of the foe, are repeated in the fate of Yazde
gerd, who resembles Darius also in his lack of heroism. The
nobles showed more loyalty and patriotism against the Arabs than
against Alexander, and indeed religious antipathy and the bar
barism of the Arabs made it less easy in the later case for a Persian
to accept the foreign yoke ; yet even now there were too many
traitors and deserters among the nobles high and low. Fully to
subdue the Persian monarchy cost the Arabs a much longer time
than it had cost the Macedonians ; but the conquest went far
deeper, — Hellenism never touched more than the surface of Persian
life, but Iran, was penetrated to the core by Arabic religion and
Arabian ways. Sec MOHAMMEDANISM.
A fragment of the Sasanian empire lasted for a considerable time
in the mountains of Tabaristdn (Mazandaran), to which the here
ditary generals (Spdhpat, Is^chbcdh] of Khorasan, of the house of
Karen, withdrew, and where they reigned for over a hundred years,
thougfi sometimes paying tribute to the caliphs. They remained
faithful to Zoroastrianism, and apparently viewed themselves as
direct successors of Yazdegerd, since the era employed on their
coins seems to have his death as its epoch.
Literature. — G. Bawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy (London,
1876), is inadequate. Fuller but still inadequate use of Oriental sources is
made by Spiegel, Eranische Alterthiimcr, vol. iii. (Leipsic, 1878). The docu
mentary evidence is mostly collected in Noldeke's translation of Tabari
(Geschichte der Perser, &c., Leyclen, 1879). For the relations of the Sas.inians
with Rome, Tillemont. Hist, des Empereurs, and Clinton, Fasti liomani, must
be used, and Saint -Martin's notes to Lebeau, Hist, du Has- Empire (Paris,
1828-36), are still useful. A great deal of serviceable matter is to lie found in
Hoffmann's translation of excerpts from the Syriac Acts of Persian Martyrs
(Syrische Akten Persischer Miirtyrer, Leipsic, 1880). (TIL X.)
PART II — MODERN PERSIA.
SECTION I. — GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS.
Plate LONG prior to the Christian era the satrapies of Cyrus
VIII. comprehended roughly an immense range of territory,
from the Mediterranean to the Indus and from the
Caucasian chain and Jaxartes to the Persian Gulf and
Aiabian Ocean. In the 17th and 18th centuries A.D. the
conquests of 'Abbas and Nadir kept up these boundaries
more or less on the east, but failed to secure them on the
west, and were limited to the Caucasus and Oxus on the
north. Persia of the present day is not only, in the
matter of geographical definition, far from the vast empire
of Sacred Writ and remote history, but it is not even the
less extensive, though very expansive dominion of the
Safawi kings and Nadir Shah. It may be said, however,
to comprise now quite as much settled and consolidated
territory as at any period of its political existence of which
we can speak with the authority of intimate acquaintance.
If it has less extent of land than before its latest disastrous
war with Russia, there is certainly within its recognized
limits less rebellion and more allegiance. And, if the true
interests of Persia, considered as a living power, were only
understood by her kings and ministers, she might reason
ably seek to attain a state of security which would amply
compensate for the loss of precarious and profitless ex
panse.
boundaries. — The region of Ararat presents a good
starting-point for the definition of a western and northern
boundary to the kingdom of Nasru'd-Din Shah. East of
the Greater Ararat a short oblique line from the Arras
to the south-west divides it from Russia. Below this
begins the Perso-Turkish frontier, for the settlement ofTurk<
which a mixed commission was appointed in 1843. The 1>ersi!
outcome of the labours of this commission, which lasted !
more than twenty -five years, has been rather a careful
delineation of the disputed tract than the delimitation of
CQ
GEOGRAPHY.]
PERSIA
617
an exact boundary, while the cession of Kotur to Persia,
though part of the general question, must, if carried out
at all, be looked upon as a separate result, due only to
later diplomacy. The territorial claims of Turkey and
Persia bear chiefly upon Kurdistan and the respective
tribes which inhabit the plains and valleys of that exten
sive mountain region. They are founded upon the treaty
of Sultan Murad IV. with Shah Sufi in 1639, a later
one of Nadir Shah with Sultan Mahmud I. in 1736, and
one more recent still between Fath 'All Shah and Mahmud
II. in 1823, — the last two maintaining the status quo
established by the first. But, when the Anglo-Russian
commission first met, the boundary of possession fell far
short of Turkish pretensions. These would have extended
the pashalik of Baiyazid (Bayazid) in the province of
Arzrum (Erzeroum) to a line including Maku, chief place
in the district, and situated on the bank of the river of
that name.1 Farther south, again, the sultan insisted on
increasing the area of the province of Van by the forcible
annexation of Kotur. Such an act, after the assembly of
a commission for the demarcation of the disputed frontier,
was neither justified by precedent nor could it enhance the
merits of the Turkish claim, and the reason alleged, that
Kotur was essential to the Ottoman Government for stra
tegical reasons — in other words, that it gave the Turk free
access into his neighbour's territory — could scarcely be
taken to account in the estimation of their opponents.
The question was submitted on behalf of Persia to the
Berlin Conference in 1878, and a special Anglo-Russian
commission appointed to consider it in July 1880. The
proposed cession, if accepted, would substitute for the
present curve eastwards a line more direct but with a
westerly inclination, whereby the fort and station of
Kotur become embodied in Persian territory. This
section of frontier is overlooked on the north by the
mountains Bebi Kourgui, Guerdi Beranan, and Khidlir
Baba, passes through Tepe Avristan on the west to the
Turkish road to Kotur, follows this road to the west
for half a mile, and then turns due south between
Mount Kevlik and the river Shiva Resh to the sources
of the latter, whence it zigzags to the eastward to re
join the general boundary -line overlooked by the Kara
Hisar, Mir 'Omar, Guere - Sourava, and Guere - Berian
Mountains. Sir Henry Rawlinson saw difficulty in de
fining a line of frontier from Ararat to Kotur ; for the
country was not only intersected by ranges running in
every possible direction, but it wanted a fixed population,
and was, moreover, liable to the incursions of wild Kurdish
tribes, who would have no respect for boundary-marks.
Below Kotur, and south-west of the important Persian
town of Khoi, the old line of possession inclined consider
ably to the westward, but Turkey claimed a more advan
tageous line running nearly north and south to the passes
between Siik Bulak and Rowandiz, one of which was
crossed in 1875 by Thielmann, who gives an interesting
account of the surrounding country. The plain of Lahijan
on the Persian side — some 20 miles long and 20 miles
broad — he describes to be at an elevation of 5650 feet,
" watered by the two sources of the Little Zab, which,
several miles after their junction, traverses the mountain
range through a deep rent . . . and then flows towards the
Tigris." On the west of this district is the "gigantic
wall of the Zagros Mountains, the frontier-line between
Turkey and Persia." Hence, to the latitude of Sulimaniya,
or for more than 100 miles, the Turks claimed farther than
the ancient limits assigned to them, and sought to include
1 Under the treaty of San Stefano (3d March 1878) the old Perso-
Turkish became the Perso-Russian frontier as far south as to include
the post -road below Baiyazid ; but the territory so taken from the
Turks was restored under the later treaty of Berlin.
within the Ottoman territory the border-fort of Sardasht,
on the left bank of the Aksu.
Continuing the line of disputed frontier to the southward,
the same difficult country still presents itself to perplex
the decisions of commissioners or arbitrators, but from
the" warmly-contested district of ZohAb in the province of
Karmanshah up to Dizful on the Diz river the mountains
may be said generally to indicate Persian and the plains
Turkish territory. Luristan and Khuzistan (with Arabistan)
are the frontier provinces of the shah, and the Hamrin
Hills, with Hawizah, Muhamrah, and the east bank of the
Shattu 'l-'Arab, show the Persian possessions to the head
of the gulf.
The want of a determined line of demarcation between
the two countries for the 700 miles from Ararat to the
Shatt, or outlet into the sea of the waters of the Tigris
and Euphrates, may have political advantages, but is
inconvenient to the geographer and most unfavourable to
the cause of order and good government. Even without
the evidence of open conflict, it may be assumed that there
are few inhabited sections of the strip of disputed frontier
(from 20 to 40 miles in breadth) where mutual ill feeling is
not the rule, and where the Turkish Sunni does not abstain
from friendly association with the Persian Shi'ah. More
recently attempts have been made, and apparently with
success, to reconcile differences by British and Russian
mediation, and a renewal of the days need not be antici
pated when telegraph-posts were torn up or destroyed,
lands laid waste, and villages plundered, owing to the
prevalence of the old spirit of hostility. A fixed boundary
would, however, in a great measure facilitate settlements
of dispute, because it would more clearly make known the
actual transgressors.
From the already-adverted-to point on the Arras east of Russo-
the Greater Ararat the river itself supplies a northern Persian
boundary to Persia up to the fortress of 'Abbasabad, where ,
a cession of strategical works to Russia is noted by a loop
on the southern bank. Thence the line is generally marked
by the bed of the Arras for a distance of about 1 80 miles,
descending as low as 38° 50' N. lat., and rising again to
39° 30' north-east of the steppe of Moghan. An oblique
line running south-east to the Bulgaru Chai makes that
stream the southern boundary for 13 miles to the conflu
ence of the Adina Bazar and Sairkamish, the former of
which then limits the Persian territory on the east. From
the source of the Adina Bazar the crest of the mountains
towering over the more distant Russian ports on the
western shores of the Caspian, and separating the Talish
from the Arsha, marks the division of the two territories
up to the river of Astara, the port of which name completes
the demarcation on the sea-coast. Thus far the result of the
treaty of Turkmanchai, dated 10 [22] February 1828, which
involved Persia in a serious loss. To the southward all
is Persian, and the two large maritime provinces of Gilan
and Mazandaran, both laved by the waters of the Caspian,
represent the northernmost parts of the shah's dominions be
tween the 49th and 54th meridians of E. long. In the south
eastern corner of the Caspian the island of Ashurada in the
Bay of Astrabdd was appropriated by Russia in 1842 as a
convenient post for overawing the Turkmans (Turkomans).
Eastward of the Caspian, from the Hasan Kuli Gulf, North-
the line of Persian territory cannot be indicated with east
absolute certainty, because the Russian maps do not frc
correspond with those prepared by the war department in
England ; and it need hardly be added that the former
give to Russia far more land than do the others. Accord
ing to Colonel Stewart, an officer for some time resident
in the vicinity of the Atak, or skirt of the mountains
fronting the Black Sand Desert, the line follows the Atrak
(Atrek) from its mouth to Shatt, where it leaves the river
XVIII. — 78
line.
618
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
and passes obliquely west of the Simbar to a point within
15 miles of Kizil Arvat,1 and then turns towards the Tekke
range to DarahgAz, which district it includes in an outer
curve, passing on to the Tajand at Sarakhs. The Russian
official map, however, brings the line south and east of
the Simbar, and otherwise impoverishes Persia to the
benefit of her powerful neighbour. But the first article
of the Russo- Persian treaty signed in December 1881 at
Tehran (Teheran) thus describes the situation : —
"From Chat (Shatt?) the frontier-line follows in a north-easterly
direction the ridges of the Songou Dagh and Sagirim ranges, thence
extending northward to the Chandir river, reaching its bed at Cha-
kan Kiila. From this point it runs in a northerly direction to the
mountains dividing the Chandir and Simbar valleys, and extends
along the ridge of these in an easterly direction, descending into the
bed of the Simbar at the spot where the Ak-Agayan stream falls
into it. Hence, eastward, the bed of the Simbar marks the frontier
as far as the ruins of Masjid Damanah, where a local road forms the
boundary to the ridge of the Kopet Dagh, along which the frontier
extends south-eastward, turning south among the mountain heights
which divide the valley of the Simbar from the source of the
Garm;ib. Taking a south-easterly course across the summit of the
Misino and Chubest Mountains, it then strikes the road between
Garmab and Ribat at a distance of less than a mile north of the
latter, and, following a high ridge, proceeds in a north-easterly
direction to the boundaries of Giuk Kaital. Hence, after crossing
the gorge of the river Firuze, it turns south-east till it reaches the
summits of the mountain range, bounding the valley on the south,
through which the road from the Eussian station of Askabad to
Firuze passes, and pursues its course along the crest of these moun
tains to the most easterly part of the range. The frontier-line now
crosses over to the northernmost summit of the Aselm range, whence
it seeks out the junction of the mountains called Ziri Kuh and
Kizil D.igh, extending south-eastward along the summits of the
former until it issues into the valley of the Baba Durmaz stream.
It then takes a northerly direction and reaches the oasis at the
road from Gawars to Lutfabad, leaving the fortress of Baba Durmaz
to the east."
The distance from Baba Durmaz to Sarakhs is about
185 miles, and the intervening boundary is that of the
ataks of DarahgAz and Kelat, both of which districts
belong to Persia. The word " atak," signifying " skirt,"
applies .to the whole hill-country separating Persia from
the Turkman desert, though these mountains and their
passes and valleys are not all within the shah's present
dominion. That they present a formidable barrier and
remarkable geographical features may be inferred from the
ascertained height of the loftier peaks, which, though in
ferior to those situated some 50 miles to the south, can still
boast a figure varying from 5000 to 10,000 feet. In the
Hazar Masjid range is one of 10,500. Adopting Rawlin-
son's divisions and distances, the whole Atak, or " DAman-i-
Kuh," as the Persians call it, is divided into three districts:
the Akhal Atak, extending for 160 miles, from Kizil Arvat
to DarahgAz, the last Turkman camp (obaJi) in which is at
Gawars ; the DarahgAz Atak, 70 miles, to Abiverd ; and
the Kelat Atak, GO miles, to Mehna. Thence to Sarakhs
another 70 miles may be reckoned, to accomplish which
the traveller leaves the mountains on his right and the
wonderful natural fortress of Kelat-i-NAdiri in his rear, to
strike the Tajand at the crossing point between Merv and
Mashhad (Meshed).
The subjection by Russia of the Turkman tribes and
the planting of her standard in the hill-country on the
western side of the Atak have immensely strengthened her
power in the region east of the Caspian. These new Cos
sacks of the Black Sand Desert will be a great acquisition
to her force, though their antecedents denote propensities
rather aggressive than protective. In one respect the
Persians should be gainers by the encroachment. It is
hardly probable that under the new arrangements in the
Atak the north-east frontier of Persia will be so frequently
the scene of plunder and invasion as it has been of old, or
that the marauders will be allowed by the Russian con-
1 Probably a plural or perversion of ribaf, a caravansara.
querors to continue the unchecked exercise of their infamous
profession in KhurAsan (KhorAsan).
Special mention of Sarakhs, the extreme outpost ofSarakt
Persia in the- north-east, appears to be appropriate, both
on account of its geographical position and of its political
importance. This place, situated on the plain of the
same name,2 was fifty years ago a mere outpost of Maz-
duran, the frontier hill-station on the shortest of three roads
(and somewhat more than midway) between Mashhad the
capital of KhurAsan and Sarakhs. It was visited in 1860
by M. de Blocqueville, who found there a recently -con
structed Persian fort, with strong walls and protected by a
ditch. Some of the towers contained as many as ten guns.
He says nothing of the ruins of the old town on the east
of the Tajand, though he forded the river ; but Burnes,
who in 1833 put up in a ruined tomb amid the Turk
man tents or " khargAhs " in that particular locality, had
been equally silent regarding it. The last-named traveller
speaks of the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, of a small
weak fort, and of a few mud-houses only, and states that,
at the third mile after leaving his encampment to enter
Persia, he crossed the Tajand,- — not supposing it, however,
to be the Herat river. Sir Charles Macgregor was at New
Sarakhs in 1879. He describes the fort as immense, — an
irregular polygon, with eleven bastions, and citadel attached.
It had a garrison of some 700 infantry, with a few horse
men, and eleven guns of more or less use. From its walls
he reviewed the surrounding country. On the north
stretched one vast plain almost unbroken by tree, bush,
mound, or undulations, for the bed of the Tajand winding
round to the north-west was too low to be visible. On
the north-east lay the road to Merv stretched out beyond
the dark tamarisk foliage of the river. To the east all
was clear; south-east were undulating rounded ridges
extending towards the MurghAb ; south was Mazduran ;
and north of west was a confused mass of rugged hills in
the direction of Kelat-i-XAdiri. Lastly, we have the testi
mony of Lessar, the Russian engineer, who, visiting the
place in 1882, found it extensively fortified and occupied
by a battalion of Persian infantry ; the armament of the
fortification, however, consisted only of six old guns, which
were never discharged, while the artillerymen were igno
rant of their duties, and neither drilled nor exercised.
Water was supplied from wells inside the walls and by
canal from the Tajand.3
To define the eastern boundary of Persia, the lower Easter
course of the Hari Rud, under its name of Tajand, may be 1>oun(1
accepted generally up to Pul-i-KhAtun, whence to Tuman ar'
Agha the line is continued by the river in its own name.
From this point it runs due south across the mountain
range overtopped by the conical peak of the Sang-i-
Dukhtar, and through the edge of the Salt Desert, leaving
Kuhsan and Zangi Suwar, villages near the Hari Rud, and
the more important Ghurian in Afghan territory.4 Again
crossing the ranges which intersect the desert from the
north-east, the line, inclining somewhat to the west of
south, is continued to ChAh Sagak (the " dog's well "), an
elevated spot on the old caravan route between India and
Persia, as far as which the Afghans have the right of
pasturage. To the westward is the Persian province of
KAiyan. The surrounding country bears the significant
name of Dasht-i-Na-Umaid, or "Waste of Hopelessness."
For 8 miles south-east, 8 miles due east, and 24 miles
south, in all about 40 miles, the line is carried to the
2 West of the Tajand, called by Dr Wolff the " Dariya " (or sea) of
Sarakhs.
3 Other modern travellers have written of Sarakhs, among them an
intelligent Indian, Baud Khan, but they give no information additional
to that of the authorities quoted.
4 When Mr Forster was at Khaf in 1783, Timur Shah, the ruler iu
Afghanistan, had his boundary between that place and Turshiz.
BOUNDARIES.]
PERSIA
Siy;ih Kuli, or " Black Hill," on the border of the district
of Nehbandan. Here begins the line of frontier determined
by the Sistan arbitration of 1872. The British commis
sioner (Sir F. Goldsmid) decided that an oblique line
drawn from the Siyah Kuh to the southern limit of the
reedy marsh called " Naizar," and prolonged to the main
outlet of the Helmand, would fairly separate and dis
tinguish the possessions of the two states respectively in
the north of Sistan. On the east the bed of the Helmand
itself would be the boundary up to Kuhak, where was the
large " band " or dam which diverted the waters of the
river into the more fertile lands to the west. From Kuhak
a line south-west to the Kuh Malik Siyah completed the
delimitation by leaving the two banks of the Helmand in
the hands of the Afghans, and placing a large tract of
partly desert and partly inundated country between the
litigants. Subsequent surveys by Sir Charles Macgregor
have thrown new light upon the large and little-populated
tract to the far south of Sistan, and are suggestive of an
Afghan-Baluch as well as of a Perso-Afghan frontier.
In whatever light it be regarded, the line of Persian
frontier from the Kuh Malik Siyah to the sea rather con
cerns Baluchistan than Afghanistan ; but, though roughly
delineated by St John and Macgregor, it cannot be described
with scientific accuracy until it reaches the district of Jalk,
or after a south-easterly passage of 170 miles through the
deserts of Pir Kaisar and the Mashkel or Mashkid, — names
used as the more likely to identify the region traversed.
From Jalk the Perso-Kelat boundary begins, as determined
by Major-General Goldsmid, the British commissioner in
1871, and verified in the subsequent year by Captain (now
Sir Oliver) St John, R.E. The state of Kelat (Khelat), it
should be explained, is now that of western Baluchistan,
the western half of that country having become annexed to
Persia by a process of gradual encroachment. It was this
action of Persia, and the disquiet and mischief which it occa
sioned in Makran and other parts of Baluch and Brahui
territory, that brought about the British mediation.
From Jalk to the sea is about 150 miles as the crow
flies. By the line laid clown it is very much farther, as
the nature of the country and of the claims of the con
tending parties did not admit of other than a tortuous
course. The small district of Kuhak, lying south-east of
Jalk, should, in a geographical sense, have been included
among the lands on the Persian side, but the evidence of
right and possession was insufficient to warrant its separa
tion from Kelat, and, whatever may have been its subse
quent fate, it Avas not made over to the shah's governors
by the original decision, which was expressed in the
following terms : —
"The territory of Kelat is bounded to the west by the large Persian
district of Dizak, composed of many delis or minor districts, those
on the frontier being Jalk and Kalagan. Below these two last-
named is Kuhak, including Kuuarbasta and Isfandar. This small
district belongs to the Naushirwanis, and, as its chief pays no tribute,
cannot be included among the conquests of Persia. It therefore
remains as a tract of country within the Kelat frontier. Adjoining
Kuhak to the east is the district of Panjgur, with Parum and other
dependencies, which are in the possession of Kelat ; while on the
Persian side Bampusht is the frontier possession. Below Panjgur
the frontier possessions of Kelat to the sea are Bulaida, including
Zamran and other dependencies, Maud, and Dasht. Within the
Persian line of frontier are the villages or tracts belonging to Sarbaz
and Balm Dastiari. The boundary of Dasht is marked by a line
drawn through the Drabol hill, situated between the rivers Balm
and Dasht, to the sea, in the bay of Gwatar."
The boundaries of the frontier districts or village-lands
named are well known, and may be distinguished by
mountains, hills, hillocks, rivers, streams, or cultivation.
In some places desert tracts occur which can offer no in
ducement for encroachment on either side, but through
which a line may at any time be declared, if necessary, both
by geographical computation and the erection of pillars.
The frontiers of Persia on the west, north, and east have Southern
now been described. The southern, or more strictly the coast-
south-western merging into the southern boundary, is the me<
coast-line of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Ocean. This
extends from the Khor Abdullah west to the port of
Gwatar east, and may be held to be comprised between
the meridians 49° and 61° 30' E. long. It will be observed
that the Caspian Sea boundary, on the immediate north
of Persia, is only two-fifths of this extent. On the Persian
shores of the gulf are the ports of Bushahr (Bushire),
Lingah, and Bandar-'Abbas, with the islands of Karag,
Shaikh Sh'ab, Hindarabi, Kais, Kishm, Hangam, Hormuz
(Ormus), and Larak, of which the last four are habitually
held in lease by the imam of Maskat (Muscat). On the
Perso-Baluch coast are the telegraph stations of Jask and
the quasi-ports of Charbar (or Chahbar) and Gwatar. In
some parts of the generally dry and barren coast are
ranges of rugged mountains, sometimes rising to a very
considerable height.
Physical Geography. — Major (now Sir Oliver) St John,
R.E., is perhaps the latest recognized authority on the
physical characteristics of the large extent of country
comprised within the boundaries just described. He has
himself surveyed or travelled over no insignificant portion,
and has carefully studied the labours of his colleagues and
predecessors in a similar field. In the following adapta
tion of that officer's account of its orography and hydro
graphy attention has been given to the results of independ
ent observation, as well as to those theories put forward
by other travellers which seem to merit acceptance.
Persia— that is, modern Persia — occupies the western
and larger half of the great Iranian plateau which, rising to
a height of from 4000 to 8000 feet between the valleys of
the Indus and Tigris, covers in round numbers more than a
million square miles. Taking the Ivuren Dagh and Kopet
Dagh to form the northern scarp of this plateau east of
the Caspian, we find a prolongation of it in the highlands
north of the political frontier on the Arras, and even in
the Caucasus itself. In St John's own words : — " The
Caucasian provinces of Russia are but an excrescence of
the great elevated mass to the south-east ; differing from
it only in characteristics produced by the more bounteous
rainfall which has scooped out the valleys to a greater
depth." On the north-west Persia is united by the high
lands of Armenia to the mountains of Asia Minor ; on the
north-east the Paropanisus and Hindu Kush connect it
with the Himalayas of ancient India. The lines of boundary
on the western and eastern faces are to be traced amid
high ranges of mountains broken here and there by deserts
and valleys. These ranges lie for the most part north
west and south-east, as do those in the interior, with a
marked exception between Tehran (Teheran) and Bujnurd,
and in the more recently acquired territory of Baluchistan,
where they lie rather north-east and south-west, or, in the
latter case, sometimes east and west. The real lowlands
are the tracts near the sea-coast belonging to the forest-
clad provinces of the Caspian in the north and the shores
of the Persian Gulf below Basrah and elsewhere.
With regard to the elevation of the Persian mountains, Moun-
the Russian Caspian survey gives to the highest, Damavand, tains.
18,600 feet, and to Mount Savalan in Adarbaijan (Azer-
bijan) 14,000. St John estimates the Kuh Hazar and
summits of the Jamal Bariz in the province of Karman
(Kirman) at a greater figure than the last, but he believes
the chain of the Kuh Dinar — snow-clad mountains in Fars,
visible from the sea at a distance of 130 miles, and over
ranges known to be 10,000 feet high — to present the highest
continuous range in Persia. To the Kurii range, between
Ispahan and Kashan, he gives an elevation of above 11,000
feet, and notes the absence of prominent spurs in all ranges
620
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
except the Alburz (Elburz), and to a lesser extent in the
Khurasan hills.
riains. The Khuzistan delta is cited as the only plain of extent
and importance at sea-level. In the north-west, that part
of the Moghan steppe which belongs to Persia and the
delta of the Safid Rud are large and fertile tracts. St
John writes : —
" Inland the long and narrow plains between the ridges rise gradu
ally from 1000 feet to eight times that height in the valleys between
the ridges on the east side of the western water-parting, and 4, 5,
and 6000 farther south and east. The plains of Isfahan, Shiraz,
and Persepolis are about 5000 feet ; that of Karmiiu somewhat
higher. The valleys of Adarbaijan present alluvial slopes furrowed
by torrents, and the only extensive tableland in Persia, that of
Sultdniah.
"As they recede from the east and north, the intervals between
the ridges are wider, and the rainfall smaller, till grassy valleys are
replaced by gravelly deserts, which culminate in wastes of shifting
sand. The valley between Abadah and Yazd, a prolongation of the
Zaindarud valley, contains the first of these sandy wastes, which,
under the influence of the strong south-easterly winds, occasionally
invade the neighbouring cultivated tracts. The- original city of
Rhages, south-east of Tehran, is said to have been abandoned on
this account."
River Estimating the extent of Persia proper at 610,000 square
drainage, miles, St John thus distributes the drainage : — (1) into the
Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, 130,000; (2) into the
Caspian and Aral Seas, 100,000 ; (Shinto the Sistan Lake,
40,000 ; (4) into the large lake of Urmiya or Urumiyah,
20,000 ; (5) interior drainage, 320,000. No. (1) comprises
the south-west provinces and the whole of the coast-region
up to the small port of Gwatar in Baluchistan ; (2) relates
to the tracts south, south-west, and south-east of the Cas
pian ; (3) is the tract adjudicated to Persia, including the
HAmun and part of the Helmand basin ; (4) is a compara
tively small area on the western frontier containing the
basin of Lake Urmiya, shut off from the rest of the inland
draining of Persia ; (5) takes in Ispahan, Karman, and
the province of Khurasan, with the Dasht-i-Kavir, or
"Great Salt Desert." He points out that the area draining
into the ocean consists of a long strip nearly parallel to
the Tigris and sea-coast without a single protrusion in
land, but is uncertain whether an outlet exists from the
Bampiir plain in Persian Baluchistan to the sea. A later
traveller, Floyer, mentions the names of two rivers de
bouching on the coast, namely the Sadaich and Gabrig,
which might represent such outlets, but their courses have
not been traced with sufficient completeness to supply a
solution to the problem. If the native evidence taken by
Major Goldsmid at Fanoch in 1866 can be relied on, the
river entering the pass of that name from the highlands of
Bampiir, after undergoing two or three changes of nomen
clature, passes out into the ocean as the KAlig.
Caspian According to St John, a narrow strip of land, not more
basin. than 39 to 50 miles wide, along the southern coast of the
Caspian, drains into that sea. On the west it suddenly
widens out to a depth of 250 miles, meeting the watershed
of the Tigris on the one side and that of the Euphrates
and Lake Van on the other, and embracing between the
two the basin of Lake Urmiya, which forms with the basin
of Lake Van what may be termed the supplementary
plateau of Armenia, differing only from the Persian and
Helmand basins in its superior altitude and smaller area.
On the east the watershed of the Caspian gradually in
creases in breadth, the foot of the scarp extending con
siderably to the north of the south-east angle of that sea,
three degrees east of which it turns to the south-east,
parallel to the axis of the Kuren and Kopet ranges, which, |
as before stated, are a prolongation of the Caucasus. A j
little short of Herat the Caspian water-parting turns east- ;
ward, separating the valleys of the Hari Hud and HAriit
rivers. West of Herat the desert plateau of KhAf divides
the Caspian from the Helmand basin.
The three rivers belonging essentially to Persia, in
reference to the Caspian watershed, are the Kizil Uzain or
Safid Hud on the south-west and the Atrak and Gurgan
at the south-eastern corner of that inland sea. The first
is stated by St John to drain about 25,000 square miles
of country east and south of the Urmiya basin. According
to Colonel Stewart, the Atrak has its source in the HazAr
Masjid range of mountains, a distance, probably, of 250
miles as the crow flies, from the river mouth. The Gurgan
rises to the west of it and passes to the sea south of the
Atrak. Observing that the Taj and, taking a sweep round
Sarakhs, forms a swamp in the Atak about the 58th
meridian, the same authority explains that as far south
as 30° N. lat.—
" the eastern slopes of the ranges which shut off the valley of
the Helmand from the deserts of eastern Persia drain directly
towards the Sistan Lake. South of that parallel the surplus water
flows by several channels in a south-easterly direction, or away from
the lake. About latitude 29°, the water-parting of the Baluchistan
mountain-system, running east and west, changes the direction of
these streams, and collects them into a single channel, which, under
the name of the Mashkul river, bursts through the northern scarp
of the Baluch hills into the Kharan desert. Here it takes a north
westerly course, thus reversing the original direction of its waters,
which are lost in the desert not far from their most northern sources.
It is very probable that these, finding a subterranean channel some
distance farther to the north, aid to fill the Zirreh swamp, the
southern of the three depressions which, united by flood-waters,
form the Hamun or Sistan Lake."
The great central area of Persia, included in the water
sheds he has described, " forms a figure nearly triangular,
with a base running south-west about 1000 miles long,
and nearly equal sides north and east of 700 miles."
St John observes that the streams draining southern Stre-
and western Persia into the sea diminish regularly in im- of v
portance from north-west to south-east. He notes the^
Diyalah and Karkhah flowing into the Tigris from the
mountains of Kurdistan ; the Diz and KArun, which unite
below Shustar (Sinister), and reach the Shattu 'l-'Arab at
Muhamrah ; and the Jarahi and Tab, which with the
KArun form " the delta of Persian Arabistan, the most
extensive and fertile plain in Persia." After these he lays
stress upon the fact that not a single stream unfordable at
all seasons bars the passage of the traveller along the coast
till he reaches the Indus. Those rising amid the high
mountains north of Bushahr and Bandar-'AbbAs are, with
the exception of the Mira, which debouches at 60 miles
below Bushahr, nameless in the most trustworthy maps ;
and in Persian Baluchistan we have the Jagi'n, Gabrig,
Sadaich, RAbij, Kair, and KAju.
The KArun merits especial notice as a navigable river
for small steamers up to within a mile or two of Shustar,
though not favourable to the establishment of a regular
service, owing to the existence of rapids at Ahwaz. By
land there are perhaps somewhat more than 100 miles
from Muhamrah to Shustar ; and Colonel Champain, an
excellent authority, states that from Shustar to Ispahan the
distance is as nearly as possible the same as from ShirAz
to Ispahan, the high road for ordinary travellers passing
to and fro between Tehran and the sea-coast. Little need
be said on the streams having no outlet to the sea, the
water of which is utilized by cultivators both before they
reach the alluvial plain between the ranges and afterwards
in irrigating the banks. Referring to these St John notes
the constant affluents which prevent the rapid exhaustion
of water, and the salt swamps or lakes formed by the
rivers at points far removed from their source. Six of
these inland streams he mentions by name, viz., the Aji
ChAi and Jaghatu, flowing into the salt-lake of Urmiya ;
the Hamadan Rud or KAra Su and the ShurAb, flowing
eastwards to the Salt Desert ; the Zainda Rud, a river of
Ispahan, lost in an unexplored swamp ; and the Kiir or
Bandamir, which forms the salt-lake of Niris. He sees
GEOLOGY.]
PERSIA
621
cause for believing the lakes of Shiraz and Kazrun to be
fed mainly by springs.
St John writes further : —
"It will be readily believed that the rainfall on the Oceanic and
Caspian watersheds is far in excess of that on the interior. Wherever
the water-parting is formed, as it is in most parts, by a lofty moun
tain ridge, it intercepts the moisture-bearing clouds from the sea
which are discharged from its outer slopes. The Alburz chain,
which shuts off the plateau from the Caspian, may be taken as the
typical instance of this. Its northern face is furrowed into deep
valleys by the constant and heavy showers which have clothed them
in forests of almost tropical luxuriance, while the southern generally
presents a single abrupt scarp, rising above long gravel slopes,
unchannelled by anything worthy the name of a river, and bare of
any vegetation rising to the dignity of a tree. At the most moderate
estimate the rainfall of Gilan and Mazandaran may be taken as five
times that of the adjoining districts across the ridges to the south.
"In other parts, however, we find the water-parting consider
ably below the level of the summits farther inland ; and here the
interior has a more plenteous rainfall than the coast. This is par
ticularly the case in south-eastern Persia, where the Khurasan,
Sarhad, and Dizak hills, far exceeding in altitude the ranges to
the south, attract to themselves the major portion of the scanty
supply of moisture borne inland from the sea. Again the rainfall
differs very much in different parts of the country, under apparently
similar conditions as regards mountains and distance from the sea ;
the east and south being far drier than the north and west, while
the dampest parts of the Tigris valley have not half the rainfall
of the southern and south-eastern shores of the Caspian.
"Two palpable causes unite to produce the prevailing winds
throughout Persia and the Persian Gulf. These are, with an extraor
dinary uniformity, north-west or south-east. The first cause is
the position of the Black Sea and Mediterranean on the north-west,
and of the Arabian Sea on the south-east. The second is the bear
ing of the axes of the great mountain chains, which lie mainly in
the same direction, and thus tend to guide the currents of air in a
uniform course. The south-west, moreover, is not felt, except as
moderating the temperature of the Makran coast inside a line from
Ras-al-Hadd, south of Maskat, to Karachi.
"The effect of the sun on the great Iranian plateau is to produce
a heated stratum of air, which, when it rises, is succeeded by a
current from the colder atmospheres above the seas to the south
east or north-west. Naturally the latter is the colder, and there
fore, as might be expected, north-west winds are most prevalent.
But in southern Persia and the gulf it often occurs that the two
currents meet, and that a north-westerly gale is raging at Bushahr
while a south-easter is blowing at Bandar- Abbas. This latter wind
is the rain-bearer throughout the greater part of Persia, the excep
tion being the north-west, where occasional rain-clouds from the
Black Sea and the Caspian find their way across the Kurdish
mountains or the Alburz. It is true that it often rains even on
the gulf during a north-wester, but only when this has followed a
succession of south-easterly gales, the moisture borne by which is
returned from the opposite quarter."
There are no sufficient statistics available accurately to
estimate the rainfall in Persia, but St John, himself a
resident of some years in the country, was of opinion that
in no part of it excepting the watersheds of the Caspian
and Persian Gulf (north of 28° lat.) and their immediate
reverse slopes, with perhaps the Urmiya basin, is there an
average of 10 inches, taking mountain and hill together.
He believed that throughout the greater part of central
and south-eastern Persia and Baluchistan the annual rain
fall could not be much more than five inches, and that,
were it not for the snow stored on the lofty hills, nine-
tenths of the country would be the arid desert which one-
half was found to be when he wrote (1876). Cultivation
is carried on mainly by artificial irrigation, the most
approved arrangement being an underground tunnel called
"kanat," whereby wells are connected and supplies of water
ensured.
One remarkable feature in the plains of Persia which
naturally engaged St John's attention was the salt-swamp
called "kavir." He applied the term to those bogs of
slimy mud found in the lowest depressions of the alluvial
soil, where the supply of water, though constant, was
insufficient to form a lake. In winter they are covered
with brine, and in summer with a thick crust of salt.
The principal kavir is that in Khurdsan, and marked in
the maps as the Great Salt Desert. St John describes
it as " the eastern part of what is probably the most
extensive plain in Persia, that intercepted between the
Alburz and its parallel ridges on the one hand and the
heads of the ranges of the central plateau which run south
east on the other. Westward, it is divided into two
valleys, originating, one in the Sultdniah plateau, and the
other north of and near Hamadan. These are drained by
rivers named respectively the Sliurab and the Kara Sii,
which, with another considerable affluent from Turshiz, on
the east, unite to form the great Jcavir." He was unable
to determine the altitude of this extensive swamp further
than that it might be below the level of the sea, but could
not be much above it.
Other kavirs he finds in the Sarjan or Sayidabad plain
west of Karman and in the neighbouring valley of Kutni.
Among ordinary kavirs, which are "innumerable," he con
siders the largest to be on the south of Khaf, and the best
known that north of Kum.
It is clear, from the description given, that the range of these
particular salt-swamps or kavirs is confined to the actual depres
sion which has been directly affected by the passage of water, and
that the term is not intended to apply to the surrounding wastes.
But it seems to have been otherwise understood by the generality
of travellers, and the better-known writers on Persia have seldom
made the actual distinction here implied. Malcolm in 1800 crossed
a "salt-desert" between Pul-i-Dallak and Hauz-i-Sultan, which,
he says, was called Dariya-i-Kabir, or "the great sea." Morier,
nine years later, calls the place the " swamp of kaveer, . . . part
of the great desert which reaches unto Khurasan, the soil of which
is composed of a mixture (at least equal) of salt and earth." Colonel
Johnson, passing over precisely the same road in 1817, describes it
as leading "over a saline plain, leaving here and there hollows of
considerable magnitude, white with salt ; . . . eastward it stretches
as far as the eye can see, and is said to reach to Mausila, distant 40
miles." The writer would probably have been surprised to learn
that it extended for at least ten times the distance named. He
does not, however, use the word "kavir," which, while duly
recorded as a Persian word in the dictionary, meaning salsuginous
ground, is strangely like the Arabic adjective "kabir," which
Malcolm, as just mentioned, has coupled with "dariya" in his
Sketches of Persia. St John states that in the south the salt-
swamps are called "kafeh."
The last writer asserts that but one European, Dr Biihse, a
Russian, had seen the true kavir, having crossed it in about 34° lat.,
when going from Damghan to Yazd. Sir Charles Macgregor must
have been close upon this traveller's track in 1875, for in the district
of Biabanak (the " little desert "), which he visited, one of the eight
villages, Jandak, is marked in St John's map as an oasis just above
the parallel mentioned. Biabanak is, according to Macgregor, situ
ated "south of the kaveer," but it is joined to Semnan (on the
Tehran-Mashhad highway) by a "regular road" which "crosses a
bit of kaveer of about 80 miles without water."
The drier deserts of Karman and Bampur cannot be
included in the category of swamps ; and the term " lut,"
made use of by the Russian geographer Khanikoff in
reference to the former, whatever its original derivation,
must simply be accepted as the common local expression,
in eastern Persia and western Baluchistan, for a waste
waterless tract.
Geology. — Mr W. T. Blanford has given us an interest- Geology,
ing sketch of the geology of Persia. He found that by
far the greater number of those who had treated the same
subject before him had restricted their inquiries to the
north-western provinces, and that few had penetrated east
of Dam&vand or south of Tehran. Mr Lof tus had imparted
a fair knowledge of western Persia, and Russian and
German explorers had made students tolerably acquainted
with Adarbaijan, Gilan, and Mazandaran. Khurasan and
eastern Persia generally were, however, in a geological
sense unknown, and the south was almost equally a terra
incognita, unless exception were made for certain stray
observations on the shores of the Persian Gulf. The fol
lowing passages are extracted from his paper.
"The most striking circumstance noticed during a journey in
Persia is the great prevalence of formations, such as gravel, sand,
and clay, of apparently recent origin ; the whole of the great plains,
covering at least one-half the surface of the country, consist either
622
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
of a fine, pale - coloured alluvial loam, which covers the lowest
portion of the surface, or of gravel, tine or coarse, which usually
forms a long gentle slope from the surrounding hills to the alluvial
flat, and tills up with long slopes the broad valleys opening into
the larger plains. All these deposits are more conspicuous than
they are in most countries in consequence of the paucity of vegeta
tion and the absence of cultivation throughout the greater part of
the surface. Xor is this prevalence of recent or sub-recent de-
trital accumulations confined to the plains, for the slopes of the
hills up to a considerable elevation are in some cases composed of
similar unconsolidated formations, from which only occasional
peaks of solid rock emerge. This, however, is by no means uni
versally the case, many ranges consisting entirely of rock. Again,
the descent in Baluchistan from the plateau to the sea-coast is over
broad terrace -like flats of gravel and sand, separated from each
other by ranges of hills running parallel to the coast-line.
' ' The mountains and hill-ranges of Persia comprise a consider
able variety of geological formations, a few of which, however,
prevail over large areas of country. So far as our knowledge at
present extends, the great mass of the Zagros chain (the term being
used in the widest sense for the whole mountain-range from Mount
Ararat to Shiraz, together with the numerous parallel minor ranges
north-east of the main chain) consists of cretaceous (hippuritic) and
tertiary formations, the former constituting the north-cast half of
the range and its slope towards the central plain of Persia, whilst
the nummulitic and later formations prevail almost exclusively
on the south-west watershed overlooking the Tigris valley. Older
rocks occur, but they are of subordinate importance, and it appeared
probable, both to Mr Loftus and myself, that part at least of the
altered rocks which form no inconsiderable portion of the range to
the north-east is very probably of cretaceous origin. Old granite
rocks, however, form a great band, extending from Lake Urumiah
to a point nearly due west of Isfahan, and the same crystalline
masses appear in the ranges between Isfahan and Kashan. "
The general direction of the Persian mountains north-west to
south-east has already been noticed. Speaking of these, Blanford
says that, so far as they have been examined, "they have the
same geological features as the Zagros, and consist similarly in the
main of cretaceous and nummulitic rocks, the former prevailing to
the north-east towards the desert, the latter to the south-west near
the sea. Here, again, metamorphic rocks occur, some of them
granite, others but little altered, and closely resembling in facics
the cretaceous beds in their neighbourhood. Volcanic formations
also occupy an extensive area, and whilst some appear of very late
origin, others are possibly contemporaneous with the cretaceous
epoch. "
Of the southern border-land of the Persian plateau he writes —
" Where crossed by Major St John and myself, between Gwddar
and Jalk, it consisted of low ranges running east and west, and,
except near the sea, was almost entirely composed of unfossiliferous
sandstones and shales, associated with a few beds of nummulitic
limestone. So far as could be ascertained, these ranges appear to
belong entirely to the older tertiary epoch. Here and there a few
isolated masses of basaltic igneous rock have been introduced
through the strata, but their occurrence is exceptional. Along the
sea-coast, however, from the frontier of Sind to the Persian Gulf,
and probably throughout a large portion of the north-east shores
of the gulf, a newer series of rocks rests upon the nummulitics.
This newer series is easily recognized by the presence of thick beds
of hardened clay or marl ; it is of great thickness, and abounds in
fossils, a few of which appear to be living forms, whilst others are
extinct. The exact age has not been ascertained ; the mineral
character is very different from that described by Loftus as charac
teristic of the gypseous series, and it is therefore premature to class
these beds of the Persian coast, for which I have proposed the
name of Makran group, more definitely than as newer tertiaries.
It is highly probable that they represent a portion at least of the
gypseous series. Along the coast itself are a few mud-volcanoes."
Remarking that hippuritic limestone had not been noticed on the
eastern frontier,1 he turns to north-western Persia, a region " widely
explored by various Russian and German travellers."
" There would appear, both in Adarbaijan and the Alburz range,
to be a greater development of older Mesozoic and Palaeozoic forma
tions than in any other parts of western or in southern Persia.
From the very brief visits I was enabled to pay to the Alburz and
the small area examined, I can form but an imperfect conception
of the range as a whole, but the impression produced by my visits
is that the geological composition of this mountain-chain presents
a striking contrast to that of all other parts of Persia which I had
previously seen. It appears probable that a very considerable
portion of this range consists of carboniferous and Devonian beds,
and that Jurassic or Liassic rocks are also extensively developed.
The same formations extend to Adarbaijan, but here, as well as in
the eastern parts of the Alburz, cretaceous and nummulitic rocks
are also found. Metamorphics (granite, &c.) exist in several places,
1 It has since been found extensively in southern Afghanistan and
around Kwatta.
whilst volcanic outbursts occupy a considerable area, and the
highest mountain in Persia, Damavand, in the Alburz chain, about
60 miles east-north-east of Tehran, is a volcano which, although
dormant in the historical period, is of recent formation, and still
gives vent to heated gases. The volcanic masses of Ararat, Sahend,
south of Tabriz, ami Savalan are also, in great part at least, of
geologically recent origin."
Jl-incrals, ii-c. — Of the value and extent of minerals in Persia Mint i
much still remains a matter of surmise. Iron and lead are to be &c,
found, copper and coal also, but gold and silver have not yet
become substantial results, and the turqnoise is perhaps the only
product of high price and estimation. This gem, however, is not
readily procurable at Nishapnr, its birthplace, but should rather
be sought for at Tehran or Ispahan, where it comes into the market
with other exotics. The mines are situated at the base of the hill
of Sulaimaniyah, lying north of Zamanabad, a village on the high
road from Mashhad to Tehran. "When the Sistan mission was at
Nishapur in 1872 they were farmed by the Government for 8000
"tumans" per annum, or about £3200 in English money.
In Malcolm's days, though coining was held to be a choice privi
lege of royalty, foreign piastres and ducats were in considerable
vogue. Accounts are kept in "tumans," "krans," and "shahis,"
of which the value of the first has deteriorated to 8s., the second is
barely the French franc, and the third is about a halfpenny. Less
than the last is called "pul-siyah," or black money. The " shahi"
and the "panabat," a silver coin worth about 5d., have for long
been in common circulation. In late years the manufacture of
false money and forging the royal seals had become such common
practices that the old rough hammer-struck coinage was called in,
and medals in gold and silver with milled edges were substituted.
But these also were counterfeited, and a head of police was called
in from Austria to endeavour to check the evil.
The Yazd marble has a watered appearance with yellowish tinge.
A handsome specimen is to be seen in the tomb of Hatiz at Shiraz.
There is a quarry on the road from Yazd to Karman. The petri
factions called Tabriz or Maragha marble are found on the road
between those two places.
Eastwick describes the coal obtained from the pits at Hit, in the
hill-country west of Tehran, as light, brittle, glittering, and with
occasional red stains. There were no large blocks visible.
Though petroleum and naphtha appear indigenous to Persia, and
Floyer visited an oil-spring in Bashakard, the produce of which was
burnt in lamps at Minab near Bandar- Abbas, the produce of the
oil-wells at Baku has found its way to Mashhad, and meets there
with a ready sale. In connexion with this circumstance, Lovett
states that a great number of lamps of the most trumpery German
manufacture are imported into Khurasan and sold at large profits.
Dr Bellew, referring to the twelve divisions of the district of
Nishapur, and to its 1200 villages and hamlets, mentions the report
that it possesses also twelve different mines, yielding turquoise, salt,
lead, copper, antimony, iron, together with marble and soap-stone.
The statement needs, however, verification.
Climate. — The climate of Persia varies much according Clim
to locality. In the Caspian provinces, where rain is fre
quent, it is hot, humid, and unhealthy for the greater part
of the year. In the tablelands it is intensely cold in win
ter, and, though it is hot in summer, its dry clear heat is
temperate in comparison with that of Sind and the Punjab.
The spring and autumn are the best seasons. In the south
and south-west, towards the Persian Gulf and in Baluch
istan, the heat is intense throughout the summer and
often in the spring and autumn. The three regions of
Nearchus and the old travellers — illustrated by parching
heat, sand, and barrenness in the south, a temperate
climate, pastures, and cultivation in the centre, and severe
cold with bare or snow-clad mountains in the north — may
still be accepted as conveying a fairly accurate descrip
tion of the tracts lying generally between Bushahr and
Tehran ; but of course there are seasons and seasons, and
it may be very hot as well as very cold in the north as else
where. In June the traveller, starting from the former place
en route to the capital (Tehran), will for more than 50 miles,
or up to the bridge of Dalaki, experience a fierce heat
during the day, and not always find relief in a cool night.
Reaching the plateau of Kunar Takhtah, 12 miles farther,
at an elevation of 1800 feet, he will not then necessarily
have escaped the influence of hot winds and a thermo
meter ranging to 100°. Some 50 miles farther he will
have felt a most agreeable change at an altitude of 7000
feet ; and in another 24 miles, at Khan-i-Zanian, he will
CLIMATE.]
have had every cause to be grateful for a delightful tem
perature. Shfraz, though some 4750 feet above sea-level,
and in respect of climate so belauded by the native poets,
can be hot enough in the summer, and is subject to
drought, scarcity, and other contingencies of Persia.
Mounsey considers May the finest month, when the plains are
fresh and green, the gardens filled with roses and nightingales, the
cherries ripe, and the green almonds in vogue. Binning, writing
from Ispahan on the 1st of July, had not seen the thermometer higher
than 87° in his room ; in the morning at sunrise it was generally 70°.
Sleeping, as others, on the roof of his house, he described the air
to he very dry, and the nights clear and bright, the little dew which
fell being so pure as to be innocuous. He expected hotter weather
towards the close of the month, but a long autumn would make
amends for a little heat. Many years before Binning, Mr Jukes
had recorded that, from the average of 27 days, including the end
of May and beginning of June, the thermometer at Ispahan at
sunrise was 56°, at 2 P.M. 87°, and at 9 P.M. 67°. Sir John Malcolm
remarked that this city appeared to be placed "in the happiest
temperature " that Persia could boast. Lady Shell, whose experi
ences were chiefly gained in Tehran, limits the "glorious weather
of Persia" from the "Nau-ruz" or New Year (21st March) to the
middle of May ; but most persons would perhaps prefer the autumn
in the highlands of the north, as in many other parts of the
country. September and October are beautiful months. The blue
sky, with its tempering haze, as it were a veil of reflected snow
gathered from the higher peaks and ridges of continuous mountain
chains, is too exquisite a sight to be readily forgotten ; and the
enjoyment is all the more complete when the temperature is that
of October. To those who come from India direct, or to whom an
Indian heat is habitual, the change to Persia is most grateful. In
the late spring, fashion moves out a few miles from Tehran to the
"yalaks of Shamiran," or cooler residences near the hills, and
summer rendezvous of the various foreign legations, returning in
the late autumn to the precincts of the capital, which, it may be
noted, have been considerably extended of late years, and are de
signed for yet further extension. On the 5th of June 1871 the
thermometer in Tehran was at 1 A.M. at 62° and at 2 P.M. at 75°.
On the two following days it was at 6 A.M. at 62° and at 2 P.M. at
80°. In February the traveller across the plains of Sulimaniya, or
approaching the capital from Tabriz, will sometimes experience the
most bitter cold.
Bushahr and the Caspian provinces have already been
mentioned, but the heat of the former place is fairly
shared by other ports on the seaboard to the south, — among
them, Lingah, Bandar-' Abbas, and Charbar. When the
Sistan mission was at Bandar-' Abbas in December 1871,
malarious fevers were prevalent, and enlarged spleen was
a common complaint. The average maximum temperature
was then only 72° and the minimum 52° ; but the summer
and winter heats are in this locality extreme. More than
a month later the officers of the mission slept out on the
desert plains south of Sistan, and woke in the morning to
find their beds and bedding covered with frost and icicles.
it te With reference to the Caspian provinces the consular report
(;- to the English Foreign Office for 1881 is available. Major
°" Lovett, remarking that the "minimum isotherms passing
through the north of continental Europe are deflected con
siderably to the south on approaching the longitude of
the Caspian," calls attention to the fact that, while during
the winter the northern part of that large inland sea is
frozen over, farther south, at only 10° distance, the climate
of Astrabad (if there be no wind from the north and the
sun shine) is like that of Madeira at the same time of the
year. Though the preceding cold season had been un
usually severe, and heavy snow had fallen at Bakii and
lower down, the lowest reading of the thermometer was 25°
Fahr., and the maximum during the months of December,
January, and February was 62 J in the shade.
The following extract from the report is interesting, as
it bears on the products as well as the climate of the north
of Persia.
" It must be remembered, in connexion with the influence the
Caspian Sea has on the climate of its shores, that its surface is 84
feet below the level of the ocean ; and, conseqxiently, the superin
cumbent strata of air being denser than, cseteris paribus, elsewhere,
it is also more capable of absorbing solar heat and moisture than the
air at ocean-level. This partly accounts for the mildness as well
as for the dampness of the climate. I cannot give the amount of
rainfall, having no gauge ; but it rained, during the 245 days of
recorded observations, forty-five times, and the sky was overcast
seventy times besides. This tolerable proportion of rain and cloud
is doubtless due to the action of cold northerly blasts impinging on
the warm and moisture-laden air shrouding the slopes of the Elburz,
and hemmed in, as it were, between them and the icy northern wind.
Currents thereupon are set up from the central region of the southern
shores of the Caspian that blow to the east and to the west. The
central region is a zone of much greater rainfall than the districts
more remote. The westerly current, passing over this province, has
its fertilizing influence expended on reaching the Goklan hills, 100
miles from the sea. The breadth and intensity of this moisture-
bearing current is well marked by the gradually proportionate
dcnseness of the vegetation extending from the sands of the Atrak
steppe to the mountain summits. The action of these damp winds
is distinctly traceable on all portions of the mountain-range exposed
to the sea-breeze, even by the channels afforded by the valleys of
the rivers that debouch on to the Caspian. Such are densely
clothed with forest of a type similar to that found in southerly
temperate climates. The flora is distinctly not tropical. In
addition to the trees already mentioned, I should add that wild
hops and plums are to be found. In the spring the hillsides are
covered with thick excellent pasture. In the gardens and orchards
of Astrabad are to be found vines, fig trees, orange trees, pome
granate, and lemon trees, and the vegetables chiefly cultivated are
melons, pumpkins, marrows, lettuce, aubergines, &c., that form at
their seasons food-staples for the people. Tobacco, used for manu
facturing cigarettes, is also grown here on a small scale.
" The Turkman steppe lying north of Astrabad is, as far as the
Atrak, a prairie of exceeding fertility. Wheat reproduces itself
more than a hundredfold without artificial irrigation or any trouble
beyond sowing."
Soil and Products. — Where there is irrigation the pro
ductiveness of the soil in Persia is remarkable, but un
fortunately there is too much truth in the notion that
two-thirds of the tablelands of the country are sterile
from want of water. The desert is the rule, fertility the
exception, and generally in the form of an oasis. Yet Products,
wheat, barley, and other cereals are grown in great per
fection ; there are the sugar-cane and rice also, especially in
Mazandaran, where the soil is favourable and water pro
curable ; opium, tobacco, and cotton, madder roots, henna,
and other dyes, are as well-known exports as the woollen
goods of Persia ; and the first may become of importance
in its bearing upon the Indian market.1 In Gilan, famous
for its mulberry plantations, silk has been one of the most
valuable of products. Yazd and Mazandaran contribute
also the same material, but of late years the worm has
comparatively failed to do its office, and disease has de
stroyed crop after crop. According to Mr Secretary
Dickson's report of August 1882 the peasants of Gilan had
turned their attention to the cultivation of rice, and, though
a marked improvement was perceptible in the silk produce,
they were not disposed to revert to this branch of culture
on the former large scale. " Silk, once the staple produce
of Persia, upon which it mainly depended for repaying the
cost of its imports, is not likely," he fears, " to resume its
former importance. In its nourishing days about 20,000
bales, or 1,400,000 Ib, representing a value of £700,000,
were annually exported. Xow not more than a fourth of
that quantity can be obtained." Rice was found to suit
the cultivators better ; it gave them less trouble and pro
vided them with an article of daily food. The production
of silk, on the other hand, profited the richer landed pro
prietors, and subjected the cultivators to oppression.
Consul Beresford Lovett, in his report before quoted, says
that at Astrabad the soil is so productive, and subsistence
is practicable on so small a piece of land and with so little
labour and expense, that many very poor emigrants come
1 In 1881 the crop at Karmanshah yielded about 13,500 ft ; Ispa
han claimed to have produced 3000 chests ; in Khurasan it was re
ported that the cultivation of the poppy had increased tenfold, and so
extended was the area that the opium realized was estimated at an
eighth of the whole produce of the province, the yield for 1882 being
reckoned at 33,750 ft. At Yazd it was largely cultivated, at Tehran
to a small extent only.
624
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
there to settle from distant parts of Persia, Afghanistan,
and the Indian border. "Puce," he writes, "is husked
under tilt-hammers worked by a water-wheel apparatus, a
rude and clumsy contrivance, but strong, simple, and
cheap. Corn and barley are ground by water-mills of
primitive construction ; the best wheat -flour produced is
inferior to English ' middlings.' They are careless as to
the use of rusty corn ; the effect of eating bread made
with flour containing any of the noxious element is to
render those unused to it very giddy."
Sir John Malcolm considered the shores of the Persian
Gulf to be sandy and unproductive in comparison with the
rich clayey soil on those of the Caspian. Yet at Bushahr,
and elsewhere on the lowlands of the southern border,
patches of luxuriant vegetation may be found and a soil
producing wheat and barley.
Wiaes. Vines are abundant, and the Persian grapes are not only
of a good flavour and kind, but the wines made from them
by the Jews and Armenians have more than a mere local
reputation. That of Shiraz is the most universally known
and celebrated ; but a description of port manufactured at
Ispahan is equally palatable and less astringent. It might
not, however, bear the vicissitudes of export. A light
wine made at Hamadan, diluted with water, is found very
drinkable by European visitors and residents. Other
cities in Persia could be cited where the juice of the grape
is turned to similar account. Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin,
who explored the southern shores of the Caspian in 1771,
observed that the wines of Gilan and Mazandaran were
all made from the wild grape only.
Forests. Flora. — Eastwick refers to the trees in the low country
of Gilan as "part of that great forest which extends some
400 miles from Astarabad to Talish." No longer do the
sparse olive and occasional plantation of fruit-trees here
meet the eye of the traveller descending from the Persian
plateau, but his path will be through dense thickets of
"jangal," amid which the birch and the box and many
familiar friends are recognized. There is an oak-forest
in the vicinity of Shiraz, but no part of the country is so
thickly wooded as the tract south of the Caspian. For the
greater part of the province of Astrabad, Lovett surmises
that nine-tenths of the surface is covered with forest. He
excepts the pasture-lands of Shah Kuh, a high mountain-
range between Shah Riid and the sea. The trees are
mostly deciduous. He had counted forty different kinds,
including shrubs, but was unable to identify all. There
were the oak, beech, elm, walnut, plane, sycamore, ash,
yew, box, and juniper, but no pine, fir, or cedar, — though
these last were said to exist in the dense forests of Fin-
derisk, and on the slopes of the Goklan Hills to the east
ward. He applies to the oak, beech, and elm used in
building the native names of "mazu," "niis/'and "azad."
Fruits. Fruits and flowers are abundant, and are fully appre
ciated in Persia. Poets sing of them, and prince and
peasant delight in them. Of fruits the variety is great,
and the quality, though not always the best, is in some
cases unrivalled. There is perhaps no melon in the world
superior to that of Nusrabad, a village between Kashan
and Kum. It were easier to name the few English fruits
— such as the gooseberry, strawberry, raspberry, currant,
and medlar — that are seldom, if at all seen, than the
many that are commonly enjoyed by Persians. Apples
and pears, filberts and walnuts, musk-melons and water
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines, — all these are
to be had in profusion and so cheap as to be within reach
of the poorest inhabitant.
Flowers. Among the flowers are roses of many kinds, the mari
gold, chrysanthemum, hollyhock, narcissus, tulip, tube
rose, convolvulus, aster, wallflower, dahlia, white lily
(much valued), hyacinth, violet, larkspur, pink, and many
ornaments of the European parterre. Of the roses, Lady
Sheil observes that they are so profuse during the sprin^
at Tehran that some are cultivated in fields as an object
of trade to make rosewater. The double-coloured orange
rose at Nishapur is exceptionally attractive and fragrant.
As with fruits and flowers, so also with vegetables for Vege
the table. If the parsnip be excepted, which is probably kbit
not found because not wanted, all those commonly used
in England are to be had in Persia.
Fauna. — Mr W. T. Blanford has described with great care
and minuteness the zoology of Persia. In company with
Major St John, R.E., he made a large collection of the verte
brate fauna in a journey from Gwatar to Tehran in 1872.
Having added to this a previous collection made by the
same officer with the assistance of a native from Calcutta,
he had before him the principal materials for his work.
Before commencing his analysis he adverted to his prede
cessors in the same field, i.e., Gmelin (whose travels were
published in 1774-84), Olivier (1807), Pallas (1811),
Menetries/(1832), Belanger (1834), Eichwald (1834-41),
Aucher Eloy (1851), Loftus, Count Keyserling, Kok-
schy, Chesney, the Hon. C. Murray, De Filippi (1865),
Hume (1873), and Professor Strauch of St Petersburg.
All of these had, more or less, contributed something to
the knowledge of the subject, whether as writers or
as collectors, or in both capacities, and to all the due
meed of credit was assigned. Blanford divided Persia into
five zoological provinces : ( 1 ) the Persian plateau, or from Zool
the Kopet Dagh southwards to nearly 28° N". lat., includ- c^ I
ing all Khurdsan to the Perso-Afghan border, its western vme
limit being indicated by a long line to the north-west from
near Shiraz, taking in the whole upper country to the
Russian frontier and the Alburz ; (2) the provinces south
and south-west of the Caspian; (3) a narrow strip of wooded
country south-west of the Zagros range, from the Diyah
river in Turkish Arabia to Shiraz ; (4) the Persian side of
the Shattu 'l-'Arab, and Khuzistan, east of the Tigris ; and
(5) the shores of the Persian Gulf and Baluchistan. The
fauna of the Persian plateau he described as " Paleearctic,
with a great prevalence of desert forms ; or, perhaps more
correctly, as being of the desert type with Palaearctic
species in the more fertile regions." In the Caspian pro
vinces he found the fauna, on the whole, Palasarctic also,
" most of the animals being identical with those of south
eastern Europe." But some were essentially indigenous,
and he observed " a singular character given to the faima
by the presence of certain Eastern forms, unknown in other
parts of Persia, such as the tiger, a remarkable deer of the
Indo-Malayan group, allied to Germs axis, and a pit viper
(Haiys)." Including the oak-forests of Shiraz with the
wooded slopes of the Zagros, he found in his third division
that, however little known was the tract, it appeared to
contain, like the second, " a Palaearctic fauna with a few
peculiar species." As to Persian Mesopotamia, he con
sidered its fauna to belong to the same Palaaarctic region
as Syria, but could scarcely speak with confidence on its
characteristic forms. The fifth and last division, Baluch
istan and the shores of the Persian Gulf, presented,
however, in the animals common to the Persian highlands
"for the most part desert types, whilst the characteristic
Pakearctic species almost entirely disappear, their place
being taken by Indian or Indo- African forms." Blan
ford adds : " Just as the fauna of the Persian plateau has
been briefly characterized as of the desert type with a
large admixture of Palaearctic forms, that of Baluchistan
and the shores of the Persian Gulf may be described as
being desert with a small admixture of Indian species."
Irrespective of scientific classification and detail, it may be Doi 1
stated that among the tame animals of Persia the horse, anil '
mule, and camel occupy an important position, and, jointly
COMMERCE, ETC.]
PERSIA
625
perhaps with oxen (used for tilling purposes), are first and
foremost in usefulness to man. The Persian -Gulf Arab,
though not equal to the pure Arabian, is a very serviceable
animal, and has always a value in the Indian market.
Among others, the Kashgais, or those wandering semi-
Turkish tribes brought down from Turkestan to the neigh
bourhood of Shiraz, have the credit of possessing good
steeds. The Turkman horse of Khurasan and the Atak
is a large, bony, and clumsy -looking quadruped, with
marvellous power and endurance. Colonel C. E. Stewart
speaks of a "splendid breed of camels" in the north
eastern district, of which lladkan, a small town of 4000
inhabitants with a deputy-governor, is the capital. He
also states that the Khurasan camel is celebrated for its
size and strength, that it has very long hair, and bears
cold and exposure far better than the ordinary Arabian or
Persian camel, and that, while the ordinary Persian camel
only carries a load of some 320 ft) and an Indian camel one
of some 400 ft), the Khurasan camel will carry from 600
to 700 Ib. The best animals, he notes, are across between
the Bactrian or two -humped and the Arabian or one-
humped camel. Sheep, goats, dogs, and cats are good of
their kind ; but not all the last are the beautiful creatures
which, bearing the name of the country, have arrived at
such distinction in Europe. Nor are these to be obtained,
as supposed, at Angora in Asia Minor. Lake Van or Ispa
han is a more likely habitat. The cat at the first place,
called by the Turks "Van kedisi," has a certain local
reputation.
Among the wild animals are the lion, tiger, leopard,
lynx, wolf, jackal, fox, hare, wild ass, wild sheep, wild cat,
mountain-goat, gazelle, and deer. The tiger is peculiar to
the Caspian provinces. Lovett says they are plentiful in
Astrabad ; " they do not attack men, but hardly a week
passes but some cow belonging to this town is reported to
have fallen a victim to the tiger's rapacity." He measured
two specimens, one 10 feet 8 inches, the other 8 feet 10
inches from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail.
Lynxes and bears were to be found in the same vicinity,
and the wild pig was both numerous and destructive.
Poultry is good and plentiful, and the game birds, if
not of many varieties, have admirable representatives in
the " durraj " (black partridge) and the three kinds of
partridge called respectively the "kabk," "kabk darah,"
and "tihu." The "hubara," a kind of bustard, is well
known to the sportsman in northern India.
Commerce, &c. — The most direct and accurate information obtain-
able in England on the trade of Persia must be looked for in the
reports of the secretary of H. M. Legation at Tehran, the resident
at Bushahr (Bushire), and the consul-general at Tabriz.
Mr Secretary Dickson's report of the 30th August 1882 is hopeful
as to the general prospects of trade and improvement of the condition
of the people. There had been a good harvest ; but money was scarce
at the capital, cash sales were difficult operations, and considerable
failures had occurred to render the native bankers cautious. Man
chester goods, however, still sold well at Ispahan and elsewhere.
The comparative failure of silk had given an impetus to the culti
vation of opium, the greater part of which, when prepared for the
market, was shipped to China. Carpets had found new favour in
Europe, and the value of those exported was estimated at ten times
the amount of former days. But a fear was expressed that the
introduction of European designs and dimensions, and deterioration
in quality of the articles supplied, would eventually prove prejudicial
to the trade.
The larger traffic in opium effected both in 1880 and immediately
preceding years is remarkable, and will be seen in the following
table —
Year.
Xmnber
of Cases.
Value in
Rupees.
Year.
Number
of Cases.
Value iu
Rupees.
1871-72
870
69fi,000
1876-77
2570
2,313,000
1872-73
1400
1,120,000
1877-78
4730
4,730,000
1873-74
2000
1,600,000
1878-79
5900
5,900,000
1874-75
2030
1,625,000
1879-80
6100
6,100,000
1875-76
1890
1,701,000
1880-81
7700
8,470,000
Persian opium was, it appears, first exported from Ispahan in
1853. Since that period it has been grown in several parts of the
country. The destination is usually China. In 1879, for instance,
eighteen steamers took 4971 \ chests from Bushahr, of which all
but 236 — for London — were for Hong-Kong. Except in Ispahan,
there is every probability of extended cultivation, and that the
production will increase to an appreciable degree year by year.
In the statement of a private firm, quoted by Mr Baring in his
report from Tehran in September 1881, is the following passage: —
" The Persian drug has already succeeded in throwing out Turkish
sorts from the China market, and, with due abstinence from adul
teration, it can at any moment command a large outlet in Europe,
America, and in the Dutch colonies." Mr Baring himself says:
" Whether the Persian opium trade in its present conditions con
stitutes a danger to the Indian revenue is, of course, a question
to which I can furnish no reply. It depends upon circumstances
respecting which I have no information. As matters at present
stand, we have a trade that has been increasing steadily for several
years past, and which the majority of persons think will continue
to increase. The cultivation pays, and the limit of land and labour
has not yet been reached. There are so many reasons, in fact,
why it should extend, so few why it should fall off."
Carriageable roads were still a desideratum, and the want of these Commu-
obstructed the development of trade. On the other hand, it was nication.
remarked that a fair road had been constructed between Kazvin and
Tehran, a supply of carriages and carts had been obtained from
Russia, and postal stations had been built at regular distances of
12 miles from each other. In the capital also the streets had been
put into repair, and the palace, square, and main streets lit with gas ;
and there was a greater number of private carriages. A concession
had been granted for a railway from Rasht to Tehran ; Mr Dickson,
while approving of this line as a step in the right direction, was
very strongly in favour of another to join Tehran to Baghdad. A
branch from Karmanshah or Hamadan to Shustar or Di/.ful, whence
goods could be exported by the Karun, would, he argued, give Persia
an independent outlet for her commerce ; but he doubted whether
Baghdad, with its prestige and advantages of climate, would not
be accepted as the main commercial entrepot. The navigability of
the Karun river has been already noticed.
The Bushahr reports on the trade of the Persian Gulf for 1880 Imports
show that, as regards southern Persia, the year was unfavourable and
from a commercial point of view. Large imports from India served exports,
to avert famine ; but the seed so provided for 1881 was not at hand
in time to allow full advantage being taken of an unusually good
rainfall in autumn and winter. Increased imports in sugar from
France and Java, the introduction of tea from Japan, and a
decrease in exports of cotton and other ordinary produce owing to
drought were all noticed.
The table showing the total estimated value of imports into
Bushahr during the year 1882 gives a total of 10,188,980 rupees,
— say something less than £1,000,000. Of this about four-ninths
are from England and more than a third is from India. Of the
exports, amounting to 6,566,220 rupees, — say £650,000 — more
than two-fifths are for China, not a fifth is for England, and more
than a fifth is for India. The most valuable items of import are
the piece-goods and brass, — the last from England and India only ;
and of export, opium, of which just three-fourths go to China, and
wheat, of which more than two-thirds go to England.
As regards the trade of Lingah, the year 1882 showed a decrease.
The total value of imports \vas 6,922,000 rupees, of which pearls
formed the largest portion. These were brought chiefly from
Bahrain and the Arab coast, but some from the Persian Gulf and
Makran and Aden. Rice, almost wholly from India, was the next
most valuable item. The total value of exports was 5,999,945
rupees. In this also pearls formed by far the largest item. Next
in value mother-of-pearl shells exemplified a traffic almost entirely
carried on with England.
From Gez on the Caspian, Consul Lovett gives to the exports of
1881 a value of £86,280. These consisted of silk, cotton, wools,
furs and skins, dried fruits, rice, corn, and miscellaneous articles.
Silk represented nearly the half, and furs and skins nearly a quarter
of the total figure. The imports he valued at £287,640, of which
the amount for piece goods was entered at £256,000. The remain
ing articles specified were sugar, tea, iron, copper, steel, crockery,
hardware, and brass utensils.
Manufactures, &c. — The handbook on Persian art published by Manu-
Colonel Murdoch Smith, R.E., in 1876, with reference to the collection factures.
purchased and sent home by him for the South Kensington Museum,
has an instructive account of the more common manufactures of the
country. They are classified under the respective heads of " porcelain
and earthenware," "tiles," "arms and armour," "textile fabrics,"
" needlework and embroidery," "metal-work," "wood carving and
mosaic-painting," " manuscripts," "enamel," "jewelry," and " musical
instruments." Specimens of the greater number are not only to
be procured in England, but are almost familiar to the ordinary
Londoner. It need scarcely be said that the tiles have rather in
creased in value than deteriorated in the eyes of the connoisseur,
that the ornamentation of metal- work, wood carving and inlaying,
XVIII. — 79
626
P E R S I A
[GEOGRAPHY.
gem and seal engraving, are exquisite of their kind, and that the
Carpets, carpets manufactured by the "ustads" or skilled workmen of local
repute, when left to themselves and their native patterns, are to a
great extent unrivalled. One shown to Colonel Goldsmid at Karnian,
under preparation for the tomb of Shah Niy'amat Ullali, situated
at the neighbouring village of Mahun, would have been greatly
prized in Europe. In company with Murdoch Smith that officer
visited the carpet manufactories of the city in 1865. Of this in
teresting branch of Persian art Smith writes : — "Carpets are now
made in many parts of Persia, but chiefly in Kurdistan, Khurasan,
Feraghan (in Irak), and Karman ; each of these districts producing a
distinctive kind both in texture and style. The finest are unques
tionably those of Kurdistan, of which good specimens exist in the
museum. The pattern does not represent flowers, bouquets, or
other objects thrown up in relief from a uniform ground, like so
many of the inappropriate designs of Europe, but looks more like a
layer of flowers strewn on the ground, or a field of wild flowers in
spring ; a much more suitable style of ornament for a fabric jncant
to lie under foot. The borders are always well marked and usually
of brighter colours than the centre. Besides the ordinary ' kali,'
or pile carpet, others, called 'do-ru,' very thin and smooth and alike
on both sides, are made in Kurdistan, of which there is a specimen
in the museum. These 'do-ru,' from their portability, are much
used in travelling for spreading by the roadside during the halts
for pipes and tea. The carpets of Feraghan resemble those of
Kurdistan in style, although the texture is looser and the pattern
simpler. They are consequently much cheaper and in more general
use. . . . The Khurasan carpets are somewhat superior in texture
to those of Feraghan, but the patterns are generally more realistic ;
the flowers, &c., being represented as standing out of the ground.
There is a fine Khurasan carpet in the museum made by the Kurdish
settlers on the Turkman frontier. Karman carpets are the next
in value to those of Kurdistan, but the designs are usually still
more realistic than those of Khurasan. Besides flowers, figures of
men and animals are not uncommon." Referring to the Turkman
carpet he says: "The texture is very good and the pile is pecu
liarly velvety to the touch. The design, however, is crude, and
the colours although rich are few in number. Still it is astonishing
to think that, such as they are, these carpets are woven in the tents
of a wild nomadic race like the Turkmans. Of late years there has
been unfortunately a slight importation from Europe into Persia
both of colours and designs which are far from being an improve
ment. The carpets of every description are made without even the
simplest machinery, the loom being simply a frame on which the
. warp is stretched. The woof consists of snort threads woven into
the warp with the fingers without a shuttle. When a row of the
woof is thus completed, a sort of comb is inserted into the warp
and pressed or hammered against the loose row of woof until it is
sufficiently tightened to the rest of the web. The pile is formed
by merely clipping the ends of the woof until an even surface is
obtained. The weaver sits with the reverse side of the web towards
him, so that he depends solely on his memory for the formation of
the pattern. . . .
"Felts or namads are made in many parts of Persia, but chiefly
at Ispahan and Yazd. The material consists of all kinds of wool
mixed together, that of the camel predominating. The colour is
generally brown, but the surface on one side, and sometimes on
both, is ornamented with geometric and other designs in different
colours which are inlaid (so to speak) in the namad, and not
simply stamped on the surface.
Shawls. "The shawls of Karnian are not much inferior to those of Kash
mir. They are woven by hand similarly to the carpets. The
material called 'kurk' of which the shawls are made is the
under wool of a particular kind of white goat : numerous flocks of
this animal are in the neighbourhood of Karman. Like the merino
sheep in Spain, these flocks migrate annually according to the
season, in which respect they are like almost all the flocks and
herds of Persia. I therefore made enquiries at Karman why the
'kurk '-producing goats were only to be found in that neighbour
hood, and was informed that in that district the rapid descent from
the high plateau of Persia to the plains near the sea afforded the
means of keeping the flocks throughout the year in an almost even
temperature and in abundant pastures, with a much shorter dis
tance between the summer and winter quarters than in other parts
of Persia, and that such an even climate without long distances to
traverse in the course of migration was necessary to the delicate
constitution of the animal, or rather to the softness of its wool.
The whole of the 'kurk' is not made use of in the looms of
Karman, a large quantity being annually exported to Amritsar in
upper India, where it is manufactured into false Kashmir shawls.
Besides the ordinary long shawls of which men's and women's
tunics are made, others of a single colour are made at Karman,
which are afterwards richly ornamented with needlework. Of these
there are in the museum several specimens, in which the softness of
the shawl and the richness of the embroidery are both to be admired.
Shawls of a coarser kind are also made at Yazd, of which a speci
men mav be seen in the museum in a pair of door curtains."
Political Divisions. — According to the latest information obtained,
or up to 1884, the 36th year of the reign of Ntisru 'd-Din Shah,
Persia is found to be portioned out into four large divisions and six
smaller governments, of which governors-general or governors are
appointed by the king. The four divisions are: — (1) Adarbaijan
(Azcrbijan) in the west ; (2) the North Central Districts ; (3)
Khurasan in the east, including Si'.stan ; (4) Southern Persia, or
from the Shattu 'l-'Arab to the Mashkid. The minor governments
are : — (5) Astra-bad, (6) Mazandaran, (7) Gflan, (£) Khamsah with
Zanjiin, (9) Kazvin, (10) Gerrus.
Adarbaijan, the ancient Atropatene, is under the " wali-'ahd," or Adar-
heir-apparent, Muzaffaru'd-Din Mirza, second son of the shah, who baijan.
resides at Tabriz, and appoints governors to the several districts
within his range. Among the more important of these are Ardabil,
Sarab, and Khalkhal towards the Caspian, Maku, Khoi, and Urumiya
in the west, Maragha in the centre, and Solduz, Saujbulak, and
Sain Kalah in the south. Adarbaijan is about 250 miles in length
from the Little Ararat to Sardasht, and the same distance in
breadth from Kotur to the Talish. It is separated from Armenia
in the north by the Arras, which rises in the mountains to the
westward, and from 'Irak in the south by the Kizil Uzain, which,
after a long winding course from Kurdistan, and union with
other streams, empties itself into the Caspian under the name of
Safid Paid. On the west it is enclosed by the Kurdish mountains,
and to a great extent on the east by those overlooking the Caspian
shores. It is a land of mountains, ravines, plains, and plateaus.
Lake tJrumiya, about 75 miles in length by an average breadth
of 30, is one of its most remarkable geographical features. In parts
it is fertile, and produces wheat, barley, and maize, also cotton
and tobacco. Markham says that its villages "are embosomed in
orchards and gardens, which yield delicious fruits," and that its
most picturesque and flourishing portion is around the towns of
Urumiya (west of the lake) and Khoi. Tabriz, the capital, has
long been the most populous city of Persia. The other chief towns
of the province are Ardabil, tJrumiya, Khoi, and Maragha.
The North Central Districts is a name given to the country under North
the immediate supervision of the naibu 's-sultanah, or " deputy of Centr:
the kingdom," the shah's third son, who appoints governors to Distri
Tehran and Firuzkuh in the north, to Zarand, Sawah, Kum, Kashan,
and Natanz, south of Tehran, and to Mahahit, Sultanabad in 'Irak,
Malaiyir, Nahawand, Hamadan, and Tusirkan, west of Kum and
Kashan. The places named will serve to indicate the range of this
division, one of some 150 miles in length, but of very irregular
breadth. There are included in it remarkable centres of popu
lation, besides Tehran. Kum is held in high repute as a sacred
city, second in importance to Mashhad only. It contains the
tomb of Futima, the sister, or, as some affirm, the daughter of the
imam Riga, and the bones of thousands of Muhammadans, bequeathed
to its honoured soil by the affection or superstition of sorrowing
friends and relatives. It is a large, straggling, ill -kept, semi-
ruined, uninviting place, relieved by patches of a new and well-
built bazaar. The many domes of Kum recall it readily to memory,
but they are more characteristic than striking. Kashan has not
much more attraction as a residence, but is held in good estimation
for its silks, and is deservedly famous, above all towns in Persia, for
its tiles and potteries.
The large province of Khurasan is perhaps not less than 500 Khui
miles in length from the Perso-Turkman frontier to the southern asan.
limit of Persian Sistan. In breadth it is irregular, but from Pul-i-
Khatun or the Lady's Bridge on the Tajand to Pul-i-Abrishm or
the Bridge of Silk on the Kal Mura — a fair limitation for Khurasan
proper, exclusive of Sistan — it is about 260 miles. The mountainous
character of its northern frontier has been noticed in the descrip
tion of the general boundaries of Persia. It is, however, worthy of
remark that the supposed connexion of the Alburz range and that
of the Parapanisus does not prevent an easy passage into Herat
by the valley of the Hari Hud. The mention of rivers east and
west of Khurasan must not lead to the inference that the water-
supply is abundant; one, the Tajand, has to fertilize the desert
tracts of the Persian Atak ; at the other, the Kal Mura, the bridge
is often useless, owing to the dryness of the river-bed. Central
and southern Khurasan are more or less a vast desert with kavirs.
Parts of Kaiyan and Sistan on the Afghan border are fertile, though
barren mountains and desert plains abound in the former, and the
second has no lack of waste, notwithstanding the proximity of the
Helmand.
The principal city in Khurasan proper is Mashhad, the capital,
which may be said to contain, without contradiction, the most
venerated and popular shrine in the whole of Persia, that of the
eighth imam, Kiza. A pilgrimage to this spot has, owing to its
convenient site, become a duty more essential if not more important
than one to Karbala in Turkish Arabia, or even to Mecca and Medina ;
and the thousands who year by year win the privilege of becoming
" Mashhadis " testify to the value set upon it. Mashhad, built on
the perpetual Persian plain, and admirably situated as to roads of
traffic with Bukhara (Bokhara), Khiva, Herat, and Kandahar, has
little in its general exterior, except the imam's golden dome, to dis-
POPULATION.]
PERSIA
tinguish it from other cities in the shah's territory ; but it can boast
also the tomb of the famous Harun al-Rashid and of Gauhar Shah
Agha, the favourite wife of Shah Rukh ; and its canal and quays
merit at least a passing remark from their rarity. It is divided
into two towns, the sacred and the secular, each of which has its
distinct governor — the first called the "mutawali," the second being
also governor of the whole province of Khurasan, and often a prince
of the blood-royal. After Mashhad, among the chief towns of
Khurasan are Nishapur and Sabzawar on the highroad to Tehran,
the first an ancient city within walls, the second notable for its
surrounding cultivation ; Bujiiurd on the north, which in Burnes's
time was " a rather large place standing in a spacious valley " ;
Turbat-i-Haidari, the chief town of a populous district with ten
viflages, visited by Conolly in 1830, by Goldsmid in 1872, and by
Stewart in 1880 ; Sultanabad, capital of the Turshiz district (in
which there is no specific " Turshiz "), called by Colonel Stewart
" a small and flourishing town of some 5000 inhabitants " ; Kaiyan,
surrounded by a wall (of irregular outline), which goes outside all
the houses, and encloses besides a space — quite equal to that occupied
by the houses — taken up with cultivation and gardens. Thus it is,"
he adds, " that Tun may be said to be a town 4 miles in circum
ference, though, if only the space occupied by houses was calculated,
it would dwindle to one-eighth of this. There are no buildings of
any note in the place, but a few mosques and colleges are to be
found, while most of the better houses, of which there is a total of
about 1500, have badgirs." l Coupled with Tiin is Tabas, to which
the same writer gives no importance ; then come Birjand, pictur
esque and clean, with a better class of mud buildings, well situated
at the foot of hills, and having rather high mountains to the west
ward, the modern capital of the Kaiyan district ; and finally, Sikuha,
the true but somewhat insignificant chief town of Sistan, here chosen
in preference to Nasrabad, its military headquarters. Mr Rozario,
medical attache to the mission of 1872, described Sikuha as "com
posed of 200 arch-roofed mud-built houses, connected with each
other without any kind of woodwork about them," the land wanting
in rice and timber, but producing wheat, barley, beans, and cotton
in abundance.
S.thern The fourth, Southern Persia, is a very extensive division, em-
Fsia. bracing not only the whole seaboard between 48° and 61° 30' E.
long, but a great part of the country as far north as 32° 40', the
parallel of Ispahan. Nothing could better illustrate the arbitrary
and uncertain mode of parcelling out a kingdom than the separa
tion of natural and the combination of abnormal elements of union
to be found in this vast territory entrusted to the charge of the
"zil-i-sultan," or "shadow of the monarch," the title given to the
shah's eldest son. That such an arrangement can work at all is
one of many strange truths which are intelligible only to persons
acquainted with the centralizing power exercised in Tehran. General
Schindler, an officer of great local knowledge and experience, has
guaranteed the correctness of the statement that the prince-gover
nor or govern or -general of Southern Persia — residing himself at
Slurdz "(or at Ispahan) — appoints governors to the following
places : — Kurdistan, Karmanshah, Luristan, Burujird, Dizful,
Shustar, Muhamrah, Behbahan, and Ram Hormuz in the west ;
the tracts occupied by the Bakhtiaris, Gulpaigan, Khonsar, Fari-
dun, Chahar Mahal, Yazd (with Nain, Baft, and Shahr-i-Babek) ;
Fars (with Fasa, Darab, Lar, Parum, and Kazarun) in the centre ;
Bushahr and Lingah on the coast ; and Karman (with Bam, Bam-
pur, Rafsinjan, Khabis, Sirjan, Jiruft, and Rudbar) to the east.
Among the more prominent cities or towns within this range are :
— Ispahan, a fine city, still worthy from its site, buildings, gar
dens, river, and surroundings to be the royal residence ; Shiraz,
happily situated with pleasant neighbouring resorts and the ordi
nary requirements of a first-class Persian town, — possessing, more
over, a special national prestige for high and low, yet not a genial
residence for strangers, who can accomplish its lions in a couple
of days ; Yazd, a large and fairly populated city, with one remark
able mosque and a handsome new bazaar, but somewhat gloomy in
character and drearily situated on a flat plain in an amphitheatre
of hills ; Karman, a place of pleasant recollection to those English
travellers who experienced the genuine kindness and hospitality
of the wakilu '1-mulk, Muhammad Ismail Khan, its governor in
1865-66, and not wanting in material attractions of its own ; lastly,
Bam and Bampur, visited by Lieutenant Pottinger in 1810, more
than half a century afterwards by Colonel Goldsmid, and later still
by Majors St John and Lovett, — the one a frontier town with
associations of border warfare, the other a mere Perso-Baluch
cantonment with a fort and mud buildings, long the residence of
Ibrahim Khan, a chief of notoriety serving the interests of Persia.
Muhamrah, Bushahr, Lingah, and Bandar-' Abbas are ports, but
there is no real harbour between Fao at the mouth of the Shattu
T- Arab and Karachi (Kurrachee) in British India,
1 Literally "wind-catchers," — towers erected on the roofs of houses for pur
poses of ventilation.
Astrabad is a town and district near the entrance of the bay of Minor
the same name on the Caspian. In 1884 it was governed by govern-
Habib Ullah Khan, the "sa'idu '1-daulah," or "arm of the state." ments.
Mazandaran and Gilan are the Caspian provinces, par excellence,
of Persia. General Schindler makes them distinct governments,
but they appear to have once formed part of the northern division
under the prince-governor.
Kharnsah, a district on the high road between Tabriz and Tehran,
of which the chief town, Zaiijan, is a place of some importance.
The governor's name in 1884 was Nasr Kiili Khan, the " 'amidu
'1-mulk," or "prop of the kingdom."
Kazvin, a considerable town, with surrounding district, in the
plains south of the Alburz, and not a hundred miles from Tehran,
was governed in 1884 by Mirza Riza, the "mu'ayinu '1-sultanah,"
or " helper of the kingdom."
Gerrus is a district on the south of Khamsah.
Population. — Although the present section deals with statistics
only, the following well-considered remarks of Mr Robert Grant
Watson, formerly a secretary in the Persian legation, form an
appropriate preface to the record of population.
" Persia is peopled by men of various races. A very great pro- Races,
portion of the population is composed of wandering tribes, that is,
of a large number of families who pass a portion of the year on
the hills. It is in this sense only that they can be considered
wanderers. They invariably occupy the same pasture-grounds one
year after another. Their chiefs are possessed of great authority
over the tribesmen, and all dealings between the Government and
the tribes are carried on through the heads of these divisions.
Through the chief the taxes, whether in money or in kind, are
paid, and through him the regiments which his tribe may furnish
are recruited. The office of chief is hereditary. The tents in
which the tribesmen dwell are for the most part composed of a
light framework of the shape of a beehive. This is covered with a
coating of reeds, and above it is placed a thick black felt. It has
but one door, and no window or chimney. This is the Turkman
tent, which is used by the Shahsavand and other tribes, but the
Iliyats in central Persia make use of tents of another construction,
with flat or slightly-sloping roofs.
" The provinces near the Persian Gulf contain many Arabs and
men of Arab extraction. Such are for the most part the inhabitants
of Laristan and of the country lying to the left of the Shattu'1-Arab
and of the lower part of the Tigris. The Bakhtiari mountains,
between the valley of the lower Tigris and the plain of Ispahan,
are the dwelling-place of tribes of another race, and of whom and
their country very little is known. The mountains of Kurdistan
give birth to a warlike people, who are attached to their own tribe-
chiefs, and who never go far from the borders of Turkey and of
Persia, sometimes proclaiming themselves subjects to the Porte,
and sometimes owning allegiance to the Shah. At the foot of one
part of these mountains, on the borders of the lake of Urumia,
there is a plain on which dwell many Christian families who hold
the tenets of Kestorius. At Ispahan, at Tehran, at Tabriz, and
in other parts of Persia, there is a more or less considerable popu
lation of Armenians. At Hamadan, at Ispahan, at Tehran, at
Mashhad, at the town of Damavand, and elsewhere in Persia, Jews
are found in considerable numbers. The province of Gilan is in
habited by a race of men peculiar to itself, the descendants of
the ancient Gels. The people of Mazandaran speak, as do the
Gileks, a dialect of their own. The province of Astrabad is partly
inhabited by Turkmans ; and in the districts claimed by Persia,
which border on Afghanistan and Baluchistan, the Afghan and
Baluch elements are prominent in the population. At Karman a
few Hindus reside, and at Yazd there are about 2000 families of
the original fire-worshippers of Iran.2 But the two principal races
to be met with in Persia are the Turks and the Persians or Mongols.
The former are, as a general rule, spread over the northern pro
vinces ; the latter over the southern. The Persians of Mongol extrac
tion for the most part speak only the Persian language, while those
of Turkish race speak the Turkish language in preference to Persian.
"The inhabitants of Persia may be divided into two classes, —
those who inhabit the towns and villages, and those who dwell
exclusively in tents. The former class remain stationary during
the greater part of the year, the richer orders only leaving the towns
for two months during the summer heats, when it is possible to
obtain cool air in the hills or upper grounds close by. The tribes
who dwell in tents move from place to place with the varying
seasons of the year. In the springtime they drive their flocks and
herds to their accustomed pasture-grounds, and if they have a right
to the pasture of mountains which are inaccessible in spring, they
move up to their summer quarters as soon as the snow disappears.
Winter finds them on the plains, , prepared, in their black tents, to
brave its utmost rigour. These Iliyat tribes serve each a separate
chief., For the Iliyats of Fars there is a hereditary chief called
the Ilkham, to whom they all owe allegiance ; from whom they
receive the laws that rule their conduct ; and to whom they pay
the revenue imposed upon them. They contribute a certain number
- Since greatly reduced in numbers.
628
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
of soldiers to the Shah's army. Very little is known as to the
numbers and the peculiarities of, these nomads. The Iliyat tribes
of Turkish descent have an Ilkhani appointed by the Shah.
Besides these tribes there are wanderers who are less numerous,
and who occupy a less prominent position, — the gipsies common to
so many countries."
It is difficult to form an estimate of the population of Persian
towns or districts. In the first place, opinion is divided upon the
approximate figure to be accepted for the kingdom at large. Accord
ing to St John, the discrepancy is between ten and four millions ;
and if the smaller one were made a basis there would be but a scanty
number indeed for partition among the cities and principal centres.
The famine of 1870 was, moreover, severe and fatal enough to cause
a considerable diminution in the totals calculated prior to its occur
rence. When returning through Mashhad in the spring of 1872
the British commissioner for the Sistan boundary settlement was
informed that no less than 100,000 persons had been carried off
within the limits of the prince -governor's rule, of whom 24,000
•were from the city itself, where, exclusive of passing pilgrims,
reckoned by thousands, a population of 70,000 might well be sup
posed. In Yazd and Ispahan the losses were also very great, and
must have sensibly afiecte I the figures.
Statistics The official estimate for 1881 is recorded as follows : — inhabitants
ofpopu- of cities, 1,963,800; wandering tribes, 1,909,800; inhabitants of
lotion, villages and country, 3,780,000; total, 7,653,600. It is probable
that 8,000,000 would be a fair estimate in round numbers ; and
this should include the comparatively new accessions of territory
in Sistan and western Baluchistan.
The population of certain cities may be recorded as follows.
Those figures marked with an asterisk are from the official returns
given in the Statesman's Year Book for 1884. Tehran, *100, 000 ;
Astrabad (city), 8000 — in the province, 26,000 (Lovett, 1881);
Tabriz, *120,000 ; Urumiya, *40,000 ; Hamadan, *30,000 ; Kar-
manshah, 25,000 ; Rasht, 20,000 ; Kazvin, 25,000 ; Zanjan or
Zanjanah, 20,000 (Eastwick, 1860) ; Kum, 20,000 (Euan Smith said
in 1871 that out of 20,000 houses which it originally possessed only
4000 were then habitable) ; Ispahan, 60,000; ShMz,*30,000; Bush-
ahr, 11,000; Yazd, *40,000 ; Karman, 40,000 ; Birjand, 12,000 (Sis-
tan mission, 1872) ; Ardakan (Khurasan desert), 20,000 (Colonel
Stewart, 1880) ; Bam, 600C (Goldsmid, 1866-72).
With regard to three interesting places in eastern Persia visited
by Macgregor in 1875, this active explorer gives no clue to the
population of Tabas, beyond the fact that it is a wall-enclosed town
about half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth, with an " ark "
or citadel, but no bazaars ; of Tun, his 1500 "better houses" may
imply about 6000 well-to-do people only ; and Bashruyah, between
Tabas and Tun, he calls a village of some 600 houses, equivalent
to a population of between 3000 and 4000.
Admiuis- Government. — The shah is regarded as vicegerent of the Prophet,
tration. and, as such, claims implicit obedience so long as his commands
do not go against the Koran and the sacred law. The executive
government is carried on by a ministry of which the personnel is
subject to constant change, and the distribution of duties depends
much upon the standing in royal favour of individual ministers.
It may be said, as a rule, that those who fill the more important
functions and do the most real work are better known by their
family names than the official titles accorded them. The some
what common prefix "mirza" is usually taken by high function
aries of state, — a word which invariably denotes a member of the
royal house when used as an affix.1
The division of the country for administrative purposes has been
mentioned above, p. 626. Provinces are further subdivided into
districts under "hakims," or chiefs, who collect the revenue as
well as exercise a general superintendence. In villages the "kat-
khuda," or magistrate, administers justice.
Of the Armenians under Persian rule there are said to be 43,000,
chiefly in Julfa near Ispahan, and of Nestorians and Chaldseans
23,000, chiefly in Urumiya and Salmas. There are probably 70,000
Christians of every denomination. The number of Jews given is
19,000, and of Gabars (Guebres) or Parsis 8000. Perhaps the Nes-
torians have been under-estimated ; but the Parsis have greatly dim
inished in recent years. However tolerant the declared principles
of the Government towards aliens in religion, there is no doubt that
much could yet be done to improve the condition of the shah's non-
Moslem subjects in respect of taxation, civil and social rights, and
general treatment by local authorities. Efforts on behalf of the
Nestorians have from time to time been made in late years, with
the support of the British Government, and special agents have
been deputed to tJrumiya to report upon supposed grievances
1 In 1884 the following were among the more prominent ministers : —
War. — Xaibu "s-Saltanah. Kamran Mirza.
Interior an/1 Finance.— Mustoffu '1-Manuilik, Mirza Yusuf KMn.
Foreign A fairs. — Xasru '1-Mulk, Mirza Malmn'ul Khdn.
Justice.— Mushira 'd-Daulah, Mirza Alxlul Waliab.
Worship aiid Telegraphs.— Makhbaru 'd-Daulah, 'Ah' Kulf Khan.
Of these, Mirza Mahmikl Khan, the "na.sru '1-mulk," had been minister in
London. His predecessor in the cabinet had been always known as simply
Mirza Sa'id Khan.
with a view to their alleviation or removal. The temporary
appointment of a Christian governor was an indication of the
shah's good wishes, but can hardly be said to have attained the
desired end. It is just possible that the desire awakened in
England in the second half of the 19th century to know more of
the Eastern churches may result in the exercise of a beneficial
influence over the fortunes of a people who have suffered various
forms of oppression for iive centuries or more. See NESTOUIANS,
vol. xvii. p. 357 sq., where statistics, &c. , are given.
Army. — Military service is not popular, and could not be pro- Army,
vided for at all but by compulsory enrolment. Pay is nlways kept
in arrears, generally for two or three years ; and, when issued, it
is reduced from its legitimate amount by the exactions of distri
buting officers, from the "sarhang," or lieutenant-colonel, down
wards. The native officers are, as a rule, incapable and ignorant
of military affairs ; and the European drill-instructors, whatever
their local rank, have no actual command in the native army. The
common "sarbaz," or Persian infantry soldier, might with good
officers and good training be made very efficient. In the perform
ances of his long marches — 24 or even 40 miles a day — he has very
often a companion, his donkey, without which adjunct no picture
of a Persian infantry soldier would be complete. Setting such aid
aside, the marching and endurance of the sarbaz are wonderful,
and, though better food might in some respects improve hisphysique,
his frugality is such as to account in some measure for his bodily
strength. If wanting in the discipline that is considered in England
essential to the well-being of the service, the fault is that of his
superiors, by whom he is ill -commanded, ill -taught, and ever
accursed with an evil example. In fact, the moral value of the
soldier deteriorates as the social grade rises. It is much the same
in Turkey, where the state of things is perhaps Oriental rather
than national. The post of " wakil," or non-commissioned officer,
becomes thus the first step to demoralization. Above this person
is the "naib," or lieutenant, corresponding to the Turkish
"muldzim"; then comes the "sultan," or captain, the Turkish
"yuzbashi " ; " yawar," or major, the Turkish " binbashi " ; " sar-
hang," or lieutenant-colonel, the Turkish " kaim. - makam " ; and
the "sartip," or colonel, the Turkish "mir-alai"; such are roughly
the respective grades which represent the commissioned ranks.
The most business-like cavalry the present writer can recall in
the shah's dominions were the stray horsemen met with in the
Karman province. Their dress, brown from top to toe, with the
Kvp(3acria of Herodotus and the carbine slung over the back, ap
peared simple and soldier-like ; and nothing but hereditary aptitude
could make the horseman so fitted to the horse. Both in 1866 and
in 1871 the governor of Bampi'ir, in Baluchistan, had good stuff to
discipline into irregular cavalry in his mounted Baluchi's as well
as Persians ; and the same remark applies to the Persian governor
of Sistan in 1872. The "istikbal," or motley troop of cavaliers,
sent out to meet the writer by either chief, presented a singular
specimen of rough but sufficiently formidable-looking satellites —
men who had, clearly, fighting propensities, and might be moulded,
without much effort, into very serviceable soldiers. Colonel (now
Sir Charles) Macgregor found the few irregular cavalry incidentally
brought under his observation in Khurasan very fairly mounted
in a working sense. Over the saddle and behind it they teemed
to carry all that belonged to them. With less than £2 a year in
pay, over and above a grain allowance, he says truly of these cava
liers, that, "if not the best light horsemen in the world, they are
the very cheapest." At Mashhad he saw several Persian regiments
encamped outside the city. They were composed of men generally
of fine physique, hardy and muscular ; but their small pny of seven
" tumans " (not £2, 16s.) per annum was seldom realized up to
half the amount, and they hail to subsist chiefly on their rations.
Their uniform consisted of a black lamb's-wool busby, with a lion
and sun in brass on the front, a dark-blue tunic, on the European
model, with white bands across the breast, blue trousers with red
stripe, and shoes (if they like to wear them). They had "clumsy
percussion, smooth-bore muskets and bayonets, with locks of
French manufacture " ; but they did not clean them, and it was
probable that more than half were unfit for actual use. The
artillery he states to be probably the most efficient branch of the.
service, not smart, but rough and ready.
Although there were no English officers employed in training
the Persian troops during any of the present writer's visits to
Tehran, there were two Englishmen connected with the arsenal to
whom the local Government was indebted for useful service. The
chief control of the arsenal, however, and indeed the direction of
the whole Persian artillery, was in the hands of an Armenian ; the
two principal drill -instructors were Italians, a Florentine and a
Neapolitan ; while that vital part of the public works department
comprising roads and bridges was under an Austrian officer hold
ing the rank of general. There were, besides, two or three other
Europeans holding quasi-military posts.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was for five years in the shah's army,
believes that, " if the Persian material were placed at the disposal
of a European power who would encourage and take care of the
KATIONAL CHARACTER. 1
PERSIA
629
Uional
aracter
men, and develop their military instincts, a fine working army,
very superior to anything that Turkey could produce, might be
obtained in a very short period of time."
It is difficult to rely on statistics in the present case, but the
following are found in the latest and most trustworthy records.1
" The Persian army, according to official returns of the minister
of war, numbers 105,500 men, of whom 5000 form the artillery,'
53,900 the infantry, 31,000 the cavalry, regular and irregular, and
7200 militia. Of these troops, however, only one-third are em
ployed in active service, the standing army of Persia consisting,
on the peace footing, of a total of 30,000 men. By a decree of the
Shah, issued in July 1875, it was ordered that the army should
for the future be raised by conscription, instead of by irregular
levies, and that a term of service of twelve years should be substi
tuted for the old system, under which the mass of the soldiers were
retained for life ; but the decree has not been enforced to any ex
tent. The organization of the army is by provinces, tribes, and dis
tricts. A province furnishes several regiments ; a tribe gives one,
and sometimes two, and a district contributes one battalion to the
army. The commanding officers are almost invariably selected
from the chiefs of the tribe or district from which the regiment is
raised. The Christians, Jews, and Guebres in Persia are exempt
from all military service. In recent years the army has been
under the training and organization of European officers."
Revenue. — According to the Statesman's Year Book for 1884 the
revenue and expenditure of the Government are known only from
estimates. If we accept these as based on consular reports, the
total receipts of the Government amounted, on the average of the
years 1872 to 1875, to £1,900,000 per annum, while the expendi
ture during the same period was at the rate of £1,756,000 per
annum. The receipts of the year 1882 amounted to £1,600,000 in
money, besides £280,000 in kind, consisting of barley, wheat, rice,
and silk, making the total revenue equal to £1,880,000; and of
this sum £1,520,000 came from direct taxes and £353,600 from
customs. The expenditure amounted to £1,800,000, of which
£760,000 was for the army ; £360,000 for the regal court ; the priest
hood, &c., £240,000; foreign affairs, £28,000; other departments,
£60,000; education, £12,000. The surplus is paid into the shah's
treasury. About one-fourth of the receipts are constituted by pay
ments in kind, mostly reserved for the use of the army and the shah's
own household. The whole revenue is raised by assessments upon
towns, villages, and districts, each of which has to contribute a
fixed sum, the amount of which is changed from time to time by
tax - assessors appointed by the Government. Almost the entire
burthen of taxation falls upon the labouring classes, and among
these upon the Muhammadan subjects of the shah. The amount
of revenue collected from the Christian population, the Jews, and
the Gabars is reported to be very small. The Government has no
public debt. The Almanack de Gotha adds to the above items of
expenditure in 1882 the sum of £80,000 for the priesthood, &c.
In 1868 the revenue demanded from each province, under the
divisions then made, was : — Adarbaijan, £248,000 ; Gilan, £176,000 ;
Ispahan, £168,000; Fars, £152,000; Khurasan, &c., £88,000;
Arabistan, £86,000 ; Tehran, &c., £84,000 ; Karman, £84,000 ;
Karmanshah, &c., £80,000 ; Khamsah, £72,000; Yazd, £68,000;
Mazandaran, £44,000 ; Kazvin, £28,000 ; Kashan, £28,000 ; Biirii-
jird, £24,000 ; Gulpaigan, £24,000 ; Kurdistan, £20,000 ; Ramadan,
£12,000; Astrabad, £10,000; Kum, £6000; total, £1,502,000.
The customs were £214,664, and the value of income received in
kind was £220,336,— making a total revenue of £1,937,000, or
something less than two millions.
A prince-royal appointed to a province is often little more than
a nominal ruler. On the other hand, some governors, such as
Muhammad Isma'il Khan, the late wakilu '1-mulk of Karman,
attend to even the minute details of administration, and pay
especial attention to the collection of revenue. It is not always
an easy matter to pay into the royal treasury the sum insisted on,
or even voluntarily offered for the government of a province.
National Character. — Malcolm's Sketches and Morier's Ilajji
. Baba are still, after more than half a century, unsuperseded as
standard records of accurate information on the manners and
customs of an Oriental people. A clever volume2 published in
1883, which is also worth quoting, contains, among many other
faithful delineations, the following.
' ' The character of the Persian is that of an easy-going man with
a wish to make things pleasant generally. He is hospitable,
obliging, and specially well disposed to the foreigner. His home
virtues are many : he is very kind and indulgent to his children,
and, as a son, his respect for both parents is excessive, developed
in a greater degree to his father, in whose presence he will rarely
sit, and whom he is in the habit of addressing and speaking of as
' master. ' The full stream of his love and reverence is reserved for
his mother ; he never leaves her to starve, and her wishes are laws
to him. The mother is always the most important member of the
household, and the grandmother is treated with veneration. The
1 Statesman's Year Bonk, 1884, pp. 790, 797.
2 Wills, In the Land of the Lion and Sun, 1SS3.
presence of the mother-in-law is coveted by their sons-in-law, who
look on them as the guardians of the virtue of their wives. The
paternal uncle is a much nearer tie than with us ; while men look
on their first cousins on the father's side as their most natural
wives.
" Black slaves and men-nurses or ' lallaks ' are much respected ;
the ' dyah ' or wet nurse is looked on as a second mother and usu
ally provided for for life. Persians are very kind to their servants ;
a master will often be addressed by his servant as his father, and the
servant will protect his master's property as he would his own. A
servant is invariably spoken to as ' bacha ' (child). The servants
expect that their master will never allow them to be wronged.
The slaves in Persia have a good time ; well fed, well clothed,
treated as spoiled children, given the lightest work, and often
given in marriage to a favourite son or taken as 'segah' or con
cubine by the master himself, slaves have the certainty of a well-
cared-for old age. They are looked on as confidential servants, are
entrusted with large sums of money, and the conduct of the most
important affairs ; and seldom abuse their trust. The greatest
punishment to an untrustworthy slave is to give him his liberty
and let him earn his living. They vary in colour and value : the
' Habshi ' or Abyssinian is the most valued ; the Suhali or Somali,
next in blackness, is next in price ; the Bombassi, or coal-black
negro of the interior, being of much less price, and usually only
used as a cook. The prices of slaves in Shiraz are, a good Habshi
girl of twelve to fourteen £40, a good Somali same age, half as
much ; while a Bombassi is to be got for £14, being chosen merely
for physical strength. They are never sold, save on importation,
though at times they are given away. ... I have never seen a
Persian unkind to his own horse or his slave, and when overtaken
by poverty he will first sell his shirt, then his slave.
"In commercial morality, a Persian merchant will compare not
unfavourably with the European generally. ... To the poor,
Persians are unostentatiously generous ; most of the rich have
regular pensioners, old servants, or poor relations who live on their
bounty ; and though there are no workhouses, there are in ordinary
times no deaths from starvation ; and charity, though not organized,
is general. . . . Procrastination is the attribute of all Persians,
' to-morrow ' being ever the answer to any proposition, and the
' to-morrow ' means indefinite delay. A great dislike is shown gener
ally to a written contract binding the parties to a fixed date ; and,
as a rule, on breaking it the Persian always appeals for and expects
delay and indefinite days of grace. . . .
"Persians are clean in their persons, washing themselves and
their garments frequently. The Persian always makes the best of
his appearance ; he is very neat in his dress, and is particular as
to the sit of his hat and the cut of his coat. All Persians are fond
of animals, and do not treat them badly when their own property.
" Cruelty is not a Persian vice ; torture and punishments of an
unusual and painful nature being part of their judicial system.
There are no vindictive punishments, such as a solitary confinement,
penal servitude for long terms of years, &c. Seldom, indeed, is
a man imprisoned more than twelve months, the rule being that
there is a general jail delivery at the ISTew Year. Royal clemency
is frequently shown, often, perhaps, with want of judgment."
The close adherence to ceremony and etiquette, the ready
adaptation to foreign habits, together with the capacity for using
and love of receiving the grossest forms of flattery — which in the
days of Herodotus were found to be notable features of the national
character — are still to be seen in the 19th century.
Morier, in his Second Journey through Persia, relates how on
arrival at Bombay his fellow-traveller, the Persian ambassador,
returning from a mission to the court of St James's, would not call
at Government House until the governor had visited him, on the
plea that, when in London, the chairman and deputy-chairman,
whom he styled the father and grandfather, of the East India
Company, as well as the "viziers" and "grand vizier" himself
(Mr Spencer Perceval), had made the first call upon him, — clothed,
moreover, in the very dress they had worn before their own sove
reign ! The present writer, when discussing the necessary conduct
of British diplomatists accredited to Persia, said : 3 " In some courts
. . . there is a meaning in ridiculous minutiae, the comprehension
of which is of vital importance to the envoy and the cause he
advocates. ... A chair pushed one inch or two forward or back
ward, so as to transgress the border of a particular carpet marked
for its limit, may cause serious offence ; a cup of tea, or a tobacco
pipe missing from the conventional number offered to a guest, may
awake hostile feelings, there may be hidden mischief in a misapplied
word of welcome or farewell, in a clumsy gesture, in a new-fashioned
article of wearing apparel. Trifles could hardly go further in the
way of puerility ; but it is a part of common-sense diplomacy to
acknowledge with gravity things which are to all seeming the
most opposed to common-sense."
Forms of compliment and adulation are in such constant requisi
tion with him that a Persian is never at fault to find occasion for
their use. If the following example be too characteristic to be
s Lecture at the Royal United Service Institution, 26th May 1870.
630
PERSIA
[GEOGRAPHY.
admitted, be it understood that it indicates a grosser kind of pro
cedure than that which, at the present day, is known to the higher
classes. It is a common custom on the arrival at the gate of a
town of a distinguished traveller for some duly appointed official
to strike off the head of a sheep, and roll it, with the blood drip
ping, across the path of the new-comer. Morier gives a revolting
illustration of the length to which this ceremony was carried on
the arrival of the shah at the halting -place of Morchikar. The
head man of the village went so far as to strip his own son naked
from the waist upwards, and, having tied the lad's hands behind
his back, to lift his knife as though to cut the victim's throat. The
conclusion of the story is not told ; but it is to be hoped that the
shah exercised his prerogative of preventing any evil results.
Costume, Costume. — The costume 1 of the Persians may be shortly described
as fitted to their active habits. The men invariably wear an un
starched shirt of cotton, sewn with white silk, often, particularly
in the south of Persia, elaborately embroidered about the neck.
It fastens in front by a flap, having two small buttons or knots at
the left shoulder, and seldom comes below the hips. It has no
collar, and the sleeves are loose. The lower orders often have it
dyed blue ; but the servant and upper classes always prefer a white
shirt. Silk shirts are now seldom seen on men. Among the very
religious during the mourning month (" Muharram ") the shirt is
at times dyed black. The "zfr -jamah," or trousers, are of cloth
among the higher classes, particularly those of the military order,
who affect a garment of a tightness approaching that worn by
Europeans. The ordinary " zfr- jamah " are of white, blue, or red
cotton, very loose, and are exactly similar to the " pai-jamahs " worn
by Europeans in India. They arc held up by a thin cord of red or
green silk or cotton round the waist, and the labouring classes,
when engaged in heavy or dirty work, or when running, generally
tuck the end of these garments under the cord, which leaves their
legs bare and free to the middle of the thigh. The amplitude of
this part of his attire enables the Persian to sit without discomfort
on his heels ; chairs are only used by the rich, great, or Europeanized.
Over the shirt and "zir-janiah" comes the "arkhalik," generally
of quilted chintz or print, a closely-fitting garment, collarless, with
tight sleeves to the elbow, whence, to the wrist, are a number
of little metal buttons, fastened in winter, but not in summer.
Above this is the "kamarchin," a tunic of coloured calico, cloth,
Kashmir or Karnian shawl, silk, satin, or velvet (gold embroidered,
or otherwise), according to the time of year and the purse and
position of the wearer. This, like the " arkhalik," is open in front,
and shows the shirt. It sometimes has a small standing collar,
and is double-breasted. It has a pocket-hole on either side, giving
access to the pockets which are always in the "arkhalik," where
also is the breast-pocket in which watch, money, jewels, and seals
are kept. The length of the "kamarchin" denotes the class of
the wearer. The military and official classes and the various
servants wear it short, to the knee, while fops and sharpers wear
it even shorter. Priests, merchants, villagers, especially about
Shiraz, townsmen, shopkeepers, doctors, and lawyers wear it very
long, often nearly to the heels. Over the " kamarchin " is worn
the " kulajah," or coat. This is, as a rule, cast off in summer, save
on formal occasions, and is often borne by a servant, or carried over
the shoulder by the owner. It is of cloth, shawl, or camel-hair
cloth and is lined with silk or cloth, flannel or fur. It has, like
the Turkish frockcoat, a very loose sleeve, with many plaits behind.
It has lapels, as with us, and is trimmed with gold lace, shawl, or
fur, or is worn quite plain. It has a roll collar and false pockets.
Besides these garments there are others : the long "jubba," or
cloth cloak, worn by"mirzas" (secretaries), Government employes
of high rank, as ministers, farmers of taxes, courtiers, physicians,
priests ; the "abba," or camel-hair cloak of the Arab, worn by tra
vellers, priests, and horsemen ; the "pustin," or Afghan skin-cloak,
used by travellers and the sick or aged ; the "nimtan," or common
sheepskin jacket, with short sleeves, used by shopkeepers and the
lower class of servants, grooms, &c., in winter ; the "yapanjah,"
or woollen Kurdish cloak, a kind of felt, having a shaggy side, of
immense thickness, worn generally by shepherds, who use it as
greatcoat, bed, and bedding. There is also the felt coat of the
villager, very warm and inexpensive, the cost being from 5 to 15
krans (a kran = 1-Od. ). The " kamarband," or girdle, is also charac
teristic of class. It is made of muslin, shawl, or cotton cloth among
the priests, merchants, bazaar people, the secretary class, and the
more aged Government employes. In it are carried, by literati and
merchants, the pen -case and a roll of paper ; its voluminous folds
are used as pockets ; by the bazaar people and villagers, porters
and merchants' servants, a small sheath knife is stuck in it ; while
by "farrashes," the carpet - spreader class, a large "khanjar," or
curved dagger, with a heavy ivory handle, is carried. The headgear
is very distinctive. The turban worn by priests is generally white,
consisting of many yards of muslin. When the wearers are " saiyid "
of the Prophet, a green turban is worn, also a "kamarband" of green
muslin, or shawl or cotton cloth. Merchants generally wear a turban
of muslin embroidered in colours, or of a yellow pattern on straw-
1 Dr. Wills's instructive volume again supplies this information.
coloured muslin, or of calico, or shawl. The distinctive mark of
the courtier, military, and upper servant class is the belt, generally
of black varnished leather with a brass clasp ; princes and courtiers
often replace this clasp by a huge round ornament of cut stones.
The "kuhih," or hat, is of cloth or sheepskin on a frame of paste
board. The fashions in hats change yearly. The Ispahan mer
chant and the Armenian at times wear the hat very tall. (The
waist of the Persian is generally small, and he is very proud of his
fine tigure and broad shoulders.)
The hair is generally shaved at the crown, or the entire head is
shaved, a "kakul," or long thin lock, being sometimes left, often
2 feet long, from the middle of the crown. This is to enable the
prophet Muhammad to draw up the believer into paradise. The
lower orders generally have the hair over the temporal bone long,
and brought in two long locks turning backwards behind the ear,
termed "zulf"; the beaux and youths are constantly twisting
and combing these. The rest of the head is shaven. Long hair,
however, is going out of fashion in Persia, and the more civilized
affect the cropped hair worn by Europeans, and even have a part
ing in it. The chin is never shaved, save by " beauty men," or
"kashangs," though often clipped, while the moustache is usually
left long. At forty a man generally lets his beard grow its full
length, and cherishes it much ; part of a Persian's religious exercises
is the combing of his beard. Socks, knitted principally at Ispahan,
are worn ; they are only about 2 inches long in the leg. The rich,
however, wear them longer. They are of white cotton in summer
and coloured worsted in winter. Villagers only wear socks on state
occasions. Shoes are of many patterns. The "urussi," or Russian
shoe, is the most common ; next, the " kafsh " or slipper of various
kinds. The heel is folded down and remains so. The priests wear
a peculiar heavy shoe, with an ivory or wooden lining at the heel.
Green shoes of shagreen are common at Ispahan. Blacking is un
known to Persians generally. Boots are only used by horsemen,
and are then worn much too large for ease. Those worn by couriers
often come up the thigh. With boots are worn " shalwars," or baggy
riding breeches, very loose, and tied by a string at the ankle ; a sort
of kilt is worn by couriers. Pocket-handkerchiefs are seldom used,
save by the rich or the Tehranis. Most Persians wear a "shah
kulah," or night hat, a loose baggy cap of shawl or quilted material,
often embroidered by the ladies.
Arms are usually carried only by tribesmen. The natives of the
south of Persia and servants carry a " kamniah, " or dirk. The
soldiery, on or off duty, always carry one of these or their side-
arms, sometimes both. They hack but never thrust with them.
On the road the carrying of weapons is necessary.
The costume of the women has undergone considerable change
in the last century. It is now, when carried to the extreme of
fashion, highly indecent and must be very uncomfortable. The
garment doing duty as a chemise is called a " pirahan" ; it is, with
the lower orders, of white or blue calico, and comes down to the
middle of the thigh, leaving the leg nude. Among the upper classes
it is frequently of silk. At Shiraz it is often of fine cotton, and
elaborately ornamented with black embroidery. With the rich it is
often of gauze, and much embroidered with gold thread, pearls, &c.
The head is usually covered with a "char-kadd," or large square
of embroidered silk or cotton, folded so as to display the corners,
and fastened under the chin by a brooch. It is often of consider
able value, being of Kashmir shawl, embroidered gauze, &c. A
"jika, " a jewelled feather-like ornament, is often worn at the side
of the head, while the front hair, cut to a level with the mouth, is
brought up in love-locks on either cheek. Beneath the "char-
kadd " is generally a small kerchief of dark material, only the edgu
of which is visible. The ends of the "char-kadd" cover the
shoulders, but the gauze "pirahan" is quite transparent. A pro
fusion of jewellery is worn of the most solid description, none hollow ;
silver is worn only by the very poor, coral only by negresses. Xeck-
laces and bracelets are much affected, and chains with scent-caskets
attached, while the arms are covered with clanking glass bangles
called "alangu," some twenty even of these being on one arm.
Jewelled " Inizubands," containing talismans, arc often worn on the
upper arm, while among the lower orders and south Persian or Arab
women nose-rings are not uncommon, and bangles or anklets of beads.
The face on important occasions is usually much painted, save
by young ladies in the heyday of beauty. The colour is very freely
applied, the checks being as much riddled as a clown's, and the neck
smeared with white, while the eyelashes are marked round with
"kuhl." This is supposed to be beneficial to the eyes, and almost
every woman uses it. The eyebrows are widened and painted till
they appear to meet, while sham moles or stars arc painted on the
chin and cheek ; even spangles are stuck at times on the chin and
forehead. Tattooing is common among the poor and in villages,
and is seen among the upper classes. The hair, though generally
hidden by the "char-kadd, " is at times exposed and plaited into
innumerable little tails of great length, while a coquettish little
skull-cap of embroidery, or shawl, or coloured silk is worn. False
hair is common. The Persian ladies' hair is very luxuriant, ami
never cut ; it is nearly always dyed red with henna, or with indigo
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
631
to a blue-black tinge ; it is naturally a glossy black. Fair liair is
not esteemed. Blue eyes are not uncommon, but brown ones are
the rule. A full-moon face is much admired, and a dark com
plexion termed " namak " (salt) is the highest native idea of beauty.
Most Persian women are small, with tiny feet and hands. The figure
is always lost after maternity, and no support of any kind is worn.
A very short jacket, of gay colour, quite open in front, having
tight sleeves with many metal buttons, is usually worn in summer,
and a lined outer coat in cold weather. In winter a pair of very
short white cotton socks are used, and tiny slippers with a high
heel ; in summer in the house ladies go often barefoot. The rest
of the costume is composed of the "tumbun" or "shalwar," short
skirts of great width, held by a running string, — the outer one being
usually of silk, velvet, or Kashmir shawl, often trimmed with gold
lace, or, among the poor, of loud-patterned chintz or print. Beneath
are innumerable other garments of the same shape, varying in tex
ture from silk and satin to print. The whole is very short, among
the women of fashion extending only to the thigh. In winter an
over -mantle like the "kulajah," or coat of the man, with short
sleeves, lined and trimmed with furs, is worn. Leg-coverings are
now being introduced. In ancient days the Persian ladies always
wore them, as may be seen by the pictures in the South Kensington
Museum. Then the two embroidered legs, now so fashionable as
Persian embroideries ("nakoh"), occupied a girl from childhood to
marriage in making ; they are all scioing in elaborate patterns of
great beauty, worked on muslin in silk. The outdoor costume of
the Persian women is quite another thing. Enveloped in a huge
blue sheet, with a yard of linen as a veil perforated for two inches
square with minute holes, the feet thrust into two huge bags of
coloured stuff, a wife is perfectly unrecognizable, even by her hus
band, when out of doors. The dress of all is the same ; and, save
in quality or costliness, the effect is similar.
As for the children, they are always when infants swaddled ;
when they can walk they are dressed as little men and women,
and with the dress they generally ape the manners. It is a strange
custom with the Persian ladies to dress little girls as boys, and
little boys as girls, till they reach the age of seven or eight years ;
this is often done for fun, or on account of some vow,— oftener, to
avert the evil eye.
(ogra- A summary of personal impressions of Persia may serve
lical to convey a tolerably correct idea of the country, without
the necessity of serious study or the aid of science and
statistics. The reader is asked to suppose a tableland
dropping to the Caspian Sea for nearly one-third of its
northern frontier, and to the Persian Gulf for its southern
limit. The lowlands, naturally, are the coast-tracts. In
the north these are covered with forest, and the climate
there is damp, feverish, relaxing ; in the south they are
dry and barren, and the winds are hot and violent, yet a
relief to the scorching summer atmosphere. In the central
highlands (that is, Persia generally) there are feAV rivers,
and the country is either composed of parallel mountain-
ranges and broad intervening plains, or of irregular moun
tain-masses with fertile valleys, basins, and ravines. One
plain on the last is of exceptionally large extent, and is
called the Salt Desert of Khurasan. The theory that this
was once a sea is supported by the circumstance that at
one of its extreme edges is the village of Yunsi, so called
because the prophet Jonah (Yunas) is locally believed to
have been cast up there by the whale. For irrigation the
plains and valleys depend on the mountains, and at the
base of these are "kanats," or underground canals, with
watercourses on the surface. Yet where rain and snow fail
during the year there is scarcity of water, and where both
are wanting there is always distress and sometimes famine.
The valleys and ravines are more fertile than the plains,
affording often bright, picturesque, and grateful prospects,
while the latter are for the most part barren and sandy
wastes, scored or streaked, as it were, rather than orna
mented with patches of green oases. Forests are rare and,
except in Gilan, not dense ; numerous gardens are com
monly found in the neighbourhood of large towns, not
cared for as in Europe, yet pleasant in their wildness ; and
there are many beautiful trees usually also near the centres
of population. Persian cities are not like cities in Europe.
The passing stranger sees no street or house in any of them
at all comparable to a respectable street or building, as
England, France, or Germany rate structural respectability.
Blank mud-walls and narrow ill-paved thoroughfares are the
rule ; the windowed or terraced front of a Persian house is
for the inner court or inner precincts of the abode, and not
for the world without. Some mosques are handsome, some
caravansards solid, some bazaars highly creditable to the
designer and builder ; but everything is irregular, nothing
is permanent, and architectural ruin blends with architect
ural revival in the midst of dirt, discomfort, and a total
disregard of municipal method. Even Constantinople and
Cairo cannot bear the ordeal of close inspection. Beautiful
and attractive as they may be from without — and the first
has a charm beyond description, while the second is always
interesting in spite of her barbarous boulevard — they are
palpably deficient in completeness within ; and yet Tehran,
Baghdad, Ispahan, Tabriz, Mashhad, Shiraz are far behind
them in civilized construction and order.
Sources. — Independently of original sources, information has been
obtained from official and parliamentary records, to which access
was kindly facilitated under authority ; from Eastern Persia, 2 vols.
(1876) ; and various books of travel by authors already named. The
writer has also to express his thanks to General Schindler, in the
service of the shah, to Jlirza Hasan 'AH Khan, attache to the Eusso-
Afghan boundary commission; to Colonel Bateman-Champain,
R.E., Mr W. T. Blanford, Mr Andrews (of the Indo-European
telegraph), and others, who have more or less favoured him with
special information, written or oral.
SECTION II. — HISTORY.
Oriental history, as told by Oriental historians, is for
the majority of readers in Europe a study of little attrac
tion. Its genealogies and oft-repeated names are weari
some ; its stories of battle, murder, and rapine are mono
tonous and cast in one mould ; the mind cannot readily
impart life to the dry bones of the more prominent
dramatis personee, by conceiving for them any flesh-and-
blood individuality. The court-chronicler of an Eastern
potentate writes to order, and in accordance with a pre
cedent which fetters style and expression ; and even the
painter of state-portraits strives rather to turn out a con
ventional and model monarch than the likeness of an
original human being. In the palace of Kirich, near
Tehran, is a picture of Fath 'All Shah and his sons. There
may be a certain waxwork beauty in some of the faces, but
they give no more signs of innate character or mental idio
syncrasy than do the kings and knaves of a pack of cards.
The Timurides in these respects were exceptionally fortu
nate. Timur himself, their great progenitor, though not
the distinct figure of an English king as delineated by
Macaulay, has been handed down to us in some kind of
personality in the history called Zafarndma,1 in his
Jfalftizdt or utterances, and in the Tuzukdt or institutes.2
There are, moreover, portraits .of him in existence which
are professed likenesses. Babar, Akbar, and Jahangir
were either their own chroniclers or had comparatively
competent men to write for them ; and, to illustrate the
period in which they lived, we obtain — in addition to
records of events — biography, memoirs, and something also
of the current sayings, writings, and doings. But the
reigns of these three monarchs rather concern the annals
of India than of Persia, whereas Timur has so much to
do with the latter that a brief retrospect of the career of
that conqueror and his immediate descendants as it affected
the countries generally south of the Caspian will be an
appropriate opening to the present history.
1 Unfortunately, perhaps, there are two histories bearing this title.
In the one, as Sir William Jones explains, " the Tartarian conqueror
is represented as a liberal, benevolent, and illustrious prince " ; in
the other he is "as deformed as impious, of a low birth and detestable
principles." The authenticity of the Malf&zat is disputed.
- Both these last terms, however, are indifferently applied to the
writings of Timur. Tuzuk is the passive participle of tu:.mak, "to
arrange," hence tuzv.kdt, " arrangement."
632
PERSIA
[MODERN
,05-3506. The Tinmrides and Turkmans (1405-1499). — Timur
died in 1405, when in the seventieth year of his age
Timur. and about to enter upon a new war, — an invasion of
China. Besides exercising sovereignty over Transoxiana
and those vast regions more or less absorbed in Asiatic
Russia of the 19th century, inclusive of the Caucasus,
Astrakhan, and the lower Volga, and overrunning Meso
potamia, Syria, Asia Minor, Afghanistan, and India, he
had at this time left his indelible mark upon the chief
cities and provinces of Persia. Khurasan and Mazandaran
had submitted to him in 1381, Adarbaijan had shortly
after followed their example, and Ispahan was seized in
1387. If the chroniclers are to be trusted, the occupation
of this place was accompanied by the slaughter of 70,000
inhabitants, — a number in excess of its whole population as
officially estimated in 1868. From Ispahan he passed on
to Shir.iz, and thence returned in triumph to his own
capital of Samarkand. Five years later his cruel hand
was stretched out to subdue a formidable resistance in
Mazandaran, and later still he was again at Shiraz, having
effected the subjugation of Luristan and other provinces
in the west. It may be said that from north to south, or
from Astrabad to Hormuz, the whole country had been
brought within his dominion.
Timur's The third son of Timur, Miran Shah, had ruled over
success- par£ Of Persia in his father's lifetime ; but he was said to
be insane, and his incapacity for government had caused
the loss of Baghdad and revolt in other provinces. His
claim to succession had been put aside by Timur in favour
of Pir Muhammad, the son of a deceased son, but Khalil
Shah, a son of the discarded prince, entered the lists against
the nominee and Avon the day. The reign of this chief,
however, was not of any duration. His lavish waste of
time and treasure upon a fascinating mistress named
Shadu '1-Mulk, the " delight of the kingdom," soon brought
about his ruin and deposition, and in 1408 he gave
way to Shah Rukh, who, with the exception of Miran
ShAh, was the only surviving son of Timur. In fact the
uncle and nephew changed places, — the one quitting his
government of Khurasan to take possession of the Central-
Asian throne, the other consenting to become governor
of the vacated Persian province and abandon the cares of
the empire at Samarkand. In the following year Khalil
Sh&h died ; and the story goes that on his death Shadu '1-
Mulk stabbed herself and was buried in the same tomb
with her royal lover at Rhe, one of the towns which his
grandfather had passed through and partly destroyed.
Shah Rukh, the fourth son of Timur, reigned for thirty-
eight years, and appears to have been a brave, generous,
and enlightened monarch. He removed his capital from
Samarkand to Herat, of which place he rebuilt the citadel,
restoring and improving the town. Merv also profited from
his attention to its material interests. Sir John Malcolm
speaks of the splendour of his court and of his encourage
ment of men of science and learning. He sent an embassy
to China ; and an English version of the travels to India
of one of his emissaries, 'Abdu 'r-Razzak, is to be found
in the volumes of the Hakluyt Society. As regards his
Persian possessions, he had some trouble in the north-west,
where the Turkmans of Asia Minor, known as the Kara
Koiyiin,1 or "Black Sheep," led by Kara Yiisuf 2 and his
sons Iskandar and Jahan Shah, had advanced upon Tabriz,
the capital of Adarbaijan, a province in which they had
supplanted the settlers of Halaku, called, after him, 'Ilkhani.
The distance from Herat — supposing that city to represent
1 They were commonly called Kara Koiyun-lii and the " White
Sheep" Turkmans Ak Koiyiin-lii, the affix "lii " signifying possession,
i.e., possession of a standard bearing the image of a black or white sheep.
a According to Erskine, this chief killed Miran Shah, whose dwelling-
place was Tabriz.
the centre of imperial power — -was favourable to intrigue
and revolt in these parts. On the death of Slu'ih Rukh in
1446 he was succeeded by his son Ulugh Bey, whose taste
for scientific pursuits and active patronage of scientific
men are practically demonstrated in the astronomical
tables bearing his name, quoted by European writers when
determining the latitude of places in Persia. He was,
moreover, himself a poet and patron of polite literature,
and built a college as well as an observatory at Samarkand.
On the other hand, there is no evidence to show that
he did much to consolidate his grandfather's conquests
south of the Caspian. Ulugh Bey was put to death by
his son 'Abdu '1-Latif, who, six months later, was in his
turn slain by his own soldiers. Babar — not the illustrious
founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, but an elder
member of the same house — next obtained possession of
the sovereign power, and established himself in the govern
ment of Khurasan and the neighbouring countries. He
did not, however, achieve any special reputation, and died
after a short rule, from habitual indulgence in intemperate
habits, — an abuse which he had vainly striven to check by
the registry of a solemn vow. After him Abu Sa'id,
grandson of Miran Shah, and once governor of Fars,
became a candidate for empire, and was to a great extent
successful. This prince allied himself with the Uzbek
Tatars, seized upon Bukhara, entered Khurasan, and
waged war upon the Turkman tribe aforesaid, which, since
the invasion of Adarbaijan, had, under Jahan Shah, over
run 'Irak, Fars, and Karman, and pillaged Herat. But he
was eventually taken prisoner by Uzun Hasan, and killed
in 1468.
It is difficult to assign dates to the few events recorded
in Persian history for the eighteen years following the
death of 'Abdu '1-Latif ; and, were it not for the happy
intervention of chance European missions, the same diffi
culty would be felt in dealing with the period after the
death of Abu Sa'id up to the accession of Isma'il Sufi in
1499. Nor can the chain of events within the range of
Persia proper be connected with certainty for the period
specified by the aid of native annals or histories. Sultan
Ahmad, eldest son of Abu Sa'id, reigned in Bukhara ;
his brother, 'Umar Shaikh, in Farghana ; but the son of
the latter, the great Babar, was driven by the Uzbeks to
Kabul (Cabul) and India. More to the purpose is it that
Sultan Husain Mirza, great-grandson of 'Umar Shaikh, Husain
son of Timur, reigned in Herat from 1487 to 1506. His Mirza.
siege and capture of the fort of that city are incident
ally told in Babar's Commentaries, where he is described
as an old and experienced soldier. He was a patron of
learned men, and as such his reign is remarkable for many
brilliant names inscribed as visitors to his court. Among
others are those of the historians Mirkhund and Khun-
damir, and the poets Jam! and Hatifi. But at no time
could the control exercised by this scion of a far-famed
stock have extended over central and western Persia.
The nearest approach to a sovereignty in those parts on
the death of Abu Sa'id is that of Uzun Hasan just
mentioned, who achieved his greatness by individual
prowess and the force of circumstances. He was the
leader of the Ak Koiyun, or " White Sheep " Turkmans,
and conqueror of the "Black Sheep," whose chief, Jahan
Shah, he defeated and slew. Between the two tribes there
had long been a deadly feud. Both Avere composed of Uxun
settlers in Asia Minor, the " Black Sheep " having con- l.Iasan-
solidated their power at Van, the " White " at Diarbekir.
Sir John Malcolm states that at the death of ^oii
Sa'id, Sultan Husain Mirza "made himself master of
the empire," and, a little later, that " Uzun Hasan, after
he had made himself master of Persia, turned his arms in
the direction of Turkey " ; but the reader is left to infer
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
633
for himself what was the real "empire" of Husain Mirza,
and what the limit of the "Persia" of Uzun Hasan. The
second could not well be included in the first, because the
Turkmans were in possession of the greater part of the
Persian plateau, as understood in modern geography, while
the " sultan " was luxuriating in Herat, to which Khurasan
belonged. It may be assumed as a broad fact that an
empire like that acquired by Timiir could not long be
maintained by his descendants in its integrity, even though
separate kingdoms or sovereignties were formed in its more
important divisions. The retention of particular provinces,
or groups of provinces, must have depended not only on
the loyalty but on the capability of particular rulers and
their subordinate governors ; and it was manifestly impos
sible for an emperor at Samarkand or Herat to know what
revolutions were taking effect at Baghdad, Tabriz, or
similarly remote places, inland or on the seaboard, which
passed away from the original "empire" through the
Aveakness or treachery of unfit agents, even when these
Avere lineal descendants of its distinguished founder.
The Turkish adjective uzun, ij)jy "long," applied to
Hasan, the Turkman monarch of Persia (called also by
the Arabs Hasanu 't-Tawil), is precisely the qualifying
Persian word •) j used in the compound designation of
Artaxerxes Longimanus ; and Malcolm quotes the state-
re tian ment of a Venetian envoy in evidence that Uzun Hasan
nTs- Avas "a tall thin man, of a very open and engaging counte
nance." This reference, and a further notice in Markham's
more recent history, supply the clue to a store of valuable
information on the place and period made generally avail
able by the publications of the Hakluyt Society. The
narratives of Caterino Zeno, Barbaro, and Contarini, envoys
from Venice to the court of Uzun Hasan, are in this
respect especially interesting, and throw much light on
the personality of one Avho Avas a genuine shah of Iran.
Zeno Avas sent in 1471 to incite this Avarlike ruler against
the Ottoman sultan, and succeeded so far in his mission as
to bring the tAvo poAvers into open AATarfare. That the
result AAras disastrous to the shah is not surprising, but the
Avhole affair seems to hold a comparatively unimportant
place in the annals of Turkey.
Uzun Hasan had married Despina (Gr. Aeo-Trotva),
daughter of the emperor of Trebizond, Calo Johannes of
the house of the Comneni ; and Zeno's Avife AAras niece
to this Christian princess. The relationship naturally
strengthened the envoy's position at the court, and he Avas
permitted to visit the queen in the name of the republic
which he represented. Barbaro and Contarini met at
Ispahan in 1474, and there paid their respects to the shah
together. The description of the royal residence — " in the
middle of a field, through Avhich a river floAved, in a very
delightful locality " — recalls the palaces in that city, such
as the Haft Dast, where strangers of distinction are lodged
in the present day. Moreover, the continual and excessive
instalments of "good confections " brought to satisfy the
travellers' appetites show that the lavish hospitality of the
local authorities is a time-honoured institution. Kum and
Tauris or Tabriz (then the capital) Avere also visited by
the Italian envoys following in the royal suite ; and the
incidental notice of these cities, added to Contarini's
formal statement that " the extensive country of Ussun-
cassan [sic] is bounded by the Ottoman empire and by
Caramania," and that Siras (Shiraz) is comprehended in
it, proves that at least Adarbaijan, 'Irak, and the main
part of the provinces to the south, inclusive of Fars, Avere
within the dominions of the reigning monarch.
There is good reason to suppose that Jahan Shah, the
Black Sheep Turkman, before his defeat by Uzun Hasan,
had set up the standard of royalty ; and Zeno, at the
outset of his travels, calls him "king of Persia"1 in 1450. 1468-1499.
Chardin alludes to him in -the same sense ; but, even ad
mitting the validity of his precarious tenure, the limits of
his sovereignty Avere too confined to Avarrant more than
casual mention of his name in an historical summary.
Hasan the Long is a far more prominent figure, and has
hardly received justice at the hands of the historian.
Indeed, his identity seems to have been lost in the various
modes of spelling his name adopted by the older chroniclers,
Avho call him indiscriminately 2 Alymbeius, Asembeius,
Asembec, Assimbeo, or Ussan Cassano. He is said to have
earned the character of a wise and valiant monarch, to
have reigned eleven years, to have lived to the age of
seventy, and, on his death in 1477 or (according to
Krusinski and Zeno) 1478, to have been succeeded on the
throne of Persia by his son Ya'kub. This prince, Avho had
slain an elder brother, died by poison, after a reign of
seven years. The dose was offered to him by his Avife,
who had been unfaithful to him and sought to set her
paramour on his throne. Krusinski thus tells the story.
"Notwithstanding the assurance she put on at the very moment
she was acting the crime, the king her husband fancying he saw
an air of confusion in her countenance, had a suspicion of her, and
required her to drink first. As she could not get oil' of it without
condemning herself, she swallowed the poison with an affected
intrepidity ; which deceived the king, and so encouraged him that
after he had drunk of it himself, he commended it to the lips of the
prince his son, then with him, who was eight years of age. The
poison was so quick, that all three died of it that night in the
year 1485."
Writers differ as to the succession to Ya'kub. Zeno's Anarchy,
account is that a son named Allamur (called also Alamut,
Alvante, El- wand, and Alwung Bey) Avas the next king, Avho,
"besides Persia, possessed Diarbekir and part of greater
Armenia near the Euphrates." On the other hand, Kru
sinski states that, Ya'kub dying childless, his relative
Julaver, one of the grandees of the kingdom, seized the
throne and held possession of it for three years. Baisingar,
it is added, succeeded him in 1488 and reigned till
1490, AA'hen a young nobleman named Rustan (Rustam1?)
obtained the sovereign poAver and exercised it for seven
years. This account is confirmed by Angiolello, a traveller
Avho folloAved his countrymen Barbaro and Contarini to
Persia ; and from the tAvo authorities combined may be
gathered the further narration of the murder of Rustam
and usurpation of the throne by a certain Ahmad, Avhose
death, under torture, six months aftenvards, made AA*ay
for Alamut, the young son of Hasan. These discrepancies
can be reconciled on reference to yet another record bound
up AAdth the narratives of the four Italians aforesaid, and
of much the same period. In the Travels of a Merchant
in Persia the story of Ya'kub's death is supplemented
by the statement that " the great lords, hearing of their
king's decease, had quarrels among themseKes, so that for
five or six years all Persia Avas in a state of civil Avar, first
one and then another of the nobles becoming sultan. At
last a youth named Alamut, aged fourteen years, Avas raised
to the throne, AA'hich he held till the succession of Shaikh
Ismail." Who this young man AA-as, is not specified ; but
other Avriters call Alamut and his brother Murad the sons
of Ya'kub, as though the relationship Avere unquestioned
NOAV little is knoAvn, save incidentally, of Julaver or
Rustam ; but Baisingar is the name of a nepheAV of 'Umar
Shaikh, king of Farghdna (Ferghana) and contemporary of
Uzun Hasan. There Avas no doubt much anarchy and
confusion in the interval betAveen the death of Ya'kub and
the restoration, for tAA-o years, of the dynasty of the White
Sheep. But the tender age of Alamut Avould, even in
civilized countries, have necessitated a regency ; and it
may be assumed that he Avas the next legitimate and more
See also Ramusio's preface.
2 Knolles, Purchas, Zeno.
XVIII. — 80
634
PERSIA
[MODERN
1480-1499. generally recognized sovereign. Markham, in designating
this prince the last of his house, states that he was de
throned by the renowned founder of the Safawi dynasty.
This event brings us to one of the most interesting periods
of Persian history, any account of which must be defective
without a prefatory sketch of Isma'il Sufi.
Shaikh The Sufi or Safawi Dynasty (1499-1 736).— Shaikh Saifu
Sufi. 'd-Din Izh&k1 — lineally descended from Miisa, the seventh
imam — was a resident at Ardabil, south-west of the Caspian,
some time during the 14th century. It is said that his
reputation for sanctity attracted the attention of Timur,
who sought him out in his abode, and was so charmed by
the visit that he released, at the holy man's request, a
number of captives of Turkish origin, or, as some affirm,
Georgians, taken in the wars with Baiyazid, who had been
probably reserved for some more cruel end. The act
ensured to the shaikh the constant devotion and gratitude
of these men, — a feeling which was loyally maintained by
their descendants for the members of his family in success
ive generations. Morier's description of the mausoleum
erected to the memory of Shaikh Sufi in Ardabil enables
the reader to form some idea of the extraordinary venera
tion in which he was held. Among the offerings on the
tomb,2 which was covered with brocades and shawls,
bunches of feathers, ostrich eggs, and other ornaments,
was a golden ewer set with precious stones, said to have
been presented by the Indian emperor Humaiyun.
His son Sadru 'd-Din and grandson Kwajah 'All (who
visited Mecca and died at Jerusalem) retained the high
reputation of their pious predecessor. Junaid, a grandson
of the last, and not a whit less prominent in the pages of
history, married a sister of Uzun Hasan, and by her had a
son named Shaikh Haidar, who married his cousin Martha,
daughter of Uzun Hasan and Queen Despina. Three
sons were the issue of this marriage, Sultan 'All, Ibrahim
Mirza, and the youngest, Isma'il, the date of whose birth
is put down as 1480 for reasons which will appear here-
Shaikh after. So great was the influence of Shaikh Haidar, and
Haidar. so earnestly did he carry out the principles of conduct
which had characterized his family for five generations,
that his name has become, as it were, inseparable from
the dynasty of his son Isma'il ; and the term " Haidar i "
(leonine) is applied by many persons to indicate generally
the Safawis of Persia. As to the nature of hi? teaching,
and the peculiar tenets professed, this is hardly the place
for their discussion ; but it may be broadly stated that
the outcome was a division of Muhammadanism vitally
momentous to the world of Islam. The Persian mind was
peculiarly adapted to receive the form of religion prepared
for it by the philosophers of Ardabil.
The doctrines presented were dreamy and mystic ; they
rejected the infallibility of human wisdom, and threw
suspicion on the order and arrangement of human ortho
doxy. They breathed in harmony Avith the feelings of a
people who, partly in the Athenian spirit and wholly with
Athenian perversity, were ever ready " to tell or to hear
some new thing." There was free scope given for the
indulgence of that poetical imagination which revels in
revolution and chafes at prescriptive bondage. As Malcolm
truly and happily remarks, " the natives of Persia are
enthusiastically devoted to poetry ; the meanest artisan
of the principal cities of that kingdom can read or repeat
some of the finest passages from their most admired
1 According to Langles, the annotator of Chardin, his real designa
tion was Abu '1-Fath Izhak, the Shaikh Saifu '1-Hakk wu 'd-Diu or
" pure one of truth and religion."
2 Langles finds 1334 to be the year of his death. This is impos
sible if he was contemporary with Timiir, who was born in 1336.
Malcolm's opinion, derived from the Znbdntu 't-taiodrikh, that the
conqueror's visit was paid to Sadru 'd-Din, is, however, the more
credible theory.
writers ; and even the rude and unlettered soldier leaves
his tent to listen with rapture to the strain of the minstrel
who sings a mystic song of divine love, or recites the tale
of a battle of his forefathers." And he adds, "the very
essence of Sufi-ism is poetry . . . the Masnavi . . . the works
of the celebrated Jami . . . the book of moral lessons of
the eloquent Sa'di, and the lyric and mystic odes of Hafiz
... to them they (the Sufis) continually refer ; and the
gravest writers who have defended their doctrine take
their proofs from the pages of these and other poets Avhom
they deem to have been inspired by their holy theme."
Those authorities who maintain that Ya'kub Shah left no
son to succeed him consider valid the claim to the vacant
throne of Shaikh Haidar Sufi. At any rate, he could not be
otherwise than formidable to a usurper such as Rustam,
both from relationship to the deceased monarch and position
as one of the most noted of Sufi teachers. Purchas says
that Ya'kub himself, "jealous of the multitude of Aidar's
disciples and the greatness of his fame, caused him to be
secretly murthered " ; but Krusinski attributes the act to
Rustam a few years later. Zeno, the anonymous merchant,
and Angiolello affirm that the devotee was defeated and
killed in battle, — the first making his conqueror to be
Alamut, the second a general of Alamut's, and the third
an officer sent by Rustam named Sulaiman Bey. Malcolm,
following the Zuhdatu 't-taivdrikh, relates that Shaikh
Haidar was vanquished and slain by the governor of
Shirwan. The subsequent statement that his son, Sultan
'Ali, was seized, in company with tAvo younger brothers,
by Ya'kub, "one of the descendants of their grandfather
Uzun Hasan, Avho, jealous of the mimerous disciples that
resorted to Ardabil, confined them to the hill fort of Istakhr
in Fars," seems to indicate a second interpretation of the
passage just extracted from Purchas, and that there is
confusion of persons and incident somewhere. One of the
sons here alluded to Avas Isma'il, AA'hom Malcolm makes to
have been only seven years of age Avhen he fled to Gilan
in 1492. Zeno states that he AA-as then thirteen, Avhich is
much more probable,3 and the several data available for
reference are in favour of this supposition.
The life of the young Sufi from this period to his assump- Isma'il
tion of royalty in 1499 Avas full of stirring adventure ;
and his career as Isma'il I. was a brilliant one for the
annals of Persia. According to Zeno, AArho seems to have
carefully recorded the events of the time, he left his
temporary home on an island of Lake Van before he Avas
eighteen, and, passing into Karabagh,4 betAAreen the Arras
and Kur, turned in a south-easterly direction into Gilan.
Here he Avas enabled, through the assistance of a friend of
his father, to raise a small force, with Avhich to take pos
session .of Baku on the Caspian, and thence to march upon
Shumakhi in ShirAA7an, a tOAvn abandoned to him Avithout
a struggle. Hearing, hoAA-ever, that Alamut was advancing
to meet him, he AAras compelled to seek neAv levies from
among the Jengian Christians and others. In this he
\vas quite successful. Finding himself at the head of an
army of 16,000 men, he thoroughly routed his opponents,
and, having cleared the way before him, marched straight
upon Tabriz, which at once surrendered. He was soon after
proclaimed shah of Persia (1499), under the designation
which marked the family school of thought.
Alamut had taken refuge at Diarbekir ; but his brother
Murad, at the head of an army strengthened by Turkish
auxiliaries, was still in the field Avith the object of con
testing the paternal croAvn. Isma'il lost no time in moving
against him, and Avon a new victory on the plains of Tabriz.
Murad fled AA-ith a small remnant of his soldiers to Diar-
3 So thinks the editor and annotator of the Italian Travels in Persia.,
Mr Charles Grey.
4 Possibly Kara-dagh, as being the more direct road.
HISTORY.
PERSIA
635
bekir, the rallying-point of the White Sheep Turkmans.
One authority (Zeno) states that in the following year
Isma'il entered upon a new campaign in Kurdistan and
Asia Minor, but that he returned to Tabriz without accom
plishing his object, having been harassed by the tactics of
Alau'd-Daulah, a beylarbey, or governor in Armenia and
parts of Syria. Another, ignoring these movements, says
that he marched against Murdd Khan in 'Irak:-* Aj mi
('Irak-'Adjemi) and Shir/iz. This last account is ex
tremely probable, and would show that the young Turkman
had wished to make one grand effort to save Ispahan and
Shiraz (with Kazvin and the neighbouring country), these
being, after the capital Tabriz, the most important cities
of Uzun Hasan's Persia. His men, however, apparently
dismayed at the growing prestige of the enemy, did not
support him, and he was defeated and put to flight. One
writer says that he was slain in battle; and, since he
appears to have made no further attempt on Persia, the
statement is perhaps correct. There is similar evidence
of the death of Alamut, who, it is alleged, was treacher
ously handed over to be killed by the shah's own hands.
,'oest Isma'il returned again to Tabriz (1501) "and caused
^ , great rejoicings to be made on account of his victory."
In 1503 he had added to his conquests Baghdad, Mosul,
and Jazirah on the Tigris. The next year he was called
to the province of Gilan to chastise a refractory ruler.
Having accomplished his end, he came back to his capital
and remained there in comparative quiet till 1507.1
Malcolm's dates are somewhat at variance with the above,
for he infers that Baghdad was subdued in that particular
year ; but the facts remain. All writers seem to agree
that in 1508 the king's attention was drawn to an inva
sion of Khurasan by Shaibani, or Shahi Beg, the Uzbek, a
descendant of Jengliiz and the most formidable opponent
of Babar, from whom he had, seven years before, wrested
the city of Samarkand, and whom he had driven from
Turkestan to Kabul. Since these exploits he had obtained
great successes in Tashkand, FargMna, Hissar, Kunduz,
and Khwarizm (Kharezm), and, at the time referred to, had
left Samarkand intent upon mischief south and west of the
Oxus, had passed the Murghab, and had reached Sarakhs.
Isma'il encamped on this occasion at Ispahan, and there
concentrated the bulk of his army,— strengthening his
northern (and probably north-eastern) frontier with large
bodies of cavalry. Zeno's statement that the royal troops
were kept for the whole year in a state of suspense and
preparation for encountering their powerful adversaries
derives a colour of truth from the circumstance that, before
the Uzbek army of invasion could have quite overrun the
Khurasan of Husain Mirza, it found occupation to the
eastward in Herat and Kandahar ; and it must have been
represented, even in Mashhad, Nishapiir, Astrabad, and
Turshiz — all named as the scenes of conflict — rather by
lieutenants than by the leader in person. Such diversion
from any direct invasion of his own territories may have
caused the shah to maintain an attitude of simple watch
fulness. In 1510, when Shaibani had invaded Khurasan
the second time, and in person, and had entered the fine
province of Mazandaran — then in the possession of an inde
pendent chief — it was discovered that his troops, in the
wantonness of success, had ravaged the Persian province
of Karman. Shah Isma'il had asked for redress, referring
to the land encroached on as "hereditary" ; and ShaiMni
had replied that he did not understand on what was
founded the claim "to inherit." Mutual taunt and
recrimination followed ; and eventually the Persian troops
were put in movement, and the Uzbeks, having been
divided into small detachments scattered over the country,
fell back and retreated to Herat. Their leader, howeve'r,
1 Angiolello.
not being in a position to oppose the shah in the field, 1499-1514.
repaired to Merv, where he could obtain sufficient rein
forcements, or whence he could, if hard pushed, retire
across the Oxus. Isma'il quickly followed him there, and
enticed him out to battle by the use of taunt and reproach
at his remaining within walls. Shaibani was defeated
and fled, but was overtaken in his flight, surrounded, and
put to the sword, together with numerous relatives and
companions (see MONGOLS, vol. xvi. p. 749).
The next remarkable event in Isma'il's reign is his war War
with Sultan Salim I. Its origin may be traced to the ™ith
Ottoman emperor's hatred and persecution of all heretical ir
Moslems in his dominions, and the shah's anger at the
fanaticism which had urged him to the slaughter of 40,000
Turks suspected to have thrown off the orthodox Sunni
doctrines. The declaration of war sent by Salim in the
form of a letter is one of the most singular of documents,
and breathes the true spirit of the age : "I, the glorious
Sultan . . . address myself to thee, Amir Isma'il, chief of
the Persian troops, who art like in tyranny to Zohak and
Afrasiab, and art destined to perish like the last Dara."
Words such as these might well provoke a less haughty
potentate than the Sufi ; and, when to them was added
the accusation of iniquity, perjury, blasphemy, impiety,
heresy, and schism, it is not surprising that the response
was a ready resort to arms.2 As a preliminary, however,
to this decisive step Isma'il replied to the sultan in a calm
and dignified letter, denying the existence of a casm lelli,
expressing willingness to resume peaceful relations, and
regretting the mode of address it had been thought fit to
adopt towards himself ; but he nullified the conciliatory
passages by the ironical conclusion that the sultan's com
munication must have emanated from the brain of a secre
tary who had taken an overdose of narcotics,- — a remark
the significance of which was aggravated by the accom
paniment of a box of opium, and the popular belief that
Salim was addicted to the use of the drug.
The sultan's army advanced into Adarbaijan and Avestern
Persia through Tokat and Arzinjan. Isma'il had at this
time the greater number of his soldiers employed in his
newly-conquered province of Khurasan, and was driven to
raise new levies in Kurdistan to obtain a sufficient force
to resist the invasion. It is asserted by some that his
frontier then extended westward to Sivas, a city situated
in a large high plain watered by the Kizil Irmak, and
that thence to Khoi, 90 miles west of Tabriz, he followed
the approved and often successful tactics of ravaging and
retreating, so as to deprive his advancing enemy of sup
plies. There is good evidence to show that the Turkish
janissaries were within an ace of open revolt, and that but
for extraordinary firmness in dealing with them they would
have abandoned their leader in his intended march upon
Tabriz. In fine, at or near Khoi, the frontier- town of
Adarbaijan, the battle (1514) was fought between the two
rival monarchs, ending in the defeat of the Persians and
the triumphant entry of Salim into their capital.
There are stirring accounts of that action and of the
gallant deeds performed by Salim and Isma'il, both person
ally engaged in it, as well as by their generals.3 Others
maintain that Isma'il was not present at all.4 It is tolerably
2 Creasy's History of (he Ottoman Turks.
3 Kuolles, Malcolm, Creasy, Markham, &c.
4 Zeno. Angiolello says that " the Sophi monarch had left for Tauris
[Tabriz] in order to assemble more troops." Krusinski infers much
to the same effect, for he notes that " Selim came in person and took
Tauris from Ismail, but at the noise of his approach was obliged to
retreat with precipitation." The battle must thus have been fought
and the victory gained when the shah was himself absent. Yet
Markham quotes a journal which thus records his feats of prowess :
" It was in vain that the brave Shah, with a blow of his sabre, severed
a chain with which the Turkish guns were fastened together to resist
the shock of the Persian cavalry."
636
PERSIA
[MODERN
1514-1561. certain that the Turks won the day by a better organization
of the arms of the military service, superiority of numbers,
and more especially the use of artillery. On the side of
the Persians the force consisted of little more than cavalry.
Salim remained at Tabriz no more than eight days.
Levying a contribution at that city of a large number of
its skilled artisans, whom he sent off to Constantinople,
he marched thence towards Karabagh with intent to fix
his winter quarters in those parts and newly invade Persia
in the spring, but the insubordination of his troops rendered
necessary his speedy return to Turkey. His expedition,
if not very glorious, had not been unproductive of visible
fruits. Besides humbling the power of an arrogant enemy,
he had conquered and annexed to his dominions the pro
vinces of Diarbekir and Kurdistan.
From 1514 to 1524, although the hostile feeling between
the two countries was very strong, there was no serious-
nor open warfare. Salim's attention was diverted from
Persia to Egypt ; Isma'il took advantage of the sultan's
death in 1519 to overrun and subdue unfortunate Georgia,
as Jahan Shah of the "Black Sheep" had clone before
him ; but Sulaiman had not won without cause his attri
bute of "great," and was too strong a successor to the
imperial throne to admit of retaliatory invasion being
carried out with impunity at the cost of Turkey.
Ismail's In 1524 Isma'il died1 at Ardabil when on a pilgrimage
character. to the tomb of j^ father. " The Persians dwell with
rapture on his character," writes Sir John Malcolm, for
they deem him " not only the founder of a great dynasty,
but the person to whom that faith in which they glory
owes its establishment as a national religion. He is styled
in their histories Shah Shian, or 'king of the Shiahs,' an
appellation which marks the affection Avith which his
memory is regarded. Though he may not be entitled to
their extravagant praises, he certainly was an able and
valiant monarch." And he quotes a note handed down
by Purchas from a contemporary European traveller which
reports of him thus. " His subjects deemed him a saint,
and made use of his name in their prayers. Many dis
dained to wear armour when they fought under Ismail ;
and so enthusiastic were his soldiers in their new faith
that they used to bare their breasts to their enemies and
court death, exclaiming, ' Shiah ! Shiah ! ' to mark the
hply cause for which they fought."
The proposition has been already laid down that Oriental
celebrities, whether heroes or tyrants, as depicted by native
limners, bear commonly so strong a family resemblance
one with another that the European reader is unable to
discriminate between the 'Abbases and Akbars, the Timurs
and the Nadirs ; and it cannot be pleaded that Isma'il
Shah Sufi is an exception to the rule. He is belauded
and reviled according to the lights or prejudices of his
historian. " Reputed one of the greatest and most famous
kings that ever ruled in the East," 2 he is at the same time
charged with acts of the greatest cruelty and most flagrant
vice.3 Purchas, apparently guided by the " Italian mer
chant " and Angiolello, has described him as " of faire
countenance, of reasonable stature, thicke and large in the
shoulder, shauen al but the mustaches ; left-handed, and
stronger than any of his nobles."
SMIi Shah Tahmasp,4 the eldest of the four sons of Isma'il,
Tahmasp.
1 Malcolm says 1523, Krusinski 1525 ; Angiolello heard of his
death at Cairo in August 1524. Krusiuski adds that he was forty-
five years of age. 2 Krusinski.
3 See chaps, xiv. and xxii. of Travels of a Merchant in Persia, Hak-
luyt reprint, 1873.
4 Angiolello calls him "Shiacthemes. " As an instance of the
absurd transliterating current in France as in England the word
" Ach-tacon " maybe mentioned. It is explained in Chardin's text to
mean "les hopitaux a Tauris : c'est-a-dire lieux on Von fait profusion
de vivres." Chardin's editor remarks, "La dernM-re partie de ce mot
succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.5 The
principal occurrences in his reign, placed as nearly as
possible in chronological order, were a renewal of war
with the Uzbeks, who had again invaded Khurdsan, and
the overthrow of their army (1527); the recovery of
Baghdad from a Kurdish usurper (1528) ; the settlement
of an internal feud between Kizil-bash tribes (Shamlu and
Tukulu), contending for the custody of the royal person,
by the slaughter of the more unruly of the disputants
(1529); the rescue of Khurasan from a fresh irruption,
and of Herat from a besieging army of Uzbeks (1530);
a new invasion of the Ottomans, from which Persia was
saved rather by the severity of her climate than by the
prowess of her warriors (1533) ; the wresting of Baghdad
from Persia by the emperor Sulaiman (1534) ; the king's
youngest brother's rebellion and the actual seizure of
Herat, necessitating the recovery of that city and a march
to Kandahar (1536) ; the temporary loss of Kandahar in
the following year (1537), when the governor ceded it to
Prince Kamran, son of Babar ; the hospitable reception
accorded to the Indian emperor Humaiyim (1543); the
rebellion of the shah's brother next in age, llkhas, who,
by his alliance with the sultan, brought on a war with
Turkey (1548) ; 6 and finally a fresh expedition to Georgia,
followed by a revengeful incursion which resulted in the
enforced bondage of thousands of the inhabitants (1552).
Baiyazid, a son of the Turkish emperor, rebelled, and War
his army was beaten in 1559 by the imperial troops at ^vith
Ivoniah in Asia Minor. He fled to Persia and took refuge T
with Shah Tahmasp, who pledged himself to give him a
permanent asylum. Sulaiman's demand, however, for
extradition or execution was too stern and peremptory
for refusal ; the pledge was broken, and the prince was
delivered up to the messengers sent to take him. Another
account ignores the pledge and makes the surrender
of the guest to have been caused by his own bad con
duct. Whatever the motive, the act itself was highly ap
preciated by Sulaiman, and became the means of cement
ing a recently-concluded peace between the two monarchs,
which theretofore, perhaps, had been more formal than
real. Perhaps the domestic affliction of the emperor and
the anarchy which in his later years had spread in his
dominions had, however, more to do with the maintenance
of tranquillity than any mere personal feeling. It is to be
feared that at this time not only was there religious fana
ticism at work to stir up the mutual hatred ever existing
between Sunni and Shi'ah, but the intrigue of European
courts was probably directed towards the maintenance of
an hostility which deterred the sultan from aggressive
operations north and west of Constantinople. " Tis only
the Persian stands between us and ruin " is the reported
saying of Busbecq, ambassador at Sulaiman's court on the
part of Ferdinand of Austria ; " the Turk would fain be
upon us, but he keeps him back."
In 1561 Anthony Jenkinson arrived in Persia with
est meconnaissable, et je ne puis deviner quel mot Persan signifiant
profusion a pu donner nais.sance a la corruption qu'on voit ici." In
other words, the first syllable " ach " (Anglice ash) was understood in
its common acceptance for "food" or "victuals" ; but "tacon" was
naturally a puzzler. The solution of the whole dilliculty is, however,
to be found in the Turco-Persian &)[». &\>^»- khastah klianah, pro
nounced by Turks hasta hona, or more vulgarly asta khon and even
to a French ear asli-tacon, a hospital, literally a sick-house. This word
is undoubtedly current at Tabriz and throughout northern Persia.
5 The other brothers were llkhas, Bahrain, and Sam Mirza, each
having had his particular apanage assigned him.
6 Professor Creasy says that "Suliman led his armies against the
Persians in several campaigns (1533, 1534, 1535, 1548, 1553, 1554),
during which the Turks often suffered severely through the difficult
nature of the countries traversed, as well as through the bravery and
activity of the enemy." All the years given were in the reign of
Tahmasp I.
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
637
a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the shah. He was to
treat with his majesty of "Trafique and Commerce for our
English Marchants," l but his reception was not encour
aging, and led to no result of importance.
Tahmdsp died in 1576, after a reign of about fifty-
two years. He must have been some sixty-six years of
age, having come to the throne at fourteen. Writers
describe him as a robust man, of middle stature, wide-
lipped, and of tawny complexion. His long reign was
hardly a profitable or glorious one to Persia, especially in
respect of the losses to Turkey. He was not wanting in
soldierly qualities ; but his virtues were rather negative
than decided. While one writer acquits him of any re
markable vices, and even calls him prudent and generous,
another taxes him with love of ease, avarice, and injustice.
If it be true that he abandoned his old capital, Tabriz, for
Kazvin because the former was too close to Ardabil, his
birthplace, and reminded him too keenly of the mean con
dition of his grandfather, Shaikh Haidar, his morale must
have been low indeed.2
The deceased shah had a numerous progeny, and on his
death his fifth son, Haidar Mirza, proclaimed himself king,
supported in his pretensions by the Kizil-bash tribe of
Ustiijulu. Another tribe, the Afshdr, insisted on the
succession of the fourth son, Isma'il. Had it not been that
there were two candidates in the field, the contention
would have resembled that which arose shortly after
Tahmasp's accession. As it was, the claim to guardian
ship of the royal person was put forward, but each tribe
declared for its own particular nominee. Finally Isma'il,
profiting from his brother's weak character and the in
trigues set on foot against him, obtained his object, and
was brought from a prison to receive the crown.
The reign of Isma'il II. was a short one, — less than two
years. He was found dead in the house of a confectioner
in Kazvin, having left the world either drunk, drugged, or
poisoned. No steps were taken to verify the circumstances,
for the event itself was a cause of general relief and joy.
He has been represented as a tyrant of the worst type, but
it is only right to observe that his youth and part of his
manhood had been embittered by injustice and ill-treatment.
A prisoner in a dreary fort for years, if his accession to
power was marked by cruelties such as disgraced the name
of Tiberius, he had, like Tiberius, been brutalized by a
hard and continuous provocation.
He was succeeded by his eldest brother, Muhammad
Mirza, otherwise called Muhammad Khudabanda, whose
claim to sovereignty had been originally put aside on the
ground of physical infirmity. A few words will dispose of
this prince's career as a sovereign of Persia. Historians
are divided as to his qualities, though he certainly failed
to prove, in any shape, equal to the opportunity opened to
him. He had the good sense to trust his state affairs
almost wholly to an able minister ; but he was cowardly
enough to deliver up that minister into the hands of his
enemies. His kingdom was distracted by intestine divi
sions and rebellion, and the foe appeared also from without.
On the east his youngest son, 'Abbas, held possession of
Khurasan ; on the west- the sultan's troops again entered
Adarbaijan and took Tabriz. His eldest son, Hamza Mirza,
nobly upheld his fortunes to the utmost of his power,
reduced the rebel chieftains, and forced the Turks to make
peace and retire ; but he was stabbed to death by an assas
sin. On the news of his death reaching Khurasan, Murshid
Kuli Khan, leader of the Ustujulu Kizil-bash, who had made
good in fight his claims to the guardianship of 'Abbas, at
once conducted the young prince from that province to
Kazvin, and occupied the royal city. The object was evi
dent, and in accordance with the popular feeling. 'Abbas,
* Purchas. - Krusinski.
who had been proclaimed king by the nobles at Nishdpur 1561-1609.
some two or three years before this occurrence, may be said
to have now undertaken in earnest the cares of sovereignty.
His ill-starred father, at no time more than a nominal ruler,
was at Shirdz, apparently deserted by soldiers and people.
Malcolm infers that he died a natural death, but when 3
or where is not stated. Alluding to him at this period,
he writes, " He was never afterwards mentioned." The
stories originated by Olearius that Hamza and a second
son, Isma'il, each reigned a few months may refer to
attempts on the part of the Kizil-bash chiefs to assert, for
one or the other, a share of sovereign power, but do not
seem to merit particular consideration.
Shah 'Abbas, the Great, commenced his long and glorious 'Abbds
reign (1586) by retracing his steps towards Khurasan, which tlie
had been reinvaded by the Uzbeks almost immediately after : ea '
his departure thence with the Kizil-bash chief. They had
besieged and taken Herat, killed the governor, plundered
the town, and laid waste the surrounding country. 'Abbas
advanced to Mashhad, the provincial capital and great
resort of Persian pilgrims as the burial-place of Imam
Riza, but owing to internal troubles he was compelled to
return to Kazvin without going farther east. In his
absence 'Abdul Munim Khdn, the Uzbek commander,
attacked the sacred city, obtained possession of it while
the shdh lay helplessly ill at Tehran, and allowed his
savage soldiers full licence to kill and plunder. The whole
kingdom was perplexed, and 'Abbds had much work to
restore confidence and tranquillity. But circumstances
rendered impossible his immediate renewal of the Khurasan
warfare. He was summoned to Shiraz to put down re
bellion in Fdrs ; and, that being over, before he could give
his individual attention to drive out the Uzbeks, he had
to devise the best means of securing himself against Turkish
inroads threatening from the west. He had been engaged
in a war with Murdd III. in Georgia. Peace was con
cluded between the two sovereigns in 1590 ; but the terms
were unfavourable to Persia, who lost thereby Tabriz and
one or more of the Caspian ports. A somewhat offensive
stipulation was included in the treaty to the effect that
Persians were not to curse any longer the first three khalifs,
— a sort of privilege previously enjoyed by Shi'ahs as part
and parcel of their religious faith.
In 1597 'Abbds renewed operations against the Uzbeks,
and succeeded in recovering from them Herat and Khurasan.
Eastward he extended his dominions to Balkh, and in the
south his generals made the conquest of Bahrain (Bahrein),
on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, and the territory
and islands of the Persian seaboard, inclusive of the moun
tainous province of Lar. He strengthened his position in
Khurdsan by planting colonies of Kurdish horsemen on the
frontier, or along what is called the " atak " or skirt of the
Turkman mountains north of Persia. In 1601 the Avar
with the Ottoman empire, which had been partially renewed
prior to the death of Sultan Murdd in 1595, with little
success on the Turkish side, was now entered upon by
'Abbds with more vigour. Taking advantage of the weak
ness of his ancient enemy in the days of the poor volup
tuary Muhammad III., he began rapidly to recover the
provinces which Persia had lost in preceding reigns, and
continued to reap his advantages in succeeding campaigns
under Ahmad I., until under Cthman II. a peace was
signed restoring to Persia the boundaries which she had
obtained under the first Isma'il. On the other side
Kandahar, which Tahmdsp's lieutenant had yielded to
the Great Mughal, was recovered from that potentate
in 1609. The following slightly abridged extract from
Clements Markham's history of Persia, relating to dis
tinguished Englishmen of the period, will be an appro-
3 Krusinski says iu 1585.
638
PERSIA
[MODERN
1598-1641. priate conclusion of the narrative of events as above
summarized.
European " In 1598 Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley, two English gentle-
envoys, men, arrived at the Shah's court at Kazvin with a numerous
retinue. They were well received, and after some months Sir
Anthony returned to Europe with credentials to several Christian
princes. Robert, with five Englishmen, remained at the court of
the Shah. He married a Circassian lady named Teresia, and in
1607 was sent by 'Abbas as his ambassador to James I. of England.
After travelling through Europe and remaining a long time at
Madrid, Sir Robert Shirley and his Circassian wife landed in his
native country in 1.611, and was received by James I. with every
respect, as the ambassador of a powerful sovereign. His object
was to open a trade between England and Persia, but he did not
meet with success, owing to the opposition of the Levant mer
chants. He sailed from Dover with his wife in 1613, and after
visiting the court of the Great Mogul, reached Isfahan in 1615.
He was soon afterwards sent as ambassador to Spain, where he re
mained until 1622. In 1618, while Shirley was residing at Madrid,
the government of Philip III. of Spain sent an embassy to Persia,
at the head of which was Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, an able
and learned diplomatist, who made good use of his time in collect
ing information, and in writing a detailed account of his mission
and of Persia, including a Life of Timur. Garcia de Silva landed
at Ormuz, and proceeded thence to Shiraz, where he was most
hospitably entertained. The ambassador was forwarded to Kazwin
in June, and had an audience of the Shah, who received him very
graciously. Many conversations afterwards took place between
'Abbas and the stately Spaniard, touching Spanish victories over
the Turks, and other matters of state. But the main object of the
embassy, namely, security for Ormuz, which was now, through the
absorption of Portugal, a Spanish possession, was not obtained.
Garcia de Silva returned home by way of Aleppo, and embarked
at Tripoli for France on ]2th November 1619, devoutly praying
that his friend the Shah might be victorious over the Grand Turk.
"In the meanwhile Shah 'Abbas was occupied in establishing
and regulating the important trade of the Persian Gulf. Lar had
previously been completely subdued ; and Fars was ruled by one
of the Shah's most trusty and faithful servants.' In 1622 the
Shah determined on the expulsion of the Portuguese from the
Persian Gulf. They had seized upon the Isle of Ormuz in 1507,
under the famous Albuquerque, and in their hands it had attained
great prosperity, and become the emporium of all the commerce of
the gulf. But they were quite independent of the Shcdh of Persia,
whose jealousy and resentment they excited. Assisted by the
English East India Company, 'Abbas collected a fleet at Gombroon,
and embarked a Persian force under Imam Kiily Khan. They
laid siege to Ormuz, and the Portuguese, having no hope of succour,
were forced to surrender. The island is now covered with desolate
heaps of ruins. The port of Gombroon, on the mainland, and
sheltered by the islands of Kishm and Ormuz, rose on the fall of
the Portuguese city. It received the name of Bandar 'Alias, and
both the English and Dutch were allowed to establish factories
there.
" In 1623 Sir Robert Shirley again arrived in England on an
embassy from the Shah ; and in 1627 sailed for Persia, in company
with Sir Dormer Cotton, who was sent as envoy from Charles I. of
England to the Shah of Persia. They landed at Gombroon in 1628,
and Sir Dormer obtained a very gracious reception from 'Abbas, at
Kazvin, where he soon afterwards died. Sir Robert Shirley had
now grown old in the service of Persia. On his return he was
slighted by the Shah and his favourite, Muhammad 'Aly Beg, and
he died at Kazvin in July 1628. Of all the brave and gallant adven
turers of the glorious age of Elizabeth, Sir Robert Shirley was by
far the greatest traveller, with the exception, perhaps, of Anthony
Jenkinson. '
Charac- At the age of seventy, after a reign of forty-two years,
rand 'Abbas died at his favourite palace of Farahabad, on the
Abbis ' coast °f Mazandaran, on the night of the 27th January
1628. Perhaps the most distinguished of all Persian kings,
his fame was not merely local but world-wide. Ispahan
was his capital, and he did much for its embellishment and
enlargement. At his court were ambassadors from England,
Russia, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and India. To his
Christian subjects he was a kind and tolerant ruler. His
conquests have been already mentioned \ but there are few
sovereigns of an age so closely following the mediaeval who
have done such real good to their country by material
improvement and development of resources. The establish
ment of internal tranquillity, the expulsion of interlopers
and marauders like Turks and Uzbeks, the introduction of
salutary laws, and the promotion of public works of utility
these alone would render remarkable his two-score j'ears
of enlightened government. Even in the last quarter of
the 1 9th century the gratified traveller admires the magni
ficent caravansaras which afford him rest and shelter, and
the solid bridges which facilitate his " chapar " (posting),
and of which, if he ask particulars, he invariably hears that '
they were constructed by Shah 'Abbas.1 With a fine face,
"of which the most remarkable features were a high nose
and a keen and piercing eye,"2 he is said to have been
below the middle height, robust, active, a sportsman, and
capable of much endurance. It is, however, to be regretted
that this monarch's memory is tarnished by more than one
dark deed. The murder of his eldest son, Sufi Mirza, and the
cruel treatment of the two younger brothers, were stains
which could not be obliterated from the page of history by
an after-repentance. All that can be now said or done in
the matter is to repeat the testimony of historians that his
grief for the loss of Sufi Mirza was profound, and that, on
his death-bed, he nominated that prince's son (his own
grandson) his successor. Krusinski adds that, on being
told at that time by his confidential officers of a prophecy
which some astrologers had made to the effect that the new
king would reign but three months at most, he replied,
" Let him reign as long as he can, though it be but three
days. I shall be glad of the assurance that one day, at
least, he will have that crown upon his head which was
due to the prince, his father."
Sam Mirza was seventeen years of age when the nobles, Sh4h
in fulfilment of the charge committed to them, took him Sufi,
from the "haram " and proclaimed him king under the title
of Shah Sufi. He reigned fourteen years, and his reign was
a succession of barbarities, which can only be attributed to
an evil disposition acted upon by an education not only
wanting the ingenue artes but void of all civilizing elements
and influences. Taught to read and write, his diversions
were to shoot with the bow and ride upon an ass. There
was a rumour, moreover, that his father, to stunt the possible
growth of wit, ordered him a daily supply of opium. When
left to his own devices, he became a drunkard and a
murderer, and is accused of the death of his mother, sister,
and favourite queen. Among many other sufferers Imam
Kuli Khan, conqueror of Lar and Ormuz, the son of one
of 'Abbas's most famous generals, founder of a college at
Shiraz, and otherwise a public benefactor, fell a victim to
his savage cruelty. During his reign the Uzbeks were
driven back from Khurasan, and a rebellion was suppressed
in Gilan ; but Kandahar was again handed over to the
Mughals of Dehli (Delhi), and Baghdad retaken from
Persia by Sultan Murad, — both serious national losses.
Tavernier, without charging the shtih with injustice to
Christians, mentions the circumstance that "the first and
only European ever publicly executed in Persia was in his
reign." He was a watchmaker named Eodolph Stadler,
who had slain a Persian on suspicion of intrigue with his
wife. Offered his life if he became a Moslem, he resolutely
declined the proposal, and was decapitated. His tomb is
to be recognized at Ispahan by the words "Cy git Rodolphe"
on a long wide slab. Shah Sufi died (1G41) at Kashan
and was buried at Kiim.
His son, 'Abbas II., who succeeded him, appears to 'Abbas
have possessed some good qualities, and to have been IL
actuated by liberal sentiments ; but his accession to the
throne in extreme youth, and the restraint put upon
him by his advisers, were fatal to healthy development,
and on arriving at an age which should have been that
1 It would be unfair, however, to forget that there are, in parts of
Persia, especially Karman, some fine caravansaras whose construction
is due to the munificence of governors or private individuals. 'Abbas
seems certainly to have set the example, and to have furnished the best
specimens. - Malcolm.
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
639
of discretion he became wilfully indiscreet. Beyond the
credit of regaining Kandahar, an operation which he
is said to have directed in person when barely sixteen,
there is not much to mark the period of his life to the
outer world. As to foreign relations, he received em
bassies from Europe and a deputation from the French
East India Company ; he sought to conciliate the Uzbeks
by treating their refugee chiefs with unusual honour and
sumptuous hospitality ; he kept on good terms with
Turkey ; he forgave the hostility of a Georgian prince when
brought to him a captive ; and he was tolerant to all re
ligions, — always regarding Christians with especial favour.
But he was a drunkard and a debauchee, and chroniclers
are divided in opinion as to whether he died from the
effects of drink or licentious living. That he changed the
system of blinding his relatives from passing a hot metal
over the open eye to an extraction of the whole pupil is
indicative of gross brutality. 'Abbas II. died (1668) at
the age of thirty-eight, after a reign of twenty-seven years,
and was buried at Kum in the same mosque as his father.
'Abbas was succeeded by his son, Shah Sufi II., crowned
a second time under the name of Shah Sulaiman.
Sir John Malcolm remarks that from the middle of the
reign of 'Abbas II. till the elevation of Nadir Shah, or for
about eighty years, there are but few Persian histories
which give particular or authentic accounts of current
events ; and he attributes this circumstance to the absence
for nearly a century of any one political event of magni
tude. " And yet," he writes —
" this extraordinary calm was productive of no advantage to Persia.
The princes, nobles, and high officers of that kingdom were, it is
true, exempt from the dangers of foreign or internal war ; but
their property and their lives were the sport of a succession of
weak, cruel, and debauched monarchs. The lower orders were
exposed to fewer evils than the higher, but they became every
day more unwarlike ; and what they gained by that tranquillity
which the state enjoyed, lost almost all its value when they ceased
to be able to defend it. This period was distinguished by no
glorious achievements. No characters arose on which the historian
could dwell with delight. The nation may be said to have existed
upon the reputation which it had before acquired till all it possessed
was gone, and till it became, from the slow but certain progress of
a gradual and vicious decay, incapable of one effort to avert that
dreadful misery and ruin in which it was involved by the invasion
of a few Afghan tribes, whose conquest of Persia affixed so indelible
a disgrace upon that countiy, that we cannot be surprised that its
historians have shrunk from the painful and degrading narration."
Though weak, dissolute, and cruel, Sulaiman is not with
out his panegyrists. Chardin, whose testimony is all the
more valuable from the fact that he was contemporary with
him, relates many stories characteristic of his temper and
habits. The statement that on one occasion he compelled
his grand wazir to drink to intoxication, and on another to
have his hair cut by a barber after the unorthodox fashion
of the day, contrary to the old man's religious prejudices,
belongs to the record of unworthy and disgraceful acts. He
kept up a court at Ispahan which surprised and delighted
his foreign visitors, among whom were ambassadors from
European states ; and one learned writer, Kaempfer, credits
him with wisdom and good policy. Au reste, during his
reign Khurasan was invaded by the ever -encroaching
Uzbeks, the Kapchak Tatars plundered the shores of
the Caspian, and the island of Kishm was taken by the
Dutch ; but the kingdom suffered otherwise no material
loss. He died in 1694, in the forty-ninth year of his age
and twenty-sixth of his reign.
About a year before his death he is described by Sanson,1
a missionary from the French king Louis XIV., as tall,
strong, and active, " a fine prince, — a little too effeminate
for a monarch," with "a Roman nose very well pro
portioned to other parts," very large blue eyes, and "a
midling mouth, a beard painted black, shav'd round, and
1 Present State of Persia, London, 1695.
well turn'd, even to his ears." His air was "affable, 1641-1715.
but nevertheless majestic"; he had a masculine and agree
able voice, and sweet manner of speaking, and was "so
very engaging that when you but bow'd to him he seem'd
in some measure to return it by a courteous inclining of
his head, and which he always did smiling." The same
writer greatly praises him for his kindness to Christian
missionaries.
Krusinski's memoir is full of particulars regarding Shah Husain.
Husain, the successor of Sulaiman. He had an elder and
a younger brother, sons of the same mother, but the eldest
had been put to death by his father's orders, and the
youngest secreted by maternal precaution lest a similar
fate should overtake him. There was, however, a second
candidate for power in the person of a half-brother, 'Abbas.
The latter prince was the worthier of the throne, but the
other better suited the policy of the eunuchs and those
noblemen who had the right of election. Indeed Sulaiman
himself is reported to have told the grandees around him,
in his last days, that " if they were for a martial king that
would always keep his foot in the stirrup they ought to
choose Mirza 'Abbas, but that if they wished for a peace
able reign and a pacific king they ought to fix their eyes
upon Husain." But he himself made no definite choice.
Husain was selected, as might have been anticipated.
On his accession (1694) he displayed his attachment to
religious observances by prohibiting the use of wine, —
causing all wine -vessels to be brought out of the royal
cellars and destroyed, and forbidding the Armenians to sell
any more of their stock in Ispahan. The shah's grand
mother, by feigning herself sick and dependent upon wine
only for cure, obtained reversal of the edict ; and the
process by which the venerable lady made her son, in pure
regard to herself, drink the first glass with her (and there
by become a confirmed tippler) is woven into a story good
enough to attract a writer of vaudevilles. For the follow
ing account of Shah Husain and his successors to the
accession of Nadir Shah, Markham's abstract history has
been mainly utilized.
The new king soon fell under the influence of mullas, and was led
so far to forget his own origin as to persecute the Sufis. Though
good-hearted, he was weak and licentious ; and once out of the
hands of the fanatical party he became ensnared by women and
entangled in harem intrigues. For twenty years a profound peace
prevailed throughout the empire, but it was the precursor of a
terrible storm destined to destroy the Safawi dynasty and scatter
calamity broadcast over Persia. In the mountainous districts of
Kandahar and Kabul the hardy tribes of Afghans had for centuries
led a wild and almost independent life. They were divided into
two great branches — the Ghilzais of Ghazni and Kabul and the
Saduzais of Kandahar and Herat. More than one fanciful explana
tion is given of the etymology of the first name ; the most probable
one is perhaps that which connects them with a Turki tribe of
Khalji or Khilagi, a word not impossibly derived from the Turkish
kilij, "a sword," the affix "chi" or "ji" always denoting posses
sion. The second take their name from Sadu, their leader in the
time of Shah 'Abbas. In 1702 a newly -appointed governor, one
Shah Nawaz, called Gurji Khan from having been " wall " or
ruler of Georgia, arrived at Kandahar with a tolerably large force.
He was a clever and energetic man, and had been instructed to take
severe measures with the Afghans, some of whom were suspected of
intriguing to restore the city to the Dehli emperor. At this time
Kandahar had been for sixty years uninterruptedly in the shah's
possession. The governor appears to have given great offence by
the harshness of his proceedings, and a Ghilzai chief named Mir
Wa'iz, who had complained of his tyranny, was sent a prisoner to
Ispahan. This person had much ability and no little cunning.
He was permitted to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his re
turn in 1708 he so gained upon the confidence of the Persian court
that he was allowed to go back to his country. At Kandahar he
planned a conspiracy against the Government, slew Gurji Khan
and his retinue, seized the city, defeated two Persian armies sent
against him, and died a natural death in 1715. His brother, Mir
'Abdallah, succeeded him in the government of the Afghans ; but
after a few months, Mahmiid, a son of Mir Wa'iz, a very young man,
murdered his uncle and assumed the title of a sovereign prince.
In the meanwhile dark clouds were rising all round the horizon
640
PERSIA
[MODERN
1715-1736. ready to overwhelm the doomed Safawi dynasty. The Siiduztii
tribe revolted at Herat, and declared itself independent in 1717 ;
the Kurds overran the country round Ilamadan ; the Uzbeks deso
lated Khurasan ; and the Arabs of Maskat seized the island of Al-
Bahraiu and threatened Bandar -'Abbas. Thus surrounded by
dangers on all sides the wretched shah was bewildered. He made
one vain attempt to regain his possessions in the Persian Gulf; but
the Portuguese fleet which had promised to transport his troops to
Al-Bahrain was defeated by the imam of Maskat and forced to
retreat to Goa.
Afghan The court of Ispahan had no sooner received tidings of this
invasion, disaster than Mahmud, with a large army of Afghans, invaded
Persia in the year 1721, seized Karman, and in the following year
advanced to within four days' march- of the city of Ispahan. The
shah ottered him a sum of money to return to Kandahar, but the
Afghan answered by advancing to a place called Gulnabad, within 9
miles of the capital. The effeminate and luxurious courtiers were
taken completely by surprise ; no preparation had been made, and
the capital was unprovided with either provisions or ammunition.
The ill -disciplined Persian arm}', hastily collected, advanced to
attack the rebels. Its centre was led by Shaikh 'All Khan, covered
by twenty-four field-pieces. The wali of Arabia commanded the
right, and the 'itimadu d-daulah, or prime minister, the left wing.
The whole force amounted to 50,000 men, while the Afghans could
not count half that number.
On 8th March 1722 the richly-dressed hosts of Persia appeared
before the little band of Afghans, who were scorched and disfigured
by their long marches. The wall of Arabia commenced the battle
by attacking the left wing of the Afghans with great fury, routing
it, and plundering their camp. The prime minister immediately
afterwards attacked the enemy's right wing, but was routed, and
the Afghans, taking advantage of the confusion, captured the
Persian guns and turned them on the Persian centre, who fled in
confusion without striking a blow. The wall of Arabia escaped
into Ispahan, and Mahmud the Afghan gained a complete victory.
Fifteen thousand Persians remained dead on the field. A panic
now seized on the surrounding inhabitants, thousands of country
people fled into the city, and the squares and streets were filled
with a helpless multitude. Ispahan was then one of the most
magnificent cities in Asia, containing more than 600,000 inhabit
ants. After his victory Mahmud seized on the Armenian suburb
of Julfa, and invested the doomed city ; but Tahmasp, son of the
shah, had previously escaped into the mountains of Mazandaran.
Famine soon began to press hard upon the besieged, and in
September Shah Ilusain offered to capitulate. He agreed to
abdicate in favour of Mahmud, and to deliver himself np as a
Mali- prisoner. • Having been conducted to the Afghan camp, he fixed
mud's the royal plume of feathers on the young rebel's turban with his
usurpa- own hand ; and 4000 Afghans were ordered to occupy the palace
tion. and gates of the city.1 Mahmud entered Ispahan in triumph, with
the captive shah on his left hand, and, seating himself on the throne
in the royal palace, he was saluted as sovereign of Persia by the
unfortunate Husain. When Tahmasp, the fugitive prince, received
tidings of the abdication of his father he at once assumed the
title of shah at Kazvin.
Turkey and Russia were not slow to take advantage of the cala
mities of Persia. The Turks seized on Tiflis, Tabriz, and Hamadan,
while Peter the Great, whose aid had been sought by the friendless
Tahmasp, fitted out a fleet on the Caspian.2 The Russians occupied
Shirwan, and the province of Gilan on the south-west corner of
the Caspian3 ; and Peter made a treaty with Tahmasp II. in July
1722, by which he agreed to drive the Afghans out of Persia on
condition that Darband (Derbend), Baku, Gilan, Mazandaran, and
Astrabad were ceded to Russia in perpetuity. These were all the
richest and most important northern provinces of Persia.
Meanwhile the cruel invader was deluging Ispahan with the
blood of its citizens. Dreading rebellion, in 1723 he invited
three hundred of the principal Persian nobility to a banquet and
massacred them. To prevent their children rising up in vengeance
they were all murdered also. Then he proceeded to slaughter vast
numbers of the citizens of Ispahan, until the place was nearly
depopulated. Not content with this, in February 1725 he assem
bled all the captives of the royal family, except the shah, in the
courtyard of the palace, and caused them all to be murdered, com
mencing the massacre with his own hand. The wretched Husain,
1 We have an account of the Afghan invasion and sack of Ispahan
from an eye-witness, Father Krusinski, procurator of the Jesuits at
that place, whose interesting work was translated into English in the
last century.
- In 1721 Sultan Husain sent an embassy to the Russians, seeking
aid against the Afghans. In May 1722 a flotilla descended the Volga
commanded by Czar Peter, and on 19th July the Russian flag first
waved over the Caspian. Gilan was occupied by 6000 men under
General Matusdikin.
3 The Russians remained in Gilan until 1734, when they were
obliged to evacuate it, owing to the unhealthiness of the climate.
frantic with grief, rushed to this scene of horror, and was himself
wounded in endeavouring vainly to save his infant son, only five
years of age. All the males of the royal family, except Ilusain
himself, Tahmasp, and two children, are said to have perished. At
length the inhuman miscreant Mahmud died, at the early age of
twenty -seven, on 22d April 1725. With scarcely any neck, he
had round shoulders, a broad face with a flat nose, a thin beard,
and squinting eyes, which were generally downcast.
Mahmud was succeeded in his usurpation by his first cousin
Ashraf, the son of Mir 'Abdallah. He was a brave but cruel Afghan.
He gave the dethroned shah a handsome allowance, and strove,
by a mild policy, to acquire popularity. In 1727, after a short
war, he signed a treaty with the Turks, acknowledging the sultan
as chief of the Moslems. But the fortunate star of Tahmasp II.
was now beginning to rise, and the days of Afghan usurpation were
numbered. He had collected a small army in Mazandaran, and
was supported by Fatli 'AH Kluin, the powerful chief of the Kajar
tribe. In 1727 the fugitive shall was joined by Nadir Kuli, a
robber chief, who was already famous for his undaunted valour,
and who was destined to become the mightiest conqueror of the
age. He murdered Fath 'Ah', and, having easily appeased the
shah, received the command of the royal arrny. In 1729 Ashraf Expul-
became alarmed at these formidable preparations in the north, andsion of
led an Afghan army into Khurasan, where he was defeated by Afghan
Nddir at Damghan, and forced to retreat. The Persian general
followed close in his rear, and again entirely defeated him outside
Ispahan in November of the same year. The Afghans fled through
the town ; and Ashraf, murdering the poor old shah Husain on his
way, hurried with the wreck of his army towards Shirdz. On 16th
November the victorious Nadir entered Ispahan, and was soon
followed by his master, the young shah Tahmasp II., who burst
into tears when he beheld the ruined and defaced walls of the
palace of his ancestors. His mother, who had escaped the numerous
massacres by disguising herself as a slave, and performing the most
degrading offices, now came forth and threw herself into his arms.
Nadir did not give his enemies time to recover from their defeat.
He followed them up, and again utterly routed them in January
1730. Ashraf tried to escape to Kandahar almost alone, but was
murdered by a party of Balucli robbers ; and thus, by the genius
of Nadir, his native land was delivered from the terrible Afghan
invaders.
The ambition of Nadir, however, was far greater than his
loyalty. On the pretext of incapacity he dethroned Tahmasp II.
in 1732, and sent him a prisoner into Khurasan, where he was
murdered some years afterwards by Nadir's son, while the conqueror
was absent on his Indian expedition. For a short time the wily
usurper placed Tahmasp's son on the throne, a little child, with
the title of 'Abbas III., while he contented himself with the office
of regent. Poor little 'Abbas died at a very convenient time, in Fall of
the year 1736, and Nadir then threw off' the mask. He was pro-Safawis.
claimed shah of Persia by a vast assemblage on the plain of
Moglian.
By the fall of the Safawi dynasty Persia lost, as it
were, her race of national monarchs, considered not only in
respect of origin and birthplace but in essence and in
spirit. The Persians have never been governed by more
truly representative kings than Lsma'il, Tahmasp, and
'Abbas ; and, whatever their faults and failings, they were
Persian and peculiar to Persians. Thoroughly to realize
this truth we must endeavour for a moment to change our
own for the Oriental standpoint, and accept even the
murders and excesses committed as an outcome of the age,
place, and circumstances, and as natural as are the freaks
of unrestrained childhood. Regarded in a sober English
spirit, the reign of the great 'AbbAs is rendered mythical
by crime. No sovereign could be great in the estimation
of civilized Europe who acted as lie did on certain occasions.
No victory or healthy legislation could compensate for
moments of madness, which, under Western orthodoxy,
must mar a whole career. But something liberal in the
philosophy of their progenitors threw an attractiveness
over the earlier f^afawi kings which was wanting in those
who came after them. In course of time the old philo
sophical element disappeared ; and one of Shdh Husafn's
immediate predecessors not only disavowed all sympathy
with Sufism but threatened to crush it where detected.
The fact is that, two centuries after Shdh Isma'il's acces
sion to the throne, the ^afawi race of kings was effete ; and
it became necessary to make room for a more vigorous if
not a more lasting rule. Nadir was the strong man for
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
641
the hour and occasion. He has been designated a " robber
chief " ; but his antecedents, like those of many others
who have filled the position, have redeeming points of
melodramatic interest. He was driven to this mode of
life by injustice, and raised to consideration above ordi
nary banditti by ability as much as by physical force. It
was the repute he had thus obtained which caused Saifu
'd-Din Beg, a general of Shah Tahmasp, and chief of a
tribe, to unite his fortunes to Nadir's, and so enable him to
rise on the ladder of his ambition. That Nadir misused his
advantages by acts of treachery is not to be denied. Such
was, unfortunately, one of the visible roads to success in
those barbarous times.
i A map attached to Krusinski's volumes (see Plate VIII.)
illustrates the extent of Persian territory in 1728, or one
year before Ashraf was finally defeated by Nadir, and some
eight years prior to the date on which Nadir was himself
proclaimed king. It shows, during the reign of the Safawfs,
Tiflis, Erivan, Khoi, and Baghdad to have been within the
limits of Persia on the west, and in like manner Balkh
and Kandahar to have been included within the eastern
border. There is, however, also shown, as a result of the
Afghan intrusion and the impotency of the later Safawl
kings, a long broad strip of country to the west, including
Tabriz and Hamadan, marked "conquests of the Turks,"
and the whole west shore of the Caspian from Astrakan to
Mazandaran marked "conquests of the czar of Muscovy";
Makran, written Mecran, is designated "a warlike inde
pendent nation." If further allowance be made for the
district held by the Afghan invaders as part of their own
country, it will be seen how greatly the extent of Persia
proper was reduced, and what a work Nadir had before
him to restore the kingdom to its former proportions.
But the former proportions had been partly reverted
to, and would doubtless have been in some respects
exceeded, both in Afghanistan and the Ottoman dominions
and on the shores of the Caspian, by the action of this inde
fatigable general, had not his sovereign master, Tahmasp
II., acting on his own account, been led into a premature
treaty with the Turks. Nadir's anger and indignation
had been great at this weak proceeding ; indeed, he had
made it the ostensible cause of the shah's deposition. He
had addressed letters to all the military chiefs of the
country, calling upon them for support ; he had sent an
envoy to Constantinople insisting upon the sultan's restora
tion of the Persian provinces still in his possession — that
is, Georgia and part of Adarbaijan, — and he had threatened
Baghdad with assault. As regent, he had failed twice in
taking the city of the khalifs, but on the second occasion
he had defeated and killed its gallant defender, Topal
'Othman, and he had succeeded in regaining Tiflis, Kars,
and Erivan.1
Russia and Turkey, naturally hostile to one another,
had taken occasion of the weakness of Persia to forget
their mutual quarrels and unite to plunder the tottering
kingdom of the Safawi kings. A partition treaty had been
signed between these two powers in 1723, by which the
czar was to take Astrabad, Mazandaran, Gilan, part of
Shirwan and Daghistan, while the acquisitions of the
Porte were to be traced out by a line drawn from the
junction of the Arras and Kur rivers, and passing along
by Ardabil, Tabriz, and Hamadan, and thence to Karman-
shah. Tahmasp was to retain the rest of his paternal
kingdom on condition of his recognizing the treaty. The
ingenious diplomacy of Russia in this transaction was
manifested in the fact that she had already acquired the
greater part of the territory allotted to her, while Turkey
had to obtain her share by further conquest. But the
combination to despoil a feeble neighbour was outwitted
1 Malcolm.
by the energy of a military commander of remarkable 1728-1738.
type.
Nadir Shah. — Nadir, it has been said, was proclaimed Nadir's
shah in the plains of Moghan in 1736. Mirza Mahdi corona-
relates how this event was brought about by his address to n'
the assembled nobles and officers on the morning of the
' Nau-ruz," or Persian New- Year's Day, the response to that
appeal being the offer of the crown. In the spirit of the
third English Richard, he refused to accept the high dignity,
but eventually suffered his petitioners, on certain conditions,
to " buckle fortune on his back." The conditions were that
the crown should be hereditary in his family, that the
claim of the Safawis was to be held for ever extinct, and
that measures should be taken to bring the Shi'ahs to
accept uniformity of worship with the Sunnis. The mulla
bashi (or high priest) objecting to the last, Nadir ordered
him to be strangled, a command which was carried out
on the spot. On the day following, the agreement having
been ratified between sovereign and people, he was pro
claimed emperor of Persia. At Kazvin the ceremony of
inauguration took place. Having girt on the royal scimitar
and put the crown on his head, he took the accustomed
oath. The edict expressing the royal will on the religious
question is dated in June, but the date of coronation is
uncertain. From Kazvin Nadir moved to Ispahan, where
he organized an army for a proposed expedition against
Kandahar, then in the possession of a brother of Mahmud,
the conqueror of Shah Husain. But before setting out
for Afghanistan he took measures to secure the internal
quiet of Persia, attacking and seizing in his stronghold
the chief of the marauding Bakhtiaris, whom he put to
death, retaining many of his men for service as soldiers.
With an army of 80,000 men he marched through Khur
asan and Sistan to Kandahar, which city he blockaded
ineffectually for a year ; but it finally capitulated on the
loss of the citadel. Balkh fell to Riza Kiili, the king's son,
who, moreover, crossed the Oxus and defeated the Uzbeks
in battle. Besides tracing out the lines of Nadirabad, a
town since merged in modern Kandahar, Nadir had taken
advantage of the time available and of opportunities pre
sented to enlist a large number of men from the AbdAli and
Ghilzai tribes. It is said that as many as 16,000 were at
his disposal. His rejection of the Shi'ah tenets as a state
religion seems to have propitiated the Sunni Afghans, and it
is not to be otherwise wondered at that a man of his war
like habits should have succeeded in attaching many of the
rough mountaineers to his person. Such a force, in addi
tion to his own army, rendered him a truly formidable foe,
and the prospect which now opened out before him must
have fired his heart and the hearts of his warriors with
restless exultation.
He had sent an ambassador into Hindustan requesting Invasion
the Mughal emperor to order the surrender of certain
unruly Afghans who had taken refuge within Indian terri
tory, but no satisfactory reply was given, and obstacles
were thrown in the way of the return of the embassy.
The Persian monarch, not sorry perhaps to find a plausible
pretext for encroachment in a quarter so full of promise
to booty-seeking soldiers, pursued some of the fugitives
through Ghazni to Kabul, which city was then under the
immediate control of Nasr Khan, governor of eastern
Afghanistan, for Muhammad Shah of Dehli. This function
ary, alarmed at the near approach of the Persians, fled to
Peshdwar. Kabul had long been considered not only an
integral part but also one of the main gates of the Indian
empire ; notwithstanding a stout resistance on the part
of its commandant, Shir or Shirzah Khan, the place was
stormed and carried (1738) by Nadir, who, after slaugh
tering the greater part of the garrison, took possession of
it and moved on to the eastward. Mirza Mahdi relates
XVIII. — 8 1
PERSIA
[MODERN
1738-1747. that from the Kabul plain he addressed a new remonstrance
to the Dehli court, but that his envoy was arrested and
killed, and his escort compelled to return by the governor
of Jalalabdd. The same authority notes the occupation
of the latter place by Persian troops and the march thither
from Gandamak. There are some doubts as to the exact
route now taken, but it was probably through the Khaibar
(Khyber) Pass that he passed into the Peshawar plain, for
it was there that he first defeated the imperial forces.
The invasion of India had now fairly commenced, and its
successful progress and consummation were mere questions
of time. It will not do to cite a triumphal march of an
irresistible horde in example of what may still be achieved
by an inroad upon modern Hindustan. The prestige of
this Eastern Napoleon was immense. It had not only
reached but had been very keenly felt at Dehli before the
conquering army had arrived. There was no actual religious
war ; all sectarian distinction had been disavowed ; the
contest was between vigorous Muhammadans and effete
Muhammadans. Nadir had not, like Caesar, come, and
seen, and conquered. His way had been prepared by
circumstances, and as he progressed from day to day
his army of invaders increased. There must have been
larger accessions by voluntary recruits than losses by
death or desertion. The victory on the plain of Karnal,
whether accomplished by sheer fighting or the intervention
of treachery, was the natural outcome of the previous
situation ; it was the shifting of the scene as anticipated
and prepared, and the submission of the emperor followed
as a matter of course. But the coming and going of Nadir
are studies quite as interesting and instructive as the
coming and going of Alexander, and belong to compara
tively recent days.
Dehli must have experienced a sense of relief at the de
parture of its conqueror, whose residence there had been
rendered painfully memorable by carnage and riot. The
marriage of his son to the grand-daughter of Aurangzib
and the formal restoration of the crown to the dethroned
emperor, both prominent parts of the first pageant, were
doubtless politic, and his parting counsels to the wretched
Muhammad Shah were, it is probable, good and appro
priate ; but the descendant of Bdbar could not easily forget
how humiliating a chapter in history would remain to be
written against him. The return march of Nadir to Per
sia is not recorded with precision. On the 5th May 1739
he left the gardens of Shalimar, north of Dehli, to proceed,
by Lahore and Peshawar, through the passes to Kabul.
Thence he seems to have returned to Kandahar and, either
in person or by his lieutenants, to have recrossed the Indus
into Sind. But the subjection of Niir Muhammad, the
Kalhora chief then ruling in that province, would hardly
have been a sufficient inducement to bring back the great
Nadir Kuli so far as 'Umarkot; and in May 1740— just
one year after his departure from Dehli — he was in Herat
displaying the imperial throne and other costly trophies
to the gaze of the admiring inhabitants. Sind was cer
tainly included in the cession to him by Muhammad Shah
of "all the territories westward of tho river Attok," but
only that portion of it, such as Thattah (Tatta), situated
on the right bank of the Indus.
North- From Herat he moved upon Balkh and Bukhara, and
em con- a^ a snort distance from the latter city received the sub-
ques s. missjon Of Abu '1-Fdiz Khdn, the Uzbek ruler, whom he
restored to his throne on condition that the Oxus should
be the acknowledged boundary between the two empires.
The khan of Khwarizm was his next opponent ; and, as
this chief rejected conciliation, and had given serious
cause of offence by repeated depredations in Persian terri
tory, he was made prisoner and doomed, with some of his
officers, to execution. Nadir then visited the strong
fortress of Kelat, a place which now bears his name and
to which he was greatly attached as the scene of his boyish
exploits, and Mashhad, which he constituted the capital
of his empire. Here he spent three months in festivity ;
and if extension of dominion be a cause for gratulation
he could well justify the demonstration, for he had
extended his boundary on the east to the Indus, and to
the Oxus on the north.
On the south he was restricted by the Arabian Ocean Wars
and Persian Gulf ; but the west remained open to his in tlle
further progress. He had in the first place to revenge westl
the death of his brother Ibrahim Khan, slain by the
Lesghians ; and a campaign against the Turks might follow
in due course. The first movement was unsuccessful, and
indirectly attended with disastrous consequences. Nadir,
when hastening to the support of some Afghan levies who
were doing good service, was fired at and wounded by
j a stray assailant ; suspecting his son, Ri/a Kuli, of com-
' plicity, he commanded the unfortunate prince to be seized
and deprived of sight. From that time the heroism of
the monarch appeared to die out. He became morose,
tyrannical, and suspicious. An easy victory over the
Turks gave him but little additional glory ; and he readily
concluded a peace with the sultan which brought but
insignificant gain to Persia.1 Another battle Avon from
the Ottoman troops near Diarbekir by Ndsr Ullah Mirza,
the young prince who had married a princess of Dehli,
left matters much the same as before. " It was agreed
that prisoners on both sides should be released, that
Persian pilgrims going to the holy cities of 'Mecca and
Medina should be protected, and that the whole of the
provinces of Irak and Adarbaijan should remain with
Persia, except an inconsiderable territory that had be
longed to the Turkish Government in the time of Shah
Ismail, the first of the Suffavi kings."2
The last years of Nadir's life were full of internal trouble.
On the part of the sovereign, murders and executions ; on
that of his subjects, revolt and conspiracy, — these were the
ordinary topics of common interest throughout the country.
Such a state of things could not last, and certain proscribed
persons plotted together for the destruction of a sovereign
who had now become a half-demented tyrant. He was
despatched by Salah Bey, captain of his guards, to whom,
with three others, was committed the work of his assassina
tion (1747). He was some sixty years of age, and had
reigned eleven years. About the time of setting out on his
Indian expedition he was described as a most comely man,
upwards of 6 feet high, well-proportioned, of robust make
and constitution ; inclined to be fat, but prevented by the
fatigue he underwent ; with fine, large black eyes and eye
brows ; of sanguine complexion, made more manly by the
influence of sun and weather ; a loud, strong voice ; a
moderate wine-drinker ; fond of simple diet, such as pilaos
and plain dishes, but often neglectful of meals altogether,
and satisfied, if occasion required, with parched peas and
water, always to be procured.3
Malcolm winds up a long account of his idiosyncrasies
with the following.
" The character of this wonderful man is, perhaps, exhibited in
its truest colours in those impressions which the memory of his
actions has left upon the minds of his countrymen. They speak
of him as a deliverer and a destroyer ; but while they expatiate
with pride upon his deeds of glory, they dwell with more pity than
horror upon the cruel enormities which disgraced the latter years
of his reign ; and neither his crimes, nor the attempt he made to
abolish their religion, have subdued their gratitude and veneration
for the hero, who revived in the breasts of his degraded countrymen
1 Professor Creasy says the war broke out in 1743, but was termi
nated in 1746 by a treaty which made little change in the old arrange
ments fixed under Murad IV.
2 Malcolm. 3 Eraser's History of Nddir Shdh (1742).
HISTORY.]
a sense of their former fame, and restored Persia to her independence
as a nation. "
During the reign of Nadir an attempt was made to
establish a British Caspian trade with Persia. The names
of Jonas Hanway and John Elton were honourably con
nected with this undertaking ; and the former has left
most valuable records of the time and country.
;riod of From Nadir Shah to the Kajar Dynasty. — After the
;archy. death of Nadir Shah something like anarchy prevailed for
thirteen years in the greater part of Persia as it existed
under Shah 'Abbas. No sooner had the crime become
known than Ahmad Khan, chief of the Abdali Afghans,
marched off rapidly with his men to Kandahar and took
possession of that city and a certain amount of treasure.
The chief of the Bakhtiaris, Rashid, also with treasure,
fled to the mountains, from which his people had been
drawn prior to the Indian expedition ; and the conspirators
who had done the murderous deed invited 'Ali, a nephew
of the deceased monarch, to ascend the vacant throne. By
the action of Ahmad Abdali, Afghanistan was at once lost
to the Persian crown, for this leader was strong enough to
found an independent kingdom. The Bakhtiari encouraged
his brother, 'Ali Mardan, to compete for the succession to
Nadir ; and the nominee of the disaffected party hastened
from Sistan to Mashhad to take advantage of his nomina
tion. The prince was welcomed by his subjects ; he told
them that the murder of his uncle was due to his own
instigation, and, in order to conciliate them towards him in
a practical manner, remitted the revenues of the current
year and all extraordinary taxes for the two years following.
Taking the title of 'Adil Shah, or the "just " king, he
commenced his reign by putting to death the two princes
Riza Kuli and Nasr Ullah, as well as all relatives who
could, in his estimation, be considered his competitors,
with the exception of Shah Rukh, son of Riza Kuli, whom
he spared in case a lineal descendant of Nadir should at
any time be required by the people. His calculations
proved, however, no wiser than beneficent. He had not
removed all dangerous members of the royal house, ,nor
had he gauged the temper of the times or people. 'Adil
Shah was soon dethroned by his own brother, Ibrahim, and
.ah he in his turn was defeated by the adherents of Shah Rukh,
ikh. who made their leader king.
This young prince had a better and more legitimate
title than that of the grandson of Nadir, whose usurpa
tion was too recent an occurrence to have eradicated and
supplanted a comparatively ancient dynasty of national
kings. He was also grandson, on the mother's side, of
the Safawi Shah Husain. Amiable, generous, and liberal-
minded, and of prepossessing exterior, he proved to be a
popular prince. But his friends and supporters had done
well to have left him in honourable obscurity ; for he was
neither of an age nor character to rule over a people led
hither and thither by turbulent and disaffected chiefs, ever
divided by the conflicting interests of personal ambition.
No sooner had his claim to succession been admitted
than his authority was subverted. Sa'id Muhammad, son
of Mirza Daiid, a chief mulla at Mashhad, whose mother
was the reputed daughter of Sulaiman, collecting a
body of men, and assuming the name of his maternal
grandfather, declared himself king, and imprisoned and
blinded Shah Rukh. Yiisuf 'All, the general command
ing the royal troops, came to the rescue, defeated and slew
Sulaiman, and replaced his master on the throne, reserving
to himself the protectorship or regency. A new combina
tion of chiefs, of which Ji'afir the Kurd and Mir 'Alam
the Arabian are the principal names handed down, brought
about the death of Yiisuf 'All and the second imprisonment
of Shah Rukh. These events were followed by a quarrel
terminating in the supremacy of the Arab. At this June-
643
ture Ahmad Shah Abddli reappeared in Persian Klrarasan 1747-175
from Herat ; he attacked and took possession of Mashhad,
slew Mir 'Alam, and, pledging the local chiefs to support
the blinded prince in retaining the kingdom of his grand
father, he returned to Afghanistan. But thenceforward this
unfortunate young man was a mere shadow of royalty,
and his purely local power and prestige had no further
influence whatever on Persia as a country.
The land was partitioned among several distinguished Further
persons, who had of old been biding their opportunities, confu-
or were born of the occasion. Foremost among these was Slon<
Muhammad Hasan Khan, hereditary chief of those Kajars
who were established in the south-east corner of the
Caspian. His father, Fath 'All Khan, after sheltering Shah
Tahmasp II. at his home in Astrabad, and long acting as
one of his most loyal supporters, had been put to death by
Nadir, who had appointed a successor to his chiefdom
from the "Yukari" or "upper" Kajars, instead of from
his own, the " Ashagha," or " lower." 1 Muhammad, with
his brother, had fled to the Turkmans, by whose aid he
had attempted the recovery of AstrAbad, but had not
succeeded in regaining a permanent footing there until
Nadir had been removed. On the murder of the tyrant
he had raised the standard of independence, successfully
resisted Ahmad Shah and his Afghans, who sought to
check his progress in the interests of Shah Rukh, and
eventually brought under his own sway the valuable pro
vinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad,2 — quite a little
kingdom in itself. In the large important province of
Adarbaijan, Azad Khdn, one of Nadir's generals, had
established a separate government ; and 'All Mardan,
brother of the Bakhtiari chief, took forcible possession of
Ispahan, empowering Shah Rukh's governor, Abu '1-Fath
Khan, to act for the new master instead of the old.
Had 'Ali Mardan declared himself an independent ruler
he would have been by far the most important of the three
persons named. But such usurpation at the old Safawi
capital would have been too flagrant an act for general
assent ; so he put forward Isma'il, a nephew of Shah Husain,
as the representative of sovereignty, and himself as one of
his two ministers, — the other being Karim KhAn, a young
chief of the Zend Kurds. Shah Isma'il, it need scarcely
be said, was a mere nominal king, and possessed no real
authority; but the ministers were strong men in their way,
and the Zend especially promised to be useful in his
generation, for he had many high and excellent qualities.
After a time 'Ali Mardan was assassinated, and Karim
Khan became the sole living power at Ispahan. The
story of the period is thus told by Watson.
"The three rivals, Karim, Azad, and Muhammad Hasan, pro- Struggle
ceeded to settle, by means of the sword, the question as to which of of the
them was to be the sole master of Persia. A three-sided war then three
ensued, in the course of which each of the combatants in turn rivals,
seemed at one time sure to be the final conqueror. Karim, when
he had arranged matters at Ispahan, marched to the borders of
Mazandaran, where the governor of that province was ready to
meet him. After a closely-contested battle victory remained with
Muhammad Hasan ; who, however, was unable to follow up the foe,
as he had to return in order to encounter Azad. That leader had
invaded Gilan, but, on the news reaching him of the victory which
the governor of Mazandaran had gained, he thought it prudent to
retrace his steps to Sultanfyah. Karim reunited his shattered
forces at Tehran, and retired to Ispahan to prepare for a second
campaign. When he again took the field it was not to measure
himself once more with the Kajar chief, but to put down the pre
tensions of Azad. The wary Afghan, however, shut himself up in
Kazvm, a position from which he was enabled to inflict much in
jury on the army of Karim, while his own troops remained unharmed
1 There were three branches of the Kajar tribe, i.e., the Suldus,
Tuugkut, and Jalaiyar. The last, according to Watson, became settled
in Iran and Turan, and seem at first to have given their name to all
the tribe.
2 Watson. Malcolm says that Gflan was under one of its own chiefs,
Hidaivat Khan.
PERSIA
[MODERN
52-1770. behind the walls of the town. Kari'm retired a second time to
Ispahan, and in the following spring advanced again to meet Azad.
A pitched battle took place between them, in which the army of
Karim was defeated. He retreated to the capital, closely pressed
by the foe. Thence he continued his way to Shiraz, but Azad was
still upon his traces. He then threw himself upon the mercy of
the Arabs of the Garmsir, or hot country, near the Persian Gulf, to
whom the name of the Afghans was hateful, and who rose in a body
to turn upon Azad. Karim, by their aid, once more repaired his
losses and advanced on Ispahan, while Muhammad Hasan with
fifty thousand men was coming from the opposite direction, ready
to encounter either the Afghan or the Zend. The Afghan did not
await his coining, but retired to his government of Tabriz.
"The Zend issued from Ispahan, and was a second time defeated
in a pitched battle by the Kajar. Karim took refuge behind the
walls of Shiraz, and all the efforts of the enemy to dislodge him
were ineffectual. Muhammad Hasan Khan in the following year
turned his attention to Adarbaijan. Azad was no longer in a posi
tion to oppose him in the field, and he in turn became master of
every place of importance in the province, while Azad had to seek
assistance in vain — first from the Pasha of Baghdad, and then from
his former enemy, the Tsar of Georgia. Next year the conquering
Kajar returned to Shiraz to make an end of the only rival who now
stood in his way. On his side were 80,000 men, commanded by a
general who had twice defeated the Zend chief on an equal field.
Karim was still obliged to take shelter in Shiraz, and to employ
artifice in order to supply the place of the force in which he was
deficient. Nor were his efforts in this respect unattended with
success : seduced by his gold, many of the troops of the Kajar
began to desert their banners. In the meantime the neighbour
hood of Shiraz was laid waste, so as to destroy the source from
which Muhammad Hasan drew his provisions ; by degrees his army
vanished, and he had. finally to retreat with rapidity to Ispahan
with the few men that remained to him. Finding his position
there to be untenable, he retreated still further to the country of
his own tribe, while his rival advanced to Ispahan, where he re
ceived the submission of nearly all the chief cities of Persia. The
ablest of Karim's officers, Shaikh 'Ali, was sent in pursuit of the
Kajar chief. The fidelity of the commander to whom that chief
tain had confided the care of the pass leading into Mazandaran, was
corrupted ; and, as no further retreat was open to him, he found
himself under the necessity of fighting. The combat which ensued
resulted in his complete defeat, although he presented to his
followers an example of the most determined valour. While
attempting to effect his escape he was recognized by the chief of
the other branch of the Kajar tribe, who had deserted his cause,
and who had a blood-feud with him, in pursuance of which he now
put him to death.
Karim " For nineteen years after this event Karim Khan ruled with the
Khan. title of wakil, or regent, over the whole of Persia, excepting the
province of Khurasan. He made Shiraz the seat of his government,
and by means of his brothers put down every attempt which was
made to subvert his authority. The rule of the great Zend chief
was just and mild, and he is on the whole, considering his educa
tion and the circumstances under which he was placed, one of the
most faultless characters to be met with in Persian history. "
Karim Khdn died at his capital and favourite resi
dence in 1779 in the twentieth year of his reign, and,
it is said, in the eightieth of his age. He built the
great bazaar of Shir&z, otherwise embellishing and im
proving the city, had a tomb constructed over the re
mains of Hafiz, and repaired the " turbat " at the grave
of Sa'di, outside the walls. He encouraged commerce and
agriculture, gave much attention to the state of affairs
along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and carefully studied
the welfare of the Armenian community settled in his
dominions. In his time the British factory was removed
from Gombroon to Bushahr (Bushire). It would be plea
sant, if space allowed, to repeat the anecdotes creditable
to his memory ; for it is unusual to find so worthy a
figure in Oriental annals.
On Karim's death a new period of anarchy supervened.
His brother, Zaki, a cruel and vindictive chief, and withal
a pardoned rebel — for, when governor of Ispahan, he had
revolted against Karim — assumed the government. At
the same time he proclaimed Abu '1-Fath Kh&n, second son
of the deceased monarch, and his brother Muhammad 'Ali,
joint-successors to the throne. The seizure of the citadel at
(Shiraz by the adherents of the former, among whom were
the more influential of the Zends, may have induced him to
adopt this measure as one of prudent conciliation. But the
garrison held out, and, to avoid a protracted siege, he had
recourse to treachery. The suspicious nobles were solemnly
adjured to trust themselves to his keeping, under promise
of forgiveness. They believed his professions, tendered
their submission, and were cruelly butchered. Zaki did
not long enjoy the fruits of his perfidious dealing. The
death of Karim Khan had raised two formidable adver
saries to mar his peace, who could not fail to bring on a
denouement of some kind seriously affecting his interests.
Agha Muhammad, son of Muhammad Hasan, the Kajar
chief of Astr&bdd, a prisoner at large in Shir/iz, was in
the environs of that city awaiting intelligence of the
old king's decease, and, hearing it, instantly escaped to
Mazandaran, there to gather his tribesmen together and
put himself in a condition to compete for the crown of
Persia. Taken prisoner by Nadir and barbarously mutilated
by 'Adil Shah, he had afterwards found means to rejoin his
people, but had surrendered himself to Karim Kh&n when
his father was killed in battle. On the other hand, Sadik,
brother to Zaki, who had won considerable and deserved
repute by the capture of Basrah from the Turkish governor,
abandoned his hold of the conquered town on hearing of the
death of Karim, and appeared with his army before Shiraz.
To provide against the intended action of the first, Zaki
detached his nephew, 'Ali MurM, at the head of his best
troops to proceed with all speed to the north ; and, as to
the second, the seizure of such families of Sadik's followers
as were then within the walls of the town, and other violent
measures, struck such dismay into the hearts of the besieg
ing soldiers that they dispersed and abandoned their leader
to his fate. From Karman, however, where he found an
asylum, the latter addressed an urgent appeal for assistance
to 'Ali Munid. This chief, encamped at Tehran when the
communication reached him, submitted the matter to his
men, who decided against Zaki, but put forward their own
captain as the only master they would acknowledge. 'Ali
Munid, leaving the pursuit of Agha Muhammad, then re
turned to Ispahan, where he was received with satisfaction,
on the declaration that his one object was to restore to his
lawful inheritance the eldest son of Karim Khan, whom
Zaki had set aside in favour of a younger brother. The
sequel is full of dramatic interest. Zaki, enraged at his
nephew's desertion, marched out of ShirAz towards Ispahan.
On his way he came to the town of Yezdikhast, — a singular
place, steep and rugged, something like a section, or three
upper stories, of the old town of Edinburgh set upon a
natural foundation of crumbling stone. It comes upon the
traveller as an abrupt elevation in a dreary vale, and the
surrounding scenery savours of the weird and romantic.
Here he demanded a sum of money from the inhabitants,
claiming it as part of secreted revenue ; the demand was
refused, and eighteen of the head men were thrown down
the precipice beneath his window ; a " saiyid," or holy man,
was the next victim, and his wife and daughter were to be
given over to the soldiery, when a suddenly -formed con
spiracy took effect, and Zaki's own life was taken in retribu
tion for his guilt (1779).
Whan intelligence of these events reached Karman, Sadik
Khan hastened to Shirdz, proclaimed himself king in place
of Abu '1-Fath Kh&n, whom he declared incompetent to
reign owing to dissipation and indolence, and put out the
eyes of the young prince. He despatched his son Ji'afir
to assume the government of Ispahan, and watch the move
ments of 'Ali Murad, who appears to have been then absent
from that city ; and he gave a younger son, 'Ali Naki, com
mand of an army in the field. A campaign ensued with
success from time to time on either side, but ending in the
capture of ShirAz and assumption of sovereignty by 'Ali
Murad, who caused Sadik Khi'm to be put to death.
Ali
Murad.
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
645
From this period up to the accession of Aglia Muhammad
Khdn the summarized history of Markham will supply the
principal facts required.
'All Murad reigned over Persia until 1785, and carried on a
successful war with Aglia Muhammad in Mazandaran, defeating
him in several engagements, and occupying Tehran and Sari. He
died on his way from the former place to Ispahan, and was suc
ceeded by Ji'afir, son of Sddik,1 who reigned at Shiraz, assisted in
the government by an able but unprincipled " kalantar, " or head
magistrate, named Hajji Ibrahim. This ruler was poisoned by
the agency of conspirators, one of whom, Saiyid Murad, succeeded
to the throne. Hajji Ibrahim, however, contriving to maintain
the loyalty of the citizens towards the Zend reigning family, the
itf 'Ali usurper was killed, and Lutf 'AH Khan, son of Ji'aiir, proclaimed
i&n. king. He had hastened to Shiraz on hearing of his father's death
and received a warm welcome from the inhabitants. Hajji Ibrahim
became his chief adviser, and a new minister was found for him in
Mirza Ilusain Shirazi. At the time of his accession Lutf 'Ali Khan
was only in his twentieth year, very handsome, tall, graceful, and
an excellent horseman. To his fearless bravery and indomitable
perseverance he united the nobler virtues of generosity and mag
nanimity. He formed many enduring friendships ; and, though
false-hearted traitors forsook him in the hour of adversity, others
loyally stood by him to the last. While differing widely in character,
he was a worthy successor of Kari'm Khan, the great founder of the
Zend dynasty. Lutf 'All Khan had not been many months on the
throne when Agha Muhammad advanced to attack him, and in
vested the city of Shiraz, but retreated soon afterwards to Tehran,
which he had made the capital of his dominions. The young king
then enjoyed a short period of peace. Afterwards, in the year 1790,
he collected his forces and marched against the Kajars, in the direc
tion of Ispahan. But Hajji Ibrahim had been intriguing against
his kind young sovereign, to whose family he owed everything, not
only with his officers and soldiers but also with Agha Muhammad,
the chief of the Kajars, and arch-enemy of the Zends. Lutf 'All
Khan was suddenly deserted by the whole of his army, except
seventy faithful followers ; and when he retreated to Shiraz he
found the gates closed against him by Hajji Ibrahim, who held
the city for the Kajar chief. Thence falling back upon Bushahr,
he found that the shaikh of that town had also betrayed him.
Surrounded by treason on every side, basely deserted alike by his
dearest friends and by those who had been raised 'from the dust
by his family, yet, still undaunted by the black clouds that gathered
round him, with his little band he boldly attacked and routed the
chief of Bushahr and blockaded the city of Shiraz. His uncon
querable valour gained him many followers, and he defeated an
army sent against him by the Kajars in 1792.
Agha Muhammad then advanced in person against his gallant
young rival. He encamped with an army of 30,000 men on the
plain of Mardasht, near Shiraz. Lutf 'All Khan, in the dead of
night, suddenly attacked the camp of his enemy with only a few
hundred followers. The Kajars were completely routed and thrown
into confusion ; but Agha Muhammad, with extraordinary presence
of mind, remained in his tent, and at the first appearance of dawn
his "muazzin," or public crier, was ordered to call the faithful to
morning prayer as usual. Astonished at this, the few Zend cavaliers,
thinking that the whole army of Kajars had returned, fled with
precipitation, leaving the field in possession of Agha Muhammad.
The successful Kajar then entered Shiraz, and promoted the traitor
Hajji Ibrahim to be his wazir. Lutf 'Ali Khan took refuge with
the hospitable chief of Tabas in the heart of Khurasan, where he
succeeded in collecting a few followers ; but, advancing into Fars,
he was again defeated, and forced to take refuge at Kandahar.
In 1794, however, the undaunted prince once more crossed the
Persian frontier, determined to make a last effort, and either regain
ipture his throne or die in the attempt. He occupied the city of Karman,
Kar- then a flourishing commercial town, half-way between the Persian
an. Gulf and the province of Khurasan. It had a very fine bazaar
and was well fortified. Agha Muhammad besieged it with a large
army in 1795, and, after a stout resistance, the gates were opened
through treachery. For three hours the gallant young warrior
fought in the streets with determined valour, but in vain. When
he saw that all hope was gone he spurred his faithful horse against
the ranks of the enemy and, with only three followers, fought his
way through the Kajar host and escaped to Bam-Narmashir, the
inost eastern district of the province of Karman on the borders of
Sistan.
Furious at the escape of his rival, the savage conqueror ordered
a general massacre ; 20,000 women and children were sold into
slavery, and 70,000 eyes of the inhabitants of Karman were brought
to Agha Muhammad on a platter. The monster counted them
with the point of his dagger, then, turning to his minister, he
exclaimed, " If one had been wanting I would have made up the
1 A five days' usurpation of Bakir Khan, governor of Ispahan, is
not taken into account.
number with your own eyes." Karman has never fully recovered 1779-178
from the effects of this fiend's atrocities.
Lutf 'Ali Khan took refuge in the town of Bam ; but the gov
ernor of Narmashir, anxious to propitiate the conqueror, basely
surrounded him as he was mounting his faithful horse Kuran to
seek a more secure asylum. The young prince fought bravely ;
but, being badly wounded and overpowered by numbers, he was
secured and sent to the camp of the Kajar chief. The spot where
he was seized at Bam, when mounting his horse, was marked by a
pyramid, formed, by order of his revengeful enemy, of the skulls of
the most faithful of his adherents. The most hideous indignities
and atrocities were committed upon his person by the cruel Kajar,
in whose breast not one spark of generous or humane feeling had
ever found a place. Finally, the last reigning prince of the house
of Zend was sent to Tehran and murdered, when only in his twenty-
sixth year. Every member of his family and every friend was
ordered to be massacred by Agha Muhammad ; and the successful
but guilty miscreant thus founded the dynasty of the Kajars at
the price of all the best and noblest blood of Iran.
The Zend is said to be a branch of the Lak tribe, dating
from the time of the Kaianian kings, and claims to have
been charged with the care of the Zend-Avesta by Zoroaster
himself.2 The tree attached to Markham's chapter on the
dynasty contains the names of eight members of the family
only, i.e., four brothers, one of whom had a son, grandson,
and great-grandson, and one a son. Four of the eight
were murdered, one was blinded, and one cruelly mutilated.
In one case a brother murdered a brother, in another an
uncle blinded his nephew.
Kajar Dynasty. — Agha Muhammad was undoubtedly Aglia
one of the most cruel and vindictive despots that ever Muham-
disgraced a throne. But he was not without care for the nia<1-
honour of his empire in the eyes of Europe and the outer
world, and his early career in Mazandaran gave him a
deeply-rooted mistrust of Russia, with the officers of which
power he was in constant contact. The following story,
told by Forster,3 and varied by a later writer, is charac
teristic. A party of Russians having obtained permission
to build a " counting-house " at Ashraf, in the bay of that
name, erected instead a fort with eighteen guns. Agha
Muhammad, learning the particulars, visited the spot, ex
pressed great pleasure at the work done, invited the officers
to dine with him, imprisoned them, and only spared their
lives when they had removed the whole of the cannon
and razed the fort to the ground. As this occurrence
must have taken place about 1782, when he was engaged
in family feuds, and the sovereign power was vested in
the hands of 'Ali Murad, it may be received as an illustra
tion not only of his patriotism but of the independent
action he was ever ready to exercise when opportunity
offered.
Forster was travelling homeward by the southern shores
of the Caspian in January 1784, and from him we gather
many interesting details of the locality and period. He
calls Agha Muhammad chief of Mazandaran, as also of
Astrabad and " some districts situate in Khurasan," and
describes his tribe, the Kajar, to be, like the Indian Rajput,
usually devoted to the profession of arms. Whatever hold
his father may have had on Gilan, it is certain that this
province was not then in the son's possession, for his
brother, Ji'afir Kiilf, governor of Balfrush (Balfroosh), had
made a recent incursion into it and driven Hiddiyat KhAn,
its ruler, from Rasht to Enzali, and Agha Muhammad was
himself meditating another attack on the same quarter.
The latter's palace was at Sari, then a small and partly
fortified town, thickly inhabited, and with a plentifully-
supplied market. As "the most powerful chief in Persia"
since the death of Karim Khan, the Russians were seeking
to put their yoke upon him, and he was naturally averse
to the infliction. It is not clear, however, from the context
2 Markham. Morier says of Karim Khan's family, "it was a low
branch of an obscure tribe in Kurdistan."
3 Journey from Bengal to England (1798), vol. ii. p. 201; see also
Markham, pp. 341, 342.
646
PERSIA
[MODERN
. what Forster means when he writes that Agha Muhammad
is " the only Persian chief bordering on the Caspian Sea
whom the empire of Russia has yet made tributary, or
rendered subservient to its policy."
As Agha Muhammad's power increased, his dislike and
jealousy of the Muscovite assumed a more practical shape.
His victory over Lutf 'All was immediately followed by an
expedition into Georgia. After the death of Nadir the
wall or prime ruler of that country had looked around him
for the safest and surest means of shaking off the offensive
yoke of Persia ; and in course of time an opportunity had
offered of a promising kind. In 1783, when the strength
of the Persian monarchy was concentrated upon Ispahan
and Shiraz, the Georgian czar Heraclius entered into an
agreement with the empress Catherine by which all con
nexion with the shah was disavowed, and a quasi-vassal-
age to Russia substituted, — the said empire extending her
aegis of protection over her new ally. Agha Muhammad
now demanded that Heraclius should return to his position
of tributary and vassal to Persia, and, as his demand was
rejected, prepared for war. Dividing an army of 60,000
men into three corps, he sent one of these 'into Daghistan,
another was to attack Erivan, and with the third he him
self laid siege to Shishah in the province of Karabagh. The
stubborn resistance offered at the last-named place caused
him to leave there a small investing force only, and to
move on with the remainder of his soldiers to join the corps
d'armee at Erivan. Here, again, the difficulties presented
caused him to repeat the same process and to effect a junc
tion with his first corps at Ganja, the modern Elisabethpol.
At this place he encountered the Georgian army under
Heraclius, defeated it, and marched upon Tiflis, which he
pillaged, massacring and enslaving x the inhabitants. Then
he returned triumphant to Tehran, where (or at Ardabil on
the way) he was publicly crowned shah of Persia. Erivan
surrendered, but Shishah continued to hold out. These
proceedings caused Russia to enter the field. Darband
was taken possession of by Imhoff, Baku and Shumakhi
were occupied, and Gilan was threatened. The death of
the empress, however, caused the issue of an order to
retire, and Darband and Baku remained the only trophies
of the campaign.
In the meantime Agha Muhammad's attention had
been called away to the east. Khurasan could hardly
be called an integral part of the shah's kingdom so long
as it was under even the nominal rule of the blind grand
son of Nadir. But the eastern division of the province
and its outlying parts were actually in the hands of the
Afghans, and Mashhad was not Persian in 1796 in the
sense that Dehli was British at the outbreak of the Indian
mutiny. Shah Rukh held his position, such as it was,
rather under Ahmad Shah and his successors in Afghanistan
than under any other sovereign power. Agha Muhammad
determined to restore the whole province to Persia, and,
after a brief residence in Tehran on his return from the.
Georgian expedition, he set out for Mashhad. It is im
portant to note that on the occasion of his coronation he
had girded on the sabre consecrated at the tomb of the
founder of the Safawis, — thus openly pledging himself
to support the Shi'ah faith.
But there had been continual dissatisfaction in the
capital of Khurasan, and there had been constant inroads
upon it from without, which the powerless royal puppet
was unable to prevent. His popularity was real, but
wholly wanting in political vigour. It never seemed to
have effect outside the limited sphere of personal sympathy
and regard. Owing to the frequent revolutions in the
1 Lady Shell says (1849) : "I saw a few of these unhappy captives,
who all had to embrace Mahoinmedanism, and many of whom had risen
to the highest stations, just as the Circassian slaves in Constantinople."
holy city the generals of Timur Shah, king of the Afghans,
had made three expeditions on Shah Rukh's behalf. Mash
had had been taken and retaken as though he were not a
resident in it, much less its de jure king. Moreover, his two
sons Nadir Mirza and Wall Ni'amat had been long waging,
one with the other, a predatory war, and the former was
practically in 1796 the actual ruler "of the place. Three
years before Timur had died, and his third son, Zaman
Shah, by the intrigues of an influential sardar, Paiyanda
Khan, had been proclaimed his successor at Kabul.
Agha Muhammad's entry into Mashhad was effected
without a struggle on the part of those in possession. The
Kajar shah walked on foot to the tomb of Imam Riza,
before which he knelt and kissed the ground in token of
devotion, and was recognized as a Shfah of Shi'ahs. Shah
Rukh submissively followed in his train. Then began the
last act of the local tragedy. The blind king's gradual
revelation, under horrible torture, of the place of conceal
ment of his several jewels and treasures, and his deporta
tion and death (of the injuries thus received, at Damaghan,
en route to Mazandaran), must be classed among the darkest
records of Oriental history.
From Mashhad Agha Muhammad sent an envoy to
Zaman Shah, asking for the cession of Balkh, and explain
ing his invasion of Khurasan ; but the Afghan monarch
was too perplexed with the troubles in his own country
and his own insecure position to do more than send an
unmeaning reply. It is not shown what was the under
stood boundary between the two countries at this particular
period ; but Watson states that on the shah's departure
he had received the submission of the whole of Khurasan,
and left in Mashhad a garrison of 12,000 men.
Agha Muhammad had now fairly established his capital Death
at Tehran. On his return thither in September 1796 he nil(l cliar-
dismissed his troops for the winter, directing their re- "c*er of
assembly in the following spring. The reinvasion by ;\/iiham-
Russia of the provinces and districts he had recently mad.
wrested from her west of the Caspian had made great
progress, but the circumstance does not seem to have
changed his plans for the army. Olivier, who had in
those days come to the Persian court on a commercial and
political mission from the French republic, and whose
book is quoted by Watson, expressed his surprise to the
prime minister that, while his majesty thought it necessary
to strangle some twenty-seven Russian sailors sent in as
prisoners, he took no immediate measures to check the
Muscovite forces in the field. The reply was that there
was no hurry in the matter. Although, when the spring
arrived and the shah led his forces to the Arras, the Russians
had, it is true, retreated, yet territory had been regained
by them as far south as the Talish. Agha Muhammad had
now arrived at the close of his career. He was enabled,
with some difficulty, to get his troops across the river,
and take possession of Shishah, which had given them so
much trouble a year or two before. There, in cam}), he
was murdered (1797) by his own personal attendants,—
men who, singularly enough, were under sentence of death,
but allowed to be at large. He was then fifty-seven years
of age, and had ruled over part of Persia for more than
eighteen years, — over the kingdom generally for about
three years, and from his coronation for about one year
only.
The brutal treatment he had experienced in boyhood
under the orders of 'Adil Shah, Nadir's wretched nephew,
and the opprobrious name of " eunuch " which attached
to him, and with which he was taunted by his enemies,
no doubt contributed to embitter his nature. His vindic-
tiveness and inhumanity were notorious, and exemplified
at almost every period of his life. On the other hand, his
contempt of luxury and frugality of diet, his avoidance
HISTORY.]
of hyperbole and dislike of excessive ceremony, his pro
tection to commerce and consideration for his soldiers,
the reluctance with which he assumed the crown almost
at the close of his reign, his positive refusal to wear any
royal headgear but the small circular pearl-adorned diadem
in which he is commonly represented by the native
painter, — all these would have been praiseworthy in
another man ; but the fearful weight of evil on the other
side of the scales made them of comparatively small con
sideration, and on his death the memory of his atrocious
tyranny alone survived. Those who have seen his portrait
once will recognize the face wherever presented. " Beard
less and shrivelled," writes Sir John Malcolm, "it re
sembled that of an aged and wrinkled woman, and the
expression of his countenance, at no time pleasant, was
horrible when clouded, as it very often was, with indigna
tion. He was sensible of this, and could not bear that
any one should look at him."
th Agha Muhammad had made up his mind that he should
' } be succeeded by his nephew Fath 'All Shah, son of his
'al> full brother, Husain Kiili Khdn, and governor of Fdrs, a
young prince with whom he had always been on good
terms, and to whom he had proved himself exceptionally
well disposed. There was a short interval of confusion
after the murder. The remains of the sovereign were
exposed to insult, the army was disturbed, the recently-
captured fort on the left bank of the Arras was abandoned ;
but the wisdom and resolution of the minister, Hajji
Ibrahim, and of Mirza Muhammad Khan Kajar, a high
functionary, prevailed to secure order and acceptance of
the duly-appointed heir. The first, proclaiming his own
allegiance, put himself at the head of a large body of
troops and marched towards the capital. The second closed
the gates of Tehran to all comers until Fath 'Ali Shah
came himself from Shiraz. Though instantly proclaimed
on arrival, the new monarch was not crowned until the
spring of the following year (1798).
ebel- The so -called rebellions which followed were many,
3ns- but not of any magnitude. Such as belong to local history
are three in number, i.e., that of Sadik Khan Shakaki, the
general whose possession of the crown jewels enabled him,
after the defeat of his army at Kazvin, to secure his personal
safety and obtain a government ; of Husain Kiili Khan,
the shah's brother, which was compromised by the mother's
intervention ; and of Muhammad, son of Zaki Khan, Zend,
who was defeated on more than one occasion in battle, and
fled into Turkish territory. There may have been other
names mixed up with these, but of aiders and abettors
rather than principals. Later, Sadik Khdn, having again
incurred the royal displeasure, was seized, confined, and
mercilessly bricked up in his dungeon to die of starvation.
Another adversary presented himself in the person
of Nadir Mirza, son of Shah Rukh, who, when Agha
Muhammad appeared before Mashhad, had taken refuge
with the Afghans. This prince, hearing of the death of
his father's destroyer, gathered around him a military force
and made a show of independence. Fath 'All sent to warn
him of the consequences of his act, but without the desired
effect. Finally, he advanced into Khurasan with an army
which appears to have met with no opposition save at
Nishapur and Turbat, both of which places were taken,
and when it reached Mashhad Nadir Mirza tendered his
submission, which was accepted. Peace having been further
cemented by an alliance between a Kajar general and the
prince's daughter, the shah returned to Tehran.
Now that the narrative of Persian kings has been brought up to
the period of the consolidation of the Kajar dynasty and commence
ment of the 19th century, there remains but to summarize the
principal events in the reigns of Fath 'Ali Shah and his immediate
successors, Muhammad Shah and Nasru 'd-I)in Shah.
Fath 'All Shah came to the throne at about thirty-two years
647
of age, and died at sixty -eight, after a reign of thirty-six years. 1797-180
The period was an eventful one. It was that of George III., George
IV., and William IV. in England, of Napoleon I. from first consul
to emperor, of the restoration of the Bourbon kings and the inter
position of the house of Orleans, in France. The sons of Paul,
Alexander and Nicholas, were emperors of Russia ; and, except
for the last few years of Salim II., the second Malimud ruled
over the Turkish dominions. No other European nations had any
direct concern with Persia. In Afghanistan it was the epoch of
the revolution which broke up its short-lived unity as a kingdom.
The struggles of Mahmud Sluih and Shuj'au '1-Mulk enabled them
to be quasi -sovereigns for a time; but Kabul was divided from
Kandahar, and Kandahar from Herat, and- the work of Ahmad
Abdali was all undone. Among the governors-general of India in
those days are the distinguished names of "Wellesley, Cornwallis,
Hastings, and William Bentinck.
Persia's great aim was to recover in the north-west, as in the north
east of her empire, the geographical limits obtained for her by the
Safawi kings ; and this was no easy matter when she had to contend
with a strong European power whose territorial limits touched her
own. Fath 'Ali Shah undertook, at the outset of his reign, a con- War
test with Russia on the western side of the Caspian, which became with
constant and harassing warfare. Georgia was, clearly, not to revert Russia,
to a Muhammadan suzerain. In 1800 its czar, George, son and
successor of Heraclius, notwithstanding his former professions of
allegiance to the shah, renounced his crown in favour of the Russian
emperor. His brother Alexander indignantly repudiated the act
and resisted its fulfilment, but he was defeated by Geneial Lazeroff
on the banks of the Lora. Persia then re-entered the field. Among
the more notable occurrences which followed were a three days'
battle, fought near Etchmiadzin near Erivan, between the crown
prince, 'Abbas Mirza, and General Zizianoff, in which the Persians
suffered much from the enemy's artillery, but would not admit they
were defeated ; unsuccessful attempts on the part of the Russian
commander to get possession of Erivan ; and a surprise, in camp,
of the shah's forces, which caused them to disperse, and necessitated
the king's own presence with reinforcements. On the latter occa
sion the shah is credited with gallantly swimming his horse across
the Arras, and setting an example of energy and valour. In the
following year 'Abbas Mirza advanced upon Shishah, the chief
of which place and of the Karabagh, though an old foe to Agha
Muhammad, had declared for Russia ; much fighting ensued, and
Erivan was formally taken possession of in the name of the shah.
The Russians, moreover, made a futile attempt on Gilan by landing
troops at Enzali, which returned to Baku, where Zizianoff fell a
victim to the treachery of the Persian governor. Somewhat later
Ibrahim Khalil of Shishah, repenting of his Russophilism, deter
mined to deliver up the Muscovite garrison at that place, but
his plans were betrayed, and he and his relatives put to death.
Reprisals and engagements followed with varied success ; and the
crown prince of Persia, after a demonstration in Shinvan, returned
to Tabriz. He had practically made no progress ; yet Russia, in
securing possession of Darband, Baku, Shirwan, Sheki, Ganja, the
Talish, and Moghan, was probably indebted to gold as well as to
the force of arms. At the same time Persia would not listen to
the overtures of peace made to her by the governor-general who
had succeeded Zizianoff.
Relations had now commenced with England and British India. Relations
A certain Mahdi 'Ali Khan had landed at Bushahr, entrusted by with
the governor of Bombay with a letter to the shah. His mission England,
had reference to the politics of Afghanistan, and appears to have India,
been fairly successful ; but he was followed shortly by an English and
envoy from the governor-general, Captain Malcolm of the Madras France.
army. He had not only to talk about the Afghans but about the
French also, and the trade of the Persian Gulf. The results were
a political and commercial treaty, and a return mission to India
from Fath 'Ali Shah. To him France next sent her message. In
1801 an American merchant from Baghdad had appeared as the
bearer of credentials from Napoleon, but his mission was mistrusted
and came to nothing. Some five years afterwards Jaubert, after
detention and imprisonment on the road, arrived at Tehran and
went back to Europe with a duly-accredited Persian ambassador,
who concluded a treaty with the French emperor at Finkenstein.
On the return of the Persian diplomatist, a mission of many officers
under General Gardanne to instruct and drill the local army was
sent from France to Persia. Hence arose the counter-mission of
Sir Harford Jones from the British Government, which, on arrival
at Bombay in April 1808, found that it had been anticipated by a
previously-sent mission from the governor-general of India, under
Malcolm again, then holding the rank of brigadier-general.
The home mission, however, proceeded to Bushahr, and Malcolm's
return thence to India, from pressure of circumstances, enabled Sir
Harford to move on and reach the capital in February 1809. A few
days before his entry General Gardanne had been dismissed, as the
peace of Tilsit debarred France from aiding the shah against Russia.
However open to criticism may have been the after-conduct of the
British diplomatist, his diplomacy was so far successful that he
648
PERSIA
MODERN
809-1830. concluded a treaty with Persia the month after his arrival at the
capital; but the Government of India were not content to leave
matters in his hands : notwithstanding the anomaly of a double
mission, Malcolm was in 1810 again despatched as their own parti
cular envoy. He brought with him Captains Lindsay and Christie
to assist the Persians in the war, and presented the shah with some
serviceable field-pieces ; but there was little occasion for the exercise
of his diplomatic ability save in his non-official intercourse with the
people, and here he availed himself of it to the great advantage of
himself and his country.1 He was welcomed by the shah in camp
at Ujani, and took leave a month afterwards to return via Baghdad
and Basrah to India. The next year Sir Harford Jones was relieved
as envoy by Sir Gore Ouseley.
Renewal Meanwhile hostilities had been resumed with Russia : the crown
of Rus- prince vainly attempted to penetrate Georgia ; and one or two en-
sian war. gagements ensued with more or less assertion of success on either
side. In 1812 the British envoy used his good offices for the restora
tion of peace between the belligerents, and a Russian officer of high
rank was sent to the Persian camp to propose the appointment of
deputies. But there was no possibility of agreement, and the
endeavour failed. To add to the Persian difficulty, it so happened
that in July of this year a treaty was concluded between England
and Russia "for re-establishing the relations of amity and good
understanding between the two kingdoms respectively"; and this
circumstance caused the envoy to direct that British officers should
take no further part in Russo-Persian military operations. Christie
and Lindsay, however, resolved to remain at their own risk, and
advanced with the Persian army to the Arras. On the 31st October
the force was surprised by an attack of the enemy, and retreated ;
the next night they were again attacked and routed at Aslanduz.
Christie fell bravely fighting at the head of his brigade ; Lindsay
saved two of his nine guns ; but neither of the two Englishmen
was responsible for the want of proper disposition of the troops
which mainly caused the disaster. Lankuran was taken by Persia,
but retaken by Russia during the next three months ; and on the
13th October 1813, through Sir Gore Ouseley's intervention, the
treaty of Gulistan put an end to the war. Persia formally ceded
Georgia and the seven provinces before named, with Karabagh.
On the death of the emperor Alexander in December 1825 Prince
MenschikofF was sent to Tehran to settle a dispute which had arisen
between the two Governments regarding the prescribed frontier.
But, as the claim of Persia to a particular district then occupied
by Russia could not be admitted, the special envoy was given
his co?iye, and war was recommenced. The chief of Talish struck
the first blow, and drove the enemy from Lankuran. The Persians
then carried all before them ; and the hereditary chiefs of Shirwan,
Sheki, and, Baku returned from exile to co-operate with the shah's
general in the south. In the course of three weeks the only
advanced post held by the governor-general of the Caucasus was
the obstinate little fortress of Shishah. But before long all was
again changed. Hearing that a Russian force of some 9000 men
was concentrated at Tiflis, Muhammad Mirza, son of the crown
prince, advanced to meet them on the banks of the Zezam. He
was defeated ; and his father, seeking to repair the loss, was routed
more seriously still at Ganja. The shah made great efforts to renew
the war ; but divisions took place in his son's camp, not conducive
to successful operations, and new proposals of peace were made.
Ardabil, and even Tabriz, had been threatened, and, although the
threat had been rather signified than expressed, the presence of
Russian troops south of the Arras was calculated to strike terror
in Adarbaijan. But Russia demanded Erivan and Nakhtchivan
(Nakhichevan) as well as the cost of the war; and in 1827 the
campaign was reopened. Briefly, after successive gains and losses,
not only Erivan was taken from Persia but Tabriz also, and finally,
through the intervention of Sir John Macdonald, the English
envoy, a new treaty was concluded at Turkmanchai, laying down
the boundary between Russia and Persia very much as it has been
formed in 1884. Among the hard conditions for the latter country
were the cession in perpetuity of the khanates of Erivan and Nakh
tchivan, the inability to have an armed vessel in the Caspian, and
the payment of a war indemnity of some £3,000,000.
War After Russia, the neighbouring state next in importance to the
with wellbeing of Persia was Turkey, with whom she was united on the
Turkey, west by a common line of frontier. Fath 'All Shah was fortunate in
having had but one war with the sultan during his whole reign, and
that one of no duration. Salim had not scrupled, it is true, in 1804
and 1805, to allow the Russians to make free use of the south-eastern
coasts of the Black Sea, to facilitate operations against the shah's
troops ; and there had been a passage of arms between the king's
eldest son, Muhammad 'All Mirza, and Sulaiman Pasha, son-in-law
of the governor-general of Baghdad, which is locally credited as a
battle won by the former. But there was no open rupture between
the two sovereigns until 1821, when the frontier disputes and com-
i The "wakilu '1-mulk," governor of Karman, told Colonel Goldsmid, when
his guest in 18C6, that "his father hail been Sir John Malcolm's Mihnw.nddr.
There never was such a man as ' Malcolm Sahib.' Not only was he generous
on the part of his government, but with his own money also" (Tderirai/h and
Travel, p. 585).
plaints of Persian travellers, merchants, and pilgrims culminated in
a declaration of war. This made 'Abbas Mirza at once seize upon
the fortified places of Toprak Kai'ah and Ak Sarai within the limits
of the Ottoman empire, and, overcoming the insufficient force sent
against him, he was further enabled to extend his inroads to Mush,
Bitlis, and other known localities. The Turkish Government
retaliated by a counter -invasion of the Persian frontier on the
south. At that time the pasha of Baghdad was in command of
the troops. He was defeated by Muhammad 'Ali Mir/a, then
prince -governor of Karmanshah, who drove his adversary back
towards his capital and advanced to its immediate environs. Being
attacked with cholera, however, the Persian commander recrossed
the frontier, but only to succumb under the disease in the pass of
Kirind. In the sequel a kind of desultory warfare appears to
have been prosecuted on the Persian side of Kurdistan, and the
shah himself came down with an army to Hamadan. Cholera
broke out in the royal camp and caused the troops to disperse.
In the north the progress of 'Abbas Mirza was stopped at Baiyazid
by a like deadly visitation ; and a suspension of hostilities was agreed
upon for the winter season. At the expiration of four months the
sardar of Erivan took possession of a Turkish military station on
the road to Arzrum (Erzeroum), and the crown prince marched upon
that city at the head of 30,000 men. The Ottoman army which
met him is said to have numbered some 52,000 ; but victory was
on the side of their opponents. Whether the result was owing to
the defection of 15,000 Kurds or not the evidence adduced is insuffi
cient to decide. In the English records of the period it is stated
that "the defeat of the Turks was complete ; the greater part of
their army fled in disorder from the field, abandoning all their
tents and baggage, and fourteen pieces of artillery." It is added :
"the prince royal followed up his successes, and advanced within
two days' march of Arzrum, but the cholera morbus is said to have
again broken out in his army, and in such a manner as effectually
to arrest its further advance."2
Profiting from this victory, 'Abbas Mirza repeated an offer of peace
before made without avail to the pasha of Arzrum ; and, in order
to conciliate him more effectually, he retired within the old limits of
the dominions of the shah, his father. But more troubles arose at
Baghdad, and other reasons intervened to protract negotiations for
a year and a half. At length, in July 1823, the treaty of Arzrum
closed the war between Turkey and Persia. It may be remarked that
this document is sensible and business-like, and provides especially
against a recurrence of the proved causes of war, such as interference
in one another's frontier districts, extorting taxes from Persian
travellers or pilgrims, disrespect to the ladies of the royal harem
and other ladies of rank proceeding to Mecca or Karbala (Kerbela),
irregular levies of custom -duties, non- punishment of Kurdish
depredators transgressing the boundary, and the like. Fath 'All
Shah in it is styled " King of kings, the Sultan son of a Sultan —
the Conqueror," and Mahrnud II. is "Protector of the Faith,
Guardian of the Holy Cities, Ruler by Sea and Land, the Sultan
son of a Sultan — the Conqueror."
With respect to the eastern boundaries of his kingdom, Fath 'Ali The
Shah was fortunate in having to deal with a less dangerous neigh- Afghan
hour than the Muscovite of persistent policy and the Turk of question,
precarious friendship. The Afghan was neither a contemptible foe
nor a sure ally, but he was not tainted with that fictitious civiliza
tion of semi-Oriental people which makes duplicity the essence of
diplomatic intercourse. He had seen too little of Europeans to
imitate them in their worst and weakest points ; and, though equal
to the Persian in physical force and prowess, he was his inferior
in worldly knowledge and experience. Quite as dishonest as his
neighbours and more treacherous than most, he had not the polished
ingenuity to conceal his dishonesty and double-dealing. Moreover,
the family divisions among the ruling houses of Afghanistan grew
from day to day more destructive to that patriotism and sense of
nationality which Ahmad Shah had held out to his countrymen as
the sole specifics for becoming a strong people.
The revolt of Nadir Mirza had, as before explained, drawn tho
shah's attention to Khurasan in the early part of his reign ; but,
although quiet had for the moment been restored at Mashhad by
the presence of the royal camp, fresh grounds of complaint were
urged against the rash but powerless prince, and recourse was had
to extreme measures. Charged with the murder of a holy saiyid,
his hands were cut off and his tongue was plucked out, as part of
the horrible punishment inflicted on him.
It does not appear that Nadir Mirza's cause was ever seriously
espoused by the Afghans, nor that Fath 'Ali Shah's claim to Mash-
had, as belonging to the Persian crown, was actively resisted. But
the large province of Khurasan, of which Mashhad was the capital,
and which included Darahgaz and Kelat-i-Nadiri in the north and
Kaiyan in the south, had never been other than a nominal dependency
of the crown since the death of Nadir ; and in the autumn of 1830
5 Annual Register, " History of Europe " (1822). There is a note in connexion
with the text from which these extracts are taken, on the state of Anglo-Persian
relations and the predominance of Russian influence at Tehran, well worthy
the reader's perusal.
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
the shah, under Russian advice, assembled a large force to bring
into subjection all turbulent and refractory chiefs on the east of
his kingdom. Yazd and Karman were the first points of attack ;
Khurasan was afterwards entered by Semnan, or the main road from
Tehran. The expedition, led by 'Abbas Mirza, involved some hard
righting and much loss of life. A considerable extent of ground
was traversed ; several forts and places were captured, among them
Kabushan and Sarakhs ; and it may be concluded that the objects
contemplated were more or less attained. An English officer,
Colonel Shee, commanded what was called the "British detach
ment " which accompanied the prince. Thus far as regards Yazd,
Karman, and Khurasan. It was otherwise with Herat.
Ilajji Firuzu'd-Din, son of Ti'mur Shah, reigned undisturbed in that
city from 1800 to 1816. Since Fath 'All Shah's accession he and
his brother Mahmud had been, as it were, under Persian protection ;
and, when the king retraced his steps homeward after his expedition
to Mashhad, at the commencement of the century, it is supposed
that he did so at the request of an ambassador from Zaman Shah
of Kabul. Persia claimed the principality of Herat as part of the
empire of Nadir, but her pretensions had been satisfied by payments
of tribute or evasive replies. Now, however, that she marched her
army against the place, Firuzu 'd-Din called in the aid of his brother
Mahnnul Shah of Kabul, who sent to him the famous wazir, Fath
Khan Barakzai. The latter, intriguing on his own account, got
possession of the town and citadel ; he then sallied forth, engaged
and defeated the Persian forces, and forced them to retire into their
own country. There are various accounts of this action, and the
Persian story is that the Afghans were defeated ; but no one dis
putes the result, i.e., the retreat of the invading army. In 1824,
on a solicitation from Mustafa Khan, who had got temporary hold
of Herat, more troops were despatched thither, but, by the use of
money or bribes, their departure was purchased. Some eight or
nine years afterwards 'Abbas Mirza, when at the head of his army
in Mashhad, invited Yar Muhammad Khan of Herat to discuss
a settlement of differences between the two Governments. The
meeting was unproductive of good. Again the Persian troops
advanced to Herat itself under the command of Muhammad Mirza,
son of 'Abbas ; but the news of his father's death caused the com
mander to break up his camp and return to Mashhad.
Sir Gore Ouseley returned to England in 1814, in which year
Mr Ellis, assisted by Mr Morier — whose "Hajji Baba" is the un
failing proof of his ability and deep knowledge of Persian character
— negotiated on the part of Great Britain the treaty of Tehran.
England was to provide troops or a subsidy in the event of unpro
voked invasion, while Persia was to attack the Afghans should
they invade India. Captain Willock succeeded Mr Morier as
charge d'affaires in 1815, and since that period Great Britain has
always been represented at the Persian court. It was in Fath 'All
Shah's reign that Henry Martyn was in Persia, and completed his
able translation of the New Testament into the language of that
country. He had met Malcolm and Mackintosh at Bombay, and
Sir John had recommended him to Sir Gore Ouseley, to whose
mission he officiated as chaplain prior to departure from Shiraz in
1812. Martyn died at Tokat in Asia Minor, on his homeward
journey. Little more remains to be here narrated of the days of
Fath 'Ali Shah. Among the remarkable occurrences may be noted
the murder at Tehran in 1828 of M. Grebayadoff, the Russian envoy,
whose conduct in forcibly retaining two women of Erivan pro
voked the interference of the mullas and people. To repair the
evil consequences of this act a conciliatory embassy, consisting of
a young son of the crown prince and some high officers of the
state, was despatched to St Petersburg. Shortly afterwards the
alliance with Russia was strengthened, and that with England
slackened in proportion. There were reasons why this should be
the outcome of the previous situation, some of which will be self-
evident to the reader of blue-books, while others will remain mere
matters of opinion.
As an Oriental despot Fath 'All Shah was neither cruel nor un
just, but acts of cruelty and injustice were committed under his
sanction. The treatment of Nadir Mirza has been mentioned. That
of the old minister, Hajji Ibrahim, was perhaps more barbarous still.
His fondness for sport and his literary tastes gave him the capacity
of suiting his conversation to visitors of different kinds ; but the
love of money was a drawback to the exercise of his sympathies,
and the loss of territory to Russia, involving as it did loss of revenue,
was not calculated to arouse any strong sentiment of friendship
towards the czar's European allies. Morier's description of the
king's person was thus given in 1809.
"He is a man of pleasing manners and an agreeable countenance, with an
aquiline nose, large e}res, and very arched eyebrows. His face is obscured by
an immense beard and mustachios, which are kept very black ; and it is only
when he talks and smiles that his mouth is discovered. His voice has once
been fine, and is still harmonious ; though now hollow, and obviously that of
a man who has led a free life. . . . He was seated on a species of throne
called the tdkht-i-tdus, or the throne of the peacock, which is raised 3 feet from
the ground, and appears an oblong square of 8 feet broad and 12 long. We
could see the bust only of his majesty, as the rest of his body was hidden by
an elevated railing, the upper work of the throne, at the corners of which were
placed several ornaments of vases and toys. The back is much raised ; on
each side are two square pillars, on which are perched birds, probably intended 1830-1836.
for peacocks, studded with precious stones of every description, and holding
each a ruby in their beak. The highest part of the throne is composed of an
oval ornament of jewelry, from which emanate a great number of diamond
rays."
One passage may be added as not only significant of the indi
vidual monarch but also of the national character.
" When the audience was finished, the king desired one of his ministers to
inquire from Ji'afu1 'Ali Khan (the English Agent) what the foreigners said of
him, and whether they praised and admired his appearance."
Fath 'Ali Shah had a numerous family. Agreeably to the Persian
custom, asserted by his predecessors, of nominating the heir-apparent
from the sons of the sovereign without restriction to seniority, he
had passed over the eldest, Muhammad 'All, in favour of a junior,
'Abbas ; but, as the nominee died in the lifetime of his father, the
old king had proclaimed Muhammad Mirza, the son of 'Abbas, and
his own grandson, to be his successor. Why a younger son had been
originally selected, to the prejudice of his elder brother, is differ
ently stated by different writers. The tnie reason was probably
the superior rank of his mother. Markham's estimate of the char
acter of the crown prince, based upon conflicting evidence, but
apparently correct, is that "he possessed enlightened views," was
"desirous of improving the condition of his country," yet "was
deficient in talent, rather weak-minded, and loved flattery."
It is worthy of remark that the selection of Muhammad Mirza
was made with the express concurrence of the British and Russian
Governments, communicated to their respective representatives at
the shah's court ; and the British minister at St Petersburg was in
structed to express to the Government of the czar the gratification
of his own Government at finding that the two powers were " acting
with regard to the affairs of Persia in the same spirit," and were
"equally animated by a sincere desire to maintain not only the
internal tranquillity but also the independence and integrity of
Persia." l
Muhammad Shah was twenty-eight years old when he came to Muham-
the throne in 1834. He died at the age of forty-two, after a reign mad
of about thirteen and a half years. His accession was not publicly Shah,
notified for some months after his grandfather's death, for it was
necessary to clear the way of all competitors, and there were two on
this occasion, — one 'Ali Mirza, governor of Tehran, who actually as
sumed a royal title, and one Hasan 'Ali Mirza, governor of Shiraz.
Owing to the steps taken by the British envoy, Sir John Camp
bell, assisted by Colonel Bethune, at the head of a considerable
force, supplied with artillery, the opposition of the first was neu
tralized, and Muhammad Shah, entering Tehran on 2d January,
was proclaimed king on the 31st of the same month. It cost more
time and trouble to bring the second to book. Hasan 'Ali, " farmdn-
farma," or commander-in -chief, and his brother and abettor, had
an army at their disposal in Fars. Sir Henry Lindsay Bethune
marched his soldiers to Ispahan to be ready to meet them. An
engagement which took place near Kumishah, on the road between
Ispahan and Shiraz, having been successful, the English com
mander pushed on to the latter town, where the two rebel princes
were seized and imprisoned. Forwarded under escort to Tehran,
they were, according to Watson, ordered to be sent on thence
as state prisoners to Ardabil, but the farman-farma died on the
way, and his brother was blinded before incarceration. Markham,
however, states that both 'Ali Mirza and Hasan 'Ali were allowed
to retire with a small pension, and that no atrocities stained the
beginning of the reign of Muhammad Shah. It is presumed that
the fate of the prime minister, or " kaim-makam," who was strangled
in prison, was no more than an ordinary execution of the law.
This event, and the prevalence of plague and cholera at Tehran,
marked somewhat gloomily the new monarch's first year.
The selection of a premier was one of the first weighty questions
for solution. A member of the royal family, the " asafu 'd-daulah,"
governor of Khurasan, left his government to urge his candidature
for the post. The king's choice, however, fell on Hajji Mirza
Aghasi, a native of Erivan, who in former years, as tutor to the
sons of 'Abbas Mirza, had gained a certain reputation for learning
and a smattering of the occult sciences, but whose qualifications
for statesmanship were craftiness and suspicion. Such a counsellor
was hardly fitted for Muhammad Shah, whose natural bigotry
could scarcely fail to accept the short-sighted policy which the
minister would be sure to advocate. As might have been antici
pated, the hajji fell into the hands of Russia, represented by Count
Simonich, who urged him to a fresh expedition into Khurasan and
the siege of Herat. There was no doubt a plausible pretext for both Expedi-
proposals. The chiefs, reduced to temporary submission by 'Abbas tion
Mirza, had again revolted ; and Shah Kamran, supported by his against
wazir, Yar Muhammad, had broken those engagements and pledges Herat,
on the strength of which Fath 'Ali Shah had withdrawn his troops.
In addition to these causes of offence he had appropriated the
province of Sistan, over which Persia had long professed to hold
the rights of suzerainty. But the king's ambition was to go farther
than retaliation or chastisement. He refused to acknowledge any
right to separate government whatever on the part of the Afghans.
l Correspondence relating to Persia and Afghanistan, London, 1839.
XVIII. — 82
G50
PERSIA
[MODERN
1836-1343. and Kandahar and Gliazni were to be recovered, as belonging to
the empire of the Safawi dynasty. The advice of the British envoy
was dissuasive in this respect, and therefore distasteful.
Sir John Campbell, in less than a year after the sovereign's
installation, went home, and was succeeded as British envoy by
Mr Henry Ellis. The change in personnel signified also a transfer
of superintendence of the Persian legation, which passed from the
Government in India to the authorities in England. In 1836, on
the return home of Mr Ellis, Mr M'Neill became charge d'affaires.
About this time the arrangements for the expedition were matured.
It was to commence with a campaign against the Turkmans, — Herat
being its later destination. The king would command in person,
and the army would be formidable in numbers and war material.
Such counter- proposals as Mr Ellis had suggested for consideration,
in his earnest endeavours to divert the shah from his purpose, had
been politely put aside, and the counsels of the war-party had pre
vailed. Should the main operations designed be successful, and
Herat fall to Persia, it was impossible to foretell the result ; and
the case was now more than ever complicated by the action of the
Barakzai chiefs of Kandahar, who had sent a mission to Tehran to
offer assistance against their Saduzai rival at Herat. Fresh provo
cation had, moreover, been given to the shah's Government by the
rash and incapable Kamran.
About the close of the summer the force moved from Tehran.
The royal camp was near Astrabad in November 1836. Food was
scarce : barley sold for ten times the usual price, and wheat was not
procurable for any money. The troops were dissatisfied, and, being
kept without pay and on short rations, took to plundering. There
had been operations on the banks of the Gurgan, and the Turkmans
had been driven from one of their strongholds ; but little or no
progress had been made in the subjection of these marauders, and
the Heratis had sent word that all they could do was to pay tribute,
and, if that were insufficient, the shah had better march to Herat.
A military council was held at Shahrud, when it was decided to
return to the capital and set out again in the spring. Accordingly
the troops dispersed, and the sovereign's presence at Tehran was
taken advantage of by the British minister to renew his attempts
in the cause of peace. But remonstrance was vain, and, although
on the present occasion Count Simonich ostensibly aided Mr M'Neill,
no argument was of any avail to divert the monarch from his pur
pose. He again set out in the summer, and, invading the Herat
territory in November 1837, began the siege on the 23d of that
month.
Siege of Not until September in the following year did the Persian army
Herat. withdraw from before the walls of the city ; and then the move
ment only took place on the action of the British Government.
Ordinary pressure and argument had failed. It had become neces
sary to use strong language, and to resort to strong measures, the
purport of which could not be mistaken. Mr M'Neill, who had
joined the Persian camp on 6th April, left it again on 7th June.
He had in this interval done all in his power to effect a reasonable
agreement between the contending parties by personal communi
cation with Afghans in Herat as well as with the shah and his
minister ; but both in this respect and in the matter of a com
mercial treaty with England, then under negotiation, his efforts had
been met with evasion and latent hostility, and this last feeling
had been notably evinced in the seizure and violent treatment of a
messenger bearing an official communication from a foreign Govern
ment to the British minister at Tehran. The Russian envoy, who
had appeared among the tents of the besieging army almost simul
taneously with his English colleague, no sooner found himself alone
in his diplomacy than he resumed his aggressive counsels, and little
more than a fortnight had elapsed since Mr M'Neill's departure
when a vigorous assault, planned, it is asserted, by Count Simonich
himself, was made upon Herat. The Persians attacked at five
points, at one of which they would in all likelihood have been
successful had not the Afghans been aided by Eldred Pottinger, a
young Englishman, who with the science of an artillery officer
combined a courage and determination which inevitably influenced
his subordinates. Through his exertions the assailants were beaten
back, as they were also independently at the other points noted.
Still the garrison was disheartened ; and, had not Colonel Stoddart's
arrival on llth August to threaten the shah with British inter
vention put a stop to further action, there is no knowing what
mischief might have resulted from the incompetence and intrigues
of Kamran and his advisers. As it happened, Colonel Stoddart's
firm attitude and refusal to allow any but British mediators to
decide the pending dispute won the day ; and that officer was a"ble
to report that on 9th September Muhammad Shah had "mounted
iiis horse" and gone from before the walls of the beleaguered city.
The siege of Herat was the great event in the reign of Muhammad
Shah. It lasted for nearly ten months ; and the story of its pro
gress is a strange record of a desultory campaign in which intrigue
volves a question foreign to the present narrative. Persia's con
nexion with Afghanistan can only be partial, and confined to Herat,
Kabul, Kandahar, or one section of the country only. A united
Afghanistan would always be distasteful to her. •
The remainder of the king's reign was marked by new difficul
ties with the British Government ; the rebellion of Agha Khan
Mahlati, otherwise known as the chief of the Assassins ; a new-
rupture with Turkey ; the banishment of the asafu 'd-daulah,
governor of Khurasan, followed by the insurrection and defeat of
his son ; and the rise of the sect of the Babis. The first of these
only calls for any detailed account.
In the demands of the British Government was included the Diffi-
cession by Persia of places such as Ghurian, Farah, and Sabzawar, culty
which had been taken during the war from the Afghans, as well as with
reparation for the violence offered to the courier of the British Englai
legation. The shah, in ill-humour at his fruitless expedition to
Herat, deferred compliance with these requisitions, and indeed
sought tp evade them altogether. M'Neill gave a certain time for
decision, at the end of which, no satisfactory reply having reached
him, he broke off diplomatic relations, ordered the British officers
lent to the shah to proceed towards Baghdad en route to India, and
retired to Arzrum with the members of his mission. On the Persian
side, charges were made against M'Neill, and a special envoy, sent
to England to support them, was instructed to represent the so-
called injuries which British diplomatic action had inflicted on the
shah. An endeavour was at the same time made to interest the
cabinets of Europe in influencing the British Government on behalf
of Persia. The envoy managed to obtain an interview with the
minister of foreign affairs in London, who, in July 1839, supplied
him with a statement, fuller than before, of all English demands
upon his country. Considerable delay ensued, but the outcome of
the whole proceedings was not only acceptance but fulfilment of
all the engagements contracted. In the meantime the island of
Karak had been taken possession of by an expedition from India.
On llth October 1841 a new mission arrived at Tehran from
London, under Mr (now Sir) John M'Neill, to renew diplomatic
relations. It was most cordially received by the shah, and it need
scarcely be added that, as one of its immediate results, Karak was
evacuated by the British-Indian troops.
There had been a long diplomatic correspondence in Europe on
the proceedings of Count Simonich and other Russian officers at
Herat. Among the papers is a very important letter from Count
Nesselrode to Count Pozzo di Borgo in which Russia declares herself
to be the first to counsel the shah to acquiesce in the demand made
upon him, because she found "justice on the side of England " and
"wrong on the side of Persia." She withdrew her agent from
Kandahar and would "not have with the Afghans any relations
but those of commerce, and in no wise any political interests."
She recalled to the English cabinet her wishes before expressed.
"To re-establish promptly the relations of friendship between the courts of
London and of Tehran ; to put an end to the hostile measures adopted in the
Persian Gulf; to abstain from disturbing the tranquillity of the people of the
centre of Asia by nourishing their animosities ; to be contented with competing
in industry in those vast countries, but not to engage there in a struggle for
political influence ; to respect the independence of the intermediate countries
which separate " her own from British territory. Such, it was emphatically
stated, was " the system which England and Russia have a common interest
invariably to pursue, in order to prevent the possibility of a conflict between
these two great powers, which, that they may continue friends, require to
remain each within its own limits, and not to advance against each other in
the centre of Asia." 1
Agha Khan's rebellion was fostered by the defection to his cause
of a large portion of the force sent against him ; but he yielded at
last to the local authorities of Karman and fled the province and
country. He afterwards resided many years at Bombay, where,
while maintaining among natives a quasi-spiritual character, he is
better known among Europeans for his doings on the turf.
The quarrel with Turkey, though specific in the case of indi
vidual actors, was generally about frontier relations and trans
gressions of the border. Eventually the matter was referred to an
Anglo-Russian commission, of which Colonel Williams (since Sir
Fenwick Williams of Kars) was president. A massacre of Persians
at Karbala might have seriously complicated the dispute, but, after
a first burst of indignation and call for vengeance, an expression of
the regret of the Ottoman Government was accepted as a sufficient
apology for the occurrence.
The rebellion of the asafu 'd-daulah, maternal uncle of the
shah, was punished by exile, while his son, after giving trouble to
his opponents, and once gaining a victory over them, took shelter
with the Turkmans.
Sa'id Muhammad 'All, founder of the Babis, was born at The
Shi'raz about 1810.2 Adopting a life of seclusion, and practising Babis.
a kind of exaggerated Sufism, he followed for some time the call
ing of a dervish, and when at Kazimain near Baghdad he openly
asserted his pretensions as a prophet. The Turkish authorities
1 Correspondence relating to Persia and Afghanistan, London, 1839. The
annexation of Siud and the Panjab will, it is presumed, be given as excuses
for the partial absorption of Turkestan. But the cases are in no way analogous.
The occupation by Russia of the Persian island of Ashurada in the south-east
corner of the Caspian followed the British reverses in Kabul of 1841.
2 Lady Sheil. Gobineau says 1824.
HISTORY.]
PERSIA
651
suec
mi
14
an
would have put him to death, but the Persian consul, claiming
liim as a subject, saved his life, and sent him to his native place.
Thenceforward his career is strange and adventurous ; and even
when he himself had been committed to prison his agents were
employed in promulgating his doctrine, with sufficient success to
occasion the issue of. a decree making it a capital crime to profess
the tenets of Babism. More will be said on the subject shortly.
Before closing the reign of Muhammad Shah note should be
taken of a prohibition to import African slaves into Persia, and a
commercial treaty with England, — recorded by Watson as gratifying
achievements of the period by British diplomatists. The French
missions in which occur the names of MM. de Lavalette and de
Sartiges were notable in their way, but somewhat barren of results.
In the autumn of 1848 the shah was seized with the malady, or
combination of maladies, which caused his death. Gout and
erysipelas had, it is said,1 ruined his constitution, and he died at
his palace in Shamiran on 4th September. He was buried at
Kiim, where is situated the shrine of Fatima, daughter of Imam
Riza, by the side of his grandfather, Fatli 'All, and other kings
of Persia. In person he is described as short and fat, with an
aquiline nose and agreeable countenance.2
On the occasion of his father's death, Nasru 'd-Di'n Mirza, who
had been proclaimed wall 'ahd, or heir-apparent, some years before,
was absent at Tabriz, the headquarters of his province of Adar-
baijan. Colonel Farrant, then charge d'affaires on the part of
the British Government, in the absence of Colonel Sheil, who
had succeeded Sir John M'Neill, had, in anticipation of the shah's
decease and consequent trouble, sent a messenger to summon him
instantly to Tehran. The British officer, moreover, associated
himself with Prince Dolgorouki, the representative of Russia, to
secure the young prince's accession ; and there was no doubt in
the minds of the wiser lookers-on that, if the two diplomatists
were really of one mind in the matter, they would attain their end
in spite of all obstacles.
They did so after a time, and with the aid of the queen-mother, who,
as president of the council, showed much judgment and capacity
in conciliating adverse parties. But the six or seven weeks which
passed between the death of the one king and the coronation of the
other proved a disturbed interval, and full of stirring incident.
The old minister, Hajji Mirza Aghasi, incurred the displeasure of
the influential part of the community by shutting himself up in
the royal palace with 1200 followers, and had to take refuge in the
sanctuary of Shah 'Abdu 'l-'Azim near Tehran. On the other hand
Mirza Agha Khan, a partisan of the asafu 'd-daulah, and himself
an ex-minister of war, whom the hajji had caused to be banished,
was welcomed back to the capital. At Ispahan, Shiraz, and
Karman serious riots took place, which were with difficulty sup
pressed. While revolution prevailed in the city, robbery was rife
in the province of Yazd ; and from Kazvin the son of 'All Mirza,
otherwise called the "zillu 's- sultan," the prince -governor of
Tehran, who disputed the succession of Muhammad Shah, came
forth to contest the crown with his cousin, the heir - apparent.
The last-named incident soon came to an inglorious termination
for its hero. But a more serious revolt was in full force at Mash-
had when, on the 20th of October 1848, the young shah entered
his capital and was crowned at midnight king of Persia.
The chief events in the long reign of the present shah, Nasru
'd-Dm, may be reviewed under four heads: (1) the insurrection
in Khurasan, (2) the insurrection of the Babis, (3) the fall of the
aniiru 'n-nizam, and (4) the war with England.
It has been stated that the asafu 'd-daulah was a competitor
with Hajji Mirza Aghasi for the post of premier in the cabinet of
Muhammad Shah, that he was afterwards, in the same reign,
exiled for rising in rebellion, and that his son, the salar, took
shelter with the Turkmans. Some four months prior to the
late king's decease the latter chief had reappeared in arms against
his authority ; he had gained possession of Mashhad itself, driv
ing the prince-governor, Hamza Mirza, into the citadel ; and so
firm was his attitude that Yar Muhammad of Herat, who had
come to help the Government officials, had retired after a fruitless
co-operation, drawing away the prince -governor also. The salar
now defied Murad Mirza, Nasru 'd-Din's uncle, who was besieging
the city ; he found secret means of obtaining money and supplies ;
and, by occasionally repelling an assault or effecting a skilful sortie,
he kept up a prestige of power, which, added to his personal popu
larity, commanded the sympathy and good wishes of the multitude.
In April 1850, after a siege of more than eighteen months, fortune
turned against the bold insurgent, and negotiations were opened
between the citizens and besiegers for the surrender of the toAvn and
citadel. Treachery may have had to do with the result, for when
the shah's troops entered the holy city the salar sought refuge in
the mosque of Imam Riza, and was forcibly expelled. He and his
brother were seized and put to death, the instrument used being,
according to Watson, "the bowstring of Eastern story." The con
queror of Mashhad, Murad Mirza, became afterwards himself the
prince-governor of Khurasan.
Watson.
2 Markham.
Lady Sheil has written a graphic account of the death of Sa'i'd 1848-1851.
Muhammad 'All. After repeated arrests and warnings to no pur
pose the spread of his doctrines had become so rapid among all
classes that it was thought necessary to remove him by the severest
punishment of the law. He was conveyed to Tabriz, and brought
out in the great square for execution.
"A company of soldiers was ordered to despatch Bab by a volley. When Perse-
the smoke had cleared away Bab had disappeared from sight. It had so cution
happened that none of the balls had touched him, and, prompted by an impulse t ,-,
to preserve his life, he rushed from the spot. Had Bab possessed sufficient , ,
presence of mind to have fled to the baziir ... he would in all probability Babis.
have succeeded in effecting his escape. A miracle palpable to all Tabriz would
have been performed, and a new creed would have been established. But he
turned in the opposite direction, and hid himself in the guard-room, where he
was immediately discovered, brought out, and shot. His body was thrown
into the ditch of the town, where it was devoured by the half-wild dogs which
abound outside a Persian city. Bab possessed a mild and benignant counte
nance, his manners were composed and dignified, his eloquence was impressive,
and he wrote rapidly and well."
Later on she wrote—
"This year (1850) seven Babis were executed at Tehran for an alleged con
spiracy against the life of the prime minister. Their fate excited general sym
pathy, for every one knew that no criminal act had been committed, and
suspected the accusation to be a pretence. . . . Previously to decapitation
they received an offer of pardon, on the condition of reciting the kalama (or
Muhammadan creed). ... It was rejected, and these visionaries died stedfast
in their faith. ... In Zanjan the insurrection, or the religious movement, as
the Babis termed it, broke out with violence. This city is only 200 miles from
Tehran, midway to Tabriz. At its head was a mulla of repute and renown,
who, with his associates, retired into an angle of the city, which they strength
ened as best they could. For several months they defended themselves with
unconquerable resolution against a large force in infantry and guns, sent
against them from Tehran. It was their readiness to meet death that made
the Babis so formidable to their assailants. From street to street, from house
to house, from cellar to cellar, they fought without flinching. All were killed
at their posts, excepting a few who were afterwaids bayoneted by the troops
in cold blood."
In the summer of 1852 his majesty was attacked, while riding
in the vicinity of Tehran, by four men, one of whom fired a pistol
and slightly wounded him. This man was killed, and two others
were captured by the royal attendants ; the fourth jumped down
a well. The existence of a conspiracy was then discovered, in
which some forty persons were implicated ; and ten of the con
spirators (one a young woman) were put to death, — some under
cruel torture. A short reign of terror then ensued which is well
illustrated in the following extract from Watson's History.
"The prime minister . . . was fearful of drawing down upon himself and
his family the vengeance of the followers of the Bab ; and, in order that others
might be implicated in these executions, he hit upon the device of assigning a
criminal to each department of the state ; the several ministers of the Shah
being thus compelled to act as executioners. The minister for foreign affairs,
the minister of finance, the son of the prime minister, the adjutant-general of
the army, and the master of the mint, each fired the first shot, or made the
first cut with a sabre, at the culprits assigned to their several departments,
respectively. The artillery, the infantry, the camel-artillery, and the cavalry,
each had a victim. 3 . . . But the result of all this slaughter was, as might
have been expected, to create a feeling of sympathy for the Babis, whose
crime was lost sight of in the punishment which had overtaken them. They
met their fate with the utmost firmness, and none of them cared to accept the
life which was offered to them on the simple condition of reciting the Muslim
creed. While the lighted candles were burning the flesh of one follower of the
Bab, he was urged by the chief magistrate of Tehran to curse the Bab and
live. He would not renounce the Bab ; but he cursed the magistrate who
tempted him to do so, he cursed the Shah, and even cursed the prophet Muham
mad, his spirit rising superior to the agony of his torture."
The movement, however, was not only felt in Tehran and Zanjan
but also in Mazandaran, Fars, Karman, and Tabriz ; and, in spite of
the fearful punishments with which the professors of the doctrine
have been visited, the complete extinction of Babism by fire and
sword is a consummation hardly to be set within the range of
human probability.
Mirza Taki, the amiru 'n-nizam (vulgarly amir ni'zam), or com- Fall of
mander-in- chief, was a good specimen of the self-made man of Mirza
Persia. He was the son of a cook of Bahra'm Mirza, Muhammad Taki.
Shah's brother, and he had filled high and important offices of
state and amassed much wealth when he was made by the young
shah Nasru 'd-Din, on his accession, both his brother-in-law and his
prime minister. The choice was an admirable one ; he was honest,
hard-working, and liberal according to his lights ; and the services
of a loyal and capable adviser were secured for the new regime.
For the rebellion in Khurasan and all emergencies that occurred
during his three years' tenure of office, he was the same active and
intelligent mentor that he had been when associated with the prince
in his government of Adarbaijan. Unfortunately, he did not boast
the confidence of the queen-mother ; and this circumstance greatly
strengthened the hands of those enemies whom an honest minister
must ever raise around him in a corrupt Oriental state. For a
time the shah closed his eyes to the accusations and insinuations
breathed against him ; but at last he fell under the evil influence
of designing counsellors, and acts which should have redounded
to the minister's credit became the charges on which he lost his
office and his life. He was credited with an intention to grasp in
his own hands the royal power ; his influence over the army was
3 "Even the Shah's admirable French physician, the late lamented DrCloquet,
was invited to show his loyalty by following the example of the rest of the
court. He excused himself, and pleasantly said that he killed too many men
professionally to permit him to increase their number by any voluntary homi
cide on his part " (Lady Sheil).
652
PERSIA
[HISTORY.
1851-1872. cited as a cause of danger ; and on the niglit of 13th November
1851 he was summoned to the palace and informed that he was
no longer premier. Mirza Agha Khan, the "'itimadu "d-daulah,"
was named to succeed him, and had been accordingly raised to the
dignity of "sadr'azim." As the hostile faction pressed the neces
sity of the ex-minister's removal from the capital, he was offered
the choice of the government of Fars, Ispahan, or Kum. lie
declined all ; but, through the mediation of Colonel Sheil, he was
afterwards offered and accepted Kashan. It is not probable that
Mirza Taki, once fallen from his high estate, would have long
survived, or rather would have been long suffered by his rivals or
foes to survive, this crisis in his career. For intriguers and char
latans he was too real a character to be harmless, and means would
have doubtless been devised to get rid of him altogether. As it
happened, opportunity was taken of an ill-timed if well-meant
interference on his behalf of the Russian legation, and the shah's
ire was aroused more than ever against him.
"Once having got him out of the way," writes Major Euan Smith from infor
mation gathered on the scene of the tragedy lie is recounting, "his enemies had
full play, and, forty days after his banishment, prevailed upon the king
to issue orders for his execution. . . . The executioners arrived at Fin,
and, seeing the ex-minister, told him that they had been sent by the shah
to ask after his health. Mirza Taki Khan at once saw that his fate was
sealed ; he merely asked that, instead of having his throat cut, he might be
allowed to die in his own way. The request was granted ; he went into the
hammdm, where the king's barber opened the two principal arteries in each
arm, and he quietly sat there and bled to death." 1
Rupture When England was engaged in the Crimean War of 1854-55 her
with alliance with a Muhammadan power in no way added to her popu-
Englaud. larity or strengthened her position in Persia. The Sunni Turk
was almost a greater enemy to his neighbour the Slu'ah than the
formidable Muscovite, who had curtailed him of so large a section
of his territory west of the Caspian. Hence during the war Persia
coquetted with Russia as to a possible secret alliance, rather than
with Franco or England. Moreover, since Sir John M'Neill'a arrival
in Tehran in 1841, formally to repair the breach with Muhammad
Shall, there had been little differences, demands, and explanations,
which were portentous of a storm in the future ; and these symptoms
had culminated in 1856, the year of the peace with Russia. As
to Afghanistan, the wazir Yar Muhammad had in 1842, when the
British troops were perishing in the passes, or otherwise in the
midst of dangers, caused Kamran to be suffocated in his prison.
Since that event he had himself reigned supreme in Herat, and,
dying in 1851, was succeeded by his son Sa'id Muhammad. This
chief soon entered upon a series of intrigues in the Persian interests,
and, among other acts offensive to Great Britain, suffered one 'Abbas
Kiili, who had, under guise of friendship, betrayed the cause of the
salar at' Mashhad, to occupy the citadel of Herat, and again place
a detachment of the shah's troops in Ghurian. Colonel Sheil
remonstrated, and obtained a new engagement of non-interference
with Herat from the Persian Government, as well as the recall of
'Abbas Kuli. In September 1855 Muhammad Yusuf Saduzai seized
upon Herat, putting Sa'id Muhammad to death with some of his
followers who were supposed accomplices in the murder of his uncle
Kamran.
About this time Kolian Dil Khan, one of the chiefs of Kandahar,
died, and Dost Muhammad of Kabul annexed the city to his terri
tory. Some relations of the deceased chief made their escape to
Tehran, and the shah, listening to their complaint, directed the
prince-governor of Mashhad to march across to the eastern frontier
and occupy Herat, declaring that an invasion of Persia was imminent.
Such was the situation when the Hon. Mr Murray was fulfilling
his second year of duty at the legation in Tehran. He had relieved
Mr Taylour Thomson, Colonel Shell's locum tcnens, at a time when
relations were somewhat strained, and coolness and want of con
fidence were daily becoming more apparent between the British
representative and the court to which he was accredited. The
following passage is from a recently- published work treating of the
place and period.2
" At the end of 1855, our relations with the court of Tehran were anything
but satisfactory. Even the outward semblance of civility towards the English
representative was disregarded, and, in like manner, the veneer of courtesy was
wanting in the official communications bearing the sign-manual of the Shah or
his responsible minister. So great was the tension of ill-feeling occasioned,
that our envoy withdrew to Baghdad, declining to resume the functions of his
office until am pie. apology had been made, by certain persons named, for certain
offences charged, after a manner detailed by himself. A crisis such as this
may, it is true, be brought about in Persia by ourselves, through defective
diplomacy and ignorance of the native character, ways, prejudices, and, to some
extent, language ; but it may also arise from many other causes— among others,
a wilful pre-detennination on the part of the local government. Once instructed
to give offence to strangers and provoka a rupture, the Persian is a wonderful
adept in fulfilling his instructions ; and will prove as capable in bandying
insult and innuendo as in the more complex and refined game of compliment and
cajolery. In the present instance, there was in the attitude of Persia evidence
of wilfulness and an exhibition of more than ordinary temper ; for not only
were the Shah's own words full of insult, but his expressions were supplemented
by deeds. Finally, by sending a large military expedition under his royal uncle,
Prince Murad Mirza, to take possession of Herat, he showed his contempt of
treaties, and aimed a blow at England's Eastern policy in the most sensitive part.
1 Eastern Persia, vol. i. p. 156. The palace of Fin, near Kashan, was the
residence of the amir nizam.
2 James Outram: a Biography, vol. ii., London, 1880.
"This occurred in December, the same month in which the British envoy
quitted Tehran. In the first week of 1856, negotiations were opened at Con
stantinople, when the Persian charge d'affaires in that city related his version
of the quarrel to our well-known ambassador there. Discussion was prolonged
for some months in 1850, during which an 'ultimatum' from Lord Clarendon
had been put forward without avail ; and in October, a plenipotentiary named
Farrukh Khan arrived at the Porte with the Shah's instructions to settle the
whole matter in dispute. But although this personage went so far as to sign a
declaration that Herat should immediately be evacuated by the troops of his
sovereign, other engagements were required from him which he could not
undertake, and the attempt at a settlement failed. Lord Stratford presented a
new 'ultimatum' on November 2~2<\ ; but it was then too late to avert an out
break. The news that Herat had been captured on October 26th, and that
three proclamations declaring war against Persia had been issued by the
governor-general of India on November 1st, soon reached Constantinople, and
Farrukh Khan's occupation was, for the moment, gone."
In less than three weeks after issue by the governor-general of
India of the proclamation of war with Persia the Sind division of
the field force left Karachi (Kurrachee). On 13th January following
the Bombay Government orders notified the formation of a second
division under Lieutenant-General Sir James Outram. Before the
general arrived the island of Karak and part of Bushahr had both
been occupied, and the fort of Rishir had been attacked and car
ried. After the general's arrival the march upon Barazjun and
the engagement at Khushab — two places on the road to Shi'raz —
and the operations at Muhamrah and the Kdrim river decided the
campaign in favour of England. On 5th April, at Muhamrah,
Sir James Outram received the news that the treaty of peace had
been signed in Paris, where Lord Cowley and Farrukh Khun had
conducted the negotiations. The stipulations regarding Herat were
much as before ; but there were to be apologies made to the mission
for past insolence and rudeness, and the slave trade was to be sup
pressed in the Persian Gulf.
With the exception of a small force retained at Bushahr under
General John Jacob for the three months assigned for execution
of the ratifications and giving effect to certain stipulations of the
treaty with regard to Afghanistan, the British troops returned to
India, where their presence was greatly needed, owing to the out
break of the mutiny. The envoy retraced his steps from Baghdad
to Tehran, to receive the excuses of the shah's minister. Before
Mr Murray's arrival, however, an act of so-called retaliation, but
savouring rather of sheer revenge, had been perpetrated, which
could not have commended itself to the mind of an English diplo
matist on the spot. One of the articles of the treaty of peace pro
vided for the release of all prisoners taken by the Persians at Herat.
Among these was the ex -ruler Muhammad Yusuf, who, having
resisted the besieging army, had been brought captive to Tehran.
The provision of mercy M'as in his case tantamount to a sentence
of savage death, for the relatives of Sa'id Muhammad (whom he
had slain in return for the murder of his uncle Shah Kamran)
awaited his release literally to hew him to pieces in front of the
Kasri Kajar, a royal palace about 5 miles from the walls of the
capital. When Colonel Taylor and the officers deputed with him
to certify the evacuation of Herat by the Persian soldiers reached
their destination, they were received by a newly-appointed governor,
Sultan Alirnad Khan, better known as Sultan Jan, nephew and
son-in-law of the amir Dost Muhammad. It is unnecessary to refer
to other than the political reasons of the war. They soon ceased
to interest the minds of even European residents in Persia ; and
the war became a thing of the past. Mr Murray was succeeded in
1859 by Sir Henry Rawlinson as British envoy. No more popular
nomination could have been made than that of this justly -dis
tinguished Oriental statesman ; but he barely remained a year
at the work. Retiring at his own request, he was succeeded by
Mr Charles Alison, whose marvellous acquaintance with Turks
and their language had rendered him an invaluable secretary at
Constantinople.
It now only remains to mention those incidents which have
engaged the attention of the British Government, or in which
British officers have had to play a part. Such are the establishment
of a telegraph, the settlement of the Perso-Baliich, and the arbi
tration on the Perso-Afghan frontier. The proceedings of Russia
in the countries east of the Caspian and bordering on the Oxus
have, moreover, a bearing more or less direct on the interests of
Great Britain, with especial reference to her Indian empire.
The question of constructing a telegraph in Persia as a link in Angl
the overland line to connect England with India was broached in Indi;
Tehran by Colonel Patrick Stewart and Captain Champain, oltfcers teleg
of engineers, in 1862, and an agreement on the subject con- line.
eluded by Mr Edward Eastwick, when charge d'affaires, at the
close of that year. Three years later a more formal conventiorr
including a second wire, was signed by Mr Alison and the Persian
foreign minister ; meantime the work had been actively carried on,
and communication opened on the one side between Bushahr and
Karachi and the Makran coast by cable, and on the other between
Bushahr and Baghddd via Tehran. The untrustworthy character
of the line through Asiatic Turkey caused a subsequent change
of direction ; and an alternative line — the Indo-European — from
London to Tehran, through Russia and along the eastern shores of
the Black Sea, was constructed, and has worked well since 1872,
LANGUAGE.]
in conjunction with the Persian land telegraph system and the
Bushahr-Karachi line.1
The Sistan mission, under Major-General (afterwards Sir Fred
eric) Goldsmid, left England in August 1870, and reached Tehran
on 3d October. Thence it proceeded to Ispahan, from which city
it moved to Baluchistan, instead of seeking its original destina
tion. Difficulties had arisen both in arranging the preliminaries to
arbitration and owing to the disordered state of Afghanistan, and
it was therefore deemed advisable to commence operations by set
tling a frontier dispute between Persia and the Kelat state. Unfor
tunately, the obstructions thrown in the way of this settlement by
the Persian commissioner, the untoward appearance at Bampur of an
unexpected body of Kelatis, and the absence of definite instructions
marred the fulfilment of the programme sketched out ; but a line
of boundary was proposed, which has since been accepted by the
litigants, and which, except perhaps in the case of a small district
on the north, has, it is believed, been generally respected. In the
following year the same mission, accompanied by the same Persian
commissioner, proceeded to Sistan, where it remained for more than
five weeks, prosecuting its inquiries, until joined by another mis
sion from India, under Major -General (afterwards Sir Richard)
Pollock, accompanying the Afghan commissioner. Complications
then ensued by the determined refusal of the two native officials to
meet in conference ; and the arbitrator had no course available but
to take advantage of the notes already obtained on the spot, and
return with them to Tehran, there to deliver his decision. This
was done on 19th August 1872. The contending parties appealed
to the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, as provided by
previous understanding ; but the decision held good, and was event
ually accepted on both sides (see above, p. 619).
The Russo- Persian boundary question of 1881 might have been
considered to belong to history, but has been treated elsewhere. It
is, however, a strictly pacific arrangement, and has nothing in
common with the treaties of Gulistan or Turkmanchai.
Mr Alison died at Tehran in April 1872. Mr Ranald Thomson,
whose experience of Persia is of thirty-five years' duration, then
653
became charge d'affaires, and held the post until relieved by his
brother, Mr (since Sir) Taylour Thomson from Chili. On the re
tirement of the latter in April 1879, Mr (sinceSir Ranald) Thomson
succeeded as envoy. During the later years of the reign of Nasru 'd-
Din several Englishmen have distinguished themselves as explorers
in the north-cast. Among them the names of O'Donovan, Napier,
Baker, Gill, Clayton, and Stewart will be readily remembered.
Colonels Bateman-Champain, Murdoch Smith, Sir Oliver St
John, Beresford Lovett, and the late Major Pierson, all engineer
officers connected with the telegraph, have made their mark in the
country. Nasru 'd-Di'n Shah, unlike his predecessors, has paid two
visits to Europe, — one in 1873 and one in 1879. On the first
occasion only he extended his journey to England, and was then
attended by his "sadr 'azim," or prime minister, the late Mirza
Husain Khan, an able and enlightened adviser, withal a Grand
Cross of the Star of India. His second visit was to Russia, Germany,
France, and Austria, but he did not cross the Channel. Among the
shah's latest projects are the possession of a little fleet in the Persian
Gulf, and of some vessels on the Kart'in. In 1884 it was stated that
a thousand-ton steamer (the " Persepolis") and a smaller one for river
navigation were actually in course of construction. The route by
the Karun was to be opened, and a carriageable road constructed from
Shustar to Tehran, via Dizful, Khuramabad, Buriijird, Sultanabad,
and Kum. Orders had been given for building two tugs to pull native
craft up the Karun. The arrangements for the road, transport, and
administration from Muhamrah to Tehran were confided to General
Houtum Schindler, the inspector-general of Persian telegraphs.2
The works which have been mainly followed and quoted in the above his
torical sketch arc Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia ; the more modern
histories by Robert Grant Watson and Clements Markham ; the Travels of
Venetians in Persia, edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley, printed for the
Hakluyt Society (1873) ; and the History of the late Revolutions in Persia, taken
from the memoirs of Father Krusinski, procurator of the Jesuits at Ispahan
(1733). Those which have contributed information in a minor degree are Lady
Shell's Diary in Persia; Erskine's Bubar ; Chardin's Travels, annotated by
Langles ; Professor Creasy's History of the Ottoman Turks; Ferrier's History
of the Afghans ; Telegraph and Travel (1874) ; and others mentioned in the
footnotes. (F. J. G.)
PART III— LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
SECTION I. — PERSIAN (IRANIAN) LANGUAGES.
Under the name of Persian is included the whole of that great
family of languages occupying a field nearly coincident with the
modern Iran, of which true Persian is simply the western division.
It is therefore common and more correct to speak of the Iranian
family. The original native name of the race which spoke these
tongues was Arian. King Darius is called on an inscriptioi "a
Persian, son of a Persian, an Arian of Arian race" ; and the followers
of the Zoroastrian religion in their earliest records never give them
selves any other title but Airyavo danghavo, that is to say, " Arian
races." The province of the Iranian language is bounded on the
west by the Semitic, on the north and north-east by the Ural-altaic
or Turanian, and on the south-east by the kindred language of India.
The Iranian family of languages is one of the seven great branches
of the Indo-European stem, and was first recognized as such by Sir
William Jones and Friedrich Schlegel. Whatever uncertainty still
remains as to the exact relationship between all the several branches
of the Indo-European family, it is at least certain that Indian and
Persian belong together more closely than the rest, and that they
continued to develop side by side for a long period after the other
branches had been already severed from the parent stem.
The common characteristics of all Iranian languages, which dis
tinguish them especially from Sanskrit, are as follows.
(1) Change of the original s into the spirant h. Thus —
Sanskrit.
sindhu (Indus)
sarva (all)
sama (whole)
santi (sunt)
Zend.
hindu
haurva
hama
henti
Old Persian.
hindu
haruva
hama
hantiy
(2) Change of the original aspirates gh, dh, bJi ( =
corresponding medials—
Sanskrit.
bhumi (earth)
dhita (0er6j)
ghanna (heat)
Zend.
bumi
data
garema
Old Persian.
bumi
data
garma
(3) Ic, t, p before a consonant are changed into
th, /—
Sanskrit. Zend. Old Persian.
prathaina (first) fratema fratama
kratu (insight) khratu ....
(4) The development of soft sibilants —
New Persian.
hind
bar
ham
hend.
X, 6, </>) into the
New Persian.
bum
dad
garm.
the spirants Teh,
New Persian.
fradum (Parsi)
khirad.
1 The Indo-European Telegraph Company have now (1884), on rather more
than 450 miles of wire, from Julfa on the Arras to Tehran, in what is called the
"Maintenance Department," six stations with fifteen employes; the "com
mercial " stations, with twenty employes, are at Tabriz and Tehran only. The
Persian telegraph system, under British officers, has fourteen stations in all,
the chief being at Tehran, Ispahan, Shiraz, and Bushahr. The official staff
numbers between thirty-five and forty. The number of paid words passing
through these lines has steadily increased from 305,485 in 1877 to 1,177,412 in
1883. The average time taken by a message from London to Calcutta via Tehran
varies from one and a half to two and a half hours.
Sanskrit.
Asuro Medhas 3
balm (arm)
hima (hiems)
Zend.
Ahuro Mazdao
bazu
zima
Old Persian.
Auramazda
Nev: Persian.
Ormuzd
bazu
zim.
Our knowledge of the Iranian languages in older periods is too
fragmentary to allow of our giving a complete account of this family
and of its special historical development. It will be sufficient here
to distinguish the main types of the older and the more recent
periods. From antiquity we have sufficient knowledge of two
dialects, the first belonging to eastern Iran, the second to western.
1. Zend, or Old Bactrian. — Neither of these two titles is well Zend,
chosen. The name Old Bactrian suggests that the language was
limited to the small district of Bactria, or at least that it was
spoken there, — which is, at the most, only an hypothesis. Zend,
again (originally dzaintisK), is not the name of a language, as Anquetil
Duperron supposed, but means "interpretation" or "explanation,"
and is specially applied to the mediaeval Pahlavi translation of the
Avcsta. Our " Zend-Avesta " does not mean the Avcsta in the
Zend language, but is an incorrect transcription of the original
expression " Avistak va zand," i.e., "the holy text (Avcsta} together
with the translation." But, since we still lack sure data to fix
the home of this language with any certainty, the convenient name
of Zend has become generally established in Europe, and may be
provisionally retained. But the home of the Zend language was
certainly in eastern Iran ; all attempts to seek it farther west — e.g.,
in Media 4 — must be regarded as failures.
Zend is the language of the so-called Avcsta,^ the holy book of
the Persians, containing the oldest documents of the religion of
Zoroaster. Besides this important monument, which is about twice
as large as the Iliad and Odyssey put together, we only possess very
scanty relics of the Zend language in mediaeval glosses and scattered
quotations in Pahlavi books. These remains, however, suffice to give
a complete insight into the structure of the language. Not only
amongst Iranian languages but amongst all the languages of the
Indo-European group, Zend takes one of the very highest places in
2 In the transcription of proper names in Part II. an endeavour to render
the pronunciation current in Persia has caused the modification of the more
conventional, and perhaps the more strictly correct, mode elsewhere followed
in this work. On this principle it is that the c is replaced by i and a, and
the o by u, as in Makran forMekran, Rigan for Regan, Khurasan for Khorasan,
&c. In Arabic words, however, the w is not exchanged for v, nor is the y
necessarily used for the (_f , except where the repetition of i would be confusing,
as in saiyid. As a general rule the system of spelling Indian words, accepted
for official correspondence, has been applied to the transliteration of Persian.
When a final a is not accented it represents dh, as kara for karah, and so forth.
3 Name of the supreme god of the Persians.
4 Cp. I. Darmesteter, Etudes Iraniennes, i. 10 (Paris, 1883).
5 As was said above, this, and not Zend-Avesta, is the correct title for
the original text of the Persian Bible. The origin of the word is doubtful, and
we cannot point to it before the time of the Sasanians. Perhaps it means
"announcement," "revelation."
654
PERSIA
[LANGUAGE.
importance for the comparative philologist. In age it almost rivals
Sanskrit ; in primitiveness it surpasses that language in many
points ; it is inferior only in respect of its less extensive literature,
and because it has not been made the subject of systematic gram
matical treatment. The age of Zend must be examined in connexion
with the age of the Avesta. In its present form the Avesta is not
the work of a single author or of any one age, but embraces collec
tions produced during a long period. The view which became current
through Anquetil Duperron, that the Avesta is throughout the work
of Zoroaster an Zend, Zarathushtra], the founder of the religion,
has long been abandoned as untenable. But the opposite view,
which is now frequently accepted, that not a single word in the book
can lay claim to the authorship of Zoroaster, also appears on closer
study too sweeping. In the Avesta two stages of the language are
plainly distinguishable, for which the supposition of local dialectic
variation is not sufficient explanation, but which appear rather to
be an older and a younger stage in the development of the same
language. The older is represented in but a small part of the whole
work, the so-called Gdthds or songs. These songs form the true
kernel of the book Yasna l ; they must have been in existence long
before all the other parts of the Avesta, throughout the whole of
which allusions to them occur. These gathas are what they claim
to be, and what they are honoured in the whole Avesta as being, —
the actual productions of the prophet himself or of his time. They
bear in themselves irrefutable proofs of their authenticity, bringing
us face to face not with the Zoroaster of the legends but with a real
person, announcing a new doctrine and way of salvation, no super
natural Being assured of victory, as he is represented in later times,
but a mere man, often himself despairing of his final success, and
struggling not with spirits and demons but with human conflicts of
every sort, in the midst of a society of fellow-believers which was
yet feeble and in its earliest infancy. It is almost impossible that
a much later period could have produced such unpretentious and
almost depreciatory representations of the deeds and personality of
the prophet ; certainly nothing of the kind is found outside the
gathas. If, then, the gathas reach back to the time of Zoroaster,
and he himself, according to the most probable estimate, lived as
early as the 14th century B.C., the oldest component parts of the
Avesta are hardly inferior in age to the oldest Vedic hymns. The
gathas are still extremely rough in style and expression ; the lan
guage is richer in forms than the more recent Zend ; and the voca
bulary shows important differences. The predominance of the long
vowels is a marked characteristic, the constant appearance of a long
final vowel contrasting with the preference for a final short in the
later speech.
Sanskrit. Gatha. Later Zend.
abhi (near) aibi aiwi
iha (work) izha izha.
The clearest evidence of the extreme age of the language of the
gathas is its striking resemblance to the oldest Sanskrit, the
language of the Vedic poems. The gatha language (much more
than the later Zend) and the language of the Vcdas have a close
resemblance, exceeding that of any two Romanic languages ; they
seem hardly more than two dialects of one tongue. Whole strophes
of the gathas can be turned into good old Sanskrit by the applica
tion of certain phonetic laws ; for example —
" mat vdo padaish yd frasruta izhaydo
pairijasai mazda ustanazasto
at vao asha aredrahyaca nemanghd
at vao vangheush manaugho hunaretata,"
becomes in Sanskrit —
" mana vah paddih ya prac,rutd ihdyah
parigachai medha uttanahastah
at va rtena radhrasyaca namasa
at vo vasor manasah sunrtaya."2
The language of the other parts of the Avesta is more modern,
but not all of one date, so that we can follow the gradual decline
of Zend in the Avesta itself. The later the date of a text, the
simpler is the grammar, the more lax the use of the cases. We
have no chronological points by which to fix the date when Zend
ceased to be a living language ; no part of the Avesta can well be
put later than the 5th or 4th century B.C. Persian tradition at
least regards the collection and arrangement of the holy texts as
completed before Alexander's time. At that period they are said to
have been already written out on dressed cowhides and preserved in
the state archives at Persepolis.
The followers of Zoroaster soon ceased to understand Zend. For
this reason all that time had spared of the Avesta was translated
into Middle Persian or PAHLAVI (q. v.) under the Sasanians. This
translation, though still regarded as canonical by the Parsis, shows
a very imperfect knowledge of the original language. Its value for
modern philology has been the subject of much needless contro-
1 The Avesta is divided into three parts : (1) Yasna, with an appendix,
VUparad, a collection of prayers and forms for divine service • (2) Vendidad
containing directions for purification and the penal code of the ancient
Persians ; (3) Khordah-Avesta, or the Small Ave.sta, containing the Yasht the
contents of which are for the most part mythological, with shorter prayers for
private devotion.
With verses of rny making, which now are heard, and with praverfu
hands, I come before thee, Mazda, and with the sincere humility of the uprieh
man and with the believer's song of praise."
versy amongst European scholars. It is only a secondary means
towards the comprehension of the ancient text, and must be used
with discrimination. A logical system of comparative exegesis,
aided by constant reference to Sanskrit, its nearest ally, and to the
other Iranian dialects, is the best means of recovering the lost sense
of the Zend texts.
The phonetic system of Zend consists of simple signs which
express the different shades of sound in the language with great
precision. In the vowel-system a notable feature is the presence
of the short vowels c and o, which are not found in Sanskrit and
Old Persian ; thus the Sanskrit santi, Old Persian Jiantiy, becomes
henti in Zend. The use of the vowels is complicated by a tendency
to combinations of vowels and to epenthesis, i.e., the transposition
of weak vowels into the next syllable ; e.g., Sanskrit bharati, Zend
baraiti (he carries) ; Old Persian margit, Zend mtiurva (Merv) ;
Sanskrit rinakti, Zend irinakhti. Triphthongs are not uncommon ;
e.g., Sanskrit a^vcbhycts (dative plural of rtfra, a horse) is in Zend
aspaeibyo ; Sanskrit krnoti (he does), Zend kerenaoiti. Zend has
also a great tendency to insert irrational vowels, especially near
liquids ; owing to this the words seem rather inflated ; e.g. , savya
(on the left) becomes in Zend Jidvaya ; Ihrdjati (it glitters), Zend
bardzaiti ; gnd (yvvvi), Zend gend. In the consonantal system we
are struck by the abundance of sibilants (s and sh, in three forms
of modification, z and sh) and nasals (five in number), and by the
complete absence of 1. A characteristic phonetic change is that of
rt into sh ; e.g., Zend asha for Sanskrit rta, Old Persian arta (in
Artaxerxcs) ; fravashi for Pahlavi fravardin, New Persian fcrvcr
(the spirits of the dead). The verb displays a like abundance of
primary forms with Sanskrit, but the conjugation by periphrasis is
only slightly developed. The noun has the same eight cases as in
Sanskrit. In the gathas there is a special ablative, limited, as in
Sanskrit, to the " a " stems, whilst in later Zend the ablative is
extended to all the stems indifferently.
We do not know in what character Zend was written before the
time of Alexander. From the Sasanian period we find an alpha
betic and very legible character in use, derived from Sasanian Pahlavi,
and closely resembling the younger Pahlavi found in books. The
oldest known manuscripts are of the 14th century A.n.3
Although the existence of the Zend language was known to the
Oxford scholar Hyde, the Frenchman Anquetil Duperron, who
went to the East Indies in 1755 to visit the Parsi priests, was the
first to draw the attention of the learned world to the subject.
Scientific study of Zend texts began with E. Burnouf, and has
since then made rapid strides, especially since the Vcdas have
opened to us a knowledge of the oldest Sanskrit.
2. Old Persian. — This is the language of the ancient Persians Old
properly so called,4 in all probability the mother-tongue of Middle Pers:
Persian of the Pahlavi texts, and of New Persian. We know
Old Persian from the rock-inscriptions of the Achremenians, now
fully deciphered. Most of them, and these the longest, date from
the time of Darius (Old Persian, Darayavaush) ; but we have
specimens as late as Artaxerxes Ochus. In the latest inscriptions
the language is already much degraded ; but on the whole it is
almost as antique as Zend, with which it has many points in
common. For instance, if we take a sentence from an inscription
of Darius, as —
" Auramazda hya imam bmnim add hya avam asmanam add liya martiyam add
hya siyatim add martiyahyd hya Darayavaum khshayathiyam akuuaush aivam
paruvnam khshayathiyam,"
it would be in Zend —
" Ahuro mazddo yo imam bumim adat 5*6 aom asmanem adat yo mashim adat
yo shaitim adat mashyahe yo darayatvo'hum khshaetem akerenaot oyum pouru-
udm khshaetem." 5
The phonetic system in Old Persian is much simpler than in
Zend ; we reckon twenty-four letters in all. The short vowels e,
o are wanting ; in their place the old "a" sound still appears as
in Sanskrit, e.g., Zend bagem, Old Persian brrgam, Sanskrit b/mgam;
Old Persian hamarana, Zend hamcrcna, Sanskrit samarana. As
regards consonants, it is noticeable that the older z (soft s) still
preserved in Zend passes into d, — a rule that still holds in New
Persian ; compare —
Sanskrit. Zend. Old Persian. New Persian.
jiasta (hand) zasta dasta dast
jrayas (sea) zrayo daraya daryd
aham (I) azem adam ....
Also Old Persian has no special /. Final consonants are almost
entirely wanting. In this respect Old Persian goes much farther
than the kindred idioms, e.g., Old Persian abara, Sanskrit abharat,
Zend abarat, Zfape ; nominative baga, root -form baga-s, Sanskrit
3 Grammar by Spiegel (Leipsic, 1S67); Dictionary by Justi (Leipsic, 18G4);
edition of the Avesta by Westergaard (Copenhagen, 1852), translation into
German by Spiegel (Leipsic, 1852), and into English by Darmesteter (Oxford,
1880) in the Sacred Books of the. Efist.
4 And perhaps of the Medes. Although we have no record of the Median
language, we cannot regard it as differing to any great extent from the Persian.
The Medes and Persians were two closely-connected races. There is nothing
to justify us in looking for the true Median language either in the cuneiform
writings of the second class or in Zend.
6 "Ormuzd, who created this earth and that heaven, who created man and
man's dwelling-place, who made Darius king, the one and only king of many."
LITERATURE.]
PERSIA
G55
lhagas. The differences in declension between Old Persian and
Zend are unimportant.
Old Persian inscriptions are written in the cuneiform character
of the simplest form, known as the "first class." Most of the
inscriptions have besides two translations into the more complicated
kinds of cuneiform character of two other languages of the Persian
empire. One of these is the Assyrian ; the real nature of the
second is still a mystery. The interpretation of the Persian cunei
form, the character and dialect of which were equally unknown,
was begun by Grotefend, who was followed by Burnouf, Rawlinson,
and Oppert. The ancient Persian inscriptions have been collected
in a Latin translation with grammar and glossaries by Spiegel
(Leipsic, 1862). The other ancient tongues and dialects of this
family are known only by name ; we read of peculiar idioms in
Sogdiana, Zabulistan, Herat, &c. It is doubtful whether the
languages of the Scythians, the Lycians, and the Lydians, of which
hardly anything remains, were Iranian or not.
After the fall of the Achsemenians there is a period of five
centuries, from which no document of the Persian language has
come down to us.
Under the Arsacids Persian nationality rapidly declined ; all that
remains to us from that period — namely, the inscriptions on coins
— is in the Greek tongue. Only towards the end of the Parthian
dynasty and after the rise of the Sasanians, under whom the national
traditions were again cultivated in Persia, do we recover the lost
traces of the Persian language in the Pahlavi inscriptions and
literature.
UHe 3. Middle Persian. — The singular phenomena presented by Pah-
'emn. lavi writing have been discussed in a separate article (see PAHLAVI).
The language which it disguises rather than expresses — Middle
Persian, as we may call it — presents many changes as compared
with the Old Persian of the Achsemenians. The abundant gram
matical forms of the ancient language are much reduced in number ;
the case -ending is lost; the noun has only two inflexions, the
singular and the plural ; the cases are expressed by prepositions,
— e.g., rubdn (the soul), nom. and ace. sing., plur. rubdndn; dat.
veil or avo rubdn, abl. min or az rubdn. Even distinctive forms
for gender are entirely abandoned, e.g. , the pronoun avo signifies
"he," "she," "it." In the verb compound forms predominate. In
this respect Middle Persian is almost exactly similar to New Persian.
^e 4. j\Tew Persian. — The last step in the development of the lan-
Peian. guage is New Persian, represented in its oldest form by Firdausi. In
grammatical forms it is still poorer than Middle Persian ; except
English, no Indo-European language has so few inflexions, but
this is made up for by the subtle development of the syntax. The
structure of New Persian has hardly altered at all since the Shdh-
ndma ; but the original purism of Firdausi, who made every effort
to keej) the language free from Semitic admixture, could not long
be maintained. Arabic literature and speech exercised so powerful
an influence on New Persian, especially on the written language,
that it could not withstand the admission of an immense number
of Semitic words. There is no Arabic word which would be refused
acceptance in good Persian. But, nevertheless, New Persian has
remained a language of genuine Iranian stock.
Among the changes of the sound system in New Persian, as con
trasted with earlier periods, especially with Old Persian, the first
that claims mention is the change of the tenues k, t, p, c, into
g, d, b. z. Thus we have —
Old Persian or Zend. Pahlavi. New Persian.
mahrka (death) mark marg
Thraetaona Fritun Feridun
ap (water) ap ab
hvato (self) khot khod
raucah (day) roj ruz
haca aj , az.
aca a , az.
A series of consonants often disappear in the spirant ; thus —
Pahlavi. New Persian.
kof koh
gris gah
cihar
Old Persian or Zend.
kaufa (mountain)
athu (place), Z. gatu
,
cathware (four)
baiidaka (slave)
spada (army)
dadami (I give)
banduk
bandah
sipah
diham.
Old d and dh frequently become y —
New Persian.
mai
boi
pai
kai.
Old Persian or Zend.
madhu (wine)
baodho (consciousness)
padha (foot)
kadha (when)
Old y often appears as j : Zend ydma (glass), New Persian jam ;
y avan (a youth), New Persian javdn. Two consonants are not
allowed to stand together at the beginning of a word ; hence vowels
are frequently inserted or prefixed, e.g., New Persian sitddan or
istddan (to stand), root std ; birddar (brother), Zend and Pahlavi
brdtar. l
1 Grammars of New Persian, by Lumsden (Calcutta, 1820), Chodzko
(Paris, 1852), Vullers (Giessen, 1870). For the New Persian dialects
see Fr. Miiller, in the Sitzungsber. der Wien. AJcad., vols. Ixxvii.,
Ixxviii.
Amongst modern languages and dialects other than Persian which Modern
must be also assigned to the Iranian family may be mentioned — dialects.
1. Kurdish, a language nearly akin to New Persian, with which
it has important characteristics in common. It is chiefly dis
tinguished from it by a marked tendency to shorten words at all
costs, e.g., Kurd, berd (brother) — New Persian birddar ; Kurd, dim
(I give) = New Persian diham ; Kurd, spi (white) = New Persian siped.
2. Baluch, the language of Baluchistan, also very closely akin to
New Persian, but especially distinguished from it in that all the
old spirants are changed into explosives, e.g., Baluch vdb (sleep) =
Zend hvafna; Baluch kap (slime) = Zend kof a, New Persian kof;
Baluch hapt (seven ) = New Persian haft.
3. Ossetic, true Iranian, in spite of its resemblance in sound to
the Georgian.2
4. Afghan, which has certainly been increasingly influenced by
the neighbouring Indian languages in inflexion, syntax, and vocabu
lary, but is still at bottom a pure Iranian language, not merely
intermediate between Iranian and Indian.
The position of Armenian alone remains doubtful. Some scholars
attribute it to the Iranian family ; others prefer to regard it as a
separate and independent member of the Indo-European group.
Many words that at first sight seem to prove its Iranian origin are
only adopted from the Persian. 3 (K. G. )
SECTION II. — MODERN PERSIAN LITERATURE.
Persian historians are greatly at variance about the
origin of their national poetry. Most of them go back
to the 5th Christian century and ascribe to one of the
Sasanian kings, Bahramgur or Bahram V. (420-439), the
invention of metre and rhyme ; others mention as author
of the first Persian poem a certain Abulhafs of Soghd,
near Samarkand. In point of fact, there is no doubt that
the later Sasanian rulers fostered the literary spirit of
their nation (see PAHLAVI). Pahlavi books, however, fall
outside of the present subject, which is the literature of the
idiom which shaped itself out of the older Persian speech
by slight modifications and a steadily increasing mixture
of Arabic words and phrases in the 9th and 10th centuries
of our era, and which in all essential respects has remained
the same for the last thousand years. The national spirit
of Iran, although smothered and stifled by the Arab con
quest, could not be entirely annihilated. The system of
centralization was at no time very strong in the extensive
dominions of the Omayyad and 'Abbasid dynasties ; and
the more their power and influence decayed the more
they lost their hold on Persia, especially since the native
element began to aspire to governorships and to take the
political management into its own hand. The death of
Harun al-Rashid in the beginning of the 9th century,
which marks the commencement of the decline of the
caliphate, was at the same time the starting-point of
movements for national independence and a national litera
ture in the Iranian dominion, and the common cradle of
the two was in the province of Khorasdn, between the
Oxus and Jaxartes. In Merv, a Khorasanian town, a
certain 'Abbas composed in 809 A.D. (193 A.H.), accord-
ing to the oldest biographical writer of Persia, Mohammed
'Aufi, the first real poem in modern Persian, in honour of
the 'Abbasid prince Ma'mun, Harun al-Eashid's son, who
had himself a strong predilection for Persia, his mother's
native country, and was, moreover, thoroughly imbued with
the freethinking spirit of his age. Soon after this, in 820
(205 A.H.), Tcihir, who aided Ma'mun to wrest the caliphate
from his brother Amin, succeeded in establishing the first
semi-independent Persian dynasty in Khorasan, which was
overthrown in 872 (259 A.H.) by the family of the Saffa-
rids, founded by Ya'kiib b. Laith, originally a brazier in
Sistan or ZabulistAn.
The development of Persian poetry under these first
native dynasties was slow. Arabic language and literature
had gained too firm a footing to be supplanted at once
2 Compare Hiibschmann, in Kulm's Zeitschrift, xxiv. 396.
3 Compare P. de Lagarde, Armenische Studien (Gottingen, 1877) ;
H. Hiibschmann, Ar-menische Studien (Leipsic, 1883).
Earliest
modern
656
PERSIA
[LITERATURE.
by a new literary idiom still in its infancy ; nevertheless
the few poets who arose under the Tahirids and Saffurids
show already the germs of the characteristic tendency of
all later Persian literature, which aims at amalgamating
the enforced spirit of Islamism with their own Aryan
feelings, and reconciling the strict deism of the Moham
medan religion with their inborn loftier and more or less
pantheistic ideas ; and we can easily trace in the few
fragmentary verses of men like Hanzalah, Hakim Firuz,
Forms of and Abu Salik those principal forms of poetry now used
Eastern in common by all Mohammedan nations — the forms of
poetry. ^ue j^^fo (the encomiastic, elegiac, or satirical poem),
the ghazal or ode (a love -ditty, wine -song, or religious
hymn), the rubai or quatrain (our epigram, for which the
Persians invented a new metre in addition to those adopted
from the Arabs), and the mathnawi or double-rhymed poem
(the legitimate form for epic and didactic poetry). The
first who wrote such a mathnawi was Abu Shukiir of
Balkh, the oldest literary representative of the third
dynasty of Khorasan, the Samanids, who had been able
in the course of time to dethrone the Saffarids, and to
secure the government of Persia, nominally still under the
supremacy of the caliphs in Baghdad, but in fact with full
sovereignty. The undisputed reign of this family dates
from the accession of Amir Nasr II. (9 13-942; 301-331 A. H.),
who, more than any of his predecessors, patronized arts
Minstrels and sciences in his dominions. The most accomplished
of 10th minstrels of his time were Mohammed Fardladi ; Abu
century. >i_< Abbas of Bokhara, a writer of very tender verses ; Abu
'1-Muzaffar Nasr of Nishapiir ; Abu 'Abdallah Mohammed of
Junaid, equally renowned for his Arabic and Persian poetry ;
Ma'nawi, full of original thoughts and spiritual subtleties ;
Khusrawanf, from whom even Firdausi condescended to
borrow quotations ; Abu '1-Hasan Shahid of Balkh, the first
who made a diwan or alphabetical collection of his lyrics ;
and Master Riidagi, the first classic genius of Persia, who
impressed upon every form of lyric and didactic poetry its
peculiar stamp and individual character (see RUDAGI). His
graceful and captivating style was imitated by Hakim
Khabbaz, a great baker, poet, and quack ; Abu Shu'aib
Salih of Herat, who left a spirited little song in honour of
a young Christian maiden; Raunaki of Bokhara; Abu'1-Fath
of Bust, who was also a good Arabic poet ; the amir Abu
'1-Hasan 'All Alagatchi, who handled the pen as skilfully as
the sword ; 'Umarah of Merv, a famous astronomer ; and
Kisa'i, a native of the same town, a man of stern and
ascetic manners, who sang in melodious rhythm the praise
of 'All and the twelve imams. All these poets flourished
under the patronage of the Samanid princes, who also
fostered the growing desire of their nation for historical
and antiquarian researches, for exegetical and medical
studies. Mansur I., the grandson of Rudagi's patron,
ordered (963 ; 352 A. H.) his Avazfr Bal'a«ii to translate the
Tabari. famous universal history of Tabari (224-310 A.H.) from
Arabic into Persian ; and this Ta'rikh-i- Tabari, the oldest
prose work in modern Persian, is not merely remarkable
from a philological point of view, it is also the classic
model of an easy and simple style. The same prince
employed the most learned among the ulemd of Trans-
oxiana for a translation of Tabari's second great work,
the Tafsir, or commentary on the Koran, and accepted the
dedication of the first Persian book on medicine, a phar
macopoeia by the physician Abu Mansur Muwaffak b. 1AK
of Herat (edited by Seligmann, Vienna, 1859), which forms
a kind of connecting link between Greek and Indian medi
cine. It was soon after further developed by the great
Avicenna (died 1037 ; 428 A.H.), himself a Persian by
birth, and author of pretty wine -songs, moral maxims,
psychological tracts, and a manual of philosophic science,
the Ddnishndma-i- -Aid1 1, in his native tongue.
A still greater impulse was given, both to the patriotic
feelings and the national poetry of the Persians, by Mansur's
son and successor, Prince Nuh II., who ascended the throne
in 976 (365 A.H.). Full of enthusiasm for the glorious
past of the old Iranian kingdom, he charged his court poet
Dakikf, who openly professed in his ghazals the Zoroastrian Dakii
creed, to turn the Pars! collection of the venerable legends
and traditions of the heroic ages of Iran, the Kkodd'indma,
or "Book of Kings" (which had been translated from the
Pahlavi under the Saffarid Ya'kub b. Laith), into Per
sian verse. Shortly after commencing this work Dakiki
was murdered in the prime of life ; and the fall of the
minstrel was soon followed by that of the Samanid dyn
asty itself, which was supplanted by the younger and
more vigorous house of Sabuktagin, the founder of the
Ghaznawids, Avho had rapidly risen from the rank of a
common Turkish soldier to that of an independent ruler of
Ghazna(Ghazni, Ghuznee)and all the surrounding countries,
including a considerable portion of India. But Dakiki's
great enterprise was not abandoned ; a stronger hand, a
higher genius, was to continue and to complete it, and this
genius was found in Firdausi (940-1020; 328-411 A.H.), Firda
with whom we enter the golden age of the national epopee
in Persia (see FIRDOUSI). In 1011, after thirty-five years
of unremitting labour, he accomplished his gigantic task,
and wrote the last distichs of the immortal Shdhndma,
that " glorious monument of Eastern genius and learning,"
as Sir W. Jones calls it, "which, if ever it should be gener
ally understood in its original language, will contest the
merit of invention with Homer itself." And, although it
was not he, the unrivalled master of epic art, but his old «
friend and patron, the less-renowned 'Unsurf, who officiated
as " king of poets " in the court of Mahmud of Ghazna (998-
1030 ; 388-421 A.H.), who had continued his father Sabuk-
tagin's conquests, and founded an empire extending from
the Caucasus to Bengal and from BokhdrA and Kashgar
to the Indian Ocean, he was nevertheless the central sun
round which all the minor stars revolved, those four hundred
poets who formed the famous "Round Table" in the
sultan's magnificent palace. Firdausi's fame eclipsed that
of all his contemporaries (however well founded their claim
upon literary renown), — men like 'Unsuri, Farrukhi, Asjadi,
Ghada'iri, Minutchehri, and others, whose eloquent praises
of Mahmud have come down to us in very scarce copies,
and even that of his own teacher Asadi, who survived his
great pupil, and established a reputation of his own by
introducing into Persian literature the novel form of the
mundzarah or strife-poem, the equivalent of the Provencal
tenson and the English estrif or joust. The Shdhndma, Imita
from the very moment of its appearance, exercised such an tlonj*
irresistible fascination upon all minds that there was soon '^!t^
a keen competition among the younger poets as to who n(iml.
should produce the most successful imitation of that classic
model ; and this competition has gone on under different
forms through all the following centuries, even to the most
recent times. First of all, the old popular traditions, so
far as they had not yet been exhausted by Firdausi, were
ransacked for new epic themes, and a regular cycle of
national epopees gathered round the Book of Kings, drawn
almost exclusively from the archives of the princes of Sistan,
the family of Firdausi's greatest hero, Rustam. The first
and most ambitious of these competitors seems to have
been Asadi's own son, 'AH b. Ahmad al-Asadi, the author
of the oldest Persian glossary, who completed in 1066 (458
A.H.), in upwards of 9000 distichs, the Garshdsjmdma, or
marvellous story of the warlike feats and love-adventures
of Garshdsp, one of Rustam's ancestors. The heroic deeds
of Rustam's grandfather were celebrated in the Sdmndma,
which almost equals the Shdhndma in length ; those of
Rustam's two sons, in the Jahdnyirndma and the Fard-
LITERATURE.]
PERSIA
657
murzndma ; those of his daughter, an amazon, in the
Brunhild style of the German Nibelunge, in the Bdnu
Gushdspndma ; those of his grandson, in the Barsundma ;
those of his great-grandson, in the Shahriydrndma (ascribed
to Mukhtari and dedicated to Mas'iid Shah, who is probably
identical with Mas'iid b. Ibrahim, Sultan Mahmud's great-
grandson, 1088-1114; 481-508 A.H.); and the wonderful
exploits of a son of Isfandiyar, another hero of the Shdh-
ndma, in the Bahmanndma.
When at last these old Iranian sources were almost
entirely exhausted, the difficulty was met in various but
equally ingenious ways. Where some slight historical re
cords of the heroic age — no matter how doubtful their
authenticity— were still obtainable, poetical imagination
seized upon them at once, and filled the wide gaps by its
own powerful invention ; where no traditions at all were
forthcoming, fiction pure and simple asserted its indisputable
right ; and thus the national epopee gave way to the epic
story, and — substituting prose for verse — to the novel and
the fairy tale. Models of the former class are the various
Iskandarndmas, or " Books of Alexander the Great," the
oldest and most original of which is that of Nizami (com
pleted about 1202 ; 599 A.H.) ; the latter begins with the
Kitdb-i-Samak llydr, a novel in three volumes (about 1189 ;
585 A.H.), and reaches its climax in the Biistdn-i-Khaydl,
or " Garden of Imagination," a prose romance of fifteen
large volumes, by Mohammed Taki Khayal, written between
1742 and 1756 (1155 and 1169 A.H.). Many aspirants to
poetical fame, however, were not satisfied with either of
these expedients : they boldly struck out a new path and
explored hitherto unknown regions , and here again a
twofold tendency manifested itself. Some writers, both in
prose and verse, turned from the exhausted fields of the
national glory of Persia to the comparatively original soil
of Arabian traditions, and chose their subjects from the
chivalrous times of their own Bedouin conquerors, or even
from the Jewish legends of the Koran. Of this description
are the Anbiydndma, or history of the pre-Mohammedan
prophets, by Hasani Shabistari 'Ayani (before the 8th
century of the Hijra) ; Ibn Husam's Khdwarndma (1427;
830 A.H.), or the deeds of 'All ; Badhil's Hamla-i-Haidari,
which was completed by Najaf (1723 ; 1135 A.H.), or the
life of Mohammed and the first four caliphs ; Kazim's Far-
ahndma-i-Fdtima, the book of joy of Fatima, Mohammed's
daughter (1737 ; 1150 A.H.), — all four in the epic metre of
the Shdhndma ; and the prose stories of Hdtim Td'i, the
famous model of liberality and generosity in pre-Islamitic
times ; of Amir Hamzah, the uncle of Mohammed ; and of
the Mujizdt-i-Musawi, or the miraculous deeds of Moses,
by Mu'in-almiskin (died about 1501 ; 907 A.H.).
Quite a different turn was taken by the ambition of
another class of imitators of Firdausi, especially during the
last four centuries of the Hijra, who tried to create a new
heroic epopee by celebrating in rhythm and rhyme stirring
events of recent date. The gigantic figure of Timur inspired
Hatifi (died 1521; 927 A.H.) with his Timurndma; the
stormy epoch of the first Safawi rulers, who succeeded at
last in reuniting for some time the various provinces of
the old Persian realm into one great monarchy, furnished
Kasimi (died after 1560 ; 967 A.H.) with the materials of
his Shdhndma, a poetical history of Shah Isma'il and Shah
Tahmasp. Another Shdhndma, celebrating Shah 'Abbas
the Great, was written by Kamali of Sabzawar ; and even
the cruelties of Nadir Shah were duly chronicled in a
pompous epic style in 'Ishratf's Shdhndma-i-Nddiri (1749;
1162 A.H.). But all these poems are surpassed in length
by the 33,000 distichs of the Shdhinshdhndma by the
poet-laureate of the late Feth 'Ali Shah of Persia, and the
40,000 distichs of the Georgendma, a poetical history of
India from its discovery by the Portuguese to the conquest
of Poonah by the English in 1817. In India especially
this kind of epic versification has flourished since the
beginning of Humayun's reign (1530-1556); the court-
poets of the great Mogul emperors of Delhi, as well as of
all the minor dynasties, vied with one another in glorifying
the exploits of their respective sovereigns, as is sufficiently
proved by the Zafarndma-i-Shdhjahdni by Kudsi (died
1646; 1056 A.H.); the Shdhinshdhndma by Talib Kalim
(died 1651 ; 1061 A.H.), another panegyrist of Shah Jahan ;
Atashi's 'Adilndma, in honour of Shah Mohammed 'Adil
of Bijapur, who ascended the throne in 1629 (1039 A.H.) ;
the Tawdrikh-i-Kuli Ifutlshdh, a metrical history of the
Kutb shahs of Golkonda ; and many more, down to the Fath-
ndma-i-Tipu Sultan by Ghulam Hasan (1784 ; 1189 A.H.).
But the national epopee, with both its legitimate and its
illegitimate offspring, was not the only bequest the great
Firdausi left to his nation. This rich genius gave also
the first impulse to the higher development of those other
branches of poetical art which were to flourish in the
following ages — particularly to romantic, didactic, and
mystic poetry ; and even his own age produced powerful
co-operators in these three most conspicuous departments
of Persian literature. Romantic fiction, which achieved its Romantic
highest triumph in Nizami of Ganja's (1141-1203; 535-599 fiction.
A.H.) brilliant pictures of the struggles and passions in the
human heart (see NiZAMf, vol. xvii. pp. 521, 522), sent
forth its first tender shoots in the numerous love-stories
of the Shdhndma, the most fascinating of which is that of
Zal and Rudabeh, and developed almost into full bloom
in Firdausi's second great mathnawi Yusuf u Zalikhd,
which the aged poet wrote after his flight from Ghazna,
and dedicated to the reigning caliph of Baghdad, Alkadir-
billah. It represents the oldest poetical treatment of the
Biblical story of Joseph, which has proved so attractive
to the epic poets of Persia, among others to 'Am'ak of
Bokhara (died 1149), who was the first after Firdausi to
write a Y'dsuf u Zalikhd (which can be read in two dif
ferent metres), to Jami (died 1492), Mauji KAsim Khan,
Humayun's amir (died 1571), Nazim of Herat (died 1670),
and Shaukat, the governor of Shiraz under Feth 'Ali Shah.
Perhaps prior in date to Firdausi's Yusuf was his patron
'Unsuri's romance Wdmik u Adhrd, a popular Iranian
legend of great antiquity, which had been first written in
verse under the Tahirid dynasty. This favourite story was
treated again by Fasihi Jurjani (in the course of the same
5th century of the Hijra), and by many modern poets, —
as Damiri, who died under the Safawi ShAh Mohammed
(1577-1586; 985-994 A.H.), Nami, the historiographer of
the Zand dynasty, and Husain of Shiraz under Feth 'Ali
Shah, the last two flourishing towards the beginning of
the present century. Another love-story of similar anti
quity, which had originally been written in Pahlavi, formed
the basis of Fakhr-uddin As'ad Jurjani's Wis u Edmm,
which was composed in Isfahan (Ispahan) about 1048
(440 A.H.), — a poem remarkable not only for its high
artistic value but also for its close resemblance to one of
the epic masterpieces of mediaeval German literature, Gott
fried von Strasburg's Tristan und Isolt.
The last-named Persian poet was apparently one of the
earliest eulogists of the Seljuks, and it was under this
Turkish dynasty, which soon became a formidable rival
both of the Ghaznawids and of the Arabian caliphs of
Baghdad, that lyrical romanticism — that is, panegyrical Encomi-
and satirical poetry — rose to the highest pitch. What astf ainl
Firdausi, in his exalted descriptions of royal power and satirists-
dignity, and the court-poets of Sultan Mahmud, in their
unbounded praise of the great sovereign and protector
of arts, had commenced, what other encomiasts under
Mahmud's successors — for instance, Abu '1-Faraj Runi of
Lahore and Mas'ud b. Sa'd b. Salmdn (under Sultan
XVIII. — 83
658
PERSIA
[LITERATURE.
Ibrahim, 1059-1088) — had successfully continued, reached
its perfection in the famous group of panegyrists who
gathered in the first half of the 6th century of the Hijra
round the throne of Sultan Sanjar, and partly also round
that of his great antagonist, Atsiz, shah of KhwArizm. This
group included Adlb SAbir, who was drowned by order of
the prince in the Oxus about 1145 (540 A.H.), and his
pupil Jauhari, the goldsmith of Bokhara ; Amir Mu'izzi, the
king of poets at Sanjar's court, killed by a stray arrow in
1147 (542 A.H.) ; Rashid Watwat (the Swallow), who died
in 1172 (568 A.H.), and left, besides his kasidas, a valuable
treatise on poetry (Hada'ik-essihr} and a metrical transla
tion of the sentences of 'All; 'Abd-alwAsi' Jabali, who sang
at first, like his contemporary Hasan Ghaznawi (died
1169; 565 A.H. ), the praise of the Ghaznawid shah BahrAm,
but afterwards bestowed his eulogies upon Sanjar, the con
queror of Ghazna ; and Auhad-uddin Anwari, the most cele
brated kasida-writer of the whole Persian literature. Anwari
(died between 1191 and 1196; 587 and 592 A.H.), who
in early life had pursued scientific studies in the madrasah
of Tus and who ranked among the foremost astronomers of
his time, owes his renown as much to the inexhaustible store
of poetical similes and epitheta ornantia which he showered
upon Sanjar and other royal and princely personages as
to his cutting sarcasms, which he was careful enough to
direct, not against special individuals, but against whole
classes of society and the cruel wrongs worked by an in
exorable fate, — thus disregarding the more manly example
of Firdausi, whose bold attack upon Sultan Mahmud
for having cheated him out of the well-earned reward for
his epopee is the oldest and, at the same time, most finished
specimen of personal satire. This legitimate branch of
high art, however, soon degenerated either into the lower
forms of parody and travesty — for which, for instance, a
whole group of Transoxanian writers, Suzani of Samar
kand (died 1174; 569 A.H.) and his contemporaries, Abu
'Ali Shatranji of the same town, LAmi' of BokhArA, and
others gained a certain literary reputation — or into mere
comic pieces and jocular poems like the "Pleasantries"
(Hadiyydt} and the humorous stories of the " Mouse and
Cat" and the "Stone-cutter" (SangtarasK) by 'Ubaid
Zakani (died 1370; 772 A.H.). Anwari's greatest rival
was Khakani (died 1199 ; 595 A.H.), the son of a carpenter
in ShirwAn, and panegyrist of the shahs of ShirwAn, usually
called the Pindar of the East on account of the difficult
and enigmatic style of his verses. Oriental critics, of
course, greatly admire the obscure allusions, far-fetched
puns, and other eccentricities with which the otherwise
energetic and harmonious language, both of his laudatory
odes and of his satires, is loaded ; to European taste only
the shorter epigrams and the double-rhymed poem Tuhfat-
ul'irdkain, in which KhAkAni describes his journey to Mecca
and back, give full satisfaction. Among his numerous
contemporaries and followers may be noticed Mujir-uddin
Bailakani (died 1198; 594 A.H.), Zahir FAryAbi (died 1202;
598 A.H.), and Athir Akhsikati (died 1211; 608 A.H.),—
all three panegyrists of the atabegs of AdharbaijAn (Azer-
bijan), and especially of Sultan Kizil Arslan — Kamal-uddin
IsfahAni, tortured to death by the Moguls in 1237 (635
A.H.), who sang, like his father JamAl-uddin, the praise of
the governors of Isfahan, and gained, on account of his fer
tile imagination, the honorary epithet of the "creator of fine
thoughts" (KhallAk-ulma'Ani); and Saif-uddin Isfarangi
(died 1 267 ; 666 A.H.), afavourite of the shahs of KhwArizm.
Didactic Fruitful as the 6th and 7th centuries of the Hijra were
in panegyrics, their literary fame did not rest upon these
Poetry a'one ! tne7 attained an equally high standard in two other
branches of poetry, the didactic and the mystic, which
after a short period of separate existence entered into a
close and henceforth indissoluble union. The origin of
both can again be traced to Firdausf and his time. In the
ethical reflexions, wise maxims, and moral exhortations
scattered throughout the Shdhndma the didactic element
is plainly visible, and equally plain in it are the traces of
that mystical tendency which was soon to pervade almost all
the literary productions of Persian genius. Sufic pantheism,
which tends to reconcile philosophy with revealed religion,
and centres in the doctrine of the universality and absolute
unity of God, who is diffused through every particle of the
visible and invisible world, and to whom the human soul
during her temporary exile in the prison-house of the body
strives to get back through progressive stages till she is
purified enough to be again absorbed in Him, is already
hinted at in the numerous verses of the " Book of Kings "
in which the poet cries out against the vanity of all earthly
joys and pleasures, and expresses a passionate desire for a
better home, for a reunion with the Godhead. But the
most characteristic passage of the epopee is the mysterious
disappearance of Shah Kaikhosrau, who suddenly, when at
the height of earthly fame and splendour, renounces the
world in utter disgust, and, carried away by his fervent
longing for an abode of everlasting tranquillity, vanishes for
ever from the midst of his companions. The first Persian
who devoted poetry exclusively to the illustration of Sufic Sufic
doctrines was Firdausi's contemporary, the renowned Poets-
sheikh Abu Sa'id b. Abu '1-Khair of Mahna in Khorasan
(968-1049 ; 357-440 A.H.), the founder of that specific form
of the ruba'i which gives the most concise expression to
religious and philosophic aphorisms, — a form which was
further developed by the great freethinker 'OMAR B.
KHAYYAM (q.v.), and Afdal-uddin Kashi (died 1307 ; 707
A.H.). The year of Abu Sa'id's death is most likely the
same which gave to the world the first great didactic
mathnawi, the Rushantfindma, or " Book of Enlighten
ment," by NASIR B. KHOSRAU (q.v.), a poem full of sound
moral and ethical maxims with slightly mystical tendencies.
About twenty-five years later the first theoretical handbook
of Sufism in Persian was composed by 'Ali b. 'UthmAn
al-jullabi al-hujwiri in the Kashf-ulmahjub, which treats of
the various schools of Sufis, their teachings and observ
ances. A great saint of the same period, Sheikh 'AbdallAh
AnsAri of Herat (1006-1089; 396-481 A.H.), assisted in
spreading the pantheistic movement by his Munajdt or in
vocations to God, by several prose tracts, and by an import
ant collection of biographies of eminent Sufis, based on an
older Arabic compilation, and serving in its turn as ground
work for J Ami's excellent Nafahdt-aluns (completed in 1 478;
883 A.H.). He thus paved the way for the publication of
one of the earliest text-books of the whole sect, the Iladikat-
ulhaJdkat, or "Garden of Truth" (1130; 525 A.H.),' by
Hakim Sana'i of Ghazna, to whom all the later Sufic poets
refer as their unrivalled master in spiritual knowledge.
In this extensive mathnawi in ten cantos, as well as in his
smaller poetical productions, he skilfully blended the purely
didactic element, which is enhanced by pleasant stories and
anecdotes, with the chief tenets of higher theosophy, — an
example which has been strictly adhered to by all the
following Sufic poets, who only differ in so far as they give
preponderance either to the ethical or to the mystical side
of their writings. As the most uncompromising Sufis
appear the greatest pantheistic writer of all ages, Jelal-
uddin Rumf (1207-1273 ; 604-672 A.H.; see RUMI), and his
scarcely less renowned predecessor Farid-uddin 'Attar, who
was slain by the Moguls at the age of 1 1 4 lunar years in
1230 (627 A.H.). This prolific writer, originally a druggist
('attAr) in NishApur, after having renounced all worldly
affairs and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, devoted him
self to a stern ascetic life, and to the composition of Sufic
works, partly in prose, as in his valuable " Biography of
eminent Mystic Divines," but mostly in the form of math-
LITERATURE.]
PERSIA
659
nawis (upwards of twenty in number), among which the
Pandndma, or " Book of Counsels," and the Mantik-uttair,
or the "Speeches of Birds," occupy the first rank. In the
latter, an allegorical poem, interspersed with moral tales
and pious contemplations, the final absorption of the Sufi
in the deity is most ingeniously illustrated, and the seven
valleys through which the birds travel on their way to the
fabulous phoenix or simurg (literally thirty birds), and in
which all except thirty succumb, are the seven stations
of the mystic road that leads from earthly troubles into
the much-coveted Fana or Nirvana.
In strong contrast to these advanced Sufis stands the
greatest moral teacher of Persia, Sheikh Sa'di of Shiraz
(died about 110 lunar years old in 1292; 691 A.H. ; see
SA'DI), whose two best known works, the Bustdn, or " Fruit-
garden," and the Gulistdn, or "Rose-garden," owe their
great popularity both in the East and the West to the
purity of their spiritual thoughts, their sparkling wit,
charming style, and the very moderate use of mystic
theories. However, both have found comparatively few
imitations, — the former in the Dasturndma of Nizari of
Kohistan (died 1320 ; 720 A.H.), in the Dah Bab, or "Ten
Letters," of Katibi (died 1434; 838 A.H.), and in the Gulzdr
of Hairati (murdered 1554 ; 961 A.H.) ; the latter in Mu'in-
uddin Juwaini's Nigdristdn (1335; 735 A.H.) and Jami's
Bahdristdn, or "Spring-garden" (1487; 892 A.H.); whereas
an innumerable host of purely Sufic compositions followed
in the wake of Sana'i's, 'Attar's, and Jelal-uddin Rumi's
matlmawis. They consist partly of mere expositions of
doctrines with or without illustrations by tales and anec
dotes, partly of complete Sufic allegories, often disfigured
by the wildest eccentricities. It will suffice to name a few
af the most conspicuous in each class. To the former
belong the Lama at, or "Sparks," of 'Iraki (died between
1287 and 1309; 686 and 709 A.H.), the Zdd-ulmusdfirin,
or " Store of the Wayfarers," by Husaini (died 1318 ;' 718
A.H.), the Gulshan-i-Rdz, or "Rose-bed of Mystery," by
Mahmiid Shabistari (died 1320 ; 720 A.H.), the Jdm-i-Jam,
or " Cup of Jamshid," by Auhadi (died 1338; 738 A.H.), the
Anis-ul "Am/in, or "Friend of the Mystics," by Kasim-i-
Anwar (died 1434 ; 837 A.H.), and others ; to the latter
'Assar's Mihr u Mushtari, or "Sun and Jupiter" (1376;
778 A.H.), 'Arifi's Gdi u Chaugdn, or " The Ball and the
Bat" (1438; 842 A.H.), Uusn u Dil, or "Beauty and
Heart," by Fattahi of Nishapur (died 1448; 852 A.H.),
Sham u Parwdna, or "The Candle and the Moth," by
Ahli of Shiraz (1489 ; 894 A.H.), Shdh u Gadd, or "King
and Dervish,'/ by Hilali (put to death 1532; 939 A.H.),
Baha-uddin 'Amili's (died 1621 ; 1030 A.H.) Nan u Halwd,
or " Bread and Sweets," Shir u Ska/car, or " Milk and
Sugar," and many more.
During all these periods of literary activity, lyric poetry,
pure and simple — i.e., the ghazal, in its legitimate form-
had by no means been neglected ; almost all the renowned
poets since the time of Rudagi had sung in endless strains
the pleasures of love and wine, the beauties of nature, and
the almighty power of the Creator ; but, however rich the
ghazals of Sa'di in lofty thoughts and pious feelings, how
ever sublime the hymns of Jelal-uddin Rumi, it was left
to the incomparable genius of Hafiz (died 1389 ; 791 A.H. ;
see HAFIZ) to give to the world the most perfect models
of lyric composition ; and the lines he had laid down were
more or less strictly followed by all the ghazal-writers of
the 9th and 10th centuries of the Hijra, — by Salman of
Sawa (died about 1377; 779 A.H.), who excelled besides
in kasida and mathnawi ; Kamal Khujandi, Hafiz's friend,
and protege of Sultan Husain (776-784 A.H.); Mohammed
Shirin Maghribi (died at Tabriz in 1406 ; 809 A.H.), an inti
mate friend of Kamal ; Ni'mat-ullah Wall (died 1431 ; 834
A.H.), the founder of a special religious order; Kasim-i-
Anwar (see above) ; Amfr Shahl (died 1453 ; 857 A.H.), of
the princely family of the Sarbaddrs of Sabzawar ; Banna'i
(died 1512; 918 A.H.), who also wrote a romantic poem,
Bahrdm u Bihruz ; Baba Fighani of Shiraz (died 1519;
925 A.H.), usually called the " Little Hafiz"; Nargisi (died
1531; 938A.H.); Lisani (died 1534; 941 A.H. ), who himself
was imitated by Damiri of Isfahan, Muhtasham Kdshi, and
Wahshi Bafiki (all three died in the last decade of the 10th
century of the Hijra); Ahli of Shfraz (died 1535; 942
A.H.), author of the Sihr-i-Haldl, or " Lawful Witchcraft,"
which, like Katibi's (died 1434; 838 A.H.) Maj mal-ulhahrain,
or the " Confluence of the Two Seas," can be read in two
different metres ; Nau'i (died 1610 ; 1019 A.H.), who wrote
the charming romance of a Hindu princess who burned
herself in Akbar's reign with her deceased husband on the
funeral pile, styled Suz u Guddz, or "Burning and Melt
ing," etc. Among the immediate predecessors of Hafiz
in the 8th century of the Hijra, in which also Ibn Yamin,
the great kit'ah-writer,1 flourished, the highest fame was
gained by the two poets of Delhi, Amir Hasan and Amir
Khosrau. The latter, who died in 1325 (725 A.H.), two
years before his friend Hasan, occupies the foremost place
among all the Persian poets of India by the richness of
his imagination, his graphic style, and the historical interest
attached to his writings. Five extensive diwans testify to
his versatility in all branches of lyric poetry, and nine
large mathnawis to his mastership in the epic line. Four
of the latter are poetical accounts of contemporary events
during the reigns of the emperors of Delhi, 'Ala-uddin
Mohammad Shdh Khilji (1296-1311), his predecessor
Firuz Shah, and his successor Kutb-uddin Mubarek Shah, —
the Miftdh-ulfutuk, or " Key of Mysteries," the Kirdn-ussa-
dain, or "The Conjunction of the Two Lucky Planets,"
the Nuh Sipihr, or "Nine Spheres," and the love-story
of Khidrkhdn u Duwalrdni. His other five mathnawis
formed the first attempt ever made to imitate Nizami's
famous Khamsah, or five romantic epopees, and this attempt
turned out so well that henceforth almost all epic poets
wrote quintuples of a similar description. Khwaju Kirmani
(died 1352 ; 753 A.H.) was the next aspirant to Nizami's
fame, with five mathnawis, among which Humdi u
Humdyun is the most popular, but he had to yield the
palm to 'Abd-urrahnicin Jami (1414-1492 ; 817-898 A.H.), Jdmi
the last classic poet of Persia, in whose genius were summed an<l later
up, as it were, all the best qualities of his great predecessors, P°ets-
and who combined, in a manner, the moral tone of Sa'di with
the lofty aspirations of Jelal-uddin Rumi, and the graceful
ease of Hafiz's style with the deep pathos of Nizami, to
whose Khamsah he wrote the most successful counterpart
(see his Yusuf u Zalikhd mentioned above). Equally
renowned are his numerous prose works, mostly on Sufic
topics, and his three diwans. Many poets followed in
Jami's footsteps, first of all his nephew Hatifi (see above),
and either wrote whole khamsahs or imitated at least
one or other of Nizami's epopees ; thus we have a Laild
u Majnun, for instance, by Maktabi (1490), Hilali (see
above), and Ruh-ulamin (died 1637). But their efforts could
not stop the growing corruption of taste, and it was only
at the court of the Mogul emperors, particularly of the
great Akbar (1556-1605), Avho revived Sultan Mahmud's
"round table," that Persian literature still enjoyed some
kind of " Indian summer " in poets like Ghazali of Mash-
had or Meshed (died 1572); 'Urfi of Shiraz (died 1591), who
wrote spirited kasidas, and, like his contemporaries Wahshi
and Kauthari, a mathnawi, Farhdd u Shirin ; and Faidi(died
1595), the author of the romantic poem, Nal u Daman, who
also imparted new life into the ruba'i. In Persia proper
1 A kit'ali or mukatta'ah is a poem containing moral reflexions and
differs from the kasida and ghazal only by the absence of a matla' or
initial distich.
660
PERSIA
only Zulali, whose clever romance of " Sultan Malimiid and
his favourite Ayaz " (1592) is widely read in the East, Sa'ib
(died 1677), who is commonly called the creator of a new
style in lyric poetry, and, among the most modern, Hatif
of Isfahan, the singer of sweet and tasteful odes (died
about 1785), deserve a passing notice.
But we cannot conclude our brief survey of the national
literature of Persia without calling attention to the rise of
quite a novel form of Iranian poetry, the drama, which has
only sprung up in the beginning of the present century.
Like the Greek drama and the Mysteries of the European
Middle Ages, it is the offspring of a purely religious cere
mony, which for centuries has been performed annually
during the first ten days of the month Moharrem, — the
recital of mournful lamentations in memory of the tragic
fate of the house of the caliph 'All, the hero of the
Shfitic Persians. Most of these passion-plays deal with
the slaughter of 'All's son Hosain and his family in the
battle of Kerbela. But lately this narrow range of dramatic
subjects has been considerably widened; Biblical stories and
even Christian legends have been brought upon the Persian
stage ; and there is a fair prospect of a further develop
ment of this most interesting and important movement.
In the various departments of general Persian literature,
not touched upon in the foregoing pages, the same wonder
ful activity has prevailed as in the realm of poetry and
fiction, since the first books on history and medicine ap
peared under the Samanids (see above). The most im
portant section is that of historical works, which, although
deficient in sound criticism and often spoiled by a highly
artificial style, supply us with most valuable materials for
our own research, especially when they relate contemporary
events in which the authors took part either as political
agents or as mere eye-witnesses. Quite unique in this
respect are the numerous histories of India, from the first
invasion of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna to the English con
quest, and even to the first decades of the present century,
most of which have been described and partly translated
in the eight volumes of Elliot's History of India (1867-78).
Persian writers have given us, besides, an immense variety
of universal histories of the world, with many curious
and noteworthy data (see, among others, Mirkhond's
and Khwandamir's works under MIRKHOND, vol. xvi. p.
499) ; histories of Mohammed and the first caliphs, partly
translated from Arabic originals, which have been lost ;
detailed accounts of all the Persian dynasties, from the
Ghaznawids to the still reigning Kajars, of Jenghiz Khan
and the Moguls (in Juwaini's and Wassaf's elaborate
Ta'rikhs), and of Timur and his successors (see an account
of the Zafarndma under PETIS DE LA CROIX) ; histories of
sects and creeds, especially the famous Dabistdn, or "School
of Manners " (translated by Troyer, Paris, 1843) ; and many
local chronicles of Iran and Tiiran. Next in importance
to history rank geography, cosmography, and travels (for
instance, the Nuzhat-ulkulub, by Hamdallah Mustaufi, who
died in 1349, and the translations of Istakhrf's and Kazwini's
Arabic works), and the various ladhkiras or biographies of
Sufis and poets, with selections in prose and verse, from
the oldest of 'Aufi (about 1220) to the last and largest of
all, the Makhzan-ulyhard'ib, or " Treasure of Marvellous
Matters" (completed 1803), which contains biographies
and specimens of more than 3000 poets. We pass over the
well-stocked sections of philosophy, ethics, and politics, of
theology, law, and Sufism, of mathematics and astronomy,
of medicine (the oldest thesaurus of which is the " Treasure
of the shah of Khwarizm," 1110), of Arabic, Persian, and
Turkish grammar and lexicography, and only cast a part
ing glance at the rich collections of old Indian folk-lore Indian
and fables preserved in the Persian versions of Kalllah u folk-lore
Dimnali (see RUDAGI), of the Sindbddndma, the Tritindma,
or "Tales of a Parrot," and others, and at the translations
of standard works of Sanskrit literature, the epopees of
the Rdmdyana and Mahdbhdrata, the Bhagavad-Gitd, the
Yoga-Vasishtha, and numerous Pur anas and Upanishads,
for which we are mostly indebted to the emperor Akbar's
indefatigable zeal.
A complete history of Persian literature is still a desideratum.
Hammer's Schone llcdckiinste Persians, Vienna, 1818, is altogether
unsatisfactory and obsolete. Concise sketches of Persian poetry
are contained in Ouseley's Biographical Notices ; in Fliigel's article
in Ersch and Gruber's Allgcmcine Encyklopadie (1842) ; in Eland's
papers in the Journal of the Roy. Asiatic Society, vol. vii. p. 345
sq. and vol. ix. p. 122 sq.; and in Barbier do Meynard's Poesie en
Perse, Paris, 1877. Real mines of information are the catalogues
of Sprenger, Calcutta, 1854 ; Morley, London, 1854 ; Fliigel, 3
vols., Vienna, 1865; and Rieu, 3 vols., London, 1879-83. For
the first five centuries of the Hijra compare Ethe's editions and
metrical translations of "Rudagi's Vorlaufer mid Zeitgcnossen," in
Morgcnlandischc Forscliungcn, Leipsic, 1875; of Kisa'i's songs,
Firdausi's lyrics, and Abu Sa'id b. Abu '1-Khair's ruba'is, in Sitz-
ungslcrichte dcr bayr. Akadcmic (1872, p. 275 sq.; 1873, p. 622 sq. ;
1874, p. 133 sq. ; 1875, p. 145 sq. ; and 1878, p. 38 sq.); of Avicenna's
Persian poems, in Gottingcr Nachrichtcn, 1875, p. 555 sq. ; and of
Asadi and his munazarat, in " Pcrsische Tenzonen," Vcrhandlungcu
des 5(en Orientalist-en- Congresses, Berlin, 1882, part ii., first half,
p. 48 sq.; Zotenberg's Chronique dc Talari, Paris, 1867-74;
Jurjam's Wis u Rdmin, edited in the Bill. Indica, 1864 (trans
lated into German by Graf in Z. D. M. G., xxiii. 375 sq.); and Kasi-
mirski's Specimen du diwan dc Mcnoutchchri, Versailles, 1876. On
Khakaui, see Khanykoff's " Menioire, " in Journal Asiatique, 6th
series, vol. iv. p. 137 sq. and v. p. 296 sq. , and Salemann's edition
of his ruba'is, with Russian transl., Petersburg, 1875; on Farid-
uddin 'Attar, Sacy's edition of the Pandndma, Paris, 1819, and
Garcin de Tassy's Mantik-uttair, Paris, 1857; on the Gulslian-i-raz,
E. PI. "Whin field's edition, London, 1880 ; and on Amir Khosrau's
mathnawis, the abstracts given in Elliot's History of India., vol. iii.
p. 524 sq. German translations of Ibn Yamhi were published by
Schlechta-Wssehrd, B-rucltstiickc, Vienna, 1852 ; of J;imfs minor
poems, by Rosenzweig, Vienna, 1840 ; by Riickert, in Zcitschrift fur
die Kunde des Aforgenlandes, vols. v. and vi. , and Zcitschrift dcr D.
Morgcnl. Gcsellsch., vols. ii., iv., v., vi., xxiv. , xxv., andxxix. ; and
by Wickerhauser, Leipsic, 1855, and Vienna, 1858; German trans
lation of Yusuf u Zalikhd, by Rosenzweig, Vienna, 1824, English
by Griffith, London, 1881 ; French translation of Lai Id u Majnun,
by Chezy, Paris, 1805, German by Hartmann, Leipsic, 1807 ;
Hilali's " Kb'nig und Derwisch," by Ethe, in Morgcnldnd. Stud.,
Leipsic, 1870, p. 197 sq. On the Persian drama, compare Gobineau's
Religions ct Philosophies de I'Asic ccntralc, Paris, 1866; Chodzko's
Thedtre persan, new ed., Paris, 1878; and Ethe, "Persische Pas-
sionspiele," in Morgenldnd. Stud., p. 174 sq. (H. E.)
INDEX.
'Abbas I., 637.
Artaxerxes III., 580.
'Abbas II., 638.
Astrabad, 627.
Achsernenians, 565.
Babylon, 566, 572.
Adarbayan, 626.
Bactrian Greeks, 587, 589,
Afghans, 639, 640, 648
599.
sq.
Bahram V., 610.
Aeha Muhammad, 645.
Carnbyses, 567.
Alexander, 581.
Chinese accounts, 592 sq.,
Antiochus I., 587.
599.
„ II., 587.
Crassus, 596.
„ III., 588.
Cyaxares, 563.
IV., 589.
Cyrus, 564 sq.
Ardashir, 606, 607.
„ (satrap), 576, 577.
Arsaces I., 587.
Darius I., 568, 569.
Arsacids, 590.
„ II., 575.
Artabanus III., 600.
„ III., 581.
„ IV., 605.
Demetrius I., 590.
Artaxerxes I., 573.
II.. 501.
II., 576. Fath 'All Shall, 647.
Gilan, 621, 623, 627.
Gotarzes, 601.
Hephthalites, 610, 613.
Herat, 650, 652.
Hormizd IV., 613.
Husain, 639.
India invaded, 569, 583,
586, 591, 599, 641.
Ionian revolts, 570, 573,
, 579.
Iran, 561.
Isma'il I., 634 sq.
Ispahan, 627, 628, 038, 640.
Kajars, 643, 645 sq.
Kannan, 626, 645.
Kavadh I., 611 sq.
Kazvin, 627, 628, 637.
Klfosrau I., 612.
„ II., 614.
Khurasan, 621, 626, 646,
651.
lAitf 'All Khan, 645.
Mashhad, 626, 628, 637.
Mazandaran, 621, 623, 627.
Medes, 561 sq.
Mithradates I., 590, 591.
„ II., 595.
Mondliir of llira, 610, 612.
Moslems, 615.
Muhammad Shah, 649.
Nadir Shah, 641 sq.
Na.sru 'd-Din Shah, 651.
Nineveh, 563.
Orodes I., 596 sq.
Pacorus, 597.
Parthians, 587, 592.
Peroz, 611.
Persis, 561, 565, 605.
Phraates II., 594.
„ III., 595.
,, IV., 598.
Sal'awids, 634 sq.
Sarakhs, 618.
Scythians, 563, 570, 594,
599, 603.
Seleucia, 587, 601, 604.
Seleucids, 585 sq.
Seleucus I., 585.
Sevems, 605.
Shah Rukh, 643.
„ Sufi, 638.
„ Tahmasp, 636 sq.
Shaikh Sufi, 634.
Shapiir L, 608.
„ II., 609.
Shiraz, 623, 624, 027, 628.
Sse, 591, 593, 599.
Sulaiman, 639.
Tabriz, 626, 628, 633, 637,
Tehran, 623, 627, 628.
Tigranes (Armenia), 595.
Tiinurides, 632, 633.
Tiridates, 598.
Tochari, 592, 594, 600, 003,
606.
Trajan, 603, 604.
Vardanes, 601.
Volagases I., 602.
„ II., 603.
,, III., 604.
Xerxes L, 572.
Yazdegerd I., 610.
„ III., 615.
Yue-chi, 592, 593, 594,600.
P E E — P E R
661
PERSIGNY, JEAN GILBERT VICTOR FIALIN, Due DE
(1808-1872), the most devoted servant of Napoleon III.,
who with the due de Morny and Marshal Saint-Arnaud
formed the triumvirate which established the second em
pire, was born at Saint-Germain Lespinasse (Loire) on llth
January 1808. He came of a rood family, but not a noble
one, and, as his father had been killed at the battle of Sala
manca in 1812, he was brought up by an uncle, who sent
him to be educated at the college of Limoges. He entered
the 3d Hussars in 1825, the cavalry school at Saumur in
1826, and became marechal des logis in the 4th Hussars in
1828. He was at this time a Legitimist, but was soon made
a Republican by his captain, and he helped to persuade
his regiment to assist in the insurrection of 1830. For
this service he expected great rewards, but got none, and
was eventually dismissed from the army for insubordination
in 1831. Finding himself without resources, he took to
journalism, and assisted in editing the Temps, and in 1833,
by which time he had become a profound Bonapartist,
he issued a solitary number of a new journal, the Occident
franqais, in which he proclaimed his political creed. This
number was sent to Queen Hortense at Arenenberg, and
when M. Fialin followed it in person, calling himself the
vicomte de Persigny, he met with a warm reception, and
soon became indispensable to Louis Napoleon. He had
two qualities which gave him ascendency over the young
prince, fidelity and audacity. He it was who planned the
attempt on Strasburg in 1836, and that on Boulogne in
1840. For his share in the last escapade he was sentenced
to imprisonment in a fortress for twenty years, which was
commuted into detention at Versailles, where he wrote a
curious book to prove that the Pyramids were built to
keep the Xile from silting up. When the Revolution of
1848 broke out he laboured indefatigably for the Bona
partist cause, securing the election of Louis Napoleon to
the Constituent Assembly in June and in September
1848, and to the presidency in December 1848. His own
prosperity was now secured ; he was made aide-de-camp
to the prince president, and elected to the Legislative
Assembly in May 1849 for the department of the Loire.
He then became one of the secret plotters of the coup
d'etat, and was at first designed for the office of minister
of the interior, but a man of more capacity, De Morny, was
chosen for this post, and Persigny only accompanied
Colonel Espinasse to take possession of the hall of the
assembly. On securing the throne Napoleon III. hastened
to reward his most faithful personal adherent. Persigny
became minister of the interior in the place of De Morny
in January 1852, and a senator in December 1852. He
resigned office in 1854 and became ambassador in London,
with but one short interval (1858-59), from May 1855 to
November 1860, when he again became minister of the
interior. His second tenure of office lasted till June 1863,
when he resigned in disgust at the influence which M.
Rouher was attaining over the mind of the emperor, and
was made due de Persigny in September 1863. As a
minister he showed very little capacity, and throughout
the years of his political influence he never seemed to
understand, like De Morny, the real bases of the existence
of the second empire. He, however, from dislike of Rouher,
supported Ollivier in 1869, and defended the plebiscite,
and when the empire fell in 1870 escaped to England.
He did not long survive the overthrow of the idea which
he had so strenuously supported, and died at Nice on llth
January 1872. Fialin de Persigny was certainly only an
adventurer, but he had one merit, which the other founders
of the second empire did not possess, fidelity to his master.
For Persigny's life, see a most eulogistic biography by Delaroa
(Le due de Persigny et les doctrines de I' empire, 1865) ; a short
biography in Mirecourt's Portraits contcmporains (1858) ; and Cas-
tille's Portraits politiques ct historiqucs (1859). His own curious
book, De la destination et de Vutilitt permanentc dcs Pyramides
d'&jyptc et de Nubie, was published in 1845, and he wrote various
political pamphlets, of which the most interesting relates to the
Strasburg attempt, Relation de I'entreprise du prince Napoleon Louis
(Lond. 1837). For his political career under the empire, see Taxile
Delord's Histoire du second empire (1868-75).
PERSIMMON, the name given to the fruits of Diospyros
virginiana in the United States. The tree which bears
them belongs to the order Ebenacese, and has oval entire
leaves, and monoecious flowers on short stalks. In the
male flowers, which are numerous, the stamens are sixteen
in number, arranged in pairs, and with the anthers opening
by slits. The female flowers are solitary, with traces of
stamens, and have a glabrous ovary with one ovule in
each of the eight cells, — the ovary being surmounted by
four styles, which are hairy at the base. The fruit-stalk
is very short, bearing a subglobose fruit an inch or rather
more in diameter, of an orange-yellow colour, and with a
sweetish astringent pulp. It is surrounded at the base by
the persistent calyx -lobes, which increase in size as the
fruit ripens. The astringency renders the fruit somewhat
unpalatable, but, after it has been subjected to the action
of frost, or has become partially rotted or "bletted" like
a medlar, its flavour is improved. In some of the south
ern States the fruit is said to be kneaded with bran, made
into cakes, and baked. From the cakes a fermented liquor
is made with the aid of yeast. The tree is cultivated in
England, but rarely if ever ripens its fruit, and in the
States it is said not to ripen north of New Jersey.
The Chinese and Japanese cultivate another species, the Diospyros
Kaki, of which there exist numerous ill-defined varieties, which,
according to Mr Hiern in his exhaustive monograph of the Ebenacese,
all belong to one species. The fruits are larger than those of the
American kind, variable in shape, but have similar properties.
Some varieties have been introduced into Great Britain, and have
produced their fruits in orchard-houses. The fruit is in appearance
something like that of the apricot, but very astringent to the taste.
After "bletting," however, it becomes sweet and agreeable. Some
specimens analysed by Dr Voelcker for the scientific committee of
the Royal Horticultural Society contained, roughly, 84 per cent, of
water, 2^ per cent, of tannic acid, and 9'S of sugar, pectin, &c.,
with small quantities of woody, albuminoid, and mineral matters.
PERSIUS (A. PERSIUS FLACCUS) stands third in order
of time of those recognized by the Romans as their four
greatest satirists. These represent four distinct periods of
the national development — the revolutionary era of the
Gracchi, the years immediately preceding the establishment
of the monarchy, the first years of the reign of Nero, the
age of Domitian and the dawning of the better era which
followed on the accession of Nerva. Their relative value
consists in the truth, freedom, and power with which they
expressed the better spirit of their time, commented on its
vices and follies, and described the actual personages, the
prevailing types of character, and the fashions and pur
suits — the " quicquid agunt homines " — by which it was
marked. Of these four representatives of the most dis
tinctly national branch of Roman literature — Lucilius,
Horace, Persius, and Juvenal — Persius is the least im
portant. He is indeed inferior to none of them in the
purity and sincerity with which he expresses the best
spirit of his age; but he was inferior in literary originality
and vigour to Lucilius, in literary art to Horace and
Juvenal, — less powerful in his denunciation of evil than
Lucilius and Juvenal, less searching in his criticism
than Horace, — less true to life in his delineation of men
and manners than the two earlier satirists, less powerful
in his effects than the latest among them. This inferior
ity is to be ascribed partly to the circumstances of his age.
Its literature was more artificial, and also more opposed
to the true principles of art, than that of any other stage
in the development of Roman letters. The generation which
succeeded the Augustan age — the generation which lived
662
P E R S I U S
under Tiberius, Gains, and Claudius — had not the genius
to originate a literature of its own nor the sense of security
which would enable it to perpetuate the literary accomplish
ment of the preceding age. No period between the Cicer
onian era and the reign of Hadrian was so unproductive.
The accession of the young emperor, in whom were ulti
mately realized the worst vices of the tyrant along with the
most despicable weaknesses of the litterateur and artiste —
" scenicus ille " is the term of contempt applied to him in
Tacitus — gave a fresh impulse to that fashion of verse-
making which Horace remarked as almost universal among
his educated contemporaries, and which was stimulated by
the rhetorical education of the day. But the writers of the
Xeronian age had neither the genius nor the true sense of
art which distinguished the Ciceronian and Augustan ages,
nor had they acquired the cultivated appreciation and good
taste of the later Flavian era, nor wrere they animated by
that sense of recovered freedom of speech and thought
which gave to Roman literature its two last great repre
sentatives. The writing of the Neronian age was, for the
most part, a crude and ambitious effort to produce sensa
tional effects by rhetorical emphasis. Of its representatives
four can still be read with a certain though by no means
an unmixed pleasure, — Seneca, Lucan, Petronius, and
Persius. Of these Persius had least of the true literary gift.
He had neither the smooth and fluent elegance of Seneca,
the " ingenium amoenum et auribus illius temporis accom-
modatum " attributed to him by Tacitus, nor the rhetorical
passion of Lucan, nor the cynical realism and power of
representation which enabled Petronius to originate a new
form of literature. Persius could not have become a satirist
of the type of Petronius or of Martial : he could not have
treated human degradation in a spirit of cynical sympathy
or of amused tolerance. On the other hand earnest satire
directed against its legitimate objects, the emperor and his
favourites, could not at such a time express itself openly.
"Pone Tigellinum" is an expressive reminder that it
was safer to write sickly sentimentalism about "Phyllis
and Hypsipyle " than to assume the role of Lucilius.
But apart from the influence of his time and the natural
limitations of his genius, the personal circumstances of
Persius were unfavourable to success in the branch of
literature to which he devoted himself. The shortness of
his life and the retirement in which it was spent, his
studious tastes, his delicate health, and that which is most
admirable in him, his exceptional moral purity, all con
tributed to keep him ignorant of that world which it is
the business of a satirist to know. Lucilius, Horace,
Petronius, Martial, Juvenal, were all men of the world,
who knew the life of their day by close personal contact
with it, and had no need to imagine it through the medium
of impressions received from literature, or situations in
vented as themes for rhetorical exercises. Some aspects
of his time, such as the outward signs of literary affectation
and effeminacy, did come within the range of Persius's
observation, and these he describes with no want of the
pungency, " Italum acetum," characteristic of his race.
But from any intimate knowledge, even through the medium
of conversation, of the vices and vulgarities from which
Petronius lifts the curtain he was debarred by the purity
alike of his moral instincts and of his taste. Thus his
satire, while able to lash " the sickly morals " of his time
("pallentes radere mores") in fervid generalities, cannot
perform the more important function of probing them
through living examples.
But Roman satire had another function besides the re
presentation and criticism of men and manners. More
than any other branch of literature it was the expression
of the writer's own nature and convictions. The frank
sincerity with which these were expressed was a great cause
of the personal hold which Lucilius had on his readers ; it
is still one of the secrets of the personal charm of Horace.
The sympathy with which Persius was read in the early
days of Christianity and the enthusiasm which many
readers have felt for him in modern times are mainly due
to the impression of character which he produces. But he
is to be regarded further, not as an isolated specimen of
purity in an impure age, but as an important witness of
that undercurrent of moral and spiritual sentiment which
gathered force as a protest against the corruption and
tyranny of the first century of the empire. The conscious
ness of moral evil which became intensified during that
period is very apparent when we compare the spirit of
Cicero and Horace, men in their own day seriously con
cerned with questions of conduct, with that of Tacitus and
Juvenal. This great inward change was stimulated and
directed by the teaching of Stoicism ; and it was in the
reign of Nero that Stoicism gained its chief ascendency
over educated men, and supplanted among the adherents
of the republic the fashionable Epicureanism of the days
of Lucretius and Horace. Of the Stoical spirit of that
time, represented also by Seneca and Lucan, Persius is the
purest representative. His chief claim to consideration is,
not that he is a great poet, satirist, or humorist, or even
an agreeable writer, but that he is one of the earliest, and,
amongst classical writers, one of the most sincere preachers
of a pure personal morality based on a spiritual conception
of religion.
The impression of him produced by his writings is
confirmed by the accounts transmitted of his life, for
which we are indebted to the contemporary grammarian,
Valerius Probus of Berytus. Written when the impression
left by him was fresh on the memory of his friends, it may
be accepted as trustworthy in regard both of outward facts
and of the sentiments which he inspired.
Well born and well connected, and the inheritor of a
good estate, Persius lived the uneventful life of a student,
and was chiefly remarkable for his affection for his friends,
his teachers, and his family. He was a native of Etruria,
a district which contributed less than any other in Italy to
the literary distinction of Rome. And it is noticeable that,
while Persius has all the characteristic moral fervour of the
more serious Roman writers, he showrs less, compared with
those who have an important place in the national litera
ture, of that sensuous vivacity and susceptibility to beauty
in art and nature with which the purely Italian race was pre
eminently endowed. He was born at Yolaterrae in the year
34 A.D., and received his early education there. His father
died when he was six years of age, and his mother, Fulvia
Sisennia, whose latter name by its termination is indicative
of an Etruscan stock, married a second time and was soon
again left a widow. In one of the satires he speaks of
the eagerness with which his father used to bring his
friends to listen to his recitation of the dying speech of
Cato. It is not likely that at the age of six he could
have been so far advanced in his rhetorical education, and
perhaps, though he uses the word "pater," this reminiscence,
which is told not without satirical colouring, may be a testi
mony to the interest which his stepfather took in watching
his progress. The nature of the lesson — " morituri verba
Catonis" — is suggestive of an early direction towards
Stoicism given in his teaching ; but by what he tells us of
his way of shirking his lessons and of his healthy pre
ference of play to work, he seems to have done what he
could to escape the doom of becoming a precocious prodigy.
He W7as taken at the age of twelve to Rome, and continued
his education under the two most famous grammarians and
rhetoricians of the day, Remmius Pakcmon and Virginius
Flavus. The decisive influence of his life was his friend
ship with the Stoic philosopher, Annreus Cornutus, whose
P E R S I U S
663
pupil he became on assuming the " toga virilis " at the age
of sixteen. To the charm of this man's conversation and
teaching Persius attributes his escape from the temptations
to a life of pleasure, to which youths of good position and
fortune were exposed at Rome. Besides his friendship with
Cornutus, he enjoyed during ten years of his life the inti
mate friendship of Thrasea Psetus, the noblest specimen of
Stoicism which the Roman world produced in the first
century of the empire. This intimacy was probably due,
in the first place, to the relationship of Persius to the
younger Arria, the wife of Thrasea. Though a much
younger man, he gained so completely the affection of
Thrasea that he often went with him as the companion of
his travels. The knowledge that he was an intimate mem
ber of the circle of Thrasea and Helvidius gives an addi
tional interest to the opinions of Persius on literature and
conduct, and also to the indications of his attitude towards
the reigning power. He was introduced also to Seneca,
but was not much attracted by his genius. The influence
of Thrasea may have had something to do with this want
of sympathy. The true Stoic, who "kept as holidays the
birthdays of the two Brutuses and of Cassius," was not
likely to have been among the admirers of the apologist
for parricide.1
He was also intimate with some of the younger poets
of the time, especially with Caesius Bassus, to whom he
addresses his sixth satire. He was acquainted with his
younger and more famous contemporary, Lucan, who is
said, with the generous impulses which seemed to have
been mixed with the fatal weaknesses of his character, to
have been carried away by great enthusiasm when he first
heard Persius reciting some of his verses. His biographer
tells us that the impulse to writing satire was derived from
reading a book of Lucilius. He was evidently a diligent
.student both of him and of Horace. He himself justifies
his adoption of this mode of writing by his natural tendency
to satiric criticism, — " sum petulant! splene cachinno."
But his satire shows as little of the humorous amusement
in contemplating the comedy of life, which is one of the
motives of the satire of Horace, as of the fierce indigna
tion which the tragic spectacle of its crimes produced in
Juvenal. We should rather be inclined to conclude that, as
his Stoicism was a protest against the vices and tyranny of
the time, so his adoption of that masculine national form
of literature which took its subjects from the actual expe
rience of Roman life was a protest against the effeminate
style and exotic themes which were then fashionable with
the social class to Avhich he belonged.
There is no trace in his writings of any participation in
the active interests of public or professional life. More
than any other Roman writer, except perhaps Lucretius,
he chose the " secretum iter et fallentis semita vitas " (the
flowery path that winds by stealth). But his life, if appa
rently much happier, was not enriched by the fulness of
contemplative interest and of delight in nature which
lightened up the gloom of the older poet. His latest
satire, addressed to his friend Caesius Bassus, is written
from the port of Luna on the Gulf of Genoa ; but, while
celebrating the mildness of its winter climate, grateful to
him as an invalid, he is silent about the charm of its natural
beauty. He died at the age of twenty -eight, on one of
his own estates on the Via Appia, Avithin eight miles of
Rome. His satires were revised by Cornutus, and edited
at his own request by Caesius Bassus. The former is said
to have altered into a vague generality an expression re
flecting on the poetical gifts of Nero, a subject as danger
ous to deal with as his vices and tyranny. Dying in the
1 Cf. "Ergo non iam Nero, cuius immanitas omnium questus anteibat,
sed Seneca adverse rumore erat, quod oratione tali confessionem scrip-
sisset" (Tac., Ann., xiv. 11).
year 62 A.D., Persius did not witness the worst crimes of
that reign, and escaped the fate which awaited Seneca,
Lucan, and Thrasea.
His character is thus summed up by his biographer. "He
was of a most gentle disposition, of maidenly modesty,
handsome in person, and marked by exemplary affection
towards his mother, sister, and aunt. He lived soberly
and chastely." The characteristic of "virginalis pudicitia"
it is natural to associate with the pure family atmosphere
in which he lived ; and the existence of cultivated women
who could exercise such an influence is a warning not to
judge Roman society, even in its worst time, altogether
from the representation of Juvenal. The letters of Pliny
amply confirm the belief that the world was not all so bad
as it appears in that representation. The tone of the
biographer as well as his explicit statements attest the
warm affection which Persius inspired in his lifetime.
Mere asceticism unaccompanied by other graces of character
cannot account for this sentiment of affection ; and the
Roman world had a keen eye to detect insincere professions
of austerity. But, while there are many signs of inexperi
ence of life and much forced and artificial writing in
Persius, there is in the expression of his deepest convictions
an unmistakable ring of genuineness. He seems to love
virtue without effort, because his nature finds in the love
and practice of virtue the secret of happiness. There is
also in the personal addresses to his friends, as in that to
Macrinus, a tone of genial sympathy with the innocent
enjoyments of life. In the expression of affection for those
whom he loved no ancient writer is so cordial and single-
minded, except one, as much separated from him by the
licence of his life as by the force of his genius, who also
died in early youth, the ardent true-hearted poet of Verona.
Persius is said to have written slowly and seldom, and, though
he seems to have composed, probably before he devoted himself to
satire, a tragedy on a .Roman subject, an account in verse of some
of his travels, and some lines on the elder Arria (none of which
were ever given to the world), the only result of his literary activity
is the short book of six satires which we now possess. The contrast
between the small amount of his contributions to literature and the
reputation which he enjoyed is noticed by two ancient writers, who
indicate their appreciation of his value, Quintilian and Martial.
The satires are not only fewer in number than those of Horace and
Juvenal, but they are for the most part shorter. Only one of them,
the first, fulfils the proper function of satire by representing any
phase of the life of the time and pointing its moral. It exposes by
personal sketches and representative imitations the fashionable taste
in poetry, and marks its connexion with the luxury and effeminacy
of the age. The satire was believed in ancient times to be aimed
at the emperor ; and this is confirmed, not only by the tradition of
the substitution by Cornutus of the vague generality " quis non " for
the pointed "Mida rex," but also by the parody "Torva Mimal-
loneis implerunt cornua bombis," &c. , which is in keeping with the
account we have in Tacitus and other writers of the style of the
emperor's compositions. In an age abounding in informers it
would have been dangerous to have published or even to have read
before a circle of friends a more direct comment ; but the attitude
of Persius towards the absolute ruler of the day may be inferred
from other references in the satires, as from the passage iii. 35, be
ginning " Magne pater divum " ; and again at iv. 20, in the words,
"Ast ego Dinomaches," we may suspect a protest against the de
gradation of the Eoman world in submitting to be governed by the
son of Agrippina. Even in the abstinence from one single word of
compliment to the ruling power we enjoy an agreeable contrast to
the time-serving of Seneca and the adulation of Lucan.
While the first satire is, like most of those of Lucilius, Horace,
and Juvenal, essentially representative, and has its motive in the
desire to paint in satiric colours a prevailing fashion and some
of the actual personages or types of character of the day, all the
rest are essentially didactic and have their motive in the desire to
enforce and illustrate some lesson of morality or tenet of Stoicism.
The second is an admirable sermon on prayer, and illustrates by ex
amples that union of worldliness and covetousness with religious
faith and practice which has not been absolutely confined to Pagan
ism. The third is aimed at the exposure and correction of the
weakness of character which, in spite of good resolutions, succumbs
to the attacks of sloth and pleasure. The fourth, suggested by the
first Aldliculcs of Plato, though perhaps also written with covert
reference to one whose "Greek levity" may have prompted him to
664
P E R — P E R
pose as a Roman Alcibiades, is directed against the arrogant claims
of a sensual youth to deal, on the ground of his hereditary distinc
tion, with affairs of state and to govern men. The fifth, the most
elaborate of all, illustrates the Stoical doctrine of the difference
between true and false freedom, and shows the power of avarice,
luxury, the passion of love, ambition, and superstition to make
men s'laves. It is the same subject as that which Horace treats in
the third satire of the second book ; but it is treated with neither
the irony nor the direct knowledge of life which Horace applies to
it. The last satire is chiefly devoted to a subject which played a
large part in the satire of Horace and Lucilius,— the proper use of
money. In all these latter pieces the subjects are the common
places of satire and moral disquisition, illustrated rather by new
versions of old characters than by pictures of the living men and
women of the day. Though he expresses admiration for the spirit of
Lucilius and the "old comedy, he seems to keep clear of all personality
and detraction. He professes " ingenuo culpam defigere ludo,"
and, whatever may be thought of his humour, he at least always
writes in the spirit of a gentleman. So far as there is real contact
with life in his satires, it is with the vanity and weakness of the
class to which he himself belonged that he shows familiarity. Other
sketches, however, show original observation, as that of the pro
vincial iudile, of the brawny centurion who laughs at all philosophers,
and, the most elaborate of all, that of the man torn asunder by his
avarice and his love of luxury, who shrinks from the hard roughing
of a sea-voyage, to which he is prompted by his cupidity (i. 129,
ii. 76-87, v. 141-150).
In point of form he aims at reproducing the dialogue of the old
"satura," to which Horace finally adhered. But for the dramatic
vivacity of ordinary speech he substitutes the curt questions and
answers of Stoical disquisition. This is a great source of the obscurity
of his writing. Some of his satires take the form of a familiar
epistle, but in them also there is a large intermixture of dialogue.
In style, while he protests against other modes of affectation, he can
not escape the perverse fashion of forced and exaggerated expression.
While disclaiming imaginative inspiration and avoiding poetical
ornament, he falls into the opposite extreme of excessive realism,
and disguises his plain meaning under contortions of metaphor,
taken from the forge, the potter's wheel, the carpenter's rule, the
baker's oven, &c. He is fond, too, of the realism of physical ex
pression to denote states of mind and feeling, such as "fibra,"
"pulpa," "gluto,"&c. ; and this tendency, combined perhaps with
the wish to imitate Lucilius, has led him occasionally to disfigure
the purity of his pages with unnecessary coarseness. It is only
rarely, and when he is at his best, that we are not conscious of a
constant strain to express his meaning with unnecessary emphasis.
Though single phrases of forcible condensation can be quoted
from him, yet almost every period and paragraph seems to have
been made harsh and obscure with the purpose of arresting attention.
In the pictures which he draws from life, as in that of the reciting
poet in the first satire, he strives by minuteness and exaggeration of
detail to produce a strong sensational impression ; and this is still
more observable in those numerous cases where he distorts and cari
catures the temperate and truthful effects of Horace's sketches. No
Latin writer is less natural. His works have engaged the industry of
many commentators both in ancient and modern times. None could
claim less the praise which Martial claims for his own, of "pleasing
grammarians without needing the aid of their interpretation."
It is not, accordingly, among writers but among moralists that
he holds a high place. Among the professors of Stoicism some were
better writers, others were greater men ; no one was purer in all his
instincts, more sincere in all his nature, or inspired with a more
genuine enthusiasm for virtue. It is when he gives expression to
this enthusiasm and to his single-hearted affection for his friends
that he is able for a few lines to write with simple force and with
impassioned earnestness. Such lines as these — •
" Compositum ius fasque animse, sanctosqne recessns
Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto" (ii. 73, 74);
" Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur . . .
. . . qucin te ileus esse
Jussit et huinana qua parte locatus es in re" (iii. 00-72), &c.;
are in a strain more in accordance with the best modern ideas
of man's highest duty and his true position in the world than
anything to be found in the other satirists of Rome. The aim of
Lucilius was to make men good citizens. He judged their
life by the standard of public virtue and utility. The aim of
Horace's satire was to make men happier in themselves and more
agreeable in their intercourse with one another. He judged them
by the standard of good sense, good feeling, and good manners.
The aim of Juvenal — so far as it was sincere — was to raise human
life from the degradation into which it had fallen. The standard
by which he judged the men of his day was that of the manliness
and dignity realized in the best ages of the republic. The aim of
Persius was to make men live in accordance with the dictates of a
pure conscience. His standard was that ideal of human conduct
which has arisen out of the aspirations and convictions of an en
lightened theism.
The best recent editions of Persius are those of O. Jalin and of Professor
Conington. The edition of Mr Pretor is also to be named. All of these con
tain, in their introductions, important contributions to the critical estimate of
Persius. An excellent account of his life, character, and writings is to be
found in Martha's Les Moralistes Romains, and an interesting, though some
what disparaging, criticism of him as a writer is contained in Nisard's Poctes
Latins de la Decadence. (W. Y. S.)
PERSONAL ESTATE. Strictly speaking, the term
ESTATE (q.v.) is confined in English law to the extent of
interest which can exist in real property. But "personal
estate " is a term often conveniently, if not accurately,
applied to all property that is not real property. The
division of property into real and personal represents
in a great measure the division into immovable and mov
able incidentally recognized in Roman law and generally
adopted since. " The only natural classification of the
objects of enjoyment, the only classification which corre
sponds with an essential difference in the subject-matter,
is that which divides them into moveables and immove-
ables " (Maine, Annent Law, ch. viii.). " Things personal,"
according to Blackstone, " are goods, money, and all other
moveables which may attend the owner's person wherever
he thinks proper to go" (Comm., vol. ii. p. 16). This
identification of things personal with movables, though
logical in theory, does not, as will be seen, perfectly
express the English law, owing to the somewhat anomal
ous position of chattels real. In England real property
is supposed to be superior in dignity to personal property,
which was originally of little importance from a legal
point of view. This view is the result of feudal ideas,
and had no place in the Roman system, in which immov
ables and movables were dealt with as far as possible in
the same manner, and descended according to the same
rules. The law of personal property has developed more
rapidly and freely than that of real property, as it is of
more modern growth and has not been affected by the
notion of tenure. The main differences between real and
personal property which still exist in England are these.
(1) In real property there can be nothing more than
limited ownership (see ESTATE) ; there can be no estate
properly so called in personal property, and it may be
held in complete ownership. There is nothing correspond
ing to an estate -tail in personal property; words which
in real property would create an estate-tail will give an
absolute interest in personalty. A life-interest may,
however, be given in personalty, except in articles quse,
ipso um conswmmtur. Limitations of personal property,
equally with those of real property, fall within the rule
against perpetuities. (See REAL ESTATE.) (2) Personal
property is not subject to various incidents of real property,
such as rent, dower, or escheat. (3) On the death of the
owner intestate real property descends to the heir ; personal
property is divided according to the Statute of Distribu
tions. (4) Real property as a general rule must be trans
ferred by deed ; personal property does not need so solemn
a mode of transfer. (5) Contracts relating to real pro
perty must be in writing by the Statute of Frauds, 29
Car. II. c. 3, s. 4 ; contracts relating to personal property
need only be in writing when it is expressly so provided
by statute, as, for instance, in the cases falling under s. 1 7
of the Statute of Frauds. (6) A will of lands need not
be proved, but a will of personalty or of personal and real
property together must be proved in order to give a title
to those claiming under it. (7) Devises of real estate
fall as a rule within the Mortmain Act, 9 Geo. II. c. 36
(see CHARITIES, CORPORATION); bequests of personal pro
perty, other than chattels real, are not within the Act.
(8) Mortgages of real property need not generally be
registered ; mortgages of personal property for the most
part require registration under the Bills of Sale Acts (see
PLEDGE; and BILL OF SALE, vol. iii. p. 674).
Personal estate is divided in English law into chattels
P E R — P E R
665
real and chattels personal ; the latter are again divided into
choses in jwssession and chases in action. Chattels real are
personal interests in real estate, which, though they are
annexed to land, still descend in the same manner as
personal estate. Blackstone speaks of them as being " of
a mongrel amphibious nature." Examples are a term of
years, the next presentation to a benefice, an estate pur
autre vie, and money due upon a mortgage. Under the
head of chattels personal fall all kinds of property other
than real estate and chattels real. In cases of bequest to
a charity the terms pure and impure or mixed personalty
are often used. The latter class is almost conterminous
with chattels real. It falls as a rule within the Mortmain
Act. A chose in action denotes the right of recovery by
legal proceedings of that which, when recovered, becomes
a chose in possession. Choses in action were before the
Judicature Acts either legal, as debts (whether arising
from contract or tort), recoverable in a court of law, or
equitable, as legacies (residuary personal estate of a
deceased person), or money in the funds. A legal chose in
action was not assignable. A consequence of this view
was that until 1875 (subject to one or two statutory ex
ceptions, such as actions on policies of insurance) an action
on an assigned chose in action must have been brought at
law in the name of the assignor, though the sum recovered
belonged in equity to the assignee, and in equity he might
have sued in his own name, making the assignor a party
as co-plaintiff or as defendant. The Judicature Acts have
made the distinction drawn between legal and equitable
choses in action of no importance. The Judicature Act,
1873, 36 and 37 Viet. c. 66, s. 25, (6), enacts that the
legal right to a debt or other legal chose in action may be
passed by absolute assignment in writing under the hand
of the assignor. The old law as to the reduction into
possession by a husband of his wife's choses in action (see
HUSBAND AND WIFE) seems to have been practically
rendered obsolete by the Married Women's Property Act,
1882. Blackstone, who is followed by Mr Joshua Williams
(Law of Personal Property], recognizes a further division
of incorporeal personal property, standing between choses
in action and choses in possession, and including personal
annuities, stocks and shares, patents, and copyrights.
Interest in personal property may be either absolute
or qualified. The latter case is illustrated by animals
ferse naturx, in which property is only coextensive with
detention. Personal estate may be acquired by occupancy
(including the accessio, commixtio, and confusio of Roman
law), by invention, as patent and copyright, or by transfer,
either by the act of the law (as in bankruptcy, judgment,
and intestacy), or by the act of the party (as in gift, con
tract, and will).
There are several cases in which, by statute or other
wise, property is taken out of the class of real or personal
to which it seems naturally to belong. By the operation
of the equitable doctrine of conversion money directed to
be employed in the purchase of land, or land directed to
be turned into money, is in general regarded as that species
of property into which it is directed to be converted. An
example of property prima facie real which is treated as
personal is an estate pur autre vie, which, since 14 Geo.
II. c. 20, s. 9 (now replaced by 1 Viet. c. 26, s. 6), is
distributable as personal estate in the absence of a special
occupant. Examples of property prima facie personal
which is treated as real are FIXTURES (g.v.), heirlooms, such
as deeds and family portraits, and shares in some of the
older companies, as the New River Company, which are
real estate by statute. In ordinary cases shares in com
panies are personal estate, unless the shareholders have
individually some interest in the land as land.
The terras heritable and movable of Scotch law to a great extent
correspond with the real and personal of English law. The main
points of difference are these. (1) Leases are heritable as to the
succession to the lessee, unless the destination expressly exclude
heirs, but are movable as to the fisk. (2) Money due on mortgages
and securities on land is personalty in England. At common law
in Scotland debts secured on heritable property are themselves
heritable. But by 31 and 32 Viet. c. 101, s. 117, heritable securi
ties are movable as far as regards the succession of the creditor,
unless executors are expressly excluded. They still, however,
remain heritable quoad fiscum, as between husband and wife, in
computing legitim, and as far as regards the succession of the debtor.
(3) Up to 1868 the heir of heritage succeeded to certain movable
goods called heirship movables, which bore a strong likeness to
the heirlooms of English law. This right of the heir was abolished
by 31 and 32 Viet. c. 101, s. 160. (4) Annuities, as having tractum
futuri temporis, are heritable, and an obligation to pay them falls
upon the heir of the deceased (Watson, Law Diet., s.v. "Annuities").
The law in the United States agrees in most respects with that
of England. Heirlooms are unknown, one reason being, no doubt,
that the importance of title-deeds is much less than it is in England,
owing to the operation of the Registration Acts. Long terms in
some States have annexed to them the properties of freehold estates.
Thus in Massachusetts, if the original term be a hundred or more
years, it is deemed a fee as long as fifty years remain unexpired
(Mass. Gen. Stat., c. 90, § 20). In the same State estates pur autre
vie descend like real property (Gen. Stat., c. 91, § 1). In New
York and New Jersey an estate pur autre vie is deemed a freehold
only during the life of the grantee ; after his death it becomes a
chattel real. In other States the heir has a scintilla of interest as
special occupant (Kent, Comm., vol. iv. p. 27). In some States
railway rolling-stock is considered as purely personal, in others it
has been held to be a fixture, and so to partake of the nature of
real property. Shares in some of the early American corporations
were, like New River shares in England, made real estate by
statute, as in the case of the Cape Sable Company in Maryland
(Schouler, Laiv of Personal Property, vol. i. p. 619). In Louisiana
animals employed in husbandry are, and slaves were, regarded as
immovables. Pews in churches are generally real property, but in
some States they are made personal property by statute, e.g., in
Massachusetts (Gen. Stat., c. 30, § 38). The assignment of choses
in action is generally permitted, and is in most States regulated
by statute. The circuit court has no jurisdiction in the case of an
assigned chose in action unless a suit might have been prosecuted
in that court if no assignment had been made (Revised Stat. of
U. S., tit. xiii. § 629). (J. Wt.)
PERSPECTIVE. See PROJECTION.
PERTH, an inland county of Scotland, is situated almost
in the centre of the country between 56° 4' and 56° 57'
N. lat., and between 3° 4' and 4° 50' W. long. The
larger part of its border-line is formed of natural bound
aries, the Grampians separating it on the west and north
from Argyll, Inverness, and Aberdeen, while the Ochils
and the Firth of Tay in the south-east divide it from
Kinross, Clackmannan, and Fife. In the south the river
Forth forms a large portion of the boundary with Stirling,
but the boundary with Forfar in the north-east is almost
at no point denned either by rivers or mountains. The
county is of an irregular circular form, the diameter
being about 70 miles. A small portion in the south-east
is separated from the main portion at the junction of
Clackmannan and Fife, and another small portion is sur
rounded by Stirlingshire. Perthshire is the fourth largest
county in Scotland, the total area being 1,617,808 acres,
or 2528 square miles. Situated on the Highland border,
Perthshire embraces characteristics scarcely combined in
any other county of Scotland, and it excels them all in the
picturesqueness and multiform variety of its scenery. The
finest passes into the Highlands are Killiecrankie, Leny, and
the Trosachs. With hardly any exception the rivers and
streams flow east and south and reach the ocean either
by the Forth or the Tay. They generally issue from large
elongated lochs formed by depressions at the foot of the
mountains. The Ericht in the extreme north-west unites
Loch Ericht and Loch Rannoch ; and from the latter flows
the Tummel, which, after passing through Loch Tummel
and forming a series of rapids and falls, joins the Tay.
The Tay, which rises on the borders of Argyllshire, passes
through Loch Dochart and Loch Tay, and in its course
XVIII. — 84
666
PERTH
of rather over 100 miles receives nearly the whole drainage
of the county, discharging a larger volume of water to
the sea than any other river in Great Britain ; its principal
tributaries are the Tummel at Logierait, the Bran near
Dunkeld, the Isla near Kinclaven (after its junction with
the Ericht), the Almond near Perth, and the Earn from
Loch Earn, at the borders of Fifeshire. The Forth from
Loch Ard skirts the southern boundary of the county, and
receives the Teith from Lochs Katrine, Achray, Yennacher,
Voil, and Lubnaig, the Goodie Water from Loch Menteith,
and the Allan, which rises in the Ochil Hills. Loch
Ericht, partly in Inverness-shire, and Loch Tay are each
more than 14 miles in length, Loch Rannoch is 9 miles
long, Lochs Earn and Katrine are 7 each, and Lochs Ven-
nacher, Lubnaig, and Voil each between 5 and 3. There
are an immense number of small lochs varying in length
from 1 to 3 miles, among which may be mentioned Garry,
Tummel, Lows, Lyon, Dochart, Freuchie, Ard, and Men
teith. The lochs and rivers abound in salmon and varieties
of trout ; and scarcely any of the streams have been per
ceptibly injured by the pollution of manufactures. About
four-fifths of the surface of the county, chiefly in the west
and north-west, is occupied by the Grampians, or encroached
on by their ridges or by isolated summits, among the
highest of the chain in Perthshire being Ben Lawers
(3984 feet), north of Loch Tay; Ben More (3843) and
Stobinnain (3821), south of Loch Dochart; Ben-y-Gloe
(3690), and other peaks, near Glen Tilt; Schiehallion
(3547), south of Loch Rannoch; and Ben Yoirlich (3180),
south of Loch Earn. The Ochils, occupying a consider
able area in the south-east, attain in many cases a height
of over 2000 feet, and the Sidlaws, practically a con
tinuation of the Ochils running into Forfarshire, reach
a height of about 1 500 feet. The lowland districts consist
chiefly of the straths and river-valleys, as Strathtay ; Strath-
more, extending into Forfarshire; Strathearn, stretching
across the county from west to east, and bounded on the
south by the Ochils ; the district of Menteith between the
Teith and the Forth ; and the Carse of Gowrie between
the Sidlaws and the Firth of Tay.
Geology and Minerals. — As regards its geology Perth
shire consists of two distinct areas, that differ from each
other entirely in the rocks of which they are composed
and consequently in their scenery. The larger of these
regions comprises the mountainous ground and occupies
the northern and by much the larger part of the county.
The rocks in this region belong to the series of crystal
line schists, and include varieties of gneiss, mica- schist,
clay- slate, hornblende -rock, ifec., with important bands of
quartzite, quartz -schist, and limestone. These rocks are
arranged in approximately parallel folds, the axes of
which range in a general sense from south-west to north
east, the same groups of strata being repeated again and
again by successive plications. The quartzites from their
durability and whiteness form specially marked zones
across the county, as in the ranges of Schiehallion and
Ben-y-Gloe. The limestones also from their persistence
afford excellent horizons for interpreting the geological
structure. A notable band of them runs along the valley
of Loch Tay, plunging under Ben Lawers and rising up
again in Glen Lyon, whence it continues across Strath
Tummel into Glen Tilt. These various crystalline rocks
are believed to be prolongations of the schistose series
that overlies the Lower Silurian rocks of Sutherland ; but
they have not yet yielded fossils. They are here and
there pierced by masses of granite, porphyry, or other
eruptive rocks.
The southern (or more correctly south-eastern) limit of
the mountain ground is defined by a line drawn from the
foot of Loch Lomond by Aberfoyle, Pass of Leny, Comrie,
a little below Dunkeld, and Bridge of Cally, to Lintrathen.
On the southern side of this line the ground presents
distinctively lowland scenery. It is occupied by the
Lower Old Sandstone with its included conglomerates,
flagstones, and volcanic rocks. A remarkable dislocation,
which nearly coincides with the line just traced, separates
the younger series of formations from the older rocks of
the mountains. But here and there on the north side of
the fracture, in bay-like hollows of the hills, the massive
conglomerates of the Old Red Sandstone can be seen rest
ing upon the upturned edges of the schists. These con
glomerates with their associated strata appear to have been
laid down in a large lake or inland sea which lay across
central Scotland and northern Ireland, and was tenanted
by the peculiar Old Red Sandstone fishes (Cephalaspis, &c.).
A long line of active volcanoes extended through this lake.
Their sites are still traceable in the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills.
See GEOLOGY, vol. x. p. 343 sq. Much of the lower ground
is covered with the clays, gravels, and sands left by the ice-
sheets and glaciers that once occupied the surface. Raised
beaches marking recent upheaval of the land are seen in
the Firth of Tay. The larger rivers present a succession of
three or more alluvial terraces. Copper ore is found in
the southern Ochils and coal at their base. Ironstone is
wrought at Culross. Lead and other metals are found
sparingly in the neighbourhood of Tyndrum, Ben Ledi,
and Glen Lyon. Roofing slates are quarried at Birnam.
In many valleys there are large deposits of peat.
Agriculture. — The climate and soil of Perthshire present
greater varieties than in any other county of Scotland.
In the higher western regions it is very moist ; and long
stretches of exposed uplands alternate with finely-sheltered
valleys. The arable land is chiefly in the drier eastern
districts. For the most part the soil is sharp and fertile.
The county, agriculturally, may be classed in four divisions :
deer-forests, chiefly the wilder mountain districts ; grazing
and pasture lands on the hills, embracing about four-fifths
of the total area ; light soils in the lower undulating dis
tricts, including the north portion of Menteith and the
upper portion of the principal river- valleys, specially suited
for oats, barley, turnips, and potatoes ; clay and carse land,
chiefly in the Carse of Gowrie, which extends to about
100,000 acres, in the Carse of Stirling north of the Forth
and in the lower part of Strathearn below and above Bridge
of Earn. The Carse of Gowrie has as its basis the boulder
clay, above which rests the blue clay proper, or peat, or
the carse clay, — a mixture of sand and clay, ranging from
the finest clay soil to poor whitish "end clay." The best
heavy carse land is very rich and productive, but requires
to be thoroughly wrought, limed, and manured. The dis
trict is well adapted for wheat, although the area sown is
decreasing. A considerable area is occupied by orchards,
the light quick soil on Tayside and in the upper districts
of Menteith being admirably adapted for apples.
Between 1875 and 1880 the number of holdings decreased from
5296 to 5123, although their area increased from 331,890 to 344,728
acres. Of the holdings 179 in 1880 were above 300 acres in
extent, 1033 between 100 and 300 acres, 786 between 50 and 100
acres, and 3125 did not exceed 50 acres each. There are a large
number of small holdings in the Highland valleys and in the
neighbourhood of the villages and small towns. According to the
agricultural returns for 1883 there were 344,240 acres, or only a
little less than a fifth of the total area, under cultivation, 103,050
acres being under corn crops, 50,799 acres green crops, 100,631
rotation grasses, 87,064 permanent pasture, and 2696 fallow. Of
the corn crops, 70,424 acres were under oats, 22,770 acres barley
and bere, 6238 wheat, and 3087 beans ; and of the green crops,
31,059 acres were under turnips and swedes and 18,611 under
potatoes. The number of horses was 13,651, of which 10,524,
chiefly Clydesdales, were used solely for agricultural purposes.
Cattle numbered 73,097, of which 18,755 were cows and heifers in
milk or in calf. Although dairy-farming is not in itself an im
portant industry, a large number of cows are generally kept on the
lowland farms. The cows are principally Ayrshires, but the West
PERTH
667
Highland or Kyloe breed of cattle is common in the straths and
lower grounds adjoining the Highlands. Sheep in 1883 numbered
696,640. All the pasturage iu the Grampians, not in deer-forests,
is occupied by sheep, and there are also large sheep-runs on the
Ochils. The blackfaced are principally kept in the Grampians,
but there are also a large number of Cheviots, and in the lower
grounds South Downs and Leicesters are common. In 1812 there
were 203,880 acres under wood, of which 61,164 were planted and
142,716 natural. The area under woods in 1884 was 94,563 acres,
in addition to which 424 acres were under orchards, 535 acres
market -gardens, and 113 acres nurseries. In Breadalbane and
Menteith there are still extensive remains of the old forest.
According to the latest return (1872-73) the land was dividedamong
5737 proprietors, possessing 1,612,001 acres at an annual value of
£959,365, or about 11s. lOd. an acre. Of the proprietors 4680,
or nearly four-fifths, possessed less than one acre each. The follow
ing possessed upwards of 20,000 acres each, viz., duke of Athole,
194,640; earl of Breadalbane, 193,504; Baroness Willoughby
d'Eresby, 76,837 ; trustees of marquis of Breadalbane, 40,662 ; earl
of Moray, 40,553 ; Hon. Lady Menzies, 35,500 ; Sir A. D. Drummond
Stewart, 33,274; trustees of R. Stewart Menzies, 33,000; Sir
Robert Menzies, 32,784 ; duke of Montrose, 32,294 ; earl of Mans
field, 31,197 ; D. R. Williamson, 29,494 ; C. H. Drummond Moray,
24,980; Mrs Mary Stuart Robertson, 24,000; W. M. Macdonald,
22,600; David Carnegie, 22,205; and Lieutenant -Colonel Far-
quharson, 20,056.
Manufactures. — The manufacture of coarser linen fabrics is
largely carried on in the towns and villages, and there ai*e a con
siderable number of flour-mills. " Cotton-works exist at Deanston
and Stanley; hand -loom weaving is carried on at Auchterarder,
Dunblane, Doune, Crieff, and elsewhere, and in several places the
manufacture of shawls, blankets, and other fabrics. For the indus
tries of the city of Perth see below.
Hallways. — The lowland districts of the county are intersected
by branches of the principal railway lines of Scotland, supplying
convenient communication between all the principal towns ; and
by the Highland and Oban railways, supplemented by coaches and
steamers on the larger lochs, the finest scenery in the county has
been rendered easy of access.
Administration and Population. —Anciently the county was
divided into the hereditary jurisdictions of Athole in the north,
Balquhidder in the south-west, Breadalbane in the west, Gowrie in
the east, Menteith in the south, Perth in the south-east, Rannoch
in the north-wrest, and Stormout and Strathearn in the middle.
These jurisdictions were abolished by the Act of 1748, and in 1795
an Act was passed dividing the county for administrative purposes
into the ten districts of Auchterarder, Blairgowrie, Carse of Gowrie,
Crieff, Culross, Con par- Angus, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Perth, and Weern.
The sheriffdom is divided into an eastern and a western district,
the seat of the one being Perth and of the other Dunblane. The
county is represented in parliament by one member, the city of
Perth by one member, and Culross is included in the Stirling dis
trict of burghs. Perthshire embraces eighty-one parishes, and con
tains three ancient cities, Perth, formerly the capital of Scotland,
and Dunkeld and Dunblane, formerly the seats of bishoprics, as
was also Abernethy. The royal burghs are Perth (27,207) and
Culross (380); and Auchterarder, Abernethy, and Dunblane formerly
held this rank. The police burghs are Abernethy (906), Alyth
(2377), Blairgowrie (4537), Callander (1522), Coupar-Angus (partly
in Forfarshire), Crieff (4469), Dunblane (2186), Perth (26,951), and
Rattray (2533). The population of the county in 1831 was 142,166,
which by 1851 had diminished to 138,660, and by 1871 to 127,768 ;
but in 1881 it had increased to 129,007, of whom 61,552 were
males and 67,455 females. The increase has been wholly in the
town population, from 44,250 (in 1871) to 49,642 (in 1881), there
being a decrease in the village population from 23,321 to 22,349,
and in the rural from 60,197 to 57,016. The number of persons
speaking Gaelic was 14,505, or more than one-ninth of the total
population.
^History and Antiquities. — In the 2d century the district was
divided, according to Ptolemy, among three tribes. The Damnonii
inhabited Menteith, Strathearn, and Forthryfe (including the
western part of Fife), and had three principal oppida — Alauna, at
the junction of the Allan and Forth, guarding the entrance to the
Highlands from the south ; Lindum, at Ardoch ; and Victoria, at
Loch On- in Fife. The Venicones inhabited part of Fife and the
adjoining district of Perthshire, with the town of Orrea, probably
Abernethy, at the junction of the Earn and Tay, the nearest Roman
station to which was at Ardargie. The Vacomagi skirted the High
land region, and had the towns of Tamea in Inchtuthil (an island
in the Tay), where remains still exist, and Banatia, at Buchanty
on the Almond, where there was a strong Roman station. In 83
A.I). Agricola explored the country beyond the Forth, and in the
following year probably carried his'legions to the foot of the Gram
pians. At Mons Graupius or Granpius, whose site is not ascertained,
but which is, according to the most probable conjecture (Mr Skene's),
in the district of Stormont in Perthshire, amongst the outliers of
the Grampians near Meikleour, where the Cleavers Dyke and
Buzzard Dykes perhaps mark the camps of Agricola and Galgacus,
and the Hill of Blair the scene of battle, the Romans (according
to their own accounts) defeated the tribes of Caledonia with great
slaughter ; but they deemed it imprudent to pursue the victory.
Perthshire was accordingly left in the possession of its native
tribes till its invasion by Severus in 207. The Roman road of
Severus passed by Alauna to Lindum at Ardoch, where there are
extensive remains of a Roman station, and thence by Strageath
near Auchterarder, Dalgin Ross near Comric, where there were
prominent remains a century ago, and Buchanty, where one branch
passed eastwards to the coast, and the other turned northwards
over the Grampians.
As Severus renewed the wall of Antoninus, he does not appear to
have retained possession of the county north of the Forth and the
Clyde. Perthshire was included in the kingdom of the Southern
Picts, who had their capital first at Abernethy and afterwards at
Forteviot. On the burning of Forteviot by the Northmen in the
8th century the seat of the Government was changed to Scone,
which continued to be the capital of Albany, the chief royal resi
dence iu Scotland, and the place where its kings were crowned,
though circumstances led to James II., James III., and Mary
being crowned elsewhere. But, as Perth increased in population,
it became the seat of the parliament, and the favourite residence
of the kings, until it was succeeded by Edinburgh in the reign of
James II. In the early history of the county fall the defeat of the
Danes at Luncarty in the 10th century and of Macbeth by Earl
Si ward at Dunsinane in 1054. To its later history, apart from
incidents connected with the city of Perth, belong the removal
of the coronation stone from Scone to "Westminster by Edward I. ;
the battle of Dupplin, where Edward Baliol defeated the earl of
Mar ; the rout of the troops of General Mackay at Killiecrankie by
the Highlanders under Dundee, 17th July 1689 ; and the indecisive
battle at Sheriffmuir, 13th November 1715, between the adherents
of the Pretender under the earl of Mar and the forces of the Govern
ment under Argyll. Apart from the camp at Ardoch Roman remains
are not important. Of hill-forts the most remarkable is that on
Dunsinane Hill. Among other relics of an early period are a
ship-barrow of the vikings on the Hill of Rattray ; weems in the
parishes of Monzie, Alyth, and Bendochy ; the witchstone near
Cairnbeddie, where Macbeth is said to have met the witches, — pro
bably a sepulchral memorial of some old battlefield ; another stone
in Meigle parish called Macbeth's Stone ; a group of standing stones
near Pitlochrie ; and a number of sculptured stones at Meigle.
Abernethy, originally founded by the Pictish king Nertan in the
5th century, and refounded by St Columba in the 6th, succeeded
lona as the seat of the primacy of Scotland, afterwards transferred
to St Andrews. The round tower in the churchyard, resembling
those in Ireland, is supposed to have been built in the time of
Kenneth Macalpine. The Culdees had monastic churches at Dun
blane, Dunkeld, Abernethy, and Muthill. DUNBLANE (q.v. ) and
DUNKELD (q.v.) were subsequently erected into bishoprics. The
Canons Regular had an abbey at Scone, founded in 1124 and burned
in 1559, its site being now occupied by a modern mansion ; a priory
at Loch Tay, 1114 ; a priory at Inchafray, 1200 ; a priory at Strath-
fillan, 1314 ; and a priory at Abernethy, 1273. The Dominicans
had a convent at Perth, 1231, where there was also a Carthusian
monastery, 1429, and a Grey friars monastery, 1460. Culross abbey,
of which the tower and the Gothic choir still remain, was founded
by the Cistercians in 1217, and there was also an abbey of Cistercian
nuns at St Leonards, Perth, founded in 1296. A Carmelite convent
was founded at Tulliallan in 1 267. There were collegiate churches at
Methven and Tullibardine. Of the old castles of the chiefs mention
may be made of Elcho Castle on the Tay, 4 miles south of Perth ;
Blair Castle, garrisoned by Montrose in 1644, stormed by Cromwell
in 1653, occupied by Claverhouse iu 1689, dismantled in 1690, and
restored in 1870 ; Castle Huntly, built in 1452 by Lord Grey,
master of the household to James II. ; the ruins of Castle Dim, near
Moulin, once a stronghold of the Campbell family ; the ruins of
Finlarig Castle, Killin, the cradle of the Breadalbane family ;
Cluny Castle, on the island in the loch of the same name between
Dunkeld and Blairgowrie ; and Doune Castle, on the Teith, a pic
turesque ruin of very old date, rebuilt by Murdoch, duke of Albany.
Among modern mansions the principal are Keir House, the seat
of the late Sir W. Stirling- Maxwell ; Blair Drummond House,
the seat of the Drummonds ; Blair Castle, duke of Athole ;
Taymouth Castle, earl of Breadalbane ; Doune Lodge, earl of
Moray ; Dupplin Castle, earl of Kinnoul ; Scone Palace, earl of
Mansfield ; Gleneagles, earl of Camperdown ; Strathallan Castle,
Viscount Strathallan ; and Drummond Castle, Baroness Willoughby
d'Eresby.
PERTH, an ancient city, a royal and parliamentary
burgh, and the chief town of the above county, is beauti
fully situated at the foot of Kinnoul Hill, chiefly on the
west bank of the Tay, about 40 miles north of Edinburgh
and about 20 west of Dundee. It is substantially built
668
PERTH
of stone, and contains a number of good public buildings,
while the lower slopes of Kinnoul Hill are studded with
villas embosomed in woods. To the north and south of
the town along the banks of the
Tay are the extensive meadows
of the Xorth and South Inches.
The Tay is crossed by a stone
bridge for carriage traffic, erected
in 1771 and widened in 1869,
and by a stone and iron rail
way bridge with a footway.
Notwithstanding its importance
in early times, the city now re
tains almost no relics of anti
quity. The religious houses
were razed by the mob after
John Knox preached his famous
sermon in St John's church
against the idolatries of Rome.
The Dominican or Blackfriars
monastery, founded by Alex
ander II. in 1231 and a residence
of the Scottish kings, occupied
a site near the west end of the
present bridge ; the site of the
Carthusian monastery, founded
by James I. in 14*29, and where
he and his queen, and Margaret
queen of James IV., were buried,
has since 1750 been occupied
by the hospital founded by
James VI. ; Greyfriars monas
tery, founded in 1460, stood on
the present Greyfriars church
yard ; and a little west of the
town was a house of the Carmelites or Whitefriars, founded
in 1260. The parliament house, where the ancient parlia
ments of Scotland were held, was cleared away in 1818,
and was succeeded by the Freemasons' Hall ; Earl Gowrie's
palace, founded in 1520, was removed in 1805 to make way
for the county buildings ; the Spey tower near the Spey gate,
a mural fortress long used as a prison, was taken down about
fifty years ago. The cross, erected in 1668 in place of that
demolished by Cromwell, was removed in 1807. The old
church of St John is said to have been founded in the 5th
century ; the transept and nave of the existing structure date
from the early part of the 1 3th century and the choir in its
present state from the loth; the building is now divided
into an east, a middle, and a west church. Among other
public edifices the principal are the county buildings (erected
1819-20 at a cost of £32,000, and enlarged in 1866), the
general prison for Scotland (originally erected in 1812 as
a depot for French prisoners, remodelled as a convict prison
in 1840, and enlarged in 1858 and 1881), the city and
county jail (1819), the military barracks (1793-94), the
public seminaries (1807), Marshall Museum and Library
(1823), Murray's Royal Lunatic Asylum (1827), the
infirmary (1836), the general railway station (1848), the
new public hall (1881), the Boys' and Girls' Religious
Society hall (1881), the new municipal buildings (1881),
— a fine range in the Tudor style, cost £13,000.
Some of the most extensive bleach-fields in the kingdom are in
the immediate neighbourhood of Perth on the banks of the Tay and
the Almond. Perth itself has manufactories of gauge glasses,
muslins, ginghams, imitation India shawls and scarfs, union goods,
and boots and shoes ; and there are rope-works, coach-building yards,
iron-foundries, breweries, and distilleries. The Tay has valuable
salmon fisheries. The navigation of the river is considerably
obstructed by sand. In 1834 an Act was obtained for constructing
a harbour and docks and enlarging the quays, which were further
extended in 1856. In 1840 Perth was made an independent port;
vessels of 200 tons can unload at its quays. The number of vessels
in cargo and in ballast that entered the port in 1883 was 124 of
9767 tons, that cleared 124 of 9731 tons. The principal imports
are Baltic timber, coal, salt, and manure, and the exports corn,
Plan of Perth.
potatoes, timber, and slates. The population of the parliamentary
burgh in 1851 was 23,835 ; this had increased by 1861 to 25,250, and
by 1881 to 28,949, of whom 13,453 were males and 15,496 females.
History. — Perth is stated to have been anciently called Bertha,
arid to have been situated at the junction of the Almond and Tay,
whence it was removed to its present site after an inundation in
1210. In any case the church of St John was founded long before
this ; and a variety of Roman remains seem to indicate that there
was a Roman station, on the present site of the city. The obscurity
of its early history is accounted for by the fact that its records were
removed by Edward I. Perth is stated to have been a burgh as
early as 1106. The charter granted it by James VI. makes mention
also of another granted by David I., and the charter of King David
was renewed by William the Lion, by whom Perth was created a royal
burgh. It was fortified by the last-named king in 1210 and again
by Edward I. in 1298. It was attacked without success by Robert
Bruce in 1306, but in 1311 he succeeded in scaling its walls one dark
night. It was captured by Edward III. in 1335 and retaken by
the Scots in 1339. The earl of Cornwall is stated by Fordun to
have been stabbed in 1336 by his brother Edward III. before the
great altar in the parish church of St John. In 1396 a famous
combat took place on the North Inch, between Clan Chattan and
Clan Kay, which has been made familiar to English readers by Sir
W. Scott in his fair Maid of Perth. The Blackfriars monastery,
where the kings then resided, was the scene in 1437 of the murder
of James I. by Walter, earl of Athole, and Gowrie House in 1600 of
a mysterious conspiracy against James VI. Perth succeeded Scone
as the capital of Scotland, but after the murder of James I. the
parliament and courts were transferred to Edinburgh, which was
declared the capital in 1482. The city was visited by the plague
in 1512, 1585-87, 1608, and 1645, by the cholera in 1832, and by
inundations in 1210, 1621, 1740, 1773, and 1814. It was taken by
Montrose in 1644, capitulated to Cromwell in 1651, and was occupied
by Dundee in 1689 ; it was recovered by Argyll from the adherents
of the Pretender in 1715, and was occupied by Prince Charles Edward
in 1745. The famous articles of Perth were agreed to at a meeting
of the General Assembly in the parish church of St John, 25th
August 1618.
Scott, Statistical Account of (he Town and Parish of Perth, 1796 ; Maidment,
The Chronicle of Perth from 1210 to 1008, 1831 ; Penney, Trwiitions of Perth, 1836 ;
Lawson, The Book of Perth, 1847 ; Peacock, Perth, its Annals and Archives, 1849.
PERTH, a city of Australia, capital of the colony of
Western Australia, is picturesquely situated on the Swan
VOL. XV III
PERU
P E E — P E R
669
river, 31° 57' 10" S. lat., 115° 52' 20" E. long., 12 miles
above Freemantle and 1700 west-north-west of Melbourne.
The streets are wide and regular, and the houses are built
chiefly of brick and stone. It is the seat of an Anglican
and of a Roman Catholic bishop. In addition to the
cathedrals the principal buildings are the town-hall, built
entirely by convict labour, the mechanics' institute, the
governor's palace, and the high school. Perth was founded
in 1829, received a municipal constitution in 1856, and
was created a city in 1880. In the same year railway
communication was opened up by means of the Eastern
Railway. The population of the city, including the military,
in 1871 was 5007, and in 1881 it was 5044.
PERTHES, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH (1772-1843), German
publisher, was born at Rudolstadt on 21st April 1772. At
the age of fifteen he became an apprentice in the service
of Bohme, a bookseller in Leipsic, with whom he remained
about six years. In Hamburg, where he settled in 1793
as an assistant to the bookseller Hoffmann, he started in
1796 a bookselling business of his own, in developing which
he soon gave evidence of remarkable tact, energy, and
intelligence. In 1798 he entered into partnership with
his brother-in-law, J. H. Besser, with whose aid he rapidly
succeeded in forming an establishment which commanded
universal confidence and respect. By his marriage with
a daughter of the poet Matthias Claudius (in 1797)
he was brought into intimate relation with a group of
Protestant writers, who, although of a liberal tendency,
retained a strong belief in the essential doctrines of
Christianity ; and they exercised a powerful influence on
the growth of his religious opinions. This, however, did
not prevent him from being on friendly terms with a
number of eminent Roman Catholic authors. Perthes
was an ardent patriot ; and during the period of Napoleon's
supremacy he distinguished himself by his steady resist
ance to French pretensions. His zeal for the national
cause led him to issue (in 1810-11) Das Deutsche Museum,
to which many of the foremost publicists in Germany
contributed. For some time the French made it impos
sible for him to live in Hamburg; and when, in 1814, he
returned, he found that his business had greatly fallen off
and that it would have to be thoroughly reorganized. In
1821, his first" wife having died, he left Hamburg, trans
ferring his business there to his partner, and went to
Gotha, where he established what ultimately became one
of the first publishing houses in Germany. Among other
important works issued by him may be named the Theo-
logische Studien und Kritiken and the Geschichte der
europaischen Staaten, the latter conducted in the first
instance by Heeren and Ukert, afterwards by Giesebrecht.
Perthes died at Gotha on 18th May 1843.
Of the three sons of Perthes, the youngest, A. H. T. Perthes,
succeeded him as a publisher. The elder sons became authors of
some eminence, and one of them, C. T. Perthes, wrote an excellent
biography of his father, Friedrich Perthes' Leben. In 1785 a pub
lishing house was founded in Gotha by the uncle of F. C. Perthes,
J. G. Justus Perthes, whose son Wilhelm became distinguished as
a publisher of works relating to geography. Bernhard Wilhelm,
"Wilhelm's son, who succeeded to the business in 1853 and died in
1857, greatly extended its operations. In 1854 he established a
geographical institute, and the MMheilungcn aus Justus Perthes'
gcographischem Institut, conducted by A. Petermann, soon gained
a European reputation. This house issues the Almanack de Gotha,
and has published the maps and writings of many of the most
eminent German geographers and travellers.
PERTINAX, HELVIUS, Roman emperor, was the son
of a charcoal-burner, and was born in 126 A.D. in Liguria,
or at Villa Martis among the Apennines. From being a
teacher of grammar he rose through many important
offices, both civil and military, to the consulate, which he
held twice. Chosen on 31st December 192 to succeed the
murdered Commodus, he was himself assassinated in a
mutiny of the soldiers after a reign of eighty-six days.
PERTZ, GEORG HEINRICH (1795-1876), editor of the
Monumental Germanise, Historica, was born at Hanover on
28th March 1795. From 1813 to 1818 he studied at
Gottingen, chiefly under Heeren. His graduation thesis,
published in 1819, on the history of the Merovingian
mayors of the palace, attracted the attention of Baron
Stein, by whom he was engaged in 1820 to edit the Caro-
lingian chroniclers of the newly-founded Historical Society
of Germany. In search of materials for this purpose, Pertz
made a prolonged tour through Germany and Italy, and
on his return in 1823 he received at the instance of Stein
the principal charge of the entire work of the society, which
was to be the publication, under the title of Monumenta
Germanise Historica, of accurate texts of all the more im
portant historical writers on German affairs down to the
year 1500, as well as of laws, imperial and regal archives,
and other valuable documents, such as letters, falling within
this period. In the discharge of this, the principal task of
his life, Pertz made frequent journeys of exploration to the
leading libraries and public record offices of Europe, pub
lishing notes on the results of his explorations in the
Arc/iiv der Gesellsch. f. Deutsche Geschichtskunde (1824-72).
In 1823 he had been made secretary of the archives,
and in 1827 principal keeper of the royal library at
Hanover; from 1832 to 1837 he edited the Hannover-
ische Zeitung, and more than once sat as a representative
in the Hanoverian Second Chamber. In 1842 he was
called as chief librarian to Berlin, where he shortly after
wards was made a privy councillor and a member of the
Academy of Sciences. Failing health and strength led to
the resignation of all his appointments in 1874, and on
7th October 1876 he died at Munich while attending the
sittings of the historical commission.
The Monumenta, with which the name of Pertz is so closely asso
ciated, began to appear in 1826, and at the date of his resignation
24 volumes ("Scriptores," "Leges," "Diplomata") had appeared.
The work, which for the first time made possible the existence of
the modern school of scientific historians of mediaeval Germany,
continues to be carried on under Waitz, Wattenbach, Diimmler,
and others. In connexion with the Monumenta Pertz also pub
lished Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum Scliolarum ; among
his other literary labours may be mentioned an edition of the
GcsammcUe Werke of Leibnitz, and a life of Stein (Lcben des Ministers
Freiherrn vom Stein, 6 vols., 1849-55; also, in an abridged form,
Aus Stein's Leben, 2 vols., 1856),
P E EU
lelX. ~T)ERU has, in different periods, included areas of terri-
_L tory of varying extent. The empire of the Yncas
and the Spanish viceroyalty were not conterminous with
the modern republic nor with each other. In the present
article the sections relating to physical geography and the
moral and material condition of the people will be confined
to the limits of the republic, while in the historical section
there will necessarily be references to events which took
place beyond the existing limits of the country.
Extent. — The republic of Peru is situated between the Extent.
equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, yet, owing to the
differences of elevation, it includes regions with every
variety of climate. It lies between the parallels of 3° 21' S.
and 19° 10' S. and between 68° and 81° 20' 45" W. long.,
and has an area of about 480,000 square miles.1 The
1 Before the war with Chili the southern limit of Peru was in 22°
23' S. lat., the coast-line measured 1400 miles, and the area was 504,000
square miles (see p. 679 below).
670
PERU
length along the Pacific coast is 1240 miles, while the
width ranges from 300 to 400 miles.
Bound- Boundaries. — The republic is bounded on the W. by the
aries. Pacific Ocean, on the E. by Brazil and Bolivia, on the
N. by Ecuador, and on the S. by Chili. The northern
boundary commences at the village of Santa Rosa, near
the southern shore of the Gulf of Guayaquil, whence it
passes southwards to the river Macara, a tributary of the
Chira, which falls into the Pacific. It takes the course of
the Macara, up the ravine of Espindula, to its source in
the cordillera of Ayavaca ; in the Amazonian basin it
follows the river Cauches to its junction with the Chinchipe,
and the Chinchipe to the Maranon. The Maranon then
forms the boundary until the first Brazilian town is reached
at Tabatinga. The frontier with Brazil was determined by
article ii. of the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1777. A treaty
dated 23d October 1851 further settled the boundary,
which was fixed by the commissioners Avho explored the
Yavari in 1866 and 1871. It first follows the course of
the Yavari from the point where it falls into the Amazon,
in 4° 13' 21" S., up to a point near its source in 7° 1' 17" S. ;
from this it forms a straight line to a point in 6° 52' 15" S.
on the left bank of the Madeira, being half the distance
between the mouth of the Mamore and that of the Madeira.
This is the point where the frontiers of Peru, Brazil, and
Bolivia meet. The Peru-Bolivian frontier, within the basin
of the Amazon, has not been accurately defined. It follows
the Madeira to the mouth of the Mamore, then the Beni and
its tributary the Madidi to the junction of the latter with
a stream called the Pablo -bamba, ascending the ravine of
the Pablo-bamba to the source of that stream in the eastern
Andes. The line then crosses the Andes in a straight line
southwards to the village of Conima on the shore of Lake
Titicaca. Thence it passes across the lake in another straight
line to the isthmus of Yunguyo, and thence to the mouth
of the Desaguadero. From the Desaguadero the frontier
takes a south-south-west direction to the source of the river
Mauri, and then, until the recent war with Chili, it ran
south along the watershed of the Maritime Cordillera to
the source of the river Loa, which falls into the Pacific.
The southern boundary separating the Peruvian province of
Tarapaca from the Bolivian province of Atacama was formed
by the ravine of Duende, south of the Loa, to the coast of
the Pacific in 22° 23' S. near Tocapilla. This part of the
frontier was carefully delineated in 1628, and the boundary
marks are recorded in a document which is still extant. But
the Chilians conquered and in 1884 annexed the Peruvian
province of Tarapaca.
Physical Physical Geography.— Pern is divided longitudinally into
regions, three well-defined regions, the coast, the sierra, and the
montana. The coast, extending from the base of the
Maritime Cordillera to the Pacific Ocean, consists of a
sandy desert crossed at intervals by rivers, along the banks
of which there are fertile valleys. The sierra is the region
of the Andes, and is about 250 miles in width. It con
tains stupendous chains of mountains, elevated plains and
table-lands, warm and fertile valleys, and ravines. The
montana is the region of tropical forests within the valley
of the Amazon, and skirts the eastern slopes of the Andes.
The The coast has been upraised from the ocean at no very
distant geological epoch, and is still nearly as destitute of
vegetation as the African Sahara. It is, however, watered
by fifty streams which cross the desert at intervals. Half
of these have their origin in the summits of the Andes,
and run with a permanent supply of water into the ocean.
The others, rising in the outer range, which does not
reach the snow -line and receives less moisture, carry a
volume of water to the sea during the rainy season, but
for the rest of the year are nearly dry. The absence of
rain here is caused by the action of the lofty uplands of
coast.
the Andes on the trade-wind. The south-east trade-wind
blows obliquely across the Atlantic Ocean until it reaches
Brazil. By this time it is heavily laden with vapour, which
it continues to bear along across the continent, depositing
it and supplying the sources of the Amazons and La Plata.
Finally, the trade-wind arrives at the snow-capped Andes,
and here the last particle of moisture is wrung from it
that the very low temperature can extract. Coming to
the summit of that range, it rushes down as a cool and
dry wind on the Pacific slopes beyond. Meeting with no
evaporating surface, and with no temperature colder than
that to which it is subjected on the mountain-tops, this
wind reaches the ocean before it becomes charged with fresh
moisture. The constantly prevailing wind on the Peruvian Cliim;
coast is from the south. From November to April there on cou
are usually constant dryness, a clear sky, and considerable,
though by no means oppressive, heat. From June to
September the sky is obscured for weeks together by fog,
which is often accompanied by drizzling rain called "garua."
In 1877 the maximum temperature at Lima was 78^°
Fahr. in February and the minimum 61£° Fahr. in July.
At the time Avhen it is hottest and driest on the coast it
is raining heavily in the Andes, and the rivers are full.
When the rivers are at their lowest, the "garua" prevails on
the coast. The climate of various parts of the coast is,
however, modified by local circumstances.
The deserts between the river -valleys vary in extent,
the largest being upwards of 70 miles across. On their
western margin steep cliffs generally rise from the sea,
above which is the "tablazo" or plateau, in some places
slightly undulating, in others with ridges of considerable
height rising out of it, the whole apparently quite bare of
vegetation. The surface is generally hard, but in many Sand-
places there are great accumulations of drifting sea-sand, hills.
The sand usually forms isolated hillocks, called " medanos,"
of a half-moon shape, having their convex sides towards
the trade- wind. They are from 10 to 20 feet high, with an
acute crest, the inner side perpendicular, the outer with a
steep slope. Sometimes, especially at early dawn, there is a
musical noise in the desert, like the sound of distant drums,
which is caused by the eddying of grains of sand in the
heated atmosphere, on the crests of the " medanos." Appa
rently the deserts are destitute of all vegetation ; yet three Coast
kinds of herbs exist, which bury themselves deep in the flora>
earth, and survive long periods of drought. One is an amar-
anthaceous plant, whose stems ramify through the sand
hills ; the other two are a Martynia and an Aniseia, which
maintain a subterranean existence during many years, and
only produce leafy stems in those rare seasons when suffi
cient moisture penetrates to the roots. In a few hollows
which are reached by moisture the trees of the desert find
support, the "algarrobo" (Prosopis horrida), a low tree of
very scraggy growth, the "vichaya" (Capparis crotonoides),
and "zapote del perro" (C ' olicodendrum scabridum), mere
shrubs. Far away towards the first ascents to the Andes a
tall branched cactus is met with, and there are Salicornias
and Stdsolas near the coast. But, when the mists set in,
the low hills near the coast bordering the deserts, which
are called "lomas," undergo a change as if by magic. A
blooming vegetation of wild flowers for a short time covers
the barren hills. Near Lima one of the low ranges is
brightened by the beautiful yellow lily called " amancaes "
(Ismene Amancaes). The other flowers of the " lomas" are
the " papita de San Juan " (Begonia geranifolia), with red
petals contrasting with the white inner sides, valerians,
the beautiful Bomarea ovata, several species of Oxalis,
Solanum, and crucifers. But this carpet of flowers is very
partially distributed and lasts but a short time. Generally
the deserts present a desolate aspect, with no sign of a
living creature or of vegetation. Only in the very loftiest
PERU
671
regions of the air the majestic condor or the turkey buzzard
may be seen floating lazily ; perhaps a lizard will dart
across the path ; and occasionally a distant line of mules
or a solitary horseman seems to shimmer weirdly in the
refraction on the distant horizon.
Jys. The valleys form a marvellous contrast to the surround
ing desert. A great mass of pale-green foliage is usually
composed of the " algarrobo " trees, while the course of the
river is marked by lines or groups of palms, by fine old
willows (Salix humboldtiana), fruit-gardens, and fields of
cotton, maize, sugar, and lucerne. In some valleys there are
expanses of sugar-cane, in others cotton, whilst in others
vineyards and olive -yards predominate. The woods of
" algarrobo " are used for pasture, cattle and horses greedily
enjoying the pendulous yellow pods.
I For purposes of description the coast -region of Peru may be
liis. divided into six sections, commencing from the north: — (1) the
Piura region ; (2) the Lambayeque and Truxillo section ; (3) the
Santa valleys ; (4) the section from Lima to Xasca ; (5) the Are
quipa and Tacna section ; (6) Tarapaca.
(1) The great desert-region of Piura extends for nearly 200 miles
from the Gulf of Guayaquil to the borders of the Morrope valley,
and is traversed by three rivers — the Tumbez, Cliira, and Piura,
the two former receiving their waters from the inner cordillera and
breaking through the outer range. It is here that the coast of
South America extends farthest to the westward until it reaches
Capes Blanco and Parina, and then turns southward to the Bay of
Payta. The climate of Piura is modified by the lower latitude, and
also by the vicinity of the forests of Guayaquil. Fog and "garua"
are much less frequent than in the coast-region farther south, -while
positive rain sometimes falls. At intervals of about ten years
there are occasional heavy showers of rain from February to April.
(2) The second section of the coast -region includes the valleys of
the Morrope, the'Chiclayo, and Lambayeque, the Sana, the Jeque-
tepeque, the Chicama, Moche, Viru, and Chao. With the inter
vening deserts this section extends over 200 miles. All these
valleys, except Morrope and Chao, are watered by rivers •which
have their sources far in the recesses of the mountains, and which
furnish an abundant supply in the season when irrigation is needed.
(3) The third section, also extending for 200 miles, contains the
valleys of Santa, Xepena, Casma, Huarmey, Fortaleza, Pativilca,
Supe, and Huaura. The river Santa, which rises in the lake of
Conococha, 12,907 feet above the sea, and has an entire length of
180 miles, is remarkable for its long course between the outer and
central ranges of the Andes, in a trough known as the " Callejon
de Huaylas," 100 miles in length. It then breaks through in a
deep gorge, and reaches the sea after a course of 35 miles over the
coast - belt, and after fertilizing a rich valley. The Santa and
Nepena valleys are separated by a desert 8 leagues in width, on the
shores of which there is a good anchorage in the bay of Ferrol, where
the port of Chirnbote is to be the terminus of a projected railwa}'.
The Nepeila, Casma, Huarmey, Fortaleza, and Supe rivers rise on
the slope of an outer range called the Cordillera Negra, and are
consequently dry during the great part of the year. Wells are dug
in their beds, and the fertility of the valleys is thus maintained.
The Pativilca (or Barranca) river and the Huaura break through
the outer range from their distant sources in the snowy cordillera,
and have a perennial supply of water. There are 9 leagues of desert
between the Nepena and Casma, 16 between the Casma and Huar
mey, and 18 between the Huarmey and Fortaleza. The latter desert,
much of which is loose sand, is called the " Pampa de Mata Cavallos,"
from the number of exhausted animals which die there. Between
the Supe and Pativilca is the desert called the " Pampa del Medio
Mundo." (4) The next coast-section extends for over 300 miles
from Chancay to JsTasca, and includes the rivers of Chancay or
Lacha, of Carabayllo, Rimac, Lurin, Mala, Caiiete, Chincha, Pisco
or Chunchanga, Yea, and Rio Grande. Here the maritime range
approaches the ocean, leaving a narrower strip of coast, but the fertile
valleys are closer and more numerous. Those of Carabayllo and
Rimac are connected, and the view from the Bay of Callao extends
over a vast expanse of fertile plain bounded by the Andes, with
the white towers of Lima in a setting of verdure. Lurin and Mala
are smaller valleys, but the great vale of Canetc is one green sheet
of sugar-cane ; and narrow strips of desert separate it from the fertile
plain of Chincha, and Chincha from the famous vineyards of Pisco.
The valleys of Yea, Palpa, San Xavier, and Nasca are rich and
fertile, though they do not extend to the sea ; but between Nasca
and Acari there is a desert 60 miles in width. (5) The Arequipa and
Tacna section extends over 350 miles, and comprises the valleys of
Acari, Atequipa, Atico, Ocofia, Majes or Camana, Quilca, with the
interior valley of Arequipa, Tambo, Ylo or Moquegua, Ite or
Locumba, Sama, Tacna, and Azapa or Arica. Here the Maritime
Cordillera recedes, and the important valley of Arequipa, though
on its western slope, is 7000 feet above the sea, and 90 miles from
the coast. Most of the rivers here have their sources in the central
range, and are well supplied with water. The coast-valleys through
which they flow, especially those of Majes and Locumba, are famous
for their vineyards, and in the valley of Tambo there are extensive
olive plantations. (6) The most southern coast-section is that of
Tarapaca, extending, between the cordillera and the Pacific, in a
narrow strip from the ravine of Camarones, south of Arica, to the
former southern frontier of Peru. Only two rivers reach the sea in
Tarapaca, the Tiliviche in the north of the province, and the Loa in
the extreme south. The other streams are lost in the desert soon
after they issue from their ravines in the Andes. The reason of
this is that in Tarapaca there is an arid range of hills parallel
with the sea-shore, which is about 30 miles in width, and covered
with sand and saline substances. Between this coast-range and the
Andes is the great plateau called the " Pampa de Tamarugal," from
3000 to 3500 feet above the sea, which is about 30 miles wide, and
extends the whole length of Tarapaca. This plateau is covered
with sand, and contains vast deposits of nitrate of soda. Here and
there a few " tamarugas " or acacia trees are met with, which give
their name to the region.
The coast of Peru has few protected anchorages, and Islands,
the headlands are generally abrupt and lofty. These and
the few islands are frequented by myriads of sea-birds,
whence come the guano-deposits, the retention of ammonia
and other fertilizing properties being due to the absence
of rain. The islets off the coast are all barren and rocky.
The most northern is Foca, in 5° 13' 30" S. , near the coast to the
south of Payta. The islands of Lobos de Tierra and Lobos de
Afuera (2), in 6° 27' 45" S. and 6° 56' 45" S. respectively, are off the
desert of Sechura, and contain deposits of guano. The two Afuera
islands are 60 and 36 miles from the coast at the port of San Jose.
The islets of Macabi, in 7° 49' 20" S. , also have guano-deposits, now
nearly exhausted. The two islets of Guafiape, surrounded by many
rocks, in 8° 34' S., contain rich deposits. Chao rises 450 feet above
the sea, off the coast, in 8° 46' 30" S. Corcobado is in 8° 57' S. La
Yiuda is off the port of Casma, in 9° 23' 30" S. ; and Tortuga is 2
miles distant to the north. Santa Islet lies off the bay of Cosca, in
9° 1' 40", and the three high rocks of Ferrol in 9° 8' 30" S. Farther
south there is the group of islets and rocks called Huaura, in 11° 27'
S., the chief of which are El Pelado, Tambillo, Chiquitana, Bravo,
Quitacalzones, and Mazorque. The Hormigas are in 11° 4' S. and
11° 58', and the Pescadores in 11° 47' S. The island of San Lorenzo,
in 12° 4' S., is a lofty mass, 4i miles long by 1 broad, forming the
Bay of Callao ; its highest point is 1050 feet. Off its south-east
end lies a small but lofty islet called Fronton, and to the south-west
are the Palomitas Rocks. Horadada Islet, with a hole through
it, is to the south of Callao Point. Off the valley of Lurin are the
Pachacamac Islands, the most northern and largest being half a
mile long. The next, called San Francisco, is like a sugar-loaf,
perfectly rounded at the top. The others are mere rocks. Asia
Island is farther south, 17 miles north-west of Cerro Azul, and about
a mile in circuit. Pisco Bay contains San Gallan Island, high, with a
bold cliff outline, 2J miles long by 1 broad, the Ballista Islets, and
farther north the three famous Chincha Islands, whose vast guano-
deposits are now exhausted. South of the entrance to Pisco Bay
is Zarate Island, and farther south the white level islet of Santa
Rosa. The Infiernillo rock is quite black, about 50 feet high, in the
form of a sugar-loaf, a mile west of the Point of Santa Maria, which
is near the mouth of the Yea river. Alacran is a small islet off
the lofty "morro" of Arica. A low island protects the anchornge of
Iquique on the coast of Tarapaca, and farther south are the three
islets of Patillos in 20° 46' 20" S., and the Pajaros, Avith guano-
deposits, in 22° 6' 4" S. All these rocks and islets are barren and
uninhabitable, mere outworks of the desert headlands.
The more common sea-birds, which haunt the islets and Sea-
headlands in countless myriads, are the Sula variegata or
guano -bird, a large gull called the Larus modestus, the
Pelecanus thayus, and the Sterna Ynca, a beautiful tern
with curved white feathers on each side of the head. The
rarest of all the gulls is also found on the Peruvian coast,
namely, the Xema furcatum.1 The immense flocks of birds,
as they fly along the coast, appear like clouds, and one
after another is incessantly seen to plunge from a height
into the sea to devour the fishes, which they find in extraor
dinary numbers. The guano-deposits are in layers from
40 to 50 feet thick, of a greyish-brown colour outside, and
more and more solid from the surface downwards, owing to
the gradual deposit of strata and evaporation of fluid par-
1 The third known example was shot in Panaceas Bay, near Pisco,
by Captain Markham, in 1881.
672
P E E U
tides. Sea-lions (Otaria forsteri) are common on the rocky
islands and promontories. These large creatures frequent
particular islets for the purpose of breathing their last, the
wounded or aged being helped there by their companions.
The Maritime Cordillera, overhanging the Peruvian
coast, contains a long line of volcanic mountains, most of
them inactive, but their presence is probably connected
Earth- with the frequent and severe earthquakes, especially in
quakes, the southern section of the coast. Since the year 1570
there have been seventy violently destructive earthquakes
recorded on the west coast of South America, but the
register is of course incomplete in its earlier part. The
most terrible was that of 1745, which destroyed Callao.
There had been subterranean noises for some days previ
ously ; the first shock was at 10.30 P.M. on 28th October,
and there were 220 shocks in the following twenty-four
hours. The town was overwhelmed by a vast wave, which
rose 80 feet ; and the shocks continued until the following
February. On 13th August 1868 an earthquake nearly
destroyed Arequipa, and great waves rolled in upon the
ports of Arica and Iquique. On 9th May 1877 nearly
all the southern ports were overwhelmed. These fearful
catastrophes are in greatest force where there are vol
canoes, whether active or extinct, in the vicinity. That
of 1877 had its origin in the volcanic mountains near the
frontier of Peru and Bolivia, and spent its chief fury near
its centre of origin, gradually working itself out as it went
north. Usually the line of disturbance is meridional and
along the coast, but in some instances the line takes a
seaward direction at an angle with the mountain-chains.
The The most important part of Peru is the region of the
sierra. cordilleras of the Andes divided into "puna" or lofty unin
habited wilderness, and "sierra" or inhabitable mountain
slopes and valleys. This great mountain-system, running
south-east to north-west with the line of the coast, consists
of three chains or cordilleras. The two chains which run
parallel, and near each other on the western side, are of
identical origin, and have been separated by the action of
water during many centuries. On these chains are the
volcanoes and many thermal springs. The narrow space
between them is for the most part, but not always, a cold
and lofty region known as the " puna," containing alpine
lakes, — the sources of the coast-rivers. The great eastern
chain, rising from the basin of the Amazon and forming
the inner wall of the system, is of distinct origin. These
three chains are called the Maritime Cordillera, the Central
Cordillera, and the Andes. Paz Soldan and other Peruvian
geographers give the name of Andes, par excellence, to the
eastern cordillera.
Maritime The Peruvian Maritime Cordillera contains a regular
chain of volcanic peaks overlooking the coast-region of
Tarapaca, which attain a height of 16,000 to 18,000 feet.
Chief among them are the snowy peak of Lirima over
the ravine of Tarapaca, the volcano of Isluga overhanging
Camilla, the unmeasured peak of Sehama, and Tacora near
the Bolivian frontier. In rear of Moquegua there is a
group of volcanic peaks, clustering round those of Ubinas
and Huaynaputina. A great eruption of Huaynaputina
commenced on 15th February 1600 and continued until
the 28th. An incessant rain of fine white sand was poured
over the surrounding country for a distance of 40 miles,
accompanied by a mighty subterraneous roaring sound.
But generally these volcanoes are quiescent. Farther
north the Misti volcano rises over the city of Arequipa
in a perfect cone to a height of over 18,000 feet, and near
its base are the hot sulphur and iron springs of Yura.
As the maritime chain advances northward it fully main
tains its elevation. The peak of Sarasara, in Parinacochas
(Ayacucho), is 19,500 feet above the sea, and in the
mountains above Lima the passes attain a height of more
than 15,000. In latitude 10° S. the maritime chain
separates into two branches, which run parallel to each
other for 100 miles, enclosing the remarkable ravine or
Callejon de Huaylas, — the eastern or main branch being
known as the Cordillera Nevada and the western as the
Cordillera Negra. On the Nevada the peak of Huascan
reaches a height of 22,000 feet, according to the trigo
nometrical measurement of the railway engineer Hindle.
The Huandoy peak, above Carhuaz, reaches to 21,088
feet ; the Hualcan peak, overhanging the town of Yungay,
is 19,945 feet high; and most of the peaks in this part
of the chain reach a height of 19,000 feet. During the
rainy season, from October to May, the sky is generally
clear at dawn, and the magnificent snowy peaks, with
.sharply -defined outlines, stand out in lovely contrast to
the deep -blue background. But as the day advances
the clouds collect, and the whole is shrouded in a dense
veil. In most parts of the Peruvian Andes the line of
perpetual snow is at 16,400 feet above the sea; but on
the Cordillera Nevada, above the Callejon de Huaylas, it
sinks to 15,400 feet. This greater cold is obviously
caused by the intervention of the Cordillera Negra, which
intercepts the warmth from the coast. As this lower chain
does not reach the snow- line, the streams rising from it
are very scantily supplied with water, while the Santa,
Pativilca, and other coast-rivers which break through it
from sources in the snowy chain have a greater volume
from the melted snows. At the point where the river
Santa breaks through the Cordillera Negra that range
begins to subside, while the Maritime Cordillera continues
as one chain to and beyond the frontier of Ecuador.
The Central Cordillera is the true water-parting of the Centr
system. No river, except the Maranon, breaks through it Cor-
either to the east or west, while more than twenty coast-
streams rise on its slopes and force their way through the
maritime chain. The Central Cordillera consists mainly
of crystalline and volcanic rocks, on each side of which are
aqueous, in great part Jurassic, strata thrown up almost
vertically. In 14° 30' S. lat. the central chain is connected
with the Eastern Andes by the transverse mountain-knot of
Yilcafiota, the peak of that name being 17,500 feet above
the sea. The great inland basin of Lake Titicaca is thus
formed. The central chain continues to run parallel with
the Maritime Cordillera until, at Cerro Pasco, another
transverse knot connects it with the Andes in 10° 30' S.
lat. It then continues northward, separating the basins
of the Maranon and Huallaga ; and at the northern frontier
of Peru it is at length broken through by the Maranon
flowing to the eastward.
The Eastern Andes is a magnificent range in the southern Easte
part of Peru, of Silurian formation, with talcose and clay Ande
slates, many quartz veins, and eruptions of granitic rocks.
Mr Forbes says that the peaks of Illampu (21,470 feet)
and Illimani (21,040 feet) in Bolivia are Silurian and
fossiliferous to their summits. The eastern range is cut
through by six rivers in Peru, namely, the Maranon and
Huallaga, the Perene, Mantaro, Apurimac, Vilcamayu, and
Paucartambo, the last five being tributaries of the Ucayali.
The range of the Andes in south Peru has a high plateau
to the west and the vast plains of the Amazonian basin
to the east. The whole range is highly auriferous, and
the thickness of the strata is not less than 10,000 feet.
It is nowhere disturbed by volcanic eruptions, except at
the very edge of the formation near Lake Titicaca, and in
this respect it differs essentially from the Maritime Cordil
lera. To the eastward numerous spurs extend for varying
distances into the great plain of the Amazons. It is here
that the majestic beauty of the Andean scenery is fully
realized : masses of dark mountains rise for thousands of
feet, with their bases washed by foaming torrents and their
PERU
673
summits terminating in sharp peaks or serrated ridges ;
the lower slopes are covered with dense vegetation ; and
everywhere there is flowing water in cascades or rushing
torrents, the condensed moisture of the trade-winds hurry
ing back to the Atlantic. The Andes lose their majestic
height to the northward ; and beyond Cerro Pasco the
eastern chain sinks into a lower range between the Hual-
laga and Ucayali. But throughout the length of Peru
the three ranges are clearly denned,
Seions For purposes of description the sierra of Peru may be conveni-
oferra. ently divided into four sections, each embracing portions of all
three ranges. The first, from the north, comprises the upper basins
of the Marauon and the Huallaga, arid is 350 miles long by 100
broad. The second extends from the Knot of Cerro Pasco to Aya-
cucho, about 200 miles, including the Lake of Chinchay-cocha and
the basin of the river Xauxa. The third or Cuzco section extends
250 miles to the Knot of Vilcanota with the basins of the Pampas,
Apurimac, Vilcainayu, and Paucartambo. The fourth is the basin
of Lake Titicaca, about 150 miles in length and breadth.
Lt!S. The Lake of Chinchay-cocha, in the second section, is 36 miles
long by 7 miles broad, and 13,000 feet above the sea. Its marshy
banks are overgrown with reeds and inhabited by numerous water
fowl. From this lake the river Xauxa flows southwards through
a populous valley for 150 miles before entering the forests. Lake
Titicaca, in the fourth or most southern section, is about 80 miles
long by 40 broad, the frontier of Bolivia passing across it diagonally.
It is 12,545 feet above the sea by the railroad-levels. The drainage
is carried off southwards by the river Desaguadero to the great
swampy Lake of Aullagas in the south of Bolivia, while it is fed by
streams from the Andes and the Central Cordillera. The largest is
the Ramiz, formed by the two streams of Pucara and Azangaro,
both coming from the Knot of Vilcanota to the north. The Suchiz,
formed by the Cavanilla and Lam pa streams, falls into the lake on
the north-west side, as well as the Yllpa and Ylave. Much of the
water flows out by the Desaguadero, but a great proportion is
taken up by evaporation in the dry season from April to September.
The waters are gradually receding under the combined influence of
evaporation and the sediment brought down by the rivers. The
deepest part of the lake is on the Bolivian side ; in other parts
it is very shoaly, and along the shore there are many acres of
tall reeds. The principal islands are Titicaca and Coati (at the
south end near the peninsula of Copacabana), Campanaria (9 miles
from the east shore), Soto, and Esteves. There are two other lakes
in the Collao, as the elevated region round Titicaca is called. Lake
Arapa, a few miles from the northern shore of Titicaca, is 30 miles
in circumference. Lake Umayo is on higher ground to the west
ward. The lake in Peru which is third in size is that of Parina-
cochas on the coast watershed, near the foot of the snowy peak of
Sarasara. It is 12 miles long by 6 broad, but has never been visited
and described by any modern traveller. The smaller alpine lakes,
often forming the sources of rivers, are numerous.
Hi rs of The great rivers of the sierra are the Maranon, rising in the Lake
sira. of Lauricocha and flowing northward in a deep gorge between the
Maritime and Central Cordilleras for 350 miles, when it forces its
way through the mountains at the famous Pongo de Mauseriche
and enters the Amazonian plain. The Huallaga rises north of
Cerro Pasco, and, passing Huamico, flows northwards on the other
side of the Central Cordillera for 300 miles. It breaks through
the range at the Pongo de Cliasuta and falls into the Maranon.
The other great rivers are tributaries of the Ucayali. The Pozuzu,
flowing eastward from the Knot of Cerro Pasco, joins the Pachitea,
which is the most northern important affluent of the Ucayali. The
Xauxa, becoming afterwards the Mantaro, receives the drainage of
Xauxa, Huancavelica, and Ayacucho. The southern valleys of this
part of the sierra furnish streams which form the main rivers of
Pampas, Pachachaca, and Apurimac. These, uniting with the
Mantaro, form the Ene, and the Ene and Perene (which drains
the province of Tambo) form the Tambo. The classic river of
Vilcamayu rises on the Knot of Vilcanota, flows north through a
lovely valley, receives the Yanatilde and Paucartambo on its right
bank, and, uniting with the Tambo, forms the Ucayali. Most of
these main streams flow through profound gorges in a tropical
climate, while the upper slopes yield products of the temperate
zone, and the plateaus above are cold and bleak, affording only
pasture and the hardiest cereals.
Si ran The great variety of elevation within the sierra produces vege-
flu. tation belonging to every zone. There is a tropical flora in the
deep gorges, higher up a sub-tropical, then a temperate, then a
sub-arctic flora. In ascending from the coast-valleys there is first
an arid range, where the great-branched cacti rear themselves up
among the rocks. Farther inland, where the rains are more plenti
ful, is the native home of the potato. Here also are other plants
with edible roots — the "oca" (Oxalis tuberosa), "ulluca" (Ullucus
tuberosus), " massua " ( Tro2)ceolum hibcrosum), and " learco " (Polym-
nia soncldfolia). Among the first wild shrubs and trees that are
met with are the " chilca " (Baccharis Fcuillei], with a pretty
yellow flower, the Mutisia acuminata, with beautiful red and
orange flowers, several species of Scnecio, calceolarias, the Schinus
Molle, with its graceful branches and bunches of red berries, and
at higher elevations the " lambras " (Alnus acuminata), the "sauco"
(Sambucus pcruviana), the "quenuar" (Buddleia incana), and the
Polylepis raccmosa. The Buddleia, locally called " oliva silvestre,"
flourishes at a height of 12,000 feet round the shores of Lake
Titicaca. The temperate valleys of the sierra yield fruits of many
kinds. Those indigenous to the country are the delicious " chiri-
moyas," "paltas" or alligator pears, the "paccay," a species of
Inga, the "lucma," and the "granadilla" or fruit of the passion
flower. Vineyards and sugar-cane yield crops in the warmer ravines ;
the sub-tropical valleys are famous for splendid crops of maize ;
wheat and barley thrive on the mountain slopes ; and at heights
from 7000 to 13,000 feet there are crops of "quinua" (Cheno-
podmm Quinua}. In the loftiest regions the pasture chiefly con
sists of a coarse grass (Sfyja Ychu), of which the llamas eat the
upper blades while the sheep browse on the tender shoots beneath.
There are also two kinds of shrubby plants, a thorny Cfjmposita
called " ccanlli " and another called " tola," which is a resinous
Baccharis, and is used for fuel.
The animals which specially belong to the Peruvian Andes are Fauna.,
the domestic llamas and alpacas and the wild vicunas. There are
deer, called "taruco" (Cervus antiscnsis), the "viscacha,"a large
rodent, a species of fox called " atoc " ; and the " puma " (Felis
concolor) and "ucumari" or black bear with a white muzzle, when
driven by hunger, wander into the loftier regions. The largest
bird is the condor, and there is another bird of the vulture tribe,
with a black and white wing feather, formerly used by the Yncas
in their head-dress, called the "coraquenque " or "alcamari. " The
" pito " is a brown speckled creeper which flutters about the rocks.
There is a little bird, the size of a starling, with brown back
striped with black, and white breast, which the Indians call " ynca-
hualpa" ; it utters a monotonous sound at each hour of the night.
A partridge called " yutu " frequents the long grass. On the lakes
there is a very handsome goose, with white body and dark-green
wings shading into violet, called "huachua," two kinds of ibis, a
large gull (Larus serranus), frequenting the alpine lakes in flocksr
flamingoes called "parihuana," ducks, and water-hens. Many pretty
little finches fly about the maize-fields and fruit-gardens, and a little-
green parakeet is met with as high as 12,000 feet above the sea.
The third division of Peru is the region of the tropical Montana,
forests, at the base of the Andes, and within the basin of
the Amazons. It is traversed by great navigable rivers.
The Maranon, having burst through the defile of the
Pongo de Mauseriche, and the Huallaga through that of
Chasuta, enter the forests and unite after separate courses
of about 600 and 400 miles, the united flood then flowing
eastward to the Brazilian frontier. After 150 miles it is
joined by the Ucayali, a great navigable river with a
course of 600 miles. The country between the Huallaga
and the Ucayali, traversed by the eastern Cordillera, is called
the Pampa del Sacramento. The forests drained by the
Maranon, Huallaga, and Ucayali form the northern portion
of the Peruvian montana. The southern half of the mon
tana is watered by streams flowing from the Eastern Andes,
which go to form the river Madre de Dios or Amaru-mayu,
the principal branch of the river Beni, which falls into
the Madeira. The region of the Peruvian montana, which
is 800 miles long from the Maranon to the Bolivian
frontier, is naturally divided into two sections, the sub
tropical forests in the ravines and on the eastern slopes of
the Andes and the dense tropical forests in the Amazonian
plain. The sub-tropical section is important from the
value of its products, and interesting from the grandeur and
beauty of its scenery. Long spurs run off from the Andes,
gradually decreasing in elevation, and it is sometimes a
distance of 60 or 80 miles before they finally subside
into the vast forest -covered plains of the Amazon basin.
Numerous rivers flow through the valleys between these
spurs, which are the native home of the quinine-yielding
chinchona trees. The most valuable species, called C. Cali-
saya, is found in the forests of Caravaya in south Peru
and in those of Bolivia. The species between Caravaya
and the head-Avaters of the Huallaga yield very little of
the febrifuge alkaloid. But the forests of Huanuco and
XVIII. — 85
674
PERU
Popula
tion.
Huamalies abound in species yielding the grey bark of
commerce, which is rich in chinchonine, an alkaloid effica
cious as a febrifuge, though inferior to quinine. With the
chinchona trees grow many kinds of Melastomacese, especi
ally the Lasiandra, with masses of purple flowers, tree-ferns,
and palms. In the warm valleys there are large planta
tions of coca (Erythrojrylon Cora), or CUCA (see vol. vi. p.
684), the annual produce of which is stated at 15,000,000
ft>. The other products of these warm valleys are most ex
cellent coffee, cocoa, sugar, tropical fruits of all kinds, and
gold in great abundance. In the vast untrodden forests
farther east there are timber trees of many kinds, incense
trees, a great wealth of india-rubber trees of the Hevea
genus, numerous varieties of beautiful palms, sarsaparilla,
vanilla, ipecacuanha, and copaiba. The abundant and
varied fauna is the same as that of the Brazilian forests.
Population. — The earliest reliable enumeration of the
people of Peru was made in 1793, when there were 617,700
Indians, 241,225 mestizos (Indian and white), 136,311
Spaniards, 40,337 negro slaves, and 41,404 mulattos, giv
ing a total of 1,076,977 souls, without counting the wild
Indians of the montaiia. The ecclesiastics numbered 5496,
including 1260 nuns. This tells a sad story of depopu
lation since the fall of the Yncas, to which the abandoned
terraces on the mountain-sides, once highly cultivated, bear
silent testimony. In 1862 the population was officially esti
mated at 2,487,716. The latest census was taken in 1876
with much care. The result was 2,673,075 souls (males
1,352,151, females 1,320,924); of these 57 percent, were
Indians, 23 per cent, mestizos, and 20 per cent, of Spanish
descent, negroes, Chinese, and foreigners ; so that Peru is
still the country of the Ynca people.
Political Political Divisions. — The empire of the Yncas was divided
divisions. jnto four mam divisions, Chinchay-suyu to the north of
Cuzco, Anti-suyu to the east, Colla-suyu to the south, and
Cunti-suyu to the west, the whole empire being called
Ttahuantin-suyu, or the four governments. Each was ruled
by a viceroy, under whom were the " huaranca-camayocs,"or
officers ruling over thousands, and inferior officers, in regular
order, over 500, 100, 50, and 10 men. All disorders and
irregularities were checked by the periodical visits of the
" tucuyricocs " or inspectors. The Spanish conquest threw
this complicated system out of gear. In 1569 the governor,
Lope Garcia de Castro, divided Peru into " corregimientos "
under officers named "corregidors," of whom there were 77,
each in direct communication with the Government at Lima.
An important administrative reform was made in 1784,
when Peru was divided into 7 " intendencias," each under
an officer called an " intendente." These "intendencias"
included about 6 of the old "corregimientos," which were
called "partidos," under officers named "sub-delegados."
Thus the number of officers reporting direct to Lima was
reduced from 77 to 7, a great improvement. The republic
adopted the same system, calling the "intendencias"
" departments " under a prefect, and the " partidos "
"provinces" under a sub-prefect. Peru is divided into 18
departments, 2 littoral provinces, and what is called the
constitutional province of Callao. The departments contain
95 provinces. The Government recognizes 65 cities, 70
towns, 1337 smaller towns, 641 villages, 40 hamlets on
the sea-coast, and 600 in the rural districts. The depart
ments (going from north to south) are : —
Montana.
Ainazonas and Loreto.
Coast.
Piura.
Lambayeque.
Libertad.
Ancachs.
Lima.
Yea.
Arequipa.
Moquegua.
Tacna.
Sierra.
Caxamarca.
Huanuco.
Junin.
Huancavelica.
Ayacucho.
Apurimac.
Cuzco.
Puno.
Towns and Seaports. — The principal towns on the coast, To\n
except Payta, Callao, and Arica, are always some distance an<l
from the seashore. San Miguel de Piura, founded by seaP'
Pizarro in 1532, is on the river of the same name. The
towns in all parts of Peru are built on the same plan
where the ground will allow of it, in squares or "quadras,"
with the streets at right angles, and a quadrangular open
space or "plaza," one side being occupied by the principal
church, near the centre. The church usually has an orna
mental facade in the Renaissance style, with two towers.
The houses on the coast are flat-roofed, with folding doors
to the street, leading to a court or "patio," with rooms
opening on it. Piura is a town of this class. Farther south
are the cities of Lambayeque, Chiclayo, and Sana. Truxillo,
founded by Pizarro in 1535, is of more importance. It is
of oval shape, and was surrounded by walls with fifteen
bastions, built in 1686, which have recently been demolished.
Besides the cathedral, seat of a bishopric founded in 1G09,
there are three churches, and formerly four monasteries
and a Jesuit college. Truxillo is the most important city
north of Lima.
To the north of Lima there are five principal ports and
thirteen smaller ones. Payta has a good anchorage and
exports the cotton of the Chira and Piura valleys, the
anchorages of Tumbez to the north and Sechura to the
south being subsidiary to it. Pimentel is the port for the
valleys of Lambayeque and Chiclayo, and Eten for that
of Ferrenafe, the older port of San Jos6 having been
abandoned as more dangerous. Pacasmayo, also a pre
carious anchorage, is the port which taps the rich valley
of Jequetepeque. Farther south Malabrigo is the port
for the valley of Chicama. Huanchaco was formerly the
port for Truxillo, but Salaverry, a few miles to the south,
has been substituted as affording a safer anchorage. San
tiago de Chao and Guaiiape in the Viru district are lesser
ports, the latter being resorted to by ships loading with
guano at the adjacent islands. Chimbote, in the bay of
Ferrol, has a good anchorage, and is important as the
principal outlet for the Santa valley and the department
of Ancachs. Farther south are the lesser ports of Santa,
Samanco, Casma, Huarmey, Supe, Huacho, Chancay, and
Ancon.
Lima, the capital (see vol. xiv. p. 644), according to
the census of 1876, had a population of 100,046, of whom
33,020were of European descent, 23,010 half-castes, 19,630
Indians, 15,378 foreigners, and 9008 negroes. South of
Lima are the cities of Chincha and Yea, with the principal
seaport of Pisco, whence the wines and spirits of the
adjacent valleys are exported. The small ports of Cerro
Azul and Tambo Mora export the sugars of the Canete and
Chincha valleys. Farther south the exposed port of Chala,
with a bad anchorage, is used for the valley of Acari and
the province of Parinacochas in the mountains. South-east
of Yea are the charming agricultural towns of Palpa and
Nasca. AKEQUIPA (see vol. ii. p. 484), the most important
coast-city south of Lima, was founded by Pizarro in 1536.
South of Arequipa is the littoral province of Moquegua,
with a pleasant town, the centre of a vine-growing industry.
The cities of Tacna, Arica, and Iquique are in the Chilian
province of Tarapaca. The ports of Arequipa were formerly
Quilca, then Islay, and now Mollendo. Ylo and Pacocha,
in the same bay, are the ports of Moquegua ; Sana, under
the lofty headland of the same name, is a port where
landing is impossible except in "balsas," and it is little
used. Arica was a very important port before the Chilian
invasion, as through it passed all the trade to Bolivia.
Iquique and Pisagua are the chief ports of Tarapaca, the
others being Junin, Mexillones, Molle, Chucumata, Patillos.
In the sierra there is the same regularity in intention
in laying out the plan of the towns, but it is often interfered
PERU
675
with by the irregularity of the ground. High-pitched red
tiled roofs take the place of the flat roofs of the coast. The
upper stories often recede, leaving wide corridors under the
overhanging eaves, and in the " plazas " there are frequently
covered arcades. Fruit-gardens and fields waving with
lucerne and barley encircle the towns, and there is almost
always a background of mountain -ranges. The principal
interior towns in the north of Peru are Caxamarca, Huaraz,
Huanuco, Cerro Pasco, the centre of the great silver-mining
industry, 13,200 feet above the sea, Tarma, and Xauxa.
Huancavelica owed its existence to the famous quicksilver
mine. Ayacucho, formerly Guamanga, founded by Pizarro
in 1539, is a charming abode amidst lovely scenery. Be
tween Ayacucho and Cuzco are the pleasant towns of
Andahuaylas and Abancay. Cuzco (see vol. vi. p. 744),
the centre of Peru, the old capital of the Yncas, lies at the
foot of the famous hill of Sacsahuaman. South of Cuzco
are many delightful places in the vale of Vilcamayu, and
the towns in the Collao, the chief being Puno on the shore
of Lake Titicaca.
(n- Commerce. — The resources of Peru consist of its mineral wealth,
i rce. its flocks, yielding valuable wool, its crops, and the products of its
virgin-forests. Silver-mines extend along the whole length of the
Cordilleras from Hualgayoc to Puno. The mines are worked here
and there, the great centre of this industry being at Cerro Pasco,
where 1,427,592 ounces of silver were produced in 1877. The value
of the silver exported from Peru in that year was £575,000, of
copper £330, 000 ; of gold there is no return. The exportation of
guano from the Chincha Islands began in 1846 and continued until
1872. Between 1853 and 1872 there were 8,000,000 tons shipped
from these islands. The deposits on the Guaiiape Islands were
first worked in 1869, and from that year to 1871 as many as 838,853
tons were shipped, — 460,000 tons remaining. On the three Macabi
Islands there were 400,000 tons of guano in 1872, and large deposits
on the Lobos Islands. But the most important discoveries of guano-
deposits, since the exhaustion of the Chincha Islands, have been
on the coast of Tarapaca. In 1876 the quantity at Pabellon de Pica
was calculated at 350,000 tons, at Punta de Lobos 200,000 tons, at
Huanillos 1,000,000 tons (buried under huge boulders of rock), at
Chipana 250,000 tons. The total quantity of guano on islands north
of Lima may be 600,000 tons, and on the coast of Tarapaca 1,800,000
tons.
Since 1830 nitrate of soda has been exported from the southern
ports of Peru, the deposits being found on the western side of the
Pampa do Tamarugal in Tarapaca. This region contains sufficient
nitrate for the supply of Europe for ages. From 1830 to 1850 the
export from Iquique amounted to 239,860 tons ; in 1875 the annual
export reached its maximum (326,869 tons).
The sugar cultivation in the coast -valleys is a great source of
wealth. In 1877 the yield was estimated at 85,000 tons, valued at
£1,360,000; of this quantity 63,370 tons went to Great Britain.
Cotton, an indigenous product of the coast-valleys, is next in im
portance to sugar, the estates being worked with intelligence and a
due outlay of capital. The cultivation of the vine is also a pro
fitable industry, — a well-known spirit and excellent wine being
made in the valleys of Pisco and Yea, and in the districts of Majcs
and Moquegua. Rice-crops are raised at Ferrehafe ; olives are grown
largely in the Tambo valley ; and the silk -worm and cochineal
insect have been successfully cultivated. In the sierra large
quantities of wheat, barley, and potatoes are raised, and millions
of pounds of alpaca and sheep's -wool are exported. From the
forests of the montaiia come chinchona bark, coca, coffee of the
finest quality, cocoa, india-rubber, and some medicinal roots.
)m- Communication. — Several railroads have been constructed of late
unica- years to connect the coast-towns and valleys with their seaports.
DU. That from Payta to Piuva, contracted for in 1872, is 63 miles long ;
one from the port of Pimentel to Chiclayo and Lambayeque has a
length of 45 miles. There are 50 miles of railway from Eten to
Ferrenafe, 93 from Pacasmayo to Magdalena, 25 from Malabrigo to
Ascopc and the Chicama valley, 85 from Salaverry to Truxillo, 172
from Chimbote to Huaraz (only 52 finished). Several short lines
radiate from Lima. A line from Pisco to Yea is 48 miles long,
from Mollendo to Arequipa 107, from Ylo to Moquegua 63 miles,
from Arica to Tacna 39 miles ; and there arc railroads in Tarapaca
connecting the nitrate-works with the ports of Pisagua, Iquique,
and Patillos. At Cerro Pasco a short line, begun in 1869, connects
the silver-mines with the town. A railroad was commenced in 1870,
from Callao and Lima, across the western and central Cordilleras to
Oroya, 12,178 feet above the sea in the valley of Xauxa, a distance
of 136 miles. It ascends the valley of the Rimac, rising nearly
5000 feet in the first 46 miles. It then threads intricate gorges of
the Andes, along the edges of precipices and over deep chasms. It
tunnels the Andes at a height of 15,645 feet. There are sixty-three
tunnels, and the bridge of Verrugas spans a chasm 580 feet wide,
resting on three piers, the centre one being 252 feet high, made of
hollow wrought-iron. This great work is completed (1884) as far as
Chicla, a distance of 86| miles. Another railroad across the Andes
connects Arequipa with Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The
summit is crossed in a cutting only 6 feet deep, 14,660 feet above
the sea. The first locomotive reached Puno on 1st January 1874.
The line is 232 miles long, and is to be prolonged to Cuzco. The
cost of the Oroya line has been £4,625,887, and of the Arequipa
and Puno line £4,346,659.
Two steamers were launched on Lake Titicaca in March 1874,
which carry the traffic from Bolivia to Puno. Extensive harbour-
works have been completed at Callao since 1870 ; and iron piers have
been constructed at other ports. Steam communication connects
the Peruvian ports on the Huallaga and Maranon with the Brazilian
line at Tabatinga.
Education and Literature. — Universities and colleges were founded Educa-
in Peru very soon after the conquest, and there was intellectual tion.
progress both among the Indians and the families of Spanish
descent. The university of San Marcos at Lima is the most
ancient in the New World, having been created by order of Charles
V. in 1551. The college of San Carlos was founded in 1770, and
the school of medicine in 1792. At Cuzco the university of
San Antonio Abad was founded in 1598, and the college of San
Geronimo at Arequipa in 1616. Since the independence there has
been very considerable intellectual and educational progress in the
country. There is a university of the first rank at Lima, 5 lesser
universities, 33 colleges for boys and 18 for girls, 1578 schools for
boys and 729 for girls, besides private schools. The most prolific Litera-
author in Spanish times was Dr Pedro de Peralta y Barnuevo, author ture.
of an epic poem called Lima Fundada and many other works.
Towards the latter end of the last century scientific studies began to
receive attention in Peru. M. Godin, a member of the French com
mission for measuring an arc of the meridian near Quito, became
professor of mathematics at San Marcos in 1750 ; and the botanical
expeditions sent out from Spain gave further zest to scientific re
search. Dr Gabriel Moreno (died 1809), a native of Huamantanga in
the Maritime Cordillera, studied under Dr Jussieu, and became an
eminent botanist. Don Hipolito Unanue, born at Arica in 1755,
wrote an important work on the climate of Lima and contributed
to the Mercurio Pcruano. This periodical was commenced in 1791
at Lima, the contributors forming a society called ' ' Amantes del
Pais," and it was completed in eleven volumes. It contains many
valuable articles on history, topography, botany, mining, commerce,
and statistics. An ephemeris and guide to Peru was commenced
by the learned geographer Dr Cosme Bueno, and continued by Dr
Unanue, who brought out his guides at Lima from 1793 to 1798.
In 1794 a nautical school was founded at Lima, with Andres Baleato
as instructor and Pedro Alvarez as teacher of the use of instruments.
Baleato also constructed a map of Peru. A list of Peruvian authors
in viceregal times occupies a long chapter in the life of St Toribio 1
by Montalvo ; and the bibliographical labours of the Peruvian Leon
Pinelo are still invaluable to Spanish students.
The topographical labours of Cosme Bueno and Unanue were
ably continued at Lima by Admiral Don Eduardo Carrasco, who
compiled annual guides of Peru from 1826. But the most eminent
Peruvian geographer is Dr Don Mariano Felipe Paz Soldan, whose
Geografia del Peru appeared in 1862. His still more important
work, the Diccionario geografico cstadistico del Peru (1877), is a
gazetteer on a most complete scale, displaying an immense amount
of labour, research, and literary skill. In 1868 appeared his first
volume of the Historia del Peru Independiente, and two others
have since been published. The earlier history of Peru has been
written in three volumes by Sebastian Lorente ; Mariano Rivero
has ably discussed its antiquities ; and Manuel Fuentes has edited
six interesting volumes of memoirs written by Spanish viceroys.
But the most valuable and important historical work by a modern
Peruvian is undoubtedly General Mendiburu's Diccionario Historico-
Biografico del Peru, a monument of patient and conscientious re
search, combined with critical discernment of a high order, which
has certainly secured for its accomplished author a permanent
place in the history of literature. As laborious historical students,
Don Jose Toribio Polo, the author of an ecclesiastical history of
Peruvian dioceses, and Don Enrique Torres Saldamando, the
historian of the Jesuits in Peru, have great merit. Among good
local annalists may be mentioned Juan Gilberto Valdivia, who has
written a history of Arequipa, and Pio Benigno Mesa, the author
of the Annals of Cuzco.
The leading Peruvian authors on constitutional and legal sub
jects are Dr Jose Santistevan, who has published volumes on civil
and criminal law ; Luis Felipe Villaran, author of a work on con-
1 The city of Lima produced two saints, the archbishop St Toribio,
who flourished from 1578 to 1606, and Santa Rosa, the patron saint
of the city of the kings (1586-1616), whose festival is celebrated on
26th Ausust.
676
PERU
stitutional right ; Dr Francisco Garcia Caldcron (late president of
Peru), author of a dictionary of Peruvian legislation in two volumes ;
Dr Francisco Xavier Mariategui, one of the fathers of Peruvian inde
pendence ; and Dr Francisco de Paula Vijil (died 1875), orator and
statesman as well as author, whose work Defcnsa dc ios Gobiernos
is a noble and enlightened statement of the case for civil govern
ments against the pretensions of the court of Rome. Manuel A.
Fuentes, an able statistician and the author of the Estadistica de
Limn, has also written a manual of parliamentary practice.
On the whole, Peruvian literature since the independence has
attained to highest merit in the walks of poetry and romance. The
Guayaquil author Olmedo, who wrote the famous ode on the victory
of Junin, and the Limenians Felipe Pardo and Manuel Segura are
names well known wherever the Spanish language is spoken. Pardo,
as well as Segura, wrote in a satirical vein. Both died between
1860 and 1870. The comedies of Segura on the customs of Lima
society, entitled Un Paseo a Amancaes and La Saya y Manto, have
no equal in the dramatic literature of Spanish America and few in
that of modern Spain. From 1848 date the first poetical efforts
of Arnaldo Marquez, Manuel Nicolas Corpancho, Adolfo Garcia,
Clemente Althaus, Pedro Paz Soldan (better known under his n&m
deplume of "Juan de Arona"), Carlos Augusto Salaverry, a son of
the ill-fated general, Luis Benjamin Cisneros, Trinidad Fernandez,
Constantino Carrasco, Narciso Arestegui, Jose Antonio Lavalle,
Ricardo Palma, and Numa Pompilio Llona. Marquez is undoubtedly
the most correct in diction and the most richly endowed with ima
ginative sentiment among Peruvian poets of the present generation.
Corpancho was a dramatist of the romantic school and author of a
bright little volume of poems entitled Brevets. He perished in a
shipwreck off the coast of Mexico when barely thirty years old.
Adolfo Garcia is the poet of most robust and vigorous thought, and
he has written much, but only one volume of his select poems has
been published (Havre, 1870). Among other productions of great
merit this book contains a sonnet to Bolivar, which is one of the
most beautiful that has appeared from the muse of Peru. Althaus
(d. 1880) was a poet, imaginative, tender, elegant, and very careful
as regards rhythm and diction. Paz Soldan, a good classical
scholar, has published three volumes of poems. Salaverry is one
of Peru's best lyrical poets ; and the novels of Cisneros, entitled
Julia and Edgardo, have secured him a lasting reputation. Fer
nandez and Carrasco were two poets of merit who died very young.
The principal work of Carrasco was his metrical version of the
Quichua drama of Ollantay. Lavalle and Arestegui are chiefly
known as novelists. Palma has published three books of poetry,
entitled Armonias, Tcrbos y Gcrundos, and Pasionarias. Since
1870 he has devoted his great literary powers to writing the his
torical traditions of Peru in prose, of which six volumes have
already appeared. They display great research, and are written in
a graceful and agreeable style. Palma is a member of the Spanish
Academy, a distinction shared, among Peruvian poets, with Felipe
Pardo. The collected poems of Llona have recently been pub
lished ; his Canto de la Vida is highly spoken of for its depth of
thought and elegance of diction.
Peruvians have not neglected their early history and the study
of the literature and language of the Yncas. Several have followed
in the footsteps of Rivero. Jose Sebastian Barranca, the naturalist
and antiquary, and Gavino Pacheco Zegarra, a native of Cuzco,
have published translations of the ancient Ynca drama of Ollantay.
Among Peruvian naturalists since the independence the most
distinguished have been Rivero, the geologist and mineralogist, and
his friend and colleague Nicolas de Pierola, author of Memorial
de Ciencias Naturales. Dr Cayetano Heredia, rector of the college
of medicine in Lima from 1845 to his death in 1861, was an ardent
patron of medical science. His successor, Dr Miguel de Ios Rios,
has followed in his footsteps ; and since 1856 many valuable con
tributions have been published by Peruvian physicians in the Gaceta
Medica de Lima.
The most prominent publicists of Peru have been Mariategui,
Vijil, Reynaldo and Cesareo Chacaltana, Ricardo Heredia, Jose
Casimiro Ulloa, Toribio Pacheco, and Luciano Cisneros.
Church. The Peruvian priesthood, though justly accused of tyranny in
their relations with the Indians in early times, and of immorality
in many instances, can point to numerous learned and upright pre
lates, to devoted parish priests, to noble-minded teachers and ardent
patriots, in their body. Founded in 1541, and raised to archiepis-
copal rank in 1545, the see of Lima has been ruled by twenty-three
prelates. The first was a Dominican friar, Dr Geronirno de Loaysa
(1542-1575), who was more a politician than a priest. But the
second, Dr Toribio Mogrovejo (1581-1606), devoted himself to the
welfare of his flock, and died in the odour of sanctity, being finally
canonized as St Toribio. Since the independence, Archbishop Luna
Pizarro has added lustre to the see by his learning and ability.
The bishopric of Cuzco was founded by Pope Paul III. in 1537, and
has had twenty -seven prelates. Among them, Dr Gorrichategui
(1771-76) was an excellent Quichua scholar and preacher and a
devoted friend of the oppressed Indians ; Dr Mosooso y Pcralta
(1777-89) was a prelate of consummate virtue and learning. The
bishoprics of Arequipa, Guamanga (Ayacucho), and Truxillo were
created in 1609. The missionary bishopric of Maynas or Chachapoyas
was founded in 1802, those of Huanuco and Puno in recent times.
The Jesuits were once very powerful and wealthy in Peru, and both
Jesuits and Franciscans, while "working at their calling as mission
aries, achieved much valuable geographical work on the rivers and
in the forests of the montana. Since the independence the religious
orders have been gradually suppressed, yet monks as well as priests
were in the front rank in advocating the cause of liberty. The
ecclesiastical seminary at Lima, founded by St Toribio in 1601,
was removed to part of the monastery of San Francisco in 1859,
where it still flourishes, and where youths intended for holy orders
arc educated. The priests occupy a very important position in the
social system, and much of the teaching is in their hands. Such
men as Luna Pizarro and Vijil have performed their duties in a
singularly faithful and enlightened spirit. Unfortunately there is
still deplorable laxity among parish priests, though there are many
noble exceptions.
Inhabitants. — The early inhabitants of Peru originally consisted Native
of several distinct nations, subdivided into many tribes, which were inhabi
eventually combined in the empire of the Yncas. The principal ants,
race was that of the imperial Yncas themselves, inhabiting the two
central sections of the sierra, from the Knot of Cerro Pasco to that
of Vilcaiiota, a distance of 380 miles. Here nature has worked on
her grandest and most imposing scale. The scenery is magnificent,
the products of every zone are collected in the valleys and on
the mountain-sides ; but the difficulties in the way of advancing
civilization, caused by the obstacles of nature, are such as to tax
man's ingenuity to the utmost. A country like this was well
adapted for the cradle of an imperial race. Six nations originally
peopled this central mountain-region — the Yncas in the valley of the
Vilcamayu and surrounding plateaus, the Canas round the sources
of the Apurimac, the Quichuas along the upper courses of the
Pachachaca and the Apurimac, the Chancas, a very warlike people,
from Guamanga to the Apurimac, the Huancas in the valley of the
Xauxa, and the Rucanas round the summits and on the slopes of
the Maritime Cordillera. These six nations were divided into
" ayllus " or tribes, the most distinct of which were the still famous
Morochucos and Yquichanos, brave mountaineers of the Chanca
nation. There are reasons for believing that these nations once
spoke different languages, especially the Chancas, but, excepting a
few words imbedded in the general language of the Yncas, they
are now lost.
In the basin of Lake Titicaca there was another race, anciently
called Colla, but now better known as Aymara. Their language
survives, and, though closely allied grammatically, the vocabulary
differs from that of the Yncas. Within the Colla region, but
differing from the rest of the inhabitants both in language and
physical appearance, there was a savage tribe called Urns, inhabit
ing the reed-beds and islands in the southern part of Lake Titicaca.
In the region north of the Knot of Cerro Pasco comprising the basin
of the Marafion there were many warlike tribes speaking a language
which the Yncas called Chiuchaysuyu. The most important of
these tribes were the Couchucos, Huamachucos, and Ayahuecas
far to the north.
The Peruvian coast appears originally to have been inhabited by
a diminutive race of fishermen called Changos, a gentle and hos
pitable people, never exceeding 5 feet in height, with flat noses.
They fished in boats made of inflated seal-skins, lived in seal-skin
huts, and slept on heaps of dried seaweed. Vestiges of this early
race may be traced in the far south, as well as at Eten, Morrope,
and Catacaos in the north. The later and more civilized coast-
people were a very different and an extremely interesting race.
They appear to have formed distinct communities in the different
valleys each under a chief, of whom the most civilized and powerful
was the Chimu, who ruled over the five valleys of Pativilca, Huarmey,
Santa, Yiru, and Moche, where Truxillo now stands. The subjects
of this prince made great advances in civilization, and his vast
palaces near Truxillo now form extensive ruins. The irrigation
works of this coast-people were most elaborate ; every acre of cul
tivable ground was brought under cultivation, and water was con
veyed at high levels from great distances. The Yncas called these
people Yuncas, but they have entirely passed away, giving place
to the negroes and Chinese labourers who now swarm in the coast-
valleys. There is no dictionary of the Yunca language, but there is
a grammar and a short list of words written in 1644, before it had
entirely ceased to be spoken.
The Ynca or Quichua tribes of the Andes of Peru average a
height of 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches. They are of slender build, but
with well-knit nruscular frames, and are capable of enduring great
fatigue. Their complexions are of a fresh olive-colour, skin very
smooth and soft, beardless, hair straight and black, the nose
aquiline. They are good cultivators, and excel as shepherds by
reason of their patience and kindness to animals. They are natur
ally gentle, most affectionate to their families, with an intense love
of home ; but at the same time they are enduring and brave. The
Aymaras are more thick-set than the Yncas, and their chief phy-
PERU
677
sical peculiarity is that the thigh, instead of being longer, is rather
shorter than the leg. The whole build is admirably adapted for
mountain-climbing.
The policy of the Yncas was to enforce the use of their language,
called by the earliest Spanish grammarian "Quichua," among all
the conquered tribes. Hence its very general use throughout the
mountainous part of Peru, the only differences being the survival
of words in some of the districts from the language or dialect that
was superseded. Quichua was the language of a people far advanced
in civilization ; it was assiduously cultivated by learned men for
several centuries ; not only songs but elaborate dramas and rituals
were composed in it ; and it is still the language of the majority of
the people of Peru. Aymara, which is a closely-allied tongue, is
spoken along the shores of Lake Titicaca.
The wild Indians of the montaiia, except a few tribes on the
skirts of the Andes, do not belong to the Peruvian family. They
are part of the great Tupi group of nations, and belong to the region
of the Amazons. On the banks of the Huallaga are the Cocomas,
Cholones, Panos, and Motilones ; and on the Ucayali the wild tribes
of the Cashibos, Capahuanas, Remos, Amajuacas, and Mayorunas.
The Conibos, Pirros, Sencis, Setebos, and Shipibos are peace
ful traders. The Antis or Campas form a large and important
tribe on the upper course of the Ucayali, with probably a large
share of Ynca blood in their veins. The savage Indians on the
tributaries of the Beni are called Chunchos. It is, however, to
another family of the American race that the tribes of the Amazons
mainly belong.
History. — Cyclopean ruins of vast edifices, apparently never com
pleted, exist at Tiahuanaco near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca.
Remains of a similar character are found at Huaraz in the north
of Peru, and at Cuzco, Ollantay - tambo, and Huifiaque between
Huaraz and Tiahuanaco. These works appear to have been erected
by powerful sovereigns with unlimited command of labour, possibly
with the object of giving employment to subjugated people, while
feeding the vanity or pleasing the taste of the conqueror. Their
unfinished state seems to indicate the break-up of the Government
which conceived them and which must have held sway over the
whole of Peru, and the occurrence of Aymara words, especially in
the names of places over the whole area, points to an Aymara
origin for this lost and prehistoric empire. It is certain that for
ages afterwards the country was again broken up into many sepa-
Smpire rate nations and tribes. Then the most civilized and most powerful
>f Yncas. people, the Yncas of Cuzco and the Yilcamayu, began slowly to
build up and cement together a later and more civilized empire.
This great work, which probably occupied five centuries, was just
completed when the Spaniards discovered Peru. The history of
Ynca civilization has yet to be written. Our knowledge even of
the Spanish writers who collected information at the time of the
conquest is still very incomplete. Much that is essential for a
correct appreciation of this interesting subject is still inedited and
in manuscript. But, to comprehend it, a knowledge is also neces
sary of the people, of their country and languages. Without such
qualifications for the task, the numerous traditions, customs, and
beliefs cannot be understood nor assigned to the particular epochs
and nationalities to which each belonged. With our existing
imperfect knowledge the subject cannot be adequately treated with
out a detailed and critical examination of conflicting evidence which
would be foreign to the purpose of the present article.
The great Ynca Huayna Ccapac died in 1527, the year when
Pizarro first appeared on the coast. His consolidated empire
extended from the river Ancasmayu north of Quito to the river
Maule in the south of Chili. The Yncas had an elaborate system
of state-worship, with a ritual, and frequently recurring festivals.
History and tradition were preserved by the bards, and dramas
were enacted before the sovereign and his court. Roads with post-
houses at intervals were made over the wildest mountain-ranges
and the bleakest deserts for hundreds of miles. A well-considered
system of land-tenure and of colonization provided for the wants
of all classes of the people. The administrative details of govern
ment were minutely and carefully organized, and accurate statistics
were kept by means of the "quipus " or system of knots. The edifices
displayed marvellous building skill, and their workmanship is un
surpassed. The Avorld has nothing to show, in the way of stone-
cutting and fitting, to equal the skill and accuracy displayed in
the Ynca structures of Cuzco. As workers in metals and as potters
they displayed infinite variety of design, though not of a high order,
while as cultivators and engineers they in all respects excelled
their European conquerors.
Conquest The story of the conquest has been told by Prescott and Helps,
by who give ample references to original authorities ; it will be
Pizarro. sufficient here to enumerate the dates of the leading events. On
10th March 1526 the contract for the conquest of Peru was signed
by Almagro and Luque, Gaspar de Espinosa supplying the funds.
In 1527 Francisco Pizarro, after enduring fearful hardships, first
reached the coast of Peru at Tumbez. In the following year he
went to Spain, and on 26th July 1529 the capitulation with the
crown for the conquest of Peru was executed. Pizarro sailed from
San Lucar with his brothers in January 1530, and landed at Tumbez
in 1532. The civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa, the sons
of Huayna Ccapac, had been fought out in the meanwhile, and the
victorious Atahualpa was at Caxamarca on his way from Quito to
Cuzco. On 15th November 1532 Francisco Pizarro with his little
army entered Caxamarca and in February 1533 his colleague
Almagro arrived with reinforcements. The murder of the Ynca
Atahualpa was perpetrated on 29th August 1533, and on 15th Nov
ember Pizarro entered Cuzco. He allowed the rightful heir to the
empire, Manco the legitimate son of Huayna Ccapac, to be solemnly
crowned on 24th March 1534. Almagro then undertook an expe
dition to Chili, and Pizarro founded the city of Lima on 18th
January 1535. In the following year the Yncas made a brave
attempt to expel the invaders, and closely besieged the Spaniards
in Cuzco during February and March. But Almagro, returning
from Chili, raised the siege on 18th April 1537. Immediately
afterwards the dispute arose between the Pizarros and Almagro as
to the limits of their respective jurisdictions. An interview took
place at Mala, on the sea-coast, on 13th November 1537, which led
to no result, and Alrnagro was finally defeated in the battle of Las
Salinas near Cuzco on 26th April 1538. His execution followed.
His adherents recognized his young half-caste son, a gallant and
noble youth generally known as Almagro the Lad, as his successor.
Bitterly discontented, they conspired at Lima and assassinated
Pizarro on 26th June 1541. Meanwhile Vaca de Castro had been
sent out by the emperor, and on hearing of the murder of Pizarro
he assumed the title of governor of Peru. On 16th September 1542
he defeated the army of Almagro the Lad in the battle of Chupas
near Guamanga. The ill-fated boy was beheaded at Cuzco.
Charles V. enacted the code known as the " New Laws " in 1542. Civil
" Encomiendas," or grants of estates on which the inhabitants were wars,
bound to pay tribute and give personal service to the grantee, were
to pass to the crown on the death of the actual holder ; a fixed sum
was to be assessed as tribute ; and forced personal service was for
bidden. Blasco Nunez de Vela was sent out, as first viceroy of
Peru, to enforce the "New Laws." Their promulgation aroused a
storm among the conquerors. Gonzalo Pizarro rose in rebellion, and
entered Lima on 28th October 1544. The viceroy fled to Quito, but
was followed, defeated, and killed at the battle of Anaquito on 18th
January 1546. The "New Laws" were weakly revoked, and Pedro
de la Gasca, as first president of the Audiencia (court of justice)
of Peru, was sent out to restore order. He arrived in 1547, and
on 8th April 1548 he routed the followers of Gonzalo Pizarro on
the plain of Xaquixaguana near Cuzco. Gonzalo was executed on
the field. La Gasca made a redistribution of " encomiendas " to
the loyal conquerors, which caused great discontent, and left Peru
before his scheme was made public in January 1550. On 23d
September 1551 Don Antonio de Mendoza arrived as second viceroy,
but died at Lima in the following July. The country was then
ruled by the judges of the Audiencia, and a formidable insurrection
broke out, headed by Francisco Hernandez Giron, with the object
of maintaining the right of the conquerors to exact forced service
from the Indians. In May 1554 Giron defeated the army of the
judges at Chuquinga, but he was hopelessly routed at Pucara on
llth October 1554, captured, and on 7th December executed at Lima.
Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquis of Canete, entered Lima
as third viceroy of Peru on 6th July 1555, and ruled with an iron
hand for six years. He at length brought the turbulent conquerors
to their knees. All the leaders in former disturbances were put on
board a ship at Callao and sent to Spain. Corregidors, or governors
of districts, were ordered to try summarily and execute every tur
bulent person within their jurisdictions. All unemployed persons
were sent on distant expeditions, and moderate " encomiendas ''
were granted to a few deserving officers. The previous anarchy
was thus completely stamped out. At the same time the viceroy
wisely came to an agreement with Sayri Tupac, the son and successor
of the Ynca Manco, and granted him a pension. He took great
care to supply the natives with priests of good conduct, and pro
moted measures for the establishment of schools and the founda
tion of towns in the different provinces. The cultivation of wheat,
vines, and olives, and European domestic animals were introduced.
The next viceroy was the Conde de Nieva (1561-64). His successor,
the licentiate Lope Garcia de Castro, who only had the title of
governor, ruled from 1564 to 1569. From this time there was a
succession of viceroys until 1824. The viceroys were chief magis
trates, but they were not supreme. In legal matters they had to
consult the Audiencia of judges, in finance the Tribunal de Cuentas,
in other branches of administration the Juntas de Gobierno and
de Guerra.
Don Francisco de Toledo, the second son of the count of Oropesa, Toledo's
entered Lima as viceroy on 26th November 1569. Fearing that adminis
the little court of the Ynca Tupac Amaru (who had succeeded his tratiou.
brother Sayri Tupac) might become a formidable focus of rebellion,
he sent troops to seize the young prince, and unjustly beheaded
the last of the Yncas in the square of Cuzco in the year 1571.
After a minute personal inspection of every province in Peru,
he, with the experienced aid of the learned Polo de Ondegardo
678
PERU
and the judge Matienza, established the system under which the
native population of Peru was ruled for the two succeeding cen
turies ; and future viceroys referred to him as the great master
of statesmanship who was their guide, and to his ordinances as
their acknowledged text-book. His Libra de Tasos fixed the
tribute to be paid by the Indians, exempting all men under
eighteen and over fifty. He found it necessary, in order to secure
efficient government, to revert in some measure to the system of
the Yiicas. The people were to be directly governed by their
native chiefs, whose duty was to collect the tribute and exercise
magisterial functions. The chiefs or " curacas " had subordinate
native officials under them called " pichca-pachacas " over 500 men,
and " pachacas " over 100 men. The office of curaca (or " cacique ")
was made hereditary, and its possessor enjoyed several privileges.
Many curacas were descended from the imperial family of the Yncas,
or from great nobles of the Yncarial court. In addition to the
tribute, which was in accordance with native usage, there was the
"mita," or forced labour in mines, farms, and manufactories. Toledo
enacted that one-seventh of the male population of a village should be
subject to conscription for this service, but they were to be paid, and
were not to be taken beyond a specified distance from their homes.
Vice- In their legislation the Spanish kings and viceroys showed
royalty, a desire to protect the people from tyranny, but they were unable
to prevent the rapacity and lawlessness of distant officials. The
country was depopulated by the illegal methods of enforcing the
mita, and an air of sadness and desolation spread over the land.
Toledo was succeeded in 1581 by Don Martin Henriquez, who died
at Lima two years afterwards. The subsequent history of the vice-
royalty is well worthy of detailed attention by students of history
in all countries possessing a colonial empire. The Spanish colonies
suffered from the strict system of monopoly and protection, which
was only slightly relaxed by the later Bourbon kings, and from the
arbitrary proceedings of the Inquisition. Between 1581 and 1776
as many as fifty-nine heretics were burned at Lima, and there were
twenty-nine "autos," but the Inquisition affected Europeans rather
than natives, for the Indians, as catechumens, were exempted from
its terrors. The curacas sorrowfully watched the gradual extinc
tion of their people by the operation of the mita, protesting from
time to time against the exactions and cruelty of the Spaniards.
At length a descendant of the Yncas, who assumed the name of
Tupac Amaru, rose in rebellion in 1780. The insurrection lasted
until July 1783, and the cruel executions which followed its sup
pression failed to daunt the people. The death of Tupac Amaru
shook the power of Spain and made it totter to its fall. From
that time both Indians and Peruvians of Spanish descent began to
think for themselves, and to entertain ideas of liberty and pro
gress. Tupac Amaru was followed by Dr Pedro Jose Chavez de
la Rosa, the Spanish bishop of Arequipa, and Dr Toribio Rodriguez
de Mendoza, rector of the university of San Carlos at Lima, whose
pupils, among whom were the future republican statesmen Drs
Luna Pizarro and Vijil, became ardent advocates of reform. When,
on 3d August 1814, Mateo Garcia Pumacagua, a Peruvian chief,
raised the cry of independence at Cuzco, he was joined by many
Peruvians of Spanish descent, but was defeated in the battle of
Umachiri (12th March 1815), taken, and executed. At the same
time the youthful and enthusiastic poet Melgar suffered death in
the cause of his country.
Peru Peru was the centre of Spanish power, and the viceroy had
inde- his military strength concentrated at Lima. Consequently the
pendent more distant provinces, such as Chili and Buenos Ayres, were able
to throw off the yoke first. But the destruction of the viceroy's
power was essential to their continued independent existence.
The conquest of the Peruvian coast must always depend on the
command of the sea. A fleet of armed ships was fitted out at
Valparaiso in Chili, under the command of Lord Cochrane and
officered by Englishmen. It convoyed an army of Argentine troops,
with some Chilians, under the command of the Argentine general
San Martin, which landed on the coast of Peru in September 1820.
San Martin was enthusiastically received, and the independence of
Peru was proclaimed at Lima on his entrance, after the viceroy had
withdrawn (28th July 1821). On 20th September 1822 San Martin
resigned the protectorate, with which he had been invested, saying
that the " presence of a fortunate soldier is dangerous to a newly-
constituted state," and on the same day the first congress of Peru
became the sovereign power of the state. After a short period of
government by a committee of three, the congress elected Don
Jose de la Kiva Aguero to be first president of Peru on 26th February
1823. He displayed great energy and capacity as an administrator,
but the aid of the Colombians under Bolivar was sought, and the
native ruler was unwisely deposed. Bolivar arrived at Lima on
1st September 1823, and began to organize an army to attack the
Spanish viceroy in the interior. On 6th August 1824 the cavalry
action of Junin was fought with the Spanish general Canterac
near the shores of the lake of Chinchay-cocha. It was won by a
gallant charge of the Peruvians under Colonel Suarez at the critical
moment. Soon afterwards Bolivar left the army to proceed to
the coast, and the final battle of Ayacucho (9th December 1824)
with the viceroy and the whole Spanish power was fought by his
second in command, General Sucre. The Spaniards were com
pletely defeated. The viceroy and all his officers were taken
prisoners, and Spanish power in Peru came to an end.
General Bolivar now showed that he was actuated by personal
ambition ; he intrigued to impose a constitution on Peru, with
himself as president for life. He failed, and left the country on
3d September 1826, followed by all the Colombian troops in March
1827. General Lamar, who commanded the Peruvians at Ayacucho, Early
was elected president of Peru on 24th August 1827, but was deposed, presi-
after waging a brief but disastrous war with Colombia, on 7th June dents.
1829. General Gamarra, who had been in the Spanish service, and
was chief of the stall' in the patriot army at Ayacucho, was elected
third president on 31st August 1829.
For fifteen years, from 1829 to 1844, Peru was painfully feeling her
way to a right use of independence. The officers who fought at
Ayacucho, and to whom the country felt natural gratitude, were
all-powerful, and they had not learned to settle political differences
in any other way than by the sword. From 1837 to 1839 there was
a lawless and unprincipled intervention on the part of Chili which
increased the confusion. Three men, during that period of proba
tion, won a prominent place in their country's history, Generals
Gamarra, Salaverry, and Santa Cruz. Gamarra, born at Cuzco in
1785, never accommodated himself to constitutional usages ; too
often he made his own will the law ; but he attached to himself
many loyal and devoted friends, and, with all his faults, which
were mainly faults of ignorance, he loved his country and sought
its welfare according to his lights. Salaverry was a very different
character. Born at Lima in 1806, of pure Basque descent, he
joined the patriot army before he was fifteen and displayed his
audacious valour in many a hard -fought battle. Feeling strongly
the necessity that Peru had for repose, and the guilt of civil
dissension, he wrote patriotic poems which became very popular.
Yet he too could only see a remedy in violence. He seized the
supreme power, and perished by an iniquitous sentence on 18th
February 1836. l Andres Santa Cruz was an Indian statesman.
His mother was a lady of high rank, of the family of the Yncas,
and he was very proud of his descent. Unsuccessful as a general
in the field, he nevertheless possessed remarkable administrative
ability and for nearly three years (1836-39) realized his lifelong
dream of a Peru-Bolivian confederation.2 But Peruvian history
is not confined to the hostilities of these military rulers. Three
constitutions were framed, in 1828, 1833, and 1839. There were
lawyers, statesmen, and orators who could defend the rights and
liberties of the people. On 7th November 1832 Dr Vijil, the
deputy for Tacna, rose in his place in congress and denounced the
unconstitutional acts of President Gamarra in a memorable speech
of great eloquence. Nor should a much humbler name ever be
omitted in writing the history of republican Peru. Juan Rios, a
private soldier, was sentry at the door of congress when Gamarra
illegally sent his troops to disperse the members. He defended his
post against two companies, and fell mortally wounded.
In 1844 General Ramon Castilla restored peace to Peru, and was
elected constitutional president on 20th April 1845. Ten years of
peace and increasing prosperity followed. In 1849 the regular pay
ment of the interest of the public debt was commenced, steam com
munication was established along the Pacific coast, and a railroad
was made from Lima to Callao. After a regular term of office of six
years of peace and moral and material progress Castilla resigned,
and General Echenique was elected president. But the proceedings
of Echenique's government in connexion with the consolidation of
the internal debt were disapproved by the nation, and, after hos
tilities which lasted for six months, Castilla returned to power in
January 1855. From December 1856 to March 1858 he had to
contend with and subdue a local insurrection headed by General
Vivanco, but, with these two exceptions, there was peace in Peru
from 1844 to 1879, a period of thirty -live years. The existing consti- Constit
tution was framed in 1856, and revised by a commission in 1860. tion.
Slavery and the Indian tribute were abolished ; by its provisions
the president is elected for four years, and there are two vice-
presidents. The congress consists of a senate and chamber of
deputies. The senators are elected by departments and the deputies
by the people, every 30,000 inhabitants having a representative.
When congress is not sitting there is a permanent commission of
the legislature, elected at the end of each session, and consisting of
seven senators and eight deputies. The chamber of deputies may
accuse the president of infractions of the constitution and the senate
passes judgment. The president appoints the prefects of depart
ments and sub-prefects of provinces ; the prefects nominate the
governors of districts. In each province there is a judge ; a superior
court of justice sits at the capital of each department; and there is
1 The romance of his life lias been admirably written by Manuel Bilbao (1st
ed., Lima, 1853; 2d ed., Buenos Ayres, 1807).
2 The succession of presidents and supreme chiefs of Peru from 1829 to 1844
was as follows :— 1829-38, Agustin Gamarra ; 1834-35, Luis Jose Orbegoso;
1835-36, Felipe Santiago Salaverry; 1830-39, Andres Santa Cruz ; 1S39-41, Agustiu
Gamarra ; 184] -44, Manuel Menendez.
PERU
679
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ith
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an appeal to the supreme court at Lima. Castilla retired at the
end of his term of office in 1862, and died in 1868. On 2d August
1868 Colonel Balta was elected president. Before his time the
public debt had been moderate, amounting to £4,491,042, and the
interest had been regularly paid since 1849. But Balta's govern
ment increased it to £49,000,000, the payment of the interest of
which from the ordinary revenues was simply impossible. The
creditors, as security, had the whole of the guano and nitrate de
posits assigned to them. With the vast sum thus raised President
Balta commenced the execution of public works, principally rail
roads on a gigantic scale. His period of office was signalized by
the opening of an international exhibition at Lima. He was
succeeded (2d August 1872) by Don Manuel Pardo, an honest and
enlightened statesman, who did all in his power to retrieve the
country from the financial difficulty into which it had been brought
by the reckless policy of his predecessor, but the conditions were not
capable of solution. He regulated the Chinese immigration to the
coast-valleys, which, from 1860 to 1872, had amounted to 58,606.
He paid great attention to statistics, promoted the advance of educa
tion, and encouraged literature. He was the best president Peru has
ever known, and his death in 1878 was a public calamity. On 2d
August 1876 General Prado was elected, and his term of office saw
the commencement of that calamity which has since overwhelmed
his country.1
On 5th April 1879 the republic of Chili declared war upon Peru,
the alleged pretext being that Peru had made an offensive treaty,
directed against Chili, with Bolivia, a country with which Chili
had a dispute ; but the publication of the text of this treaty made
known the fact that it was strictly defensive and contained no
just cause of war. The true object of Chili was the conquest of the
rich Peruvian province of Tarapaca, the appropriation of its valu
able guano and nitrate deposits, and the spoliation of the rest of
the Peruvian coast.
After the capture of the "Huascar" off Point Angamos on 8th
October 1879 by two Chilian ironclads and four other vessels,
the Peruvian coast was at the mercy of the invaders, and Tara
paca, surrounded by trackless deserts, yet open to the sea, though
bravely defended for some time by the Peruvian army, fell into
the hands of the enemy after the hotly-contested battle of Tarapaca
on 17th November 1879.
Chili then landed an army farther north, and on 26th May 1880
the battle of Tacna was fought, followed by the capture of the port
of Arica on 7th June. In these combats the Peruvians lost 147
officers alone. The possession of the sea enabled the Chilian ships
to desolate the whole coast ; and, the Peruvian army having been
almost annihilated, only a force of volunteers and raw recruits
could be assembled for the defence of the capital. After the two
desperately-contested battles of Chorrillos and Miraflores on the
13th and 15th of January 1881, Lima was entered on the 17th,
and was not evacuated by the invaders until 22d October 1883.
During that period General Caceres, the hero of the defence, carried
on a gallant but unequal struggle in the sierra. At last a provi
sional Government, under General Iglesias, signed a treaty with the
Chilians on 20th October 1883, by which the province of Tarapaca
was ceded to the conquerors, Tacna and Arica were to be occupied
by the Chilians for ten years, and then a vote by plebiscitum is to
decide whether they are to belong to Peru or Chili ; and there are
clauses respecting the sales of guano ; while all rights to the nitrate
deposits, which are hypothecated to the creditors of Peru, have
been appropriated by the Chilian conquerors. This most disastrous
war has brought ruin and misery on the country, and has thrown
Peru back for many years. The country contains the elements of
recovery, but it will be a work of time.
Bibliography. — The history of Ynca civilization is to be found in works con
temporaneous with the conquest or written in the succeeding century, in the
native literature, and in the modern descriptions of ruins and other remains.
The highest authority is Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose Chronicle, which bears
the stamp of impartiality, accuracy, and intelligence, was written within twenty
years of the conquest (Eng. tr. of parts i. and ii. by the Hakluyt Society,
1864, 1883). The valuable writings of the learned lawyer Polo de Ondegardo,
which discuss the polity and administrative rule of the Yncas, have been
edited in Spanish, and one of his interesting reports has been translated and
issued by the Hakluyt Society. Cristoval de Molina, the priest of the hospital
of Cuzco, has described the rites, ceremonies, and ritual of the Yncas in great
detail ; lie wrote in 1580, but his manuscript was not translated and issued (by
the Hakluyt Society) until 1873. It has since been ably edited in Spanish, at
Madrid. Miguel Balboa, who was in the country from 1566 to 1586, wrote an
excellent historical work, which is translated into French in the series of M.
Ternaux Compans. The Natural History of the Indies, by the Jesuit Jose de
Acosta, is a work of considerable repute, first published in 1590. An English
version, which originally appeared in 1604, was reprinted and edited for the
Hakluyt Society in 1880. The famous commentaries of Garcilasso de la Vega
were published in 1609 ; and the first part, relating to the Yncas, was trans
lated and issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1869. The Suma y Narration de los
Yncas, by Juan de Betanzos, is certainly one of the most valuable of the earlier
authorities, as the author was an excellent scholar, well acquainted with the
Ynca language, and a citizen of Cuzco. But most of his work is lost. The
remainder was edited in Spanish by Senor Espada in 1880. The works of
Avila, Arriaga, and Ramos give accounts of local superstitions and beliefs soon
after the conquest. In the 17th century valuable labours on Ynca history were
given out by Fernando Montesiuos, whose work was translated into French
in the Ternaux Compans edition, and by a native named Juan de Santa Cruz
Salcamayhua. The latter curious narrative has been edited in Spanish recently,
and issued in a translated form by the Hakluyt Society. General accounts of
Ynca civilization have been written by Robertson, Prescott, and Helps, none
of whom, however, were acquainted with more than a portion of these author
ities, or with the native languages, and none had been in the country. A
valuable modern work on Peruvian antiquities is the Antiguedades Peruanas,
by Don Mariano Rivero, published at^Vienna in 1851, and translated into Eng
lish at New York. Markham's Cuzco and Lima (1855) contains the results of a
personal visit to the coast and to the ruins in and round Cuzco. D'Orbigny
has described the ruins near Lake Titicaca ; but the best modern work treat
ing of architectural remains throughout Peru, as they may be seen now, is E.
G. Squier's Peru (1877). Perou et Bolivie, by Charles Wiener (1880), is also a
valuable work. The language and literature of the Yncas have been treated
of by Rivero, who gives a list of earlier grammars and vocabularies ; in the
Quiehua grammar and dictionary, and the translation of the drama of Ollantay^iy
Markham ; in Dr Von Tschudi's Kcchua Spruche (1853), and in his subsequent
critical work published in 1875 ; and by Gavino Zegarra in the fourth volume
of Collection Linguistique Americaine (1878). Don Vicente Lopez of Buenos
Ayres has also written a learned work on the subject entitled liaces Aryennes.
The career of Pizarro and the conquest of Peru are recounted in the general
histories of Herrera and Gomara, and in Garcilasso de la Vega (part ii.). The
best accounts of the first part of the conquest are by Francisco de Xeres, the
conqueror's secretary, and by Hernando Pizarro. Both have been translated
into English and issued by the Hakluyt Society. The narrative of Pedro
Pizarro has only recently been edited at Madrid, and, as the author was one of
the conquerors and an eye-witness, it is very important. Agustin de Zarate,
who was employed in Peru very soon after the conquest, wrote a history which
is valuable, especially the latter portion relating to events of which he was an
eye-witness. The history of the Quito war by Cieza de Leon remained in
manuscript until 1877, when it was admirably edited by Senor Espada. These
authorities (excepting the last) were made use of by Robertson, Prescott, and
Helps. But none of the three brings the narrative down to the conclusion of
the civil wars in Peru and the settlement of the country. An account of the
last rebellion, led by Francisco Hernandez Giron, and of the final settlement, is
given by the Palencian Diego Fernandez in his history of Peru (Seville, 1571).
There is no translation of this work. There is no history of the colonial period ;
there are, however, abundant materials for it in the laws and ordinances, in the
detailed reports of successive viceroys, in the histories of religious orders, and in
innumerable memoirs, biographies, and reports both printed and in manuscript.
Stevenson, in his narrative (3 vols., 1823), gives some account of the last years
of viceregal government. A mass of documents relating to the great rebellion
of the Ynca Tupac Amaru was published by Don Pedro de Angelis at Buenos
Ayres in 183G. The work of Don Gregorio Funes, dean of Cordova, published
in 1817, contains further information, and the diary of the governor of La Paz,
while besieged by the Indians, will be found in Temple's Travels in Pent.
There are narratives of the rebellion in the Voyage dans le nord de Bolivie by
Weddell, and in the Travels in Peru and India (1862) by Markham. The events
which led to the final achievement of Peruvian independence have been traced
out in an interesting work by Don Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna, entitled La
Historia de la Independencia del Peru, 1809-1819 (Lima, 1860). The events of
the war of independence are narrated by the Spaniards Garcia Camba and
Terrazas, and in English in the charming Memoirs of General Miller, and, as
regards naval affairs, in the autobiography of the earl of Dundonald. Three
volumes of the history of the republic have been published by Dr Don Paz
Soldan. There are useful materials for history in the two anonymous volumes
published in 1858 and signed " Pruvoneua," in the lives of Lamar by Villaran,
of Salaverry by Bilbao, and in the history of the campaign of Yungay by
Placencia. The works of Colonel Espinosa, especially his Diccionario liepub-
licano, and of Dr Vijil are also important. Histories of the war between Peru
and Chili have been hurriedly published by two Chilians, Diego Barros Arana
and Vicuna Mackenna. The former is a mere partisan production of no value
as a history. The latter, though prejudiced, is honestly written, and is useful
as containing many original documents. Another history will be written by
Paz Soldan ; and meanwhile narratives have been published in English by
Markham, and in Italian by Caivano.
The most valuable geographical and topographical works on Peru are by
Peruvians, including the writings of Cosine Bueno and Unanue, articles in the
Mercurio Peruano, and the works already mentioned of Dr Paz Soldan. Some
papers by Haenke, Miller, Bollaert, Raimondi, Pentland, and Markham will be
found in the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society. But the most import
ant of all is the great official work by Don Antonio Raimondi, three volumes
of which have already appeared, besides the same author's geographical account
of the department of Ancachs. The natural history of Peru has been described
in the German works of Dr Von Tschudi, and briefly in the English translation
of his travels (1847). The first great work on Peruvian botany was the Flora
Peruvlana by Riuz and Pavon, followed by the Chloris Andina of Dr Weddell,
which forms two volumes of the great work of Castelnau. In his Quinologie
Weddell describes the quinine-yielding chinchona trees of Peru and Bolivia,
and further information on the chinchona genus, as well as on coca cultivation,
Cuzco maize, and quinoa, will be found in Markham's Peruvian Bark (1880).
Besides the works already mentioned, Dr A. Smith published a book giving
useful information respecting the climate of Lima and other parts of Peru
entitled Peru, as it is (1839) ; and there are some other books of travel of no
special value. (C. R. M.)
PERU, a city of the United States in La Salle county,
Illinois, lies 68 miles above Peoria at the head of naviga
tion on the Illinois river, is a station on the Chicago, Eock
1 The succession of presidents of Peru, since the establishment of
peace by Castilla in 1844, has been as follows :— 1845-51, Ramon
Castilla; 1851-55, Josu Rufino Echenique ; 1855-62, Ramon Castilla ;
1862-63, Miguel San Roman (died 3d April 1863) ; 1863-65, Jose
Antonio Pezet (vice-president); 1865-68, Mariano Ignacio Prado;
Island, and Pacific Railroad, and is connected by a tramway
(1 mile) with La Salle, the terminus of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal. Flour-mills, a plough-factory, and zinc-
works are among the chief industrial establishments ; coal-
1868-72, Jose Balta ; 1872-76, Manuel Pardo ; 1876-79, Mariano
Ignacio Prado ; 1879-81, Nicolas de Pierola (supreme chief) ; 1881
(12th March), Francisco Garcia Calderon ; 1883 (20th October),
General Iglesias.
680
P E R — P E R
mining is largely prosecuted in the vicinity; and 125,000
tons of ice are yearly despatched to the southern markets.
The population was 3132 in 1860 and 4632 in 1880
(township, 5053).
PERUGIA, a city of Italy, the chief town of the pro
vince of Perugia (formerly Umbria), lies 1550 feet above
the sea on a beautiful and green-clad hill, which affords a
magnificent view over a wide sweep of the Apennines and
the great Umbrian plain through which the Tiber flows.
The railway station at the foot of the ascent, more than a
mile from the city-gate, is 48^ miles south-east of Arezzo
and 152 miles north of Rome. The walls, which follow a
very irregular ground-plan, have a circuit of 8300 yards,
and the length from Sant' Angelo in the north-west to
Porta San Costanzo in the south-east is 2500 yards. Of
the forty-two towers which could be counted in the 14th
century only three or four — the Torre degli Scalzi, &c. —
remain ; but away from the line of the present enceinte
there are several relics of the ancient Etruscan and Roman
fortifications, notably the so-called arch of Augustus, a
magnificent gateway in the Piazza Grimana, with the
ancient inscription AVGVSTA PERVSIA on the archivolt
and a beautiful Renaissance loggia boldly crowning one
of its towers. The Cittadella Paolina— a great fortress
erected by Paul III. on a site previously occupied by ten
churches, two monasteries, the palaces of the Baglioni, and
a number of private houses — was destroyed by the citizens
in 1848, and its place has been partly taken by a substan
tial block of public offices (the museum, &c.). In modern
Perugia the great centre of interest is the Piazza del
Duomo at the north end of the Corso. On one side stands
the cathedral of San Lorenzo, a Gothic structure of the
14th and loth centuries, in the plan of a Latin cross; on
the other side is the Palazzo Pubblico, presenting a fine
Gothic f agade of the first half of the 1 4th century with the
figures of the Perugian griffin and the Guelf lion above
the outside stair ; and in the centre rises the great marble
fountain constructed about 1277 by Bevignate, Frate
Alberto (both Perugians), and Boninsegna (a Venetian), and
adorned by statues and statuettes sculptured by Niccolo
and Giovanni Pisano. The cathedral contains the burial-
place of the three popes, Innocent III., Urban IV., and
Martin IV., and a reputed relic of great celebrity in Italy —
the Virgin's wedding-ring ; and at the north-west corner,
in the Piazza del Papa, is a sitting statue l of Pope Julius
III. by Vincenzio Danti, erected about 1555 by the people
of Perugia in gratitude for the restoration of their civic
privileges. On the decoration of the Sala del Cambio or
old exchange, contiguous to the Palazzo Pubblico, PERU
GINO (q.v.) put forth the full force of his genius. Most of
the movable paintings for which Perugia is famous have
since 1863 been collected in the Pinacoteca Vannucci,
established in the same Monte Morcino monastery of the
Olivetans which now accommodates the university ; besides
a considerable number of pieces by Perugino, there are
.specimens of Pinturicchio, Niccol6 Alunno, Bonfigli, <fcc.
This centralization has somewhat impaired the interest of
several of the churches; but others remain with undimi-
nished wealth. San Domenico, a Gothic edifice originally
designed by Giovanni Pisano, but rebuilt in 1632, contains
that artist's magnificent monument of Pope Benedict XL,
and in its east front a beautiful stained -glass window by
Bartolommeo da Perugia. San Pietro de' Casinensi (out
side the Porta Romana) is a basilica with a triple nave,
founded in the beginning of the llth century by Vincioli,
and remarkable for its conspicuous spire, its granite and
marble columns, its walnut stall-work designed by Raphael,
and its numerous pictures (by Perugino, Parmigiano, Ra-
phael, &c.). The Chiesa Nuova (formerly San Giovanni
1 See Hawthorne's description in the Marble Faun.
Rotondo) possesses the tombs of Baldassare Ferri, the
Perugian musician, and Vermiglioli, the leading Perugian
antiquary. The university, which is not one of the " royal
universities," though it dates from 1307 and has faculties
of law, science, and medicine, numbers only seventy-nine
students (1881-82). Other educational and benevolent
institutions are a botanical garden, a meteorological obser
vatory, a commercial library founded in 1582 by Prospero
Podiani,2 the Santa Margherita lunatic asylum, and the
hospital of Santa Maria. Woollens, silks, wax candles, and
liqueurs are manufactured on a small scale. The popula
tion of the city was 16,708 in 1871, and 17,395 in 1881 ;
that of the commune 49,503 and 51,354 respectively.
A notice of ancient Perugia (Perusia) has been given under
ETRURIA, vol. viii. p. 635. After the disasters of the Perugian
war (41 B.C.) the city was rebuilt by Augustus and took the title
Augusta ; and at a later date it became a regular colony, Colonia
Vibia. Its recovery from the Goths by Belisarius in 537, its pro
tracted siege and sack by Totila (549), its restoration to the Eastern
empire by Narses in 552, and its long occupation by the Lombards
are the main points in the history of Perugia previous to the 9th
century. At that time, with the consent of Charles the Great and
Louis the Pious, it passed under the supremacy of the popes ; but
for many centuries the papal authority existed rather in name than
in reality, and the city continued to maintain an independent and
enterprising life, warring against its enemies and subduing many
of the neighbouring lands and cities, — Foligno, Assisi, Spoleto,
Montepulciano, &c. It remained true for the most part to the
Guelfs. On various occasions the popes found a personal asylum
within its walls, and it was the meeting -place of the conclaves
which elected Honorius II. (1124), Honorius IV. (1285), Celestine
V. (1294), and Clement V. (1305). But Perugia had no mind
simply to subserve the papal interests. At the time of Rienzi's
unfortunate enterprise it sent ten ambassadors to pay him honour ;
and, when papal legates sought to coerce it by foreign soldiery,
or to exact contributions, they met with vigorous resistance. In
the 15th century the real power, after passing from despot to
despot, was at last concentrated in the Baglioni family, who, though
they had no legal position as rulers or magistrates, defied all other
authority, and filled the streets of the city with their broils and
butcheries. Gian Paolo Baglioni was lured to Borne in 1520, and
beheaded by Leo X. ; and in 1534 Rodolfo, who had slain a papal
legate, was defeated by Pier Luigi Farnese, and the city, captured
and plundered by his soldiery, was deprived of its privileges and
given over to the "worse tyranny of priests and bastards." In
1797 Perugia was occupied by the French ; in 1832, 1838, and
1854 it was visited by earthquakes ; in May 1849 it was seized by
the Austrians ; and, after a futile insurrection in 1859, it was finally
united, along with the delegation, to Piedmont in 1860.
See B. Rossi Scotti, Guida di Perugia ; Bonazzi, Storla di Perugia (1875, &c.) ;
J. A. Symonds, Sketches in Greece and Italy (1874).
PERUGINO, PIETRO (1446-1524), whose correct family
name was VANNUCCI, one of the most advanced Italian
painters immediately preceding the era of Leonardo da
Vinci and Raphael, was born in 1446 at Citta della Pieve
in Umbria, and belongs to the Umbrian school of painting.
The name of Perugino came to him from Perugia, the chief
city of the neighbourhood. Pietro was one of several
children born to Cristoforo Vannucci, a member of a re
spectable family settled at Citth, della Pieve. Though
respectable, they seem to have been poor, or else, for some
reason or other, to have left Pietro uncared for at the
opening of his career. Before he had completed his ninth
year the boy was articled to a master, a painter at Perugia.
Who this may have been is very uncertain ; the painter is
spoken of as wholly mediocre, but sympathetic for the
great things in his art. Benedetto Bonfigli is generally
surmised ; if he is rejected as being above mediocrity,
either Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or Niccolo da Foligno may
possibly have been the man. Pietro painted a little at
Arezzo ; thence he went to the headquarters of art,
Florence, and frequented the famous Brancacci Chapel in
the church of the Carmine. It appears to be sufficiently
established that he studied in the atelier of Andrea del
Verrocchio, where Leonardo da Vinci was also a pupil.
He may have learned perspective, in which he particularly
See the curious history in The Fortnightly Review, 1866.
PERUGINO
681
excelled for that period of art, from Pietro della Francesca.
The date of this first Florentine sojourn is by no means
settled ; some authorities incline to make it as early as
1470, while others, with perhaps better reason, postpone
it till 1479. Pietro at this time was extremely poor, and
his prospects of rising in his art, save by the exercise of
incessant diligence day and night, were altogether dim ;
he had no bed, but slept on a chest or trunk for many
months, and, bent upon making his way, resolutely denied
himself every creature-comfort.
Gradually Perugino rose into notice, and in the course
of some years he became e'xtremely famous not only
throughout all Italy but even beyond her bounds. He
was one of the earliest Italian painters to practise oil-
painting, in which he evinced a depth and smoothness of
tint which elicited much remark ; he transcended his
epoch in giving softness to form and a graceful spacious
ness to landscape-distances, and in perspective he applied
the novel rule of two centres of vision. The Florentine
school advanced in amenity under his influence. Some of
his early works were extensive frescos for the Ingesati
fathers in their convent, which was destroyed not many
years afterwards in the course of the siege of Florence ;
he produced for them also many cartoons, which they
executed with brilliant effect in stained glass. Though
greedy for gain, his integrity was proof against temptation;
and an amusing anecdote has survived of how the prior of
the Ingesati doled out to him the costly colour of ultra
marine, and how Perugino, constantly washing his brushes,
obtained a surreptitious hoard of the pigment, which he
finally restored to the prior to shame his stingy suspicious-
ness. Another (and possibly apocryphal) anecdote, to show
that he was not incapable of rising superior to all sordid
considerations, is that he painted some excellent frescos
for the oratory annexed to S. Maria de' Bianchi and would
only accept an omelette as a gratuity. A third anecdote
(but it belongs to a late period of his life) is that, as he
would trust no one, he was accustomed to carry his money
about with him in travelling after he had received a pay
ment, and on one occasion was robbed and had a narrow
escape of his life ; eventually, however, the bulk of the
money was recovered. A good specimen of his early style,
in tempera, is the circular picture in the Louvre of the
Virgin and Child enthroned between Saints.
Perugino returned from Florence to Perugia, and thence,
towards 1483, he went to Rome. The painting of that
part of the Sixtine Chapel which is now immortalized by
Michelangelo's Last Judgment was assigned to him by
the pope ; he covered it with frescos of the Assumption,
the Nativity, and Moses in the Bulrushes. These works
were ruthlessly destroyed to make a space for his suc
cessor's more colossal genius, but other works by Perugino
still remain in the Sixtine Chapel, — Moses and Zipporah
(often attributed to Signorelli), the Baptism of Christ, and
Christ giving the keys to Peter. This last work is more
especially noted, and may be taken as a typical example
both of Perugino's merits and of his characteristic defects,
— such as formal symmetry of composition, set attitudes,
and affectation in the design of the extremities. Pintu-
ricchio accompanied the greater Umbrian to Rome, and
was made his partner, receiving a third of the profits ; he
may probably have done some of the Zipporah subject.
Pietro, now aged forty, must have left Rome after the
completion of the Sixtine paintings in 1486, and in the
autumn of that year he was in Florence. Here he figures
by no means advantageously in a criminal court. In
July 1487 he and another Perugian painter named
Aulista di Angelo were convicted, on their own confession,
of having in December waylaid with staves some one (the
name does not appear) in the street near S. Pietro
Maggiore. Perugino limited himself, in intention, to
assault and battery, but Aulista had made up his mind for
murder. The minor and more illustrious culprit was fined
ten gold florins, and the major one exiled for life. The
next recorded incident in his career is also not wholly
honourable to Perugino, — that of his undertaking but not
fulfilling a contract to paint in Orvieto ; as the commission
fell through we need not pursue the details.
Between 1486 and 1499 Perugino resided chiefly in
Florence, making one journey to Rome and several to
Perugia. He had a regular shop in Florence, received a
great number of commissions, with proportionate gain and
fame, and continued developing his practice as an oil-
painter, his system of superposed layers of colour being
essentially the same as that of the Van Eycks. One of
his most celebrated pictures, the Pieta in the Pitti Gallery,
belongs to the year 1495. From about 1498 he became
increasingly keen after money, frequently repeating his
groups from picture to picture, and leaving much of his
work to journeymen. In 1499 the guild of the Cambio
(money-changers or bankers) of Perugia asked him to
undertake the decoration of their audience-hall, and he
accepted the invitation. This extensive scheme of work,
which may have been finished within the year 1500, com
prised the painting of the vault with the seven planets and
the signs of the zodiac (Perugino doing the designs and
his pupils most probably the executive work), and the
representation on the walls of two sacred subjects — the
Nativity and Transfiguration — the Eternal Father, the
four Virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Forti
tude, Cato as the emblem of wisdom, and (in life-size)
numerous figures of classic worthies, prophets, and sibyls.
On the mid-pilaster of the hall Perugino placed his own
portrait in bust-form. It is probable that Raphael, who
in boyhood, towards 1496, had been placed by his uncles
under the tuition of Perugino, bore a hand in the work of
the vaulting ; but, besides Raphael, the master had many
and distinguished scholars acting as his assistants. The
Transfiguration in this series has often been spoken of as
the latest work of eminent excellence produced by Peru
gino, and from about 1500 he declined in a marked degree;
this, however, is not to be accepted as true without some
qualification, as we shall see in the sequel. It may have
been about this time (though some accounts date the event
a few years later) that Vannucci married a young and
beautiful wife, the object of his fond affection ; he loved
to see her handsomely dressed, and would often deck her
out with his own hands. He was made one of the priors
of Perugia in 1501.
While Perugino, though by no means stationary or
unprogressive as an executive artist, was working con
tentedly upon the old lines, and carrying out, almost to
their highest .point of actual or potential development, the
ancient conceptions of subject-matter, treatment, style,
and form, a mighty wave of new art flooded Florence with
its rush and Italy with its rumour. Michelangelo, twenty-
five years of age in 1500, following after and distancing
Leonardo da Vinci, was opening men's eyes and minds to
possibilities of achievement as yet unsurmised. Vannucci
in Perugia heard Buonarroti bruited abroad, and was
impatient to see with his own eyes what the stir was all
about. In 1504 he allowed his apprentices and assistants
to disperse, and he returned to Florence. It was not in
the nature of things that he should simply swell the chorus
of praise. Though not openly detracting, he viewed with
jealousy and some grudging the advances made by Michel
angelo ; and Michelangelo on his part replied, with the
intolerance which pertains to superiority, to the faint
praise or covert dispraise of his senior and junior in the
art. On one occasion, in company, he told Perugino to
XVIII. — 86
682
P E R — P E R
his face that he was "a bungler in art" (goffo nell' arte).
This was not to be borne, and Vannucci brought, with
equal indiscretion and ill success, an action for defamation
of character. Put on his mettle by this mortifying trans
action, he determined to show what he could do, and he
produced the chef-d'oeuvre of the Madonna and Saints for
the Certosa of Pa via. The constituent parts of this noble
work have now been sundered. The only portion which
remains in the Certosa is a figure of God the Father with
cherubim. An Annunciation has disappeared from cog
nizance ; three compartments — the Virgin adoring the
infant Christ, St Michael, and St Raphael with Tobias —
are among the choicer treasures of the London National
Gallery. The current story that Raphael bore a hand in
the work is not likely to be true. This was succeeded in
1505 by an Assumption, in the Cappella dei Rabatta, in
the church of the Servi in Florence. The painting may
have been executed chiefly by a pupil, and was at any
rate a failure : it was much decried ; Perugino lost his
scholars; and towards 1506 he once more and finally
abandoned Florence, going to Perugia, and thence in a
year or two to Rome.
Pope Julius II. had summoned Perugino to paint the
Stanza in the Vatican, now called that of the Incendio
del Borgo; but he soon preferred a younger competitor,
that very Raphael who had been trained by the aged
master of Perugia ; and Vannucci, after painting the
ceiling with figures of God the Father in. different glories,
in five medallion-subjects, found his occupation gone ; he
retired from Rome, and was once more in Perugia from
1512. Among his latest works one of the best is the
extensive altar-piece (painted between 1512 and 1517) of
S. Agostino in Perugia; the component parts of it are
now dispersed in various galleries.
Perugino's last frescos Avere painted for the monastery
of S. Agnese in Perugia, and in 1522 for the church of
Castello di Fontignano hard by. Both series have dis
appeared from their places, the second being now in the
South Kensington Museum. He was still at Fontignano
in 1524 when the plague broke out, and he died. He was
buried in unconsecrated ground in a field, the precise spot
now unknown. The reason for so obscure and unwonted
a mode of burial has been discussed, and religious scepti
cism on the painter's own part has been assigned as the
cause ; the fact, however, appears to be that, on the sudden
and widespread outbreak of the plague, the panic-struck
local authorities ordained that all victims of the disorder
should be at once interred without any waiting for religious
rites. This leads us to speak of Perugino's opinions on
religion. Vasari is our chief, but not our sole, authority
for saying that Vannucci had very little religion, and was
an open and obdurate disbeliever in the immortality of
the soul. Gasparo Celio, a painter of the 16th century,
cites Niccolo delle Pomarance (whose wife was related to
Perugino's wife) as averring that the aged master on his
deathbed rejected the last sacraments, and refused to
confess, saying he was curious to know the final fate of
an unconfessed soul, and therefore he was buried in uncon
secrated ground. For a reader of the present day it is
easier than it was for Vasari to suppose that Perugino
•may have been a materialist, and yet just as good and
laudable a man as his orthodox Catholic neighbours or
brother-artists; still there is a sort of shocking discrepancy
between the quality of his art, in which all is throughout
Christian, Catholic, devotional, and even pietistic, and
the character of an anti-Christian contemner of the doctrine
of immortality. It is difficult to reconcile this discrepancy,
and certainly not a little difficult also to suppose that
Vasari was totally mistaken in his assertion ; he was born
twelve years before Perugino's death, and must have talked
with scores of people to whom the Umbrian painter had
been well known. "We have to remark that Perugino
in 1494 painted his own portrait, now in the Uffizi Gallery
of Florence, and into this he introduced a scroll lettered
"Timete Deum." That an open disbeliever should inscribe
himself with " Timete Deum " seems odd ; one's first im
pression is either that he cannot have been a disbeliever
or else that he must have been a hypocrite as well, which,
however, is still inconsistent with Vasari's account of the
facts. It is possible, after all, that a man might fear God
and yet have no confidence in immortality, or in many of
the things which seemed in 1494 to be essentials of religion.
The portrait in question shows a plump face, with small
dark eyes, a short but well-cut nose, and sensuous lips ; the
neck is thick, the hair bushy and frizzled, and the general
air imposing. The later portrait in the Cambio of Perugia
shows the same face with traces of added years. Perugino
died possessed of coniderable property, leaving three sons.
The character of Perugino's art is, as we have just said, through
out religious, although, in some instances already indicated, he
strayed outside the circle of Christian history and tradition. His
art is reserved, self-contained, not demonstrative, yet conspicuously
marked by a tendency to posing and balance, and to little artifices
wherein the graceful merges in the affected. He had a particular
mastery over abstracted purism of expression ; this appears con
stantly in his works, and, while it carries the finer of them to a
genuinely ideal elevation, it leaves upon many a mincing and
mawkish taint which it is not easy to view without some impatience.
Perugino did not recruit his strength from study of the antique ;
his drawing, though frequently solid and able, is unequal, and
there is a certain littleness of style in his forms, especially (with
rare exceptions) the nude. His technical attainment was excep
tional, and in colour he may be regarded as standing first in his
generation in central Italy if we except Francia. Perugino does
not leave upon us the impression of personal greatness ; he does
not seem to have had struggling within him a profounder message
to convey than he succeeded in conveying. There is neither
massiveness of thought, nor novel initiative, nor glowing intensity,
though there is some fervour of inspiration. Still, within his own
province, he is a rare and excellent master.
Among the very numerous works of Perugino a few not already
named require mention. Towards 1501 he produced the picture;
of the marriage of Joseph and the Virgin Mary (the "Sposalizio")
now in the museum of Caen ; this served indisputably as the
original, to a great extent, of the still more famous Sposalizio
which was painted by Raphael in 1504, and which forms a leading
attraction of the Brera Gallery in Milan. A vastly finer work
of Perugino's than his Sposalizio is the Ascension of Christ, which,
painted a little earlier for S. Pietro of Perugia, has for years past
been in the museum of Lyons ; the other portions of the same
altar-piece are dispersed in other galleries. In the chapel of the
Disciplinati of Citta della Pieve is an Adoration of the Magi, a
square of 21 feet containing about thirty life-sized figures ; this
was executed, with scarcely credible celerity, from the 1st to the
25th March (or thereabouts) in 1505, and must no doubt be in
great part the work of Vannucci's pupils. In 1507, when the
master's work had for years been in a course of decline and his
performances were generally weak, he produced, nevertheless, one
of his best pictures — the Virgin between St Jerome and St Francis,
now in the Palazzo Penna. In S. Onofrio of Florence is a much-
lauded and much-debated fresco of the Last Supper, a careful and
blandly correct but not inspired work ; it has been ascribed to
Perugino by some connoisseurs, by others to Raphael ; it may
more probably be by some different pupil of the Umbrian master.
Our account of Perugino follows in its main lines that given by Crowe and
Cavalca.selle in their History of Painting in Italy, vol. iii. Vasari is, as usual,
by far the most graphic narrator, but lax in his facts (though not so much so
as in several other instances). Other leading authorities are Orsini, Vita, £c.,
di Pietro Perugino e degli Scolari, 1804, and Mezzanotte, Vita, <£c., di 1'ietro
Vannucci, 183G. (W. M. R.)
PERUVIAN BARK. See CINCHONA and QUININE.
PERUZZI, BALDASSARE (1481-1536), architect and
painter of the Roman school, was born at Ancajano, in
the diocese of Volterra, and passed his early life at Siena,
where his father resided. While quite young Peruzzi went
to Rome, and there studied architecture and painting ;
in the latter he was at first a follower of Perugino. The
choir-frescos in San Onofrio on the Janiculan Hill, usually
attributed to Pinturicchio, are by his hand. One of the
first works which brought renown to the young architect
was the villa on the banks of the Tiber in Rome now
P E R — P E S
683
known as the Farnesina, originally built for the Sienese
Agostino Chigi, a wealthy banker. This villa, like all
Peruzzi's works, is remarkable for its graceful design and
the delicacy of its detail. It is best known for the frescos
painted there by Raphael and his pupils to illustrate the
stories of Psyche and Galatea. One of the loggie has
frescos by Peruzzi's own hand, — the story of Medusa, a
work of considerable decorative beauty. On account of his
success in this building Peruzzi was appointed by Leo X.
in 1520 architect to St Peter's at a salary of 250 scudi, a
handsome sum for that time ; his design for its completion
was not, however, carried out. During the sack of Rome
in 1527 Peruzzi was taken prisoner, and barely escaped
with his life, on condition of his painting the portrait of
Constable de Bourbon, who had been killed during the
siege (see Vasari). From Rome he escaped to his native
city Siena, where he was made city architect, and designed
fortifications for its defence, a great part of which still
exist. Soon afterwards he returned to Rome, where he
made designs for a palace for the Orsini family, and built
the palaces Massimi and Vidoni, as well as others in the
south of Italy. He died in 1536, and was buried by the
side of Raphael in the Pantheon.
Peruzzi was an eager student of mathematics and the
science of perspective ; he was also a fair classical scholar,
and was much influenced by the treatise of Vitruvius.
Like many of the great artists of his time, he was remark
able for the varied extent of his knowledge and skill. A
most able architect, a fair painter, and a scientific engineer,
he also practised minor arts, such as stucco-work in relief,
sgraffito, and the decorative painted arabesques which
the influence of Raphael did so much to bring into use.
His best existing works in fresco are in the Castel di Bel-
caro and the church of Fontegiusta in Siena. For Siena
cathedral he also designed a magnificent wooden organ-
case, painted and gilt, rich with carved arabesques in friezes
and pilasters ; he also designed the high altar and the
Cappella del Battista.
His chief pupil was the architect Serlio, who, in his
work on architecture, gratefully acknowledges the great
debt he owed to Peruzzi's instruction. The English
National Gallery possesses an interesting drawing by his
hand (No. 167). The subject is the Adoration of the
Magi, and it is of special value, because the heads of the
three kings are portraits of Michelangelo, Raphael, and
Titian. The Uflizi and the library at Siena contain a
number of Peruzzi's designs and drawings, many of which
are now of priceless value to the student of Roman anti
quities, as they show ancient buildings which have been
destroyed since the 16th century.
Vasari, Vita di Baldassarc Peruzzi (Milanesi's ed., vol. iv. p. 489,
1882) ; Milizia, Mcmorie degli Architetti (1781, vol. i. pp. 210-215);
Delia Valle, Lettere Sancsi (1782-86); Gaye, Cartcggio inedito
d'Artisti (1839-40); Lanzi, Storia Pittorica (1804); and Plainer,
Bcschreibung der Stadt Rom (1830-42).
PERVIGILIUM. See VIGIL.
PERVIGILIUM VENERIS, the Vigil of Venus, a short
Latin poem, in praise of spring as the season of love and
flowers. "Written professedly in early spring on the eve
of a three -nights' festival (Vigil) in honour of Venus
(probably April 1-3), it describes in warm and poetical lan
guage the annual awakening of the vegetable and animal
world in spring through the all-pervading influence of the
foam-born goddess, whose birth and connexion with Rome
and the Csesars are also touched upon. The joyous tone
which runs through the poem passes suddenly at the close
into one of lyric sadness : " The nightingale is singing,
but I am silent. When comes my spring 1 " It consists
of ninety-three verses in trochaic tetrameter catalectic
and is divided into strophes of unequal length by the re
frain, " Cras amet qui nunquam amavit ; quique amavit
eras amet." The author, date, and place of composition
are unknown. Formerly it was ascribed to Catullus, but
from its late Latinity, approximating in some points to
Italian,1 it can hardly have been earlier, and was prob
ably later, than the latter half of the 2d century A.D. It
is certainly earlier than Fulgentius (about 480-550 A.D.),
who imitated it. The references to Hybla and Etna (or
Enna), from which some have thought that the poem is
Sicilian, need be no more than poetical allusions to Sicily
as the flowery land. Virgil's description of spring (Georg.,
ii. 323-342) is imitated somewhat closely; compare especi
ally verse 62 with Virgil's 327 ; again, v. 85 is a copy of
sEneid, xi. 458. This seems to disprove Bernhardy's con
jecture that the poem is a translation from the Greek.
From its exuberant rhetoric Orelli ascribes it to an African
poet of the 3d or 4th century A.D. Biicheler places it
between Florus and Nemesianus, i.e., in the 2d or 3d
century A.D. Wernsdorf suggested as its author Annius
Florus in the time of Hadrian ; Heidtmann conjectured
Appuleius ; Baehrens refers it to Tiberianus, a poet of the
4th century. But there are not data enough to determine
the authorship.
The Pcrvigilium is preserved in the Paris MSS. 10318 (Codex
Salmasianus] and 8071 (Codex Thuancus or Pithocanus); the former
(the better of the two) belongs to the 7th or beginning of the 8th
century, the latter to the 9th or beginning of the 10th. They
differ too much to have been copied from the same original. The
age of the MSS. refutes the theory, sometimes broached, that the
poem is modern. The first edition was published by Lipsius at
Antwerp in 1611 ; and there are modern editions by "Wernsdorf
(Poctse. Latini Minorcs, vol. hi.), Orelli (1832), Biicheler (1859),
Baehrens (1877). There are translations into English verse by
Thomas Stanley (1651) and Parnell, into prose by "W. K. Kelly ; a
French translation by Sanadon ; a German one by Kirchner.
PESARO, a city and seaport of Italy, the capital of
the province of Pesaro and Urbino, lies on the coast of
the Adriatic 36 miles north of Ancona and 20 1 south of
Rimini on the right bank of the Foglia, the ancient
Pisaurus. The ground on which it is built is only from 10
to 40 feet above the sea, but it is surrounded by hills, —
on the east by Monte Ardizio, on the west by Monte Accio
or San Bartolo, which derives one of its names from the
Roman dramatist L. Attius, born and buried on the spot.
The city walls, which were strengthened by bastions and
moat and made a circuit of about a mile, were in 1830
transformed into a public promenade. Besides the ancient
cathedral of the Annunciation (restored since 1860) the more
conspicuous buildings are the prefecture (a palace originally
erected by the Sforza, and restored by Francesco Maria
della Rovere), the seminary, the Rossini theatre (opened
in 1818), the fortress or Rocca Costanzia (built by Costanzo
Sforza in 1474), the harbour-fort (due to Napoleon I.), and
the large lunatic asylum. Rossini, who was a native of
Pesaro, left all his fortune to found a musical lyceum in
the city, and his statue by Marochetti (1864) stands near
the railway station. The Olivieri library (established by
the antiquary of that name, author of Marmora Pisaurensia,
<fcc.) contains about 14,000 volumes, MSS. of Tasso's, <tc.,
various antiquities, and a fine collection of majolica from the
old Urbino manufactory. Among the industries of Pesaro
are the growing, spinning, and weaving of silk, tanning,
iron-founding, and the manufacture of glass and pottery.
The harbour is of no great importance, and the aggregate
burden of the 437 vessels entering or clearing in 1883
was less than 12,000 tons. The population of the city
and port in 1870 was 11,952 and in 1880 12,913; that
of the commune 19,691 and 20,909 in the same years.
The ancient Pisaurum in the territory of the Galli Senones
became a Ptoman colony in 184 B.C. and soon grew to be a flourish-
1 Thus de is very frequently used like Italian di ; totw (v. 22) in
stead of omnes, Ital. tutti ; and inane (ib. ) in the sense of " to-morrow,"
Ital. domani.
684
P E S — P E S
ing town. It was recruited with a body of military colonists by
Mark Antony, and after the disastrous earthquake of 31 B.C. re
ceived another accession from Augustus and took the title Colonia
Julia Fclijc. Destroyed by Vitiges the Goth, it was restored and
strengthened by Belisarius, and afterwards along with Ancona, Fano,
Sinigaglia, and Rimini formed the Pentapolis Maritima. In the
course of the 13th century Pesaro was sometimes under the govern
ment of the popes, sometimes under that of the emperors ; but
the Malatesta family, which first took root in the city about 1285,
gradually became the real masters of the place. In 1445 they sold
their rights to Francesco Sforza ; and in 1512, through the intluence
of Julius II., the Sforza were supplanted by his nephew Francesco
Maria, duke of Urbino. Leo X. took the city away from Francesco
and gave it to Lorenzo de' Medici ; but on Lorenzo's death Fran
cesco was restored and Pesaro became the ordinary residence of the
dukes of LTrbino till the death of Francesco Maria II. in 1631,
when it reverted to the States of the Church. It has formed part
of the present kingdom of Italy since 1860. Terenzio Mamiani
della Rovere, poet and statesman, was born at Pesaro in 1800.
PESHAWAR,1 or PESHAWUR, a district in the lieu
tenant-governorship of the Punjab, with an area of 2504
square miles, situated in the extreme north-western corner
of British India, between 33° 50' and 34° 30' N. lat. and
71° 30' and 72° 50' E. long. Except on the south-east,
where the Indus flows, it is encircled by mountains, and
is bounded on the N. by the Mohmand, Utman Khel, and
other hills, E. by the Indus, S. by the Khatak and Afridi
Hills, and W. by the Khyber Mountains. It forms an
important part of the frontier of the Punjab, being crossed
by the great route from India to Cabul. The only hills
of any consequence in the district are the Khatak Hills, a
continuation of the Afridi Hills, which are themselves a
spur of the great Sufed Koh range. The plain consists of
alluvial deposits of silt and gravel, and throughout the
whole valley its surface is studded Avith water- worn shingle
or boulders. The district presents, especially in its western
and central portions, an appearance of great beauty : it is
covered with luxuriant vegetation, which is relieved by
the meanderings of the numerous canals and set off by its
bare stony surroundings and the far distant snowy peaks.
Its rivers, all tributaries of the Indus, are the Cabul, Swat,
Bara, Budni, and Ludnai. The district is naturally fertile
and well watered, and the valley is entirely drained by the
Cabul river. The temperature ranges from a minimum of
17° in February to a maximum of 137° in July. The
average rainfall is about 14 inches.
According to the census of 1881 the population was 592,674, of
whom 329,524 were males and 263,150 females. The people are
mostly Afghans and almost entirely of the Moslem religion, no
less than 546,117 being Mohammedans, while Hindus numbered
only 39,321, Christians 4088, Sikhs 3103, and others 45. The
largest tribe in the district is that of the Pathans, of whom in
1881 there were 276,656. The Moslem portion of the population
is occupied chiefly in agriculture and the rearing of cattle, while
the Hindus are engaged in trade as bankers, merchants, and shop
keepers. The prevailing languages are the Urdu and Pushtu.
Out of the total area of 2504 square miles 1414 are cultivated
and 470 are returned as cultivable. The chief products are wheat,
barley, maize, millet. Peshawar also produces some of the finest
rice in the world, known as "Bara rice," named after the river by
which the ground yielding it is irrigated. Since the district came
into British possession its trade has increased considerably. The
principal foreign markets with which it deals are Cabul and Bok
hara ; the imports from the former are chiefly silk, nuts and fruits,
skins, timber, dyes, and spices, and from the latter gold bullion
and gold thread, which go principally to Bombay. The exports
consist mainly of piece goods, tea, fancy wares, sugar, salt, and
spices. The chief manufactures are Peshawar scarves, celebrated
throughout India for their fine texture and tasteful colouring,
leather goods, cutlery, the preparation of snuff, and a great deal
of broadcloth. The gross revenue of the district in 1882-83 was
£95,931, of which the land revenue contributed £68,201.
Peshawar in 1881 had five towns with a population exceeding
5000, namely Peshawar (see below); Nowshera, 12,963: Tangi
9037 ; Maira Parang, 8874 ; and Charsadda, 8363.
1 The division of this name comprises the three districts of Peshawar,
Kohat, and Hazara, with an area of 8381 square miles. In 1881 it
had a population of 1,181,289— males 649,509, females 531,780. By
religion 1,101,095 were Moslems, 68,992 Hindus, 6724 Sikhs, 4390
Christians, and 88 others.
History, — The first authentic record of the tribes seated about
Peshawar is in the time of Mahmud. What little is heard of them
before then points to their being a bold and independent race.
Buddhism was introduced into the district in the reign of Asoka,
263 B. c., and one of his rock edicts still exists. From the time of
Sabuktagin, governor of Khorasan, in 978 A.D. , who took possession
of the country up to the Indus, Peshawar became the scene of fierce
contests. Mahmud, his son, was the first Moslem conqueror of
Hindustan, and succeeded in converting the Pathans to the Moham
medan faith ; and this tribe remained true to him in all his subse
quent engagements with the infidels. The last decisive battle of
Mahmud with the Hindus was fought on the plains of Chacli in
Rawal Pindi, where he totally defeated Anang Pal, the last cham
pion of the Hindu creed and nationality in the north. For a
century and more after Mahmud's death (1028) Peshawar continued
to be a province of Ghazni ; and under his numerous successors it
acquired great importance, becoming the centre of their dominions,
which were extended to Lahore. Timur's invasion of India at the
close of the 13th century did not disturb the district or the tribes
about it, but a century later the Khakhai Pathans, a body of roam
ing adventurers, invaded the district in three main clans — the
Yusafzai, Gigianis, and Muhammadzai — and obtained permission
from the Dilazaks, who then held it, to settle on a portion of their
waste lands. Quarrelling with the Dilazaks, they routed them and
swept them into the neighbouring district of Hazara. The Gigianis
then settled in the fertile strip of land about the confluence of the
Swat and the Cabul ; the Muhammadzai took Hashtnagar, and the
Yusafzai the remainder of the country north of the Cabul river.
For some time these tribes remained unmolested, but in 1519 Babar,
fifteen years after his capture of Cabul, allied himself with the in
jured Dilazaks and subdued the Afghans of Peshawar. After his
death in 1530 the country was the scene of constant feuds, which
ended in the Dilazaks being completely ousted. The year 1553
marks the last immigration of Afghans into the district. In 1587
Akbar came to the throne. During the next three reigns the
valley rendered an unwilling allegiance to the central authority,
and in the reign of Aurangzeb the Pathans succeeded in freeing
themselves from Mogul supremacy. In 1738 Nadir Shah held pos
session of the district, and under the succeeding Durani dynasty
it was often the residence of the Cabul court. On the death of
Timur Shah in 1793 the throne was left to be contended for by his
sons, whose adventurous enterprises and varied fortunes form a
romantic page in Oriental history. In 1818 the Sikhs advanced
into the valley and overran the whole district to the foot of the
hills ; and the country continued to be ravaged by them until it at
last fell into their hands, when they ruled it with their usual
severity. In 1848 the district became an integral portion of British
India, and, except for its connexion with the mutiny iu 1857, there
is little else of importance to notice.
PESHAWAR, chief town in the above district, situated
in 34° 2' N. lat. and 71° 37' E. long., is about 14 miles
east of the Khyber Pass, and distant from Lahore 276
miles and from Cabul 190 miles. Its population in 1881
was 79,982 (50,322 males, 29,660 females). It is built on
a plain 1068 feet above the sea, and is surrounded by a
mud wall 10 feet high. Among the chief buildings of the
town are the Ghor Khatri, originally a Buddhist monas
tery, afterwards rebuilt as a Hindu temple, and now used
as a serai. Peshawar is commanded by a mud-fort to the
north-west, built on the ruins of Bala Hissar ; and it is
well watered, and said to be one of the best-drained cities
in the Punjab.
PESSIMISM is a word of very modern coinage, employed
to denote a mode of looking at and estimating the world,
and especially human life, which is antithetical to the
estimate designated by the term (a much older one)
" Optimism." Both terms have a general as well as a special
application. In their non-technical usage they denote a
composite and ill -defined attitude of mind which gives
preponderating importance to the good or to the evil, to
the joys or to the sorrows, respectively, in the course of
experience. The optimist sees everything in couleur de rose ;
the pessimist always turns up the seamy side of things.
But in their special and technical employment, optimism
and pessimism denote specific theories elaborated by philo
sophers, — the former to show that the world is the work
of an author of infinite goodness and wisdom, and is, all
things considered, conducive to the happiness of its sentient
life ; the latter, that existence, when summed up, has an
PESSIMISM
685
enormous surplus of pain over pleasure, and that man in
particular, recognizing this fact, can find real good only
by abnegation and self-sacrifice. As a speculative theory
optimism is chiefly associated with the Theodicee of Leib
nitz (1710), while pessimism is the work of Schopenhauer
(Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1st ed. 1819) and Von
Hartmann (Philosophic des Unhewussten, 1st ed. 1869). In
either case, however, the modern doctrines have their pre
decessors. The Stoics and the Neoplatonists were earlier
labourers in the cause of optimism, in their attempt to
exhibit the adaptations in nature for the welfare of its
supreme product man. And in the metaphysical dogmas
of Brahmanism, as well as in the practical philosophy of
the Buddhists, the creed of the modern pessimist, that the
world is vanity and life only sorrow, is found preluded
with startling sameness of tone.
j;ural Though later as a philosophical creed in the European
a in- world, pessimism is far earlier than optimism as a mood of
s.ctive feeiing in mankind at large. The ordinary human being,
so long as he is engrossed with action and identified with
his immediate present, is neither optimist nor pessimist.
But in proportion as reflexion awakens — as the fulness of
life and vigour of will give place to the exhaustion of age
or to brooding thoughtfulness — there comes a sense of
doubt as to the value of the aims on which energy is spent
and as to the issue of the struggle with nature. It is
failure that excites meditation : the obvious disproportion
between desire and attainment impresses the poet and
thinker, as they scan the page of human life, with the pre
dominant darkness of the record. The complaint is heard
from every land and in every language that the days of
man are few and evil, that the best lot of all is not to be
born at all, and next in order is the fate of those cut off
by early death. Even the great king himself (says Socrates
in the Apology, xxxii.), far less any private man, as he
reviews the course of his past life, cannot point to any
better or happier time than a night of dreamless sleep ;
and Byron bids us —
" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
Tis something better not to be."
In a religious form this pessimism appears as a belief that
man is a creature at the mercy of more potent agents, to
whom his wishes and fears are of slight importance. Called
into existence by instrumentalities over which he has no
control, he is involved in a lifelong conflict with forces,
natural and supernatural, which work out their inevitable
issues with utter indifference to his weal or woe. The
wheels of the universe are deaf to the cry of human hearts.
There is a hopeless sense of inequality in the struggle
between the petty self-centred will of man and the capri
cious and irresistible forces of nature.
This natural and instinctive pessimism is contempo
raneous with the non-theistic religions of the world, — with
all the forms of nature-worship, from the grossest and most
trivial polytheism to the abstrusest schemes of naturalistic
tethods pantheism. In such a state of belief man tries to obtain
f relief, relief from the burden of troubles in various ways. There
is first of all the vulgar method of adulation and sacrifice.
The powers of the unknown which lie ready to thwart the
plans of man, and which he conceives in the likeness of
beings with vaster forces but with passions and suscepti
bilities like his own, may be bribed by gifts or placated by
flattery. Hence the common practices of superstitious
worship. A second means of escape from the burden of
life is given by what may be called Epicureanism. While
not denying the divine, it explains away the gods of popular
religion, and at the same time rejects the attempt to trans
form the idea of necessary connexion from a principle for
the explanation of phenomena into a controlling agency at
the summit of the universe. Within the limits fixed by
his natural conditions it represents man as free to work
out his own welfare without interference from superior
powers. But it is forced to admit that the happiness
which man can obtain is after all only negative, — all plea
sure is but the withdrawal of pain, and the utmost range
of pleasure lies in varying the methods of such deliverance.
Epicureanism is pessimistic ; but it is an egoistic pessimism
which is content to aim at the maximum of painlessness
for the individual, and which ignores the metaphysics of
universal pain and of universal relief from that pain.
The third method of relief from the troubles of existence Buddh-
has a closer analogy with the pessimism of modern times. istic
It is the Buddhism of the East. Buddhism, whatever be Pessim-
ism
the uncertainty attaching to its founder's personal story, is
to all intents a shoot which has been cut off from the main
tree of Brahmanism. Its theory rests on the metaphysics
of the Brahmanical schools ; its scheme of life is one out
of the many phases of Hindu asceticism. Buddhism left
the parent stock of Hindu religion at a time when the
metaphysicians had carried up the polytheism of their
country into a unified pantheism, when the philosophy
of the Upanishads had worked up the comparatively rude
theology of the Vedic hymns into a compact doctrine.
The fundamental dogma presented by this system is the
contrast between the true self or permanent reality of the
world and the changes and plurality of the phenomenal
scene in which men live or seem to live. On the one hand
is Brahma, or Atman : from one side, the universe, the
All, and everything,— from another, the true self, the Ego,
the absolute, whose name is the No, No, because no words
can describe him, the very reality of reality. On the other
hand is the world of growth and decay, of sorrow and
death, — the world, as it was subsequently called, of illu
sion, Maya, where the semblance of firm reality is deceit
fully assumed, by the phantoms of creation. And as in the
universe, so is the contrast in the human soul. There is
the unredeemed soul, which desire and action (the will in
posse and in esse) hold fast in the bonds of changeable
existence, in the mutations of metempsychosis ; there is
also the redeemed soul, which by ascetic virtues, by renun
ciation of domestic ties, by the continued practice of self-
denial and mortification, has found its way from the world
of illusory semblances to its true and abiding self.
It is on some such conception of the world, in which
over against Brahma in his eternal quiet there stands man
suffering and yearning for relief, that Buddhism ultimately
reposes. But, while the speculative theories of the Brah-
mans put in the foreground the august mystery of the
All-one, Buddha starts from the other side of the picture,
from the actual experience of life. The four truths of
Buddhism, which are the foundation of its religious creed
and the recurring burden of its teachings, leave the meta
physical basis out of sight. All life is sorrow, says the first :
birth, age, disease, death, is sorrow ; and the cause of this
sorrow, adds the second truth, is the thirst which leads
from birth to birth, — the thirst for pleasures, for existence,
for power. The third is, that sorrow can only be removed
by the complete annihilation of desire ; and the fourth
prescribes the means of Avord and act forming the eight
parts of the way which frees from sorrow. The practical
need is everything ; the theoretical basis, the Brahma,
which the orthodox schools presented as the sole reality,
is so completely lost sight of that the modern critics are
at variance with each other as to how far the goal of
Buddhist endeavour can be described as anything positive.
That all life is pain is the one perpetual refrain of Buddh
ism. The search for pleasure is vain and ends in increased
misery. But the true Buddhist does not allow the per-
686
PESSIMISM
ception of this fact to cause, still less to perpetuate, a feel
ing of melancholy. It only urges him to have compassion
on his suffering brothers, and to look forward joyously to
the goal of release which he has set before himself.
For further details reference may be made to the article
on BUDDHISM. It is enough to say here that the chief
point of Buddhist theory is to see in all apparent being
only a process of becoming : events happen, nothing is ;
the only permanence can be but the law of their occurrence.
The cosmic philosophy of Buddha is like that of Heraclitus.
" All things flow ; nothing abides " ; only this flux of
everything serves to emphasize the fact that the happiness
of man is thereby rendered vain. The end which Buddha
seeks is the redemption of man from this toilsome world
of birth and death. It is not absorption in the unity of
Brahma, not felicity in a higher and better world. It is,
to cast off the conditions which trammel existence, the
consciousness which leads to desire and action, the body
and all its appurtenances ; it is, to attain death in life, to
have so mortified flesh and spirit that the individual can
no longer be in the ordinary sense said to exist. He has
attained, when so perfected, what is called Nirvana, " the
land of peace where transitoriness finds rest."
Religious Before discussing the development of this pessimistic
recon- ethics in modern days, it remains to notice a fourth issue
illation. from the eyil tliat ig Jn the wor^> Thig yjew of life &nd
of the universe is specially connected with Hebrew mono
theism and its later developments in Mohammedan as well
as Christian doctrine under the potent stimulus of Greek
philosophy. It is in the belief of a moral God — a good and
wise creator and governor of the universe — that the opti
mistic problem and theory finds its chief origin. \Vhen
the idea of God has been purged of its naturalism and
identified with the ideal of wisdom, goodness, and justice,
there soon arises for thinking minds the necessity of a
" theodicee,"— a justification of providence. Can the evil
and misery found upon earth, the disproportion between
merit and recompense, be explained on the hypothesis of
a wise and beneficent ruler in heaven ? One of the most
familiar and typical instances of such a feeling is given by
the book of Job. In the later times of Israel, when the
vigour of creative faith was undermined by a critical spirit,
born of bitter fates and foreign influences, voices were
heard, like those of the writer of Ecclesiastes, giving utter
ance to pessimistic doubt. The story of Job is another
and more edifying presentation of the same theme. How,
it is asked, can the misfortunes of the just man be har
monized with the idea of a righteous God ? Is suffering
the penalty of sin, and must virtue be always paid its
wages in pleasure1?
The difficulty, it is evident, arises with the perception of
the antagonism between the natural and the moral, and
implies a desire to bridge over the gulf between them.
With the gradually deepening conviction that the central
principle of the universe is a moral principle, the need is
felt for explaining the immorality (so to speak) of the
natural laws, for reconciling the unconditional imperative
of the word of duty with the indifference to right and
wrong displayed in the facts of life. Sometimes we are
referred for answer to another world, which shall compen
sate for the mistakes of the present. At other times it is
suggested that physical evil has the function of a moral
discipline, that suffering teaches nobility, that misfortunes
are blessings in disguise.
Leib- The optimism of Leibnitz is of a different cast, and goes
nitz's op- more boldly to face the real difficulty of the situation. It
timism. ^g^g against the common estimate of moral and physical
evil, and seeks to reduce them both to little more than
privations of good, — to mere absence of good, to a defect
rather than a blemish, to what is called metaphysical evil.
The world, it is admitted, is far from perfect, but it is as
good as it could be made if all the good which it contains
was to be realized. Like everything else, it is not free
from the defects of its qualities. It is, Ave may be sure,
the best of possible worlds. But this is far from saying
that it is a good world. Ignorant as we are of the limits
of what is possible, it is not for us to say that the quality
of the best, under the given circumstances, is at all distin
guishable from what is really very bad. The defence of
theism which Leibnitz thus undertook against the sceptical
suggestions of Bayle is only the common argument that
the work must be judged as a whole, that it is unfair to
pronounce judgment on an isolated event or thing apart
from the question how it is affected by its interdepend
ence. But, unfortunately, in the case before us, in the
problem of the universe, we do not know the whole, and
can only grope our way tentatively from point to point,
feebly endeavouring to forecast the plan of the total
structure.
But Leibnitz goes farther than this assertion of inter
connexion or adaptation. It is the ultimate assumption
of his argument that the forces of the universe are in the
hands of a perfectly wise intelligence, that, as in man
there is a rational power of initiation and guidance, so in
the world as a macrocosm there is a primal reason which
governs its movements and co-ordinates them to a desirable
end. The actual phases of existence only carry out in
palpable shape and successive or simultaneous manifesta
tions an ideal or rational plan, which is their original and
sufficient reason. The world at large is somewhat of a
machine, or a congeries of machines, which run down
according to their own internal and innate conditions of
existence ; but these machines are wound up by one
supreme machinist, who has predetermined the aim and
object of their combined movements. Thus the doctrine
of the pre-established harmony, while on the one hand it
is an apotheosis of logic by the emphasis it lays on the
necessary causal interdependence of the several partial
movements, is on the other hand, by its principle of suffi
cient reason — the principe du meilleur or de convenance —
a doctrine of teleology, whereby an ideal principle of de
sign interpolates the contingent and subordinates necessity
to freedom. The world is not a mere group of causes and
effects governed by the logic of contradiction and identity ;
over and above the necessitarian logic is a mind which
looks behind and before, and combines all events, not reck
lessly or necessarily, but in the bands of reciprocal subser
vience to the greatest good of which they admit.
In this argument Leibnitz is open to the criticism of
Kant, that he has passed from a legitimate conception
presiding over the synthesis of phenomena to the illegiti
mate idea of a self-subsistent and personal principle, which,
far from being a mere ideal of complete synthesis, itself
creates and predetermines that synthesis. To the logical
scientist the phenomena are merely connected by a formal
unity ; to the theist like Leibnitz this unity is identified
with a cosmical mind, an intelligent power which regulates
the evolution of things and subordinates them all to the
fulfilment of its original plan. Leibnitz thus manipulates
two ideas, the logical and the religious, as if they were
interchangeable, though in reality they lie in different
planes. The reason which at one time is treated as an
abstract principle of self-consistency is at another time
clothed in the concrete mental life associated with it
under its human aspects. Mere reason, says Aristotle, can
initiate no change ; it neither chooses nor commands, but
simply asserts. But human reason is always in the long-
run wrapped up with some aim, is always (in the technical
sense) practical, and only for moments of abstraction ever
merely theoretical. Thus the reason in the universe was
PESSIMISM
687
spoken of as God, and conceived anthropomorphically after
the pattern of human personality.
glish The optimism of Leibnitz found its well-sounding but
;ws. somewhat misleading phrase that all is for the best in this
best of possible worlds bitterly satirized in Voltaire's
Candide, and painfully commented upon by the earthquake
of Lisbon. But the real object of the Frenchman's wit
was the baser optimism of the age which sheltered its
vulgar features under the mask of the Leibnitian Theodicee.
An easy-going generation had settled down in the pleas
ing faith that their barns were rilled with good things for
many years, and that they might eat, drink, and be merry.
The creed found in England a prophet of solemn pomp in
Pope, whose Essay on Man has fixed in pregnant lines
the main half-truths of the Leibnitian theory, which the
poet had probably learned from Bolingbroke. The same
optimism appears in Shaftesbury ('"Tis good which is
predominant "), and shows its presence in Paley. Some
opposition to the current eudaemonisrn is found in the
well-weighed and all but sceptical judgments pronounced
by Butler, as well as in the cynical pessimism that tried
to raise its voice in Mandeville. But the great instance
against the comfortable view of life is the striking passage
which Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
has put in the mouth of Demea, beginning " The whole
earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted. A per
petual war is kindled amongst all living creatures," &c.
erman In Germany, under the head of Natural Theology, the
atural ordinary optimism flourished amain. The whole range of
ueo ogy. creatjon Was ransacked to show how well man had been
provided for by God. The poetry of Brockes (the translator
of Pope) is full of the theme, — the laudation of the many
gifts we owe to Providence, of the multifarious uses to
which each animal and plant can be put. It is an anthro-
pocentric optimism which thus makes man's welfare the
main end of the creation, and which, above all, finds that
welfare in what we eat and drink and wherewithal we are
clothed. The good which Leibnitz had spoken of Avas
understood as material prosperity, comfort, happiness.
God's goodness was measured by the amount of worldly
wellbeing which He bestows upon us.
tttitude The great Kant, as late as 1759, when he printed a
f Kant, short sketch On Optimism, was still inclined to keep terms
with this base caricature of a great theory, and spoke with
full agreement of that theory itself. But here as elsewhere
Hume's influence was potent upon him, and in a paper
published in 1791 (On the Failure of all Philosophical
Attempts in Theodicy] he had altered his tone. Our intelli
gence, he argues, is absolutely powerless to discover the
proportion in which the world, at least as known to us in
experience, stands to the supreme wisdom. And to the
grounds adduced to prove that the pleasures of life far
exceed its pains his reply is : take a man of sound mind,
who has lived long enough and thought enough on the
value of life to be able to form a judgment on the subject,
and ask him whether he would like to play out the game
of life once more (not on the same terms, but) on any terms
he pleases, be it only in this terrestrial world of ours, and
not in fairy land. In one direction indeed Kant may be
called optimist (or at least meliorist), — in his belief in the
ample possibilities of moral and political improvement,
and in his enthusiastic hopes for the cessation of some
chief causes of human misery.
But in one way Kant had laid the axe to the chief root
of optimism. That root is the utilitarian or eudsemonistic
theory of conduct, — the theory which seeks to explain
morality away into a sort of magnified selfishness, and
regards the authority of moral rules as due to their origin
in counsels of prudence. The moral law, said Kant, is
the one clear utterance of the Absolute. And the lesson
thus taught bore fruit. At first indeed idealism with its
optimistic interpretations returned. The double-faced
dictum of Hegel, that the real is the rational and the Hegel's
rational the real, was often understood to justify the prin- ideal °I
ciple that, whatever is, is right. The net of Hegelian timism-
thought seemed to grasp everything ; everything fell as
it were naturally into its place, and seemed to be justified
by the symmetry of its position in the logical evolution.
For in idealism we find the true home of optimism. The
world as experienced in sense and feeling is full of discords
and defects, and the more we abstract each part of the
whole into its "beggarly elements," the greater seems the
weakness and the triviality. But, when we rise in thought
to the contemplation of the unity and order, these real
discords pale before the spectacle of ideal harmony. The
formal symmetry carries the day. The corpse may be
hideous and yet the theory of the anatomist has its beauty.
The sorrows of the hero do not make impossible the plea
sure of the spectator in the drama. Just as the hardships
long ago endured are sweet to remembrance, so the indi
vidual sufferings are lost in the conception of the universal
ends they subserved. The real pain is compatible with a
formal pleasure ; reason can find commendable and good
what is torment to flesh and blood.
But, while the life-work of Hegel had been to show that
at bottom the principle of being and the principle of thought
were the same, that nature and history were the incarna
tions of reason, the succeeding philosophy of Schopenhauer
reverted to the distinction of Kant, which it emphasized,
between thought and existence. Schopenhauer dethroned Schope:
reason and claimed to have discovered the real root of that Bauer's
being which we know as an idea. This root of existence . '
is what he called Will. The source of the reality which reaiity.
we cognize — the secret essence which is objectified in the
forms of the universe as it presents itself to our concep
tions — is Will. By this Will he meant a blind but irre
sistible effort to exist, a craving of inexpugnable strength
towards life and objective being, an unconscious lusting
after the pleasure of manifesting itself as something acting
here and now. It is something less than Will, as we know
will, and yet something more than force. Under every
known kind of actions and phenomena in space-and-time —
phenomena, known by their reciprocal relations — there is an
unknown but felt something, an endless, aimless, limitless
struggle to be upraised into the light of existence. This
ultimate basis of will-force we must assume as the fact
presupposed by all specific causal explanations. But in its
generic basis the Will has no definite aim ; it is the will
to be everything in general and nothing in particular, —
the will to be, to do, to act. End or purpose supervenes
only with the rise of consciousness. Intelligence comes
forward at first as a mere organ in the service of the Will ;
it is only a means for the preservation of the individual
and the species. It is observable first in the animal, where
the purely instinctive stimuli fail to procure sufficient
material for subsistence, where the food has to be selected,
and the motions of the animal are accordingly dependent
on motives, i.e., on conceptions of objects to be attained.
It is this need which occasions the development of the
brain ; with the brain intelligence rises upon the scene ;
and thus the world now comes to see itself, not in its
reality, but in its phenomenal objectification, as the realm
of causes and effects in the element of space and time.
This conscious knowledge, which at first consists merely
in momentary and individual perceptions, attains higher
powers, as abstract and general reason, by the aid of speech.
Now intelligence, which originally came with the forma
tion of brain-tissue as a mere tool of the Will in the more
complex forms of its objectification, may rise at length,
according to Schopenhauer, to be the liberator of the
688
PESSIMISM
haner's
ethics.
human race from the restless tyrant which works in them
now, as it ere while brought them to the birth. For, firstly,
knowledge in its own character emancipates ; it lets its
possessor know that he suffers and why he suffers. Such
is the first prerogative of reason. But, secondly, in the
occasional intervals when the storm of Will is laid to rest,
the mind, instead of striving in the interests of practical
intelligence to detect the causal relations of things, can
concentrate itself exclusively on a single isolated object.
A transformation is thus accomplished whereby the object,
ceasing to be a mere particular, becomes the type-idea, the
Will and eternal form, the generic and adequate embodiment of
Art- Will in a special grade ; while, on the other hand, the in
dividual who has become absorbed in such contemplation
is no longer a mere individual, but has become the "will-
less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge." It is this
power of rising above the prosaic requirements which
science gratifies, of seeing the permanent and one reality
in the dependent and disunited phenomena of the particu
lars, which what we call Art imitates by production. The
artist produces the eternal types which the blind Will only
realizes in many imperfect and particular adumbrations ;
he conquers nature by fixing in a single image the traits
which constitute the true and permanent meaning con
fusedly presented by her in many exemplars. For the
mind which can see that idea in the natural forms, or
which beholds it in the works of art, for him who contem
plates without reference to the Will, " the wheel of Ixion
stands still ; freed from the prison-house of blind desire,
he enjoys the sabbath of aesthetic beatitude."
Schopen- But the relief obtained in art is only for blessed
moments. Perennial consolation can be found only in the
ethical life, and in an ethics of asceticism and self-sacrifice.
True life begins only when Ave have learnt that happiness
is impossible by means of gratifying the cravings of desire.
Each satisfaction of the will is only a starting-point for
fresh effort ; the achievement of the desired object sug
gests a new want. " Alles Leben ist Leiden." At every
point desires are thwarted ; even when they gain their end
the satisfaction is merely negative. The weary Titan of
humanity knows no repose ; his feeble pleasures are drops
in a sea of pain. Thus the central principle of pessimism
asserts that in the order of nature, i.e., so long as the will
to live remains unbroken, happiness in the true sense is
impossible. Life as life necessarily involves misery. No
doubt the man of the world may turn round and declare
that notwithstanding this he means to gather the rose
without the thorn. Undismayed by the analysis of the
consequences involved in will, he affirms the will to life.
Adopting the principles of the Cyrenaic hedonists, he closes
his eyes to far-reaching eventualities and lives in the
moment ; he turns life in every portion into art ; he revels
in the inspiring sense of action without care for past obli
gations and future anxieties. It is otherwise with the man
who has surveyed all the issues of things, who looks at
the net result of life as a whole and in all individuals.
For him it is a duty to deny and abjure this will to life.
He must, in other words, renounce the works of egoism
and of injustice. He must see through the illusion of the
principium indiinduationis, must recognize that his very
self, his will, is identical in essence with every creature,
even with the suffering. When he has done this, and is
in love and sympathy with all around him, " the veil of
Maya " has for him become transparent. In every way he
proceeds (over and above cultivating in active love com
passion for others) to deny the exercise of the will to life
in his individual case, in his own body. He will, above
all, according to Schopenhauer, perpetually keep the vow
of chastity ; he will by fasting and penance so mortify his
body that the will to life shall be utterly broken in him.
"And," adds Schopenhauer (§ 67), "I think I may assume
that along with the highest manifestation of will the feebler
counterpart of it in the animal kingdom would also dis
appear." Man, by ascetic mortification of the will, and by
sanctity of beneficence, becomes the redeemer even of the
rest of the animated creation.
The contrast between nature and grace, between the
physical and the moral, the life of the flesh and the life of
the spirit, stands out in these outlines as the central doctrine
of pessimism. It is in essentials the same doctrine which
was preached by Buddha, which is put into the mouth of
Socrates in the Phcedo (philosophy is a rehearsal of death :
/ieAerry/za Oavdrov) ; it is the doctrine which stands indelible
in the early archives of Christianity, and was proclaimed
as the better and more excellent way by myriads of the
noblest Christian teachers for more than ten centuries of
the church. The pessimistic ethics of Schopenhauer casts
aside the feeble compromises by which it is alternately
asserted that morality makes for happiness and happiness
is morality ; it rejects the postulates by which Kant tried
to lighten for human nature the burden of imperative
duty ; it goes behind the social sanctions which see in
good conduct acts subservient to the good of a human
community. In pessimistic ethics— and the pessimism of
Schopenhauer has essentially an ethical aim — we have the
wreck left on the wastes of time by Hegelianism. Hegel-
ianism had taught, or seemed to teach, that God was in
the beginning by Himself as a Logos, or self-evolving idea,
which uttered itself in the unconscious forms of nature, till
in the conscious spirit of man He gradually realized Him
self in moral and intellectual life, in art and religion.
Schopenhauer stripped this cycle of its first period. There
was no idea, no logical machinery, at the basis of things ;
nature began out of a blind impulse ; and it was only in
man's intelligence that the vague longing of the heaving
world knew itself to be. But that intelligence has for its
supreme aim — not, as in Hegel, to enter into and carry on
the great process Avhich is the absolute, but — to deny its
creator and annihilate the principle of being. The world
of Will, in its process of objectification, has thus given
birth to a child wThich in the fulness of time will destroy
the womb that bore it.
It will be apparent that in Schopenhauer's system we
can distinguish two parts, — the first, the doctrine of the
positivity of pain, and that life is always and only pain :
the second, the ethical condemnation of the principle of
such a world, and the method for correcting the evil which
it had introduced. In the latter lies his chief and charac
teristic achievement, — in what we may call his nietaphysic
of ethics. Man by morality (ascetical morality) is to be
the redeemer of the world. In this conviction Schopen
hauer shows himself the descendant of the metaphysical
systems of the past, which find in man the key to the
mystery of the universe. It is a strange and a weary way
of redemption which he delineates ; the cross is heavier
than humanity seems able to bear. Yet the suggestion
to deliver ourselves shows that the old belief in human
spontaneity, in the primacy of the moral principle, in the
possibility of noble deeds and of a victory over egoism,
was still vigorous in his mind. Another pessimism
neglects this ethical element altogether. To this ignoble
pessimism man is in truth only an animal like the rest,
and the distinction on which he prides himself — his moral
nature — is but a confused and illusory product of simpler
animal experiences. He has knowledge of wider range, it is
true ; but knowledge is powerless to change his nature. His
acts in every case are necessarily determined ; his fancied
freedom is found on examination to be no whit more spon
taneous than the fall of the unsupported stone. The
necessitarianism of evolution did away with the independ-
PESSIMISM
689
ent existence of morality, and reduced it to conventional
stereotyping of natural symbols, with forgetfulness and
misinterpretation of their meaning and applications.
To an age so minded the consolations of pessimism
sounded faint and unreal. They had lost the old TTOV crrw,
— the optimistic creed that man was the undisputed head
of creation. They saAV themselves no longer a select race,
favourites of God, but as engaged in the struggle for life
with thousands of other species. The role of saviour of
the world was not for them. And so, turning a deaf ear
to the high words of Schopenhauer, they sought easier con
solations in the common and casual pursuits and pleasures
in the world ; they determined to make the best of this
vale of tears,— even in Pandemonium there might be
shady spots and cool retreats. A few spirits who had
drunk more deeply at the wells of suffering, and who were
alike without the mental energy of Schopenhauer and the
comfortable inconstancy of the mass of men, could not rise
beyond the ever-present sense of the emptiness and in
felicity of life. There are many such types in literature ;
but perhaps no more perfect expression has been given to
the strange abysmal melancholy of a withered life than by
the Italian poet-scholar Leopardi. At one time dallying
lovingly with the idea of death, at another finding only
deception and illusion in love, liberty, progress, and all
human ideals, and almost always with irony, bitterness,
and hopelessness living in the sense of an inexorable
destiny, a malign nature, which calmly motions man to
destruction, Leopardi presents pessimism in its naked
terrors. For him there are no consolations, either base or
noble. Man is at the mercy of a pitiless nature ; he must
endure a thousand deaths daily. This mood of Leopardi's,
however he himself protested against the suggestion, was
unquestionably to a main extent due to the tremendous
disproportion in which his mental and aesthetic nature
stood to the circumstances of his life, and not a little to
the general political condition of his country.
When the first edition of Schopenhauer's great work
appeared in 1819 it did not attract much immediate
attention. Pessimism was in the air : the Romantic
school in Germany, and especially Heine and Lenau,
Byron in England, and Chateaubriand in France, — not to
mention many other names, — all in their several ways gave
expression to the " Weltschmerz." Yet it was not till
1844 that a second and much enlarged edition of the work
appeared, followed by a third in 1859. By this time the
doctrines of Schopenhauer had found many enthusiastic
followers, and a flood of literary works poured from the press
in criticism or support of them. With the year 1866 the
title " Pessimism " began to show itself in books which
discuss his views. And in 1869 appeared the Philosophy
of the Unconscious, by E. von Hartmann. The popularity of
this work was enormous. In the ten years which elapsed
between its publication and that of Hartmann's next
systematic work (The Phenomenology of the Moral Con
sciousness) it had -run through eight editions. The lesser
works of Hartmann, his articles in reviews, the pamphlets
by friends and opponents during the last fifteen years, are
truly named legion. The question " Is life worth living? "
has become a question of the day, to which the problems
of socialism, liberalism, and religion contribute their quota.
The novels of Turgenieff and Sacher-Masoch are full of the
ideas of Schopenhauer's pessimism.
Hartmann's first work was written when its author was
twenty-five. It bears traces of the paradox and exaggera
tion which sometimes go with youthful talent, and occa
sionally pays the tribute of imitation to the naturalistic
pruriency and sensationalism of the contemporary novel.
The style is cumbersome and pretentious. And yet its
popularity proves that its author has the faculty of directing
with no unskilful or incompetent hand the vague and in
coherent tendencies of the cultivated masses. The world
which has lost hold of, and perhaps broken with, the faith
of its fathers is on the look-out for a "Weltanschauung";
it wants to know the metaphysical inferences to be gathered
from the recent advances of scientific theory. Not merely
had Darwinism, as may be seen from the character of
HackePs Natural History of Creation, caught the public
ear more widely in Germany than in England, but the
deductions from its principles had been carried to far
greater lengths. Amid the decay of distinctively Chris
tian beliefs, and even of theism, the doctrine of pessimism
attracted a sort of religious fervour. The prevalent sense
of dissatisfaction and baffled endeavour was met by a
theory that the principle of the universe was radically per
verse, and could not be amended. And, if it be urged
that it is difficult to believe in the genuineness of a pes
simism when its professors take their ease and mirthfully
jeer the stranger who expected to find people not clad
in soft raiment nor dwelling in kings' houses, it may be
replied that pessimism is not the only temporizing creed.
The moral indignation (Entriistungs-Pessimismus) of a
Carlyle or a Juvenal, which pours its vials of scorn on the
selfish meanness of mankind, and the churchly exhibition
of the sores and frailties of human flesh and blood in
Avhich books like the De Contemptii Jfundi of Innocent III.
revel, alike overshoot their mark and leave the Avorld un
convinced of its nothingness.
It is out of place here to enter into any lengthened ex- Von
position of Hartmann's metaphysics. This world, accord- Hart-
ing to him, is the work of an Unconscious, a being which m
is at once will and intelligence, — a will urging to be and physics,
to do somewhat and an intelligence which adapts means
to ends. But the will is only instinct, and the intelligence
is the unconscious reason which guides the somnambulist
or the clairvoyant. Thus there is wisdom in the frame of
the world, but the original resolution to exist was the work
of a blind will. Reason did not prompt the initial act,
yet at every movement towards existence an unconscious
reason effectively correlates the elements into united action.
The various individuals seem indeed to be acting of them
selves : they pursue aims of their own • but they are only
puppets in the hand of nature, the unconscious intelligence
and will. Apparently, there are many agents, each in
some degree independent ; really, there is only one source
of action, the union of will and idea in instinctive adapta
tion and unwitting design.
With man at length consciousness awakes, and the pos
sibility is laid for a new relation between the two elements
in the universal principle. Knowledge, however, is not
an end in itself ; it is not enough to know the process of
the world. The consciousness which is generated at length
by the unconscious reason out of the workings of will has
its function marked out for it beforehand by its uncon
scious author. Its final purpose is to revoke the effects
of that irrational step by which the unconscious will in its
eagerness to exist dragged the idea with it in its service.
The hour of vengeance may come some day. The intelli
gence which has become conscious in man may at length
induce his will to take the backward step, to retire into
non-existence even as it erewhile rose into existence. In
that day when the force of will has been mainly accumu
lated in the province where intelligence prevails, it is prob
able that a successful act of suppression of the will to
life on the part of human reason would entail the utter
prostration and annihilation of the will to life throughout
the universe. By the act of its intelligent portion, in
which the major part both of the cosmical will and intelli
gence has been gradually accumulated, the world, as a
whole, will commit suicide,
XVIII. — 87
690
PESSIMISM
But Hartmann is not merely a metaphysician ; he pro
poses to supply inductive proof for his propositions. The
question of the preponderance of pleasure or pain in the
world is to be worked out by observation of facts and
summation of figures. So far differing from Schopenhauer,
he admits the positivity of pleasure, but maintains
nevertheless that pleasure and pain are representable by
quantities of the same denomination, prefaced respectively
by the plus or minus sign. When the accounts of debt
and credit are drawn out, it appears that the balance is
enormously on the side of pain. To him who has once
perceived the surplus of pain it is an obvious duty to
extinguish the source whence sprang the unmitigated evil.
Yet mankind in the past has shrunk from the acceptance
of this conclusion, and sought refuge in three successive
illusions: (1) the naive illusion of the natural mind that
happiness is to "be found in this present world ; (2) the
illusion that happiness, though a failure here, will be
realized in the world beyond the grave ; (3) the illusion
which puts its hopes on the amelioration of humanity in
the future history of the world. One after another these
illusions are shown to be vanity. A little taste of pleasure,
amid the insipidity and bitterness of life, is snatched by a
select few from the consolations of art and science. But
at last, as wisdom grows and the hopeless monotony of
grief is more acutely felt by the race, humanity will rise
up boldly to the last great act of despairing suicide, and
reduce the unconscious to its primeval nullity.
Von If we pass from this grandiose drama of the birth and
Hart- destruction of the universe to consider the ethical doctrine
which Hartmann supposes himself to base upon his meta
physical theory, we find ourselves on safer ground. For,
apart from the method by which he reaches it, his moral
principle is not very different from the general view on
such subjects. The basis of morality in his theory is the
relation of the individual consciousness to the Absolute
in which consists its true being. It is in this ultimate
identity of the individual with the All-one — not merely
in the preservation of his phenomenal welfare, or of the
welfare of the society he belongs to, or the furtherance
of some one ideal good — that the obligation to be moral
is to be sought. On the other hand, there is nowhere in
the universe a surplus of pleasure ; and therefore the
moral agent cannot either here or elsewhere look for happi
ness in a positive sense as the reward of his virtue. Ego
ism of every range — from the more materialistic to the
more religious pleasures — is incompatible with genuine
virtue. The aim of morality is the redemption of the
whole world from the evil into which its initial act has
plunged it. And in this act of redemption — the result
of which will not be joy, but rest, the quietude of the
universe — man by his intelligence and will is the main
worker, the fellow-worker of the Absolute ; it is by him
that God works out the redemption of himself and of the
universe. " Real existence," so closes the Phenomenology of
the Moral Consciousness, " is the incarnation of the God
head ; the world-process is the story of the Passion of the
God who has become flesh, and at the same time the way
to the redemption of Him who is crucified in the flesh; but
morality is the co-operation towards shortening this way
of suffering and redemption."
Critical- It would be vain to criticize in detail these speculations,
remarks. ou^ Of wnich a few principal points have been adduced,
and which, besides being in themselves vague, are pliable
in the hands of their author. But a few remarks may be
made on some main issues involved in the dispute. It
may be admitted in the first place that the doctrine of the
origin of existence in an a-logical principle is but an extra
vagant way of stating that the intelligence when it awakes
to consciousness finds itself in presence of another world of
nature and custom which seems irrational and antagonistic
— a world which is outside of us and seems to mock our
puny individual efforts for its improvement. Secondly, it
may be admitted that there is no evidence for the thesis
that the world was intended to suit the convenience of
man, or of any species whatever. As a matter of fact, there
is abundance of misery in the world. But, quite apart
from the reducibility of the amount by the application
of intelligent means, it seems certain that no attempt to
draw up a balance-sheet of absolute cosmic misery or hap
piness is ever likely to be successful. It is as irrational to
pronounce this to be the worst of all possible worlds as the
best. The superlatives employed in the terms " optimism "
and " pessimism " betray a passionate estimate of things.
Life, one has said, would be tolerable but for its pleasures.
Even those who, like Leopardi, have declared themselves
in love with death, show, by still electing to live, that life
has something not measurable by pleasures, yet chosen
even amid mental tortures and extreme ill -health. As
Aristotle said long ago, we are not unbiassed judges in re
Pleasure v. Pain. Thirdly, if it were worth while, it might
be urged that the main terms of the pessimists are ex
tremely vague. The " Will " and the " Unconscious " can
not be tied down to a definite meaning without losing their
power ; the contrast between the positivity and negativity
of pleasure and pain shows an ignorance of logic ; and,
above all, the habit of transferring the terms of religion
to express what are supposed to be analogous ideas in
pessimistic metaphysics is misleading.
The pessimistic theories of modern times are in part a
commendable protest against the common compromises
which slur over the antithesis between the moral and the
natural. They show tolerably conclusively that the world
is not a felicific institution, and that he who makes happi
ness the aim of his life is on the wrong tack. But, when
they proceed to dogmatize that existence has a root of
bitterness and life is a burden of pain, they fall into the
common error of exaggerating a statement relatively true
into an absolute principle. You cannot tell if life is worth
living, so long as life is held to be the sum or difference
of pains and pleasures. If pains and pleasures were only
and always such, the argument might be admitted ; if they
were permanent real entities, not liable to be transformed
into each other, not constantly associated in the same act, it
might be possible to treat them as ultimate and irreversible
standards for our estimate of life and the guidance of our
conduct. If pleasure and pain are unequally and unfairly
distributed, it is probable that this is a fault which human
agency can cure to an unspeakable degree, quite without
the desperate remedy of self-torture or cosmic suicide. If
pessimism can teach the world that the highest reward of
virtue is self-respect, and that there is no pleasure available
anywhere to bribe us to be good, it has done well. It has
also done well if it points out the barriers to happiness in
this world, so long as these barriers prevent true life and
can be removed by wise methods. But in the meanwhile,
till the burden of existence has become universally unbear
able, it may be well to remember that we shall be as
likely to benefit the Absolute by doing our work well as
by macerating ourselves, and that the sum of existence is
a big thing, of which it were rash to predicate either that
it is altogether and supremely good or altogether and
supremely bad.
The works on pessimism have been numerous lately. Most of
them, however, deal with it mainly in connexion with the two
German philosophers, and of these several treat exclusively of the
special metaphysical and psychological theories. For Buddhism,
see BUDDHISM, vol. iv. p. 424 sq. , and also Oldenberg's Biuldlm
(1881), since translated into English. An account of Schopen
hauer was given by R. Adamson in Mind for 1876, and in Miss
Zimmern's Life of ScJ/oj)cnhaucr (1876) ; the first account of Hart-
P E S — P E S
691
maim to English readers was given in an article by E. Wallace
in the Westminster Review (1876). In 1877 there was published a
full discussion of the subject by J. Sully, Pessimism : a History ami
a Criticism. There are chapters on the question in many recent
works ; among the latest Tulloch, Modern Theories in Philosophy
and Religion (1884). In France we have Ribot, Schopenhauer
(1874) ; Caro, Le Pcssimisme au XlXe Siecle (1878), who gives an
account of Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Hartmann. In Italian may
be mentioned Barzelotti, II pcssimismo dello Schopenfutuer (1878).
The books published in Germany are countless, e.g., Diihring, Dcr
Wcrih des Lebcns (1865) ; Bahnsen, Zur Philosophic der Gcschiehte
(1872) and Pcssimistcn -Brevier (1879); Hartmann, Philosophisclie
Abhandlungcn (1872) ; Meyer, WeUelcnd u. Weltschmerz (1872);
Taubert, Dcr Pcssimismus und seine Gegncr (1873) ; Volkelt, Das
Unbcivusstc u. der Pcssimismus (1873) ; E. Pfleiderer, Dcr Modcrne
Pcssimismus (1875) ; Gass, Optimismus u. Pcssimismus (1876) ;
Huber, Dcr Pcssimismus (1876); Kehmke, Die Philosophic dcs Welt-
schmcrzcs (1876); Sommer, Der Pcssimismus und die Sittenlehre
(188-3) ; Pliimacher, Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit u. Gegenwart,
ffcsch. u. kritiscli. (1884). There is a list of books on the subject up
to 1880 in Laban's Schopenhauer Littcratur. For LEOPAKDI, see
vol. xiv. p. 464 sq. Schopenhauer's Weltals Willcund lrorstellung
is in course of translation by Haldane and Kemp (vol. i. , 1883) ;
and Ha.Ttma.nn' a Philosophic des Unbcwussten has been translated by
W. Coupland, 3 vols. (1883). (W. W.)
PESSFNUS, or PESINUS (Heo-cm/ovs, HCVLVOVS), an
ancient city of Galatia in Asia Minor, situated on the
southern slope of Mount Dindymus. -It stood on the left
bank of the river Sangarius, about 150 stadia (17 miles)
from its source, and 16 miles south of Germa on the road
from Ancyra to Amorium. It was the capital of the
TolLstobogii and the chief commercial city of the district.
It was famous for its worship of the mother of the gods
(Cybele), who here went by the name of Agdistis. Her
priests Avere anciently princes as well, but in the time
of Strabo (1st century B.C.) their privileges were much
diminished. The kings of Pergamum built a new temple
adorned with porticos of white marble. The image
of the goddess, a stone (or piece of wood) said to have
fallen from heaven, was taken to Rome in 204 B.C., in
compliance with an oracle in the Sibylline books to the
effect that the foreign foe could be driven from Italy if
the Idaean Mother (Cybele) were brought from Pessinus
to Piome. But the goddess continued to be worshipped
in her old home as well as at Home ; her priests, the Galli,
went out to meet Manlius on his march in 189 B.C., and
at a later age the temple was visited by Julian the Apostate.
In the division of the empire under Constantino, Pessinus
was made the capital of the province Galatia Salutaris.
It was also the seat of a metropolitan bishopric. After
the Gth century the town disappears from history. The
ruins discovered by Texier occupy three hills near the
village of Bala-Hissar, 9 or 10 miles south-east of Sevri-
Hissar. They include a theatre in partial preservation
and numerous fragments of marble columns, friezes, (fee.
The modern town of Sevri-Hissar is built at the height
of about 3000 feet on the southern base of a steep granite
rock, half-way up which are the ruins of a castle.
PESTALOZZI, JOHANN HEIXRICH (1746-1827). See
EDUCATION, vol. vii. p. 677.
PESTH, the chief town of Hungary and the second of
the xlustrian-Hungarian monarchy, is situated on the left
bank of the Danube, 140 miles to the south-east of Vienna,
in 47J 29' 10" N. lat. and 19° 2' 56" E. long. Since 1873
it has formed one municipality with BUDA (q.v.) on the
opposite bank, and the joint city, officially styled Buda
pest (Ger. Pest -Of en), is the capital of Hungary, the
second residence of the Austrian emperor, the seat of the
Hungarian ministry, diet, and supreme courts, and the
headquarters of the commander of the Honveds or Hun
garian landwehr.
The imposing size of the Danube, here somewhat wider
than the Thames at London, and the sharp contrast of the
two banks, place Budapest among the most finely-situated
of the larger towns of Europe. On the one side is a flat
sandy plain in which lies Pesth, modern of aspect, regularly
laid out, and presenting a long frontage of handsome white
buildings to the river. On the other the ancient town of
Buda straggles capriciously over a series of small and steep
hills, commanded by the fortress and the Blocksberg, and
backed by spurs of the vine-clad mountains beyond. The
Danube is crossed by three bridges ; the fine suspension
bridge constructed by the brothers Clark in 1842-49, at a
cost of £440,000 ; the iron Margarethenbriicke, a little
farther up, dating from 1872-76; and a long railway
bridge at the lower end of the town.
Budapest is divided into ten municipal districts, three
of which are on the right bank and belong to Buda. The
nucleus of the town on the left bank is lormed by the
inner town or old Pesth on the Danube, in a semicircle
round which lie the districts of Leopoldstadt, Theresien-
stadt, Elisabethstadt, Josephstadt, and Franzstadt, while
1. New Building.
2. Academy.
3. Exchange.
4. Redoute.
5. Carl's Barracks.
6. Parish Church.
Plan of Pesth.
7 Town House.
National Museum.
National Theatre.
Custom House.
Opera House.
Leopold Church.
19. Arsenal.
13. Academy of Music.
14. Exhibition.
15. Ludoviceum.
16. Synagogue.
17. Post Office.
18. Palace.
to the east of these is the outer district of Steinbruch.
Perhaps the most attractive part of Pesth is the line of
broad quays on the Danube, which extend for a distance
of 2J miles, from the Margarethenbriicke to the custom
house, and are lined Avith imposing white buildings. The
inner town, part of Avhich is somewhat irregularly built,
is separated from the other quarters by a ring of spacious
boulevards on the site of the old wall, and the lines of
demarcation between the different districts also consist of
Avide tree-shaded streets, mostly paved Avith asphalt. Most
of the larger public buildings are in the Leopoldstadt,
which shares in the fine frontage on the Danube, or in
the handsome new Radial Strasse, Avhich traverses the
Theresienstadt, Avith a Avidth of 100 to 150 feet. Pesth
covers more ground than most towns of a similar popula
tion on account of the large number of one-storied houses,
Avhich form 70 per cent, of its buildings (as compared
Avith 8 per cent, in Paris, 3 per cent, in Leipsic, ifcc.).
Though of ancient origin, Pesth has nothing to show in
the shape of venerable buildings ; and the modern edifices
may perhaps be described as more noticeable for the general
air of prosperity they diffuse than for marked individual
merit. The oldest ecclesiastical edifice is the parish church,
dating from 1500, Avhile the university church and those
of the Leopoldstadt and the Franzstadt are the best of
the more modern structures. The synagogue, hoAvever, is
finer in many respects than .any of its Christian rivals. The
long range of substantial buildings fronting the Danube
G92
P E S T H
includes the new houses of parliament, the academy, the
exchange, the redoute, a large structure in a mixed
Romanesque and Moorish style, erected for balls and other
social purposes, the Greek church, the parish church,
the old town -house, the extensive custom-house at the
lower end of the quays, and several fine hotels and
insurance offices. In the Radial Strasse are the new
opera-house, the academy of music, the exhibition build
ing, and the national drawing-school. The largest building
in Pesth is the so-called New Building, in the Leopoldstadt,
erected by Joseph II., and covering as much ground as an
ordinary London square. It is at present used as artillery
barracks ; and the Carl's Barracks in the inner town, also
used for housing troops, are little inferior in size. Another
large military establishment is the Ludoviceum, or officers'
college, at the south-east end of the town. The remaining
buildings remarkable for their size or interest are the new
town -house, the post-office, the national museum, the
theatres (of which there are about half a dozen), and the
palaces of several of the Hungarian magnates. To the
south-east of the town lie the new slaughter-houses, which
are admirably fitted up, and, with the adjacent cattle-
market, cover nearly 30 acres of ground.
The artistic and scientific culture of Pesth, and indeed
of Hungary, finds its most conspicuous outward expression
in the academy of sciences and the national museum, two
large and handsome modern buildings. The academy,
founded for the encouragement of the study of the
Hungarian language and the various sciences, possesses a
library of 100,000 volumes, and harbours the national
picture gallery, a good collection of 700 to 800 works,
formed by Prince Eszterhazy, and purchased for £130,000.
The national museum contains extensive collections of
antiquities, natural history, and ethnology, a gallery of
mediocre paintings, and a library of 150,000 printed
volumes and 12,000 documents. Pesth also possesses
numerous societies for the cultivation of science and art,
most of which, however, limit their usefulness by publish
ing their proceedings in the Magyar tongue alone. The
university of Pesth, the only one in Hungary proper, was
established at Tyrnau in 1635, removed to Buda in 1777,
and transferred to Pesth in 1783. It is attended by up
wards of 2000 students, and possesses the usual medical
and scientific collections, an admirable chemical labora
tory, a botanic garden, and a library of 120,000 volumes.
Pesth also contains a Protestant theological college and a
rabbinical institute. The second place among the educa
tional establishments of the town is taken by the Poly
technic Institute, with its three faculties of applied
chemistry, engineering and architecture, and mechanics ;
it is attended by about 1000 students. The other schools
comprise six gymnasia, six normal seminaries, and a large
number of special and elementary schools, in spite of
which 32 per cent, of the adult population were unable
to read or write in 1880. The charitable institutions of
the city are on a liberal scale. Characteristic of Budapest
is the large number of its public baths, the most interest
ing of which are at Buda.
In commerce and industry Budapest is by far the most
important town in Hungary, and in the former, if not also
in the latter, it is second to Vienna alone in the Austrian-
Hungarian monarchy. The chief articles of manufacture are
machinery, railway plant, carriages, gold and silver wares,
chemicals, cutlery, starch, tobacco, and the usual articles
produced in large towns for home consumption. The
great staple of trade is grain, of which about 4| million
bushels are brought into the town annually. One-fourth of
this amount merely passes through Pesth, while most of the
remainder is ground into flour and exported in this form.
Other important articles of commerce are wine, wool,
cattle, timber, hides, honey, wax, and "slivovitza," an in
ferior spirit made from plums. The imports, so far as they
do not belong to the transit trade, consist chiefly of manu
factured articles and colonial produce. The four annual
fairs, formerly attended by many thousand customers, have
now lost ir.uch of their importance. The swine market of
Steinbruch is the largest in Hungary, about half a million
animals being annually disposed of. The trade of Pesth
is in great part carried on by the Danube, the navigation
of which has increased enormously since the introduction
of steamboats in 1830 ; but the town is also connected by
railway with all the chief places of Austria and Hungary.
The largest and most popular of the public gardens and
promenades in Pesth itself is the Stadtwaldchen on the
north-east side, with its pleasant lake and trees. A still
more delightful resort, however, is the Margaret Island,
a long narrow island in the Danube, laid out in the style
of an English park, with fine trees, velvety turf, .and a
group of villas and bath-houses.
Few European towns have grown so rapidly as Pesth during the
present century, and probably none has witnessed such a thorough
transformation in the last twenty years. In 1780 Festh was still
a badly-built town of the third rank, with only 13,500 inhabitants,
and it was not till 1799 that its population (29,000) surpassed that
of Buda (24,000). By 1840, however, Buda had added but 14,000
souls to its population, while that of Pesth had more than doubled ;
and of the joint population of 270,000 in 1869 fully 200,000 fell
to the share of Pesth. In 1880 the population of Budapest was
370,767 souls, including a garrison of 10,000 men, showing an
increase since 1869 of 32 per cent, and since 1800 of an average
of 6 per cent, per annum. Of this total 198,746 were returned as
having Hungarian for their mother-tongue, 119,902 as Germans,
and 21,581 as Slovaks. Divided according to religious sects, we
find 242,981 Roman Catholics, 70,879 Jews, 42,254 Protestants,
and 3014 members of the Greek Church. Of these the Jews show
the greatest relative increase since 1869 (56 per cent.) and the
Roman Catholics the least. Of the gross increase of population in
Hungary between 1869 and 1880 no less than two-thirds are due to
Budapest alone, which in the same interval rose from the twenty-
third to the fifteenth place among the towns of Europe. About 25
per cent, of the population are supported by trade and industry, '20
per cent, are engaged in service, and 4 per cent, belong to the pro
fessional and official classes. Nearly 50 per cent., including women
and children, are returned as belonging to the non-working classes,
but less than 1 per cent, are described as living on their capital or
property. In spite of the large proportion of one-storied houses, the
ratio of inhabitants to each dwelling-house is somewhat high (33, as
compared with 8 in London, 35 in Paris, and 59 in Vienna).
As Paris is sometimes said to be France, so may Pesth with almost
greater truth be said to be Hungary. Its composite population is a
faithful reflexion of the heterogeneous elements in the empire of the
Hapsburgs, and the trade and industry of Hungary are centralized
at Pesth in a way that can scarcely be affirmed of any other Euro
pean capital. In virtue of its museum and academy it is also the
scientific centre of Hungary, and nine-tenths of all books in the
Magyar tongue are published here. The average rate per head of
imperial taxation is five or six times as great in Pesth as in the
rest of Hungary. The recent patriotic movement in favour of
Magyarizing all institutions has found its strongest development
in Pesth, where the German names have all been removed from
the streets and buildings. It is found, too, that the children of
German parents born in Pesth easily become Magyarized, while a
survey of Hungary at large during the last sixty years shows a
relative increase of barely 1 per cent, in the Hungarian as opposed
to the German tongue. The inhabitants are good-natured, hos
pitable, and fond of luxury and display. The upper classes are
much addicted to sports of all kinds, and cultivate horse-racing,
fox-hunting, and rowing with energy and success. Almost the
only popular festival of importance is that of St Stephen on the
20th August, when thousands of people flock to inspect the relics
of that saint in the palace-church of Buda.
History. — The origin of Pesth proper is obscure, but the name,
apparently derived from the old Slavonic "pestj," a stove (like
Ofen, the German name of Buda), seems to point to an early Slavonic
settlement. The Romans never gained a foothold on this side of
the river, though Aquincum, on the site of old Buda, is believed,
from the extant remains, to have contained about 80,000 inhabit
ants. When it first appears in history Pesth was essentially a
German settlement, and a chronicler of the 13th century describes
it as "Villa Teutonica ditissima." Christianity was introduced
early in the llth century. In 1241 Pesth was destroyed by the
Tatars, after whose departure in 1244 it was created a royal free
P E T — P E T
693
city by Bela IV., and repeopled with colonists of various national
ities. The succeeding period seems to have been one of consider
able prosperity, though Pesth was completely eclipsed by the sister-
town of Buda with its fortress and palace. In 1526 Pesth was
taken and pillaged by the Turks, and from 1541 to 1686 Buda was
the seat of a Turkish pasha. Pesth in the meantime entirely lost
its importance, and on the departure of the Turks was left little
more than a heap of ruins. Its favourable situation and the renewal
of former privileges helped it to revive, and in 1723 it became the
seat of the highest Hungarian officials. Maria Theresa and Joseph
II. did much to increase its importance, but the rapid growth
which enabled it completely to outstrip Buda belongs entirely to
the 19th century. A signal proof of its vitality was given in 1838
by the speed and ease with which it recovered from a disastrous
inundation that destroyed 3000 houses. In 1848 Pesth became
the seat of the revolutionary diet, but in the following year the
insurgents had to retire before the Austrians under Windischgriitz.
A little later the Austrians had to retire in their turn, leaving a
garrison in the fortress of Buda, and, while the Hungarians en
deavoured to capture this position, General Hentzi retaliated by
bombarding Pesth, doing great damage to the town. The inhabit
ants to the number of 80,000 took refuge in the Stadtwaldchen.
Between 1867 and 1873 Pesth is said to have doubled in size, and
during the last four or five years the building activity has been
little if at all inferior.
See Hiiuffler, " Budapest," Historische Skizzen, I. Abth. (1854); Hevesi, Buda
pest tind seine Umr/ebungen (1873) ; Sturm, Kulturbilder aus Budapest (Leipsic,
1876); Heksch, Iliimtrierter Fiihrer durch Budapest (1S82) ; Koriisi, Die Haup-
ftadt Budapest im Jahre 1881 ; publications of the Statistical Bureau in Buda
pest. (J. F. M.)
PETAU, DENYS (1583-1652), better known in some
departments of literature under the Latin form of his name
as DIONYSIUS PETAVIUS, a highly-distinguished Catholic
theologian and one of the most learned men of the 17th
century, was born on 21st August 1583 at Orleans, where
his father was a well-to-do merchant with some literary
culture. Petau received his early education at Orleans, but
finished his university course in Paris, where, after gradu
ating in arts, he attended theological lectures at the Sor-
bonne. By Isaac Casaubon, who had perceived his abilities,
he was introduced to the MS. treasures of the Bibliotheque
lloyale ; and, at the suggestion of that scholar, he began to
work for the edition of Synesius which he afterwards
published. In 1603, before he had completed his twentieth
year, he received a teaching appointment in the faculty of
philosophy at the university of Bourges ; here his leisure
hours were devoted to his editorial labours and to a system
atic study of the ancient philosophers and mathematicians.
Having come under the influence of the learned Jesuit
Fronton le Due, he was induced to resign his post at
Bourges in order that he might join the Society of Jesus,
and in June 1 605 he entered upon his novitiate at Nancy.
After an interval of four years, he taught rhetoric success
ively at llheims, La Fleche, and Paris, taking the four vows
of the order at the last-named place in 1618 ; from 1621 to
1644 he was professor of positive theology in the college
of the order. On account of growing infirmities and to
secure leisure for his great work, to be mentioned below,
he then retired from teaching duties, but retained the
librarianship in the College de Clermont until his death,
which took place on llth December 1652.
The list of Petau's literary labours bears witness to an extraor
dinary and many-sided activity, and includes several works which
still enjoy the recognition of scholars. He edited Synesius (1611,
2d ed. 1631, 3d ed. 1633), Themistius (1613), Julian (1630),
the Breviarium of Nicephorus (1616), and Epiphanius (1622) ;
his Animadvcrsiones on the last-named have been reprinted by
Dindorf, as a still unexhausted mine of valuable material, in the
fifth vol. of his Epiphanii Opera (1859). Carrying on and improving
on the chronological labours of Scaliger, he published in two folio
volumes an Opus de doctrina tcmporum (1627 ; frequently reprinted),
followed iu 1630 by Uranologion s. sy sterna variorum authorum
qui de spluera ac sideribus corumque motibus graecc commentati sunt
and Variarum disscrtationum ad Uranologion libri VIII. Of the
first-mentioned of these lie made an abridgment, entitled Ration-
arium tcmporum, which passed through numerous editions, was
translated into English and French, and in a recent reprint has
been brought down to the year 1849. In theology proper Petau's
first appearance was polemical, and quite in the manner of that
time, — a pseudonymous criticism on the recently-published com
mentary of Salmasius on Tertullian's De Pallio (Antonii Kcrkoetii
Arcmorici animadversionum liber, 1622). The controversy was con
tinued in a series of replies and rejoinders, and was renewed in
connexion with other publications of his distinguished antagonist.
In particular, some references to the church doctrine as to the
authority of bishops made by Salmasius in his Dcfcenore trapczitico
was the occasion of Petau's Dissertationum ecclcsiasticarum libri
duo, in quibus de cpiscoporum diynitate et potcstate deque aliis
ccdcsiasticis dogmatibus disputatur (1641) and also of his DC
ccclesiastica hierarchia libri V. (1641). Petau also had his share in
the Jansenist controversy, and has the honour of being twice men
tioned as a Jesuit authority in the Provinciates. His first appear
ance in the dispute was against Arnauld's DC lafreqnente communion,
which he met with a treatise, DC la penitence publique et de la pre
paration a la communion (1643) ; his subsequent works, viewed in
the light of the struggle then at its height, explain themselves by
their titles (De leye et gratia libri II. (1648), De Tridentini concilii
inter pretationc et S. Augustini doctrina (1649), De adjutorio sine
quo non et adjutorio quo (1651). In his great but unfinished work,
De thcologicis dogmatibus (5 vols. fol., 1644-50), he deals with the
doctrine of God, the Trinity, Creation, and the Incarnation ; his
design had been to complete it by an exhaustive treatment of the
sacraments and of the Christian graces and virtues. Its scope,
which was to free theology from the subtleties of scholasticism and
to rest the science on the simple and firm basis of Scripture, the
councils, and the fathers, is well enough explained by his own
avowal, "nova quserant alii, nil nisi prisca peto." The work is a
treasury of well-digested learning, and justly entitles its author to
the praise of Muratori, who speaks of him as "the restorer of dog
matic theology." By some of his fellow- Jesuits he was supposed
to have been too ready to recognize the Jansenism of Augustine, and
in various quarters his declaration that many of the ante-Nicenc
fathers were less orthodox than the decrees of the first council has
been made a matter of reproach. But in these charges the impar
tial critic will recognize only proof of his candour. Petau, it may
be added, was a rigid ascetic, and in particular is said to have
indulged in the discipline of self-flagellation to a degree that injured
his health.
PETER. Simon Peter was "an apostle of Jesus
Christ" (1 Peter i. 1). His two names are both found
in two forms : of the one the full form is Symeon (pvpt^
2u/xeaiv, which is found in the speech of James, Acts xv.
14, and in most MSS. of 2 Peter i. 1), the shorter and more
usual form being Simon ; the other is found both in its
Greek form Peter (Herpos) and in the Grtecized form Cephas
(Kv^as) of the Aramaic Kepha (ND^S). Simon is the
name by which he is always addressed by Jesus Christ ;
Peter is that by which he is most commonly spoken of
in the Synoptic Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and
subsequent ecclesiastical literature ; the combined name,
Simon Peter, is found once in St Matthew, once in St
Luke, and frequently in St John ; sometimes Peter is
expressly stated to be a surname (Matt. iv. 18, x. 2 ; Acts
x. 5, 18, 32, xi. 13); St Paul, in 1 Cor. and in Gal.
i. 18, ii. 11, 14 (according to the chief uncial MSS.,
except D), uses Cephas, but in Gal. ii. 7, 8, he uses
Peter.1 The name of his father is also found in two
forms, John ('Iwavr^s, 'Iwav>j?, in most MSS. of John i. 42,
xxi. 15, 16) and Jonas ('Iwvas, Matt. xvi. 17, and cod.
A in John). In John i. 44 he is said to have been of
Bethsaida, which was possibly the place of his birth ; but
it appears from Mark i. 29 ( = Matt. viii. 14; Luke iv. 38)
that he and his brother Andrew had a house together at
Capernaum. With the same brother, and with James and
John as partners, he was engaged in what was probably
the thriving business of a fisherman on the Lake of Genne-
saret ; and from the fact that he went back to his business
after the resurrection it has been inferred that, at least
up to that time, he had never wholly left it. That he
was married is clear from the mention of his wife's mother
1 Throughout the New Testament the Peshito-Syriac uses Cephas
where the Greek has Peter, and there is no reasonable doubt of the
identity of the two names ; but Clement of Alexandria, in a fragment
preserved by Eusebius, H. E., i. 12, 3, and the so-called "Two Ways"
(Harnack, Lehre der zwolf Apostel, p. 225, and Hilgenfeld, zVor. Test.
extra Canonem receptum, fasc. iv. p. Ill) take them to refer to differ
ent persons, probably from an unwillingness to believe that Gal. ii. 11
really referred to Peter.
694
PETER
(Mark i. 30 and parallels), and that his wife accompanied
him when he finally left his home to preach the gospel is
implied by St Paul (1 Cor. ix. 5) ; there is an early tradi
tion, which is not inconsistent with probability, that she
also suffered martyrdom, and that Peter called out to her
as she was being led away, " O wife, remember the Lord ! " l
The statement that he had children 2 is probably only an
inference from the fact of his having been married ; the
alleged name of his daughter, Petronilla, is as suspicious
as the story of his having cured her of the palsy3; and
the majority of commentators take the expression " Mark,
my son," in 1 Peter v. 13, to refer only to spiritual
kinship.
Of the beginningof his discipleship there are two accounts
which have sometimes (by Baur, Keim, Holtzmann, and
others), though without sufficient reason, been supposed
to be inconsistent with each other.
(1) According to St John, he was brought to Jesus by
his brother Andrew, who had been a follower of John the
Baptist, but who, after the Baptist's testimony, recognized
in Jesus the promised Messiah (John i. 40-42). The fact
that he was then not at Capernaum but in the Jordan
valley, where John was baptizing, seems to indicate that
he, like his brother, had been attracted by John's preach
ing. It is not stated that he at once became one of those
who followed Jesus, and there is consequently room for
the supposition that he returned home ; and the statement
that it was upon the occasion of this first meeting that he
received his distinctive surname, Cephas or Peter, is not
inconsistent with Mark iii. 16, Luke vi. 14, which men
tion the fact rather than the occasion, or with Matthew
xvi. 18, which gives to an existing name a new application.
(2) According to St Matthew and St Mark, it was at
the beginning of the Galiliean ministry that Jesus called
Simon and Andrew7 to become " fishers of men " (Matt. iv.
18-20; Mark i. 16-18). The manner of the call seems
to imply a previous acquaintance, and is consequently not
out of harmony with that of St John. It is less easy to
determine whether the account in Luke v. 1-11 refers to
the same or to a different incident ; Schleiermacher,
Neander, Bleek, and others treat it as the fuller and more
accurate account ; Ewald, Weiss, Keim, and others regard
the miraculous draught of fishes as a reminiscence of a
later tradition, and probably identical with John xxi. 5-11.
From the time of his call Peter has a place in most of
the important events of the Gospel narrative. It was to
his house in Capernaum that Jesus went as if to a home
(Matt. viii. 14; Mark i. 14, 33; Luke iv. 38), and it is
consequently sometimes spoken of as simply "the house "
(Matt. ix. 28, xiii. 1, 36, xvii. 25). He formed, with his
two former partners, James and John, an apostolic trium
virate, which was admitted when all others were excluded,
and to whom, with Andrew, was committed the great pro
phecy of the last days (Mark xiii. 3). The most important
incident which is recorded of him between his call and the
crucifixion is that which happened at Ciesarea Philippi
(Matt. xvi. 13-23; Mark viii. 27-33; Luke ix. 18-22;
probably recorded in substance, though in a different form,
in John vi. 66-69). The incident links itself closely with
the history which had immediately preceded it. The ex
pectation which the Galilaean peasantry had begun to form
of Jesus had been disappointed ; the miracles of healing
and feeding had not been followed by the assumption of
the national leadership ; many of the disciples had begun
to drift away, and those who were looking for the Messiah
saw in Him only " one of the prophets." Those who
1 Clem. Alex., Strom., vii. 10, p. 869, quoted by Eusebius, //. E.t
iii. 30, 2.
2 Clem. Alex., Strom., iii. 6, p. 535, quoted by Eusebius, ibid.
3 St Augustine, c. Adimant. Manich., c. 17, vol. viii. 139, ed. Ben.
remained were tested by a direct question ; whether the
form of the question was that of the Synoptists, " Whom
say ye that I am 1 " or that of St John, " Will ye also go
away 1 " it was Peter who answered for the rest, in words
which have an equivalent meaning, whether they were in
the form "Thou art the Christ," or in the form "Lord, to
whom shall we go 1 Thou hast the words of eternal life."
The further detail which St Matthew gives, xvi. 17-19,
has sometimes been thought to be a later addition, reflect
ing a fact of subsequent ecclesiastical history ; but its
absence from St Mark does not seem to be an adequate
ground for rejecting it, and its substance is found in Justin
Martyr (Tryph., c. 100). Round the words which St
Matthew records many controversies have raged ; nor does
it seem possible, with existing means of investigation, to
fix to the sentence " upon this rock I will build My church "
a meaning that will be beyond dispute. Whatever may
be its precise meaning, it seems at any rate to be in har
mony with other passages of the Synoptic Gospels, which
indicate, not only that Peter was foremost among the
apostles by virtue of natural force of character, but that
he was also their ordinary leader and representative : the
most important passage is Matt. x. 2, where the expression
"the first," which is applied to him, cannot be restricted
to mere priority of enumeration in the list. It is possible
that his colleagues James and John, or their more ambi
tious mother, endeavoured to dispute this position with
him (Matt. xx. 20, 21 ; Mark x. 35-37), and it has been
contended (Baur, Strauss, Holtzmann) that in the Fourth
Gospel John holds the place which the Synoptists assign
to Peter ; but even if this contention wrere admitted it
would merely afford one more argument to show that the
priority of rank was limited by natural affection as well
as by the law of equality among the Christian brotherhood
(Matt, xxiii. 8-11; Mark ix. 33-35; Luke xxii. 24-27).
But, although Peter wras foremost in expressing the con
fident belief of the disciples that Jesus was the Messiah,
it seems clear that in his conception of the Messiah he did
not rise above the current ideas of his countrymen. u He
that should come " was to be a national deliverer. This
conception appears on two occasions especially — when Jesus
first told the disciples of His coming sufferings, " Peter
took Him and began to rebuke Him," and received the
answer, " Get thee behind Me, Satan," as though this atti
tude of the disciples were a new temptation (Matt. xvi.
21-23; Mark viii. 31-33); and, when Jesus was actually
in the power of His enemies, and no " legions of angels "
appeared either to rescue or to enthrone Him, Peter's
natural hopefulness gave way to complete despondency,
and he more than once "denied that he knew Him."
In the earliest account of the resurrection (that of St
Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 5) it is mentioned that Jesus appeared to
Peter before and separately from the twelve ; and the last
chapter of the Fourth Gospel gives him an especial pro
minence : it adds one more example of the impulsive energy
of his character (ver. 7); it portrays more vividly than any
other passage in the Gospels the depth of his attachment
to his Master (vers. 15-17) ; and it forecasts the manner of
his death (vers. 18, 19). His prominence in the early
community at Jerusalem is proved by the testimony of St
Paul ; for it was to visit " Cephas " that he made his first
journey to Jerusalem after his conversion, and fourteen
years afterwards, though James and John as well as Cephas
"were reputed to be pillars," it was the latter who stood
out above the rest as the special preacher of " the gospel
of the uncircumcision " (Gal. i. 18, ii. 1-10). These facts
undoubtedly confirm the general picture of the relations
of Peter to the early church which is drawn in the Acts
of the Apostles ; at the same time no part of the New
Testament has been more strongly attacked by modern
PETER
G95
writers than the first twelve chapters of that book, in
which the " Acts of Peter " are contained. The attack has
been made (Baur, Schwegler, Overbeck, Zeller, and others)
partly on the speeches and partly on the narrative. (1)
It is alleged that the Petrine speeches form no exception
to the general uniformity of phraseology and style which
characterizes the Acts, and that they ignore the marked
differences in the conception of Christianity between Peter
and Paul. It must be admitted that the coincidences are
such as to render it probable that the author of the Acts
dealt freely with his materials, but at the same time the
peculiarities are sufficiently numerous to support the view
that these speeches contain a true representation of the
primitive teaching.1 (2) The narrative passages which
have been most keenly contested are those which relate to
Simon of Samaria and to Cornelius. It is alleged that
the account of the former is the mere reflex of the later
legends in which the name of Simon Magus was substituted
for that of St Paul as the representative of false Christ
ianity, and it is said of the latter that it is a mere attempt
to claim for Peter the opening of the door to the Gentiles
which was the special honour of Paul, and that it cannot
be reconciled with the division of labour between the
apostle of the circumcision and the apostle of the uncir-
cumcision which is spoken of in the Epistle to the Gala-
tians.2 At the great crisis of early Christianity which is
known as the conference or council of Jerusalem Peter
advocated (according to the Acts), or accepted (according
to Paul), the policy of conciliation. Afterwards he went
to Antioch, where Paul had preceded him, and there he
carried out his acceptance of Gentile Christianity to the
further point of eating at the common meals at which
Gentiles were present. For this step the members of the
original community at Jerusalem were not prepared ; and,
when a deputation from them came to Antioch, Peter
"drew back and separated himself" (Gal. ii. 12). There
upon followed an argument and a remonstrance on the part
of Paul which has been fruitful of results to both ancient
and modern Christianity. Peter was " withstood to the
face" because of (1) inconsistency, (2) practical calumny
of Christ, (3) transgression of the law, (4) making void
the gift of God (Gal. ii. 14-21). It is altogether too much
to assume that this remonstrance led to a permanent alien
ation of the two apostles from one another ; it is more
probable that with a character such as Peter's, which had
more energy than steadiness of resolution, it may even
have been effectual. But it is upon the assumption of such
an alienation that the Jewish party in the ancient church
pictured Peter as the champion and hero of the faith, and
Paul as its vanquished opponent, and also that in modern
times the Tubingen school have endeavoured to reconstruct
not only early church history but also the New Testament.
This incident at Antioch is the last that is certainly
known of Peter. The prophecy recorded in John xxi. 18,
19, is in harmony with early tradition in pointing to a
violent death. But of the time and place of that death
we know nothing with even approximate probability.
The only historical mention of him for more than a hundred
years afterwards is in Clement of Rome (Ep., i. 5, 4), who
sets before the Corinthians the example of " Peter, who
through zeal undertook not one or two but numerous
labours, and so having borne witness went to the place
1 The question of the relation of tlieir language to the rest of the
Acts and to the Petrine epistles is discussed in detail with various
results by several writers, e.g. , Mayerhoff and Weiss in the works
mentioned below, and more fully Kahler in Studien u. Kritiken for
1873, p. 492 sq.
- The details of the discussion will be found in most recent books
which deal with the Acts ; on the negative side the most convenient
book for English readers is the translation of Zeller's Contents and
Orirjln oftfie Act* of the Apostles, 1875.
that was due to him." It is sometimes supposed that an
indication of the place in which he " bore witness " or
"suffered martyrdom" is afforded by the phrase "among
us," i.e., among the Romans, in the next chapter ; but this,
though possible, is quite uncertain. Outside this state
ment, which if it were more definite would be conclusive,
there is only the doubtful interpretation of " Babylon " in
1 Peter v. 13 as meaning "Rome," and the echo of a
vague tradition in the apocryphal Petri et Pauli Prxdicatio?
The testimony of the " presbyter " who is quoted by Papias
in reference to Peter's connexion with Mark (Euseb., //. E.,
iii. 39, 15) says nothing of the place at which they were
together, and the coupling of the names of Peter and Paul
by Ignatius (Ad Roman., c. 4) would not, even if the early
date of Ignatius were established, afford a solid argument
that " in their death they were not divided." But from
the beginning of the last quarter of the 2d century the
testimony to the presence and death of Peter at Rome is
almost uniform ; the tradition, whatever may have been its
foundation in fact, had firmly established itself. Diony-
sius of Corinth (Euseb., //. E., ii. 25, 8) says that Peter
and Paul founded the church at Corinth together and
then proceeded to Italy. Irenseus (A dv. Hseres. , iii. 1 ) speaks
of Peter and Paul as having together founded the church
at Rome ; the Muratorian Fragment (not earlier than the
end of the 2d century) refers to the " passion of Peter "
i.e., his martyrdom ; the presbyter Gaius (Euseb., H. E.,
ii. 25, 7, early in the 3d century) says that he saw the
rpoTrcua (whatever that may mean) of the two apostles
Peter and Paul at Rome ; in Tertullian (e.g., Scorp., c. 15 ;
De Prsescr., c. 24 and 36) the tradition is fairly established;
and no later Latin father expresses any doubt of it.
But, besides the fact that there is an interval of more
than a hundred years between what must have been, in the
ordinary course of nature even if not through violence, the
approximate time of Peter's death and the first certain
tradition of the place and manner of it, there are two other
important considerations which render the ordinary patristic
statements doubtful. (1) One stream of tradition, for
the existence of which it is difficult to account if the other
tradition had been uniform, represents Peter as having
worked at Antioch, in Asia Minor, in Babylonia, and in
the " country of the barbarians " on the northern shores
of the Black Sea. This is in harmony with the geo
graphical details of the first of the two epistles which bear
his name. That epistle is addressed to the "elect who
are sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa-
docia, Asia, and Bithynia," and the " Babylon " from which
it is obviously written (v. 13) is best understood not as a
cryptographic expression for Rome, but, like the other
geographical names of the epistles of the New Testament,
in a literal sense. All this, no doubt, is not inconsistent
with the supposition that Peter went to Rome towards
the end of his life, but it seems to exclude the theory
that he made a lengthened stay there and was the founder
of the Roman Church. (2) The other consideration is that
the presence of Peter at Rome is almost inextricably bound
up with a story of whose legendary character there can be
little doubt, that of the Simon Magus of the Clementines*
Under the name of Simon Magus the conservative Jewish
Christians, who could never forgive the admission of the
Gentiles to be " fellow-heirs " with the " children of the
promise," seem to have represented Paul5; and, throwing
3 Hilgenfeld, Xov. Test, extra Can. rec., fasc. iv. p. 57.
4 Uhlliorn, Die Homilicn u. Recognitionen des Clemens Rornanus,
Cottingen, 1852, makes an unsuccessful attempt to show that the two
stories may be separated.
5 For the detailed proofs of this reference may be made to Baur,
Church History, E. T., vol. i. p. 91 ; Zeller, TJie Acts of the Apostles,
E. T., vol. i. p. 250; and Hilgenfeld, iii his Zeitschrift f. wissensch.
Theolofjie, 1868, p. 367.
696
PETER
back into the 1st century, and into the personal relations
between the two apostles, the violent controversies between
the catholic and the Jewish parties which came to a head
in the 2d century, they framed a romance of which Peter
was the hero, and in which, under the mask of Simon
Magus, Paul played the part of the " false apostle." The
romance in its original form has perished ; its substance
is partly preserved and partly recast in the Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions, of which the former exist in
their original Greek, the latter in an incomplete Latin
translation. In course of time, the original identity of
Paul with Simon Magus was forgotten, and in the later
forms of the legend (see the Acts of Peter and Paul
below) Peter and Paul are joined together in the combat
with the pretender. But in almost all later patristic
accounts of Peter Simon Magus has an important place ;
he is said to have gone to Rome in the time of Claudius,
and Peter is said to have at once followed him in 42
A.D. ; hence, as Peter lived until the Neronian persecution
in 67 there was room for an episcopate of twenty -five
years. This last tradition can hardly be reconciled with
the facts mentioned in the New Testament of his presence
at Jerusalem and at Antioch (Acts xv. ; Gal. ii.) ; but
Lipsius has endeavoured to show, not' only that single
points in the story must be given up, but that the whole
tradition of the presence of Peter at Rome is a fiction
which grew out of the Judseo- Christian attack upon
Paul.
The probabilities of the case are evenly balanced ; on
the one hand it is difficult to account for the complete
silence as to Peter in the Pauline epistles, and it is impos
sible with those epistles in sight to regard Peter as the
founder of the Roman community ; on the other hand, it
is difficult to suppose that so large a body of tradition
had no foundation in fact ; such a supposition, besides its
general improbability, would assume that the extreme
form of Judieo-Christianity which the Clementines reflect
had a much greater influence over the conceptions of the
2d century than the evidence warrants.1
1 The question whether Peter was ever at Rome has been so much
discussed that the following list of the chief treatises and articles on
either side will be convenient for reference ; it is not exhaustive. The
question was at first discussed as one between Protestants and Catholics.
The earliest treatise on the Protestant side is probably that of Ulrich
Vehlen (Velenus) in his Demonstratio contra Romani papse primatiis
figmentum, 1520, reprinted by M. Flacius Illyricus in his Refutatio
invectives Bruni contra centurias historise ecclesiastics!, p. 86 ; it was
answered at the time by Bishop Fisher of Rochester in his Convulsio
calumniarum Aldrichi Veleni, reprinted in his works, ed. Wurzburg,
1597, p. 1299. The most complete account of the older arguments on
the Lutheran side is that of Spanheim, Dissertatio de ficta profectione
Petri Apostoli in urban Romam deque non una traditionis origine,
1679, reprinted in his works, Leyden ed., 1703, vol. ii. p. 331. In
modern times the question has been discussed chiefly on literary
grounds and without reference to its bearing on the Roman controversy.
Jt was first stated on the negative side by Baur in the TvHringen Zeit-
schrift far Theologie, 1831, p. 136, and in his Paulus, E. T., vol. i.
p. 228. His most important follower has been Lipsius, whose two
works, the L'hronologie der romisclien Bischofe, Kiel, 1869, and Die
Quttten der rijmischen Petrus - Sage, Kiel, 1872, are of great value
apart from the results which they endeavour to establish ; he also deals
with the question more concisely in the Jahrbb. f. deutsche Theol.,
1876, p. 561. On the same side are Mayerhoff, llistorisch-kritische
Einleitung in die petrinischen Schriften, Hamburg, 1835; Gundert, in
iheJahrbb.f. deutsche Theol, 1869, p. 306 ; Holtzman, s.v. "Petrus,"
in Schenkel's Bibellexicon ; Hausrath, NTliche Zeitgeschichte, vol. iii.
p. 344 ; Zeller, in the Deutsche Rundschau, 1875, p. 215 (reprinted in
his Vortriige u. AbJiandlungen, 2te Samml., 1877), and in the Z. f.
wissensch. Tlieol, 1876, p. 31. The truth of the early tradition has
l»een maintained in opposition to these writers by Credner, Einleitung in
das .V. T., 1836, p. 628; Olshausen, Rwnerbr., 1840, p. 40 ; Wieseler,
Chronologic des apost. Zeitalters, 1 848, p. 552 ; Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes
Israel, vol. vi. p. 616 ; Hilgenfeld, in his Z. f. wissensch, Theol., 1872
p. 372, 1876 p. 57 (in answer to the article of Zeller in the same
number mentioned above), 1877 p. 486 (in answer to the article of
Lipsius mentioned above); Delitzsch, in Stud, und Krit., 1874, p.
213; lieuan, L' Antechrist, p. 186, and appendix; Seyerlen, Entstehunj
It would be inappropriate to enter in the present article into the
causes and consequences of the enormous influence which the
belief that Peter founded and presided over the first Christian
community at Rome lias exercised upon Christianity. It was no
doubt natural, considering that influence, that curiosity should bo
largely exercised as to the details of his life and death at Rome,
and that legends of respectable antiquity should express themselves
in visible memorials. Modern Rome contains many such memorials.
The chapel of S. Pietro in Carcere preserves the tradition that he
was imprisoned in the Tullianum, and that a spring of water issued
from the ground that he might baptize his gaolers. The churches
of S. Prassede and S. Pudcnziana preserve the tradition that much
of the later part of his life at Rome was spent in the house of Pudens
on the Viminal Hill. The latest localization of a legend has built
a church outside the old Porta Capena to mark the spot where,
when he was fleeing from persecution, he met his Master going into
Rome. " Lord, whither goest Thou ? " (Domine, quo vadis ? ) was
his question. " I go to Rome to be crucified again " was his Mas
ter's answer. - Besides these visible memorials of Petrine legends
there are four annual feasts. (1) On 29th June is celebrated the
Feast of St Peter and St Paul. The day is supposed to be that
of their martyrdom ; it is in reality that of the ruburial of their
supposed remains in 258, which is recorded in the Kalendarium
Libcrianum of 354 (printed by Mommsen in the AbJumdlungcn der
konigl. sacks. Gescllschaft, pliil. -hist. Classe, 1850, p. 362). Those
of Peter were then reburied "ad catacumbas," i.e., in the ceme
tery of St Sebastian on the Appian Way ; they were afterwards
said to have been transferred to the basilica which Constantino
erected on the Vatican. (2) On 22d February is celebrated a feast
in commemoration of Peter as bishop of Antioch (Festum Cathcdrx
Pctri AntiochciiK), which also is mentioned as early as the Kalcnd.
Libcrianum, (3) On 18th January has been celebrated since the
8th century a feast in commemoration of his bishopric of Rome.
(4) On 1st August has been celebrated since the 9th century a feast
in commemoration of his imprisonment (Festum S. Petri ad Vincula],
but whether of that by Herod which is mentioned in Acts xii., or
of that by Nero, is uncertain.
Besides the two canonical epistles (sec PKTEI;, EPISTLES OF) the
following works have either been (erroneously) attributed to him
or bear closely upon his history.
1. The Gospel according to Peter. — Euscbius (//. E., vi. 12, 2-6)
mentions that the public use of this Gospel was at one time allowed,
but afterwards disallowed on the ground of its Docetism, by Sera-
pion, the successor of Theophilus in the bishopric of Antioch (191-
213). It is mentioned by Origen (Horn, in Matt., x. 17, vol.
iii. p. 462), by Jerome (De Vir. Ilhistr., c. 1), and by Theodoret
(H&rct. Fab., ii. 2). Hilgenfeld (Nov. Test, extra canon, rcc., fasc.
iv. p. 39) thinks that it held a middle place between the Gospel
according to the Hebrcics and the Gospel of the Ebionites. Xo certain
fragments of it remain.
2. The Preaching of Peter (Htrpov Kripvy/j.a} ; and
3. The Journeys of Peter (Ittrpov irfpiodoi).- — These two works are
mentioned together in the Epistle to James which is prefixed to tho
Clementine Recognitions ; the former appears to have been Judreo-
Christian ; the latter was an attack on Paul under the guise of Simon
Magus. Both works underlie the Clementine Recognitions and
Homilies ; the patristic references to them will be found in Hilgen
feld, I.e., p. 52, and Einlcitung, pp. 42, 155, 580, 613.
4. TJie Preaching of Peter and Paul. — This, in distinction from
the preceding, belongs to the period at which Pauline and Petrine
tendencies had become combined. The fragments of it and refer
ences to it are collected by Hilgenfeld, I.e., p. 56.
5. The Acts of Peter and Paul. — The history of this work is
obscure ; in its present form (as printed by Tischcndorf, Acta Apos-
toJorum Apocrypha, pp. 1-39) it is probably a late recasting of an
earlier work or works. Of such earlier work or works there aro
traces which arc collected by Hilgenfeld, I.e., p. 66 ; in addition
to these it has been thought that the Martyr turn Pctri ct Pauli of
Symeon Metaphrastes contains part of the original Acts of Peter ;
but the section of the great work of Lipsius, Die apok. Apostelgesch.
u. Apmtellcg., which will probably unravel the present literary
difficulties of these Acts has not yet (1884) appeared.
6. The Apocalypse of Peter. — This is mentioned as a deutero-
canonical book in the Muratorian Fragment, by Clement of Alex
andria (an. Euseb., H. E., vi. 14, 1), and by Ensebins (//. E., iii. 25,
4). Methodius of Tyre placed it " among the inspired Scriptures "
(Sympos., ii. 6), and Sozomen (//. E., vii. 19) says that in some
churches of Palestine it was publicly road once a year. A few short
underste Schicksale der Christengemeindezu Rom, 1874, p. 51 ; Schmid,
Petrus in Rom, Lucerne, 1879 (which is a convenient summary of earlier
literature and arguments rather than an independent contribution to
the subject) ; Langen, Geschichte der romischen Kirche, 1881, p. 40 ;
Siefiert, in Herzog-Plitt, R. E., s.v. "Petrus."
• The story is first found in a sermon sometimes attributed to St
Ambrose and printed in some editions of his works, e.g., ed. Paris,
1603, vol. v. p. 100.
PETER
697
fragments of it are collected by Grabe, Sjricil. , i. 74, and by Hilgen-
feld, I.e., p. 71. (The work under the same title which was partly
translated by Jacobus de Vitriaco in the 13th century, and of
which some MSS. still remain, e.g., an Arabic translation in the
Bodleian library — JUSS. Arab. Christ., xlviii. — is a much later
composition. )
7. Epistle of Peter to James. — This is prefixed to the Clementine
Homilies (ed. Lagarde, p. 1) ; according to Photius (Biblioth., cod.
42, 113) there was a similar letter, which is now lost, prefixed to
the recognitions. Its character and literary value are the same as
those of the Clementines in general.
8. The Teaching of Simon Cephas in Rome. — This treatise exists
in Syriac, and was first published and translated by Cureton, Ancient
Xyriac Documents, 1864, p. 35 (since by B. P. Pratten, in the Ante-
Nicene Library, vol. xx. ). (A. HA.)
PETER, EPISTLKS OF. 1 Peter. — The first of the two
canonical epistles which bear the name of St Peter is
addressed " to the elect who are sojourners of the disper
sion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia."
Most commentators in both ancient and modern times (e.g.,
of the former, Athanasius, Jerome, Epiphanius ; of the
latter, Lange, Weiss, and Beyschlag) have interpreted this
phrase to refer primarily to Jewish Christians. But this
interpretation creates a difficulty. The countries named
were countries in which St Paul and his companions had
been especially active, and in which they had formed many
communities, chiefly from the Gentile population. If
therefore " the sojourners of the dispersion " be understood
to refer to Jews, it becomes necessary to suppose the
existence side by side in the same countries of two sets of
communities, Pauline and Petrine, and further to suppose
either (with Weiss) that the latter were already in exist
ence when Paul preached, or (with the majority of writers)
that Peter followed Paul upon his own ground. Both
these suppositions are improbable, and it is preferable to
understand the phrase of the "children of God that are
scattered abroad " whether Jews or Gentiles. That some of
the latter were included in it seems clear from i. 21, ii. 10,
which imply that before they were Christians they knew
not God, and from iii. 6, which implies that their wives
had only now become daughters of Abraham.
The epistle was evidently written at a time when the
Christians of Asia Minor were both calumniated (ii. 12,
iii. 16, iv. 4, 14) and persecuted (i. 6, 7, iii. 14-17, iv.
12-19). It exhorts those to whom it was addressed not
only to bear their trials patiently, and even to rejoice
inasmuch as they were " partakers of the sufferings of
Christ " (iv. 1 3), but also to give no occasion to the hostile
world which surrounded them to reproach them as evil
doers (ii. 12, 15, iv. 14, 15), and it specializes this ex
hortation to well-doing by addressing separately servants
(ii. 18-25), wives (iii. 1-6), and husbands (iii. 7). This
fact that Christianity had come to be persecuted, and also
the fact, which is manifested in its whole tone, that
Christians were in danger of retrograding, show that the
epistle cannot be placed in the earlier part of the apostolic
age. The time of the Neronian persecution is the earliest
that will satisfy the required conditions ; and some (e.f/.,
Schwegler, Baur, Hilgenfeld) have thought that even this
is too early for those conditions, and that it must be
referred to the time of Trajan. It may, however, be said
in reference to this latter view that the words of Tacitus in
regard to the Christians under Nero, if they be not merely
a reflexion from his own time, exactly suit the circum
stances to which this epistle refers; " quos per flagitia
invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat " (Ann., xv. 44).
Like most documents of the apostolic age, it deals less
with doctrine than with practice. But, though the doctrine
is incidental, it is clear ; taken in connexion with the
Petrine speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, with which
it is on the whole in harmony, it probably gives a faithful
transcript of the original apostolic teaching. The Messiah
of whom the prophets had spoken had been revealed (i.
10-12); He had come to suffer(i. 11) for sins (ii. 24, iii. 18),
and by His sufferings He had rescued the elect from their
former evil life (i. 18-20) and brought them to God (iii. 18),
and in His conduct under suffering left an example for
them to follow (ii. 21-23). Belief in God who raised Him
from the dead on the one hand is a purification of the soul
and an obedience to the truth, and on the other it results
in love of the brethren (i. 22) ; it constitutes a bond of
brotherhood, like that which had existed between the
children of Abraham, and made the elect, what the Jews
had failed to be, " a royal priesthood, a holy nation " (ii. 9,
from Exod. xix. 6). But the fulfilment of the promise
is not for this world; Christians are "strangers and tra
vellers" (ii. 11) ; the end of all things is at hand (iv. 7),
and that is the revelation of the glory of the Messiah
in which those who believe in Him will be partakers
(iv. 13, v. 1).
The picture of the Christian communities which the
epistle presents is of the simplest, and is in entire harmony
with the general facts of the apostolic and sub-apostolic
age. The organization was that of the Jewish synedria ;
the " elders " were as shepherds of the flock, exercising
over the younger members the control of a simple discipline.
The ministering to the wants of those who needed help
was the common and personal duty of all who had where
with to minister (iv. 10), and a special class of officers for
the purpose was not yet needed. It is evident that
" liberty of prophesying " prevailed ; the only injunction
on the point is, "if any man speak, let him speak as the
oracles of God" (iv. 11).
The coincidences of thought and expression between some pass
ages of this epistle and some passages in the epistle of James
and in both the disputed and undisputed epistles of St Paul have
given rise to much discussion. The chief coincidences are the fol
lowing: — (1) between 1 Peter and James, i. 6, 7, and i. 2, 3, i. 12
and i. 25, i. 22 and iv. 8, ii. 1 and i. 21, iv. 8 and v. 20, v. 5, 9,
and iv. 6, 7, v. 6 and iv. 10 ; (2) between 1 Peter and Romans, i.
14 and xii. 2, ii. 5 andxii. 1, ii. 6-10 and ix. 32, ii. 13 and xiii. 1,
iii. 9 and xii. 17, iii. 22 and viii. 34, iv. 3, 7, and xiii. 11, 12, iv.
9 and xiii. 13, iv. 10 and xii. 6 ; (3) between 1 Peter and Ephe-
sians, i. 1 sq. and i. 3 sq. , i. 14 and ii. 3, ii. 18 and vi. 5, iii. 1
and v. 22, iii. 22 and i. 20, v. 5 and v. 21. Of these coincidences
several explanations have been given. Weiss (Die jidrinischc
Lehrbcgriffe, 1855, and Biblical Theology of the New Testament,
E. T., vol. i. p. 167) holds that this epistle preceded the other
epistles and gave rise to the expressions which they contain. The
Tiibingen school hold that the contrary is the case, and that it
represents either a late and weakened form of Paulinism (Baur,
Zeller, Pfleiderer), or an attempt to mediate between the Paulim;
and Petrine parties by clothing the doctrines of the latter in the
phraseology of the former (Schwegler). Others (notably Mayerhoff,
Einleitung indie petr. Schriftcn, 1835) consider that there is no copy
ing on either the one side or the other, but that all the coincidences
of expression come from a common stock of apostolic teaching.
The epistle was used by Papias and is possibly referred to by
Polycarp, and it is expressly quoted by Irenaeus and Tertullian ;
it is not mentioned in the Muratorian Fragment, but it is trans
lated in the Peshito version, and is included by Eusebius among
the admitted books (homologoumena). Its genuineness was generally
admitted until the present century ; and some of its peculiarities
have been accounted for by the hypothesis of its having been
originally written in Aramaic, and translated, or possibly amplified,
by Mark or Silvanus. On the other hand there are some who hold
that the attacks upon it by Schwegler, Baur, Pfleiderer, Holtz-
mann, and others have been stronger than the defence of it.
2 Peter. — The second epistle is addressed to a wider
circle than the first, i.e., to Christians in general. Its aim
is mainly polemical ; it is directed partly against a tendency
towards libertinism, which was growing up and which took
for one of its supports the Pauline doctrine of Christian
freedom (ii. 1, iii. 16), and partly against the reaction which
had set in against the earlier eschatology (iii. 3, 4). It
protests in powerful language against the separation of
Christianity from holy living, maintaining that Christ
ianity without holy living is worse than no Christianity at
XVIII. — 88
698
PETER
all (c. ii.); and it reasserts the reality of the Second Coming,
resting it upon the reality of the supernatural evidence
of the First Coming (i. 16-18).
The correspondence between this epistle, especially c. ii.,
and that of Jude is too strong to be a mere coincidence. It
was at one time supposed to be the original which Jude
imitated (so Semler and Michaelis, and more recently
Luthardt and Hofmann), but the preponderance of opinion
in modern times is in favour of the opposite view (not
only by those who question the authenticity of this epistle
but by some also of those who maintain it, e.g., Weiss). A
leading argument in favour of the latter hypothesis is
that 2 Peter ii. 13-17 is an amplification (and some main
tain also a misapplication) of Jude 11, 12, and that 2 Peter
ii. 11 requires Jude 9 for its explanation. An equally
well marked correspondence has recently been pointed out
between this epistle and Josephus, and the balance of prob
ability is in favour of the priority of the latter.1
The differences of style which distinguish the second
from the first epistle have been noted since the time of
Jerome (De Vir. Illustr., c. 1, and Eput. ad Hedib., c. 11).
They are sometimes explained on the ground of the epistles
having had different purposes, or having been written at
different times ; they are more commonly used as indica
tions of a difference of authorship ; and, although the argu
ment from differences of style in comparatively short
documents cannot be held to be decisive where the external
evidence in their favour is strong, such is not the case
with this epistle. The external evidence for it is singularly
weak ; there are no certain traces of it earlier than the 3d
century, when Origen (ap. Euseb., //. E., vi. 25), who is the
first to mention it, also mentions that it was questioned.
It is not included in either the Muratorian Fragment or
the Peshito-Syriac (though it is in the later Philoxenian).
Eusebius (//. E., iii. 3) ranks it among the disputed books
(antileyomeiKi), and Jerome, although he included it in his
translation (which fact probably accounts for its general
acceptance in the Western churches), mentions that many
rejected it. These doubts of early writers, which were
revived by Erasmus and Calvin, have been shared by a
large proportion of those who have written on the book
in modern times ; at the same time it cannot be said that
there is a consensus of opinion against it.
The best editions of both the epistles are those in the comment
aries of De Wette and Meyer, as revised the former by Bruckner
and the latter by Huther (this has been translated, with the rest
of Meyer's Commentary, into English) ; there is a convenient short
English commentary by Dean Plurnptre in the Cambridge Bible
for Schools. For the doctrinal and other questions which arise
out of the two epistles reference may be made, in addition to the
works mentioned in the course of the article, to Weiss, "Die
petrinische Frage," in Stitd. u. Krit., 1865, p. 619; Grimm, "Das
Problem d. ersten Petrusbr.," ibid., 1872, p. 657; Schmid, New Tes-
Cament Theology, translated in Clark's Foreign Theological Library ;
Messner, Die Lehreder Apostd, 1856; Farrar, Early Days of Christ
ianity, vol. i. pp. 121, 174 ; and Sieffert, s,v. "Petrus," in Herzog-
Plitt's Real-Eiicyklopadie, 2d ed. vol. xi. (E. HA.)
PETER OF BLOIS, otherwise known as PETRUS BLESENSIS,
a writer of the 12th century, was born at Blois in France
about the year 1 1 20. He studied theology at Paris, where
one of his teachers was John of Salisbury, who exercised a
considerable influence over him ; he afterwards resided for
.some time as a student of law at Bologna. He was then
appointed preceptor to William II. of Sicily, and in 1167
made keeper of the privy seal (sigillifer) ; political occur
rences, however, compelled his return in the following year
to France, whence he was invited into England by Henry
II., who made him his private secretary. About 1176 he
withdrew from court and entered the household of Richard,
archbishop of Canterbury, whose chancellor he became.
1 Abbott, in the Expositor, 1882, p. 49, and Farrar, The Early
Days of Christianity, vol. i. p. 190.
This office he also held under Baldwin, Richard's successor,
by whom he was sent to Rome in 1187 to support his
cause in the controversy with the monks of Canterbury.
Peter died about 1200.
His writings, which cover all the fields of intellectual activity
then accessible, show him to have been one of the most widely
and deeply learned men of his age. They include a number of
allegorizing sermons and edifying tracts, a hortatory address, De
Jeresolymitana peregrinatione accclcranda, a discourse Contra pc.r-
fidiam Judfeorum, and, most interesting for its bearing on the
political and ecclesiastical history of his time, a collection of 183
letters to Henry II., as well as to various popes, prelates, and
scholars, including his old master John of Salisbury. The best
edition of his works is that of Pierre de Goussaiuville, Paris,
1667, fol.
PETER THE HERMIT, the apostle of the first crusade,
Avas born of good family, it is supposed, in the diocese of
Amiens about the year 1050. His early history is obscure,
but he appears to have seen some military service under
the counts of Boulogne before his withdrawal from the
world as a hermit. His crusading zeal originated in a
pilgrimage he made to the Holy Sepulchre shortly before
1094, in which year he began to preach in the transalpine
countries the immediate deliverance of Jerusalem from
the infidel (see CRUSADES, vol. vi. p. 623 s<j.). After the
failure of the expedition headed by him in 1096, he
founded and became first prior of the abbey of Neuf-
moustier at Huy in the diocese of Liege, where he died on
7th July 1115.
PETER I., ALEXEIEVICH, surnamed THE GREAT (1672-
1725), czar of Russia, was born at Moscow on llth June
1672. His mother, Natalia Xarishkina, was the second
wife of the czar Alexis. He was taught reading and
writing, and the limited range of subjects which then con
stituted education in Russia, by the deacon Nikita Zotoff.
He came to the throne in the year 1682, on the death of
his elder brother Feodore ; there was another brother,
Ivan, who was six years his senior, but he was weak both
in body and mind. Feodore therefore had wished Peter
to succeed him, but Sophia, his sister, a woman of strong
character and great ambition, was desirous that Ivan should
rule, so that she might be proclaimed regent and in reality
exercise the sovereignty. She therefore fomented a revolt
of the " streltzi," or native militia, and the result was a
compromise, whereby Ivan and Peter were to reign jointly.
On the death of Ivan in 1696 Peter became sole ruler,
and punished Sophia by incarcerating her for life in the
Devichi monastery, where she died in 1704.
With the aid of Lefort, a Swiss adventurer, and other
foreigners, Peter commenced his remarkable reforms, for
which see RUSSIA. Here nothing more than a brief sum
mary of the leading events of his life is given. In the
year 1696 he besieged and took Azoff, his great object
being to give Russia a seaboard. In 1697 he made his
first Continental tour, on which occasion he worked at the
dockyards of Zaandam and Deptford. On leaving Eng
land he took with him many ingenious men who wished
to try their fortunes in a new country, — among them
Perry the engineer, who has left us an interesting account
of Russia at that time. From England Peter went to
Vienna, wrhere he studied the tactics of the imperial army,
then enjoying a great reputation throughout Europe, and
wras meditating a visit to Italy when he heard of a revolt
of the streltzi, fomented by the partisans of the old regime,
in consequence of which he hurried back to Moscow, and
on his arrival punished the rebels with the greatest severity.
In the year 1700 he joined Poland and Denmark against
Sweden. Although defeated at Narva the same year, he
pursued his plans unremittingly, and in 1709 won the
battle of Poltava, after which Charles, the Swedish king,
became a fugitive in Turkey. In 1703 the foundations
of St Petersburg were laid. Peter had married in 1689
P E T — P E T
Eudoxia Lopukhin, but had divorced her in 1696; she
Lore him a son, Alexis. In 1 7 1 1 he took as his second
wife Martha Skavronska, whom he caused to be baptized in
the Greek Church under the name of Catherine. In this
year took place Peter's unsuccessful campaign in Turkey,
which ended with the loss of Azoff. The well-known story
of his being rescued by Catherine when on the point of
being obliged to surrender to the enemy has been shown
to be of very doubtful authority. In 1713 Peter had made
himself master of a considerable strip of the Swedish coast.
In 1716 he went on another European tour in the company
of his wife ; on this occasion he visited, among other places,
Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Paris. During his absence
his son Alexis, who had been a constant source of trouble
to him, became more rebellious and estranged from his
father. He was openly leagued with the reactionary party
in Russia, who looked forward to his assistance in reversing
the policy of Peter, as soon as he should succeed to the
throne. Peter on his return in 1718 forced his son to
renounce all claim to the sovereignty. Alexis was after
wards tried for high treason and sentenced to death ; soon
it was given out that he had died suddenly. The fate of
this wretched young man has only been ascertained in
modern times ; it seems tolerably clear that he sank under
repeated inflictions of torture. His death is a dark stain
upon the character of Peter. On 10th September 1721
the peace of Nystad was concluded, by which Sweden
ceded Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Carelia, Viborg, and the
adjacent islands to Russia. In 1724 Peter went to inspect
the works on Lake Ladoga, and further weakened his
constitution, which had long been in an unhealthy state
on account of the continual excitement and arduous labours
of his life. The czar died on 28th January 1725.
The character of Peter exhibits a strange congeries of
opposed qualities. According to some he "knouted" Russia
into civilization ; others see in him the true " father of his
country " and the founder of Russian greatness. In spite
of his errors, no one will deny that he was a man of great
genius; his was the " fiery soul that, working out its way,"
exhausted prematurely a vigorous physical organization.
Although frequently cruel, on many occasions he showed
humanity and tenderness, and even in his most violent fits
of temper was amenable to advice, as he evinced in enduring
the rebukes of Prince James Dolgoruki. All Russia seems
but the monument of this strange colossal man. He added
six provinces to her dominions, gave her an outlet upon
two seas, a regular army trained in European tactics in
lieu of the disorderly militia previously existing, a fleet,
and a naval academy, and, besides these, galleries of paint
ing and sculpture and libraries. The title of " Great "
cannot justly be refused to such a man.
PETER II., ALBXEIEVICH (1715-1730), son of Alexis
and grandson of Peter the Great, was born at St Peters
burg in 1715, and ascended the throne in 1727. He was
under the guardianship of Menshikoff, to whose daughter
Mary he was betrothed. The faction of the Menshikoffs
was overthrown, however, by the Dolgorukis, to a daughter
of whose house the czar was now to be married. All these
political plans were rudely broken by the death of Peter in
January 1730. During his short reign this youth showed
reactionary tendencies, and it seemed as if the capital of
Russia was again to be transferred to Moscow. The young
czar was buried in the cathedral of the Archangel in that
city.
PETER III., FEODOROVICH (1728-1762), was son of
Anna, daughter of Peter the Great, who had married the
duke of Holstein. He was born at Kiel in 1728, his real
names being Karl Peter Ulrich ; he went to Russia in
1742 on being named heir to the throne. In 1745 he
married Sophia Augusta, princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, who,
on entering the Greek Church, took the name of Catherine.
They lived very unhappily together. In January 1762 the
czarina Elizabeth died and Peter succeeded her. He soon
became unpopular on account of his fondness for the
Prussians and the introduction of German regulations in
the army. His wife took advantage of his unpopularity
and caused herself to be crowned empress, July 1762.
Peter showed great want of energy, and only attempted
to stem the insurrection when it was too late. He was
removed to Ropsha in the government of St Petersburg,
and, after having been forced to sign a renunciation of all
rights to the throne, was strangled by Orloff and others.
He was first buried in the Alexandro-Nevski monastery,
but his remains Avere removed in 1796 by Paul to the
Petropavlovski church.
PETERBOROUGH, a city and municipal and parlia
mentary borough, chiefly in Northamptonshire, but partly
in Huntingdonshire, is situated on the river Nene, 76 miles
north of London by the Great Northern Railway. The
town is also a station on the London and North-Western,
the Great Eastern, and the Midland systems. It is built
chiefly along the river on the north side, the streets being
straight and wide, and containing many good houses. The
first bridge over the Nene at Peterborough was erected in
1140, the present bridge in 1872. The cathedral of St
Peter is the third church that has occupied the site ; the
first, founded by Peada, king of the Mercians, in 656, was
entirely destroyed by the Danes in 870, and the second,
founded by King Edgar in 971, was accidentally burnt in
1116. The present building, founded in the following
year, was, inclusive of the west front, 120 years in build
ing, being consecrated on 4th October 1237. It is one of
the three Norman cathedrals in England, and, though
scarcely entitled to a place among cathedrals of the first
rank, possesses special features rendering it second almost
to none in point of architectural interest. It embraces in
all eight periods of construction, and in no other building
can the transition be better studied through the various
grades of Norman to Early English, while the later addition
is an admirable example of Perpendicular. The edifice
proceeded as usual from east to west, and, while an increase
in elegance and elaboration is observable in the later parts,
the character of the earlier buildings has been so carefully
kept in mind that no sense of incongruity is produced. A
series of uniform Decorated windows were added through
out the church in the 1 4th century, and the effect has been
rather to enhance than detract from the unity of design.
The choir, Early Norman, was founded on 1 2th March 1117
(or 7th March 1118) by John de Sez, and dedicated in
1140 or 1143 ; the aisles of both transepts and the whole
of the south transept were built by Martin of Bee, 1140-55;
the remaining portions of the transepts and the central
toAver, of three stories, were completed by William de
Waterville, 1155-75; the nave, Late Norman, was com
pleted by Abbot Benedict, 1177-93, who added a beautiful
painted roof of wood ; the western transepts, Transition
Norman, were the work of Abbot Andrew, 1193-1200; the
western front, with its magnificent triple arch, the unique
feature of the building, and one of the finest specimens
of Early English extant, must have been built between
1200 and 1250 ; but there exists no record of its construc
tion. The lady chapel, built parallel with the choir by
William Parys, prior, was consecrated in 1290; the bell-
tower was erected by Abbot Richard between 1260 and
1274; the south-west spire, the pinnacles of the flanking
tower of the west portal, and the enlargement of the
windows of the nave and aisles were the work of Henry
de Morcot in the beginning of the 14th century; the new
building or eastern chapel in the Perpendicular style, be
gun in 1438, was not completed till 1528. In 1541 the
700
PETERBOROUGH
church was converted into a cathedral, the abbot being
made the first bishop. The extreme length of the building
is 471 feet, and of the nave 211 feet, the breadth of the
west front being 156 ; the height of the central tower, as
reconstructed in the 14th century, was 150, that of the
spires and tower of the west front is 156 feet. In 1643
the building was defaced by the soldiers of Cromwell, who
destroyed nearly all the brasses and monuments, burnt the
ancient records, levelled the altar and screen, defaced the
windows, and demolished the cloisters. To obtain mate
rials for repairs the lady chapel was taken down. In the
latter part of the 18th century the church was repaved.
In 1831 a new throne, stalls, and choir-screen were erected
and other restorations completed. On account of the in
secure state of the central tower in 1883, it was taken
down ; but it is now (1884) being rebuilt. Catherine of
Aragon was interred in the cathedral in 1536, and Mary
queen of Scots in 1588, but the body of the Scottish queen
was removed to Westminster Abbey in 1612. Of the mon
astic buildings there are some interesting remains. The
cathedral is approached by a Norman gateway, above
which is the chapel of St Nicholas, built by Abbot Bene
dict, and now used as the music school, and on the left the
chapel of St Thomas a Becket, built by Abbot Ashton in
the 15th century, and now used as the grammar-school.
The gateway to the bishop's palace, formerly the abbot's
house, was built by Abbot Godfrey de Croyland in 1319,
and the deanery gate by Abbot Kirton in 1515. One of
the canonry houses is formed partly from a hall of the
13th century. To the north of the cathedral is Touthill,
said to have been erected for the defence of the monastery.
Peterborough is included for civil purposes in the parish of St
John the Baptist, but for ecclesiastical purposes it is divided into
four, the additional parishes being St Mary's Boongate (1857), St
Mark's (1858), and St Paul's (1869). The old parish church of St
John originally stood to the east of the cathedral, but was rebuilt
on its present site in the centre of the city (1401-7) in the Perpen
dicular style. It consists of chancel, nave, aisles, and an embattled
tower adorned with pinnacles. The educational establishments in
clude the Henry VIII. grammar or chapter school ; the St Peter's
training college for schoolmasters for the dioceses of Peterborough,
Ely, and Lincoln, erected from designs of Sir Gilbert Scott (1864),
and attended by forty-six pupils ; the practising school attached
to the training college, attended by 250 boys ; and Deacons and
Ireland's charity school, established in 1721 for the clothing and
educating of twenty poor boys, but lately reorganized. The prin
cipal public buildings are the market-house (1671), used as a town-
hall, the corn exchange (1848) in the Italian style, the liberty jail
and house of correction in the Norman style (erected in 1848 and
enlarged in 1855 and 1870), the assembly rooms (1853), and the
county court and probate office (1873). A cattle-market, 5 acres
in extent, was opened in 1867. The benevolent institutions in
clude the dispensary and infirmary, several almshouses, and the
union workhouse. The modern prosperity and rapid growth of the
town are chiefly due to the trade caused by the junction of so many
railway lines. Adjoining the town are extensive works and sheds
connected with the Great Northern and Midland Railways. Im
portant cattle -markets and fairs are held, and therj is a large
transit of meat and cattle to London and elsewhere. An extensive
trade in corn, coal, and timber is also carried on. The principal
manufacture is that of agricultural implements. The entire par
liamentary city of Peterborough has an area of 6558 acres (of which
6310 are in Northamptonshire), with a population of 22,394 (of
whom 20,123 are in Northamptonshire). The population of the
municipal borough (area, 1818 acres) in 1871 was 16,310, and in
1881 it was 21,228.. Since 1841 it has more than trebled.
The ancient name of Peterborough was Mcdcshamstcde. The
foundation of the great Benedictine abbey of St Peter was laid in
655 by Oswy, king of Northumbria, and Peada, the first Christian
king of Mercia. It was the first of the Benedictine abbeys in
Gyrwa land (Fenland). In 870 it was plundered by the Danes,
after which it remained desolate till 966, when it was restored to
its former splendour by Athwald, bishop of Winchester. From
that time the town was called a borough, being probably then
surrounded by walls ; and under Abbot Leofric, nephew of Earl
Lcofric of Mercia, the abbey became one of the wealthiest in
England. In 1169 it was plundered by Hereward. Since the
first of Edward IV. the borough has returned two members to
parliament. Until 1874 the city was included in the liberty or
soke of Peterborough, the government of which was vested in the
lord paramount, the custos rotulorum, and magistrates appointed
by the crown, with powers equal to those of judges of assize ; a
high bailiff o£ the city was appointed by the dean and chapter as
lords of the manor, who acted as returning officer till the incorpora
tion of the city in 1874. Peterborough is divided into three wards ;
for municipal and sanitary purposes it is governed by a mayor,
six aldermen, and eighteen councillors, but for magisterial and
sessional purposes is still included in the liberty of Peterborough.
Gunton, Histury of the Church of Peterborough, 1080; Britton, Histnry and
Antiquities of the Abbey and Cathedral Church of Peterborough, 18:28 ; Paley.
lie.marks on the Architecture, of Peterborough Cathedral, 1849 ; Sweeting, Xotes on
Peterborough Cathedral, 1800.
PETERBOROUGH AND MOM MOUTH, CHARLES MOR-
DAUNT, EARL OF (r. 1658-1735), a man whose whole life was
passed in the turmoil of excitement, was born about 1658.
His father, John Mordaunt, was created Baron Mordaunt
of Reigate, Surrey, in 1659 ; his mother was Elizabeth,
the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Gary, the second
son of Robert Gary, earl of Monmouth. He entered upon
a long career of warfare when only about sixteen years
of age by joining Sir John Narborough's fleet in the
Mediterranean, and won his first distinction in arms in
Cloudesley Shovel's destruction of the dey's fleet under
the very guns of Tripoli. On two subsequent occasions —
the first in September 1678, the second in June 1680 — he
embarked in expeditions for the relief of Tangier, but the
adventure met with little success, and that troublesome
possession was soon after abandoned. His father died 5th
June 1675, and Charles Mordaunt succeeded to the peerage.
On his return from the second expedition to Tangier he
plunged into active political life as a zealous Whig and an
unswerving opponent of the duke of York. But his con
tinued hostility to James II. forced him to retire to
Holland, when he proposed to William of Orange to invade
England. The disposition of the cold and cautious William
had little in common with the fierce and turbulent English
peer. His plan was rejected, though the prudent prince of
Orange deemed it judicious to retain his fiery adherent by
his side. When William sailed to Torbay his friend accom
panied him, and when the Dutch prince was safely estab
lished on the throne of England honours without stint
were showered upon Lord Mordaunt. He was sworn of
the privy council 14th February 1689, made a lord of the
bedchamber in the same month, created lord-lieutenant of
Northamptonshire shortly after, and in April of the same
year appointed first lord of the treasury and advanced in
the peerage to be earl of Monmouth. In less than a year
he was out of the treasury, but he still remained by the
person of his monarch. He was with William in his
dangerous passage to Holland in January 1691 ; and in
June 1692, when crossing from England to the same
country, he narrowly escaped shipwreck. Although the
English king had refused his consent to a bill for triennial
parliaments in the previous session, Lord Monmouth did
not shrink from reintroducing it in December 1693. This
led to a disagreement with the court, though the final
breach did not take place until January 1697, when Mon
mouth was accused of complicity in Sir John Fen wick's con
spiracy and of the use of " undutiful words " towards the
king. He was committed to the Tower, staying in confine
ment until April 1697, and deprived of his employments.
Some consolation for these troubles came to him in June
of the same year, when he succeeded to the earldom of
Peterborough. The four years after his release from the
Tower were mainly passed in retirement at Parson's Green,
Fulham, at a house long since pulled down, but famous for
its " extraordinary good rooms " and its spacious gardens.
At the close of William's reign Lord Peterborough emerged
from his suburban retreat for a time to take part in the
prosecution of Lord Somers, and on the accession of Anne
he plunged into political life again with avidity. His first
act was to draw down on himself in February 1702 the
T — P E T
701
censure of the House of Commons for the part which he
took in the attempt to secure the return of his nominee
for the borough of Malmesbury.- In the same year he was
appointed governor of Jamaica, but he never visited the
island over which he ruled, preferring to remain in a part of
the world where he could play a more active part in the
government of affairs. Through the fear of the ministry
that his restless spirit would drive him into opposition to
its measures if he stayed at home, he was appointed early
in 1 705 to command an expedition of English and Dutch
troops in Spain. He was created sole commander of the
land-forces and joint-commander with Sir Cloudesley Shovel
of the fleet, and at the same time was reinstated a member
of the privy council. His first exploit was to seize Denia
in Valencia ; then, with all the impetuosity of his char
acter, he urged upon the Austrian claimant to the throne
the expediency of dashing for Madrid, less than 250 miles
distant, only to find that he was overruled by his col
leagues in council. After this repulse he sailed for Bar
celona (August 1705) and commenced to besiege that
town. For three weeks the siege languished, until, by a
sudden night- attack on 14th September, Peterborough
seized the outworks of Montjuich, and three nights later
captured the citadel itself. On 14th October the city was
his. This was his greatest feat, and in this enterprise he
showed, what was usually wanting in his character, both
tact and conciliation. After this victory Catalonia declared
for the Austrian prince, and Peterborough advanced into
Valencia with the object of reducing it to subjection. By
threats, cajolements, intrigues, and plots he obtained pos
session of its chief towns, but the prince for whom he was
fighting allowed himself to be surrounded in Barcelona.
Peterborough's advice, that Charles should travel by sea
to Lisbon and march against Madrid with the allied force
of 25,000 men, was disregarded, and the English commander
with his little body of "2000 foot and 600 horse then ad
vanced towards Barcelona, which was besieged by a greatly
superior force of the enemy. The city was on the point of
being captured, when Peterborough, warned of the approach
of the English fleet — it is said that the signal of its arrival
was a blank sheet of paper — put off in an open boat, and,
after journeying to and fro, met with his country's vessels.
On 8th May he brought the leading ships into the port of
Barcelona, and three days later the French beat a retreat.
Again did the English commander urge upon the Austrian
claimant of the Spanish throne the expediency of imme
diately advancing to Madrid, and again was the advice
rejected, although the capital was occupied by the allied
forces under Galway and Das Minas. Charles remained
at Barcelona for some weeks, and when at last he did move
towards Madrid it was by a route which Peterborough dis
approved of. When difficulties beset Charles on his way
the earl joined him, but he soon retired to Valencia in
disgust, and then left the country to raise money at Genoa.
In a short time he returned to Spain once more, but during
his absence the prospects of the allied forces had passed
from bad to worse. The leaders of the army differed in
their views, and Lord Peterborough quitted the country
for ever (March 1707).
On his return to England he allied himself with the
Tories, and received his reward in being contrasted, much
to his advantage, with the Whig victor of Blenheim and
Malplaquet. The differences between the three peers,
Peterborough, Galway, and Tyrawley, who had served in
Spain, formed the subject of angry debates in the Lords,
when the majority declared for Peterborough ; after some
fiery speeches the resolution that he had performed many
great and eminent services was carried, and votes of thanks
were passed to him without any division. His new friends
were not desirous of detaining him long on English soil,
and they sent him on a mission where he characteristically
engaged the ministry in pledges of which they disapproved.
His resentment at this disagreement was softened by the
command of a cavalry regiment, and by his appointment
as a Knight of the Garter. A few months before the close
of Queen Anne's reign (November 1713) he was despatched
as ambassador-extraordinary to the king of Sicily, but was
recalled by the Whigs as soon as they obtained the reins
of power. With the accession of George I. Lord Peter
borough's influence was gone. Hatred of Marlborough be
came the ruling passion of his mind. His last twenty years
of life were passed with the recollection of disappointed
hopes and with the continual presence of disease. Worn
out with suffering, he died at Lisbon, 25th October 1735.
His remains were brought to England and buried at Turvey
in Bedfordshire, 21st November.
Lord Peterborough was short in stature and spare in habit of
body. His activity knew no bounds. He was said to have seen
more kings and postilions than any man in Europe, and the whole
point of Swift's lines on " Mordanto " consisted in a description of
the speed with which he hastened from capital to capital. Nature
had bestowed many gifts upon him, but had denied him more. He
was eloquent in debate and intrepid in war, but his influence in
the senate was ruined through his inconsistency, and his vigour in
the field was wasted through his want of union with his colleagues.
He could do nothing like other men. His first wife, Carey, daughter
of Sir Alexander Eraser of Mearns, died 13th May 1709, and was
buried at Turvey 20th May. Some years later he married Anas-
tasia Robinson, a dramatic singer of great beauty and sweetness of
disposition ; but she was unrecognized as his wife, and lived apart
from him at her mother's house at Parson's Green. Xor was it
until a fewr months before his death that she was introduced to
society as the countess of Peterborough. ( W. P. C. )
PETERHEAD, a seaport, market town, burgh of barony,
and parliamentary burgh of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is
situated on a rocky peninsula on the North Sea, about 30
miles north-north-east of Aberdeen and 2 north of Buchan
Ness. It has railway communication by a section of the
Great North of Scotland line, opened in 1862. The town
is built of the red granite of the district. At the extrem
ity of the peninsula is the insular suburb of Keith-Inch.
Among the principal buildings are the town-hall (1788),
with a granite spire 125 feet high, the music hall, and the
court-house. The reading society (1808) possesses a library
with upwards of 5000 volumes, and the mechanics' insti
tute one with about 1000 volumes. The Arbuthnot
Museum contains natural history specimens, a collection
of coins, and objects of antiquarian interest. In front of
the town -hall is a statue to Field-Marshal Keith (1696-
1758), presented to the burgh by William I. of Prussia in
1868. A market cross was erected in 1832 when the town
was created a parliamentary burgh. Peterhead at an early
period had an extensive trade with the ports of the Baltic,
the Levant, and America. Formerly it was a bonding sub-
port to Aberdeen, but was made independent in 1832.
The north and south harbours lie between the town and
Keith-Inch, and the isthmus dividing them is pierced by a
canal, which is crossed by an iron swing-bridge. In the
north harbour are two graving-docks. A new harbour
was completed in 1878, and the south harbour has been
deepened and enlarged. The south bay is to be converted
into a national harbour of refuge. The Arctic seal and
whale fishing, which in 1802 was prosecuted by only one
vessel, employed in 1857 as many as 32 vessels, but since
that time it has declined somewhat. The herring fishing,
in which the port has long held a leading position (631
boats in 1883), was begun in 1818 by a joint-stock com
pany. The general trade is of considerable importance.
The chief exports are herrings (£180,000 in 1883), granite,
cattle, and agricultural produce. In 1883 the number of
vessels that entered the port with cargoes and in ballast
was 864 of 87,839 tons, the number that cleared 840 of
86,318 tons. The town possesses ship and boat building
"02
P E T — P E T
yards, saw-mills, an iron-foundry, cooperages, agricultural
implement works, woollen manufactories, breweries, and a
distillery. In the neighbourhood there are extensive granite
and polishing works. The limits of the police burgh and
the parliamentary burgh are identical, with a population
in 1871 of 8535 and in 1881 of 10,922.
The town and lands of Peterhead belonged anciently to the abbey
of Deer, built by William Gumming, earl of Buchan, in the 13th
century. When the abbey was erected into a temporal lordship in
the family of Keith, the superiority of the town fell to the earl
marischal, with whom it continued till the forfeiture of the earldom
in 1715. The town and lands were purchased in 1720 by a fishing
company in England, and on their failure by the Merchant Maiden
Hospital of Edinburgh for £3000, who are still the superiors of the
town. Peterhead was made a burgh of barony in 1593 by George
Keith, fourth earl marischal of Scotland. It was the scene of the
landing of the Pretender, 25th December 1715. Peterhead is in
cluded in the Elgin district of burghs.
PETERHOF, a town of European Russia, in the govern
ment of St Petersburg, and 18 miles west of the capital,
on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland, has grown up
round the palace built by Peter the Great in 1711, was
constituted a district town in 1848, and has increased its
population from 7647 in 1866 to 14,298 in 1881. It is
almost exclusively a residential town, but is garrisoned by
a cavalry regiment and has the military schools lodged in
its barracks for six weeks in the summer. The palace,
which is still occupied by the imperial family during part
of the summer, has undergone alterations and additions,
but retains a distinct Petrine stamp. It is built on a height
60 feet above the sea. The gardens, which owe their
magnificence to Alexander I. and Nicholas I., are laid out
in the Versailles style, with elaborate water-works. From
the "Marly" summer-house Peter I. loved to watch his
fleet beneath the Cronstadt batteries, and in that of " Mon-
plaisir " he died. It was at Peterhof that the empress
Alexandra used to celebrate her birthday by fetes at
which more than 100,000 persons were present. Peterhof
is connected with Oranienbaum on the west and with
Strelma on the east by an uninterrupted series of gardens
and villas.
PETERS, or PETER, HUGH (1598-1660), a man whose
name has for three centuries been rarely mentioned except
in terms of infamy, was the son of Thomas Dyckwoode alias
Peters, by Martha, daughter of John Freffry of Fowey, Corn
wall, and was baptized in Fowey parish church 29th June
1598. His parents were in good circumstances, and they
sent him to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took the
degree of B.A. in 1616 and M.A. in 1622. About the
latter date he was licensed by Dr George Montaigne,
bishop of London, to the lectureship at St Sepulchre's,
London, but his first definite post in the church was at
Rotterdam (1623-32), as colleague of William Ames, whom
he much admired, and who died "in his bosom." In
October 1635 he emigrated to Boston in New England,
and in the following year became the minister of the first
church at Salem in Massachusetts. His abilities soon
gave him a prominent place in all the civil and ecclesiastical
affairs of the colony, and in 1641 his reputation was so
great that he was sent to England as the best guardian of
the colony's interests at home. His shrewd judgment, his
ready wit, and his zeal for the cause of the Parliament
endeared him to the army and its leaders ; he accompanied
Fairfax and Cromwell on their campaigns, and described
their achievements in numerous letters to the House of
Commons. To the adherents of the vanquished cause
Hugh Peters always lent his good offices. He was desirous
that Laud should be banished, and not executed. It was
through his influence that Juxon was permitted to attend
Charles after his condemnation, and his acts of kindness
to some of the Royalist clergy are mentioned in Walker's
Sufferings of the Clergy, Through the favour of the Pro
tector he filled several important offices. He was one of
the twenty-one persons appointed to consider the abuses
of the national laws ; he was a judge for granting probates
of wills, and a trier for licensing candidates to the ministry.
At the Restoration he was seized and imprisoned in the
Tower of London, where he composed his affecting tract,
"A Dying Father's Last Legacy to an Only Child." His
trial as a regicide took place on 13th October 1660, and he
was, of course, condemned to death. Four days later
he was drawn on a sledge to Charing Cross and there
hanged and quartered, his head being set on a pole on
London Bridge. Hugh Peters suffered his cruel death
without any sign of Avavering. For many years after his
death the grossest charges against his memory were cir
culated in catchpenny pamphlets by his enemies, and his
name was held up to general execration ; but it is clear
that these accusations are but the creation of party malice.
He was twice married ; his first wife was Elizabeth, said
to have been the daughter of Thomas Cooke of Pebmarsh,
Essex, and the widow of Edmund Read, who died at Wick-
ford in the same county November 1623. She died about
1640, and he subsequently married Deliverance Sheffield,
the mother of his only child, Elizabeth Peters. The
writings of Hugh Peters and the publications, in print
and manuscript, relating to his life are described in thu
Billiotheca Cornubiensis. He pleaded, in opposition to
Prynne and others, for the admission of the Jews into
England. The chief blot on his fame is his advocacy of
the burning of the records.
PETERSBURG, a city and port of entry of the United
States, in Dinwitldie county, Virginia, lies 23 miles south
of Richmond on the south side of the Appomattox river,
which is navigable for large vessels from the James river
up to the falls opposite the city, and for flat boats 107
miles above the falls to Farmville. Petersburg is an
important railway junction, manufactures tobacco, cotton
goods, and iron wares, and carries on a very extensive
shipping trade in the export of tobacco, cotton, flour, and
peanuts (groundnuts). Its public buildings comprise a
court-house, a custom-house, and post-office, two markets,
and a theatre ; there are two public libraries and a public
park (Poplar Lawn). The population was 14,010 in 1850,
18,266 in 1860, 18,950 (10,185 coloured) in 1870, and
21,656 in 1880.
Petersburg was laid out at the same time with Richmond (1733)
by Colonel William Byrcl, on the site of an Indian village destroyed
in 1676. It was first incorporated in 1748. During the Revolu
tionary War it was twice the headquarters of the British under
General William Phillips, who died while in possession of the town
in 1781. The bravery of the Petersburg volunteers on the Canadian
frontier in 1812 procured it the title of Cockade City of the south.
The terrible siege of Petersburg, lasting from June 1864 to 3d April
1865, was the final scene of the Civil War.
PETERWARDEIN (Hungarian PetervdmJ, Servian
Petrovaradin\ a town and strong fortress of Hungary, is
situated on a promontory formed by a loop of the Danube,
.45 miles to the north-west of Belgrade. It is connected
with Neusatz on the opposite bank by a bridge of boats
800 feet long. The fortifications consist of the upper
fortress, on a lofty serpentine rock rising abruptly from
the plain on three sides, and of the lower fortress at the
northern base of the rock. The latter includes the town,
which contains (1880) 3603 inhabitants, engaged in wine
growing, agriculture, and the manufacture of liqueurs
(rosoglio) and vinegar. The two fortresses can accom
modate a garrison of 10,000 men. The arsenal contains
interesting trophies of the Turkish wars.
Peterwardein, the "Gibraltar of Hungary," is believed to repre
sent the Roman Acumincum, and received its present name from
Peter the Hermit, who here marshalled the levies of the. first
crusade. It was captured by the Turks in 1526 and retained by
them for 160 years. In 1716 it witnessed a signal defeat inflicted
T — P E T
703
on the Turks by Prince Eugene. During the. revolutionary struggles
of 1848-49 the fortress was held by the insurgents for a short time.
POTION DE VILLENEUVE, JEROME (1753-1794),
was the son of a procureur at Chartres, where he was born
in 1753. He himself became an avocat in his native place
in 1778, and at once began to try to make a name in litera
ture. His first printed work was an essay, Sur les Moyens
de prevenir V Infanticide, which failed to gain the prize for
which it was composed, but pleased Brissot so much that
he printed it in vol. vii. of his Bibliotheque philosophique
dts Legislateurs. Petion's next works, Les Lois Civiles, and
Essai sur le Mariage, in which he advocated the marriage
of priests, confirmed his position as a bold reformer, and
when the elections to the States-General took place in 1789
he was elected a deputy to the Tiers Etat for Chartres.
Both in the assembly of the Tiers Etat and in the Con
stituent Assembly Petion showed himself a radical leader.
He supported Mirabeau on 23d June, attacked the queen
on 5th October, and was elected president on 4th December
1790. On 21st June 1791 he was chosen one of three
commissioners appointed to bring back the king from
Varennes. After the last meeting of the assembly on 30th
September 1791 Robespierre and Petion were made the
popular heroes and were crowned by the populace with civic
crowns. Petion received a still further proof of the affection
of the Parisians for himself on 14th November 1791, when
he was elected second mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly.
In his mayoralty he exhibited clearly his republican
tendency and his hatred of the old monarchy, especially
on 20th June 1792, when he allowed the mob to overrun
the Tuileries and insult the royal family. For neglecting
to protect the Tuileries he was suspended from his func
tions by the Directory of the department of the Seine, but
the leaders of the Legislative Assembly felt that Petion's
cause was theirs, and rescinded the suspension on 13th
July. On 3d August, at the head of the municipality of
Paris, Petion demanded the dethronement of the king, and
on 10th August, while the monarchy was falling with the
Tuileries, he patiently underwent a form of detention in his
own mairie. He was still mayor of Paris when the mas
sacres of September in the prisons took place, and must
bear the blame of not having endeavoured to interfere.
He was elected to the Convention for Eure-et-Loir, and
became its first president. Manuel then had the folly to
propose that the president of the Assembly should have
the same authority as the president of the United States ;
his proposition Avas at once rejected, but Petion got the
nickname of "Roi Petion," which contributed to his fall.
His jealousy of Robespierre allied him to the Girondin
party, as did also his assiduous attention at Madame
Roland's salon. With the Girondins he voted for the
king's death and for the appeal to the people, as one of
them he was elected to the first committee of general
defence in March 1793, as their representative he attacked
Robespierre on 12th April, and it is no matter of wonder,
therefore, that his name was among those of the twenty-two
Girondin deputies proscribed on 2d June. Petion was one
of those who escaped to Caen and raised the standard of
provincial insurrection against the Convention ; and when
the Norman rising failed he fled with Guadet, Buzot,
Barbarous, Salle, and Louvet to the Gironde, and hid
in a grotto at St Emilion. At last, but a month before
Robespierre's fall in June 1794, the escaped deputies felt
themselves tracked down, and deserted the grotto ; Louvet
found his way to Paris, Salle and Guadet to Bordeaux,
where they were soon taken ; Barbaroux committed
suicide ; and the bodies of Petion and Buzot were found in
a field, half-eaten by wolves.
For Petion's published works, see the edition of his (Euvrcs, 3
vols., 1792 ; for his life, see the ridiculous eulogy in J. J. Regnault-
"Warin's Vie de Petion, 1792, and Memoircs inedits de Petion et
Memoircs de Buzot et de Barbarous, with an introduction by 0. A.
Dauban, 1866 ; and for his last days and death, see C. Vatel, Char
lotte Corday et les Girondins, 3 vols., 1872.
PETIS DE LA CROIX, FRANCOIS (c. 1653-1713), the
best representative of Oriental learning in France during
the last decades of the 17th century and the beginning of
the 18th century, was born in Paris about 1653. He was
son of the Arabic interpreter of the French court, and
inherited this office at his father's death in 1695, after
wards transmitting it to his own son, Alexandre Louis
Marie. At an early age he was sent by Colbert to the
East ; during the ten years he spent in Syria, Persia, and
Turkey he mastered Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and
also collected rich materials for future writings.1 He found,
besides, opportunity to equip himself for those diplomatic
missions which the French Government entrusted to him
soon after his return to Paris in 1680. Having served
a short time as secretary to the French ambassador in
Morocco, he accompanied as interpreter the French forces
sent against Algiers, and greatly contributed to the satis
factory settlement of the treaty of peace between the two
countries, which was drawn up by himself in Turkish and
ratified in 1684. In a similar capacity he conducted the
negotiations with Tunis and Tripoli in 1685 and those with
Morocco in 1687 ; and the zeal, tact, and linguistic knowledge
he manifested in these and other transactions with Eastern
courts were at last rewarded in 1692 by his appointment
to the Arabic chair in the College Royal de France, which
he filled until his death in 1713.
He published Conies Turcs, Paris, 1707, and Les Mille et un Jours, 5
vols., Paris, 1710-12, and proved his acquaintance with the Armenian
and Ethiopia languages (a powerful impulse to the study of the latter
having been given just at that time by the masterly works of Hiob
Ludolf) in his Armenian Dictionary and his Account of Ethiopia.
But the lasting monument of his literary fame, the one standard
work that has outlived many generations and still keeps a distinct
merit of its own, is his excellent French version of Sharaf-uddi'n
'AH Yazdi's Zafarndma, or History of Timur (completed 828 A.H. ;
1425 A.D.), which was given to the world nine years after his death,
1722 (4 vols., Paris ; translated into English by J. Darby, London,
1723). This work, renowned throughout the East as a model of
elegant style, and one of the rare specimens of a fairly critical history
Persia can boast of, was compiled under the auspices of Mirza
Ibrahim Sultan, the son of Shah Rukh and grandson of the great
Ti'nuir himself. This prince collected all the official records of
Timur's reign, both in Turkish and Persian, collated and revised
them, and had then an accurate text drawn up by his secretaries,
which was turned by Sharaf-uddin into elegant and refined language
and revised by Ibrahim Sultan himself (see Rieu's Cat. Persian
MSS. in the Brit. Mus., i. p. 173 sq.}. The only error committed
by Petis de la Croix in his otherwise very correct translation is
that he erroneously ascribed the important share which Ibrahim
Sultan had in the Zafarndma to Timur himself.
PETITION is an application for redress by a person
aggrieved to an authority capable of relieving him. It
may be made in the United Kingdom to the crown or its
delegate, or to one of the houses of parliament.
The right of petitioning the crown was recognized in
directly as early as Magna Charta in the famous clause,
Nidli vendemus, nidli negabimus ant diferemus, rectum aut
justitiam, and directly at various periods later, e.g., in the
articles of the Commons assented to by Henry IV., by
which the king was to assign two days in the week for
petitions, it being an honourable and necessary thing that
his lieges who desired to petition him should be heard
(Sot. Parl, 8 Hen. IV., p. 585). The case of the seven
bishops in 1688 confirmed the right, and finally the Bill
of Rights in 1689 declared "that it is the right of the
subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and
prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal." Petitions
to the crown appear to have been at first for the redress of
1 Many of these — as the account of Jerusalem, Modern and Ancient,
the Travels through Syria and Persia, the Antiquities and Monuments
of Egypt, the translations of Pseudo-Wakidi's Conquest of Syria and
of Il'aji Khalfa's Dictionary, and the History of the Ottoman Empire—
still remain in manuscript.
704
PETITION
private and local grievances, or for remedies beyond those
possessed by the courts. As equity grew into a system, peti
tions of this kind tended to become superseded by bills in
chancery (see CHANCERY). Statutes were originally drawn
up by the judges at the close of the session of parliament
from the petitions of the Commons and the answers of the
crown. In the drawing up of the statutes frauds were at
times committed, the judges not always reciting correctly
the tenor of the petition or answer. To obviate this
danger complete statutes in the form of bills began to be
introduced into parliament in the reign of Henry VI. The
crown could accept or reject them, but could not alter
them (see Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. viii. pt. 3). A relic
of the old form of the statute founded upon petition still
remains in the preamble of Appropriation Acts and other
statutes creating a charge upon the public revenue. It
runs thus : " We, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal
subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom ... do
most humbly beseech your majesty that it may be enacted;
and be it enacted, &c.," from this point following the en
acting words common to all statutes. Petitions to the
crown from the House of Commons in other matters now
usually take the form of addresses. The crown may refer
petitions presented to it to be adjudicated upon by a dele
gated authority. This is the course pursued in the case of
peerage claims, which are referred to the House of Lords,
and by that House to the committee for privileges, and in
the case of petitions to the crown in council, with which
the judicial committee in most cases deals (see below); or
the crown may delegate the power of receiving petitions in
the first instance. Examples of petitions to the delegated
authority are those addressed to a court of justice or those
addressed to the home secretary for the pardon or mitigation
of punishment of a convicted criminal. Petitions to the
houses of legislature seem to have been later in origin than
petitions to the crown. The political importance of petition
ing dates from about the reign of Charles I. The develop
ment of the practice of petitioning had proceeded so far in
the reign of Charles II. as to lead to the passing of 1 3 Car.
II. c. 5 against tumultuous petitioning. This is still law,
though it has ceased to be enforced. It provides that no
petition or address shall be presented to the king or either
house of parliament by more than ten persons ; nor shall
any one procure above twenty persons to consent or set
their hands to any petition for alteration of matters estab
lished by law in church or state, unless with the previous
order of three justices of the county, or the major part of
the grand jury. Up to 1688 petitions usually dealt only
with some specific grievance ; from that time dates the
present practice of petitioning with regard to general
measures of public policy. Since 1833 more than 700,000
petitions on public matters have been presented to the
House of Commons. Petitions to the crown need not
apparently be in any particular form, but no doubt they
would not be received if couched in unbecoming language.
Petitions to the Houses of Lords and Commons must be
framed in a prescribed form. They must be properly
superscribed, and must conclude with a prayer. They
must be in writing (in the Commons), must contain none
but genuine signatures, and must be free from disrespectful
language or imputations upon any tribunal or constituted
authority. They must be presented by a member of the
House, except petitions to the House of Commons from
the corporation of London, which may be presented at the
bar by the sheriffs, and from the corporation of Dublin,
which may be presented by the lord mayor. Though a
petition is made to the House, in practice petitions to the
Commons are referred to the committee on public peti
tions, under whose directions they are classified and
analysed. In the Lords receivers and triers of petitions
are still appointed, though their functions have long been
obsolete. Petitions may be sent free by post to members
of either house, provided they fulfil certain conditions as
to weight, <fec. (see May, Parliamentary Practice, ch. xix.).
In the United States the right of petition is secured by
Art. 1 of the Amended Constitution, which enacts that
" Congress shall make no law abridging . . . the right of
the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances."
Petitions to a Court of Justice. — Strictly speaking these
are no doubt an indirect mode of petitioning the crown,
for in the theory of English law the crown is the fountain
of justice. But it is more convenient to treat them sepa
rately, as they now form a part of the practice of the
courts. Appeals to the House of Lords and the privy
council are prosecuted by petition of appeal. The House
of Lords has now no original jurisdiction in judicial
matters ; the original jurisdiction of the privy council in
such matters is confined to petitions under certain statutes,
such as the Endowed Schools Acts 1867 and 1873, the
Public Schools Act 1868, the LTniversities Act 1877, and
the Patents Act 1883. In most cases the petitions are
referred to the judicial committee of the privy council.
Petitions may be addressed to the lord chancellor in a few
instances, such as the sealing of patents and the removal
of coroners and county court judges. The most important
use of petitions in England is in the Chancery Division of
the High Court of Justice. They may be presented either
as interlocutory proceedings in the course of an action, or as
original proceedings where no litigation exists, — a petition
being generally a more cheap and speedy form of remedy
than an action. Petitions in the course of an action are
usually presented to the court in which the action is
brought. Examples of original petitions are those under
the Lands Clauses Acts, the Trustee Acts, the Companies
Acts. In a few cases they may be brought by way of
appeal, e.g., under the Charitable Trusts Act 1860. Peti
tions are also modes of procedure in other courts with juris
diction in equity, as the chancery courts of the county
palatine of Lancaster and the county courts, in the latter
only in certain cases falling within the County Courts Act
1865, 28 and 29 Viet. c. 99, s. 1 (5) and (6). They arc
used to initiate proceedings in bankruptcy and divorce,
but are almost unknown in the Queen's Bench Division ;
the only case of procedure by petition in that division
seems to be the petition to sue in forma pauperis. Evi
dence in support of a petition is usually given by affidavit.
In Scotland petitions in the Court of Session are either
original or in a pending action. Original petitions are
presented to one of the divisions of the inner house, unless
they are included in any of the matters mentioned in 20
and 21 Viet. c. 56, s. 4, when they are brought before
the junior lord ordinary, or unless, by special statutory
provision, they may be brought before any lord ordinary,
as in the case of petitions under the Conjugal Rights Act
1861, or the Trusts Act 1867. In the sheriff court actions
are commenced by petition (39 and 40 Viet. c. 70, s. 6).
A petition and complaint is a process of a quasi-criminal
nature by which certain matters of extraordinary jurisdic
tion are brought under the notice of the Court of Session.
It lies against magistrates and officers of the law for
breach of duty, against parties guilty of contempt of court,
&c. The concurrence of the lord advocate is necessary to
a petition and complaint. A reclaiming petition, obsolete
in the Court of Session, is a form of process of appeal in
the sheriff court. See 39 and 40 Viet. c. 70, ss. 28, 30.
In the United States petitions can be presented to the
courts under much the same circumstances as in England.
" It is a general rule in such cases that an affidavit should
be made that the facts therein contained are true as far as
P E T — P E T
705
known to the petitioner, and that those facts which he
states as knowing from others he believes to be true"
(Bouvier, Law Diet.].
Election Petition. — The article ELECTIONS must now be
read subject to the Parliamentary Elections Act 1879 and
the Judicature Act 1881. By the Act of 1879 the trial
of an election petition is conducted before two judges
instead of one, as before. If the judges differ in opinion
as to whether the member petitioned against is duly elected
or not, he is deemed to be duly elected. The Act of 1881
provides for the annual appointment of three judges of the
Queen's Bench Division for the trial of election petitions,
and makes the judgment of the High Court of Justice in
election cases final unless leave be given to appeal to the
Court of Appeal. No appeal lies to t Ja House of Lords,
nor can any judge who is a peer sit on the trial of an elec
tion petition.
Petition of Right is a term confined to English law. It
is used in two senses. (1) It denotes the statute 3 Car. I.
<;. 1, a parliamentary declaration of the liberties of the
people. (See ENGLAND, vol. viii. p. 345.) (2) It denotes
a mode of prosecuting a claim against the crown by a sub
ject. This remedy is said to owe its origin to Edward I.
It lies as a rule for obtaining possession of real or personal
property, or for breach of contract, not for breach of public
duty, as failure to perform treaty obligations, or for tres
pass, or for negligence of crown servants. The remedy
where the crown is in possession of property of the sup
pliant, and the title of the crown appears by record, as by
inquest of office, is a somewhat different one, called mon-
strans de droit. The procedure on a petition of right is
either at common law or by statute. At common law the
petition suggests such a right as controverts the title of
the crown, and the crown indorses upon the petition Soit
droit fait al partie. Thereupon a commission is issued to
inquire into the truth of the suggestion. After the return
to the commission, the attorney-general pleads or demurs,
and the merits are then determined as in actions between
subject and subject. If the right be determined against
the crown, judgment of ousterlemain or amoveas manus is
given in favour of the suppliant. The Petitions of Right
Act 1860 (23 and 24 Viet. c. 34, extended to Ireland
by 36 and 37 Viet. c. 69) preserves to the suppliant his
right to proceed at common law, but gives an alternative
remedy. In proceedings under the statute the petition is
left with the secretary of state for the home department
for her majesty's consideration. She, if she think fit,
grants her fiat that right be done, whereupon the fiat is
served upon the solicitor to the treasury, and a statement of
defence is put in on behalf of the crown. The proceed
ings are thenceforth assimilated as far as possible to those
in an ordinary action. A judgment in favour of the sup
pliant is equivalent to a judgment of amoveas manus.
Costs are payable to and by the crown. A petition of
right is tried in the Chancery or Queen's Bench Division,
unless the subject-matter of the petition arises out of the
exercise of belligerent right on behalf of the crown, or
would be cognizable in a prize court if the matter were in
dispute between private persons. In either of these cases
the suppliant may at his option intitule his petition in the
Admiralty Division (27 and 28 Viet. c. 25, s. 52). (j. wf.)
PETRA (rj Her/act, in ecclesiastical writers also at ilerpat),
the capital city of the NABAT^EANS (<?.#.), and the great
centre of their caravan trade, is described by Strabo (xvi. p.
779) as lying in a level place, well supplied with water for
horticulture and other uses, but encircled by a girdle of rocks,
abrupt towards the outer side. The surrounding country
was barren, especially towards Judiea ; the distance from
Jericho was three to four days' journey, and from Phcenicum
on the Red Sea coast five (see plate VI., vol. vii.). Accord
ing to Pliny (N. II., vi. 144) the little valley of Petra is not
quite 2 miles across, and lies at the junction of two roads,
from Palmyra and Gaza respectively, 600 miles from the
latter. These and other ancient notices leave no doubt as
to the identity of the site with the modern Wady Mus4 in the
mountains which form the eastern wall of the great valley
between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba. Wady Musd
lies just north of the watershed between the two seas, in
30° 19' N. lat. and 35° 31' E. long.1 Travellers coming up
the Arabah usually approach the ruins of Petra from the
south-west by a rough path, partly of artificial construc
tion 2 ; but the natural entrance is from the east down a
narrow defile more than a mile long, called the Sik
("shaft"). The Sik is a contraction in the valley of a
stream which comes down from the east, rising in a spring
now known as the Fountain of Moses ('Ain Miisd),3 and
passing between the villages of Eljf and 'Aireh (Palmer).
Both these places are ancient ; the latter is the fortress
Wo'aira of Yakut,4 while Elji, mentioned by Edrisi, is the
" Gaia urbs juxta civitatem Petram " of the Onomasticon.5
Below these and above the ravine the characteristic rock-
cut tombs and dwellings of the Nabataeans begin to appear.
But to reach the city proper from these upper settlements
one must traverse the whole length of the defile, which is
simply a narrow waterway, in some places not more than
10 or 12 feet broad, and walled in by rich brown or red
precipices rising from 60 to 120 feet (De Luynes ; Stanley
doubles this height) above the stream. In ancient times
there was a paved path beside the channel, and remains of
an arch spanning it are seen high in the air near the en
trance. Towards the lower end of the gorge, a turn in the
dark path and the descent of a side valley admit a sudden
flood of light, and here stands the most famous ruin
of Petra, the so-called Khazna, or " treasury of Pharaoh,"
with a rich facade of late Roman style, not built but hewn
out of the rose-coloured limestone. The next turn gives
room for a rock-cut theatre, and from this point the gorge
begins to open out into the little plain described by Strabo,
and gives perhaps the most striking view of the multi
plicity of grottoes with elaborate classical fagades which
line the enclosing mountain -wall. The plain itself is
strewn with ruins of temples and other buildings, and stairs
once led up the rocky walls to higher structures, of which
the most notable is now called the " convent " (Al-Deir).
The grottoes are inhabited in cold weather by the Liya-
thina Fellahin, who also hold the upper part of the valley,
and are so troublesome and extortionate that no thorough
exploration of the district has yet been carried out. It is
not even known where the torrent -bed leads on leaving
the plain of Petra. De Luynes describes the water as
wholly absorbed by the sands near the theatre, but there
is an unexplored gorge to the south-west which is the con
tinuation of the valley.
The Nabataeans, as we see from Diodorus, used Petra as
a place of refuge and a safe storehouse for their treasures
of frankincense, myrrh, and silver before they gave up their
nomadic habits. But Petra was not only safe and well
1 The latitude and longitude are taken from De Luynes's map.
Ptolemy, who, according to Olympiodorus, spent some time in Petra,
and doubtless owes to this fact his excellent information about the
caravan-routes in Arabia, gives the latitude, with surprising accuracy,
as 30° 20'.
2 Compare Diod. , xix. 97, who describes the Nabatfean fortress —
it was not a town at the time in question (312 B.C.), for the Nabataeans
were still nomads when they were attacked by Antigonus — as ascended
to by a single artificial path.
3 This seems to be the fountain mentioned by Nowairi, ap. Quatre-
mere's Melanges, p. 84, which flowed with blood and was changed to
water by Moses. The name Od-dema, which gave rise to this legend,
may possibly be a relic of the old name of Edom.
4 Perhaps also the Iram, DTy, of Gen. xxxvi. 43.
6 See Tuch's Genesis, 2d ed., p. 271, note.
XVIII. — 89
706
T — P E T
watered, it lay close to the most important lines of trade.
The modern pilgrim-road from Damascus to Mecca, which
has taken the place of the old incense-route, passes indeed
a little to the east by Ma'dn. But to touch Petra involves
no great detour even on this line, and in ancient times,
when Gaza was the great terminus of the Arabian trade,
Petra was the place where the Gaza road branched off from
that to Bostra, Palmyra, and north Syria. The route from
Egypt to Damascus is also commanded by Petra, and from
it too there went a great route direct through the desert
to the head of the Persian Gulf. Thus Petra became a
centre for all the main lines of overland trade between the
East and the West, and it was not till the fall of the
Nabatoan kingdom that PALMYRA (q.v.) superseded it as
the chief emporium of north Arabia. Many Roman and
other foreign merchants were settled here even in the time
of Strabo, and he describes the caravans which passed
between it and Leuce Come on the Red Sea coast as
comparable to armies.
Petra1 is a Greek name which cannot have been that
used by the Semitic inhabitants, and from Josephus (Ant.,
iv. 7, 1 ; 4, 7) and the Onomastica (ed. Lag., p. 286 sq.) it
may be concluded that the natives called the place Rekem
(Cp"i), a designation probably derived from the variegated
colours of the rocks about Wady Musa, to which all
travellers refer with admiration.2 But Petra had yet
another ancient name familiar from the Bible. The
Biblical Sela (generally with the article J^Dfl), a city of
Edom (2 Kings xiv. 7 ; Isa. xvi. 1 ; also Judges i. 36, where
E.V. has "the rock"; perhaps also Isa. xlii. 11), appears
to be identified with Petra by the LXX., and certainly is so
by the Onomastica. Petra, in fact, or the "rock," seems
to be simply a translation of Sela, but a somewhat loose
one, — for the Hebrew name, corresponding to the Arabic
Sal1, is properly a hollow between rocks, just such a
place as Petra is. The fortress of Edom, according to
Obadiah 3, lay " in the clefts of the Sela," and seemed
impregnable. And that the name of Sela survived the
Nabataean occupation is known from Yakut, who places a
fortress SaF in Wady Musa (comp. Noldeke in Z.D.M.G.,
xxv. 259). Petra, therefore, was a city before theNabatasans,
and, occupying one of the few cultivable spots in the dis
trict, probably never wholly ceased to be inhabited. This
identification disposes of another which was accepted alike
by the Jewish and Christian Aramaic versions of the Old
Testament, and, passing from the Aramaeans to the Arabs,
has given rise to the modern names Fountain and Wady
of Moses (comp. Yakut, iv. 879). According to these
versions Rkem, Rkam, or more precisely Rkem of Gaia
(that is, Elji), is Kadesh Barnea, where flowed the waters
of Strife or " well of judgment " (Gen. xiv. 7 ; Num. xx.
1 sq., xxvii. 14), where Moses struck the rock. This view
is ably supported by Greene (The Hebrew Migration from
Egypt); others identify Kadesh with 'Am Kadis (Kudais)
on the south border of Juda?a.
Petra survived the fall of the Nabatsean kingdom, and indeed
most of the buildings may be dated from the 2d and 3d centuries.
It appears from coins that Hadrian took it into favour and gave it
his name. But Palmyra absorbed its trade with the Persian Gulf,
and long before Islam the great incense-route was deserted and left
Petra, like the more southern Nabatsean city of Egra (Hijr), to fall
into ruin. The ruins were an object of curiosity in the Middle
Ages, and were visited by Sultan Bibars (Quatremere, I.e.). The
first European to describe them was Burckhardt, and since his time
they have often been visited. See the descriptions, plans, and
views of Laborde and Linant, Arable Pctrte (Paris, 1830-34) ; the
Due de Luynes, Voyage d' exploration A la mer mortc, &c. , Paris,
1 Arabia Petraea is not properly Stony Arabia, but the Arabia of
which Petra is the centre — i) Kara Il^rpav 'Apa/3/a of Agathemerus.
2 The rock-hewn city of Rakim (Istakhri, 64 ; Geogr. d'Abulf., Fr.
tr., ii. 2, 5), which Schultens (Ind. Geog. in Vlt. Sal.) proposes to
identify with Petra, is a different place, close to 'Amman (Mokaddasi,
P. 175).
s.a. ; Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, vol. ii., 1871 ; Stanley, Sinai
and Palestine ; Guerin, Terre Sainte, 1883. (W. R. S.)
PETRARCH (1304-1374). Francesco Petrarca, eminent
in the history of literature both as one of the four classical
Italian poets and also as the first true reviver of learning
in mediaeval Europe, was born at Arezzo on 20th July
1304. His father Petracco held a post of notary in the
Florentine Rolls Court of the Rifonnagioni ; but, having
espoused the same cause as Dante during the quarrels of
the Blacks and Whites, Petracco was expelled from Florence
by that decree of 27th January 1302 which condemned
the poet of the Divine Comedy to lifelong exile. With his
wife he took refuge in the Ghibelline township of Arezzo ;
and it was here, on the very night when his father, in
company with other members of the White party, made
an unsuccessful attempt to enter Florence by force, that
-Francesco first saw the light. He did not remain long in
his birthplace. His mother, having obtained permission
to return from banishment, settled at Incisa, a little village
on the Arno above Florence, in February 1305. Here
Petrarch spent seven years of boyhood, acquiring that pure
Tuscan idiom which afterwards he used with such con
summate mastery in ode and sonnet. Here too, in 1307,
his brother Gherardo was born. In 1312 Petracco set up a
house for his family at Pisa ; but soon afterwards, finding
no scope there for the exercise of his profession as jurist,
he removed them all in 1313 to Avignon. This was a
step of no small importance for the future poet -scholar.
Avignon at that period still belonged to Provence, and
owned King Robert of Naples as sovereign. But the
popes had made it their residence after the insults offered
to Boniface VIII. at Anagni in 1303. Avignon was there
fore the centre of that varied society which the high
pontiffs of Christendom have ever gathered round them.
Nowhere else could the youth of genius who was destined
to impress a cosmopolitan stamp on mediaeval culture and
to begin the modern era have grown up under conditions
more favourable to his task. At Incisa and at Pisa he had
learned his mother -tongue. At Carpentras, under the
direction of Convennole of Prato, he studied the humani
ties between the years 1315 and 1319. Avignon, at a
distance from the party strife and somewhat parochial
politics of the Italian commonwealths, impressed his mind
with an ideal of civility raised far above provincial pre
judices. What Petrarch lost in depth and intensity he
gained in breadth and serenity by this exile's education.
That disengagement from local circumstance which marks
his patriotic theories, that conception of self-culture as an
end in itself which distinguishes the humanism he in
augurated, were natural to a man who had no country, and
who found the spiritual city of his studies and his aspira
tions in all quarters of the habitable globe.
Petrarch's real name, according to Tuscan usage, was
Francesco di Petracco. But he altered this patronymic,
for the sake of euphony, to Petrarca, proving by this slight
change his emancipation from usages which, had he dwelt
at Florence, would most probably have been imposed on
him. It does not appear that he was attached to either
his father or his mother ; and, though he loved his brother
Gherardo dearly, we recognize in him that type of character
for which the self-chosen ties of friendship are more en
thralling than the piety of domestic affection. Petracco,
who was very anxious that his eldest son should become
an eminent jurist, sent him at the age of fifteen to study
law at Montpellier. Like Ovid and many other poets,
Petrarch felt no inclination for his father's profession.
His intellect, indeed, was not incapable of understanding
and admiring the majestic edifice of Roman law ; but he
shrank with disgust from the illiberal technicalities of
practice. There is an authentic story of Petracco's flinging
PETRARCH
707
the young student's books of poetry and rhetoric upon the
fire, but saving Virgil and Cicero half-burned from the
Haines at his son's passionate entreaties. Notwithstanding
Petrarch's firm determination to make himself a scholar and
a man of letters rather than a lawyer, he so far submitted
to his father's wishes as to remove about the year 1323
to Bologna, which was then the headquarters of juristic
learning. There he stayed with his brother Gherardo
until 1326, when his father died, and he returned to
Avignon. Banishment and change of place had already
diminished Petracco's fortune, which was never large ; and
a fraudulent administration of his estate after his death
left the two heirs in almost complete destitution. The
most precious remnant of Petrarch's inheritance was a
MS. of Cicero. There remained no course open for him
but to take orders. This he did at once on his arrival in
Provence ; and we have good reason to believe that he
advanced in due time to the rank of priest. A great
Roman noble and ecclesiastic, Giacomo Colonna, afterwards
bishop of Lombez, now befriended him, and Petrarch lived
for some years in partial dependence on this patron.
On the 6th of April 1327 happened the most famous
event of Petrarch's history. He saw Laura for the first
time in the church of St Clara at Avignon. Who Laura
was remains uncertain still. That she was the daughter
of Audibert de Noves and the wife of Hugh de Sade rests
partly on tradition and partly on documents which the
abbe de Sade professed to have copied from originals in
the last century. Nothing is now extant to prove that, if
this lady really existed, she was the Laura of the Canzon-
iere, while there are reasons for suspecting that the abbe
was either the fabricator of a romance flattering to his
own family, or the dupe of some previous impostor. We
may, however, reject the sceptical hypothesis that Laura
was a mere figment of Petrarch's fancy ; and, if we accept
her personal reality, the poems of her lover demonstrate
that she was a married woman with whom he enjoyed a
respectful and not very intimate friendship.
Petrarch's inner life after this date is mainly occupied
with the passion which he celebrated in his Italian poems,
and with the friendships which his Latin epistles dimly
reveal to us. Besides the bishop of Lombez he was now
on terms of intimacy with another member of the great
Colonna family, the Cardinal Giovanni. A German, Lud-
wig, whom he called Socrates, and a Roman, Lello, who
received from him the classic name of Laelius, were among
his best-loved associates. He probably owed his livelihood
to the generosity of prelates, with whom he played the
courtier or the secretary ; for we do not hear of his having
occupied any benefice at this period. Avignon was the
chief seat of his residence up to the year 1333, when he
became restless, and undertook his first long journey. On
this occasion he visited Paris, Ghent, Liege, Cologne,
making the acquaintance of learned men and copying the
manuscripts of classical authors. On his return to Avignon
he engaged in public affairs, pleaded the cause of the
Scaligers in their lawsuit with the Rossi for the lordship
of Parma, and addressed two poetical epistles to Pope
Benedict XII. upon the restoration of the papal see to
Rome. His eloquence on behalf of the tyrants of Verona
was successful. It won him the friendship of their ambas
sador, Azzo di Correggio, — a fact which subsequently in
fluenced his life in no small measure. At the same time
his treatment of the papal question made him pose as
an Italian patriot clinging to the ideal of Rome as the
sovereign city of civilization. Not very long after these
events Petrarch made his first journey to Rome, a journey
memorable from the account which he has left us of the
impression he received from its ruins.
It was some time in the year 1337 that he established
himself at Vaucluse and began that life of solitary study,
heightened by communion with nature in her loneliest and
wildest moods, which distinguished him in so remarkable
a degree from the common herd of mediaeval scholars.
Here he spent his time partly among books, meditating on
Roman history, and preparing himself for the Latin epic
of Africa. In his hours of recreation he climbed the hills
or traced the Sorgues from its fountain under those tall
limestone cliffs, while odes and sonnets to Madonna Laura
were committed from his memory to paper. We may also
refer many of his most important treatises in prose, as
well as a large portion of his Latin correspondence, to the
leisure he enjoyed in this retreat. Some woman, unknown
to us by name, made him the father of a son, Giovanni, in
the year 1337; and she was probably the same who brought
him a daughter, Francesca, in 1343. Both children were
afterwards legitimized by papal bulls. Meanwhile his fame
as a poet in the Latin and the vulgar tongues steadily
increased, until, when the first draughts of the Africa
began to circulate about the year 1339, it became mani
fest that no one had a better right to the laurel crown
than Petrarch. A desire for glory was one of the most
deeply-rooted passions of his nature, and one of the points
in which he most strikingly anticipated the humanistic
scholars who succeeded him. It is not, therefore, surprising
to find that he exerted his influence in several quarters
with the view to obtaining the honours of a public corona
tion. The result of his intrigues was that on a single day
in 1340, the 1st of September, he received two invitations,
from the university of Paris and from King Robert of
Naples respectively. He chose to accept the latter, jour
neyed in February 1341 to Naples, was honourably enter
tained by the king, and, after some formal disputations on
matters touching the poet's art, was sent with magnifi
cent credentials to Rome. There, in the month of April,
Petrarch assumed the poet's crown upon the Capitol from
the hand of the Roman senator amid the plaudits of the
people and the patricians. The oration which he delivered
on this occasion was composed upon these words of Virgil :
"Sed me Parnassi deserta per ardna dulcis
Raptat amor."
The theme was well chosen ; and the ceremony, though
we cannot but regard it with a somewhat pitying smile,
was symbolical of much. According to mediaeval concep
tions, Rome, though abandoned by her emperor and pope,
was still the mistress of the world ; and the poet, who
upon that April day uttered the passion for Parnassus
which drew him through steep and desert regions, was
destined to revive the arts and sciences in the midst of a
barren age. The ancient and the modern eras met together
on the Capitol at Petrarch's coronation, and a new stadium
for the human spirit, that which we are wont to style
Renaissance, was opened.
With the coronation in Rome a fresh chapter in the
biography of Petrarch may be said to have begun. Hence
forth he ranked as a rhetorician and a poet of European
celebrity, the guest of princes, and the ambassador to
royal courts. During the spring months of 1341 his
friend Azzo di Correggio had succeeded in freeing Parma
from subjugation to the Scaligers, and was laying the
foundations of his own tyranny in that city. He invited
Petrarch to attend him when he made his triumphal entry
at the end of May ; and from this time forward for a con
siderable period Parma and Vaucluse were the two head
quarters of the poet. The one he called his transalpine,
the other his cisalpine Parnassus. The events of the next
six years of his life, from May 1341 to May 1347, may
be briefly recapitulated. He lost his old friend the bishop
of Lombez by death and his brother Gherardo by the
entrance of the latter into a Carthusian monastery. Various
708
PETRARCH
small benefices were conferred upon him ; and repeated
offers of a papal secretaryship, which would have raised
him to the highest dignities, were made and rejected.
Petrarch remained true to the instinct of his own vocation,
and had no intention of sacrificing his studies and his glory
to ecclesiastical ambition. In January 1343 his old friend
and patron Robert, king of Naples, died, and Petrarch
was sent on an embassy from the papal court to his suc
cessor Joan. The notices which he has left us of Neapolitan
society at this epoch are interesting, and it was now,
perhaps, that he met Boccaccio for the first time. The
beginning of the year 1345 was marked by an event more
interesting in the scholar's eyes than any change in dynasties.
This was no less than a discovery at Verona of Cicero's
Familiar Letters. It is much to be regretted that Petrarch
found the precious MS. so late in life, when the style of
his own epistles had been already modelled upon that of
Seneca and St Augustine. No one, not even Erasmus,
would have profited more by the study of those epistolary
masterpieces, or would have been better able to imitate
their point and ease of diction, had he become acquainted
with them at an earlier period.
In the month of May 1347 Cola di Rienzi accomplished
that extraordinary revolution which for a short space
revived the republic in Rome, and raised this enthusiast
to titular equality with kings. Petrarch, who in politics
was no less visionary than Rienzi, hailed the advent of a
founder and deliverer in the self-styled tribune. Without
considering the impossibility of restoring the majesty of
ancient Rome, or the absurdity of dignifying the mediaeval
Roman rabble by the name of Populus Romanus, he threw
himself with passion into the republican movement, and
sacrificed his old friends of the Colonna family to what he
judged a patriotic duty. To follow the meteoric course of
Rienzi through those months of mock supremacy, exile,
and imprisonment at Avignon does not concern Petrarch's
biographer. It will be enough to say that the poet con
tented himself with writing a rhetorical exhortation to the
Roman people on the occasion of the tribune's downfall,
giving vent, as usual, through eloquence to emotions which
men of more practical character strove to express in act.
Petrarch built himself a house at Parma in the autumn
of 1347. Here he hoped to pursue the tranquil avocations
of a poet honoured by men of the world and men of letters
throughout Europe, and of an idealistic politician, whose
effusions on the questions of the day were read with plea
sure for their style. But in the course of the next two
years this agreeable prospect was overclouded by a series
of calamities. Laura died of the plague on the 6th April
1348. Francesco degli Albizzi, Mainardo Accursio, Roberto
de' Bardi, Sennuccio del Bene, Luchino Visconti, the car
dinal Giovanni Colonna, and several other friends followed
to the grave in rapid succession. All of these had been
intimate acquaintances and correspondents of the poet.
Friendship with him was a passion ; or, what is more true
perhaps, he needed friends for the maintenance of his
intellectual activity at the highest point of its effectiveness.
Therefore he felt the loss of these men acutely. We may
say with certainty that Laura's death, accompanied by that
of so many distinguished associates, was the turning-point
in Petrarch's inner life. He began to think of quitting
the world, and pondered a plan for establishing a kind
of humanistic convent, where he might dedicate himself,
in the company of kindred spirits, to still severer studies
and a closer communion with God. Though nothing came
of this scheme, a marked change was henceforth perceptible
in Petrarch's literary compositions. The poems written
In Morte di Madonna Laura are graver and of more
religious tone. The prose works touch on retrospective
topics or deal with subjects of deep meditation. At the
same time his renown, continually spreading, opened to him
ever fresh relations with Italian despots. The noble houses
of Gonzaga at Mantua, of Carrara at Padua, of Este at
Ferrara, of Malatesta at Rimini, of Visconti at Milan, vied
with Azzo di Correggio in entertaining the illustrious man
of letters. It was in vain that his correspondents pointed
out the discrepancy between his professed zeal for Italian
liberties, his recent enthusiasm for the Roman republic,
and this alliance with tyrants who were destroying the
freedom of the Lombard cities. Petrarch remained an
incurable rhetorician ; and, while he stigmatized the despots
in his ode to Italy and in his epistles to the emperor, he
accepted their hospitality. They, on their part, seem to
have understood his temperament, and to have agreed to
recognize his political theories as of no practical import
ance. The tendency to honour men of letters and to
patronize the arts which distinguished Italian princes
throughout the Renaissance period first manifested itself in
j the attitude assumed by Visconti and Carraresi to Petrarch.
When the jubilee of 1350 was proclaimed, Petrarch
made a pilgrimage to Rome, passing and returning through
Florence, where he established a firm friendship with
Boccaccio. It has been well remarked that, while all his
other friendships are shadowy and dim, this one alone
stands out with clearness. Each of the two friends had a
distinguished personality. Each played a foremost part
in the revival of learning. Boccaccio carried his admira
tion for Petrarch to the point of worship. Petrarch repaid
him with sympathy, counsel in literary studies, and moral
support which helped to elevate and purify the younger
poet's over-sensuous nature. It was Boccaccio who in the
spring of 1351 brought to Petrarch, then resident with the
Carrara family at Padua, an invitation from the seigniory of
Florence to accept the rectorship of their recently-founded
university. This was accompanied by a diploma of re
storation to his rights as citizen and restitution of his
patrimony. But, flattering as Avas the offer, Petrarch
declined it. He preferred his literary leisure at Vaucluse,
at Parma, in the courts of princes, to a post which would
have brought him into contact with jealous priors and
have reduced him to the position of the servant of a com
monwealth. Accordingly, we find him journeying again
in 1351 to Vaucluse, again refusing the office of papal
secretary, again planning visionary reforms for the Roman
people, and beginning that curious fragment of an auto
biography which is known as the Epistle to Posterity.
Early in 1353 he left Avignon for the last time, and
entered Lombardy by the pass of Mont Genevre, making
his way immediately to Milan. The archbishop Giovanni
Visconti was at this period virtually despot of Milan. He
induced Petrarch, who had long been, a friend of the
Visconti family, to establish himself at his court, where he
found employment for him as ambassador and orator. The
most memorable of his diplomatic missions was to Venice
in the autumn of 1353. Towards the close of the long
struggle between Genoa and the republic of St Mark the
Genoese entreated Giovanni Visconti to mediate on their
behalf with the Venetians. Petrarch was entrusted with
the office ; and on 8th November he delivered a studied
oration before the doge Andrea Dandolo and the great
council. His eloquence had no effect ; but the orator
entered into relations with the Venetian aristocracy which
were afterwards extended and confirmed. Meanwhile,
Milan continued to be his place of residence. After
Giovanni's death he remained in the court of Bernabo and
Galeazzo Visconti, closing his eyes to their cruelties and
exactions, serving them as a diplomatist, making speeches
for them on ceremonial occasions, and partaking of the
splendid hospitality they offered to emperors and princes.
It was in this capacity of an independent man of letters.
PETRARCH
709
highly placed and favoured at one of the most wealthy
courts of Europe, that he addressed epistles to the emperor
Charles IV. upon the distracted state of Italy, and en
treated him to resume the old Ghibelline policy of imperial
interference. Charles IV. passed through Mantua in the
autumn of 1354. There Petrarch made his acquaintance,
and, finding him a man unfit for any noble enterprise,
declined attending him to Rome. When Charles returned
to Germany, after assuming the crowns in Rome and
Milan, Petrarch addressed a letter of vehement invective
and reproach to the emperor who was so negligent of the
duties imposed on him by his high office. This did not
prevent the Visconti sending him on an embassy to Charles
in 1356. Petrarch found him at Prague, and, after plead
ing the cause of his masters, was despatched with honour
and the diploma of count palatine. His student's life at
Milan was again interrupted in 1360 by a mission on
which Galeazzo Visconti sent him to King John of France.
The tyrants of Milan were aspiring to royal alliances ;
Gian Galeazzo Visconti had been married to Isabella of
France ; Violante Visconti, a few years later, was wedded
to the English duke of Clarence. Petrarch was now com
missioned to congratulate King John upon his liberation
from captivity in England. This duty performed, he
returned to Milan, where in 1361 he received news of the
deaths of his son Giovanni and his old friend Socrates.
Both had been carried off by plague.
The remaining years of Petrarch's life, important as they
Avere for the furtherance of humanistic studies, may be
briefly condensed. On llth May 1362 he settled at
Padua, from the neighbourhood of which he never moved
again to any great distance. The same year saw him at
Venice, making a donation of his library to the republic
of St Mark. Here his friend Boccaccio introduced to
him the Greek teacher Leontius Pilatus. Petrarch, who
possessed a MS. of Homer and a portion of Plato, never
acquired the Greek language, although he attempted to
gain some little knowledge of it in his later years. Homer,
he said, was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer ;
and he could only approach the Iliad in Boccaccio's rude
Latin version. About this period he saw his daughter
Francesca happily married, and undertook the education
of a young scholar from Ravenna, whose sudden disappear
ance from his household caused him the deepest grief.
This youth has been identified, but on insufficient grounds,
with that Giovanni Malpaghini of Ravenna who was
destined to form a most important link between Petrarch
and the humanists of the next age of culture. The public
affairs of Italy and Europe continued to interest him ; nor
was he ever idle in composing letters and orations, some of
which were not without political importance, while all of
them contributed to form a style that had the greatest
influence over successive generations of Italian chancellors
and secretaries. Gradually his oldest friends dropped off.
Azzo di Correggio died in 1362, and Lselius, Simonides, Bar-
bato, in the following year. His own death was reported
in 1365 ; but he survived another decade. Much of this
last stage of his life was occupied at Padua in a contro
versy with the Averroists, whom he regarded as dangerous
antagonists both to sound religion and to sound culture.
A curious treatise, which grew in part out of this dispute
and out of a previous duel with physicians, was the book
Upon his own Ignorance and that of many others. At last,
in 1369, tired with the bustle of a town so big as Padua,
he retired to Arqua, a village in the Euganean hills, where
he continued his usual train of literary occupations, employ
ing several secretaries, and studying unremittingly. All
through these declining years his friendship with Boccaccio
was maintained and strengthened. It rested on a solid
basis of mutual affection and of common studies, the
different temperaments of the two scholars securing them
against the disagreements of rivalry or jealousy. One
of Petrarch's last compositions was a Latin version of
Boccaccio's story of Griselda. On 18th July 1374 his
people found the old poet and scholar dead among his
books in the library of that little house which looks across
the hills and lowlands toward the Adriatic.
When we attempt to estimate Petrarch's position in the
history of modern culture, the first thing which strikes us
is that he was even less eminent as an Italian poet than
as the founder of Humanism, the inaugurator of the
Renaissance in Italy. What he achieved for the modern
world was not merely to bequeath to his Italian imitators
masterpieces of lyrical art unrivalled for perfection of
workmanship, but also, and far more, to open out for
Europe a new sphere of mental activity. Standing within
the threshold of the Middle Ages, he surveyed the king
dom of the modern spirit, and, by his own inexhaustible
industry in the field of scholarship and study, he deter
mined what we call the revival of learning. By bringing
the men of his own generation into sympathetic contact
with antiquity, he gave a decisive impulse to that European
movement which restored freedom, self-consciousness, and
the faculty of progress to the human intellect. The warm
recognition which he met with in his lifetime and the extra
ordinary activity of his immediate successors prove indeed
that the age itself was ripe for this momentous change.
Yet it is none the less certain that Petrarch stamped his
genius on the spirit of the time, that he was the hero of
the humanistic effort. He was the first man to collect
libraries, to accumulate coins, to advocate the preservation
of antique monuments, and to collate MSS. Though he
knew no Greek, he was the first to appreciate its vast
importance ; and through his influence Boccaccio laid the
earliest foundations of its study. More than this, he was
the first to approach the great authors of antiquity with
intelligence. It was not the extent but the lucidity of
his erudition, not the matter but the spirit of his scholar
ship, that placed him at an immeasurable distance of
superiority above his predecessors. When we compare
the use which even Dante made of classical knowledge in
his De Monarchia with Petrarch's touch upon the ancients
in his numerous prose works, we perceive that we have
passed from the mediaeval to the modern conception of
literature. For him the authors of the Greek and Latin
world were living men, — more real, in fact, than those with
whom he corresponded ; and the rhetorical epistles he
addressed to Cicero, Seneca, and Varro prove that he dwelt
with them on terms of sympathetic intimacy. So far-
reaching were the interests controlled by him in this capacity
of humanist that his achievement as an Italian lyrist seems
by comparison insignificant.
Petrarch's ideal of humanism was essentially a noble
one. He regarded the orator and the poet as teachers,
bound to complete themselves by education, and to exhibit
to the world an image of perfected personality in prose and
verse of studied beauty. Self-culture and self-effectuation
seemed to him the highest aims of man. Everything which
contributed to the formation of a free, impassioned, liberal
individuality he regarded as praiseworthy. Everything
which retarded the attainment of that end was contempt
ible in his eyes. The authors of antiquity, the Holy Scrip
tures, and the fathers of the church were valued by him as
one common source of intellectual enlightenment. Emi
nently religious, and orthodox in his convictions, he did not
seek to substitute a pagan for the Christian ideal. This
was left for the scholars of the 15th and 16th centuries in
Italy. At the same time, the Latin orators, historians,
and poets were venerated by him as depositaries of a
tradition only second in importance to revelation. For
710
him there was no schism between Home and Galilee, be
tween classical genius and sacred inspiration. Though the
latter took the first rank in relation to man's eternal wel
fare, the former was necessary for the perfection of his
intellect and the civilization of his manners. With this
double ideal in view, Petrarch poured scorn upon the
French physicians and the Italian Averroists for their
illiberal philistinism, no less than for their materialistic
impiety. True to his conception of independent intellectual
activity, he abstained from a legal career, refused import
ant ecclesiastical office, and contented himself with paltry
benefices which implied no spiritual or administrative
duties, because he was resolved to follow the one purpose
of his life, — self-culture. Whatever in literature revealed
the hearts of men was infinitely precious to him ; and for
this reason he professed almost a cult for St Augustine.
It was to Augustine, as to a friend or a confessor, that ho
poured forth the secrets of his own soul in the book De
Contemptu Jfundi.
In this effort to realize his truest self Petrarch was
eminently successful. Much as he effected by restoring
to the world a sound conception of learning, and by rousing
that genuine love and curiosity which led to the revival,
he did even more by impressing on the age his own full-
formed and striking personality. In all things he was
original. Whether we regard him as a priest who published
poem after poem in praise of an adored mistress, as a
plebeian man of letters who conversed on equal terms with
kings and princes, as a solitary dedicated to the love of
nature, as an amateur diplomatist treating affairs of state
with pompous eloquence in missives sent to popes and
emperors, or again as a traveller eager for change of scene,
ready to climb mountains for the enjoyment of broad
prospects over spreading champaigns ; in all these divers
manifestations of his peculiar genius we trace some contrast
with the manners of the 14th century, some emphatic
anticipation of the 16th. The defects of Petrarch's char
acter were no less striking than its qualities, and were
indeed their complement and counterpart. That vivid
conception of intellectual and moral self -culture which
determined his ideal took the form in actual life of all-
absorbing egotism. He was not content with knowing
himself to be the leader of the age. He claimed autocracy,
suffered no rival near his throne, brooked no contradiction,
demanded unconditional submission to his will and judg
ment. His friends were treated by him as subordinates
and vassals with exacting magnanimity. The preoccu
pation with himself, which makes his letters and prose
treatises a mine of autobiographical information, rouses a
certain contempt when we watch it degenerating into
vanity, appetite for flattery, intrigues for the poet's crown,
restless change from place to place in search of new admirers,
desire for ceremonial pomp, and half-concealed detraction of
superior genius. Petrarch was made up of contradictions.
Praising solitude, playing the hermit at Vaucluse, he only
loved seclusion as a contrast to the society of courts ; while he
penned dissertations on the futility of fame and the burden
of celebrity, he was trimming his sails to catch the breeze
of popular applause. No one professed a more austere
morality, and few mediaeval writers indulged in cruder
satire on the female sex ; yet he passed some years in the
society of a concubine, and his living masterpiece of art is
the apotheosis of chivalrous passion for a woman. These
discords of an undecided nature displayed themselves in
his political theories and in his philosophy of conduct. In
one mood he was fain to ape the antique patriot ; in another
he affected the monastic saint. He was clamorous for the
freedom of the Roman people ; yet at one time he called
upon the popes to re-establish themselves in the Eternal
City ; at another he besought the emperor to make it his
headquarters ; at a third he hailed in Rienzi the founder of
a new republic. He did not perceive that all these plans
were incompatible. His relations to the Lombard nobles
were equally at variance with his professed patriotism ;
and, while still a housemate of Visconti and Correggi, he
kept on issuing invectives against the tyrants who divided
Italy. It would not be difficult to multiply these antitheses
in the character and the opinions of this singular man.
But it is more to the purpose to remark that they were
harmonized in a personality of potent and enduring force.
Petrarch was essentially the first of the moderns, the
ancestor of Hamlet and Faust, Rousseau and Childe
Harold. That strange spirit of unrest and melancholy, of
malady and isolation, which drove him from time to time
into the desert, where lie sought companionship with the
great writers of the past, was the inner witness to an
irresoluble contradiction between himself and the age in
which he lived.
The point to notice in this complex personality is that
Petrarch's ideal remained always literary. As philosopher,
politician, historian, essayist, orator, he aimed at lucid and
harmonious expression, — not, indeed, neglecting the import
ance of the material he undertook to treat, but approach
ing his task in the spirit of an artist rather than a thinker
or a man of action. This accounts for his bewildering
versatility, and for his apparent want of grasp on conditions
of fact. Viewed in this light Petrarch anticipated the
Italian Renaissance in its weakness, — that philosophical
superficiality, that tendency to ornate rhetoric, that pre
occupation with stylistic trifles, that want of profound con
viction and stern sincerity, which stamp its minor literary
products with the note of mediocrity. Had Petrarch been
possessed with a passion for some commanding principle
in politics, morality, or science, instead of with the thirst
for self-glorification and the ideal of artistic culture, it is
not wholly impossible that Italian humanism might have
assumed a manlier and more conscientious tone. But this
is not a question which admits of discussion ; for the con
ditions which made Petrarch what he was were already
potent in Italian society. He did but express the spirit of
the period he opened ; and it may also be added that his
own ideal was higher and severer than that of the illus
trious humanists who followed him.
As an author Petrarch must be considered from two
points of view, — first as a writer of Latin verse and prose,
secondly as an Italian lyrist. In the former capacity he
was speedily outstripped by more fortunate scholars. His
eclogues and epistles and the epic of Africa, on which he
set such store, exhibit a comparatively limited command
of Latin metre. His treatises, orations, and familiar
letters, though remarkable for a prose style which is emi
nently characteristic of the man, are not distinguished by
purity of diction. Much as he admired Cicero, it is clear
that he had not freed himself from current mediaeval
Latinity. Seneca and Augustine had been too much used
by him as models of composition. At the same time it
will be conceded that he possessed a copious vocabulary, a
fine ear for cadence, and the faculty of expressing every
shade of thought or feeling. What he lacked was that
insight into the best classical masterpieces, that command
of the best classical diction, which is the product of suc
cessive generations of scholarship. To attain to this,
Giovanni da Ravenna, Colluccio Salutato, Poggio, and
Filelfo had to labour, before a Poliziano and a Bembo
finally prepared the path for an Erasmus. Had Petrarch
been born at the close of the 15th instead of at the open
ing of the 14th century there is no doubt that his Latinity
would have been as pure, as versatile, and as pointed as
that of the witty stylist of Rotterdam.
With regard to his Italian poetry Petrarch occupies a
T — P E T
711
very different position. The Rime in Vita e Morte di
Madonna Laura cannot become obsolete, for perfect
metrical form has here been married to language of the
choicest and the purest. It is true that even in the Can-
zoniere, as Italians prefer to call that collection of lyrics,
Petrarch is not devoid of faults belonging to his age, and
affectations which have imposed themselves with disastrous
effect through his authority upon the literature of Europe.
He appealed in his odes and sonnets to a restricted audi
ence already educated by the chivalrous love -poetry of
Provence and by Italian imitations of that style. He was
not careful to exclude the commonplaces of the school, nor
anxious to finish a work of art wholly free from fashion
able graces and from contemporary conceits. There is
therefore a certain clement of artificiality in his treatment;
and this, since it is easier to copy defects than excellencies,
has been perpetuated with wearisome monotony by versi
fiers who chose him for their model. But, after making
due allowance for peculiarities, the abuse of which has
brought the name of Petrarchist into contempt, we can
agree with Shelley that the lyrics of the Canzoniere "are
as spells which unseal the inmost enchanted fountains of
the delight which is the grief of love." That is to say,
Petrarch in this monumental series of odes and sonnets
depicted all the moods of a real passion, and presented
them in a style of such lucidity, with so exquisite a
command of rhythmical resources, and with humanity of
emotion so simple and so true, as to render his portrait of
a lover's soul applicable to all who have loved and will
love for ages. If space sufficed much might be written
about the peculiar position held by Petrarch between the
metaphysical lyrists of Tuscany and the more realistic
amorists of succeeding generations. True in this respect
also to his anticipation of the coming age, he was the first
Italian poet of love to free himself from allegory and
mysticism. Yet he was far from approaching the analysis
of emotion with the directness of a Heine or De Musset.
Though we believe in the reality of Laura, we derive no
clear conception either of her person or her character. She
is not so much a woman as woman in the abstract ; and
perhaps on this very account the poems written for her by
her lover have been taken to the heart by countless lovers
who came after him. The method of his art is so general
izing, while his feeling is so natural, that every man can
see himself reflected in the singer and his mistress
shadowed forth in Laura. The same criticism might be
passed on Petrarch's descriptions of nature. That he felt
the beauties of nature keenly is certain, and he frequently
touches them with obvious appreciation. Yet he has
written nothing so characteristic of Vaucluse as to be
inapplicable to any solitude where there are woods and
water. The Canzoniere is therefore one long melodious
monody poured from the poet's soul, with the indefinite
form of a beautiful woman seated in a lovely landscape, a
perpetual object of delightful contemplation. This dis
engagement from local circumstance without the sacrifice
of emotional sincerity is a merit in Petrarch, but it became
a fault in his imitators. Lacking his intensity of passion
and his admirable faculty for seizing the most evanescent
shades of difference in feeling, they degenerated into-
colourless and lifeless insipidities made insupportable by
the frigid repetition of tropes and conceits which we are
fain to pardon in the master.
Petrarch did not distinguish himself by love-poetry alone
in the Italian language. His odes to Giacomo Colonna,
to Cola di Rienzi, and to the princes of Italy display him
in another light. They exhibit the oratorical fervour, the
pleader's eloquence in its most perfect lustre, which
Petrarch possessed in no less measure than subjective pas
sion. Modern literature has nothing nobler, nothing more
harmonious in the declamatory style than these three
patriotic effusions. Their spirit itself is epoch-making in
the history of Europe. Up to this point Italy had scarcely
begun to exist. There were Florentines and Lombards,
Guelfs and Ghibellines ; but even Dante had scarcely con
ceived of Italy as a nation, independent of the empire,
inclusive of her several component commonwealths. To
the high conception of Italian nationality, to the belief in
that spiritual unity which underlay her many discords and
divisions, Petrarch attained partly through his disengage
ment from civic and local partisanship, partly through his
large and liberal ideal of culture. It was the function of
the Eenaissance to bring all parts of the Italian peninsula
into an intellectual harmony by means of common enthu
siasm for arts and letters. But it remained for the present
century to witness the political consolidation of the Italian
people under a single government.
The materials for a life of Petrarch are afforded in abundance by
his letters, collected and prepared for publication under his own
eyes. These are divided into Familiar Correspondence, Correspond
ence in Old Age, Divers Letters, and Letters without a Title ; to
which may be added the curious autobiographical fragment entitled
the Epistle, to Posterity. Next in importance rank the epistles and
eclogues in Latin verse, the Italian poems, and the rhetorical
addresses to popes, emperors, Cola di Pdeiizi, and some great men
of antiquity. For the comprehension of his character the treatise
De Contemptu Mundi, addressed to St Augustine and styled his
Secret, is invaluable. Without attempting a complete list of
Petrarch's works, it may be well to illustrate the extent of his eru
dition and his activity as a writer by a brief enumeration of the
most important. In the section belonging to moral philosophy
we find De Remcdiis Utriusque Fortunse, a treatise on human happi
ness and unhappiness ; De Vita Solitaria, a panegyric of solitude ;
De Otio Ecligiosorum, a similar essay on monastic life, inspired by
a visit to his brother Gherardo in his convent near Marseilles. On
historical subjects the most considerable are Rcrum Memorandarum
Libri, a miscellany from a student's commonplace-book, and DC
Viris illustribus, an epitome of the biographies of Roman worthies.
Three polemical works require mention : Contra cujusdam anonymi
Galli calumnias Apologia, Contra Mcdicum qucndam Invectivarum
Libri, and DC siii ipsius et multorum Ignorantia, — controversial
and sarcastic compositions, which grew out of Petrarch's quarrels
with the physicians of Avignon and the Averroists of Padua. In
this connexion it might also be well to mention the remarkable
satires on the papal court, included in the Epistolse sine Titulo.
Five public orations have been preserved, the most weighty of
which, in explanation of Petrarch's conception of literature, is the
speech delivered on the Capitol upon the occasion of his coronation.
Among his Latin poems Africa, an epic on Scipio Africanus, takes
the first place. Twelve Eclogues and three books of Epistles in
verse close the list. In Italian we possess the Canzoniere, which
includes odes and sonnets written for Laura during her lifetime,
those written for her after her death, and a miscellaneous section
containing the three patriotic odes and three famous poetical
invectives against the papal court. Besides these lyrical composi
tions are the semi-epical or allegorical Trionfi, — Triumphs of Love,
Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Divinity, written in terza rima
of smooth and limpid quality. Though these Triumphs, as a whole,
are deficient in poetic inspiration, the second canto of the Trionfo
della Morte, in which Petrarch describes a vision of his dead love
Laura, is justly famous for reserved passion and pathos tempered
to a tranquil harmony.
The complete bibliography of Petrarch forms a considerable volume. Such
a work was attempted by Domenico Rossetti (Trieste, 1828). It will be enough
here to mention the Basel edition of 1581, in folio, as the basis for all subsequent
editions of his collected works. Two editions of the Canzoniere deserve especial
notice, — that of Marsand (Padua, 1820) and that of Leopardi in Le Monnier's col
lection. Nor must Fracassetti's Italian version of the Letters (published in 5
vols. by Le Monnier) be neglected. De Sade's Life of the poet (Amsterdam,
1704-67) marks an epoch in the history of his numerous biographies ; but this
is in many important points untrustworthy, and it has been superseded by
Gustav Koerting's exhaustive volume on Petrarca's Leben und Werke (Leipsic,
1878). Georg Voigt's Wiederbelebung dcs dassischen Altertliums (Berlin, 1850)
contains a well-digested estimate of Petrarch's relation to the revival of learn
ing. Meziere's Petrarque (1868) is a monograph of merit. English readers may
be referred to a little book on Petrarch by Henry Reeve, and to vols. ii. and iv.
of Symonds's Renaissance in Italy. (J. A. S.)
PETREL, the name applied in a general way to a group
of Birds (of which more than 100 species are recognized)
from the habit which some of them possess of apparently
walking on the surface of the water as the apostle St Peter
(of whose name the word is a diminutive form) is recorded
(Matt. xiv. 29) to have done. For a long while the Petrels
were ranked as a Family, under the name of Procell-
712
P E T — P E T
and thought to be either very nearly allied to the
Gulls, Laridx, or intermediate between that Family and the
Steganopodes ; but this opinion has gradually given way,
and it is now hard to resist the conclusion that they have
to be regarded as an "Order," to which the name Tubinares
has been applied from the tubular form of their nostrils, a
feature possessed in greater or less degree by all of them,
and by which each may at a glance be recognized. They
have usually been subdivided into three groups or Sub
families, (1) Pelecanoidinx (or Halodrominse), containing
some three or four species known as Diving-Petrels, with
habits very different from others of the Family, and almost
peculiar to high southern latitudes from Cape Horn to
New Zealand; (2) Procellariinse, or Petrels proper; and
(3) Diomedeinx, or Albatrosses (cf. MALLEMUCK, vol. xv.
p. 334). Recently, however, the anatomy of the group
has been subjected to very close examination by Garrod
and W. A. Forbes, the latter of whom has summed up the
results obtained by himself and his predecessor in an ela
borate essay, forming part ix. of the Zoology of the voyage
of the " Challenger," which shew determinations that differ
greatly from any that had been reached by prior system-
atists. According to these investigators, the Tubinares
are composed of two Families, Procellariidse, and Oceanitidx,
whose distinctness had never before been suspected 2 — the
latter consisting of four genera not very much differing in
appearance from many others, while the former includes
as Subfamilies the Albatrosses, Diomedeinse, with three
genera, Diomedea, Thalassiarche, and Phcebetria, and the
true Petrels, Procellariinse, in which last are combined forms
so different externally and in habit as the Diving-Petrels,
above noticed, the Storm-Petrels, Procellaria, the Flat-billed
Petrels, Prion, the FULMAE (vol. ix. p. 817), the SHEAR
WATERS (q.v.\ and others. Want of space forbids us
here dwelling on the characters assigned to these different
groups, or the means which have led to this classification
of it, set forth at great length in the essay cited, where
also will be found copious references to previous studies
of the Petrels, among which may here be especially men
tioned those of MM. Hombron and Jacquinot (Comptes
Rendus, 1844, pp. 353-358, and Zool. Voy. au Pol Sud,
vol. iii.), Prof. Coues (Proc. Acad. Philadelphia, 1864, pp.
72-91, 116-144, and 1866, pp. 25-33, 134-197), and Mr
Salvin (Orn. Miscellany, ii. pp. 223-238, 249-257; and
Zoology, Voy. "Challenger" pt. viii. pp. 140-149).
Petrels are dispersed throughout all the seas and oceans
of the world, and some species apparently never resort to
land except for the purpose of nidification, though nearly
all are liable at times to be driven ashore, and often very
far inland, by gales of wind.3 It would also seem that
during the breeding-season many of them are wholly noc
turnal in their habits, passing the day in holes of the
ground, or in clefts of the rocks, in which they generally
nestle, the hen of each pair laying a single white egg,
sparsely speckled in a few species with fine reddish dots.
Of those species that frequent the North Atlantic, the
common Storm-Petrel, Procellaria pelagica, a little bird
which has to the ordinary eye rather the look of a Swift
or Swallow, is- the " Mother Carey's chicken " of sailors,
and is widely believed to be the harbinger of bad weather ;
but seamen hardly discriminate between this and others
nearly resembling it in appearance, such as Leach's or the
1 Most commonly but erroneously spelt Procdlaridas.
- It is due to Prof. Coues to state that in 1864 he had declared the
genus Oceanites, of which he only knew the external characters, to be
" the most distinct and remarkable " of the " Procellariese, " though he
never thought of making it the type of a separate Family.
3 Thus (Estrelata hassitata, the Capped Petrel, a species whose
proper home seems to be Guadeloupe and some of the neighbouring
West-Indian Islands, has occurred in the State of New York, near
Boulogne, in Norfolk, and in Hungary (Ibis, 1884, p. 202) !
Fork-tailed Petrel, Cymochorea leucorrhoa, a rather larger
but less common bird, and Wilson's Petrel, Oceanites
oceanicus, the type of the Family Oceanitidx mentioned
above, which is more common on the American side. But
it is in the Southern Ocean that Petrels most abound, both
as species and as individuals. The Cape-Pigeon or Pintado
Petrel, Daption capensis, is one that has long been well
known to mariners and other wayfarers on the great waters,
while those who voyage to or from Australia, whatever
be the route they take, are certain to meet with many
more species, some, as Ossifraga gigantea, as large as Alba
trosses, and several of them called by sailors by a variety
of choice names, generally having reference to the strong
smell of musk emitted by the birds, among which that of
" Stink-pot " is not the most opprobrious. None of the
Petrels are endowed with any brilliant colouring — sooty-
black, grey of various tints (one of which is often called
" blue " ), and white being the only hues their plumage
exhibits ; but their graceful flight, and their companion
ship when no other life is visible around a lonely vessel on
the widest of oceans, give them an interest to beholders,
though this is too often marred by the wanton destruction
dealt out by brutal or thoughtless persons who thus seek
to break the tediousness of a long voyage. The distri
bution of the several species of Petrels in the Southern
Ocean has been ably treated by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards in
the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1882 (ser. 6, Zoo-
logie, vol. xiii. art. 4, pp. 1-22), of which essay a transla
tion will be found in the Mittheilungen des Ornithologischen
Vereins in Wien for 1884. (A. N.)
PETRIE, GEORGE (1790-1866), Irish antiquary, was the
son of James Petrie, a native of Aberdeen, who had settled
in Dublin as a portrait and miniature painter. He was
born in Dublin in January 1790, and was educated to
become a painter. Besides attaining considerable reputa
tion as a landscape painter of Irish scenes, he devoted
much of his artistic skill to the illustration of the anti
quities of the country. Even in boyhood his love of
archaeology vied with his love of art and of nature. In
1828 he was appointed to conduct the antiquarian and
historical section of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, but
this department of the work was not persevered in by the
Government. In 1832 he became editor of the Dublin
Penny Journal, a periodical designed to disseminate in
formation among the masses, to which he contributed
numerous articles on the history of the fine arts in
Ireland. Petrie may be regarded as the first scientific
investigator of Irish archaeology, his contributions to which
are also in themselves of prime importance. His Essay
on Round Towers, for which in 1830 he received the prize
of the Irish Academy, must still rank, whether or not his
opinion be accepted that the round towers served the joint
purpose of belfries and fortalices, as the standard work on
the subject. A second edition was published in 1845.
Among his other more important contributions to Irish
archaeology are his Essay on the Military Architecture of
Ireland and his History and Antiquities of Tar a Hill.
In 1847 he received the degree of LL.D. from the
university of Dublin, and in 1849 he was placed on the
civil list for an annual pension of £300. He died 17th
January 1866.
See the Life aiid Labours in Art and Archaeology of George Petrie,
by William Stokes, 1868.
PETROLEUM. The word "petroleum" (rock-oil;
Germ., erdol, steinoT) is used to designate the forms of
bitumen that are of an oily consistence. It passes by
insensible gradations into the volatile and ethereal naph
thas on the one hand and the semi-fluid malthas or mineral-
tars on the other.
History. — Petroleum has been known by civilized man
PETROLEUM
713
from the dawn of history. Herodotus wrote of the springs
of Zacynthus (Zante), and the fountains of Hit have been
celebrated by the Arabs and Persians. Pliny and Dioscorides
describe the oil of Agrigentuin, which was used in lamps
under the name of " Sicilian oil," and mention is made of
petroleum springs in China in the earliest records of that
ancient people. The abundance of petroleum and the fire-
temple at Baku on the Caspian have been frequently de
scribed by travellers who have gone overland from Europe
to India, from the time of Marco Polo to recent years. Petro
leum in North America was first mentioned by a Franciscan
missionary, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, in a letter written
in 1629 and published in Sagard's Histoire du Canada in
1636. Peter Kalm described the springs on Oil Creek in his
book of travels in North America, published in London in
1772. In 1750 the French commander at Fort Duquesne
described them in a letter to General Montcalm, and later,
towards the close of the last century, frequent mention is
made of oil-springs in correspondence relating to what is
now western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Ken
tucky. In 1765 and 1826 the British Government sent
embassies to the court of Ava, in the reports of which
mentiu^ ' • made of the petroleum springs and wells near
Rangoon on the Irawadi. During the early years of the
present century the occurrence of bitumen, and particularly
of its liquid forms, was noticed by scientific men and
travellers in various localities. In Europe, Boussingault's
researches upon the petroleum of Bechelbronn (Lower
Alsace) and the discovery of paraffin by Reichenbach
attracted much attention. Petroleum was observed and
described as early as 1814 in Washington county, Ohio,
in wells at that time being bored for brine. In 1819 a
well bored for brine in Wayne county, Kentucky, yielded
so much black petroleum that it was abandoned. It has
continued to yield small quantities until the present time.
In 1829 a well drilled for brine near Burkesville, Cumber
land county, Kentucky, yielded such a flow of petroleum
that it was regarded as a wonderful natural phenomenon.
This well is estimated to have yielded, up to 1860, 50,000
barrels of oil, the larger part of which was wasted. Of the
rest a few barrels were bottled and sold as a liniment in
the United States and Europe under the name of " Ameri
can oil."
About the year 1847 E. W. Binney of Manchester, Eng
land, called attention to the petroleum discovered at Rid-
dings, near Alfreton in Derbyshire, and a few years later
he, together with James Young and others, commenced the
manufacture of illuminating and other oils from it. The
supply of crude material from this source soon became in
adequate, and they then commenced distilling the Boghead
mineral that had been found near Bathgate in Scotland.
The success attending this enterprise soon attracted atten
tion in the United States of America, and a number of estab
lishments were in operation in the course of a few years,
some of them being licensed under Young's patents. In 1 8 5 1 ,
when petroleum on Oil Creek was worth 75 cents a gallon
in the crude state, it was tested as a crude material for
the manufacture of illuminating oil by Messrs William and
Luther Attwood, and Joshua Merrill, at the United States
Chemical Manufacturing Company's works at Waltham,
near Boston, Massachusetts, and its merits for that purpose
fully established. But its scarcity at that time prevented
its use in commercial quantities, and the establishments at
Boston and Portland, Maine, under the charge of Messrs
Merrill and William Attwood, continued to use Boghead
mineral and albertite for a number of years after petroleum
was produced in sufficient quantity. Petroleum was refined
and offered for sale in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as early as
1855, but the quantity was too small to influence even the
local trade ; it, however, created a small demand for the
crude oil. The well-known fact that brine- wells often pro
duced petroleum led those who sold the "American oil " to
embellish the label on the bottles with a derrick and other
accompaniments of a brine- well ; and the story is told that
the projector of the first well drilled exclusively for petro
leum was led to undertake it through reflecting upon this
picture. Some oil from one of the natural springs near
Titusville, Pennsylvania, was sent to Professor B. Silliman,
junior, of Yale College, and he made a report upon it which
has become a classic in the literature of petroleum. This
report was so satisfactory that a company was organized
in New Haven, and E. L. Drake was sent to drill a well
upon land that was leased in the valley of Oil Creek,
a short distance below the spot where the city of Titus
ville now stands. The region was then almost a wilder
ness, and many delays were experienced before he succeeded
in getting his men and machinery in operation. He was
at first thwarted by quicksands and water, but he finally
drove an iron pipe 36 feet down to the rock. This device,
said to have been original with Drake, has been of great
value in artesian boring ever since he used it. After
drilling 33 feet on the 28th of August 1859, the drill fell
suddenly 6 inches into a crevice, and was left until the
next day, when the drill-hole was found to be nearly filled
with petroleum. No spot in the entire territory where
petroleum has since been obtained could have been selected
where the oil was to be obtained nearer the surface. The
success of this enterprise led to the immediate drilling
of other wells, first in the valley of Oil Creek and its
tributaries, and later over the higher land between Oil
Creek and the Alleghany river below Tidioute. As this
territory began to be exhausted, the region of the lower
Alleghany, in Butler and Clarion counties, yielded wells
of great richness, and finally the Bradford field in M'Kean
county became the centre of production. A careful com
parison of the situations of some of the most productive
wells led to the discovery that the areas yielding oil were
not irregular in outline, but extended across the country
in narrow belts, without regard to the present configuration
of the surface. The areas of these belts were in general
parallel, and extended in a north-east and south-west
direction, 15° to 20° from the meridian. As the exhaustion
of the oil -fields of Butler and Clarion counties led pro
ducers to seek a more productive locality, lines were run
by compass on the supposed axis of the oil-belt over forest-
covered hills for many miles, until they reached the town
of Bradford, near which wells had previously been drilled
without success. Deeper wells were drilled, and oil was
obtained, resulting in the development since 1875 of about
68,000 acres of the most uniformly productive and exten
sive oil-territory yet discovered.
In the province of Ontario, Canada, principally in the
vicinity of Enniskillen, a territory of limited extent but
great productiveness has been under development for the
last twenty years. In the region about Baku and in the
valley of the Kuban, at the eastern and western extremi
ties of the Caucasus, petroleum has been obtained for an
unknown period, and is now being produced from artesian
borings in large quantities. In Galicia and Roumania it
is also obtained in commercial quantities. These regions
with the United States furnish the petroleum of commerce.
Japan, China, Burmah, and Italy have yielded petroleum
in quantities sufficient to supply a local demand, but the
vast quantity of the American oil and low price at which it
is furnished have rendered the production in these coun
tries unprofitable.
Geographical Distribution. — Petroleum "was found about
one hundred years since in making the duke of Bridge-
water's tunnel at Worsley, at Wigan and West Leigh in
the Lancashire coal-fields, at Coalbrookdale and Wellington
XVIII. — 9°
714
in Shropshire and Biddings in Derbyshire, two other coal
fields ; also in a peat-bog at Down Holland, near Orms-
kirk, in Lancashire, but never in commercial quantities.
The greatest supply has not been more than fifty gallons
a day, and even that soon diminished." A tar-spring was
known at Coalport, in Shropshire, early in the present
century. Although there are extensive deposits of solid
bitumen in eastern France and Switzerland, the petroleum
springs that occur at Saint Boes, Basses Pyrenees, are un
important. In Alsace, at Lobsann and Bechelbronn, petro
leum has been obtained for many years for local uses.
Although reported from many localities in Germany, the
only point that has promised to be of any importance is the
Liineburg heath, south of Hamburg. Petroleum is also
reported near Holle, in Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein.
On the eastern shores of the Adriatic — in Dalmatia and
Albania — and in the Ionian Islands, petroleum springs
have been mentioned by the writers of classical antiquity.
In Armenia and Persia petroleum has been used for un
known centuries, and it appears to be widely distributed
in the mountains that surround the tableland of Iran. In
Algeria, Egypt, Kashmir, the Punjab, Assam, Java, and
other East Indian islands petroleum is reported. In North
America the successful development of the petroleum-fields
of north-west Pennsylvania following the completion of
Drake's well led in a few years to the drilling of wells in
a great many localities where petroleum-springs had been
observed. The following so-called " petroleum-fields " have
produced oil in commercial quantities more or less valuable.
Name.
Maximum
produc
tion in
Yield in barrels
to 1880. |
Oil Creek, Venango county, Pennsylvania
Pithole, ,, „
Central Alleghany, ,, ,,
Lower Alleghany, Butler and Clarion
counties , ,
Tidioute, Venango and Warren counties ,,
Bullion, Venango county ,,
Bradford, M'Kean county ,,
Warren, Warren county ,,
Smith's Ferry, Beaver county ,,
Mecca, Trumbull county, Ohio
1862
1866
1871
1874
1874
1877
1881
1878
1879
1
A conti
prodi
1865.
35,517,297
8,816,289
6,182,900
37,342,978
4,674,345
2,312,090 !
44,574,921 j
448,213
339,631
nuous small
iction since
No record.
Grafton, Lorain county, ,, ...
Macksburg, Washington county, ,,
Horse Neck, Pleasants county, W. Virginia
Volcano, Wood county, ,,
Burning Spring, Wirt county, ,,
Glasgow, Barren county, Kentucky
Santa Clara Valley, Ventura county, Cali
fornia
Besides these localities petroleum has been observed over
an area 1500 miles long by an unknown breadth in the
valley of the Mackenzie and its tributaries, and in New
Brunswick, Newfoundland, and other portions of eastern
Canada. It also occurs at many different points along the
Appalachian system of mountains from Point Gaspe on the
St Lawrence to northern Alabama. It has been noticed in
Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas in the
United States, in southern Mexico, in the West India
Islands, and in the northern states of South America.
Petroleum is one- of the most widely distributed substances
occurring in nature, but an examination of the geograph
ical localities in which it chiefly occurs will show them to
be intimately connected with the principal mountain-chains
of the world.
Geological Relations. — It has been frequently remarked
that petroleum occurs in all geological formations, from
the Silurian up to the Tertiary. While this is true as a
general statement, it is misleading, for petroleum is not
uniformly distributed through all formations, but occurs
principally in two epochs of geological history ; these are
the Silurian and the lower half of the Tertiary. The vast
accumulations along the principal axis of occurrence in
the western hemisphere are found in Silurian and Devonian
rocks ; the most productive axis of occurrence in the eastern
hemisphere lies in the Eocene and Miocene of the Car
pathians, Transylvania, and the Caucasus. In England
the small quantity of petroleum that has been observed
has sprung from the Coal-measures. In the valley of the
Rhone and in Savoy it is in Jurassic limestones. The
bitumen of the Apennines, of Dalmatia and Albania, of
Roumania, Galicia, and the Caucasus, issues for the most
part from rocks that are Eocene. But little is known
respecting the geology of the bitumen of Asia Minor and
Persia ; the Punjab is also Eocene, and the little that is
known of the deposits in Burmah and the East Indian
Islands indicates that they are of the same age. East of
-the Mississippi river petroleum has been reported from
localities that describe an ellipse upon the border of the
Cincinnati anticlinal, which consists of an elevation of
Silurian rocks extending from central Kentucky to Lake
Erie, with the city of Cincinnati nearly in its centre, slop
ing beneath the newer formations in all directions. Start
ing at Great Manitoulin Island, in the northern part of
Lake Huron, it is next reported at Port Huron, Michigan :
Chicago, Illinois ; Terre Haute, and in Crawford county,
Indiana ; Henderson, Cloverport, Bowling Green, and
Glasgow, Kentucky; and around Nashville, and south-east
wards to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the Silurian rocks
again reach the surface. Turning north, the line extends
almost unbroken through the eastern counties of Kentucky
into Ohio and West Virginia, into Pennsylvania and New
York, the ellipse being completed by the petroleum-fields
of Canada. At Great Manitoulin Island petroleum was
obtained in the Trenton limestone, at Chicago and Torre
Haute in the Niagara limestone, both of which are Silurian.
The Kentucky geologists regard the great Devonian black
slate as the source of the oil in that State. There it is
found saturating sandstones at Glasgow, and in crevices
at Burkesville and other points on the Cumberland river.
In the neighbourhood of Nashville, where the Lower
Silurian rocks reach the surface, petroleum occurs within
geodes, which are enclosed in the solid mass of the blue
limestone. North-east of Nashville the present location
of the oil is found to be in rocks that lie in an ascending
series. Around Burkesville it is found in the Upper
Silurian, immediately beneath the Devonian black slate.
Farther north it lies in the Devonian and Subcarbonifer-
ous sandstones, which, in Johnson county, Kentucky, are
now partly above the drainage-level of the country. The
so-called "oil-break" of West Virginia and Ohio yields
petroleum from sandstones that lie within the Coal-
measures. Still farther to the north-east, in Pennsylvania
and New York, the oil-sands are all found beneath the
Coal-measures in the Upper Devonian, while in Canada
they again descend to the Lower Devonian. " Petroleum
exists in the Cretaceous rocks which extend along the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains from British Colum
bia to Mexico, and in many of the interior valleys." The
bitumen of the Pacific slope, of Mexico, the West Indies,
and South America, is Miocene in California and Eocene in
Trinidad and Peru. From these statements it will be seen
that there is a vast area in the Mississippi valley, estimated
at 200,000 square miles, beneath which petroleum has been
obtained, the formations of which are nowhere more recent
than the Coal-measures. Another vast area, extending
from California through Mexico to Peru, and including
the West India Islands, yields petroleum from Tertiary
rocks ; while on the eastern continent a belt of country
extends from the North Sea to Java, the bitumen-bearing
rocks of which are Tertiary so far as is known. At present
PETROLEUM
715
the bulk of petroleum produced issues from rocks older
than the Carboniferous, while the formations yielding
bitumen, in by far the greater number of localities, are of
Eocene age. In the great "oil-region" of the United
States petroleum occurs in crevices to a very limited
extent. In Canada and West Virginia it occurs beneath
the crowns of anticlinals, and in Pennsylvania it saturates
the porous portions of formations that lie far beneath the
influence of superficial erosion, like sand-bars in a flowing
stream or detritus on a beach. These strata are not of
any particular geological age, but run through a vast
accumulation of sediments embraced in all the forma
tions between the Lower Devonian and Upper Carbonifer
ous. They lie conformably with the enclosing rocks, and
slope gently to the south-west. The Bradford field in
particular resembles a sheet of coarse-grained sandstone
100 square miles in extent, by from 20 to 80 feet in
thickness, lying with its south-western edge lowest and
submerged in salt water, and its north-eastern edge highest
and filled with gas under an extremely high pressure. In
Galicia the sandstones holding the oil are very much dis
turbed, while in the Caucasus the deposits of sand are
erratic both in regard to position and extent, and lenticular
in outline, being enclosed in a formation consisting of
stiff blue clay.
Chemistry. — The first chemical research upon petroleum
was conducted by Vauquelin in 1817 upon the naphtha of
Amiano. Prior to the discovery of petroleum in commer
cial quantities, a number of European chemists had made
determination of the atomic constitution of several different
varieties, and it had become generally understood that the
oil consisted of an equal number of atoms of carbon and
hydrogen. It has since been determined that some varieties
of petroleum contain nitrogen and others contain sulphur
and oxygen. These last-named elements are, however, to
be properly considered as components of impurities. The
proximate principles of petroleum have been determined
and examined chiefly by Schorlemmer in England, Pelouze
and Cahours in France, and C. M. Warren and S. P. Sadtler
in the United States. Many other chemists have contri
buted valuable assistance to the work. These researches
have established the fact that Pennsylvania petroleum con
sists chiefly of two homologous series of isomeric compounds
having the general formula CnH-zn+2, at one extremity of
which marsh gas is found and solid paraffin at the other
(see PARAFFIN). This oil also contains a smaller propor
tion of the olefine series, having the formula C,iH-2n, with
traces in the Bradford oil of the benzole series. Rangoon
petroleum contains a larger proportion of both the olefine
and the benzole series than Pennsylvania oil. It has been
thown that Caucasian petroleum contains the additive
compounds of the benzole group which have the same per
centage composition as the defines and furnish an illumin
ating oil containing more carbon than Pennsylvania oils of
the same specific gravity. The residues from the manu
facture of petroleum have been shown to contain very
dense solids and liquids of high specific gravity, having a
large proportion of carbon and possessed of remarkable
fluorescent properties. Some petroleums are easily oxidized
into asphaltum and kindred products. Colourless illumin
ating oils under the action of light absorb oxygen, which is
converted into ozone, and they become yellow and viscid and
of greatly impaired quality when the action is prolonged.
Origin. — The origin of petroleum has been a subject of
speculation among scientific men during the last half cen
tury. It is a subject involved in much greater obscurity
than the origin of coal, for, unlike coal, it has no organic
structure ; hence it can only be inferred upon circumstantial
evidence that it is of organic origin ; yet such evidence is so
strong that few competent judges have ventured to decide
otherwise. The arguments in favour of a chemical origin
have been advanced almost wholly by a school of French
chemists during the last twenty years. They are based
upon the results of a class of experiments first inaugurated
by Berthelot, in which powerful deoxidizing agents like the
alkali metals or iron at a white heat are caused to react
with steam and carbonic acid. The hydrogen of the water
and the carbon of the carbonic acid, having been deprived
of their oxygen, unite in the nascent state to form a mix
ture of oily fluids closely resembling petroleum. Sufficient
quantities of these oils have been prepared to prove their
identity with each other and with crude petroleum. Be
fore concluding from this circumstance that petroleum is
the product of similar reactions, it is necessary to assume
a condition of the earth's interior concerning which we
know nothing ; and, while the theoretical chemistry of the
earth, based upon the nebular hypothesis, does not forbid
such possibilities, there are other considerations relating
to the origin of petroleum based upon the known rather
than the possible that render the assumption that petroleum
is of mineral origin forced and unnecessary. It is found
that, when shale, coal, peat, wood, or animal matter, in
fact any recent or fossil organic matter, is subjected to
destructive distillation at low temperatures, there is ob
tained among other products an oily fluid which chemistry
shows to consist chiefly of the same compounds of carbon
and hydrogen as are found in Pennsylvania petroleum.
There are other petroleums, however, occurring in Canada,
Tennessee, and other localities somewhat different in com
position, which are often found under conditions that make
it extremely difficult to account for their origin upon any
hypothesis that does not regard them as a product of the
decomposition of animal remains. They fill the cavities of
fossil corals and orthoceratites in Canada and of geodes in
Tennessee, in all of which the oil appears to be hermetically
sealed until the rock-mass is broken. The formation in
which these oils occur consists of thickly-bedded Silurian
limestones that were probably deposited in a deep sea at a
somewhat high temperature, in which vast quantities of
sea-animals perished and became buried. It is therefore
most strictly in accordance with observed facts to assume
that these oils, in whatever manner they may have been
produced from the original animal remains, are indigenous
to the rocks in which they are found. These indigenous
oils do not occur locally in considerable quantity, although
the aggregate amount scattered through any formation in
which they occur can easily be shown to be large.
In those localities, notably north-western Pennsylvania
and eastern Ohio, where petroleum occurs in large quan
tity, it occurs quite uniformly, saturating heavy beds of
uncemented sandstone. This sandstone is overlaid with an
impervious shell of slate, containing much silica, that holds
down both the oil and gas within the sandstone under great
pressure, not locally in cavities but over wide areas. The
sandstone is also, so far as can be ascertained, underlaid with
a vast formation of shale more than 1000 feet in thickness,
containing large numbers of fossil animals and such a quan
tity of fossil sea-weeds that Dr J. S. Newberry has suggested
that the Silurian ocean here contained a veritable sargasso
sea. This shale, so filled with the remains of fucoids,
has been several times submitted to destructive distilla
tion, and has yielded as high as 50 gallons to the ton of
distillate oil that was in many respects scarcely to be dis
tinguished from crude petroleum. During the present
century the French chemical geologists have held that
all forms of bitumen are the product of metamorphism.
Prominent among these may be mentioned Daubree, who in
his Observations sur le Metamorphisme has shown the strict
correspondence between his laboratory experiments, in
which all forms of bitumen were produced, and the opera-
716
PETROLEUM
tions of nature. No evidence appears to be lacking to
show that those operations of nature in which heat,
pressure, and steam have joined, usually denominated by
physicists " metamorphism," when acting upon strata con
taining organic remains, are an adequate origin for petro
leum as it occurs in the oil-regions of Pennsylvania and
in Galicia. Petroleum occurs on the western slope of the
Appalachian system from Point Gaspe on the Gulf of St
Lawrence to northern Alabama, and there it is most abun
dant in the neighbourhood of strata in which there is the
greatest accumulation of organic remains. The accumu
lations of sediment from which this mountain-system was
constructed were deposited in a current whose course was
parallel with the axis of the system, and, as has been so
fully shown by Professor James Hall (Paleontology of
Xew York, vol. iii., Introduction), these sediments were
deposited in great thickness and of very coarse materials
in the north-east, gradually thinning and increasing in fine
ness as they reached the Mississippi valley in the south
west. From the latest conclusions of American geologists
it may be inferred that originally the eastern border of
these deposits lay over a region now covered by the
Atlantic Ocean. When the elevation took place that
brought the metamorphic rocks of New, England, New
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to the surface, the
eastern border remained submerged, while the western
border was brought above the sea-level. The facts that
concern petroleum are found in the comparatively un
disturbed and nearly level position of this western border,
in which the rocks holding the petroleum lie at present,
like sand-bars in a current, and the further evidence
that they afford that the metamorphic action which has
altered nearly all the formations of the eastern border
became extinct along a plane that descended deeper and
deeper from the surface as the western slope of the system
is traversed. This evidence further shows that along the
western borders of the system, although the rocks and
the coal that they enclose are unaltered near the surface,
at the same time vast areas of the fucoidal shale and even
limestones containing indigenous petroleum may have
been invaded by the heat -action and their volatile con
tents distilled at great depths. This distillate, being
forced up by heat and hydrostatic pressure, would natur
ally accumulate in any overlying bed of rock porous
enough to receive it. In Galicia, Roumania, and Tran
sylvania the metamorphic core of the Carpathians is
flanked by beds of fucoidal shale rich in the remains of
marine animals, which are intercalated with the beds of
sandstone that contain the oil. This hypothesis, which
regards petroleum as a distillate, includes the facts as
thus far observed, is in harmony with scientific possi
bilities, and is reasonable, as it does not require any ex
traordinary assumption of either chemical or geological con
ditions. While the maintenance of any particular theory
concerning the origin of petroleum is primarily of very
little practical value, it is indirectly of value to conclude
whether by some deep-seated chemical action the oil is at
present being prepared in the laboratories of nature, or
whether its generation has been long since completed. If
a correct interpretation of the phenomena observed in rela
tion to petroleum leads to the hypothesis that the fluid
is in most instances a distillate, and especially in those
localities where it is most abundant, then the conclusion
is inevitable that the generation of petroleum is practically
completed, and the deposits are vast natural storehouses
which when once emptied are as completely removed from
future production as a worked-out bed of coal.
Methods of Production. — While petroleum has been pro
duced for an immemorial period in Persia, China, Japan,
Burrnah, Baku, and Galicia, and while the primitive
methods employed in each country in its production fur
nish interesting subjects for study, it is scarcely possible
in this article to do more than indicate in a general man
ner how the vast quantities produced at the present time
in the United States and Canada are brought to the
surface, stored, and transported. In both Galicia and
the Caucasus, which, with Canada and the United States,
now furnish the petroleum of commerce, the ancient
methods of production are being rapidly superseded by
those employed in America. In the United States the
development of oil-territory has acquired a habit that has
become well defined, and has been repeatedly exemplified
during the last twenty years. The first step is the sinking
of a test or "wild-cat'"' well outside the limits of any
proved productive territory, the progress of such well
being eagerly watched not only by those who pay for it
but also by many others who hope to profit by the experi
ment. The striking of oil in such a well is the signal for
a grand rush, and a speculative floating population invades
the place. After a time the speculative phase is succeeded
by that of settled development. The oil-territory has be
come outlined. The sagacious ones have secured control
of the most profitable tracts, while the floating element
has moved on to a new field. Between the period of
active development and absolute exhaustion comes that of
decay, when the derricks are rotting and falling to wreck,
and when property that has ceased to be productive has
been sold at an extravagant price, and after accumulating
debts has been abandoned. Finally the wave passes over
and nature restores as she restores after the ruin of battle
fields. A visit to Pithole city, which in 1865 was, next to
Philadelphia, the largest post-office in Pennsylvania, showed
in 1881 fields of maize and timothy where some of the
most famous wells had been, and of the city a score of
houses tumbling to decay and not an inhabitant. It is
not to be inferred, however, that any of the sections into
which the oil-regions have been divided entirely cease to
produce oil. There are wells now producing within sight
of the spot where Drake drilled the first well ; but large
tracts cease to be centres of speculative investment, the
old wells cease to be remunerative, and the new wells no
longer hold out the possibilities of a grand lottery.
Wells are sometimes drilled by the owners of the land, but the
larger part are drilled under leases. These leases are drawn with
a great variety of conditions, but they usually stipulate that the
lessor shall pay to the lessee a certain portion of the oil produced,
the amount varying from one-tenth to one-fourth in proportion to
the supposed richness of the territory. One well to five acres is
considered as many as a judicious arrangement will allow, but many-
wells have been drilled much closer, and in some instances several
wells have been drilled on one acre. The oil-sand of different
localities varies as it occupies different geological horizons. The
Venango oil -sand extends from Tidioute in Warren county to
Herman Station in Butler county, Pennsylvania, a distance of 62
miles. It is uniformly a conglomerate of smooth white quartz
pebbles, from a quarter to three-quarters of an inch in thickness.
In other districts of the United States, Canada, and Galicia the
oil-sand is a true sandstone of varying colour and texture. In the
Caucasus the sand is fine, and resembles a quicksand, as it rises with
the oil and accumulates around the wells.
When the location of a well has been determined, a derrick or
"rig" is built, which consists of the derrick itself and a small
house for an engine, with the necessary foundation for both. This
foundation is made of heavy timbers dovetailed and keyed together.
The derrick consists of a framework firmly braced in the form of a
truncated pyramid, and about 70 feet high. At its base are two
large reels, upon one of which the drilling cable is coiled and upon
the other the sand-pump rope. At one side of the derrick a heavy
post, called the Samson post, is framed into the main sill, upon the
top of which rests the walking-beam, one end of it being connected
with the engine of from 12 to 15 horse -power, whilst the other
supports the drill. When the engine is in motion the walking-
beam alternately raises and drops the drill. The boiler is made like
the tubular boilers usually employed on locomotives, and is placed
at a distance from the well to prevent the ignition of the gas that
often accompanies the oil. The engine should be reversible, and so
PETROLEUM
717
temper - screw
the walking -
clamped by the
worked doVn-
The free end
d, which is
bar of iron
firmness to the
upper link of
steel, the slots
placed that the driller in the derrick can easily control its motion
by the use of cords and pulleys. A string of A^ drilling tools
is represented in fig. 1. First we have the
a, which is attached directly to the end of
beam, into the jaws of which the cable is
set-screw b, and the long screw of which, c, is
ward by the driller as the rock is penetrated.
of the cable is fastened to the rope -socket
screwed into the sinker-bar e, that is, a solid
about 20 feet in length which serves to give
tools. The sinker -bar is screwed into the
the jars. The jars, /, consist of two links of
of which are 21 inches long,
with cross -heads 8 inches
deep, in consequence of which
the links have 13 inches of
play. The lower link of the
jars is screwed into another
long iron bar called the 3
auger- stem, g, which is in
turn screwed to the bit or ,
drill h. The jars are the :
centre of action, and the .«
manner in which they per- ^
form their work may be best :'vS
explained, perhaps, in this -S*~
way. Suppose the tools to ~^*$^
have been just run to the ^j^EI
bottom of the well, the jars . -;f^j
closed, and the cable slacked, » •=££§
the men now reel up the
slack until the sinker - bar Q^sS:
rises, the "play" of the jars
allowing it to come up 13
inches without lifting the 5
auger-stem ; when the links
come together they slack
back about 4 inches
clamp the cable into
temper-screw. If now theQgPigp^
vertical movement of the ^
walking -beam is 24 inches,
the sinker-bar rises 4 inches,
when the cross-heads of the
links come together with a
smart blow ; then the auger-
stem is picked up and lifted
20 inches. On the down-
stroke the auger -stem falls
20 inches, while the links
slide 4 inches carrying the
sinker -bar down 24 inches. UJjjjj^M
and O ;E=
the ^l ~
5
The links are never allowed Q-^si?;;
to strike on the clown-stroke, Uj;
while the blow of the up
stroke prevents the drill
from becoming wedged into
any seam or crevice into
which its weight might drive
it. When the tools are all
ready for operation, either a
wooden conductor is placed
perpendicularly in a sort of ' -
shaft sunk to the bed-rock, cog
or an iron tube called a °
" drive-pipe " is driven upon
it through the soil. In either
case great care is taken to ^
start the well perpendicularly <Q
to the derrick - floor. The
tools are swung into position •
from the top of the derrick, -j^
and the free end of the cable ^
is coiled around the shaft of W
the reel in such a manner
that when the free end is Q
tightened the tools are lifted, 2
and when it is loose the reel- {/>
shaft revolves within the .j
coils. By holding the cable Q &
firmh' the tools rise, and as ^
it is loosened they fall. The |j ^
well is started in this man — ' ^
ner and carried down until 5 g-^'Vy*' ^ * "*"' ' •"a-v^3j-»-r~'^ *- -*•*•
the string of tools can be °9 =
suspended beneath the walk- F'g- 1-— String of Tools.
iug-beam,when a cable as long as the supposed depth of the completed
OIL DELIVERY PIPE.
well is wound upon the reel, the end carried over a pulley at the top
of the derrick and then fastened into the rope-socket, the temper-
screw attached, and the drilling continued to J-,
the bottom of the well. Day and night the X
machinery is kept in motion, one driller and T|
one engineer and tool-dresser work from noon ||' 3M , — ;
until midnight, and another pair work from
midnight until noon. The driller, with a
short lever inserted in the temper-screw, walks
round and round to rotate the drill. He
watches the jars, and at intervals lets down
the temper -screw. When the screw is run
out or the drill needs sharpening, he arranges
the slack cable so that it will run freely over
the pulley and proceeds to "draw out." The
cable is undamped from the temper -screw
and the engine disconnected ' _L
from the walking-beam and "-
attached to the cable -reel.
When all is ready the long
cable is reeled up and the
tools drawn out. The bit
is replaced by one newly ~|
sharpened, and after the well '-§^5
has been sand -pumped the S^Sf<
tools are again lowered and §gr2-
drilling resumed. When the ^gir=;_
drilling proceeds without ac- ^
cident the work is exceed- ^
ingly monotonous.
From the top of the bed- ?-
rock to a point below the '§r&z
surface-water of the region, ^fe^^SS^
the well is drilled of the
same diameter as the, in- ~-.~=SHOZOH END
terior of the drive -pipe. E DRIVE. PIPE
This point is usually from p
300 to 400 feet below the g
surface. At this point the m
drill-hole is tapered, and a S
pipe armed with a steel shoe iU
is ground into the tapered
hole to a water-tight joint, p
The inside diameter of this f|
casing-pipe is 5| inches, and mm
below it the well is carried ==
down 5|> inches in diameter =
to the bottom. The casing H
I DERRICK FLOOR
j C^SI^G
pipe excludes the fresh sur- s
face -water, and only water H
enough is put into the well fj^
to wash out the drillings, j=r^^
unless salt water is encoun- =jj.ijjjjji^
tered. The casing-pipe be- ^^^
comes a permanent fixture, =
into which is introduced the ^=s^^-^
2-inch pipe, through which
the oil flows or is pumped.
This 2-inch pipe may be in- £,
troduced or removed at plea- ^
sure, without disturbing the J
casing-pipe or drive-pipe, or <£
letting water into the well '
upon the oil.
When drilling has been
completed the well is tor
pedoed. From one to twenty-
five gallons of nitro-glycerin
are lowered into the well in
tin cylinders and exploded,
usually by percussion. The
effect of firing such a large =
amount of this powerful *
explosive is not apparent ^
at the surface, but soon a *
gurgling sound is heard ap- ,
proaching from beneath ; the -
oil rises from the well and '-
falls first like a fountain and
then like a geyser, forming
a torrent of yellow fluid,
accompanied by a rattle of
small stones and fragments __
of the canister in a shower ~-
of spray 100 feet in height. FiS- 2.— Pumping Well. ^
The generation of such an enormous volume of gas in a limited
area, the walls of which are already under a very high gas-pressure,
/BOTTOM OF //a HOLE.
718
PETROLEUM
j DERRICK FLOOR
DERRICK SILL
^s^S-Q^m
E=i< (O
DR/V/E PiPE=O ,
ft . « SfttttfNMr?-
S
and which is held down by 2000 feet of motionless air, must be
followed by an expansion into the porous rock that drives both oil
and gas before it, until a point of maximum tension is reached.
The resistance then becomes greatest within the rock, and, reaction
following, oil and gas are driven out of the rock and out of the well
until the expansive force is
expended.
Figs. 2 and 3 show the
general arrangement ot
pumping and flowing wells.
After the well is torpedoed
it is prepared for flowing. A
section of 2 -inch pipe, per
forated with holes, which
serves as a strainer, is low
ered into the well and other
sections coupled to it, until
a sufficient length is intro
duced to reach from the bot
tom to a point above the oil-
sand. An indiarubber packer
is then attached in such a
manner that within it the
pipe that is above it slides
in that which is below it,
and the rubber is forced yz~
against the sides of the drill- 5g
hole with the weight of 1200 Iff
to 1800 feet of 2-inch pipe, "-.
thus making a gas-tight •££_
joint. The pressure of the
gas within the oil-sand and ^
below the packer forces the =
oil to the surface. As the ?
flow diminishes, a pump-
barrel is introduced to the \
bottom of the well and the
oil is lifted to the surface.
Gas -pumps are also used to
remove the pressure of the \
atmosphere from the well |
and rock. In some of the =Jjsf
older districts from twelve to
forty wells are attached to
one engine, and pumped by
what is called a "sucker-rod"
connexion. - In West Vir
ginia five different horizons
of sandstone have yielded
oil. A well w^is put down
there in 1865 to the "first
white oak sand," 255 feet in
depth, and pumped at inter
vals for fifteen years ; it was
then reamed out to 8 inches
in diameter, and from the
bottom of the old well was
carried down 4£ inches in
diameter to the third sand.
A tube was inserted with a
packer at the bottom of the
8-inch hole to stop off the
heavy oil of the first sand. °
Through this oil of a speci- }
fie gravity '79 (45° B.) was -
pumped from the third sand, |
and through a second tube, ^
introduced beside the first to E
the bottom of the old well, -
oil of a specific gravity '88 '
(•27° B.) was pumped from the -
first sand, both pumps being ^
simultaneously worked by 1
the same walking- beam. The
first-sand oil was worth seven
dollars a barrel, while the
third-sand oil was worth only
one dollar a barrel.
The average duration of
the profitable production of
an oil-well is estimated at F,g. 3.-Flowmg Well,
five years. This period is subject to great fluctuations, as there
are wells in the Cole Creek district of the Bradford field that were
abandoned in two years, while wells on Triumph Hill, Venango
county, where the sand is 125 feet thick, have been pumped fifteen
years. The yield of some single wells has been enormous. A well
in Donegal township, Butler county, Pennsylvania, produced more
\BpTTOM _O£
=- SfZ'HOLE
SSS&&
-c>~o~^
•0-0 — Cr
-f}—<3-o-*l—<
q^^ja
.
' ••-»-•* =>,.->': »,-»
'PERFORATED
'PlPEfSZ?*?'
than 110,000 barrels in ten years, and twelve wells, of which this
was one, on the same farm produced over 750,000 barrels.
In Burmah and other Eastern countries petroleum was stored
and transported in flasks and jars. In the United States it was
for many years transported in barrels made tight for oil by
being coated on the inside with a stiff solution of glue. Later, it
was transported on the rivers in bulk barges, and on the railroads
in tanks upon cars. These tanks were at first made of wood, but
they have lately been made of iron. The usual form is a plain
cylinder, 24 feet 6 inches long and 66 inches in diameter, having
a capacity of from 4000 to 5000 gallons. These cars are also used
in the Caucasus. At the present time, in all the regions pro
ducing petroleum in commercial quantities, the bulk of the crude
oil is transported through pipe-lines, which consist of lines of pipe
carried across the country, often for hundreds of miles, through
which the oil is forced by powerful pumps under a pressure of
from 1000 to 1600 lt> to the square inch. Eacli well h:is a tank
into which the oil flows from the well, and from which it is carried in
a 2-inch pipe by gravity to a pumping station, where it is pumped
into the "main line." Main lines run out of the oil -regions of
Pennsylvania to Cleveland (Ohio), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania),
Buffalo (New York), and New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore
on the Atlantic coast. They are constructed of 6-inch pipe, the
joints of which are screwed into couplings like sections of gas-pipe.
During recent years the production of petroleum in excess of anv
demand for it has led to the storage of vast quantities (30,000,000
barrels in 1882) in iron tanks of enormous size. Many of these
tanks are owned by private individuals, but the majority belong
to the pipe-lines. There are 1375 iron tanks connected with the
united pipe-lines, ranging in capacity from 1000 to 38,000 barrels,
and representing a total storage capacity of 38,000,000 barrels.
These tanks are frequently tired by lightning or other accidents,
and when burning present a spectacle of unsurpassed grandeur.
The bulk of the trade in crude petroleum in the United States is
conducted through the pipe-lines and their certificates. When oil is
received into the line from a well, the amount is ascertained and
passed to the credit of the well-owner on the books of the company,
less 3 per cent, to cover loss in handling. This oil is held like a
bank-deposit, subject to transfer on a written order. When such
an order has been "accepted" by an officer of the company it
becomes an "acceptance" or "certificate,"' and is then negotiable
like a certified cheque. As the exchanges deal only in certificates
of 1000 barrels they are made of that amount so far as is possible.
When oil is delivered by the pipe-lines a pipage charge of 20 cents
per barrel is paid and a storage fee of §12'50 per 1000 barrels per
month must be paid at least once in six months. The issuing of
certificates by the pipe-lines has made speculation in oil, brokerage,
and exchanges possible to an extent vastly beyond the requirements
of any actual trade in the oil itself.
About 250,000,000 barrels of petroleum have been produced in
the United States and Canada from 1859 to 1884. No reliable
statistics are to be had of the production in other regions, but of
late years the Caucasian fields have yielded about 5,000,000 barrels
per annum. The total annual production for 1883 cannot be far
from 35,000,000 barrels.
Technology. — The technology of petroleum is quite simple. In
the crude state it enters largely into mixtures with other oils,
tallow, lead, soap, graphite, &c., that are chiefly used for lubrica
tion. Crude petroleum is also filtered through charcoal. Crude
oils that are too fluid for lubrication are reduced to the required
consistence by partial evaporation, both by exposure to the sun in
shallow tanks and also by distillation of the more volatile portion in
stills. Such oils are called "reduced oils." In the technology of
petroleum by distillation a great variety of details are employed by
different manufacturers, but in general they may be treated under
the three heads of destructive distillation or "cracking," distilla
tion with superheated steam, and distillation in vacuo. The
stills used vary greatly in respect of form and capacity. Formerly
stills holding 80,000 gallons were used, but recently they have been
constructed of a capacity of from 40,000 to 48,000 gallons. They
are ordinarily made either in the form of plain cylinders 30 feet in
length and 12 feet 6 inches in diameter, and set horizontally in
banks of three or more, or there may be an upright cylinder 30 feet
in diameter and 9 feet in height, set vertically with numerous fire
boxes arranged around the circumference. Another form of still
is an upright cylinder holding about 1000 gallons, heated from
beneath and furnished with a steam-coil immersed in the body of
the oil. In this coil the steam is superheated to the tempera
ture of the oil, and is then allowed to escape into it, by which
means the overheating of the oil is prevented and the distillation
assisted by the mechanical action of the steam in lifting the oil-
vapour out of the still. Another form of still is a vacuum still,
in which a partial vacuum is maintained by a pump. The top of
the still is usually constructed with a high dome, into which the
vapours rise and from which they escape into the condensers.
The condensers usually consist of a large number of 2-inch pipes
immersed in water contained in a long trough. The distillation
PETROLEUM
719
commences at a very low temperature and proceeds at a constantly
rising temperature, the distillate steadily increasing in specific
gravity. The last portions distil at nearly a red heat, arid are
nearly solid at ordinary temperatures, with a specific gravity above
900°.
The oil is first allowed to settle in large tanks, when about 1
per cent, of water and sediment is removed. It is then pumped
to stills into which "live" steam is introduced. Distillation com
mences at once and is allowed to proceed until the specific gravity
of the distillate reaches 74 (60° B). The oil in this condition is
called "gas-oil," and is used to a limited extent in the manu
facture of illuminating gas. The distillate is crude naphtha, and
is redistilled and divided into (1) rhigolene or cymogene, having a
specific gravity of '62 and boiling at 65a Fahr. ; (2) gasolene, specific
gravity '66 (90° to 80° P>.) ; (3) C naphtha, specific gravity 70 (80°
to 68° B.) ; (4) B naphtha, specific gravity 72 (68° to 64° B.) ; and
(5) A naphtha, specific gravity 74 (64° to 60° B.). Below 60° goes
to illuminating oil. The crude oil from which the naphtha has
been removed is then put into a suitable still and distilled until
the distillate has a specific gravity of '81 (40° B.). This distillate is
crude illuminating oil. The oil remaining in the still may then
be "cracked" by destructive distillation, or may be distilled for
lubricating oil. If it is to be "cracked" the fires are slacked
and the distillation allowed to proceed slowly, in consequence
of which the vapours of the heavy oil are repeatedly condensed
upon the dome of the still and made to fall back upon the hot
oil beneath. The result is the production of a large volume of
permanent gas, chiefly marsh gas and hydrogen, a distillate of
suitable specific gravity for illuminating oil, and a heavy tarry
residue, called "residuum," that remains in the still. By this
method of manipulation the crude oil is converted into crude
naphtha, crude illuminating oil, and residuum, while the gas
is burned as a waste product. The residuum is run out of the
.still and sold to manufacturers of lubricating oil. If the oil is not
to be cracked, the heavy oil, from which the illuminating oil and
naphtha have been removed, is often distilled with superheated
steam and treated for lubricating oil. If simply distilled and
treated with chemicals after removal of the paraffin, the oil is
called in the United States "paraffin oil." The crude paraffin oil
is placed in barrels in an ice-house, and, after it has been several
days at rest, paraffin crystallizes from it. The paraffin is removed
by pressure, and may be purified by any of the methods described
under PARAFFIN (p. 242 above). The oil from which the paraffin
has been pressed may be subjected to a further distillation in a
.steam -coil or other suitable still, and deprived of certain oils
that boil at a high temperature but have a pungent and offensive
odour. When drawn off, the oil remaining iu the still is found to
be light-coloured and nearly tasteless and odourless. It is called
"deodorized neutral heavy hydrocarbon oil," and is found to be a
very valuable lubricating oil. Th distillate above mentioned
after treatment is called "mineral sp^rm," and is used as an illu
minating oil on cars and steamboats, where a more volatile oil
would be objectionable. Any of these distillates, from gasolene to
the most dense lubricating oil, may be purified by filtration or by
treatment with acids and alkalis. Filtration is usually applied
to the different grades of naphtha to deprive them of disagreeable
odour, for which purpose gravel and both wood and animal char
coal are used, either separately or together. Lubricating oils are
often filtered through animal charcoal to deprive them of both
colour and odour. The dense vacuum residues recently prepared
under the name of cosmoline, vaseline, &c., are filtered through
animal charcoal while hot and perfectly fluid. Oils are treated
with chemicals in high cylindrical tanks of small diameter, where
they are thoroughly mingled by means of air forced into the bottom
of the tank under pressure. These agitators often hold 50,000
gallons. The illuminating oils are usually treated with 5 per cent,
of oil of vitriol at a temperature of about 60° Fahr. The acid
" sludge," consisting of the oil of vitriol combined with the impuri
ties of the oil and forming a black tarry liquid, settles to the bottom
of the tank and is drawn off. The oil is then agitated with water,
then treated with a solution of caustic soda, and finally washed
with water containing caustic ammonia. Hydrochloric acid is used
to a limited extent, and nitric and chromic acids are used to destroy
fluorescence in dense oils. Those illuminating oils especially that
are prepared by cracking are thrown after treatment, and while
warm, in a thin spray into a large tank. This causes a small
amount of very volatile oil produced by cracking to be evaporated,
and brings the oil up to test. Finally the oil is exposed under a
skylight in large shallow tanks until it has become perfectly clear
from settling of all impurities. The acid " sludge " is for the most
part sold to manufacturers of commercial fertilizers or restored by
evaporation and used over again. More than 45,000 tons of oil
of vitriol were used in 1880 by the manufacturers of petroleum
in the United States. The alkali sludge is thrown away. The
following table shows the average percentage of commercial pro
ducts obtained from crude petroleum of 79 (45° B.) from Pennsyl
vania, Ohio, &c. —
Per cent.
Gasolene i to 1}
" C " naphtha 10
"B" naphtha 21
"A" naphtha 2 to 2j
16}
Illuminating oil 50 to 54
Lubricating oil 17}
Paraffin \vax=4} Ib per barrel 2
Loss 10
If the oil is "cracked," the yield is —
Naphthas
Illuminating oil
Residuum .
Loss
100
16}
70
2
Lubricating Oils. — Crude petroleum and the heavy distillates
from petroleum, finished either by treatment or by filtration, have
been slowly winning their way with consumers of lubricating oils
for the last twenty years, and may now be said to have a recognized
value. This result has been due as much to improved processes
of manufacture, and consequently to improved quality of the pro
ducts, as to a recognition of their merits. When properly prepared,
and exempt from volatile matter and offensive odour, they are found
to be possessed of great endurance, to be free from a tendency to
gum, and to be incapable of spontaneous combustion. When mixed
with animal and vegetable oils liable to spontaneous combustion,
these oils prevent it. They are therefore now in large demand,
a demand which is likely to increase as new applications are found
for them and their quality is improved.
Illuminating Oils. — Oils of this class manufactured from petro
leum have nearly superseded the use of other illuminating fluids
throughout the world. They are largely sold in Great Britain under
the name of "paraffin oils" ; in the United States they are called
"kerosene," and on the European continent "refined petroleum."
The different qualities are known as " water white, " "standard,"
and "prime," and are further distinguished as "low test" and
" high test " oils. The characters chiefly relied on in the trade
are "colour" and "test." The colour should be as light and free
from opalescence as possible. Colour is, however, a matter of little
importance except as it indicates unskilful manufacture of the oil.
The " test " is of paramount importance, and indicates the tempera
ture Fahr. at which the oil will give off a sufficient amount of
vapour to ignite explosively when the oil is properly tested. While
the methods of testing petroleum vary greatly, the apparatuses used
for that purpose may be divided into three classes. The first class
is designed to ascertain the tension of the vapour given off by a
given sample at a certain fixed temperature ; these are chiefly used
in France. The others are designed to show at what temperature
a given amount of oil, usually half a pint, will give off a sufficient
amount of vapour to form an explosive mixture with the air above
the oil. These are divided into "open testers," in which the oil is
heated in an open vessel, and "closed testers," in which the oil is
heatod in a closed vessel. The tester invented by Sir F. A. Abel (see
PARAFFIN, p. 239) has been adopted in Great Britain and her colonies,
while in the United States and on the Continent a great variety are
in use. The numerous accidents, many of a frightful nature, and
involving great loss of property and often of human life, that have
followed the use of illuminating oils which had not been properly
freed from the volatile products of the petroleum, have led in most
European countries and many of the American States to the enact
ment of stringent laws forbidding the sale or use of oils the test of
which does not come within the prescribed legal limits. Very valu
able researches on the flashing of oils have been made by Dr C. F.
Chandler of New York, and by other American chemists. Dr Chand
ler showed that oils burning in lamps of ordinary construction in a
room the temperature of which was below 90° Fahr. failed to reach
an average temperature of 100° Fahr. In metal lamps, particularly
"student lamps," the average temperature was several degrees higher
than in glass lamps, a fact which shows glass lamps to be safest in
this respect. Dr C. B. White of New Orleans has examined illu
minating oils with respect to the amount of volatile material that,
when added to good oil, will render it dangerous. He found that
from 1 to 5 per cent, of the ordinary naphthas of commerce
would render illuminating oil of the best quality extremely danger
ous. Five per cent, of crude naphtha reduced the flashing point
from 118° to 70° Fahr. These researches have all demonstrated the
wisdom of English legislation on this subject, but unfortunately
have not been productive of equally good results in the United
States. Petroleum legislation is there in a very unsatisfactory con
dition. The very worthless law passed by Congress in 1867 has
long been repealed, and no other has been substituted for it. A
number of the States (seventeen in 1880) are without legislation in
reference to this subject, while legislation in other States is based
upon local influence rather than fixed principles, and ranges in its
7'20
P E T — P E T
requirements from extreme laxity to unreasonable exaction, in con
sequence of the lack of intelligent national Governmental action.
Nearly all the nations of continental Europe have petroleum laws
in the main based upon an intelligent appreciation of the subject,
and but little inferior to English legislation.
The Uses of NaplUlia.—'^ lightest products obtained from
petroleum are rhigolene, which is used in surgery, and cymogene,
which is used as the volatile fluid in ice-machines. Gasolene is the
lightest fluid obtained in considerable quantity, and is used in
automatic gas - machines for the carburatiou of gas or air. The
question of increasing the illuminating power of gas (see GAS, vol.
x. p. 101), by causing it to absorb fluid hydrocarbons, was discussed
as early as 1832, but it was only after petroleum furnished a cheap
and suitable fluid that inventors succeeded in securing results of
any value. While hundreds of machines have been patented in
England, America, and continental Europe for accomplishing this
purpose, it is only quite recently that an American inventor, Dr
Walter M. Jackson, has succeeded in constructing a machine that
satisfactorily meets all the requirements of the problem. His
metrical carburetter measures both the fluid and the gas or air in
such a manner that the least amount of the hydrocarbon fluid
required to produce the effect sought is furnished to the gas, and
the whole is immediately absorbed. By this means a uniform car-
buration is secured, furnishing a gas of uniform quality, that never
contains a sufficient amount of fluid to admit of condensation in any
part of the apparatus. Both crude petroleum and the products of
its manufacture have been used as a material for the manufacture
of gas by distillation. The different qualities of naphtha are used
in mixing paint, in the manufacture of oil-cloths for floors and of
varnishes, as a solvent for gums and resins, in the preparation of
alkaloids, in the manufacture of india-rubber, in washing wool, and
in removing oils and grease from seeds and textile fabrics.
Petroleum as Fuel. — In the region of the Caucasus and on the
Caspian Sea, where other fuel is scarce and dear and petroleum is
plentiful and cheap, the latter is used with complete success on both
steamships and locomotives. Petroleum and its products have been
used with practical success in the manufacture of iron in the United
States. Both illuminating oil and naphtha are now very widely
used in stoves ; but naphtha -stoves are extremely dangerous, and
their use should be prohibited by law. In the valley of the
Euphrates, near Mosul, petroleum is used as a fuel in burning lime.
Petroleum in Medicine. —Although petroleum has been used as a
remedial agent for an unknown period in the countries where it is
a natural product, its physiological effects have never been very
fully investigated. Barbados tar, Haarlem oil, Seneca oil, and
American oil, all consisting wholly or in large part of crude
petroleum, were sold by apothecaries for years before petroleum
was obtained by boring. They were mainly used as liniments for
external application, particularly in rheumatism. The oil of the
Alleghany valley early had a local reputation as an internal remedy
for consumption, and it has lately been prescribed for bronchitis.
The most volatile product of petroleum obtained by distillation,
called rhigolene, has been used to produce local insensibility, by
means of the intense cold resulting from its rapid evaporation ;
and the same fluid when inhaled as vapour or the gas escaping from
fresh oil will produce an intoxication or insensibility resembling
the effects of laughing-gas, resulting in death if its action is pro
longed. The products of petroleum that have proved most valu
able in medicine are the filtered paraffin residues sold under the
names of cosmoline, vaseline, &c., that are now so widely used as
ointments, either plain or medicated. They are of about the con
sistence of butter, with very little taste or odour, and will keep
indefinitely without becoming rancid. These valuable properties
have caused them to almost entirely supersede all other prepara
tions containing animal or vegetable fats.
Looking towards the past, it may be said that petroleum has
attained universal diffusion as a lighting agent ; it is fast displacing
animal and vegetable oils as a lubricator on all classes of bearings,
from railroad - axles to mule - spindles, and also where other oils are
liable to spontaneous combustion ; it is very largely used as fuel
for stoves, both for heating and cooking ; it is very successfully
used for steam purposes when other fuel is scarce and petroleum
plentiful ; it is likely to be used for the production of pure iron for
special purposes ; and it has become a necessity to the apothecary
as petroleum ointment. Looking towards the future, what assur
ance have we that these varied wants, the creation of a quarter of
a century, will be satisfied ? While it is not probable that the de
posits of petroleum in the crust of the earth are being practically
increased at the present time, there is reason to believe that the
supply is ample for an indefinite period. Yet the fact is worthy
of serious consideration that the production of petroleum as at
present conducted is everywhere wasteful in the extreme.
There are very few works that treat exclusively of petroleum. An article in the
Bull, de la Soc. Ge.nl. de France, xxv., gives the best resume of the mention mafle
by classical writers. Travellers overland to India and Persia have usually
described Baku (see Kaempfer, 1712 ; Hanway, 1743; Foster, 1784; Kinnier,
1848). On the occurrence of petroleum in Burmah, see Journals of the Em
bassies to the CourtofAva, Symes (1795), Crawfurd (1826), Yule (1855); in Persia,
Carl Ritter's Erdk. v. Asien, 1840 ; in Japan, B. S. Lyman's Reports, Geolog.
Survey o/V<ip(m,1874-75 ; in Galicia.Von Hauer (1853), Fotterle (1853, 1859, 1862),
J. Moth (1873), Bruno Walter (1880), in Jahrbuchder K.-K. Geo. Reichsanstalt;
in Roumania, Von Ilauer, Geologie Siebenburgens, 1863; H. Coquand, Bui. Soc.
Geol. de France, xxiv. 505, 1807 ; in Canada, T. Sterry Hunt, in Reports of Geol.
Survey of Canada of various dates, 1863-73; in Pennsylvania, J. F. Carll, Reports,
I., II., and III., with maps, Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, 1874-1880.
On the chemistry of petroleum, see C. M. Warren, in American Journal of Science
and Chemical News ; Shorlemmer, in Quar. Journal of the Chemical Society ;
Pelouze and Cahours in Ann. de Chimie et de Physique ; Berthelot in the same,
all at various dates, 1863-1880. On the origin of petroleum, see Lesquereux, in
Trans. Am. Phil. Soc., xiii., 1S66 ; J. S. Newberry, in Ohio Ag. Report, 1859 ; T.
Sterry Hunt, in Chem. News, vi. 5 et sq.; Byasson, in Revue Industrielle, 1876;
Mendeljeff, in Bull. Soc. Chim. de Paris, 1877. On testing petroleum, see John
Attfield, in Chem. News, xiv. 257 ; F. Grace Calvert, Chem. News, xxi. 85 ; C. F.
Chandler, in American Chemist, ii. 409 ; Boverton Redwood, in English, Mechanic
and World of Science, xxii. 335, 1875 ; F. A. Abel, in Chem. News, xxxv. 73. On
the general subject, see T. Sterry Hunt, "History of Petroleum or Rock Oil,"
in Canadian Naturalist, [1], vi. 245; Chem. News, vi. 5; Report of Smithsonian
Institution, 1862 ; J. Lawrence Smith, in Report to the Judges of the. Centennial
Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876; S. F. Peckham, monograph on petroleum, in
cluding bibliography of petroleum and allied subjects to 1881, in Reports of the
Tenth Census of the United States. See also, for an account of wells at Baku,
Engineering, 22d February to 16th May 1884, London. (S. F. P.)
PETROLOGY. See ROCKS.
PETRONIUS. Petronius Arbiter, although excluded
from the list of classical writers available for the purposes
of education, is one who enjoyed a great reputation, especi
ally in France, at a time when Latin authors were more
read as literature than they are in the present day. A
recent critic l of Petronius has stated, though with evident
exaggeration, that no ancient writer except Aristotle has
found so many interpreters. But there is perhaps none
about whose history and era there has been so much
controversy, nor is the controversy yet settled with abso
lute certainty. He hides himself so completely behind
the mask of his fictitious personages that we learn nothing
of his fortunes, position, or even of the century to which
he belonged, directly from himself. He does not belong
to any of the classes of " viri illustres " (poets, orators,
historians, philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians)
whose lives were written by Suetonius. Though he is
mentioned by critics, commentators, and grammarians of
a late date (such as Macrobius, Servius, and Priscian), the
only hint we have of anything bearing on his personal
position is contained in two lines of Sidonius Apollinaris,
a writer of the latter part of the 5th century A.D., who
associates him with the masters of Latin eloquence, Cicero,
Livy, and Virgil, in the lines—
" Et te, Massiliensium per hortos
Sacri stipitis, Arbiter, colonum
Hellespontiaco parem Priapo. "
If these lines are to be construed as implying that
Petronius lived and wrote his work at Marseilles, this
inference could hardly be reconciled with the indirect
evidence which leads to the identification of the author of
the Satirx with the C. Petronius of whom Tacitus has
painted so vivid a picture in the sixteenth book of the
Annals (ch. 18, 19). His place of residence in his later years
at least was not Marseilles but Rome. There is nothing,
however, in what Tacitus says incompatible with the sup
position that Marseilles was his birthplace ; or perhaps the
allusion might be explained by the supposition — supported
by a note of Servius on Virgil, sEn., iii. 57 — that the scene in
the early part of the long novel, of which two fragmentary
books have been preserved, was laid at Marseilles. The
chief personages of the story, as they appear in these
fragments of books xv. and xvi., are evidently strangers in
the towns of the south of Italy where the adventures in
which they share are supposed to take place. Their Greek-
sounding names (Encolpius, Ascyltos, Giton, &c.), and
their literary training also, accord with the character
istics of the old Greek colony in the 1st century A.D.
The high position among Latin writers assigned by
Sidonius to Petronius, and the mention of him by Macro
bius in juxtaposition with Menander, when compared
with the absolute silence of such writers as Quintilian,
1 J. N. M. De Guerle, Recherches Sceptiques sur le Satyricon.
PETRONIUS
721
Juvenal, and Martial, who might have been expected to
have taken some notice of him if he had flourished imme
diately before their own day, seem adverse to the generally
received opinion that the tiatiraz was a work of the age of
Nero. Yet the silence of Quintilian may be explained by
the fact that Petronius is not one of those writers who were
capable of being turned to use in the education of an orator.
The silence of Martial and Juvenal may be accidental.
Even if it is to be explained on the ground of want of ap
preciation, this would prove nothing more than that a work
so abnormal in form and substance was more highly prized
by later generations than by the author's contemporaries.
But, if we pass from these faint traces of external evi
dence to that afforded by the style of the book and the
state of manners described in it, we are led to the inference
that there is no other age to which it can be assigned on
better grounds than the age of Nero. If, again, we compare
the impression we form of the character, genius, and habits
of the writer with the elaborate picture which Tacitus
paints of a man who, so far as he plays any part in history,
is merely one of the victims of an abortive conspiracy, we
find grounds of probability for identifying them with one
another. Tacitus does not tell us that he was the author
of any important work, and this has been urged as con
clusive on the question. But Tacitus does not think it
necessary in what he tells us of Germanicus or Claudius
to mention their poetical and historical works. In intro
ducing Silius Italicus as the witness of a particular occur
rence he does not add that he was the author of the poem
on the Punic War. He mentions that the poetical gifts
and reputation of Lucan and Seneca were among the causes
that excited Nero's jealousy, but he does not mention the
Pharscdict of the one or the Tragedies of the other. The
prominence which Tacitus gives to the portrait of Petronius
points to his enjoyment of greater notoriety than was due
to the part he played in history. He paints him with the
keen and severe eye with which he fastens on the traits
of character and the manner of life illustrative of the
moral corruption of the time, but at the same time with
that appreciation of intellectual power which forces him to
do justice to men who in other respects were detestable.
Such a work as the /Satiree he could, from a moral point
of view, have regarded with no other feelings than those
of detestation ; yet he could not have refused his admiration
to the unmistakable proof it affords of easy careless power,
and of a spirit, if not courageous in any good sense, yet
indifferent to death, and capable of meeting calamity with
Epicurean irony.
The account he gives of C. Petronius is " that he spent
his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official
duties or in amusement, that by his dissolute life he had
become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and
that he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an
accomplished voluptuary. His reckless freedom of speech,
being regarded as frankness, procured him popularity.
Yet during his provincial government, and later when
he held the office of consul, he had shown vigour and
capacity for affairs. Afterwards returning to his life of
vicious indulgence, he became one of the chosen circle of
Nero's intimates, and was looked upon as an absolute
authority on questions of taste ('arbiter elegantue ') in
connexion with the science of luxurious living." This ex
cited the jealousy of Tigellinus, and led to his condemnation.
Petronius's death is then described, which was in keeping
with his mode of life and character. He selected the slow
process of opening his veins and having them bound up
again, while in conversing with his friends he avoided
the serious subjects natural at such a time, and listened to
their recitation of light odes and trifling verses. He then
dined luxuriously, slept for some time, and, so far from
imitating the practice of others by flattering Nero or
Tigellinus in his will, he wrote, sealed, and sent to the
emperor a document which professed to give, with the
names of the partners of his vices, a detailed account of
the scandalous life of the court.
That this portrait, drawn with such characteristic lines,
and painted in such sombre colouring, is sketched from the
life in Tacitus's most graphic manner is unquestionable.
A fact confirmatory of its general truth is added by the
elder Pliny (who calls him T. Petronius), who mentions
that just before his death he destroyed a murrhine vase of
great value to prevent its falling into the hands of Nero.
The question arises whether there is ground for identifying
the author of the fragment which we possess under the
name of Satirx with the person so minutely and faithfully
described by Tacitus. Do the traits of this picture agree
with that impression of himself which every writer of
marked individuality unconsciously leaves on his Avork?
Further, is there any reason for supposing, as some have
maintained, that in this fragment we possess the actual
document sent to Nero 1 The last question may be at once
dismissed. The only fragments connected by any kind of
continuity which we possess profess to be extracts of the
fifteenth and sixteenth books of a work that must have
extended to a great length. It would have been impossible
to have composed one-tenth part even of this fragment in
the time in which Petronius is said to have composed his
memorial to Nero. Those who find in the representation
of the vulgar, ostentatious, illiterate, but tolerably good-
natured Trimalchio a satire on Nero or Tigellinus are
capable of finding any meaning they desire in any literary
work of a past age.1 But at the same time it is legitimate
to note that the author of the banquet of Trimalchio and
of the lives of Encolpius and Giton had both the experience
and the literary gifts Avhich would enable him to describe
with scathing mockery the
"Luxuriant imperil veterem noctesque Neronis,"
and that he was not one to be restrained by any prudery
from describing them in their most revolting details.
On the other hand, the arguments against identifying
the writer of the fragment with the original of the portrait
of Tacitus, based on the silence of the historian as to his
authorship, may be explained by reference to the historian's
practice in regard to the authors of other literary works.
Unless these works had any bearing on the part which
their authors played in history, he did not feel himself
called upon to mention them ; and such a work as the
Satiree he would have regarded as especially beneath the
dignity of history, of which he had so proud a consciousness.
The impression of his personality produced by the author
corresponds closely with that of the Petronius of the
Annals, not only in the evidence it affords of intimate
familiarity with the vices of the age, but in the union of
an immoral sensualism with a rich vein of cynical humour
and an admirable taste, which we should expect to find in
one who rose to favour by his social and convivial qualities,
and who received the title of "elegantise arbiter." The
Epicurean maxims, such as —
" Yivamus dum licet esse bene, "
quoted by his actors, and the frequent introduction of
short poems into their conversations, are in conformity
with the opinions and tastes of one who in his last hours
"audiebat referentes nihil de immortalitate animse et
sapientium placitis, sed levia carmina et faciles versus."
Further, the name " Arbiter," by which he is mentioned in
later writers, is not an ordinary Latin cognomen, but may
have been bestowed on him by his contemporaries from
the fact that his judgment was regarded as the criterion
1 The supposition of M. Gaston Boissier that the individual satirized
is Pallas, the freedman of Claudius, is much more probable.
xvm. — 91
722
PETRONITJS
of good taste, and Tacitus, in the phrase he perpetuates,
may have fixed this as his designation for later Avriters.
The style of the work, where it does not purposely
reproduce the solecisms, colloquialisms, and slang of the
vulgar rich — for the most part freedmen of foreign
origin — is recognized by the most competent critics as
written in the purest Latin of the Silver Age. Coinci
dences of expression and thought with passages in the
satires of Persius are not infrequent.1 The false taste in
literature and expression fostered by the false style of
education is condemned by Persius and Petronius on the
same grounds. When the latter speaks of the " mellitos
verborum globulos " he may possibly have had Seneca in
his eye. Again, there would have been no point in putting
into the mouth of the old poet whom the adventurers pick
up verses on the capture of Troy and the Civil War at any
other era than that in which the Troica of Nero and the
Pharsalia of Lucan were the fashionable poems. The
pertinacity of the reciting poet, which is exposed with
such quiet humour by Petronius, is a feature of the age,
common to it with the age of Martial and Juvenal. But
we learn from Tacitus that the luxury of the table, which
appears so profuse and extravagant in the "dinner of
Trimalchio," reached its highest pitch under Nero, and
afterwards fell out of fashion (Tac., Ann., iii. 55).
The internal evidence based on the style and character
of the work thus appears to favour the opinion that the
book was written in the time of Nero ; nor is there any
one more likely to have been its author than the C.
Petronius whose manner of life and whose death are so
elaborately described by Tacitus.
The work, of which there have been preserved 141
sections or chapters of a narrative, in the main consecutive,
•although interrupted by frequent gaps, must have been
one of great originality as regards form, subject-matter,
and mode of treatment. The name Satirx, by which it
is designated in the best MSS., indicates that it claims
to be of the type of the original " satura " or " miscellany"
to which Varro, in imitation of the Greek writer Menippus,
had given the character of a medley of prose and verse
composition. But, while in the title and form of the work
it belonged to a familiar type, yet from another point of
view it is to be regarded as the earliest extant specimen of
an original and most important invention in Roman liter
ature. We find in it indeed not only a medley of prose
and verse composition, in which the former is much the
most prominent element, but also much desultory matter,
disquisitions on art and eloquence, stories and anecdotes,
&c. But the novelty of form recognized in Petronius con
sists in the string of fictitious narrative by which these are
kept together. The original Italian satura, superseded by
the Latin comedy, had developed into the poetical satire
of Lucilius and Horace, and into the miscellaneous prose
and verse essays of Varro. In the hands of Petronius it
assumed a new and most important phase in its develop
ment. The careless prodigal who gave his days to sleep
and his nights to pleasure was so happily inspired in his
devices for amusing himself as to introduce into Roman
literature, and thereby transmit to modern times, the novel
1 E.y., compare Persius, ii. 9, 10 —
"Osi
Ebulliat patruus, praeclarum funus, et O i
Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextr
Hereule " —
with Satirae 88, "Alius domum promittit, si propinquum divitem
extulerit, alius si thesaurum eflbderit," &c. The " ebulliat patruus "
may be compared with a phrase in the dinner of Trimalchio, " horno
bellus tarn bonus chrysanthus animam ebulliit." Persius has the
phrase "Dives arat Curibus quantum non milvus oberrat," which
is a close parallel to Petr., 37, " fundos habet qua milvi volant."
Again, both Persius and Petronius use the rare word "baro," which
occurs only two or three times elsewhere.
based on the ordinary experience 2 of contemporary life, — •
the precursor of such novels of adventure and character as
Gil Bias and Roderick Random. There is no evidence of
the existence of a regular plot in the /Satirx • but we find
one central figure, Encolpius, who professes to narrate his
adventures, and to describe all that he saw and heard,
while allowing various other personages to exhibit their
peculiarities and express their opinions dramatically. From
the nature of the adventures described there seems no
reason why the book should not have gone on to an inter
minable length.
The fragment opens with the appearance of the hero, Encolpius,
who seems to be an itinerant lecturer travelling with a companion
named Ascyltos and a boy Giton, in a portico of a Greek town,
apparently in Campania. Encolpius delivers a lecture, full of
admirable sense, on the false taste in literature, resulting from the
prevailing system of education, which is replied to by a rival de-
claimer, Agamemno, who shifts the blame from the teachers to the
parents. The central personages of the story next go through a
series of questionable adventures, in the course of which they are
involved in a charge of robbery. A day or two after they are present
at a dinner given by a freedman of enormous wealth, Trimalchio,
who had risen, as he boasted, " from a penny," and who entertained
with ostentatious and grotesque extravagance a number of men of
his own rank, who had not been so prosperous in life. AVe see
actually in flesh and blood specimens of those " Cappadocian
knights " to whom we have many pointed references in Martial arid
Juvenal. We witness their feats of gluttony ; we listen to the
ordinary talk of their guests about their neighbours, about the
weather, about the hard times, about the public games, about the
education of their children. We recognize in a fantastic and extra
vagant form the same kind of vulgarity and pretension which the
satirist of all times delights to expose by pen or pencil in the illiter
ate and ostentatious millionaires of the age. Next day Encolpius
separates from his companions in a fit of jealousy, and, after two or
three days' sulking and brooding on his revenge, enters a picture
gallery, where he meets with an old poet, who, after talking sensibly
on the decay of art and the inferiority of the painters of the age to
the old masters, proceeds to recite in a public portico some verses
on the capture of Troy, till his audience take to stoning him. The
scene is next on board ship, where Encolpius finds he has fallen into
the hands of some old enemies. They are shipwrecked, and Encol
pius, Giton, and the old poet get to shore in the neighbourhood
of Crotona, where, with the view of attracting the attention of the
inhabitants, notorious fortune-hunters, the adventurers set up as
men of fortune. The fragment ends with a new set of question
able adventures, in which prominent parts are played by a beautiful
enchantress named Circe, a priestess of Priapus, and a certain
matron who leaves them her heirs, but attaches a condition to the in
heritance which even Encolpius might have shrunk from fulfilling.3
What, then, may be said to be the purpose of the book, and what
is its ethical and literary value ? It can hardly be called a satire
in the ordinary, and certainly not in the Eoman sense of the word.
There is no trace of any purpose of exposing vice with any wish to
correct it. If we can suppose the author to have been animated
by any other motive than the desire to amuse himself, it might
be that of convincing himself that the world in general was as
bad as he was himself. Juvenal and Swift are justly regarded as
among the very greatest of satirists, and their estimate of human
nature is perhaps nearly as unfavourable as that of Petronius ; but
their attitude towards human degradation is not one of compla
cent amusement but of indignant condemnation. They too, like
Petronius, take pleasure in describing things most repugnant to
all sense of delicacy with the coarsest realism, but theirs is the
realism of disgust, not, like that of Petronius, a realism of sym
pathy. It might have been thought difficult to sink lower in the
cynical tolerance of immorality than Martial occasionally has sunk.
But there is all the difference in the world between Martial and
Petronius. Martial does not gloat over the vices of which ho
writes with cynical frankness. He is perfectly aware that they
are vices, and that the reproach of them is the worst that can be
cast on any one. But further, Martial, with all his faults, is, in
his affections, his tastes, his relations to others, essentially human,
friendly, generous, true. There is perhaps not a single sentence
in Petronius which implies any knowledge of or sympathy with
the existence of affection, conscience, or honour, or even the most
elementary goodness of heart, or of that amount of mutual confi
dence W'hich is necessary to keep a band of brigands or a circle of
2 In this respect the work of Petronius seems to have differed from
the Greek romances.
3 Omnes qui in testamento meo legata habent, practer libertos meos,
hac conditione percipient quse dedi, si corpus nieum in partes conci-
derint et astante populo comederint (141).
P E T — P E T
723
swindlers together. In estimating such a work, which in its spirit
not less than in its form and its literary execution is essentially
abnormal, it is necessary to bear in mind that it has reached us in
so fragmentary and mutilated a shape that we may altogether have
missed the key to it, and that it may have been intended by its
author to be a sustained satire, written in a vein of reserved and
powerful irony, of the type realized in our modern Jonathan Wild
or Barry Lindon. But, if this is not the explanation, we must fall
back on the more obvious but still difficult solution that, in the
entire divorce of intellectual power and insight from any element
of right human feeling, the work is an exceptional phenomenon in
literature. From an ethical and human point of view it is valuable
only as a gauge of the degradation in which much of Roman society
was sunk in the age when Persius wrote his satires — a work more
pervaded by a spirit of moral purity than any other in Latin litera
ture — and Christianity made its first converts in Rome.
But, as a work of original power, of humorous representation, of
literary invention and art, the fragment deserves all the admira
tion which it has received. We recognize the "arbiter elegantise "
in the admirable sense of the remarks scattered through it on
education, on art, on poetry, and on eloquence. Though a better
critic than a poet, yet he can Avrite verse not only with good taste
and simplicity, rare among the poets of that age, but with a true
feeling of nature, as, for instance, in his description of a grove of
plane-trees, cypresses, and pines —
" Has inter ludebat aquis errantilms amnis
Spumeus et querulo vexabat rore lapillos."
And in some of his shorter pieces he anticipates the terseness and
elegance of Martial. The long fragment on the Civil War does not
seem to be written so much with the view of parodying as of enter
ing into rivalry with the poem of Lucan, but he has caught the
tone and style of the author whom he censures. In the epigram
extemporized by Trimalchio late on in the banquet,
" Quod non expectes, ex transverse tit—
Et supra nos Fortuna negotia curat,
Quare da nobis vina Falerna, puer,"
we have probably a more deliberate parody of the style of verses
produced by the illiterate aspirants to be in the fashion of the day.
We might conjecture that the chief gift to which Petronius owed
his social and his literary success was that of humorous mimicry,
in which the most intellectual and at the same time sensual among
the Romans — as, for instance, Sulla — took a great delight. The
man who could describe the dinner of Trimalchio and mimic the
talk and peculiarities of the various guests with such humorous
zest was just the man to keep the table in a roar during the pro
longed revels in the palace of Nero. If the old " vexata qusestio "
of the distinction between wit and humour were to be revived, the
critic who could determine by analysis what is the essence of the
talent of Martial on the one hand and of Petronius on the other
would go very near to solving it. He would have, however, to
abandon the theory that humour is more essentially humane and
sympathetic than wit. Petronius is perhaps the most strictly
humorous among Latin writers, and humour is in him combined
with the rarer gift of conceiving and representing character. In
Trimalchio and his various guests, in the old poet, in 'Ae culti
vated, depraved, and moody Encolpius, in the Chrysis, Quartilla,
Polyaenis, &c., we recognize in living examples the play of those
various appetites, passions, and tendencies which satirists deal with
as abstract qualities. Another gift he possesses in a high degree,
which must have availed him in society as well as in literature, —
the gift of story-telling ; and some of the stories which first appear
in the Satirae — e.g., that of the Matron of Ephesus — have enjoyed
a great reputation in later times. His style, too, is that of one
who must have been an excellent talker, who could talk sense when
sense was wanted, who could have discussed questions of taste and
literature with the most cultivated men of any time as well as
amused the most dissolute society of any time in their most reckless
revels. One phrase of his is often quoted by many who have never
come upon it in its original context, ' ' Horatii curiosa felicitas. "
Perhaps next after a day spent in the ruins of Pompeii nothing
else makes us feel so near the actual daily life of the Roman world
in all its petty details in the 1st century A.D. as this fragment of
Petronius. Another obvious observation that is suggested by it is
that of the superiority of the novel over any other form of literature
for the purpose of literally reproducing the commonplace experience
of actual life in every age. Opinions may differ as to the value or
interest of the literal reproduction of the customs and manners of
such an age as that of Nero.
Compared with the amount of attention which was given to Petronius both
by scholars and men of letters in the 17th and 18th centuries, comparatively
little has been done for him in recent times. The only good critical edition of
the fragments is that of Biichler. An interesting chapter is devoted to him in
M. Gaston Boissier's V Opposition sous Vempire. For those who wish to read him
in a modern translation, the French version by M. II. De Guerle is the one to
be recommended. (W. Y. S.)
PETROPAVLOVSK, a district town of western Siberia,
in the government of Akmolinsk, is situated on the right
bank of the Ishim river, 185 miles to the west of Omsk.
The old fort occupies a hill about 100 feet high, which
slopes abruptly to the Ishim, while the wooden houses and
the broad, unpaved, but regular streets of the town occupy
partly the declivities of the hill and partly the (sometimes
inundated) banks of the river. The fertile steppes to the
east, west, and south of the town largely supply it with
corn and cattle, and at the same time give great facilities
for trade with the Kirghiz, with Turkestan, and with
Bokhara. Its exports passing through the custom-house
are estimated at an annual value of about £200,000, the
chief items being cottons (upwards of £100,000), woollen
stuffs, corn, metals, metallic wares, and spirits. The value
of the cattle imports exceeds £150,000 annually, and the
aggregate value of the skins, cotton goods, furs, tea, and
wool imported reaches the same figure. The town has
several tallow-melting houses, tanneries, and glue and soap
works ; and its industries are steadily increasing. The
population (7850 in 1865) now exceeds 11,500.
The small fort of Petropavlovsk, consisting of an earthen palisaded
wall, was founded in 1752, and was the military centre of the
Ishim line of fortifications. It became at once a place of trade with
the Kirghiz, and in 1771 had a population of 914 inhabitants. It
received municipal institutions in 1807.
PETROPAVLOVSK is also the name of a Russian seaport in Kam
chatka, on the eastern shore of the Bay of Avatcha in 53° N. lat.
and 158° 44' E. long. Its beautiful harbour, one of the best on
the Pacific, is but little frequented, and the town consists merely
of a few huts with some 500 inhabitants. Its naval institutions were
transferred to Nikolaievsk after the attack of the allies in 1854.
PETROPOLIS, a town of Brazil, in the province of Rio
de Janeiro, lies at a height of 2400 feet above the sea on
a beautiful and healthy plateau, surrounded by the wooded
heights of the Serra da Estrella, which lie between it and
the coast region. It is about 25 miles almost due north
from Rio de Janeiro, and is reached by a railway (22 miles)
from Maua ; the last 10 \ miles are on the Rigi system.
Founded by the emperor of Brazil as a colony for dis
tressed German immigrants, Petropolis has grown into an
elegant and thriving town of 8000 or 10,000 inhabitants,
and, besides the royal palace and park, has a number of
good hotels and public buildings.
PETROVSK, a town of European Russia, in the pro
vince of SaratofF, lies on both banks of the Medvyeditza, a
tributary of the Don, 64 miles north-north-west of Saratoff
on the Volga by the highway to Moscow. It was founded
by Peter I. in 1698 to defend the district from the en
croachments of the Kuban Tatars, and by the beginning
of the 19th century it had become a place of 6921 inhabit
ants, with ten churches and a monastery (St Nicholas). In
1864 the population was 10,128, and it has since increased
to upwards of 15,000.
This Petrovsk must not be confounded with (1) Petrovsk, a sea
port town of from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants in northern Daghestan,
which possesses one of the best roadsteads on the west coast of the
Caspian ; nor (2) with the crown iron-works of this name in Trans
baikalia, deserving mention for its convict establishment, where
the "Decembrists" were kept for several years.
PETROZAVODSK, a town of Russia, capital of the
government of Olonetz, lies on the Avestern shore of Lake
Onega, 300 miles to the north-east of St Petersburg. The
small river Lososinka divides it into two parts, — the town
proper and the iron -works. Two cathedrals built towards
the end of last century, two lyceums for boys and girls,
a mining school, an ecclesiastical seminary, and several
primary schools are the chief public buildings and institu
tions. The Government cannon-foundry can turn out annu
ally more than 5000 tons of pig-iron, and the same weight
of guns, gun-carriages, and ammunition, but its actual pro
duction is subject to great fluctuations. Within the district
there are a few private iron- works as well as important saw
mills. The inhabitants engage in agriculture and fishing,
and there is some trade with St Petersburg, — timber, fish,
and furs being exported in exchange for corn, groceries,
724
P E T — P E U
and manufactured wares. The population (1 1,027 in 1865)
was 11,970 in 1881.
Peter I., who was the first to give attention to the mineral re
sources of Olonetz, founded an iron-work, Petrovskii Zavod, on the
Lososiuka river, in 1703 ; the "zavod" prepared guns and arms, and
within its walls a small palace and a church were built for the czar.
The iron-work continued in operation for only twenty-four years ;
a copper-work, and subsequently a private iron-work, founded by
Frenchmen, had no better success. The Government cannon-
foundry was instituted in 1774 ; the settlement that sprang up
was called Petrovsk, and received municipal institutions in 1777.
Petrozavodsk became capital of the government of Olonetz in 1802.
PETTY, SIR WILLIAM (1623-1687), statistician and
political economist, and author of the Doivn Survey of Irish
Lands, was born on 26th May 1623. He was the son of a
clothier at Eomsey in Hampshire, and received his early
education at the grammar-school there. About the age
of fifteen he went to Caen (Xormandy), taking with him
a little stock of merchandise, on which he traded, and so
maintained himself whilst learning French, improving
himself in Latin and Greek, and studying mathematics
and other sciences. On his return to England he seems
to have had for a short time a place in the royal navy.
He went abroad again in 1643, and remained for three
years in France and the Netherlands, pursuing his studies
at Utrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, and Paris. In the last-
named city he read Yesalius with the celebrated Hobbes.
The philosopher wras then preparing his Tractatns Opticus,
and it is said that Petty drew the diagrams for him. In
1647 Petty obtained a patent for the invention of double
writing, or, in other words, of a copying machine. In
politics he espoused the side of the Parliament. His first
publication was a letter to Samuel Hartlib in 1648, en
titled Advice for the Advancement of some Particular Parts
of Learning, the object of which was to recommend such
a change in education as would give it a more practical
character. In the same year he took up his residence at
Oxford, where he was made deputy professor of anatomy,
and where he gave instruction in that science and in chem
istry. In 1649 he obtained the degree of doctor of physic,
and was soon after elected a fellow of Brasenose College.
He gained some notoriety in 1650 by restoring to life a
woman who had been hanged for infanticide. In 1651 he
was made professor of anatomy at Oxford, and also became
professor of music at Gresham College. In 1652 he went
to Ireland, having been appointed physician to the army
in that country. In 1654, observing that the admeasure
ment and division of the lands forfeited in 1641 and
granted to the soldiers had been (to use his own words)
"most inefficiently and absurdly managed," he entered
into a contract to execute a fresh survey, which he com
pleted in thirteen months. By this he gained £9000,
and part of the money he invested profitably in the
purchase of soldiers' debentures. He thus became pos
sessor of so large a domain in the county of Kerry that,
according to Aubrey, he could behold from Mount Man-
gerton 50,000 acres of his own land. He set up iron-works
in that neighbourhood, opened lead -mines and marble -
quarries, established a pilchard -fishery, and commenced a
trade in timber. In Macaulay's History of England there
is an account of- the settlement which he founded at Ken-
mare. Besides the office of commissioner of distribution
of the lands he had surveyed, he held that of secretary to
the lord lieutenant, Henry Cromwell, and was also during
two years clerk of the council. In January 1658 he was
elected to Richard Cromwell's parliament as member for
West Looe in Cornwall. He was accused by Sir Jerome
Sankey before the House of Commons of malversation and
fraud in the conduct of his survey ; but the matter did
not come to an issue in consequence of the dissolution of
the parliament, and Petty afterwards published tracts in
his defence. After the Restoration he returned to England
and was favourably received and knighted by Charles II.,
who was "much pleased with his ingenious discourses,"
and who, it is said, intended to create him earl of Kilmore.
He obtained from the king a new patent constituting him
surveyor-general of Ireland. In 1663 he attracted much
notice by the success of his invention of a double-bottomed
ship, which twice made the passage between Dublin and
Holyhead, but was afterwards lost in a violent storm. He
was one of the first members of the Royal Society, and sat on
its council. He died at London on the 16th of December
1687, and was buried in the church of his native place.
His will, a curious and characteristic document, is printed
in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.
Petty was a man of remarkable versatility, ingenuity, and re
source. Evelyn declared he had "never known such another
genius," and said of him, " If I were a prince I would make him
my second councillor at least." His character does not seem to
have been an elevated one, though Henry Cromwell, who knew him
well, appears to have esteemed Mm highly.
The survey executed by Petty was, somewhat whimsically, called
the "Down Survey," because the results were set down in maps;
it is called by that name in Petty's will. He left in MS. a full
account of the proceedings in connexion with it, which was edited
by the late Major -General Sir Thomas A. Larcoin for the Irish
Archaeological Society in 1851. The maps, some of which were
injured by a fire in 1711, are preserved in the Public Record Office,
Dublin. The survey "stands to this day," says Larcom, "with
the accompanying books of distribution, the legal record of the
title on which half the land of Ireland is held ; and for the pur
pose to which it was and is applied it remains sufficient." Petty's
name is associated with the foundation, or, as it is safer to say, the
successful prosecution of what has been somewhat too ambitiously
termed " the science of political arithmetic. " It is essentially the
same with what is called comparative statistics. In Petty's time trust
worthy numerical expressions of social facts could seldom be directly
obtained, and thus large room was left for more or less probable
inference from the available data. As we might have expected from
his intellectual character, the expedients to which he resorts in
seeking to arrive at determinations of this kind are very ingenious,
but often unsatisfactory and even delusive. -Whilst, however, he
sometimes makes too much of the defective materials he could
command, he strongly insists on accurate and continued observa
tion as the only sure basis.
Petty was not merely a statistician, he was also a political econo
mist, and one of no mean rank. He is one of the first in whom we
find a tendency to a view of industrial phenomena which was at
variance with the then dominant mercantilist ideas, and he exhibits
a statesmanlike sense of the elements in which the strength of a
nation really consists. Roscher names him as having, along with
Locke and Dudley North, raised the English school to the highest
point it attained before the time of Hume. His Treatise of Taxes
and Contributions has been recently pronounced to be " the first
great work on economic theory, which it may fairly be said to have
founded." However this may be, it certainly contains a clear
statement of the doctrine that price depends on the labour neces
sary for production. Petty is much concerned to discover a fixed
unit of value, and he thinks he has found it in the necessary susten
ance of a man for a day. He understands the cheapening effect of
the division of labour. He states correctly the notion of " natural
and true " rent as the remainder of the produce of land after pay
ment of the cost of production ; but he seems to have no idea of
the "law of diminishing returns." He has much that is just on
the subject of money : he sees that there may be an excess of it as
well as a deficiency, and regards the prohibition of its exportation
as contrary to sound policy. But he errs in attributing the fall of
the rate of interest which takes place in the progress of industry to
the increase in the quantity of money. He protested against the
fetters imposed on the trade of Ireland, and advocated a union of
that country with Great Britain. Whilst the general tendency in
his day was to represent England as in a state of progressive decline —
an opinion put forward particularly in the tract entitled Britannia
Lanyucns — Petty declared her resources and prospects to be not
inferior to those of France.
A complete list of his works is given in the Athcnas Oxonienscs. The most
important are: the Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662, 1667, and 1685);
Political Arithmetic, presented in MS. to Charles II., but, because it contained
matter likely to be offensive to France, kept unpublished till 1091, when it
was edited by Petty's son Charles ; Quantulumcunque, or a Tract concerning
Money (1682) ; Observations upon the Dublin Hills of Mortality in 1GS1, and the
State of that City (1683) ; Essay concerning the Multiplication of Mankind (1686) ;
Political Anatomy of Ireland (1091). Several papers appeared in the Philosophical
Transactions. It is much to be regretted, as M'Culloch long since remarked,
that a complete and uniform edition of his writings has not been published.
PETUNIA. See HORTICULTURE, vol. xii. p. 264.
PEUTINGER, CONRAD (1465-1547), a prominent and
P E W — P F E
725
useful citizen of Augsburg, remembered for his services
to the new learning. He was one of the first to publish
Roman inscriptions (see vol. xiii. p. 124), and his name
remains associated with the famous Tabula Peutingeriana
(see MAPS, vol. xv. p. 517), which was in his hands when
he died, and was found again among his MSS. in 1714.
This important Roman itinerary table was first published
as a Avhole by Scheyb (Vienna, 1753) ; the most elaborate
edition is by Desjardins (Paris, 1869 and following years).
PEWTER l is a generic term for a variety of alloys, which
all agree in this, that tin forms the predominating com
ponent. The finest pewter (sometimes called " tin and
temper ") is simply tin hardened by the addition of a trifle
of copper. Ordinary pewter is tin alloyed with lead, which
latter ingredient i.s added chiefly on account of its cheapness,
and therefore often in excessive proportion. The law of
France restricts the percentage of lead to 16 '5, with a
toleration of 1'5 per cent, of error, an alloy of this or a
higher degree of richness in tin being, according to an old
investigation by Vauquelin, as proof against sour wine or
vinegar as pure tin is. Higher percentages of lead are
dangerous, and besides spoil the appearance of the alloy.
The composition of an alloy containing only these two
components can be ascertained approximately by deter
mining the specific gravity (see METALS, vol. xvi. p. 67 sq.).
Plate peivter is a hard variety much used for plates and
dishes ; a good quality is composed of 100 parts of tin, 8 of
antimony, 2 of bismuth, and 2 of copper. Closely allied
to it is the silver- white alloy called " Britannia metal,"
which is much used in Great Britain for the making of tea
pots more especially. To give an idea of its very variable
composition the following two analyses may be quoted : —
Tin 857
Antimony 10 -4
Copper I'O
Zinc .. ..2'9
100-0
81-9
16-2
o-o
1-9
100-0
Pewter wares are shaped chiefly in three ways. Measures
and spoons are cast in moulds of brass made of two closely-
fitting but detachable halves, the surface of the mould
being powdered over with sandarach, or painted over with
white of egg or oil, before use to prevent adhesion. Plates
and dishes are made preferably by hammering. In large
establishments milk -jugs and similar articles are often
produced by "spinning," i.e., by pressing a flat plate of
pewter against a rapidly- revolving blunt tool, and thus
raising it into the desired shape. (Cf. LEAD, vol. xiv. p. 378.)
PFAFF, CHRISTIAN HEINRICH (1773-1852), chemist
and physicist, younger brother of J. F. Pfaff noticed below,
took his degree as doctor of medicine at Stuttgart in 1793.
He travelled with a noble family as physician, and practised
for a time at Heidenheim ; but he afterwards became pro
fessor (extraordinary in 1797, ordinary in 1801) of medi
cine, physics, and chemistry at the university of Kiel.
He was a most prolific author of memoirs on sanitary and
medical, and especially on chemical and physical, subjects.
His work in chemistry was chiefly analytical and mineral-
ogical. In physics he was distinguished as one of the
earlier experimenters with the voltaic current, and had a
considerable share in the experimental investigation of its
properties. He also made important researches on the
carrying power of magnets, more particularly on the effect
of the extent of the attracting surface. Comparatively
few of his memoirs are now quoted, owing to the fact that
none of his results contained any capital discovery ; never
theless he deserves to be remembered as one of the ener
getic workmen who aided in raising the stately pile of
modern experimental science.
1 Old Fr. peutre ; Ital. peltro ; comp. Eng. spelter.
PFAFF, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1765-1825), German
mathematician, was born on 22d December 1765 at Stutt
gart. He received his early education at the Carlsschule,
where Schiller, afterwards his life-long friend, was a school-
companion. His mathematical capacity was early noticed ;
and after leaving school he pursued his studies in that
department at Gottingen under Kastner, author of a
History of Mathematics; and in 1787 he went to Berlin
and studied practical astronomy under Bode. In 1788
Pfaff became professor of mathematics in Helmstadt, and
so continued until that university was abolished in 1810.
From that time till his death (20th April 1825) he held
the chair of mathematics at Halle. PfafFs researches bore
chiefly on the theory of series, to which he applied the
methods of the so-called Combinatorial School of German
mathematicians, and on the solution of differential equa
tions. His two principal works are Disquisitiones analytical
maxime ad calculum integralem et doctrinam serierum
pertinentes (4to, vol. i., Helmstadt, 1797) and " Methodus
generalis, aequationes differentiarum particularum, nee
non tequationes differentiales vulgares, utrasque primi
ordinis inter quotcumque variabiles, complete integrand! "
in Abh. d. Berl. Acad. (1814-15). The former work con
tains Pfaffs discussion of the equation (a + bxn] x2d2y/dx2
+ (c + exn)xdy/dx + (f+gxn)y = X, which generally bears
his name, but which had originally been treated in a less
complete manner by Euler. The latter work contains an
important addition to the theory of partial differential
equations as it had been left by Lagrange.
An interesting review of Pfaffs memoir was published by Gauss
in the Gottingen Gelchrte Anzcigcn for 1815 (repu Wished in vol. iv.
of his complete works). For fuller details regarding Pfaff and his
work, consult Gerhardt, Gcschichte dcr Mathematik in Deutschland
(Munich, 1877, p. 198), and Pfaffs correspondence, edited by C. H.
Pfaff.
Another brother of this family, JOHANN "VViLHELM ANDREAS
PFAFF (1774-1835), was professor of pure and applied mathematics
successively at Dorpat, Nuremberg, Wiirzburg, and Erlangen.
PFALZBURG, a town of German Lorraine, lies high on
the west slopes of the Vosges, 25 miles to the north-north
west of Strasburg. In 1880 it contained 3379 (mainly
Roman Catholic) inhabitants. The principality of Pfalz-
burg, originally a part of Luxemburg, afterwards belonged
in turn to the bishop of Metz, the bishop of Strasburg, and
the duke of Lorraine, and passed into the possession of
France in 1661. The town was of importance as com
manding the passes of the Vosges, and was strongly forti
fied by Vauban in 1681. The works resisted the Germans
for four months in 1870, but have since been razed.
PFEIFFER, FRANZ (1815-1868), an eminent writer
on mediaeval German literature and on old forms of the
German language, was born at Solothurn on the 27th of
February 1815. Having studied at the university of
Munich, he went to Stuttgart, where in 1846 he became
librarian at the royal public library. In 1857, having
established his fame as one of the foremost authorities on
his special subject, he was appointed professor of German
literature and language at the university of Vienna ; and
in 1860 he was made a member of the Imperial Academy
of Sciences. He died on the 29th of May 1868.
As an editor of mediaeval literature Pfeiffer was unsurpassed
among the scholars of his day, and by his work in this department
he did much to foster the critical study of writers who before his
time were known only to specialists. Among the many writings
edited by him may be mentioned the works of the German mystics
of the 14th century, the Buck dcr Natur of Conrad of Megenberg,
the Predigten of Berthold of Ratisbon, the Eddstcin of Ulrich
Boner, the Barlaam und Josaphat of Rudolf of Ems, and the
poems of Walther von der Vogelweide. Of his independent writ
ings the most important are Zur dcutschcn LitcraturgcscMchte,
Uebcr Wesen und Bildung der hqfischcn Sprache in mittelhoch-
dcutscher Zeit, Der Dichtcr dcs Nibdungenliedcs, Forschung und
Kritik auf dem Gebicte des deutschen Altcrthums, and Altdcutsches
Uebungsbuch. Pfeiffer's style is clear and vigorous, and on every
726
P F E — P H
subject which he discussed he was able to throw fresh light. A
biographical sketch of him by Bartsch occurs in Uhland's Brief-
u-ec/isel mit Freiherrn von Lassberg, which Pfeifl'er edited.
PFEIFFER, IDA LAURA (1797-1858), traveller, was
born at Vienna, the daughter of a merchant named Reyer,
1 4th October 1797. Ida was the only sister of six brothers,
and in her youth acquired masculine habits. Her training
was Spartan, and accustomed her to the endurance of hard
ships and deprivations. On 1st May 1820 she married Dr
Pfeitfer, a prosperous advocate of Lemberg, twenty-four
years older than herself. Through over-zeal in denouncing
abuses her husband incurred official persecution, and ina few
years after his marriage was reduced to the greatest poverty.
Ida, living mostly apart from her husband, underwent
great drudgery, but, through her own exertions, managed
to educate her two sons. After being relieved of this
responsibility she resolved to indulge her intense longing
to travel, and, with the most limited means, succeeded in
making a series of journeys which, in extent, are probably
unparalleled in the case of any other woman. In 1842
Madame Pfeifi'er visited Egypt and Palestine, and, with
considerable hesitation, published an account of her journey
in three small volumes, Reise einer Wienerin in das Heilige
Land, in 1845. In the same year she set out again, this
time to Scandinavia and Iceland, describing her tour in
two volumes, Reise nach dem Skandinavischen Norden und
der Insel Island (Pesth, 1846). In 1846 she started on
her first journey round, the world, visiting Brazil, Chili,
and other countries of South America, Tahiti, China, India,
Persia, Asia Minor, and Greece, and reaching home in
1848. The results were published in three volumes at
Vienna in 1850, under the title Eine Frauenfahrt um die
Welt. For her next and most extensive journey she re
ceived the support of the Austrian Government to the
small extent of £150. Starting in 1851, she went by
London to South Africa, her purpose being to penetrate
into the interior ; but, this proving impracticable, she pro
ceeded to the Malay Archipelago, spending eighteen months
in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas. After a visit to
Australia, Madame Pfeiffer proceeded to California, Oregon,
Peru, Ecuador, New Granada, the Mjssiones Territory, and
north again to the American lakes, reaching home in 1854.
Her narrative, Meine zweite Weltreise, was published in four
volumes at Vienna in 1856. In May of the same year
Ida set out to explore Madagascar, where at first she was
cordially received by the queen. Unfortunately, she un
wittingly allowed herself to be involved in the plot of a
Frenchman to overthrow the government, and, with brutal
treatment, was expelled from the country. After being de
tained by her sufferings in Mauritius for some months, Ida
returned by England to Vienna, where she died 27th October
1858. The Reise nach Madagascar was issued in 1861,
with a biography by her son.
All Madame Pfeiffer's narratives have been translated into English
as well as other languages, and have maintained a steady popularity
up to the present time. Although Ida Pfeiffer can hardly be said
to have broken up new ground in her travels, she certainly did
much to increase our knowledge of countries about which our in
formation was most meagre. Moreover, her scientific collections —
for she was as good a collector as observer — were of considerable
extent, and great value and novelty, and were regarded as important
acquisitions by the" Vienna museum. She was made an honorary
member of the Berlin and Paris Geographical Societies, and received
from the king of Prussia the gold medal of science and art. Her
travels altogether covered 150,000 miles by sea and 20,000 by
land. Ida Pfeiffer was short in stature, and latterly slightly bent ;
her manners were simple, unassuming, and womanly.
PFORZHEIM, one of the chief industrial towns in the
grand-duchy of Baden, is pleasantly situated at the con
fluence of the Nagold, the Wiirm, and the Enz, on the
northern margin of the Black Forest, 15 miles to the
south-east of Carlsruhe. The most prominent buildings
are the old palace of the margraves of Baden-Durlach and
the Schlosskirche, the latter an interesting edifice of the
12th to the 15th centuries, containing the tombs and monu
ments of the margraves. The staple industry is the manu
facture of gold and silver ware and jewellery, which gives
employment to nearly 10,000 workmen, besides which
there are iron and copper works, and manufactures of
chemicals, paper, leather, cloth, and other articles. A
brisk trade is maintained in timber, cattle, and agricultural
produce. In 1880 the population was 24,037, having
almost doubled itself in twenty years. Four-fifths of the
inhabitants are Protestants.
Pforzheim (Porta Hercynirc)is of Roman origin, and has belonged
to Baden for 600 years. From about 1300 down to 1565 it was the
seat of the margraves of the Baden-Durlach-Ernestine line, now
extinct. The town was taken by the troops of the Catholic League
in 1624, and was destroyed by the French in 1689. The story of
the 400 citizens of Pforzheim who sacrificed themselves for their
prince after the battle of AVimpf'en (1622) has been relegated by
recent historical research to the domain of legend. The humanist
Reuchlin was born at Pforzheim in 1455.
PH^EDRUS, the author of five books of Latin fables
in verse, lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Cali
gula, and Claudius. To his literary vanity we owe most
of our scanty knowledge of his life. He was born on the
Pierian Mountain in Macedonia, but seems to have been
brought at an early age to Italy, for he mentions that he
read a verse of Ennius as a boy at school. According to
the heading of the chief MS. he was a slave and was freed
by Augustus. He incurred the wrath of Sejanus, the
powerful minister of Tiberius, but on what grounds is not
known. Devoting himself to literature, he lived in poverty
and died at an advanced age. The first two books of his
fables were published together ; the third, fourth, and
fifth appeared later, each by itself. The third book is
dedicated to Eutychus, a wealthy man of business and
probably a freedman, to whom the poet appeals for
promised help. The fourth book is dedicated to Parti-
culon, who seems to have dabbled in literature. From
the fact that Seneca, writing in 43 or 44 A.D. (Consol. ad
Polyb., 27), knows of no Latin writer of fables we may
infer that Phsedrus published his fables after that time, but
the exact date is unknown. His work shows little or no
originality ; he simply versified (in iambic trimeters)- the
fables current in his day under the name of "/Esop;" in
terspersing them with anecdotes drawn from daily life,
history, and mythology. He tells his fable and draws the
moral with business-like directness and simplicity ; his
language is classical, neat, and clear, but thoroughly
prosaic, though it occasionally attains a dignity bordering
on eloquence. He is fond of abstract words. From a
literary point of view Phtedrus is far inferior to those
masters of fable -writing, Babrius and La Fontaine; he
lacks the quiet picturesqueness and pathos of the former,
and the exuberant vivacity and humour of the latter.
Though he frequently refers to the envy and detraction
which pursued him, Phsedrus seems to have attracted little
attention in antiquity. He is mentioned by Martial (iii.
20, 5), who imitated some of his verses, and by Avianus.
Prudentius must have read him, for he imitates one of his
lines (Prud., Cath., vii. 115; cp. Phaedrus, iv. 6, 10).
The first edition of the five books of Phaedrus was pub
lished by Pithou at Troyes in 1596. But, from the gaps
in the books as well as from the disproportionate short
ness of some of them, it is plain that this collection is
incomplete. In the beginning of the 18th century there
was discovered at Parma a MS. of Perotti (1430-1480),
archbishop of Siponto, containing sixty -four fables of
Phsedrus, of which thirty -two were new. These new
fables were first published at Naples by Cassitto in 1808,
and afterwards (much more correctly) by Jannelli in 1811.
Both editions were superseded by the discovery of a much
P H A — P H A
727
better preserved MS. of Perotti in the Vatican, which was
published by Angelo Mai in 1831. For some time the
authenticity of these new fables was disputed, but they
are now generally accepted, and with justice, as genuine
fables of Phsedrus. They do not form a sixth book, for
we know from Avianus that Phoedrus wrote five books
only, but it is impossible to assign them to their original
places in the five books. They are usually printed as an
appendix. Even thus it is probable that we have not the
whole of Phaedrus.
In the Middle Ages Phsedrus exercised a considerable influence
through the prose versions of his fables which were current, though
his own works and even his name were forgotten. Of these prose
versions the oldest existing seems to be that known as the " Anony-
mus Nilantianus," so called because first edited by Nilant at Ley den
in 1709 from a MS. of the 10th or beginning of the llth century.
It approaches the text of Phsedrus so closely that it was probably
made directly from it. Of the sixty-seven fables which it contains
thirty are derived from lost fables of Phsedrus. But the largest
and most influential of the prose versions of Phaedrus is that which
bears the name of "Romulus." It contains eighty-three fables, is as
old as the 10th century, and seems to have been based on a still ear
lier prose version, which, under the name of "^Esop," and addressed
to one Rufus, may have been made in the Carlovingian period.
The preface of Romulus, in which he professes to have translated
the fables from the Greek, is a mere fiction of the copyist ; no such
Romulus as this ever existed, although in the Middle Ages he was
sometimes thought to have been a Roman emperor, and has still
a place in the Biographic Univcrselle (1863). The collection of fables
in the Weissenburg (now Wolfeubiittel) MS. is based on the same
version (the sEsopus ad Rufum) as Romulus. These three prose
versions contain in all one hundred distinct fables, of which fifty-
six are derived from the existing and the remaining forty-four
presumably from lost fables of Phfedrus. Some modern scholars,
as Burmann, Dressier, and L. Miiller, have tried to restore these
lost fables by versifying the prose versions.
The collection bearing the name of Romulus became in its turn
the source from which, during the second half of the Middle Ages,
almost all the collections of Latin fables in prose and verse were
wholly or partially drawn. A version of the first three books of
Romulus in elegiac verse enjoyed a wide popularity, even into the
Renaissance. Its author (generally referred to since the edition
of Nevelet in 1610 as the Anonymous of Nevelet) was long unknown,
but Hervieux has lately shown grounds for identifying him with
Waltlier of England, chaplain to Henry II. and afterwards arch
bishop of Palermo. The version dates from the latter part of the
12th century. It was especially popular in Italy, where the Italian
translation of Accio Zuccho (Verona, 1479) was frequently reprinted.
Another version of Romulus in Latin elegiacs was made by Alexander
Neckam, born at St Albans in 1157, and towards the end of his
life (early part of 13th century) abbot of the Augustinian monastery
at Exeter. Neckam knew and copied Walther's version, but his
own never had the same popularity. Amongst the collections
partly derived from Romulus the most famous is probably that in
French verse by MARIE DE FRANCE (q.v.). About 1200 a collection
of fables in Latin prose, based partly on Romulus, was made by
the Cistercian monk Odo of Sherrington ; they have a strong
mediaeval and clerical tinge. In 1370 Gerard of Minden wrote a
poetical version of Romulus in Low German.
Since the first edition of Phsedrus by Pithou in 1506 the editions and transla
tions have been very numerous ; among the editions may specially be mentioned
those of Burmann (1718 and 1727), Bentley (1726), Sclnvabe (1806), Berger de
Xivrey (1830), Orelli (1832), Eyssenhardt (1S67), L. Miiller (1877), Hervieux,
in his work Les Fabulistes Latins depuis le siede ff Augusts jusqu'a la fin du
moyen age, Paris, 1884. For the mediaeval versions of Phfedrus and their de
rivatives see L. Roth, in Philologus, i. p. 523 sq. ; H. Oesterley, Romulus die
Paraphratcn des Phxdrus und die aesopische Fabel im M Utelalter, 1870 (untrust
worthy); E. Grosse, in Jahrbb. f. class. Philol., vol. cv. (1872); and especially
the learned work of Hervieux, who gives the Latin texts of all the mediaeval
imitators (direct and indirect) of Phsedrus, some of these texts being now
edited for the first time. (J. G. FR.)
PHAETHON ("the shining one"), in Homer an epithet
of the sun, and used by later writers as a name for the sun,
is more generally known in classical mythology as a son of
the Sun and the ocean nymph Clymene. He persuaded
his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun across
the sky, but he lost control of the horses, and driving too
near the earth scorched it ; mountains were set on fire,
rivers and seas dried up, Libya became a desert, and the
^Ethiopians were blackened by the heat. To save the
earth from utter destruction Zeus killed Phaethon with a
thunderbolt. He fell to earth at the mouth of the Eri-
danus, a river of northern Europe (identified in later times
with the Po), on the banks of which his weeping sisters
were transformed into poplars and their tears into amber.
This part of the legend points to the mouth of the Oder
or Vistula, where amber abounds. Phaethon was the sub
ject of a drama of Euripides, of which some fragments
remain. The suggestion that the legend of Phaethon is a
mythical expression of vast increases of temperature pro
duced at long intervals by changes in the relative position
of the earth and the heavenly bodies was made by Plato
(Timseus, 22 C, D).
PHALANGER. Among the anonymous additions to
Charles 1'Ecluse's posthumous work Curse, posteriores ; sen
plurimarum non ante cognitarum aut descriptarum . . .
animalium novae, descriptiones, published at Leyden in 1611,
occurs the following : —
" In our third expedition, under Admiral Van der Hagen, there
was seen at Amboyna a rare and truly marvellous animal. The
'cousa,' as it is called by the natives, is a reddish animal, a little
larger than a cat, which has under its belly a kind of pouch in
which the mammse are placed, and in this the young are born, and
remain there hanging firmly on until large enough to be turned out
by their mother. They return, however, continually to the pouch
until sufficiently developed to follow their mother and to find food
for themselves. These animals live on grass, green leaves, and
other vegetable food, and their flesh is eaten by the Portuguese and
other native Christians, but not by the Mohammedans, who con
sider the cousa to be an unclean and forbidden animal, mainly on
account of its want of horns."
This early account forms the first mention of any of the
numerous marsupials of the eastern hemisphere, as there
can be no doubt that the animal called the cousa by the
natives of Amboyna nearly 300 years ago was the Grey
Cuscus (Cuscus orientalis), a member of the only marsupial
genus occurring in any Eastern land then known to Euro
peans. About a hundred years afterwards the same animal
was seen by the Dutch traveller Valentyn, also at Amboyna,
and still later Buffon gave to a pair of cuscuses examined
by him the name that heads this article, " Phalanger," on
account of the peculiar structure of the second and third
toes of the hind feet, which are united in a common skin
up to the nails, a character now known to be present in a
large proportion of the Australian marsupials. Later,
Captain Cook in 1770 and 1777, Governor Phillip in 1788,
and J. White in 1790 discovered various different kinds of
phalangers, and now we know of not less than ten genera,
with about thirty -five species, forming the sub -family
Phalangistinse of the family Phalangistidse, whose general
characters have already been noticed in the article MAM
MALIA (vol. xv. p. 382).
Phalangers as a whole are small woolly-coated animals,
with long, powerful, and often prehensile tails, large claws,
and, as in the American opossums, with opposable nailless
great toes. Their expression seems in the day to be dull
and sleepy, but by night they appear to decidedly greater
advantage. They live mostly upon fruit, leaves, and
blossoms, although some few feed habitually upon insects,
and all relish, when in confinement, an occasional bird or
other small animal. Several of the phalangers possess
flying membranes stretched between their fore and hind
limbs, by the help of which they can make long and sus
tained leaps through the air, like the flying squirrels; but
it is interesting to notice that the possession of these
flying membranes does not seem to be any indication of
special affinity, the characters of the skull and teeth
sharply dividing the flying forms, and uniting them with
other species of the non-flying groups. Their skulls (see
fig. 1) are as a rule broad and flattened, with the posterior
part swollen out laterally, owing to the numerous air-cells
situated in the substance of the squamosals. The dental
formula is very variable, especially as regards the pre-
molars, of which some at least in each genus are reduced to
mere functionless rudiments, and may even vary in number
on the two sides of the jaw of the same individual. The
728
PHALANGER
incisors are always |, the lower one very large and pro-
clivous, and the canines normally -J-, of which the inferior
FIG. 1.— Skull of Naked-eared Cuscus (Cuscus gymnotis}. After
Peters.
is always minute, and in one genus generally absent. The
true molars number either ± or f .
The genera, of which not less than ten must be allowed
as valid, may be arranged as follows.
4
I. Molars with curved crests, -r.
(A.) Pm.2 minute or absent ; pm.i and pm.3 functional, the latter stand
ing obliquely.
rt. Canines separated from incisors ; tail hairy ...... 1. Phalangista.
b. Canines close to incisors ; tail naked, scaly ... .2. Cuscus.
(B.JPin.2 functional ; pm.3 forming an even series with
the molars.
c. Without a flying membrane ; first two anterior
toes opposable to rest ; tail prehensile ...... 3. Pseitdochirus.
d. With a flying membrane ; toes normal ; tail
bushy, non-prehensile ....................... 4. Petaurista,
II. Molars with round or pointed cusps.
(C.) Molars 1. Functional premolars 2 or 3.
4 0
e. Lower premolar row interrupted ; upper i.1
directed forwards ; pm.2 functionless ........ 5. Dactylopsila.
/.Lower premolar row continuous; upper i.1
directed downwards ; pm.2 functional.
a. A flying membrane .................... 6. Petaums.
^. No flying membrane .................... 7. Gymnobelideus.
(D.) Molars -.
g. Functional premolars - ; tail round ; no fly
ing membrane .............................. 8. Dromicia.
q
h. Functional premolars — ; tail distichous ; no fly
ing membrane .............................. 9. Distoechums.
i. Functional premolars — ; tail distichous ; a fly
ing membrane .............................. 10. Acrobata.
1. Phalangiita, Cuv.
Upper incisors forming a semicircular series. Upper i.1 scarcely
larger than the others, parallel, its anterior surface flattened, point
transversely truncated. Canines some way from and shorter than
incisors, in front of the premaxillary - maxillary suture.a Pm.1
small, some way separated both from canine and pm.3 ; pm.2 sup
pressed ; pm.3 large, obliquely placed. Molars large, quadrangular,
their summits with distinct crescentic ridges. Lower incisors large ;
canines very small, but persistent ; pm.1 and pm.2 small, or, com
monly, absent ; pm.3 large and obliquely placed ; molars like the
upper ones.
Dental formula.''— i.]4l C-T Pm- rrrnj m- fffl x 2 = 34 to 38.
Skull low, without frontal sinuses ; bullae scarcely inflated ; pre
maxillary long ; the anterior palatine foramina almost confined to
the premaxillai ; mandible with no trace of an external opening into
the inferior dental canal.
Feet normal; tail long and bushy, only naked for a few inches
along the under-side of the tip.
Range. — The whole of Australia and Tasmania ; not yet found in
New Guinea.
This genus, by its somewhat elongated premaxillse, restriction
0 At the point of exit from the bone, but the roots are of course
situated in the maxilla.
* In this special dental formula, necessitated by the peculiar develop
ment of the teeth of the phalangers, the numbers are those of each
individual tooth, — the larger numbers representing fully -developed
functional teeth, and the smaller the minute and functionless ones.
An asterisk to one of the latter shows that the tooth is sometimes or
commonly absent, though it should be remarked that the presence or
absence of these minute teeth is not of any systematic importance.
of the palatine foramina to the latter bones, and by the shape of
its upper pin.3, shows a certain tendency towards the kangaroos
(Macropodidse), the family to which the Phalangistidae are un
doubtedly most nearly allied.
The true phalangers, or opossums as they are called by the Aus
tralian colonists, consist of four or five hardly separable species, of
which the best known is the Vulpine Phalanger (Ph. vulpecula), so
common in zoological gardens, where, however, it is seldom seen,
owing to its nocturnal habits. It is of about the size and general
build of a small fox, whence its name ; its colour is grey, with a
yellowish white belly, white ears, and a black tail. It is a native
of the greater part of the continent of Australia, but is replaced in
Tasmania by the closely allied Brown Phalanger (Ph. fuliginoso).
Its habits are very similar to those of the Yellow-bellied Flying-
Phalanger (Petaurus auslralis) described below,— except that, of
course, it is unable to take the wonderful flying leaps so character
istic of that animal. Like all the other phalangers, its flesh is freely
eaten both by the natives and by the lower class of settlers.
2. Cuscus, Lacep.
Upper incisor row angular in front. Upper i.1 considerably longer
than the others, round, pointed. Canines close against the last in
cisors, longer than any of the other teeth, placed apparently on the
suture. Pm.1 well developed ; pm.2 minute or absent ; pm.3 large,
rounded, its axis slightly oblique. Molars and all the lower teeth
much as in Phalangista, but rather larger in proportion.
1^3 1 ] 2* 3 1234
Dental formula. — i. r^-0 c. T pm. -^'^'3 m. ' " ' x 2 = 34 to 40.
Frontal region of skull in adult animals markedly convex, owing
to the presence of large frontal sinuses ; bullse not inflated ; pre
maxillary bones very short ; palatine foramen entering the maxillse ;
no external opening into the inferior dental canal.
Feet normal ; tail long, naked and scaly for its terminal two-
thirds, prehensile.
Range. — From Celebes to the Solomon Islands, and southwards
through New Guinea to North Queensland.
The cuscuses are curious sleepy-looking animals, which inhabit
the various islands of the East Indian archipelago as far west as
Celebes, being the only marsupials found west of New Guinea. As
already noted, it was a member of this genus, the Grey Cuscus (C.
orientalis), a native of Amboyna, Timor, and the neighbouring
islands, which was the first Australian marsupial known to European
naturalists. There are altogether about eight species known, all
of about the size of a large cat ; their habits resemble those of
other phalangers, except that they are said to be somewhat more
carnivorous.
3. Pscudochirus, Ogilb.
Upper incisor row angular. First upper incisor but little longer
than the others, but nevertheless the longest tooth in the jaw.
Canine small, behind suture. Pm.1 rather small ; pm.2 and pm.3
larger, each with two roots, neither placed at all obliquely. Molars
quadrangular, with very distinct crescentic ridges ; all the teeth
from the incisors backwards forming a nearly continuous series.
Lower pm.3 only forming part of the molar series.
Skull without frontal sinuses ; palatine foramina entering
maxillffi, as in all the following genera except Dactylopsila ; bullae
inflated ; palate generally complete ; a minute external opening
into the inferior dental canal generally present in the position of
the large vacuity characteristic of the Macropodidse.
Ears large ; fore-feet with the first two toes together opposable
to the remaining three ; tail thinly-haired, prehensile.
Range. — Tasmania, Australia, and New Guinea.
There are about four species of this genus known, of which the
commonest is Cook's Ring-tailed Phalanger (Pscudochirus caudi-
volvulus], an animal discovered by Captain Cook during his first
voyage, at Endeavour river, North Queensland.
4. Petaurista, Desm.
Teeth almost exactly as in Pscudochirus, except that the lower
canine is generally absent, as well as the minute first and second
premolars.
12.° 1 123 1234
Dental formula. — i. ^0--0 c.p; pm. -pr^Tg m- 1234 x 2 = 34 to 40.
Bullffi inflated, but small ; palate generally incomplete from the
level of the second molar ; a distinct external opening into the
inferior dental canal.
Sides of the body with a broad flying membrane stretching from
the elbow to just below the knee ; ears large and hairy ; claws-
long and sharp ; tail bushy, round, and non-prehensile.
Habitat.— New South Wales.
The only species belonging to this genus is the large black Taguan
Flying Phalanger (P. volans), an animal very similar to certain of
the large Indian flying squirrels, and which fully agrees in its-
habits with the Yellow-bellied Flying- Phalanger described below.
In its affinities it seems to be, so to speak, a highly- specialized
P H A — P H A
729
Pseudochirus, in which the teeth have become somewhat further
diminished and the flying membrane has been developed.
5. Dactylopsila, Gray.
Upper i.1 very long, directed forwards. Canine shorter than
i.3, close to it. Pm.2 minute or absent ; pm.3 oval, in line with
molars. Molars square-sided, forming a straight line, the third as
loner as the second. All lower premolars small and deciduous.
1^3 1 l^* 3 1234
Dental formula. — i. ^-0 c.ypm. yrj^i* m- jfjfjf^ x 2 = 32 to 40.
Palatal foramen in premaxilla ; palate complete ; bullae small ;
no external opening into inferior dental canal.
Form normal ; fourth fore-toe very much longer than the others ;
tail bushy, rounded.
Range. — From the Aru Islands through New Guinea to North
Queensland.
Of this genus two closely-allied species are described. They are
beautifully striped down the back with white and grey, and are
said to be insectivorous in their habits.
6. Petaurus, Shaw.
Upper i.1 very long, directed downwards. Canine intermediate
in length between i.1 and i.2 Pm.- the smallest, but yet functional.
Molars much rounded, as are those of all the succeeding genera ;
m.3 much smaller than m.2 Lower premolars, though small, yet
permanent and forming an uninterrupted series.
1 9 3 1 123 1234
Dental formula. — i. y^ c. y pm. y^ m. 1'2'3'4 x 2 = 40.
Palatal foramen entering maxilla ; bulla? inflated ; a small ex
ternal opening into the inferior dental canal.
Sides of body with a flying membrane stretching from the outside
of the tip of the anterior fifth toe to the ankle ; tail bushy ; ears
large and nearly naked.
Range. — From New Ireland to South Australia, but not Tasmania.
This genus contains about five species, the largest of which is
the Yellow-bellied Flying-Phalanger (P. australis), whose habits
are recorded by Mr Gould as follows. " This animal is common
in all the brushes of New South Wales, particularly those which
stretch along the coast from Port Philip to Moreton Bay. In these
vast forests trees of one kind or another are perpetually flowering,
and thus offer a never-failing supply of the blossoms upon which it
feeds ; the flowers of the various kinds of gums, some of which are
of great magnitude, are the principal favourites. Like the rest of
the genus, it is nocturnal in its habits, dwelling in holes and in
the spouts of the larger branches during the day, and displaying
the greatest activity at night while running over the small leafy
branches, frequently even to their very extremities, in search of
insects and the honey of the newly-opened blossoms. Its structure
being ill adapted for terrestrial habits, it seldom descends to the
ground except for the purpose of passing to a tree too distant to be
FIG. 2. — Squirrel Flying-Phalanger (Petaurus sciureus)
attained by springing from the one it wishes to leave. The tops of
the trees are traversed by this animal with as much ease as the
most level ground is by such as are destined for terra firma. If
chased or forced to flight it ascends to the highest branch and
performs the most enormous leaps, sweeping from tree to tree with
wonderful address ; a slight elevation gives its body an impetus
which with the expansion of its membrane enables it to pass to a
considerable distance, always ascending a little at the extremity of
the leap ; by this ascent the animal is prevented from receiving
the shock which it would otherwise sustain."
A second species, P. sciureus, in some ways one of the most
beautiful of all mammals, has been chosen for the accompanying
cut«(see fig. 2).
7. Gymnobclideus, M'Coy.
Like Petaurus in every respect, but without any trace of a flying
membrane.
Habitat. — Victoria.
8. Dromicia, Gray.
First upper incisor and canine very long. Pm.1 and pm.2 very
minute; pm.3 large. Molars rounded ; their series bowed in wards.
Lower canine and first two premolars very small but persistent ;
pm.3 either large and functional or minute.
7-1 4 i s 7 • i-2-3 l J*.2*.3 1.2.3 _ 00 , o/,
Dental formula. — i. y-g-0 c. y pm. y^r/ — SS m- i~9~3 x
Palate incomplete ; bullse very large and inflated.
No flying membrane ; claws short, exceeded in length by the
pads under them ; toes subequal ; tail thinly haired, prehensile.
Five species of Dormouse Phalangers are recorded, ranging from
New Guinea to Tasmania.
9. Distocchurus, Peters.
Upper teeth much as in Acrolata, but pm.3 reduced, shorter than
molars, and crowded obliquely out of the molar series. Lower teeth
also as in Acrobata, but pm.3 is entirely suppressed.
^ , 7 , 7 . 1.2.3 l 1.2.3 1.2.3 _ 0.
Dental formula. — i. -y^ c. y pm. I-^Q m. — - x 2 = 34.
Skull as in Acrobata.
No flying membrane ; tail distichous ; ears very short ; claws
well developed.
Habitat. — New Guinea only, whence a single species is known.
10. Acrobata, Desm.
Upper i.1 long. Canine proportionally more developed than in
any other phalanger, pressed close against last incisor. Premolars
all long, narrow, sharply pointed, and two -rooted. Lower pm.1
minute, but always present ; pm.2 and pm.3 functional, shaped like
the upper ones.
T. , 7 , 7 • 1.2.3 1 1.2.3 1.2.3 0 0,,
Dental formula. — i. y-^ c. y pm. y-^. m. yy^ x 2 = 36.
Palate incomplete ; bullse low and small ; palatal foramen nearly
all in the maxillary ; a well-marked external opening into the in
ferior dental canal ; squamosals but little swollen by air-cells.
A flying membrane present, stretching from the elbow to the
knee, but very narrow in its centre ; tail distichous, probably
slightly prehensile ; toes subequal ; claws small and far surpassed
by the very remarkable toe-pads, which are broad and ribbed, re
sembling those of a gecko, and evidently have a very definite
adhesive power.
liangc. — South and eastern Australia.
There is only one species in this genus, the beautiful little Pigmy
Flying-Phalanger, not so big as a mouse, which feeds on the honey
it can abstract from flowers, and on insects. Its agility and powers
of leaping are exceedingly great, and it is said by Mr Gould to make
a most charming little pet. (0. T.)
PHALAPtIS, a Greek tyrant, who ruled Agrigentum
(Acragas) in Sicily for sixteen years (probably between
c. 571 and 549 B.C.). He was the son of Laodamas, and his
family belonged to the Dorian island of Astypalaea, near
Cnidus. As a leading man in the new city (for Agrigentum
had been founded by the neighbouring city of Gela only a
few years before, 582 B.C.) Phalaris was entrusted with the
building of the temple of Zeus Atabyrius on the citadel,
and he took advantage of his position to make himself
master of the city. Under his rule Agrigentum seems to
have attained a considerable pitch of external prosperity.
He supplied the city with water, adorned it with fine build
ings, and strengthened it with walls. His influence reached
to the northern coast of the island, where the people of
Himera elected him general, with absolute power, in spite
of the warnings of the poet Stesichorus. Eastward on the
coast he had fortified posts at Ecnomus and Phalarium,
and he is said to have conquered Leontini ; but that he
ruled the whole of Sicily, as Suidas asserts, is unlikely.
He was at last overthrown, apparently by a combination
of the noble families, headed by the rich and distinguished
Telemachus, and he was burned, along with his mother
XVIII. — 92
730
P H A — P H A
and friends, in the brazen bull. A decree was carried that
no one should thereafter wear a blue dress, as blue had
been the tyrant's livery.
After ages have held up Fhalaris to infamy for his excessive
cruelty. In his brazen bull, invented, it is said, by Perilaus of
Athens, and presented by him to Phalaris, the tyrant's victims
were shut up and, a fire being kindled beneath, were roasted alive,
while their shrieks, conveyed through pipes in the beast's nostrils,
represented the bellowing of the bull. Perilaus himself is said to
have been the first victim. There is hardly room to doubt that we
have here a tradition of human sacrifice in connexion with the
worship of the Phoenician Baal, such as prevailed at Rhodes, where
Zeus Atabyrius was no other than Baal ; when misfortune threatened
Rhodes the brazen bulls in his temple bellowed. The Rhodians
brought this worship to Gela, which they founded conjointly with
the Cretans, and from Gela it passed to Agrigentum. Human
sacrifices to Baal were common, and, though in Phoenicia proper
there is no proof that the victims were burned alive (see MOLOCH),
the Carthaginians had a brazen image of Baal, from whose down-
turned hands the children slid into a pit of fire ; and the story that
Minos had a brazen man who pressed people to his glowing breast
points to similar rites in Crete, where the child-devouring Minotaur
must certainly be connected with Baal and the favourite sacrifice
to him of children. So, too, we have the fire -spitting bull of
Marathon which burned Androgeus. The stories that Phalaris
threw men into boiling cauldrons and vessels filled with fire, and
that he devoured sucklings, all tell the same tale. From this point
of view we may perhaps reconcile with history the apparently con
tradictory tradition which seems to have prevailed in later times,
that Phalaris was a naturally humane man and a patron of philo
sophy and literature. This is the view of his character which we
find in the declamations ascribed to Lucian, and in the letters
which bear Phalaris's own name. Plutarch, too, though he takes
the unfavourable view, mentions that the Sicilians gave to the
severity of Plialaris the name of justice and a hatred of crime. It
is recorded that he once pardoned two men who had conspired
against him. Phalaris may thus have been one of those men, not
unknown in history, who combine justice and even humanity with
a religious fanaticism which shrinks from no horrors believed to
be demanded by the cause of God.
The letters bearing the name of Phalaris (148 in number) are
now chiefly remembered for the crushing exposure they received at
the hands of Bentley in his controversy with the Hon. Charles
Boyle, who had published an edition of them in 1695. The first
edition of Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris appeared in 1697, and
the second edition, replying to the answer which Boyle published
i)i 1693, came out in 1699. From the mention in the letters of
towns (Phintia, Alajsa, and Tauromenium) which did not exist in
the time of Plialaris, from the imitations of authors (Herodotus,
Democritus, Euripides, Callimachus) who wrote long after he was
dead, from the reference to tragedies, though tragedy was not yet
invented in the lifetime of Phalaris, from the dialect, which is not
Dorian but Attic, nay, New or Late Attic, as well as from absurdities
in the matter, and the entire absence of any reference to them by
any writer before Stobaeus (who lived apparently about 500 A.D.),
Bentley sufficiently proved that the letters were written by a sophist
or rhetorician hundreds of years after the death of Phalaris. Suidas
admired the letters, which he thought genuine, and in modern
times, before their exposure by Bentley, they were admired by some,
e.g., by Sir William Temple, though others, as Politiau and Erasmus,
perceived that they were not by Phalaris.
There are editions of the epistles of Phalaris by Lennep and Valckenaer,
Groningen, 1777 (re-edited, with corrections and additions, by Schaefer, Leipsic,
1823), and by R. Hercher, in Epistolographi Cried, Paris, 1873. The latest
edition of Bentley's Dissertation is that with introduction and notes by W.
Wagner, London, 1883.
PHARAOH (rijna ; «f>apaw), which the Old Testament
often uses as if it were a proper name, applicable to any
king of Egypt, though sometimes such a distinguishing
name as Hophra ( Apries ; Jer. xliv. 30) or Nechoh (Nekos)
(2 Kings xxiii. 29) is added, is really an Egyptian title of
the monarch (Pefaa or Phuro), often found on the monu
ments. Apart from Hophra and Necho the Biblical
Pharaohs cannot, in the present state of Hebrew and
Egyptian chronology, be identified with any certainty.
PHARISEES (D^ETIS, &apuraioi), the Jewish party of
the scribes, the opponents of the Sadducees. See ISRAEL,
vol. xiii. p. 423 sy., and MESSIAH.
PHARMACOPCEIA (lit. the art of the «/>ap/xa/co7roto's,
or drug-compounder) in its modern technical sense denotes
a book containing directions for the identification of
simples and the preparation of compound medicines, and
published by the authority of a Government or of a
medical or pharmaceutical society. The name has also
been applied to similar compendiums issued by private
individuals. The first work of the kind published under
Government authority appears to have been that of Nurem
berg in 1542; a passing student named Valerius Cordus
showed a collection of medical receipts, which he had
selected from the writings of the most eminent medical
authorities, to the physicians of the town, who urged him
to print it for the benefit of the apothecaries, and obtained
for his work the sanction of the senatus. An earlier work,
known as the Antidotarium Florentinum, had been pub
lished, but only under the authority of the college of
medicine of Florence. The term "pharmacopoeia" first
appears as a distinct title in a work published at Basel in
1561 by Dr A. Foes, but does not appear to have come
into general use until the beginning of the 16th century.
Before 1542 the Avorks principally used by apothecaries
were the treatises on simples by Avicenna and Serapion ;
the De Synonymis and Quid pro Quo of Simon Januensis •
the Liber Servitoris of Bulchasim Ben Aberazerim, which
described the preparations made from plants, animals, and
minerals, and was the type of the chemical portion of
modern pharmacopoeias ; and the Antidotarium of Nicolaus
de Salerno, containing Galenical compounds arranged al
phabetically. Of this last work there were two editions
in use, — Nicolaus magnus and Nicolaus parvus ; in the
latter, several of the compounds described in the larger
edition were omitted and the formula given on a smaller
scale.
Until 1617 such drugs and medicines as were in common
use were sold in England by the apothecaries and grocers.
In that year the apothecaries obtained a separate charter,
and it was enacted at the same time that no grocer should
keep an apothecary's shop. The preparation of physicians'
prescriptions was thus confined to the apothecaries, upon
whom pressure was brought to bear, in order to make them
dispense accurately, by the issue of a pharmacopoeia in
May 1618 by the College of Physicians, and by the power
which the wardens of the apothecaries received in common
with the censors of the College of Physicians of examining
the shops of apothecaries within 7 miles of London and
destroying all the compounds which they found unfaith
fully prepared. This, which was the first authorized
London Pharmacopoeia, was selected chiefly from the
works of Mezue and Nicolaus de Salerno, with a few
additions from those of other authors then in repute, but
it was found to be so full of errors that the whole edition
was cancelled, and a fresh one was published in the follow
ing December. At this period the compounds employed
in medicine were often heterogeneous mixtures, some of
which contained from 20 to 70, or more ingredients, while
a large number of simples were used in consequence of the
same substance being supposed to possess different qualities
according to the source from which it was derived. Thus
crabs' eyes, pearls, oyster-shells, and coral were supposed
to have different properties. Among other disgusting
ingredients entering into some of these formulae were the
excrements of human beings, dogs, mice, geese, and other
animals, calculi, human skull and moss growing on it, blind
puppies, earthworms, &c. Although other editions of the
London Pharmacopoeia •were issued in 1621, 1632, 1639,and
1677, it was not until the edition of 1721, published under
the auspices of Sir Hans Sloane, that any important altera
tions were made. In this issue many of the ridiculous
remedies previously in use were omitted, although a good
number were still retained, such as dog's excrement, earth
worms, and moss from the human skull ; the botanical
names of herbal remedies were for the first time added to
the official ones ; the simple distilled waters were ordered
of a uniform strength ; sweetened spirits, cordials, and
ratifias were omitted as well as several compounds no
longer used in London, although still in vogue elsewhere.
A great improvement was effected in the edition published
in 1746, in which only those preparations were retained
which had received the approval of the majority of the
pharmacopoeia committee ; to these was added a list of
those drugs only which were supposed to be the most
efficacious. An attempt was made to simplify further the
older formula} by the rejection of the superfluous ingre
dients which had been introduced during a succession of
ages, and by retention of the known active ingredients.
In the edition published in 1788 the tendency to sim
plify was carried out to a much greater extent, and the
extremely compound medicines which had formed the
principal remedies of physicians for 2000 years were dis
carded, while a few powerful drugs which had been con
sidered too dangerous to be included in the Pharmacopoeia
of 1765 were restored to their previous position. In 1809
the French chemical nomenclature was adopted, and in
1815 a corrected impression of the same was issued. Sub
sequent editions were published in 1824, 1836, and 1851.
The first Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia was published in
1699 and the last in 1841 ; the first Dublin Pharmacopoeia
in 1807 and the last in 1850.
The preparations contained in these three pharmacopoeias
were not all uniform in strength, a source of much incon
venience and danger to the public, when powerful pre
parations such as dilute hydrocyanic acid were ordered
in the one country and dispensed according to the national
pharmacopoeia in another. This inconvenience led to the
insertion of a provision in the Medical Act of 1858, by
which it was ordained that the General Medical Council
should cause to be published under their direction a
book containing a list of medicines and compounds, and
such other matters and things relating thereto, as the
General Council should think fit, to be called the British
Pharmacopoeia, which should for all purposes be deemed
to be a substitute throughout Great Britain and Ireland
for the several above-mentioned pharmacopoeias. Hitherto
these had been published in Latin. The first British
Pharmacopoeia was published in the English language in
1864, but gave such general dissatisfaction both to the
medical profession and to chemists and druggists that the
General Medical Council brought out a new and amended
edition in 1867. This dissatisfaction was probably owing
partly to the difficulty met with in selecting a due propor
tion of formulae from each pharmacopoeia so as to avoid
giving offence to national susceptibilities, and partly to the
fact that the majority of the compilers of the work were
men not engaged in the actual practice of pharmacy, and
therefore competent rather to decide upon the kind of
preparations required than upon the method of their manu
facture. The necessity for this element in the construc
tion of a pharmacopoeia is now fully recognized in other
countries, in most of which pharmaceutical chemists are
duly represented on the committee for the preparation of
the legally recognized manuals.
National pharmacopoeias now exist in the following countries :
— Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Greece, Holland, Hungary, India, Mexico, Norway, Portugal,
Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the United States of America. The
Argentine Republic, Chili, and Japan have each a pharmacopoeia
in preparation. All the above-mentioned were issued under the
authority of Government, and their instructions have the force of
law in their respective countries, except those of the United States
and Mexico, which were prepared by commissioners appointed by
medical or pharmaceutical societies, and have no other authority,
although generally accepted as the national text-books. Italy has
no national pharmacopoeia, the authorities used in the different
states prior to the unification being still retained. Sardinia, for
example, has a pharmacopoeia dating from 1853 ; Modena, Parma,
and Piacenza have one in common, published in 1839 ; in the States
731
of the Church as well as in Tuscany and Lucca an unofficial com
pilation is in use entitled Orosi Farmacologia technica practica
ovvero Farmacologia Italiana ; Naples has itstiiccttario Farmaceutico
Napolitano (1859) ; and Lombardy and Venice use the Austrian
pharmacopoeia. Although Switzerland has a national pharmacopoeia,
this does not possess Government authority, the French Codex being
recognized in Geneva, and the canton of Ticino having a pharma
copoeia of its own.
The French Codex has probably a more extended use than any
other pharmacopoeia outside the limits of its own country, being,
in connexion with Dorvault's L'Officine, the standard for druggists
in a large portion of Central and South America ; it is also official
in Turkey. The sum-total of the drugs and preparations it con
tains is about 2000, or more than double the average of other
modern pharmacopoeias. The progress of medical knowledge during
the last two hundred years has led to a gradual but very perceptible
alteration in the contents of the various pharmacopoeias. The
original very complex formulae have been gradually simplified until
only the most active ingredients have been retained, and in many
cases the active principles have to a large extent replaced the crude
drugs from which they were derived. From time to time such secret
remedies of druggists or physicians as have met with popular or
professional approval have been represented by simpler official
preparations.
International Pharmacopoeia. — The increased facilities for travel
during the last fifty years have brought into greater prominence the
importance of an approach to uniformity in the formulae of the
more powerful remedies, such as the tinctures of aconite, opium, and
nux vomica, in order to avoid danger to patients when a prescrip
tion is dispensed in a different country from that in which it was
written. Attempts have been made during the last few years by
international pharmaceutical and medical conferences to settle a
basis on which an international pharmacopoeia could be prepared,
but, owing to national jealousies and the attempt to include too
many preparations in such a work, it has not as yet been produced.
At the fifth International Pharmaceutical Congress held in London
in 1881, however, a resolution was passed to the effect that it was
necessary that such a pharmacopoeia should be prepared, and a
commission consisting of two delegates from each of the countries
represented was recommended to be appointed in order to pre
pare within the shortest possible time a compilation in which the
strength of all potent drugs and their preparations should be
equalized, — the work, when complete, to be handed over to their
respective Governments or to their pharmacopoeia committees. It
appears probable that such a work will be presented for considera
tion by the commission at the forthcoming meeting of the con
gress at Brussels in 1885.
Several unofficial universal pharmacopoeias have been published
from time to time in England and in France, which serve to show
the comparative strength of parallel preparations in different
countries ; but the results of discussions which have taken place
at the international conferences above alluded to indicate that the
production and acceptance of an international pharmacopoeia will
be a work of time, and that in such a work the numerous drugs
and preparations intended to meet an unprofessional demand rather
than the wants of physicians will have to be omitted. The advances
that have been made in this direction are as follows. The
metric or decimal mode of calculation and the centigrade scale
of temperature are adopted in all pharmacopoeias except those
of Great Britain, of India, and in some instances of Greece. The
majority omit chemical formula?. An alphabetical arrangement is
followed in all except the French, Spanish, and Greek. The great
increase of medical literature and international exchange of medical
journals has led to the adoption in almost every country of all
the really valuable remedial agents, and the more extended use
of active principles has given rise to an approximation in strength
of their solutions. The difficulty of nomenclature could probably
be overcome by a list of synonyms being given with each article,
and that of language by the use of Latin. The greatest stumbling-
blocks in the way of uniformity are the tinctures and extracts, — a
class of preparations containing many very powerful drugs, but in
which the same name does not always indicate the same thing ;
thus, extract of aconite signifies an extract of the root in the
pharmacopoeias of the United States, Austria, Hungary, and Russia,
extract of the leaves in the Danish and Portuguese, inspissated juice
of the fresh leaves in the British, Indian, Spanish, and Greek, and
dry extract of the leaves with sugar of milk in the Norwegian phar
macopoeias. It appears probable, however, that the growth of phar
maceutical chemistry will indicate clearly, in course of time, which
of those in use form the most active and reliable preparations, while
the general adoption of the metric system will lead to clearer approxi
mation of strength than hitherto. The method adopted by the
Portuguese pharmacopoeia comes nearest to that uniformity which
is so desirable in such preparations, as the tinctures of the fresh
plants are all prepared with equal parts of the drug and alcoholic
menstruum ; simple tinctures in general, with unfortunately a few
exceptions, with one part of the drug in five parts of alcohol of given
732 P H E-
strength ; ethereal tinctures are in the proportion of one part in
ten ; and the tinctures of the alkaloids and their salts contain one
part of the alkaloid in ninety-nine of menstruum.
Homceopathic and eclectic practitioners as well as dentists have
also their special pharmacopoeias.
See Bell and Redwood, Progress of Pharmacy (London, 1SSO) ; Schercr,
Literatura Pharmofopa-arum (Lcipsic and Sorau, 1S22) ; Hint, Report on the
Pharmacopeias of all .Vo/io/w (Washington, 18S3) ; Report of the Proceedings of
the Fifth International Pharmaceutical Congress (1881). (E. M. H.)
PHEASANT, Middle- English Fesaunt and Fesaun,
German Fasan and anciently Fasant, French Faisan — all
from the Latin Phasianus or Phasiana (sc. ains), the Bird
brought from the banks of the river Phasis, now the Eioni,
in Colchis, Avhere it is still abundant, and introduced by
the Argonauts, it is said, in Avhat passes for history, into
Europe. As a matter of fact nothing is known on this
point ; and, judging from the recognition of the remains
of several species referred to the genus Pkasianus both in
Greece and in France,1 it seems not impossible that the
ordinary Pheasant, the P. colchicus of ornithologists, may
have been indigenous to this quarter of the globe. If it
was introduced into England, it must almost certainly
have been brought hither by the Romans ; for, setting
aside several earlier records of doubtful authority,2 Bishop
Stubbs has shewn that by the regulations of King Harold
in 1059 " unus jjhasianus " is prescribed as the alternative
of two Partridges or other birds among the "pitantise"
(rations or commons, as we might now say) of the canons
of Waltham Abbey, and, as Prof. Dawkins has remarked
(Ibi-s, 1869, p. 358), neither Anglo-Saxons nor Danes
were likely to have introduced it into England. It seems
to have been early under legal protection, for, according
to Dugdale, a licence was granted in the reign of Henry I.
to the abbot of Amesbury to kill hares and pheasants,
and from the price at which the latter are reckoned, in
various documents that have come down to us, we may
conclude that they were not very abundant for some
centuries, and also that they were occasionally artificially
reared and fattened, as appears from Upton,3 who wrote
about the middle of the 15th century, while Henry VIII.
seems from his privy purse expenses to have had in his
household in 1532 a French priest as a regular "fesaunt
breder," and in the accounts of the Kytsons of Hengrave
in Suffolk for 1607 mention is made of Avheat to feed
Pheasants, Partridges, and Quails.
Within recent years the practice of bringing up Pheasants
by hand has been extensively followed, and the numbers
so reared vastly exceed those that are bred at large. The
eggs are collected from birds that are either running wild
or kept in a mew,4 and are placed under domestic Hens ;
but, though these prove most attentive foster-mothers,
much additional care on the part of their keepers is needed
1 These are P. archiaci from Pikermi, P. altus and P. meclius from
the lacustrine beds of Sansan, and P. desnoyersi from Touraine, see
A. Milne-Edwards, Ois. foss. de la France (ii. pp. 229, 239-243).
2 Among these perhaps that worthy of most attention is in Probert's
translation of The Ancient Laws of Cambria (ed. 1823, pp. 367, 368),
wherein extracts are given from Welsh triads, presumably of the age
of Howel the Good, who died in 948. One of them is "There are
three barking hunts : a bear, a squirrel, and a pheasant." The ex
planation is " A pheasant is called a barking hunt, because when the
pointers come upon it, and chase it, it takes to a tree, where it is hunted
by baiting." The present writer has not been able to trace the manu
script containing these remarkable statements so as to find out what
is the original word rendered " Pheasant " by the translator ; but a
reference to what is probably the same passage with the same mean
ing is given by Ray (Sijnops. Meth. Animalium, pp. 213, 214) on the
authority of Llwyd or Lloyd, though there is no mention of it in
Wotton and Clarke's Lerjfs Wallica (1730). A charter (Kemble, Cod.
Diplom., iv. p. 236), professedly of Edward the Confessor, granting
the wardenship of certain forests in Essex to Ralph Peperking, speaks
of "fesant hen" and "fesant cocke," but is now known to be spurious.
3 In his De studio militari (not printed till 1654) he states (p. 195)
that the Pheasant was brought from the East by "Palladius ancorista."
4 The writer is informed that, in 1883, 134,000 Pheasants' eggs were
sold from one estate in Suffolk.
P H E
to ensure the arrival at maturity of the poults ; for, being
necessarily crowded in a comparatively small space, they
are subject to several diseases which often carry off a large
proportion, to say nothing of the risk they run by not
being provided with proper food, or by meeting an early
death from various predatory animals attracted by the
assemblage of so many helpless victims. As they advance
in age the young Pheasants readily take to a wild life,
and indeed can only be kept from wandering in every
direction by being plentifully supplied with food, which
has to be scattered for them in the coverts in which it is
desired that they should stay. Of the proportion of
Pheasants artificially bred that " come to the gun " when
the shooting season arrives it is impossible to form any
estimate, for it would seem to vary enormously, not only
irregularly according to the weather, but regularly accord
ing to the district. In the eastern counties of England,
and some other favourable localities, perhaps three-fourths
of those that are hatched may be satisfactorily accounted
for ; but in many of the western counties, though they are
the objects of equally unremitting or even greater care, it
would seem that more than half of the number that live to
grow their feathers disappear inexplicably before the coverts
are beaten. The various effects of the modern system of
Pheasant -breeding and Pheasant -shooting need here be
treated but briefly. It is commonly condemned as giving
encouragement to poaching, and, especially under ignorant
management, as substituting slaughter for sport. Un
doubtedly there is much to be said on this score ; but in
reply to the first objection it has been urged that as a
rule the poacher does not like visiting coverts that he
knows to be effectively preserved, and that coverts con
taining a great stock of Pheasants, whose rearing has
cost a considerable sum of money, are probably the most
effectively preserved. As to the second objection it is to
be observed that what constitutes sport is in great measure
a matter of individual taste, and that the reasonable limit
of a sportsman's "bag" is practically an unknown quantity.
One man likes shooting a Pheasant rising at his feet or
sprung by his spaniels, as it flies away from him through
the trees and is still labouring to attain its full speed ;
another prefers shooting one that has mounted to its
greatest height, and, assisted perhaps by the wind, is
traversing the sky at a pace that almost passes calculation.
If skill has to be considered in the definition of sport there
can be no doubt as to which of these cases most requires
it. In regard to cruelty — that is, the proportion of birds
wounded to those killed — there seems to be little difference,
for the temptation to take "long shots" is about equal in
either case. The Pheasant whose wing is broken by the
charge, if at a great height, is often killed outright by the
fall, whereas, if nearer the ground, it will often make good
its escape by running, possibly to recover, or more possibly
to die after lingering in pain for a longer or shorter time.
On the other hand, high-flying Pheasants, having their
vital parts more exposed, are often hit in the body, but
not hard enough to bring them down, though the wound
they have received proves mortal, and the velocity at which
they are travelling takes them beyond reach of retrieval.
Formerly Pheasants were taken in snares or nets, and by
hawking ; but the crossbow was also used, and the better
to obtain a " sitting shot," for with that weapon men had
not learnt to "shoot flying"; dogs appear to have been
employed in the way indicated by the lines under an
engraving by Hollar, who died in 1677 : —
" The Peasant Cocke the woods doth most frequent,
Where Spaniells spring and pearche him by the sent.""
5 Quoted by the writer (Broderip ?) of the article " Spaniel " in the
Penny Cyclopaedia. The lines throw light on the asserted Welsh prac
tice mentioned in a former note.
P H E — P H I
733
The use of firearms has put an end to the older practices,
and the gun is now the only mode of taking Pheasants
recognized as legitimate.
Of the many other species of the genus Phasianus, two
only can be dwelt upon here. These are the Ring-necked
Pheasant of China, P. torquatus, easily known by the
broad white collar, whence it has its name, as well as by
the pale greyish-blue of its upper wing-coverts and the
light buff of its flanks, and the P. versicolor of Japan, often
called the Green Pheasant from the beautiful tinge of that
colour that in certain lights pervades almost the whole of
its plumage, and, deepening into dark emerald, occupies
all the breast and lower surface that in the common and
Chinese birds is bay barred with glossy black scallops.
Both of these species have been to a considerable extent
introduced into England, and cross freely with P. colchicus,
while the hybrids of each with the older inhabitants of the
woods are not only perfectly fertile inter se, but cross as
freely with the other hybrids, so that birds are frequently
found in Avhich the blood of the three species is mingled.
The hybrids of the first cross are generally larger than
either of their parents, but the superiority of size does
not seem to be maintained by their descendants. White
and pied varieties of the common Pheasant, as of most
birds, often occur, and with a little care a race or breed of
each can be perpetuated. A much rarer variety is some
times seen ; this is known as the Bohemian Pheasant, not
that there is the least reason to suppose it has any right
to such an epithet, for it appears, as it were, accidentally
among a stock of the pure P. colchicus, and offers an ex
ample analogous to that of the japanned Peafowl already
noticed (PEACOCK, supra, p. 443), being, like that breed,
capable of perpetuation by selection. To a small extent
two other species of Pheasant have been introduced to the
coverts of England — P. reevesi from China, remarkable
for its very long tail, white with black bars,1 and the
Copper Pheasant, P. saemmerringi, from Japan. The well-
known Gold and Silver Pheasants, P. jrictus and P.
nycthemerus, each the type of a distinct section or sub-
genus, are both from China and have long been introduced
into Europe, but are only fitted for the aviary. To the
former is allied the still more beautiful P. amherstix and
to the latter about a dozen more species, most of them
known to Indian sportsmen by the general name of
" Kaleege." The comparatively plain Pucras Pheasants,
Pucrasia, the magnificent Monauls, Lophophorus, and the
fine Snow -Pheasants, Crossoptilum — of each of which
genera there are several species — must, for want of space,
be only mentioned here. All the species known at the
time are beautifully figured from drawings by Mr Wolf in
Mr Elliot's grand Monograph of the Phasianidx (2 vols.,
fol., 1870-72) — the last term being used in a somewhat
general sense. With a more precise scope Mr Tegetmeier's
Pheasants : their Natural History and Practical Manage
ment (4to, ed. 2, 1881) is to be commended as a very
useful work. (A. N.)
PHENOL. See CARBOLIC ACID, vol. v. p. 85.
PHERECRATES, one of the chief poets of the Old
Attic Comedy, was a contemporary of Cratinus, Crates,
and Aristophanes, being older than the last and younger
than the two former. At first an actor, he seems to have
gained a prize for a play in 438 B.C. The only other
ascertained date in his life is 420, when he produced
his play The Wild Men. Like Crates, whom he imitated,
he abandoned personal satire for more general themes.
Still in some of the fragments of his plays we find him
attacking Alcibiades and others. He was especially famed
for his inventive imagination, and the elegance and purity
1 The introduction of this species by Lord Tweedmouth near
Guisachan in Inverness-shire is said to have been remarkably successful.
of his diction are attested by the epithet
("most Attic") applied to him by Athenseus and the
sophist Phrynichus. However, Meineke has shown from
his remains that his language deviated considerably from
the standard observed by the other comic poets of the day.
There is genuine feeling in his address to old age (pre
served by Stobseus, Flor., 116, 12). He was the inventor
of a new metre, which was called, after him, Pherecratean,2
and frequently occurs in the choruses of Greek tragedies
and in Horace.
Pherecrates is variously stated by ancient authorities to have com
posed eighteen and sixteen plays ; Meineke reduces the list of his
undoubted plays to thirteen. None of them are extant, but a con
siderable number of fragments have been preserved. These are
given in Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Greecorum, vol. ii. (1839),
and in Bothe, Frag. Com. Gr. (Paris, 1855).
PHERECYDES OP SYROS, one of the earliest Greek
philosophers, was the son of Babys and a native of the
island of Syros. The dates of his life are variously stated,
but there seems to be no doubt that he lived in the 6th
century B.C. ; amongst his contemporaries were Thales
and Anaximander. He was sometimes reckoned one of
the Seven Wise Men, and a very uniform tradition repre
sented him as the teacher of Pythagoras. Many wonder
ful tales were told of him, e.g., that from drinking water
drawn from a well he was able to predict an earthquake
three days before it took place. The accounts of his death
are very discrepant, but the commonest was that he died
of the morlms pediculosus. But, if the minute description
which Hippocrates gives of the death of Pherecydes refers
to the philosopher, he would seem to have died of a viru
lent fever, perhaps spotted typhus. He is said to have
been the first Greek author who wrote in prose, but per
haps the chronicler Cadmus of Miletus preceded him.
The statements of late writers, that he drew his philosophy
from secret writings of the Phoenicians, and that he was
a disciple of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans, deserve little
attention, made as they were at a time when it was the
fashion to regard all wisdom as derived from the East.
He was credited with having originated the doctrine of
metempsychosis, while Cicero and Augustine even assert
that he was the first to teach the immortality of the soul.
Of his astronomical studies he left a proof in the "helio-
tropion," a cave at Syros which served to determine the
annual turning-point of the sun, like the grotto of Posillipo
at Naples.
In his book, to which Suidas gives the name of f-rrra.fj.vxof -fjroi
OeoKpairia ij deoyovia, he enunciated a system in which philosophy
and mythology were blended. In the beginning, according to
Pherecydes, were Zeus, Chronos (Time) or Cronus, and Chthon
(Earth); Chronos begat Fire, Wind, and Water, and these three
begat numerous other gods.
Another PHERECYDES of Athens, an early Greek historian, was
a native of the island of Leros, and lived in the former half of the
5th century B.C. Amongst his contemporaries were Hellanicus
and Herodotus. Of his works "On Leros," "On Iphigenia," "On
the festivals of Dionysus" nothing remains ; but numerous fragments
of his great work on mythology, in ten books, have been preserved,
and are collected by C. Miiller in his Fr. Hist. Gr. , vol. i.
PHIDIAS (t&etoYas), the most famous of Greek sculptors,
was born about 500 B.C., and began his artistic career,
probably under the guidance of his father, Charmides of
Athens, with the study of painting, an art which at that
time had attained a singular largeness and dignity of
style, while in sculpture these qualities were as yet
being sought for with only a somewhat bold and rude
result, as may be seen from the remains of it now at
Olympia. To do justice to the art of sculpture in this
direction there was need of a far greater mastery of tech
nical methods, and we may suppose it to have been with this
end in view that Phidias, when he had determined to
| — w ^ , or, as it may be otherwise divided,
734
P H I — P H I
devote himself to sculpture, became a pupil of Ageladas of
Argos. It is tempting to believe that it was still under
the influence of this master that he executed (between
469 and 463) the Athenian monument at Delphi com
memorating the battle of Marathon; for Ageladas had
sculptured at Delphi also a monumental group serving a
similar purpose. In the group of Phidias was a portrait
statue of Miltiades, and from this circumstance it is rightly
inferred that the work had been commissioned at the time
when Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was at the head of affairs
in Athens. It was apparently at this same period that
Phidias was employed to execute for the acropolis of
Athens a statue of Athena. This statue, known in after
times as "the Lemuian" and also as "the beauty," seems to
have represented the goddess in the attitude of standing
at rest, helmet in hand, as in a terra-cotta statuette from
Cyprus in the British Museum.1 When Pericles succeeded
to the administration of affairs, and it was determined to
erect new temples and other public buildings worthy of
the new glory which Athens had acquired in the Persian
wars, it was to Phidias that the supervision of all these
works was entrusted, with an army of artists and skilled
workmen under him. By 438 the Parthenon was com
pleted, with its colossal statue of Athena in gold and
ivory by Phidias himself, and with its vast extent of sculp
ture in marble, executed at least under his direction and
reflecting in most parts his genius.2 Meantime the enor
mous expense of these undertakings had involved Phidias
in the public discontent which was growing up round
Pericles (Aristoph., Peace, 605). The story related by
Plutarch (Pericles, 31) is that Menon, a former assistant
of Phidias, had brought a charge against him of having
appropriated part of the gold and ivory allowed him for
the statue of Athena, and that, being acquitted on this
charge, he was next denounced for introducing portraits
of himself and of Pericles on the shield of Athena, and in
consequence of this charge died in prison, either a natural
death or by poison. But these statements cannot be
reconciled with the tradition that, after completing his
Athena, he was invited to undertake at Olympia what
proved to be the grandest work of his life, the colossal
gold and ivory statue of Zeus in the newly-erected temple.
According to this same tradition he died at Olympia, and
it may be inferred that he died much honoured there from
the fact that his workshop was preserved in after times as
a show-place for visitors, and that his descendants obtained
an hereditary right to look after the great statue of Zeus.
As a means of reconciling these conflicting statements it
has been supposed that the charge of appropriating the
gold had been made before he went to Olympia, and the
charge of sacrilege when he had returned thence to Athens.
Others again prefer to accept the story of Plutarch as it
stands, and to assign the stay of Phidias in Olympia to an
early period of his life — previous to 455. As to the
charge of theft, it could never have reached a public trial,
because every one acquainted with the management of the
public treasures knew that the gold of the Athena was so
sculptured that it could be removed annually and weighed
by the officials of the treasuries. Pericles told the Athe
nians (Thuc., ii. 13) that it could be removed and utilized
for the war. The other charge of having placed portraits
of himself as a bald-headed old man (438) and of Pericles
on the shield of Athena is incredible. Pericles with the
helmet which he always wore was almost an ideal Greek
in appearance. Among the Greeks fighting with the
1 See A. S. Murray, Greek Sculpt., ii. pi. 17 ; compare the Greek
inscription from the base of a statue of Athena in Cyprus, which says
that she was made after the Phidian model, and had laid aside her
arms, Hirschfeld, Tituli statuar. , No. 178, or C. I. Gr., No. 2073.
2 See A. S. Murray, op. cit., ii. p. 98 sq.
Amazons on the shield of Athena it was probably easy to
find a figure not unlike him. The same may be said of
the bald-headed old man who was identified with Phidias.
But there is a wide difference between idle gossip and a
criminal charge. It is true that there is in the British
Museum a marble fragment of what professes to be a copy
of the shield, and on it there are portraits of Phidias and
of Pericles ; but these portraits answer so minutely to
the description of Plutarch that there can hardly be a
doubt of their having been produced subsequently to illus
trate some current story on which that description was
founded. The workmanship is several centuries later than
Phidias, and it would be strange if the portraits for which
he had paid with his life had been left for so long a time
on the shield, or had even been allowed at any moment to
be perpetuated in a copy. In answer to this objection it
was fabled that the portraits had been so fixed on the
shield that they could not be removed without bringing
down the whole work !
To obtain something like a fair judgment of the style
of Phidias it is to the sculptures of the Parthenon now in
the British Museum that we must turn (see ARCHAEOLOGY,
vol. ii. p. 356). Though executed in what was to him an
inferior material, marble, it yet happened that the elevated
position which these sculptures were to occupy on the
temple was such as to give scope for the highest powers
of composition, and so far they may be regarded as a
worthy monument of his genius. Alike in the frieze, the
metopes, and the remaining figures of the pediments we
have the same perfect rendering of the true effects of light
and shade, which above all reveals the artist who can com
pose his figures and his groups so as to make the spectator
feel that nature would not have done otherwise had nature
been a sculptor. For composition of this kind there Avas
necessary a most complete knowledge of form in all its
details, since no part was so minute as not to affect the
aspect of the whole. In this respect Phidias was famed
in antiquity, and the Parthenon sculptures justify that
fame. He must, however, have found finer opportunities
in the colossal statues of gold and ivory, where the greater
difficulty of duly distributing light and shade was rewarded
with greater splendour of effect. In these statues the
nude parts, such as the face, hands, and feet, were of ivory,
the drapery of gold ; and in the statue of Zeus at Olympia
the gold was enriched with enamelled colours, and the
impression of the whole is described by ancient writers
with unbounded praise (see vol. ii. p. 355, and A. S.
Murray, Gr. Sculpt., ii. p. 123). Of the Athena in the
Parthenon there exist two small copies in marble found in
Athens, but so rude in execution as to be of no service in
conveying a notion of the style of the original. On the
acropolis, and not far from the Parthenon, stood a colossal
bronze statue of Athena Promachos by Phidias, the attitude
and to some extent the type of Avhich may be gathered
from the small bronze found at Athens, and figured in vol.
ii. p. 355. In Elis he executed a statue of Aphrodite in gold
and ivory, and at Platrea a colossal Athena of wood gilt,
with the face, hands, and feet of Pentelic marble. Bright
but simple colours had been traditional in art before the
time of Phidias. It is not supposed that he had sought to
refine upon them as a colorist. What he did was to com
bine with their simplicity and brightness the ideal large
ness and dignity of conception which he shared with the
great painters of his day, and the perfection of execution
which he shared with the greatest of contemporary
sculptors. (A. s. M.)
PHIGALIA (f&tyaXeta, also called <J>iaA/a), a city in
the south-west angle of Arcadia, situated on an elevated
rocky site, among some of the highest mountains in the
Peloponnesus, — the most conspicuous being Mount Coty-
PHIGALIA
735
Hum and Mount Elaeum ; the identification of the latter is
uncertain.
In 659 B.C. Phigalia was taken by the Lacedaemonians,
but soon after recovered its independence ; it was on the
whole unfortunate during the Peloponnesian War ; and, in
common with the other cities of Arcadia, it appears from
Strabo to have fallen into utter decay under the Roman
rule. The notices of it in Greek history are rare and scanty.
Though its existing ruins of city-wall and forts and the
description of Pausanias show it to have been a place of
considerable strength and importance, yet no autonomous
coins of Phigalia are known. Nothing now remains
above ground of the temples of Artemis or Dionysus and
the numerous statues and other works of art which still
existed at the time of Pausanias's visit, about 170 A.D. A
great part of the city- wall, built in fine Hellenic " isodo-
mous " masonry, and a large square central fortress with
a circular projecting tower, are the only remains now
traceable, — at least without the aid of excavation. The
walls, once nearly 2 miles in circuit, are strongly placed
on rocks, which slope down to the little river Neda.
One very important monument of the wealth and artistic
taste of the Phigalians still exists in a fairly perfect state ;
this is a temple dedicated to Apollo Epicurius (the Pre
server), built, not at Phigalia itself, but at the village of
Bassae, 5 or 6 miles away, on one of the peaks of Mount
Cotylium ; it commemorates the aid rendered by Apollo in
stopping the progress of a plague which in the 5th century
B.C. was devastating Phigalia. This temple is mentioned
by Pausanias (viii. 41) as being (next to that at Tegea)
the finest in the Peloponnesus, " from the beauty of its
stone and the symmetry of its proportions." It has also
a special interest in having been designed by Ictinus, who,
with Callicrates, was joint architect of the Parthenon at
Athens. Though visited by Chandler, Dodwell, Gell, and
other English travellers, the temple was neither explored
nor measured till 1811-12, when Chas. Eob. Cockerell
and some other archaeologists spent several months in
making excavations there. After nearly fifty years' delay,
Professor Cockerell published the results of these labours,
as well as of his previous work at ^Egina, in Temples of
jEgina and Bassx (1860), one of the most careful and
beautifully illustrated archaeological works that has ever
been produced. The labours of Professor Cockerell and
his companions were richly rewarded ; not only were suffi
cient remains of the architectural features discovered to
show clearly what the whole design had been, but the
internal sculptured frieze of the cella was found almost
perfect. This and other fragments of its sculpture are now
in the British Museum.
Fig. 1 shows the plan of the temple, which is of the Doric order,
but has an internal arrangement of its cella quite unlike that of
any other known temple. It stands on an elevated and partly
artificial plateau, which commands a most glorious and extensive
view of the oak-clad mountains of Arcadia, reaching away to the
blue waters of the Messenian Gulf. Unlike other Doric temples,
which usually stand east and west, this is placed north and south ;
but it has a side entrance on the east. It is hexastyle, with fifteen
columns on its flanks ; thirty-four out of the thirty-eight columns
of the peristyle are still standing, with the greater part of their
architrave, but the rest of the entablature and both pediments
have fallen, together with the greater part of the internal columns
of the cella. It will be seen from the plan that these are very
strangely placed, apparently without symmetry, as regards the
interior, though they are set, for what reason it is hard to say, re
gularly opposite the voids in the peristyle.
With the exception of one at the south end, which is Corinthian,
the internal columns are of the Ionic order, and are built, not free,
but engaged with the cella-wall, forming a series of recesses, which
may have been designed to contain statues. Another peculiarity
of this interior is that these columns reach to the top of the cella
in one order, not in two ranges of columns, one over the other, as
was the usual Doric fashion. These inner columns carried an Ionic
entablature, of which the frieze now in the British Museum formed
• nr-«-i •
I POSTICUM -3 I
f «
VESTfiBULE
CORINTHIAN COLUMN
••-
a part. The pediments and external metopes of the peristyle appear
to have contained no sculpture, but the metopes within the peri
style on the exterior of the cella
had sculptured subjects ; only a
few fragments of these were, how
ever, discovered. The position
occupied by the great statue of
Apollo is a difficult problem.
Cockerell, with much probability,
places it in the vestibule of the
cella, opposite the eastern side
door, so that it would be lighted
up by the rays of the rising sun.
The main entrance is at the
northern end through the pronaos,
once defended by a door in the
end of the cella and a metal screen,
of which traces were found on the
two columns of the pronaos. There
was no door between the posticum
and the cella. The general pro
portions of the fronts resemble
those of the Theseum at Athens,
except that the entablature is less
massive, the columns thicker, and
the diminution less, — all propor
tionally speaking. In plan the
temple is long in proportion to its
width, — measuring, on the top of
the stylobate, 125 feet 7 inches by
48 feet 2 inches, while the The
seum (built probably half a century
earlier) is about 104 feet 2 inches
by 45 feet 2 inches.
The material of which the temple
is built is a fine grey limestone
(once covered with painted stucco),
except the roof-tiles, the capitals
of the cella columns, the archi- FIG. 1.— Plan of the Temple at
traves, the lacunaria (ceilings) of Bassse.
the posticum and pronaos, and
the sculpture, all of which are of white marble. The roof-tiles,
specially noticed by Pausanias, are remarkable for their size, work
manship, and the beauty of the Parian marble of which they are
made. They measure 2 feet 1 inch by 3 feet 6 inches, and are
fitted together in the most careful and ingenious manner. Unlike
those of the Parthenon and the temple of jEgina, the ap/j,ol or
"joint-tiles " are worked out of the same piece of marble as the flat
ones, at a great additional cost of labour and material, for the sake
of more perfect fitting and greater security against wet.
Traces of painting on various architectural members were found
by Professor Cockerell, but they were too much faded for the colours
"• • 1
FIG. 2.— One slab of the Bassaa frieze ; combat of Greeks and
Amazons.
to be distinguished. The designs are the usual somewhat stiff and
monotonous Greek patterns, — the fret, the honeysuckle, and the
egg and dart.
The sculpture is of the greatest interest, as being an important
example of the school of Phidias, designed to decorate one of the
finest buildings in the Peloponnesus in the latter half of the 5th
century B.C. ; see Phigalcian Marbles, Brit. Mus. Publications.
The frieze, now in the British Museum, is quite complete ; it is
nearly 101 feet long by 2 feet high, carved in relief on twenty-three
slabs of marble 4£ to 5 inches thick (see fig. 2). The subjects are
the battle of the Lapithaj and the Centaurs, and that between the
Amazons and the Greeks, the two favourite subjects in Greek plastic
art of the best period. They are designed with wonderful fertility
of invention, and life-like realism and spirit ; the composition is
arranged so as to form a series of diagonal lines or zigzags /W.
thus forming a pleasing contrast to the unbroken horizontal lines
736
P H I — P H I
of the cornice and architrave. The various groups are skilfully
united together by some dominant line or action, so that the whole
subject forms one unbroken composition.
The relief is very high, more than 3i inches in the most salient
parts, and the whole treatment is quite opposite to that of the
Parthenon frieze, which is a very superior work of art to that at
Bassa-. Many of the limbs are quite detached from the ground ;
the drill has been largely used to emphasize certain shadows, and
iu many places, for want of due calculation, the sculptor has had
to cut into the flat background behind the figures. From this it
would appear that no finished clay-model was prepared, but that
the relief was sculptured with only the help of a drawing. The point
of sight, more than 20 feet below the bottom of the frieze, and the
direction in which the light fell on it have evidently been carefully
considered. Many parts, invisible from below, are left comparatively
rough. The workmanship throughout is unequal, and the hands
of several sculptors can be detected. On the whole, it must be ad
mitted that the execution is not equal to the beauty of the design,
and the whole frieze is somewhat marred by au evident desire to
produce the maximum of effect with the least possible amount of
labour, — very different from the almost gem-like finish of the Par
thenon frieze. Even the design is inferior to the Athenian one ;
most of the figures are ungracefully short in their proportions, and
there is a great want of refined beauty in many of the female hands
and faces. It is in the fire of its varied action and its subtlety
of expression that this sculpture most excels. The noble move
ments of the heroic Greeks form a striking contrast to the feminine
weakness of the wounded Amazons, or the struggles with teeth
and hoofs of the brutish Centaurs ; the group of Apollo and Artemis
in their chariot is full of grace and dignified power. The marble
in which this frieze is sculptured is somewhat coarse and crystalline;
the slabs appear not to have been built into their place but fixed
afterwards, with the aid of two bronze bolts driven through the
face of each.
Of the metopes, which were 2 feet 8 inches square, only one
exists nearly complete, with eleven fragments ; the one almost per
fect has a relief of a nude warrior, with floating drapery, overcom
ing a long-haired bearded man, who sinks vanquished at his feet.
The relief of these is rather less than that of the frieze figures, and
the work is nobler in character and superior in execution. The
other pieces are too fragmentary to show what were their
subjects.
No modern Greek village exists now on the site either of Bassa;
or of Phigalia.
In addition to the works mentioned in the text the following may be con
sulted : — Leake, Morea (vol. i. p. 490, and ii. p. 319); Curtius, Peloponnesos
(i. 319); Ross, lleisen in Peloponnesos ; Stackelberg, Der Apollo-Tempd zu Bassx
(1826); Lenormant, Bas-reliefs du Parthenon et de Phigalie (1834); and Frie-
derichs, Geschichte der griechischen Plastik (1868). (J. H. M.)
PHILADELPHIA, the name of several cities of anti
quity, of which the two most important have been noticed
under ALA-SHEHR, vol. i. p. 443, and AMMONITES, vol. i.
p. 743.
PHILADELPHIA, the chief city of Pennsylvania, and
the second city in the United States of America, is situ
ated (39° 57' 7-5" N. lat., 75° 9' 23'4" W. long.) on the
west bank of the Delaware river, 96 miles from the
Atlantic and in a direct line 125 miles north-east of
Washington, D.C., and 85 miles south-west of the city
of New York. Its greatest length north-north-east is 22
miles, its breadth from 5 to 10 miles, and its area 82,603
acres, or about 129 square miles (greater than that of any
other city in America). The surface of the city between
the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill — the latter running
parallel with the Delaware and dividing the city about in
half, east and west — is remarkably level. It varies, how
ever, in elevation from 24| feet above the sea to 440 feet,
the latter in the northern and suburban sections. The
eastern and western sections of the city are connected by
eight bridges. The length of river-front on the Delaware
is nearly 20 miles, and the length of wharves 5 miles. On
both sides of the Schuylkill, to Fairmount dam, the front is
16 miles and the length of wharves 4 miles. The mean
low-water mark of the Delaware is 24 feet, and the tide
rises 6 feet, while the average depth of water at the city
wharves is 50 feet. The wharf-line, which varies from 14
feet to 68 feet, gives extraordinary accommodation for ship
ping. The Delaware is navigable at all seasons of the year
for vessels of the heaviest burden, and Philadelphia affords
one of the best protected harbours in the country. The
substratum of the city is a clay soil mixed with more or
less sand and gravel.
The site of the present Philadelphia was originally settled
by the Swedes, and so Penn found it when he came to lay
General Plan of Philadelphia.
out the city ; and many of the original patentees for town
lots under him were descendants of these first settlers. The
original city limits were from east to west 10,922 feet 5
inches, and from north to south 5370 feet 8 inches, or more
than 2 square miles. The boundaries were Vine street on
the N., Cedar (now South) street on the S., the Delaware
river on the E., and the Schuylkill river on the W. And
this was the city of Philadelphia from its foundation until
the 2d day of February 1854, when what is known as the
Consolidation Act was passed by the legislature of the
State, and the old limits of the city proper were extended
to take in all the territory embraced within the then county
of Philadelphia. This legislation abolished the districts
of Southwark, Northern Liberties, Kensington, Spring
Garden, Moyamensing, Penn, Richmond, West Philadelphia,
and Belmont ; the boroughs of Frankforcl, Germantown,
Manayunk, White-Hall, Bridesburg, and Aramingo ; and the
townships of Passyunk, Blockley, Kingsessing, Ptoxborough,
Germantown, Bristol, Oxford, Lower Dublin, Moreland,
Bybery, Delaware, and Penn ; and it transferred all their
franchises and property to the consolidated city of Phil
adelphia under one municipal government. The present
boundaries of the city are : on the E. the Delaware, on the
N.E. Bucks county, on the N.N.W. and W. Montgomery
county, and on the W. and S. Delaware county and the
Delaware. The greater part is laid out in parallelograms,
with streets at right angles to each other. Each main
parallelogram contains about 4 acres, or is 400 feet on each
PHILADELPHIA
737
of its sides, divided by one or more small thoroughfares.
Upon the city plans there are plotted 191,928 separate town
lots. The main streets running north and south are num
bered from First or Front to Sixty-third streets, and those
running east and west were formerly named after the trees
and shrubs found in the province. Thus, while the principal
street in the city is named Market street, other main streets
are named Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, Pine, &C.1 The main
streets of Philadelphia are 50 feet wide, with some few
exceptions: Broad or Fourteenth street is 113 feet wide,
and Market street is 100 feet wide. The streets are gener
ally paved with rubble stone, although square or Belgian
blocks of granite are being extensively introduced. There
are laid down on the city plans upwards of 2000 miles of
streets, but at present (1884) only 1060| miles are opened,
of which 573'54 miles are paved and 44'28 macadamized.
The pavements are chiefly of brick, but some of the more
prominent streets have flagstone sidewalks. Market street
and Chestnut street, below Eighth street, and Front street
are the localities where the main wholesale business of the
city is conducted. Most of the retail stores are situated
in the upper part of Chestnut street and Eighth street.
The principal banking institutions are in Chestnut street,
between Second and Fifth streets, and in Third street
between Walnut and Chestnut streets. Walnut street in
the southern section of the city, and Spring Garden and
Broad streets in the northern section of the city, are the
chief streets for large and luxurious private residences.
There is not a street of any consequence which has not a
tramway along it ; and the tramway system has done a
great deal to increase building, until now Philadelphia is
emphatically "the city of homes." There are upwards of
160,000 dwelling-houses, of which at least 110,000 are
owned by the occupants. According to the returns for the
census of 1880, there were 146,412 dwelling-houses in the
city, which, taking the population as given by that census,
847,170, gave 5'79 persons to each house, while the num
ber of dwellings in New York to the population gave 16 '37
to each house. On the original plan of the city five
squares, equidistant, were reserved for public parks. One
of these, called Centre square, situated at the intersection
of Broad and Market streets, has been taken for the erec
tion of the city-hall, and the remaining four, situated at
Sixth and Walnut, Sixth and Race, Eighteenth and Walnut,
and Eighteenth and Race, and named respectively Wash
ington, Franklin, Rittenlfcuse, and Logan, have a com
bined area of 29 '06 acres. There are six other public
squares in the city, with a total area of 18 '90 acres. In
addition to these public squares, Fairmount Park, with an
area of 279 1| acres, including 373 acres of the water-sur
face of the Schuylkill river, is the most extensive public
park in the United States. It lies in the north-western
section of the city, and the Schuylkill river and Wissa-
hickon creek wind through the greater portion of it.2 In
the park Horticultural Hall and Memorial Hall remain
1 The geometrical laying out of the city into parallelograms made
easy the adoption of the decimal system of numbering for the houses,
which is readily understood and greatly helps strangers and citizens
in finding their way about the streets. The houses in streets running
east and west are numbered by hundreds, beginning at the Delaware
and going west. Thus, from Delaware river to Front street the
houses are numbered from 1 to 100 ; from Front street to Second
street from 100 to 200 ; above Second street 200 ; above Third street
300 ; and so on. The even numbers are placed on the south side of
the street and the odd numbers on the north side of the street. Mar
ket street is taken as a dividing line between north and south, and all
the main streets stretching north and south, which lie north of Market
street, are in the same way numbered running northerly, and those
which lie south of Market street are numbered running southerly.
The west side is given the even numbers and the east side the odd
numbers.
2 There are 34 '27 miles of footwalk, 30 '46 miles of carriage-drives,
tnd 7 '82 miles of bridle-paths within the boundaries of the park.
as mementoes of the Centennial Exhibition held there in
1876. The garden of the Zoological Society, covering 33
acres, on the outskirts of the park, was opened 1st July
1874, as the pioneer of such enterprises in the United
States. H Until within the last score of years the buildings
in Philadelphia bore a singular resemblance to each other,
especially the dwelling-houses. The predominant material
for building Avas, and is, red brick, the soil affording the
finest clay for brick found in the United States. The
desire for uniformity in buildings, both in style and
material, has happily undergone a change in recent years,
although the danger now is of running to the other extreme,
and thus giving the streets a decidedly bizarre appearance.
There are 238| miles of sewers in Philadelphia, but the
drainage of the city is wholly inadequate. The streets
are lighted by 12,805 gas-lamps, and Chestnut street by
the electric light. There are 748 miles of gas main, and
the average daily consumption is 10,624,000 cubic feet.
Buildings. — The old brick Swedes Church in Swanson
street in the extreme south-eastern section, dedicated on
the first Sunday after Trinity 1700, is the oldest building
of character now standing in the city. When it was com
pleted it was looked upon as a great masterpiece, and
nothing was then equal to it in the town. The four other
colonial buildings of importance still standing are Christ
(Protestant Episcopal) Church, the old State House (Inde
pendence Hall), the Pennsylvania Hospital, and Carpenter's
Hall, all of them built of red brick with black glazed
headers. Dr. John Kearsley, a physician, was the archi
tect of the first-mentioned, and Andrew Hamilton, a lawyer,
the architect of the second. Christ Church stands on the
west side of Second street between Market and Arch streets,
and its erection was begun in 1727, but it was not finished,
as it now appears with tower and spire, until 1754. It
was built on the site of a still older Christ Church, which
was also of brick, erected in 1695. Queen Anne in 1708
presented a set of communion plate to the church, which
is now used on great occasions. During his presidency
Washington worshipped at this church, and his pew is still
preserved, as is also that of Franklin. In 1882 the interior
of the church was restored to its ancient character at an
expense of about $10,000. The nave is 75 feet long by
61 feet in Avidth and 47 feet high; the chancel is 15 feet
by 24; and the spire is 196 feet 9 inches high. The
old State House or Independence Hall, on the south side
of Chestnut street between Fifth and Sixth streets, was
commenced in 1731, and was ready for occupancy by the
Assembly towards the close of 1735. It was the scene of
almost all the great civil events of the Revolutionary War.
It is 100 feet in length on Chestnut street by 44 feet in
depth ; and prior to the centennial celebration its exterior
and interior were restored as nearly as possible to their
original appearance. The Pennsylvania Hospital occupies
the square of ground bounded by Spruce, Pine, Eighth, and
Ninth streets, and the corner-stone of the building was
laid on 28th May 1755. Carpenter's Hall, where the first
Congress met, stands back from Chestnut street, east of
Fourth street, and was begun in January 1770. These
four buildings are all very simple in their construc
tion, but substantial and imposing, and are interesting
specimens of colonial architecture. Among the notably
fine buildings in Philadelphia are the old United States
bank, now the United States custom-house, the Girard
bank, the United States mint, and the Girard College, all
of which, with the exception of the last-named, were built
more than half a century ago. They are all of white
marble and of the different orders of Grecian architecture,
with porticos and high fluted columns. Other fine build-
3 The collection numbers 673 specimens, — mammals 251, birds 372,
reptiles and batrachians 50, valued at $46,726.
XVIII. — 93
738
PHILADELPHIA
ings are the Masonic Temple, the Ridgway branch of the
Philadelphia library, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts, and the Academy of Natural Sciences. There are
also very many beautiful churches. The two newest build
ings of magnitude are the new United States post-office,
at the corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets, which is just
completed (1884) at a cost of 18,000,000, and the new
municipal buildings for the city of Philadelphia at the
intersection of Broad and Market streets, which are in
course of construction. The post-office, which is Roman
esque, is of granite, and was more than ten years in
building, from October 1873 to March 1884. It has a
frontage of 425 feet, a depth of 175 feet, and a height of
164 feet. The carrier delivery of the Philadelphia post-
office covers the greatest territory of any city in the world,
excepting London ; it employs 900 men, of whom 448 are
letter-carriers. The annual sales of stamps amount to
31,600,000. About half a million of letters, &c., pass
through the post-office each day. The new public build
ings, as they are called, or city-hall, were begun in August
1871, and when completed will be the largest single build
ing in America. It covers an area, including courtyards,
of nearly 4| acres, the dimensions being 470 feet east and
west and 486 feet north and south. The building will
contain 520 rooms, and the topmost point of the dome, on
the tower, will be 537 feet 4 inches above the courtyard,
or the highest artificial construction in the world. The ex
terior structure is now roofed in and completed, with the
exception of the tower. The total amount expended on
this building to 31st December 1883 was $9,731,488-81,
and the estimated total cost is §13,000,000. The archi
tecture is rather rococo in character.
Population. — -Previous to the census of 1830 Philadel
phia was the most populous American city, but since then
New York has taken the first place. In 1683 it was esti
mated that Philadelphia had 80 houses and 500 inhabitants.
The next .year the population increased 2000, and by the
beginning of the last century there were 700 dwelling-
houses and 4500 people. In 1800 there Avere 9868 dwell
ings and 81,009 inhabitants, and in 1820, the last census
when Philadelphia stood first, she had a population of
119,325. By the census of 1880 the population of the
city is placed at 847,170 (males 405,989, females 441,181),
while in 1870 it was 674,022, and in 1860 565,529.
About one- third of the population in 1880 were foreign
born. In 1883 there were 21,237 births, of which 11,102
were males and 10,135 females. The number of emigrants
landed in the year at Philadelphia was 23,473, of whom
13,899 were males and 9574 females, — a decrease of 9778
from 1882. Of these emigrants 7304 were from England,
6023 from Ireland, 5232 from Sweden and Norway, and
2991 from Germany. The mayor of Philadelphia in his
annual message to councils in April 1884 places the popu
lation of the city at 1,023,000, while the Board of Health
estimate it at 907,041. The death-rate of the city in 1883
was 22 '13 per thousand. By the census of 1880 41 per
cent, of the population were engaged in gainful occupa
tions. In 1884 there were in Philadelphia 1294 lawyers
and 1637 physicians. The city has 622 places of worship,
viz., Baptist 83, Hebrew 11, Lutheran 32, Methodist 131,
Moravian 5, Presbyterian 110, Protestant Episcopal 96,
Quaker 15, Reformed Dutch 20, Reformed Episcopal 10,
Roman Catholic 47, Swedenborgian 3, Unitarian 3, Uni-
versalist 4, and 52 among 23 other different denomina
tions. There are 53 cemeteries and burial-grounds in the
city.
Municipal Government. — By Penn's charter of 25th October 1701
Philadelphia was first created a borough city with a government of
its own, separate from that of the province and county. Under
this'charter, with many modifications, the city was governed until
the Act of the legislature of the State incorporating the city was
passed, llth March 1789. This is the fundamental law governing
the city to-day, but with such changes as have become necessary by
the altered condition of affairs and the development of the entire
country. The most important change was the Consolidation Act of
2d February 1854, already mentioned, whereby the old county of
Philadelphia became the city of Philadelphia, the county of Phila
delphia being at the same time continued as one of the counties of
the State. The city is divided territorially and politically into thirty-
one wards, and is governed by a mayor, elected by the people for
three years, and by two bodies, called the select and common council.
The upper branch is composed of one member from each ward elected
for three years, who must have attained the age of twenty-five
years and have been a citizen and inhabitant of the State for four
years next before his election, and the last year thereof an inhabitant
of the ward for which he shall be chosen. Each ward has a member
of common council, elected for two years, for every 2000 taxable
inhabitants ; he must be twenty -one years of age and have the
other qualifications required for the upper body. The mayor is the
executive head of the city and the councils are the law-making
power. The mayor has the right of veto upon the acts of the
councils. Councils in joint meeting appoint all heads of depart
ments not elected, establish the rate at which all taxes shall be
levied that are authorized by law, and fix the salaries of all muni
cipal officers elected by the people, as well as those they appoint.
The city can make no binding contract or incur any debt unless
authorized by law or ordinance and an appropriation sufficient to
pay the same be previously made by councils. The sanitary care of
the city is vested in a board of health composed of nine members
appointed by the judges of the Courts of Common Picas of the
county, who have charge of the sanitary condition of the city and
citizens. Among the duties of the board is that of keeping an ac
curate record of all births, marriages, and deaths. The poor of the
city are under the charge of a board of twelve guardians elected
by councils. These several bodies, councils, board of health, and
guardians of the poor all serve without pecuniary compensation.
Edward Shippen was named in the charter of 1701 as first mayor
of the city. The last mayor under the English crown was Samuel
Powel, elected 3d October 1775, and he was also the first mayor
under the United States, being re-elected 13th April 1789. During
the interim of the Revolutionary War the municipal government
was suspended, and the affairs of the city were carried on by the
councils of safety and other local bodies.
Police, Fire, Water. — The mayor is the nominal head of the police
of the city, and all the appointments and removals are in his hands.
The force consists of 1415 men, of whom 1225 are patrolmen. There
are four captains and one chief of police ; and the fire marshal is
attached to the police department. The number of arrests made in
1883 was 45,612, and the number of commitments to the county
prison 23,245.
The fire department is governed by a board of fire commissioners
elected by councils, and consists of a chief engineer, six assistant
engineers, and four hundred men. They are divided into twenty-
nine steam-engine companies and five hook and ladder companies,
with the addition of hose and hose-carriage to each. In 1883 there
were 804 fires.
The largest portion of Philadelphia is supplied with water from
the Schuylkill, and it was in great part for the preservation of the
purity of this water-supply that Fairmount Park was created. The
park has not, however, served its purpose in this respect, and the
water supplied to the city is most impure. The supply also is
hardly adequate to the demand, and many other sources have been
suggested. The capacity of the present waterworks allows a daily
average pumpage of 90,000,000 gallons, and the seven reservoirs
have a total capacity of 191,224,560 gallons. The total number of
gallons of water pumped in 1883 was 25,182,775,641, or a daily
average of about 69,000,000. There are 78'4 miles of pipe under
ground to supply at least 170,000 buildings, of which 151,096 are
(January 1884) dwelling-houses. The dwellings are charged for
water according to the number and character of appliances in use,
irrespective of the amount of water used or the number of the
occupants of the house. The streets have a number of fountains,
erected by the Philadelphia Fountain Society, for the use of horses,
dogs, and men ; and there are also 5752 hydrants for the use of the
fire department ; but these are wholly insufficient to protect the city.
Finances. — On 1st January 1884 the funded debt of the city of
Philadelphia-was $66, 365, 591 • 24, and the floating debt §689, 355 • 36
or a total indebtedness of $67, 054, 946 '60. The city assets at the
same period were $28,096,394'75, so that the excess over assets was
$38,958,551-85. This is a reduction of the city's debt from its
highest point, 1st January 1880, when it amounted to $72,264,59576.
The assessed valuation of real estate in the city of Philadelphia, 1st
January 1884, was $583,613,683, and the annual tax for the year
amounted to $10,383,381-84. In 1883 the receipts from all sources
for municipal purposes were $13,632,842-38. The various trust
funds of the city are under the control of a board of directors of
city trusts, composed of twelve prominent citizens appointed by the
judges of the Courts of Common Pleas. The board has charge of the
PHILADELPHIA
739
Girard Fiuul ; the Wills Hospital Fund, for the relief of indigent
blind and lame ; the Franklin Fund, for aiding young married
artificers ; and sundry funds for furnishing the poor with fuel and
other purposes, — 'amounting in the aggregate, on 31st December
1883, to $11, 606,320-92.
There are thirty -two national banks in Philadelphia with an
aggregate capital of $17,578,000, and for the week ending 30th
June 1884 their loans and discounts were $73,525,885, deposits
$64,436,411, and circulation $8,416,013. Their surplus on 31st
December 1883 was $8,712,303. In addition to the national banks
there are six banks chartered by the State with an aggregate capital
of $714,600 ; eight trust and safe deposit companies, where deposits
are received and a quasi banking business done, with a total capital
of $8,625,000, and a surplus on 31st December 1883 of $4,589,732 ;
and three saving funds without any capital, but where all the de
positors are interested in the profits, with total deposits on 31st
December 1883 of $28,503,200'93. Philadelphia has fourteen joint-
stock fire insurance companies, with a capital of $3,950,000 ; five
joint-stock fire and marine companies, with a capital of $4,860,000 ;
six mutual fire insurance companies ; and six life insurance com
panies. In addition to these there are a real estate title insurance
company and a plate-glass insurance company, their objects being
expressed in their titles.
Commerce. — Until within the last sixty years Philadelphia was
the commercial emporium of the United States, but since that
time her commerce has been gradually declining, until now she
ranks fifth in the order of ports, being preceded by New York,
Boston, San Francisco, and New Orleans. At the same time her
manufactures have been steadily increasing, until she has become
the great manufacturing centre of the country. On 30th June 1884
there were registered as belonging to the port of Philadelphia 854
vessels, having a tonnage of 197,491 tons, 295 being steamers. For
the year ending 31st December 1883 724 coast-wise vessels having
a tonnage of 418,625 tons entered, and 1213 with a tonnage of
576,719 tons cleared. During the same period there entered 1066
foreign vessels with a tonnage of 813,706 tons, and 942 cleared with
a tonnage of 732,333 tons. For the six months ending 30th June
1384 there entered 290 American vessels with a tonnage of 134,807
tons, and 199 cleared with a tonnage of 101,908 tons. In the same
period 285 foreign vessels entered with a tonnage of 263,577 tons,
and 246 cleared with a tonnage of 238,929 tons. Statistics of the
exports and imports of the city have been kept since 1821 ; and
they show that the greatest exports in any one year were in 1876,
the centennial year, when they amounted to $50,539,450. The
greatest imports ($38,933,832) were in 1880. For 1883 the exports
were $38,662,434 and the imports $32,811,045. For the six months
ending 30th June 1884 the exports were $17,605,271, and the
imports $18,245,733. The total receipts for duties at this port for
the year 1883 were $11,834,014'55, and for the six months ending
30th June 1884 $6,917,37671. Lines of steamers run to Liverpool,
Glasgow, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Savannah, Charleston,
and other ports. Philadelphia is also the centre of the three
great internal carrying lines of the State, the Pennsylvania Rail
road, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and the Reading Railroad. The
last two are principally coal-roads from the great anthracite coal
fields of Pennsylvania, while the first, with its numerous branches,
is the main artery from the west for the transportation of its
agricultural products. The gross receipts for 1883 of the Penn
sylvania Railroad, from all lines connecting directly with Phil
adelphia, were $57,512,766'36. The total tonnage moved over these
same lines was 57,379,115 tons, and the number of passengers for
the same period was 36,584,435, and the pieces of baggage 1,774,192.
The tonnage of the other two roads is proportionately large.
Industries. — The largest single classes of manufactures are the
iron and steel and the textile industries. The first-named, which
includes all forms of machinery and of iron and steel articles, em
ployed in 1883 31,917 persons in 712 establishments, producing
articles valued at $58,608,781. The manufactures of wool, cotton,
silk, &c. , employed 60,897 persons in 1018 establishments, pro
ducing textile fabrics to the value of $102,087,128; and these
figures are rather below than above the actual facts. In the carpet
manufacture alone, for which there are 216 establishments, there
are 35,000,000 yards of carpet made annually. The census for
1880 gave Philadelphia 856_7 manufacturing establishments, with
a capital of $187,148,857, employing 185,527 hands and producing
articles valued at $324,342,935 per annum. The seven classes
producing over $10,000,000 a year were — sugar-refineries (11),
$24,294,929; factories of woollen goods (89), $21,349,810; men's
clothing manufactories (426), $18,506,748 ; cotton-mills (145),
$14,268,696 ; carpet manufactories (170), $14,263,510 ; foundry and
machine shops (226), $13,455,238 ; drugs and chemicals manu
factories (54), $11,804,793. Since then, however, Philadelphia has
made great strides, and the close of 1882 showed 12,063 manufac
turing establishments, employing 147,137 men, 67,050 women,
and 28,296 children under sixteen years of age, or a total of 242,483,
and yielding products of the value of $481,226,309. The large and
important industry of brick-making, for which there are 63 yards,
produces annually about 350,000,000 bricks, of a market value of
at least $3,500,000. The fine "pressed brick " of Philadelphia is
used in all parts of the country, and of late years moulded bricks
of various designs and of any size have been extensively and success
fully made.
Charities. — There are not less than 300 charities proper in Phil
adelphia, leaving out institutions of learning which come within the
legal definition of the word. A few of them are municipal, but the
majority are wholly private in their origin and conduct. Among
the former may be classed the Blockley Almshouse for the care of
the indigent poor of the city, and the house of correction, employ
ment, and reformation at Holmesburg. This last is a mixed insti
tution, being a workhouse both for criminals and paupers, and in
1883 there were received into it 7290 men, women, and children.
On 31st December 1883 there were 1236 inmates, of whom 197 were
females. The city bath-houses are another important municipal
charity. There are twenty-two hospitals in Philadelphia, the most
important being the Pennsylvania Hospital, projected in 1751 by
Benjamin Franklin and Dr Thomas Bond. It is governed princi
pally by the Quakers, and is supported wholly by voluntary contri
butions. It has a capacity for 230 patients, and recent accident
cases are always admitted. The insane department of this hospital
is located on Haverford road, and was opened in 1841, since which
time to January 1884 there have been 8852 patients. In addition to
this hospital for the insane there is an insane department attached
to the City Hospital at the Almshouse, and a Friends' Asylum for
the Insane at Frankford. Other important charities are the Phil
adelphia Dispensary, Home for Consumptives, Home for Incurables,
Preston Retreat (lying-in charity), Orphans' Society, Philadelphia
Working Home for Blind Men, Sheltering Arms for Infants, the
Sick Diet Kitchen, and the House of Refuge for Juvenile Delin
quents. This last receives children committed by the court of Over
and Terminer upon conviction of a criminal offence, also vagrant,
incorrigible, or vicious children committed by magistrates on
complaint of the parent or any other person that the parent or
guardian is incapable or unwilling to control them.
Education. — Penn in his frame of government provided that a
committee of manners, education, and art should be appointed, so
that all " wicked and scandalous living may be prevented, and that
youth may be trained up in virtue, and useful arts and knowledge."
The first school in Philadelphia of which we have knowledge was
opened the year following the foundation of the colony. At a
meeting of the provincial council held in Philadelphia " ye 26th of
10th month 1683 " the governor and council, "having taken into
serious consideration the great necessity there is of a schoolmaster
for the instruction — and sober instruction — of youth in the town of
Philadelphia, sent for Enoch Flower, an inhabitant of the said town,
who for twenty years past hath been exercised in that care and
employment in England," and engaged him to instruct the youth
of the city. In the year 1689 the first public school in Pennsylvania
was established at Philadelphia under the care of the celebrated
George Keith. It was incorporated by the provincial council 12th
February 1698, and was entitled "The Overseers of the Public
Schools founded in Philadelphia at the request, costs, and charges
of the people of God called Quakers," and in 1711 received a charter
from Penn. This school, although supported by the Quakers, was
open to all, and for more than sixty years continued to be the only
public place for instruction in the province. It thrived and was
held in high estimation, and its legitimate successor is still in
operation in Philadelphia, where it maintains its ancient reputa
tion. In 1749 Franklin published his Pro2)osals Relative to the
Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, which resulted the next year
in the establishment of the academy and charitable school, which
became a college in 1755, and in 1779 was incorporated as the
university of Pennsylvania. The university at present occupies a
site in Woodland avenue, in what was formerly AVest Philadelphia,
and gives instruction in ten departments (Arts, Music, Medicine,
Law, Dentistry, Philosophy, Auxiliary of Medicine, Veterinary Medi
cine, Towiie Scientific School, and Wharton School of Finance and
Economy). The faculty consists of 132 professors, lecturers, and
instructors in the various departments, and for the college year
1883-84 there were 1000 students.
The public school system of Pennsylvania was not really firmly
fixed until 1818, when by an Act of the legislature Philadelphia
was made the first school district of Pennsylvania with a distinct
educational system from that of the State in general. This district
is governed by a board of public education composed of 31 members,
one from each ward of the city, who are appointed, one-third each
year for three years, by the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas of
the county. They have the financial control and general super
vision of schools, the selection of the books to be used, the over
sight of the teachers, and the building of the schoolhouses. In
addition to this board there are the directors of the public schools,
twelve from each ward, who have the local supervision of the schools
in their respective sections. They are elected by the people, one-
third each year for three years. The schools are divided into
primary, secondary, and grammar schools, in addition to which
740
PHILADELPHIA
there is a central high school, a finishing school for boys, and a
normal school which is a finishing school tor girls, anil where they
can also be qualified to become teachers. Ihere are 465 public
schools in Philadelphia and 236 school - buildings of a value of
§4,186,200. In 1883 the city appropriated §1,637, 651 '04 to educa
tion. During the same period 105,424 children attended the
public schools, at an average cost per pupil of $15'35, and 82 male
and 20S6 female teachers are employed in their instruction.
Another noted educational institution in Philadelphia is Girard
College for orphans, endowed by Stephen Girard in 1831 for the
benefit of poor white male orphan children. By the will a prefer
ence is given first to orphans born in Philadelphia, second to those
born in Pennsylvania, third to those born in New York city, and
fourth to those' born in New Orleans. To be qualified for admis
sion the orphans must be between six and ten years of age ; and a
child without a father, while the mother is living, is held to be an
orphan entitled to admission. The buildings cost $1,933,S21'78,
and were formally opened in January 1848. The total value of the
estate applicable to the purposes of the college was on 31st December
1883 $10,138,268'10, and the gross receipts of income for the year
1SS3 were $976, 961' 06. During the same period there were 1105
boys inmates of the college. At Philadelphia are also the Pennsyl
vania Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb ; the
Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind ; the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, and the
first art school in America ; the School of Design for "Women ; the
Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art ; and the
Jefferson Medical College.
Libraries. — Philadelphia was for many years not only the first
city commercially in the country, but it was also the seat of letters.
"\Vhen the poet Moore visited America in 1804 he wrote to his
mother, of Philadelphia, "it is the only place in America that can
boast of a literary society. " Unfortunately it has much degenerated
in this respect in eighty years, and to-day but little attention is
paid by its people to letters and literature. To Franklin, again,
its first library is due. It grew' out of the Junto, and in 1731 the
Library Company of Philadelphia was established. In 1769 it
absorbed the Union Library Company, which had been formed some
few years before ; and in 1792 the Loganian Library, a valuable col
lection of classical and other works provided for under the will of
James Logan, a friend of Penn, was transferred to the Philadelphia
library. It subsequently acquired, by bequest, the libraries of the
Rev. Samuel Preston of London and of William Mackenzie of Phil
adelphia. Among the rarities in the latter was a copy of Caxton's
Golden Legend, 1486. In 1869 it was made the beneficiary, under
the will of Dr James Rush, of an estate valued at over a million
dollars. It has two library buildings and possesses about 145,000
volumes, as well as valuable manuscripts and broadsides. The
Mercantile Library Association is the popular circulating library of
the city, and contains 149,000 volumes. Other libraries are the
Athenteum, Apprentices' Library, Library of the Law Association,
and Friends' Library.
Learned Societies. — The American Philosophical Society is the
oldest organized body for the pursuit of philosophical investigation
in its broadest sense in America. It was founded also by Franklin,
25th May 1743, and incorporated 15th March 1780, with its founder
as president. It began the publication of its transactions in 1773,
and the 22d volume has been recently issued. The publication of
the proceedings of this society was commenced in 1838, and still
continues. Its library contains about 23, 000 volumes, and the society
also possesses valuable manuscript correspondence of Franklin.
The Academy of Natural Sciences was organized in 1812, and its
ornithological collection, which contains over 25,000 specimens, is
claimed to be the finest in the world. It has a fine library of
•works on the natural sciences, and publishes a journal and its
proceedings. The Franklin Institute for the promotion of the
mechanic arts started in 1824. It has a valuable library of over
2 "),000 volumes devoted to mechanics and kindred subjects, and
lias ever since its organization published a monthly journal. The
Historical Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 1824, and is
devoted to the preservation of material relating to the history of
the State. Its collections are of great historical value, and its
library contains more than 20,000 volumes. The Numismatic and
Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1858, was the first
organization on the American continent to engage in the pursuit
of numismatic science. It has a fine collection of coins and a good
library. Another notable body is the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, with a medical library of 23,000 volumes and a fine
museum of prepared specimens.
Newspapers. — The American Weekly Mercury was the first news-
11 iper published in Philadelphia and the third in the colonies,
t was started on 22d December 1719 by Andrew Bradford, a son
of William Bradford, the first printer in the middle colonies, and
t'ds paper was the first newspaper in the same section. On 21st
September 1784 the first daily newspaper in the United States was
iisued at Philadelphia. It was the .American Daily Advertiser,
subsequently published as Poulsons Daily Advertiser, and later
merged into the North American and United States Gazette, which
is thus by succession the oldest daily newspaper in the United
States. There are at present (July 1884) twenty daily newspapers
published in Philadelphia, eight of them being afternoon papers,
with an average circulation of 375,000, and seventy-seven weekly
newspapers, chiefly religious and Sunday secular papers.
Social Life. — Among Philadelphia's claims to priority she has
in her midst one of the oldest purely social clubs in existence, — the
Colony or State in Sehuylkill, which was formed in 1732. The
other purely social clubs in the city are the Philadelphia Club,
Social Art Club, and University Club. The Union League (Repub
lican) and Commonwealth (Democratic) are mixed social and poli
tical clubs. There are some organizations of a mixed social and
charitable character, such as the St George Society (1772), the St
David Society (1729), the St Andrew's Society (1749), and the Sons
of St Patrick or Hibernian Society (1771). The First Troop of
Philadelphia City Cavalry, formed in 1774, is a military organiza
tion of high social standing. There are also a gentlemen's driving
park or racecourse and innumerable cricket and boat clubs. There
is an opera-house capable of accommodating 3500 persons, and five
first-class theatres, but Philadelphia as a community seems not to
be a theatre-going people.
History. — Down to the "War of Independence the history of
Philadelphia is virtually that of PENNSYLVANIA (q.v.). The patent
granted to William Penn (see PENN, p. 495) for the territory em
braced within the present Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was
signed by Charles II. on the 24th of March 1681, and in the autumn
of that year Penn appointed three commissioners to proceed to
the new province and lay out a great city. This seems to have been
his chief thought in settling the province, and his instructions to
his commissioners were to select a site on the Delaware where " it
is most navigable, high, dry, and healthy ; that is where most
ships can best ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible to load
or unload at the bank or key side without boating or lightering of
it." These commissioners were William Crispen, Nathaniel Allen,
John Bezar, and William Heage. Crispen, who was a kinsman of
the proprietor, died on the voyage out, and the remaining com
missioners arrived toward the close of the year. They had been
preceded by Penn's cousin, Captain William Markham, as deputy-
governor, and were soon followed by the surveyor-general of the
province, Thomas Holme, who, as may be understood from his
office, was one of the most important men in the early history of
the city and State. The site of the city was speedily determined
upon, and Holme proceeded to lay it out according to the modified
instructions of Penn, and his Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia
in the Province of Pcnnsilvania in America was published and sold
by Andrew Sowle in Shoreditch, London, in 1683. This plan
shows the old part of the city as it is to-day, covering between 1200
and 1300 acres. Unfortunately no date can be fixed, even ap
proximately, for the founding of the city ; nor is the date known
of Penn's first visit to the capital of his province. He landed at
Newcastle on the Delaware on 27th October 1632, and two days
later came up as far as Upland, now Chester, 13 miles south of
Philadelphia. He doubtless did not remain long so near his pet
scheme without viewing it, but when he did first come to Phila
delphia is now unknown.1
The seat of government was fixed in Philadelphia by the meeting
of the governor and council on the 10th of March 1683, and the
General Assembly met two days later. For 117 years the city
continued to be the capital of Pennsylvania and was the most
important town, commercially, politically, and socially, in the
colonies during nearly the whole of this period. In October 1685
the first printing press established in the middle colonies was set
up here by William Bradford ; the earliest specimen of his work
which has survived to our day is his Kalcndarium Pennsy Ivan tense
or America's Messenger, leing an Almanack for the year of Grace
1686. The printing press was followed in 1690 by a paper-mill,
erected by William Rittenhouse, a Mennonite preacher, on the
Wissahickon creek, a locality which has ever since remained a
favourite for the manufacture of paper. The one man, next to
William Penn, whose influence was most deeply impressed upon
Philadelphia as upon the affairs of the colony, was Benjamin
Franklin, whose power was felt almost on his first landing in
October 1723, when in his eighteenth year, and its impress is seen
to-day. Four years after he settled here lie formed a club for
mutual improvement, which he called the "Junto," out of which
subsequently grew the American Philosophical Society for the pro
motion of useful knowledge and the Library Company of Philadel
phia. He also originated the present university of Pennsylvania,
organized the first fire-engine company in the city, and was instru
mental in founding the Pennsylvania Hospital. In March 1753
i In Philadelphia for many years stood a famous elm tree, known as the
treaty tree, and when it was blown clown in 1810 a stone was placed to mark
the spot. Tradition had it that under this tree Penn, on his first coming to
Philadelphia, held a treaty of amity and friendship with the Indians,— a treaty
not sworn to and never broken. The light of investigation has dispelled this
tradition and relegated it to the category of mythology, along with the stories
of William Tell and Captain Smith and Pocahontas.
P H I — P H I
741
the first Arctic expedition ever sent out from America sailed from
Philadelphia. The vessel, called the " Argo," was commanded by
Captain Swaine, but her voyage accomplished nothing of import
ance. In 1770 the first factory for the manufacture of fine porce
lain in the colonies was established at Philadelphia by a Swiss and
an Englishman, but the difficulty of obtaining competent workmen
forced its abandonment two years later. During the war of the re
volution Philadelphia was the virtual capital of the colonies and the
scene of all the prominent civil events of those stirring times. The
first Congress met at Carpenter's Hall on 4th September 1774 ; on
24th May 1775 Congress reconvened in the old State house and
here continued its sittings, except when the city was threatened by
the enemy and in his possession. On 2d July 1776 the " resolutions
respecting independency " were passed, and on the 4th July 1776
Philadelphia was the scene of the adoption of the Declaration of
Independence ; and the old State house became ever afterwards
Independence Hall. On 9th July 1778 "the articles of confedera
tion and perpetual union between the independent States of
America " were here adopted and signed, and in the same place the
convention to frame a constitution for the United States of America
met on 14th May 1787, with Washington as presiding officer, and
continued its sessions until 17th September, when the work was
finished and the fundamental law of the land given to the world.
The affairs of state were thus placed on a firm foundation, while the
affairs of the church had received the attention of the people the
previous year. In June 1786 the clerical and lay delegates from
the Protestant Episcopal churches in the United States met in
Philadelphia and formally organized " the Protestant Episcopal
Church in North America." The Congress of the United States
had held its opening session in New York, but in December 1790 it
reassembled at Philadelphia ; and for ten years the seat of govern
ment was at Philadelphia, until it Avas permanently removed to
the District of Columbia. Here Washington delivered his farewell
address to the people of the United States, and here he retired
from public life. As in Philadelphia the first bank in the colonies
had been opened — the bank of North America in 1781— so in Phil
adelphia the first mint for the coinage of the money of the United
States was established in 1792. Both of these institutions are still
in full operation. In April 1816 Congress incorporated the bank
of the United States, which was the second banking institution of
that name chartered by the Government, and fixed it at Philadel
phia. The affairs of this institution form a very important chapter
in the history of the city, as indeed in the history of the whole
country. It had an unsettled existence, until the final blow came
from President Jackson, towards the close of his first term of office,
in 1833. Being opposed to the continuance of the bank, he with
drew the public deposits, amounting to about $8,000,000, the result
of which was widespread ruin and business depression, not only in
Philadelphia but elsewhere.
The two events of greatest note which have taken place in the
city in recent years have been the centennial celebration of the
independence of the colonies in 1876, and the bi-ceritennial cele
bration of the landing of William Penn in 1882. The centennial
celebration was of the greatest moment, owing to the Exposition
of the Industries of All Nations, which was open from ] Oth May
to 10th November ; the total admissions reached the number of
9,910,966 persons. (C. H. H*.)
PRILJK. See EGYPT, vol. vii. p. 783 sy.
PHILEMON, the oldest poet of the New Attic Comedy,
was the son of Damon, and was born at Soli in Cilicia,
or, according to others, at Syracuse ; but early in life he
settled at Athens. Since he died in 262 B.C. at an age
variously stated at from 96 to 101 years, he must have
been born somewhere about 360. He was thus older than
his contemporary and great rival Menander, whom he fre
quently vanquished in poetical contests, and Avhom he long
survived. Posterity, however, reversed the judgment of
their contemporaries and assigned the palm to Menander.
Philemon's first play was put on the stage about 330,
while Menander did not exhibit until 321. It appears that,
once being worsted in a poetical competition, Philemon
went into exile. He certainly made a journey to the East,
but whether on the occasion of his exile or in compliance
with the invitation of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, we cannot
say. On this journey, being driven by a storm to the
coast of Gyrene, he was treated with cool contempt by
Magas, king of Gyrene, whom he had satirized. From
the various legends told about his death he would seem to
have died in the full enjoyment and use of his poetical
powers. Of the ninety-seven plays which he is said to
have composed none are extant ; the titles of fifty-three
have been preserved, but some of these may have been
the work of his son, the younger Philemon, who is said to
have composed fifty-four comedies. The Merchant and
The, Treasure, of Philemon were the originals respectively
of the Mercator and Trinummus of Plautus. The New
Attic Comedy, of which Philemon was in a sense tho
founder, dealt mainly Avith subjects drawn from private
life, which were worked up in elaborate plots and treated
in a prosaic style, to the exclusion, on the whole, of the
political tendency, stinging personal satire, and warm
poetical colouring, which had marked the Old Attic Comedy.
These characteristics of the New Comedy had already
appeared, though in a less degree, in the Middle and even
in the Old Attic Comedy ; so that to Philemon belongs
the credit, not of inventing, but of developing a style
which had occasionally been employed before. In its
absence of poetical idealism and restriction to the prosaic
realism of daily life the New Comedy stands to the Old
somewhat as the comedies of Moliere or Sheridan stand to
those of Shakespeare. Its repertoire was limited to a few
stock characters — the imprudent lover, the designing fair,
the stingy father, the greedy parasite, the blustering
swashbuckler — and its plots rang the changes on the well-
worn theme of thwarted but faithful love, rescued from
its difficulties by the discovery of a long-lost relative and
ending in marriage. In the many fragments of Philemon
preserved by Stobseus, Athenaeus, and other writers there
is much wit and good sense.
The fragments have been collected and edited by Meineke,
Menandri et Philcmonis Rcliquise, Berlin, 1823 ; and again in his
Fragmenta Comicorum Gr&corum, vol. iv., Berlin, 1841. They are
also appended to the Didot edition of Aristophanes (Paris, 1839).
PHILEMON, EPISTLE TO. This, which is the shortest
of the extant epistles of St Paul, stands to the other books
of the New Testament in a relation similar to that of the
book of Ruth to the other books of the Old Testament.
It is an idyl of domestic life. Onesimus, the slave of one
of Paul's converts in Asia Minor, had run away from his
master, probably, as was often the case with runaways,
after stealing some of his money. He had come to Paul,
more probably at Rome than, as some have thought, at
Caesarea, and Paul had converted him. Paul sends him
back to his master, begging that he may be kindly treated
as being now a brother Christian, and formally undertak
ing to repay what he owed. The epistle is addressed not
only to Philemon but to Apphia, who was probably his
wife, to Archippus (possibly the head of the community
at Colossse or Laodicea, Col. iv. 17), and to the community
which either, like some of the Roman collegia, consisted of
Philemon's household or held its meetings in his house.
It has sometimes been regarded as an appendix to the
epistle to the Colossians on the grounds (1) that Onesimus
was sent with both letters (Col. iv. 9 ; Philem. 10-12), (2)
that in both letters salutations are sent to Archippus (Col.
iv. 17 ; Philem. 2), and (3) that the same persons are men
tioned in both letters as being with Paul at the time of
writing (Col. i. 1, iv. 7-14; Philem. 1, 23, 24). This ap
parent connexion with the epistle to the Colossians is the
basis of the chief arguments which have been used against
its genuineness. Baur (Paul, E. T., vol. ii. p. 84) thinks
that this "attractive, graceful, and friendly letter" is
merely a practical commentary, in the form of a fiction, on
the general conception of the relations of masters to Christ
ian slaves which is set forth in Col. iv. 1. But this view
has few supporters. The genuineness of the epistle is
almost universally admitted. The best modern works
upon it are Bishop Lightfoot's Colossians and Philemon
(3d ed., London, 1879) and Holtzmann's essay, "Dei-
Brief an Philemon," in the Zeitschr. f. luissensch. Theol.,
1873, p. 428.
742
P H I — P H I
PHILETAS, a distinguished poet and critic of the
Alexandrian school, was the son of Telephus and a native
of the island of Cos. He lived in the reigns of Philip,
Alexander the Great, and Ptolemy I. of Egypt, the last of
whom appointed him tutor to his son Ptolemy Philadelphus.
His life thus fell in the latter part of the 4th and early
part of the 3rd century B.C. He was a contemporary of
Menander, a friend of the poet Hermesianax of Cos, and
lived into the time of Aratus. Amongst his pupils were
Theocritus and Zenodotus. He was sickly and so thin
that he Avas said to carry lead in his shoes to keep himself
from being blown away. The story runs that he died from
the excessive assiduity with which he sought the answer
to the sophistical problem called "The Liar."1 A bronze
statue of him was erected in Cos.
The fame of Philetas rested chiefly on his elegiac verses, in
which, however, he was esteemed inferior to the younger poet
Callimachus. He is frequently mentioned by the Latin elegiac
poets Propertius and Ovid. From Hermesianax and Ovid we gather
that his verses were amatory and celebrated the praises of the fair
Bittis or Battis, but her name does not occur in the existing frag
ments, which are of a melancholy rather than an amatory tone.
In one of his poems (Demetcr) he depicted the grief of Demeter for
the loss of Proserpine ; in another (Hermes) the love of Polymele
for Ulysses. The latter poem appears from the fragments to have
been composed in hexameter verse. Further, he wrote epigrams
and poems called Haiyvta. There is no evidence that he wrote
bucolic poems, for the passage in Moschus formerly quoted to prove
this is an interpolation of Musneus. Some iambic verses are attri
buted to him, probably by a mistake arising from a common con
fusion between names beginning with Phil. Besides his poems,
Philetas was the author of a vocabulary explaining the meanings
of rare and obscure words, including words peculiar to certain
dialects. He also wrote notes on Homer. The work on Naxos
(Xa£iaKa), sometimes attributed to him, was perhaps rather by
Philteas. The fragments of Philetas have been edited by Kayser,
Gbttingen, 1793, and by Bach, Halle, 1829.
PHILIDOR, FRANCOIS ANDRE DANICAN (1726-1795).
See CHESS, vol. v. p. 601.
PHILIP, one of the twelve apostles, mentioned fifth in
all the lists (Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18 ; Luke vi. 14 ; Acts
i. 13), is a mere name in the Synoptists, but a figure of
some prominence in the Fourth Gospel. There he is said
to have been "of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter,"
and to have received his call to follow Jesus at Bethany,
having previously been, it would seem, a disciple of the
Baptist (John i. 43, 44). Philip was at that time the
means of bringing Nathanael to Jesus (John i. 45), and
at a later date he, along with Andrew, carried the request
of the incpuiring Greeks to the Master (John xii. 22).
Philip and Andrew alone are mentioned by name in con
nexion with the feeding of the five thousand (John vi. 5,
7), and Philip is also one of the few interlocutors in John
xiv. After the resurrection he was present at the election
of Matthias as successor to Judas, but he does not again
appear in the New Testament history ; it is, however,
implied that he still continued in Jerusalem after the out
break of the first persecution.
According to Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, in his controversial
letter written to Victor of Rome towards the end of the 2d century
(ap. Euseb., H. E., iii. 31, v. 24), the graves of Philip, "one of the
twelve," and of his two aged virgin daughters were in [the Phrygian]
Hierapolis ; a third daughter, "who had lived in the Holy Ghost,"
was buried at Ephesus. Proclus, one of the interlocutors in the
"Dialogue of Caius," a writing of somewhat later date than the
letter of Polycrates, mentions (ap. Euseb., H. E., iii. 31) "four
prophetesses, the daughters of Philip at Hierapolis in Asia, whose
tomb and that of their father are to be seen there." But Euscbius
himself proceeds expressly to identify this Philip with the Philip
mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as living in Crcsarea ; and
in another place he alludes to Philip " the apostle " as having
preached the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch (//. E., ii. 1). Clement
of Alexandria also (Strom., iii. 6 [52]) incidentally speaks of
" Philip the apostle " as having begotten children and as having
given daughters in marriage. In another place (Strom., iv. 9 [73])
Clement quotes, with concurrence, a passage from the Gnostic
1 The problem was this : If a man says he is telling a lie, does he
speak truly or falsely ?
Heraclcon, in which it is expressly said that Matthew, Philip,
Thomas, and others died without "confession of the voice," or, in
other words, were not, properly speaking, confessors or martyrs.
A later stage of the tradition regarding Philip appears in various
late apocryphal writings which have been edited by Tischendorf in
his Ada Apostolorum Apocrypha, and in his Apocalypses Apocrypha.
According to the Ada PMlippi, this apostle, along with Bartholo
mew and Mariamne, the sister of the latter, came to Ophiorynia or
Hierapolis, where the success of their preaching, and more par
ticularly the conversion and miraculous healing of Nicanora, the
wife of the governor, provoked bitter hostility. Philip was crucified
head downwards, and invoked curses on his persecutors. His im
precations were heard, but the Lord Jesus immediately afterwards
appeared to him and rebuked him for his want of meekness, further
announcing his approaching death, and that on account of his sin
he would be kept back forty days from the gates of paradise. The
ActctPhilippi in Hclladc (i.e., "in the city of Athens, called Hellas")
are still more fantastical. An apocryphal book, under the title
Actus Pliilippi, is condemned in tne canon of Gelasius. Since the
6th century Philip has been commemorated in the West, along with
St James the Less, on 1st May, their relics being deposited in the
same church in Rome ; in the Eastern Church Philip's day is 14th
November, and that of James the Less 23d October.
PHILIP, "the evangelist," is first mentioned in the
Acts (vi. 5) as one of " the seven " who were chosen to
attend to certain temporal affairs of the church in Jerusa
lem in consequence of the murmurings of the Hellenists
against the Hebrews. After the martyrdom of Stephen
he went to Samaria, where he preached with much success,
Simon Magus being one of his converts. He afterwards
instructed and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch on the road
between Jerusalem and Gaza ; next he was " caught
away" by the Spirit and "found at Azotus " (Ashdod),
whence " passing through he preached in all the cities till
he came to Ciesarea" (Acts viii.). Here some years after
wards, according to Acts xxi. 8, 9, he entertained Paul
and his companion on their way to Jerusalem ; at that
time " he had four daughters which did prophesy." At a
very early period he came to be confounded with the sub
ject of the preceding notice (q.v.) ; the confusion was all
the more easy because, while he undoubtedly could in a
certain well -understood sense of the word be called an
" apostle," writers naturally refrained from applying to
him the more ambiguous designation of " evangelist."
" Philip the deacon " is commemorated on 6th June.
PHILIP, tetrarch of Ituraea. See HEROD PHILIP, vol.
xi. p. 755.
PHILIP, the name of five kings of Macedon. The
greatest of these was PHILIP II. (382-336 B.C.), the first
founder of the MACEDONIAN EMPIRE (</.-?'.). After the
death of Alexander the Great, Arrhidoms, a bastard of
Philip II., reigned as PHILIP III., till he was put to death
by Olympias in 317. PHILIP IV., son of Cassander, reigned
only for a few months in 296. PHILIP V., the last but one
of the kings of Macedon and son of Demetrius II., was
born in 237, and came to the throne on the death of his
uncle, Antigonus Doson, in 220. In the course of the next
three years he acquired a brilliant reputation by his ex
ploits against the vEtolians and their allies in the Pelo
ponnesus in the Social War ; but after this, though his
whole career was marked by military and even political
ability, the bad sides of his character became predominant,
and he appeared more and more as a perfidious, morose, and
cruel tyrant, thus alienating the affections of the Greeks
and ultimately even of his own subjects. His life was
full of ambitious schemes, but he made the cardinal error
of siding with Carthage against Rome. His character
made it easy for the Romans to raise against him a power
ful coalition of his neighbours, but Philip held his ground
with vigour till the armies of the republic themselves
appeared on the field. How he was finally driven out of
Greece has been related under FLAMININUS. After 196
Philip for some time accepted his reverses and sought the
friendship of Rome, helping the republic against Antiochus;
PHILIP
743
but his ambition and the jealousy of the senate gradually
led to fresh complications, and a new war was imminent
when Philip died in 179, mainly of remorse for the death
of his younger son Demetrius, the favourite of Rome, whom
he had executed on an accusation forged by his elder son
and heir Perseus.
PHILIP I. (1052-1108), king of France, was the son
of Henry I. and Anne of Russia, and was born in 1052.
He was associated with his father on the throne in 1059,
the consecration taking place at Rheims (23d May), and
he succeeded to the undivided sovereignty in the following
year (4th August 1060), first under the regency of his
mother, and afterwards, from 1062 to 1067, under that of
Baldwin V., count of Flanders. In 1072 he married
Bertha, daughter of Robert the Frisian, at whoge hands
he had sustained a shameful defeat at Cassel in the pre
ceding year. His jealousy of William the Conqueror led
him into an act of overt hostility in 1075, when his troops
raised the siege of Dol, and a state of war, interrupted by
inconsiderable intervals, continued thenceforward to subsist
until the death of William. Philip afterwards supported,
but ineffectually, the pretensions of Robert of Normandy
against William Rufus. In 1092 he brought himself into
collision with the church by shutting up his wife Bertha
Avith her three children in the castle of Montreuil, and
espousing Bertrada of Montfort, whom he had induced to
leave her husband, Fulk of Anjou. The marriage was
indeed sanctioned after Bertha's death by a subservient
council at Rheims in 1094, but led to the king's excom
munication by the council of Autun in the same year
— a censure Avhich was renewed by Pope Urban II. at
Clermont in 1095. Having dismissed Bertrada early in
1097, he was forthwith absolved, but on a repetition of
the offence three years afterwards the sentence was re
newed, at Poitiers, and only removed by Paschal II. after
Philip had once more submitted himself to the church.
In 1100 he made his son Louis (afterwards Louis VI.)
joint king, and his death took place at Melun on 29th
July 1108. See FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 537-539.
PHILIP II. (1165-1223), surnamed "Augustus," king of
France, was the son of Louis VII., and was born in August
1165. When fifteen years old he was crowned joint king
at Rheims on 1st November 1179. In the following year
he was again crowned along with his newly-wedded wife,
Margaret of Hainault, at St Denis (29th May 1180); the
death of his father took place a few months afterwards.
For an account of Philip II. 's character and of the leading
events of his reign the reader is referred to FRANCE, vol.
ix. pp. 540-542. He died at Mantes on 14th July 1223.
PHILIP III. (1245-1285), surnamed "the Rash," king
of France, was born in 1245 and succeeded his father Louis
IX. on 25th August 1270, at Tunis, where, after con
tinuing the siege for some time, he made a truce of ten
years and embarked for France in the following November.
He was twice married, first to Isabella of Aragon in 1258,
and subsequently to Mary of Brabant. He died at Per-
pignan on 5th October 1285. See FRANCE, vol. ix. p. 544.
PHILIP IV. (1268-1314), surnamed "the Fair," son
of the preceding, was born at Fontainebleau in 1268, was
married to Joanna, queen of Navarre, in 1284, accompanied
his father into Aragon in 1285, and was proclaimed king
of France at Perpignan on 6th October of that year. See
FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 544-545. He died at Fontainebleau
on 29th November 1314.
PHILIP V. (1293-1322), surnamed "the Tall," second
son of the preceding, succeeded his elder brother, Louis
X., in January 1317, and was succeeded by his younger
brother Charles IV. in January 1322.
PHILIP VI. (1293-1350) was the eldest son of Charles,
count of Valois, the younger brother of Philip IV., and
was born in 1293. He succeeded his cousin Charles TV.
in 1328, and died at Nogent-le-Roi near Chartres on 22d
August 1350. See FRANCE, vol. ix. pp. 545-546.
PHILIP I. (1478-1506), of Castile and Aragon, sur
named "the Handsome," was the son of the emperor
Maximilian I. and Mary, the only child of Charles the
Bold, last prince of the house of Burgundy, and was born
at Bruges on 22d July 1478. He succeeded his mother
in 1482, Maximilian being recognized as governor and
guardian during the minority by all the provinces, except
Flanders, the burghers of which took possession of Philip,
and carried on the government in his name. This arrange
ment subsisted until 1489, when a long struggle resulted
in the triumph of Maximilian, who henceforth had the
guardianship uncontrolled. In 1494 Philip received the
homage of the various states of the Netherlands, and in
1496 he was married to Joanna (Juana la Loca), second
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile and Aragon.
On the early death of the other children of these sovereigns
the succession vested in Joanna, and Philip as her husband
proceeded to Spain, where he was recognized as heir-pre
sumptive by the cortes of Toledo and Saragossa (represent
ing Castile and Aragon respectively) in 1 502. He returned,
however, to Flanders before the close of the year, and was
still absent when, on the death of Isabella in November
1504, Ferdinand caused Joanna and Philip to be proclaimed
sovereigns of Castile, but at the same time assumed the
regency to himself. It was only with difficulty that
Ferdinand was induced to retire to Aragon and so make
way for the new king in June 1506. Philip died three
months afterwards (25th September 1506) at Burgos.
His children by Joanna were Charles V., emperor, and
king of Spain ; Ferdinand I., emperor ; Isabella, queen of
Denmark ; Leonora, queen of Portugal and afterwards
of France ; Mary, queen of Hungary and governor of the
Netherlands ; and Catharine, queen of Portugal.
PHILIP II. (1527-1598), king of Spain, was the son of
the emperor Charles V. and Isabella of Portugal, and
was born at Valladolid on 21st May 1527. He was
brought up in Castile under the care of his mother, who
died when he was twelve years old. As Philip grew up,
his father, though he rarely saw his son, watched carefully
over his education and strove to fit him for political life.
In 1543 Philip married Mary of Portugal, who died in
1545, soon after the birth of a son, Don Carlos. In 1548
Charles V. summoned Philip to Brussels, that he might
gain some experience of the peoples whom he would be
called upon to rule. He was not, however, popular with
his future subjects. He had already formed his character
upon the model of Spanish haughtiness. He was cold,
reserved, punctilious about decorum, and wanting in
geniality. The Italians did not care for him ; the Flemings
disliked him ; the Germans hated him. His appearance
and manner did not further his father's plan of securing
his election to the empire. The scheme failed, and Philip's
presence was in no way helpful. In 1551 he returned to
the more congenial task of governing Spain.
The death of Edward VI. of England opened out to
Charles V. new prospects for his son. Queen Mary
regarded the emperor as her only friend, and submitted
herself entirely to his guidance. She received with joy
a proposal for her marriage with Philip. The English
opposition broke down with the failure of Wyatt's rebellion,
and in 1554 Philip came to England to claim his bride.
Charles V. resigned to him Naples and Sicily that he
might not come as a . needy prince. Philip was well sup
plied with Spanish gold, and was charged by his father to
spare no pains in conciliating the English. He tried his
best ; but his cold, ungenial manner was a hopeless obstacle
to his success. Mary was devotedly attached to her hus-
744
PHILIP II.
band, who exercised a moderating influence over the queen's
zeal for the re-establishment of Catholicism. Charles V.
wished to secure England as an ally, and subordinated
religious to political considerations. Philip was not natur
ally fitted for conciliatory action, and was not happy in
England. He found that his wife was destined to be
childless and that he had no prospect of succeeding to the
English crown. At the end of 1555 he joyfully obeyed
his father's summons to go to Brussels. Charles V., worn
out by the fatigue of a long reign, resolved to abdicate in
favour of his son, and this he did on 16th January 1556.
Philip II. was now king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily,
duke of Milan, lord of Tranche Comte and the Nether
lands, ruler of Tunis and the Barbary coast, the Canaries and
Cape de Verd Islands, the Philippines and Spice Islands,
large colonies in the West Indies, and the vast territories
of Mexico and Peru. These great dominions had fallen
into his father's hands and were united only by their
dependence on their ruler. It was Philip's task to give
them an organic unity and combine them into a system.
First he had to face a threatening league against his
power. Pope Paul IV., a Neapolitan, was imbued with
hatred of the Spanish rule, and formed an alliance with
Henry II. of France. Philip sent the duke of Alva, who
speedily reduced the intractable pope. But Philip was
too good a Catholic to press his victory. He was content
to leave the pope powerless, and Alva on his knees asked
pardon for bearing arms against the church. The war
against France was pursued Avith equal success and greater
results. Philip's army, led by Philibert of Savoy, entered
Picardy and besieged St Quentin. The French were
defeated in an attempt to relieve the city, and St Quentin
was stormed. The French retaliated by seizing Calais
from England, and thence advanced into Flanders, where
they were again defeated in the bloody battle of Grave-
lines. Both Philip II. and Henry II. were destitute of
resources and wished for peace; but Philip II. was the better
diplomatist. The treaty of Cateau Cambresis in 1559
restored to him all that France had won by its long war
fare against Charles V. in Italy and the Netherlands.
Thus Philip began his reign with glory, and Europe
saw that Charles V. had no unworthy successor. Yet
Philip was not anxious for military glory. His finances
were embarrassed and he felt the need of a period of peace.
For the purpose of maintaining his political supremacy he
proposed to continue his English alliance by marrying
Elizabeth when she succeeded Mary on the English throne.
Elizabeth did not at once reject the proposal ; but she
gradually entered upon a religious policy which made
marriage with Philip impossible. The Spanish king rapidly
changed his plans and cemented his alliance with France
by a union (24th June 1559) with Isabella, daughter of
Henry II. He made arrangements for the government
of the Netherlands, and at the end of 1559 returned to
Spain, where he remained for the rest of his life.
The policy of Philip was steadily directed towards
welding his dominions together in dependence on himself
and extending his influence over Europe. The power of
Charles V. had had no definite centre. The emperor had
recognized the claims of his separate dominions upon
him, and had striven to be neither German, Spanish,
Flemish, nor Italian. Philip identified himself entirely
with Spain. Castile was to be the seat of his monarchy,
and that monarchy was to be absolute. He was devoted
to Catholicism, and during his reign superseded the pope
as the head of the Catholic party in Europe. But the
interests of Catholicism were in his mind identified with
his own personal interests, and under the cover of zeal for
the church he pursued the aggrandizement of Spain. In
Spain itself his care for the maintenance of the Catholic
faith accorded with the temper of the people. The long
continuance of war against the Moors had identified ortho
doxy with purity of race, and heresy was regarded as a
taint in the blood. The rigour of the Inquisition preserved
the national honour ; the auto-da-fe was a means of ridding
the land of dangerous elements. This uncompromising
spirit of Spain in religious matters its king wished to
extend to the rest of his dominions.
Philip had none of his father's personal activity.
Though his mind was always engaged in the business of
the state, he did not care for the excitement of personal
conflict. He was no warrior, and never took the field.
He felt himself best qualified to direct his policy from
afar. He was resolved to make the fullest use of others,
yet to keep the guidance of affairs in his own hands. He
increased the number of councils for the management of the
business of the different provinces of his realm, and in the.se
councils natives of the various provinces had seats. But
the general direction of affairs was in the hands of a privy
council, entirely composed of Spaniards. At first this
council consisted chiefly of the members of Philip's house
hold, the men whom he had known in early days. Fore
most amongst them were the duke of Alva and Euy
Gomez do Silva, prince of Eboli. Alva was a general,
Gomez a courtier, and the two men were in permanent
opposition. This exactly suited Philip's views. He was
never present in person at the sittings of the council.
All questions on which he wished for its opinion were
reduced to writing and laid before it. Its recommenda
tions were similarly submitted to the king in writing.
There was no initiative except by his pleasure, no decision
which was not due to his personal approval. He gained
all the advantages of opposing views amongst his ministers
without identifying himself with any. No minister could
become a necessity to him, and he could withdraw hi.s
favour at will. Philip's regents and ministers in the
several provinces had large authority, but were never
allowed to forget their dependence on the central power.
Every land was submissive except the Netherlands, where
the nobles resented their exclusion from the government,
and saw with alarm the steady advance of Philip's system.
A new ecclesiastical organization increased the number of
bishops, who were all dependent on the king, and dimin
ished the revenues of the monasteries, which furnished
provisions for the younger members of the noble families.
The introduction of the Spanish Inquisition threatened
to destroy entirely the political importance of the nobles.
In the general discontent the Protestant feeling of the
towns made common cause with the national jealousy of
the nobles. A strong opposition was formed, and in 1560
the Netherlands were in revolt. For a time Philip wavered
between a policy of conciliation and a policy of repression.
At last he listened to the advice of the duke of Alva, and
sent him to reduce the rebels. Alva treated the revolted
provinces with merciless severity; he crushed, but he could
not subdue. The Netherlands were still unpacificd, while
Alva's cruelty destroyed their commerce. Their wealth
had been the chief source of revenue to Charles V.; Philip
II. no longer found it flow into his coffers. For seven
years Alva resolutely tried his policy of repression ; but
the spirit of the Netherlands remained unbroken, and
round their slumbering revolt all the enemies of the
Spanish monarchy began to gather. Alva was recalled
and fell into disgrace. A more pacific successor, Don Luis
de Requesens, was sent to try a more conciliatory policy.
In domestic life, meanwhile, Philip was unhappy. His
son Don Carlos developed an ungovernable temper, and
did not hesitate to condemn his father's caution as un
worthy of the traditions of his house. He wished to
distinguish himself, and was on the point of quitting
PHILIP II.
745
Spain when his father, as a measure of precaution, had
him imprisoned. In prison Don Carlos yielded to sullen
despair, and gave way to excesses, which Philip did not
try to check. In consequence of this unwholesome life
Don Carlos died in 1568, and it was a bitter blow to the
haughty king to inform foreign princes of the facts. It
would seem that Philip was glad to be rid of one whom
he could not manage ; he did not hasten the death of Don
Carlos, but he took no steps to prevent it. A few months
later died Queen Isabella, leaving Philip without a male
heir. In 1570 he married his fourth wife, Anne of Austria,
his niece, who died in 1580. Only one of her sons survived
to manhood, and he succeeded his father as Philip III.
Meanwhile the hopes of Spain were fixed on Philip's half-
brother, Don John of Austria, who first showed his military
skill by putting down a serious revolt of the Moriscos
in the Alpuxarras, and was then sent to command the
Spanish fleet in the joint expedition of the Mediterranean
powers against the Turk. He commanded at the decisive
battle of Lepanto in 1571, which stemmed the tide of
Turkish conquest. Brave and ambitious, Don John longed
for a kingdom, and offered to undertake the conquest of
the African coast. But Philip did not wish his brother
to gain too much military glory. He sent him in 1576 to
succeed Requesens in the Netherlands. Don John was
full of great schemes, — -to pacify the Netherlands, invade
England, release Mary Queen of Scots, and become her
husband. But the Spanish treasury was exhausted.
Philip Avould send no more supplies, and left Don John
to temporize with the Netherlander, a task for which he
was entirely unfit. Overwhelmed with disappointment
and the sense of failure, Don John died in 1578, leaving
the work which ho could not accomplish to be undertaken
by the patient genius of Alexander Farnese.
Don John had had the art of impressing his great schemes
on those around him. He sent his secretary, Escovedo, to
urge his wishes on Philip, whose jealous mind was filled
with suspicion. Escovedo awakened the personal dislike
of Antonio Perez, and was murdered by that minister's
instrumentality (see PEREZ). The fall of the old parties in
the council brought forward new men and inaugurated a
new policy. Cardinal Granvella, Juan Idiaquez, and Chris-
toval de Moura became the king's chief advisers. They
were men who depended solely on his favour, and were
not connected with the old nobility of Castile. Hitherto
Philip's policy had been in the main pacific. He had
aimed at the internal consolidation of the monarchy, and
had striven by every means to overcome the revolt of the
Netherlands. But the resolute temper of the Nether-
landers was encouraged by hopes of foreign help. England,
France, and even Austria in turn displayed their jealousy
of Philip's power by helping to keep alive the insurrection.
Hound the revolt of the Netherlands centred the chief
questions of European politics. Philip at length deter
mined to make the subjection of the rebellious provinces
part of a great scheme to extend the power of Spain over
Europe. In the second period of his reign ho came forward
as tha disturber of European peace, determined to reduce
western Christendom to religious unity under his own
rule. He interfered in the internal politics of every
country and seized on every opportunity for pursuing his
own schemes. His first step in the career of aggrandize
ment was taken in 1580 by the reduction of Portugal,
when he claimed the vacant crown by right of his
mother. The duke of Alva overran the country before
any other power had time to interfere. The last of the
great Spanish nobles, who had already felt the weight of
the king's displeasure, was still a willing instrument in
extending the royal despotism. Philip succeeded in im
pressing on Spain an unreasoning loyalty, which took
the place of its old chivalrous patriotism. In the Nether
lands he put William of Orange under the ban, and the
assassination of William was the first sign of the fana
tical bitterness which Philip was ready to encourage and
to use. In France he resolved to check the power of
the court and obtain an influence over French affairs.
The strongly Catholic party resented the favour shown by
Henry III. to the Huguenots, and was anxious about the
succession to the crown. Headed by the Guises, they
formed a league with Philip in January 1585, which
plunged France into long and bitter warfare. The rapid
advance of the League in France and the successes of
Alexander Farnese in the Netherlands awakened the alarm
of England. Troops were sent to the Netherlands, and
the English privateers redoubled their attacks upon the
treasure-ships of the Indies in the Spanish Main. Resolved
to remove all hindrances from his path, Philip undertook
the reduction of England. He trusted to the strength of
the Spanish navy, the military skill of Alexander Farnese,
and the discontent of the English Catholics. In 1588 the
French king had become a mere instrument of the League,
and Philip sent against England the "Invincible Armada."
Its failure involved the failure of all his schemes, though
this fact was not at first obvious. Philip bore his loss
with resignation. "I sent my ships," he said, "against
men, not against the billows. I thank God that I can
place another fleet upon the sea." But he was never
able to renew his attack upon England. The murder of
Henry III. of France raised the question of the succession
to the French crown, and Philip's protectorate over the
titular Charles X. was admitted. On the death of Charles
the Catholic party were willing to recognize Philip's
daughter Isabella as their queen. But the resolute bearing
of Henry of Navarre kindled anew the national feeling,
and the discussions about Isabella's future husband brought
political questions into the foreground and weakened the
cohesion of the League. The death of Alexander Farnese
in 1592 deprived Philip of the great general who alone
could hold in check Henry of Navarre, and Henry's change
of religion and absolution by the pope in 1593 did much
to remove the religious difficulty to his recognition by
all parties in France. Philip's schemes for a general
European ascendency entirely failed. He could not even
recover the Netherlands for the Spanish monarchy. The
northern provinces, banded together as the United Nether
lands, made good their independence. The southern pro
vinces returned to their obedience, but were ceded by
Philip to his daughter Isabella and her husband Albert of
Austria. The English cruisers became more and more
dangerous in the Spanish Main, and in 1596 the English
fleet sacked Cadiz. Philip II. 's reign ended in general
failure. His resources were exhausted, and in 1597 he
repudiated his debts. His economic policy was disastrous.
He checked commerce by unwise taxes, trusted unduly
to the wealth of the Indies, and encouraged the indolent
haughtiness of the Castilians. He raised Spain to a high
position, but left it with a ruinous system of govern
ment, which could only end in financial decay. Yet he
was resolute and persevering to the end. He bore with
constancy a painful and lingering illness, and his last
words were, "I die like a good Catholic, in faith and
obedience to the Holy Roman Church." But he knew that
he left a feeble successor. His jealous temper showed
itself in the narrow education and secluded life which he
prescribed for his son, and thereby intensified the boy's
natural timidity. "God has* not been pleased," he sadly
said at the last, "to grant me a successor capable of ruling
my great realm." He died at the Escorial in September
1598.
Philip II. 's character is impressed on the great archi-
XVIII. — 94
746
P H I — P H I
tectural monument of his reign, the Escorial, built in the
solitude of the Guadarrama hills. The mighty mass of
buildings contained a monastery, a burying -place for the
royal house, and a palace for the king. It was built in con
sequence of a vow made at the battle of St Quentin. The
battle was fought on St Lawrence's day 1557, and this fact
was commemorated by arranging the building in the form
of a gridiron. The cloister of the monastery supplied the
bars, and the royal palace projected like the handle. Philip
loved solitude. It harmonized with his habits of quiet
industry. He governed his dominions by means of des
patches, as a merchant seated in his office transacts com
mercial business in different quarters of the globe. All
that could be done by patient industry, without political
insight, Philip II. did. His strength lay in his steady
persistency. During his reign he was the foremost figure
in European history, but the only work which he accom
plished was the formation of the Spanish character into
the definite shape in which it influenced European culture.
Literature. — Cabrera, Filipe Scgitndo ; Leti, Vita di Filippo II. ;
Sepulveda, DC Rebus Gcstis Philippi II. ; Alberi, Relazioni Vencte ;
Weiss, Papicrs d'Etat de Cardinal Granvcllc ; Gachard, Com-
spondance de Philippe II., and Don Carlos ct Philippe II. ; Calendar
of State Papers, Mary and Elizabeth ; Documcntos incditos para la
Historia de Espana ; Prescott, History of Philip II. ; Migni't,
Antonio Perez et Philippe II. ; Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Re
public, and The United Netherlands ; Froucle, History of England
under Mary and Elizabeth ; Ranke, Gcschichte Frankrcichs, and
Fiirstcn und Volker von Siid-Eurcyja ', Raumer, History of the Six
teenth and Seventeenth Centuries ; Forneron, Histoire de Philippe
II. ; Stirling- .Maxwell, Don John of Austria. (M. C. )
PHILIP III. (1578-1621), king of Spain, son of Philip
II. by his fourth wife, Anne of Austria, was born at
Madrid on 14th April 1578, succeeded his father on 13th
September 1598, married Margaret of Austria on 18th
April 1599, and died at Madrid on 31st March 1621. In
personal character he Avas weak and indolent, and his time
was mostly spent at the Escorial in hunting and other
pursuits of a private country gentleman, while the conduct
of public affairs was left almost entirely in the hands of
the duke of Lerma, who held the office of first minister
from the king's accession until October 1618. See SPAIN.
PHILIP IV. (1605-1665), king of Spain, son of Philip
III., was born at Valladolid on 8th April 1605, was married
to Isabella of France on 25th November 1615, succeeded
his father on 31st March 1621, and died on 17th Sep
tember 1665. From 1621 to 1643 the well-known duke
of Olivares held the reins of real power in the Peninsula ;
he was afterwards succeeded by the duke of Carpio. See
SPAIN.
PHILIP V. (1683-1746), king of Spain, was the second
son of the French dauphin, Louis, by his wife Maria
Anna of Bavaria, and was born at Versailles on 19th De
cember 1683. In 1700 Philip, at that time duke of Anjou,
was called by the testament of the childless Charles II.
to the throne of Spain. Quitting Versailles to take pos
session of his inheritance on 4th December, he arrived at
the Buen-Retiro palace in Madrid on 1 8th February of the
following year. At their parting his grandfather, Louis
XIV., who a few months previously had concluded with
England and Holland a treaty for the partition of the
Spanish dominions, exhorted him to be a good Spaniard,
but never to forget that he had been born a Frenchman ;
it was on the same occasion that he uttered the famous
mot, " Mon fils, il n'y a plus de Pyrenees." Philip's re
cognition as king by the other European powers did not
take place until' the war of the Spanish succession was
brought to an end by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In
1702 he married Maria Louisa, daughter of Victor Ama-
deus, duke of Savoy ; shortly after her death in February
1714, which he felt deeply, he married Elizabeth Farnese
(December), a step to which he was advised by the then
all-powerful princesse des Ursins. The disgrace of the
princess immediately followed, and her place in the royal
counsels was taken by ALBERONI (?.?'.), who remained in
power till December 1719. In 1724 Philip, under the
influence of a profound melancholy which had seized him,
resigned the crown by royal decree, dated 14th January
1724, in favour of his eldest son, Louis, who, however,
died after a short reign of only seven months. Philip
died on 9th July 1746 and was succeeded by his son,
Ferdinand VI. See SPAIN.
PHILIP. For the dukes of Burgundy of this name,
surnamed respectively "the Bold" (1342-1404) and "the
Good" (1396-1467), see BURGUNDY, vol. iv. p. 536, and
FRANCE, vol. ix. p. 548. For Archduke Philip, "the
Handsome," see PHILIP I. of Castile and Aragon (p. 743).
PHILIP OF SWABIA (c. 1170-1208), rival of the em
peror OTHO IV. (q.v.}, younger son of the emperor Freder
ick I., was born about 1170. He was originally intended
for the church, and, after being provost of Aix-la-Chapelle,
was chosen bishop of Wiirzburg in 1191 ; but in 1195 his
elder brother brought about his marriage with a Byzan
tine princess, Irene, on which occasion he was named duke
of Tuscany and Spoleto. In the following year he received
also the duchy of Swabia. On the death of his elder
brother he was elected king by a large body of princes and
prelates at Miihlhausen (March 1198); this, however, was
not acquiesced in by those opposed to the continuance of
the imperial crown in the house of Hohenstaufen, whose
choice fell on Otho. The coronation of the latter at Aix-
la-Chapelle in July was soon followed by that of his rival
at Mainz, and a civil war ensued, which, carried on with
varying fortunes for ten years, was only brought to an
end by the murder of Philip by Otho of "Wittelsbach at
Bamberg on 21st June 1208.
PHILIPPI, a city of ancient Macedonia, on a steep hill
near the river Gangites (now the Angista), overlooking
an extensive plain and at no great distance from the coast
of the ^Egean, on the highway between Neapolis (Kavalla)
and Thessalonica. Originally called Crenides, or " Foun
tains," it took the name by which it has become famous
from Philip of Macedon, who made himself master of the
neighbouring gold-mines of the Hill of Dionysus, and
fortified the city as one of his frontier-towns. Octavius
and Antony having in 42 B.C. gained a great victory over
Brutus and Cassius in the plain of Philippi, the place
received a Roman colony, Colonia Julia Philippensis, which
was probably increased after the battle of Actium (Col.
Aug. Julia Phil.}. The inhabitants received the Jus
Italicum, and Philippi was one of the cities specially de
signated as " first cities " (Trpwr?; . . . TroAis, Acts xvi. 1 2 ;
see Marquardt, Rom. Staatsvenvafamy, vol. i. p. 187).
It was the scene of a striking incident in the life of St
Paul, and it was to his converts here that he addressed the
epistle noticed below. The site of the city, now alto
gether uninhabited, is marked by a number of ruins — the
substructions of an amphitheatre, parts of a great temple
of Claudius, &c. — which have furnished a variety of inter
esting inscriptions. At a little distance to the east is a
huge stone monument, known to the Turks as Dikelitash
and to the Greeks as the Manger of Bucephalus.
See Clarke's Travels, iii. ; Hacket, \i\ Bible Union Quarterly, I860 ;
Heuzey, Mission arch, en Macedoine, and C. 1. L., iii. 1.
PHILIPPIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. This is one of the
most characteristic of the letters of St Paul. It was ad
dressed to the community at Philippi (see above), the first
important European city which St Paul had visited, where
he had formed a community with the apparently new
organization of "bishops" and "deacons," and with which
lie had relations of especial intimacy. The immediate occa
sion of his writing the letter was his receipt of money
which the Philippians had sent by Epaphroditus to supply
St Paul's personal wants. They were probably wealthier
than some of the other communities which he had founded,
and consequently he had not the reluctance which he felt
elsewhere to receive money from them ; the money so sent
was no doubt part of the offerings of the community which
constituted the Christian sacrifice (iv. 18), — a fund which
was administered by the officers of administration, i.e., the
bishops and deacons. It was consequently to those officers
that he specially addressed his acknowledgment of it.
He begins by a warm recognition of their steadfastness
in the faith and of their sympathy with him (i. 3-7), and,
as he is certain that their steadfastness will continue, so
he prays that their love may abound more and more in
enlightened well-doing (i. 9-11). He proceeds to tell them
about himself and about other preachers of the gospel
at Rome : as for himself, he is full of hope because his
imprisonment has tended to make the gospel known, and
has emboldened others to "speak the word of God with
out fear"; as for other preachers (probably the Jewish
Christians who denied his apostleship and disparaged his
special teaching), though some of them preach insincerely
and controversially, yet, whatever be their motive, " Christ
is proclaimed," and therein he finds cause of rejoicing (i.
12-18). His position is critical, for he may be condemned
to death ; but, whether he lives or dies, Christ will be
glorified through him, so that he cannot tell which he
would prefer ; for himself it would be far better " to
depart and to be with Christ," but for the Philippians it
is better that he should "abide in the flesh " (i. 19-24).
Hence he feels confident that he will live, and that he
will see the Philippians again ; and hence also he exhorts
them not to be discouraged by persecutions, and to be at
unity among themselves (i. 25, ii. 2). The reason for this
second exhortation is uncertain : it may be that the differ
ences of race at Philippi, the mingling of Romans and
Greeks, of Europeans and Asiatics, had led to the factious
assertion by each race of its own superiority, or it may be,
though less probably, that there as elsewhere the feud
raged between Gentile and Jewish Christians. And, since
faction comes of self-assertion, he urges as its antidote the
cultivation of " lowliness of mind," which he enforces by
the great example of Jesus Christ, who, so far from assert
ing the divinity which belonged to Him, emptied Himself
of it and took the form of a bond-servant ; to this St Paul
adds a strong appeal on his own account, that his work
among them may not seem to have been in vain (ii. 3-18).
He then, with an expression of regret that some of his
fellow-workers are no longer with him, announces that he
hopes to send Timothy to them as soon as he knows the
issue of his coming trial ; and he is hopeful that he may
be able to go himself ; however that may be, he sends
back their own messenger, Epaphroditus, who after coming
to Rome had almost sacrificed his life in the energy of his
work (ii. 19-30). Then follows an abrupt transition to
another subject, which has sometimes been thought to
mark the commencement of a new letter. He suddenly
begins to warn the Philippians in strong terms against false
teachers, either Judaizing Christians, or, more probably,
Jews, who were preaching the necessity of circumcision
(Holsten thinks that there is a reference to the murder of
James the Just) ; he maintains that, although he was him
self a " Hebrew of Hebrews," and therefore possessed
whatever "confidence in the flesh" such a one might
claim, yet he counted it all as " loss " in order that'he
might gain "the righteousness which is of God by faith" ;
and borrowing a metaphor from the Greek games he
regards this as a prize which has to be won by a continu
ous effort (iii. 2-16). He urges the Philippians to follow
him in this struggle towards moral perfection, in contrast
747
either to the Christians who had lapsed into Epicureanism
or, as some think, to the antinomian Jews (iii. 17, iv. 1).
He then gives some personal messages to Euodia and
Syntyche (whom Schwegler considers to be personifications
of the Jewish and heathen Christian parties respectively),
and to Synzygus (or, if the word be not a proper name,
an anonymous "yoke-fellow" who has been variously
supposed to be Paul's wife, Clement of Rome, St Peter,
Lydia the purple-seller, or Epaphroditus), and mentions
"Clement," about whom it has been much discussed,
but to little purpose, whether he was a Philippian or a
Roman, and, if the latter, whether he was the same per
son who figures in early legends as bishop of Rome, or
whether, as Baur thinks, the name is really that of the
Flavius Clemens who was condemned under Domitian for
"atheism." The personal messages are followed by
general exhortations to joyfulness, forbearance, trustful
ness, and steadfastness in Christian virtue; and then
comes that which was probably the special occasion of
writing, an acknowledgment of the money which they
had sent to him (iv. 4-20).
It is the more probable opinion that the epistle was
written from Rome, and not from Caesarea ; whether it
was written in the earlier or the later period of his stay
there is a question which has been much discussed, but
which the scantiness of the evidence respecting that stay
does not allow of being satisfactorily answered ; most
writers (De Wette, Wieseler, Wiesinger, Meyer) place it
in the later period, others (Bleek, Ewald, Beyschlag, Light-
foot) in the earlier ; the latter view is more probable on
account of the general agreement of this epistle with the
epistle to the Romans. It throws an interesting light on
St Paul's external relations. He was a prisoner, probably
in charge of the prefect of the praetorian guard, and conse
quently with opportunities of making the gospel known
among the soldiers ; and the mention of Caesar's household,
though no doubt that term covered a large number of
scattered individuals, makes it possible that he was lodged
near the imperial palace on the Palatine.
The genuineness of the epistle was attacked by Baur
on three grounds, which he himself states to be (1) the
appearance of gnostic ideas in ii. 6-11, (2) the want of
anything distinctively Pauline, (3) the questionableness of
some of the historical data.1 The attack has been re
newed by one section of his followers ; but it is generally
admitted even by critics who reject the epistles to the
Ephesians and Colossians2 that the attack upon this epistle
has failed. The supposed gnosticism of ii. 5-11 is not
proved ; the supposed identification of Clement (iv. 3) with
Flavins Clemens, the cousin of Domitian, is merely an
arbitrary guess ; and the list of expressions which are not
found in other epistles of St Paul is not greater than may
reasonably be expected from the differences in the subject-
matter.3
The doctrinal importance of the epistle is considerable,
for it contains a passage which, if it could be certainly
understood, would be at once the key and the summary of
St Paul's Christology. In 2 Corinthians viii. 9 he had
1 Paul, E. T., vol. ii. p. 45; Theol. Jahrb., 1849, 501, which is
partly reprinted as an addendum in Paul, E. T., vol. ii. p. 64.
2 E.g., Hilgenfeld, Einleitung, p. 333; Renan, St Paul, p. 6;
Pfleiderer, Paulinism, E. T., vol. i. p. 29.
3 Baur was followed in this attack by Schwegler (Das nachapost.
Zeitnlter, vol. ii. p. 133) and Volkmar (in the Theol. Jahrb., 1856, p.
309) ; and he was answered by Liinemann (Pavli ad Philipp. Epist.
. . . defendit, Gottingen, 1847), Bruckner (Epist. ad Philipp. . . •
v/ndicata, Leipsic, 1848), Hilgenfeld (in the Zeitschr. f. wissensch.
Theol., 1871, p. 309). A new attack was made by Hinsch in the
same Zeitschrift, 1873, p. 59 (criticized by Hilgenfeld, ibid. , p. 178),
and by Holsten in the Jahrbl. f. prot. Theol. (1875, p. 425 ; 1876, p.
58), which has been met by the important treatise of P. W. Schmidt,
Neutestamentliche Hyperkritik, Berlin, 1880.
748
P H I — P H I
said of Christ that " though He was rich yet for your
sakes He became poor " ; in Philippians ii. 5-7 this is
expanded into the explicit declaration that " being in the
form of God He counted it not a prize (?) to be equal with
God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,
being made in the likeness of men." Each phrase of the
passage is of great significance, but it is also of great
uncertainty of meaning : the main points of uncertainty
are (1) whether the subject of the sentence is the incarnate
or the pre-incarnate Christ ; (2) what is implied by the
phrase "in the form 'of God," and what is its relation to
the phrase "to be equal with God," some thinking that
it implies an identity, others an inferiority of status ;
(3) what is meant by the word here rendered " prize "
(d/DTray/zoV), some thinking that this is the right rendering,
and that the meaning is "He did not tenaciously cling to
His divinity but surrendered it," others thinking that it
should be rendered "an act of robbery," and that the
meaning is " He did not think it a usurpation to assert
His divinity " ; (4) what is meant by " emptied Himself,"
whether He only divested Himself of the outward sem
blance of divinity, or whether He reduced Himself to the
bare consciousness of personality in becoming incarnate ;
this last question, that of the nature of the kenosis, has
bearings of especial importance on the general doctrine of
the Person of Christ.
Discussions of these questions from various points of view will be
found not only in commentaries on the passage (e.g. , Lightfoot)
and works on New Testament theology (e.g. , Weiss), but more
particularly in Baur, Paul, E. T., vol. ii. p. 45 (who thinks that
the conceptions are gnostic and un-Pauline) ; Ernesti, in Studicn u.
Kritikcn, 1848, p. 889, and 1851, p. 602 (who thinks that apTray/j-bv
refers by way of contrast to the first Adam, who tried to seize
what was not his own) ; Hilgenfeld, in the Zeitschr. f. wissensch.
Thcol, 1871, p. 192, and ibid., 1873, p. 178; Grimm, ibid., 1873,
p. 33 ; Hinsch, ibid. , 1873, p. 59 ; R. Schmidt, Paulinische Christo-
lofjie, 1870, p. 163 (whose explanation deserves especial considera
tion); Pfleiderer, Paulinism, E. T., vol. i. p. 146 ; and more recently
"Weiffenbach, Zur Auslcguny der Stcllc Phil., ii. 5-11, Karlsruhe,
1884. For the question as to the nature of the kcnosis, see Gess,
Die. Lchrevon der Person Christi, Basel, 1856, pp. 81, 294.
The best modern editions of the epistle are those of B. Weiss,
Der Philippcrbrief ausgelcgt, Leipsic, 1859, and Lightfoot, The
Epistle to the Philippians, 3d ed., London, 1873. (E. HA.)
PHILIPPICUS, or PHILEPICUS, emperor of Constanti
nople from December 711 to June 713, was the son of the
patrician Nicephorus, and became distinguished as a soldier
under Justinian II. His proper name was Bardanes.
Relying on the support of the Monothelete party, he made
some pretensions to the throne on the outbreak of the first
great rebellion against Justinian ; these led to his relega
tion to Cephalonia by Tiberius Absimarus, and subsequently
to his banishment, by order of Justinian, to Cherson.
Here Bardanes, taking the name of Philippicus, success
fully incited the inhabitants to revolt against a prince who
had made them the objects of one of his most vindictive
expeditions, and on the assassination of Justinian in Asia
Minor he at once assumed the purple. Among his first
acts were the deposition of Cyrus, the orthodox patriarch
of Constantinople, in favour of John, a member of his own
sect, and the summoning of a " conciliabulum " of Eastern
bishops which abolished the canons of the sixth general
council, and restored to the diptychs the names of Sergius
and Honorius. Meanwhile Terbelis, king of the Bulgarians,
attacked Constantinople, burning some of its suburbs and
carrying off many prisoners and much booty, while shortly
afterwards the Saracens made similar inroads from the
Asiatic side. The short reign of Philippicus was brought
to a close through a conspiracy headed by two of his
generals, who caused him to be blinded in the hippodrome
in June 713. Of the remainder of his life nothing is
known. He was succeeded by his secretary, Artemius,
known as Anastasius II.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (Span. Ixlas Filipma*), or Plate XL
PHILIPPINES, an archipelago in the south-cast of Asia, ex
tending from 4° 40' to 20D N. lat., and from 116° 40' to
126° 30' E. long. On the west and north-west it is sepa
rated by the China Sea from China and the Indo-Chine.so
peninsula ; towards the east lies the Pacific ; on the north
a number of smaller islands stretch out towards Formosa;
and on the south, while a double connexion with Borneo
is formed by the lines of the Palawan and Balabac and tho
Sulu Islands, the basin of the Celebes Sea, with a central
depth of from 1000 to 2600 fathoms, extends, for a distance
of 300 miles, between its southernmost island (Mindanao)
and Celebes. As the number of the Philippines is believed
to exceed 1400, and the larger islands are in several cases
only beginning to be properly explored, it is impossible to
give a definitive statement of their aggregate land -area.
A 'measurement on Domann's map (1882) resulted in
114,356 square miles. Nor is it in regard to the area
alone that our knowledge is defective. Though for threo
centuries the greater part of the territory has been nomi
nally in Spanish possession, the interior of some of the
larger islands has never been surveyed ; several of the
native tribes, especially in Mindanao, arc altogether inde
pendent ; the geology of Luzon, the best known of all the
archipelago, is to a large extent matter of conjecture ; and
the visit of a passing botanist or naturalist is enough to add
facts of primary importance to the register of flora and fauna.
While none of the summits, with the exception perhaps of
Apo l in Mindanao, exceeds 9000 feet — the loftiest prob
ably being Halcon in Mindoro (8865 feet), Malindang in
Mindanao (8685 feet), Mayon in Luzon (8275 feet), and
Malaspina in Negros (8190 feet) — all the islands may be
described in general as mountainous and hilly. The prin
cipal ranges have a tendency to run north and south, with
a certain amount of deflexion east or west, as the case
may be, so that the orographic diagram of the archipelago
as a whole would have a certain similarity to a fan with
northern Luzon as its centre of radiation. The geologist
finds his task in the Philippines exceptionally difficult,
owing to so much of the surface being covered with a
dense vegetation, which often obliges him to be contented
with no better indication than the pebbles of the alluvium.
Nowhere, almost, are there cuttings or excavations to open
up the records of the rocks. It seems certain, from the
frequency not only of large tracts of coral reef along tho
coasts but of raised beaches at a considerable distance
and elevation inland, containing shells similar to thoso
of the adjacent seas, that much of the archipelago has
been heaved from below the sea -level within compara
tively recent times. As the neck of land between the
Bay of Sogod and the Bay of Ragay or Guinayangan and
that between this latter bay and the Bay of San Miguel
consist of alluvium, tuffs, and marls, with modern shells,
it appears probable that the southern parts of Luzon were
at no very distant date separate islands. According to
Drasche, southern and central Luzon comprises (1) a group
of chloritic slates and gneiss ; (2) diabases and gabbros ;
(3) Eocene limestones ; (4) volcanic minerals and tuffs ;
(5) recent formations with marine fossils — tuffs, limestones,
clays, and marine and fluvial alluviums. In his travels
through the more northern parts of the island the same
geologist verified the existence of (1) dforite, gneiss, proto-
genic and chloritic slates; (2) an extensive system of strati
fied conglomerates and sandstones ; (3) modern volcanic
rocks (quartzose trachyte, arnphiboliferous and sanidinic
1 According to the Spanish hydrographic maps, the height of this
mountain is 8813 feet ; but the barometer of Kajal and Montano's
expedition (which ascended to the top in 1880) indicated 10,270 feet,
and that used by Schadenberg and Koch in 1882 no less than 10,827
(see Bull. Soc. de Geoyr., Paris, 1881, p. 566).
VOL.XVIIL
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
PLATE XL
•TAMPl»(iJ/*'S i««lroyO]
clt J^HM, -L-t t
1TL
f' I , v.?T\ MA
/U / SlM^ffl*^/ .
_ Cj&rataeJ
'L'.S.AujJustin
PHILIPPINES
749
trachyte, amphiboliferous andesite and dolerite) ; (4) tuffs
and tufaceous sandstones, with banks of limestone and
marl ; (5) banks of coral and breccia of coraliferous lime
stone, and recent volcanic products. The late origin of the
coralliferous limestone is shown by the corals belonging to
genera still existing in the Indian Ocean — Galaxea, Favia,
Meandrina,Porites,and Astracopora — and being specifically
similar, though not identical. A remarkable feature is the
stratification of the limestone.
Volcanic forces, as has been already implied, have had
a great share in shaping the archipelago, and a large
number of the mountains bear the stamp of their former
activity. But those that still have the credit of being
working volcanoes are comparatively few.
Monte Cagua (3910 feet), discovered by Claudio Montero on the
north-eastern promontory of Luzon, appears to discharge smoke con
tinually, and the Babuyanes group (to the north of Luzon) contains
several orifices belonging to the same centre of eruption, — a regular
volcano in Babuyan Claro, a solfatara in the Didica rocks, and a vol
canic island thrown up in 1856. Of greater importance are the three
burning mountains of southern Luzon — Taal, Albay, and Bulusan.
Taal lies 45 miles almost due south of Manila. Being only 850 feet
high, it is remarkable as one of the lowest volcanoes in the world.
The present craters are situated in a small triangular island in the
middle of Lake Bombon or Bongbong. A tradition exists (and has
been accepted without question by many writers) that this lake,
covering an area of 100 square miles, and having in the south and
east a depth of 109 fathoms, was formed in 1700 on occasion of a
terrible eruption, which undermined the whole mass of a gigantic
mountain, 8000 or 9000 feet high ; and, whether (for this is extremely
doubtful) the event took place within historic times or not, the
vast deposits of porous tuff in all the surrounding country appear
to show that such a volcano must have existed. The water in the
lake is now sweet, but tradition again asserts that it was at one
time salt, possibly through direct communication with the sea.
As it is exposed to strong evaporation and discharges into the sea
by the 1'ansipit without being recruited by any considerable affluent,
it is probably fed by subterranean sources. To the east of Lake
Bombon stands the extinct volcano of Maquiling, at whose foot are
the hot springs of Los Banos ; and about 15 miles farther east is
Majaijai (7020 feet), of which the last eruption was in 1730. Away
in the south-east of Luzon there is quite a series of high volcanic
cones, — Isarog. Iriga, Mazaraga, and Albay or Mayon. The last, one
of the most active volcanoes in the archipelago, is extremely regular
in form, rising gradually from a base about 50 miles in circuit. The
lirst partial ascent was made by Esteban Solis in 1592, and the first
complete ascent by Paton and Stewart, two young Scotchmen, in
1858. A terrible eruption on 1st February 1814 partially destroyed
Camalig, Budiao, Albay, Guinobatan, and Daraga, and proved fatal
to 12,000 persons, the matter thrown out forming vast deposits deep
enough in some places near the mountain to bury the loftiest trees.
A similar fate befell the same district during the eruptions that
occurred between 20th July and 24th October 1867. On 31st October
1876 one of the terrible storms for which the Philippines are notori
ous burst on the mountain ; the floods, pouring down the sides of
Mayon and sweeping along with them the loose volcanic debris,
lirought destruction on Manilao, Camalig, Guinobatan, Ligao, Oas,
1'olangin, Libon, and other places, filling up the roads, breaking
ilown the bridge^, and completely ruining upwards of 6000 houses.
During 1881 and 1882 the eruptive forces were again exceedingly
active. Still farther to the south, in the very extremity of Luzon,
.stands the volcano of Bulusan, which, after being for a long time
apparently extinct, began again to smoke in 1852. According to
.lagor (Eeisen, p. 66), it repeats in striking fashion the forms of
Vesuvius, having two peaks, — in the west a bell-shaped dome, the
eruption cone, and in the east a high ridge similar to Monte Somnia,
probably the remains of a great circular crater. As in Vesuvius,
the present crater is in the centre of the extinct one. In the island
of Negros, 150 miles south -south -west of Bulusan, there is the
volcano of Malaspina or Canlaon (8190 feet) ; the island of Fuego
probably takes its name from its volcanic phenomenon ; and about
90 miles farther to the south-east a new volcano burst out in 1876
in the island of Camiguin (not to be confounded, as it sometimes is,
with Camiguin off the north coast of Luzon), near the village of
Catarman. In the great island of Mindanao we have the three
volcanoes of Macaturing1 (Sugut, Tolloc, or Cottabato), inland from
Illana Bay, and Apo and Sanguil (Sarangani or Butulan), both in
the central Cordillera and the latter almost at its southern terminus.
Though the last great eruption of Cottabato was in 1856, it is still
active at intervals, and in 1871 the town of the same name was
1 It was supposed till quite recently that there were two mountains
in tins district, — one being Macaturing, the other Sugut, Polloc, or
Cottabato.
partially destroyed by earthquakes. Apo, according to Schaden-
berg and Koch, has three summits, in the midst of which lies the
great crater, now extinct and filled with water. Considerable energy
is still displayed by the solfataras and boiling springs lower down.
It is difficult to say how these various volcanoes are
related to each other ; Jose Centeno suggests with con
siderable probability that they form two lines of activity,
an eastern comprising Isarog, Albay, Bulusan, Camiguin,
Apo, and Butulan, and a western Buguias (extinct), Arayat
(extinct), Taal, Canlaon, Macaturing. Three only of the
larger islands, it will be observed, contain actual centres of
eruption, and some of the larger volcanoes appear to be in
the later stages of their activity, — Albay generally discharg
ing an incoherent form of lava, whilst Taal and others dis
charge nothing but ashes. Other phenomena usually associ
ated with volcanic activity are common enough throughout
the archipelago : there is a great deposit of sulphur in the
middle of the island of Leyte ; inflammable gas bursts out in
the south of Panay ; and there are hot springs at Buguias, at
Los Banos or Maynit, already mentioned, at Pagsanghan,
at San Luis or Maynit in Batangas, in the Taysan Moun
tains, at Tibi or Tivi, &c. At Los Banos there was a regular
bathing establishment erected by the Franciscans in 1671 ;
but it was burned down in 1727, and, though rebuilt by
public subscription in 1880, may be said to be in a chronic
state of decay. The Tibi springs, described in detail by
Jagor (Reisen, pp. 114, 115), are remarkable for beautiful
cones produced by the deposit of siliceous material. The
water in some cases is hot enough to cook food. They
are situated on the east coast of Luzon on Lagonoy Bay.
Earthquakes. — Earthquakes are sufficiently frequent and
violent in the Philippines to affect the style adopted in
the erection of buildings ; in 1874, for instance, they were
very numerous throughout the archipelago, and in Manila
and the adjacent provinces shocks Avere felt daily for several
weeks. The most violent earthquakes on record in the
Philippines occurred in July 1880, when the destruction
of property was immense, both in the capital and in other
important towns of central Luzon.
Minerals. — Though hitherto little advantage has been
taken of its existence, there appears to be in several of the
islands a fair amount of mineral wealth. Two coal-fields
are known to exist, one beginning in Caransan in the south
of Luzon, and probably extending southwards across the
Strait of San Bernardino to Catbalongan in Samar, and
another occupying the Avestern slopes of Cebu and the
eastern slopes of Negros, and thus probably passing under
the Strait of Tafion. In the first basin there is a bed
from 10 to 20 feet thick cropping out at Gatbo, which has
given good results as a fuel for steamboats ; in the second
Centeno reports at least five beds of varying thickness and
quality. The first discovery of the mineral was made in
Cebu in 1827. Hitherto little success has attended the
schemes of exploitation. Iron-ore of excellent purity occurs
in various parts of Luzon, in Laguna, Bulacan, Pampanga,
Camarines Norte, and notably in the Camachin Mountains
between the Bulaon and the Garlan ; but, with the excep
tion of a few small foundries in Bulacan province, there
are no iron-works in the country. In this department
there was actually more activity a century ago. Copper-
mines are worked at Mancayan, Suyuc, Bumucum, and
Agbao in the province of Lepanto, by the Cantabro-
Philippine Company, founded in 1862 ; and the heathen
natives of that region (perhaps having learned the art
from Chinese or Japanese strangers) appear to have long
been accustomed to manufacture copper utensils for their
own use and for sale in the Christian settlements. The
ore at Mancayan contains upwards of 16 per cent, of
copper, 24 of sulphur, 5 of antimony, and 5 of arsenic.
For a short time after 1847 copper-mines were worked
750
PHILIPPINES
at Assit in the island of Masbate ; and it is known that
copper ores exist in the provinces of Tayabas and Camar
ines Sur (Luzon), Antique (Panay), and the island of
Capul. Gold is very generally distributed throughout the
archipelago, but mostly in insignificant quantities. From
the deposits in Camarines Norte (in Paracale, Mambulao,
Labo), where it occurs in placers and in quartz and other
rocks, about 30 oz. per month are obtained. Much more
important are the gold-washings of Misamis and Surigao
in Mindanao, the former of which yield about 150 oz. per
month. Neither the mercury nor lead veins discovered at
different times have proved of economic value.1
Climate. — As the north part of Luzon is as far from
the south of the Sulu Islands as the north of England
from the south of Italy, and as the archipelago is divided
by the line of the ecliptic, the climate of one region differs
considerably from that of another, though the general
characteristics are everywhere tropical. The northern
islands lie in the region of the typhoons. Three seasons
are usually recognized,— a cold, a hot, and a wet. The
first extends from November to February or March ; the
winds are northerly, and, though there is no need for fire,
woollen garments can be worn with comfort in the morn
ings ; the sky is for the most part clear and the atmo
sphere bracing ; and Europeans look forward to this period
as the most enjoyable of the year. The hot season lasts
from March to June, and the heat becomes very oppressive
before the beginning of the southerly monsoon. Thunder
storms, often of terrific violence, are of frequent occurrence
in May and June. The wet season is usually ushered in
by the heavy rains locally known as " collas." During
July, August, September, and October the rain comes
down in torrents and large tracts of the lower country are
flooded. According to the observations of the Jesuits at
Manila during the eight years 1870 to 1877 the total rain
fall (distributed over 113 days) amounted to 66'6 inches.
ir -i ( Mean temperature
Cold.
72° -32
Hot.
87°'26
Wet,
84°'56
Mamla {Rainfall ... inches
8-65
10-47
36-01
o T_ ( Mean temperature...
75°'02
86° "23
75°-86
Cebu {Rainfall .! inches
12-54
9'29
26-90
•p> ( Mean temperature
8fi -90
88° -70
87°-ll
\ Rainfall inches
16'53
39-27
32-15
oi ( Mean temperature
81°-98
82°'97
83° '03
\Rainfall inches
15-74
33-85
35-43
Fauna. — The mammals of the Philippines are strikingly
few, especially when contrasted with those of such an island
as Java ; but their number may yet be slightly increased,
and nine-tenths of them are peculiar species. Since Cyno-
pithecus niger was struck out of the list, the only monkey
known to science is Macacus cynomolgus (chongo of the
Tagals), found in all the islands ; but there are also pure
white monkeys (not albinos) in Mindanao, and specimens
are occasionally sold at Manila. The lemuroids are repre
sented by the strange little Tarsius spectrum, the insecti-
vora proper by Galeopithecus philippensis and a "tupaia,"
or squirrel-shrew. Of carnivora there are three species, two
civets and a wild cat, as well as the ordinary domestic
animal. The rodents comprise only a few squirrels, Sciurus
philippensis, <kc., a porcupine, and two or three rats. Of
bats there are between twenty and thirty species. The
wild boar is regularly hunted in all the islands ; the natives
throughout the archipelago keep large numbers of black
1 The best resume of geological facts in regard to the Philippines is
J. Roth, "Ueber die geologische Beschaffenheit der Philippinen," pub
lished as an appendix to Jagor's Reisen, but, like the other appendices,
left out in the untrustworthy English translation. Drasche gives a
good deal of fresh material in Fraymente zu einer Geologic der Insel
Luzon, reproduced in Boletin de la Comision del Mapa Geoloyico de
Espnrla., vol. viii., 1881. Perrey has collected information about the
Philippine earthquakes in Mem. de I'Acad. de Dijon, 1860, &c.
pigs; and the Babuyanes group take their name from babuy,
" a pig." Of deer there are three species, Cervus manannus,
C. philippensis, and C. Alfredi; and a chevrotain or mouse-
deer (Tragulus) is found, more especially in Bataan. Tapa,
or sun-dried deer's flesh, is a favourite food with the
natives. The statement that the horse has become wild in
the interior of several islands is founded on a mistake. The
ordinary domestic variety, probably of Spanish, Chinese,
and Japanese origin, is "generally small, but well-shaped
and hardy, the largest and best breeds coming from Batan-
gas, Albay, and Camarines, the smallest and probably the
hardiest from Ilocos" (D. M. Forbes). For all kinds of
field work the buffalo ("carabao") is employed ; ordinary
cattle and goats are common enough, and some of the former
are of great excellence. As there is a Tagalog name for it,
it has been supposed that the elephant was at one time to
be met with in the Philippines ; and in the Sulu Islands,
at least, it is said to have existed in the 17th century.
The birds of the Philippines proper show the isolated
character of the group by the absence of a large number of
ordinary Malayan forms, and at the same time there is a con
siderable proportion of genera from Australia, India, and
China. Viscount Walden (Trans. Zool. Sue., vol. ix., 1877)
found the known species numbered 219, and R. B. Sharpe,
by the assistance of Professor Steere's collections, brought
the total up to 287 species, of which 151 were peculiar to
the Philippines. To these must be added several species
hitherto only found in the Sulu Islands. Palawan has a
strong Bornean element. It is enough here to mention a
number of peculiar woodpeckers, beautiful little parakeets
(Loricidus), a number of pigeons (including at least one
peculiar genus, Phapitreron), cockatoos, mound-builders, and
a peculiar hornbill, Penelopides, known from its note as
"calao" to the natives, who frequently tame it. The prin
cipal game bird is the jungle-fowl (dallus bankiva).'2
Alligators abound in some of the lakes and rivers ; and
turtles, tortoises, and various kinds of lizards are familiar
enough forms; one of the last, the "chacon," is believed
by the natives to be a defence against earthquakes. The
beauty and variety of the butterflies and the destructiveness
of the termites are obtrusive features of the insect life ;
the land-shells are peculiar, numerous, and remarkable for
delicacy of form and colour. Some of the molluscs attain
gigantic dimensions ; the "taclobo" shell sometimes weighs
200 R), and is used for baptismal fonts. One of the most
valuable kinds of fish is the " dalag " (Ophiocephalus vagus),
and one of the most peculiar the Hemiramphus vivipara.
Flora. — The flora of the Philippines is essentially Malay
an, intermixed with a Chinese element, but with sufficient
individuality to constitute a sub-region. According to
Llanos's edition of Manuel Blanco's Flora de Filipinas?
4479 species are known belonging to 1223 genera and 155
orders. Among the dicotyledons the orders most abun
dantly represented are : Leguminosse (77 genera), Eubiacese
and Composite (each 41), Euphorbiacese (32), Urticacex
(25), Acanthacex (28), Apocynacex (22), Asdepiadaceee (20),
Sapindacex (20) ; and among the monocotyledons Orchid-
acex (80), Palmse (28), Araceae, (27), Graminacex (7?\ Of
ferns there are 50 genera. The forests contain more than
200 kinds of wood thought worthy of trial in the arsenal
at Manila. Among them may be mentioned the teak-
like molave (Vitex altissima and geniculata) \ the dongon
(Sterculia cymbiformis) ; the ipel (Epcrua decandm), greatly
prized for its hardness ; the lauan or lawaan (Dipteromrpus
thurifer\ a light stringy wood, often used by the Malays for
their canoes ; the bolongaeta (Diospyros pilosantlieni), em
ployed for fine kinds of furniture.
2 See Wallace, Geogr. Distr. of A nimals, and Inland Life.
3 First ed., Manila, 1837 ; second ed., 1845 ; Llanos's ed., 4 vols.,
1877-80 (summary in vol. ii. ).
PHILIPPINES
751
Products. — Mangoes, plantains, mangosteen, jack-fruit, medlars,
and in general most of the Malayan fruits are to be met with ; the
lanzon 'occurs in the north, and the durian in the south, more
especially in the Sulu Islands. Rice is the staple food of the
natives, but, though it is extensively cultivated, the supply is not
always equal to the demand. Sweet potatoes (camote), a kind of
yam (palawan), the ground-nut, and gourds are pretty generally
grown, as well as occasionally peas, potatoes, and in the higher
regions even wheat. The plants which are of primary commercial
importance are tobacco, Manila-hemp, sugar-cane, coil'ee, and cocoa.
Tobacco was made a Government monopoly by Captain General
Jose Basco y Vargas in 1781, and remained so till 1st July 1882.
Though it was free to any one to grow the plant to any extent he
pleased, the Government was the only purchaser, fixed its own
price, and, paying its debts according to its own convenience, was
sometimes three or four years in arrcar. Besides, certain districts
were bound to furnish a certain quantity of the leaf, and the pea
sant was thus often forced under severe penalties to devote himself
to the tobacco crop when he would have obtained better results
from something else. The best tobacco comes from the provinces
of Isabela and Cagayan, and it is there that the cultivation is most
systematically carried on ; but the plant is also grown in other
provinces of Luzon (Union, Ilocos, Lepanto, &c.) as well as in the
Visayas Islands. The average production in the ten years 1872-81
was 214,400 quintals (each 101 '43 English R>), of which 114,400
were from Isabela and Cagayan. About 25,000 quintals were sent
to Spain as tribute, and another portion was sold by public auction
for foreign export. For tobacco of the first class from Cagayan
and Isabela the Government paid in recent years between 13 and
14 dollars per quintal, for the second class between 10 and 11, for
the third between 7 and 8, and for the fourth between 6 and 7.
About 280 million cigars were manufactured annually in six fac
tories employing 20,000 hands, 95 millions for foreign export and
the rest for home consumption. Of the foreign cigars 50 millions
went to Singapore, Java, the Moluccas, and India, 30 millions to
China and Japan, 4 millions to Australia, and 11 millions to Europe.
Hitherto tobacco-planting has been carried on (with few exceptions)
only by people of small means ; but since the abolition of the
monopoly several companies have been started, and the whole con
dition of the industry will probably soon be greatly modified.
Abaca or MANILA-HEMP (q. v. ) is best grown in the south-east of
Luzon, in Samar, Leyte, and Bohol. Its cultivation requires little
trouble, and the plantations, usually small, are each the property
of a native family. Hand-labour and a few simple machines of
native construction are all that is required in the preparation of
the fibre. The abaca districts arc generally very poor. Coffee was
introduced, probably from Brazil, in the latter part of the 18th
century, but the first plantation on a large scale was formed only
in 1826. The cultivation is now pretty extensive. Philippine
coffee appears in the European markets as Manila or Zamboanga
coffee. The former, which comes from Batangas, Cavite, and
Laguna to the amount of 70,000 piculs (a Spanish pictil = 140 lb)
per annum, is a small but well-flavoured berry ; the latter, princi
pally grown in Mindanao and Sulu, which send a good deal of their
produce direct to Singapore, is in less repute, because, while the
berry is larger, less care is bestowed on the gathering and sorting.
France was at one time the only great purchaser of Philippine
coffee, but about two-thirds of the crop now finds its way to Spain,
England, the Netherlands, and Austria. In general far too little
care is given to the plantations. Sugar is extensively cultivated,
and the export has increased from 1,399,434 piculs in 1871 to
3,382,664 in 1881. About a third of the whole is produced by
Pampanga ; and Cavite, Laguna, Pangasinan, Bulucan, and Bataan
also contribute. About 1,200,000 piculs are exported from Iloilo,
which collects from Panay and Negros, &c. The finest is probably
that from Capiz in Panay, where, as in this southern district
generally, the violet-coloured cane is grown. Most of the larger
plantations (some exceeding 1000 acres) are monastic property, and
are leased out to Chinese half-breeds, who are said to succeed better
than Europeans. The smaller are cultivated by the proprietors
with the assistance of their families and relatives, and less fre
quently of bond or hired labourers. A tendency has shown itself
since 1870 to create larger estates, and to import better machinery ;
but it will be some time before the Philippine sugar-crop is gener
ally treated according to scientific methods. The finest Manila
quality is sent to Spain, and the secondary qualities to England ;
for the Iloilo sugars the United States are the principal destination.
Trade. — Before the conquest there was considerable commercial
intercourse between the Philippines and China and Japan, but this,
which would naturally have developed enormously if the Spanish
trade between Manila and America (Navidad and Acapulco) had
been left free, was interrupted, and at times almost completely
stopped, by a series of absurd restrictions, devised in the supposed
interest of the trade between Spain and America. For a long period
only a single galleon, under Government supervision, was allowed
to proceed yearly from Manila to Acapulco, the value of the cargo
each way being bound not to exceed a certain sum. Direct trade
Entered.
Cleared.
Spanish.
British.
Vessels.
Tons.
Vessels.
Tons.
Vessels.
Tons.
Vessels.
Tons.
1875
341
235,418
315
222,613
232
87,593
245
186,983
1876
311
216,785
311
224,442
194
8(i,001
241
186,631
1877
306
251,417
351
249,649
268
104,344
226
187,585
1878
445
303,420
446
305,108
369
178,491
314
234,848
1879
458
317,069
478
325,695
395
231,432
318
212,695
1880
54:2
449,937
524
459,145
454
391,312
328
201,966
with Europe via the Cape was commenced in 1764 ; but, as if the
exclusion of all except Spanish ships was not sufficient, a practical
monopoly of this field of enterprise was in 1785 bestowed on the
Royal Company of the Philippines. With the close of the 18th
century a certain amount of liberty began to be conceded to foreign
vessels ; the first English commercial house was established at
Manila in 1809 ; and in 1834 the monopoly of the Royal Company
expired. Manila remained the only port for foreign trade till 1842,
when Cebu was also opened ; Zamboanga (Mindanao), Iloilo (Panay),
Sual (Luzon), Legazpi or Albay (Luzon), and Tacloban (Leyte) are
now in the same category, but only Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu have
proved of real importance, as they are the only ports where foreign-
bound vessels have hitherto loaded. The following table shows
how rapidly the trade of the country has recently developed.
The American trade increased in this period from 101 vessels
(129,439 tons) to 164 (202,653). The value of the imports rose
from $11,987,162 to $25,493,319 and of the exports from
$14,837,796 to $23,450,285. In 1883 333 vessels (270,000 tons)
entered at Manila alone, the Spanish numbering 110 (93,000 tons)
and the British 132 (92,000 tons) ; the exports in the same year
were valued at $29,996,000.
The manufactures of the Philippines consist of a variety of textile
fabrics (pifia fibres, silk, cotton), some of great excellence and
beauty, hats, mats, baskets, ropes, furniture, coarse pottery, carriages,
and musical instruments.
Islands and Provinces. — The Batancs and Babuyanes, the most
northerly of the Philippines, have an area of only 280 sqiiare miles,
with 8700 inhabitants, who pay no tribute. The rearing of horses
is the principal occupation. The chief settlement is San Jose de
Ibana in the island of Batan. Camiguin, the southernmost of the
1 Babuyanes, is about 30 miles from the coast of Luzon.
Luzon or Lu<;on, with an area of 40,885 square miles, is the
largest island in the whole archipelago, and as the seat of the
Government at Manila it is the most important. The northern
trunk, so to speak, extends north and south for 340 miles. From
the mountains known as Caraballos of Balar or Nueva Ecija two
ranges bifurcate and stretch northward — the Sierra Oriental, skirt
ing the eastern coast till it ends at Cape Engaiio, and the Sierra
Occidental, keeping all the way at a distance of 25 or 30 miles from
the western. Between these ranges lies the basin of the Rio
Grande de Cagayan, which with its numerous affluents (Bangag,
Nay on, Mayat, Pongul, Ibulao, &c., from the east ; Calao, Cabagan,
Pinacananauang, and Tulay from the west) forms the largest river-
system in the whole archipelago. On the western slopes of the
Sierra Occidental rise two other large rivers — the Abra, which
reaches the sea at Vigan or Villa Fernandina, and the Agno, which
after a winding course falls into the Gulf of Lingayan. To the
south-west of the mountains extends a comparatively flat region,
which continues southwards to the Bay of Manila and forms one of
the richest agricultural districts in the island. It is watered by
the lower part of the Agno and its lower tributaries, and the Rio
Grande de Pampanga with its affluents, which ultimately discharges
into Manila Bay, and thus forms a convenient water-way for con
veying produce to the capital. There are also in these lowlands a
number of extensive lagoons, such as that of Candava. To the west
of the flat region the country rises into the considerable Cordillera
de Zambales, which contains a number of peaks 5000 or 6000 feet
high, and terminates northwards in a great peninsula forming the
Gulf of Lingayan and southwards in a similar promontory (Sierra
de Mariveles) which helps to form the Bay of Manila. To the
east and south of this bay the general configuration is again hilly
and even mountainous ; but the large area of 350 square miles is
occupied by the Laguna de Bay, connected with Manila by the
Pasig, on which small steamers ply. The depth of this basin, though
the southern side is bordered by a semicircular range of extinct
volcanoes 6000 or 7000 feet high, seldom exceeds 4 fathoms. Two
long capes project from the northern side, the western one being
continued by the island of Talim. From the south-east corner of
the trunk of Luzon there extends for 180 miles a very irregular
peninsula formed by a series of Cordilleras running in a north
westerly and south-easterly direction. The following are the pro
vinces and districts into which Luzon is divided, with their chief
towns: Manila (258,274 inhabitants1 in 1877), Manila; Bulacan
(252,149), Bulacan; Pampanga (226,309), Bacolor ; Principe (4158),
1 The figures of the censuses may be trusted for the provinces of Luzon, &c.,
but often give no idea of the actual native population of the remoter districts.
752
PHILIPPINES
Baler; Eataan (49,099), Balanga ; Zmiibalt-s (94,551), Iba ; Pan-
ffiisinan (293,291), Lingaycu ; Union (113,370), S. Fernando;
Ilocot Sur (201,049), Vigau ; Ilocos A'ortc (156,715), Laoag ; Abra
(42,647), Bangued ; Cagayan (72,697), Tuguegarao ; Isabcla (33,616),
Tuinauiui ; A'ueva Vizcaya (16,107), Bayomboug ; Nucva Ecija
(123,771), San Isitlro ; Layuna (132,504), Santa Cruz; Cavite
(132,064), Cavite ; Batangas (275,075), Batangas ; Toyotas (68,668),
Tayabas; L'amarincs Norte (30,661), Daet ; Camarines Sur (156,400),
Nueva Caeeres ; Albay (257,533), Albay.
To the south-east of Luzon lie the Yisayas — Saniar, Leytc, Boliol,
Cebu, Negros, and Panay, with various smaller islands.
Sanuir (area, 4367 square miles) is separated from the Albay penin
sula bv the Strait of San Bernardino, 10 miles across. From north
west to south-east it is 120 miles long ;.its greatest breadth is 60
miles. The provincial capital is Catbalongan on the west coast,
on a bay difficult of access. The island is watered by a number of
considerable streams — the Catubig, Loquilocum or tjlut, Suribao,
&c. At Nipa-Nipa on the south-west coast there is a remarkable
series of rock-caves in which the people were wont to deposit their
dead in coffins.1 The narrow but extremely beautiful Strait of
S. Juanico separates Samar from the island of Leyte. The lesser
islands of Buat, Parasan, &c., are included in the province of
Sainar (178,890 inhabitants). Leytc (2716 square miles) is 100 miles
long and 30 miles wide. The chief town and port, Tacloban, lies
at the eastern entrance of the Strait of S. Juanico. Sulphur for
the Manila powder-factory is obtained from the solfatara at Monte
Manacagan. According to Jagor, the east coast is rising and the
west is suffering from the encroachments of the sea at Ormoc to
the extent of fifty yards in six years. South-west of Leyte is Bohol
(area, 1496 square miles) ; the chief town is Tagbilaran, at the
south-west corner. The province (226,546 inhabitants) comprises
Siquijor and other islands. The important island of Ccbu (2413
square miles; provincial population, 403,405) is 135 miles long
from north to south, but only 30 miles broad at the most. The
chief town, Cebu, is the capital of the Visayas group and is next to
Iloilo in the matter of commerce. It is only along the coast that
cultivation is easy, and none of the villages lie far inland. Parallel
with Cebu and separated from it by a strait 15 miles wide, is Negros
(4670 square miles ; population, 204,669), with large sugar planta
tions, but only one large town, Jimamaylan, and no good ports.
Bacolod is the administrative centre. North-west of Negros lies
Panay (4633 square miles), which is divided into the three pro
vinces of Antique (124,103), Iloilo (410,430), and Capiz (243,244),
in accordance with its physical conformation. Iloilo is the chief
town and the seat of the see of Jaro. Off the south-east coast of
Panay lies the island of Guimaras (215 square miles).
In a line with the peninsula of Tayabas (Luzon) and the island
of Leyte is Burins (190 square miles), which forms a province by
itself (128 inhabitants), and Masbate (1211 square miles) and Ticao
(121 square miles), which, comparatively sterile and thinly peopled
(17,170), are united together. West of these islands is a considerable
cluster, I. de Tablas (327 square miles), Sibuyan (159 square miles),
Romblon, &c., constituting the province of Romblon (28,154).
Mindoro (3934 square miles), one of the largest of the Philippines,
lies only 10 miles south of Luzon, but its interior, peopled by about
30,000 Manguianes, a race of doubtful affinity, is practically unex
plored, and its eighteen " Spanish " villages are scattered along the
coast at great distances from each other and with no proper means
of communication. The principal settlement is Calapan, on the
north-east coast. Marinduque (348 square miles), included in the
province of Mindoro (58,128), is a flourishing island with 48,000
inhabitants exporting various staples. South-west of Mindoro are
the Calamiancs (17,041 inhabitants), a great cluster of very small
islands, the two largest being Busuanga (416 square miles) and
Calamian ; and beyond these extends for 230 miles in a south
westerly direction the island Palawan or Paragua (4576 square
miles), which nowhere exceeds a width of 30 miles and sometimes
narrows to 10. It is little visited, and apart from Puerto Princesa,
the chief town (578 inhabitants), there are few Spanish posts.
The Sulu or Jol6 Archipelago* (948 square miles; about 100,000
inhabitants), annexed by Spain in 1878, consists of about 150
islands divided into the Balanguingui, Sulu, Tapul, Kecuapoussan,
Tawi-Tawi, Tagbabas, and Pangutarang groups. Many of the smaller
islands are uninhabited, but the larger are occupied by an industri
ous Mohammedan population. They formerly constituted, along
with a portion of northern Borneo, an independent state with an
hereditary sultan and a regular nobility of great political influence.
The highest hill in the principal island, Buat Timantangis, or Hill
of Tears, is so called because it is the last point visible to the
natives as they sail away from their native land. Sulu, the present
capital, lies on the north coast of the island of Sulu.3
1 For tlic antiquities discovered there, see Z. fiir FMnnl., Berlin, 1869.
* See for full description in Geographical Magazine, 1875, and liol dela Soc
Geo. de Madrid, 1878.
3 See the elaborate accounts of Koner in Z. de.r Ges. fiir Erdk., Berlin, 1807
pp. 105, 142, and of Garin in Bol. de la Soc. Gen. de Madrid, 1881, as well as the
oid report of Dalrymple in Oriental depository.
The whole chain of the Stilus is practically a continuation of the
south-western promontory of Mindanao or Maguimlanao (37,256
square miles), the second largest island of the archipelago, contain
ing the Spanish provinces of Surigao (56,246), Misamis (88,376),
Zamboanga (14,144), Davao (1695), Cottabato (1282). Since about
1876 mticli light has been thrown on this interesting island 4 by the
Jesuit missionaries. It is remarkably mountainous, and appears to
be divided by the Rangaya or Sugut Cordillera, which runs north
west and south-east, and is continued throughout the great western
peninsula of Zamboanga, and, at the other extremity, bends south
to form the peninsula of Butulan. Between the Rangaya range and
that of the Tiruray lies the valley of the Kio Grande, a river navi
gable as far as Matingcahuan (70 or 80 miles) and connected with
two great lakes, Lingauasan and Buluan, which during the rainy
season merge, or nearly merge, into one. On the north side of the
Rangaya range and connected with the sea by the river Iligan is the
great crater-lake of Lanao, which with its little group of secondary
crater-lakes probably gave rise to the name of the island, Magitin-
danao, " Land of Lakes." Towards the east and sloping northwards
extend the valleys of the Cagayan, the Tagoloan, and the Agusan.
This last is the largest river in the whole island. Rising in the
Kinabuhan Mountains in the south-east, it pursues a very sinuous
course for more than 200 miles and falls into Butuan Bay ; in
the lower regions it is navigable for craft of considerable burden.
Mindanao is throughout well peopled, much of it being occupied
by independent Mohammedan sultanates.
Administration, etc. — The Philippines are subject to a governor-
general with supreme powers, assisted by (1) a "junta of authorities"
instituted in 1850, and consisting of the archbishop, the commander
of the forces, the admiral, the president of the supreme court, <fce. ;
(2) a central junta of agriculture, industry, and commerce (dating
from 1866) ; and (3) a council of administration. In the provinces
and districts the chief power is in the hands of alcaldes mayores
and civico- military governors. The chief magistrate of a com
mune is known as the gobernadorcillo or capitan ; the native who
is responsible for the collection of the tribute of a certain group
of families is the cabega de barangay. Every Indian between the
ages of 16 and 60 subject to Spain has to pay tribute to the amount
of £1'17 — descendants of the first Christians of Cebu, new con
verts, gobcrnadorcillos, &c. , being exempted. Chinese are subject
to special taxes ; and by a law of 1883 Europeans and Spanish
half-castes are required to pay a poll-tax of $2 '50.
Ecclesiastically the Philippines comprise the archbishopric of
Manila and the suffragan bishoprics of Nueva-Caceres, Nueva-
Segovia, Cebu, and Santa Isabel de Jaro, which were all constituted
by the bull of Clement VIII., 14th August 1595, with the exception
of the last, whose separation from Cebu dates only from the bull of
Pius IX., 27th May 1865. The Agustinos Calzados were established
in the Philippines in the year 1565, the first prelate being Andres
Urdaneta, and they have convents in Manila, Cebu, and Guadalupe.
The Franciscans date from 1577, and have convents at Manila and
San Francisco del Monte; the Dominicans (1587) at Manila and
San Juan del Monte ; the Recollects or Strict Franciscans (1606)
at Manila, Cavite, and Cebu. The Jesuits, restored in 1852, main
tain the missions of Mindanao and Sulu ; and they have charge in
Manila of the municipal athenteum, the normal school for primary
teachers, and an excellent meteorological observatory. There are
also sisters of charity, and nuns of the royal monastery of Santa
Clara, founded in 1621.
Education. — A good deal has been done for the diffusion of
primary education among the natives (every pueblo is bound to
have a school), but the standard is not a high one. The press is
under strict civil and ecclesiastical control, and all discussion of
Spanish or general European politics is forbidden. Several daily
papers, however, are published at Manila, El Diario de Manila
dating from 1848.
Population. — As far as is known, the original inhabitants of the
Philippines were the Aetas or Negritos,5 so called from their dark
complexion. They still exist sporadically, though in limited
numbers (perhaps 25,000), throughout most of the archipelago,
the Batanes, Babuyanes, Samar, Leyte, Boliol, and Sulu exeepted.
Their headquarters are the northern part of Nueva Ecija, the
provinces of Principe, Isabela, and Cagayan. To their presence in
Isla de Negros the island owed its name. They are dwarfish (4
feet 8 inches being the average stature of the full-grown man), thin
and spindle-legged, have a head like a Negro's, with flattish nose,
full lips, and thick frizzled black hair, and possess an extraordinary
prehensible power in their toes. They tattoo themselves, and wear
very little clothing. Cigars they often smoke with the burning
end between the teeth — a practice occasionally observed among
the civilized Indians. They have no fixed abodes. Honey, game,
fish, wild fruits, palm-cabbages, and roots of arums, &c. , constitute
their food ; they sell wax to Christians and Chinese in exchange
for betel and tobacco. The dog is their only domestic animal.
4 See Montano in Hull. .Soc. de G'-ogr., Paris, 1882, and Bluineutritt's mono
graph and map in Zeitsch. der Ges. fiir Erdk., Berlin, 1884.
6 In Mindanao they appear as Marminuas.
P H I — P H I
753
The Negritos l seem to have been driven into the more inaccessible
parts by successive invasions of those Malay tribes who in very
different stages of civilization and with considerable variety of
physical appearance now form the parti-coloured but fairly homo
geneous population of the islands.
First among these rank the Tagals. They are by preference
inhabitants of the lowlands, and generally fix their pile-built dwell
ings near water. In Manila, Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, Morong,
Infanta, Tayabas, and Bataan they form the bulk of the population,
and they also appear in Zambales, Principe, Isabela, Nueva Ecija,
Mindoro, Marinduque, Polillo, &c. Their language (Tagalog) especi
ally has made extensive encroachments on the other Philippine
tongues since the conquest. The Tagal is physically well developed,
has a round head, high cheek bones, flattish nose, lowbrow, thickish
lips, and large dark eyes. The lines from the nose to the mouth
are usually strongly marked. The power of smell is of extraordinary
aeuteness. A pair of trousers and a shirt worn outside constitute
the dress of the men ; that of the women differs by the substitution
of the saya or gown for the trousers. Agriculture, and especially
the cultivation of rice, is the Tagal's staple means of living ; they
are also great fishers and keep swine, cattle, and vast numbers of
ducks and fowls. Externally they are mostly Roman Catholics ;
but abundant traces of their old superstitions may still be observed.
Cock-fighting and theatrical entertainments are in great favour with
the Tagals ; they have quite a passion for playing on musical in
struments, and learn to execute European pieces with great success.
Before the arrival of the Spaniards they had an alphabet of their
own (see Stanley's translation of Morga), and they still possess a
body of lyrical poetry and native melodies. On the death of an
adult a feast is sometimes held among the better families, but the
funeral itself is conducted after the ordinary Roman Catholic fashion.
The Visayas inhabit all the islands to the south of Luzon, Mas-
bate, Burias, Ticao, and Mindoro, and to the north of Borneo, Sulu,
and Mindanao. In the 15th and 16th centuries they were called
"Pintados" (i.e., painted people) by the Spaniards. Though they
had attained a considerable degree of civilization before the con
quest, they readily accepted Christianity and assisted in the subju
gation of the Tagals. The mountains in the interior of some of the
Yisaya Islands are occupied by savage Visayas, generally styled
Infieles, Montesinos, or Cimarrones. The Calamianes, who inhabit
the islands of that name, and the Caragus, who inhabit the east
coast of Mindanao from Cape Surigao to Cape St Augustin, are
usually classed with the Yisayas.
The Igorrotes or Igolotes proper (for the name is by many writers
very loosely applied to all the pagan mountain tribes of Luzon)
inhabit the districts of Bangued, Lepanto, Tiagan, Bontoc. From
their cranial characteristics they seem to be distinct from the
Tagals and other " Malay " tribes, and they are said to show traces
of Chinese and even Japanese intermixture. Dirty and savage-like
in ^person, they are none the less industrious agriculturists — laying
out their fields on artificial terraces on the mountain sides, and
constructing irrigation canals with remarkable skill ; and they
also excel as miners and workers in metal. In the matter of sexual
morality they form a striking contrast to the licentious Malays ;
they are monogamists, allow no divorce, and inflict severe punish
ment for infidelity. Though an attempt to subdue the Igorrotes was
made as early as 1660, it was not till 1829 that Spanish supremacy
was acknowledged.
For details in regard to the other tribes of the Philippines — the
Ilocanes, Parnpangos, Pangasinanes, Ibanags or Cagayans, Tingu-
ianes (Itanegas or Tingues), Apayaos, Catalanganes, Yicols, &c. —
the reader is referred to Professor Ferd. Blumentritt's monograph,
Vcrsuch einer Ethnographic dcr Philippinen, Gotha, 1 8S2. No fewer
than thirty languages are officially recognized. In 1865 it was
estimated that Yisaya was spoken by upwards of 2,000,000 persons,
Tagalog by 1,300,000, Cebuano by 386,000, &c.
Chinese immigrants, in spite of massacres and administrative
restrictions, form a powerful element in the Philippines; in Manila
alone they numbered 30,000 in 1880, and there is hardly a pueblo of
any size in which one or more of them is not to be found. The petty
trade and banking are nearly all in their hands. Chinese mestizos
or half-breeds (Mestizos de Sanglay, or Mestizos Chinos) are numer
ous enough to form separate communities ; in 1867 they were said
to be 211,000 strong. The European element has never been
numerically important — some 8000 or 9000 at the most ; but there
has grown up a considerable body of European mestizos. Traces
of Indian sepoys are still seen in the neighbourhood of Manila,
where sepoy regiments were quartered for about eighteen months
after the conquest of Manila by the English. Owing partly to
Philip II. 's prohibition of slavery the Negro is conspicuous by his
absence.
There are no accurate statistics of the whole population of the
Philippines ; and even the number of the Spanish subjects was up
till 1877 only estimated according to the number of those who paid
tribute. Diaz Arenas in 1833 stated the total at 3,153,290, the
1 See Meyer, in Z. f. Ethn., vols. v., vi. , vii.
ecclesiastical census of 1876 at 6,173,632, and the civil census of
1877 at 5,561,232 ; Moya y Jimenez, founding on certain calcula
tions by Del Pan, and admitting an annual increase of 2 per cent.,
brings the number up to 10,426,000 in 1882.
History. — -The Philippine, or, as lie called them, the St Lazarus
Islands were discovered by Magellan on 12th March 1521, the first
place at which he touched being Jomonjol, now Malhou, an islet in
the Strait of Surigao between Samar and Dinagat. By 27th April he
had lost his life on the island of Mactan off the coast of Cebu. The
surrender of the Moluccas by Charles V. in 1529 tended to lessen
the interest of the Spaniards in the Islas de Poniente, as they
generally called their new discovery, and the Portuguese were too
busy in the southern parts of the Indian Archipelago to trouble
about the Islas de Oriente, as they preferred to call them. Villalo-
bos, who sailed from Navidad in Mexico with five ships and 370
men in February 1543, accomplished little (though it was he who
suggested the present name of the archipelago by calling Samar
Filipina) ; but in 1565 Legazpi founded the Spanish settlement of
San Miguel at the town of Cebu, which afterwards became the
Villa de Santisimo Nombre de Jesus, and in 1571 determined in
large measure the future lines of conquest by fixing the capital at
Manila. It is in a letter of Legazpi's in 1567 that the name Islas
Filipinas appears for the first time. The subjugation of the islands,
thanks to the exertions of the Roman Catholic missionaries and to
the large powers which were placed in their hands by Philip, was
effected, not of course without fighting and bloodshed, but without
those appalling massacres and depopulations which characterized
the conquest of South America. Contests with frontier rebellious
tribes, attacks by pirates and reprisals on the part of the Spaniards,
combine with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tornadoes to
break the comparative monotony of the subsequent history. Manila
was captured by the English under Draper and Cornish in 1762,
and ransomed for £1,000,000; but it was restored in 1764.
Professor Blumentritt published a Biblioqraphie der Philipplnen in 1882 ;
minor lists of authorities will be found in his Versuch einer Ethnographic, in
Moya y Jimenez, &c. It is enough to mention Morga, Sitcesos de las Islas Fili
pinas, Mexico, 1G09 (English translation by Henry E. J. Stanley, Hakluyt
Soc., 1808); Chirino, Relacion de las I. F., Rome, 1604; Combez, Hist, de las
Islas de Mindanao, Jold, &c., Madrid, 1667 ; Agustin, Conquistas de las I. F.,
Madrid, 1698 ; Juan de la Concepeion, Hist, general de Philipivas, Sampaloc,
1788 ; Zuiiiga, Hist, de Philipinas, Sampaloc, 1803 (English partial translation
by John Maver, 1814) ; Comyn, Estado de las I. F. en IS 10, Madrid, 1820 (new
edition, 1877) ; Mas, Informe sobre el Estado de las I. F. en 181(2, Madrid, 1843 ;
Mallat, Les Philippines, Paris, 1846; Diaz Arenas, Memorias hist, y estad.,
Manila, 1850 ; Buzeta and Bravo, Diccionario cstad., &c., de las I. F., Madrid,
1850 ; La Gironniere, Vingt ans anx Philippines, 1853 ; Semper, Die Philippinen
u. Hire liewohner, \Viirzburg, 1869 ; Ferrando, Hist, de los PP. Dominicanos en
las I. F., <fec., Madrid, 1870; Jagor, Keisen in den Philippinen, Berlin, 1873;
Scheidnagel, IMS Colonias Espanolas de Asia, Madrid, ISbO ; Caflainaque, Las
Islas Filipinas, Madrid, 1880 ; Cavada, duia de Filipinas, 1881 ; Francisco
Javier de Moya y Jimenez, Las I. F. en 1SS2, Madrid, 1883. (H. A. W.)
PHILIPPOPOLIS, FILIPPOPEL, and (Turkish) FELIBE,
a city of Thracia, previous to 1878 the chief town of a
sanjak in the Turkish vilayet of Aclrianople, and now the
capital of the independent province of Eastern Roumelia
and the chief town of one of the six departments, lies 112
miles west-north-west of Adrianople by rail and thus 309
miles from Constantinople, mainly on the right bank of the
Maritza (the ancient Hebrus). The railway runs farther
up the river to Sarambey and Simcina, but has no direct
connexion with the other railway systems of Europe. High
ways, however, from Bulgaria, Servia, and Macedonia meet
at Philippopolis, which, besides being the centre of an ex
tensive trade, carries on considerable manufactures of silk,
cotton, and leather. The city is built partly on a striking
group of granite eminences (whence the old Roman name,
Trimontium) and partly on the low grounds along the
river, which in the outskirts are occupied by rice-fields.
On the left side of the river and connected with the city
by a long bridge is the suburb of Karsliiaka. The popula
tion, estimated at 24,000 to 28,000, consists of Bulgarians,
and, in smaller proportions, of Greeks, Turks, Armenians,
Jews, and Gipsies. A Greek archbishop has his see in
the city, and among the public buildings are a number of
Greek churches and a Greek lyceum (1868).
Enmolpia, a Thracian town, was captured by Philip of Macedon
and made one of his frontier posts ; and, though the soldiers seem
to have given it the title of " Poneropolis," or City of Hardships,
and it was not long afterwards recovered by the Thracians, the
name of Philip's City has stuck to it ever since. Under the
Romans Philippopolis or Trimontium became the capital of Thracia ;
and, even after its destruction by the Goths, when 100,000 persons
are said to have been slain, it continued to be a nourishing city till
it was again laid in ruins by Joannes Romaioctonus, the Bulgarian
king. It passed under Turkish rule in 1360 ; in 1818 it was
XVIII. — 95
754
P H I — P H I
destroyed by an eartlttjuake ; and in 1S4G it suffered from a severe
conflagration. During the war of 1877-78 the city was occupied
by the Russians.
PHILIPPSBURG, a small town of the grand-duchy of
Baden, situated on a sluggish arm of the Rhine, 1 5 miles
to the north of Carlsruhe, was formerly an important
fortress of the German empire, and played a somewhat
conspicuous part in the wars of the 17th century. It
originally belonged to the ecclesiastical principality of
Spires, and was named Udenheim, but in 1618 it was forti
fied and re-christened by Bishop Philip von Sotern. At
the peace of Westphalia (1648) the French remained in
military possession of Philippsburg, but in 1679 it was
restored to Germany, and though again captured by the
French in 1688 it was once more restored in 1697. In
1734 the dilapidated fortress fell an easy prey to the
French under Marshal Berwick, who, however, lost his
life beneath its walls, and in 1800 the works were razed.
The town was assigned to Baden in 1803. The population
in 1880 was 2549.
PHILIPS, AMBROSE (1671-1749), English man of letters,
was born of a good Leicester family in 1671. While at
St John's College, Cambridge, he gave evidence of literary
taste and skill, in verses forming part of a memorial
tribute from the university on the death of Queen Mary.
Going to London on the completion of his studies, Philips
speedily became " one of the wits at Button's," and thereby
a friend of Steele and Addison. He began to write for
Tonson, working at such heterogeneous subjects as trans
lated " Persian Tales " and a summary of Racket's Life of
Archbishop Williams. The first product really character
istic of the author, after his settlement in London, is the
series of Pastorals which opened the sixth volume of
Tonson's Miscellanies (1709). Pope's Pastorals, curiously
enough, closed the same volume, and the emphatic pre
ference expressed in the Guardian, in 1713, for Philips's
pastoral style over all other successors to Spenser gave rise
to Pope's trenchant ironical paper in No. 40 of the same
periodical. The breach between these two wits speedily
widened, and Philips was at length concerned in the great
(parrel between Pope and Addison. He had come to be a
man of some note both for literary work and political acti
vity. The Spectator had loaded with praises the drama of
The Distressed Mother, which Philips adapted from Racine's
Andromague and brought upon the stage in 1712, and he
was thus a recognized member of Addison's following.
There is some doubt as to the particular part he played in
the notorious contest of the two chiefs, but, whether he
threatened to beat Pope or not (with the rod which he is
said to have hung up at Button's for that purpose), there is
ample evidence to show that both Pope and his friends
had a bitter feeling towards him. Not only is he honoured
with two separate lines in the Dunciad, but he figures
for illustrative purposes in Martinus Scriblerus, and he
receives considerable attention in the letters of both Pope
and Swift. The latter found occasion for special allusion
to Philips during Philips's stay in Ireland, whither he had
gone as secretary to Archbishop Boulter. He had done
good work in the Freethinker (1711) along with Boulter,
whose services to the Government in that paper gained
him preferment from his position as clergyman in South-
wark, first to the bishopric of Bristol and then to the
primacy of Ireland. Up to this time Philips had shown
disinterested zeal in the Hanoverian cause, though he had
received no greater reward than the positions of justice
of peace and commissioner of the lottery (1717). He
had also written some of his best epistles, while in 1722
he published two more dramatic works — The Briton and
Humphry, Duke of Gloucester — neither of which has had
the fortune, like their predecessor, to be immortalized by
romantic criticism. It was, no doubt, a grateful change
for Philips to go to Ireland under the patronage of Arch
bishop Boulter, and to represent, through the same in
fluence, the county of Armagh in the Irish Parliament,
while his sense of his own political worth must have been
flattered when he became secretary to the lord chancellor
in 1726, and in 1733 judge of the prerogative court.
After the archbishop's death he by and by returned to
London, and dedicated a collected edition of his works to
the duke of Newcastle. He died in 1749.
While it can hardly be said that Philips's Pastorals show poetic
quality of a high order, they must be commended — and perhaps
the third in particular — for ease and fluency and rhetorical vigour.
In these features they are not surpassed by the pastorals in TIw
Shepherd's Week, which Gay wrote, at Pope's instigation, as a
burlesque on Philips's work ; but the grasp of rustic simplicity
and the exquisite play of fancy possessed by Gay are manifest
advantages in his performance. The six epistles evince dexterous
management of the heroic couplet, an energetic directness of pur
pose, and (particularly the "winter piece " addressed to the earl
of Dorset) a noticeable appreciation of natural beauty. Similar
felicitous diction and sympathetic observation, together with a
determined bias towards weakness of sentiment, are characteristic
of the poet's odes, some of which — addressed to children — gave
occasion for various shafts from both Swift and Pope, as well as for
the nickname of " Namby - Pamby, " coined by Henry Carey as a
descriptive epithet for Philips. The epigrams, and the translations
from Pindar, Anacreon, and Sappho, need merely be named as
completing the list of the author's works.
See Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Spence's Anecdotes; the Spectator; the
Works (especially the correspondence) of Pope and Swift ; Stephen's Pope and
Courthope's Addison, in English Men of Letters.
PHILIPS, JOHN (1676-1708), English man of letters,
son of Dr Stephen Philips, archdeacon of Salop, was born
at Bampton in Oxfordshire in 1676. After receiving
private education at home, he went to Winchester School,
and in due course became a student of Christ Church,
Oxford. At school he showed special aptitude for exact
scholarship, and at the university, under Dean Aldrich,
he became one of the most remarkable men of his time.
He was an ardent and successful student of the ancient
classics, and took special pleasure in making himself
thoroughly familiar with Virgil. At the same time he
was diligent in his scientific pursuits preparatory to the
medical profession he intended to follow, and, although
the botany and other branches he made himself familiar
with wrere never actually turned to account in the business
of life, his acquired knowledge gave him material for
literary purposes. But, over and above these studies,
Philips was a careful and critical reader of the English
poets that fell in with his tastes, and devoted much time
to Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton. When he began to
write, the influence of the two former told to some extent
on his diction, and he was so enamoured of the strenuous
movement and the resonant harmonies of Milton's blank
verse that he adapted the form of all his original English
writings to that supreme model. Were it for nothing
else, John Philips will be remembered as the first to have
a genuine literary appreciation of Milton. He was well
known in his college for scholarship, taste, and literary
resource long before publishing any of his writings, but
the appearance of The Splendid Shilling, about the year
1703, at once brought him under the favourable notice of
critics and readers of poetry. The Tatler (No. 250) hailed
the poet as the writer of " the best burlesque poem in the
British language," nor will the modern reader care to
detract much from this verdict, even granting that the
model and the imitation, mutually constituting a great
revelation to the literary dictators of the period, would
cause them considerable surprise. Philips in this poem
showed the dexterous ease that comes of long study and
perfect familiarity, combined with fertility of resource and
humorous ingenuity of application. One important result
of the work was the interested notice of the earl of Oxford
and Lord Bolingbroke. The poet went to London, and
P H I — P H I
755
was asked to celebrate the victory of Blenheim, which he
did in his favourite manner, but without conspicuous suc
cess. The Blenheim, published in 1705, lacks, of course,
the element of burlesque, and it is difficult to resist the
impression that the poet must have felt himself restrained
and hampered by the stern necessity of being seriously
sublime, A year later (1706) Philips published, in two
books, his didactic poem entitled Cyder, which is his most
ambitious work and is written in imitation of Virgil's
Georgics. While there is no denying the poet's admirable
familiarity with his original, or his skilful employment of
the Miltonic blank verse, or the sustained energy and
grace of some of the episodes in the second part, or even
his intimate knowledge of the minute details connected
with the management of fruit, it cannot be said that the
work is a notable contribution to English poetry. It is
streaked with genius, but, like the Latin Ode to St John
(and, for that matter, the author's other works as well),
it is little more than the expression of a poetical scholar
feeling his way outwards into life. Philips never got
beyond the enjoyment of his pipe and his study, both of
which figure prominently in all his poems. He was medi
tating a still further work on the Last Day, when he was
cut off by consumption, in 1708, at the early age of thirty-
two. His friend Edmund Smith, himself a distinguished
scholar and poet, wrote an elegy on the occasion, which
Johnson says "justice must place among the best elegies
which our language can show." Philips was buried at
Hereford, and a monument to his memory, with an in
scription from the pen of Atterbury, was erected between
those of Chaucer and Drayton in Westminster Abbey.
See Johnson's Lives of the Poets, including Smith's Prefatory Dis
course ; Sewell's Life of Mr John Philips ; the Tatlcr, &c.
PHILIPPUS, M. JULIUS, Roman emperor from 244 to
249 A.D., often called " Philip the Arab," was a native of
Bostra or the Trachonitis, who, exchanging the predatory
life of the Arabs who hung on the desert borders of the
empire for Roman military service, rose to be praetorian pre
fect in the Persian campaign of Gordian III., and, inspiring
the soldiers to mutiny and to slay the young emperor, was
raised by them to the purple (244). Of his reign little is
known except that he celebrated the secular games with
great pomp in 248. A rebellion broke out among the
legions of Mcesia, and Decius, who was sent to quell it, was
forced by the troops to put himself at their head. Philip
was defeated near Verona and perished in or after the
battle, leaving a very evil reputation. Eusebius knows
a current opinion that Philip was a Christian ; Jerome
and later writers state this as a fact. But at best his
Christianity must have been merely nominal and had no
effect on his life or reign. With Philip perished his son
and colleague, then a boy of twelve, who is known as
Philippus II.
PHILISTINES (D*lt$B), the name of a people which,
in the latter part of the age of the Judges and up to the
time of David, disputed the sovereignty of Canaan with
the Israelites (see ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 402 sq.). The
Philistine country (flKvQ Palsestina ; the authorized version
.still uses the word in this its original sense as equivalent
to Philistia) embraced the rich lowlands on tlie Mediter
ranean coast (the Shephelah) from somewhere near Joppa
to the Egyptian desert south of Gaza, and was divided
between five chief cities, Ashdod or AZOTUS (q.v.), GAZA
(q.v.), and Askelon (Ashkelon, ASCALON, q.v.) on or near
the coast, and GATH (q.v.) and EKRON (q.v.) inland. The
five cities, of all of which except Gath the sites are known,1
formed a confederation under five "lords" (Seranim).2
1 Their modern names are Azdud, Ghazza, 'Askalan, 'Akir.
2 The word seren, pi. seranlm, means an axle, and seems to be ap
plied metaphorically like the Arabic kotb.
Ashdod was probably the foremost city of the confedera
tion in the time of Philistine supremacy ; for it heads the
list in 1 Sam. vi. 17, and it was to the temple of Dagon
in Ashdod that the ark was brought after the battle of
Aphek or Ebenezer (1 Sam. v. 1). Hebrew tradition
recognizes the Philistines as immigrants into Canaan with
in historical times, like the Israelites and the Aramaeans
(Amos ix. 7), but unlike the Canaanites. They came,
according to Amos, from Caphtor (comp. Jer. xlvii. 4), and
Deut. ii. 23 relates that the Caphtorim from Caphtor dis
placed an earlier race, the 'Avvfm, who were not city-
dwellers like the Canaanites, but lived in scattered villages.
The very name of Philistines probably comes from a
Semitic root meaning " to wander " ; the Septuagint calls
them 'AAAo</>vAot, " aliens." The date of their immigration
cannot be determined with certainty.3 We are scarcely en
titled to take Gen. xxi., xxvi., as proving that the inhabit
ants of Gerar in patriarchal times were identical with the
later Philistines, and the other references in the Penta
teuch and Joshua are equally inconclusive. The first real
sign of the presence of the Philistines is when the Danites,
who in the time of Deborah were seated on the sea-coast
(Judges v. 17), were compelled — obviously by the pressure
of a new enemy — to seek another home far north at the
base of Mount Hermon (Judges xviii.). This marks the
commencement of the period of Philistine aggression, when
the foreigners penetrated into the heart of the Israelite
country, broke up the old hegemony of Ephraim at the
battle of Ebenezer, and again at the battle of Mount
Gilboa destroyed the first attempt at a kingdom of all
Israel. The highest power of the Philistines was after
the death of Saul, when David, who still held Ziklag,
and so was still the vassal of Gath, reigned in Hebron,
and the house of Saul was driven across the Jordan.
But these successes were mainly due to want of union
and discipline in Israel, and when David had united
the tribes under a new sceptre the Philistines were soon
humbled. After the division of the kingdom the house of
Ephraim appears to have laid claim to the suzerainty over
Philistia, for we twice read of a siege of the border fortress
of Gibbethon by the northern Israelites (1 Kings xv. 27,
xvi. 15); but the Philistines, though now put on the defen
sive, were able to maintain their independence. Philistia
was never part of the land of Israel (2 Kings i. 3, viii. 2 ;
Amos vi. 2), and its relations with the Hebrews were
embittered by the slave trade, for which the merchants of
Gaza carried on forays among the Israelite villages (Amos
i. 6). On the other hand, the trading relations between
Gaza and Edom (Amos, ut sup.) probably imply that in
the 8th century Judah, which lay between the two, was
open to Philistine commerce (comp. Isa. ii. 6) ; Judah
under Uzziah had reopened the Red Sea trade, of which
the Philistine ports were the natural outlet.4 Soon, how
ever, all the Palestinian states fell under the great empire
of Assyria, and Tiglath-Pileser, in 734 B.C., subdued the
Philistines as far as Gaza. But the spirit of the race was
not easily broken ; they were constantly engaged in
intrigues with Egypt, and had a share in every conspiracy
and revolt against the great king. Of two of these
revolts, first against Sargon in 711, and afterwards
against Sennacherib on Sargon's death (705), a memorial
is preserved in Isa. xx., xiv. 29 sq. In the latter revolt
Hezekiah of Judah was also engaged ; it was to him that
3 For some Egyptian evidence, see PHOENICIA.
4 The Chronicler, who represents the relations of Judah and Philistia
as generally unfriendly, makes Uzziah subdue the latter country as
well as Edom, assuming perhaps that he was the fulfiller of the pro
phecy in Amos i., in which, however, it is the Assyrians who are really
pointed to as the ministers of divine justice. The old history has no
trace of pretensions of Judah to sovereignty in Philistia till the time
of Hezekiah. Comp. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 217.
756
PHILISTINES
Padi, kinglet of Ekron and a partisan of Assyria, was
delivered for custody by the rebels. In 701 Sennacherib
inarched westward and reduced the rebel cities of Ascalon
and Ekron ; kinglets faithful to his cause were established
in both places, and the territories of these Philistine
princes and of those of Gaza and Ashdod were enlarged
at the cost of Judah. The Philistine Avar of Hezekiah
spoken of in 2 Kings xviii. 8 was probably undertaken to
regain the lost territory after the disaster of Sennacherib's
army. Under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal the inscrip
tions still speak of the cities of Philistia as governed by
kinglets tributary to Assyria ; and, as the power of Nineveh
declined and the nionarchs of Egypt began to form plans
of aggrandizement in Syria, the Philistine fortresses were
the first that opposed their advance. According to
Herodotus (ii. 157) Psammetichus besieged Ashdod for
twenty-nine years, from which we may at least conclude
that the Shephelah was the scene of a protracted conflict
between the two great powers. The prophecy of Zeph-
aniah ii. -4 sq. has by some been held to point to these
events ; but most recent writers prefer to connect it with the
invasion of the Scythians, who in the reign of Psammetichus
ravaged the Phoenician coast and plundered the famous
temple of Aphrodite Urania (Astarte) at Ascalon (Herod.,
i. 105). The next king of Egypt, Necho, also made war
in the Philistine country and smote Gaza (Jer. xlvii.), an
event recorded also by Herodotus, who gives to Gaza
(Ghazzat, Assyrian Khaziti) the name of Cadytis (Herod.,
ii. 159, comp. iii. 5).1 Amidst all these calamities Philistia,
like the other countries of Syria in the Assyrio-Babylonian
period, must have lost great part of its old individuality.
The Philistine towns continued to be important, and Gaza
in particular became a great seat of international commerce
— Herodotus estimates Cadytis as being almost as large as
Sardis — but we can hardly speak further of a Philistine
people. After the captivity Nehemiah speaks not of Philis
tines but of Ashdodites (iv. 7), speaking an " Ashdodite "
dialect (xiii. 24), just as Strabo regards the Jews, the
Idumeans, the Gazans, and the Ashdodites as four cognate
peoples having the common characteristic of combining
agriculture with commerce. In southern Philistia at least
the population was modified by Arabian immigration. In
the time of Cambyses the Arabs touched the sea immedi
ately south of Gaza (Herod., iii. 5), and this perhaps had
something to do with the fact that Gaza was the only
Syrian city that resisted Cyrus, just as the Persian and
Arab garrison of Gaza offered to Alexander the only re
sistance that he found on his march from Tyre to Egypt.
We have still to consider the much-vexed question of
the origin of the Philistines. That they were a Semitic
or at least a thoroughly Semitized people can now hardly
be made matter of dispute. The short list of proper names
derived from the Bible has been considerably enlarged from
the Assyrian monuments, and suffices to prove that before
as after the captivity their language was only dialectically
different from that of the Israelites. The religion too was
Semitic, and of that older type when the gods were not
yet reduced to mere astral powers, but had individual types
and special relations to certain animals. Thus Ekron had
its local "Fly-Baal" (Baal-Zebub, 2 Kings i. 2 sq.), the
fame of whose oracle in the 9th century B.C. extended as
far as Samaria. The more famous Dagon, who had temples
at Ashdod (1 Sam. v. ; 1 Mac. x. 83) and Gaza (Judges
xvi. 21 sq.), seems to have been more than a mere local
deity ; there was a place called Beth-Dagon in Judaea (Josh.
xv. 41) and another on the borders of Asher (Josh. xix.
27). The name Dagon seems to come from Ji, " fish," and
1 The reference to Necho and Gaza is not in the Septuagint of Jer.
xlvii. 1, and it would be more natural to think of Chaldaja as the
enemy from the north whom Jeremiah describes.
that his idol was half-man half-fish is pretty clear from
1 Sam. v. 4, where, however, the text is hardly sound, and
we ought probably to read, omitting one of two consecutive
nuns, "only his fish-part was left to him."
There are two other views about Dagon. (1) 1'hilo Byblius (Mu'ller,
Fr. Hist. Graze., iii. 567 sq.) makes Dagon the inventor of corn and
the plough, whence he was called Zei)s 'Aporptos. This implies an
etymology of a very improbable kind from the Hebrew and Phoe
nician pi, " corn." But it is probable that, at least in later times,
Dagon had in place of, or in addition to, his old character that of
the god who presided over agriculture ; for in the last days of
paganism, as we learn from Marcus Diaccnus in the Life of Porphyry
of Gaza (§ 19), the great god of Gaza, now known as Mania (our
Lord), was regarded as the god of rains and invoked against famine.
That Mania was lineally descended from Dagon is probable in every
way, and it is therefore interesting to note that he gave oracles, that
he had a circular temple, where he was sometimes worshipped by
human sacrifices, that there were wells in the sacred circuit, and
that there was also a place of adoration to him situated, in old
Semitic fashion, outside the town. Certain "marmora" in the
temple, which might not lie approached, especially by women, may
perhaps be connected with the threshold which the priests of
Dagon would not touch with their feet (1 Sam. v. 5 ; Zcph. i. 9).
(2) Schrader (K. A. T., 2d ed., p. 181 sq.} identifies Dagon with
the Assyrian god Dakan, and believes that the word is Accadian.
We are here in a region of pure conjecture ; the attributes of Dakan
are unknown, save only that Berosus speaks of an Assyrian merman-
god '&5d.Kwv.
To the male god Dagon answers in the Bible the female
deity Ashtoreth, whose temple spoken of in 1 Sam. xxxi.
10 is probably the ancient temple at Ascalon, which
Herodotus regarded as the oldest seat of the worship of
Aphrodite Urania. This Ashtoreth is the Derketo of
Diodorus (ii. 4) and Lucian (De Dca Syr., 14), the
Atargatis of Xanthus (Fr. Hist. Graze., i. 155), whose
sacred enclosure and pool were near Ascalon, and whose
image had a human head, but was continued in the form
of a fish.2 The association of Ashtoreth with sacred pools
and fish was common in Syria, and the sacred doves of
Ascalon mentioned by Philo (ed. Mangey, ii. 646) belong
to the same worship.3 Of the details of Philistine religion
in the Biblical period we know almost nothing.4 Their
gods were carried into battle (2 Sam. v. 21), a usage found
among other Semites ; their skill in divination is alluded
to in Isa. ii. 6, and we have already seen that oracles were
a feature in their shrines. The whole record shows a religion
characteristically Semitic in type ; and it is also noteworthy
that at the earliest date when the Philistines appear in
history the great sanctuaries are all on the coast with
deities of a marine type. This raises a presumption that
the Philistines came from over the sea, and that Caphtor,
their original home, was an island or maritime country.0
In point of fact the Philistines must have entered their
later seats either by sea or from the desert between Canaan
and Egypt. In the latter case they come from Egypt, for
a city-building people, which supplanted a race of villagers,
cannot have been a tribe of Arabs. And so the theories
about the origin of the Philistines reduce themselves to -*
two, one class of writers holding that Caphtor must be
sought across the Mediterranean, another placing it in the
2 The name Atargatis is a later compound, of which the first half is
the Aramaic form of Ashtar ('Attar), and the second is SJiy.
3 The Aphrodite of Gaza in Marcus, Vit. Porph., § 59, is rather
Aphrodite Pandemos. She gave oracles by dreams in matters relating
to marriage.
4 Schrader thinks that traces of Jehovah (lahveh) worship among the
Philistines are to be found in the Philistine names Padi, Mitinti, Sidkii,
&c., on the Assyrian inscriptions (see also Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag
das Parodies ? p. 162 sq. ). It is probable enough that Sidkfi at least is
a shortened form of a name in which the second element was that of a
god ; but such Phoenician names as Kalba (side by side with Kalbclim),
Ilanno, Abda or Bodo, &c., show that the shortening does not in the
least imply that the divine name was lahveh.
5 The expression " isle " (or coastland, Hebrew ""X) of Caphtor in Jer.
xlvii. is generally cited as conclusive to this effect ; but in the context
it is by no means clear that it means anything more than the coastlaud
of Philistia.
P H I — P H I
757
Delta. Ancient tradition gives no help ; for it takes Caphtor
to be Cappadocia, led, it would seem, merely by a super
ficial similarity of the names. Of the two main theories the
former is that which has recently found most support, and
it has a definite point of attachment in the fact that the
Philistines, or a^ part of them, are also called in the Bible
Cherethites (1 Sam. xxx. 14; Ezek. xxv. 16; Zeph. ii.
5), while David's Philistine guards are in like manner
called the Cherethites and Pelethites (2 Sam. viii. 18, xv.
18, &c.). Cherethites (Kretlm) can hardly be anything but
Cretans, as the LXX. actually renders it in Ezekiel and
Zephaniah, and Caphtor would thus be the island of Crete,
— an identification which seems to satisfy the conditions
of a reasonable hypothesis. For, though the points of
contact between Crete or Cretan religion and the Philistine
coast which have been sought in Greek and Latin writers
(chiefly in Steph. Byzant., s.v. " Gaza ") are very shadowy,
there is no doubt that Crete had an early connexion with
Phoenicia and received many Semitic inhabitants and a
Semitic civilization before the Greeks gradually asserted
themselves in the ^Egean and forced back the tide of
Semitic influence (for details, see the article PHOENICIA).
These facts give a reasonable explanation of the settlement
on the Philistine coast within historical times of a mari
time people, cognate to the Phoenicians in so many points
and yet having certain distinct characters, such as would
naturally be produced in a place like Crete by the grafting
of a Semitic stock and culture on ruder races not Semitic
(the Eteocretans).1 The opposite view, which places
Caphtor in the Delta, rests on more complicated but less
satisfactory arguments. There were certainly many Semites
in the Delta of Egypt, and so long as the history of the
Hyksos (who were no doubt Semites) remains in its present
obscurity it is always possible to suppose that their ex
pulsion from Egypt explains the settlement of the Philis
tines in Canaan. But it is very questionable if the dates
will fit ; the name Caphtor is connected with the Delta by
no historical testimony, but only by elaborate hypotheses,
as that Caphtor may mean in Egyptian Great Phoenicia,
and that this again may have been a name for the Egyptian
coast, where there Avas a large Semitic population ; 2 and
the characteristic Philistine peculiarity of uncircumcision,
intelligible enough on the Cretan theory, is scarcely con
ceivable in a race Avhich had been long settled in Egypt.
The mainstay of the Egyptian hypothesis is found in Gen.
x. 13, 14, — verses which belong to the older part of the
chapter (see NOAH), and reckon in the very obscure list of
descendants of Mizraim or Egypt " Casluhim (Avhence
came forth Philistim) and Caphtorim." This account
places Caphtorim in some relation to Egypt, but not
necessarily in a very close relation, for the Luclim, Avho
are also made descendants of Egypt, are scarcely different
from Lud or Lydia, Avhich appears at ver. 22, in the later
part of the chapter, in another connexion. But further,
if the text as it stands is sound, it gives a neAV account of
the origin of the Philistines, Avhich can be reconciled Avith
the other Biblical eAddence only by making Casluhim a
halting-place of the Philistines on their way from Caphtor
to Canaan. Accordingly the advocates of the Egyptian
theory propose to identify Casluhim Avith the arid district
of Mount Casius on the coast of the Egyptian desert. But
this is false etymology. Mount Casius is named from the
temple of Jupiter Casius, that is, the Avell-knoAvn Semitic
1 In 2 Sam. xx. 23, Ktib, and 2 Kings xi. 4, 19, the foreign
mercenaries are called not Krethim but Kan, perhaps Carians. The
Carian seamen and pirates had also a strong Semitic strain, and were
at bottom the same race with the Eteocretans.
2 So Ebers, A egypten und die Biiclier Mosis, where the theory is
supported by a very long and complex argument. Another etymology
in support of the theory is giveii by Dietrich in Jfcrx's Archiv, i,
313 sq.
God V¥p,3 AA'hose name as Avritten in Semitic letters has no
possible affinity to Casluhim. And in truth the statement
that the Philistines came from Casluhim, presented Avith-
out a hint as to their connexion Avith Caphtorim, which
is mentioned immediately afterAA'ards, lies under strong
suspicion of being a gloss, originally set on the margin by
a copyist Avho meant it to refer to Caphtorim.4 In this
case the original author Avill have meant Caphtorim to
denote, or at least include, the Philistines (AArho, as they are
not Canaanites, and had close relations with Egypt in
historical times, fall readily enough under the Egyptian
group), and tells us nothing about the origin of the race.
Literature. — Hitzig, Urgeschichte . . . der Philistder, 1845,
where the now untenable hypothesis of a Pelasgic origin of the
Philistines is maintained ; Ewald, Gesch. des V. Israel, i. 348 sq. ;
and in general the books on Hebrew history and commentaries on
Gen. x. and on Amos. A useful monograph is Stark's Gaza und
die philistaische Kiiste, Jena, 1852. For the Assyrian evidence see
especially Schrader, Keilinschriften und Altcs Testament, 2d ed.,
Giessen, 1883. (W. R S.)
PHILLIP, JOHN (1817-1867), subject and portrait
painter, Avas born at Aberdeen, Scotland, on 19th April
1817. His father, an old soldier, was in humble circum
stances, and the son became an errand-boy to a tinsmith
of the place, and Avas then apprenticed to a painter and
glazier. Meanwhile he AA-as employing in the pursuit of
art all the time he could spare from his daily duties, and,
having received some technical instruction from a local
artist named William Mercer, he began, at the age of
about fifteen, to paint portraits. In 1834 he AAras enabled
to make a very brief visit to London, where he studied
Avith delighted interest in the Koyal Academy Exhibition
and the National Gallery. At this time, or shortly after-
Avards, he became assistant to James Forbes, an Aberdeen
portrait-painter, under Avhose tuition he made considerable
progress. Previously, hoAvever, he had gained a valuable
patron. Having been sent to repair a AvindoAv in the
house of Major P. L. Gordon, his interest in the works of
art Avhich hung on the Avails attracted the attention of
their OAvner. He brought the young artist under the
notice of Lord Panmure, who bought several of his
productions, and in 1836 sent the lad to London, pro
mising to bear the cost of his art -education. At first
Phillip Avas placed under T. M. Joy, but he soon entered
the schools of the Royal Academy, Avhere he Avorked dili
gently, but Avith no exceptional promise or success, for
two years. In 1839 he figured for the first time in the
Iloyal Academy Exhibition Avith a portrait and a landscape,
and in the following year he was represented by a more
ambitious figure -picture of Tasso in Disguise relating
his Persecutions to his Sister. For the next ten years
he supported himself mainly by portraiture and by
painting subjects of national incident, such as Presbyterian
Catechizing, Baptism in Scotland, and the Spaewife.
His productions of this period, as well as his earlier subject-
pictures, are reminiscent of the practice and methods of
Wilkie and the Scottish genre-painters of his time, often
possessing considerable grace of form, executed in a thin
delicate style of painting, inclining to brownish tones of
colour, and Avith the more powerful pigments introduced
cautiously and Avith reserve The Letter-Avriter of Seville,
shoAvn in the Pioyal Academy of 1854, marks a distinct
change of both style and subject. Three years previously
the artist's health had shoAvn signs of delicacy, and his
medical advisers had recommended a residence in a warmer
climate. Spain Avas selected, and a fresh potency came to
his art as well as to his physical frame. He Avas brought
face to face for the first time Avith the brilliant sunshine
and the splendid colour of the South, and it Avas in coping
3 See De Vogue, Syrie Centrale : Inscr. Sem., p. 103 sq,
4 So Olshausen, and Budde, BiUische Urgeschichte, p. 331, note. A
mere transposition (so Ewald, Tuch, &c. ) is much less probable.
758
P H I — P H I
with these that he first manifested his artistic individuality
and finally displayed his full powers. In the Letter-
writer, commissioned by the Queen at the suggestion of
Sir Edwin Landseer, who had been greatly impressed by
some of Phillip's Spanish sketches, we see the change of
method in its initial stages rather than in its complete
triumph. The artist is struggling with new difficulties in
the portrayal of unwonted splendours of colour and light,
the draperies are somewhat crude and textureless, and the
picture may justly be charged with a want of complete
harmony and of a due sense of the finer gradations of
nature. In 1857 Phillip was elected an associate of the
Royal Academy, and in 1859 a full member. In 1855
and in 1860 other two visits to Spain were made, and
in each case the painter returned with fresh materials to
be embodied with increasing power and subtlety in the
long series of works with which his name is exclusively
associated in the popular mind, and which has won for
him the title of " Spanish Phillip." His highest point of
execution is probably reached in the La Gloria of 1864
and a smaller single -figure painting of the same period
entitled El Cigarillo. These Spanish subjects were varied
in 1860 by a rendering of the Marriage of the Princess
Royal with the Crown Prince of Germany, executed by
command of the Queen, and in 1863 by a picture of the
House of Commons, subjects presenting extreme artistic
difficulties, but treated with much skill and dexterity.
During his last visit to Spain Phillip occupied himself in
a careful study of the art of Velazquez, and the copies
which he made after that artist fetched large prices after
his death, examples having been secured by the Royal and
the Royal Scottish Academies. The year before his death
he visited Italy and devoted much attention to the works
of Titian. The results of this study of the old masters are
visible in such of Phillip's Avorks as La Loteria Nacional,
left uncompleted at his death. This and several other of
his later works exhibit symptoms of a fresh change of
method, and show signs that his art was again about to
take a fresh departure. During this period he resided
much in the Highlands, and seemed to be returning to his
first love for Scottish subjects, painting several national
scenes, and planning others that were never completed.
His health had been always delicate, and his strength had
been taxed by severe domestic affliction and by the very
exceptional rapidity and quantity of his artistic production.
In the end of 1866 his excessive application to work for
the next year's exhibition induced an attack of bilious
fever, which was succeeded by paralysis, and the genial
and talented artist expired at London on 27th February
1867 at the age of fifty.
In execution Phillip was singularly direct, forcible, and rapid.
He was a noble colourist, a painter in the first and simplest sense
of the word, concerning himself mainly with the visible and sen
suous beauties of his subjects, their purely artistic problems of
colour, tone, lighting, and texture. His art dealt with the appear
ances of tilings, a sufficiently legitimate sphere for the painter, and
was seldom permeated with any very deep human or dramatic in
terest. His works were collected in the International Exhibition
of 1873, and many of them have been excellently reproduced by
the engravings of T. Oldham Barlow. In addition to the paintings
which we have already specified the following are among the more
important: — Life among the Gipsies of Seville (1853), El I'aseo
(1855), Collection of the Offertory in a Scotch Kirk (1855), a Gipsy
Water-carrier in Seville (1855), the Prayer of Faith shall save the
Sick (1856), the Dying Contrabandist (1856), the Prison Window
(1857), a Huff (1859), Early Career of Murillo (1865), a Chat round
the Brasero (1866).
PHILLIPS, JOHN (1800-1874), one of the foremost of
the early geologists of England, was born 25th December
1800 at Marclen in Wiltshire. His father belonged to an
old Welsh family, but settled in England as an officer of
excise and married the sister of William Smith, the
" Father of English Geology." Both parents dying when
he was a child, Phillips passed into the care of his uncle.
Before his tenth year he had attended four schools, until
he entered the old school at Holt Spa, Wiltshire, where he
remained for five years, gaining among other acquisitions
that taste for classical learning which remained one of his
distinguishing traits to the end. From school he went to
the house of the Rev. B. Richardson, an accomplished
naturalist, in whose charge he remained a year, and from
whom he obtained not only much knowledge but the
strong bent towards the study of nature which thenceforth
became the master-pursuit of his life. His uncle, " Strata
Smith," at that time lived in London, where he exercised
the profession of a civil and mining engineer, though a
very large part of his time and earnings was given to
the preparation of those maps of England and the English
counties on which his fame now rests. In his zeal for
geological pursuits Smith often neglected his proper pro
fessional work, until, as his nephew said, "he had thrown
into the gulf of the Strata all his patrimony and all his
little gains." Eventually he gave up his London house
and wandered about the country, as the requirements of
his maps led him. From the time that young Phillips
joined his uncle in London he remained constantly with
him, sharing in every piece of professional work, in the
preparation of every book and map, and in every tour for
fresh geological information. A youth so trained could
not fail to become a geologist. In the spring of 1824
Smith went to York to deliver a course of lectures on
geology, and his nephew accompanied him. This was
the starting-point in PhUlips's career. His extensive
knowledge of natural science and especially of fossils was
now turned to account. He accepted engagements in the
principal Yorkshire towns to arrange their museums and
give courses of lectures on the collections contained therein.
York became his residence, where he obtained the situation
of keeper of the Yorkshire Museum and secretary of the
Yorkshire Philosophical Society. From that centre he ex
tended his operations to other towns beyond the county ;
and in 1831 he included University College, London, in
the sphere of his activity. In that year the British
Association for the Advancement of Science was founded
at York, and Phillips was one of the active minds who
organized its machinery. He became the assistant general
secretary, a post of great labour and proportionate use
fulness, which he held for upwards of thirty years. In
1834 he accepted the professorship of geology at King's
College, London, but retained his post at York, coming
up to London every year to give a course of lectures there.
This arrangement lasted for six years, until, in 1840, he
resigned his charge of the York Museum and was appointed
one of the staff of the Geological Survey of Great Britain
under De la Beche. In this connexion he spent some
time in studying the Palaeozoic fossils of Devon, Cornwall,
and west Somerset, of which he published descriptions
and illustrations. Thereafter he made a detailed survey
of the region of the Malvern Hills, of which he prepared
the elaborate account that appears in vol. ii. of the
Memoirs of the Survey. His direct connexion with the
National Survey was but of short duration, for in 1844
he accepted the professorship of geology in the university
of Dublin. Nine years later, on the death of Strickland,
who had acted as substitute for Dr Buckland in the
readership of geology in the university of Oxford, Phillips
succeeded to the post of deputy, and eventually, at the
dean's death, became himself reader, a post singularly
congenial to him, and which he held up to the time of his
own death, which was almost tragic in its suddenness.
He dined at All Souls' College on 23d April 1874, but in
retiring slipped and fell headlong down a flight of stairs.
Paralysis at once ensued, and he expired on the afternoou
P H I — P H I
759
of the next day. In 1864 he had been elected president
of the British Association.
Phillips was distinguished among his contemporaries for the
sweetness and bright cheerfulness of his nature. He had great
fluency as a speaker, and always spoke in so pleasant and interest
ing a manner as to make him a welcome and indeed indispensable
interlocutor at the annual gatherings of the British Association.
His social gifts were not less conspicuous than his attainments
in science. But he was not a mere geologist. His sympathies
went actively forth into the whole domain of science, and he him
self contributed largely to astronomical literature as well as to
meteorology.
From the time when he wrote his first paper in 1826 "On the
Direction of the Diluvial Currents in Yorkshire " down to the
last days of his life Phillips continued a constant contributor
to the literature of his science. The pages of the Journal of the
Geological Society, the Geological Magazine, and other publications
of the day are full of valuable essays by him. He was also the
author of numerous separate works, some of which had an extensive
sale and were of great benefit in extending a sound knowledge of
geology. Among these may be specially mentioned : Illustrations
of the Geology of Yorkshire (1835) ; A Treatise on Geology (1837-
39) ; Memoirs of William Smith, the Father of English Geology
(1844) ; Tlie Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coast of Yorkshire (1853) ;
Manual of Geology, Practical and Theoretical (1855) ; Life on the
Earth : its Origin and Succession (1860) ; Vesuvius (1869) ; Geology
of Oxford and the Thames Valley (1871). To these should be
added his monographs in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey
and the publications of the Palajontographical Society, and his
geological sections and maps.
PHILLIPS, SAMUEL (1815-1854), an industrious and
successful litterateur, was the son of a Jewish tradesman
in Regent Street, London, and was born in 1815. A
somewhat precocious talent for mimicry and recitation had
disposed his parents to train him for the stage ; but they
were afterwards induced, through the advice of the duke
of Sussex, to send the lad to University College, London.
After remaining a year at that institution Phillips pro
ceeded to the university of Gottingen. Having renounced
the Jewish faith, he returned shortly afterwards to Eng
land and entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, with
the design of taking orders. His father's death, however,
altered his plans ; and, after an unsuccessful attempt, in
conjunction with his brother, to carry on his father's busi
ness, he in 1841 took to literature as a profession. His
first work, the novel of Caleb Stukely, appeared originally
in the pages of Blackwoods Magazine, and he subsequently
contributed other anonymous tales to that and to other
periodicals. In 1845 he began, through the interest of
Lord Stanley, to write political leaders for the Morning
Herald ; and about the same time he obtained an
appointment as literary critic on the staff of the Times.
In the following year he purchased the John Bull news
paper, which he edited for only a year ; for, finding his
strength, which was slowly wasting under the influence of
confirmed consumption, quite unequal to such laborious
work, he was constrained to abandon the undertaking.
From that period till his death Phillips worked cheerfully
and courageously as literary critic for the Times, and also
wrote an occasional review for the Literary Gazette. Two
anonymous volumes of Essays from the Times were pub
lished by him in 1852 and 1854. They are written in a
light, dashing, picturesque style, sometimes eloquent, fre
quently bitter, and with a tolerable show of fairness.
Phillips took an active part in the formation of the
Crystal Palace Company. He was appointed their literary
director ; he wrote their Guide to the Crystal Palace and
Park, and the Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace. In
1852 the university of Gottingen conferred upon him the
honorary degree of LL.D. He died at Brighton on the
14th of October 1854.
PHILLIPS, THOMAS (1770-1845), portrait and subject
painter, was born at Dudley in Warwickshire on 18th
October 1770. Having acquired the art of glass-painting
at Birmingham, he visited London in 1790 with an intro
duction to Benjamin West, who found him employment on
the windows in St George's chapel at Windsor. In 1792
Phillips painted a view of Windsor Castle, and ere the two
succeeding years had passed he exhibited the Death of
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, at the Battle of Castillon,
Ruth and Naomi, Elijah restoring the Widow's Son,
Cupid disarmed by Euphrosyne, and other pictures of that
class. From the year 1796, however, he seems to have
mainly confined himself to portrait-painting; and it was
in this walk that he was destined to acquire his reputa
tion as an artist. It was not long before he became the
chosen painter of men of genius and talent, notwithstand
ing the rivalry of Hoppner, Owen, Jackson, and Lawrence;
and he has left behind him portraits of nearly all the
illustrious characters of his day. His works of this kind
are distinguished by simplicity, careful and finished hand
ling, and truth of portraiture, but in colour they are com
monly cold and feeble. In 1804 he was elected associate
and four years later member of the Royal Academy. In
1824 Phillips succeeded Fuseli as professor of painting to
the Royal Academy, an office which he held till 1832.
During this period he delivered ten Lectures on the History
and Principles of Painting, which were published in 1833.
He likewise wrote a large number of the articles on the
fine arts in Rees's Cyclopedia, He died on the 20th of
April 1845.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM (1775-1828), an able mineralogist
and geologist, who did much to foster in Britain the study
of the sciences to which he was devoted, was born in May
1775. His Outline of Mineralogy and Geology was pub
lished in 1815 and passed through several editions. His
Introduction to the Knoivledge of Mineralogy, published in
1816, was for upwards of forty years one of the standard
text-books in that science. Successive editions of it were
brought out under different editors after his death. It was
specially distinguished by its elaborate crystallographic
details, based upon measurements with Wollaston's reflect
ing goniometer. But it is chiefly the services rendered by
Phillips to the science of geology, then in its infancy, that
entitle his name to grateful recollection.. In addition to
the first work above-named, he published in 1818 a most
useful digest of English geology, under the title of A
Selection of Facts, from the best Authorities, arranged so as
to form an Outline of the Geology of England and Wales.
This little volume contained a geological map of the
country, based on that of W. Smith and some horizontal
sections. Its importance in geological literature is to
be found mainly in the fact that it formed the foundation
of the larger work undertaken by Phillips in conjunction
with W. Conybeare, of which only the first part was
published, entitled Outlines of the Geology of England and
Wales ; and comparative Views of the Structure of Foreign
Countries (1822). This volume made an era in geology.
As a model of careful original observation, of judicious com
pilation, of succinct description, and of luminous arrange
ment it has been of the utmost service in the develop
ment of geology in Britain. Phillips was a member of
the Society of Friends. He was a Fellow of the Royal,
Geological, and other learned societies. He died in 1828.
PHILO, often called PHILO JUD.ETJS, Jewish philo
sopher, appears to have spent his whole life at Alexandria,
where he was probably born c. 20-10 B.C. His brother
Alexander was alabarch or arabarch (that is, probably,
chief farmer of taxes on the Arabic side of the Nile), from
which it may be concluded that the family was influential
and wealthy (Jos., Ant., xviii. 8, 1). Jerome's statement
(De Vir. III., 11) that he was of priestly race is confirmed
by no older authority. The only event of his life which
can be exactly dated belongs to 40 A.D., when Philo, then
a man of advanced years, went from Alexandria to Rome,
760
P H I L 0
at the head of a Jewish embassy, to persuade the emperor
Caius to abstain from claiming divine honour of the Jews.
Of this .embassy Philo has left a full and vivid account
(De Legation* ad Caium). Various fathers and theologians
of the church state that in the time of Claudius he met
St Peter in Rome ; 1 but this legend has no historic value,
and probably arose because the book De vita contemplativa,
falsely ascribed to Philo, in which Eusebius already recog
nized a glorification of Christian monasticism, seemed to
indicate a disposition towards Christianity.
Though we know so little of Philo's own life, his numer
ous extant writings give the fullest information as to his
views of the universe and of life, and his religious and
scientific aims, and so enable us adequately to estimate his
position and importance in the history of thought. He is
quite the most important representative of Hellenistic
Judaism, and his writings give us the clearest view of what
this development of Judaism was and aimed at. Since
the time of Alexander many Jews had been led to settle
beyond Palestine either with commercial objects or attracted
by the privileges conferred by the diadochi on the inhabit
ants of the cities they founded. In the great towns of
Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt there were Jewish communi
ties many thousands strong, but the Jews were most
numerous in Alexandria, where from its first foundation
they formed a considerable part of the population. The
development of Judaism in the diaspora differed in im
portant points from that in Palestine, where, since the
successful opposition of the Maccabee age to the Hellen-
ization which Antiochus Epiphanes had sought to carry
through by force, the attitude of the nation to Greek
culture had been essentially negative. In the diaspora, on
the other hand, the Jews had been deeply influenced by
the Greeks ; they soon more or less forgot their Semitic
mother -tongue, and with the language of Hellas they
appropriated much of Hellenic culture. They were deeply
impressed by that irresistible force which was blending
all races and nations into one great cosmopolitan unity,
and so the Jews too on their dispersion became in speech
and nationality Greeks, or rather " Hellenists." Now the
distinguishing character of Hellenism is not the absolute
disappearance of the Oriental civilizations before that of
Greece, but the combination of the two with a preponder
ance of the Greek element. So it was with the Jews, but
in their case the old religion had much more persistence
than in other Hellenistic circles, though in other respects
they too yielded to the superior force of Greek civilization.
This we must hold to have been the case not only in
Alexandria but throughout the diaspora from the com
mencement of the Hellenistic period down to the later
lloman empire. It was only after ancient civilization
gave wray before the barbarian immigrations and the rising
force of Christianity that rabbinism became supreme even
among the Jews of the diaspora. This Hellenistico-
Judaic phase of culture is sometimes called " Alexandrian,"
and the expression is justifiable if it only means that
in Alexandria it attained its highest development and
flourished most. For here the Jews began to busy them
selves with Greek literature even under their clement
rulers, the first Ptolemies, and here the law and other
Scriptures were first translated into Greek ; here the pro
cess of fusion began earliest and proceeded with greatest
rapidity ; here, therefore, also the Jews first engaged in a
scientific study of Greek philosophy and transplanted that
philosophy to the soil of Judaism. We read of a Jewish
philosopher Aristobulus in the time of Ptolemy VI.
Philometor, in the middh of the 2d century B.C., of whose
philosophical commentary on the Pentateuch fragments
1 Euseb., //. E., ii. 17, 1 ; Jer., ut supra; Phot., Bill., Cod. 105 ;
Suid., s.v. "<£i\uv."
have been preserved by Clement of Alexandria and
Eusebius. So far as we can judge from these, his aim was
to put upon the sacred text a sense which should appeal
even to Greek readers, and in particular to get rid of all
anthropomorphic utterances about God. Eusebius regards
him as a Peripatetic. We may suppose that this philo
sophical line of thought had its representatives in Alexan
dria between the times of Aristobulus and Philo, but we
are not acquainted with the names of any such. Philo
certainly, to judge by his historical influence, was the
greatest of all these Jewish philosophers, and in his case
we can follow in detail the methods by which Greek
culture was harmonized with Jewish faith. On one side he
is quite a Greek, on the other quite a Jew. His language
is formed on the best classical models, especially Plato.
He knows and often cites the great Greek poets, particu
larly Homer and the tragedians, but his chief studies had
been in Greek philosophy, and he speaks of Heraclitus, Plato,
the Stoics, and the Pythagoreans in terms of the highest
veneration. He had appropriated their doctrines so com
pletely that he must himself be reckoned among the Greek
philosophers ; his system was eclectic, but the borrowed
elements are combined into a new unity with so much
originality that at the same time he may fairly be regarded
as representing a philosophy of his own, which has for its
characteristic feature the constant prominence of a funda
mental religious idea. Philo's closest affinities are with
Plato, the later Pythagoreans, and the Stoics.- Yet with
all this Philo remained a Jew, and a great part of his
writings is expressly directed to recommend Judaism to
the respect and, if possible, the acceptance of the Greeks.
He was not a stranger to the specifically Jewish culture
that prevailed in Palestine ; in Hebrew he was not pro
ficient, but the numerous etymologies he gives show that
he had made some study of that language.^ His method
of exegesis is in point of form identical with that of the
Palestinian scribes, and in point of matter coincidences
are not absolutely rare.4 But above all his whole works
prove on every page that he felt himself to be thoroughly
a Jew, and desired to be nothing else. Jewish "philo
sophy " is to him the true and highest wisdom ; the know
ledge of God and of things divine and human which is
contained in the Mosaic Scriptures is to him the deepest
and the purest.
If now we ask wherein Philo's Judaism consisted, we
must answer that it lies mainly in the formal claim that the
Jewish people, in virtue of the divine revelation given to
Moses, possesses the true knowledge in things religious.
Thoroughly Jewdsh is his recognition that the Mosaic-
Scriptures of the Pentateuch are of absolute divine author
ity, and that everything they contain is valuable and
significant because divinely revealed. The other Jewish
Scriptures are also recognized as prophetic, i.e., as the
writings of inspired men, but he does not place them on
the same line with the law, and he quotes them so seldom
that we cannot determine the compass of his canon. The
decisive and normative authority is to him the "holy
laws " of Moses, and this not only in the sense that every
thing they contain is true but that all truth is contained
in them. Everything that is right and good in the
2 The fathers of the church have specially noticed his Platonism and
Pythagoreauism ; an old proverb even says, with some exaggeration,
?) JlXdruu' <f>t\(i}i>i^€i rj <bi\wv TrXaruivifei (Jerome, Photius, and Suidas,
ut supra). Clement of Alexandria directly calls him a Pythagorean.
Eusebius (//. E., ii. 4, 3) observes both tendencies. Recent writers,
especially Zeller, lay weight also on his Stoic affinities, and with justice,
for the elements which he borrows from Stoicism are as numerous and
important as those derived from the other two schools.
3 See the list of these in Vallarsi's edition of Jerome (iii. 731-734),
and compare Siegfried, " Philonische Studien," in Men's Archiv, iL
143-163 (1872).
4 See Siegfried, Philo, pp. 142-159.
P H I L O
761
doctrines of the Greek philosophers had already been quite
as well, or even better, taught by Moses. Thus, since
Philo had been deeply influenced by the teachings of
Greek philosophy, he actually finds in the Pentateuch
everything which he had learned from the Greeks. From
these premises he assumes as requiring no proof that the
Greek philosophers must in some way have drawn from
Moses, — a view indeed which is already expressed by
Aristobulus. To carry out these presuppositions called
for an exegetical method which seems very strange to us,
that, namely, of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture.
The allegorical method had been practised before Philo's
date in the rabbinical schools of Palestine, and he himself
expressly refers to its use by his predecessors, nor does he
feel that any further justification is requisite. With its
aid he discovers indications of the profoundest doctrines
of philosophy in the simplest stories of the Pentateuch.1
This merely formal principle of the absolute authority
of Moses is really the one point in which Philo still holds
to genuinely Jewish conceptions. In the whole substance
of his philosophy the Jewish point of view is more or less
completely modified — sometimes almost extinguished —
by what he has learned from the Greeks. Comparatively
speaking, he is most truly a Jew in his conception of God.
The doctrine of monotheism, the stress laid on the absolute
majesty and sovereignty of God above the world, the
principle that He is to be worshipped without images, are
all points in which Philo justly feels his superiority as a
Jew over popular heathenism. But only over popular
heathenism, for the Greek philosophers had long since
arrived at least at a theoretical monotheism, and their
influence on Philo is nowhere more .strongly seen than in
the detailed development of his doctrine of God. The
specifically Jewish (i.e., particularistic) conception of the
election of Israel, the obligation of the Mosaic law, the
future glory of the chosen nation, have almost disappeared ;
he is really a cosmopolitan and praises the Mosaic law just
because he deems it cosmopolitan. The true sage who
follows the law of Moses is the citizen not of a particular
state but of the world. A certain attachment which Philo
still manifests to the particularistic conceptions of his race is
meant only " in majorem Judajorum gloriam." The Jewish
people has received a certain preference from God, but
only because it has the most virtuous ancestry and is itself
distinguished for virtue. . The Mosaic law is binding, but
only because it is the most righteous, humane, and rational
of laws, and even its outward ceremonies always disclose
rational ideas and aims. And lastly, outward prosperity
is promised to the pious, even on earth, but the promise
belongs to all who turn from idols to the true God. Thus,
in the whole substance of his view of the universe, Philo
occupies the standpoint of Greek philosophy rather than
of national Judaism, and his philosophy of the world and
of life can be completely set forth without any reference
to conceptions specifically Jewish.
His doctrine of God starts from the idea that God is
Being absolutely bare of quality. All quality in finite
beings has limitation, and no limitation can be predicated
of God, who is eternal, unchangeable, simple substance,
free, self-sufficient, better than the good and the beautiful.
To predicate any quality (77010x175) of God would be to
reduce Him to the sphere of finite existence. Of Him we
can say only that He is, not ivhat He is, and such purely
negative predications as to His being appear to Philo,
as to the later Pythagoreans and the Neo-Platonists, the
only way of securing His absolute elevation above 'the
world. At bottom, no doubt, the meaning of these nega
tions is that God is the most perfect being ; and so, con-
1 For details, see Gfrorer, Philo, i. 68 sq. ; Zeller, Phil, der Gr.,
3d ed., vol. iii., pt. ii. 346-352 ; Siegfried, Philo, 160 sq.
versely, we are told that God contains all perfection, that
He fills and encompasses all things with His being.
A consistent application of Philo's abstract conception
of God would exclude the possibility of any active relation
of God to the world, and therefore of religion, for a Being
absolutely without quality and movement cannot be con
ceived as actively concerned with the multiplicity of indi
vidual things. And so in fact Philo does teach that the
absolute perfection, purity, and loftiness of God would be
violated by direct contact with imperfect, impure, and
finite things. But the possibility of a connexion between
God and the world is reached through a distinction which
forms the most important point in his theology and cos
mology ; the proper being of God is distinguished from
the infinite multiplicity of divine Ideas or Forces : God
himself is without quality, but He disposes of an infinite
variety of divine Forces, through whose mediation an active
relation of God to the world is brought about. In the
details of his teaching as to these mediating entities Philo
is guided partly by Plato and partly by the Stoics, but at
the same time he makes use of the concrete religious
conceptions of heathenism and Judaism. Following Plato,
he first calls them Ideas or ideal patterns of all things ;
they are thoughts of God, yet possess a real existence, and
were produced before the creation of the sensible world, of
which they are the types. But, in distinction from Plato,
Philo's ideas are at the same time efficient causes or
Forces (Swa/zeis), which bring unformed matter into order
conformably to the patterns within themselves, and are in
fact the media of all God's activity in the world. This
modification of the Platonic Ideas is due to Stoic influence,
which appears also when Philo gives to the I'Seat or 8wa/xets
the name of Aoyoi, i.e., operative ideas, — parts, as it were,
of the operative Keason. For, when Philo calls his mediat
ing entities Aoyoi, the sense designed is analogous to that
of the Stoics when they call God the Logos, i.e., the Reason
which operates in the world. But at the same time Philo
maintains that the divine Forces are identical with the
"daemons" of the Greeks, and the "angels" of the Jews,
i.e., servants and messengers of God by means of which
He communicates with the finite world. All this show's
how uncertain was Philo's conception of the nature of
these mediating Forces. On the one hand, they are nothing
else than Ideas of individual things conceived in the mind
of God, and as such ought to have no other reality than
that of immanent existence in God, and so Philo says
expressly that the totality of Ideas, the KOO-/ZOS vo7;ros,
is simply the Reason of God as Creator (Qeov Aoyos ?yS?;
Koo-ywoTTotowTos). Yet, on the other hand, they are repre
sented as hypostases distinct from God, individual entities
existing independently and apart from Him. This vacil
lation, however, as Zeller and other recent writers have
justly remarked, is necessarily involved in Philo's premises,
for, on the one hand, it is God who works in the world
through His Ideas, and therefore they must be identical
with God ; but, on the other hand, God is not to come
into direct contact with the world, and therefore the Forces
through which He works must be distinct from Him. The
same inevitable amphiboly dominates in what is taught
as to the supreme Idea or Logos. Philo regards all indi
vidual Ideas as comprehended in one highest and most
general Idea or Force — the unity of the individual Ideas —
which he calls the Logos or Reason of God, and which is
again regarded as operative Reason. The Logos, therefore,
is the highest mediator between God and the world, the
firstborn son of God, the archangel who is the vehicle of
all revelation, and the high priest who stands before God
on behalf of the world. Through him the world was
created, and so he is identified with the creative Word of
God in Genesis (the Greek Aoyos meaning both "reason"
XVIII. — 96
762
P H I L O
and " word "). Here again, we see, the philosopher is
unable to escape from the difficulty that the Logos is at
once the immanent Reason of God, and yet also an hypo-
stasis standing between God and the world. The whole
doctrine of this mediatorial hypostasis is a strange inter
twining of very dissimilar threads ; on one side the way
was prepared for it by the older Jewish distinction between
the Wisdom of God and God Himself, of which we find
the beginnings even in the Old Testament (Job xxviii.
12 sq. ; Prov. viii., ix.), and the fuller development in the
books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, the latter of which
comes very near to Philo's ideas if we substitute for the
term " wisdom " that of (divine) " Reason." In Greek
philosophy, again, Philo, as we have seen, chiefly follows
the Platonic doctrines of Ideas and the Soul of the World,
and the Stoic doctrine of God as the Aoyos or Reason opera
tive in the world. In its Stoic form the latter doctrine
was pantheistic, but Philo could adapt it to his purpose
simply by drawing a sharper distinction between the Logos
and the world.
Like his doctrine of God, Philo's doctrine of the world
and creation rests on the presupposition of an absolute
metaphysical contrast between God and the world. The
world can be ascribed to God only in so far as it is a
cosmos or orderly world ; its material substratum is not
even indirectly referable to God. Matter (v^-tj, or, as the
Stoics said, ovcria) is a second principle, but in itself an
empty one, its essence being a mere negation of all true
being. It is a lifeless, unmoved, shapeless mass, out of
which God formed the actual world by means of the Logos
and divine Forces. Strictly speaking, the world is only
formed, not created, since matter did not originate with God.
Philo's doctrine of man is also strictly dualistic, and is
mainly derived from Plato. Man is a twofold being, with
a higher and a lower origin. Of the pure souls which fill
airy space, those nearest the earth are attracted by the
sensible and descend into sensible bodies ; these souls are
the Godward side of man. But on his other side man is a
creature of sense, and so has in him a fountain of sin and
all evil. The body, therefore, is a prison, a coffin, or a grave
for the soul which seeks to rise again to God. From this
anthropology the principles of Philo's ethics are derived,
its highest maxim necessarily being deliverance from the
world of sense and the mortification of all the impulses of
sense. In carrying out this thought, as in many other
details of his ethical teaching, Philo closely follows the
Stoics. But he is separated from Stoical ethics by his
strong religious interests, which carry him to very different
views of the means and aim of ethical development. The
Stoics cast man upon his own resources; Philo points him
to the assistance of God, without whom man, a captive to
sense, could never raise himself to walk in the ways of true
wisdom and virtue. And as moral effort can bear fruit
only with God's help, so too God Himself is the goal of
that effort. Even in this life the truly wise and virtuous
is lifted above his sensible existence, and enjoys in ecstasy
the vision of God, his own consciousness sinking and
disappearing in the divine light. Beyond this ecstasy
there lies but one further step, viz., entire liberation from
the body of sense and the return of the soul to its original
condition ; it came from God and must rise to Him again.
But natural death brings this consummation only to those
who, while they lived on earth, kept themselves free from
attachment to the things of sense ; all others must at death
pass into another body ; transmigration of souls is in fact
the necessary consequence of Philo's premises, though he
seldom speaks of it expressly.
Philo's literary labours have a twofold object, being directed either
to expound the true sense of the Mosaic law, i.e., the philosophy
which we have just described, to his Jewish brethren, or to convince
heathen readers of the excellence, the supreme purity and truth,
of the Jewish religion whose holy records contain the deepest and
most perfect philosophy, the best and most humane legislation.
Thus as a literary figure Philo, in conformity with his education and
views of life, stands between the Greeks and the Jews, seeking to
gain the Jews for Hellenism and the Greeks for Judaism, yet always
taking it for granted that his standpoint really is Jewish, and just
on that account truly philosophical and cosmopolitan.
The titles of the numerous extant writings of Philo present at
first sight a most confusing multiplicity. More than three-fourths
of them, however, are really mere sections of a small number of
larger works. Three such great works on the Pentateuch can be
distinguished.
(I.) The smallest of these is the Zrjrri/j.ara /cat X;'<rets (Qnfestioncs
ct solutiones), a short exposition of Genesis and Exodus, in the
form of question and answer. The work is cited under this title
by Eusebius (H. £., ii. 18, 1, 5; Prtvp. Ev., vii. 13), and by
later writers, but the Greek text is now almost wholly lost, and
only about one-half preserved in an Armenian translation. Genesis
seems to have occupied six books.1 Eusebius tells us that Exodus
filled five books. In the Armenian translation, first published by
the learned Mechitarist Aucher in 1826, are preserved four books
on Genesis and two on Exodus, but with lacunaj. A Latin frag
ment, about half of the fourth book on Genesis (Phil. Jud. CII.
qiisestt. . . . super Gen.), was first printed at Paris in 1520. Of
the Greek we have numerous but short fragments in various Flori-
legia.a The interpretations in this work are partly literal and
partly allegorical.
(II.) Philo's most important work is the ^b^v iepwv d\\-rryoplai
(Euseb., //. E., ii. 18, 1 ; Phot., Bibl, Cod. 103), a vast and copious
allegorical commentary on Genesis, dealing with chaps, ii.-iv.,
verse by verse, and with select passages in the later chapters. The
readers in view are mainly Jews, for the form is modelled on the
rabbinic Midrash. The main idea is that the characters which
appear in Genesis are properly allegories of states of the soul
(rpoTrot TTJS ^t'x^s)- All persons and actions being interpreted in
this sense, the work as a whole is a very extensive body of psycho
logy and ethics. It begins with Gen. ii. 1, for the De nmndi
opificio, which treats of the creation according to Gen. i., ii., does not
belong to this series of allegorical commentaries, but deals with the
actual history of creation, and that under a quite different literary
form. With this exception, however, the Sb/muv dXXTryopt'at includes
all the treatises in the first volume of Mangey's edition, viz. : —
^6/j.uv lepCiv dXXij-yopt'at TrpcDrcu rdiiv u.era, rrjv f^ar^J-epov (Legum alle-
goriarum, lib. i., M. i. 43-65), on Gen. ii. 1-17. (2) X6yU. ifp. dXX. Sfi'Tfpai
(Leg. all, lib. ii., M. i. 66-86), on Gen. ii. IS-iii. la. (3) N6,u. up. d\\.
rplrai (Leg. all, lib. iii., M. i. 87-137), on Gen. iii. Sb-19. The commentaries
on Gen. iii. Ib-Sa, 20-23 are lost. (4) Tlepl rCjv xepovfiifj. /cat T?}J <p\oyii>-r)s
pofj.<pa.ia.'i Kal rov Kriadevros irpuirov e£ dvdpuTrov KdiV (De cherubim et
Jkimmeo gladio, M. i. 138-162), on Gen. iii. 24 and iv. 1. (5) Ilepi &v Itpovp-
youcrtv "A/3e\ re /cat Kd'iv (Desacrificiis Abeliset Caini, M. i. 163-190), on Gen.
iv. 2-4. The commentaries on Gen. iv. 5-7 are lost. (6) Ilept rov TO -^elpov rf
Kpeirrovi 0iXetV eiriTiOeadai (Quod dcterius potiori insidiari soleat, M. i. 191-
225), on Gen. iv. 8-15. (7) llfpl rQiv rov doK^ffiao^ov \\aJiv eyy6vwi> Kal u>s
fjifTavaffTTj^ yiverai (De poster itate Caini, &c., M. i. 226-201), on Gen. iv. 16-25 ;
this book, which is wanting in editions prior to Mangey's, is incorrectly given
by him, but much more correctly by Tischendorf, Philonea, pp. 84-143. None
of the preceding is mentioned by its special title by Euseb., H. E., ii. 18, while
he cites all that follow by their titles. The reason must be that all up to this
point, and no farther, are included by him in the No/xwj' lepwv dXXr/yoptat ;
agreeing with this we find that these and these only are cited under that general
title in the Florilegia, especially the so-called Johannes Monachus ineditus (see
Mangey's notes before each book). We may therefore conclude with confidence
that Philo published the continuous commentaries on Gen. ii.-iv. under the title
Allegories of the Sacred Laws, and the following commentaries on select passages
under special titles, though the identity of literary character entitles us to
regard the latter as part of the same great literary plan with the former. (S)
Ilepi yiydvrui' (De glgantibus, M. i. 262-272), on Gen. vi. 1-4. (9) "On arpeir-
TOV ro deiov (Quod Deus sit immutabilis, M. i. 272-299), on Gen. vi. 4-12. (10)
llfpl yeupyias (De agricultura, M. i. 300-328), on Gen. ix. 20a. (11) Ilepi
(pvrovpyias NcDe TO Sevrepov (De plantatione Noe, M. i. 329-356), on Gen. ix.
20b. (12) Hepi fdt)r)$ (De ebrietate, M. i. 357-391), on Gen. ix. 21 ; the introduc
tion shows that this book was preceded by another which put together the
views of the philosophers about drunkenness. (13) ITepi rov e'^T/^e NcDe
(De sobrietate, M. i. 392-403), on Gen. ix. 24. (14) Ilepi avyxvfffws oia\eKrwv
(De confusione linguarum, M. i. 404-435), on Gen. xi. 1-9. (15) Ilepi aTrot/a'as
(De migratione Abraham!, M. i. 436-472), on Gen. xii. 1-0. (Hi) llfpl rov ris o
ruts Oeiuv Trpay/J-druv x\r]poi'6/J.os (Quis rerum dh'inarum lucres sit, M. i.
473-518), on Gen. xv. 1-18. (17) Ilepi T?}S et's TO. Trpoira.iSevfj.ar a ffwodov
(De congre.isu queerendie enulitionis causa, M. i. 519-545), on Gen. xvi. 1-6. (18)
Ilepi <f)vyd5wi' (De profugis, M. i. 546-577), on Gen. xvi. 6-14. (19) Ilepi r&v
fj.erovofj.af'ofj.fvwi' /cat div eW/ca /u.eroi'o/udfoj'Tai (De miitatione nomimim,
M. i. 578-619), on Gen. xvii. 1-22 ; in this work Philo mentions that he had
1 See, especially Mai, Scriptt. vett. nov. coll., vol. vii. pt. i. pp.
100, 106, 108.
2 See Opp., ed. Mangey, ii. 648-680 ; Mai, op. cit., vol. vii. pt. i.
96 ,917. ; Euseb., Prcep. Ev., vii. 13. A fragment on the cherubim,
Exod. xxv. 18, has been published by Mai, Class. Auctt., iv. 430 sq.,
by Grossmann (1856), and by Tischendorf (p. 144 sq.).
P H I L 0
written two books, now wholly lost, ITept diaOriKuiv (M. i. 586). (20) Tifpl TOV
Oeowe/j.irTOVs elvai TOUS dveipovs (He somniis, lib. i., M. i. 620-058), on the
two dreams of Jacob, Gen. xxviii. and xxxi." (21) Book ii. of the same (M. i.
059-690), on the dreams of Joseph, the chief butler, the chief baker, anil
Pharaoh, Gen. xxxvii. and xl., xli. Eusebius makes Philo the author of five
books on dreams ; three, therefore, are lost.
(III.) A work of a very different kind is the group of writing;
which, we may call " An Exposition of the Mosaic law for Gentiles,"
which, in spite of their very various contents, present on nearer
examination indubitable marks of close connexion. In them Philo
seeks to give an orderly view of the chief points of the Mosaic
legislation in the Pentateuch, and to recommend it as valuable to
Gentile readers. The method of exposition is somewhat mori
popular than in the allegorical commentaries, for, though that
method of interpretation is not wholly excluded, the main object
is to give such a view of the legislation as Philo accepted as his
torical. This work has three main divisions : (a) an Account of
the Creation (/coo>o7roua), which Moses put first, to show that his
legislation was conformed to the will of nature, and that therefore
those who followed it were true cosmopolitans ; (&) the Biographies
of the Virtuous, — being, so to speak, the living unwritten laws
which, unlike written laws, present the general types of moral
conduct ; (c) Legislation Proper, in two subdivisions — (a) the ten
principal chapters of the law, (/3) the special laws belonging to
each of these ten. An appendix adds a view of such laws as do
not fall under the rubrics of the decalogue, arranged under the
headings of certain cardinal virtues.
The treatises which belong to this work are the following. (1) Ilept
rrjs MwiWuis Kocr/uoTrouas (De mundi opificio, M. i. 1-42). This work
does not fall within the number of the allegorical commentaries. On the
other hand, the introduction to the treatise De Abrahamo makes clear its im
mediate connexion with the De mundi opificio. The position of the De mundi
«pificio at the head of the allegorical commentaries, which is at present usual
in the editions, seems indeed to go back to a very early date, for even Eusebius
cites a passage from it with the formula airb TOV Trptbrov T&V els TOV VO/ULOV
(Preep. Ev., viii. 12 fin., ed. Gaisford). The group of the Btot o~0(f>Civ is headed
by (2) Btos ffoipov TOV Kara didaffKaXiav reXeiudevTos ?) Trepl VO/JLUV
dypdfiwi' [a], o ecrrt irepl 'Afipad/m (De Abrahamo, M. ii. 1-40). Abraham
is here set forth as the type of SiSaaKoKiKr) dper?}, i.e., of virtue as a thing
learned. This biography of Abraham was followed by that of Isaac as a type of
(pvffLKT] dpenj, i.e., of innate or natural virtue, which in turn was succeeded
by that of Jacob as representing do~K7]TLKr] a.peT'q, i.e., virtue acquired by
practice ; but both these are now lost. Hence in the editions the next treatise
is (3) Bi'os TTO\ITIKOS oVep effTi Trepl 'IwcrT?^) (De Josepho, M. ii. 41-79), where
Joseph is taken as the pattern of the wise man in his civil relations. The
Biographies of the Virtuous are followed by (4) Ilepi TU>V dena Xoyiuv a
K€(f>dXai.a vb/Lt-wv etVt (De decalogo, M. ii. 180-209) and (5) Ilepi T&V dva,<f>epo-
{.levuif ev elSei VQ/J.WV els TO. ffvvTeivovTa KecfidXaia T&V deKa Xoywv (De
xpecialibus legibus ; the unabridged title is given by Eusebius, //. E., ii. IS, 5).
Here under the rubrics of the ten commandments a systematic review of the
special laws of the Mosaic economy is given ; for example, under the first and
second commandments (divine worship) a survey is taken of the entire legisla
tion relating to priesthood and sacrifice ; under the fourth (i.e., the Sabbath
law, according to Philo's reckoning) there is a survey of all the laws about
feasts ; under the sixth (adultery) an account of matrimonial law ; and so on.
According to Eusebius the work embraced four books, which seem to have
reached us entire, but in the editions have been perversely broken up into
u considerable number of separate tractates, (a) The first book (on the
lirst and second commandments) includes the following : De circumcision e
(M. ii. 210-212) ; De monarchin, lib. i. (ii. 213-222) ; De monarcliia, lib. ii. (ii.
•222-232); De prxmiis sacerdotum (ii. 232-237); De victimis (ii. 237-250); De
sacrificantibus, or De victimas oferentibus (ii. 251-264) ; De mercede meretricis
non accipienda in sacrarium (ii. 264-269). (V) The second book (on the third,
fourth, and fifth commandments, i.e., on perjury, Sabbath observance, and
filial piety) is incomplete in Mangey (ii. 270-298), the section De septenario
(on the Sabbath and feasts in general) being imperfect, and that De colendis
parentibus being entirely wanting. Mai to a large extent made good the
defect (De cophini fexto et de colendis parentibus, Milan, ISIS), but Tischen-
dorf was the first to edit the full text (Philonea, pp. 1-83). (c) The third book
relates to the sixth and seventh commandments (adultery and murder; M. ii.
299-334). (d) To the fourth book (relating to the last three commandments)
belongs all that is found in Mangey, ii. 335-374, that is to say, not merely the
tractates De judice (ii. 344-34S) and De concupiscentia (ii. 348-358), but also
those De just it ia (ii. 358-301) and De creatione principum (ii. 361-374). The
last-named is, properly speaking, only a portion of the Dejustitia, which, how
ever, certainly belongs to the fourth book, of which the superscription expressly
bears that it treats also Trepi diKaioffvvrjs. With this tractate b- gins the
appendix to the work De spccialibus legibus, into which, under the rubric of
certain cardinal virtues, such Mosaic laws are brought together as could not
be dealt with under any of the decalogue rubrics. The continuation of this
appendix forms a book by itself. (6) Ilept -rpt.Cjv apeTUV iJTOi irepl dvdpeias
Kal (piXavOpuirias Kal /j.eravoias (Defortitudine, M. ii. 375-383; De caritate,
ii. 383-405 ; De pccnitentict, ii. 405-407). Finally, in less intimate connexion
with this entire work is another treatise still to be mentioned, (7) Kept &6\u>i>
Kal €Trm/j.iuv (De praiiniis et pcenis, M. ii. 40S-42S) and ITept dpuv (De exe-
crationibus, M. ii. 429-457), two parts which constitute a single whole and deal
with the promises and threatenings of the law.
(IV.) Besides the above-named three great works on the Penta
teuch, Philo was the author of a number of isolated writings, of
which the following have reached us either in their entirety or in
fragments. (1) llepl /3tov ]\.'._><r<fus (Vita Mosis, lib. i.-iii., M. ii.
80-179). It is usual to group this, as being biographical in its
character, with the Btot <ro(j>Cii>, and thus to incorporate it imme
diately after the DC Josepho with the large work on the Mosaic
legislation. But, as has been seen, the Btot aofyuv are intended to
represent the general typos of morality, idrile Moses is by no means
so dealt with but as a unique individual. All that can be said is
that the literary character of the Vita Mosis is the same as that of
the larger work. As in the latter the Mosaic legislation, so in the
former the activity of the legislator himself, is delineated for the
benefit of Gentile readers. (2) Ilepi TOV TTO-VTO. o-irovdaloi' elvai
eXeudepov (Quod omnis probw liber, M. ii. 445-470). In the intro
duction to this treatise reference is made to an earlier book which
had for its theme the converse proposition. The complete work was
still extant in the time of Eusebius (H. E., ii. 18, 6) : llepl T,OU dovXov
dvai TrdvTa (pavXov, <j5 e£rjs €<TTII> 6 Trepl TOV irdvTa. airovSalov eXevdepov
elvai. The genuineness of the writing now possessed by us is not
undisputed ; but see Lucius, Dcr Essenismus (1881), pp. 13-23. (3)
Ets QXdKKov (Adversus Flaccum, M. ii. 517-544) and (4) Hep! dpeTwv
Kal 7rpe<r/3etas Trpos Tdiov (De legatione ad Caium, M. ii. 545-600).
These two works have a very intimate connexion. In the first
Philo relates how the Roman governor Flaccus in Alexandria,
towards the beginning of the reign of Caligula, allowed the Alex
andrian mob, without interference, to insult the Jews of that city
in the grossest manner and even to persecute them to the shedding
of blood. In the second he tells how the Jews had been subjected
to still greater sufferings through the command of Caligula that
divine honours should be everywhere accorded to him, and how
the Jews of Alexandria in vain sought relief by a mission to Rome
which was headed by Philo. But both together were only parts of
a larger work, in five books, of which the first two and the last
have perished. For it is clear from the introduction to the Adversus
Flaccum that it had been preceded by another book in which the
Jewish persecutions by Sejanus, under the reign of Tiberius,
were spoken of, and the Chronicon of Eusebius (ed. Schoene, vol.
ii. pp. 150, 151) informs us that these persecutions of Sejanus
were related in the second book of the work now under discussion.
But from the conclusion of the Legatio ad Caium, which we still
possess, we learn that it was also followed by another book which
exhibited the TraXivwdia, or change of Jewish fortunes for the better.
Thus we make out five books in all, — the number actually given
by Eusebius (H. E., ii. 5, 1). (5) Ilept irpovoias (De providcntia').
This work has reached us only in an Armenian translation, which
has been edited, with a Latin translation, by Aucher (see below).
It is mentioned by its Greek title in Eusebius (H, E., ii. 18, 6 ;
Prxp. Ev., vii. 20 fin., viii. 13 fin., ed. Gaisford). The Armenian
text gives two books, but of these the first, if genuine at all,
at any rate appears only in an abridged and somewhat revised
state.1 Eusebius (Prsep. Ev., viii. 14) fpiotes from the second book to
an extent that amounts to a series of excerpts from the whole. The
short passage in Prtep. Ev., vii. 21, is also taken from this book ;
and it appears that Eusebius knew nothing at all about the first.
(6) 'AXe^avdpos rj Trepl TOU X6yov f^etc TO. aXoya fu)a (De Alexandra et
quod propriam rationem muta animalia habcant ; so Jerome, DC
Vir. III., c. 11) ; the Greek title is given in Euseb., H. E., ii. 18, 6.
This also now exists only in an Armenian translation, which has
been edited by Aucher. Two small Greek fragments occur in the
Florilegium of Leontius and Johannes (Mai, Scr. vet. nov. coll.,
vii. 1, pp. 99, lOOa). (7) 'TwodeTiKa, a writing now known to us
only through fragments preserved in Euseb. , Prxp. Ev. , viii. 6\ 7.
The title, as Bernays2 has shown, means "Counsels," "Recom
mendations," the reference being to such laws of the Jews as can be
recommended also to non- Jewish readers. (8) Ilept 'lovdaiwv, a title
met with in Euseb., H. E., ii. 18, 6. The writing is no doubt the
same as 'H virep'Iovdaiwv aTroXoyia, from which a quotation is given
in Euseb., Prsep. Ev., viii. 11. To this place also, perhaps, belongs
the De nobilitate (M. ii. 437-444), which treats of that true noblesse
of wisdom in which the Jewish people also is not wanting.3
(V.) Spurious works ascribed to Philo. (1) Ilept J3iov dewprjTiKov r)
T&v apeT&v (De vita contcmplativa, M. ii. 471-486). That the
Therapeutic life here praised is that of Christian monks was seen by
Euseb., H. E., ii. 17 (who, however, accepted the book as Philo's),
and the same view was long prevalent in the church.4 But, if the
Therapeutai are monks, the book cannot be genuine ; see especially
Lucius, Die TJicrapcuten und ihre Stcllung in dcr Gcscli. dcr Askcsc,
Strasburg, 1879. There are, however, so many other objections to
its genuineness that the book is now given up even by such as do
not admit that the Therapeutte are monks.5 (2) Ilept d<p6apo-ias
KOO-U.OV (De incorruptibilitate mundi, M. ii. 487-516). Bernays, who
first showed that the received text is disordered by misplacement
of leaves (Jfonatsb. Bcrl. Akad., 1863, p. 34 sq. ), published a cor
rected text with German version in Abh. Bcrl. Akad., 1876. An
unfinished commentary of the same critic was posthumously pub
lished in the Berlin Abhandlungcn, 1882. (3) llepl *6<7/xou (Dc
mundo, M. ii. 601-624). That this collection of extracts from
Philo, and especially from the De incor. mundi, is spurious has been
long recognized. (4) Two orations, DC Sampsone and De Jona, pub-
1 See Diels, Doxographi Graici, 1879, pp. 1-4 ; Zeller, Phil. d. Gr., iii. 2, p. 340
(3d ed.).
2 Monatsb. d. Berl. Akad. (1876), pp. 589-609.
3 This conjecture is Dahne's, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. (1833), pp. 990, 1037.
4 So still Montfaucon, the learned notes to whose French translation are still
valuable (Paris, 1709).
5 Nicolas, in -Rec. Thcol., Strasburg, 186S, p. 25 sq. ; Kuenen, Godsi.Henst, ii.
440-444; Weingarten, "Monchtum," in Herzog-Plitt, It. E., \.
764
P H I — P H I
lislied from the Armenian by Anchor in 1826, are generally held to
be spurious.1 (5) The lexicon of Hebrew proper names with Greek
interpretations ('Ep/uTjvdo ruv t3paiKu>t> dvofjiaruv], which Origen
interp
completed by adding the New Testament names, and which Jerome
rewrote, was often ascribed to Philo. It appears from ancient testi
monies that it bore no author's name, so that Philo's part in it
is at least very problematical ; nor does its original form seem to
be extant (see brig., Comm. in Joan., vol. ii. c. 27 ; Euseb., H. E.,
ii. 18, 7 ; Jerome in the preface to his recension of the book).
Various Greek and Latin recensions are given by Yallarsi and in
Lagarde's Onoinastica sacra, 1870 ; see also on this class of literature
as a whole Fabrieius-Haiies, Bib. Gr., iv. 7-lZsq., vi. 199 sq., vii.
226 sq. (6) On a Latin work, DC biblicis antiquitatibus, ascribed
to Philo, see Fabr. -HarL, iv. 743. (7) For the pseudo-Philonic
Brcriarium tcmporum, a forgery of Annius of Yiterbo, see ibid.
(8) The book On Virtue, published as Philo's by Mai (Phil. Jud.
de virt. ejitsqiic partibus, 1816), is a work of Gemistus Pletho.
Editions.— The first, very imperfect, edition of the Greek text of Philo is by
Tuniebus (Paris, 1552). Some additional pieces were given by Hiischel (Frank
fort, 1587 ; Augsburg, 1C14). Other editions are those of Geneva, 1613 ; Paris,
1640; Frankfort, 1691 (a page-for-page reprint of the Paris edition); but the
best is still that of Mangey (2 vols., London, 1742), which alone is based on a
number of MSS. and gives a critical apparatus. Pfeitter's unfinished edition,
vols. i.-v., appeared at Erlangen in 1785-95, 2d ed. 1820. An important supple
ment to Mangey is given by Aucher's publications from the Armenian — Phil.
Jud. sermones tres inediti, Venice, 1822. Phil. Jud. paralipomcna Armena,
Venice, 1820. The Greek pieces newly published since Mangey are less exten
sive. The editions by Mai, Grossmann, and Tischendorf have been already
noticed. Aucher's publications and Mai's of 1818 are contained in the con
venient edition of Richter (Leipsic, 1828-30) and in the Tauchnitz stereotype
edition (1851-53). Of editions of particular works, J. G. Miiller's Des Juden
Philo Buck v. d. Welischopfiing (Berlin, 1841), with commentary, claims special
notice. Compare further for the editions and versions, Fiirst, fiibl. Jud. ;
Onsse, Tresor de livres rares et precieux, v. 269-271 (1864) ; and Eng. tr. by
Yonge, 4 vols., London, 1854-55.
Literature.— -(A.) On Philo's writings in general. Fabricius-Harles, Bibl. Gr.,
iv. 721-750. On the order of Philo's works, Gfrorer, Philo uml die Alcxan-
drinische Tlieosophie, i. (1831) ; Dahne, in Stud, und Krit., 1833, p. 984 sq. ;
Grossmann, De Phil. Jud. operum continua serie et online chronol., pts. i., ii.,
Leipsic, 1841-42. On the text, Creuzer, in Stud, und Krit., 1832, p. 3 sq. J. G.
Muller, Texteskritik der Schr. des Juden Philo, Basel, 1839, reprinted in his
edition of the Weltschopfung, 1841. On Philo's language, method, and influ
ence on posterity, see Siegfried, Philo von Alex, als Ausleger des A. T. . . .,
Jena, 1875. On his knowledge of Palestinian legal tradition. B. Ritter, Philo
und die Halacha, Leipsic, 1879. (B.) On Philo's teaching. Gfrorer, op. cit. ;
Dahne, Gesch. Darstellung der jud.-alex. lleligionsphilosophie, Halle, 1834;
Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, pt. iii. sect. ii. (3d ed., 1881), — this is on the wrhole
the best general sketch; Gfrorer and Dahne give fuller material. On special
points, see Keferstein, Philo's Lehre von dem gbttlichen, Mittehvesen, Leipsic,
1846 ; Heinze, Lehre vom Logos, 1872 ; Soulier, La doctrine du, Logos chez Philon,
Turin, 1876. (E. S*.)
PHILO. A Jewish. Hellenist of this name is the author
of an epic poem in Greek hexameters on the History of
Jerusalem, and lived at an earlier date than the philosopher,
Alexander Polyhistor quoting several passages of his book
about 80-60 B.C. From Alexander Eusebius derives these
extracts from the poem (Prsep. Ev., ix. 20, 24, 37). This
is probably the Philo who is mentioned by Clemens Alex-
andrinus (Strom., i. 21, 141) and Josephus (C. Ap., i. 23).
See Philippson's work on the Jewish poets Ezechiel and
Philo (1830) and Muller, Fr. Hist. Gr., iii. 213 sq.
PHILO BYBLIUS, i.e., Philo of Byblus (Gebal, Jubeil),
was born, according to Suidas, in 42 A.D., and lived into
the reign of Hadrian, about which he wrote a book now
wholly lost. He was a grammarian by profession and
author of many books, of which those oftenest cited are :
(1) a work About Cities and the Famous Men they have pro
duced, which was epitomized by Serenus, and (2) Phoenician
History. Of the latter there are very considerable frag
ments, chiefly preserved by Eusebius in the Prxparatio
Evanyelica, and presenting a Euhemeristic rechauffe of
Phoenician theology and mythology which is represented
as translated from the Phoenician of Sanchuniathon. The
fragments of Philo are collected in Muller, Fr. Hist. Gr.,
iii. 560 sq. To the literature there cited add Ewald's essay
in the Abhandlungen of the Royal Society of Gottingen, vol.
v. (1853) ; Kenan's in Mem. Acad. dts Ihscript., vol. xxiii.
(1858) ; and Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Reliyions-
(jescJdchte, i. 3 sq.
PHILO OF BYZANTIUM, author of a treatise on
mechanics, of which only two books now remain, flourished
in the 2d or 3d century A.D. The extant books, which
refer to machines used in war and to siege works, are
1 See Dahne, Stud, und Krit., 1833, p. 987 sq. ; Freudenthal, Me
Fl. Joseph, beiyeleyte Schrift tiber die llerrschaft der Venmnft, 1869,
pp. 9 s,j., 141 sq.
edited with a German translation in Kochly and Puistow's
Griechische Kriegsachriftsteller, vol. i. (Leipsic, 1853).
For a list of other Philos, see Fabricius, Bill. Grxca, iv.
p. 750 sq., ed. Harl.
PHILOLAUS, next to Archytas the most illustrious of
the Pythagorean philosophers, was born at Tarentum or,
according to Diogenes Laertius, at Crotona.2 He was
said to have been intimate with Democritus, and was prob
ably one of his teachers. After the death of Pythagoras
great dissensions prevailed in the cities of lower Italy,
which were allayed only after the lapse of many years
through the intervention of the Aclutans. According to
some accounts Philolaus was obliged to flee, and owed
his escape to his youthful energy. He took refuge first in
Lucania, then in Greece ; he lived at Thebes, where he
had for pupils Simmias and Cebes, who subsequently,
being still young men (yeavio-Kot), were present at the
death of Socrates. Prior to this Philolaus had left Thebes
and returned to Italy, where he was the teacher of Archytas.
Pythagoras published nothing, nor did the other early
Pythagoreans ; the members of the brotherhood, moreover,
piously referred their discoveries back to their master ;
hence many doctrines have been attributed to Pythagoras
which were first propounded later in the school. He entered
deeply into the number-theory, which constituted the dis
tinctive feature of the Pythagorean philosophy, and in
particular dwelt on the properties inherent in the decad
— the sum of the first four numbers, consequently tin;
fourth triangular number, the tetractys — which he called
great, all-powerful, and all-producing. The discovery of
the regular solids is attributed to Pythagoras by Euclemus,
and Empedocles is stated to have been the first who main
tained that there were four elements. Philolaus, con
necting these ideas, held that the elementary nature of
bodies depended on their form, and assigned the tetra
hedron to fire, the octahedron to air, the icosahedron to
water, and the cube to earth ; the dodecahedron he
assigned to a fifth element, tether, or, as some think, to
the universe. This theory indicates considerable know
ledge of geometry on the part of its author ; it gave,
moreover, a great impulse to the study of that science,
and many important results were arrived at, so that
Aristteus, who lived before Euclid, was able to write a
book on the comparison of the five regular solids.
Philolaus was the first to propound the doctrine of the
motion of the earth ; some, however, attribute this doctrine
to Pythagoras, but there is no evidence in support of their
view. Philolaus supposed that the sphere of the fixed
stars, the five planets, the sun, moon, and earth, all moved
round the central fire, which he called the hearth of the
universe, the house of Zeus, and the mother of the gods ;
but as these made up only nine revolving bodies he con
ceived, in accordance with his number-theory, a tenth,
which he called counter-earth, avri^Owv. He was the first
who published a book on the Pythagorean doctrines, a
treatise of which Plato made use in the composition of his
Timxus. This work of the Pythagorean, to which the
mystical name BaK^at is sometimes given, seems to have
consisted of three books: (1) LTe^n KWTJJLOV, containing a
general account of the origin and arrangement of the
universe ; (2) He/it c/>rcrews, an exposition of the nature of
numbers ; (3) Hepl ^I'xv?? on the nature of the soul.
See Boe<'kh, Philolctos des PyfJiaqorecrs Lrlircn ncbst den Rruch-
stiieken seines IVcrkes (Berlin, 1819) ; also Fabricius, Bibliotheca
Graeca ; Zeller, History of Greek Philosophy ; and Chaignct, Pythiujore
et la Philosophic Pythagoricienne,conte/r<*j,nt les Fragments de Philulaiis
ct d'Architas (1873).
2 Boeckh places his life between the 70th and 95th Olympiads
(496-396 B. c. ). He was a contemporary of Socrates and Democritus,
but senior to them, and wa# probably somewhat junior to Empedocles,
so that hi.s birth may be placed at about 480.
765
PHILOLOGY
PART I.— SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.
PHILOLOGY is the generally accepted comprehensive
name for the study of the word ; it designates that
branch of knowledge which deals with human speech, and
with all that speech discloses as to the nature and history
of man. Philology has two principal divisions, corre
sponding to the two uses of "word" or "speech," as
signifying either what is said or the language in which it
is said, as either the thought expressed — which, when
recorded, takes the form of literature — or the instrument
ality of its expression : these divisions are the literary and
the linguistic. Not all study of literature, indeed, is
philological : as when, for example, the records of the
ancient Chinese are ransacked for notices of astronomical
or meteorological phenomena, or the principles of geometry
are learned from the text -book of a Greek sage ; while,
on the other hand, to study Ptolemy and Euclid for the
history of the sciences represented by them is philological
more than scientific. Again, the study of language itself
has its literary side : as when the vocabulary of a com
munity (say of the ancient Indo-Europeans or Aryans) is
taken as a document from which to infer the range and
grade of knowledge of its speakers, their circumstances,
and their institutions. The two divisions thus do not
admit of absolute distinction and separation, though for
some time past tending toward greater independence.
The literary is the older of the two ; it even occupied
until recently the whole field, since the scientific study of
language itself has arisen only within the present century.
Till then, literary philology included linguistic, as a merely
subordinate and auxiliary part, the knowledge of a lan
guage Laing the necessary key to a knowledge of the
literature written in that language. When, therefore,
instead of studying each language by itself for the sake
of its own literature, men began to compare one language
with another, in order to bring to light their relationships,
their structures, their histories, the name " comparative
philology " naturally enough suggested itself and came into
use for the new method ; and this name, awkward and trivial
though it may be, has become so firmly fixed in English
usage that it can be only slowly, if at all, displaced.
Continental usage (especially German) tends more strongly
than English to restrict the name philology to its older
office, and to employ for the recent branch of knowledge
a specific term, like those that have gained more or less
currency with us also : as glottic, glossology, linguistics,
linguistic science, science of language, and the like. It is
not a question of absolute propriety or correctness, since
the word philology is in its nature wide enough to imply
all language-study, of whatever kind ; it is one, rather, of
the convenient distinction of methods that have grown too
independent and important to be any longer well included
under a common name.
Philology, in all its departments, began and grew up as
classical ; the history of our civilization made the study of
Greek and Latin long the exclusive, still longer the pre
dominant and regulating, occupation of secular scholar
ship. The Hebrew and its literature were held apart, as
something of a different order, as sacred. It was not
imagined that any tongue to which culture and literature
did not lend importance was worthy of serious attention
from scholars. The first essays in comparison, likewise,
were made upon the classical tongues, and were as erroneous
in method and fertile in false conclusions as was to be
expected, considering the narrowness of view and the con
trolling prejudices of those Avho made them ; and the
admission of Hebrew to the comparison only added to the
confusion. The change which this century has seen has
been a part of the general scientific movement of the age,
which has brought about the establishment of so many
new branches of knowledge, both historical and physical,
by the abandonment of shackling prejudices, the freedom
of inquiry, the recognition of the dignity of all knowledge,
the wide-reaching assemblage of facts and their objective
comparison, and the resulting constant improvement of
method. Literary philology has had its full share of
advantage from this movement ; but linguistic philology
has been actually created by it out of the crude observa
tions and wild deductions of earlier times, as truly as
chemistry out of alchemy, or geology out of diluvianism.
It is unnecessary here to follow out the details of the
development ; but we may well refer to the decisive in
fluence of one discovery, the decisive action of one scholar.
It was the discovery of the special relationship of the
Aryan or Indo-European languages, depending in great
measure upon the introduction of the Sanskrit as a term
in their comparison, and demonstrated and worked out
by the German scholar Bopp, that founded the science
of linguistic philology. While there is abundant room
for further improvement, it yet appears that the grand
features of philologic study, in all its departments, are
now so distinctly drawn that no revolution of its methods,
but only their modification in minor respects, is henceforth
probable. How and for what purposes to investigate the
literature of any people (philology in the more proper
sense), combining the knowledge thus obtained with
that derived from other sources ; how to study and
set forth the material and structure and combinations of
a language (grammar), or of a body of related languages
(comparative grammar) ; how to co-ordinate and interpret
the general phenomena of language, as variously illustrated
in the infinitely varying facts of different tongues, so as to
exhibit its nature as a factor in human history, and its
methods of life and growth (linguistic science), — these are
what philology teaches. The first two subjects are mainly
disposed of in this work in the various articles devoted to
countries and races, with their literatures and dialects ;
the last was briefly touched upon in the article ANTHRO
POLOGY, but requires fuller treatment here, along with a
general view of the classification of languages, as thus far
effected.
The study of language is a division of the general Relation
science of anthropology, and is akin to all the rest in *° ar>-
respect of its objects and its methods. Man as we now |'iroP°-
see him is a twofold being : in part the child of nature, as
to his capacities and desires, his endowments of mind and
body ; in part the creature of education, by training in
the knowledge, the arts, the social conduct, of which his
predecessors have gained possession. And the problem of
anthropology is this : how natural man has become culti
vated man ; how a being thus endowed by nature should
have begun and carried on the processes of acquisition
which have brought him to his present state. The results
of his predecessors' labours are not transmuted for his
benefit into natural instincts, in language or in anything
else. The child of the most civilized race, if isolated and
left wholly to his own resources, aided by neither the
example nor the instruction of his fellows, would no more
speak the speech of his ancestors than he would build
their houses, fashion their clothes, practise any of their
arts, inherit their knowledge or wealth. In fact, he would
766
PHILOLOGY
possess no language, no arts, no wealth, but would have to
go to work to acquire them, by the same processes which
began to win them for the first human beings. One
advantage he would doubtless enjoy : the descendant of a
cultivated race has an enhanced aptitude for the recep
tion of cultivation ; he is more cultivable ; and this is an
element that has to be allowed for in comparing present
conditions with past, as influencing the rate of progress,
but nothing more. In all other respects, it is man with
the endowments which we now find him possessed of, but
destitute of the gradually accumulated results of the exer
cise of his faculties, whose progress we have to explain.
And it is, as a matter of necessity, by studying recent
observable modes of acquisition, and transferring them,
with due allowance for different circumstances, to the
more primitive periods, that the question of first acqui
sition or origin is to be solved, for language as for tools,
for arts, for family and social organization, and the rest.
There is just as much, and just as little, reason for
assuming miraculous interference and aid in one of these
departments as in another. If men have been left to
themselves to make and improve instruments, to form and
perfect modes of social organization, by implanted powers
directed by natural desires, and under the pressure of cir
cumstances, then also to make and change the signs that
constitute their speech. All expressions, as all instruments,
are at present, and have been through the known past,
made and changed by the men who use them ; the same
will have been the case in the unknown or prehistoric
past. And we command now enough of the history of
language, with the processes of its life and growth, to
determine with confidence its mode of origin — within
certain limits, as will appear below.
Cause of It is beyond all question, in the first place, that the
language- desire of communication was the only force directly im-
uakmg. pe}iing men to the production of language. Man's social
ity, his disposition to band together with his fellows, for
lower and for higher purposes, for mutual help and for
sympathy, is one of his most fundamental characteristics.
To understand those about one and to be understood by
them is now, and must have been from the very beginning,
a prime necessity of human existence ; we cannot conceive
of man, even in his most undeveloped state, as without
the recognition of it. Communication is still the univers
ally recognized office of speech, and to the immense majority
of speakers the only one ; the common man knows no
other, and can only with difficulty and imperfectly be
brought to see that there is any other ; of the added dis
tinctness and reach of mental action which the possession
of such an instrumentality gives him, he is wholly uncon
scious : and it is obvious that what the comparatively
cultivated being of to-day can hardly be made to realize,
can never have acted upon the first men as a motive to
action. It may perhaps be made a question which of the
two uses of speech, communication or the facilitation of
thought, is the higher ; there can be no question, at any
rate, that the former is the broader and the more funda
mental. That the kind and degree of thinking which we
do nowadays would be impossible without language-signs
is true enough ; but so also it would be impossible without
written signs. That there was a time when men had to
do what mental work they could without the help of writ
ing, as an art not yet devised, we have no difficulty in
realizing, because the art is of comparatively recent device,
and there are still communities enough that are working
without it ; it is much harder to realize that there was a
time when speaking also was an art not yet attained, and
that men had to carry on their rude and rudimentary
thinking without it. Writing too was devised for conscious
purposes of communication only ; its esoteric uses, like
those of speech, were at first unsuspected, and incapable
of acting as an inducement ; they were not noticed until
made experience of, and then only by those who look
beneath the surface of things. There is no analogy closer
and more instructive than this, between speech and writ
ing. But analogies are abundant elsewhere in the history
of human development. Everywhere it is the lower and
more obvious inducements that are first effective, and that
lead gradually to the possession of what serves and stimu
lates higher wants. All the arts and industries have
grown out of men's effort to get enough to eat and pro
tection against cold and heat — just as language, with all
its uses, out of men's effort to communicate with their
fellows. As a solitary man now would never form even
the beginnings of speech, as one separated from society
unlearns his speech by disuse and becomes virtually dumb,
so early man, with all his powers, would never have acquired
speech, save as to those powers was added sociality with
the needs it brought. We might conceive of a solitary
man as housing and dressing himself, devising rude tools,
and thus lifting himself a step from wildness toward culti
vation ; but we cannot conceive of him as ever learning to
talk. Recognition of the impulse to communication as the
efficient cause of language-making is an element of primary
importance in the theory of the origin of language. No
one who either leaves it out of account or denies it will,
however ingenious and entertaining his speculations, cast
any real light on the earliest history of speech. To inquire
under what peculiar circumstances, in connexion with what
mode of individual or combined action, a first outburst of
oral expression may have taken place, is, on the other
hand, quite futile. The needed circumstances were always
present when human beings were in one another's society;
there was an incessant drawing-on to attempts at mutual
understanding which met with occasional, and then ever
more frequent and complete success. There inheres in
most reasoning upon this subject the rooted assumption,
governing opinion even when not openly upheld or con
sciously made, that conceptions have real natural names,
and that in a state of nature these will somehow break
forth and reveal themselves under favouring circumstances.
The falsity of such a view is shown by our whole further
discussion.
The character of the motive force to speech determined Begi
the character of the beginnings of speech. That was first llino
signified which was most capable of intelligible significa- '^'T
tion, not that which was first in order of importance, as ju(r.
judged by any standard which we can apply to it, or first
in order of conceptional development. All attempts to
determine the first spoken signs by asking what should
have most impressed the mind of primitive man are and
must be failures. It was the exigencies and possibilities
of practical life, in conditions quite out of reach of our
distinct conception, that prescribed the earliest signs of
communication. So, by a true and instructive analogy,
the beginnings of writing are rude depictions of visible
objects; it is now thoroughly recognized that no alphabet,
of whatever present character, can have originated in any
other way ; everything else is gradually arrived at from
that — as, indeed, in the ingeniously shaping hands of
man, from any central body of signs, though but of small
extent, all else is attainable by processes of analogy and
adaptation and transfer. Now what is it that is directly
signifiable in the world about us1? Evidently, the separate
acts and qualities of sensible objects, and nothing else.
In writing, or signification to the eye, the first element is
the rude depiction of the outline of an object, or of that
one of the sum of its characteristic qualities which the
eye takes note of and the hand is capable of intelligibly
reproducing ; from that the mind understands the whole
PHILOLOGY
767
complex object itself, and then whatever further may in
the circumstances of its use be suggested by it. So, for
example, the picture of a tree signifies primarily a tree,
then perhaps wood, something made of wood, and so on ;
that of a pair of outstretched wings signifies secondarily
flight, then soaring, height, and whatever else these may
lead to. No concrete thing is signifiable in its totality,
or otherwise than by a facile analysis of its constituent
qualities, and a selection of the one which is both suffi
ciently characteristic in itself and capable of being called
up by a sign before the mind addressed.
Instru- And what quality shall be selected depends in great
mental- measure upon the instrumentality used for its signification,
expres- Of such instrumentalities, men are possessed of a consider-
sion. able variety. We must leave out of account that of
depiction, as just instanced, because its employment
belongs to a much more advanced state of cultivation, and
leads the way to the invention not of speech but of the
analogous and auxiliary art of writing. There remain
gesture, or changes of position of the various parts of the
body, especially of the most mobile parts, the arms and
hands ; grimace, or the changes of expression of the
features of the countenance (in strictness, a variety of the
preceding) ; and utterance, or the production of audible
sound. It cannot be doubted that, in the first stages of
communicative expression, all these three were used to
gether, each for the particular purposes which it was best
calculated to serve. The nearest approach to such action
that is now possible is when two persons, wholly ignorant
of one another's speech, meet and need to communicate —
an imperfect correspondence, because each is trained to
habits of expression, and works consciously, and with the
advantage of long experience, towards making himself un
derstood ; yet it is good for its main purpose. What they
do, to reach mutual comprehension, is like what the first
speechless men, unconsciously and infinitely more slowly,
learned to do : face, hands, body, voice, are all put to use.
It is altogether probable that gesture at first performed
the principal part, even to such extent that the earliest
human language may be said to have been a language of
gesture-signs ; indeed, there exist at the present day such
gesture-languages, as those in use between roving tribes of
different speech that from time to time meet one another
(the most noted example is that of the gesture-language,
of a very considerable degree of development, of the prairie
tribes of American Indians) ; or such signs as are the
natural resort of those who by deafness are cut off from
ordinary spoken intercourse with their fellows. Yet there
never can have been a stage or period in which all the
three instrumentalities were not put to use together. In
fact, they are still all used together ; that is even now an
ineffective speaking to which grimace and gesture ("action,"
as Demosthenes called them) are not added as enforcers ;
and the lower the grade of development and culture of a
language, the more important, even for intelligibility, is
The their addition. But voice has won to itself the chief and
voice. almost exclusive part in communication, insomuch that
we call all communication " language" (i.e., " tonguiness")
just as a race of mutes might call it "handiness," and
talk (by gesture) of a handiness of grimace. This is not
in the least because of any closer connexion of the thinking
apparatus with the muscles that act to produce audible
sounds than with those that act to produce visible motions ;
not because there are natural uttered names for conceptions,
any more than natural gestured names. It is simply a
case of " survival of the fittest," or analogous to the pro
cess by which iron has become the exclusive material of
swords, and gold and silver of money : because, namely,
experience has shown this to be the material best adapted
to this special use. The advantages of voice are numerous
and obvious. There is first its economy, as employing a
mechanism that is available for little else, and leaving free
for other purposes those indispensable instruments the
hands. Then there is its superior perceptibleness : its
nice differences impress themselves upon the sense at a
distance at which visible motions become indistinct ; they
are not hidden by intervening objects ; they allow the
eyes of the listener as well as the hands of the speaker to
be employed in other useful work ; they are as plain in
the dark as in the light ; and they are able to catch and
command the attention of one who is not to be reached
in any other way. We might add as the third advantage
a superior capability of variation and combination on the
part of spoken sounds ; but this is not to be insisted on,
inasmuch as we hardly know what a gesture -language
might have become if men's ingenuity in expression had
been expended through all time upon its elaboration ; and
the superiority, however1 real, can hardly have been obvious
enough to serve as a motive : certainly, there are spoken
languages now existing whose abundance of resources falls
short of what is attainable by gesture. Oral utterance is
the form which expression has inevitably taken, the sum
of man's endowments being what it is ; but it would be a
mistake to suppose that a necessity of any other kind is
involved in their relation. The fundamental conditions of
speech are man's grade of intellectual power and his social
instinct ; these being given, his expression follows, availing
itself of what means it finds best suited to its purpose ; if
voice had been wanting, it would have taken the next
best. So, in certain well-known cases, a marked artistic
gift, on the part of individuals deprived of the use of
hands, has found means of exercise in the feet instead.
But men in general have hands, instruments of exquisite
tact and power, to serve the needs of their intellect ; and
so voice also, to provide and use the tools of thought ;
there is no error in maintaining that the voice is given us
for speech, if only we do not proceed to draw from such a
dictum false conclusions as to the relation between thought
and utterance. Man is created with bodily instruments
suited to do the work prescribed by his mental capacities ;
therein lies the harmony of his endowment.
It is through imitation that all signification becomes Imita-
directly suggestive. The first written signs are (as already tion-
noticed) the depictions of visible objects, and could be
nothing else ; and, by the same necessity, the first uttered
signs were the imitations of audible sounds. To repro
duce any sound of which the originating cause or the cir
cumstances of production are known, brings up of course
before the conception that sound, along with the originator,
or circumstances of origination, or whatever else may be
naturally associated with it. There are two special direc
tions in which this mode of sign -making is fruitful:
imitation of the sounds of external nature (as the cries
of animals, and the noises of inanimate objects when in
motion or acted on by other objects) and imitation of
human sounds. The two are essentially one in principle,
although by some held apart, or even opposed to each
other, as respectively the imitative or onomatopoetic and
the exclamatory or inter] ectional beginnings of speech ;
they differ only in their spheres of significance, the one
being especially suggestive of external objects, the other of
inward feelings. There are natural human tones, indica
tive of feeling, as there are natural gestures, poses, modes
of facial expression, which either are immediately intel
ligible to us (as is the warning cry of the hen to the day-
old chicken), or have their value taught us by our earliest
experiences. If we hear a cry of joy or a shriek of pain,
a laugh or a groan, we need no explanation in words to
tell us what it signifies, any Inore than when we see a sad
face or a drooping attitude. So also the characteristic cry
768
PHILOLOGY
or act of anything outside ourselves, if even rudely imi
tated, is to us an effective reminder and awakener of con
ception. We have no reason to question that such -were
the suggestions of the beginnings of uttered expression.
The same means have made their contributions to language
even down to our own day ; we call words so produced
" onomatopoetic " (i.e., "name-making" ), after the example
of the Greeks, who could not conceive that actually new
additions to language should be made in any other way.
What and how wide the range of the imitative principle,
and what amount of language -signs it was capable of
yielding, is a subject for special investigation — or rather,
of speculation, since anything like exact knowledge in
regard to it will never be attained ; and the matter is one
of altogether secondary consequence ; it is sufficient for
our purpose that enough could certainly be won in this way
to serve as the effective germs of speech.
All the natural means of expression are still at our
command, and are put to more or less use by us, and their
products are as intelligible to us as they have been to any
generation of our ancestors, back to the very first. They
are analogous also to the means of communication of
the lower animals ; this, so far as Ave know, consists in
observing and interpreting one another's movements and
natural sounds (where there are such). But language
is a step beyond this, and different from it. To make
language, the intent to signify must be present. A cry
wrung out by pain, or a laugh of amusement, though
intelligible, is not language ; cither of them, if consciously
reproduced in order to signify to another pain or pleasure,
is language. So a cough within hearing of any one attracts
his attention ; but to cough, or to produce any other sound,
articulate or inarticulate, for the purpose of attracting
another's attention, is to commit an act of language-
making, such as in human history preceded in abundance
the establishment of definite traditional signs for concep
tions. Here begins to appear the division between human
language and all brute expression ; since we do not know
that any animal but man ever definitely took this step.
It would be highly interesting to find out just how near
any come to it ; and to this point ought to be especially
directed the attention of those who are investigating the
communication of the lower animals in its relation to
human communication. Among the animals of highest
intelligence that associate with man and learn something
of his ways, a certain amount of sign-making expressly for
communication is not to be denied ; the dog that barks at
a door because he knows that somebody will come and let
him in is an instance of it ; perhaps, in wild life, the
throwing out of sentinel birds from a flock, whose warning
cry shall advertise their fellows of the threat of danger, is
as near an approach to it as is anywhere made.
But the actual permanent beginnings of speech are only
reached when the natural basis is still further abandoned,
and signs begin to be used, not because their natural
. ° . .......
suggestiveness is seen in them, but by imitation, from the
example of others who have been observed to use the same
sign for the same purpose. Then for the first time the
means of communication becomes something to be handed
down, rather than made anew by each individual ; it takes
on that traditional character which is the essential char
acter of all human institutions, which appears not less in
the forms of social organization, the details of religious
ceremonial, the methods of art and the arts, than in lan
guage. That all existing speech, and all known recorded
speech, is purely traditional, cannot at all be questioned.
It is proved even by the single fact that for any given
conception there are as many different spoken signs as
there are languages — say a thousand (this number is rather
far within than beyond the truth), each of them intelli
gible to him who has learned to use it and to associate it
with the conception to which it belongs, but unintelligible
to the users of the nine hundred and ninety-nine other
signs, as these are all unintelligible to him ; unless, indeed,
he learn a few of them also, even as at the beginning he
learned the one that he calls his own. What single sign,
and what set of signs, any individual shall use, depends
upon the community into the midst of which he is cast,
by birth or other circumstances, during his first years.
That it does not depend upon his race is demonstrated by
facts the most numerous and various ; the African whoso
purity of descent is attested by every feature is found all
over the world speaking just that language, or jargon, into
the midst of which the fates of present or former slavery
have brought his parents ; every civilized community
contains elements of various lineage, combined into one by
unity of speech ; and instances are frequent enough where
whole nations speak a tongue of which their ancestors
knew nothing : for example, the Celtic Gauls and the
Germanic Normans of France speak the dialect of a
geographically insignificant district in central Italy, while
we ourselves can hardly utter a sentence or write a line
without bringing in more or less of that same dialect.
There is not an item of any tongue of which we know any
thing that is " natural " expression, or to the possession
of which its speaker is brought by birth instead of by
education ; there is even very little that is traceably
founded on such natural expression ; everywhere #£cris or
human attribution reigns supreme, and the original <£r<ris
or natural significance has disappeared, and is only to be
found by theoretic induction (as we have found it above).
It seems to some as if a name like cur/coo (one of the most
striking available cases of onomatopoeia) were a " natural "
one ; but there is just as much #eo-is in it as in any other
name ; it implies the observation of an aggregate of
qualities in a certain bird, and the selection of one among
them as the convenient basis of a mutual understanding
when the bird is in question ; every animal conspicuous
to us must have its designation, won in one way or
another ; and in this case, to imitate the characteristic cry
is the most available way. If anything but convenience
and availability were involved, all our names for animals
would have to be and to remain imitations of the sounds
they make. That the name of rMr7,-oo is applied also to
the female and young, and at other than the singing
season, and then to related species which do not make the
same sound — all helps to show the essentially conventional
character of even this name. An analogous process of
elimination of original meaning, and reduction to the
value of conventional designation merely, is to be seen in
every part of language, throughout its whole history.
Since men ceased to derive their names from signs having a
natural suggestiveness, and began to make them from other
names already in use with an understood value, every new
name has had its etymology and its historical occasion —
as, for example, the name quarantine from the two -score
(quarantaine) of days of precautionary confinement, or
volume from its being rolled up, or book from a beech-wood
staff, or copper from Cyprus, or lunacy from a fancied
influence of the moon, or priest from being an older
(Trpecr/^vrepos) person, or butterfly from the butter-yellow
colour of a certain common species : every part of our
language, as of every other, is full of such examples — but,
when once the name is applied, it belongs to that to which
it is applied, and no longer to its relatives by etymology ;
its origin is neglected,, and its form may be gradually
changed beyond recognition, or its meaning so far altered
that comparison with the original shall seem a joke or an
absurdity. This is a regular and essential part of the
process of name-making in all human speech, and from
PHILOLOGY
769
the very beginning of the history of speech : in fact (as
pointed out above), the latter can only be said to have
begun when this process was successfully initiated, when
uttered signs began to be, what they have ever since con
tinued to be, conventional, or dependent only on a mutual
understanding. Thus alone did language gain the capa
city of unlimited growth and development. The sphere
and scope of natural expression are narrowly bounded ;
but there is no end to the resources of conventional sign-
making.
It is well to point out here that this change of the basis
Of men's communication from natural suggestiveness to
mutua.l understanding, and the consequent purely conven-
tional character of all human language, in its every part
and particle, puts an absolute line of demarcation between
the latter and the means of communication of all the lower
animals. The two are not of the same kind, any more
than human society in its variety of organization is of the
same kind with the instinctive herding of wild cattle or
swarming of insects, any more than human architecture
with the instinctive burrowing of the fox and nest-building
of the bird, any more than human industry and accumula
tion of capital with the instinctive hoarding of bees and
beavers. In all these cases alike, the action of men is a
result of the adaptation of means at hand to the satisfac
tion of felt needs, or of purposes dimly, perceived at first,
but growing clearer with gradually acquired experience.
Man is the only being that has established institutions —
gradually accumulated and perfected results of the exercise
of powers analogous in kind to, but greatly differing in
degree from, those of the lower animals. The difference
in degree of endowment does not constitute the difference
in language, it only leads to it. There was a time when
all existing human beings were as destitute of language as
the dog ; and that time would come again for any number
of human beings who should be cut off (if that were prac
ticable) from all instruction by their fellows : only they
would at once proceed to re-create language, society, and
arts, by the same steps by which their own remote ancestors
created those which we now possess ; while the dog would
remain what he and his ancestors have always been, a
creature of very superior intelligence, indeed, as compared
with most, of infinite intelligence as compared with many,
yet incapable of rising by the acquisition of culture, through
the formation and development of traditional institutions.
There is just the same saltus existent in the difference
between man's conventional speech and the natural com
munication of the lower races as in that between men's
forms of society and the instinctive associations of the
lower races ; but it is no greater and no other ; it is neither
more absolute and characteristic nor more difficult to
explain. Hence those who put forward language as the
distinction between man and the lower animals, and those
who look upon our language as the same in kind with the
means of communication of the lower animals, only much
more complete and perfect, fail alike to comprehend the
true nature of language, and are alike wrong in their argu
ments and conclusions. No addition to or multiplication
of brute speech would make anything like human speech ;
the two are separated by a step which no animal below
man has ever taken ; and, on the other hand, language is
only the most conspicuous among those institutions the
development of which has constituted human progress,
while their possession constitutes human culture.
With the question of the origin of man, whether or not
developed out of lower animal forms, intermediate to the
anthropoid apes, language has nothing to do, nor can its
study ever be made to contribute anything to the solution
of that question. If there once existed creatures above
the apes and below man, who were extirpated by primitive
man as his especial rivals in the struggle for existence, or
became extinct in any other way, there is no difficulty in
supposing them to have possessed forms of speech, more
rudimentary and imperfect than ours. At any rate, all
existing human speech is one in the essential characteristics
which we have thus far noted or shall hereafter have to
consider, even as humanity is one in its distinction from
the lower animals; the differences are in non-essentials.
All speech is one in the sense that every human being, of Lan-
whatever race he may be, is capable of acquiring any guage
existing tongue, and of using it for the same purposes for ^ C1
which its present possessors use it, with such power and
effect as his individual capacity allows, and without any
essential change in the mental operations carried on by
means of speech — even as he may acquire any other of the
items of culture belonging to a race not his own. The
difference between employing one language and another is
like that between employing one instrument and another
in mechanical arts ; one instrument may be better than
another, and may enable its user to turn out better work,
but the human ingenuity behind both is the same, and
works in the same way. Nor has the making of language
anything whatever to do with making man what he is, as
an animal species having a certain physical form and intel
lectual endowment. Being what he is by nature, man has
by the development of language and other institutions
become what he is by culture. His acquired culture is
the necessary result of his native endowment, not the
contrary. The acquisition of the first stumbling beginnings
of a superior means of communication had no more influ
ence to raise him from a simian to a human being than
the present high culture and perfected speech of certain
races has to lift them up to something more than human,
and specifically different from the races of inferior culture.
It cannot be too absolutely laid down that differences of
language, down to the possession of language at all, are
differences only in respect to education and culture.
How long man, after he came into being such as he now Develop-
is, physically and intellectually, continued to communicate ment ol
with imitative signs of direct significance, when the pro-
duction of traditional signs began, how rapidly they were
accumulated, and how long any traces of their imitative
origin clave to them — these and the like questions it is at
present idle to try to answer even conjecturally : just as it
is to seek to determine when the first instruments were used,
how soon they were shaped instead of being left crude, at
what epoch fire was reduced to service, and so on. The
stages of development and their succession are clear enough ;
to fix their chronology will doubtless never be found prac
ticable. There is much reason for holding, as some do,
that the very first items of culture were hardest to win and
cost most time, the rate of accumulation (as in the case of
capital) increasing with the amount accumulated. Beyond
all reasonable question, however, there was a positively
long period of purely imitative signs, and a longer one of
mixed imitative and traditional ones, the latter gradually
gaining upon the former, before the present condition of
things was reached, when the production of new signs by
imitation is only sporadic and of the utmost rarity, and
all language-signs besides are traditional, their increase in
any community being solely by variation and combination,
and by borrowing from other communities.
Of what nature, in various respects, this earliest The root -
language-material was is sufficiently clear. The signs, in stage,
the first place, were of the sort that we call "roots." By
this is only meant that they were integral signs, signifi
cant in their entirety, not divisible into parts, of which
one signified one thing and another another thing, or of
which one gave the main significance, while another was
an added sign of kind or relation. In a language of
XVIII. — 97
770
PHILOLOGY
developed structure like our own, we arrive at such "roots"
mainly by an artificial stripping-off of the signs of relation
which almost every word still has, or can be shown to have
once had. In un-cost-li-ness, for example, cost is the cen
trally significant element ; so far as English is concerned,
it is a root, about which cluster a whole body of forms
and derivatives ; if we could follow its history no farther,
it would be to us an ultimate root, as much so as bind or
sing or mean. But we can follow it up, to the Latin com
pound con-sta, a root sta with a prefixed formative element
con. Then sta, which in slightly varied forms we find in
a whole body of related tongues called "Aryan," having
in them all the same significance " stand," is an Aryan
root, and to us an ultimate one, because we can follow its
history no farther; but there always remains the possibility
that it is as far from being actually original as is the
English root cost : that is to say, it is not within our
power ever to get back to the really primitive elements of
speech, and to demonstrate their character by positive
evidence. The reason for accepting a primitive root-
stage of language is in great part theoretical : because
nothing else is reconcilable with any acceptable view of
the origin of language. The law of the simplicity of
beginnings is an absolute one for everything of the nature
of an institution, for every gradually developed product
of the exercise of human faculties. That an original
speech-sign should be of double character, one part of it
meaning this and another part that, or one part radical
and the other formative, is as inconceivable as that the
first instruments should have had handles, or the first
shelters a front room and a back one. But this theoretical
reason finds all the historical support which it needs in the
fact that, through all the observable periods of language-
history, we see formative elements coming from words
originally independent, and not from anything else. Thus,
in the example just taken, the -li- of costliness is a suffix
of so recent growth that its whole history is distinctly
traceable ; it is simply our adjective like, worn down in
both form and meaning to a subordinate value in combina
tion with certain words to which it was appended, and
then added freely as a suffix to any word from which it
was desired to make a derivative adjective — or, later but
more often, a derivative adverb. The ness is much older
(though only Germanic), and its history obscurer ; it con
tains, in fact, two parts, neither of them of demonstrable
origin ; but there are equivalent later suffixes, as skip in
hardship and dom in ivisdom, whose derivation from in
dependent words (shape, doom) is beyond question. The
un- of uncostliness is still more ancient (being Aryan), and
its probably pronominal origin hardly available as an
illustration ; but the comparatively modern prefix be-, of
become, belie, &c., comes from the independent preposition
by, by the same process as -ly or -li- from like. And the
con which has contributed its part to the making of the
quasi -root cost is also in origin identical with the Latin
preposition cum " with." By all the known facts of later
language-growth, we are driven to the opinion that every
formative element goes back to some previously existing
independent word ; and hence that in analysing our
present words we are retracing the steps of an earlier
synthesis, or following up the history of our formed words
toward the unformed roots out of which they have grown.
The doctrine of the historical growth of language-structure
leads by a logical necessity to that of a root-stage in the
history of all language ; the only means of avoiding the
latter is the assumption of a miraculous element in the
former.
Earliest Of what phonetic form were the earliest traditional
phonetic speech- signs is, so far as essentials are concerned, to be
inferred with reasonable certainty. They were doubtless
forms.
articulate : that is to say, composed of alternating con
sonant and vowel sounds, like our present speech ; and
they probably contained a part of the same sounds which
we now use. All human language is of this character ;
there are no sounds in any tongue which are not learned
and reproduced as easily by children of one race as of
another ; all dialects admit a like phonetic analysis, and
are representable by alphabetic signs; and the leading
sounds, consonant and vowel, are even practically the same
in all ; though every dialect has its own (for the most part,
readily definable and imitable) niceties of their pronuncia
tion, while certain sounds are rare, or even met with only
in a single group of languages, or in a single language.
Articulate sounds are such as are capable of being combined
with others into that succession of distinct yet connectable
syllables which is the characteristic of human speech-
utterance. The name " articulate " belongs to this utter
ance, as distinguished from inarticulate human sounds and
cries, and from the sounds made by the lower animals.
The word itself is Latin, by translation from the Greek,
and, though very widely misunderstood, and even deliber
ately misapplied in some languages to designate all sound,
of whatever kind, uttered by any living creature, is a most
happily chosen and truly descriptive term. It signifies
"jointed," or broken up into successive parts, like a limb
or stem ; the joitits are the syllables ; and the syllabic
structure is mainly effected by the alternation of closer or
consonant sounds with opener or vowel sounds. The
simplest syllabic combination (as the facts of language
show) is that of a single consonant with a following vowel ;
and there are languages even now existing which reject
any other. Hence there is much plausibility in the view
that the first speech-signs will have had this phonetic form,
and been monosyllabic, or dissyllabic only by repetition
(reduplication) of one syllable, such as the speech of very
young children shows to have a peculiar ease and natural
ness. The point, however, is one of only secondary import
ance, and may be left to the further progress of phonetic
study to settle, if it can ; the root-theory, at any rate, is
not bound to any definite form or extent of root, but only
denies that there can have been any grammatical struc
ture in language except by development in connexion with
experience in the use of language. What particular
sounds, and how many, made up the first spoken alphabet,
is also a matter of conjecture merely ; they are likely to
have been the closest consonants and the openest vowels,
medial utterances being of later development.
As regards their significant value, the first language- Char-
signs must have denoted those physical acts and qualities acter of
which are directly apprehensible by the senses ; both ^ai f ,
because these alone are directly signifiable, and because it
was only they that untrained human beings had the power
to deal with or the occasion to use. Such signs would
then be applied to more intellectual uses as fast as there
was occasion for it. The whole history of language, down
to our own day, is full of examples of the reduction of
physical terms and phrases to the expression of non-
physical conceptions and relations ; we can hardly write a
line without giving illustrations of this kind of linguistic
growth. So pervading is it, that we never regard ourselves
as having read the history of any intellectual or moral
term till we have traced it back to a physical origin. And
we are still all the time drawing figurative comparisons
between material and moral things and processes, and call
ing the latter by the names of the former. There has
never been any difficulty in providing for new knowledge
and more refined thought by putting to new uses the earlier
and grosser materials of speech.
As a matter of course, whatever we now signify by our
simple expressions for simple acts, wants, and the like,
PHILOLOGY
771
Avas intended to be signified through the first speech-signs
by the users of them. But to us, with our elaborated
apparatus of speech, the sentence, composed of subject and
predicate, with a verb or special predicative word to signify
the predication, is established as the norm of expression,
and we regard everything else as an abbreviated sentence,
or as involving a virtual sentence. With a view to this,
AVC must have " parts of speech " : that is, words held apart
in office from one another, each usable for such and such a
purpose and no other, and answering a due variety of pur
poses, so that Avhen they are combined they fit together,
as parts composing a Avhole, and the desired meaning is
made clear. Inflexions, too, lend their aid ; or else
auxiliary words of various kinds answering the same pur
pose — namely, of determining the relations of the members
of the sentence. But all our success in understanding the
earliest stages of language depends upon our power to con
ceive a state of things where none of these distinctions
Avere established, where one speech-sign Avas like another,
calling up a conception in its indefinite entirety, and leav
ing the circumstances of the case to limit its application.
Such a language is far below ours in explicitness ; but it
would suffice for a great deal of successful communication ;
indeed (as Avill be shown farther on), there are many lan
guages even HOAV in existence which are little better off.
So a look of approval or disgust, a gesture of beckoning
or repulsion, a grunt of assent or inquiry, is as signifi
cant as a sentence, means a sentence, is translatable into
a sentence, and hence may even in a certain way be called
a sentence ; and in the same way, but only so, the original
roots of language may be said to have been sentences.
In point of fact, betAveen the holophrastic gesture or
uttered sign and the sentence Avhich AVC can now substitute
for it — for example, between the sign of beckoning and
the equivalent sentence, "I AA'ant you to come here" — lies
the Avhole history of development of inflective speech.
Develop- What has been this history of development, hoAv the
ment of first scanty and formless signs have been changed into the
language, immense variety and fulness of existing speech, it is of
course impossible to point out in detail, or by demonstra
tion of facts, because nearly the Avhole process is hidden
in the darkness of an impenetrable past. The only way
to cast any light upon it is by careful induction from the
change and growth which are seen to have been going on
in the recent periods for which we have recorded evidence,
or which are going on at the present time. Of some
groups of related languages Ave can read the life for three
or four thousand years back, and by comparison can infer
it much farther ; and the knowledge thus Avon is what Ave
have to apply to the explanation of periods and languages
otherAvise unknown. Nothing has a right to be admitted
as a factor in language-growth of Avhich the action is not
demonstrable in recorded language. Our own family of
languages is the one of Avhose development most is knoAvn,
by observation and Avell-Avarranted inference ; and it may
be Avell here to sketch the most important features of its
history, by way of general illustration.
in Aryan Apparently the earliest class -distinction traceable in
speech. Aryan speech is that of pronominal roots, or signs of posi
tion, from the more general mass of roots. It is not a
formal distinction, marked by a structural difference, but,
so far as can be seen, is founded only on the assignment
by usage ef certain elements to certain offices. Formal
distinction began Avith combination, the addition of one
element to another, their fusion into a single Avord, and
the reduction of the one part to a subordinate value, as
sign of a certain modification of meaning of the other.
Thus, doubtless by endings of pronominal origin, Avere
made the first verb-forms, or Avords used only Avhen predi
cation Avas intended (since that is all that makes a A'erb),
conveying at first a distinction of persons only, then of
persons and numbers, while the further distinctions of
tense and mode were by degrees added. To the nouns,
which became nouns by the setting up of the separate
and special class of verbs, were added in like manner
distinctions of case, of number, and of gender. With the
separation of noun and verb, and the establishment of
their respective inflexion, the creative work of language-
making is virtually done ; the rest is a matter of differ
entiation of uses. For the noun (noun substantive) and
the adjective (noun adjective) become two parts of speech
only by a gradually deepened separation of use ; there i.s
no original or formal distinction between them ; the pro
nouns merely add the noun-inflexion to a special set of
stems ; adverbs are a part of the same formation as noun-
cases; prepositions are adverbs with a specialized construc
tion, of secondary growth ; conjunctions are the product.;
of a like specialization ; articles, where found at all, are
merely weakened demonstratives and numerals.
To the process of form -making, as exhibited in this
history, belong two parts : the one external, consisting in
the addition of one existing element of speech to another
and their combination into a single word ; the other
internal, consisting in the adaptation of the compound to
its special use and involving the subordination of one
element to the other. Both parts appear also abundantly
in other departments of language-change, and throughout
the whole history of our languages ; nothing has to be
assumed for the earliest formations which is not plainly
illustrated in the latest. For example, the last important
addition to the formative apparatus of English is the
common adverb -making suffix -ly, coming, as already
pointed out, from the independent adjective like. There
was nothing at first to distinguish a compound like godly
(godlike) from one like storm-tossed, save that the former
was more adaptable than the other to wider uses ; resem
blance is an idea easily generalized into appurtenance and
the like, and the conversion of godlike to godly is a simple
result of the processes of phonetic change described farther
on. The extension of the same element to combination
with adjectives instead of nouns, and its conversion to
adverb- making value, is a much more striking case of
adaptation, and is nearly limited to English, among the
Germanic languages that have turned like into a suffix.
A similar striking case, of combination and adaptation, is
seen in the Romanic adverb-making suffix mente or ment,
coming from the Latin ablative mente, " with mind." So,
to make a Romanic future like donnerai, " I shall give,"
there was needed in the first place the pre-existing elements
donner, "to give," and ai, "I have," and their combination;
but this is only a part ; the other indispensable part is
the gradual adaptation of a phrase meaning "I have [some
thing before me] for giving " to the expression of simple
futurity, "donabo." So far as the adaptation is concerned,
the case is quite parallel to that offai donne, "I have given,"
ifec. (equivalent phrases or combinations are found in many
languages), where the expression of possession of something
that is acted on has been in like manner modified into the
expression of past action. Parallel in both combination
and adaptation is the past tense loved, from love-did, while
we have again the same adaptation without combination
in the equivalent phrase did love.
That these are examples of the process by which the
whole inflective structure of Aryan language was built up
admits of no reasonable question. Our belief that it is so
rests upon the solid foundation that we can demonstrate
no other process, and that this one is sufficient. It is
true that we can prove such an origin for our formative
elements in only a small minority of instances ; but this
is just Avhat was to be expected, considering what we know
PHILOLOGY
of the disguising processes of language-growth. No one
would guess in the mere y of ably (for able-ly] the presence
of the adjective like, any more than in the altered final of
sent and the shortened vowel of led the effect of a did once
added to send and lead. The true history of these forms
can be shown, because there happen to be other facts left
in existence to show it ; where such facts are not within
reach, we are left to infer by analogy from the known to
the unknown. The validity of our inference can only be
shaken by showing that there are forms incapable of
having been made in this way, or that there are and have
been other ways of making forms. Of the former there
is evidently but small chance ; if a noun-form meaning
" with mind " can become the means of conversion of all
the adjectives of a language into adverbs, and a verb
meaning "have" (and, yet earlier, "seize") of signifying
both future and past time, there is obviously nothing that
is impossible of attainment by such means. As regards
the latter, no one appears to have even attempted to
demonstrate the genesis of formative elements in any other
way during the historical periods of language ; it is simply
assumed that the early methods of language-making will
have been something different from and superior in spon
taneity and fruitfulness to the later ones ; that certain
forms, or forms at certain periods, were made out-and-out,
as forms ; that signs of formal distinction somehow exuded
from roots and stems ; that original words were many-
membered, and that a formative value settled in some
member of them — and the like. Such doctrines are purely
fanciful, and so opposed to the teachings both of observa
tion and of sound theory that the epithet absurd is
hardly too strong to apply to them. If the later races,
of developed intelligence, and trained in the methods of a
fuller expression, can only win a new form by a long and
gradual process of combination and adaptation, why should
the earlier and comparatively untrained generations have
been able to do any better? The advantage ought to be,
All if anywhere, on our side. The progress of language in
formal every department, accompanying and representing the
elements ac|vance of the race, on the whole, in the art of speaking
once
material. as *n other arts, is from the grosser to the more refined,
from the physical to the moral and intellectual, from the
material to the formal. The conversion of compounds into
forms, by the reduction of one of their elements to forma
tive value, is simply a part of the general process which
also creates auxiliaries and form-words and connectives, all
the vocabulary of mind, and all the figurative phraseology
that gives life and vigour to our speech. If a copula,
expressive of the grammatical relation of predication,
could be won only by attenuation of the meaning of verbs
signifying "grow," "breathe," "stand," and the like; if
our auxiliaries of tense and mode all go traceably back to
words of physical meaning (as have to "seize," may to "be
great or strong," shall to "be under penalty," and so on) ;
if of comes from the comparatively physical off, and for
from " be/ore, forward " ; if relative pronouns are special
ized demonstratives and interrogatives ; if right means
etymologically "straight," and ivrong means "twisted";
if spirit is " blowing," and intellect a "picking out among,"
and understanding a "getting beneath," and development
an " unfolding " ; if an event takes place or conies to pass,
and then drops out of mind and is forgotten (opposite of
gotten} — then it is of no avail to object to the grossness of
any of the processes by which, in earlier language or in
later, the expression of formal relations is won. The
mental sense of the relation expressed is entirely superior
to and independent of the means of its expression. He
who, to express the plural of man, says what is equivalent
to man-man or heap-man (devices which are met with in
not a few languages) has just as good a sense of plurality
as he who says men or homines ; that sense is no more
degraded in him by the coarseness of the phrase he uses
to signify it than is our own sense of eventuality and of
pastness by the undisguised coarseness of take plwe and
have been. In short, it is to be laid down with the utmost
distinctness and confidence, as a law of language-growth,
that there is nothing formal anywhere in language which
was not once material ; that the formal is made out of the
material, by processes which began in the earliest history
of language and are still in action.
We have dropped here the restriction to our own or Laws of
Aryan language with which we began, because it is evident c'i;illge
that what is true of this family of speech, one of the most ""' , ,
highly organized that exist, may also be true of the rest-
must be true of them, unless some valid evidence be found
to the . contrary. The unity of human nature makes
human speech alike in the character of its beginnings and
in the general features of its after-history. Everywhere
among men, a certain store of expression, body of tradi
tional signs of thought, being given, as used by a certain
community, it is capable of increase on certain accordant
lines, and only on them. In some languages, and under
peculiar circumstances, borrowing is a great means of
increase ; but it is the most external and least organically
important of all. Out-and-out invention (which, so far
as we can see, must be of the kind called by us onomato-
poetic) is found to play only a very insignificant part in
the historical periods of language, — clearly because there
are other and easier modes of gaining new expression for
what needs to be expressed. In the course of phonetic
change, a word sometimes varies into two (or more) forms,
and makes so many words, which are differently turned
to account. Everything beyond this must be the product
of combination ; there is no other way, so far as concerns
the externals of speech. Then, partly as accompanying
and aiding this external growth, partly as separate from
and supplementing it, there is in all language an internal
growth, making no appearance in -the audible part of
speech, consisting in multiplication of meanings, their
modification in the way of precision or comprehension
or correctness, the restriction of words to certain uses,
and so on. Along with these, too, a constant change of
phonetic form constitutes an inseparable part of the life
of language. Speech is no more stable with respect to the
sounds of which it is composed than with respect to its
grammatical forms, its vocabulary, or the body of concep
tions signified by it. Even nearly related languages differ
as much in their spoken alphabets and the combinations
of sounds they admit, and in their uttered forms of words
historically the same, as in any other part ; and the same
is true of local dialects, and of class dialects within the
same community. Phonetic change has nothing whatever
to do with change of meaning ; the two are the product
of wholly independent tendencies. Sometimes, indeed,
they chance to coincide, as in the distinction of minute
"small," and minute "moment" ; but it is only by chance,
as the spoken accordance of second in its two meanings
("next" and "sixtieth of a minute") shows; words that
maintain their identity of value most obstinately, like the
numerals, are liable to vary indefinitely in form (so four,
fidvor, quatuor, recrcra/a-es, &c., from an original katwar ;
five, quinque, Trevre, coir, &c., from penka — while, on the
other hand, two and three show as striking an accordance
of form as of meaning through all the same languages) ;
what is far the most common is that the Avord becomes
very unlike its former self in both respects, like priest
from the Greek Trpfo-fivrepos (presbyter), literally " older
man." Human convenience is, to be sure, the governing
motive in both changes ; but it is convenience of two
different kinds : the one mental, depending on the fact
PHILOLOGY
^7>TO
773
(pointed out above) that a name when once applied belongs
to the thing to Avhich it is applied, to the disregard of
its etymological connexions, does not need to be changed
when the thing changes, and is ready for new application
to anything that can be brought into one class with the
latter ; and the other physical, depending on the organs
of speech and their successive movements, by which the
sounds that make up the word are produced. Phonetic
convenience is economy of effort on the part of those
organs ; and to no other law than that of economy of
utterance have any of the phenomena of phonetic change
been found traceable (though it is also to be noted that
some phenomena have not hitherto been successfully
brought under it, and that the way of effecting this is
still unclear). " Euphony," which used to be appealed to
as explanation, is a false principle, except so far as the
term may be made an idealized synonym of economy.
The ear finds that agreeable which the organs of utterance
find facile. Economy in utterance is no isolated tendency ;
it is the same that plays its part in all other kinds of
human action, and in language appears equally in the
abbreviation of the sentence by leaving out parts that can
be spared without loss of intelligibility. It is an insidious
tendency, always lying in wait, like gravitation, to pull
down what is not sufficiently held up, — the holding -up
force in language being the faithfulness of tradition, or
accurate reproduction by the learner and user of the signs
which he has acquired. No generation of men has any
intention to speak otherwise than as its predecessor has
spoken, or any consciousness that it is doing so ; and yet,
from generation to generation, words are shortened, sounds
are assimilated to one another, and one element passes out
of use while a new one is introduced. Abbreviation and
assimilation are the most conspicuous departments of
phonetic change, and those in which the nature of the
governing tendency is most plainly seen. Taken by itself,
one sound is as easy as another to the person who has
accustomed himself to it from childhood ; and those which
the young child most easily acquires are not those which
in the history of speech are least liable to alteration ; it is
especially in the combinations and transitions of rapid
speaking that the tongue, as it were, finds out for itself
easier ways of performing its task, by dropping and slurring
and adapting. To trace out the infinitely varied items of
this change, to co-ordinate and compare them and discover
their reasons, constitutes a special department of language-
study, which is treated under the head of SPEECH SOUNDS.
It only needs to be pointed out here that phonetic change
plays a necessary part in the structural development of
language, by integrating compound words through fusion
and loss of identity of their component parts, and, what
is of yet more importance, by converting them into forms,
through disguise of identity of one of the parts and its
phonetic subordination to the other part. It is this that
turns, for example, the compound god-like into the deriva
tive godly, the compound love-did into the verbal form
loved. And yet one further result sometimes follows : an
internal change is wrought by phonetic influence in the
body of a word, which change then may in the further
history of the word be left as the sole means of distinction
between one form and another. It is thus that, in the
most recent period, the distinction of led from lead and
met from meet and so on has been made ; the added auxi
liary which originally made these preterites induced a
shortening of the root -vowel, and this was left behind
when the auxiliary disappeared by the usual process of
abbreviation. It is in the same way that the distinctions
of men from man, of tvere from was, of set from sit, with
all their analogues, were brought about : by a modification
of vowel-sound (Ger. Umlaut) occasioned by the presence
in the following syllable of an t-vowel, which in the older
stages of the language is still to be seen there. And the
distinctions of sing, sang, sung, and song, of bind, bound,
band, and bond, are certainly of the same kind, though
they go back so far in the history of our family of lan
guages that their beginnings are not yet clearly demon
strable ; they were in their origin phonetic accidents,
inorganic, mere accompaniments and results of external
combinations which bore the office of distinction of mean
ing and were sufficient to it ; in some of our languages
they have been disregarded and effaced, in others they
have risen to prominent importance. To regard these
internal changes as primary and organic is parallel with
assuming the primariness of the formative apparatus of
language in general ; like this, it ignores the positive
evidence we have of the secondary production of such
differences ; they are, like everything else in linguistic
structure, the outcome of combination and adaptation.
Borrowing, or the taking-in of material out of another Ian- Borrow
guage, has been more than once referred to above as some- ins pr
times an important element in language-history, though mixing<
less deep -reaching and organic than the rest. There is
nothing anomalous about borrowing ; it is rather in essen
tial accordance with the whole process of language-acquisi
tion. All our names were adopted by us because they
were already in use by others; and a community is in the
same way capable of taking a new name from a community
with which it comes in contact as an individual from
individuals. Not that it seeks or admits in this way new
names for old things ; but it accepts new things along
with the names that seem to belong to them. Hence any
degree of intercourse between one community and another,
leading to exchange of products or of knowledge, is sure
to lead also to some borrowing of names ; and there is
hardly a language in the world, except of races occupying
peculiarly isolated positions, that does not contain a certain
amount of foreign material thus won, even as our English
has elements in its vocabulary from half the other tongues
in the world. The scale of borrowing is greatly increased
when one people becomes the pupil of another in respect
of its civilization : hence the abundant classical elements
in all the European tongues, even the non-Romanic ; hence
the Arabic material in Persian and Turkish and Malay ;
hence the Chinese in Japanese and Corean ; and, as a
further result, even dead languages, like the Greek and
Latin and the Sanskrit, become stores to be drawn upon
in that learned and conscious quest of new expression
which in the school-stage of culture supplements or even
in a measure replaces the unconscious growth of natural
speech. So, in mixture of communities, which is a highly-
intensified form of contact and intercourse, there follows
such mixture of speech as the conditions of the case deter
mine ; yet not a mixture on equal terms, through all the
departments of vocabulary and grammar ; the resulting
speech (just as when two individuals learn to speak alike)
is essentially that of the one constituent of the new com
munity, with more or less material borrowed from that of
the other. What is most easily taken in out of another
language is the names of concrete things ; every degree of
removal f om this involves additional difficulty — names of
abstract tLings, epithets, verbs, connectives, forms. Indeed,
the borrowing of forms in the highest sense, or forms of
inflexion, is well-nigh or quite impossible ; no example of
it has been demonstrated in any of the historical periods
of language, though it is sometimes adventurously assumed
as a part of prehistoric growth. How nearly it may be
approached is instanced by the presence in English of such
learned plurals as phenomena and strata. This extreme
resistance to mixture in the department of inflexion is the
ground on which some deny the possibility of mixture in
PHILOLOGY
language, and hence the existence of such a thing as a
mixed language. The difference is mainly a verbal one ;
but it would seem about as reasonable to deny that a
region is inundated so long as the tops of its highest
mountains are above water. According to the simple and
natural meaning of the term, nearly all languages are
mixed, in varying degree and within varying limits, which
the circumstances of each case must explain.
These are the leading processes of change seen at work
in all present speech and in all known past speech, and
hence to be regarded as having worked through the whole
history of speech. By their operation, every existing
tongue has been developed out of its rudimentary radical
condition to that in which we now see it. The variety of
existing languages is well-nigh infinite, not only in their
material but in their degree of development and the kind
of resulting structure. Just as the earlier stages in the
history of the use of tools are exemplified even at the
present day by races which have never advanced beyond
them, so is it in regard to language also — and, of course,
in the latter case as in the former, this state of things
strengthens and establishes the theory of a gradual
development. There is not an element of linguistic struc-
Isolating ture possessed by some languages which is not wanting in
'an- others ; and there are even tongues which have no formal
=es- structure, and which cannot be shown ever to have ad
vanced out of the radical stage. The most noted example
of such a rudimentary tongue is the Chinese, which in its
present condition lacks all formal distinction of the parts
of speech, all inflexion, all derivation ; each of its words
(all of them monosyllables) is an integral sign, not divisible
into parts of separate significance ; and each in general is
usable wherever the radical idea is wanted, with the value
of one part of speech or another, as determined by the
connexion in which it stands : a condition parallel with
that in which Aryan speech may be regarded as existing
prior to the beginnings of its career of formal development
briefly sketched above. And there are other tongues,
related and unrelated to Chinese, of which the same
description, or one nearly like it, might be given. To call
such languages radical is by no means to maintain that
they exhibit the primal roots of human speech, unchanged
or only phonetically changed, or that they have known
nothing of the combination of element with clement. Of
some of them, the roots are in greater or less part dissyl
labic ; and we do not yet know that all dissyllabism, and
even that all complexity of syllable beyond a single con
sonant with following vowel, is not the result of combina
tion or reduplication. But all combination is not form-
making ; it needs a whole class of combinations, with a
recognized common element in them producing a recog
nized common modification of meaning, to make a form.
The same elements which (in Latin, and even to some
extent in English also) are of formal value in con-stant and
pre-dict lack that character in cost and preach ; the same
like which makes adverbs in tru-ly and right-ly is present
without any such value in such and which (from so-like and
who-like) ; cost and preach, and swh and ivhich, are as purely
radical in English as other words of wrhich we do not
happen to be able to demonstrate the composite character.
And so a Chinese monosyllable or an Egyptian or Poly
nesian dissyllable is radical, unless there can be demon
strated in some part of it a formative value ; and a lan
guage wholly composed of such words is a root-language.
Neither is the possibility to be denied that a language like
Chinese may have had at some period of its history the
weak beginnings of a formal development, since ex
tinguished by the same processes of phonetic decay which
in English have wiped out so many signs of a formal
character, and brought back so considerable a part of the
vocabulary to monosyllabism ; but it remains thus far a
possibility merely ; and the development would need to
have been of the scantiest character to be so totally
destroyed by phonetic influences. In languages thus
constituted, the only possible external alteration is that
phonetic change to which all human speech, from the very
beginning of its traditional life, is liable; the only growth
is internal, by that multiplication and adaptation and im
provement of meanings which is equally an inseparable
part of all language-history. This may include the reduc
tion of certain elements to the value of auxiliaries, particles,
form-words, such as play an important part in analytical
tongues like English, and are perhaps also instanced in
prehistoric Aryan speech by the class of pronominal roots.
Phrases take the place of compounds and of inflexions,
and the same element may have an auxiliary value in
certain connexions while retaining its full force in others,
like, for instance, our own have. It is not easy to define
the distinction between such phrase-collocations and the
beginnings of agglutination ; yet the distinction itself is
in general clearly enough to be drawn (like that in French
between donnerai and ai donne), when the whole habit of
the language is w^ell understood.
Such languages, constituting the small minority of
human tongues, are wont to be called " isolating," i.e.,
using each element by itself, in its integral form. All
besides are "agglutinative," or more or less compounded
into words containing a formal part, an indicator of class-
value. Here the differences, in kind and degree, are very
great ; the variety ranges from a scantiness hardly superior
to Chinese isolation up to an intricacy compared with
which Aryan structure is hardly fuller than Chinese. Some
brief characterization of the various families of language
in this respect will be given farther on, in connexion with
their classification. The attempt is also made to classify
the great mass of agglutinating tongues under different
heads : those are ranked as simply " agglutinative " in
which there is a general conservation of the separate
identity of root or stem on the one hand, and of formative
element, suffix or prefix, on the other ; while the name
" inflective," used in a higher and pregnant sense, is given
to those that admit a superior fusion and integration of
the two parts, to the disguise and loss of separate identity,
and, yet more, with the development of an internal change
as auxiliary to or as substitute for the original agglutination.
But there is no term in linguistic science so uncertain of
meaning, so arbitrary of application, so dependent on the
idiosyncrasy of its user, as the term " inflective." Any
language ought to have the right to be called inflective
that has inflexion : that is, that not merely distinguishes
parts of speech and roots and stems formally from one
another, but also conjugates its verbs and declines its
nouns; and the name is sometimes so used. If, again, it be
strictly limited to signify the possession of inner flexion
of roots and stems (as if simply agglutinated forms could
be called "exflective "), it marks only a difference of degree
of agglutination, and should be carefully used as so doing.
As describing the fundamental and predominant character
of language - structure, it belongs to only one family of
languages, the Semitic, where most of the work of gram
matical distinction is done by internal changes of vowel,
the origin of which thus far eludes all attempts at explana
tion. By perhaps the majority of students of language it
is, as a generally descriptive title, restricted to that family
and one other, the Indo-European or Aryan ; but such a
classification is not to be approved, for, in respect to this
characteristic, Aryan speech ranks not with Semitic but
with the great body of agglutinative tongues. To few of
these can the name be altogether denied, since there is
hardly a body of related dialects in existence that does
Agglu-
tinative
Inflect-
iVL>-
PHILOLOGY
775
not exhibit some items of "inflective" structure; the Aryan
is only the one among them that has most to show. Out
side the Semitic, at any rate, one should not speak of
inflective and non- inflective languages, but only of lan
guages more inflective and less inflective.
Value of To account for the great and striking differences of
struc- structure among human languages is beyond the power of
tlirc- the linguistic student, and will doubtless always continue
so. We are not likely to be able even to demonstrate a
correlation of capacities, saying that a race which has done
this and that in other departments of human activity
might have been expected to form such and such a language.
Every tongue represents the general outcome of the capa
city of a race as exerted in this particular direction, under
the influence of historical circumstances which we can
have no hope of tracing. There are striking apparent
anomalies to be noted. The Chinese and the Egyptians
have shown themselves to be among the most gifted races
the earth has known ; but the Chinese tongue is of unsur
passed jejuneness, and the Egyptian, in point of structure,
little better, while among the wild tribes of Africa and
America we find tongues of every grade, up to a high one,
or to the highest. This shows clearly enough that mental
power is not measured by language-structure. But any
other linguistic test would prove equally insufficient. On
the whole, the value and rank of a language are determined
by what its users have made it do. The reflex action of
its speech on the mind and culture of a people is a theme
of high interest, but of extreme difficulty, and apt to lead
its investigators away into empty declamation ; taking
everything together, its amount, as is shown by the in
stances already referred to, is but small. The question is
simply one of the facilitation of work by the use of one
set of tools rather than another ; and a poor tool in skilful
hands can do vastly better work than the best tool in
unskilful hands — even as the ancient Egyptians, without
steel or steam, turned out products which, both for colossal
grandeur and for exquisite finish, are the despair of modern
engineers and artists. In such a history of development
as that of human speech a fortunate turn may lead to
results of unforeseen value ; the earlier steps determine
the later in a degree quite beyond their own intrinsic
importance. Everything in language depends upon habit
and analogy ; and the formation of habit is a slow process,
while the habit once formed exercises a constraining as
well as a guiding influence. Hence the persistency of
language-structure : when a certain sum and kind of ex
pression is produced, and made to answer the purposes of
expression, it remains the same by inertia ; a shift of
direction becomes of extreme difficulty. No other reason
can at present be given why in historical time there has
been no marked development out of one grade of structure
into another ; but the fact no more shakes the linguistic
scholar's belief in the growth of structure than the absence
of new animal species worked out under his eyes shakes
the confidence of the believer in animal development.
The modifying causes and their modes of action are clearly
seen, and there is no limit to the results of their action
except what is imposed by circumstances.
It is in vain to attempt to use dates in language-history,
to say when this or that step in development was taken,
and how long a period it cost, especially now that the
changed views as to the antiquity of man are making it
probable that only a small part of the whole history is
brought within the reach even of our deductions from the
Unity of most ancient recorded dialects. At any rate, for aught
origin of that we know or have reason to believe, all existing dialects
are equally old ; every one alike has the whole immeasur
able past of language-life behind it, has reached its present
condition by advance along its own line of growth and
change from the first beginnings of human expression.
Many of these separate lines we clearly see to converge
and unite, as AVC follow them back into the past ; but
whether they all ultimately converge to one point is a
question quite beyond our power to answer. If in this
immensity of time many languages have won so little,
if everywhere language-growth has been so slow, then we
can only differ as to whether it is reasonably certain, or
probable, or only possible, that there should have been a
considerable first period of human existence without tra
ditional speech, and a yet more considerable one before
the fixation of so much as should leave abiding traces in
its descendants, and that meanwhile the race should have
multiplied and scattered into independent communities.
And the mere possibility is enough to exclude all dogmatic
assertion of the unity of origin of human speech, even
assuming unity of origin of the human race. For to prove
that identity by the still existing facts of language is
utterly out of the question ; the metamorphosing effect of
constant change has been too great to allow it. In point of
fact, taking languages as they now exist, only those have
been shown related which possess a common structure, or
have together grown out of the more primitive radical stage,
since structure proves itself a more constant and reliable
evidence than material. And this is likely ever to be the
case ; at any rate, to trace all the world's languages so far
back toward their beginnings as to find in them evidences
of identity is beyond the wildest hope. We must be con
tent with demonstrating for those beginnings a unity of
kind as alike a body of formless roots. But, on the other
hand, since this unity is really demonstrated, since all
structure is the result of growth, and no degree of
difference of structure, any more than of difference of
material, refuses explanation as the result of discordant
growth from identical beginnings, it is equally inadmissible
to claim that the diversities of language prove it to have
had different beginnings. That is to say, the question of
the unity of speech, and yet more that of the unity of the
race, is beyond the reach of the student of language ; the
best view he can attain is the hypothetical one, that, if the
race is one, the beginnings of speech were perhaps one —
but probably not, even then. This negative conclusion is
so clearly established as to leave no excuse for the still
oft -repeated attempts to press language into service on
either side of the controversy respecting human unity of
race.
That all making and changing of language is by the Uncon-
act of its speakers is too obvious to call for discussion. No scious
other force capable of acting and of producing effects is f^A
either demonstrable or conceivable as concerned in the incijvid-
work. The doctrine that language is an organism, growing uals.
by its own inherent powers, exempt from the interference
of those who use it, is simply an indefensible paradox.
Every word that is uttered is so by an act of human will,
at first in imitation of others, then more and more by a
formed and controlling habit ; it is accessible to no change
except by influences working in the speaker's mind, and
leading him to make it otherwise. Not that he is aware
of this, or directs his action knoAvingly to that end. The
whole process is unconscious. If any implication of re
flective or intended action can be shown to inhere in any
doctrine of linguistic science, it vitiates that doctrine.
The attitude of the ordinary speaker towards his language
is that of unreasoning acceptance ; it seems to him that
his names for things are their real names, and all others
unintelligent nicknames ; he thinks himself to possess his
speech by the same tenure as his sight or hearing ; it is
" natural " to him (or, if he reasons about it, he attributes
it to a divine origin, as races beginning to philosophize
are wont to ascribe their various social institutions to their
776
PHILOLOGY
gods) ; he knows nothing of its structure and relations ;
it never occurs to him to find fault with it, or to deem it
insufficient and add to or change it ; he is wholly unaware
that it does change. He simply satisfies his social needs
of communication by means of it ; and if he has anything
to express that is different from what has been expressed
before, he takes the shortest way to a provision for the
need; while any relaxation of the energy of utterance
tends to a variation in the uttered combinations ; and thus
changes come by his act, though without his knowledge.
His sole object is, on the basis of what language he has,
to make known his thought in the most convenient way
to his fellow ; everything else follows with and from that.
Human nature and circumstances being what they are,
what follows actually is, as already shown, incessant
growth and change. For it we have not to seek special
disturbing causes in the history of the speakers, although
such may come in to heighten and quicken the change ;
we know that even in a small community, on a narrow
islet, cut off from all intercourse with other communities,
the speech would grow different — as certainly, if not as
rapidly, as anywhere in the world — and only by the action
of its speakers : not that the speakers of a language act in
unison and simultaneously to produce a given change.
This must begin in an individual, or more or less accord
antly in a limited number of individuals, and spread from
such example through the community. Initiation by one
or a few, acceptance and adoption by the rest, — such is the
necessary method of all linguistic change, and to be read
as plainly in the facts of change now going on among
ourselves as in those of former language. The doctrine of
the inaccessibility of language to other action than that
of its speakers does not imply a power in the individual
speaker to create or alter anything in the common speech,
any more than it implies his desire to do so. What he
suggests by his example must be approved by the imitation
of his fellows, in order to become language. The common
speech is the common property, and no one person has any
more power over it than another. If there are, for example,
a thousand speakers of a certain dialect, each one wields in
general a thousandth part of the force required to change
it — with just so much more as may belong to his excess of
influence over his fellows, due to recognized superiority of
any kind on his part. His action is limited only by their
assent ; but this is in effect a very narrow limitation, insuring
the adoption of nothing that is not in near accordance with
the already existing ; though it is also to be noted that he
is as little apt to strike off into startling change as they
to allow it ; since the governing power of already formed
habits of speech is as strong in him as in them. That
change to which the existing habits naturally lead is easy
to bring about ; any other is practically impossible. It is
this tendency on the part of the collective speakers of a
language to approve or reject a proposed change according
to its conformity with their already subsisting usages that
we are accustomed to call by the fanciful name " the genius
of a language."
Dialectic On the relation of the part played in language-change
by the individual to that by the community, in -combina
tion with the inevitableness of change, rests the explana
tion of the dialectic variation of language. If language
were stable there would of course be no divarication ; but
since it is always varying, and by items of difference that
proceed from individuals and become general by diffusion,
there can be uniformity of change only so far as diffu
sion goes, or as the influences of communication extend.
Within the limits of a single community, small or large,
whatever change arises spreads gradually to all, and so
becomes part of the general speech ; but let that com
munity become divided into two (or more) parts, and then
varia
tion.
the changes arising in either part do not spread to the
other, and there begins to appear a difference in linguistic
usage between them. It is at first slight, even to insig
nificance ; not greater than exists between the dialects of
different localities or ranks or occupations in the same
community, without detriment to the general unity of
speech. This unity, namely, rests solely on mutual intel
ligibility, and is compatible with no small amount of
individual and class difference, in vocabulary, in grammar,
and in pronunciation ; indeed, in the strictest sense, each
individual has a dialect of his own, different from that of
every other, even as he has a handwriting, a countenance,
a character of his own. And every item of change, as it
takes place, must have its season of existence as a local
or class or trade peculiarity, before it gains universal
currency ; some of them linger long in that condition, or
never emerge from it. All these differences in the speech
of different sub-communities within the same community
are essentially dialectic ; they differ not in kind, but only
in degree, from those which separate the best -marked
dialects ; they are kept down by general communication
within the limit of general mutual intelligibility. Where
that restraining influence ceases, the limit is gradually but
surely overpassed, and real dialects are the result. From
what we know of the life of language, we can say posi
tively that continued uniformity of speech without con
tinued community is not practicable. If it were possible
to divide artificially, by an impassable chasm or wall, a
people one for ages, and continuing to occupy the same
seats, the language of the divided parts would at once
begin to be dialectically different ; and after sufficient
time had elapsed, each would have become unintelligible
to the other. That is to say, whenever a community of
uniform speech breaks up, its speech breaks up also ; nor
do we know of any other cause of dialectic diversity.
In applying this explanation of dialectic growth we
have to allow for modifying circumstances of various
nature, which alter not indeed the fact but the rate and
kind of divarication. Some languages grow and change
much more rapidly than others, with a corresponding
effect upon divarication, since this is but a result of dis
cordant growth. Usually, when there is division of a
community, the parts get into different external circum
stances, come in contact or mingle with different neigh
bouring communities, and the like ; and this quickens
and increases their divergence of speech. But the modify
ing factor of by far the highest importance, here as
elsewhere in the history of language, is civilization.
Civilization in its higher forms so multiplies the forces of
communication as to render it possible that the widely-
divided parts of one people, living in circumstances and
under institutions of very different character, should yet
maintain a substantial oneness of speech ; of this there is
no more striking example than the two great divisions of
the English-speaking people on opposite sides of the
Atlantic. On the other hand, a savage people cannot
spread even a little without dialectic disunity ; there are
abundant examples to be met with now of mutually un
intelligible speech between the smallest subdivisions of a
race of obviously kindred tongue — as the different clusters
of huts on the same coral islet. It is with linguistic unity
precisely as it is with political unity, and for the same
reasons. Before the attainment of civilization the human
race, whether proceeding from one centre of dispersion or
from several, was spread over the earth in a state of utter
disintegration ; but every centre of civilization becomes
also a centre of integration ; its influences make for unity
of speech as of all other social institutions. Since culture
has become incontestably the dominant power in human
history, the unifying forces in language have also been
PHILOLOGY
777
stronger than the diversifying ; and with culture at its
full height, and spread equally to every land and race,
one universal language, like one universal community, is
not an absurdity or theoretic impossibility, but only a
Utopian or millennial dream.
Dialectic variation is thus simply a consequence of the
movements of population. As the original human race or
races, so the divisions or communities of later formation,
from point to point through the whole life of man on the
earth, have spread and separated, have jostled and inter
fered, have conquered and exterminated or mingled and
absorbed ; and their speech has been affected accordingly.
Hence something of these movements can be read in the
present condition of languages, as in a faithful though
obscure record — more, doubtless, than can be read in any
other way, however little it may be when viewed absolutely.
Dialectic resemblances point inevitably back to an earlier
unity of speech, and hence of community ; from what we
know of the history of speech, they are not to be accounted
for in any other way. The longer the separation that has
produced the diversity, the greater its degree. With every
generation, the amount of accordance decreases and that
of discordance increases ; the common origin of the dialects
is at first palpable, then evident on examination, then to
be made out by skilled research, then perhaps no longer
demonstrable at all ; for there is plainly no limit to the
Families possible divergence. So long, now, as any evidence of
of original unity is discoverable we call the languages
speech. u related dialects," and combine them into a "family."
The term " family " simply signifies a group of languages
which the evidence thus far at command, as estimated by
us, leads us to regard as descended by the ordinary pro
cesses of dialectic divarication from one original tongue.
That it does not imply a denial of the possibility of wider
relationship is obvious from what has been said above.
That there is abundant room for error in the classification
represented by it is also clear, since we may take purely
accidental resemblances, or the results of borrowing, for
evidence of common descent, or may overlook or wrongly
estimate real evidences, which more study and improved
method will bring to light. Grouping into families is
nothing more than the best classification attainable at a
given stage in the progress of linguistic science ; it is in
no small part provisional only, and is always held liable
to modification, even sweeping, by the results of further
research. Of some families we can follow the history by
external evidences a great way back into the past ; their
structure is so highly developed as to be traced with con
fidence everywhere ; and their territory is well within our
reach : such we regard with the highest degree of con
fidence, hardly allowing for more than the possibility that
some other dialect, or group, or now-accepted family even,
may sometime prove its right to be added on. But these
are the rare exceptions ; in the great majority of cases
we have only the languages as they now exist, and in
more or less scanty collections, of every degree of trust
worthiness ; and even their first grouping is tentative and
incomplete, and involves an adjournment of deeper ques
tions to the day of more light. To complete and perfect
the work of classification by relationship, or the establish
ment of families and their subdivisions, is the first object
of the comparative study of languages. No other classifi
cation has a value in the least comparable with it ; that
by grade of structure is a mere recreation, leading to no
thing ; that by absolute worth is of no account whatever,
at any rate in the present state of our knowledge. On
genetic relationship, in the first place, is founded all investi
gation of the historical development of languages ; since
it is in the main the comparison of related dialects, even
in the case of families having a long recorded history, and
elsewhere only that, that gives us knowledge of their
earlier condition, and enables us to trace the lines of
change. In the second place, and yet more obviously,
with this classification is connected all that language has
to teach as to the affinities of human races ; whatever aid
linguistic science renders to ethnology rests upon the
proved relationships of human tongues.
That a classification of languages, to which we have Recapi
now to proceed, is not equivalent to a classification of ulatior
races, and why this is so, is evident enough from the
principles which have been brought out by our whole
discussion of languages, and which, in their bearing upon
this particular point, may well be recapitulated here. No
language is a race-characteristic, determined by the special
endowments of a race ; all languages are of the nature of
institutions, parallel products of powers common to all
mankind — the powers, namely, involved in the application
of the fittest available means to securing the common end
of communication. Hence they are indefinitely trans
ferable, like other institutions — like religions, arts, forms
of social organization, and so on — under the constraining
force of circumstances. As an individual can learn any
language, foreign as well as ancestral, if it be put in his
way, so also a community, which in respect to such a
matter is only an aggregate of individuals. Accordingly,
as individuals of very various race are often found in one
community, speaking together one tongue, and utterly
ignorant of any other, so there are found great communi
ties of various descent, speaking the dialects of one common
tongue, Avhich at some period historical circumstances have
imposed upon them. The conspicuous example, which
comes into every one's mind when this subject is discussed,
is that of the Romanic countries of southern Europe, all
using dialects of a language which, 2500 years ago, was
itself the insignificant dialect of a small district in central
Italy ; but this is only the most important and striking of
a whole class of similar facts. Such are the results of the
contact and mixture of races and languages. If language-
history were limited to growth and divarication, and race-
history to spread and dispersion, it would be 9 compara
tively easy task to trace both backward toward their
origin ; as the case is, the confusion is inextricable and
hopeless. Mixture of race and mixture of speech are
coincident and connected processes ; the latter never takes
place without something of the former ; but the one is
not at all a measure of the other, because circumstances
may give to the speech of the one element of population
a greatly disproportionate preponderance. Thus, there is
left in French only an insignificant trace of the Celtic
dialects of the predominant race-constituent of the French
people ; French is the speech of the Latin conquerors of
Gaul, mixed perceptibly with that of its later Frankish
conquerors ; it was adopted in its integrity by the Norse
conquerors of a part of the land, then brought into Britain
by the same Norsemen in the course of their further con
quests, this time only as an element of mixture, and thence
carried with English speech to America, to be the language
of a still further mixed community. Almost every possible
phase of language -mixture is traceable in the history of
the abundant words of Latin origin used by American
negroes. What events of this character took place in pre
historic time we shall never be able to tell. If any one
chooses to assert the possibility that even the completely
isolated dialect of the little Basque community may have
been derived by the Iberian race from an intrusive
minority as small as that which made the Celts of Gaul
speakers of Latin, we should have to admit it as a
possibility — yet without detriment to the value of the
dialect as indicating the isolated race -position of its
speakers. In strictness, language is never a proof of race,
XVIII. — 98
778
PHILOLOGY
either in an individual or in a community ; it i.s only a
probable indication of race, in the absence of more authori
tative opposing indications ; it is one evidence, to be com
bined with others, in the approach towards a solution of
the confessedly insoluble problems of human history. But
we must notice, as a most important circumstance, that
its degree of probability is greatest where its aid is most
needed, in prehistoric periods and among uncultivated
races ; since it is mainly civilization that gives to language
a propagative force disproportionate to the number
of its speakers. On the whole, the contributions of
language to ethnology are practically far greater in
amount and more distinct than those derived from any
other source.
assifi- The genetical classification of languages, then, is to be
tion. taken for just what it attempts to be, and no more : prim
arily as a classification of languages only ; but secondarily
as casting light, in varying manner and degree, on move
ments of community, which in their turn depend more or
less upon movements of races. It is what the fates of men
have left to represent the tongues of men — a record im
perfect even to fragmentariness. Many a family once as
important as some of those here set down has perhaps
been wiped out of existence, or is left only in an incon
spicuous fragment ; one and another has perhaps been
extended far beyond the limits of the race that shaped
it, — which, we can never tell to our satisfaction.
We begin with the families of highest importance and
nearest to ourselves.
•yan. 1- Aryan (Indo-European, Indo • Germanic) Family. — To this
family belongs incontestably the first place, and for many reasons :
the historical position of the peoples speaking its dialects, who have
now long been the leaders in the world's history ; the abundance
and variety and merit of its literatures, ancient and modern, which,
especially the modern, are wholly unapproached by those of any
other division of mankind ; the period covered by its records, hardly
exceeded in duration by any other ; and, most of all, the great
variety and richness of its development. These advantages make
of it an illustration of the history of human speech with which no
other family can bear a moment's comparison as to value, however
important various other families may be in their bearing on one
and another point or department of history, and however necessary
the combination of the testimony of all to a solution of the problems
involved in speech. These advantages have made Aryan language
the training-ground of comparative philology, and its study will
always remain the leading branch of that science. Many matters
of importance in its history have been brought up and used as illus
trations in the preceding discussion ; but as its constitution and
ascertained development call for a fuller and more systematic exposi
tion than they have found here, a special section is devoted to the
subject (see p. 781 sq. below).
mitic. 2. Semitic Family. — This family also is beyond all question the
second in importance, on account of the part which its peoples
(Hebrews, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Syrians, Arabs, Abyssinians, &c. )
have played in history, and of the rank of its literatures. For a
special treatment of it see SEMITIC. Some of the peculiarities of
the language have been alluded to above ; in the monotony and
rigidity of its triliteral roots, and in the extended use which it
makes of internal vowel-change (" inflexion " in the special sense of
that term) for the purposes of grammatical distinction, it is more
peculiar and unlike all the other known families of language than
these are unlike one another. There are, and perhaps will always
be, those to whom the peculiarities just mentioned will seem original ;
but if the views of language and its history taken above are in the
main true, then that opinion is untenable ; Semitic language must
have grown into its present forms out of beginnings accordant in
kind, if not identical in substance, with those of other families ;
and the only question remaining to be solved is, through what
processes and under what governing tendencies Semitic speech
should have arrived at its present state. And with this solution
is most obviously and incontestably bound up that of the other
interesting and much discussed question, whether the Semitic
family can be shown to be related with other families, especially
with our own Aryan. To some the possession in common of
grammatical gender, or of the classification of objects in general as
masculine and feminine, is of itself enough to prove such relation
ship ; but, though the fact is a striking one, and of no small
importance as an indication, this degree of value can by no means
be attributed to it in the present state of our knowledge — any more
than to any other single item of structure among the infinite variety
of such, distributed among the multitude of human tongues.
Many otiiers compare the Semitic and Aryan "roots" with one
another, and believe themselves to find there numerous indications
of identity of material and signification ; but these also must pass
for insufficient, until it shall prove possible by their aid to work
out an acceptable theory of now Semitic structure should have
grown out of such radical elements as underlie Aryan structure, or
out of the accordant initial products of a structural growth that after
wards diverged into two so discordant forms. To show that, both
the material and the method have been hitherto wanting, and any
confident decision is at least premature ; but present probabilities
are strongly against the solubility of the question. While many
general considerations favour the ultimate unity of these two great
civilized and civilizing white races of neighbouring homes, and no
discordance of speech (as was shown above) can ever be made to
prove their diversity of origin, it seems in a high degree unlikely
that the evidence of speech will ever be made to prove them one.
As regards the often -claimed relationship of Semitic with Hamitic
language, see the following section.
3. Hamitic Familij. — The prominent importance of this family Hamitic.
is dne to a single one of its members, the Egyptian ; in all other
respects it is quite insignificant. It occupies the north-eastern
corner of Africa, with the border-lands of that continent stretching
westward along the whole shore of the Mediterranean, and south
ward to beyond the equator. It falls into three principal divisions :
(1) the ancient Egyptian, with its descendant, the more modern
Coptic (itself now for some centuries extinct ; see EUVFT, Corrs) ;
(2) the Libyan or Berber languages of northern Africa ; (3) the
Ethiopia languages of eastern Africa. Its situation thus plainly
suggests the theory of its intrusion from Asia, across the isthmus
of Suez, and its gradual spread from that point ; and the theory is
strongly favoured by the physical character of the Hamites, and
the historical position especially of the Egyptians, so strikingly
different from that of the African races in general. Linguistic
evidences of the relationship of Ilamite with Semite have also
been sought, and by many believed to be found ; but the mainte
nance of the two families in their separateness is an indication that
those evidences have not yet been accepted as satisfactory ; and
such is indeed the case. The Egyptian is a language of extreme
simplicity of structure, almost of no structure at all. Its radical
words are partly monosyllabic, partly of more than one syllable,
but not in the latter case any more than in the former showing
traceable signs of extension by formative processes from simpler
elements. It has no derivative apparatus by which noun-stems
are made from roots ; the root is the stem likewise ; there is nothing
that can be properly called either declension or conjugation ; and
the same pronominal particles or suffixes have now a subjective
value, indicating use as a verb, and now a possessive, indicating use
as a noun. There is no method known to linguistic science by which
the relationship of such a tongue as this with the highly and
peculiarly inflective Semitic can be shown, short of a thorough
working out of the history of development of each family taken by
itself, and a retracing in some measure of the steps by which each
should have arrived at its present position from a common starting-
point ; and this has by no means been done. In short, the problem
of the relation of Semitic with Hamitic, not less than with Aryan,
depends upon that of Semitic growth, and the two must be solved
together. There are striking correspondences between the pro
nouns of the two families, such as, if supported by evidences from
other parts of their material, would be taken as signs of relation
ship ; but, in the absence of such support, they are not to be relied
upon, not till it can be shown to be possible that two languages
could grow to be so different in all other respects as arc Egyptian
and Hebrew, and yet retain by inheritance corresponding pronouns.
And the possession of grammatical gender by Aryan, Semitic, and
Hamitic speech, and by them almost alone, among all human
languages, though an extremely noteworthy fact, is (as was pointed
out above) in the present condition of linguistic science quite too
weak a basis for a belief in the original identity of the three
families.
Egyptian is limited to the delta and valley of the Nile, and is
the only Hamitic language which has ancient records ; of the
others the existing forms alone are known.
The Libyan or Berber division of the family occupies the inhabit
able part of northern Africa, so far as it has not been displaced by
intrusive tongues of other connexion — in later times the Arabic,
which since the Mohammedan conquest has been the cultivated
tongue of the Mediterranean coast, while the earlier Vandal, Latin,
and Punic have disappeared, except in the traces they may have
left in Berber dialectic speech. The principal dialects are the
Kabyle, tlw Shilha, and the Tuarek or Tamashek, corresponding
nearly to the ancient Numidinn, Mauretanian, and Gaetulian
respectively. Some authorities add the Haussa, from farther south,
while by others this is considered a Semitic, and by yet others a
negro tongue.
The third or Ethiopic division includes as its chief members the
Beja or Bi'sharin, the Saho, the Dankali, the Somali, and the more
PHILOLOGY
779
inland Galla ; the first two lying along the Red Sea north of
Semitic Abyssinia, the others south of it, to the equator. By some
authorities (Lepsius, Bleek) there is added to the Hamitic family
as a fourth division a group from extreme southern Africa, the
Hottentot and Bushman languages. The ground of this classifica
tion is the possession by the Hottentot of the distinction of gram
matical gender, and even its designation by signs closely corre
sponding to those used in the Ethiopia division. Others deny
the sufficiency of this evidence, and rank the Hottentot as a
separate group of African dialects, adding to it provisionally the
Bushman, until better knowledge of the hitter shall show whether
it is or is not a group by itself. If the Hottentot be Hamitic, we
shall have to suppose it cut off at a very remote period from the
rest of the family, and forced gradually southward, while all the
time suffering mixture both of speech and of blood with the negro
races, until the physical constitution of its speakers has become
completely metamorphosed, and of its original speech no signs are
left save those referred to above ; and while such exceptional phon
etic peculiarities have been worked out as the use of the clicks or
clucking sounds (see HOTTENTOTS) : and this must be regarded as
at least extremely difficult.
South- 4. Monosyllabic or South-eastern Asiatic Family. — This body of
eastern languages may well enough be the next taken up ; and here again
Asiatic, (as was the case with the preceding family) on account of the
prominent importance of one of its dialects and of the people
speaking it — -the Chinese people and language. The territory of
the family includes the whole south-eastern corner of Asia : China
on the north-east, Farther India in the south, and the high plateau
of Tibet, with the neighbouring Himalayan regions, to the west
ward. The ultimate unity of all these languages rests chiefly upon
the evidence of their form, as being all alike essentially mono
syllabic and isolating, or destitute of formal structure ; the material
correspondences among them, of accordant words, are not sufficient
to prove them related. The Chinese itself can be followed up, in
contemporary records, to a period not far from 2000 B.C., and the
language, the people, and their institutions, are then already in
the main what they have ever since continued to be (see CHINA) ;
the other leading tongues come into view much later, as they
receive culture and religion from China on the one hand (the
Anamites), or from India on the other (the Tibetans, Burmese,
Siamese) ; and the territory includes great numbers of wild tribes
unknown until our own times, whose race-relations and language-
relations are as yet very obscure. Current opinion tends to regard
the Anainites, Peguaus, and Cambodians as forming a more nearly
related group or division of the family, and as having been the
earlier population of Farther India, in part dispossessed and
driven forward by the later intrusion from the north of Siamese
and Burmese, of whom the former are more nearly related
to the Chinese, and the latter to the Tibetans ; but these group
ings rest as yet upon too slender evidence to be accepted with
confidence.
The character of the languages of this family, especially as in
stanced by its most important member, the Chinese, has been pretty
fully set forth in the general discussions above. They are languages
of roots : that is to say, there is not demonstrable in any of their
words a formative part, limiting the word, along with others simi-
larl y characterized, to a certain office or set of offices in the formation
of the sentence. That the words are ultimate roots, come down
from the first period of language-making, we have no reason what
ever to believe ; and they may possibly have passed through pro
cesses of growth which equipped them with some scanty supply of
forms ; but no evidence to that effect has yet been produced. The
indications relied on to show an earlier polysyllabism in the family
(though already in Chinese reduced to monosyllabism before the
earliest historical appearance of the language, some 4000 years ago)
are the comparatively recent loss of certain final mutes in Chinese
words, and the presence on a considerable scale in Tibetan spelling
of added initial and final consonants, now silent in the literary
dialect, but claimed to be still uttered in some parts of the country.
If the theory connecting these phenomena be established,
the Tibetan will approve itself to be by far the most primitive
of the dialects of the family, furnishing the key to the history
of the rest.
For further details respecting the various tongues of the mono
syllabic family, the articles on the different divisions of its territory
(BuRMAH, CHINA, SIAM, TIBET, &c.) may be consulted. The lan
guages all alike show an addition to the resources of distinction
possessed by languages in general, in the use of tones : that is to
say, .words of which the alphabetic elements are the same differ in
meaning according as they are uttered in a higher or a lower tone,
with the rising or the falling inflexion, and so on. By this means,
for example, the monosyllabic elements of the literary Chinese,
numbering but 500 as we should write them, are raised to the
number of about 1500 words.
Ural- 5. Ural-All,aic (Scythian, Turanian] Family. — China and Tibet
Altaic, are bordered on the north and west by the eastern branches of
another immense family, which stretches through central and
northern Asia into Europe, overlapping the European border in
Turkey, and reaching across it in Russia and Scandinavia to the
very shore of the Atlantic. Usage has not so definitely determined
as in the case of most other families by what name it shall be called ;
Turanian is perhaps the commonest appellation, but also the most
objectionable. Five principal branches are generally reckoned as
composing the family. The two easternmost are the Tungusian,
with the Manchu for its principal division, and the Mongol (see
MONGOLS). Of these two the language is exceedingly simple in
structure, being raised but little above the formlessness of the
Chinese. The three others are : the Turkish or Tatar, the dia
lects of which reach from the mouth of the Lena (Yakut) to
Turkey in Europe ; the Samoyed, from the Altai down to the arctic
shore of Asia, and along this to the White Sea — an unimportant
congeries of barbarous tribes ; and the Finno-Hungarian, including
the tongues of the two cultivated peoples from which it takes its
name, and also those of a great part of the population of northern
and central Russia, to beyond the Ural Mountains, and finally the
Lappish, of northern Scandinavia. The nearer relation of the
Samoyed is with the Finno-Hungarian. The Turkish is a type of
a well-developed language of purely agglutinative structure : that
is, lacking that higher degree of integration which issues in internal
change. Whether this degree is wholly wanting in Finnish and
Hungarian is made a question ; at any rate, the languages named
have no reason to envy the tongues technically called " inflective."
Of a value not inferior to that of inflective characteristics is one
that belongs to all the Ural-Altaic tongues, in varying measure and
form, and helps to bind them together into a single family — the
harmonic sequence of vowels, namely, as between root and endings,
or a modification of the vowels of the endings to agree with that
of the root or its final syllable.
While the physical race-characteristics known as Mongolian are
wanting in the speakers of the western dialects of this family, they
are conspicuously present in the people of Japan and Corea ; and
hence the tendency of scholars to endeavour to connect the languages
of the two latter countries, since they also are of agglutinative struc
ture (see JAPAN and COREA), with the family now under treatment,
as also with one another. Neither connexion, however, can at
present be regarded as proved.
Other languages of north-eastern Asia, too little known to group,
and too unimportant to treat as separate families, may be mentioned
here by way of appendix to their neighbours of the most diversified
and widespread Asiatic family. They are the Aino, of Yezo and
the Kurile Islands with part of the neighbouring coast ; the
Kamchatkan ; and the Yukagir and Tchuktchi, of the extreme
north-east.
The opinion was recently held by many scholars that the agglutin
ative dialects — Accadian, Sumirian, &c. — of the presumed founders
of Mesopotamia!! culture and teachers of the Assyrian Semites (see
BABYLONIA) belonged to the Ural-Altaic family, and specifically
to its Finno-Hungarian branch ; but it is believed to be now
generally abandoned. The mere possession of an agglutinative
structure cannot be taken as proving anything in the way of
relationship.
6. Dravidian or South-Tndian Family. — This is an important Dravi-
body of nearly and clearly related tongues, spoken by about clian.
50,000,000 people, doubtless representing the main population
of all India at the time when the intrusive Aryan tribes broke in
from the north-west, and still filling most of the southern peninsula,
the Deccan, together with part of Ceylon. In an earlier article
(see INDIA) the names of the dialects have been given, with indica
tion of their locality and relative importance, and with some account
of their leading features. They are languages of a high grade of
structure, and of great power and euphony ; and the principal ones
have enjoyed a long cultivation, founded on that of the Sanskrit.
As they obviously have no Aryan affinities, the attempt has been
made to connect them also with the Ural-Altaic or Turanian family,
but altogether without success, although there is nothing in their
style of structure that should make such connexion impossible.
Not all the tribes that make iip the non-Aryan population of
India speak Dravidian dialects. The Santals and certain other
wild tribes appear to be of another lineage, and are now generally
known as Kolarian.
7. Malay-Polynesian Family. — The islands, greater and smaller, Malay
lying off the south-eastern coast of Asia and those scattered over Poly-
the Pacific, all the way from Madagascar to Easter Island, are nesian
filled with their own peculiar families of languages, standing in no
known relationship with those of the mainland. The principal
one among them is the great Malay-Polynesian family. It falls
into two principal divisions, Malayan and Polynesian. The Malayan
includes, besides the Malay proper (see MALAYS), which occupies
the Malaccan peninsula (yet doubtless not as original home of the
division, but by immigration from the islands), the languages also
of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, &c., of the Philippine Islands, of Formosa,
and of Madagascar, together with the coasts of Celebes and other
islands occupied in the interior by Papuans. The Polynesian division
includes most of the tongues of the remaining scattered groups of
780
PHILOLOGY
islands, and that of New Zealand. Probably to these are to be added,
as a third division, the Mehmesian dialects of the Melanesian Archi
pelago, of which both the physical and the linguistic peculiarities
would in that case be ascribed to mixture with the black Papuan
races. All these languages are extremely simple in phonetic form,
and of a low grade of structure, the Polynesian branch being in both
respects the lowest, and some of the Malayan dialects having reached
a development considerably more advanced. The radical elements
are much oftener of two syllables than of one, and reduplication
plays an important part in their extension and variation. Malay
literature goes back as far as to the 13th century, and there are
Javan records even from the early centuries of our era, the result
of religion and culture introduced into that island from Brahmanic
India ; but none of these have yet been utilized, as they doubtless
in time will be, for tracing out the special laws of historical develop
ment prevailing in the family.
11S. 8. Otlicr Oceanic Families. — At least two other families, un-
:iliau. connected with the preceding and with one another, are found
among the Pacific islands, and only there. The continental island
of Australia, with its dependency Tasmania (where, however, the
native tongue has now become extinct), has its own body of probably
related dialects, as its own physical type. They have been but
imperfectly investigated, their importance, except to the professed
student of language, being nothing ; but they are not destitute of a
rude agglutinative structure of their own. Still less known are the
ipuan. Papuan or Negrito languages, belonging to the black race with
frizzled hair inhabiting most of New Guinea, and found also in the
interior of some of the other islands, having been driven from the
coasts by superior intruders of the Malay race.
iu- 9. Caucasian Languages. — Of the existing languages of Asia
sian. there remain to be mentioned only those of the Caucasian moun
tains and highlands, between the Black and Caspian Seas, pressed
upon the north by Slavonians and Turks, upon the south by
Armenians and Kurds and Turks. Its situation makes of the
Caucasus a natural eddy in all .movements of emigration between
Asia and Europe ; and its linguistic condition is as if remnants of
many families otherwise extinct had been stranded and preserved
there. The dialects north of the principal range — Circassian,
Mitsjeghian, Lesghian, &c. — have not been proved to be related
either to one another or to those of the south. Among the latter, the
Georgian is much the most widespread and important (see GEORGIA),
ami, alone among them all, possesses a literature. The Caucasian
dialects present many exceptional and difficult features, and are in
great part of so high a grade of structure as to have been allowed
the epithet inflective by those who attach special importance to
the distinction thus expressed.
isque. 10. Remnants of Families in Europe. — The Basque people of the
western Pyrenees, at the angle of the Bay of Biscay, are shown
by their speech to be an isolated remnant of some race which was
doubtless once much more widely spread, but has now everywhere
else lost its separate identity ; as such it is of extreme interest to
the ethnologist. The Basque language appears to be unrelated
to any other on earth. It is of a very highly agglutinative
structure, being equalled in intricacy of combination only by a
part of the American dialects. Limited as it is in territory, it
falls into a number of well-marked dialects, so that it also may
not be refused the name of a "family."
rus- The only other case of the kind worth noting is that of the
n. Etruscan language of northern central Italy, which long ago
became extinct, in consequence of the conquest and absorption of
Etruria by Rome, but which still exists in numerous brief inscrip
tions (see ETRURIA). Many attempts have been made to connect
the language with other families, and it has even quite recently
been pronounced Aryan or Indo-European, of the Italican branch,
by scholars of high rank ; yet it is altogether likely to be finally
acknowledged, like the Basque, as an isolated fragment.
In order to complete this review of the languages of the Old
World it only remains to notice those of Africa which have not
been already mentioned. They are grouped under two heads : the
languages of the south and those of the centre of the continent,
mtu. 11. South- African or Bantu Family. — This is a very extensive
and distinctly marked family, occupying (except the Hottentot
and Bushman territory) the whole southern peninsula of the conti
nent from some degrees north of the equator. It has been already
partly described under KAFFRARIA, and will be treated more in
detail under the head of ZULU). It is held apart from all other
known families of language by a single prominent characteristic
— the extent to which it makes use of prefixes instead of suffixes
as the apparatus of grammatical distinction ; its inflexion, both
declensional and conjugational, is by appended elements which
precede the stem or root. The most conspicuous part of this is
the variety of prefixes, different in singular and plural, by which
the various classes or genders (not founded on sex ; the ground of
classification is generally obscure) of nouns are distinguished ; these
then reappear in the other members of the sentence, as adjectives
and verbs and pronouns, which are determined by the noun, thus
producing an alliterative concord that runs through the sentence.
The pronominal determinants of the verb, both subject and object,
also come before it ; but the determinants of mode of action, as
causative, &c., are mostly suffixed. The language in general is
rich in the means of formal distinction. Those dialects which
border on the Hottentots have, apparently by derivation from the
latter, the clicks or ducking-sounds which form a conspicuous
part of the Hottentot spoken alphabet.
12. Central African Languages. — The remaining languages of Central
Africa form a broad band across the centre of the continent, between African,
the Bantu on the south and the llamitic on the east and north.
They are by no means to be called a family, but rather a creat mass
of dialects, numbering by hundreds, of varying structure, as to the
relations of which there is great discordance of opinion even among
the most recent and competent authorities. It is no place here to
enter into the vexed questions of African linguistics, or even to
report the varying views xipon the subject ; that would require a
space wholly disproportioned to the importance of African speech
in the general sum of human language. There is no small variety
of physical type as well as of speech in the central belt ; and,
partly upon the evidence of lighter tint and apparently higher
endowment, certain races are set oif and made a separate division
of; such is the Nuba-Fulah division of F. M tiller, rejected by
Lepsius. The latter regarded all the varieties of physical and
linguistic character in the central belt as due to mixture between
pure Africans of the south and Hamites of the north and east ; but
this is at present an hypothesis only, and a very improbable one,
since it implies modes and results of mixture to which no analogies
are quotable from languages whose history is known ; nor does it
appear at all probable that the collision of two races and types of
speech should produce such an immense and diverse body of trans
itional types. It is far from impossible that the present promi
nence of the South-African or Bantu family may be secondary, due
to the great expansion under favouring circumstances of a race once
having no more importance than belongs now to many of the
Central-African races, and speaking a tongue which differed from
theirs only as theirs differed from one another. None of the
Central-African languages is a prefix-language in the same degree
as the Bantu, and in many of them prefixes play no greater part
than in the world's languages in general ; others show special forms
or traces of the prefix -structure ; and some have features of an
extraordinary character, hardly to be paralleled elsewhere. One
group in the east (Oigob, &c. ) has a gender distinction, involving
that of sex, but really founded on relative power and dignity :
things disparaged, including women, are put in one class ; things
extolled, including men, are put in the other. This is perhaps
the most significant hint anywhere to be found of how a gender-
distinction like that in our own Aryan languages, which we usually
regard as being essentially a distinction of sex, wliile in fact it only
includes such, may have arisen. Common among the African
languages, as among many other families, especially the Ameri
can, is a generic distinction between animate beings and inanimate
things.
13. American Languages. — With these the case is closely the Ameri-
same as with the Central-African languages : there is an immense can.
number of dialects, of greatly varied structure, of which as yet even
the nearer groupings are only in part made out, while the grade
and kind of relationship between the groups, if such there exist, is
wholly unclear. Some general statements respecting American
languages have been given under AMERICA, and a detailed list
and classification of them in the article INDIANS ; hence it is un
necessary to go over the subject again in this place. What we
most need to note is the very narrow limitation of our present
knowledge. Even among neighbouring families like the Algonquin,
Iroquois, and Dakota, whose agreement in style of structure (poly-
synthetic), taken in connexion with the accordant race -type of
their speakers, forbids us to regard them as ultimately different, no
material correspondence, agreement in words and meanings, is to be
traced ; and there are in America all the degrees of polysynthetism,
down to the lowest, and even to its entire absence. Such being
the case, it ought to be evident to every one accustomed to deal
with this class of subjects that all attempts to connect American
languages as a body with languages of the Old World are and must
be fruitless ; in fact, all discussions of the matter are at present
unscientific, and are tolerably certain to continue so through all
time to come.
Literature. — Many of the theoretic points discussed above are treated by the
writer with more fulness in his Language and the Study of Language (1807) and
Life and Growth of Lan guage (1875). Other English works to consult are M.
Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language ; Farrar's Chapters on Language ;
Wedgwood's Origin of Language ; Sayce's Principles ofl'hilology and Introduction
to the Science of Language, &c. In German, see Paul's J'rindpien der Sprnctige-
schichte (Halle, 1S80); Delbriick's Einltitung indasSprachstudium(Lelpalc, 1880;
there is also an English version) ; Schleichcr's Deutsche Sprache ; also the works
of W. von Humboldt and of H. Steinthal. As to the classification and relation
ships of languages, see Hovelacque's La Linguistitjue (Paris, 1876), and F.
Miiller's Grundriss der fiprachwissenschaft (Vienna, still in progress). As to the
history of the study, see Lcrsch's Sprachphilosophfa der Alien (1840); Stein-
thal's Geschichte der fprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Jlomern (1801!) ;
Benfey's Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und Orientalitchen J'hilolnijie in
Deutschland (1869). (W. 1). W.)
PHILOLOGY
PART II.— COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY OF THE ARYAN LANGUAGES.
781
Histor
ical
sketch.
Bopp
and J.
Grimm.
The study of Aryan comparative philology has from its
outset necessarily been in close connexion with the study of
Sanskrit, a language unparalleled amongst its cognates in
antiquity and distinctness of structure, and consequently
the natural basis of comparison in this field. It is there
fore not to be wondered at that we find no clear views of
the mutual relationship of the individual members of the
Aryan family or their position with regard to other lan
guages until Sanskrit began to attract the attention of
European philologists, or that the introduction of Sanskrit
as an object of study was closely followed by the discovery
of the original community of a vast range of languages and
dialects hitherto not brought into connexion at all, or only
made the objects of baseless speculations. We meet with
the first clear conception of this idea of an Indo-European
community of languages in the distinguished English
scholar Sir William Jones, who, as early as 1786, expressed
himself as follows : " The Sanskrit language, whatever
may be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure ; more
perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and
more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both
of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and
in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced
by accident ; so strong that no philologer could examine
all the three without believing them to have sprung from
some common source which, perhaps, no longer exists.
There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for
supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though
blended with a different idiom, had the same origin with
the Sanskrit."1 But neither Sir William Jones nor any of
his older contemporaries who had arrived at similar con
clusions ever raised this important discovery from a brilliant
aperfu into a valid scientific theory through a detailed
and systematic comparison of the languages in question.
To have achieved this is the undoubted merit of the
German, Franz BOPP ('/.v.), the founder of scientific philo
logy of the Aryan languages, and subsequently through
this example also the founder of comparative philology in
general. Next to him Jacob GRIMM (y.v.) must be men
tioned here as the father of historical grammar. The first
part of his famous Deutsche Grammatik appeared in 1819,
three years after Bopp had published his first epoch-making
book, Ueber das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache.
Bopp's results were here at once utilized, yet Grimm's
whole system was entirely independent of that of Bopp,
and had no doubt been worked out before Grimm knew
of his illustrious predecessor. In fact, their scientific
aims and methods were totally different. Bopp's interest
was not concentrated in comparison as such, but chiefly
inclined towards the explanation of the origin of gram
matical forms, and comparison to him was only a means
of approaching that end.
In this more or less speculative turn of his interest
Bopp showed bin1, jelf the true son of a philosophical period
when general linguistics received its characteristic stamp
from the labours and endeavours of men like the two
Schlegels and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Jacob Grimm's
aims were of a less lofty character than those of Bopp,
whose work, to his own mind, was crowned by his theory
of the origin of inflexion through agglutination. In con
fining his task to a more limited range than the vast field
of Aryan languages embraced in Bopp's researches, and
thus fixing his attention on a group of idioms exhibiting a
striking regularity in their mutual relationship, both where
1 For this quotation and the following historical sketch in general
.•see Th. Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachivissenschaft, p. 438, Munich,
1869, and especially B. Delbriick, Introduction to the Study of Lan
guage, p. 1, Leipsic, 1882 (a second German edition appeared in 1884).
they coincide and where they differ, he made it his foremost
object to investigate and illustrate the continuous progress,
subject to definite laws, by which these languages had
been developed from their common source. He thus raised
the hitherto neglected study of the development of sounds
to an equal level with the study of grammatical forms,
which had so far almost exclusively absorbed all the interest
of linguistic research. Grimm's discovery of the so-called
"Lautverschiebung," or Law of the Permutation of Conson
ants in the Teutonic languages (which, however, had been
partly found and proclaimed before Grimm by the Danish
scholar Rask), became especially important as a stimulus
for further investigation in this line. Grimm's influence
on comparative philology (which is secondary only to that
of Bopp, although he was never a comparative philologist
in the sense that Bopp was, and did not always derive the
benefit from Bopp's Avorks which they might have afforded
him) is clearly traceable in the work of Bopp's successors,
amongst whom Friedrich August Pott is universally judged
to hold the foremost rank. In his great work, Etymoloyische
Forschungen aufdem Gebieteder indo-germanischenSprachen,
mit besonderem Bezug auf die Lautumwandlung im Sans
krit, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Littauischen, und Gothischcn
(Lemgo, 1833-36), we find Indo-Germanic etymology for
the first time based on a scientific investigation of general
Indo-Germanic phonology. Amongst Pott's contemporaries
Theodor Benfey 2 deserves mention on account of his Griech- Benfe;
2 Theodor Benfey was born on 28th January 1809 at No'rten,
Hanover, the son of a Jewish tradesman who had gained some reputa
tion as an acute and learned Talmudic scholar. At the early age of
sixteen he entered the university of Gottingeu (which he afterwards
exchanged for Munich) to devote himself to the study of classical
philology. It was not until after 1830, when he had settled in Frank -
Ibrt-on-the-Main as a private teacher, that his attention was drawn
towards the study of Sanskrit. In 1834 he went back to Gottingen
and began lecturing as a privat-docent. For some time his lectures
extended over various branches of classical philology as well as of
Oriental and comparative philology, but he soon began to concentrate
himself on the latter departments. After he had joined the Christian
church he received, in 1848, an extraordinary professorship, and in
1862 he was appointed ordinary professor of Sanskrit and comparative
philology. He died on 26th June 1881. Benfey also began his long
and brilliant literary career in the field of classics. Besides his dis
sertation Observationes ad Anacreontis fmymenta genuina (Gottingen,
1829), his translation of the comedies of Terence (Stuttgart, 1837)
deserves special notice. This was followed by his Wurzellexikon in
1839, and his quarto volume on "India" in Ersch and Gruber's
Encyklopiidie, 1840. Through these he at once gained a position of
authority both in comparative and Indian philology. Of his other
writings the more important are, Ueber die Monatnamen einiger alien
Viilker, insbesondt-re der Perser, C'appadocier, Juden, Syrer (written
in conjunction with A. Stern), Berlin, 1836 ; Ueber das Verlialtniss
der iigypt. Sprache zum semit. Sjjrachstamm, Leipsic, 1844 ; Diepers.
Keilinschriften, mit Uebersetzung und Glossar, Leipsic, 1847 ; Die
Hymnen des Samaveda, Leipsic, 1848 ; Vollstdndige Grammatik der
Sanskritsprache, Leipsic, 1852 ; Chrcslomathie aus Sanskritwerken,
Leipsic, 1853; Pantschatantra, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1859; Geschichte
der Sprachivissenschaft und oriental. Philologie in Deutschland,
Munich, 1869. Of his numerous contributions to the various scientific
periodicals of the time, those published in the Abhandlungen der
Gottinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften are especially meritorious : —
" Ueber die indog. Endungen des Gen. Sing.," vol. xix. ; "Einleitung
in die Grammatik der ved. Sprache," vol. xix. ; "Die quantitatsver-
schiedenheiten in den Samhita-und Padatexten der Veden," vols. xix. -
xxvii. ; "Das indog. Thema des Zahlworts 'Zwei' ist 'du,'" vol. xxi. ;
"Hermes, Minos, Tartaros," vol. xxii. ; "Altpers. mnzda.]i = Zcnd
mazdaonh = ££>•. medhas," vol. xxiii. ; " Einige Derivate des indog.
Verbums anbh = nabh," and "Ueber einige "Wdrter mit deni Binde-
vocal i im Rigveda," vol. xxiv. ; " Behandlung des auslautenden a in
na ' wie ' und na ' nicht ' im Rigveda, nebst Bemerkungen liber die
urspr. Anssprache und Accentuierung der Wo'rter im Veda," vol.
xxvi. Some of his smaller articles in the Gottinger Gelehrte Anzeigen
were reprinted under the titles of Vedica und Verwandtcs, Strasburg,
1877, and Vedica und Linguistica, ibid., 18SO. As the preceding
list shows, Benfey's interest had become more and more concentrated
on Vedic studies towards the end of his days, and indeed he had planned,
as the crowning work of his life, an extensive grammar of Vedic Sans-
782
PHILOLOGY
[ARYAN
isches Wurzellejcicon (.Berlin, 1839), a work equally remark
able for copiousness of contents and power of combination,
yet showing no advance on Bopp's standpoint in its con
ception of phonetic changes.
ileicher. A third period in the history of Indo-Germanic philology
is marked by the name of August Schleicher, whose Com-
petulium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indo-german-
ischen Sprachen first appeared in 1861. In the period sub
sequent to the appearance of Pott's Etymoloyische Forsch-
utvjen, a number of distinguished scholars, too large to be
recorded here individually,1 had devoted their labours to
the different branches of Aryan philology, especially assisted
and promoted in their work by the rapidly progressing
Vedic (and Avestic) studies that had been inaugurated
by Rosen, Roth, Benfey, Westergaard, Miiller, Kulm,
Aufrecht, and others. Moreover, new foundations had
been laid for the study of the Slavonic languages by
Miklosich and Schleicher, of Lithuanian by Kurschat
and Schleicher, of Celtic by Zeuss. Of the classical
languages Greek had found a most distinguished repre
sentative in Curtius, while Corssen, Mommsen, Aufrecht,
Kirchhoff, &c., had collected most valuable materials
towards the elucidation of Latin and the cognate Italic
idioms. In his Compendium Schleicher undertook and
solved the difficult task of sifting down the countless
details amassed since the days of Bopp and Grimm, and
thus making the individual languages stand out clearly
on their common background, while Bopp's attention had
been especially occupied with what was common to all
Indo-Germanic tongues. There are two prominent features
which characterize this part of Schleicher's work, — his
assumption and partial reconstruction of a prehistoric
parent -speech, from which the separate Indo-Germanic
languages were supposed to have sprung, and the estab
lishment of a long series of phonetic laws, regulating the
changes by which that development of the individual
idioms had taken place. On Schleicher's views of and
contributions towards general comparative philology (which
he erroneously proposed to consider as a branch of natural
science) we need not enter here.
For some time after Schleicher's premature death (in
1868) Indo-Germanic philology continued in paths indi
cated by him and Curtius, with the exception, perhaps,
of the school founded by Benfey, who had always stood
on independent ground. The difference between the two
schools, however, was less strikingly marked in their
writings, because it chiefly concerns general views of
language and the Indo-Germanic languages in particular,
although the characteristic task of the period alluded to was
that of working out the more minute details of compari
son ; but behind all this the general interest still clung to
Bopp's old glottogonic problems. Lately, however, a new
v lin- movement has begun, and a younger school of linguists
has sprung up who are united in their opposition to many
theories of the older generation, yet often differ materially
krit. Death, however, prevented him from completing more than the
above-mentioned preliminary studies by means of which he had intended
to open the field for his greater work. (For fuller biographical details
see Bezzenberger, in his Beitrage, viii. 239 sq.}
1 The extensive progress made in this period is best illustrated
by the foundation of ttvo periodicals especially devoted to Aryan
comparative philology, Kuhn's Zdlschrift fur veraleichende Sprach-
forschung, Berlin, from 1851 (now 27 vols.), and Kuhn's Reitrdge zur
vergleichenden Sprachfnrschung, Berlin, from 1858 (8 vols.). Benfey's
school is more especially represented by the contributors to Benfey's
Orient und Occident, GiJttingen (3 vols.), from 1862, and subsequently
through Bezzenberger's Beitmye zur Kiin>le der indogermardschen
Sprachen, Gottingen (8 vols.), from 1877. France possesses two
periodicals of the same kind, the Revue de Linguistique, Paris, from
1868, and the Memoires de la Xociete de Linguistique de Paris, also
from 1868, while England is represented by the Proceedings and Trans
actions (if the Philological Society, and America by the Transactions
of the American Philological Association (from 1868).
both with regard to method and the solution of individual
problems. In its present state this younger school (often
branded with the name of Neo-Grammarians, "Junggram-
matiker," by its opponents real and imaginary) is marked
by certain distinct tendencies. In the first place, they
are inclined more or less to abandon glottogonic problems
as insoluble, if not for ever, yet for the present and with
the scanty means that Aryan philology alone can furnish
for this purpose. In this they are in opposition to the
whole of the older school. In the second place, they
object to the use of all misleading metaphorical compari
sons of processes in the history of language with processes
of organic development, — comparisons used at all times,
but especially cherished by Schleicher. In the third
place — and this has been of the greatest practical import
ance — they hold that our general views of language and our
methods of comparison should be formed after a careful
study of the living languages, because these alone are
fully controllable in every minute detail, and can there
fore alone give us a clear insight into the working of the
different motive forces which shape and modify language,
and that the history of earlier periods of language, conse
quently, can only be duly illustrated by tracing out the
share which each of these forces has had in every individual
case of change. Of these forces two are found to be
especially prominent — phonetic variation and formation
by analogy. They generally work in turns and often in
opposition to one another, the former frequently tending to
differentiation of earlier unities, the latter to abolition of
earlier differences, especially to restoration of conformity
disturbed by phonetic change. There are, however, other
important differences in the action of the two forces.
Phonetic change affects exclusively the pronunciation of a Phonetic
language by substituting one sound or sound -group for cna"ou-
another. From this simple fact it is self-evident that
phonetic changes as such admit of no exceptions. Pronun
ciation — that is, the use of certain sounds in certain com
binations — is perfectly unconscious in natural unstudied
speech, and every speaker or generation of speakers has only
one way of utterance for individual sounds or their com
binations. If, therefore, a given sound was once changed
into another under given circumstances, the new sound
must necessarily and unconsciously replace its predecessor
in every word that falls under the same rules, because the
older sound ceases to be practised and therefore disappears
from the language. Thus, for instance, the sound of the
short so-called Italian a in English has become exchanged
for the peculiarly English sound in man, hat, &.(.-., which is
so exclusively used and practised now by English speakers
that they feel great difficulty in pronouncing the Italian ^
sound, which at an earlier period was almost as frequent
in English as in any other language that has preserved
the Italian sound up to the present day. Again, the sound
of the so-called long English a in make, paper, &c., although
once a monophthong, is now pronounced as a diphthong,
combining the sounds of the English short e and i, and no
trace of the old monophthong is left, except where it was
followed by r, as in hare, mare (also air, their, irhrw, A-C.),
where the a has a broader sound somewhat approaching
that of the short a in hat. This last instance may at the
same time serve to illustrate the restrictions made above
as to sounds changing their pronunciation in certain groups
or combinations, or under given circumstances only. We
may learn from it that phonetic change need not always
affect the same original sound in the same way in all its
combinations, but that neighbouring sounds often influence
the special direction in which the sound is modified. The
different sounds of the English a, in make and hare are
both equivalents of the same Old English sound a ( = the
Italian short a) in macian, hara. The latter sound has
LANGUAGES.]
PHILOLOGY
783
been split in two, but this process again has taken place
with perfect regularity, the one sound appearing before r,
the other before all other consonants. It is easy to see
that the common practice of comprising the history of the
Old English d in the one rule, — that it was changed into the
sound of the a in make except when followed by an r, — can
only be defended on the practical ground that this rule is
convenient to remember, because the words exhibiting the
former change are more numerous than the instances of
the latter ; apart from this there is nothing to justify the
assumption that one of these changes is the rule and the
other the exception. The fact is, that we have two inde
pendent cases of change, which ought to be stated in two
distinct and independent rules according to the different
positions in which the original d stood before the splitting
began. It is also easy to observe that the variety of
modifying influences may be much more manifold than in
the present instance of make and hare, and that the number
of special phonetic rules in such cases must be increased
in proportion to the progress made in the investigation
of the said modifying powers. In this respect much still
remains to be done, but what has been achieved is more
than sufficient to prove the correctness of the statement
from which we started above, that phonetic rules in them
selves are without exceptions, however often phonetic
processes may have been crossed and more or less effaced
by non-phonetic influences in actual (especially literary)
language, such as mixture of dialects, formation by
analogy, and the like.
Analogical change, on the other hand, does not affect the
pronunciation of a language as a whole in the way phonetic
change does, but is confined to the formation and inflexion
of single words or groups of words, and therefore very apt
to bear an entirely arbitrary and irregular character. A
few instances wrill be sufficient to illustrate this. In Old
English a certain number of substantives formed their
plurals by mutation of the root-vowels, as/of — fet or boc —
bee. In Modern English this system of inflexion has been
preserved in some cases, as in foot — feet, and altered in
others as book — books. Now, while foot, feet, and book are
the regular modern phonetic equivalents of the old fot, fet,
boc, the plural books can in no way be phonetically traced
back to the old bee, the phonetical equivalent of which in
Modern English would be *beech. The only possible ex
planation of a form like books is that the older bee was at
some date given up and replaced by an entirely new forma
tion, shaped after the analogy of the numerous words with
a plural in -s without modification of the root-vowel. That
this should have been done in the case of book, but not in
that of foot, is an accident, which must be accepted as a
fact not allowing of any special explanation. Let us now
take another instance from the English verb. In Old
English the different persons of the preterite indicative in
the so-called strong (irregular) verbs were generally dis
tinguished by different root-vowels ; ridan, " to ride," and
bindan, "to bind," for instance, form their preterites thus :
ie rdd, Gw ride, he rdd, we, ge, hie ridon, and ic band,
<Sti bunde, he band, we, ge, hie bundon. In Modern English
this difference in the root-vowels has been abandoned, and
rode, bound now stand for all persons, rode being the
modern phonetic equivalent of the 1st and 3d sing, rdd,
while bound represents the w-forms of bindan. Inasmuch
as a similar process of levelling has been carried through
in all preterites of Modern English, regularity prevails
even here. But when we look to its results in the indi
vidual verbs we soon find that the choice amongst the
different forms which might have served as starting-points
has been entirely arbitrary. It is indeed impossible to
say why the old singular form should have been chosen as
a model in one case, as in rode, and the old plural form in
another, as in bound. From these and numerous similar
instances we must draw the conclusion that it is beyond
our power to ascertain whence analogical changes may
start, and to what extent they may be carried through
when once begun. All we can do is to carefully classify
the single cases that come under our observation, and in this
way to investigate where such changes are especially apt
to take place and what is their general direction. As to
the latter points, it has been observed before that levelling
of existing differences is one of the chief features in ana
logical change (as in the case of rode and bound}. As to the
former, it must be borne in mind that, before any analogical
change can take place, some mental connexion must exist
between the words or forms serving as models and those
which are remodelled after the types suggested to the
mind of the speakers through the former. Of such natural
mental combinations two classes deserve especial notice :
the mutual relationship in which the different, say in
flexional, forms of the same word stand to each other,
and the more abstract analogies between the inflexional
systems of word-groups bearing a similar character, as, for
instance, the different declensions of nouns and pronouns, or
the different conjugations of verbs. The instance of rode,
bound may serve to illustrate the former category, that of
books the latter. In the first case a levelling has taken
place between the different forms of the root-vowels once
exhibited in the different preterite forms of ridan or
bindan, which clearly constitute a natural group or mental
unity in consequence of their meaning. The form of rode
as a plural has simply been taken from the old singular,
that of bound as a singular from the old plural. In the
case of book — books for boc — bee, this explanation would
fall short. Although we might say that the vowel of the
singular here was carried into the plural, yet this would
not explain the plural -s. So it becomes evident that the
old declension of boc — bee was remodelled after the declen
sion of words like arm — arms, which had always formed
their plurals in -s. Isolated words or forms, on the other
hand, which are no part of natural groups or systems,
inflexional or formative, must be regarded as commonly
safe from alterations through analogy, and are therefore
of especial value with regard to establishing rules of purely
phonetic development.
It is true that the distinction between phonetic and
analogical change has always been acknowledged in com
parative philology. At the same time it cannot be denied
that analogical changes were for a long time treated with
a certain disdain and contempt, as deviations from the
only course of development then allowed to be truly
" organic " and natural, namely, that of gradual phonetic
change (hence the epithet " false " so constantly attached
to analogy in former times). Amongst those who have
recently contributed most towards a more correct evalua
tion of analogy as a motive -power in language, Professor
Whitney must be mentioned in the first place. In Ger
many Professor Scherer (Zur Geschichte der deutsehen
Spraehe, 1868) was the first to apply analogy as a prin
ciple of explanation on a larger scale, but in a wilful
and unsystematic way. Hence he failed to produce an
immediate and lasting impression, and the merit of having
introduced into the practice of modern comparative philo
logy a strictly systematic consideration of both phonetic
and analogic change as co-ordinate factors in the develop
ment of language rests with Professor Leskien of Leipsic,
and a number of younger scholars who had more or less The Ne<,
experienced his personal influence. Amongst these Brug- School,
mann, Osthoff, and Paul rank foremost as the most
vigorous and successful defenders of the new method, the
correctness of which has since been practically acknow
ledged by most of the leading philologists of all shades,
784
PHILOLOGY
[ARYAN
who in point of fact follow it in their investigations,
in spite of the lively theoretical protest which some
of them continue to maintain against it, and in spite of
the general feeling of hostility and inclination towards
mutual distrust often but too clearly visible in recent
linguistic publications, from whatever side they may
come.1
From this historical sketch we may now proceed to a
short examination of some of the chief results of Aryan
comparative philology.
The The most prominent achievement of the researches of
parent- Bopp and his followers was to prove that the majority of
language. ^Q European languages and dialects, together with a
certain number of important languages spoken in Asia,
form one great family, — that is, that they have sprung
from one common source or parent-language. The name
now mostly used in England for this community is Aryan
languages. American and French scholars generally pre
fer to say Indo-European languages, while the name of
Indo-Germanic languages is still almost universally used in
Germany. It is hard to decide for or against any of these
names from a scientific point of view. The word Indo-
Germanic was not inappropriately coined by combining
the names of the most easterly and westerly members of
the family, the Indian and the Germanic or Teutonic
group.2 Indo-European seems to be a less lucky invention,
as this combination of geographical names would errone
ously point to all the languages of India and Europe as
the constituents of our family, while a large number both
of Indian and European idioms belong to entirely un
related groups of languages. Aryan would no doubt be
the best name in itself, for it seems that the primitive
forefathers of the Aryan nations used the word Aria as a
national name themselves. We find at least the Sanskrit
Arya thus used in India, and similarly the Old Persian
Ariya (in the cuneiform inscriptions of ^Darius), Zend
Airy a in Persia (whence the later Erdn, Iran), and per
haps Eriu, gen. Erenn, as the national name for Ireland.3
But before the word Aryan came to be applied in the
sense defined above it had for some time been used, and
it is still largely used, in a more restricted sense as the
special collective name for the languages of the Indian
and Persian or Iranian groups of the Indo- Germanic
family. This ambiguity renders the use of the word
Aryan less recommendable than it would be had its
meaning been properly fixed from the beginning. It
seems that outside of England Aryan will hardly gain
ground ; some recent attempts to introduce the name into
Germany have utterly failed, and in the same way the
other nations who share in scientific research in this
demesne cling to the older names.
Aryan This large Indo-Germanic or Aryan family, then, to re
groups. vert ^0 our principal task, consists of ten groups or sub-
1 The fullest systematical treatment of these questions of method
will be found in Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichtf,, Halle, 1880.
See also Osthoff, Das physiologische und psychologische Moment in
der spracklichen Formenbildung , Berlin, 1879, and Misteli, " Laut-
gesetz und Analogic," in Zeitschrift fur Viilkerpsychologie, xi. p. 365
sq. Of those who on principle stand in theoretical opposition, the
several schools of Benfey (now especially represented by Fick), Scherer,
and Johannes Schmidt may be mentioned.
2 The word Indo-Germanic, it is true, was invented before the
Celtic languages were known to belong to the same family. But even
after that discovery it was unnecessary to substitute the name Indo-
Celtic as some authors have tried to do ; for certainly the most westerly
branch of Indo-Germanic in Europe (disregarding the Aryan colonies
in America) is Icelandic, an undoubtedly Germanic language. Other
names, such as Japhetic or Sanskritic, have hardly found any use in
scientific literature.
3 For particulars see Professor Max Miiller's Led. nn the Science of
Liny., lect. vi. (first series), and ARYAN, vol. ii. p. 672 sq. ; for
this etymology of Ariu see especially H. Zimrner, " Ariscli," in Bez/en-
berger's Beitr. z. Ki/mle der indoycrm. Sprachen, iii. p. 137 ,917.
families of languages, three of which are located in Asia,
while the rest belong to Europe.4
1. The Indian Family, in which Sanskrit, especially in
its oldest form, preserved in the Yedic texts, stands fore
most in rank. Of the older stages of the language Prakrit
and PAH may be mentioned here, — the former, in its
various branches being the mother of the modern Indian
dialects of Aryan descent (including also the Gipsy lan
guage), the latter (see above, p. 1S3) the idiom of the
sacred books of the southern Buddhists.5
2. The Iranian or Persian Family, represented in the
earliest period by Old Persian, scanty remnants of which
have come down to us in the Achscmenian cuneiform in
scriptions, and Zend, or, as it is also called, Old Bactrian,
the language of the Zend-Avesta^ the sacred books of the
Zoroastrians. The chief modern representatives of this
grpup are Persian, Afghan, Kurdish, and Ossetic.6
3. The Armenian Family, consisting of the different
living dialects of Armenian. Armenian has but recently
been proved to be an independent member of the Aryan
family. It partakes of many peculiarities of the Iranian
group, but at the same time shares several important
characteristics of the European languages, so that it cannot
be classed as a subdivision of either of these groups.7
4. The Greek Family, comprising the various old dialects
of Greek, and the modern Romaic idioms, which have been
developed out of the later KOWI] that had gradually super
seded the old dialectal varieties.8
5. A fifth family, which may once have had a far larger
extension, is now only represented by one surviving member,
the Albanian language. As we have no old sources for
this idiom, and only know it in its modern state of utter
decay, it is extremely difficult to obtain definite results
concerning its origin and position relatively to the sur
rounding languages. Bopp seems to have proved, however,
that Albanian actually is an Aryan idiom.9 It is also
certain that it belongs to the European type of Aryan, yet
it is not particularly closely allied with Greek, as has often
been assumed, but shows some remarkable coincidences
with the northern European languages.10
6. The Italic Family. Its most important representative
is Latin, from which the modern Romance languages have
sprung. Closely connected with Latin was the Faliscan
dialect, which is preserved in a few inscriptions only. A
second branch of Italic is formed by LTmbrian and Oscan,
both of which soon became extinct through the over
powering influence of Latin, like the other less widely
diffused idioms once spoken in Italy.11
4 The fullest, yet now somewhat antiquated, account of all the
members of the Aryan family will be found in the article " Tndo-ger-
manischer Sprachstamm," by A. F. Pott, in Ersch and Gruber's Kncy-
klopadie (Leipsic, 1840). See also especially Th. Benfey, Geschichte
der SprachwissenscJuift, pp. 601-683.
5 For further particulars see SANSKRIT.
6 See the articles PAHLAV/ (supra, p. 134 sq.) and PERSIA (supra, p.
653 sq.), and for the linguistic characteristics of this group H. Hiibsch-
mann, in Zeitschrift fiir vcrgl. Sprachforschung, xxiv. p. 372 sq.
7 See H. Hiibschmann, " Ueber die Stellung des Armenischen im
Kreise der indo-germanischen Sprachen," in Zeitschr. vergl. Spraclif.,
xxiii. p. 5 sq. , where further references to earlier treatments of this
question are given.
8 See GREECE, vol. xi. p. 129 sq. An exhaustive summary of all prior
contributions towards linguistic elucidation of Greek is given in Gustav
Meyer's excellent Griechische Qrammatik, Leipsic, 1880, which must
now be considered the standard book on Greek grammar, together with
the well-known works of G. Curtius, quoted at vol. xi. p. 136.
8 Bop]>, " Uebcr das Albanesischo in seinen verwandtschaftlichen
Beziehungen," Berlin, 1855, in Alhandl. Berl. Akad.
10 See especially G. Meyer, "Die Stellung des Albanesischcn im
Kreise der indo-germ. Sprachen," in Bezzenberger's Beitrage,, viii. p.
185 sq. , and Albanesische Studien, Vienna, 1883. For other refer
ences, cp. Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, p. 643 sq.
n A sketch of the history of Latin is given under LATIN LANGUAGE ;
a list of the chief books concerning the other dialects will be found in
the appendix to Sayce's Intr. to the Science of Lang., vol. ii.
LANGUAGES.]
PHILOLOGY
785
7. The Celtic Family, once covering a large part of
western Europe, but now reduced to comparatively scanty
remnants in the north-west of France and in the British
islands. Among its extinct members the language of the
Galatians in Asia Minor may be mentioned, of which little
more is known than that it was Celtic. The earliest docu
ments of Celtic speech we possess are some inscriptions in
the idiom of the Gallic inhabitants of France and northern
Italy. The surviving branches of Celtic show a clear
division into two groups : the Northern or Gaelic group,
formed by Irish, Gaelic or Scotch, and Manx, and a Southern
or Britannic group, consisting of Welsh or Cymric, Cornish
(extinct since 1778), and Armorican or Bas Breton in
Brittany. The fundamental authority for the comparative
study of Celtic grammar is Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica,
1853 (2d ed. by H. Ebel, 1871). After Zeuss, Stokes and
Rhys in England, Ascoli in Italy, Ebel, Windisch, and
Zimmer in Germany, and D'Arbois de Jubainville and H.
Gaidoz in France have been the chief contributors to this
field of research. The last-named is also the editor of a
periodical especially devoted to Celtic studies, the Revue
Cdtique (Paris, from 1S70).1
8. The Germanic or Teutonic Family. This well-de
veloped family is divided into two main groups, which are
now commonly denoted Eastern and Western Germanic.
The members of the former are Gothic (see GOTHIC
LANGUAGE, vol. x. p. 852 sq.) and Scandinavian, with an
eastern and a western subdivision, the former compris
ing Swedish and Danish, the latter Norse and Icelandic.
Western Germanic, on the other hand, consists of English,
Frisian (these two seem to form a separate branch), Saxon
or Low German, Frankish (including Dutch), and Upper
German (see article GERMAN LANGUAGE). The dialects of
the numerous other Teutonic tribes not mentioned here
have died out without leaving sufficient materials for
linguistic classification.
9. The Baltic Family, comprising three distinct idioms
— Prussian, Lithuanian, and Lettish. Prussian became
extinct in the 16th century. The few specimens of this
highly interesting language which have been preserved
are collected by Nesselmann, Die Sprache der alien Preussen
(Konigsberg, 1845), and Ein deutschpreussisches Vocabul-
arium (ibid., 1868). The same author has also published
a dictionary, Thesaurus linguse Prussicse (Berlin, 1873).
Amongst other contributions to Prussian grammar, Bopp's
essay, Ueber die Sprache der Altpreussen (Berlin, 1853), is
especially noteworthy. Of the two other branches, Lithu
anian is the more important for comparative philology.
The chief grammars are those by Schleicher (Handbuch der
litauischen Sprache, 2 vols., Prague, 1856-57) and Kurschat
(Litauische Grammatik, Halle, 1876) ; the best dictionary
is by Kurschat ( Worterbuch der lit. Sprache, 2 vols., Halle,
1878-83). Some of the oldest texts are now being re
printed by Bezzenberger.2 For Lettish, Bielenstein's
grammar (Die lettische Sprache, 2 vols., Berlin, 1863-64)
and Ulmann's dictionary (Lettisches Worterbuch, Riga,
1872) are the first books to be consulted.
10. The Slavonic Family. There are two main branches
of Slavonic. The so-called Southern or South -Eastern
branch embraces Russian, Ruthenian (in Galicia), Bul
garian, Servian, Croatian, and Slovenian. The second
branch is generally designated by the name of Western
Slavonic. It is chiefly represented by Cechish or Bohemian
and Polish. With the former the Serbian dialects spoken
1 For further particulars see article CELTIC LITERATURE, and the
very exhaustive critical and bibliographical study by Windisch, " Kelt-
ische Sprachen," in Ersch and Gruber's EncyTdopadie.
2 Litauische und Lettische Drucke des 16ten Jahrhunderts, Got-
tingen, 1878 sq. ; cp. also Beitrdge zur Geschichte der lit. Sprache,
Guttingen, 1877, by the same author.
in Lusatia are very closely connected. Polish, again, is sub
divided into Eastern Polish or Polish Proper and Western
Polish, a few remnants of which now survive in the Kas-
subian dialects of Prussia. About the extinct members of
this last group, which are generally comprehended under
the name of Polabian dialects, Schleicher's Laut- und For-
menlehre der polabischen Sprache (St Petersburg, 1871) and
an article by Leskien in Im neuen Reich, ii. p. 325, may
be consulted. The oldest Slavonic texts, some of which
go as far back as the 10th century, are a number of books
destined for the use of the church. From this circum
stance the peculiar dialect in which they are written is
often called Church Slavonic. Schleicher and others
identify this dialect with Old Bulgarian, while Miklosich
thinks it should be classed as Old Slovenian. For com
parative purposes as well as for Slavonic philology this
idiom is the most important. The chief grammars are
Schleicher, Formenlehre der kirchenslavischen Sprache (Bonn,
1852) ; Miklosich, Laut- und Formenlehre der altsloven-
ischen Sprache (Vienna, 1 850) ; and Leskien, Handbuch der
altbulgarischen Sprache (Vienna, 1871). The fundamental
works on comparative Slavonic philology are Miklosich,
Vergleichende Grammatik der slavischen Sprachen (4 vols.,
Vienna, 1852-68; 2d ed. of vol. i., Lautlehre, 1879), and
Lexicon Palceoslovenico-Greeco-Latinum (Vienna, 1862-65).
A large number of special contributions are collected in
Jagic, Archiv fur slavische Pldlologie (Berlin, from 1876).
The mutual relationship of these ten families may be
shortly characterized by saying that they are dialects of
the primitive Aryan parent -speech, which at an early
period of its existence must have formed a linguistic unity,
but subsequently became dissolved into these subdivi
sions. This fundamental view now seems to be universally
admitted to be correct. But it is extremely difficult to
go beyond it in attempts to trace out the history of the
process of dissolution. One problem offering itself at
the very outset of such an attempt (although more of an
ethnological than philological character) must at once be
dismissed as insoluble, — the question of the original home
of our Aryan forefathers and the directions of the wander
ings that brought the single members of the great original
tribe to the seats occupied in historical times by the several
Aryan nations. There exist indeed no means for deciding
whether they came from the north-eastern part of the
Iranian plateau near the Hindu-Kush Mountains, as was
once generally assumed, or whether Europe may boast of
being the mother of the Aryan nationality, as some authors
are now inclined to believe.3 The chief philological diffi
culty lies in the fact that some of these ten families
stand in closer relationship with certain others than with
the rest, so that they seem to form separate independent
groups, and yet these groups cannot be severed from the
rest without overlooking important linguistic facts which
seem to speak for the existence of a closer connexion
between single members of one group and single members
or the whole of another. Before attention was drawn to
this latter point it was easy enough to account for the
origin of the grouping alluded to. If everything that is Genea-
common to all Aryan languages must have originated in logical
the common parent-speech — and the correctness of this groupin
assumption can hardly be doubted — then everything that
is common to all the families of one particular group, but
strange to the others, must be assigned to a period when
these families formed a unity by themselves and were dis
connected with the other stock. The fact, for instance,
that all the European languages possess the three vowels
a, e, o, where the Indian and Iranian group show the
uniform a, which was then believed to be the primitive
3 On this much vexed question see especially 0. Schrader, Sprach-
vergleichung und Urgeschichte, Jena, 1883, passim.
XVIII. — 99
786
PHILOLOGY
[ARYAX
sound, seemed to indicate that the primitive Aryan stock
had once been split into two halves, one of which remained
in Asia and retained the primitive cr-sound, while the other
half emigrated to Europe and there developed the new
vowel-system, before any new divisions took place. The
Aryan parent-speech would thus appear to have been split
into a European and an Asiatic " base-language." Similar
facts in the history of the single European languages then
led to the further assumption of a southern European base
as the parent of Greek, Italic, and Celtic, and a northern
European base for Germanic, Baltic, and Slavonic, and,
with further subdivision, an Italo-Celtic and a Litu-Slavic
base for Italic and Celtic on the one hand and for Baltic
and Slavonic on the other. The prehistoric development of
Aryan, according to this genealogical theory (which makes
division of language dependent on division of nations),
may be illustrated by the following genealogical table.1
Aryan.
Asiatic.
European.
Indian. Iranian. Southern European. Northern European.
Greek. Italo-Celtic. Germanic. Litu-Slavic.
Italic. Celtic.
criticized.
r i
Baltic. Slavonic.
It may still be admitted that at least the mutual position
of the ten families is not the same in all cases. It cannot
be doubted that Indian and Iranian resemble each other
more than either of them does any other family. The
same may also be said of Baltic and Slavonic, and even of
Italic and Celtic, Irr.vever different the latter two may
appear to be at first sight.- But it is impossible to carry
this system of genealogical grouping through. It will be
observed that not all the ten families are represented in
Genea- the genealogical tree given above ; Albanian and Armenian
logical have not found a place in it, nor could they be introduced
without disturbing the entire table. If we look at Ar
menian, for instance, we find that its structure and phono
logy on the whole follow the Asiatic type, and yet Armenian
shares the European vowel-system alluded to before ; com
pare, for instance, Armenian berem, "I bear," with Greek
</>epw, Latin fero, Old Irish berimm (and dobiurior *do-beru),
Gothic baira (pronounced bcra), Lith. berii, Slavonic bera,
against Sanskrit bhdrdmi, Zend bardmi. Armenian, then,
is half European, half Asiatic, and if such an intermediate
idiom exists it is impossible to make a strict distinction
between Asiatic and European. Let us take another in
stance. All the Asiatic languages have changed the ori
ginal palatal k into sibilants, and the same change we find
again in Slavonic and Baltic, both of which otherwise
clearly belong to the European type ; compare, for instance,
Sanskrit and Zend da$an, "ten," Armenian tasn, Slavonic
des$ti, Lith. deszimt, with Greek SeKa, Latin decem, Old
1 This pedigree is the one ultimately given by Schleicher. Others
have assumed more or less different degrees of relationship. Greek
and Itilic, for instance, were for a long time believed to be particularly
near relation*. A totally contrary view would come nearer the truth.
Greek and Latin are about as different, both in phonology and gram
matical structure, as any two members of the Aryan family ; indeed
there is nothing to recommend their combination but the intimate
connexion in which the two nations and their literatures have stood
within lii-torical times, and the custom derived therefrom of studying
the two classical languages together from our schooldays.
2 Amongst the characteristics of these two groups the general
resemblance in the declension, and in the verb the formation of a
future in b or / (Latin amabo, Old Irish car/a, ruo charV) and of a
passive in r (Latin fertur, Old Irish cnrthir, &c. ), are the most
important.
Irish deifh (for *dekvrn), Gothic taihun. In a similar way
Litu-Slavic and Germanic are connected by the formation
of a plural dative in m, as in Gothic undfam, Lith. vllkams,
Slavonic vlukoinii, against the Sanskrit -bhyas, Latin -bus,
Irish -b ; and so all round. The consequence is that every
attempt at grouping the Aryan families of speech on the
genealogical basis must fail, because it would have to cut
asunder some of the natural ties that hold the single
families together. It is true that some of the coincid
ences falling under this head may be due to mere chance,
especially those in phonology ; for we often see the same
phonetic processes going on in languages which stand in
no connexion whatever at the time. Yet in the case
before us the number of the actual coincidences is too
large to allow of such an explanation, and the fact of
their existence is made all the more striking from the
circumstance that it is each pair of neighbouring families
which shows these connecting links. If they prove
anything (and it cannot be doubted that they do), we
must necessarily come to the conclusion that every such
link is a witness for at least a temporary connexion
between the two languages or families it holds together.
To assume such temporary connexions in the time after a
true division of nations had taken place (that is, to assume,
for instance, that Slavonic had come into contact with the
Asiatic languages after the Europeans had migrated from
Asia to Europe, or the forefathers of the present Asiatic
nations from Europe to Asia, as the case may be) seems
impossible. It is likewise highly improbable that con
nexions intimate enough to leave distinct marks in lan
guage existed at a time when the original tribe had spread
over the wide regions now covered by the Aryans, even sup
posing this spreading to have been so gradual as not to
cause any break in the continuity of the Aryan population.
And, even if we concede this, how are we to account for
the fact that we have no longer the supposed continuity
of speech, but well-defined single languages, whose separa
tion must, after all, be due to breaks in the continuity of
intercourse between the respective speakers ? These and
similar reasons point to the assumption that the origin of
the phenomena alluded to must be sought in a remote
period, when the Aryan tribe had an extension small
enough to permit continuity of intercourse, and yet large
enough to allow of dialectic variations in its different
districts. In other words, when the actual break-up of
the Aryan tribe into different nations came to pass the
Aryan parent -speech was no longer a homogeneous
idiom, but the development of dialects had begun. On
their following wanderings, then, those tribes or clans
would naturally cling together which had until then lived
in the closest connexion both of intercourse and dialect
(for community of intercourse and of speech always go
together), or, as we might also say, the old unity would
naturally be broken up into as many parts as there had
been dialectic centres. Transition dialects, which might
have been spoken in the outlying parts of the old dialectic
districts, would also naturally be then reduced to a common
level in consequence of the general mixture of speakers
that could not but have taken place on wanderings so
extensive as those of the Aryan tribes must'have been.
Such an assumption would indeed solve most of the
difficulties mentioned above, especially the peculiar way in
which the single families of Aryan are linked together.
Each of these would then correspond to one of the main
dialects of the parental language, and their mutual affini
ties would therefore be of the same kind as those of neigh
bouring dialects, say, of any living speech. And in these
nothing is more common, nay even more characteristic,
than the gradual transition from one to the other, so that
each dialect of an intermediate position partakes of some
LANGUAGES.]
PHILOLOGY
787
of the peculiarities of its neighbours to the right and left.
In Old English the Kentish dialect, for instance, in some
respects goes with West Saxon against Mercian, in others
with Mercian against West Saxon, sometimes West Saxon
and Mercian combine against Kentish, and sometimes each
of them stands by itself, as the following table will show.
West Saxon.
Icoht
(laid
hicrdc
d&l
gylden
field
Kentish.
hilpd
Icdht
ded
h iorde
del
gelden
fcld
Mercian.
helped (he) helps.
Uht
ded
hiorde
dsel
gylden
failed
light.
deed.
(shep-)herd.
deal.
golden.
(he) falls.
weorpeS (he) throws.
If the inhabitants of the old kingdoms of AVessex, Kent,
and Mercia had separately left their English abodes and
wandered back to different parts of the Continent after
their dialects had developed in the way illustrated above,
would not their dialects have gradually developed into
independent languages exhibiting the same characteristic
features of mutual relationship as those found in the
Indo-Germanic idioms 1 x
It remains to give a short review of the main character
istics of Indo-Germanic, both phonetic and structural.
A. Phonology. — The consonant system of the Aryan parent-language
was chiefly characterized by the prevalence of stopped (explosive)
sounds and the scarcity of spirants. The only representatives of
the latter class were s, and in a few cases z, while there is no trace
of sounds so common in modern languages as the English /, th, sh,
or the German ch. Besides stops and spirants the system comprised
nasals, liquids, and semi-vowels.
The stops were either voiceless (surd), like the English p, t, k, or
voiced (sonant), like the English b,d,g, and either pure (unaspirated)
or aspirated. By combining these two distinctions we arrive at
four chief varieties of stops, which are generally thus symbolized :
p, ph, b, bh for the labial, t, th, d, dh for the dental class, &c.
Here the p, t, k denote unaspirated voiceless stops, ph, th, kh their
aspirates; b, d, g voiced stops, and bh, dh, gh their aspirates. In
pronouncing these sounds English readers should be careful not
to give the Aryan p, t, k the value of the English p, t, k, be
cause these are always slightly aspirated. The true unaspirated
sound is still found in the Romance and the Slavonic languages,
in modern Greek, &c. The aspirates ph, th, kh should be sounded
with a strong escape of breath after the explosion of the stop,
inserting a distinct h between the initial p, t, k and the following
sound (as is often done in Irish pronunciation ; initial p, t, k in
Danish may also be taken as examples). In the so-called medire
b, d, g the voice should always be distinctly audible, as in French,
or in English medial b, d, g (initial b, d, g in English are often
voiceless). The pronunciation of the voiced aspirates bh, dh, gh is
a very vexed question, as these sounds have disappeared from all
the living Aryan languages except the modern Indian dialects, and
these seem to show differences in the pronunciation of the aspirates
which have not yet been sufficiently cleared up. The old Indian
grammarians made their aspirates out to be voiced stops followed
by a corresponding, that is voiced, aspiration, and this description
seems to correspond with the observations of Mr Alex. Ellis,2 who
found that in the Benares pronunciation of Sanskrit bha, dha, gha
are distinguished from ba, da, ga merely by a somewhat stronger
pronunciation of the vowel. It seems, however, that another pro
nunciation exists in the west, and that bha, for instance, in Bombay
is actually pronounced as a distinctly voiced b followed by a common
h ; the voice is broken off simultaneously with the opening of the
lips, so that no vocalic sound is inserted between the b and the h.
If this pronunciation was not original in Aryan, it seems to have
come in at an early period ; for it would be extremely difficult to
explain the transition of original bh, dh, gh into the Greek voiceless
1 A detailed history of the different views expressed with regard to
the mutual relationships of the Indo-Germanic languages has been
given by 0. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung und Calturgeschichte, p.
66 sq. ; cp. especially Jon. Schmidt, Die Verwandschaftsverhdltnisse
der indog. Spmchen, Vienna, 1872 ; A. Fick, Die ehemaKge Sprach-
einheit der Jndogcrmanen Europus, Gottingen, 1873 (reviewed by
Schmidt, in Jenaer Literatitrzeitung, 1874, p. 201 sq.); A. Leskien.
J)/e Deklination im Slavisch- Litauischen und Germanischen, Leipsic,
1876 (Introduction); Paul, Principien der Sprachgeschichte, ch. xii. ;
K. Bnigniann, " Zur Frage nach den Verwandtschaftsverhaltnissen der,
iixlog. Sprachen," in Techmer, Internationale Zeitschrift filr allgem.
Sprachwissenschftft, i. (1884), p. 226 sq.
2 On Early English Pronunciation, iv. p. 1135 sq.
aspirates <f>, 0, x (as in Greek <jxpu, originally pronounced p-hero,
compared with Sanskrit bhdrdmi), unless we start from a voiceless
aspiration.
With regard to their positions, the labials p, ph, b, bh do not
seem to have differed from the common European labials of the
present day. The so-called dentals t, th, d, dh were really dental,
that is, formed by touching the lower rim or back of the upper
teeth with the tip of the tongue (in the pronunciation of the English
t, d the tongue is raised towards the upper gums). This purely
dental pronunciation is still preserved in most of the Asiatic and
some European languages. The supradental class represented in
the Indian languages by the so-called cerebrals or linguals f, th, d, dh
seems not to have existed in primitive Aryan, but was most prob
ably imported into Indian from the Dravidian idioms of southern
India, where these sounds are very common. Of back consonants
Aryan possessed two distinct parallel sets, now generally symbolized
by k1, kh1, g1, gh] and k2, kh*, g1, gh- respectively.3 They may be
characterized as front and back gutturals, or possibly as palatals and
gutturals proper (compare the Semitic distinction of D and p). The
distinction of the two series is best preserved in the Asiatic languages
and Litu-Slavic, where the front gutturals or palatals passed into
spirants, while the back gutturals (at least originally) retained their
character of explosives. In the other languages the difference is
less clearly marked, as will be seen from the following table of
correspondences. 4
Aryan. Sans.
Zend.
Ann.
Slav. : Lith.
Greek.
Lat.
Irish.
Germ.
fci | g
s
g
*
sz
K
c
c, ch h (g)
y1 \j
\*
ts
)z
\i
7
g
)
k
ghl , h
z, dz
1
'
x ' *,g
[ g
i-2 1 ft, t
k,c(X,*)
k, kh
k,f,c
k
K,w (r) q, c
c,ch hu',h(u;g)
g% 1 g, j -I
k
I '
) _
•y(/3,5) g
) i 9
8*8 \gh,h r^(>
9®
t9'* !^'z
xW
h,g jy'° <?)«•
Of nasals there were four, corresponding to the four classes of stops, Nasals
m, n, and two guttural ones, which may be written T?1 and rf ; the and
latter only occur before the corresponding explosives. Of liquids we liquids,
find r and I in the individual languages, but frequently interchang
ing. It has been assumed, therefore, that Aryan had only one sound
instead of the two, which was afterwards developed into either r or
I. There seems to be sufficient reason, however, to believe that the
later distinction of rand Z was founded on some parallel distinction
in Aryan ; most probably we have to assume the coexistence of two
varieties of r-sounds ; the one which, at a later period, passed into '
?• may have been a distinct trilled r, while the second, the ante
cedent of I, may have been an un trilled variety. We find a similar
distinction in the semi-vowels y and w, each of which must have Semi-
had two distinct varieties. The first variety of y is in Greek vowels,
represented by ', the second by f, as in 6's, £vyov, compared with
Sanskrit yds and yugdm, &c. ; from these correspondences it would
seem that the first y was a real semi-vowel, like the English y — that
is, a non-syllabic i — and the second a more spirant sound, like the
North-German j. As to the w, the existence of a double sound Other
seems to follow from the different way in which initial v is treated conson-
in Sanskrit reduplication ; compare perfects like uvaca, 3d plural ucus ants,
with vardrdha, pi. vavrdhus.5 Here the transition of v into u points
to a semi-vocalic pronunciation, as in English u\ The other sound,
which remains unaltered, may have been more like the spirant
English v. The sound of the sibilant s cannot be fixed exactly ;
it may have been dental cither like the French- s, or more supra-
dental as in English. The voiced z is of extremely rare occur
rence ; it was confined to combinations of a sibilant with a voiced
mute, such as zd, zdh, zcj ; compare, for instance, Aryan mizdho-,
3 This fact was first discovered by Ascoli, C'orsi di glottologia,
1870, p. 51 sq. , and Fick, Die ehem. Sprachcinheit der Indo-germancn
Europas, p. 3 sq. ; cp. also Joh. Schmidt, in Jenaer Lit.-Zeitung, 1874,
p. 201 sq., and Zeitschr. f. rergl. Sprachf., xxv. p. 1 sq. ; H. Hiibsch-
inann, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachf., xxiii. pp. 20 sq. , 385 sq., xxiv.
p. 372 sq. ; H. Moller, Die palatalreihe der indog. Grundxprache im
Germanischen, Leipsic, 1875 ; H. Collitz, in Bezzenberger's fieitr., iii.
p. 177 sq. ; F. Kluge, Beitragc zur Geschichte der german. Conjugation,
Strasburg, 1879, p. 42 sq.
4 The voiceless aspirates are left out here because they are hardly
frequent enough to enable us to make out exact rules of correspondence.
It may be noticed here that in Sanskrit and Greek the old aspirates
have been replaced by the corresponding unaspirated sounds (that
is, b, d, <7)t/and TT, r, % respectively) whenever they were followed by
another aspirate. See especially Grassniann, in Zeitschr. f. vergl.
Sprachf., xii. p. 81 sq.
5 Compare also the parallel of Sanskrit iydja, perfect of \'yaj, and
Greek afo/xai. ayios, with initial '. The discovery of the two y-sounds
was first made by G. Schulze, Ueber das Verhaltniss des f zu den ent-
sprechenden Lauten der verwandten Sprachen, Gottingen, 1867.
788
PHILOLOGY
[ARYAN
Sanskrit mldha, Zend: mlzhda, Greek (i.ia06$, Slavonic mlzda,
Gothic mizdo.1
Up to a very recent date the Aryan vowel-system was considered
not to have contained more than the three " primitive " vowels a,
i, u, and the diphthongs at and a« (regardless of quantity). Tlie
sounds of c and o, which are frequent in the European languages
(and also in Armenian, as has been pointed out before), but do not
occur in Sanskrit,- were regarded as later developments from the
original a. We know now that these views were erroneous. Aryan
not only had the five common vocalic sounds a, c, o, i, u, both
long and short, but also often used the liquids and nasals r, 1, in,
n, i), as vowels, that is, with syllabic value (as, for instance, in
English battle, bottom, mutton, pronounced bat-tl, bot-tm, mut-tn),
also both short and long. Besides these simple vocalic sounds,
there were twelve diphthongs proper, ai, ci, oi, au, cu, ou, and
di, ei, oi, du, eu, on, setting aside the similar combinations of «,
c, o, &c., with liquids and nasals. It will be observed at a glance
that the Greek vowels and diphthongs
V
uv
Primitive
a, c, o.
are exactly those of the Aryan system. The only case, indeed,
where Greek has changed the Aryan sounds is that of the syllabic
liquids and nasals, as will be shown hereafter.
The first proofs for the priority of the European a, c, o in com
parison v \th the uniform Indo-Iraniaii a were discovered independ
ently by Amelung and Brugmann.8 Since then the number of
proofs has been considerably increased. The most striking of all
is perhaps the observation, made independently by Yerner and
Collitz,4 that the original back gutturals of Aryan are changed
into palatals in Indo-Iranian when followed by i, y, or an a corre
sponding to a European c, but are preserved without alteration when
followed by other sounds, especially an a corresponding to a Euro
pean a or o. We thus find not only forms like Sanskrit cid corre
sponding to Greek TL, Latin quid, but also Sanskrit ca, panca,janas,
&c. , corresponding to Greek re, TrevT*, yfros, Latin quc, quinque,
genus, while the old guttural is kept in words like Sanskrit katara,
(jarbha = Greek worepos (Ionian /corepos), Slavonic kotoryj, Gothic
hwathnr, and German kalb. A special instance of this Indo-Iranian
law of palatalization is exhibited in the formation of the redupli
cative perfect, where initial gutturals are changed into palatals
before the vowel of the reduplicative syllable, which is c in Greek
arid elsewhere ; compare Sanskrit perfects like cakara, jagrdbfta with
Greek rerporpa., \t\oura., &c. If, then, the Indo-Iranian a( = European
c) once had the same influence on preceding gutturals as the palatal
vowel and semi-vowel i and y, it must necessarily itself have had
a similar palatal, that is e-like, pronunciation distinguishing it
from the other a's that go along with the non-palatal European a
and o. The proofs for the coexistence of a and o in primitive
Aryan are no less convincing than those for the existence of the
palatal " a-vowel, " that is e, but they are too complicated to be
discussed here.5
The Aryan syllabic liquids and nasals were also discovered by
Brugmann. In Sanskrit the short syllabic liquids are preserved in
the so-called r-vowel and Z-vowel, as in krtd, klptd ; the long ones
have passed over into Ir or ur, as in stlnid, purnA, and gurti.
These Sanskrit vocalic r and I are the only direct remnants of the
whole class. In all other cases the original system has been more
or less destroyed. Thus, to give only a few instances, the syllabic
nasals appear as a in Sanskrit and Greek, as in Sanskrit tatd, Greek
raros for Into- (past part, of \Jten, in Sanskrit tanomi, Greek reLvu
for *Tfi>jw), Sanskrit c.atd, Greek t-Karfo, "hundred" (fork}nto-m); or
as an before vowels, as in Sanskrit tunil, "thin," Greek ravus, for
dissyllabic tn-fr. In Latin and Celtic an c has been developed before
1 See Osthotf, in Zeitschr. /. vergl. Spmcltf., xxiii. p. 87, and Kluge, ibid., xxv.
p. 313.
2 It must be borne in mind that the Sanskrit sounds generally transcribed
by e and o were originally diphthongs, = ai and au.
3 See A. Amelung, Die liildung der Tempusstamme durch Vocalsteigerung,~Ber\'m,
1871, also in Zeitschr.f. vergl. Sprachf., xxii. p. 300, and Zcitach.f. deiitsche* Alter-
thum, xviii. p. 161 s</.; and Brugmann, in Curtius's Studien, ix. pp. 287, 363. In
his earlier publications Brugmann wrote a\, a-,, a3 for e, o, a respectively ; A was
then substituted for asby De Saussure ; others, again, introduced ue and «° for
Brugmaim's al and a-2, and simple a for his a-j. The spelling e, o, a, now gener
ally adopted, was first proposed by Collitz.
•* H. Collitz, in Bezzenberger's Jieitrdge, iii. p. 177 s'i. ; Vemer's discovery
was communicated by Osthoft', in Morpholovitche Untersitchungen, i. p. 116, and
by Hubschmann, in Xeit-ichr. f. venjl. SfTachf., xxiv. p. 409. See also the full
discussion of this problem by Joh. Schmidt, ibvl., xxv. p. 1 si/.
5 Besides the references given above, compare for this and the following especi
ally F. Klugr-, Bdtr. zur Geschichte der germun. Conjugation, Strasburg, 1879 ;
F. Masing, Hat Verhaltniss der griech. Voculabstiifitng zur SantkrltitCMn, St
Petersburg, 1879 ; F. de Sau.ssure, Meinoire sur le sj/sieme jtrimitif des voi/elles
duns hf languea indo-eurnpeennes, Leipsic, 1879 ; G. Mahlow, Die lange.n Vocale
il, e, u in den europ. Sprachtn, Berlin, 1879 ; OsthofT and Brugmann, Morpho-
loglsche Untersuchungen aufdem Gebiete der indng. Sprachen, 4 vols., Leipsic, 1878,
f/. ; G. Meyer, Griechische Grammatik, Leipsic, 1880 ; and a long series of articles
by K. Verner, Brngmann, Meyer, Osthoff, Joh. Schmidt, in Zeitschr. f. vergl.
Xprachf., vol. xxiii. sr/., and by BezzenberKer, Collitz, and Fick, in Bezzen-
berger'a lifitriigf., vol. ii. sr]. ; also Fick in Gcittinger gekhrte Anzeigen, 1880, i.
p. 417, and 1881. ii. p. 1418; Paul, in Paul and Brauiie, Beit-rage zur Geschidtte
der dcutschen Soroche und Littratiir, vi. p. 103 ; H. Moller, ibid , vii. p. 482.
the nasal, Latin centum, tcnu-is, Irish cet (for *cent\ in Germanic a
u, Gothic Jiund, Old High German dunni. Original syllabic r and
I are in the same way represented by Greek pa (ap) and Xa (aX), as
in (5pa.Kov, ppaSvs (for *npa6fa), TrXari^y ( = Sanskrit ddrytm, inrdii,
prthu), and in Germanic by ur, ul (more seldom ru, In), as in
Gothic thaurttu-s, "dry" (foi*thursus), u-ulfn, "wolf" ( — Sanskrit
trshii, vrku], and so forth.
The most brilliant result, however, of these recent researches
was not the more exact fixing of the phonetic values of the single
Aryan vowels, and of the rules of correspondence between these
and the vowels of the individual languages, but the discovery that
the system of etymological vowel-change which pervades the whole
of Aryan word-formaaon and inflexion, and which had until then
generally borne the name of vowel -gradation, was chiefly deve
loped under the influence of stress and pitch. It is well known
how the theory by which the old Sanskrit grammarians tried to
explain vowel-differences in words or forms derived from the same
" root " considered the shortest form of a root-syllable discernible Shortest
in all its derivations as the most primitive shape of the root, and form
let the fuller forms be developed from it through a process of of root.
increase, which Sanskrit grammar is accustomed to call guim and
vrdd/ii. Taking, for instance, the inflexions of perfects like rt'da,
vettha, veda (originally pronounced vaida, &c. ), plur. vidmd, ridd,
vidus, or cakara, cakdrt/ta, cakara, plur. caknnd, cakrd, cakrtis,
past part, krtd, they would start from vid and kr as "roots," and
say that red- (raid-) and kar- in veda (vaida] and cakara, &e., were
derived from these through guna, that is, through the insertion of
an a before the original root-vowels i and r. This doctrine has
been adopted by Bopp, and thus become one of the fundamental
theories of comparative philology, although the objections that
can be raised against it are both numerous and obvious. Even if
we pass over the difficulty of giving a satisfactory phonetic explana
tion of the assumed process of insertion, how are we to account
for the fact that in cases like ydjdmi, past part, ishthd, or perfects
like jagrdbha, plur. jagrbltmd, the "inserted" a stands after the
" root-vowel " instead of before it ? Or, if we look at forms like
paptimd, perf. plur. of put ami, "I fly, " or studs, sthd, srititi, plur.
of dsmi, "I am," must we not tsiku pt and s as the original roots,
and is it possible to imagine that such roots could ever have existed ?
All such difficulties disappear by assuming the new theory, that
the fuller forms are more original. As the above instances .show,
the fuller forms appear wherever the "root-syllable " is accentuated, Functio
that is, stressed ; the shorter ones are confined to stressless syllables, of stresi
What, then, more natural than to assume that the a of the fuller
forms was the original "root-vowel," and that it was dropped in
the shorter forms on account of their being unaccentuated ? Loss
of stressless vowels is one of the most frequent phonetic phenomena
in all languages, and we have only to look to modern English pro
nunciation to find the most striking analogies to the processes
assumed above. Every -day pronunciations like p'tdio, S'pttmbcr
for the written potato, September are exact parallels to the Sanskrit
2ia-p'timd, and the common ml(ldrd), ml(hidy) against the usual
full my to the Sanskrit vidmd against vdida ; even the r-vowel is
quite well known in rapid speech in forms like 1 prpfac, or hintry,
•iiatshral for the written propose, history, natural. -v
So far the new theory of vowel-gradation may be summed up as
follows. Every root-syllable originally contained one of the three
primitive vowels a, e, o, either short or long ; i, u, the liquids and
nasals, only occurred as semi -vowels or consonants, that is, form
ing monosyllabic (diphthongic) combinations with these vowels,
which' may either precede or follow the consonants. Thus, taking
the combinations with the short vowels as an instance, we get the
following table —
ai ci oi and ya ye yo
au eu ou .. ica we wo
&c. In originally stressless syllables long vowels were shortened
and short vowels dropped. If the original short vowel were sur
rounded by mutes, the mutes would come into contact through the
loss of the vowel, as in Sanskrit pap-timd from *papatimd, or Greek
(ir-T6fjLT)i> from irdro/jLai, or Zff-xw from ?xu (f°r *ff*Xw)- If. however,
the root- vowel were combined with a semi-vowel (•/, u, or?/, ?/•), liquid
or nasal, the latter would, on account of their vowel-like character,
become syllabic (that is, vocalic) if followed by another consonant,
but remain consonants if followed by a vowel ; compare the follow
ing instances taken from Sanskrit (for the sake of distinctness we
write the original ai, au for the common f, o).
(vdida — vidus f tutduda— tutudus (daddrm — dadrct
-I ydjdmi — ish'hd\ vdktum — uktd I jagrdbha— jagrbhils
\jigaya — jigyiis \ \ cakara — cakrus
( tatdna — tatd (for tntd, see above)
\ ,, — tatnirt
In the same way we find in Greek olda — I5af, (pfvyu — <pvy(.lv,
depKo^ai — HSpaKov (for *?5pKov = Sanskrit &drc,am ; see above), rptiru —
trpairov (for *trpirov}, &c., and correspondingly in the other languages.
Function
)f pitch.
LANGUAGES.]
It is obvious that through these rules the existence of I, u, ~, I, n
cannot be explained, and yet they do exist. Osthoff has suggested
the explanation that they represent intermediate stages of shorten
ing between the full diphthongs and the short i, u, &c., which were
sometimes kept under the influence of a sort of half-stress.1 They
may just as well be subsequent lengthenings of the shorts due to
some reason as yet unknown ; but this whole chapter is still very
obscure, and it may be doubted if the point will ever be sufficiently
elucidated.
The principle of explanation by presence or absence of stress in
" roots " is also applicable to derivative or inflexional syllables. It
s evident that forms like the Greek irbXeis (for *7r6\e/es) — TroXis, or
yXvKfTs (for *y\vKtFes) — yXu/cvs, or irar^pa, Trartpes — Trarpda-i — •warpOiv
follow the same rule as XeiTrw — XnTeiv, <pevyu — <pvyeiv, 5ep/co/zcu —
HdpaKov, &c. But analogy and change of stress from one syllable
to another (which even in root -syllables have often somewhat
obscured the original state of things) have done much to render
the working of the old laws indistinct, so that no more than this
short hint can be given here.
There are yet other interchanges of vowels in Aryan, quite as
important as those which find their explanation in presence or
absence of stress, which do not seem to fall under the principle
applied here. Amongst these the change of e and o or e and o,
both in roots and derivative syllables, is the most frequent. Thus we
have in Greek Xeyu — etXo%a, Xoyos ; XetTrw — \f\oiira, Xoiiros ; eXei'-
oojUtu — ei\r)\ou0a ; 5epKOfj.ai — SedopKa ; rpewu — rerpotpa ; prjyvvfu. —
(ppuya ; or \t>yo-s — \6ye ; 7^0? — yevtos (for *y€vecr-os) ; <ptpo-fj.fi> —
<j)^pe-re ; irarrip — EiVdrwp, (ppdrtap ; Troi/Jt,r)v — S.Kfj.(av, &c. It is abso
lutely incredible that difference of stress could have changed either
c into o, or o into c ; for the greater or less effort in pronouncing a
vowel can have nothing to do with the quality of the vowel uttered,
as vowel-quality is only regulated by the position of the tongue
and lips. If, then, any distinguishing principle in the utterance
of human speech governs these changes — and that assumption is
inevitable — it must have been difference of pitch. This explana
tion was suggested independently by Fick and M oiler2 some years
ago, but has not found its due share of attention, although it re
commends itself both upon physiological and philological grounds.
There is a natural physiological connexion between the palatal c
and high pitch and between the guttural o and low pitch ; for in
uttering a high tone we generally raise the larynx above its normal
level, and consequently push the tongue forward with it towards a
more palatal position ; for a low tone the larynx is lowered, and
the tongue follows this movement by sliding backwards, that
is, towards the position of the guttural vowels (as can easily be
observed in singing the vowel a on different notes). On the other
hand, we know that in Sanskrit the stress syllables were uttered
in a high tone (uddtta), and regularly followed by a low -pitch
syllable (svarita). This combination of high tone + low tone
again corresponds with the sequel of c + o observable in a great
many types of Aryan words or forms, such as \eyw, yevos, deSopxa. ;
compare also Evwdrup against Trar^p, dt\-/xwr against troi/j.rii', &c.
So far this theory seems very probable ; yet several difficulties
still remain. In the first place, the additional hypothesis must be
made, that not all "accentuated, " that is stressed, syllables had
the high tone ; if o is the characteristic vowel of low-pitch syllables,
words like XOYOS, <popos must have had low pitch on their first
syllable, while the e of Xeyw, <pepu was uttered with the high tone.
Strange as such an accentuation might sound to English or German
ears, it involves no practical difficulty ; for there are at least some
living Aryan idioms which possess similar distinctions : in Servian,
for instance, the nominative vodd is pronounced with a high rising
tone on the first and a falling tone on the second, the stress being
nearly equally divided between the two syllables ; the accusative
vbdu, again, has a well-marked stress on the first syllable, but is
pronounced in a low falling tone.3 In the second place, this theory
requires a supplementary inquiry into the relations of pitch and
stress in Aryan, for it seems evident that stress and high pitch did
not always go together. That the reduplicated perfects like the
Sanskrit daddrqa, Greek Sddopxe, for instance, originally had the
stress on the root-syllable is certain from the evidence of Germanic,
yet that same root-syllable has the low-pitch vowel o, while the
unstressed reduplicative syllable shows the high -pitch vowel c.
The original pronunciation of Aryan dcdorke, therefore, must
have been something like (* if, while afterwards the stress was
w>r '
attracted by the high-tone syllable in Greek and the high tone by
the old stress-syllable in Sanskrit. In this direction the investiga
tions of Fick and Holier cannot be considered more than an open
ing of the field for further research ; and the same must be said of
what has been done hitherto with regard to an explanation of other
vowel-changes of a similar character.
1 Mnrpholoyische Untersvchitngen, vol. iv., which treats of the Aryan I and u.
2 Fick, in Gottinger gelehrte Anzeigen, 1880, i. p. 417 stj., and Mb'ller, in
Paul and Braune, Beitrage, vii. p. 482 .^7.
3 See L. Masinj*, " Die Hauptfonnen des serbisch-chorwatischen Accents,"
in Mem. Acad. Imp. des Sciences, vol. xxiii., St Petersburg, 1876.
789
B. Grammatical Structure.— A few short remarks must suffice
here, as a full characteristic of Aryan morphology cannot be given
without entering into a mass of more or less minute details.
Since the days of Bopp comparative philologists have on the Deriva-
whole accepted the theory of the old Sanskrit grammarians, that tion.
all Indo-Gennanic words and forms must be traced back to simple,
no longer divisible, monosyllabic elements, which have been called
roots. We cannot undertake here to discuss the question how far
this theory, which has never been uncontested and is beginning
to be doubted more and more, is historically correct. However,
so much may be conceded that, after removing all the elements
which seem to serve in the formation of single words or forms,
or the formation of groups of such only in contrast with the whole
mass of a system of cognate words or forms, there generally remains
a monosyllable, which for practical purposes we may take as a philo
logical starting-point, without asking whether these preparations
of the philological laboratory ever had an actual existence of their
own or whether they are mere abstractions. The general means by
which words and forms are derived from these "roots," or from
other ready-made words and forms, are partly external, partly
internal. On the whole, Indo-Germanic derivation and inflexion,
looked at from this point of view, are based on a system of suffixes,
that is, individualizing formative elements added at the end of
less compound and less individualized formations. Infixes instead
of suffixes occur only by exception, the chief instance being the
insertion of a nasal, especially in certain verbal formations (as in
Latin ju-n-go against jugum, Greek \a-fj.- jSdvu against ZXafiov, San
skrit yu-nd-jmi, yu-n-jmds against yugdm). The third external
clement we meet is reduplication. Prefixes in the proper sense do
not seem to occur ; even the verbal augment, which is the only
case of an apparently real prefix, most likely was once an inde
pendent word, so that augmentation must be reckoned among the
numerous cases^of composition. As means of internal change we
may mention the shifting of stress and pitch over the different
syllables of words and forms, and the vowel-changes which, as we
have seen, originally followed these variations of accent, yet may
soon have become independent formative principles.
As to inflexion, Indo-Germanic is known to hold the foremost Inflexion
rank among all inflective languages. The distinction of nouns, of noun,
pronouns,, and verbs is fully developed. In the nouns the intro
duction in the substantives of grammatical gender is especially
noteworthy. Substantives and adjectives were inflected in the
same way, though some of the individual languages have deviated
from this rule ; the pronouns, at least, in many cases had their own
inflexions ; otherwise they agree with the nouns in the distinc
tion of numbers and cases. There were three numbers — singular,
dual, and plural. The number of original cases cannot be settled
with certainty. The highest number we find distinguished in any
language is seven — nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instru
mental, and locative (besides the vocative or interjectional case).
1 jut, judging from the fact that the same cases often have different
endings in different declensions, one might be inclined to think
that once a still greater variety of case-distinctions had existed.
The single declensions are distinguished according to the various
stem -suffixes immediately preceding the case - endings. The two
chief subdivisions accordingly are the declensions of vocalic and
consonantal stems. It may be noticed in passing that the so-called
i and u stems follow the type of the consonantal declension ; this,
however, appears but natural if we consider that the final i and u
of these stems most probably are reductions of older diphthongs
ending in a semi-vocalic or consonantal element. For declensional
distinctions only one of the general external formative principles
is used, namely, that of combining ready-made steins with suffixal
endings, at the same time expressing case and number.
The verb, too, has in like manner its inflexional endings to ex- Inflexion
press the distinctions of number and person ; but it also makes use of verb,
of all the other formative principles, both internal and external.
The shifting of accent and the vowel-changes connected therewith
are nowhere more distinctly traceable than in the verb. Besides,
we find the use of special suffixes for the distinction of tenses and
moods, sometimes the infixion of a nasal in the formation of tense-
stems, then again on a larger scale the use of reduplication, and
lastly, the use of the augment as a common sign for the different
tenses of the past. None of the individual languages seems to have
preserved the original stock of Aryan verbal forms to its full extent.
The oldest Sanskrit seems to come nearest to Aryan. Greek has also
been very conservative in one way ; it has lost hardly anything that
was original, but has, like Latin, created a host of apparently new
forms, some of which still continue to baffle all attempts at an
explanation. Germanic may serve as a type of the opposite
character ; it has lost all but the old present and the old redupli
cated perfect, but supplied the loss by the extensive employment
of auxiliaries. The differences thus exhibited by the different
languages make it a difficult task to determine which formations
belong to the primitive Aryan stock and which were added at
later periods. General consent, however, seems to take the follow
ing points for settled. Of the three voices distinguished in Greek,
790
I — P H I
only two arc of piiniitive growth, the active and the middle voice,
the passive voice being a later specialization of the middle. There
were three moods, an indicative, a subjunctive, and an optative ; the
difference of the latter two from the indicative lay partly in the
inflexional endings, partly in the addition of a special mood-suffix
before these terminations. There was also an imperative. The
distinction of numbers was the same as in declension, — singular,
dual, plui-ii], each of which had three persons. The tenses may be
divided into three groups. The first group comprises the present
and perfect, the former of which is supposed to have been used
originally as a general predicative form, being neither past, present,
nor future, while the perfect was used to indicate the completion
of the action signified by the root. The present is rarely formed
direct from the root, but more generally from a special tense-
stem derived from the root by the addition of some special tense
suffix or infix, or reduplication. Of the different formations of the
perfect met with in the individual langu.-iges only that through
reduplication of the root-syllable is believed to be of Aryan origin.
The second group is that of the past tenses, the imperfect and two
aorists. In all these the past sense is marked by the augment.
The imperfect is regularly formed from the present stem, and the
aorist either from the root simple or reduplicated (root-aorist,
corresponding to the so-called second aorist in Greek), or by insert
ing an s between the root and the inflexional endings (sibilant, or
sigmatic aorist, the first aorist of Greek). The existence of a plu
perfect derived from the perfect in a way similar to the derivation
of the imperfect from the present is doubtful and not generally
admitted. The last division is formed by the future, which, like
the first aorist, inserts a sibilant after the root-syllable. None of
the other formations of the future occurring here and there is
believed to have existed in the parent-speech. Of participles there
were three sets, belonging to the present, the perfect, and the
aorist respectively. An infinitive had not yet been developed ; its
place in Aryan was supplied by the use of verbal nouns.
0. Comparative Synfax,1 to conclude with, is the youngest Coir.-
branch of Aryan philology. Its chief object so far has been to punitive
settle the original meanings and the primitive rules of use of the synh.x.
different cases, moods, and tenses. Some attempts have also been
recently made to fix the rules of primitive word-order. About all
these questions we must ivfer the reader to the original investiga
tions of the different authors who have more especially cultivated
this branch of research. (E. SI.)
PHILOMELA. See NIGHTINGALE, vol. xvii. p. 499.
PHILOPCEMEN, " the last of the Greeks " as he was
called by an admiring Roman, was a leading champion of
the Achaean League, which preserved in Peloponnesus a
last shred of Greek freedom. Sprung from an illustrious
Arcadian family, he was born at Megalopolis in Arcadia in
252 B.C. His father Craugis dying in his infancy, Philo-
poemen was brought up by his father's friend Cleander,
an exile from Mantinea. In his youth he associated with
Ecdemus and Megalophanes, who had studied the Academic
philosophy under Arcesilaus, and had proved themselves
friends of freedom by helping to rid Megalopolis and
Sicyon of tyrants. Philopoemen soon distinguished him
self in war and the chase. Hard-featured but of an iron
frame, simple and hardy in his way of life, blunt and
straightforward in speech and manner,2 he was a born
soldier, delighting in war and careless of whatever did not
bear on it. Thus he would not practise wrestling because
the athlete's finely-strung habit of body is ill-fitted to bear
the strain of a soldier's life. He read books of a martial
and stirring tone, like the poems of Homer, together with
works on military history and tactics. Epaminondas was
his pattern, but he could not school his hot temper into
the unruffled patience of the Theban. Indeed we miss in
this rugged soldier that union of refinement at home with
daring in the field which had stamped the soldier-citizens
of the best age of Greece. His leisure was devoted to the
chase or to the cultivation of his farm, where he worked
like one of his hinds. In 222, when Cleomenes king of
Sparta made himself master of Megalopolis by a night
attack, Philopoemen secured by his valour the retreat of
the main body of the citizens to Messene, and encouraged
them to refuse the insidious invitation of Cleomenes to
return to their homes on condition of renouncing their
connexion with the Achaean League. Thus baffled, Cleo
menes laid the city in ruins and retired. At the battle
of Sellasia (early summer 221), where Cleomenes was j
defeated by the combined Achaean and Macedonian forces j
under Antigonus, king of Macedonia, Philopoemen greatly |
distinguished himself by charging, without orders, at the
head of the Megalopolitan cavalry and thus saving from ;
defeat the wing on which he fought. His conduct won (
the admiration of Antigonus, who offered him a command
in the Macedonian army, but he declined it and went to
the wars in Crete. Returning after some time with fresh
laurels, he was at once chosen to command the Achaean
cavalry, which, from an ill-mounted, raw, and cowardly
1 A list of books concerning Aryan syntax will be found in the ap
pendix to Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Lanrjuarjp, vol. ii.
2 The simplicity of his manners is illustrated by a tale like that of
Alfred and the cakes, Plut, Phil., 2.
body he soon turned into a highly-trained and thoroughly
efficient force ; at the head of it he overthrew the yEtolian
and Elean horse, and slew their commander with his
own hand (209). He was elected general of the Achaean
League for the first time in 208. In this, the highest
dignity of the confederacy, he infused greater vigour and
independence into the councils of the League than had
been shown by Aratus, who had leaned on Macedonia and
trusted to diplomacy rather than the sword. Philopoemen
entirely changed the equipment and tactics of the troops
of the League, substituting complete armour, long lances
and large shields for the lighter arms hitherto in use, and
adopting the Macedonian phalanx as the fighting order.
But he did more : by example and precept he turned a
nation of dandies into a nation of soldiers, who now spent
on arms and accoutrements the wealth they had before
lavished on dinners and dress. With the army thus trans
formed he defeated Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta, at the
battle of Mantinea. The tyrant fell by Philopoemen's
hand, Tegea was taken, and Laconia ravaged. A bronze
statue representing Philopoemen slaying Machanidas was
set up at Delphi by the Achseans. At the Nemean festival
which followed the battle Philopoemen, then general for
the second time, was hailed by the people as the liberator
of Greece. Jealous of the degree of independence to which
Philopoemen had raised the League, Philip king of Mace
donia sent emissaries to murder him, but they were foiled.
So great was the terror of his name that at the bare
report that he was coming the Boeotians raised the siege of
Megara and fled. When Nabis, successor of Machanidas
in the tyranny of Sparta, seized Messene, Philopoemen,
though he held no office at the time and the general of the
League refused to stir, collected his fellow-townsmen and
drove out the tyrant. In his third generalship (201-200)
he mustered the Achaean forces with great secrecy at
Tegea and, invading Laconia, defeated the troops of Nabis.
The Romans were now about to cross the sea for the war
with Philip of Macedonia, and Philopoemen was the means
of preventing the Achseans from concluding an alliance
with Philip against Rome. At the expiry of his year of
office he sailed once more to Crete, where he successfully
led the troops of the Gortynians, beating the Cretans with
their own weapons of craft and surprise. Philopoemen
did not return to Peloponnesus till after the Romans under
Flamininus had conquered Philip. He found the Romans
and Achaeans making war on Nabis and was again elected
to the generalship (192). Nabis was besieging Gythium,
which with the other towns on the Laconian coast had
been wrested from him by the Romans, handed over by
them to the Spartan exiles, and attached to the Achaean
League. Being defeated in an attempt to relieve Gythium
P H I — P H I
791
by sea, Philopcernen landed and surprised a part of the
tyrant's forces not far from that town, burned their camp,
and slew many. After ravaging Laconia he marched on
Sparta in the hope of compelling Nabis to raise the siege.
But Nabis took Gythium and awaited the Achaeans in a
pass. Philopoemen was surprised, but by skilful general
ship he not only extricated himself but routed the Spartans
and cut off most of the fugitives. When Nabis was
assassinated Philopoemen hastened to Sparta and induced
it to join the Achaean League. In the same year (192)
Antiochus, king of Asia, crossed into Greece to fight the
Romans. By the advice, or at least with the concurrence,
of Philopoemen the Achaeans rejected the king's proposal
that they should remain neutral, and declared war against
him and his allies the /Etolians. In the following year
Diophanes, general of the League, hearing that Sparta
showed signs of revolt, marched against it accompanied
by Flamininus. Philopoemen had remonstrated in vain
against this step, and he now boldly threw himself into
Sparta, composed the disturbances, and closed the gates
against Diophanes and Flamininus. The grateful Spartans
offered Philopcernen a splendid present, but he bade them
keep such bribes for their enemies. In 189 Philopcemen,
again general, proposed and carried in an assembly, which
he summoned at Argos, a decree that the general assembly
of the League should meet in all the cities of the League
in rotation, instead of, as hitherto, at ^Kgeum only. This
measure was obviously meant to deprive Achaea of its
position as head of the League, and to make the allied
cities more equal. In the same year the Spartans made an
unsuccessful attack on one of the maritime towns occu
pied by the exiles. As these towns were under Achaean
protection the League required Sparta to surrender the
authors of the attack. Far from complying, the Spartans
put to death thirty partisans of Philopoemen and re
nounced their connexion with the League. The Achaeans
declared war, and in the following spring (188) Philo
pcemen, having been re-elected general, marched against
Sparta, which was forced to pull down its walls, to expel
the foreign mercenaries and the slaves whom the tyrants
had freed, to exchange the laws and institutions of Lycurgus
for those of the Achaeans, and, lastly, to receive back the
exiles. It would seem that on this occasion Philopoemen
allowed his hatred of the old enemy of Megalopolis to
overpower his judgment ; his conduct was as unwise as it
was cruel, for it afforded the Romans — what Philopoemen
had hitherto been careful not to furnish them with — a
pretext for meddling in the affairs of Greece. His treat
ment of Sparta was censured by the senate, and Roman
officers in Greece remonstrated with the League on the
subject. In 183, the last year of his life, Philopoemen
was general for the eighth time (his seventh generalship
perhaps fell in 187, but this is uncertain). He lay sick
of a fever at Argos when word came that Messene, under
Dinocrates, had revolted from the League. At first he
despatched his friend arid partisan Lycortas to put down
the revolt, then growing impatient, in spite of the fever and
his seventy years, he hurried in a single day to Megalopolis,
and, taking with him the cavalry of his native town, entered
Messenia and routed Dinocrates. But, the enemy being
reinforced, he was compelled to fall back over broken ground.
In his anxiety to cover the retreat of his troopers he was
left alone, and, his horse stumbling, he was thrown to the
ground and taken prisoner. He was conducted with his
arms pinioned through the streets of Messene and cast
into a dungeon. At nightfall on the second day an
executioner was sent to him with a cup of poison. Seeing
the light and the executioner standing by, Philopoemen
sat up with difficulty, for he was weak, and, taking the
cup in his hand, he asked the man, What tidings of the
cavalry1? Being told that they had mostly escaped, he
bowed his head and said that it was well. Then he drained
the cup and lay down to die. Swift vengeance overtook
his murderers. The indignant Acha'ans, under Lycortas,
ravaged Messenia, and when the capital surrendered all
who had had part in the murder of Philopcemen were
obliged to kill themselves. Dinocrates had already com
mitted suicide. The body of Philopcemen was burned,
and his bones conveyed to Megalopolis with every mark
of respect and sorrow, the urn, almost hidden in garlands,
being borne by his fellow-townsman, the historian Polybius.
Numerous statues were set up and honours decreed to him
in the cities of the League. After the destruction of
Corinth by Mummius some one proposed to destroy the
statues of a man who had been no friend of the Romans ;
but the Roman general rejected the base proposal.
Philopoemen's lot was cast in evil days. Hardly were
the Achseans freed by him from Macedonia when they had
to submit to Rome. His policy towards the Romans was
marked by a prudence and moderation hardly to be expected
from one of his passionate nature. He saw that the final
subjugation of Greece was inevitable, but he did his best
to delay it, not by a war which would only have precipi
tated the catastrophe, but by giving the Romans no ground
for interference, and by resisting their encroachments, so
far as this could be clone, by an appeal to reason and justice.
Our authorities for the life of Philopoemen arc Polybius, Livy,
Plutarch, a -id Pausanias. Polybius's work on Philopoemen was in
three book , but it is lost. Plutarch's biography, like the account
in Pausanias (viii. 49-51), is based on Polybius. (J. G. FR. )
PHILOSOPHY is a term whose meaning and scope have
varied very considerably according to the usage of different
authors and different ages ; and it would hardly be possible,
even having regard to the present time alone, to define and
divide the subject in such a way as to command the adhesion
of all the philosophic schools. The aim of the present
article will be, however, leaving controversial details as
far as possible in the background, to state generally the
essential nature of philosophy as distinguished from the
special sciences, and to indicate the main divisions into
Avhich, as matter of historical fact, its treatment has fallen.
Historical Use of the Term. — The most helpful introduc
tion to such a task is afforded by a survey of the steps by
which philosophy differentiated itself, in the history of
Greek thought, from the idea of knowledge and culture
in general. These steps may be traced in the gradual
specification of the term. The tradition which assigns the
first employment of the word to Pythagoras has hardly
any claim to be regarded as authentic ; and the somewhat
self-conscious modesty to which Diogenes Laertius attri
butes the choice of the designation is, in all probability, a
piece of etymology crystallized into narrative. It is true
that, as a matter of fact, the earliest uses of the word (the
verb <£<Aoo-o(£ea> occurs in Herodotus and Thucydicles) imply
the idea of the pursuit of knowledge ; but the distinction
between the o-oc^os, or wise man, and the <£tAo'cro<£os, or lover
of wisdom, appears first in the Platonic writings, and lends
itself naturally to the so-called Socratic irony. The same
thought is to be found in Xenophon, and is doubtless to be
attributed to the historical Socrates. But the word soon
lost this special implication. What is of real interest to
us is to trace the progress from the idea of the philosopher
as occupied with any and every department of knowledge
to that which assigns him a special kind of knowledge as
his province. A specific sense of the word first meets
us in Plato, who defines the philosopher as one who appre
hends the essence or reality of things in opposition to the
man who dwells in appearances and the shows of sense.
The philosophers, he says, "are those who are able to gras-'p
the eternal and immutable"; they are "those who set their
792
PHILOSOPHY
affections on that which in each case really exists " (R?p.,
480). In Plato, however, this distinction is applied chiefly
in an ethical and religious direction ; and, while it defines
philosophy, so far correctly, as the endeavour to express
what things are in their ultimate constitution, it is not
yet accompanied by a sufficient differentiation of the sub
sidiary inquiries by which this ultimate question may be
approached. Logic, ethics, and physics, psychology, theory
of knowledge, and metaphysics are all fused together by
Plato in a semi-religious synthesis. It is not till we come
to Aristotle — the encyclopedist of the ancient world —
that we find a demarcation of the different philosophic dis
ciplines corresponding, in the main, to that still current.
The earliest philosophers, or "physiologers," had occupied
themselves chiefly with what we may call cosmology ; the
one question which covers everything for them is that of
the underlying substance of the world around them, and
they essay to answer this question, so to speak, by simple
inspection. In Socrates and Plato, on the other hand, the
start is made from a consideration of man's moral and
intellectual activity ; but knowledge and action are con
fused with one another, as in the Socratic doctrine that
virtue is knowledge. To this correspond the Platonic con
fusion of logic and ethics and the attempt to substitute a
theory of concepts for a metaphysic of reality. Aristotle's
methodic intellect led him to separate the different aspects
of reality here confounded. He became the founder of
logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics as separate sciences ;
while he prefixed to all such (comparatively) i Decial in
quiries the investigation of the ultimate nature of existence
as such, or of those first principles which are common to,
and presupposed in, every narrower field of knowledge.
For this investigation Aristotle's most usual name is " first
philosophy"; but there has since been appropriated to it,
apparently by accident, the title " metaphysics." " Philo
sophy," as a term of general application, was not, indeed,
restricted by Aristotle or his successors to the disciplines
just enumerated. Aristotle himself includes under the
title, besides mathematics, all his physical inquiries. It
was only in the Alexandrian period, as Zeller points out,
that the special sciences attained to independent cultivation.
Nevertheless, as the mass of knowledge accumulated, it
naturally came about that the name " philosophy " ceased
to be applied to inquiries concerned with the particulars
as such. The details of physics, for example, were aban
doned to the scientific specialist, and philosophy restricted
itself in this department to the question of the relation of
the physical universe to the ultimate ground or author of
things. This inquiry, wrhich was long called "rational
cosmology," may be said to form part of the general science
of metaphysics, or at all events a pendant to it. By the
gradual sifting out of the special sciences philosophy thus
came to embrace primarily the inquiries grouped as " meta
physics " or ''first philosophy." These would embrace,
according to the scheme long current, ontology proper, or
the science of being as such, with its branch sciences of
(rational) psychology, cosmology, and (rational or natural)
theology. Subsidiary to metaphysics, as the central in
quiry, stand the sciences of logic and ethics, to which may
be added sestheticsj constituting three normative sciences,
— sciences, that is, which do not, primarily, describe facts,
but rather prescribe ends. It is evident, however, that if
logic deals with conceptions which may be considered con
stitutive of knowledge as such, and if ethics deals with the
harmonious realization of the highest known form of exist
ence, both sciences must have a great deal of weight in the
settling of the general question of metaphysics.
Modern modifications of the above scheme will be pre
sently considered ; but it is sufficiently accurate as a start
ing-point, and its acceptance by so many generations of
thinkers is a guarantee for its provisional intelligibility.
Accordingly, we may say that "philosophy" has been under
stood, during the greater part of its history, to be a general
term covering the various disciplines just enumerated. It
has frequently tended, however, and still tends, to be used
as specially convertible with the narrower term " meta
physics." This is not unnatural, seeing that it is only so
far as they bear on the one central question of the nature
of existence that philosophy spreads its mantle over
psychology, logic, or ethics. The organic conditions of
perception and the associative laws to which the mind, as
a part of nature, is subjected, are nothing to the philosopher ;
and therefore the handing over of (empirical) psychology
to special investigators, which is at present taking place,
can be productive of none but good results. Similarly,
logic, so far as it is an art of thought or a doctrine of
fallacies, and ethics, so far as it is occupied with a natural
history of impulses and moral sentiments, do neither of
them belong, except by courtesy, to the philosophic pro
vince. But, although this is so, it is perhaps hardly
desirable to deprive ourselves of the use of two terms
instead of one. It will not be easy to infuse into so
abstract and bloodless a term as " metaphysics " the fuller
life (and especially the inclusion of ethical considerations)
suggested by the more concrete term "philosophy."
We shall first of all, then, attempt to differentiate philo
sophy from the special sciences, and afterwards proceed to
take up one by one what have been called the philosophical
sciences, with the view of showing how far the usual sub
ject-matter of each is really philosophical in its bearing, and
how far it belongs rather to the domain of science strictly
so called. We shall also see in the course of this inquiry
in what these various philosophical disciplines differ from
one another, and how far they merge into another, or have,
as a matter of fact, been confused at different periods in
the history of philosophy. The order in which, for clear
ness of exposition, it wall 'be most convenient to consider
these disciplines will be psychology, epistemology or theory
of knowledge, and metaphysics, then logic, aesthetics, and
ethics. Finally, the connexion of the last-mentioned with
politics (or, to speak more modernly, with jurisprudence
and sociology) and with the philosophy of history will call
for a few words on the relation of these sciences to general
philosophy.
Philosophy and Science. — In distinguishing philosophy
from the sciences, it may not be amiss at the outset to
guard against the possible misunderstanding that philo
sophy is concerned with a subject-matter different from,
and in some obscure way transcending, the subject-matter
of the sciences. Now that psychology, or the observa
tional and experimental study of mind, may be said to have
been definitively included among the positive sciences, there
is not even the apparent ground which once existed for
such an idea. Philosophy, even under its most discredited
name of metaphysics, has no other subject-matter than the
nature of the real world, as that world lies around us in
everyday life, and lies open to observers on every side.
But if this is so, it may be asked what function can remain
for philosophy when every portion of the field is already
lotted out and enclosed by specialists 1 Philosophy claims
to be the science of the whole ; but, if we get the knowledge
of the parts from the different sciences, what is there left
for philosophy to tell us 1 To this it is sufficient to answer
generally that the synthesis of the parts is something
more than that detailed knowledge of the parts in separa
tion which is gained by the man of science. It is with
the ultimate synthesis that philosophy concerns itself ; it
has to show that the subject-matter which we are all deal
ing with in detail really is a whole, consisting of articulated
members. Evidently, therefore, the relation existing be-
PHILOSOPHY
793
tween philosophy and the sciences will be, to some extent,
one of reciprocal influence. The sciences may be said to
furnish philosophy with its matter, but philosophical criti
cism reacts upon the matter thus furnished, and transforms
it. Such transformation is inevitable, for the parts only
exist and can only be fully, i.e., truly, known in their
relation to the whole. A pure specialist, if such a being
were possible, would be merely an instrument whose results
had to be co-ordinated and used by others. Now, though
a pure specialist may be an abstraction of the mind, the
tendency of specialists in any department naturally is to
lose sight of the whole in attention to the particular cate
gories or modes of nature's working which happen to be
exemplified, and fruitfully applied, in their own sphere of
investigation ; and in proportion as this is the case it
becomes necessary for their theories to be co-ordinated
with the results of other inquirers, and set, as it were, in
the light of the whole. This task of co-ordination, in the
broadest sense, is undertaken by philosophy ; for the
philosopher is essentially what Plato, in a happy moment,
styled him, O-WOTTTIKOS, the man who insists on seeing
things together. The aim of philosophy (whether attain
able or not) is to exhibit the universe as a rational system
in the harmony of all its parts ; and accordingly the philo
sopher refuses to consider the parts out of their relation
to the whole whose parts they are. Philosophy corrects
in this way the abstractions which are inevitably made by
the scientific specialist, and may claim, therefore, to be
the only concrete science, that is to say, the only science
which takes account of all the elements in the problem,
and the only science whose results can claim to be true in
more than a provisional sense.
For it is evident from what has been said that the way
in which we commonly speak of " facts " is calculated to
convey a false impression. The world is not a collection
of individual facts existing side by side and capable of
being known separately. A fact is nothing except in its
relations to other facts ; and as these relations are multi
plied in the progress of knowledge the nature of the so-
called fact is indefinitely modified. Moreover, every state
ment of fact involves certain general notions and theories,
so that the "facts "of the separate sciences cannot be
stated except in terms of the conceptions or hypotheses
which are assumed by the particular science. Thus mathe
matics assumes space as an existent infinite, without investi
gating in what sense the existence or the infinity of this
" Unding," as Kant called it, can be asserted. In the
same way, physics may be said to assume the notion of
material atoms and forces. These and similar assump
tions are ultimate presuppositions or working hypotheses
for the sciences themselves. But it is the office of philo
sophy, or theory of knowledge, to submit such conceptions
to a critical analysis, with a view to discover how far
they can be thought out, or how far, when this is done,
they refute themselves, and call for a different form of
statement, if they are to be taken as a statement of the
ultimate nature of the real.1 The first statement may
frequently turn out to have been merely provisionally or
relatively true ; it is then superseded by, or rather inevit
ably merges itself in, a less abstract account. In this the
same " facts " appear differently, because no longer sepa
rated from other aspects that belong to the full reality of
the known world. There is no such thing, we have said,
as an individual fact ; and the nature of any fact is not
fully known unless we know it in all its relations to the
1 The revisional office which philosophy here assumes constitutes
her the critic of the sciences. It is in this connexion that the mean
ing of the definition of philosophy as "the science of principles" can
best be seen. This is perhaps the most usual definition, and, though
vague, one of the least misleading.
system of the universe, or, in Spinoza's phrase, " sub specie
aeternitatis." In strictness, there is but one res completa
or concrete fact, and it is the business of philosophy, as
science of the whole, to expound the chief relations that
constitute its complex nature.
The last abstraction which it becomes the duty of philo
sophy to remove is the abstraction from the knowing
subject which is made by all the sciences, including, as
we shall see, the science of psychology. The sciences,
one and all, deal with a world of objects, but the ultimate
fact as we know it is the existence of an object for a sub
ject. Subject-object, knowledge, or, more widely, self-con
sciousness with its implicates — this unity in duality is the
ultimate aspect which reality presents. It has generally
been considered, therefore, as constituting in a special sense
the problem of philosophy. Philosophy may be said to be
the explication of what is involved in this relation, or,
in modern phraseology, a theory of its possibility. Any
would-be theory of the universe which makes its central
fact impossible stands self -condemned. On the other
hand, a sufficient analysis here may be expected to yield
us a statement of the reality of things in its last terms,
and thus to shed a light backwards upon the true nature
of our subordinate conceptions.
Psychology, Epistemology, and Metaphysics. — This leads
to the consideration of our first group of subsidiary sciences
— PSYCHOLOGY (q.v.}, epistemology (theory of knowledge,
Erkenntnisstheorie), and metaphysics (ontology; see META-
PHYSIC). A special relation has always existed between
psychology and systematic philosophy, but the closeness of
the connexion has been characteristic of modern and more
particularly of English thought. The connexion is not diffi
cult to explain, seeing that in psychology, or the science of
mind, we study the fact of intelligence (and moral action),
and have, so far, in our hands the fact to which all other
facts are relative. From this point of view we may even
agree with Sir "W. Hamilton when he quotes Jacobi's
dictum — " Nature conceals God ; man reveals God." In
other words, as has just been said, the ultimate explana
tion of things cannot be given by any theory which
excludes from its survey the intelligence in which nature,
as it were, gathers herself up. But knowledge, or the mind
as knowing, willing, etc., may be looked at in two different
ways. It may be regarded simply as a fact, in which case
the evolutions of mind may be traced and reduced to laws
in the same way as the phenomena treated by the other
sciences. This study gives us the science of empirical
psychology, or, as it is now termed, psychology sans phrase.
In order to give an adequate account of its subject-matter,
psychology may require higher or more complex categories
than are employed in the other sciences, just as biology,
for example, cannot Avork with mechanical categories alone,
but introduces the conception of development or growth.
But the affinities of such a study are manifestly with the
sciences as such rather than with philosophy ; and it has
been already pointed out that the division of labour in
this respect is proceeding rapidly. Since it has been taken
up by specialists, psychology is being established on a
broader basis of induction, and with the advantage, in
some departments, of the employment of experimental
methods of measurement. But it is not of mind in this
aspect that such assertions can be made as those quoted
above. Mind, as studied by the psychologist — mind as a
mere fact or phenomenon — grounds no inference to any
thing beyond itself. The distinction between mind viewed
as a succession of " states of consciousness " and the further
aspect of mind which philosophy considers is very clearly
put in a recent article by Professor Groom Robertson, who
also makes a happy suggestion of two terms to designate
the double point of view.
XVIII. — ioo
PHILOSOPHY
794
•' \\'e may view know-ledge as mere subjective function, but it
has its full "meaning only as it is taken to represent what we may
call objective fact, or is such as is named (in different circumstances)
real valid, true. As mere subjective function, which it is to the
psychologist, it is best spoken of by an unambiguous name, and for
this there seems none better than Intellection. We may then say
that psychology is occupied with the natural function of Intellection,
seeking to discover its laws and distinguishing its various modes
(perception, representative imagination, conception, &c.) according
to the various circumstances in which the laws are found at work.
Philosophy, on the other hand, is theory of Knowledge (as that
which is known)."— "Psychology and Philosophy," Mind, 1883,
pp. 15, 16.
The confusion of these two points of view has led, and
still leads, to serious philosophical misconception. It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that, in the English school
since Hume, psychology superseded properly philosophical
inquiry. The infusion of epistemological matter into the
numerous analyses of the human mind rendered the sub
stitution plausible and left men satisfied. And we find
even a thinker with a wider horizon like Sir W. Hamilton
encouraging the confusion by speaking of " psychology or
metaphysics,'' l while his lectures on metaphysics are
mainly taken up Avith what belongs in the strictest sense to
psychology proper, with an occasional excursus (as in the
theory of perception) into epistemology. That this con
fusion is on the way to be obviated for the future is largely
due to the Kantian impulse which has been strongly felt
of late in English thought, and which has acted in this
matter on many who could not, by any laxity of termino
logy, be numbered as Kantians or Neo-Kantians. The
distinction between psychology and theory of knowledge
was first clearly made by Kant, who repeatedly insisted
that the Critique of Pure Reason was not to be taken as a
psychological inquiry. He defined his problem as the quid
juris or the question of the validity of knowledge, not its
qiwl facti or the laws of the empirical genesis and evolution
of intellection (to use Professor Robertson's phraseology).
Since Kant philosophy has chiefly taken the form of theory
of knowledge or of a criticism of experience. Not, indeed,
a preliminary criticism of our faculties or conceptions such
as Kant himself proposed to institute, in order to determine
the limits of their application ; such a criticism ab extra
of the nature of our experience is essentially a thing im
possible. The only criticism which can be applied in such
a case is the immanent criticism which the conceptions or
categories exercise upon one another. The organized criti
cism of these conceptions is really nothing more than the
full explication of what they mean and of what experience
in its full nature or notion is. This constitutes the theory
of knowledge, and lays down, in Kantian language, the con
ditions of the possibility of experience. These condition ;
are the conditions of knowledge as such, of self-conscious
ness in general, or, as it may be put, of objective conscious
ness. The inquiry is, therefore, logical or transcendental
in its nature, and does not entangle us in any decision as
to the conditions of the genesis of such consciousness in
the individual. When we inquire into subjective conditions
we are thinking of facts causing other facts. But the
logical or transcendental conditions are not causes or ever
factors of knowledge ; they are the statement of its idea
Hence the dispute at the present time between evolutionist
and transcendentalist rests, in general, on an ignoratu
elenchi ; for the history of the genesis of an idea (the his
torical or genetic method) does not contain an answer to —
though it may throw light on — the philosophic questior
of its truth or validity. Speaking of this transcenderita
consciousness, Kant goes so far as to say that it is no
1 It i.s true that he afterwards modifies this misleading identification
by introducing the distinction between empirical psychology or th
phenomenology of mind and inferential psychology or ontology, i.e.
metaphysics proper. But he continues to use the terms " philosophy,
"metaphysics," and "mental science" as synonymous.
)f the slightest consequence "whether the idea of it be
?lear or obscure (in empirical consciousness), no, not even
vhether it really exists or not. But the possibility of
lie logical form of all knowledge rests on its relation to
,his apperception as a faculty or potentiality " ( MVr/v,
ed. Hartenstein, iii. 578 note). Or, if we return to the
distinction between epistemology and psychology, by way
of illustrating the nature of the former, we may take
;he summing up of Mr Ward in a valuable article on
'Psychological Principles" recently contributed to Mind
(April 1883, pp. 166, 167). "Comparing psychology and
epistemology, then, we may say that the former is essen
tially genetic in its method, and might, if we had the power
to revise our existing terminology, be called biology ; the
latter, on the other hand, is essentially devoid of every
thing historical, and treats, sub specie seternitatis, as Spino/a
might have said, of human knowledge, conceived as the
possession of mind in general."
Kant's problem is not, in its wording, very different from
that which Locke set before him when he resolved to
"inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human
knowledge together with the grounds and degrees of belief,
opinion, and assent," Locke's Essay is undoubtedly, in its
intention, a contribution to the theory of knowledge, as
any one may verify for himself by turning to the headings
of the chapters in the fourth book. But, because time had
not yet made the matter clear, Locke suffered himself to
digress in his second book into the purely psychological
question of the origin of our ideas, or, as Kant called it,
the physiology of the human mind. Appearing thus, first,
as the problem of perception (in Locke and his English
successors), widening its scope and becoming, in Kant's
hands, the question of the possibility of experience in
general, epistemology may be said to have passed with
Hegel into a completely articulated " logic," that claimed
to be at the same time a metaphysic, or an ultimate ex
pression of the nature of the real. This introduces us to
the second part of the question we are seeking to determine,
namely, the relation of epistemology to metaphysics.
It is evident that philosophy as theory of knowledge
must have for its complement philosophy as metaphysics
or ontology. The question of the truth of our knowledge,
and the question of the ultimate nature of what we know,
are in reality two sides of the same inquiry ; and therefore
our epistemological results have to be ontologically ex
pressed. But it is not every thinker that can see his way
with Hegel to assert in set terms the identity of thought
and being. Hence the theory of knowledge becomes with
some a theory of human ignorance. This is the case with
Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the unknowable, which he
advances as the result of epistemological considerations
in the philosophical prolegomena to his system. Very
similar positions were maintained by Kant and Omte ;
and, under the name of "agnosticism," the theory has popu
larized itself of late in the outer courts of philosophy, and
on the shifting borderland of philosophy and literature.
The truth is that the habit of thinking exclusively from
the standpoint of the theory of knowledge tends to beget
an undue subjectivity of temper. And the fact that it has
become usual for men to think from this standpoint is
very plainly seen in the almost universal description of
philosophy as an analysis of "experience," instead of its
more old-fashioned designation as an inquiry into " the
nature of things." Now it is matter of universal agree
ment that the problem of being must be attacked indirectly
through the problem of knowledge; and _ therefore this
substitution certainly marks an advance, in so far as it
implies that the fact of experience, or of self-conscicus
existence, is the chief fact to be dealt with. But if so,
then self-consciousness must really be treated as existing,
PHILOSOPHY
795
and as organically related to the rest of existence. If
self-consciousness be treated in this objective fashion, then
we pass naturally from epistemology 'to metaphysics or
ontology. (For, although the term "ontology" has been as
"ood as disused, it still remains true that the aim of philo-
O ' J-
sophy must be to furnish us with an ontology or a coherent
and adequate theory of the nature of the existent.) But
if, on the other hand, knowledge and existence be ab initio
opposed to one another — if consciousness be set on one
side as over against existence, and merely holding up a
mirror to it — then it follows with equal naturalness that
the truly objective must be something which lurks un-
revealed behind the subject's representation of it. Hence
come the different varieties of a so-called phenomenalism.
The upholders of such a theory would, in general, deride
the term "metaphysics" or "ontology"; but it is evident,
none the less, that their position itself implies a certain
theory of the universe and of our own place in it, and
philosophy with them will consist, therefore, in the estab
lishment of this theory.
Without prejudice, then, to the claims of epistemology
to constitute the central philosophic discipline, we may
simply note its liability to be misused. The exclusive
preoccupation of men's minds with the question of know
ledge during the last quarter of a century or more drew
from Lotze the caustic criticism that " the continual
sharpening of the knife becomes tiresome, if, after all, we
have nothing to cut with it." Stillingfleet's complaint
against Locke was that he was "one of the gentlemen of this
new way of reasoning that have almost discarded substance
out of the reasonable part of the world." The same may
be said with greater truth of the devotees of the theory of
knowledge ; they seem to have no need of so old-fashioned
a commodity as reality. Yet, after all, Fichte's dictum
holds good that knowledge as knowledge — i.e., so long as
it is looked at as knowledge — is, ipso facto, not reality.
The result of the foregoing, however, is to show that, as
soon as epistemology draws its conclusion, it becomes
metaphysics ; the theory of knowledge passes into a theory
of being. The ontological conclusion, moreover, is not to
be regarded as something added ly an external process ;
it is an immediate implication. The metaphysic is the
epistemology from another point of view — regarded as
completing itself, and explaining in the course of its
exposition that relative or practical separation of the indi
vidual known from the knowable world which it is a sheer
assumption to take as absolute. This, not the so-called
assumption of the implicit unity of being and thought, is
the really unwarrantable postulate ; for it is an assumption
which we are obliged to retract bit by bit, while the other
offers the whole doctrine of knowledge as its voucher.
Logic, ^Esthetics, and Ethics. — If the theory of know
ledge thus takes upon itself the functions discharged of old
by metaphysics, it becomes somewhat difficult to assign a
distinct sphere to logic. It has already been seen how
the theory of knowledge, when it passed out of Kant's
hands, and tried to make itself (a) complete and (6) pre-
suppositionless, became for Hegel a logic that was in reality
a metaphysic. This is the comprehensive sense given to
logical science in the article LOGIC (q.v.) in this work; and
it is there contended that no other definition can be made
consistent with itself. It is, of course, admitted that this
is not the traditional use of the term (see vol. xiv. p. 802).
Ueberweg's definition of logic as "the science of the regu
lative laws of thought" (or "the normative science of
thought ") comes near enough to the old sense to enable us
to compare profitably the usual subject-matter of the
science with the definition and end of philosophy. The
introduction of the term "regulative" or "normative" is
intended to differentiate the science from psychology as the
science of mental events. In this reference logic does not
tell us how our intellections connect themselves as mental
phenomena, but how we ought to connect our thoughts if
they are to realize truth (either as consistency with what
we thought before or as agreement with observed facts).
Logic, therefore, agrees with epistemology (and differs
from psychology) in treating thought not as mental fact
but as knowledge, as idea, as having meaning in relation
to an objective world. To this extent it must inevitably
form a part of the theory of knowledge. But, if we desire
to keep by older landmarks and maintain a distinction
between the two disciplines, a ground for doing so may
be found in the fact that all the main definitions of logic
point to the investigation of the laws of thought in a
subjective reference, — with a view, that is, by an analysis
of the operation, to ensure its more correct performance.
According to the old phrase, logic is the art of thinking.
Moreover, the fact that ordinary logic investigates its laws
primarily in this reference, and not disinterestedly as
immanent laws of knowledge or of the connexion of con
ceptions, brings in its train a limitation of the sphere of
the science as compared with the theory of knowledge.
We find the logician uniformly assuming that the process
of thought has advanced a certain length before his exami
nation of it begins; he takes his material full-formed from
perception, without, as a rule, inquiring into the nature of
the conceptions which are involved in our perceptive ex
perience. Occupying a position, therefore, within the
wider sphere of the general theory of knowledge, ordinary
logic consists in an analysis of the nature of general state
ment, and of the conditions under which we pass validly
from one general statement to another. But the logic of
the schools is eked out by contributions from a variety of
sources (e.g., from grammar on one side and from psychology
on another), and cannot claim the unity of an independent
science.
^ESTHETICS (q.v.) may be treated as a department of psy
chology or physiology, and in England this is the mode of
treatment that has been most general. To what peculiar ex
citation of our bodily or mental organism, it is asked, are
the emotions due which make us declare an object beautiful
or sublime "? And, the question being put in this form,
the attempt has been made in some cases to explain away
any peculiarity in the emotions by analysing them into
simpler elements, such as primitive organic pleasures and
prolonged associations of usefulness or fitness. But, just
as psychology in general can in no sense do duty for a
theory of knowledge, so it holds true of this particular
application of psychology that a mere reference of these
emotions to the mechanism and interactive play of our
faculties cannot be regarded as an account of the nature
of the beautiful. The substitution of the one inquiry for
the other may doubtless be traced in part to the latent
assumption — standing very much in need of proof — that
our faculties are constructed on some arbitrary plan, with
out reference to the general nature of things. Perhaps
by talking of " emotions " we tend to give an unduly sub
jective colour to the investigation ; it would be better to
speak of the perception of the beautiful. Pleasure in itself
is unqualified, and affords no differentia. In the case of
a beautiful object the resultant pleasure borrows its specific
quality from the presence of determinations essentially
intellectual in their nature, though not reducible to the
categories of science. We have a prima facie right, there
fore, to treat beauty as an objective determination of
things. The question of aesthetics would then be formu
lated— What is it in things that makes them beautiful,
and what is the relation of this aspect of the universe to
its ultimate nature, as that is expounded in metaphysics 1
The answer constitutes the substance of aesthetics, con-
796
P H I — P H I
sidered as a branch of. philosophy. But it is not given
simply in abstract terms ; aesthetics includes also an exposi
tion of the concrete phases of art, as these have appeared
in the history of the world, relating themselves to different
stages of the spirit's insight into itself and into things.
Of ETHICS (q.v.) it may also be said that many of the
topics commonly embraced under that title are not strictly
ethical at all, but are subjects for a scientific psychology
employing the historical method with the conceptions of
heredity and development, and calling to its aid, as such a
psychology will do, the investigations of ethnology, and
all its subsidiary sciences. To such a psychology must be
relegated all questions as to the origin and development
of moral ideas. Similarly, the question debated at such
length by English moralists as to the nature of the moral
faculty (moral sense, conscience, &c.) belongs entirely to
psychology. This is more generally admitted in regard to
the controversy concerning the freedom of the will, though
that still forms part of most ethical treatises. If we ex
clude such questions in the interest of systematic correct
ness, and seek to determine for ethics a definite subject-
matter, the science may be said to fall into two departments.
The first of these deals with the notion of duty, as such,
and endeavours to define the ultimate end of action ; the
second lays out the scheme of concrete duties which are
deducible from, or which, at least, are covered by, this
abstractly-stated principle. The second of these depart
ments is really the proper subject-matter of ethics considered
as a separate science ; but it is often conspicuous by its
absence from ethical treatises. However moralists may
differ on first principles, there seems to be remarkably
little practical divergence when they come to lay down the
particular laws of morality. Hence, as it must necessarily
be a thankless task to tabulate the commonplaces of con
duct, the comparative neglect of this part of their subject
is perhaps sufficiently explained. It may be added that,
where a systematic account of duties is actually given, the
connexion of. the particular duties with the universal form
ula is in general more formal than real. It is only under
the head of "casuistry" that ethics has been much cultivated
as a separate science. The first department of ethics, on
the other hand, is the branch of the subject in virtue of
which ethics forms part of philosophy. As described
above, it merges in general metaphysics or ontology, and
ought rather to be called, in Kant's phrase, the meta-
physic of ethics. A theory of obligation is ultimately
found to be inseparable from a metaphysic of personality.
The connexion of ethics with metaphysics will be patent
as a matter of fact, if it be remembered how Plato's
philosophy is summed up in the idea of the good, and
how Aristotle also employs the essentially ethical notion
of end as the ultimate category by which the universe
may be explained or reduced to unity. But the neces
sity of the connexion is also apparent, unless we are to
suppose that, as regards the course of universal nature,
man is altogether an imperium in imperio, or rather (to
adopt the forcible phrase of Marcus Aurelius) an abscess
or excrescence on the nature of things. If, on the con
trary, we must hold that man is essentially related to " a
common nature," as, the same writer puts it, then it is a
legitimate corollary that in man as intelligence we ought
to -find the key of the whole fabric. At all events, this
method of approach must be truer than any which, by
restricting itself to the external aspect of phenomena as
presented in space, leaves no scope for inwardness and life
and all that, in Lotze's language, gives existence " value."
Historically we may be said in an intelligible sense to
explain the higher by showing its genesis from the lower.
But in philosophy it is exactly the reverse ; the lower is
always to be explained by the higher. In the ethical
reference it has been customary to argue, as Sir W.
Hamilton does, from man's moral being to "an Intelligent
Creator and Moral Governor of the Universe." It is evident
that the argument ex analogia hominis may sometimes be
carried too far ; but if a " chief end of man" be discoverable
— ai'$pw7rivov dya66v, as Aristotle wisely insisted that the
ethical end must be determined — then it may be assumed
that this end cannot be irrelevant to that ultimate " mean
ing" of the universe which, according to Lotze, is the
quest of philosophy. If " the idea of humanity," as Kant
called it, has ethical perfection at its core, then a universe
which is organic must be ultimately representable as a
moral order or a spiritual kingdom such as Leibnitz named,
in words borrowed from Augustine, a city of God.
Politics, Sociology, Philosophy of History. — In Aristotle
we can observe how ethics is being differentiated from
politics, but this differentiation does not, and ought not
to, amount to a complete separation. The difficulty, already
hinted at, which individualistic systems of ethics experi
ence in connecting particular duties with the abstract prin
ciple of duty is a proof of the failure of their method.
For the content of morality we are necessarily referred,
in great part, to the experience crystallized in laws and
institutions and to the unwritten law of custom, honour,
and good breeding, which has become organic in the
society of which we are members. The development of
society is therefore brought within the scope of philosophy.
So far as this development is traced in a purely historical
spirit, it will be simply a sequence of efficient causes, in
which, starting with a b c, we eventually arrive at A B C.
But, if this sequence is to be philosophized, it must be
shown that we have no means of knowing what a b c
is except in its relation to A B C, its resultant. We
interpret the process, therefore, as the realization of an
immanent end. The state, as the organism in whose play
morality is realized, becomes an interest of reason ; and
the different forms of state-organization are judged accord
ing to the degree in which they realize the reconciliation
of individual freedom and the play of cultured interests
with stable objectivity of law and an abiding conscious
ness of the greater whole in which we move. So far
as the course of universal history can be truly represented
as an approximation to this reconciliation by a widening
and deepening of both the elements, we may claim to
possess a philosophy of history. (A. SK;)
PHILOSTRATUS, the eminent Greek sophist, was prob
ably born in Lemnos between 170 and 180 A.D. From
his incidental statements respecting himself we learn that
he studied at Athens, and was afterwards attached to the
court of the empress Julia Domna, consort of Severus.
Since he does not speak of her as living, while mentioning
her as his patroness in his Life of Apollonius of Ti/ana, this
work was probably written after her death. From some
passages in it and his Lives of the Sophists, he would seem
to have been in Gaul with Caracalla, and he may probably
have accompanied that emperor on his progress through
his dominions. The only other fixed date we possess for
his life is afforded by his dedication of the Lives of tin'
Sophists to Antonius Gordianus as proconsul. Gordianus
was consul in 230, and his proconsulship must have been
between that year and 234. It seems to be implied that
Philostratus resided in Rome, and, according to Suidas, he
lived until the reign of Philip (244-2-19). His works now
extant are a biography of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of
the Sophists, Heroicon', Imagines, and Epistles.
The Life of Apollonius of Tyana has been partly discussed
under APOLLONIUS. It may be compared to the Cyropxdia
of Xenophon as a romance founded on fact, treating of a
distinguished historical person, not in an historical spirit,
but as an ideal model for imitation. While, however, the
P H I — P H I
797
incidents of Xenophon's romance were mostly his own
invention, Philostratus was indebted for his to the narrative
attributed to Damis, Apollonius's travelling companion ;
and many of the sayings ascribed to Apollonius, such as
his bon-rnots against Domitian and his protest against
gladiatorial combats, are probably authentic. The rest of
the work testifies to the increasing fondness of the age for
the marvellous, which Lucian had vainly endeavoured to
stem in the preceding generation, and to the tendency to
set up semi-mythical sages like Pythagoras as prophets,
at the expense of sober reasoners like Zeno and Epicurus.
Philostratus, however, is careful to disclaim all connexion
of his hero with mere vulgar thaumaturgy. The sorcerer,
he expressly says, is a miserable person. Apollonius is the
sage who foreknows the future not by incantations but by
wisdom and conformity to the will of the gods, — a new
Pythagoras, the prototype, we can now see, of Apuleius,
Plotinus, and the other later Platonists, who, without wholly
discarding philosophical method, coquetted with ecstasy
and revelation. Philosophy, in truth, had become bank
rupt, physical science did not yet exist, and the best minds
of the time were necessarily thrown back on the super
natural. Philostratus gives this tendency of the age a
concrete expression, and there is no reason to conceive
that his work was composed in any spirit of antagonism
to Christianity, Avhose Founder, equally with Apollonius
himself, was venerated by his patron Alexander Severus.
Though a mass of fiction, it is still very valuable as de
lineating the ideal of the philosophic character as recog
nized in the 3d century. It is full of errors in geography
and chronology, but possesses great literary merit, being-
varied, entertaining, animated, and lively and accurate in
its pictures of character. Sojrfiisticse certe artis egregium
dedit in hoc libro specimen, says Kayser. The distinction
between a philosopher and a sophist is clearly laid down
by Philostratus himself in his next important work, the
Lives of the Sophists. The philosopher investigates truth
independently ; the sophist embellishes the truth, which
he takes for granted. The distinction is much the same
as that between the theologian and the preacher, or the
jurist and the advocate. Philostratus, though by no means
attempting detailed biography after the fashion of Diogenes
Laertius, has given us interesting sketches of a number of
distinguished ornaments of the sophistical profession, mostly
his immediate predecessors or contemporaries. He thus
affords a lively picture of the intellectual standard of an
age full of curiosity and intelligence, but unable to make
progress in knowledge for want of a scientific method or a
scientific spirit, living on old literary models which it was
unable to emulate or vary, and hence compelled to prefer
show to substance, and manner to matter. The Heroicon
is a good specimen of the popular literature of the day.
It may have arisen out of Oaracalla's visit to Ilion, and
the games celebrated by him in honour of Achilles. The
subject is the injustice of Homer to Palamedes, which is
expounded to a Phoenician merchant by a Thracian vine
dresser on the authority of the latter's tutelary daemon,
the hero Protesilaus. It was probably a common theme
of declamation in the schools, to which Philostratus has
contributed an elegant and graceful setting. The Imagines,
after the life of Apollonius the most entertaining of Philo-
stratus's writings, is perhaps the most valuable of any
from the light it throws on ancient art. The writer is
introduced as living in a villa near Naples, which contains
a collection of choice paintings. To please the son of his
host and his young companions he undertakes to describe
and explain the pictures, which are sixty-four in all, includ
ing mythological, historical, allegorical, and landscape sub
jects. The descriptions are exceedingly good, and reveal
the skilful word -painter no less than the accomplished
connoisseur of art. As pointed out by M. Bougot, they
either actually are or are intended to be taken for impro
visations, which explains some irregularities in the style.
It has been much disputed whether they are genuine de
scriptions of actually existing works of art. The affirmative
has been maintained by Goethe and Welcker, the negative
by Heyne. In our days the controversy has been revived
by two eminent German archaeologists, Friederichs and
Brunn, the former impugning, the latter maintaining the
actual existence of the pictures. Their arguments are
reviewed in a recent and valuable work by E. Bertrand,
who sides with Brunn, as also does Helbig. Perhaps the
point is not of such extreme moment, for, if Philostratus
had not actual pictures in his mind, he must nevertheless
have described such as his hearers or readers were in the
habit of seeing. The traces of improvisation, however,
pointed out by M. Bougot afford a strong argument that
he was lecturing upon a visible collection, and in any case
his work is a most valuable guide to the manner in which
heroic figures were delineated in ancient paintings, to the
general grouping and arrangement of such works, and to
the qualities which they were expected to possess. Philo-
stratus's Epistles are entirely artificial, and mostly amatory.
The style is good, and the originals of some pretty conceits
appropriated by modern poets may be found in them.1
The first complete edition of the works of Philostratus was pub
lished by F. Morel, Paris, 1608. It is not much esteemed. That
by Olearius (Leipsic, 1709) is much better; but the chief restorer
of the text is C. F. Kayser, who, after having edited most of the
writings of Philostratus, separately published a collective edition
at Zurich in 1844, reissued in 1853, and again at Leipsic in 1870-71.
There is a very good edition, with a Latin translation, by Wester-
mauu (Paris, 1849) ; this also contains Eunapius's Lives of the
Sophists and the declamations of Ilimerius. The first two books of
the Life of Apollonius were translated into English by the cele
brated and unfortunate Charles Blount in 1680 ; but the unortho
dox nature of the commentary, attributed in part to Lord Herbert
of Cherbury, occasioned the work to be prohibited, and it was
not continued. A complete translation by E. Berwick, an Irish
clergyman, was published in 1809. A French translation by
Chassang (Le Merveillcux dans V Antiquite, Paris, 1862) contains
some valuable notes. The most important works on the Imagines
are : Friederichs, Die Philostratischen Bilder, 1860 ; Brunn, He
PJdlostratisclicn Gcmaldc, 1861 ; A. Bougot, Unc galcrie antique,
1881; and E. Bertrand, Un critique d 'art dans Vantiquite : Philo-
strate et son ecole, 1882. (R. G.)
PHILOXENUS, one of the last of the dithyrambic
poets of Greece, was born in 435 B.C., in the island of
Cythera. When the island was conquered by the Athe
nians in 424 Philoxenus was sold as a slave to Agesylas,
who gave him the name of Myrmex ("ant"). On the
death of Agesylas he Avas bought by the dithyrambic poet
Melanippides, who educated him, no doubt in his own pro
fession. Philoxenus afterwards resided in Sicily, at the
court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, whose bad verses
he declined to praise, and was in consequence sent to work
in the quarries. Being fetched back again and asked by
the tyrant how he liked his verses now, the poet made no
reply but "Take me away to the quarries." He is said
to have quitted Sicily in disgust at the luxury and vulgarity
of the people, abandoning an estate which he owned in the
island. From Sicily he seems to have gone to Tarentum,
and thence perhaps to Corinth. He visited Colophon
in Asia Minor and died at Ephesus in 380. According
to Suidas, Philoxenus composed twenty -four dithyrambs
and a lyric poem on the genealogy of the vEacidas. In
his hands the dithyramb seems to have been a burlesque
drama in verse, which was acted and sung to the accom
paniment of elaborate instrumental music and enlivened
1 A younger Philostratus, also called the Lemnian, is several times
mentioned by the elder as a contemporary sophist. He speaks of him
as a friend, but does not say that he was a kinsman. Another and
much inferior collection of Imagines is extant under the name of this
writer, who claims relationship with the elder Philostratus. It is
probably a supposititious work.
798
P H L — P H O
with the dance, — in short, it was a sort of comic opera.
The music, which Philoxeniis himself composed, appears
to have been of a debased, Offenbachian character. His
masterpiece was the Cyclops or Galatea, a pastoral bur
lesque on the love of the Cyclops for the fair Galatea.
Its general style may probably be gathered from the sixth
idyl of Theocritus. The work must have been well known
before 3S8, for it was parodied by Aristophanes in his
play the Plutus, performed in that year. Another work of
Philoxenus, sometimes attributed to a notorious parasite
and glutton of the same name, is the ACITTVOV (Dinner),
of which considerable fragments have been preserved by
Athenieus. This poem, of which the text is very obscure
and corrupt, is little more than an elaborate bill of fare
put into verse, and, as such, possesses more interest for
cooks than scholars. In the time of Aristotle it was the
one book read by the Athenian quidnuncs. The great
popularity enjoyed by Philoxenus is attested not only by
the allusions to him in the comic poets of his day but
also by a complimentary resolution passed by the Athenian
senate in 393 on the motion of the dithyrambic poet
Cinesias. The intention of the decree was doubtless
mainly political — to propitiate Dionysius — but the poet
was included in it. Nor was his popularity transient :
the poet Antiphanes of the Middle Comedy spoke of
Philoxenus as a god among men ; Alexander the Great had
his poems sent to him in Asia along with the tragedies
of yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides ; the Alexandrian
grammarians received him into the canon ; and down to
the time of Polybius his works were regularly learned and
annually acted by the Arcadian youth. The scanty frag
ments of his works are to be found in Bergk's Poetx Lyrici
Gr&ci, vol. iii.
PHLEGON, of Tralles in Asia Minor, a Greek writer
of the 2d century, was a freedman of the emperor Hadrian.
His chief work was the Olympiads (clr^nicles, or col
lection of Olympic victories and chronicles), a universal
history in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th
Olympiad (776 B.C. to 137 A.D.). If we may judge from
the sample preserved by Photius, the work contained lists
of the victors in the Olympic games together with a bare
and disjointed summary of the chief historical events ; it
is probable, however, that Photius quoted from an epitome
in eight books which we know to have existed, and which,
together with another epitome in two books, is ascribed
by Suidas to Phlegon himself. Portions of another work
of Phlegon, On Marvels, along with parts of another On
Long-lived Persons, and the opening part of his Olympiads,
are extant in a Heidelberg MS. of the 10th century.
The b.jok On Marvels contains some ridiculous stories about
ghosts, prophecies, and monstrous births. The work On Long-lived
Persons includes a list, extracted by Phlegon from the Roman
censuses, of persons who had lived a hundred years and upwards. He
mentions two men aged 136 years each, one of whom he professes
to have seen. Oilier works ascribed to Phlegon by Suidas arc a
description of Sicily, a work on the Roman festivals in three books,
and a topography of Rome. ./Elius Spartianus tells us that a life
of Hadrian was published in Phlegon's name, but that it was
written by the emperor himself. A work on Women Wine and
Iti-ave in War has sometimes been wrongly attributed to Phlegon.
From his remains Phlegon is seen to have been credulous and
superstitious to absurdity, but his literary style deserves the re
mark of Photius that, without being pure Attic, it is not very bad.
The complaint of Photius, that Phlegon wearied his readers by the
numerous oracles which he dragged in, is fully borne out by the
remains of his works. These remains are collected by Westermann
in his Scriptores rerum mirabilium Greed (1839) and by Miiller in
his Fragment/I Historicorum Grsecorum, vol. iii.
PHLOX, a considerable genus of Polemoniacese, chiefly
consisting of North-American perennial plants, with entire,
usually opposite, leaves and showy flowers generally in
terminal clusters. Each flower has a tubular calyx with
five lobes, and a salver-shaped corolla with a long slender
tube and a flat limb. The five stamens are given off from
the tube of the corolla at different heights and do not pro
trude beyond it. The ovary is three-celled with one to two
ovules in each cell ; it ripens into a three- valved capsule.
.Many of the species are cultivated for the beauty of their
flowers; and the forms obtained by cross-breeding and
selection are innumerable. The garden varieties fall under
three groups, — the annuals, including the lovely P. Drum-
jnoiufi. from Texas and its many forms ; the perennials,
including a dwarf section of alpine plants (forms of P.
subulata), suitable, by reason of their prostrate habit arid
neat mode of growth, for the rockery ; and the taller-
growing decussate phloxes which contribute so much to
the beauty of gardens in late summer, and which have
probably originated from J\ jmniculata. The range of
colour in all the groups is from white to rose and lilac.
PHOC^EA, in ancient geography, was one of the cities
of Ionia, on the western coast of Asia Minor. It was the
most northern of the Ionian cities, and was situated on
the coast of the peninsula that separates the Gulf of
Cyme, which was occupied by ^Eolian settlers, from the
Henmean Gulf, on which stood Smyrna and Clazomena?.1
Its advantageous position between two good harbours,
called Naustathmus and Lampter, is pointed out by Livy
(xxxvii. 31), and was probably the cause which led the
inhabitants to devote themselves from an early period to
maritime pursuits. We are expressly told by Herodotus
that the Phocaeans were the first of all the Greeks who
undertook distant voyages and made known to their
countrymen the coasts of the Adriatic, as well as those of
Tyrrhenia and Spain. In the latter country they estab
lished friendly relations with Arganthonius, king of
Tartessus, who even invited them to emigrate in a body
to settle in his dominions, and, on their declining this
offer, presented them with a large sum of money. This
they employed in constructing a strong wall of fortifi
cation around their city, a defence which stood them in
good stead when the Ionian cities were attacked by Cyrus
in 546. On that occasion they refused to submit when
besieged by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus ; but, mis
trusting their power of ultimate resistance, they determined
to abandon their city, and, embarking their wives and
children and most valuable effects, to seek a new home in
the western regions, where they had already founded several
flourishing colonies, among others those of Alalia in
Corsica and the important city of Massilia in the south
of Gaul. A large part of the emigrants, however, relented,
and, after having proceeded only as far as Chios, returned
to Phocsea, where they submitted to the Persian yoke.
The rest, however, having bound themselves by a solemn
oath never to return, proceeded to Corsica, where they
settled for a time ; but, being afterwards expelled from
the island, they founded the colony of Velia or Elea in
southern Italy.
Phocaea continued to exist under the Persian government, but
greatly reduced in population and commerce, so that, although it
joined in the revolt of the lonians against Persia in 500, it was
only able to send three ships to the combined fleet that fought at
Lade. Nor did it ever again assume a prominent part among the
Ionian cities, and it is rarely mentioned in Greek history. IJiit at
a later period it was sufficiently powerful to oppose a vigorous
resistance to the Roman pni'tor yEmilius during the war against
Antiochus in 191. On that occasion the town was taken and
plundered, but it continued to survive, and we learn from its coins
that it was a place of some importance throughout the Roman
empire. The ruins still visible on the site bear the name of Palea
Foggia, but they are of little interest. A small town in the im
mediate neighbourhood, known as Nova Foggia, appears to date
only from Byzantine times.
1 It was said to have been founded by a band of emigrants from
Phocis, under the guidance of two Athenian leaders, named Philogenes
and Damon, but it joined the Ionian confederacy by accepting the
government of Athenian rulers of the house of Codrus.
P H O — P H O
799
PHOCAS, emperor of the East from 602 to 610, was a
Cappadocian of humble origin, and was still but a cen
turion when chosen by the army of the Danube to lead it
against Constantinople. A revolt within the city soon
afterwards resulted in the abdication of the reigning em
peror MAURICE ('/.#.) and in the speedy elevation of Phocas
to the vacant throne (23d November 602). The secret of
his popularity is hard to discover, but perhaps it is to be
sought in the sheer recklessness of his audacity ; courage
is nowhere imputed to him, and he is known to have been
ignorant, brutal, and deformed. " Without assuming the
office of a prince he renounced the profession of a soldier ;
and the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious
peace, and Asia with desolating war." By the representa
tions of Theodosius, Maurice's supposed son, and of Narses,
the Byzantine commander-in-chief on the Persian frontier,
Chosrocs (Khosrau) II. was induced to take up arms
against the emperor in 604 (see PERSIA, above, p. 614).
The failures of the generals of Phocas could not but tend
to weaken his always insecure tenure of the imperial crown,
and the appearance of the Persian armies as far west as
Chalcedon in 609-610 made his deposition by HERACLIUS
('/.''.) an easy task. He was beheaded by his successful
rival on 4th October 610.
PHOCION, an Athenian statesman, whose private
virtues Avon him the surname of " the Good," but whose
mistaken policy fatally contributed to the downfall of
Athens, was born about 402 B.C. His father, Phocus, was
a pestlemaker, but would seem to have been a man of
means, for Phocion in his youth was a pupil of Plato. If
Plutarch is right in saying that he afterwards studied
under Xenocrates, this implies that he kept up his philo
sophical studies in later life, for Xenocrates was his junior
and did not succeed to the headship of the Academy until
339. As men of kindred character, they may well have
been friends ; we find them on one occasion serving on
the same embassy. It was perhaps from the Academic
philosophy that Phocion learned that contempt for luxury
and that truly Socratic simplicity and hardiness which
characterized him throughout life. From Plato too he
may have caught that scorn for the Athenians of his day
which he often betrayed — a scorn harmless, perhaps, in the
study, but fatal in the council and the camp. His words,
though few, were pithy and forcible, his wit keen and
caustic. Many of his trenchant sayings have been pre
served by Plutarch. He was the only orator whom
Demosthenes feared; when Phocion rose to speak Demo
sthenes used to whisper to his friends, " Here comes the
chopper of my speeches." Gruff in manner, he was kind
at heart, ever ready to raise the fallen and succour those
in peril, even when they were his enemies. Being once
reproached for pleading the cause of a bad man, he replied
that the good had no need of help. When other generals
were sent by Athens to the allies, the people closed their
gates against them and prepared for a siege, but if it was
Phocion they went out to meet him and conducted him in
joyful procession into their midst. In his youth he saw
service under the distinguished general Chabrias, whose
temper, by turns sluggish and impetuous, he alternately
stimulated and repressed. He thus won the regard of his
good-natured commander, and was introduced by him to
public notice and employed on important services. When
Chabrias defeated the Spartans in the sea-fight off Naxos
(September 376) Phocion commanded with distinction the
left wing of the Athenian fleet. After the death of
Chabrias (357) Phocion cared for the relatives of his
patron, patiently endeavouring to train to virtue his wild
and wayward son. A consistent advocate of peace, he was
yet a good officer, and held the annual office of general no
less than forty-five times, though he never sought election.
He was amongst the last of the Athenian leaders who
combined the characters of statesman and soldier. In
351 Phocion and Evagoras, lord of the Cyprian Salamis,
were sent by Idrieus, prince of Caria, with a military and
naval force to put down a revolt which had broken out
against the Persians in Cyprus. The task was successfully
accomplished. Next year1 Phocion commanded a force
which the Athenians sent to Eubcea in support of the
tyrant Plutarch of Eretria. For a time the Athenians
were in a dangerous position, but Phocion extricated him
self and defeated the enemy on the heights above Tamynas.
After the battle he humanely dismissed all his Greek
prisoners, fearing the vengeance which the Athenians too
often wreaked on their fallen foes. In 341 he returned
to the island and put down Clitarchus, whom Philip, king
of Macedonia, had set up as tyrant of Eretria. Demo
sthenes had long warned the Athenians against Philip, but
there is nothing to show that in this he was backed by
Phocion. On the contrary, from the opposition which he
so often offered to Demosthenes, as well as from his subse
quent policy, we may infer that Phocion discredited rather
than corroborated the warnings of his contemporary. But,
when Philip laid siege to Byzantium, the Athenians, at
last thoroughly aroused to their danger, sent Chares with
an expedition to relieve it. He failed to do so, and
Phocion took his place (340). The Byzantines had refused
to admit Chares into their city, but they welcomed
Phocion. Athenians and Byzantines fought side by side,
and Philip was compelled to raise the siege and retire from
the Hellespont. Phocion afterwards retaliated on the
king's territory by raids, in one of which he was wounded.
When the Megarians appealed to Athens for help,2 Phocion
promptly marched to their aid, fortified the port Nisaea,
and connected it with the capital by two long walls, thus
securing Megara and its port against attacks by land.3 In
spite of the successful issue of his expedition to Byzantium
Phocion advised the Athenians to make peace with Philip.
But the war party led by Demosthenes prevailed, and the
battle of Chaeronea (August 338), in which Philip over
threw the united armies of Athens and Thebes, converted
Greece into a province of Macedonia. This brought Phocion
and the peace party into power, but Phocion consulted
the dignity of Athens so far as to advise the people not
to take part in the congress of the Greek states summoned
by Philip to meet at Corinth until they knew what terms
Philip meant to propose. The Athenians soon had reason
to regret that they did not follow this advice. WTiien the
1 Diodorus (xvi. 46) speaks of Phocion as still in Cyprus in 350.
But this can hardly be true if Phocion led the expedition to Eubcea
in Anthesterion (end of February and beginning of March) 350. See
next note.
2 The dates and even the order of the events from the Cyprian down
to the Megarian expedition are variously given by modern writers.
The order in the text is that of Plutarch and Diodorus. The dates
assigned to the Cyprian, second Eubcean, and Megarian expeditions are
those of Diodorus. The first expedition to Eubcea (as to the date of
which see Clinton's Fasti llellenici, vol. ii. ) and that to Megara are
not mentioned by Diodorus. Plutarch mentions the Megarian after
the Byzantine expedition. But the siege of Byzantium was not
raised till the earlier half of 339, and Pliocion afterwards spent some
time in Macedonian waters. Thus he could hardly have been at
Megara before midsummer 339. But Elatea was seized by Philip
in the winter of 339/338, and its seizure was the occasion of a league
between Athens and Thebes. Hence, as the motive assigned for the
Megarian expedition was distrust of Thebes, that expedition cannot
have taken place after the seizure of Elatea. But the six months
between midsummer and winter 339 would hardly suffice for the con
struction of the Long Walls. Perhaps, then, Plutarch has misplaced
the expedition to Megara, and it ought to be dated earlier. Thirlwall
assigns it to 343.
3 The Athenians had rendered the same service to the Megarians
nipre than a century before, but these first Long Walls had been
destroyed by the Megariaus themselves in the Peloponuesian War
(424).
800
P H O C I O N
news of Philip's assassination readied Athens (336) Phocion
vainly dissuaded the people from publicly expressing what
he termed a dastardly joy.
After the revolt of Thebes and its destruction by Philip's
son and successor Alexander the Great, Athens, having
been implicated in the movement, was called on by Alex
ander to surrender the orators of the anti-Macedonian
party, including Demosthenes (335). Phocion advised
the men to give themselves up, but nevertheless by his
intercession he induced the conqueror to relent.1 Alex
ander conceived a high opinion of Phocion, and ever after
wards treated him with marked respect. He would have
loaded him with presents, but Phocion steadily declined
them, the only favour he asked being the release of some
prisoners. When Harpalus, a Macedonian officer who had
betrayed the confidence reposed in him by Alexander, fled
for refuge to Athens, Phocion, though he contemptuously
refused the bribes which Harpalus offered him, neverthe
less resisted the proposal to surrender the fugitive (324) ;
and, after the death of Harpalus, Phocion and his son-
in-law cared for his infant daughter. The wild joy which
the death of Alexander (323) roused at Athens was not
shared by Phocion, and he had nothing better than scorn
for that heroic effort to shake off the Macedonian yoke
known as the Lamian War (323-322). When the news
of Leosthenes's victory over Antipater, the regent of
Macedonia, was greeted at Athens with enthusiasm (323),
Phocion sneeringly asked, " When shall we have done con
quering 1 " Still, when a body of Macedonian and mer
cenary troops under Micion landed in Attica and ravaged
the country, Phocion led out a force and defeated them
with loss. After the battle of Crannon (322) Phocion's
personal influence induced the victorious Antipater to
spare Attica the misery of invasion, but he could not pre
vent the occupation of Munychia (one of the ports of
Athens) by a Macedonian garrison. However, Menyllus,
the commander of the garrison, was a friend of Phocion
and respected the feelings of the Athenians. Further, the
Athenians were required by Antipater to surrender the
chief members of the anti- Macedonian party, amongst
them Demosthenes and Hyperides, and to restrict their
franchise by a property qualification. In consequence
Hyperides was executed, Demosthenes died by his own
hand, and over 12,000 citizens lost the franchise, many
of them going into exile. These disfranchised citizens
had afterwards an important influence on Phocion's fate.
For some years Athens dwelt in peace, if not in honour,
under the shadow of Macedonia. Phocion had the direction
of affairs and filled the magistracies with respectable men.
By his intercession with Antipater he procured for many
of the exiles a repeal or mitigation of their sentence, but
he declined to petition Antipater to withdraw the garrison
from Munychia. The presents offered him by Antipater
and Menyllus he refused. In 318 Antipater died, leaving
as his successor in the regency of Macedonia the veteran
general Polysperchon, instead of his own son Cassander.
The new regent, finding himself isolated and wishing to
strengthen himself against his enemies, tried to attach the
Greeks to his cause by proclaiming in the name of the
young king Philip Arrhidaeus that the oligarchies estab
lished by Antipater in the Greek cities should be abolished
and the democracies restored, and that all exiles, with a
few exceptions, should be allowed to return. A special
letter to Athens in the king's name announced the restora
tion of the democracy. But Cassander was not to be
set aside lightly ; he was naturally supported by all who
1 So Plutarch, Phoaion, c. 17. But Diodorus (xvii. 15) and Plutarch
himself elsewhere (Deniosth., c. 23) ascribe to Demades the credit of
having mollified Alexander. Phocion's name is not mentioned in this
connexion by Arrian (Anal., i. 10) nor by Justin (xi. 4).
had benefited by his father's measures, i.e., by the oligar
chical and Macedonian party in the Greek states. Before
the news of the death of Antipater got abroad Cassander
sent Nicanor, an adherent of his own, to relieve Menyllus
of the command in Munychia. Menyllus unsuspectingly
resigned the command to him, and Nicanor held the place
for Cassander. When, a few days later, the death of Anti
pater became known, there were angry murmurs at Athens
that Phocion had been a party to the deception. Phocion
heeded them not, but, following his usual policy, pro
pitiated Xicanor in favour of Athens. But the people
were excited by the promises of Polysperchon -} Phocion
could no longer hold them in. In a public assembly at
which Nicanor was present an attempt was made to seize
the obnoxious Macedonian, but he escaped. AVarnings
now poured in on Phocion to beware of him, but he
confided in Nicanor's good intentions and would take no
precaution. So Nicanor was enabled to seize and intrench
himself in Piraeus, the chief port of Athens. The irritation
against Phocion was intense. An attempt to treat writh
Nicanor failed ; he simply referred the envoys, of whom
Phocion was one, to Cassander. The arrival in Attica of
Alexander, son of Polysperchon, revived the hopes of the
Athenians. He came at the head of an army and brought
in his train a crowd of the exiles, and it was thought
that, along with the constitution, he would restore Muny
chia and Piraeus to Athens. Far from doing so, it soon
appeared that his intention was to seize and hold these
ports for Polysperchon, and rumour said that to this step
he was instigated by Phocion. The people were furious.
In a public assembly they deposed the existing magis
trates, filled their places with the most pronounced demo
crats, and sentenced all who had held office under the
oligarchy to exile or death. Among these wTas Phocion.
With some of his companions in misfortune he fled to
Alexander, who received the fugitives courteously and sent
them to Polysperchon and the king, who were with an
army in Phocis. Thither, too, came an embassy from
Athens to accuse Phocion and his fellows before the king
and to demand the promised independence. Polysperchon
resolved to propitiate the Athenians with blood ; so, after
an audience disgraceful to all who took part in it except
to Phocion, the refugees were packed in carts and sent to
Athens to be tried by what Polysperchon called the now
free people. A savage mob filled the theatre where the
trial was to take place; the returned exiles mustered
in force, and with them were women, aliens, and slaves.
The prisoners were charged with having betrayed their
country in the Lamian War and overturned the demo
cracy. Every attempt Phocion made to defend himself
was drowned in a storm of hooting. At last, renouncing
the attempt, he was heard to say that for himself he
pleaded guilty, but the rest were innocent. " Why," he
asked, "will you kill them?" He was answered with a
great shout, "Because they are your friends." Then
Phocion wras silent. All were condemned to die, the multi
tude rising to their feet like one man to give the verdict.
A howling rabble followed them with curses to the prison.
Phocion was the last to die (317), for he allowed his best
friend Nicocles, as a last token of regard, to die before
him. His old disdainful wit did not desert him. When
his turn came there was not poison enough left, and he
had to pay for more, remarking that at Athens a man could
not even die for nothing. His body was cast out of Attic
territory, but his faithful wife 2 secretly brought back his
bones and interred them by the hearth. Afterward^ the
2 The story that this service was rendered by a Megarian woman
rests on a false reading in Plutarch, Phoc., c. 37, T&fyapiKri before
ywrf being the interpolation of an ignorant copyist who mistook the
preceding T??S ~Mfya.pi.Krjs.
P H 0 — P H (E
801
g vol.
X plate
I
repentant Athenians buried them with public honours and
raised a bronze statue to his memory.
The chief authorities for the life of Phocion are Diodorus (xvi.
42, 46, 74, xvii. 15, xviii. 18, 64-67) and the biographies of
Plutarch and Nepos. (J. G. FR. )
PHOCIS was in ancient times the name of a district of
central Greece, between Boeotia on the east and the land
of the Ozolian Locrians on the west. It adjoined the Gulf
of Corinth on the south, while it was separated on the
north from the Malian gulf by the ridge of Mount Cnemis
and the narrow strip of territory occupied by the Epi-
cnemidian and Opuntian Locrians. In early times, indeed,
a slip of Phocian territory extended between these two
Locrian tribes to the sea, and the port of Daphnus, opposite
to the Cenaean promontory in Euboea, afforded the Phocians
an opening in this direction ; but in the time of Strabo
Daphnus had ceased to exist, and its territory was incor
porated with Locris (Strabo, ix. 3, § 1).
Phocis was for the most part a rugged and mountainous
country. In the centre of it rose the great mountain mass
of Parnassus, one of the most lofty in Greece, attaining to
the height of 8068 feet, and an underfall of this, Mount
Cirphis (4130 feet), sweeps round to the Gulf of Corinth
on the south, separating the Gulf of Crissa from that of
Anticyra, both of which were included in the Phocian
territory. The range of Mount Cnemis on its northern
frontier was of less elevation (about 3000 feet), but rugged
and difficult of access, while the upper valley or plain of the
Cephissus, which intervened between this and the northern
slopes of Mount Parnassus, constituted the only consider
able tract of fertile and level country comprised within
the limits of Phocis. The little basin adjoining the Crisssean
gulf, though fertile, was of very limited extent, and the
broad valley leading into the interior from thence to
Amphissa (now Salona) belonged to the Ozolian Locrians.
Besides the Cephissus, the only river in Phocis was the
Pleistus, a mere torrent, which rose in Mount Parnassus,
and, after flowing past Delphi, descended through a deep
ravine to the Crissaean gulf.
Phocis possessed great importance in a military point
of view, not only from its central position with regard to
the other states of northern Greece and its possession of
the great sanctuary of Delphi, but from its command of
the pass which led from the Malian gulf across Mount
Cnemis to Elatea in the valley of the Cephissus, and
afforded the only access for an invader who had already
passed Thermopylae into Bceotia and Attica. Hence the
alarm of the Athenians in 339 when it was suddenly
announced that Philip had occupied Elatea. Again, the
only practicable communication from Boeotia with Delphi
and the western Locrians lay through a narrow pass known
as the Schiste Hodos, between Mount Cirphis and the
underfalls of Mount Helicon. From this point another
deep valley branches off to the Gulf of Anticyra, and the
Triodos or junction of the three ways was the spot cele
brated in Greek story as the place where CEdipus met and
slew his father.
The most important city in Phocis after Delphi was
Elatea, the position of which has already been described ;
next to this came Abre, also in the valley of the Cephissus,
near the Boeotian frontier, celebrated for its oracle of
Apollo. In the same neighbourhood stood Daulis and
Arnbrysus ; while farther south, towards the Corinthian
gulf, lay Anticyra, on the gulf of the same name. Crissa,
which had been in early times one of the chief cities of
Phocis, and had given name to the Crissaean gulf, was de
stroyed by order of the Amphictyonic council in 591, and
never rebuilt. The other towns of Phocis were places of
no importance, and their names scarcely appear in history.
The whole extent of Phocis did not exceed half that of Boeotia,
hut it was broken up into a number of small townships — twenty-
two in all — forming a confederacy, the deputies of which used to
meet in a "synedrion " or council-chamber near Daulis. But from an
early period the predominance of Delphi, owing to the influence of
its celebrated oracle, threw all the others into the shade. At first
(as has been already stated in the article DELPHI) the Phocians
were masters of the oracle, and of the town that had grown up on
its site ; but after the first Sacred War in 595 B.C., and the destruc
tion of Crissa, Delphi became an independent city, and from this
period a strong feeling of hostility subsisted between the Delphians
and the Phocians. The latter, however, thus deprived of their
chief city, sank into a position of insignificance, and played but an
unimportant part in the affairs of Greece. During the Persian War
of 480 their territory was ravaged by the invader, and several of
their small cities destroyed. In the Peloponnesian War they were
zealous allies of the Athenians, and for a short time recovered
possession of Delphi, which was, however, soon after wrested from
them ; and it maintained its independence from the peace of Nicias
in 421 till the outbreak of the Sacred War in 357. On this occa
sion the Phocians, who had been sentenced by the Amphictyons
to the payment of a heavy fine, rose in arms against the decree,
which they attributed to the hostile influence of the Thebans, and,
under the command of Philomelus, made themselves masters of
Delphi, and seized on the sacred treasures of the temple. With
the assistance of these resources they were able to maintain the
contest, under the command of Onomarchus, Phayllus, and Phalsecus,
for a period of ten years, not only against the Thebans and their
allies but even after the accession of Philip, king of Macedonia,
to the side of their adversaries. This was the only occasion on
which the Phocians bore a prominent part in Greek history. After
their final defeat by Philip a decree was passed by the Amphictyons,
in 346, that all the Phocian towns except Abse should be de
stroyed, and the inhabitants dispersed in villages. Notwithstand
ing the ruin thus brought upon their country, many of their towns
seem to have been subsequently rebuilt, and the Phocians were able
to take part with the Athenians in the final struggle for Greek inde
pendence at Chreronea, and in the Samian War. Their last appear
ance in history was in defence of Delphi against the attack of the
Gauls in 279 ; but they still continued to subsist as a separate
though obscure people in the days of Strabo.
Of the origin of the Phocians as a people we have no information.
The earliest traditions connect them with the pre-Hellenic Leleges,
as was the case also with the Locrians, and this statement was
probably intended to convey the fact that the two nations were
tribes of the same race. They first appear under the name of
Phocians in the Homeric catalogue as having joined the Greek
armament against Troy under the command of the two sons of
Iphitus (Iliad, ii. 517), and were restored amongst the ^Eolic
division of the northern Greeks.
For the ancient geography of Phocis, see Strabo (ix. 3) and
Pausanias (x. ). The country and the existing remains of anti
quity are described by Dodwell (vol. i. chaps. 6 and 7) and Leake
(Northern Greece, vol. ii. ).
PHCEBUS (<£ot/3os, the bright or pure), a common
epithet of APOLLO (q.v.). Artemis in like manner is called
Phcebe, and in the Latin poets and their modern followers
"Phoebus" and "Phoebe" are often used simply for the sun
and the moon respectively.
PHOENICIA (Gr. 3>oivi/c?7) forms part of the seaboard
of SYRIA (q.v.\ extending along the Mediterranean (some
times called the Phoenician Sea) from the mouth of the
Eleutherus in the north to Mount Carmel in the south, a
distance of rather more than two degrees of latitude. In
early times Phoenicians were settled beyond this district,
but for the Persian period Dor may be taken approximately
as the limit towards the south. In the north a strip of
country on the other side of the Eleutherus (Xahr al-Kebir)
was frequently reckoned to Phoenicia. Formed partly by
alluvium carried down by perennial streams from the
mountains to the east, and fringed by great sand-dunes,
thrown up by the sea, Phoenicia is covered by a very fertile
vegetable soil. It is only at Eleutherus in the north, and
near Acre (Akka) in the south, that this strip of coastland
widens out into plains of any extent ; a smaller plain is
found at Beirut (Beyrout). For the most part the moun
tains approach within not many miles of the coast, or even
close to it, leaving only a narrow belt of lowland, which
from remote antiquity has been traversed by a caravan-
route. To the south of Tyre the cliffs sometimes advance
so close to the sea that a passage for the road had to be
hewn out of the rocks, as at Scala Tyriorum (Ras an-
XVIII. — 10 1
802
PHOENICIA
Xakura), and farther north at Promontorium Album (Ras
al-Abyad). It is not known how far inland the Phoenician
territory extended ; the limit was probably different at
different times. Both the maritime district, partly under
artificial irrigation, and the terraces, laid out with great
care on the mountain-sides, were in antiquity in a high
state of cultivation; and the country — more especially that
portion which lies north of the Kasimlye (Litani) along
the flanks of Lebanon — still presents some of the richest
and most beautiful landscapes in the world, in this respect
far excelling the Italian Riviera. The lines of the lime
stone mountains, running for the most part parallel to the
sea, are pierced by deep river- valleys ; those that debouch
to the south of the Kasimiye have already been mentioned
in the article PALESTIXE ; the most important of those to
the north are the Xahr Zaherani, Al-Auwali, Damur (Tamy-
ras), Nahr Beirut, Nahr al-Kelb (Lycus), Nahr Ibrahim
(Adonis), Nahr Abu Ali (Kaddisha). The mountains are
not rich in mineral products ; but it may be mentioned
that the geologist Fraas has recently discovered indubitable
traces of amber -digging on the Phoenician coast. The
purple-shell (Murex trunculus and brandaris) is still found
in large quantities. The harbours on the Phoenician coast
which played so important a part in antiquity are nearly
all silted up, and, with the exception of that of Beirut,
there is no safe port for the large vessels of modern times.
A few bays, open towards the north, break the practically
straight coast-line ; and there are a certain nuir.b.r of small
islands off the shore. It was, in the main, such points as
these that the Phoenicians chose for their towns ; since, while
affording facilities for shipping, they also enabled the Phoeni
cians to protect themselves from attacks from the mainland,
which was subject to them within but narrow limits.
Race. — The ethnographic relations of the Phoenicians
have been the subject of much debate. As in Gen. x.,
Sidon, the firstborn of Canaan, is classed with the Hamites,
many investigators are still of opinion that, in spite of their
purely Semitic language, the Phoenicians were a distinct
race from the Hebrews. They attach great weight to the
peculiarities that mark the course of Phoenician civiliza
tion, and, above all, to their political organization and
colonizing habits, which find no analogies among the
Semites. In favour of the opposite and more probable
view, that the Phoenicians, like the Canaanites, are an
early offshoot from the Semitic stock, it may be urged (1)
that the account in Gen. x. is not framed on strict ethno
graphic lines, and (2) that the absence from Phoenicia of
all trace of an original non-Semitic form of speech cannot
be reconciled with the theory of an exchange of language.
The close connexion which existed from an early period
between the Phoenicians and the Egyptians accounts for
many coincidences in the matter of religion. Phoenician
civilization, being on the whole of but little originality,
may have been that of a Semitic people, who, from their
situation on the narrow strip of country at the east end
of the Mediterranean, were naturally addicted to trade and
colonization.
Language. — Inscriptions, coins, topographical names pre
served by classical writers, proper names of persons, and the
Punic passages in the Pvenulw of Plautus combine to show
that the Phoenician language, like Hebrew, belonged to
the north Semitic group. Even the Phoenician which
survived as a rustic dialect in north Africa till the 5th
century of our era was very closely akin to Hebrew.
Though it retained certain old forms obsolete in Hebrew,
Phoenician, as we know, represents on the whole a later
stage of grammatical structure than the language of the
Old Testament. Its vocabulary, in like manner, apart
from a few archaisms, coincides most nearly with later
Hebrew. At a very early period Semitic words were
adopted into Greek from Phoenician ; and it is also quite
certain that the Phoenicians had at least a great share in
the development and diffusion of the alphabetic character
which forms the foundation of all European alphabets.
We possess, however, only a few Phoenician inscriptions
and coins of very early date. The longest and most im
portant of the inscriptions — that on King Eslnnun'azar's
tomb — is in letters which, while very ancient in certain of
their features, present a series of important modifications
of the original type of the Semitic alphabet, as it can be
fixed by comparison of the oldest documents. Still more
divergent from the ancient characters are the forms of
the letters on the Phoenician, i.e., Punic, .monuments of
north Africa. (A. so.)
Religion. — Considering the great part which the Phoeni
cians played in the movements of ancient civilization,
it is singular how fragmentary are our sources of know
ledge for all the most essential elements of their his
tory. What we are told of their religion is only in
appearance an exception to this rule. Eusebius in the
Pracparatio Evanyelica cites at length from the Greek of
Pliilo of Byblus a cosmogony and theogony professedly
translated from a Berytian Sanchuniathon, who wrote
1221 B.C. But that this work is a forgery appears from
the apocryphal authorities cited, and the affinity displayed
with the system of Euhemerus. The forger was Pliilo
himself, for the writer borrows largely from Hesiod and
was therefore a Greek ; he gives Byblus the greatest pro
minence in a history professedly Berytian, and was there
fore a Byblian ; and finally Pliilo was a fanatical Euhemer-
ist, and the admitted object of the work was to make
converts to that system. The materials used by Philo
were, however, in all probability mainly genuine, but so
cut and clipped to fit his system that they must be used
with great caution and constantly controlled by the few
scattered data that can be gathered from authentic sources.
The two triads of Hannibal's oath to Philip of Macedon
(Polyb., vii. 9, 2) — Sun, Moon, and Earth, and Rivers,
Meadows, and Waters — contain the objects on which all
Phoenician worship is based. Rivers were generally sacred
to gods, trees to goddesses ; mountains, too, were revered
as nearer than other places to heaven ; and bretylia or
meteoric stones were held sacred as divine messengers.
Philo's second generation of men (Genos and Genca)
first worshipped the plants of the earth, till a drought
ensued and they stretched out their hands towards the
sun as the Lord of Heaven or Beelsamen (Baal-Shamaim),
— an indication that the worship of heavenly bodies was
regarded as a later development of religion. Baudissin,
on the other hand, has lately maintained that all Phoenician
deities were astral and only manifested themselves in the
terrestrial sphere, that the things holy to them on earth
were symbols, not dwelling-places, of the gods. And there
seems to be little doubt that this was the theory of later
Phoenician theology, as appears in the legend of the fiery
star of the queen of heaven that fell into the holy stream
at Aphaca (Sozom., ii. 5, 5), in the coincidence of the
names of sacred rivers with those of the celestial gods,
and in the name Zei>s GaAacro-tos (Hesych.) for a Sidonian
sea-god. But surely this theory was devised to remove
a contradiction which theologians felt to be involved in
the popular religion. In the latter logical consistency is
not necessarily to be presumed, and astral and terrestrial
worships might well exist side by side. In historical
times the astral element had the ascendency ; the central
point in religion, and the starting-point in all Phoenician
mythology, was the worship of the Sun, who has either the
Moon or (as the sun-god is also the heaven-god) the
Earth for wife. In Byblus, for_which alone we possess
some details of the local cult, El was the founder and
PHOENICIA
803
lord of the town, and therefore of course had the pre-emi
nence in religion; and so the Byblian Philo makes El to
be the highest god and the other elim or eluhim sub
ordinate to him. In the other towns also the numen
patrium was a form of the sun-god, or else his wife, and
enjoyed somewhat exclusive honour — a step in the direction
of monotheism similar to the Moabite worship of Chemosh
(cp. the Mesha stone). El is represented as the first to
introduce circumcision and the first who sacrificed an only
son or a virgin daughter to the supreme god. He wanders
over all the earth, westward towards the setting sun, and
leaves Byblus to -his spouse Baaltis — this is meant to
explain why she had the chief place in the cult of Byblus ;
her male companion Eliun, Shadld (or yueywrros $eos), is
conceived as her youthful lover, and El is transformed into
a hostile god, who slays Shadld with the sword. Accord
ing to another legend the youthful god is killed by a
boar while hunting, and the mourning for him with the
finding of him again make up a chief part of Byblian
worship, which at an early date was enriched with elements
borrowed from Egypt and the myth of Osiris. In other
places we find as spouse of the highest god the moon-
goddess Astarte with the cow's horns, who in Tyre was
worshipped under the symbol of a star as queen of heaven.
With her worship as with that of Baaltis were associated
wild orgies ; and traces of the like are not lacking even at
Cartilage (Aug., Civ. Dei, ii. 4), where theology had given
a more earnest and gloomy character to the goddess.
Astarte was viewed as the mother of the Tyrian sun-
god Melkarth (Eudoxus, in Athen., ix. p. 392 D), or, as
his full title runs, "our lord Melkarth the Baal of Tyre"
(C.I.S., No. 122). On account of his regular daily course
the Sun is viewed as the god who works and reveals
himself in the world, as son of the god who is above the
world, and as protector of civil order. But, again, as the
Sun engenders the fruitfulness of the earth, he becomes
the object of a sensual nature -worship, one feature of
which is that men and women interchange garments. A
chief feast to his honour in Tyre was the "awaking of
Heracles" in the month Peritius (February / March ;
Menander of Eph., in Jos., Ant., viii. 5, 3), a festival of
the returning power of the sun in spring, probably alluded
to in the sarcasm of Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 27). Peculiar
to Berytus is the worship of Poseidon and other sea-gods,
who are connected genealogically with Zeus Belus, a son
of El, born beyond the Euphrates, and perhaps therefore
connected with the Babylonian fish-gods. Berytus was
also a chief seat of the worship of the Cablri, the seven
nameless sons of Sydek, with their brother Eshmun, who
is the eighth and greatest of the Cablri. Philo supplies
for them a genealogy which is an attempt to present the
growth of man from rude to higher civilization, and pre
sents analogies, long since observed, to the genealogy of
the sons of Cain in Genesis. Not only their half-divine
ancestors but the Cablri themselves belong to a compara
tively recent stage of religious development. They are
the patron deities of manual arts and civil industry, and
as such are the great gods of the Phoenician land, specially
worshipped in the federal centre Tripolis. On coins of
this town they are called Syrian (i.e., perhaps Assyrian)
gods,1 which seems to imply that the Phoenicians them
selves regarded as not primitive the many Egyptian
elements which were quite early introduced into the
religion of the Cablri, and especially of Eshmun. On the
other hand, a figure allied to Eshmun, Taaut, the inventor
of the alphabet, is certainly borrowed from the Egyptian
Tehuti. So, too, Onka (Steph., s.v. " 'Oy/ouou ") is prob
ably the Anuke of Sais, and it is possible that the whole
1 Eckhel, D.X.V., iii. 374.
cycle of gods who revealed and interpreted the sacred books
is Egyptian ; some of the latter have the form of a serpent.
The Phoenicians did not set up anthropomorphic statues
of the gods, but symbolic pillars of stone, or, in the case
of the queen of heaven, of wood (asherah). If an actual
image was used, likeness to man was avoided by fantastic
details : the god had two heads or wings, or some animal
emblem, or was dwarfish or hermaphrodite, and so on. The
sacrifices were of oxen and other male domestic animals —
as expiatory offerings also stags 2 — and for minor offerings
birds. Human sacrifices were exceptionally offered by the
state to avert great disasters ; the victim was chosen from
among the citizens and must be innocent, wherefore children
were chosen, and by preference firstborn or only sons.
The same idea that the godhead demanded the holiest and
most costly gift explains the prostitution . of virgins at
certain feasts in the sacred groves of the queen of heaven,
and the temporary consecration of maidens or matrons as
ktdeshoth (tepoSoiAot). For this custom, as for that of
human sacrifice, substitutes were by and by introduced in
many places ; thus at Byblus it was held sufficient that
the women cut off their hair at the feast of Adonis (De
Dea Syr., c. 6).
Origin of the Phoenicians.- — The oldest towns were held
to have been founded by the gods themselves, who pre
sumably also placed the Phoenicians in them. Imitating
the Egyptians, the race claimed an antiquity of 30,000
years (Africanus, in Syncellus, p. 31), yet they retained
some memory of having migrated from older seats on an
Eastern sea. Herodotus (vii. 89) understood this of the
Persian Gulf ; the companions of Alexander sought to
prove by learned etymologies that they had actually found
here the old seats of the Phoenicians. But all this rested on
a mere blunder, and the true form of the tradition is pre
served by Trogus (Just., xviii. 3, 3), who places the oldest
seats of the Phoenicians on the Syrium stagnum or Dead
Sea — with which the Greeks before the time of the Dia-
dochi had no acquaintance — and says that, driven thence
by an earthquake, they reached the coast, and founded
Sidon. This earthquake Bunsen has ingeniously identified
with that which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, and
with which Genesis itself connects the migrations of Lot.
Perhaps it played much such a part in the mythic history
of the peoples of Canaan as the breach of the dam of
Marib does in the history of the Arabs.
In historical times the Phoenicians called themselves
Canaanites and their land Canaan (Kena'an, Kuna' ; Xva
in Hecateus, fr. 254), the latter applying equally to the
coast which they tnemselves helol and the inland highlands
which the Israelites occupied. The Greeks call people
and land ^otVtKes, ^otvtVi/ ; the former is the older word,
which in itself disposes of the idea that Phoenicia means
the lanol of the date-palm, which the Greeks called </>oti/i£,
i.e., Phoenician.3 In truth, ^otW/ces, with an antique
termination used in forming other names of nations
(At'$i/<es, 0p-//6Kes), is derived from <£ou'os, "blood-red,"
probably in allusion to the olark complexion of the race.
When the southern part of the coast of Canaan was
occupied by the Philistines the region of Ekron became the
boundary of Phoenicia to the south (Josh. xiii. 3) ; the
northern boundary in the time of the Persians was the
town of Posidium and the mouth of the Orontes (Herod.,
iii. 91 ; Pseudo-Scylax, § 104). Under the Seleucids
these limits contracted, the southern boundary being the
Chorseus (Ptol., Codd.B.E., Pa). 1), which falls into the sea
north of the tower of Straton, auol the northern the river
2 For stags offered to Tanit see Clermont-Ganueau, Journ. As., ser.
7, vol. xi. p. 232 sq., 444 sq.
3 In reality the date-palm is not aboriginal in these regions, Helm,
Kulturpflanzen, &c., 3d ed., p. 233.
804
PHOENICIA
Eleutherus, so that Orth6sia was the last town of Phoenicia
and the whole region of Aradus was excluded.1 Under
the Roman empire the southern boundary was unchanged,
but the northern advanced to a little south of Balanea.2 A
still narrower definition of Canaan is that in Gen. x. 19 and
Josh. xiii. 2-6, where Sidon or its territory is the northern
limit ; but the reference is only to the land destined to be
occupied by Israel, for a younger hand has added to Sidon
(the firstborn of Canaan) and Heth a list of other nations,
sons of Canaan, extending northwards as far as Hamath.8
It is a singular fact that alike in the Old Testament and
in Homer, in the time of Tyre's greatest might, we con
stantly read of Sidonians and not of Tyrians. The explan
ation that Sidonians is a synonym of Phoenicians in general
is defended on 1 Kings v. 1 [15] compared with ver. 6
[20], but is not adequate ; the same chapter distinguishes
between the Sidonians and the Giblites or men of Byblus
(E.V., "stone squarers," ver. 18 [32]). And in Gen. x. we
have besides Sidon the peoples of Arce, Sinna, Aradus, and
Simyra enumerated in order from south to north — mostly
unimportant towns afterwards absorbed in the land of
Aradus — and yet Tyre is lacking, though one fancies that
we could better miss even Aradus, which was a colony from
Sidon (Strabo, xvi. p. 753), only Aradus was founded by
fugitives, and so must, from the first, have been inde
pendent. Hence we may conjecture that the list in Genesis
is political in principle ; and this gives us a solution of the
whole difficulty, viz., that, during the flourishing period of
Phoenicia, Sidon and Tyre formed a single state whose
kings reigned first in Sidon and then in Tyre, but whose
inhabitants continued to take their name from the old
metropolis. The first unambiguous example of two dis
tinct kings in Tyre and Sidon is in the end of the 8th
century B.C., on an inscription of Sennacherib (Schrader,
K.A.T., 2d ed., p. 286 s^.}, and there is every reason to
think that the revolt of Sidon from Tyre about 726 spoken
of by Menander (Jos., Ant., ix. 14, 2) was a revolt not
from Tyrian hegemony but from the Tyrian kingdom. The
several Phoenician cities had lists of their kings back to a
very early date. Abedbalus 4 reigned at Berytus in the
time which Philo had ciphered out as that of the judge
Jerubbaal, i.e., about the beginning of the 13th century
B.C., and in Sidon there is word of kings at the time to
which the Greeks referred the rape of Europa (15th cen
tury ; see Laetus, in Tatian, Adv. Grs&cos, 58). The leading
Phoenician towns are mentioned in connexion with the
Syrian wars of the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth, XlXth, and
XXth Dynasties (16th-13th century) ; thus under Thothmes
III. we read of Berytus, Ace, Joppe, and repeatedly of
Aradus, which is commonly spoken of along with Haleb
(Aleppo) and other eastern districts. The mention of Tyre
is less certain, as there were two cities which the Egyptians
called T'ar ; but there is no mistake as to the city on the
sea called " T'aru the haven " in the journey of an Egyptian
of the 14th century (Rec. of the Past, ii. 107 sq.), — " water
is carried to it in barks, it is richer in fish than in sands " ;
the noble aqueducts therefore, of which the ruins are still
seen, were not yet constructed.
The oldest parts of Tyre were taken to be the town on the main
land, afterwards known as Palaetyrus, and the so-called temple of
Hercules built on a rocky islet, which Hiram by and by united with
the insular part of the town. According to native historians this
temple was more properly one of Olympian Zeus, that is, of Baal-
Shamaim, the Lord of Heaven.5 Herodotus, after inquiries made
1 Strabo, xvi. p. 753 ; Ptol., v. 15, 4, 5, both seemingly from
Artemidorus. The Eleutherus as boundary appears also in Jos., Ant.,
xv. 4, 1 et stKp.
2 Plin., .V. H., v. 69, 79 ; I tin. Ilieros., pp. 582, 585 (Wess.).
See Wellhausen in Jahrb. f. d. Theol., 1876, p. 403.
4 Xoldeke's conjecture for 'A^X/3a\os, in Porphyry, ap. Euseb. ,
Prvep. E»., x. 9.
5 This appears by comparing Herod., ii. 44, with the mention of the
same golden stele by Menander (Jos., Cunt. Ap., i. 18).
on the spot, fixes the founding of the city in 2756 n.r. ; but Tyre
did not attain great importance till the later island city was built.
According to Trogus (Justin, xviii. 3, 5) the Phoenicians (not the
people of Sidon, as the passage is often misread to mean), who had
been subdued by the king of Ascalon, took ship and founded Tyre
a year before the taking of Troy. This goes well with the spread
of the Philistine power in the time of the later judges and with the
fact that Ascalon was still a Canaanite town under Barneses II. (c.
1385 B.C.), while in the eighth year of Rameses III. (c. 1246) the
Pulosata made a raid into Egypt.6 Philistus (in Euseb., Can., No.
803) gives us without knowing it the era used in Tyre and in early
times also in Carthage when he says that Zorus (i.e., Cor, Tyre)
and Carchedon built Carthage in 1213 B.C., or rather, according to
a very good MS. (Regin. ), in 1209, which agrees with the date 1208
for the fall of Troy on the Parian marble, and also may be recon
ciled with the notice (taken from Philistus) in Appian, Piniica, i.,
that the founding of Zorus and Carchedon was fifty years before the
fall of Troy, if we suppose that Philistus took for the latter event
the latest date we know of, viz. , that assigned by Democritus.7 Now
Josephus (Ant., viii. 3, 1) counts 229 years from the building of
Tyre to Hiram, and places the foundation of Carthage (Cont. Ap., i.
18) in the 155th year from Hiram's accession. The best authority
for the last-named event is Timreus, who puts it in 814 B.C. This
gives us for the founding of Tyre a date twelve years later than that
of Philistus, but it is probable that Josephus in summing up the
individual reigns between Hiram and the building of Carthage as
given by Menander departed from the intention of his author in
assuming that the twelve years of Astartus and the twelve of the
contemporaneous usurper were not to be reckoned separately.8 This
hypothesis enables us to give a restored chronology which cannot
be far from the truth (see infra).
Manufactures and Inventions. — The towns of the Phoeni
cian coast were active from a very early date in various
manufactures. Glass work, for which the sands of the
Belus gave excellent material, had its chief seat in Sidon ;
embroidery and purple-dyeing were favoured by the preva
lence of the purple-giving murex all along the coast. The
ancients ascribed to the Phoenicians the invention of all
three industries, but glass -making seems to have been
borrowed from Egypt, where this manufacture is of im
memorial antiquity ; and several circumstances indicate
that the other two arts probably came from Babylon — in
particular, the names of the two main tints of purple —
dark red (argaman) and dark blue (tokheleth) — seem not
to be Phoenician. The Phoenicians, however, brought
these arts to perfection and spread the knowledge of them.
In other particulars also the ancients looked on the Phoeni
cians as the inventive people par excellence : to them as
the great trading nation was ascribed the invention of
arithmetic, measure, and weight, which are really Babylon
ian in origin, and also of writing, although it is not even
quite certain that it was the Phoenicians who adapted the
Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet to Semitic use.0 Yet here
again the Phoenicians have undisputedly the scarcely
inferior merit of having communicated the art to all the
nations of the Mediterranean basin.
Navigation, Trade, Colonies. — The beginnings of navi
gation lie beyond all human memory, but it is not hard
to understand how the ancients made this also an inven
tion of the Phoenicians, whose skill as seamen was never
matched by any ancient people before or after them.
Even in later times Greek observers noted with admiration
the exact order kept on board Phoenician ships, the skill
with which every corner of space was utilized, the careful
disposition of the cargo, the vigilance of the steersmen
and their mates (Xen., (Ec., viii. 11 .*•/.). They steered
by the pole-star, which the Greeks therefore called the
Phoenician star (Hyginus, Po. Ant., ii. 2); and all their
6 See Brugsch, Gfeschichte Aegyptens, pp. 516, 598.
7 If Democritus was born in 470 (Thrasyllus), his date for the fall
of Troy is 1160.
8 He is contemporaneous on the reading Me0' o& "A.ffTapros given
by Theophilus, Ad Avtol, iii. 19. If Josephus took it so, then
according to the best readings he would get exactly 155 years.
9 That the Semitic alphabet did not come from cuneiform writing
may be taken as certain ; but also it is not probable that it came
from the hieratic character of the Egyptians.
PHOENICIA
805
vessels, from the common round yaOAos, to the great Tar-
.shish ships, the East-Indiamen — so to speak — of the ancient
world, had a speed which the Greeks never rivalled. Of
the extent of the Phoenicians' trade in the last days of
Tyre's glory Ezekiel (xxvii. 12-25) has left a lively picture,
which shows how large was the share they had in overland
as well as in naval commerce. It was they, in fact, who
from the earliest time distributed to the rest of the world
the wares of Egypt and Babylon (Herod., i. 1). To the
lands of the Euphrates and Tigris there were two routes :
the more northerly passed obliquely through Mesopotamia
and had on it the trading places of Haran (Carrhse),
Canneh (Ctenae), and Eden ; the other, more southerly,
had Sheba (Sabsea) for its goal, and led down the Euphrates,
passing Asshur (Sura) and Chilmad (Charmande). There
were other routes in the Persian and Macedonian period,
but they do not belong to the present history.
Actual inland settlements of the Phoenicians seem to
have been few ; we know of one near the head of the
northern trade road, Laish, which was lost to the Danites
in the time of the judges (Judges xviii.), and one on the
southern route, Eddana on the Euphrates (Steph. B., s.v.),
which corresponds in name with Eden, but is not the same
place, but perhaps rather the Giddan of Isidore of Charax
(§ 1). In the Arabian caravan trade in perfume, spices,
and incense for worship the Phoenicians had a lively
interest (Herod., iii. 107). These wares were mainly pro
duced not in Arabia but in eastern Africa and India ; but
Sheba in Yemen was the emporium of the whole trade,
and the active commerce of this rich and powerful state
in the times before the Persian is seen better than by any
direct testimony from the exact knowledge of the Sabaean
lands shown in Gen. x., from the many references to Arabia
and Sheba in the Assyrian monuments, and from such
facts as Euting's discovery at Taima in the heart of Arabia
of an Aramaic inscription of the 6th century B.C., composed
by a man with an Egyptian name.1
In Egypt Phoenician trade and civilization soon took
firm root ; they alone were able to maintain their Egyptian
trade and profits in the anarchic times of the XXIIId
to the XXVth Dynasties (825-650 B.C.), times like those
of the Mameluke beys, in which all other foreign merchants
were frightened away and the Greek legend of the inhos
pitable Busiris originated.2 The Tyrians had their own
quarter in old Memphis (Herod., ii. 112), but there never
were real colonies of the Phoenicians in Egypt.
That in matters economic Syria and Palestine depended
on Phoenicia might have been inferred even if we had not
the express testimony of Ezekiel that these lands were in
cluded in the sphere of Tyrian trade ; so too was Togarmah,
an Armenian district.
Cilicia was important to the Phoenicians as the natural
point of shipment for wares from the Euphrates regions ;
and the opposite island of Cyprus attracted them by its
store of timber for shipbuilding, and of copper. Both
these countries were originally peopled by the non-Semitic
Kittim, who have left their name in the Cilician district
Cetis and the Cyprian city Citium ; but they came under
profound Semitic influences, mainly those of the Phoe
nicians, who on the mainland had settlements at Myri-
andus (Xen., Anab., i. 4, 6) and Tarsus,3 while in Cyprus
Citium — which to the last remained the chief seat of the
Phoenician tongue and culture — was held to have its
foundation from Belus (Steph., s.v. " Aa7r?/#os "), and Car-
pasia from Pygmalion (Id., s.v.). Pseudo-Scylax (§ 103),
1 Noldeke, in Sitzb. Berl. Ak., 1884, p. 813 sq.
2 XdX/STjs, the herald of Busiris, is simply 2P3, "dog."
3 Tarsus was founded by Aradians, Dio Chr. , xxxiii. 40. Ai'£, a
city of the Phrenicians in Hecatreus, fr. 259, is probably not ^Egse
but Gaxa-
writing in 346 B.C., knows Carpasia, Cerynea, and Lapethus
as Phoenician ; but the view that Phoenician sway in Cyprus
was very ancient and that the Phoenicians were gradually
driven back by the Greeks appears not to be sound. On
the contrary, the balance of power seems to have varied
greatly; the Assyrian tribute-lists of 673 and 667 (Schrader,
K.A.T., p. 354 sq.) contain but two names of Phoenician
cities in Cyprus, Sillii (Soli) and Kartihadast (probably
NewPaphos); not one of the later Phoenician kingdoms is
mentioned, so that presumably none of them then existed,
and not one of the ten Cyprian kings mentioned appears
to be Phoenician by name. Menander tells us (Jos., Ant.,
ix. 14, 2) that the kings of Tyre ruled over Cyprus at the
close of the 8th century ; but a very clear proof that there
was no ancient and uninterrupted political connexion with
Phoenicia lies in the fact that the Cyprian Greeks took the
trouble to frame a Greek cuneiform character modelled on
the Assyrian.
The Homeric poems represent the Phoenicians as present
in Greek waters for purposes of traffic, including the pur
chase and capture of slaves, but not as settlers. Tradition
(see especially Thucyd., i. 8) is unanimous in representing
the Carians and Phoenicians as having occupied the islands
of the ^Egean before the migrations of the Greeks to Asia
Minor, but so far as the Phoenicians are concerned this
holds only of the southern islands — afterwards occupied
by Dorians — where they had mining -stations, and also
establishments for the capture of the murex and purple-
dyeing.4 The most northerly of the Cyclades on which
we can prove a Phoenician settlement is Oliarus (Steph.,
s.v.), which was occupied by Sidonians, probably with a
view to the use of the marble quarries of Paros, which lies
opposite. Similarly the Byblians occupied Melos (Steph.,
s.v.), which produced a white pigment (Melian earth), alum,
and sulphur. Two great islands were held as main seats
of the purple trade, Cythera (Herod., i. 105) and Thera,
with the neighbouring Anaphe (Herod., iv. 147 ; Steph., s.v.
" Me/x/3Ata/3os "), — as also the town Itanus at the eastern
extremity of Crete (Steph., s.v.). Specially famous was
the purple of the Laconian waters, — the isles of Elishah of
Ezekiel xxvii. 7. Farther east the Phoenicians were settled
in Rhodes.5 The Greek local tradition about the Phoe
nicians seems, in Thera and Rhodes, to embody real his
torical reminiscences, and it is confirmed for Thera and
Melos by the discoveries of Phoenician pottery and orna
ments in the upper strata of the tuff, and for other places
by peculiar cults which survived among the later Dorian
settlers. Thus the Aphrodite Urania of Cythera was
identical with the Oriental goddess of love at Paphos, and
Herodotus (i. 105) makes her temple to be founded from
Ascalon ; the coins of Itanus (Mionnet, ii. 284 sq.) show
a fish-tailed deity ; in Rhodes human sacrifices to Cronus
were long kept up (Porph., De Abs., ii. 54). The legends
of Rhodes and Crete have a character quite distinct from
that of other Greek myths, and so give lasting testimony
to the deep influence in both islands of even the most
hideous aspects of Phoenician religion ; it is enough to
refer in this connexion to the stories of the eight children
of Helios in Rhodes, of Europa, the Minotaur, and the
brazen Talos in Crete. The pre-Hellenic inhabitants of
the islands, the Carians and their near kinsmen the Eteo-
cretans or Mnoitse (probably identical with the PHILISTINES,
q.v.), had no native civilization, and were therefore wholly
under the influence of the higher culture of the Phoenicians.
But on the Greeks too the Phoenicians had no small influ-
4 As an enormous supply of murex was needed for this industry,
the conjecture of Duncker is probably sound, that the purple stations
were the oldest of all Phoenician settlements.
5 Rodauim, 1 Chron. i. 7, by which Dodanim in Gen. x. 4 must be
corrected ; see Ergias (?) and Polyzelus, in Athen., viii. p. 360 D.
806
PHOENICIA
ence, as appears even from the many Phoenician loan-words
for stuffs, utensils, writing materials, and similar things
connected with trade.1 From the Phoenicians the Greeks
derived their weights and measures ; yu,m, the Hebrew
maneh, became a familiar Greek word. From Phoenicia
too they had the alphabet which unanimous tradition con
nects with the name of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Hence
Cadmus has been taken to mean " eastern " (from mp),
and Thebes viewed as a Phoenician colony ; but the Greeks
did not speak Phoenician, and the Phoenicians would not
call themselves Easterns. Further, an inland colony of
Phoenicians is highly improbable ; and all other traces seem
to connect Cadmus with the north. But the Cadmeans,
who traced their descent to Cadmus, colonized Thera, and
it was they who, mingling with the Phoenicians left on the
island, learned the alphabet. It was in Thera, where the
oldest Greek inscriptions have been found, that the inven
tion of letters was ascribed to the mythic ancestor, and
that he was made out to be a Phoenician. We now know
better than we did a few years ago how much the oldest
Greeks depended before the migrations on the movements
of Eastern civilization, and can well believe that the Phoe
nicians played a very important part in this connexion.
Thus in the tombs of Mycenae we find Phoenician idols,
objects of amber, and an ostrich egg side by side with rich
jewels of gold, Oriental decoration, and images of Eastern
plants and animals ; thus too the rock-tombs of Hymettus
closely resemble those of Phoenicia ; and above all we find
on the Isthmus of Corinth, that most ancient seat of com
merce, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth under the name
of Melicertes. Yet with all these proofs of a lively trade
there is no trace of Phoenician settlements on the Greek
mainland and the central islands of the yEgean ; but in
the north Thasus was occupied for the sake of its gold
mines (Herod., vi. 47), and so probably was Galepsus on
the opposite Thracian coast (Harpocr., s.v.), where also it
was Phoenicians (Strabo, xiv. p. 680 ; from Callisthenes)
who opened the gold mines of Pangteus. Beyond these
points their settlements in this direction do not seem to
have extended ; the Tyrians, indeed, according to Ezekiel,
traded in slaves and bronze-ware with the Greeks of Pontus
(Javan), the Tibareni (Tubal), and Moschi (Meshech); but
all supposed traces of actual settlements on these coasts
prove illusory, and Pronectus on the Gulf of Astacus, which
Stephanus attributes to the Phoenicians, lies so isolated that
it was perhaps only a station of their fleet in Persian times.
The great centre of Phoenician colonization was the
western half of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts
to the right and left of the straits. In especial the trade
with Tarshish, that is, the region of the Tartessus (Guadal
quivir), was what made the commercial greatness of the
Phoenicians ; for here they had not only profitable fisheries
(tunny and mursena) but above all rich mines of silver and
other metals, to which the navigable rivers Guadiana and
Guadalquivir gave easy access. The untutored natives
had little idea of the value of the metals ; for long there
was no competition, and so the profits were enormous ; it
was said that even the anchors were of silver in ships re
turning from Spain (Diod., v. 35). Next the Phoenicians
ventured farther on the ocean and drew tin from the mines
of north-west Spain or the richer deposits of Cornwall;
the tin islands (Cassiterides) were reached from Brittany,
and are always distinguished from the British mainland,
so that the old view which makes them the Scilly Islands
is probably right. The tin was supposed to be produced
where it was exchanged, — a very common case.2 Amber
too was brought in very early times from the farthest
north ; amber ornaments are often mentioned by Homer,
1 See A. Miiller, in Beitr. z. K. d. indoy. 8pr.t i. 273 sq.
2 See Lit. CentrU., 1871, p. 528.
and have been found in the oldest tombs of Cumaj and in
those by the Lion gate at Mycenae. The Phoenicians can
hardly have fetched the amber themselves from the Baltic
or even from the North Sea (where it scarcely can have
ever been common) ; it came to them by two trade routes,
one from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the other up the
Rhine and down the Rhone. But indeed a deposit of
amber has been found in the Lebanon not far from Sidon,3
and perhaps the Phoenicians worked this and only concealed,
after their manner, the origin of the precious ware. Cer
tainly the ancients knew of Syrian amber, and knew also
that amber could be dug from the ground.4 The rich
trade with Spain led to the colonization of the west (Diod.,
id stipra). Strabo (i. 48) dates the settlements beyond
the Pillars of Hercules soon after the Trojan War, in the
time, that is, of Tyre's first expansion. Lixus in Maure-
tania was older than Gades (Pliny, xix. 63) and Gades a
few years older than Utica (Veil., i. 2), which again was
founded 1101 B.C. (Pseudo-Arist., Mir. ausc., 134; Bocchus,
in Plin., xvi. 216). Most of the African colonies were no
doubt younger; we have dates for Aoza (887-855, Men-
ander) and Carthage (814, Timaeus). Here, as generally
in like cases, the farthest points were settled first and the
need for intermediate stations to secure connexion was
felt later. The colonization was carried out on a great
scale. Ophelas (Strabo, xvii. 826) may exaggerate when
he speaks of 300 cities on the Mauretanian coast beyond
the Pillars of Hercules ; but the colonists and the Cartha
ginians after them stamped west Africa with a thoroughly
Phoenician character, and their language was dominant, at
least in the cities, far beyond the limits of their nation
ality, just as was the case with Latin and Arabic in later
times. It is most likely that so great a mass of colonists
was not wholly drawn from the narrow bounds of Phoenicia,
but that the inland Canaanites, pushed back by Hebrews
and Philistines, furnished many recruits ; the supposed
testimonies to this fact, however, are late, and certainly
apocryphal.
Surveying the great settlements of the Phoenicians from east to
west, we find them first in Sicily, occupying, in a way typical of
the commencement of all their settlements, projecting headlands
and neighbouring islets, from which they traded with the Siculi
(Thucyd., vi. 2). Their chief seat seemingly was Macara (Hera-
elides, Polit., 29), on the south coast, mppD tJH on coins, Heraclea
Minoa of the Greeks. Before the Greeks they retired to the north
coast, where they held Motye, Panormus, and Soloeis, supported
by their alliance with and influence over the Elymi, and by the
neighbourhood of Carthage, which here and elsewhere succeeded to
the heritage of Tyre, and gave protection to the Phoenician colonies.
The islands between Sicily and Africa — Melite, with its excellent
harbour and commanding position on the naval highway, Gaulus,
and Cossura — were also occupied (Diod., v. 12), and a beginning
was made with the colonization of Sardinia (ib., v. 35), where
Caralis is said to be a Tyrian foundation (Claudian, B. Gild., 520) ;
but real sovereignty over this island and Corsica was first exercised
by the Carthaginians.5 It is uncertain if Plwnician trade witli
and influence on the Etruscans is older than the political alliance
of the latter with Carthage ; there were, at least, no Phoenician
colonies in Italy. On the east coast of Spain Barcino (Auson., Ejnst.,
xxiv. 68) and Old Carthage (Ptol., ii. 6, 64) are settlements apparently
older than the Spanish empire of Carthage, but their origin is not
therefore necessarily Phoenician, especially as Old Carthage lies in
land ; they may date from the conflicts of Carthage and the Massa-
liotes. In Tartessus, on the other hand, or Turdetania, as it was
called later, all the important coast towns were Phoenician (Strabo,
iii. 151, 156 sq., 169 sq.) — Abdera, Sex (which was regarded as one of
the oldest of the Tyrian settlements in Spain), Malaca, Cartcia, and,
most famous of all, Gades, with its most holy shrine of Hercules ;
it lay on an islet which had not even drinking water, but the posi
tion was a commanding one. Still farther off lay Onoba, where
the Tyrians are said to have settled before they were in Gades. In
Africa the most easterly settlement was Great Leptis, which is
the only colony ascribed to Sidonians, driven from their home by
3 Fraas, Drei Mon. im Lib., p. 94, and Aus dem Orient, ii. 60 sq.
4 Pliny, N.H., xxxvii. 37, 40, reading with Detlefsen ere humo.
5 The Greeks of the 6th century had a very fantastic idea of the
value of these islands (Herod., i. 170, v. 106, 124).
PHCENICIA
807
civil troubles (Sallust, Jug., 78), and is therefore presumably one
of the oldest. Less certain are the accounts that the sister cities
(Ea and Sabratha were founded, the former by Phoenicians from
Sicily, the latter from Tyre (Sil. Ital., iii. 256 sq.). The district
Emporia on the Lesser Syrtis was named from its many Phoenician
trading towns. Here, on the river Cinyps, corn produced three-
hundredfold, and a great trade-road led inland to the land of the
Garamantes. That the commercial town of Tacape (Kabis) and the
island of Muninx (Jirba), with its purple-dyeing trade, were Phoe
nician is proved by inscriptions, and Capsa, in inland Numidia,
was deemed a foundation of the Tyrian Hercules (Oros., v. 15).
Among the Phoenician towns in Africa proper Achulla was Melitan
(Steph., s.v. ""AxoXXa"), Lesser Leptis and Hadrumctum Tyrian
(Pliny, v. 76 ; Solin., 27, 9), as was also Aoza (Menander), that is,
rather the LTzita of Strabo and Ptolemy (cp. Wilmanns on C.I.L.,
viii. 68), 5| miles inland from Leptis, than Auzia in inland Maure-
tania. On the north coast Carthage and Utica are Tyrian colonies,
and probably also Hippo Zarytus, though Sidon, on a coin, claims
it and other Tyrian colonies as her daughters (Movers, Phonizicr,
ii. 2, p. 134). The unidentified town of Canthele and the island
Eudeipne are called Liby-Phcenician (Steph., s.rv.), and this name
in later times denoted the Phoenicians in Africa apart from and in
contrast to Carthage. The Semitic populations were thickly sown
over all this region, but we cannot generally distinguish Phoenician
colonies, Carthaginian foundations, and native settlements that
had become Punic. Chalce, on the coast east of Oran, in the
country of the Masa>syli, was Phoenician, but their great domain
was the Atlantic coast of Mauretania. Tingis and Zelis, if originally
Berber, became thoroughly Phoenician cities (Mela, ii. 6, 9 ; Strabo,
iii. 140); the chief colony here was Lixus (Ps.-Scylax, §112), a
city accounted greater than Carthage. Southward, on the so-calleol
KO.XTTOS 'EjUTroptKoj, and onwards to the mouth of the Dra river
Tyrian colonies lay thick, and here a great trade-route went inland
to the country of the Blacks. These colonies were ruined by the
invasion of the Pharusii and Nigritoe (Strabo, xvii. 826), who spread
destruction just as did the Almoravids when they issued from the
same region in the llth century ; the Carthaginians saved the rem
nant of their kinsmen by senoling Hanno to found the new colony
of Thymiaterium and plant 30,000 Liby- Phoenicians in the old
ports of Karikon Teichos, Gytte, Acra, Melitta, and Arambys.
The most westerly point reached by the Phoenicians was the For
tunate Island (the largest of the Canaries, probably), which later
fancy painted in glowing colours after intercourse with so distant a
region had ceased (Diod., v. 20).
The trading connexions of the Phoenicians reached far
beyond their most remote colonies, and it must have been
their knowledge of Africa which encouraged Pharaoh Xecho
to send a Phoenician expedition to circumnavigate Africa.
This greatest feat of ancient seamanship was actually accom
plished in 611-605 B.C., at a time when the mother-country
had already lost its independence, and the colonial empire
had but a shadow of its former splendour. The power of
Tyre rested directly on her colonies, which, unlike the Greek
colonies, remained subject to the mother-city ; we read of
rebellions in Utica and Citium which were put down by
arms. The colonies paid tithes of all their revenues and
sometimes also of booty taken in war to the Tyrian Hercules,
and sent envoys to Tyre for his chief feast. But Tyre was
too remote long to exercise as effective a control over her
dependencies as was possible to the more favourably placed
Carthage ; the relation gradually became looser, and the
more substantial obligations of the colonies ceased to be
discharged ; yet Carthage certainly paid tithes to the
Tyrian Hercules as late as the middle of the 6th century B.C.
Fragments of History.— Josephus (Ant., viii. 5, 3, and
Ap., i. 17, 18) has fortunately preserved extracts of two
Hellenistic historians, Dius and Menander of Ephesus, which
supply at least the skeleton of the history of the golden age
of Tyre. From them we learn that Hiram (or rather Hlrom)
I., son of Abibal, reigned from 980 to 946 B.C. He enlarged
the insular town to the east by filling up the so-called
fvpvX^pov, united the temple of Baal-Shamaim with the
main island by a mole, placed in it a golden pillar, and
splendidly renewed the temples of Hercules l and Astarte.
The inhabitants of Utica — so the text must be corrected
1 This is the Ageuorium at the northern extremity of the island
(Arr. , ii. 24). Except in this point the topography of Renan (Miss, de
Phen., p. 546 sq., and PI. Ixix.) is here followed.
— having ceased to pay tribute, Hiram reduced
them in a victorious expedition, after which he founded the
feast of the awaking of Hercules in the month Peritius.
The Tyrian annals also mentioned the connexion of Hiram
with Solomon king of Jerusalem. The relations of Phoeni
cians and Israelites had been generally friendly before this ;
it appears from Judges v. 17, Gen. xlix. 13, 20, that Asher,
Zebulon, and Dan acknowledged some dependence on Sidon,
and had in return a share in its commerce ; and the only
passage in the older period of the judges which represents
Israelites as subject to Sidonians, and again casting off the
yoke, is Judges x. 12, which perhaps refers to the time of
power of the Canaanites of Hazor (Graetz, i. 412). The
two nations drew closer together under the kings. Hiram
built David's palace (2 Sam. v. 11), and also gave Solomon
cedar and fir-trees, as well as workmen for his palace and
temple, receiving in exchange large annual payments of
oil and wine, and finally the cession of a Galikean district
(Cabul), in return for the gold he had supplied to decorate
the interior of the temple. The temple was quite in Phce-
nician style, as appears particularly in the two pillars Jachin
and Boaz. We may also judge that it was Hiram's temples
that led Solomon to propose to himself a similar work.2
One commercial result of the alliance with Solomon was
the united expedition from Eziongeber on the Gulf of
Akaba to Ophir (Malabar).3 The oldest known Phoenician
inscription (C.I.S., No. 5) is of a servant of "Hiram king
of the Sidonians," a title which, as we have seen, is quite
suitable for the king of Tyre. Hiram's grandson Abdas-
tarte I. (929-920) was murdered by his foster-brothers, and
the eldest took the regal title (920-908), but in the last
twelve years of his reign he shared his throne with a scion
of the old house, [Abd]Astarte II. (908-896). His brother
Astharym or Abdastharym (896-887) was murdered by a
third brother Phelles, who, in turn, after a reign of but eight
months, was slain by Ithobal I., priest of Astarte, whose
reign (887-855) marks a return to more settled rule.
Ithobal was beloved of the gods, and his intercession put an
end to a year of drought which Josephus recognized as that
which is familiar to us in the history of Elijah and Ahab.
In 1 Kings xvi. 3 1 Ithobal appears as Ethbaal, king of the
Sidonians. At this time the Tyrians still continued to ex
pand mightily. Botrys in Phoenicia and Aoza in Africa are
foundations of Ithobal ; the more famous Carthage owed
its foundation to the civil discords that followed on the
death of King Metten I. (849-820). According to the
legend current in later Carthage (Justin, xviii. 4,3-6,9),
Metten's son Phygmalion (820-773), who began to reign
at the age of nine, slew, when he grew up, his uncle
Sicharbas, the priest of Hercules and second man in the
kingdom, in order to seize his treasures. The wife of
Sicharbas was Elissa, Phygmalion's sister, and she fled and
founded Carthage. Truth and fable in this legend are
not easy to disentangle, but as Elissa is named also in the
Tyrian annals she is probably historical.
From the time of Ithobal downwards the further progress
of Phoenicia was threatened by a foreign power. The
older campaigns of the empires of the Euphrates and Tigris
against the Mediterranean coast had left no abiding results
— neither that of the Chaldteans in 1535 or 1538 (Eus.,
Can., No. 481), nor that of Tiglath Pileser I., c. 1120 B.C.4
- The date 11 or 12 Hiram which Josephus gives for the building
of the temple (Ant., viii. 3, 1 ; Ap. i. 18) must in the Tyrian annals
have referred to the cutting of wood in Lebanon for the native temples,
which Josephus then misinterpreted by 1 Kings v. 6[20] sq.
3 So Caldwell, Comp. Gram. o/Draridian Languages, p. 66 ; Burnell,
Indian Antiquary, 1872, p. 230. The decisive argument is that the
Hebrew word for " peacocks" can only be the Tamil tokei [see, how
ever, OPHIK].
4 He had the control of the ships of the Aradians ; Mthiaut, Ann.
des rois d'Assyrie, p. 50.
808
PHOENICIA
More serious was the new advance of the Assyrians under
Ashurnac.irpal (<\ 870), when this prince took tribute from
the lords of Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Mahallat, Maiz, Kaiz, the
West land, and the island Aradus. A king of Aradus was one
of the allies of Rammanidri of Damascus whom Shalman-
eser III. smote at Karkar in 854 ; thereafter the Assyrian
took tribute of Tyre in 842 and 839, and in the latter year
also from Byblus. Again in 803 Rammanniraru boasted of
exacting tribute from Tyre and Sidon, but thereafter there
was a respite until Tiglath Pileser II., the real founder of
the Assyrian empire, to whom Tyre paid tribute in 741,
and again along with Byblus in 738. In Tiglath Pileser's
Philistine campaign of 734 Byblus and Aradus paid tribute,
but a heavy contribution had to be exacted from Metten
of Tyre by an Assyrian captain. For the history of Elu-
keus, who reigned in Tyre under the name of Pylas l (c.
728-692), we have a fragment of Menander. He sub
dued a revolt of the Cittsei in Cyprus, but thereafter was
attacked by Shalmaneser IV.,2 to whom Sidon, Ace, Paloe-
tyrus, and many other cities submitted, revolting from Tyre.
A new kingdom was thus formed under a king [El lull,
whose name makes it likely that he was a relative of the
Tyrian prince, and who presently appears on the monu
ments as lord of Great Sidon (the same name as in Josh.
xix. 28), Lesser Sidon ( = Paketyrus ?), and other cities.
But insular Tyre did not yield, and Shalmaneser had to
make a second expedition against it, for which the jealous
particularism of the other Phoenician cities supplied the
ships. With much inferior forces the Tyrians gained a
naval victory and the king drew off. But the blockade
was continued, and seems to have ended after five years in
a capitulation. This siege probably began about the same
time with that of Samaria, and may be dated 724-720.
About 715 Ionian sea-rovers attacked Tyre and were re
pulsed by Sargon (Schrader, K.A.T., p. 169), an affair in
which we may find the historical basis of such legends as that
in the Cyclic Cypria, that Sidon was taken by Priam's
son Alexander. [Ejluli did not prove a faithful subject ;
Sennacherib attacked him, and he had to flee to Cyprus,
Ithobal being set in his place (701). Among the Phoeni
cian kings who appeared to do homage to Sennacherib a
prince of Tyre does not appear. One sees from all this
how barbarous and ill-consolidated the Assyrian power in
the west was ; after the retreat of Sennacherib it was even
for a time seriously threatened by the Ethiopian dynasty
which then held Egypt ; and this may explain the revolt
of Abdirnilkut, king of Sidon, which was visited by Esar-
haddon with the destruction of the city, the captivity of
part of the inhabitants, and the execution of the rebel king
(680 B.C., Menant, p. 241 sy.). Further unsuccessful revolts
of Tyre (Baal I. being king, 662 or later) and of Aradus
are recorded in the reign of Ashurbanlpal ; but at last the
war of this monarch with his brother seems to have enabled
Phoenicia to throw off the yoke without a contest (c. 650).
The Assyrians had proved their inability to create any
thing ; but their talent for destruction was brilliantly ex
hibited in Phoenicia, and the downfall of Tyre was occa
sioned, if not caused, by their intervention in the west.
For what Justin (xviii. 3, 6 sq.) relates of the Tyrians, that
they were so reduced in number by protracted war with
the Persians that, though they were at last victorious,
their slaves were able to overpower and slay them to a
man, all save Straton, whom a faithful servant saved,
and whom the slaves chose, on account of his wisdom, to
be king and founder of a new dynasty (Abdastarte III.),
is only to be understood by reading Assyrians for Per-
1 So Codd. Samb. Big. The name may be Pil-eser.
2 The best MSS.— Paris, 1421, and Oxou.— offer (according to a
private communication of Professor Niese) traces pointing to the read
sians.3 The catastrophe must have occurred soon after the
events already noticed ; and in the same period falls the
decay of the colonial power of Tyre, which we cannot follow
in detail, though we can recognize some of its symptoms.
After reaching the Mediterranean the Assyrians estab
lished themselves in Cyprus (709) ; in the Greek islands
farther west the Phoenicians had before this time been
gradually displaced by the Dorian migration, which, how
ever, must not be taken to be a single movement eastward
in the llth century, but a long course of colonizing ex
peditions, starting from Argos and continued for genera
tions, about which Ave can only say that the whole was
over by the middle of the 8th century. Thasus, the most
northern settlement in the yEgean, was already deserted
by the Phoenicians when the father of the poet Archilochus
led a Parian colony thither in 708. But the loss of the
more western colonies seems to have been contemporary
with the fall of Tyrian independence. About 701 Isaiah
looks for a revolt of Tartessus (xxiii. 10), and the first
Greek visitor, the Samian Cohens (639), found no trace
of Phoenician competition remaining there (Herod., iv.
152). These circumstances seem to justify us in under
standing what the contemporary poet Anacreon (fr. 8) says
of the hundred and fifty years' reign of Arganthonius over
Tartessus as really applying to the duration of the king
dom ; and as he died in 545 the kingdom will date from
695. In Sicily the Phoenicians began to be pushed back
from the time of the founding of Gela (690) ; and Himera
(648) and Selinus (628) mark the limits of Greek advance
towards the region on the north-west coast, which the
Phoenicians continued to hold. In 654 the Carthaginians
occupied the island Ebusus, on the sea-way to Spain (Diod.,
v. 16), a step obviously directed to save what could still be
saved. Soon after this, when Psammetichus opened Egypt
to foreigners (650), the Greeks, whose mental superiority
made them vastly more dangerous rivals than the Assyrians,
supplanted the Phoenicians in their lucrative Egyptian
trade ; it is noteworthy that Egypt is passed over in silence
in Ezekiel's full list of the trading connexions of Tyre.
In the last crisis of the dying power of Assyria the
Egyptians for a short time laid their hand on Phoenicia,
but after the battle of Carchemish (605) the Chaldieans
took their place. Apries made an attempt to displace
the Chaldaeans, took Sidon by storm, gained over the
other cities, and defeated the king of Tyre, who com
manded the Phoenician and Cyprian fleet (Herod., ii. 161 ;
Diod., i. 68). The party hostile to Chaldsea now took
the rule all through Phoenicia. The new king of Tyre,
Ithobal II., was on the same side (589), and after the fall
of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the great
merchant-city, which was still rich and strong enough to
hold out for thirteen years (587-S74).4 Ezekiel says that
Nebuchadnezzar and his host had no reward for their
heavy service against Tyre, and the presumption is that
the city capitulated on favourable terms, for IthobaPs
reign ends with the close of the siege, and the royal
family is subsequently found in Babylon, obviously as
cards that might on occasion be played against the actual
princes of Tyre.5 The king appointed by Nebuchadnezzar
was Baal II. (574-564), on whose death a republic was
formed under a single suffet. This form of government
lasted a year, and then after three months' interregnum
under the high priest Abbar there were for six years
3 There was no Straton, king of Tyre, between 587 and 480 ; a
war between Tyrians and Persians between 480 and 390 is nowhere
heard of, and is highly improbable, and Straton, from what we leani
of his descendants, cannot have reigned later than this.
4 See the Tyrian sources in Jos., Aj)., i. 21, compared with Ezek.
xx vi. 1 sq., xxix. 17 sq.
5 See Winer's " Pfingstprogramm " : De Nebuc. exp. Tyr. ad Ez.
xxvi. -xxviii. (Leipsic, 1848).
PHOENICIA
809
two suffets— presumably one for the island and one for
Old Tyre — after which an elected king, Balatorus, ruled
for a year (557-556). The next two kings (556-532) were
brought from Babylon. Under the second of these, Hiram
III., Phoenicia passed in 538 from the Chaldseans to the
Persians ; at the same time Amasis of Egypt occupied
Cyprus (Herod., ii. 182). There seems to have been no
struggle, the great siege and the subsequent civil disorders
had exhausted Tyre completely, and the city now becomes
second to Sidon. Accordingly about this time Carthage
asserted her independence ; the political activity of Hanno
the Great, the real founder of the Carthaginian state, falls
in the years 538-52 1.1 Of Hanno it is said that he made
his townsmen Africans instead of Tyrians (Dio Chrys., Or.,
xxv. 7). The old dependence was changed for a mere
relation of piety.
Constitution. — As Carthage was of old a republic, and
its constitution underwent many changes, it is not safe to
infer from the two Carthaginian suffets that Tyre also
stood in the oldest time under two such magistrates. All
Canaanite analogy speaks for kingship in the several cities
as the oldest form of Phoenician government. The royal
houses claimed descent from the gods, and the king could
not be chosen outside their members (Curt., iv. 1, 17).
The land belonged to the king, who was surrounded by
much splendour (Ezek. xxviii. 13), but the highly-devel
oped independent activity of the citizens limited his actual
power more than in ordinary Oriental realms ; it was pos
sible for war or peace to be decided at Tyre in the king's
absence, and in Sidon against his will (Arrian, ii. 15, 16;
Curt., iv. 1, 16). In Tyre the high priest of Hercules
was the second man in the state (Just., xviii. 4, 5), and so
the office was by preference given to a kinsman of the
king. The sovereign had a council of elders, who in Sidon
were in number a hundred ; of these the most distinguished
were the ten First whom we find at Marathus and Carthage
(Diod., ii. 628; Just., xviii. 6, 1), — originally, it may be
supposed, heads of the most noble houses. The third
estate was the people ; the freemen, however, were much
outnumbered by the slaves, as we have seen in Tyre.
Under the Persians there was a federal bond between
the cities, which we may suppose to be due to that great
organizer Darius I. The federation comprised Sidon, Tyre,
and Aradus — Sidon being chief — and contributed 300
triremes to the Persian fleet (Herod., vii. 96-99) ; the con
tingents of the lesser towns were under the command of the
great cities, which probably had the rule in other matters
also. This holds for Marathus, Sigon, Mariamme, which
belonged to Aradus (Arr., ii. 13), even for Byblus also,
which had its own kings in the Persian period, and seems
from the number of its coins and inscriptions to have been
very flourishing. We know the names of sixteen kings of
Sidon, ten of Byblus, eight of Aradus, but none of Berytus
in historical times ; presumably it formed with Byblus a
single kingdom, and in later times the capital was moved
to the latter. Tripolis was a bond of three cities, Sidonian,
Tyrian, and Aradian, a stadium distant from one another
(Diod., xvi. 41). Here sat the federal council under the
kings of the three leading states, who were accompanied
to Tripolis by their senators (probably 300 in all). Among
the chief concerns of this council were the relations to the
Persian Government, which was represented at the meetings.
Under Persian Rule. — Phoenicia, Palestine, and Syria
formed the fifth satrapy, paying a tribute of .£99,296.
The Phoenicians were favoured subjects for the sake of
1 This date is got from Justin, who in xix. 1, 1 says of his Mago
the same thing that others say of Hanno ; for the defeat spoken of
in xviii. 7, 1 is the battle against the Phocteans in 538, and the war
with a Spartan prince in Sicily (xix. 1, 7) is the war with Dorieus
(510). Taking into account the eleven years of Hasdrubal's dictator
ship we get Hanno's date as above.
their indispensable fleet; and having also common interests
against Greece they were amongst the most loyal subjects
of the empire. Sidon, as we have seen, was now the chief
city ; its king at the time of the expedition of Xerxes was
Tetramnestus. Among his descendants was the youthful
Eshmun'azar, whose inscription on the great sarcophagus
in Egyptian style now in the Louvre, taken with other
notices, enables us to make out the following fragment of
a genealogical table with much probability.2
Eslnnvm'azar I.
I I
Tabnit I. = Ammashtart (priestess of Astarte).
I !
Eshrauriazar II. Straton I. (Bod'ashtart; C.I.S., No. 4).
Tabnit II. (T^j)-
I
Straton II.
Reckoning back from Straton II., and remembering
that Eshmun'azar II. died as a minor under the regency
of his mother, we may place the death of the latter c. 400
B.C. ; the gift of Dor and Jap ho, which he received from
the great king, may have been a reward for fidelity in the
rebellion of the younger Cyrus. Certainly it was not
Eshmun'azar who led the eighty ships that joined Conon
in 396 (Diod., xiv. 79), an event which may have been
the beginning of the friendly relations between Sidon and
Athens, indicated in a decree of " proxenia " for Straton I.
(C. I. Gr., No. 87). Tyre was then quite weak ; between
391 and 386 it was stormed by Evagoras of Salamis (Isocr.,
Paneg., 161, and Evag., 23, 62; Diod., xv. 2), who had
already made the Greek element dominant over the Phoe
nician in Cyprus. Straton was friendly with Evagoras's
son Nicocles; they rivalled one another in debauchery,
and both found an unhappy end through their implication
in the great revolt of the satraps (Ath., xii. 531). When
Tachos entered Phoenicia Straton joined him, and on his
failure (361) was about to fall into the hands of the foe
when his wife slew him first and then herself (Jerome, ii.
1, 311 Vail.). A new revolt of Sidon against Persia took
place under Tennes II. on account of insults offered to the
Sidonians at the federal diet at Tripolis. Again they joined
the Egyptian Nectanebus II., carried the rest of Phoenicia
with them, and with the aid of Greek mercenaries from
Egypt drove the satraps of Syria and Cilicia out of Phoe
nicia. Tennes, however, whose interests were not identical
with those of the citizens at large, betrayed his people and
opened the city to Artaxerxes III. The Sidonians, to the
number of 40,000, are said to have burned themselves and
their families within their houses (345 B.C., Diod., xvi.
41-45). Tennes himself was executed after he had served
the ends of the great king. The Periphcs ascribed to Scylax
(§ 104) describes the respective possessions of Tyre and
Sidon in the year before this catastrophe ; Sidon had the
coast from Leontopolis to Ornithopolis, an Aradus near
the later Sycaminon, and Dor; Tyre had Sarepta and Exope
(?) in the district of the later Calamon, farther south a
town seemingly called Cirtha, and, strangely enough, the
important Ascalon. Tyre now again for a short time took
the first place. When, however, Alexander entered Phoeni
cia after Issus and the kings were absent with the fleet,
Aradus, Byblus, and Sidon joined him, the last-named
showing special zeal against Persia. The Tyrians also
offered submission, but refused to allow Alexander to enter
the city and sacrifice in the temple of Hercules. Alexander
was determined to make an example of the first sign of
opposition that did not proceed from Persian officials, and
2 See for details Gutschmid, in Jahrbb. f. Phil. u. Padag., 1857,
p. 613 sq.
XVIII. — 102
810
P H (E — P H (E
at once began the siege. It lasted seven months, and,
though the king, with enormous toil, drove a mole from
the mainland to the island, he made little progress till the
Persians were mad enough to dismiss the fleet and give
him command of the sea through his Cyprian and Phoenician
allies. The town was at length forced in July 332 ; 8000
Tyrians were slain, 30,000 inhabitants sold as slaves, and
only a few notables, the king Azemilcus, and the Cartha
ginian festal envoys, who had all taken shelter in the fane
of Hercules, were spared (Arr., ii. 13, 15 sy.). Tyre thus
lost its political existence, and the foundation of Alexandria
presently changed the lines of trade and gave a blow per
haps still more fatal to the Phoenician cities. The Phoeni
cians thenceforth ceased to be a great nation, though under
the Greeks Tyre and Sidon were still wealthy towns, the
seats of rich merchants.
Sources and Helps.— The only at all continuous records of ancient
tradition are the account of Phoenician mythology by Philo of
Byblus, the extracts of the Tyrian annals by Josephus from
Menander of Ephesus, and what Justin in the 18th book of his
abridgment of Pompeius Trogus has taken from Timreus. Every
thing else has to be pieced together in mosaic fashion. The chief
help is Movers's unfinished work, Die Phonizier, i., ii. 1-3 (Bonn,
1841-56), which must be compared with his article " Phoenizien,"
in Ersch and Gruber (1848). Both works are learned and indis
pensable, but to be used with caution wherever the author's judg
ment on his material is involved, especially in the treatment of
the mythology, which is merely syncretistic, whereas it is essential
to a right understanding of this subject to distinguish the peculiari
ties of the several Semitic nations. Selden, DC diis Syris (London,
1617), is still a valuable mine. The best recent contributions
are those of Baudissin, Studien zur semitischcn Religionsgcschichtc
(Leipsic, 1876, 1878). For the colonial history Bochart's monu
mental Chanaan (Caen, 1646) is not superseded even by Movers, who,
as has been wittily observed, has created with the help of etymo
logy Phcenician chambrcs de reunion ; and, though Olshausen (N.
Rhein. 3Ius., 1853, p. 321 sq.} does not go quite so far, both he and
Miillenhoff (Deutsche AUcrthumskunde, i., 1870) follow the steps
of Movers much too closely. A good corrective is given by Meltzer
(Gesch. d. Karthager, i., 1879), though he, again, is sometimes too
sceptical. Movers is best on the history proper ; and the admirable
sketch in Grote's History of Greece should also be consulted. See
also Duncker,- Gesch. des Alterthums, and Maspero, Hist. anc. dc
I' Orient. (A. v. G.)
Art. — Of Phoenician buildings few remains now exist on
Phoenician soil; the coast has always been, and still is,
densely peopled, and the builders of successive generations,
like those of the present day, have regarded ancient edifices
as their most convenient quarries. Phoenician architecture
had its beginning in the widening and adaptation of
caves in the rocks ; the independent buildings of later
times, constructed of great blocks of unhewn stone, are
direct imitations of such cave -dwellings. As Syrian
limestone (which is the material employed) does not
admit of the chiselling of finer details, the Phoenician
monuments are somewhat rough and irregular. Not a
vestige remains of the principal sanctuary of this ancient
people, the temple of Melkart in Tyre ; but Renan dis
covered a few traces of the temple of Adonis near Byblus,
and a peculiar mausoleum, Burj al-Bezzak, still remains
near Amrit (Marathus). It may also be conjectured that
the conduits of Ras al-Ain, south of Tyre, are of ancient
date. Various notices that have come down to us render
it probable that the Phoenician temples, in the erection of
which great magnificence was undoubtedly displayed, were
in many respects similar to the temple at Jerusalem ; and
confirmatory evidence is afforded by the remarkable remains
of a sanctuary near Amrit, in which there is a cella in
the midst of a large court hewn out of the rock, and other
buildings more of an Egyptian style. In the domain of art
originality was as little a characteristic of the Phoenicians
as of the Hebrews ; they followed foreign and especially
Egyptian models. This influence is mainly evident in
sculptured remains, in which Egyptian motifs such as the
Urseus frieze and the winged sun-disk not unfrequently
occur. It was in the time of the Persian monarchy
that Phcenician art reached its highest development ;
and to this period belong the oldest remains, numismatic
as well as other, that have come down to us. The whole
artistic movement may be divided into two great periods :
in the first (from the earliest times to the 4th century
B.C.) Egyptian influence is predominant, but the national
Phoenician element is strongly marked ; while in the
second Greek influence has obtained the mastery, and the
Phoenician element, though always making itself felt, is
much less obtrusive. In the one period works of art, as
statues of the gods and even sculptured sarcophagi, were
sometimes imported direct from Egypt (such statues of
the gods have been found even in the western colonies) ;
in the other Greek works were procured mainly from
Rhodes. The Phoenicians also adopted from the Egyptians
the custom of depositing their dead in sarcophagi. The
oldest examples of those anthropoid stone coffins are made
after the pattern of Egyptian mummy-cases ; they were
painted in divers colours, and at first were cut in low
relief ; afterwards, however, towards and during the Greek
period, the contours of the body began to be shown in
stronger relief on the cover. Modern excavations show
that, besides stone coffins (in marble or basalt), which indeed
cannot be considered the oldest kind of receptacle, the
Phoenicians employed coffins of wood, clay, and lead, to
which were often attached metal plates or, at times it may
be, decorations in carved wood. Embalming also seems
to have been frequently practised as well as covering the
body with stucco. Great care was bestowed by the Phoeni
cians on their burial-places, and their cemeteries are the
most important monuments left to us. The tombs are
subterranean chambers of the most varied form : the walls
and roof are not always straight ; sometimes there are two
tiers of tombs one above the other, often several rows one
behind the other. While in early times a mere perpendi
cular shaft led to the mouth of these excavations, at a
later date regular stairs were constructed. The dead were
deposited either on the floor of the chamber (often in a
sarcophagus) or, according to the later custom, in niches.
The mouths of the tombs were walled up and covered with
slabs, and occasionally cippi were set up. The great sepul
chral monuments (popularly called mayhdnl, "spindles")
which have been found above the tombs near Amrit are
very peculiar : some are adorned with lions at the base
and at the top with pyramidal finials. Besides busts (which
belong generally to the Greek period), the smaller objects
usually discovered are numerous earthen pitchers and
lamps, glass wares, such as tear-bottles, tesserae, and gems.
Unrifled tombs are seldom met with.
Literature. — For topography and art, see Renan, Mission de
Phenicie (Paris, 1846) ; for language, Schroder, Die ph'onizische
Sprachc (Halle, 1869), and Stade in Morgenldndische Forschungcn
(1875, p. 167) ; and for inscriptions, Corp. Inscr. Son. (Paris,
1881, and following years). (A. SO.)
PHCENIX. Herodotus (ii. 73), speaking of the animals
in Egypt, mentions a sacred bird called "phoenix," which he
had only seen in a picture, but which the Heliopolitans
said visited them once in five hundred years on the death
of its father. The story was that the phoenix came from
Arabia, bearing its father embalmed in a ball of myrrh,
and buried him in the temple of the sun. Herodotus did
not believe this story, but he tells us that the picture
represented a bird with golden and red plumage, and
closely resembling an eagle in size and shape. The story
of the phoenix is repeated with variations by later writers,
and was a favourite one with the Romans. There is only
one phoenix at a time, says Pliny (N.H., x. 2), who, at
the close of his long life, builds himself a nest with twigs
of cassia and frankincense, on which he dies ; from his
corpse is generated a worm which grows into the young
P H (E — P H O
811
phoenix. The young bird lays his father on the altar in
the city of the sun, or burns him there, as Tacitus has it
(Ann., vi. 28). The story of the birth and death of the
pho3nix has several other forms. According to Horapollo
(ii. 57) he casts himself on the ground and receives a
wound, from the ichor of which the new phoenix springs ;
but the most familiar form of the legend is that in the
Physiologus, where the phoenix is described as an Indian
bird which subsists on air for 500 years, after which,
lading his wings with spices, he flies to Heliopolis, enters
the temple there, and is burned to ashes on the altar.
Next day the young phoenix is already feathered; on the
third day his pinions are full-grown, he salutes the priest
and flies away. The period at which the phoenix re
appears is very variously stated, some authors giving as
much as 1461 or even 7006 years, but 500 years is the
period usually named ; and Tacitus tells us that the bird
was said to have appeared first under Sesostris, then under
Amasis, again under Ptolemy III., and once more in 34
A.D., after an interval so short that the genuineness of the
last phoenix was suspected. The phoenix that was shown
at Rome in the year of the secular games, A.u.c. 800, was
universally admitted to be an imposture.1
The form and variations of these stories characterize
them as popular tales rather than official theology ; but
they evidently must have had points of attachment in the
mystic religion of Egypt, and indeed both Horapollo and
Tacitus speak of the phoenix as a symbol of the sun. Now
we know from the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian
texts that a bird called the "bennu" was one cf the sacred
symbols of the worship of Heliopolis, and Wiedemann
(Zts<:h. f. Aeg. Sprac/te, xvi. p. 89 sq.) has made it toler
ably clear that the bennu was a symbol of the rising sun,
whence it is represented as "self-generating" and called
"the soul of Ra (the sun)," "the heart of the renewed
Sun." All the mystic symbolism of the morning sun,
especially in connexion with the doctrine of the future
life, could thus be transferred to the bennu, and the lan
guage of the hymns in which the Egyptians praised the
luminary of dawn as he drew near from Arabia, delighting
the gods with his fragrance and rising from the sinking
flames of the morning glow, was enough to suggest most
of the traits materialized in the classical pictures of the
Phoenix. That the bennu is the prototype of the phoenix
is further confirmed by the fact that the former word in
Egyptian means also "palm-tree," just as the latter does
in Greek. How far the Egyptian priests translated the
symbolism of the bennu into a legend it would be vain to
conjecture ; that the common people did so is only what
we should expect ; and it is to be observed that the monu
ments have not yet shown any trace of the element in the
classical legend which makes the phoenix a prodigy instead
of a symbol — its actual appearance at long intervals. The
very various periods named make it probable that the
periodical return of the phoenix belongs only to vulgar
legend, materializing what the priests knew to be symbolic.
The hieroglyphic figure of the bennu is that of a heron
( _Zr bennu, or XT l>dh), and the gorgeous colours and
plumed head spoken of by Pliny and others would be
least inappropriate to the purple heron (Ardea pur pur ea],
1 Some other ancient accounts may be here referred to. That
ascribed to Hecatseus is, in the judgment of Cobet (Mnemosyne, 1883),
stolen from Herodotus by a late forger. The poem of the Jew
Ezechiel quoted by Eusebius (Prsp.p. Ev., ix. 29. 30) appears to refer
to the phoenix. Here the sweet song is first mentioned, — a song which,
according to the poem on the phoenix ascribed to Lactantius, accom
panies the rising sun. The bird is often spoken of in Latin poetry,
and is the subject of an idyl by Claudian. See also Solinus, cap.
xxxiii., with Salmasius's Exercitationes ; Tertullian, De resur. carnis,
c. 33 ; Clemens Rom., Ep. i. ch. xxv.
with which, or with the allied Ardea cinerea, it has been
identified by Lepsius and Peters (Aelteste Texte des Todten-
buchs, 1867, p. 51). But it must be remembered that the
bennu in the Egyptian texts is really a mere symbol, hav
ing the very vaguest connexion with any real bird, and the
golden and purple hues described by Herodotus may be
the colours of sunrise rather than the actual hues of the
purple heron. How Herodotus came to think that the
bird was like an eagle is quite unexplained ; perhaps this
is merely a slip of memory.
Many commentators still understand the word 7\fl, chol, in Job
xxix. 18 (A. V. "sand ") of the phoenix. This interpretation is per
haps as old as the (original) Septuagint, and is current with the
later Jews, whose appetite for fable, however, is often greater than
their exegetical sagacity. Compare Eisenmenger's Entdecktes Juden-
thum, vol. i. passim. Among the Arabs the story of the phoenix
was confused with that of the salamander ; and the samand or
samandal (Damiri, ii. 36 sq. ) is represented sometimes as a quad
ruped, sometimes as a bird. It was firmly believed in, for the
incombustible cloths woven of flexible asbestos were popularly
thought to be made of its hair or plumage, and were themselves
called by the same name (comp. Yakut, i. 529, and Dozy, s.v. ). The
'anka (Pers. simurgh), a stupendous bird like the roc (rukh) of
Marco Polo and the Arabian Nights, also borrows sonic features of
the phoenix. According to Kazwmi (i. 420) it lives 1700 years,
and when a young bird is hatched the parent of opposite sex burns
itself alive. In the book of Kalilah and Dimnali the simur or 'anka
is the king of birds, the Indian ganida on whom Vishnu rides.
PHCENIXVILLE, a borough in the United States, in
Schuylkill township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, is
situated 27^ miles north-west of Philadelphia by the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, on the right bank of
the Schuylkill river, which is there joined by French Creek,
crossed by eight fine bridges. Phoenixville is best known
as the seat of the blast-furnaces and mills of the Phoenix
Iron Company, which had its origin in a rolling and slitting
mill erected in 1790 by Benjamin Longstreth, and long
ranked as the largest in the States. The works cover 1 50
acres and employ sometimes 2500 men. Phoenixville also
contains a pottery, a sash and planing mill, a shirt-factory,
and needle works ; and iron, copper, and lead are all mined
in the neighbourhood. The vicinity of the borough is
noted for its large number of magnificent iron bridges.
The population was 2670 in 1850, 4886 in 1860, 5292 in
1870, and 6682 in 1880.
PHONETICS (TO. (j)wvi]TiKd, the matters pertaining to
the voice, </>wv?;) is the science and art of the production of
sounds, including cries, by means of the organs of speech
in man and their analogues in other animals.
This very extensive subject may be divided into the
following three parts. (1) Anatomical, the accurate descrip
tion of all the organs employed, emissive (lungs, with the
muscles acting on them, trachea, larynx, pharynx, mouth
and its parts, nose and its passages, with its closing valve
the uvula) and receptive (the ear, external and internal,
and parts of the brain with which the auditory nerve com
municates). As all voice-sounds are produced by imita
tion, defects in the receptive organs entail defects in the
action of the emissive. The congenitally deaf are conse
quently mute. (2) Physiological, the co-ordinated action
of the parts just referred to in hearing and uttering
sounds, and especially expiration and inspiration, with
laryngeal, oral, and nasal actions, and the relation of these
actions to the will (on these see VOICE). (3) Acoustical,
with especial reference to the action of double membranous
reeds, as in the glottis ; the effects of resonance chambers,
both fixed and variable in shape and size, open and closed,
single and combined, and of the passage of air, more or less
in a state of sonorous vibration, through tubes of variable
lengths and widths, with walls of variable hardness, and
with or without the interposition of semi -viscous fluids,
as well as of flapping, smacking, or vibrating parts, and of
other obstructions ; also investigations into the nature, pro-
812
P H O — P H 0
cluction, and appreciation of qualities of tone, and their
gradual but rapid gliding one into another, as well as into
the nature of sympathetic vibration, not only of the differ
ent cavities filled with air in the organs of speech but of the
solid bony parts, and also the softer cartilages, sinews, and
muscles connecting and supporting them. This part of
the subject, which is far from having been fully investi
gated at present, has two main subdivisions — («) musical,
regarding the nature and properties of musical sound, and
especially song, with their varieties due to force, pitch, and
quality, as partly investigated in Helmholtz's Sensations of
Tone ; ((>) rhetorical, regarding the mechanism of speaking
as distinct from singing, the blending and differentiation
of qualities of tone, partly musical and partly unmusical,
with constantly variable and ill-defined pitch and force,
influenced by feeling; this subdivision embraces speech
in particular, its special sounds for conveying thought and
feeling, with their constantly-shifting characters, and also
cries of joy and pain, as well as, properly speaking, the
cries of the lower animals by which they communicate
with those of the same kind ; hence it comprehends also
language, elocution, and philology in their fundamental
constitution.
In a more restricted sense, applied solely to human be
ings and to articulate significant sounds (that is, exclusive
of cries of pain and pleasure, or the inarticulate and often
unconscious noises of snoring, snuffling, gargling, pant
ing, laughing, crying, sobbing, sneezing, and the like), the
term "phonetics" is used to designate a work on the enu
meration, evaluation, relations, classification, analysis, and
synthesis of SPEECH-SOUNDS (q.v.), — that is, of the sounds
actually used in speech for conveying and recording thought
by different nations and tribes, together with a means of
fixing them by visible signs. The alphabet has followed
speech-sounds with very halting steps. It is only in quite
recent times that sufficient knowledge of the nature of
speech has been obtained to enable us in some measure to
understand and unravel the mysteries of the old enigmatic
forms, and thus to construct a securer basis for philology
than the guesses on wrhich it once rested.
In a still more restricted and popular sense the term
"phonetics" has been recently used for attempts to construct
a new practical alphabet for English or other individual
languages, or for several such languages simultaneously,
with a view either of superseding the alphabets at present
in use, or of improving their employment, or, at any rate,
of facilitating the generally very difficult tasks of teaching
and learning to read and write. Attempts of this kind
are by no means recent : witness Loys Meigret, Traite
touckant le commvn vsaye de Vescritvre francoise (1545);
Sir Thomas Smith, De recta et emendata liny use, Anylicse,
scriptione (1568) ; J. Hart, An orthoyraphie, conteyniny the
due order and reason, hoive to write or painte thimaye of
mannes voice, most like to the life or nature (15G9);
[William] Bullokars Eooke at large for the Amendment of
Orthoyraphie for English speech (1580) ; Alexander Gill
(master of St Paul's school, London, when Milton was
there), Logonomia Anylica: qua yentis sermo facilius addis-
citur (1619 and 1621); Charles Butler, The English
Grammar, or the Institution of Letters, Syllables, and Words
in the English tongue (1633). All these works are more
or less printed in the orthography proposed, and each
orthography is different. They are described and illus
trated in A. J. Ellis's Early English Pronunciation, parts
i. and iii. It is, however, not necessary in this place
to go beyond attempts made by persons still living.
In 1847, after three years of experiments, Isaac Pitman
and Alexander John Ellis brought out their phonotypy,
consisting of twenty -three old types and seventeen new
ones, with which, among much other matter, the Bible
and the Phonetic News newspaper were printed in 1849,
and extensive experiments were made, showing that read
ing in this alphabet could be rapidly taught, and that
when children had learned to read phonotypy well they
could easily learn to read in ordinary spelling. The new
letters were subsequently much and frequently altered
in meaning by Pitman, who in 1884 still produced a
Phonetic Journal weekly in his present phonotypy. Very
numerous forms of phonotypy, following either the old or
the new edition, have also appeared in America. Many
other systems have been tried by accenting, italicizing,
supernumbering, or diacritically marking the letters to
make the ordinary letters of English spelling convey their
sounds. Almost every new "pronouncing dictionary"
has its own method. This last plan has been, on the
whole, successfully applied for teaching to read by many
writers. In order to avoid new types, or even accented
letters, and yet have a practical phonetic alphabet for
English and its dialects, Ellis prefixed to part iii. of
his Early English Pronunciation (1871) an account of
" Glossic, a new system of spelling intended to be used
concurrently with the existing English orthography, in
order to remedy some of its defects without detracting
from its value." This has been extensively used by the
English Dialect Society and in Ellis's works on Pro
nunciation for Singers (1877) and Speech in Sony (1878),
in which it is fully explained and used in complete practical
accounts of the phonology of English, German, French,
Italian, and Spanish. Henry Sweet, in his Handbook of
Phonetics (Oxford, 1878), proposed his "Broad Romic,"
admitting, however, a few inverted letters. Subsequently,
the English Spelling Reform Association was started, and
great numbers of new attempts at phonetic alphabets for
English only were made, which will be found described
and illustrated at full length in W. R. Evans's Spelling
Experimenter and Phonetic Investigator (2 vols., September
1880 to April 1883). There is also an American spelling
reform association. But neither association has as yet
agreed upon a new alphabet. In 1881 the Philological
Society of London approved of certain " partial correc
tions of English spelling " submitted by Sweet, and these
are more or less used in the Proceedings of that society,
as edited by Sweet, and are generally approved by the
American association, but they are not by any means an
entirely phonetic scheme. In the books referred to, and
particularly Evans's, the whole of this special branch of
the subject of phonetics, so far as English is concerned,
may be sufficiently examined. (A. J. E*.)
PHORMIUM, or NEW ZEALAND FLAX (also called "New
Zealand hemp"), is a fibre obtained from the leaves of
Phormium tenax (ord. Liliacex). The plant is a native of
New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, and Norfolk Island ;
it is now cultivated as an ornamental garden -plant in
Europe, and for economic purposes it has been introduced
into the Azores. The leaves grow from 3 to 6 and even
9 feet in height and from 2 to 3 inches in breadth, spring
ing from the extremity of a rhizome. After the tuft of
leaves has continued growing for about three years a flower
ing stalk springs up to the height of about 1 6 feet, and
when it comes to maturity the whole plant dies down.
Meantime, however, lateral branches or fans have been
given off from the main rhizome, and thus the life of the
plant is continued by stem as well as seed. Phormium has
been treated as a cultivated plant in New Zealand, though
only to a limited extent, and with no promising results ;
for the supplies of the raw material dependence has been
principally placed on the abundance of the wild stocks and
on sets planted as hedges and boundaries by the Maoris.
Among these people the fibre has always been an article of
considerable importance, yielding cloaks, mats, cordage,
P H 0 — P H 0
813
fishing-lines, <fec., its valuable properties having attracted
the attention of traders even before colonists settled in the
islands. The leaves, for fibre -yielding purposes, come to
maturity in about six months, and the habit of the Maoris
is to cut them down twice a year, rejecting the outer and
leaving the central immature leaves. Phormium is prepared
with great care by native methods, only the mature fibres
from the under- side of the leaves being taken. These are
collected in water, scraped over the edge of a shell to free
them from adhering cellular tissue and epidermis, and more
than once washed in a running stream, followed by renewed
scraping till the desired purity of fibre is attained. This
native process is exceedingly wasteful, not more than one-
fourth of the leaf-fibre being thereby utilized. But up till
1860 it was only native-prepared phormium that was known
in the market, and it was on the material so carefully, but
wastefully, selected that the reputation of the fibre was
built up. The troubles with the Maoris at that period
led the colonists to engage in the industry, and the sudden
demand for all available fibres caused soon afterwards by
the Civil War in America greatly stimulated their endea
vours. Machinery was invented for disintegrating the
leaves and freeing the fibre, and at the same time experi
ments were made with the view of obtaining it by water-
retting and by means of alkaline solutions and other
chemical agencies. But the fibre produced by these rapid
and economical means was very inferior in quality to the
product of Maori handiwork, mainly because weak and un
developed strands are, by machine preparation, unavoidably
intermixed with the perfect fibres, which alone the Maoris
select, and so the uniform quality and strength of the
material are destroyed. No means have yet been devised
for producing by mechanical or chemical means fibre in
the perfect condition it shows when selected and prepared
by Maoris. Phormium is a cream-coloured fibre with a fine
silky gloss, capable of being spun and woven into many of
the heavier textures for which flax is used, either alone or
in combination with flax. It is, however, principally a
cordage fibre, and in tensile strength it is second only to
Manila hemp ; but it does not bear well the alternations of
wet and dry to which ship -ropes are subject. It is largely
used as an adulterant of Manila hemp in rope-making, and
recently it has come into use as a suitable material for the
bands of self-binding reaping-machines. Between 1864
and 1876 there were exported from New Zealand 26,434
tons of phormium, valued at £592,218; in 1881 the exports
were 1307 tons, of the value of £26,285.
PHOSPHORESCENCE, a name given to a variety of
phenomena due to different causes, but all consisting in
the emission of a pale more or less ill-defined light, not
obviously due to combustion. The word was first used by
physicists to describe the property possessed by many
substances of themselves becoming luminous after ex
posure to light. Such bodies were termed "phosphori,"
and the earliest known appears to have been barium
sulphide, which was discovered by Vincenzo Cascariolo, a
cobbler of Bologna, at the beginning of the 17th century.
See PHOSPHORUS. Subsequently, when certain animals
were observed to be similarly endowed, the word " phos
phorescent " was applied to them also. It is clear, how
ever, that the light derived from previous exposure to
light, which thus becomes, as it were, stored up, is hardly
comparable with that which is produced by living proto
plasm and evidently under the control of the nervous
system. It has been suggested that this latter should
have a special name appropriated to it, and here it will
certainly be convenient to divide the subject into two
heads in accordance with this distinction.
A. PHOSPHORESCENCE IN MINERALS. — In addition to
the phosphorescence after insolation already alluded to
(see LIGHT, vol. xiv. p. 603) many minerals exhibit this
property under other circumstances : (a) on heating to a
temperature much below what is known as "red heat"
(fluorspar, lepidolite, quinine) — this being often attended
with a change in molecular structure or in specific heat ;
(I) on friction, as in the case of fused calcium chloride
(Homberg's phosphorus) ; (c) on cleavage, a property mani
fested by mica, the two split portions becoming electrified —
the one positive, the other negative ; (d) on crystallization,
as boracic acid after fusion, or water on rapid freezing.1
A few meteorological phenomena may here be mentioned.
Rain has been seen to sparkle on striking the ground, and
waterspouts and meteoric dust have presented a luminous
appearance. The ignis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisp, seen in
marshy districts, has given rise to much difference of
opinion : Kirby and Spence suggest that it may be due to
luminous insects ; but this explanation will certainly not
apply in all cases, and it is perhaps on the whole more
reasonable to believe that the phenomenon is caused by
the slow combustion of marsh gas (methyl hydride).
B. PHOSPHORESCENCE IN ORGANISMS. — The vegetable
kingdom has furnished few instances of the property under
consideration ; the earliest on record took place in the year
1762, when a daughter of Linnaeus saw luminous emana
tions from a species of Tropaeolum, since which time a like
appearance has been noticed in Helianthus annum, Lilium
bidbiferum, Calendula officinalis, Tagetes patula, and T.
erecta, all of which are red or orange -coloured flowers.
A few cryptogams have been seen to shine in the dark,
e.y., Schistostega osmundacea among the liverworts ; Rhizo-
morp/ia subterranea, Fungus igneus in Amboyna, and other
fungi in Brazil and Italy ; and the mycelium (thread-like
fibres) of other species growing in decayed wood is also
occasionally luminous. There are also a number of small
marine phosphorescent organisms ^(Pyrocystis, Peridinium],
concerning which it is impossible to say with certainty
whether they should be referred to the animal or the vege
table kingdom. But the most brilliant as well as the most
varied and interesting cases of phosphorescence belong
to the animal world, and there is not one of the larger
groups which does not furnish some instances of it.
Nature of the Light. — The light emitted by different
animals varies very much in colour : green has been
noticed in the glow-worm, fire -flies, some brittle -stars,
centipedes, and annelids ; blue is seen in the Italian fire
fly (Luciola italica) ; and this and light green are the pre
dominant colours exhibited by marine animals, although the
beautiful Girdle of Venus and some species of Salpa and
Cleodora appear red, and Pavonaria and other gorgonoids
lilac. The curious lantern-fly (Fulgora 2)y>'orhynchus) has
a purple light. One very remarkable instance is mentioned
of an Appendicularia in which the same individual appeared
first red, then blue, and finally green.3 In comparatively
few cases has the light been examined by the spectroscope.
Panceri 4 states that in every instance observed by him it
was monochromatic, the spectrum consisting of a continu
ous band without any separate bright lines ; in Pholas this
band extended from the line E of the solar spectrum to
a little beyond F ; in Umbellula, examined on the voyage
of the " Challenger," it was sharply included between the
lines b and D.5
Luminous Organs. — In the lowest forms of life and in
1 Phipsou, Phosphorescence, London, 1862.
2 Ehrenberg, Das Leuchten des Meeres, 1835, and in Abhandl. k.
Akad. Wiss., Berlin (1834), 1836.
3 Giglioli, "La Fosforescenza del Mare," in Bollet. d. Soc. Geog.-
Geol. Ital, 1870.
4 Numerous papers in Atti Accad. Sci. Fis. e Mat., Naples, 1870-
78, and abstr. , Ann. Sci. Nat., ser. 5, vol. xvi. , 187'2.
5 Thomson, Voyage of the Challenger : the Atlantic, London, 1877,
vol. i. p. 150.
814
PHOSPHORESCENCE
many jelly-fish there seem to be no organs specially set
apart for the production of light, this being emitted from
the whole surface of the body ; but even in the latter
group a degree of specialization is found, for in some it is
only the marginal sense-organs, in others the radial canals
and ovaries, that are luminous. In other groups of animals
the localization of the photogenic property in certain organs
or tissues is universal, and these present the utmost variety
in structure and situation. In the sea-pens (Pennatula)
every polyp has eight luminous bands on the outer surface
of the stomach ; when the colony is touched the light com
mences at the point irritated and then spreads to other
portions. Pyrosoma, a colonial free -swimming ascidian,
has two small patches of cells at the base of each inhalent
tube ; the cells have no nucleus, but contain a material
which appears from its chemical relations to be fatty ; as
in Pennatula, the light spreads from the irritated point.
In the transparent pelagic mollusc (PkylUrrhoe) there are
rounded cells connected with the nerve-twigs from which,
as also from the ordinary cells of the nerve-ganglia, the
light emanates. Several annelids (Chsetopteru-s, Tomopteris)
have luminous organs at the bases of lateral processes of
the body. The rock-boring mollusc (Pholas), whose phos
phorescent properties were known as long ago as the time
of Pliny, has three distinct luminous organs — (1) a curved
band along the anterior border of the mantle, (2) two small
triangular patches at the entrance of the anterior siphon,
and (3) two long parallel cords situated within this latter ;
these are all covered with ciliated epithelium, like that of
other parts of the mantle, but having granular contents.1
The glow-worm (Lampyris splendidula) has been investi
gated by Max Schultze ; 2 he finds that the male has a pair
of organs in each of the two segments preceding the last
in the abdomen ; each organ consists of a pale transparent
superficial layer, which gives off the light, and a deep
opaque layer, whose function is less obvious, but which
may serve as a reflector.3 Quite recently Emery 4 has
examined the Italian fire -fly, in which both male and
female are luminous. As in the glow-worm, the organ
consists of two layers : the dorsal contains large quantities
of uric acid salts ; while in the ventral layer there are clear
cells arranged in cylindrical lobules, which surround verti
cally-disposed tracheal limbs — a structure comparable to
the stellate tracheal cells of Schultze. The luminous organs
are regarded as homologous to the "fat body" so common
in insects. The ultimate branches of the tracheae ramify
in these and terminate in peculiar star-like cells ; nerve-
fibres are also present. The Mexican fire-flies (Pyrophorus)
are in most respects similar to the glow-worm, but have a
pair of organs in the thorax and one in the abdomen, whilst
the lantern-flies (Fulyora} carry their light at the extremity
of a long curved proboscis. Many crustaceans are lumin
ous, but in most cases it has not been observed from what
part of the body the light emanates ; in some instances,
however ( Thysanopoda \Nyctiphanes\ norveyica, Euphausia
pellucida,, &c.), there are small globular phosphorescent
organs, which have often been described as eyes, beneath
the thorax and between the abdominal swimmerets. Sars 5
states that " these globules . . . constitute a highly com
plicated luminous -apparatus, the lenticular body of the
organs, generally described as a true eye-lens, acting as a
condenser, which . . . enables the animal to produce at
will a very bright flash of light in a given direction."
Mr John Murray in the same place records the occurrence
1 Panceri, op. clt.
2 "Zur Kenntn. d. Leuohtorgane v. Lampyris splendidula," in
Archivf, mikr. Anat., vol. i. , 1865.
3 Heinemann, " Unters. ii. d. Leuchtorgane d. b. Vera Cruz vor-
konim. Leuchtkafer, " in Archivf. mikr. Anat., vol. viii., 1872.
4 Z'itschr. f. wiss. Zonl, vol. xl., 1884.
5 Narrative of the "Challenger" Expedition, vol. i. 1885.
of a very brilliant display of this phosphorescence during
the " Triton " expedition in the Faroe Channel.
Many deep-sea fish possess round shining bodies im
bedded in the skin, either in the vicinity of the eye or
along the sides of the body ; some of these resemble modi
fied eyes, whilst the structure of others recalls a glandular
organ without the usual duct,6 and it is supposed that
some or all of these are luminous organs, the lens in the
former group acting as a bull's eye (see ICHTHYOLOGY, vol.
xii. p. 684).
Dead and putrescent animals are not unfrequently phos
phorescent ; this fact has most commonly been observed in
fish, though instances are not wanting in which the pro
perty has been manifested by molluscs arid other animals,
and even by the human body. Furthermore, a few startling
but apparently well-authenticated instances are on record
in which human beings have been luminous while yet alive
owing to certain states of disease.7
Causes of Phosphorescence. — On this head it is at present impos
sible to write with certainty ; it seems likely, however, from the
variety of the effects produced by different chemical and physical
agents, that the causes are manifold. In many instances light
is only emitted after stimulation, either mechanically, chemically
(by fresh water, milk, ammonia), or by electricity, though there
are cases in which this last has no effect whatever. The fact that
the nervous system is so often closely connected with the luminous
organs indicates that the exhibition of the light is either dependent
on the volition of the animal or is the reflex result of the stimula
tion of sensory nerves (Panceri). In the glow-worm the distribu
tion of trachea (air-tubes) throughout the photogenic apparatus, and
the fact that carbonic acid extinguishes the light while oxygen in
tensities it, suggest that it is due to some form of slow combustion,
while the fatty contents of the luminous cells of this and many
other animals point to the probability that a fat containing free
phosphorus is the active agent in the process. Since a large num
ber of luminous organs retain their power after the death of the
animal, and even after desiccation and subsequent moistening,
there seems no necessity to adopt the theory that we have to deal
with an instance of the direct transformation of vital into
radiant energy.
The well-known phosphorescence of the sea is due to the animals
which inhabit it, except in a few cases in which it has been ascribed
to putrescent matter. This was known as long ago as 1749, when
Vianelli8 discovered in the waters of the Adriatic a luminous animal
cule which was named by him Nereis noctiluca, and was probably
the creature now known as Nodiluca miliaris. This minute animal
swarms in countless myriads on the surface of the sea not very far
from land, and is the commonest cause of its diffuse luminosity,
although other low forms of life such as Peridinium (Ceratium)
contribute in no small degree ; and in mid-ocean another organism,
Pyrocystis, which has often been mistaken for Noctiluca, appears to
replace it, and is very abundant. The brilliant sparkling phos
phorescence more rarely seen is caused by the presence of copepods
and other small surface crustaceans.
Uses of Phosphorescence. — The service rendered by this property
to its possessors is in many cases by no means obvious ; indeed it
would seem certain that to crustacean larvte and other surface-
organisms surrounded by voracious enemies phosphorescence must
be a "perilous gift." It is possessed by so many anthozoa and
jelly-fish, which have also stinging organs, that fish have perhaps
learned to shun instinctively all phosphorescent animals ; fishermen
state that fishes avoid nets in which phosphorescent Medusas have
become entangled ; if such be the case, it would be possible for
animals otherwise defenceless to obtain protection by acquiring
this property.9 A similar hypothesis has been propounded with
respect to the Italian fire-fly,10 although, as regards the glow-worm,
it has been generally believed that the light serves to attract the
opposite sex, and the same has been stated with respect to the
earth-worm. The fact that so many deep-sea animals are phosphor
escent, coupled with the discovery that many fish from those regions
have large and normally-developed eyes whilst others have organs
which appear to be adapted for the production of light, has led to the
belief that this source of light becomes of great importance in the
depths of the ocean where no sunlight penetrates, — an hypothesis
which is known as the "abyssal theory of light. " (W. E. HO.)
6 Ussoff, Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscow, vol. liv. part i. p. 79,
1879.
7 Phipson, rip. cit.
8 Nnore Scopcrte intorno alle Luci notturne deW Acqua marina,
Venice, 1749.
9 Verrill, in Nature, vol. xxx. p. 281, 1884.
10 Zeitschr. f. u~iss. Zool., xl., 1884.
PHOSPHORUS
815
PHOSPHORUS AXD PHOSPHATES. " Phosphorus "
((£ws</>opos, light -bringer) had currency in chemistry as a
generic term for all substances which shine in the dark
without burning, until the name came to be monopolized
by a peculiar kind of " phosphorus " which was discovered,
some time previous to 1678, by the German alchemist
Brand of Hamburg. Brand, hoping to obtain thereby
an essence for the "ennobling" of silver into gold, sub
jected urine- solids to dry distillation. In lieu of the
hoped-for essence he obtained as part of the distillate a
wax-like, easily fusible solid which, besides being phos
phorescent, readily caught fire, to burn with a dazzling
light into a white solid acid. The new phosphorus natur
ally excited universal interest ; but it was, and remained,
only a rather costly chemical curiosity until Scheele, in
1771, starting from the discovery of Gahn that bone-ash
is the lime-salt of a peculiar non-volatile acid, proved that
this acid is identical with the one formed in the com
bustion of phosphorus, and that the latter, being only
" phlogisticated " bone-ash acid, can be obtained from it
by distillation with charcoal at a high temperature. This
method of Scheele's is used to the present day for the
manufacture of phosphorus, and even the theoretical notion
on which it rests is recognized as correct as far as it goes,
anhydrous bone-ash acid being a compound of phosphorus
with oxygen the formation of which involves the liberation
of part of the energy ("phlogiston") of each in the kinetic
form of heat. That phosphorus is an elementary sub
stance was originally a surmise, which, however, has been
confirmed by all subsequent experiences. In compara
tively recent times it was found that Brand's phosphorus
is susceptible of passing (by mere loss of energy) into two
allotropic modifications, known as " red " and " metallic "
phosphorus respectively, so that the name " phosphorus "
has again come to assume a generic meaning, being used for
these three substances and the element as such conjointly.
Manufacture. — For the manufacture of ordinary phos
phorus any kind of phosphate of lime might be used, and
in fact mineral phosphates are used occasionally, though
as a rule the bones of domestic animals are employed as
a raw material. Such bones (apart from a large percent
age of water and a small admixture of fats and other
subsidiary organic components) consist essentially of two
things, namely, (1) osseine — a nitrogenous organic com
pound, insoluble in water, but convertible by long treat
ment with hot water into a solution of "glue" — and
(2) an infusible and incombustible part, — the two being
united together (perhaps chemically) into a cellular tissue.
The following analysis of the humerus of an ox gives an
idea of the constitution of the second part and its ratio to
the whole.
Phosphate of lime, P.>053CaO 61 "4
Phosphate of magnesia, P.,053MgO 1 '7
Carbonate of lime 8 '6 717
Osseine . 28 '3
100-0
The percentages, however, in bones generally are sub
ject to great variation. When bones are heated to red
ness in the absence of air the organic part is destroyed,
and there remains ultimately a cellular tissue of bone-
phosphate impregnated, so to speak, with finely -divided
charcoal. This black residue, known as "bone-black,"
is used largely for the decoloration of sugar- syrup, and,
after having been exhausted in this direction, forms a
cheap material for the manufacture of bone-ash and con
sequently of phosphorus ; but, as a rule, the phosphorus-
manufacturer makes his bone- ash direct from bones, by
burning them in a furnace (constructed and wrought pretty
much like a limekiln) between alternate layers of coal.
The burned bones (which retain their original shape)
are ground up into granules of about the size of lentils,
and these are then placed in a wooden tank coated inside
with lead, to be decomposed by means of about their own
weight of chamber -acid, i.e., sulphuric acid containing
about 60 per cent, of real H2SO4. To accelerate the
action the bone-meal is mixed with boiling water previous
to the addition of acid, and steam may be passed into the
magma when its temperature threatens to fall too low.
The acid readily decomposes the carbonate of the bone-
ash, and then acts, more slowly, on the phosphate, the
process being completed in about twenty-four hours ; and
the result, in regard to the latter, is that about two-thirds
of the phosphate are decomposed into sulphate of lime
(gypsum), which separates out as a precipitate, and phos
phoric acid, which unites with the residual one-third of
the phosphate and the water into a solution of superphos
phate of lime —
To eliminate the gypsum the mass is diluted with water,
allowed to settle, and the solution drawn off with lead
syphons, then the residue is washed by decantation, and
ultimately filtered off through a bed of straw contained
in a cask with a perforated bottom. The spent heat of
the distillation-furnace is utilized to concentrate the united
liquors to about 1'45 specific gravity, when a remnant of
gypsum separates out, which must be removed. The clari
fied liquor is then mixed with about one -tenth of its
weight of granulated charcoal, and the whole evaporated in
an iron basin until the mass is sufficiently dry to be passed
through a copper sieve and granulated. The granules are
heated cautiously over a fire, to be dehydrated as far as
possible without loss of phosphorus (as phosphuretted
hydrogen) ; and the dry mass is then transferred to fire
clay retorts — either pear-shaped with bent-down necks,
or cylinders, about 18 inches long and 4 inches in diameter,
with straight necks — arranged within a powerful furnace.
The condensers are made of earthenware, and must be so
arranged that loss of phosphorus by combustion is avoided
as far as possible ; its condensation takes care of itself.
One construction is to give the condenser the form of a
bell-jar resting in a saucer containing water ; lateral orifices
in the bell serve to couple every two bells into one, to
unite each with its retort-neck, and to send the vapour
(of phosphuretted hydrogen, carbonic oxide, and other
poisonous gases) into a chimney, where they take fire
spontaneously, and the products are carried away by the
draught. While the condensers are being adjusted the
fire is kindled and raised very slowly, but ultimately forced
up to the highest temperature which the retorts can stand,
and maintained at this pitch until the appearance of the
flames of the escaping vapours proves the absence from
them of phosphorus, free or combined. This takes from
thirty -six to forty -eight hours. The reduction -process,
though in reality very complex, is in its principal features
easily understood. The acid-phosphate behaves as if it were
a mere mixture of -| x P2O- + J x P2053CaO (bone-phos
phate). The quasi-free acid (fP2O5) is reduced by the
charcoal with formation of carbonic oxide and phosphorus-
vapour, one-third of the phosphorus remaining in its
original form of bone-phosphate.
The distillation of phosphorus is rather a dangerous
operation, because the connecting pipes at the condensers
are apt to get blocked up with frozen phosphorus, and
consequently must be cleared from lime by copper or iron
wires being pushed through them (at a certain risk to the
operator). Another difficulty is that, although a retort
may be quite whole in the ordinary sense, it may, and as a
rule does, admit of the perspiration of phosphorus-vapour.
To render retorts as nearly as possible impermeable to the
816
PHOSPHORUS
vapour they are being provided with two or three coats
of some kind of cement, such as a mixture of slaked lime
and borax, or a magma of clay, horse-dung, and water. In
the collecting and further manipulation of the phosphorus
the dangerous inflammability of the substance demands
that all operations be conducted under water.
As soon as the retorts have cooled down sufficiently the
condensers are detached and their tubuli bunged up to
prevent access of air to the inside. The necks of the
retorts are knocked off and thrown into water to save the
phosphorus which has condensed within them and to unite
it with that of the condensers. From the analysis of the
ox-bone quoted we calculate that its ash contains 17 '6 per
cent, of phosphorus, of which two-thirds ( = 11" 7 per cent.)
should be recoverable as free phosphorus ; according to
Fleck, the yield of phosphorus is 8 per cent., while Payen
puts it down at 8 to 10 per cent. But this crude phos
phorus is largely contaminated with blown-over bone-ash
and charcoal and with "red" phosphorus. Its purifica
tion used to be effected everywhere by melting it under
water of about GO3 C., and pressing it through chamois
leather by means of a force-pump. In certain French
works porous fireclay serves as a filtering medium, while
superheated steam supplies at the same time the necessary
heat and pressure. By the addition of coarsely-powdered
charcoal to the phosphorus the clogging-up of the pores
of the fireclay septum is precluded. A more effectual
method of purification is to re-distil the crude (or perhaps
the previously filtered) phosphorus from out of cast-iron
retorts, the necks of which dip half an inch deep into
water contained in a bucket. A chemical method of
purification is that of Bottcher, who fuses the crude phos
phorus (100 parts) under water, with addition of 3 '5 parts
of oil of vitriol and 3 '5 parts of bichromate of potash.
The phosphorus passes, with a feeble gas-evolution, into
an almost colourless liquid, with a loss of only 4 per cent.
of its weight, as against the 10 to 15 per cent, unavoid
ably involved in the distillation process. To bring the
purified phosphorus into the traditional form of sticks it
is fused under water and sucked up into slightly conical
glass tubes about two-fifths of an inch wide and a foot
long; the tubes are closed below with the finger and
immersed in cold water to cause the contents to freeze.
The solid stick is then pushed out by means of a rod, and
cut into pieces with a pair of scissors. For emission into
commerce the sticks are put into cylindrical wide-necked
glass bottles, or into tin canisters, full of water, which
latter had better be mixed with a sufficiency of alcohol or
glycerin to prevent freezing (and bursting) in winter time.
Seubert, about 1&44, invented an ingenious apparatus
for the continuous casting of phosphorus-sticks, consisting
of a funnel-shaped vessel of copper, terminating below in
a long horizontal copper tube, the outer end of which lies
within a tank full of cold water. The phosphorus is placed
in the funnel, covered with water, and the whole up to
the cold-water tank raised (by means of a w7ater-bath and
steam-pipes) to a suitable temperature, matters being ar
ranged so that the phosphorus freezes just on. arriving at
the exit end of the tube. The workman then catches the
protruding button of phosphorus and pulls out an endless
stick, which is cut up into pieces of the desired length.
This ingenious apparatus, however, has not been found to
work satisfactorily, and has been given up again in favour
of some form of the old method. The loss of one-third of
the phosphorus contained in the bone-ash, which is unavoid
ably involved in the ordinary method of phosphorus-
making, can be avoided, according to Wohler, by adding
finely-powdered quartz to the mixture which goes into the
retorts. The superphosphate is then completely decom
posed with formation of a residue of silicate, instead of
phosphate, of lime. An improvement by Fleck aims at
the utilization of the organic part of the bones. He pro
poses to recover the fat from the bones by boiling them
with water and then the gelatin by digesting them in
hydrochloric acid of 1*05 specific gravity. The gelatin
remains in a coherent form ; the phosphate passes into
solution as mono-calcic salt, which is recovered by evapora
tion in crystals and then reduced by distillation with
charcoal. None of these (and other) proposals have been
much heeded ; the manufacture of phosphorus at present,
in fact, is almost a monopoly, the bulk of what occurs in
commerce being produced by two firms, viz., Albright
and Wilson of Oldbury, near Birmingham, and Coignet
and Son in Lyons. According to E. Kopp, the production
in 1874 amounted to 1200 tons.
Recently purified phosphorus is a slightly yellowish or
colpmiess solid of about the consistence of beeswax. At
low temperatures it is brittle; specific gravity == 1'83 at
10° C. It fuses at 44° '3 C. into a strongly light-refracting
liquid of 1'743 (Kopp) specific gravity. Neither in the
solid nor in the liquid state does it conduct electricity.
When heated further (in an inert atmosphere such as
hydrogen or carbonic-acid gas) it boils at 290° C., and
assumes the form of a colourless vapour which at 1040' C.
is 4" 5 times as heavy as air or 65'1 times as heavy as
hydrogen, whence it follows that its molecular weight is
2 x 65'1 = 130-2 = very nearly four times the atomic weight
of phosphorus (31'0). Phosphorus is insoluble in water,
more or less sparingly soluble in alcohol, ether, fatty oils,
and oil of turpentine, and very abundantly soluble in bisul
phide of carbon. When exposed to the air, and especially to
moist air, it suffers gradual oxidation into phosphorous and
phosphoric acids with evolution of a feeble light. Phos
phorus does not phosphoresce in the absence of oxygen.
Singularly, it does not phosphoresce in pure oxygen either,
unless the tension of the gas be reduced to some point
considerably below one atmosphere (Graham). Phosphorus
is a most dangerous poison ; doses of as little as 0 ' 1
gramme ( = 1 • 5 grains) are known to have been fatal to
adults. The heads of a few lucifer matches may suffice to
kill a child. Phosphorus is used chiefly for the manu
facture of lucifer matches (see MATCHES, vol. xv. pp. 625,
626) and also in the manufacture of iodide of methyl and
other organic preparations used as auxiliary agents in the
tar-colour industry. Phosphorus-paste, made by working
up a small proportion of phosphorus melted under water in
a hot mortar with flour, is used as poison for vermin.
Red Phosphorus. — A red infusible solid which is always produced
when ordinary phosphorus is made to burn in an insufficient
supply of air, and also by the long-continued action of sunlight on
phosphorus-sticks kept under water, used to be taken for a lower
oxide of the element, until A. v. Schrbtter of Vienna showed, in 1 845,
that it is nothing but an allotropic modification of the elementary
substance. A given mass of ordinary phosphorus can be converted
almost completely into the red modification by keeping it at 240°
to 250° C. in the absence of air for a sufficient time. The addition
of a trace of iodine to phosphorus at 200° C. brings about the
conversion suddenly with large evolution of heat (Brodie). Red
phosphorus is now an article of chemical manufacture. The phos
phorus is simply heated, and kept at the requisite temperature,
within a large iron pot which communicates with the atmosphere
by only a narrow pipe. At a very slight expense of the material
the air within the apparatus is quickly deoxygenated and con
verted into (inert) nitrogen. The requisite steady temperature is
maintained by means of a bath of molten solder. By the mere
effect of the heat the phosphorus becomes more and more viscid
and darker and darker in colour, and is at last completely con
verted into a dark -red opaque infusible solid. This, however,
always includes a small proportion of the ordinary modification,
which is most readily extracted by powdering th" crude product
and exhausting it witli bisulphide of carbon, which does not affect
the red kind. A less expensive method is to boil the powdered
raw product with successive quantities of caustic-soda ley, when
the ordinary phosphorus only is dissolved as hypophosphito with
evolution of phosphurctted hydrogen. The residue is washed and
PHOSPHORUS
817
dried and then sent out in bottles or canisters like any ordinary
chemical preparation. It is not at all affected by even moist air,
nor by aerated water, hence it is neither phosphorescent nor
poisonous. When heated in air to about 260° C. it begins to pass
into the ordinary modification and consequently burns, readily
enough, into the same phosphoric acid P.,0D as ordinary phosphorus
does. But its combustion-heat amounts to only 5070 Centigrade-
units per unit -weight of fuel as against the 5953 units produced
in the combustion of ordinary phosphorus. The balance of 883
units is the equivalent of the surplus of energy contained in the
yellow as compared with the red modification. This accounts for
the relative chemical inertness of the latter. The specific gravity
of red phosphorus is 2'089 to 2'106 at 17° C. ; its electric conduct
ive power is about '000,000,1 of that of silver wire (Matthiesen).
It is used in making safety-matches.
Metallic Phosphorus. — This, discovered by Hittorf, is obtained
by heating ordinary phosphorus with lead in sealed -up tubes to
redness for forty hours. After removal of the lead by nitric
acid metallic phosphorus remains, partly in the shape of dark re
splendent plates, partly in the form of microscopic rhombohedra.
It requires a temperature of 358° to be converted into ordinary
phosphorus-vapour. The specific gravity is 2 '34 at 15° C.
Direction of Phosphorus. — The detection of (ord. ) phosphorus in
medico-legal cases offers no difficulty as long as the phosphorus
has not disappeared by oxidation. In the case of a mass of food
or the contents of a stomach the first step is to spread out the
mass on a plate and view it in the dark. A very small admixture
of phosphorus becomes visible by its phosphorescence. Failing
this, the mass is distilled with water from out of a glass flask
connected with a glass Liebig's condenser in a dark room. The
minutest trace of phosphorus suffices to impart phosphorescence
to the vapours at some stage of the distillation. Should this
second test fail we must search for phosphorous acid, which may
be there as a product of the oxidation of phosphorus originally
present as such. To test for phosphoric acid would be of no use,
as salts of this acid are present in all animal and vegetable juices
and tissues. Phosphorous acid, if present, can be detected by
treating the mass, in a properly constructed gas-evolution appa
ratus, with pure hydrochloric acid and zinc. The hydrogen gas
evolved must be purified by passing it over pieces of solid
caustic potash, and made to stream out of a narrow platinum
nozzle. If the reagents are pure and phosphorous acid is absent
the gas burns with a colourless flame, which remains so even when
depressed by means of a porcelain plate ; in the presence of phos
phorous acid the gas contains phosphuretted hydrogen, which
causes the flame of the gas to exhibit a green core, at least
when depressed by means of a porcelain plate. The test is very
delicate, but in interpreting a positive result it must be remembered
that it applies likewise to hypophosphorous acid, and that certain
salts of this acid are recognized medicinal agents.
Of all phosphorus compounds ortho- phosphates are the com
monest, and they can be detected by the tests given below under
"Phosphates." All other phosphorus compounds, when fused
with carbonate of alkali and nitre, or heated in sealed -up tubes
with strong nitric acid to a sufficient temperature, are changed so
that the phosphorus assumes the form of ortho -phosphoric acid,
which is easily detected. Either of the two operations named (by
the mere action of the alkali or of the acid qua acid) converts
what may be present of meta- phosphoric or pyro - phosphoric into
ortho-phosphoric acid.
Phosphor-Bronze,. — This name has been given to a class of useful
metallic substances produced by the chemical union of either pure
copper or of copper alloys with phosphorus. Most commercial
copper is contaminated with a small proportion of its own sub-
oxide, which, in the case of an otherwise pure metal, detracts from
its tenacity and plasticity ; and all ordinary bronze is subject to a
similar contamination, because, whatever kind of copper may have
been used in making it, the tin is sure to suffer partial oxidation,
and some of this oxide, as Montefiori-Levi and Kiinzel found,
remains diffused throughout the casting, and diminishes its homo
geneity and solidity. Experience shows that both in the case of
copper and bronze the oxygen present as metallic oxide can be re
moved by introduction into the fused metal of a judiciously limited
proportion of phosphorus, which takes out the oxygen (and itself)
into the slag £s phosphate, and thus produces a purely metallic
and consequently superior metal. A small excess of phosphorus in
either case effects further improvement. A phosphor-copper con
taining O'l to 0'5 per cent, of the non- metallic element has all
the plasticity of the pure metal coupled with higher degrees of hard
ness and solidity. An alloy of from O'o to 2'0 per cent, gives good
castings, because, unlike the pure metal, it does not form blisters
on solidifying. In the case of phosphorized bronze the presence
of somewhat more than O'o per cent, of phosphorus (in the finished
alloy) produces a warmer tone of colour (more gold-like than that
of the plain alloy), a finer grain (similar to that of steel), a higher
degree of elasticity, and a higher breaking-strain. The latter may
be more than double that of the corresponding plain bronze. By
increasing or diminishing the proportion of phosphorus the mechan
ical properties of a phosphor-bronze can be modified at will, within
wide limits. By its fine colour and its perfect fluidity when molten
it lends itself particularly well for the casting of artistic or orna
mental articles. The introduction of phosphorus into the metal
is best effected by fusing it with the proper proportion of a rich
phosphor-copper, A phosphor-copper containing about 9 per cent,
of phosphorus can be produced as follows. A kind of potential
phosphorus ("phosphorus mass") is made by mixing superphos
phate of lime with 20 per cent, of charcoal, and dehydrating the
mixture at a dull red heat. Six hundred parts of this mass are
mixed with 975 of copper-turnings and 75 of charcoal, and kept at
copper-fusion heat for sixteen hours within a graphite crucible.
The phosphor-copper is obtained in the form of detached granules,
which are picked out, re-fused, and cast out into cast-iron moulds.
Phosphor-bronze has only come to be popularly known during the
last decade or two ; but as early as 1848 A. & H. Parkes of Bir
mingham took out a patent for phosphoriferous metallic alloys.
Phosphuretted Hydrogens. — Of these three are known, namely, (1)
phosphine, a gas of the composition and specific gravity PH3,
(2) a volatile liquid of the composition and vapour-density P._>H4,
and (3) a yellow solid of the probable composition P4H2. The
liquid compound (No. 2) at once takes fire when it comes into
contact with air, and a small admixture of its vapour to any inflam
mable gas, such as coal-gas, renders the latter self-inflammable.
The most important and best known of the three hydrides is
phosphine, PH3. This gas is formed when (syrupy) phosphorous
acid is heated— thus, 4PH303 = 3PH304 + PH3 ; also when phos
phorus is being dissolved in hot solutions of caustic potash, soda,
or baryta,
4P + 3(KHO + H,0) = 3PHaKOa + PH3 ;
Hype 'phos
phite.
also by the action of water on the phosphides of highly basilous
metals. The gas evolved by any of these processes is impure ; that
obtained by the second or third invariably includes vapour of PsH,,,
and consequently is self -inflammable. Pure phosphine can be
obtained only by decomposing solid iodide of phosphonium with
concentrated caustic potash -ley in a suitable gas -evolution bottle
previously filled with hydrogen to avoid explosions. It is a colour
less gas, smelling intensely like putrid fish, and very poisonous. It
is slightly soluble in water, and takes fire in air only beyond 100° C.
It may be mixed with pure oxygen without change ; but when the
mixture is suddenly expanded it explodes violently. Notwith
standing its analogy to ammonia (NH3), phosphine is only very
feebly basic. It unites with gaseous hydriodic or hydrobromic
acid into solid phosphonium salts PH4(I or Br) ; but these are
both decomposed by water into the respective acids and phosphine.
Pure phosphine is little known ; chemists are more familiar with
the (impure) gas which is evolved when " phosphide of calcium "
is thrown into water, and which, containing vapour of PUH4, at
once catches fire when it bubbles out of the water into the air,
with formation of steam and a smoke of meta -phosphoric acid,
which latter, in a still atmosphere, assumes the form of an exquisite
vortex-ring. During the last decade or so this reaction has come
to be pretty extensively utilized in navigation for producing a
light on the surface of the sea at night, in case of accidents, and
for other purposes. A British patent for this useful application of
phosphide of calcium was granted (as No. 1828) to the agent of
Silas and Pegot Ogier of Paris on the 8th of August 1859, but
allowed to lapse in 1863, to be subsequently wrought by others.
The manufacture of the phosphide is now (1884) being chiefly
carried on by one firm (in Warrington, England), and through
the courtesy of their chemist, Mr W. G. Johnston, the writer is
enabled to give the following details. The preparation of the
phosphide is effected within a crucible standing on a support
within a furnace, and divided by a perforated false bottom into
two compartments. The lower is charged with pieces of phos
phorus, the upper, up to the closely-fitting lid, with fragments of
quicklime. The firing is conducted so that the lime is red hot
before the phosphorus, through the radiation and conduction of
the heat applied above, begins to volatilize. A charge yielding
20 lb of product is finished in from five to eight hours. The
reaction is very complex, but it is easy to see through its general
course ; part of the phosphorus deoxidizes lime with formation
of P205, which unites with other lime into phosphate, and of
calcium, which combines with other phosphorus into phosphides.
Of the latter, PCa seems to predominate, and consequently the
product, when thrown into water, should yield chiefly the hydride
P;>H4 ; but this latter very readily breaks up into phosphine and
solid hydride P2H. The crude phosphide forms a brown stone-
like mass, which must at once be secured in air-tight receptacles.
But most of it is immediately worked up into " lights " of various
kinds, of which the "life-buoy light" may be selected as an
example. It consists of a cylindrical tinned-iron box, the upper
half of which is taken up by an inverted hollow box, which serves
as a float when the light is in the water. The lower half contains
XVIII. — 103
818
PHOSPHORUS
some 16 oz. of fragments of phosphide of calcium. Two small
circular portions of the tor! and bottom respectively consist of soft
metal (lead). These are pierced with an appended pricker before
the apparatus goes overboard along with the buoy, to which it is
attached by means of a cord. The water penetrates through the
lower hole and the gas comes out through the upper and burns
with a brilliant flame, which is from 9 to 18 inches high and lasts
for about half an hour. A larger similar contrivance, intended
to be accommodated within a bucket full of water on deck, serves
as an inextinguishable night-signal to ships in distress. By the
British Merchant Shipping Act, 1876, Viet, 21, every sea -going
passenger-steamer and every emigrant-ship must be provided with
arrangements for inextinguishable distress -lights and life-buoy
lights. In the British navy a peculiar form of the phosphide of
calcium light is used in connexion with torpedo-practice.
P/iosphorits Bases. — This is a generic name for organic bases which
are related to phosphine (PH3), as the "compound ammonias" are to
NH3. See CHEMISTRY, vol. v. p. 516 sq. ; also METHYL, vol. xvi.
p. 197. Tri-etliyl phosphine P(C2H5)3, a colourless self-inflammable
liquid, readily unites with bisulphide of carbon into a red crystal
line compound, and consequently is available as a delicate reagent
for the detection of the vapour of this compound in coal-gas.
PHOSPHATES.
" Phosphates," in chemistry, is a generic term for the salts formed
by the union of the acid-anhydride P.,05 with bases or water or
both. As explained in CHEMISTRY (vol. v. pp. 517, 518) there are
three classes of phosphates customarily distinguished by the prefixes
ortlio, pyro, and meta. The last two nowhere occur in nature, and
are hardly known to the arts ; hence in this article only the ortho-
compounds will be noticed, and their specific prefix will be dropped
except where it is needed for definiteness. Combined phosphoric
acid is universally diffused throughout the three kingdoms of
nature, and (it is perhaps as well to add) to the practical, if not
absolute, exclusion of all other phosphorus compounds. All organic
tissues and juices contain it : of animal matters bones and blood-
solids, of vegetable the seeds of cereals, may be referred to as being
exceptionally rich in phosphates. Of mineral phosphates the follow
ing may be here referred to : — pyro-morphite, 3(P205. 3PbO) + PbCl2,
where the chlorine may be replaced partially by fluorine ; wavellite,
2(AU03-pA) + A1A3H-0 + 9Arl (tliis is a crystalline mineral ; an
amorphous or massive phosphate of alumina, known as "rotondo-
mineral," occurs as a large deposit onaWest Indian island); vivianite,
P2053FeO + 8H20. All these and any others that might be named
are rare minerals compared with apatite and its derivatives.
Apatite. — This exists in a variety of forms, but, as long as unde-
composed, always answers the formula 3(P205.3C'aO) + (CaX.,). In
the fluor-apatites the X2 is wholly F2 (fluorine) ; in the chlor-apatites
it stands for (Cl,, F).,, i.e., chlorine and fluorine coming up conjointly
to two equivalents. See vol. xvi. p. 407.
Phosphorites. — Phosphorite is the name given to many impure
forms of amorphous or massive apatite, modified more or less by
disintegration. It occurs («) in massive, irregular, corroded-looking
nodules embedded in limestone or other kinds of soft rock near
Amberg (Bavaria), in Baden, Wurtemberg, the Weser hills, and
in the Teutoburger "Wald, and contains from 40 to 80 per cent, of
phosphate and up to 3 per cent, of fluoride of calcium ; the phos
phorite nodules in the sandstone of Kursk and Voronezh, the
"South Carolina phosphate," and the "Lot phosphate" belong to
the same category. It is met with (U) in more or less extensive
beds, as "kidneys," as stalactites, or as a connective cement in
breccias ; such phosphorite, of which large quantities are found in
the Lahn valley, generally contains only from 25 to 60 per cent,
of phosphate of lime, and includes large percentages of clay or
mail, and more or less of the phosphates of iron and alumina.
Another variety is (c) black phosphorite slate. A deposit contain
ing 20 per cent, of P.AD5 occurs in the Coal-measures of Horde
(Westphalia), also in Wales; an earthy deposit is found in the
" braunkohle " of Pilgramsreuth in the Fichtelgebirge. Phosphorite
is also found (d) in veins, as a stone of very varying structure,
generally intermixed with quartz, — for instance at Logrosan in
Estremadura (65 to 80 per cent, of phosphate and up to 14 per cent,
of fluoride of calcium), also in the Silurian slate of the Dniester.
Coprolites. — According to Buckland, coprolites are derived from
the excrements of extinct animals. They consist of highly impure
phosphate of lime. All native phosphate of calcium being fluor-
iferous, we need not wonder at the constant occurrence of traces of
phosphates in the bones of vertebrate animals ; the wonder is that
the fluorine in these amounts to only '005 per cent.1
Preparation.— For the preparation of phosphates the oxide P205
affords a natural starting-point. This substance is produced when
phosphorus burns in an abundant supply of oxygen or air. Appa
ratus for the convenient execution of the process on a preparative
scale are described in the handbooks of chemistry. Phosphoric
anhydride forms a snow-white, loose, inodorous powder, which,
i Some books (Nickles) quote as high percentages as 1 or 1-5, but these are
based on erroneous analyses.
when heated in a hard glass tube to redness, sublimes slowly. It
is extremely hygroscopic. When thrown into water it hisses like a
red-hot iron and passes into the meta-acid, most of which, in spite
of its abundant solubility, separates out as a sticky precipitate,
which is rather slow in dissolving. It is the most energetic of all
dehydrating agents ; even sulphuric acid, when distilled with an
excess of it, suffers dehydration, and passes into SO3. The pre
paration is liable to be contaminated with red phosphorus and
phosphorous anhydride (P203), also with "white arsenic," because
most commercial phosphorus, being made by means of ^t/rites- vitriol,
is arseniferous. A freshly-prepared solution of the anhydride in
water, being one of the meta-acid, coagulates albumen (as IINO:i
does) and gives a white precipitate with nitrate of silver. But,
when the solution is allowed to stand, the dissolved meta-acid
gradually passes into pyro-acid (P._,052H20), and this latter again
gradually passes into ortho-acid (P26S3H2O), the highest hydrate.
At a boiling heat, especially if a little nitric acid be added, the
whole of the dissolved P.,0, is converted into ortho-acid in the
course of one or two hours. The solution then does not coagulate
albumen ; it gives no precipitate with nitrate of silver unless the,
mixture be neutralized with an alkali, when a yellow precipitate of
the salt P.j05 . 3 Ag.,0 comes down. The aqueous ortho-acid, when
evaporated at temperatures not exceeding 160° C., and ultimately
dried at this temperature, leaves its substance PL,05.3H20 as a thick
syrup, which, when left to itself in a dry atmosphere, slowly freezes
into crystals. At 215° C. the ortho-acid loses one-third of its water
and becomes pyro-acid ; at a red-heat it is reduced to a "glass" of
meta-acid, P2O5H20, which retains its water even at the highest
temperatures. The substance known in pharmacy as " acidnm
phosphoricum glaciale " is very impure meta-acid.
Ortho-Phos2>horic Add, H3P04. — The synthetical method de
scribed in the last paragraph is not so easy in practice as it appears on
paper ; hence it is generally preferred to prepare this substance by
the oxidation of ordinary phosphorus with nitric acid. An acid
of 1'2 specific gravity works best ; weaker acid acts too slowly ; if
stronger it may act with dangerous violence. One part of phos
phorus is placed in a large tubulated retort, connected with an
ordinary globular receiver, and treated therein, at a carefully regu
lated heat, with ten or twelve parts of the acid. When about
half the acid has distilled over, it is poured back and the opera
tion resumed and kept on until all the phosphorus is dissolved.
The excess of nitric acid is then distilled over as far as conveniently
possible and thus recovered. Towards the end of the distillation
a fresh gas-evolution sets in through the conversion of previously
produced phosphorous acid (H3P03) into phosphoric. The residual
liquid in the retort is now poured out into a Berlin porcelain (or,
what is better, a platinum) basin, and, if it still contains phosphor
ous acid, fully oxidized by evaporation with occasional addition of
strong nitric acid. Phosphorous acid, if present, is easily detected
by the following tests: (1) its solution, when mixed with nitrate
of silver and excess of ammonia, gives a black precipitate of metallic
silver ; (2) when heated with a solution of corrosive sublimate,
HgCL it produces a white precipitate of calomel, HgCl ; (3) when
heated to boiling with excess of aqueous sulphurous acid it gives
a precipitate of sulphur, or, if arsenious acid is present, of sulphide
of arsenic. When the final oxidation is accomplished the acid
needs only be freed of the remnant of nitric acid by repeated
evaporation with water to be ready for use if arsenic be absent.
As a rule, however, this impurity is present and must be removed
by diluting the acid, passing in sulphuretted hydrogen first at
70° C., and then in the cold, and allowing to stand for twenty-four
hours, when all the arsenic is converted into sulphide, which, after
elimination of the excess of sulphuretted hydrogen by continued
exposure to air at a gentle heat, is filtered off. In practice, as a
rule, the filtrate is being concentrated to some predetermined
specific gravity and preserved as aqueous phosphoric acid, which
preparation is official, and used besides for the cleansing of
metallic surfaces, in lithography, and for other purposes. The
British pharmacopoeia prescribes for the official acid a strength
corresponding to 10 per cent, of P205.
Hager has published a complete table showing the dependence
of the specific gravity, taken at 17° '5 C., on the strength of the
acid. From it the following is extracted.
Spec. Grav.
Percentages of
Spec. Grav.
Percentages of
1-800
1-077
1-521
1-448
] '383
1-325
PsOs. H3P04.
08-0 93-7
CO-0 82-7
50'0 68-9
4.VO 62-0
40-0 55-1
3.0-0 48"2
1-271
1-218
1-1C9
1-122
1-079
1-037
P205. H3P04.
:>,o-o 41-3
2.1-0 34-4
20-0 27 -0
15-0 20-7
10-0 13-8
5-0 6-9
Aqueous phosphoric acid has all the properties of a decided acid,
but, for a mineral acid, the exceptional qualities of an agreeably
sour taste and of non- poison ousn ess. Phosphoric is the only
mineral acid which might be used as a condiment in place of vinegar
0 — P H O
819
or citric acid ; but the writer is far from recommending the substi
tution. Professor Gamgee has made the very surprising discovery
that meta-phosphoric and pyro-phosplioric, although so closely allied
to ortho-phosphoric acid, are poisons, as phosphorous acid is.
Phosphoric acid readily combines with and neutralizes alkalis,
even when these are given as carbonates. The concentrated acid,
when heated in porcelain or glass, strongly attacks either material ;
hence its concentration ought always to be effected in platinum.
In former times, when phosphorus was expensive, the acid, or rather
an apology for the same, used to be prepared from bone-ash.
Alkaline Phosphates. — Of these the di-sodic salt is of the greatest
practical importance. It is prepared by somewhat more than
neutralizing the hot aqueous acid with carbonate of soda. A cheaper
(manufacturing) process is to prepare a solution of "super-phos
phate " from bone-ash by the action of vitriol, and, after elimination
of the gypsum, to supersaturate the liquid with carbonate of soda
and filter off the phosphate of lime produced (see p. 81 5 supra, where
the process is explained indirectly). The salt, from sufficiently
strong hot solutions, separates out in large transparent crystals of
the composition P04HNa0 + 12H20, which lose their crystal-water
on exposure to dry air, even at ordinary temperatures, and very
quickly at 100° C. The residue, P04HNa2= A(P,05.21STa,O.H.,0),
when heated to redness, loses its remnant of water and becomes
pyre-phosphate, which latter retains its specific character on being
dissolved in water. A solution of the (original) salt in water has
a mild taste (hence its preferential application as a pleasant purga
tive) ; it colours red litmus-paper intensely blue, and does not act
upon alkaline carbonate. But, when evaporated with the calculated
proportion of carbonate of soda (Na.,C03 per P00B) to dryness at,
ultimately, a red heat, it yields a residue of tri-sodic salt (P04Na3)
as a white mass, infusible at the highest temperature producible
within a platinum crucible over a glass blowpipe. The solution
of this salt in water has all the properties of a mixed solution
of P04Na.,H + NaOH ; yet it is capable of depositing crystals of
the composition P04Na3 + 12H..O. The mono-sodic salt (P04H2Na),
producible by mixing together solutions containing the quantities
H3P04 and Na.,HP04, is of no importance. Of the three potash
salts, the mono-metallic salt (P04KH2) is the most readily produced.
It forms beautiful anhydrous quadratic crystals which at a red heat
lose their H20 and become meta-phosphate, P03K.
Ammonia Salts. — A strong solution of the acid, when super
saturated with ammonia, deposits on cooling crystals of the di-
ammonic salt P04(NH.,)oH, liable to be contaminated with the
niono-ammonic salt. The tri-auimonic salt is very unstable, and
hardly known.
The double salt P04(XH4)NaH + 4H20 was known to the al
chemists as "sal microcosmicum urinie" and is interesting his
torically as having served Brand as a raw material for the mak
ing of phosphorus. It is easily prepared, either by mixing the
solution of the two quantities P04Xa2HP04 and P04(XH4),HP04
together and allowing to crystallize, or by dissolving the former
along with NH4C1 parts of sal-ammoniac in water, and removing
the chloride of sodium produced by crystallization in the heat.
Microcosmic salt, when heated to redness, leaves a viscid glass of
meta-phosphate of soda, which dissolves all basic metallic oxides
pretty much as fused borax does, with formation of glasses which
often exhibit colours characteristic of the dissolved oxides. Hence
its application in blowpipe analysis.
Phosphates of Lime. — The normal salt P205.3CaO or P04cas,
where ca = £Ca=one equivalent of calcium, or perhaps a compound
of it and carbonate of lime, forms the predominating component of
bone-ash. A hydrate of the salt is produced by precipitating
chloride of calcium solution with exce.js of ordinary phosphate of
soda, mixed with enough of ammonia to produce (virtually) tri-
alkaline salt, as a gelatinous precipitate similar in appearance and
behaviour on filtration to precipitated alumina. A suspension of
this precipitate in water, when mixed with a carefully adjusted
quantity of hydrochloric acid, gradually passes into a mass of
microscopic crystals of di-calcic salt, P04ca.2H + xAq, which latter
is used medicinally. A solution of the di-calcic or tri-calcic salt, in
the proper proportion of hot aqueous hydrochloric acid, deposits on
cooling crusts of crystals of the mono-calcic salt P04H2ca, which
is soluble in about 700 parts of cold water, but is decomposed, by
hot water or by prolonged contact with a proportion of cold water
insufficient to dissolve it, into free acid and a precipitate of di-
calcic salt, 2P04caH2 = P04H3 + P04ca2H. A very impure form of
this salt, known as "superphosphate," enters into the composition
of many artificial manures. Such superphosphate is made in
dustrially by treating broken-up bones, or powdered bone-ash, or
powdered phosphorite, or coprolite, or occasionally apatite with
chamber-acid, meaning vitriol of about 60 per cent., as it comes
out of the chamber. The phosphate is mixed with the acid in a
lead-lined trough by means of machinery, when a rather lively
reaction sets in, involving the evolution of vapour of water mixed
with hydrofluoric acid, and fluoride of silicon if mineral phosphate
is used, possibly also with traces of fluoride or chloride of arsenic,
and, in any case, with stinking volatile organic substances. The
vapour, therefore, must be removed by means of suitable draught
arrangements. The mass passes from the trough into a (ventilated)
chamber, where the reaction gradually accomplishes itself with ulti
mate formation of a porous friable mass, dry to the touch. This is
superphosphate as it goes out into commerce or is used as an ingredi
ent in making more complex manures. Its value is determined chiefly
by its percentage of "soluble phosphoric acid," meaning the percent
age of P205, extractable as P04H3 or P04caII2 by a certain large
proportion of cold water. This percentage is liable to decrease on
long-continued storing, especially in the case of mineral superphos
phate, through a gradual formation of (or regeneration of origin
ally present) phosphate of iron and alumina, partly, perhaps, also
through the spontaneous decomposition of some of the mono-calcic
salt into insoluble di-calcic salt and free acid. The portion of the
P205 which has thus become insoluble is designated " reduced "
phosphoric acid. In regard to other phosphates than those named
reference may be made to the handbooks of chemistry.
Analysis. — Phosphoric acid, when given in any form, soluble in
solution of ammonia, can be detected and determined by "magnesia
mixture " (a solution of chloride of magnesium and sal-ammoniac,
MgCl., . 2NH4C1, strongly alkalinized by addition of aqueous am
monia). The phosphoric acid is very gradually, but at last completely,
precipitated in microscopic crystals of the salt P04MgNH4 + 6H26,
which, though slightly soluble in water, can be washed pure, with
out loss, with dilute ammonia. All other acids except arsenic acid
(As205) — which behaves like phosphoric, and, if present, must be
removed by sulphuretted hydrogen — remain dissolved. The precipi
tate, when kept at a red heat, assumes the composition P2052MgO,
and from the weight of the ignited precipitate that of the phos
phoric acid present is easily calculated. Phosphates soluble in acids,
and reprecipitated from their solutions as such by ammonia — as
phosphate of lime or alumina, or ferric oxide — used to give great
difficulties to the analysts until Sonncnschein founded an excellent
quantitative method for their analysis upon a reaction discovered
by Swanberg and Struve, which is explained under MOLYBDENUM
(vol. xvi. p. 697). The phosphate is dissolved in nitric acid
(hydrochloric is less to be recommended) and the solution mixed,
and kept for some hours at 40° C., with a large excess of a solution
of molybdate of ammonia in excess of nitric acid. The phosphoric
acid (along with any arsenic acid that may be present) comes down as
yellow crystalline phospho-molybdate of ammonia, soluble in phos
phoric acid and slightly in water, but insoluble in dilute nitric acid in
the presence of a sufficiency of nitrate of ammonia. The precipitate
is soluble in aqueous ammonia, and from the solution its P205 can
be precipitated by magnesia mixture as above explained. Neither
of the two methods applies directly to meta-phosphates or pyro-
phosphates. Regarding these, see the last paragraph of the section
" phosphorus " above. (W. D.)
PHOTIUS, patriarch of Constantinople from 857 to
867 and again from 877 to 886 A.D., the most eminent
literary and ecclesiastical character of his age, was probably
born between 820 and 825. If we could credit the asser
tions of his adversaries, his father, an official of the im
perial court, named Sergius, was of heathen extraction, and
his mother, Irene, a faithless nun. It is more certain that
he displayed from an early age the most extraordinary talent
and appetite for knowledge, and that, having mastered
whatever Greek literature could give him (Latin and
Hebrew he never acquired), he began to teach with dis
tinguished success grammar, rhetoric, divinity, and philo
sophy. The way to public life was probably opened for
him by the brilliant marriage of his maternal uncle to the
princess Irene, sister of the empress Theodora, who, upon
the death of her husband Theophilus in 842, had assumed
the regency of the empire. Photius became captain of the
guard and subsequently first imperial secretary. Some
where about 850 he was entrusted with a mission to the
" Assyrians," by whom the Saracens must be meant, pos
sibly to the court of the caliph of Baghdad. Just previous
to his departure on this mission he compiled his Bibliotheca,
or Myriobiblion, the noblest monument of his erudition,
and, from the number of classical authors whose writings
it has partially preserved, by much the most important of
his works.
Some time after his return from this embassy an un
expected path was opened to Photius's ambition by the
dissensions between the patriarch Ignatius and Bardas, the
uncle of the youthful emperor Michael III., who had suc
ceeded to the regency on the disgrace of Theodora. Ignatius,
820
P H 0 T I U S
a man of austere morals, and apparently not exempt from
spiritual pride, had excommunicated Bardas on the ground
of an alleged incestuous connexion with his daughter-in-
law. Bardas retorted by an accusation of a conspiracy.
Ignatius was arrested and imprisoned (November 857),
and upon his refusing to resign was illegally deposed,
when Photius, receiving all the necessary sacerdotal orders
within six days, was installed as patriarch in his place.
This sudden elevation of a layman to the highest ecclesi
astical office could not but provoke scandal, even though
the laic, as was actually the case, might be the first theo
logian of his age. Ignatius, continuing to refuse the abdi
cation which could alone have given it a semblance of
legality, was treated with extreme severity, and a violent
persecution broke out against his adherents. Photius
urged clemency in his epistles to Bardas, probably with
sincerity, but shrank from taking the only step which could
have effectually repressed the persecution and healed the
schism, — the resignation of the patriarchate. In judging
his conduct, however, two circumstances have to be borne
in mind, — the fact that the party of Ignatius dwindled
away so rapidly as to flatter Photius with the hope of its
extinction, and the espousal of his competitor's cause by
Nicholas, bishop of Rome, in a manner highly offensive
to the independent feeling of the Eastern Church. Photius
felt himself the champion of Eastern Christianity against
Latin pretensions ; and, when in 863 Nicholas finally
anathematized and deposed him, he replied by a counter-
excommunication. He also sought to ally himself with
Western bishops who had been displaced or suspended by
the arrogant Nicholas, and with the latter's secular adver
saries, while at the same time he wras more honourably
engaged in endeavours to reunite the Armenians to the
Eastern Church, in combating the Paulicians, and in success
ful missions to the Russians and Bulgarians. While these
transactions were proceeding the situation was suddenly
changed by the murder of Photius's patron, Caesar Bardas,
by order of the emperor Michael, who was himself assassin
ated by his colleague Basil in the following year (867).
The fall of Photius immediately ensued, but the attendant
circumstances are exceedingly obscure. According to
Georgius Hamartolus, or rather his continuator, the cause
was Photius's stern reproof of the crime by which Basil
had obtained the throne. As the only definite testimony
of any kind, this statement cannot be wholly disregarded,
but it is certainly difficult to reconcile it with the general
suppleness of Photius in his relations with the Byzantine
court. Whatever the cause, Photius was removed from
his office and banished about the end of September 867,
a few days after the accession of Basil, and the deposed
Ignatius, brought back from his exile, was reinstated on
23d November. The convocation of a general council
followed, to give the restoration of Ignatius a character of
indisputable legality. This synod, regarded by the Latins
as the eighth oecumenical council, but rejected as such by
the Greeks, met in October 869. The attendance of Eastern
bishops was relatively very small ; Photius's friends and
creatures generally remained faithful to him ; and the
ostentatious patronage of Pope Hadrian must have been
irritating to the Orientals. Photius, when brought before
the assembly, maintained a dignified silence, which per
plexed his accusers, but could not avert his condemna
tion. It seems, nevertheless, to have been generally felt
that the proceedings of the council were entitled to little
moral weight. The usurper, for such he unquestionably
was, had successfully identified himself with the cause of
his church and nation. In his captivity, which, notwith
standing his complaints, the extent of his correspondence
proves to have been mild, he maintained the same unbend
ing spirit, and rejected all overtures of compromise. About
876 he was suddenly recalled to Constantinople and en
trusted with the education of Basil's children. A tale of
his having regained favour by forging an illustrious gene
alogy for the upstart emperor may be dismissed without
hesitation as an invention of his enemies. The cause was
in all probability Basil's recognition of the fact that he had
disgraced and banished the ablest man in his dominions,
and the be.st qualified to fill the patriarchate upon the
decease of the aged Ignatius. This event soon occurred,
probably in October 877, and after a decent show of reluct
ance Photius again filled the patriarchal throne. Accord
ing to his own account, which there seems no reason to
discredit, he had become fully reconciled to his predecessor,
and had shown him much kindness. Photius now proceeded
to obtain the formal recognition of the Christian world.
In November 879 a synod, considered by the Greeks as
the- eighth oecumenical council, and far more numerously
attended than the one by which he had been deposed, was
convened at Constantinople. The legates of Pope John
VIII. attended, prepared to acknowledge Photius as legiti
mate patriarch, a concession for which John was so nmch
censured by Latin opinion that Baronius rather fancifully
explains the legend of Pope Joan by the contempt excited
by his want of spirit. John, however, was firm on the
other two points which had long been contested between
the Eastern and Western Churches, the ecclesiastical juris
diction over Bulgaria and the introduction of the "filioque"
clause into the creed. He disowned his legates, who had
shown a tendency to yield, again excommunicated Photius,
and thus kindled smouldering ill-will into the open hostility
which has never been appeased to this day. Strong in
the support of the council, Photius simply ignored him.
He has been accused of interpolating John's letters, a
charge not improbable in itself, but which can neither be
proved nor disproved at this date. At the height of glory
and success he was suddenly precipitated from his dignity
by another palace revolution. Archbishop Theodore Santa-
baren, his confidant and favourite, had accused Basil's son,
Leo, of a conspiracy against his father. Leo owed his
liberty and eyesight to Photius's entreaties ; nevertheless,
on his accession in 886, he involved his benefactor in the
ruin of his accuser. Arrested, degraded from the patri
archate, banished to the monastery of Bordi in Armenia,
Photius, as if by magic, disappears from history. No letters
of this period of his life are extant, which leads to the
inference that his imprisonment was severe. The precise
date of his death is not known, but it is said to have
occurred on 6th February 891.
For long after Pliotius's death his memory was held in no special
honour by his countrymen. His literary merits were obscured by
the growing barbarism of the times, and the anarchy and apparent
decrepitude of the Roman Church made his protest against its pre
tensions seem superfluous. But, when, in the crusading age, the
Greek Church and state were alike in danger from Latin encroach
ments, Photius became a national hero, and is at present regarded
as little short of a saint. To this character he has not the least
pretension. Few men, it is probable, have been more atrociously
calumniated ; but, when every specific statement to his prejudice
has been rejected, he still appears on a general review of his actions
worldly, crafty, and unscrupulous. Yet, however short he may
fall of the standard of an Athanasius or a Luther, he shows to no
little advantage when regarded as an ecclesiastical statesman. His
firmness was heroic, his sagacity profound and far-seeing ; he sup
ported good and evil fortune with equal dignity ; and his fall was
on both occasions due to revolutions beyond his control. If his
original elevation to the patriarchate was unquestionably irregular,
his re-enthronement was no less certainly legal ; he began as a
usurper and ended as a patriot. His zeal for the promotion of learn
ing, education, and missions was most genuine, and fruitful in good.
In erudition, literary power, and force and versatility of intellect
he far surpassed every contemporary. The records of his actions
arc so imperfect or so prejudiced that in endeavouring to judge his
personal character we have to rely principally upon the internal
evidence of his own letters. With every allowance for their cxparte
and rhetorical character and the writer's manifest desire to display
P H O — P H O
821
himself in the most favourable light, they nevertheless seem to
afford sufficient testimony of a magnanimous spirit and a feeling
heart.
The most important of the works of Photius is his renowned
Myriobiblion, a collection of extracts from and abridgments of 280
volumes of classical authors, the originals of which are now to
a great extent lost. Dictated in haste immediately before his
departure on his Eastern embassy, it is open to the charges of imper
fect recollection and hasty criticism, but these are as nothing in
comparison with its merits. It is especially rich in extracts from
historical writers. To Photius we are indebted for almost all we
possess of Ctesias, Mernnon, Conon, the lost books of Diodorus
Siculus, and the lost writings of Arrian. Theology and ecclesi
astical history are also very fully represented. The best edition
is Bekker's (Berlin, 1824-25), which, however, has neither notes
nor a Latin version. The next of his works in importance is the
Amphilochia, a collection of 333 questions and answers on difficult
points in Scripture, addressed to Amphilochius, archbishop of
Cyzicus. This valuable work has exposed Photius to charges of
plagiarism, which, as he does not claim entire originality, are
wholly undeserved. The only complete edition is that published
by Sophocles (Ecoiiomus at Athens in 1858. Photius is further
author of a Lexicon (London, 1822), of a Nomocanon or harmony
of the ecclesiastical canons with the imperial edicts relating to the
discipline of the church, a work of great authority, but based on
the labours of his predecessors, and of numerous theological writ
ings. The more important of these are his treatise Against the
Paulicians, in four books, and his controversy with the Latins on
the procession of the Holy Spirit. His Epistles are valuable from
their contents, but the style is often affected or unsuitable to the
subject. The most complete edition is Valetta's (London, 1864).
Many of Photius's works yet remain in manuscript. The only
complete edition is Bishop Malou's in Migne's Patrologia Grfeca,
and this is very imperfect and unsatisfactory.
After the allusions in his own writings the chief contemporary authority for
the life of Photins is his bitter enemy Nicetas the Paphlagonian, the biographer
of his rival Ignatius. In modern times his life has been written with great
prejudice and animosity by Baronius, and by Weguelin in the Memoirs of the
Berlin Academy, and more fairly by Hankins (De Byzantinarum Rerum Scriptor-
ibus, pt. 1). But all previous writers are superseded by the classical work of
Cardinal Hergenrother, Photius, Patriarch von Constant inopel (3 vols., Ratisbon,
1867-69). As a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church Cardinal Hergenrother
is inevitably biassed against Photiu.s as an ecclesiastic, but his natural candour
and sympathy with intellectual eminence have made him just to the man, while
his investigation of all purely historical and literary questions is industrious
and exhaustive in the highest degree. (R. G.)
PHOTOGEAPHY
IT would be somewhat difficult to fix a date when what
we now know as "photographic action" was first re
corded. No doubt the tanning of the skin by the sun's
rays was what was first noticed, and this is as truly the
effect of solar radiation as is the darkening of the sensitive
paper which is now in use in photographic printing opera
tions. We may take it that Scheele, the Swedish chemist,
was the first to enter upon a scientific investigation of the
darkening action of sunlight on silver chloride. He found
by experiment that when silver chloride was exposed to the
action of light beneath water there was dissolved in the
fluid a substance which, on the addition of caustic (silver
nitrate), caused the precipitation of new silver chloride,
and that on applying liquor ammonia to the blackened
chloride an insoluble residue of metallic silver was left
behind. He also noticed that of the rays of the spectrum
the violet most readily blackened the silver chloride. In
Scheele, then, we have the first who applied combined
chemical and spectrum analysis to the science of photo
graphy. Senebier repeated Scheele's experiments, and
found that in fifteen seconds the violet rays blackened
silver chloride as much as the red rays did in twenty
minutes.1 About twenty years later than Scheele's experi
ments Count Rumford contributed a paper to the Philo
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1798) entitled
" An inquiry concerning the chemical properties that have
been attributed to light," in which he tried to demonstrate
that all effects produced on metallic solutions could be
brought about by a temperature somewhat less than that of
boiling water. Robert Harrup in 1802, however, con
clusively showed in Nicholson's Journal that, at all events,
salts of mercury were reduced by visible radiation and not
by change of temperature. In 1801 we come to the next
decided step in the study of photographic action, when
Ritter proved the existence of rays lying beyond the violet
limit of the spectrum, and found that they had the power
of blackening silver chloride. Such a discovery naturally
gave a direction to the investigations of others, and See-
beck (between 1802 and 1808) and Berard turned their
attention to this particular subject, eliciting information
which at the time was of a valuable nature. We need
only mention two or three other cases where the influence
of light was noticed at the beginning of this century.
Wollaston observed the conversion of yellow gum guaiacum
into a green tint by the violet rays, and the restoration
of the colour by the red rays, — both of which, be it observed,
1 It may here be remarked that had he used a pure spectrum he
would have found that the red rays did not blacken the material in
the slightest degree.
are the effect of absorption of light, the original yellow
colour of the gum absorbing the violet rays, whilst the
green colour to which it is changed absorbs the red rays.
Davy found that puce-coloured oxide of lead, when damp,
became red in the red rays, whilst it blackened in the violet
rays, and that the green oxide of mercury became red in
the red rays, — again an example of the necessity of ab
sorption to effect a molecular or chemical change in a sub
stance. Desmortiens in 1801 observed the change effected
in Prussian blue, and Bockman noted the action of the
two ends of the spectrum on phosphorus, a research which,
it may be mentioned, Draper extended further in America
at a later date.
To England belongs the honour of first producing a Wedg-
photograph by the utilization of Scheele's observations on
chloride of silver. In June 1802 Wedgwood published
in the Journal of the Royal Institution the paper — " An
account of a method of copying paintings upon glass and
of making profiles by the agency of light upon nitrate of
silver, with observations by H. Davy." He remarks that
white paper or white leather moistened with a solution of
nitrate of silver undergoes no change when kept in a dark
place, but on being exposed to the daylight it speedily
changes colour, and, after passing through various shades
of grey and brown, becomes at length nearly black. The
alteration of colour takes place more speedily in proportion
as the light is more intense.
"In the direct beam of the sun two or three minutes are sufficient
to produce the full effect, in the shade several hours are required,
and light transmitted through different-coloured glasses acts upon
it with different degrees of intensity. Thus it is found that red
rays, or the common sunbeams passed through red glass, have
very little action upon it ; yellow and green are more efficacious,
but blue and violet light produce the most decided and powerful
effects. "
Wedgwood then goes on to describe the method of using
this prepared paper by throwing shadows on it, and infer-
entially by what we now call "contact printing." He
states that he has been unable to fix his prints, no wash
ing being sufficient to eliminate the traces of the silver
salt which occupied the unexposed or shaded portions.
Davy in a note states that he has found that, though the
images formed by an ordinary camera obscura were too
faint to print out in the solar microscope, the images of
small objects could easily be copied on such paper.
"In comparing the effects produced by light upon muriate of
silver (silver chloride) with those upon the nitrate it seemed
evident that the muriate was the most susceptible, and both were
more readily acted upon when moist than when dry — a fact long
ago known. Even in the twilight the colour of the moist muriate
of silver, spread upon paper, slowly changed from white to faint
822
PHOTOGRAPHY
violet ; though under similar circumstances no intermediate altera
tion was produced upon the nitrate. . . . Nothing but a method of pre
venting the unshaded parts of the delineations from being coloured
by exposure to the day is wanting to render this process as useful
as it is elegant."
In this method of preparing the paper lies the germ of
the silver-printing processes which are practised at the
present time (1884), and it was only by the spread of
chemical knowledge that the hiatus which was to render
the " process as useful as it is elegant " was filled up—
when hyposulphite of soda, discovered by Chaussier in
1799, or three years before Wedgwood published his paper,
was used for making the print permanent. Here we must
:ebeck. call attention to an important observation by Dr Seebeck
of Jena in 1810. In the Farlenlehre of Goethe he says :
" When a spectrum produced by a properly constructed prism is
thrown upon moist chloride of silver paper, if the printing be con
tinued for from fifteen to twenty minutes, whilst a constant position
for the spectrum is maintained by any means, I observe the follow
ing. In the violet the chloride is a reddish brown (sometimes more
violet, sometimes more blue), and this coloration extends well be
yond the limit of the violet ; in the blue the chloride takes a clear
blue tint, which fades away, becoming lighter in the green. In
the yellow I usually found the chloride unaltered ; sometimes, how
ever, it had a light yellow tint ; in the red and beyond the red it
took a rose or lilac tint. This image of the spectrum shows beyond
the red and the violet a region more or less light and uncoloured.
This is how the decomposition of the silver chloride is seen in
this region. Beyond the brown band, . . . which was produced
in the violet, the silver chloride was coloured a grey- violet for a
distance of several inches. In proportion as the distance from
the violet increased, the tint became lighter. Beyond the red, on
the contrary, the chloride took a feeble red tint for a considerable
distance. When moist chloride of silver, having received the action
of light for a time, is exposed to the spectrum, the blue and violet
behave as above. In the yellow and red regions, on the other
hand, it is found that the silver chloride becomes paler ; . . . the
parts acted upon by the red rays and by those beyond take a light
coloration."
This has been brought prominently forward by Dr J. M.
Eder as being undoubtedly the first record we have of
photographic action lending itself to production of natural
colours, a fact which, in describing the history of photo
graphic phenomena, has been more or less overlooked.
We shall see later on that this observation of Seebeck was
allowed to lie fallow for many years, until it was again
taken up and published as a novelty. In photography
perhaps, above all other technical applications of science,
there has been a great flood of rediscovery, owing, no
doubt, in the first instance to the fact that much published
in one country has remained unknown in others, and also
to the fact that it is difficult to boil down photographic
literature and to ascertain what is really scientifically true
and what is merely the result of unscientific use of the
imagination. Photography has suffered greatly also from
the fact that those who follow it are usually artists rather
than scientific men, and fall into mistakes of theory which
must of necessity lead to wrong conclusions.
, de The first to found a process of photography which gave
iepce. pictures that were subsequently unaffected by light was
Nicephore de NIEPCE (q.v.). His process, which he called
provisionally " heliographie, dessins, et gravures," consists
in coating the surface of a metallic plate with a solution
of asphaltum in oil of lavender and exposing it to a
camera image. In his description he recommends that the
asphaltum be powdered and the oil of lavender dropped
upon it in a wine-glass, and that it be then gently heated.
A polished plate is covered with this varnish, and, when
dried, is ready for employment in the camera. After
requisite exposure, which is very long indeed, a very faint
image, requiring development, is seen. Development is
effected by diluting oil of lavender with ten parts by volume
of white petroleum. After this mixture has been allowed
to stand two or three days it becomes free from turbidity
and is ready to be used. The plate is placed in a dish
and covered with the solvent. By degrees the parts un
affected by light dissolve away, and the picture, formed
of modified asphaltum, is developed. The plate is then
lifted from the dish, as much as possible of the solvent
being allowed to drain away. It is next placed on an
inclined support and carefully freed from all the remaining
solvents by washing in water. Subsequently, instead of
using oil of lavender as the asphaltum solvent, Niepce
employed an animal oil, which gave a deeper colour and
more tenacity to the surface-film than did his original agent.
Later still, Daguerre and Niepce used as a solvent the
brittle residue obtained from evaporating the essential oil
of lavender dissolved in ether or alcohol, — a transparent
solution of a lemon -yellow colour being formed. This
solution was used for covering glass or silver plates, which,
when dried, could be used in the camera. The time of
exposure varied somewhat in length. Daguerre remarked
that " the time required to procure a photographic copy
of a landscape i.s from seven to eight hours, but single
monuments, when strongly lighted by the sun, or which
are themselves very bright, can be taken in about three
hours." Perhaps there is no sentence which could be
quoted that illustrates more forcibly the advance made in
photography from the days when this process was described.
The ratio of three hours to ^i^th of a second is a fair
estimate of the progress made since Niepce. The develop
ment was conducted by means of petroleum-vapour, which
dissolved the parts not acted upon by light. As a rule
silver plates seem to have been used, and occasionally glass ;
but it does not appear whether the latter material was
chosen because an image would be projected through it
or whether simply for the sake of effect. Viewed in the
light of present knowledge, a more perfectly developable
image in half-tone would be obtained by exposing the film
through the lack of the glass. The action of light on most
organic matter is apparently one of oxidation. In the
case of asphaltum or bitumen of Judiea the oxidation
causes a hardening of the material and an insolubility in
the usual solvents. Hence that surface of the film is
generally hardened first which first feels the influence of
light. Where half-tones exist, as in a landscape picture,
the film remote from the surface first receiving the image
is not acted upon at all, and remains soluble in the solvent.
It is thus readily seen that, in the case of half-tone pictures,
or even in copying engravings, if the action were not con
tinued sufficiently long when the surface of the film farthest
from the glass was first acted upon, the layer next the
glass would in some places remain soluble, and on develop
ment would be dissolved away, carrying the top layer of
hardened resinous matter with it, and thus give rise to
imperfect pictures. In carbon-printing development from
the back of the exposed film is absolutely essential, since
it depends on the same principles as does heliography,
and in this the same mode of procedure is advisable. It
would appear that Niepce began his researches as early as
1814, but it does not appear that he was very successful
in his first endeavours : it was not till 1827 that he had
any success worth recounting. At that date he communi
cated a paper to Dr Bauer of Kew, the secretary of the
Royal Society of London, with a view to its presentation
to that society. Its publication, however, was prevented
because the process, of which examples were shown, was
a secret one. There lies before the present writer an
authentic MS. copy of Niepce's " Memoire," dated " Kew,
le 8 D6cembre 1827," in which he says it will be found
that " in his framed drawings made on tin the tone is too
feeble, but that by the use of chemical agents the tone
may be darkened." This shows that Niepce was familiar
with the idea of using some darkening medium even with
his photographs taken on tin plates.
PHOTOGRAPHY
823
Daguerreotype. — We have already noticed in the joint
process of Daguerre and Niepce that polished silver plates
were use(jj an(j we know from the latter that amongst
the chemical agents tried iodine suggested itself. Iodine
vapour or solution applied to a silvered plate would cause
the formation of silver iodide on those parts not acted
upon by light. The removal of the resinous picture
would leave an image formed of metallic silver, whilst the
black parts of the original would be represented by the
darker silver iodide. This was probably the origin of the
daguerreotype process. Such shrewd observers as Niepce
and Daguerre, who had formed a partnership for prosecut
ing their researches, would not have thus formed iodide
of silver without noticing that it changed in colour when
exposed to the light. What parts respectively Daguerre
and Niepce played in the development of the daguerreo
type, which we shall shortly describe, will probably never
be known with absolute accuracy, but in a letter from
Dr Bauer to Dr Bennett, F.K.S., dated 7th May 1839, the
former says :
"I received a very interesting letter from'Mons. Isidore Niepce,
dated 12th March [about a month after the publication of the
daguerreotype process], and that letter fully confirms what I sus
pected of Daguerre's manoeuvres with poor Nicephore, but Mr
Isidore observes that for the present that letter might be considered
confidential."
Dr Bauer evidently kneAv more of " poor Nicephore's "
work than most people, and at that early period he
clearly thought that an injustice had been done to Niepce
at the hands of Daguerre. It should be remarked that
Nicephore de Niepce died in 1833, and a new agreement
was entered into between his son Isidore de Niepce and
Daguerre to continue the prosecution of their researches.
It appears further that Niepce communicated his process
to Daguerre on 5th December 1829. At his death some
letters from Daguerre and others were left by him in which
the use of iodine, sulphur, phosphorus, &c., is mentioned
as having been used on the metal plates, and their sensi
tiveness to light, when thus treated, commented upon. We
are thus led to believe that a great part of the success in
producing the daguerreotype is due to the elder Niepce ;
and indeed it must have been thought so at the time, since,
on the publication of the process, life-pensions of 6000
francs and 4000 francs were given to Daguerre and to
Isidore Niepce respectively. In point of chronology the
publication of the discovery of the daguerreotype process
was made subsequently to the Talbot-type process. It
will, however, be convenient to continue the history of the
daguerreotype, premising that it was published on 6th
February 1839, whilst Talbot's process was given to the
world on 25th January of the same year.
Daguerreotype pictures were originally taken on silver-
plated copper, and even at the present day the silvered
surface thus prepared serves better than electro-deposited
silver of any thickness. An outline of the operations is as
folloAvs. A brightly-polished silver plate is cleaned by means,
first of finely-powdered pumice and olive oil then of dilute
nitric acid, and a soft buff is employed to give it a brilliant
polish, the slightest trace of foreign matter or stain being
fatal to the production of a perfect picture. The plate,
thus prepared, is ready for the iodizing operation. Small
fragments of iodine are scattered over a saucer, covered
with gauze. Over this the plate is placed, face down
wards, resting on supports, and the vapour from the iodine
is allowed to form upon it a surface of silver iodide, which
is the sensitive compound. It is essential to note the
colour of the surface-formed iodide at its several stages,
the varying colours being due to interferences caused
by the different thicknesses of the minutely thin film of
iodide of silver. The stage of maximum sensitiveness is
obtained when it is of a golden orange colour. In this
state the plate is withdrawn and removed to the dark slide
of the camera, ready for exposure. A plan frequently
adopted to give an even film of iodide was to saturate a
card with iodine and hold the plate a short distance above
the card. Long exposures were required, varying in Paris
from three to thirty minutes. The length of the exposure
was evidently a matter of judgment, more particularly as
over-exposure introduced an evil which was called "solar-
ization," but which was in reality due to the oxidation of
the iodide, itself altered by prolonged exposure to light.
As a matter of history it may be interesting to remark
that the development of the image by means of mercury-
vapour is said to be due to a chance discovery of Daguerre.
It appears that for some time previous to the publication of
the daguerreotype method he had been experimenting with
iodized silver plates, producing images by what would now
be called the "printing out" process. This operation in
volved so long an exposure that he sought some means of
reducing it by the application of different reagents. Having
on one occasion exposed such a plate to a camera-image, he
accidentally placed it in the dark in a cupboard containing
various chemicals, and found after the lapse of a night
that he had a perfect image developed. By the process
of exhaustion he arrived at the fact that it was the mercury-
vapour, which even at ordinary temperatures volatilizes,
that had caused this intensification of the almost invisible
camera -image. It was this- discovery that enabled the
exposures to be very considerably shortened from those
which it was found necessary to give in mere camera-
printing. The development of the image was effected by
placing the exposed plate over a slightly heated (about 75°
C.) cup of mercury. The vapour of mercury condensed on
those places where the light had acted in an almost exact
ratio to the intensity of its action. This produced a picture
in an amalgam of mercury, the vapour of which attached
itself to the altered iodide of silver. Proof that such was
the case Avas subsequently afforded by the fact that the
mercurial image could be removed by heat. The developing
box was so constructed that it AAras possible to examine the
picture through a yelloAv glass AvindoAV Avhilst the image was
being brought out. The next operation Avas to fix the
picture by dipping it in a solution of hyposulphite of soda.
The image produced by this method is so delicate that it
AA'ill not bear the slightest handling, and has to be protected
from accidental touching.
The first great improvement in the daguerreotype pro
cess Avas the resensitizing of the iodized film by bromine
vapour. Mr Goddard published his account of the use of
bromine in conjunction with iodine in 1840, and M. Claudet
employed a combination of iodine and chlorine vapour in
1841. In 1844 Daguerre published his improved method
of preparing the plates, Avhich is in reality based on the
use of bromine Avith iodine. That this addition points to
additional sensitiveness will be readily understood Avhen
Ave remark that so-called instantaneous pictures of yachts
in full sail, and of large size, have been taken on plates so
prepared, — a feat Avhich is utterly impossible Avith the
original process as described by Daguerre. The next im
provement to be noticed in the process AA'as toning or gilding
the image by a solution of gold, a practice introduced by
M. Fizeau. Gold chloride is mixed with hyposulphite of
soda, and the levelled plate, bearing a sufficient quantity
of the fluid, is warmed by a spirit-lamp until the required
vigour is given to the image, as a consequence of A\iiich it is
better seen in most lights. Nearly all the daguerreotypes
extant have been treated in this manner, and no doubt their
permanence is in a great measure due to this operation.
Images of this class can be copied by taking electrotypes
from them, as shoAvn by Grove and others. These repro
ductions are admirable in every Avay, and furnish a posi-
824
PHOTOGRAPHY
tive proof, if any were needed, that the daguerrean image
is a relief.
?ox- Fo.r- Talbot Process. — In January 1839 Fox Talbot
Palbot described the first of his processes, photogenic drawing, in
>rocess. a paper £O tjie R0yal Society. He states that he began
experimenting in 1834, and that in the solar microscope
he obtained an outline of the object to be depicted in full
sunshine in half a second. We must turn, however, to
the Philosophical Magazine for the account of the full
details of his method, which consisted essentially in soak
ing paper in common salt, brushing one side only of it
with about a 12 per cent, solution of silver nitrate in
water, and drying at the fire. Fox Talbot stated that by
repeating the alternate washes of the silver and salt-
always ending, however, with the former — greater sensitive
ness was attained. This is the same in every respect as
the method practised by Wedgwood in 1802 ; but, when
?alotype. we come to the next process, which he called "calotype"
or " beautiful picture," we have a distinct advance. This
process Talbot protected by a patent in 1841. It may be
briefly described as the application of iodide of silver to a
paper support. Carefully-selected paper was brushed over
with a solution of silver nitrate (100 grains to the ounce
of distilled water), and dried by the fire. It was then
dipped into a solution of potassium iodide (500 grains
being dissolved in a pint of water), Avhere it was allowed
to stay two or three minutes until silver iodide was formed.
In this state the iodide is scarcely sensitive to light, but
is sensitized by brushing " gallo-nitrate of silver" over the
surface to which the silver nitrate had been first applied.
This "gallo-nitrate" is not a chemical compound, but
merely a mixture, consisting of 100 grains of silver nitrate
dissolved in 2 oz. of water, to which is added one-sixth of
its volume of acetic acid, and immediately before applying
to the paper an equal bulk of a saturated solution of
gallic acid in water. The prepared surface is then ready
for exposure in the camera, and, after a short insolation
in the dark, develops itself, or the development may be
hastened by a fresh application of the "gallo-nitrate of
silver." The picture is then fixed by washing it in clean
water and drying slightly in blotting paper, after which it
is treated with a solution of potassium bromide, and again
washed and dried. Here there is no mention made of
hyposulphite of soda as a fixing agent, that having been
first used by Sir J. Herschel in February 1840. In a
strictly historical notice it ought to be mentioned that
development by means of gallic acid and nitrate of silver
was first known to Rev. J. B. Reade. When impressing
images in the solar microscope he employed gallic acid
and silver in order to render more sensitive the chloride
of silver paper that he was using, and he accidentally
found that the image could be developed without the aid
of light. The priority of the discovery was claimed by
Fox Talbot ; and his claim was sustained after a lawsuit,
apparently on the ground that Reade's method had never
been legally published. It would be beyond the scope of
the present article to give the slight improvements which
Talbot afterwards made in the process. In one of his
patents he recognizes the value of the proper fixing of his
photogenic drawings by the use of hyposulphite of soda,
and also the production of positive prints from the calotype
negatives. We pass over his application of albumen to
porcelain and its subsequent treatment with iodine vapour,
as also his application of albumen in which iodide of silver
was held in suspension to a glass plate, since in this he
was undoubtedly preceded by Niepce de St Victor in 1848.
Llbumen Albumen Process on Glass. — It was a most decided step
rocess jn a(jvance when Niepce de St Victor, a nephew of Nice-
phore de Niepce, employed a glass plate and coated it with
iodized albumen. The originator of this method did not
meet with much success. In the hands of M. Blanquart
Evrard it became more practicable ; but it was carried out
in its greatest perfection by M. Le Gray. The outline of
the operations is as follows. The whites of five fresh eggs
are mixed with about one hundred grains of potassium
iodide, about twenty grains of potassium bromide, and
ten grains of common salt. The mixture is beaten up into
a froth with an egg- whisk or fork, and allowed to settle
for twenty-four hours, when the clear liquid is decanted off.
A circular pool of albumen is poured on a glass plate, and
a straight ruler (its ends being wrapped with waxed paper
to prevent its edge from touching the plate anywhere
except at the margins) is drawn over the plate, sweeping
off the excess of albumen, and so leaving an even film.
The plate is first allowed to dry spontaneously, a final
heating being given to it in an oven or before the tire.
The heat hardens the albumen, and it becomes insoluble
and ready for the nitrate of silver bath. One of the
difficulties is to prevent crystallization of the salts held
in solution, and this can only be effected by keeping them
in defect rather than in excess. The plate is sensitized
for five minutes in a bath of nitrate of silver, acidified
with acetic acid, and exposed whilst still wet, or it may
be slightly washed and again dried and exposed whilst in
its desiccated state. The image is developed by gallic acid
in the usual way. After the application of albumen many
modifications were introduced in the shape of starch, serum
of milk, gelatin, all of which were intended to hold iodide
in situ on the plate ; and the development in every case
seems to have been by gallic acid. At one time the waxed-
paper process subsequently introduced by Le Gray was a
great favourite. Paper that had been made translucent
by white wax was immersed in a solution of potassium
iodide until impregnated witli it, after which it was sensi
tized in the usual way, development being by gallic acid.
This procedure is still followed in some meteorological
observatories for obtaining transparent magnetograms,
barograms, &c. Reflexion will show that in images ob
tained by this process the high lights are represented by
metallic silver, whilst the shadows are translucent. Such
a print is technically called a " negative." When chloride
of silver paper is darkened by the passage of light through
a negative, we get the highest lights represented by white
paper and the shadows by darkened chloride. A print of
this kind is called a " positive."
Collodion Process. — A great impetus was given to photo- Collo-
graphy in 1850, rendering it easy of execution and putting (Jlon-
it into the hands of the comparatively untrained. This
was the introduction of collodion, a vehicle which up to
the present day holds its own against the more rapid pro
cesses on account of the facility with which the plates are
prepared, and also because it is a substance totally un
affected by silver nitrate, which is not the case when any
organic substance is employed, and, it may be said, in
organic as well in many instances. Thus albumen forms
a definite silver compound, as do gelatin, starch, and
gum. The employment of collodion for use in photo
graphy was first suggested by Le Gray, who has been
already mentioned in connexion with the albumen process.
He does not appear to have gone beyond suggestion, and
it remained for Archer of London, closely followed by
Fry, to make a really practical use of the discovery.
Collodion is a solution of cotton or cellulose in which
some atoms of its hydrogen have been replaced by NO,, by
treatment with a more or less dilute mixture of sulphuric
and nitric acids. The action of the sulphuric acid is to
take up the molecules of water formed by elimination of
the hydrogen from the cotton, which combines with oxygen
from the nitric acid, the latter acid supplying the cotton
with NO.2.
According to the temperature of the acids and
their dilution a tri-nitro or di-nitro cellulose is said to be
formed, one of which is the explosive gun-cotton, insoluble
in ether and alcohol, whilst the other, though inflammable,
is readily soluble in a mixture of these two solvents. When
collodion is poured on a glass plate it leaves on drying a
hard transparent film which under the microscope is slightly
reticulated. Before drying, the film is gelatinous and per
fectly adapted for holding in situ salts soluble in ether and
alcohol. Where such salts are present they crystallize out
when the film is dried, hence such a film is only suitable
where the plates are ready to be immersed in the silver
bath. As a rule, about five grains of the soluble cotton
are dissolved in an ounce of a mixture of equal parts of
ether and alcohol, both of which must be of low specific
gravity, "725 and '805 respectively. If the alcohol or
ether be much diluted with water the cotton (pyroxylin)
precipitates, but, even if less diluted, it forms a film which
is " crapey " and uneven. Such was the material with
which Le Gray proposed to work, and which Archer actu
ally brought into practical use. The opaque silver plate
with its one impression was abandoned ; and the paper
support of Talbot, with its inequalities of grain and thick
ness, followed suit, though not immediately. When once
a fine negative had been obtained with collodion on a glass
plate — the image showing high lights by almost complete
opacity and the shadows by transparency (as was the case,
too, in the calotype process) — any number of impressions
could be obtained by means of the silver-printing process
introduced by Fox Talbot, and they were found to pos
sess a delicacy and refinement of detail that certainly
eclipsed the finest print obtained from a calotype nega
tive. To any one who had practised the somewhat tedious
calotype process, or the waxed-paper process of Le Gray
with its still longer preparation and development, the
advent of the collodion method must have been extremely
welcome, since it effected a saving in time, money, and
imcertainty. The rapidity of photographic action was
much increased, and the production of pictures became
possible to hundreds who previously had been excluded
from this art-science by force of circumstances. We can
merely give an outline of the procedure, referring the reader
for further information to the manuals of photography.
A glass plate is carefully cleaned by the application of
a detergent such as a cream of tripoli powder or spirits of
wine (to which a little ammonia is often added), then
wiped with a soft rag, and finally polished with a silk
handkerchief or chamois leather previously freed from
grease. A collodion containing soluble iodides and bro
mides is made to flow over the plate, all excess being
drained off when it is covered. A good standard formula
for the collodion may be taken to be as follows, — 55
grains of pyroxylin, 5 oz. of alcohol, 5 oz. of ether ; and in
this liquid are dissolved 2J grains of ammonium iodide, 2
grains of cadmium iodide, and 2 grains of cadmium bromide.
When the collodion is set, i.e., when it is in a gelatinous
condition, the plate is immersed in a bath of nitrate of
silver — a vertical form being that mostly used in Britain,
whilst a horizontal dish is used on the Continent — a good
formula for which is 350 grains of silver nitrate with 10
oz. of water. The plate is steadily lowered into this solu
tion without pause, and moved in it until all the repellent
action between the aqueous solution of the silver and the
solvents of the collodion is removed, when it is allowed to
rest for a couple of minutes, after which period it is taken
out and placed in the dark slide ready for exposure in the
camera. After undergoing proper exposure the plate is
withdrawn, and in a room lighted with yellow light the
developing solution is applied, which originally was a solu
tion of pyrogallic acid in water restrained in its action by
the addition of acetic acid. One of the old formula;
825
employed by Delamotte was 9 grains of pyrogallic acid, 2
drachms of glacial acetic acid, and 3 oz. of water. The
image gradually appears after the application of this solu
tion, building itself up from the silver nitrate clinging to
the film, which is reduced to the metallic state by degrees.
Should the density be insufficient a few drops of nitrate
of silver are added to the pyrogallic-acid solution and the
developing action continued.
In 1844 Hunt introduced another reducing agent, which
has continued to be the favourite down to the present
time, viz., ferrous sulphate. By its use the time of neces
sary exposure of the plate is reduced, and the image de
velops with great rapidity. A sample of this developing
solution is 20 grains of ferrous sulphate, 20 minims of
acetic acid, with 1 oz. of water. This often leaves the
image thinner than is requisite for the formation of a good
print, and it is intensified with pyrogallic acid and silver.
There are other intensifies used to increase the deposit
on a plate by means of mercury or uranium, followed by
other solutions to still further darken the double salts
formed on the film ; but into these it is not necessary to
enter here. Such intensifying agents have to be applied
to the image after the plate is fixed, which is done by a
concentrated solution of hyposulphite of soda or by cyanide
of potassium, the latter salt having been first introduced
by Martin and Gaudin in 1853 (La Lumiere, 23d April
1853). Twenty-five grains of cyanide of potassium to one
ounce of water is the strength of the solution usually em
ployed. The reaction of both these fixing agents is to
form with the sensitive salts of silver double hyposulphites
or cyanides, which are soluble in water, not, as is often
considered to be the case, to merely dissolve the silver salt
itself. It may be well to remark that the utility of bromides
in the collodion process seems to have been recognized in
its earliest days, Archer (1852) and Bingham (1850) both
mentioning it. We notice this, since as late as the year
1866 a patent-right in its use was sought to be enforced
in America, the patent being taken out by James Cutting
in July 1854.
Positive Pictures by the Collodion Process. — In the infancy Positive
of the collodion process it was shown by Mr Home that collodion
a negative image could be made to assume the appearance liro
of a positive by whitening the metallic silver deposit.
This he effected by using with the pyrogallic acid developer
a small quantity of nitric acid. A better result was obtained
by Mr Fry with ferrous sulphate and ferrous nitrate, whilst
Dr Diamond gave effect to the matter in a practical way.
Mr Archer used mercuric chloride to whiten the image.
To Mr Hunt, however, must be awarded the credit of
noticing the action of this salt on the image, in his paper
in the Philosophical Transactions of 1843. The whitened
picture may be made to stand out against black velvet, or
black varnish may be poured over the film to give the
necessary black background, or, as has been done more
recently, the positive pictures may be produced on japanned
iron plates (ferrotype plates) or on japanned leather. This
process is still practised by some photographers, and from
the number of ferrotype plates sold the number of portraits
taken by it must be still very large.
Moist Collodion Process. — From what has been stated Moist
above it will be seen that for the successful working of the collodion
collodion process it was necessary that the plate should Pro ess'
be exposed very shortly after its preparation ; this was
a drawback, inasmuch as it necessitated taking a heavy
equipment into the field. In May 1854 Messrs Spiller
and Crookes published in the Philosophical Magazine a
process whereby they were enabled to keep a film moist
(so as to prevent crystallization of the silver nitrate) several
days, enabling plates to be prepared at home, exposed in
the field, and then developed in the dark room. The plate
XVIII. — 1 04
826
PHOTOGRAPHY
was prepared in the jisual way and a solution of zinc
nitrate and silver nitrate in water was made to flow over
it. The hygroscopic nature of the zinc salt kept sufficient
moisture on the plate to attain the desired end. Various
modifications in procedure have been made since, but
it is scarcely necessary to record them here ; for details
the reader may consult the volumes of the Photographic
Journal, 1854-55.
Collo- Dry Plates. — It would appear that the first experiments
dion dry wJth collodion dry plates were due to M. Gaudin. In
plates. La Lum^re Of 22d April and 27th May 1854 he describes
his researches on the question ; whilst in England Mr G.
R. Muirhead, on the 4th August 1854, stated that light
acts almost as energetically on a dry surface as on a wet
after all the silver has been washed away from the former
previous to desiccation. Dr Taupenot, however, seems to
have been the first to use a dry -plate process that was
really workable. His original plan was to coat a plate
with collodion, sensitize it in the ordinary manner, wash
it, cause a solution of albumen to flow over the surface,
dry it, dip it in a bath of silver nitrate, acidified with acetic
acid, and wash and dry it again. The plate was then in a
condition to be exposed, and was to be developed with pyro-
gallic acid and silver. In this method we have a double
manipulation, which is long in execution, though perfectly
effective, as we know from experience.
Alkaline A great advance was made in all dry -plate processes
vel' by the introduction of what is known as the "alkaline
developer," which is, however, inapplicable to all plates on
which silver nitrate is present in the free state. It will
be remembered that the developers previously described,
either for collodion or paper processes, were dependent on
the reduction of metallic silver by some such agent as ferrous
sulphate, the reduction taking place gradually and the
reduced particles aggregating on those portions of the film
which had been acted upon by light. The action of light
being to reduce the silver iodide, bromide, or chloride to
the state of sub-salts (e.g., sub-iodide of silver), these re
duced particles really acted as nuclei for the crystallized
metal. It will be evident that in such a method of develop
ment the molecular attraction acts at distances relatively
great compared with the diameters of the molecules them
selves. If it were possible to reduce the altered particles
it was plain that development would be more rapid, and
also that the number of molecules reduced by light would
be smaller if the metallic silver could be derived from silver
compounds within shorter distances of the centres of mole
cular attraction. Alkaline development accomplished this
to a very remarkable extent ; but the method is only really
practicable when applied to films containing bromide and
chloride of silver, as iodide is only slightly amenable to
the alkaline body. We have not been able to trace the
exact date of the introduction of this developer. It is be
lieved to be of American origin ; and it is known that in
the year 1862 Major Russell used it with the dry plates he
introduced. An alkaline developer consists of an alkali, a
reducing agent, and a restraining agent. These bodies,
when combined and applied to the solid bromide or chloride
of silver, after being acted upon by light, as when a plate
was exposed to the- camera image, were able to reduce the
sub-bromide or sub-chloride, and to build up an image upon
it, leaving the unaltered bromide intact, except so far as it
was used in the building up. In 1877 Abney investigated
this action and was able to demonstrate what actually
occurred during the development. One of the experiments
will show on what grounds this conclusion was arrived at.
A dry plate was prepared by the bath process in the usual
manner (to be described below), and exposed in the camera.
The exposed film was covered with another film of collodio-
bromide emulsion, which of course had not seen the light.
An image was obtained from the double film by means
of the developer, which penetrated through the upper
unexposed film, and the development was prolonged until
an image appeared through the same film, when the plate
was fixed, washed, and dried. A piece of gelatinous paper
was cemented on the upper film, and a similar piece on
the lower after both had been stripped off the glass.
When quite dry the two papers were forcibly separated, a
film adhering to each. The upper film, altlvmgh never
exposed to light, showed an image in some cases more
intense than the under film. The action of the alkaline
developer was here manifest : the bromide of silver in
close contiguity to the exposed particles was reduced to
the metallic state. Hence, from this and similar experi
ments Abney was able to announce that silver bromide could
not exist in the presence of freshly precipitated or reduced
metallic silver, and that a sub-bromide was immediately
formed. Thus Ag2Br2 + Ag2 = 2Ag2Br. From this it will
be seen that the deposited silver is well within the sphere
of molecular attraction, and that consequently a less ex
posure (i.e., the reduction of fewer molecules of the sensi
tive salt) would give a developable image.
The alkalis used embraced the alkalis themselves and
the mono -carbonates. The sole reducing agent up till
recent times was pyrogallic acid. In the year 1880 Abney
found that hydrokinone was even more effective than
pyrogallic acid, its reducing power being stronger. Various
other experimentalists tried other kindred substances, but
without adding to the list of really useful agents. In
1884, however, Herr Egli and Arnold S} tiller brought
out hydroxylamin as a reducing agent, which promises
to be of great use if it can be prepared cheaply enough.
Another set of developers for dry plates dependent on Other
the reduction of the silver bromide and the metallic state
is founded on the fact that certain organic salts of iron
can be utilized. In 1877 Mr Carey Lea of Philadelphia
and Mr William \\ illis announced almost simultaneously
that a solution of ferrous oxalate in neutral potassium
oxalate was effective as a developer, and from that time it
has been universally acknowledged as a useful agent in that
capacity; and it is a rare favourite, more especially amongst
Continental photographers. In 1881 Abney showed that
the addition of a small quantity of sodium hyposulphite
very greatly increased its rapidity of action by reducing
the time of exposure necessary to get a developable image.
In 1882 Dr Eder demonstrated that gelatin chloride of
silver plates could be developed with ferrous citrate, which
could not be so readily accomplished with ferrous oxalate
The exposure for chloride plates when developed by the
latter was extremely prolonged. In the same year Abney
showed that if ferrous oxalate were dissolved in potassium
citrate a much more powerful agent was formed, which
allowed not only gelatine -chloride plates to be readily
developed but also collodio-chloride plates. These, it may
be said, were undevelopable except by the precipitation
method until the advent of the agents last -mentioned ;
the chloride being as readily reduced as the sub-chloride
rendered the development of an image impracticable.
Amongst the components of an alkaline developer we Re-
mentioned a restrainer. This factor, generally a bromide Cramer
or chloride of an alkali, serves probably to form a com- j! " d^~
pound with the silver salt which has not been acted upon veloper.
by light, and which is less easily reduced than is the silver
salt alone, — the altered particles being left intact. The
action of the restrainer is regarded by some as due to its
combination with the alkali. But whichever theory is
correct the fact remains that the restrainer does make the
primitive salt less amenable to reduction. Such restrainers
as the bromides of the alkalis act through chemical means ;
but there are others which act through physical means, an
devel
opers.
PHOTOGRAPHY
827
example of which we have in the preparation of a gelatin
plate. In this case the gelatin wraps up the particles
of the silver compound in a colloidal sheath, as it were,
and the developing solution only gets at them in a very
gradual manner, for the natural tendency of all such
reducing agents is to attack the particles on which least
work has to be expended. In the case of bromide of silver
the developer has only to remove one atom of bromine,
whereas it has to remove two in the case of sub-bromide
of silver. The sub-bromide formed by light and that sub
sequently produced in the act of development are therefore
reduced. A large proportion of gelatin compared with the
silver salt in a film enables an alkaline developer to be used
without any chemical restrainer ; but when the gelatin
bears a small proportion to the silver such a restrainer has
to be used. With collodion films the particles of bromide
are more or less unenveloped, and hence in this case some
kind of chemical restrainer is absolutely necessary. We
may say that the organic iron developers require less
restraining in their action than do the alkaline developers.
Alkaline development was first used by Major Russell
in a dry-plate process in which the collodion was merely
bromized by means of bromides soluble in alcohol. The
plate was prepared by immersion in a strong solution of
silver nitrate and then washed and a preservative applied.
The last-named agent executes two functions, one being
to absorb the halogen liberated by the action of light and
the other to preserve the film from atmospheric action.
Tannin, which Major Russell employed, if we mistake not,
is a good absorbent of the halogens, and acts as a varnish
to the film. Other collodion dry-plate processes carried
out by means of the silver-nitrate bath were very numerous
at one time, many different organic bodies being also
employed. In most cases ordinary iodized collodion was
made use of, a small percentage of soluble bromide being
as a rule added to it. When plates were developed by
the alkaline method this extra bromide induced density,
since it was the silver bromide alone which was amen
able to it, the iodide being almost entirely unaffected by
the weak developer which was at that time in general use.
One of the most successful bath dry-plate processes was
introduced by Mr. R, Manners Gordon and was a really
beautiful process. The plate was given an edging of
albumen and then coated with ordinary iodized collodion
to which one grain per ounce of cadmium bromide had
been added. It was kept in the silver-nitrate bath for
ten minutes, after which it was washed thoroughly. The
following preservative was then applied : —
( Gum arable 20 grs.
1. -j Sugar candy 5 ,,
(Water 6 dr.
2 f Gallic acid 3 grs.
These ingredients were mixed just before use and, after
filtering, applied for one minute to the plate, which was
allowed to drain and set up to dry naturally. Great
latitude is admissible in the exposure ; it should rarely be
less than four times or more than twenty times that which
would be required for a wet plate under ordinary circum
stances. The image may be developed with ferrous sulphate
restrained by a solution of gelatin and glacial acetic acid,
to which a solution of silver nitrate is added just before
application, or by the following alkaline developer : —
-. ( Fyrogallic acid 96 grs.
' \ Alcohol 1 oz.
c) ( Potassium bromide 12 grs.
'1 Water 1 oz.
o ( Ammonium carbonate 80 grs.
' ' \ Water 1 oz.
The development of the image requires 6 minims of No.
1, | drachm of No. 2, with 3 drachms of No. 3. If properly
exposed the image appears rapidly and gradually gains in
intensity, and when all action from the developer ceases
the plate is washed and further intensified with pyrogallic
acid and silver as is a wet plate. The image is finally fixed
in sodium hyposulphite.
In photographic processes not only has the chemical
condition of the film to be taken into account but also the
optical. When light falls on a semi-opaque or translucent
film it is scattered by the particles in it and passes through
the glass plate to the back. Here the rays are partly
transmitted and partly reflected, a very small quantity of
them being absorbed by the material of the glass. Theory
points out that the strongest reflexion from the back of
the glass should take place at the vertical angle. In 1875
Abney investigated the subject and proved that practice
agreed with theory in every respect, and that the image of
a point of light in development on a plate was surrounded
by a ring of reduced silver caused by the reflexion of the
scattered light from the back surface of the glass, and that
this ring was shaded inwards and outwards in such a
manner that the shading varied with the intensity of the
light reflected at different angles. To avoid " halation," as
this phenomenon is called, it was usual for photographers
to cover the back of their dry plates with some material
which should be in optical contact with it, and which at
the same time should absorb all the photographically
active rays, and only replace those which were incapable of
reducing the silver salt. This was called " backing a plate."
Collodion Emulsion Processes. — In 1861 Bolton and Collo-
Sayce published the germ of a process which revolutionized dion
photographic manipulations, and by a subsequent substi- e™ul!
tution of gelatin for collodion gave an impetus to photo-
graphy which has carried it to that state of perfection at
which it has arrived at the present time (1884). In the
ordinary collodion process it will be recollected that a sen
sitive film is procured by coating a glass plate with collodion
containing the iodide and bromide of some soluble salt,
and then, when set, immersing it in a solution of silver
nitrate in order to form iodide and bromide of silver in
the film. The question that presented itself to Bolton
and Sayce was whether it might not be possible to get the
sensitive salts of silver formed in the collodion whilst
liquid, and a sensitive film given to a plate by merely let
ting this collodion, containing the salts in suspension, flow
over the glass plate. Gaudin had attempted to do this
with chloride of silver, and later G. W. Simpson had suc
ceeded in perfecting a printing process with collodion con
taining chloride of silver, citric acid, and nitrate of silver ;
but the chloride until recently has been considered a slow
working salt, and nearly incapable of development. Up
to the time of Bolton and Sayce's experiments iodide of
silver had been considered the staple of a sensitive film ;
and, though bromide had been used by Major Russell and
others, it had not met with so much favour as to lead to
the omission of the iodide. At the date mentioned the
suspension of iodide of silver in collodion was not thought
practicable, and the inventors of the process turned their
attention to bromide of silver, which they found could be
secured in such a fine state of division that it remained
suspended for a considerable time in collodion, and even
when precipitated could be resuspended by simple agita
tion. The outline of the method was to dissolve a soluble
bromide in plain collodion, and add to it drop by drop an
alcoholic solution of silver nitrate, the latter being in
excess or defect according to the will of the operator. To
prepare a sensitive surface the collodion containing the
emulsified sensitive salt was poured over a glass plate,
allowed to set, and washed till all the soluble salts result
ing from the double decomposition of the soluble bromide
and the silver nitrate, together with the unaltered soluble
828
bromide or silver nitrate, were removed, when the film
was exposed wet, or allowed to dry and then exposed.
The rapidity of these plates was not in any way remark
able, but the process had the great advantage of doing
away with the sensitizing nitrate of silver bath, and thus
avoiding a tiresome operation. The plates were developed
by the alkaline method, and gave images which, if not
primarily dense enough, could be intensified by the ap
plication of pyrogallic acid and silver nitrate as in the
wet collodion process. Such was the crude germ of a
method which was destined to effect a complete change
in the aspect of photographic negative taking ; l but for
some time it lay dormant. In fact there was at first much
MoJifi- to discourage trial of it, since the plates often became
cations veiled on development. Mr Carey Lea of Philadelphia,
and Mr W. Cooper, jun., of Reading, may be said to have
given the real impetus to the method. Mr Carey Lea,
by introducing an acid into the emulsion, established a
practicable collodion emulsion process, which was rapid
and at the same time gave negative pictures free from
veil. To secure the rapidity Carey Lea employed a fair
excess of silver nitrate, and Colonel Wortley gained further
rapidity by a still greater increase of it ; the free use of
acid was the only means by which this could be effected
without hopelessly spoiling the emulsion. It may be well
to mention that the effect of the addition of the mineral
acids such as Carey Lea employed is to prevent the forma
tion of (or to destroy when formed) any sub-bromide or
oxide of silver, either of which acts as a nucleus on which
development can take place. Captain Abney first showed
the theoretical effect of acids on the sub-bromide, as also
the effect of oxidizing agents on both the above compounds
(see below). A more valuable modification was introduced
in 1874 by Mr W. B. Bolton, one of the originators of
the process, who allowed the ether and the alcohol of the
collodion to evaporate, and then washed away all the
soluble salts from the gelatinous mass formed of pyro
xylin and. sensitive salt. After washing for a considerable
time, the pellicle was dried naturally or washed with alcohol,
and then the pyroxylin redissolved in ether and alcohol,
leaving an emulsion of silver bromide, silver chloride, or
silver iodide, or mixtures of all suspended in collodion.
In this state the plate could be coated and dried at once
for exposure. Sometimes, in fact generally, preservatives
were used, as in the case of dry plates with the bath, in
order to prevent the atmosphere from rendering the surface
of the film spotty or insensitive on development. This
modification had the great advantage of allowing a large
quantity of sensitive salt to be prepared of precisely the
same value as to rapidity of action and quality of film. A
great advance in the use of the collodion bromide process
was made by Colonel Stuart Wortley, who in June 1873
made known the powerful nature of a strongly alkaline
developer as opposed to the weak one which up to that time
had usually been employed. The brief exposure necessary
for a collodion emulsion plate, or indeed any dry plate, had
not been recognized till the introduction of this developer.
This at once placed in the hands of photographers an instru
ment which by judicious use enabled them to shorten the
time of exposure, of their plates and to render possible
effects which had before been considered out of the question.
As an example of the preparation of a collodion emulsion
and the developer usually employed with it we give the
following, — 2^ oz. of alcohol, 5 oz. of ether, 75 grains
of pyroxylin. In 1 oz. of alcohol are dissolved 200 grains
of zinc bromide ; 2 it is then acidulated with 4 or 5 drops
1 An account of Mr Sayce's process is to be found in the 1'hoto-
rjraphic News of October 1 865, or the Photographic Journal of the
same date.
2 The advantages of this salt were pointed out by Mr. Warnerke in
1875.
2.
3.
of nitric acid, and added to half the above collodion.
In 2 drachms of water are dissolved 330 grains of silver
nitrate, 1 oz. of alcohol being added. The silvered alcohol
is next poured into the other half of the collodion and the
brominized collodion dropped in, care being taken to shake
between the operations. An emulsion of bromide of silver
is formed in suspension ; and it is in every case left for
10 to 20 hours to what is technically called "ripen," or,
in other words, to become creamy when poured out upon
a glass plate. When the emulsion has ripened it may be
used at once or be poured out into a fiat dish and the
solvents allowed to evaporate till the pyroxylin becomes
gelatinous. In this state it is washed in water till all
the soluble salts are carried away. After this it may be
either spread out on a cloth and dried or treated with
two or three doses of alcohol, and then redissolved in equal
parts of alcohol (specific gravity, '805) and ether (specific
gravity, '720). In this condition it is a washed emulsion,
and a glass plate can be coated with it and the film dried,
or it may be washed and a preservative applied. An ex
cellent preservative introduced by Colonel Stuart Wortley
is as follows : —
1. Salycin, a saturated solution in water.
/ Tannin 60 grs.
1 Distilled water 1 ox.
/ Gallic acid 48 grs.
\Water 1 ox.
To make the preservative, take 2 oz. of No. 1, 1 oz. of
No. 2, i oz. of No. 3, 40 grains of sugar, and 7 oz. of water.
The plates are immersed in this solution and dried. It is
often necessary to give the plate a previous coating with
very dilute albumen or gelatin in order to make the film
of collodion adhere during development, which can be
effected by the strong alkaline developer, or by the ferrous
oxalate developer, previously noticed.
The type of a useful alkaline developer is as follows : —
, f Pyrogallic acid 96 grs.
'\Alcohol la/.
/ Potassium bromide 12 grs.
"i Water distilled 1 ox.
/ Ammonium carbonate 80 grs.
\ Water 1 oz.
To develop the plate 6 minims of No. 1, -|- drachm of No.
2, and 3 drachms of No. 3 are mixed together and made
to flow over the plate after washing the preservative off
under the tap. Sometimes the development is conducted
in a flat dish, sometimes the solution is poured on the
plate.:! The unreduced salts are eliminated by either
cyanide of potassium or sodium hyposulphite. Intensity
may be given to the image, if requisite, either before or
after the " fixing " operation. Where resort is had to
ferrous oxalate development, the developer is made in
one of two ways — (1) by saturating a saturated solution of
neutral potassium oxalate with ferrous oxalate, and adding
an equal volume of a solution (10 grains to 1 oz. of water)
of potassium bromide to restrain the action, or (2) by
mixing, according to Eder's plan, 3 volumes by measure
of a saturated solution of the potassium oxalate with 1
volume by measure of a saturated solution of ferrous sul
phate, and adding to the ferrous oxalate solution thus
obtained an equal bulk of the above solution of potassium
bromide. The development is conducted in precisely the
same manner as indicated above, and the image is fixed
by one of the same agents.
Gelatin Emulsion Process. — The facility with which Gelatin
collodion emulsion plates could be prepared had turned all enmlsid
investigation into this channel, and collodion was not the pro
only vehicle that was tried for holding the sensitive salts
in suspension. As early as September 1871 Dr R. L.
:t For further details the reader is referred to Instruction in Photo
graphy, p. 99.
2.
3.
PHOTOGRAPHY
829
Maddox had tried emulsifying the silver salt in gelatin,
and had produced negatives of rare excellence, as the
present writer can testify from personal knowledge. In
November 1873 Mr King described a similar process,
getting rid of the soluble salts by washing. Efforts had
also been made in this direction by Mr Burgess in July
1873. Mr R. Kennett in 1874 may be said to have been
the first to put forward the gelatin emulsion process in a
practical and workable form, as he then published a formula
which gave good and quick results. It was not till 1878,
however, that the great capabilities of silver bromide when
held in suspension by gelatin were fairly known ; in March
of that year Mr C. Bennett showed that by keeping the
gelatin solution liquid at a low temperature for as long
as seven days extraordinary rapidity was conferred on
the sensitive salt. The molecular condition of the silver
bromide seemed to be altered, and to be amenable to
a far more powerful developer than had hitherto been
dreamt of. In 1874 the Belgian chemist Stas had shown
that various modifications of silver bromide and chloride
were possible, and it seemed that the green molecular
condition (one of those noted by Stas) of the bromide
was attained by prolonged warming. It may in truth be
said that the starting-point of rapid plates was 1878, and
that the full credit of this discovery should be allotted to
Mr C. Bennett. Both Kennett and Bennett got rid of
the soluble salts from the emulsion by washing ; and in
order to attain success it was requisite that the bromide
should be in excess of that necessary to combine with the
silver nitrate used to form the emulsion. In June 1879
Abney showed that a good emulsion might be formed by
precipitating a silver bromide by dropping a solution of a
soluble bromide into a dilute solution of silver nitrate.
The supernatant liquid was decanted, and after two or
three washings with water the precipitate was mixed with
the proper amount of gelatin. Dr van Monckhoven of
Ghent, in experimenting with this process, hit upon the
plan of obtaining the emulsion by splitting up silver car
bonate with hydrobromic acid, leaving no soluble salts to
be extracted. He further, in August 1879, announced that
he had obtained great rapidity by adding to the bromide
emulsion a certain quantity of ammonia. This addition
rapidly altered the bromide of silver from its ordinary state
to the green molecular condition referred to above. At this
point we have the branching off of the gelatin emulsion
process into two great divisions, viz., that in which rapidity
was gained by long-continued heating, and the other in which
it was gained by the use of ammonia — a subdivision which
is maintained to the present day. Photographers' opinions
as to the respective merits of the two methods are much
divided, some maintaining that the quality of the heated
emulsion is better than that produced by alkalinity, and vice
versa. We may mention that in 1881 Dr Herschell intro
duced a plan for making an alcoholic gelatin emulsion with
the idea of inducing rapid drying of the plates, and in
the same year Dr H. Vogel of Berlin brought forward his
ideas for combining gelatin and pyroxylin together by
means of a solvent which acted on the gelatin and allowed
the addition of alcohol in order to dissolve the pyroxylin.
This method was called " collodio-gelatin emulsion," and
apparently was only a shortlived process, which is not sur
prising, since its preparation involved the inhalation of the
fumes of acetic acid.
The warming process introduced by Bennett was soon
superseded. Colonel Stuart Wortley in 1879 announced
that, by raising the temperature of the vessel in which the
emulsion was stewed to 150° Fahr., instead of days being
required to give the desired sensibility only a few hours
were necessary. A further advance was made by boiling
the emulsion, first practised, we believe, by Mr Mansfield
in 1879. Another improvement was effected by Mr W.
B. Bolton by emulsifying the silver salt in a small quantity
of gelatin and then raising the emulsion to boiling point,
boiling it for from half an hour to an hour, when extreme
rapidity was attained. It would be impossible to enumer
ate many minor improvements in this process that have
from time to time been made ; it is sufficient to have stated
in historical sequence the different important stages through
which it has passed. It may be useful to give an idea
of the relative rapidities of the various processes we have
described.
Daguerreotype, originally half an hour's exposure.
Calotype 2 or 3 minutes' , ,
Collodion 10 seconds' ,,
Collodion emulsion 15 seconds' ,,
Rapid gelatin emulsion 1*5 th second , ,
By this it will be seen what advances have been made
in the art of photography during the forty-five years of
its existence.
The following is an outline of two representative processes. All Gelatin
operations should be conducted in light which can act but very emul-
slightly on the sensitive salts employed, and this is more necessary sions.
with this process than with others on account of the extreme ease
with which the equilibrium of the molecules is upset in giving rise
to the molecule which is developable. The light to work with, and
which is safe, is gaslight or candlelight passing through a sheet of
Chance's stained red glass backed by orange paper. Stained red
glass allows but few chemically effective rays to pass through it,
whilst the orange paper diffuses the light. If daylight be em
ployed, it is as well to have a double thickness of orange paper.
The following should be weighed out : —
, J Autotype or other hard gelatin 100
( Nelson's No. 1 gelatin
100
Nos. 3 and 5 are rapidly covered with water or washed for a few
seconds under the tap to get rid of any adherent dust. No. 2 is
dissolved in 1^ oz. of water, and a little tincture of iodine added
till it assumes a light sherry colour. No. 1 is dissolved in 60
minims of water. No. 4 is dissolved in £ oz. of water, and No. 3
is allowed to swell up in 1 oz. of water, and is then dissolved by
heat. All the flasks containing these solutions are placed in water
at 150° Fahr. and carried into the "dark room," as the orange-
lighted chamber is ordinarily called ; Nos. 3 and 4 are then mixed
together in a jar or flask, and No. 2 added drop by drop till half
its bulk is gone, when No. 1 is added to the remainder, and the
double solution is dropped in as before. When all is added there
ought to be formed an emulsion which is very ruddy when examined
by gaslight, or orange by daylight. The flask containing the emul
sion is next placed in boiling water, which is kept in a state of
ebullition for about three-quarters of an hour. It is then ready,
when the contents of the flask have cooled down to about 100° Fahr. ,
for the addition of No. 5, which should in the interval be placed
in 2 oz. of water to swell and finally be dissolved. The gelatin
emulsion thus formed is placed in a cool place to set, after which
it is turned into a piece of coarse canvas or mosquito -netting
made into a bag. By squeezing, threads of gelatin containing the
sensitive salt can be made to fall into cold water ; by this means
the soluble salts are extracted. This is readily done in two or three
hours by frequently changing the water, or by allowing running
water to flow over the emulsion -threads. The gelatin is next
drained by straining canvas over a jar and turning out the threads
on to it, after which it is placed in a flask, and warmed till it dis
solves, half an ounce of alcohol being added. Finally, it is filtered
through chamois leather or swansdown calico. In this state it is
ready for the plates.
The other method of forming the emulsion is with ammonia.
The same quantities as before are weighed out, but the solutions of
Nos. 2 and 3 are first mixed together and No. 4 is dissolved in 1 oz. of
water, and strong ammonia of specific gravity '880 added to it till
the oxide first precipitated is just redissolved. This ammoniacal
solution is then dropped into Nos. 2 and 3 as previously described,
and finally No. 1 is added. In this case no boiling is required ;
but to secure rapidity it is as well that the emulsion should be
kept an hour at a temperature of about 90° Fahr., after which half
the total quantity of No. 5 is added. When set the emulsion is
washed, drained, and redissolved as before ; but in order to give
tenacity to the gelatin the remainder of No. 5 is added before the
addition of the alcohol, and before filtering.
Coating the Plates. — Glass plates are best cleaned with nitric Coating
acid, rinsed, and then treated with potash solution, rinsed again, the plate.
830
PHOTOGRAPHY
and dried with a clean cloth. They are then ready for receiving
the emulsion, which, after being warmed to about 120° Falir. , is
poured on them in sufficient quantity to cover well the surface.
This being done, the plates are placed on a level shelf and allowed
to stay there till the gelatin is thoroughly set ; they are then put
in a drying cupboard, through which, by a simple contrivance, a
current of warm air is made to pass. It should be remarked that
the warmth is only necessary to enable the air to take up the
moisture from the plates. They ought to be dry in about twelve
hours, and they are ready for immediate use.
Expo- Exposure. — With a good emulsion and on a bright day the ex-
sure, posure of a plate to a landscape, with a lens whose aperture is one-
sixteenth that of the focal distance, should not be more than one-
half to one-fifth of a second. This time depends, of course, on the
nature of the view ; if there be foliage in the immediate foreground
it will be longer. In the portrait-studio, under the same circum
stances, an exposure with a portrait-lens may be from half a second
to four or five seconds.
Develop- Development of the Plate. — To develop the image either a ferrous
ment of oxalate solution or alkaline pyrogallic acid may be used. The
plate. former is conveniently prepared as described on p. 826. No chemical
restrainer such as bromide of potassium is necessary, since the
gelatin itself acts as a physical restrainer. If the alkaline developer
be used, the following may be taken as a good standard : —
( Pyrogallol 50 grs.
1. < Citric acid 10 „
( Water 1 oz.
0 f Potassium bromide 10 grs.
"' | Water 1 oz.
„ j Ammonia, '880 1 dr.
*' i Water 9 „
One drachm of each of these is taken and the mixture made up
to 2 oz. with water. The plate is placed in a dish and the above
poured over it without stoppage, whereupon the image gradually
appears and, if the exposure has been properly timed, gains suffi
cient density for printing purposes. It is fixed in a solution of
hyposulphite of soda, as in the other processes already described,
and then thoroughly washed for two or three hours to eliminate all
the soluble salt. This long washing is necessary on account of
the nature of the gelatin.
Intensi- Intensifying the Xegative. —Sometimes it is necessary to intensify
fying the negative, which can be done in a variety of ways with mercury
negative, salts. An excellent plan, introduced by the Platinotype Company,
is to use a saturated solution of mercuric chloride in water, and a
subsequent addition of 2 grains to the ounce of platinic chloride.
This is put in a dish and the metallic solution allowed to act till
sufficient density is obtained. With most other methods with
mercury the image is apt to become yellow and to fade ; with this
apparently it is not.
Varnish- Varnishing the Xegative. — The negative is usually protected by
ing nega- receiving first a film of plain collodion and then a coat of shellac or
tive. other photographic varnish: This protects the gelatin from moisture
and also from becoming stained with the silver nitrate owing to
contact with the sensitive paper used in silver printing.
Printing Processes.
The first printing process may be said to be that of Fox Talbot
(see above, p. 824), which has continued to be generally employed
to the present day (with the addition of albumen to give a surface
to the print, — an addition first made, we believe, by Fox Talbot).
Paper for printing is prepared by mixing 150 parts of ammonium
chloride with 240 parts of spirits of wine and 2000 parts of water,
though the proportions vary with different manufacturers. These
ingredients are dissolved, and the whites of fifteen fairly-sized eggs
are added and the whole beaten up to a froth. In hot weather it
is advisable to add a drop of carbolic acid to prevent decomposition.
The albumen is allowed two or three days to settle, when it is
filtered through a sponge placed in a funnel, or through two or
three thicknesses of fine muslin, and transferred to' a flat dish.
The paper is cut of convenient size and allowed to float on the
solution for about a ininute, when it is taken off and dried in a
warm room. For dead prints, on which colouring is to take place,
plain salted paper is useful. It can be made of the following pro
portions — 80 parts of ammonium chloride, 100 parts of sodium
citrate, 10 parts of gelatin, 5000 parts of distilled water. The
gelatin is first dissolved in hot water and the remaining components
are added. It is next filtered, and the paper allowed to float on it
for three minutes, then withdrawn and dried.
Sensitiz- Sensitizing Bath. — To sensitize the paper it is made to float on a
ing bath. 10 per cent, solution of silver nitrate for three minutes. It is then
hung up and allowed to dry, after which it is ready for use. To
print the image the paper is placed in a printing -frame over a
negative and exposed to light. It is allowed to print till such time
as the image appears rather darker than it should finally appear.
Toning Toning and Fixing the Print. — The next operation is to tone and
and fix- fix the print. In the earlier days this was accomplished by means
ing print, of a bath of sel d'or, — a mixture of hyposulphite of soda and auric
chloride. This gilded the darkened parts of the print which light
had reduced to the semi -metallic state; and on removal of the
chloride by means of hyposulphite an' image composed of metallic
silver, an organic salt of silver, and gold was left behind. There
was a suspicion, however, that part of the coloration was due to a
combination of sulphur with the silver, not that pure sulphide of
silver is in any degree fugitive, but the sulphuretted organic salt
of silver seems to be liable to change. This gave place to a method
of alkaline toning, or rather, we should say, of neutral toning, by
employing auric chloride with a salt, such as the carbonate or
acetate of soda, chloride of lime, borax, &c. By this means there
was no danger of sulphurization during the toning, to which the
method by sel d'or was prone owing to the decomposition of the
hyposulphite. The substances which can be employed in toning
seem to be those in which an alkaline base is combined with a weak
acid, the latter being readily displaced by a stronger acid, such as
nitric acid, which must exist in the paper after printing. This
branch of photography owes much to the Rev. T. F. Hardwich, he
having carried on extensive researches in connexion with it during
1854 and subsequent years. MM. Davanne and Girard, a little
later, also investigated the matter with fruitful results.
The following may be taken as two typical toning-baths : —
Auric chloride .......................... 1 part.
Water .................................. 4000 arts.
In the latter (a) and Q3) are mixed in equal parts immediately
before use. Each of these is better used only once. A third bath
is : —
Auric chloride .............................. 2 parts.
Chloride of limn ........................... -2 ,,
Chalk ...................................... 40 „
Water ..................................... SOOO ,,
These are mixed together, the water being wanned. When cool
the solution is ready for use. In toning prints there is a distinct
difference in the modus operandi according to the toning- bath
employed. Thus in the first two baths the print must be thoroughly
washed in water to enable all free silver nitrate to be carried away
from the image, that salt forming no part in the chemical reactions.
On the other hand, where free chlorine is used, the presence of
free silver nitrate or some active chlorine absorbent is a necessity.
In 1872 Abney showed that with such a toning- bath free silver
nitrate might be eliminated, and if the print were immersed in a
solution of a salt such as lead nitrate the toning action proceeded
rapidly and without causing any fading of the image whilst toning,
which was not the case when the free silver nitrate was totally
removed and no other chlorine absorbent substituted. This was an
important factor in the matter, and one which had been overlooked.
In the third bath the free silver nitrate should only be partially
removed by washing. The print, having been partially washed or
thoroughly washed, as the case may be, is immersed in the toning-
bath till the image attains a purple or bluish tone, after which it
is ready for fixing. The solution used for this purpose is a 20 per
cent, solution of hyposulphite of soda, to which it is best to add
a few drops of ammonia in order to render it alkaline. About
ten minutes suffice to effect the conversion of the chloride into
hyposulphite of silver, which is soluble in hyposulphite of soda and
can be removed by washing. The organic salts of silver seem,
however, to form a different salt, which is partially insoluble, but
which the ammonia just recommended helps to remove. If it is
not removed, there is a sulphur compound left behind, according
to Spiller, which by time and exposure becomes yellow.
The use of potassium cyanide for fixing prints is to lie avoided,
as this reagent attacks the organic coloured oxide which, if removed,
would render the print a ghost. The washing of silver prints should
be very complete, since it is said that the least trace of hyposulphite
left behind renders the fading of the image a mere matter of time.
Whether this be due to the hygroscopic nature of the hyposulphite
and its reaction on the organic salt of silver, or to the destruction
of the hyposulphite and sulphurizing of the black organic snlt, seems
at present to be an undetermined question. The stability of a print
has been supposed to be increased by immersing it, after washing, in
a solution of alum. The alum, like any other acid body, decomposes
the hyposulphite into sulphur and sulphurous acid. If this be the
case, it seems probable that the destruction of the hyposulphite by
time is not the occasion of fading, but that its hygroscopic character
is. This, however, as has already been said, is a moot point. It
is usual to wash the prints some hours in running water. We have
found that half a dozen changes of water, and between successive
changes the application of a sponge to the back of each print sepa
rately, are equally or more efficacious. On drying, the print assumes
a darker tone than what it has after leaving the fixing-bath.
Different tones can thus be given to a print by different toning-
baths ; and the gold itself may be deposited in a ruddy form or in
a blue form. The former molecular condition gives the red and
sepia tones, and the latter the blue and black tones. The degree
PHOTOGRAPHY
831
Jlodio-
>I)ride
of minute subdivision of the gold may be conceived when it is
stated that, on a couple of sheets of albuminized paper fully
printed, the gold necessary to give a decided tone does not exceed
half a grain.
Collodio-chloridc Silver Printing Process. — In the history of the
emulsion processes we have already stated that Gaudin had attempted
to use silver chloride suspended in collodion, but it was not till the
year 1864 that any practical use was made of the suggestion so far as
silver printing is concerned. In the autumn of that year Mr George
Wharton Simpson worked out a method which has been more or
less successfully employed, and is still one of the best with which
we are acquainted. The formula appended is the original one
which Mr Simpson published : —
1 Alcohol . ... 1000
To every 1000 parts of plain collodion 30 parts of No. 1, previ
ously mixed with 60 parts of alcohol, are added ; 60 parts of No. 2
are next mixed with the collodion, and finally 30 parts of No. 3.
This forms an emulsion of silver chloride and also contains citric
acid and silver nitrate. The defect of this emulsion is that it con
tains a large proportion of soluble salts, which are apt to crystallize
out on drying, more particularly if it be applied to glass plates.
The addition of the citric acid and the excess of silver nitrate is
the key to the whole process ; for, unless some body were present
which on exposure to light was capable of forming a highly-
coloured organic oxide of silver, no vigour would be obtained in
printing. If pure chloride be used, though an apparently strong
image would be obtained, yet on fixing only a feeble trace of it
would be left, and the print would be worthless. The collodio-
chloride emulsion may be applied to glass, as before stated, or to
paper, and the printing carried on in the usual manner. The
toning takes place by means of the chloride-of-lime bath or by
ammonium sulpho-cyanide and gold, which is practically a return
to the sel d'or bath. The organic salt formed in this procedure
does not seem so prone to be decomposed by keeping as does that
formed by albumen, and the washing can be more completely
carried out. This is a beautiful process, and deserving of more
attention than has hitherto been given to it.
latino- Gclatino-citro-chloridc Emulsion. — A modified emulsion printing
ro- process was introduced by Abney in 1881, which consisted in sus-
[oride pending silver chloride and silver citrate in gelatin, there being no
ul- excess of silver present. The formula of producing it is as follows : —
40 parts.
40 ,
"• 1 Sodium chloride
1. \ Potassium citrate
( Water 500 „
-, ( Silver nitrate 150 ,,
- "( Water 500 „
„ ( Gelatin 300 ,,
°' \ Water 1700 „
Nos. 2 and 3 arc mixed together whilst warm, and No. 1 is then
gently added, the gelatin solution being kept in brisk agitation.
This produces the emulsion of citrate and chloride of silver. The
gelatin containing the suspended salts is heated for five minutes at
boiling point, when it is allowed to cool and subsequently slightly
washed, as in the gelatino-bromide emulsion. It is then ready for
application to paper or glass. The prints are of a beautiful colour,
and seem to be fairly permanent. They may be readily toned by
the borax or by the chloride of lime toning-bath, and are fixed with
the hyposulphite solution of the strength before given,
inting Printing with Salts of Uranium. — The sensitiveness of the salts
th of uranium to light seems to have been discovered by Niepce, and
anium the fact was subsequently applied to photography by Burnett in
Its. England. One of the original formulae consisted of 20 parts of
uranic nitrate with 600 parts of water. Paper, which is better if
slightly sized previously with gelatin, is floated on this solution.
When dry it is exposed beneath a negative, and a very faint
image is produced ; but it can be developed into a strong one
by 6 to 10 per cent, solution of silver nitrate to which a trace of
acetic acid has been added, or by a 2 per cent, solution of auric
chloride. In both these cases the silver and gold are deposited in
the metallic state. Another developer is a 2 per cent, solution of
ferro-cyanide of potassium to which a trace of nitric acid has been
added, sufficient to give a red coloration. The development takes
place most readily by letting the paper float on these solutions.
otnly Wothly Type. — A variation was introduced in the uranium pro-
pe. cess by Herr Wothly in 1864, when he employed uranic nitrate with
other salts in the collodion, and then coated starched paper with
the product. The paper was printed until it assumed a bluish-
black image, which was subsequently intensified by means of gold.
The most generally used Wothly-type formula, however, consisted
of a triple salt of silver nitrate, uranic nitrate, and ammonic nitrate,
which were dissolved in collodion. This compound was applied
to paper sized with arrowroot, and, after drying, the printing pro
ceeded in the usual manner, the image being subsequently fixed
with hyposulphite of soda. The prints produced by this method
were very beautiful, but for some reason they found no great favour
with the public.
Printing with Chromatcs. — The first mention of the use of Printing
potassium bichromate for printing purposes seems to have been with
made by Mungo Ponton in May 1839, when he stated that paper, clironi-
if saturated with this salt and dried, and then exposed to the sun's ates.
rays through a drawing, would produce a yellow picture on an
orange ground, nothing more being required to fix it than wash
ing it in water, when a white picture on an orange ground was
obtained. In 1840 M. E. Becquerel announced that paper sized
with iodide of starch and soaked in bichromate of potash was,
on drying, more sensitive than unsized paper. Joseph Dixon of
Massachusetts, in the following year, produced copies of bank-notes
by using gum arable with bichromate of potash spread upon a litho
graphic stone, and, after exposure of the sensitive surface through
a bank-note, by washing away the unaltered gum and inking the
stone as in ordinary lithography. The same process, with slight
modifications, has been used quite recently by Simonet and Toovey
of Brussels, and is capable of producing most excellent results.
Dixon's method, however, was not published till 1854, when it
appeared in the Scientific American, and consequently, as regards
priority of publication, it ranks after Fox Talbot's photo-engraving
process (see below), which was published in 1852. On 13th Decem
ber 1855 M. Alphonse Poitevin took out a patent in England, in
which he vaguely described a method of taking a direct carbon-
print by rendering gelatin insoluble through the action of light on
bichromate of potash. This idea was taken up by Mr Pouncey
of Dorchester, who perhaps was the first to produce veritable
carbon -prints, notwithstanding that Testud de Beauregard took Carbon-
out a somewhat similar patent to Poitevin's at the end of 1857. prints.
Mr Pouncey published his process on 1st January 1859 ; but,
as described by him, it was by no means in a perfect state, half
tones being wanting. The cause of this was first pointed out by
Abbe Laborde in 1858, whilst describing a kindred process in a
note to the French Photographic Society. He says, " In the sensi
tive film, however thin it may be, two distinct surfaces must be
recognized — an outer, and an inner which is in contact with the
paper. The action of light commences on the outer surface ; in the
washing, therefore, the half-tones lose their hold on the paper and
are washed away." Mr J. C. Burnett in 1858 was the first to
endeavour to get rid of this defect in carbon-printing. In a paper
to the Photographic Society of London he says, " There are two
essential requisites ... (2) that in printing the paper should
have its ifwprepared side (and not its prepared side, as in ordinary
printing) placed in contact with the negative in the pressure-
frame, as it is only by printing in this way that we can expect to
be able afterwards to remove by washing the unacted-upon portions
of the mixture. In a positive of this sort printed from the front
or prepared side the attainment of half-tones by washing away
more or less depth of the mixture, according to the depth to which
it has been hardened, is prevented by the insoluble parts being on
the surface and in consequence protecting the soluble part from
the action of the water used in washing ; so that either nothing is
removed, or by steeping very long till the inner soluble part is
sufficiently softened the whole depth comes bodily away, leaving
the paper white." This method of exposing through the back of
the paper was crude and unsatisfactory, and in 1860 Fargier
patented a process in which, after exposure to light of the gelatin
film which contained pigment, the surface was coated with collodion,
and the print placed in warm water, where it separated from the
paper support and could be transferred to glass. Poitevin opposed
this patent, and his opposition was successful, for he had used this
means of detaching the films in his powder-carbon process, in which
ferric chloride and tartaric acid were used. Fargier at any rate gave
an impetus to carbon -printing, and J. W. Swan (to whom electric
lighting owes so much) took up the matter, and in 1864 secured a
patent. One of the great features in Swan's innovations was the
production of what is now known as "carbon-tissue," made by Carbon-
coating paper with a mixture of gelatin, sugar, and colouring tissue,
matter, and rendered sensitive to light by means of bichromate
of potash or ammonia. After exposure to light Swan placed the
printed carbon-tissue on an india-rubber surface, to which it was
made to adhere by pressure. The print was immersed in hot water,
the paper backing stripped off, and the soluble gelatin containing
colouring matter washed away. The picture could then be re-
transferred to its final support of paper. In 1869 J. R. Johnson of
London took out a patent in which he claimed that carbon- tissue
which had been soaked in water for a short period, by its tendency
to swell further, would adhere to any waterproof surface such as
glass, metal, waxed paper, &c. , without any adhesive material being
applied. This was a most important and fruitful improvement.
Johnson also added soap to the gelatin to prevent its excessive
brittleness on drying, and made his final support of gelatinized
paper, rendered insoluble by chrome alum. In 1874 J. R. Sawyer
patented a flexible support for developing on ; this was a sized paper
coated with gelatin and treated with an ammoniacal solution of
832
PHOTOGRAPHY
shellac in boras, on which wax or resin was nibbed. The advantage
of this flexible support" is that the dark parts of the picture have no
tendency to contract from the lighter parts, which they were apt
to do when a metal plate was used, as was the case in Johnson's
original process. With this patent, and minor improvements made
since, carbon-printing has arrived at the state of perfection in
which we find it to-day.
According to Liesegang, the carbon-tissue when prepared on a
large scale consists of from 120 to 150 grains of gelatin (a soft kind),
15 grains of soap, 21 grains of sugar, and from 4 to 8 grains of dry
colouring matter. The last-named may be of various kinds, from
lamp-black pigment to soluble colours such as alizarin. The gelatin,
sugar, and soap are put in water and allowed to stand for an hour,
and then melted, the liquid afterwards receiving the colours, which
have been ground with a mallet on a siab. The mixture is filtered
through fine muslin. In making the tissue in large quantities the
two ends of a piece of roll-paper are pasted together and the paper
hung on two rollers ; one of wood about 5 inches in diameter is
fixed near the top of the room and the other over a trough contain
ing the gelatin solution, the paper being brought into contact with
the surface of the gelatin by being made to revolve on the rollers.,
The thickness of the coating is proportional to the rate at which
the paper is drawn over the gelatin : the slower the movement, the
thicker the coating. The paper is taken off the rollers, cut through,
and hung up to dry on wooden lathes. If it be required to make
the tissue sensitive at once, 120 grains of potassium dichromate
should be mixed with the ingredients in the above formula. The
carbon-tissue when prepared should be floated on a sensitizing
bath consisting of one part of potassium dichromate in forty parts
of water. This is effected by turning up about 1 inch from the
end of the sheet of tissue (cut to the proper size), making a roll
of it, and letting it unroll along the surface of the sensitizing solu
tion, where it is allowed to remain till the gelatin film feels soft.
It is then taken off and hung up to dry in a dark room through
which a current of dry warm air is passing. Tissue dried quickly,
though not so sensitive, is more manageable to work than if more
Printing slowly dried. As the tissue is coloured, it is not possible to
with ascertain by inspection of it whether the printing operation is
carbon- sufficiently carried out, and in order to ascertain this it is usual
tissue. to place a piece of ordinary silvered paper in an " actinometer, " or
"photometer," alongside the carbon-tissue to ascertain the amount
of light that has acted on it. There are several devices for ascer
taining this amount, the simplest being an arrangement of a
varying number of thicknesses of gold-beater's skin. The value
of 1, 2, 3, &c., thicknesses of the skin as a screen to the light
is ascertained by experiment. Supposing it is judged that a
sheet of tissue under some one negative ought to be exposed to
light corresponding to a given number of thicknesses, chloride of
silver paper is placed alongside the negative beneath the actinometer
and allowed to remain there until it takes a visible tint beneath a
number of thicknesses equivalent to the strength of the negative.
After the tissue is removed from the printing-frame — supposing a
double transfer is to be made — it is placed in a dish of cold water,
face downwards, along with a piece of Sawyer's flexible support
(already described). When the edges of the tissue begin to curl up,
its surface and that of the flexible support are brought together and
placed flat. The water is pressed out with an india-rubber squeezer
called a "squeegee " and the two surfaces adhere. About a couple
of minutes later they are placed in warm water of about 90° to 1 00°
Fahr., and the paper of the tissue, loosened by the gelatin solution
next it becoming soluble, can be stripped off, leaving the image
(reversed as regards right and left) on the flexible support. An
application of warm water removes the rest of the soluble gelatin
and pigment. When dried, the image is transferred to its permanent
support. This usually consists of white paper coated with gelatin
and made insoluble with chrome alum, though it may be mixed
with barium sulphate or other similar pigments. This transfer-
paper is made to receive the image by being soaked in hot water
till it becomes slimy to the touch ; and the surface of the damped
print is brought in contact with the surface of the retransfer-paper
in the same manner as was done with the flexible support and the
carbon-tissue. When dry the retransfer-paper bearing the gelatin
image can be stripped off the flexible support, which may be used
again as a temporary support for other pictures.
Such is a brief outline of carbon-printing as practised at the pre
sent day, subject, of course, to various modifications which need
not be entered into here. We ought, however, to mention that if
a reversed negative be used the image may be transferred at once
to its final support instead of to the temporary flexible support,
which is a point of practical value, since single-transfer are better
than double-transfer prints.
Printing Printing vrith Salts of Iron.— BIT John Herschel and Mr Hunt in
with salts sundry papers and publications entered into various methods of
of iron, printing with salts of iron. At the present time there are two or
three which are practised, being used in draughtsmen's offices for
copying tracings. When a ferric salt is exposed to light it be
comes reduced to the ferrous state, and when this latter compound
is treated with potassium ferri-cyanide a blue compound is formed.
If, therefore, a solution of a ferric salt be brushed over a paper, and
the latter be dried, and then exposed behind a tracing, the parts of
the ferric salt on the paper exposed beneath the white ground are
converted into a ferrous salt, and if potassium ferri-cyanide be
brushed over the paper, or the paper floated upon it, the tracing
shows white lines on a blue ground. Another method is to mix
ferri-cyanide of potassium with a ferric salt, and expose it behind
a tracing or drawing. Where the light acts, the mixture is con
verted into a blue compound. The resulting print is the same as
the foregoing. Another method of producing blue lines on a white
ground is to expose paper coated with gum and a ferric salt to light,
and then treat it with potassium ferro-cyanide. This body forms an
insoluble blue compound with the ferric salt, whilst the ferrous salt
is inactive, or only gives a soluble body. A further development
of printing with salts of iron is the beautiful platinotypc process.
Sized paper is coated with a solution of ferric oxalate and a
platinous salt, and exposed behind a negative. It is then floated on
a hot solution of neutral potassium oxalate, when the image is
formed of platinum black. This process was introduced by Mr W.
Willis in 1874. The rationale of it is that a ferrous salt when in
solution is capable of reducing a platinum salt to metallic platinum.
In this case the ferrous salt is dissolved by the potassium oxalate,
and at the moment of solution the platinum salt is reduced and
forms the image. •
Photo-mechanical Printing Processes. — Allusion has already been
made to the invention of Poitevin, who claimed to have discovered
that a film of gelatin impregnated with bichromate of potash,
after being acted upon by light and damping, would receive greasy
ink on those parts which had been affected by light. But Paul
Oreloth seems to have made the discovery previous to 1854, for in
his patent of that year he states that his designs were inked with
printing ink before being transferred to stone or zinc. Tessic de
Motay (in 1865) and Marechal of Metz, however, seem to have been
the first to produce half-tones from gelatin films by means of greasy
ink. Their general method of procedure consisted in coating
metallic plates with gelatin impregnated with bichromate or tri-
chromate of potash or ammonia and mercuric chloride, then treat
ing with oleate of silver, exposing to light through a negative,
washing, inking with a lithographic roller, and printing from
the plates as for an ordinary lithograph. The halt-tints by this
process were very good, and illustrations executed by it are to be
found in several existing works. The method of producing tin-
plates, however, was most laborious, and it was not long before it
was simplified by Albert of Munich. He had been experimenting
for many years, endeavouring to make the gelatin films more dur
able than those of Tessie de Motay. He added gum-resins, alum,
tannin, and other such matters, which had the property of hardening
gelatin ; but the difficulty of adding sufficient to the mass in its
liquid state before the whole became coagulated rendered these un
manageable. It at last occurred to him that if the hardening action
of light were utilized by exposing the surface next the plate to light
after or before exposing the front surface of the film and the image,
the necessary hardness might be given to the gelatin without adding
any chemical hardeners to it. In Tessie de Motay's process the
hardening was almost absent, and the plates were consequently not
durable. It is evident that to effect this one of two things had to
be done: either the metallic plate used by Tessie de Motay must
be abandoned, or else the film must be stripped oft' the plate and
exposed in that manner. Albert adopted the transparent plate,
and his success was assured, since instead of less than a hundred
impressions being pulled from one plate he was able to take over a
thousand. This occurred about 1867, but the formula was not
published for two or three years afterwards, when it was divulged
by Ohm and Grossman, one of whom had been employed by Albert
of Munich, and had endeavoured to introduce a process which
resembled Albert's earlier efforts. The name of " Lichtdruck " was
given about this time to these surface-printing processes, and Albert
may be considered, if not the inventor, at all events the perfecter
of the method. Another modification of " Lichtdruck " was patented
in England by Ernest Edwards under the name of " heliotype. "
This consisted in coating a glass plate, the surface of which was
very finely ground, with bichromated gelatin to which a certain
amount of chrome alum had been added. The film itself was much
thicker than that of the Albert type, since it had to be detached
from the surface of the glass by stripping, which was rendered
possible by the previous application of a waxing solution to the
plate. After the film was stripped off it was exposed under a
negative for the time necessary to give a good image with printing
ink, after which the inner side was exposed to light for almost the
same length of time. The gelatin sheet was then transferred to a
pewter plate, to which it was cemented by thick india-rubber cement
and soaked in water till all the soluble bichromate was extracted.
After this it was placed in a type printing-press and inked with a
lithographic or gelatin roller, and an impression pulled on paper in
the same manner as in printing with type, save that a greater pressure
was brought to bear on the surface. This pressure was necessary
Pho
mec
cal ]
in.
Hel
typt
PHOTOGRAPHY
833
for two reasons, — the relief of the image would be too great if only
a moderate pressure were used, and the entire surface was so large
that a heavy pressure was requisite to make the paper bite on the
ink. Between each pull the gelatin film was damped, the surface
moisture taken off with a dry cloth, and the inking proceeded with.
The drawback to this process is undoubtedly the great relief that
is given from the film being so thick, but it is a more manageable
process in some respects than that of Albert, since the support is
unbreakable. We should mention that Edwards also patented the
use of two or more inks of different degrees of stiffness. The stiffest,
which was generally black, adhered to the most deeply printed
parts of the image, the next stiffest to the next most deeply printed
parts, and so on. By this means the least deeply printed parts
acquired a different tone from that of the deeper printed parts,
which was an advantage as regards artistic effect. The same
method of inking could be applied to Albert's process with the
same results. Since the time of the heliotype patent many im
provements have been made in the minor details of the operations,
and various firms now produce prints in greasy ink very little if at
all inferior to silver prints.
I- Woodbury Type. — This process was invented by Mr W. Wood-
bury about the year 186-4, though we believe that Mr J. W. Swan
had been working independently in the same direction about the
same time. In October 1864 a description of the invention was
given in the Photographic News. M. Gaudin claimed the principle
of the process, insisting that it was old, and basing his pretensions
on the fact that he had printed with translucent ink from intaglio
blocks engraved by hand ; but at the same time he remarked that
the application of the principle might lead to important results.
It was just these results which Mr Woodbury obtained, and for
which he was entitled to the fullest credit. Woodbury type is a
combination of the principle upon which intaglio printing is based
with that upon which a carbon -print is obtained. The general
features of the procedure will be understood from the foregoing de
scription of the carbon-process. An image is obtained on bichro-
matized gelatin from a negative of the usual kind by exposing a
thick layer of gelatin to light and then washing away all its soluble
parts from the back of the exposed print. This is the mould which
it is necessary to obtain. At first Woodbury made electrotypes from
the mould, from which he could obtain prints mechanically. The
intaglio was placed on a specially devised printing-press, and the
mould filled with gelatin containing colouring matter such as Indian
ink. A piece of paper perfectly even in thickness was placed in con
tact with the mould, and a piece of flat glass under pressure brought
down upon this. The excess of pigmented gelatin was squeezed
out, and, when slightly set, it adhered to the paper and was brought
away from the mould. After drying, a perfect picture was obtained
in pigment, the image being reversed as regards right and left ;
but that difficulty was surmounted by using a reversed negative,
and also by a modification of the process subsequently introduced
by Mr Woodbury. The gelatin relief was made as before, and then
by means of very heavy pressure in a hydraulic press the mould
was squeezed into soft metal, from which the prints could be after
wards taken off. This is the same principle as that on which
nature-printing is conducted, and at first sight it seems strange
that material such as gelatin should be able to impress metal. Mr
Woodbury found that it made very little if any difference in the
sharpness of the image if the relief was reversed and the back of
the relief pressed into the mould. This of course made the print
correct as regards right and left. He has not, however, been con
tent with his original operations, but has further simplified them,
the outcome being what is known as the " stannotype process." In
1880 he read a description of it before the French Photographic
Society. The modification consisted in taking a mould in gelatin
from a positive on glass. The mould, when hardened by chemical
means (as was indeed the case with the original AAroodbury-type
process), was attached to a sheet of flat glass, and then covered by
the foil and passed through a rolling press the cylinders of which
were covered with thick india-rubber. This forced the tinfoil into
every crevice of the mould, yielding a block impervious to moisture
and ready to have gelatin impressions taken from it. At first Mr
Woodbury took an electrotype from the relief, covered with tinfoil,
obtained from a negative, but he abandoned this for a simpler plan.
He took a positive on glass in the ordinary manner adopted by
photographers, from which he made a mould in gelatin. This he
covered with tinfoil and printed direct from it.
Photo-Lithography.
;o- Reference has already been made to the effect of light
'' on gelatin impregnated with bichromate of potash, where
by the gelatin becomes insoluble, and also incapable of
absorbing water where the action of the light has had full
play. It is this last phenomenon which occupies such an
important place in photo-lithography. In the spring of
1859 Asser of Amsterdam produced photographs on a paper
basis in printer's ink. Being anxious to produce copies of
such prints mechanically, he conceived the idea of trans
ferring the greasy ink impression to stone, and multiplying
the impressions by mechanical lithography. Following
very closely upon Asser, J. W. Osborne of Melbourne
made a similar application ; his process is described by
himself in the Photographic Journal for April 1860 as
follows. " A negative is produced in the usual way, bear
ing to the original the desired ratio. ... A positive is
printed from this negative upon a sheet of (gelatinized)
paper, so prepared that the image can be transferred to
stone, it having been previously covered with greasy
printer's ink. The impression is developed by washing
away the soluble matter with hot water, which leaves the
ink on the lines of print of the map or engraving." The
process of transferring is accomplished in the ordinary
way. Early in 1860 Colonel Sir H. James, R.E., F.R.S.,
brought forward the Southampton method of photo-litho- South-
graphy, which had been carefully worked out by Captain ampton
de Courcy Scott, R.E. We give a detailed description of m
it as practised at Southampton.
Preparation of the Paper. — The mixture consists of 3
oz. of Nelson's " fine art " gelatin and 2 oz. of potassium
bichromate dissolved in 10 oz. of water and added to the
40 oz. of water with which the gelatin, after proper soak
ing, has been previously mixed. Good and grainless bank
post-paper (chosen on account of its toughness) of medium
thickness is made to float on this solution (after it has
been strained) for three minutes, when it is hung up in
the dark to dry. It is again floated on the solution and
hung up for desiccation by the corners opposite to those
which were previously uppermost, and then passed through
a copper-plate or lithographic press to obtain a smooth
surface. The paper is next placed upon a negative and
printed in the ordinary manner, the negative being very
dense in those parts which should print white, and perfectly
transparent where the black lines have to be impressed.
From about two minutes' exposure in sunshine to an
hour in dull light is requisite to give sufficient intensity to
the prints, which are next covered Avith greasy printer's
ink, made from lithographic printing ink, pitch, varnish,
palm oil, and wax. The inking is best done by covering a
lithographic stone with a fine layer by means of a roller,
and then passing the paper through the press as if pulling
a lithographic print, — an operation which may have to be
repeated twice to ensure the whole surface being covered,
and yet not too thickly. The inked print is placed face
uppermost on water of a temperature of about 90° Fahr.,
and, when the soluble parts of the gelatin have taken up
their full quantity of water, the paper is laid on a sloping
glass plate, inked surface uppermost, and a gentle stream
of warm water poured over it. This removes the soluble
gelatin and the greasy ink lying on it, the removal being
helped by the application of a very soft sponge. When
all the gelatin and ink except that forming the image have
been removed, the paper is allowed to dry till ready to
transfer to stone. The method admits of several variations
in detail, such as coating the gelatin with albumen and
removing the soluble albumen by cold water, some of them
being excellent, especially where the relief of the developed
print is small, as relief is an enemy to the production of
fine work on a lithographic stone, since the ink, in passing
through the press, squeezes out and produces broad lines
which should be otherwise fine.
Another method of producing a transfer, called the Papyro-
"papyrotype process," was published by Abney in 1870, type
in which the ink is put on to a surface of gelatin by means m<
of a soft roller ; and this has the great advantage that
the ink can be removed at pleasure if any part is not
satisfactorily inked, without the basis of the print being
XVIII. — 105
834
PHOTOGRAPHY
destroyed. In this process tough paper is coated with a
fine layer of gelatin a-nd subsequently treated with alum
or chrome alum, afterwards receiving another coating, as
in the Southampton method. The printing too is carried
out as in the Southampton method, but not so deeply.
After withdrawing the prints from the printing-frame they
are soaked in cold water, and a roller is passed over them
charged with an ink made of 4 parts of best lithographic
chalk ink mixed with 1 part of palm oil. A roller coated
with velvet is said to be better than the ordinary composi
tion rollers. The ink takes when the work is all clear ;
the transfer is exposed to light, and is ready to be put
down on stone or zinc.
Photo-Engraving and Photo-Reliefs.
Photo- This may be divided into two classes, one the production
engrav- of an engraved plate for printing by the copper-plate press,
and the other for the production of cliches for printing
with type. Niepce's process is still generally employed
for the first when line engravings have to be reproduced.
A copper plate is covered with asphaltum, a film negative
placed in contact with it, and the necessary exposure given.
After development with olive oil and turpentine the lines
are shown as bare copper. The plate after being waxed
at the back is next plunged into an acid bath and etched
as are etched plates. When a half-tone negative has to
be reproduced on copper Fox Talbot's method, described
in his patents of 1852 and 1858, is still the simplest. A
print on gelatin is transferred to a copper plate, and the
surface etched by means of different strengths of ferric
chloride, which renders the gelatin insoluble and imper
meable ; hence it will be seen that a weak solution of
ferric chloride is able to reach the copper through the
gelatin more readily than a strong one. In order to be
successful it is necessary to give a grain to the plate ; this
is effected by sprinkling it with powdered resin, which is
then warmed.
Relief plates for printing with type are usually made on
zinc. If an ordinary photo-lithographic transfer be trans
ferred to zinc and then sprinkled with resin, the zinc may
be immersed in weak acid and the uncovered parts eaten
away. The regularity of the erosion is much increased
by previously immersing the plate in a weak solution of
copper sulphate. The particles of metallic copper deposited
on the zinc form with it and with dilute acid galvanic
couples, which rapidly eat away the zinc. The etching
bath should be kept in motion. The depth of the erosion
is increased by littering the surface again with powdered
resin, which adheres to the lines, and then heating the
plate. The warmed resin runs down the eroded lines and
protects them from under-cutting when again placed in acid.
This process is applicable to line-engravings. Niepce's
bitumen process is also applicable, but in that case a posi
tive must be applied to the plate to be etched. There
exist several methods by which half-tone negatives may be
reproduced for working off in the printing-press. They
depend principally on breaking up the whole surface by
means of lines. Thus, if, between the surface on which
the printing is to take place (and which has been coated
with some sensitive medium) and the positive, a film on
which a network of lines has been photographed be inter
posed, it is evident that the resulting print will consist of
the half-tone subject together with an image of the net
work of lines. This can be etched in the manner described
above. Most of these processes are secret, but it is be
lieved that this is the one most generally practised.
PhotograpJts in Natural Colours.
The first notice on record of coloured light impressing
its own colours on a sensitive surface is in the passage
already quoted from the Farbenlehre of Goethe, where Photo.
Seebeck of Jena (1810) describes the impression he ob-Sraphy
tained on paper impregnated with moist chloride of silver. ,
In 1839 Sir J. Herschel (Athenaeum, No. 621) gave a
somewhat similar description. In 1848 Edmond Becquerel
succeeded in reproducing upon a daguerreotype plate not
only the colours of the spectrum but also, up to a certain
point, the colours of drawings and objects. His method
of proceeding was to give the silver plate a thin coating
of silver chloride by immersing it in ferric or cupric chlor
ides. It may also be immersed in chlorine water till it
takes a feeble rose tint. Becquerel preferred to chlorinize
the plate by immersion in a solution of hydrochloric acid
in water, attaching it to the positive pole of a voltaic
couple, whilst the other pole he attached to a platinum
plate also immersed in the acid solution. After a minute's
subjection to the current the plate took successively a grey,
a yellow, a violet, and a blue tint, which order was again
repeated. When the violet tint appeared for the second
time the plate was withdrawn and washed and dried over
a spirit-lamp. In this state it produced the spectrum
colours, but it was found better to heat the plate till it
assumed a rose tint. At a later date Niepce de St Victor
chlorinized by means of chloride of lime, and made the
surface more sensitive by applying a solution of lead chlor
ide in dextrin. G. W. Simpson also obtained coloured
images on silver chloride emulsion in collodion, but they
were less vivid and satisfactory than those obtained on
daguerreotype plates. Poitevin obtained coloured images
on ordinary chloride of silver paper by preparing it in the
usual manner and washing it and exposing it to light. It
was afterwards treated with a solution of bichromate of
potash and cupric sulphate, and dried in darkness. Sheets
so prepared gave coloured images from coloured pictures,
which he stated could be fixed by sulphuric acid (Comptes
Rendus, 1868, vol. Ixi. p. 11). In the Bulletin de la
Societe Franqaise (1874) St Florent describes experiments .
which he made with the same object. He immerses ordi
nary or albuminized paper in silver nitrate and afterwards
plunges it into a solution of uranium nitrate and zinc
chloride acidulated with hydrochloric acid ; it is then ex
posed to light till it takes a violet, blue, or lavender tint.
Before exposure the paper is floated on a solution of mer
curic nitrate, its surface dried, and exposed to a coloured
image.
It is supposed — though it is very doubtful if it be so —
that the nature of the chloride used to obtain the chloride
of silver has a great effect on the colours impressed ; and
Niepce in 1857 made some observations on the relationship
which seemed to exist between the coloured flames pro
duced by the metal and the colour impressed on a plate
prepared with a chloride of such a metal. In 1880 (Proc.
Roy. /Soc.) Abney showed that the production of colour
really resulted from the oxidation of the chloride that was
coloured by light. Plates immersed in a solution of hydro-
xyl took the colours of the spectrum much more rapidly
than when not immersed, and the size of the molecules
seemed to regulate the colour. He further stated that the
whole of the spectrum colours might be derived from a mix
ture of two or at most three sizes of molecules. In 1841,
during his researches on light, Robert Hunt published
some results of colour-photography by means of fluoride
of silver. A paper was washed with nitrate of silver
and with sodium fluoride, and afterwards exposed to the
spectrum. The action of the spectrum commenced at the
centre of the yellow ray and rapidly proceeded upwards,
arriving at its maximum in the blue ray. As far as the
indigo the action was uniform, whilst in the violet the
paper took a brown tint. When it was previously exposed,
however, a yellow space was occupied where the yellow
835
ight.
rays had acted, a green band where the green had acted,
whilst in the blue and indigo it took an intense blue, and
over the violet there was a ruddy brown. In reference to
these coloured images on paper it must not be forgotten
that pure salts of silver are not being dealt with as a rule.
An organic salt of silver is usually mixed with chloride
of silver paper, this salt being due to the sizing of the
paper, which towards the red end of the spectrum is
usually more sensitive than the chloride. If a piece of
ordinary chloride of silver paper is exposed to the spectrum
till an impression is made, it will usually be found that
the blue colour of the darkened chloride is mixed with
that due to the coloration of the darkened organic com
pound of silver in the violet region, whereas in the blue
and green this organic compound is alone affected, and
is of a different colour from that of the darkened mixed
chloride and organic compound. This naturally gives an
impression that the different rays yield different tints,
whereas this result is simply owing to the different range
of sensitiveness of the bodies. In the case of the silver
chlorinized plate and of true collodio-chloride, in which no
organic salt has been dissolved, we have a true coloration
by the spectrum. At present there is no means of
permanently fixing the coloured images which have been
obtained, the effect of light being to destroy them. If
protected from oxygen they last longer than if they have
free access to it, as is the case when the surface is exposed
to the air. That photography in colours may one day be
accomplished is still possible, though the bright tints of
nature can never be hoped for, since, as a rule, they are
produced by sunshine, whereas on the plate they have to
be viewed by diffused light,
leducing Action of Light on Silver Salts. — The action of light on
ction ot sensitive bodies has occupied the attention of many experi
mentalists from a very early period of photography. In
1777 Scheele, according to Hunt (Researches in Light),
made the following experiments : —
" I precipitated a solution of silver by sal-ammoniac ; then I
edulcorated it and dried the precipitate and exposed it to the
beams of the sun for two weeks ; after which I stirred the powder,
and repeated the same several times. Hereupon I poured some
caustic spirit of sal-ammoniac (strong ammonia) on this, in all
appearance, black powder, and set it by for digestion. This men
struum dissolved a quantity of luna cornua (horn silver), though
some black powder remained undissolved. The powder having
been washed was, for the greater part, dissolved by a pure acid of
nitre (nitric acid), which, by the operation, acquired volatility.
This solution I precipitated again by means of sal-ammoniac
into horn silver. Hence it follows that the blackness which
the luna cornua acquires from the sun's light, and likewise the
solution of silver poured on chalk, is silver by reduction. ... I
mixed so much of distilled water with well - edulcorated horn
silver as would just cover this powder. The half of this mixture
I poured into a white crystal phial, exposed it to the beams of
the sun, and shook it several times each day ; the other half I
set in a dark place. After having exposed the one mixture during
the space of two weeks, I filtrated the water standing over the
horn silver, grown already black ; I let some of this water fall by
drops in a solution of silver, which was immediately precipitated
into horn silver. "
This, as far as we know, is the first intimation of the re
ducing action of light. From this it is evident that Scheele
had found that the silver chloride was decomposed by the
action of light liberating some form of chlorine. Others
have repeated these experiments and found that chlorine
is really liberated from the chloride ; but it is necessary
that some body should be present which would absorb the
chlorine, or, at all events, that the chlorine should be free
to escape. A tube of dried silver chloride, sealed up in
vacua, will not discolour in the light, but keeps its ordinary
white colour. A pretty experiment is to seal up in vacua,
at one end of a bent tube, perfectly dry chloride, and at
the other a drop of mercury. The mercury vapour vola
tilizes to a certain extent and fills the tube. When exposed
to light chlorine is liberated from the chloride, and calomel
forms on the sides of the tube. In this case the chloride
darkens. Again, dried chloride sealed up in dry hydrogen
discolours, owing to the combination of the chlorine with
the hydrogen. Poitevin and H. W. Vogel first enunciated
the law that for the reduction by light of the haloid salts
of silver halogen absorbents were necessary, and it was by
following out this law that the present rapidity in obtain
ing camera images has been rendered possible. To put
it briefly, then, the action of light is a reducing action,
which is aided by or entirely due to the fact that other
bodies are present which will absorb the halogens. There
is another action which seems to occur almost simultane
ously when exposure takes place in the absence of an active
halogen absorbent, as is the case when the exposure is
given in the air,— that is, an oxidizing action occurs. The
molecules of the altered haloid salts take up oxygen and
form oxides. An example ©f this has already been shown
in the section on " photographs in natural colours." If a
sensitive salt be exposed to light and then treated with an
oxidizing substance, such as bichromate of potash, per
manganate of potash, hydroxyl, ozone, an image is not
developed, but remains unaltered, showing that a change
has been effected in the compound. If such an oxidized
salt be treated very cautiously with nascent hydrogen the
oxygen is withdrawn, and the image is again capable of
development.1
Spectrum Effects on Silver Compounds. — The next in- Spec-
quiry is as to the effect of the spectrum on the different trum
silver compounds. We have already described Seebeck's
.
(1810) experiments on the chloride of silver with the com.
spectrum whereby he obtained coloured photographs, but pounds.
Scheele in 1777 allowed a spectrum to fall on the same
material, and found that it blackened much more readily
in the violet rays than in any other. Senebier's experi
ments have been already quoted at the beginning of this
article. We merely mention these two for their historical
interest, and pass on to the study of the action of the
spectrum on different compounds by Sir J. Herschel which
is to be found -in the Philosophical Transactions for 1840.
He there describes many interesting experiments, which
became the foundations of nearly all subsequent researches
of the same kind. The effects of the spectrum have been
studied by various experimenters since that time, amongst
whom we may mention Becquerel, Draper, Poitevin, H. W.
Yogel, Schumann, and Abney. Fig. 1 (see pp. 836-38),
which appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society for
1882, shows the most recent researches by the last-named
experimenter as regards the action of the spectrum on the
three principal haloid salts of silver. We may mention
that in two instances exception has been taken to these
results — (1) by H. W. Vogel, who recognizes a difference
of behaviour in the spectrum in chloride and bromide of
silver when precipitated in alcoholic and aqueous solutions,
and (2) by Schumann to the effect of the spectrum on the
double iodide and bromide, and iodide and chloride. The
latter experimenter finds that when the two salts are mixed
after precipitation the results are correct, but that if the
precipitations of the two salts take place together the most
refrangible maximum of sensitiveness disappears. The dia
gram (see fig. 1), however, will give a very approximate
approach to the truth. Nos. 33 and 34 show the effect of
the spectrum on a peculiar modification of silver bromide
made by Abney, in which the silver bromide is seen to be
sensitive to the infra-red rays. This modification is, and
will be, largely used in investigating this part of the
spectrum.
1 See Abney, "Destruction of the Photographic Image," in Phil.
Mag., vol. v., 1878 ; also Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xxvii., 1878.
836
PHOTOGRAPHY
Fro. 1.— Spectrum Effects on Salts of Silver. [P. = print; D. = developed ; I.e.
= long exposure ; s.e. = short
H
AC F £
D CBA t
4
. 5
2
„ „ P.
„ „ P.
^
"]&*•
Agl on paper washed from P.
excess of AgXO3 and
treated with KXO3
s ^
"k,
Agl on paper washed from P.
AgXO3, soaked in NaCl,
washed from excess, and
e _— — —
exposed with KXO»
Paper floated on AgXO3 . . P.
' — ,^_
7 __^"
-\
Agl on paper washed from P.
excess of AgXO3, ruddy
tint
8 _- — -*""
-\_
Agl on paper washed from P.
excess of AgXO3, treated
with KI and KXO2 ; or Agl
9 ^^
-\\
in collodion
AgI+AgXO3 in albumen .. P.
_^-
-\_
Agl prepared in bath, treated D.
with KI, washed, redipped (I.e.)
in silver bath, developed
II ^
^
with pyrogallic acid
,, ,, (s.e.)
,2 ^
"\
Agl purified and exposed in D.
presence of sensitizer, de- (I.e.)
veloped by acid or alkaline
13 --
^~ .
developer
,, „ .. (3 e )
Agl unpurified, treated, and D.
developed as above . . (1 e )
__^"
"\^_
15 _ —
^
"V^
Agl with trace of AgCl or D.
AgBr, developed by acid (I.e.)
or alkaline method
,, ,, (s.e.)
17 ^
^^
AgI+AgXO3 in albuminized D.
collodion, or on paper
washed, acid development
A gl + A gXO3 in albuminized D.
collodion, or on paper
washed, ferrous citrate
developer
AgI+AgXO3, prolonged ex- D.
posure
AgBr+AgX03 on paper . . P.
.. P.
.» >. --P.
Green AgBr in collodion, with P.
or without AgXO3
Orange AgBr in collodion P.
gelatin, with or without
AgX03
Grey AgBr in gelatin P.
.8 _— --- "
~\^_
=- - i
19 .^— - ~~
" — ^.
20 _-^^
2, _- — "^
_ | fe
22
.---' """"
- -_
23
1
~
24. ___---
— v^
25 ____- -""
— x
26 _. •
— x"
AgBr on paper washed from D.
AgXO3, acid or ferrous (I.e.)
citro-oxalate developer
» ,, ... (ae)
27 ___ — -""^"
— — — „
28 ^"
— >
Grey AgBr in gelatin, de- D.
veloped alkaline or ferrous (I.e.) t)
oxalate ±
„ ,, (a e ) v
29 ' **"
s
30 _^- "
— -V
Orange AgBr in collodion or D.
gelatin, alkaline ferrous (I.e.) n
oxalate or acid developer v,
(8.8.)
T
3, ^-^1
>
32 _/
-— \^
Effect of Dyes on Sensitive Films. — In 1874
Dr Vogel of Berlin called attention to this sub
ject. He found that when films were stained
with certain aniline and other dyes and exposed
to the spectrum an increased action on develop
ment was shown in those parts of the spectrum
which the dye absorbed. The dyes which pro
duced this action he called "optical sensitizers,"
whilst preservatives which absorbed the halogen
liberated by light he called "chemical sensi
tizers." A dye might, according to him, be an
optical and a chemical sensitizer. He further
claimed that, if a film were prepared in which
the haloid soluble salt was in excess and then
dyed, no action took place unless some " chemi
cal sensitizer " were present. The term " optical
sensitizer " seems a misnomer, since it is meant
to imply that it renders the salts of silver sensi
tive to those regions of the spectrum to which
they were previously insensitive, merely by the
addition of the dye. The idea of the action
of dyes was at first combated by many, but it
was soon recognized that such an action did
really exist. Abney showed in 1875 that certain
dyes combined with silver and formed true
coloured organic salts of silver which were sensi
tive to light ; and Dr Amory went so far as to
take a spectrum on a combination of silver with
cosine, which was one of the dyes experimented
upon by Major Waterhouse, who had closely
followed Dr Vogel, and proved that the spectrum
acted simply on those parts which were absorbed
by the compound. Abney further demonstrated
that, in many cases at all events, the dyes were
themselves reduced by light, thus acting as
nuclei on which the silver could be deposited.
He further showed that even when the haloid
soluble salt Avas in excess the same character of
;pectrum was produced as when the silver nitrate
was in excess, though the exposure had to be
jrolonged. This action he concluded was due
to the action of the dye. The subject has been
discussed again recently owing to the production
of so-called iso-chromatic films, i.e., films which
are_ supposed to be sensitive to all colours, and
which are prepared on gelatin or collodion plates
3y dyeing them with cosine or some similar dye ;
and the instructions given indicate that, if a
:oloured picture or landscape be photographed
hrough yellow glass, the "yellows" will be
lenser in the negative than will the "blues."
Experiment shows if a film after preparation be
lipped in a solution of "eoside of silver," made
ry precipitating cosine with silver nitrate, wash-
ng the precipitate, and then dissolving in water
aintly alkaline, a negative taken in the usual
vay will give the "yellows" equally as dense as
he "blues." The action of the yellow glass is
o cut off the blue rays to which the normal
alt is most sensitive, and to leave the yellow
ays unaltered ; these then expend their energy
ipon the organic salt of silver. The advantage
of rendering the yellows of a picture most in
tense in a negative is that the resulting print
will be more nearly true to nature, since these
are the most luminous rays. Further experi
ment ought surely to show how this can be done
without the introduction of the tinted glass.
Action of the Spectrum on Chromic Salts.—
The salts most usually employed in photography
Dyes an
sensitivi
films<
PHOTOGRAPHY
837
Green AgBr in collodion, D.
developed ferrous oxalate (I.e.)
(s.e.)
AgCl+AgNO3 on paper P.
AgCl + AgNO3 on paper, P.
slight preliminary exposure
AgCl on paper washed from P.
excess of AgN03
AgCl on paper washed, P.
treated with NaCl, washed
again ; also collodio-
chloride of silver, and yel
low AgCl in gelatin
Grey AgCl in gelatin P.
AgCl in collodion, excess of D.
AgNO3 or NaCl present, (I.e.)
ferrous citrate or acid
development
Yellow AgCl in gelatin, acid D.
or ferrous citro- oxalate (I.e.)
development
Grey AgCl in gelatin, acid D.
or ferrous citro -oxalate (I.e.)
development
A.^'Cl in collodion, short pre- D.
liminary exposure, acid
or ferrous citro - oxalate
development
Agl + AgBr + AgNO3 on P.
paper, moist
Agl + AgBr, washed from P.
AgN03
,, ,, developed D.
ferrous citro-oxalate
Agl + AgBr + AgNO3, wet D.
plate, acid or alkaline
developer
Agl -f AgBr in gelatin, devel- D.
oped ferrous oxalate
AgBr+Agl in collodion, D.
acid or alkaline developer (I.e.
. . . (8.6.
3AgI + AgBr on paper
P.
3 Agl+ AgBr on paper, devel- D.
oped gallic acid
„ developed ferrous D.
citrate
3AgI+AgBr+AgNO3 collo- D.
dion, wet plate, acid or (I.e.]
alkaline developer
3AgI + AgBr in gelatin, al- D.
kaline or ferrous oxalate (1. <fc
developer s.e. shown/
AgI + 3AgBr on paper or in D.
collodion, ferrous citro- (I.e.
oxalate developer
,, ,, (s.e.
AgI+3AgBr in gelatin, fer- D.
rous oxalate developer (I.e.
3AgI + AgCl + AgNO3 on P.
paper, or paper washed,
both dry
Agl + AgCl + AgXO3 wet, or P.
3AgH-AgCl+KNO2 wet
3AgI + AgCl + AgNO3, or D.
3AgI + AgCl + KN02 on
paper, developed with gal
lic arid or ferrous citro-
oxalate
are the bichromates of the alkalis. The result Spec
of spectrum action in connexion with them is trum
confined to its own most refrangible end, com-
mencing in the ultra-violet and reaching as far 8aits.
as in the solar spectrum. The accompanying
diagram (fig. 2) shows the relative action of the
F E D CB A
No.l
No. 2.
V I
B
G Y O R
Fio. 2. —The top letters have reference to the Fraunhofer lines ;
the bottom letters are the initials of the colours. The relative
sensitiveness is shown by the height of the curve above the
base-line.
various parts of the spectrum on potassium
bichromate. If other bichromates are employed,
the action will be found to be tolerably well
represented by the figures. No. 1 is the effect
of a long exposure, No. 2 of a shorter one. It
should be noticed that the solution of bichro
mate of potash absorbs those rays alone which
are effective in altering the bichromate. A
reference to pp. 831, 833 will show that the
change is only possible in the presence of organic
matter of some kind, such as gelatin or albumen.
Action of the Spectrum on Asphaltum. — This Spec-
seems to be continued into and below the red ; tyum ac-
the blue rays, however, are the most effective,
The action of light on this body is to render it
less soluble in its usual solvents. Compare this
statement with that on p. 822.
Action of the Spectrum on Salts of Iron. — Spec-
Many ferric salts have been used from time to truin-
time in the production of prints, the most g^°°
common at the present time being the ferric jr0n>
oxalate, by which the beautiful platinotype
prints are produced. We give this as a repre
sentation (fig. 3) of the spectra obtained on ferric
H /> G
No. 3
No. 4
. — '
-^-
VI B G Y O R
FIG. 3.— Same description as for fig. 2.
salts in general. Here, again, we have an ex
ample of the rigorous law that exists as to the
correlation between absorption and chemical
action. One of the most remarkable compounds
of iron is that experimented upon by Sir J.
Herschel and later by Lord Rayleigh, viz., ferro-
cyanide of potassium and ferric chloride. If
these two be brushed over paper and the paper
be then exposed to a bright solar spectrum, action
is exhibited into the infra-red region. This is
one of the few instances in which these light
waves of low refrangibility are capable of pro
ducing any effect. The colour of this solution
is a muddy green, and analysis shows that it
cuts off these rays as well as generally absorbs
those of higher refrangibility.
Action of Light on Uranium, — The salts of Light
uranium are affected by light in the presence of actio.n on
, T . i uranium,
organic matter, and they too are only acted upon
by those rays which they absorb. Thus nitrate
838
PHOTOGRAPHY
H h c r i o CB*
Washed 3AgI + AgCl on D.
paper, ferrous citro-oxal-
ate developer
3AgI-fAgCl in gelatin, de- D.
veloped ferrous oxalate
Agl+AgCl in gelatin, de- D.
veloped ferrous oxalate
AgI + 3AgCl on paper, washed P.
l + SAgCl+AgXOa, wet .. P.
AgI+3AgCl in gelatin, or D.
on paper, ferrous citro-
oxalate or acid developer
Agl + 3AgCl + AgXO3) acid D.
developer
AgBr, exposed to light, P.
treated with I, exposed, to also
spectrum. D.
of uranium, which shows, too, absorption-bands in
the green blue, is affected more where these occur
than in any other portion of the spectrum.
It would be going beyond our province to do
more than enumerate the other metallic com
pounds which are amenable to chemical change
by the impact of radiation ; suffice it to say
that some salts of mercury, gold, copper, lead,
manganese, molybdenum, platinum, vanadium,
are all affected, but in a less degree than those
which Ave have discussed. In the organic world
there are very few substances which do not
change by the continuous action of light, and it
will be found that as a rule they are affected by
the blue end of the spectrum rather than by
the red end. For a more detailed account we
must refer the reader to The Chemical Effects of
the Spectrum by Dr J. M. Eder (London).
The following table gives the names of the observers of the
action of light on different substances with the date of publication
of the several observations. It is nearly identical with one given
by Dr Eder in his Gcschichte der Photo-Chcmie.
Substance.
Observer.
Date.
Silver.
Xitrate solution mixed with chalk,
J H Schulze
1727
gives in sunshine copies of writing
Xitrate solution on paper
Xitrate photographically used
Xitrate on silk . -
Hellot
Wedgwood and Davy ....
Fulhame
1737
1802
1797
Xitrate with white of ega
Rumford
1798
1812
Xitrate with lead salts
1839
Chloride
J. B. Beccarius
1757
Chloride in the spectrum
Chloride photographically used
Scheele
1777
1802
Chloride blackened
1839
Iodide
Davy
1814
Iodide by action of iodine(on metallic
Da<rueri'e
1839
silver)
Iodide photographically used . .
1840
Iodide witli gallic acid
Talbot
1841
Iodide with ferrous sulphate
Hunt
1844
Chloride and iodide by chlorine and
Claudet
1840
iodine (on metallic silver)
Bromide ,
Balard
1826
Bromide by action of bromine (on
1840
metallic silver)
Sulpho-cyanide
1818
Xitrite
Hess
1828
Oxide with ammonia
Sulphate
Chromate
Mitscherlich
Bergmann
1827
1779
1798
Carbonate
1800
Oxalate
1779
Benzoate
Trommsdorf
1793
Citrate
1798
1829
Borate
Rose
1830
1830
1833
Formiates
Fulminates
Hunt
Hunt
1844
1844
Sulphide by vapour of sulphur (on
Niepce
1820
metallic silver)
Phosphide by vapour of phosphorus
Xiepce
18-20
(on metallic silver)
Gold.
Oxide
1777
Chloride on paper
Chloride on silk
Hellot
1737
1794
Chloride in ethereal solution
Chloride with ferro-cyanide and ferri-
Rumford
Hunt
1793
1844
cyanide of potassium
Chloride and oxalic acid
Dobereiner
1831
Chromate
Plate of gold and iodine vapour ....
Hunt
Goddard
1844
1842
Platinum.
Chloride in ether
Gehlen
1804
Chloride with lime ".
Herschel
1840
Iodide
Bromide )
Herschel
Hunt
1840
1844
Cyanide f
Double chloride of platinum and
Dobereiner
1828
potassium
Mercury.
Oxide (mercurous) . .
Gay-Lussac and Thenard . .
1811
Oxide
1812
Oxide (mercuric)
1797
Abildgaard
1797
Harup not till
1801
Chloride (mercurons)
K. Xeurnann previously to
1739
Chloride (mercuric)
Boullay
1803
Chloride with oxalic acid
Sulphate . .
Bergmann
Mover. . .
1776
1764
Substance.
Observer.
Date.
Oxalate (mercuric)
Ber^mani! . . .
1776
1836
1791
1826
1828
1830
1836
1836
1836
1831
1812
1840
1 B.C.
1877
1725
1782
1831
1808
1818
1783
1S40
1840
1844
1804
1813
1844
1850
1841
1841
1815
1832
1824
1844
1844
1802
1850
1811
1844
1844
1844
1844
1803
1832
1844
1874
1831
1838
1840
1843
1809
1842
1810
1785
1809
1812
1821
1827
1832
Oxalate (mercurous) Hunt'
Sulphate and ammonia (mercurous)
Acetate (mercurous)
Fourcroy
Garot, . '
Bromide (mercuric) Lei wig
Iodide (mercurous) . . , . J Torosewicz .
Iodide (mercuric) . . . Field
Tartrate and potassium (mercurous)
Carbonate (mercuric)
Carbonell and Bravo . . .
Daw ..
Xitrate Ilorschel
Sulphide (mercuric) . . . Vitnivins .
Iron.
Sulphate (ferrous)
Chastaino' . . .
Chloride (ferric) and alcohol Bestuscheff
Chloride and ether : Klanrotli
Oxalate (ferric)
Dobereiner
Ferro-cyanide of potassium . ..
Hcinrich
Bulpho-cyanide
Grotthus
Prussian blue
Scopoli
Ferric citrate with ammonium..
Herschel
Herschel .
Clijomate
Hunt
Copper.
Chloride (eupric dissolved in ether)
Gehlen
A. Vogel
Chromate ^
Hunt
Chromate with ammonium
Carbonate ... }-
Iodide . 1
A. Vo<*el . . .
Sulphate J
Copper plates (iodized) J
Kratoch
Manganese.
Sulphate . . .
Brandenburg
Oxalate ....
Suckow
Frommberg
Peroxide and cyanide of potassium
Chloride
Hunt
Hunt
Lead.
Oxide .
Davy
Iodide )
Sulphite f
Gay-Lussac
Red lead and cyanide of potassium
Acetate
Hunt
Hunt
Nickel.
Xitrate \
Hunt
Nitrate with ferro-prussiates . . . . >
Iodide j
Uncertain.
Hunt
Tin.
Purple of cassius
Various Substances.
Cobalt
Suckow
Bismuth salts "i
Hunt
Roscoe
Dobereiner
Mungo Ponton
Potassium with iodide of starch ....
Becquerel
Hunt
Gay-Lussac and Thenard . .
Draper
Chlorine and ether
Cahours
Berthollet
Chlorine and ethylene
Gay-Lussac and Thenard . .
Davy
Henry
Serullas
Balard ... ....
Chlorine and carbon-monoxide ....
Chlorine and marsh gas
Chloride and hydrocyanic acid ....
PHOTOGRAPHY
839
Substance.
Observer.
Date.
d th lene
18l>l
1837
1846
183(5
1813
1S04
1800
1722
1788
1789
1800
1812
1777
1806
1832
1814
1782
1782
1839
1782
1842
1 cent. A.D.
10th cent.
1684
1711
1782
1782
1836
18S3
iodine ai j
Pelouze and Richardson . .
Various other methyl compounds . .
Cahours
Torosewicz
Hypochlorites (calcium and potass
ium)
Dobereiner
Gehlen
Molybdenate of potassium and tin
salts
Crystallization of salts under influ- (
ence of light j
Phosphorus (in hydrogen, nitrogen,
&c.)
Petit
Chaptal
A. Vogel
Scheele
Ho(r's fat
Vogel
Fier
Niepce
Resins (mastic, sandarac, gamboge,
ammoniacum, &c.)
Hagemann
Bitumens all decomposed, all resi
dues of essential oils
Da(ruerre
Scnebier
Similar colouring matters spread
upon paper
Pliny
Eudoxia macrembolitissa (purple dye)
Cole
e "y^" • • ( Keaumur
Nitric ether ' Senebier
Henry & Boutron-Charlard
Merk ..
Bibliography.— Hardwich and Taylor, Photographic Chemistry (9th ed., 1883) ;
oney, Text-Book of Photography (1878), Instruction in Photography (1874 ; 6th
ed., 1884), Emulsion Processes in Photos
Billi
Abr
ed., 1884), Emulsion Processes' in Photography (1878), and Photographic Optics,
1884 ; Burton, Modern Photography (3d ed., 1883) ; Robinson and Abney, Silver
Printing (1880); Eder, Chemical Effects of the Spectrum (Eng. tr., by Abney, 1884);
Hepworth, Photon: v.phy for Amateurs (1884); and Hunt, Researches on Light
(1854).
THE CAMERA.
Any article descriptive of photography would be incomplete
without a brief notice of the development of the camera. The
inventor of the camera obscura was Giambattista della PORTA (q.v ),
who was born at Naples about 1540. Except as a scientific toy,
his apparatus was not of any practical use, though it is the parent
of the apparatus which have grown up with photography. The
principles which govern photographic lenses have been briefly given
under LIGHT (vol. xiv. p. 593 sq.) and OPTICS (vol. xvii. p. 802 sq. ),
and we need only
state here that
the finest camera
which can be
manufactured is
useless unless the
lens with which
it has to be
worked gives a
flat field and an
approximately
If
flio
:I1 . UL
accompanying
figure (fig 4), ac
achromatic image. FIG. 4.— Daguerre's Camera. M, stop of lens ; J, lens ; A,
Dafuerre's camera ground glass plate, on which the image formed by the
^ens ^s thrown, and for which the sensitive plate is sub-
stituted ; B, a mirror held at 45° by means of L, on which
the operator viewed the image on the ground glass. The
focus was obtained by sliding the inner box D towards
cording to Hunt or from the lens
(Photography, 4th ed., p. 39), by which it will be seen that at first
the idea existed of moving the plate away from the camera.
The first camera made in England, as far as is known, was that
by Mr Palmer of Newgate Street, London, on the plan of Mr
Fry and for him, in 1839. It was a very primitive apparatus, and
was furnished with a lens made in the same year. The ordinary
form of camera was simply a box, at one end of which was a lens,
and at the other a ground glass for focusing, for which could be
substituted a dark slide holding a sensitive plate. The adjustment
of the focus was made by a rack and pinion motion attached to the
lens. The arrangement, however, subsequently introduced for ob
taining a rough approximation to focus was to have a sliding inner
box as in Daguerre's camera ; and finally to obtain the greatest sharp
ness the rack and pinion motion attached to the lens was used. It
is evident that this form of camera has an advantage over the single
box, since it allows more than one lens to be used. Ottewill's folding
camera was a great improvement, in that, for outdoor work, it enabled
a cumbersome article to be folded up into a compact space. Figs. 5
and 6 show it set up for use, and folded. A still more portable form
was made by Mr George Edwards of Carlton Colville (Suffolk) in
1853, and for it he obtained the medal of the Society of Arts. Its
portability is shown by the fact that for a 7-inch by 5J-inch plate
its weight was only 2 ft 3 oz. Broadly speaking its principle was
that of a couple of frames attached by screws to a solid bar, one of
which carried the dark slide and the other the lens. The two were
connected together and enclosed in a cloth bag, which in reality
FIG. 5.— Ottewill's Camera, set up for use. FIG. 6.— Ottewill's Camera, folded.
was the camera. This instrument is still used at the present day. It
did not come into general use owing to its complicated arrangement
of screws, — for the main point in any camera is that there should
be as few loose screws as possible. The next improvement is that
known as the bellows form, originally introduced, it is believed, by
Captain Fowke, R.E., about 1854. Its introduction maybe said to
mark a new era in camera construction, and from that time to the
present the bellows is to be found in nearly every improved form.
After this invention the square instead of the tapering form of
bellows was that most generally adopted. It is unnecessary to trace
every improvement that has been introduced, but we give two typical
FIG. 7. — Hare's Camera.
ones (figs. 7 and 8), which are manufactured by Hare and Meagher
respectively. It will be noticed that in both these cameras there
is an arrangement by
which the focusing
screens can be made
to tilt at an angle
with the axis of the
lens. This is called
a swing - back ar
rangement, and is
necessary when pho
tographing architec
tural subjects to pre
vent vertical lines
converging in the
picture. When the
ground glass is in a Fro. S.— Meagher' s Camera,
vertical plane, no matter what tilt is given to the camera, vertical
lines will always be shown as parallel in the picture. It will
also be noticed that in these cameras there is an arrangement for
focusing the lens by means of a rack and pinion motion in fig. 7,
and by means of a screw in fig. 8. The gradual motion which
can thus be given to the focusing screen is a great advantage,
since lenses need not be constructed with rack and pinion mo
tion. Many suggestions have been put forward for adapting
FIG. 9.— Marion & Co.'s Camera.
the camera for a developing chamber, and we believe Archer's
could be used for this purpose. Mr Newton in 1852 introduced a
camera in which wet plates after exposure were developed by dipping
in troughs of solutions ; and we might name many others who sub-
840
P H O — P H O
sequently worked at the same idea. It met, however, with no very
great success. The introduction of dry plates was a great step for
the landscape photographer, as it enabled him to carry a supply of
plates in the field, and to develop them at home. To economize
space aud weight, what are known as " double backs " were in
vented. A " double back " is a dark slide in which two plates are
placed back to back, being separated by an opaque plate. Each
side of the slide can be drawn up or out so as to expose each plate.
What are known as changing boxes answer the same purpose.
They hold from one to two dozen plates, and by means of a special
arrangement each plate can be conveyed to or removed from the
dark slide without exposure to light. There are other plans also
by which a certain number of plates can be carried in trie camera
itself and exposed in succession. The writer's opinion of such
instruments is that they possess no striking advantage and many
disadvantages, unless for very special purposes. Even for a minia
ture camera for taking instantaneous street views whilst holding
the apparatus in the hand the use of double backs is to be preferred.
An excellent specimen is a camera made by Marion & Co. of London
(see fig. 9) : it is entirely of metal, and iitted with a iinder and in
stantaneous shutter, — one which should stand any amount of rough
usage. The whole apparatus, including a dozen plates, can easily be
carried in the pocket. The dark slides are strongly made of metal.
In the preceding sketch, brief though it is, of the successive
improvements in cameras, probably enough has been said to show
the very remarkable development that has taken place since the
days when a cigar-box and spectacle leiis were used to obtain an
image on a sensitive plate. (W. DE W. A. )
PHOTOMETRY, CELESTIAL. The earliest records that
have come down to us regarding the relative positions of
the stars in the heavens have always been accompanied
with estimations of their relative brightness. With this
brightness was naturally associated the thought of the
relative magnitudes of the luminous bodies from whence
the light was assumed to proceed. Hence in the grand
catalogue of stars published by Ptolemy (c. 150 A.D.),
but which had probably been formed three hundred years
before his day by Hipparchus, the 1200 stars readily visible
to the naked eye at Alexandria were divided into six classes
according to their lustre, though instead of that term he
uses the word ;ueye#os or " magnitude " ; the brightest he
designates as being of the first magnitude, and so down
wards till he comes to the minimum visibile, to which he
assigns the sixth. These magnitudes he still further
divides each into three. To those stars which, though
ranged in any particular order of brightness, nevertheless
exceed the average of that order in lustre he attaches the
letter /*, the initial letter in peifov (greater), and to those
in the same order which exhibit a lustre inferior to that
of the average he affixes the letter e, the initial letter of
e'Atto-o-wv. With this sort of subdivision he passes through
all the six orders of magnitude. He does not, indeed, tell
us the precise process by which these divisions were esti
mated, but the principle involved is obvious. The eye
was here made the natural photometer, and it is certain
that even in the instances where modern instrumental ap
pliances are called into requisition the ultimate appeal is
made to perception by the eye. Moreover, it is one of the
many remarkable instances of the acuteness and precision
of the Greek mind that for upwards of 1500 years no real
improvement was made in these estimations of lustre by
any of Ptolemy's numerous successors in this field of re
search. Flamsteed was the first astronomer who extended
the estimation of magnitude to stars visible only by the
telescope, and he improved Ptolemy's notation by writing
4'3 instead of 5, /JL — indicating thereby an order of mag
nitude brighter than the average of a fourth, but inferior
to that of a third — and 3*4 for 8, e, and so on. Later
astronomers have sometimes adopted a more precise nomen
clature by subdividing the several orders decimally, but it
does not appear that by any immediate and unaided effort
the eye can estimate subdivisions of lustre exceeding the
thirds adopted by the Greek philosopher.
It was not till the year 1796 that any real advance was
made in stellar photometry. Sir W. Herschel, instead of
assigning a particular magnitude to stars, arranged them
in small groups of three or four or five, indicating the order
in which they differed from each other in lustre at the time
of observation. This method was admirably adapted to
the discovery of any variations in brightness which might
occur in the lapse of time among the members of the group.
Sir William observed in this way some 1400 stars, pub
lished in catalogues scattered through the Philosophical
Transactions from 1796 to 1799; but he discontinued the
work before its conclusion. It rni^ht be umed that such
a work touches on no human interests, but it rightly seemed
otherwise to the philosophic mind of the great astronomer.
He remarked that the sun is, after all, only one among the
stars, and that what befalls them in the way of varying
light as time proceeds may also befall the sun. He puts
the question, " Who would not wish to know what degree
of permanency we ought to ascribe to the lustre of our sun?
Not only the stability of our climates, but the very exist
ence of the whole animal and vegetable creation itself, is
involved in the question. Where can we hope to receive
information upon the subject but from astronomical observa
tions I"1 These researches of the elder Herschel were in
due time followed by those of his son, Sir John, about the
year 1836 at the Cape of Good Hope. He both extended
and improved the methods adopted by his father at Slough,
and by a method of estimated sequences of magnitude he
hoped to arrange all the stars visible to the naked eye at
the Cape or in England in the order of their relative lustre,
and then to reduce his results into the equivalent magni
tudes adopted by the universal consent of astronomers.
Sir John, however, like his father, left this important labour
incomplete. Not only is the work one of great and con
tinuous effort, but the effects of ever -varying meteoro
logical conditions greatly impede it. Moreover, there is
an unsatisfactory indefiniteness attending all estimations
made by the unaided eye ; numerical or quantitative com
parisons are out of the question, and hence we find Sir
John, in the very midst of establishing his "sequences,"
adopting also an instrumental method which might lead
him to more definite results.
In the year when Sir John Herschel concluded his
photometric work at the Cape (1838) Dr Argelander com
menced, and in 1843 completed, his Uranometria Nova, in
which the magnitudes of all stars visible to the unaided
eye in central Europe are catalogued with a precision and
completeness previously unknown. It contains 3256 stars,
and although it will probably be superseded by instru
mental photometry it must ever remain a monument of
intelligent patience. Argelander's labours were confined
to stars visible to the naked eye ; by the aid of his assist
ants, Dr Schonfeld and Dr Kriiger, a catalogue of magni
tudes and celestial coordinates was ultimately published
in their well-known Durchmusterung, extending to the
enormous number of 324,000 stars.
Dr Gould also, in his Uranometria Argentina, has done
similar work for stars visible only in the southern hemi
sphere, and with the aid of his colleagues has attained to
an exactness and precision in his estimations of stellar
lustre certainly not hitherto surpassed. There have been
other worthy labourers in the same field, each of whom
has rendered efficient service, such as Dr Heis and M.
Houzeau ; but it is chiefly to the labours of Argelander
and Gould that astronomers at present make their appeal.
It is to Sir John Herschel that we are indebted for the
first successful attempt at stellar photometry by what may
1 Phil. Trans., 1796, p. 184.
PHOTOMETRY
be termed " artificial " means. By the aid of appliances
of the simplest kind he deflected the light of the moon
(by means of the internal reflexion of a rectangular prism)
through a small lens 0'12 inches in diameter and of very
short focus, 0'2253 inches, so as to form a sort of artificial
star in its focus. By the instrumentality of strings and a
wooden pole he could move this artificial star of compari
son so as to be in the same line of sight with any actual
star whose light he proposed to measure. Other strings
enabled him to remove this microscopic lunar image to such
a distance from the eye that its light was adjudged to be
sensibly the same as that of the star compared. The dis
tance of the short focused lens with the image contiguous
to it was measured by a graduated tape, and the inverse
squares of these distances afforded relative numerical mea
sures of the brightness of the several stars thus brought
into ocular juxtaposition with the equalized light of the
tiny lunar image. In this way he proceeded with the ob
servations of a considerable number of stars, and these, by
appropriate methods, were reduced so as to afford the means
of the comparison of their relative brightness when set side
by side with results obtained by means of his " sequences,"
and with the estimated magnitudes of preceding astro
nomers. Sir John, however, did not go on to the formation
of a complete " uranometria." While he was thus busy at
the Cape of Good Hope, Steinheil at Munich had com
pleted for Dr Seidel an instrument nearly the same in
principle but more manageable in form. He divided the
small object-glass of a telescope into two halves, one of
which was movable in the direction of its axis. The
images of two stars whose light he desired to compare were
formed by the intervention of prismatic reflexion, nearly
in the same line of sight, and one of the lenses was then
moved until the light of the two stars near the respective
foci of the semi-lenses seemed equal to the judgment of the
observer's eye. The distance through which it was neces
sary to bring the movable lens furnished the data for com
paring the relative lustre of the two stars in question. A
large amount of work was thus achieved by Seidel, which
for a considerable time has been, with greater or less reason,
regarded as worthy of confidence in regard to precision
(Trans. Mun. Acad., vol. ii.). Dr Zollner substituted the
deflected and reduced image of a lamp for one of Steinheil's
stars, and the intensity of this light, or artificial star, he
could by means of double refraction reduce in any measur
able proportion he pleased according to the well-known
relations of polarized light. In this way he could equalize
the light of the artificial lamp-star with that of the real star
with which he compared it ; and the division of the lens
was thus dispensed with, but a new difficulty was intro
duced in the impossibility of maintaining the constancy of
the flame. Dr Zollner also availed himself of the effects
of double refraction in altering at will the colour of his
artificial star of comparison. This ingenious form of
photometer has enjoyed considerable reputation, but no
astronomer has yet persevered in producing a complete
" uranometria " by its aid. The most recent and probably
the most successful device for a stellar photometer on the
principle of equalizing lights is that invented by Professor
Pickering of Harvard College. He deflects the light of
Polaris, or of some other star such as A Ursas Minoris, by
means of prismatic reflexion, and he contrives to form an
image of it contiguous to the image of any other star
selected on the meridian. The equalization of the lights
is then effected by the intervention of a polarizing appa
ratus, such as that adopted by Zollner. Thus the artificial
and in many respects objectionable lamp-star of Zollner is
dispensed with. Professor Pickering, with singular invent
ive power, has devised many other forms of stellar photo
meters on virtually the same principle ; for a detailed
account of these labours the reader is referred to the Annals
of the Harvard College Observatory (vol. xi.). Unlike his
eminent predecessors, the American astronomer is persever
ing in the formation of a complete catalogue of star-
magnitudes.
It has been already stated that mere estimations of
relative brightness by the unaided eye are inadequate to
the production of numerical quantitative results. In the
instrumental devices explained, whether by means of the
alteration of distances or by the known alteration of planes
of polarization, no such defect exists. By their means it
is possible to obtain a fairly exact numerical expression for
the ratio of the intensities of the two lights measured.
On applying a photometric measurement it is found that
the ratio of the intensities of the lights in passing from one
magnitude to the next, even in the conventional magni
tudes of Argelander and Gould, is not by any means con
stant, and even hardly definite. At the suggestion of Mr
Pogson it is now generally accepted by astronomers that
the adopted and conventional ratio of the intensity of light
in passing from one magnitude to another shall be 2 "5 12,
a convenient number because its logarithm is '4, which is
easily remembered, and still more so because on the whole
it agrees better than any other number with the varying
light-ratio existing among the hitherto received orders of
magnitude obtained by eye-estimation alone.
There remains still another principle on which a stellar
photometer may be successfully formed, and which has
been recently largely applied to the determination of star-
magnitudes at the university observatory, Oxford. It is
constructed on the principle that the absorption of light in
passing through a uniform medium depends, c&teris paribus,
upon the thickness. On this principle a thin wedge
is constructed of homogeneous and nearly neutral-tinted
glass, through which the images of stars formed in the
focus of a telescope are viewed. Simple means are con
trived for measuring with great exactness the several
thicknesses at which the light of these telescopic star-
images is extinguished. In this way the light of any
star can be readily compared with that of Polaris (or any
other selected star) at the moment of observation, and thus
a catalogue of star -magnitudes can be formed. This
method has been already applied by Professor Pritchard
to all the brighter stars north of the equator ; the results
are published in the forty-seventh volume of the Memoirs
of the Royal Astronomical Society, and are to be speedily
followed by a complete catalogue, extending to all the
stars in Argelander's Uranometria Nova north of the
equator, and to a few others beyond. For the details of
the processes adopted the reader must here, as in all
other cases, consult the original researches.
Even in a rapid sketch of so extensive a subject some
notice must be taken of the application of photometry to
the determination of the relative amount of light received
on the earth from the sun, the moon, and the planets.
The methods by which these ratios have been obtained
are as simple as they are ingenious ; and for them we are
mainly indebted to the labours of Bouguer and Bond.
The former philosopher compared the light received from
the sun with that from the moon in the following fashion
in 1725. A hole one-twelfth of a Paris inch was made in
the shutter of a darkened room ; close to it was placed a
concave lens, and in this way an image of the sun 9 inches
in diameter was received on a screen. Bouguer found
that this light was equal to that of a candle viewed at
16 nches from his eye. A similar experiment was repeated
with the light of the full moon. The image now formed
was only two-thirds of an inch in diameter, and he found
that the light of this image was comparable with that of
the same candle viewed at a distance of 50 feet. From
XVIII. — 1 06
842
O — P H
R
these data and a very simple calculation it followed that the
light of the sun was about 256,289 times that of the moon.
Other experiments followed, and the average of all the
results was that the light of the sun was about 300,000
times the average light of a full moon, both being viewed
in the heavens at the same altitudes. The details will be
found in Bouguer's Traite d'Optique. Wollaston in 1829
tried a series of experiments in which the ratio 801,072
was obtained ; but the omission of certain necessary pre
cautions vitiates the result (Phil. Tram., 1829). Bond
(Mem. Amer. Acad., 1851, p. 295) adopted a different
process. He formed the image of the sun on a silvered
globe of some 10 inches diameter; the light of this image
was reflected on to a small mercurial thermometer bulb ;
and then this second image was compared with a Bengal
light so moved that the lights appeared to be equal. The
same process was adopted with the full moon instead of with
the sun. The result was that the sun's light was 470,980
times that of the moon. Seidel long before this date had
compared the light of the mean full moon with that of
Jupiter in mean opposition ; his result is 6430. So also
this light of Jupiter was found to be "4864 times that of
Venus at her brightest ; and Jupiter was found to give
8 '2 times the light of a Lyroe. If, then, these numbers
could be accepted with confidence, we should have the
means of comparing the light received from the sun with
that received from any of the stars. Adopting these pre
carious numbers on the authorities of Bond and Seidel we
have the following results-
Sun's light = 470,980 that of the full moon.
,, = 622,600,000 ,, Venus at her brightest.
,, = 302,835,000 ,, Jupiter at mean opposition.
,, =5,970,500,000 ,, Sinus.
Lastly, Bouguer, by comparing the light of the full moon
viewed at different altitudes with an artificial light, found
that the atmosphere absorbs '1877 of the light incident on
it at the zenith of any place. Professor Pritchard, from
photometric, measures taken at Cairo, found this number
to be -157. At Oxford it was "209. Thus Bouguer's
determination indicates an absorptive capacity in the
atmosphere of Brittany just midway between those of
Oxford and Cairo. Seidel at Munich expresses "sur
prise " at finding his own results so nearly accordant with
Bouguer's. These numbers, therefore, may be regarded
as close approximations to fact.1 (c. p.)
PHOTOPHONE. See TELEPHONE.
PHRENOLOGY. This name was given by Forster in
1815 to the empirical system of psychology formulated by
Gall and developed by his followers, especially by Spurz-
heim and Combe. At first it was named " cranioscopy,"
"craniology," "physiognomy," or "zoonomy," but Forster 's
name was early adopted by Spurzheim, and became that
whereby the system is now known. The principles upon
which it is based are four : (1) the brain is the organ of
the mind ; (2) the mental powers of man can be analysed
into a definite number of independent faculties ; (3) these
faculties are innate, and each has its seat in a definite
region of the brain ; (4) the size of each of these regions
is the measure of the power of manifesting the faculty
associated with it. While phrenology is thus, on the one
hand, a system of mental philosophy, it has a second and
more popular aspect as a method whereby the disposition
and character of the individual may be ascertained. These
two sides of the subject are distinct from each other, for,
- Since this article was put in type, Professor Pickering at Harvard
College has published his concluded results. Professor Pritchard at
Oxford has also completed his photometric measures of some 2000 of
the same stars. Taken as a whole, and as comprising the first com
plete and systematic efforts in a new and difficult line of research, the
agreements of the two catalogues may fairly be regarded as very satis
factory, not to say surprising.
while it can only serve as a reliable guide for reading
character on the assumption of its truth as a philosophic
system, yet the possibility of its practical application does
not necessarily follow from the establishment of the truth
of its theoretic side.
History.— That the phenomena of mind are in some
measure connected with the action of the brain has been
recognized from a very early age of philosophy. It is true
that Aristotle 2 describes the brain as the coldest and most
bloodless of bodily organs, of the nature of water and
earth, whose chief purpose is to temper the excessive heat of
the heart, as the cooler regions of the firmament condense
the vapours rising from the earth. In his view, as in that
of most of the earlier writers of other nations of antiquity,
the heart is the seat of life ; to it, not to the brain, the
Hebrew writers refer thoughts and affections, while they
considered judgment as seated sometimes in the head,
sometimes in the kidneys.8 This was, likewise, the teach
ing of the ancient Egyptian philosophy ; and hence, while
many rites were practised and many prayers offered for
the preservation of the heart of the deceased, the brains
were passed over with very little precaution for their pre
servation.4 The influence of the Aristotelian teaching is
traceable in that of some of the earlier classic writings on
philosophy, as is that of the Hebrews in our own collo
quial language ; but we learn from Diogenes Laertius 5
that much more accurate physiological views were held
by Pythagoras, who believed the mind and the intellect to
have their seat in the brain. The theory of Hippocrates
was Pythagorean rather than Aristotelian, for, although in
one passage in his work De Corde he expresses himself
rather doubtfully, yet elsewhere he clearly states that he
considers the brain to be the index and messenger of the
intellect.6 The cerebral seat of sense -perception is also
taught by Plato,7 who puts into the mouth of Socrates the
theory that the brain is the organ affected by the senses,
whereby memory and opinion arise, and from whence know
ledge springs. The classic poets also notice this depend
ence of mind on brain; for example, in the Clouds (v. 1276)
Strepsiades accuses Amynias of not being in his right
mind, and, on being asked why, responds, " You seem to
me as if you had had a concussion of the brain."
The two founders of anatomical science, Erasistratus
and Herophilus, who lived in the days of Ptolemy Soter,
taught not only that the brain was the seat of sensation
and of intellect, but also that there was therein a certain
degree of localization of function. Erasistratus believed
that the sensory nerves arose from the brain-membranes,
the motor from the cerebral substance. Herophilus was
apparently the first who held that the vital forces resided
in and circulated from the ventricles of the brain, at least
so we gather from Celsus and the other authors who have
preserved his views. By the influence of the writings of
Galen,8 which directly teach that the brain is the seat of
2 De partihus animalium, ii. c. 7 (Paris, 1629, p. 986).
3 In the Chaldee portion of Daniel (ii. 28, iv. 5, vii. 1) visions and
thoughts are referred to the head. For other particulars as to early
views see Nasse on the psychical relations of the heart in Xe.itsrlir. f.
psychische Aerzte, i., 1818. A few of the later medical writers express
similar views ; see Santa Cruz, Opuscula medica, Madrid, 1624.
4 nook of the Dead, ch. xxvi. -xxx.
8 viii. 30, ed. Cobet, Paris, 1850, p. 211, — "3>ptvas 5e Kal vovv, TO.
tv T<$ fyK^(f>a\tf}."
6 "Demorbo sacro,"in Opp., ed. Kiihn, i. 612 .iq. ; also Epist., iii.
824. Among later writers Licetus of Genoa taught the coextension of
soul and body, upon which subject he wrote two books (Padua, 1616).
In this connexion may be noted a curious work by Schegkius, Dia-
logus de animae principatu, Aristotelis et Galeni rationes prseferens
quibus ille cordi, hie cerebro, principatum attribuit, Tubingen, 1542.
7 Pheedo, ch. xlv., Valpy's ed., 1833, p. 128. See also Haller's
Bibl. anat., i. 30.
8 De usu partium, ed. Kiihn, iii. 700, — "ras ^v o7>v airoSel^eis
TOV rr)v \oyiffTiKrjv
otcev fv
PHRENOLOGY
843
soul and intellect, the Pythagorean doctrine became uni
versally received among philosophers. According to the
Galenical theory of life, the animal spirits arising from
the brain are conveyed thence by the arteries through the
body. These animal spirits have their origin in the ven
tricles of the brain, and pass thence to the heart. It is
true that in one place (viii. 159) he refers their origin to
the cerebral substance, but the ventricular theory was that
adopted by his followers. This view is held by the Greek
physicians,1 some of whom even speculated on the relation
of the intellect to the shape and size of the head. The
Arabians adopted the same hypothesis, so we find Aver-
rhoes 2 correcting Aristotle's notion of cerebral physiology
in favour of Galen's view. Rhazes 3 also extended this
by giving a sketch of a scheme of psychic localization ;
and Avicenna4 added to the regions recognized by pre
vious authors by interpolating one of his own. Such of
the early Christian authors as had occasion to refer in
their writings to the relation of soul to body naturally
adopted the teaching of Galen, and suited it to their
theology, thereby conferring on it an importance which
rendered correction difficult. Thomas Aquinas 5 thus ex
presses his acquiescence in the theory of localization, as
also in a sense does Tertullian.6
Early in the 13th century Albertus Magnus7 gave a
detailed description of the distribution of mental and
psychical faculties in the head. The anterior region he
assigned to judgment, the middle to imagination, and the
posterior to memory. A somewhat similar allocation was
made by Gordon, professor of medicine in Montpellier
(1296),8who assigned common sensation and the reception
of impressions to the anterior cornua of the lateral ven
tricles, phantasia to the posterior, this power being two
fold (imaginativa and cogitativa), judgment or eestimativa
to the third ventricle, and memory to the fourth.9 Figures
of a similar division were given by Petrus Montagnana10 and
Lodovico Dolce,11 still later by Ghiradelli 12 of Bologna and
by Theodore Gall of Antwerp.13 That the " vital spirits "
resided in the ventricles was doubted by many, and refuted
by a few of the anatomists of the 17th century. Bauhin
in 162 114 attacked the old view, and Hoffmann of Altorf
curry Trepiexeffdai Trd/uTroXu. " See also v. 288, viii. 159, xv. 360.
In his Defaiitiones medicae (467, xix. 459) he says that the brain has a
i//t>XiKT7 dvva/jus, but does not specify in what part the power inheres.
1 See Paulus J5gineta, Stephens's ed., 1567, cap. 62, col. 363, also
Actuarius, De actionibus et affectibus spiritus animalis, Paris, 1556,
p. 22, c. 7.
2 Comment, in Arist., Latin tr., Venice, 1550, vi. 73.
3 " Imaginatio quidem in duobus veutriculis anterioribus perficitur.
Cogitatio vero in medio expletur. Memoria antem posteriorem possidet
ventriculam." De re medica, Gerard's tr., Basel, 1554, i. p. 9.
4 Lib. can., 1507, p. 19, and De naturalibus, c. 6.
5 'Summa theologies, ed. Migne, i. pp. 1094, 1106-7. Prochaska
and his translator Laycock (Mind and Brain, ii. 163) charge Duns
Scotus with holding this view, which most probably he did ; he does
not express it, however, but simply specifies the cerebrum and its
root, the spinal cord, as the source of the nerves along which sensory
impulses travel. Comment, de anima, Leyden, 1637, i. 515.
6 De anima, cxiv. , ed. Franeker, 1597, p. 268.
7 Opera, Leyden, 1651, iii. 124, vi. 20.
8 Lilium medicinse, Venice, 1494, 101.
9 Avicenna's fifth region is interposed between imaginativa and
sestimativa (De naturalibus, c. vi.). Thomas Aquinas combines the
last two, which he says are possessed by the same eminence (op. cit.,
i. 1107). On the other hand, he says of ratio particularis, "medici
assignant determinatum organum, scilicet mediam partem capitis " (i.
1106). 10 Physiognomia, Padua, 1491.
11 Dialogo nel quale si ragione del modo di accrecere e conservar la
memoria, Venice, 1562, 27. 12 Physiognomia, 1670.
3 Tabulse element, sciential, Home, 1632.
14 Theatr. anat., Basel, 1621, iii. 314 ; Caspar Hoffmann, De
usu cerebri, Leipsic, 1619. See also Spigelius, De corp. humani
fabrica, Amsterdam, 1645, 296 ; Varolius, 1591, p. 6 ; Wepfer,
Historiarum apoplecticarum potissimum anatomise subjectorum aucta-
rium, Amsterdam, 1681. See also many of the anatomical works of
this age, such as those of Fernel, Cabrol, Argenterius, Rolfinck, &c.
showed that, as the ventricles were closed cavities, they
could not transmit any material fluid. That these spirits
existed at all was doubted by Alexander Benedictus,15
Plater,16 and a few others ; but they were believed in by
the great majority of 17th and even of 18th century
medical writers, many of whom conceived that the ven
tricles were "semper pleni spiritibus animalibus flammulis
similibus, quorum beneficiis intelligimus, sentimus,et move-
mus,"17 and the opponents of this view were strongly
assailed by Riolan and others as revolutionary. The
grey matter of the surface of the cerebrum was first re
cognized as the true dynamic element by Malpighi 18 and
Willis.19 The latter regarded the convoluted surface of
the cerebrum as the seat of the memory and the will, the
convolutions being intended to retain the animal spirits
for the various acts of imagination and memory. Ima
gination he described as seated in the corpus callosum,
sense -perception in the corpus striatum, and impetus et
perturbatio in the basal parts of the cerebrum above the
crura. The thalami he regarded as the centres of sight
and the cerebellum of involuntary acts. Columbus20 ridi
culed the idea that the convoluted surface can have any
thing to do with intellect, as the ass, a proverbially stupid
animal, has a convoluted cerebrum. According to his
view, the convolutions are for the purpose of lightening
the brain and facilitating its movements. Succeeding
anatomists simply varied these localizations according to
their respective fancies. Lancisi placed sense -perception
in the corpus callosum, Vieussens in the centrum ovale
majus. Descartes supposed the soul to be seated in the
pineal gland, Lotze in the pons Varolii.21 Meyer considered
abstract ideas to arise in the cerebellum, and memory to
have its seat at the roots of the nerves.22
Of later writers three deserve special notice as having
largely prepared the way for the more modern school of
phrenology. Unzer of Halle in his work on physiology ex
tended the pre-existing theories of localization. Metzger,23
twenty years before the publication of Prochaska's work,
had proposed to make a series of observations on the
anatomical characters of the brains of persons of marked
intellectual peculiarity ; but it is not known to the present
writer whether he ever carried this into effect. In a more
special manner Prochaska of Vienna may be looked upon
as the father of phrenology, as in his work on the nervous
system, published in Vienna in 1784, are to be found the
germs of the later views which were propounded in that
city twelve years later.24
The system formulated by Gall is thus a modern ex
pansion of an old empirical philosophy, and its immediate
parentage is easily traced, although, according to Gall's
18 Alexander Benedictus, Anatomica, vol. iii., Basel, 1527. Quer-
cetanus is said by Laycock (following Prochaska) to have assailed this
doctrine of spirits, — on what ground is not apparent, as he certainly
expresses himself as a believer in the old view ; see Tetras graviss.
totius capitis affect., Marburg, 1606, x. 89. Possibly Prochaska may
allude to an obscure passage in the work of the other Quercetanus
(Eustachius), Acroamaton in librum Hippocratis, Basel, 1549, p. 14, not
to the better-known Josephus Armeniacus, but he gives no reference.
16 Opera, Basel, 1625, col. 22, 89.
17 Joelis opera medica, Amsterdam, 1663, 22.
18 "Epist. de cerebro et cort. cereb. ad Fracassatum," in Opp.,
Geneva, 1685, vol. ii.
19 De anima brutorum, Oxford, 1677, p. 71, "hse particulae sub-
tilissimae, spiritus animales dictse, partium istarum substantias corti-
cales primo subeuntes, exinde in utriusque meditullia," &c., also p. 76 sq.
-° De re anatomica, Frankfort, 1593, p. 350.
21 Fechner, Psychophysica, ii. 382.
22 Some of the mediaeval views were very fanciful, thus Schabtai
Donolo taught that the spirit of life has its seat in the brain-mem
brane, expanded over the brain and snbarachnoid fluid, as the Shekinah
in the heavens arched over the earth and waters. See Der Mensch
als Gottes Ebenbild, ed. Jellinek, Leipsic, 1854.
23 Vermischte inedicinische Schriften, 1764, i. 58.
24 See Laycock's trans., in Sydenh. Society's Pub., 1851.
844
PHRENOLOGY
account, it arose with him as the result of independent
observations. These, he tells us, he began to make at an
early age, by learning to correlate the outward appearances
and mental qualities of his schoolfellows.1 Gall's first
published paper was a letter in the Deutscher Merkur of
December 1798, but his principal expositions were oral, and
attracted much popular attention, which largely increased
when, in 1802, he was commanded by the Austrian Govern
ment, at the instance of the ecclesiastical authorities, to
discontinue his public lectures. In 1804 he obtained the
co-operation of Spurzheim (1776-1832), a native of Long-
wich near Treves, who became his pupil in 1 800, and proved
a powerful ally in promulgating the system. Master and
pupil at first taught in harmony, but they found it advis
able to separate in 1813; and we find Spurzheim, several
years after their parting, declaring that Gall had not
introduced any new improvements into his system since
their separation (notes to Chenevix, p. 99). " My philo
sophical views," he also says, " widely differ from those of
Gall."
In Paris, where he settled in 1807, Gall made many
influential converts to his system. Broussais, Blainville,
Cloquet, Andral, Geoffroy St-Hilaire, Vimont, and others
warmly attached themselves to it, and countenanced its
progress. Gall visited Great Britain, but the diffusion of
phrenology there was chiefly due to Spurzheim, who lec
tured through the country and through America, and, with
the aid of his pupil George Combe, soon attracted a large
popular following. His most influential disciples were
Elliotson, Andrew Combe, Mackenzie, Macnish, Laycock,
and Archbishop Whately, and in America Caldwell and
Godman. On the opposite side many influential men took
up a strongly antagonistic position, prominent among whom
were Barclay the anatomist, Roget, Sir Charles Bell, Sir
W. Hamilton, Jeffrey, Brougham, T. Brown, and Sir B.
Brodie. The nature of the system rendered it eminently
fitted to catch public attention, arid it rapidly attained
to so great a degree of popularity that in 1832 there were
twenty-nine phrenological societies in Great Britain, and
several journals devoted to phrenology in Britain and
America ; of these the Phrenological Journal, a quarterly
edited chiefly by George Combe with aid from others of
the Edinburgh confraternity, notably Sir George Mackenzie
and Macnish, "the modern Pythagorean," lived from 1823
to 1847, through twenty volumes. The controversy in
many places was heated and often personal, and this largely
increased the popular interest. In the Edinburgh Review
the theory was severely criticized by Thomas Brown, and
afterwards in a still more trenchant manner by Jeffrey. In
Blackwood it was ridiculed by Professor Wilson. Being a
subject which lent itself easily to burlesque, it was parodied
cleverly in a long rhyme by two authors, "The Craniad,"
87 pages long, published in 1817, while, on the other hand,
verse was pressed into its service in the rhyme " Phrenology
in Edinburgh " in 1824.2 The best defence of the system
was that by Chenevix in the third number of the Foreign
Quarterly, afterwards reprinted with notes by Spurzheim.
The popularity of phrenology has waned, and few of
the phrenological societies now survive ; the cultivation of
the system is confined to a few enthusiasts such as will
be found attached to any cause, and some professional
teachers who follow phrenology as a vocation. Like
many similar systems, it has a much larger following in
America than in Europe. Based, like many other artificial
philosophies, on an admixture of assumption and truth,
1 For a brief sketch of the life of Gall, see GALL, vol. x. p. 37.
2 Other burlesque and satirical writings were published at this time,
notably Thf, Phrennlogiste, a farce by Wade, 1830 ; The Headpiece, or
Phrenology oppnsed to Divine Revelation, by James the Less ; and A
Helmst for the. Headpiece, or Phrenology incompatible vrith Reason, by
Daniel the Seer.
certain parts will survive and become incorporated into
scientific psychology, while the rest will in due course
come to be relegated to the limbo of effete heresies.
The Faculties and their Localities. — The system of Gall
was constructed by a method of pure empiricism, and his
so-called organs were for the most part identified on slender
grounds. Having selected the place of a faculty, he ex
amined the heads of his friends and casts of persons with
that peculiarity in common, and in them he sought for the
distinctive feature of their characteristic trait. Some of his
earlier studies were made among low associates, in jails,
and in lunatic asylums, and some of the qualities located
by him were such as tend to become perverted to crime.
These he named after their excessive manifestations, map
ping out organs of murder, theft, &c. ; but as this cast some
discredit on the system the names were changed by Spurz
heim, who claimed as his the moral and religious consider
ations associated with it. Gall marked out on his model
of the head the places of twenty-six organs as round en
closures with vacant interspaces. Spurzheim and Combe
divided the whole scalp into oblong and conterminous
patches (see the accompanying figures). Other methods of
division and other names have been suggested by succeed
ing authors, especially by Cox, Sidney Smith (not Sydney),
Toulmin Smith, Carus of Dresden, Don Mariano Cubi i
Solar, Powell of Kentucky, Buchanan of Cincinnati, Hittel
of New York. Some, like the brothers Fowler, raise the
number of organs to forty-three ; but the system of Spurz
heim and Combe is that which has always been most
popular in Britain.
Spurzheim separated the component faculties of the
human mind into two great groups and subdivided these
as follows.
I. Feelings, divided into—
1. Propensities, internal impulses inviting only to certain
actions.
2. Sentiments, impulses which prompt to emotion as well
as to action.
A. Lower, — those common to man and the lower animals.
B. Higher, — those proper to man.
II. Intellectual faculties.
1. Perceptive faculties.
2. Reflective faculties.
In the following list the locality and the circumstances
of the first recognition of the organ are appended to the
names, which are mostly the inventions of Spurzheim.
Gall's names are placed in brackets.3
Propensities.
(1) Amativeness (Instinct de la generation), median, below the
inion ; first determined by Gall from its heat in an hysterical widow,
supposed to be confirmed by many observations, and referred to
the cerebellum.4
(2) Philoprogenitiveness (Amour de la progeniturc), median, on
the squama occipitis, and selected as the organ for the love of
children because this part of the skull is usually more prominent
in apes and in women, in whom the love of children is supposed
to be stronger than in men.
(3) Concentrativeness, below the obelion and over the lambda.
This is a region of uncertain function, unnoticed by Gall, but de
scribed as Inhabitiveness by Spurzheim, because he found it large
in cats and in a clergyman fond of his home. It has since been con
sidered by Combe to be the seat of the power of concentration,
whereof he believed Inhabitiveness to be a special case.
(4) Adhesiveness (Amitie), over the lateral convoluted area of the
lambdoidal suture. This region was prominent in a lady intro
duced to Gall as a model of friendship, and is said by him to be
the region where persons who are closely attached put their heads
together.
(5) Combativeness (Instinct de la defense], above the asterion ; it
was found by Gall by examining the heads of the most quarrelsome
3 For topographical purposes Broca's names are adopted as the most
convenient for localities on the head.
4 Apollonius Rhodius speaking of the love of Medea for Jason
(Aryonautica, iii. 760-765) says, " 8di<pv d' aw 6<f>9a\/j.wv p^fv ' ZvSoOi
8' aid relp' bovvjj ff/jLiixovva Sia XP°°^> a/j.<pl dpaias Ivos Kal K{(f>a\rjs,
inrb veiarov ivlov &xpis, ..."
PHRENOLOGY
845
of his low companions whom he had beforehand stimulated by
alcohol. It was verified by comparing this region with the same
part of the head of a quarrelsome young lady.
(6) Destructiveness (Instinct carnassier), above the ear meatus.
This is the widest part of the skulls of carnivorous animals, and
was found large in the head of a student so fond of torturing
animals that he became a surgeon, also large in the head of an
apothecary who became an executioner.
(6«.) Alimentiveness, over the temporal muscle and above the
ear. Hoppe describes it as being large in a gourmand acquaintance,
and he therefore supposes it to be the organ of selecting food.
(7) Secretiveness (Ruse, Finesse), the posterior part of the squam-
ous suture.
(8) Acquisitiveness (Sentiment de la propriete), on the upper edge
of the front half of the squamous suture. This part of the head Gall
noticed to be prominent in the pickpockets of his acquaintance.
(9) Constructiveness (Sens de mechanique), on the stephanion ;
detected by its prominence on the heads of persons of mechanical
genius. It was found large on the head of a milliner of uncommon
taste and on a skull reputed to be that of Raphael.
The organ of Vitativeness, or love of life, is supposed by Combe
to be seated at the base of the skull. To this locality Herophilus
referred most of the intellectual powers.
Lower Sentiments.
(10) Self-esteem (Orgucil, Fierte), at and immediately over the
obelion ; found by Gall in a beggar who excused his poverty on
account of his pride. This was confirmed by the observation that
proud persons held their heads backwards in the line of the
organ.
(11) Love of Approbation (Vanite), outside the obelion; the
region in which Gall saw a protuberance on the head of a lunatic
who fancied herself queen of France.
(12) Cautiousness (Circonspectiori), on the parietal eminence ;
placed here because an ecclesiastic of hesitating disposition and a
vacillating councillor of state had both large parietal eminences.
Superior Sentiments.
(13) Benevolence (Bonte), on the middle of the frontal bone in
front of the coronal suture ; here Gall noticed a rising on the head
of the highly-commended servant of a friend, as well as on a bene
volent schoolmate who nursed his brothers and sisters when they
were ill. To this spot Xenocrates referred the intellectual
powers.
(14) Veneration (Sentiment religicux), median at the bregma.
Call noted when visiting churches that those who prayed with the
greatest fervour were prominent in this region, and it was also pro
minent in a pious brother.
(15) Conscientiousness, unknown to Gall ; recognized by Spurz-
heim usually from its deficiency, and placed between the last arid
the parietal eminence.
(16) Firmness (Fermete), median, on the sagittal suture from
behind the bregma to the front of the obelion. Lavater first
pointed out that persons of determination, had lofty heads.
(17) Hope, not regarded as primary by Gall, who believed hope
to be akin to desire and a function of every faculty which desires,
and left this territory unallocated.
(18) Wonder, said to be large in vision-seers and many psychic
researchers. A second similar organ placed between this and the
next is called Mysterizingness by Forster, and is said to preside over
belief in ghosts and the supernatural.
(19) ideality (Poesie), noted by Gall from its prominence in the
busts of poets ; said to be the part touched by the hand when com
posing poetry.
(20) Wit (Esprit caustique), the frontal eminence, the organ of
the sense of the ludicrous, prominent in Rabelais and Swift.
(21) Imitation (Faculte d'imiter), disposition to mimicry, placed
between Benevolence and Wonder.
Perceptive Faculties.
(22) Individuality, over the frontal sinus in the middle line ;
the capacity of recognizing external objects and forming ideas
therefrom ; said to have been large in Michelangelo, and small in
the Scots.
(23) Form (Memoire des personncs], capacity of recognizing faces ;
gives a wide interval between the eyes ; found by Gall in a squinting
girl with a good memory for faces.
(24) Size, over the trochlea at the orbital edge ; described by
Spurzheim and Vimont as the capacity of estimating space and
distance.
(25) Weight, outside the last on the orbital edge and, like it,
over the frontal sinus. The prominence of ridge here is due to
large sinus or a projecting bone. Certain old writers, such as Strato
Physicus, located the whole intellect in this ridge.
(26) Colour, also on the orbital edge external to the last.
(27) Locality (Sens de localite), placed above Individuality on
each side, and corresponding to the upper part of the frontal
sinus and to the region immediately above it.
(28) Number, on the external angular process of the frontal bone,
large in a calculating boy in Vienna.
(29) Order, internal to the last, first noted by Spurzheim in an
orderly idiot.
(30) Eventuality (Memoire des cJioscs), the median projection above
the glabella, supposed to be the seat of the memory of events.
(31) Time, below the frontal eminence and a little in front of
the temporal crest.
(32) Tune (Sens des rapports des tons], on the foremost part of the
temporal muscle, where Gall noticed a bulge on the head of a musical
prodigy of five.
(33) Language (Sens des mots], behind the eye. This was the
first organ noticed by Gall, as a clever schoolfellow, quick at lan
guages, had prominent eyes. Old authors have noted the con
nexion between prominent eyeballs and mental development ; thus
Gazzali and Syenensis Medicus Cyprius place the intellect and soul
in and behind the eyeballs.
Reflective Faculties.
(34) Comparison (Sagacite comparative], median, at the top of the
bare region of the forehead, where a savant friend of Gall's, fond of
analogies, had a prominent boss.
(35) Causality (Esprit metaphysique), the eminence on each side
of Comparison, noticed on the head of Fichte and on a bust of Kant ;
the seat of the faculty of correlating causes and effects.
The first identification of each organ was made by an induction
from very limited data, but the founders and exponents of the
system have collected all available instances wherein enlargements of
each of these regions coexisted with increased powers of the faculty
supposed to reside therein, and in some cases they have discovered
coincidences of a surprising nature. When, however, such do not
exist, a convenient excuse is found by reference to the indefinite
article of temperament, or by a supposed explanation of the faculty
in question as not simple but produced by the co-operation of other
influences. Thus, as Sheridan's bump of wit was small, he is said
not to have been truly witty, but to have had comparison and
memory strongly developed. The girl Labrosse (described in
Ferussac's Bulletin for October 1831), who exhibited strong amative-
ness but had a rudimentary cerebellum, is said to have obliterated
it by over-use. Thurtell, a cold-blooded murderer whose organ of
benevolence was large, is said to have been generous, as he once gave
half a guinea to a friend, &c.
The method whereby the sizes of organs are estimated is arbitrary
and the boundaries of the regions indefinite. The attempts of
Nicol, Straton, and AVight to devise mechanical and accurate modes
of measurement have not been very successful and have not found
favour with the professional phrenologist.
846
PHRENOLOGY
Anatomical Aspect of Phrenology. — The phrenological
controversy served the useful purpose of stimulating
research into the anatomy of the brain ; but we owe very
little of solid progress to the advocates of the system.
Gall is the only writer of his creed in whose works original
observations of value are to be found. Although the study
of the surface of the cerebrum is of the essence of phreno
logy, yet nowhere in the circle of phrenological literature
are the convolutions of the brain accurately described ;
our knowledge of their order and disposition comes from
the morphologist, not from the phrenologist. The first
real step towards their systematic description was made
by Rolando,1 who in 1830 described the fissure to which
his name is attached, and very little advance was made
until the publication in 1856 of Gratiolet's 2 and Huschke's3
memoirs. These works for the first time placed the de
scription of the surface of the brain, imperfectly attempted
by Desmoulins in 1825,4 on a satisfactory basis. Most
of the anatomical details contained in the works on phreno
logy relate to controversial matters of secondary importance,
and presuppose the truth of the theory ; but even in con
nexion with these they give us no statistical details of
any value. It would be important, for instance, to have
tabulated a sufficiently large number of measurements of
the relative thicknesses of scalp and skull in different
regions, of the variations in development of the diploe,
of the varying range of the frontal sinus ; but of these we
find no sufficient nor definite researches in the whole circle
of books cited below.
As under ANATOMY (vol. i. p. 874) a careful descrip
tion of the brain has been given, we need only allude to
such anatomical points involved in the examination of
phrenology as are not included in that account.
1. An}r psychological theory which correlates brain-action and
mental phenomena requires a correspondence between brain-size
and mental power ; and, speaking generally, we find that the
brains of those whose capacities are above the average are larger
than those of the general run of their fellow-men. The details
of brain-weights will be found at pp. 879, 880 of the article
cited.
2. Direct measurements of the relative developments of different
portions of brains are difficult and troublesome to make ; but their
importance to phrenologists is so great that it is remarkable that no
attempts to obtain any such were made by them. The series given
by Wagner of the relative sizes of the cerebral lobes of four brains
is almost the only record of importance in this direction, and is
appended.
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From this it appears that the woman exceeded Gauss in percep
tive and reflective organs, exceeded Fuchs in sentiment, and fell
below the workman in propensities. It must be said, however,
that the phrenological divisions do not accurately coincide with the
anatomical. Other series constructed along these lines are very
1 Delia Struttura degli Emisferi Cerebrali, Turin, 1830.
Memnire sur les pits cerebraux de I'homme et des miniates
Paris, 1856.
3 SchadeT, Him, und Sede, Jena, 1856.
* Magendie and Desmoulins, Anat. du syst. nerveitx, Paris, 1825.
much wanted, and it would furnish important physiological data
if the brains of men distinguished for special qualities were examined
in this or some comparable way.
3. It is important in relation to phrenology to ascertain the
constancy of the convolutions. Many varieties in the detail of
the surface-patterns have been recorded by Tenchini, Poggi, Gia-
comini, Riidinger, and Sernow,5 but the general plan is fairly uni
form. A still more important question has been recently raised
by Langley, viz., how far identical spots on identical convolutions
in different brains consist of nerve-cells with precisely the same
connexions. The convoluted arrangement results from growth of
brain - surface under constraint, hence as the different tracts of
surface undergo proportional overgrowth they fold along different
lines. The occurrence of small differences in the rate of overgrowth,
testified to by the varieties of the resulting pattern, will cause con
siderable alteration in the place of definite territories of grey cells.
Some method for the determination of the limits of these shiftings
of place is much required.
4. The comparison of the rate of growth of brain with the
development of mental faculties is important not only to the
phrenologist but to the psychologist. No observations on this
f oint were made by phrenological writers, and they simply refer
to the first and rather crude observations of the earlier anatomists.
We have, however, recently learned from the researches of Bischoff,
Tuczec, and Exner 6 many particulars as to the rate and progress
of brain-growth. At birth the brain weighs one-tenth of the weight
of the body, and averages about 11 ounces. For the first year
brain-growth and consequently expansion of the skull proceed with
great rapidity, the growth during a large part of this period averag
ing one cubic centimetre daily. This enormous increase is chiefly
due to the rapid development of medullated nerve-fibres, which
are deficient in the fetal brain. During the second and third
years growth takes place more slowly, the occipital and parietal
lobes increasing more than the frontal or temporo-sphenoidal.
During these and the four succeeding years the base elongates
commensurately with the increasing depth of the face. In the
sixth and seventh years the frontal lobes grow faster than the
parietals, and at seven the average brain has attained the weight
of 1340 grammes, being to the weight of the body as 1 : 20. In
the period between seven years and puberty growth is slight, but
at puberty the whole brain grows actively, especially the frontal
lobes. This activity lasts until about eighteen years of age, then
diminishes ; but the average brain does not reach its maximum size
until about thirty, from a little after which period the brain tends
to diminish towards senility.7 These measurements illustrate the
relation between brain-growth and mental development, but are as
easily explicable on any psychological theory of brain-action as on
the phrenological. The relation supposed by Davaine to subsist
between development of the brain and stature is not borne out by
statistics.8
5. The estimation of the relative development of grey and white
matter in the several lobes is important to any theory of cerebral
dynamics which allocates functions specifically diverse to each
separate part of the brain-surface ; but no attempt has been made by
the phrenologist to obtain precise results in this direction, nor even
to determine the physical constants of the two forms of brain-matter.
The recently - introduced method of Bourgoin and Danilewski,
based upon the differing specific gravities of grey and white matter,
promises to give definite information as to the relative amounts of
these forms of brain-matter ; but further experiments are needed
to perfect the method.9
6. The relations, if any, between the alterations which take place
in the shape and position of the head and alterations in brain-surface
have been speculated on by the phrenologist. Broussais is reported
to have said that his organ of causality had enlarged with increasing
use, and a list of cases of similar alterations of head-shape is given
by Deville (Fhren. Jour., xiv. 32), most of which are simply age-
changes, of the kind described by Professor Cleland (Phil. Trans.,
1870). There are no exact measurements recorded which indicate
the occurrence of topical increases of a normal brain in special
directions coincident with the cultivation of definite faculties. All
the so-called cases are given vaguely, with no measurements, and
the careful measurements of George Combe in such cases as were
available to him showed no appreciable alterations in adult heads
even at long intervals of time (see also Andrew Combe, Phren.
Journ. x. 414).
5 Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria, ii. 193 (1883) ; ibid. iv. 403 ;
Archiv fiir Anthropoloyie, 1879, xi. 289.
6 Neurologisches Centralblatt, 1883, p. 457.
7 Weisbach, Med. Jahrbuch der k. Oesellsch. der Aerzte, Vienna,
1869, xvii. 133 ; Merkel, Beitr. z. post-e'/nbryonale Entwickeluny des
mcnsrhl. Schadel, Bonn, 1882 ; Calori, Mem. de I'Accad. di Bologna,
1871, x. 35.
8 Lebon, Revue d' Anthropologie, 1879, 15 ; Marshall, Proc. Roy.
Soc., 1875, 564 ; Engel, Wiener ined. Wochenschrlft, 1863.
9 Centralblatt, 1880, No. 14 ; Beitrarjezur Bioloyie, Stuttgart, 1882.
PHRENOLOGY
847
7. The phrenological want of knowledge of the topography of
the brain-surface was necessarily correlated with ignorance of the
exact relations of the convolutions to the interior of the cranial
bones ; these have been carefully worked out by Huschke, Heffler,
Turner, and Reid. Some latitude, however, must be allowed in
topography, as the exact relation of convolution to skull varies
with the shape of the skull. Giacomini showed that the fissure of
Rolando is perceptibly farther back from the coronal suture in
dolichocephalic than in brachycephalic skulls, and it is still farther
back in the extreme boat-shaped form of long-headedness. Passet
shows that there is a slight topographical difference in the two
sexes (Arch. f. Anthrop., 1882, xiv. 89), and in the heads of those
with uiisymmetrically-shaped skulls there is often a want of lateral
symmetry of convolution. Artificial deformations likewise alter
the topographical relations of convolutions, and have served not a
little to puzzle the phrenologist. Thus, the artificial dolichocephaly
of the Caribs having bulged the squama occipitis, they decided that
these people must be amiable lovers of children,1 &c.
8. The existence of structural differences between different areas
of cerebral surface is important to any theory of cerebral localiza
tion, but no phrenologist has given us any original information on
this point. Since the investigation of Baillarger,2 it has been
shown that some local differentiations of structure do really exist.
Thus in the convolutions around the fissure of Rolando the gan
glion-cells of the fourth layer are of large size (giant-cells of Betz),
and in the convolutions of the temporo-sphenoidal lobe a layer of
small angular cells (granule-cells) is interposed between the larger
pyramidal and the ganglion-cells, so that, while in the parts of the
brain above the fissure of Sylvius the grey cortex is for the most
part five-layered, below and behind that fissure it is six-layered.
There is no abrupt passage from the one to the other, the only sudden
transition of structure of the grey cortex being at the hippocampal
sulcus ; and giant-cells, although of smaller size, and less like those
of the anterior cornu of the spinal cord, are scattered over other
parts of the cerebral grey matter.3 In fig. 71, vol. i. p. 874, the
relations of the convolutions to the internal surface of the skull are
represented, and their want of accurate correlation to the phreno
logical areas can be seen by comparing that figure with the fore
going series.
The teachings of anatomy with regard to phrenology
may be summarized thus : (1) the rate of growth of brain is
concurrent with the rate of development of mental faculty ;
(2) there is some degree of structural differentiation as there
are varying rates of development of different parts of the
cerebral surface ; (3) there is no accordance between the
regions of Gall and Spurzheim and definite areas of cerebral
surface.
Physiological Aspect. — The theory of some of the older
metaphysicians, that the mind, in feeling and reflexion,
makes use of no material instrument is not now accepted
by psychologists. It was advanced by Brougham and
Jeffrey as against the theory of phrenology ; but the
doctrine that the brain is the organ of the mind is now
universally received. While it is probable that certain
molecular changes in the grey matter are antecedents or
concomitants of mental phenomena, the precise nature of
these processes, to what extent they take place, or how
they vary among themselves have not as yet been deter
mined experimentally ; the occurrence of the change can
only be demonstrated by some such coarse method as the
altered pulsation of the carotid arteries,4 the increase of
the temperature of the head,5 the abstraction, during brain-
action, of blood from other organs as shown by the plethys-
mograph, or the formation of lecithin and other products
of metabolism in brain -substance. As yet not a single
step has been made towards the understanding of the con
nexion between the molecular changes in the nerve-cell
and the phenomena of thought and feeling. While our
1 Martius tells us that the Cavibs castrate their own children, fatten
and eat them, an abuse of the organ of philoprogenitiveness ; see also
Garcilaso de la Vega, Hist, des Incas, i. 12.
2 Mem. de I'Acad. de Medecine, 1840, viii. 149.
3 For further particulars of structure, in addition to the authors
quoted at vol. i. p. 878, see Bevan-Lewis and Clark, P. R. S., 1878, and
Phil. Trans., 1880 and 1882.
4 See Eugene Gley, "Sur les Conditions Physiologiques de la Pensee,"
in Archives de Physiologic, 1881, 742.
5 Lombard, N. Y. Med. Journal, June, 1867, and Experimental
Researches on the Regional Temperature of the Head, London, 1872.
knowledge of the anatomy of the brain, especially of the
grey nuclei and of the white bands uniting them, has
within the last few years become much more accurate,
brain-function has not as yet been so definitely determined ;
indeed, much of nerve-physiology, especially that part which
relates to the division of labour in the nerve-centres, is
largely hypothetical and based on anatomical structure.
Certain masses of grey nerve-matter situated in the spinal
cord and medulla oblongata are so linked by nerve-cords
to organs outside the nervous system which are set apart
for the discharge of separate functions that they obviously
form parts of the mechanism for the fulfilment of such
functions. In the cases where these can be subjected to
experiment we learn that they are nervous centres presid
ing over the discharge of such functions ; and it has been
determined by experiment, or else deduced from anatomical
structure, that in those lower parts of the nervous centres
which are more directly connected with the segmental
elements of the body there is a certain localization of
function ; hence the centres of pelvic actions, of respira
tion, cardiac action, and inhibition of vaso-motor influence,
deglutition, secretions, &c., can be mapped out in ascend
ing series. As certain of these centres are united by bands
of fibres to the larger and higher-lying grey portions of
the nervous centres there is an a priori presumption in
favour of the extension of this principle of localization.
This has been premised on metaphysical as well as on
anatomical grounds. Bonnet believed each portion of the
brain to have a specifically separate function, and Herbert
Spencer has said that " no physiologist can long resist the
conviction that different parts of the cerebrum subserve
different kinds of mental action. Localization of function
is the law of all organization whatever ; separateness of
duty is universally accompanied with separateness of struc
ture, and it would be marvellous were an exception to exist
in the cerebral hemispheres. Let it be granted that the
cerebral hemispheres are the seats of the higher psychical
activities; let it be granted that among these higher
psychical activities there are distinctions of kind which,
though not definite, are yet practically recognizable, and
it cannot be denied, without going in direct opposition to
established physiological principles, that these more or less
distinct kinds of psychical activity must be carried on in
more or less distinct parts of the cerebral hemisphere."
For the results of experiment on the brain, see PHYSIO
LOGY, section " Nervous System."
There is a large weight of evidence, which cannot be
explained away, in favour of the existence of some form
of localization of function. So little is known of the
physical changes which underlie psychical phenomena, or
indeed of the succession of the psychical processes them
selves, that we cannot as yet judge as to the nature of the
mechanism of these centres. So much of the psychic work
of the individual life consists in the interpretation of sen
sations and the translation of these into motions that there
are strong a priori grounds for expecting to find much of
the material of the nerve-centres occupied with this kind
of work, but in the present conflict of experimental evi
dence it is safer to suspend judgment. That these local
areas are not centres in the sense of being indispensable
parts of their respective motor apparatuses is clear, as the
function abolished by ablation of a part returns, though
tardily, so that whatever superintendence the removed
region exercised apparently becomes assumed by another
part of the brain.6 Experimental physiology and pathology,
by suggesting other functions for much of the brain-surface,
are thus directly subversive of much of the phrenology of
Gall and Spurzheim.
6 For cases, see Rochefontaine, Archives de Physiologic, 1883, 28 ;
Bianchi, La Psichiatria, i. 97.
848
PHRENOLOGY
Psychological Aspect. — The fundamental hypothesis
which underlies phrenology as a system of mental science
is that mental phenomena are resolvable into the mani
festations of a group of separate faculties. A faculty is
defined as "a convenient expression for the particular
states into which the mind enters when influenced by par
ticular organs ; it is applied to the feelings as well as to
the intellect, thus the faculty of benevolence means every
mode of benevolence induced by the organ of benevolence "
(Combe). In another work the same author says it is
" used to denote a particular power of feeling, thinking,
perceiving, connected with a particular part of the brain."
The assumption is contained in the definition that the
exercise of a faculty is the physical outcome of the activity
of the organ, and in several of the standard works this is
illustrated by analogies between these and other organs ;
thus the organs of benevolence and of firmness are said
to be as distinct as the liver and pancreas. The mind,
according to another author, consists of the sum of all the
faculties. In this view the unity of consciousness is some
what difficult to explain, and consequently there is assumed
by others a single unifying substratum, and on this the
organs are supposed to act ; thus thoughts are defined as
" relations of the simple substance, mind, to certain por
tions of the encephalon" (Welsh, Phren. Journ., i. 206).
Gall himself believed that there was but a single principle
which saw, felt, tasted, heard, touched, thought, and willed
(Fonctions du Cerveau, i. 243); and the American exponent
of phrenology, Caldwell, says "the mind is as single in
its power as it is in its substance ; it is a quickening and
operating principle, essential to all the mental faculties,
but does not, by any means, possess them itself " (Ele
ments, p. 16). It is not easy to understand the supposed
relation of this hypothetical substratum to the separate
faculties acting on it. It must be both immaterial and
unconnected with the brain, as the whole two thousand
million cells supposed to exist in the cerebral hemispheres
are all parcelled out among the faculties, and none are left
for the unifying nous.
Each organ is considered as engaged, either independ
ently in bringing forth its own product, or collectively with
others in elaborating compound mental states, and according
to their several degrees of development and activity they
are considered capable of perceiving, conceiving, recollect
ing, judging, or imagining each its own subject. This
mechanical conception of the division of labour in the pro
duction of the phenomena of mind has the charm of sim
plicity, but is attended with the difficulty that arises in
discriminating the operations of the different organs one
from the other. Phrenologists are apt to be vague respect
ing the limits of the several faculties, as about the bound
aries of the separate organs. It was pointed out by Jeffrey
that the lines of demarcation between benevolence, ad
hesiveness, and philoprogenitiveness were indeterminate,
although the organs are not very close, and the same
applies to other organs.
It is unfortunate for the clearness of the definition that,
although historically the faculties were the first pheno
mena noted, independent of and previous to their localiza
tion, yet in the definition the faculties are defined in terms
of their localities/
The following arguments are adduced in favour of the
fundamental separateness of the faculties : (1) analogy, —
elsewhere in the animal economy division of labour is the
rule; (2) the variety of mental endowment observed
among children before they are influenced by education,
and the inequalities in the mental endowments of indi
viduals ; (3) the phenomena of insanity, especially of
monomania ; (4) the varying periods at which individual
faculties attain their maximum development ; (5) the
phenomena of dreams, and the awakening of a limited
number of faculties during them ; (6) pain being felt in
an organ when it is overtaxed.1
Such faculties are supposed to be primary — (1) as exist
in some animals and not in others, (2) as vary in their
development in the sexes, (3) as are developed in varying
proportions with regard to other faculties, (4) as may act
separately from other faculties, (5) as are not necessarily
simultaneous with other faculties in action, (6) as are
hereditary, and (7) as may be singly diseased.
According to the development of their powers mankind
may be divided into six classes: (1) those in whom the
highest qualities are largely developed and the animal
qualities feeble; (2) those with the reversed conditions
developed, with large animal and feeble intellectual and
moral faculties ; (3) those in whom good and evil are in
constant war, with active animal and strong intellectual
faculties and sentiments ; (4) those partial geniuses in
whom a few qualities are unusually developed, while the
rest are at or below the mediocre standard ; (5) those men
of moderate endowment in whom some faculties are nearly
or quite deficient ; (6) those with an unvarying standard
of undistinguished mediocrity in all their faculties.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the word " faculty " has
been used in this sense of original power by phrenologists.
It would have been better to employ, as Mr Lewes suggests,
the term "function" for the native activity of an organ,
and to leave " faculty " for the expression of an acquired
activity. " Faculty is properly limited to active power,
and therefore is abusively applied to the mere passive
affections of the mind" (Hamilton, Lectures, i. 177).
Practical Application. — " Die Schiidellehre ist allerdings
nicht so sehr Irrthum in der Idee als Charlatanerie in der
Ausfiihrung," says one of its most acute critics. Even
though no fault could be found with the physiology and
psychology of phrenology, it would not necessarily follow
that the theory could be utilized as a practical method
of reading character ; for, although the inner surface of
the skull is moulded on the brain, and the outer surface
approximates to parallelism thereto, yet the correspondence
is sufficiently variable to render conclusions therefrom un
certain. The spongy layer or diploe which separates the
two compact tables may vary conspicuously in amount in
different parts of the same skull, as in the cases described
by Professor Humphry (Journ. of Anat., vol. viii. p. 137).
The frontal sinus, that opprobrium phrenologicum, is a
reality, not unfrequently of large size, and may wholly
occupy the regions of five organs. The centres of ossifica
tion of the frontal and parietal bones, the muscular crests
of these and of the occipital bones also, differ in their
prominence in different skulls. Premature synostoses of
sutures mould the brain without doing much injury to its
parts. Artificial malformations alter the apparent skull-
shape considerably and affect the relative development of
the brain but little. All these and other cogent reasons
of a like kind, whose force can be estimated by those
accustomed to deal with the component soft parts of the
head, should lead phrenologists to be careful in predicating
relative brain-development from skull-shape. Psychology,
physiology, and experience alike contribute to discredit
1 It is interesting in this connexion to note that in a case published
by Professor Hamilton in Brain (April 1884), where a tumour existed
on the occipital lobe, the pain was persistently referred to the fore
head. Many similar cases are to be noticed among the records of
localized brain-lesions. Bearing on this point also it is worth noting,
once for all, that in nothing is the purely hypothetical nature of phreno
logical description better realized than in the accounts of what these
authors call the "natural language of the faculties," — that poets are
supposed to touch ideality when composing, musicians to press on
tone and time, and painters on form and colour, when in the exercise
of their arts ! Yet we are gravely taught this in the standard works
on the subject.
P H R — P H R
849
the system and to show how worthless the so-called dia
gnoses of character really are. Its application by those
who are its votaries is seldom worse than amusing, but it
is capable of doing positive social harm, as in its proposed
application to the discrimination or selection of servants
and other subordinate officials. It has even been proposed
to use it for the purposes of the guarantee society and for
the selection of parliamentary representatives. The sar
castic suggestion which originated with Christopher North
of moulding children's heads so as to suppress the evil and
foster the good was actually repeated in good faith by a
writer on phrenology, but experience of the effects of mal
formation leads one to be sceptical as to the feasibility of
this mode of producing a social Utopia. The application
of phrenology to the art of painting and sculpture has been
suggested, but a careful examination of some of the best
pictures of the best masters, who were close observers of
nature, shows that no phrenological principles were accepted
by them in their works. An application to ethnology has
also been proposed ; but, although there are in most cases
well-marked racial characters presented by the skull, yet
all attempts at correlating national characteristics there
with have been groundless and worthless. For further
particulars on allied subjects, see PHYSIOGNOMY.
LITERATURE. — Prochaska, Functions of the Nervous System (tr.
by Layccck, in Sydenham Society's series, 1851) ; Gall, Recherches
sur le Systems Nervcux, &c. (Paris, 1809), Anatomic et Physiologie
du Systeme ^Nerveux, &c. (Paris, 1810-19), Traite des Dispositions
innecs de I'Ame et de I' Esprit (Paris, 1811), and Sur les Fonctions
du Ccrveau (6 vols., 1825) ; Beryk, Bemerkungcn u. Zweifel iiber
die Schddellchre des Dr Gall's (Leipsic, Io03) ; Marton, Leicht-
fassliche Darstcllung der Gchirn- u. Schddellchre (Leipsic, 1803) ;
Metzger, Ueber den mcnschlichen Kopf (Konigsberg, 1803); Walther,
Ncuc Untcrsuchungen dcr Gall'schcn Gehirn- und Schadellehrc
(Munich, 1804) ; Kessler, Priifimg des Gall'schen Systems (Jena,
1805) ; Bischoff, Darstcllung des Gallschen Gchirn- und Schadellehrc,
&c. (Berlin, 1805); Ackermann, Die Gallschc Gehirnlehrc widerlegt
(Heidelberg, 1806) ; Himly, Erortcrung dcr Gallschen Lehre (Halle,
1806) ; Forster, "Sketch of the New Anatomy and Physiology of
the Brain," in Pamphleteer (1815, No. ix., reprinted with additions
1817) ; Spurzheim, The Physiognomical System of Gall and Spurz-
Tieim (London, 1815), Phrenology, or the Doctrine of the Mind
(1825), and The Anatomy of the Human Brain (1826) ; Gordon,
Observations on the Structure of the Brain, comprising an estimate
of the claims of Gall and Spurzheim, &c. (1817) ; G. Combe, Essays
on Phrenology (Edinburgh, 1819), Elements of Phrenology (1824),
System of Phrenology (1825), Constitution of Man (1827), Lectures
on Phrenology by Boardman (1839), and Outlines of Phrenology
(1847) ; Dewlmrst, Guide to Human and Comparative Phrenology
(London, 1831) ; Otto, Phrcenologien eller Galls og Spurzheims
Hjcernc- og Organl&re (Copenhagen, 1825) ; Broussais, Cours dc
Phrenologie (Paris, 1836) ; Vimont, Traite de Phrenologie humaine
et comjmree (1836) ; Noel, Grundziige der Phrenologie (Leipsic,
1836), and Die materielle Grundlage des Scelenlcbcns (Leipsic,
1874) ; IVlacnish, Introduction to Phrenology (Glasgow, 1836) ;
Capen, Phrenological Library (Boston, 1836); Ferrarese, Memorie
risguardanti la Dottrina Frenologica (1836-38) ; Watson, Statistics
of Phrenology (1836) ; Azais, Traite de la Phrenologie (Paris, 1839) ;
Sidney Smith, Principles of Phrenology (Edinburgh, 1838) ; Joshua
T. Smith, Synopsis of Phrenology ; Forichon, Le Materialisme et
la Phrenologie combattu (Paris, 1840) ; K. G. Cams, Grundziige
einer neuen und wisscnschaftlich bcgrundcten Kranioskopie (Stutt
gart, 1841); Castle, Die Phrenologie (Stuttgart, 1845); Struve,
Geschichte der Phrenologie (Heidelberg, 1843) ; Idjiez, Cours de
Phrenologie (Paris, 1847) ; Flourens, Examen de la Phrenologie
(Paris, 1842); Scrrurier, Phrenologie Morale (Paris, 1840); Mariano
Cubi i Solar, Lemons de Phrenologie (Paris, 1857) ; Morgan, Phreno
logy ; Donovan, Phrenology ; Struve and Hirschfeld, Zcitschrift
fur Phrenologie (Heidelberg, 1843-45) ; Phrenological Journal (20
vols., 1823-47); Lelut, Quest ce que la Phrenologie? (1836), and
Rcjct dc I'Organologie phrenologique (1843) ; Tupper, Enquiry into
Dr Gall's System (1819) ; Wayte, Antiphrcnology (1829) ; Stone,
Observations on the Phrenological Development of Murderers (Edin
burgh, 1829) ; Epps, Horse. Phrenologies (1829) ; Crock, Com
pendium of Phrenology (1878) ; Aken, Phrenological Bijou (1839) ;
Hall, Phreno- Magnet (1S43). (A. MA.)
See plate PHRYGIA was the name of a large country in Asia
II. vol. Minor, inhabited by a race which the Greeks called <&/Di'yes,
Freemen.1 Roughly speaking, Phrygia comprised the
1 The meaning is given in Hesych., s.v. "Bpryes."
western part of the great central plateau of Anatolia,
extending as far east as the river Halys ; but its bound
aries were vague,2 and varied so much at different periods
that a sketch of its history must precede any account of
the geography. According to unvarying Greek tradition
the Phrygians were most closely akin to certain tribes of
Macedonia and Thrace ; and their near relationship to the
Hellenic stock is proved by all that is known of their
language and art, and is accepted by almost every modern
authority. The country named Phrygia in the better
known period of history lies inland, separated from the
sea by Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Mysia, and Lydia. Yet we
hear of a Phrygian " thalassocracy " at the beginning of the
9th century B.C. The Troad and the district round Mount
Sipylus are frequently called Phrygian, as also is the sea
port Sinope ; and a district on the coast between Sestus
and the river Cius was regularly named Little Phrygia.
Again, Abel 3 has pointed to the wide currency of names
like Mygdones, Doliones, and Phryges or Briges both in
Asia Minor and in Europe, and many other examples
might be added. The inference has been generally drawn
that the Phrygians were a stock widespread in the countries
which lie round the ^Egean Sea. There is, however, no
decisive evidence, and no agreement among modern
scholars, as to whether this stock came from the East
over Armenia, or whether it was European in origin and
crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor.
According to Greek tradition there existed in early time
a Phrygian kingdom in the Sangarius valley, ruled by
kings among whom the names Gordius and Midas were
common. It was known to the ancient Greeks of Ionia
and the Troad as something great and half-divine. When
the goddess appeared to her favourite Anchises she repre
sented herself as daughter of the king of Phrygia ; the
Phrygians were said to be the oldest people, and their
language the original speech of mankind ;4 the Phrygian
kings were familiar associates of the gods, and the heroes
of the land tried their skill against the gods themselves ;
we hear of the well-walled cities of Phrygia and of the
riches of its kings. Tradition is completely corroborated
by archaeological evidence. In the mountainous region
on the upper waters of the Sangarius, between Kutayah
and Afium Kara Hissar, there exist numerous monuments
of great antiquity, showing a style of marked individuality,
and implying a high degree of artistic skill among the
people who produced them. On two of these monuments
are engraved the names of " Midas the King " and of the
goddess "Kybile the Mother." Even the title "king"(ava£)5
appears to have been borrowed by Greek from Phrygian.
It is impossible to fix a date for the beginning of the
Phrygian kingdom. It appears to have arisen on the
ruins of an older civilization, whose existence is revealed
to us only by the few monuments which it has left. These
monuments, which are found in Lydia, Phrygia, Cappa-
docia, and Lycaonia, point to the existence of a homogene
ous civilization over those countries ; they show a singularly
marked style of art, and are frequently inscribed with a
peculiar kind of hieroglyphics, engraved boustrophedon,
which have not as yet been deciphered.6 There can be
2 The difficulty of specifying the limits gave rise to a proverb —
XWP'S ra <f>pvy£>v, Strabo.
3 Art. "Phryges," in Pauli's Real-Encylcl.
4 Herod., -ii. 2 ; Pausan., i. 14, 2 ; Claudian, In Eutrop., ii. 251 ;
Apul., Met., xi. p. 762.
5 Fa.va.KTei on the Midas tomb. It is expressly recorded that
rvpavvos is a Lydian word. BacriAefo resists all attempts to explain
it as a purely Greek formation, and the termination assimilates it to
certain Phrygian words.
6 It is common to name these monuments "Hittite, " but this name
presupposes the truth of an historical hypothesis, namely, the conquest
of Asia Minor by a race whose capital was in Syria, which has not as
yet been supported by any convincing arguments.
XVIII. — 107
850
P H R Y G I A
traced in Asia Minor an ancient road-system, to which
belongs the "royal roa'd" from Sardis to the Persian
capital, Susa (Herod., v. 5f>). The royal road followed
a route so difficult and circuitous that it is quite unintelli
gible as the direct path from any centre in Persia, Assyria,
or Syria to the west of Asia Minor. It can be understood
only by reference to an imperial centre far in the north.
The old trade-route from Cappadocia to Sinope, which
had passed out of use centuries before the time of Strabo
(pp. 540, 546), fixes this centre with precision. It must
be far enough west to explain why trade tended to the
distant Sinope,1 hardly accessible behind lofty and rugged
mountains, and not to Amisus by the short and easy route
which was used in the Grseco-Roman period. This road-
system, then, points distinctly to a centre in northern Cappa
docia near the Halys. Here must have stood the capital
of some great empire connected with its extremities, Sardis
or Ephesus on the west, Sinope on the north, the Cilician
Gates on the south, by roads so well made as to continue
in use for a long time after the centre of power had changed
to Assyria, and the old road-system had become circuitous
and unsuitable.2 The precise spot on which the city stood
is marked by the great ruins of Boghaz Keui, probably
the ancient Pteria, of which the wide circuit, powerful
walls, and wonderful rock-sculptures make the site indis
putably the most remarkable in Asia Minor.
The ancient road from Pteria to Sardis crossed the
upper Sangarius valley, and its course may be traced by
the monuments of this early period.3 Close to its track,
on a lofty plateau which overhangs the Phrygian monu
ment inscribed with the name of "Midas the King," is a
great city, inferior indeed to Pteria in extent, but sur
rounded by rock-sculptures quite as remarkable as those
of the Cappadocian city. The plateau is between 2 and
3 miles in circumference, and presents on all sides a per
pendicular face of rock 50 to 200 feet in height. In part,
at least, this natural defence was crowned by a wall built
of large squared stones.4 This city was evidently the
centre of the old Phrygian kingdom of the Sangarius
valley, but at least one of the monuments in it seems to
belong to the older period of Cappadocian supremacy, and
to prove that the city already existed in that earlier time.5
The Phrygian kingdom and art therefore took the place of
an older civilization. It is as yet impossible to determine
the relation in which the Phrygians stood to the ruling
race of that older period, whether they came in from the
north-west, or whether they were a primitive people taught,
and for a time ruled, by foreigners from Cappadocia, but
at last expelling their teachers. It is probable that the
tradition of battles between the Phrygians and the Amazons
on the banks of the Sangarius preserves the memory of a
struggle between the two races.6
Of the monuments that exist around this city two
classes may be confidently referred to the period of
Phrygian greatness. That which is inscribed with the
name of "Midas the King" is the most remarkable example
of one class, in which a large perpendicular surface of rock
1 Sinope was made a Greek colony in 751 B.C., but it is said to have
existed long before that time.
2 When the Persians- conquered Lydia they retained, at least for a
time, this route, which they found in existence, and the royal messengers
went first across the Halys to Pteria, and then by the road across
Cappadocia to the Cilician Gates.
1 See a paper on " The Early Historical Relations between Phrygia
and Cappadocia," in Journ. Roy. As. 8oc., 1883.
4 The small fortress Pishmish Kalessi is a miniature of the great
city beside it; see Perrot, Explor. Archtol., p. 169 and pi. viii.
A large tumulus exists in this district between Bei Keui and Ak
Euren, from which one large stone, with an inscription in the usual
Cappadocian hieroglyphics, has already been dug.
6 Abel (I.e. ) identifies these two races, and makes the city at Boghaz
Keui a Phrygian city.
is covered with a geometrical pattern of squares, crosses,
and mueanders, surmounted by a pediment supported in
the centre by a pilaster in low relief. In some cases a
floral pattern occupies part of the surface, and in one case
the two sides of the pediment are filled by two sphinxes
of extremely archaic type.7 In some of these monuments
a doorway is carved in the lower part ; the door is usually
closed, but in one case, viz., the sphinx monument just
alluded to, the valves of the door are thrown wide open
and give access to a little chamber, on the back of which
is sculptured in relief a rude image of the Mother-goddess
Cybele, having on each side of her a lion which rests its
forepaws on her shoulder and places its head against hers.
Sometimes a grave has been found hidden behind the
carved front ; in other cases no grave can be detected, but
it is probable that they are all sepulchral.8 The imitation
of wood -work is obvious on several monuments of this
kind. The second class is marked by the heraldic type of
two animals, usually lions rampant, facing one another,
but divided by a pillar or some other device. This type
is occasionally found conjoined with the preceding ; and
various details common to both classes show that there
was no great difference in time between them. The
heraldic type is used on the monuments which appear to
be the older, and the geometrical pattern is often employed
on the inscribed monuments, which are obviously later
than the uninscribed. Monuments of this class are carved
on the front of a sepulchral chamber, the entrance to
which is a small doorway placed high and inaccessible in
the rocks.
Early Phrygian art stands in close relationship with
the art of Cappadocia, but has such individuality, such
freedom from conventionality, such power of varying and
combining types learned from other peoples, as to show
that the Phrygians possessed high artistic faculty very
similar in character to the Greek. The monuments of
the type of the Midas tomb are obviously imitated from
patterns employed in cloth and carpets. Such patterns
were used in Cappadocia, and the priest in the rock-
sculpture at Ibriz wears an embroidered robe strikingly
similar in style to the pattern on the Midas tomb; but
the idea of using the pattern as the Phrygians did seems
peculiar to themselves. The heraldic type of the second
class is found also in the art of Assyria, and was undoubt
edly adopted by the Phrygians from earlier art ; but it is
used so frequently in Phrygia as to be specially character
istic of that country.9 While Phrygian art is distinctly
non-Oriental in spirit, its resemblance to archaic Greek art
is a fact of the greatest importance. It is not merely that
certain types are employed both in Phrygia and in Greece,
but most of the favourite types in early Greek art can be
traced in Phrygia, employed in similar spirit and for similar
purposes. The heraldic type of the two lions is the device
over the principal gateway of Mycenae, and stamps this,
the oldest great monument on Greek soil, with a distinctly
Phrygian character. Mycenaa was the city of the Pelo-
pidse, whom Greek tradition unhesitatingly declares to be
Phrygian immigrants. A study of the topography of the
Argive plain leads to the conclusion that Mycenae, Midea,
and Tiryns form a group of cities founded by an immi
grant people in opposition to Argos, the natural capital
of the plain and the stronghold of the native race. Midea
* Published in Journ. Hell. Stud., 1884.
8 The monuments of Phrygia fall into two groups, which probably
mark the sites of two cities about 16 miles distant from each other.
One group lies round the villages of Kumbet, Yapuldak, and Bakshish j
the other beside Liyen, Bei Keui, Demirli, and Ayazin.
n The heraldic type continues on gravestones down to the latest
period of paganism. Carpets with geometrical patterns of the Midas-
tomb style are occasionally found at the present time in the houses of
the peasantry of the district.
P H R Y G I A
851
appears to be the city of Midas,1 and the name is one more
link in the chain that binds Mycenae to Phrygia. This
connexion, whatever may have been its character, belongs
to the remote period when the Phrygians inhabited the
yEgean coasts. In the 8th and probably in the 9th cen
tury B.C. communication with Phrygia seems to have been
maintained especially by the Greeks of Cyme, Phocaea, and
Smyrna. About the end of the 8th century Midas king
of Phrygia married Damodice, daughter of Agamemnon,
the last king of Cyme. Gyges, the first Mermnad king of
Lydia (687-653), had a Phrygian mother. The worship of
Cybele spread over Phocasa to the west as far as Massilia :
rock monuments in the Phrygian style and votive reliefs
of an Anatolian type are found near Phocaea. Smyrna
was devoted to the Phrygian Meter Sipylene. It is then
natural that the lays of the Homeridae refer to Phrygia
in the terms above described, and make Priam's wife a
Phrygian woman. After the foundation of the Greek
colony at Sinope in 751 there can be no doubt that it
formed the link of connexion between Greece and Phrygia.
Phrygian and Cappadocian traders brought their goods,
no doubt on camels, to Sinope, and the Greek sailors, the
deivavrai of Miletus, carried home the works of Oriental
and Phrygian artisans. The Greek alphabet was carried
back to Phrygia and Pteria, either from Sinope or more
probably from Cyme, in the latter part of the 8th century.
The immense importance of Sinope in early times is abun
dantly attested, and we need not doubt that very intimate
relations existed at this port between the Ionic colonists
and the natives. The effects of this commerce on the
development of Greece were very great. It affected Ionia
in the first place, and the mainland of Greece indirectly ;
the art of Ionia at this period is almost unknown, but
it was probably most closely allied to that of Phrygia.2
A striking fact in this connexion is the frequent use of
a very simple kind of Ionic capital on the early Phrygian
monuments, making it practically certain that the " proto-
lonic " column came to Greece over Phrygia. It is
obvious that the revolution which took place in the
relations between Phrygians and Greeks must be due to
some great movement of races which disturbed the old
paths of communication. Abel is probably correct in
placing the inroads of the barbarous European tribes,
Bithynians, Thyni, Mariandyni, &c., into Asia Minor
about the beginning of the 9th century B.C. The Phrygian
element on the coast was weakened and in many places
annihilated ; that in the interior was strengthened ; and
we may suppose that the kingdom of the Sangarius valley
now sprang into greatness. The kingdom of Lydia appears
to have become important about the end of the 8th century,
and to have completely barred the path between Phrygia
and Cyme or Smyrna. Ionian maritime enterprise opened
a new way over Sinope.3
The downfall of the Phrygian monarchy can be dated
with comparative accuracy. Between 680 and 670 the
Cimmerians in their destructive progress over Asia Minor
overran Phrygia ; the king Midas in despair put an end
to his own life ; and from henceforth the history of Phrygia
is a story of slavery, degradation, and decay, which contrasts
strangely with the earlier legends. The catastrophe seems
to have deeply impressed the Greek mind, and the memory
of it was preserved. The date of the Cimmerian invasion
is fixed by the concurrent testimony of the contemporary
1 A city Midea occurs also in Boeotia, a village Midea on the
Hellespont, and a city Midoeum in the Sangarius valley.
2 See Furtwangler, Goldfund von Vettersfelde, Winckelm. Progr.,
] 884. The closest analogies of old Phrygian art are to be found in
the earliest Greek bronze work in Olympia, Italy, and the northern
lands.
3 Hipponax, fr. 36 [49], proves that a trade-route from Phrygia
down the Mseander to Miletus was used in the 6th century.
poets Archilochus and Callinus, of the late chronologers
Eusebius, &c., and of the inscriptions of the Assyrian king
Essar-haddon. The Cimmerians were finally expelled from
Asia Minor by Alyattes before his war with the Medes under
Cyaxares (590-585 B.C.). The Cimmerians, therefore, were
ravaging Asia Minor, and presumably held possession of
Phrygia, the only country where they achieved complete
success, till some time between 610 and 590. Phrygia
then fell under the Lydian power, and by the treaty of
585 the Halys was definitely fixed as the boundary between
Lydia and Media. The period from 675 to 585 must there
fore be considered as one of great disturbance and probably
of complete paralysis in Phrygia. After 585 the country
was ruled again by its own princes, under subjection to
Lydian supremacy. To judge from the monuments, it
appears to have recovered some of its old prosperity, but
the art of this later period has to a great extent lost the
strongly-marked individuality of its earlier bloom. The
later sepulchral monuments belong to a class which is
widely spread over Asia Minor, from Lycia to Pontus.
The graves are made inside a chamber excavated in the
rock, and the front of the chamber imitates a house or
temple. No attempt is made to conceal the entrance or
render it inaccessible. The architectural details are in
some cases unmistakably copied without ntentional modi
fication from the architecture of Greek temples, others
point perhaps to Persian influence, while several — which
are perhaps among the early works of this period — show
the old freedom and power of employing in new and
original ways details partly learned from abroad. This
style continued in use under the Persians, under whose
rule the Phrygians passed when Cyrus defeated Crcesus
in 546, and probably lasted till the 3d century B.C. One
monument appears to presuppose a development of Greek
plastic art later than the time of Alexander.4 It would,
however, be quite wrong to suppose that the influence of
truly Hellenic art on Phrygia began with the conquest of
Alexander. Under the later Mermnad kings the Lydian
empire was penetrated with Greek influence, and Xanthus,
the early Lydian historian, wrote his history in Greek.
Under the Persian rule perhaps it was more difficult for
Greek manners to spread far east ; but we need not think
that European influence was absolutely unfelt even in
Phrygia. The probability is that Alexander found in all
the large cities a party favourable to Greek manners and
trade. Very little is to be learned from the ancient
writers with regard to the state of Phrygia from 585 to
300. The slave-trade flourished : Phrygian slaves were
common in the Greek market, and the Phrygian names
Midas and Manes were stock-names for slaves. Herodotus
(i. 14) records that a king Midas of Phrygia dedicated his
own chair at Delphi ; the chair stood in the treasury of
Cypselus, and cannot have been deposited there before
680 to 660 B.C. It is not improbable that the event
belongs to the time of Alyattes or Crcesus, when Greek
influence was favoured throughout the Lydian empire ;
and it is easy to understand how the offering of a king
Midas should be considered, in the time of Herodotus, as
the earliest made by a foreign prince to a Greek god.
The Phrygian troops in the army of Xerxes were armed
like the Armenians and led by the same commander.
It is to be presumed that the cities of the Sangarius
valley gradually lost importance in the Persian period.
Formerly the great line of communication across Anatolia
traversed the Sangarius valley, but a better and shorter
path south of the Salt Desert came into use in this period,
from which these cities were far distant. The final cata
strophe was the invasion of the Gauls about 270 to 250 ;
and, though the circumstances of this invasion are almost
4 A gorgoneum, on a tomb engraved in Jour. Hell. Stud., pL xxvi.
852
P H R Y G I A
unknown, yet we may safely reckon among them the com
plete devastation of northern Phrygia. At last Attains I.
settled the Gauls permanently in eastern Phrygia, and a
large part of the country was henceforth known as Galatia.
Strabo mentions that the great cities of ancient Phrygia
were in his time either deserted or marked by mere villages.
The great city over the tomb of Midas has remained un
inhabited down to the present day. About 5 miles west
of it, near the modern Kumbet, stood Merus, a bishopric
in the Byzantine time, but never mentioned under the
Roman empire.
Alexander the Great placed Phrygia under the command
of Antigonus, who retained it when the empire Avas
broken up. When Antigonus was defeated and slain at
the decisive battle of Ipsus, Phrygia came under the sway
of Seleucus. As the Pergamenian kings grew powerful, and
at last confined the Gauls in eastern Phrygia, the western
half of the country was incorporated in the kingdom of
Pergamum. Under the Roman empire Phrygia had no
political existence under a separate government,1 but formed
part of the vast province of Asia. In autumn 85 B.C.
the pacification of the province was completed by Sulla,
and throughout the imperial time it was common for the
Phrygians to date from this era. The imperial rule was
highly favourable to the spread of Hellenistic civilization,
"which under the Greek kings had affected only a few of
the great cities, leaving the mass of the country purely
Phrygian. A good deal of local self-government was
permitted : the cities struck their own bronze coins, in
scribed on them the names of their own magistrates,2 and
probably administered their own laws in matters purely
local. The western part of the country was pervaded by
Graeco-Roman civilization very much sooner than the
central, and in the country districts the Phrygian language3
continued in common use at least as late as the 3d century
after Christ.
When the Roman empire was reorganized by Diocletian
at the end of the 3d century Phrygia was divided into
two provinces, distinguished at first as Prima and Secunda,
or Great and Little, for which the names Pacatiana and
Salutaris * soon came into general use. Pacatiana com
prised the western half, which had long been completely
pervaded by Grasco-Roman manners, and Salutaris the
eastern, in which the native manners and language were still
not extinct. Each province was governed by a " praeses "
or rjytfjLbiv about 412 A.D., but shortly after this date an
officer of consular rank was sent to each province (Hierocles,
Synecd.}. About 535 Justinian made some changes in
the provincial administration : the governor of Pacatiana
was henceforth a "comes," while Salutaris was still ruled by
a " consularis." When the provinces of the Eastern empire
were reorganized and divided into "themata" the two
Phrygias were broken up between the Anatolic, Opsician,
and Thracesian themes, and the name Phrygia finally dis
appeared. Almost the whole of the Byzantine Phrygias is
now included in the vilayet of Broussa or Khodavendikya,
with the exception of a small part of Parorius and the
district about Themisonium (Karayuk Bazar) and Ceretapa
(Kayadibi), which belong to the vilayet of Koniyeh, and
the district of Laodicea and Hierapolis, which belongs
1 An imperial officer named Procurator Phrygias is mentioned in a
few inscriptions of the 2d century ; but he belongs to a financial, not
an administrative division.
3 This liberty was not granted to the cities of any other province
in Anatolia.
3 A number of inscriptions in a language presumably Phrygian have
been discovered in the centre and east of the country ; they belong
generally to the end of the 2d and to the 3d century.
4 The name Salutaris is first found in Polemius Silvius about 385 ;
in the Nodt. Dirjnit., about 412 A.D. , the names Pacatiana and Salu
taris are used.
to Aid in. The principal modern cities are Kutayah
(Cotyoeuni), Eski Sheher (Dorylseum), Afium Kara Hissar
(near Prymnessus), and Ushak (near Trajanopolis).
It is impossible to say anything definite about the
boundaries of Phrygia before the 5th century. Under the
Persians Great Phrygia extended on the east to the Halys
and the Salt Desert; Xenophon (Anab., i. 2, 19) includes
Iconium on the south-east within the province, whereas
Strabo makes Tyriaeum the boundary in this direction. The
southern frontier is unknown : the language of Livy (xxxviii.
15) implies that Metropolis (in the Tchul Ova) belonged
to Pisidia ; but Strabo (p. 629) includes it in Phrygia.
CelsenaB, beside the later city of Apamea (Dineir), and the
entire valley of the Lycus were Phrygian. The Maeander
above its junction with the Lycus formed for a little way
the boundary between Phrygia and Lydia. The great
plateau now called the Banaz Ova was entirely or in great
part Phrygian. Mount Dindymus (Murad Dagh) marked
the frontier of Mysia, and the entire valley of the Tern-
brogius or Tembris (Porsuk Su) was certainly included in
Phrygia. The boundaries of the two Byzantine Phrygias
were not always the same. Taking Hierocles as authority,
the extent of the two provinces at the beginning of the
6th century will be readily gathered from the accompany
ing list, in which those towns which coined money under
the Roman empire are italicized and the nearest modern
village is appended.
I. PACATIANA. — 1. Laodicea (Eski Hissar); 2. Hierapolis (Pambuk
Kalessi) ; 3. Mosyna (Geveze) ; [4. Metellopolis, only in Notitiae
Episcop. (Geuzlar)]; 5. Attudda (Assar, south-west from Serai Keui);
6. Trapezopolis (perhaps between Davas Ova and Karayuk Ova) ;
7. Colossce (near Chouas) ; 8. Ceretapa DiocKsarea (Kayadibi) ; 9.
Themisonium (Karayuk Bazar) ; 10. Tacina (Yarishli) ; 11. Sanaus
(Sari Kavak, in Daz Kiri) ; 12. Dionysopolis (Orta Keui) ; 13. Ana-
stasiopolis, originally a village of the Hyrgalis (Utch Kuyular) ;
14. Attanassus (Eski Aidan) ; 15. Lunda (Eski Seid) ; 16. Pcliae
(Karayashlar) ; 17. Eumenca (Ishekly) ; 18. Siblia (Homa) ; 19.
Pepuza ( Yannik Euren) ; 20. Bria (Garbasan or Suretly) ; 21. Sebaste
(Sivasly) ; 22. Eluza or Aludda (Hadjimlar) ; 23. Acmonia (Ahat
Keui); 24. Alia (Kirka) ; 25. Hicrocharax (Otourak) ; 26. Dioclea
(Dola) ; 27. Aristium (Karaj Euren, in Sitchanly Ova) ; 28. Cidycssus
(dutch Eyuk) ; 29. Apia (Abia) ; 30. Cotywum (Kutayah) ; 31.
sEzani (Tchavdir Hissar) ; 32. Tiberiopolis (Altyntash) ; 33. Cadse
(Gediz) ; 34. Ancyra (Kilisse Keui) ; 35. Synaus (Simav) ; 36.
Flaviopolis Tcmcnothyrse (Kara Tash) ; 37. Trajanopolis Grimeno-
thyne (Giaour Euren, near Orta Keui) ; 38. Elaundus (Suleimarily). 5
II. SALUTAIUS.— 1. Eucarpia (near Mentesh); 2. ffieropolis(lK.oich
Hissar) ; 3. Otrous (Tchor Hissar) ; 4. Stcctorium (Emir Assar) ; 5.
Bmt,zus( Kara Sandy kly)6; 6. Bcudus(Aghzi Kara) ; 7. Aiigustopolis,
formerly Anabura (Surmeneh) ; 8. Sibidunda (perhaps Yeni Keui);
9. Lysias (perhaps Bazar Agatch) ; 10. Synnada (Tchifut Cassaba) ;
11. Prymnessus (Seulun) ; 12. Ipsus, formerly Julia (near Sakly) ;
13. Polybotus (Bolawadun) ; 14. Docimiur/i (Istcha Kara Hissar) ; 15.
Metropolis, including Conni (B. Tchorgia) and Ambasus (Ambanaz) ;
16. Merus (Kumbet) ; 17. Nacolca (Seidi Ghazi) ; 18. Doryliuum
(Eski Sheher) ; 19. Midteum (Kara Eyuk) ; 20. Lycaones (Kalejik) ;
21. Aulocra (in Dombai Ova) ; 22 and 23. Amadassus and Prse-'
penissus (unknown). In later times the important fortress (and
bishopric) of Acroenus was founded on the site of the present Afium
Kara Hissar.
Besides these, certain cities beyond the bounds of the Byzantine
Phrygias belonged under the Roman empire to the province of
Asia and are usually considered Phrygian — (1) in Byzantine Pisidia,
Philomelium (Ak Sheher), Jfadrianopolis (Ark^t Khan) ; (2) in
Byzantine Galatia, Amorium (Assar near Hamza Hadji), Orcistus
(Alikel or Alekian), Tricomia or Trocmada or Trocnada (Kaimaz) ;
(3) in Byzantine Lycia, Cibyra (Horzum).
Phrygia contains several well-marked geographical districts. (1)
PAROIUUS, the narrow, flat, elevated valley stretching north-west
to south-east between the Sultan Dagh and the Emir Dagh from
Holmi (about Tchai) to Tyrireum (Ilghin) ; its waters collect within
the valley, in three lakes, which probably supply the great foun
tains in the Axylum, and through them the Sangarius. (2) AXYLUM,
the vast treeless plains on the upper Sangarius ; there burst forth
at various points great perennial springs, the Sakaria fountains
5 Ococlia, which is known only from coins, probably belongs to this
province. Hierocles adds Theodosia, probably a name of Daldii
(Demirji), which is usually included in Lydia. Mionnet gives coins of
Mosyna, but they are falsely read and belong to the Mosteni.
6 Nos. 1-5 were called the Phrygian " Pentapolis. "
P H R — P H R
853
(Strabo, p. 543), Ilije Bashi, Bunar Bashi, Geuk Bunar, Uzuk Bashi,
which feed the Sangarius. Grea^ part of the Axylum was assigned
to Galatia. (3) The rest of Phrygia is mountainous (except the
great plateau, Banaz Ova), consisting of hill-country intersected by
rivers, each of which flows through a fertile valley of varying
breadth. The northern half is drained by rivers which run to the
Black Sea ; of these the eastern ones, Porsuk Su (Tembris or
Tembrogius), Seidi Su (Partheuius), Bardakehi Tchai (Xerabates),
and Bayat Tchai (Alandrus), join the Sangarius, while the western,1
Taushanly Tchai (Rhyndacus) and Simav Tchai (Macestus), meet
and flow into the Propontis. The Hermus drains a small district
included in the Byzantine Phrygia, but in earlier times assigned
to Lydia and Mysia. Great part of southern and western Phrygia
is drained by the Mseander with its tributaries, Sandykly Tchai
(Glaucus), Banaz Tchai, Kopli Su (Hippurius), and Tchuruk Su
(Lycus) ; moreover, some upland plains on the south, especially the
Dornbai Ova (Aulocra), communicate by underground channels
with the Mreander. Finally, the Karayuk Ova in the extreme
south-west drains through the Kazanes, a tributary of the Indus,
to the Lycian Sea. Phrygia Parorius and all the river -valleys
are exceedingly fertile, and agricultui'e was the chief occupation of
the ancient inhabitants ; according to the myth, Gordius was
called from the plough to the throne. The high-lying plains and
the vast Axylum furnish excellent pasturage, which formerly
nourished countless flocks of sheep. The Romans also obtained
fine horses from Phrygia. Grapes, which still grow abundantly in
various parts, were much cultivated in ancient times. Other fruits
are rare, except in a few small districts. Figs cannot be grown in
the country, and the ancient references to Phrygian figs are either
erroneous or due to a loose use of the term Phrygia.2 Trees
are exceedingly scarce in the country ; the pine-woods on the
western tributaries of the Sangarius and the valonia oaks in
parts of the Banaz Ova, and a few other districts, form exceptions.
The underground wealth is not known to be great. Iron was
worked in the district of Cibyra, and the marble of Synnada, or
more correctly of Docimium, was largely used by the Romans. The
scenery is generally monotonous ; even the mountainous districts
rarely show striking features or boldness of character ; where the
landscape has beauty, it is of a subdued melancholy character. The
water-supply is rarely abundant, and agriculture is more or less
dependent on an uncertain rainfall. The circumstances of the
country are well calculated to impress the inhabitants with a sense
of the overwhelming power of nature and of their complete depend
ence on it. Their mythology, so far as we know it, has a melan
choly and mystic tone, and their religion partakes of the same
character. The two chief deities were Cybele, the Mother, the re
productive and nourishing power of Earth, and Sabazius, the Son,
the life of nature, dying and reviving every year. The annual
vicissitudes of the life of Sabazius, the Greek Dionysus, were accom
panied by the mimic rites of his worshippers, who mourned with
his sufferings and rejoiced with his joy. They enacted the story of
his birth and life and death ; the Earth, the Mother, is fertilized
only by an act of violence by her own child ; the representative of
the god was probably slain each year by a cruel death, just as the
god himself died.3 The rites were characterized by a frenzy of
devotion, unrestrained enthusiasm, wild orgiastic dances, and
wanderings in the forests, and were accompanied by the music of
the flute, cymbal, and tambourine.4 At an early time this worship
was affected by Oriental influence, coming over Syria from Baby
lonia. Sabazius was identified with Adonis or Atys, Cybele with
the Syrian goddess ; and many of the coarsest rites of the Phrygian
worship, the mutilation of the priests, the prostitution at the
shrine,5 came from the hot countries of the south-east. But one
curious point of Semitic religion never penetrated west of the Halys :
the pig was always unclean and abhorred among the Semites,
whereas it was the animal regularly used in purification by the
Phrygians, Lydians, Lycians, and Greeks.6 The Phrygian religion
exercised a very strong influence on Greece. In the archaic period
the Dionysiac rites and orgies spread from Thrace into Greece, in
1 This district was according to the Greek view part of Mysia.
2 In Strabo, p. 577, t\ai&<f>vrov must be wrong ; d/jLire\6<pvTov is true
to fact, and is probably the right reading. Olives cannot grow on the
uplands.
3 Those cults of Greece which are most closely related to the Phry
gian were certainly accompanied originally by human sacrifices.
4 The influence which was exerted on Greek music and lyric poetry
by the Phrygian music was great ; see MARSTAS, OLYMPUS.
5 There is no direct evidence that this was practised in the wor
ship of Cybele, but analogy and indirect arguments make it pretty
certain.
6 Cleon, the Phrygian, when high priest of the Cappadocian goddess
at Comana, caused much scandal by using pigs in the sacred precincts
(Strabo, p. 574) ; he only carried out the customs of his country. Pigs
were used in all Greek purificatory rites, which were also practised in
Lydia (Herod., i. 35). A pig is under the seat of the deified dead on
the harpy tomb.
spite of opposition which has left many traces in tradition, and the
worship of Demeter at Eleusis was modified by Cretan influence
ultimately traceable to Asia Minor. Pindar erected a shrine of the
Mother of the gods beside his house, and the Athenians were
directed by the Delphic oracle to atone for the execution of a priest
of Cybele during the Peloponnesian War by building the Metroon.
In these and other cases the Phrygian character was more or less
Hellenized ; but wave after wave of religious influence from
Asia. Minor introduced into Greece the unmodified " barbarian "
ritual of Phrygia. The rites spread first among the common people
and those engaged in foreign trade. The comic poets satirized them,
and Plato and Demosthenes inveighed against them ; but they
continued to spread, with all their fervid enthusiasm, their super
stition, and their obscene practices, wide among the people, whose
religious cravings were not satisfied with the purely external reli
gions of Hellenism. The orgies or mysteries were open to all, free
men or slaves, who had duly performed the preliminary purifi
cations, and secured to the participants salvation and remission of
sins. Under MYSTERIES (q.v.) a distinction of character has been
pointed out between the true Hellenic mysteries, such as the
Eleusinian, and the Phrygian ; but there certainly existed much
similarity between the two rituals. In the first centuries after
Christ only the Phrygian and the Egyptian rites retained much
real hold on the Gneco-Roman world. Phrygia itself, however,
wa? very early converted to Christianity. Christian inscriptions
in the country begin in the '2d and are abundant in the 3d century.
There is every appearance that the great mass of the people were
Christians before 300, and Eusebius (H. E., v. 16) is probably
correct in his statement that in the time of Diocletian there was a
Phrygian city in which every living soul was Christian. The great
Phrygian saint of the 2d century was named Abercius ; the mass
of legends and miracles in the late biography of him long brought
his very existence into dispute, but a recently-discovered fragment
of his gravestone has proved that he was a real person, and makes
it probable that the wide-reaching conversion of the people attri
buted to him did actually take place. The strange enthusiastic
character of the old Phrygian religion was not wholly lost when
the country became Christian, but is clearly traced in the various
heresies that arose in central Anatolia. Especially the wild ecstatic
character and the prophecies of the Montanists recall the old type
of religion. Montanus (see MONTANISM, vol. xvi. p. 775) was
born on the borders of Phrygia and Mysia (doubtless in the Murad
Dagh), and was vehemently opposed by Abercius.
Of the old Phrygian language very little is known ; a few words
are preserved in Hesychius and other writers. Plato mentions
that the Phrygian words for "dog," "fire," &c., were the same as the
Greek ; and to these we may add from inscriptions the words for
"mother" and "king." A few inscriptions of the ancient period are
known, and a somewhat larger number of the Roman period have
been found, but not yet published.
Owing to the scantiness of published material about Phrygia frequent refer
ence has been made in this article to unpublished monuments, and historical
views are stated which have only quite recently been published by the writer.
Besides the works already quoted of Abel and Perrot, see Ritter's " Kleinasien,"
in his Erdkunde von Asien ; Leake's Asia Minor ; Kiepert's appendix to Franz,
Fiinf Inschr. u.fiinf Stcidte Kleinasiens; Haase, in Erschand Gruber's Encyklnp. ;
Hamilton's Travels in Asia Minor; Hirschfeld's " Reisebericht," in the Berl.
Monatsber. (1879) ; Texier, Asie Mineure ; Steuart, Ancient Monuments ; besides
the special chapters in the geographical treatises of Cramer, Vivien St Martin,
Forbiger, &c. ; Ramsay, in Mittheil. Instit. Athen. (1882), Bulletin de Corresp.
Hellen. (1882-83), and Journal of Hellenic Studies (1SS2 sq.). (W. M. RA.)
PHRYNE, a celebrated Greek courtesan, flourished in
the time of Alexander the Great (4th century B.C.). She
was born at Thespiae in Boeotia, but seems to have lived
at Athens. Originally so poor as to earn a living by
gathering capers, she acquired so much wealth by her
extraordinary beauty that she offered to rebuild the
walls of Thebes, which had been destroyed by Alexander
(335), on condition of inscribing on them, " Destroyed by
Alexander, restored by Phryne the courtesan." On the
occasion of a festival of Poseidon at Eleusis she laid aside
her garments, let down her hair, and stepped into the sea
in the sight of the people, thus suggesting to the painter
Apelles his great picture of Aphrodite rising from the Sea,
for which Phryne sat as model. The sculptor Praxiteles
was one of her lovers, and she is said to have been the
model of his celebrated Cnidian Aphrodite, which Pliny
declared to be the most beautiful statue in the world.7
There were statues of her by Praxiteles at Delphi and in
7 So Athenaeus, 590, 591. But according to others (Clemens Alex-
andrinus, Protrep., 53, and Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, vi. 13) Praxiteles's
model for the Cnidian Aphrodite was Cratina ; and Pliny (xxxv. 87)
says that some declared that Apelles's model was Pancaspe.
854
P H R — P H R
her native town ; the former was golden or plated with
gold, the latter was of 'marble. It is said that at her
request Praxiteles promised her the most beautiful of his
works, but would not tell her which was it. Having dis
covered by a stratagem that of his works he prized most a
statue of Love (Eros) and one of a Satyr, she asked of him
the former and dedicated it in Thespise. Being accused
of impiety by En: Mas, she was defended by the orator
Hyperides, one of her lovers. When it seemed that the
verdict was about to be against her, he rent her robe and
displayed her lovely bosom, which so moved her judges
that they acquitted her. According to others it was
Phryne herself who thus displayed her charms. She is
said to have made an attempt on the virtue of the philo
sopher Xenocrates, and to have signally failed.
PHRYNICHUS, the name of a number of distinguished
Greeks, of whom the most prominent were the following.
1. PHRYNICHUS, one of the earliest tragic poets of
Athens, was the son of Polyphradmon, and a pupil or
follower of Thespis, who is commonly regarded as the
founder of tragedy. But such were the improvements
introduced by Phrynichus that some of the ancients
regarded him as its real founder. He flourished, according
to Cyrillus and Eusebius, in 483 B.C., but he gained a
poetical victory (probably his first) as early as 511.
His famous play the Capture of Miletus was probably
composed shortly after the conquest of that city by the
Persians (494). It moved the Athenians to tears ;
they fined the poet 1000 drachms for reminding them of
the woes of their friends, and decreed that the play should
never be used again. In 476 Phrynichus won another
poetical victory, probably with his play the Phoenissx,
which celebrated the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis (480).
The drama derived its name from the chorus of Phoenician
women. On this occasion Themistocles acted as choragus,
and it is probable that the play was written to revive his
waning popularity by reminding the Athenians of his
great deeds. The Persians of TEschylus (exhibited in 472)
was an imitation of the Phoenissaz of Phrynichus. Phry
nichus died in Sicily, perhaps at the court of Hiero, tyrant
of Syracuse, who welcomed those other great contemporary
poets ^Eschylus and Pindar. The titles of his plays
mentioned by Suidas and others show that he treated
mythological as well as contemporary subjects ; such are
the titles The Danaides, Action, Alcestis, Tantalus. But
in his plays, as in the early tragedies generally, the
dramatic element was subordinate to the lyric element as
represented by the chorus. Indeed in his earliest dramas
there can only have been one actor, for the introduction of
two actors was a novelty due to his younger contemporary
^Eschylus, who first exhibited in 499. Phrynichus was
especially famous for the sweetness of his songs, which were
sung by old people down to the time of Aristophanes.
Connected with the predominance of the chorus in early
tragedies was the prominence in them of the dance. There
is an epigram ascribed to Phrynichus in which he boasts
that the figures of his dances were as various as the waves
of the sea. According to Suidas it was Phrynichus who
first introduced female characters on the stage (played by
men in masks). The few remains of his works are collected
by Wagner and Nauck in their editions of the fragments
of the Greek tragedians.
2. PHRYNICHUS, a poet of the Old Attic Comedy and
a contemporary of Aristophanes, is said by Suidas to have
been an Athenian, but according to the scholiast on Aristo
phanes (Frogs, 13) he was satirized as a foreigner. His
first comedy was exhibited in 429 B.C. (according to Suidas,
as corrected by Clinton and Meineke). He composed ten
plays, of which the Solitary ("Monotropos") was exhibited
in 414 along with the Birds of Aristophanes and gained
the third prize, and the Muse? carried off the second prize
in 405, Aristophanes being first with the Frogs. This
poet (Frogs, 13) accuses Phrynichus of employing vulgar
tricks to raise a laugh, and he was further charged with
plagiarism and defective versification, but such accusations
were too commonly bandied between rival poets to merit
much attention. He was not included by the Alexandrian
critics in their canon of the best poets. The remains of
his works, which have been edited with the other frag
ments of the Attic Comedy by Meineke and Bothe, are
too scanty to allow us to judge of their merits.
3. PHRYNICHUS ARABIUS, a grammarian of Bithynia,
lived in the reigns of the emperors Marcus Antoninus
and Commodus (2d century A.D.). According to Suidas
he was the author of the following works : (1) an Atticist,
or On Attic Words, in two books; (2) Tttfe/xevtov crwaywy?/;
(3) SCX/HO-TIKT) Trapaa-Kevri, or Sophistical Preparation, in
forty-seven or (according to others) seventy -four books.
We have an account of the last-mentioned work by Photius,
who had read thirty-six books of it. The copy used by
Photius contained only thirty -seven books, but he states
that the author in a preface addressed to the emperor
Commodus, to whom the work was dedicated, promised,
if life lasted, to write as many more books. Separate
parts of the work were dedicated to various friends,
and Phrynichus excused its delays and imperfections on
the ground of numerous illnesses. It consisted of a
collection of Attic words and phrases, arranged in alpha
betical order, and distinguished according to the purposes
they were meant to serve, whether oratorical, historical,
conversational, jocular, or amatory. The models of Attic
style, according to Phrynichus, were Plato, Demosthenes
and the other nine Attic orators (viz., Antiphon, Ando-
cides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isseus, ^Eschines, Dinarchus,
Lycurgus, Hyperides), Thucydides, Xenophon, ^schines
the Socratic, Critias, Antisthenes, Aristophanes and the
other poets of the Old Comedy, together with J5schylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides. Of these, again, he assigned
the highest place to Plato, Demosthenes, and ^Eschines
the Socratic. The work was learned, but prolix and
garrulous. A fragment of it, contained in a Paris MS.,
was published by Montfaucon, and again by Im. Bekker
in the first volume of his Anecdota Grszca (Berlin, 1814).
We possess another work of Phrynichus which is not
mentioned by Photius, but is, perhaps, identical with the
Atticist mentioned by Suidas. This is the Selection (Ecloge)
of Attic Words and Phrases. It is dedicated to Cornelian us,
a man of literary tastes, and one of the emperor's secretaries,
who had invited the author to undertake the work. It is
a collection of current words and forms which deviated
from the Old Attic standard. Side by side with these
incorrect words and forms are given the true Attic equiva
lents. The work is thus a "lexicon antibarbarum," and is
interesting as illustrating the changes through which the
Greek language had passed between the 4th century B.C.
and the 2d century A.D. Phrynichus is especially severe
upon Menander, and wonders what people can see in him to
admire so much. The style is concise and pointed, and is
occasionally relieved by touches of dry humour. The book
is divided into two parts, of which the second appears in
some editions as a separate work under the title of Epitome.
Editions of it, with valuable notes, have been published by
Chr. Aug. Lobeck (Leipsic, 1820) and W. G. Rutherford
(London, 1881). Lobeck devotes his attention chiefly to
the later, Rutherford to the earlier usages noticed by
Phrynichus.
There was also an Athenian general Phrynichus in the Pelopon-
nesian War, who took a leading part in establishing the oligarchy
of the Four Hundred at Athens in 411 B.C. He was assassinated
in the same year.
p H T — P H T
855
PHTHALIC ACID. This name was given by Laurent
to a di-basic acid, C8H6O4, which he obtained by the oxida
tion of naphthalin or its tetra-chloride with nitric acid.
Schunck subsequently obtained the same acid by boiling
alizarin with nitric acid, but failed to recognize its iden
tity with Laurent's.
One part of naphthalin is mixed with two parts of chlorate of
potash, and the mixture added cautiously to ten parts of crude
muriatic acid. The product, C10H8. C14, is washed with water and
then with " ligroin " (the more volatile fraction of petroleum).
The chloride thus purified is oxidized by boiling it with ten parts
of (gradually added) nitric acid of 1 '45 specific gravity, evaporated to
dryness, and the residue distilled to obtain the anhydride C8H403, or
PO
rationally C6H4pQ>0, long colourless needles fusing at 128 0.,
— the boiling point being 276°. When boiled with water it becomes
(~'OOTT
phthalic acid, rat. formula C6H4QQQjj, rhombic crystals, fusing at
184° C. with transformation into anhydride, very slightly soluble
in water (100 parts at 11° dissolve 077 parts), more soluble in
alcohol (100 of absolute dissolve 10 '1 parts at 15°). Phthalic acid,
when heated to redness with lime, breaks up into C02 and benzol ;
the lime salt when mixed with one equivalent caOH of lime, and
kept at 330° to 350° C., yields carbonate and benzoate —
CeH^oOct + cdOH = CaC°3 + C6H5COOca (Ca = 2ca - 40).
Hence phthalic acid should be obtainable by the oxidation of
di-derivatives, C6H4R'R", of benzol (R = CH3, C2H5, &c. ), and indeed
two acids, C6H4(COOH)2, can be thus produced, but neither is
identical with phthalic.
Tercphthalic acid is obtained by the oxidation of ordinary cymol,
O TT
pC6H4 pTT7, or other similar "para" bodies with bichromate of
potash and sulphuric acid. It is a white powder, quite insoluble
in water, sublimable without fusion or dehydration.
Isophthalic acid is obtained similarly from " meta " derivatives,
C6H4R2, of benzol, hair -fine needles fusing above 300°, almost
insoluble in water, but pretty easily soluble in alcohol.
Ortho-bi-derivatives of benzol ought to give " ortho," i.e., Laurent's
phthalic acid ; but this acid itself is oxidized by the bichrome
mixture into C02 and H20.
Plithaleins are a most interesting family of coloured derivatives
of phthalic anhydride, which were discovered by Baeyer, and soon
found their way into the colour industry. As an example we
quote phenol-phthalein, obtained by the union of the anhydride with
phenol, C6H5OH = H + C6H4. OH = H + " Phen. " The phthalein is
P TI CO p.
U«U4C(Phen)a>U'
Phthalic
rest.
and, as will easily be understood, something widely different from
the di-phenyl-phthalic ether. Phthalic anhydride and resorcin—
one of the three di-hydroxyl derivatives, C6H4(OH)2, of benzol —
unite into "fluorescin," distinguished by the strong fluorescence of
its solutions. Tetra-brom-fluorescin, a beautiful red colour, is used
industrially as eosin (from Greek i^j, the morning-red).
PHTHISIS (<£0«m) or CONSUMPTION. This term, al
though applicable to several forms of wasting disease, is
commonly used to designate a malady having for its chief
manifestations progressive emaciation of the body and loss
of strength, occurring in connexion with morbid changes
in the lungs and in other organs.
Few diseases possess such sad interest for humanity as
consumption, both on account of its widespread prevalence
and its destructive effects, particularly among the young ;
and in every age of medicine the subject has formed a
fertile field for inquiry as to its nature, its cause, and its
treatment. On all these points medical opinion has under
gone numerous changes with the advance of science and
the application of more accurate methods of investigation;
yet, notwithstanding the many important facts which
within recent years have been brought to light, it must be
admitted that our knowledge of this disease is still far
from complete. As regards the nature or pathology of
consumption it is unnecessary in a notice like the present
to refer at length to the doctrines which have from time
to time been held upon the subject, further than merely
to indicate in a general way the views which have been
more or less widely accepted in recent times. In the early
part of the present century the study of the diseases of the
chest received a great impetus from the labours of Laennec,
whose discovery of the stethoscope led to greater minute
ness and accuracy in investigation (see AUSCULTATION).
This physician held that phthisis depended on the develop
ment of tubercles in the lungs, which, undergoing various
retrograde changes, led to the breaking down and excava
tion of these organs, — in short, produced the whole pheno
mena of consumption ; and, further, that this tuberculous
formation affected various other parts and organs, and was
the result of a morbid constitutional condition or diathesis.
This doctrine, which was generally taught during the first
half of the century, and even longer, was to some extent
superseded by that to which the greatest prominence was
given by Niemeyer and others, namely, that the majority
of cases of phthisis had their origin in an inflammation of
the lung (catarrhal pneumonia), but that tubercle — the
existence of which was freely admitted — might occasionally
be evolved out of this condition. This view has had wide
acceptance, but has been modified in a variety of ways,
especially by its extension to inflammation in other parts
besides the lungs, the unabsorbed products of which are
held to be capable of producing tubercle by infection from
within the system. Still more recently there has arisen
another doctrine in connexion with the discovery by Koch
of the micro-organism or bacillus of tubercle, which can be
cultivated and which, when inoculated, appears capable
of producing tubercular disease, namely, the doctrine of
the infectiveness of phthisis by means of this " microbe "
received into the system from without. This view, which
is supported by many striking facts and arguments, has
been extensively adopted as furnishing in all probability
a rational basis of the pathology of tubercular consumption.
Yet it has not been universally accepted, being held by
many to be insufficient to account for the origin and course
of the disease in numerous instances and in certain of its
forms. It is impossible to deny an important place in
the course of the disease to inflammatory processes. Even
in those cases where the lungs are infiltrated with tuber
cular deposit evidence of inflammation is abundantly pre
sent, while, on the other hand, it would seem that in not
a few instances the process is inflammatory throughout.
That phthisis, therefore, is not the same process in all
cases, but that there are distinct varieties of the disease,
is made clear by the morbid anatomy of the lungs no less
than by other considerations.
Whatever be the form, the common result of the presence
of these disease-products is to produce consolidations in the
affected portions of the lungs, which, undergoing retrograde
changes (caseation), break down and form cavities, the
result being the destruction in greater or less amount of
lung-substance. These changes most commonly take place
at the apex of one lung, but with the advance of the
disease they tend to spread throughout its whole extent
and to involve the other lung as well. When the disease
is confined to a limited area of a lung it may undergo
arrest — even although it has advanced so far as to destroy
a portion of the pulmonary tissue, and a healing process
may set in and the affected part cicatrize. This is, how
ever, exceptional, the far more common course being the
progress of the destructive change either by the spread
of the inflammatory process or by infection through the
lymphatics, &c., from the existing foci of diseased lung-
tissue. Various morbid changes affecting the lungs them
selves or other organs frequently arise in the course of
phthisis, complicating its progress and reducing the chance
of recovery. Of these the more common are affections of
the pleura, stomach, liver, kidneys, and especially the in
testines, which in the later stage of the disease become
ulcerated, giving rise to the diarrhoea which is so frequent
and fatal a symptom at this period.
856
PHTHISIS
The causes influential in producing phthisis are numer
ous and varied, but they 'may for general consideration be
embraced under two groups, namely, those which are pre
disposing and operate through the constitution as a whole,
and those which are exciting and act immediately upon the
organs implicated. These two sets of causes may be more
or less distinctly associated in an individual case ; but, on
the other hand, one may appear to act in both ways — as
predisposing and exciting. The following may serve to
illustrate some of the conditions of a predisposing kind.
A constitutional tendency to scrofula and its manifestations
lends itself readily to the production, of phthisis. This
morbid constitution is characterized among other things by
a liability to low chronic forms of inflammation affecting
gland -textures, mucous membranes, &c., the products of
which show little readiness to undergo absorption, but
rather to degenerate. Inflammations of this character
affecting the lungs, as is not uncommon, have a special
tendency to lead to the breaking down of lung-texture and
formation of phthisical cavities. Many high authorities
hold that tubercle-formation may be evolved out of scrofu
lous inflammations of glands, such as those of the neck, by
an infective process, like that already referred to. The
mention of this constitutional state naturally suggests
another powerful predisposing cause, namely, hereditary
transmission. The extent to which this influence operates
as a cause of consumption has been differently estimated
by writers, owing probably to the various aspects in which
the matter is capable of being viewed. It is impossible
to deny that the children of parents one or both of whom
are consumptive are liable to manifest the disease, — that
is, they inherit a constitution favouring its development
under suitable exciting causes. But a similar constitu
tional proclivity may be induced by other influences acting
through the parents. Should either or both of them be
enfeebled by previous disease or by any other weakening
cause, they may beget children possessing a strong pre
disposition, to consumption. Marriages of near relatives
are held by some to induce a consumptive tendency, —
probably, however, owing to the fact that any constitu
tional taint is likely to be intensified in this way.
Phthisis is a disease of early life, the period between fifteen
and thirty-five being that in which the great majority of
the cases occur, and of these by far the larger proportion
will be found to take place between the ages of twenty
and thirty. The influence of sex is not marked. Occu
pations, habits, and conditions of life have a very im
portant bearing on the development of the disease apart
altogether from inherited tendency. Thus occupations
which necessitate the inhalation of irritating particles, as
in the case of stone-masons, needle -grinders, workers in
minerals, in cotton, flour, straw, &c., are specially hurtful,
chiefly from the mechanical effects upon the delicate pul
monary tissue of the matter inhaled. No less prejudicial
are occupations carried on in a heated and close atmosphere,
as is often the case with compositors, gold-beaters, semp
stresses, &c. Again, habitual exposure to wet and cold or
to sudden changes of temperature will act in a similar
way in inducing pulmonary irritation which may lead to
phthisis. Irregular and intemperate habits are known
predisposing causes ; and over-work, over-anxiety, want of
exercise, insufficient or unwholesome food, bad hygienic
surroundings such as overcrowding and defective ventila
tion, are all powerful agents in sowing the seeds of the
disease. Consumption sometimes arises after fevers and
other infectious maladies, or in connexion with any long-
continued drain upon the system, as in over -lactation.
The subject of climate and locality in connexion with the
causation of phthisis has received considerable attention,
and some interesting facts have been ascertained on this
point. That phthisis is to be met with in all climes, and
it would seem fully as frequently in tropical as in tem
perate regions, is evidence that climate alone exercises
but little influence. It is very different, however, with
locality, elevation appearing to affect to a considerable
extent the liability to this disease. It may be stated as
generally true that phthisis is less prevalent the higher
we ascend. The investigations of Dr H. J. Bowditch in
New England and of Dr George Buchanan of the Local
Government Board in the counties of Surrey, Kent, and
Sussex agree in proving that elevated regions with dry-
ness of soil are hostile to the prevalence of consumption,
while low-lying and damp districts seem greatly to favour
its development ; and it has been found that the success
ful drainage of damp localities has occasionally had a
marked effect in reducing their phthisis mortality. In
all such observations, however, various modifying circum
stances connected with social, personal, and other condi
tions come into operation to affect the general result. As
regards immediate or exciting causes, probably the most
potent are inflammatory affections of the respiratory pass
ages produced as the result of exposure. The products of
such attacks are liable under predisposing conditions, such
as some of those already mentioned, to remain unabsorbed
and undergo degenerative changes, issuing in the breaking-
down and excavation of the pulmonary texture. A neces
sary consequence of the modern doctrine of the contagious
nature and inoculability of tubercle has been to bring to
the front a view as to phthisis once widely prevalent and
in some countries — e.g., Italy — never wholly abandoned,
namely, its infectiousness. By some supporters of the
recent theories of tubercle it is maintained that phthisis
is communicated by infection and in no other way, the
infecting agent being the bacillus. Others, while holding
the view of the specific nature of the disease, deny that it
can be communicated by infection like -a fever, and cite
the experience of consumption hospitals (such as that
described by Dr C. T. Williams with respect to the
Brompton Hospital) as to the absence of any evidence
of its spreading among the nurses and officials. Others,
again, deny both its specific nature and its direct infectious
character. There appears, however, to be a growing opinion
that phthisis may occasionally be acquired by a previously
healthy person from close association with one already
suffering from it, and, if this view be well founded, it
affords a strong presumption that some infecting agent
(such as the tubercle bacillus) is the medium of communi
cation. The whole subject of the infectiousness of this
disease is as yet unsettled ; but there appears to be suffi
cient reason for special care on the part of those who of
necessity are brought into close contact with patients
suffering from it.
Cases of phthisis differ widely as regards their severity
and their rate of progress. Sometimes the disease exhibits
itself as an acute or galloping consumption, where from the
first there is high fever, rapid emaciation, with cough and
other chest symptoms, or with the comparative absence of
these, and a speedily fatal termination. In such instances
there would probably be found extensive tuberculization
of the lungs and other organs. In other instances, and
these constitute the majority, the progress of the disease
is chronic, lasting for months or years, and along with
periods of temporary improvement there is a gradual pro
gress to a fatal issue. In other cases, again, the disease
is arrested and more or less complete restoration to health
takes place.
It is unnecessary to describe the symptoms or course
and progress of all the varieties of this malady. It will
be sufficient to refer to those of the ordinary form of the
disease as generally observed. The onset may be somewhat
PHTHISIS
857
sudden, as where it is ushered in by haemoptysis (spitting
of blood), but more commonly it is slow and insidious and
may escape notice for a considerable time. The patient is
observed to be falling away in flesh and strength. His
appetite fails, and dyspeptic symptoms trouble him. But
the most marked feature of the condition is the presence
of a cough, which is either persistent or recurs at certain
times, as in lying down in bed or rising in the morning.
The cough is dry or is accompanied with slight clear ex
pectoration, and the breathing is somewhat short. Feverish
symptoms are present from an early period, the tempera
ture of the body being elevated, especially in the evening.
The patient often complains of flying pains in the chest,
shoulders, and back. Such symptoms occurring, especially
in one who may possess by inheritance or otherwise an
evident tendency to chest disease, should excite suspicion,
and should be brought under the notice of the physician.
They constitute what is commonly known as the first stage
of phthisis and indicate the deposit of tubercle or else
inflammatory consolidation in the lung.1 Not unfre-
quently the disease is arrested in this stage by judicious
treatment, but should it go on the symptoms characteriz
ing the second stage (that of softening and disintegration
of lung) soon show themselves. The cough increases and
is accompanied with expectoration of purulent matter in
which lung -tissue and the bacillus of tubercle can be
detected on microscopic examination.2 The symptoms
present in the first stage become intensified : the fever
continues and assumes a hectic character, being accom
panied with copious night -sweats, while the appetite and
digestion become more and more impaired and the loss
of strength and emaciation more marked. Even in this
stage the disease may undergo abatement, and improve
ment or recovery take place, though this is rare ; and by
careful treatment the advance of the symptoms may be in
a measure held in check. The final stage (or stage of
excavation), in which the lung has become wasted to such
an extent that cavities are produced in its substance, is
characterized by an aggravation of all the symptoms of
the previous stage. In addition, however, there appear
others indicating the general break-up of the system.
Diarrhoea, exhausting night-perspirations, and total failure
of appetite combine with the cough and other pulmonary
symptoms to wear out the patient's remaining strength
and to reduce his body to a skeleton. Swelling of the feet
and ankles and soreness of the mouth (aphthae) proclaim
the approach of the end.3 Death usually takes place from
exhaustion, but sometimes the termination is sudden from
haemorrhage, or from rupture of the pleura during a cough
and the consequent occurrence of pneumothorax. A re
markable and often painful feature of the disease is the
absence in many patients of all sense of the nature and
1 The examination of the chest by the usual methods of physical
diagnosis reveals in this stage the following as among the chief points.
On inspection the thorax is observed to be narrow and poorly developed,
or it may be quite natural. At its upper region there may be noticed
slight flattening under the clavicle of one side, along with imperfect
expansion of that part on full inspiration. On percussion the note
may be little if at all impaired, but frequently there is dulness more
or less marked at the apex of the lung. On auscultation the breath-
sounds are variously altered. Thus they may be scarcely audible, or
again harsher than natural, and the expiration may be unduly pro
longed. Sometimes the breathing is of an interrupted or jerky char
acter, and is occasionally accompanied with fine crepitations or rales.
Pleuritic friction-sounds may be audible over the affected area.
- la this stage the physical signs are more distinctive of the disease.
Thus the flattening of the chest-wall is still more marked, as is also
the dulness to percussion, while on auscultation the breathing is
accompanied with coarse moist sounds or rales, which become more
audible on coughing. The voice-sound is broncho -phonic.
3 The physical signs now present are those of a cavity in the lung —
viz., in general absolute dulness on percussion — cavernous breathing,
gurgling rales, and pectoriloquy.
gravity of the malady from which they suffer, and their
singular buoyancy of spirits (the spes phthisica), rendering
them hopeful of recovery up till even the very end.
This description is but a brief and imperfect outline of
the course and progress of an ordinary case of phthisis.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the disease is
greatly modified in its course and progress and in the
presence or absence of particular symptoms in individuals.
Thus in some the chest-symptoms (cough, &c.) are pro
minent throughout, while in others these are compara
tively in abeyance, and diarrhoea or fever and exhausting
perspirations or throat -troubles specially conspicuous.
Nevertheless, essentially the same pathological conditions
are present in each case. Further, as has been already
mentioned, there are types of the disease which obviously
influence alike its main features and its duration ; these
have been embraced under two classes, the acute and the
chronic. In the former, which includes the acute tuber
culous and acute inflammatory or pneumonic phthisis, the
progress of the disease is marked by its rapidity and the
presence of fever even more than by local chest-symptoms.
Such cases run to a fatal termination in from one to three
or four months, and are to be regarded as the most severe
and least hopeful form. The chronic cases, of which the
description above given is an example (and which embrace
various chronic changes, e.g., chronic interstitial pneumonia
or cirrhosis of the lung), progress with variable rapidity.
Their duration has been estimated by different authorities
at from two to eight or more years. Much, however,
necessarily depends on the effect the disease exercises
upon the patient's strength and nutrition, on his circum
stances and surroundings, and on the presence or absence
of weakening complications. Many cases of this class
remain for long unchanged for the worse, perhaps under
going temporary improvement, while in a few rare in
stances, where the disease has become well marked or has
even attained to an advanced stage, what is virtually a
cure takes place.
The treatment of phthisis has received much attention
from physicians as well as from empirics, by the latter of
whom chiefly many so-called cures for consumption have
from time to time been given forth. It need scarcely be
stated that no " cure " for this disease exists ; but, while
this is true, it is no less true that by the adoption of certain
principles of treatment under enlightened medical guidance
a very great deal may now be done to Avard off the disease
in those who shoAv a liability to it, and to mitigate and
retard, or even arrest, its progress in those who have already
become affected by it. The preventive measures include
careful attention to hygienic conditions, both personal and
surrounding. In the case of children who may inherit a
consumptive tendency or show any liability to the disease
much care should be taken in bringing them up to promote
their general health and strengthen their frames. Plain
wholesome food with fatty ingredients, if these can possibly
be taken, milk, cream, &c., are to be recommended. Ex
ercise in the open air and moderate exercise of the chest
by gymnastics and by reading aloud or singing are all
advantageous. An ample supply of fresh air in sleeping
apartments, schools, <fec., is of great importance, while warm
clothing and the use of flannel are essential, especially in
a climate subject to vicissitudes. The value of the bath
and of attention to the function of the skin is very great.
The like general hygienic principles are equally applicable
in the case of adults. When the disease has begun to
show any evidence of its presence its treatment becomes
a matter of first importance, as it is in the early stages
that most can be done to arrest or remove it. Special
symptoms, such as cough, gastric disturbances, pain, etc.,
must be dealt with by the physician according to the indi-
XVIII. — 1 08
858
H T tt 1 b 1
vidual case ; but it is in this stage of the disease that the
question of a change of .climate in the colder seasons of
the year arises among those whose circumstances render
such a step practicable. There can be no doubt that as
regards Great Britain the removal of patients threatened
by or already suffering from consumption to some mild
locality, either in the country or abroad, proves in many
instances most salutary. The object aimed at is to obtain
a more equable climate, where the atmosphere may have
a soothing influence on the respiratory organs, and where
also open-air exercise may be taken with less risk than at
home. Of British health-resorts Bournemouth, Hastings,
Torquay, Ventnor, Penzance, &c., in the south of England,
are the best known and most frequented, and although
the climate is not so certain as in places farther south in
Europe they possess the advantage of home residence,
and may be resorted to by persons who are unable to
undertake a farther journey. The climate of the Riviera
(Maritime Alps) is of superior efficacy owing to its mild
ness and the dry bracing character of its air, and, despite
the long journey, is as a rule to be recommended as one
of the best for the greater proportion of the cases of
phthisis. The same may be said for Algiers and Egypt.
Of recent years the air of elevated dry regions, such as
Davos in the Alps and the Rocky Mountains in America,
has been strongly recommended, and in not a few cases
appears to be productive of good in arresting the disease
at its outset, and even advantageous in chronic cases where
there is no great activity in its progress. Of like value,
and in a similar class of cases, are long sea-voyages, such
as those to Australia or New Zealand. Nevertheless, there
is no doubt that consumptive patients are often sent
abroad manifestly to die. It may be stated generally
(although doubtless there may be exceptions) that where
the disease exhibits a decidedly acute form, even in its
earlier stages, any distant change is rather to be discouraged ;
while in the advanced stages, where there is great prostra
tion of strength, with colliquative symptoms, the removal
of a patient is worse than useless, and frequently hastens
the end.
Throughout the whole course of the malady the nutrition
of the patient forms a main part of the treatment, and
tonics which promote the function of the digestive organs
are especially helpful. Codliver oil has long been held to
be of eminent value, as it appears not merely to possess
all the advantages of a food but to exert a retarding effect
on the disease. Where it is well borne, not only will the
weight of the body be found to increase, but the cough
and other symptoms will markedly diminish. The oil is
as a rule best administered at first in small quantity. The
frequently employed substitutes, such as malt extract, tonic
syrups, &c., although not without their uses, are all inferior
to codliver oil. The occasional employment of counter-
irritation to the chest in the form of iodine or small blisters
is of service in allaying cough and relieving local pains.
Respirators to cover the mouth and nose, and so con
structed as to contain antiseptic media through which the
air is breathed, are sometimes found to lessen cough and
other symptoms of chest-irritation.
Among the most serviceable drugs in the treatment of
the symptoms of phthisis are the preparations of opium.
Administered along with such agents as hydrocyanic acid
and expectorants, they are eminently useful in soothing
severe cough ; along with astringents they are equally
valuable in controlling diarrhoea; while with quinine, digit
alis, &c., they aid in allaying fever and restlessness and
in procuring sleep. But besides these many other medi
cinal agents, too numerous to mention here, are employed
with much advantage. Each case will present its own
features and symptoms calling for special attention and
treatment, and details upon these points must be left to the
advice of the medical attendant. (j. o. A.)
END OF VOLUME EIGHTEENTH
PRINTED FOR A. <t C. BLACK BY NEILL & CO. AND R. & R. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
Encyclopedia Britannic a.
VOL. XVIII.- -(ORN-PHT).
Total number of Articles, 554.
PRINCIPAL CONTENTS.
ORNITHOLOGY. ALFRED NEWTON, F.R.S., Professor
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OSTADE. J. A. CHOWE, Author of "Early Flemish
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OSTRICH. Prof. A. NEWTON.
OTHO. H. F. PF.LHAM, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
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OTTER. W. H. FLOWER, F.R.S., Director of Natural
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OTWAY. RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
OVERBECK. J. B. ATKINSON, Author of "Schools of
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OVID. W. Y. SELLAR, LL.D., Professor of Humanity,
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OWEX, JOHN. OSMUND AIRY, Editor of the " Lauder-
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OWEN, ROBERT. THOMAS KIRKUP, M.A.
OWL. Prof. A. NEWTON.
OXALIC ACID. W. DITTMAR, Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor
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OXFORD, EARL OF. W. P. COURTNEY.
OXUS. Lieut. -General WALKER, R.E., C.B.
OYSTER. J. T. CUNNINGHAM, B.A., Fellow of Uni
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INDUSTRY. G. BROWN GOODE, U.S. National Museum,
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PACIFIC OCEAN. JOHN MURRAY, Director of the
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PADUA. H. F. BROWN.
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PALESTRINA. W. S. ROCKSTRO, Author of "Life of
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PALEY. Prof. ANDREW SETH, University College,
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PALM. MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M.D., F.R.S., Editor
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PALMEHSTOX.
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PAMPHLETS. H. R. TEDDER, F.S.A., Librarian,
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PANGOLIN. OLDFIELD THOMAS, British Museum.
PANIZZI. RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
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PARALLAX. DAVID GILL, LL. D. , F. R. S. , Astronomer-
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PARALLELS. GEORGE CHRYSTAL, M.A., Professor of
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PARASITISM-
ANIMAL. PATRICK GEDDES, F. R.S. E.
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IN MEDICINE. CHARLES CREIGHTON, M.A., M.D.
PARIS. GASTON MEISSAS and ANTHYME ST PAUL.
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PARKER, THEODORE. Rev. J. F. SMITH.
PARLIAMENT. The Right Hon. Sir THOMAS ERSKINE
MAY, K.C.B., D.C.L., Clerk of the House of Com
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PARMENIDES. HENRY JACKSON, M.A., Fellow of
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PARMIGIANO. W. M. ROSSETTI, Author of "Fine
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PARROT. Prof. A. NEWTON.
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PARTNERSHIP. JAMES WILLIAMS, M.A., B.C.L.,
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PASCAL. GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A.. and Prof.
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PASTORAL. E. W. GOSSE, Author of " Studies in the
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PASTORAL EPISTLES. Rev. EDWIN HATCH, M.A.,
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PATAGONIA. H. A. WEBSTER.
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PATERSON. FRANCIS WATT, M.A.
PATHOLOGY. CHARLES CREIGHTON, M.A., M.D.
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PAUL. Rev. EDWIN HATCH, D.D.
PAUL OF SAMOSATA. Prof. ADOLF HARNACK, Uni
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PAUL (POPES). RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
PAULI. F. LIEBERMANN, Ph.D., Berlin.
PAUSANIAS. F. A. PALEY, M.A., LL.D.
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PEACOCK. Prof. A. NEWTON.
PEARL. F. W. RUDLER, Curator, Museum of Practical
Geology, London.
PEEL. GOLDWIN SMITH, LL.D., and CHARLES STEWART
PARKER, M.P.
PEERAGE. E. A. FREEMAN.
PEKING. R. K. DOUGLAS, Professor of Chinese, King'*
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PELLAGRA. CHARLES CREKJHTON, M.D.
PEN. JAMES PATON, Corporation Galleries of Art,
Glasgow.
PENANCE. Rev. R. F. LITTLEDALE, LL.D., D.C.L.
PENATES. J. G. FRAZER, M.A., Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge.
PENX. OSMUND AIRY.
PENNSYLVANIA. Prof: J. PETER LESLEY, Stati-
Geologist, and Rev. C. GORDON AMES, Philadel
phia.
PENTATEUCH. JULIUS WELLHAUSEN, D.D., Pro
fessor of Oriental Languages, University of Halle.
PEPPER. E. M. HOLMES, F.L.S., Curator of Museum,-
Pharmaceutical Society, London.
PEPYS. OSMUND AIRY.
PERCY. JAMES GAIRDNER, Public Record Office,
London.
PERFUMERY. C. H. PIESSE, F.C.S.
PERICLES. J. G. FRAZER.
PERIODICALS. H. R, TEDDER.
PERIPATETICS. Prof. SETH.
PERJURY. J. WILLIAMS.
PERM. P. A. KROPOTKINE.
PERPETUAL MOTION. Prof. CHRYSTAL.
PERSEPOLIS. Prof. NOLDEKE.
PERSIA-
AxciENT HISTORY. Prof. NOLDEKE, Strasburg, and
Prof. A. VON GUTSCHMID, Tubingen.
MODERN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY. Major-General
Sir FREDERICK GOLDSMID, K. C.S.I.
LANGUAGE. Prof. K. GELDNER, Tubingen.
LITERATURE. Prof. HERMANN ETHE, Ph.D., Aberyst-
with.
PERSIUS. Prof. SELLAR.
PERSONAL ESTATE. J. WILLIAMS.
PERU. CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, C.B., Author of
"War between Peru and Chili."
PERUGINO. W. M. ROSSETTI.
PESSIMISM. WM. WALLACE, M. A., Whyte's Professor
of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford.
PESTH. J. F. MUIRHEAD.
PETER. Rev. E. HATCH, D.D.
PETERBOROUGH, EARL OF. W P. COURTNEY.
PETITION. J. WILLIAMS.
PETRA. Prof. W. R. SMITH.
PETRARCH. J. A. SYMONDS, Author of "Italian
Byways. "
PETROLEUM. Prof. S. F. PECKHAM, M.A., U.S.
Census Connnissioner.
PETRONIUS. Prof. SELLAR.
PHALANGER. OLDFIELD THOMAS.
PHARMACOPOEIA. E. M. HOLMES.
PHIDIAS. A. S. MURRAY, Author of "Greek Sculp
ture under Pheidias."
PHIGALIA. J. H. MIDDLETON.
PHILADELPHIA. CHARLES HENRY HART, Curator,
Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, Philadelphia.
PHILIP II. Rev. MANDELL CREIGHTOX, M.A., Dixie
Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of
Cambridge.
PHILIPPIANS. Rev. E. HATCH, D.D.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. H. A. WEBSTKH.
PHILISTINES. Prof. W. R. SMITH.
PHILO. Prof. E. SCHURER. University of Giesseu.
PHILOLOGY. W. D. WHITNEY, Professor of Sanskrit,
Yale College, Conn.
ARYAN LANGUAGES. Prof. E. SIEVERS, University of
Tubingen.
PHILOSOPHY. Prof. SETH.
PHILOSTRATUS. R. GARNETT, LL.D.
PHOCION. J. G. FRAZER.
PHOENICIA. Profs. A. SOCIN and A. VON GUTSCHMID.
PHONETICS. A. J. ELLIS, Author of "Speech in
Song/'
PHOSPHORESCENCE. WILLIAM E. HOYLE, M.A.,
F.R.S.E., "Challenger" Expedition Office.
PHOSPHORUS. Prof. W. DITTMAR.
PHOTIUS. R. GARNETT, LL.D.
PHOTOGRAPHY. Captain WM. DE WIVELESLIE
ABNEY, R.E., F.R.S., Author of "Instructions in
Photography."
PHOTOMETRY. Rev. Prof. CHARLES PRITCHARD,
D.D., University Observatory, Oxford.
PHRENOLOGY. A. MACALISTER, M.D., Professor of
Anatomy, University of Cambridge.
PHRYGIA. W. M. RAMSAY, M.A., Fellow of Exeter
College, Oxford.
PHTHISIS. J. O. AFFLECK, M.D.
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